THIS MESSAGE MAY NOT SEEN VERY IMPORTANT TO A LOT OF PEOPLE TODAY, BUT TO ME IT IS IMPORTANT, FOR EVERY TRUE CHILD OF GOD KNOWS THAT WE ARE WHAT WE ARE, ONLY BY THE GRACE AND MERCY OF OUR WONDERFUL HEAVENLY FATHER. WE ARE NOT CHILDREN OF GOD JUST BECAUSE WE ONE DAY, DECIDED TO BECOME CHRISTIANS. WE HAVE BEEN TAUGHT LIKE THAT IN OUR DENOMINATIONAL PAST, BUT THAT IS A FAR CRY FROM THE REALITY OF A TRUE EXPERIENCE OF HOLY GHOST CONVICTION AND SALVATION. GOD, BY HIS SPIRIT, FIRST HAD TO CONVICT US, AND DRAW US TO HIMSELF, SO WE ARE NOT WHAT WE ARE BY OUR OWN EFFORTS ALONE. ONE THING WE SHOULD NOT DO THOUGH, IS BLAME GOD WHEN WE ALLOW OURSELVES TO BECOME CONTENTED WITH THE COMPROMISING SPIRIT AROUND US, AND WE CEASE TO GROW SPIRITUALLY. HE IS NOT THE AUTHOR OF PERVERSION, CONFUSION, AND CARNAL COMPROMISE, BUT WE WILL ALL HAVE TO ADMIT THAT WE ARE SURROUNDED BY THAT SORT OF ATMOSPHERE ALMOST EVERYWHERE WE GO TODAY. THAT IS WHY WE CANNOT MEASURE OUR OWN SPIRITUAL STATURE BY WHAT WE SEE OTHER PROFESSING CHRISTIANS DOING, OR HEAR THEM SAYING.

IT IS NOT MY PURPOSE TO UNCHRISTIANIZE ANYONE, NOR TAKE AWAY FROM ANYONE, ANYTHING THAT THEY HAVE RECEIVED FROM THE LORD, BUT TO HELP EVERY TRUE CHILD OF GOD GET A VISION OF GOD’S FINISHED PRODUCT, STRICTLY FROM A BIBLE STANDPOINT. THEREFORE I EXPECT MANY OF MY STATEMENTS TO BE MISUNDERSTOOD BY THOSE WHO ARE NOT ALLOWING THE HOLY GHOST TO HELP THEM LISTEN. I KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT: I CAN LOOK BACK AT MY OWN PAST LIFE AND SEE HOW I SAT WITH CERTAIN PREFIXED IDEAS, LISTENING TO WHAT WAS BEING SAID, BUT NOT REALLY HEARING AFTER ALL. THAT IS WHY CERTAIN THINGS WERE HARD FOR ME TO ACCEPT. I JUST THOUGHT, GOD HAS SAVED ME FROM MY SINS, AND I AM ON MY WAY TO HEAVEN, SO WHAT ELSE IS THERE FOR ME TO KNOW, OR DO? WHAT COULD MAKE THAT ANY BETTER? THANK GOD, I KNOW BETTER TODAY, AND THAT IS WHY I BELIEVE I CAN PRESENT SOMETHING FROM THE WORD OF GOD, THAT CAN HELP MANY OF YOU, IF YOU WILL JUST ALLOW THE HOLY GHOST TO HELP YOU HEAR IT. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO FOLLOW THE SAME PATTERN OTHERS HAVE FOLLOWED BEFORE THEY FINALLY REACHED A PLATEAU OF REVELATION TRUTH. YOU CAN AVOID MANY OF SATAN’S HINDRANCES, AND WALK RIGHT ON IN GOD’S WONDERFUL LIGHT, IF YOU KNOW WHAT THOSE HINDRANCES ARE, AHEAD OF TIME.

THE HOUSE OF GOD

One thing you need to be conscious of, is that the Church is not some natural building of wood, steel, brick, nor stone: it is born again souls from every nation under heaven. But not everyone who claims to be born again, really is, for Satan has sown his tares among the good seed, and we do not know which one’s are which. Nevertheless it has become common practice for people to refer to the church house as “The Church,” and millions are spent building these beautiful edifices, and they are looked upon as holy, but the truth is, He who is holy never has any part in what goes on in most of them. Jesus did not die on the cross to cause these huge, beautiful buildings to be erected, for He looked at one that had been built already, and said, Tear it down, and I will raise it up again in three days. That building was called, “The Temple of God,” but the temple that God dwells in today is individuals that have been redeemed from sin and degradation, and allowed him to move into the temple of their own bodies. That is what the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, (1^st Cor. 6:19) “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” Therefore what was raised up in three days, was the body of Jesus the Christ, the only kind of temple that God has dwelt in for almost two thousand years now. So God’s building is made up of individual people which the apostle Peter referred to as lively stones. (1^st Peter 2:5) “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” We find various terminologies used in the New Testament to express this relationship between God and His redeemed children, and every one of them point to the fact that the house of God is His family, not some building built for the purpose of shelter from the elements when we meet for worship. Ephesians 2:19-22 says, “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, (That is what Gentiles were before they received the gospel.) But fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; (Notice now.) And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” Scriptures like that, let us know where God really dwells, so we should be thankful just to have a comfortable place to meet, and not be concerned about trying to build a church house larger than someone else has, with a taller steeple, stained glass windows, and all those things that the natural mind takes pride in. After all, What is Jesus Christ coming back for? Is He coming for these beautiful man made buildings? No, He is coming for all those human buildings that the Spirit of God has been allowed to dwell in. No, He will not take everyone who claims to be filled with the Holy Ghost, He will only take the one’s that really are, and believe me, He knows who they are. God Himself is the author of this great separation that is taking place today, so do not blame the devil. The devil is busy getting religious bodies bonded together, and God is busy separating much of what the devil would like to have all going to same way.

WHAT SEVEN CERTAIN PARABLES POINT TO

Let us open our Bibles to the 13^th chapter of Matthew, where we will examine a parable spoken by Jesus almost two thousand years ago. A lot of church people have the idea that these parables do not mean a thing to the church, because they seem so insignificant. But let me remind you that these parables conceal the simplicity of God from the wise, educated, Doctors of Divinity, and by His very own Spirit, God reveals that hidden truth to those that hunger and thirst after righteousness. These theologians teach the scriptures mostly from the standpoint of God saving lost souls, and certainly we realize that without the saving of lost souls, what God is doing could not be called redemption, but we also need to realize that the gospel was never meant to be presented to mankind as a fire insurance policy only. That is only the beginning of what God is doing among His predestinated children in this old world. Not only is He saving them from destruction; He is also separating them from everything that would prevent them from being perfected. When we truly understand what God is doing through His great plan of redemption, we know that the day will come when no more souls will be saved. Yet the world will still be filled with multitudes of ungodly men and women, so what is the answer? This second parable of Matthew 13 tells us who those multitudes are, and allows us to see why they will not be saved, no matter how many times they may hear the gospel preached, so let us read verses 24 & 25, to get the setting. “Another parable put He (Jesus) forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.” Jesus used natural conditions to portray spiritual realities in His parables, and denominational people read them, but they never get a true revelation of what they contain. They only have theories and suppositions. If they really had a revelation, they would not be where they are. There are seven parables in this 13^th chapter of Matthew, and each one of them point to a spiritual condition the church will pass through in this dispensation of grace. Not seven ways to save sinners, but seven definite divisions in this period of time referred to as the kingdom of heaven. Now the kingdom of heaven is not the same thing as the kingdom of God. The kingdom of heaven is the period of time in which the kingdom of God is being established in the hearts of his redeemed children. When we go into the book of Revelation, in chapter 2 & 3, we find seven outstanding churches mentioned, that were established during the early years of Christianity, in Asia Minor, that in 96 A.D. had spiritual conditions in them, that typed these same conditions the parables of Matthew 13 pointed to. You can take those seven parables, and lay them alongside the seven churches of Asia Minor, and each one, according to their numerical listing in the Bible, will identify with a certain period of time the church of the living God has passed through since the day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost was given to those first believers. We are now living in the seventh age, or division. The one that has conditions that identify with the conditions pointed out in the letter to the church of Laodicea. That is why this is called the Laodicean church age. This is the age that parable number seven of Matthew 13:47 points to, for in this age, a large gospel net has been cast out into the sea of people, and gathered of every kind, and now the great separation is taking place, described in verse 48, where the good are gathered into vessels, and the bad cast away. Therefore just as the kingdom of heaven had a beginning, it will also have an end. Grace for Gentiles is coming to an end, and there is not one thing that any of us can do to slow it down, nor speed it up. It all has to coincide with God’s foreordained plan for the ages. Therefore just as certain people knew when the grace age started, so will certain ones know when it is coming to an end. The apostle Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica, telling them what would take place prior to our gathering together unto the Lord in the rapture. First there would be a falling away, and then that man of sin would be revealed, that son of perdition which will be the literal Antichrist. Now let me ask you, What do you think falling away, means? Paul was not talking about drunks, prostitutes, gamblers, perverts, and all that worldly crowd falling away from anything. He was talking about something that had already been established, reaching an hour of apostasy as time for Gentiles draws to a close. All these things were written for our learning and admonition, in order that we might recognize the hour we are living in. We have seen prophecies fulfilled, that had to be fulfilled before we could look for these other signs. Everything has to be kept in its proper order according to all that is written in the scriptures, but it is obvious that the restraining hand of the Spirit of God is being lifted in order to allow Satan to do what he is destined to do to set the stage for the Lord’s return. In the 17^th chapter of Luke, Jesus said conditions on earth would be as they were in the days of Noah when every imagination of man’s heart was only evil continually, and as it was in the days of Lot, when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of perversion and evil, when He returns again. You do not get all of that from one scripture, but if you want to read Matthew 24, Luke 17, Genesis 6, and Genesis 19, you can get the picture together. But what I want you to see, is that we have those conditions all around us. God is just waiting for all of it to reach a certain point, and for the last predestined soul to heed the gospel call. We do not know the day nor the hour, but we do know that it is getting close. In 2^nd Thessalonians 2:7, Paul wrote, that the mystery of iniquity (the spirit of Antichrist) was already at work, but the Holy Ghost has been restraining it for 1900 years, only allowing it to go so far, but as He draws back His restraining power that has kept certain convictions of decency and morality even upon sinners, the world is fast losing those convictions, and ungodliness is the order of the day. Murder and perversion is in the news every day, and there is nothing that mankind will not stoop to in this hour. Perversion, crime, and violence did not just suddenly break out; it has gradually built up to where it is today.

DEMONIC INVASIONS OF THE CHURCHES

I remember years ago when rock and roll music was introduced. It did not start out in the churches, but it was not too long until it was knocking on the church house doors, and an awful lot of church leaders let it walk right in. There was a picture in the newspaper back then, of a famous rock and roll singer dancing right in the aisle of the church with the pastor. He was dressed like a priest; and she was wearing shorts, and I suppose what they did was sanctioned by the congregation, (I do not know about that) but I will tell you this much for sure, God did not sanction it. They may call that Christianity, but my Bible lets me know that it is not. It is a Satanic invasion of what has been looked upon as a church of the Christian faith. But my main purpose in bringing this up is to warn some of you that these abominable invasions can take place anywhere. Just sitting in a secluded place of worship, does not give anyone immunity from the workings of those powers of darkness. The only thing that will give you immunity, is to be filled with the Holy Ghost, and allow that Spirit to lead you into all the light of God’s word. There is absolutely no religious band wagon that you can climb aboard, and sit there dangling your feet, and sing your way to glory. I have heard people testify, I am saved, sanctified, satisfied, and on my way to heaven, but I am here to tell you, there is a lot more to it than that; there is a life to be lived in the meantime. My Bible tells me, that judgment must first begin at the house of God, and Peter was not talking about some church building someplace when he said that. Let me read it. (1^st Peter 4:17-18) “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” Peter, Paul, James and John, did not preach the gospel just for the purpose of keeping souls out of hell; they knew God’s plan of redemption was to restore mankind back to the place Adam forfeited, and they also knew that only those that were foreknown of God from before the foundation of the world would accept the gospel and allow the Holy Ghost to lead them all the way. They did not have tares in their assemblies then, but they knew Jesus did not speak that parable in vain, so they were bound to come later, and they wrote concerning them. In his second epistle, Peter is making the point that no prophecy of the scriptures is of any private interpretation, and he spoke of how every true prophecy was spoken by holy men of old as they were moved by the Spirit of God to do so. Then, coming into chapter 2, he says, “but there were false prophets also among the people, EVEN AS THERE SHALL BE FALSE TEACHERS AMONG YOU, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways: by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.” He goes on to tell how they will use words of deception, to make merchandise of the true saints, and all such like, and certainly we would have to confess that this has happened just like he said, so let us read another parable from Matthew 13, that pointed to it.

