======================================================================== WRITINGS OF LEONARD RAVENHILL by Leonard Ravenhill ======================================================================== A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by Leonard Ravenhill, compiled for study and devotional reading. Chapters: 94 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 00.00. Ravenhill, Leonard - Library 2. 01.01. Foreword 3. 01.02. Excerpt1 - Pour Thyself Through Me; 4. 01.03. Excerpt1 - Thy Glory 5. 01.04. Excerpt1 - Love Like Thine 6. 01.05. Excerpt1 - I Walked Today 7. 01.06. Excerpt2 - It is Hell, It is Hell in My Soul 8. 01.07. Excerpt2 - Stephen 9. 01.08. Excerpt2 - I Kiss Thy Rod 10. 01.09. Excerpt2 - The Sweet Love of Jesus 11. 01.10. Excerpt2 - Thy Sweet Correction 12. 01.11. Excerpt3 - I Am Thy Captive, Lord 13. 01.12. Excerpt3 - Gethsemane, Gethsemane 14. 01.13. Excerpt3 - To Please My God 15. 01.14. Excerpt3 - Amazing Grace 16. 01.15. Excerpt4 - The Calvary Track 17. 01.16. Excerpt4 - Oh, Wonder of Wonders! 18. 01.17. Excerpt4 - The Victor's Pathway 19. 01.18. Excerpt4 - Thy Glory and Thy Majesty 20. 01.19. Excerpt4 - Call Back 21. 01.20. Excerpt4 - The Heroic C. T. Studd 22. 01.21. Excerpt4 - Eternal Night 23. 01.22. Excerpt5 - The Wise Men Worshiped Him 24. 01.23. Excerpt5 - Let me Drink Thy Cup 25. 01.24. Excerpt5 - He Knows the Way He Taketh,And I Will Walk With Him 26. 01.25. Excerpt5 - The Martyr's Crown 27. 01.26. Excerpt6 - Our Lethargy 28. 01.27. Excerpt6 - Point'd Preachin' 29. 01.28. Excerpt6 - Christ the Borrower 30. 01.29. Excerpt6 - Seeking Thee 31. 01.30. Excerpt6 - In Heathendom 32. 01.31. Excerpt7 - Judgment 33. 01.32. Excerpt7 - Jungle Girl 34. 01.33. Excerpt7 - Lord, Emancipate 35. 01.34. Excerpt7 - Our Status Quo 36. 01.35. Excerpt7 - Some Work -- Some Shirk 37. 01.36. Excerpt8 - In Thy Storehouse 38. 01.37. Excerpt8 - The Heathen 39. 01.38. Excerpt8 - Men of Blood 40. 01.39. Excerpt8 - Calvary's Tree 41. 01.40. Excerpt8 - Nearer, Still Nearer 42. 01.41. Excerpt8 - The Revival Song 43. 01.42. Excerpt9 - A Talk at the Wellside 44. 01.43. Excerpt9 - Lord, Don't Ask Me 45. 01.44. Excerpt9 - This I Know 46. 01.45. Excerpt9 - I Did the Will of God 47. 01.46. Excerpt9 - I Am a Slave 48. 01.47. Excerpt10 - The Savior 49. 01.48. Excerpt11 - The BIBLE 50. 01.49. Excerpt12 - Salvation/Faith 51. 01.50. Excerpt13 - Spiritual Maturity 52. 01.51. Excerpt14 - The Christian 53. 01.52. Excerpt15 - The Bride of Christ 54. 01.53. Excerpt16 - The Church - The Persecuted Church 55. 01.54. Excerpt16 - The Church - The Evangelistic Church 56. 01.55. Excerpt17 - The Church - The Lukewarm Church 57. 01.56. Excerpt18 - The Leaders - Overcomers 58. 01.57. Excerpt18 - The Leaders - Preachers 59. 01.58. Excerpt18 - The Leaders - The Prophets 60. 01.59. Excerpt19 - GOD'S MEN ARE IN HIDING UNTIL THE DAY OF THEIR SHOWING FORTH. 61. 01.60. Excerpt19 - The Imperatives - Prayer 62. 01.61. Excerpt20 - The Imperatives - Revival 63. 01.62. Excerpt21 - The Imperatives - Missions 64. 01.63. Afterword 65. 01.64. Torch My Heart 66. 02.00. It Is Finished 67. 02.01. Part 1 68. 02.02. Part 2 69. 03.00. Weeping Between the Porch and the Altar 70. 03.01. Weeping Between the Porch and the Altar 71. 04.00. Who's Touching the Ark? 72. 04.01. Part 1 73. 04.02. We Try to Steady the Ark of God 74. 04.03. Who Is Touching The Ark? 75. S. Are we willing to drink His cup? 76. S. Be Ye Angry And Sin Not 77. S. Christ Magnified in My Body 78. S. Faith Laughs at Impossibilities 79. S. John the Baptist and the Fire of God 80. S. More than Conquerors 81. S. No Kiss 82. S. PRAYER 83. S. Picture of a Prophet 84. S. Quotes of Leonardo Ravenhill 85. S. Revival Series 86. S. The Judgment Seat of Christ 87. S. The Power of His Resurrection 88. S. The Taming of the Tongue 89. S. Today's Sleeping Giant 90. S. We Wrestle NOT! 91. S. What Do I Still Lack? 92. S. What is your vision? 93. S. Your Day in Court 94. S. ZEAL - LOVE ABLAZE! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1: 00.00. RAVENHILL, LEONARD - LIBRARY ======================================================================== Ravenhill, Leonard - Library Ravenhill, Leonard - Excepts From Heart Breathings Ravenhill, Leonard - It Is Finished Ravenhill, Leonard - Weeping Between the Porch and the Altar Ravenhill, Leonard - Who’s Touching the Ark? S. Are You Willing to Drink His Cup? S. Be Ye Angry And Sin Not S. Christ Magnified in My Body S. Faith Laughs at Impossibilities S. John the Baptist and the Fire of God S. More than Conquerors S. No Kiss S. Picture of a Prophet S. Prayer S. Quotes S. Revival Series S. The Judgment Seat of Christ S. The Power of His Resurrection S. The Taming of the Tongue S. Today’s Sleeping Giant S. Your Day in Court S. We Wrestle NOT! S. What Do I Still Lack? S. What Is Your Vision? S. Zeal - Love Ablaze ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2: 01.01. FOREWORD ======================================================================== Foreword Taken from Heart Breathings by Leonard Ravenhill Copyrightedby Harvey Christian Publishers Inc. www.harveycp.com "Heart Breathings" is a fitting title for a book where words are only the vessel that somehow endeavors to hold, and show forth, the breathings of the spirit that is not flesh. There is a frustration when yearnings beyond words find themselves clothed in the only medium that can cause them to be tangible to others. These poems are the roarings and sighings and longings of the inarticulate soul trying to create a substance through which to transmit its feelings to others. To my father, religion was of the heart - the realm of the Spirit’s quickening life. Other sources failed to satisfy, and produced within him a hurt, a scorn, a weariness. For him, the heart was supremely important, and he saw that the only source of ministry to the heart was the Spirit of God - all else is at enmity. All the limits that reason, or society, or human frailty would interpose, were to be attacked without mercy. Any failure in Christians to give their all in response to God came under the same attack. The mind has its measures and gives itself to the object of its thoughts in the degree that corresponds to its reasoning. The heart has no measures; with the heart it is either "yes" or "no, " and the object that calls forth a "yes" is worthy of everything. The object that elicits a "no" is worthy of nothing. It is here where many misunderstood my father - they could never see, with him, that in the spiritual realm everything that is man-generated is absolutely valueless. His life and ministry were a passionate protest against the religion of the twentieth century in which man has made his image of God, not graven in stone but rather graven in words, and then set this up saying, "This is your God, worship Him." My father saw God as infinitely beyond man’s endeavors to explain Him, infinitely beyond man’s efforts to serve Him. He saw God as an eternal fire of Infinite Life and Infinite Holiness - to be known in the total surrender of ourselves. He saw God as bringing us into an awareness of His limitless world where His holiness and mercy meet in a glory that transforms all it touches. God was to be known not by the mind but by the heart... Paul Ravenhill March 1995 ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3: 01.02. EXCERPT1 - POUR THYSELF THROUGH ME; ======================================================================== Excerpt1 - Pour Thyself Through Me; Spirit of the living God, pray Thy mind through me; Nothing less than Spirit-power do I ask of Thee. Purge me, urge me, guide me, hide me- Spirit of the living God, pray Thy mind through me. Power of the eternal God, flow Thy power through me; Holy, Pentecostal power do I ask of Thee. Lowly, holy, for Thy glory- Power of the eternal God, flow Thy power through me. Mercy of the living God, channel love through me; Nothing less than Calvary love meets the need for me. Love that’s burning, love that’s yearning- Mercy of the living God, channel love through me. Grace of God, eternal grace, reach the lost through me; Tenderness for every race do I ask of Thee. Love them, lift them, reach them, teach them- Grace of God, eternal grace, reach the lost through me. Life of God, eternal life, pour Thyself through me; Nothing less than Thine own life do I ask of Thee. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4: 01.03. EXCERPT1 - THY GLORY ======================================================================== Excerpt1 - Thy Glory When Thy Shekinah glory fell, The priests stood still in awe; Nor could the great Apostle tell The glory that he saw When Thou didst lift him to the sky To sights unseen by mortal eye. When Moses stood with unshod feet And Thy great Presence felt, No trumpeter could call retreat While gazing where Thou dwelt! He listened, raptured by Thy voice, And strangely did his heart rejoice. The toilers’ fishing nets were left In answer to Thy call, And worldly men, of sense bereft Before their feet would fall. Those simple men Thou didst endue With power original to You. O Lord, we labor in a day When men of faith are few. Now just a remnant watch and pray. Again we beg - endue Thy church with apostolic power For true revival in this hour. Have we the holy channel blocked With unbelief and sin? Have we not asked and sought and knocked To bring the glory in? How is now Thy Spirit grieved That He withholds the shower That would revival tide bring in And apostolic power? Is Thy blest Holy Word unread? And have we ceased to pray? Have carnal longings in our hearts Brought spiritual decay? Come, great Physician, come, And circumcise the heart; Fleshly impediments remove And all Thy might impart. So let the beauty of the Lord On Christians be outpoured, That we forget "our" ministry, And glorify the Lord. We hate the boasting flesh Which often claims Thy name. Descend, Oh Holy Ghost, descend With all Thy purging flame! Life compelling, life that’s telling- Life of God, eternal life, pour Thyself through me. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5: 01.04. EXCERPT1 - LOVE LIKE THINE ======================================================================== Excerpt1 - Love Like Thine Love divine all love excelling, Love divine all love compelling, Love that counts all things but dross In the light of Calvary’s cross. Love that loves unto the death, Love that loves with every breath. Love that knows His deepest pain, Love that gives and gives again. Love that burns with holy fire, Love that prays in His desire, Love that’s deeper - love that’s higher; Love that serves and knows no cost, Love to reach a world deceived and lost. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6: 01.05. EXCERPT1 - I WALKED TODAY ======================================================================== Excerpt1 - I Walked Today I walked today as Dante walked In days of long ago; I gasped through stench of this earth’s hell, The air was filled with woe. Men scarred with sin, in rags, ill shod, Their face blank in despair, Their livid eyes burned into me- I cried, "O Christ of Calvary, Waken Thy church to care." I walked today where Christ would walk If He were here on earth; The air was thick with discontent And dark with lack of mirth. It seemed despair had carved each face, And greed and lust and vice Like chains, had bound resentful men. "And, Lord," I asked, "Oh when, Oh when Will Thy dear church revive again To seek Thy power in prayer?" I walked today mid cultured vice And, as I walked, I wept. I thought, Lord, of Thy sacrifice, And how Thy church has crept Along the road this past decade And slumbered in soft pews, While millions in their sinful plight Fall into hell’s eternal night. O Christ, in mercy purge our blight; Anoint Thy church to tell! (Written after a visit to a drug area in a large city.) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 7: 01.06. EXCERPT2 - IT IS HELL, IT IS HELL IN MY SOUL ======================================================================== Excerpt2 - It is Hell, It is Hell in My Soul No peace like a river attendeth my way, My sorrows like sea-billows roll. This heart-breaking lot has just taught me to say, It is hell, it is hell in my soul. My sin - O the grief of this guilt in my heart - My anguish, not part, but the whole, All adds up to loss, and I bear it alone; It is hell, it is hell in my soul. Now Satan can buffet, sore trials can come, When life is all out of control; My conscience just burns, and dark memories haunt, It is hell, it is hell in my soul. But, Lord, haste the day that will chase off this night, And scatter this doom from my soul. With tears I repent, so, dear Lord, let me know There is hope and relief for my soul. With great condemnation I fall at Thy cross, To confess, not in part, but the whole Of a sin-blighted life, and to cry to be cleansed, And to plead, "Take control of my soul." Only then can I joy and rejoice as I sing Now it’s well, it is well with my soul. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 8: 01.07. EXCERPT2 - STEPHEN ======================================================================== Excerpt2 - Stephen They spilled out from the upper room Not cowering or clothed with gloom. They were ablaze with holy fire, Fully consumed with one desire - To know and to be known by Him Who purged them from defiling sin, To let the Temple crowd just see How holy simple men can be. By God they formed a holy band Who would, through Him, possess the land. They formed a special holy crew, - A deacon band, something quite new. Men Christ saved to the uttermost; Purged and filled with the Holy Ghost. They heard from God that His first choice Was one called Stephen, a faith-filled youth. This flaming soul, with holy power, Did wonders and miracles by the hour. The other apostles, beaten and in jail, Were not in fear - they just prevailed. They could not be intimidated. Why? Just because they were related To One above upon a Throne Who kept His touch upon His own. The more men beat this holy crew The more their testimony grew. Never did men of any nation Hear anywhere a greater oration Than that which Bro. Stephen gave, Choosing not *his* life to save. Into an outer court they led him, Battered his body, stoned and bled him. He saw that crowd through blooded eyes, He further saw - into the skies, And, surely to his great surprise, He saw his Lord and Savior rise Before the throne at God’s right hand To welcome him to his Homeland! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 9: 01.08. EXCERPT2 - I KISS THY ROD ======================================================================== Excerpt2 - I Kiss Thy Rod I bow my head, my Holy God, To kiss Thy loving, chastening rod, Because I know, how oft You smite, It only can be true and right. I want my simple life to be A living copy, Lord, of Thee, In love and Thy humility, A humble, lowly, contrite heart With truth set in the inward part. Dear God, I really do aspire For a soul inflamed with holy fire, To burn with an untiring zeal. 0! Master! Master!! Let me feel The inward throes of Your compassion As my inner life You gently fashion, Until men’s eyes can see in me Thy travail in Gethsemane. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 10: 01.09. EXCERPT2 - THE SWEET LOVE OF JESUS ======================================================================== Excerpt2 - The Sweet Love of Jesus 0, the sweet, sweet love of Jesus, Vaster, deeper than the sea, Flowing in majestic fulness From His throne right down to me. Love before me, love behind me, Love beneath and love above. Love beyond man’s full dimension, Love beyond man’s comprehension, Holy, awesome, endless love Showered in mercy from His throne Just for those He claims His own. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 11: 01.10. EXCERPT2 - THY SWEET CORRECTION ======================================================================== Excerpt2 - Thy Sweet Correction How can I, Lord, repine When I am surely Thine, And, yet more wondrous still, I know and do Thy will. O Lord, what bliss is this To know Thy soothing inward kiss! To know Thee in a new dimension, To welcome *all* Thy sweet correction, And goads that lead me to perfection. Thy rebukes are good for me, They purge for deeper chastity, They draw me closer to Thy breast, And there, and only there, dear Lord, is perfect rest! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 12: 01.11. EXCERPT3 - I AM THY CAPTIVE, LORD ======================================================================== Excerpt3 - I Am Thy Captive, Lord I am Thy captive, Lord, Not wishing to be free; To know I am Thy bondslave Is glorious liberty. My life, my all, in Thy control, Is glorious freedom to my soul. I am not tossed about By vicious doctrine wind. My soul is safely anchored Because I have Thy mind. My will is Thine, Thy will is mine, And, in this my blest soul estate, My longings do not wander far, I seek not to be great. Just lead me in Thy garden, Lord, The garden of Thy Holy Word. It’s loaded with a thousand spices - Delicious fruits, boundless advices. Lead on, O King, in full control, Thou art the Master of my soul. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 13: 01.12. EXCERPT3 - GETHSEMANE, GETHSEMANE ======================================================================== Excerpt3 - Gethsemane, Gethsemane Gethsemane. Gethsemane. Where Jesus groaned to set me free. Way back there in eternity He planned salvation full and free For sinners such as you and me. He felt hell’s billows o’er Him roll; They should have crushed my guilty soul. He knew the ransom must be paid, That on a cross He must be laid, Deserted by His chosen few, Deserted by His Father, too. His depth of anguish who can tell As He was buffeted by hell. He had planned to die alone! Alone! And turn that Cross into a Throne. In pain He groaned for cruel hours, Not for His own sins, *but for ours.* The greatest purchase ever made Was when His priceless blood was paid, When sinless Jesus crucified Gave up the ghost, in anguish died. This caused a panic all through hell, And every demon had to tell That Satan suffered full defeat And from that hour beat a retreat. To see that on the Cross He laid The everlasting ransom paid! There on that dread Calvary Death, sin and hell were crushed for me. "It is finished," was His cry, Death and hell had no reply! In glorious majesty He rose Triumphing over all His foes. Angels chanted, "Here’s the King, "Ope the gates and let Him in." King of glory! King of Peace! Let Him give thy soul release. Victory He now offers thee For time and all eternity. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 14: 01.13. EXCERPT3 - TO PLEASE MY GOD ======================================================================== Excerpt3 - To Please My God I ask no bliss But this, To know Thy will, And it fulfill, In every part So that my heart, Without alloy, May know the joy By peace Or rod To please My God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 15: 01.14. EXCERPT3 - AMAZING GRACE ======================================================================== Excerpt3 - Amazing Grace Sin shall not have dominion over you. This from God’s Holy word, and it is true. He forgives our sinful heart, Cleanses, purges every part. Takes sole possession of our throne Where sinful self has reigned alone. Drives out every foul desire, Cleanses wlth His holy fire! O, my soul, without alloy This on earth is Heavenly Joy. Daily I my vows will pay, Walking in the Holy Way. My will married to His will, Mine a life that He can fill With a love to reach the lost, Showing me what Calvary cost, Giving me anointed eyes That can see beyond the skies, Showing me His glorious Throne, Where, one day, we all shall stand And bow to kiss the nail-pierced Hand. Lord, blest Savior, can it be We’ll share with Thee ETERNITY! What bliss is this for us who once were so remiss! AMAZING GRACE ======================================================================== CHAPTER 16: 01.15. EXCERPT4 - THE CALVARY TRACK ======================================================================== Excerpt4 - The Calvary Track They turned it into a circus, And the Actor writhed and fell. They baptized Him with oaths and curses As He tried to save them from hell. They burned with the fires of their pagan lust, He burned with a heart of love. In the ragged road of a vassal king, He staggered beneath His load - Not the chafing wood upon His back, But a greater, invisible load. The angels wept at His bloody brow And the spittle upon His cheek; They knew He could turn those men to stone, But He acted - Oh! so meek. He fell in the dust - from which men came And from which He would lift them high; And He carried a billion, billion sins As He staggered on to die. He turned not back on that Calvary track With its grief and humiliation, He had planned way back in eternity For us and for our salvation. Alone in dark Gethsemane - O Lord, how could it be? - He had to cry in agony, "Thy billows go over Me!" He knew full well, it was black as hell. If God’s will He consummated. When for men like me, He went to that Tree - For souls He had created! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 17: 01.16. EXCERPT4 - OH, WONDER OF WONDERS! ======================================================================== Excerpt4 - Oh, Wonder of Wonders! Oh, wonder of wonders! My God, can it be That Jesus has died For one rebel like me? He lifted my bondage And soul’s misery. The Lord, King of Glory, Was wounded for me! They led Him to trial; They spit in His face. He bore it alone - Oh! Amazing His grace! He bowed ’neath His burden, Was scourged in my place, I’ll sing it forever - "Amazing His Grace!" With hands full of mercy, With heart full of good, My spotless Redeemer Was nailed to the wood. He suffered hell’s torment My soul to set free, Deserted by God As He hung on the tree. He died, but He rose! He extracted death’s sting! He’s living enthroned - My Savior, my King! Let the earth hear His Voice, Men and angels proclaim: "He’s coming! He’s coming! "He’s coming again!" With the saints marching in, (I shall be in that throng!) In the great "Hallelujahs," (I’ll join in that song!) With apostles and prophets, But best, Lord, with Thee, I shall live, I shall live, Eternally! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 18: 01.17. EXCERPT4 - THE VICTOR'S PATHWAY ======================================================================== Excerpt4 - The Victor’s Pathway I could not live without Thee - My Lord, I would not try! Earth has ten thousand pitfalls - I never would get by! But, with Thy Holy Presence, Thy Promises inspire; I tread the victor’s pathway - Dear Lord, I’m climbing higher! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 19: 01.18. EXCERPT4 - THY GLORY AND THY MAJESTY ======================================================================== Excerpt4 - Thy Glory and Thy Majesty Thy Glory and Thy Majesty Are seldom, Lord, revealed to me. My sight is dim, my senses dumb, I seldom dwell on "Kingdom come." Men dwell among the things that rust, We live in time - with all its dust. I would my interests relocate, And dwell on Thee, my God so great, And contemplate Thy Majesty, Concentrate on Thy Deity, Thus cheat the thieving things of time, Dwell on Thy Holiness sublime, Thy matchless beauty fill my gaze, And worship Thee through all my days! And then - ah! - then, Eternity, Boundless, unmarred felicity! No more to sigh, only to sing In rapturous praises to our King, To gaze with rapture on His Face And sing and sing Amazing Grace! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 20: 01.19. EXCERPT4 - CALL BACK ======================================================================== Excerpt4 - Call Back If you are far ahead of me Along life’s winding track, If you have real supremacy As you carry your loaded pack, If you have found some energy That lets you know no lack, Friend, share your secret now with me - I ask you, please call back! Some who went ahead of me Endured the thumbscrew and the rack. In biting pain they felt it gain To endure and not turn back. They were sawn asunder, torn in two, Their bodies were beaten black. But they went the last mile with a song and a smile For the One Who turned not back! Now let me tell of the living hell Some saints endure today; To be tied in a sack or stretched on the rack Would seem an easier way. But they die by the inch, and they do not flinch As they tread their prison track; And they inwardly sing to Christ their King That they’ll never, no never, turn back! It’s a steep, rough road that leads to God - We must climb its hill with a will To carry our load on the toughest road, His purpose to fulfill. There may be strain, there may be pain, And the food may seem "hard-tack"; But He made it plain, there’s eternal gain For the one who turns not back! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 21: 01.20. EXCERPT4 - THE HEROIC C. T. STUDD ======================================================================== Excerpt4 - The Heroic C. T. Studd Old Charlie was a cricketer, (As most of you will know); And when he played the lordly game He always stole the show. He "drove" and "pulled" and "pushed" and "cut" That ball with lots of ease; And to bewildered bowlers Charlie was a tiresome tease. But Charlie quit the game one day; He gave away his bat With a "Hallelujah!" and a grin, And then hung up his hat. The vision Charlie had received Made cricket look so minor He gladly counted all things loss And sailed away to China. For Charlie made "The Cambridge Seven" (Oh, what a regal crew!); He said, "I’m going now, dear Lord, What wilt Thou have me do?" With Smith and Polhill and the rest He did a man-size task, And tackled any ugly thing The Lord did ever ask. When Charlie got to fifty-three, He sat and asked himself If now his work was finished here And he left on the shelf. But suddenly the challenge came, And he, with heart aglow, Set out to face a greater task Locked in the dark Congo. Dear Charlie was "a fool for Christ" With never a lament, And counted nothing sacrifice, But gladly he was spent. "If Jesus Christ be God," he said, "And He has died for me, "O shame to talk of suffering "In the light of Calvary." Aye, Charlie loved and dared for God; No man who lived was bolder. Oh where’s the man who’d ever dare Call Studd a chocolate soldier? In God alone he trusted, And God a hero made, And in him God prepared a womb To birth a great Crusade! In this hour of great declension We wish the churches would Furnish ten thousand heroes With hearts aflame like Studd. We’d roll back dark apostasy In every land and nation, And, through this mighty rescue shop, Steal millions from damnation. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 22: 01.21. EXCERPT4 - ETERNAL NIGHT ======================================================================== Excerpt4 - Eternal Night Eternal night! Eternal night! How dark that night will be For millions who’ve not had the Light But who had every human right To share that Light with me! When we shall stand around Christ’s throne, We’ll surely be remiss That they have never, never known Salvation through His blood alone, What tragedy is this! Oh, how shall I, whose present sphere Is to be cleansed and free, Stand uncondemned before Thy throne While millions die - in hell to groan For all eternity. Arm of the Lord, awake, awake, Thy church cleanse and renew; And sanctify, endue with power, Then thrust her forth this very hour Thy perfect will to do. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 23: 01.22. EXCERPT5 - THE WISE MEN WORSHIPED HIM ======================================================================== Excerpt5 - The Wise Men Worshiped Him You have ears to hear? Then come, draw near, And listen to my solo On the greatest event heaven ever sent! (My version’s via Marco Polo) "The three wise men were kings," says Marco, "In search of the King of Glory!" And I, for one, am going to hear While he unfolds the story: "Gaspar from hoary Tarshish came, Erect of head, with ancient name; He came through dangers; he came afar, Held to his course by a guiding star. His beast swayed under a burdened back With the weight of the gifts and the young king black- A young king, strong and straight as an arrow, No fear in his heart or down to his marrow; Strong, reckless, happy, thrilled, and bold, He sought for the King and he brought royal gold. He slept by day and moved by night (For only then the star gave light); Without the star he might miss the way That led to the Lord of Eternal Day. As the time sped on, he went faster, faster, Fearing that death or some disaster Would rob him of getting that lasting joy His heart had craved since a little boy. In the danger of brigands and bears at night He was warmed by the star and cheered by its light. "A city he saw, and drawing near, Met Belthazar, king of famed Chaldee, Whose feet the wearying miles had trod, His soul athirst for the living God. ’That I might find Him,’ was his humble cry As he swept a tear from his wind-cut eye; ’For life without God does not make sense,’ He said as he clutched his frankincense. And though he was king of famed Chaldee, And though he had riches without a peer, And though he could rule with an iron rod, And though he could get his way with a nod, And though men bowed and revered his name, His heart was sinful - just the same As the kings who had feasted at his table, Or the boys who had cleaned his unclean stable. So he sought for the God Who could cleanse from sin And end the curse and chaos within. The two raced on, ignoring all views, Or the innkeeper’s warning and scaring news. As they smoothly moved, without ever a word, They conscious grew of the form of a third. King Gaspar challenged: ’Your name, good Sire?’ And, trembling with age, he answered, ’Melchior- ’And I’m seeking the Gift of gifts most dear; Though I’m lord and king of famed Nubia. I seek the Redeemer, the Sufferer! My humble gift? - just a gift of myrrh.’ "And now the kings (and they were three) Moved on to the nativity. The star led on where Mary sat, Caroling her magnificat. ’My soul doth magnify. . .,’ she sang, Until the very stable rang. They found their Savior, King, and Lord, With gifts they worshiped and adored." WISE men worshiped! They still do - A lesson, friend, to me and you. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 24: 01.23. EXCERPT5 - LET ME DRINK THY CUP ======================================================================== Excerpt5 - Let me Drink Thy Cup Prune my withered branch; Dung my fruitless tree; Spring up my dried out well, O Christ of Calvary. Touch my dimming eyes; Oil my stammering tongue; Complete, dear Lord, in me What Thou hast scarce begun. Power me for the load; Wean me for Thy will; Love me with Thy rod, And more I’ll love Thee still. Of Thy suffering, Lord, I pray, "fill me up," That I may follow Thee. O let me drink Thy cup! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 25: 01.24. EXCERPT5 - HE KNOWS THE WAY HE TAKETH,AND I WILL WALK WITH HIM ======================================================================== Excerpt5 - He Knows the Way He Taketh,And I Will Walk With Him God called to us, His people, To be His holy Bride. From out the rest of living souls, He calls us to His side. The way He calls is rugged, steep; The way He knows - we are His sheep. No blind design - He has the goals; His love leads to the waterholes, Gives us this day our daily bread, And hitherto He’s always led. Though dark the way, though the path be steep, He drives the wolves from us, His sheep. At times the clouds obscure His face, But, bless His name, supplies of Grace Can fortify ’gainst every shock. His wisdom plans for all the flock. Just now the skies seem solid brass; Fear not, just think: "It came - to pass!" The furnace seven times hotter be, "My Grace" sufficient is for thee. Your soul is riding out the gale; Your courage falters, and the tale Is not yet told, But brighter gold Comes from this long hostility. And Jesus says, "Look unto Me - I’ve planned for thee eternal days, I’ve planned for thee a thousand ways. I went through MY Gethsemane, Will YOU, my child, bear this for Me? My back was stripped, I bore the rod, Will you bear this for Me, your God? I’ve planned for thee a jeweled crown, Will you ’go through,’ or let Me down?" Can you bear up a few more years, Or will you cause your Master tears? While Joseph’s brothers made a pile, Young Joseph suffered for a while. That "while" just seemed a lengthy season With no design, no rhyme or reason. The brothers didn’t care a bit That Joseph languished in a pit. They showed no sorrow for his plight, They cared not for the wrong or right, BUT God was there behind the cloud! (He does not shout His plans aloud.) The path through pit and prison led - For Joseph - to the nation’s head. Not then did Joseph weep or groan, Each step was leading to a throne! The starving brothers soon behold A ruler with a chain of gold. They wept and each his breast did smite Before one sold to th’Ishmaelite, Their brother! With the power of death! Each man fell down with panting breath. Forgiving, Joseph understood: "Ye meant me evil - God meant good! He did not leave me or forsake. He knew each step I had to take. My Shepherd led by pastures green, No other way could there have been For ME to prove that He is God. I loved the dark, I kissed the rod!" Now through a darksome glass we see; But OH! the GLORY yet to be! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 26: 01.25. EXCERPT5 - THE MARTYR'S CROWN ======================================================================== Excerpt5 - The Martyr’s Crown The saints of old were beaten, tried, Condemned and even crucified. These martyr men beat no retreat When flames were licking at their feet. They saw the tyrants’ brandished steel, But still they offered no appeal. They struck no bargain for their lives, For their children or their wives; All slowly roasted in the flames While angels wrote each of their names Within a book God calls His own, To be proclaimed before His throne. Then we shall know of their renown When each receives his martyr’s crown, When God shall say to them, "Well done - You ran the race, pressed on, and won When in that race men said ’Insane!’ But now I gladly own your name. Now you are home - come dwell with Me In joy through all eternity." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 27: 01.26. EXCERPT6 - OUR LETHARGY ======================================================================== Excerpt6 - Our Lethargy I walked down the steaming jungle path ’Mid exotic flowers and trees, There were streams and gorgeous butterflies, But my mind was not fixed on these. My head and my feet were burning, But my heart burned hotter with shame As I saw the diseased and degraded Who never had heard His name. I thought of our stately churches And their softly cushioned pews, And I wept for the sin-damned millions Who never had heard the News Of the spotless Christ of Calvary Who died their souls to save. Unless there’s a change, that heathen mass Will go Christless to the grave. God, pity our empty fullness; God, pity our barren tree; God, pity our long-range blindness; God, curse our lethargy! Turn our much-used words into action, Change ease into Spirit-born care, Baptize us with Thy compassion That puts feet under our prayer. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 28: 01.27. EXCERPT6 - POINT'D PREACHIN' ======================================================================== Excerpt6 - Point’d Preachin’ My pastor’s getting out of hand, He asked me did I understand That soon all men from every land Before a holy God will stand. He said, "Then you may tell the Lord Why He should give you some reward." But surely angels will remember, I bought a chalice last September. It was pure gold, that lovely chalice, With money left by old Aunt Alice. Can all my works be burned to cinders? I also bought two stained-glass windows. Don’t pass my deeds up in a hurry, They’re spoken of through Wintonbury. There’s Jenny Jones and her old Sammy- I paid their two weeks in Miami. I’ve done a host of wondrous things- Besides, we’re not all rich as kings! My pastor called my life a libel, And said it was not like the Bible. I can’t read long (I need new glasses), And get confused about Saul’s asses- And sure that story seems a boner About a whale swallowed by Jonah. I like religion hale and hearty- A miss’n’ry film and ice cream party, And pictures of the pyramids- But we don’t need those noisy kids, They bring the worst side out of me, Leave them at home-they have T.V.! I pay my tithes and fill my pew- Surely there’s nothing else to do! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 29: 01.28. EXCERPT6 - CHRIST THE BORROWER ======================================================================== Excerpt6 - Christ the Borrower God laid Him in a borrowed womb, Men laid Him in a borrowed tomb; His life was borrow, borrow. He had no pillow for His head, A stone He borrowed then instead, He borrowed fish for dinner. A cup He borrowed from a dame Despite her rather sordid name, To help that thirsty sinner. A borrowed boat from which to preach- A borrowed mount on which to teach- No time for fun or leisure. He borrowed once a lowly penny, Since of His own He hadn’t any, For each belonged to Caesar. He rode upon a borrowed ass That prophecy might come to pass, No horse or golden carriage. A room He borrowed to celebrate His last meal, and anticipate The supper of His marriage. He borrowed (staggering to the mind) The whole vast sin of humankind, Our sacrifice to be; The Spotless One Who did such good Was hammered to some borrowed wood With scarce an eye to pity. His life was filled with "borrow, borrow," Acquainted with grief, this Man of Sorrow, Deserted by His friends. They laid Him in a borrowed grave, The Christ, the Mighty still to save- With death His "borrow" ends! For soon, ah soon, the Victor rose Triumphant over death and foes, All power and principality. Who borrowed, borrows now no more, Triumphant then and evermore, The Lord of all eternity. He "was" before the world began- This Son of God was Son of Man, But now He reigns forever. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 30: 01.29. EXCERPT6 - SEEKING THEE ======================================================================== Excerpt6 - Seeking Thee Lord, I seek Thee for renewing Of my faith and of my love. Rush and care are my undoing- Touch me, Savior, from above. Chorus: Seeking Thee, seeking Thee, Touch and give me liberty. Pass me not, O holy Savior, Leave me not to grope and fail. Through Thy blood I seek Thy favor, With Thy grace I can prevail. Faith moves in to claim the promise, Peace revives and floods my soul. Make me now Thy chosen chalice, Giving drink that makes men whole. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 31: 01.30. EXCERPT6 - IN HEATHENDOM ======================================================================== Excerpt6 - In Heathendom Millions are waiting yet In heathendom. Will they the Gospel get In heathendom? Who will arise and go Out to this sin, this woe, And Christ the Savior show To heathendom? The sun will soon be set O’er heathendom. But they are waiting yet In heathendom. Lost in the fog of sin, Will none these wanderers win For Jesus Christ our King From heathendom? Will someone lead the way To heathendom? Will others join the fray In heathendom? Lord, raise a holy band With hearts empowered to stand All that You will demand For heathendom. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 32: 01.31. EXCERPT7 - JUDGMENT ======================================================================== Excerpt7 - Judgment Yes, east is east and west is west, But soon the twain shall meet, For all roads north, east, west, and south Shall join -- with pleas from every mouth -- At Christ’s great Judgment Seat. It staggers the mind -- that ultimate day -- With earth’s proud empires swept away, When billions rise from their weary bones To mix with kings of the oldest thrones And share with them eternal groans. All human values will alter then At the greatest judgment known to men. Who have nothing now, can have something then, Who have something now, may have nothing when We stand at the judgment beyond our ken. God will view the kings and the conquerors Who ruled with pride over millions for years And wrote their own vain history In other men’s blood and sweat and tears. Rulers they’ll be no longer then With terrible power as kings, But naked they’ll kneel at this judgment, Awaiting all that it brings. For the angels kept a record, Unbiased the game was scored. The angels patiently watched it Without a critical word. But when the books are opened Before ten billion men, And all is tried by God’s blazing eye, Will the game be worth it then? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 33: 01.32. EXCERPT7 - JUNGLE GIRL ======================================================================== Excerpt7 - Jungle Girl I looked in her eyes like saucers, Just a girl on the Jungle track. She was one of the forest’s daughters With a bundle slung over her back. She was naked except for a G-string, And as black as a cob of coal, But the dirt on her smelly body Was white ’gainst the filth of her soul. Beneath that skin was a woman, Though she looked as wild as a beast; But she knew no rights as a woman, To say the very least. She worked for her man in the daytime, She slaked his lust at night -- A woman, dear Lord, a woman Without her human right. O Lord, as things are going, It very well might be She’ll learn of Communist Russia Before she learns of Thee. I flick back a page of my memory To our churches and people there Who spend less time a-praying Than they do in styling their hair; Those who plan for frivolous parties With frolics and food and fun But no cares for the wasted hours With so little praying done. O God, dear God, in compassion Look down on our tearless eye; Baptize us with Thy Holy passion For the heathen we’ve left to die. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 34: 01.33. EXCERPT7 - LORD, EMANCIPATE ======================================================================== Excerpt7 - Lord, Emancipate These doubts and fears for many years Have fettered up my soul. Oh, blessed Lord, emancipate, Come now and take control! I now aspire with strong desire To be a channel clean. Oh, blessed Lord, emancipate, Reign where the "I" has been. Oh, take me higher, endue with fire, Thy glory dwell within! Oh, blessed Lord, emancipate, And keep me free from sin! Now free from sin, endue within Give Thy compassion -- tears; Thou dost, my Lord, emancipate, Restore my wasted years. At any loss I choose Thy Cross, Earth’s values I deplore. Thy blood doth now emancipate; Thy victory I adore! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 35: 01.34. EXCERPT7 - OUR STATUS QUO ======================================================================== Excerpt7 - Our Status Quo Oh, pastor, no, and again, no, no, Do not disturb our status quo. We love our Zion with cushioned ease And ask you not to disturb us -- please? After all, we carry a little care, And often sing "Sweet Hour of Prayer." Dear pastor, we do not understand Why you grieve for those in a foreign land. We have the sick and needy poor Ten yards outside of our own church door. And, pastor dear, we often wonder Why, at times, you seem to thunder Against our hearts -- which you say are cold -- (It seems to us you are very bold). We believe in sin and regeneration, Would you have us throw off the recreation That gives us fun and makes us sleep? Would you have us pray and fast and weep For the heathen -- lost, and, you say, damned? (A thing we hardly understand) Our lives will need re-evaluation If we are to care for another nation; We have gorgeous homes, soft beds to die on, We like it soft in our little Zion. Oh, pastor, please again, no, no; Do not disturb our status quo. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 36: 01.35. EXCERPT7 - SOME WORK -- SOME SHIRK ======================================================================== Excerpt7 - Some Work -- Some Shirk Some feast, some fast, some laugh, some groan. Some fight their way to promotion. Some labor and sweat almost unknown; Some render unselfish devotion. Some even boast of what we have done, Some work with consecration; Some speak only of Jesus the Son, Some are full of self-adoration. Some work with an eye on the glory, Some work with an eye on the pay; Some run with the Lord’s blessed story, Some work toward the Judgment Day. Some tell of Thy great salvation, Some bury their talent with care; Some seek to evade tribulation, Some know the soul-sweat in prayer. Some doubt the power of Satan, Some think they’ve "done all" and just stand; Some shirk, with skill in evasion, Some carry the burden He planned. Some work for the night is coming, Some toil in the heat of the day; Some laze their hours just sunning, Some fill their evenings with play. Some will rejoice at the Judgement, With deeds purified through the flame; Some, with their works only ashes, Will weep with regret for the shame. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 37: 01.36. EXCERPT8 - IN THY STOREHOUSE ======================================================================== Excerpt8 - In Thy Storehouse There are riches in Thy storehouse, But, my Lord, we are so poor. There is power in Thy storehouse, But the cripple clothes our door. There is wisdom in Thy storehouse, But in ignorance we grope. There’s revival in Thy storehouse, But we’ve millions without hope. There is freedom in Thy storehouse, But Thy people are so bound. There is glory in thy storehouse, But it does not shine around. There is love within Thy storehouse, But Thy people are so dry. There’s compassion in Thy storehouse -- Then my Savior, why, oh why Are Thy people stony -- hearted And our eyes so desert dry? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 38: 01.37. EXCERPT8 - THE HEATHEN ======================================================================== Excerpt8 - The Heathen I’m gazing now in the jungle green With a people whose bodies, not fit to be seen, Are crusted with dirt and distorted in belly, With louse-packed hair and revoltingly smelly, A woman now swings her naked breast To the mouth of a babe who was never dressed. She sits in a house with mangy dogs (The best of the room is reserved for hogs). The husband knows nothing of horses or cows, But boasts his wealth by his fertile sows. The place is fit only for hogs and dogs That snooze by the fire of smoldering logs. I have seen them crouched in the desert heat, I have heard the thud of their unshod feet, I have seen them shake an unwashed head As they cringed at the feet of their unsaved dead. O God, it seems to be madly absurd That they knew not Christ or Thy holy Word. They have gone to hell while we slept in our pews; While we argued doctrine, we denied them news. We’ve reclined in plush and saved our knees, We have had it lush and forgotten these Who grope in fear in the heathen night. Had we loved them once, we’d have sent them light. O Christ, by the power of Thy holy Name, Give Thy flabby Church a heart of shame. Smite her cold conscience, buckle her knees, That she has lacked concern for these Who have, generation by generation, Been lost to Thine own "so great salvation." Oh God, on that day, that Judgment Day, When homes and banks have been swept away, And there is no place of habitation For any man in any nation, Then every man must stand alone Before the King on His judgment throne. What shall I do when the heathen stand And accuse that I seldom lent a hand To save them from pain and eternal woe, And stayed in my ease but made others go With a message I knew, I knew full well Could save them from sin and fear and hell? O God, my God, in that dreadful day When all excuses are tossed away And there’s no time left to repent or cry As earthly treasures in ashes lie, Then Lord, oh, Lord, what shall I say For the money and time I have frittered away? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 39: 01.38. EXCERPT8 - MEN OF BLOOD ======================================================================== Excerpt8 - Men of Blood There’s a burden to be lifted, And a barrier to be shifted It would seem God’s need is supermen today. Wicked rulers in high places Seem intent to ruin races, While the Christians make their daisy chains and play. God has need of soldiers true; Demons laugh, recruits are few, So that death and hell and Satan have their sway. No! My son, the task’s not done, Scarcely has it yet begun, Men -- all classes -- totter to the grave; To that great eternal night, With no ray of hope in sight, Tramp lost millions whom our Jesus died to save. Gracious God, our hearts inspire, Touch us with celestial fire, Give us burning heart, and bursting lips, and brimming eyes, Strength of purpose, power of will, There’s a place for us to fill And a victor’s crown awaiting in the skies! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 40: 01.39. EXCERPT8 - CALVARY'S TREE ======================================================================== Excerpt8 - Calvary’s Tree I know that I shall never see A tree like that on Calvary, A tree on which men, poor and blind, Defiled the Savior of mankind. That sin was done by fools like me, But God Himself was on that tree! I love to think, as He hung there -- No eye to pity, none to care, Victim of hate, betrayed and cursed, Cut off from God, dying in thirst -- I love to think He thought of me When hanging there upon the tree. I joy to know He’ll come again, Who on a tree by man was slain. I’ll count myself among the wise Who wait His coming from the skies; Not from a tree, but from a throne He soon shall rule this world alone. (Dedicated to Gary Johnson) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 41: 01.40. EXCERPT8 - NEARER, STILL NEARER ======================================================================== Excerpt8 - Nearer, Still Nearer Nearer, still nearer, I draw to Thee, All through the offering that Thou gavest me. Jesus my Savior, God’s only Son, Paid my redemption; now barriers are gone; Paid my redemption; now barriers are gone. Nearer, still nearer, Lord, I would come All through the merits of Thine only Son; His perfect offering cleanses my heart, Now to this temple Thy Spirit impart; Now to this temple Thy Spirit impart. Nearer, still nearer; come more and more. Jesus my Master, I long to adore Thee for Thy mercy, patience and power; Thee will I worship, rejoice evermore; Thee will I worship, rejoice evermore. Nearer, still nearer, down at Thy feet, Through Thy atonement my offering’s complete. Sanctify body, spirit, and soul, My all is utterly ’neath Thy control; My all is utterly ’neath Thy control ======================================================================== CHAPTER 42: 01.41. EXCERPT8 - THE REVIVAL SONG ======================================================================== Excerpt8 - The Revival Song (Tune: "There Shall be Showers") Lord, we are hungry for blessing, This is in tune with Thy Word; Now, as our need we’re confessing, Give us new hearts, cleansed and stirred. Chorus: Visit our city, Lord, save our nation, we pray. Quicken our love and our zeal, and Send us revival today! Great is the need of our nations, Great is the need of this hour; Lord, we abhor our stagnation, Answer with Holy Ghost power. Look on our great desperation, Hold back Thy judgment we pray; Move through the length of our nation, Open Thy windows today. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 43: 01.42. EXCERPT9 - A TALK AT THE WELLSIDE ======================================================================== Excerpt9 - A Talk at the Wellside She came to the well - ’twas her custom, With waterpot, burden, and care; Came at noonday so no one would see her, And found just a Stranger sat there. He asked for a drink of well-water. (How deep her need only He knew!) She asked, "Can a Samaritan woman Give drink to a thirsty young Jew?" He said, "You should have living water That needeth no earthenware pot." She gazed with a wide-eyed amazement And wondered what secret He’d got. She said, "Art Thou greater than Jacob, Our father, who gave us the well?" She stayed, and she listened enraptured To all that the Stranger could tell. He said, "Thou dost draw of this water, But comest again and again; I can give thee the life-giving Water And in thee a well will remain!" She answered, "Oh give me this water!" But hardly did she understand. He said to the woman bewildered, "Away, and call thy husband." She started this deep conversation And secretly wished she could stop it, For now, to her great consternation, She found that this Man was a prophet. Before, she had talked at the wellside And often enjoyed the short tryst; But knew not on this great occasion She talked with the Savior, the Christ. She said, "When Messias cometh, How wonderful He will be! For He shall tell us of all things." He answered, "I, Woman, am He." Away to the city to tell it, The news that could never be priced: "Oh come, hear a Man Who knows all things! I found Him, and He is the Christ." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 44: 01.43. EXCERPT9 - LORD, DON'T ASK ME ======================================================================== Excerpt9 - Lord, Don’t Ask Me I’m just a week-kneed Christian, So, Lord, don’t ask of me That I go to the battle front To do exploits there for Thee. I like to read of courage And Christians who make their mark; But, Lord, that’s surely not for me; I’m quiet and hate the dark! I sometimes lie in bed at night, And it upsets my quiet To think of heathen far away, Diseased and drunk in riot. 0 Lord, a coward then I feel As in my bed I sink; I’d like to sleep, forget it all, But I just think and think. I muse on that great final day When at Thy throne I stand. With flaming eyes You look at me And, under great duress, I see excuses torn from me; I stand in nakedness And hear You say, "You called me ’Lord,’ And did not things I say. You missed your glorious, great reward, You toyed your life away. "You did not read and pray aright, Gave time to eat and drink, And left the heathen far away To fall, fall right o’er the brink "Of time, to hell’s eternity To grope in endless night. You could have stretched a hand to save, You could have changed that plight "Less comfort had You had on earth; Then scores of precious souls Had got the truth, and by your help Had reached God’s offered goals." From all my folly, Lord, I turn, I’ll do as well as say; And, from this hour, may all my works Survive the judgment day. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 45: 01.44. EXCERPT9 - THIS I KNOW ======================================================================== Excerpt9 - This I Know Lord, I love Thee, this I know For my conscience tells me so; Sin I served for long, too long, I was weak, but it was strong. Chorus: Savior, I love Thee, Savior, I love Thee, Savior, I love Thee, And love to tell Thee so. Lord, I love Thee and will stay In this love-life all the way; Jesus Savior is my song In the night and all day long. Lord, I love Thee, love Thee still With my heart and soul and will; Through Thy Cross I’ve perfect peace, By Thy power have sweet release Lord I love Thee for Thy grace, And I long to see Thy face; I will love Thee till I die, Love Thee then for eons on high. Lord, my love can only be That Thou first hast loved me. I love Thee much, I’d love Thee more; All Thy love through me outpour. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 46: 01.45. EXCERPT9 - I DID THE WILL OF GOD ======================================================================== Excerpt9 - I Did the Will of God I fled Him when His grace pursued, I did despite unto His name, And delved me into sin so rude That there my soul enforged a chain. When captive to my own desire, When blue with guilt and unnamed shame, His long arm reached into the mire And plucked me out - blest be His name! Shall I leave others in their woe? Shall I ignore their cries who sink? Forbid it, Lord; I’ll rise and go ’Twixt Thee and them to be a link. Unwearied may I lift the load Of those who stagger ’neath sin’s spell; Stab my poor heart with love’s strong goad To battle powers of earth and hell. Earth’s little strand is far too small To barter for the judgment day, When Powers and thrones and wealth and all Forever shall have passed away. Oh, Day of days, when I shall be The cynosure of ten million eyes, Oh, may my Savior say to me, "Well done," as my eternal prize. When unsupported I shall stand Before Thy blazing bema seat, Give me, my Lord, to understand, I did the will of God complete. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 47: 01.46. EXCERPT9 - I AM A SLAVE ======================================================================== Excerpt9 - I Am a Slave I am a slave! I have no will, no claim To property, to time or sleep. I am a slave, and bear my Owner’s Name! His ways are mine; with Him I joy or weep. I am a slave! No tears are spent for ease, Nor do I freedom crave; I willing slave am I to follow to the grave My Master. Bless His Name! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 48: 01.47. EXCERPT10 - THE SAVIOR ======================================================================== Excerpt10 - The Savior God owed us nothing - He gave us everything pertaining to life and godliness in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. No intelligent man has to be convinced that there is a God, though he may have to be convinced of which is the true God. It was through a tree that the first Adam lost his purity and power. It was on a tree that the last Adam bought back that purity and power for all who will accept Him. Satan lied to man about God, but he cannot lie to God about man. The first Adam had a perfect environment, but he failed. The last Adam had a polluted environment, but He triumphed! God, Who made the first Adam without a mother, and Who made the last Adam without a father, can easily make a saint out of a sinner. Wise men came and worshipped Him. They still do. God needs no alibis. God needs no sponsors. No man ever did, or ever will do God a favor - God does all the favors. A teacher may communicate truth by word. It is taught only by example. In a world suffocating in false love, Divine love is like a breath of oxygen. Jesus did not have the "Midas Touch," He had the Mercy Touch I find it most intriguing to contemplate the fact that while men are considering what place to give Jesus Christ in history, He has already decided what place to give them in eternity Are the things we are living for worth Christ’s dying for? Good Friday. Today- The Holy One The Lowly One The Lonely One The Only One - Died To reconcile us to God- Amazing Grace! How sad He must have been that mighty morning when He had shattered the powers of hell, when He had led captivity captive and given gifts unto men, to find as He emerged from the tomb, with a million demons behind Him mourning that mighty Resurrection, that there was no welcoming party for Him. There can be no leadership of Christ without the Lordship of Christ. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 49: 01.48. EXCERPT11 - THE BIBLE ======================================================================== Excerpt11 - The BIBLE The Bible is never wrong! God does not have to retract, revise, repair, or recall one word He has ever spoken. Men give advice, God gives guidance. We have substituted "the Bible says" for what the Bible does. The only people who want to change the Gospel are those who are unchanged by it. If men would read their Bibles more, They would need to read us writers less. The power, the prayer, the pattern, and the progress of the New Testament Church make electrifying reading! The Bible - It cannot be solved or dissolved by human power. It was not put together by the human mind and cannot be solved by it. It was not put together by human hands and cannot be destroyed by them. Based on the Ten Commandments, any nation can progress. Without those commandments, no nation can retain its soul. Biblical prophecy is history written beforehand. Ponder what the "Heroes of Faith" did without a Bible! (Hebrews 11:1-40) Consider how little we do having the full Revelation of Divine Truth. Interpreters of the book of "The Acts of the Apostles" seem to be intimidated by two possibilities: 1. The fear of being clubbed by criticism, or 2. The fear of being ostracized for fanaticism. The Bible is not just a series of puzzles to be deciphered, it is a chain of commandments to be obeyed. Five minutes of Divine revelation might be more illuminating than five years of Bible school instruction. We have a lovely, lively, liberating Gospel! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 50: 01.49. EXCERPT12 - SALVATION/FAITH ======================================================================== Excerpt12 - Salvation/Faith The greatest miracle that God can do today is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world and make him holy, then put him back into that unholy world and keep him holy in it. It is nothing to plant a man on the moon compared with getting the Son into a man. Faith needs no crutches. If "Christ liveth in me" then I shall be very careful where I take Him. It cost Jesus Christ everything to obtain eternal redemption for us. It will cost us everything to obtain and maintain that redemption. Faith is either dead earnest or just dead. God will not penalize me for Adam’s sin. God will not penalize Adam for my sin. But He will penalize each of us for our own sin. God cannot be explained - He can be experienced. The Holy Spirit cannot be intimidated. He came in tongues of Living Flame to teach, convince, subdue. Our claim on the Lord is from our weakness not from our strength, from our poverty not from our riches, from our ignorance not from our wisdom, from our humility not from our superiority. God will test the faith He is going to trust. If faith were more vigorous it would be more victorious. (1 John 5:4) No vice, however horrendous, will keep us out of Heaven if repented of. No virtue, however admirable, will get us into Heaven without the blood of Christ. "Faith" takes the guesswork out of tomorrow. It confidently boasts, "My times are in Thy hands." An experience with God cannot be shared, it can only be described. Sinners need cold comfort and hot preaching until they come to a place of repentance. I would rather be Balaam’s ass for God than the swiftest horse in Jehu’s chariot. God grant us perception from Heaven to save us from deception on earth. God has to work in a man before He can work through a man. To know about Christ is education. To know HIM is emancipation. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 51: 01.50. EXCERPT13 - SPIRITUAL MATURITY ======================================================================== Excerpt13 - Spiritual Maturity Spiritual maturity comes not by book knowledge but by strict compliance to the revealed will of God. I believe in instant purity for the believer, but I do not believe in instant maturity by God in Grace. Cleansing is immediate - by the Blood. Conformity is progressive - by the rod! Through the atoning death of Christ, heart purity is instant- but progress is constant. The law of spiritual progress goes like this: Process then crisis, followed by a process then crisis, ad infinitum. There is a "deeper life." It is deep as a personal Gethsemane and costly as a personal Calvary. We are, each of us, as spiritual as we want to be. The throttle is in our own hands. Too many of us want to make a peace treaty with Christ, but will not make a total surrender to Christ. A secret of victory: To do what God wants me to do; To do it as He wants it to be done; To do it when He wants it done. There may be no more theological frontiers to explore, but there are new dimensions of spirituality to explore - new possibilities of Grace! The Christian has every right to tell God he wants to be a saint, but the Christian has no right to tell God how to make him one. It is much easier to wear a cross than to bear a cross. Whom the Lord loveth, He corecteth. Correction is criticism in action. Sanctification is not isolation (Simon Stylite’s style), but rather constant, Spirit-operated purification in a world of militant corruption. Knowledge is not character, but character is developed from knowledge and obedience. Lord, let nothing live in me that should die and let nothing die in me that should live. The worst thing that God gives us is better than the best thing Satan offers. No fruit is better than its tree. I do not know the weather ahead, I do know the path that I must tread. Truth can be a mental idol until it gets into the "blood stream." It then becomes a motivating force. The Beatitudes should really "be" attitudes of the Christian’s life. The Beatitudes should "be" attitudes in our daily walk with God. Cultivate cheerfulness. Every mother is a career woman. "He anointeth my head with oil." If He does not anoint it, no one else can. "He anointeth my head with oil." Without the anointing, what use is a bishop’s miter? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 52: 01.51. EXCERPT14 - THE CHRISTIAN ======================================================================== Excerpt14 - The Christian The self-centered suffer when others disappoint them. The Christ-centered suffer when they disappoint others. Better to have a hard will and a soft heart, than to have a soft will and a hard heart. We do not learn a thing merely by committing it to memory. We learn solely by experiencing it. Christ has not conquered my affections if He has to compete for my attention. Cleverness will enable a man to make a sermon. Only compassion will make him a soul winner. The Christian who has the smile of God needs no status symbols. Who we are, whom we know, and what we know does not interest the world. What we are and what we do does. Children are afraid to walk in the dark. Adults are afraid to walk in the Light. A statement does not have to be profound to be important. "To obey is better than sacrifice," but not an escape from it. The infant Christian prays, "Bless me." The mature Christian Prays, "Make me a blessing." It seems that we have substituted contributions to God for sacrifice for Him. What possessions a man has are not too important. What possesses a man is. Possessions become obstructions to spiritual expansion when we set our affections on them. One way to live the Christian life is to be sure you don’t live it as other people do. The pursuit of holiness must outreach all our other desires. I refuse to let men flatter me or flatten me. It is God who worketh in us so that we may work out our own salvation. The world is unimpressed with a man who has all his "dispensations" correct but his disposition all wrong. "Tears" are a ministry untaught, unsought and unreachable. "Think twice before you speak once." Think three times, and you may not speak at all. The Christian must say "no" to the whole world system which is but damnation frosted with the glitter of success and illuminated with scientific luster. He remembers that it is worm-eaten with depravity and has God’s sentence of death upon it. The Christian life is more than emotion, but it is not without emotion. There is a cost in discipleship-- God has no basement-bargain blessings. You cannot draw a straight line with a crooked ruler. Truth fears no exposure. "The Baptism" is not an event, but an advent. God asks the best we have Because He gave the Best He had. We can give God much: our problems, our griefs, our praises-- but we cannot give Him advice. May we grow old slowly. May we grow wise quickly. The man God uses is the man the world, and often the church, abuses. The Christian life is not always exciting, but it is always exacting. Meekness is often anger purified of self-interest. I don’t mind being "the least of all saints," but I don’t want to be the most stupid of them. If a million people smiled on me while I knew God frowned on me, I would not be happy. But if God smiled on me while a million people frowned on me, I would not be unhappy. I cannot live on excitement-- not even Christian excitement. I can live on inspiration-- Spirit-born within me. Our problem is stewardship, not leadership. "Is this vile world a friend to Grace?" asks a poet. The answer is "no"--"sonship" today means hardship. When folk seek my advice, I am a counselor. When I give my advice, I’m meddling. If Christ is not worth everything you have, He is not worth anything you have. He who gave all He had for me demands that I give all I have to Him. I would rather be disappointed than a disappointment. A contentious spirit is a sign of immaturity. Happiness is the goal of the sinner. Holiness is the goal of the believer. If we are seated with him in the Heavenlies, we’ll not be sinning with them in the earthlies. When Jesus laid aside His glory and took our flesh, He knew it. When we lay aside the flesh and walk in the Spirit, we know it. The sparrow hath found a house, but eagles dwell in lofty mountain grandeurs. Where do we live? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 53: 01.52. EXCERPT15 - THE BRIDE OF CHRIST ======================================================================== Excerpt15 - The Bride of Christ The only imperishable thing on this earth is the Church of the living God. Stand up and cheer! A holy God in a holy place demands worship from a holy people. It seems to me that we can get back to Apostolic Christianity if we want to; or is the road too steep the reproach too great the price too high the sacrifice too involved and the stigma too unbearable to get up the hill of blessing? Save us, Lord, from Misapplied Energy Misused Money Misdirected effort. "We are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses," and witnessed about with so great a crowd of promises! When did you or I last tip-toe out of the sanctuary saying, "Surely God is in this place"? In the darkness He holds my hand (Isaiah 41:13); therefore, I can stand and withstand even when I cannot understand. There is no New Testament evidence that people in those days went to church to get saved. They went to church because they were saved - through the power of the testimony of Spirit-inflamed witnesses. Apologetics for Christianity are one thing- reasonable; apologies for Christianity, something else- insufferable. Preaching is proclaiming the Word of God. Teaching is explaining It. Revival is an explosion in the Church. Evangelism is an expression of the Church. What kind of a church would my church be if all its members were just like me? Like a lily on a polluted pond, the Christian is to display God-likeness in a world hostile to virtue and holiness. If we abide in Him, we shall abound in Him. "The wise man built his house upon the Rock," but notice that he went through the storm also. The difference was in the foundation, not in the storm. God is not interested in making straw men, He is interested in making strong men. The Christian life is not a party but a pilgrimage. We need a mighty, cleansing revival in the Church to prepare the way of the Lord. What is missing from our churches? To use an Old Testament term, it is the burden of the Lord. The burden of the Lord in the Old Testament was not for the Amalekites, Hittites, Perizzites or Jebusites, God’s chief concern was Israel. In the same way, not a single epistle in the New Testament was addressed to the lost; every letter was addressed to Christians! We have taught Christians to witness and to work, but we have not taught them to worship. What, then, is the burden of the Lord for today? He is concerned for sinners who are rebels, who have their fist up against God. He is concerned for preachers, that they should preach His judgment. And He is concerned for His Church, the Bride for whom He is coming. He longs to baptize His blood-bought church with a baptism of fire and power - that the world might know! The gates of hell will not prevail against the living Church of the living, exalted Christ. "I will build my church." He can do it, He is doing it, and He will continue to do it. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 54: 01.53. EXCERPT16 - THE CHURCH - THE PERSECUTED CHURCH ======================================================================== Excerpt16 - The Church - The Persecuted Church The power of His resurrection is sought. The fellowship of His suffering is shirked. Better to die doing something for God than live to do nothing for Him. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 55: 01.54. EXCERPT16 - THE CHURCH - THE EVANGELISTIC CHURCH ======================================================================== Excerpt16 - The Church - The Evangelistic Church In Acts 27:1-44 Paul was the insurance policy for all on board. We have been spiritually satisfied with so little for so long, when there is so much land for us to possess! 0 for a thousand tongues to speak of Him, 0 for a thousand hearts to love Him, 0 for a thousand minds to think of Him, 0 for a thousand wills to surrender to Him, 0 for a thousand lives to serve Him. It is not always easy to do God’s will, but it is always possible. Mercy is love in action. Believers should not need to be corralled in a church building once a week to be stirred on behalf of lost men. Millions of dollars have been raised "for missions" because the preachers have said that the last great commandment of Jesus to the Church was, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel." NOT SO! The first (Matthew 4:17) and the last great word of Christ to His church was "REPENT" (Revelation 2:5; Revelation 3:19)! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 56: 01.55. EXCERPT17 - THE CHURCH - THE LUKEWARM CHURCH ======================================================================== Excerpt17 - The Church - The Lukewarm Church Instead of the Church penetrating the provinces of materialism, materialism has punctured the power of the Church. Beware of an unholy attitude towards holy things. Criticism is one thing at least which we feel it is more blessed to give than to receive. We talk Apostolic doctrine but lack Apostolic deeds. We claim Apostolic faith but lack Apostolic fruit. Some trumpet Apostolic power but lack Apostolic poverty. Some claim Apostolic enduement but lack Apostolic accomplishment. We may have Apostolic vocabularies. Do we have Apostolic victories? Many claim Apostolic succession. Few, if any, dare claim Apostolic success! In the past the Church has had too little of the mighty stuff, and therefore too much of the wrong stuff, to move the world for God. Many present-day "Christians" are hazy in their convictions, lazy in their commitments, and crazy if they think God will endure this torpor much longer. I am constantly amazed that so many "well- rounded" persons who are so edgy. The Church used to be a lifeboat rescuing the perishing. Now she is a cruise ship recruiting the promising. If we have not too many men studying church history, we have too few making it. Our present "Christianity" sputters along on the two cylinders of tithing and token commitment instead of speeding along on the eight cylinders of total commitment. This is a day of healthy unbelief and of sick faith. A high steeple is useless if the pew- dwellers beneath it are walking low. In this age of arrogant science, the church does not need to bow its head in shame, but rather to bow its knees in repentance for its apathy. I am embarrassed to be part of a church that is an embarrassment to God. If you dope the dog, why complain when it does not bark? One can ride the current charismatic circuit today without any Biblical integrity or theo- logical allegiance. There is more truth muttered than uttered. Jealousy is love gone sour. I am distressed at the zeal of the heretics and the amnesia of the believers. If God had a "School of Failure," most of us would have graduated with honors - but He is merciful. How little it takes to make us laugh. How much it takes to make us weep. Folk are more concerned about the hardening of their arteries than about the hardening of their hearts. I am more afraid of sorcerers than of flying saucers. "Property" sells best today on Easy Street. There is a lot of foot-dragging in the area of obedience. There is a roar of opposition to pollution in ecology, but only a squeak of opposition to pollution in theology. The world has lost the power to blush over its vice; the Church has lost the power to weep over it. The Church has many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, but few pray-ers; many singers, but few clingers; lots of pastors, but few wrestlers; many fears, but few tears; much fashion, but little passion; many interferers, but few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. The trouble, as I see it, with the present interpretation of the promise in Acts 1:8, "Ye shall receive power," is that It is all sugar and no salt, all daylight and no darkness, all pleasure and no prisons, all privileges and no privations, all feastings and no fastings. When we have raked over the whole muck- heap of this decaying civilization, my greatest grief is to see a sick Church in a dying world. We have never had a period when Bible knowledge was more extensive than today. We drown in a sea of interpretations. We are surfeited with millions of cassettes, books, seminars, Bible schools, seminaries, radio and TV sermons and lectures, but where, oh, where is Apostolic power, Apostolic purity, and Apostolic piety? The One with eyes as a flame of fire saw through all the show of the Laodiceans. He sees through all our showmanship also. Joel says we are to sound an alarm in all God’s holy mountain. Now is the time to do it. Christ was nauseated and disgusted with a church that bore His name but not His nature. The church which flattered itself because of its commer- cial and political prowess was rejected in His sight. On the law Of averages, God’s house today is neither a house of prayer nor a house of power. As with Laodicea, so with us, He stands outside. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 57: 01.56. EXCERPT18 - THE LEADERS - OVERCOMERS ======================================================================== Excerpt18 - The Leaders - Overcomers The explanation for the Christians’ overcoming life in Christ is: a. Their covering (Revelation 12:11), "the blood of the Lamb," b. Their conviction, "the word of their testimony," c. Their covenant, "They loved not their lives unto the death." The reward for this overcoming is: a. Revelation 2:7, "to eat of the tree of life." b. Revelation 2:11, "shall not be hurt of the second death." c. Revelation 2:17, "to eat of the hidden manna." d. Revelation 2:26, "to him will I give power over the nations." e. Revelation 2:28, "I will give him the morning star." f. Revelation 3:5, "the same shall be clothed in white raiment." g. Revelation 3:12, "Him.... will I make a pillar in the temple of my God." h. Revelation 3:21, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne." That’s the ultimate reward and glory. You may give a man an office in the church, but you cannot give him authority - nor can you withold it. Divine authority is divinely given. Romans 8:37, "more than conquerors," is an exclamation of jubilation for the soul’s emancipation! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 58: 01.57. EXCERPT18 - THE LEADERS - PREACHERS ======================================================================== Excerpt18 - The Leaders - Preachers A preacher is a man with a message from another world to people in this world who are going to that other world. The successful preacher does not end his sermon with the congregation on its feet applauding him; but rather, he leaves it on its knees adoring Him. Our preachers must be filled with the Spirit before they fill our pulpits, or else they will fill the people with chaff. The message of the preacher is not always scathing, but it is always searching - if it is Spirit-energized. The effective preacher is the man who trembles at His Word, but who stands untremblingly to deliver that Word. The preacher must taste the powers of another world, if he would preach to men of this world who are blind and deaf to the claims of the next world. We have an abundance of "men of the cloth"; few - too few - men with sackcloth. Wet-eyed preachers never deliver dry sermons. A preacher cannot get "off the ground" until he prays, and he cannot keep on the ground after he prays - his preaching will soar! The petty Peter of pre-Pentecost days became the prophet-preacher of post-Pentecost days. There is much more to preaching than merely being loaded with theological savvy and elastic vocabulary. The pastor’s task is to feed the flock, not to produce it. Giving a man an "R-E-V" does not sanctify him any more than giving him a Ph.D. can edify him. I am tired of preachers who act like lions in the pulpit, but play like kittens outside of it. Some preachers spend so much time walking theological picket lines that they never enter the areas of true worship. An evangelist with his eye on the "Jackpot" Should be afraid of being labeled a "crackpot." Pity him and pray for him - the preacher who can mouth eternal truths to eternal souls without pain, or tears, or burden. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 59: 01.58. EXCERPT18 - THE LEADERS - THE PROPHETS ======================================================================== Excerpt18 - The Leaders - The Prophets The prophet in his day is fully accepted of God and totally rejected by men. In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that we cry to God for a prophet! The prophet is God’s detective seeking for lost spiritual treasures. The degree of his effectiveness is determined by the measure of his unpopularity. Compromise is not known to him. He has no price tags. He is totally "otherworldly." He is unquestionably controversial and unpardonable hostile. He marches to another drummer! He breathes the rarefied air of inspiration. He is a "seer" who comes to lead the blind. He lives in the heights with God and comes into the valley with a "Thus saith the Lord." He shares some of the foreknowledge of God, and so is aware of Impending judgment. He lives "in splendid isolation." He is forthright and outright, but he claims no birthright. His message is, "Repent, be reconciled to God, or else.... I" His prophecies are parried. His truth brings torment, but his voice is never void. He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow. He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead! He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with epitaphs when dead. He is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, but few "make the grade" in his class. He is friendless while living and famous when dead. He is against the "establishment" in ministry - then established as a "saint" by posterity. Daily he eats the bread of affliction while he ministers, but he feeds the Bread of life to those who listen. He walks before men for days, but has walked before God for years. He is a scourge to the nation before he is scourged by the nation. He announces, pronounces, and denounces! He has a heart like a volcano and his words are as fire. The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history. There is a terrible vacuum in Evangelical Christianity today. The missing person in our ranks is the prophet. The man with a terrible earnestness. The man totally other-worldly. The man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too severely committed, too negative and unsociable. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 60: 01.59. EXCERPT19 - GOD'S MEN ARE IN HIDING UNTIL THE DAY OF THEIR SHOWING FORTH. ======================================================================== Excerpt19 - GOD’S MEN ARE IN HIDING UNTIL THE DAY OF THEIR SHOWING FORTH. They will come. Let him be as plain as John the Baptist. Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modem theology and stagnant churchianity. Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle. Let him, too, say and live, "This ONE thing I do." Let him reject ecclesiastical favors. Let him be self-abasing, non-self-seeking, non- self-projecting, non-self-righteous, non-self- glorying, non-self-promoting. Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself, but only that which will move men to God. Let him come daily from the throne-room of a holy God, the place where he has received the order of the day. Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the clatter of shekels milked from this hour of material mesmerism. Let him cry with a voice this century has not heard because he has seen a vision no man in this century has seen. God send us this Moses to lead us from the wilderness of crass materialism, where the rattlesnakes of lust bite us and where enlightened men, totally blind spiritually, lead us to an ever-nearing Armageddon. God have mercy; send us PROPHETS! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 61: 01.60. EXCERPT19 - THE IMPERATIVES - PRAYER ======================================================================== Excerpt19 - The Imperatives - Prayer The need of the Church today is for spiritual millionaires who can bring down the wealth of the world above on this stricken church age. It is my solemn conviction that the Lord put the Church to groan in this groaning creation (Romans 8:26) that she might reach millions who would otherwise groan for eons in a devil’s hell. Are we (who still have coals of fire on our altars) measuring ourselves by the fireless altars of neighboring churches instead of checking on the praying blaze of our saintly forebearers? THE NAME OF CHRIST If we today could rediscover The virtue in that Name, The victory in that Name, The violence in that Name, We could set this world alight for God. A sermon born in the head reaches the head; A sermon born in the heart reaches the heart. No Christian is greater than his prayer-life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. The two prerequisites to successful Christian living are vision and passion, both of which are born in and maintained by prayer. The ministry of preaching is open to few; the ministry of prayer - the highest ministry of all human offices - is open to all. Prayer grasps eternity! The understanding soul prays; the praying soul gets understanding. The secret of praying is praying in secret. Elijah was a man skilled in the art of prayer, who altered the course of nature, strangled the economy of a nation, prayed and fire fell, prayed and people fell, prayed and rain fell. We need rain, rain, rain! The churches are so parched that seed cannot germinate. Our altars are dry, with no hot tears of penitents. Oh for an Elijah! Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, but alas, we are not men of like prayer as he was. His whole life is summed up in two words, "He prayed." (James 5:17) Watch and pray, or rust and decay. No amount of prayer will deliver us from temptation, but it will deliver us in temptation. Prayer is the language of the poor in Spirit. The self-sufficient do not need to pray; The self-satisfied will not pray; The self-righteous cannot pray. Prayer produces courage and joy to do God’s will even if tears are shed doing it. The man who kneels in prayer has some standing before the Lord. Many ask God for help. Few ask God for mercy. We need preachers who can preach up a storm, but our greater need is for pray-ers who can pray down the fire. Most Christians pray to be blest few pray to be broken. Prayer is not argument with God to persuade Him to walk our way, but an exercise by which He enables us by His Spirit to walk His way. Who can tell the measure of God’s power? Prayer is as vast as God because He is behind it. Prayer is as mighty as God, because He has committed Himself to answer it. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 62: 01.61. EXCERPT20 - THE IMPERATIVES - REVIVAL ======================================================================== Excerpt20 - The Imperatives - Revival "True revival," said dear Dr. Tozer, "changes the moral climate of a community." Wet-eyed, heart-broken revivalists produce wet-eyed, heart-broken sinners at the feet of a holy God. The evangelism of the last twenty-five years has been the most costly in history. High-powered methods have needed high-powered men with high salaries to get them to function. Revival never cost a penny. It is the Lord’s doing and is marvelous in our eyes! This generation, rapidly sinking in a morass of materialism and swept by a blizzard of Satanic cults, can only be rescued from total loss by a heaven-sent, Spirit-born revival. Here in the United States we live like kings compared to millions in other lands. Our greatest danger is not even moral, bad as that is, but spiritual. Prophets, as I have said and written so often, are God’s emergency men crisis hours. They thrive on perplexity, override adversity, defeat calamity, bring the new wine of the Kingdom to burst the withered wineskins of orthodoxy, and birth REVIVAL. Let no Christian’s heart fall him because it seems that the enemy has come in like a flood, that the voice of the prophet is not heard in the land. God has His men hidden. They will come forth without price tags; with nothing to sell, nothing to propagate but "holiness unto the Lord." WHAT IS REVIVAL? Revival is the act of the Spirit upon believers who have lost their first love. Revival is the restoration of true doctrine. Revival is the rekindling of the power of prayer in individuals and in groups. Revival is seeing that God must be vindicated either by His mercy in pardoning - or by judgment! Revival is the ascendancy of the spiritual over the material. Revival is the Spirit’s passion within the believer to know and to obey the total will of God. Revival is the willingness to forsake all, that God might be all in all to the individual and to the Church. Revival is the "no-time-limit" operation of God on the saints, resulting in a moving of God among the sinners. Revival is the redeemed sobbing with broken hearts over a nation of broken lives from breaking the commandments of God. Revival is not a luxury, but a necessity for our nation; not an alternative, but an imperative. I am bombarded with talk or letters about the coming shortages in our national life: bread, fuel, energy. I read between the lines from people not practiced in scaring folk. They feel that the "seven years of plenty" are over for us. The "seven years of famine" are ahead. But the greatest famine of all in the nation at this given moment is a FAMINE OF THE HEARING OF THE WORDS OF GOD (Amos 8:11). I am sure that the main reason we do not have a national revival beginning with personal revival is that we are content to live without it. Will the economy have to break down before God can break through and revival break out? The discord in our disjointed society is not because of the generation gap, but because of the regeneration gap. "They that wait upon the Lord renew their strength." They that wait upon men usually dissipate their energies. America could be transformed in one day if every professing Christian would live the Bible concept of Christianity for twenty-four hours. The dislocation of the status quo socially and religiously is guaranteed when spiritual revival breaks. Apostolic purity, Apostolic piety, and Apostolic power are the need for today. The law of revival is simply this: Going- weeping- bearing (seed); Coming- rejoicing- bringing (sheaves). (Psalms 126:6) Can a polluted source birth a clean stream? Can wrong men lead a nation right? Can politicians who break divine laws establish civil laws and demand obedience to them? John Baptist did not raise a dead person. He did more - he raised a dead nation and a dead generation. A proof that misery and sadness are endemic in the human race is that we need a host of comedians to try to raise a laugh. At his expulsion from Eden, man took the wrong turn, and he has been on the wrong road ever since. We have been spiritually satisfied with so little for so long- when there is so much land for us to possess! Today there seem to be no recognized limits governing personal behavior. The password seems to be: do what you want, with whom you want, where you want, when you want. If our nation has to break down materially in order that God may break through and revival break out, is the Church mature enough to welcome this? Revival, like charity, begins at home. Holiness teaching contradicted by unholy living is the bane of this hour. God’s problem today is not Communism, nor yet Romanism, nor liberalism, nor modernism, nor humanism. God’s problem is dead fundamentalism America needs a Joan of Arc. The British need another Boadicea to wage war on her immorality. Both nations need another Jeremiah to weep over their sins, another John the Baptist to call them to repentance, and another Elijah to bring fire down from heaven that the multitude may cry again, "The LORD, He is God! The LORD, HE is God!" We go down to our knees, or we go down to oblivion. We have labored in the flesh too long. We have interpreted success by material gain - bigger buildings for our churches, bigger crowds for our hearers, bigger offerings, as proofs of His favor. We have had pygmy preachers too long. God, give us giants! We have had promoters too many. Lord, send us revivalists! We have played evangelism with a hundred gimmicks. Lord, give us, in this dark hour of human history, some John the Baptists to burn and shine, some Knox to say, "Give me Scotland (or England, or America), or I die!" Maybe, nay, surely we need ten days in an Upper Room or maybe more suitable for us a basement to mourn the departed glory, to apologize for our arrogance in preaching so long without a NATIONAL revival. The last revival mentioned in the Old Testament is found in the book of the prophet Joel. He proclaimed a solemn feast and said, "Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar." Well, let’s face it, who weeps anymore? Before Jesus comes I am convinced that we will see a great, sweeping Pentecost that will out-Pentecost Pentecost. God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh, as Joel said. Our sons and daughters will prophesy. God will produce a race of spiritual giants for the last mighty ingathering. Today God has these leaders hidden, but in the great Day of the Lord He will bring them to light, and the last shall be first. I pray that day will come soon. Let the Church live again with holy passion and America will be reborn. THERE IS NO OTHER DOOR OF HOPE. God said, "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.... BEFORE the great and terrible day of the Lord come." (Acts 2:17; Acts 2:20) If it is true that greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world, and it is true; if it is true that the gates of hell shall not prevail against His church, and it is true; then what have we to fear? Spiritual and moral revolution is only possible to men whose "eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 63: 01.62. EXCERPT21 - THE IMPERATIVES - MISSIONS ======================================================================== Excerpt21 - The Imperatives - Missions Christ cared enough for sinners to die for them. Do we care enough for sinners to live to reach them? If God could turn some of us inside out, He might send us to turn the world upside down. If you don’t glow, don’t go. Words are cheap -- action is expensive. Hearts of stone can never bleed for broken hearts of flesh. A loveless heart is a greater tragedy than having sightless eyes or a brainless head. A man is not to be judged by the height of his ambitions, but by the depth of his compassions. Advice given to a person in adversity may be misunderstood, but help given in a time of trouble needs no explanation. "Every man is an island!" He is an entity incapable of identical duplication or reincarnation. Every man is an island, a total and complete entity- a one-of-a-kind personality. There is a great deal of difference between building a boat and manning a boat. Theologians, in the main, build the boat -- evangelists man it. It is not God’s will that any should perish. It is not man’s will that he should perish. It is not the Church’s will that he should perish. Then why should he perish? Without God, without hope, millions are still calling how appalling! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 64: 01.63. AFTERWORD ======================================================================== Afterword Now, at the end of this book, thinking again of the author and the yearning of his heart which transcended all that words are capable of transmitting, I look at myself and I look at the church and the question comes, "Where are we?" Perhaps this is the echo of an eternal question which has resounded in the ether of this creation ever since the words came from God’s lips in the garden. "Where? ... where? ... where?..." This is a question which can only be answered in relation to things other than ourselves. (We cannot say, "I am with myself." We must say, "I am behind the house," or "I am under the oak tree," etc.) Where are we with regard to the kingdom of God? What are we "behind" or "before" or "within" or "without" or "above" or "below"? My father used to quote, "Beyond the sacred page, I seek Thee, Lord; my spirit pants for Thee, Thou Living Word." We live in an age which, like the Greeks, seems to have exalted reason and devalued everything which has to do with the more important inner aspects of being. In doing this we have cast down that which has to do with the true essence of spiritual life. It is not so much that we have become worshipers of the Word as that we have taken the Word of God as if it were a painter’s palette -- a base from which we mix and match our own concepts without discerning the true nature of the Spirit speaking the words. We have the words about the Spirit and think that we have the Spirit, and yet we only possess the death of words. The written word has become a substitute for the word spoken by the Spirit, the "Logos" for the "Rhema," with the result that we, as the Jews before us, have become slaves to our interpretations, bound by our own concepts and imprisoned in the darkness of our own fallen understanding. Paul says, "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature." What does It mean to be "in" Christ? It certainly does not mean that we can be "in" (or "into" as we like to say nowadays) other things at the same time. We can only be in one place at one time- is this too difficult for us to understand? We live in the place of our hearts, not the place of our minds, and in the place of our feelings, not the place of our religious theory. Solomon had all the theory -- he had inherited all the psalms of cry and prayer and worship from his father. He systematized all of his knowledge into his three thousand proverbs and taught with a stunning exactitude, and yet died with "his heart far from God." Do we see him displayed for our example? Does it make us tremble? Does it humble us? Sometimes it seems today that we have "out Solomoned Solomon" in our trying to understand and explain God. Geographically speaking we can only come to a true understanding of where we are in this world in the measure in which we have become acquainted with other places, races and cultures. Spiritually speaking God must expose us to a full gamut of experience if we are to really know the place in which He would have us to dwell. We cannot see the light unless our eyes have beheld the darkness. We can only see the light of God to the degree that we have met the horrific depths of that darkness which is a foretaste of death and the dwelling place of the unclean powers of a satanic empire. Only as our souls have felt the crushing powers of evil which move over the face of the nations to rob, to kill and to destroy, can we reach forth to the power of His Resurrection. The trouble with our age is that it wants light without having known darkness, happiness without having known pain. We live in a generation which wants only the positive and never the negative -- healing without hurt, salvation without damnation, hope without despair, power without weakness, maturity without aging, knowledge without the price of learning, fullness without emptiness, joy without sorrow. The gospel has been turned upside down as we have become conditioned to possess the kingdom without poverty of spirit, to possess comfort without mourning, and to possess the earth without paying the price of meekness. Our problem today is that we have tried to make it all too easy. We have done with the Word as the ants do in their storing of seeds; we have killed the germ so that we might keep the seed sterile without the inconvenience of having it shoot forth in growth to upset our plans. We have avoided the hurt and pain and loss and invented a "contemporary" (cursed word) Christian culture. God won’t have it and so we are left, as the people in Isaiah, to wither "by the hand of our iniquities." Our mental games will not hold up in exposure to reality, and in choosing the theory of a man-engendered Christianity we find that we have chosen death. This is not a static state but rather a kingdom of falsehood which drags us down into an ever-deepening morass as we struggle to build for ourselves and for our contemporaries God’s true house on a shattered foundation. Only as we return to the presence of the living God can we hope to find reality. In the beginning was Reality, before there was anything false or evil. I believe God’s call for us is to go beyond the physical world, beyond the world of man’s thoughts and fears and imagination. We are called to Reality, beyond all the sham and shame and sickness and sin which the enemy has built up around mankind and around the church. We are called to live and breathe, to abide and to walk in the realm of the life of the Spirit of God. I believe the day is coming, and now is, when God will start to call forth a people formed in the mold of the original purpose of God -- a people who have tasted the joy of that kingdom which is not of earth, and have counted all else but dross. "We" can never fight and overcome the earthly -- we are the earthly. Liberation and transformation, the heart of the gospel message, are possible only as the kingdom of God in its true spiritual essence takes root in our lives and springs up overwhelming every other presence, every other influence. I believe that there is a principle involved when Jesus says to Peter, "Upon this rock I will build..." Peter has seen and declared Jesus to be the Son of the Living God and, in effect, Jesus is saying, "Peter, everything you have seen in Me I give to you... You see Me with the keys of heaven and earth, you see Me with the power to bind and loose -- Peter, the keys and the power which you see in Me I give to you. As you see me and My power, your portion will be to share in My kingdom and to participate in the outworking of its power." Perhaps we have been taught too much to look upon the negative in all our looking at the Bible. We have stood with Adam as he fell and lost a kingdom and inherited a curse as judgment, but we have never seen or stood with Adam in the glorious majesty and victory of the day when he stood before God and all created beings, and in total dominion could answer God’s question, "What is this?" We have not seen him, I say, when he stood, and discerning the heart of God he discerned the nature and named the name, one after another, of every living creature that walked the face of this whole vast earth. We have not thrilled with his triumph, nor felt the call of God in our own spirits to discern and to name every part of the whole nature of our own world. We have read of Noah, but do we feel the immensity of the pathos of the world-ending judgment and the overwhelming glory of the resurrection purpose of God locked in his breast and paid for in his life throughout one hundred and twenty years? We read of Moses and of David and the prophets, but have we ever heard the question within ourselves, "understandest thou what thou readest," shocking us into living awareness? Some day we will stand before God, and before the Word of God, and in that moment we will see all as it really is in the clear light of eternity. The power and the passion of the world to come will be absolutely clear to us then, in that morning without clouds. Yet God is the same today; His will and His purpose will not be any different then from what they are now. Maybe the land is yet "afar off," but His call to us, and His Spirit’s call through us, is ever for the fulfillment -- "Thy kingdom come..." There is nothing more glorious for this old earth, nor is there for the child of God, than the attaining to the Presence of the One Who reigneth for ever and ever and being a living part of His Kingdom. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 65: 01.64. TORCH MY HEART ======================================================================== Torch My Heart Lord engage my heart today With zeal that will not pass away. Now torch it with Thy holy fire That never more shall time’s desire Invade or quench the Heaven born power. I would be trapped within Thy Holy will, Thine every holy purpose to fulfill That every effort of my life shall bring Rapturous praise to my Eternal King. I pledge from this day to the grave To be Thine own unquestioning slave. -Leonard Ravenhill (The last poem written by Leonard Ravenhill at 2:30 a.m. on February 12, 1994, nine months before he "passed into life.") By Paul Ravenhill ======================================================================== CHAPTER 66: 02.00. IT IS FINISHED ======================================================================== It is finished by Leonard Ravenhill Leonard Ravenhill - (1907-1994) was one of Britain’s foremost outdoor evangelists of the 20th century. God used him to help bring thousands of people to Christ throughout Britain. Unlike the case with many of today’s evangelists, the conversions that Leonard helped to bring about were generally lasting conversions. That’s because he did not water down the Gospel when he preached it. Later in life, Leonard and his family moved to the United States, where he worked with Bethany House Publishers. In the 1980s, Leonard and his family moved to a home near Lindale, Texas, a short distance from Last Days Ministries. Leonard regularly taught classes at Last Days Ministries, and he was a mentor to the late Keith Green. Among some others mentored by Ravenhill are Ravi Zacharias, Tommy Tenney, Steve Hill, Charles Stanley, Bill Gothard and David Wilkerson. Addressing the disparities between the New Testament Church and what passed (and still passes) for the Church in his time, Ravenhill gave a no-compromise call in his teachings and books to the principles of biblical revival. Compiled from: and Text Copyright (C)1994 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas ======================================================================== CHAPTER 67: 02.01. PART 1 ======================================================================== John 19:30 "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar He said, ‘It is finished’ and He bowed His head and gave up the ghost." I said last week that I’d attempt to talk to you on the three most important words, I believe, in history - IT IS FINISHED. This is one of the seven sayings, as we say, of the Lord Jesus on the cross. Just three words - IT IS FINISHED. The Greatest Words Ever Uttered By the Greatest Man That Ever Lived. In these three words I see the consummation of all the Old Testament truth and the germination of all New Testament truth. I don’t believe that ever in history, · · anywhere, at any time, by anybody, were three words more pregnant with meaning than these three words given by one Man at the end of His life - It is finished. It is finished. Now supposing that you were here and I was where you are - How would you start to handle a text like this? I feel as though I am trying to catch the wind in my arm. I am trying to pick up the Atlantic Ocean up in a sieve. How do you deal with it? · · Its magnitude staggers me, · · Its mystery staggers me, · · Its majesty staggers me. It seems to me that here is a terminus in the life of the Lord Jesus: all the prophesies, all the law, all the prophets, terminate in this saying of the Lord Jesus Christ. And everything from here blossoms out because this is the beginning of it all. Three simple words - it is finished. I suggest to you in all reverence that these three words terrified hell. IT IS FINISHED! You see, this English phrase of ours, this little sentence, is not in the Greek at all. And I don’t know much about Greek, but I did discover that in the Greek it is just one word: FINISHED! Matthew 27:1-66 says that Jesus cried with a loud voice: "FINISHED!"…And I am sure all hell shook! You see, this is an arena into which Jesus is moving. You can say the life of Jesus was a three act drama. You get the first years of His life, 30 years in preparation for 3 years. · · The first chapter has been written, The second chapter is now coming to a climax on the cross, The third chapter is yet to come in all His resurrection splendor. There is nothing to equal it anywhere. I get indignant when I hear people say, "What we need to do is study comparative religion." Well, I say again with some heat and some feeling in my spirit, Christianity is not a comparative religion, it’s a SUPERLATIVE religion! Because this one saying of Jesus Christ explodes every other religion on God’s earth! They are all fakes. They are all useless. This momentous event… · I can see demons peeping out from hell as they see Jesus has gone to the cross. I can see angels looking over the parapets of heaven, I can see the Jews and the Romans and the Greeks. They are all at the cross! The Cross of Jesus…we sing the hymn · · "Beneath the cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand, The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land, A home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way." Look, if you put the cross on Palestine, like that, and let the arms go round, you can scoop them round the whole world, because geographically, the cross is almost the center of the world. It is the center of time. When we shot a rocket, did we change the calendar? When we invented the atom bomb, did we change the calendar? Isn’t it amazing a little Baby came into the world and He divided time? - He divided men - He divided nations. People say, "If we have revival we’ll all be one." No! If we have revival we will be more divided than ever! · The first thing Jesus did before He could walk or talk was divide men. "Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him." The last thing He did on the cross was divide men. In His lifetime He divided men. He went into the Synagogue and there was a division because of Him. Wherever Jesus goes there is division. And those demons were looking down in terror. Come on, come on, you’ve forgotten. Think again about the majesty of this event. You know how great it was? One of His other sayings was, "My God, my God why hast Thou forsaken Me?" In a tongue He knew so well, He says, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani." Which we can hardly interpret except: "My God, I am deserted." Everybody deserted Him. You see, there at that moment when Jesus said: "It is finished," Mercy and Truth met together, Righteousness and Peace kissed each other… and hell went into panic. How do I know? Because the earth was shattered. The whole earth rocked on it’s axis. The earth trembled under the impact of the sin that He bore for us. Heaven trembled… I’ve been to art galleries around the world, you’ve been in many I guess, you saw some beautiful pictures. But you know, there never was a photo of the cross; it’s representations are all imagination. That event was so sacred that, as it were, God took His coat off and hung it over the sun. And there was darkness for three hours. He would not let anybody see His Son become corruption. Jesus Christ, in the mystery of God’s divine grace, was, as Wesley says, God "contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man," in the incarnation. The heaven of heavens cannot contain Him. Yet He clothed Himself in flesh and blood and crept into a woman’s womb. How God became man I do not know, but less, less, less do I know HOW DID HE BECOME SIN? You know the answer? No, you don’t. Neither does any living person. Every man who’s honest - take Spurgeon or anybody - the more honest the man is he, more he says, "I am baffled." As I get older I see more and more that, "great is the mystery of Godliness." I said to a brother today, "I feel that in spiritual matters, after 55 years walking with God, I don’t have my feet wet, not even the sole underneath, never mind water to the ankles, or the knees, of the loins." God has opened His treasure house to us. As I’ve used the phrase so often before: Do we really explore the possibilities of God? What’s the most exciting thing in your life? Don’t answer me, answer straight up to God. Tell Him what is the most exciting thing. That you become more knowledgeable, make more money, become more fit? What is the most exciting thing to you? Is it that day by day you slip in to Him and worship and adore Him? I was thinking of this great hymn of Wesley today. He is talking about the cross and he says this, · · "Would Jesus have the sinner die? Why hangs He then on yonder tree? What means that strange expiring cry? Sinner He prays for you and me, ‘Forgive them Father. O forgive. They know not, that by Me they live.’ Thou loving all atoning Lamb Thee - by Thy painful agony, Thy blood, Thy sweat, Thy grief, Thy shame, Thy cross and passion on the tree, Thy precious death and life - I pray Take all, take all my sins away!" And then, in the rapture of that, Charles Wesley says this (and it’s so wonderful. I can see that woman crying at the feet of Jesus, and I can see John Wesley, scholarly, dignified, trailing his academic gown behind him in Oxford University.) · · "Oh, let me kiss Thy bleeding feet. And bathe and wash them with my tears, The story of Thy love repeat, In every drooping sinner’s ears, That all mankind with me may prove, Thy sovereign everlasting love. Oh, let Thy love my heart constrain." You see if He works it inward, it’s going to work outward somewhere. God only puts up with words so long. A brother said to me during this week, "You know brother, I think we die in areas of our life. We don’t die totally to God’s Spirit. We die in areas. God gives up on us, in certain areas. He does not tolerate anymore. We said so much, we made our vows, we won’t do it, God bypasses us in that area." Hold fast to that that thou hast that no man take thy crown! (Not demons, but that men take thy crown.) So Charles finishes his hymn by saying this: · · "Oh, let Thy love my heart constrain, Thy Love for every sinner free, That every fallen soul of man May taste the grace that found out me, That all mankind with me may prove, Thy sovereign, everlasting love." This, I say, was the most momentous moment in history. Hell had feared this moment for centuries, for millenniums! · · Why do you think the devil greased the path of Jesus and tried to make Him take a short cut to conquer the world? Why do you think he stirred up enmity among the religious people? You see, there is one rotten canker that is in so many churches, as well as it was before. What does it say about Joseph? His brothers sold him. For what? For envy. What does it says about the Lord Jesus? The priests sold Him for envy. That festering thing in the heart of men and women. They sold Him because of envy. They sold Him because they hated Him. He was only a little baby, less than two years of age, when they had what history calls the Massacre of the Innocents. I said to you before, I’ll say it to you again, whether you love me or hate me for it: If you’ve got children you ought to be up an hour before they go to school and cover hose children every day with the blood of Jesus and really lay hold of the promises. They live in a hell of a world in the day in which we live. If you don’t do it, I’ll do it for you. Remember, when Satan thinks there is something going to happen, he is going to dog that child. I prayed, and I still do, whether you know or not, I pray for some of our kids, if I am here or not, if Jesus tarries, they will become some of the leaders half a generation, a decade from now. God will make them missionaries and evangelists, and teachers, and apostles, in the last great awakening, (which men are trying to work right up now and you can’t do it.) But He is going to get youngsters and fill them with the Spirit, and teenagers in their early years. Remember Moses. You know, people say if you are good you do as the government tells you. If you are good, you tell the government to go to hell if they want to go and you obey God. And the father and mother of Moses did not obey the government, they hid their baby when the government said it should be destroyed. He is going to be the law giver, he is going to be one of the greatest men in history, and Satan says NO! The same thing happened in the life of Jesus. Jesus is not two years old and "Herod is troubled and all Jerusalem with him," and they said, "destroy Him." I often think about king Herod - he had more faith than the disciples. Somebody said, "He is going to be a King," and he believed it. Somehow Satan said, "You better believe it, that little fellow is the Son of God with power and authority. He is going to dethrone you and wreck your kingdom." And so just as they tried to destroy Moses at two years of age or under, they tried to destroy Jesus. From the moment He was born to the last thing on the cross. As I’ve said so often, I still say to myself - I need to - that even if you’ve gone to the cross, even if you got on the cross, the old devil comes with subtlety and he says, "Listen, get down from the cross and save yourself. Nobody is living like you. They live it up. They can’t tell the difference, except they go to church on Sunday. Other than that, as for prayer and fasting and seeking God and travail… so… Why do you do it? Why don’t you get an easier job? Get ten times as much as you get - going round here or going to some fancy church or some other thing." He comes to you in some way. You’ve decided you were going to live according to the standard of the Lord Jesus and he says, "Well, why don’t you pinch it a little bit here, and reduce your convictions there, and not be so stiff right there, and do just a little compromise. Ha, everybody gets away with it." From His infancy to the cross, the last thing they did, I read in Matthew when He had gone to the cross, they passed by - the scum of the earth passed by - and they wagged their heads and reviled Him. It was nothing unusual to see a man go down the street carrying a cross. It’s as common as a boy carrying a baseball bat. "Hey look who is going, do you know who that is?" "So what, they put many a false prophet to death. Only He is a bit more brazen than the others, you know, He preached a sermon He said would shake the world, called the Sermon on the Mount. He has a bit more power but, you know why He does it? You know why He pushes devils around? Because He is the prince of devils, they have to obey Him." Here is the holiest, purest, most spotless man that ever lived. What does the world do? Blister Him, · · Blast Him, · · Bruise Him. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 68: 02.02. PART 2 ======================================================================== They watched a man go down the street. Well, when the high priest went into the holy place, did he go in rags like this? Stained with His own blood? Had he been up for hours? Had he been pushed around by a vassal king by the name of Pilot, who said, "Oh, You get over to Herod. You are in his domain." And Herod says, "You get Him back into his territory… I don’t want this responsibility?" You think the high priest could have gone into the holy place with a faded gown that once belonged to a king, and a crown of thorns, and spit on his jaw, and hair pulled from his face, struggling under a load as though he was drunk? The priest went into the holy place in garments of glory and beauty, the most beautiful garments in the world, all hand sown, meticulous, marvelous. He went with a crown on his head, he went with a breast plate. Beautiful stones. How did Jesus go? Jesus went there staggering to the cross. Did He have a stone? A red stone on His breast? no, just His own blood, that’s all. Did He have an immaculate garment threaded? no, a peasant’s garment. Did He have a golden crown with "Holiness unto the Lord"? no, He had a crown of thorns with holiness in His spirit. Did people stand in awe and say, "The priest has gone in, will he come out?" No. This is what they said as the holiest man that ever lived trudged up that road that they call the "via dolorosa", staggering under a cross, "Ha, ha, He is the Man that talked about being strong and He gave strength to the weak, and eyes to the blind, and He did a lot of things, and look He can’t keep up the load." He wasn’t sinking under the load of the cross. He was carrying the weight of the sin of the world! Those poor dumb, blind folks that stood there, the gamblers and the thieves, the lawyers and the doctors and the soldiers had no eyes to see. The priest went into the holy place with gorgeous diamonds and priceless stones on his breast once a year for one nation - and could be dead and replaced before next year. Here is a man staggering up this road Who is going to take the consummate sin and grief, not of one nation, but of THE WHOLE WORLD! There is not a computer of computers that can give you the frightful amount of human guilt; it was more than the sands by the sea shore or the stars in heaven. He isn’t going to go every year - He is going once into the holy place. He isn’t burdened under a cross of wood - He is carrying the sin of the world which Samson, with all his strength, could not carry. He is solving a problem that Solomon, with all his wisdom, could not solve. Oh, blind idiots looking out of their chariots, · those Romans with their proud garments, those priests who thought they had an investiture from God, those merchants who scorned His poverty. God pity them! He is going to the cross. He hasn’t got a dime in His pocket and He put every vein of silver in the world and nugget of gold that is in it. Nobody stood by Him. Not even His disciples. Isn’t there a hymn that says: · "The pain in His heart was the hardest to bear, The heart that was broken for me."? Again I say, He is not going to repeat the act. He is doing it once and for all. That’s what He is doing. See, Jesus is the consummation of everything, every type that is in the Old Testament. You can take the sacrificial type · · - He is the red heifer. - He is the perfect lamb. - He is the dove whose breast was put in blood and thrown away, sent out into the air. But the priest has no sacrifice. It does not cost him a thing - he is using the blood of beasts. This Man is going to enter the holiest place of all in His own blood. Not every year but once forever. The priest that walks into the holy place to the astonishment and amazement of all the people is going to go once and eventually is going to die - but our High Priest is going to live forever. He is the perfect offering and He is the perfect priest, He is the perfect prophet and He is the perfect King. Moses is the greatest prophet, but "a greater than Moses is here". You take the perfection of every one of those characters in the Old Testament and He is the ultimate in perfection. He has the wisdom of Solomon. He has the patience of Job, He has the self-reliance of Nehemiah. He has the statesmanship of Moses. He has the courage of Joshua. He has the broken heart of Jeremiah. All rolled into one personality. Do you wonder that Satan said, "If you can get that Man out of God’s will, if we can push Him out of the main track, we can hold the world captive for millions and millions of millenniums." Again, going down that road the people mocked Him - that’s what the Bible says. "They that passed by reviled Him wagging their heads." What a bunch of dumb, blind, senseless folk. If Caesar comes down the road they bow the knee and say, "Hail, Caesar." If the priest comes, they stand in awe. But, you see, He not only was, He IS. In this mad, insane, world in which we live, HE STILL IS DISPISED AND REJECTED OF MEN. As you know, I am not very fond of translations of the New Testament - I like the good old King James. But I love this verse in Phillips’s translation. I am going to get it printed as a little card. His translation of Ephesians 1:10 is this: "For God has allowed us to know the secret of His plan. He purposes in His sovereign will that all human history shall be consummated in Christ." I don’t care how drunk the nations are with their iniquity today! I don’t care that politicians are as hypocritical today as they were in Nixon’s day or anybody else’s. I don’t care how intoxicated men are with iniquity. I don’t care that people say we are nearer a blowout in the Middle East at this moment than ever we’ve been for years. (When they finished the news the other night the newscaster actually said, "Well, that’s the end of the bad news for the day." They are not often so honest!) But listen, God has allowed us to know. Come on, lift your chin up however rough the going. God has allowed us to know. We are initiated. We are the believers. We know Him, and He has allowed us to know the secret of His plan, and it’s this: "He purposes in His sovereign will that all human history shall be consummated in His Christ." Could you try and imagine what Jesus was thinking on that road to the cross? I think the earth shook beneath His feet. I say God draped the sun - He would not let anybody see His Son bear the sin. He became sin for us! Remember please, will you? When Jesus utters these three words - It is finished - it is after the three hours of darkness that covered the whole earth. There was a historian in Egypt at the time who wrote this, listen, "In this awful mid-day that has become midnight, either God is suffering or Somebody He loves is suffering." That was a pagan testimony. The whole world shook under the impact. He is not bearing millions or trillions or quadrillions, He is bearing the total sum of human sin. Not only committed sin but depravity as a whole. They reviled Him, they shook their heads. Matthew 27:41 says, "Likewise the chief priests." These are the men who know the law and the prophets. These are the men that read Isaiah 35:1-10 so many times, "When He comes the eyes of the blind shall be opened." And He did it before them and they still spit on His face, because that’s what it says a bit later on. Oh, you have it rough and I have it rough at times. Anybody boot your behind and nearly break your spine? Anybody get a nice mouthful of flem and spit in your eye? Anybody take your beard and pull the flesh out with it? Anybody say, "Well, I know you of course, you are devil possessed"? They mocked Him, they scorned Him, they reviled Him. The people passing by wagged their heads. And then the priests mocked Him. But wait a minute, there were two men beside him crucified, you know what they did? The thieves which were with Him, they cast the same in His teeth. Isn’t it amazing that to the very doorstep of hell itself they scorned Him and blasphemed Him? And they were a heartbeat away from eternity. Well, one of the hymns says about this Lord Jesus of ours, "It is the way the Master went, should not the servant tread it still?" It is finished. What is finished? Well, alleluia, from one angle this is finished, men aren’t going to abuse Him anymore. A hymn writer says, · · "The head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now, The royal diadem adorns the mighty Victor’s brow." He is out of the reach of men. They aren’t going to push Him around. They aren’t going to crucify. They aren’t going to nail Him to a tree. How do you know that those thieves that were hailing Him and cursing Him on the tree were not part of the crowd of five thousand He fed. He did not discriminate. He did not say, "Give it to Jews, but not to those, and not to those Greeks, and…" He said, "Feed them!" Well, He throws His mercy over the air, over a hundred nations, a thousand peoples this afternoon. · "Tell me the story of Jesus, Write on my heart every word. Fasting alone in the desert, Think of the pain that He bore," Oh, my God, my God. To me it is insufferable that the church has ,lived for 2000 years and there is still a person in the world that doesn’t hear the gospel. There are still 1000 tribes that don’t have the written Gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ.Partly our fault. I am glad, I lived in a house where all was talk about God and missionaries - I prayed for missionaries when I didn’t know if they were missionaries or football players - but I prayed for them. He said, "It is finished." What is finished? Man’s power over Him. What is finished? Satan’s abuse of Him. Satan’s testing of Him. He started with forty days in the wilderness and He ministered three years. How long did He live before the three years? Thirty years. So He had ten years training for every one year He was going to minister. That’s pretty good training, isn’t it? Thirty years of training? But again, He is going to do in this one act what all the "blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain, could give no guilty conscience peace nor wash away one stain, but Christ, the Heavenly Lamb, takes all our sins away." Ten million oxen have been slain. Thousands of sheep, sacrifices have been made, new moons and Sabbaths; people have done all kinds of things, and Jesus ties it all up in one redemptive act: Christ the Heavenly Lamb. No, He is not going to be tempted anymore now. He is not going to be looking out of His eyes corners as He carries that awesome cross, and carries the sin of the world and thinks, "I can’t see Peter around or anyone." He suffered heartbreak because His disciples were unfaithful. He suffered heartbreak because the synagogue and the temple rejected Him. I say they knew the law and the prophets. They heard Isaiah 35:1-10 so many times; they dreamed of it, "The highway shall be there and bondages are going to cease, the Romans will lose their power over us. There is going to be no cripple, no lame. He is going to heal and cure and everybody is going to be sanctified." And when they met Him in flesh and blood they didn’t even know Him. Do you know why? Because He didn’t do it their way - that’s why. Because He put new wine in the old wine skins, and they burst. The last great outpouring - a lot of people say it’s here, I don’t believe that for a minute. I believe we have one or two trickles, but surely not an outpouring. Someone said recently, "Well, if this is the visitation; if there are fifty million born again people, then why is the nation in this condition?" Well, the salt has lost its savor. I believe there will be such a visitation that even the workings of God will become headlines above the sports headlines, above political headlines, above economic headlines. There are going to be such manifestations of divine power that God is going to get the glory for His Son. That’s going to shake the world too. It is finished. When He said, "It is finished," really He is saying, "I don’t need this body anymore. I don’t need food anymore. I don’t need sleep anymore. I am not a human being any more in the sense you know humanity. IT IS FINISHED!" "Men have no power over Me. Satan has no power over Me." Jesus said, "It is finished." What was finished? Temptation. No more temptation. It has no power over Him. No more dependence on human agencies. He is going to pass into a tunnel. He is going to do what no man in history ever did. This is an unprecedented act. It’s an UNREPEATABLE ACT! I say He is the perfection of the law, He is the perfection of prophets. Take the most beautiful characters in the world and mold them all into one and HE IS EXACTLY THAT! And instead of angels hanging over Him and coming down and slaying people and saying, "BOW DOWN YOU REBELS, THIS IS THE SON OF GOD," people kicked Him, and reviled Him, and they spat on Him. THEY MOCKED HIM. Remember that lovely song that says, "He could have called ten thousand angels?" I like that song. It is finished. What was finished? The tyranny of the devil. I don’t think the church has wakened up to that yet, but it is finished. It is so. I believe that when Jesus cried with a loud voice it echoed down every corridor in hell. IT IS FINISHED!! I can almost hear the demons in hell say, "What? He’s broken our power." "You mean that Satan doesn’t have…?" "No, no, no. Satan is bound. And not only that, death has lost it’s sting." "What?" "Yes, death has lost it’s sting. And more than that… ‘The vilest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus his pardon receives.’ It doesn’t matter if he is going in the Woldorf Astoria this afternoon with somebody else’s wife dripping with diamonds. Or if he is a bum down the street. Or he is with the folk that still go naked to the beach every week there in San Diego and defy the police to arrest them. Or whether he is a big ecclesiastical guy standing behind the desk with all his mind loaded with such modernistic ideas. It makes no difference. If he comes to the cross..." Well, we sang about it this afternoon, "That old rugged cross, so despised by the world has a wondrous attraction." "It is finished." The implication of the Greek word is "This is complete." This is redemption complete. You can’t add to it. You can’t subtract from it. It doesn’t need something the priest says added to it. Jesus made a perfect redemption for men. His blood was shed. It’s more than all the blood of beasts. Because again, it says in Hebrews 10:9, "If the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works." He not only paid the total sum of human sin, He nailed it to the tree. That’s what He did. It wasn’t the Greeks that put Him there, it wasn’t the Romans that put Him there - they were all there, I thank God for that. The Greeks were there, their day was over, they were coming out of their glory, they were fading out. They were the past generation. The Romans were there, they were the ruling generation at that time. And who else were there? Well, the black folk were there, a future generation. So, you see, the past, the present, the future, all were at the cross. If you lay a cross on the floor it points North, South, East and West. If you stand the cross up it embraces - as Wesley says, "The arms of love that compass me do all mankind embrace." If you stand it up it points to a topless heaven and to a bottomless hell and the arms are outstretched to save. We are mutilating all the hymns and we mutilated that gorgeous hymn we sing so often, "Beneath the cross of Jesus." A stanza of it says this, listen, · · "The darkness of an awful grave That gapes both deep and wide;" And there between us stands the cross, Two arms outstretched to save, Like a watchman set to guard the way From that eternal grave." At the other side of that cross there is an eternal grave, and the only obstruction to that eternal grave is the finished work of the Lord Jesus. You see, it is finished, the law and the prophets they’ve no… at least the Old Testament economy, as we say, has no power. Sin, if we obey God, has no dominion over us. Death has no dominion over us. The power of Satan has been broken. Heaven has received Him. And the next thing is not only "It is finished," but "He is Risen" which will be superseded with "I will come again." We shouldn’t put our tongue in our cheek and say this in a whisper. We ought to shout this from the house top. To a world that is groping in darkness we ought to proclaim with a trumpet voice, "It is FINISHED, you can’t buy salvation, · · you can’t crawl on your knees through the holy city, · · you can’t go on a pilgrimage, · · you can’t offer your righteousness, there is nothing you can do, but bow in humility and confess and accept it." It is finished. This is the language of earth. Why? Because in heaven they never say, "It is finished." Because it is never going to be finished, for all eternity. Oh, redemption is finished, sure enough. All that I said is finished. But you see, this never finishes. We are going to live and reign with Him for ever and ever. And Gabriel isn’t going to blow the trumpet one day and say, "Hey, you’ve been living in this super millennium for four billion trillion years and it’s over." NO SIR. I like that part of the Messiah where it goes up and up as they sing "And He shall reign for ever and ever. King of Kings." Nobody wants it to finish in eternity. We are going to be with the eternal Bride Groom. But wait a minute. They never say it in hell either. There will be people in hell today and people in hell a billion years from now. No messenger will come from another world and say, "It is finished. Your judgment is passed. You’ve no more suffering for your sin. The wrath of God doesn’t abide in you anymore." No. If we are going to escape that eternal judgment, if we are going to enter that eternal rest, it must happen now. Isn’t it amazing that people withhold their petty little lives from Him? That they love their sin enough to get the anger and wrath of God? Rather than repent, and believe, and be saved? Christ’s love is, "so amazing and so divine," That He bore our sins in His body, That He took the curse and the wrath of God upon Him. That He took our sins and His heart was broken that ours might be healed. · · He was an outcast that we might be brought in. He suffered without the gate that we might enter into heaven and said,. · · · · IT IS FINISHED! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 69: 03.00. WEEPING BETWEEN THE PORCH AND THE ALTAR ======================================================================== Weeping Between the Porch and the Altar by Leonard Ravenhill Leonard Ravenhill - (1907-1994) was one of Britain’s foremost outdoor evangelists of the 20th century. God used him to help bring thousands of people to Christ throughout Britain. Unlike the case with many of today’s evangelists, the conversions that Leonard helped to bring about were generally lasting conversions. That’s because he did not water down the Gospel when he preached it. Later in life, Leonard and his family moved to the United States, where he worked with Bethany House Publishers. In the 1980s, Leonard and his family moved to a home near Lindale, Texas, a short distance from Last Days Ministries. Leonard regularly taught classes at Last Days Ministries, and he was a mentor to the late Keith Green. Among some others mentored by Ravenhill are Ravi Zacharias, Tommy Tenney, Steve Hill, Charles Stanley, Bill Gothard and David Wilkerson. Addressing the disparities between the New Testament Church and what passed (and still passes) for the Church in his time, Ravenhill gave a no-compromise call in his teachings and books to the principles of biblical revival. Compiled from: www.scrollpublishing.com and www.wikipedia.org Text Copyright (C)1994 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas ======================================================================== CHAPTER 70: 03.01. WEEPING BETWEEN THE PORCH AND THE ALTAR ======================================================================== Taken form a message of Leonard Ravenhill I’m not really going to preach a sermon this morning, but I want to have a launching pad… Joel 1:13 “Gird yourselves, and lament ye priests, howl ye ministers of the altar. Come, lay all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God. For the meat offering and the drink offering is witholden from the house of your God. Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly.” And then to Joel 2:17 of the next chapter, “Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare Thy people O Lord, and give not Thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them. Wherefore should they say among the people, Where is your God?” A few years ago, Dr. Carl F. Henry, founder and editor of Christianity Today, sent out a questionnaire to what he called, “Twenty of the leading intellectual preachers in the country.” And the question that he sent out was this: “What do you see for the church of Jesus Christ by the year 2000.” I remember only one of the replies, it was given by Elton Trueblood, the Quaker philosopher. He said this amazing thing: “By the year 2000 the church will be a conscious minority surrounded by an arrogant, militant paganism.” I swallowed that hook, line and sinker, and woke up about 2 o’clock in the morning with mental and I think spiritual indigestion. Then I began to remind myself that Christianity was not served up to the world in a silver platter. Christianity was born in a sophisticated, totalitarian society. The early church was walled in on one side with the mightiest military machine in history, the power of Rome. It was walled in on the other side with Greek intellectualism. It was blocked ahead by the monopoly the Jews thought they had on God. Those men who turned the world upside down had No colossal intellectual capacity. No great financial backing. No social standing. They were about the most despised men in and around Jerusalem. And yet they broke out somehow - and later it was said that they turned the world upside-down. I think at least once a week and sometimes I think once a day, what Dr. J. B. Phillips, who gave us the Phillips New Testament, said of the first chapters of Acts: “This is the church of Jesus Christ before it became fat and out of breath by prosperity. This is the church of Jesus Christ before it became muscle bound by over organization. This is the church of Jesus Christ where they didn’t gather together a group of intellectuals to study phycho-sematic medicine, they just healed the sick. This is the church of Jesus Christ where they did not say prayers, but they prayed in the Holy Ghost.” There’s a vast difference. The tragedy in our colleges and seminaries right now is that we turn men out who know the word of God. - That is never going to turn the world. The question is not whether they know the Word of God. The question is: DO THEY KNOW THE GOD OF THE WORD? Just to give a man a license to preach because he has so much academic ability is like giving a blind man a driving license. If he doesn’t know God, why is he in this business?! We have to make up our minds if this Book is absolute or obsolete. It’s either got the answer for our generation or forget it. We have to make up our minds that preaching is not a profession, it’s a passion. I remember going down High Holborne in London a few years ago… well it is a few, twenty five I guess. A little lady was going to the mail box. There she was, very, very stooped and she shakily put her mail into the box; then she turned to go into a building. Somebody asked me, “Do you know who that is?” And I said, “Not the slightest idea.” “That is the widow of Hugh Price Hughes.” At one time the king of the Methodist pulpit in England. His daughter gave us a huge biography of her father. And she said, “When he came back on a Sunday night from the service, if no one had been saved, he would be inconsolable. You couldn’t comfort him. He wouldn’t eat, he wouldn’t drink. He wouldn’t even take his long coat off. He threw himself over his bed and he sobbed and he sobbed and he sobbed and said, ‘Why? Why? Why?’” Isn’t it staggering when you think that one sermon on the day of Pentecost produced 3000 people? And we had some cities yesterday where 3000 sermons were preached and nobody was saved. And it doesn’t even faze us. The church used to be a lightning bolt, now it’s a cruise ship. We are not marching to Zion - we are sailing there with ease. In the apostolic church it says they were all amazed - And now in our churches everybody wants to be amused. The church began in the upper room with a bunch of men agonizing, and it’s ending in the supper room with a bunch of people organizing. We mistake rattle for revival, and commotion for creation, and action for unction. Look, I think this is a critical hour in history, the most critical hour in history; the Middle East is ready to blow up… the prestige of this nation we love has gone down … As someone said, “We live in a theater of the absurd.” I’m old enough to remember years prior to World War I. My cousin had been to our house about a month before the war broke out, as straight as a ram-rod. He had his red jacket with its lovely gold buttons. I looked at him and thought, “My, what a marvelous thing to be a soldier.” On the 4th of August 1914 the war broke out and he went with millions of other men to fight; he came back a total physical wreck. But you see, the slogan of World War I was this: “This is the war to end wars.” War is not only unchristian, it’s uncivilized. After that, from 1919 to 1939, we had twenty golden years of peace when the church had the greatest opportunity since Pentecost, in my judgment. Then came the second World War. Prior to World War I we had a group of intellectuals in England called Fabian Socialists. The red bearded man who gave us plays like Pygmalion and My fair lady, George Bernard Shaw, was one of the super intellectuals. Really, the leader was a self anointed and self-appointed prophet of a new world order; his name was H. G. Wells, a cocky little man. Those men did not talk about redemption, they did not talk about sin, they were just rationalists, they were just humanists. Away back in 1912, two years before the 1914 war, H. G. Wells said, “It is possible for us to have a new race of people by intellectual and biological processes. We don’t need the Bible, we don’t need the church, we can pull down the hills of wealth, we can fill up the valleys of poverty.” He didn’t talk about sin and redemption and wickedness. He talked about the adequacy of materialism. He talked about the inevitability of progress. He talked about the sufficiency of man. They were going to bring in a new millennium by their own genius. And then a shadow came over the sky. We had the 1914-18 war. And at the end, H. G. Wells and the gang were not so sure about things. In 1939 came the 2nd World War. Well, H. G. Wells had written his outline of history, but the last book he wrote, in the middle of World War II, was not this rosy optimism. His last book was Mind at the end of it’s Tether. And he said, “There is no hope for humanity.” And he said one more sensible thing, “There is a little cavity somewhere in the human breast which can be filled by God and only by God.” We feel a little nervous these days of talking about human depravity. Well, heaven knows, there has never been as much depravity around as we have today. Look at the iniquity that was on the earth when the prophet Elijah came on the scene. The nation was in bondage to idolatry, and impurity, and infidelity, and indifference. And it’s my contention this morning that this pulpit is no place for puppets. In this day in which we live it’s prophets that we need. A Jewish scholar says, “The prophet, by the very nature of his calling, is a tragic figure. He has a fierce loyalty toward God and he has a broken heart over a lost nation.” We miss the mark telling people who are morally good, and very excellent many of them, that Jesus Christ came into the world to make bad men good. He did not. That’s a fringe benefit. The first argument God has with a man is not that he’s bad, it’s that he is DEAD in trespasses and in sin. And Christianity is the only Gospel in the world, the only message in the world, where a man’s God comes and lives inside of him. Where’s the brooding of the Holy Ghost these days? When revival comes you don’t daringly say, “Joe Smith is coming to preach this week, and he’ll finish Sunday night.” Where in the world did we get the idea that the Holy Spirit only comes at 11 o’clock Sunday morning and you send Him home at 12 o’clock. You want Him back at 7 at night ’til 8 and we don’t need Him ‘til Wednesday night. When revival comes the lights don’t go out in the sanctuary for weeks and weeks and weeks. I spent an afternoon in Wales in 1931 or 32 with an old man who had been one of the right hand men in the Salvation Army revival back in the 1880’s. The man was eighty years of age. He told me about the amazing things that happened in their revivals. The men that would sit in the back seats, almost the scum of the earth, came in just to get warm, but they would get so worried when the old preacher William Booth was preaching one of his hell-fire messages, that they shred their hymn books. Begby, in his definitive work on William Booth, in the first volume I think, talks about the holiness meetings. And he said, “When the Holy Ghost came down and men resisted the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God would lift people from the back of the sanctuary and carry them over the audience and drop them at the altar.” And we think we’ve seen everything because two or three people get healed. You can not standardize revival. I am not thinking of a church revival; I’m thinking of a national revival. There is only one hope for America and that is that we have a Divine intervention in the nation. Forget your denomination, forget your empty seats. Let’s see first of all how God grieves over the sin of the people, and after all, when you look in the Old Testament, God’s argument was not with the Amalekites, and Hitites and all the other “ites”. God’s problem in the Old Testament was Israel. God’s problem today is not communism, Mormonism, Moonism or any other “ism.” God’s problem is His church today. We are so worldly. A city wide crusade can cost two million dollars. Revival doesn’t cost a red cent, except broken hearts. You can stage your revival; you can stage a city wide crusade; you can not stage Revival. Revival is a mysterious divine intervention. I think one of the most awesome tasks given to man was given to John Baptist, when God said, “Prepare YE the way of the Lord.” You know, you talk about revival in this country and everybody has got tunnel vision. They think revival must come like Finney had it. We are not living in Finney’s days. It would be nice to have him