I ask you to hear me as I
make a statement that I've been making, but
I won't make it again so that you
can...
I hope it'll be of help to you
in hearing me.
If I am a God-called evangelist, then
I am one of the group of five
men whom the Risen Lord gives to the
Church.
The five or four, I've never known, in
Ephesians 4, he gave some, that's the Risen
Lord, he gave some apostles, that's not the
twelve, and these men are the gifts to
the Church, gifts of the Ascended Lord.
He led captivity and gave gifts.
Barnabas was one of them, Paul was one,
Timothy was one, Titus was one, so forth,
Apollos, so forth.
He gave some apostles and he gave some
prophets.
Now these are gifted men.
When I say gifted men, that doesn't mean
that they are gifted, but that he has
gifted them.
The book of Proverbs says, a man's gift
shall make room for him.
And if you're a Christian, you have a
gift so that you can prosecute the ministry
that the Lord has called you into.
There's no way on earth you can be
a Christian unless you've been given a ministry
and a gift so that you can do
the job that the Commander-in-Chief has
appointed you to do.
So these are gifts of the Risen Lord.
He gave some apostles and he gave some
prophets.
These are not the Old Testament prophets, they
are men that we have today, but we've
kept our prophets in exile all the days
of our lives.
And if we haven't exiled them, we've stoned
them, we've built monuments to them after we've
killed them.
He gave some apostles and he gave some
prophets and some evangelists.
The Church has been getting along now for
sixty-odd years without any evangelists.
And some pastors and our teachers.
I do not know whether five men there
or four.
I'm inclined to think there are five, but
many good men say there are just four.
The play is on whether the pastor is
the pastor and teacher or whether the pastor
is one man and the teacher is another.
But the work of these men, like that,
they just have one job to do.
All five of them have the same job.
And that is to perfect or mature the
saints for the work of the ministry.
The apostle, the prophet, the evangelist, the pastor,
and teacher, or the pastor or a teacher.
These are offices.
There's a difference between the office of a
pastor, the office of an apostle, and the
ministry of God's people.
I labor that a little bit.
I say that every child of God is
called to be a preacher.
That's different from being an evangelist, an apostle,
a prophet, a pastor, a teacher.
That's a proclaimer of the gospel.
That's a preacher.
They have one job, and that's to mature
you.
Start out, you're genuinely committed to Christ, you're
still a little baby, but you'll not stay
that way.
Amen?
And their job is to make mature saints
of God, perfect them, mature them, so they
can perform the ministry that God has given
to them.
And in this way, if you'll continue to
read in the fourth chapter of Ephesians later,
if you're interested, we're going to have a
full-grown man.
We're going to have a church come to
the fullness of the stature of Jesus Christ.
A church through which Jesus Christ can manifest
himself in fullness.
And that is to take place right here
on this earth.
And that must be the goal to which
every public preacher, whether he be apostle, prophet,
evangelist, pastor, teacher, will work together until the
time when once again Jesus Christ will come
back and attend our services.
It's been so long since he's graced our
services with his presence.
We tear into pieces at Beshoga.
We've been having church all of these decades
of time in the absence of the living
Lord and the Lord of life.
Now I said that to say this.
I just have one message, and that's repent.
I stick to it.
I have said to you that we desperately
need that God would be merciful to our
assemblies and bring, make manifest the desperate division
in all of our congregations over the work
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That was the Sunday morning message.
Sunday night, I said that we desperately need
it to become manifest.
It's already here.
This church split wide open over who Jesus
is.
It's just that the lion and the lamb
have made peace where there is no peace.
And in order to preserve harmony, we have
exiled the Holy Spirit, and we have harmony
in our churches at the cost of the
absence of the living Lord and the demonstration
and power of the Holy Ghost.
God knows I'm telling the truth folks.
And then I said that we are desperately
divided and we're hauled.
And the churches now are fast becoming the
greatest enemies of the souls of men on
topside of God's earth.
Christ is being wounded in the house of
his so-called friends, and he's clearly not
welcome in the assembly of the people because
we are desperately divided over the meaning of
what it is to be saved.
And most folks, it's a joke instead of
a commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ and
his program of redemption.
And then I said since I've been here
that we are desperately divided and thus we're
hauled deep and we're sick as congregations and
we're well now helpless.
