And when we see a man under the influence of the Holy Spirit, until his life is burning with old-fashion pentecostal Fire, that’s the best sign God ever had that that man is saved, when he’ll serve. It’s the best sign. Now, how will that come about? Not by joining church, but by accepting His pardon through Jesus Christ, your innocent Substitute.
No sincerity, no real sorrow for sin. He said He’d hide His face from their rituals. Their prayers were powerless. They prayed, oh, sure. They went up there and said their prayers. They offered their sacrifice. It become a form.
Do you know, in Second Timothy, the 3rd verse, or the 3rd chapter of Second Timothy, we’re told the same thing, that we’d get in the last days? The Bible said here, “In the last days, know this, that the time would come when men would be heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, and despisers of those that are good; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For this is the sort that go from house to house, and lead silly women, led away with divers lusts, and ever–ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth.” Now, if the Bible predicts that the hour would come when the church would get in the same tradition they was there, by their rituals, here it is again, a traditional religion, powerless.
“Oh,” they said, “them were communists.” No, they wasn’t.
“Having a form of godliness.” They go to church. They join church. They try to make a–a long showing, that they are going to church and things, and go out and live different.
There’s no fire in their soul. There’s nothing. They’re not interested in anybody else. “Everybody else can die and go if they want to. We feel that we’re saved. Let the rest of them go.” That isn’t real Christianity.
Christianity is: go after the lost, go get that brother, go do something about it. Can we stand and fold our hands, even if we claim that we are saved, and see men and women dying on every hand? And the streets, full of women going to churches, with shorts and–and painted faces, and–and walking up-and-down the street, with cigarettes in their hands; and–and paint all over their face, it looks like foxes or wolves, or something. And men walking up-and-down the street, joining churches, and things like that. And call that Christianity, and hold your peace?
What would Saint Paul do if he walked in Tucson? Now, I say they’d have him in jail ‘fore morning. That’s right. Why? His soul would burn for God till he couldn’t keep from doing it. Sure. But we join church. You see, our traditions has become a stink in the face of God.
What we need today is a prophet arise on the scene with “THUS SAITH THE LORD” and strip those things to the bottom and say that they’ve become a stink. Our denominations has growed. Our churches are big, and they’re finer than they ever was. We’d be a lot better off with a tin pan, standing on the alley again, with a guitar, out there beating a drum, or something other, with the real pentecostal Fire burning in our souls, than to set in the great pews that we’re setting in today, dying. The world dying, under our feet. Yes, sir.
Pardon
Tucson, AZ
63-1028