| 19. HE ANSWERS PRAYER I need not try to tell you all the good things He has done. His love endures and will still endure. Charity which is the love of God never faileth. It endures through time and eternity. Although we have great faith and do many things, if we lack the love of God or charity we are nothing. Let’s apply this test to the churches of the world around us. Good people who pray and sing, who preach sanctification and purity in life. Who preach honesty and cleanliness of spirit and body. Keep the Sabbath holy and- in whose mouth there is no guile concerning the living. Yet they say God will send all sinners who die to a burning lake of fire, to burn, fry, bake and stew for an endless eternity and from which there is no return and no redemption. My God has offered a reward for only a cup of cold water given to one of His servants in the name of a disciple, So if one should give that cup of cold water to one of His servants in the name of a disciple, and then wander off and become a sinner and die in his sins, what say you about the words of Jesus Christ? Do you know that Jesus Christ holds the keys of death and hell? Jesus said when He appeared to John on Patmos, “I am He that 192 was dead and behold I am alive forevermore and have the keys of death and hell.” That authority was given Him and He said, I have power to lay my life down and take it again. The mission of our Lord as described by Isaiah 61. He was sent to bind up the broken-hearted and preach deliverance to the captive spirits in Hell. Jesus Christ assisted in making that place called Hell and He is the Mighty One who went there to preach to those disobedient people. Those men and women who were confined in Hell were some one’s son or daughter or close friend or brother or sister and where is the father and mother who would not receive their prodigal son or daughter who have served their stretch in prison and paid the penalty and pleading to return to those they love? The love of God reaches to Hell. If I make my bed in Hell Thou art there. Answer this question: Is there any place God cannot go? The first and great commandment is, Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart and with all thy might, mind and strength. The second commandment is, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Please tell me how you could love your neighbor as yourself if that neighbor was a sinner and God told you to love your enemies, bless them that curse you and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely. Now since God told you to do that, would God tell you to do things He wouldn’t do or couldn’t do? Answer that and tell me how you could explain that Jesus Christ was sent to bind [193] up the broken-hearted and preach deliverance to the captive spirits, as of I Peter 3:17 or please explain why that Mighty One would go to Hell to preach to those who were in that prison. The Jews were scattered as a consequence of their rejecting Jesus Christ. He stood on the Mount of Olives and looked on the City of Jerusalem and said: “0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chicks under her wings; but ye would not. Behold your house is left unto you desolate and ye shall see Me no more until ye shall say, “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.” The Roman armies in A.D. 71 beseiged Jerusalem and the Jews were taken captive and 200,000 were sold into Egypt as slaves and the remainder were scattered in all the world. But God loved them and promised although they were scattered, He would set His hand in the latter days and gather them back to their home, (Canaan). His loves reaches them today and they are gathered back, 550 settlements. They have built their city up (Jerusalem) as a town without walls. Be this known unto you, God does not love a man while he is living here and hate him when he dies. It may take a long time to convert you, but if you learn obedience by the things you suffer He loves you still. ONWARD TO ZION Yes that’s the title to one of our songs. It was written by the prophet of the church. He must have had a deep desire in his heart and thought a great deal about it. I heard him say once that Zion was his favorite topic. I really think it should be ours. It must be the burden of [194] our prayers. The daily order of our lives. The deep desire of our heart. The main accomplishment of our life That accomplishment will come to us as we journey towards that goal. 0, that our hearts were fixed on Him. Our joy would be full, our hearts content. Our eyes must be trained to see the mark. There’s a road that was put there for us. He knew there would be some who would walk in their sleep. He knew that some would lay down and wait for a clearer day. They did not ask for a furlough. They just wanted a rest. Still others stepped out for the night or off to the vacation places that call the thousands to their places of amusement. We are living in the closing scenes of the world’s history and many will be running mad for pleasure. But I am calling to you to just stop a minute and give this a good sober thought. Can I afford to let half or two-thirds of my life slip away before I take up the work of the church? If I do my children will follow in my footsteps and may never turn. Now that I have been warned, I’d better think it over very careful. Now let me give you my own experience. I decided when I was a lad I’d do my best to make of myself a useful man and try to be a blessing to others. I’ve spent my whole life in the church and spent my money free and I’ve been very happy and I don’t know of any one who has a better time than I. After I had been in missionary work for many years I met one of my old schoolmates