Transcript prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.
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Part 1: Sermon
Jones: (comes on in last of sentence, unintelligible) —always be around.
Voice: Right.
Jones: But each touched the Father. It’s important to you today. It’s very important, because October has its dangers. Synchronize around the numbers that I spoke to you about. (Tape off for two seconds) —(unintelligible) could destroy and kill, thinking they do God a service, as prophecy said, as they did to Jews, the chosen ones. And they’ll do it again. Then we have our Promised Land across the sea, where blessed places are prepared. So tonight’s service will be in Redwood Valley, Wednesday night’s service will be in Redwood Valley, very important — bless you, my brother, bless you — I’m going to be in Redwood Valley Wednesday night. How many will be here tonight in Redwood Valley with us, how many will be with us in Redwood Valley? Sister [Marceline] Jones will be back here next Sunday, I’ll be here Friday. She was here last night, she’s in Los Angeles today, just came back on a mission where great miracles were done for this cause. She’s been thousands of miles away.
There is one picture that you are to get. It is this picture. It was spoken by revelation last week. If you do not have it, have it. It is a picture of me, with the red sleeves, the blue robe, and the American flag above me, with certain hand motion. (Pause) They’ll know downstairs what it is. I’ve never said to have any one picture. This picture, I say everyone have. You’ve never heard me say it. So please take me seriously. I’m synchronizing around this picture against those voodoo, hexing and witchcraft, the white magic, all that so-called negative reversed conditioning, I’m w— putting my positive energy, and when I put it, honey, no hex can stay with you.
Congregation: Applause and cheers
Voice: Amen. (Voice too soft for several sentences)
Jones: (Off mike) Yes, they must be. (On mike) Shh! In the Promised Land, we found a great waterfall that they said was not there, and instinctively we knew was there, that my Spirit knew was there, and it was there, a great waterfall that will create all the electric power that we need. Brother Swi— Brother Swinney— Brother Swinney— Tim Swinney would’ve been killed, logs started rollin’ in on him, and he called my name, and he flipped over three times, went up in the air three times, and the rug— not one bit of harm came for all those rolls of (stumbles over words) of logs that broke loose. Not one bit of harm came to him. Another person had an ax head fall uh— be thrown off and it went right at them, and somehow it disappeared. Disappeared.
Voice: My God! Saved!
Congregation: Applause and cheers
Jones: Not one of our people have been harmed over there. Blessing. Brother Jackson, 94 years young [likely David Betts Jackson, 84 years old, according to passport], that’s in the Promised Land, working in our deed of permission that 27,000 acres across the sea, where we have a black president [likely Forbes Burnham, Guyana Prime Minister] and a white vice president— I mean, people of all races in the government, and no division. The police don’t even carry guns. Last night we had to get into a case where someone had been beat half to death by fellow policemen.
Voice: My, my, my.
Jones: It was taken care of, and I’m telling you, it’s getting worse every day. And the Boston police said, when it gets worse than some of the police that are working, it’s pretty bad. And the Boston police said, they have never seen anything like the hate in Boston. They had to save black man in from the streets, you know, this past few days. They blocked his car, beat the windows out, grabbed him out, when he was on his way to get his little child from a nursery, and nearly killed him, if the police had not come. We’re living on the verge of violence, and as the food gets shorter, they’re going to take it out on us, those that have been elected to go through persecution and trials, those, the Chosen Ones, so let us get up and get out. Don’t look back on Sodom. If you have anything in Sodom, you’ll perish with Sodom.
Voice: That’s right.
Jones: And some of you got things in your home, you won’t release, you won’t bring your talents, you won’t bring your jewels, you never give up your things, your possessions. You better get rid of them, because you better not look back, God said it. It’ll happen to you what happened to the wife of the mayor, Lot’s wife in Sodom, she looked back and she was petrified.
Voice: That’s right.
Jones: (Unintelligible word) her eyes into salt.
Voice: Amen.
Jones: And I say unto you, the radiation of this day’s hate will do the same.
Voice: That’s right.
Jones: So move, friend, move. Let’s get us a-movin’. Be willing to be content wherever we are. Some of you just have to have the things of your home, your routine, your formality, you have to have it. I begged you to get out of that, because it’ll lose your soul. You’ve got to be able to make your home, when we come to San Francisco, be as home in a church floor as you are when you’re at home, so-called on your own. You’ll be at home wherever you are, because where my Spirit is, ’tis heaven there.
Congregation: Applause and cheers
Voice: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Jones: (Pause) (mike turned off, turns back on) —know one thing that Wesley Johnson is carrying on, in my testimony work here, and I want you to know also, do not you interfere, not one of you, when people want to interfere with who I have directed to do my work, you are messin’ with me, and it is best that you keep your hands off of those that I have chosen to do my work.
Congregation: Applause and cheers
Voice: Thank you.
Another voice: Thank you.
Jones: (tape edit) —(unintelligible name) in the hospital, and she meditated the picture. (Pause)
Voice: Thank you, Father. Thank you, Father.
Congregation: Applause
Jones: We get all kinds of miracles like this.
Voice: Oh, yes.
Jones: That should be also put in the uh— put testimony, that’s marvelous, those things that happen. No way— No way we can explain.
Voice: Indeed, I don’t. Beautiful.
Jones: Please bring your gifts. (Tape off) —’s welcome. (Tape edit) —is gone now, isn’t it, darling. (Pause) Gone now, hasn’t it? Yes, let’s praise with her.
Congregation: Applause
Jones: (Tape edit) —”ter Jones, I wish to thank you for having me bring up the tumor. I wrote you before, but failed to receive the answer before the miracle was done, she threw up about three cups of blood, I was hospitalized for several weeks, I don’t have the pains— she threw up a tumor. Please give my regards to Mrs. Jones, and tell her, if she wants any more pillows like this dozen I made her, let me know. Sister Maggie Cromwell.” This sister’s in many, many advanced years. Imagine that. Spittin’ up a growth and threw blood— three cups of blood.
Congregation: Applause
Jones: She’s way up there in years. (Pause) (Tape edit) —there was uh, some problem there with that, Mother Terry, of uh— but we certainly will do this. This sister, in the matter of uh, direct instruction not followed— (Tape off for moment) — do or not, (Unintelligible). I want that person, see if we can get them into some nursing home facility that’s uh, closer to the uh, work. Maybe in Los Angeles, (unintelligible phrase) precious people there, the Sneeds. See if something can be done. (off mike) Get on that, and follow through on that— (tape edit) —I want to say, Mrs. Heather Yett [phonetic] had a high potentially stroke that has not been healed. If they had it under me, they’da been healed.
Voice: Amen.
Jones: Do not correct me on that point. I established that as eternal veracity.
Voice: Amen.
Male: We want all counselors to meet in the counseling room downs— (tape edit)
Jones: Would all secretaries be uh, be stated and let it be communicated, that anyone who holds an official capacity, who tells someone to do other than apostolic living— The highest ideal is to sell all that we have.
Voice: Amen.
Jones: Give it to the apostolic distributor. There at the apostle’s feet, that it might be distributed from each according to their ability to each according to their need. (Pause) Do not ever let me hear of the staff, counselor or assistant pastor telling someone to withhold.
Voice: Amen.
Jones: You should be telling people to get closer to truth, because the only way to life is to free yourself in every weight that so easily besets you. Don’t ever tell somebody to hold back. We do not tell people to sell. That’s up to them, if they choose life or death, or they choose commitment or non-commitment. That’s up to the individual. But don’t any worker tell them to lose their soul by holding back. Let that go through channels of secretarial work. Communit— Convenient expedient coordination. (tape edit?) How many do we bring tonight up to Redwood Valley? ‘Course Redwood Valley is going, I’m talking ’bout Bay Area? (Pause) Only five people? Goodness sakes, I better see some hands.
Woman’s voice too soft.
Jones: (Inviting) Well, that’s beautiful. Need some more. Half the bus— That bus oughta be filled. Let’s fill that bus, one way or the other. Come on, friends. In travel now, you can eat quickly and travel. (Pause) Los Angeles’ll go— be going home tonight, yes, but uh— (Pause) Normally we have meetings here, the last two Sunday nights we have, so we’ve gotten a lot of teaching. (Pause) (Hums softly). Shh! I’m not singing for a special reason. Learn to be reverence without music. Love the reverence of the most highest presence. Socialistic— It’s a law of life. (Pause) (Softly) It’s all right, sweetheart. Don’t you worry about it. The widow’s mite and the sister’s mite or the brother’s mite has more significance than Rockefeller’s millions, when it’s given from your best that you have.
Man and Jones talk too softly about ID cards.
