In this sermon, the preacher shares a powerful testimony from Argentina to illustrate the importance of preaching the word of God. He tells the story of a brother who was preaching to a group of Indians when the Spirit of the Lord quickened Isaiah 53 to him. This became the key to his ministry, and he started preaching it every day, resulting in people getting healed and a revival breaking out. As a result, people from all over South America started coming to hear him preach. The preacher emphasizes the need to take orders from God and not rely on our own methods, as God is the one who brings blessings and revival.

We want to just speak to you for a little while now tonight. Again, from Isaiah 43 and verse 18. Isaiah 43, 18, we'll read the whole passage again. I hope that by the time the week is over you can quote it all. Amen. I wish we had Sister Pauline Mills here to sing this passage for us, for she has put it all to music and it's very beautiful. But we'll read it tonight. Isaiah 43, starting at verse 18, Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old? Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth. Shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field shall honor me, the dragons and the owls, because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people have I formed for myself, they shall show forth my praise. I wonder how many of you are here tonight for the first time during this conference. Could I just see your hand? Oh my, we've got quite a number. Perhaps I should take just a few moments to review what we've been covering the last couple of nights so that you'll be able to follow right along now with us tonight. We have been emphasizing verse 19. The Lord is saying, Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth. And it is our conviction that it is time for God to arise and do something above and beyond that which He's ever done in any generation, at any time, any place, anywhere in His history of His dealings with the human race. Now we recognize that if we are going to be involved in what God is doing, there is a principle that is expressed in Jeremiah 1 and 10. When God gets ready to do something, He has to clear the ground. He has to call in His caterpillar and clear the ground. He has to do what Jeremiah said, root out, pull down, destroy, and cast down. God has to come and do a renovation in our life. I heard a dear brother from Washington, D.C. I didn't hear him say it, but I heard him quote it. A dear colored brother, a real prophet of the Lord. He made the statement that all the demons in hell cannot annul the Word of God, the Scriptures. But our traditions, our religious traditions, can make it all of none effect. Now when you realize the power that religious tradition has upon your life, you realize the severity of what God must do to us or in us to release us from those things that prevent us from flowing with what He's wanting to do today. The emphasis we've been laying the last two nights is verse 18, Remember ye not the former things? Secondly, neither consider the things of old. And what we are saying is that former things and things of old are the great hindrances to what the Lord wants to do today. Former things and things of old are the greatest hindrances to what the Lord wants to do today. Now I want to make a statement, and I know that I'm treading on dangerous ground in saying this, but one of the great tragedies of the seminaries and of the higher institutions of religious learning is that they cannot bring to you what God is saying, nor can they bring to you what God is doing. At best they can only rehearse for you what He has said and what He has done. Did you understand my statement? And so consequently we have graduated, quote, into the ministry, end quote, thousands of men who know what God said and what He did, but who have no understanding for the most part of what He's saying or what He's doing. Now God never does a thing, anything, without first revealing it to someone. In the book of Amos you will find a principle expressed, and I'll just read it to you tonight. We were in the prophet Amos last night, the fifth chapter, but I want to go to another passage in Amos for this tonight. You'll find it in chapter 3 and verse 7, this principle that is expressed. Amos 3 and verse 7, surely the Lord God will do nothing except or but He revealeth His secret unto His servants, the prophets. Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth or except He revealeth His secret unto His servants, the prophets. Now you'll find back in Isaiah 42 and verse 9, the Lord says the same thing. Behold the former things are come to pass. How many of you know that everything God has come, comes to what? It comes to what? To pass. See, when God does something it comes to what? See, we grab hold of it and bless God we're going to perpetuate it forever. Amen? See, long after the anointing and blessing has lifted off of it, we're going to keep it going. Why? Why, we've got a tradition to defend. Right? We must perpetuate the thing, see? And so God though, He does something and it comes to pass. See, God is not only the Alpha, the beginning, but He's also what? The Omega, the end. And many things that God begins, He also tried to terminate, but men kept it going. I had to learn that lesson, I'll share that with you later tonight. God not only comes to you as the