one day in my old home town of Moorhead, Iowa. He was drunk and he cried and said, “0, Oscar I wish I had followed the road that you went.” I said, “Andy, I’ll reach down to you and take you step by step if you will come with me, and I’ll lead you into the church”. He said, “It’s too late, I can’t make it.” He had lost his will. [195] Now while you have not gone as far as Andy did, yet the longer you put it off, the more blocks there are in the road. Kick those blocks out of the road and say, “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord,” and the doors will open and strength will come to you, spiritual and physical and you can win. We are called to Zion. Do you know what Zion is? Zion is the pure in heart. That’s why Jesus said, Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. The pure in heart shall come forth and be crowned in His kingdom when He comes in glory. They will go into the supper room and partake of the marriage supper of the Lamb. Zion is not only the pure in heart, but the place where they gather will be called Zion. The city of our God. So those people who are making the time count, they will be setting their homes in order and showing to their neighbors that they can do what He has asked us to do and that is to organize our forces so that we can put our offerings of sacrifice into a fund to help those who are of our number bear their financial burdens such as hospitalization and sickness, and misfortunes of any kind, instead of putting our moneys of sacrifice into the insurance companies and making them rich. Now what are you going to do about that? Are you a believer in that law of equality that will call us together and make us one or do you want to pull it to pieces and live everyone for himself and see the devil laugh at our fear to do God’s will. Get up early tomorrow morning and comply with the wise counsel and before you go to your work think it over and remember that your first job is to build Zion and these other jobs you work at are second, not first. [196] Israel awake from your long silent slumber and shake off the fetters that have bound thee so long. Zion has slumbered and must be awakened. Forward ye saints in a victory song. Let the Son of righteousness arise in your life and help you make your day count, in that when people come to your home it will be literally on fire with His love and power that people will feel your ministry as a private in the army of the Lord. Put on that suit and jump into the river of salvation and live in that water of life and your friends will like the flavor of your conversation and will accept the spiritual food with which your hands will be filled and overflow right into their souls and that cleansing flood will simply ingraciate itself into their lives and thousands will sing the melody born in their hearts and bring a chorus of angels to sing with us a glorious praise and hallelujah to the Lord Jesus Christ in Zion. O come let us worship. Our hands will be clean when we associate with clean people. Our hearts will be made clean, when our conversation is pure. Our religion will be right, when we keep that second commandment. We will never be right until we are willing to share with each other. Some one may shout His righteousness to the Heavens until it is heard from Moscow to Washington or from Jerusalem to Zion. If you leave this out of the story you’ll not go to the reunion with me. [197] WITNESSING FOR HIM What a work! How wonderful to represent Him! What a privilege to belong to the Royal household. Ye are a chosen generation, a Royal Priesthood, a Holy nation, a peculiar people. That ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Our course is onward we have a work to do. We are not saved till we reach the end. In the words of Paul we press forward toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Ph. 3 :14. We may expect the reward when we comply with His law. The Kingdom is His and the law also. So we better offer to Him a prayer and tell Him we will do His will regardless of cost. If we are required to sacrifice 0. K. Gather my saints together unto me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. We cannot reach the place without a sacrifice. Why? We are made perfect through suffering and cannot reach the celestial kingdom only by a celestial law and that law is equality. We have that challenge to meet. That mountain to climb. Don’t look upon that mountain as being too steep. God made the road and that piece of engineering is right, and you can’t change it. That call of the Spirit is get ye up then to your mountain, Zion of this closing day. For the glory of His coming waits to light us on our way. Its the testimony of our lives. The accomplishment of our work together as a group that will bring the glory of God to the place called Zion. It’s just called Zion now. It must be made Zion by the sanctity of our lives. The putting into our work a love for God and for each other that will make all the humble souls of the group know that you really care for them, and [198] help them carry their load. When we comply with His law and see the windows of heaven open and our protection assured and our table is supplied we move on in Faith. Go on in Faith ye Saints go on. Fear not the cause is good and Zion must and will in beauty rise as well as Jerusalem. Let strength come to your weak hands and your feeble knees. Fear not, your Lord will come and save you. Grace to all the souls who try. May peace be in your souls today and His law written upon the tablets of your hearts. Amen. FAITH IN GOD I looked out of my window and I saw the birds coming for their breakfast and the squirrel came down the big elm to get his