HEADY WOMEN AND HEADLESS HOMESMaurice M Johnson
publicly advertised meeting,
Waynesboro, Virginia, 10-21-59
Turn, you who have your Bibles, to 2 Timothy the 3rd chapter. I don't know if anybody's come out tonight through mere curiosity. Years ago when I would announce: some such subject as that announced tonight, there would be often, if it had been advertised as widely as we've advertised this ... I understand there have been one or two ads in the local paper and a good many handbills put out and announcement I know was made over the Charlottesville radio, I believe we had announcement of the Charlottesville radio in last week's paper here and on that radio program this meeting tonight was announced and several hundred handbills have been put out ... I don't know the condition of Waynesboro 15 years ago, but I know areas where I was; many different states I've spoken on "Women Preachers and Headless Homes" and things, subjects similar to the one tonight, and have nearly always, if the meeting was well advertised, nearly always attracted anywhere from 15 to 100 or 150 more or less curiosity seekers and a few who seemed to have godly honesty and godly humility. But with television and more and more showmanship in religion, we can't even get the curiosity seekers anymore because we will not stoop ... when I say 'we' I'm not using the formal, stilted, pulpit plural and editorial 'we'. Paul didn't do it and I don't do it. Paul said, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I," he didn't say 'we' and he never used that stilted, formal, arrogant humility, I think that's what it is that many preachers and ... editors use, 'we', 'we', 'we', the editorial 'we'. But when I said 'we' a moment ago I meant I and those with whom I'm privileged to work and at different times arrange for and carry on public meetings. We can't anymore get with rare exceptions any who seem to be just the curious.
In some respects that's not disappointing to believe that the idle, superficial, curious will go elsewhere. On the other hand, they're people for whom Christ died. And sometimes. some who come with idle curiosity go away convicted by the truth of God.
So, I don't mean to say that I'm glad we can't reach that type of people as surely as we did years ago with such a subject as this tonight. Though this subject of course as you will see before I get through, God helping me and God helping you to listen honestly, this subject is very legitimate and very timely and in itself is not sensational, except in the sense that the truth is stranger than fiction. And today I believe the real truth of God on most every subject is more sensational than all of the fiction because a sensational thing is an extraordinary thing, and I believe today it is very extraordinary for a man to preach, for instance, some of the things that I'm going to preach tonight.
Now that could seem, could sound like a left-handed bouquet that I'm handing myself, that I'm preaching things that a lot of preachers don't preach. But I couldn't read the Bible with any attention and honesty and fail to believe that condition exists and will exist more and more obviously and shockingly as we approach the coming of Christ in the clouds. That they'll be fewer and fewer ? who want to preach the whole counsel of God and hold back nothing that they find in God's Word to be preached and taught.
No one can preach the whole truth of God and build a sect in religion. I'm not a sectarian and I'm not a sect builder. I'm against sectarianism in every phase and form that I recognize and believe to be sectarian. Because I know sectarianism in religion is butchery. Nobody can be a sectarian without butchering the Word of God somewhere. Nobody can be a sectarian ... you know the word 'sect', I think it's as simply illustrated by this as any other one thing I know. The circumference of a circle, the whole of the circle is the circumference, any part of it is a sector. The size of the sector is immaterial as to it's ? If it's 1/100 of the entire circle it's a sector. If it's 99/100 of the whole it's a sector. The amount of the whole that's in a sect doesn't change the fact it's a sect. In a sect in religion that has a great deal of the truth of God but ... deliberately left out some is a more dangerous sect than a sect that has very little of the truth of God. God help us to see ...
No sect nor sectarian can know Jesus Christ as Lord because the Lord doesn't authorize anybody to ignore anything that He says. The Lord hasn't said anything that is nonessential. The Lord hasn't said anything that may be accepted or rejected with impunity according to the choice of the preacher or the audience. He says, "My sheep hear My voice, and the follow Me, and a stranger they'll not follow," John the 10th chapter. And then in John the 13:47, "He that is of God heareth God's Word". And you remember Christ said to the devil, and certainly it's living Literature for you and me, "Man shall not live by bread alone but by" what?
(answers, from audience) "Every word."
"Every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." You and I don't know what is fundamental in a given case in Scripture. We don't know what may be most important at a given time to complete the picture we'll say for an individual soul. I know of a fellow in Southern California who was born and brought up in religion and became an atheist, at least a rank infidel, though he still was teaching a Sunday School class in the Methodists, but that didn't interfere with the Methodist program today, and was ... I used to be a Methodist, I know what I'm talking about. Most of the Methodists today are baptized infidels, at least as far as the preachers are concerned. You don't have to believe the virgin birth of Christ, you do not have to believe the deity of Christ, you don't have to believe that Christ died as the only possible hope for saving a sinner from eternal hell. You don't have to believe that to be a Methodist, and a good many other sectarianists for that matter.
But anyway, this fellow, had been dealt with ... a fellow workman in the American Airlines, no not ... oh, I forget the name of it, anyway, in Inglewood, Los Angeles county, had been dealing with him over and over again throughout months and months: about his soul salvation, and the fellow shoved off everything. This fellow that had been dealing with his fellow workman, the infidel religionist, was himself a member of the Church of the Brethren Church that believes in immersing you three times in water and having a foot washing service. occasionally in the meeting house. I presume you should always get your feet thoroughly washed before you leave home, and so .... before you go ... but anyway that's a religious affair. I'm not meaning to be unkind but just accurate. This man was a saved man; he loved the Lord, and was a member of the Brethren denomination, and he let it be known to his infidel friend that he was a member of that particular organization that claimed it had the only Biblical method of baptizing people, immersion three times and so forth.
But he was giving the gospel of salvation to this infidel friend, fellow laborer. Never got anywhere apparently until he began to see the truth of the one body, this Christian in the Brethren denomination, capital f8f-_Brethren, began to see some of the truth of the one body, and the completeness of all Christians in Christ, and the sin of sectarianism, and withdrew from that denomination and let his infidel fellow workman know it. And then the infidel began to listen because he had no ... he had no build-up, he had no defense against the simple message Christ is the savior, Christ is the only builder of the only, one and-only true church, Christ isn't the author of confusion, and all Christians are one in Christ. That made sense to that infidel. He had been hiding behind denominationalism and denominationalists that some of whom he knew good and well were infidels like he was. And he couldn't believe that there was any essential difference between this church and that church and the other church because he knew good and well that the church he was in would let infidels get into it and work and teach Sunday School classes. But when his fellow workman gave his testimony that he was through with denominationalism and was going to live for Jesus Christ and try to build His church only, it made sense to that infidel. And the infidel listened and came with him to a Bible study in a home in Long Beach. Wasn't long before he said, "I know I'm saved". And you'll be interested to know Claude he's been coming back recently... shortly before I left California and saying, "Pray for my wife, and I been missing the Christian fellowship."
My dear friends, there's no answer to Jesus Christ, but there's lots of good arguments against joining this, that, the other one, and the other Christian, men, denomination; lots of good arguments, but nobody's got an argument against Jesus Christ that's worthy calling an argument at all. No one has any case against the church in which there's nobody but a genuine saved person. No one has any good sound-argument against the church that is. going to survive the grave, every member of which is going to be in the glory. Would you like to try to argue against that church? Argue against the church that has nobody in it but people the Lord added to it, Acts 2:47, "the Lord adds to the church daily such as should be saved".
