World Religions Study

We thank you Lord God. That term hallelujah has become such a a big part of our uh religious vocabulary I guess. And yet in the New Testament it's only used four times. It only occurs four times in the New Testament. That's in the book of Revelation. And uh and but in the Old Testament, it simply meant praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. And that's why it has I believe crept into our vocabulary in such a great way and entrenched itself because uh that's what we have been called to do out of darkness into a marvelous light that we should show forth the praises of him.

Praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Amen. God is so good. You may be seated. We are going to uh launch here tonight, I believe, into a new uh a new series. Uh I'm not even certain of the name of this series. I think it it it sounds like comparative religions or something somewhat. But um we're going to talk about the oneness aspect of Pentecostalism which is uh kind of probably in all of our wheelhouses. We we love the oneness of God. Uh and and we're going to talk about that a little bit about the distinctives of the apostolic movement.

There are three main branches of Christianity uh that that under the umbrella of Christianity that call themselves Christians. The Roman Catholic Church has about 1. 3 billion members and uh the Eastern Orthodox Church has about 250 million members. The Protestants, which is kind of a misnomer, we're not really protesting anything anymore, but there are almost a billion, there are some 900 million Protestant denominations in the world. Worldwide Pentecostals are estimated to be at about uh 280 million people. Of oneness believers there are and these estimates vary maybe 40 million oneness believers, apostolic believers worldwide.

So we are uh we are not a majority among Pentecostals. modern Pentecostalism. And stay with me while I get through all the dry stuff because I really want to answer a question tonight that um that maybe you have never asked yourself, maybe you have. I've wondered about these things u about how uh our relationship with with other denominations within Pentecostal circles and uh why is if if if they don't have uh the truth right if they don't have all the truth then how do how do how how is it possible that I can go I I've been in Assembly of God churches I've even preached in Assembly of God churches and worshiped with them.

And the worship was tremendous. It was it was great worship. And and so we it can it can cause us to pause and think, uh, okay, if they're so wrong, then how can God bless all of that? Stay with me. January 1st, 1901, Topeka, Kansas. You're familiar with this. Charles Pum had a Bible school out there. And he had uh he had told some of the students to search the scriptures and find out uh if if there was anything to this New Testament experience called the day of Pentecost.

And and uh we know that on January 1st, 1901, Agnes Oman, one of the students, received the Holy Ghost. evidence with speaking with other tongues as the spirit of God gave her the utterance. This was the beginning of the modern Pentecostal movement as far as denominations are concerned. And then from there it moved to Los Angeles, California, the Isuza Street Revival by uh headed by uh William Seymour. And uh we we saw there great miracles taking place and and uh great great evidences of the spirit of God moving and they actually became the Pentecostals and to uh from Isusa street it moved to a nation it spread across this nation and then it spread to the world.

Oneness Pentecostalism on the other hand was a was a revelatory development of what came out of both the peak of Kansas and Isusa Street. And so uh in about 1930 in a royal seco California at a camp meeting uh a man by the name of uh I forget his name now Charles shape I I think that was his name and he got this revelation uh about the oneness of God and about about the baptism uh in Jesus' name the preeminence of Jesus name as he searched the scriptures he said I can't find a single place were they ever baptized any other way other than in Jesus' name or in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so uh it just continued on. Uh I'm not going to go into all the history, but there were riffs in organizations. The newly uh uh formed Assembly of God was one of the one of the Pentecostal organizations. Many of our UPCI, what uh eventually became the UPCI, uh preachers came out of that assemblies of God uh rift and uh these newly revealed doctrines became reasons for total splits in organizations and and so uh they they generally come to be known as Pentecostal. When we say Pentecostal, it is a big umbrella.

There are all kinds of beliefs under the Pentecostal umbrella. But I want to talk about, and this was my assignment tonight to talk about our oneness distinctives, the apostolic distinctives that we have as oneness Pentecostals. And I I I'm going to try to hit some of these points rather quickly. So, just hop on the freight train and let's go. Number one is the doctrine of holiness. The doctrine of holiness. Uh this this all began way back in the the 15th 16th even earlier than that actually.

But it began in that reformation period when when things begin to change. Everything up to that point practically had been the Catholic Church. That was the big thing. Martin Luther was the golden boy of the Catholic Church. And then he got the bright idea. He said,"I cannot reconcile the holiness of God and the depravity of man. I just can't do it." And he got a hold of the scripture from Habachok that says, "And the just shall live by his faith." And he grabbed on to that and he said, "That's the key.