share and in their glee they seemed to say thanks to the hand that feeds them. I look at the trees that have passed through their winter of death and the buds are swelling and they .will soon put on their beau tiful dress. The grass will soon come forth and the wild flowers of the field and all seem in their song to praise Him and in their beauty yield a grand chorus of life, praise and beauty. Who could say there is no God. Only the spiritually blind could be dumb and too contrary to see, God made the world and everything in it and will bring about the eternal life and immortality. Since all these things are governed by law, so is our conduct and attitude toward Him and toward each other, ordered in the The Word of God in positive terms. There is order in all the universe. There is no conflict in the heavens. If we fight against the law of God we fail. So we say, “Have thine own way Lord. Thou art the potter I am the clay. Mold me and make me after thy will. When we humble ourselves we may receive His blessing. Now what I mean [199] is just this—when the Lord said, Repent and believe the Gospel, I must say God’s way shall be my way. When He said ye must be born again of the water and of the Spirit and when He told -us how each of these baptisms must be performed and who shall administer them, that’s it, and that order stands and when Jesus said, “I will build my church and made those appointments as God told Him how. That stands as strong as the foundations of earth or Heaven and no man or number of men could change it. Have faith in God He knows the way and His wisdom is so much greater than ours. It could not be compared. The church is founded and perpetuated by the wisdom of God. So man may rise and fall but God goes on for ever. Organizations of men will rise and fall but the church of Jesus Christ remains and will stand now forever. Daniel said it would never be destroyed nor given to another people. The ordinances of the church such as Baptism by immersion and Laying on of Hands by the same authority stands as the order of God and those scriptures need no repair or modification. Come drink from a living fountain and leave those stagnant waters of unbelief and fidelity and step to the music of Heavenly melody and your life will be made fit for His habitation in Zion. God bless you. Amen. LORD WHO SHALL REMAIN IN ZION In that 15th Psalm it seems as if the prophet had a vision or an inspiration as to the judgments that would come to Zion. For as you know Zion will be redeemed by judgment, her converts by righteousness. At least He said, who shall abide in thy tabernacle and who shall dwell in thy Holy Hill of Zion and He saw the destruction and wondered if any would be left. [200] In the work of preparation for the second coming of our Lord, There will be a Zion “a City of Refuge” a city of Righteousness wherein the pure in heart will dwell to perfect their lives and hearts by helping each other and sharing with each other until there will be no poor among us. And we will be equal in temporal things that we may inherit equality in Heavenly things. There is no doubt but some will say, “I don’t believe it.” But that does not prove the principle wrong. The Lord has a place for unbelievers where they will not molest nor destroy the City of Zion. That rich young man thought he was alright until he had that conversation with Jesus and when Jesus told him about that Second Commandment he went away sorrowful. He was weighed in the balance of the celestial law and was found not meat for the Father’s Kingdom. That Second Commandment must be met. It’s the standard by which we are measured. When He comes we will be measured by it. There will be a Zion of beauty in which we share alike. The sick will be cared for. The naked will be clothed. And the express works of mercy will be met, and our Brother who sits beside us we’ll help him bear his load. We will not shift our responsibility. We may sing we’re marching to Zion, but we are not on the march until we meet the law of equality and put into operation those works of mercy. “I was hungered and ye fed me, I was thirsty and ye gave me drink, etc, etc, and they inquired when this was done. He said, “In as much as ye did it to the least of these my bretheru ye did it unto me. Can it be that we are blinded by selfishness or greed. Tell me if you can how many are willing to meet this law of equality and demonstrate their love for God and for each other. Get ye up then to your mountain, Zion of this closing day. The Lord is waiting for this [201] service that He may light us on our way. Arise, arise, the morning dawns. A brighter day must come to us. A PLACE FOR EVERYONE What’s my Lord going to do with me I suppose most everyone has asked themselves that question. I’m really concerned about it. So it is, some really care. Some do good all the time and some do evil most of the time. Now what about those between those two extremes. Well my Lord is such a wonderful Savior everybody should know. Now as Jesus Christ will judge them in equity, their judg ment will be on the merits of their work. What a wonderful Savior to remember them all. Some have not done much. Perhaps some preacher told them that Jesus done it all, and they were tricked to believe they had nothing to do. I read, Thy mercy endureth forever, also God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved. Now if the majority goes to Hell for keeps the Devil has gained the victory. Not so, my God is not going to lose the battle. If He even lost 40 to 50 per cent of them I’ll still say He lost the battle. My God is not going to lose the battle. Isaiah 55, My word will not return unto me void. That’s final. You can count