When people say to me now, "Well there's too many hypocrites in the church". I say, "Which kind of a church you talking about? What kind of a church you talking about? Are there any hypocrites outside?" "Well, yes." "In other words, your kinfolks, some are inside and some are outside. Where are you going to be... you don't want to get into a particular denomination because there's some hypocrites in there that are connected religiously with Christians, and yet you're going to be with hypocrites for all eternity. Now don't make any mistake about this my friend," I like to tell them, "there's no hypocrites in the church. There are no hypocrites in the church. There are hypocrites in the sects., s-e-c-t-s; there are hypocrites in the denominational organizations, yes, but there are no hypocrites in the church."
No don't anybody go out of here tonight and say, "I don't like him because he condemned everybody else but himself." Did I not say there are some Christians in the Methodist Church? Did I say there were no Christians in the Baptist organization? Did I say there were no Christians in the Brethren? I said this man I'm talking about was saved and doing personal work for Christ while he was still in the Brethren. Certainly there are Christians in the various denominations. Only God knows how many. But I'm talking about what Christians are; what Christians are as Christians.
No Christian is a denominationalist. He may walk in the flesh and join one. But my new nature, the moment I was saved, I had everything spiritual that I had when I later joined the Methodists. When I joined the Methodist denomination, my mother was in it and my grandfather had been a circuit riding Methodist preacher in central Texas, when I joined the Methodist organization sometime after I was truly converted to God, my joining that Methodist organization, getting sprinkled with water and ... preacher gave me the right hand of fellowship and then some folks ... members came by and shook hands with me and some other "joiners", I didn't have one single millionth of an inch added to my spiritual stature. And l didn't get one single fraction of a spiritual blessing, because the moment I was born again I could have said, and should have said with the apostle Paul, and my new nature did say, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with" what?
(answer from audience) "With all..."
"With all spiritual blessings in the Heavenlies in Christ." And I didn't get anything added to "all" when I joined the Methodists. And you didn't get anything added to "all" if you were saved and then joined the Baptists. You didn't get anything added to it. You've got a bushel to cover it up to some degree. But you didn't get anything added to the spiritual ... you can't add to completeness, you can't add to' perfection. I've spoken several times on the radio in the last two years bringing this thing out, bringing things out like this, "I have never known," I've said, "I have never heard a preacher in my life that I know of, and I have never heard a professing Christian in my life that I know of, say today that with our modern conditions, we need an improved Christ. I don't think I have ever heard a professed Christian preacher or a professed Christian in any walk of Life say we need today a ... an improved Christ. But how many think we need an improved church?" Every meeting house in this town, sect house in this town was' started, and named, and built to improve upon the church of Jesus Christ.
Think of that my friends. If you're here tonight a member of some religious organization and' you are a Christian, what I've been saying rings a bell in your new nature. It makes your carnal nature mad. But it doesn't make your new nature mad. Are you glad for me to talk about the family that you're going to be with a million years from tonight? Are you glad for me talk about the place you're going to be and the fellowship you're going to have with all-l-l the redeemed of all the ages a hundred years from tonight, thousand years from tonight, million years from tonight? Are you glad for me talk about that?
Well I'd better get to my subject hadn't I. I'm on it from this standpoint that I have been talking against heady and high-minded people who start things contrary to God's revealed will. 2 Timothy the 3rd chapter, This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come.
The Russians will go faster in intercontinental ballistic missiles and atomic stockpiles, and have a bigger stockpile of atom bombs and a bigger stockpile of hydrogen bombs than the United States and England and France and Germany, West Germany. Now that's in the "Devised Version" of 2 Timothy 3. What are the perils, the most, the most awful perils for anybody, whether Christian or not Christian? Is it the destruction of your physical body? Ten thousand times no. Christ said, "Fear not him that can kill the body but after that can do no more," Matthew 10: 28, "Fear not him that can kill the body but after that can do no more, but rather fear Him that can destroy both-body and soul in hell". Something far worse than atom bomb burst over your head. Every Christian that was killed by an atomic in Japan, and there probably were some Christian Japanese, every Christian whose body was destroyed by those atomic bombs, one or the other of the bombs, didn't have their new nature even shocked or jarred. An atomic bomb exploding has no affect on the new nature, the new nature. "To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." "Fear not him that can kill the body and after that can do no more," that's all atomic bomb can do, kill the body.
"Perilous times," what kind of perils? All right let's start again 2 Timothy 3:7,
This know also that, this know also that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters.
If you want a very interesting study take time to stop after reading each one of these and see the progression or rather the nose dive down. Starts out with lovers. of them selves. Well that should be very fine if you think yourself... is all right.
"Lovers of themselves", and then watch the slide.
Lovers of themselves, covetous.
"I like me but I want more for me. I love me but I want more for me." "Covetous" number two.
"Boasters" number three. If you love yourself and are in the business of getting a lot for yourself, then why not begin to boast about it. Why not put your name in front of your place. My name is Johnson: Johnsonville. It would be better to put Johnson grass. Christ said, "all flesh is as grass". And I know enough about what a devilish thing Johnson grass is. Oh, how I used to have to work in the cotton fields as a boy in the corn fields trying to get rid of the Johnson grass. Do you ever have any experience, Herman, with Johnson grass in the Carolinas? I happen to know that this Johnson grass is bad too, I mean my Adamic nature, my natural, my particular brand of grass, Johnson grass... Back to this now, Lovers of themselves, covetous, boasters, proud... proud of what? Proud of loving yourself, and getting all you can, and canning all you get, and then boasting about it, proud of all that. Blasphemers, that's right, that follows. Blasphemers: "I'm a self-made man and I worship my maker". Boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents.
Why put that in the middle of such a mess as this? "Disobedient to parents", because it's an awful thing to be disobedient to parents. It's the beginning of that which winds up in some cases on earth in ... with the gallows, electric chair, with the gas chamber, or shot down by the police or by a fellow gangster or something of the kind. "Disobedient to parents", it's a violation of God's order. And nothing is disorder in the sight of God but violations of His order, His order. Nothing is right in God's sight except that which He made right, and everything contrary's wrong. Wrong, why? Because it's not God's order, not God's order.
Blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unthankful. We are a proud, self-righteous civilization, and especially the United States of America, probably the worst on the face of the earth. I doubt seriously if the vast mass of Russians, Bolshevik communists are as proud, boastful as we are in America. Too many of them probably know what it means to be ground down under a ruthless dictatorship. I doubt seriously, I'm not a communist, I think communism, materialistic communism's of the devil, but let's be very careful. Proud, boasters, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy.
The word 'holy' as used in the Bible means "separate", separate. It's a kindred word from sanctification, "set-apart". If there's anything that characterizes the citizenship in this lovely Little city, in this beautiful area, physically beautiful, if there's anything that characterizes more than other, it is, unholy, unholy, all mixed-up, messed-up. You got to live together, haven't you? You got to work together, live together, be nice together. Don't dare let your light so shine that men that hate Jesus Christ won't be kind toward you. Boys and girls are taught in school and all up through the higher brackets and with all the organizations, men's service clubs and business clubs and labor unions and merchants and manufacturers and politicians and all, peaceful coexistence, we must live together. How long? How long after we die we'll be together? If there's an unsaved person here tonight, one that's never received Christ as his savior, so far as I can tell you're sitting here one of us, one of the Christians here so far as I can tell, but two seconds or less after you and I die, the difference will be very obvious. And what a radical difference. The human mind can't conceive of what a radical difference. Sometimes use the expression, "Why, it's all the difference in the world", in what? Two brands of cigarette filters? Ho ho, there are not, oh no; oh no there are not. "All the difference in the world in this Dart and this Falcon, new automobiles." Oh no there's not. You know where we can use that expression and the only place we can use it accurately? I値l tell you, and I値l tell you with authority too. The only place we can use that expression accurately is between a saved person and an unsaved person, "all the difference in the world". One has been born from above, the other's just got his first life, Adam, on his way to a Christless eternity. One is on his way to glory with all-l the redeemed to meet the Lord face to face and all the redeemed, the other's on his way to the blackness of darkness forever. That's all the difference there is in this world. Other differences are very minor and insignificant, "All the difference in the world." Let's come back to this now.
Disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection.
There are:... of course only God knows how many things today already hatched up, thought up, devised, invented, and more on the way, to increase our love of the superficial, love of the show and the sham. And all of that does away of course with the genuine, the simple; we're getting farther away from simple life. And "without natural affection", there are so many things ... "Oh, I just love that new ... something that DuPont puts out. "Oh, I'm just wild about that new ..." you know, "Oh, have you seen the" so-and-so. You know, we can't, we can't spread our affections and interests just all over the ... the new Newberry store, I saw it down here, you can't ... "Oh", now suppose that were not cheap, I mean comparatively but very expensive articles of jewelry and what have you down there and all like that, not just a store like that but what are some of the biggest jewelry stores, one in New York City that if you can get something from there be sure you tell it. Tell them that you've got it there even if it's the cheapest thing in the store, be sure to use that name. Somebody gave me a tie last time ... back last year up close to Washington, and said, "Now, my husband got this but he doesn't want it, he really doesn't like it and it was given to them as a present and it's a name, it's from a name store". I'm sorry I don't have it on tonight. A name -- I don't know what the name was. Phooey on the name; I don't know what the name was. But anyway, back to this now.
Without natural affection, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, without any self-restraint, fierce, despisers of those that are good.
You can never know where that exists in your fellow man until you become satisfied with Christ and just present Christ: present His Word, His church, and then watch the reactions, not we ... not that we do it to watch the reactions but they'll come. I have had some of the most diabolical, murderous hatred expressed toward me after l have given some of the most precious and beautiful things I've ever seen in my life about the Lord Jesus and His sufficiency, and therefore the wickedness and the impudence and the stupidity of counterfeits, of imitations. You and
I can never hate an imitation if we don't know and love the original. We can never hate antichrists if we don't love Christ. We can never recoil with holy hatred from the devil if we don't know God. And so, "despisers of those that are good". You think that exists today? I repeat, you can't possibly know unless you know what it means to be good.
Now Christ said through His servant Paul, "there's none good," ... no Christ said Himself: you remember when the rich young ruler said, "Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Christ said, "Why callest thou Me good? There's none good but one, even God. In other words young man, do you recognize that I am Immanuel?" Now the Unitarians and the so-called "Jehovah Witnesses" and others that deny the deity of Christ need to confront that, face that. If Christ wasn't God in human form, God the Son, if He wasn't God in human form, He wasn't good. He Himself said so.
And one reason I know that Mary wasn't conceived and born without sin is because I know Christ wasn't a liar. The Roman Catholics, some of them don't realize what they're believing when they believe the devil's lie that Mary was born conceived and born without sin. They don't know that they're making Christ a liar. They don't know that they're making Christ a liar but they are. Read it in the 13th chapter of Matthew and Luke, 98th chapter I believe of Luke. Rich young ruler that came to Christ, "Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "Why callest thou Me good? There is none good but one, even God."
And then over in Romans 3 we're told that, "There's none that doeth good, no, not one". What does that do with Mary? It puts her where my mother was. Born in Adam, born with Adamic nature, needing a savior just like my mother did. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh," Christ said, "you must be born again". Mary needed to be born again just as much as mother did. Mary's nature was just as Adamic and sinful as my mother's was, and your mother's, and you. And Romans 3:23..., and I'm glad it's written to the saints at Rome, it didn't come from the pope at Rome, it was written to Christians at Rome, Romans the 3rd chapter. And it's the same in the Duoay Roman Catholic translation, "There is none that doeth good, no, not one. There is no difference for they've all sinned and come short of the glory of God."
What does that do with such pictures as this? This is a picture supposedly of Mary. Some of you have seen it in other replicas of Roman Catholic art. That's Mary, supposed to be at her assumption and coronation, crowned queen of heaven. And there are some sort of critters with wings. Bible never speaks of angels having wings, but these ... these critters have got wings. And got a whole bunch of supposed to be apostles down here; they're just looking up with amazement and adoration and worship to this goddess, this goddess. Let's go on with this, we'll see.
Despisers of those that are good, despisers of those that are good.
I despise the Roman Catholic Madonna, because she's a fake and a counterfeit and an invention of the Roman Catholic brain and the devil. I don't despise Mary the mother of Jesus. She was a sweet humble Jewess that knew she needed to be saved, she said. "My soul doth magnify my Savior," Mary referred to that, "My soul doth magnify my Savior." Well nobody needs a savior but sinners. Mary knew she needed a savior.
Without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, what does that mean "heady and high-minded", "heady and high"-minded"? It means using the wrong head and the wrong mind. That's the basis of all juvenile delinquency. Young people become delinquent when they become heady in this ugly sense of the term, and high-minded. When they become high-minded using their own minds above minds that should be in control and authority.
All that was wrong in the Garden of Eden was that the serpent was allowed to tempt Eve to become heady. God had said, "This particular tree, you must not eat of it", to Adam and Eve, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die". The devil said, "You'll not surely die. God doth know in the day you eat thereof your eyes will be opened, and you'll become as gods knowing good and evil." The devil was the first teacher of evolution in the sense that you'll become a god. 'If you just disobey, you just eat of that fruit that God told you not to eat of and what God said would be the result is exactly the opposite. Instead of dying, you will get your eyes opened and you'll become as God, knowing good and evil."
The woman, the woman became heady and high-minded. Where was her husband, the God-created head? We read over in 1 Timothy 2 and in 1 Corinthians 1Ith chapter and in 1 Corinthians 14th chapter that God made Adam first (now that isn't given, that particular thing, at all the references, but take them together), that God created Adam first. He knew His business. The question isn't brought out there of superiority or of inferiority. Not at all. It's just order, just God's order. I've never spent anytime arguing that my ears are better than my feet. But I much prefer to using my feet to walk on than my eyes.
I have never spent any time arguing that my eyes are superior to my fists. But if I was going to punch somebody or even punching a bag ... I used to try it a little bit? I never tried to use my eye deliberately. Wasn't a question of superiority or inferiority, it's order, order.
God made man first cause He wanted to. Man in that sense was the leader. Even all the modern, heady, high-minded, impish women would admit, if they believe the Bible account of creation, that man was certainly the leader for a little while, wasn't he. He was the only human being around. He was the leader for a little while, wasn't he? Yes. And God's Word ... maybe go back read that directly, God's Word informs us that that's one of the reasons why God's against women being in authority over the man, leadership. It's just not God's order, that's all..
I preached for sixteen nights in September in Dallas in the city park in some open air meetings we got. Christian lawyer there got permission, we had benches, lights, and platform and so forth. And I announced over the radio and in handbills and in the paper that I was going to speak on "Women Preachers and Headless Homes". I didn't say "Heady Women" there but "Women Preachers and Headless Homes". We had a few strangers, quite a company of Christians, numbers came over from Ft Worth. And I said that night, "You say, "Well I don't care what you say, mister, I don't care what you say preacher, you're just jealous of women. I don't care what you say. I know good and well that women are called of God to preach. I know. Look at sister Aimee McPherson, now dead, and took at sister Jack Cole, whose husband you know, famous healer, infamous heal... famous or whatever you want, healer died during a big healing convention. Aimee McPherson, you know, the founder of the Four Square Gospel, died as a result of taking too many sleeping pills in a healing campaign she was conducting in Oakland, California.