beginning, but He comes to you as the Omega, the end. And He terminates some things that He begins. But the tragedy is that men will not terminate it when God does. God lifts the blessing, God lifts the cloud and men keep it going. The machinery is all in motion and they can't get it stopped. So on and on it goes and long after God is through with it, men keep it going. Well, let's notice now Isaiah 42 and verse 9. Behold the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare to you. Before they spring forth, I what? I tell you of them. Now this is one of the principles God works on. Before He does something, He tells us of it. He does nothing except He reveal it unto His servants, the prophets. If we come over to the Gospel of John chapter 16 and verse 13, we find that in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, He also reiterated this truth for us. John chapter 16 and I want you to notice now verse 13. John 16 verse 13. Howbeit when He the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you into all truth. He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak. And He will what? He will show you things to come. How many of you know that one of the ministries of the Holy Spirit is to show you things to come? Before it comes, I tell you of it. Now, this is a principle God always works on. He tries to find someone that will listen to Him and show them what He's getting ready to do. When God was getting ready to destroy Sodom, He had a counsel in heaven. And He said, Shall I hide the thing which I'm getting ready to do from My servant Abraham? If you read the story in Genesis chapter 19, you'll find that God decided, No, I can't hide it from My servant Abraham. I will go down and I will tell him what I'm getting ready to do. Now, this is always the principle God works on. He comes to show us things to come. He comes to speak to us. But what does He encounter when He comes and tries to tell us? Well, He encounters all our traditions that are hanging to us that prevent us from saying, Yes, Lord, I believe it, I receive it, I move into it. Now, what I'm actually saying tonight is my own personal testimony. Because, you see, for many years God talked to me about certain things. I must give you a little background and perhaps I've shared this with some of you before, but you bear with me. Turn with me to the book of Hebrews, the eighth chapter. Hebrews, the eighth chapter. Now, if you can understand the strength that religious tradition holds on people, you would understand why the Spirit of God is emphasizing this problem to us over and over, so that He can break us loose to take us on. Hebrews, chapter 8. Now, I want you to notice verse 5. The reason I'm calling your attention to this verse is because for years, 11 years to be exact, this verse was the verse around which my life revolved. I'll just make the confession to you. The last part of the verse, I want to read it with you. See, saith He, that thou make all things what? According to the pattern. Someone pointed out here the other morning, I think it was Brother Morrill, that the Lord spoke this to Moses seventeen times. See, saith He, that thou make all things according to the pattern. Now, for years that was my central theme. I had sat under the teaching ministry of a very dear man of God and I do not blame him for my misconception at all and I'm not blaming anybody, only my own ignorance. But I was hung up on this idea that if I only discovered the way they did it in the early church and would do it that way again, hallelujah, I would have the revival they had in the early church. How many of you are laboring under that misconception tonight? You don't have to raise your hand, but see, all we do, glory to God, is get apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, deacons, elders, deaconesses, and automatically we've got the glory that they had. Well, I'll just save you eleven years. It doesn't happen. You can produce the most beautiful wineskin, the most beautiful form, and it can be absolutely devoid of wine. The wineskin does not produce the wine. How many of you know that? See, the structure of the early church was only a skin to contain the wine. That governmental order that God established, that thing just evolved and it evolved out of a very practical need. Some widows were being neglected in the daily ministration, so what did they do? They said, well, we've got to take care of the widows, so we'll appoint seven men full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom over this matter. And so they appointed seven men to take care of that, and we call them deacons. So now today, when the government takes care of the widows, we still have deacons, right? Now I know there's a practical need for some of these ministries today in the church, but the point I'm making is that these things developed as a need developed, God had a practical answer to meet the need. Now, I know I'm treading again on some theological tolls here tonight, but let me step down real hard and deliver you and save you years of trouble. Because you see, you can get everything structured just like the New Testament church, but after you get it all done, there'll be one problem you'll have. You won't have the revival and the life of the New Testament church. And all you'll have is the empty structure, the empty wineskin. And I don't care how beautiful it is, it