<TITLE>05. Par 19-22</TITLE>L-19 And in this great city there were great walls and great gates that were made of solid brass, some hundred feet high. And I want you to notice, swinging gardens all along those walls, and the city in the--the city in the center of it had the palace and the river Euphrates running by it, just the pattern of heaven. What was it? It's a perverted heaven that was designed by the devil. And was called first the Gates of Paradise, and later was called Confusion, which means "backslidden."
See, it's the devil that's trying to unite all of the world under one great ecclesiastical head. They've always tried it. And they're making a very good show out of it today.

L-20 And in this city they had the greatest army; they had the best material that could be gotten from all the world was brought to them; and the whole world paid tribute to this city. And when in such a place as that, all behind the walls, how secure they felt. The best scientists, the best brain that they had, the best chariots, the best horses, the best-dressed soldiers, more to eat, the best-clothed people, and were safe behind such walls.
Ain't that the very beautiful picture of this country, with the best that could be gotten, and the best scientist that could be gotten, the best dressed army that there is.
But then when they got behind these walls, they thought they could live just any way they pleased to do, and would be all right because they were safe.

L-21 And that's been the attitude of our people in this country, that because we have the best and the greatest and the most powerful army, and the best guns and the best machinery, and the best food, and the best everything, we felt like we were safe. But remember, the God of heaven cannot be closed out by any kind of a wall, whether it be a natural wall or a ecclesiastical wall. God looks down from the heaven, and there is nothing that He doesn't know about. Or didn't know from the beginning that it would be that way. He's the infinite God.
And when people think they are secure, then sin sets in. If there would be by chance, those here tonight who are Swiss, I would not want to hurt your feelings, but I was just recently come from Switzerland. And oh, you talk about an independent bunch; they are. They haven't had a war for hundreds of years. They haven't got nothing to fight for. So they are just real indifferent (if you'll excuse the street expression), kind of puffy like.
And when it comes Sunday morning, you would think the millennium was on. Of all the sacrilegious carrying on, bells a ringing, and chimes a ringing, till you couldn't hear yourself speak on the street hardly, and the worse critics against the Lord Jesus I ever met. Why? They feel like that, "There's nothing can bother us."

L-22 I crossed the line to Germany. Brother, I mean, there was a different people, altogether. They had to duck under buildings. They'd been burnt them in streets. They know what war meant. They knowed what it was to put trust in God, when a rascal like Hitler had led them into that kind of a place, and many of those real genuine Christians in Germany had--had to pray for every mouthful of food they got. Persecution makes the church strong. And God will strengthen this American church someday, hiding in a bomb shelter somewhere.


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