But anyway, to say, "I know of people converted under so-and-so woman preacher, and I know some great woman preachers." And I said this., "In God's sight, and in God's church, there is no more likelihood of a woman being a preacher than there is me in the physical realm giving birth to a baby. It's just not God's order." And I brought out that the reason, and I gave some Scriptures back in the Psalms about God spoke, "By His word the hinds do calve," by His word. God spoke all the laws that obtain in the physical realm today as well as in the moral and spiritual. God spoke them into existence. God spoke them into existence. The reason water runs uphill normally rather than downhill (sic) is because God spoke the laws that obtain in that field, that realm. God spoke. God's word determined it. And Gods word determined that the masculine not bear a child, but the feminine, the female. God spoke, God's word, He ... He spoke and the worlds were.
All right... Now everybody who has a little sanctified common sense and old enough to know anything about those things is resigned to the fact that the female may give birth to offspring and not the male. And those of us who believe it because God spoke and those laws began to obtain and operate, when we come in the spiritual realm and find God says, I'd suffer not a woman to teach nor usurp authority over the man", how about God speaking there? Can it be twisted and distorted and overruled and overridden successfully? No, no. You say, "But I heard women preach." Hah. Where were they preaching? Did you see God's smile upon them?
My friend, I believe the Bible is the Word of God. I believe it though the atmospheric heavens will pass away and the earth pass away, God's Word will not pass away, I read in this book. I believe it, what I read in the 119th Psalm, "Forever O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven". And you can burn up all the copies., if you could get all the copies of the Bible in all the world and burn them up, the God who gave them wouldn't have forgotten what He gave. He could have it all written again just like He did in the 36th chapter of Jeremiah where we read where Jehudi took a penknife and cut the Scriptures, the scroll that prophesied dire calamities against the wicked king that Jeremiah... God gave His word to Jeremiah and Jeremiah pronounced His word to Baruch his scribe and his scribe wrote the words. And then the copy of that prophecy of calamities was taken in before the wicked king when he was sitting before the winter hearth and with a bunch of his princes and Jehudi thought he would stand in good with the king and the Scriptures says, 36th of Jeremiah, that he took a penknife and cut the scroll three or four pages at a time and threw it in the fire till it was all consumed. I imagine, "Now king, you feel better don't you? I've torn up the orders," like some kids-and other people tear up a traffic ticket or tear up a summons. But if the police know their business and you can't buy them off, why whether you tore up that traffic ticket or not, you didn't tear up the record at city hall, the court house. Well the Scripture says that Jeremiah came ... God told Jeremiah to take another roll and "write in it all-l-l the former words", "write in it all the former words" and then add some to it. And so Jeremiah wrote again everything that had been in the first record that had been torn up three or four pages at a time and thrown in the fire and burned up. Because the God who gave it didn't forget. He still had the original copy, if you please; He had the original records, if you please. And so I believe the same today.
My friends, let's not fight God's Word. Let's find God's order and humbly and gladly and gratefully and intelligently abide by it. Then we'll get somewhere with God. We'll get somewhere in God's sight. You believe you can beat God's word when it comes to the digestive system and what's good for food and drink? Don't you know good and well that you and I that no dietician on the face of the earth or food faddist has ever invented a law that would operate in the human digestive system. The best dieticians, the best physical culturalists are the people who study carefully to see what God's laws are or they may say nature's laws and then abide by and obey nature's laws.
Heady, heady women and headless homes. In the last days they'll be heady and high-minded. (Now don't lose the temperature of this message by worrying about that.)
Traitors, heady, high-minded; traitors, heady, high-minded.
I believe that ... and I'm just going to touch this as a sort of seed thought for you to take if you want to... I believe probably one reason we men are not more godly, Christian men, are not more consistent and godly in our taking our God-given headship is because of the feminist movement abroad in the land today. The women ... well first let me say this. About two years ago there convened in Los Angeles the National, it may have been International, I think it was National Convention of Psychiatrists. And one of the psychiatrists, I presume was asked, to read a paper to that convention of august brains, professional psychiatrists and psychologists, to read a paper on the subject of women's styles, clothes, why women wear shorts and so forth, from the psychiatrist's viewpoint. And he said it's because of the exhibitionist psychology. What would you mean by that?
I sometimes think I might more successfully have stood, my wife and I coming from back east, I mean west, found next day that we missed this tornado down here on 250 between here and Charlottesville, we missed it by a very few minutes. We got into Charlottesville where we'd gone to visit our daughters and so forth, sons-in-law. We got into Charlottesville a few minutes later. Suppose I had known of that tornado, seen it coming and I'd gotten out of my car and said to my wife and hollered to those ten people in the one house, "Never mind. I'm going to puff at it. Ahhh, pfft." I might not have been here to tell you about it, ...? ...
I could have been more successful, I sometimes think trying to puff a cyclone out of existence or hurricane Gracie or out in California when we're about to have another earthquake you know, stay, "Phft, thumbs down on you", than to speak against the goddess of fashion and women's determination to be exhibitionists. Because the mills that grind out that filth are becoming more and more gigantic and they're working three shifts with enormous shifts. I think one reason that many Christian men are as compromising as they are is because they too often like to look at the exhibitionists. Every Christian man on earth still has his Adamic nature. I need Jesus Christ as a personal Savior and the indwelling Holy Spirit just as surely in order to be victorious in my thinking, in order to be clean and circumspect in my life regarding the opposite sex, I need Jesus Christ in my life just as surely as any unsaved reprobate on earth. Because the devil doesn't hate God's people less than he does poor, lecherous, loose, lax, libertines that don't pretend to be anything other than but rough, tough guys who sum up their life, try to, with wine, women, and song. The devil, the god of this world, doesn't hate God's men any less, we may rest assured. We should know.
I believe that we Christian men are too afraid that we'll be called straight-laced, that we'll be called narrow. And we, we, I repeat, are too many times caught slipping in our thinking in our indulgences and our thought and our attitudes toward the public, the women, and the public, their impudence and their wanton betray... wanton showmanship and manifestation. The unsaved men know why the women dress as they so often do. The unsaved men know ... I brought out things like this speaking and praying God that I would speak only with true spiritual chastity. I think that I probably have been defeated many a time thinking, "Well if I say anything I値l be considered just a vulgar minded preacher or vulgar minded man." I have said a few times when accused of that, and maybe know that somebody in the audience has accused me of that, especially if it's a lady, I've said, "I want to confess to that. I'm just like your husband. My natural mind. It's just vulgar. My natural mind. And so is your husband's and so is your daddy's, and so is your boy if you've got one. "There is no difference," God's Word says."
The works of the flesh ... before we go any farther, let's turn there because I'm not quite through with 2 Timothy yet, that is, a verse or two there.
Let's turn back please to Galatians the 5th chapter. No woman can fail to be heady unless she's a Christian woman who studies the Word of God, and loves her Lord, and wants to be exactly and all that He tells her to be, and conducts herself as He tells her. No man can occupy his position of head in the home we're told (head of the woman), we're told "the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God", 1 Corinthians 1Ith chapter. That's God's order. "The head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ, the head of Christ is God," 1 Corinthians 1Ith chapter. Did Christ ever rebel when He was on earth against the headship of His Father? It's unthinkable. It was order. God the Father was not superior in character at all to Immanuel, God the Son. God the Father was not superior at all in any sense at all. Christ said when He was on earth in His voluntary humility, "My Father's greater than I". But He also said, "I and My Father are one." He also said, "He that has seen Me has seen the Father." So it wasn't a question of superiority of character. I repeat, you think Christ ever rebelled against the headship of His Father? It's unthinkable. Unthinkable to a Christian that's studied the Bible at all. And do you think any Christian man in his Christian mind ever rebels against the headship of Christ over him the man? It's unthinkable. But it's abroad in the land today.
