Physical Solutions Will Never Solve Spiritual Problems

Well, good afternoon to everyone. Good seeing everyone again. It's probably been about nine or ten years since Norm and I have been here, so maybe we can get by more often now that we're living up in the area. We moved to Cincinnati back in January. We've been there ever since. And Victor Kubik asked that I come to Cincinnati to be the operation manager for Ministerial Services. He and I had been working for a couple of years together on Ministerial Services. In fact, it was funny. I guess maybe he was working a little longer because I asked him to be in charge of Ministerial Services at one point when I was temporarily president, and he accepted. And then we handed off the responsibility to Mr. Luker, and he became president. Norm and I went back to Chattanooga and just thought we'd be there till we retired. But things do change, and they don't always remain the way you think. I believe, having this as our third tour of duty at the home office, that the atmosphere in the home office today is the best I've ever seen. The cooperation, the unity, everybody is working together. Everyone has the same desires, motives, and it's just a blessing. You look forward to coming in every morning to work. You don't feel little groups. You can stop and talk to anybody and join in the conversation. And it's just really a delight. It's the way United was envisioned when we first started back in 1995. And it didn't turn out that way in all cases, but thankfully we have it now. Vic Kubik, I think, is doing an excellent job as president. He has the enthusiasm. He's still young enough to have the zeal and the enthusiasm. Both he and Beverly are very hard workers. In fact, right now he's up in the northwest at the youth camp, summer youth camp, the last one that we have going. And he's been up there teaching classes, doing photography, just being involved, trying to get a feel for what our camps are like. As well as he's had the opportunity to talk to all the pastors up in the northwest. A number of them will be retiring here in the next two or three years, so we need to sit down and talk with them.

One of the things that we've been really focusing on is our future leadership. And I noticed you talked about Bart, his mom being here, likewise. But we thoroughly appreciate both he and Joan being willing to go over to Indianapolis and take over the churches in that area.

That's going to be a tremendous blessing to them. In fact, we announced this week that there are a number of other moves taking place. One of them, you might remember, Vernon Hardgrove came out of retirement so that he could pass through a church. He's been doing that the last three or four years.

Well, next year around Pentecost, he will retire again. This will be his second go at it. And replacing him in the Columbus area will be Lynn Martin. Lynn will move back from the Boston, New England area. And replacing Lynn and Julie Martin will be Andy Deamer and his wife, Willa. And they will be a new hire, and we'll be moving up.

In fact, in November, they will move up to the same area. They will overlap and be mentored by Lynn Martin for about six months. And then when he moves, they'll be in charge and responsible. Then, Martin's will move back to the Columbus area. They still own a house in that area, same city that I believe Vernon Hardgrove lives in.

And so they will be taking over and filling in. Vernon will continue as regional pastor for a while, and he will continue to hit up the divorce and remarriage committee. That's one committee that nobody wants to be in charge of, so we're thankful that he will continue to work with that. We just put out most of the speaking schedules for the Feast of Tabernacles this week, and I'm very pleased to see the caliber of speakers that we have, the number of men. So I know that Frank McCready was having a little difficulty.

For some reason, we're a little thin as far as manpower in the Pigeon Forge area, but we looked at the schedule yesterday, and it looks pretty good. We made several suggestions on what we thought might be able to help. So that's one of the duties that we do have every year. The coordinators put the speaking schedules together. They come into the home office. We take a look at them, fine-tune them, make any suggestions that we feel should be added. And then they are sent out to the ministry.

My wife and I are going to do something this year we've never done before. We're going to go to Italy for the Feast. And every time we talk to somebody who's been to Italy, they say, Oh, you'll love it! And so we're looking forward to it. And we've never been to Italy. We've always heard a lot of good reports. So we're looking forward to that. One thing that you might want to do.

I was there yesterday, about 15 minutes after 4, at the home office, for the launching of a new website. I think you can remember this. Whywereyouborn.com? One word, why were you born? You know, space is in between. Whywereyouborn.com. On September the 10th, we're going to have a public Bible lecture in the Cincinnati area.

We're going to have 10 or 12 billboards that we'll be advertising on. And basically, they will say, Why were you born? And down at the bottom, we'll give the website address. But anybody who would want to know, all they have to do is type in, Why were you born? We come up on top of the list. So we got that website out two weeks early. They're going to give us actually two free weeks of additional advertising for this. And we'll be able to do that. It's going to be held at the Holiday Inn in Eastgate.