Most of us can't even win our own
families to Christ because long since
we've come to where we down deep in
our hearts do not believe that Christ is
an utter necessity.
To us he's a convenience but not a
dire necessity.
And then last night the message on Christ's
demand and certainly that demand is ignored or
effaced.
It is evaded and rebelled against an all
-out utter capitulation to his person and commitment
to his program.
Now tonight, tomorrow night I'm going to bring
half of a message tonight.
It's not exactly fair to some of you
who come from everywhere but I can't bring
it all tonight.
And I want to bring you an optimistic
note.
Mine's not a very popular ministry.
I'm saying you're all wrong.
Repent, see that's not very popular.
And then now Andrew Carnegie says it's a
good way to win friends and influence people
but that's the task God's given me to
do.
And I do not consider myself a visitor.
I'm a gift if I am an evangelist
to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ
and I consider this to be a local
expression of the Church of Christ.
I think you're like our Baptist churches to
whom I've ministered most of my life.
You're terribly out of order.
I don't think you need to stay that
way.
And I want to address myself tonight to
an optimistic note since I've been telling you
everything's wrong with you.
I want to suggest a remedy because I
believe there is a remedy.
And I want you to hear me tonight,
not agree with me, but listen to me.
Without any pious religiosity I claim that I
could not have lasted 36 years as an
evangelist crossing the grain of what's called evangelism.
I am known in the South by what
passes as evangelists today as the greatest enemy
of evangelism in America.
That's how they're branded.
I am an enemy of what we've called
evangelism and I have lifted up my voice
all the days of my ministry against it.
And yet, subject to pastors for I can't
call Brother Duvall and say, I'll come down
and preach to you next Sunday.
I have to wait for him to call
me.
I'm content to do it.
But I've never gone anywhere yet to preach
except by invitation.
And I have to wait, you see, until
God or the devil moves on some preacher
and says, come over and preach to us.
Now, it wasn't that way in the New
Testament, but it is now.
I'm saying it's utterly unscriptural that I'd have
to wait for an invitation to come and
minister here, but it's what we're used to.
We've got to do the best we can
with what we have until it gets better.
I said that, say this, I want you
to listen to me tonight because I think
the 36 years entitles me to say it's
just possible I may be a God-called
evangelist.
If so, you need to listen to me.
Is that right?
And I'm not a visitor.
I'm not an intruder.
I'm not meddling.
I have a part with the other four
in the ministry to God's people.
Isn't that right?
So I want you to do your death
-level best to hear me, whether you agree
with me or not.
I believe that the time of glory for
the Church of God is future.
Our old gray-beard Baptist preachers two generations
ago, hardly ever preached a sermon, then they
quoted that text from the New Testament.
To Him, that's God, be glory by Christ
Jesus in the Church, world without end.
Amen!
To Him, that's God, be glory by Jesus
Christ.
In the Church, world without end.
I don't believe that fits us to be
there well.
And I'm not satisfied with things as they
are.
And I don't believe they have to stay
as they are.
I believe that God's people could begin to
mind God and God would quit hiding His
face and would come and visit us again.
I believe that with all of my heart.
And I want to talk tonight and tomorrow
night of what light I think I have
and share it with you as to how
that's going to come to pass.
And I want to begin reading in the
book of Isaiah, chapter 4.
I'd appreciate it if you'd turn with me
now and we'll not stay in Isaiah but
this will introduce my thinking to you tonight.
I'm going to speak to you tonight on
what it means to be under the discipline,
the authority of Jesus Christ in the Church.
And tomorrow night I'm going to speak to
you on the subject what happened on the
day of Pentecost can happen in every church
and must in your day and mine.
We must have Pentecost again and again and
again and again and again.
We ought never to meet together if the
same thing that happened on Pentecost doesn't take
place in our assembly.
That's right.
In the book of Isaiah, chapter 4, I
read two or three verses, verse 1.
And in that day Now here's my interpretation
where it's riding off.
In that day, that's the day of Antichrist.
When that enemy of the gospel that creation
of Satan that one who is against Christ
that one of whom my Lord spoke when
he was here in the flesh I come
in my Father's name and you receive me
not if another shall come in his own
name him you shall receive.
That one for whose appearance I believe nearly
every preacher and every church is contributing to
the condition that will obtain when Antichrist makes
his appearance this world of church members will
embrace him and worship his saint.