Jones: (tape edit) —now removed all membership identifications to 11 years of age, accountability. So people can get identification cards, membership cards at 11. (Pause) There’s a special reason for that. (Pause) (tape edit) —my name, but the Spirit knows. It’s within me.
Congregation: Scattered applause
Jones: (tape edit) —instruments. That’s not fair. That’s puts a burden— Don’t put any burden like you put on Father. He knows that there’s no one that can fill his shoes, and that’s a tremendous costly burden. I don’t want anyone to feel that burden but me. I don’t want anyone to go through that heavy hell but me. Only I will go into hell, if capitalism fully to that degree to have to snare you, till the replacement— I hope it’s a counselor instead of an individual. But let’s learn to use our voices and not depend upon instruments. (Sings) Oh God— (unintelligible word) (tape edit)
Man: — of anything— (tape edit)
Moment of singing and overdubbed tape. Tape edit.
Jones: —entirely from the audience, fortunately I saw the last (unintelligible word). When I stop— step away entirely, hold the flow. Don’t let ’em go by me. Now if I’m here, I’ll be mindful of what’s going on, but when I’m concentrating on a serious crisis like that, giving instructions for something to be done clear off in Texas, then I uh, could just somehow miss an individual. I didn’t. I saw the person uh, the last morning, that I’d seen when I— I was— approached me about six a head, looking— I look at you as you go by me. Sometimes I’m ahead of you before you get here, I’ll have your need, and be thinking on it. (Pause) Bless you, bless you.
Voices: Thank you, oh, thank you.
Congregation: Scattered applause
Jones: For safety’s sake, stop the flow when I turn my back.
Congregation: Scattered applause
Jones: (Pause) (tape edit) —”my hip and leg on the right side last night. I have been in severe pain for nearly one year. I just wanted to tell you, I hoped to testify tonight”— (tape edit) do so. (Gently) That’s beautiful. Isn’t that beautiful? Beautiful. One year. It’s socialism waiting for the revolution, the non-violent revolution, of course—
Voice: Yeah. (Unintelligible) Yeah.
Jones: Waiting for it brought one healing like that, it’d be worthwhile.
Voice: Amen, amen.
Jones: So they’re training for one of our precious black sisters, whole year. That’s marvelous.
Voice: Amen, amen.
Congregation: Scattered applause. Tape edit.
Jones: —coma that he was in, and he— it’s amazing, his mind came back when I ordered it back. Remember when I ordered it back? He didn’t know where he was. They brought him— the doctor said, last hope was his daughter and my— his wife took faith, that’s his only hope, get him to Father, and I ordered his mind back, and it’s been back all these years. (Cries out) Haha! Socialism. God Almighty. And that’s the order in which I see it. Socialism, God Almighty!
Voice: Hey hey. Thank Jim. Ah yes.
Congregation: Scattered applause
Jones: And I can see why she [is] called dynomite. She looks like she could be dynomite for the cause. How you doin’, dynomite?
Voice too soft.
Jones: She’s little but mighty, aren’t you?
Voice too soft.
Jones: Tell her what I said. (Pause) I said, you’re little, but you’re mighty. She said, I’m nice though. (Laughs) You bet she’s nice. Just don’t mess with Father, and don’t mess with the truth—
Voice too soft.
Jones: Thank you. Thank you.
Soft voice: We welcome you into the church.
Jones: Bless your heart. I bless more than that too. (Pause) Your health saved you. Also saved yourself from the hospital extension.
Voice: Well, thank you, Father.
Congregation: Laughter, scattered applause. Tape edit.
Jones: —they called on me, man was attacking them, and, they called on me, and he couldn’t move. Flat up against the wall. Couldn’t move. (Sings out) Hey— (Speaking tone) Sister Himes and Sister Moore. (Sings out) Hey—
Jones and Congregation: (Sing) Hey, halleluia, hey, talk about it now, Freedom, freedom, freedom—
Jones: (Calls out) Once again now— sing it now—
Congregation: (Sings) Freedom, freedom, freedom—
Tape edit.
Jones: Teenagers are— (tape edit) —forever, just— just temporarily impaired little bit. Going be as good as new. (Pause) (Unintelligible word) (Pause) (Tape edit) — bicycle, hit rapidly on the side of the road. There’s a prophecy about him having to watch vehicles. And it’s amazing that he came through. Nobody else did. Even the highway patrolman said, it was a miracle. Highway patrolman said, it was a miracle.
Congregation: Scattered applause
Jones: Just a broken leg. What it could’ve been. (Pause) (Tape edit) —few Indians to the Promised Land. Isn’t this terrible. And I don’t have that many Indians to send there, I’m gonna send one. (Laughs) Jan’s [Jan Wilsey] going on the next boat to the Promised Land.
Congregation: Applause.
Jones: Boat comin’ in, and the old ship of Zion is coming in— (tape break-up)
Tape off for thirty seconds.
Part 2
Organ and singing.
Jones: (Sings) Light of the world, oh Jesus is the light, the light of the world. (unintelligible word) Jesus is the light, the light of my world, (unintelligible phrase), lighting my soul. I said, Jesus is the light. Light of the world, oh, Jesus is the light, the light of the world, oh Jesus is the light, Light of my world, (Unintelligible) my soul. (Speaking) We thank you, Christ, that you are our light tonight. Blessed be your name. Halleluia, halleluia, halleluia, halleluia, halleluia. Praise your name, Lord, praise your name. You may be seated. (tape edit) In my place of (unintelligible word) this week, we were— Brother [Jack] Beam and I were at a meeting, and I was very much enthralled by the message I heard. Since I’ll not duplicate that, but I had my own thoughts in the thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel. To continue there for a moment, and let someone else feel the vital link. If they do, just move right on. I don’t uh, don’t feel a tremendous authority, but I’m so glad I know in whom I have believed. And I am to say that he’s able to keep that which I’ve committed under him against that day. We are going to hear those people, who were in a little old mission last night, some place— sometimes that’s where you have to go to find the Lord. Go down to those mission, I, like Brother Price used to say, mission-hunting. And we went mission-hunting last night. (Unintelligible word) Greenfield on a very important matter. I felt the light of God to circle around, and go over, it’s outside, and found Brother Beam there, and Sister [Mary] Stahl and Brother [Richmond] Stahl, and we drank of the things of God, and a couple of people, just ordinary people for use of the Lord. And I said I— certainly out of the mouths of babes that God speaks, it’s so beautiful. It’s wonderful.
Now God doesn’t need a scholarly— He didn’t choose the high or the mighty or the esteemed of this world, but he used the foolish things to confound those ah, who think they have wisdom, who think they are something when they are nothing. And I was so amazed that this man moved in the very power of God, and— and he speaks— he certainly spoke from a knowledge, and I felt— I— I felt led to cancel some of the people that were coming in to speak, some of our outside guests, except those of our other Peoples Temple and our churches— cooperative churches in Ohio. They’re going to let some of them come, but I didn’t feel I could have a great deal of slated outside speakers. It’s very hard to come together from uh, many distances and uh, find the same thing moving, and I wondered how— why is it we can’t get closer together. And I thought, well, maybe the Gospel sent us and dropped down some during our convention and— I didn’t know just exactly what God had in store. The Anderson choir was coming, Sister Anderson from Ka— Chicago, that’s about the only real, uh, particular group that’s coming. Brother Smithley’s [phonetic] coming down, our precious brother who has our little uh, magazine he circulates, he’s coming down from Huntington, and uh, we’re having different ones come in. But I wondered just what God was going to have in store. We’re going to have services beginning tomorrow night at ten o’clock, through the Watch night, and then on Friday afternoon at 2:30, and Friday night and Saturday afternoon and Saturday night, and then Sunday morning and Sunday night. And I— I knew that we got a good treat for Friday, because I believe you’ll be blessed by these— they moved as God directed them, and this brother got up— he doesn’t even look at you. He closed his eyes, and he looked up towards the hills somewhere, and it’s very unusual to— (stumbles over words) that type of preaching, I would like people to look at the eyes. But I shut my eyes too, and I heard what he was talkin’ about..
