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1923 Smith Wigglesworth Sermon: The Active Life of the Spirit-filled Believer

2010-02-06T11:09:00.000-08:00

These are the last days; the days of the falling away. These are days when Satan is having a great deal of power. But we must keep in mind that Satan has no power only as he is allowed.

It is a great thing to know that God is loosing you from the world, loosing you from a thousand things. You must seek to have the mind of God on all things. If you don’t, you will stop His working. I had to learn that as I was on the water en route to Australia. We stopped at a place called Aden, where they were selling all kinds of ware. Among other things were some beautiful rugs and ostrich feathers in great quantities. There was a gentleman in “first class” who wanted feathers. He bought one lot and the next lot put up was too big; he did not want so many. He said to me, “Will you join me?” I knew I did not want feathers for I had no room or use for them and wouldn’t know what to do with them if I got them. However, he pleaded with me to join him. I perceived it was the Spirit as clearly as anything and I said, “Yes, I will.” So the feathers were knocked down for fifteen dollars. Then I found the man had no money on him. He had plenty in his cabin. I perceived it was the Spirit again, so it fell to my lot to pay for the feathers. He said to me, “I will get the money and give it to one of the stewards.” I replied: “No, that is not business. I am known all over the ship. You seek me out.”

The man came and brought the money. I said, “God wants me to talk to you. Now sit down.” So he sat down and in ten minutes’ time the whole of his life was unhinged, unraveled, broken up, so broken that like a big baby he wept and cried for salvation. It was “feathers” that did it. But you know we shall never know the mind of God till we learn to know the voice of God. The striking thing about Moses is that it took him forty years to learn human wisdom, forty years to know his helplessness, and forty years to live in the power of God. One hundred and twenty years it took to teach that man, and sometimes it seems to me it will take many years to bring us just where we can tell the voice of God, the leadings of God, and all His will concerning us.

I see that all revelation, all illumination, everything that God had in Christ was to be brought forth into perfect light that we might be able to live the same, produce the same, and be in every activity sons of God with power. It must be so. We must not limit the Holy One. And we must clearly see that God brought us forth to make us supernatural, that we might be changed all the time on the line of the supernatural, that we may every day live so in the Spirit, that all of the revelations of God are just like a canvas thrown before our eyes, on which we see clearly step by step all the divine will of God.

Any assembly that puts its hand upon the working of the Spirit will surely dry up. The assembly must be as free in the Spirit as possible, and you must allow a certain amount of extravagance when people are getting through to God. Unless we are very wise, we can easily interfere and quench the power of God which is upon us. It is an evident fact that one man in a meeting, filled with unbelief, can make a place for the devil to have a seat. And it is very true, that if we are not careful we may quench the Spirit of some person who is innocent but incapable of helping himself. “We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak.” (Romans 15:1). If you want an assembly full of life you must have one in which the Spirit of God is manifested. And in order to keep at the boiling pitch of that blessed incarnation of the Spirit, you must be as simple as babies; you must be as harmless as doves and as wise as serpents (Matthew 10:16).

I always ask God for a leading of grace. It takes grace to be in a meeting because it is so easy if you are not careful, to get on the natural side. The man who is a preacher, if he has lost the unction, will be well repaid if he will repent and get right with God and get the unction back. It never pays us to be less than always spiritual, and we must have a divine language and the language must be of God. Beloved, if you come into real perfect line with the grace of God, one thing will certainly take place in your life. You will change from that old position of the world’s line where you were judging everybody, and where you were not trusting anyone, and come into a place where you will have a heart that will believe all things; a heart that under no circumstances reviles again when you are reviled.

I know many of you think many times before you speak once. Here is a great word: “For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil” (Romans 16:19). Innocent. No inward corruption or defilement, that is full of distrusts, but just a holy, divine likeness of Jesus that dares believe that God Almighty will surely watch over all. Hallelujah! “There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways” (Psalm 91:10,11). The child of God who is rocked in the bosom of the Father has the sweetest touch of heaven, and the honey of the Word is always in it.

If the saints only knew how precious they are in the sight of God they would scarcely be able to sleep for thinking of His watchful, loving care. Oh, He is a precious Jesus! He is a lovely Savior! He is divine in all His attitude toward us, and makes our hearts to burn. There is nothing like it. “Oh,” they said on the road to Emmaus, “did not our heart burn within us, as He walked with us and talked with us?” (Luke 24:32). Oh beloved, it must be so today.

Always keep in your mind the fact that the Holy Ghost must bring manifestation. We must understand that the Holy Ghost is breath, the Holy Ghost is Person, and it is the most marvelous thing to me to know that this Holy Ghost power can be in every part of your body. You can feel it from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet. Oh, it is lovely to be burning all over with the Holy Ghost! And when that takes place there is nothing but the operation of the tongue that must give forth the glory and the praise.

You must be in the place of magnifying the Lord. The Holy Ghost is the great Magnifier of Jesus, the great Illuminator of Jesus. And so after the Holy Ghost comes in, it is impossible to keep your tongue still. Why, you would burst if you didn’t give Him utterance. Talk about a dumb baptized soul? Such a person is not to be found in the Scriptures. You will find that when you speak unto God in the new tongue He gives you, you enter into a close communion with Him hitherto never experienced. Talk about preaching! I would like to know how it will be possible for all the people filled with the Holy Ghost to stop preaching. Even the sons and daughters must prophesy. After the Holy Ghost comes in, a man is in a new order in God. And you will find it so real that you will want to sing, talk, laugh, and shout. We are in a strange place when the Holy Ghost comes in.

If the incoming of the Spirit is lovely, what must be the onflow? The incoming is only to be an onflow. I am very interested in scenery. When I was in Switzerland I wouldn’t be satisfied till I went to the top of the mountain, though I like the valleys also. On the summit of the mountain the sun beats on the snow and sends the water trickling down the mountains right through to the meadows. Go there and see if you can stop it. Just so in the spiritual. God begins with the divine flow of His eternal power which is the Holy Ghost, and you cannot stop it.

We must always clearly see that the baptism with the Spirit must make us ministering spirits.

Peter and John had been baptized only a short time. Did they know what they had? No, I defy you to know what you have. No one knows what he has in the baptism with the Holy Ghost. You have no conception of it. You cannot measure it by an human standards. It is greater than any man has any idea of, and consequently those two disciples had no idea what they had. For the first time after they were baptized in the Holy Ghost they came down to the Gate Beautiful. There they saw the man sitting who for forty years had been lame. What was the first thing after they saw him? Ministration. What was the second? Operation. What was the third? Manifestation, of course. It could not be otherwise. You will always find that this order in the Scripture will be carried out in everybody.

I clearly see that we ought to have spiritual giants in the earth, mighty in apprehension, amazing in activity, always having a wonderful report because of their activity in faith. I find instead that there are many people who perhaps have better discernment than you, better knowledge of the Word than you, but they have failed to put it into practice, so these gifts lie dormant. I am here to help you to begin on the sea of life with mighty acts in the power of God through the gifts of the Spirit. You will find that this which I am speaking on is out of knowledge derived from a wonderful experience in many lands. The man who is filled with the Holy Ghost is always acting. You read the first verse of the Acts of the Apostles, “Jesus began both to do and teach.” He began to do first, and so must we.

OUTWARD MANIFESTATION

Beloved, we must see that the baptism with the Holy Ghost is an activity with an outward manifestation. When I was in Norway, God was mightily moving there, though I had to talk by interpretation. However, God always worked in a wonderful way. One day we met a man who stopped the three men I was with, one being the interpreter. I was walking on, but I saw he was in a dilemma, so I turned back and said to the interpreter, “What is the trouble?” “This man,” he said, “is so full of neuralgia that he is almost blind and he is in a terrible state.” As soon as ever they finished the conversation I said to the spirit that was afflicting him, “Come out of him in the name of Jesus.” And the man said, “It is all gone! It is all gone! I am free.” Ah, brothers, we have no conception of what God has for us!

I will tell you what happened in Sydney, Australia. A man with a stick passed a friend and me. He had to get down and then twist over, and the tortures on his face made a deep impression on my soul. I asked myself, “Is it right to pass this man?” So I said to my friend, “There is a man in awful distress, and I cannot go further. I must speak to him.” I went over to this man and said to him, “You seem to be in great trouble.” “Yes,” he said, “I am no good and never will be.” I said, “You see that hotel. Be in front of that door in five minutes and I will pray for you, and you shall be as straight as any man in this place.” This is on the line of activity in the faith of Jesus. I came back after paying a bill, and he was there. I will never forget him wondering if he was going to be trapped, or what was up that a man should stop him in the street and tell him he should be made straight. I had said it, so it must be. If you say anything you must stand with God to make it so. Never say anything for bravado, without you have the right to say it. Always be sure of your ground, and that you are honouring God. If there is anything about it to make you anything, it will bring you sorrow. Your whole ministry will have to be on the line of grace and blessing. We helped him up the two steps, passed him through to the elevator, and took him upstairs. It seemed difficult to get him from the elevator to my bedroom, as though Satan was making the last stroke for his life, but we got him there. Then in five minutes’ time this man walked out of that bedroom as straight as any man in this place. He walked perfectly and declared he hadn’t a pain in his body.

Oh, brother, it is ministration, it is operation, it is manifestation! Those are three of the leading principles of the baptism with the Holy Ghost. And we must see to it that God is producing these three through us.

The Bible is the Word of God, it has the truths and whatever people may say of them they stand stationary, unmovable. Not one jot or tittle shall fail of all His good promises. His word will come forth. In heaven it is settled, on earth it must be made manifest that He is the God of everlasting power.

God wants manifestation and He wants His glory to be seen. He wants us all to be filled with that line of thought that He can look upon us and delight in us subduing the world unto Him. And so you are going to miss a great deal if you don’t begin to act. But once you begin to act in the order of God, you will find that God establishes your faith and from that day starts you on the line of the promises. When will you begin?

WHAT IF WE BELIEVED?

In a place in England I was dealing on the lines of faith and what would take place if we believed God. Many things happened. But when I got away it appeared one man who worked in the colliery had heard me. He was in trouble with a stiff knee. He said to his wife, “I cannot help but think every day that that message of Wigglesworth’s was to stir us to do something. I cannot get away from it. All the men in the pit know how I walk with a stiff knee, and you know how you have wrapped it around with yards of flannel. Well, I am going to act. You have to be the congregation.” He got his wife in front of him. “I am going to act and do just as Wigglesworth did.” He got hold of his leg unmercifully, saying, “Come out, you devils, come out! In the name of Jesus. Now, Jesus, help me. Come out, you devils, come out.” Then he said, “Wife they are gone! Wife, they are gone. This is too good. I am going to act now.” So he went to his place of worship and all the collier boys were there. It was a prayer meeting. As he told them this story these men became delighted. They said, “Jack, come over here and help me.” And Jack went. As soon a he was through in one home he was invited to another, loosing these people of the pains they had gotten in the colliery.

Ah, brothers and sisters, we have no idea what God has for us if we will only begin! But oh, the grace we need! We may make a mishap. If you do it outside of Him, if you do it for yourself, and if you want to be some one, it will be a failure. We shall only be able to do well as we do it in the name of Jesus. Oh, the love that God’s Son can put into us if we are only humble enough, weak enough, and helpless enough to know that except He does it, it will not be done! “What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive and ye shall have them.”

Live in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, walk in communion with the Spirit, talk with God. All leadings of the divine order are for you. I pray that if there are any who have turned to their own way and have made God second, they will come to repentance on all lines. Separate yourself from every earthly touch, and touch ideas. And God will bring you to an end of yourself. Begin with God this moment.

Sermon: Preparation for the Second Coming of the Lord by Smith Wigglesworth

2010-01-31T09:49:00.000-08:00

Preached in Angelus Temple August 11, 1927

I am conscious today that God has a design for us greater than our thoughts even or our language, and so I am not frightened of on the line of the spiritual exaggeration, shall I say. I dare believe that God will help me say things to you that shall inspire you to beginning to dare to believe God.

Up to this present time the Lord’s word is for us, “Hitherto ye have asked nothing.” Surely you people that have been asking great things from God for a long time would be amazed if you entered into it with clear knowledge that it is the Master, it is Jesus, who has such knowledge of the mightiness of the power of the Father, of the joint union with Him,, that nothing is impossible for you to ask. Surely it is He only Who could say “Hitherto you have asked nothing.”

So God means me to press you another step forward. Begin to believe on extravagant asking, believing that God is pleased when you ask large things.

If you will only dispose of yourself in a short time — for it is nothing but yourself that will hinder you — dispose of your human mind, dispose of your human measure, dispose of your strength and dispose of all you have — it is a big word for me to say — and let inspiration take whole charge of you, bring you out of yourself into the power of God, it may be today that God shall so transform you into another man as you have never been before.

Only the divine mind has divine thought to meet human order for knowing us from the beginning and understanding us as a Father and pitying us as children, He begins with the blade and the ear and the full corn in the ear so that we might know that He won’t take us out of our death but He will transform us moment by moment till we can come into full stature of the mind and thought and prayer and act.

Hallelujah! God is on the throne.

Now beloved in the Lord, I come to you this morning to inspire you to dare believe that this day is for you as a beginning of days. You have never passed this way before. So I bring you to another day of passing over any heights, passing through mists or darkness, dare believe that the cloud is upon thee, shall break with an exceeding reward of blessing.

Don’t be afraid of clouds. They are all earthly. Never be afraid of an earthly thing. You belong to a higher order, a divine order, a spiritual order. Then believe that God wants you to soar high this morning.

Fear not to enter in, for the Lord thy God has thee now in preparation. He is proving thee and He is chastising thee, but His hand is not heavy upon thee as thou mayest think, for He is gentle and entreating to bring thee into the desired place of thy heart’s affections.

Be still and know that I am God. It is I and I alone that openeth to thee the good treasure. Oh, to be still that my mind be so unsurfeited with the cares of this life that I might be able to enter into the joy and the bliss God has caused me to, for I have not passed this way hitherto.

So God is going to speak to us about entering into something we have not entered into before.

The thoughts of this morning's message are primary to the message of the coming of the Lord. There must be a preparing place and an understanding line because of the purposes God is arranging for us. I know He is even at the door. Spiritual perception makes us know of His near return. But we must be so built on the line of truth that when He comes we are ready.