And Gary Petty is going to be doing the presentation. If you go on the website, you will see a video. And he has a video presentation talking about, Why were you born? And trying to encourage people to sign up. What we are hoping is that we will get somewhere between 400 or 500 people from the public to attend.

Now, that's just a wild estimation and hope. Something you might pray about. If we don't begin to hit that figure, we will invite church members so that we have a full audience. But we're hoping that we don't have to do that. That it will be filled with people who will be interested. So please pray about that. That's coming up September the 10th. And I'm looking forward to the opportunity that we'll have at that time. Well, I was told I better begin with the sermon so we can get out of here and not get too hot.

Not everybody has a fan behind them. And so that does help. Rather than when you look at what's being taught in colleges today, you find that evolutionists, materialists, atheists, non-religious people, believe that human beings are wholly physical. That there's nothing spiritual. They don't believe in the spiritual realm. They don't believe God exists. They don't believe angels exist. They don't believe that there's anything as far as the spirit dimension. They believe that human beings are merely animals. So you could be a dog or a cat or whatever. In other words, there's no difference between us, they say, than a dog or a cat or a cow or a chicken or whatever it might be.

If we evolved from a slime pit, then truly we are just physical. There's nothing spiritual about us. And we would truly be no different than the animals. We, according to the evolutionists, are the highest form of animals. We're on the top of a pile, top of the heap right now. It would take another 10 billion years, and somebody else may show up on the top of the heap.

We'll be pushed further down the ladder. Now, the reason why they think that is, given enough time, you've heard this old argument, given enough time, then all of this could take place. But as a side note, I don't know how many of you, in discussing this type of topic with the, let's say, a non-believer, where they will ever answer certain questions. That is, where did matter come from? Where does energy come from? Where does life come from? If we climb from the slime pit, where did the slime pit come from? You know, the old saying, come from scum or climb from slime.

You know, where did it all come from? If that's where human beings originated. How was the sun created? Why is the earth positioned exactly where it is? Why is it tilted exactly where it is? Why do we have the type of atmosphere that will sustain life, water, and you'll be positioned exactly where it should be in relationship to the sun? The answer, again, the materialists give is given enough time, all these things will transpire, all these things will happen. Actually, one evolutionist indirectly admitted that God existed.

He poo-pooed the idea that God existed, but when he was asked, where did everything come from? Well, he said, well, there's matter. Certain matter had always existed. Then there was a big explosion called the Big Bang that blew this matter out into space.

Some of it went out here and cooled, others heated up, so you have suns and stars, you've got planets. So he admitted that a small amount of energy existed. Now, when asked where did that energy come from, he stated, well, it had always existed.

Now notice the paradox. He's willing to admit that energy always existed, but he was not willing to admit that God always existed. So the evolutionist is willing to admit that something has existed forever. He won't accept an intelligent God who designed the universe. He'll accept energy has existed forever.

Why? Because energy doesn't tell him how to live or how he ought to live. It doesn't set values. It doesn't say, here are my commandments, obey them. Energy is just energy, and so therefore it doesn't tell us or dictate behavior. Is man holy, physical, merely an animal?

Or is there something else about man when you begin to look at it that makes us different? This question is vital because if man is holy, physical, then humanity must find physical solutions to all of these problems. In other words, if there's no spiritual dimension connected with it, if there are not spiritual laws, spiritual principles to live by, then man can only come up with physical solutions. And the problem is, for 6,000 years, man has not come up with those. Of course, he would say that human beings have been here longer than that, billions of years or millions of years. But man has not solved his own problem.

Man has to acknowledge that if he's not able to solve his own problems, could there be a non-physical component to human beings that man is not aware of?

The physical solutions will never solve spiritual problems. That's something, if you get nothing else out of what I'm talking about today, you need to write down. That physical solutions will never solve spiritual difficulties, spiritual problems.

We need to realize that all human relationships are based upon spiritual principles.

