In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of having life in Christ. He refers to John 1-4, which states that in Jesus was life, and this life was for all men. The preacher explains that wherever Jesus went, his life exposed the devil and caused demons to cry out. He then discusses the need for a specially prepared vessel, calling out a remnant who are dissatisfied with the superficiality of religion. The preacher highlights that the world and tradition have infiltrated the church, hindering the true power of Christ. He emphasizes that sanctification must point to a person, Jesus Christ, and that the missing ingredient in today's religion is life.

We're going to continue on in this thought. The forging of the vessel of recovery. And it's our conviction that God has always had to have a vessel that he could put into what it requires to heal the whole stream. That's in history, in the Bible, there's always had to be that remnant that God could start over with. That 7,000 that refused to be a part of the spiritual conditions of the day. The Daniels, the Samuels, the Benjamins, those that represented a new beginning with God were a people that God had separated unto himself and refused to allow them to be a part of the spiritual conditions that prevailed in their time. They represented a new beginning with God which we will deal with in these series of lessons as we point up the features of such a vessel. Yesterday, we asked and showed that it will be, that we will obtain in this generation the results and the achievement of the first generation. Somebody is going to. And for that to happen, there must be raised up a vessel unto God that can be that vessel of recovery. Now, today, the message, I have given it a title, A New Cruise. I'm going to read in 2 Kings 2, verses 19-22. 2 Kings 2, verses 19-22. Then, I'm going to turn over into Mark's Gospel, chapter 9. But listen to these words. And the men of the city said unto Elijah, or Elisha, he's been called down to the city. They got great troubles there in the vineyards. Something's going wrong. Problems have set in. Now the man of God is called. Isn't it remarkable and wonderful that in the Bible, whatever the problem was, whether it was political, whether it was agriculture, or whether it was spiritual, whether it's the point of keen, they called the prophet. Today, we want to separate God from all the affairs. Amen. You watch today, Mr. Mondale and those in the upper echelons, they don't want the church to have any voice at all. The homosexuals say what he wants to say. Advocate homosexual rights. I think that's an insult to the minorities of this nation. If there ever was an insult to the minorities, the true minorities, that is. They want to allow that homosexual to have his rights, to have his say, to be able to teach in our schools that his is an alternative lifestyle, that your children are just as well-off homosexuals as they are hertosexuals. But they don't want the church to say anything. What we believe doesn't count. If I stand up and say that I'm against abortion, I'm against homosexuality, then because I'm a Christian, they're saying that I'm trying to bring the church and state together. But here, they're having trouble with the vineyard, and they call the man of God. They know that all the problems of this world are theological problems because we did come from the hand of God. Here he got it. And the men of the city said unto the prophet Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of the city is pleasant, as my Lord seeth, but the water is not, the ground is barren. There's something missing here in the water. And he said, Bring me a new cruise, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him. And he went forth into the spring of the waters, cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the Lord, I've healed these waters. There shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. So the waters were healed unto this day. According to the saying of Elisha, which he spoke. I've been to that world seven times. Coming out of Africa, Egypt. Not just a tourist, but I came through that land. And every time I've gone there and got a drink of water, at that fount where that water flows from, the man of God healed it four thousand years ago, is still well today. I said, is still well today. What God does, He does good. He doesn't patch work. Whatever God does, He does well. Now, we come and we're talking and speaking in these days, about a vessel of recovery. That God is forging now, that's going to usher in the coming of the Lord, and the revival that will precede that coming. I believe we're on the threshold of the mightiest move of God since Pentecost. I believe that. I don't believe we're in it, I believe it's coming. You look and you can mistake Shabbos for substance if you want to, but they are the grass roots and groundswell of a move of God in this country. There's a hunger for reality. A third generation of Pentecost are tired of gimmicks and games and are earnestly seeking for reality, and that revival is going to come. We come to the vessel itself. In Mark chapter 9, let's just turn there for a moment. If you like, I'm going to read verse 50. The prophet said, Give me a new cruise, put salt in it. In verse 50 of the 9th chapter of Mark says, Salt is good, but if salt have lost its softness, wherewith will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, have peace one with another. And the Bible said to the real believer, You are the salt of the earth, the vessel that God will use. Now, the church is the vessel. Listen to me closely. It is not the cure. The church is the vessel. But the church is not the cure. The vessel contains. The Bible talks about a vessel of honor and a vessel of dishonor. And the only thing