There isn't a denominational preacher in this city that believes in the headship of Jesus Christ. He'd quit being a denominational preacher like that if he did. You believe that? Is Christ the author of denominations? If He is, the more the merrier. I've had some people tell me, and some preachers write on it! "It would seem that God is pleased with the various denominational tenets of faith. It would seem that one human brain cannot hold in equal proportion and proper proportion alt the great doctrines, and so God has raised up one group of theologians and people to emphasize the sovereignty of God and they're Calvinists, and He's raised up another group of people just as earnest and maybe just as scholarly to emphasize the freedom of the human will. And it would seem that that each is magnifying a doctrine of God and that" blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.
And yet the Word of God says "speak the same thing". "Speak the same thing", Philippians 1, Romans 12. "I pray that ye be all of the same mind," 1 Corinthians 1. "I beseech you brethren by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind, in the same judgment, and that there be no divisions among you," 1 Corinthians 1:10. My friend, that's a horrible thing to say, and yet ... let me tell you who went and said it. I have it in the writings of the late James M Gray, my wife and I both attended Moody Bible Institute, not together, same time, but we were both taught by James M Gray, dean for years of Moody Bible Institute. And certainly I still want to believe that he's going to get some rewards in the glory; he's gone to meet his rewards or the Lord; he's dead. And the late R.A. Torrey, founder of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, than whom there was no more profound expository evangelist in interdenominational work for years and years and years. R.A.Torrey. And in their books, I have the book, both of them, on denominationalism, both of them argue that "it would seem that God knows that no one human brain can hold in proper proportion all the" ... then God's the author of confusion. What can we believe? Listen! What can you ...
(Isn't that a little too warm? I'm not a thermometer, because I'm standing up of course, but maybe somebody back there had better ... How is it Herman? Getting a little warm? Thank you, brethren.)
Now watch. Let me give this briefly because I'm on the subject of heady and high-minded, heady and high-minded in the ugly sense. Heady ... I don't let Jesus Christ be the head. And His order in the home; the head of the man is Christ, the head of the woman is the man. Heady and high-minded; a horrible condition of the last days. And no ... they probably ... well the Word of God tells us it will be characteristic of the last days. Therefore I have that Biblical right to say that we probably today, doubtless today, are seeing this ugly condition of heady, heady and high-mindedness as never before in human history. And that's producing the lawlessness and the dissatisfaction and the artificiality.
What woman today is satisfied to be what God wants her to be? What woman today thinks that her place is in the home and she's a queen in the home? We used to have poems you know. Now, huh, you just as well sing, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" at a grand opera as to talk today about the hand that rocks. the cradle rules the world. As you ... what woman rocks the cradle? Hah! "We got a baby sitter and we've gone to the crap game or the bowling alley or the card party or the theater or dance or ..." Where's the hand that rocks the cradle today? In fact there was quite awhile, they coming back to it again, but there was quite awhile in my young life that psychologists said, "Mothers should never rock the children." But they're coming back to it now. Juvenile delinquency's making all of them from J. Edgar Hoover on down saying "What're we going to do? What're we going to do?" "It's that crop of kids that were not rocked in the cradle in mother's arms and were not mothered, that are presenting the greatest police problems. Its a vicious circle. And that's the wisdom of this world, heady, high-minded, wrecking God's order.
Young women, let me plead with you, you're nowhere so beautiful as where God wants you. Are you as healthy physically by violating some of God's dietary laws? Can you improve upon God's dietary laws? The best dieticians upon the face of the earth say, "Let's get back to simpler foods. Less adulteration. Less highly seasoned sweets and condiments. Let's get back to simple things. We're digging our grave with our teeth," they tell us often, things like that. Get back to simple things. We hear lecturers say, and I've seen them of course, when a dog gets sick, he won't eat any kind of food you give them. He'll go and ... if there's green grass, I've seen a many go and eat a little grass. Who taught him? Creator. We go and get loaded up with pills and all sorts of junk and then artificial vitamins and then go back to eating crazy ... modern civilization, modern civilization.
You say, "You sound to me like a sour pessimist." Oh no, oh no. I'm just no longer a boob when it comes to God's Word. I do not believe as I said over the radio last Sunday I think, I do not believe that God's way is the best way. I do not believe that. I used to say I did, and try to. God's way is not the best way. It's the way. It's the way. All others are detours and dead-end streets. God's way is the way. God's way ... Christ said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death," that's given twice in the book of Proverbs, 14:12 and ... 12:14 and 14:16, that exact wording, "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."
And that goes right into the woman, the feminist movement. "Women are free now," we heard years ago when the 19th Amendment was put in the Constitution, giving women the right to vote. Oh boy, how the women suffrage advocates and some of the men that should have been wearing mother Hubbards back there ... of course the men haven't taken to wearing women's clothes but the women are wearing mens clothes, now. And I guess that's consistent with the trend of things, that's consistent with the trend of things. But we heard years ago, I heard years ago, that when the women get the right to vote, they're going to clean up politics. And they got the right to vote. And this country has been a veritable Garden of Eden ever since.
There were two things that we heard back yonder: "If we would just," Roosevelt said, "If you'd just elect me, I will immediately after the 18th Amendment is rescinded," making it illegal you know, 18th Amendment, making it illegal to manufacture and sell intoxicating liquor, and he said, "I will rescind the 18th Amendment and then the tax, the federal tax from liquor will lift us out of the Depression." And so he was elected President and the 18th Amendment was rubbed out, but the 19th Amendment had been put in, women vote. And so now we have Prohibition ... we had Prohibition taken, done away with and women voting, and wasn't that wonderful. It's all brought about wonderful things, hasn't it?
Anywhere and everywhere that we violate God's Word we get into trouble. Instead of women being freed, women are being enslaved. The women that think they're the freest on earth today, I mean the unsaved, worldly smart women that think they're freer than their mothers, especially grandmothers were, are slaves. They're pitiful slaves to fashion. And they're getting more and more of course slaves to cigarettes and slaves to this and slaves ... divorce and marry, divorce and marry. I read a little letter in the letter column, open forum of the Richmond paper, morning paper the other day from a woman objecting to this Rosalind whatever her name is making her debut. And I think in the same paper there was a big screaming advertisement of a picture of her and somebody was welcoming her, they're going to get a big welcome on the TV, this filthy, sordid, seductive, libertine adulteress from Hollywood, Roman Catholic, married to a Roman Catholic in Italy, and, "Well ah ... and divorced him, two, three children by him, married and divorced again, children born out of wedlock and all, and she's coming on TV, maybe she's already made her debut, reappearance and all like that.
Filth, filth, filth. Look here. I had it right out here so I could read it without ... James, did you get that? I値l find it... I think..
