The
same old spirit that came up through here, right up
through the Gospel Day is working today, the same spirit
that causes people to take this attitude -- that we will
do what we want, but still want to hold on to the name of
Christ. My friend, we want to repeat, that Christ is the
living bread. Expcept we eat that, we will have no life in
us.
In the
sixth chapter of Revelation and the 5th and 6th verses, we
see the black horse -- symbolizing the apostasy that moved
in on the morning church. There, on that horse is a man
with balances in his hand saying, "A measure of wheat
for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny. We
hear it taught that that is Roman Catholicism issuing out
the Word at a starvation rate. I say, now, I don't believe
that Roman Catholicism ever had the true Word. That might
seem upsetting, but please, let's go back and read the
Book as it is. If Roman Catholicism ever had the Word, why
would it be black? How can you give away something that
you never had? If you are going to say they had the Word
once, then you have to own the fact that they tell the
truth when they say they had the Word from the beginning.
Sorry to say, I don't believe they ever had it. Stay with
me please. That black horse is a symbol of the apostasy.
The
morning church apostatized. Someone says, How do you know?
The book says so. Let's read here in the 6th chapter of
Revelation and read it slow, the 5th and 6th verses. We
have to get 'this' to understand our lesson. "And
when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast
say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo, a black horse;
and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his
hand." Now, underline this. "And I heard a voice
in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat
for a penny." What are the four beasts? -- a symbol
of the church through all ages. Who said that? Rome didn't
say a measure of wheat for a penny. That came right out of
the four beasts. The four beasts said, a measure of wheat
for a penny. Apostatizing ministry turned from the Word
and measured it out at a starvation rate. What are you
going to do with that? It says, a voice came from the
midst of the four beasts -- that is the church. God bless
your heart, it was the people of God -- let's just analyze
a little.
Where do
you think that beast or that woman in the 17th chapter of
Revelation came from, that was in the wilderness? A good
part of that was made up of backslidden individuals,
people that had rejected light. A modernizing,
apostatizing ministry, if you please, is symbolized by
that black horse saying, "A measure of wheat for a
penny, and three measures of barley for a penny."
Rome did not have the Word to give out. The Scripture said
a voice from the midst of the four beasts. Now, that was
bad enough back there, but I want you to see something
here. Papalism did not hurt the Word and the Spirit. It
hurt not the oil and wine. In this apostasy and during
papalism, the Word and the Spirit were not hurt. They
prophesied all through it. They fed the church in the
wilderness all the way through it. You think God had other
food for the church in the wilderness? He fed them the
same food -- the bread that came down from heaven, the
good Word of God. Papalism did not hurt the Word and the
Spirit. They turned it down -- they rejected it. You can
not hurt the Word of God by rejecting it. That does not
change it. What hurt it? 'Right here' is where we hurt the
oil and the wine, when they added to the Word and took
away from the Word, that is what hurts it, that is what
kills it. Somebody said, I don't believe that is right.
Well, let's get some Revelation to back us up.
The 11th
chapter of Revelation tells us that the Word and the
Spirit lived clear through here, for 1260 years they
prophesied every day. They had to be alive to preach. They
were in sack cloth, but they lived and prophesied --right
here is where they laid dead for 350 years. 1530 - 1880.
What killed it? When they added that leavening to it my
friend, that is what killed the Word. When you add to the
Word of God, it is not God's Word any more. That is what
killed the Word, my friend, and kills the power of it. You
let God's Word be just like it is and it will produce just
what He says it will. But when you add to it or take away,
it is liable to produce anything. This Word of God is
God's Will. The Hebrew writer said in the Hebrew letter
that a will is of no affect unless the testator died. What
is he talking about? You can write all the wills you want
to, but as long as you are still alive they do not amount
to anything. Why? You might change your mind. But after
you are dead, then that will, my friend, will stand.
Paul said
Christ died and signed God's will with His own blood --
that made it of affect. If we will let it be just like it
is there, it will prosper in the thing God sent it for.
Isaiah said it would. That is where consecration comes in.
My father died and left a will. After we had buried him
and days past, we went down and the judge read the will
and he left everything to mother, but before he would make
a move to probate it, everyone of us children had to sign
a waiver that we would leave it just like that. After we
had all signed the waiver, he said the will will stand. It
cannot be broken. It will stand in any court. But, if I
had 'raised up' and said, I don't want it that way Judge,
I want him to give me so much, the Judge would say,
"Listen son, that isn't your dad's will, that is you
will." Well, Amen. You know what I am getting at. Let
this Word of God stand just as it is. Its power is killed
when you try to change it and add to it and revise it, my
friend. Nothing but the devil is after this thing, but I
thank God for the good old Word of God that stood down
through the ages. Men have raised up against it and fought
it. We preached here for six or eight days now on the
beasts and the spirit and all that have come up against
it, but the World still lies this morning. I tell the
people, this Word of God is like the old blacksmith's
anvil. Every blacksmith comes and lives sixty to eighty
years and pounds it and after that, they are gone; but the
anvil is still there waiting for the next generation to
come and 'pound it a little.'