TWO PARABLES EXPLAINED

Jesus spoke four parables, and then he sent the multitude away, and went into the house, and His disciples came to Him there, and said, “Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.” We will read that in a little while, but first, let us read the fourth parable. Verse 33, “Another parable spake He unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid three measures of mean, till the whole was leavened.” The fulfillment of this fourth parable is what took the church into the Dark Ages. The woman was the Catholic Church, and the leaven was her false doctrines. Meal is what you make bread out of, and bread, in the scriptures, speaks of the true revealed word of God. Therefore leaven here, speaks of her creeds and dogmas, and tradition, that this woman has mixed into the word of God. She took the whole word of God, split it up, and made God a trinity. She took the three workings of grace, justification, sanctification, and baptism of the Holy Ghost, and turned them into moneymaking rituals that her priests administer, and the Holy Ghost has no part in them. Naturally our younger generation cannot know what went on unless we teach them, for there has been an effort made, to replace all the old history books that really presented the Catholic Church for what she is, in the fact that they gave details of what really took place during those Dark Age years. It is no wonder the word of God calls her the great whore, and the mother of harlots. What better words could be used to identify her. Spiritually, she is a whore, and the Bible condemns her to die, and furthermore she has produced some daughters that the Bible calls harlots, and they are going to have to face the judgment of God, just like their old mother. It is easy to see why Communism is making so many inroads in various parts of the world today, for according to Revelation 17, God is going to use Communism to judge Catholicism. Catholicism has always been a breeding ground for extreme political factions with fanatical ideas. Whenever you see Communism rising on the scene some place, just take note of the religious influence and dominion the people have been subjected to before that. You will certainly not find it to have been Protestant. In many nations of the world, Catholicism has held its subjects captive in a more ruthless way than Communism ever dreamed of, and I am not talking about just in the Dark Ages either. Now some may ask, How did Catholicism ever get started in the first place? Well, it did not happen suddenly. Catholicism is Antichrist, and its agents are tares, so we will look at the parable Jesus spoke about them, at this time. You will notice in the parable, that when the tares were discovered, the servants asked, Shall we go and gather them up? But the master replied, “Nay, let while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.” When we read the interpretation of this parable, you will be able to make an application of it, but without that interpretation, minds run wild. That is why the disciples of Jesus came to Him, and said, “Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.” I hope you will pay attention to this, for these tares are not to be thought of, just as insignificant individuals floating around out here in the world. Tares have had a profound influence and affect on Christianity. No, they are not something you look for, out in the beer joints and pool halls. They sit right in the church house alongside the true children of God, and many of them build some of the most elaborate buildings to meet in, that the world has ever seen, and they are called Protestants, so they are not all in the Catholic Church system. The point is, They are identified with religion, regardless of how Antichrist they may actually be. Notice now, beginning in verse 37. “He (Jesus) answered them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the CHILDREN of the wicked one: (the devil) The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man (Jesus) shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.” I hope you can see by now, that tares are not people of the world who spend their time drinking, gambling, and just playing around. Before the grace of God got hold of your life, that is where you were. You may have been raised up under a Christian influence, but until you actually surrendered your life to Jesus, you were just as bad, and as much a sinner as any of them. It is not how big your sins are, that makes you a sinner for we were all sinners until we were born again by the Spirit of God. Naturally some had higher moral standards than others, but the new birth is the only thing that can put you into the family of God. So do not think a tare is some drunk, sitting somewhere, talking out of turn. You can pick up a character like that, and throw him out, if you need to, but a tare will sit right there, and feed off of the same thing the children of God do, just like those plants out in the field feed off of the same water and nutrients from the soil that the good wheat feeds from. That is what the parable says, if you will read it for what Jesus meant it for. When the church passed from the first century into the second, Satan was allowed to sow his children among the true saints, and they have been there ever since. Speaking spiritually, they are not in the church, for the church is God’s true children, but they sit among the church in the church house, and there came the time when their number and influence outranked that of the true saints, so they laid out the course for the church to follow. People would like to think that the church is all this great conglomeration of professing people that to go a meeting place regularly, regardless of the fact that they wear many different robes, and teach many different things. Oh, we may not believe exactly alike, but we are all going to heaven, so we need to get together and love each other without fussing over doctrines. Brothers and Sisters: There is no such picture in the Bible. That is a tare talking, and they are not on their way to heaven. God has never saved a tare yet, and furthermore He is not going to; they are on their way to the lake of fire, and they will try to drag a true child of God along with them, but God will only let a thing like that go so far, for He will never lose one of His foreknown children. Now, Bro. Jackson: That is strong language, and it is hard for me to accept. It may be hard to accept, but it is true, so I will say it again, God has never saved a tare, and He never will. No child of the devil will ever experience the new birth that seals the children of God in that great family. What some of you may have thought was children of the devil before they were born of the Spirit of God, because of the way they lived, was in reality, only servants of the devil. Many times, God’s foreknown children are faithful servants of the devil for years, before they hear the gospel of their inheritance, but they were not Satan’s children. That is why it is called redemption, simply because God’s foreknown children were sold into bondage to the devil, and a redemption price had to be paid, but Praise God, it was paid at Calvary, one price for all.

TARES SEEM AS GENUINE AS THE TRUE CHILDREN

Yes we have had to sit in fellowship with tares, singing, shouting, dancing, and praying together, with only God Himself knowing for sure which one’s were tares. But the time is coming, that God is going to take off their disguise, and separate them from His true children, that their perfection may be completed. Through the ages, tares have read the same scriptures we have, and their testimonies of the grace and mercy of God have sounded just as sincere and genuine as anyone else. But when it come down to final preparations for the marriage supper, they will no longer be able to fake it. That will tell the story. They will be unable to submit to the full leading of the Holy Spirit. They enjoy reading John 3:16, and all those pet verses used by those that just major on getting souls saved, but they reject anything that goes beyond their traditional teachings, anything that requires total dedication of body, soul, mind and spirit to a life of true holiness. One thing we need to remember though, Not one verse of scripture in the whole New Testament was ever written to a tare. Every epistle was addressed to the saints at Ephesus, Philippi, Colossi, and so forth, or to certain individuals which were brethren in the faith. But as I have stated many times before: there were no pretenders in those early assemblies. No Judiastic Jew nor pagan Gentile would have dared to be identified with the Christians unless they had received a true experience of God’s grace first. Furthermore there was no doctrinal divisions among them. There was never any reason for any of them to stand around arguing points of belief, for they all believed the same thing. Why? Because Satan had not at that time been allowed to pervert the gospel. It was preached pure and undefiled. That is why there were no trinity baptisms in the book of Acts; Satan had not been allowed to chop God up into three persons. They all preached one God manifested in the person of His only begotten Son, and no one even thought that the Holy Ghost was another person of the Godhead. They all knew the Holy Ghost was that same sovereign Spirit that counseled with Himself, and then created all things by His very own word. It is just that He is exercising Himself in a different office work now; redemption rather than creation. Do you think you can go into a trinity church and teach one God though? Forget it. You may as well try to put a lettuce bed on the moon. They will throw you out on your ear, and call you a heretic. The trinity is sacred to them. They will tell you, Why, the whole world believes in the holy trinity, and you have the nerve to stand up and tell us that there is no such thing as a trinity. They think the great masses are the determining factor, but with God, that has never been true. Jesus did not have very many following Him, along toward the end. He had preached to multitudes, fed a great multitude with a very small lunch, and also healed multitudes of sick and diseased folks, but when it came down to following Him for the truth’s sake, only one hundred and twenty souls actually did what He told them to do. Those are the ones that waited in an upper room until they received the promise of the Father, the baptism of the Holy Ghost. They were some of the good seed of that second parable. Then a little later, another three thousand of those good seed were manifested, and a few days later, another five thousand, but there were no tares among them yet. Brother, they could not even tell a lie, and get by with it; the Holy Ghost would instantly take their life from them. I have heard people say, What we need is some Ananias and Sapphira discipline in the church. But I guarantee you, Not many people are desiring that. Some of these great congregations today, would be very small, if the Holy Ghost did within their ranks, what He did to Ananias and Sapphira just because they pretended to give more of their substance than they really did. No one told them that they had to give any certain amount, but when they lied about what they were giving, the Holy Ghost just simply cut them off pure and simple.

HOW SATAN ATTACKS CHRISTIANS

Now saints, I do not know what God may do along these lines as time for Gentiles closes out, but I do know that every true child of God is going to have to get their lives in line with the word of God. All traditional beliefs and opinions will have to be discarded. There will be no place in the church of the living God, for man’s creeds, dogmas and bylaws. The only bylaws that will stand the test, are those that are written in the Bible, No man made system will be spared the wrath of God. Before there ever was a manmade church system, the Bible had already condemned them. Bro. Jackson: How do you know that is what it is referring to? Because all other political systems that were in existence when Christianity came, are long gone. Apostate Christendom is the only system of man that has lasted right on through the ages, and it will continue right on through to the end, to ride the beast, and fulfill the scriptures to the coming of the Lord. But now I want to make another point. Knowing that there are children of two families going to the same church assemblies, the good seed, (God’s children) and the tare seed, (Satan’s children) that means this, When you come to church, you either bring one of two spirits with you. You either bring God or the devil; they are both spirits. Now there is no reason to become offended at me for saying that, for I am only telling you what is written right here in the Bible. Even children of God many times are so oppressed by the devil, they cannot seem to grasp truth when they hear it, so their reaction may be just the opposite of what it ought to be. In other words, If the devil cannot keep a person from yielding their heart to God, he will at least try to keep that person from growing in the Lord by constantly bombarding their mind with misleading thoughts, and he will keep it up as long as he can get by with it. That is why some people are always having doubts about their salvation; those oppressing demons are constantly casting accusations at them. Of course some folks will always jump up and say, Bless God, I believe when we are saved we know we are saved. Technically you are right, but please do not try to tell me that the Holy Ghost gives you immunity from a Satanic attack. Growth in the stature of the Lord is what brings that concrete assurance concerning our salvation. Even Jesus Christ who received the Spirit without measure was attacked by Satan when He went into the wilderness to fast and pray. Therefore if the devil was allowed to cast all those questions at Him, what makes anyone think he would not be allowed to throw rocks in our pathway also? The beautiful thing about it, is that Jesus showed us how to overcome him with the very word of God. But on the other hand, We have to realize that not every new Christian can be expected to handle the word of God so effectively. The devil makes it his business to keep you from growing in the Lord. Not just individuals, but whole congregations as well. There is no time limit on spiritual growth. Some grow rapidly, while others hardly grow at all. It depends mostly on what you are taught, and how much you yield to the Holy Ghost to open your understanding. Jesus said, in John 16:13, that when the Spirit of truth (the Holy Ghost) comes, He will guide you into all truth, and that is exactly what He will do for every true child of God, but a guide does not force you to follow. He will lead the way, but if you do not follow your guide, you will usually take the wrong turn somewhere along the way. That is exactly how it is in our spiritual journey; if we do not follow our guide, we wind up in trouble. Brothers and Sisters: If what I am saying disturbs you, don’t get scared. As I said, I am not trying to unchristianize you, but help you. The sad truth is, too many people want to get to a place where they can just sit down, rock along, take it easy, and feel secure. But unless you have a well rounded understanding of the word of God, your boat is going to get overturned from time to time. On the other hand, If you do, you do not have to get all excited, and scared half to death, and feel like the devil is after you, when you hear something a little different. I have always said, Just put it back in a filing cabinet somewhere and do not worry about it. If it is of God, and it is to be beneficial to your Christian life, all you need do, is just go on serving the Lord with your whole heart, praying for anything that would be beneficial to your growth in His stature, and the time will come, that He will say, Remember that? Go get it. Oh, I have had to do that ever so many times through the years. Then, it just drops right into your understanding, and you will usually say, Why didn’t I see that before? The Bible tells us to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and there is no other way to do that apart from learning the truth that is concealed in this time tested old book I hold here. (The Bible) We ought to approach this gold claim; always looking for nuggets. There are some large ones, and there are some small ones, but they are every one pure gold. Hallelujah! You can be rich, if you will just let the Holy Ghost lead your life, and guide you into all truth. You will certainly not be read to meet Jesus Christ when He comes for His bride, if you do not. How many of you believe that time is close at hand? By all the natural signs around us, it cannot be too much longer. What does the Bible say He is coming for? (Ephesians 5:27) A church without spot, wrinkle, or blemish. How is she to be prepared and made ready? (Ephesians 5:26) By the washing of the water by the word of God. That does not sound like anything that a denominational organization could turn out. Do you think so? It sounds like something that the Spirit of God has really dealt with, through the pages of the word of God, to me.

