Consecration and Abiding in Christ: Purchased by Blood, Constrained by Love

Speaker Identification

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo, Host / Preacher. Identified by the opening introduction, recurring self-reference, sermon delivery, references to his ministry and testimony, and closing sign-off.

Speaker 2 – Sharon, Reader / Ministry Assistant. Identified because Tony addresses “Sharon” in the opening and closing and repeatedly prompts a second voice to read letters and teaching material. Her surname is not provided in the transcript.

Speaker 3 – Congregation / Group Response. Identified by brief collective responses such as “Amen.”

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Hello again. This is World Pastor Tony Alamo. We’re in Part 80 of How to Have God’s Life Living in You. That means we’ve done 80 hours of this, and I’ve probably done a thousand hours of it before. This is the year 2006—maybe part of it was in 2005 and 2006; I don’t know. This is How to Have God’s Life Living in You, program number 182.

If you want a copy of it, you can receive it free of charge, along with literature or a Bible. [Unclear phrase concerning book/material availability.] Sharon will give you four ways to order it. Please specify whether you want a CD or a tape, and have your pen or pencil ready with something to write on so you can take it down quickly, because usually at the end of the program we don’t have much time.

We have some letters: one from an Israeli lady, one from the United States, and one from somewhere else. But right now, let’s go to the throne of the Lord and ask Him to anoint outwardly this service.

Heavenly Father, I thank You for calling me out of a world that seemingly was exciting, but it was nothing in comparison to what You’ve called me into. Living the life that You’ve given to me and others is the most exciting thing. There couldn’t be anything more exciting or fulfilling in the entire universe, and there isn’t anything that can prosper a person more than that, because we become heirs and joint heirs with You in paradise and the Kingdom of God.

The reason is that You purchased us, and we acknowledge it and receive that. We are Yours to do with what You will. We serve You, and we are Yours because You bought us. That is the reason, and we are motivated because You love us. Your love constrains us.

Constraining means that there is an overflowing of Your love toward us, like an overflowing stream of water cascading down from Your throne upon us, showering us with such love. Not only did You purchase us, but You sweeten the fact of that purchase with the love You have shown for us. We don’t necessarily want merely to know that we have to serve You because You bought us, but You sweeten the purchase price with the love that constrains us. You pour out Your love upon us.

It is like a marriage, Father, where people are married and a man says, “You’re my wife, and you have to do it.” The fact is that marriage is much sweeter if we pour out our love unto her in such a way that she knows we love her. That sweetens the obligation. Your Word says, “Wives, obey your husbands,” but they don’t mind obeying us if we are sweet and kind and good to them—if they deserve it. The Bible says that we are to give them due benevolence, meaning if they are due it, because we also have to chasten them and let them know, maybe, “We’re not going to talk today because you don’t really deserve the sweetness today.” Deep down, they know the sweetness is there. That is the command of the Lord.

Therefore, it sweetens our being owned by You, because You bought us with Your blood, and You also love us and like us. You pour out Your love toward us and let us know that continually. Because You own us, we serve You. We let You live out Your life in and through us. We allow our own life to be gone so that You can live out Your life in us; in other words, to keep Your Word in and through us, to dispense Your Word unto the lost in the world, and to strengthen the church through us. This is what You want to do. You want us to be members of Your body.

Lord, we thank You for it. We pray that the words said in this program will be put into the very fiber of the hearts, souls, and minds of those out in the world; that they will uplift them and cause them to be saved; and that they will lift up the church, the body of Christ, and give them strength in these last days when we so desperately need that help. We pray in Jesus’ name. And everyone says amen.

Speaker 3 – Congregation / Group Response: Amen.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: All right. Where is the first letter from?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: From the Bronx, New York.

“Dear Pastor Alamo, I am so grateful for the recent tapes you have sent to me. May our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ bless you and bless your ministry. I love the messages, especially the revelations contained in these messages. They will help me in my spiritual life. I would like to receive more message tapes and messages on CD. I would be grateful if you can send me some Bibles. May the Lord give you the strength to continue your work on this earth. Faithfully, Patrick from the Bronx, New York.”

