Holy Ghost Meetings

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

“Azusa Street Holy Ghost Meetings” by Frank Bartleman.

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Brother Seymour generally sat behind two empty shoe boxes, one on top of the other. He usually kept his head inside the top one during the meeting, in prayer. There was no pride there. The services ran almost continuously.

Seeking souls could be found under the power almost any hour, night and day. The place was never closed nor empty. The people came to meet God. He was always there. Hence a continuous meeting. The meeting did not depend on the human leader. God’s presence became more and more wonderful.

In that old building, with its low rafters and bare floors, God took strong men and women to pieces, and put them together again, for His glory. It was a tremendous overhauling process: Pride and self-assertion, self importance and self-esteem, could not survive there. The religious ego preached its own funeral sermon quickly.

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No subjects or sermons were announced ahead of time, and no special speakers for such an hour. No one knew what might be coming, what God would do. All was spontaneous, ordered of the Spirit. We wanted to hear from God, through whoever He might speak. We had no “respect of persons.” The rich and educated were the same as the poor and ignorant, and found a much harder death to die. We only recognized God: All were equal. No flesh might glory in His presence.

He could not use the self-opinionated. Those were Holy Ghost meetings, led of the Lord. It had to start in poor surroundings, to keep out the selfish, human element. All came down in humility together, at His feet.

They all looked alike, and had all things in common in that sense at least.

_

Frank Bartleman in “How Pentecost Came to Los Angeles (1925)

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William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

The End Is Near!

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

Here is a fun joke about the end times. 

A priest and a rabbi from local parishes were standing by the side of the road holding up signs. The rabbi’s read, "The End is Near!" The priest, on the other side of the road, held up a sign which read, "Turn before it’s too late!" They planned to hold up their signs to each passing car.

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 "Get a job." The first driver yelled. The second, immediately behind the first, yelled, "Leave us alone you religious freaks"! Shortly, from around the curve, they heard screeching tires and a splash followed by more screeching tires and another splash. The rabbi looked over at his companion and said, "Do you think we should try a different sign"? The other man responded, "Perhaps, ’Bridge Out’ might be better"?

Scriptures: Matthew 24:4-13

Demons In Certain Regions

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

Here is an interesting article about spiritual warfare.

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DEMONS IN CERTAIN REGIONS.

Demons and evil spirits want to possess man so they can find the widest range of expression in this world. If they can't find embodiment in man, they'll take embodiment in animals as a second choice. The spirits in the fifth chapter of Mark said they wanted to go into the swine so they wouldn't have to go out of the country. Jesus gave them permission and they went into the swine.

MARK 5:9-12

"And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered,

saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.

And he besought him much that he would not send them

away out of the country.

Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great

herd of swine feeding.

And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into

the swine, that we may enter into them."

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We see from this Scripture that demons do like to gang up in certain parts of the world or certain countries. In traveling, it has been easy for me to discern what kinds of spirits are in a locality. I can drive through a city and know what spirits predominate there. Sometimes there are immoral or occult spirits, or spirits promoting foreign religions. Small towns — not just large cities — can have spirits ruling over them, too.

Spirits in the Church 

My wife and I were in a town visiting her relatives one time, and the pastor of the church there said he wanted me to preach. I was on the field in evangelism, and he kept asking me. Finally I told him I wasn't going to do it. 

He asked me if there were something wrong with him and his wife. I told him there wasn't. But I explained I didn't want to preach in that town unless God definitely told me to. I told him the town was full of reserved, conservative people, motivated by stingy devils and demons. I told him these demons had gotten into his church and that the people wouldn't support me if I went there.

His eyes got big and his mouth fell open, and he asked me if anyone had been talking to me. I told him no one but the Lord.

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Whatever kinds of spirits are in a city will get into the church, because there will be someone who will let them in. For instance, look at the Church at Corinth. Corinth was one of the most immoral cities of the East. This immoral devil got into the church. There was a man cohabiting with his father's wife. It had to be dealt with!

First Corinthians 5:1 tells us, "It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife."

Whatever spirits are predominant in a city will get into the church unless individuals and the church as a whole learn to stand against them. This minister decided to tell me some things. He said he had taken that church without promise of any set salary. Whatever came in as tithes and offerings on Sunday morning was to be his. The Sunday night and Wednesday night offerings would go for payments on the church building and utilities.