Congregation: Scattered laughter
Jones: And it was most amazing as he just fired away. He had a knowledge of the Scripture that just overwhelmed me. Just an ordinary uh, might say, probably just an ordinary layman, but God had raised him up with an authority. Then the precious sister got up after him, and she challenged me. And if they challenge you, all right, I’ll leave that up to the Lord, but they challenged Brother Beam, and I know— I don’t know about Sister Stahl. What’d you think about it? Weren’t you blessed by it? It was really wonderful. (Claps once) (Begins ministerial rhythm) And I go, oh Lord God, we try to make ourselves so orthodox, and so acceptable, and here he was back there in a storefront mission— sometimes we let God back there in some of those storefront missions. ‘Course, I don’t believe God puts any premium on ignorance. But that wasn’t ignorant. I thought it might be, when they danced and sang, and I thought, oh God, and uh— sounding brass and the tinkling cymbal, you know, and he just make up a— you can shake, rattle and roll until you think it’s all shook out, and I thought, Lord, can I endure this tonight? Can I endure this? And I start breathing and praying and— and really taking deep sighs, but when those people got up, they spoke as oracles of God. Halleluia, (Claps once) I walk where knowledge of God, from whence it comes it doesn’t matter, if it comes in the Catholic Church or if it comes in a Hebrew synagogue, or if it comes on a back step of a storefront mission, praise the Lord. I want to hear it, a Spirit of Truth. He said, ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set ye free. After he has come, he will lead us and guide us into all truth, and that’s the desire of my heart. I only feel I have an earnest, and all earnest doesn’t do it all, you need the earnest, you need the seal, you need the initial evidence, you— you need to speak in tongues and praise God, and need to have a, a breaking in your heart, but it won’t keep you, brother. You need something more solid. You got to eventually comes out of the myth stage and begin to take a strong leap. And my heart panteth after the — uh, after God as the deer, as the hart panteth after the water brook. I have a desire, an unquenchable thirst, I want to hear it, what doeth sayeth the Lord. (Unintelligible phrase) (Pause) (Unintelligible phrase), we’re gonna have to move into some real place of sacrifice and, and service, which we know a little about.
We’re in the thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel, if I might reiterate some of these verses for a few of you. The Hand of the Lord was upon me, and came me out in the Spirit of the Lord, who set me down in the midst of a valley which was full of bones. That’s where he put most of us. And tonight, we need the Hand of the Lord upon us. The Hand of the Lord is dynamite. It’s the dynamics of the Spirit. And you need that personal, intimate relationship with God if you’re to do anything. (Claps once) You’ve got to be touched from Heaven. You haven’t been touched in Heaven. If you haven’t stole away in a secret place of God, there’s nothing, there’s no seminary or cemetery that can graduate you into the realms of understanding. But it takes the Spirit of God to break us into revelation. By the Spirit are we all baptized into one body. You can learn all you want to about homiletics and church history, and ecumenicity, but you need the Spirit of God, and Ezekiel realized he had to have an intimate touch with God.
Oh, we neglect. I thought as Brother (Unintelligible name) was talking about the diamond, I thought of a diamond in the rough. (unintelligible word), I said, that’s the greatest gift in all the world. The Christ, he that lighteth uh— He is the one that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, and he’s shining it on us tonight. Shining it in our eyes, shining in on our Temple, if we can only just stir up that gift that is within us. There’re amazing things that can be held, if we would just utilize our resourcefulness. He said, is a man bigger than his mind, so is it. Ezekiel said, it’s time of stealing away with God. (Claps hands once) He was up against that dry outfit. As I said, uh, (stumbles over words) a few days ago, some of us can preach a pretty dry sermon. This was a dry crowd. We oughta talk about sermons that were as dry, and uh, dry sermons and various sort of things that are dry in the pulpit, but this was an awful dry, big crowd of people, they were preaching a dry sermon. Lot of dry sermons going out today, lotta people preaching dry sermons, lack of faithfulness, gossiping, (unintelligible word), lack of sacrifice, lack of devotion, lack of fulfilling apostolic principles, there’re a lot of dry sermons coming out. Did you hear what I said? In all the churches professing to have love, standing in the synagogue with the loud voices that not be seen of men, parading their works showing all men what they are, but not uh, getting the heart uh, raised, not getting the heart in order, which in my church— (Normal tone) or my church, blessed be the Lord, I’ll not say that anymore. (Ministerial tone) It’s His church. Who shed the blood for us? Who shed his blood for us? Who shed his blood? Who died for us? It’s His church. But we in all these assemblies that called ourselves churches, all these little hills that’re around here, all the mountains that we’ve built, the Bible says God scattered his sheep out into the mountain, or rather the false shepherds have shatter— have scattered them from mountain to mountain. But oh my, throughout the church , the land of the whole, there is a perverseness, a— a dry sermon that’s emanating, and the only hope for us is that the preacher is weak and well and support our hearts and lives, and we (unintelligible phrase) and make a contact with God. It’s gonna take intimacy (pounds pulpit), it’s gonna take a drawing away. I don’t know what it’s gonna be, but I know in my own life, I’m going to have to draw away from some of the things. We’re going to have to get an appointed order of things, where we’re not involved with the material order so much, and get away to the spiritual things. (Voice calms) That’s why we’ll not be able to lead and to guide people. But he had an intimate relationship. And you can have it too. Don’t you believe it? How many believe that God’s no respecter of persons?
Congregation: Murmurs
Jones: He says a man’s (unintelligible word) than his heart, so is he. Last night, I— some sister, she wouldn’t open the— she reminded me, I didn’t even know it, little window open in that old storefront mission, and she says now, “You better accept that you’ll get cold.” (Pause) Uh-huh. That thought come in. I said, I’m not going to think that thought. But it was in. And I felt that breeze coming on my neck, and I threw it down, (Laughs) I did everything, but I had that thought on my mind. (Claps hands once) And Blessed God, I got the first cold I’ve had in years. I worked myself into a cold, just as sure as your foot. I decided I was gonna get a cold, I got one. It came, just as I expected it to come. But you and I would do as much to expect God. I read in a— it was in an authenticated situation, maybe you’ve heard it, where in one of the mental institutions in the East, where a— where a woman lost her love at about 18 years of age, she lost her— her lover, he disappointed it, and he was always wanting her to be attractive, and in her mind, she thought he would come back sometime, and she set in her mind that she would keep young. (In full throat) And at 88 years of age, when she kicked the bucket, she still looked like she did when she was 18. She had enough powder on her face and had no gray hairs. My God, the power of the mind. (Pounds pulpit) She was looking for her lover, I’m looking for a lover tonight, I’m looking for God Almighty to reign in this Temple, so (unintelligible phrase) faith in my heart, and to give me power to overcome the things of this life. I was to get in contact with God, and at any cost, at any price, whatever the sacrifice, I want to hear the mantle of God, and I want it (Voice calms) to settle upon me. That’s (unintelligible word)
Congregation: Amen. Praise God.
Jones: A man’s (unintelligible word) than his heart, so is he. The day that he constantly— we are sowing many thoughts than are unlike him. (Voice rises) We sow our thought and we reap an idea, we sow an idea, we’ll reap a habit, and we sow a habit and we’re going to reap a character, and we sow a character, we’re going to reap a destiny, and constantly, we’re doing that. As the man says that, we put out sicknesses, we put out death, we put out so many things, we need to get our— we need to let our conversation be “yea” and “nay.” I love the night as we started to pray, we need to be a people that are— change. He said, we are new creatures, we all talk differently, no wonder people don’t get saved, no wonder they don’t have a real experience as a result of us, because our communication is a communication of the world. (Conversational) As we were riding along in the car tonight, I thought, oh God, the nature of our conversation, somebody said, ah, I’m gonna die, or I feel like uh, feel like this or I feel so bad, and one of the kids said something, and somebody else said, that I haven’t got a brain in my head. That’s what it was. Another one said, my brain’s withered up. So I thought, my God, I’ve gotta go to church tonight, and all my brain’s withered up, nobody got any brains and ah— (Cries out) there’re negative vibrations. Talking about our sickness, or talking about our instant pain, (Claps once) let no filthy things proceed out of your mouth, but what would you (unintelligible phrase), we could have a new language, we could give no place to the Devil, we tried it around here, but we dragged down to the realms of iniquity and we bind ourselves with the carnal conversation, but we should be a happy people. He said, those that are in the Kingdom of God, he said, the Kingdom of God is righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Ghost. I believe as a people, (Claps once) that can so visualize the Christ, (Claps once) will help you visualize (unintelligible word) to materialize. I’m so confident that we can visualize the Christ, then (unintelligible word) says, let there be joy in our face, let there be peace in our hearts, let there be overcoming power in our members, and we’ll look like changed creatures.
Congregation: Hallelujah.
