<TITLE>25. Par 256-269</TITLE>L-256 What's the matter at the tabernacle? A man ought to be able to say, when you meet a man, "Is your Christian experiences... When was it the dearest to you?" You ought to be able to say, "Right now!"
"Well, my best experience was back when I first got the baptism of the Holy Spirit, when I come."
Just say, "Oh, brother, you've fallen from grace." That's right. Look,
... has left thy first love.
Showing that they had something in the beginning, and has left it.
Not he that beginneth, but he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. "Not all that saith, 'Lord, Lord,' but the one that doeth the will of My Father." Oh, let me just let that soak just a few minutes. I was talking fast tonight anyhow, so let's let that soak just a few minutes. See? "He that doeth the will of My Father." "He that endureth to the end. He that endureth!"
If somebody say, "I believe he--that guy's an old hypocrite."
"Well, if you think that about me, I'll leave church. I won't have no more to do with it." All right, there you are. See? Shows what you're made out of. But if it was a wheat to begin with, it'll be a wheat at the end. You just never stayed long enough down here. You never make the thing right. That's right.
 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen...
Go back and remember when you used to have the experience where you wouldn't talk about nobody. Anything went wrong in the church, you didn't set on your neighbor's steps over there and talk about the church, and talk about everybody else, fly loose and go join another church. No, you stayed right there, patiently and prayed it out, and God brought it on through. See?
 Remember from whence thou art fallen, and repent... (You know what "repent" means, don't you?)... and do thy first works...
Go back and get your first experience. Do the things you did in the beginning. Go up to the altar and make it right with God, in other words. That's right.
 ... do thy first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and I will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
Uh-huh, "If you don't, you'll have a broke-up church, and gone to pieces, 'less thou repent."

L-266 "But this thou..." Oh, now here we come. Hold tight. Listen close. Keep your ecclesiastical vest on now, and take your umbrella down. Listen. For...
 But this thou has, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitan, which I also hate.
"You hate the deeds of a Nicolaitan." Now, watch. What was "deeds" in Ephesus, in the next church age was a "doctrine." We're going to pick that up, tomorrow night, "the Nicolaitan."
 And he that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
Now, the next, the next verse starts in with the Smyrnaean Church.

L-269 Now, "Nicolaitan," that's where we're going to start with, tomorrow night, taken out of Revelation 13, the Nicolaitan priesthood, how it begin right there in Ephesus. And that's where that church age fail in three hundred years of its existence. Before it went out of existence, the Nicolaitans begin to start up a doctrine, a priesthood of brethren.
And then, the first, it come from Nicolas, which was one of the--the apo--one of the... and he... In Acts the 6th chapter, I believe, and the 5th verse, where he went and chose out the deacons. And they took this one, which was Nicolas there, and started from there and called it the Nicolaitan, and begin to organize a priesthood. And from there it become a "deeds," what they were doing, saying these things on confessions, and so forth. And then it become a doctrine over here, and went into Babylon, and ended up down here, at the last time, with all Christianity wrapped around it; just a little remnant to be saved out of it. Watch and see what it is, tomorrow night, if God being willing.


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