<TITLE>05. Par 16-18</TITLE>L-16  And we see that Israel was safe as long as they were rallying around their God. And this must've started a great curiosity everywhere. People passing by would see the unity and the oneness of Israel. And that spread out from nation to nation.
It would be the same way in our great, beautiful, lovely country today of America if all of the churches would get together and Christians put their hearts together, "and the people that's called by My Name shall assemble themselves together and pray, then I'll hear from heaven." Would it not be a--the greatest scare that Russia ever had when they knowed that all the Christendom of America had united as one? Certainly it would be. No one can fight against God.
And Israel was united like that. And they had no wars; everybody was scared of them, not scared of Israel, but scared of their God.

L-17  And this passersby from different parts of the world, going from place to place, this news got plumb down into Sheba. Everybody coming by would say to the little queen down there, "Oh, you should be up in Israel; God has sent them a great gift, and it's working. I was present when I seen it manifested." What a thrill that must have been. And you know, faith cometh by hearing, hearing of the Word of God.
And when this little queen kept hearing different ones say about there was a God up there Who had anointed a man with a great gift, her heart begin to yearn. The Scripture said that ye are the salt of the earth. And if you want people to thirst after Christ, just be salty. That's all the church has to do. Salt creates a thirst. But if the salt has lost it's strength, the church has lost it's strength and just become denominations, it's henceforth good for nothing but to be talked about, trod under the feet of men. What a day that we live in, what a rebuke to the peoples? But prosperity has did it.

L-18  Now, notice. And that made that little queen long to go up there and see about it. Now remember, she was a pagan, a heathen. And in order to go see about it, 'cause something in her heart begin to tell her that that must be real... You see, she belonged to church. And she had priests and--and bishops, and so forth. But all of her church was just a intellectual, just a bunch of theology. And she heard that there was a God Who lived and manifested Himself. God, be merciful.
What good does a historical God do you, if He isn't the same today? If the fire of Pentecost ain't just as good today as it was then, what good does it do to talk about it? What if a man was freezing to death and you painted him a fire, and said one day the fire burnt? That won't make him warm. He don't want a painted historical fire; if he's freezing, he wants fire burning. And if--the people who read the Bible don't want something, a God that lived in a day gone by. Let's have a God of today Who's just the same as He was then. We need a God that's present tense.
What good does it do to preach the Bible if God's a mute and won't answer His promise? What good would it do to feed your canary bird vitamin B, vitamin A to make his wings strong and keep him in a cage all the time? You don't let him out. What good does your vitamins do? What does all of our seminaries and schools of theology, and our great preachers with D.D., Ph.D., and double L D? What good does that do, if all on a historical God that doesn't live and act the same today as they teach about that did happen? The Bible said that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is not dead; He's raised from the dead and is alive forevermore, ever present, omnipresent forever. That's the God that we want to hear about. That's the God that every true elected son of Abraham wants to hear about and wants to know about.


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