SOME WAYS TARES ARE BUNDLED

When Jesus spoke that parable about the tares being sown, and the disciples asked Him to explain it to them, He made some very specific points, and they are still just as specific today. First we see that the field is the world. That means that there are tares in every area of the world, just like there are children of God throughout the whole world. Second, the good seed are the CHILDREN of the kingdom, (the kingdom of God) and thirdly, the tares are the CHILDREN of the WICKED ONE, (the devil.) That is why I said, No tare will ever be saved, for they are already born of a spirit, but it is that spirit of death. “The enemy that sowed them is the devil; (Jesus said) the harvest is the end of the world; (the end of the age) and the reapers are the angels. (Angels use people) As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Saints please do not look at that as though all the tares are suddenly going to be snatched up and thrown into a furnace somewhere. The bundling has been going on for a long time now. Every time you see various denominations being drawn together in some great program of unity, you are seeing tares being bundled. Every time someone preaches something that draws people away from the true word of God, you just have to realize that it is all fulfilling prophecies of the scriptures. Angels are ministering spirits that actually carry out the program of God, for we read in Hebrews concerning angels, (1:14) “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” But they not only minister to the heirs of salvation as guardian angels, they also oversee the business of separating tares from the true body, and getting them all tied together in some man made program of condemnation. Do not forget the scripture that says, God will send strong delusion upon all them that have no love for the truth, so that they may all be damned because of it. Tares love to be religious, and they are aggressive about it, but they care very little about whether what they teach can be lined up with the scriptures or not. Therefore they will go after anything that sounds good to their carnal way of looking at things, and they think they are really doing God a service when they get involved in all these great programs, but what they are really doing is just allowing themselves to be tied together with others of their kind, and the day of their burning is just as sure as God Himself. But, Bro. Jackson: I have felt the Spirit of God in those meetings where various denominations get together. Sure you have, Jesus said He would send forth His angels to gather them together, and He does not give them a ball bat to beat the people over the head with, He just allows a certain anointing to be present. People who have no love for the truth will follow an anointing every time, “Oh, this has to be God; I feel His Spirit.” Yes, but you are just like old Cain, you are given your chance to do right, and you choose to do wrong, so do not accuse God of being unjust. Jesus never did tell anyone that the Holy Ghost would be sent just so they could feel His Spirit. No, the Holy Ghost was sent to lead all who would follow His leading, into all truth, not many sensations.

REACTIONS OF A DENOMINATIONAL SPIRIT

Saints in every age have been accepted of God because they walked in whatever little measure of truth they had. But there has never been a time in all the history of Christianity that can compare with the day and hour we are living in. A great light has been shined upon our pathway, and it has been offered to the world at large, but men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. Religion is a popular thing, but true Holy Ghost salvation is in the minority category amidst these great multitudes. Only a small minority are willing to walk with God in truth, regardless of the cost to the flesh. Nevertheless even though we are a minority compared to the whole scope of religion, when you consider that minority element from every nation under heaven, they will also add up to a great multitude, and their only head is Jesus Christ. The earl church did not have organizational headship, and neither will the endtime church. Wait a minute now! Why did certain ones in the Bible go up to Jerusalem for answers? They went to Jerusalem to get clarification on certain revelations taught by the apostles, in order that they might have them confirmed as gospel facts. That is why the early Christians all believed the same things: every effort was made to get the facts straight, and no one took it upon themselves just to preach a personal opinion, and pass it off as the word of God. That has only been done since the gospel was perverted by the tares Satan sowed among the true seed of God. All these many brands of religion today, are a result of the Reformation. True men of God protested that old Catholic dogma because of certain truths that were revealed to them from the word of God, but their descendants, many of whom were without the Spirit of God to lead them into further truth just built them a fence around what they had already, but the moment they did, they shut God out. They drew up their bylaws and articles of faith in an effort to keep heresy out of their midst, but that also shut the door to any further revelation from the Spirit of God, so God just had to bypass them, and move on with someone else. Each move had a little more than the previous one, but none of them would leave the door open to the Spirit of revelation. Even today, there are thousands of people living on this old earth that have been privileged to hear the Laodicean church age messenger take those truths from all these various denominational church systems, and present them to the church of the living God in one package, and many of them right today, will stand up and tell you, This is all there is. There will be no more revelation for the church. Anything God wants the church to know, can be found in the Spoken Word Books. But wait a minute, saints: God is not dead. Do not allow Satan to play with your mind like that. As long as the Church is still here, there will still be fresh meat for her to feed upon from the word of God. Any spirit that tries to close the door on revelation before God gets ready to close it, is that same spirit that is upon denominational religion. In other words, You just try preaching a one God revelation in an Assemblies of God church and see what happens to you. They will probably throw you out on your ear, Get out of here, you devil, we are not going to sit here and listen to you speak against the blessed holy trinity like that. Now I ask you, Is that the Spirit of God in them that reacts like that, or will you admit that they have some other spirit? You will never find the Spirit of God fighting against truth, for He is the Spirit of truth. Now, when you get thrown out of the Assemblies of God church for preaching the oneness of God, just go on over to the United Pentecostal church, and tell them what happened to you when you tried to preach one God over there. Brother they will take you right in, and turn their pulpit over to you. That is exactly what they want to hear. As long as you preach like that, they will shout, speak in tongues, and praise God all over the place. But you dare mention serpent seed, or tell them that speaking in tongues is not the initial evidence of the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and see what happens to you. You will be out of there so fast, you will not know what happened. Those sweet talking saints will turn into vicious enemies, suddenly. Why? Simply because you dared go beyond what their articles of faith allow. Think about it. What is in a person, that will cause them to react so vehemently to something that is the truth? Naturally I am not pointing my finger at every individual soul in those churches, but I am ready to point my finger at the system itself, and say, It is Antichrist. Anything that is anti truth is Antichrist, regardless of how sweet some individuals may seem, when nothing is crossing their path to upset them.

YOU MUST LET GOD LEAD YOU

Brothers and Sisters: The true church of the living God has never been organized, and it never will be. It is only when tares get into an assembly and outnumber the saints, that things like that happen. If there had never been any tares, there never would have been any denominational churches. There never would have been a Catholic church, and therefore no reason for a Reformation. Of course the word Catholic, is a word that means universal, and it just turned out that the Roman Catholic Church claims to be the church that was started on the day of Pentecost, almost two thousand years ago. But the truth is, their church got its start in the second century, even though it was not called that then. In the letter to the church in Smyrna (Rev. 2:9) it was said, “I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.” When those characters began to join themselves to the assemblies of the true saints, the church was headed for trouble, for they were ambassadors for their father’s kingdom, and they have multiplied more rapidly than the true children of God. That is why there is such a lopsided religious picture in the world today. That is why true saints of God are the minority. That is why truth is so universally unpopular; Satan’s church is the universally accepted Christian church, (so called) and people like us are considered heretics. The way we worship God is abominable to them. We are not dignified enough to be acceptable to God. Denominational people are loosening up a little, for the sake of their ecumenical programs, but it is not for their betterment; they are just being tied up tighter to await their fate at the end of the age. I never will forget something that happened to me, when we first began to slip around outside the Methodist system, to investigate some of what was going on in other churches. We went to the Branham Tabernacle, and oh, I heard some things that were really hard for me to swallow. You have all heard me tell how I sat there listening to Bro. William Branham take that Bible and start in Genesis, and run it all the way through to the book of Revelation, and how I said in my heart, That makes more sense than anything I have ever heard. But at the same time, I also heard things that I almost choked to death on, they were so different to what I had been taught all my life. Also, during that time, a certain little Baptist lady that knew of my Methodist background, thought I surely needed some help, so she gave me a little book to read. It was a small book, that told of some things people will do, and how they will act, and such like, when they receive the Holy Ghost. I tell you, I read some paragraphs that really scorched my Methodist pride. I was sitting in my car reading it, so I slammed it down on the dash and said, God deliver me from such nonsense. I sure did not want that kind of religion. That was completely contrary to what I had been taught in the Methodist Church, so I said, I don’t wan to act like that. Brother! Do not ever say, I will never act like that, if you are really sincere with God, for He will probably see to it that you do, just to break down that foolish pride. Six months later, I was wallowing in what I said I would never do, and could not get enough of it. But what made the difference, I was hungry for God. I wanted to receive everything He had for me. I prayed, Lord, let thy word be a lamp to my feet, and a light to my pathway. Naturally some of the things we were taught in a lot of the places we went were not scriptural, but God used all of that to lead us out of that old Methodist system of religion, and on into truth. It was the Holy Ghost that really helped me to know what to retain, and what to discard, of all that we heard back then, for all of those preachers seemed sincere enough. That is why I say, Do not look to me to answer every question of life for you. If you have the Holy Ghost, let him have a chance to lead your life, and answer your questions. I will tell you this much though, God is not going to straighten up this mess of religion in the world today. It is all going to get worse. I used to think, Oh if I could only get Bro. William Branham into Rogers Campground Church, (the Methodist Church I went to) he would really get them straightened out, and get them to moving on with God. What a dream! God was not interested in reviving that denominational church. He was interested in getting His true seed out of it. To God, those places are just as abominable as pagan temples were when the gospel first came to the Gentiles. The only difference is, they use the name of Jesus to get their system going; but they sure do not follow what Jesus and His apostles taught. All any of them are, is just another pagan religious temple. They sing about Jesus, but they reject His truth. Children are raised up in those systems, and taught what they believe, and they are expected to follow the footsteps of daddy and mommy, but the Spirit of God many times, has other plans for some, or even all of those children in some homes. If those children were foreknown of God, and their parents were not, then somewhere down the line, those natural family ties will have to be broken up, for when God begins to lead a hungry soul out of those systems, there is usually always family problems to deal with. He will give you just enough to make you hungry for more, but God will never allow you to have very much revelation as long as you are tied to a denominational church system. Oh their leaders think they know a lot, but most of what they have is just theories, and they think we are a bunch of fanatics. More than just a few times, I have heard, You had better stay away from that Branham mess; they are a bunch of fanatics. Well, I always say, If you have to be a fanatic to believe what the apostles of Jesus Christ taught, then be one, and thank God for the privilege of being one of them. If William Branham had never been born, and we had never heard him preach, a lot of us would still be sitting in those old cold denominational churches, dead as doornails. But praise God, he came just in time, “Get out of those systems, and get back to the word of God!” Get the Holy Ghost, and let Him lead you, even if it separates you from every last one of your former friends and relatives. If any of them want to come along, then praise God, but if they will not come, do not allow them to hold you back. Bro. Jackson: That is hard to do, when you love them so much. I know it is, but that sentimentality will never take you to glory. This is an individual walk with God; He has no grandchildren. We just simply cannot hold on to mommy and daddy, and follow God all at the same time, unless you are all following revealed truth.