How a man treats his wife, how a wife treats her husband, how you rear your children, how you relate to your neighbor, how you get along with your boss, how nations relate to one another, how unions and management relate to each other. All of these relationships are based upon spiritual principles, and yet mankind doesn't want to admit that. If he did, then he'd have to admit that there are spiritual elements, spiritual principles, that govern us. Mankind is not wanting to do that. Look at all the problems that human beings face. How do we solve those problems? How do you solve these types of problems? The threat of total human annihilation. How do we solve that? We're faced right now with a threat, with biological warfare, chemical warfare, with the bombs that we have, warfare, lasers, you know, everything you can think of. Thank you. We're all faced with the fact that man could destroy all life from the face of the earth. How do we solve wars? Look at what's going on right now. Syria and Iraq. Look at what's called extremists, but ISIS. How they're invading Iraq right now. They've taken over part of Syria. And supposedly they are fanatical, but when you begin to read in some of the writings, they come out of the Muslim religion. You'll find that they're doing exactly what the book says, what their book tells them to do. Kill the infidels. You either join them or you're killed. And so they're actually doing that. You look at Afghanistan, you look at North Korea, South Korea, you look at India and Pakistan. Anywhere in the world you look, you begin to look at China, India, Japan, Germany. All of them are beginning to once again build their militaries up. Gaza and Israel right now. So anywhere you look, man is not solving his problems.

How do we come up with the right government? How do nations govern themselves? Why do empires come and go? Rome at one time existed for millennia, or I won't say millennia, for centuries. And they fell. Greece fell. Persia fell. Babylon fell. Syria fell. Every great empire that has come along has fallen. Why can't we have good government that can solve man's problems? Why don't we have good health? Why don't we have sound minds, happy marriages, wonderful children? How can we have less crime, less violence, less murder? Look at all the myriad of problems that human beings are faced with today. And you begin to see that there are problems that human beings have never been able to solve. Now, down through the ages, you can substitute the names of different nations, but the same problems have always existed. Let's go over and look at Matthew 24, beginning in Matthew 24, and we will read, beginning to read in verse 21. We find, for them there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world. This is talking about the time that we are faced with here shortly in the future. The time of the great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until that time, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved, and means saved alive would exist. But for the elect's sake, those days will be shortened. Notice the contemporary English version of the Bible, what it has to say about this verse. This will be the worst time, verse 21, of suffering since the beginning of the world, and nothing this terrible will ever happen again. So what occurred in the Second World War, 55 million people dying, will be like a drop in a bucket, compared to what's going to happen here in the future. If God does not make the time shorter, no one will be left alive. But because of God's chosen ones, He will make the time shorter. Who are the chosen ones? I'm looking at them right now. You are the elect, the chosen ones of God. God has chosen you. No one can come to God unless God the Father Himself calls you, opens your mind, begins to reveal His truth to you.

And so, because of the Church, the elect, those who follow God, serve Him. God is going to cut the time short. Notice the Good News Translation, verse 22. But God has already reduced the number of days. Had He not done so, nobody would survive.

There's going to come a time when nobody would survive. Was that possible a thousand years ago? With sticks and stones and knives and spears to kill every last human being off the face of the earth? Well, no. It's only possible during our time, our day, that man has devised come up with the means for destroying all life off the face of the earth.

But it says, for the sake of the chosen people, however, God will reduce the days. He will cut them short. Then one last translation, the Living Bible paraphrase. In fact, unless God, it says, unless those days are shortened, all mankind will perish. So these more modern translations make it clear. That it's not talking about just spiritual salvation, but all mankind would perish, be destroyed, cease to exist. The answer to all of this is that physical answers will never solve spiritual problems. Well, never. There's no way. And mankind, not believing, relying upon what God says, is never going to solve his problems. Now, the activities of the human mind when you begin to look at the mind that you and I have. Now, you can't take it out and look at it, your own mind, but we've all seen pictures of a brain are immeasurably more advanced than the activity of animal brains. There's no comparison. However, when you just look at them, the anatomy, the physiology, the biochemistry of the human brain is barely more complex than that anatomy, physiology, and biology of whales, dolphins, apes, monkeys. There's not much difference. So, what accounts for the vast difference? How can this seemingly contradiction exist? Well, you do need to realize that the human brain, human mind, what we call the mind, has a component that is a spiritual factor with it. It has a component that is spiritual that animals do not have. The people who believe purely in materialism don't see spiritual solutions to their problems. They don't understand. They don't understand what we understand. And that is the motto that Ambassador College used to have, and ABC has, the Word of God is the foundation of knowledge. We realize that there is a spiritual revelation from a divine creator. Mankind, as a whole, rejects that. I want us to take a look today from the Bible and what the Bible has to say about the human mind and why the human mind and the brains of animals are vastly different and how they operate differently. We'll see that if you reject God, if you reject the spirit realm and what God says, then mankind will never solve his own problems. Mankind will continue to have the same difficulties, the same problems he's always been faced with. What's going to bring about the world tomorrow, the millennium? Why is that time going to be so different than now?

