An Urgent Message for God's Elect - Bh Clendennon — From the Pulpit & Classic Sermons

Welcome to From the Pulpit in Classic Sermons. Each week, we bring you a different message from some of history's greatest speakers in the Christian faith, and powerful sermons from modern preachers, too.

This week, we have B .H. Clendenin with his urgent message to God's elect.

Confession, Repentance, and the Need for Revival

I come to you at this very, very critical time. I have a message I believe, if ever in my life, is from God. I want to read 1 John 1, verses 9 and 10, that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say that we have no sin, then we make Him a liar, and His Word is not within us. Now, most of you in this vast audience around the world know that I personally am passing through one of the most difficult times of my life at this very moment.

But I'm sure there's a purpose in the whole. I have for some time begged God to not let me die until we've shown this generation His power, this poor, deceived generation His power. Somehow, I feel that this all is connected.

Now, the reason I feel so strongly about this is because the attack on me has produced a worldwide prayer meeting. And calls are coming from around this world, from churches, individuals, letting me know that they're fasting, praying, believing God for total, absolute victory.

Now, I sincerely believe that this prayer meeting could produce the final move of God that you and I have been praying for. Now, understanding that in my present physical condition, if God does not give me a miracle, which through your prayer, I believe will happen.

But if not, this could very well be my last communication with you. Therefore, you can be sure I weigh every single word that I speak. First of all, the Spirit of God has dealt with me very strongly, that for that revival to come, there must be deep confession and repentance on the part of you and I, the elect of God.

The river of the Holy Ghost must be able to flow through us. Therefore, there must be nothing in us that would prevent the flow of this river of life. We must humbly come before our Heavenly Father and ask His forgiveness.

Hear me, ladies and gentlemen, and earnestly seek His direction and guidance. We know His word said, Woe unto them that call evil good. But that's exactly what we have done by allowing the flesh a place in our worship.

We confess before God that we have lost our spiritual. We must confess before God that we've lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values. We confess that we've questioned the absolute truth of the word of God by preaching so many other things.

We've professed a love for the word, but have ignored it. We arrogantly have given ourselves the title of Pentecostal, professing more power than all others, yet lack the power to witness to the lost, let alone live holy lives.

We've worshipped other gods and called it prosperity. We've learned more from religious TV stars than the Bride and Morning Star. We've ranted against perversion in our street, but refused to confess that it was the compromise in the word of God in the church which produced such perversion in the first place.

Romans chapter 1, 25 and 26. By remaining silent, we've empowered the purveyors of perversion in the pulpit, in the voting book, yet dare call ourselves holiness. We've murdered the unborn with our silence in the pulpit.

We've prostituted our values because of our loyalty to our party, our union, our ancestors, our prejudices. We've committed the sin of racism by condoning the wrongs of the past and the present. Others have committed the sin of racism by their unforgiveness and search of revenge.

We've neglected the poor in lieu of the appearance of more spiritual goals. We've lazily prepared to preach, satisfied with replacing anointing with noise. We've rejected to train up our children in the way that's right, then blame the devil.

We've complained because prayer is not allowed in the school, yet a vast majority of the church members have no altar in their home. We've abused power and called it apostleship. We revere the high and mighty among men and disdain little men who are much more holy.

We've closed our lips to the concept of holiness to be more sensitive to the appeal of the laws. Not since the Pharisees accused Jesus of being Beelzebub has Christ been more dishonored than with this user-friendly gospel.

We've become user-friendly without confessing it. We've shunned the past as archaic, have accepted the trends of the modern church. Our worship is guided by the top 40 gospels instead of truths embedded with the gospel.

Worship, Learning, and the Church's Loss of Spiritual Vision

Our arrogance drives us through the night, oblivious to our ineffectiveness and our disdain for learning. Others trust in their learning and forget their living. We hastily judge other groups, presuming our perfection, preferring a unique tradition over a unique relationship.

We've lost the vision of God as a result for the most part. We're unconscious of the destructive process going on. We don't know the way back to reality because we've lost the vision, my God, of where we've fallen from.

We've confused noise with power, flamboyancy with anointing, charisma with calling. We've replaced conviction with counseling, sin with tolerance. We've erased the reality of hell from the Bible to be loved by those who hate our God.