WHAT THE HOLY GHOST IN YOU DOES

The first thing the Spirit of God does in an individual life is convict that person of sin. That is how He gets you on His side. Then He begins to convict you of things that are wrong, and things that are right, and lead you into fellowship with Him, where you can literally commune with your heavenly Father. You can talk to Him, and He can talk to you. It would be scripturally impossible for God to perfect anyone that did not have that kind of relationship with Him. That is how he separates you from your traditions, and adds to you those things that give you spiritual stature. You can hear the word of God through various means with your natural ear, but it takes that personal communion with the Spirit of God in order for that truth to be quickened to you. It is Him in you that says, That is for you, or else, Wait a minute; that did not sound just exactly right. You do not rightly divide the word of truth with your natural mind; that is done by the direction of the Holy Ghost that abides in you. That is why we can say, when the rapture takes place, there will not be one bride person still sitting in a denominational church. Now Bro. Jackson: You ought not say that; my grandmother is a dear old saint, 78 years old, and she doesn’t know a thing about the things we believe here. Yes, and she will no doubt die before the rapture takes place, and God will only hold her accountable for what she knows. She will only be responsible for what God has given her to believe and stand for in her lifetime. There is no way you as a young person, can compare yourself with your grandmother spiritually, except that you would stand for what is revealed from the word of God in your day, as faithful as she did for what was revealed to her in her day. Remember, James said, He that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. It is actually unbelief. Brother, them churchgoers full of unbelief can create more trouble than someone smoking a cigarette, and they usually will. The man smoking, is too embarrassed and ashamed to do anything else; but those others will always have some kind of fuss going on, and they are as contrary as an old mule. You know what I mean; nothing pleases them. They do not have the solutions for anything, but they will find fault with everything anyone else does. Saints, I just happen to believe the Holy Ghost will cause people to conduct themselves in a different way than that. Like I said, I do not go around trying to decide who is a tare, and who is a saint, but I sure have seen some things out of people, that leave no doubt in my mind about what spirit caused them to do what they did. They will cut someone down and rip them all to pieces, and at the same time, act like they are immune to the devices of the devil. I will not call them tares, but I will say this, Every tare has to react according to the spirit that is leading them. I notice that about a lot of those who claim to be following Bro. William Branham’s message; they seem to feel like they are immune to the devil, while at the same time they act just like him. What kind of a picture of Christianity can they paint? Not one that you could ever see God perfecting anything in; that is for sure. Some of them even go so far as to hold up the Seven Seals Book, and declare that it is the only Bible they need now. But saints, listen to me, As long as the bride is still on earth, God will continue revealing little jewels to her from the Bible. Be sure of one thing though, We are living in a separating day and hour, and Satan’s crew does not like what they see going on in the true church, for they see tares being separated from the true children of God, because they can no longer submit themselves to the truth that is being revealed to true saints. It is just like in the days of Jesus’ ministry on earth, when at times, He would say things that scared those Pharisees half to death, while at the same time, others would say, Amen. Simply because they understood what He meant. As long as we just preach on John 3:16, Acts 2:4, 1^st Thess. 4:13-18, and things like that, a tare can sit there yelling, Amen! Praise the Lord, as loud as anyone else. They will dance, speak in tongues, and testify of how good God is, just like a true saint, but when God starts revealing some deeper doctrinal truths from His word the true saints rejoice, and the tares get offended and leave. They find someone that is preaching what they want to hear, and join up with them. Nevertheless, regardless of what brings about the separation, it is the will of God for it to be so. Jesus used various parables to conceal the plan and purpose of God from the wise element of mankind, and at the same time reveal it to those that would walk by faith and love truth. That is why we can rejoice about some things that carnal mankind experiences despair over. We see world systems failing and falling apart, and that lets us know the time of our departure is close at hand. But what about the desperate souls whose lives are wrapped up in those failing systems, and that have no consolation whatsoever? May we ever be thankful for what He has revealed to us.

REPROBATE MINDS ON THE LOOSE

Actually brothers and sisters, we have so many avenues to explore in a message like this, it is hard to pull it all together, but if you will bear with me, we are going to understand some things about separation and perfection when we get finished, that will enable us to better understand some of the things that are going on in the world today. Time just simply cannot continue on much longer with world conditions such as they are, without some drastic catastrophic judgment of God being turned loose on the world. Just when you think perversion has reached as low as it can reach, you pick up the newspaper, and see where a bunch of perverts have produced a film that portrays Jesus the Christ, the very Son of God, having sex relations with Mary Magdalene. Only a devil possessed, reprobate mind would stoop to such low down tactics as that. Then to think that we are living in the midst of a generation of people that enjoys being entertained by such perverted blasphemous filth as that, is almost beyond our comprehension. Nevertheless it does allow us to see that education is not the answer to man’s dilemma, for the more educated a society becomes, the lower they stoop morally. You do not see animals entertaining themselves like that; and do you know why? They were not the creatures that sinned; therefore their conscience is innocent in their role of reproduction. But on the other hand, you have a human race burdened down with sin, trying to lift itself up out of its dilemma through education, and in the process, the devil has almost completely taken over their mentality. We have a bunch of modern instructors today, that believe the whole world is going to evolve into the most glorious era it has ever known. But the Bible says, The wicked shall do wickedly, and iniquity shall abound, but the wise shall understand. So do not allow yourself to become disturbed by thoughts that this kind of thing will overcome the planet, and be the ruling factor. It is only setting the stage for the judgment of God. The worse thing about it all, is that the church world is being invaded by these filthy perverted spirits, and there is not enough of the Spirit of God in them, to even see anything wrong with what is going on. It just goes to prove, that when people fail to commune with God, they are subject to yield to whatever the majority is doing, and see nothing wrong with it, but you can be sure, God will not perfect anything in all of that mess. That is why separation comes first.

TARES JUDGED BY GOSPEL

We are going back to that 41^st verse, in the 13^th chapter of Matthew, for I want to lay more emphasis on this tare bundling. But I also want us to look at some words of John the Baptist, in the third chapter of Matthew, where he spoke of a fan in the hand of Jesus, and referred to the tares as chaff. When you are dealing with parables, the same thing can be called by various names, so some are bundled up, and some are fanned away, but they are all tares, for in the final analysis there are only two elements involved; children of God, and children of the devil. I never heard anything about tares in all the years I was in the Methodist church. They just treated those scriptures as though they were completely immaterial to anything. All they wanted to talk about was getting souls saved, and please do not think I am against that. But do you realize that this attitude is what let tares get into the church in the first place, or we should say, in the church assemblies. They were so wrapped up in getting souls saved, they completely forgot what God was after. Their vision to save the world, caused them to open their doors wide, and in walked the tares. Well, Bro. Jackson: Don’t you believe God wants to save everyone? That question cannot be answered with just a yes or no. God will positively save all those that were foreknown of Him, from before the foundation of the world, but He already knows no tare is going to be saved, so do you think it would be correct to say, God wants to save everyone? To a predestined seed of God, the gospel message is a call to come home and claim an inheritance, but to a tare, that same gospel is for judgment. It is just like God said to Cain in Genesis 4:7, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?” But Cain could not find it in his heart to do what God required; instead he murdered Abel, obeying the spirit of the devil instead of God. So what God said to Cain, was the same as preaching the gospel of salvation to tares. There is just nothing in them that can respond to God in a true spiritual way. Therefore at the end of the age, “The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, (Not because they offended me, but because they offend God.) And them which do iniquity.” That is what Matthew 13:41 says, and verse 30 says, Bind them in bundles to burn them. Why? Because they rejected the gospel when it was preached to them. Where are those tares that are being bundled? Most of them are in denominational churches; and it is this ecumenical spirit that is bringing them all together in the name of unity. They think, when the rapture takes place God will take a few out of the Presbyterian Church, a few out of the Baptists, the Methodists, and so forth, but saints of God, do not allow yourselves to think like that, or there is not one scripture in the whole Bible to justify such thinking. Those systems offend God. Those systems commit iniquity, so just let the word of God tell you where they are going. It is His word that says they will be burned, not mine. They get on television, and preach their watered down version of the gospel, and everyone loves it, for there is nothing preached that ever causes conviction on anyone. They listen to those sermons, and then get up, and go on about their business with no conviction at all, that what they are doing is wrong. But, Brother! You let some Holy Ghost preacher that really knows what he is talking about, get on one of those programs and preach an anointed, revelated message from the word of God, and you will see the fire fly. Religious dignitaries from all of those dead systems will condemn you for telling the truth. They want it watered down, so no one gets offended, and everyone can interpret it to their own choosing. That is why the slogan, “Go to the church of your choice,” is so popular. They pick religion just like a new suit of clothes. I wonder which church would help me make the most business contacts? I wonder if they have a good recreation program? Will they let you take a drink just to be sociable, without raising a racket, and all such as that. Brothers and Sisters: the true saints of God look only for a place where they can get their soul fed from the table of God, even if it is in a modest little building with very few modern conveniences. The dignitaries do not go to those places. They would not even feel like they had been to church. Well it is my opinion, that if you preach a gospel that the presidents, kings and potentates of the world will accept, there is something wrong. Old King Agrippa was about the only one that ever came close to believing and accepting Paul’s preaching, and he only said, “Almost, thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” Now please do not sit there thinking I am so narrow minded, that I cannot see God saving a dignitary, but I do refuse to believe that God would water the gospel down for them, and yet expect and require others to live so strict. If God would do that, then I would have to say, He is a respecter of persons. James said, chapter 2, verse 5, “Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which He hath promised to them that love Him?” I am not against people having certain material things of this world. I would be foolish to think like that, but I do know God expects Christians to know how to handle any excess of earthly wealth and privileges. People in America ought to thank God for having been born in a nation where even the poorest live like the kings of various other nations. If you had to sleep in your dog’s house, you would be sleeping in a lot better place than thousands in India and Haiti sleep in. They just lie down wherever they are, and wrap up in a little old piece of cloth, or whatever they can get their hands on.

TARES BURNED AFTER MILLENNIAL REIGN OF CHRIST

Let me get back to my scripture now. “The angels shall gather out of the kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. T-H-E-N shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father.” The bundling is taking place right now, and has been in progress for many years already, but the actual burning of them, will not be until after the great white throne judgment at the end of the Millennium. Jesus just covered the whole scope of the thing in these three verses, but we know from other scriptures such as Revelation 20, that everything except God’s true children is going to be resurrected and judged at the great white throne judgment, before being cast into the lake of fire. That is the last resurrection, and it takes place after the Millennial reign of Christ on earth. But the first resurrection in its three phases is completed before the Millennium is set in motion. These all reign with Christ a thousand years. God does not have to do everything in a day, for He does not live in time like we do. The Bible says, One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. When the tares managed to get themselves mixed in among the saints, God did not get all flustered over it; He knew it was going to happen that way. He also knew what He would do about it, and He showed the saints what He would do, but He did not give them a time table showing when; He only gave them signs to watch for, that would appear when the time would be getting close. Certainly none of them expected it to be more than 1900 years before those things would be brought to pass though. Actually it is hard for us to even imagine what Christianity was like in that first century when there were no tares in the picture, for we have always had them. It is hard for us to imagine all those first age Christians believing exactly alike, for we have always had divisions. Not only churches against churches, but also divisions among people going to the same church. That is all a result of tares among the saints, and according to the parable, it will remain so until the very end. Regardless of whether I live to see it or not though, the true church will be purged of tares, cleansed from all traditional ideas, and perfected.