In the few days to come I am going to declare unto you the revelation of Christ to me of the readiness, and what it is, the knowledge of it, the power of it, the purpose of it, till every vestige of our human being is so filled with it, it would be impossible for us to be out of it. We shall be in the midst of it.

I have a message this morning leading up to the knowledge of His coming. It is in Peter’s second epistle, the third chapter.

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation —2Peter 3:3-15.

I may deal with many things on the line of spiritual awakening, for this is what is needed this day. This day is a needy day of spiritual awakening, not so much as a knowledge of salvation but a knowledge of walking in salvation.

The seed of the Lord Jesus Christ is mightily in you, which is a seed of purifying, a seed of truth and knowledge, a seed of life-giving, a seed of transforming, a seed of building another person in the body till the body that bears the seed only lives to contain the body which the seed has made, until that comes forth with glorious light and power till the whole body has yielded itself to another, a fullness, a manifestation of the perfect formation of the Christ in you. This is the great hope of the future day.

I want to speak to you very exactly. All the people which are pressing into and getting ready for this glorious attained place where they shall not be found naked, where they shall be blameless, where they shall be immovable, where they shall be purified by the power of the Word of God, have within them a consciousness of the very presence of God within, changing their very nature and preparing them for a greater thing, and causing them to be ready for translation.

You will find that this thing is not now already in the world in perfection. There are millions and millions of real believers in Christ who are losing this great upward look, and in the measure they lose this upward look, they lose perfect purification. There is only perfect purification in this upward look.

When we see the day dawning, as the manifestation of the sons of God appear, just as these things come to us in light and revelation, we will find that it makes us know that everything is on the decay. Millions of people who are Christians believe this world is being purified. All the saints of God that get the real vision of this wonderful transformation of the body are seeing every day that the world is getting worse and worse and worse and ripening for judgment. And God is bringing us to a place where we which are spiritual are having a clear vision that we must at any cost put off the works of darkness. We must be getting ourselves ready for the glorious day.

These are last days. What will be the strongest confirmation for me to bring to you of the last days?

There are in the world two classes of believers. There are believers which are disobedient, or I ought to say there are children which are saved by the power of God which are disobedient children. And there are children which are just the same saved by the power of God who all the time are longing to be more obedient.

In this great fact Satan has a great part to play. It is on this factor in these last years that some of us have been brought to great grief at the first opening of the door with brazen fact to carnality forces. And we heard the word come rushing through all over, “new theology” that damnable, devilish, evil power that lived in some of these disobedient children, which in these last days opened the door to the next thing.

As soon as this was noised abroad everywhere, “new theology,” everybody began to say, ”What is new theology?” Why, new theology is exactly on the same plane as being changed from monkeys to men. What does it mean? I want to make a clear sweep of that thing this morning. There is not a man can think on those lines only on atheism. Every person that touches a thing like that is an atheist behind all he has to say.

New theology was born in infidelity. It is atheism, and it opened the door for Russellism, which is full of false prophecy. Take the book of Russellism and go into the prophecy. What was the prophecy? In 1924 the prophecy was that the Lord had to come. Russellism is false prophecy. Russellism is exactly the perfect plan of what will make the man of sin come forth. Russellism is preparing the door for the man of sin and they are receiving open-heartedly.

They declared that He would come in 1914. I went to see a dear beloved brother of mine who was so deluded by this false prophecy that he was utterly deceived by it. I said, “You will be deceived as sure as you live.”

They said, “We are so sure it is true that if we are deceived we will give up all Russellism and have nothing to do with it.”

But what does false prophecy do? False prophecy always makes a way out. The moment it did not come to pass they said they were mistaken in dates. What is the devil? If it had been a true prophecy He would have come. And the Word of God says if any prophecy does not come true that prophet has to prophesy no more.

But those people were deluded by the spirit of this world and the devil, which is the spirit of this world, and instantly allowed themselves to be gripped again, and the same prophet came forth saying that He was going to come in 1925.

In order to cover that, what did they do? They placarded in every nation, almost, in big cities, “Millions alive that will never die.” And they have been going at that now since 1925, and they are dying all the time, and their prophecy is still a cursed, evil prophecy. Still they go on.

The spirit of this age is to get you to believe a lie. If you believe a lie, you cannot believe the truth. When once you are seasoned with a lie against the Word of God, He sends you strong delusion that you shall believe a lie. Who does? God does. God is gracious over His Word. His Word is from everlasting. His Word is true.

When we see those things which are coming to pass, what do we know? We know the time is at hand. The fig tree is budding for these false prophecies and these positions

Now you see, they never stop at that. They go on to say Christ never has risen. Of course, if ever you believe a lie, if ever you turn the Word of God to some other place, you cannot believe the truth after that.

Then the last days opened the door for that false demon power which is in the world rampant everywhere, putting up the most marvelous buildings — Christian Science, which is devilish, hellish, and deceivable. I am preaching to you this morning that you shall deliver yourself from this present-day evil thing. How shall you do it? You can do it only on one line. Let the seed in. Let the seed of truth, the seed of righteousness, this power of God, this inward incorruptible.

The seed of Christ is an inward incorruptible. The new birth, the new life, is a quickening power, incorruptible, dealing with corruptible, carnal things, evil, sensuous, devilish. And when it comes to the Word of God, the seed of the Word of God is the life of the Word and you are living the life of the Word of God and are tremendously transformed all the time by the Word of the Lord.

This is the last days. You go out in the world and there is no difficulty. What are you going to do now? Is this a fact? Is this true? Aren’t people today almost afraid of sending their sons to the colleges because they come out more devils than they went in? Isn’t atheism right in the seat of almost all these colleges? Then what have you to do? How shall you possess your soul in peace? How shall you preserve your children? How shall you help them? You say they have to go because you want them to come out with certain letters to their names. You want them to progress in knowledge, but how shall you save your children?

Nothing but the Word can save them.

I wish all the young men in this place would read these words ‘in the first epistle of John: “Young men,.. .ye are strong,. . .and. . .have overcome the wicked one” (1 John 2:14). What by? By the Word.

They are mighty words we read in this Scripture. What does it say? The Word is holding these things, even the fires that are going to burn the world. The Word is holding them. What is the Word? The Word is the mighty power of the revelation to us of the Son of God. And the Son of God is holding all these powers today in the world, ready for the greatest conflagration that ever could be, when the heavens shall be burnt up, when the earth shall melt with fervent heat.

The Word of God is keeping these things reserved, all ready. What manner of men ought we to be in all manner of conversation in purifying ourselves.

Remember this: In heaven the glory, the revelation, the power, the presence, that which makes all heaven so full of beauty, is that time has no count. It is so lovely! A thousand years are as a day and a day as a thousand years.

All the springs are in thee, all the revelations are in the midst of thee. It is He, the mighty God! It is He, the King of kings! It is He, the Son of the living God who is in the very innermost being of thy human nature, making thee know that before these things shall come to pass thou shalt be preserved in the midst of the flame. Whatever happens, God shall cover thee with His mighty covering; and that which is in thee is incorruptible and undefiled and fadeth not away, which is reserved in the glory.

God says to us, “In patience possess thy soul.” How beautiful! Oh! How the enrichment of the presence of the power of the Most High is bursting forth upon our — what shall I say? — our human frame. Something greater than the human frame.

Knowest thou not that that which is born to thee is greater than anything formed around thee? Knowest thou not that He which has been begotten in thee, is the very God of power to preserve thee, and to bring forth light and truth and cause the vision to be made clearer?

You notice this: There is an elect of God. I know that God has in this place people who, if you would examine yourself, you would be amazed to find that you are elect of God.

People are tremendously afraid of this position because they have heard so much on this line: “Oh, you know you are the elect of God! You are sure to be all right.” There have been in England great churches which were laid out upon these things. I thank God that they are all withered. You will find if you go to England those strong people that used to hold all these things are almost withered out. Why? Because they went on to say whatever you did, if you were elect, you were right. That is wrong.

The elect of God are those that are pressing forward. The elect of God cannot hold still. They are always on the wing. Every person that has a knowledge of the elect of God realizes it is important that he press forward. He cannot endure sin nor darknesses nor shady things. The elect is so in earnest to be elect for God that he burns every bridge behind him.

“Knowing this, that first there shall be a falling away.”

Knowing this, that first God shall bring into His treasury the realities of the truth and put them side by side — the false, the true, those that can be shaken in mind, and those that cannot be shaken. God wants us to be so built upon the foundation of truth that we cannot be shaken in our mind, it doesn’t matter what comes.

When I was in Sydney they said, “Whatever you do, you must see this place that they built for the man, the new man coming.”

Theosophy has a new man. Nothing but theosophy could have a new man. The foundation of the theosophy has always been corruptible. From the beginning it has been corruptible. In the formation of theosophy it was joined up to Bradlaw one of the greatest atheists of the day. So you can only expect theosophy to be atheism. It sprung out of atheism.

The “Man of Sin” as ‘he comes forth will do many things. There will be many false Christs and they will be manifestations of the forthcoming of the Man of Sin, but they will all come to an end. There will be the Man of Sin made, manifest.

These people are determined to have a man. They know someone has to come. We know Who He is that is coming. They begin to make a man. So they find a man in India, they polish him up as much as they can, and they make him as well, in appearance, but you know we are told by the Lord that there is soft clothing goes onto wolves’ backs.

We find they are going to bring this man forth in great style. When I went around the amphitheatre in Sydney that was made for this man to come, I saw as clearly as anything it was the preparation for the Man of Sin. But they do not believe that.

What will make you to know it is the Man of Sin? This: Every religious sect and creed there is in the world all joins to it. Romanism you see joined up with it. Buddhism joined with it. There is not a religion known but what is joined up to it.

Why that is exactly what the devil will have. He will have all the false religions joining right up and the Man of Sin, when he comes, will be received with great applause.

Who will be saved? Who will know the day? Who knows now the Man of Sin? Why, we feel when we touch him, when he opens his mouth, when he writes through the paper, when we see his actions — we know who he is.

What has the Man of Sin always said? Why, exactly what Russellism says. What? No hell. The devil has always said that. What does Christian Science say? No hell, no devil. They are ready for him. The devil has always said no hell, no evil. And these people are preparing, and they do not know it, for the Man of Sin.

We have to see that these days have to come before the Lord can come. There has to be a falling away. There has to be a manifestation in this day so clear, of such undeniable fact. I tell you, when they begin to build temples for the Man of Sin to come (but they don’t know it), you know the day is at hand.

A person said to me, “You see, the Christian Scientists must be right — look at the beautiful buildings. Look at all the people following them.”

Yes, everybody can belong to it. You can go to any brother you like, you can go to any theater you like, you can go to any race course you like, you can be mixed up with the rest of the people in your life and still be a Christian Scientist. You can have the devil right and left and anywhere, and still belong to Christian Science.

When the Man of Sin is come, he will be hailed on all sides. When he is manifested, who will miss him? Why the reverent, the holy, the separated. How will they miss him? Because they will not be here to greet him!

But there will be things that will happen prior to his coming that we shall know. You can tell. I am like one this morning that is moving with a liquid, holy, indispensable, real fire in my bosom, and I know it is burning and the body is not consumed. It is real fire from heaven that is making my utterances come to you to know that He is coming. He is on the way. God is going to help me tell you why you will know. You that have the breath of the Spirit, there is something now moving as I speak. As I speak, this breath of mighty, quickening, moving, changing, desirable power is making you know and it is this alone that is making you know that you will be ready.

No matter who misses it, you will be ready. It is this I want to press upon you this morning, that you will be ready. And you won’t question your position. You will know. Ah! Thank God, ye are not of the night. Ye are of the day. It shall not overtake you as a thief. Ye are the children of day. You are not the night. You are not drunken. Yes, you are. There is so much intoxication from this holy incarnation that makes you feel all the time you have to have Him hold you up. Praise the Lord! Holy intoxication, inspired revelation, invocation, incessantly inwardly moving your very nature, that you know as sure as anything that you do not belong to those who are putting off the day. You are hastening unto the day. You are longing for the day.

You say “What a great day!” Why do you say it? Because the creature — Is this body the creature? No. This is the temple that holds the creature. The creature inside the temple longeth, travaileth, groaneth to be delivered, and will be delivered. It is the living creature. It is the new creature. It is the new creation. It is the new nature. It is the new life.

What manner of men ought we to be? I am going to read it:

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. — 2 Peter 3:9.

I want you to notice this: This is not the wicked repentant. The epistles are always speaking to the saints of God. When I speak to you saints of God, you will find that my language will make you see that there is not within you one thing that has to be covered. I say it without fear of contradiction, because it is my whole life, inspired by the truth. You know that these meetings will purify you.

It is on this line that every time you hear people speak upon this — I do not mean as a theory. This is not a theory. There is a difference between a man standing before you on theory. He has chapter and verse, line upon line, precept upon precept, and he works it out upon the scriptural basis. It is wonderful, it is good, it is inspiring; but I am not there this morning. Mine is another touch. Mine is the spiritual nature showing to you that the world is ripening for judgment. Mine is a spiritual acquaintance bringing you to a place of separation, holiness unto God, that you may purify yourself and be clean, ready for the great day.

This is the day of purifying. This is the day of holiness. This is the day of separation. This is the day of waking. O God, let us wake today! Let the inner spirit wake into consciousness that God is calling us. The Lord is upon us. We see that the day is upon us. We look at the left side, we look at the right side, we see everywhere new theories. New things will not stand the light of the truth. When you see these, things, you know that there must be a great falling away before the day. And it is coming. It is upon us.

Paul said he travailed in birth. Jesus did the same. John did the same. So brothers and sisters, may God bless you and make you see that this is a day of travailing for the Church of God that she might be formed so that she is ready for putting on the glorious raiment of heaven forever and forever.

Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless — 2 Peter 3:11-14.

Without spot! WITHOUT SPOT! Without spot and blameless!

Do you believe it? Who can do it? THE BLOOD CAN DO IT! The blood, the blood, oh the blood! The blood of the Lamb! The blood of Jesus can do it. Spotless, clean, preserved for God.

Give the devil the biggest chase of his life and say these words, “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all unrighteousness.”