I believe that you and I will see
the day when there'll just be two kinds
of people in this earth worshipers of the
true God and worshipers of Satan.
That's what Scripture's coming sometime.
And I believe what we've called evangelism.
I believe what we've called the pattern and
the order and the rebellion that constitutes the
way we conduct ourselves in our churches.
Not in the building but as God's professing
people.
I believe it's all contributing not to the
reception of Christ when he comes back but
to the reception of Antichrist.
I don't know where it's going now but
I believe it with all my heart.
I believe these are the days of confusion
and battle when the world is made drop
with the fornication of hell.
I believe these are serious hours.
In that day seven women I believe the
seven women stand for what we call Christendom,
Church Anity, Presbyterianism, Baptist, Methodist, Congregational, Catholic,
just name it.
I believe that Almighty God has spewed out
Presbyterianism, Baptist, Methodist, the whole outfit.
I believe it.
I believe the seven women, seven is the
number of fullness.
When what passes for Christianity comes to the
place the cup is full.
And religion has done its duty.
And you know what's going to do it?
It's going to give birth to Antichrist.
He's going to be the greatest religious leader
this world ever saw.
Isn't that right?
And this religious world is going to embrace
him, have his mark put on their foreheads
and bow down and worship.
Say Amen.
God knows that's awful but it's so.
In that day, seven women shall take hold
of one man as Antichrist.
And they say, now we're going to keep
on being Presbyterians and Baptists and Catholics and
Congregationalists.
We're going to keep our little doctrines and
have our own little programs.
We'll eat our own bread and wear our
own apparel.
There's just one thing we ask of you.
Let us be called by thy name to
take away our reproach.
You know, the leaders of the World Council
of Churches are serious men.
They've got sense enough to know that if
this generation of church energy don't hang together,
we're going to hang separately.
They're saying we must get together.
My conviction is that they're going to succeed.
And that that will form the platform upon
which Antichrist will be embraced.
I don't know whether that's sure or not.
I don't think you're going to, Carl McIntyre
and the rest of them, they're fighting them.
I don't think they're going to make a
dent in them.
I think they're going to get bigger all
the time.
But that ain't all.
The chapter, verse two, says there's going to
be another movement.
Who knows what this ecumenical movement is?
It's growing beliefs and bounds.
And it meets a tremendous scandal, a scandal
of divided so-called Christendom.
Two, three different kinds of Presbyterian congregations, I
think, right here in this town.
Isn't that right?
Baptists, they've got, I don't know how many,
Methodists, just name it.
They're societal.
They've got a church on every corner and
one in between.
They've got splits from splits from splits from
splits.
That's awful.
That's a scandal.
And their ecumenical leaders know it.
And they also know that what we call
nations, you folks give money and send somebody
to town.
There are men over there preaching the gospel.
There are men over there making little miniature
churches like we've got here.
Too much of it.
And the folks over in their countries are
saying, you ain't going to go to hell.
And the sooner they come home, the better
it will be for the salvation of souls.
The biggest scandalous site of hell is what's
called our foreign missionary program.
That's an awful hard thing, but God knows
it's so.
You folks can put your money into it.
You ain't going to get nothing of mine,
brother.
This world is in bad enough shape without
sending some little Presbyterians and Baptists and stuff
over here to make them just like us.
They're bad enough shape, but God knows I
don't want to be like us.
But during that time, running right along by
it, there's another movement, and it's described in
verse 2.
And this is my theology, whether it's right
or not.
In that same day, while religions flourished world
around, and we've established Presbyterianism and Baptists and
Methodists and the whole shoot mass in the
isles of the sea and the continents of
the earth.
In that day shall the branch of the
Lord be beautiful and full of glory.
That's the movement I'm interested in.
And the fruit of the earth shall be
excellent and comely for them that are esteemed
of Israel.
I believe that's the movement of the Spirit
of God in your day and mine.
I don't believe he's going to pay attention
to Presbyterianism or Baptists or Methodists or nothing
of that.
It's been what I don't believe.
I see it breaking out all over the
world.
That's the movement I need.
And I won't be in on that.
I know about you, but I'm not going
to waste one minute fighting that great big
ecumenical.
Every time I throw a stone at it,
it gets twice as big.
Somebody else, maybe God wants them to do
that.
I don't know.
But for me, I'm just interested in this
little movement.
Because the Lord has always been the God
of the rare.