THE PURGING FAN

Let us go to the 3^rd chapter of Matthew’s gospel, and see what John had to say about this purging process. Beginning in verse 7, John the Baptist is speaking to a crowd that has gathered where he is baptizing repentant sinners, and having noticed among them a great number of Pharisees and Sadducees, he began to say to them, “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits which show true repentance: and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our Father: (in other words, We are children of Abraham; we have a right to take part in anything that is going on. But John was ready for them. He knew how their thoughts would run, and he just let them know that what was taking place there, was for Abraham’s spiritual seed) for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” Listen now, old John really got to preaching. “And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree (tare) which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” You see, he is actually saying the same thing Jesus later said in His parable, John just did not call them tares. Then he continued saying, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me (Jesus) is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: (or carry) He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: (Listen now, he is still talking about Jesus.) Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather the wheat into the garner; (or granary) but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” I think you can see that John and Jesus both said the same thing, but just used different terminology, and both parables are tied to the end of the age, harvest time. Both are dealing with separating tares from the children of God, only John called them chaff, and he portrayed a scene where all the grain is dumped on a threshing floor, with all the chaff, husk, and other foreign matter still clinging to it. (That is referring to these tares that just simply cling to the children of God until the very end.) After the grain is dumped out on the threshing floor, it is then beat and stomped upon to get all that foreign matter loose from it, and then it is pitched up into the air so the wind can separate the light weight foreign matter from the grain which is heavier, and if there is no wind blowing, they take large fans and create a wind by fanning. The grain is pitched into the air, the wind blows the chaff away, and the grain falls back on the floor, and this process is continued until the whole batch is completely purged of all foreign matter. Then it is scooped up, and carried to the granary. Therefore when you transfer that picture to the spiritual side, and realize that the wheat is the true children of God, and everything else is tares, and that the spiritual threshing floor is the revealed word of God, you have to start thinking about the true application time-wise also. Well, saints, there has never been a time in the history of the church, that this parable pertained to until now. The message of the seventh church age messenger has pulled from denominational ranks many tares along with the true children of God that heard the call to come out, and they have all been dumped on the threshing floor, (the word of God) where the true called out ministers of the gospel of Christ are doing the threshing. Jesus is not here literally with a fan in His hand, so the fan has to be the word of God preached in a true revelation. That is what cuts across tradition and gets right to the heart of the matter. Therefore this called out number is being constantly pitched up into the air by something that is preached by anointed men of God, and the true children of God eventually get the revelation and fall right back down on that word. But the tares one by one, two by two, get their feelings hurt and go their way. Of course the threshers in the natural setting do not care which way the straw, husks, dirt, and all that foreign matter blows, just as long as it does. They plant pure grain, and that is all they are interested in reaping, so they have to get rid of everything else that is clinging to it before they take it to the storage silos, or whatever they store it in. By the same token the church started out pure in the beginning, and no matter what has attached itself to it through these many centuries of time, Jesus is not going to take anything with Him in the rapture that is not pure and clean by the washing of the word of God. So this fan is in operation in this message, and as harsh as it may sound, God is not interested in which way the tares go when they leave, for they are going to be burned anyway. He is only interested in getting them separated from His true children, in order that His true saints can make their final preparations to meet their Bridegroom. That is why it is first separation, then perfection. Not only do the tares have to go, but so does all that false doctrine and traditional thinking that they have planted in the minds of God’s children. That is why I have said, God allowed Bro. William Branham to make dual statements concerning major doctrines in the Bible for this very reason. It is His fan, fanning all who have been affected in any way by this message. But what we need to see, is that tares are present in every aspect of Christianity, and we do not know who they are, so God Himself is dealing with them in due process of time, by various means, and many of us will experience heartache and grief as they are fanned away, because they are our loved ones in the natural, or our close friends and acquaintances. Esau and Jacob were brothers, and the Bible says God loved Jacob, and hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste, so when it comes down to our personal relationship with God, that is exactly what it is. We cannot drag a tare into the kingdom of God, and a tare cannot keep a predestined seed out of the kingdom of God.

THE REAPED CROP

When you look at what is called Christianity today, you just see a reflection of our ancient pagan ways. We no longer set up altars to the sun god, the moon god, Jupiter, Venus, and all such like, but Gentiles have taken the Jesus of the Bible, the very begotten Son of God, that paid the price for our redemption, and they have made Him a Methodist Jesus, a Baptist Jesus, and all such like, therefore I hope you understand me when I say, There is no way Jesus could be the Savior of all of that mess. Jesus the Christ truly is the Savior of all who believe on Him with their whole heart, but that holy name is so misused in religion today, it is pathetic. Yet when you try to present a message of truth, those who misuse His name, call you a narrow minded preacher, or a fanatic. That is the difference between the broad way and wide gate where many go into, and the straight way and the narrow gate that only a few find. One leads to destruction, and the other to eternal life. One is Mystery Babylon, and the other is true revelated saints of God. One lives off of tradition, and the other off of the revelated word of God. One understands what Jesus meant by the parables He used, and the other sees no importance in them. Truth is not very popular in religion these days. Jesus told us in one little parable, what is going to happen when the conditions of the 2^nd church age come to their fruitation. But what tare would want to hear that? Nevertheless when it is all over, the righteous are going to shine as the brightness of the sun, in the kingdom of their Father. Satan will not have time to mar their shine, for they are ready to be taken to glory, where Jesus will present them to Himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, holy and without blemish. You may look at the church, and say, I do not see any possible way that the church could ever be without spot or blemish, but I assure you from the word of God, that she will be, in her time. When you look at an old dried up stalk of corn standing out in your field, you see very little of what the farmer was after when he planted that little grain of seed corn in the ground. But when the farmer gets through with the whole process of separating those kernels from that old dried up shuck and cob, he can finally see the true increase from the seed he planted. That is all he was really after. Those old stalks, shucks, cobs and silk served their purpose in the process, but in the end, they are rejected, and the true corn is stored. Yet when that field was standing full of those stalks, even before the kernels were ever formed on the cob, the farmer would point to it and say, I have a nice field of corn out there. Potentially he did, but he still had to wait until harvest time to reap it, and what he reaped, was not what he had been looking at. Well, God’s crop of children are much the same way. He sowed good seed in that first century of Christianity, but what the world has been looking at ever since that 2^nd century, and calling it, the church, is not what God is going to reap from the seed He sowed more than 1900 years ago. The crop is not perfected yet, but it soon will be. Hallelujah!

AGE OF MATERIALISM

Let us look, for a little bit, at the 7^th parable in the 13^th chapter of Matthew. As we have already stated, this parable is applicable to the 7^th church age, which is the age of Laodicea, the very age we are living in. The Laodicean church age has been in effect for quite a few years already. Why do we say that? Simply because of overall conditions in the realm of religion. The literal Laodicean church existed almost two thousand years ago in a metropolitan city, in Asia Minor. It was affected by wealth and modernization, and soon became filled with worldliness. Materialism took over, and this is the very age that has the same spirit and the same conditions existing in an overall picture that were exemplified in that local church. You will have to agree that we are living in the greatest age of materialistic achievement man has ever known. Take communications for instance, We now have some little baseballs out therein space, called satellites. You do not see them, but they can bounce those communications signals off of them to anyplace on the globe, and it is as clear as a bell. That, my friend, is perfection. Perfection of communication. Television is the same way. A few years ago, you might turn one on, and about all you could see was a lot of streaks running across the screen. But I thought, as ABC broadcasted the Olympics around the world by satellite, people in remote areas of the world, that could never travel, to go anywhere, could see every broadcasted event of those Olympics as clearly as if they had been right there in person, watching them. Simply because this is the age of communications perfection. As a matter of fact, just about everything you see, that affects mankind, has already entered the final hours of human perfection. It has almost reached a point where there is very little else that can be done, to make it any better. So let me ask you this, If the materialistic world is reaching such an hour of perfection, do you not think God is also doing the same thing with His church? You can be sure of it, for He has told us in His word, that He is going to perfect it. No wonder it will shine as the sun. Brother! You talk about communications, Hallelujah! The people in that little church will have perfect communications with the throne of God. They will talk to God, and He will talk to them. Furthermore I believe God is going to let some of these carnal minds in the world today, realize that there are some people in the world, that even though their lives may have been messed up by the devil, His power and greatness will be displayed through their lives. I think it is high time that God be glorified in some mortal lives. Don’t you? That does not mean that I think we should put on a show for the world to gaze at, but I do believe if we will live for God, and walk in the revelation He has given to us, the world will see something that they will have to realize, is God’s doings.

THE GREAT GOSPEL NET

Now the 7^th parable expresses exactly the conditions that overshadow our age. The total dispensation of grace was to consist of 7 specific ages, or seven periods where universal conditions spiritually, would identify with conditions existing in 7 certain churches in Asia Minor, in 96 A.D. This is number seven, Laodicea, and the parable that corresponds with it, speaks of a great net being cast into the sea and gathered of every kind. Naturally, thinking naturally, we know what is meant by every kind, for when you fish with a net, you catch a few of just about everything that is too large to pass through the net. But what is meant by every kind, speaking spiritually? Realizing that these are people that somehow have responded to gospel preaching, we just have to realize that this terminology applies to the various denominational identities and religion ideas of humanity, that have been produced through the Reformation. Even people who did not go to church themselves, held to certain traditional teachings of their various denominational backgrounds. Therefore after WW2, when things were getting settled down a little, and we will say, mostly in the 50’s and 60’s, certain well known evangelists traveled this country and many nations abroad, preaching the gospel as they knew it. People just seemed to have a burden for lost souls. Men like Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, A.A. Allen and William Branham preached in the big tents of thousands. This cast out into the great sea of humanity, a huge gospel net, that drew in thousands of souls from every known denominational background. Did that make them children of God just because they were caught in this great gospel net? No, Not at all. That is why a sorting out process is always initiated when the sweep is over. Just looking at this parable from the standpoint of commercial fishermen, (and I believe that is what Jesus had in mind when He spoke it) it takes many men to get one of those large nets unwrapped, and into the water, and circled around to trap the fish. The net itself is composed of interlinked fibers that fish can see through, but the larger ones cannot swim through it, so they are caught and dragged ashore, and then sorted out. The good ones are kept for their intended use, and all the rest are cast away. Naturally we all understand that in the natural, but exactly how does it apply spiritually? Living in a day when there is hardly any Holy Ghost conviction anywhere to be found, it makes it a little more difficult to understand. But there was a time when the Spirit of God would cause deep conviction of sin in the lives of people. Then when they would surrender their lives to God, all they wanted to talk about, was how God was dealing in their lives. You do not find it so today. The Spirit of conviction is being lifted from the Gentiles, which in itself is a sign of the end time. Back 20 and 30 years ago, people did not depend on the preacher for everything. They would take their Bible into the bedroom, and get down on their knees and talk to God, and let Him talk to them out of His word. People had convictions about right and wrong, and even those that did not profess to be Christians themselves, had respect for the convictions of others. But we are living in a day when nothing is wrong. Religion is sick. Preachers of today spend most of their time just trying to hold on to their congregations. They will not preach against sin, for they are afraid they will drive someone away. Therefore people come to church dead, without any convictions, and they go away the same way. They do not want truth. They want no part of anything that would cause them to live right. They just want their ears tickled enough to make them feel good. I am not necessarily trying to make anyone feel bad, but it disturbs me greatly, that so few people even care what goes on anymore. It is obvious that the Spirit of God is being lifted from Gentiles, and the reality of this seventh parable is right in our midst. A great sorting out process is in effect. No. It is not being done by man. Man is only an instrument used by God. It is God himself that is doing the sorting.