The Word
of God has taken the worst and the most serious pounding
of any other thing that was ever given to us, but after
all these multiplied hundreds of years and the pounding
and the persuading power put on it , she still stands in
her fulness today...ready to deliver a people. I think of
old Solitare, that got so stirred when people talked of a
real experience with God. He just got so stirred he said
it took a few ignorant fishermen to establish Christianity
and years to do it; I am going to show you how one
Frenchman, in one year, can wipe it out of existence, and
he set his presses to sending out false and erroneous
doctrines against the Word. It was not very long until God
called him in death. The Geneve Bible Institute bought his
presses and for years his presses were used to press
Bibles and his storehouses were filled with Bibles.
You might
as well give up fighting against this thing, brother, it
will be a rock for you to build on if you 'take it,' but
if you turn it down, it will turn around and 'grind you to
powder.' That is why, if you please, God is so after
Babylon (religious confusion) today. They have raised up
against this Word. They won't take it to build on, but God
is turning with the Word and grinding them to powder.
Papalism did not hurt the Word. Men and women that reject
it do not hurt it. The man or woman that is hurting the
Word and the Spirit (both of the witnesses), my friend,
are those that change it. The Revelation proves it true. I
asked you who the plagues are put on. The 18th chapter of
Revelation deals with sect babylon, not papalism -- sect
babylon. Put here right where she belongs. Sombody said,
how do you know? God said, "Come out of her, my
people," and God's people never were in Romanism.
No...why? To be a child of God, you must be born again and
Rome has always fought a born again experience. Brother,
God's people were in sect Babylon. It said, "Come out
of her, my people." Who does God put the plagues on?
The 22nd chapter of Revelation said if any man not reject
the word, but adds to it, or takes away from it. If he
adds to it I will add to him the plagues. There is the one
He is after.
I want
you to see something. Whenever Protestantism began to go
back and strike up an alliance with Rome or Catholicism,
she turned to darkness. And whenever the Church turns to
Protestantism and begins to strike up an alliance, she is
turned to darkness. The plagues are after that individual
that will add to it or take away; won't give it all. If
you will read all -- down through Chapter 22 of
Revelation, verses 18 and 19, "For I testify unto
every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this
book. If any man shall add unto these things" (you be
careful what you preach). We still have to be careful what
we preach. Why? We are in a day and age, my friend, when
the sickness is being shot , if you please, like a poison
arrow out on the saints of God, that is putting groupism
in their heads and trying to get them to add just a little
bit her, and make one Scripture a little stronger. Trying
to get people to do 'this' a certain way or 'that' a
certain way, trying to be separate. Better look out! Be
sure you have Bible for that, for what you preach,
because, brother, if you don't, you are going to get the
plagues after you. And you dare not take the least bit
away because if you do, it is liable to take your whole
part out of the Holy City and your name out. You preach
God's eternal Word and it will make a separate people,
that is all that is needed. Thank God for His Eternal
Truth and what it will do for us. All I am saying is,
Let's be sure we have the truth for what we are preaching.
The Word
was given at a starvation rate, my friend. The bad part
here, remember, the three measures in the 6th chapter of
Revelation. Here we still got the Word at a starvation
rate, but some old corruption put in with it. That is
worse. It is bad enough in the apostasy to go at a
starvation rate on the Word, but here we have got three
measures of meal again and added to that, some corruption
that brings death. Death and hell followed this business,
right in here, is death and hell. We read in the Word of
God where it comes to pass. What are you talking about?
The Word of God tells the thought of today more clearly
that this business is the depth of Satan. He scraped the
bottom of the barrel when he pulled this deal, to a
certain extent. Why? God bless your heart, it is just like
taking a glass of milk and putting a few drops of poison
in it. It will kill you just as much as if it was all
poison and that is just exactly what he did here when he
pulled one of his worse ones. He took truth and hid
corruption in it, and all people could see was that truth,
not realizing there was poison in there, that was killing
them as much as if they drank all poison. Hid a little
leaven in there until the whole was leavened. It all ended
up poison. My Lord and my God, may we see it.
