In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of young people learning to obey, be clean, and overcome sin. He criticizes the way children are raised, comparing it to being raised like hogs. The preacher also mentions the story of Jeremiah and how he was mistreated for speaking the truth. He highlights the call to become like Jesus and the need for believers to watch and be prepared for his coming, comparing it to a thief in the night.

This is a very interesting scripture. It speaks of the coming of the devil and the coming of Jesus. They come at the same time. That is strange. I know there are all kinds of interpretations of revelations. Some years ago, these three frogs were said to be Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. But now, of course, we find out that they were not, neither of those three. So there must be some other three. There have been thousands of fellows that claim to be the two witnesses of revelation. One used to come to our meeting in the faith home in Zion. He wore a skull cap, and he was a real problem. He always ruined the meeting, but he was one of the witnesses too. And, of course, you know how that Dr. Evans in the Moody Bible Institute told us one time that 1,600 books had been written, each one explaining what happened in heaven during the half hour of silence. And so you can have your choice. And the little colored boy asked his colored preacher pop, what am the millennium? He said, don't you know, my son, the millennium am the same thing as a centennial, only, of course, he got more legs. Well, that's about as good an explanation as I've seen anywhere in any of these prophetic books. But, ya baraja la gailo bil ba dolom bogo, when you open your heart, God Almighty will put some word of life there. And he shows us here that not only ought we to be interested in the coming of Jesus. At this time, we ought to be wide awake to the things that are happening, but we ought to see here how deeply Jesus Christ is interested in this great event. Like a bridegroom that is coming to call his bride and bring her home and bring her to the altar, naturally he's deeply interested. But Jesus, tell me, what is your interest in this meeting tonight? What do you think of everyone in this meeting tonight? Well, he tells us here, blessed are those servants whom, when the Lord cometh, shall find watching. This is a time for watching, not only praying, but watching. Watching for what? We sing he's coming soon, and we who live and yet remain shall be caught up together with them in clouds to meet the Lord in the air. I'm not interested in that. Oh, I'm interested, but there's something preceding that coming of the Lord, and that's spoken of here. Behold, I come as a thief. And you know, when a thief comes, he doesn't announce his coming. The other day we had a thief coming to this church while we were having a meeting down here, and he robbed my offering box. There wasn't much there, but he spoiled my box. That's the thing I didn't like. But he came like a thief. He came very softly. He didn't make a noise. He didn't ring a bell or blow a whistle. He didn't want anybody to hear. And Jesus says, that's the way he is coming to his own. And he's coming at a time when you would least expect him. That's the thing we need to be interested in. He's coming at a time when the whole world is in turmoil, and when these demon powers are let loose upon humanity. And of course, this battle of Armageddon has been pictured also as a nuclear war. It isn't anything like that. The battle of Armageddon is going on in a meeting like this, in a life like yours, in a home like yours. And the decision that is made by this war between the contending armies is whether Jesus Christ shall have a heart prepared to reign with him forever and ever. That's the great battle that is going on, and that's the great battle that Satan is waging today against humanity. The great call of Almighty God is to create sons of God upon this earth without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom they shine as lights in the world. That means they're like Jesus. If we say that we abide in him, we ought also to walk even as he walked. And that's the thing the devil hates. He doesn't mind your Democrats and your Republicans, and he doesn't mind your Communists and your Nazis. Those are his legions, and they do his bidding. And the saloon in the world and all these bad places. But the devil is after you. He's after you. He's after sons and daughters of God. He's after these bodies of ours, because these bodies are going to defeat the devil. These bodies are going to constitute the new Jerusalem. And God Almighty is going to come down from heaven and live in these bodies of ours, and change them, transform them into the likeness of his glorified body. That's, the Bible says, what he baptized us for in the Holy Ghost. He didn't baptize us to make big shots out of us. He baptizes to make us holy, even as he is holy. Pure, even as he is pure. Oh, what a wonderful, glorious call. I wonder why we don't fly into