<TITLE>14. Par 57-60</TITLE>L-57 That's what's the matter with the church. We get the bright lights, and everything, and the--almost the honky-tonks in the church. We're trying to compare with the world. You can never do that. We got to invite the world on the church grounds; not go out on their grounds. We can't compare with them there, but we've got something that they haven't got. That's the...?... That's the thing. The thing we want to show them is Christ in our lives, the power of the Holy Ghost (See?), showing them something that they haven't got. Let them come on our grounds. If they want Christ, come on this ground.
But don't do like them and act like them. That's wrong. There's where Samson made a mistake. He went from Palestine down into the Philistine country. He got off the wrong--of his own grounds. He found that one time presuming that God was with him, and God had left him.

L-58 Achan, why, when he took that little wedge and that Babylonian garment, why, he thought--he presumed it'd never be seen. "Well, what's that? Just a little old garment. I'll stick it under here and probably my family will long enjoy this. I got a wedge. If we ever get into a tight place, so I got a wedge of gold. Nobody will see it. Just wrap the thing together and put it under my coat and go on." He presumed that it was all right: presuming. But God's commandment was, "Take nothing out of that cursed city. Don't have nothing around you that's cursed."
Then how can we smoke cigarettes? How can women cut their hair, if God says that when they do that it's wrong? How can you wear these little old trousers of a thing that they're wearing, when God said a women that puts on a garment pertains to a man it's an abomination in His sight? God don't change. How can we do it? And it's just presuming that it's all right. It's not all right. It's not all right. When our Pentecostal women does a thing like that, you better stop and check up, shake yourself, look back. Don't presume those things, 'cause you're wrong, absolutely wrong.

L-59 The Egyptians, when they come after Moses and the Israelites, they seen Moses march right through that sea, walk across there--every Israelite. They were circumcised and dedicated to the Lord. They--the commandments of God was with them; the signs of God was following them. They walked right through the sea. There was no mistake. The Egyptians stood and watched them do it.
"Well," they said, "I presume if they can do it, we can too."

L-60 Now, we look back and see the Pentecostal church at the beginning. We think about the Pentecostal thirty, forty years ago. We think about the Pentecostal post-Nicene council. We think about them in the early ages of Irenaeus, St. Martin, Columba, Justin, Polycarp, all those sainted men. And we feel that, seeing them, that we got the same blessing they had, so we can perceive that we can just go right on like they do. We perceive that we can do the same things that they did. But we can't do it under these circumstances, under these conditions that the church is in now.


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