<TITLE>09. Par 80-86</TITLE>L-80 Now, in the early age of the church here, this first group of people, they all...
Israel had been kind of beat down for years and years, but now they had come to the place that Messiah had come and give them a hope on this Lord Jesus. But beginning, He was persecuted, made fun of, spit upon, called holy-roller, everything, or just fanatic, Beelzebub, the devil, and everything else. But He had one purpose, and that was to do the will of God. And regardless of how many people was against Him, still He come that the Word of God might be fulfilled. Is that right? See?
Now, look at the scholars and teachers of that day. Why, they were scholars beyond anything that we could produce today, as far as scholarship. And as far as holiness, why, they'd make the Holiness church today feel ashamed of themselves, when it come to holiness. They really had to live holy. They lived a separated, consecrated life. Like Roman Catholic priests today, not hardly like them, 'cause they're out in parishes. But all these had to be in one place, right there in the temple, thousands times thousands of them in there, separated, consecrated, just like the Vatican City.
And they were scholars of the Scripture. They had to know it all just letter by letter, by letter. And they were so perfect at it even a crook in a letter would just make a whole difference in everything. They had to touch not, handle not. And even if they were... They had to be... The Bible said, "They were found blameless." Now, that's really knowing it, isn't it?

L-84 All them, and yet, having their heads set strong on one solid thing that they'd been taught, and not willing to be flexible to the Gospel, the whole power of God, they failed to recognize the Lord Jesus Christ. There He was, and the whole Scripture spoke of Him coming, but they failed to recognize it, because they had their own theology. "We are the church. And if anything comes, it comes through us. And we rule the countries and the religion. And we are this, and we are that." Very beautiful picture of Catholicism today. See? "We have everything under our own condition."

L-85 And then they broke off into little isms, such as Pharisees, Sadducees, different. The Pharisees believed in spirit, and Angel, a resurrection. The Sadducees didn't believe in Angels, spirit, or resurrection. And they had all kind of--of different sect among them, just like we have today, same thing.

L-86 And here was a man raised up, said, "We're a great person." One raised up, as a Jesus, took four hundred men out in the wilderness; they all perished. And then others raised up, saying they were some great person, and led them off on some kind of little cults, and so forth.
And right in the midst of all that time, the real, genuine article of God come into the world: the real thing. Oh, my. That would start us rejoicing right away. He come, not having cults, not agreeing with cults, not agreeing with the church, but doing one thing, the perfect will of God that was written in the Bible. That's right. He had His... He knew what the Father had said. He knew the Scripture by inspiration. So He stayed, regardless of what they said.
He said, "Why, you hypocrites," He said, "you make your traditions so binding, and so forth like that. And you, by your traditions, you make the Word of God of non effect." See?
Oh, how He laid it to the hewing rock, every bit of it, brother. He went right on, nothing changing. Oh, I like His fearless way. Don't you? Never a time that He was ever a bit upset, He knowed He walked perfectly in the will of God.


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