What if We Don’t Finish the Task (Part 1) – Lessons from Church History and God’s Eternal Purpose

Audience: Where the Local Church is concerned, would you consider praying the scriptures to be a significant contribution?

Yes, I do. Thank you. I do. It lasted about two weeks. No, I’m sincere. It went from praying the scripture beautifully to screaming it. Screaming it and using it literally to bash people into submission. It started like this and took a curve just like that. But it did not come from the Local Church; it came from a Chinese brother in Taiwan who was reading Jeanne Guyon and began praying the scripture, and somehow, someone found this out in the meeting hall of the Christians of Taiwan. It got to the local church movement, and, like everything else that’s ever touched those people, within minutes it was gone. It was beautiful for about two weeks, and I’m dead serious. It might have lasted a month, but I thank you, brother. They got really close to something really quick, and then it just…I almost hate to even speak of people doing that.

The first time I ever heard the term, I thought they were talking about some wind reed. I thought somebody had a reed. That was a term that came later, after they began screaming it, which comes back… and now I just got all sorts of people asking questions. Yes, finally. Wait. We always take ladies first. Yes, ma’am.

Audience: You know, I studied the Anabaptists. My husband’s relatives, you know, came to America. And one thing I found out was that they recovered because it was a big Church of England, and it was Rome at that time, but they restored meetings in homes.

The Anabaptists, absolutely. They were committed to the home.

Audience: And taking the Lord’s supper in a home rather than like the Eucharist.

The non-clerical sacraments, or taking the Lord’s supper, got them killed as much as their baptism did. Thank you, sister. I appreciate all these contributions.

Audience: I was wondering about calling on the name of the Lord.

No, no. That’s been around ever since Abraham. Now, I was taught as a Baptist to call on the Lord’s name when I was a kid. One of the first things I ever learned. Now that they emphasize it, yes, but not that they brought it back. No. And what did they turn it into? They turned that thing into a hacksaw. You know, I’m not a signs and wonders type person, but when those people would scream my name, and then they would scream, “Oh Lord Jesus,” I think it was Mike who had said, “Gene, on that particular Sunday morning, I actually thought they were going to break into a riot. They were about to lose control of themselves.” I know that, because I could feel it sitting in my living room, 100 miles away. Now, you don’t have to believe that, but I literally would shake when they did that. It’s a very powerful thing, saints. I won’t say it was terrifying, but it was so draining, and we could feel it.

Now, I’m going to tell you something else. I think everybody ought to attend their meetings, and especially the Lord’s supper meeting. I think you’ll learn something. I’ll tell you what you’ll learn. You’ll learn how those people function, and it will not hurt you one bit for you to see what it’s like for so many people to function. I did not mean to get off on negative things. Y’all started asking me questions. I have a tendency in meetings like this to be a little too honest about my feelings.

(continued in Part 2)