will not produce wine. There is no wineskin yet that has ever produced wine. It can only at best contain wine. Amen? Say oh me. Ah, glory to God, I'm trying to save you trouble, brethren. Years of trouble. And over time, see, I studied Watchman Nee forward, backward, sideways, up, down. I knew all about New Testament church order, divine order, you know, everything. Just ask me, I could give you the answers from Genesis, Revelation, in the middle, in the sides, everywhere. But I never did take time to stop and read the introduction to Brother Nee's book on the normal Christian church life. And in the introduction, if I had read it and memorized it, I would have saved myself years of trouble. Because he warns you against the very thing I'm trying to warn you against. That you can structure everything just like God led them to structure it in China at a time when God was decentralizing the church. And why was God decentralizing the church in China during the 30s and putting it back into the home? Because God knew the communist thing was coming and He wanted His church to survive and it couldn't survive in the structured church systems that were there. So God moved by His Spirit and He raised up men who had a vision of their day and time and God used them to restructure the church into a home situation where it would survive the plague of communism. Now you may disagree with me, but I had talked to men who worked with Nee during those years and God definitely was leading because there was a definite need. Now you take what God led them to do and bring it to America and if America's not threatened with the same problem and try to impose the same thing, you'll never have the life they had. Why? What they were doing was divinely ordered. How many of you know what divine order is? It's taking orders from divinity. That's what divine order is. Taking orders from divinity. Taking orders from headquarters I remember what P.M. Samuels said years ago. They said, Brother Samuels, he's a great apostle from India. They said, Brother Samuels, where are your headquarters? You know, they have 25,000 people at their conventions in India. He said, oh, it's where my head is quartered. It's in heaven where my head is. Jesus is the head. How many of you know that? And He's still able to give orders. That's divine order, taking orders from headquarters. Now, the thing I'm trying to say tonight, I'm not trying to destroy your structure unless it needs to be destroyed and some of it may need to be. But the thing I'm trying to show you is that, you see, God comes along and says, I want to do a new thing. We say, hallelujah, the way to get the new thing is to go back to the book of Acts and do it like they did it. No, God didn't say, I want to do what I did in the book of Acts all over again. I want to do a new thing. Now, let me just tell you something again, because listen, I'm talking right out of my heart to you tonight. I have been through this thing. Brother, I could teach for hours on apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, not hours, weeks, on deacons, elders and their place in the function and the structure. But all of my understanding of the wine skin that God used to contain the flow of life in that early church never produced the life flow. It never did. And so we went through these years of frustration and because the life and blessing didn't come, we'd examine the scriptures more carefully. And we would take the letter and we would search it more carefully and we would find out, oh, I know what's wrong. We should have seven deacons instead of six. Oh, I know to keep everything fair. We ought to have four deaconesses instead of three. Oh, we've got, we must have an apostle. Even if the Lord hasn't called one, we've got to have one. So say, so we appoint all this business. You know, it doesn't produce the life. Now I want to take you over to the book of Hebrews with me for a moment. Book of Hebrews. And I'd like you to notice with me Hebrews chapter three. I'd like you to notice with me, if you will, verse three, Hebrews chapter three and verse three. And what I'm dealing with tonight are those impeding things that prevent us from flowing with the new thing God says he's going to do. And this thing I'm dealing with tonight, I think is one of the most serious problems we have today in flowing with what God is bringing forth in our day. We go back to past generations, to past things God did, things that came to pass. We go back and try to make them permanent. Now, Hebrews chapter three, I'd like you to notice verse three, for this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses. Talking about Jesus. As he was he who has builded the house, what half more honor than the house. Now, what are we saying here tonight? He that buildeth the house half more honor than the house. Now, what is the house of God? What's another word for it? The church. The church is the house of God. Ye also, Peter says, are built up and spiritual priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices. Paul refers to the church in whom the whole building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord. And all through the New Testament, the church becomes the house or temple of God, the dwelling place of God. Now, he that buildeth the house, half what? More honor than the house. Now, Jesus said in Matthew 16, it's recorded on this