that makes a vessel honorable or dishonorable is what's in that vessel. Through the years, somehow or another, people gave me bottles, beautiful bottles, and I wind up not a collector of bottles by desire, but just because a lot of them came to me. My wife was given a bottle by an old gentleman that had found the Lord, and it was a liquor bottle, one of the most beautiful bottles I've ever seen in my life. She's got colored water in it. There's nothing wrong with that bottle. Some folks think it is, but I said, You keep that bottle. Nothing wrong with that bottle. What was wrong was what's in the bottle. We are honorable or dishonorable by what is in us. But I must always remember that I am not the cure. I am the vessel in which the cure is to be placed in. Now, failing to recognize that truth has led the church into a whole position as a whole, rather, the church as a whole into a position that is false, that is, believing herself to be the cure. The church's only concern is physical growth. That's the only concern of the church. When the Bible talks about it in Isaiah chapter 9, of the increase of God's government, there being no end. He wasn't talking about numbers. He's talking about the spiritual content of that vessel. Listen to me, church. We are not the cure. We are to contain the cure. And when the church believes she's the cure, then her only desire is physical growth. And the result of that is the world is cursed with a large empty vessel that for the most part is absolutely ineffective spiritually. We have very little effect against the darkness. Am I speaking the truth? I mean, we have more religion than you can count, but yet we have very little effect against the darkness of our day. An organism can only produce after its time. Send a worldly church to Africa and it'll produce the same thing that it is. It doesn't matter. You don't further God's cause by just promoting religious systems or worldly churches. It is only as we allow that river of God to flow from the vessel of the church do we produce the real and the living God. We cannot give what we do not have. If we do not have the Holy Ghost and life of God within us, then we cannot be the healer of this world. We cannot be that which will produce the deliverance. Because we are not the deliverance, it is to be in us. We said last what the vessel is. Now the passages that we read are bound by a common tie, namely salt and what it signifies. Isn't that right? The ones I read in II Kings 2, 19-22, the Gospel of Mark 9, 50 have a common tie, S-A-L-T, and what salt signifies. Now throughout the Scripture, salt stands for recovery, preservation, and permanence. Salt stands for this. The first passage, we have the waters of Jericho lacking in some constituent which resulted in the miscarriage of the trees. When it looked like something good was going to happen, it didn't happen. I watched all the promotion of religion come to naught. Everything was there. All the billboards were out, the advertisement on the TV. Everybody knew that God was coming to town. But when it was all over, the trees miscarried. There wasn't anything left. When the racket died down, it was an empty sound. God hadn't been there, and we had just gone to another place of religion. This is exactly what was taking place at Jericho. There were the trees, the water, the field, the labors, much energy, good motives, but it all stopped short somewhere. It never did produce. They never got to eat an apple. Amen. Everything else was there. They had the trees, had the land, had the labors, had good motives. Amen. But it all stopped short. Does that sound familiar to you? I said, does that sound familiar? Some residual property was missing, and this absence made everything else futile as to the ultimate results. Everything else futile as to the ultimate results. Now, while it is salt that is vital and most important thing, it is the crews that I want to talk to you about today. We know the salt is the vital thing, but the vessel itself must be considered. And this is what I want to talk to you about in this lesson today and in the ensuing lessons as we continue on this week. Now, our attention is first drawn to Elisha's request for a new cruise. Now, that's a small pan or a dish. This is what the man of God demanded right on the start. They said to him, we've got troubles here, the water is messed up, the land is barren, we're not seeing any production at all. And the man of God said to him, bring me a new cruise. Bring me a new cruise, a small pan or a dish. Now, why use a vessel at all? Why did he want a cruise? Why a vessel at all? Why not a handful of salt? Why not just bring me a handful of salt here? Or why a new cruise? Why any cruise, but especially why a new cruise? And that is the point. For a work like this, a vessel must be specially prepared. Please hear me, if I believe under God, if the work that's being done in this world today is the preparation of that vessel, calling it out, bringing it out. It's always been an Israel out of an Israel in the midst of that great body of believers, there has always been that remnant that were totally dissatisfied with what is going on. They weren't caught up in all the glamour and the shout of religion. They could see beyond the facade. They saw that when all of it died down, there was nothing they could really bite on, chew on. When all the leg stretching was over with, those that really had a short leg were still crippled. They were able to see. And today God is concerned Himself with the recovery of that vessel that He can put that salt in. For such a work, for such a work as the healing of those waters required a new cruise, a special vessel. It required that. But the question is, what is the nature of the work to be done? What is the condition