<TITLE>18. Par 146-151</TITLE>L-146 How the Christians thought, "Well, that's just fine. Now, we can do anything we want to, 'cause there's our god. We can just... We can talk to him; he can tell us back what to do. If we sin, we'd tell him about it, give him a little something, and a little--do a little novena or something; and the first thing you know, we're all right, and go back out and feel free again. Don't have to worry about nothing."
Oh, that looked good, sure. It still does to the carnal mind, but you'll never poke that down a borned again child of God. They've never been able to...?... for he knows Who he has believed and persuaded that He's able to keep that which he's committed to Him against that day. And forgetting the things that's in the past, we press towards the mark of the high calling in Christ. Amen. Oh, how thankful I am.

L-148 Marble altar under him, setting up here, real dressed, a fine church... Oh, my, they was all fixed up. All right. And this altar was overlaid, this marble altar, beautiful (You ought to see them yet, same thing.), overlaid with gold, and studded with gems, jewels in this altar: beautiful. Very fitting it was to the Nicolaitanes and to the pagans. See what he did? He took the pagan ceremonies, the pagan ideas, and took Christianity, the cold formals that didn't know no better, didn't have the Holy Ghost to lead them different; and made them a god here on earth, and made an altar for them, and a god to set there to forgive their sins. Are you spiritual? Do you understand what I mean? See what it is? A sin passing forgiveness on earth.
I'm not quoting that from my mind; that's the history. Give you a page and number of the sacred history, just the same as I can tell you George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln, and the Battle of Gettysburg, and so forth. Sure, all those things are history I'm quoting here.

L-149 Now, then it was very fitting to... Not to this borned again church, no, sir. Well, when they put a man up there now, to be a head bishop, to recite ceremonies, of course that run the Full Gospel plumb out of it. It does yet today. Them ages are just carried over, just lapped over (See?), another form, another day. Oh, when they put a dignitary up there like a god, and he'd have a few ceremonies said...
And notice that the pagans prayed to their dead ancestors. And a Protestant church that would stand up and say, "I believe in the holy Roman Catholic church and the communion of saints..." You, Methodists, hide your face, Presbyterians, and Lutherans. Anything that intercedes with the dead is spiritualism. Sure. But now, the Protestant can't laugh at the Catholic; he does the same thing, makes this all-sufficient confession that he believes the same thing: baptized right back into the Catholic church by his water baptism, rejecting, and making fun of people who try to live that right; go to a church and see people shouting under the power of God, and stand outside and make fun of it. All that...

L-151 See, spirits don't die; people do, but not spirits. See? The Holy Spirit, It can't die. It was on Jesus; now It's in His church, always will be until He comes for His church, 'cause It's a part of Him. See? Those persecutors, they--they made fun of them back there in that day; they still live here today. God takes His man but not His Spirit off the earth. The devil takes his man but never the spirit out of the earth.
Those priests that sanctioned Jesus' death, that said He was a fortuneteller, or a devil, them fellows was religious as all religious could be. That's right. They knowed that Scripture by letter, but they didn't know the true interpretation to It. They had their own idea, and they wouldn't listen to nothing else. And then they seen Him and know... How could they fail to see that Jesus didn't qualify to everything every prophet ever said about Him? But they were blind. And God said He blinded their eyes for a purpose, that we might have a chance for salvation.


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