rock, I will what? I will build my church. I will build it. Now, what are we going to give more honor to tonight? The church he's building or the Lord who's building the church? Now, you see, the problem is we get our center and focus on the church, on the building, on the pattern, on the government, on the structure, on the letter, on the legalistic concept of how it all happened. And we get our eyes off of the Lord who's building the house. And he that buildeth this house must always have more honor than the house. And once we take the honor that belongs to him and give it to the house, we have made an idol out of the house. There is an idolatry, if you will hear me tonight, in worshiping and serving the house. You are taking that honor which belongs to him and giving it to the house. And that's idolatry. And brother, if you will open your eyes to recognize tonight that he is first, he is last, and he's everything in between. Alpha and omega, the beginning and the end and everything in between. He comes to the church and he says, for heaven's sake, will you get your eyes off the house and realize the house is not the life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I know this may sound hard tonight, but it's got to be or I'll never blast you out of your problem. That's true. Religious tradition is the hardest thing for God to break off of us. We will tenaciously cling to concepts that are producing nothing but wood, hay, and stubble, and we'll hold on to them and drag the whole church into death. We will do what Adam did in the Garden of Eden. God offers a tree of life and there is a tree of knowledge of good and evil. He says, now stay away from that tree of knowledge and stay over here with the tree of life. What do we do in the church? We turn from the tree of life and blessing and revival and we send our men through fourteen years at the tree of knowledge. Come on. And it's the knowledge of good as well as the knowledge of evil. Many good things over here to learn, to know, but what does that all do? It causes us to reject the tree of life and turn back to the tree of knowledge, thinking that here we'll find our answers. And they're not there, let me tell you. Oh, God help you tonight. Listen, I could save some of you fellows that are training for the ministry twenty years if you'll listen to me. If you're looking for life, if you're looking for the flow of God, if you're looking for the stream of what God's doing today, hear me tonight for heaven's sake, hear me. Because we will turn to that tree and it's an empty cistern that holds no water. The water is Him. He's the water of life. He's the bread of heaven. And the thing that made that early church what it was is that they were centered in Him. They took knowledge of those ignorant and unlearned fishermen that they had been where? With Jesus. They had been with the tree of life. And because they were with the tree of life, the life was flowing in that generation. It wasn't the forms, it wasn't the fact they had apostles and epistles. How many of you know that? Now I respect those offices, understand me tonight, I should add a word of balance, I do. I respect the settings of God in setting apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers. I respect that, but I tell you I do not bow down to the tree of knowledge. I know the only source of life is in the tree of life, Jesus Christ. And what this world needs tonight is the life of God flowing out to it. You'll never find that in universities or anywhere else, any place of learning except the school of the Spirit. You see we turn back from the source, the builder of the house, and we turn to the house. And the house becomes an idolatry. The way it's done becomes so important. I have seen God moving in great life and revival. I could tell you of a situation in Argentina. I'm almost afraid to talk about it because this tape will probably get down there and somebody will listen to it and say I was talking about them, and I was. But I'm going to tell you about it because it illustrates what I'm saying. Here was a dear little brother that God sends down there to a city, I won't even tell you where in the country. But he was preaching to a group of Indians one day, and the Spirit of the Lord suddenly quickened to him. Isaiah 53. I think it's verse 5, 6, or 7 there. I'll give you the neighborhood and you can look up the address later. Surely He hath borne our sorrows and carried away our pains. And the Spanish version says, surely He hath borne our sicknesses and carried away our pains, and by His stripes ye are healed. The Spirit of God quickened one word to him. Surely, surely, surely, and he began to repeat it. Sitting in front of him were 75 Indians, two-thirds of which had tuberculosis. This awful plague of the lungs that robs men of their strength and causes them to spit out and cough up blood continually. And there was no cure and no medical help available and no dietary sufficiency to help them. And as he repeated that word, surely, surely, surely, surely, surely, surely, God made it a tree of life. And those Indians began to get healed of their tuberculosis and began to stand and jump and rejoice and praise God. How many of you ever took a course on divine healing that tells you to say, surely, and God will heal 50 tubercular people? Please turn the tape over for the remainder of the message. You