Faith is the key." Solid solar scriptor. Only faith and only scripture. And that's what uh that's what reconciles man to God. You know this the rest of the story. I guess in the reformation period there was John Calvin. He was he was a pious man, but he didn't all together have it uh right either. He he actually had people killed if they disagreed with him uh on on doctrine. So he wanted to set up in Geneva, Switzerland, he wanted to set up a a government that was basically a theocratic form of government.

and uh and and from all of this movement in in the reformation period there there was a group of people called Puritans or separatists and and of all things of all things uh all of these confessions going on. They they said we shouldn't just be saying things. We ought to actually be living out our salvation experience. We ought to be living up to the word of God, not just professing to do these things. And so, uh, they they upset the apple cart, especially in the church of England, the Puritans.

King Charles was he he said, "I I will drive you people into the ocean." So, they just got on the boat and they came to America instead. And and they started settling the colonies here in America. the Puritans, the separatists, what became known as the Quakers, and some of those groups. They settled here. There there were the Wesley brothers, Charles and John Wesley, who uh who brought about they believed uh in the transforming power of grace. But when you got the transforming power of grace that it would sanctify you both inwardly and outwardly.

Imagine that. morality and modesty. They believed that you would you would have a holiness both inward and outward. Now, some people want to argue against this holiness. That's all Old Testament stuff, right? We don't we don't agree with that because really when you look at it the the uh the only scriptures that that primitive church had from the day of Pentecost was the Old Testament. That's all they had. It was their Bible. And so people want to argue this point today and say, "Well, God looks at the heart."

So I can it doesn't matter what I look like, what I dress like, what you know these things outwardly don't matter because and and that's taken from 1st Samuel 16:7 when when you know the story he was uh at David's house. Samuel Samuel was at David's house got all the brothers together looked at them and he was choosing the best of the the litter. You know I'm going to choose the tallest one, the strongest one, the best looking one. And and God said, "It's none of them.

It's that boy that's taking care of sheep out there in the sheep coat. He's the one that I've got my hand on." And he gave this principle. Everybody say, "It's a principle." God looks at the heart. And man looks at the outward. That's a principle. Because I can't see your heart. That's how I judge you. outwardly. It's a human characteristic. It's a human trait. He wasn't decrying the fact. He wasn't criticizing the fact. He was merely stating a fact that God can look at your heart, but everybody else here is going to be looking at your outward appearance.

That's how we judge things. Appearance is how we perceive things. Outward holiness is a statement of inward transformation. I I wrote down this quote from myself. Thank you very much. Evil may present itself as good, but good will never present itself as evil. So there can be hypocrites who may be evil that present themselves as good but good can never present itself as evil. Make sense? Can't happen. So outward is important. Holiness outward and inward is very important. to illustrate this this inward outward relationship just a just to drive a point home.

If you don't believe in outward holiness, you think it's nothing. Go home, take all the labels off of the cans in your pantry. You're going to have some interesting dinners. I'll guarantee you because the contents are displayed on the label. What's on the outside tells you what's on the inside. So the label should agree with the contents. What's out here should agree with what's on the inside. The outside is how my perception is developed. You know, you go buy a car and and the the thing that catches your eye is it's red.

It's got a air foil on it. Yeah. Come on. You look at the hour. You don't go now. Tell me what kind of material did they use in these pistons? What was the process exactly when they put these wiring harnesses on this car? You don't care about the process. You're looking at the car. You're looking at the outward appearance. Why? Because it's how we judge things. And yet when it comes to holiness, people want to say it don't matter. It does matter. Outward is it shapes our perception and catches our eye.

I'm going to hurry on. Number two, that that's one distinct thing. The the number two is the oneness of God among apostolics is a distinctive. Now to the Old Testament Jew, this was not a developed doctrine. People want to tell you well there is a development of doctrine and there is about certain things. I I I'm reading a book called the development of doctrine and it talks about these things. Doctrine is developed sometimes over years. But to the Old Testament Jew, it was not a development of doctrine.

