The Victor’s Life Secret

The Victor’s Life Secret By Paris Reidhead* Will you turn, please, to Revelation the 2nd Chapter. His Power and His Glory we shall proclaim. I shall read, beginning with the 12th verse through the 17th verse, as we prepare to consider this, the third of the seven churches, the church at Pergamos. “And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith He which hath the sharp sword with two edges; I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is: and thou holdest fast My Name, and hast not denied My faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was My faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth. But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate. Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.” Tonight we are studying a city church. This was the church at Pergamos. This is a city church here in the heart of the city, one block from Times Square. The reason that the Gospel Tabernacle Church is located at 8th Avenue is that Dr. Simpson1 in that day desired to be in the midst of the people that he considered had the greatest need. You might be interested to know that the Gospel Tabernacle Church was at one time located on Fifth Avenue at 42 Street. But it was too far from the center of the population of need. And so, he moved just these three blocks to the west and put the church here because he wanted to be among the immigrants that were coming in from Germany and Italy, and Southern Europe, for he felt that here he had the place of greatest opportunity of ministry. Every man is the product, not only of the influences of home, and school, but also of the influences of men that he has admired and been influenced by. I suppose, if you were to have met young Timothy, and then the older Timothy, as the years went on, you would never have been able to have disassociated him from Paul. Someone said about our beloved Dr. Brown2 that he was best understood if you knew the two men that had influenced him the most. The one was Dr. A. B. Simpson, and the other was Paul Rader3. And thus you could find the man by those whom he had admired, and from whom he had learned. And this would be true of me, I am sure. I recall so well coming from the farm in 1935 to the city of Minneapolis, to Northwestern Bible School, then associated with the First Baptist Church of Minneapolis, at 11th and Harmon Place, on block -- just between H and N. Now this does not mean anything to you unless you have been there. It was right downtown, in the city of Minneapolis. Now of course Minneapolis was the capital of the world, my world, at the time. The whole world revolved around it. It was the one fixed point, and all the other things had to revolve around it. Now, the important thing was Dr. Riley4 had believed firmly in the city church. There was after about 10 years of his ministry a serious split in which about one half to a third of the church left to go out to the hills, to build a beautiful monument to one class society some distance from the center of the city, there were those who believed in a continuing testimony there in the heart of the city. And thus it was that the early impressions as a young student were formed by contact with a man who believed in the center of city ministry and church. And thus, my being Pastor in the Gospel Tabernacle Church and laboring here is not, I believe, accident but it rather one of those things for which there would be years of preparation. I, too, believe in the center of city ministry. Now this was the church I say at Pergamos. Pergamos was a city located north of Smyrna. (We have just studied Smyrna previously.) It would be the next city in the logical progression from the Island of Patmos. It was a capital city and a cultural 1 Albert Benjamin Simpson (1843-1919) founder of The Christian and Missionary Alliance 2 Robert Roger Brown (1885-1964) Pastor and Radio Evangelist 3 Daniel Paul Rader (1878 – 1938) was an influential evangelist in the Chicago area during the early 20th century and was America's first nationwide radio preacher 4 Rev. Dr. William Bell Riley (1861-1947) Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Minneapolis, MN and educator. center. It had reached this state when it had finally become the, probably, literary center of Asia Minor. It had one of the most splendid libraries, in fact so splendid that when Mark Antony5 came to the city as a Roman Conqueror, he took the library and presented it as a gift to Cleopatra6. Incidentally the word parchment with which you are familiar comes from the word Pergamos. It is a corruption of the word. It was a pagan Cathedral city a University town, and a royal residence. And thus our Lord says, To the Angel, or the Pastor, the Minister in the Church in Pergamos write. Christ has an interest in City churches. Strangely enough, when He sent His servant Paul to Asia Minor, he went directly to Corinth, to Athens, to the great Capital Cities. Water always flows from the highest point down, and the highest point culturally is the city. I was deeply impressed some years ago in securing a copy or an excerpt from the message by the man who was founder of Calvary Baptist Church in this city, and at his Fifth Anniversary as Pastor of that church he wrote (And I do not quote exactly, but the substance.) “I count