around, for sure, but we are not living in Finney’s day. It is a new day. Iniquity has never swaggered like it swaggers now. You know what has happened in the last twenty three years in England? In the last twenty three years in England the Muslims have built 300 mosques and at the same time they were building their 300 mosques the Church of England has closed 660 churches. Does it drive us to despair? There are more people lost in this world at the moment than in any period in history. And yet we go on as though we were on the edge of the millennium instead of on the edge of judgment. I believe the key to revival is given here in Joel, “Let the priests, the ministers of God, weep between the altar and the door posts.” I was preaching in a well known college two years ago. I was preaching on Hannah, because I think Hannah is typical of the true intercessor. The intercessor believes, “The thing will happen through me. I have to stand in the gap.” You know, when you talk about intercessors we always go back and say, “Well, America’s had some of the best intercessors.” You’re right; we had. We had praying Payson of Portland back in the eighteen hundreds. The floor in his room was as hard as this metal and yet there were two grooves side by side where his knees used to rub in the floor. What about Jonathan Goforth that went out and had revival in China? What about John Hyde, one of the greatest men ever in prayer? You know, the first thing that really moved me to God after I got saved? Somebody gave me an abridged edition of the life of David Brainard. I just could not believe it; I could not take it in. Could a man be so utterly selfless? The thing that is crippling us is our prosperity. Materialism is choking the church as well as the world. We want ease and comfort. When I read of a young man that could walk out in the snow, snow up to his chin sometimes, wrestling in prayer from sunrise to sunset with a tubercular body… When I read about a man that wrestled in prayer like that, I was dumbfounded. And since the church I went to was pretty sleepy and I was only about seventeen, I went out into Sherwood forest - I lived on the edge of it - and started praying by myself at night. We have some bracken there, and it grows seven or eight feet high, I used to creep in it and weep and groan and pray for revival. And revival came. Because I prayed? No, No. I was one of a number. But a man called George Jefferys came. Very humble… He never stopped to meet you… never mentioned money…He just came there, they sang about one chorus, but the ministry and the authority of God was upon him, and again the Acts of the Apostles were repeated. I don’t think that a move of miracles like that is the only answer. In fact I think we could by-pass that. In the last thirty years America has had more healing crusades than all the nations of the world put together. What we need now is A revival of holiness. A revival of character. A revival of people who are utterly selfless and prepared to lay their lives on the altar for God. Paul Koffman went to Nagaland, India, to see what happened and expected something like Finney. When he got there saw signs and wonders and miracles, cripples were healed, blind people were seeing, every distorted, perverted thing was put right. So what? Hey, did you ever hear of a revival like this? The government has made an inquiry. Why has the drink traffic gone down? Why is it the kids are behaving in the street? Why are we not having a problem with drugs? Why is the nation convulsed? Why is the government inquirying? They were the most rebellious, lawless state in India and now they are the calmest. The crime has gone. People are civilized and gentle and loving. Well, it’s the same old story. They discovered a group of people, underground people, who had been praying twenty years for revival. No man - I don’t care how colossal his intellect - No man is greater than his prayer life. To stand before men on behalf of God is one thing. To stand before God on behalf of men is something entirely different. We’ve urged people to tithe, haven’t we? But we only mean their money. You see, we want a “revival” which is a painless Pentecost. We want something that won’t disturb our status quo. It’s “easy street” everywhere else, so why not here? There never has been a revival that I can trace, that hasn’t been birthed back there with true, true, true intercession. In the city of Leeds, where I lived in England, the revival came. It came because there was a little man there, he was unlettered, he had no degree, but boy, did he have a burning heart. And he labored, and he had three breakdowns, not mentally, but physically. You know why? Because he fasted so much. But he had authority. Paul says in Ephesians 6:19, “Pray for me, that utterance may be given me.” In other words he means, let the Word be endued with that mysterious thing that you can’t define and nobody can give. The thing that we call unction. The anointing of God! If money could buy it, my, some of you would sell your house to get it, but you can’t get it with money. And you can’t get it at the university. We are trying to marry Christianity to prosperity, and popularity, and personalities. And it isn’t working. Oh, you can preach the prosperity doctrine because that feeds our carnality. Look, why don’t those men that preach that go to the third world to preach it where they need it? I know wealthy people, many of them are lovely people and I believe God lets them have a ministry in supplying needs. But when the church of Jesus Christ is prosperous, she never has revival. It’s when she’s poor. Prayer is the language of the poor. “Bow down Thine ear and hear me, for I am poor and needy.” The self-satisfied don’t need to pray. The self-sufficient don’t want to pray. The self-righteous cannot pray. But the man who realizes, “I need something outside of anything that’s human at all,” he wants to bathe his soul in prayer. I went to a little Bible school in England, there were only thirty five students, but I’m glad that the man who was the principal was a man of prayer - Samuel Chadwick who wrote the book “The Path of Prayer.” The weakest meeting in almost any church without exception is the prayer meeting. And when we are not strong in prayer we are saying to God, “We can manage.” (Of course, we shall pray if we have an invasion, we shall pray if we have a famine - we have a great “utility” God.) Very often we say to young people, “Now look, you have to read your Bible and maintain your prayer. You need to maintain your prayer life to maintain your Christian life.” No! Not so. Not so. You need to maintain your Christian life in order to pray. The greatest expositor in the world living today told me personally, “I don’t have any trouble. I delight to expound the Word. My books…” he wrote many, many books, but he said, “I’ve always found prayer so tough. I just find prayer the most difficult thing in the world.” Read the Acts of the Apostles and all you read about is prayer, prayer, prayer, prayer, prayer. When they had prayed the place was shaken. If you want to read the prayer life of Jesus you would read the Gospel according to Luke because in every instance he gives Jesus as a praying man. I remember a series of meeting we had in Wales in 1949. After three days a lady, Mrs. Lewis, said to me, “Brother Ravenhill, this is the nearest thing to the Welsh revival that we’ve had.” That was forty years after the Welsh revival. “Mrs. Lewis, what’s the point of identification?” “Because we walk up the hill now as we walked then.” And she explained, “Last night, the night before, the night before that,” she said “it wasn’t until we got to the cross roads and bid each other ‘good night,’ that we realized that nobody had said a word. We were so awed with the majesty and the presence of God.” Our people don’t get off the door step of the church - “Hey, do you think the Cowboys will win today?” It’s dribble! It’s nonsense! When did you last tiptoe out of the sanctuary when you dare not say a word? The church has to rediscover two things. One, the majesty and the Holiness of God, and the other, the sinfulness of sin. Prayer is not the easiest thing in the world, Prayer is the hardest thing in the world. Prayer is the most demanding thing in the world. I had the pleasure of praying very often with Duncan Campbell, a man God used in the Hebrides revival, 1950 onward. I asked him one day about a certain event, he said, “Yes, that’s right. When I was ministering the place was like iron; it seemed as though God was a million miles away. And my message was like throwing a rubber ball at the wall, my words came back on me.” In front of him were all kinds of ministers, but he didn’t say anything to the preachers and the deacons and the elders. He pointed to a boy sitting over there, called him by name and said, “Laddie, will you pray?” A sixteen year old high school boy! And he stood up, and he said in his Scottish way, “Ach, what is the good of praying if we are not right with God?” And he began to quote Psalm 24, “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? He that hath clean hands and pure heart.” and so forth and so on. “And when he’d finished,” Duncan told me, “The stillness of eternity was on the building.” And the boy prayed 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 45 minutes. And then, when he prayed as though he could see the invisible he said, “Satan.” Oh, I’ve heard people say this almost facetiously in some meetings, “Get the Devil out of this place.” The young boy stood there and said, “Satan, I rebuke you. Get out of this territory! In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. I plead the blood of Christ, BE GONE!” And just as though a switch was pulled in heaven God came on the meeting, He came on a tavern at the end of the road and people left it. He came on a dance at the end of the road and people left it. We have to drag people to the altar; there are no altar calls in the New Testament if you want to be REALLY scriptural. Altar calls are an invention for when the Holy Ghost doesn’t deal with people. This boy prayed, the Holy Ghost came and that whole community vibrated with God. You see preacher, you’ve only two things to do, not twenty two. You are not supposed to be the janitor and running a business and finding about the church’s bank balance and all that junk. If you are going to be a true Biblical preacher you got two things to do according to Acts 6:4, give yourself continually to prayer and the Word of God. That’s all you have to do. Who is going to visit the sick? The deacons. Who is going to bury the dead? The deacons. (The Scripture clearly says, “Let the dead bury the dead.” - I like to tease, you know.) You see, we want the church to function our way. “God bless our plans.” “God bless what we do.” When Alexander McClaren went to that great big church in Manchester, England - and I’ve ministered in that church - seats maybe a couple of thousand or so - the deacons, great bearded fellows they were in those days, asked him a host of questions which he answered. Finally they said, “We’ve asked you to be the pastor of this great church. We’ll give you a new house, we’ll furnish it, we’ll buy you a carriage and pair,” as we say in England, “and we’ll give you a large salary.” After they went on, and on, and on, they asked, “Will you accept this?” And he said, “All right, I’ll accept it - that is if you accept my terms.” “You have terms?” (You know most churches think when they get a pastor they are renting a Hertz car. You better come and fit in!) “And what are the conditions?” And he laid some down, but one vital thing that he laid down was this, “I shall do no visiting.” Dr. Tozer, I loved that precious man and talked with him often, just the two of us in his office and prayed with him. Dr. Tozer never went to Bible school, he never went to the seminary. Yet he was one of the most learned men I ever met. I stayed in the house of a member of his church and she said, “You know what? I have gone to his church twenty five years and he has not been in my house five times.” But I’ll tell you what, he spread the table, and that’s all you have to do. You know brethren, you never have to advertise a fire. You don’t have to advertise it in the news paper, forget it. You let the glory of the Lord fill the temple; people will come from hundreds of miles. Because it’s starvation everywhere. My phone rings constantly, “I’m going to move here, I’m going to move there. Do you know a church that really is on fire for God? A church where they have all night prayer meetings?” No church should function these days without a whole night prayer. What do you want… social standing? Do you just want numbers of people? Do you want to fill the pews? Or do you want fire? I said last night, I think the greatest honor that was ever given to a preacher in history was not given by men, it was given by demons. When those demons said, “Jesus I know and Paul I know.” Come on preacher, do you think if the devil has a danger list of the ten most wanted men in America you are one of them? I would rather be the last man on the devil’s danger list than the first man on any honor roll you could give us about preaching. I’ll say it again: brother, if you are not known in hell you are not worth a hill of beans. We must realize we are not just fighting a local situation, we are not fighting drug addiction, we are not fighting massive pornography. We are surrounded by an arrogant, militant paganism. If you told your grandfather forty years ago that forty thousand homosexuals would march down main street, he would have said, “Not in America.” You know what? Adultery and divorce is getting to plague proportions even in the church of God. We don’t have decent morality in some churches, never mind spirituality. We don’t elect deacons because they are full of the faith and the Holy Ghost - we appoint them because they own two Texaco stations and a hot dog stand. Another thing Jesus did, He prayed all night before He chose His disciples. If we prayed all night before we chose our deacons, I guarantee half of them wouldn’t get in… if we had to get the witness of the Sprit about it. You see, I have people saying, “Why don’t you write a book about some methods of revival.” No, no. I can’t do that. We don’t need to find the formula for revival. The formula for revival is in the Word of God or else there isn’t one. The formula of revival is: Preachers need to hit the altars and weep because they have no tears. Groan because there is no moving of the Spirit of God. Apologize to God that we’ve kind of manipulated the supernatural. Now, I am not just thinking of miracles of twisted limbs and other things. I think the greatest miracle that God can do is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world, and make that unholy man holy and put him back in an unholy world and keep him holy. But we are more afraid of holiness today in the church than we are of sinfulness. If an unclean man with an unclean spirit does unclean things, if a man that’s vile does vile things because he has a vile spirit, surely the man who has the Holy Spirit in him will live a holy life. I don’t ask people if they are saved anymore, forget it, everybody is “saved;” it doesn’t mean a thing. Don’t ask a man if he is born again, just look gently at him, it doesn’t matter who he is, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Methodist or Mennonite, just say, “Brother, does Christ live in you?” Well, isn’t that the standard of the New Birth? Isn’t that what Paul says, “Christ in you the hope of glory”? I hear an awful lot about gifts of the Spirit, that’s all right. I hear less about the fruit of the Sprit. I hear less still about having your fruit unto holiness. I hear less still about bringing forth fruit meet for repentance. You know why some people don’t believe in our converts? Because they don’t go back and clear up the dirty mess that they’ve made as far as they can. Restore the stolen money…maintain the baby of the girl they got into trouble… some other thing they should do. Bring forth fruit. A healthy tree doesn’t bring forth fruit. It’s the tree that has all the flowing life that brings forth fruit. One day Napoleon ran his index finger round a great country, he was talking to his generals and he said, “There lies a sleeping giant, LET IT SLEEP!! Because,” he said, “if that country ever wakes up and harnesses it’s man power to it’s mineral power it will shake the world.” The country he outlined, in case you are interested, was none other than China, our biggest headache. See the devil standing there, he isn’t running his finger round a map, he is running his finger round the church of Jesus Christ and he says, “There is the church of Jesus Christ asleep, LET IT SLEEP!!” “Because if it ever rediscovers the power of the Holy Ghost, if it ever rediscovers the resurrection power of Jesus, it will shake the world.” I wonder how much of our lives is dominated by the Spirit of God. No, no, no, we can’t go to the congregations. Let the priest weep between the altar and the door posts. I walked round the front of the podium one day, in a distinguished, wonderful college, fourteen hundred students listening. I just walked round and said to the professors, “Gentlemen you are teaching young men to be preachers. In one sense, they are going to guide the church in the future days. Tell me this, do you have for them a course on weeping? And if they graduate, do you have a course on howling?” An old professor came and sat at the back in one of my meetings. He believed in old blood and fire, hell-fire preaching and holy living and a church being something which God deposited in the world just to show people how He can redeem us and get a bride for Himself. And you know, all the other professors in that university say, “That old man is senile.” I like an old statement that was made I think by Montgomery, “All earthly things with earth will fade away, but prayer grasps eternity.” And if we’re going to see as God sees... Praying, just recently, the Lord seemed to say this to me, “If you claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit the things that grieve the Spirit will grieve you.” Who does the Lord cast His burdens on? Does He roll them away into the oblivion? No, no, no. He says, “My yoke is easy, My burden is light.” We don’t want people to think we’re depressed. I mean, everything is depressing outside, why cover it over? We are heading for judgment faster than you could ever think unless there is a divine intervention. And the key, again, is the priests weeping. The priests howling. We sure need a heaven born, earth shaking, hell-terrifying revival. And it only comes through brokeness, it comes through honesty. It comes when we admit, which is true of most around these days, that we just have a form of godliness - thank God we are not filthy and we are not dirty and we are not drunkards and we don’t have a spare woman or something, we are pretty good. Ha, yes, that’s just like Israel. They got out of Egypt and they got to Kadesh-barnea and instead of going to the promised land they got stuck. Kadesh-barnea was supposed to be a gateway and it became a goal. It was supposed to be a thoroughfare and it became a terminal. It was supposed to be a stepping stone to something else, it became a stumbling block. Let me wind this up. I was reading, and I guess I read it every week or I recite it to myself, that amazing chapter that we call the Faith Chapter in Hebrews 11. Faith is mentioned twenty four times in that chapter. I believe the key is not just the word faith, I believe the key is the 6th verse - “He that cometh to God must believe that He is.” (Hebrews 11:6) He is what? He is everything that He said in this Word. And then, you know, I read Hebrews 11: “They subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, women received their dead come to life again.” (Hebrews 11:33-35) I read that and I knelt down to pray in my office and it’s as though the Lord said, “Say that again.” And so I said it, “Lord, these people far off there, they subdued whole kingdoms, they wrought righteousness, they obtained promises, they stopped the mouths of lions, women received their dead come to life.” And, as somebody said this year, “and not one of them had a Bible.” Did you ever consider that? Let me take you back to a time when God’s chosen people wondered around in sheepskins and goatskins! Now we’ve a land flowing with milk and honey - and churches flowing with mink and money. As though God looks on the outside. Forget it! He looks on the inside. Those people never had 66 Books. And you know what, if the world lasts another 100 thousand years, which it won’t, but if it did, God doesn’t have anything to add to that Book. He’s said all He is ever going to say to man. In my youth, I used to go listen in a Bible class where Dr. G. Campbell Morgan used to preach very often - a fascinating Bible teacher. And I remember in my early teens I thought, “One day I’ll stay behind and ask him what kind of a Bible he has because all that stuff he has isn’t in my Bible.” I don’t care whether you are thinking of Finney or Wesley or Booth, or any great majestic figure that has ruled in the church of God and seen revival, not one of them had a bigger Bible than you and I have. It’s the same Word. Again, we better make our minds up whether it is absolute or obsolete. I’ll tell you what, if this Book doesn’t have the answer for a rotten, corrupt, stinking world, there is no answer for it. We’ve out sinned Sodom and Gomorra. Do you know there are 600 million Bibles in America? Would you try to guess how many millions or billions of Bible cassettes there are in the nation? Would you like to try to estimate how many seminars there are? Or seminaries there are? Or Bible schools? Or how many Gospel messages are preached throughout the nation? And that we’ve got 500 radio stations that broadcast something of the Gospel. Let me give you the other side and I quit. We are the most broken nation that we’ve ever been in history. We’ve more broken homes, We’ve more broken hearts over those broken homes. We’ve more broken little kids because of those broken homes. We’ve more minds broken by drugs, We’ve more bodies broken - over a million girls last year got pregnant under 17 years of age. And people were marching a few years ago, “Stop the war in Vietnam, stop the war.” “No right to kill people,” and yet it’s estimated in the last nine years we’ve put more than 10 million babies to death before they left their mother’s wombs (in a Christian country. My Lord, what happens in a heathen country!) Do you think God Almighty is going to wink at our sin much longer? I don’t. And the legislators can’t help us, and the banks can’t help us, and the government can’t help us, and money can’t help us. Our help cometh from the Lord. (Psalms 121:1-2) And the only way is in submission and brokeness. That we get and say, many of us, “Lord, I don’t have the vision I used to have. I don’t have the passion I used to have. I don’t have the concern I used to have,” not for America, for lost souls. Lost souls first, America second. I am convinced the key is in the ministry. Maybe the way to start revival in your church is to stand up next Sunday morning and say, “Look, I want to tell you, I’ve had no passion for the lost. I shed no tears for lost mankind. I’ve so many other things I am interested in.” I believe one key to the apostle Paul’s life was this, “This - one - thing - I - do.” He lived God. He thought God. He prayed God. That’s all. You can lash him, you can’t whip it out of him. He can float on a piece of wood in the Mediterranean a night and a day - thirty six hours, you can’t wash it out of him. They tried to starve him, you can’t starve it out of him. He’d had a vision of the cross, he’d had a vision of the resurrection power. He’d realized the greatest thing this side of eternity is to be a God filled man. And goes out and proclaims that message, whether he goes to Jews, to barbarians, the Greeks, the intellectuals. He is as at home in the intellectual capital of the world, Athens, as he is in the religious capital of the world, Jerusalem. God never, never intended His church to backslide. God never intended His church to function with anything less than Apostolic Christianity. And it’s time to call the church to prayer. I believe if we were as spiritual as we think we are we would have gone to church yesterday in sackcloth and a handful of ashes to put on our heads and mourn that the Glory has departed. I can almost hear Duncan Campbell saying how they cried in Scotland, “Oh, that Thou wouldst rend the heaven and come down.” (Isaiah 64:1) You see, we’ve never seen God move ‘til He’s stopped the traffic. ‘Til people in the shops are singing. ‘Til the lights don’t go out week after week. ‘Til the Holy Ghost is moving in factories. He’s done that in other revivals. He has called us to stand in the gap. To be the repairers of the breach. To bring the powers of the world to come on this materialistic blind day in which we live and this sleepy Laodicean church. When He was on earth He cleaned the temple. I feel it needs cleansing again, from worldliness… from materialism… May the Lord help us to search our hearts as well as search the Scriptures. Help us to be honest and admit that we’ve failed, seek the place of prayer, and the place of cleansing and the place of anointing. May we be a vital link between His Eternal Spirit and this troubled, lost world outside. May His glory shine forth again. Copyright ©1994 Leonard Ravenhill ======================================================================== CHAPTER 71: 04.00. WHO'S TOUCHING THE ARK? ======================================================================== Who’s Touching the Ark? By Leonard Ravenhill Leonard Ravenhill - (1907-1994) was one of Britain’s foremost outdoor evangelists of the 20th century. God used him to help bring thousands of people to Christ throughout Britain. Unlike the case with many of today’s evangelists, the conversions that Leonard helped to bring about were generally lasting conversions. That’s because he did not water down the Gospel when he preached it. Later in life, Leonard and his family moved to the United States, where he worked with Bethany House Publishers. In the 1980s, Leonard and his family moved to a home near Lindale, Texas, a short distance from Last Days Ministries. Leonard regularly taught classes at Last Days Ministries, and he was a mentor to the late Keith Green. Among some others mentored by Ravenhill are Ravi Zacharias, Tommy Tenney, Steve Hill, Charles Stanley, Bill Gothard and David Wilkerson. Addressing the disparities between the New Testament Church and what passed (and still passes) for the Church in his time, Ravenhill gave a no-compromise call in his teachings and books to the principles of biblical revival. Compiled from: and Text Copyright (C)1994 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas ======================================================================== CHAPTER 72: 04.01. PART 1 ======================================================================== In the second book of Samuel, chapter six, (2 Samuel 6:1) we read from verse one: "Again David gathered together all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. "And David arose, and went with all the people that were with him from Baale of Judah, to bring up from thence the ark of God, whose name is called by the name of the Lord of hosts that dwelleth between the cherubims. And they set the ark of God upon a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab that was in Gibeah: and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, drave the new cart. And they brought it out of the house of Abinadab which was at Gibeah, accompanying the ark of God: and Ahio went before the ark. And David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord on all manner of instruments made of fir wood, even on harps, and on psalteries, and on timbrels, and on cornets, and cymbals. And when they came to Nachon’s threshingfloor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God." Israel had never had any covering in the sense of a tabernacle. They had been nomads. They had no priests. They had the heavens for the ceiling of their church. And now, suddenly, they are contracted to a small space that has been called the tabernacle in the wilderness. And God gives specific instructions to this amazing man Moses about the building. It’s very interesting that he had no choice in this. He obeyed every commandment God gave to him. He had no more choice in the thing than Noah had the choice of what kind of a rainbow he wanted. And it says in verse eight of the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus, "Let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle..." (Exodus 25:8) Come down to verse seventeen: "Thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold... and the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings. And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee." (Exodus 25:13) That’s the first piece of furniture mentioned as regards the tabernacle. This ark was roughly fifty-four inches long, three feet high, and three feet wide. And it was a visible presence of an invisible power. It was a kind of a earthly resting place where God put His power between those awesome cherubims. Remember how often the Psalmist cries, "Oh, Thou that dwellest between the cherubims shine forth"? Now, here is the ark,it’s measurements, and verse twenty-two says, "There will I meet with thee." AND THAT WAS THE SUPREME DESIRE OF GOD. IT’S THE SUPREME DESIRE OF GOD TODAY: THAT WHEN WE COME TOGETHER, WE MEET WITH HIM. As I usually ask people somewhere in a meeting, "Did you come here tonight to meet God or did you come to hear a sermon about Him?" I talked with somebody today, an internationally known figure, who said, "You know, I’m realizing how little I know of God". And, I’ve offered someone a writing, talking about Jesus laying His glory by and being wrapped in our clay, the most profound thing I’ve ever heard, and this person said, "I feel as though I don’t want to preach anymore." I said, "Well, that’s how I felt when I heard it and the depths that this man has." Oh God, pity us. We are so commercialized, so regulated by circumstances. We get up with the clock, the clock runs our lives, we lose sight of eternity. We lose sight of the wonder of God’s salvation. The whole tabernacle was marvelous. There’s to be a place in it, a holy place, not only a holy place but the Holy of Holiest, and this ark was put in the Holy of Holiest and it had the chief place in the Holy of Holiest. Inside of it you have the rod that budded, and a sample of the manna that fell from heaven, and also the tables of stone. This testimony of God had to be preserved. And the ark was an abiding place for God on earth - that is, He manifested Himself there. You see, this isn’t some little bit of furniture that’s tucked away in a corner that has no meaning. It’s the abiding place, it’s a seat, it’s a dwelling place. You have the ark and on top of the ark you have the mercy seat. The Salvation Army never used to talk about coming to the altar. I can remember that years ago, sixty, seventy years ago, the Army used to sing , "Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel, Here bring your wounded heart, here tell your anguish, Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal." There is a mercy seat, a blood-sprinkled mercy seat. Look now in the first book of Samuel chapter five. The Philistines took the ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. When the Philistines took the ark of God they brought it into the temple of Dagon and set it by the image of Dagon. Now, when Ashdod rose up early in the morning the idol Dagon had fallen upon his face on the earth before the ark of God. And they took Dagon and set him on his place again. They rose early in the morning, and he was fallen on his face again, and his head and his hands had broken off. Now you see, here the peril of toying or playing with holy things. There’s a verse that talks about the iniquity of holy things. Now that’s something to really turn over, isn’t it? How in the world can you have the iniquity of holy things? These people have captured the ark of God. They thought it would do them good. Instead it did evil. They put it at the side of their god, this monstrous god Dagon. The upper part of his body was a man, and the lower part a fish, something like a mermaid we would say today. And there the idol stood in a temple where people worshipped him... but as soon as they put the ark of God there, without anybody doing anything, Dagon fell down on his face. So they stood him up again. They went in the next morning and he was worse off. See what happened further in the chapter, "When they rose early in the morning, behold Dagon was fallen upon his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord. And the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off, upon the threshold, only the stump of Dagon was left to him. Therefore, neither the priests of Dagon nor any that came into Dagon’s house, tread on the threshold of Dagon to this day!" (1 Samuel 5:3-5) You see, just that one visitation, that one movement of God, terrified them... in a sense Dagon had to go out of business. Verse six, "The hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod and he destroyed them and smote them with emerods... And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us, for his hand is sore upon us and upon Dagon, our god." Going to the end of the eighth verse they carried the ark of the God of Israel to Gath,... "and so after they had carried it out, that the hand of the Lord was against the city." (1 Samuel 5:6-8) Now, here you are again, you see the peril! I want to emphasize this: The peril of having these holy things and misusing them. This peril is, obviously, the opposite to the power. If we touch it with unholy hands it will bring destruction to us. Remember the children of Israel? In one of their marvelous escapades, they walked round the city of Jericho seven times. What did they do? They carried the ark of God. To them, that was the very presence of God. Can you imagine people on the walls looking down and saying, "Who are these lunatics?" I mean, what were they doing? They walked round in silence. They were not allowed to speak... that must have been tough on some of them. "What do they have there? Is it a coffin? What is it? It’s a casket." When Moses was sharing out some of the property of Israel, he gave various things to various people, but the sons of Kohath were not allowed to have any cattle or any of the possessions: They were separated to carrying the ark of God. Second Samuel six and verse six, "When they came to Nachon’s threshing floor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it for the oxen shook it, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah." (2 Samuel 6:6) Why? Because they’d made a new cart for it. God said the ark never had to be on a cart. But they made a new cart. And these people thought they were doing God a favor by modernizing this thing. Now, isn’t it really awesome? They didn’t decide to paint it another color. They didn’t decide to put a second deck on it. They didn’t disfigure it in any way. The man didn’t go in front of it and start blaspheming. The man somehow thought he’d do God a favor... "Oh, look! The ark is going to topple over! Oh I’ll hold it." Somebody once asked Mr. Spurgeon if he would join a society for the defense of the Bible. He said, "You don’t usually walk before a lion with a sword". Why do you need to defend the Bible? All this man did was to put his hand up to stay the ark and immediately he was smitten! What do you think we are doing with the gospel today? Dressing it up? Painting it up? Someone told me this week of a Christian group, a rock band. Christian rock band!? But anyhow, whatever they are, they goaround. And now they’ve got sequins on their coats. Well, why not? All the other guys have them. I mean, if the world could have them, can’t we? Glitter? I mean, if we’ve no other glitter, we might as well stick it on the outside. It’s not on the inside anyhow. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 73: 04.02. WE TRY TO STEADY THE ARK OF GOD ======================================================================== We are trying to put some improvement on the ark of God. We try to do that with the translations we make of the Word of God. We try to make some of those words just a little bit easier. We better go back to Bible language and call sin what it really is!... But the anger of the Lord was kindled against this man and not only smote him but killed him! Come on, in God’s name, what are we doing with the gospel today? Isn’t it getting more emasculated? Isn’t it getting more Hollywood-style? DON’T YOU MISS THE PRESENCE OF THE GLORY OF GOD? THAT’S ALL WE NEED! There’s an old hymn that says, "God’s presence and His very self, an essence all divine". I’ll ask you again, I’ve asked you before, When did you last go out of the sanctuary on tiptoe because God had revealed His holiness and His majesty? We go out very much as the way we came in. We go out, we say, "Hey, I like your dress!" Or some other trivial thing that’s got nothing to do with eternity and nothing to do with God. Notice in verse five now. David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord in all instruments made of fir wood, harps, and psalteries, and timbrels, and cornets, and on cymbals. Now there’s his ecstasy! Now come down to verse nine. This same David was afraid of the Lord that day. He said, "How shall the ark of the Lord come to me?" That’s a big switch! He’s excited they’re having the band music and having a whale of a time, and then suddenly God intervenes. And suddenly his whole emotional life does a somersault. He realizes what an awful God he serves. What a God of majesty! What a God of glory! Do you know the ark was the only thing taken out of the original tabernacle that went into the temple of the most high God? God’s presence. That’s what it matters. What it’s telling us is that God makes there a place for his habitation. This is awesome. This is breathtaking. You can say, God’s presence is there. He’s there in his holiness. He’s there in his majesty. He’s there in his glory. Be careful how you handle this thing. Well, we don’t need an ark. Why? Because it says: "You are the habitation of God." There’s only as much of God’s holiness in this meeting as you and I are filled with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, of God, the pure Spirit of God. He doesn’t dwell in temples - oh, you can make Him a thousand crystal palaces like they’ve done on the west coast there, so what? You can’t sanctify a building in the Old Testament sense. Even Solomon realized it. I guess he built the most expensive building, the most extravagant building ever made. He used gold more easily than we used cement. He built the altar, and he had the priests. Yet, when he had made his intercession to God, he said, "Look, I’ve put up this building, I’ve done everything according to Your commandment. We’ve got an altar. We’ve even got a sacrifice on the altar. Now, what’s missing? Nothing, except the fire of God. What good is a house that I’ve built, if God’s presence isn’t there? What’s the good of making a showpiece and saying we’ve got the best choir, we’ve got the most brilliant preacher. We’ve got this and that. So what? In God’s name, does it matter? Don’t you think we are putting our hands on so many things? You’ve got to start this way and finish that way and do something else. We are getting so mechanical. Since when did the gospel need trimming up? I had to go to a meeting. There’s a five-piece band there. Oh, how they swerved and jazzed and whatnot. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 74: 04.03. WHO IS TOUCHING THE ARK? ======================================================================== Isn’t it incredible that these people who knew God in such an intimate way, these people had gone round a city without a gun? This people, inspite of the mockering, the despising, went round one day, round another day, another day, another day. On the last day, they went round seven times. In total, thirteen times they went round. - That’s pretty unlucky isn’t it? - And they kept dumb and they stood all the criticism of the people that were watching. And all they had to do the last day was to "shout with a great shout." Why? Because God was there. God says, I want a tabernacle and there at the mercy seat will I meet with thee. God wants me to meet with Him. It’s more than me preaching for Him. It’s more than me being a missionary for Him. He wants to meet with me. He wants to reveal Himself to me. He wants to talk with me. He wants to come in and work in this being of mine! A lady called me from the border of Mexico today. She was weeping and said, "God has called us here. God has really blessed us, but oh, we want to be great soul winners." And she went on. I said, "My dear, look the first commandment. Is not, Thou shalt be a soul winner. The first commandment is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength." There are lots of missionaries that don’t love God. There are lots of missionaries that should have returned from the field six months after they got there. They’re doing the thing mechanically. And it’s hard to endure that kind of burden when they are doing it mechanically. But when they do it under the anointing of God. When they do it with the love of God... Oh, it is so different. Can you imagine the procession accompanying the ark of the Lord? They had harps, and psalteries, and timbrels , and cornets and they’re having a great time. And suddenly, death came. You wonder that David was afraid? And he said, "How shall the ark of the Lord come unto me?" Do you ever wonder if you’ve gotten insensitive to what God’s trying to say to you? Do you ever wonder when a certain thing has happened that somewhere in your nervousness, you put your hand up to steady the ark, and somehow the sensitivity went, and the compassion you had went, and the concern you had went... All this man did was try to steady the ark of God. Oh mercy, how we’re trying to steady the ark of God these days. We don’t just want to steady it. We want to do some new thing. We’d paint it. We’d put a musical box inside of it. We’d put the priest in some new garments. We’d try to make it more acceptable! The power and the presence of God were resting on that tabernacle. And while they were obedient, they had success. Are we steadying the ark of God in the way we are presenting the gospel these days? The gospel is still the power of God unto salvation to all who believe. I heard somebody say, "Well, you know, there’s a different approach today". Is there? Is there really? Is there any difference between the grief of somebody who’s heartbroken today and the grief of somebody who lived three thousand years ago? We say, "Human nature is changed". Human nature has not changed! Human nature is still a sinful nature. Human nature still needs God. It seems though, God is trying to check us, but we won’t take the checking. We won’t take the warning. And again I say to you, the most distressing area, I believe, is the area of the church itself. We are trying to steady the ark. We don’t want God Almighty to govern the whole thing. We want a little bit of flesh in it. We want a little bit of humanism in it. We want a little bit of organization in it. We want some of our skill in it. And God holds off. The word of God says, "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God." Oh, I’m aching on the inside to see somebody that really, really, really has no confidence in the flesh. Isn’t it horrible when we try and subsidize God’s cause with a few dollars here, in a collection there, and something else. Now, either God is God, or he isn’t. As I’ve said before, this book is either absolute or it’s obsolete. There is no middle course. It either has all the answers or it has no answers. I’ve got to get to the place where I say, "Lord, you can strip everything else away from me, and, ‘On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand’". I’m not going to steady the ark. I’m convinced God is going to do a new work. I’ve talked the last few days with a brother I love very dearly, and he’s at a crossroads in his life, and I know others who are men that you think are at the top of the tree. You think they should be satisfied with what they’ve got. And they’re not. They are men who don’t try to steady the ark by organization and saying you must do it this way and you must do it that way. They are suddenly realizing there is a new dimension that God wants to bring to our generation. A new revelation. A new unfolding of the Word of God. Before long, you remember, that David went and slew the oxen and they took the fatlings, and they made a sacrifice to God. And then he danced before God. Why? Because he got rid of many of his obstructions. The Lord is very merciful. Do you know how merciful he is? He’s so merciful, He’ll strip us right down to the place where we haven’t a thing to stand where we haven’t a thing to lean on - the place where we are in nakedness and in despair. You know the church that was rich and increased with goods? That’s where the church is today. She’s rich, she’s increased with goods, she’s in need of nothing. Which church was it Jesus spewed out of his mouth?. "I would rather that you were hot or cold so then because thou are neither hot or cold , I’ll spew... " (He didn’t spew the cold one out of his mouth, it had never been in.) It was His church that He spewed out of His mouth. It wasn’t a heathen religion, it was His church. They were neither hot nor cold. They were kind of midstream. And because they were neither one thing nor the other, He vomited them out. He didn’t vomit the cold church out. He didn’t bother with it. God will not stand for mediocrity. Some eager, keen, young seminary fellows, were asking after a meeting, "Well, what’s the secret, the real secret of abounding in the Christian life ? What’s the secret of not being a failure? What’s the secret of not letting your branch get withered up?" Some of them call today for prayer. I’m sorry for some of the situations they are in, but it’s the only way they’ll grow in grace and in the knowledge of God. They’ve been leaning too much on what they have, and now God’s going to dry up their source so they only have God on whom they can lean. They’ve had so much flesh, they’ve had so much ability, they’ve had so much organization, they’ve had so much security that God says, "Well, let me pull it all away". Doesn’t the word say, "Trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord is everlasting strength?" I think one of the shocks in eternity will be to discover how little we’ve ever used of the available power of God. Not for our own mean, silly self! There’s a world out there that’s dying. Does God have resources to meet this generation? Come on! I learned to my horror while I was just in Brooklyn from a man who is a professional in his realm, a very fine Christian man, he said that last year the churches in America spent close to two billion dollars on radio and TV preaching. Two billion! Do you know how many people they’ve reached? Less than 4% of the national family! Less than 4% of Americans listen to the gospel. Can you imagine how many mission stations that would have built? How many churches that would have built in some other country? I think we are putting our hands on the ark. We are rather afraid that we might go a bit overboard, you know. Doctrinally, someone comes up and says, "Well, steady a minute" and he hardly knows he’s putting his hand on the ark. We’re just afraid, it seems, of some new revelation, some new demand that God will make upon us, not just individually, but collectively. Again, I was shocked to realize that this man, Uzzah, did not smash up the ark, he didn’t tell all the people to rebel, he didn’t tell the priest to do it . All he did was steady the ark thinking he was doing God a favor. All he did was disobey. Is that all? Well, that’s all that Adam did in the garden; all he did was disobey. He didn’t curse God. And it seems the hardest thing that we have to learn in our lives is to learn how to obey in the very, very, very simple things that God challenges us with. I still say, you know, if I were a kind of a Protestant pope, I’d close every church down for a month. We’re preached to death. Why do we keep going to conferences? You can’t handle the lot you’ve got, why do you want some more? The next conference you go, whether it’s this weekend, or next week... you’ll have more light!... and therefore more to answer for at the judgment seat. Haven’t you got enough to answer for? Aren’t there areas in your life where you still have not obeyed? "It’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God," the Word of God says. Robert Louis Stevenson said, "I only know one thing worse, and that’s when you fall out of the hands of the living God". And that happens. There comes a time when God says to a nation, "All right, you’ve been putting your hand on my truth. You’ve been withholding my truth". You say, "Well, we’ve given money to missions". So we have. But you know, we had a National Day of Prayer last week. No. We didn’t have a National Day of Prayer. We had a national suggestion! If we would have had a National Day of Prayer, the president would have said, "Every factory is closed down. Every school is closed down. Every shopping mall is closed down,. Everything is going to stop. It’s time we listened to God. It’s time we humbled ourselves before God." But when God wants it that way, which He does, we put our hand on the ark, and say, "We’ll steady it and make it a little bit more convenient". Dear God. There was a time they were so concerned about revival they even put sackcloth on the animals. If you wore a sackcloth they would think you were a crackpot! If you don’t think so, get a potato sack and cut a hole in the top, pull it over your head, get your wife to cut some holes so you can put your arms in and go to church like that. And say, "This is an outward sign of an inward sorrow I have. I don’t care about the style of my clothes". I don’t care what you think or anybody else thinks. We’ve got to have revival. We’ve got to have a move of God. And we haven’t had it after all our financial efforts and all our genius’ of evangelism and all the other things. We get so far that we put our hands on the ark. There’s going to be a conference shortly and I’m not in any way troubled that I wasn’t invited. They’re going to meet and go through a rigmarole again. Workshops, workshops, workshops. There’s a workshop for this and there’s a workshop for that. The hardest work in the whole world is prayer! And there’re no workshops on prayer! The ark is falling. We’re going to steady it. We’ve got a new idea. Every magazine I pick up now, Christian magazine, is how to make your church grow. I’m looking for one that says how to take your church deeper! Somebody said to a preacher, "You’ve the biggest church in... How big is your church?" He answered, "Three miles wide and an inch deep". I think that’s true of a lot of them. Three miles wide and an inch deep. And while it’s humorous, it’s tragic! Are we going to change the style? Are we going to keep steadying the ark? Are we going to say, "No, no, no. We are not going any further like this. We are not going with this cart you’ve got it on. We are going to do it God’s way". And it looks silly to carry it on your shoulders. It looks silly to walk around when you could mechanize the thing, or organize the thing, or make it more attractive. How can you make God’s presence more attractive?! That’s about the height of insanity! ISN’T GOD HIMSELF AND HIS HOLINESS ATTRACTIVE? Do you know what we need to do? We need to do what David did. We need to take all the implements. We need to take the cart and break it up and we need to get hold of the bullocks and chop them up and have one big Holy Ghost bonfire and say, "Lord God, I am going to live on the stretch for You from now until I die. Whether I die tomorrow or ten years from now, I’m going to meet with You as I’ve never met with You before. I’m going on the stretch for You as I’ve never been on the stretch before." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 75: S. ARE WE WILLING TO DRINK HIS CUP? ======================================================================== Are we willing to drink His cup? Taken from a sermon By Leonard Ravenhill Luke 12:49-50. I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! I’ve been going to meetings for over seventy years all over the world—Pentecostal conferences, Methodist conferences, all kinds of conferences. I heard the baptism of the Holy Spirit preached, I think, fifty different ways. In seventy years, I’ve never heard anybody preach on this text where Jesus, speaking of Himself says: "I have a baptism..." Charles Wesley gave us that lovely children’s hymn. Gentle Jesus, meek and mild. Look upon the little child. Some people never get past "gentle Jesus." But Jesus is associated with fire. The next time He comes, says 2 Thessalonians 1:7, He’s coming with flaming angels—thousands of them! Here He is saying to these disciples, "I am come to send fire on the earth..." Again, the symbol of the church is fire. I was preaching last Sunday night in a big church with a big cross for Jesus and one for the thieves. I reminded them: "The cross is no symbol of Christianity. The symbol of Christianity is the tongue of fire that sat on the head of each of them." Our God is a consuming fire. Wesley has a wonderful hymn on this. He says, See how a great a flame aspires, kindled by a spark of grace. Jesus love the nations fires; sets the kingdoms all ablaze. To bring fire on earth He came, kindled in some hearts it is. Oh that all might catch the flame; all partake the glorious bliss. When He first the work began, small and feeble was its flame. Now the word doeth swiftly run; now it wins its widening way. More and more it spreads and grows, ever mighty to prevail. Sin’s strongholds it now o’throws and shakes the trembling gates of hell. Sons of God, your Savior praise; He the door hath opened wide. He hath given the word of grace; Jesus’ word is glorified. Saw you not the cloud arise, little as a human hand? Now it spreads along the skies, hangs o’er all the thirsty land. You see the idea: a spark begins and gradually it blossoms to go out through the whole world. Wesley wrote that in 1776, I think, and prophetically. More and more it spreads and grows, ever mighty to prevail. Usually with the expansion of a thing there is a weakening, but when the Church truly expands, there is a strengthening. God never planned any failures for us. ...how am I straitened till it be accomplished! Now I want to bear this out from the gospel according to Matthew 20:17-22. And Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again. Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him. And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask... She asked a big thing. In the other gospels it says that they asked it—John and his brother asked. Here it says his mother asked. I guess there was a collusion in this. They had agreed together. They believed that Jesus was going to have a kingdom. They wanted to sit on the right hand and the left hand when He came into His kingdom. But notice they came worshipping Him. Yet in their worship there was begging. It wasn’t pure. They had an ulterior motive. They were trying to bargain with Him. But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? (Matthew 20:22) Now, in Luke 12:49 He said, "I am come to send fire on the earth." What hindered Him from giving them the fire at that moment? A baptism. A baptism of sorrow. A baptism of anguish. A baptism that we call Gethsemane. You see, there is no place in the whole wide world where you can put the Upper Room before the Cross. The Cross comes before the Upper Room, but we try to turn that around. Very often we’re asking people to tarry in the Upper Room who have never knelt at the Cross. They get a false experience and it evaporates. We shun the Cross. "I have a baptism to be baptized with. But I want you to receive a fire that will change that degraded will of yours. It will endue you with power. It will give you energy. It will give you life." He says, "I want to do that, but I am straitened. I wish it could be accomplished, but it cannot be done yet." There are people who think that God is only around to help us. We have a great utility God, they think. You pray, and He does this! You pray, and He does that! You pray, and He sends you money. You pray, and He gets you out of a jam. He’s not somebody you worship in speechless adoration, but He’s a utility God! And some on TV are exploiting that to the maximum. Let’s go back to Matthew 20:1-34. What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able. (Matthew 20:21-22) So, He took them at their word. "I want my sons to enter thy kingdom, sitting on thy right hand and on thy left." There is only one way to enter the kingdom: through death. You know not what ye ask. Are ye able...? Yea, we can drink the cup. All right, lady— I wonder if she was living when her son was brutally put to death? And James, the brother of John, was killed with the sword. (Acts 12:2) It was Herod Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod the Great, a terrible butcher. A man who could be linked up with Pharaoh that liquidated all the Israeli babies in Egypt—an ancient Hitler. Jeremiah had more conflict than any other prophet of old. Immediately when he was raised up he was in conflict. He was in conflict when he was dying. What was the secret of his power? It is very obvious; he states it: "Thy fire burned within my heart. While I mused the fire burned." Do you know that forty one times he mentions fire? They put him in a pit, but it didn’t burn the fire out of him. There is a hymn with a verse that says: Waters cannot quench it, floods can never drown Substance cannot buy it, love’s a priceless crown. Oh, the wondrous story, mystery divine I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. The fire is unquenchable. The fire of hell is unquenchable. The fire of the Holy Ghost is unquenchable. I know there is a lot of opposition against the second blessing. I challenge you to find a man that has made history in God’s kingdom who somewhere didn’t have a second crisis after he was born again in the Spirit of God. One of the Quakers said he found something in him that wouldn’t keep peace. He wanted to get rid of the thing in him that was always troubling him. William Booth said, "I found that I ebbed and flowed until one day the Holy Ghost came in his fullness." Then he wrote that marvelous battle hymn that today’s church doesn’t know. The Salvation Army was a penniless organization that went into seventy countries in ninety years. Not seventy cities, but seventy countries! Men and women left their castles in England. Professors left their professions. Why? Because they could see that fire as clearly as Israel could see that pillar of fire at night. The Holy Ghost was there! And old William had them going down the streets at night marching and singing: Thou Christ, the burning cleansing flame, send the fire! Thy blood-bought gift today we claim, send the fire! Look down and see this waiting host Give us the promised Holy Ghost We want another Pentecost. I’m not sure we want it. We need it! You see, the thing between where you are now and this baptism of fire is a "cup." Jesus said to her, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? He’d been baptized in the Jordan, but He wasn’t talking about that. The man who introduced Him to the world said, "I baptize you with water." That baptism was external. When He comes He will do something internal. He’ll baptize you—the literal Greek says—"with Holy Ghost fire", not "with the Holy Ghost and with fire." You can’t separate them. God is a consuming fire. He shall baptize you with Holy Ghost fire. But you see, there is something between here and there. The Church never had more equipment that she has now, but she Never had less power! Never less anointing. Never less of the miraculous. Never less from the omnipotent God. As I’ve said before, When did you last tip toe out of church Sunday morning breathless, awed by the awesomeness of God’s majesty? God’s glory? God’s omnipotence? "Ye know not what ye ask." I wonder how often God says that to us. As I’ve said many times, and I say privately in my prayers, I don’t want to get to the judgment seat with maybe trillions of eyes looking on me, seeing me come up for trial and have God say to me in that day, "Son, I had many things to tell you, but you couldn’t bear them." When are we going to get serious about being serious about revival? Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? What’s the cup? Skip to Matthew 26:1-75. Here’s the baptism for you. And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. (Matthew 26:39-42) What was the cup? Well, I’ll tell you one ingredient it had: It had betrayal in it. The men who had sworn allegiance to Him, when it came to a crisis, quit. Can He drink of the cup? What’s in the cup? I believe in that cup there was Internal suffering, Mental suffering, and Spiritual suffering. Do you want to drink the cup? I am straightened, He says. I cannot do anything now. There is a baptism through which I have to go. The Holy Ghost cannot come down until I go up. I cannot go up until I have done the will of the Father. And so He goes through the agony of Gethsemane. He goes through the lonesomeness. He drank of that cup. I say it was internal because in Isaiah 53:11 it says He travailed. Isn’t that internal? Deserted by others in the darkest hour, not only by men, but by God. Can you drink of that cup? Do you want to travail? You see, what people are seeking today is a painless Pentecost. There isn’t such a thing. What happened immediately after Pentecost? They prospered—yes? No! -- They went to jail! It wan’t prosperity; it was prison, pain, privation, and persecution. Jesus goes on to say in Matthew 6:19, Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. There are a lot of wealthy Christians that will get to heaven bankrupt. And there are a lot of Christians who are almost bankrupt, living in poverty, who will be super-millionaires when they get into eternity. We read elsewhere that if you’re going to follow the Lord, it means division in the family. Your father and mother will hate you. Jesus came to the place where his brothers said, "He’s insane." People say, "I want to be like Jesus." Well, I doubt it. Do you want to get kicked out of your family because you love God? Do you want to be so true to God that a Thomas comes and doubts you? That a Judas sells you? Do you really want to be like Jesus? Well then, why don’t you practice it? Why don’t you have forty days and forty nights of fasting? Forget all the paperwork. We make such rash vows when the temperature is running high in a meeting. I say, the pain was internal. He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. (Isaiah 53:11) I’m sure it was not only internal, it was also mental pain. I’m sure it was bodily pain. It says in Isaiah 50:6, "I gave my back to the smiters." We don’t do that. We fight back. We don’t like somebody to carve us up, scorn us, ridicule us, humiliate us, misrepresent us. He got the whole works! Yet He never muttered once. When it came to the agony of the cross it says that men shot out the lip. "If God’s Your Father, then let Him deliver You." I say again, the perennial challenge to a Christian, is "Come down from the cross and save yourself." You made a decision in a missionary meeting: "I’m going to give more money to missions." Then something came up and you backed off. "I’m going to spend more time with God." You didn’t do it. Before Elijah called down the fire, he rebuilt the old altar. We don’t want to go back to old altars, to old vows, to old commitments. We always try to make new things. God knows they’ll be brought down in a few weeks! Christianity has not been weighed in the balances and found wanting. It’s being tried, found difficult, and rejected! It’s too tough. There’s no part-time service. "Leave all and follow me." I was going down the street in Oldham, which is nine miles outside of Manchester. I was in my early twenties. I pastored the largest church in town; in fact, the largest Holiness church in England. I was going down the street one day. As I passed a house, the lady opened the door, "Hi! You’re the pastor at the Tabernacle. I often come to your church. I sit on the back seat. I’m very poor. I can’t give anything in the offering, but I want to do something for you. Would you come into my house and drink a cup of tea?" Well, usually, of course, I want tea, so I said, "Yes." I went in, and boy! did that house smell. I got in there and she had finger nails clogged up with dirt. The kitchen sink was filled with dirty dishes. There was a plate with some old bacon covered with mold. That fuzzy horrid looking stuff. She reached into the kitchen sink to a stack of cups and picked one. You know, the tea had dried on the outside. Oh, mercy on us! It looked as though it had about a hundred bugs at the bottom: dried, dirty, rotten old tea leaves. In fact, some were moldy. "Well, now" she said, "I’m going to get you a cup of tea." I said, "All right." She poured the tea into the cup. It was as black as my shoes, and I don’t like black tea. "Do you take cream?" "Yes." "Well, I have none." "Do you take sugar?" "Yes." "I have none." With that dirty hand shaking, I saw the black stuff that was supposed to be tea, cold as ice. I hesitated. I felt like tipping it up. But I knew I was on trial. She held the cup up, "Drink it!" As she handed me that cup of dirty tea, my mind went 2000 miles away to a place called Gethsemane, 2000 years back. The Father gave a cup of all the dregs of impurity and wickedness. He didn’t give it to Gabriel. He didn’t give it to Michael the Archangel. He gave it to his Son! This is what He’s come to do. He’s come to consume iniquity. He’s going to do it in the Garden of Gethsemane—by Himself, when everybody has betrayed Him, when His nerves are down, and He can hear the enemy coming! He’s thinking of all the years He’s demonstrated His power, shown that He was the Son of God. He’s walked on the water. He’s raised the dead. He’s cleansed the leper. He’s healed insane people. And they didn’t believe on Him! So what’s the difference today? Do we believe on Him? Remember that there wasn’t one of the twelve disciples that had a Bible. Not even the Apostle Paul had one. Don’t boast too much about your Bible knowledge. It’s going to face us at the Judgment Seat. I don’t have a big library, but I have a few nice books. I wonder sometimes, will these books rise up in judgment against me? I say with all my heart, we’re looking for a painless Pentecost. We want to invest a dime and get a million dollars back. Can you drink of the cup? "We are able," and so they drank, and were crucified. Today it is considered sadistic if you even say that people have to take up their cross. "Don’t tell young people about the cross—they’ll be discouraged." Are you suggesting that Jesus wasn’t smart? "If you’re going to be my disciple, kiss the world goodbye." You see, when people are born again these days, they don’t get separated from the world. Most likely their pastor is the most worldly guy around! But if you’re going to get what He wants to give, if you’re going to get the true baptism of the Spirit, you have to drink of that cup. They said, "We are able." And He said, "You shall drink indeed of that cup, and be baptized of the baptism that I am baptized with, but to sit on my right hand and my left is not mine to give. The Father is going to do that." Verse 24 says that when the other ten disciples were around listening they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. Now He rubs their noses in the dust. "You’re looking to sit on My right hand and My left in My Kingdom." He could have said, "Are you prepared to go through Hell to get there?"…You can’t show me a revival in history that hasn’t been born of travail, pain, loneliness, and dark weary nights. In Scotland, nine miles out of Glasgow, there’s a great big house, a national memorial to David Livingstone. In it there is a model that shows the room where he died, where for years and years he prayed. It’s like some of those houses in India that are made of bamboo and leaves woven in. And there he is, kneeling over a bed, if you can call it that—two bamboo rods with some leaves on it—and a candle flickering there. They said every night he would kneel at that bed and you would hear him crying with his hands raised, "God, when will the wound of this world’s sin be healed?" He fought the Portuguese slave traders. He did many, many marvelous things. Why? Because he had a Gethsemane of his own. His precious wife died and he buried her in the jungle. And the baby she bore died. He buried the child at the side of its mother. Another child he had died—he buried that one. But the grief didn’t change his zeal for God. It added fuel to the fire. "The devil’s trying to rob me. The devil’s trying to hinder me." And he worked with greater zeal. He prayed more than ever he had prayed. They said that night after night his voice would echo through the forest, "Oh God, when will the wound of this world’s sin be healed?" Dear God! all our pastors are concerned about is adding one or two members! Or getting another bus to bring the people in! I say again, there can be no revival without travail. "…I want my son to sit on thy right hand…" Well, here’s His answer. And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant (Matthew 20:24-27) Well, that’s a switch, isn’t it? They wanted to sit on his right hand. He said, "The way into My kingdom is: If you want to go up, you must go down. If you exalt yourself, I’ll abase you. Be abased, and I will exalt you. Save you life, you’ll lose it. Lose you life, you’ll save it." It’s reverse logic. Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life… (Matthew 20:28) Not to give His theology; not to declare, "I have a mandate from the Father to instruct you." He gave them all He had. He gave them the Sermon on the Mount. He gave them evidence that He had dominion over sin, death, disease, and devils, and everything. And yet, they were unbelieving! "I’m straightened. I’m tied up. I can’t do anything yet." That’s what He said in Luke 12:1-59. "I have no release. I have a baptism to be baptized with. Before that word of John that startled you when he said, "When he comes, he’ll baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire…", but he didn’t do that. Not immediately. He said, "I have to go through the Father’s will. The Father’s will is Gethsemane. The Father’s will is the Cross. The Father’s will is that I go down into the depths, lead captivity captive, and give gifts unto men." As I said, there are two great reasons we don’t have revival. We’re content to live without it, It’s too costly. We don’t want God to disrupt our status quo. The Christian life can only be lived one way, and that’s God’s way. And God’s way is that I leave all and follow Him. God’s way is that, in that hour when I think I am going to have joy or something, suddenly that cup turns into a cup of bitterness. When I think I’ve "arrived" at something, the Lord shutters that. We think, "If I had the privileges of Mrs. So-and-so, I’d be a real saint." And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:27-28) I was reading a couple of pages in the Marechales life yesterday. I like to turn to that book. She was the oldest daughter of the founder of the Salvation Army. Even when she was 85 years of age she could preach up a storm. "One night," she said, "I went to Brussels. I went to a large mansion loaded with antiques and costly things. It was beautiful. It was owned by a Christian. I noticed a sweet girl there, at about 9 o’clock each morning she would come out of the servant’s quarters radiant. I said to her one day, ‘My dearie, I want to ask you a question. I’ve noticed the last few mornings while having my breakfast, after coming out of your servant’s quarters, you are so radiant!’ She replied, ‘I begin at 5 o’clock in the morning.’ ‘5 o’clock?! To what time?’ ‘Well, breakfast is at 8. Usually I have the last fire going by about half past 7.’ ‘How do you do it?’ ‘I just kneel in front of it. I sweep all the ashes on one side. I put them in a bucket. I get some paper and some kindling wood.’ (And boy, getting coal to catch fire is a job!) ‘I go in that room and get that fire going. I go in the next, I go to the next. I go back and the first one’s gone out, so I do it over again. But eventually I get to breakfast a minute or two before 8 o’clock. I’ve lit my 12 fires.’ ‘Don’t you get impatient?’ ‘No.’ ‘Well, you say the fires have gone out?’ ‘Yes, they often go out.’ ‘Well, do you get up early for devotions?’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘Not very early.’ ‘Well, how do you maintain you spiritual life?’ She said, ‘Every time I light a fire, I say, Jesus, while I’m kindling this fire, kindle a fire in me!’ Kindle a fire of Your love afresh in me this morning! Kindle a fire of Your devotion in me! Here’s this precious little girl talking to one of the most powerful women in the world. A women who, at 21 years of age, went to Paris and turned the city upside-down preaching to all the prostitutes. The queen of the underworld was there. Men came from the Sorbone, the greatest intellectuals with their long beards and their pipes, and listened to her. And yet the Marechale said that young lady taught me more than most sermons I’d ever heard. She had to light the fire, get bellows, blow the things up and try to get them going. She said, "At every fire place, I never missed one morning saying, ‘Lord as I’m kindling this fire, kindle Your fire in me.’" The fire of love for Your will. The fire of love. The fire of joy. The fire of peace. The fire of compassion. If this fire came back to the Church, we’d turn America upside-down in six months. Ours is all theology. We get a starving man and give him a cookbook. Does it help him? He looks in the cookbook and sees there a dish with potatoes, beef, etc. What do you do? You tantalize him! You say, "Oh, I hope one day you can come to our place We’re going to have this dish, this beef, this turkey, and something else." And yet the poor man is ravenously hungry! We give him a picture, but we don’t give him the goods! At the average church on Sunday morning, they give you the menu, but they never give you the meal. They give an outline of theology: ‘This is our precious doctrine." So, most people will be reciting doctrine in Hell. As I’ve said before, if you say "where two or three are gathered in His name…," if the living Christ is in your meeting, how in God’s name can you have a dead service?! It’s totally impossible? I remember talking once in Carnegie Hall with Miss Kuhlman. We were talking about the Church, as it is, and various other things. She said, "I talked with some young students the other day. They said, ‘We go to a certain church. We have a wonderful pastor, and a marvelous choir, and he’s a great teacher, but nothing ever happens. We come to see your meeting and there’s a power of God there.’ I was in meetings there where billows of power went over the place! All kinds of miracles were done. ‘What does the pastor say?’ He says, ‘Well, of course, where two or three are gathered, He’s in the midst…’ Do you know what I said to them? ‘Well, if He’s in the midst, and you believe that He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever, why doesn’t He do in the midst ‘here’ what He did in the midst ‘there’?" We try and bail God out! The pastor has been to a seminary (or as I say, a cemetery). Our pulpits are full of dead men preaching dead sermons to dead people. But there’s going to come an awakening. God Almighty doesn’t care if He sends America bankruptcy. He doesn’t care if we have to stand in bread lines. He doesn’t care if our automobiles rust because we have no gasoline. That could happen very easily. But again, you see, it is so "expensive." We have to more than believe in the Lord. We have to believe on the Lord. We have to more than have a blessing just because we feel better, we feel inflated, or we maybe get a gift or something. You know, I’ve found that when someone gets a gift of the Spirit, they’re more proud after they get the gift than they were before. They’re proud of the gift! The indwelling of the Holy Ghost, to me, is the most majestic thing this side of eternity. The Holy Ghost produces holy people. Holy people live holy lives, producing holy fathers and mothers So here’s a question. Answer it for yourself. Do you want to drink the cup that He drank of? Between here and there is a Gethsemane, a cross. There was a young man in 1904, in a town called Newcastle-Emlyn, Wales. He had about 35 people in the meeting. He put his big hands up and prayed "Bend us, Lord, and then break us." Bend us. Bend the Church. Break the Church. One night in a crowded meeting, with more than 1200 people, suddenly God came upon him. The writer puts it very beautifully, I think, though terribly. That great preacher who had been captivating crowds and turning cities on fire had a public Gethsemane. He suddenly crumbled to the ground, as though somebody had squashed him downwards. It wasn’t a spectacle. It wasn’t a demonstration. It was a personal visitation of the Holy Ghost. He writhed. He groaned. He travailed. Some men at the front said, "Let’s go help him." And somebody else said, "Don’t put a finger on him." When he got up his face was transformed as though he needed a veil over it. From there he moved into a new sphere of power, a new sphere of authority. We’re not going to gather people together and cause them to repent. Only God can do that. Read again Joel 2:1-32 today. We quote it so often "He’s going to pour out his Spirit on all flesh…" But wait a minute! The price is tremendous: Lay all night between the altar and the doorpost. I’d love to see a couple dozen preachers who would get together and lay between the altar and the doorpost, two nights a week, for the next three weeks, with the Holy Ghost coming upon them. Not "speaking in tongues" in the sense that so many people think, but speaking with a tongue we’ve never heard: speaking of travailing. What you’ve got in Romans 8:1-39 is beyond language. It cannot be uttered. It’s God the Holy Ghost groaning through us. It groaned in Jesus so that He travailed. Are you going to suggest that He didn’t groan? Of course, He groaned at Gethsemane. I believe that Jesus, right now, is groaning in heaven. If He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever, don’t you think he groans over the Church as it is today? Poor, misbegotten thing that it is? Powerless, lifeless, without authority? Most of our people can’t keep victory themselves, never mind cast out devils. We can’t pull down strongholds. But I’m convinced that it is going to come. There’s going to be a great turnaround. It won’t be inside the denominations, as far as I’m concerned. Oh it’s nice to read Hebrews 13:12, "Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify…," that is, "purify, edify, release, transform." That He might do that, "he suffered without the gate." But the next verse says, "Let us go with him outside the camp." Let’s be cut off from everything that is organized, manmade, and supervised. People say, "Ravenhill is a radical. You shouldn’t take any note of him. You know, he has no covering." Well, I didn’t know that. Poor me! I’ve been going around the world for the last fifty years without a covering! I didn’t know! But the Lord knew I had it, so He kept me. Who was John the Baptist’s covering? People knew when John the Baptist came. He did no signs, no wonders, no miracles. But when he spoke, the words were like fire. They burned in the hearts of the people. If a thing doesn’t burn in me, why, in God’s name, should it burn in you?! I wouldn’t listen to a preacher who didn’t kindle something in my heart. You see, I backed away from that rotten cup that woman had. Then forcibly she said, "Drink it." At that moment I remembered a man in a garden saying, "Father, this is the most degrading thing in the history of the world. If it’s possible, please…" The Lord let Him do it. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. When it pleases the Lord to bruise you, what do you do? Ring for help? Phone for somebody? Call the church? Or do you get alone with Him Who alone is able to heal? With Him Who alone has the balm of Gilead? You see, God isn’t training Boy Scouts. He’s training soldiers! No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. (2 Timothy 2:4) There’s a smart advertisement that you see on television and other places. You see these smart boys, these cadets: "We’re looking for a few choice men." Come and be one of the specials. That’s exactly what God does. "I have chosen you and ordained you," so you don’t need any other ordination. Out of the twelve He chooses three: Peter, James, and John. People say that you shouldn’t be selective. God is selective. He always was. He always will be. Out of the three he chose one. God has a process of elimination. He doesn’t ask you to drink a cup a week or a month after you’re saved, but you gradually move into that area where you realize that this is what He’s after. He’s after me going to the cross! And not just to go to it, but to get on it! "Oh, I’m glad He died for me." Have you died for Him? Isn’t that a fair exchange? I remember when I was little boy that they announced that an American was coming. He had just written a hymn that was, I think, one of the sweetest hymns ever written, and he played it for us that night. Out of the ivory palaces and into a world of woe Only his great eternal love made my Savior go. Out of the ivory…angels bowed down, and seraphim bowed…and men spit on Him He had all the glory of heaven, but He had no where to sleep at night... It would take eternity to unveil to us what it meant for Jesus to come. He drank: A cup of separation from His Father, A cup of separation from the glory in eternity, A cup of separation from the worship because it says in Hebrew that angels are commissioned to worship Him; men didn’t worship Him—they spit on Him! He laid it all aside joyfully. He took up a cross to be battered and bloodied. I love that hymn, My Faith Looks Up to Thee. It was written in the old North Church in Boston Common. (I preached there once, and I had them sing that hymn.) The second stanza says: May thy rich grace impart Strength to my fainting heart, My zeal inspire; As thou hast died for me, So may my love to thee, Pure, warm, and changeless be, A living fire! Suppose God were as fickle in His attitude to you as you were to Him? What would happen? The little servant girl says, "I’m on my knees two and a half hours every morning. Every time I strike that match, I say, ‘Lord, as I kindle this fire, kindle Your fire in my heart, the fire of Your Spirit, oh God!’ I’ve been here for years. I must have lit hundreds and hundreds of fires." She wasn’t at the table serving meals with all the celebrities. She’s up at the crack of dawn. She’s carrying a heavy bucket of coal. She’s cleaning up the dirt. It’s a ritual most people wouldn’t have. But she’s turned it into a sacrament! She’s turned the tables on the devil! When he says, "Well, you could be praying. You could do more than that." She says, "I would bow there some days. I would just worship. I would see the flames go up and think of the sacrifice that has been made. No, don’t pity me. I’ve got a wonderful job! They pay me to have my devotions! They pay me to sustain my prayer life!" I wish we had a lot more people like that. Look out. He might bring you up this week and ask you drink of the cup "Can you share my baptism?" "My baptism is a baptism of sorrow; a baptism of desertion, a baptism of pain, a baptism of loneliness, a baptism of darkness." It’s all combined. Well, can you drink it? Or do we try to make some excuses? All He’s asking for is obedience. Obedience is the key to everything. This is serious business. Time is running out fast for all of us. The greatest revival that swept America wasn’t staged. It wasn’t advertised. It wasn’t financially backed. It didn’t have broken down film stars and ex-footballers. It was in the ordinary course of a meeting, when Jonathan Edwards preached his sermon, "Sinners in the hands of an angry God." There was nobody advertised. There was nobody projected. Jesus says, "How can you receive blessing of God when you receive honor one of another?" "He resisteth the proud and saveth such as are contrite and of a broken spirit." There are many who say, "Come down from the cross and save yourself." If you see somebody else saving his neck, and you follow him, you will lose your blessing. You will lose your reward. You will lose your power. Nobody stood by Jesus. Maybe nobody will stand by you. It’s a lonely life, but it’s a glorious life. Copyright (C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 76: S. BE YE ANGRY AND SIN NOT ======================================================================== Be Ye Angry And Sin Not By Leonard Ravenhill If you attend church at all, you will undoubtedly hear a thousand sermons on "Be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18) for every one sermon you hear preached on "Be ye angry, and sin not" (Ephesians 4:26). This is a command! It is not a defense for a bad temper. It is not an excuse for an explosion of bitterness from your bruised ego for personal rejection. I am talking here of Holy Anger. God gets angry: "The anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses" (Exodus 4:14); "God is angry with the wicked every day" (Psalms 7:11). (If you must have a bumper sticker, try this last statement for a while -- but be sure that you increase your insurance before you do so.) The blessed preacher St. Paul walked down Main Street Athens, the intellectual capital of the world of his day. Acts 17:16 says in the sleepy Elizabethan English of the King James version, "His spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry." The Amplified [1] says it this way, "Now while Paul was awaiting them at Athens, his spirit was grieved and roused to anger as he saw that the city was full of idols." Such anger needs to come back to us today. I admit right here that I am downright angry. I am angry that Christ is wounded in the house of His friends. HERE IS AN EXAMPLE Our home is less than 100 miles from Dallas -- the "Athens" of the theologians. Therefore we are vulnerable to the students who come from the seminaries there, distressed, disgusted, and despondent over the low state of spirituality in their particular classes. A professor in one such seminary tells the preacher-boys, "Remember that preaching is now a profession, and not to be viewed or represented by a sweating evangelist in a sawdust-carpeted tent. Now the preacher has status like a doctor or a seasoned lawyer." Begone such idiocy! Preaching is not a profession -- it is a passion! Paul sets the standard, "Woe unto me if I preach not the Gospel!" I am angry that these professors want the world’s smile on our holy calling. But no man called to the ministry needs a status symbol. He is, by the very nature of his calling, in the highest calling. I am further angered by a statement by Bruce Cook -- the former advertising agent for Coca Cola, who engineered the "I Found It" campaign. Here is his horrible comment, and it angers me: "Back in Jerusalem when the Church started, God performed a miracle there on the Day of Pentecost. They didn’t have the benefit of buttons and media, so God had to do a little supernatural work there. But today, with our technology, we have available to us the opportunity to create the same kind of interest in a secular society." [2] This wretched interpretation makes me bristle. So buttons and modern media are as likely to start a Heaven-Born Holy Ghost Revival as was the Upper Room invasion from heaven? What is this but "Christian humanism"? WE are capable of producing the same thing as the Blessed Holy Spirit? HOMOSEXUAL "CHRISTIANS" I am angry when I read a letter from my friend and neighbor David Wilkerson announcing this near unbelievable perversion. "Homosexuals now claim more than 50,000 members in their ’all homosexual’ churches. The Metropolitan Community Church is one of many homosexual denominations springing up across the nation. I sent an observer to one of their annual ’Holy Ghost’ conventions in Dallas, Texas. What unbelievable blasphemy! "Each delegate, as they registered, was given a packet which included, among other things, two ’boy’ magazines of all nude men and a list of all the gay bars in Dallas -- so that delegates could leave the evening service, go to their selected bar, and connect with a lover for the night. And those delegates call themselves ’ministers.’ How they did sing! They praised the Lord with enthusiasm; but their evangelist corrupted the Gospel beyond comprehension. He said, ’Sure, Paul condemned men who changed the natural use and burned one toward another. But that’s not us. We didn’t change anything. We were born this way. So, come out of your closets. Be filled with the Holy Ghost, and enjoy your homosexuality!" [3] My anger over this is intensified when I read that the cutback in federal spending will cause some old folks to miss meals. Yet the same federal folks on the 5th of May, 1981, gave the Metropolitan Community (homosexual) Church $380,000 of our tax money to operate four resettlement centers for Cuban refugee homosexuals.[4] (Just let the true Church of Jesus try to get the government to give us a dime to rescue men from an eternal hell!) CLEAN UP AMERICA? I am angry also when I hear preachers crying with great emotion, "Help me clean up America," when they dare not try to clean up the Church -- riddled as it is with carnality and sensuality. I am angry and grieved when preachers weep over the TV that their income is decreasing, though I’ve never seen them weep on TV over the millions of lost souls they address every week. The God on TV is an inoffensive, undemanding God, wanting to give but requiring nothing in exchange. There is no need to take up your cross and follow Him. "THE MUSH GOD" Nicholas Van Hoffman has a penetrating column on the "Mush God" of today. Read it, friend. Read it twice and maybe you will weep as he speaks of the gross representation of the Holy Deity. Here is Van Hoffman: "The Mush God has been known to appear to millionaires on golf courses. He appears to politicians at ribbon-cutting ceremonies and to clergymen speaking the invocation on national TV at either Democratic or Republican conventions. The Mush God’s presence is felt during Brotherhood Week and when Rotarians come together. He is the lifeless deity President Carter was referring to when suggesting peace might come to the Middle East because the Egyptian president and Israeli prime minister both worshipped the Great Mushy One. "The Mush God has no theology to speak of, being a Cream of Wheat divinity. The Mush God has no particular credo, no tenets of faith, nothing that would make it difficult for believer and non-believer alike to lower one’s head when the temporary chairman tells us the Reverend, Rabbi, Father, Mufti, or So-and-So will lead us in an innocuous, harmless prayer, for this god of public occasions is not a jealous god. You can even invoke him to start a hooker convention and he/she or it won’t be offended. "God of the Rotary, God of the Optimists’ Club, Protector of the Buddy System, the Mush God is the Lord of secular ritual, of the necessary but hypocritical forms and formalities that hush the divisive and the derisive. The Mush God is a serviceable god whose laws are not chiseled on tablets but written on sand, open to amendment, qualification, and era-sure. This is a god that will compromise with you, make allowances and declare all wars holy, all peaces hallowed." [5] MORE ANGER My Holy Anger and burning indignation is fueled by articles like this from the pen of a "Wiseman" from the East -- the Bhagwan Shree Ragneesh, writing from the Meditation Center that bears his name. [6] "SEX -- never repress it. Never be against it -- rather, go deep into it with great clarity, with great love. Go like an explorer. Search all the nooks and corners of your sexuality and you will be surprised and enriched and benefitted. Knowing your sexuality, one day you will stumble upon your spirituality [or get V.D. -L.R.] then you will become free. The future will have a totally different vision of sex. It will be more fun, more joy, more friendship, more a play than a serious affair, as it has been in the past. [The "serious affair" mentioned here must mean marriage. -L.R.] Sex is just the beginning, not the end. But if you miss the beginning, you will miss the end also." What logic and what warning! Why not miss the end which is torment here and hereafter? I wonder what folks who have tried this teacher’s method think about it. Does he have "revival crusades" with living, bright-faced "witnesses" telling of their rapturous emancipation from the "bondage of purity and a good conscience"? SAVE WHOSE CHILDREN? I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That’s right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell. I am angry that the pulpiteers can roar from their pulpits against political injustices, yet whisper about the wrong doings in their own fellowship -- also that sin is called by other names. God has no mild views of sin, so let’s get back to biblical language. The soothsayers in the world are dangerous, but the "smooth-sayers" in the pulpit are equally dangerous. We now call iniquity "infirmity." Wickedness is just "weakness"; adultery and fornication, just "having an affair." Lust is called "love." Sodomy is now being "GAY." The Harlot is not called a "Whore" anymore; she is inoffensively named a "Call Girl." These are not terms for every sermon, but they have some kind of intimidation and disgrace attached to them, which makes the preachers afraid to use them (and sinners afraid to hear them). But the Bible uses them! I am angry when I hear preachers saying, "We had our best concert ever last week when the ’ZYX Singers’ came to our church. The main auditorium was jammed with extra seats and we had to run extensions into the church hall for the overflow!’ Yet, that same popular, prosperous church can comfortably seat its prayer meeting in just about the smallest room in the facility. What a slap in the face for a prayer-answering God! What a public declaration that the offering from the concert patrons is more important than prayer! I am angry with people who withhold their own money from the Lord, but then turn His House into a Flea Market to raise church funds. And believe me, I am stirred, sick, and angry when I try to realize that 90% of Gospel preaching is to only 10% of the world’s population. MORMONS GET "MORE MEN" "Newsweek" for April 27, 1981, states: "This year the Mormons will field more missionaries -- about 30,000 in all -- than any other church in the United States...their single purpose is to labor 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, spreading the Gospel according to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." [Now notice the discipline attached to this effort.] "The discipline imposed on Mormon missionaries is as unique as their message: no movies, television, or popular music; no phone calls to parents or girlfriends; no dates -- and no going anywhere alone. Under this quasi-military regimen the L.D.S. missionaries have carried the faith across the U. S. into six continents." I am angry at this false zeal, disturbed and deeply troubled that we have to make so many Christian Youth Camps a miniature Olympics to entice kids to so-called Bible study. Dare we try to get kids away from TV, sports, etc., for a week of solid concentration on eternal things? It seems more correct with the emphasis on sports and church programs, and church leagues of bowling, baseball, etc., that we should be singing: "Onward Christian Sportsmen -- forget about the war -- look at all the prizes -- you’re contending for!" [7] I am angry when I think that the government will subsidize a science effort to find out where man came from but will not give a dime to tell men where they are going. God, baptize us with a Holy Anger that will set us on a course of hell-disturbing, heaven-enriching intercession! All these sad events I have mentioned would be taken care of by a heaven-born, sin-convicting visitation of the Spirit. I am angry at the devil’s monopoly of this age. I am angry that the Church sleeps on. I am angry that the Church, in many (and maybe most) cases, is an entertainment center. Lord have mercy! "Wilt Thou not revive us again, that Thy people may rejoice in Thee?" (Psalms 85:6) [1] Scripture quotation from The Amplified Bible, (C)1965 Zondervan Publishing House. [2] From "The Total Image," 1980, by Virginia Owens, Eerdmans Publishing Company. [3] "The Coming Purge" David Wilkerson Crusade. [4] "Your Newsletter," First Church of God, Fort Smith, AR. [5] From "Sources And Resources." [6] "Time Magazine," July 20, 1981. [7] Sung to the tune of "Onward Christian Soldiers." Copyright (C)1996 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 77: S. CHRIST MAGNIFIED IN MY BODY ======================================================================== Christ Magnified in My Body Taken from a sermon By Leonard Ravenhill Php 1:20, "According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body..." I used to think that in the second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 5, Paul gives a summary of his theology. He believes that · If we are absent from the body, we are present with the Lord. · Knowing the terror of the Lord we persuade men. · We must all appear at the judgment seat of Christ. Dear Keith Green said one day in my office, as we were talking about the roads, "All roads lead to the judgment seat." It’s true. They do. Whether we are slaves or free men, intellectuals or ignoramuses, black or white, rich or poor: "All roads lead to the judgment seat." Without exception. Then verse 14 expresses what I always considered to be the thing that really motivated him. He out-preached everybody out-suffered everybody out-prayed everybody. I thought that 14th verse, "For the love of Christ constraineth me," was the motivation, with the obligation to present Christ in all his majesty and glory. Now I’ve come to this conclusion reading recently our verse in Phillipians, that the motivation of the apostle in his zigzag course -- in prison, out of prison, in weariness, in fastings, in painfulness, in tribulations, in distress, in perils of his countrymen, in perils of the deep, in perils of robbers -- the one thing that motivated him is here in this 20th verse: "...as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body (or as some put it by my body), whether it be by life, or by death." The thing that gripped me as I read it this week, Christ may be magnified, - not in my ministry - not in my miracles - not in my superlove but, he says, that Christ might be magnified IN MY BODY. If you turn over to chapter 4 verse 6, this explains his life, I think. He says, Be careful for nothing. Be prayerful in everything Be thankful in anything. That covers a lot of territory, doesn’t it? The King James version, says "Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." I believe that’s the territory in which he lived, and moved, and had his being. Now, this epistle is very beautiful. You know why? Because it is a love letter. Some of you ladies remember the first one you got. A fellow in our church fell in love with my sister. He wrote a letter to her. Boy! Shakespeare couldn’t have done better! She had eyes like stars... her cheeks were rosy...I never knew it. I lived with her for twenty years and never noticed one of those things he said she had! Because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is a lovely epistle. For one thing, there is no mention of sin in this epistle. I think Paul is actually saying here that in the greatest suffering you can have the greatest joy. (We like the bonuses, but we’re not too anxious to have the burdens, are we?) If you read the epistle carefully, you’ll find that fourteen times he mentions "joy," and he was in a stinking hole of a prison that we wouldn’t even put a dog in these days! No bed. No creature comforts. The rottenest food. Just a hell-hole. Yet here he is sending a letter of greeting and cheer to other people who should be writing letters to him. So with all the greatness and all the pressure, he says it is possible to have this boundless joy. Again, he does not mention sin. He mentions flesh once, and then dismisses it. He is showing us that there is a grace of God far more exceedingly abundant than all that we can either ask or think. Some of you know that great hymn, "The sands of time are sinking...." Mrs. Cousins extracted phrases out of the wonderful diary of the great old Scottish saint, Samuel Rutherford and put that marvelous, marvelous hymn together. I think it’s maybe the greatest hymn ever written. He said "I have to go into the king’s cellar to find the king’s wine." I remember old houses not far from where we lived. We got in one, one day. The oldest son was a friend of mine. He said, "Have you ever been in our huge underground cellar?" I said, "No." We went in. There were all the old wine racks. We searched dozens. They were all empty! But he said, "Look at the old wines they used to keep." Labels from Portugal, Spain, and here and there, champagne from France and all the rest of it. But they’re not stored upstairs in the refrigerator. They’re stored in dungeons. In the dark places. And we would like God to serve up, as it were, the wine of heaven just like we are, living on the level, without any interruption of trial or tribulation or testing. But that’s not the way that God works. You know Romans 12. I’m thinking of places where Paul talks about his body. He doesn’t talk about yielding your mind merely. In Romans 12:1-2, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice." Not your brain. Not your emotion. Not your spirit. But if I said to somebody, "Look. Here’s my watch." - Well, this one is a fairly modern one. I don’t have to wind it up. But the old ones had "works" in them, you know. They were marvelous old things. They used to call them "stem-winders." They’re collectors items now. - If I gave a man my watch, I gave him the works, the hands, the face. I gave him everything. Well, if I present my body a living sacrifice, surely I’m presenting everything that I have. My spirit, my soul, my body. For which Paul prays in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, "the very God of peace sanctify you wholly: and I pray that your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it." So I give my body in its entirety to God. A girl, in England, years ago wrote a beautiful hymn: All for Jesus!, all for Jesus! All my being’s ransomed powers; All my thoughts and words and doings, All my days and all my hours... She goes on to say, Let my hands perform his bidding; Let my feet run in His ways; Let my eyes see Jesus only; Let my lips speak forth His praise. Then she says, so beautifully, Since my eyes were fixed of Jesus I’ve lost sight of all beside. Vision is so vital in the Christian life. On that Damascus Road... I don’t believe the apostle Paul ever recovered from that experience of being blinded. Physically he did. His eye were opened, sure enough. But I believe he was blinded to all the treasures of this world, as this girl says: Since my eyes were fixed of Jesus, I’ve lost sight of all beside; So enchained my spirit’s vision, Gazing on the crucified. Or if you want it in the words of Isaac Watts, after you’ve seen Him, "my richest gain I count but loss." As I’ve said so often, we use that phrase, one day after you’ve seen Jesus, "The things of earth will grow strangely dim." I like to turn that around and say, when we get to heaven and look back, "The things of earth will look strangely grim." We live and we spend our time gathering sawdust. Everything we spend our lives to get is perishable, outside of the spiritual. Paul says we are to present our bodies a living sacrifice. So the body can be a living sacrifice. In the same verse he said it can be "holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." Now in its normal condition it cannot be that. The human body is corruptible. The flesh in us is corruptible. But once He takes us in His infinite mercy, and Romans 5 is fulfilled, We receive the grace of God. We receive the peace of God. We begin to walk with God. Then we can present that body, which he will sanctify, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is only our reasonable service. Romans 8 is a fantastic chapter. Verses 1 and 2 say, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death." Come down to verse 6. "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." Now, how can you harmonize death and life? A man called me yesterday. He talked, I’m sure, forty or fifty minutes from California. Oh he was in despair about the carnality mastering his life. He said, "Well, I’m a Christian. I’m sanctified." "You are?" I asked. He said, "Yeah, but something carnal dominates me." Well, that’s ridiculous. How can you be carnally dominated if you’re spiritual? This scripture is very clear. To be carnally minded is death. I think preachers are very often the devil’s advocates. They defend sin better than an atheist. They tell you, "You can’t get rid of sin on this side of eternity. It has to have dominion over you." The scripture says it doesn’t! Oh, this man had just one sin of the flesh that mastered him. He could not, in any shape or form, get the victory over it. I said, "Well, get it nailed to the cross. That’s the answer." Again, Romans 6, "we are buried with him by baptism..." As I use the illustration so often, if a man is standing here in the water, and I bury him under the water, he’s cut off from the world above. He can’t see the world above. He can’t breathe the air above. He can’t talk with the world above. He is cut off! We saw some people baptized last week. I thought of them, as they went through the water. Symbolically, they are saying, "Look. This is my grave. I’m being buried to the world above," to it’s "idle pomp and fading joys," as one hymn writer says. Somehow preachers love to fall back on Romans 7, don’t they? I heard an amazing Bible teacher. He gave a great message on holiness to about 400 preachers. But when he had taken us into the heavenlies, he said, "Now, don’t think I’m preaching a second work of grace, or that you can be really holy in this life, because even the apostle finished up in Romans 7..." He DID NOT FINISH UP in Romans 7! There happens to be a Romans 8! In the Greek there is no difference, there is no chapter division; we have an artificial division. Paul says there is no answer in the law. "Oh, wretched man that I am." Sure he said that. "Who shall deliver me from this...death?" Well, if he stopped there, we would be in trouble. He says, "I thank God through Jesus Christ, my Lord." That’s why he starts Romans 8: "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free..." I hate planes. As I say facetiously, "Flying is for the birds." Yet, every time that monster takes off, I try to estimate,... there are three hundred passengers in that plane, all the baggage, the many tons of gasoline...off it goes with a roar! Soon you see the land dropping away as you go up. The thrust that’s there is greater than the law of gravity. Well, then, what about the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus? Oh, I love resurection hymns. "Up from the grave he arose!" I like that! As I said the other day when we sang it: Sing it with a sneer! "Death cannot keep its prey." "Sin shall not have dominion over us." "The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free..." Look at verse 8. "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." "Well, there you are," some will say. "There’s your answer." No, the answer is in the next verse: "But you are not in the flesh." He’s talking about this flesh in one place, and he’s talking about the "fleshy nature" in the other. Verse 9: "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you." Look at verse 10: "...if Christ be in you." And verse 11: "...if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you." What else do you want? You have the spirit of God in you. You have the spirit of life in you. You have the spirit of the Son in you. You have the spirit of the Spirit in you. How can there be room for carnality? "Knowing this," Paul says, "that our old life, our old man was crucified with him." "Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Gal. 2:20) In Romans 6:11, he says "Reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin." In the same verse, he says to reckon your body to be dead indeed unto sin, alive unto God in Christ Jesus. "The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death," that Christ may be magnified through my body. (Rom. 8:2) Do you remember the psalmist? He says, "upon an instrument of ten strings will I praise thee." What kind of a thing is that? A guitar? A harp? You say, "I don’t have an instrument of ten strings." Well, suppose you look at it this way: You’ve got two feet, two hands, two eyes, two ears, one tongue, and one heart. Ten strings! That’s why the girl says in that hymn, Let my hands perform his biding; Let my feet run in his way; Let my eyes see Jesus only; Let my lips speak forth his praise. Or, an American hymn, if you like. Take my life... Take my hands and let them move, At the impulse of thy love. Take my feet and let them be, Swift and beautiful for thee. Take my love, my Lord, I pour, At thy feet its treasures store. Take my will (that’s the last area that we yield)... Take my will and make it thine... Paul isn’t even saying that Christ may be magnified by my epistles. Oh, I think he wrote the greatest things that any human being was ever allowed to write. His magnificent epistle to the Romans, the Ephesians, the Colossians etc. If you read carefully through the first chapter of Phillipians,, you’d see the position in life of the Christian. If you read the second chapter, you get the pattern of Christ. In the third chapter, you get the energy that carries the Christian through this world. In Chapter four, the Christian’s superiority to our circumstances. In other words, this epistle is the whole character of the Christian life. Paul shows how to walk and work in the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. He, of course, is the fire leader, the best example of it. I think that Paul was the greatest genius the world ever saw. A colossal intellect. A will that never tired. A faith that never flinched. A love that never broke down. A courage that nobody could dominate. He stands cheerfully before kings. He is as happy in jail writing the epistle of love as he is in any circumstance of life. So he shows us that man, whatever amount of genius he has, can be complete in God without even being involved in the world outside the prison walls, in its material concept, or its business concept. He is totally God’s man. I think it was Spinoza who talked about a "God-intoxicated man." That God-intoxicated man is the apostle Paul, in my judgment. In perils of the deep, he doesn’t shake. Everybody else on the ship is terrified. He stands by. The captain sends for him and Paul says, "Wasn’t that some storm last night?" I can imagine the captain answering, "I’ve been at sea for fifty years and never gone through a night like that. I guess you’re like the rest of us, cringing, holding onto your bed, terrified..." "No," Paul said , "I had a great night. I had a great time of fellowship." "Fellowship? Is there another Christian on board?" "Well, there was last night." "What’s he called?" Paul said, "An angel from heaven." "A what?" He said, "Last night I had an angel visitor in my cabin. Boy, did we have a time talking about the glory and majesty of God!" I think that experience he had is typical of the end of the age. Paul got on board that ship as a prisoner and he ended as the pilot. Everybody got the jitters. Everybody was terrified. Everybody was vomiting and yelling and screaming, and there Paul is: glorifying God! Do you see what strange people Christians are? You know he was so amazing that when they skinned his back until it was raw, he said, "None of these things hurt me." Did he? No he didn’t. You know, people say that if you get saved and filled with the spirit, you’ll never be hurt, you’ll never have any troubles... Well I must be backslidden, because I get a lot of them! Paul did not say none of these things hurt me, he said none of these things move me. You can have a blast from Hell and not be moved, if you’re in the will of God. They’ll hurt. How can you get victory if there’s no battle? He said "We are more than conquerors through him that loved us. What are you conquering? Charles Wesley has a hymn in which he says, Should all the hosts of death, and powers of hell unknown, Put their most dreadful forms of rage and malice on, I shall be safe; for Christ displays Superior power and boundless grace. Paul touched the powers of the world to come. To us, that’s theology. It’s something we’re grasping after, almost in blindness. We’re so happy to get rid of a lot of rotten sins, and thank God for where we are. But look at the territory there is yet for us to reach! God’s problem with Israel was getting them to leave Egypt behind. He could have got them out of Egypt and into Canaan in 11 days. But they didn’t even make it 40 years (most of them). We’ve got people now who have been saved 20 or 30 years, and they’re not a day older in their spiritual life. They’re no more mature. They’ve no more spiritual strength. They’ve no more spiritual understanding. They’ve no more spiritual revelation. Why? Because so often they’ve "lived on meetings" instead of "living on Christ." I don’t care where you go, what school you go to, and I thank God for schools. Remember: What do you do when the school is pulled away from you? You see, so many people get happy and blessed when they’re in an association or fellowship. But then go, and stick them up in the Amazon or somewhere and they go to pieces! Can you imagine a man going to pieces here in Romans 8:9, who says "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you?" And verse 10, "...if Christ is in you." And in verse 11, "..the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead." The Holy Spirit of God is totally incapable of doing anything that is small. The world in which we live is beautiful, carpeted with flowers and everything. It was a ball of mud shut up in the womb of the universe. The Holy Ghost brooded over it. Out of chaos, he brought cosmos. Out of wildness, he brought this marvelous system of the worlds. He brooded over death and brought forth life. He brooded over the virgin, a little girl that hardly anyone noticed, going up the street. I’ve often thought of the little virgin Mary going up the street pregnant. People were suspicious. "Did you know about her? Do you know with whom she’s keeping company? Do you know how far along she is?" They didn’t think that they were passing the Creator of the Universe in that little woman! So near to her, and yet they never recognized it. They never knew it. That’s like a lot of people who go to church. They get within touching distance of Jesus and they never touch Him. They just go year after year, week after week, and never touch Him. The Holy Ghost came and did that miracle in her. He brooded over her and brought forth the most amazing Creature that this world will ever know. Wesley says, "God was contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man." Here is the One that the heaven of heavens cannot contain, and He’s shut up in the little womb of a woman. He made all the food in the world, and yet He has to sustain His life from his mother’s breasts. He owns the world. He made it. Yet He never owned a stick in it. He owns all things, and yet He never had a dime. But after He brooded over the universe, after He brooded over the virgin, He brooded over a bunch of men in an upper room. They weren’t all geniuses by a long way. A lot of them were cowards. Yet now they went streaming forth in the power of the Holy Ghost. I’ve puzzled over this again today. We’re supposed to have about 50 million people in America today filled with the Holy Ghost, manifesting gifts. Yet nobody knows we’re here! There were only 120 in the upper room, and they turned a nation upside down! What’s the difference between their baptism and ours? Tell me! But then after the creation, after the miracle of the birth of Jesus, after the men in the upper room, then you have this wonderful Word of God, "Holy men of God wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." I heard of a local preacher saying not too long ago that the story of Jonah is a fish story. Well, sure it is! It isn’t about a donkey, is it? But he meant that there’s something a bit fishy about it. That’s not true! Does he deny the word of Jesus? A man that denies scripture should renounce his job and go sell hamburgers. If he came in as a fundamental believer and becomes a liberal, he should get out through the back door! I’d fire him if I had any power over that guy. But here we have the Holy Spirit of God creating through all kinds of men. A man that climbs trees and gathers up sycamore fruit. A man with a colossal intellect, like Paul, at the other end of the line. A shepherd like David. A wise man like Solomon. And yet the wonder of this book is that it is so indestructible. Men have Burned it Banned it Blamed it. I believe it’s Tennyson who has a poem that says, "Men may come. Men may go. But I go on forever." Well, the Word of God is like that. One of the great contemporaries of John Wesley was a very powerful speaker in France by the name of Voltaire. He ridiculed the scriptures. One day he said in his little house, "One hundred years from now, Bibles will only be in museums. People will be so advanced that they won’t bother with a Bible." Well, he didn’t miss it by much, did he? By about a thousand million copies! (One of the nice things that World War II did was to blow his little house off the face of the earth. But a few years before that happened, the Geneva Bible Society bought that house and distributed Bibles all through Europe out of the very house from which he said that Bibles wouldn’t be existing in a hundred years.) Here it is: God’s Word. It will last forever! "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever." "Heaven and earth may pass away. My word shall not pass away." Here it is. It has all the power of God behind it. So, the Holy Spirit of God who invaded the lives of those men in the upper room, according to Romans 8, is the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, and is the same spirit that abides in us and has raised us from the dead spiritually! We can think and move and have our being in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Lowery, an old Nazarene, wrote a marvelous book that’s out of print. It’s called "The Possibilities of Grace." I’ve never read it. I just peeped into it. I have an old, old copy. But I think of that so often. It stretches out the "possibilities of grace." What does the Good Book say? "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But he has revealed it unto us." Not to the world! They stagger at it. Impossible. How amazing that a human being, corrupted, defiled, doomed, and damned can be forgiven, cleansed, and indwelt by the Spirit of God and become a living vessel of God. God is yet to produce the greatest men ever. I don’t believe that God went off production with Wesley, Finney, and George Whitfield. All the great men who built the old spiritual empires like Hudson Taylor and others who went to China, Gilmore to Mongolia, Judson to Burma, Carey to India, and Henry Martin. I wish some of you folk would wake up and use your brains while you’re young enough to use them. There was a young lady singing on TV born in a little shack somewhere up in the Mississippi area. Somebody took her into a home and heard her play with the piano. Then they discovered that she had a voice. I think she went to the conservatory in Milan and various other places. Now she can sing in about 5 different languages. Did somebody suddenly suspect that in that girl was all this talent and all this ability? No. They just gave her a chance in one direction, and she took off in another. The Roman church is pretty smart. There’s a great college in Ireland, called Maynooth. You can send a plowboy into that school that can hardly do his mathematics or anything. They’ll turn him out in 5 years and he can recite the whole Mass in Latin. They have other convents where they take young ladies. They’d be average farmers daughters. They’ll talk with them. Show them maps of the world. Tell them the need in the world: lack of education, lack of Christianity, and so forth. Those girls will say, "Oh, I think I’d like to go to South America...Brazil. Portuguese, all right." "Argentina? ...Spanish." Every time they sent a missionary out, the missionary knew the language before they got there. What did they do? They went into the school system and taught. Therefore, the churches didn’t have to support them because they were earning their money. They didn’t have to wait for them to stammer out a new language in a few years. Immediately when they got off the boat they could speak the language. Immediately they were put into operation to teach in the schools and to teach religion. In other words, when they went, they were already accomplished in languages, and because of that they could sign up in government jobs. There was no support needed from home. Now, here very often, we have people who say, "Oh, yes, we’ll take you on, but you have to go around to churches begging. Ask them to support you. Ask them to give you so much a month -- so much a month -- so much a month." I think God must be embarrassed by the Church these days. What beggars we are! Why can’t you use your brains now? • Learn a language. • Get awakened. • Get stirred in your spirit. • Find out where God wants you. There are lots of hell-holes that need the light of the gospel. If you think you have the courage, why not pray about going to Russia. Get behind that Curtain. I don’t think there are 5 missionaries in the whole of Albania. They purged Albania sometime in the last century. I think they put Christians in barrels, sealed up the barrels, and pushed the barrels out to the tide as it was receding out to the ocean. And there they were, cooped up in those horrible things. The sun coming in and roasting them. They exterminated the Church to that degree there. So there’s a challenge. There’s nobody in Albania. Why not be the first to go? What about getting behind the Iron Curtain? Czechoslovakia or some of the other countries? What about the 800 million people in China? This week they said there were 700 million people in India! It has about 400 languages or dialects. The world population is now the greatest it’s ever been in history. There are more lost people tonight than there’s ever been in history. Yet, I think there’s more indifference. Sure, we give a little bit to support a missionary. We do this, we do that, we do the other. But that great dominion of Satan is almost unchallenged in the day in which we live. It’s in this same epistle where Paul says, "Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus." Well, actually that’s literally translated "let the love which dominated the life of Jesus, the disposition of Jesus, be yours." His was a disposition of love and concern. Wherever he went, he went about doing good. Well, if that mind is in me, I’m going to have some restless minutes or restless hours. I’m going to have to struggle with my own conscience. I’m going to have to struggle with the light I have. I’m going to have to struggle with the challenge that comes to me from a dozen different countries to get the message of Jesus Christ there while it is yet day. "...that Christ may be magnified in my body." He was magnified through his brain, I’m sure. God couldn’t have shared some of the things he shared with any other person, except with Paul. Magnified with his spirit, his hands: he wrote these epistles. He didn’t type them. Every part of his being was coordinated to the service of God "...that Christ may be magnified." Before long, we’ll have some lovely flowers around here called dandelions. Nobody cuts them and puts them on the table in the house. You may have 20/20 vision, but you haven’t seen the beauty of the dandelion. Not until you take a magnifying glass and see that it’s maybe the most exquisite flower that God ever made. When you see it through a magnifying glass, that thing comes alive. That’s what Paul says. When people look at my life, Jesus Christ is clearer, and nearer, and more wonderful. Is that true with us? Do you think your children would say that about you? "Oh, my Daddy and Mommy...I’ve never seen Jesus, but I know who Jesus is like. He’s like my Daddy." Old Jonathan Edwards gets ridiculed. He took his stack of notes. He read through them. He had a candle... a big frowning face and his gravel voice. Then he reads through his sermon, the greatest, most famous sermon outside of the Bible: "Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God." People all remember, because he thundered. They said when people fell off their seats, instead of showing mercy, he kind of thrust the thing into them deeper: the truth of God. People hung onto pillars that were supporting the gallery because they were afraid they’d fall into the abyss. He didn’t spare them. Sure he groaned. Sure he prayed. But his daughter said, "People say my daddy is a severe man. A man that poured out judgment. But in the home, he lives just like Jesus... And every day my Mommy comes out of the closet and her face shines like the face of Moses shone. Because she spends at least two hours in prayer with God every morning. Oh, when she comes through the house, there’s something so different, so fragrant." Well, that’s what God wants, isn’t it? Brother Dave was in my house the other day. Last Sunday he preached in maybe the largest church in Denver, Colorado. He said, "Len, as we sat there, I was ready to preach. Suddenly I was overcome with grief. I just walked forward and sat on the floor. I didn’t go to the pulpit. I began to weep. God just gave me such a burden." It was a congregation of about 3000. He said to them, "There’s a girl in here who’s being sexually molested by a man. The man is going to go to jail." As he said it, a girl about 16 years old ran down the aisle. She cried, "Mr. Wilkerson, I’m the girl who’s being molested! My daddy did it! He has to go to jail!" Dave said he just groaned. There must have been 15 or 16 other women who also came and said my father, or brother, or somebody is sexually assaulting me every week. His spirit just groaned. He stayed there 50 minutes weeping. I said, "Dave, bless you." The average preacher would have said, "I just had a kind of a little upset in my spirit. I feel that there’s somebody in trouble. I’d like a few of you to pray. Raise your hands. We’re going to pray for this girl. She’s in trouble, I know she is." Instead of that, Dave swept aside all of his theology and sermon. He obeyed the Holy Ghost and the whole church broke up in weeping and brokeness, seeking God. It happened without him ever having to open his mouth preaching. I’m sure that’s the kind of spirit the apostle had because the spirit of Christ indwelt him. It’s the spirit of God dwelling in him. The fruit of the spirit. As I’ve said before, if Jesus had said one word differently, it would have killed ten million arguments since Pentecost. If he’d said "by their gifts ye shall know them," it would have killed a million arguments. But he didn’t say that. He said, "by their fruits." And the number one fruit of the spirit is LOVE. The spirit of Christ is LOVE. God so LOVED the world. I go to the Greeks. I go to the intellectuals on Mars Hill. I go in prison. Wherever I go, I want Christ to be magnified. I don’t want somebody to say, "If that’s Christianity, then I don’t want it." I don’t want somebody to say, "You know, the way you live, you blur the image of Christ." I want those people to look through my life and say, "I see Jesus Christ." Well, that’s what Paul dared to say. He says, "Christ lives in me." He doesn’t say, "I’m saved." He doesn’t say, "I have the baptism." He says, "Christ lives in me." It’s much easier to say, "I’m saved." It’s much easier to say, "I have the baptism." We’re accepted on "par" with the rest of the people in the church. But suppose you stand up and testify that "Christ lives in me!" He wants sin to have no dominion over us. The Greeks used to say, "Man, know thyself." The Lord says, "Control yourself -- in the Spirit." Paul says, "I keep my body under. I control it. I control my passions. I control my appetite. He was never an excessive eater, I’m sure of that. I don’t think he was an excessive sleeper. You know, it looks a bit chronic when you put it this way. We live 24 hours a day. Supposedly, We work 8 hours. We sleep 8 hours. We have 8 hours free. Put that into 60 years. You sleep 20 years. You work 20 years. You’re free 20 years. It doesn’t look too much when you take it in the day but when you put into terms of years, it’s a very, very different thing. Now here’s the man who eats up the time. He says "redeeming the time," which from the Greek literally means "buying up the opportunity." This opportunity will not come tomorrow; it comes today. So I "buy it up. I eat it up." I don’t want to waste time, money, or opportunity. It’s not difficult. It’s not a case of living inside a steel shell. It’s a case of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and the Holy Spirit governing my life. He constrains me when I’m too slow and he restrains me when I’m too quick. IT’S A JOY TO BE IN SUBMISSION TO HIM! Paul says he’s the bondslave of Jesus Christ, a happy slavery. It’s a joy to serve a Master like that. "That Christ may be magnified by my body," he says, "whether by life or by death!" It doesn’t matter which way. Well, there’s no other way to live, surely. Having the body under control by the power of the Spirit, presenting my body A LIVING SACRIFICE, HOLY, ACCEPTABLE, all packed up in that first verse of Romans 12. This is really only the normal Christian life. There is only one kind of Christian life: THE LIFE OF HOLINESS. Copyright (C)1995 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org ======================================================================== CHAPTER 78: S. FAITH LAUGHS AT IMPOSSIBILITIES ======================================================================== Faith Laughs at Impossibilities By Leonard Ravenhill Peter in prison! What a jolt! We are too far removed from the actual scene to catch the atmosphere of dismay the Christians of that day felt. Peter had moved from Pentecost to prison, from jeers to spears. He was guarded by sixteen soldiers. One wonders why such a defenseless man needed such a group to watch him. Could it be that Herod feared the supernatural, seeing he knew that Jesus escaped such a group that guarded Him? Had Peter been hedged in by sixteen hundred soldiers, the problem would not have been increased nor the escape less sure. Peter was bound not only by two chains, but also by the thick walls of the prison, by the three wards of the prison, and finally by an iron gate. When Peter is in prison, does the church organize a plan to get him released? No. When Peter is jailed, do the believers offer a plea to Herod or suggest a price to offer the lawmakers for his freedom? No. Peter had released others at the hour of prayer; now others must believe for his release. Right through the book of Acts, which might be called The Acts of Prayer, we find prayer and more prayer. Dig into the book and discover this power that motivated the early church. In the twelfth chapter of Acts we find a group that prayed. Though a host encamped against Peter, in this were these believers confident: there was a God who could and would deliver. The one never-failing rescue operation was prayer. There was no hedging about in the prayers of those who made intercession for Peter. Prayer was made without ceasing by the church unto God for him. They did not seem to be concerned whether Herod should die or not. They did not pray that they might escape Peter’s fate. They were not asking that they have another exodus to a more hospitable country. They prayed for one person: Peter. They prayed for one thing: his release. The answer proves the point: "Whatsoever ye shall ask,... that will I do" Some shabby interpreters of this story have said that when the pray-ers heard that Peter was at the door, they were unbelieving. I cannot accept this assumption. I am sure that they prayed with expectation. I like to think that they were for the moment staggered by the immediacy of the answer. They could be excused if they raised their eyebrows when Peter said, "I got out quite easily with an angel escort " (Next time you pass through the magic self-opening door at your supermarket, remember that the first door to open of its own accord was operated from above!) Angel deliverances seem to find no place in our modern theology. Perhaps we would like the Lord to answer our prayers with the least embarrassment to us. After all, who expects that the angelic ranks should be disturbed just to bring deliverance to a praying soul? But supernatural results came for many of the praying saints of apostolic days. The Lord geared a property-damaging earthquake to get deliverance for an apostle. Prayer is dynamite. There is no weapon formed against prayer that can neutralize it. Some things can delay answers to prayer, but nothing can stop the full purpose of God. "Though it tarry, wait for it." The first requirement in prayer is to believe. -Believe that God is and that "he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." -Believe that God is alive and therefore has power-not only for Peter’s deliverance, but for ours. -Believe that God is love and that He cares for His own. -Believe that God is power and therefore no power can stand against Him. -Believe that God is truth and therefore cannot lie. -Believe that God is kind and that He will never abdicate His throne or fail in His promise. Reflecting on the story of Peter, I am rebuked, humiliated, chagrined, stung. Why? Because there are some great modern saints, Watchman Nee for one, who for years have suffered and been held captive by communists and others. Many of the saints today are shut up in prison. The same fate has befallen some of God’s choice witnesses in Vietnam and in the Congo. Such perils to other members of the Body demand concern, concentration, and consecration to a committed plan of prayer on their behalf. I fear that prayer has not been made to God without ceasing for these suffering kinsmen. Mr. Bunyan shows us his Christian held captive by the Giant Despair in Doubting Castle. The key to his deliverance was Promise. We Christians are in captivity on many levels today personal, domestic, church, and missionary enterprise. But fetters break and dungeons fall when prayer is made by the church unto God- -Prayer without ceasing; -Prayer that might shatter our status quo; -Prayer that drains us of every other interest; -Prayer that excites us by its immense possibilities; -Prayer that sees God as the One that rules on high, almighty to save; -Prayer that laughs at impossibilities and cries, "It shall be done"; -Prayer that sees all things beneath His feet; -Prayer that is motivated with desire for God’s glory. The praying of the believer can become a ritual. The place of prayer is more than a dumping ground for all our anxieties, frets, and fears. The place of prayer is not a place to drop a shopping list before the throne of a God with endless supplies and limitless power. I believe the place of prayer is not only a place where I lose my burdens, but also a place where I get a burden. He shares my burden and I share His burden. "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." To know that burden, we must hear the voice of the Spirit. To hear that voice, we must be still and know that He is God. This calamitous hour in the affairs of men demands a church healthier than the one we have. This blatant manifestation of evil in the youth and in the violation of God’s commandments throughout the world calls for a faith that will not shrink. Can we let our prayer swords rust in the scabbards of doubt? Shall our prayer harps hang tuneless on the willows of unbelief -If God is a god of matchless power and incredible might, -If the Bible is the unchangeable Word of the living God, -If the virtue of Christ is as fresh today as when He first made the offering of Himself to God after His resurrection, -If He is the one and only mediator today, -If the Holy Spirit can quicken us as He did our spiritual fathers, Then all things are possible today. The seas were boiling, the winds were howling, the sails were tearing, the spars were flying, the stars were hiding, Euroclydon was blasting. The people were cringing and crying, sobbing and sighing. One man alone was praising. All were expecting death save Paul. Amidst a scene of hopelessness, if ever there was one, Paul cries, "Sirs, I believe God" (Acts 27:1-44). As things seem to fall apart these days, I am going to join Paul. I am going to say in faith, "Sirs, I believe God." Will you join me? Copyright (C)1996 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 79: S. JOHN THE BAPTIST AND THE FIRE OF GOD ======================================================================== John the Baptist and the Fire of God Taken from a sermon By Leonard Ravenhill Luke 3:16 We are going to look into the Gospel as recorded by Luke and the third chapter. I suppose most of us can quote John 3:16 without looking at it. How many of us can quote Luke 3:16? It’s the other side of the coin, it should be as well known. Well, here it is… in the good King James version. Luke 3:16 : "John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost" and in this version, "and with fire:" but the original says: "Holy Ghost fire." Because God is a consuming fire. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of fire. And Jesus said, "I’ve come to bring fire on earth." There is no escaping fire. This is a kind of a cliché of mine, but I still get a lift out of saying it, I believe that tonight the world is going to hell fire because the church has lost Holy Ghost fire, it’s as simple as that. Between Malachi and Mathew you’ve got Four hundred years of blackness without any prophetic light. Four hundred years of stillness without any prophetic voice. And then suddenly, dramatically, unexpectedly this strange man, John the Baptist, came streaking across a sky that was totally black. The Word says he was a "burning and a shining light." Jesus, the greatest character in history, says, "There was no man comparable to John Baptist." Not Isaiah not Jeremiah not any of those towering saints. He is a very, very remarkable character. John the Baptist appears in the wilderness. It was not only a wilderness geographically, it was a wilderness morally, it was a wilderness politically, it was a wilderness religiously. You see, you go back in the Scripture and you read about Ezrah and Nehemiah. They established a governership over Israel made of a hundred and twenty priests and rulers. These priests and elders ruled over Israel. Four hundred and fifty years they dominated that nation. I say: this was a jungle, theologically. In 170 BC there was a man with the strange name of Antiochus Epiphanes. You need to look up his name and his relatives. He took over Jerusalem, he polluted the temple, he made the Jews sacrifice to idols, he built a statue of Jupiter where the the altar of the burnt offering should have been. He burnt the Scriptures publicly. He prohibited the worship of Jehovah. And all this horrendous stuff went on. In 37 BC came Herod the Great. He betrayed the nation to the Romans, he fostered immorality, he massacred the noble people, he built that magnificent temple that was standing. Now with this horrendous background of murder and rape and debauchery and suffering and agony, John Baptist steps on the stage. A remarkable character. You see, today we try to organize. We try to get a bunch of people together. God never did that. God takes individual men. He takes Moses to the backside of the desert. John the Baptist was in the wilderness until the day of his showing forth. Jesus, the Son of God who had left the Glory, spent thirty years in training to minister! John Baptist thirty years in training. The apostle Paul at least thirty years. Moses at least forty years; and we want to go to Bible School six months and come out like a super prophet! It’s the time factor that kills most of us. Tell me how much time you spend alone with God and I will tell you how spiritual you are. Not how many meetings you go to. Not how many gifts you have. Not how many sermons you preach. Not how many records you’ve made. Tell me what time you spend alone with God... and I’ll tell you how spiritual you are. The Word here tells me about this remarkable man, John the Baptist, that he was in the wilderness until the day of his showing forth. Going forth at the command of God Himself, of course. He was in the wilderness, of all places. It says he had his dwelling among wild beasts, ferocious things. The remarkable thing to me, as I read this again today, is this: he had no role model. Elisha had Elijah. Joshua had Moses as a role model. Timothy had Paul as a super model in front of him. And right through the Scripture you find these men that have lived with some giant and they’ve become like him. But this man has no model before him. What did he do wandering on the rocks? "He ate wild honey," it says. And he was with wild beasts… and he was a wild man. Luke chapter 3 gives you a kind of run down on the awesomness of this man’s ministry. Look this first verse. "… the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Ceasar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip the tetrarch of Iturea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests," That’s about as refreshing as a mouth full of sand, isn’t it? What in the world do you do with it? Except it gives you a framework. "Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests," that’s illegal. They could only have one high priest and they got two. Then came "John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he came into all the country about Jordan preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins." Boy, that’s a dirty thing to preach these days. Who preaches repentance? There is an old hymn that says, Repentance is "to leave the sins I’ve done before, and show that I in earnest grieve, by doing them no more." Repentance is more than saying, "I’m sorry." Repentance is mental. It’s something in my mind, I’m going this way and I turn that way. When I’m going this way I’m saying, "God is in the wrong and I am in the right." When I turn around I say, "God is in the right, if He sends me to hell He is in the right." That is repentance. It’s not just repenting for the sin I’ve done, it’s repenting about the motive that made me do the sin. It’s going past the fruit to the root because if the root of corruption is there, there is going to be fruit coming out that is wrong. Romans 6 talks about having your fruit unto Holiness and it’s talking there to regenerate people, not people that claim to be filled by the Holy Ghost. John goes out, stands and ministers there. And they come to him. He is a success any way you count it. Geographically - they come from the North and South and East and West. He is a success socially. They came from all levels of society. . He said to the multitude that came to be baptized, "you generation of vipers." Isn’t that pleasant? Do you know anybody who’d dare stand up in the First Baptist or the Last Baptist Church tomorrow morning and say, "You generation of vipers. I’m sick of talking to you." Uh? They would sure take a love offering for him, wouldn’t they? To get him out of town! "Oh generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" He was not only condemning their sin, he was saying, "there is a gate, and when you get through it, it is eternal wrath from God." We have forgotten about the wrath of God. A friend saw a bumper sticker and you know what it said on it? "Jesus is coming and He is as mad as hell." Sacrilege? No. II Thessalonians 1 says, He is coming in flaming fire in judgment on this world. In other words, He’s as mad as hell. May be it is a bad way of putting it, but it’s the truth. You see, we are all looking for "gentle Jesus meek and mild." The attitude of the average Christian today is relax and be raptured. But He is coming with flaming vengeance on this world. There is a time when His Spirit’s forbearance runs out. There is going to be a day of the vengeance of God. And when God gets angry you’ve no idea what it is. Like a thousand volcanoes exploding. He has appointed a day in which He is going to judge the world and the poor blind world doesn’t know much about it, and the poor blind church doesn’t think much about it now. Let me look at this in Exodus 32. "Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass, that every one which sought the Lord went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp. And it came to pass, when Moses went out unto the tabernacle, that all the people rose up, and stood every man at his tent door, and looked after Moses, until he was gone into the tabernacle. And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle the cloudy pillar descended." It was a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. If you were in London going past where the queen lives and somebody says, "The queen is at home," you would wonder how does he know. Well, because when she is at home the flag is flying, when she is not at home it’s not there. I believe the sign of God’s presence in a sanctuary is the pillar of fire. It’s the living vibration of an Eternal God who stands in the midst and does something you can’t explain. God is beyond definition. I cannot explain Him. I can experience Him. I know when He touches me as I am alone in the night, two or three o’clock in the morning. I know when His Living Presence comes into my office in a special wave of anointing. But notice He did not come until they went outside the camp!! There are very, very, few occasions when God Almighty has revived dead denominations. The men who stirred their generations had to go outside the camp. Doesn’t it say in Hebrews 13:12 that He went outside the camp?! That’s fine, but when it comes to verse 13 you go outside the camp and bear His reproach. Maybe before long God will bring a cleavage somewhere in this city, I hope He does. And you will have to get outside of the camp. You will have to leave your group, and you will have to go join a people who have the anointing of God. They may be poor, and have no stained glass window, and beautiful choir... I am impressed with this, you may not be, but I am. Verse 9: "It came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the door of the tabernacle.... And all the people saw the cloudy pillar." Wouldn’t it be wonderful...? Imagine if you could answer your child as one of those Israeli mothers would. Her little boy wakes up at night and says, "Mommy, sometimes I think of those days we were in Egypt, I think about that terrible journey we made and I wonder what’s going to happen." She puts her arms around him and says, "Darling, you see that? That pillar of fire over there? That’s the holy place. Our Holy God brands it with His presence of fire." Doesn’t it say in Hebrews that God makes His Angels ministering Spirits, and His ministers flames of fire? We’ve got snowmen in the pulpits with icicles hanging all around. If ever the fire comes there’ll be some melting! I say again, this man John Baptist has no pattern before him. I believe this man walked up and down amongst the wild beasts, and there he is, he doesn’t eat much. Some big flies, you know, a bit bigger than these horrible things that eat my garden up, grasshoppers. Big, big things, he caught them, put them on a rock and roasted them. Three times a day he had locust burgers. Nothing else to eat except locusts and wild honey. And yet the people come near to hear him. I’ll say it again, for my comfort if not yours: You never have to advertise a fire. Whether it’s spiritual or a physical fire. The most self advertising thing in this world is a fire. I remember getting home between one and two o’clocka morning in England. I said to my wife, "Sweetheart, one of the big mills in town is on fire, let’s go. It’s nearly two o’clock, there’ll be nobody there." Everyone in the city woke up with the same idea, so they all went. We couldn’t get within three blocks of the place. I said, "Sweetheart, we’ll go ‘round..." We went around in our little car, you know, those tiny little things. Well, we got half way down the street it was so fierce we could not even stand there, the fire was so terrible in it’s majesty. This huge mill burning. I wonder how many of us have really seen a man who is on fire for God. When the Holy Ghost came in the upper room, how did He come? Did He come as a dove? -- When Jesus received His baptism the Spirit came as a dove upon Him. There was nothing in Him to purify. He comes to us in fire because we need purification. I remember a night in Gillingham, east of London. We rented a church. I’ll tell you who came, if you’ve read "God’s Smuggler," he talks in there about a man called Uncle Hoppy. Well, Uncle Hoppy "hopped" in the meeting that day. He came in the most broken down automobile I’ve ever seen. He was nuts, pardon the phrase, but he was