<TITLE>17. Par 50-52</TITLE>L-50 Jesus had been rebuking these Pharisees of His days, because they had failed to recognize He was their Messiah. They had been satisfied. And the people of that day, it was a whole lot like today, that the people were looking to the church for salvation. Now, I make this statement: If you are a Catholic and you're looking to the church for salvation, you're lost. If you are a Baptist and you're looking to the church for salvation, you are lost. If you are a Pentecostal and you're looking to the church for salvation, you are lost. But if you are Catholic, Pentecostal, or Baptist, or whatever you may be, and you're looking to Jesus Christ for salvation, you're saved. For by faith are we saved. See?

L-51 Now, today the people has got it to a place till they are looking to the church for salvation. The church doesn't bring salvation. Salvation is of Christ. See? The church doesn't have salvation; Christ has salvation. Now, I would like to say this: that they look to the church for salvation, and what did they get? Creeds, and organizations, and--and so forth, and that's the same thing today. So they were satisfied to believe that that was God's perfect will, for them to have... and those creeds and so forth, and to do those things.
So now, we find out that during that time Jesus came on, a perfect [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] answer to their prophesy that He was to come. Now, all of us will admit that Jesus did not come contrary to the Scriptures. He come exactly with the Scriptures, but contrary to the way that the priests had told the people that He would come. Now, the prophets had talked about... For instance, Isaiah said, "All the mountains skip like little rams, and the leaves clap their hands; and the high places is made low, and the low places made high," at the coming of John the Baptist.

L-52 Why, I expect the people thought that God would just open up the corridors, and send down the golden stairs, and a great mighty prophet, dressed in the priest's clothes, would walk down and say, "I am the voice of the one crying in the wilderness. I have just come from the corridors of heaven to greet Caiaphas here, and a [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] great job he has done," and to the different priests, and what job they had did. That's the way they was expecting it. But what did it happen? An old fuzzy-faced-looking woodsman come out of the wilderness with not a... He went in the wilderness at the age of nine: Zachariah's son, born a odd birth. Come out of the wilderness, standing on there rebuking those priests, and saying, "You generation of snakes in the grass, who warned you to flee from the wrath that's to come?" Whew. What a different man. See?
What was he? Standing in mud up to his ankles. Dressed in fine clothes? A piece of sheepskin wrapped around him, with a camel-skin belt on. But, oh, my, how he shook the regions. He had the Gospel. It was altogether different.
And they said, this is a wild man, drowning people with water. Yeah, he's a--he's... My, what a guy that is."


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