don't get it at the Tree of Knowledge, but God so quickened that word to him, it became the key to his ministry. And he got up and started preaching that thing every day, three times a day. He was having services and all he would say is, surely, surely, surely, and God would quicken it and people were getting healed all over the place. That thing developed into a revival. People started coming from all over South America. Over a hundred new people a day started coming. It leveled off to that. It was much more than that in the beginning. He finally built a building about the size of this one we're in tonight. Very simple, plain construction. Filled the place with some crude benches. Three times a day he'd get up and preach, surely, God would heal the people. Finally, he realized that many people were getting healed without being introduced to Jesus Christ. So he took some of the people that were there in the town and he started training them how to lead these people that were coming from all over South America to the Lord. So he gave them some courses and showing them how to lead them to the Lord and so on and so as the people would come in, he wouldn't allow them to come into the healing meeting unless they first were able to give assurance that they knew Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. So they started keeping records. They had the people fill out cards and giving names and addresses. In one year's time, 36,862 people went through that church. People from out of town who came to get healed and in the process got saved and went back. Over 35,000 people a year were coming through there and that went on for four or five years. And then a man came from the United States. A man who's been educated in the seminary. A man with great learning and a man of great ability and a dear brother. I don't criticize the brother for what he is, but only for what he did. He came in and he looked at this thing and a man up there preaching three times a day, surely, surely, surely. And he said this is not according to divine order. This is not according to New Testament church order. If we're going to have a New Testament church, we've got to have all these things. And this poor old brother, he didn't know that. He says we do. Oh yes, we've got to have all this or it is a New Testament church. So he comes along and he starts trying to slip Saul's armor. Forgive me for calling it that, but that's about the only analogy I can think of on David. All David had was the anointing. How many of you know that's all you need? And started trying to slip Saul's armor on. And brother, it killed that thing deader than a mackerel. Within a year, they had people in the aisles of that church with guns pointed at each other. I'm not kidding you, that actually literally happened. The division and strife and terrible bitterness of spirit that broke forth in that people as the tree of life was snatched away from them and in its place the tree of knowledge. And they were bitter. And they came in with guns to have a shootout over this thing. That literally happened. Brother, I want to tell you something tonight. The tree of life is what God wants to bring back into the church. And I don't care the expression of that life, particularly in its form. I don't care what shape the wineskin is. I'm concerned with one thing. Is there wine in the skin? Is there life in the skin? Is the blessing and life of God flowing? And if the life is there, don't come along and tell me it's not divine order. If God ordered it, it's divine order. If God gave the instructions for it, it's divine order. I want to take you back a moment again to Hebrews 8 and verse 5. And I want to give you what God gave me after eleven years of insisting on everything being done according to the pattern. Desperation. One day I cried out to God. I said, God, I'm tired of this business. We've got everything exactly like it's supposed to be. And there's no life. There's no blessing. It's just all the latter that killeth. I said, what in the world is wrong? I have done everything to get this thing right. The Lord said, look Mahoney, you hardhead. Why don't you read the rest of the verse? Now you would have thought in eleven years I would have taken the trouble to do that. But you can read the Bible with blinders on. With a veil over your heart. Because you're so set in your tradition and in your concept and in your religiosity, you're not willing to listen to God reveal something to you. So I opened my Bible again and I read it. She saith he that thou make all things according to the pattern. And I'd put a period there for eleven years. But there wasn't any period there. Why did it take me eleven years to find that out? Because of my tradition, my concept, my eating at the tree of knowledge. And I began to read on. She saith he that thou make all things according to the pattern showed thee in the mouth. Oh brother, when I saw that, it was according to the pattern showed thee in the mouth that God was wanting. It changed my life. Because suddenly I recognized that God was talking to me and saying something to me. And the reason you're here tonight is because I started listening to God. I started listening to what He was saying to me and started implementing what He was saying. And there's no pattern for it anywhere that I've found yet. I can find no precedent for what I'm doing today. Only