It was a direct statement by God himself. When he spoke directly to Noah, when he spoke directly to Abraham, he said, "I am God. I am God. When he spoke to Isaac, he said, I am the God of Abraham. When he spoke to Jacob, he said, I am the God of Jacob or or Isaac and Abraham. It was not a developed doctrine. It was a direct revelation from God himself. This was not something that they had to figure out for themselves. So when God brings them out of Egypt, the shama that's spoken in Deuteronomy 6 and verse 4 was not a development of doctrine.

When he said, "I am the Lord thy God," they developed this statement that said, "Here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one." It wasn't a statement about the unity of three persons in one God. It was a statement about the singularity of that God. There was no God before me. There's no God after me. There's no God be beside me. There is nothing above me. There is everything beneath me. I'm the one that has all power. It was a statement not about the unity of some heavenly committee.

It was a statement about the absolute singulness of God himself. They didn't struggle like some people struggle with manifestations of God. They didn't look at the cloud that was over the tabernacle and say God the cloud. They didn't look at the pillar of fire and go, "Oh no, God the cloud has disappeared and God the pillar of fire now exists." Or when the glory of God would come down in the tabernacle, where' the cloud go? God the cloud, where are you? God the pillar of fire, where are they?

didn't they didn't have any issues with the manifestations of God the way that he presented himself to them. It didn't say there's one person in the cloud and one person in the fire and one person in the shikina. It was to them this one true and living God. The one God that they declared is our God. He is one person. We use persons, right? It's how they explain the trinity. Person wasn't their struggle. They didn't they didn't wrestle with this vocabulary because there was no word person.

If you read the Old Testament, the majority of times when you read even person, it is nephesh. It means soul. In other times it would mean face but it is never describing just an individual. It talks about a man or it talks about him as a human. So they didn't struggle with persons. That was a late development in the Latin language that was used of Roman theatrics. It was applied to an actor who would put on a mask and present himself as other than what he really was.

To the Jews, stay with me. To the Jews, God wasn't wearing a mask. He was a God of revelation. He was showing them who he was. He was the invisible God who revealed himself in different terms. So Jehovah Shama is the same as Jehovah Ni and Jehovah Shalom is the same as Jehovah Rafikica and Jehovah Rafa. And that they're all the same to in the Jewish mind. He was that invisible God, the one true and living God, but he was revealing himself in different aspects of himself.

Here's what the monkey wrench in the machinery was. When Jesus comes into the world, it was the appearance of Jesus in the world that really threw everything out of kilter. The Jews who believed in one God now are listening to this man who said before Abraham was, I am. You're not even 50 years old. How can this be? And they knew that anybody using this kind of language was blaspheming and they wanted to kill him because he being a man was making himself god. They had that just reverse.

He being God came in the form of man. They could not see this the but the the the entirety of all trinitarian doctrine came about because this monkey wrench in the machinery man God coming in flesh. Now let me answer something here. When we use this terminology we say uh God became man. We think in terms and and this is way you think of becoming conversion. Spirit never became flesh. It cannot become flesh. Jesus gave this principle. He said that which is born of flesh is flesh.

That which is born of spirit is spirit. Spirit never became flesh. Spirit indwelt flesh. Spirit produced the miracle that produced the flesh. Mary gave him form, but the spirit gave him life. He didn't just get life. John said in him was life. The very source of life was in this man called Jesus Christ. But he presented a dilemma to the philosophical mind of man who had to find an explanation for this man called Jesus who claimed to be God. And so the answer that the Jews had was let's kill him.

Problem solved. Let's just kill him and bury him. And so they tried that. But on that third day, he stands up again and they said, "Hey fellas, you got a problem here. I am he that was dead and I live and behold I am alive forever more. And when he STOOD UP, HE STOOD UP WITH A DECLARATION. I have all P. THEY KNEW THAT THERE'S only one God who has all power. But Jesus said, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. And so the answer to the Jewish dilemma was crucify him and bury him.

The answer to the theologian's dilemma was let's explain and organize him. We'll just make things so complic that's what that's what scholars do. You know they obfiscate and complicate. educators elucidate and educate. There's a lot of scholars got involved in trying to explain and organize Jesus and God and and so they spent centuries trying to just explain this connection this relationship between this man who could be seen and that God who cannot be seen. So the answer to humankind's dilemma is not any of those. The answer to our dilemma as Jesus presenting himself was don't try to explain me and you don't have to understand everything about me.

