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So, i'm writing this sermon for a character in a performance art piece. The character speaking it is a revivalist minister of the Deep-South, snake-oil, tent variety. i'm using cut ups of various sermons on the web, some out and out plagiarism from same, and then dusting it lightly with my own touch, just to string it together. The reason I'm approaching it with these means is because the work is primaily a work of dance theatre, and this character has pretty much the only speaking role, and so i want it to sound disjointed and slightly unreal. Also, the character in question is actually in the service of an older and more primal power than the Christian god. We're calling it Ba'al. It's not so much the historical Caananite skygod (who isn't so very different from the OT Yahweh anyhow), but a conjunction of the OT descriptions of Ba'al, a little Cthulu Mythos, and some ugly Boyd Rice textures.
If anyone has time, i'd love feedback on what i have so far. I ask readers to focus specifically on these requirements:
- I don't want it to sound satirical. That's not what the piece is about.
- I'm trying for a tone that is unreal (aiming fo something of the texture of the Eno/Byne My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, but it can't be compltely nonsensical, as it needs to correspond with some onstage action.
- I don't want it to be just a chunk of text that acts as a signifier for Tent Preacher Sermon, but to b interesting in its own right. Because I wrote it. And I want it to be good.
It is exquisite horrible and all of darkness. There are jagged rocks, and foul, lonely places who mourn: for ever. The flames "torment (them) day and night forever" (Rv 20:10). They are unable to escape the tongue-gnawing "blackness of darkness forever" (Jude 13).There is even a strange creature down there with them to torment (them) day and night forever" (Jude 7).
As God has levels of rewards in Heaven, He has levels of punishment in Hell. And, it reasons in our tiny minds, that the "sweet grandmother" that tried to help people all her life (but still willfully rejected Christ's payment for her sins) should not "have to" suffer as much as the most vehemently wicked child molestor and murderer. Grandma isn't saved? She hasn't let him into her heart and soul? That "sweet grandmother will be tormented without least degree of comfort or succor, in the flame forever and ever with no hope of escape. That sweet grandmother will be cast into the great furnace! That sweet grandmother will be delivered up to an 8 foot wormlike creature down there.
There are hopeless torments, maybe involving worms, with no means of escape. It is the "Worm". The "worm dieth not" in Hell, says Isaiah. The worm is spread under thee, and the worms covering your body and eating it!!! infernal locusts issuing from a fallen rock in a most
gruesome place. Worms are associated with physical decay after death. Wycliff states that worms, or maggots, were continually at work in the Tribulation period (Rv 9:5). There are strange creatures in the ocean floor at its deepest parts.
It is quite a thing to think that in a million or a billion years that a man in Hell has sight (23), taste (24), hearing (29), and, above all, sensation of heat and burning, deep heavy darkness forever and unimaginable ever tormented in the "Bottomless Pit" there are struggles,
lamentable groans and pantings, and pantings, and maybe a shriek or two, and throes of agony, tormented in the flame forever and ever!
imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven, all of a glowing heat, or into the midst of a blowing brick-kiln, what would be the effect on your soul, if you knew you must endure it for a thousand years! O then, how would you feel at the entrance of such a furnace!
You cannot bear the fire.
You cannot bear the fire.
But God has in heaven's arsenal another kind of fire. Moses saw this flame when the Lord spoke to him in the desert aound Mt. Horb. The fire that burns but does not consume.
Consider in the Acts of the Apostles, on the day of Pentecost, the fire of God, the Holy Spirit, descends upon His servants in a new and fresh way which empowered them to become the leaders of the early church, the results of which we still share in today.
Now, I don't know about you, but when I read this text,
I want that fire.
I want the fire of the Holy Spirit
I want that holy fire.
I want that cleansing Spirit
I wan't that cleansing flame.
The fire of God's Holy Spirit has a necessary cleansing effect on us.
His fire is all brightness and goodness.
When he comes to you and confronts you will cry aloud: "Woooooe meeeee, wooooooe meeeee, wooooooe meeeee, wooooooe meeeee, wooooooe meeee, for I am unclean, my lips are soiled by uncleanliness, my lips and heart and lips.