the arms of Jesus and make that purity and make that holiness ours. He tells us we ought to follow after holiness. He tells us that we ought to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. And the people that do that, they're going to reign with Christ. They're going to be ready when Jesus Christ comes. And all of our New Testament testifies to that great truth. You can't mistake it at all. It's there. The reason we don't find it is because we don't want it. When you really want him, when you really want Jesus Christ, you'll want holiness. You'll want to be pure, even as he is pure. And when you want him, you will seek him with all your heart, and you will cry with your lambs all trimmed and burning bright, and your vessel filled with oil, and you'll say, come, Lord Jesus. Oh, Lord Jesus, how long, how long? Every shout, but don't come yet. You remember how Mr. Bender told us? They came out of a prayer meeting in Pennsylvania, and they had to go over a hill. And the whole band of saints got to the top of the hill, and then something happened. They saw the northern lights, like they'd never seen them before, in colors of the rainbow. And they converged right above them, right in the zenith of the sky above them. And then they saw a cup, or rather, a chalice made of gold, and it tipped, and oil came out of that chalice. And they were all charmed. They all said, Jesus is coming. I, Jesus is coming. They were sure. They all looked up. They all expected, presently, the Lord Jesus to appear. And the little boy got hold of his mother's skirt. Fortunately, this was years ago. Did you hear old Thomas telling how a little boy was lost in the supermarket? And the policeman said to him, uh, where's your mother? He said, I don't know. The policeman said, you ought to hang on to her skirt. He said, I can't reach it. But this boy was able to reach the skirt of his mother. And he said, mother, give me two cents. She said, shh, Jesus is coming. You don't need two. Yes, I need two cents right away. Give me two cents. What's the matter? Oh, I stole two cents down in the grocery store. I've got to run and give it back to the grocery man. It's night, but anyway, he had something to make right. Jesus is coming. Thank God. And oh, how interested he is in those who prepare themselves. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching. And why watching? And keeping their garments. Why keeping their garments? Because the devil is working today to defile this wonderful garment. And what a garment it is. It's his righteousness. They that receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness are not overcome by sin, but they reign in life. The life of Jesus Christ overcomes the forces of death and sickness and sin and uncleanness. They receive abundance of grace. And what is this abundance of grace? Why it's that divine nature that is offered to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's that divine Son of God, whom God brought again from the dead, that he might live within our hearts and within our bodies and make us perfect in every good work to do his will, working in us that which is well-pleasing in his sight. And oh, that wonderful work he began when on the cross he shed his precious blood to give us these garments of his righteousness. How pure, how spotless is a soul that has confessed his sins to God and has received salvation. There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. But many are called and few are chosen. And he says, some of you have not defiled their garments and they shall walk with me in mine. That's what Jesus is interested in. It caused him his precious blood to cleanse me, really to cleanse me within. Give me a clean heart. Give me a new heart and create the right spirit within me. Bestow upon me his own holy ghost. And hallelujah, there's no condemnation to them which walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. But God alone knows how many people are defiling their garments. That's where the battle of Armageddon comes in. It's the powers of hell that have come out of the bottomless pit and are blacking the sky and darking the sunlight, darking the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that you can see through. And what is it? Jesus makes it very clear. He says his coming is like the sun that arises in the east and shineth even unto the west. I don't believe that's correct, correctly interpreted when it says the lightning. The lightning doesn't shine from the east to the west, but the sun does. And the gospel age was the offer of almighty God, of the grace of God that bringeth salvation and cleanses men from all sin. And that's why he says where the carcass is, the vultures will gather, and the vultures have come out of hell and have walked off with all of humanity. What uncleanness we find today even in the church. The Roman Catholic church used to be an obstacle, used to be an example of wickedness, but today the Protestants are worse. Beloved, here is the great call of the king, thank God. Blessed are they that keep their garments