needing to be dealt with? It is the loss and absence of vital distinctive something. Everything else is there, but that certain something is missing and it must be recovered or there will never be a real harvest. That's what the work is. That's what God is after today. The machine is there. Look about you. There's organizations. There's money. There's preachers. There's pulpits. There's property. There's everything you can think of. But something is still lacking in reaching the communities for God. Now, the modern spiritual counterpart of this is that things have degenerated into indefinites, vagueness, and uncertainty as to real meaning of life and spiritual purpose. So how can you travel around conventions, preaching, you know what I'm saying is a fact. There is an uncertainty. There is a vagueness about things today. If you were to really corner the average Christian in the average church, he doesn't even know why the church exists. He don't know where he's going except he talks about going to heaven. He has no idea on this earth why he has been born again, why God commands him to be filled with the Holy Spirit or her to be filled with the Holy Spirit. There's an indefiniteness. There's an uncertainty. Things don't mean what they used to mean. When I say 35 years ago, if you were to talk about praying through, everybody in the church knew what you're talking about. It doesn't mean that anymore. It's like communism. Peace means one thing to them. It means something else to us. Praying through, walking with God, holiness, sanctification of vague terms that are hardly ever defined in the modern church today. That's what we're dealing with. That's what God is dealing with. And for that there has to be a vessel that represents that. Ladies and gentlemen, you don't put new wine in old bottles. And that's more than just that which claims to be born again. We're dealing with God, dealing with a situation that's lost its distinctiveness. You know, hell's way of robbing the church is to take that church and destroy it by making it something that God never intended. Making it something that God never intended. Robbing that church of its peculiarity, its distinctiveness, and robbing it of that something that makes it different in this world. We are different. I'm not of this world. Amen. I belong to God. I'm a pilgrim and a stranger here. And I don't mind telling you I feel like a foreigner in this world this morning. I stay in a motel in the city. And I'm a stranger in that motel. I go into their restaurant to eat. They're over there drinking their liquors and carrying on with a conversation that I'm not a part of. I know that. But I'll tell you another thing. For that Bible laying on that table, they know I don't belong there. That I'm from a different world than they belong to. And the devil's whole business is to rob that church of its distinctiveness. And this is exactly what takes place. There's a difference of meaning and the tragedy is so many have gone on with the form and failed to see that the power's no longer there. There is a difference. We just carry on. We have all kinds of spiritual gurus. Amen. Let me tell you something, folks. We have reached a place in the Christian church, and I'm going to deal with this at length, where the church has been reduced to a cup. Because Christ isn't really the center of it. I'm not talking about all churches. I'm talking about religion as a whole, what we call Christianity. And today, in a great part of what we call Pentecost in this country, I call it the Neo-Pentecostal crowd. Amen. They are not, that church is not presenting Christ as the way. They are presenting to a lost world a set of principles and beliefs. Therefore, Christ is no longer the way. He's just become another Buddha that's come to tell somebody the way. He didn't come to tell you the way. He said, I am the way. We have today, abundant life, success seminars, positive confessions, seed faiths, all kinds of things that are presented to people as the way out. But let me tell you, the blind man in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Mark didn't need a message on sanctification. He needed the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and he received His sight. That's all you need this morning. If you find Christ, you have found life. If you find everything else and don't find Him, you are dead in your sin. There's a difference. The world don't know it. The church don't know it. They're going on with a form and not recognizing that there's no power there. No power there. Just moving on, moving on. Amen. The question here is, what is it? What have we lost? The original meaning is not there. Things said and done do not mean what they did in the beginning. And most people don't know it. Now listen. If we take the book of Acts as a model, hold on to it. If we take the book of Acts as the model and the epistles as the revealing truth intended by God to be the abiding basis of what came into being in the book of Acts. You hear me? If we take the book of Acts as the model and the epistles as those that reveal to us what took place in the book of Acts, we cannot fail but to be impressed with the presence of certain thing which made everything at that time very much alive. You can't read the book of Acts without on every page saying there's life here. There's something here besides man. Isn't that right? You read that book and then you go to the epistles and you discover the revelation of what is there that made it different from everything else. No, you can have all the form, you can have the best preacher, the best orator, but if that something, that something of the book of Acts is missing, then the ultimate purpose of God is lost and you may as well be a Islam or anything else if that isn't there. Now