<TITLE>04. Par -</TITLE>L-747-19 And they have tried many things, the little tabernacle here, and finally... I kept quiet in it, just to see, after I'd built it... And then the Lord called me out into the field about fifteen, sixteen years ago, and I left the church. But still, I just can't turn it out. I've always kept my name attached to it, so that I could be a vote sometime if the wrong thing got started in here, I'd have a right to come and--and stop it, because I've sweated it out for many years behind this pulpit, seventeen years in here to keep the thing straight. When all kinds of isms and in's and out's and every kind of a cult... And being a interdenomination, everything that flew in, flew in this way, and by the help of God we stood here with the unadulterated Gospel, and she still stands the same tonight. And so we... But... There's times that this church has been tried to be sold out from under me and everything else like that. If my name wasn't attached to it down there, why, it sure would be--been in an awful fix tonight, not... And it wasn't me, it was God, of course, that did it.

L-747-20 And then, as I see it now, coming into the place that it is, and we're living in a great hour, it's still my interest to say something about this church. See? Because it's--it's a part of me. No matter whether I'm here or not, it's still a part of me. And it's my duty to see to it that it operates clean, clear, and the best I can for the Kingdom of God. And I'm very grateful that in these days...

L-747-21 I see it's got little satellites to it that I am grateful for. Brother Crase here and his Sellersburg group, and the brother back there that just taken Brother Snelling's place at Utica, and Brother Ruddell up here, and Brother Junior Jackson and those precious boys who are fine men, wonderful men of God. They preach this Message. Now, they may... One might disagree just littlely upon something another, that's only human amongst the group of the ministers yet. And if ministers have a little difference... There won't be a--a shadow of a difference in it. Maybe one might say, "I believe that the millennium will come and Jesus will be on a white horse," and another one say, "I believe when He comes, He'll come on a white cloud." Well, as long as they believe He's coming, that's the main thing. See? No matter how He's coming, just... They believe He's coming and making ready for it. And that way...

L-748-22 I have tried to find now, and I've been studying (Now, I've told it out before the congregation.), I've been studying the early Church, and I've watched the way that those anointed men prepared the house of the Lord and the order of the Lord's worship in the house, and it struck me real--real good. And I preached here some time ago and--upon the subject of Joel 2, "I will restore, saith the Lord, all the years that the palmerworm eaten, and the caterpillar, and cankerworm and so forth." And I begin to study on that, about what these men did, and the way that they taken care of the church that God had left them overseer.

L-748-23 Now, we're going to start off with the early church and just bring it (for about five minutes now) down to what they did, and then I can show you the vision that I have for the future. Now, at the beginning, the church was inaugurated at Pentecost. And there the Holy Spirit fell upon them where Jesus had chosen twelve. And one of them had fallen, and they'd chose Matthias to take his place, and the Holy Spirit waited until all this was in order before It come. They had to choose one to take the bishoprick of--of Judas, that fell by transgression to fulfill the Scripture.


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