Well, the basic answer is that all human beings will have an opportunity to understand spiritual truth, spiritual understanding, and as a result, will go a different way.

Let's go over to 1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18.

Chapter 1, and we'll begin to read here in verse 18. Notice, It says, For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

So, the message that we teach about the kingdom of God, about Christ, is foolishness to those whose minds have not been opened, who don't understand. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. So the wisdom of this world is nothing with God. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputing of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? Look at man in his vaunted wisdom, his thinking that he understands, and God says all nations before him are like a drop in the bucket. Dust on the scales, you know, you take a rag and you get all the dust off and the little bit that might be left, that's what God compares mankind to him. Notice verse 23.

It says, we preach Christ crucified to the Jews' assembling block, to the Greeks' foolishness. Spiritual matters are foolishness to the unconverted mind. They don't understand. Notice in chapter 2, beginning in verse 13. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 13.

These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. You and I compare things that are spiritual with the spiritual.

Now, notice verse 14. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. He doesn't receive them, doesn't understand them, doesn't comprehend them. For they are foolishness to him.

And then it says, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. It takes the Spirit of God. Why do you and I understand spiritual matters? Not because we have a greater intellect, we're smarter. It's because God has called us and opened our minds. He has revealed his truth to us. It takes the Spirit of God to reveal spiritual understanding. Spiritual solutions are folly to mankind cut off from God. But you know the laws governing marriage, such as submit, love, obey, government, are looked upon today as what?

Unpractical, archaic, male domination. All of these buzzwords are used. And yet the Bible clearly shows us if we want to have a happy marriage, there are certain principles. Even within the church, I've noticed that we've tended to get away from the principles about child rearing, about how to have a right marriage. What about the laws that govern our children, that go along on how to get along with our neighbors? All of these type of things. The evolutionists and materialists are wrong in saying there is no Spirit. They're totally wrong.

And what's been the response of religion? How do religious theologians explain the difference between man and animals? I'm sure you can guess. He says we have an immortal soul. You look at the theologians. Christianity, the theologians, today touch and believe in the immortality of the soul, that everybody has an immortal soul. Where did the concept of the immortal soul originate? Where did it come from? Well, it came from the Greeks, but especially it came from Plato. All of you will remember Plato. Notice, quoting from the Jewish Encyclopedia, what it freely admits, the belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body is speculation. Nowhere expressly taught in the Holy Scriptures. The belief in the immortality of the soul came to the Jews from contact with Greek thought, chiefly through the philosophy of Plato. Its principal exponent, who was led to it through the Orphic and Ulyssian mysteries in which Babylon and Egyptian views were strangely blended. All you have to do is read almost any encyclopedia, and they will tell you the same thing. It is a concept that arose from the Greeks. It is not taught in the Bible. Actually, when you go back and you study the Gnosticism and the Gnostics, the Gnostics taught that there was an immortal soul or spirit, and you look at the stars out there, all these heavenly bodies, that come down to the earth, and when a baby is born, inhabits that baby. And when that body dies, that immortal soul tries to get back to heaven.

This is where the idea, when you die, you go to heaven. But there are eight steps you're supposed to go through, according to the Gnosticism, to be able to get back to where you are. And so you find that some religions teach, you know, there are different compartments before you get into heaven. And so you've got to go through purgatory, or Olympus Infantium, or Olympus Potrum, or some other Olympus, to make it there. And so these ideas have been taught and they've been accepted by Christianity.