All you got to do is believe that I am he. Because if you don't believe that I am he, you are going to die in your sins. centuries of debates and councils and convocations to determine the answer to Pilate's question. In Matthew 27 verse 22, Pilate saith unto them, what shall I then do then with Jesus which is called the Christ? What am I going to do with that's been the that's been the question of the ages. What do we do with Jesus? As long as he is an invisible God, there's only one God.

But all of a sudden, we got him in the flesh walking among men. And and so for centuries before that first century was over, heresies and theologies had arisen that were called as John called them antichrist. Antichrist was already existent. There were the gnostics and the dositus who uh conceded that Jesus even though he was here he must be a spirit because only spirit is good and all flesh is evil. Therefore he only appears to be a man but he's not really a man. I'm going to give you some of these what I call stupid arguments.

Constantine the emperor looked at things after the the great persecutions of the last uh 10 years. You know, Dialesian had had brought about great persecution and the Christians were just so glad to be rid of him when Constantine took the throne and you know the cross appeared in the heavens and and he heard a voice that said by this sign conquer and and he became a quotech Christian. Okay? And he said, "I got to resolve this controversy." Let me tell you something. When the government gets involved in this anything, it becomes a mess.

Particularly when the government Constantine steps in said, "I'm going to solve your problems in religion." Woo. Thank God for the founding fathers that that prepared this constitution and and said that Congress shall make no laws regarding the establishment of religion. We call it separation of church and state. But really we didn't need a government telling us about God. Constantine convenes a council and government got invol involved and you talk about some confusion. Go back and read some of the credle statements of some of those councils.

Aras and uh Justin Martyr, Origin, Tertullian, some of these what they they call uh church fathers, Austinine, they all sought the answer to putting God together be simply because Jesus had appeared on the scene. As long as God remained a spirit in the heaven, no issues. when he determined to interact with his creation, he created all kinds of issues. Now we have to decide as Pilate did what do we do with this person? Because there is a person in the Godhead and he's the only person in the Godhead and all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in that person of Jesus Christ.

Thank God for the oneness of God in which we still believe. We need to hold on to this doctrine right here. We're swimming upstream and the tide is against us. But we better hold on to this revelation here. O Israel, that same statement is true today. Here oh church the Lord our God is one not uni unified it is a singularity he is one God there is but one dealing with the relational terms such as father and son and I don't shy away from these and we shouldn't shy away from these father son and holy spirit or comforter and some of these terms terms.

Paul put them all together. Let me let me give you a scripture here. 1 Timothy 1:17 says this. Watch this. We can gloss things like this really easily. We just read through it. Now unto the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Okay. But look at what Paul did here. It was a stroke of genius. It was a stroke of genius. He put invisible and immortal. In order to become immortal, you must first be mortal. That means having a human existence.

He said he is both eternal which means that he has no beginning and no ending. He is timeless. But he said he is also immortal which means there is an aspect of him that came in the flesh to become human our king. Let me let me go on in 1 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 6. 1 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 6 he says this but to us he said there's gods many there's a whole lot of things that claim to be God and a whole lot of things that people make gods but he said to us to us oneness believers who know the king eternal and immortal we know who he is but to us there is one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and and we by him.

He makes no distinction here. He he can't contradict himself in this statement by naming two things but saying there's only one God. There's not two in one. There's not three in one. The only one there is is this one Lord Jesus Christ. He is the that is the name of the one God whom we oneness Pentecostals worship one God his name. This leads to the next point, the next distinctive of oneness Pentecostals, and that is the importance, the preeminence of that name that we just saw, Jesus Christ.

And it led us into the plan of salvation. And it becomes the critical issue. When Peter preached on the day of Pentecost in answer to a direct question from the crowd, they ask him this, "What shall we do?" Now, if we're not careful, we add things. we think we know stuff and and we'll we'll start reciting something and we'll say something like this. The crowd, the men said, "What must we do to be saved?" They didn't say that. They didn't say, "What must we do to be saved?"

They simply said, "What must we do?" Because Simon Peter has just preached them the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he he kind of puts the puts the point on it so fine that it says they were stabbed in their hearts. He convicted them when he said you crucified the king of glory. You crucified him. And they the question was okay what must we do? What are we going to do to get out under out from under this guilt of having crucified the king of glory? What shall we do?

And when Peter answered this question, how people have interpreted what Peter answered is what distinguishes apostolic oneness believers from most of the Christian world. It is our sugar stick as it were. It is our It is our lollipop. It's the It's the candy that we pass out all the time. Acts 2:38, right? Then Peter said unto them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Okay, we all know this, but this was in in answer to a direct question about what shall we do?