If ever you hear a row like that in any Christian Science meeting about the blood of Jesus, go and I will tell you they are being converted. If you ever hear, tell of Russellism getting excited over the blood of Jesus, I can tell you God has dealt with them. If ever you hear about this new man in theosophy getting excited about the blood of Jesus, you can tell them from Wigglesworth that there is a new order in the world. But they have no room for the blood. And yet we see the blood is preparing us for this great day.

In the amphitheatre in Sydney, when I spoke about the blood and when I spoke about this infernal thing, the whole place was upset. You be careful when anybody comes to you with a sugar-coated pill or with a slimy tongue. They are always of the devil. The Spirit of the Lord will always deal with truth. These people never deal with truth. They always cover up the truth. “Oh, you know, we are all sons of God. We all belong to God.” That is what people said when Jesus was here, and He said, “You are mistaken. You belong to the devil.” And if Jesus dared say things like that, I dare.

Q: Is it true if we believe a lie we cannot believe the truth?

A: That is not what I said. If you once believe the Word of God to be a lie, then you cannot believe the truth of the Word of God. The Word of God comes to you like life and revelation, but Satan in his spurious condition comes, as he has done with many and moved them from truth to believe in some theory of truth. They have gotten a theory of something else which is not truth and they have denied the truth to take hold of the theory It is all theory when people have left the truth. The people that live in truth never have a theory; it is always fact.

Q: Because I have laid aside my Christian Science books, the people are now using what they call “malicious magnetism” against me. I know Jesus is stronger than they.

A: This is a very important thing. There are many people so under delusion and devil oppressed on these lines that they join together to damage the character of others because they do not go their way. That is the devil if nothing else is. The greatest fact about Christian Science’s false position is that they are led captive by the father of liars. He has been a liar from the beginning. They have stepped out of truth and been taken in charge by this monster devil till they cannot believe the truth.

“I am ‘the light of the world’; any man that walketh in me shall not be in darkness. I am the light to light every man that cometh into the world.”

If you will go back to the time when you knew the light of the truth was burning through you, you will find that there you turned from that to take something else which was not light. Keep in the light and there is no power of Satan. If a hundred people came and stood around you and said to you, “We will join together to bind you that you shall be crippled,” or your mind he affected, or anything, if you know you have the Light you can smile and say, “You can do nothing to me.”

Never be afraid of anything. There are two things in the world. One is fear, the other faith. One belongs to the devil; the other to God. If you believe in God, there is no fear. If you sway toward any delusion of Satan, you will be brought into fear. Fear always brings bondage. There is a place of perfect love to Christ where you are always casting out all fear and you are living in the place of freedom.

Be sure that you never allow anything to make you afraid. God is for you, who can be against you?

The secret of many people going into Christian Science is a barren church that had not the Holy Ghost. Christian Science exists because the churches have a barren place because they haven’t the Holy Ghost. There would be no room for Christian Science if the churches were filled with the Holy Ghost. But because the churches had nothing, then the needy people went to the devil and he persuaded them they had something, and they are coming out knowing they have got nothing only a wilderness experience.

Let us save ourselves from all this trouble by letting the Holy Ghost fill our hearts.

Will you be baptized in this faith,
Baptized in the Holy Ghost?
To be free indeed ‘tis the power you need,
Baptized in the Holy Ghost.

Don’t depend on any past tense, any past momentum, but let the unction be upon you, let the presence and the power be upon you. Are you thirsty? Longing? Desiring? Then God will pour out of His treasures all you need. God wants to satisfy us with His great, abounding, holy love, imparting love upon love and faith upon faith.

The secret of all declension is refusal of the Holy Ghost. If you have fallen short, it is because you refused the Holy Ghost. Let the Holy Ghost be light in you to lighten the light which is in you, and no darkness shall befall you. You will be kept in the middle of the road.

Hasten unto the coming of the Lord. Set your house in order. Be at peace. Live at peace. Forgive and learn how to forgive.

Never bear malice. Don’t hold anybody any grudge. Forgive everybody. It does not matter whether they forgive you or not, you forgive them. Live in forgiveness. Live in repentance. Live wholeheartedly. Set your house in order, for God’s Son is coming to take that which is in the house.

Is The United States The Israel Of The Bible?

2009-03-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

Is it possible the United States is the Israel of the Bible and the country currently calling itself Israel is Babylon? If so we would have to change our thinking a lot about Bible prophecy. The early founders of the United States called it the "New Israel" and the United States also has been the gathering place for more Jews even than the country called Israel. A.A. Allen had a vision many years ago of the United States being attacked and largely destroyed. More on this later!

Catholics and Baptists - Two Wings of the False Apostate Church? by Roger Bovee

2007-12-11T20:59:00.000-08:00

Read the book of Acts in the Bible for a description of the early first century church, and then tell me if this reminds you anything of a typical modern Catholic service or a typical modern Baptist service? Of course not. The early church was Pentecostal. They spoke in other tongues. They cast out demons. They healed the sick. They had such long sermons sometimes that once one guy fell asleep and fell down from the third story dead - and then the Apostle Paul prayed for him and he rose from the dead.

So what happened? False brethren were already trying to sneak into the first century church. But they got the gospel preached in all the world before the apostates took over. The Apostle Paul wrote that after his departure, grievous wolves would come in, not sparing the flock. Many of these early Christians were martyred, and then someone probably took over the Apostle Peter's position, who was a "wolf in sheep's clothing," and declared himself the first pope. He brought in the very ritualistic Catholic services, the monks, nuns, cardinals, praying to saints, and calling ministers "fathers" that Jesus Christ had expressly forbidden.

Then another false brethren started the Baptist religion, which also traces it's history to this time. Now you didn't have to stop sinning, you could pray a little five minute prayer and have "eternal security." So seeing you had eternal security you didn't have to live a particularly holy life. You could join the lodge and become a "sipping saint" as many modern Baptists have become. Ther was no longer an emphasis on the baptism in the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in other tongues or in divine healing. Many no longer believed in a rapture of the Bride of Christ.

I grew up in an Assembly of God church in the 1950s. This was a Pentecostal church that believed that when you really get saved you stop sinning. They believed in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, divine healing, revivals, and had prayer meetings. They were against lodge membership, playing cards, drinking, smoking, and going to movies. Church parties were a very rare activity. As the years passed and this church went into apostasy, they started believing in eternal security. There was no longer much if any emphasis on the baptism in the Holy Spirit or divine healing. Some of the members started joining the lodge, drinking, and smoking. There was no longer much if any talk about the rapture of the Bride of Christ and no longer any prayer meetings. And this church could probably change it's name to "First Baptist Church" and they would fit right in with the other Baptist churches of today. In fact, I think that's what has happened in many cases and that's why there are so many Baptist churches in the United States.

So what we need is a revival. Where we become Pentecostal. Where we stop sinning, stop smoking, stop drinking, and get out of the lodges. Where we read the King James version Bible every day and try to do what it says. Where we start to pray at least an hour ever day, "groaning in the Spirit." We may not get much encouragement on this from our modern churches. We may have to do it on our own or perhaps with a few others who feel similarly. But we need to come out of Babylon in this way and be separate. There is a comet in the sky right now that was so bright you could have see it with the naked eye from 5am to 7am in the morning in October that some think is the "sign of the coming of the Lord." We need to seek revival because there isn't much time left before the "rapture of the Bride of Christ."
Read the book of Acts in the Bible for a description of the early first century church, and then tell me if this reminds you anything of a typical modern Catholic service or a typical modern Baptist service? Of course not. The early church was Pentecostal. They spoke in other tongues. They cast out demons. They healed the sick. They had such long sermons sometimes that once one guy fell asleep and fell down from the third story dead - and then the Apostle Paul prayed for him and he rose from the dead.

So what happened? False brethren were already trying to sneak into the first century church. But they got the gospel preached in all the world before the apostates took over. The Apostle Paul wrote that after his departure, grievous wolves would come in, not sparing the flock. Many of these early Christians were martyred, and then someone probably took over the Apostle Peter's position, who was a "wolf in sheep's clothing," and declared himself the first pope. He brought in the very ritualistic Catholic services, the monks, nuns, cardinals, praying to saints, and calling ministers "fathers" that Jesus Christ had expressly forbidden.

Then another false brethren started the Baptist religion, which also traces it's history to this time. Now you didn't have to stop sinning, you could pray a little five minute prayer and have "eternal security." So seeing you had eternal security you didn't have to live a particularly holy life. You could join the lodge and become a "sipping saint" as many modern Baptists have become. Ther was no longer an emphasis on the baptism in the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in other tongues or in divine healing. Many no longer believed in a rapture of the Bride of Christ.

I grew up in an Assembly of God church in the 1950s. This was a Pentecostal church that believed that when you really get saved you stop sinning. They believed in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, divine healing, revivals, and had prayer meetings. They were against lodge membership, playing cards, drinking, smoking, and going to movies. Church parties were a very rare activity. As the years passed and this church went into apostasy, they started believing in eternal security. There was no longer much if any emphasis on the baptism in the Holy Spirit or divine healing. Some of the members started joining the lodge, drinking, and smoking. There was no longer much if any talk about the rapture of the Bride of Christ and no longer any prayer meetings. And this church could probably change it's name to "First Baptist Church" and they would fit right in with the other Baptist churches of today. In fact, I think that's what has happened in many cases and that's why there are so many Baptist churches in the United States.

So what we need is a revival. Where we become Pentecostal. Where we stop sinning, stop smoking, stop drinking, and get out of the lodges. Where we read the King James version Bible every day and try to do what it says. Where we start to pray at least an hour ever day, "groaning in the Spirit." We may not get much encouragement on this from our modern churches. We may have to do it on our own or perhaps with a few others who feel similarly. But we need to come out of Babylon in this way and be separate. There is a comet in the sky right now so bright you can see it with the naked eye from 5am to 7am in the morning some think is the "sign of the coming of the Lord." We need to seek revival because there isn't much time left before the "rapture of the Bride of Christ."Read the book of Acts in the Bible for a description of the early first century church, and then tell me if this reminds you anything of a typical modern Catholic service or a typical modern Baptist service? Of course not. The early church was Pentecostal. They spoke in other tongues. They cast out demons. They healed the sick. They had such long sermons sometimes that once one guy fell asleep and fell down from the third story dead - and then the Apostle Paul prayed for him and he rose from the dead.

So what happened? False brethren were already trying to sneak into the first century church. But they got the gospel preached in all the world before the apostates took over. The Apostle Paul wrote that after his departure, grievous wolves would come in, not sparing the flock. Many of these early Christians were martyred, and then someone probably took over the Apostle Peter's position, who was a "wolf in sheep's clothing," and declared himself the first pope. He brought in the very ritualistic Catholic services, the monks, nuns, cardinals, praying to saints, and calling ministers "fathers" that Jesus Christ had expressly forbidden.

Then another false brethren started the Baptist religion, which also traces it's history to this time. Now you didn't have to stop sinning, you could pray a little five minute prayer and have "eternal security." So seeing you had eternal security you didn't have to live a particularly holy life. You could join the lodge and become a "sipping saint" as many modern Baptists have become. Ther was no longer an emphasis on the baptism in the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in other tongues or in divine healing. Many no longer believed in a rapture of the Bride of Christ.

I grew up in an Assembly of God church in the 1950s. This was a Pentecostal church that believed that when you really get saved you stop sinning. They believed in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, divine healing, revivals, and had prayer meetings. They were against lodge membership, playing cards, drinking, smoking, and going to movies. Church parties were a very rare activity. As the years passed and this church went into apostasy, they started believing in eternal security. There was no longer much if any emphasis on the baptism in the Holy Spirit or divine healing. Some of the members started joining the lodge, drinking, and smoking. There was no longer much if any talk about the rapture of the Bride of Christ and no longer any prayer meetings. And this church could probably change it's name to "First Baptist Church" and they would fit right in with the other Baptist churches of today. In fact, I think that's what has happened in many cases and that's why there are so many Baptist churches in the United States.

So what we need is a revival. Where we become Pentecostal. Where we stop sinning, stop smoking, stop drinking, and get out of the lodges. Where we read the King James version Bible every day and try to do what it says. Where we start to pray at least an hour ever day, "groaning in the Spirit." We may not get much encouragement on this from our modern churches. We may have to do it on our own or perhaps with a few others who feel similarly. But we need to come out of Babylon in this way and be separate. There is a comet in the sky right now so bright you can see it with the naked eye from 5am to 7am in the morning some think is the "sign of the coming of the Lord." We need to seek revival because there isn't much time left before the "rapture of the Bride of Christ."

Lyrics to "Give Me That Old Time Religion"

2007-10-23T08:25:00.000-07:00

OLD TIME RELIGION
(Originally titled Give Me That Old Time Religion)
© 2004/2005 Arranged & Produced By Robert Metzgar
Lyrics by Janie West Metzgar [deceased] ASCAP
Bluegrass melody by Robert Metzgar (ASCAP)
Contact Copyright Administrator for further information
Published by ® Aim High Music/Zomba-BMG Publishing (ASCAP) . Nashville
©2004/2005 By Robert Metzgar, Arranger of ASCAP SONGS
© Ultimate Greatest Gospel Arrangements
ISRC CODE US-PP6-04-95407-01

The Chorus:

Tis the old time religion....
Tis the....old time religion....
Tis the old time religion.....
And, it's good enough for me........

Verse One:

It was good for our mothers.......
It was good for our mothers....
It was good for our mothers..........
It's good enough for me......

The Chorus:

Give me that old time religion....
Give me that....old time religion....
O give me that old time religion.....
It's good enough for me........

Verse Two:

Makes me love everybody..........
Makes me love everybody..........
Makes me love everybody..........
It's good enough for me................

Verse Three:

It will do when I am dying.......
It will do when I am dying.......
It will do when I am dying.......
It's good enough for me................

Verse Four:

It will take us all to Heaven...
It will take us all to Heaven....
It will take us all to Heaven....
It's good enough for me................

The Chorus:

Give me that old time religion....
Give me that....old time religion....
O give me that old time religion.....
It's good enough for me........

Other Verses:

5. It has saved our fathers.......
6. It was good for the Prophet Daniel.....
7. It was good for the Hebrew children....
8. It was tried in the fiery furnace......