(comment from audience)
No, I値l read something else while I'm looking for it. It's a story about Miss Universe. I want to find it ...right here. "Miss Universe to appear," now she was the winner of the Miss Universe contest in Long Beach ...last June. They are going to change her slightly, name ? , because they had so many protests from some lines, but there were only 300,000 people that appeared in Long Beach Sunday afternoon to see the parade of the young women from all over the world, mostly vying for Miss Universe to be selected. And of course as they came down each in their own special (I didn't see it I can assure you), came down this specially built float or whatever you call it, kind of a throne, they were dressed in bathing suits. Other times of course they had formal gowns dragging the floor, almost, you see, to both extremes because that's masterly clever from the standpoint of psychology.
How many silly mothers and stupidly ignorant or compromising and cowardly fathers have failed to examine, go into the design of the present styles where girls will have two to three or four fluffy, duffy petticoats to make their skirts spring out, hand out like this one day at school, the next day they'll wear those Italian britches or on the street anyway. Or maybe one girl fit... go to the school with 'like that and the other one with very tight fitting skirt, disgracefully. Why the designs so radically different? Why the design? Masterfully subtle. It'd become common if it was only this every day all day long for months and months and months, or only this. It's like back in the days when the dresses got above the knees. That was for day time wear, but the balls, the were low down here and dragging the floor. Design, and men know, unless they're stupid and don't care. Men know that there's a purpose, that the's design. It's the design that's sexual, it's lustful, it's filthy, and Christians should take a stand! Christians should be different!
It all, this all adds up my friend to heady, high-minded. Our women today are wanton and willful and the men today like them ... Christian men want their wives in many cases to look like the godless, sensuous, exhibitionists of the world. And I expect to go right on as long as God gives me breath, preaching what I know is the truth, what I know's the truth. I don't expect some men so far as l know to wake up until they're ... they're ? , until maybe their daughters break their hearts. Then they'll take stock and say, "My God, why didn't I listen, instead of be stubborn and proud, why didn't I listen? Why didn't I check up for myself with godly honesty? Why wasn't I willing to be different now? "We're going to be different in eternity. How different is my wife or my wife and daughters going to be a thousand years from tonight, to the godless, giddy crowd that, that say, "Yes, yes," the moment Hollywood or Paris dictates the styles?
My God, help us to hate those things. "Love not the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father's not in him." God said that. If any man love the world. You can't appreciate the headship of Jesus Christ in His person if you don't appreciate the headship of the man and authority in the home, because it's God's order, God's order. "The head of the woman is man, the head of the man is Christ, the head of Christ is God." And you and I can't respect Jesus Christ on earth in His humility, honoring the Father every breath He breathed, every word He said, every act He performed, honoring the Father. He came to glorify the Father, He came to reveal the Father, and He said toward the end of His life on earth, "I do always the things that please My Father." "Even Christ," we're told, "pleased not Himself." Did it hinder Him? Was it a heavy yoke?
I suggested that we sing that song before we went on, "His Yoke Is Easy." How many women today when they read what God's Word said about women believe that God's yoke is easy? "Well I think the men ...", "Ought the men to do so-and-so ..." and "I know ..., "But I try ...", and "It seems to me ...", blah, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.
(MMJ sings)
His yoke is easy, His burden is light, I found it so, I found it so.
Suppose there are any women ... I'm sure there are some women today, I've known, I know of some, married to ungodly husbands. They woke up too late, I mean so far as being able to do much about their husbands apparently, but they woke up to Christ, saved, and began to believe that His yoke is easy and take their place and suffered trials and hardships. There comes to my mind right now one, a sweet Christian woman whose tears I've seen many a time "washing her eyes" shall I say from the world's dirt as she's yielded submissively to her husband and finds, so far as I know, in the main a light burden because she's doing it as unto the Lord. And she's a testimony not only to me but to others, testimony to her father, testimony to her ... her sons, and testimony only to the angels.
We read in the 19th chapter of 1 Corinthians about a testimony to the angels, the angels look down, the good and the bad, the principalities and powers look down, and they see there the subject is headship, to see where the women fear God and God's order. The devil and his hosts of lying spirits and demons in the heavenly places look down on the church we read in the 1Ith chapter of Corinthians and the 3rd chapter of Ephesians. We've got some spectators here tonight that are not in these walls, aren't confined inside these walls, according to God's Word and I believe it. Not only God in heaven but the devil. We're told the devil, the principalities and powers, are learning the wisdom of God by the church, the way we live down here. And that the devil's "the accuser of the brethren and accuses the brethren day and night before God", we read in Revelation 1Ith chapter and 10th verse. He accuses brethren day and night before God.
Let's not forget that that we're on ... Paul says, "We're spectators," or the Greek word they say or tell us is, theaton from which we get our Anglicized word ? theater?. Paul says, "We're a spectacle to devils and all. We're a spectacle, a theater. They're watching. And Paul wasn't an actor, but my what a character. In that sense we could say character actor, but more than just act of course.
Heady, look at this now, "Miss Universe to appear. Miss Universe of 1957, Miss Carol Morris, will appear 7:00 pm Wednesday at the All Peoples Christian Church," such-and-such address, "as a headliner of its eleventh annual bread and water banquet." Not going to spend a lot of money for eats because they're going to save the money for poor people and the attraction is going to be Miss Universe. She was the attraction of the eyes of the most filthiest, lecherous, sexual perverts and others a few months before you see to win the position see. See? Thousands and thousands of filthy eyed lustful men and boys and others and, and jealous, and covetous, and green-eyed girls, and women watched her. And now she's going to be the attraction at this ... look, she'll be the attraction at All Peoples Christian Church, Miss Universe.
Imagine a thing, like that happening in Paul's day. "The dinner will be in observance of the one great hour of sharing program. Miss Morris, daughter of a Disciples of Christ minister ..." Preacher's daughter won the title Miss Universe. Wasn't that nice? Doesn't the world love the church? Sure. That kind of a church. But does it Love Christ? It's stained with the blood of God's dear Son. It's stained with the blood of God's dear Son.
Listen to this, James 4:4 and 5, 3 and 4, "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that friendship of the world is enmity with God? therefore whosoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." Suppose this paper had stated that Mr. Khrushchev was going to preach or sing a solo at this gathering at the All Peoples Christian Church. There would have been a storm of righteous indignation; boy, there would have been a volcano in Los Angeles, this is Los Angeles. This is Los Angeles isn't it? That's right, thank you. "What! Having an enemy of God! Whew." Well, where do we get our conception and knowledge as to who's enemies ... who are enemies of God? James 4:4 said, "You adulterers and adulteresses, know you not that friendship of the world is enmity to God". How did this preacher's daughter win the title Miss Universe? By being unworldly?
The next year in the Los Angeles County Youth For Christ organization, so-called, meeting in the Bible Institute auditorium in Los Angeles, the Fundamentalists' West Point they say of the Far West, the Evangelical,. the Fundamentalists' place, headquarters, auditorium seating 4,000 people, Youth For Christ so-called meets there Saturday night, downtown Los Angeles. And they advertised that a certain young lady was going to wear the gown that Miss Universe, another year winner, was crowned in I think, the princess gown or something. And the princess had gone to the movies but she let this friend of hers someway wear the gown and is to be the attraction that night at Youth For Christ. I believe in God's sight that was filthier, and this is filthier, than any low, so-called, low dive on skid row Los Angeles or Hollywood, the perverts in Hollywood. Because this is filth adorned with religious artificial flowers.
My friends, God didn't advise us needlessly and warn us and foretell needlessly the conditions of these last days. You and I won't know how to live unless we let God show us. You believe that? We won't know how to live. Why when I come into one of these clover leafs in our freeways today, tollways ... out in California we've got one place where there are four heights of our new freeways. You come along there, even if you've lived there a long time, I've lived there many years before they built those freeways, I come downtown and I want to go someplace you know, and I see a sign Figueroa Street this-a-way and I say, "That's wrong. It's this-way." But if I don't follow that sign, because that sign will take me around you know, and ah ... I've found more than one time I've gotten on the wrong road.