Plato is the authority that Origen Tertullian quoted when they began to introduce the idea of the immortal soul into so-called Christianity at that time. So I said there was a heavy Gnostic influence. Likewise, most people today just assume that what their church teaches has to be correct. So these guys know what they're talking about. So therefore they say that I have an immortal soul, or you have an immortal soul. It must be true. But you know what? Both parties, the materialists, atheists, agnostics, are wrong in saying there is no spirit. And the so-called Christian theologians are wrong in trying to say that we have an immortal soul. And that explains the difference. There is a biblical solution to this situation that I think we all probably understand, that man is not wholly physical. Man is not wholly physical. There is a difference in our minds that gives us the capability of what we call the human process, the human mind. The human brain must have a non-physical component to it in order for us to have a mind.

But what is that spiritual component? It is not an immortal soul. The immortal soul idea is that you have this soul in you. When you die, the real you goes to heaven, and the body just goes back to the ground. And so the real you is up there somewhere. It is thinking, it is alive, it is in heaven, or wherever they think the soul might go. Let's notice Job 32, verse 8. Turn back to the book of Job.

Job 32, verse 8. And I want you to notice here, Job 32, verse 8. We read this, But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding. So there is a component in human beings that the Bible calls the spirit in man. The spirit in man is not the Holy Spirit. It is a spirit essence. And that spirit essence, combined with the physical brain, or a part of the physical brain, gives the ability to have a mind. Notice the Jewish Publication Society, translation of verse 8. It is a spirit in man that gives them understanding, that we can have understanding.

The spirit in man, then, is that essence that imparts of human mind, mind power, and to the physical brain tissue. It's not an immortal soul. It has absolutely no consciousness apart from the brain. When a human being dies, it's no longer conscious. It is not an immortal soul that contains the real you. It ceases to think and function. The human spirit does not reveal or teach material knowledge. Such knowledge enters the mind through the five senses. We all have the five senses.

Such knowledge enters the brain of a cow or a chicken, the same way. Cows can see, chickens can see, they can smell, they can hear, they can taste, they can paw, they can touch, they can do all these things. But such knowledge doesn't come across to them in the same way.

To illustrate, a cow can be in the field, and a beautiful Mercedes drive by. Now, does that cow think, you know, this year's model of Mercedes is much more beautiful than last year's model? I really like the paint job on this one. The lines of the car are great. Boy, listen to that motor purr. I bet it's got a real nice sound system. I wonder what kind of leather it has. No! Now, you and I might wonder those things, but a cow doesn't.

It sees a car drive by. It doesn't even know what it is. It just drives by, but it sees it. It processes information differently. Because it basically operates according to instinct, not according to thought patterns. Do they understand leather seats, RPMs, sound system? No. The human spirit imparts to the brain the cognitive power or skill to think, to know, to reason, to make decisions.

And it is through the spirit in man that God can communicate with human beings. Notice back in the book of Ezra, chapter 1, verse 1. Book of Ezra. This is now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia. That the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled.

The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation. And that the Jews could return to Jerusalem. Notice how God did it. He stirred the spirit of Cyrus up. Now, the question is, did Cyrus, a Gentile king who knew nothing about the true God, have the Holy Spirit? The answer is no. Did he have the spirit in man? The answer is yes. There was a spirit in him. He influenced Cyrus through the spirit and man. He stirred up that spirit.

And so God is able to communicate with human beings through that spirit. God told Adam and Eve that they would have dominion over all animals. Let's go back and read that in Genesis, chapter 1. Genesis, chapter 1, verse 26. It says, God said, let us make man in our image. Genesis 1, 26. Notice, we were made in God's image according to our likeness. So we're like God.

Let have had dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him male and female. He created them. So we were made in the image of God. That means we look like God. God isn't just some big blob off somewhere in space. He has certain form. We look like him. But is that the only way that we are made like God?

Well, it says we were made in his image after his likeness. On a limited scale, we're like God in that we can have memory. We can have a mind. We can think.

We can deduce. We can store information. We can think. And so God has created us in his likeness to have a mind to be able to think, reason, plan, keep records, read books.

You don't find a monkey saying, well, I think I'll go in the library here, get a volume on China. I always wondered about what it was like in China. But you and I can. We can read about the early history of China, the dynasties, anything we want to learn. In fact, we have smartphones today. They're supposed to be smart. I just got one, and I'm finding out if I have a question, I push the button, and I ask what is or where is. And the thing within two or three seconds answers me back. And so people can be absolutely as dumb as rock today, but they've got a smartphone, and that phone will tell them.

