<TITLE>06. Par 23-27</TITLE>L-23 I want to take a little text here for a few moments, if the Lord willing, out of St. John, the 12th chapter and the 32nd verse.
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.
And for a little text to build upon that, I'd like to take the text of "An Ensign." That's a very odd, strange thing to read a text like that, or read a Scripture, and then take an odd text. But I have found out in the years of ministry, that sometimes God comes in an odd way, odd times, times when you're not thinking, speaks through texts that we wouldn't think that He would speak through, use somebody that we would think would be insignificant. But God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.

L-24 And an--an ensign, of course we all know what an ensign is. It's something that's in a commemoration lifted up, something to people to look to; it's something placed before you. And God promised in Isaiah the 5th chapter and the 26th verse, that there would be an ensign lifted up. There would be an ensign lifted up.

L-25 Man down through the age is prone... It's inside of him to try to help himself. Now, that's just the nature of man. Now, what we're trying to do is set a base here for something that we're asking the Lord to do: heal the sick, and to give confidence. And you can just not walk right out and have faith for anything that you know nothing about. You first got to have something that faith can rest upon.
When you married your wife, you had to have faith in her, she had to have faith in you before you could make a home. And you just can't take a haphazard something and have faith in it, because it's not proven. So the most proven thing that we could take a base upon for faith would be the Word of God. For faith cometh by hearing, and hearing of the word of God, because it's God's Word.

L-26 And man, now, being that he is made, even in his fallen condition, yet he's in the image of his Maker, God. And in one sense of the word he is a son of God fallen from grace. He's fallen away from what God made him to be. And in his fallen estate gives him them attributes to try to do something to bring himself back up to a place where something inside of him tells him that he come from; because he knows he's not in the right condition yet, 'cause he sees death, sickness, and sorrows, and heartaches, and disappointments. He knows he wasn't made for that. Yet, no matter how far he is away from God, there's something with--inside of him that tells him that, some inside something.

L-27 Now, a man is made up as a triune being: soul, body, spirit. Now, the outside is the body. There's five gates to that body, and that's the five senses, of course: see, taste, feel, smell, and hear. The inside, like the seed that's planted... The inside of that is the pulp-like of the seed, which is the soul. There's five gates to that you enter into: conscience, and memory, and so forth.
But then inside of that little compartment is the third compartment, which is the spirit. And that's what controls the rest of it. There's only one avenue through that, and that's self will. You can accept or turn away and that's the only avenue to that. If you accept the will of God through that spirit, God's Spirit takes His place in your heart and controls the rest of you. And if you do not accept that, then the enemy takes that spot and controls the rest of you. So it lays in that.
And man, being made up in that fashion, then it gives him the--the something inside of him that makes him want to achieve something by himself. He's trying to do something to save himself. He wants to get out of it, but he wants to do it himself. He wants to make his own way about it.


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