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Now, those of you who don’t know the call letters where you can receive our radio program, all you have to do is call our office and we can give you the call letters. We’re all over the world now on shortwave. There are many AM stations that we’re on as well, but we can be reached in any area of the world on shortwave.

All right. Where is the next letter from?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: From Kumasi, Ghana, Africa.

“Dear Pastor Tony Alamo, it is with much pleasure that I write you this letter. I hope, by the grace of our Almighty God, you are fine. The reason I am writing this letter to you is that I read your newsletter. God allowed me to come across it miraculously. After reading it, I was very much blessed and desired to write to you. I thank you for the wonderful messages reaching out to the lost and saved ones so that Christ might be formed in their lives. Through your literature, many people have been delivered from the devil. May God bless you economically, physically, and spiritually.

“Pastor, I am requesting Bibles, books, magazines, messages on tapes, and more literature to help me go into the fields and witness to lost souls. Lastly, I would like to request materials for Bible study and songs on tape. Thank you. Yours faithfully, E.C. from Kumasi, Ghana, Africa.”

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: [Brief spoken exchange after the Ghana letter is unclear in the source transcript.]

Speaker 2 – Sharon: The next letter is from an Israeli person named Ruthie.

“Dear Pastor Alamo, just a note to say thank you for all of the quality message tapes. I can see why everybody likes you. I am praying for you in my daily life.”

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Not everybody, my dear. Satan does not like me, and his people do not like me. So, I mean, everybody doesn’t like me. Do you hear that, President Bush? All right, then what else?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: “Always keep the faith. I am thankful to know a pastor like you who is God’s chosen person. Your church is number one in the world. God is with me on that. Shalom, Ruthie.”

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: All right, Ruthie. Praise the Lord. Just send all of them. We have more letters, but we want to hear some message too. Amen. We throw all the negative letters in the trash—no, we read them too. There are just so few of them that come in. Okay, then what?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: So we run after Jesus and gradually obtain the various experiences of life that come after regeneration. First we become saved; then we start experiencing the Lord. This part, or stage, or level of knowledge in the Lord is therefore called the learning part, or learning to know Jesus more and more.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: The more we abide in Him, the more we know Him. And the more you know Him, the more you’re going to love Him. You can’t love anybody unless you know him. You may love their looks, or you might even hate their looks. If you hate their looks and then get to know them, you may learn to love them, not because of their looks.

There were many people, even before I was saved, whose looks I liked. When I got to know them, I didn’t like them at all. I didn’t even want to be near them. They were like bug repellent to me. I wanted them to stay away, just as I don’t want mosquitoes around. Then there are some people whom I never thought were that attractive or good-looking, but the more you know them and the more you see them, they become beautiful all of a sudden for some reason. I don’t know why that is, but it is true. Okay, then what?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: This part, or stage, or level of knowledge in the Lord is therefore called the learning part, or learning to know Jesus more and more, that we may love Him more and more.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Right. The more you know Him—to know Him is to love Him. Then what else?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: Some people are unable to avoid dividing or separating a Christian’s early life experience into these two parts. Yet according to the truth, these two parts exist; but even though they exist, we cannot divide or separate them, because they all go together.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Right. For instance, salvation, or receiving the Lord in you, and then abiding in Him are two different things, but they are still connected. They must be. Okay, then what?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: So I am teaching you the difference between being in Christ and abiding in Christ, or being in Jesus and abiding in Jesus. When a person is saved, he is translated into Jesus and should then be abiding in Jesus immediately. Once we [unclear wording] Jesus, we unite with Jesus and possess the truth of being in Jesus.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Okay. When the Lord saved my soul, I was seeing heaven and I saw hell. [A description of what Alamo says he saw at this point is garbled in the source transcript.] Then the Spirit entered into me. I knew He was in me. He was abiding in me, and I immediately went up to the throne in Him, in His Spirit, because we can’t worship and praise the Lord unless we are in the Spirit.