And so you find that God gives us, we were made in His image, so that we can be like Him. God is a creator. His mind power, His ability to think and reason and wisdom and knowledge and understanding far surpasses us.

But God created us so that if He gives us His Holy Spirit, that Spirit unites with the Spirit in man. Spirit begets Spirit. And so therefore, we can begin to develop spiritual character. Notice over here in chapter 2 and verse 15 that when God created Adam and Eve, and here He created Adam, notice verse 15 chapter 2 book of Genesis.

The Lord God took the man, put him in the garden of Eden, attended and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat. Notice He commanded him. Now the man understood God when God talked to him. He wasn't a brute beast. He wasn't going around going, whoo, whoo, whoo. You know, like supposedly, you know, mankind does. No, He understood God. God commanded him.

And verse 17, and of the trees of the... but He said of the tree of the knowledge good and evil, you should not eat, for in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. And the Lord God said, it's not good the man should be alone. I will make him a helper, comparable, or just like him. So out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field, every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what He would call them.

Adam had a vocabulary. He could think. Maybe he saw something that buzzed. And he said, you're a buzz. Something flying. Well, you're a fly. You have something chewing its cud. Well, you are a cud eater. I don't know why He named all of these things, but He had the ability to do so. And He had it right off the bat. So God created man, created Adam and Eve with the spirit and man within them. That this particular case gave them the capacity to think and reason, to give names, have vocabulary, and to think.

Now, where does the spirit and man come from? Where does it come from? Ecclesiastes 12. The scope of Ecclesiastes 12 and verse 7. Talking about man, that our days are numbered, we will die. It says, Then the dust will return to the earth as it was. Dust you were, dust we return. But notice, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. So who gives the spirit and man to mankind? God gave it to man. This isn't talking here in context about converted people.

It's just talking about human beings who die, get old, you die. Body returns to the ground, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Now, the question is, when does God or does God give it to a person? When does the spirit and man enter a person? Well, no one really knows exactly. Over the years, various ideas were put forth. I remember when Herbert Armstrong first came to study this and understand it.

That's all he talked about for months. Every time he talked about it, something more came to mind. That time he thought when a child took its first breath. Later on, he thought it was at conception. There have been ideas that anywhere between being born and conception, exactly when no one knows. But there is a time when God places the spirit in man within a fetus or a child, and they're born.

It's said that within the first year of a child's life, you will learn more in that first year than the rest of your life. It's amazing what a child will learn during that period of time. At death, the spirit returns to God who gave it, as it says here. How is that possible? Let's go over to Hebrews 12, not Romans. Hebrews 12.22. Hebrews 12.22 will begin to read. I want you to notice something that's in heaven right now.

Here we have a picture of what's in heaven at this particular point. It says, Not that they're there, but their names are registered there in the book of life. To God, the judge of all. And notice. To the spirits of just men made perfect. Is it possible for a human being to grow in grace and in knowledge and to mature and be a member of the family of God? And the answer is yes, it is. Because here we see in heaven the spirits of just men who have been made perfect.

And so, God very clearly shows. The word perfect there means they've matured and grown. Just like a child starts out as a baby, and by the time they leave home, you hope they're mature. They can make it on their own. So it is. God calls us. We start out as small children of God. But we grow and we mature. And over the years, we develop God's character. And then we are made perfect.

How is it possible that all who have died will live again? If you ever ask yourself that question. Remember back in John 5, verse 28, Book of John, chapter 5, verse 28. We read this. Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice. All means everybody. And they will come forth. Those who have done good to the resurrection of life, or eternal life.

Those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment, as it should be, a better translation. We're a camming condemnation, but here I think the occasion is they're going to be judged. The great white throne judgment period, where mankind will finally be judged, be given an opportunity for salvation. Notice this scripture deals with the second resurrection, what we call the great white throne judgment. Let's turn back to something you might not have focused on back here in the Book of Ezekiel, chapter 37, beginning in verse 3. Ezekiel 37, verse 3.

Ezekiel was confronted with this very question. He passed by, saw a valley full of dry bones. And he said to me, Son of Man, can these bones live? And so I answered, Oh Lord, you know. You know, I don't know. It is basically what he was saying here. Now, let's notice verse 6. God says, I will put sin you on you, bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin, and then put breath in you, and you shall live.