We ascribe on paper to the second coming, but it's rarely preached, taught, or expected. We go on our merry way, driving past the lost, preaching weakly to those who have already heard. We've created a climate where we're more interested about our own needs being met than the needs of the community.

Pastoral Maintenance Versus the Great Commission

We're pastors with a maintenance mind, designed to make everybody happy. Their commitment is not to the Great Commission. It's to clean restrooms, neat bulletins, deluxe potluck suppers. We have young pastors who are more discontented with what others have done, but have no problem with what they have not done.

We have pastors content with no progress, using the excuse of doing everything they know but unwilling to learn. We have too many people who grovel over TV religious stars, who squander your money on limousines, mansions, airplanes, and evangelism goes undone.

We have more people vying for position than we have sighing for souls. We drift toward compromise, call it tolerance. We drift toward disobedience, call it freedom. We drift toward superstition, call it faith.

We cherish the indiscipline of the lost, self-control, and call it relaxation. We make light of perilousness and delude ourselves into thinking we escape legalism. We slide toward godliness and convince ourselves we've been liberated.

Due to discontent, we've replaced the presence of wisdom with carelessness, thinking all risk is better than none. God help us to turn to God. Listen, if we're going to see revival, then there's going to have to come repentance and confession on the part of the church of God.

If we'll separate the vial, that is the flesh, from the spirit, God said we can be his mouth, and that's all that's necessary. I beg you today church, hear me. I'm talking to a people, maybe my last message to you, but there must be individually and collectively a repentance on the part of the elect of God.

Hear me today, God purify our hearts, turn us back to the truth and reality of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh God, let it be so today. I have been driven by the Holy Spirit to stir the hearts of the elect of God, to call us back to the altar, and to allow God to search us deeply as our every desire, every motive.

If God is to move, he must have a vessel through which he can manifest himself. You and I have come to the kingdom for such a time as this. If we fail, deliverance will come, but our houses will be destroyed.

Returning to the Old Paths and the Altar

Thus saith the Lord, stand you in the way, seek and ask for the old paths, where is in the good way, and walk therein, and you'll find rest for your soul. But they said we'll not walk therein, Jeremiah 6 .16.

Now Jeremiah is admonishing Israel to ask for the old paths, where's the good way, walk in, you'll find rest. That is a perfect picture of today's gatewayward church. God is calling, but they're saying we'll not walk therein.

The saying out there today is this is not your grandfather's Pentecost. God is once more talking to his church, calling her back to the old paths, wherein dwelleth the righteousness. His word is, repent your way back to where you left him.

We must not leave any high places, or we'll find ourselves like Israel, falling away again. We must pray our way back to God's altar, and ourselves on that altar as a living sacrifice. The fire never falls on an empty altar.

Christ must become our life again. For a moment I want to take you to Joshua, for there is a revelation. Gilgal, as you know, is the new ground gained and occupied by the people brought over Jordan, and is a type of resurrection ground upon which Christ has brought us.

That we are risen with Christ, seated with him in heavenly places, must be constantly remembered. But before they could advance, a number of things had to happen. First we read a fear that took hold of the kings of Canaan.

Now they were the instruments of Satan. Their fear denotes Satan's fear. He knew the power of Jehovah, which had brought them into the land. Satan's only antagonism is the Holy Ghost filled church, walking, living in union with Christ.

The enemy is defeated by the death and resurrection of our Lord, being in Christ risen, seated in him, the heavenly places. We can look upon him as conquered. Yet we must know it's only in the Lord, in the power of his might, we're strong.

Apart from him we become the easy prey of the enemy. But we're translated from that darkness into the kingdom of God's wonderful Son. Circumcision is next commanded by Jehovah. At that time the Lord said to Joshua, Make these sharp knives, circumcise again the children the second time.

The command was carried out at once, and the reproach of Egypt was rolled away. Therefore the place was called Gilgal, which means rolling. Now the circumcision was carried out on all males who were born in the wilderness.

Circumcision stands for the carrying out of the sentence of death to the flesh, the death of Christ and for the people a circumcision in him in whom you are circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands.

But this fact that we're dead to sin by the circumcision, the death of Christ, must be carried out practically. The sharp knife must be laid to this flesh and the things of the flesh. Gilgal therefore stands for the judgment of self.

