<TITLE>23. Par -</TITLE>L-39-1 Notice now. Now, this little cankerworm begin to bore hisself into the bark. What did he do? He begin to take its religion, its covering, its doctrine away from it. Religion is a doctrine, a covering that covers anything. That's the reason that our religion is by blood, the Blood--the Life is in the Blood that covers the Word. And the life is the--is in the blood; the blood is the religion; and the Life in the Blood is what brings the results. Why, you see it? See?

L-39-2 It's not covered by fig leaves; Adam and Eve tried that one time. Cain did the same thing, did you notice that? Cain brought some of the botany life too (See?), but it wouldn't work. It didn't work with Adam and Eve, and it won't work today. When God refused it at the beginning, it's refused for eternity. Man-made creeds and thoughts will never take it; it's God's Word has to do it; and the Word is by the Blood, the Sacrifice of Christ. That's right.

L-39-3 People (as Brother said this morning) pulling splinters... Well, you know, there's nineteen different nails in the nation today that different organizations are holding, and could claim it's the original nail that was in His hands. What of it if it was? I wouldn't want nothing to do with it. Certainly. God never left anything for relics and tokens. He sent the Holy Ghost, Something alive that cannot be destroyed. What would a nail do me any good? What would the original cross He hung on, what would it do me any good? Not a bit. Not to know the nail, know the cross, but to know Him is Life. See?

L-39-4 Now, so we're holding on nails; and we're holding on relics; and we're holding on places. And today people walk up and down in the city of Jerusalem, and--and all up and down in the different places, and holding to relics and things. That ain't got nothing to do with it, not a thing; the thing's condemned, rotten, and gone on.

L-39-5 I went to a church in--in Rome, there where they--they--all these priests had died; they'd plant them in a garden of--down beneath there, and let the meat fall off the bones; and--and then they'd take the bones out, and make light fixtures, and put their skulls around. And people come in there, rub them skulls to get blessings, until the skulls are white and wore out. As you go into Saint Peter's Cathedral there, a foot of Peter (they claim) there, a statue, has been kissed off nine or ten different times; have to mold another foot on it.
Such nonsense. Superstitions, that's all it is, creeds of man-made doctrine. God sent the Holy Spirit, the Life of God, to be in you, not in a statue. You are the guy that God wants to live in, not a statue, but in you. People call "holy statues." There ain't no holy statues; you're God's holy statue. The Bible said so. That's right: "a body has Thou prepared Me..."

L-40-2 Now, this little fellow started to destroying: destroying what? The cankerworm got into the bark. Watch what it did; it begin to destroy the bark. What did it do? It made a natural church for a spiritual church. Yes, sir. It took away the true and give it a false.
Now, remember, the leaf--the fruit, the palmerworm eat. The leaf, the locust eat. Now, the bark, the covering, the religion, the doctrine, the doctrine, the cankerworm got.

L-40-4 Where did that first doctrine come from outside of the Bible? You historians, you know where it come from: from Rome. That's exactly where it started. There they started accepting dogmas. That's how Irenaeus, Saint Martin, Polycarp, all of them after John's death... For translating the Word of God, he was out on the Isle of Patmos; they'd burned him in grease for twenty-four hours, brought back, and he still wrote the Bible. God was determined that this Bible would be written. That's the Word of God; we can't take away from It or add to It. It's to lay just the way It is--the Word.


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