it a privilege to serve the Lord anywhere. But I would rather serve Him in the heart of New York City than anywhere else.” And then he used very figurative language: Said, “Where New York sits like a Queen on her Island Throne, and draws to her the best and the worst that the world has to offer -- the best in brains, in talent, the worst in selfishness and sin. But they all come and kneel at her feet and leave such offerings as they are prepared to bring.” Now I sympathize with that. I feel our Lord Jesus Christ is particularly concerned about the city. You see Him as He over sits on the hill, the escarpment, or the little hill overlooking Jerusalem, and you hear the cry of His heart: “Oh Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How oft would I have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her chickens, and ye would not.”(Matt. 23:37) Of what other community did our Lord ever speak this way, save that which was to the Jewish people the capital of the world? I believe that now as then the center of the city church holds the future of Christianity. I believe that there has been a disastrous pressure to suburbanize Christianity. And I think that it holds nothing but ill in the future, if fundamental, evangelical Christianity becomes associated with one class society. It will be recognized as being merely another of the cultural phenomena. But only when the church is prepared to grow in alien ground can it demonstrate its Divine origin and the supernatural Power which enables and which strengthens it. Now the One who speaks (Let us go back to the 12th verse of the 2nd Chapter): “To the Angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith He which hath the sharp sword with two edges.” It is a message from the glorified Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking. He is speaking in three capacities. First, He is speaking as Sovereign. You must not misunderstand this. He is not the meek and lowly Jesus longer who made His bed in a manger, and His home in a carpenter shop, and wandered without place to lay His head in the bypaths of Galilee. No longer is He the One that stands silent before Pilate. If you want a description of this One, you see Him here in these verses 12-17a in the first Chapter: “And I turned to see the Voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks, and in the midst of the seven candlesticks One like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and His hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire; And His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and His voice as the sound of many waters. And He had in His right hand seven stars: and out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and His countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. (And John, the beloved Apostle who had leaned on Jesus' bosom said,) And when I saw Him I fell at His feet as dead.” This is the glorified Christ that is speaking. This is the One of whom Heaven did answer, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him.” (Matt. 17:5) The writer of Hebrews said, “See that you refuse not Him that speaketh from Heaven. He is speaking as a Sovereign.”(Heb. 12:25) He is speaking as a Conqueror, for He said, “I am the One that was dead but am now alive, the One that was dead but liveth.” (Rev. 1:18) For He has met His enemies and submitted to all that they could do, but vanquished them. He led captivity captive. He is speaking as the One who will be sovereign over men and conquer men. If you will not submit to His sovereignty, if you will not submit to His conquest of your heart, if you will not fall upon this rock and be broken, then He speaks as Judge. 5 Marcus Antonius (83 BC – 30 BC) In English as Mark or Marc Antony, was a Roman politician and general. 6 Cleopatra VII Philopator (69 BC – 30 BC), Known simply as Cleopatra, was the last active pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt. Men will either face His as Sovereign to Whom they readily submit all they are, or they will face Him as the judge who will say, Away with you. I never knew you. But He is now speaking, is this glorified Son. His speech is symbolized by this figure, a two-edged sword. In Ephesians, the 6th Chapter and the 17th verse we read, “And take unto yourself the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” In Hebrews the 4th Chapter, and the 12th verse we read, “For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword.” In Revelation, the 1st Chapter and the 16th verse, I read, “And out of His mouth went a two-edged sword.” Many times people go to church, looking for something that is going to smooth them, and soothe them, and comfort them when they do not need comfort and cannot expect it from an honest God. How true this is today. We find that the Scripture is being fulfilled when it says, “Men will not endure sound doctrine, but will heap to themselves teachers because they have itching ears that the teachers will scratch, and comfort.” (II Tim. 4:3-4) True preaching inevitably is God’s Word spoken to the need of man, whatever that need may be. That one who would tremble at the faces of men, cannot think to be a servant of God, but can only be thought to be a servant of men. This is a two-edged sword that is to be wielded by the star that is held in His hand, by