9. It was good for Paul and Silas......
10. It's a promise you can count on.....
11. It will make us shout the victory.....
12. Leave your burdens all behind you.....

Tag

O give me that old time religion.....
It's good enough for me.......

Sermon - Revive Us Again

2007-10-21T06:41:00.000-07:00

Folks, we're living in the last days. It's time to get revived. It's time to seek the Lord with all of our hearts. President Bush just referred to World War III in a speech. Both Russia and the US have been carrying out war games lately. Russia and China have formed an alliance lately. Iran and Syria are allies of Russia and China, and so is the Sudan. We have a very militant administration in the US now that is spending record amounts on military "defense," which maybe should be called offense. The United States has recently completed a miliary defense "missile shield" in Eastern Europe which basically gives the US first strike capability against Russia. Retired Colonel Bob Bowman says former presidents Nixon and Reagan both gave the orders to attack the old Soviet Union, but the military officers both times refused to execute the orders, considering them to be illegal. And it is rumored that President Bush has already given orders a couple of times to attack Iran but on both occasions the military refused to execute those orders. But President Bush continues to juggle his generals around, trying to find some who will execute his orders. He recently fired General Peter Pace and replaced him with Admiral Mellon, and Admiral Mellon says he believes in "just following orders." I'm not saying all of this to scare you, but just to let you know that we're living in very perilous times and it's time to seek the Lord with all of our hearts if we're ever going to.

It's time to start fasting. It's time to stay up all night praying. That's called watching and praying. We need to know for sure we're really saved. I think many people think they are that aren't really. We need to get these "politics demons" cast out where we think Christianity is somehow akin to just being a good member of the Republican Party. It's time to start following Jesus Christ according to what He said in the King James Version Bible and not most of these modern apostate preachers, ministers and priests. it's time to start reading the King James version Bible again instead of these modern monstosities. We should go to the best church we can find but then seek the Lord on our own. God is responding to those who are repenting, confessing their sins, seeking for revival, and seeking for sanctification and the baptism with the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking with other tongues.

Here's a suggested prayer to pray if you're serious. "Lord Jesus, I call on Your name right now. Save me to the uttermost. Heal me. Deliver me from demons and all the power of Satan. Baptize and fill me to overflowing with the Holy Ghost and fire with evidence of other tongues. Sanctify me. Wash me white as snow with Your precious blood. Make me a new creature in Jesus Christ, ready in every way to go home to You in heaven in Your soon coming rapture. Amen.

The Moving Breath of the Spirit by Smith Wigglesworth

2007-09-20T21:24:00.000-07:00

The Word is God Himself
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Holy Bible John 1:1 KJV

This creates in us an attitude of rest, because all our hope is in the Word of the living God.

The Word of God abideth forever; it is always able to help us. Oh, the glorious truths found therein!

Never compare this book with other books. This book is from Heaven. It does not contain the Word of God; it IS the Word of God. It is supernatural in origin, eternal in duration and value, infinite in scope, and Divine in authorship.

Read it through!

Pray it in!

Write it down!

And what does the Word say? It says;

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9:10

In the fear of the Lord we begin to realize our weakness which moves us to wisely receive the greatness of redemption. Knowledge is coupled with joy. We cannot have the knowledge of the Lord without joy.

Not only do we have joy; we have peace. Faith brings peace. Not faith through long petitions, but faith by grace brings peace. Peace is found where faith is undisturbed [unchanged, unaffected]. That is eternal faith... daring always to believe what God has said.

If you'll dare to trust Him, you'll find your desire always comes to pass. But there must be no wavering for ... let not that man think that he shall receive any thing from the Lord. James 1:17

ONLY BELIEVE!

Become an Expression of the King
Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan... Luke 4:1

What does it really mean to ... be filled with the Spirit, like Ephesians 5:18 tells us? We all need to know. Oh, the difference it makes when we understand the baptism of the Holy Spirit and know the flow of the life of the Spirit! How the Word becomes illuminated by the Spirit! We leap for joy, beyond anything we have ever done before, with holy laughter!

Out of the shadow, the reality of the substance, that infilling of the Spirit which had been promised, has come. Our glorious Lord, who can speak as no other, is here to help the oppressed!

The King unfolds His will. He covers His child, flooding the soul with open vision; with untiring zeal. Fire! Fire! Fire!
It burns intensely in the human soul, until the person becomes an expression of the King!

I know the Lord laid His hand on me;
He filled me with the Holy Ghost.
I now the Lord laid His hand on me.

This Jesus, this wonder working Jesus, came to be King. Is He King? Yes! And He must reign in our lives. Oh, to so yield that He always has the first place! Glory be to God! His Spirit has come to abide forever, flooding our souls, for Jesus said, When I go I will send Him unto you. John 16:7.

Has He come to you?
Has He come to you?
Has the Comforter come to you?

The Lord said that He will reprove the world of sin when the Comforter comes to us. God has given us an enrichment, a perfection of revelation, in Him. The Spirit came to fill the Body, and to bring forth that which all the prophets had spoken of, taking of the things of Jesus and showing them unto us.

Filled With the Spirit
The woman in John 4 had a well. After the Holy Ghost had come she had a river. Rivers of living water began to flow out of her.

A prophetic utterance is part of the infilling of the Spirit, and it flows like a river. It is Divine incoming, helping to fill the Body unto all the fullness of God. It is like a flash of lightning, opening up Divine revelation.

By it, we realize we can dance and sing in the Spirit. We can enjoy sweeter music and rarity of character (the character of Christ in us, the hope of glory). We see a vision of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. These Divine revelations are what the baptism of the Holy Spirit brings to us through prophecy and other means.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. He is ever unveiling, making manifest, breathing upon humanity in a great way, burning, quickening, until men cry out, "What must I do to be saved?"

So comes the Breath of Life, burning with intensity until the world feels the warmth and cries out for God.

Oh, the joy of being filled with the Holy Ghost and having the Divine purpose of taking His fire to the world! We have such activity in season and out of season, with the same sense of Divine approval!

As the apostles were in their day, we are to be in our day: filled unto all the fullness of God, with the same Holy Ghost, the same warmth, the same life... the same Heaven in the soul.

The Holy Ghost brings Heaven to us as He reveals Jesus, who is the King of Heaven. Oh, the perfection of belonging to Him in whom we have a Heavenly preparation for every need!

There is no need to groan, cry, travail, or sigh. The Word says:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me... Luke 4:18

We have the Spirit of the Lord. We have the sense of the Holy Ghost, the knowledge of His power, the sweetness of His experience, the wonder of His Breath. He is lifting the Word, making all things new, meeting the present need in our lives.

These are the last days. They are very wonderful and blessed with signs. The Breath of the Spirit is unfolding God's truth's and helping mankind to know Jesus.

Enforcement of Expression
I believe in the Holy Ghost. And I believe that God gave us the Holy Ghost for true Son-likeness, Son-expressiveness, and enforcementof that expression. In Sweden, a large platform was erected in a park for meetings on the condition that this Englishman would not put his hands on the people and pray.

I said, "Lord, You know all about this. I believe you can work." The Lord revealed His presence, and healed and saved the people anyway at the meetings. I simply said, "Who here is in need? Put your hands up."

Hands went up all over. I saw a large woman with her hand up. I said, "Tell your trouble!"

She said that pains were all over her body. She was in terrible distress. I said, "Lift up your hands in Jesus' Name!"

Jesus came to heal the sick, to loose those the devil had bound, to set the captive free. He said, GREATER works than these shall you who believe on me do. John 14:12, paraphrased

We have the power of His Name to use against the enemy. I said to the woman, "In the name of Jesus, I set you free. Are you free?"

She replied, "Yes, perfectly free!"

GOD put His hands on the people! He had wonderful ways of meeting the need there.

I believe to see the glory of God. I believe to see God setting people free from all weakness.

Making Disciples of All Nations
Jesus said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me... to make disciples of all nations. Luke 4:18; Matthew 28:19, paraphrased

In New Zealand, when I first preached this glorious truth I saw hundreds baptized. In Sweden, however, the Lutheran Church was not pleased. A woman in the king's household was healed, but I was forced to leave the country.

On one occasion there, I stayed on a side-street. I arrived at nine-thirty; but the meeting was not until four thirty, so I went to the coast for a few hours of rest. When I came back, the street was full from end to end with wheelchairs and cars filled with the helpless and needy. The conveners said, "What shall we do?"

I said, "The Holy Ghost came to abide, to reign in supreme Royal dignity. Live in His unction, freedom, inspiration, and be like a flowing river... nothing less... that God may be glorified".

God loosed the people that day and brought deliverance to the captives. Was that all that happened? No, only the beginning! The house I was at was packed, too!

Oh, the joy of being ready for God to use us! God must set us all on fire. There is much land to be possessed, and we must possess it. The fields are white unto harvest! Oh, the cry of the people that day... talk about weeping! There is such a joy in weeping. It is an awful place if you cannot weep with the Breath of God upon you as they did that day.

I went on helping the people. God said to me as clearly as possible, Ask Me! I will give you all in the place.

I thought it was too big a request to ask. He whispered again, Ask! I will give you all in the house.

I said, "O my God, say it again."
Ask of Me. I will give you all in the house.

I said, "I ask! I ask in faith! I believe it!"

The Breath of Heaven filled the place. The people continued to fall down, weeping and repenting.

Oh, the Breath of the Spirit! There is something WONDERFUL in this Breath!

The Spirit Is Upon ME
Jesus said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me... Luke 4:18

"And it is upon me, upon ME," we can say.

May God move in our hearts to act in this truth. Do you want God to have you in His splendid place of the moving of His Spirit? Is it the cry and longing of your heart to come to this place? God can only choose those filled to the uttermost to be there.

Do you long to be filled to the uttermost; are you hungering and thirsting after God's fullness?

Stand in a living experience as Jesus did. Say, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon ME!" and what you desire will happen.

God grant it to every one of you. Amen. (August 1925)
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Rapture of the Bride of Christ

2007-08-21T06:25:00.000-07:00

"Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man." Luke 21:36. I think those words of Jesus Christ are talking about a rapture, a catching away of people to heaven, just before the tribulation comes on this world. If we escape it, and we are standing before the Son of man in heaven, it seems to me it's talking about a rapture, although a lot of modern day Christians don't believe in this any more. It's being widely taught now that some woman in England in the late 1800s dreamed up the idea of the rapture and that it's not referred to in the Bible and was never taught throughout the history of Christianity. Wrong.

The idea of the rapture is found in the great old Christian book "Pilgrim's Progress" well before that time, and author John Bunyan got the teaching from the scriptures. Zephaniah 2:3 for example says, "Seek ye the LORD, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD's anger." Jesus Christ predicted a time at the end of the world where it will again be as the days of Sodom and Gomorrha. "Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;

But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed." Luke 17:28-30. God got angry. He was angry with Sodom for the pride, the homosexuality, for their lack of concern for the poor, for their violence and aggressiveness. And he burned it down. I was there. I saw it. We drove by in the tour bus and the bus driver pointed to a barren desert and said, "There's where Sodom and Gomorrha were. They aren't there any more because God burned them down."

And I think God is getting angry at this old world today. For continually cutting back help to the poor and needy while spending more and more for military. For invading and occupying a sovereign nation under false pretenses and then refusing to get out. I think most of this modern world doesn't even believe in God any more. They think God is dead. I don't think we've seen God's judgment yet. We've seen Satan and his servants oppressing the poor in the United States and around the world. We've seen a rich, arrogant nation, with a space program trying to mount up to the heavens like the tower of Babel, oppressing the poor people of Iraq, torturing prisoners, trying to steal their oil industry. And the Mitt Romneys and his sons, the George Bushes, and the Richard Cheneys of the world don't want to fight in them themselves but are happy to send the working class people who join the army because they need a job to fight for them. I understand that Richard Cheney's stock options grew from $200,000+ in value to $8,000,000+ in value in recent years.

But the Bible said God is going to get angry again and we will see His wrath. The Bible also says God has not "appointed us to wrath," referring to Christians. 1 Thessalonians 5:9. But I don't think it's talking about all the Christians there. The Bible says He is coming for a people who are looking for Him to come. I think all those Christians who no longer believe in a rapture will be left behind. "According to your faith, be it unto you," Jesus Christ said. If you believe you won't go to heaven in the rapture you won't go to heaven in the rapture. Maybe you'll never go at all.

A lot of modern day Christians won't go because they aren't holy. The Bible said, "Be ye holy for I am holy." 1 Peter 1:16. People talk about Saint Patrick and Saint Teresa, but we're all supposed to be saints. A lot of modern day Christians are drinking and swearing and going to movies and committing adultery and divorcing and remarrying just like the world. You go to church and see cigarette butts outside the door because people put out their cigarettes before they walked into church. How can God tell any difference between the church and the world? Jesus is going to tell many church members some day, "I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."

And I think God is coming for a Pentecostal, tongue talking church. Jesus Christ told the story of the wise and foolish virgins. These were all holy living people who believed in the rapture, waiting for Jesus to come back. But when He came back only the wise virgins who had taken the oil in their lamps went, and oil represents the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ said "Receive ye the Holy Spirit," and we have no right to ignore any of His commandments. We need to wait on the Lord and seek Him until we receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in other tongues.

So could the rapture of the bride of Christ be soon? I sense it could be very soon. It's time for us to turn from our wicked ways and repent and seek the Lord. Seek the LORD while He may be found. Today is the day of salvation. Say this prayer right now, "Lord Jesus, I call on Your name now for salvation. Save me. Heal me. Deliver me from the power of Satan. Baptize and fill me with Your Holy Spirit. I turn from my wicked ways now and forever. Amen."
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Lyrics To Christian Song "Make Me A Blessing"

2007-08-17T22:09:00.001-07:00

Make Me a Blessing
Words by Ira B. Wilson
Music by George S. Schuler
Genesis 12:2
"And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee,
and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:"

Out on the highways and byways of life,
Many are the weary and sad;
Carry the sunshine where darkness is rife,
Making the sorrowing glad.

Chorus
Make me a blessing, make me a blessing;
Out of my life may Jesus shine.
Make me a blessing, O Saviour I pray,
Make me a blessing to someone today.
Tell the sweet story of Christ and His love,
Tell of His pow'r to forgive;
Others will trust Him if only you prove
True every moment you live.

