Transcript of a published sermon by Marrell Cornwell, transcribed from YouTube. An attributed primary source — not Acts 2:38 Life doctrine text.
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Summary
Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the transcript below — the preacher’s words follow in full.
The feast of the king — opened mid-sermon
- The surviving copy opens inside the sermon: Cornwell is already describing the Persian Empire at its greatest — a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, the captive Hebrews among them — and the feast the king made in the third year of his reign, displaying the riches of his glorious kingdom for a hundred and eighty days, six months. When they had drunk in abundance, he sent for his wife to show her off to the world, the crown royal on her head; Cornwell sets the Shah of Iran's crown-jewels display beside it as the modern picture of that crown. He tells how such a queen was chosen — the virgins' year of purification, six months in myrrh and six in sweet oils, before the king selected his bride — and at the section's end he turns it toward the church: the Bible says the church is the bride of Christ, without spot. The narrative is retold, at points in the account's own wording, but no passage is directed or read and the book is never named.
The bride shown off — and the enemy named
- The bride is without blemish and without wrinkle because God wants to show her off to the world; he blesses his people because he wants to display his bride, and every good gift comes down from the Father of lights — the wording voiced here, unnamed, like every wording in this sermon. Sickness, he insists, is not God's doing: God has an enemy, and when sickness comes he prays against the enemy in the name of Jesus. Back in the story, he will not have it that the king was drunk: the king knew exactly what he was doing, showing the hundred and twenty-seven nations that everything was all right — and Vashti, after a year of being taught how to be a queen, knew what was expected of her when she refused. The application lands on this church: this church is not going down, not going under, not going to bow to the world.
Taught to love a king she had never seen
- Whoever became queen had to learn how to be a queen. Through the gruelling year of purification she was taught every detail of the king's life, expected to fall in love with a man she had never seen — and something happened in the process: she fell in love with the crown and the jewels more than the king himself, coveting the crown and the position, never able to force herself to love him. So with us, Cornwell says: born again, crowned, blessed, healed — he voices the by-His-stripes wording — sanctified, cleansed, delivered, given automobiles and houses and good things, until the first thing you know we fall in love with the house, the car, the clothes, the restaurants: the things he has given us. At the first of this year, he says, the Holy Ghost spoke to him: my people love what I do for them, but they have not fallen in love with me.
Twenty-eight years of pastoring, and the mechanic's family
- The mirror is held up once more first — the crown went to Vashti's head; she fell in love with the riches of the kingdom and felt too important to answer the king's beckoning — and then he marks his own tenure, twenty-eight years of pastoring, and tells of an unemployed mechanic in a housing project, fighting with his wife, who was brought to the house of God: the couple prayed through, and their four children with them, and the man was lifted — trained, certified, hired, prospered — until other men came to him for jobs and advice.
The family's fall
- The Esther thread surfaces once more — the sought virgins of whom nothing was recorded, and the open door of the whosoever-will wording — before the mechanic's story turns: the success went to the family's head, church stopped, the job was lost, then drugs, jail, and ruin, down to trying to sell their own children.
Remember where he brought you from
- Nobody had to drag the mechanic back — he remembered, and came back on his own; serving God has to become a lifestyle of praise, not a bargain for benefits. Cornwell calls the church to stand: the key to a breakthrough in Alabama, he says, is falling back in love with the Lord Jesus Christ. The question is not whether God loves us — he voices the God-so-loved-the-world wording — but whether we can love him the way he deserves; take the crown off your own head and remember where God brought you from: baptized in the name of Jesus, filled with the Holy Ghost. He begins his closing testimony here — his father, who was not in the church.
His father's year in Charity Hospital — and his own blessing
- His closing testimony: his father, felled by a tree in 1942, lay a year in a full body cast in Charity Hospital in Louisiana; his sharecropper parents never took their eleven children to church — Cornwell states he was born in 1949 — yet God found him anyway. He counts his own blessing in Birmingham that night, preaching in one of the best churches in the state: four children, seven grandchildren, kept out of Vietnam when the draft board found a childhood seizure prescription still in his system. The reason, he says, is that he fell in love with the King. He closes the preaching with the invitation: come stand with me tonight and fall in love with him all over again.
