<TITLE>04. Par 17-22</TITLE>L-17 And the reason they call it Nicolaitanes... As we had last night, Nicolaitanes, we broke the word down and took it from the Greek. And N-i-c-k-o, "Nicko," which means "to conquer or to overthrow." What? N-i-c-k-o, Nico-laitane, laity: to conquer the laity, and overthrow it by giving them a order of men, clergymen that would teach them and would... They would get their own conclusions together. That's how the Nicene Council was held. Because many got together and fixed up a--an order in the Nicene Council. We ain't--don't want to talk too much on it, 'cause that's Thursday night in the Nicene Council.
But there's where the Roman Catholic church was formed, out of a group of people that were converts of Saint Paul, and Irenaeus, and Saint Martin, and on down. They were converted Christians to the--from paganism over to Christianity, but wanted to pull the church back into a--an Old Testament form of ministry, like having high priests, and--and apostolic successions, like one pope to another pope, another pope. If we could go on down through this Bible, you'd find out that that's just exactly the truth and how God condemned the thing from the very beginning; and last night's church age, said, "I hate it." and so did the church.

L-19 God never intended the church to be run by men. God runs His church, and He runs it through gifts of the Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit is in the church to correct the spirit. He's got five ministerial offices in His church. First of them is apostles, or, missionaries. Missionary is the highest calling there is, apostle. The word "missionary" means "one sent"; "apostle" means "one sent." Why they ever chose to be called a missionary, I don't know. But they are apostles. All right. Apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists, pastors, now, that's the elected offices of God to His church.
Then in each local church there's nine spiritual gifts that come among the people, that is, knowledge, wisdom, gifts of healing, working of miracles, speaking with tongues, interpretation of tongues. And all these things go in each local body. And every person in the church has an individual ministry, and that individual ministry goes together with the rest of the ministry to edify the Body of Jesus Christ. And never...

L-21 Now, remember this, that here in... I'll draw these lines tonight. The first church, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea... Now, remember as this goes on, this church had the fullness of the Spirit, but at the end of the church age we find that It was being pressed out. The next church age pressed a little more, little more, till this one there was just a little teeny speck. "You have a few things," He said. Oh, when we get to that Thyatira church age...

L-22 Now, after that come, God raised up a German by the name of Martin Luther that swung the church back again. It started it out a little more; he preached justification; along come Martin Luther, preached justification. Along come John Wesley and preached sanctification. Then in this church age here, they come right straight back again to the baptism of the Holy Ghost again, with the same signs and wonders, coming right down. Here's where it went out through fifteen hundred years of dark ages. And there's where the darkest--or the longest church period we have in the church ages. Then here's where it starts coming out, justification, sanctification, baptism of the Holy Ghost. And the Bible says that in the end of this age, that this little minority here will be squeezed down because the same church of Pentecost will start doing the same thing they started back here: Nicolaitanes. (O God, let me keep my mouth shut till I get to that.) See? What I can see there... See, until you can see here... And I'll show you that the messenger to this church age will hate denominations. The Spirit will raise up in the children. It's always been. And now, we got a...


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