the angel in the Church, a two-edged sword. The one side of the sword cuts in conviction cuts in the revelation of sin, in the disclosure of guilt, cuts in that which brings man to his knees in the presence of his God. But that same side of the sword which cuts also converts, for it divides between the soul and the spirit and it makes room for the entrance of God's Grace. The other side of that sword condemns. If you will not summit to its convicting edge and to its converting edge, then you will have to submit to its condemning edge. It is indeed a two-edged sword. I think the true child of God wants God’s Word, regardless of what it may mean, regardless of what it may cost, regardless of how deeply it may cut. If you are a branch in the vine, you lay bare your breast, knowing that “faithful are the wounds of a friend,” and knowing that His Word can only purge and only purify, that there shall be more fruit. (Proverbs 27:6) In reading about agriculture this past week, I have discovered that it is said that when some men would have their orchards pruned they do not stay on the premises because the pruning that is required is going to cut so deeply that the man who owns the orchard is going to cry out saying, Don’t! Don’t! You are taking too much! But I do not believe that this will characterize the child of God who truly loves Him and wants his life to glorify Him. He is going to lay bare his breast and say, Cut, Lord, as deeply as I need. This is the One who speaks, the Son of God. The speech of the Son of God next is followed by the seat of God’s adversary. Notice what He says, “I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is.” It is interesting that cities began with Cain’s son. Cain slew Abel and was driven from the presence of God, and from his parents, out with his wife and family into the wilderness. Cain’s son was Enoch, and the Scripture records that Enoch built a city. The first city was built by the son of the first murderer, and the first rebel, and seemingly in this there is something of the reason for it, in order that it might become a citadel in rebellion against. God. Adam and Eve were given to prune the garden and care for it, and perhaps we might well say that the most ideal life, if we could return to it, would be that of the farm, the subsistence farm, where one is producing what he eats and what he requires. But cities, nevertheless, are now very much a fixture, and we read that in 1970 there will probably be this megalocephalous from Boston down to Washington, D. C. and the rest of the seacoast with four or five great super-metropolitan areas. Pergamos is declared by the Lord Jesus Christ, this capital City, this cultural center, to be Satan’s seat. Now Jesus Christ knew Satan, knows all about him, and He knows that he had a geographical location out of which he worked and which he labored. Mr. Ward testified to something related from Africa, from that which we have learned and experienced regarding the activity of demons. It was Dr. Moseley7, the former President of Nyack Missionary College now with the Lord, who told of going into a Tibetan hut where there was one that had never previously seen anyone from the western world, and there speaking in the language to a demon-possessed man and addressing the evil spirit who gave its name, this was the testimony that came through the one that was in a coma. Where are the evil spirits? said, Dr. Moseley. And the reply that came was, They are all gone. Most of them have left. Well, why? Well, way over where the sun sets there is a war going on. This Tibetan knew nothing 7 Dr. Thomas Moseley (1886-1959) President of Nyack Missionary College. of the World War in the Fields of Flanders. Nothing at all. But the evil spirit did. And there had been called away from Tibetan activity, these who were the ministers of darkness. And thus it was that Jesus Christ knew all about Satan’s activities. And He has given us this revelation. “And we know we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against the hierarchy of darkness.” (Eph. 6:12) Now, Christ knows all about it, knows where it is, and He wants His church (Now this is the significant thing)...The Lord Jesus Christ wants His Church right where He knows that Satan’s seat is. You would say perhaps, Well why did He not call His church to some other sequester, quiet little brook side, where there they could have lived in pleasantness and without the conflict. No. Jesus Christ wants a church right there. I believe that today Satan’s seat is still in the metropolis. And I believe that the existence of the metropolis, even such as New York is first, spiritually speaking, an affront to and a challenge to the church of God. Some years ago when I read in the newspaper (was living in the South) that Rockefeller was buying a portion of land that was used by poor housing, substandard housing tenements, and turning it over to the United Nations for a home, I could not help but believe that the moving of World Government to this city might change its spiritual character. And I am, having been here now for over four years, I am convinced that this is true, that very possibly if we could see as did the young man at Elijah’s command see the chariots and horsemen of God we would also discover that this city has, because of the international