- Kenneth E Hagin ( The Origin and Operation of Demons ) 

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William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

Half A Christian?

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

Text:  Matthew 5:16;  Acts 1:8

 Spurgeon (1) wrote, " I think I may say to every person whom I am addressing,-If you are yourself saved, the work is but half done until you are employed to bring others to Christ. You are as yet but half formed in the image of your Lord. You have not attained to the full development of the Christ-life in you unless you have commenced in some feeble way to tell others of the grace of God; and I trust that you will find no rest to the sole of your foot till you have been the means of leading many to that blessed Saviour who is your confidence and your hope?

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Let us ask Him to give us grace to go a-fishing, and so to cast our nets that we may take a great multitude of fishes. Oh, that the Holy Ghost may raise up from among us some master-fishers, who shall sail their boats in many a sea, and surround great shoals of fish!"

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1. Spurgeon, Charles " Instruction In Soul Winning "

William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Author Page

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

The Power Of A Testimony

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

Here is a true story about the power of a testimony. Enjoy.

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He Preached Some Of His Best Sermons Through The Lips Of Other Men 

STAUNCH WILLIAM BOOTH was about his doctrine, he was just the opposite when it came to his methods. Given his aim of saving the lost, there were few things he wasn’t willing to try. In one meeting at which the crowd seemed to have little interest in his preaching, he decided to turn the floor over to a Gypsy hawker who had recently been saved. Almost as soon as this man started to give his testimony, the crowd was transformed and seemed to hang on his every word. From that day forward, testimonies from new converts were given at almost every meeting. 

William also started to delegate responsibility to new converts at each meeting. He found their enthusiasm to be contagious, and as they served at each gathering, prospective converts became even more receptive to the gospel message. It later became a saying in the Army that William preached some of his best sermons through the lips of other men. “He never monopolized the meetings. He made others help him—they were as much theirs, as his. This helped to make them attractive as well as effective.”

- God’s Generals ( The Revivalists ) 

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William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

You Can Be Forgiven

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

Text: John 1:9; Colossians 3:13. 

Gabrielle Carey is an Australian author most widely known for the movie Puberty Blues, based upon the book of the same title. In a later book, In My Father’s House Carey relates an incident that led to her conversion to Christ.

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 Carey was raised in an atheist humanist household. Her father was a university lecturer with a passionate commitment to the left side of politics. Throughout her upbringing he railed against oppression, capitalism and was a key figure in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam years. He also railed against God and the church, finding it impossible to believe in a God when the world was full of so much suffering.

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But that left Gabrielle tremendously burdened. In her book In My Father’s House she writes, "One of the hardest aspects of growing up as the daughter of a humanist was the worry of having to live up to incredibly high intellectual and moral standards. And worse, what happened when it was discovered that you hadn’t? Would you be given a second chance? Could you confess your weaknesses? Would you ever be forgiven? What would my father say if he found out that I was just another brainless, mind-moulded, media-manipulated failure to humanity?"

It was this burden of guilt Gabrielle found lifted when she converted to Christian faith. "Perhaps what I liked most about Catholicism" she writes, "or at the least the Catholicism the abbot had introduced to me, was knowing I could be wrong, knowing I could behave badly, awfully in fact, and that I would still be loved. That all I needed to do was own up and I’d be forgiven...At least with a Catholic God and father you could fail without feeling that it was the end of all hope. And that was such a relief."

Source: Scott Higgins, based on Carey’s In My Father’s House (Pan McMillan, 1992)

William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Author Page

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

Put First Things First

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

Here is an article about putting your spiritual health front and center.

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PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST.

The first Psalm is so beautiful and further confirms that God wants His people to prosper. 

PSALM 1:1-3:

1    Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 

2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. 

3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not 'wither; and whatsoever he  doeth shall PROSPER. 

So you see, God wants us to prosper. However, our  need is to evaluate things as they should be evaluated — to esteem earthly things lightly and to put first things first. 

Everyone thinks the preacher ought to be that way. 

For example, if a pastor happened to take the pastorate  of a church where he makes more money, many people would think, He just took that church so he'd be better paid. Yet they themselves would think nothing in the world about taking a better job! They would probably even think nothing about moving off to another location where there wasn't a good church — only one in which they'd all backslide! 