Chorus
Make me a blessing, make me a blessing;
Out of my life may Jesus shine.
Make me a blessing, O Saviour I pray,
Make me a blessing to someone today.
Give as 'twas given to you in your need,
Love as the Master loved you;
Be to the helpless a helper indeed,
Unto your mission be true.

Chorus
Make me a blessing, make me a blessing;
Out of my life may Jesus shine.
Make me a blessing, O Saviour I pray,
Make me a blessing to someone today.
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Smith Wigglesworth Sermon: Only Believe

2007-08-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

Only Believe
Smith Wigglesworth Sermon
The Clothing of the Spirit for the World's Needs
© 89-07 RLM Used by permission

Only believe... Only believe! God will not fail you, beloved. It is IMPOSSIBLE for God to fail.

Believe Him. Rest in Him, for God's rest is an undisturbed place where Heaven bends to meet you.

God will fulfil the promises made to you in His Word... believe it!

Now, the Bible is the most important book in the world, but some people haven't spent time in it. They need to press in, before they can press on.

Oh, the glorious inheritance of holy joy and faith the Word says we have! The glorious baptism in the Holy Ghost it speaks of is a perfected place! We read that all things are become new in our lives because we are Christ's, and Christ is God's! As we press into truths such as these in God's Word, we will be able to press on to live in God's "Royal Way".

The Royal Way
But ye shall receive power, after the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Acts 1:8 KJV

God means for us to be in the Royal Way: in the power of the Holy Ghost, being God's witnesses in the earth. It's the door He wants us to walk through. And when God opens a door, no man can shut it. Through John the Baptist He made a Royal Way, and Jesus went in.

Now He has left it for us, so He can bring forth greater works through us than those done when Jesus walked the earth. Jesus left His disciples with much, but much more is to be added to us until God receives us in that day.

When we receive power, we must stir ourselves up to the truth that we are responsible for the need around us. God will supply our need so that the needs of the needy may be met through us. What a great, indwelling force of power!

If we don't slip into our privileges to meet needs, it is a tragedy.

No Standing Still
God, who ravishes us, brings forth new revelation within the heart. He causes us to be changed by the Spirit from vision to vision, grace to grace, and glory to glory.

There is no standing still for us. As Christ is, so are we in this world: the offspring of God, with impulse Divine. We must get into line! We have the life of the Son of God in us to make the whole Body aflame with fire. We have what it takes to do it, for the Word says;

After ye have received, ye shall have power. (Acts 1:8, paraphrased)

God has given me a blessed ministry. He helps me to stir others up. Our gathering in meetings must be for increase; we must use the power of God in us to win more souls into the kingdom of God. I am zealous for us to come into this Divine plan. If we wait for such power, we have mistaken the position we have through the Spirit.

God Is Waiting -- So ACT!
"If I could only feel the power," we say.

We have been too much on that line. God is waiting for us to act; to be like Jesus. Jesus had 'perfect activity'; He lived in the realm of Divine appointment with the Father's acts ever coming forth.

The pure in heart see God, and our God is a consuming fire. We must dare to press on until God comes forth through us in mighty power. May God give us faith, that the power may come down like a cloud!

When I was in Slovanger, Norway, God said,

"Ask, I will give you every soul!"

It seemed too much to ask. The voice came again;

"Ask!"

I dared to ask. The power of God swept through the meeting like a mighty wind! You want this where you live, so speak all the Word of this life. Press on until Jesus is glorified and multitudes are gathered in. (England, 1925)
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Lyrics To Gospel Song "Lily Of The Valley"

2007-08-11T19:16:00.000-07:00

Words: Charles W. Fry, 1881; first appeared in the Salvation Army’s The War Cry, December 29, 1881. Fry wrote the lyrics in Lincoln, England, while working with the Salvation Army there.

Music: William S. Hays; adapted by Charles W. Fry (MIDI, score).

William S. Hays (1837-1907)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have found a friend in Jesus, He’s everything to me,
He’s the fairest of ten thousand to my soul;
The Lily of the Valley, in Him alone I see
All I need to cleanse and make me fully whole.
In sorrow He’s my comfort, in trouble He’s my stay;
He tells me every care on Him to roll.

Refrain

He’s the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star,
He’s the fairest of ten thousand to my soul.

He all my grief has taken, and all my sorrows borne;
In temptation He’s my strong and mighty tower;
I have all for Him forsaken, and all my idols torn
From my heart and now He keeps me by His power.
Though all the world forsake me, and Satan tempt me sore,
Through Jesus I shall safely reach the goal.

Refrain

He will never, never leave me, nor yet forsake me here,
While I live by faith and do His blessèd will;
A wall of fire about me, I’ve nothing now to fear,
From His manna He my hungry soul shall fill.
Then sweeping up to glory to see His blessèd face,
Where the rivers of delight shall ever roll.

Refrain
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Lyrics To Gospel Song "People Get Ready"

2007-08-10T07:01:00.000-07:00

People Get Ready
by Glen Campbell
album: Oh Happy Day (1970),
Love Is the Answer: 24 Songs of Faith, Hope and Lo (2004)
(Curtis Mayfield)

People get ready there's a train coming
You don't need no baggage you just get on board
All you need is some faith to hear the diesels humming
And you don't need a ticket you just thank the Lord.

Let me tell you there ain't no room for the hopeless sinner
Who'd hurt all mankind just to save his own
Have some pity on those whose chances grow thinner
Cause there's no hidin' place against the kingdom's throne
People get ready.

I'll tell you people get ready for there's a train coming
You don't need a ticket you just get on board
I'll tell you people get ready for there's a train coming
And you don't need no baggage you just get on board.

You don't need no ticket you just thank the lord...
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Internet Church by Roger Bovee

2007-08-09T06:59:00.000-07:00

Is there such a thing as an internet church or online church? Would God bless such a church? Could you come away from time spent at an internet church feeling as refreshed as if you had gone to a physical church?

I think people should go to a physical church if at all possible. The Bible says, "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is." Hebrews 10:25. But you may be sick some times and not able to get to church. Or you may not be able to get out of your house or apartment for some reason. Or maybe you're travelling and don't have time to locate a good church but you can get internet access.

The Bible says, "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy." Exodus 20:8. We are to work six days a week but to spend one day a week resting and in prayer. Although it's best to go to a physical church whenever possible, I think God will honor our gathering together to honor Him, even on the internet. A good online church should offer sermons, maybe some famous sermons from the past. It should allow people to submit their prayer requests and to pray for salvation and divine healing, and to give their testimonies.
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Internet Church - Online Church Sermon by Billy Sunday

2007-08-07T07:41:00.000-07:00

BACKSLIDING
As preached by Billy Sunday in Boston, MA.

"Thy own wickedness shall correct thee. Thy backsliding shall reprove thee. Know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of Hosts." Jeremiah 11:19.

Many start the voyage of the Christian life under sending skies and upon smooth waters, but as they sail out of the harbor the sky becomes dark and the craft of their religion crashes upon the rocks. At first they are careful to obey the command of God, but after the revival they neglect their duties and finally come to wreck.

God speaks much of the sin of backsliding, and in the Bible has spoken of it in many places. There are all kinds of backsliding.

First, there is the careless kind. The invitation is never given at the revival but there are those who will respond to it, and for a time will live as Christians should. Then, when the revival is over and the routine of everyday life begins, they slip gradually back into their former ways. They become negligent and drift back to the old haunts and the old gang.

Oh, it is easy to think of things divine when the revival is on and there is inspiration on every side and the bands are playing and the crowds are marching.

I've sometimes thought, almost, that it might be a Godsend to many a community if it could only be swept by typhoid fever or pneumonia or scarlet fever just after a good revival and before the people have a chance to slide back.

The second class of backsliders is the class that started soberly and seriously, but not seriously enough. They do not make a complete surrender. If you secure a balloon with 100 ropes and cut 99 of them, the balloon will still be held, but don't cut the shore lines, they have failed to cut loose from sin, and it is drawing them back.

A friend of mine holding a meeting, asked how many who were present had been Christians, but were now backsliders. Finally forty fessed up. Then he asked them for the reasons for their falling away. Finally a man got up and said he backslid through believing that he could be a Christian and keep his store open on Sundays.

A young lady arose and said that she backslid because of cards. A friend had given a card party and she had to give one in reciprocity. She said she had invited a young man to attend, but that he didn't know what kind of a party it was to be. He came, but when he found out he said he was sorry, but he must go, for he could not stay there. "I admired him for his loyalty to his religion, he made me feel that I wasn't worthy to have my name as a church member," the young lady said.

Another man stood up and said: "I backslid when I voted for the saloon." You bet he did or he would not have voted for the dirty, rotten thing. Why, he backslid before he voted that ticket, or he wouldn't have voted it.

A young lady said: "I thought I could be a member of the church and dance." Sure she could. You can be a member of the church and a burglar too, but not a member of the body of Christ. She said, "I attended a dance and found my desire to pray diminishing. I attended another and I found my desire to pray had become nebulous. And then," she said, "my desire to pray disappeared."

I tell you I never saw a drinking, dancing, card playing Christian who amounted to anything. The dance is a quagmire of wreckage. It's as rotten as hell. You wait until I get at it.

I believe more people in the church backslide because of the dance, card playing and theatre gadding then through the saloons. But hold on there, don't you think for a minute that I'm in favor of the dirty, stinking, rotting saloons.

I'm against a lot of amusements popular among church members, as you people are going to find out before I am through in Boston. I don't give that (snapping his fingers) whether you like my preaching or not. Understand? It's a question of whether you are interested in decency. If you live wrong you can't die right. Emerson said: "What you are speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

This is an age of incompleteness of unfinished things. Life is full of half done things. Education is begun and abandoned. Obedience to the law of God is begun - and given up. People start in business - and fail. They attempt to learn a trade - and don't do it thoroughly. A hound once started running after a stag and after running for a while it saw a fox and turned after it. A little farther along it saw a rabbit and ran after that, and finally wound up holing a field mouse. So it is with so many who enter the Christian life. They started to hunt and compromised on a glass of booze. They enter a royal race, but compromised on a glass of beer or on some little gain through dishonesty.

Not every backslider is an apostate, but every apostate is a backslider. Peter was a backslider, but he came back and preached that sermon at Pentecost. Judas was a backslider, and what he did so preyed upon his mind that he did not want it. He went out but he never came back.

I have never tabooed but two towns in my life and one of them was a little town in Iowa, where I once held a meeting before I really became an evangelist. That town had an infidel club of 150 members. There were only two church members in the place, and there was an interrogation point after them at that. They could have started a founding asylum of their own in that community. My life was not safe there - they threw stones at me in the streets.

A storekeeper there told me he was going to sell out and leave the town for purely moral reasons, at a loss of about $8000.00. He said that he had daughters and that there wasn't a young man in the town that he would trust with them. He said that any young man in that town were to call on any of his daughters he wouldn't go upstairs to bed unless he had a Gattling gun he could train on the visitor at a moments notice. It is not only for here and now, it is not only for a time, but it is for eternity. It is one of the great things. All other things are incidents.

The leader of that God - forsaken, iniquitous gang was a man named Dickson, who ran a one - horse country grocery business in a place about as big as a boxcar. He had been a Christian - used to be a classleader in a Methodist church. He kept a store. I used to pass the store as I went to preach, and I would see the bunch, as many as 40 sometimes, sitting around in the little store.

Whenever a new preacher came they would assemble to talk him over, and if old Dickson gave consent, they would go to church to hear him. I remember one old brush rat. He had bushy whiskers with a dirty brown streak down the middle, and he could spit 30 yards and hit a fly. I'll bet my life he could hit a post down there. He used to come in late, with one pant leg tucked in his boot, no coat or vest, no galoshes - just a rope around his paunch - the old son of perdition.

He'd sit down and turn the hose on the wall. He looked to me as if he had had only one bath in his life and that one when he was born. He came clattering down the aisle - old hair and beard twisted - looked like a cows tail. He started as a backslider, ended in apostasy, just as disease ends in death if not checked.

In business life, crises come unforeseen. Hard times come. When they do, you may be able to get away with a overdraft at the bank if the cashier knows you too well. At the bank of heaven no checks on God's mercy, when signed by God's loyal followers have ever been turned down. If you come with honest heart God will honor the appeal if your hands are red with blood.

In a campaign like this, for some little thing many men will sell out. There are men whose honor hang like meat in butcher shop, for sale for so much a pound. I thank God though, that most men are honest and most women are virtuous, and that even the minority can be made to yield when you preach the gospel right.

I ask about a man. "Has he reached the burning bush?" They answer, "Yes, and got past it." I ask, "Is he a K. of P.?" They say he is. I ask, "Has he jumped?" They say, "Yes." I don't know what it means to jump, for I am not a K. of P. I heard a couple of K. of P.'s talking, though ? they didn't leak. I suppose it has something to do with the initiation. I ask. "Is he an Odd Fellow?" "Yes" They tell me he will share his last dollar with a needy person, die for the widow or the orphan, put his head on the track ahead of the Black Diamond or allow himself to be shot to pieces before he would be false to the vows he took amid the scent of the orange blossoms.

That sounds like a good man, but there are lots of men who will be true in all these things, and false to Jesus Christ. They will go to church and partake of the communion, then will line up in front of some bar and tell smutty stories. True in business, true to lodge, true in society, true in the home, but a perjurer in the sight of God. If you are such a man you are a backslider - a backslider, sir, and a liar.

If I were to go to a man and say: "They say you're an old liar." Would he say, "Well, Bill, I suppose I am, but you mustn't put the standard too high for poor, weak humanity, and I'm only human." If I were to say to him, "They say you are an old thief and that they have to hide everything when you come around." Would he say he supposed it was true, but I mustn't set the standard too high for poor human nature? If I say, "They tell me that you are a rotten old libertine and that you have ruined many innocent girls, that you would crush a woman's virtue as quickly as a snake beneath your foot." Would he say he supposed it was true, but I mustn't set the standard too high for poor human nature?

No sir. If he were anything of a man at all he would say, "I demand, sir, that you prove your charges." But that's not what a man does when you charge him with being a backslider or to say that he is a liar. Oh, for the Presbyterian or Baptist or Episcopal backslider who stands up and talks about poor human nature - yet to say a man is a backslider is to say that he is a liar. Of, for power to come to you and show what you ought to be.

I can imagine a man being untrue in business. I can imagine him being untrue in politics. I can even - but it is difficult - imagine him being untrue to the vows made at the altar - but to be untrue to God! Be untrue to God and you will lose heaven and lose all. Be true to God and you will lose hell. I pray that God will so work upon the consciences of you backsliders who hear me that you will cry salt tears and turn and roll upon your pillows when you go home tonight and seek a dry spot that he may reproach you until you have been stung into a return to the God to whom you have been false.

A heathen woman named Panathea was famous for her great beauty, and King Cyrus wanted her for his harem. He sent his representatives to her and offered her money and jewels to come, but she repulsed them and spurned their advances. Again he sent them, this time with offers more generous and tempting; but again she sent them away with scorn. A third time she said "Nay." Then King Cyrus went in person to see her and he doubled and tripled and quadrupled the offers his men had made, but still she would not go. She told him that she was a wife, and that she was true to her husband.

He said "Panathea, where dwellest thee?"

"In the arms and on the breast of my husband." She said.

"Take her away." Said Cyrus. "She is of no use to me."

Then he put her husband in command of the charioteers and sent him into battle at the head of the troops. Panathea knew what this meant - that her husband had been sent in that he might be killed.

She waited while the battle raged and when the field was cleared she shouted his name and searched for him and finally found him wounded and dying. She knelt and clasped him in her arms, and as they kissed, his lamp of life went out forever.

King Cyrus heard of the mans death and came to the field. Panathea saw him coming, careening on his camel like a ship in a storm. She called, "Oh, husband! He comes - he shall not have me. I was true to you in life and will be true to you in death." And she drew her dead husband's poniard from its sheath, drove it into her own breast and fell dead across his body.

King Cyrus came up and dismounted. He removed his turban and knelt By the dead husband and wife and thanked his God that he had found in his kingdom one true and virtuous woman that his money could not buy nor his power intimidate.

A person of Boston, preachers, the problem of this century is the problem of the first century. We must win the world for God and we will win the world for God just as soon as we have men and woman who will be faithful to God and will not lie and will not sell out to the devil.
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Internet Church - Online Church Sermon by Billy Sunday

2007-08-05T16:42:00.000-07:00

Famous 'Booze' Sermon
As preached by Billy Sunday in Boston, MA

I am the sworn, eternal and uncompromising enemy of the liquor traffic. I have been, and will go on, fighting that damnable, dirty, rotten business with all the power at my command. I shall ask no quarter from that gang, and they shall get none from me.

After all is said that can be said on the liquor traffic, its influence is degrading on the individual, the family, politics and business and upon everything that you touch in this old world. For the time has long gone by when there is any ground for arguments of its ill effects. All are agreed on that point. There is just one prime reason why the saloon has not been knocked into hell, in that is the false statement "that the saloons are needed to help lighten the taxes."

It costs fifty times more for the saloon than the revenue derived from it.

I challenge you to show me where the saloon has ever helped business, education, church morals or anything we hold dear.

You listen today and if I can't peel the bark off that damnable fallacy I will pack my trunk and leave. I say that is the biggest lie ever belched out. The wholesale and retail trade in Iowa pays every year at least $500,000 in licenses. Then, if there were no drawback, it ought to reduce the taxation 25 cents per capita. If the saloon is necessary to pay the taxes, and if they pay $500,000 in taxes, it ought to reduce them 25 cents a head. But no, the whiskey business has increased taxes $1,900,000 instead of reducing them, and I defy any whisky man on God's dirt to show one town that has the saloon where the taxes are lower than where they do not have the saloon. I defy you to show me an instance.

Crime and Idiocy

Listen! Seventy-five per cent of our idiots come from intemperate parents, 80 per cent of the paupers, 82 per cent of the crime is committed by men under the influence of liquor, 90 per cent of the adult criminals are whiskey made. The Chicago Tribune kept track for 10-years and found that 53,438 murders were committed in the saloons.

Archbishop Ireland, the famous Roman Catholic of St. Paul, said of social crime "that 75 per cent is caused by drink and 80 per cent of the poverty." I go to a family and it is broken up and I say, "what caused this?" Drink! I step up to a young man on the scaffold and say, "what brought you here?" Drink! Whence all the misery and sorrow and corruption? Invariably it is drink.

Whiskey and beer are all right in their place, but their place is in hell. The saloon hasn't one leg to stand on.

Five Points, in New York, was a spot as near like hell as any spot on earth. There are five streets that run to this point, and right in the middle was an old brewery, and the streets on either side were lined with grog shops. The newspapers turned a search light on the districts, and before they could stop it the first thing they had to do was to buy the old brewery and turn it into a mission, and today it is a decent, respectable place.

Look at Kansas. It is dry. In 85 of 105 counties in Kansas there is not one idiot. In 38 counties they have not a single pauper in the poorhouse, and there are only 600 dependents in the whole State. In 65 counties in Kansas they did not have a single prisoner in the county jails in the year 1912, and in some of the counties the grand jury hasn't been called to try a criminal case in 10 years.

Sum of All Villainies

The saloon is the sum of all villainies. It is worse than war or pestilence. It is the crime of crimes. It is parent of crimes and the mother of sins. It is the appalling source of misery and crime in the land and the principal cause of crime. It is the source of three-fourths of the taxes to support that crime. And to license such an incarnate fiend of hell is the dirtiest, low-down, damnable business on top of this old earth. There is nothing to be compared to it.

The Legislature of Illinois appropriated $6,000,000 in 1908 to take care of the insane people in the state, and the whiskey business produces 75 per cent of the insane. That is what you go down in your pocket for to help support. If I remember rightly the Legislature appropriated nearly $9,000,000 to take care of the state institution. Do away with the saloon, and you will close these institutions. The saloons make them necessary, and they make the poverty and fill the jails and the penitentiaries. Who has to pay the bills? The landlord who doesn't get the rent because the money goes for whiskey; the butcher and the grocer, and the charitable person who takes pity on the children of drunkards, and the tax payer who supports the insane asylums and other institutions that the whiskey business keeps full of human wrecks.

Do away with the cursed business and you will not have to put up to support them. Who gets the money? The saloon keepers and the brewers, and the distillers, while the whiskey fills the land with misery and poverty and wretchedness and disease and death and damnation and it is being authorized by the will of the sovereign people.

Last year the corn crop was 2,553,732,000 bushels, and it was valued at $1,250,000,000. Secretary Wilson says that the breweries use less than 2 per cent; I will say that they use 2 percent. This would make 51,000,000 bushels, and at 50 cents a bushel, that would be about $25,000,000. I'll be generous with the dirty, rotten gang.

Drink and Bankruptcy

Now listen! In 1912 the income of the United States government and the cities and towns and counties from the whiskey business was $134,000,000. That is putting it liberally. You say that's a lot of money. Well, last year the working men spent $2,200,000,000 for drink, and it cost $1,200,000,000 to care for the judicial machinery. In other words, the whiskey business cost us $3,400,000,000, I will subtract from that the dirty $350,000,000 which we got, and it leaves $3,000,000,000 in favor of knocking the whiskey business out on purely a money business.

And listen! Last year we spent $600,000,000 for our paupers and criminals, insane, orphans, feeble minded, etc., in the United States, and 82 per cent of our criminals are whiskey made and 75 per cent of the paupers are whiskey made. Our national increase in wealth was only $5,000,000,000, so you can figure out how long it will take us to go into bankruptcy with that cussed business on our backs. The average factory hand earns $500 a year, and it costs us $5,200 a year to support each of our whiskey criminals. There are 335,000 enrolled criminals in the United States and 80,000 in jails and penitentiaries. Three-fourths were sent there because of drink, and then they have the audacity to say the saloon is needed for money revenue. Never was there a baser lie.

"But," says the whiskey fellow, "we would lose trade, the farmer would not come to town to trade." You lie. Say, when you put up the howl that if you didn't have the saloons the farmer won't trade-say, Mr. Whiskey Men, why do you dump money into politics and back the Legislatures into the corner and fight to the last ditch to prevent the enactment of county local option?

Scared of Farmers

You know if the farmers were given a chance they would knock the whiskey business into hell the first throw out of the box. You are afraid. You have cold feet on the proposition. You are afraid to give the farmer a chance. They are scared to death of farmers.

When the whiskey gang tries to say its business is, not falling off it lies. I've got the last annual report of the government right here. I tell you I have an inside track on that dirty gang. This report says that there were 10,741,738 less gallons of whiskey made last year than there were in 1913. It says there were 127 fewer registered distilleries in 1914 than in 1913 in our land, which means a lot when you consider there are only 743 in the United States. Also, it says there were 33 fewer breweries in 1914 than there were in 1913.

Don't put any stock in the man who gets up in Congress, says he is a temperance man in the next breathe says prohibition is a state affair. If it is a state affair why doesn't the United States government divide the $225,000,000 revenue it collected last year with the States?

Pennsylvania produced 8,800,876 gallons of beer last year, more than any other state in the union except New York. It ranked fifth in the production of whiskey producing 8,489,062 gallons. I say the temperance question is as much a national question as slavery was in the days of'61. And if the politician hasn't the manhood to stand up and defend, then somebody else will get his job in Washington before long.

Saloon vs. Government

The saloon is strong against good government. It supports the boodle aldermen, the political boss and the political machine. And all it asks for the $30 it hands out is that it be left alone. It says, "keep your hands off and let me go on with my business of making drunkards out of the countries youth, and filling the jails and the penitentiaries and the asylums and the poorhouses."

The saloon is never identified with any movement for good government, and there was never one started that the saloon didn't oppose, tooth and nail. All the slanders and lies out about me crawled out of a grog shop. The liquor gangs press bureau has got my itinerary, just as well as I have got it, and they send out there dirty; rotten, stinking lies ahead of me. Yes, and there's always a dirty, rotten, stinking newspaper or two that will print them. But don't you think that scares me a bit? I'm not afraid of the worst old scoundrel that ever dipped his pen in the inkbottle.

I tell you, gentlemen, the American home is the dearest heritage of the people, for the people, by the people, and when a man can go from home in the morning with the kisses of his wife and children on his lips, and come back at night with an empty dinner bucket to a happy home, that man is a better man, whether white of black. Whatever takes away the comforts of home - whatever degrades that man or woman - whatever invades the sanctity of the home, is the deadliest foe to the home, to church, to state and school, and the saloon is the deadliest foe to the home, the church and the state, on top of God Almighty's dirt.

And if all the combined forces of hell should assemble and conclave, and with them all the men on earth that hate and despise God and purity and virtue - if all the scum of the earth might mingle with the denizens of hell to try to think of the deadliest institutions to home, to church and state, I tell you sir the combined hellish intelligence could not conceive of or bring an institution that could touch the hem of the garment of the open licensed saloon to damn the home and the manhood, and womanhood and business and every other good thing on God's earth.

"But," you say, "we will regulate it by high license." Regulate what by high license? You might as well try to regulate a power mill in hell.

Worse Than a Thief

It is my opinion that the saloonkeeper is worse than a thief and a murderer. The ordinary thief steals only your money, but the saloonkeeper steals your honor and your character. The ordinary murderer takes your life, but the saloonkeeper murders your soul.

The saloon is an infidel. It has no faith in God; has no religion. It would close every church in the land. It would hang its beer signs on the abandoned altars. It would close every public school. It respects the thief, and it esteems the blasphemer; it fills the prisons and penitentiaries. It despises heaven, hates love, and scorns virtue. It tempts the passions. Its music is the song of a siren. Its sermons are a collection of lewd, vile stories. It wraps a mantle about the hope of this world to come.

It is the moral clearinghouse for rot, and damnation, and poverty, and insanity, and it wrecks homes and blights lives today. The saloon is a liar. It promises health and causes disease. It promises prosperity and sends adversity. It promises happiness and sends misery.

I tell you that the curse of God Almighty is on the saloon. Legislatures are legislating against it. Decent society is barring it out. The fraternal brotherhoods are knocking it out. The Masons and Odd Fellows and the knights of Pythias and the A. O. U. W. are closing their doors to the whiskey sellers. It is on the downgrade. It is headed for hell; and by the grace of God, I am going to give it a push, with a whoop, for all I know how. Listen to me; I am going to show you how we burn our money. It costs 20 cents to make a gallon of whiskey; sold over the counter at 10 cents a glass it will bring $4.

We dumped nearly four times the value of the national bank stock in the United States into the whiskey hole last year, and we didn't fill the hole up at that. What is the matter? Whenever the day comes when every Catholic and Protestant whose name is on a church record votes against the saloon, that day will saloon go to hell. I charge the church as being responsible for the saloon, for it is strong enough to do away with it. Hell will be so full of whiskey-voting church members that their feet will stick out the windows.

Say, hold on a bit. Have you got a silver dollar? I am going to show you how it is burned up. We have in this country 218,000 saloons, and allowing 50 feet frontage for each saloon. It makes a street from New York to Chicago, and 5,000,000 men, woman and children go daily into the saloon for drink. And marching 20 miles a day, it would take 20 days to pass this building and marching 5 abreast they would reach 500 miles. There they go; look at them!

Half Million Enter Grog Shop

On the first day of January 500,000 of the young men of our nation entered the grog shop and began a public career, hellward, and on Dec. 31 I will come back here and summon you people and ring the bell and raise the curtain and say to the saloon and breweries: "On the first day of January I gave you 500,000 of the brain and muscle of our land, and I want them back and I have come in the name of home and church and school; father, mother, sister, sweetheart: give me back what I gave you. March out."

I count, and 18,000 have lost their appetite and have become muttering, bleary-eyed drunkards, and I say: "What is that I hear, a funeral dirge?" What is that procession? A funeral procession 3,000 miles long and 600,000 hearses in the procession. One hundred and ten thousand men die drunkards in this land of the free and the home of the brave. Listen! In an hour 80 men die drunkards, 2,000 a day and 110,000 a year. One man will leap in front of a train, another will plunge into a river, another will plunge from the dock into a lake, another will throw his hands to his head and life will end. Another will cry "mother!" and his life will go out like a burnt match.