clean. Thank God. Thank you, my Lord Jesus Christ, because that precious blood that cleansed me in the beginning will keep cleansing me and keep me clean. And thy word, like a two-edged sword, will be a discerner of the thoughts and of the intents of the heart. And it's a strange thing that right in the midst of the description of this great battle of Armageddon that's produced by these four frogs, these demon powers, right in the midst of it, Jesus has a church that's keeping itself clean and spotless. And he says, blessed are they. He doesn't say blessed are they that speak in tongues and that think well of themselves and think they're better than others, but blessed are they that keep their garments. Thank God that's a call that comes out of heaven to me, to my own personal life, from the person that's more precious to me than all other names. Jesus, the name above all names. Jesus, my only joy, be thou as thou my prize will be. Jesus, be thou my glory now and through eternity. And this wonderful verse in this call of God presents to all of us and especially to our young people, a marvelous opportunity. We talk about juvenile delinquency and today all kinds of movements are called into function. Juvenile, teenage challenge and so on. What is the teenage challenge? Beloved, a rod for the back of a fool. That's what it is. What shall young people do? They ought to learn to obey. Ought to learn to be clean. Ought to learn to overcome sin. Ought to be made men and women of. I was so glad recently I was invited to dinner someplace. It was a German family and they have some children and they have a boy, always about seven years old. And when we were at the table, this boy reached for a roll and it wasn't soft enough, so he put it back. Mother said, here, you touch that roll, you eat that. Where do you find mothers that do that? Our children are raised like hogs. That's what's the matter with juvenile delinquency. The devil will move in if God Almighty has refused his throne. And in a Christian home, God must bring. And our privilege is to train our children in the fear of God. What would you do, you boys, if your name was Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and Daniel and you were brought into Babylonia among thousands of other boys that quickly take the cigarettes and smoke them and drink beer and, and swear and do exactly like other boys. What would you do? Would you let the fear of God rule you like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego? They knew that they were risking their lives. They were kids. They had the best opportunity now to get away from their mother's skirts. I've seen children who live with their parents and they don't respect them at all, don't obey them at all. Here's Daniel, a man greatly beloved, backslidden Israel, carried into captivity in such a way. Well, read the lamentation of Jeremiah. Read Jeremiah and see how severely God judged uncleanness and judged sin. Thank God. Thank God for his holiness. Thank God that he makes me partaker of his holiness. No other kind of holiness will do. No other kind of purity will do. A purity within my heart, a purity in my mouth, like the mouth of Jesus Christ in whom no guile was found, a purity in my body like the son of God who was not defiled. What would you do if the question came before you now to fall down before an image and worship it or to be cast into a burning fiery furnace? That's very real. But those boys considered it a great privilege to be faithful to God and they didn't have the faith that we have. They didn't have the light that we have. Beloved, we have the light that Jesus Christ is coming, coming to judge the wicked and coming to gather us unto himself. And what would you do if you had to make your choice? Every one of us will have to make our choice, not between a fiery furnace and death, but between sin and the fear of God, between obeying the Holy Ghost and obeying the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Thank God for fathers and mothers who take their children as a heritage of Jehovah and like the parents of Moses, bring them up with the fear of God and live holy lives before them. And know that when a child comes into my home, eternity comes into my home. The kingdom of God has come into my home. The king says, he that receiveth such a child in my name receiveth me. And all for fathers and mothers who live that kind of a life and who train their children to fear the law. I told you before about a mother in Germany who was told by some other Christians, why don't you send your girls to a beauty parlor? Why they look like old maids. You've got to make them acceptable to this age. She said, I'm not training my girls for this age. I'm training them for eternity. And it doesn't mean that you have to look like an old maid. In fact, the old maids are in the world, not in the church. In the church are the bride of Christ. They attend upon the Lord without distraction. Beloved, beloved, let's stop talking about the coming of the Lord unless we really prepare our hearts and