when we recognize, we take the book of Acts as a model, we recognize there was something there that made everything alive and there's only one praise in the Bible that expresses the effect of that great something and it is resurrection life. That's the only thing. Life. Listen. The missing ingredient in today's religion is life. We feign it. There's no life there. So we say, now everybody, we're going to dance together on this one. When life springs up, you may dance or run. There's no life there, you got to turn some on. So we pretend. We pretend. It is a taught Christ, it's a taught tongue, it's a taught dance, it's a mechanical gift, it's all right down here and the ungodly can blow his beer breath in your face while he practices what he calls his gossip alien. I'm not being critical, I'm being truthful. I'm telling you folks, that where this life is, you don't have to pretend it's there because all form of life will manifest itself. There's certain things about life that tell you what kind of life it is. Amen. Hogs grunt, ducks fly, chickens cluck, and Holy Ghost filled people worship God. You don't have to go through all of this struggling and straining trying to get them to do it. There's something in there that produces that. There is a life. No, listen, I married one of the best cooks in Texas. I've been married to her for 38 years and hope if he tares that long, I'll keep her that much longer. Amen. But she never, never had to beg me to come to that table. Just rattle that plate and I'm sitting down there. Yes, sir. I've been born again for 35 years and nobody ever had to plead with me to lift my hands and worship God. I've been loving Him for 35 years. There's a life in me that automatically reaches out toward heaven. Oh, brothers and sisters this morning, I'm talking about a vessel and the mission ingredient today is life. Our problem is life. Get life, everything else will fall into place because the kind of life that prevails in us will produce the vessel as to what it is. Will mold us. You are a product of what you believe and what you are comes out of the ideas you've accepted and made a part of yourself. Life. The Bible said life is life. John 1 and 4 said, in Him was life. L-I-F-E. And that life was a light of men. Now, wherever He went, wherever He went, if He came under this tent this morning, in person, if there's a devil-possessed person under this tent, the devil in that person would cry out. You know why? Because light turned on him. The evil devils and evil men don't like light because their deeds are evil. But whenever He'd come in, light shined. He had life in Him. That life exposed the devil for what he was. Before He left, He said to the church, You are the light of the world. What made Him light? Life. What makes us light? Life. L-I-F-E. When that vessel was filled with the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, 3,000 evil, wicked people immediately said, What must I do to be saved? They'll do it again if we get the life of God. If that vessel is right and that light is in there, the thing missing is life. Life convicts. Life convicts. Problem today in semi-darkness. Just a little flicker of light here and there. That's worse than no light at all. My baby girl, she's 34 years old now, 33, and she always was afraid of the dark, kinda. So always had to have a little night light in her room. And then, in the hallway that led to the bathroom, at the end of that hall, we had a little night light right in the middle, just like that is a hall, right in the middle. You know, it didn't give you no light. All you could do is see the light. And when you got in the hall, if you just walked toward that light, everything's gonna be alright. You know you're not gonna run into the wall because you know where that light is. Unless, one of them kids left a skate in the middle of that hall. Then you break a leg. Well, it's in that semi-darkness that you stumble over them hypocrites. Fall over all that false mess. Turn the light up. Expose everything for what it is. And the missing ingredient in the modern church is light. Turn that light on. Let the church turn that light on, Brother Williams. Now women will be safe on them streets out there again. The devil will flee. Got any bugs in your house when you turn your light on tonight? They're gonna try to get under the carpet, under the refrigerator. They can't stand light. Let the church turn the light on. Let it shine down the streets of America. I'll tell you, the evil, wicked, awful things out there will find a hiding place. It's the church I'm talking about. That missing ingredient is light. Listen, we have the buildings, the organization, the education, the music, the preacher, but it all stops short. What was it that produced the atmosphere and spirit of life in the first century church? The Lord Jesus Himself. The Lord Jesus Himself. Listen, Jesus had been glorified and the Holy Spirit had come as the Spirit of the glorified Lord to glorify Him on earth through the church. Keep saying this over and over till we recognize that that river of the Holy Spirit that John talked about that was the flow out of our innermost being didn't come down on the world in general. It flows from that throne to the church and from the church to the world. If it can't flow through the church then the world's gonna die for the want of revival because God's not pouring His power out from heaven on Greensboro. He's pouring it out on that vessel prepared and from that vessel to the world. It's always been that way and Jesus is risen. Ezekiel saw the throne and the man in the throne and the river coming from the throne to the church from the church to the world and the Bible said that along the banks of that river that healed everything that it touched were many