NOW, to be touched by the burning coal from the altar, the refining
fire, Then the tongs and the tongs and the purification.
Jesus Christ brought that fire. I want the fire of God, the Holy Spirit
of Jesus Christ. Receive forgiveness. Allow yourself be touched by this
cleansing, disinfecting, holy fire of God
--interlude, music
And it happened
that the father of Publius
lay sick of a fever and dysentery
Paul went in to him and prayed,
and he laid his hands on him,
and healed him - Acts 28:8
I have seen a vision. an expanse of broadcloth spread out in front of a forge. And spread out like parts for a new hand-pump, laid out across that broadcloth, I see hearts and I see livers, and I see all kinds of organs on that cloth. I see legs, and some of them come up to the knee, and some of them come up to the hip. And I see arms, and some of them are to the elbow, and some of them are all the way to the shoulder, and I see fingers. I see thumbs. The flames of the forge are dancing, and I turn away from the heat, and I see a fellowship of Christians outside the smithy, just as calm and peacful as if they were waiting for the carthorse to be shod. I saw then that some of these believers are all crippled-up, Some of them are missing legs, some of them have no eyes. And I see people standing in that line needing new stomachs, because ulcers have eaten out their stomachs. And a voice screamed from the heavens above, and I knew it to be the blacksmith's voice, and this voice said "Come to my anvil and be forged anew!" and one by one, they come forward, some on crutches, some with no legs. They come forward and picked up the pieces that they needed, and were bourne up in the arms of the smith, and laid out on his anvil. i saw him against the flames, terrible and strong, and I saw him take up his hammer, and with the flame of the forge make each of these christians new, straightened by his maul and tempered in his furnace. and I knew I had seen the Lord, and I turned away and was afraid.
God is Great!
I feel someone out there. Some one in need of healing. Someone in need of tempering. His healing flame will make you whole.
Sister. Come forward sister.
you've got someone to help you, and make you whole again, only but you believe it. Just so you feel that fire of the Spirit down inside you. In your blood.
Yes. All right, sister.
And you believe He will heal you (See?), 'cause He has did that when He died at Calvary.
Sister, I'm praying that my Lord Jesus is standing here
wearing this suit that He is present and can make you well, and can heal you. God bless you.
Can you feel the righteous flame of the most high running through you, little sister? Can you feel it burning away the impurities of your corrupted body?
Can you feel it?
Can you feel it in your blood, sister?
Now, it's screaming for mercy, just as if the Lord Jesus was standing here wearing this suit, that's the truth.
--faith healings
Brothers and sisters, as a preacher, I have given up trying to make you repent. I cannot inspire you to repent - I should have realised this much earlier. The Holy Spirit! Jesus Christ. Come to the purifying flow of the blood and the Spirit. Receive forgiveness. Allow yourself to be touched, let your flesh be consumed by the the fire of Gods judgment on sin and show the way from unrighteousness!
Christians, let us warn the poor lost souls around us of this though there be infinite depths of gloominess that there is One Who was and will be that can save you from this doom...the Lord Jesus Christ. Be sure of this unthinkable tragedy that awaits them! You are their only hope for escape!!!
I've seen him. I've seen the Evil One, the Leader-Astray.
He was dressed in a red robe with a thick black belt over his waist. On his head, he had a sign. As I looked, I saw that in his hand he held the same kind of sharp spear as everyone else in his army.
"I am Lucifer!" he exclaimed. "I am the king of this world! I have come to make war against the Christians!"
What does the Book say? Can I tell you? Can I show you.
"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." -- Matthew 10:34
The Lord God Shekinah, the cherubim, the flaming sword. We may depend upon it that if we are on God's side God is on our side. Soldiers of Christ, gird on your armor. Strike home in the name of the God of holiness, and by faith grasp His salvation. Let not this day pass without striking a blow for Jesus and holiness.
For does he not say in Matthew: "Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
I know some of it's dull, and a lot of that will be cut and workshopped out. And a lot of it will be in the actor's delivery. But any suggestions are welcome and needed. |
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