I've taken orders from headquarters and that headquarters I'm talking about is in heaven. And I'm doing what God said do. And that's why you're here tonight. Because I began doing all things according to the pattern showed me in the mouth of God. God called me apart for a time of seeking His face and began to show me what He wanted me to do. And I protested and I rejected and I did everything. God said you listen or you're lost. And I started listening and I started doing it according to the pattern He showed me. And I'm not using this as an excuse tonight to introduce anything extra biblical or counter biblical. I believe that everything that we do that comes subjectively to us must again be measured in the light of this. But I found out it was scriptural to listen to what God was saying and do what He said. Far more scriptural than trying to follow in the tradition of a previous generation. Let me give you an illustration of what I'm talking about in another realm. Again this is personal testimony, you forgive me. I was down in the Caribbean about 1962 I guess this would have been. A brother from Canada and I were traveling together up the east coast of Nicaragua covering that whole east coast with a series of beatings. We'd had some campaigns there in 1959 in which God had moved in in such a sovereign way. I saw things that I just couldn't believe. Someone made the remark here the other morning that they hadn't seen the book of Acts yet. And the glory of what God had done in the book of Acts. I don't mean this to be sacrilegious or sound braggadocious. But I saw God working there in Nicaragua in 1959 in a greater way than I've read anything about in the scriptures. And that may sound braggadocious, but forgive me if it does. It just happened. Before I could get my hands on people, God was healing them. Whole villages of five, six hundred people turned to the Lord and one night leave a native worker and go off and leave a congregation of four or five hundred people after three services. That whole area was under a sovereign visitation of God at that time. And everywhere we went we saw things that we just couldn't believe. I'd stand there and blink my eyes. You know, it wasn't really, you know, this idea of God's great man of faith and power, Hogwash. I stood there intellectually questioning what I was seeing when it was happening. Carnal mind is enmity against God. And my old carnal mind would stand there and here would be a man blind one minute and seeing the next and I'd say, was that guy really blind? Really? That's the truth. Deaf ears, lame bones, everything you can imagine. God was healing it. It was God. It wasn't my great faith, it was His great faithfulness. That's what it always is. I'll just let you in on a little clue. Habakkuk 2.4 says, the just shall live by His faith. Paul said, I live by the faith of the Son of God who died and gave Himself for me. The faith of the Son of God operative in you if anything's happening. Well anyway, we were out on this island in 1962 off the coast of Nicaragua. On most maps you'll find it Isle de Maze or Corn Island in English. Little island, about 3,000 people on it, just a spot on the map. And yet one of the fellas that had been converted in the meetings in 1859 had gone out there and he started preaching. No education, nothing. Just had a Bible and the Holy Ghost and he went out there and started preaching. Seven places around the island he had a service every night. God gave him a tremendous time of blessing as far as souls getting saved and all, but yet there was still a problem there on the island. It just seemed like that he couldn't get a real breakthrough to see the island really touched in the way he wanted to see it touched. When I say the Lord really blessed, perhaps I should moderate that and say he had some conversions, he had fruit for his labors, but there still wasn't the breakthrough he wanted to see. So we had come to try to help him. And again we were faced with a group of Indians and I am only commenting now on my experience in this situation. I don't know that all Indians are like this, but these were. These people were so stoic that one of them got his leg broken, for example. He had to be put in a motorboat, a speedboat, taken 50 miles across very rough waters, that thing just slamming the thing. And here he had a broken leg with a bone sticking right out through the flesh. This fellow never so much as groaned or whimpered. That's how stoic these people are. Show no emotion, no expression of pain or joy or anything. Man, they're just like steel. And here we were trying to communicate the Gospel to them. And this one sister particularly, we had taught by the hours to her. I took her through all the soul winning courses I had ever taken three times. And when I would get through and ask her, have you received Jesus now as your personal Savior? She'd say, I don't know. Intellectually I could not make a convert out of her. I don't know why. She couldn't understand, receive her what? But she could not get anywhere, my trying to give the Gospel to her. And brother, I exhausted myself trying. I'd get up at night and we'd preach and nothing would happen. It was the diametric opposite of what we had seen three years before. And this went on for several nights and we began fasting and praying and seeking God. During the course of the week we counseled with a