<TITLE>05. Par 15-17</TITLE>L-15 How great that is, when we can hear from God and be rest assured that we're right in His fellowship. Then there's nothing too great. There's nothing great enough that can stop that person. Man that's ever amounted to anything, at any time, through any age, has been men who believed in God and had faith in God, and stood against the enemy on every side, and was perseverant because they believed in God. I believe every Christian, therefore, should be very perseverant.
I'm thinking back in the beginning, as we can think of the great prophet Noah. He came from the family of Seth: righteousness, which was in humility. If you ever trace the genealogies of these lineages, we find out that--that Ham's children--or not Ham, I mean Cain's children, all become smart, educated, scientists, great business figures of the world. But Seth's children were humble servants of the earth. They was sheepherders, and they were farmers, and men of humble character.

L-16 And let's think of Noah, just a common farmer out in the field with his crude tools, trying to make a living for his children. And he was not an architect by no means, just a good man, God's blessings upon him. Every day when he'd come into the house, he'd gather his family around when he come in for his noontime meal, and they'd perhaps all kneel down and pray to God.
One day when he was out there in the field, probably all disturbed... And his soul was vexed because sin was great upon the earth, because the sins of the people had come up before God in such a way that it even grieved Him that He'd ever created a man.
So it must have been something like the modern times--great, high-towering buildings, great things. You know, they did things back there in science that we can't do today. They built pyramids and sphinx, and many things that they did that we could not reproduce today. They had a dye in that day, they could put a coloring in anything that stayed permanently, still to this day. After thousands of years we don't have it. They had an art of embalming that we don't have today. Many things they were further advanced than we are today. What a smart world.

L-17 And then their churches must've been greater than our churches today. But in all of it, they become a bunch of corruption, because the world was completely covered with people, multiplying upon the earth. And then violence set in. You people here in Chicago has a harder time living your Christian faith than the man would out on the prairie, somewhere in the western plains, where he doesn't see the things, and the corruption, and violence that you have to look at each day. Therefore, it takes great grace and power to keep you from the things of the world.
He has one little church setting out somewhere, him and his family drives for many miles to go to, on a Sunday morning. He probably doesn't see anybody else until the circuit-rider comes by, when they meet again. Here, every day you're meeting with conflict on every hand, and the devil trying to persuade you this way and that way. It's a battle every hour of your life... [A brother says, "It's a good one, though. Hallelujah."--Ed.] 'Cause we've got a great victory (Amen.), and a great Victor.


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