Altar ministry
- The service moves into the altar: music, sung and spoken exhortation, and tongues as captioned. His refrain through it is the sermon's own — it has to be a lifestyle with us — and the well-doing wording (be not weary; in due season we shall reap if we faint not) sounds inside the music stretch, unnamed. His last words magnify the name of God and call the church to love him with all of its heart. The host pastor's closing remarks and prayer for Cornwell follow in the upload, and after them the channel's narrated Bible-symbols appendix; neither is part of this record.
Transcript
he could have seen the Persian Empire at its greatest she would have thought so greatly of it that her heart would have fainted within her that's how splendorous the nation of the medo-persians were especially at this particular time in its history in which these hundred and twenty seven nations of had been conquered and had been acclimated into the kingdom that they did not even realize that they were Captiva but now they were a part of this Empire and in this Empire was a people that Nebuchadnezzar had brought to babylon known as the israelites are the Hebrews and they too was a part of this Empire and during this time even the Israelites were subdued in their spirit and there was not even rebellion against them because the Empire treated them as if though they was a normal people or praise God can I have an amen and it was during this time that with king of heron's just set on the throne his kingdom in the third year of his reign he made a feast unto all his princes and his servants and the power of Persia and media the nobles and the princesses of the province being before him and he showed the riches of his glorious Kingdom and the honor of his excellent majesty many days even a hundred fourscore date are a hundred and eighty they are six months of they celebrated the riches and the splendor of this entire Empire oh praise God you talk about a feast there has never been a feast quite like this feast praise God and then the scripture says that there came a time when that that they had drank in abundance that he called for his wife to come in and he wanted to show his kingdom off to the people and he wanted to show his wife off to the whole world oh praise God vast I was the queen and upon her head was the crown royal praise God many years ago before the Ayatollah Khomeni captured Iran in the revolt and the Islamic revolt of the Shah of Iran was the king of Iran and it was during his reign that that he had a display of the crown jewels of Iran many of you may have read Vista from The Reader's Digest many of you may have visited the museum's when they brought the Shahs jewels of from Persia or from Iran on to the United States and he had one breastplate that had the crown jewels on it and he had a crown that was one of the most expensive jewel crowns in the history of the world and that was the crown that vast I wore because she was the wife of the king praise God how did vest tie even become the life of the king and we find that she became queen the same way that Esther became the Queen later on praise God there was all the virgins of a hundred and twenty seven conquered nations came to Shushan the palaces and they were given oils of purification and oils of sanctification and and they was kept for one year and for six months they was bathed in myrrh and then the next six months they was bathed in the sweet incense oils and when the end of the year came all the virgins came before a group of Chamberlain's and a select group of him was chosen and then they marched before the king and the King selected his bride after a year of purification and that was how that style became the Queen and how she had the put up on her head amen now I'm just gonna share something with you the Bible says that the church is the Bride of Christ we are without spot
we are without blemish and we are without wrinkle praise God when God decides to show something all to the world all he has to show off is the Bride of Christ and the crown jewels of of his kingdom to the whole world praise God you know what God wants to bless you is because he wants to show his bride off and he doesn't want to show a hag off he wants to show the most beautiful thing that he has ever created praise God I'm trying to preach a normal sermon but the spirit of prophecy has come upon me again tonight praise God God wants to bless his church hallelujah can I tell you that God is on your side every good gift cometh down from the Father of lights with in whom there is no variable sun neither shadow of turning he is not going to change his modus operandi he wants to bless his people hallelu he's not gonna put sickness on you if you're sick afflicted or diseased God did not give that to you hallelujah well I feel like preaching praise God if you're afflicted God didn't do that to you he has an enemy that will try to destroy him and that's when I get sick I don't mind standing and telling you that I pray against the sickness in the name of Jesus I find my enemy praise God I pray against my enemy bring upon my enemy can using a faces even asunder son why God wants to show his church all he wants to bless his church he's on your side can I have a Tina and God is going to bless this church hallelujah Amen some have said that the king was was somewhat inebriated or he was a little bit drunk when he called for Vashti to show her off before all the kingdom I don't believe that for one moment of time I believe he knew exactly what he was doing he wanted to let the hundred and twenty-seven nations that he was the king over to note everything is all right we have got money we have got everything that we need and and we are a blessed people praise God and yet vast I refuse to come out of her chamber and to be presented to the hundred and twenty seven nations