sanctified nuts. He came in clothes that were almost worn out. He bought all his clothes at the Salvation Army. This old car came wheezing up the street, rheumatism in all the wheels and asthma in the motor. It was sobbing and groaning as it came up the hill... but he was giving thousands of dollars away to missions! He stayed with us for a half night of prayer. I’ll never forget that night of prayer. There were surgings of blessings. There were times when God so came in power, I was afraid to open my eyes. We started praying at nine o’clock. Between one and two in the morning we were going out. There was an old lady at the back, sitting in a wheel-chair; a white-haired lady. "Oh, brother," she said, (she didn’t know any of our names,) "Wasn’t it wonderful!" I said, "It was." "One of the best... I’ve been in many prayer meetings, this was one of the greatest, most powerful. Wasn’t it wonderful?" I said, "Sure, I said that." "Did you feel anything different about one o’clock?" I said, "Yes, I felt a hand or something came… I felt a quickening in my spirit." "It was just then." "Just then what?" "You didn’t see it?" "No, no, I was with my head down praying." She said, "A tongue of fire came down on the head of the first, went to the next, went to the next, went to the next, right to the end. It was awesome." No wonder everyone of us felt a wonderful insurge of the Life of God... Or the power of God, define it as you will. You see, there is a great deal of difference between revival and evangelism. I am so sick to death, I hardly read any reports of meetings that come to me. Everybody is getting half of America saved. If you add all the lists of people saved, everybody in America, the whole population has been saved and filled with the Holy Ghost about six times over in the last ten years. And yet we are as dumb and as dead and as damned as we were when we started off. You want to know what preaching is? Study this third chapter in the Gospel of Luke, and when you’ve read that read the twenty-sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles where Paul is standing before a heathen king in a pagan court and says, "God called me to preach." And He summarizes what preaching is: it’s to open the eyes of the blind, to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified. People come to the altar, yes, but meet them at the door and ask what happened. "Oh, ah, ah, ah, ah. I confessed my sins." There is not one evangelist in fifty in America today preaching salvation. They are preaching forgiveness. "Just come and get forgiven." That is not salvation. Jesus came to do more than forgive us our sins. He came for something more, He came to rescue us from hell, He came to rescue us from sin and sinning. Not just our past sin, but to stop this damnable business that makes God so sad. "He that is born of God does not" N-O-T "does not commit sin." You say it’s impossible not to sin. It is possible for us not to sin. What happened when Peter preached on the day of Pentecost? What does it say? They were pricked in their hearts. After that Stephen preached. And when he preached the same thing happened. Peter on the day of Pentecost says to the men he had ran away from: "You crucified the Lord of Glory. You killed Him." Stephen says, "You murdered the son of God." That is preaching. When Nathan the prophet went to David, he didn’t say, "You know, some of you are guilty." Did he? He said, "Thou art the man!" Oh, people say, "I’d love to go to a Holy Ghost church." Would you? Will you love to hear somebody say, "Hey fellow, listen, last night you committed adultery. You embezzled some money this week. You’ve got a spirit of hatred which God says is as bad as committing murder?" Again, Jesus came not to save us just from sins, but from sinning. When they heard these men, they were pricked in their hearts. I go back into the third chapter, verse 7, he says, "Oh, generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth fruit meat for repentance." And quit saying "we have Abraham to our father." Isn’t this nice. He called them vipers and now he says, "God can do as much through stones as through Abraham. Don’t boast of Abraham; if God wants He’ll turn those stones into children to worship Him." That’s pretty much exhausting their theology, isn’t it? In verse 9 he says, "The ax is laid unto the root of the trees, every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. And the people asked him,…" He didn’t ask them! They were so conscious of guilt, they felt as though they had some serpent or scorpion stinging them. They didn’t dare look back because of their sins. They didn’t dare look forward because of judgment. They didn’t dare look round about them, somebody might come pouncing on them. And so they cried out. This is revival! It’s not singing some sentimental chorus, then giving the invitation: "Would you like to come? Jesus is waiting, wringing His hands in heaven, He would be so upset if you don’t come." Jesus doesn’t care a hill of beans whether you come or not. He’s done everything He can do for you. You have to do the rest. He is not going to whip you into submission. He is not going to demand, though you sing, "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all." It’s on your side to do it. But notice who they were. Verse 10 The people asked him, "What shall we do?" Verse 12, "Then came also the publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do?" Verse 14 the soldiers, they were Romans, they lived in a pagan society, they’d never seen a man on fire for God. They’d never seen a priest who didn’t care a bit about his trimmings. Remember how this man was born. His father Zacharias went into the temple and as he got there to the altar, there was an angel on the right side… And he says to him, "Fear not… your wife is going to bear a son." And God does a miracle to raise that child up. Zacharias did this once in his life only. There is a line behind him of at least two thousand priests, all waiting for the one time in their life when they’ll go in long white garment and enter into the Holy Place. Which is awesome. When he gets in there, there’s a marvelous person by the name of Gabriel: "Fear not. I have a message from God for you." If you haven’t had it, if you walk with God, one day you will go to a meeting and you’ll think God Almighty is talking to nobody in that congregation but you. Why is He singling me out? Because you have the ears to hear which you didn’t have before. Because you have a hunger for God you never had before. You’ve heard me say this and I say it again, I am scared that when I get to the judgment seat and there are a billion people looking on me that God will say to me, "Son I had many things to tell you, but you couldn’t bear them. You weren’t grown up enough." -- A man leaves his son millions of dollars. He puts a caution in the will, he says, "You can’t spend a dime of this until you are twenty years of age. This money is all tied up until you have enough sense to use it." -- I believe Almighty God is saying that to the Church today. We’ve toiled, rather we’ve trifled with gifts of the Spirit. We are far more interested in the gifts of the Spirit than with the Holy Spirit Himself. And God has treasures beyond our comprehension. So John moved the people. They say, "What shall we do?" The publicans cry out. They are a bunch aren’t they? Stony-hearted rascals. And yet with the conviction of the Spirit they cry out, "What shall we do?" And John gives the answer in verse 16, he says, "I indeed baptize you with water, but One cometh after me, I am not even worthy to carry His shoes. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with Fire." Or with Holy Ghost Fire. We talk about the baptism of the Spirit - it’s really the baptism of Jesus. There’s nothing you can get this side of eternity that didn’t come through Jesus Christ. My dear old principal used to call the coming of the Holy Ghost upon us, "The coronation gift of Jesus." "His fan is in His hand. He will thoroughly purge His floor. But He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. And many other things did he…" I wonder what they were. I wish He’d left a list, don’t you? Here is a man with no financial backing. He has no program. He has the favor of nobody. He has the Roman army against him. He has the religious army of the Jews against him. He has the Pharisees against him. He has the Sadducees against him. He has no money (he doesn’t need it) and he doesn’t have a miracle ministry -- It says very clearly: "John did no miracle" -- Nobody ran after him pleading: "Have mercy on my son he is a lunatic." Nobody cried, "Unclean, unclean, unclean" or "open my eyes," or "I’m deaf," or something. Nobody said that. He never unstopped deaf ears. He never opened blind eyes. He never cured a withered leg or withered arm. He didn’t raise a dead man - He raised a dead nation. SINGLE-HANDEDLY. God has had this man in the school of silence. He’s been talking to God and walking with God and weeping before God. He’s lived with Jeremiah. He’s lived with the prophets. He knew what Isaiah said that one day a man should come in the wilderness crying, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God." Isaiah 35 says that highway shall be called the way of holiness, and that a wayfaring man, though fool, need not err therein. "He shall baptize you with Holy Ghost and with Fire." God always works with the minority. You’ve got a wonderful list in I Corinthians 15 of people who saw Jesus in His resurrection power. And then it ties the knot at the end of the cotton and it says He was seen of 500 brethren at once. And I am convince in my spirit it was those 500 to whom He says, "Tarry ‘til ye be endued with power." How many went? 120! 380 of them never bothered. It’s always like that. God uses a minority. There’s only a few people want to go outside the camp. There’s only a few people that want to die with Him. The only freedom that lepers had was to walk outside the camp. It was a place where all the sewage of the city went. It was a place where they threw dead bodies and dead animals. It was a stink hole. And the Holiest man that ever lived went outside the camp that you may go inside of it! And Yet you have to whip some people to church almost. If I went to the church they go to I’d want whipping too. Isn’t it tragedy, almost blasphemy to go to a meeting and you say, "Oh, boy that meeting was cold"? "The meeting was so dead." How can you have the living Christ in a dead meeting. Or put it the other way, How can you have a dead meeting if the living Christ is there? How can you go out? After all, our business is to know about eternity, is to talk about a time when there is no bonds and no other stuff materialistic, it’s all vanished. We are going to a Kingdom that knows nothing of these material things, and yet, we are so slack and so careless about the eternal things. William Booth, the founder of the Salvation army., just about got kicked out of the Methodist church. That day he walked outside and put his arm around his wife’s shoulder, and said, "Darling we are going to raise up an army." "From where?" "We’ll take all the cast off, or drop outs from the churches, we’ll go to the gutter." And he wrote a wonderful hymn: Thou Christ of burning cleansing flame, send the fire. (We ought to learn that.) Thy blood bought gift today we claim, send the fire. Look down and see this waiting host, give us the promised Holy Ghost. We want another Pentecost, (I am not sure if we do, but we need it.) To make our weak hearts strong and brave, send the fire. To live a dying world to save, send the fire. Oh, see us on Thine alter lay our lives, our all this very day To crown the offering, now we pray, sent the fire. Again, "make our weak hearts strong and brave." The only way you can get dross out of gold is put it in a crucible. Today they put it in an induction crucible. You press the button, the heat comes up, the gold sinks to the bottom of the crucible, and a man sits there with a sieve and he takes the scum off the top and throws it out and throws it out. He is there half an hour, then he quits. "Are you tired?" "No." "Why do you quit?" "It’s pure." "How do you know?" "Because I can see my reflection in it." Doesn’t Malachi say, "When He comes, He is a purifier of Silver?" Who shall abide the day of His coming? Dear God! We talk about one year revival. If we have Holy Ghost Revival, maybe you won’t sleep for the first ten days of it. God will do such a refining, such a purifying, maybe not on your husband or your wife, on you. Fifty years ago the most popular chorus was, "Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me, All His wonderful passion and purity, Oh, Thou Spirit Divine, all my nature refine, ‘Til the beauty of Jesus is seen in me," The refiner sits there, He has me in the furnace and He heats it, and He heats it, and He heats it - and it feels like hell sometimes. He throws out what He doesn’t like: my pride, my ambition, my secret lust, my temper, my unforgiving spirit, my stubbornness (we don’t think much of that, but stubbornness is as the sin of witchcraft in the Word of God.) He purifies until He looks in me and sees His reflection. He won’t be satisfied with less. He doesn’t come to make me a great preacher, or a great writer, or a great singer, or a great organizer. He comes because He wants to reflect His beauty in my life. Gentleness and meekness and holiness. The self-life goes out. Self-interest goes out. Self-glory goes out. Self-seeking goes out. Self-righteousness goes out. Do you think it’s easy? We have lived with it so long that we like ourselves. And God long ago stopped liking us. And the Scripture talks about the Word of God being a mirror. You know, when revival comes He holds the mirror up and you see yourself. Remember the old story of Cromwell? An artist begged could he paint him, and Cromwell had a great big wart on his chin. And the artist painted him minus the wart. When he went in he said, "What do you think?" Cromwell answered, "Paint me wart and all! It’s part of me." "Lord paint me, but don’t show me my wart. Don’t show me I am basically selfish, full of self-interest and full of self-seeking, I am full of pride, I am full of anger, I am full of bitterness, I have an unforgiving... don’t show me that I am as ugly as the devil." The smart boys today tell you that your trouble is that your self image is so poor, you have such a poor image of yourself. No, your trouble is that you’ve too good an image of yourself! "Paint me wart and all." He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. William Booth put up his slogan, "Blood and Fire." Studebaker, the carriage and auto-maker, stood in New Castle, Pennsylvania one day, in the late 1890’s. He was saying good-bye to a young man who was the most brilliant university orator in America. His name was Brengle. Studebaker shook hands with him and said, "Brengle, I wish I was as sure of becoming the president of the United States as I am that you’ll become the Archbishop of Canterbury." Studebaker and this fellow had been buddies in college. Studebaker, poor soul, all he did was become a millionaire. This young man with his oratory, went and laid it at the feet of Jesus. He got to London and to the Salvation Army head quarters tired out; it took four weeks to get there by boat. "Well, who are you?" William Booth asked. "I am Doctor Brengle." "Doctor Brengle?" They didn’t need doctors; their theology wasn’t sick. "What have you come for?" "I heard the Holy Ghost is here. I’ve crossed the Atlantic, I want to be filled with the Holy Ghost. I don’t depend on my theology, my learning. I have a lot of scholarship, but I need Fire, I need Fire, I need Fire!" William Booth said, "You’ll get it. Tomorrow morning at five o-clock, you’ll polish the shoes of fifty students." And none of them had one leg. A hundred big high-top boots! And not spray polish. But Dr. Brengle later said, "It is there God taught me a lesson of patience." They did not open the door and say, "We were waiting for a talented man like you to teach on the book of the Revelation. We’d like you to lead the prayer meeting tomorrow morning." They said, "Stick your nose down there." Brengle did. And he waited on God and God filled him with the Holy Ghost. Later, a deaf person was asked after one of Brengle’s meetings why she had come to the altar if she didn’t hear the message. She answered, "Because I could see what I never have seen in a preacher in all my life." "What was it?" "I saw the beauty of Jesus in him while he was preaching. I don’t know what he was saying, but I knew there was something in him I did not have!" Come on parent, are you living so your children will want something that is in your life, something that is beautiful? Something that they can’t see in school, that they can’t see in a magazine? And they can’t see in church, maybe? My mother was a role model for me, my daddy was a role model. The best thing he ever did, he took me to a prayer meeting when I was fourteen years of age. And I remember that night, it comes to me often, often, often. See, we’ve got the idea that the only reason you have to be filled with the Holy Ghost is you are going to be a missionary. The greatest break down in America is not in brothels tonight, and it is not in abortion, the greatest break down in America is in the home. It’s not what YOU have to bring to God. It’s what GOD can give you. We don’t have men like we used to have. When Whitefield came from England the population of Boston was 12 thousand and he drew 14 thousand a night without black-topped roads, without restaurants. One man says, "I put my wife on the back of the old mare and I got up, the snow was so deep we struggled up hills and valleys, and finally I got off and just led the horse. And I was soaking wet. There were no pews no shelter, I stood there in the snow and I heard a man who was blazing with God! I never realized till I moved that my trousers were almost stiff with frost, they were wet through and then they were stiff in the frost. We went home. The poor old mare was tired out the next day when we got home, but we turned round and we went back again." Why did they go all that way? Preachers don’t have to do that now. You just get enough money and you get a TV program and poor swell-headed guys think they are turning the world upside-down. And we are as far lost down the pit as we were before we started. God isn’t looking for organizing. He is looking for agonizing. And he talks about praying in the Holy Ghost. And I want to learn more of that. It’s beyond praying in tongues. And I am not knocking tongues. What we’ve had in the last 25 years with all the Pentecostal churches we haven’t moved this nation for God. How is it that 120 turned the world upside-down? They’d no money, they hadn’t the screen, they couldn’t throw what they were saying into a million homes. I am sure in my own heart, what God is looking for is to take total possession of some men in their spirit, their soul, their mind, their will. I went a little college, Cliff College. It only had one revival, I wasn’t there. A friend of mine, he was up in years in 1932, and 33. He’d been in World War One. He was a drunkard, a blasphemer, and everything else. A very precious, gorgeous lady lead him to Christ and he fell in love with her, and they fixed a day for their wedding. One day they went to an old Holiness meeting and they were singing, a hymn, but when he came to the stanza: "Here I give my all to Thee, Friends and time and earthly store, Soul and body Thine to be Only Thine for forevermore." And he sang it. "Here am I to give my friends." He thought, "She is the only friend I have in the world; we are going to be married in three months. I’ve a house stored with new furniture." And the Lord said, "You want to be filled with the Holy Ghost, it will cost you everything. Postpone your wedding for three years. Give Me all your time. Your earthly store is all the furniture you have for the future, sell it and use it to pay to go to Cliff College." He went to Cliff College. There were about thirty-five students there, as there were when I went there, thirty-five men. He woke up one morning about two o-clock with a craving for God. Dan Philips, was his name. He came down in his pajamas into the lecture hall , between one and two o-clock in the morning and started crying to God. And he just roared: "Lord, I’m a preacher. Lord I win souls, but my heart is not full of Holiness, it’s not full of love, it’s not full of the power of the Spirit, it’s not full of humility, it’s not full of gentleness, it’s not even full of peace. Send the fire down to this heart of mine." And he cried for about half an hour, and every man in the college left his bed and they were all there in that room in their pajamas crying to God. And the Spirit of the living God came on them. And the Holy Ghost swept through the College for weeks. He didn’t think when he yielded his life, and his future wife, and all he had in Manchester, the result would be that a whole college revived. We had some of the most brilliant preachers, Samuel Chadwick was there, Joe Brice was there, some of the outstanding preachers of England were there, but it wasn’t through their preaching. It was when a man obeyed God, and tossed the bedclothes on one side and went down in the room that was cold and said, "God I need just the fire of the Holy Ghost, not for tonight, but for all my life. I want to refill my life continually with the Spirit." It is not enough to be filled with His Holy Sprit ten years ago. I don’t care where you were baptized. The question isn’t were you filled ten years ago but are you filled tonight? Are you filled with God tonight? Are you filled with love tonight? Are you filled with power tonight? Are you filled with passion for the lost? Come on, in God’s name. God is going to bypass us. You may scream if you’ve gifts, you don’t scream for the fruit. It’s not easy. God will wreck your career. He’ll wreck your life style. But if He does…If you let Him…If He can use you to pour out His revival through, one day the pillar of fire is going to come, and you know what? We won’t need to advertise. There will be such a meekness, such a sweetness, such a holiness, such a gentleness, such a loving kindness – the fruit of the Spirit. We are going to sing Mr. Hatch’s hymn – a brilliant English preacher, he had a packed church, he had stacks of money, he was the favorite preacher in town. "But one night," he said, "I went into my office, and said, ‘Lord I am not satisfied with popularity, I am not satisfied with the favor of men, I am not satisfied, with my eloquence. Breath on me breath of God.’" And he snatched a piece of paper and he wrote this hymn we are going to sing now. Maybe you want to meet God in some new way. If you do, why don’t you kneel at your chair while we sing and let others sing it. Kneel somewhere and say, Lord I want something tonight that I’ve never had in my life. I want the destruction of my self-life, my self-interest, my temper, my pride, my fear of man, my fear of the future, my fear of what the relatives will think of me, destroy it. All hell is looking into this meeting at this moment. All angels are looking in. And Jesus is waiting to see the fruit of the travail of His soul. Copyright (C) 1997 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 80: S. MORE THAN CONQUERORS ======================================================================== More than Conquerors Romans 8 By Leonard Ravenhill Romans Chapter 8. Read verse 37: "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." This 8th chapter, as many of you know, begins a new section in this wonderful epistle to the Romans. The 7th chapter is a chapter of gloom, the 8th chapter is a chapter of glory. The 7th chapter is a chapter of condemnation, the 8th chapter is a chapter of emancipation. The 7th chapter is a funeral march, the 8th chapter is a wedding march. It’s the song of a "soul set free," to use the phrase of a lovely hymn. Romans 7 is a chapter on the tomb. Romans 8 is a chapter on triumph. (If you want to use the phrase of John Milton,) The 7th chapter is the chapter of paradise lost. It’s a chapter of depravity. The 8th chapter is a chapter of deliverance and delight. Now this is a magnificent chapter. If you want to make a special bonding here, chapter 7 is a chapter of misery and condemnation. The 8th chapter is a liberated soul. You can explain this by this fact: chapter 7 is a chapter on a self-centered person. The 8th chapter is a chapter about the Christ-centered person. In the 7th chapter you read that first person over and over and over until you get weary of reading "I, I, I, I,..." "I want to do this but I can’t...," and "I find I’m in bondage...," and so forth and so on. If you count you’ll discover 41 times you find that "I," and no mention of the Holy Spirit. In the 8th chapter there is no mention of the "I" except in two verses where he says "I reckon" and "I am persuaded" (where there is no alternative). But the difference in the 8th chapter is that there is all the mention in the world about the Holy Spirit. Nineteen times the Holy Spirit is mentioned. "There is therefore now no condemnation..." So, the chapter begins away in the heights -- there is no condemnation. And it ends -- "there is no separation." "What shall separate us from the love of God?" But it does not say there is no tribulation. In fact, it marks tribulation out for us very, very carefully. A wretched, sin-bound man in the 7th chapter and no Holy Spirit. A liberated man in the 8th chapter, and over and over again he pays tribute to the Holy Spirit of God. This is an amazing Word of God. Here is a man talking about emancipation. He’s talking about an individual having under his feet the world, the flesh, and the devil. We’ll get to it a bit later, but he says "In all these things..." and he doesn’t leave you to fill in the blanks. He fills them in himself. I love to read the apostle Paul! You know why, he’d go out and snub the devil! The devil never pushed the apostle around. He pushed the devil around! I’m going to make a guess that when Paul died they had a half-day’s holiday in Hell. They were so glad about it. Satan never had the victory over the apostle Paul. He tried. No man ever had such a massive theology as Paul. No man ever saw further, deeper into the pit of human depravity. I think one of the most alert writers today - that is not scholarly, or sensational stuff, but a deep writer - is that wonderful man of the L’Abri Fellowship, Switzerland. That gracious man, Shaeffer, said in his book "Death in the City," God has given up on the cities in America. He’s written "Finished!" on them. That’s why they’re dead in their rebellion. That’s why we’ve got whole cities that are bankrupt. The whole world has been asking, "Why is the greatest city in the greatest country in the world, New York, why is it bankrupt?" The millionaires of different cities are saying we are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. But you see, our biggest problem is we are morally bankrupt! We are spiritually bankrupt! I remember again that gracious man says, "For 40 years we’ve watched America going down the drain." He’s like Jeremiah. He saw nation after nation with fits of depression and darkness and devils. Then coming around and trying to say they were the chosen people of God. Then slumbering down in the mire again. He reminds us that eight centuries ago, every town and city in China had a thriving New Testament church. Eight hundred years ago. Where is she tonight? Nobody, I say, saw the depth of depravity Paul saw. He saw that because men had rejected the message of the Son of God, God gave them up to uncleanness. If you want to read a very vivid, dramatic, stirring, disturbing account of that, read J.B. Phillips’ translation of the first chapter of Romans. Paul doesn’t say how terrible the malady is. He’s not concerned about the malady. He’s concerned about the remedy! He said in Heb. 7:25, "He is able to save to the uttermost" and the "guttermost." Therefore, at the end of this amazing chapter he said, "We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us." The only reason there is an America tonight is, not because we signed the Declaration of Independence, but because 34 years before that time there was a revival that struck this country. I quote Dr. Tozer, he said to me, "as soon as man got alienated from God, he got interested in things." Now I was reading through these chapters, and I noticed how many times Paul says that, "They that are after the flesh do mind the THINGS of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit mind the THINGS of the Spirit." And then that very famous, popular verse: Romans 8:28. "All THINGS work together for good." Not some things. All THINGS. Losses as well as gain; invisible things as well as visible; those that are bitter as well as those that are sweet. All things work together for good. Mr. Chadwick used to tell us the only way to read that verse was backwards. "To them that love God, to them who are the called, according to His purpose, all things work together for good." If you read it the right way, the forward way, it doesn’t make too much impression. But if you read it from the back, to them that love God, all things work together for good. To them that are called according to His purpose. Now verse 31, "What shall we say to these THINGS? If God be for us, who can be against us?" He says in verse 37, "Nay in all these THINGS..." You can almost hear his contempt there, can’t you? "Things. So what?" And then he finishes the verse there in 38. I believe he throws his shoulders back and laughs in the face of the devil and says you haven’t an invention in Hell that can separate me. That’s what he says, doesn’t he? Because he says here, at the end of verse 38, "I am persuaded." Are you persuaded tonight? Paul was a persuaded man. He was persuaded that God was able to keep that which he’d committed unto Him. I’m persuaded tonight that neither height, nor depth, nor any other creature can separate me from the love of God. "For I’m persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor THINGS present nor THINGS to come...!" If that isn’t defiance I don’t know what is. One day, this man was going down the Damascus Road. Look! You know what? A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument. He was going down the Damascus Road, breathing out threatenings. He carried documents that said he could put any Christian he liked to death. (It’s exactly what the blundering, blind, bankrupt world that you and I live in did,) but he did not reckon with Jesus Christ Himself. And Jesus sits on His throne and met him in the road. Paul said, "Who art thou? Lord?" "On that road," he said, "He revealed Himself to me." He said, "In the wilderness. In the school of silence." (It’s still open if you want to go. It’ll cost you nothing.) "On the Damascus Road God revealed Himself to me. There in the wilderness, He revealed Himself in me." Then he soared up into heaven. I don’t know all he saw except it was just so marvelous. The Lord said "Don’t ever say a word about it. As long as you live, you can’t tell anything you saw." And he never did! Sometimes I wonder if God rolled out the plans of the ages from the incarnation to the consummation. I wonder if he saw the day in which you and I live. I wonder if he saw the depravity that was going to strangle the world silent before Jesus comes. There where he and God were alone, and God stripped him, what happened? I tell you, he became spiritually pregnant. He birthed these churches to whom he was writing here. He birthed these epistles in the Holy Ghost. God put something in him that, when later he is put in the waters, thirty-six hours in the Mediterranean; the waves couldn’t wash it out. They lashed him one hundred ninety-five times; they couldn’t whip it out. The devils chased him; they couldn’t scare it out of him. They wouldn’t give him any food; they couldn’t starve it out of him. Brother and sister, you and I had better get an experience like that before long because the roof is going to come in before we go much further. God hasn’t raised you up to be a bottle-fed baby from here to eternity. He’s coming to gather His jewels out of your life. He’s invested a lot in you. He didn’t save you that you might escape eternal fire. That’s a fringe benefit. He saved you that you might be conformed to the image of His Son, however costly that may be. A lot of people say today when they talk about victorious life, "Well, you know what Paul said..." in the end of Romans chapter 7: "Oh wretched man that I am!" Well, I didn’t need the Lord to tell me that. I know that well enough. But you see, we tack onto that another statement. We say - listen now to what the Scripture says: "They that are in the flesh cannot please God." But read the next verse: "Ye are NOT in the flesh." Now, what do you do with it? This flesh...Yes. But a fleshy nature, a lusting, sinful, greedy, lustful nature...No. You see, Paul here uses one of the most amazing things in all his career. He says, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Now what will you do? Is that the end of the story? In the original there are no chapters. There’s no 7th chapter and 8th chapter. The 7th goes right on into the 8th. Now what do you do? Do you stop at the end of Romans 7 and say Paul is saying all through his life, "O wretched man that I am! I’ve another war raging in my members"? What does he say? He says, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Well, tell me tonight, can Buddha do it? Can Confucius do it? Can transcendental meditation do it? No sir. A thousand times over. There is One who is able to do it. You know, there were over 120 different types of crosses. There was a traditional cross. There was a cross like the letter "T" on which a man’s head was allowed to drop back. There was a cross like the letter "X" where a man’s body was stretched up. His arms went up into each section of the "X" and there he was crucified. There was another cross. It was a straight tree like this, with a spike. They pushed the man’s body on it and turned it any old way they liked - like a propeller - and left him to hang and the birds to eat him. There’s another crucifixion worse than any of them. That was, that if you murdered someone, they would take that dead body of the person you murdered and they would crucify you to the body - to the dead body! There’s a thought! They made you lay down on it. They strapped your arms to the other arms; your legs to the other legs; your trunk to the other trunk; your neck to that neck. Then they stood you up and said, "Get going!" You staggered everywhere with a body of death! Gradually, of course, it became rigid with death. The mortification! The stench! The flesh, the whole body would degenerate! You would try to sleep with that rotten thing. If you were stumbling down the road after two or three days, the stench had made you vomit and you were just about as sick and weak and feeling as horrid as you could. You saw a friend and cried, "Hey Jack! Cut this body off from me!" Whispering, "OK. There’s nobody around." He gets his knife out and cuts the ropes off. He’s just going to cut the last one. You look up and there’s a Roman sentry: "What are you doing?" "I’m liberating my friend." "The law doesn’t allow you to do that." "Oh, yes it does, yes it does, yes it does." "Go ahead, on one condition. The one condition is that if you free that man from that corpse, that corpse will be tied to your body. Do you love him enough now to have the body...?" "Oh no, sir! I won’t cut it. I don’t want that stinking rotten corpse attached to my body!" "All right. We’ll tie him up again..." Now Paul had been talking about the Law in chapter 7. He says the Law is holy. He says the Law is spiritual. But, you see, the Law could bring condemnation. It could point out sin, but it couldn’t cast out sin. Can the Law break you free? No. Who shall deliver me from this wretched man? "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" He says there’s no end to this! But then he says, "Yes there is - Thanks be unto God through Jesus Christ my Lord...!" Romans 6:6 says that "Knowing this, that our old man is (not was, but is) crucified with Him." The trouble in the church of God today is that we preach half a salvation. We tell people how to get rid of the lousy sin, yet we don’t tell them how to get rid of the principle inside that has dominion over them. This is exactly what Paul is talking about in this epistle. This is why I say it’s the song of the soul set free. Come over to verse 9. "You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit." Are you in the Spirit? Or in the flesh? Have you got secrets? What’s biting you on the inside? An unforgiving spirit? A grudge? Laziness? Jealousy? Anger? Secret lusts? What is it? He says, Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be..." Now listen! "...the Spirit of God dwelleth in you!" Look at the next verse (verse 10): "If Christ be in you." Look at the 11th verse: "The spirit of Him that raised up Jesus...dwell in you." My! Oh my! How in God’s name can you be indwelt by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost and be defeated?! Don’t argue with me about it. Scratch it out in your Bible if you don’t believe it. If you’re a Christian, you’re an indwelt person. God dwells in you. The Father dwells in you. That’s what it says. I didn’t write that. The Holy Ghost wrote it. I want you to know: if you’re really born of God, God dwells in you. And the Son dwells in you. "He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son..." It doesn’t matter if they baptized you three times a day, it won’t make you a Christian. Who is a Christian? He that hath the Son. He that is born of God, and He that hath the Spirit of God dwelling in him. All right. Let’s come down a bit further in the chapter. Look at verse 22. "We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together..." Do you think it is doing that tonight? Men have dreamed of Utopia, from Augustine’s City of God. Moore had his Utopia. Francis Bacon had his Utopia. And I’m going to tell you how many more. Hitler said you could dominate the world by a pure race. The Marxists say the only way to clean the world up is to get rid of the fluff and bourgeois folk we have around here and rule by revolution. The creation groaneth. The whole creation groaneth! I’ve asked you more than once: Did it cost you a tear when you heard that fifty million people were signed off in Viet Nam, Laos, and Cambodia? Fifty million people went into captivity! Did it cost you a tear? Millions of people behind the Iron Curtain. Has it cost you a tear? - or are you still rehearsing your choir number for Sunday? Yes, I believe every earthquake we have, is a sign of the whole groaning creation. Creation groans. Will you notice what Paul says a little further down? In the next verse, verse 23: that we, not only creation, but we ourselves also have the first fruits of the Spirit. If you have the first fruits of the Spirit, here’s the proof that you have it. That you groan within yourself. Do you? After the Holy Ghost cames in - and He knows the mind of God, and nobody does but the Spirit - the Spirit whispers the secret of God to you. Some nights you’re like the woman who wants to get delivered of something. It isn’t time, and you groan within yourself. I’ll tell you the secret of getting revival in the church. Find half a dozen people who know how to groan. You won’t have the same church in a year. You can’t learn groaning except by the Holy Ghost. It’s the school of the Holy Spirit. If you think that’s unusual, then look at verse 26 in which he says, "Likewise the Spirit helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with GROANINGS that cannot be uttered." And verse 27, "the Spirit... because maketh intercession...accordiong to the will of God." Now, I’ve heard people say that to pray "with groanings," means praying in tongues. It’s nothing of the kind. Because if it was, God would say so. It’s beyond that. The greatest language of prayer has no vocabulary. The greatest prayers in the Bible have no words. Do you remember Hannah? How she prayed? Even the man of God, the priest, thought she was drunk. She groaned. She travailed. She was barren. I suggest to you that with all the pretty little conferences we have going on now about the Holy Spirit and all the rest, we’re a barren people before God. We have no revival in the land. But I’ll tell you this, when the Holy Ghost comes and begins to burden people, it’s a pretty, pretty rough thing to learn the true language of intercession. But the Spirit helpeth our infirmity. Let’s come to this verse right here for a minute or two. "In all these things..." He mentions them. Sort them out when you go home, will you? Tribulation, distress, famine, peril, nakedness, sword, perils of the deep, and so forth and so on. Sort them out. You’ll find that Some are things that attack the body. Some attack the mind. Some attack the spirit. And he says, "In all these things..." There is no area in your life where, as a Christian, you are expected to be defeated. You say, "I can’t be perfect." Can’t you? Are you sure? Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, "Be ye therefore perfect." He said of Job to the devil, "Hast thou considered my servant Job? He’s perfect and upright." He set a path for Abraham before the Holy Ghost was given as we know. He said, "Walk before me and be thou perfect." You can’t have Adamic perfection in your body. You can’t have mental perfection. You can’t have perfection, but you CAN have perfect obedience. We sing the song, "Perfect submission. All is at rest." The only way you can have rest is by perfect submission - to know there’s no rebellion in your spirit in any area at all. "In all these things we are more than conquerors." You know, very often we get so discouraged. We get so earthbound. We lose sight of the majesty of God. We forget this: that God has branded you as a child of God. He lives in you. His Spirit lives in you. Christ lives in you. And we let little rubbish around us upset us? Then he says in Romans 9:33, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth." Here is your strength. Notice in this verse again, verse 34: "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died." Can Christ’s death be contested? Satan knows better than that. Then says, he "is risen again...at the right hand..." Can the sovereignty of Jesus Christ be contested? And at the end of the verse it says, he "maketh intercession for us." Is there any way that the prayers of Jesus Christ can be sabotaged? You see, if I’m a believer, this is what this verse says: I have the protection of the death of Jesus. If He is risen, I not only have protection, I have propitiation. He is the one that justifies. Not only that, if He justifies me, I’ve not only protection and propitiation, I have prayer that’s offered by Him. Then the old accusing devil comes and says, "Now, just look at this and look at that." You know what Tozer used to say to me? "Len, I talk back to the devil." Do you ever talk back to him? Tell him where to go and how to get there? Or do you just constantly get whipped by him? We suffer accusations. Listen, as long as you live, till you get to the pearly gates, Satan will accuse you. That’s his job. He’s the accuser of the brethren. Even if you’ve done nothing wrong, he’ll try to make you feel bad. He’s a liar from the beginning. In Washington - in the Smithsonian museum, I guess, there’s a bit of an apron with a dirty brown mark on it. And the Rockefellers have a bit of money and yet the Rockefellers can’t buy that apron. It looks like a chocolate stain and the apron isn’t worth much. But when they were carrying the great emancipator Lincoln out of that theater, as they passed a little girl, his blood fell on that apron and immediately somebody said, "that is sacred for America, get hold of it." There’s nothing in the world can buy that thing which is stamped with blood! And I want to tell you tonight in the face of the world, the flesh, and the devil and all hell that if the blood of Jesus Christ is on you tonight you’re worth more than all the wealth in Fort Knox or anywhere else in the world. You’re precious to Him... Why?... Because His blood is upon you, that’s why. What are you going to do with this text? What is this text? "In all these things," verse 37, "we are more than conquerors." That’s beyond the bounds of logic. How can you be MORE than a conqueror? You can do three things with this text. You can say, "It’s a statement by an ignorant, irresponsible person. The kind who overload you with confidence." You can say, "It’s an unbalanced statement by a super-optimist." Or you can say is, "Here’s a man talking out of experience." "In all these things," he says, "we are more than conquerors." You know, there isn’t a man on God’s earth who knows how the next phase of revival will come. It’s coming. Don’t make any mistake about it. But God’s going to do it His way. God has wonderful ways of working. One pastor said, "My people come to church and pay their tithes. Routine. There’s no passion. No vision. They’re worldly. They enjoy bowling a lot more than groaning. They like fishing for tiddlers in the waters much more than fishing for men. More of them are traveling than travailing." He said to his wife and another man in the church, "Can we agree together that God will send us revival?" And they did! They prayed. Oh my! Sometimes it’s very painful. In fact, I don’t know when God works any blessing without painfulness. If He could have done it without pain, He’d have done it for His Son. But His Son had to go through the horrors of Gethsemane and the cross. So, this preacher and his wife, and the other man and his wife - she was the organist, I think - prayed. And God began to move. He moved them nearly all out of the church. From about 450 people, they went down to about 45. And they thought: "Now, Lord, Lord, put the brakes on here. It’s going to stop here, isn’t it?" The Lord said, "No, not yet." And they went down until they were a very select company: the preacher, his wife, the oldest deacon, and the organist. Four of them. Instead of shutting the shop, he said, "Keep on praying." Great! God was moving! They never asked Him to move that way. But after all, you ask God to move and He does it! The preacher said, "Four weeks, I preached to four people." It didn’t take long to take the offering. For once the church was united. Then, he said, "God began to turn the tide and they started coming back. People got saved." Now he had hundreds of people. You see, the Holy Spirit is so wonderful. As I said last night, He’s a spirit of truth and He convicts us of error. He’s a spirit of life and He convicts of death. He’s a spirit of power and He convicts of weakness. He’s a spirit of joy and He convicts of sorrow. And He’s a spirit of love! I’m going to tell you this. I believe tonight, if the Church of Jesus Christ, every true believer, in America had the baptism of love, the Church would be "back in business." Love works many, many miracles that theory, philosophy, and theology don’t work. The Word of God says that the first thing the Holy Spirit does in your life when He comes in is hang His shingle out. That’s what he does. You know what it says on this shingle? "The fruit of the Spirit is power..." No, no. What is it? Oh, you know what it is. The first thing... LOVE. You see, we’ve got the idea that you’ve got to be anointed of the Holy Ghost to be a missionary or a preacher. Well, that’s great. You must have that. Let me tell you about three things here. Look. This man says we are more than conquerors. You know, when those three Hebrew children went into a burning, fiery furnace, they were conquerors. But when the form of the fourth, like unto the Son of God, came and they walked out, they were MORE THAN CONQUERORS. When Daniel went into the lion’s den, he was a conqueror. But when they pulled him out and made them change the laws of the Medes and the Persians, he was more than a conqueror. When Jesus went to the cross, He could have just went "Pffft!" like that, and destroyed every man that was living. He could have cursed these people like He cursed the fig tree. But He kept His mouth shut. When He went to the grave with the sin of the world He was a conqueror. When He rose from the dead he was more than a conqueror. That’s why this marvelous 8th chapter is so majestic. The Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead." Has he raised you from the dead? And touched death? And trespasses? And sin? Has He raised you from the death of formality and self-righteousness? If He has, you’re indwelt by God the Father! You’re indwelt by God the Son! You’re indwelt by the Holy Ghost! You know what America needs more than it needs some revivalist? It needs some Holy-Ghost filled mothers and Holy-Ghost filled fathers. I owe my spiritual life after God to a saintly Mother who influenced my life. I never heard my Mother gossip. I never heard her criticize anybody. I never saw her get angry. All I got when I came home from school was Mother in one chair and Grandmother in the other singing, "Take Time to Be Holy," usually off-key. But they were singing "Take Time to Be Holy." If it wasn’t that, it was "Trust and Obey." Man, I was born in a home where the father was godly and the mother was a saint. People say to me sometimes, "You know, I often ask the Lord to make me humble." I’ll tell you how to make yourself humble. Go home and sit down before your little kids. Just sit down and say, "Do you think that I am like Jesus?" I’m a debtor to America. Do you know why? Because outside of the New Testament, the greatest thing I ever read was the life of David Brainerd. I read that when he was about 18 years of age, he met God. I read that he died at the age of 28. The ripe old age of 28! I read that he used to kneel in the snow when it was up to his chin, when he had to make a hole in it. And, pray! He said, "I’d pray from sunrise to sunset. I couldn’t touch the snow with the tips of my fingers. The heat of my body melted the snow." He had