Like Hamilcar of old, who swore eternal enmity against Rome, so I propose to perpetuate the feud against liquor traffic until the white-winged dove of temperance builds her nest on the dome of the Capitol at Washington and spreads her wings of peace, sobriety and joy over our land, which I love with all my heart.

Two Uses of Dollar

I hold a silver dollar in my hand. Come on, we are going to a saloon. We will go into a saloon and spend that dollar for a quart. It takes 20 cents to make a gallon of whiskey and a dollar to buy a quart. You say to the saloonkeeper: "Give me a quart." I will show you, if you wait a minute, how she is burned up. Here I am, John, an old drunken bum with a wife and six kids (Thank God it's all a lie.) Come on, I will go down to a saloon and throw down my dollar. It costs 20 cents to make a gallon of whiskey. A nickel will buy a quart of booze. Who gets the nickel? The farmer, for corn and apples. Who gets the 95 cents? The United States government, the big distillers, the big corporations, I am John, a drunken bum and I will spend my dollar. I have worked a week and got my pay. I go into a grog shop and throw down my dollar and I get a quart of booze. Come home with me. I stagger and reel in my wife's presence and she says: "John, what did you bring home?"

"A quart."

What will a quart do? It will burn up my happiness and my home and fill my home with squalor and want. So here is the dollar. The saloonkeeper has it. Here is my quart. There you get the whiskey end of it. Here you get the workingman's end of the saloon.

But come on. I will go to a store and spend the dollar for a pair of shoes. I want them for my son, and he puts them on his feet, and with the shoes to protect his feet he goes out and earns another dollar, and my dollar becomes a silver thread in the woof and warp of happiness and joy, and the man that owns the building gets some, and the clerk that sold the shoes gets some, and the merchant, and the travelling man, and the wholesale gets some, and the factory, and the man that made the shoes, and the man that tanned the hide, and the butcher that bought the calf, and the farmer that raised the calf, and the little colored fellow that shined the shoes, and my dollar spread itself and nobody is made the worse for spending the money.

Gang Has His Money

Say, wife, the bread that ought to be in your stomach to satisfy the cravings of hunger is down yonder in the grocery store, and your husband hasn't money enough to carry it home. The meat that ought to satisfy your hunger hangs in the butcher shop. Your husband hasn't any money to buy it. The cloth for a dress is lying on the shelf in the store, but your husband hasn't the money to buy it. The whiskey gang has his money. Why didn't the United State Congress vote to let the people have a shot at the whiskey gang? I'll tell you. The whiskey gang has a Congress backed into a corner, and is squeezing the gizzard out of it so it can't even peep.

I would like to do this. I would like to see every booze fighter get on the water wagon. I would like to summon all the drunkards in America and say:

Boys, let's cut it out and spend the money for flour, meat and calico; what do you say? Say! $500,000,000 will buy all the flour in the United States.

Say, if the man that drinks the whiskey goes to hell, the man that votes for the saloon that sold the whiskey to him will go to hell. If the man that drinks the whiskey goes to hell and the man that sold the whiskey to the man that drank it goes to heaven, then the poor drunkard will have the right to stand on the brink of eternal damnation and put his arms around the pillar of justice and say, "That isn't a square deal." If you vote for the dirty business you go to hell as sure as you live, and I would like to fire the furnace while you are there.

Some fellow says, "Dry the saloon out and the buildings will be empty." Which would you rather have, empty buildings or empty jails, penitentiaries and insane asylums? You drink the stuff and what have you to say? You that vote for it and you that sell it? Look at them painted on the canvas of your recollection.

"We will make laws for you. We must have lumber for houses."

He goes up to another mill and says: "Hey, what kind of a mill are you?"

"A grist mill?"

"What do you make?"

"Flour and meal out of wheat and corn."

"Is the finished product worth more than the raw material?"

"Yes."

"Then come on. We will make laws for you. We will protect you."

He goes up to another mill and says:

"What kind of mill are you?"

"A paper mill."

"What do you make paper out of?"

"Straw and rags."

"Well, we will make laws for you. We must have paper on which to write notes and mortgages."

He goes up to another mill and says:

"Hey, what kind of a mill are you?"

"A gin mill."

"I don't like the looks nor the smell of you. A gin mill? What do you make? What kind of a mill are you?"

"A gin mill."

Growing Boy Is Raw Material

"What is your raw material?"

"The boys of America."

(Here the evangelist summoned five small boys to the platform.)

The gin mills of this country must have 2,000,000 boys or shut up shop. Say, walk down your streets; count the homes and every fifth home has to furnish a boy for a drunkard. Have you furnished yours?

"What is your raw material?"

"American boys."

"Say, saloon, gin mill, what is your finished product?"

"Blear-eyed, low down, staggering men and the scum of God's dirt, that have gone from me and taken the count."

Go to the jails, go to the insane asylums and the penitentiaries and the homes for the feeble minded. There you will find the finished product for their dirty business. I tell you, it is the worst business this side of hell; and now you know it.

They don't even give you the pure stuff. If ever there was a jubilee in hell, it was when lager beer was invented. Not 3 per cent of the beer sold is made exclusive from barley, malt, hops and yeast. Look at the breweries. What are those sidetracks for? Why, to bring in the carloads of gincose and sugar and other things they put into the stuff. Pure beer is dark in color and bitter in taste. You poor idiot, you never drank pure beer.

Not 15 per cent of the whiskey on the market is pure stuff. When it is first distilled and pure, whiskey is the color of water. It gets its color in the aging process. Legitimately, that takes from four to eight years. But now they stick a steam pipe into the stuff and "age" it in 20 hours.

What is your raw material, saloons? American boys. Say, I would not give one boy for all the distilleries and saloons this side of hell. And they have to have 2,000,000 boys every generation. And then you tell me you are a man when you will vote for an institution like that. What do you want to do, pay taxes in money or in boys?

Say, will you line up for the prohibition? Men of Boston, Massachusetts and our nation, how many of you will promise that by the help of God you will vote against it? Stand up. Let me have a look at you!
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Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God by Jonathon Edwards

2007-07-31T09:51:00.000-07:00

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
Enfield, ConnecticutJuly 8, 1741

