<TITLE>08. Par 53-61</TITLE>L-53 Oh, great steamships from around the world, in the last few years have steamed into Jerusalem with aged Jews, young and old, dressed in their garbs, coming from the east, from the west. And hanging over the capital of Jerusalem is that old six-point star of David, the oldest flag in the world, that hasn't flied for twenty-five hundred years, is declared a nation tonight. Fig tree is putting forth her buds.
Jerusalem is growing, the Lord is restoring,
The signs that the prophets foretold;
The Gentile days numbered, with horrors encumbered;
Return, oh dispersed, to your own.
For the day of redemption is near,
Man's hearts are failing for fear;
Be filled with God's Spirit, your lamps trimmed and clear,
Look up! your redemption's drawing near.

L-54 It's later than we think. We don't come to church to occupy a pew; we do not come to church to hear a good sermon, or come to church to hear good music. They all got their place, but what we better come to church to do is check up with God and our souls salvation, for the day of redemption is near.
Jesus Christ God's Son likened this, He said, to a woman. And in our subject tonight we find this woman, her husband had gone, and she had lost one of the coins out of her tablet. Now, I will try to explain that.

L-56 Today, if a woman is married, she should wear a wedding ring as a sign that she's married. That's to keep other men from having anything to do with her. They look and they see she's a married woman.
In those days, they didn't have wedding rings; they had a tablet (They call it "tablet.") they put on their head. It had ten coins, and it went around their head. And that was a sign they were a married woman, and no man was to fool with them; no boys was to flirt with them. They were married.
Each one of those coins... If we only have time (but I haven't, I'm going to try to keep my word as close as possible), I could tell you what each one of those coins meant. It was placed in there, and each coin meant a certain virtue of that woman. The first, meaning her love to her husband. Second, her pledge of virtue to live clean for him. And the third and fourth and fifth, on to the ninth and tenth...

L-59 If you want to look it up, look in Galatians 5. You'll find out that that woman represented the Church, and the Church is an espoused Wife to Christ. And the tablet that the Church is supposed to wear is found in Galatians 5, which is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, meekness, gentleness, patience. That is the tablet that's supposed to be wore in the Church: brotherly love, kindness, fellowship.
And this woman, when it... It must have been along about dark that she realized that she had lost one of those coins.

L-61 Oh, if there ever was a time that the church ought to take inventory to find out if you've got all the coins on, it should be now. It's getting dark. The--the very haunts and clouds of destroying civilization is hanging over the earth, sin and debauch on every hand. We're living in a tremendous time, when there's wickedness, people who go to church just for a sham, people who go to church to try to hide from their meanness, people who go to church and profess Christianity and live like the rest of the world, drinking, smoking, gambling; women immorally dressed, wearing clothes that they oughtn't to wear in the--in their own dressing room, out on the streets before public. And brotherly love is a thing that's passing, almost. We have not lost one coin, but we've lost practically every one of them.


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