The interpretation of this has gone in so many directions. A and and when Peter preached the gospel, he had given them all the ingredients that went into the making of that gospel, the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And and so let let me try to illustrate this what I'm going to talk about in a in a non- theological nonacademic term. It's a challenge sometimes to break things down this way. But if I can if I can understand it, if I can get it into terms that I can understand, brother David, then I think anybody can understand it.

Okay. So anybody here cook? All right. In in cooking, in in cooking, you start with ingredients, you you you know, if if I if I give five of you flour and sugar and butter and milk and eggs and uh you know, the ingredients, if I give you this stuff, five of you would probably come up with different things. Some of you would make fried eggs, biscuits. You take the cocoa and put it in the milk and make chocolate milk and you'd have a good breakfast. Others going to make pancakes.

Others are going to mix those same ingredients and come up with a cake. And others be creative. Whatever. I'm giving you the ingredients and you can do with it what you want to do with it. The gospel of Jesus Christ is in every Christian church. The ingredient any Christian church will preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Otherwise, it's not a Christian church. That's the ingredients that the death, the burial, and the resurrection are the ingredients that make up the gospel. They are the ingredients of the gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection.

Let me hammer this home. Every Christian church starts on that foundation with the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's only one gospel. There's only one. All of them have it. Every church that you pass out there that is a Christian church has the same ingredients. But what they've done with them is different from church to church and and they think they have this latitude to do this. The these were the original tenets that Peter preached in Acts chapter 2. And in every place where the apostles went, they preached this same gospel.

Everywhere that people got saved, they were hearing about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Right? Everywhere. And Paul, let me let me just tell you something here. Philippians 1:es 15 to18. Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife and some also of good will. Verse 16, the one preached Christ of contention, not sincerely supposeding to add to my to add affliction to my uh bonds. Verse 17, but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel. Verse 18, what then?

He said, he said, you got all kinds of preachers out there. They got the same gospel. They got the same ingredients, but they're baking different things. Some are doing it from contention. Some want to do it for argument. Some with love. But he said, "Here's the deal. Let him preach. Let him preach. Because notwithstanding every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached. And I therein do rejoice, yay, and will rejoice. In another bold statement, I got to hurry on. In another statement, Paul wrote in Galatians 1:8, "But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed."

So what's the deal? Every Christian church is preaching Jesus Christ. They got the same ingredients. They're they're they're preaching the same gospel. death, burial, resurrection, they got the same thing. How then do they come to so many different conclusions and have so many different results? How do they because it's how they interpret and present that gospel that's different. The product of those ingredients that I just gave you is determined by how they are interpreted and how they are mixed. So you have the latitude to take those ingredients and do with them what you want to do.

But Peter and all the apostles of the first century interpreted the same way the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They didn't they didn't cook things up their own way. And here's why. Because Simon Peter, go back to Acts 2:38. Let's look at it again. Simon Peter had just preached the gospel, the death, the burial, and the resurrection. He said, "Here's the ingredients. Now, I'm not going to let you all cook what you want to cook, right? And the way I'm going to prevent that is I'm going to give you a recipe.

If you follow the recipe, the ingredients that I just gave you of the gospel, the death, burial, and the resurrection, follow these instructions right here, and people will get saved. Repent, be baptized. And he Paul would go ahead and and he would draw a correspondence to some things. I again I may get done here or not. Uh but but anyway, in order to keep every cook from making their own concoction, Simon Peter says, "I'm going to give you all the same recipe to use every time the gospel is preached."

When you tell them about the death, burial, and resurrection, you tell them about repentance, baptism in Jesus' name, and receiving the Holy Ghost that corresponds to every element of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The issues arose when men begin to improve on the recipe, when they begin to alter the ingredients and they begin to debate these things. doctrinal disputes arose about the ingredients and the recipe. Some of them said, "All we got to do is believe. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved."

That's not what the recipe calls for. Some say believe and be baptized. Well, you have to do that, but that's not following the recipe. It's not doing what the recipe calls for. Uh, do I have to speak in tongues to be saved? know you don't have to get spots to get measles, but it helps me to know that you got measles if you got the spots. Hallelujah. So, Matthew 28:19 was up there pre-ervice. Jesus Jesus speaking says, "Go into all the world and baptize them." And here here's the confusion, folks.