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Years ago back in the Depression days, I was in a particular town on business, and ran into a certain fellow on the street. He had a good job making good money, but he'd been offered a job in another town making $50 more a month. That was a lot of money back then. I knew many men with families who didn't even make $50 a month. But this gentleman was already making a good salary and had the chance to make an even better one. 

He told me, "Did you know I was moving?" 

He was a member of a Full Gospel church, and I happened to know that there wasn't a Full Gospel church in the town where he was moving. 

I said to him, "What kind of church is there in that town?" 

"What do you mean?" he asked. 

"Is there a Full Gospel church there?" I asked him. 

He answered, "I don't know; I never thought about it." 

I said, "No, you were only interested in the extra 

fifty dollars a month."

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 But wait a minute. 

"I knew you before you came into Pentecost. I happen to know that you'd spent all of your money on medical bills for your wife. Doctors thought she had cancer of the stomach. 

"But when she received the baptism of the Holy 

Ghost, without anybody even praying for her,she was healed. 

"I also happen to know that you had spent thousands of dollars on one of your sons who had a physical ailment. But since you began attending a church where divine healing is taught, your boy has been in good health." 

"Yes," the man said. 

"Well," I said, "I also happen to know that there's not a Full Gospel church in that town." (It would have been different if he had been to going to that town to start a Full Gospel church, but he wasn't. He wasn't capable of starting a church.) The man said, "You know, I never thought about that." 

I said, "You'd be taking your family out of a good Full Gospel church, where the Gospel is being preached and where you've been blessed immeasurably, all for fifty dollars more a month. I won't tell you not to do it, but I will tell you to pray about it." 

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The next time I saw this fellow, he said to me, "I'm not going; I don't believe it's worth it." 

Another man and his wife came to a meeting I was holding in Dallas. The woman's mother, who had gone to be with the Lord, was a member of a church I'd pastored years before. She had been a wonderful Christian and a great blessing to my wife and me. 

I knew that this wife hadn't always been a Christian. Years before when she would visit her mother, her mother told me she wasn't saved. But she had later gotten saved, received the Holy Spirit, and attended a fine Full Gospel church. 

But when I saw this woman with her husband at my meeting and asked, "Where do you attend church now?" the woman said, "Oh, we don't go anywhere." 

"What do you mean? I thought you were a member at such-and-such church." 

"Oh, there's not even a church there anymore," she answered. "It was closed down for a while until another pastor came and took over it. Then the pastor backslid and quit preaching. We just go here and there to church every so often. While you're in town, we're coming to your meetings." 

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I asked: "Well, where do you pay your tithes?" 

"We don't pay our tithes," she answered. "We used to pay them, but we quit. We used to pay our tithes to the pastor, but he backslid." 

"Well," I said, "you don't have to backslide just because he did." 

I didn't know whether they appreciated me telling them that or not, but I continued: "You need to get in a church somewhere and work for God and worship the Lord. You need to get hooked up instead of going from church to church." A rolling stone never gathers any moss. 

"Besides that, we need each other. We need the fellowship of one another." 

Someone said, "I can stay home and be as good a Christian as anybody." 

You can't do it. The Bible says, "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching" (Heb. 10:25). 

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We see that day approaching — the coming of the Lord. We need one another. No, we don't go to church because we're in love with the pastor or the pastor's wife or the Sunday school teacher. We should go to church because we love God and want to worship Him. 

Some people lose their children to the devil because the parents don't put first things first. The children grow up physically, and get away from God because the wrong example was set for them. But you can't just tell children what to do. The Bible says, "TRAIN up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Prov. 22:6). You have to set the right example. You have to be a person of faith yourself. Tb do that, you have to put first things first.

 

F. F. Bosworth said, "Some people wonder why they can't have faith for healing. They feed their body three hot meals a day, and their spirit one cold snack a week." 

Folks could have faith for healing or for anything the Word of God promises — prosperity, a healthy, happy family, long life — if they would just put first things first. 

Determine in your heart to put spiritual things first and to esteem earthly things lightly. Put God first, even before your own self. You'll be blessed spiritually, physically, and in every way — you and your family as well. 

ISAIAH 1:19 

"If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the 

good of the land."

Kenneth E Hagin ( Biblical Keys To Financial Prosperity)

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William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible