<TITLE>20. Par 204-214</TITLE>L-204 Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You blind leaders of the blind. You compass seas to make one proselyte, and he's twofold child more of hell than he was when he started." And that's what we got today.

L-205   Billy Graham, when I attended his breakfast in Louisville, Kentucky, come up there, as stern as the evangelist was, he said, "I go... Paul said... Here's the example." Said, "Paul went into a city and made one convert, he come back a year later and had thirty from that one." Said, "I go into the city and make thirty thousand converts, and come back in a year and can't find thirty." He said, "What's the matter?" And I admired the evangelist's approach. He stuck his finger out there, about three hundred man sitting there, he said, "It's you lazy bunch of preachers." He said, "You sit in the office with your feet up on the desk, and call a man up on the telephone, and ask him to come down and--and join your church. You ought to go visit him."

L-206   I set there, I thought, "(O God!) You know, Evangelist Billy, you're a great man. I'm a--I'm a dummy. But let me ask you something." I wished I could turn around and said this; but I--I--I admire the brother, think he's a servant of God. But I'd just like to have said this, "Then, Billy, what kind of a preacher did Paul have to follow up his one?" What happened? Paul don't only let him raise up his hand to make a decision, he took him on to the baptism of the Holy Ghost, set his soul afire, and he couldn't hold his peace.

L-207   That's what's the matter today, it's membership. Yes. [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]... members, big membership, big Sunday school classes, pay prizes for somebody that can proselyte and bring somebody else from some other church over, see who had the most. You know, that's Phariseeism! And then make a big brag about it, "We beat them last Sunday." If you've got to a place where you have to make the church of God a rat race, then it's time to close the doors and go home.

L-208 Church of God is a living article of God on earth, manifesting Jesus Christ. I know It's not popular, you can't expect to be. We expect to be right.

L-209   Make a big brag about it... But, did you know, the big noises didn't affect the prophet Elijah. He heard the fire and smoke go by, and the thundering and lightning, and the blood and oil, and everything else, it never bothered him. You know, America's always looking for some big thing with a lot of noise in it. But God is "a still small Voice" that attract the prophet.

L-210   You know, a wagon once went out in the field, and it's a-bumping, making a lot of noise when it went out in the field. And when it come back, it come over the same bumps and never made a bit of noise, it was loaded with good things. See? Yeah.

L-211 But we are resting our spirits upon a bunch of noise. How can we do that, how can we do those things like that? Oh, my! And then stick the glamour of Hollywood in, have women up on the pulpit, with clothes so tight and sexy-looking, dancing in the spirit. I don't know what kind of a spirit it is!

L-212 I don't mean to be critical now, I--I'm--I'm... I--I love you. If I don't, then God will judge me if I've got any other objective than that. See?

L-213 But you get that, see. That's where Pentecostals drifted to. "We got more than brother on the corner had." Oh! "We got more than the Assemblies, because we're the Oneness, or we're the Trinitarians, and we're the..." oh, this, that, or the other, all--all the different brands that they have, you see. Oh, brother, that don't mean that to God. He deals with an individual. Right.

L-214   Notice, big noises, but it didn't attract the prophet. The prophet didn't care about the big noises. But when he heard that still small Voice, he knew that was the Word, he veiled his face and come walking out.


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