Achan's Sin, Corporate Guilt, and the Valley of Achor

This is a place of our strength, our power. Israel had always returned to Gilgal. When they did not, they were defeated. It's a parable. Ai, the city, means ruins. Ai is another type of the world, but the source of defeat was aching sin.

We're always tempted to look outside of ourselves. The problem is within. The shackles of silver, gold, Babylonian garments blinded his eyes. These things were to be accursed. Joshua said so. Amen. This obedience would bring trouble upon Israel.

So aching sin was responsible for the defeat of the people. He confesses, I saw, I coveted, I took the evil in the midst of the people of God unjudged. Becomes the most powerful agent against the people of God and withholds God's power and blessing.

And so it is still. As soon as we cling to the things of the world, then the enemy gets an advantage over us, and we have little power and cannot advance in the things of Christ. But aching sin discovered, forced confession, lifts judgment from Israel, and falls upon him and his house the heap of stones.

The valley of Achor, where it was stolen, was a place of hope. Not only a place of national repentance and national repudiation, but it was also the place of a great tragic national expiation. Israel had sinned, so Israel had suffered.

But it is the sin of one man, my God don't let it be me, that had brought judgment on the camp. Now observe the sin of a single man, imputed to Israel, became Israel's sin. And because of that imputation, the wrath of God was on the nation.

That's what's happened to the church. But when the sin of that one man was discovered, when it was confessed, then it was imputed to him and lifted from Israel. Thus the penalty due to national sin was actually carried upon those whose guilt had involved the nation in such a thing.

Amen. That man in death was not only reaping the reward of disobedience, but the sin of the nation being expiated in his death of this individual. Thus was opened the door of hope, the valley of Achor, the valley of trouble.

If we'll purge ourselves, then God will come. A study of the life of Paul reveals the power of the Christian faith to excite the worst passions of men. But we become so familiar with it externally, that by our own spirit and demeanor, we cast a doubt upon this veritable proposition, set it down as the saddest fact that has become possible.

The Gospel's Dogmatic Message and the New Birth

For nominal believers to care nothing about their faith, they degraded it so that it now converses with infidels, doubters, even mockers. The faith that used to hold no parley with unbelievers is now walking on the common road, begging, asking leave, holding discussion, apologizing for suggestion of its own faith.

This age is seized with the horror of dogmatism. The gospel has been reduced to a point that the message is not you must be born again, but rather through inoffensive preaching, house group fellowship, we assimilate the lost into the church.

Christianity is nothing if it's not dogmatic, has no reason for existence if it's not positive. It's not one of many, if it's one of many, it's not what it possesses. The gospel of Christ is complete, final, positive, unanswerable.

Paul writes to the Romans, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. That word ashamed means to disfigure. He said, I will not disfigure this gospel to make it acceptable to a world that hates him. We must ever keep in mind that at this very moment, Christ represents us at the throne of God, and we represent him on this earth, and we must not represent him.

Amen. We must not represent him to make him acceptable to a world. In proportion, as any religion is true, it cannot stoop to the holding of conversation with anybody. Christianity reveals, proclaims, announces, thunders, not a suggestion, it's a revelation, not a puzzle to which has a dozen answers, but it is a oracle.

Please understand what is meant. The dogmatism is truth is one thing, and the dogmatism of the imperfect preacher is another. Truth must be dogmatic, that is positive, absolute, without ambiguity. Truth must be clear in its own conception, clear in positive demands, clear in its rewards and punishments.

It's not lawful to have your brother's wife was God's message to the king. It cost John his life, but to say it differently would have been high treason. Can you wonder then, that a religion, namely the Christian faith, which claimed to be the voice of God, should have encountered such awful hate, if it could have come apologetically, and said, I think, I suggest, like the 21st century Pentecostal, it might have been heard at the world's convention, but it came otherwise.

It came with a voice saying, this is my beloved son, hear him. God, help us church. Look at yourself, look at myself. Let's repent, let's get ourselves on God's altar, and we will see God's power. The problem is, they never saw the kingdom of God.

The New Birth as the Foundation of Church Life

I pastored a long time before I realized why you have to beg about half the church to come to church. You know, you got to mail them out, you got to call them on the phone, you got to plead with them to come to the house.

They're going to be absent if somebody isn't on them. It took me a long time to understand the problem. They have not been born again. It's not their nature. You know, Joe never had to send no postcard to get me to a bar.