SORTING OUT WHAT THE NET CAUGHT

When those large commercial nets get full, they draw them to shore and sit down, just like Jesus said in the parable. Isn’t that a picture of the overall spiritual condition of this age. Just as the net is cast into the sea, and filled of every kind, there comes a time when it all has to be sorted out. I remember how there came a time in Bro. William Branham’s own life, when it was no longer just preaching salvation and divine healing. There were other important things that had to be done. It was those important things which were taught, that began to lay out the specifications for the sorting out process. Any fisherman knows that there are certain specifications as to what can be kept, and all the rest have to go back. Is that understood? Well, it just so happens, that in His word, God has already laid out specifications for qualifications in the kingdom of God, and there is no way that anyone who fails to meet those qualifications is going to make it in. You start preaching a true revelation of the Godhead, and Biblical water baptism, and the real evidence of the Holy Ghost, and it will not be long until you will see some heads turning, and looking at each other, and before long you will hear, Do you believe that? I don’t either. Let’s get out of here. That just lets you know, They have not a spirit that is hungry for the word of God. As long as you give them sensations they will stay, but when you start trying to feed them the revelated word of God, away they go. Alright then, when was this separation supposed to begin? When the 7^th parable is overshadowing the age it corresponds to, and I have to say, we are living in that time. The net has been cast out into the sea of mankind, and it caught some of every kind, and God Himself is the one that sets spiritual trends in motion to effect the sorting out, and to bring it all to a climax. That, we realize, is something to cover a number of years. Here is what concludes the parable. After Jesus had said the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind, and then they sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away, He concluded, saying, “So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Just reading the scripture, it sounds like something that will happen suddenly, but actually it covers a number of years. Then, because He knows when the age of grace is to culminate, God sets forth certain conditions in the world that affect political, social and economical affairs of mankind, and throws the whole thing into chaos, and reaps judgment. That is why I say, There is no way possible that just nominal church going people without a revelation, without a genuine hunger for truth, and righteousness to drive them, are going to make it. It will take everything the true children of God have, to get them out of here in the rapture, so do not sit here, nonchalant, not really caring whether you hear anything or not, and think you are going with Jesus in the rapture. That is not what the Bible teaches us.

IMPORTANCE OF PRAYER

Let me just say a few words to you at this point, and I want every one of you to listen carefully. It is the personal responsibility of every child of God, to yield themselves to Him according to the way He deals with them by His Spirit. When he saves someone, it is not just to keep that person from going to hell. He saves us, to put us in a relationship with Himself, and as we walk with Him, and seek to please Him, it is His good pleasure to stretch forth His hand of revelation and blessing upon our lives, and it will all work together to make us stronger in stature, and in the knowledge of His will for our lives, and it should be like that until Jesus comes for you, or until you go by the way of the grave. Oh, but when you reach a place where you are contented with what you have already, and you do not hunger and thirst for more from Him, and you find it hard to pray, consider it boring, and a loss of time that you need to be doing something else with, you are not going to hear His voice anymore. Not unless you hear Him say, Stop! You are going to wrong way. Did not Jesus tell us in Luke’s gospel, “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.” (21:36) You may say, Now Bro. Jackson: I have just been working too hard lately; I don’t feel like praying. Brothers and Sisters: We all know our work is a part of our life here on earth, and it is true that some of that work takes a great toll on our strength and vitality, but regardless of how hard we work, or how many hours we work, God still expects us to take a little time to fall on our knees and say, Thank you Lord, for being so good to me. Thank you Lord, for your longsuffering grace and patience. If you love Him enough you will find time to pray, and if you do not love Him enough to pray, and have fellowship with Him: What are you believing anyway? I do not find any place in the Bible, where prayer and fellowship with our heavenly Father was ever excused. Paul said, Pray without ceasing. He also said, in his first epistle to Timothy, “I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.” This business of just working ourselves to a frazzle, just to gain a few more material possessions, and luxuries for the outward man, and keeping our inward man in solitary confinement, will cause us to lose out with God. We will miss His perfect will for our lives, and our flesh will have to pay the bill for it somewhere down the line. How many of you know what I am talking about?

SCRIBES OF OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT

After Jesus had finished the parable about the net, He asked His disciples, “Have ye understood all these things? They say unto Him, Yea, Lord. Then said He unto them, (Now here is the part I want to be sure you catch.) Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.” A householder, is a man that owns something, and because he owns it, he can show it as he pleases, both the new, and the old. Now a scribe, under the Judiastic law, was a man with intellectual ability, and spiritual qualifications, that would take what was written, and with careful thought, he would rewrite it on other scrolls, so there would be more than one copy. But you believe me, he had to make sure every I was dotted, every t crossed, and every phrase exactly like the original. But he was also a man that would read the scrolls to others, with absolute correct pronunciation and emphasis. Ezra, in the Old Testament, was a scribe, and you can read how he stood on a platform, and read the scriptures to the people for hours at a time, and just reading them correctly, caused the people to weep when they heard them read. Then when we come over to the New Testament, a scribe is a man called of God to interpret what is written. So keep in mind, the 7^th church age had a messenger, just like the other six did, and the 7^th parable lays alongside the 7^th age, and in the parable, Jesus tells what the kingdom of heaven will be like during that time, and after asking His disciples if they understood what He had been talking about, He said, (concerning the parable) Therefore every scribe which is instructed thus and so. But what I want you to see, is that this followed the parable, and it was not by accident, for there was a scribe on the scene in this 7^th age, that truly did bring out things both new and old from the treasure the Holy Ghost had given him. Therefore the same Spirit that was in the net, was, and is, the eliminator of all the bad fish in the net. The bad fish are being thrown back, so I just have to say, never will the Lutherans be revived. Neither Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, nor any of the rest of those old denominations; they are dead for ever. No, I am not saying there are not some good people in those systems, from the standpoint of what they believe. But so was the crowd that cried, Crucify him! When Pilot asked, What must I do with Jesus? They were not drunks, dope peddlers, gamblers and bank robbers. They were the religious leaders of that day. Therefore let me say this, to you, We have to get rid of all these sympathetic feelings about people who love their systems more than they love God. It was those sweet talking Scribes and Pharisees that cried, Crucify Him! Do you believe they were looked upon as good people? I do. But we also know that they were called Serpents, Vipers and children of the devil by John and Jesus, and I also know that they were rejected of God, because they rejected His only begotten Son sent to be their Messiah. Therefore all of those who are rejecting the revealed word of God in this hour, are being gathered from the net, because they are rejects, and cast into judgment. There came an hour, when this certain scribe of Laodicea began to teach things that did not even touch on how to be saved; but rather, how a person is to believe, if they have truly been saved.

FIRST – SPIRITUAL PERFECTION – THEN BODILY PERFECTION

When the ministry of Bro. William Branham began to follow that trend, I knew right away, that this part of that 7^th parable was being fulfilled. For these big ecclesiastical fish would come swimming up, and get their name recognized, but then, they would listen for a while, and go swimming away. Without the Spirit of God in them, to give them revelation of what they heard, they knew no more after sitting in Bro. William Branham’s meetings, than these Charismatics out here in the world today. But the good fish, the ones that received a revelation of what was being taught are kept by the power of God, ready to be revealed in their lot, when the time comes for it to be so. Another thing I want to point out though, is that Jesus said EVERY SCRIBE, meaning that there would be more than one. That verse of the parable had its beginning in Bro. William Branham, but the rest of it will lay over the church until every phase of God’s perfection of the bride of Christ is completed. We have already mentioned what Paul wrote in Ephesians, about how Jesus will present to Himself a glorious church without spot, wrinkle or blemish, but you have to go back over to chapter 4, to find out how he said that perfection was going to come about. I am talking about the five fold ministry that God has set in the church, “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: TILL WE ALL COME IN THE UNITY OF THE FAITH, AND OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SON OF GOD, UNTO A PERFECT MAN, UNTO THE MEASURE OF THE STATURE OF THE FULNESS OF CHRIST: (Why?) That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.” To be perfect, is to be a finished product, and the finished product is the inner man that is being molded in the image of Jesus Christ. Our old flesh is not being perfected, but it is supposed to be brought under subjection to the inner man, so the inner man can shine forth through it. Some of these preachers out here today, take that scripture and apply it to the flesh, and they preach that we have to get to the place where we do not even have any sickness at all. Saints: That is downright foolish. Of course they have scriptures they use, but in reality you cannot find a thing like that taught in the Bible. I am not saying that we have to be sick, I am just saying that there is no scripture in the Bible that justifies a doctrine of perfection of the flesh. If you can walk with God, stay out of trouble, take care of yourself, and never be sick, I rejoice with you. That is wonderful. But do not call every sick person you meet, a tare, and think they are going to hell because of it. I will give you an illustration. Here is a man who has been in the war; he has a leg shot off. Do you mean to tell me, that in order for him to seek perfection, he has to get enough faith for that leg to grow back on? That is the way some are preaching perfection, but that is not what God is telling them to preach. God is after that inner man. He wants to get all that stubbornness, laziness and rebelliousness out of us, and get the mind of Jesus Christ in us, but you can be sure of this, He is not going to cause arms and legs to grow back, nor anything else that you may think of, in an effort to perfect our flesh. He is after some sons and daughters that will walk with Him, and be submissive to His leading while we are still here in this life. That is why we have to have an ear to hear what the Spirit saith unto us, for God is not speaking audibly as a general rule, although there are times when people hear an audible voice instructing them. Not only do we have to have ears to hear, we also have to be able to see (spiritually speaking) what is taking place around us, for without a spiritual ear to hear, and spiritual eyesight to see, there will be no perfection. But the person who has these will be perfected according to what the scriptures call perfection, even if he or she has no legs at all. But, Bro. Jackson: I always thought we were supposed to get new bodies. Oh, praise God, there certainly will be a time when we will throw away our crutches, false teeth, hair pieces, eye glasses, and all those things that we have needed in this life. For in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, all of that will change, and our bodies will be made perfect, but we will not be left here to go to the factories, and to the fields to work, after that takes place. Hallelujah! We will be with Jesus! In the 15^th chapter of 1^st Corinthians, verse 51, the apostle Paul said, “Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, (die) but we shall be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (That is when you get your leg back.) For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. (Now to put on immortality does not mean that we are going to be ten feet tall, nor anything like a lot of people imagine. It simply means that there will be no more death in us.) So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, (Isa. 25:8 & Rev. 20:14) Death is swallowed up in victory. (So immortality simply means that there is no more death sentence in us.) O death, where is thy sting? (It is gone forever) O grave, where is thy victory: (There will be no more graves for those that are changed into immortality, and there will come the time, after Revelation 20, is fulfilled, that there will be no graves at all, left in the earth.) The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory (How?) Through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now saints, there is our ultimate state of perfection, but that is not what Ephesians 4:5 & 6 are talking about. Only those who are perfected according to what Paul was referring to in Ephesians, will be perfected according to what he was referring to in 1^st Corinthians 15.

PERFECTION THROUGH ELIMINATION

We titled this message SEPARATION – THEN PERFECTION, for a specific reason, for the first stage of perfection, is the separation from that which cannot be perfected, and perfection is the condition of something that is complete. When my attitude, my disposition toward God, and my every thought is pleasing to Him, and there is no more that He needs to add to me, then I have reached my state of perfection, but I will still be minus quite a few teeth, and chances are, I will still be wearing eye glasses, because none of that is even in the picture as long as we are talking about perfection according to Ephesians 4:12. It would be wonderful if we could get every Catholic to believe the gospel of Jesus Christ with a true revelation, but we everyone know that is not going to happen. Neither are the Lutherans as a whole, going to change, for they are satisfied, so God must separate all of that, from what He is seeking to perfect. Perfection is obtained through a process of elimination, but that which is eliminated is those things that hold the inner man back. God is not all that concerned about the wrinkles on our faces, or bald head shining, just as long as He can get our attention, and get our eyes focused upon spiritual assets. He wants us to become more thankful, more concerned about His perfect will, and more dedicated to the things that are high and holy, rather than just thinking about how to please this old carnal flesh all the time. In Ephesians 4:29-32, Paul said, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, (Yes he was talking to Christians) but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. (We are already sealed, but we are not yet made perfect, as long as we need to be admonished like this.) Let all bitterness, and anger, and wrath, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath (already) forgiven you.” God is in the process of eliminating all these unchristlike deeds from our lives, and He expects every true child of His to submit to the necessary process, and if we do not submit, we have sure chastening to look forward to, for He is a faithful Father, that loves His children. That is why the writer of Hebrews said, (12:5) “And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise thou not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint (give up) when thou art rebuked of Him: For whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If you endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? (Any parent that loves their children will correct and chastise them, and the child feels love in it, when it is done right.) But if ye be without chastisement, whereof ALL ARE PARTAKERS, (all of God’s children) then are ye bastards, and not sons.” You correct your own children and chastise them when they need it, but you do not chastise your neighbor’s children. You may send them home, but you will not whip them. Well that is exactly what God is doing in these last days, sending the devil’s children home, and correcting and chastening His own, and no matter what the situation may look like, if we truly are God’s children, Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to HIS PURPOSE.” Therefore saints, when we are rebuked by the word of God, let us take heed, and rejoice, and when our old flesh has to pay a bill for our laziness, or carelessness, let us not blame God, but rather rejoice, knowing that our Father loves us. Now there is yet two more verses over here in Hebrews to finish the thought there, and verse 9, especially, for it allows us to see what God is the Father of, and thereby understand what He is perfecting. Alright now, Hebrews 12:9, “Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, (our natural fathers) and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? (So it is our inner self that God is the Father of) For they (our natural fathers) verily for a few days (our childhood is but a few days compared to eternity) chastened us after their own pleasure; but He (our heavenly Father) for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness. (We may as well read verse 11 also.) Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peacable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” Brothers and Sisters: Regardless of what it may look like at times, God is working on a product for His glory. I am talking about the true sons and daughters that are being washed by the water of His precious word, and being molded into the image of His only begotten Son, that set a perfect example of obedience before us, and then went to the cross and paid our sin debt, setting us free from the bondage of sin, and enabling us to be able to follow the example He set. Hallelujah! We do not have to serve sin, we have been set free. But it is just like men what have been shut up in a natural prison for a long time: when they are released, they need someone to take them by the hand, and help them make a new start in life. That is what the five fold ministry is for, as time closes out, for they possess something, a call of God that equips them with divine knowledge and understanding of the kind of product God will reap into His great garner (or granary) when that last bride person is made ready for their flight to glory. We had one major scribe in this generation, but he did not perfect the Bride of Christ; he merely brought forth from his treasury things new and old, that the other scribes would take, and administer to the bride at the proper time. But every man should remain in his calling wherein God has called him to minister. God never calls a man to minister, without equipping him with the necessary equipment to accomplish his mission. But if your zeal causes you to go beyond your calling, you cause confusion, rather than perfection of the bride of Christ. We see a lot of that going on, in the world today, confusion and strife, where there ought to be complete faith and trust in the precious word of God. We see tormented souls, where there ought to be joy and peace, all because people have missed the true purpose of God, and they are trying to build the kingdom of God off of their own carnal ideas and private interpretations of the word of truth.

LOVERS OF PLEASURE

Let us go to 2^nd Timothy now, and read what Paul wrote to Timothy concerning universal conditions of mankind in these last days, and if you cannot see that it is referring to our day and hour of time, I will have to say, Brother! Wake up! Time is running out! If you are ever going to get dressed up to meet Jesus, you had better get started now. Get your eyes open, and look at conditions around you, and ask yourself, Is that what I want to be caught up in, when Jesus comes? Notice now, “This know (chapter 3, verse1) also, that in the LAST DAYS perilous times shall come. (Now as we read this, try to take notice of the terminology Paul uses in describing the conditions he has been allowed to look down through time, and see.) For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous (Now covetousness is a word that describes man’s uncontentedness with what he has, even though he may have everything he needs to live a decent, moral, comfortable life in simplicity. A man who has nothing, who lives strictly to exist from day to day, and meal to meal is not coveting. That is not what God wants either, but I use that for a contrast to show the difference. Covetousness drives people to always have a desire for something they see others have, whether they need it or not. So we see that men everywhere are covetous) proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, (If we wonder, Why all the broken homes in this present society? This is the reason. Young people today, seldom ever had an opportunity to see a display of true love in their homes, between mother and daddy, because they were too busy working to fulfill their own covetous desires. Therefore they have produced a generation of young people that do not even have the remotest concept of what true love is. They are driven by physical attraction into a marriage that cannot possibly last much beyond the time when that physical attraction wears off, so that is the reason statistics show only one out of every two marriages holding together. Oh I know it could be broken down into a million different reasons, but we are looking only at the root of the matter. If there is true love in a marriage the two working together will overcome all those obstacles that are used as reasons for divorce by others. So much of society today is without natural affection.) Truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; (There has never been a generation of people on the face of this earth, that have had their flesh entertained more than this present generation. There is every kind of game and entertainment device available that the human mind can imagine, or at least we think so, until we realize that they are still coming out with new ones every day. So naturally we would have to say we are living in a day when people love pleasures more than they love God, so that leaves them in a state described in this next verse.) Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: (A large majority of this pleasure seeking society, take great pride in the fact that they go to church at least once a week, but the thing that fulfills this scripture is the fact that they refuse to allow the word of God to change their lives. They go to church, and go through all the motions of a true Christian, but the fact that their lives are not changed as a result of it, proves that they only have a form of godliness, and not the genuine life changing Holy Ghost brand at all. They do not want their lives changed; they are enjoying themselves too much; so Paul says) from such turn away.” Do not try to fellowship with that kind of people, whose every thought is always on some form of pleasure, for they will only hold you back in your own spiritual growth. We all need fellowship, but our fellowship ought to be centered around spiritual things.

THE SHUT DOOR

We have read only five short verses here, but do they not cover every aspect of what we see prevailing in the world at large today? Alright then, Pay attention to what I am going to say to you. If this is a general description of what the world is to be like in the last days, then for goodness sakes, do not allow yourselves to be looking for a great earthshaking revival to get the people of God awakened to the hour we are living in. These conditions are supposed to do that, for the people who truly know their God, and have confidence in the integrity of His written word. This is what is supposed to shake us, and cause us to get serious about how we are dressing ourselves in anticipation of meeting Jesus in the air one day soon. No. I am not saying He could come tonight, like a lot of preachers are saying, for scripturally, I know He cannot come yet, to close out the Gentile age, but we all ought to realize that He could come any minute, for any of us; therefore we ought to be just as busy dressing ourselves to meet Him, as if the rapture could take place at any moment. Do not allow the doctrine of election and predestination to blind your eyes to the reality of who that doctrine applies to. If you know anything at all about the scriptures, you should know that these terms apply to an element of people who seek to please God with their lives. They are not running with the filth and perversion of the world, believing that God will perfect them two minutes before the rapture, just to keep them out of the great tribulation. That is just plain foolishness to think like that. Furthermore, neither can you plan to be a foolish virgin, for no foolish virgin is planning to be one. Every last one who ultimately ends up as a foolish virgin, will be expecting to go in the rapture with the bride of Christ, or I should say, as part of the bride of Christ. Who are they? They are people who believe in God, and whose hope is in what Jesus Christ did at Calvary to pay their sin debt, but who have not yet come to a revelation of truth that is necessary for every bride person to get dressed up in. Why? You might ask. Because they are enjoying the excitement and sensations in these charismatic gatherings too much, to settle down, and submit themselves to a true revelation of God’s word. Is it too late? Only God knows that for sure, but I do know that according to the scriptures, there has to come a time before the very end, that the door of revelation is closed to them, or there would have been no reason for the parable in Matthew 25:1-13. The shut door in verse 10, does not mean that the rapture has already taken place; it simply means that those who truly are bride people are already shut away in a revelation of the word of God, that is absolutely necessary for those who will be ready to meet Jesus in the air, and those who are still outside the revelation at that time, do not have time to dress themselves properly. They have played around too long, but I can assure you, they did not plan it that way.

GOD GOT THE CREAM OF THE CROP

I am completely convinced by what is going on in the world today, that God had to do what He did in the 50’s and 60’s, in sweeping the earth like He did, not too long after W.W. 2 ended, for He knew that was when He would get the cream of the crop. That was before perversion and dope addiction became such a universal condition. As I have already stated, even people of the world that never set foot in a church building, except for funerals, and special occasions, had more moral standards than a large majority of the people who claim to be Christians today. As I examine the trend of things that have transpired over the last 70 or 80 years, in the spiritual realm, it convinces me even more, that we are at the end, for history bears out the fact, that every great move, politically or spiritually, usually runs its course in a period within a hundred years of time. The Welsh Revival hit the British Isles, back there just before the Pentecostal era hit in this country, in the early years of this century. But in those days the great truths of the Bible had barely been tapped. The Reformation had succeeded only in restoring faith as Luther saw it, eternal security as Calvin saw it, predestination through Knox, and sanctification according to what John Wesley saw in the Bible. These are all essential Bible truths, that brought Bible salvation back to the people on a personal basis, as the Holy Ghost would deal with them. But most of the preaching that was done in those days was done, showing from the scriptures, the saving grace of God according to John 3:16, and other similar scriptures. In other words, that great burden was to get people saved, in those days. I will never forget reading how those people in the Welch Revival prayed for God to get hold of sinners, and convict them of their ways. It seemed that in a lot of their communities, there was a lot of hardness of heart among the overall population. So the small nucleus of Christians banded themselves together, to pray that God would send them a revival, a revival of convicting sinners. One man decided that he would go out to the edge of town, and pray all day long under a bridge, that who ever passed over that bridge, would feel the power of God touch his heart, and convict him of his sins, and lead him to accept Jesus Christ as his Savior. Well, according to the testimony, a certain man left his home in the country, to go into town, in a wagon, and this man was known to be very hard hearted. But when he crossed this bridge, little did he know about what was going on, down beneath the bridge. There was a man praying, not knowing who was crossing the bridge above him, O Lord, let every soul that crosses this bridge today, fall under your convicting power. All of a sudden, the man in the wagon above, began to feel so miserable, he could hardly bear it, and by the time he go to town, he was trembling and feeling very confused in his thinking, which made him realize he needed some help. He began to ask if there were any Christians around, he could talk to. Well it just so happened, that this group of Christians that had dedicated their lives to this very purpose, were assembled in a small building there in town, and he was directed to them. As I stated earlier, they did not know much to preach, as far as deep things of the Bible were concerned, but they sure did know how to pray for the convicting power of God to come upon the scene. Well, as the story goes, that man found salvation there, that day, and this great move of God continued there in those islands of days and weeks on end, all over those Welch Islands. A large number of the men were fishermen, the hard hearted, salty kind of old characters, that you could not talk to for nothing. But when God got through with the people of that area, you could not find one anywhere, that did not know those islands had been visited by the power of God. But now, the Welch revival is over, and the people of those islands have slumped right back into their former state, spiritually. You could not go there now, and get a move of the Spirit of God like that again, if your life depended on it. But one thing is sure, God got His crop from there, the cream of the crop too, I might add. Once God gets what He is after, in a move like that, and the Spirit begins to lift from them, there will still be one saved here and there of course, but do not ever expect a revival of what was there before. God will force back the powers of Satan, until He gets what He is after, and then He will let the devil come back in, and take over, if the people do not have the spiritual drive to prevent it. That is why I say, When you look at our own nation as a whole, you have seen the last days of a society that is sensitive to the power of God. You will never see those great revivals again, regardless of what some preachers would like for you to believe about it. They know better; they are just looking for financial support to keep their elaborate programs going. But realizing that it will never be so again, and realizing also, that God must get a church perfected in a generation of people somewhere toward the end of the age, we just have to conclude that we are living in that generation. No I am not confining this just to America, the bride of Christ is a universal bride, made up of people from every nation. I only used Americas as an example, because in the past, she has been considered a Christian nation, and we realize that this identity is fast disappearing from the minds of those who ever believed that she would be so again. In other words, When you see the prophesied Bible signs of the last days being fulfilled, as this generation has been privileged to see, you just have to realize that the whole thing has got to reach its climax before that generation passes off the scene completely.

