POWER WITHOUT POWER

By CHARLES PERKINS, Pastor

GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH

POST OFFICE BOX 362

NIXA, MISSOURI 65714

E-Mail: onebookpreacher@yahoo.com

"When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight." (Acts 1:6-9)

The weather report said freezing rain and ice. It was right. The trees and power lines are covered. Limbs and lines are down all over the place. Our power went out about five P.M. on Saturday and came back on Tuesday night. We were better off than a lot of people. We do have a fireplace insert and some men of our church brought us a load of wood. At this writing, there are still thousands of folks across the Ozarks without power. The place looks like a war zone.

Mrs. Perkins and I experienced this type of ice storm in the early seventies. We were in upstate New York where we had started a new church near Buffalo.

When the power goes out you start to wonder if it will ever come back on. The nights, in the dark and cold, seem to drag on and you hope for some daylight.

The situation sadly reminds us of the condition of many Baptists and their churches of today. Hundreds of Baptist Churches have dropped the name Baptist in order to get a crowd to come, who do not like Baptists. Must be a dollar in it some-where. King James Bible preaching, soul-winning, devil hating, God fearing, judgment day is coming, old-fashioned Baptist Churches are becoming fewer and fewer all the time. Bible Believers should not be surprised. The Apostle Paul said:

"Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;" (2 Thes. 2:3)

AND:

"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." (2 Tim 4:3,4)

God has removed the Holy Ghost power from many churches that once had the power. One example after another could be given. We think of the great Temple Baptist Church in Detroit under the leadership of Dr. G. B. Vick. There was power back then. Dr. Vick was Pastor at that Independent, Bible Believing Baptist Church for forty years. After Brother Vick went home to Heaven, that church started down the drain. None of the succeeding pastors took the stand for the word of God and separation like Dr. Vick did. God pulled the POWER plug.

So now we live in the age of the neo-evangelicals. The "Purpose Driven" crowd is rich, putting on stage shows with their satanic African sex music (CCM) and trashy books that they like to pretend are Bibles. i.e. NIV, NKJV, NASV, RSV, TEV, AMPLIFIED, et al.

God said it would happen. NO POWER!

"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:" (Rev 3:15-17)

The philosophy is to do whatever it takes to draw a big crowd. It is the: "come as you are" crowd. It is the: "bible of your choice" crowd. It is the: "make us feel good about ourselves" crowd. It is the: "entertain us with rock music" crowd. It is the: "tickle our ears" crowd. NO POWER! NO PREACHING! The average Baptist cannot stand hard preaching.

We can remember when there was such a thing as "SUNDAY GO TO MEETING" clothes. These were the best clothes we had and we only wore them to Church on Sunday in honor of our Lord or maybe on a rare occasion to a funeral. Now, it is vogue for people to come in their old work clothes or beach clothes or their sweat suits. Some of the boys have their britches hanging down like gang-bang-ers. The crotch of their pants hangs down to their knees with the crack of their rear end showing. These stupid boys have pierced their ears, nose, lips, eyebrows, and who knows where else with a bunch of metal that sometimes turns green and looks about as stupid as an African witch doctor. Their cruddy looking, long, girly hair or greasy spiked hair is supposed to say "hey, look at me ain’t I something?" "I am different from those Christian men who love the Lord and His Bible, but I’m a Christian." It is wickedness and an abomination!

Some of the girls are no better. If they show up in a skirt at all, many times it is so short they look like a poor stand in for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders or a sloppy substitute for Gypsy Rose Lee. If they come to church in jeans they look like their bottom half must have been melted down and poured into their pants. One girl said, "these pants are tighter than my skin." Someone answered, "they can’t be tighter than your skin." "Oh yes, the girl replied, I can sit down in my skin but I can’t sit down in these pants." The sad truth is, their parents let them wear such stuff. Of course, Mom and Dad dress properly being the good Christians that they are (in church). They start these girls out when they are real young wearing these short dresses and short shorts and expect they will change to long ones when they get old enough to have the boys start looking at them. What a joke! The Bible says: "Train up a child in the way he should go"… Did you get that? A CHILD!

