<TITLE>13. Par 38-40</TITLE>L-38 Brother, sister, one of these days... To you sinner friends here this morning, and to you people who are trying to impersonate Christianity, you may belong to church. That's very fine. I have nothing to say against that, nothing against your fine, scholarly education, or against your theology. I have nothing against that. But, oh, where is the God?
It wasn't Elijah after all. It wasn't Elijah who opened up that river. It wasn't his robe. Elisha took it from his shoulder; he folded it just the same way that Elijah did. But when he begin to kind of wave it, there was no power there. Then he cried, knowing that God was somewhere, "Where is that God. Where is He?" Then something must have struck the prophet, for he waved that robe and struck the waters, and she opened hither to thither. And before the clergy of that day, before the critics of that day, he walked across the Jordan just like Elijah did before him.

L-39 We don't need the teaching; we have that. But we need the God of Elijah. We need the power of the God of Elijah back in our church, the power to make us hold there, and call God's Word right, regardless. And we're every one here this morning, that's human beings, on our road to Jordan. And when he came to Jordan... You're going to arrive there one of these mornings, or one of these nights. When he came to Jordan, he was walking as a conqueror. But when he came to Jordan, that was a difference. He had a secondhanded robe on; another man had wore it. But it was a good robe, and he knew what the man was that wore the robe.

L-40 Brother, sister, one of these mornings I got to come down to Jordan. I was thinking this afternoon. We're going down to Brother and Sister Wright's. Don't forget that; this is their golden wedding anniversary. I'm to leave the church here, going to have a--a dinner with them. I was thinking the other day, fifty years. And I see them both well aged and stricken down. I thought, "Yes, I'm forty-seven years old; they was just married three years before I was born." Forty-seven, I'm marching towards Jordan. I've got to come down. I've got to get there. I'm going to arrive there. It may be an accident on the road. I may drop from the air in a plane. I may be shot through with a devil's dart somewhere and die. I don't know how I'm going, but there's one thing I know: I'm going. But I'm walking towards Jordan. But when I get there, I want to know one thing, that I've got a secondhanded robe on too. I ain't trusting in mine, 'cause it's no good.
For as soon as Elisha picked up Elijah's robe, he tore his into pieces and threw it down. And that's the way it was when I found Christ. I tore my own self up, my own ideas, my own nonsense, my little petty things. And I thought when I was a little Baptist preacher I was just about as--I was somebody. But I tore it out. I put on His robe. And when I come to Jordan, I want to find myself wrapped in His robe. He will follow that. And we'll arrive there one day. So let us pray just a moment.


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