<TITLE>07. Par 62-73</TITLE>L-62   It was astounding to find out, that, a great percent on the survey of the nation. And in the... I believe it was in Ohio, that a survey was taken of Christianity, and it was alarming what a percent that did not even go to church. And then, about eighty percent of those that went to church, didn't know why they went. They don't know why they go. They just go to church.
"Why do you go?"

L-63 "Well, mother took us when we was a kid, and we just keep on going." And--and then, now, another percent of that, said that they went just for, oh, to meet their neighbors and talk a while. See?

L-64 Why, it's alarming! No wonder the home life is gone, see, any home life that's not stable.

L-65 Any woman that's going to marry a man, and she's not certain of that man, she'd better leave him alone. And any man that's going to marry a woman, and not certain, you better leave her alone. You'd better pray through, on it, until God gives you the answer. And then what God joins together let no man put asunder. But we--we, first, we must pray through, on that. Yes.

L-66   Now, we find out that we have tried to convert the world by an educational program, and we've really made a mess out of it, sure enough. You cannot convert the world to Christ through education. Education draws him away from God, more than it draws him to God, because he tries to think he's smarter and knows more than somebody else. As good as education is, Christ never did commission His church to educate the world. He never did educate them, to make seminaries. He never did edu-... Oh, they're good. He never did tell them to go and build hospitals. That's all right.

L-67 But the Church's business is to preach the Gospel. "Go ye into all the world, preach the Gospel to every creature." See? But anything different from that, gets shaky, because it's out of the program of God.

L-68   The national life is uncertain. Well, the world is uncertain. We're just living in a place to where the whole world is having a nervous prostration, look like, shaking all. Every nation, everybody, one is afraid of the other one. They talk peace.

L-69 They had, one time, they said, "Oh, when we fight the First World War out, that all of our boys must go over there, and that'll settle wars." Why, they didn't even get the artillery smoke fanned out of the air until they was on another one.

L-70 Then they had the League of Nations, and that was going to police the world, and it fell through. Now they got the U.N., and it's just the same thing. It's done fell through. There's nothing to it.

L-71 Everything is shaky; national life, political life, voting machines. Oh, my! They're just... The whole thing is shook up, everything.

L-72   Now I want to bring it down a little close to home. See? Church life is shook up and uncertain. Now, that's what Paul was speaking of. See? That's where he meant, "If a trumpet gives an uncertain sound." Church life is shook up. The people don't know hardly what to do. They go, wandering from church to church, trying to find out which has the right thing; from pillar to post, trying to find what is right, where is the right doctrine. And one will come around, and they can explain it, just almost to the very point of their creed, is right. And then, the first thing you know, they find so much corruption in that, until they try another church, to see what their creed is, doctrine. Oh, all this, we find out that we have broken ourselves up then, by these things, to hundreds of different orders of church. Now, there's nothing against that. That's just that they can do the other things, then, that they do do, and there got to be some good come out of it, somewhere.

L-73   But, you see, you can't put your confidence in saying, "I belong to the Methodist association of churches, and I--I'm all right because I belong to it. I--I--I belong to the Baptist association, and I'm all right." You can't do that.


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