Document: Transcript of a sermon given by Jim Jones while the Peoples Temple was still in Indiana. This sermon likely dates to 1957 or 1958.
Title: Q1058-2 Part 4
Author: James Warren Jones
Date: 1957 or 1958
Source: FBI Files Audiotape Q1058-2
Transcript: Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple. Transcript prepared by Fielding M. McGhee III.
Annotations: team names here
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