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First, the pew must furnish the raw material. Pray the Lord of this corporation to bring into the pulpit those whom He wants to be preachers. Suppose I ask every parent to pray until we come into the consciousness of the thing I am talking about. You will never fill the pulpits by your own efforts, but by the way of the throne. Where is the father who has spent the month praying God to make a preacher out of his boy! Where is the mother who has spent the month praying God to make a missionary of her daughter? Talk about the condition of the world! There is no power in the universe to civilize Russia, except the divine power through prayer and the preaching of the true gos pel. The power is here, yet the average man is praying God to make something commercial out of his son, and something fastidious out of his daughter. The pew must furnish the means for the evangelization of the world. If I were to ask you to give me so many dol lars, you would say I was taking up a collection. God called you, made you His steward, entrusting you with power and money to spread His gospel around the world. Whose money is it? It is not yours. It is God’s. The re sponsibility for the salvation of this world rests in the rightful discharge of your stewardship under this corpora tion. What are you going to do about it? There are thousands of people to whom you have never carried a word of the gospel. You will suffer for it—you are suffering now. Half of your taxes are due to the fact that you are untrue to this trust. You cannot limit the powers of this gospel; you cannot limit the territory of this gospel. Some one says, “I will give you five dollars a month.” What right have you to say that you will give five dollars a month for evangelization? When you were made a member of this corporation, the command was given you to go. You cannot limit your own powers nor your gifts. When the church begins to limit, to even try to limit the boundaries, God withdraws His blessings, the showers of heaven cease, the land becomes dry, and the crops fail. The limiting reflects on you. If you limit your responsibilities, God will limit His blessings. The “Company,”—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost “All power is vested in me as the executive of the God head, and therefore I create this corporation and commis sion and command you to go. I will accompany you through each succeeding period. I will be with you, and we will do our part and give you the signs. The sign of the resurrection we will never take away.” Wherever the minister or the pew goes, the open tomb and the resur rection of Jesus, and the power of the Triune God, rest. The cross is not the sign of Christianity. It is the emblem of sin, of death, of total depravity, the emblem of iniquity. The open grave is the emblem of Christianity, the sign of success, the promise of victory. He will go with us, He will go with us wherever we go. He goes into the pulpit, but He does not go alone, because Satan goes too. Thank God, Jesus is the victorious one. I wonder if ministers do not make a mistake in saying the “Spirit of God.” He is the third person of the Trinity. God, the first person of the Trinity; Christ, the second person of the Trinity; the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, all go with us when we preach the true gospel. There are five in this corporation: Pulpit, Pew, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; super natural, unlimited, glorious, absolutely under the domina- (Continued on Page 185)
There are people in the earth most hideous but their- souls are as precious to God as mine, and for which the blood of Christ on Calvary’s brow was spilt. The Pulpii>—The Authorized Spokesman The pulpit is the authorized spokesman. It is in the supreme position and must carry tremendous responsibili ties. There is no place as high as the Christian pulpit. You have no right to speak of the ministry as a profession. It is a commission. That which #*ou have entered as a lawyer may be so classified, but the ministry is a commis sion. It is the highest place in the world. No pedestal in the world is as bigh as the pulpit of Jesus Christ. It is the supreme place in this world. The combined places of the earth do not equal the height of the Christian pulpit. Men cannot choose the ministry, but I am praying-that God will choose you for the ministry. There is no ladder by which you can ascend, and God has not made an eleva tor. You have no right to choose it; God has reserved the right to select you. He has not vested in you the right to select it. It is the most responsible position in the world, and it is the most difficult. Not only is this true, but also the condition of the country is due to the fact that ministers have not measured up to this responsibility. The condition of this country is to a large extent chargeable to the ministers who occupy the pulpits. They must take the responsibility; they must assume all the responsibility that belongs to the office, and they must be held responsible for their failure to perform their duty. False Note of the Pulpit A large percentage of the unrest, and the dissatisfied and unsettled condition of the Church ahd in the govern ment is due to the false note of the pulpit; I am not talk ing about ministers who do not believe any one of the things that you believe. I am talking about ministers who know Jesus Christ and His vicarious death as the only remedy for the sinful condition of the world, but who fail to announce the note that means the regeneration of this country. This country has been led astray by reformation programs. This country does not need reformation, she needs regeneration. You say, that is a slow process. It is the only process that can bring a remedy to America, or any nation. It is the most rapid process in the world. You must save the individual parts of the mass. You must save the individuals of the mob. God has not promised to save people collectively. If He were to save this world today, it would be brought to Christ by the regeneration of each individual unit. Ministers who have preached the false note are responsible for the present day conditions. Another thing: The pulpit must evangelize before it in doctrinates. Some one has said that the first thing is to reach the intellect. The pulpit is going to lose its place if it preaches such doctrines. Its mission is to the soul, not to an attribute. The intellect is an attribute of the soul. When you have evangelized the country, then you must in doctrinate the individual. The church does not fully un derstand the gospel, her fundamental doctrines. The pul pit must organize and cause the church to observe all these things. Where is the discipline of the church? Jesus Christ said, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gos pel, and cause them to practice, observe, and do all these things.” Where is there a church today that is causing these things to be fully observed? What are you going to do about it? . The Pew Must Share the Responsibility But, there is something else: The pew is required to share the responsibility. How is the pew going to do it?
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