Ah, the
deception of this second beast is terrific. We read over
in the 13th chapter of Revelation, verse 11, "And I
beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he
had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And
he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him,
and causeth tha earth and them which dwell therein to
worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was
healed." Now look here! Here is a deception: "he
doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire to come down
from heaven on the earth in the sight of men and deceiveth
them that dwell on the earth, by the means of those
miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the
beast." Now, brethren, I know there is a lot of false
fire, but in the very beginning of this thing,
Protestantism right here, that old false system of
religion, cashed in on God's holy fire, and makes their
image. You stop and think a minute. I will make this
statement. The Methodist couldn't build their organization
today, on the message they are preaching now. How did they
do it? They cashed in on that Holy Ghost fire that God
dropped in their midst when the fire was in the camp and
the sick was healed and holiness was preached and
practiced. That old false system of religion, came in and
cashed in on the presence of the Holy Ghost and built an
organization in the midst of it. I say again, they could
not build an organization on the messages they have today
-- in their 'deadness and formality.' They cashed in on
the fire of God to build that thing. They deceived people
by saying, this is God's way, and God moved in their
services and blessed the Word that they preached and they
cashed in on the moving of the Holy Ghost to build up that
false religion or that human organization.
I bring
it down to the Church in this evening light. Let me tell
you, you cannot do what these evening light brethren done
as a whole, with the message they are preaching today. I
preached a while in Springfield where Charlie Byers was a
faithful trumpeter of God and stood there and had these
charts up and preached them and rented the city hall and
preached to thousands. He built one congregation of
hundreds, and two or three more around him there; through
his influence and this Word, that he stood for -- reached
on out, Bro. Runyon knows -- God bless your heart, over
into Urbanna and around. I told them that they would do
well, to water what Charlie Byers built with the message
they are preaching today. It takes the real thing; it
takes the Holy Ghost fire of God in our midst. I have seen
men that were stiff, hard hearted. I have preached to them
before. I have seen altar services and they could sit in
it, when the saints were weeping and rejoicing, they could
sit and never be moved, but I saw the same man running to
an altar one night screaming for God to have mercy on him.
Why? Brother, you cannot resist the power of God that has
backed up God's Eternal Truth when it is being poured out
in its fullness. This thing was sent out to save the
world, and she will do it, if we will preach it. Sure, it
will do it. It has never lost its power.
I say
again, my friend, they cashed in, back there in the early
days of Protestantism, on God's goodness and God's mercy,
and God's power, to build up that human organization. We
can see today where the work has taken place. We know that
God is rejected. Where is the Holy Ghost Fire? Where is
the shouting in the camp? It might have "The Church
That Jesus Built" over the door...! Someone said,
"Well, Bro. Wilson, where will I go?" Well, let
the Holy Ghost lead you. His sheep hear His voice; a
stranger's voice they will not hear. Ezekiel said in the
34th chapter, he is gathering them out of all the places
they were scattered in the dark and cloudy day and
bringing them back and feeding them on the good mountains
of Zion. You read it real careful. He said, "I will
be in the inhabited places." Now any place that God
does not inhabit, you will get no food there. Places that
are inhabited by God and His Holy Spirit are where His
Word is let live, where His Spirit is moving, that is an
inhabited place. God says that is where He is going to
feed them.
It is
necessary that we be fed. He said that this Word with just
a little leaven put in those three measures of meal until
the whole was leavened. Let us look how Jesus used leaven.
Mark 8:15, He said "Take heed, beware of the leaven
of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod." Luke
12:1 He said, "Beware ye of the leaven of the
Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." Does that sound like
some blessing on the soul? 1 Corinthians, the 5th chapter;
see how Paul used it. "Know ye not that a little
leaven leaveneth the whole lump." Well, that is just
what Jesus said it would do. He said you just put a little
leaven in three measures until the whole was leavened.
Now, what
was that leaven that was added to the measures of meal --
God's eternal truth, here, that human work? Earthly wisdon,
James says, is earthly, devilish and sensual. That was the
leaven that was added to the meal until the whole was
leavened. This thing here, my friend, and churches that
came into being through this era (1530-1880) have become
truly and wholly leavened, completely. They are an earthly
organization. They have human heads, human governments,
human creeds, everything about it is earthly. The word of
God has been fulfilled. In Galations, Paul said, "Ye
did run well, who did hinder you." Still dealing with
leavening -- I want us to see that a little business here
won't hurt, isn't so. Let us listen to the Word of God.
"Ye did run well, who did hinder you that you should
not obey the truth. This persuasion cometh not from him
that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole
lump," Paul says again.
Now,
brethren, the same thing that stopped God's people from
walking right here, was the leaven, and the same thing
that did its work on God's people in this evening light in
the past few years has been a little leaven. Paul said,
"purge out the leaven that you may be a new
lump," -- that is to the Church. Let us clean up and
straighten up and purge out the old leaven. How are you
going to get it out? A fresh baptism of the Holy Ghost
will purge out the old leaven. We will be a new lump!