He knew I'd be there. Money wasn't going to keep me out, because he'd give me credit. He'd do something bad wrong if I wasn't there, because that's my nature. I can tell you, a man born again, he still says, I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of God.

Nobody ever had to beg me to go to church, anymore to have to beg me to go to bar. Just tell me where Christ is functioning, I'll be there on the front pew if you let me. I'm going to be there. You see, we've got to come back to the reality.

God dealt with me so strongly about, you've got to go back to the basis. You can't build the kingdom of God on tariffs, folks. It won't work. They have to be born again people. You cannot build this kingdom on people that do not have the kingdom in their lives.

God took me back, made me to realize that before we ever, ever move any further, we've got to come back to understand the greatness of that fall and the greatness of this redemption. That is the roots of Christianity.

Unless you have roots, you bear no fruit. A tree can't live without roots. You've got to understand, you hear me, the depth of that fall. God said in the beginning, let us make man in our image. God made Adam and mirrored in that man, you could see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

In the fall, that was what was lost. And a man is never born again until there's a birth of that Son in that life, until God can see again in that life the mirror of himself. There is no birth without that, ladies and gentlemen.

We don't believe in Darwinian evolution, but we sure taught it in the Pentecostal church. We made men believe that they could grow and be educated into this life. You don't grow into life. When biogenesis become a bona fide scientific fact, there would have never been another mention of evolution on this planet.

That just says life comes from life. It don't just happen. Life only comes from life. We've turned the Sunday school around. I know I'm talking about the sacred cow at this point. I'm a believer in the Sunday school, but I'm not a believer in much it's become today.

Because it's no longer teaching new creatures how to walk with God, it's teaching ungodly people how to be religious without ever coming to know the Lord Jesus. I preached one Sunday night. I preached on a born-again believer or a product of a religious system.

In that message, this has been 30, 40 years ago, and right here in this church, I preached, I said, we in the assemblies of God have young men who are pastors in a pulpit came up through the Sunday school, the CA department, and now preachers, and have never been born again.

Oh, I thought that night is difficult. Brother Graham was our superintendent at that time. Very, very great man, godly man. Always for 40-something years, I'd have this prayer meeting every morning at 5 o 'clock.

God dealt with me about seeking him early. Once in a while, he'd drive from Houston over. Well, that Monday morning, after I preached that message, I heard that old gravel voice somewhere in there, and I knew the superintendent had come to pray with me.

He was a great man of God. We always had breakfast walking across the parking lot. I said to him, Brother Graham, I preached something last night. Maybe I pushed the button too far, stretched the band too wide, and I told him what I said.

He said, if you have to deal with what I have to deal with, that calls himself preacher, with the adultery, the immorality, you know you can't preach it too far. I'm telling you, folks, you don't grow into this.

You're born into this kingdom, and there's never going to be a revival till we bring her back. The greatness of that redemption, Christ must be birthed in that human being, and if that Christ is birthed in him, then the house of God is a wonderful place, and the church of God is the body of Christ and the place that we want to come and want to be.

The Kingdom of God in Pentecostal Power

The kingdom of God, what is it? Jesus told a certain group of people that some of them would not see death until they saw that kingdom come in power. Looking back now, I know you know he was talking about the day of Pentecost, when that wind blew through that upper room, heaven came into the hearts of men and women.

The kingdom came in power on the day of Pentecost. When the wind blew through that upper room, then the kingdom of God took up its residence in the heart of a human. It's not meat and drink, but Jesus said, joy, peace, and righteousness in the Holy Ghost.

Again, he said, the kingdom of God cometh not with observation, that is, with the physical eye, but the kingdom of God is within us, and if that kingdom is within you, then you know it's there. Years ago, a man called me from Houston, and he said, Pastor, I watch you on television.

I'd like to come to Beaumont and talk to you. I need some counseling. I said, well, that's fine. It's an hour drive. You're already on the phone. Maybe I can help you now. What do you want to talk about?

He said, well, I want to see if you think I have the Holy Spirit. I said, no, you don't. My, my, he said, such discernment. I said, I didn't know discernment, sir. The God that inhabits eternity can't live in a man without a man knowing that.

You may be here. Somebody taught you a little prayer language. They lied to you, mister. The miracle wasn't that I talk in tongues. The miracle was he lived in me and gave me something to say. I've watched him reduce this great.