And I'm interested, and I see it springing
up everywhere.
This is the most optimistic hour I ever
saw in my 64 years.
It's not all black now.
Thank God in that day when all hell's
popping, when Antichrist is raised again, when the
harlot and her daughters are riding, giving that
fellow a ride on the back of the
nations.
God's going to be working too.
The branch of the Lord shall be glorious
and beautiful.
And I think that's what I just talked
to you about in Ephesians 4.
I believe the church of Jesus Christ is
going to be made manifest here on this
earth.
I ain't talking about the Presbyterians or the
Baptists, because this ain't a church.
I hope there's a church within it.
Baptists ain't a Baptist church on earth.
It's a church.
It's a congregation.
This is a Presbyterian congregation.
Maybe the Lord's got a church.
If he's got two people in here that
know him, then he's got a church in
the congregation.
Is that right?
And I'm interested in that church within our
congregation.
Don't pay attention to your denomination.
I guess I've been troubled with my Baptist.
I got a cancellation the day before I
got up here because Baptists found out I
preached for folks like you.
That's the truth.
We've got Baptists.
I did what they said I couldn't preach
to them but I was a Baptist and
Bible Presbyterian the same way down our way.
Boy, they won't hardly speak to you unless
you're a Bible Presbyterian.
That's right.
Well, you won't be that way.
I can't see that.
I'm interested in this little group here and
that little group over there and getting together,
brother.
Amen?
That community is trying to get everybody together
and they're going to do it.
And I want to be in that little
gang of people that are the called-out
saints of God.
And we're scattered and outnumbered and defeated.
Bless God, I believe God is going to
make His people manifest.
And the branch of Jehovah is going to
be beautiful and glorious right in the time
when hell is popping here on this earth.
Now, I don't know whether it interferes with
your doctrine or if it does.
You come up at the service and apologize
and then I'll forgive you.
Is that all right?
Now, that's just the introduction.
Let's turn to the Book of Acts, will
you?
I want to tell you what discipline I'll
just show you.
It's in the Bible.
It's not mine.
But I believe that the Lord is going
to make His true church That's silly.
His true church.
Well, His church is the one that is.
But I'm going to believe He's going to
manifest it so you can tell it.
See what I mean?
So the world Those are the people of
God.
That's what my Lord prayed for.
I pray that they may be one so
that the world may know what the Thou
hast sent me.
That's what I'm asking.
I believe the Lord's going to do it.
And I believe He's going to use me
just a little bit to make it possible.
I invite you to get in on that
too.
Wonderful if the Lord used you to do
something, wouldn't it?
But that's what He does, isn't it?
I believe it's going to come to pass
by the Lord Jesus Christ reasserting and enforcing
His headship, His discipline, His authority in the
local congregation.
I believe the Lord's going to split our
congregation wide open.
And there's one way to split a crowd
quicker than any other way.
Exercise authority.
You'll either bow to it or you'll rebel,
won't you?
Huh?
A child will either submit to the authority
of his father and mother or he'll rebel.
Is that right?
A citizen will either submit to the authority
of the government or he'll rebel.
Is that right?
A human being will submit to the authority
of Jesus Christ or he won't!
In this life, is that right?
And the best index to the character of
a nation, a home, a congregation or a
nation is their reaction to properly constituted authority.
Isn't that right?
And I wish that I could say now
that it's just our nation socially that's being
torn to pieces because men and women, boys
and girls are rebelling against everything that smells
like authority.
But that's what's tearing our churches up too.
That's what's tearing our homes up too.
That's why I wonder it'd be interesting if
I was smart and I could unlock what's
going on.
How many broken-hearted parents there are in
this house tonight because your children utterly rebel
against the authority God has demanded that you
exercise over them.
All hell's taking place in our homes.
Broken-hearted mothers and fathers.
All the rules seem to have gone out
the window.
All the platitudes are gone.
And God knows what a day will bring
forth in this nation.
They're liable to tear the whole thing up
tomorrow night.
You never know.
And our churches are hotbeds of lawlessness.
People who are in terrible rebellion against that
doctrine that every denomination and every congregation swears
on a stack of Bibles they desperately and
really believe that the great head of the
church is the Lord Jesus Christ.
That it belongs to him that he purchased
it with his own blood.
And that he rules it.
And that to be a member of the
body of Christ is to be under the
rule and authority of the great head of
the church.