focus that it has acquired by this means, become Satan’s seat. However, every city is in some sense a seat of Satan. And the strange thing is that in the last fifty to seventy-five years in America the heart of the cities have been surrendered to Satan. It is going on constantly. Now the heart of the city will determine the character of the city. It is the moral vantage point for which hell contends and for which Jesus Christ contends. The weaker Christianity becomes, the more diluted it becomes; the more dissipated it becomes, the further it will flee from the center of the city. Because, it is not going to have the moral stamina, nor the power, nor the presence or the Risen Christ in that freedom that He needs in order to stand in the place of conflict. I believe that this is the vantage point. An account is given to us of the Civil War. A regiment that was sent out to hold the hill. The battle had turned against them. And when, Officer came, he found just a tattered remnant of what had been once a very proud regiment. And there, as he rode up on his horse, he spoke to one of the non-commissioned Officers and said, “Where is your Captain?” And the Sergeant pointed and said, “There he lies cold and dead”. “Well, what are you doing here?” The Sergeant looked up and said, “Our Captain told us that this was a vantage point, and he said, Hold it or die.” And Officer, we are doing what our Captain told us. I personally believe that Jesus Christ is the Captain of our Salvation, and when He was here He gave us two commandments. He said, “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15) This is the world-wide extension of the Gospel. But He also said, “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind.” (Luke 14:21)Every argument that you would use for Foreign Missions, every argument that you would prove that we should send the Gospel to darkest Africa will have equal effect in saying that the Gospel ought to go in darkest New York, and Chicago, and San Francisco. I am convinced that Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Harvest and the Field is the world; that when He said, “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city,” He was giving to us a commandment equally binding with, “Go into all the world.” I think it is utterly impossible for anyone to say, I will buy my way out from responsibility by making a Missionary pledge. I do not believe this is Christianity. It may be hobby, but it is not Christianity. The love that will burden you to send the Gospel where you cannot go will burden you to be a witness where you are. And if you were to call “help” hauling logs, as the illustration is old and true, if you were to join a company of people hauling logs, and you were to see a log being carried by ten men, and nine of those men were on the slender, thin, light end, and one was struggling with the heavy end, and you were going to help carry logs, which end of the log would you join? This has its application to the Mission Field, but it also has its application to the place where Satan’s seat is, to the center of city church. Now I believe that our Lord saw here the steadfastness of His servants in the midst of such an environment as this. Christ recognized their faithfulness to the truth. Here was a church that knew the truth, and stood for the truth. They knew His Name, and they stood for His Name. “Thou holdest fast My Name.” Why? Because His is a saving Name. His is a pardoning Name. His is a healing Name, a delivering Name. Oh the power in the Name. Demons are cast out by His Name. Blind eyes are opened by His Name. Those dead in their sins are made alive by His Name. The power is in the Name of the Risen Son. And they held fast His Name. But also we find: “Thou hast also not denied My faith.” Not, our faith. But, My faith, said the Lord Jesus. This faith that I have, this message of the revelation of Myself. Is it not interesting? It is the Word of God. God’s Word that He has given. Now He said, You have held it fast. You have stood on it. And then He commended this church for their endurance in the face of tribulation and persecution. Antipas undoubtedly was the Pastor of this church, one that was taken before the Roman authorities and falsely accused, condemned, and was slain. And they had in the face of this persecution stood strong, stalwart, not cringing. You can be sure of this that the Lord is always going to recognize everything that you do for Him that is right and fair and true, but you can be equally sure the Lord is going to judge everything that is wrong and sinful, and unclean. And here we find the sword of God’s love. We have seen the speech of God’s Son, the seat of God’s adversary, the steadfastness of God’s children, and now in verse 14, the sword of God’s love. His eyes are as flame of fire. “But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam.” Who is Balaam? Who is this one? Well you know from the Old Testament, he is the one that was hired by Balak to curse Israel. Balaam knew the truth. He had been taught the truth. He was able to declare the truth. But this was Balaam’s trouble: He loved gain. He was greedy. He was selfish of money, and selfish of position, and because of the avarice of his heart, he forbade the truth to do its work, and he remained in moral perversion. Oh