Jones: (Conversational) But you can’t serve God in Baal. You got to choose whom you shall serve. Ezekiel met God. We’re gonna have to meet God, or with these dry bones you’ll die with them. Poor disjointed creatures. It’s an awful thing to be the pastor of the First Church of Death Valley, and that’s what it look like he had to deal with, but he had (Voice rises to full throat) God on his side. Hallelujah. The one with God is in the (unintelligible word). Hallelujah. (Claps once) Because if the power is on, I’m in the Light. (Intense conversational tone) And if you can get contact with Heaven, and just steal away and study to show yourselves approved, and we’ll get out of the realms of, of vibrations, and vibrations mean something. You set at home and talk about your aches and pains, and complaints and gripes, and how sick you are, and whether we’re gonna make it or not, and how many burdens we’ve got, you can’t serve God. We’re gonna have to get around to people that had changed their communication. Some people think that uh, when it says, Take not the name of the Lord in vain, it means to say— not to say to somebody go to hell. There’s more to it than that. (Voice rises to full throat) I said, there’s more to it than (unintelligible word). God said, he came to give you life, (pounds pulpit repeatedly) and there’s more to (unintelligible word). He said, I am the Life, and I came to give you life, and what’s more, (unintelligible phrase), when you go around and (unintelligible phrase) in imitation, and say you’ve got diseases that don’t belong to you, you’re taking the name of the Lord in vain. Because he came to give you deliverance. He said, by my sight was you healed. (Voice drops to converation) You’re not to be talking about your sicknesses, your complaints, your disorders, you say you can have them, well, you don’t need to talk about them. It’s not God’s will to heal everybody. You will not be profited by thinking that way. Did you hear what I said? You will not be profited by thinking that way, you’d better think on anything that’s pure and anything that’s lovely and anything that’s of good report. But Ezekiel (Pause) he not only did have a contact with God, but he had a fellowship with people. I— I noticed our gingerly distance that we keep at the altar. We’re going to have to swallow that up. We’re going to have to know one another, and really love one another, ’cause until we love and understand the human heart, and draw ourselves close together, and be willing to overcome all oppositions— sometimes, it’s the laity depends so much on the pulpit, if there isn’t an organist here, or there isn’t a minister to lead you, you— you pull. You don’t realize how much you drag. Brother, sister, you’re gonna have to stand on your own feet (Pounds pulpit once) and sing. You’re gonna have to know God and you’re gonna have to have a fellowship with God and a fellowship with one another, that we can always be in spontaneous joy and worship, and inspiration can flow from our heart. Praise God. He had (unintelligible word) and he said, and he caused them— he passed by the roundabout, and behold, there were very many in the open valley, and lo they were very dry. And he said unto me, son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, oh Lord God, thou knoweth. (Pause)
You have that kind of faith tonight? Do you have a real optimism tonight? How many are optimistic? I’ve heard so uh— so many people say today they thought they was dyin’. (Laughs) I’ve heard people thought they were gettin’ sick and gettin’ that and gettin’ the other thing. (Voice starts to rise) Wish you could see Brother Fleetwood out there layin’ in the hospital, I was there this week with him, tied up with the lavium tube and just drainin’ out the awfulest poison in his system, and there he laid, and the doctors were workin’ on him, and he— and his— a-pullin’ at him and this and that and the other, but a peace had come over that man. He said uh— he said to me the words that thrilled me, he said, I’m in the body but, he says, yet I feel like I’m out of the body. And he says I just don’t have any words anymore. I said, are you right with God? He said, Yes. I’m— I feel good. And the workers would come in and pull on him, his old body is nothing but a skeleton, but in his heart there’s a peace, and he had such a kindness and a love for the nurses that came up to him, and I thought, what a wonderful thing it is. We can get so positive with God and such an optimism with God that all things are well, even when we look like we’re just dying or naturally we look like we’re disintegrating. They (unintelligible word) on that bed, and you know what? I saw such a peace and that old lavium, never saw a lavium put down somebody’s nose, that’s the most painful thing, he smiled and sipped on ice while they put it down his thro— uh, nose, I thought, my God, I’d like to get the peace that he’s got there in that bed. (Voice quickens, intensifies) I’d like to change with him for just a moment, because he was getting ready to meet a Maker, and I saw the joy and the light on him. Some people want to call him back, I said, let him go, halleluia, let him go. Let anybody that’s ready to meet God go. And I know he’s ready now. I know he’s ready, because the whole room was filled with the presence of the Lord, and I just was spellbound as I looked at him, and talked with him, and we talked with— about something, the Spirit seemed to touch my heart, and he— he had been touched about it. He said, yes, I’ve thought about that. Giving his eyes. I said, you have such beautiful eyes, I said, why don’t you let them— somebody see out of them. He said, Brother Jones, I think that’s a wonderful thought. You know, we need to get that kind of positive idea. Have any of you ever thought about your eyes? No, you’re so conscious of your old carcass and worrying about ’em, you’ll lose your vision worrying about ’em. But he’s thinking of the terms of not only going on to meet his God, (Claps hands once) but giving his eyes that somebody else can see. Isn’t that a wonderful spirit?
(Quietens after brief pause) You still here? (Ministerial cadence) You gotta have contact with God, you gotta have an optimism with God, you gotta have a fellowship, one with another, you gotta be bound together, we’re gonna have to come together as one people, bear one another’s burdens and support the people’s need, and lift up one another, and be a part of one another. Most of you will trot out of this place not knowing anything about, but we ought to stop and take time to— well, let’s get back to the end of the meeting, and get to know one another and pour out our hearts and love one another, because if we come together, then we’ll find God. He had an optimism. I’m not talkin’ about an optimism of the worldly fashion and as a scientific religion. Some people make me sick. They go so far in scientific Christianity — I won’t call it by name — but they talk about everything’s right and everything’s— and they have such a coldness about it. I’m not talking about that type of a thing. Ignore evil. I’m not talking about ignoring sin or problems. Uh— We can face these things— that’s just a whistle— we can face sin realistically, but we don’t have to dwell in it. He said, overcome evil with good. You need to know evil, you need to recognize it. You don’t need to have any false kind of a concept. Some people say there is no evil. Don’t you kid yourself. You better get that in mind. There is evil, and you’re the evil one. (Short laugh) You’re that fellow— that fellow, you’re that fellow that (unintelligible name; sounds like “Prodologoy”)) overcame, and caused you to come out of the Garden of Eden. And never forget that you’re evil, but remember that He is all-sufficient. Your faith rests in Jesus Christ. I’m not talking about a Pollyanna that closes their eyes and— and says there’s no evil, because they can’t see it, their eyes are shut. I say, you need to have an optimism. He looked at those dry bones, he said, lo they’re dry, and there’re a lot of ’em. He saw how dry they were, but he didn’t take time to dwell on it. God looked at his outfit sometimes with the dead sermons that they preach, when they don’t come to church and you can’t get them to share their car, and you can’t get them to stay for prayer, and somebody is uh, seeking God for the Holy Spirit or come up for baptism, and people go home, or when you need some food for needy people, if you’d dwell on that thing, you’d lose your victory. (Voice rises more) But think on Jesus, think from whence he brought you, think how far he’s called you, from the day to day, think of the hope (Pounds pulpit gently) that’s in your life, (Claps hands once) think of the power that fuels your body, think of the constant (unintelligible phrase), (Claps hands once) and I tell you, those dry bones can come together, joint upon joint and marrow upon marrow, they can come together, (Voice becomes gentle) and fit into a wonderful, wholesome creation. Optimism like that will conquer. Optimism of the blindness of scientific Christianity, turn it off. (unintelligible phrase) (tape distortion, wrong speed for several seconds) —
Part 3
Jones: (comes on in mid-sentence) (hoarse voice) —over against each other, intelligence and faith. When Galio [Galileo] grasped the new astronomy, he had to fight old archaic beliefs. When [English anatomist William] Harvey knew that the blood did circulate, he faced opposing beliefs that it did not. So we have come to say, give us intelligence, but beware of this vice of the mind, this impediment to progress faith. To this, of course, the answer is clear. Granted that faith is one of the most dangerous forces in the world, men even have faith in war as a way of settling international difficulty, and from such major faiths bringing ruin on whole civilizations to individual beliefs in segregation, in rabbits’ feet, and astrology, fake medicines, and demonology, incredible ideas about the world, and obsolete creeds of religion.
Faith can debauch your life, corrupt the mind and impede progress. But faith is the miracle worker. True, from the carnal mind of the mortal understanding, it would be difficult to believe suppositionally in our religious background. It would be hard for us to grasp the meaning of the universe. But if you will follow your negativity to its end, to its ultimate, you will not be able to find any hope for your life. There’ll be no purpose or well-being. We must drive at faith, as a prodigious power to be used or misused. The fate of mankind depends largely on what is done with it. We never can solve the problem by eliminating faith. Of all mad faiths, the maddest is the faith that we can get rid of faith. A human being is essentially a creature who necessarily and forever believes in something. The only cure in this world for the wrong use of faith is the right use of it. Deep at the center of every personality, where we handle our own solitariness, we are working out success or failure, salvation or destruction, by our use of this perilous power, positive, and let us consider some of the wholesome and saving use of it.
