<TITLE>11. Par 79-83</TITLE>L-79 "Having a form of godliness and denying the power thereof, from such turn away. For this is the sort that goes from house to house and leads silly women led away with divers lusts, never able to learn or ever come to the knowledge of the truth." That's exactly right. There you are: ladies' aid society, this society, that. The poor church has got so many societies that it can't even preach the Gospel no more. Pastor can't have but twenty minutes, and he has to talk about something else then. See? If it don't, the deacon board will meet him. Yes, sir.
O brother, what does a good pastor have to do today? Just do the best he can to stand out and cut the limbs where they want to, and let the chips fall in where they want to; and sling it out there. That's all. Yes, sir. That's right. Don't--don't spare nobody; just preach the Word and stay right with It, just hammer right on away. They throw you in jail, preach it in jail. They put you on out...?... Wherever you go, just keep on going, preaching. That's right. Now, that's what's happened. See, they're smothering it out.

L-81 Now, we're coming to the--the Smyrna age, the 8th verse:
... unto the Angel of the church of Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive;
I want you to notice every time that He introduces Himself to a church age, He puts forth something of His Deity. That's the first thing He tries to make known to the church; that's--that's, His Deity. He's God. You see the great issue back here that Irenaeus and them was fussing about? They try to say that the God and three cosmics, and it's a God in three persons, and God in this. He said, "There's no such a thing. It's titles of one Being, and that is the Almighty God." That's right. So you don't... They've always had that. And God here in the beginning is introducing Himself of one of His--of His deities. You see He's introducing Himself first over here, "I am He which was, and which is, and shall come. And I am the Almighty." Here He starts right off with the Smyrna age now.

L-83 Now, listen to Him, "I..."
... unto the Angel of the church of Smyrna... (And we believe that to be Irenaeus.)... write;
These things saith the first and the last,... (See, introduced Himself, "I'm God now of this church age. I don't want no four or five different gods around here. I--I'm God. See, that's it.")... which was dead, and is alive; (Amen)
Now, that's the--the introduction. Now, now, "Smyrna" means "bitterness," and comes from the word of myrrh--myrrh. And the--the first church, the first church, and--had lost their first love, the Ephesian church. And this church had begin to have "a root of bitterness" coming up in them because that this church, the main church, the big part, the majority of them always, was hammering against the Holy Ghost ruling in the church, and they wanted to rule themselves. They wanted to set up a priesthood; they wanted to act like the Old Testament people did. They wanted priests.
They... If the pagan gods... Back there where they was converted, they had priests and so forth of the--of Jupiter, and priests, and of Venus, and so forth; they--they--they wanted to bring them same thing to make these men. See, the whole thing is pagan to begin with. All pagans has those priests and things like that. But--but the church of the living God, it's foreign to them. Christ is our Priest, our High Priest. We have a High Priest, a table also that we eat at.


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