Their foot shall slide in due time. Deuteronomy 32:35
In this verse is threatened the vengeance of God on the wicked unbelieving Israelites, who were God's visible people, and who lived under the means of grace; but who, notwithstanding all God's wonderful works towards them, remained (as vers 28.) void of counsel, having no understanding in them. Under all the cultivations of heaven, they brought forth bitter and poisonous fruit; as in the two verses next preceding the text. -- The expression I have chosen for my text, their foot shall slide in due time, seems to imply the following things, relating to the punishment and destruction to which these wicked Israelites were exposed.
That they were always exposed to destruction; as one that stands or walks in slippery places is always exposed to fall. This is implied in the manner of their destruction coming upon them, being represented by their foot sliding. The same is expressed, Psalm 72:18. "Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction."
It implies, that they were always exposed to sudden unexpected destruction. As he that walks in slippery places is every moment liable to fall, he cannot foresee one moment whether he shall stand or fall the next; and when he does fall, he falls at once without warning: Which is also expressed in Psalm 73:18,19. "Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction: How are they brought into desolation as in a moment!"
Another thing implied is, that they are liable to fall of themselves, without being thrown down by the hand of another; as he that stands or walks on slippery ground needs nothing but his own weight to throw him down.
That the reason why they are not fallen already and do not fall now is only that God's appointed time is not come. For it is said, that when that due time, or appointed time comes, their foot shall slide. Then they shall be left to fall, as they are inclined by their own weight. God will not hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go; and then, at that very instant, they shall fall into destruction; as he that stands on such slippery declining ground, on the edge of a pit, he cannot stand alone, when he is let go he immediately falls and is lost.
The observation from the words that I would now insist upon is this. -- "There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God." -- By the mere pleasure of God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty, any more than if nothing else but God's mere will had in the least degree, or in any respect whatsoever, any hand in the preservation of wicked men one moment. -- The truth of this observation may appear by the following considerations.
There is no want of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment. Men's hands cannot be strong when God rises up. The strongest have no power to resist him, nor can any deliver out of his hands. -- He is not only able to cast wicked men into hell, but he can most easily do it. Sometimes an earthly prince meets with a great deal of difficulty to subdue a rebel, who has found means to fortify himself, and has made himself strong by the numbers of his followers. But it is not so with God. There is no fortress that is any defence from the power of God. Though hand join in hand, and vast multitudes of God's enemies combine and associate themselves, they are easily broken in pieces. They are as great heaps of light chaff before the whirlwind; or large quantities of dry stubble before devouring flames. We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth; so it is easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread that any thing hangs by: thus easy is it for God, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell. What are we, that we should think to stand before him, at whose rebuke the earth trembles, and before whom the rocks are thrown down?
They deserve to be cast into hell; so that divine justice never stands in the way, it makes no objection against God's using his power at any moment to destroy them. Yea, on the contrary, justice calls aloud for an infinite punishment of their sins. Divine justice says of the tree that brings forth such grapes of Sodom, "Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?" Luke 13:7. The sword of divine justice is every moment brandished over their heads, and it is nothing but the hand of arbitrary mercy, and God's mere will, that holds it back.
They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. They do not only justly deserve to be cast down thither, but the sentence of the law of God, that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that God has fixed between him and mankind, is gone out against them, and stands against them; so that they are bound over already to hell. John 3:18. "He that believeth not is condemned already." So that every unconverted man properly belongs to hell; that is his place; from thence he is, John 8:23. "Ye are from beneath:" And thither he is bound; it is the place that justice, and God's word, and the sentence of his unchangeable law assign to him.
They are now the objects of that very same anger and wrath of God, that is expressed in the torments of hell. And the reason why they do not go down to hell at each moment, is not because God, in whose power they are, is not then very angry with them; as he is with many miserable creatures now tormented in hell, who there feel and bear the fierceness of his wrath. Yea, God is a great deal more angry with great numbers that are now on earth: yea, doubtless, with many that are now in this congregation, who it may be are at ease, than he is with many of those who are now in the flames of hell.
So that it is not because God is unmindful of their wickedness, and does not resent it, that he does not let loose his hand and cut them off. God is not altogether such an one as themselves, though they may imagine him to be so. The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened its mouth under them.
The devil stands ready to fall upon them, and seize them as his own, at what moment God shall permit him. They belong to him; he has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion. The scripture represents them as his goods, Luke 11:12. The devils watch them; they are ever by them at their right hand; they stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions that see their prey, and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back. If God should withdraw his hand, by which they are restrained, they would in one moment fly upon their poor souls. The old serpent is gaping for them; hell opens its mouth wide to receive them; and if God should permit it, they would be hastily swallowed up and lost.
There are in the souls of wicked men those hellish principles reigning, that would presently kindle and flame out into hell fire, if it were not for God's restraints. There is laid in the very nature of carnal men, a foundation for the torments of hell. There are those corrupt principles, in reigning power in them, and in full possession of them, that are seeds of hell fire. These principles are active and powerful, exceeding violent in their nature, and if it were not for the restraining hand of God upon them, they would soon break out, they would flame out after the same manner as the same corruptions, the same enmity does in the hearts of damned souls, and would beget the same torments as they do in them. The souls of the wicked are in scripture compared to the troubled sea, Isa. 57:20. For the present, God restrains their wickedness by his mighty power, as he does the raging waves of the troubled sea, saying, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further;" but if God should withdraw that restraining power, it would soon carry all before it. Sin is the ruin and misery of the soul; it is destructive in its nature; and if God should leave it without restraint, there would need nothing else to make the soul perfectly miserable. The corruption of the heart of man is immoderate and boundless in its fury; and while wicked men live here, it is like fire pent up by God's restraints, whereas if it were let loose, it would set on fire the course of nature; and as the heart is now a sink of sin, so if sin was not restrained, it would immediately turn the soul into fiery oven, or a furnace of fire and brimstone.
It is no security to wicked men for one moment, that there are no visible means of death at hand. It is no security to a natural man, that he is now in health, and that he does not see which way he should now immediately go out of the world by any accident, and that there is no visible danger in any respect in his circumstances. The manifold and continual experience of the world in all ages, shows this is no evidence, that a man is not on the very brink of eternity, and that the next step will not be into another world. The unseen, unthought-of ways and means of persons going suddenly out of the world are innumerable and inconceivable. Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen. The arrows of death fly unseen at noon-day; the sharpest sight cannot discern them. God has so many different unsearchable ways of taking wicked men out of the world and sending them to hell, that there is nothing to make it appear, that God had need to be at the expense of a miracle, or go out of the ordinary course of his providence, to destroy any wicked man, at any moment. All the means that there are of sinners going out of the world, are so in God's hands, and so universally and absolutely subject to his power and determination, that it does not depend at all the less on the mere will of God, whether sinners shall at any moment go to hell, than if means were never made use of, or at all concerned in the case.
Natural men's prudence and care to preserve their own lives, or the care of others to preserve them, do not secure them a moment. To this, divine providence and universal experience do also bear testimony. There is this clear evidence that men's own wisdom is no security to them from death; that if it were otherwise we should see some difference between the wise and politic men of the world, and others, with regard to their liableness to early and unexpected death: but how is it in fact? Eccles. 2:16. "How dieth the wise man? even as the fool."
All wicked men's pains and contrivance which they use to escape hell, while they continue to reject Christ, and so remain wicked men, do not secure them from hell one moment. Almost every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it; he depends upon himself for his own security; he flatters himself in what he has done, in what he is now doing, or what he intends to do. Every one lays out matters in his own mind how he shall avoid damnation, and flatters himself that he contrives well for himself, and that his schemes will not fail. They hear indeed that there are but few saved, and that the greater part of men that have died heretofore are gone to hell; but each one imagines that he lays out matters better for his own escape than others have done. He does not intend to come to that place of torment; he says within himself, that he intends to take effectual care, and to order matters so for himself as not to fail.
But the foolish children of men miserably delude themselves in their own schemes, and in confidence in their own strength and wisdom; they trust to nothing but a shadow. The greater part of those who heretofore have lived under the same means of grace, and are now dead, are undoubtedly gone to hell; and it was not because they were not as wise as those who are now alive: it was not because they did not lay out matters as well for themselves to secure their own escape. If we could speak with them, and inquire of them, one by one, whether they expected, when alive, and when they used to hear about hell, ever to be the subjects of misery: we doubtless, should hear one and another reply, "No, I never intended to come here: I had laid out matters otherwise in my mind; I thought I should contrive well for myself -- I thought my scheme good. I intended to take effectual care; but it came upon me unexpected; I did not look for it at that time, and in that manner; it came as a thief -- Death outwitted me: God's wrath was too quick for me. Oh, my cursed foolishness! I was flattering myself, and pleasing myself with vain dreams of what I would do hereafter; and when I was saying, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction came upon me."
God has laid himself under no obligation, by any promise to keep any natural man out of hell one moment. God certainly has made no promises either of eternal life, or of any deliverance or preservation from eternal death, but what are contained in the covenant of grace, the promises that are given in Christ, in whom all the promises are yea and amen. But surely they have no interest in the promises of the covenant of grace who are not the children of the covenant, who do not believe in any of the promises, and have no interest in the Mediator of the covenant.
So that, whatever some have imagined and pretended about promises made to natural men's earnest seeking and knocking, it is plain and manifest, that whatever pains a natural man takes in religion, whatever prayers he makes, till he believes in Christ, God is under no manner of obligation to keep him a moment from eternal destruction.
So that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger, neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up one moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow them up; the fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out: and they have no interest in any Mediator, there are no means within reach that can be any security to them. In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of; all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God.
Application
The use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted persons in this congregation. This that you have heard is the case of every one of you that are out of Christ. -- That world of misery, that take of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell's wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of; there is nothing between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.
You probably are not sensible of this; you find you are kept out of hell, but do not see the hand of God in it; but look at other things, as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means you use for your own preservation. But indeed these things are nothing; if God should withdraw his hand, they would avail no more to keep you from falling, than the thin air to hold up a person that is suspended in it.
Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider's web would have to stop a falling rock. Were it not for the sovereign pleasure of God, the earth would not bear you one moment; for you are a burden to it; the creation groans with you; the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly; the sun does not willingly shine upon you to give you light to serve sin and Satan; the earth does not willingly yield her increase to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon; the air does not willingly serve you for breath to maintain the flame of life in your vitals, while you spend your life in the service of God's enemies. God's creatures are good, and were made for men to serve God with, and do not willingly subserve to any other purpose, and groan when they are abused to purposes so directly contrary to their nature and end. And the world would spew you out, were it not for the sovereign hand of him who hath subjected it in hope. There are the black clouds of God's wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the restraining hand of God, it would immediately burst forth upon you. The sovereign pleasure of God, for the present, stays his rough wind; otherwise it would come with fury, and your destruction would come like a whirlwind, and you would be like the chaff on the summer threshing floor.
The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course, when once it is let loose. It is true, that judgment against your evil works has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God's vengeance have been withheld; but your guilt in the mean time is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; the waters are constantly rising, and waxing more and more mighty; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If God should only withdraw his hand from the flood-gate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.
The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and safety: now they see, that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.
O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment. -- And consider here more particularly,
Whose wrath it is: it is the wrath of the infinite God. If it were only the wrath of man, though it were of the most potent prince, it would be comparatively little to be regarded. The wrath of kings is very much dreaded, especially of absolute monarchs, who have the possessions and lives of their subjects wholly in their power, to be disposed of at their mere will. Prov. 20:2. "The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion: Whoso provoketh him to anger, sinneth against his own soul." The subject that very much enrages an arbitrary prince, is liable to suffer the most extreme torments that human art can invent, or human power can inflict. But the greatest earthly potentates in their greatest majesty and strength, and when clothed in their greatest terrors, are but feeble, despicable worms of the dust, in comparison of the great and almighty Creator and King of heaven and earth. It is but little that they can do, when most enraged, and when they have exerted the utmost of their fury. All the kings of the earth, before God, are as grasshoppers; they are nothing, and less than nothing: both their love and their hatred is to be despised. The wrath of the great King of kings, is as much more terrible than theirs, as his majesty is greater. Luke 12:4,5. "And I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that, have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: fear him, which after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell: yea, I say unto you, Fear him."
It is the fierceness of his wrath that you are exposed to. We often read of the fury of God; as in Isa. 59:18. "According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay fury to his adversaries." So Isa. 66:15. "For behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire." And in many other places. So, Rev. 19:15, we read of "the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." The words are exceeding terrible. If it had only been said, "the wrath of God," the words would have implied that which is infinitely dreadful: but it is "the fierceness and wrath of God." The fury of God! the fierceness of Jehovah! Oh, how dreadful that must be! Who can utter or conceive what such expressions carry in them! But it is also "the fierceness and wrath of almighty God." As though there would be a very great manifestation of his almighty power in what the fierceness of his wrath should inflict, as though omnipotence should be as it were enraged, and exerted, as men are wont to exert their strength in the fierceness of their wrath. Oh! then, what will be the consequence! What will become of the poor worms that shall suffer it! Whose hands can be strong? And whose heart can endure? To what a dreadful, inexpressible, inconceivable depth of misery must the poor creature be sunk who shall be the subject of this!
Consider this, you that are here present, that yet remain in an unregenerate state. That God will execute the fierceness of his anger, implies, that he will inflict wrath without any pity. When God beholds the ineffable extremity of your case, and sees your torment to be so vastly disproportioned to your strength, and sees how your poor soul is crushed, and sinks down, as it were, into an infinite gloom; he will have no compassion upon you, he will not forbear the executions of his wrath, or in the least lighten his hand; there shall be no moderation or mercy, nor will God then at all stay his rough wind; he will have no regard to your welfare, nor be at all careful lest you should suffer too much in any other sense, than only that you shall not suffer beyond what strict justice requires. Nothing shall be withheld, because it is so hard for you to bear. Ezek. 8:18. "Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet I will not hear them." Now God stands ready to pity you; this is a day of mercy; you may cry now with some encouragement of obtaining mercy. But when once the day of mercy is past, your most lamentable and dolorous cries and shrieks will be in vain; you will be wholly lost and thrown away of God, as to any regard to your welfare. God will have no other use to put you to, but to suffer misery; you shall be continued in being to no other end; for you will be a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction; and there will be no other use of this vessel, but to be filled full of wrath. God will be so far from pitying you when you cry to him, that it is said he will only "laugh and mock," Prov. 1:25,26,etc.
How awful are those words, Isa. 63:3, which are the words of the great God. "I will tread them in mine anger, and will trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment." It is perhaps impossible to conceive of words that carry in them greater manifestations of these three things, viz. contempt, and hatred, and fierceness of indignation. If you cry to God to pity you, he will be so far from pitying you in your doleful case, or showing you the least regard or favour, that instead of that, he will only tread you under foot. And though he will know that you cannot bear the weight of omnipotence treading upon you, yet he will not regard that, but he will crush you under his feet without mercy; he will crush out your blood, and make it fly, and it shall be sprinkled on his garments, so as to stain all his raiment. He will not only hate you, but he will have you in the utmost contempt: no place shall be thought fit for you, but under his feet to be trodden down as the mire of the streets.
The misery you are exposed to is that which God will inflict to that end, that he might show what that wrath of Jehovah is. God hath had it on his heart to show to angels and men, both how excellent his love is, and also how terrible his wrath is. Sometimes earthly kings have a mind to show how terrible their wrath is, by the extreme punishments they would execute on those that would provoke them. Nebuchadnezzar, that mighty and haughty monarch of the Chaldean empire, was willing to show his wrath when enraged with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; and accordingly gave orders that the burning fiery furnace should be heated seven times hotter than it was before; doubtless, it was raised to the utmost degree of fierceness that human art could raise it. But the great God is also willing to show his wrath, and magnify his awful majesty and mighty power in the extreme sufferings of his enemies. Rom. 9:22. "What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?" And seeing this is his design, and what he has determined, even to show how terrible the unrestrained wrath, the fury and fierceness of Jehovah is, he will do it to effect. There will be something accomplished and brought to pass that will be dreadful with a witness. When the great and angry God hath risen up and executed his awful vengeance on the poor sinner, and the wretch is actually suffering the infinite weight and power of his indignation, then will God call upon the whole universe to behold that awful majesty and mighty power that is to be seen in it. Isa. 33:12-14. "And the people shall be as the burnings of lime, as thorns cut up shall they be burnt in the fire. Hear ye that are far off, what I have done; and ye that are near, acknowledge my might. The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites," etc.
Thus it will be with you that are in an unconverted state, if you continue in it; the infinite might, and majesty, and terribleness of the omnipotent God shall be magnified upon you, in the ineffable strength of your torments. You shall be tormented in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and when you shall be in this state of suffering, the glorious inhabitants of heaven shall go forth and look on the awful spectacle, that they may see what the wrath and fierceness of the Almighty is; and when they have seen it, they will fall down and adore that great power and majesty. Isa. 66:23,24. "And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh."
It is everlasting wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see a long for ever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul; and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains. So that your punishment will indeed be infinite. Oh, who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! All that we can possibly say about it, gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it; it is inexpressible and inconceivable: For "who knows the power of God's anger?"
How dreadful is the state of those that are daily and hourly in the danger of this great wrath and infinite misery! But this is the dismal case of every soul in this congregation that has not been born again, however moral and strict, sober and religious, they may otherwise be. Oh that you would consider it, whether you be young or old! There is reason to think, that there are many in this congregation now hearing this discourse, that will actually be the subjects of this very misery to all eternity. We know not who they are, or in what seats they sit, or what thoughts they now have. It may be they are now at ease, and hear all these things without much disturbance, and are now flattering themselves that they are not the persons, promising themselves that they shall escape. If we knew that there was one person, and but one, in the whole congregation, that was to be the subject of this misery, what an awful thing would it be to think of! If we knew who it was, what an awful sight would it be to see such a person! How might all the rest of the congregation lift up a lamentable and bitter cry over him! But, alas! instead of one, how many is it likely will remember this discourse in hell? And it would be a wonder, if some that are now present should not be in hell in a very short time, even before this year is out. And it would be no wonder if some persons, that now sit here, in some seats of this meeting-house, in health, quiet and secure, should be there before tomorrow morning. Those of you that finally continue in a natural condition, that shall keep out of hell longest will be there in a little time! your damnation does not slumber; it will come swiftly, and, in all probability, very suddenly upon many of you. You have reason to wonder that you are not already in hell. It is doubtless the case of some whom you have seen and known, that never deserved hell more than you, and that heretofore appeared as likely to have been now alive as you. Their case is past all hope; they are crying in extreme misery and perfect despair; but here you are in the land of the living and in the house of God, and have an opportunity to obtain salvation. What would not those poor damned hopeless souls give for one day's opportunity such as you now enjoy!
And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open, and stands in calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners; a day wherein many are flocking to him, and pressing into the kingdom of God. Many are daily coming from the east, west, north and south; many that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are in, are now in a happy state, with their hearts filled with love to him who has loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own blood, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God. How awful is it to be left behind at such a day! To see so many others feasting, while you are pining and perishing! To see so many rejoicing and singing for joy of heart, while you have cause to mourn for sorrow of heart, and howl for vexation of spirit! How can you rest one moment in such a condition? Are not your souls as precious as the souls of the people at Suffield, where they are flocking from day to day to Christ?
Are there not many here who have lived long in the world, and are not to this day born again? and so are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and have done nothing ever since they have lived, but treasure up wrath against the day of wrath? Oh, sirs, your case, in an especial manner, is extremely dangerous. Your guilt and hardness of heart is extremely great. Do you not see how generality persons of your years are passed over and left, in the present remarkable and wonderful dispensation of God's mercy? You had need to consider yourselves, and awake thoroughly out of sleep. You cannot bear the fierceness and wrath of the infinite God. -- And you, young men, and young women, will you neglect this precious season which you now enjoy, when so many others of your age are renouncing all youthful vanities, and flocking to Christ? You especially have now an extraordinary opportunity; but if you neglect it, it will soon be with you as with those persons who spent all the precious days of youth in sin, and are now come to such a dreadful pass in blindness and hardness. -- And you, children, who are unconverted, do not you know that you are going down to hell, to bear the dreadful wrath of that God, who is now angry with you every day and every night? Will you be content to be the children of the devil, when so many other children in the land are converted, and are become the holy and happy children of the King of kings?
And let every one that is yet out of Christ, and hanging over the pit of hell, whether they be old men and women, or middle aged, or young people, or little children, now hearken to the loud calls of God's word and providence. This acceptable year of the Lord, a day of such great favour to some, will doubtless be a day of as remarkable vengeance to others. Men's hearts harden, and their guilt increases apace at such a day as this, if they neglect their souls; and never was there so great danger of such persons being given up to hardness of heart and blindness of mind. God seems now to be hastily gathering in his elect in all parts of the land; and probably the greater part of adult persons that ever shall be saved, will be brought in now in a little time, and that it will be as it was on the great out-pouring of the Spirit upon the Jews in the apostles' days; the election will obtain, and the rest will be blinded. If this should be the case with you, you will eternally curse this day, and will curse the day that ever you was born, to see such a season of the pouring out of God's Spirit, and will wish that you had died and gone to hell before you had seen it. Now undoubtedly it is, as it was in the days of John the Baptist, the axe is in an extraordinary manner laid at the root of the trees, that every tree which brings not forth good fruit, may be hewn down and cast into the fire.
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Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation. Let every one fly out of Sodom: "Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed."

Is There A Literal, Burning Hell? Sermon by Roger Bovee

2007-07-29T11:04:00.000-07:00

Most modern ministers don't talk much about hell any more, and probably don't even believe in it. A study was made that Catholic and Protestant churches both now rarely mention hell as they both used to years ago. There's a lot of talk about heaven from these modern ministers, but little if any mention of hell. I've attended church all my life but have only heard two sermons on hell.

But the Bible still talks about it. "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. For the needy shall not alway be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish forever." Psalm 9:17,18. This would imply that the rich who are unsympathetic to the poor would be especially likely to end up in hell. Jesus Christ told the story of Lazarus and an unsympathetic rich man. The poor man, Lazarus, died and went to heaven while the rich man "also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments." Luke 16:19-31.

James 5:1-6 says, "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you." There's still time to repent. See http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/5021/5021_01.asp