The epitome of everything is to praise and worship the Lord. That is the epitome, because if you’re praising and worshiping the Lord, you’re not going to sin. It is those who don’t praise and worship Him who will sin. When you’re praising and worshiping the Lord, that means you are abiding in Him; you’re living in Him, and of course He is living in you, or you wouldn’t be praising and worshiping Him. So the thing is to remember to concentrate on praise and worship.

I never knew Him. I didn’t even believe in Him. Then, once He came into me and I felt this rushing of waters, it was like the love of God was constraining me. The heavenly water, which is the Holy Spirit, was being poured out like gushing waves of water upon me. I knew He was in me and I was in Him. I was just like swimming in the Holy Spirit, and that was the most wonderful feeling. It is always the most wonderful feeling when you feel the abiding love of the Lord.

This is not a situation where you say, “Okay, You bought me. I didn’t ask You to buy me, but You did,” as if it were a shotgun wedding, where a man is forced to marry and only grudgingly remains married. The love of God constrains us. He pours out His love upon us. He loved us before we loved Him. I didn’t love Him at all, but He made His presence so beautiful and so powerful around me, and I knew that He loved me. It was the most beautiful thing in the world, because I had never felt love even close to it in the world.

With humans, there is a very thin line between love and hate. There are people you love, and then suddenly they say or do something wrong and you immediately hate them. But there isn’t anything that God has ever done to us that could ever cause us to hate Him, if you trust His Word.

At times He will tell you to do something that you won’t understand and won’t want to do because it is frightening or embarrassing. But if you do it, you will see that the result of obeying the Word of the Lord is so beautiful that you will hate yourself for being stubborn and unthankful to the Lord, and unwilling to obey the Spirit of God pushing you to do what He wants you to do.

In September, it will be almost 42 years that I have been abiding in the Lord and Him abiding in me. There have been many times when I was embarrassed to do something He was telling me to do, but I did it. The result was wonderful, and the catastrophe that I thought might evolve from what I was doing never happened.

For example, the Lord told me to call Abe Schneider and tell him that he was telling people who had been separated from adulterous spouses before being saved to go back into that relationship after they were converted. I believed that those people had been set free and that Abe Schneider was sending them right back into the bondage of Satan.

The Lord wanted me to tell him that once the Lord washes all your sins away, He washes you completely free and you are a new creature in Him. He does not want you to go back to your first wife if your first wife is living with another man. Abe would say, “You still have to go back to her.” I said the man was wrong. I believe the Lord took his life.

Abe Schneider had a Jewish Christian [ministry or congregation wording unclear] on Fairfax Avenue in Hollywood near Canter’s. [A short clause concerning the reason for his death is unclear.] The Lord told me to speak to him, and I said, “Lord, I am just a baby Christian. This man has been saved for about 50 years. I’ve been saved maybe two years, or even a year and a half, and You’re telling me to talk to him like this?”

I was at the library looking up some old newspaper articles on a man who had a mission downtown. I went to a telephone and dropped a dime in; back then it cost a dime. He answered the phone. I said, “Abe, this is Tony.” He said, “Yes, Tony, what is it?”

I said, “Several people in your congregation have told me that you are telling people they have to go back to their first wife.” He said, “That’s right.” I said, “Abe, that is absolutely wrong.” I read scriptures to him about a woman who is unwilling to serve the Lord, unwilling to live with you, and committing adultery. I told him that adultery is one basis on which the Lord allows a man to put away a wife. The Lord hates adultery, and He also hates divorce; but if a wife is committing adultery, I said the man can divorce and remarry, providing the new wife is Christian and not adulterous.

He said, “Well, I appreciate your comment, Tony, but I still don’t receive that.” I said, “The Lord told me to tell you that, Abe, and I was very reluctant to do it because you’ve been ‘saved’ so long, but I can’t believe you’re saying this.” What I said just bounced off him like a rubber ball thrown at a wall. I said, “All right, praise the Lord. Lord, I told him,” and I hung up.

He later died while praying for a sick person in a hospital. Abe died—the one praying for the sick person—and the sick person eventually got healed. We went to his funeral, and there were a lot of people there because he had a big radio program in town. He was a Hebrew Christian like myself, and many people love Hebrew Christians. I used to have people come up to me and say, “I love your flesh.” I would ask, “Why?” They said, “Because you’re the same flesh as Jesus.” I said, “We’re not supposed to do that. That is like idolatry.” But anyway, he had many followers.

When we were going by the casket, I noticed that one of his eyes was open. That affected me because the people who supposedly loved him did not even make sure he had a good funeral home, where they would do whatever is necessary to keep his eyes shut.

We have to abide in the Lord. We cannot have our own opinions. All right, then what?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: We must have fellowship with Jesus, enjoy Jesus, and have the experience of abiding in Jesus.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: See, if he had been abiding in Jesus, he would not have been sending saved people back to their unsaved, adulterous wives. Some people say, “Why are you talking about that? We don’t think consecration or abiding in the Lord is important.” That is why you are lost. You are just as much of a rubber ball as Abe Schneider was. Why am I mentioning this? Because he is an example of what not to do. I’m saying it for your benefit, not mine—or Abe’s either. He is dead and, more than likely, in hell. Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 2 – Sharon: No one ever moves into a house without living in that house and enjoying it.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Right. If I buy a house, I’m going to abide in it, because I purchased it. If I rent an apartment or a motel or hotel room, I can move into it and abide there. Then what?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: In the same way, when a person is in Jesus, he actually must, if he wants to go to heaven, abide in Jesus. These two events are very closely related or connected and take place almost simultaneously.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: And he must allow the Lord to abide in him, because now he is the home of Christ and does not belong to himself. They did take place almost simultaneously with me. Because of this, being in Jesus and abiding in Jesus can be regarded as one part. Abiding in Jesus is the beginning of the first level of being in Jesus.

Speaker 2 – Sharon: As to the division of the salvation part and the revival part, the situation is also the same. Regeneration in the salvation stage is actually revival. Originally, human beings lived in the presence of God.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Our life began through Jesus’ crucifixion. He died there, but He also defeated Satan; He kept all the commandments, and His death and resurrection give us life.

Speaker 3 – Congregation / Group Response: Amen.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: His death is our life, and His resurrection is our life. His dying on the cross defeated the devil in every way, and His resurrection gives us eternal life. When He resurrected, we also resurrected with Him. If He had not resurrected, we could not be in Him. Amen. His resurrection was our resurrection. Okay, then what else?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: But because of man’s sinfulness, his disobedience to the Lord’s Word and his transgression, he became a fallen creature. He became dead and fell into sin. Now, because of the Lord’s deliverance through Jesus Christ, he is quickened together with the Lord Jesus Christ and raised up together with Him in resurrection. This is regeneration, and this is revival. Hence, a regenerated and saved human must also be a revived human being. It would be very abnormal for a person to be saved but not revived, since the central point of salvation is regeneration—that is, revival. Only in salvation that does not reach the mark is there no condition of revival. Salvation that reaches the mark is not only regeneration, but also revival.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Revival means that we are in Christ and Christ is in us. We are resurrected from the dead. Revival means resurrection. Okay, then what?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: For this reason, the salvation stage is the revival stage; the two are not to be divided.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: We must be in Christ, and we must communicate with Him. Christ must be in us, and He must communicate with us. They are one and the same. All right, then what?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: He communicates with us. That is naturally supernatural. This supernatural life is the natural kind of life that a saved, born-in-the-Spirit person experiences.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: All right, then what?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: Speaking in a very strict way, the four stages of spiritual life are in reality only three stages, with the first two parts regarded only as one. There are many, however, who, though they are saved, do not appear to have the condition of revival, although they actually are in Christ. Yet they do not have the practical experience of abiding in Christ. They are still in need of the mercy of the Lord to be attracted by Him, to love Him, to pursue Him, and to follow Him, so that they will manifest their true condition of revival and begin to enjoy Jesus and experience Jesus. For this reason, we divide the Christian’s early experience of life into two stages.