on that. Now what’s the Lord going to do with so many people. The Lord is not hard up for room. He has The Heaven and The Heaven of Heavens and the earth and worlds without number. In Isa. 11, He will not judge after the sight of His eye nor the hearing of His ear, but with righteousness shall He judge the poor and reprove with equity the meek of the earth. That being true He will give everyone what they have earned. Now having settled the matter that we will get our own reward we might however call another [202] witness. The Apostle Paul, I Cor. 3, Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. And Jesus said, If ye do no more than give a cup of cold water, to one of my disciples you shall in no wise lose your reward and He gave us the parables to teach us and said, that servant that knew his Father’s will and prepared not him self will be beaten with many stripes. Now where are these rewards to be and what about the duration of the sentence of those who go to prison. We are entitled to this information and we have it to give to you just for your benefit. So hear the other side on a place for everybody. Having settled the matter according to the Bible we are going to reap what we sow. Let’s talk about the re wards that are held out to us. The Lord said in Matthew 5, Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. If there was no more said about the good people we could count on that. The good people will inherit the earth. In Isa 11, The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the cow and the bear will feed and their young ones shall lie down together and a little child shall lead them and the earth will be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea. Now some one is going to be there. Who are they? Here it is. Zech. 14, The Lord my God shall come and all the saints with Thee and the Lord shall be King over all the earth and there shall be one Lord and His name one. The Apostle Paul in I Thess, The Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout and the trump of God shall sound and the dead in Christ shall rise first. That settles the matter as to who gets this first reward. The dead in Christ. Now according to the parable of the ten virgins only 50 per cent of the church will enter in to the wedding supper. The others were shut out, and could not enter in. [203] Now what about those foolish virgins and the many, many more who were not identified as virgins. What did He do with them. Rev. 20, The dead in Christ shall rise first and the rest of the dead lived not again until the 1,000 years were ended. Then what. Read Rev. 20 again. I saw the dead small and great stand before God and The Books were opened and another Book was opened which is the Book of Life and they were judged out of the things that were written in the Books, according to their works. Those things that were written was their life work. Now can you see why the Gospel is preached in Heaven, Earth and Hell until that time of the Final Judgment at the end of the 1,000 years then at that time the rewards will be given? But the Saints having earned their reward here being the dead in Christ received their inheritance in the redeemed earth, lived and reigned with Christ 1,000 years at His coming and the rest of the dead were not resurrected until the 1,000 years were ended. Having shown you the Scripture where the final Judgment took place and every one was resurrected and stood before God and received their Judgments. Did you notice that in their sentence they were given what they earned? The words are—they were judged every man according to their works. What could be plainer? Can you tell? Since that is true, Let’s hear the Apostle Paul, I Cor. 38, Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. I Cor. 15:40-42. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars and as one star differs from another in glory so also is the Resurrection of the Dead. Then read the testimony of Jesus Christ in John 14, In my Father’s house are many mansions, who could turn down the testimony of Jesus or the Apostle Paul? It’s settled forever. There are many [204] mansions and there will be three different glories and they are all in the Father’s House and differ in glory. The celestial glory will be given to His Saints who live on the redeemed earth, Isa. 11—Zech. 14. The Terrestial glory compared to the moon will be given to those who have not earned a place in the Celestial Kingdom and still an other rank or glory who have failed to earn the moon glory received their reward represented by the Glory of the Stars, called The Telestial Glory. Now these three divisions or glories will be as one star differs from another in Glory, so shall be our rewards. The Celestial or greatest reward will be here on earth. And after the 1,000 years of millenium on earth the Holy City will come down from God out of Heavens and God Himself will dwell with the Saints. Rev. 21. And God shall wipe away all tears and there will be no more sorrow. But as to the location of the other two glories we are not told only they will be outside the camp of the Saints. Now these three glories include the whole human race but one exception. “The Sons of Perdition” elected to serve and live with the Devil and His angels will be cast into the “Lake of Fire.” These are they who sinned against the Holy Ghost and refused the offer of Salvation, dogs, sorcerers and whoremongers and loved to make up lies. Come and join the mighty army of God and build the Kingdom in Zion until its glory will receive the commendation of God and mingle with the Redeemed and meet them at His coming. Love to all. Amen. [205] |
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