And I verily believe that the Lord is
going to come to the rescue of the
church.
I believe he's going to reassert and exercise
his authority.
And he's going to do that by raising
up pastors and people who will no longer
evade the fact that he delegates some of
his authority to his church and demands that
the church exercise the authority he's delegated to
it.
Not evade it.
See what I mean?
And that brings us to discipline.
Authority.
And here we have it in Acts chapter
2.
I'm going to give you a brief outline
of it tonight and tomorrow night.
We're going to pursue it a little further.
I think this is fundamental.
I think this is hopeful.
Acts chapter 2.
I think you'd scarce find a Bible teacher
that wouldn't agree to this.
Gives us the divine order of the church
of Jesus Christ.
The church, of course, was not organized as
started on the day of Pentecost.
It was in existence.
It's the creation of the Lord in the
days when he was here in the flesh.
I believe the church became a church in
the 20th chapter of John when the risen
Lord breathed life, breathed on them and said,
Receive ye the Holy Ghost.
That's what I believe.
I don't know.
I believe it was formed as a church
for witness empowered on the day of Pentecost.
And so in the book of Acts, the
church is a group of people who've been
filled with the Spirit as a group.
For the church that is not as a
congregation full of the Spirit is not a
church.
God knows the Lord never authorized any group
call himself a church if they haven't been
made full of the Holy Ghost.
This world's in bad enough shape without us
operating on them in our own strength.
And of course, filled with the Holy Ghost,
they were full of Christ and they just
filled the city of Jerusalem with the wonderful
works of God.
That's the gospel, isn't it?
And the folks said, What in God's name
is the matter of these folks?
They must be drunk.
And Peter said, No, we're not drunk.
We haven't had time to get drunk.
But this is that which Joel said.
And they got a little taste of it.
And then Peter got up and this is
the first time a church ever preached the
gospel.
I remind you that the man who stands
behind this pulpit isn't the fellow who's called
to preach the gospel.
It's this church that has given the commission
to preach the gospel.
If you're paying a man to preach the
gospel, far are you a million miles wrong.
That's your job as a church.
Amen?
That's the truth.
You don't believe that, but that's so.
We got that from the Puritans, but they're
dead wrong.
The only man in this congregation not supposed
to preach is your pastor.
He's supposed to make preachers out of you.
That's right, folks.
That's his job.
The folks to be preached to are out
yonder.
They're not here.
The day when people crowded our church buildings
to hear the gospel is now.
Maybe we'll face that someday and we'll start
doing what God's been trying to tell us
to do all the time.
The place to preach the gospel.
Every time you need a fellow, get him
to stand still long enough to listen to
you.
Amen?
Where he is.
That's where the gospel goes.
And after the first gospel sermon was preached,
Peter stood up and who stood up?
The 11 stood with him.
It wasn't one man message, see?
And he preached.
Who'd he talk about?
He talked about that fellow they'd just crucified,
didn't he?
And after he'd wound up his sermon with
verse 36, he told them who that Jesus
that had been recently crucified by them right
there in that city.
What this was all about, he brought his
message to a conclusion in these words.
Verse 36, Therefore let all the house of
Israel know as a matter of fact that
that same Jesus whom ye crucified, God's made
Him both Lord and Messiah.
Then, I want to give you an outline
so I'll have time to do tonight.
Then, Peter said unto them.
Unto who?
Well, verse 37, Now when they heard this,
Heard what?
That the man approved of God, Jesus Christ,
the man sent from God, Jesus Christ, the
man they crucified, Jesus Christ, God had raised
Him, Jesus Christ, and made Him Lord and
Messiah.
When they heard that, they were stabbed in
their hearts.
And they said unto Peter and the rest
of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall
we do?
Note the answer.
This may invade you in theology, but note
the answer.
Here's the first thing about the order of
the church.
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be
baptized.
Now I was taught that this was a
transition period, and that's just for the Jews.
Don't you believe a word of it.
This is the divine order.
And this is what God's going to bring
His churches back to.
Listen to me now.
If this is strange to you, I don't
know.
But don't spit it out until you chew
it just a little harder.
This is serious.
Repent, and be baptized, every one of you,
in the name of Jesus Christ, for the
remission of sins.
And what will happen?
You shall receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost.
How is it that people still trying to
get the gift of the Holy Ghost have
to claim their saves?