how many there are that know the truth, and affirm it in the twentieth century, and yet, like Balaam, have never allowed the Word of God to check the wickedness of their heart. And such are known. And we find our Lord Jesus is intimating that this is a peculiar possibility in the center of city church, because of the separation of the people of necessity must experience, scattered as they will be. And therefore He is saying, You do not know about it, as He speaks to the faithful elders, but I see it. I see it; For My eyes are as a flame of fire. Now there was another company of people there, probably not large, but some and enough so that the Lord says, “There are also those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes which thing I hate.” Who are the Nicolaitanes? They are the people that believe that moral conduct does not make any difference, and that just as long as you believe what is right, you can live as you want, that Jesus Christ is blind, and has lost His moral sense and judgment, and it makes no difference how a person lives, as long as he has “accepted Jesus.” The doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, that has lost its moral force and lost its power, and lost its effect. This is the doctrine of antinomianism, that is raging rampant now in America, in the midst of fundamentalism and our evangelicalism, where it is being intimated in some quarters at least that if you teach holiness of life as an evidence of regeneration, that you are actually teaching heresy. It was as I have told you John Wesley8, who wrote in the introduction to his Book, The Circumcision of the Heart; A melancholy thought expressed by one of our eminent writers that there are certain ancient truths so long neglected that they sound to our untaught ears like heresy. Here is the doctrine of holiness, and that God hates sin, and that he that commits sin is of the devil regardless of how many times he has been baptized, what church he belongs to, or how many Scripture verses he can quote. And he says, There are some among them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes. This was, As long as you believe, it does not make any difference how you live. But we understand the Word of God to teach that “the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His, and let everyone that nameth the Name of Christ depart from iniquity.” (II Tim. 2:19) Now Christ establishes the condition for fellowship and blessing. Repent. You of the Nicolaitanes, repent. You of the Balaamites, repent. Repent is the word. Change your mind about this. Give it up. Cease immediately. Or else, says He. What do 8 John Wesley (1703-1791) Anglican cleric, Christian theologian, and founding the Methodist movement. as He say? I’ll call a council and have you excommunicated? I’ll have your name stricken off the roll? Is that what He says? No. That is not what He said. He says, Or I will come quickly and I will fight against thee. Do you see? Jesus Christ is particularly concerned about the city church. And he knows that it is the place where the seat of Satan is, and He knows that it is going to be that those who sin after the order of Balaam and the Nicolaitanes that pollute it, and He did not say, I will wipe away the church. He did not say, I will remove your candlestick. He does later. But He says, I am speaking now to those of the Nicolaitanes, that I am speaking to those of the Balaamites. If you do not repent, I will come quickly and I will fight against them. I will fight against them. I believe that we have got to understand that Jesus Christ has here made it perfectly clear that He is at any price going to have His testimony. You recall that when Dr. Simpson stood at the church down on 12th Street and preached what God had revealed to him and made real in his life, and elders of that church said, No. We won't have it. And the people of the church said, No. We won't have it. God said, I will have it. I will have it. And the good Doctor left his salary, and emoluments, and honored and preferred preference, and he walked out, and he began a testimony. And I submit to you that Jesus Christ will have a center of city testimony. He will have it. He will have it. He will have it. And He will have it pure, and He will have it vital, and He will have it where the seat of Satan is. And He will either have it where we want it, or if He does not then He will have it where He will have it. He said, “Repent or I will come quickly and I will fight against them, for He is going to have a testimony where the seat of Satan is.” Now notice. “He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches: To him that overcometh I will give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.” What is this hidden manna? Our Lord Jesus Christ said, I am the Bread of Life. I am the Bread of Life. And that hidden manna is none other than Christ living in you, filling you, living His life through you. This is the hidden manna. And this the Lord will have. And He is going to have in Pergamos a people that have eaten of the hidden manna, a people that hate sin, that will not tolerate the Balaamites, nor the Nicolaitanes, will not tolerate truth that does not strike at the root cord of avarice, and covetousness, and immorality and uncleanness, and is going to give to Him a people for