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this church, but the predominant one is what I want to read to you
now.
"Church at Philadelphia: ...These things saith he that is holy, he. that
0
is true, he that hath the key of David, that openeth, and no man
shutteth; and shutteth -and no man openeth. I know your works: behold,
I
have set before thee an open door."
Now, if you'll trace that "open door" in Paul's ·writings, you will see
that God set an open door before him. An "open door" merely means
(it's a figure of speech) that God opens the way to get the � ospel
message out. Now He's opened to us a door to go to the Gentiles and
the nations of the earth and the kings of those nations. He didn't
open that door for the Sardis Church. And no man in the Sardis Church,
Thyatira or those before ever announced the gospel of the Kingdom to
kings, heads of government and other top men in the governments of the
Gentile nations around the world. They just never did.
I
have been doing it and I am the one Apostle that God has chosen and
with whom and through whom He built this church. The Gospel did not
go to the world until this church came and started taking it to the
world. It absolutely was not preached at all. The true gospel is
not just a message about Jesus Christ. It is Christ's message which
is the good news of the coming Kingdom of God, and that message has not
been preached for eighteen and a half centuries. For a half century
now it has been going out through this church and through me. And as
they say today, "you better believe it."
"I set before thee an open door and no man can shut it
11
--
Many cer- 0
tainly have tried to shut it, but no one has been able to. "For thou
hast a little strength..." Each of you doesn't have much strength,
and I've had very little, but God has given us collectively tremendous
power to reach the world and the facilities that magnify that power
like radio, television, the printing press,·airplanes to fly us to all
parts of the world quickly and telephones with instant communication
to any and every part of the world. None of these existed in the
days of the early Apostles.
Again, "For thou hast but a little strength and hast kept my word."
Brethren, often I have said this: I have known scores of men with
better minds than I have. Not only more scholarly (because they've
gone into that), but minds with more aptitude to be scholarly and with
better personalities -- with more of everything that could be used, and
yet God did not call a one of them.
Why did he call me? Well, I go right back to this: some say that this
message to the "angel" of the church might refer to the one God placed
as the human leader in the church. And I would say this does apply
to me personally and it should apply to the whole church as well, but
there's been an effort to water down the truth. That's another thing
that's happened in the last nine years -- the truth of God is being
watered down with even false doctrines creeping in and ministers are
teaching them around the world. Ministers of this church. Now believO
me, I'm going to get after those things and fast!
Jesus Christ is in power! Jesus Christ is the power back of me and
He's going to set these things in order. And if any of you want to