trees. Many trees. You hear me? You know what trees are in the Bible? Unless specifically stated trees are people along the banks of that Holy Ghost River are spirits healed people produced by the river and the leaves of those trees heal the nation. Not political parties but the leaves of those trees. Oh, listen. The vessel must be if there's going to be a river there has to be something for it to flow through something for it to flow through. The Lord Jesus Himself made real on this earth by the Holy Ghost through the church. Jesus was alive in that first century church and the world knew it. I said the world knew it ladies and gentlemen. You didn't have to run no full page ads in the Jerusalem Post. They knew something down there in that church. There's hypocrites falling dead there's dead folks made alive there's thousands of people being saved the preachers are total fanatics they preach in the street the religious crowd says you can't preach in the street and so the next thing they find them standing in their own pulpits preaching. There's a line pressing, pushing. You know you have this saying of the Lord Jesus Christ when He was on this earth I must needs go to Samaria. I must needs go to a certain place. I must, I must. What's He talking about? There's something there. There's a life there. There's an ingredient there. He didn't born out of some kind of special appeal to get somebody to go to Africa. It is I must go to Africa. Oh hallelujah. Oh no ladies and gentlemen you don't find that kind of stuff in the book of Acts. You don't find making some kind of groan and a beg and an appeal for somebody to go somewhere. They must needs go. There was a life there. Grow them. Oh hallelujah. Jeremiah said I'm not going to talk no more. And he said it can't help but talk. My bones are on fire. There's something inside of me. I got to talk. Whether you want me to talk or not. Whether you want to hear what I got to say or not. I got to talk. In that motel room this morning I thought my soul would catch a fire. I wanted to scream at the walls. Yes sir I have to say. Oh listen I had to scream at the walls. Brother Schambach said to me do you need a car? No sir. I don't need a car. I'm not going anywhere but the motel and the tent. I come here to say there's something in I must needs speak. I must needs go to Samaria. I must needs go to Africa. I must needs go to India. I have to go. A religious world can't understand that. The Lord Jesus listen not just being saved in that book of Acts from something is not being saved unto something but it was the Lord Jesus Himself. I hope you understand what I'm saying. Oh today I got saved and I got this and I got delivered and that's about as far as it goes. Thank God for that. But let me tell you in that first century church it wasn't being saved from something or unto something. It was the Lord Jesus Himself captivated that life. Listen. Listen the message of salvation all focused on who the Lord Jesus was. Listen. And they ceased not to preach that Jesus was the Christ. Not a mere treatise on evangelical theology but it was a presentation of the Lord Jesus Christ. They never one time felt that this called the city to teach you how to manage your money or to be successful. They came to Corinth. They came to Athens. They went to Beirut. They went to Tyre. They went to India to introduce men and women to a person called Jesus. That's all. They knew that salvation was a relationship between a man and his God. They knew that it was a personal intimate relationship with Christ. They have no seed faith message. What they had they ceased not to preach Christ. They ceased not. Listen. The message was never complete until the people saw Jesus. I never saw this till I read in the Gospel of Luke where Jesus quoted Isaiah. He came from that wilderness temptation. Stepped into that pulpit of Nazareth. Opened the book to Isaiah and said The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. For he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor to bind up the broken heart and give sight to the blind. And the Bible said at that point he closed the book. And that's where it caught me. He closed the book. And he said this day is this scripture fulfilled. I said, Oh God. They want us to preach ten minute sermons. They want it all over in an hour. They want to sing Him the offering everything over in twenty minutes. But I said no sermon ought ever be preached finished and the book ever closed until they saw Jesus. Thank God until they saw the Christ. He said I'm the one he's talking about. This scripture is fulfilled. You've seen the Savior. And you can close the book. All any man ever needs and the answer to every problem of life is to see the Lord Jesus. If I preach Christ preach Christ, preach Christ until you see Christ whatever your need is. He met. Bartimaeus set along that road blind. He heard with his ears. But he never had been in contact. Now to see in the Bible doesn't mean seeing with these eyes. A lot of people see with these eyes don't see anything else. It's to see with that heart. Amen. He heard. He heard the noise coming up the road. And said what's all the racket? They said Jesus of Nazareth is coming by. And immediately that blind man broke out in a religious fit. Thou Son of David have mercy upon me. You could hear the echo along that road haunting those that come in. Men said hold your peace. Hold what peace man? He'd been blind all his life. He never had no peace. I said he never had no peace. And so he cried the louder. And the Bible said Jesus stopped. And he saw the Christ. That's all he needed to get his eyes. He closed the book. If I have to preach from 9 o'clock till 6 o'clock in the evening I ought not to quit preaching until men see Jesus. When they see Jesus then the