We went to one meeting and a teenage girl got up to sing a special in her little mini skirt: "Nothing between my soul and the Savior." I thought, "there ain’t much between you and us either!" In another meeting a long haired teen boy got up and wiggled around and sang to some canned music (noise). I passed a note to a preacher behind me: "Elvis is not dead!"

Several years ago, Mrs. Perkins and I were back in Springfield on a Sunday and walked into the Southside Baptist Church. When we saw the set of dance band drums on the platform we turned around and left in disappointment. The Bible says: "Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them." (Ezek 22:26)

When the Lord called me to be the Pastor of Clairemont Baptist Temple in San Diego it was in February 1992. They had no weekly choir, but groups would occasionally get up and sing. Some wore jeans. Some wore mini skirts. And one rather portly lady wore something that looked like the old-time long under-ware. I was afraid for her to turn around in case there was one of those button-up trap doors in the back that might pop open at any minute and we would all get "mooned". Nobody had to be a member of the church to participate in anything including the Sunday school teachers or nursery workers. One of the little kids’ teachers was an older lady who was a candidate for "Happy-dale" and her helper was a Vietnamese young man that was about three bubbles off of plumb! Everyone did pretty much what was right in his own eyes, even if it was wrong. (Judges 21:25) I had filled their pulpit for a few times since they were without a pastor. The last time, I told my wife, upon our departure, "I sure wouldn’t want to be the pastor at that church." You had better be careful what you say; the Lord might be listening. J We were there almost 13 years. The church became Clairemont Bible Baptist Church when we changed its name. When we left to live our last days in the Ozarks, everyone was a King James Bible believer. Most of the ladies wore skirts down below their knees. Most of the men wore their better clothes to church. The Choir was great looking. The men in the choir wore ties. We sang the old songs with no canned music arranged by the looney charismatics. We had a goodly number of soul winners and people got saved. It was all God’s doing and the POWER of the gospel. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." (Romans 1:16) Since then, that church has also gone by the way side. Be careful of the assistant pastor.

But somebody might say, "what’s wrong with churches being "purpose driven" instead of Gospel preaching"? Go ahead, have it your way. Just don’t pretend it is a church. I have read the Bible. I know what a true church is and is not.

These "purpose driven" neo-evangelical, day and night clubs are considered successful by the great numbers of Bible ignorant people that show up on a Sunday morning or night. It is a great sales gimmick to make their leaders rich. Rick Warren has sold millions of books. We will see how he does at the Judgment having espoused his "purpose driven" philosophy.

"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." (Col. 2:8)

The churches in the book of Acts were given the POWER of the Holy Ghost to become witnesses and soul winners and send out missionaries all over the world to carry forth the word of life. They were challenged to: "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine." (2 Tim 4:2) Now at the end of the church age there are still a good number of churches that are doing that. They are Independent, King James Bible believing Baptist Churches. I know of no others. Cults such as the J.W.’s and the Mormons still are out there working for the devil but they have no gospel message. The POWER of God is in the Gospel, which is: "Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: (1 Cor. 15:1-4)

The J.W.s teach Christ did not come out of the grave "BODILY." (The same position M. L. King Jr. took) Which means they are going to end up in the same place King ended up! (Luke 16:23-24; 24:39)

Mormon doctrine says Jesus was a spirit offspring of the Father and that Lucifer was the second spirit offspring, making them brothers. One turned out good and the other not so good. Beware of the well-dressed young men in their secret under ware and skinny black ties, ridding their bikes and knocking on your doors. The only POWER they have is satanic power to deceive the simple and ignorant.

God’s POWER is available to all who will receive it. John 1:12 "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:"

Rom. 1:16 "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."

Heb. 4:12 "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."

Many storms of life will come in the future. Are you ready to handle them? Do you have a back-up generator? Titus 3:5 "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;"

"Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me." (Heb 13:6,7)

"All hail the power of Jesus' name! Let angels prostrate fall; Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown Him Lord of all. Ye chosen seed of Israel's race, Ye ransomed from the fall, Hail Him who saves you by His grace, And crown Him Lord of all. Let every kindred, every tribe, On this terrestrial ball, To Him all majesty ascribe, And crown Him Lord of all. O that with yonder sacred throng We at His feet may fall! We'll join the everlasting song, And crown Him Lord of all."

Edward Perronet (1726-1792