In particular, note four mortal enemies of the soul. Aimlessness. Feebleness. Fear. Pessimism or cynicism. If ever there was a time when these mortal enemies went up and down the earth, seeking whom they might devour, it is today. Believe me, as a pastor, and a believer in the— in at least the prime facie pattern of the Kingdom, it is difficult for me at times to believe in many of the eternal things. My precious friends at the Peace Mushin [Mission], under the leadership of the Great Master, Father Divine, believe in the immortality of the body. I love those precious people, and they are in many ways the dearest and most precious family I possess. It is a little hard for me, though, to see speculatively this position. I see the immortality of truth. I see the immortality of that which I am sowing now for the good life, and giving myself completely to truth. If it does (unintelligible word) live in me, it shall live in that which proceeds me. And I see certainly see faith as a necessity, and although I cannot comprehend this great ultimate of the immortality of the body, and such a personal immortality, I would not dare allow my mortal mind to rid me of the hope that there is faith for the survival of the good life, or the incarnate divinity that is within every man. We must bless people who have faith. It is people who have had such radical faith as the Peace Mission, that have caused the world to be turned upside-down. It was the faith of Jesus and the resurrection of the body and the hope of the world that caused us to have peace that passes all understanding today. Keep your faith. Do not give room for doubt. The negativeness of the atheist has never moved a mountain, but Christ can do all things. Peace and love from Pastor Jones.
Part 4
Jones: (Quiet voice) Turns to Acts, the second chapter. The second in the Acts of the Apostles. They’ve had many acts since then, thank God, but those were wonderful acts back there. We’re glad for the acts of the apostles, aren’t you? Some people said that ah— that I— have accused me of resting my ministry and my gospel in the Acts of the Apostles. Yes, it is true. I believe that that’s where our foundation is. All the gospel foundation, the work and the ministry, is in the Acts of the Apostles. Pentecostal people have been accused of making much ado about it, but I’m glad for the Acts of the Apostles. Without this, there wouldn’t be no meat or no power to the gospel of Christ. Who would read, perhaps as we begin, and are impressed in the Holy Spirit, at about the 38th verse, Acts 2:38. (Pause) Blessed quietness. (Pause) Don’t get worried. (Pause) Acts 2:38. Can anybody say Acts 2:38, so we can take out the quietness?
Several voices: Acts 2:38.
Jones: Praise the Lord. (Pause) There’s need for a greater understanding of this book. We need to want to gain the spiritual eyes of understanding and gather together in upper room, not geographically, but spiritually, that we might understand the mind of Jesus Christ. The upper room was an appropriate place for the baptism of the Holy Spirit to fall, because it was there in the Last Supper in Eucharist, Jesus showed the disciples how he would pour out his life for the redemption of the world. That’s where they actually participated and took this communion and fellowship. And if you are to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, you too must be self-giving. You must lose your life and find it in Christ. There’s a great spirit of self-sacrifice that little is known about in the church today. And I would like for just a few minutes to explore the power of Pentecost. In many instances, we have been just at a passover. We have not come to this great festivity which, it means, the first fruit, the very first fruit, and I feel too many times in our American culture, we’ve lacked contact with the first fruit of the Holy Spirit.
As we read here, I’m reminded— and as we think upon the subject of Pentecost, I’m reminded of a— a group of Methodists that I knew. I was a Methodist preacher, before God took a little of the starch out of me. I— I remember a group of Methodists that set on a (unintelligible word; sounds like “ship”) one time, they decided they would depict Pentecost. And they set a certain stage and set it all up, and the effects of it, and they decided they were going to try to show what happened on the day of Pentecost. And they got everything just in order. They got the cloven tongues, they had little candles set up on their heads, and everything was crepe and looked like the Upper Room, and there was really a— quite a duplication of the scene. But somebody got too close to the crepe, and burnt the whole place down, just burnt the pulpit up and the church down, and I thought, if we would really get a hold of Pentecost today, that’s what happens. It’d been our little playhouses down, and our opinions and our conceptions and our ideas, and it would just burn all the uh, effects that we had, all of our paraphernalia and our outward form of godliness, our forms and opinions would be burnt up by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Voice becomes rhythmic) We know so little about this amazing power. It comes from the word “fortus.” Comforter. He said, if I go not away, the Comforter shall not come. “Comforter” does not mean someone to ease you and to soothe you and to love you and to lull you, but it means, a spirit of bravery. It comes from “fortus,” which means bravery. When he will come, he will give you a spirit of courage, he will give you the dynamics of courage and bravery. It will be a spirit that will come into your heart that will give you zeal for God.
You know, it’s a little bit time— although tonight I feel that there’s a charge in the atmosphere that many could speak in tongues. And I’m glad to say, I speak in tongues, maybe more than some of you. But yet I would rather speak five words with the understanding of what Pentecost performs. I would rather have five words of the reality of the proof of Pentecost, than 10,000 words in an unknown tongue. And I want to inform you tonight, even though I may chop a little, that after we’re through, if you will believe, you can speak in tongues. All through the convention, we’ve been baptizing people. Last night in (unintelligible name), we baptized a couple of people out of the assemblies and they— in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and they had for five years been seeking the baptism of the Holy Ghost. And as they went down in the water of (unintelligible name) and came up, they spoke in new tongues. And there’s no greater thrill. You know I wouldn’t mince words with you. (Claps hands) I said, I won’t mince words with you, dear. I believe what I believe. You can believe what you believe, but I know there’s power in the name of Jesus. I said, there’s power in the name of Jesus. It’s a strong power and a righteous (unintelligible phrase). I have thanked God for the name of Jesus. I’ve been baptized every way in the world, but when I got baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, something happened in my life the like I’ve never seen before. There was a power that came into my life that did something for me. I do not believe that because you’ve not been in wa— baptized in water, you’re not saved. But I want to tell you that in our church at least it’s been effective. I used to sprinkle ’em in the Methodist Church — (conversational tone during aside) or at least I tried, and I dropped my sprinkling bowl one time and I quit it — I— I’ve let ’em baptize every other way, I’ve seen ’em baptize three times forward and three time backwards, but when we began to baptize in the name of Jesus, I don’t know how long it’s been since we baptized one that they haven’t come up out of water speaking in tongues. Is it true, Brother Reed? My associate can verify that. There’s just a power in Jesus’ name. Amen. (Clap hands) And I don’t know what’s the matter with us, we want to fight. Truly, I wouldn’t want to get with a— (tape edit?) extreme Jesus’ name people that fight and say Trinitarians are not born, or damned if I don’t join their organizations. They’ve got an organization that they— they call it United Pentecostal Church. I sometimes call it U Peel ‘Em Charlie, because instead of uniting the Pentecostal churches, they peel everybody they want to. And they’re wondrous people, they’ve got some precious blood in ’em, Rufus Margrave and some of the great saints to find it. And it was a glorious revelation. (Ministerial cadence) Don’t you write off Jesus’ name as of the devil. Somebody came up and asked me the other day, said, you’re surely not Jesus’s name. That’s of the devil. How could Jesus’ name be of the devil? If Jesus’ name is of the devil, then somebody is mightily confused. When he said this way, he said plainly that no man be a fool, you need not (unintelligible phrase). I want to tell you, there’s power in Jesus’ name. Whatsoever we do in word or deed, do also in the name of Jesus Christ. Word or deed. We’ll pray for the sick in Jesus’ name, we anoint the heads with oil in Jesus’ name, we cast out devils in Jesus’ name, but why do we get upset when somebody wants to baptize in Jesus’ name? Come on, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. (Pounds pulpit)
Congregation: Scattered applause
Jones: He said, I am come not in my own name, but I am come in my Father’s name. Jesus Christ is not a human name, it’s a name of the Godhead. Jesus Christ embodied (stretches out word) all of the promise of the Godhead. (Claps hands) He’s Lord and Christ, he’s been made both Lord and Christ, he taketh the right hand of God.
Congregation: Amen.
Jones: (Conversational) You’ll have to— You better be, because you get offended, you’re not in the (unintelligible word). (Claps hand) (Voice rises) And you get offended at this because you haven’t got the kind of Holy Ghost you need. I said, Jesus— love Jesus Christ, it’s a very symbolic relationship of the tri-manifestation of God. If you believe there are three (unintelligible word), Lord Jesus Christ, He said, I am come in my Father’s name. Didn’t he say that?
Congregation: Calls of assent.
Jones: (Full throat) I said, didn’t he say it? I am come in my Father’s name. When you see me, you’ve seen the Father, he embodied the power of (unintelligible phrase), he embodied the authority of the God in his very being, the Lord (unintelligible word) God the Father, (claps hands) Jesus is a human being, (Claps once) Christ in you the hope of glory is the operation of a Holy Ghost, and (Draws out word) all that I need, and a Trinitarian worker— a good old Trinitarian said, all that I need is in Jesus. He’s all that I need. (Pounds pulpit, cries out) He’s the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. He’s the Three-In-One.
