<TITLE>11. Par 35-38</TITLE>L-35 Here some time ago there was a lady in the--Louisville, Kentucky, I believe it was, and had a little boy. Walking around through the ten-cent store jingling little things and she, trying to show him, the little boy just set staring.
So she... Every... People begin to notice her. She got hysterical, and she'd say, "Look, honey, look." And the little boy just stared. So she'd go to another counter and get something that ought to attract a little lad of his age, and said, "Look, honey" and he'd just stare. And so, finally so overcome and exhausted, till she just fell over the counter and begin to scream, "No, no, no."
And the people that was in the store went to her and said, "What's the matter, lady?"
She said, "My little boy," she said, "something happened to him." She said, "Not long ago he was a jolly little fellow. But something happened to him, and he just sits and stares in space." Said, "Nothing that ought to attract a little boy of his age will attract him. He just stares." Said, "I took him to the doctor, and the doctor said he was all right." But said, "He isn't, because he won't look at nothing that he ought to look at for a child his age." And said, "He just completely stares in space."

L-36 Well, that's just about the condition the churches is getting into. The things... God's shook every kind of a miracle and sign before the church, and still they set staring in space, just like they didn't know...
God in His great power in these last few years has shook this nation like never before. "Shook the nation," you say, "the nation of the United States?" The nation--His nation, His Kingdom. God doesn't promise to shake a nation like that; He promises to shake His church. It's not a nation shaking message; it's a church shaking message. He comes to His church to wake them up. The nation won't believe it anyhow out there.
Jesus never went to a nation; He went to His own. His own received Him not. He never come to a world. Thousands and thousands never knew He was even in Palestine during His visit. But it's sent to the church.

L-37 Now, if I'd say to you Methodist brethren, "Is Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever?" You'd say, "Yes. We have Him in the Methodist church. We know He is." The Baptists would say the same thing. Each church would say the same thing. We got about--close to about six or eight hundred different denominations, so somebody's got to be right and somebody wrong. They just can't be everybody right or everybody wrong. There's got to be right and wrong there somewhere.
So now, if I approached it in a Baptist standpoint, or in a Methodist standpoint, or a Pentecostal standpoint, or whatever I approached it in, it would be doing discredit to the other brethren. That's right.
But now, let's approach it from a fact. Let's approach it from a Bible standpoint. Let's find out what He was yesterday. And if we can find what He was yesterday, then He will be the same today. Regardless of our theology, they say He was the same. Now. Well, if we can find out what He was yesterday, then we find out what He is today.

L-38 Now, if I could go out and get a man, and put nail scars in his hands, and--and thorn prints on his forehead, that would be--that could be deceived, because that--that man could be an impostor. He could be impersonating Jesus Christ. The only way that we'll ever know what He was, was to find His Life moving in His Church...?... let His Life.
If a--if a pumpkin vine bears a pumpkin, there's pumpkin life in the pumpkin vine. You can't get gourds off of it, because it's a pumpkin. If it's a watermelon, it's a watermelon comes off of a watermelon vine. If it's a Christian vine, it'll bear record of Christ. So let's find out what He was yesterday, then we'll see what He is today, and what He will be forever. I think that gives all of us a fair look.


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