praise God in the purification process not only was she purified from any blemish that was in her but for one year she was taught how to be a queen she knew what was expected of her that's why the King put upon her the crown jewels of the entire kingdom amen and when all the princes and the nobles and the important people of a hundred and twenty seven nations were gathered there he wanted the nation's to know we're not going down Oh Lord I feel the Holy Ghost can I just share with you this church is not going down I feel the Holy Ghost this church is not going under this church is not going to bow to the world can I tell you I don't care what goes on out there I know what's going on in here and that is the Lord is going to bless his people and she refused to show off the splendor of the kingdom to the people that had a right to see BC for just a moment why after a year of being taught how to be a queen did she become stubborn now this
is an amazing story folks I'll have wrestle with this over and over when I when I read the history of how the King received his Queen he didn't put rags on and walk out in the marketplace and try to find a pretty girl to go to bed with whoever became his queen had to learn how to be queen and she refused after she was selected after she went through that bitter year of education and purification when the crown was placed on her head when the breastplate and the jewels was put on her not only was her natural beauty in all of this but the beauty of the kingdom was upon her you can imagine him selecting the most beautiful woman in a hundred and twenty seven nations but then to make her one bit higher than that by putting the crown jewels upon her can I have it amen and and through this process these grueling hours these days of sacrifice that the days of our just studying and and and and an isolation and now she started realizing I may get to be queen I may get to be queen and and and and she was taught every detail of the King's life he had not she had not seen him up into this point but yet she was expected to fall in love with someone she had never seen just from studying every detail of his life and when the crown was placed upon her head all she had was just a glimpse of him a few moments with him and the crown was put on her head and if she walked back to her chambers ever so delicately ever so princely like and she could feel the crown on her head something happened to her in the process of being married to the king she fell in love all right but she fell in love with the crown and the jewels more than the king himself nobody knows what was in her heart she coveted that crown and she coveted that position of Queen but she can never force herself to fall in love with the king sale praise God big day something when you are born again he puts a crown on you I'm telling you he blesses you he gives us healing the Bible says by His stripes we are healed we are sanctified we are cleansed we are delivered can I have an amen we get to come to the house of God our lives are changed we're no longer drug addicts and alcoholics and sinners and God starts blessing us so we don't have to drive and all we can forward anymore God can bless us with automobiles and with houses and good things we no longer have to rake and scrape for something to eat but it gives us good ping see and the first thing you know we fall in love with a house and we fall in love with the car and we fall in love with the clothes and we fall in love with the restaurants and we fall in love with all the things that he has given us but we got to remember those are only things we've got to fall in love with him hallelujah the Holy Ghost spoke to me at the first of this year he said my people love what I do for them but I've not what I walk I walked in the fall in love with me amen when the Queen when the King requested that vice.com
she has worn the crown so long and it fits her head so perfect and the and and the and the and the breastplate of jewels has fit her so good and she has looked in the mirror and not only saw her personal beauty but has seen the beauty of the kingdom itself that it went to her head all of a sudden she didn't fall in love with the king that gave but she fell in love with the riches of the kingdom she fell in love with the things of the kingdom and she got lifted up in her own heart and felt like that she was too important to answer the beckoning of the king praise God I've been pastoring for 28 years I have seen God bring people out of the gutter I was when I was in college I was a soul winner and I never will forget finding a man he was a mechanic of sorts and he was unemployed and lived in a housing project had a wife and four children and they were fighting like cats and dogs they were sinners personified and I don't know how I came across him but I started talking to them about coming to church that God would bless them and I brought them the house of God I never will forget when they went to the altar and they prayed through and and and and their children prayed through and got all of them got baptized in the precious name of Jesus hallelujah and God started changing their life from that very moment praise God the people at church helped him and he was able to get his automotive certificate tells him he's a trained technician and he got in with a company and got a wonderful job and instead of making it down money he started making the best money of any mechanic in the area and and the first thing you know they had a nice car and and I never will forget rejoicing with him when they was able to buy their first home and they had overcome bankruptcy and and they was able to buy a home and get a mortgage and God started blessing praise God it was virtually unbelievable how much God started blessing this family and it would sit right here on the second row on the