Congregation: Amen.
Jones: (Conversational) But theologically, to discuss what he is or who he is isn’t important. No wonder those people have fallen just as short of his nature as a Trinitarian. I would join organizations across the land if I could find one that had the true Spirit of Christ. They’ve got good men in them, some of them, exceptionally, even perhaps better than you and I, but there’s a hold, they want to bind the Spirit. They want to restrain the moving of God’s presence. They want to dictate, and bless your hearts, I want what Paul got, don’t you? He didn’t go to those apostles before him or to Jerusalem, but he went out to the danger. And I want to keep out in the realms where God deals with me by his own spirit and speaks to me by his own mind. I don’t want what man has to say. I do not believe, and I do not believe, I truly— I believe those precious Quaker people that are singing the praises of God that never saw water. (Claps hands) I believe there’s people that never took a drop of so-called Eucharist, that are (unintelligible word), because each man find his own level. It’s only a matter of light. I said, it’s a matter of light. But if you have light tonight, and Jesus speaks to you about (Calls out) anything, you better do it, (Voice lowers to ministerial cadence, then builds) for he that walks not in the light tonight, that he has now become darkness and has (unintelligible word) that darkness. (Pause)
But let us leave for a moment the five tongues and the Upper Room experience. You know it’s a— it’s a kind of an amazing phenomena. And I think Pentecostal people for the most part have gone off center. They’ve lost the center of the fruits of the spirit, they’ve lost the center of the dynamics of the spirit, and they’re (unintelligible word) down into the paraphernalia. They’re on the outer margin. They’ll have the scaffolding and the structure, but they lack the meat of the gospel. They’ve got a few tongues, and that’ll never chase devils, though, honey. You can get a few tongues, but if you don’t get the power of love and joy and peace and long-suffering and gentleness and kindness, you’ll never break this thing that has worked at loose on the earth today. And that’s what the trouble with Pentecostal people is. And I want to say this, and I say it with all sincerity. God is leaving them as a people. God’s moving right at them as a people. He’s leaving one of those people with the highest theology, leaving them high and dry, form of godliness denying the power of (unintelligible phrase). Cutting killing spirits, judging man’s spirits, man’s spirits are— are— are taking over instead of the spirit of God, telling who to set on the pulpit, who not to set on the pulpit, who we can fellowship with, who can’t. That’s not God. I said, that’s not God. And that’s— they’re in the worst shape than if they had never spoken in tongues. It’s worse when you know something and don’t walk in the light, you’d be better off to being an old Baptist truant snuff than to have a revelation of Jesus’ name and a revelation of speaking in tongues and then use it and adulterate it, and become lukewarm. He said, I’d have you hot or cold. He spoke of the angel of the church at Ephesus, and he said, I’ve seen your patience. I’ve seen how you labored. I’ve seen how you could not bear those that were evil, and you were able to eliminate all dissension, but he said, I have one thing against you. You’ve lost your first love, the church at Ephesus that had wrestled with godless uh, i— ideologies and wrestled with heathen conception, but yet that church at Ephesus was warned that I’m going to come quickly and remove your candlestick. I want to tell Pentecostal people God’s about ready to remove their candlestick, except they repent and do (unintelligible phrase). (Short pause, voice lowers slightly, then builds) Lot of people that are getting up every time they see a Trinitarian walk in and say, you’ve got to get baptized in Jesus’ name or go to hell. You know what those people need to do? They need to repent and (unintelligible phrase). (Claps hands) They need to come out backdoor baptistery, in humanity, godly (unintelligible phrase) the need to have contrition, and be poured out before God, and say oh God have mercy upon me, a sinner, a lot of (unintelligible word) preachers (Claps hands) need to go right back to the baptismal tent and (Claps hands) get another dip in Jesus’ name.
Congregation: (Calmly) Halleluia.
Jones: (unintelligible phrase) Some of you Trinitarians got victory now. I said, I think some of you don’t have a victory. (Pause) (Inviting) Come on. I’m going to heaven with you. If I do it, I won’t get there. If I try to judge you or you try to judge me, we’ll not get there. But if I did not tell you what I believe, I’d be a fool. And a liar. And I would adulterate my message. We’ve got to come together and speak our hearts, speak what we believe, and then endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. Anybody want to get up and uh, preach on another form of baptism (Laughs) after I’m through, you can preach. I’ll stay here. ‘Cause I got no place to go except to bed. But I believe that people can get together, don’t you?
Congregation: Yeah.
Jones: If you don’t see the light on (unintelligible word) teaching, I wouldn’t get baptized. I had a Quaker grandmother that could outpray— she was a— the best devil-chaser I ever saw. (Laughs) She could chase devils and put a demon of ouijas to flight, and she— when they’d pass that communion, I never will forget this, she’d offer it to me. You can take that, she said, but not the uh— that’s for thee, but not for me. Pass that stuff on. She said, I wouldn’t take that for nothing in the world. And she never took a lick of it, because she thought in that particular church there, it was wine, and said it would encourage an alcoholic habit, and she wouldn’t have nothing to do with it, but I could hear old (unintelligible phrase— sounds like Chamberlain boy Shetland), she’d pray the power down. So I’m not here to judge you. I’m only telling you this: Walk in all the light that you have. Walk in all the light that you have. (Claps hands several times) Did you hear what I said?
Congregation: Yeah.
Jones: That wasn’t the answer of my subject. What did Pentecost accomplish? Today, as we look over the world, (Pause) Pentecostal people are jumping around their golden calf of phenomena. They’re saying how much they’ve got. They can be as dead as Elijah, as uh— Ezekiel’s dry bones, and you can just feel like you’re just stifled, with uh, the old order. But somebody can get up and talk about talking in tongues and (Mimics wonderment) Ahh! Everybody just has a real Hallelujah Jamboree. They— You’d think they had the best thing in the world by the tail. But I think it’s got us (Laughs) by the tail sometimes. I think it’s got us bound, our phenomena and our form that we’ve gotten into. We can jump and we can shout, when somebody talks about speaking in tongues. You’ve known that now, what I’m talking about. It can be as dead as it can be, but somebody says, I remember the day when I spoke in tongues, everybody goes “Wooo.”
Congregation: Laughs
Jones: (Voice rises) Whoa, we’ve had God, that’ll— that’ll take the cap off of any meetin’. That’ll stir up any of Ezekiel’s boneyards, they remember when they first spoke in tongues, that somebody’ll get a jump (Pause) But we’re dead. I said, we’re dead. In just 40 years time, Communism has arisen. It’s a challenge to God’s people. It has its own Bible, dialectic materialism. It has its Messiah, Karl Marx. It has its prophets, the Khrushchevs and all the men and the— the men, the— this Khrushchev [Nikita Khrushchev, then-leader of USSR], you don’t want to write him off. Don’t want to write him off, because certainly he’s a talented man of great ability, and the Soviets are way beyond us in scope, beyond our imagination in scientific development. They would shock us, and we would not be able to keep our peace of mind, if we actually knew. Sometimes the same spirit that shows me what is in your heart and shows me your name and calls out a disease oftentimes shows me what’s going on behind that Iron Curtain. And occasionally, I get just a glimpse of it, and if you only knew, how much development and how much scientific progress, it’s beyond your understanding. They have hearts that can beat— They have hearts than can be replaced, eh, eh, replace your heart for a new heart. They can actually do a miraculous performances that are beyond my mind as a layman. It’s beyond our ideas and our bare intelligence to realize, how far they’ve reached out into the perimeter of space. Pentecost fell 60 years ago in Azusa Street. It was supposed to take the world. (Pause) (Inviting) Come on. (Voice returns to cadence) It was supposed to take the world. It was a mighty outpouring of God’s presence, and it shook all that Upper Room Methodist Church. There was a mighty awakening in that atmosphere, and it happened nearly 60 years ago, but today, communism has grown a million to one in comparison to Pentecost. Communism without Victorianism, without the— the externals of our Christianity, they have grown by leaps and bounds, and the only thing that’s going to dispel them is to return to the faith that was once delivered to the saints. Tongues will not do it. If you’re building around a phenomenon tonight, you’re building around a, a tabernacle.