keep our garments white and spot. And our young people have that privilege. When they made a soldier out of me, I saw how hundreds of men, mind you, there was one, I had to answer the officers because I refused to bear arms. And one of them said, I'm, my father prays every day, he said. And if my father was on the German side and I met him in combat, it would be my greatest joy to kill him. I said, well, if Uncle Sam has to depend on that kind, on that brand of heroism, then God help America. That's the way they talk. That's the way they live. And beloved, the whole business today in the world, all this great movement, it's, it's the demon powers that the devil has spewed out of his mouth and fills the air with. And you and I have the privilege of being filled with the Holy Ghost, being controlled by the spirit of God, being transformed by the renewing of our mind, being overcomers. And that overcoming has to begin in the, in the cradle of a baby. Psychologists were mentioned the other day, or people that have to do with children. And they said that a child's character is formed before he's seven years old. No, a child's, a man's character, a woman's character is formed before he's six months old. My father knew that. He used to stick before we were six months old. He knew that whatsoever is born of the flesh is flesh. He used it wisely. But he put the fear of God into our hearts, and it's the privilege of every father and mother to do that with their children. But it's the privilege of every one of us who are older to keep our garments spotless, clean, and pure. But I'm talking about juveniles, about young people. What stupidity, what idiocy to open the bars and, and let all the pornography be swallowed by them like a lot of hogs, beloved. What we need, what young people need is some teaching about purity of heart, purity of mind, purity of body. And that's the place where God gets his sons, where they don't say yes and don't yield to the temptation of Nebuchadnezzar or Belshazzar or Darius. They brave the lion's den. They brave the tyrant's steel. They brave the wrath of the devil. They brave the laughter of the world. And they've got the fear of God in their hearts. That's what we need. That's where the cleansing comes. That's where the pure garment is worn. And I know what God can do. He did it for me as a boy. He put the fear of God in my heart, not to fear, but to rejoice in God, to love God, to love Jesus Christ. Strange, but God did it. I know God will do it for our boys and girls, if they're given a chance to talk, if they're given a chance to know Jesus, to know the purity of the Son of God, the manhood of the Son of God. What a man, my son, in whom I am well pleased. And it took that son, and God smote him, and it pleased the Father to bruise him. And he had to suffer and die and be baptized with blood, that he might baptize you and me with the Holy Ghost. And now he is looking upon us, and he says, blessed is he that keepeth his garment. I've got something to do. You have something to do. He's given me a snow-white garment, and if it hasn't remained snow-white, he says, repent and do the first works. Remember whence thou art fallen, and do the first works. Get back to the cleansing of the blood, and be sure you're clean, and be sure you're spotless. Jesus' blood has never lost its power. And the reason we're not more filled with the Holy Ghost is because we grieve him. Our fleshly thoughts, our careless words drive away the Holy Ghost, and God wants a people who know that they're in the midst of this terrible war. I said some of the greatest wars in the universe are fought over a church like this, over a home like yours. That's where the decision is made whether Jesus Christ shall have one soul. And when Israel had refused to follow God, God had two men, Caleb and Joshua, and with them he took that promised land. And when all Israel had gone into captivity after God had spoken, read Jeremiah, look what they did, how they tried to kill him, and how they finally dumped him into the mud, so that he sank in the mud and nearly drowned, if it had been for a colored man that pulled him up. People don't want to hear the truth. Why? Why not? Why not? Isn't the truth wonderful? Isn't beauty for ashes better and gold for brass? Isn't holiness a wonderful call? What would fathers and mothers rather see their children fulfilled in than to become like Jesus? That's the call of God. And what would you rather be than to be like Jesus? That's the call of God. And today more than ever, beloved, he comes as a thief in the night. And sometimes you can hear his footfall. You can hear his whisper. He says, come away my sister. Come on, come on. My head is filled with dew. My locks with the drops of the night. They've chased me out of every temple, out of every church. They've chased me out of their organizations. They don't want me. They don't. Come away, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled. I like that word, my undefiled. Undefiled. Beloved Jesus offers to keep us undefiled for his coming.