That's their price.
If you'd repented and been properly baptized, that
would have been settled, Johnny, on the spot.
In the New Testament, when people got filled
with the Holy Spirit, when?
When they came up out of the waters
of baptism, you sprinkled, you spread the tear,
just so it meant the same thing.
It's happening on the mission fields now, where
the real gospel is being preached.
And how long is this going to last?
How long is this to be the way
to become a member of a group that's
already got the gift of the Spirit and
doing business for the Lord?
Well, it's going to last this far, for
the promise is unto you, and then it's
to your children, and then it's to all
that are far off, and then it's even
as many as the Lord our God shall
what?
Call.
If you still call in sinners, the promise
is good for the day.
Repentance.
Repentance looks to what God's done about Jesus
Christ.
What men do, you had a part in
it, you crucified the Son of God.
Amen?
What God do, he raised him, made him
Lord and Messiah.
What repentance?
Agreeing with God's act.
I bow to it.
What's baptism?
It's submission to the Lord as his authority
is exercised on the church.
That's exactly what baptism is.
You Presbyterians better get baptized.
Most of us Baptists never have.
To us it's just a ritual.
And our Baptist churches are full of people
in rebellion against the discipline of Jesus Christ
as it's exercised in the local church.
So they've never been baptized.
How do you know that baptism means to
come under the rule and the authority of
Jesus Christ?
Well, three reasons.
Baptism is the only way you can make
a public profession of faith in Christ.
You walk in the aisle and say, Jesus
saved me.
That don't count.
I'm going, let's make God willing, back to
the Virgin Islands where I was several years
ago.
They rented the ballpark and all the Baptist
churches on the islands are going to get
together and we're going to try to get
somebody to God.
And I was there years ago and they
took me out to the Caribbean Sea where
anybody who asks for baptism on that island
knows that he can't get married or buried
if he's ever baptized.
And when a Christian who's been baptized dies,
they take him and throw him in the
waters of the Caribbean and the sharks and
the alligators eat him.
That's the God's truth.
They don't count your profession over there.
It's just like we all hear about Christian
over there living like the devil.
But when you come to the place that
you're willing and anxious for it to be
publicly known that you've been captured and conquered
and brought in under the sweet rule, I'll
be rejected, Lord of glory, Jesus Christ.
It's a white horse, a different color.
It's got to come back now.
I'm going back over there and on the
kind of invitation I won't ask anybody, they'll
walk by and say, Jesus saved them.
I'll say, ask these churches to baptize you.
The world can't see your faith, but it
can see your baptism.
And baptism means that I'm another captive of
King Jesus and I'm coming willingly under his
rule in the church.
I say, you Presbyterians, you tickle death by
Jesus being at the right hand of God
and he's there.
But in the spirit, he's the head of
the church.
And it's my nice to say, oh boy,
I'm glad he's Lord.
It's a white horse, a different colored mind
in the local church.
That's what it means to be baptized.
Now, you know that's what it means.
That's something you've sunk up, oh no.
Of course, this goes on as long as
God's still calling sinners in the second place.
First place, it's the only way you can
publicly profess faith.
Second place, it's to continue to live this
good hour.
And the third place, look what happened to
the ones that were baptized.
They joined.
They were joined to something.
And they were prepared to fit right in.
Skipping a few verses, well, and with many
other words, did he testify and exhort, save
yourselves from this untoward generation.
How?
He's explaining what he meant by repentance and
baptism.
Then they that gladly received his word were
baptized, and the same day there were added
unto them about three thousand souls.
And what did they do?
Well, I'll tell you what they do down
at the church in Winston-Salem, where I
remember they get converted Sunday morning, devote them
in as candidates for baptism, and they ain't
even back preaching that night.
I know a Baptist church in the South
that baptizes over a thousand people every year,
and they don't have a bit more in
the congregation of any service than they had
ten years ago.
Why, bless God, listen to me.
These folks repented and got baptized, got baptized
into something.
And when they got in it, the scriptures
say they did what?
They continued steadfastly in four things.
These four things describe the authority and the
discipline of Christ's church.
I wish I hadn't taken all my time,
but I'm going to continue tomorrow night if
you're interested.
This is vital to me.
All over the world now, anybody's got sense
enough coming out of the rain to recognize
there's no such thing as heathen lands and
Christian lands, and no more heathen land in
the world than this one.