Jesus wouldn’t allow ’em to build a tabernacle, when they saw the vision on the Mount of Transfiguration. He would not permit them to build three tabernacles. They wanted to, so bad, they wanted to stand still there and jump around in the spirit. But I tell you, it’s a devil that’s caused us to be beguiled and misled and tried to pick out a Scripture here and say we’ve got it. I want to look for an experience. I want to look for an experience that will change my life. I’m still looking for it. I said in the (unintelligible word), I prayed, and I prayed until I found the Lord. And I said my soul would not be contented, but then the Spirit spoke to my heart and said, uh, my soul is not contented. My soul is not contented. I’m praying and I’m praying until I find the Lord, for my soul is not contented. I have not tasted of that which I want to see, I’ve not seen the glory of Pentecost that I want to see, I’ve seen an (unintelligible word), I’ve seen a Passover, but brother, sister, some people are out (unintelligible word), and I haven’t even seen a good Pentecost yet. Did you hear what I said? I haven’t even seen a real good outpouring yet. I want to see the faith that was once delivered to the saints that will change our lives and transform our spirits and make us what we ought to be. When the day of Pentecost was still to come, they were all of one accord in one place, and suddenly— (Voice drops) uh, got this thing worked up by emotions and say what people Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus, but (Cries out, claps hands twice) suddenly, there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it blew through all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as if fire and it set upon each of them.
(Voice moderates into cadence) I tell you, brother, sister, I believe that God can duplicate some of these things. I’m not preaching He will just do everything in the same manner. Some people are looking for a halo, and some people are looking for an exact tongue. I’m not looking for somebody to say, Jones, the way I said it, or an hour— for over an hour in the Assemblies of God church, I spoke in tongues. It was a heavenly awareness. I couldn’t tell you a word that I had to say, but ohh, the charge, the power, the illumination that was in my life, I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. Would you?
Congregation: No.
Jones: Wouldn’t you love the experience?
Congregation: Yeah.
Jones: But, oh my God. We are looking for someone to duplicate what we’ve got. We’ve had (unintelligible word) at duplicating, some people don’t think you’ve got it until you talk just like I talk or you talk, but if you get the power and the results of it, that’s all that matters. He said they spoke in tongues and prophesied. The Greeks said they’re not prophesied, it goes into greater detail, if somebody would come forth with a new language and a new experience and spoke English with the clarity of the Holy Ghost, and had a new awakening in their life, I’d accept their Holy Ghost. I don’t know about you, but I’d accept their Holy Ghost. If somebody gets baptized with a fire that burns out dross and carnality, and makes them what they ought to be, then I will accept that. Huh?
Congregation: Yes.
Jones: I say, let’s get away from the fiery tongues and the Upper Room experience, because it’ll never fall twice the same way. One time it happened by the laying on of hands, another time while they were preaching the Word, (Claps hands) it fell upon those that believed, (Claps hands) one time they were together and (stumbles over words) had uh, sharing and common fellowship, you can’t get the same— the— the thing the same way. And you’re a fool if you denounce somebody that hasn’t spoken in tongues like you and say they haven’t got the Holy Ghost, you’re a blasphemer and a judger, and you have no business. If I would get up to you— tell you tonight that you haven’t been baptized in Jesus’ name in water like I, (tape distortion) I would be blaspheming the creation of God and sending myself to hell, because he said, Judge not, lest ye be judged.
Congregation: That’s right.
Jones: I want you to understand, I believe certain things, but I do not impose it upon you. If God doesn’t impose it upon you, I say as Paul said of old, let every man be persuaded in his own mind, because (Claps hands several times) I believe that when we get enough of God in our lives, that people will follow the Christ. Paul said with great authority, follow me, as I follow Christ. (Voice calms) Let’s get our minds and attentions upon this thought, just for a little bit, and look at me, for what the little time that it lasts. (Pause) What happened on the day of Pentecost? Beyond the paraphernalia. Beyond the speaking in tongues. Actually, it was more of an appearance than it was just talking in tongues. Cloven tongues, like as of fire, in a vision capacity appeared upthon— appeared unto them. [Edward] Erving, in the first one that really came into the contact with Pentecostalism 200 years ago, did not even speak in tongues as we speak in tongues, but there was a mighty tremble that occurred in that Presbyterian church, and a quaking and a holy fire that burned out carnality and all types of material living. Those people were the first to be imbued with the Holy Ghost, and they were Presbyterians about 200 years ago in England. So I want to say to you, you cannot judge how the Holy Ghost is going to operate. We just don’t know how God’s going to operate. We just can’t say everybody’s gotta speak in tongues, just like I did, or just like you did, but what we want to see is the results of it.
(Voice rises) Look at this tremendous power that came along. After they were repented, and we go the thirty-eighth verse here, we won’t read all this chapter, lest some of you would get discouraged and too hot. We’re so— I’m afraid we wouldn’t work out in Paul’s day. He preached all night, and somebody fell out and got sleepy and fell out and died, and he went down and resurrected him, come back and preached the rest of the night. But, ohh, this crowd we’ve got today. (Pause) (Voice rises higher) I said, this crowd we’ve got today. This little bunch of people that call themselves Pentecostal. You know I’d take the name down off of these churches that are cold and dead already. All you have to do— I read something in a fiction book the other day, and I thought it was so true, it said— this fiction writer said, it was high noon on Sunday, and the little church down on the corner was letting out its dead. And I thought, that was a good expression of what actually goes on in most of our churches today. It was high noon on Sunday, and the little tre— the church down on the corner was letting its dead out. And I think that’s mostly what we do, is let our dead folks out. And we had better (unintelligible word) this boneyard if we ever did have. Dry bones and— and certainly most of us are pastoring the First Church of Death Valley. But it’s about time that somebody got resurrected. (Pounds pulpit several times, in full throat) Halleluia! Somebody return to the faith that was once delivered to the saints and got back to their first love. (Voice drops somewhat) Pentecostal Church is crying out that they’ve got the Holy Ghost, reminds me of a little dog baying at the moon. We haven’t got anything. What we need to have— we haven’t got the (unintelligible word) of the Gospel, and we’re not shocked with the Gospel of Peace, (Claps hands) we don’t have the power and the “fortus,” the dynamics, the power of the Holy Ghost come to— it comes from a word meaning “dunos” which means dynamite. There’s a tremendous atomic reaction in your life. When you get a hold of God, it’ll change you. It’ll make you a new creature. Halleluia! If you get up from speaking in tongues, and you’re still a lying old gossip, if you get up from speaking in tongues and you still have to have the part just right in the middle, and you’ve got to have a nice uh, feather bob in your hat, and you’ve got to have everything just pressed and everything just looking so nice and you’ve got to have that same old worldly (unintelligible word), (Pounds pulpit) you didn’t get it. You’ve got a ghost, but you didn’t get a Holy Ghost. (Pounds pulpit) You got something, but you didn’t get what you (pounds pulpit) are looking for. Because when the Holy Ghost comes, (Cries out) it’ll make you a new creature. I say, I say unto you, (tape distortion blots out phrase), (Full throat) you must be born again. To be born again means to put off the old creation. If you’re born again, it means to be born out of racialism, born out of creedalism, born out of selfish, born out of all the lust and immorality, and born out of all the temptations and the weaknesses of your flesh. (Voice drops) When you’re born to God, it means you’re a new creature. Everybody say “Amen”—
Congregation: Amen—
Jones: (Conversational) Don’t know what else to say, just say (Laughs) “Amen.” (Pause) They were repented, and they were baptized, every one of them in the name of Jesus Christ. For the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. If our hearts get repented, (Pause) and we are fully baptized into Christ — water can’t do this, it’s only an act of a good conscience to what’s wrong — but if you fully get baptized into Christ, as many have been baptized into Christ, shall put on Christ. That’s what I’m looking for. I’m looking for a people that have got that kind of a spirit. And we want to read here what happened on the day of Pentecost. After they got the Holy Ghost, for this promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call, today I say to you, we are the people that are going to be held the most responsible, we who have had the nerve, the unmitigated gall, the audacity, the just guts to put out on our churches, that we are a Holy Ghost church and we don’t lack any— when we have no more power than what we possess. Come on. (Voice quickens, rises) You and me, and all of us, who call ourselves Pentecostal, but brother, sister, we haven’t got what we need. (pounds pulpit) We haven’t been fortified with the (pounds pulpit) Gospel of Christ. We don’t have the power that was once delivered to the saints. I want to get it. How about you?
Congregation: Yeah.
Jones: I’m serious. I want to get it. (Ministerial tone)I either want to get it or quit. I know that some of us are going to come into the realm of spiritually speaking to us about the everlasting gospel, and before long, we’re going to move out of the realms of church enmity, and we’re going to have to be fortified with the gospel of Christ. There’s going to be a famine for the hearing of the word. You’re going to have a get a real understanding of (pounds pulpit) God and go out by two’s again and have the authority of Jesus’ name in your life, or you’re going to (unintelligible word). You’re going to have to give God a first. You’re going to have to go back to your first love.
One voice: Halleluia.