little Nicaraguan woman who had been in one of the churches over on the mainland. And she said, you know, brethren, sometimes I feel like God moves on me to prophesy. But she says, I just don't have the courage to get up and say it. So we were trying to share with her how to release herself in prophecy. So we were having prayer meetings every morning at 430, 430 in the morning. These people all get up, you know, at the right before dawn and they were all anxious for an early morning prayer meeting. So we started having prayer meetings at 430 in the morning. So in one of these 430 in the morning prayer meetings, I'm so groggy eyed, I can't hardly see that time of the morning. I don't know about these people that can get up at the crack of dawn and you know, they're alive. But me, it takes me till noon to feel like I'm even moving. I was dragged into those prayer meetings and spiritually get down on my knees to pray. And you know what would happen? All the rest of them were praying and they'd come and wake me up and get me going again. But this one morning, this little sister got up and she stood to her feet in a stammering, stuttering voice. She began to say, take the shoes from off my feet. Now I'm saying it much more clearly than she, she said something like this, take the shoes from off my feet. And she went on like that for the place where I'll now stand is Holy Grail. And she repeated that three times and here's old, you know, wide awake Mahoney. He's back in his slumber again. The brother that was with me from Canada had an ear to hear what the spirit was saying. And he heard the voice of God in that utterance. And he stood up and there were a group of people there in this little building we were meeting in. And most of them were unconverted. I'd never been in a place where people that were unconverted would come to a four 30 in the morning meeting. That's the truth. These people were coming. I don't know why, but they were there and we couldn't seem to break anything in that place. It was dead and cold and the powers of darkness were just opposing and we could feel it. Well, this brother heard the voice of God in that stammering, stuttering, prophetic utterance. And he stood up and he said, now I believe God has spoken. I thought, boy, he is a man of faith. And he said, I don't know whether the Lord literally means for us to take our shoes off or not, or whether it's symbolic. But he said, we wouldn't want a little thing like shoes to stand in the way, would we? So let's take our shoes off. And everybody in the place took their shoes off. How many of you know, that's the way to get soul saved? No pun intended on the souls of those shoes. But here we were standing there with our shoes off. And he says, he just went on. He says, now I believe that we've done what the Lord said for us to do. And I'm calling for you now to come and take Jesus as your savior. Well, man, I stood there. I thought, man, this is a new course in soul winning I've never taken before. And these, these Indians that we couldn't budge with dynamite started coming down the aisle and they passed the last bench, like these young people are sitting on here at the front, coming down that little aisle of that building. And when they passed that bench, it was just like they were hit by a thunderbolt. They would fall flat on their face, cry out to God, Lord have mercy on me and weep and cry. I thought, wow, these are hyper emotional people. And you know, before long they were stacked up all over the place, flat on their faces, crying out to God. And they, they just would pass that point and just hit them. And here was this little Indian woman that I'd taken through course after course on soul winning. And she still didn't know that Jesus was that she passed that line and the glory of God hit her. She hit that thing. And about 40 minutes later, she come up, her face was just shining. Radiant with his glory. How many of you know that that service was divine order? We did all things according to the pattern showed in the mouth. Now listen to me people. And I'm not trying to lead you down a path to mysticism, but I am telling you tonight that the only way you and I and anybody else is going to get into what God is wanting to do today is to forsake the tree of knowledge of good and evil and go back to the tree of life. The word of the Lord to us these last three nights has been seek ye me and ye shall live. He is the way, the truth, the light. He is the bread that came down from heaven. He is that manner that comes down daily and oppressed to us. He is the God who says, behold, I make all things new. And I tell you tonight, if you're willing to start taking your orders from headquarters and do what God shows you and when he shows you, you'll suddenly find you've discovered the tree of life. No one may have ever done it that way before, and you may never do it that way again. Because you see, the great tragedy is that the moment God starts blessing it, we think again, it's because we did it a certain way. Now, I've never had a soul winning service like that since. I've never tried to get people to take their shoes off to get them saved. But God ordered in that situation. Now, I could go on tonight. I don't want to belabor the point. But I do want you to see that in your imposing your tradition, your custom, your training, your liturgy, whatever it is, upon what God