I watched this ecumenical thing as it spread back in the 60s, just old and dead religious bodies joining themselves together for some kind of political reason. I said to the folks here in this church, I said there's no harm in that.

There's nothing to it whatsoever, but the day it takes on a Pentecostal context, it'll go straight to demonism. I've watched it, mister. Let me tell you something. This don't mix with anything. Christianity is not an accretion of everything.

It is Christ. I said, it is Christ. It is Christ, Jesus, the Lord. This kingdom in a man separates him from whatever there is of this earth. You don't mix Baal and Christ, mister. There is no mixture.

It's Christ and Christ alone that's a savior of us all. Hallelujah to God. Jesus on this earth, he talked much about a kingdom outside of this one. He talked about a kingdom of darkness where disembodied spirits dwell, where demons walk to destroy and disturb man.

But he also spoke of a kingdom of light and power where God and angels live and invited me to walk in that kingdom. Oh, if I could run, I'd do it now. I said, he invited me to walk in that kingdom. He told me about a world where God was real, where angels walk, where miracles happen, where it's commonplace with God.

I'm talking about the kingdom of God. Oh, yes, hallelujah. Hallelujah. A kingdom in which the church was to move and live. That's what he said. You're to demonstrate on this planet what heaven's all about.

The Bible said the word of God is forever settled in heaven. And then Jesus come along and said whatever's settled up there, I want it to happen down here. Your prayer must be thy kingdom come. He also spoke of a kingdom of light and power where God and angels live and invited me to walk in that kingdom.

Oh, if I could run, I'd do it now. I said, he invited me to walk in that kingdom. He told me about a world where God was real, where angels walk, where miracles happen, where it's commonplace with God.

I'm talking about the kingdom of God. Oh, yes, hallelujah. Hallelujah. A kingdom in which the church was to move and live. That's what he said. You're to demonstrate on this planet what heaven's all about.

The Bible said the word of God is forever settled in heaven. And then Jesus come along and said whatever's settled up there, I want it to happen down here. Your prayer must be thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on this earth, not in the millennium, but right now.

In us that know this great God, this gospel never changes because the God that brought it never changes. And the people that walk in God's spirit are the same as the first century people that walked in the spirit.

A Pentecostal Testimony of the Holy Spirit's Power

Hallelujah to God. Amen. This was powerfully made real to me in a camp meeting about 72 miles from here. They called me in 1958, they come in in 56, begin this church. And that's the semblance of God in East Texas.

Had a camp meeting out in the field, built a little old brush arbor kind of a place, only it had a metal roof instead of brush. Invited me. I preached for seven years at that camp meeting. Saw it come from 150 to 1 ,000 people out there in those woods.

You'd go up there, folks, and the men would go out along the fence row. You could hear them for a mile as they prayed. Women stayed under the tabernacle for an hour before it started. Oh, what times, what times.

One night I was preaching. The old PA system wasn't nothing like this, but I pulled, there was 1 ,000 people scattered out there, pulled the microphone out, didn't even know it was cut loose. I was so caught up in God, I'd walked out dragging that dead microphone with me, proclaiming Christ, preaching.

All of a sudden, they went mad. You hear me? I mean people jumped up, began to fall over each other. Some fell out in the sawdust. Over 100 people were baptized in the Holy Ghost. I said over 100 people falling out.

Amen. When I saw what has happened, I retreated back to the platform. One man come a running. I went over, laid hands on him, not to bless him, but to keep him off the platform. Amen. I got over, I stopped him.

Minute I laid my hands on him, he just began to pour out of him the language of heaven. Oh, he spoke in the most beautiful language. While I'm there with him, Brother Thomas come up by me, a pastor. He said, What's going on?

I said, Listen to him. He's talking in tongues. He said, He can't. He's my nephew, born deaf and dumb 35 years ago. He can't even say mama. I said, Well, he's saying something now. And for 20 minutes, he spoke in the language of God.

But when the Holy Ghost lifted, he's still a deaf mute. Life is deeper than conscience. There's somebody in me. Come on, worship God. Don't worry about it. Oh, hallelujah. That's all I'm saying. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. You've been listening to the From the Pulpit in Classic Sermons series. This week, you heard B .H. Clendenin with his urgent message to God's elect. Tune in next week to hear Carter Conlon speak about deal with sin, Christ is coming on From the Pulpit in Classic Sermons.