Not very long ago ... well you've had the experiences like this too. Got on a freeway going up to Wichita, Kansas from Oklahoma City the other month. And I'd never been on the Kansas toll road. And so I got on it, and I thought, "My, this sure beats the road I was on last time you know." And I got to the edge of Wichita and saw a sign sitting out there. "I don't want out there." But I hadn't looked at the map to see the exits and the turnouts into Wichita. And ... I said, "I don't want there. I'm going on the far side of town." And that's the last one I saw to Wichita and I had to drive twelve miles beyond the city before I could get out. And I've learned by driving tollways that I'd better look at the map because I can't just cross anywhere I want to. I can't cut out. I've just learned to be obedient and to follow.
Oh-h, I'm learning a little bit from time to time after making a lot of foolish mistakes, and only God knows how many rewards I'm missing by not having humbly bowed and studied diligently. But my friend God's way is the only way. "Without faith it's impossible to please Him" and "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." Hebrews 11:6, "Without faith it's impossible to please Him" and "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God," Romans 10:17, "And whatsoever is not of faith is sin," Romans 14:23.
Heady, high-minded. Oh, when you go into a home where the husband believes God's Word where he in God's order is the head of the home, and he's told to... "Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it." "Wives be subject to your husbands in everything. The husband's the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church." Hah! What does that mean? Do Baptists believe in the one mythical, universal, invisible church." "We Presbyterians believe in the holy catholic church, that mythical, invisible church." "We Methodists believe in the one holy, invisible, mystical church." "We Episcopalians believe and say every Sunday morning the same time the Methodists and Presbyterians are saying and two hours after the Roman Catholics' said it, "I believe in the holy catholic church." "We believe in all of that, but Christ is the head of that invisible, mystical church. He's the head of that. But on earth, who's the head of your church?" "Well we hire preachers and fire them, heaping to ourselves teachers having itching ears," 2 Timothy 4.
Did you know that there's no pastors in the church of Jesus Christ, but men that God makes pastors. For 32 years since last April I have never been "hired" by any congregation; needless to say I've never been fired, because you can't fire somebody you didn't hire. You say, "Yes sir, how many people do you preach to?" Well, so far as a given time, I have a good many radio programs, but so far as a given time and place ... what would happen if the day after our first ad came out, the Methodist preacher in town here, got more Methodists to come out, "We're delighted to have our part in these meetings held in the name of the Lord, brother Maurice Johnson from California, brother Cox from Charlottesville, Virginia, some other Christians, because we say every Sunday morning, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; blah, blah, blah; I believe in the holy catholic church." I believe in the holy catholic church, and so this is a little sample of the holy ..." Now I'm not belittling those truths that I gave; I'm belittling the method, the way they're said. You think anybody can say, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord," and so forth, "I believe in the holy, catholic," universal, not Roman Catholic, "I believe in the holy catholic church." The Methodists say that every Sunday morning as they repeat the so-called Apostles" Creed. The Presbyterians say the same, the Lutherans say the same, the Episcopalians say the same, and Roman Catholics say the same thing. I'm getting to where my friend I believe that the crowd that says that, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord, I believe in the holy catholic church", "Now anybody want to join the Methodist Church this morning?" ..."Presbyterian Church?" ..."Episcopal Church?", they do not believe in the holy catholic church. What makes me think they believe in God Almighty? If a part of the profession that you give solemnly, and after you get through, then the choir sings, "Glory be to the Father, to..." or something, whatever you sing to close. I forget what we used to sing in the Methodists. I haven't joined in in so long I've forgotten that part of it.
But let's, my friend ... can you and I believe one of the Ten Commandments, and obey? Now tomorrow night I'm going to speak on ""Christ Versus the Ten Commandments" here. Hope to have some Seventh Day Adventists., maybe some followers of Herbert W Armstrong, and some of the others, present. Invite them to come because it'll be a warm time tomorrow night, especially if any of those folks come because I'm going to let them ask questions. And they'll probably think that they'll really have me on the spot on what I'm giving right now, seem to be opposite, ""Can you believe in one of the Ten Commandments or nine of them and repudiate the other?" Now tomorrow night if I ask that, and maybe I will, If there's any Seventh Day Adventist present, If they don't holler "Amen", it'll be because they just held themselves in. But now I値l say, ""Can you believe in nine of the Ten Commandments, believe in them, as commandments from God and not believe in any one of the other, any one of them, believe in nine but not one? Can you really believe?" Maybe I値l say, "I know that you cannot." Maybe If there's any Seventh Day Adventists, "Amen!" They'll wonder why l selected such a subject as "'Christ Versus the Ten Commandments". Well I値l tell you when I go into that tomorrow night, God willing, and it'll be helpful to you if you're honest... if you're God fearing, and if you want to ... I've studied this subject many, many years; very carefully, and many, many hours with Seventh Day Adventists and other would be Ten Commandment keepers.
I値l say this much right now, there isn't a Ten Commandment keeper in this town. You think there is? "If you keep the whole law and offend in one point, you're..." what?
(chorus from audience) "Guilty of all."
That's what God's Word says. '"If you keep the whole law and offend in one point, you're guilty of it all," because it's the law. But that's the subject tomorrow.
A Little bit more and I'm going to stop. Heady and high-minded women and headless homes. A man that takes his God-given place with his wife, and when God blesses them with children in his home, and the wife that takes her God-given place as a wife and a mother, if God, when God, even when Gad gives them children, is a guarantee of a little foretaste of heaven. Now that doesn't mean that they and children born won't have Adamic nature till the resurrection, because every Christian still has his Adamic nature. We won't get rid of our Adamic nature until the resurrection, until the death and resurrection, we'll have immortal bodies and old Adam will be gone for good. We've got to die daily, we've got to reckon ourselves dead, look though we're dead. The moment a Christian comes to Christ according to God's Word, "Ye are crucified. Knowing this, that your old man is crucified with Christ," Romans 6:6. "1 am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh, I Live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me,"" Galatians 2:20.
Every Christian is one who's had a funeral in his house and he didn't know about it in a sense, died. Maybe I should say he did know about it, he did know about it, he died. No man can come to Jesus Christ, as He says, "If any man will come after Me let him deny himself." That doesn't mean deny yourself of meat on Friday, or deny yourself of extra swell dances and liquor during Lent. That's arrogant humility, that's peacock humility. Christ said, "If any man will come after Me let him deny himself," let him cross out himself, let him deny ... let him commit suicide. Let him admit that he's a sinner and that the wages of sin is death.
Let him admit that he has no right to live. Let him admit that the only right according to heaven's court that he has is to die, if I may put it that way. Let him admit that everything that God wants from him as an unsaved person is the death penalty. Let me say that again slowly. Everything that God wants from an unsaved person is the death penalty. That's all.
But He's got the good news to tell us, that He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to taste death for every man. And that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.. And that when we by faith take Him at His word, when we receive Christ as our Savior, His death is put to our credit. And we can say, "I'm crucified with Christ". Just think of it. And then we can say in the language of Galatians ... Colossians 3, "Ye are dead," dead in the court of heaven, "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life shall appear, we'll appear with Him in glory." In the court of glory Maurice Johnson Adam, now my first name of course was Adam, and then the fellow, this particular child of Adam was distinguished by Maurice Johnson, in the court of glory Maurice Johnson Adam is dead. He died years ago. The death penalty. And God hasn't anything more to do with Maurice Johnson Adam. But I do. And some of you've had too much to do with him. My wife and daughters, one daughter that's here, some of you folk's had something to do. You've seen Maurice Johnson Adam rise up assert himself, I mean my Adamic nature. That's bad. But in the court of heaven and in God's ... as far as God's concerned, He has nothing more to do with Maurice Johnson Adam, I've passed out of existence. "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Isn't that glorious?
That's the truth that's utter foolishness to the natural mind, 1 Corinthians 1, "The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness". What is the preaching of the cross? It is that Christ died taking my place and your place, He tasted death for every man. He paid my penalty, penalty for my sins and your penalty. And when you receive it, it's put to your credit. And in heaven's court, the books are closed. You're dead. But you've got a new life.
Now that new life isn't on trial. I値l bring that out maybe tomorrow night briefly. My new life isn't on trial for life. I'm just as sure for heaven with an immortal body as if 1'd been there a million years, because my new life isn't on trial. My old life was on trial, I値l bring it out tomorrow night, and it flunked out in the law school, it flunked out in the law school. There never was but one person that matriculated in the divine law school that passed all the grades. It was but One. And He didn't get any sheepskin either. He was pronounced the sheep. And all you and I ever get when we graduate from something is just the skin. We're just sheepskins. I think it must be a type... but I mustn't get on into that.
Heady women and headless homes. I think the movement today ... they say that women, I forget the last statistics I saw, women, I forgot what percentage, an overwhelming majority, stronger than 50 %, of money, stocks and bonds, money, in the banks and all, in the United States now is controlled by women. Way over 50%. Isn't that a freedom of womanhood. Some of you heard me tell about, and this is just one experience, I've had a good many like it ... had it in Dallas, Texas a few weeks later, but several weeks ago in Los Angeles on Hollywood and Vine; we're holding an open air meeting Sunday night; Hollywood and Vine; downtown Hollywood. And a woman about 35 and a young man younger; maybe the young woman wasn't that old but sin had had its ravages already. They came across. She saw me standing there. I was off the sidewalk with my Bible on the corner of Hollywood and Vine; quite a group of Christian young people and a few older people standing there. We'd had some singing and all. This young woman ... I mean this woman walked up you know, staggering, reached over, grabbed my arm, begin to curse a blue streak, and then use filthy vulgar language, and a crowd begin to gather. And they laughed and they cackled. And I quoted the scripture from the wisest man that ever lived... next to the God-man as to human wisdom, knowledge of the world, he said, "As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of fools," Ecclesiastes. It's the crackling of thorns under a pot," do you ever build a fire with dry ... out in the desert many a time we've stopped and cooked when we're traveling back and forth and say, "Let's have supper," sometime breakfast, "in the desert after the sun goes down," and we get some dry, sometimes some cactus, there's some things that dry, and thorns, and my how they ... what a merry fire, crackle, crackle, crackle, sparkle, sparkle. But they're burnt into ashes aren't they, they're burning up, but they sure are merry as they burn to death. "As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of fools." When I tune in the radio sometimes to get news and I hear Arthur Godfrey's program, or something like that, some of these other paid ... Bob Hope, or some of these other fellows that are skyrocketing to fame and infamy, and money and hell probably, and they're entertaining more and more millions and millions with their jokes and ... I don't know when I've ever heard one that didn't have a suggestiveness, vulgarity, double-meaning, filth, and the paid laughers, "Hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah," women, girls, you hear them you know in the studio, laugh, hah-hah-hah, laugh, laugh, laugh, filth.
Who today has any conscience? Who today believes that a woman, a girl, a young lady can be, should be, sweet, pure, chaste, modest, faithful? Why, I'm one of the most out of date, most back.. old fogies, my-my-my. You know I still believe that the husband should be the first one to put his arms around and kiss the opposite sex. Ain't that ridiculous? Where have I been to school? I still believe that. I still believe that. I think it's a very sad thing when a young man marries common property, and she has no reason to doubt that she's marrying common property. But phooey, today, today...
Well shall we surrender every ideal because it's so common that they're dragged in the dust today? Is there nothing that we should say, "I'm going to contend for it, God help me if I'm the only person I know of, I'm not going to surrender what I believe is beautiful, God's order, God's genuine, God's standard. I'm not going to surrender it, I'm going to keep on." Well my friend, I would no more preach things I preached tonight about sectarianism if I didn't believe that there's a true beautiful church. And that if all the Christians in Waynesboro were satisfied with Jesus Christ and would meet together like they did in the early days when Timothy came to set things in order. Paul said, "Timothy, set things in order in every church." Here comes Timothy and every Christian in the community would come to welcome that young man that had been given to the church as an evangelist, pastor, and teacher. You let a Timothy come to this city today uninvited by the sectarian hired boys, and come honestly and only in the name that they say they believe is above every name. What Christian, nominal Christian preacher in this town would dare say that the name of the Lord Jesus Christ isn't the name above every name, Philippians 2? And, and, Ephesians 1, that God has given His risen, glorified Son a name which is above every name not only in this age but in that which is to come. All right, I've come here in that name. "Who is that guy? Who is that guy, who invited him? I don't see any sponsorship by any of the churches in this city for that fellow from Los Angeles. Who is he?" "He's some fly-by-night, some crackpot." "Well didn't he advertise no collections, nothing to sell but free literature?" "Yeah." "Didn't it say we come in the name of the Lord?" "Yeah." "Well what's that?" "What's that to us charming religionists of Waynesboro?"
My friend, Christians are so corrupted today from the simplicity that's in Christ, it's horrible. I was on the radio years ago in a town in western Colorado. Going to be there for three weeks. Some friends invited me to go up from Pasadena, they were going up to their old ranch. They said, "You need a rest. Come on up," and the rest I got was on the radio three times and preaching in the street various places and having a fine time. But anyway I had some rest. I got there, the first Sunday morning on this radio, we bought time, 30 minutes for three days on this little radio ... what's the name of that town in western Colorado? nice little town but not the biggest city. And I announced the first thing in the morning on this radio morning, "My dear friends, I'm here in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm a sinner saved by the grace of God. Therefore I'm one with every other Christian in the world. I expect to be here with some friends for three weeks, and I'd like very much to meet some of my kinfolk. You know all Christians are one in Christ. You Christians know that don't you, Romans 12:4,5 and Ephesians 4:25, and so forth? And will you give me the privilege of meeting you, some of my kinfolks, blood-bought. We're going to be together for all eternity, but I'd like to get acquainted with you this side. I値l be down at the hotel," and I mentioned the best known hotel in the little city, I think about 10-15,000 people, I said, "I値l be in the lobby of this hotel for, from 1:00 till 3. My name is Maurice Johnson, you can ask one of the bellhops or the clerk, point me out, I値l be in the lobby, sitting, maybe reading my Bible, sitting there studying, and I hope I値l have the privilege of meeting some of my kinfolks." There's a crowd don't you think? You think there's any preacher in town that came? I hope and pray to God James if you'd hear a thing like that over the radio in Charlottesville, if you were in town and could you'd beat it down there. If that man is what he claims to be, I want to meet a blood-bought brother who seems to be satisfied with Jesus Christ! Henry, don't you think you'd put in a little extra effort to meet him if he came to Charlottesville and you'd hear on the radio something like that? "Hey listen, if that man's telling the truth I'd like to meet him." Say "God bless you, you're a kindred spirit, you rang a bell in my heart with what you said." Not a soul came down there. I was there for three weeks. Not a soul.
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