“The second part or stage of the experience of God’s life living in you and you living in Him usually begins with consecration. Many Christians wait until they are consecrated before they abide in Christ or have fellowship with Jesus, and therefore enjoy the experience of Jesus. I can truly say, therefore, that the first experience of the second stage of spiritual life is consecration: giving yourself wholly over to the Lord. In the normal supernatural condition, these experiences—salvation, revival, and consecration—are closely related. The saved person must be a consecrated person.”

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: The reason it is so important to be consecrated is that the Bible tells us in the book of Revelation that there is a dragon trying to destroy the man-child. The man-child was taken up into the Kingdom of Heaven, and the dragon chased the woman out to a place in the desert, in the wilderness.

Down through the years, we see in the Scriptures that Elijah was sent out into a desert, and several others were sent into hiding places. Moses went out into the desert. Pharaoh found out that Moses had killed one of his people. Moses knew that Pharaoh was going to kill him, so he fled into the desert, where he met his wife. He sat down by a well there to rest. This is the place where Moses saw the Lord in a burning bush. He saw this flame, and there was the Lord.

Then Elijah: the Lord told him to hide himself for a while by the brook [brook name unclear], and the Lord would send sustenance to him because there would be water there during a great drought. He knew that Ahab wanted to kill him, so he went into the desert to hide.

In the book of Revelation, it tells the same thing: this woman actually represents the entire body of Christ. The entire body of Christ is being instructed that there is going to be a necessity for them to hide. If the Lord is not abiding in us and we are not in Him, how are we going to communicate with Him to know what desert place it is that He wants us to hide in? He may want us to go to Israel, Arabia, or Palm Springs—some desert town. You do not know unless the Lord is abiding in you and you are abiding in Him.

Many people think the woman in Revelation is Israel. What is the new Israel? All Israel is not Israel [wording uncertain]. We have to decide by the Word and know that we have to be in tune with the Lord. That is experiencing life in Him and having His life living in us. If we want to live and not perish, there cannot be anything more important. The Bible says that God’s people perish because of a lack of wisdom: a lack of believing or receiving the fact that we have to be consecrated in order for the Lord to be able to communicate to us in a time of supernatural necessity.

I don’t know where to go unless the Lord tells me. When the Lord told me to leave Las Vegas, I was there bringing messages, so I could do that wherever I went. The Lord told me I had five minutes to get out of there. I was busy doing some other things. I was manufacturing these [type of jackets unclear] that many movie stars and sports figures wore. I wasn’t abiding as much in the Lord at that time as I should have been. I knew I had to leave because the Spirit came down very urgently and told me to leave, but I didn’t know where to go. I prayed, “Do You want me to go this way or that way?” I didn’t even know directions that well, but I said, “The Lord wants us to go that way.” We started driving that way, and we wound up in Seattle, Washington. That was fine.

I really know that abiding in the Lord, or being consecrated to Him, is what we need more than anything, especially when we know that the Lord will come back without warning. He comes as a thief in the night. You want to be abiding in His Spirit—in other words, having oil in your lamp when He comes at any moment. All the Scriptures have been fulfilled, primarily, as far as I can see. [An end-times/scriptural phrase is unclear in the source transcript.] The Son of Man could come at any time. Amen?

Speaker 3 – Congregation / Group Response: Amen.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: I don’t understand how it could last much longer. Let’s start reading some more. It is very essential, isn’t it? We have to have the Holy Spirit in us and communication going, because we are living in perilous times. There are many people who are lovers of their own selves, and if you say something that offends them because you are preaching the Bible, many people hate you. Maybe there is someone standing around the corner with a shotgun in his hand wanting to shoot your head off. It is very good to be abiding in the Lord so that you can have rest and peace, comfort, guidance, and, in general, communication with the Lord. Amen.

Speaker 3 – Congregation / Group Response: Amen.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Okay, then what?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: Once a person is saved, he must consecrate himself to the Lord today.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: For our own good. Amen.