VICTIMIZED BECAUSE OF MORAL CONVICTIONS

I received a letter the other day, from a religious group in a small city in South Carolina. (This will let you know that this sex perversion and filthy morals, and absence of citizens and law officials that are willing to do anything about it, is not just in your large cities.) It seems that a certain man who was a church going man, and very dedicated to his own convictions on morals, and such like, was on his way home from work, (He was an executive of a particular firm there) and as he stopped for a light at one of the main intersections, he was approached by a certain bunch of homosexuals that were soliciting from those who stopped there. This disturbed the man greatly, just to think that they would be so brazen as to get right out there at a busy intersection, and solicit to satisfy their immoral thirst like that. So when the light turned green, he just drove on down to the police station, and talked to the police chief about it, and asked that they do something about it. He said to them, This is the first time in my whole life, that I have seen homosexuals out on the street, right there in town, soliciting for sex affairs with whoever comes along. What do you think the police chief said? Now, don’t get all worked up about this. We know these individuals are out there; but lets not make a big fuss about it. At that, the man left there, but still driven by moral convictions that loathed such behavior, he determined to attend a Chamber of Commerce meeting that was scheduled for that night, and ask permission to speak at one of their future meetings, concerning this thing. But when this began to work its way back through the channel of city officials, What do you think happened? They had a woman mayor, and she was approached by some of the Chamber of Commerce people, and she in turn, because she did not want to get involved in it, and maybe become victimized between these trends that are sweeping the nation, notifies the chief of police, but the chief of police, not willing to get directly involved in the situation, told her, you call the head man of the firm where that man works, and tell him to talk to the man, and put pressure on him to cancel that speaking engagement, lest he lose his job. The woman mayor did accordingly, telling the big shot of the firm what a predicament she was in, and it turned out, to make my point, that the man really did lose his job over his determination to get something done about the mess, simply because he refused to bend to pressure that was put on him. Therefore let me just say this. With these Satanic trends sweeping society today, a person would have to be completely, scripturally uninformed, to believe that we will ever see another earth shaking, sin convicting revival like we have seen in the past. For God never goes contrary to His word. When the gospel first came to the Gentiles almost two thousand years ago, they were stooped in paganism, worshiping idols, immoral and without hope, but the gospel changed all that, for those who had an ear to hear the Spirit of God talking to them. Therefore it has only been because the Spirit of God held back these trends, while He swept from nation to nation getting the cream of the crop for His kingdom, that Gentiles seemed to have some moral principles about the, but the moment the Spirit of God starts lifting, back they go, to the abominable ways of their ancestors.

GOD’S NEXT MOVE

I am sometimes appalled to see how safety conscious, and health conscious, natural minded man is becoming. All in all effort to preserve this old flesh as long as possible, without one thought about the soul within. They have every kind of safety device imaginable on automobiles, anymore, and they are forever trying to pass laws to force people to use these devices. They are constantly telling us, Don’t eat this, Don’t eat that, or drink so and so, for statistics show that people who do so, get cancer, heart trouble, and all such like. They are determined to get rid of heart trouble, tuberculosis, cancer, and all of these death causing spirits, to the natural man, but when it comes to the inner man, they could not care less, Leave him alone; let him starve. You can well see that natural man today, is not very conscious of the condition of his soul. When it comes to morals, this is the day when evil is called good, and good is called evil, so do not try to tell me, the Bible has not been right all along. It is just like Paul said it would be, Perilous times. That means dangerous times. Do you believe we are living in such times? Sure you do. Brother, these scriptures have just been lying there, waiting for a generation to come on the scene to fulfill them, both the good, and the evil, and I believe this is that generation. But how, some may ask, is God going to get people’s attention, to fulfill the rest of His word, when the whole world seems to be falling apart morally, politically, and socially, as well as spiritually, and so few even seem to care, one way or the other? Well, World War One produced a noticeable Pentecostal move, and after World War Two, we had the great move of God we have already discussed, where people by the thousands were made God conscious, and convicted of sin. Therefore I believe it will be another world shaking conflict that will wake up the people of God, and get them moving to fulfill the remaining scriptures. There are a lot of people out there in religious systems that are going to make up the other part of Matthew 25:1-13, the foolish virgins, and God knows where every one of them are. A few here, a few there, and a few somewhere else, and that is a universal picture. But I believe the time is close at hand, when God is going to allow this old world to be rocked once again, and get people started praying and seeking His will for their lives. Will such an event change the homosexuals and other demon possessed characters? No, Not at all. Will it cause a lot of sinners to repent, and turn to God? No Sir, it will not. But I am convinced, there are yet scattered somewhere throughout the denominational systems, some people that somehow or other, God has not yet let them see what the real truth of His word is, because they have got to fulfill the other category of that parable. As I look back, and think on these things, I just have to say, Thanks be to God, that He allowed me to see the truth. Do you realize that you would not seek after God, unless He first touched your life in some way, by His Spirit? No man can come to me, Jesus said, unless the Father which hath sent me draw him. There are a lot of religious people sitting in their little churchy circles completely contented with what they have. People have a tendency to be like that. They like security, contentment, ease of Spirit, just as much as worldly people like ease of flesh. They are just plain spiritually lazy. Do not disturb me. But do you know what? A hungry person is on the prowl, looking for something to satisfy that hunger. You taste this, you taste that, always looking for something that really strikes your taste buds just right. So I am convinced, that the next great world shaking event, will not be to bring lost sinners to repentance in general, but rather to shake up the church world, people who are sitting comparatively contented somewhere. God knows how to touch them.

CONFUSION SPIRITS TURNED LOOSE ON SOCIETY

Right now it looks like everything that comes toward this message, just ends up in confusion. But remember, every spirit that is to fulfill the scriptures, has to be in operation in these last days, as time closes out. Each spirit must come forth, and fulfill its purpose in causing confusion, but confusion only affects minds that are not ordained to the truth. At least those individuals cannot accuse God of not giving them a chance. They have all had their chance, and it just seems that they always look at everything from the wrong end. Nevertheless God knows the heart of every living soul, and those that are ordained to fill the ranks of foolish virgins, or whatever, He will know how to talk to them. Even though they are sitting somewhere on the edge of a denomination, if they are His, He will know how to get their attention at just exactly the right time. I do not know how much longer it will be, and I do not believe I could do anything to change the situation, even if I did know exactly, for everything has to move in God’s time. I will tell you this much though. If time is allowed to go on as it is for another 5 years, the little incident down in South Carolina will be common in every city. They could not have gotten by with that kind of thing in 1950; they would have been in jail so fast, it would make your head swim, but because the spirit of the age has moved in that direction, this sort of thing is becoming so commonplace, it is almost ignored by those whose responsibility should be to deal with such lawlessness. Well whether they try to do anything or not, God is still going to have a bride to take up from here in the rapture, and there is going to be a great multitude left here to suffer martyrdom at the hands of the Antichrist during the great tribulation, both Jews and Gentiles, so regardless of what this generation stoops to, do not ever limit God, nor what He is able to do, when His time comes.

GOD’S UNLIMITED POWER IN OPERATION

Brothers and Sisters, I have covered a lot of ground in this little message, and I may not have explained everything to your complete satisfaction, but if that be true, and you have a particular question, I am sure we have other messages in print, that would go into more detail of explanation. All you need do, is ask for them. So in connection with what I said about not limiting God, I want to relate a little testimony told to me by a Baptist preacher in Norway the first time I went there, who was healed in one of Bro. William Branham’s meetings there in Norway. Today, Norway is a country of eight million people, and it is a mountainous country. Its people have never been subjected to multiples of religions, like we have here in America. The main religion is the state church, something like Lutheranism, the Anglican, and in later centuries they have had Pentecost, but mainly on the trinity side. But when Bro. William Branham went there, those Pentecostal preachers had gotten their heads together, and got the government officials to put pressure on, to keep him from praying for the sick personally, like he did in America, because they had heard a little bit about him. The authorities told Bro. William Branham that he would only be allowed to pray a mass prayer for everyone, rather than pray for them individually, and he abided by their instructions. Now this Baptist preacher was there, and he said, Bro. Jackson: I was bothered by a skin disease, Eczema, all my life. Just a constant itch, itch, and dry scales, and at times it would just turn into open sores. He said, I sat in the back of the meeting hall that night, knowing that the man could not pray for me personally. But I was praying in my heart, Lord, when he prays for everyone else, be merciful to me. He said, Bro. Jackson: When he prayed, my skin started healing, and I have never had a problem with my skin since. Then he told me how back in the years of 1933 and 1934, there came a move of the Holy Ghost through Norway, that was not even brought about by preachers having anything to do with it. He said, I remember when we used to hear of fishermen in the docks, that would come in, and still be in their boats, and all of a sudden the power of God would come on them, and bring conviction, and they would not even know what was going on. But as they would begin to pray, many of them would have visions, infillings of the Spirit, speaking in tongues, and all such like, and as it spread all over Norway, I began to hear of it. I was just pastoring a little church at that time, and we met in a little store building, and we lived upstairs over it, just a rented building. He said, It was in the winter time, and I had gone downstairs to fire up the old stove, to get the room warmed up before service time that night. So after I started the fire, while I was waiting for it to get the room warm, so I could damper it down, I went to the front seat, kneeled down, and picked up my Bible, opened it up, and then I laid it on my head, and said, Lord: There are so many hundred promises in your book, will you just bless me with one of them, and about that time the power of God struck me, and I hit the floor. (He did not have a Pentecostal preacher kneeling over him, having him to repeat words and phrases) He said, I just laid there as helpless as I could be; then all of a sudden, I felt something, and my mouth started speaking a language I did not understand. I do not know how long this lasted, but when I got up, I thought, Maybe I had better go upstairs and see how the wife is getting along. But as he started to go upstairs, his little girl was looking down the steps at him, and she began to say, Mommy! Mommy! Come here! Something is wrong with Daddy. But his wife had been listening to what was going on down there, and she just stayed put, and let the Lord have His way. So as the little girl kept screaming, because her Daddy looked strange to her, and she wanted Mommy to come, he heard his wife say to her, No, Nothing is wrong. Daddy has been with Jesus. As he then reached the top of the stairs, his little daughter just flung herself into his arms, and said, Daddy: Take me to Jesus. Back down the steps he went, with his little daughter in his arms, and just as they entered the room, she started speaking in tongues. Well he went ahead, and told me other things that took place during that period of time, and it was out of that move, that the Pentecostal message came to Norway. In those early hours, it was a genuine move of God, and it produced genuine Spirit filled, Spirit led people of God. But Norway today, just like America, has commercialized the thing that started out genuine, and they have set up headquarters around every lake, and they commercialize the Pentecostal gospel there, just like in America. But my point in telling this, is to say, God will never repeat a former move anywhere. He still has things that He can do. He had not exhausted His storehouse, but this is a generation of people that does not want the true gospel preached to them; they only want something to tickle their ears, and entertain them with sensations, so God is just letting them have what they want, but their souls are becoming very lean.

YOU CANNOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON

As I said already, This generation is all caught up in pleasure, and I will tell you why. Pleasures stimulate the spirit of man, in his unborn state. That is why people are crazy about sports. I am not condemning sports, but you will have to admit, people get so involved in sports, they completely forget about God. You cannot lust to be entertained in the flesh, and covet spiritual things both at the same time. They just simply do not go together. That is why Jesus said, You cannot serve God and mammon both at the same time. People are not willing to be temperate in those things; they have to sell out lock, stock, and barrel to it. Some Christians get together, and that is all they talk about. Do you really think God can perfect anything in an atmosphere like that? We all know better than that, but it is a spirit that gets a hold on people. That is why separation has to come first, all along the way, before there can ever be any perfection.

I have said enough, I will close now. But I admonish every child of God to take stock of their values in life, and see exactly what place they give to God. He requires first place, you know, and He will have it one way or another, before this race is over. God bless you. Amen.