Unknown, Yet Well Known

Summary

Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the YouTube recording's caption track, read through the transcript panel — published in summary form; watch the full sermon at the source.

Because of the Times 1998 · The Pentecostals of Alexandria, Alexandria, LA Topics: The Church · Faith · Ministry and Calling

G. A. Mangun — introduced by his son Anthony (seamed out of the span, packet.md) — preaches as one of the last of the first generation of Pentecost: seventy-six years in the movement, seventy-two of them baptised in Jesus' name, over fifty-eight years preaching. A year ago tonight he was to have taken another brother's place and felt he never got his message across; he went home determined to preach at this conference no more. Instead, he says, God woke him at 3:00 in the morning and sent him back with the years of his experience: to go on record for the third and fourth generations, and to tell them what the first generation guarded, and what it cost.

The text he announces.

His text is a phrase he never locates: "unknown, yet well known" — as the Unknown Soldier is unknown to men yet known to God and to the cause he fought for. A generation arose in Egypt that knew not Joseph, and lost the dream; a generation arose after Peter and Paul that did not know theirs, and plunged the world into darkness. His whole sermon is built against that loss: identity — Jesus' name, the Holy Ghost, holiness — survives only if somebody guards it and hands it on. (The phrase is announced as his text but never located by book or chapter; the packet prices its citation candidate and does not index it.)

Scriptures: (none in this movement)

The sentinel at the tomb.

He lays his foundation in history and in Arlington: Jesus gave Peter the keys and called Paul to the Gentiles, and before Paul preached a word he sat fifteen days with Peter, the old guard, and received the strategy of the dispensation. Then the sermon turns to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier — the guards changed every half hour, the twenty-one steps and twenty-one seconds, the discipline no visitor and no president can break. He performs the sentinel's creed himself, clause by clause, turning each line back on the house: dedication to the sacred duty, perfection through diligence and praise, walking the tour in all discomforts of the elements, eternal vigilance through the night. A soldier guards a country; the preacher guards a truth — and he means to know whether the soldier will out-guard him. (The creed is a published text performed as content; the packet indexes nothing from it.)

Scriptures: (none new in this movement)

None of these things move me.

Marching his seventy-six years, he faces down, one by one, the doctrines that tried to pull his eyes sideways — a never-die doctrine, social purity, the school of prophets, the latter rain — and answers each with the stance he takes from Paul's farewell: none of these things move me, neither do I count my life dear unto myself. Ridicule could not move him either; he and his wife were laughed at for running the aisles in their own church, and he learned early that if you do not want to go liberal you stay away from the liberal crowd. Then he rehearses Paul's farewell itself: the sufferings Paul catalogued, and the warning Paul left at Ephesus — after his departure grievous wolves would enter in, not sparing the flock, and from among their own selves men would arise speaking perverse things — with the charge to watch and remember. Who will take up that guard when the old guard leaves? He puts the charge to Timothy, and to the house: teach no other doctrine, look straight ahead, let nothing draw your attention off the tomb. (His rehearsal of Paul's catalogue of perils is priced in the packet and not indexed.)

Scriptures: Acts 20:24, 29-31

The changing of the guard.

Every guard is relieved, and Peter's farewell is his picture of it: Peter knew he would soon die and put off this tabernacle, and his care was that after his decease they would always have these things in remembrance. (Peter's farewell is told in paraphrase; the packet prices it and does not index it.) Then Mangun takes the sergeant's role himself — he puts on the garment and hat, calls a young guardsman up out of the congregation, and inspects him before the house: the weapon examined and found the same loaded M14 pattern, the uniform the same, the gospel shoes the same, the helmet the same. Nothing has changed: the same uniform Peter had on, the same weapon Paul had. The inspection turns outward — let me inspect you: do you still have on the gospel shoes, the same weapon, the uniform that matches? — and lands on the question underneath the whole sermon: who will guard this truth when the present system, Social Security and all, has had its turn at getting their attention?

Scriptures: (none new in this movement)

Set for the defense of the gospel.

Paul's own sentence becomes the charge: I'm set for the defense of the gospel. Paul guarded the tomb of truth the Lord revealed to him by motivating the new guard — Timothy taught to teach faithful men, Titus charged the same — two men alone against the world, jailed, persecuted, shipwrecked, and unmoved. His fourth chapter is the pattern: the departure at hand, the good fight fought, the course finished. And the deserter stands beside it as the warning: Demas left Paul and quit guarding, a draft dodger and card burner of the faith, because he started looking to the left. There must be no Holy Ghost draft dodgers — preachers who dodge preaching holiness, dodge preaching the name, dodge the weapons God gave. Young preachers are told to snap their heels, hold the weapon, and use the ammunition: something somebody died for is not to be toyed with.

Scriptures: Philippians 1:17; 2 Timothy 4:7

The message he will carry up.

If he dies before the Lord comes and they bury him at Forest Lawn, he knows the first thing he will do on the other side: ask Jesus to call Peter and Paul over, because he has a message for them. And the message is the inspection's verdict — we have preachers, young and old, with the same uniform on, the same shoes, the same weapon, maybe more zeal than the first generation ever had. He rehearses how he knows the gospel will continue: Peter was given the keys and preached the first message on the Feast of Pentecost; Paul spent his fifteen days confirming the strategy and warned that any other doctrine would be accursed. (The Pentecost preaching is narrated as history; no wording of it is voiced in the sermon, and the packet prices the reference and does not index it.) He calls named brethren to stand with him, imagines the old guard looking over the banister of heaven at a church preaching it exactly as they preached it, and says his farewell: the case rests in the hands of the fourth generation now — preach on, guard the truth, and may the same gospel and the same truth reach the fourth generation. Farewell.

Summary scripture index (the exact union of the sections above): Acts 20:24 · Acts 20:29-31 · Philippians 1:17 · 2 Timothy 4:7

Scriptures: (none new in this movement)