Speaker 3 – Congregation / Group Response: Amen.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Because the Lord has called you to do His work, and Satan knows it. Satan knows you have been called to do God’s work. He sees the blood of Jesus on your soul. He sees spiritual things because he is a spirit, and the angels see him and he sees the angels. So he is constantly trying to kill you, get rid of you, destroy you, or put you in prison, or whatever. Okay, then what?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: Once a person is saved, he must consecrate himself to the Lord to be saved without being condemned.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Right. We want to be consecrated unto the Lord because it is the Lord’s purpose. He didn’t save you just to live a daily, everyday life; He saved you to do His will, His purpose. Amen. If you are not willing to abide in Him and let Him abide in you, then there is no possible way you can do His purpose.

His purpose is not to get you killed. He came to die, but His people perish because they have a lack of the wisdom and power that belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you do not have Him abiding in you, you do not have wisdom or power to know what to do. It isn’t for His good; it is for our good. He tells us, in effect, “You are My people, but you are going to perish because you lack Me abiding in you, and you lack yourself abiding in Me.” Okay, then what?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: To be without consecration is a very abnormal condition, and it is a very sinful condition.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: And it is a very dangerous condition—very, very dangerous. Why is it dangerous? Because it is sinful, and if the Lord comes as a thief, you are not going to be in heaven. There is only one other place possible for you to go, and that is hell and the lake of fire.

The lake of fire burns forever, and we never die there. We are always dying, but we never accomplish death. You would pay billions of dollars to be dead if you could, but you cannot. That is the horrible thing. If you owned a hundred worlds, a thousand worlds, you would pay them all just to be able to sit down and rest, or to have a drink of cool, clear liquid. But it will never happen there, and that is horrible.

It is very dangerous, very sinful, and a very awkward place to put yourself in when you are not concerned about what the Lord says or what He wants to do with you. In other words, what you are saying is, “I don’t care what Your purpose is. You want to talk to me, but I don’t want to hear You, because You are likely to tell me something that will make me get up from my TV set and do something. I am not interested in hearing from You. Get out of my life.” That is what you are saying to the Lord if you do not want to be consecrated—if you are unwilling to abide in Him and allow Him to abide in you so He can maneuver you in the world so you do not get hurt permanently in the pit of hell and the lake of fire. Okay, then what?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: The gospel that I preach must be worked strongly, to such an extent that people will immediately consecrate themselves as soon as they are saved.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: The Lord tells us to convince the gainsayer. It is not so much what you say, but the way of life that you have. You might be talking to somebody, and the Lord says, “Move three feet to the left.” You do it, and you move the other person with you. Suddenly, without your looking up, a big safe falls right next to you. Then that man knows you are of the Lord. Amen? You didn’t say anything, but by your actions he knows you are of the Lord.

There was a man, Liam Hamilton, whom I met when I was in prison for the gospel’s sake. He got saved. He was Jewish, and he used to argue with me all the time in prison. I kept giving him Scriptures, and I found the Scripture in the book of Revelation where Jesus says, “I am the Almighty.” Jesus said it: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I am the Almighty God.” Amen?

He said, “I never thought Jesus ever said that, because He is always saying, ‘the Son of Man, the Son of Man, the Son of Man.’” But He wants everybody to know that He is God come in the flesh of a man, so that people will also know that Mary didn’t give birth to God. She gave birth to a man who had God’s Spirit in Him. We have God’s Spirit in us, but that doesn’t mean our mothers are called mothers of God.

I showed him this in Revelation. He also says He is the Son of God. It also says in the first chapter of John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God,” and “the Word became flesh.” The Word of God—God—became flesh in a man.

I keep saying that because I know I have new listeners all the time. Some of you people out there are telling others, “Come on, listen to Tony.” Some of them will never hear that unless I say it again tonight, and I am not saying it unless God is telling me to say it. There is somebody out there getting some good out of that. Okay, then what?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: To experience consecration, there are five main points: one, the basis of consecration; two, the motive of consecration—

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Okay. The motive. Well, we haven’t gotten to the motive. The basis is the reason why we consecrate ourselves. What is the basis for consecration? I just preached it: because He bought us. That is the reason why you have to be consecrated.