wants to do today, you will limit the Holy One of Israel. You will impede the full flow of His life and grace through you and to you. Paul speaks in his letter to Timothy of these days. Moffat translates it, having a form without the force. King James Version says, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. The greatest problem we have in any religious circle is that what God has at one time blessed and breathed life into, suddenly degenerates into a form. We're raising our hands and saying, praise the Lord, but there's no worship in it. We're going through the motions, but there's no life in it. God wants to come in a renewal of His presence and person to us and cause us again to center the focus of our attention upon Him and understand that He is the way. He is the truth. He is the life. You want to know the way to do it? Go to Jesus. You want to know the truth? Go to Jesus. You want to know the life? Go to Jesus. He's the way to do it. He's the truth of it. He's the life of it. And if you will hold to the head, as Paul says in his epistle to the Colossians, he warned this church, he says, you're not holding the head. They were getting off into many isms, but they were forsaking the head. I want you tonight to reach up for the head, your Lord Jesus Christ, and lay hold of the head again and hold of the head and recognize that in His headship and in His lordship in your life and in the church is the only hope we have of life and blessing and revival in this generation. Behold, I will do a new thing. Now shall it spring forth. And I tell you that new thing will be centered in Him. It will proceed from Him back to Him. And if God has come to you as He did to me in 1962, and He's writing Amiga, the end, to something in your life, give it up, surrender it, and let Him reveal Himself as the Alpha afresh, as the new beginning. I close with this. When the children of Israel were coming out of Egypt, the last thing that was accomplished before they went on that journey into the wilderness was the observance of Passover. The night when God came down and said, I will pass over you. Understand, He didn't say, I will skip over you. He said, I will pass over you. I'll become a tent, a covering to you. And that's what He became that night, a covering to His people. They were dwelling in the secret place of the Most High. They were abiding that night under the shadow of the Almighty, if the blood had been applied to their door. The last thing they observed was that Passover, when God came and passed over and covered them and tented over them. And the Lord told the children of Israel, He said, this day shall be a day of new beginnings unto you. This day shall be a day of new beginnings unto you. Now for two men, and it could have been three, it truly became a day of new beginnings. Two men appropriated that promise and lived to see it fulfilled. You say, oh, Brother Mahoney, I've read in my Bible commentary that three million people came out of Egypt. Oh, that's right. Three million started out, but only two got to the destination of those that started out. How many of you know that? They came out of Egypt, but Egypt never came out of them. And when they got into the wilderness, what were they crying for? Former things. Things of old. Oh, for those leeks, those garlics. Oh, for the life back in Egypt. It was a good life. Taskmasters whipping us all day. How quickly we forget what we've been delivered from. But former things, things of old, held a grip on those people that kept them from going in to the new thing God wanted to do. A land flowing with milk and honey was offered them. Now I'm telling you tonight that God didn't just bring you out of Egypt to let you perish in the wilderness. He brought you out to take you in to a land flowing with milk and honey. He brought you out to take you in, but you'll only go in in divine order, taking orders from divinity. Following the Lamb with a soever ego. Hearing from headquarters frequently. Getting your instructions from the head. And I'm not talking about a lawless spirit. I need three nights to balance what I'm saying tonight. But I don't want to leave you in your tradition, so I'm speaking firmly to you. And I want you to realize that if you've been feeding at a tree of knowledge, I don't care whether it is the knowledge of good. If it's good knowledge, that's still not it. I want you to transfer tonight and repent of that and come over to the tree of life and say, Jesus, this night I surrender myself, my life, my ministry, my church, my whatever you've got, my Isaac, I put it on the altar. And Lord, I'm going out to follow you wherever you lead me into that thing that you're doing in my generation, in my time. If you will let those shackles be broken from your life and allow God to blast you out, it's scary out there, I'll tell you for sure. But if you'll walk out there in faith, God will take you by the hand just like He did Pastor Langstaff and his wife. Brought them out into a whole new dimension. Showing them a totally new revelation of Himself. Now they're moving in to that which God is doing in this day. I tell you, He's doing a quick work and cutting it short in righteousness if you'll respond to His call and tug tonight. I want our musicians to come as we stand together and bow our hearts in prayer. Praise the Lord. 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