need is met. Those that don't have time to wait to see Him are never going to be healed anyway. If Bartimaeus said well I really would like to stay and see Him but I had plans to set up my begging business down the road a ways I'll wait till next time. He still died blind. It's when we see Jesus. Whatever it takes to see Jesus. Whatever it takes to find the Lord. And to see Him will produce sight to blind eyes. Freedom to devil possessed spirits. It is seeing the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all. Amen. And they cease not to preach Jesus. Listen. That's what brought salvation. But what was true in salvation in that first century vessel was also true in service. In the Acts of the Apostles service is never something appended to salvation as a further consideration. Never! One of the striking omissions of the book of Acts is any kind of appeal to service. I challenge you. Read it when you go home. They're not up there saying oh would some of you young people be a missionary. Would some of you go preach. Would some of you witness for the Lord. The church goes through all kinds of ordeals trying to get people out on the street to witness. The problem is the problem is they never have received for the most part what they ought to have. It's going to be an awful thing when the rapture takes place to find out how many people thought this was going to make it and didn't make it and they didn't make it because they maybe never did know Him. There's more people in the church that never met Him than you dare to dream of. No, listen. Service wasn't something appended to salvation as another consideration. You won't find anywhere in there, Pastor, where they're begging anybody to go anywhere. No, no. You don't find that. That come along because of this Christ. Because of this Christ. That was their listen as an automatic thing. Service was never the result of organization or special appeals. It was spontaneous. It was free. It was natural. It was at all times and every place and all circumstances irrepressible testimony. There arose a great persecution. They were scattered abroad. And what did they do? They went everywhere preaching Christ. That's what the testimony... It was irrepressible testimony. There's an old gentleman in my church. He's going to be 93 years old if Jesus tarries and he lives February the 19th. The old gentleman had been a preacher for 70 years. Amen. He told me, he said, You know, Brother Clinton, when I first come into the Assemblies of God, that's the organization he's with, and he said, Those days, if you wanted to get papers to preach, but they didn't call you in there and ask you three or four little questions. He said, They brought you into a fellowship meeting, and they had asked that young preacher to pray. And if he could pray without preaching, they said, He's not ready yet. I'll buy that. You know that? There ain't no life in him. Leave him at home. How'd a young man come to me? He felt called to preach. He told me that. And he said to me, He said, I want you to get me some meetings. I've got to get out of here. I said, What do you want to get out of here for? What do you got to say to anybody? I can't even get you to a prayer meeting. The world's got enough dead preachers that won't go to a prayer meeting. Why don't they want you out there? Well, he left the church, but I'm not going to promote any kind of mess like that. If you won't come pray, you can't get him in a Bible study. If you not have life itself, you can't give what you don't have. Oh, listen. The Holy Spirit glorifying Jesus in their heart produced the service. The revelation of Christ was to them and in them so great they could not help but serve. Finally, listen. What is true in salvation and service was also true in the secret of their ability to suffer. I know we cringe when we talk about suffering. We don't hear nothing like that. Man, I got talking last night. I said, Oh, say that again. If you live godly in Christ Jesus, you will suffer. Through much tribulation, you're going to enter into that kingdom. I'm not talking about the great tribulation. I'm talking about tribulation, the wrath, the hell it hits. Jesus always has, but it was this wonderful, wonderful power of Jesus and being so totally impressed with Christ that gave them the ability to suffer. Listen. To take sides with Jesus of Nazareth was bad, but to take sides with the Son of God provoked the wrath of hell. There's much in the record which indicates this, but it was accepted in the spirit of rejoicing. Thank God they counted it all joy to suffer shame for His name. Oh, hallelujah. Paul said, I gladly will glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. They suffered gladly. The Bible said he learned obedience through the things that he suffered. It was their knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ that gave them the ability to suffer. Oh my, listen. This cannot be, that rejoicing in tribulation and suffering cannot be attributed to a make the best of it resolve. I'm going to do the best I can. No, no, brother. It was a reality of the Lord Jesus Christ as sovereign and ringing. They knew He sat on the right hand of the Father. They knew He had made His enemies His footstool. They knew He had overcome and they're going to overcome. They didn't bother about what they had to pass through to get there. They knew Him. They knew He was Lord. They were impressed with Him. If there's miracles taking place, all right. If there's none taking place, it's all the same. Because they weren't taken up with what He did. They were taken up with Christ Himself. I want to look back at the problem with you a moment here. The waters of Jericho and the miscarriage of the fruit. Is it not true today? And listen to me. I want you to, you don't