The motive is this: someone can own you, but that alone does not mean you are going to knock yourself out for him. A slave might be owned, but he may try to go around the barn, sit down, smoke, or go fishing when the boss comes by. The reason is that we are slaves of the Lord, but the motive to actually serve Him and be consecrated is that He pours out His love unto us. His love constrains us, meaning that He pours out His love upon us like a river of water emanating from the throne of God. He drenches us in His love.

If you love somebody, you do a better job for that person. And when we find out that this is for our own good, we know that we are in peril because we are living in perilous times. You can decide whether or not you want to receive what the Lord says, but you are living in dangerous times. Why? Because people are lovers of themselves. When you offend them by preaching what I say the Bible teaches—for example, that homosexuals cannot go to heaven unless they repent—they may throw a rock or a beer bottle at you. That is perilous, because you have to preach the gospel. Why? Because the love of God constrains me, because He owns me, and that is what He wants me to do. Amen?

If I do that, Satan’s people will want to do something to me. They love themselves, they do not love the Lord, and they want to do what they want to do. They may load up a shopping cart with empty beer bottles and come over to your house, put a cross on your lawn and burn it, gather people in white sheets, beat clubs around your house, or throw a brick wrapped with an oily rag through your window while someone cuts your telephone wires so you cannot call for help. There are people like that. Amen?

Speaker 3 – Congregation / Group Response: Amen.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Your wife and children are scared to death and shivering because a brick wrapped with an oily rag came through the window. You hear voices outside in the moonlight. We are living in perilous times. You see these things happening every day—drive-by shootings, people supposedly carrying atomic bombs in little briefcases, with beards and sunglasses. Wait a minute; I have a beard and sunglasses too, but I can guarantee I am not carrying any briefcase with an atomic bomb in it, or any kind of weapon whatsoever. Okay, so then what else?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: Three, the meaning of consecration; four, the purpose of consecration; and five, the result of consecration. These five points include all the contents of consecration. We now come to look into the experience of consecrating according to these five points.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: We are going to be covering all these subjects in the near future. I am going to do point one tomorrow, which will be the basis of consecration: God’s purchase. The reason—yes, that is it. We have done some of that already, right?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: Yes.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Then what else do you have?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: That is why we must be consecrated: because we do not belong to ourselves.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Before we were consecrated, before we even knew the Lord existed, we did whatever we pleased. The motivation we had was because we loved ourselves, not the Lord. Personally, I wanted to make so much money that I could have a house in Italy, maybe one in France, one in California, and different places in the world; so that I could eat whatever I wanted and go wherever I wanted. If I didn’t like it in one place, I could get on a plane, fly to Las Vegas, New York, or Hollywood, take it easy, buy a yacht, buy a nice car every year, and so on.

That is not what it is all about when you get saved. When you become born again of the Spirit, then you want to be consecrated so that the Lord can do His work in and through you. Okay, now what else?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: This is the continuation of the message given before, and it is the reason for consecration: why we are to consecrate ourselves. The reason is that God purchased us with the blood of His Son. He purchased us; and if He purchased us, He owns us.

The first main point is the reason for consecrating ourselves unto the Lord. Why are we supposed to consecrate ourselves to God? What is the reason? What is the basis? Why does God require us to consecrate ourselves to Him? There needs to be a reason for whatever we do, and God has a reason for whatever He does.

For example, when we buy a house, move into a hotel room, or rent an apartment, we have the right to live in it. The reason we are able to go into the house, apartment, hotel room, or motel room is because we have paid for it. We paid a price; we paid money and rented or bought the place. This purchase, rental, or money paid is the basis upon which we are able to live there.

If somebody to whom we owe money, or a creditor, takes action against us to obtain payment of a debt, the reason he is able to do that is because he owns the claim. The landlord, the one who owns the place, is someone to whom we are indebted.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: If you are renting from somebody and you do not pay the rent, you are not doing what the owner requires. Then he will take action and take over the house. That is what the Lord does with you also if you do not pay what He wants you to pay. What He wants you to pay is to sacrifice your life, surrender your life, so that His life can live in you. If you do not, He allows the devil that was cast out of you, and seven more spirits worse than the first, to enter in. Then what?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: The landlord—the one who owns the place—is someone to whom we are indebted. We owe him. So the debt is the owner’s or creditor’s reason for wanting us to pay him. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a God who is very reasonable. He is very strict, and He is very legal.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Many people say you are not supposed to be legalistic, when the Bible is the most legalistic document in the entire world. Everything God does is legal. When He paid for us, He legally owned us, and He legally has the right to demand that we do whatever He wants us to do. All right, go ahead.

Speaker 2 – Sharon: Many people say those who are legalistic, or who believe the moral law, are wrong. God is the most legal person in the universe.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: They don’t believe in the moral law. They say that because the Lord saved you, you now have the right to sin and are no longer under the law. What that means is that you are no longer under the condemnation of the law. But if you sin again, then you fall under the condemnation of the law. Then what?

Speaker 2 – Sharon: God is the most legal person in the universe, and He acts most reasonably and very precisely. Everything God does—all His doings—is legalistic and has a reason. We cannot own anything in the universe without having paid a price for it, and He cannot justify demanding something from us for nothing. He cannot demand anything from us without a reason. So when God demands that we consecrate ourselves to Him, it cannot be without a reason. He has a very solid reason, and that reason is that He purchased us. He has already bought us. Therefore, He can demand that we consecrate ourselves to Him.

Speaker 1 – Tony Alamo: Right. I went over this the other day. When I go to a grocery store, fill my basket with groceries, go to the checkout stand, and pay for them, I have the right to take them out of the store and eat the things I purchased. Amen. The Lord has the same right with us.

I see that my time is up. Are you going to let the Lord have His right with you? He has the perfect right because He paid the price on Calvary’s cross. He shed His blood, He died for you, and then He resurrected from the dead. The first part of consecration is to give your life to regeneration—that means salvation.

In order to do that, you have to say this prayer, or a prayer very similar to it. You have to ask the Lord. You have to tell Him:

“My Lord and my God, have mercy upon my soul, a sinner. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, and I believe that He died on the cross and shed His precious blood for the forgiveness of all my sins. I believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. You laid Your life down, Jesus, and You said You would raise it up, because You are the resurrection and the life. I believe that You raised Your life up from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit, which You are, and therefore You are God.

“I open my heart, and I invite You into my heart, Lord Jesus. Wash all my filthy sins away in the precious blood that You shed for me. You will not turn me away, Lord Jesus, because Your Word tells me that You will not turn me away; that everyone who calls upon You, You will hear and answer, and You will show them great and mighty things. The great and mighty thing You are going to show me now is salvation. You are going to wash all my sins away, Lord. You have washed my filthy former sins away, and You are going to enter into my heart and cleanse me and make me a new creature.

“I know You have heard me, and I know You have answered me, and I know I am saved. I thank You, Lord Jesus, for saving my soul. That is the only thing that I own in this whole world, because I am not taking anything with me.”

Now just raise your hands and praise and thank the Lord. Worship Him and praise Him. Praise Him, and thank You, Jesus. Praise You, Lord. Father God, I thank You for saving every soul out there in Radio Land and on the Internet. Lord, we thank and praise You for it.

All right, now here are four ways that you can receive a copy of this tape if you like. Ask for tape or CD number 182. That is program number 182. Go to AlamoMinistries.com, or write Tony Alamo Christian Ministries, P.O. Box 6467, Texarkana, Texas 75505, or call area code 479-782-7370, or fax area code 479-782-7406.

Tomorrow we are going to continue with these five steps of consecration. You have heard Part 80, and tomorrow will be Part 81. You will not want to miss this. So until tomorrow, if you are still here and I am still here, the Lord willing, this is World Pastor Tony Alamo saying, God bless you, and keep on consecrating yourself. In Jesus’ name, amen and amen.