This sermon delves into the fear of God, contrasting it with the Spirit of God teaching us to fear God. It reflects on the story of Noah and the urgency of living in alignment with God's will, emphasizing the need for purity and righteousness in preparation for the coming judgment. The speaker highlights the importance of living a holy life, being purified by faith, and the necessity of true spiritual transformation rather than outward appearances.

I mean, don't fear. I mean, God is teaching us the fear of God and not the Spirit of God teaching us the fear of God. Yeah, but, I mean, you got the, again, the more I read, the more I've read the last month of Noah, I just think I've read the Bible with my eyes closed before. He was moved with fear. Did he think, what do you think happened there, brother? The first ten years, after he told those people he's building the ark, don't cut that tree down. Adam used to know that tree. What are you doing, ruining the countryside, cutting your trees down? What are you doing all lying there? And he's got his family with him that were wonderful. I mean, they weren't seventeen, eighteen-year-old kids. They must have been a hundred years old. But anyhow, the fact is, after ten years, they say, listen, you old fool, there used to be a man going up by his grandpa's house, and an old man went up down there with a white beard, with his hands raised to heaven. Remember, they'd never seen a Bible, they'd never seen a priest, never seen an altar, never seen a sacrifice. And yet, Enoch walks up and down, doesn't care a hill of beans. And God made a hole in the sky, and he saw something that hasn't happened yet. The Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints. We think gentle Jesus, meek and mild, is coming. Forget it. Everybody likes that name. Charles West, you know, what about, I wrote to a guy this, what did I say, two o'clock, three o'clock this morning? Lord, he comes with clouds. When he comes, it's going to be terrible in his majesty. Nobody's going to jump on his knee or say, Papa, I've come to see you. Forget it. I mean, if John fell at his feet as dead, and John used to lay his head on his bosom, what are you and I going to do? But we don't live in that realm. We don't live in a realm of the Spirit. We live in a realm of reason. And we reason, oh, God is a loving God. He doesn't send my judgment, but he does, and he's going to do. I think we're heading for the next, unless a miracle happens, we'll have a financial crash within three years, a bankruptcy, which may do something. But on the other hand, I don't believe that if we had two earthquakes and one went north to south, and America's in four pieces, that people would repent. They only repent when conviction of sin comes. You can't deny the Holy Ghost his office, right? When he has come, he will convict of sin and righteousness and judgment to come. We don't live in that area. I mean, nobody expects Jesus to come today. They say they do. But if they do, he that hath this hope in him, purify. He doesn't say when he has come, he'll give us 24 hours notice. If we're in purity, he'll call us. If we're in purity, he won't call us. When we should be like him, not an hour after he comes, not a day after, but that very moment, and I'm not walking in the will of God in known purity, I don't believe we'll be taken. Doesn't matter if you're a pastor of the biggest church in town or ten times as big as Billy Graham. It won't make any difference. All our ideas are perverted anyhow. There's not much meekness. Blessed are the meek. They shall inherit the earth. Oh, dear God, where is that meekness anymore? Oh, we have the biggest church in town. We're on so many radio stations. Orville Roberts used to say that. Swaggart said it. So has he got them. God is a jealous God. Paul said, For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works. Ministers of righteousness, but ministers of Satan. Don't you think that, like when you talk to some people about victory in the Christian... Oh, well, my righteousness is as filthy rags as who won't get saved. What does John say? He that doeth righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous. I mean, you can't be part of this. I mean, there are no degrees in purity. There are degrees in life. There are no degrees in death. That man's dead. This man isn't. He's injured. He's incapacitated. He has a mind problem, physical. But you preach Christian perfection, they laugh at you these days. Purity. Then you're scorned. But it's good to say that there's hope in him purifying himself. Then Paul writes to Peter in his first epistle, Ye have purified your hearts by faith. As I said to a congregation, you're just as spiritual as you want to be. All these men here only have the same Bible I have. They used it better. They don't live 24 hours on the clock. I could do with a 48-hour clock and I'd still use it. Now are you clean by the word which I've spoken to you? Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his life by taking heed thereto according to thy word. Yes. Well, it goes on to say another thing, doesn't it? Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin. Not just occasionally get victory. I mean, dear God, what's the difference between us and others? Oh, speak in tongues. Mormons speak in tongues. Every devout Mormon speaks in tongues. But they live like devils, a lot of them. There's only one thing I think the devil can't fake, and that's a holy life. He's tried to do it through monasteries. But going back a minute, I don't know if you read it, and I don't know if I read it recently, in two different accounts where two different men said, if I could now, I would start a Christian monastery. What they mean is, like the Bible school I went to, there were no TVs in those days, there were radios, you couldn't take a radio, you couldn't take an automobile. When you went on a campus, you stayed from October to Christmas. They went home for a few days, came back and stayed till Easter. You'd go off the campus, they'd have to have a haircut. You couldn't go shopping, you couldn't drive a car, anything. There were no girls there, they were too distracting. And we were shut up. You came here to know the word of God, and they did a pretty good job. But now, dear God, I know a boy that went to ORU. His daddy has an agency of cars. He gave him a new car, bought him a new typewriter, bought him new clothes, a new set of golf clothes, everything he had. And within a month, he wrapped the new car around a lamppost. Total wreckage. Called back and said, Oh, don't come home, don't come home, mommy's bringing you a new car tomorrow. And that's how they'd back him up like that. Oral Roberts says he has 4,000 young people there full of the Holy Ghost baloney. How could he have 4,000? There were only 120 in the upper room. His people can't dance on the premises, but they go to other places to dance. Why don't there be places where they say students are spending all night in prayer, in intercession. We've never been in unless we're in now. We're nearer judgment than we've ever been in America. And England. I think England and America are the modern Sodom and the modern Gomorrah. They never had the chances we had. They never had the Bible. They never had the seminars. Never had all the Christian periodicals. How many, at this moment, how many teams do you think there are around America either going around teaching spiritual warfare or something else? Every magazine you come out, we've got something new. And we're feeding jaded appetites. If we once had a Holy Ghost revival that, say, got all of a dozen out of 100 men in a factory and they began instead of going to lunch, they had a lunch and then they had a prayer meeting and suddenly it was so spread, but we don't know that. And I don't know by what I read we're going to do the same thing the next 10 years we've done. In the last 10 years we've done nothing. But it's like Spurgeon said, you see there's a stick there and it's the most crooked stick in us. He don't argue about it, put a straight stick at the side of it. You see the truth with our young people, brother, they don't know. They don't know what they believe. Like John Fred Wolfe has one of the biggest Southern Baptist Church in Mobile. I preached there and he's put a new building up since, since 4000. And he says, he said, we feel responsible for 11,000 students in this area. But he said, I wonder why it is in their sophomore year, which is what, the second year they're in college, they leave church when you can guarantee those kids went to daily vacation, Bible school, most likely went to a Christian camp. I guarantee 99, 95% of them made a profession of Christianity. When they get away from home, I don't know.