have to answer verbally, but in your heart you hear this and answer. Is it not true today in a very widespread way that the constituent of wonder and glory and life and all matters which relate to the Lord Jesus Christ is lacking in the church? You can get a great arouse and shout and a jump over somebody that exercises a gift, but for the most part they didn't even know what He said. Somebody prophesying, everybody jump up and down, then go to one of them and say, what did they prophesy about? Don't know. They're not shouting over what was said. They're shouting over because somebody did something. Our faith has become so lodged in what somebody can do. Amen. Instead of what He is. Yes sir. That's right. Our faith is hung up. We run all over the world looking for somebody to prophesy over us. I know and believe in personal prophecy. I know that will happen. And I'll tell you one thing, whole services do not run on that. God never called the church together to lay hands on somebody and just give them a good feeling about prophecy. I never saw one of those religious gurus that ever prophesied anything bad. I'm talking about one that that's the whole ministry. I was in North Carolina in a camp meeting and a businessman came to me. I preached along this line dealing with the fact that these gifts work in the context of Jesus. They're not something to be worshipped within themselves. That's what Corinthians did. They got more interested in the gifts than there were in Jesus and the man winds up sleeping with his own mother. Getting drunk at the Lord's supper. Now I was dealing with this and the man come to me and he said, Brother Clinton, I want to tell you, I'm glad you said that. I've been terribly confused. He said, my wife and I, in our church, they brought a man in and his whole ministry, he never preached ten minutes, but he's always calling somebody up to prophesy. I'm a businessman. And he said, he laid hands on me and said, thus saith the Lord, your business is going to prosper beyond your dream. He said, I was bankrupt in six months, Brother Clinton. Oh, you don't get much in offering to lay hands on a man and say you're going to be bankrupt in six months. He said, my wife, you see her, she weighs 257 pounds. Did then. Weighed 257 pounds. He laid hands on her and said, you're going to lose this weight without dieting. And she's gained 50 more pounds. That's ridiculous. I'm telling you, I believe those gifts operate through me and you and I love those gifts. But let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen, it is being impressed with the Lord Jesus Christ. I fell in love with Him. If He don't ever heal me again, I'll love Him. If I don't ever prophesy again, I'll love Him. If I don't ever talk in tongues again, I'll love Him. I love Him because He is Lord. They were impressed. They were impressed with Christ, with Christ. Listen, and the thing lacking today is that glory, that wonder that grips the heart about Jesus. Go to church to see what somebody can do for me instead of going there to see Him. Oh, Hallelujah. Oh, on a Saturday here, I'm going to preach to you the recovery of the real faith and I'm going to show you that faith doesn't come by seeing a miracle. It comes by a personal encounter with a man called Jesus. And if you have that faith, there's nothing shakes that. Paul said none of these things move me. I know what it is to abound. I know when everybody is singing my praises, I know what it is to be locked up in a jail at midnight with my back beat raw, with fever raging because of the infection, head splitting without an aspirin, and the church don't know where I am, a thousand devils saying you're going to die and robbing this jail. But he said I could still sing Amazing Grace how sweet the sound because my faith didn't rest in what I'd seen. It rested in who I personally knew. Oh, yes. I say that is what is lacking. The great need of that which stands to represent God is recovery of that resurrection life which will make the glorying and the glorifying of the Lord Jesus the dominant factor in our churches. All else becomes a cult. All else is not charismatic but character which must characterize the vessel of recovery. Not charismatic but character. Not gifts but godliness. And a love to God that characterizes that vessel of recovery. Perhaps no one has disagreed to this point but many now as I point out what is necessary to bring this about me the need is a new cruise, a new vessel. Now I'm not talking about a new organization of religion. No, no, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about that vessel dedicated to what I'm talking about. There is so much mixture in the construction of the vessel today. Do you believe that? So much mixture. Ladies and gentlemen, we've got a mixture of neo-Pentecostalism and Romanism and for the most part we swallowed it without indigestion. There's a mixture of flesh and spirit in the church today that restricts the almighty God from moving into that church. I said what's needed in this hour is a new vessel, a new cruise. Thank God that He can put something genuine in to pour into the mainstream of Christianity and heal it as it comes down the pipe to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm going to deal with the features of that vessel in one of these services but right now I want to tell you what's needed. The world has got into that church on the one hand, the natural man on the other hand. Tradition, formalism, fadism, ecclesiasticism and mechanicalism are like chains and tethers upon the Lord Jesus Christ. As the man that God was preaching last night, as Lazarus stood there bound hand and foot, a man Jesus said, loose him and let him go. Loose him from what? From his tradition. Shake it off of him. Loose him from all