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Half
Truths
God is looking for people
who will get grounded and settled in the truth, thank God,
and then they support it. You get firm on the truth, and
then, He lets the truth down on you. You are in there, and
if you stay a firm supporter of the truth, you will go no
more out. You’ll be so busy serving God; you won’t
have time for the devilish snares. What are you talking
about? When you die, you won’t even go out. No, you are
a part of the family, both in heaven and in earth. You
won’t even go out when you die. We don’t read
obituaries for the saints: he was a member of the Church.
We read: he is a member of the Church. I’ll write upon
him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God,
which is the New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of
heaven from God. I’ll write upon him my new name.
We know that nobody knows
the Word of God, but Him…and when He comes into our
heart and life, He unfolds it to us. I firmly believe that
God knew that many would defile the very name, Church of
God. He has written on His people a new name that no man
knoweth. If they knew it, they would defile it, too. A new
name---I don’t know what the name is, but I know where
those people are gathering. He that hath an ear, let him
hear.
Now, let’s get right
into some essential things here, for a half hour or so.
These things lay heavy on my heart. The 12th chapter of
Hebrews, verse 22; a very familiar Scripture: “But ye
are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living
God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company
of angels, to the general assembly and church of the
firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the
Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.
And the Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to
the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than
that of Abel.” We are told that the word church or
churches appears 109 times in the New Testament. Church is
translated from the word, ecclesia, or more correctly,
translated, congregation. They “run off” with the
thought church, until people say that they are
individually the temple of God and that is truth and they
go from there. Now, a better translation of the word
ecclesia: congregation of God. The Greek would read: that
“ye are come unto the general assembly and congregation
of the firstborn.” Brethren, you might (in modern
speech) have a church all divided up, but you cannot have
a congregation all divide up, for to be a congregation, it
has got to be gathered together in one place. I realize
that we are treading on that, which many would call a bad
subject. When we would begin to mention the least
difference between the kingdom and the church, but in one
sense, they are the same, but in another sense, for men
that have understanding from God’s Word, they can see it
different. May we not forget the “old paths”. May we
not forget the three unclean spirits, “like frogs”.
They are doing their work.
What are they doing? They
are leaving a ministry, that once stood for a separate
message, and called people from Babylon. They have sowed
seeds of universalism in the thought of religion, until
they are looking for some “universal move” of a lot of
Babylon churches to come together with the church and make
up the bride of Christ. Brother, that is some of the seed
from the three unclean spirits like frogs. They have done
their work there. I quote a little portion from D. S.
Warner’s book on “What the church is and what it is
not.” He said, “It is true that the church began under
the labors of John the Baptist, Christ and the apostles
before Pentecost. Many believed and entered the kingdom
then, and constituted material for the church.” Now look
out! But we cannot go back beyond Pentecost. The man or
woman that is saved today, since the Spirit of God has
come, is in a different category, (before God) than those
were before Pentecost. Now we want to deal with it, with
all fairness, but God has a message for us.
There are two questions
we want to answer. Are the saved who are affiliated with
different denominations---members of man-made
churches—are these truly members of the Church that
Jesus built or in others words, the body of Christ.
There’s a great need to look into this. If all the saved
are truly members of the body of Christ, the church, why
call them out? The older brethren were then all off the
track, and all these hundreds and thousands of people that
they have called out, including some of you people---you
have been fooled and mistaken---I know---a preacher said
to me, Bro. Wilson, you should not do that, just preach
against sin, and that is what I’m doing. Old Babylon’s
sins have reached unto heaven. The Word of God says: she
would never be healed. Why? Her sins have reached unto
heaven---there is no space for repentance now, so I am
preaching against sin---I mean when I preach against
Babylon, I’m still preaching against sin. If all saved,
regardless of belief, wherever they are; constitutes the
Church, then, we have no excuse for our existence. Then we
are what the religious world says we are---a bunch of
“trouble makers”. Half-truth is worse than no truth at
all. Some say, do you think that half-truth is worse than
no truth at all? Yes, I’ll give you an illustration.
Yesterday there was a
bottle of milk with a drop of poison in it. Nobody would
drink green poison, but a lot of people will drink milk,
and it has got enough poison in it to kill them, just as
much as if they would drink a whole bottle of poison.
Don’t forget about the woman with her measures of meal
with leavening (corruption) hid in it. Half-truth is worse
then no truth at all. I know a man that was a horse dealer
in Granville. He pulled some of the worse deals you ever
seen. He did most of it because he just liked to. He told
me one time, he just got a kick out of seeing how bad he
could beat people. He just got a kick out of it. He had a
horse for sale, and he would just dope him up and fix him
up. He’d get a horse that was lame in one foot; he’d
take a rock and hit it hard on the other foot before he
was ready to trade it off. The horse would not know which
one hurt the worst, and it would just walk about the same
on both of them. He had it all doped up and fixed up and a
young man came there to see it---I’m talking about
half-truths---the man liked it. He said, “this is the
way you’re buying that horse, son, if you don’t like
it, you don’t have to keep it.” So he thought, what do
you have to lose---he took it right on home, and in about
two days all the medicine got out of him and he was fit
for nothing---could not hardly get out of the barn. So he
came leading him back to this man. He said, Mr., I brought
this horse back. “Well,” he said, “Don’t bring him
back to me.” But you told me if I didn’t like him I
didn’t have to keep him. “You don’t, but I don’t
want him. Take him, sell him, trade him off, you don’t
have to keep him.” Half-truth.
See, this is truth with
deception wrapped around it. God won’t send us all to
hell. Tell everybody, just rest easy, we have nothing to
worry about; God is not going to send any soul to hell.
Sure He won’t, but He can’t keep you from going there
if you don’t choose righteousness. Half-Truths. God’s
got good people in these churches. Sure, He has some good
people there. I’ll go along with that. Let’s us tell
the rest. He’s calling them out. This teaching of
universalism with respect to the church, is leaving people
in a fog of denominationalism and they will never see the
whole truth. The church proper did not exist until the
fullness of Christ came. Ephesians 1:23, declares that the
church is defined as His body. What is His body? The
fullness of Him---I believe that means just what is says.
“Gave Him to be the head over all things, to the church,
which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in
all.
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