<TITLE>20. Par 155-160</TITLE>L-155 Now, what... Let's break that word down and find out what we got before we go any farther. The word "Nicolaitane" is kind of a foreign thing to me. I got every Greek lexicon that I could find. "Nicolaitane" come from the word of Nicko, N-i-c-k-o (Wait, I believe I wrote it down here.) N-i-c-k-o, Nicko, which means "to conquer or to overthrow." Nico-laitanes, "overthrow or conquer the laity." What they were trying to do here was trying to take the church where God had pastors, and the Spirit of God moving by gifts in the church of the living God, and they were having a doctrine start that they were going to have some priests, and bishops, and popes, and so forth. That God said He hated. He hates it yet today. Nico-laitanes (Nico, "overcome") or, "overthrow the laity." The laity is the church. How many knows the laity is the church?

L-156 All right, "Overthrow or conquer, or take place of the laity..." In other words, take all of the sacredness, all of the power from the church, and put it over on the priests; "Let the congregation live the way it wants to, but the priest is the holy one." Taking the Holy Ghost away from the people with signs and wonders following them, and take that away and give them a holy priesthood: taking away the Holy Ghost and swapping It for a priesthood. You see what it was? It was a... It finally became...
In this church here it was a deeds; and this place it become a doctrine; and Thyatira, it took over. And when Luther came out, it couldn't stay that way; it went right back and took over again: bishops, cardinals, archbishops. Who in the world's the head of God's church but Him Himself? Amen. Whew. Now, I feel religious. The Holy Ghost was sent to rule the church, not just the preacher, the whole congregation. Just the preacher be holy? It's all the church has the Holy Ghost.
And instead of that, instead of having the Spirit to make it, they've taken a little wafer, and a cracker, and some wine, and call it "the holy Eucharist" which means "Holy Spirit." How in the world can a cracker and a piece of wine be a spirit? Now, if--if that's the way, you have to read Acts 2 like this: "When the day of Pentecost was fully come, here came a Roman priest up the road, and he said, 'Lick out your tongue,' and he laid the wafer on him; he drank the wine, said, 'Now, you got the Holy Ghost.'" Now, now, we think that's terrible. It is.

L-158 Now, let's go down, I was ordained in a Baptist church; let's take us Baptists. See? The Methodist, what do we do? "If thou will confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, you're saved." The devil believes He's the Son of God and trembles at it; probably believes it more than a lot of church members does. The devil believes the same thing and trembles, because he knows he's doomed.
Now, we take it the Methodist form. Then they say that John did not baptize, that he sprinkled. Said, "There was a lot of gophers in the country, and--and the water come up in the places. And he had a muscle shell and scraped out a gopher hole." And they actually preach that. "And got some water in this gopher shell, or this muscle shell, out of the gopher hole, and sprinkled the people." Why, nonsense. Oh, brother.

L-160 Well, here we'll take it, "When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all in one place, in one accord. And the pastor came down and preached a fine sermon and say, 'Give me the right hand of fellowship, and we'll put your name on the book.'" That don't sound right, does it? You might get that... You couldn't get that in an almanac; they know better than that. The old Ladies Birthday Almanac is more correct than that would be.
Well, what's caused that then? The Nicolaitane bringing in a bunch of men to twist up the Scripture and make a denomination that can't let God move in it. It dies right there. See? And it said here, "You're dead. You got a name you're living, but you're dead." Many of them's dead and don't know it.


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