There isn't a spot of ground on this
earth that isn't pagan to the core now.
There isn't a congregation on earth that isn't
in a missionary situation.
You're next door neighbors.
You can't even reach them with the gospel,
can you?
Wait a minute.
We baptize people in our churches, us Baptists
do.
I don't know enough about you to talk
about you.
But from what I've seen in a week
as your guest, I kind of think you're
about as guilty as we are.
You baptize folks into the fellowship of your
church just at having the slightest idea of
what it means to be a member of
the church.
And whatever else can be said, these Jews,
they could baptize them the same day because
they are raised on the meaning of repentance
and baptism.
That's right, huh?
They knew what it meant.
And all over the country now, churches are
having to come to what our missionaries, as
any count, did long years ago in what
we call the mission fields.
You walk down the aisle and say, I'm
going to be baptized.
I'm going to be a member of this
church.
It's okay.
We'll teach you for about a year.
That blessed young Stephen Oldford in Calvary Church
in New York City takes eight months now.
One of you pressed in, go over there
and join up.
He'll teach you if you'll come to their
school for eight months.
And then after eight months, if you kind
of act like you know what it's all
about, they'll make you a member.
If you don't, they won't.
For the worst thing that can happen to
any person is to have him think that
he's a member of the church that Jesus
bought with his own blood when he don't
know what it's all about.
Because he's as sure for hell and hell
as he can be.
There's one thing that's certain.
This generation of church members are going to
go to hell unless they're already saved.
Because there ain't no voice except the voice
of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit that
can do anything for you and you won't
listen to him.
Hear me?
It's time we start and start it all
over again and see to it that we're
true to the souls of men.
That they understand what repentance and baptism means.
It means bowing to the rule of Christ
and coming under that rule in a local
church.
And a fellow who's bowed and is willing
to be taught so that the Lordship of
Christ will mean more to him tomorrow than
it does today and more to him the
next day than it does that day.
Until he grows more and more into the
likeness of Christ.
That's what salvation's all about.
That's got to be done again.
See what I'm talking about?
And this is happening all over the country.
These folks continued steadfastly.
I'll quit.
They continued steadfastly in the activity of Christ's
church.
The activity of Christ's church is four things.
The learning, the proclamation of what?
The Apostles' Doctrine.
Second, in fellowship, that koinonia, partnership.
The priesthood of believers.
Third, worship, the breaking of bread.
Worship in the New Testament church always is
around the Lord's table.
You can call this eleven o'clock hour
Sunday morning worship service, but it ain't so.
You worship around the Lord's table.
Boy, we might have sinned because we don't
worship around this table.
And prayer.
Prayer.
That's all there is to a church.
I'm going to ask you to stay with
me another minute or two.
How's the Lord going to bring blessing?
And he's going to fix it so that
you can't be a member of his church
if they ever have a meeting and you
ain't there.
Isn't it something to claim to be a
member of the Bible Christian church, and there's
been one service this week, that any member
of this church could have been present, and
he wasn't.
See, that member is in rebellion against the
discipline of this church.
Isn't that right?
I want to read you what one of
the early church fathers said, before I let
you go, about church attendance.
In an early church document, the old father
said, When thou teachest, command and remind the
people that they be constant in the assembly
of the church, so that ye be not
hindered and made smaller by one little member
of the body of Christ.
Do not deprive our Savior of his members.
Do not mangle and scatter his body.
Now, staying away when the church meets sounds
mighty innocent.
You got a headache?
Well, if you have, come to the Lord's
house.
The headache will go away.
Well, I've got to stay home with the
kids.
Well, you and the kids just have to
go on to hell, I reckon.
We're talking about discipline now.
Well, now, you Presbyterians wouldn't be a member
of the church where you had to be
present when the church met, would you?
So you'll quit and just leave God's people
there.
Then we'll start getting somewhere.
So that's what it means to be under
the discipline of the Lord.
Now, I'm not saying that this church has
perfect discipline.
But I'm saying this congregation has got to
start with what you've got.
And if you wouldn't be under the authority
of Christ as far as you've got light,
He ain't going to give you no more
light.
But I'm saying that when you absent yourself
from any meeting when the people of this
congregation say we'll meet.
See what I mean?
I've actually talked to church members of congregations
where I've preached and said they haven't meeting.
They.
