<TITLE>09. Par 32-35</TITLE>L-32 What a tragedy it is to see the churches in this condition. Not that I have anything against churches, but you see what I mean. Now, no sorrow, just the ritualistic form... And yet, Israel was using the Word and commandment of God.
And the churches today take the things out of the Bible. But there's no sincerity with it.
And when Israel begin to take the Word and commandments of God, and make it a ritual, that displeased Jehovah, the Giver of it. It was about that time when they made God's Word a ritual, that that mighty prophet Isaiah appeared on the scene. Read it, Isaiah 1. He was sent to Israel. They hated him and finally sawed him to pieces.
But what did he do? He stripped them. He said, "Your solemn feasts God has refused." He said, "It's become a stink in His nostrils." What was it? The feast that God ordained for them, the new moons, and the Sabbaths, and the offerings of sin offerings, and so forth that God had given to Israel, they had made a tradition out of it. That's right.

L-33 Oh, church, do you see what makes a minister's heart break? When the Pentecost that He gave us, we've made a tradition out of it. The sincerity has faded from the church. Oh, I don't say all of it, thank God. Wasn't all of it gone then; but the majority... The sincerity is gone. People can't listen to it no more. They don't want to hear it. They'd rather get somebody that's got more polish. They don't want it. Well, just as it was then, so is it now.
But God sent them Isaiah, and he pulled no punches. And he told them what they had done. Read Isaiah 1, when you go home. Listen at that prophet preach that. He told them that it was a stink. In other words, God didn't want their stinking sacrifice, a sacrifice that... They... What had they done? They had polluted their sacrifice. They had polluted it, because they entered with it without sincerity. They wasn't getting any results.
He said, "Your traditions..." Coming with their traditions had taken the power out of His commandments.

L-34 Now, today, our tradition is taking the power out of our worship by our own traditions. And we say, "That means Methodists and Baptists." That's Pentecostals. That's all of us together. Your tradition has lost its power--not because you didn't do it. Yeah.
They say, "Jesus said he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." That's right. But we made a tradition out of it. They stink before Him. You see the reason? The worshipper coming, doing it, he did it only as a form.
And we are guilty of doing the same thing. We make a form out of it, yet it's the commandment of God.

L-35 Like, just recently when our movements got started, and God begin to adding something to them, and we went off with it, made a tradition out of it, and it lost its power. Instead of bringing brotherhood together, it separated brotherhood. You do it sometimes just for a tradition, without the sincerity of it. You've got to enter the feast of God with sincerity. No real sincerity, no real sorrow for sin...
People come up to the altar, and many of them take a lot of music, a little dancing, clapping of hands, maybe run up and down the aisle, and maybe just speak with tongues. Now, I believe in speaking in tongues. I believe in running up and down the aisles; I believe in the clapping of hands. But if there isn't some feeling behind there, if there's some sincerity that Jesus Christ has cleansed you... Not doing it because Miss Jones did it, but doing it because there's something in you pulsating, the sorrow for your sins, and the joy of the victory that you share in the resurrection of your sacrifice, the evidence of your eternal security. How can you not be sincere in that?


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