But notice what it says. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. How do you know something? Maybe you know who I am. And maybe I know who you are. But how will they come to know that God is God? Because they will now have a mind. Not just a brain. They will have a mind in them. Now, is it the same mind that they died with resurrected? Well, let's go on here, verse 13. Then you shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves. So see, they're dead. Their graves are going to be opened. O my people, I brought you up from your graves, and I will put my spirit in you, and you shall live.

And I will place you in the land, and you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it, said the Lord. Now, one question. How do you receive the Holy Spirit?

How do you get the Holy Spirit? Repent and believe. Acts 2.38. Be baptized. And, you know, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now, in order to receive the Spirit, they must repent. That means they must remember what they did wrong in the past, right? They've sinned in the past. They've lived a whole lifetime. Why go through this life now? Live 60, 70, 100 years and die if it's for no use, if you don't remember what all happened in the past when you're resurrected and brought back to life. Well, you'll do the same things over again, won't you? You see, the one reason why God allows human beings to live, suffer, and die is just like our children. You say, don't touch that hot stove. It'll burn you. So what do they do? Put their hand on the stove and they get burned. Well, you hate to see that, but you say next time, don't put your hand on the stove. It'll burn you. Guess what? They don't put their hand on the stove. So human beings go through this life. They suffer. Maybe they had a miserable marriage. Maybe they died more. Their last thought is a bullet through the head. Who knows how a person might die. They might have died of cancer or whatever. Then all at once they're resurrected. They have a healthy body. They've been healed. They can remember the past. They repent. God begins to work with them and give them His Spirit or begin to influence them by His Spirit. And they begin to see and understand. And they remember the way they were. And they're sorry. And they repent. And then God will give them His Spirit.

Their memory is restored to them. Now in the first resurrection, those of us who come up in the first resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians 4, Revelation 20, says what? We will be given a spirit body. We will have immortality. But we will have also a spirit mind.

Now when that spirit returns to God who gave it to us, if we have been begotten by God's Spirit now and the Spirit of God has united with the Spirit and man, we then can develop spiritual character. We begin to develop love, outgoing concern, humility, joy, peace, patience, long suffering. We begin to have the fruits of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit. We begin to utilize our talents in service to one another, have a Christ-like attitude of service. And so when we die, that character has been developed. The Spirit returns to God in the resurrection. God puts that spirit, that mind, back in us.

But in the case of a spirit body, you have a spirit mind. That's what this life is all about for us to develop the spiritual character. That spirit is put back into a spirit body, and we become a spirit being. We're no longer subject to the lust of the flesh because there is no flesh. The lust of the eyes because we don't have the lust of the eyes. The pride of life. All of those things we've worked on.

And maybe we haven't totally overcome them, but in our mind we hated that way. And we want to go God's way. Let me give you an analogy that maybe will help to explain what I'm talking about. Today we have DVDs, CDs. In fact, most of you have a phone that has a camera on it, right? You can take pictures, but you can also record. You can push the button, and where do we get all these recordings you see on television?

It's like somebody's going around photographing everything that takes place. Well, you can get a recording, you can speak into it, and, you know, this is going on, and you can see it. You can play it back. Somebody else can see it. Well, this is exactly what happens. Our bodies are like a recorder or like a computer. You put a CD in, put a DVD in, you can record on it. You can save information. So all of our life, everything that we think, everything that we do, the character we develop, the reasoning, the knowledge, the wisdom, the understanding, all of that is recorded on the DVD or on the Spirit in man.

And when you're converted, also there's the Spirit of God there. When you die, the Spirit returns to God. It's like taking a DVD out of a computer or recorder. It's there. It doesn't function. Not until you put it back into another CD or DVD recorder, or I mean put it back into a computer or a recorder.

And then you can play it, and you can see it. And now what we do with movies, get a movie out, stick it in the recorder, plug it into the TV, turn it on, or do a Wi-Fi connection, whatever you do, and boom! You can watch a movie right there on your giant TV screen. You can take it out. It sits there in a drawer. It's not doing anything. It's not thinking. It's not reasoning. It's not creating anything. It just sits there until you put it back in.

