it all that He might freely give us all these riches of His life, to back up His promises because we trust Him, for Faith.

Now Abram’s command was to walk.  I don’t take sides.  I said I’d punch Adam out because he listened to his silly wife.  I mean, I know women are superior.  I don’t listen to them.  I’m a—women, women prove their superiority to me by sending their messages through a man because they know that’s the only way I’m gonna take it—I’m a chauvinist.  You can invent the word with me, but I know they’re superior.  I’m just not going to give an inch.  And you know I tell you that every time, and you can figure out if I’m telling you truth or not.  I’m telling you the truth—women are superior!  And you stupid men that are on this feminist kick and want to give it all away, don’t come crying to me when you’re changing the diapers and tending the kitchen and listening to all this fairness crap.  Nothing’s fair in this world and the right place for a woman is under a man. 

Now, now that I’ve woke you up with that oft-confessed prejudice, “I’m gonna smack Adam,” I think a lot of people that have been laboring in slavery ought to beat the tar out of Ham for what he did right after the Flood.  Facts are facts.  All I know is everywhere Abram walked, down through the centuries they’ve been getting it back, and that’s the record of God’s Book.  And if he hadn’t gotten up and walked, I’m not sure at all that David’s Kingdom would of stretched in the territories that it stretched. 

Now what about us?  We don’t have the promise, at least I don’t.  I have too much Cherokee Indian in me to claim Abram’s descendancy.  I don’t claim that promise, but I named a couple and I could name hours full of promises.  And I’m not here today to tell you the promises.  I’ve been doing that for 14 years.  I am here today to say what’s norm for the Faith walk is every time you think you have made

it and you sit down to take it easy, God’s gonna make sure a test comes along because Hebrews 12 says “Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth,” the King James says.  Paideia’s the word in the Greek.  It means ‘to child train’ or ‘to coach train.’  You make them run around a track once before you make them go five times—we know that with horses.  We don’t bring a horse out of the stall that’s been with a lame leg for 6 months and only hand-walked and suddenly decide to go five gaits, seven directions.  You train them if you care for them, and you get them ready through applied endurance tests to pass the test.  My Bible says that you are proven not an illegitimate child of God if He treats you this way as He trains you to trust Him as He leads you on the path to eternity.

And my message today is that this Church….  And I’ve been telling you since we moved in this building if we don’t accept it, that the test comes right after the victory, we’re not gonna pass right on through this one.  I’ve been telling my congregation I’d be a lot more happy with you if you were packing it out today the way you did the first day.  Special days, I ought to have to issue passes.  We have not won this war of bringing the upward look downtown.  We have just declared the war, and everything that you probably think are events of chance that are happening to you, and those that are watching on television, have nothing to do with chance.  As we have seen God retrace the steps—and I’ve embarrassedly confessed that God’s choice is so much better than the one that I made 4 years ago.  If I could, I’d expunge the historic record that indicates we ever went to Hope Street, but on the other hand it becomes a proof of what I’m saying to you today.  All we knew, as faint as the call of Abram, is that if no one else would tackle this city, the upward look of Faith had to be brought to the heart of this city.