of those back chains of formalism and fadism and games and gimmicks and get down to the bottom of this thing and say to men everywhere, you don't need anything but the Lord Jesus Christ. Every message preached, sanctification must point to a person and if you make sanctification anything besides a person, they're going to split churches over it. It is both instantaneous and progressive. Paul said Christ is made unto me sanctification. I wasn't born again over a period of six years. I was born again instantly. I received sanctification. But when I got up in that altar, I recognized it's a long ways to being conformed to his image so it's progressive through life. But it's a person. A person. It isn't something for churches to argue over. Men need Christ. And that must be preached. I said that must be preached and made known. Amen. Listen. A new cruise is needed. A cruise like the vessel of that first century. Like the vessel of that first century. Number one. It must stand absolutely on a New Testament basis. I must be able to irrevocably deny, refuse, no matter who it comes from, how big a ministry it is, anything that's not solidly stationed upon a New Testament basis. A friend of mine from one of the largest ministries in this nation got a little hermetically sealed bag of meal. And it said, you hold this little meal in your hand, make your request, and send it back to me with your best gift. My wife is then going to take and make a cake out of this meal and I'm going to eat it. And you're going to be healed. There are no better witchcraft on earth than that. I said to my dear friend, I said, are you a giver to that ministry? No. Never give anything. Then it's a general letter. And three million people got it. I said, when his wife cooked that cake as big as that prayer can out there, I'm telling you folks, and it does not matter to me what it is, what it says, I'm talking about God and that kind of nonsense has to be rejected. The only thing it's put out for is to get your money. That's all. I don't want anybody's pocketbook. This letter was given to me in Warsaw just two weeks ago. Here's a man's hand on the back of it. He said, I Xeroxed this hand and said, I can't lay my hand on you. You take this and you lay your hand on it. And you make your request. And you send it back to me with your gift. If you need a financial miracle, I want you to take your pocketbook out. Amen. And you lay it on there. And you ask God for what you want. But you send $20 back with this. Why don't he put his own pocketbook on it? It'll produce a mill of money for you. Why won't it produce it for him? I'm not wanting to be ugly. I'm just telling you that there's got to be a return to the Bible. There's got to be a rejection. I don't care how big the preacher, how much influence he's had. There's got to be a rejection of all of that witchcraft and sadism. Send out a candle. You burn it halfway down. God, it's this long. You burn it halfway down. You send the other half back to me with your request. Then I'm going to melt all of these together. And we're going to become one. That's the eighth wonder of the world. That thing will be 250 feet high. Amen. I'd like to see that candle. Oh, I'd like to see that. You ain't got no church, I'll tell you that. It might be big as this tent right here. What a pile of paraffin you would have. Ladies and gentlemen, we must, that vessel, that's going to be the vessel of recovery, must stand up on a New Testament basis. It must thumbs down, reject all of that which is born out of a human brain. This Bible is the Word of God. I must be absolutely convinced He said what He meant, meant what He said. Stand on it. Let the world fall apart. Stand on that which cannot be amended. Second, namaste. That vessel must be that which marks the point where God has a clear way because the cross has brought to zero all the personal interests which form that vessel. All personal interests to naught. Third, it must be recognized. It must be that which recognizes, heals to, and glories in the absolute government of the Holy Spirit. That vessel cannot have one speck of rebellion in it. If we're going to be the vessel of recovery and eventually sit with Him on this world throne, the universe throne, this universe to rule, I must be ruled by Him now. No, you're not going to live in rebellion to Him and be a part of that end time vessel that will recover God's testimony in this earth. I must recognize the absolute lordship of Christ through the Holy Ghost. To seek the kingdom of God is to seek the control of the Holy Spirit over my life and every other interest put down. That vessel must be that which recognizes the lordship of Christ. It must be that which sees in Jesus all the fullness, wisdom, power, knowledge, grace, and draws only, only, only upon Jesus. I couldn't say that enough. Finally, it must be that which is selfless and has only one object in this world, and that is to glorify Christ. No other reason to live. Not here to gain riches, to be famous, but that men may know Jesus. That men may know Him. God created you and I for one purpose. That He, man-wise, that is mankind-wise, male and female, may make Himself known to this universe. He never intended to just be verbally spoke of, but that He may be seen in us. So His purpose is to conform us to His image. There is no higher calling and no other reason for living, and the vessel that makes up the vessel of recovery will be totally selfless. Its only interest will be the Lord Jesus Christ and His glory. Let's stand and worship Him here this morning. Hallelujah. Oh, thank you, Father. Thank you, Father, for this wonderful class today. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Father. Oh, thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for this wonderful...