<TITLE>08. Par 67-76</TITLE>L-67 And I am wondering that how that we in America call ourself a Christian nation, and in the Presence of God; and each year we, our women, take off more. And you ought to be putting on more. And more of Christ you put on, the more conscious you will be of your own conditions. Sometime I see the way people act on the street, I wonder if it's just exactly mentally right. Seems like they don't realize that when they do that, what they are doing, they're making themselves a bait for the devil, and to send souls to hell. That's right. But the world is in a corruption like it was in the days of Jeremiah.

L-68   Now back to the cistern, now, this cistern cannot be relied upon because it cannot fill itself. And it has to depend upon the local rains to fill it, the local rains or the local revivals, to have a little revival here and a little revival over there, or so forth, to get it filled up. So it cannot be relied on. It can't fill itself. It's insufficiency, to itself. It cannot do it. And it's got to depend on the rains, to fill it.

L-69 Then let's notice where it--it gets its rain, where it gets its water, the cistern. It comes off the top of the barns, sheds, where all the dirt that the dust blows up there, it washes right into the rain, and right down into the cistern, a man-made tank. It becomes almost like a cesspool. And it washes off the top of the barn where all the animals, of the smell in the barnyards, and so forth, and settle down. And the air blows in the--the dust and stuff on the barn, then the local rain comes along and washes, the rain, right off.

L-70 And then the water is carried by a man-made trough through a manmade spout, to a man-made tank. And then when it gets there, it's filthy, so filthy that you have to put a strainer rag on it, or you couldn't drink it. Now, see, it's washing from the roof, by a man-made trough, man-made spout, into a man-made tank. And then it with a man-made strainer over the top of it, to see that some of the bugs and things is kept back.

L-71   Now, now we notice, in these few days after the water sets there, in this man-made denominate, or tank. Excuse me. Excuse me. All right. After it's--after it's been washed off, of all kinds of theologies and things washed into it; now we come to find out, when it sets there a few days, it becomes stagnant.

L-72 And anyone knows, in the history of the church, when God sends something forth, a message, and it becomes fresh from God. Then after the--the life of that founder, or whatever it might be; you call him reformer, or whatever you want to say about it. After his death, then they get a system worked up and they make an organization. And as soon as they make an organization of that, it dies right there. It never rises again. It's did it through every time, back, plumb on back.

L-73   In giving regards to this Catholic priest sitting here; when God organized the church... or, not organize it, God never did organize a church. He is not in that kind of a business. He is in birth, not organization, so when God started the church off at the Day of Pentecost. And then finally down at Nicaea, Rome, they organized it, and there is where it lost its Power.

L-74 Then we come on down to the Lutheran reformation, and it was a great thing. The Word of God was given, "The just shall live by faith." And when they did, instead of picking up, all together, all of them together and marching on, they made a Lutheran church, separating themselves from this group, and then it died.

L-75   Then God raised up John Wesley, with sanctification, the message of the second work of grace, and it was a wonderful thing. But after Wesley and Asbury, they organized it, it died.

L-76 Then up come the Pentecostals with the restoration of the gifts. They were doing fine, what happened? Organized it and it died. Just exact.


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