And you can see that movie all over again. That's exactly what God does. He takes those who come up in the second resurrection, the physical resurrection, the physical life, where they're going to have a chance at salvation. He takes the spirit in man, puts it back into a newly physical, creative body, and they have their minds again.

Their character, everything they were in the past, is still there, and they're resurrected. But when it comes to the spiritual resurrection, the first resurrection, it is the spirit in man combined with the spirit of God. We have developed a new man. Isn't that what the Bible says? We are a new creation. We are a new creature. Old things have passed away.

Behold, all things are new. We become Christlike. The Bible says in Galatians 2.20, I am crucified with Christ. You can make a riddle up. What is dead yet lives? Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And so our life is hidden in Christ, in Christ who is our life. He lives within us. And you and I then develop that spiritual character. God puts that within us, but instead of a physical body, 1 Corinthians 15 says, it's a spirit body, we're resurrected. God gives us immortality. What would happen if God put a carnal mind and a spirit body? We would have the devil all over again. So God's not going to do that.

He's not going to give eternal life to anyone who does not totally agree with his plan and purpose and calling. We have to develop that character right now. See, when the Bible talks about being creating God's image, it talks about it in three different ways. We were creating God's image, Genesis 1. We look like Him. We have a mind. There's a spirit in man.

When God calls you and converts you, now you are being created in the spiritual image of God. That's in the mind, in the character, in the attitude, the approach. In the resurrection, you're made in the image of God. Literally, you become a spirit being. The spirit character in all you develop unites with that spirit body, and you are a spirit being. It's a marvelous understanding when you come to understand how God operates and what He's doing. As Ecclesiastes 9.5 tells us, the dead know nothing. When you're dead, you don't know anything.

It's like that DVD. It doesn't happen. If it's not playing in a recorder, it's in a drawer, it contains a lot of information, but it's not doing anything. R is the New King James Version says, the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. The New Century translation translates, the living know they will die, but the dead know nothing. Dead people have no more reward, and people forget them.

Verse 6, after people are dead, they can no longer love or hate or envy. They will never again share in what happens here on the earth. They're just dead. The spirit returns to God, and just like a DVD, you may have a whole drawer full of movies. God puts these away. Whichever resurrection you come up in, God will give you. He will re-create you, I should say, at that time.

Let's go over to 1 Corinthians 2. We'll finish up here quickly. 1 Corinthians 2. We'll begin here in verse 9. 1 Corinthians 2. It says, But as it is written, eyes not seen, nor ear heard, nor is entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love him. So notice, spiritual understanding and awareness hasn't even entered into the heart of man, except for those that God calls. Verse 10 says, But God has revealed them to us through his Spirit. So it is the Spirit of God that conveys spiritual knowledge.

For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. Verse 11. Now notice, For what man knows the things of a man, except the Spirit of man which is in him? So you cannot understand the things of a man unless you have the Spirit in man.

That's what it's saying. For what man knows the things of a man, except the Spirit of man which is in him? What man can know the things of God, except those who have the Holy Spirit in them or working with them? As it goes on to say, even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. So there's a parallel here. You don't know the things of man unless you have the Spirit in man. So a chicken can be running around. They don't have the Spirit in man. They don't know the things of a man. Neither does anyone in the world know the things of God unless he has the Spirit of God. That's what it's saying. Now notice there are three spirits mentioned here. Spirit in man, Spirit in God, verse 12. For we have received not the Spirit of the world. So there is a Spirit of this world. That's Satan the devil. That's his influence. That's his broadcasting. But the Spirit who is from God that we may know the things that have been freely given to us of God. So there is a Spirit world, brethren. And Satan the devil influences mankind today. That's why you see the violence, the evil, the wretchedness in this society because of his influence. Now when he's removed, the Day of Atonement pictures that. Christ comes back, sets up his kingdom. All mankind have the opportunity to have their minds open. And guess what? Then we will have a time of peace, prosperity. The whole earth will be covered with the knowledge of God like the waters cover the seabeds. And we will have the world tomorrow. So this hopefully gives us a little better understanding of why man cannot solve his own problems. It takes the Spirit of God and you are being called by God, our minds being open, for us to fully understand. And you and I are privileged here today to be among the chosen, the very elect of God to be called now. And because of that, God is not going to destroy the earth, but he's going to cut those days short. And you and I will have a chance to help him, assist him in offering salvation to all mankind.

Thank you.