Himself, a people that are His. He said, I am going to have a people that have overcome. I am going to have a people that have eaten of the hidden manna, a people that have received the white stone and their name written on it. In other words, I am going to have a people that are Mine, wholly Mine, and that know Me. I believe that Jesus Christ is desirous today, as never before in the history of our land, to have in the center of the city not something that man erects for God, but something that God sovereignly and supernaturally erects for man. Beloved, move than anything else in all the world I want to be part of that. I want to be part of it. Where Satan’s seat is. There the strife is the hottest. There the privilege to stand for Christ is the greatest. May God bless you. May He give to you a vision that He is going to have in the Pergamoses of our land, right in the center of the city, in the heart of iniquity, where the sink of moral depravity is at its lowest. For where sin abounds, He will have grace much more abound. He will do it. Will He do it in you? I trust so. Let us pray. Perhaps I am speaking to someone tonight who came in, lost and undone. I want you to know that this One whose eyes are a flame of fire knows all about your sin. And if you will cease being God in your life, reigning as a little attender in the precincts of your own heart, and will throw yourself at the feet of the One who is worthy to receive your life -- Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He will forgive you, and pardon you, heal you of your backslidings, and of your sin, and of your uncleanness, give you a new heart and a new life, and make you a new person. I speak to you who may have been caught up subtly and slyly with the sin of the Balaamites and the sin of the Nicolaitanes. Oh, repent. Repent, is His word. Give up the ambition, the vanity, and the pride, and the self-seeking. Give up the immorality and the uncleanness of heart and thought and life. And let Him give to you that hidden Manna. Why would you have the Son of God come quickly and fight against you, when He offers you Himself and all that He is? Our Heavenly Father, we bow before Thee now realizing that here are a people that have been gathered tonight. We will never be quite as we are, a company as we are. And our hearts cry out to Thee that the deep sense of the privilege of standing for Thee in the heart of the city may be burned in upon us, and the deep sense of the danger that is peculiarly ours, because we are in the city, may come upon us, and a high sense, Lord, of the danger that is peculiarly ours because we are in the city may come upon us, and a high sense, Lord, of the danger in which we stand when we would pollute that which Jesus Christ holds so dear to His heart, a testimony where the seat of Satan is. Let fear and awe, and wonder come upon our hearts. And somehow, if it please Thee, Lord, get right here at this place a people who love Thee with all their hearts and are prepared at any cost to be the vehicle of blessing for which Thou art waiting, and seeking, and yearning. We know that if Thou canst not have it here, Thou wilt none the less have it. But, Oh God, do Thou make us to be that testimony that Thou canst seal and honor as Thine, because it is wholly given over to Thee, utterly abandoned to Thee. Now we pray, Lord, that that one that has come in with any kind of spiritual need will not leave until it is met. I wonder if just in this closing moment if there is one that would say by upraised hand, Pray for me. Is there? Yes I see it. God bless you. Are there any others anywhere? For the one whose hand is raised we do pray. For those whose hands ought to have been raised, whose hearts are wrong toward Thee, we would pray. Oh God, do Thou work. We invite Thee to work, to get here that testimony that Thou dost seek. In Jesus Name and for His sake, we pray. Amen. Shall we stand now for the Benediction? I am going to ask dear Brother from New Jersey if he will pronounce the Benediction. Will You? Come to the platform. Mr. Rev. Phil Hewing from New Jersey is going to pronounce the Benediction. “Let us bow our hearts in prayer. Our loving Father. Thou hast been good to us this Lord’s Day to bring to our hearts Thy precious Word. How we thank Thee for the Message of this hour, and when men are forsaking the city, godly men, and moving to the suburbs, it is refreshing to hear a voice from God concerning the passion that Christ has for the lost in this great metropolitan area. Do Thou bless this witness here, Dr. Reidhead and the co-laborers, and the fellowship of the saints. Save souls through this Ministry, and draw the children of God to this place to raise up a mighty testimony to His Saving Name and Matchless Name. So bless now and return the children of God to the hour of prayer on Wednesday to bear before Thee the needs of the world and of the community, and the hearts of the children of the Lord. We ask in Christ’s Name. Amen.” * Reference such as: Delivered at The Gospel Tabernacle Church, New York City on Sunday Evening, December 25, 1960 by Paris W. Reidhead, Pastor. ©PRBTMI 1960

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The Victor’s Life Secret

Paris Reidhead

Paris Reidhead (1919 - 1992)

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