right-hand side and when the song would start they would praise the Lord and they would dance and the Holy Ghost they were the first one to come up and pray for people that needed healing and first one to pray for people that needed the Holy Ghost if he got involved in Sunday school and in bus ministry praise God and and God just kept my blessing and kept a blessing and kept my blessing praise God but there came a time when they fell in love with the blessings and they forgot the one they were supposed to love they became important in the congregation people that did not know where they came from would go to them for advice and and go to him for a job because he became the boss and had men under him and and and and and and nobody knew where he came from and and and that's alright people don't know how to have to know where you came from you cannot forget where God brought you from you can't forget where he brought you from you're not getting the point do you understand where God brought you from and what you were and where you were going if we're gonna have a breakthrough we cannot forget where God brought us from he got oh the Deacon board was a part of the governing body of the church the preacher became his best friend and and and the preacher started leaning on him and the mid Testament God knows every pastor needs people they can lean on and when the preacher leans on you and depends on you you better not let that go to your head all he's doing is acknowledging that God has brought you a long way my god I feel the Holy Ghost in this house hallelujah one day the preacher asked the board for some advice and and this man was willing to give advice after all look where I've come from look what I've done I picked my own self up by the bootstraps
it wasn't God doing it anymore it was him doing it best I don't you know where you came from you were so far down that God didn't even record the people you came from it was only a little teenage virgin and when they went out to all the 127 provinces to find a wife for the King the law of the Medes and Persians said everybody had an opportunity to become the bride well y'all missed a good one on that one the law of the Medes and Persians said every virgin in the provinces had a right to become the bride can I have an amen did the Lord tell you whosoever will let him come and take of the waters of life freely she could have been the daughter of a peasant farmer and Timbuktu somewhere she didn't come from the nobleman family she didn't come from the wealth of the kingdom she was just a young lady that was chosen by the seven men that ruled the kingdom with the king and she found favor and their site and they elevated her over and over again but when the crown was put on her head she forgot where she came from now let me just share this with you if you will not forget where God brought you from you will never get bitter at what happens in life did you hear what I said if you won't forget where God brought you from his boundless love will overflow you to the nth degree if you won't forget where he brought you from the Spirit of the healing will abide in your home can I have it a man if you won't forget where you came from I'm in teza God wants to bless you more than you could possibly imagine the pastor took the advice of some of the other board members rather than this man's suggestion and he became offended because the preacher did not take his counsel and he started missing church I asked I said what where was you at Sunday night well I was there Sunday morning that ought to be enough for the church and I knew something was wrong and he got where he started missing Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night and maybe come once or twice a month to church where the church used to pay his house rent and put gas this car and helped him find jobs he got where he paid big tide to the church big money to the church and he quit paying his tithe to the house of the Lord the preacher makes too much money I've heard that so much that I'm sick there is no way in this earth that you can pay this man what he's worth you don't pay him for what he does you pay him because of who he is he got the place where he felt like he could never backslide he was too important and then one day he quit coming to church all together and then one day he lost his job then one day him his wife separated and got back together and then one day they got desperate and they tried to sell their own children for dollars oh because he forgot where
he came from can I have an amen let me tell you something vast I had it made but she fell in love with the gold more than the giver of the gold can I have an email when you come the house of God you got to make it a lifestyle a praise if you're only serving God because He healed you one time someday you're gonna get sick if you only serving him because he can heal you and you don't get healed you'll be out the door praise God he doesn't want you here just because he can heal you he wants you here because he loves you and he wants you to fall in love with him praise God if you only love him because you have money in your pocket and you have money in the bank and you have an automobile and you have a home what are you going to do when you lose those things because that's not what really counts so you can fall in love with those things but you better fall in love with him that gives those things praise God the key to a breakthrough in Alabama is we got to fall back in love with the Lord Jesus Christ if you can just remember where he brought you from hallelujah let's all stand list let's just lift our hands here for just a moment hallelujah for God so loved the world that's not the question of whether or not God loves you can we love him the way he deserves our love praise God can you reach up and take the crown off of your head for