The following is a sermon preached by Elder T. C. Mooney at the Tickanetley Primitive Baptist Church at Ellijay, Georgia, on the fourth Sunday in August, 1980

. I beg an interest in your prayers as I come before you this morning. We realize that without the help of God we will not be able to preach the gospel in the power and demonstration of the Spirit. Therefore, we must have the help of God and we need your prayers.

I want to call your attention to a small portion of the Acts of the Apostles, and if the Lord will bless us, we will talk to you about that--or something else. "Now, when they had heard this, they were pricked in their hearts and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, for the promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call."

Now, this preaching was done on the day of Pentecost. That was the last of the Law Service going out. And that was the greatest ingathering of the children of God on that day that we have any record of. And the apostles (although they were all of the same language) were enabled by the Spirit of God to preach to all the Jews that had been scattered in all the nations, and born in other nations and knew nothing about the Hebrew language. God gave them the ability to preach to everyone of the Jews that were there and had ears to hear and hearts to understand the reason why Christ was crucified and why he set up his church here in this world, and that the Law Dispensation was come in.

Therefore, it was necessary for them, at that time, to preach repentance. Now, the Holy Spirit came down in such a manner in that day that the whole house was filled with the Spirit of God. I think that all the children of God on that day were actually overflowing with the Spirit of God. They were pricked in their heart. The gospel reached their heart. No doubt, that was the first time many of them had ever heard a gospel sermon, and so it went right to the heart. It went to the seat of affection, and caused them to cry out and say, Men and brethren, what shall we do? They were anxious.

Now, not all of them that were there were pricked in the heart. But, some of them were "cut to the heart," and they said, these men are drunk. They didn't understand their language. They didn't feel their preaching. They just heard what they said, and they never heard anything like that, and they thought, surely these men are drunk.

But, the apostles said, we are not drunk; this is only the third hour of the day. And they were not drunk. But, they were filled with the Holy Spirit that they could preach in a way and manner that could convince the children of God that had the Spirit of God in their heart and in their mind. They were pricked in their heart and they could understand the gospel and they cried out, Men and brethren, what shall we do? They didn't say, what shall we do to be saved, but they said, what shall we do? They were already a saved people. But, there was something for them to do.

When you hear a person crying out and wanting to know what they should do, they are already saved and they need to be told what they ought to do. Those that cried out were around three thousand that were added to the church. And the apostles told them to repent and be baptized for the remission of sins--not in order to have their sins remitted, but because their sins had been remitted. Therefore, they should be baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. The gift of the Holy Ghost is the comforting Spirit that brings that clear and acquitted conscience that God's children receive in going down into the water and there being baptized.

It is necessary in the New Kingdom, the new way of worship that God set up for his children, for us to live together in the house of God and to hear the wonderful gospel and enjoy it and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was necessary for them to be baptized. That was a new way. It hadn't been practiced before. And there were some of them that were able to understand, and they felt down deep in their heart that the time had come that God had changed the form of worship that they didn't any more worship with animals and things like that, but worshipped in spirit and truth. The apostle John tells us that they that worship God must worship him in spirit and truth.

Therefore, the time had come to say by our offerings, not that Christ was coming out in the future, but to say by our offerings that Christ had already come. He has already come down into this sin cursed earth, that he has already lived a perfect life, already gone to the cross, already shed his blood. That he has already redeemed his people from every nation, tongue, and people, paid the price that God required for sin.

The Bible tells us that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. All the promises are to you and to your children and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call--that many and no more. The apostle Paul says that the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his, and let them that call on the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. There is no use for you and me to call on the Lord unless we depart from iniquity, depart from sin and live a different life to what we did before the Lord called us.

I can tell you exactly how children of God are made heirs, how the elect family of God from the beginning of time on down to the last one, are called. The hour is come and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. Now, that is the way he translated them out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light and formed in them a new life, a new love. There is a principle in man in nature to hate God and to hate the service of God and to hate the servants of God. And it has been so ever since there were two men in the world, besides our forefather, Adam.

You remember, if you read your Bible, that Abel and Cain had a desire to offer up an offering. And Abel offered up an offering by faith. He took a little lamb and offered it up to God, a type or figure of the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world nearly two thousand years ago. And Cain was a farmer, and he brought of the good things that he had, the things that he had made, the works of his own hands, and he offered them to God. And God refused his offering. He accepted the offering of Abel, but he rejected the offering of Cain.

What did that do? It aroused that enmity that Cain had in nature toward God and his servants, and he killed his brother, because, God recognized the offering of his brother Abel, and did not recognize Cain's offering. Human nature is still in our land and country. The faith that Abel had is still in our land and country. God's servants declare it.

God has purposed to save a portion of the human family--not all of it--but a portion of. If he had wanted to save all of them, he could. And you need not to ask me why he did not save them all. But, I can tell you that he did not love them all. That is the reason why. He said, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of him that willeth or[nor] of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.

And we find in the l0th chapter of John this language, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me. I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish." There is not a man in the world that can take that Scripture and prove that anything that man can do will cause him to go to heaven. My sheep hear my voice. You cannot make the Lord speak to save your life. And you cannot keep him from speaking. But, the ones he chose before the foundation of the world he calls his sheep. He called somebody else goats, and he never said a word about making sheep out of a goat.

He told some of the Pharisees that they were not his sheep. Ye cannot hear my word. Ye cannot hear the gospel that I preach. Ye cannot understand what I am saying. You can hear my voice. But, you don't know what I am teaching. He was teaching that he was the only Saviour, the only way whereby that man can be saved.

In the 17th chapter of St. John, we hear him saying this: As thou hast given him power over all flesh , that he should give eternal life that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Now, it is necessary for God's children who are on the outside of the church, who hear the wonderful gospel of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to repent, that is, to turn away from this wicked world. It is necessary for them to get out of it by practice, get out of it and go home to their friends. Repent and be baptized and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. There is not any way under heaven that a person can receive the gift of the Holy Ghost--in the way of baptism--without being baptized and going under the water. And the way baptism is authorized by God the Father is by immersion. Our Lord went down to John the Baptist and demanded baptism at his hand.

That is the example that we should walk by here in this world. He required it of his children. And we have to do that if we are going to glorify God as we ought to.

I know we can get some things on the outside, but if we get all that God has for us here, we must come into his house and continually come into his house. And he will send a message down from heaven that will comfort you and instruct you how that you ought to live here in this world in order to enjoy the things that God has put right here on earth for you. The apostle Paul said to Timothy, take heed to yourself and to the doctrine, and continue in them for in so doing, thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.

The Apostle was a saved character before that time, and Timothy was. They were both preachers, but it was necessary in order for them to save themselves from this untoward generation. He is talking about saving yourself from the many evil things here in this world that destroy your peace and happiness, destroy your health, destroy your prosperity, and destroy the thing that God has put in his kingdom for his little children. Elder T. C. Mooney Ellijay, GA