Jones: (Quickly) Why, today it’s a terrible shame that we say we have the Holy Ghost, when I— one of the place I went to, uh, burden to— burden was for the Divine people. Those who follow Father Divine, I’ve had a burden to restore them, and the Holy Spirit’s been given to me the discernment, and I’ve been sending tapes to them— tape to them, I’ve even got them a little confused, they sent me back a letter, saying, send me no more tapes, but I keep on sending them, because God told me to go to them, and I’m gonna bring some of them out. They can’t stop it. (Pause) Amen? You believe they can stop the Holy Ghost? You can’t stop it. You just can’t stop it with works. Blessed be the name of the Lord, it’ll give you power, it’ll make you a new creature, it’ll make your witness, but those Divine people have got more than any Pentecostal Church I’ve been in. With their false worship of a person, with their deification of a man, and I’ve seen them stand for six hours and praise God. I’ve seen them go out in the highways and hedges, and work and minister to people that were down and out, and downtrodden. I’ve seen them live above sensuality, I’ve seen them live above their families, I’ve seen them lay all things uh, behind, leaving all things behind that they might press on to the mark for the prize of the high calling. They won’t call their natural mother a mother, unless she deserves it. They will not regard anybody just because they’re somebody, they’re supposed to be a so-called sister, the only ones they regard are those that live in the faith. (Pause)
(Voice lowers) You and I, we’re so dragged down, we would put up with ten times more out of our children than what you’d put up with out of mine. Amen, now. You want everybody else’s kids to behave, but don’t get on yours. I stand out here, I got on somebody’s little darlin’ back there and she got a little disturbed, but when I come, honey, I’ll get on your darlin’, because I believe in order in the House of God. I just believe it. I believe that we should have reverence in the House of God. But it— there’s that— that thing I’ve seen in those movements, we see the capacity of the Mau Mau who are taking over Africa, we see new religious fantastic cults of all sorts and varieties, growing by leaps and bounds, the Hindu religion and Mohammed religion is growing at a faster rate than Christianity, there’s a great engulfing of Communism in all these religions, and we say that we’ve got this power. I say, we haven’t got it, and we need to get it. (Voice rises, pounds pulpit) What did the early church do when it got baptized with the Holy Ghost? (pounds pulpit) He said they became his witnesses, after the Holy Ghost has come upon them, ye shall have (pounds pulpit) power, ye shall have (pounds pulpit) dynamite, ye shall be led and guided into all (pounds pulpit) Truth. Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. Ye shall be my witnesses. Look upon that day of Pentecost, all those Jews and the Israelites of various varieties and the different nationalities of that area came together in one place, in one accord. Those Jews set with the Gentiles and they worshipped the same God. Today, when you look out over church annity— some of you go home and read Ezekiel 34 and see what God’s so-called shepherds have done, how they’ve divided them all over the mountains out through the land and separated the flocks, and lied, and the people would like it so. If you can look at religion today and say we’ve got an Upper Room, we’ve got a Supper Room, that’s what most of it is, a Supper Room, but not an Upper Room. We’ve got a social gathering and a clique. We’ve got a little uh, bunch of fellows that get together to buddy-buddy, and to sing the same old songs, and hear the same old thing, we’ve got a form of covenance, but we’re full of dead men’s bones. We’ve cleaned up the outside, but inside there’s full of all filthy (unintelligible word), all sorts of ungodly sins and hypothesis. I said, we’re a bunch of hypocrites, and I’ve been one and you’ve been one. We need to get back to God. (Rattles pulpit)
Congregation: Yeah.
Jones: (Lower, menacing) Don’t you get up and tell me you’re born to God. Why, we need to get born to God. Truly and fully born to God. For he’s that born to God doth not commit sin. He that knoweth to do right and do it not, it is sin. Anything that’s not of faith is sin. We live in our medical bow— uh, bottles, we live in our televisions, we live in our false supports and our ideas, we even, some of us, are star-gazing now. (Pause) (Calmer) Bless the Lord. I’ve got (pounds pulpit) couple of things that follow the— what do you call it, the as— astrological guide.
One voice: The radio.
Jones: Uh-oh, I’ve stepped on something else now.
Congregation: Laughs
Jones: I always get that very friendly feeling when I hit it.
Congregation: Laughs
Jones: (Obvious tone) We need to get saved. And I need to get saved. We need to realize that we’re just as bad as Ephesus. (Voice rises) Did you hear what I said? How many know tonight that you’ve fallen short of the glowing God? How many know tonight, you’re not what you ought to be? How many know tonight, you don’t have the power that the early church had? You want to have it, you’re hungry for God, he said, (Full throat) Blessed are (pounds pulpit) they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for that they shall be filled. But you gotta get hungry, you’ve gotta get earnest, you’ve gotta (unintelligible word; sounds like “contend”), you’ve gotta wrestle, you’ve gotta go out and reach it, for the Kingdom’s suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. (Voice lowers) You’re not going to get it in any kind of a namby-pamby church where people tell you sweet nothings and tell you, you’re the blessed church, hold out till the end, because Jesus is about to come and get you. Why, if he’d come, we’d never go. (Pause) I won’t go into that, but you know—
Congregation: Laughs.
Jones: (Conversational) He said, when we see him, we’ll be like him. (Pause) Said it with many other words, did he testify and exhort, saying, save yourself from this on— untoward generation. (Pause) They were witnesses. Who does the witnessing around town? The holy witnesses. Who does it? The Mormons. Who’ll come into your home, knock on your house, and when they get spit on and everything else. Knock on your door and persist in love, ’till they get in. I’ve sat at a table and talked to many of them. Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses. Where are our Pentecostal people? Huh? (unintelligible sentence in mimicry). If you want what I’ve got, you come over and get it. That is, if you can get through the Acts of 2:38. If we cut Acts (unintelligible word) down with an ax or mowed it down with 2:38, but if you can still— (laughter drowns out words).
Congregation: Laughter
Jones: If you still— If you can still lift it— bless your heart, if you can still get (claps hands) up here to be worthy of this sanctified, sanctimonious, petrified crowd, if you’re still able to make it up here, we’ll take you in, not whosoever will come, but whoever can stand it will make it. Whosoever wants to just stand enough times, take enough brow-beating, enough harsh knocks, we’ll take you in. But now, it’s a privilege to join this crowd, we are the body, we’re going up now, the church, without (unintelligible phrase), that kind of an attitude. He said, go out in the highways and compel them to come in. Jesus said, he did not come for those that were whole but for those that were sick. He said, they that are whole need not a physician, but those that are sick. Where was he? Out with the drunks, out with the harlots, out in the red light district in the back alley, out uh, dining with sin— sinners, because they called him a winebibber and a glutton, didn’t they? (pounds pulpit) They called him one that ate with sinners. We are all holier than thou, I tell you, I’ve got as much use for him, why, you know before I’d join some of these outfits, before I’d join some of these Pentecostal outfits, I’d join the Communist Party and say Hail Stalin.
Congregation: Laughter
Jones: (pounds pulpit) Bless your heart, I’d be more honorable than to do it. I said, I’d do it, (pounds pulpit) bless your heart, (claps hands several times) I’m so sick of it, I believe a Communist’ll have a better chance of gettin’ through than this so-called pack of wolves that call themselves the Church of God. You say, you’re being awful hard. I tell you, He was a little hard too. He said, you sons of the devil, he—
Congregation: That’s right.
Jones: Hmm? (Voice rises) Didn’t he call ’em sons of the devil and hypocrites? (claps hands repeatedly) I want somebody to call me something. (Full throat) I want somebody to show me my transgression, (claps hands) and I’m gonna cry out and stand up, I’m gonna show my people their sins. How ’bout you? I’m gonna call on the Lord and demand a return to the faith, not only for you, but for me. I can take it. I’ve given up, but I want somebody to burn my ears too, (voice quietens) and tell me how to get back to God. How to love Him and how to serve Him with all my heart. This witnessing power that we leave to the Awake, the little people with their Awake and the Watchtower, they’ll give it to you, rain, sleet or snow. They’ll put it in your hand. (Pause) Then you’ll look at Peter, ole lyin’ Peter. He denied him. He said before the cock crows twice, you’ll deny me three times. Peter said, why, I would not give him my life. Lyin’ and sellin’, he went out and he cussed (unintelligible word). What in the world. Look at that Peter, sixty days later. Look at him. Look at him on the day of Pentecost. He stood up, hallelujah. And he didn’t stand up alone. Most of this outfit— that’s what we’re gonna have to learn together. I said there’s a brotherhood. Anybody doesn’t have a brotherhood, if you’re stray in that— if you’re straying in that and swallowing (unintelligible word), I don’t want any part with you. Some people say—
End of tape
Tape originally posted November 2001