Not me, but they.
Why, this generation of church members decides whether
or not they'll attend the services they're committed
to attend.
Did you know that?
They're in rebellion.
And the Lord starts enforcing that, honey.
And He'll enforce it by the pastor and
the elders and whoever has authority around here
enforcing it.
And you say, ain't no pastor and elders
going to tell me what to do.
I know.
You're going to split hell wide open, too.
You ain't going to let God or nobody
else tell you you've got to do something.
But if you was under the rule of
Christ in the local church, you would.
And you'd be tickled to death about it.
Who was supposed to have the meetings this
week?
Just me and the pastor and some of
the members if their belly didn't ache and
they'd show up?
Or was the Bible Presbyterian congregation supposed to
have these services?
Huh?
Is that right?
Now, boy, wouldn't we have lots of fun
if the Lord raised up some elders and
some deacons and some pastors that start discharging
the authority that God's invested in them.
Man, I'd see you Presbyterians running, you wouldn't
stop.
And you'll run right smack into hell and
go across the street and join a church
where it's a joke to be a professing
Christian.
But that's how God's going to start doing
something, brother.
You mean tell me when the saints meet
together that you ain't one of them and
you don't like the company of the saints?
Huh?
Thirty-five years ago I went to Toronto,
Canada to preach for Dr. Shields in Jarvis
Street.
I just a kid.
And he was the white-haired orator of
Canada, the Spurgeon of Canada.
And he was so gentle with a young
preacher.
And God blessed.
He told me how every Sunday night they
come to the Lord's table and all the
members sign the register.
And if you miss three of them purposely,
you're no longer a member of the church.
They don't have to have a meeting, you're
just out.
Huh?
You mean tell me it wouldn't be a
wonderful, wonderful privilege if the Lord said I'm
going to spread the table, folks.
Won't you come have supper with me?
You mean tell me you wouldn't say, Oh,
we're going to have the Lord's table tonight.
He's going to sit the head out of
it.
He's the host.
We're his guests through his shed blood.
Hallelujah.
Us Baptists, we have the Lord's table about
once a year and get through it just
quick as we can.
You know.
Huh?
Just to be absent is to mangle and
scatter the body of Christ.
Amen?
That has the trumpet sound of judgment day.
Well, I've got to quit.
I've preached too long.
I haven't got started.
I hope you can hear me, whether so
or not, tomorrow night.
Let us stand.
How new or strange anything I said tonight
is to you.
Sometimes the preacher just doesn't know.
I would not hurt you.
I would help you if I knew how.
But I dismiss you tonight.
You're kind to listen.
Well, this one's all.
I don't see why every congregation in the
world couldn't say, By the grace of God,
as God will give us life, we're going
to start moving in the direction of being
under Christ's discipline and the proclamation of his
gospel, the apostolic doctrine.
All of us joining hands in partnership, fellows
in the same ship.
Amen?
His program, I'm a part of it.
Amen?
If he wants me to just sweep the
church building, that's all right.
Somebody's got to sweep it, but I'm going
to get in on this thing.
Amen?
Worship.
Where we examine ourselves, get right with our
brothers.
You couldn't have a church for us if
you observed the Lord's table rightly, could you?
Couldn't have these splits that are the scandal
if we properly came to the Lord's table,
could we?
That's time to examine ourselves and to discern
the Lord's body and that the Lord's body
is his church, you know, and not produce
schism in it.
That's awful, isn't it?
And then prayer.
Ladies and gentlemen, why couldn't we have congregations
that part of their activity was to meet
together, not some of them, but the congregation,
and pray, O God, visit thy people.
That's the activity of the church.
And to be under Christ's discipline is to
be under the discipline of the apostles' doctrine.
That's Christ.
Partnership, worship, prayer.
God bless you.
Now, Father in bloodstained Jesus' name, we commit
ourselves to this service.
Take out of it all that's just of
the preacher, but we think some of it's
of the truth.
And we believe it can be done, we
see it done in some places, and we're
hungry for the presence of the living Lord.
It's only when men are confronted with him
that they'll say, woe is me.
Have mercy on me, O God.
Once again assert and exercise the authority of
the Lord Jesus Christ as he delegates it
to his church.
Make the church once again a company of
people who are tickled to death to be
under the rule of Christ and find that
his yoke is easy and his burden is
light.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Thank you so much.