<TITLE>08. Par 24-26</TITLE>L-24 I looked back then upon the Lutheran, the Methodist, and even the Pentecostals, and the Nazarene, the Pilgrim Holiness, and all the great churches that we have. And I think of their early--in their origins, how they were--had a lifeline on them; the Holy Spirit was in them. And how when God sent the mighty rushing wind like He did on the day of Pentecost, how they frolicked in the blessings of God with their--with their great heavy foliage on them; the winds caught into them like sails and sailed them back and forth, revival after revival.
But there came something that happened. The fires of persecutions and the new--the new order of the church... When they got off into seminaries and got boys and men who were brilliant and intellectual, and taught out the old baptism of the Holy Spirit; they cut the lifeline.
When the Methodist revivals used to strike in the nations when they'd lay in schoolhouses on the floor and receive the Holy Spirit and become "knocked out," as we call it today... Or in them days they thought they'd fainted. And in our own Baptist church, how I've seen in our Baptist church, take pitchers of water from the pulpit and pour it on the people's faces and fan them and cry when they were laying under the power of the Holy Spirit.

L-25 But the new teachers, the old country church was done away with and they brought it into the more elaborate, the more fantastic, the educated side of it. Upon the side of the altar being betterly decorated, or the pipe organ, and the seats all plushed, and--and the old church was done away with. The old altar was taken. The old fashion mourners bench was taken out and put down into the basement. And instead of souls on the altar, it was lilies on the altar. And instead of the old fashion organ that they used to pump with a stick, or the old tuning fork...
And when they sang, "As...?... I will fear no evils when I come to die", instead of that, it was a well trained choir with a melodious voice that sang such hymns until they would hold on till they were blue in the face and call it class. That's the most miserable thing I ever set under, is to hear a over-trained voice that'll hold a note until they're blue in the face to try to put on a show; and that's all it is. You're not singing to the glory of God. And the sweetest thing under heaven is an old fashion Spirit filled church with the Holy Ghost, everybody singing in the Spirit.

L-26 But they cut the lifeline when they cut the singing. When they taken the days of miracles away from the church and adopted their theologies and their intellectuals instead of the baptism of the Holy Ghost, they cut the lifeline. No doubt they're great denominations. So was them great trees. They can prove by history that they had great things. That if... The one who looked at the forest could prove that they were once great thriving trees. But, oh, today they're nothing but bleak. The lifeline is gone.
And when God still sends His wind down for His trees to frolic and to take new life by the pushing of the trees, what can they do? Just set up a mournful sound, "Now I will tell to this congregation, if anyone shall attend that healing campaign, immediately they'll be excommunicated from this fellowship." Some little preacher with more intellectuals than he's got sense to govern, stand up there with a tuxedo coat on and bow with a "Amen" like a calf with a cramp, and then try to place that to take the place of the Holy Ghost. It'll never do it.
God's eternal plan of salvation for His people is the Holy Spirit in the Church, borned again men and women operated by the Holy Spirit, not them trying to operate the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit operating them. Do you see?


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