Baptize them in the name of the father and son, holy ghost. And and religionists want to say, "Well, who you going to believe? You going to believe Simon Peter?" Let me tell you something. Peter says, "I've given you, you know, I've given you the ingredients here, the gospel, death, burial, and resurrection." It's like I, brother Everett, I give you the recipe and I give you the ingredients and I say that you got to put the egg in with the flour. Not anybody in their right mind would take the whole egg shell and all, put it in with the flour, crunch it up, and start mixing it together.

because implicitly you would understand what I meant when I said put the egg in. So when Simon Peter interpreted along with all the apostles what Jesus had said in the name of you know that the there's three parts to the egg. There's a shell, there's a white, there's a yolk, but you're not putting everything. You understand what I mean by saying put the egg in. And when Jesus said, "Baptize them in the name," they knew exactly because he had told him, "You've been so long with me and you've looked at me, if you've known me, you've known the Father."

Hallelujah. How critical is baptism in the baptismal farmer? I got two minutes. Stay with me. Two minutes. How critical is this baptismal form? I don't even want to ask for a show of hands. Do you believe that there are people going to heaven who have not been baptized in Jesus' name and receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost? We got to dispel some ideas here because like I said at the onset, I've been in churches where I see them shout. They don't have the fullness of the truth.

They have they have messages in tongues. They have the gifts of the spirit in operation, but they have not followed the recipe. I am not attracted at all to that. I'll worship with anybody that wants to worship, but I am not about to run off from this doctrine because baptism in the name of Jesus Christ is absolutely essential to our salvation. Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Very quickly now my answer is there was in Exodus 12 38 in the account of the Exodus there was a mixed multitude that came out of Egypt with Israel.

I'm going to I'm going to upset some apple carts here. right now. Not all of them came out under the blood. It was a mixed multitude. There were people there who were not Jews that came out of Egypt. They came with them. The thing that made Israel Israel was not just their heritage from Abraham. It was the fact that they were put in covenant. And that covenant included the ritual of circumcision among the males. That's what put you in covenant with God. There were those who came out of Egypt who were not a part of that covenant group.

They enjoyed the miracles. They ate the mana. They ate the the dr. They saw the glory of God. They saw all of that. But let me tell you something. Baptism is equated in the New Testament to that circumcision covenant in the Old Testament. So when Joshua gets to the borders of Canaan, he said, "Ain't nobody going in before we perform this ritual again. Ain't nobody outside of the covenant, no uncircumcised are going into the promised land. You can read in Joshua chapter 5. Let's stand. I I'm closing down.

In Joshua chapter 5, you say, "What is the point here?" I'm talking about there are people who walked with Israel, saw all the miracles, enjoyed all the blessings of God, but they could not go into the promises of God until they fulfilled a covenant ritual. In the Old Testament, it was circumcision. In the New Testament, it is baptism. You inherit not because you're Abraham's seed. You inherit because you are in the covenant with God. And it's baptism in the name of Jesus that allows you to inherit the promises of God.

Ain't nobody going to heaven that is not a part of Jesus body. That's bold. That's not harsh. It is absolute truth. Before we inherit the promises of God, you've got to go enter into the covenant of God. And part of that covenant is baptism in the name of Jesus. I'm telling you, we had better cling to this with everything we got. We better hold on to this in the face of pluralism in our culture today. Uh a culture that says everybody's going to heaven. We're just walking different paths.

We're all going the same direction. Yes, there are churches that are being blessed. Yes, God pours out his blessing on them as well as he does us. But nobody is going to inherit who has not become a part of the covenant people of God. Repentance, baptism in Jesus' name, and the infilling of the spirit of God. That's what it takes to come into the covenant. Professor Harvey Cox, Harvard School of Divinity, he wrote a book called Fire from Heaven. And he talking about baptism in Jesus' name and those oneness Pentecostals and he said they only baptize in Jesus' name and they are right.

They are right. Thank God. I'm glad I know who Jesus is. I'm glad I've been buried in the name of the Lord. I'm glad that I have come into the covenant relationship with my God because one day I'm going to be the heir of all that God has promised because I have followed the recipe that Simon Peter gave. Let's just thank the Lord together. Thank you Lord for the blessing of salvation. Thank you Lord. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus. Amen. Amen.