just a moment and look back where God brought you from hallelujah who are you that God would look down and find you and send somebody to you and bring you to the house icon and show you the truth of his word and you get baptized in the name of Jesus and he fill you with the Holy Ghost hallelujah hallelujah let me let me close let me close with this my father was not in the church my mother was a backslider from the time she was 16 years old my dad in 1942 was clearing new ground with a crosscut saw and a double bit ax and as he fell a tree it jacked and come across his back and crushed his back and his pelvis and his legs and he laid in a full body cast in the Charity Hospital in Louisiana for one year my mother and my father were sharecroppers my mother never knew what a nice pair of shoes was she picked the cotton and when the last Bell of cotton winning the trailer she had my brother she was pulling a child laying on a cotton sack a nine foot cotton sack to the cotton fields with a bottle and was pregnant with another baby my dad swore I will never go back to the house of God and from 1940 - he never went back to church I was born in 1949 and my mom and dad had 11 children and we was not raised in the house of God they never one time took us to the house of God
when I went to college and my first roommate said praise the Lord I looked at him and I thought of all the people I could room with I'm in the room with a nut he spread up rug on the floor and got down every night and knelt on that rug and print and it didn't bother me him praying but when he would call my name every demon I had would rise up in me I went to church with him one night to get him off my back when I walk in that church the Holy Ghost was waiting for me I found myself and the altar never intending to get saved never intended to pray a prayer and he saved me I'm preaching in Birmingham Alabama tonight I'm preaching in one of the best churches in this whole state and I asked myself who in the world am I that God would let me preach in such a wonderful church why did God give me a wonderful church to Pastor why has God blessed me with four beautiful children why has God blessed me with seven beautiful grandchildren why is God blessed me Who am I that he would choose me when I get to look at where he brought me from and what I could have been the Holy Ghost revealed to me a number of years ago that I was supposed to have died in the rice paddies of Vietnam I was drafted I was inducted in the army I went to Shreveport Louisiana to the induction Center and took my physical at that time everybody was drafted was sent to Tigerland Fort Polk Louisiana and then straight to Vietnam I passed the physical I went in to see the doctor he said are you have any sicknesses and I said no sir are you afflicted I I said no sir he said you take any medication I said no sir picked up that seal to get ready to stamp approved he said have you ever taken any medication I said no sir I said when I was a child I had a convulsion one time and the doctor gave me a pill and a prescription I took two or three pills and never took it again he said what kind of pill I said I don't have a clue he said can you describe that pill to me and I said yes sir it was a little purple pill with a little white band around it I said but I only took two or three of them recent and his desk and brought out a medical book turned over to all the drugs and said is this the peel right here I said that looks like it he said that's called dilantin he's stamped unfit for military service I said oh this ain't fair I said I'm not sick nothing wrong with me he I said I had a high fever and I had a convulsion and and the doctor didn't what was wrong so we gave his prescription I took two or three pills he said unfit for military service I will never forget when the Vietnam War was over they built the the granite wall in Washington DC and I told brother Ron Libby I said I want you to take me to the wall and I went to that wall and I laid my hands on all the names on that wall I looked so carefully for my name on that wall I was I was supposed to have died in Vietnam I'm not even supposed to be here there was a couple standing there they were old enough to be my mother and father and they had their hands on a name and I walked up to him and I said is that your son they said yes so how
old was he he was 19 I said my name's supposed to be on that wall and God spared me I said would you let me pray for you and your wife and we held hands on that name and I pray for them why would I not want to love Jesus why would I want to let things be more important to me than Jesus why would I want to get involved with things what called me to be bitter and ugly fast I why did you forget where you came from father in the name of Jesus help us to lay aside everything right now amp us to close our eyes and lift our hands and say Lord let me fall in love with you again God wants to give you a breakthrough this year he's blessed you to bring you to this place of a breakthrough anybody want to come and stand with me tonight and fall in love with him all over again don't be weary and well Dewey for in due season we shall reap if we faint none haha he has blessed you even now he am baptizing you with the spirit of soul vote or Rihanna aha he loved it that's just praising folks it's gotta be a lifestyle with us see he's wonderful
Hey praise the Lord if you would just turn to somebody continue to pray and love the Lord lay your hands one first knit that heart together see if you know how good god has been to you why don't you turn to one person then pray the blessings of God on them just because bossman so kotero pray blessing and goodness and increase and riches we Oh once more can we just love him with all of our heart go ahead and give him a break we magnify the name Almighty God worship Jesus