tuberculosis and when he sneezed he sprayed the snow with his blood. Friend, listen. You have only one life. T’will will soon be passed. Only what’s done for God will last. When you are dying how glad you shall be, if the lamp of your life has been burned out for Him. So now, die to self-seeking. Die to public opinion. Die to ambition. God doesn’t use men that are alive. He uses men that are dead. He doesn’t use sober men. He uses drunk men. He doesn’t use somebody. He uses nobody. "In all these things..." Where’s your point of defeat tonight? - Is it prayerlessness? - Is it lack of love? - Is it self-pity? - Self-seeking? - Self-glory? - Self-promoting? What is it? -- You may be the one key holding up revival. Maybe just you, nobody else. I don’t know. -- I want to tell you, God can put an end to all these things and you can leave this house tonight free, if you obey God. You can be more than conquerors by the indwelling God, by the indwelling Holy Spirit of God. But you’ll have to confess it. I can’t confess it for you. If I could repent for you, I’d be down there right now repenting for you. I can’t do it. You have to do it. God can’t do it for you. You have to do it. Your repentance, your humility, your sincere seeking God for that cancer within the breast, whatever it is, will bring the compassion and love of God, the cleansing in the Blood, and the indwelling Holy Spirit. Copyright (C) 1996 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 81: S. NO KISS ======================================================================== No Kiss By Leonard Ravenhill Luke 7:36-47 "...whom little is forgiven... loveth little." I might suggest that this was the most exciting day in the life of this man, Simon the Pharisee. He had managed to get the most amazing man in history into his home. I am quite sure Simon thought to filter the number of people he would have come into the place to eat. So his first problem was the folk. Of course he got the VIP’s there, that’s the thing you do... It’s the thing the Scripture says you shouldn’t do, but we do it. You should have a banquet where nobody can invite you back. But you see, we don’t do it that way anymore. So he had a problem getting the right amount of folk. I’m sure he got the millionaire, and the mayor, and the magistrate, and the marvelous people. I think he woke up at night and said, "No, I’ll cross that man out and I’ll put this name in." Eventually he had the right folk. Secondly he had to have the right food. If you are inviting the president of the United States I think you’d prepared something very special; you wouldn’t have hamburgers and potato chips. Finally he decided on the folk and he decided on the food and then I think he decided on the flowers; he wanted the right kind of aesthetic atmosphere. Everything was lovely, the garden, the table... he had worked out every detail. He said to himself, "This is going to be a day that I shall never, never, never want to forget." It became a day that he never, never, never wanted to remember! He said, "This is going to be the day of my exhalation." It became the day of his humiliation! He said, "People are going to leave this banquet talking about my liberality." They left it talking about his stupidity! He was so intent, he was so sure that everything was right. It became one of those days where everything goes beautifully wrong. I can imagine that he just got down and conditioned all the servants there and said, "Now, alert me when so and so comes." And the first thing, the millionaire is coming; not in a Cadillac, but coming with a beautiful carriage and his horses. And he runs out. And, as they still do in the orient, he kisses the man on either cheek. And escorts him to the place where his feet can be washed, as it was the custom. And shows him in to his assigned seat at the table. This man got excited about this business. Everybody at the banquet and everything was in the right place. And I think in the middle, somewhere after a few of his guests had come, one of the servant signals and says, "Master, I want you. You know that certain woman in town...?" "Oh, don’t mention that abominable woman. If she comes near turn the dogs on her." "Well master, I’m sorry but she’s..." "She’s where?" "Well, she’s here. She’s sitting at the feet of Jesus." "Well, how did He get in?!" Jesus has an awful habit of coming in at the back door. That’s how He came in the world, with a suspicion of illegitimacy on Him. "He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister." I wish some ministers would remember that. We are to be the love slaves of Jesus Christ. We are not here to carry prestige, or power, or personality, or show off. We’re the least of all men; we’re servants. And I can see Jesus coming in at the back door. At the back door He wasn’t’ concerned about the welcome. And Simon comes and says, "I’ve missed it. He’s no prophet. If He were a prophet He’d know what kind of a woman this is. She is a sinner." Jesus then goes on with the beautiful story: "A certain man had two creditors. One of them owed him five hundred pence, the other fifty. He forgave them both. Who will love him most?" "The man with the biggest debt." "That’s right, she loves much...she is forgiven much." I can imagine that woman trembling outside of the door and saying, "I’m not invited." Isn’t it an amazing thing? We don’t know who went to the banquet except the woman that wasn’t invited! It’s going to be like that in the great day. The first are going to be last. Some of the greatest preachers you know will be right at the end of the line and some little widow that gave her life to prayer is going to be there right at the head. You see God’s values are not our values. He isn’t going to give me a reward because I preached so many sermons, or you singers because you sold so many records. You see, we put the accent where God never put it. We put an accent on working for Jesus. And there is no such thing. That’s not the first thing that God requires. "The Father seeketh such to work for Him." No, no, no. I believe God is getting less worship today than ever He’s gotten, despite the crowds we are getting. We want to work ourselves to death, give out tracts, run here, run there, come home exhausted and we’ve a plane to catch tomorrow and everybody is waiting for us. This little woman stood outside the door with a trembling heart. You could have seen it pounding under her dress. "I shouldn’t go in," but she said, "I am going to go in." Charles Wesley has a wonderful hymn. I don’t know whether he got the inspiration here, I think he might have. It says this: "Oh, let me kiss Thy bleeding feet." Could I ask you, how long it is since you were at His feet? This woman is only found at the feet of Jesus. Each time she’s seen in the New Testament she is there, at His feet. She was there to learn. When her sister was making a big banquet Jesus says that Mary had chosen the better part. You say, "It isn’t my personality." That’s not what it says. I hear people say, "I’ve got a Mary personality," or "I am a Martha." That’s not what it says - "She Chose." And you’ve to choose to be spiritual, you’ve to choose the calendar of your life, you’ve to choose to put people on one side that He may get what He wants out of your life. Not in eternity, but even now. And this dear woman is found at His feet to learn. She is found at His feet in grief, when her brother dies. She is found at His feet when she gives the best that she has, her costly ointment. Will you remember this, that this precious ointment was given to Jesus three times. The first time it was given to Him in His birth - when He couldn’t recognize it. The second time was given to Him by this woman, and she had more intuition than even His disciples, for she gives Him this anointing at His feet just six days before He hung on a cross. The third gift was when He had died and laid in the tomb. You see, details are very important in Scripture. It says this box of Spikenard was very precious though it only weighed a pound. (The man who came at Jesus burial with His gift brought a hundred pounds of Spikenard.) This box is worth three hundred pence, which means she must have saved up for fifteen years to get it. And if her brother was Lazarus she didn’t love her brother enough to embalm him when he died. She was saving it for her own funeral. But, you see, this woman brings her gift. It is only a pound, but it is very precious. The man brought a hundred pounds of ointment, but now Jesus was dead! -- A smart American said this, "Do your giving when you’re living, then you’re knowing where it’s going." That’s better than anything Shakespeare ever said. If you leave ten million dollars to Jesus Christ or to His Kingdom when you die He won’t give you ten cents for it at the Judgment Seat. You say, "How do you know?" Well my old English Bible says, "The Lord loveth," the what? All right, you’ve got a casket here with a millionaire. He left ten million dollars to the church and before I shove the lid down I want you to come up here and have a look. Does he look too cheerful? He should do, he’s given ten million to missions. "The Lord loveth a cheerful giver..." He didn’t give the ten million! Death put the pistol to his head and killed him. He’d still have the ten million if he was alive; he gave it reluctantly. This woman brings her precious gift of ointment. Now, notice what she did. According to custom she should’ve washed His feet, kissed His cheeks. But those feet...she is going to see them in a few days with the nails driven through. And she doesn’t anoint His head, she anoints His feet. She doesn’t stand in front of Him, she is behind Him. She says, "Wash those feet with water? Never." And so she washes them with tears. "Dry those feet with a towel? Never." And so she takes her beautiful tresses down and she takes His feet and she dries those blessed feet with the hair of her head. I’ve often thought of those feet that were weary upon that dusty road. Those feet that sometimes had the thorns in them and got the gravel between the toes and it was awfully uncomfortable. And a precious woman one day said, "I won’t wash His feet with water. I’ll wash His feet with my tears, if I get the chance. I won’t dry His feet with a beautiful towel. I’ll take the hair of my head," - which is the crowning glory of a woman - and she dried His feet with the hair of her head. She should’ve anointed His head, but she anointed His feet. She should’ve kissed His cheek, but she kissed His feet. She says, "I am not worthy to stand in Your presence, I can only bow in lowliness and humility." But listen, did you get the point? She not only washed His feet with tears. She took that ointment and put it on His head and put it on His feet. And then she took the hair of her head and she wiped the feet where she’d put her tears and her ointment. So, obviously, The Fragrance That She Poured Out On Him Came Back On Her! You see, we think that if we read a lot of books about the deeper life, as good as they are, they will make us a saint. I’ve got news for you. Even reading the Bible won’t make you a saint! You’ve got to get it in your blood stream. I believe I could line the altar, indeed I’ve seen the altar lined with hundreds, night after night in mass meetings, and yet I believe, at the end of the day, Jesus Christ could say to me, "Thou gavest Me no kiss." Why? Because I was so busy serving Him, I forgot to worship Him. The priority that God wants in our life is that we worship Him in spirit. You can be a cantankerous, bitter, rough, edgy, stiff, resentful, almost cruel kind of Christian, work yourself to death, say, "I guess I give out more tracts than anybody around here. I labor harder than anybody else" ...and miss the bus! Friend I’ve been round the world a few times, it doesn’t give me any standing with God. I happen to write a best seller or two, it doesn’t give me any prestige with God. God seeks those who worship Him. And I say again, I like what Wesley said, "Let me kiss Thy bleeding feet and bath and wash them with my tears." When did you last seize Him by His feet and say, "Master, I can’t go another inch without meeting You this morning." Dr. Tozer told me as a mature man in his sixties that there where times when he lay on the rug for an hour, two hours, three hours, four hours and never uttered a word of prayer, and never uttered a word of praise. He said, "I’m lost in adoration, I see Him in His glory, in His majesty, in His beauty. I can hear those holy beings crying, ’Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord.’" And he said, "I’m silent in adoration before Him. I had no language, it is beggered." And he had a vocabulary as good as any man I know, and he had read more of the mystics, I think, than any man I know, and he had some of the closest encounters to God of any man I know. When you came in this morning God Almighty didn’t see if you had a ring on your finger worth ten thousand dollars, or if you had a hairdo or not. God never saw you this morning externally. The Bible makes it clear, "God looketh not on the outward appearance, but on the heart." But most churches I go to today I would imagine that, that is reversed, that God looks on the outside and not on the heart. Some of us are beautifully dressed this morning and we’ve got rags on the inside. We’ve got expensive cars or jewelry and we are poverty stricken within for the simple reason that we’ve never developed this wonderful area of worship. Worshipping Him in Spirit and in Truth and in the very beauty of holiness. If you leave this sanctuary saying, "Well, I enjoyed the choir." Or just the singers, or just the preacher... we’ve missed it entirely! If you remember us then we’re failure number one! You should remember something God communicated to you through us. You shouldn’t remember the chalice whether it’s made of gold or clay, you should remember what came out of that chalice. This is a very beautiful story; I wish I had time to develop it. But I like to see this poor man, he is standing there and Jesus says, "You missed it." Did you ever try to get God to understand things your way? I confess I have. I can see this man saying, "Well, Lord, you don’t understand what it cost me to lay this banquet." "Well, Lord, I had to raise a loan in order to, to ... Well, I rented these precious things, these golden vessels and... and all this food is out of season, and You know, You know what it really costs!" And the Lord says, "Son, I am not wanting that." Well, my time’s nearly up. But let me suggest to you that the story in the Matthew 26:1-75 is the same. One little word is injected in this account of the story, but a very illuminating word. As far as I’m concerned it turns the whole story round. It says He went into the house of Simon the leper. Well, how could a leper be in the house? Only one reason he could be there, he got healed of his leprosy. Who healed him? Jesus. And the man that Jesus healed forgot to worship Him. You took time to get ready for church this morning, but listen, did you get down and worship Him this morning? Because the greatest thing you could do is not bring your tithe and your offering and sit and look pretty and smell nice. Did you get alone with Him this morning? Not in a crowd of people, but did you say alone, "My Jesus I love Thee I know Thou art mine." It’s a bit late to say, "I’ll say when the death dew lies cold on my brow, My Jesus if ever I loved Thee ’tis now." Did you get alone and worship Him this morning? He came to the house of Simon the leper, and the healed leper forgot to kiss Him. You see there had been a day when this man went to the temple and they pronounced him a leper. And he kissed his wife good-bye, And he went to the gate of the city and they excommunicated him from all his privileges, socially. And he stood on the road and banging a little tin can he had he said, "Leper, leper, help the leper." And one day Jesus passed that way. He must have done, because there was no other way to be healed. And Jesus touched him and made him whole. And he went to the gate and they said, " Don’t come in here Simon." He said, "My flesh is like a little child." "What happened?" "Jesus did it." He went to the temple and the priest said, "You can’t come in here, you’ll defile the sanctuary." And he said, "Why? I am as pure and clean as you are. Look at my flesh!" "Who did it?" - "Jesus did it." He came home and the wife said, "Oh, don’t touch the children, please. Don’t touch the children." He said, "Darling it doesn’t matter if I touch them. My hands are soft and pure as yours are." - "Jesus did it." And it was the man who got that cleansing who forgot to kiss Jesus. And if you say, "Well, brother Ravenhill, I was never a drug addict or a prostitute." Wait a minute, wait a minute. Are you saying, "He didn’t lift me up of a horrible pit?" But you were going to a horrible pit. Ah, we have the idea that just doing this or that make us spiritual... No, no. A lot of it makes us happy! A lot of it isn’t even spiritual, it’s soulish! It touches the emotions and stirs us. But there’s nothing really exciting unless you get to know the wonder of pure, divine, holy love, and get down on your face and say, "Lord, I can’t even go to a meeting maybe this morning. I am overwhelmed with Your Glory... Your Majesty... Your Beauty." God is seeking that we worship Him. Worship in spirit, Worship Him in truth, Worship Him in the very beauty of holiness. You know, at the end of this day, however much I preach, however much you sing, however much you serve, the Lord is going to get a record. And I try to do this: I try to say at the end of the day, "Lord, it’s not what I preached over TV, or radio, to millions. Or two, or three, or one person I visited who was sick...But, Lord, did I kiss You today? Or did You look down and say, ’Son, you were very busy, very active, you made some new friends, people said you preached well, but listen son, Thou Gavest Me No Water, Thou Gavest Me No Oil, Thou Gavest Me No Kiss.’" Copyright (C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 82: S. PRAYER ======================================================================== PRAYER By Leonard Ravenhill The Gospel Of Prayer There’s nothing more transfiguring than prayer. People often ask, "Why do you insist on prayer so much?" The answer is very simple - because Jesus did. You could change the title of the Gospel according to St. Luke to the Gospel of Prayer. It’s the prayer life of Jesus. The other evangelists say that Jesus was in the Jordan and the Spirit descended on Him as a dove - Luke says it was while He was praying that the Spirit descended on Him. The other evangelists say that Jesus chose 12 disciples - Luke says it was after He spent a night in prayer that He chose 12 disciples. The other evangelists say that Jesus died on a cross - Luke says that even when He was dying Jesus was praying for those who persecuted Him. The other evangelists say Jesus went on a mount and He was transfigured - Luke says it was while He was praying that He was transfigured. There’s nothing more transfiguring than prayer. The Scriptures say that the disciples went to bed, but Jesus went to pray - as was His custom. It was His custom to pray. Now Jesus was the Son of God - He was definitely anointed for His ministry. If Jesus needed all that time in prayer, don’t you and I need time in prayer? If Jesus needed it in every crisis, don’t you and I need it in every crisis? The story goes that a group of tourists visiting a picturesque village saw an old man sitting by a fence. In a rather patronizing way, one of the visitors asked, "Were any great men born in this village?" Without looking up the old man replied, "No, only babies." The greatest men were once babies. The greatest saints were once toddlers in the things of the Spirit. C. H. Spurgeon was converted at the age of 16 and began preaching in London at the age of 19. When he was 27, they built him a tabernacle seating 6,000 which he packed twice on Sundays - that’s 12,000 - and once on Thursday nights. How? He waited on God. He got alone with God. He studied...and he prayed. Desperate Prayer God makes all His best people in loneliness. Do you know what the secret of praying is? Praying in secret. "But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door..." (Matthew 6:6). You can’t show off when the door’s shut and nobody’s there. You can’t display your gifts. You can impress others, but you can’t impress God. 1 Samuel 1:1-15 gives an account of the yearly trip Elkanah and his wife, Hannah, made to Shiloh to worship and sacrifice to the Lord. During this time, Hannah had been distressed that she was not able to bear a son for her husband. This passage of Scripture gives quite a descriptive account of her time in prayer concerning the barrenness of her womb. It says that Hannah wept. More than this, she wept until she was sore. She poured out her soul before the Lord. Her heart was grieving; she was bitter of soul, provoked, and of a sorrowful spirit. Now that’s a pretty good list of afflictions - sorrow, hardship, and everything else that came upon this woman. But the key to the whole situation is that she was a praying woman. In 1 Samuel 1:20 it says that she reaped her reward. "And it came about in due time, after Hannah had conceived, that she gave birth to a son; and she named him Samuel, saying, ’Because I have asked him of the Lord.’" Now I say very often - and people don’t like it - that God doesn’t answer prayer. He answers desperate prayer! Your prayer life denotes how much you depend on your own ability, and how much you really believe in your heart when you sing, "Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling...." The more self- confidence you have, the less you pray. The less self-confidence you have, the more you have to pray. What does the Scripture say? It says that God takes the lowly, the things that are not. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:28 that God takes the things that are not to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no flesh should glory in His presence. We need a bunch of "are nots" today. The Language of the Poor Prayer is the language of the poor. Over and over again David, the King of Israel, says, "Incline Thine ear, O Lord, and answer me; for I am afflicted and needy" (Psalms 86:1). And do you remember that one of the greatest psalms he wrote says, "This poor man cried and the Lord heard him..." (Psalms 34:6). The apostle Paul overwhelms me with his spirituality, his pedigree, his colossal intellect. Yet he says that he’s very conscious that when he’s weak, he is strong. He was always trying to prove to himself and to others that he was a nobody. True prayer is a two-way communication. I speak to God and God speaks to me. I don’t know how the Spirit makes communication - or why God needs me to pray - but that’s how God works. "Get Up And Pray!" One day I was at a conference with Dr. V. Raymond Edman of Wheaton College, one of the greatest Christian educators in this country. He told us of an experience he had while he was in Ecuador as a missionary. He hadn’t been there long before he was sick and dying. He was so near death that they had already dug his grave. He had great beads of sweat on his brow and there was a death rattle in his throat. But suddenly he sat straight up in bed and said to his wife, "Bring me my clothes!" Nobody knew what had happened. Many years later he was retelling the story in Boston. Afterward, a little old lady with a small, dog-eared, beaten-up book, approached him and asked, "What day did you say you were dying? What time was it in Ecuador? What time would it be in Boston?" When he answered her, her wrinkled face lit up. Pointing to her book, she said. "There it is, you see? At 2 a.m. God said to get up and pray - the devil’s trying to kill Raymond Edman in Ecuador." And she’d gotten up and prayed. Duncan Campbell told the story of hearing a farmer in his field who was praying. He was praying about Greece. Afterward, he asked him why he was praying. The man said, "I don’t know. I had a burden in the spirit and God said, ’You pray; there’s someone in Greece that is in a bad situation.’ I prayed until I got a release." Two or three years later the farmer was in a meeting listening to a missionary. The man described a time when he was working in Greece. He had been in serious trouble. The time? Two or three years ago. The men compared notes and discovered that it was the very same day that God had burdened a farmer, on a little island off the coast of Scotland, to pray for a man in Greece whose name he didn’t even know. It may seem the Lord gives you strange things. I don’t care. If the Lord tells you something, carry on with what the Lord tells you. Who Shall Ascend to the Hill of the Lord?" There’s another experience Duncan Campbell told about when he was working in Scotland. "I couldn’t preach," he said. "I couldn’t get through to God. The heavens were solid. It was as though there was a 10 ft. ceiling of steel." So he quit trying to preach. He asked a young man named John Cameron to pray. The boy stood up and said, "What’s the use of praying if we’re not right with God?" He quoted the 24th Psalm, "Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?" You can’t approach God unless your hands are clean, which means your relationships with others are clean and your heart is clean. "Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? He who has clean hands and a pure heart..." (Psalms 24:3-4). After the boy recited Psalms 24:1-10 he began to pray. He prayed 10, 15, 20 minutes. Then he suddenly said, "Excuse me, Lord, while I resist the devil." He turned around and began to tell the devil where to go and how to get there. He fought for all he was worth. You talk about having on the armor of God and resisting the devil! When he finished resisting the devil, he finished his prayer. He prayed for 45 minutes! When he finished praying it was just as though God had pulled a little switch in heaven. The Spirit of God came down on that church, that community, on the dance hall at the other end of town, and the tavern on this end of town. Revival was born in that prayer! At the end of Malachi it says, "And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly (that’s the word I like, suddenly) come to his temple" (Malachi 3:1). Remember what it says about the shepherds? They were watching their flocks by night when suddenly there was the sound of the heavenly host. Do you remember a bunch of men that had been waiting in the upper room? Suddenly the Holy Spirit came on them in that room. There’s a date in history that I love very much. It was Wednesday, August 13, 1737. A little group of people in Moravia were waiting in a prayer meeting. At 11:00 suddenly the Holy Spirit came. Do you know what happened? The prayer meeting that began at 11:00 lasted 100 years! That’s right. That prayer room was not empty for a century! It’s the longest prayer among men and women that I know of. Even children six and seven years old travailed in prayer for countries the names of which they couldn’t even spell. Why We Don’t Have Revival In an old town in Ireland they’ll show you with reverence a place where four young men met night after night after night praying for revival. In Wales, there’s a place in the hills where three or four young men only 18 or 19 years old met and prayed night after night. They wouldn’t let God go; they would not take no for an answer. As far as humanly possible they prayed a revival into birth. If you’re thinking of revival at your church without any inconvenience, forget it. Revival costs a lot. I can give you one simple reason why we don’t have revival in America. Because we’re content to live without it. We’re not seeking God - we’re seeking miracles, we’re seeking big crusades, we’re seeking blessings. In Numbers 11:1-35, Moses said to God, "You’re asking me to carry a burden I can’t handle. Do something or kill me!" Do you love America enough to say, "God, send revival or kill me"? Do you think it’s time we changed Patrick Henry’s prayer from, "Give me liberty or give me death," to "Give me revival or let me die"? In Genesis 30:1-43, Rachael goes to Jacob and throws herself down in despair. She says, "Give me children or else I die." Are you willing to throw yourself down before God to seek the spiritual birth of spiritual children in our country? People say, "I’m filled with the Holy Spirit." If the coming of the Spirit didn’t revolutionize your prayer life, you’d better check on it. I’m not so sure you got what God wanted you to get. We’ve said that prayer changes things. No! Prayer doesn’t change things. Prayer changes people and they change things. We all want Gabriel to do the job. God says do it yourself - with My sufficiency and My strength. We need to get like this woman, Hannah. What did she do? She wept, she was grieved, she said she had a complaint, she fasted - and she prayed. Jesus, the anointed of God, made prayer His custom. Paul, with his background and intellect, depended on prayer because he said he was weak. David, the king, called himself a poor man and cried to the Lord. Hannah prayed for a son and gave birth to a prophet. The prayers of a handful of young men sparked revival. There’s nothing more transfiguring than prayer. Copyright (C)1996 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 83: S. PICTURE OF A PROPHET ======================================================================== Picture of a Prophet By Leonard Ravenhill The prophet in his day is fully accepted of God and totally rejected by men. Years back, Dr. Gregory Mantle was right when he said, "No man can be fully accepted until he is totally rejected." The prophet of the Lord is aware of both these experiences. They are his "brand name." The group, challenged by the prophet because they are smug and comfortably insulated from a perishing world in their warm but untested theology, is not likely to vote him "Man of the year" when he refers to them as habituates of the synagogue of Satan! The prophet comes to set up that which is upset. His work is to call into line those who are out of line! He is unpopular because he opposes the popular in morality and spirituality. In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that we cry to God for a prophet! The function of the prophet, as Austin-Sparks once said, "has almost always been that of recovery." The prophet is God’s detective seeking for a lost treasure. The degree of his effectiveness is determined by his measure of unpopularity. Compromise is not known to him. He has no price tags. He is totally "otherworldly." He is unquestionably controversial and unpardonably hostile. He marches to another drummer! He breathes the rarefied air of inspiration. He is a "seer" who comes to lead the blind. He lives in the heights of God and comes into the valley with a "thus saith the Lord." He shares some of the foreknowledge of God and so is aware of impending judgment. He lives in "splendid isolation." He is forthright and outright, but he claims no birthright. His message is "repent, be reconciled to God or else...!" His prophecies are parried. His truth brings torment, but his voice is never void. He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow. He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead! He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with epitaphs when dead. He is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, but few "make the grade" in his class. He is friendless while living and famous when dead. He is against the establishment in ministry; then he is established as a saint by posterity. He eats daily the bread of affliction while he ministers, but he feeds the Bread of Life to those who listen. He walks before men for days but has walked before God for years. He is a scourge to the nation before he is scourged by the nation. He announces, pronounces, and denounces! He has a heart like a volcano and his words are as fire. He talks to men about God. He carries the lamp of truth amongst heretics while he is lampooned by men. He faces God before he faces men, but he is self-effacing. He hides with God in the secret place, but he has nothing to hide in the marketplace. He is naturally sensitive but supernaturally spiritual. He has passion, purpose and pugnacity. He is ordained of God but disdained by men. Our national need at this hour is not that the dollar recover its strength, or that we save face over the Watergate affair, or that we find the answer to the ecology problem. We need a God-sent prophet! I am bombarded with talk or letters about the coming shortages in our national life: bread, fuel, energy. I read between the lines from people not practiced in scaring folk. They feel that the "seven years of plenty" are over for us. The "seven years of famine" are ahead. But the greatest famine of all in this nation at this given moment is a FAMINE OF THE HEARING OF THE WORDS OF GOD (Amos 8:11). Millions have been spent on evangelism in the last twenty-five years. Hundreds of gospel messages streak through the air over the nation every day. Crusades have been held; healing meetings have made a vital contribution. "Come-outers" have "come out" and settled, too, without a nation-shaking revival. Organizers we have. Skilled preachers abound. Multi-million dollar Christian organizations straddle the nation. BUT where, oh where, is the prophet? Where are the incandescent men fresh from the holy place? Where is the Moses to plead in fasting before the holiness of the Lord for our moldy morality, our political perfidy, and sour and sick spirituality? GOD’S MEN ARE IN HIDING UNTIL THE DAY OF THEIR SHOWING FORTH. They will come. The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history. There is a terrible vacuum in evangelical Christianity today. The missing person in our ranks is the prophet. The man with a terrible earnestness. The man totally otherworldly. The man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too severely committed, too negative and unsociable. Let him be as plain as John the Baptist. Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and stagnant "churchianity." Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle. Let him, too, say and live, "This ONE thing I do." Let him reject ecclesiastical favors. Let him be self-abasing, nonself-seeking, nonself-projecting, nonself- righteous, nonself-glorying, nonself-promoting. Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself but only that which will move men to God. Let him come daily from the throne room of a holy God, the place where he has received the order of the day. Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the clatter of shekels milked from this hour of material mesmerism. Let him cry with a voice this century has not heard because he has seen a vision no man in this century has seen. God send us this Moses to lead us from the wilderness of crass materialism, where the rattlesnakes of lust bite us and where enlightened men, totally blind spiritually, lead us to an ever-nearing Armageddon. God have mercy! Send us PROPHETS! Copyright (C)1996 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 84: S. QUOTES OF LEONARDO RAVENHILL ======================================================================== Today’s church wants to be raptured from responsibility. The world has lost the power to blush over its vice; the Church has lost her power to weep over it Many of us are hunting mice - while lions devour the land How can you pull down strongholds of Satan if you don’t even have the strength to turn off your TV? Is the world crucified to you tonight? Or does it fascinate you? If the whole church goes off into deception, that will in no way excuse us for not following Christ. You can’t develop character by reading books. You develop it from conflict. Many pastors criticize me for taking the Gospel so seriously. But do they really think that on Judgment Day, Christ will chastise me, saying, ’Leonard, you took Me too seriously’? Children can tell you what Channel 7 says, but not what Matthew 7:1-29 says That world outside there is not waiting for a new definition of Christianity, it’s waiting for a new demonstration of Christianity. When there’s something in the Bible that churches don’t like, they call it ’legalism.’ Some women will spend thirty minutes to an hour preparing for church externally (putting on special clothes and makeup, etc.). What would happen if we all spent the same amount of time preparing internally for church - with prayer and meditation? The Church used to be a lifeboat rescuing the perishing. Now she is a cruise ship recruiting the promising. You can have all of your doctrines right - yet still not have the presence of God. The question isn’t were you challenged. The question is were you changed? Our seminaries today are turning out dead men. Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry? Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die? Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn and give no hand? Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you damned? Today Christians spend more money on dog food than missions. Any method of evangelism will work if God is in it. A true shepherd leads the way. He does not merely point the way. No faith is required to do the possible; actually only a morsel of this atom-powered stuff is needed to do the impossible, for a piece as large as a mustard seed will do more than we have ever dreamed of. John the Baptist never performed any miracles. Yet, he was greater than any of the Old Testament prophets. Our God is a consuming fire. He consumes pride, lust, materialism, and other sin. Notice, we never pray for folks we gossip about, and we never gossip about the folk for whom we pray! For prayer is a great deterrent. What good does it do to speak in tongues on Sunday if you have been using your tongue during the week to curse and gossip? But have we Holy Spirit power - power that restricts the devil’s power, pulls down strongholds and obtains promises? Daring delinquents will be damned if they are not delivered from the devil’s dominion. What has hell to fear other than a God-anointed, prayer-powered church? Everyone recognizes that Stephen was Spirit-filled when he was performing wonders. Yet, he was just as Spirit-filled when he was being stoned to death. The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Power helpeth our infirmity in prayer. The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Life ends our deadness in prayer. The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Wisdom delivers us from ignorance in this holy art ofprayer. The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Fire delivers us from coldness in prayer. The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Might comes to our aid in our weakness as we pray. Testimonies are wonderful. But, so often our lives don’t fit our testimonies. Why do we expect to be better treated in this world than Jesus was? There’s a difference between changing your opinion, and changing your lifestyle. Maturity comes from obedience, not necessarily from age. This much is sure in all churches, forgetting party labels; the smallest meeting numerically is the prayer-meeting. If weak in prayer we are weak everywhere. A man may study because his brain is hungry for knowledge, even Bible knowledge. But he prays because his soul is hungry for God. No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. The pulpit can be a shop window to display one’s talents; the prayer closet allows no showing off. To be much for God, we must be much with God. Jesus, that lone figure in the wilderness, knew strong crying, along with tears. Can one be moved with compassion and not know tears? Jeremiah was a sobbing saint. Jesus wept! So did Paul. So did John. Though there are some tearful intercessors behind the scenes, I grant you that to our modern Christianity, praying is foreign. No man - I don’t care how colossal his intellect - No man is greater than his prayer life. Let the fires go out in the boiler room of the church and the place will still look smart and clean, but it will be cold. The Prayer Room is the boiler room for its spiritual life. The secret of praying is praying in secret. The true church lives and moves and has its being in prayer. If Jesus preached the same message minister’s preach today, He would have never been crucified. A popular evangelist reaches your emotions. A true prophet reaches your conscience. You never have to advertise a fire. Everyone comes running when there’s a fire. Likewise, if your church is on fire, you will not have to advertise it. The community will already know it. As long as we are content to live without revival, we will. If I was to ask you tonight if you were saved? Do you say ’Yes, I am saved’. When? ’Oh so and so preached, I got baptized and...’ Are you saved? What are you saved from, hell? Are you saved from bitterness? Are you saved from lust? Are you saved from cheating? Are you saved from lying? Are you saved from bad manners? Are you saved from rebellion against your parents? Come on, what are you saved from? My main ambition in life is to be on the devil’s most wanted list. One of these days some simple soul will pick up the Book of God, read it, and believe it. Then the rest of us will be embarrassed. The self-righteous never apologize There are only two kinds of persons: those dead in sin and those dead to sin. The Bible is either absolute, or it’s obsolete. If a Christian is not having tribulation in the world, there’s something wrong! Would we send our daughters off to have sex if it would benefit our country? Yet, we send our sons off to kill when we think it would benefit our country! The true man of God is heartsick, grieved at the worldliness of the Church, grieved at the toleration of sin in the Church, grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church. He is disturbed that the corporate prayer of the Church no longer pulls down the strongholds of the devil ======================================================================== CHAPTER 85: S. REVIVAL SERIES ======================================================================== REVIVAL SERIES Lecture I by Leonard Ravenhill Revival......another definition would be to recover, repair or restore. Hosea 10:12 says: "Sow to yourself in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord till He come and reign righteousness upon you." What is fallow ground? Fallow ground is ground that has been fruitful, and then it has been plowed over, and no seed has been sown in it, and therefore it has become unproductive. Notice, there is a human emphasis here -- it says that we are to break up -- you break up your fallow ground. Now take another aspect of it here in Psalms 85:6 "Would Thou not revive us again: that Thy people may rejoice in Thee." So, there is an absence of joy, of vitality -- there is an absence of ecstasy. The very word "revive" presupposes life. You can only revive what has already had vitality -- life that has become sick, weak, or apathetic. I think the nearest analogy I can give you is a recent case of a man who apparently drowned. He had been under the water for an incredible amount of time. Then somebody pulled him out and worked and worked on him, and eventually life came again. This is actually what it means to revive, It means to revitalize. It means to restore lost power. It means to recover lost energy. In the Acts of the Apostles 3:19 we read, "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord." Whatever else we say about revival we have to recognize this, that revival is an act of mercy in the sovereignty of God. There is a vast difference between revival and evangelism. When we speak of revival in America we think of church advertising, "Our revival will begin next Sunday night at a certain time and it is going to finish the next Sunday night at a certain time." Obviously this is something purely mechanical, it is something which men have engineered. I think that one of the offenses of revival, in the historic sense, is that it cannot be organized. As Doctor Tozer said, "When revival comes it changes the moral climate of a community." You can have revival that covers a church -- Spurgeon had that. You can have a revival that covers a city. You can have a revival that covers the whole nation -- and I am thinking in this context more than in the other contexts (though sometimes revival spreads from here to there -- like fire spreads.) Revival cannot be organized -- evangelism can be organized. Revival cannot be subsidized -- evangelism can and usually it must be. Revival cannot be advertised -- evangelism can. It may cost millions of dollars, as it often does, to have one of our huge, modern, so called revivals. You have to pay vast sums of money for time on TV, for example -- perhaps a million dollars a night. That’s incredible, that’s unthinkable to me in the context of Biblical revival, or even historical revival. Why doesn’t revival need to be advertised? For the simple reason, that fire is the most self advertising thing that there is, whether it is a physical fire or a revival fire. It draws people like a magnet. To bring this down to modern technology -- revival cannot be computerized. There is information that you can put in computer and presto, you get the answer predicting an outcome according to the facts that were put in. But you cannot computerize or predict revival. There are periods in which one thing predominates. Sometimes revival is totally taken over by sorrow. Sometimes revival is totally taken over by joy, ecstasy ’till you don’t know whether you are in the flesh or whether you’ve gone out of the earth. Sometimes revival is taken over by stillness. There are times when you go to a prayer meeting and the power of God is there. There is stillness and you feel it is creative. You feel, "Now something is building up around here, somebody is going to come out shortly with a heart bursting... with some agonizing prayer..." Revival cannot be rationalized. Again, one of the offensive things about revival is you can’t put your finger on the spot, usually, as to how or why or where it began. It is supremely an act of God. You find a man would go with a series of messages to a community and before long that community is alive, it’s throbbing. He goes to another town with exactly the same group of men, the same type of prayer is poured out, the same sweat and soul travail and there is no response. You can’t predict and you can’t organize revival. Why? Because you can’t organize where the wind is coming from. The Spirit, the wind, bloweth where it listeth. If you say it’s going to come this way, it comes that way. If you say God’s going to use that man, very often He doesn’t even bother with that man. Revival so often comes through unknown characters. I don’t think the world has ever been in a greater sense of turmoil than it is in this moment. I don’t think our nation has. Whatever we shall say about revival we have to recognize this: There are three things about natural life: conception, gestation, and birth. You can’t alter the program. There has never been revival, that I can trace, that has not been preceded by agonizing prayer. You might say, "I haven’t got to that stage yet of agonizing prayer. How does is come?" Well, it comes through VISION. If we are really going to get a concept of revival we have to get a vision of God’s sorrow over sin. We have to get a concept of how, day by day, we offend God. As a nation we offend God in millions of ways. When I was praying in the Bahamas one day, I saw a great column of smoke, which happened to be coming from tires that were being burned. It was as black as could be, and over there I saw a wisp of smoke going up from the ground. I didn’t think much of it until about a year after, I was praying and the Lord said, "That volume of black, thick smoke is like the volume of sin that goes up every day." All the blasphemy, all the unbelief, all the dirty stories, all the lying, all the deception, all sex-perversion, all drunkenness -- this tremendous column of iniquity goes up in the sight of God. And here you have a little wisp -- of what? That is the praise that God gets out of His people. If we are going to realize how much we need revival we need to recognize the dimension of sin. We have to recognize that sin offends God. Psalms 85:4 says, "Turn us, O God of our salvation and cause Thine anger towards us to cease. Wilt Thou be angry with us forever?" Psalms 80:1-19 verse 3, "Turn us again, O God, and cause Thy face to shine." Notice, it’s repeated again in verse 7 and in verse 19, "...cause Thy face to shine." "...cause Thy face to shine." You know, I think one of the awesome tragedies of our day is this: the people of Israel could not live if God turned His face away from them and seems now we cannot live if God turns His face on us! The awesomeness of God’s presence... The awesomeness of God’s majesty... We’ve had meetings, in the last month particularly, where I would sit down at the end of the meeting. I didn’t know what to do with it, and the pastor said, "Well, I can’t handle a meeting like this, what do you do?" The invasion of God’s power was so awesome that there was no way that you could handle it, so you just let the meeting ride itself out. We were having meetings five hours long, beginning at seven at night and finishing at midnight. College students came, and university people, and business people. When God comes, our social distinctions don’t matter, our intellectual distinctions don’t matter. There is an overwhelming sense that God is dealing, not with my intellect, not with my body, not with my emotions so much as with the inner man... the inner being... the inner temple which He wants to indwell. Isn’t it amazing that with all the Iatola Khomeni has done, he has done some good things. He kicked liquor out of the country. Our president daren’t do that. Last week he called his whole nation to five days of prayer and fasting. Do you think we have anybody in Washington who has enough insight to do that? With all the talk of spirituality they don’t have enough sense to do that. Joel speaks about the priests, the ministers of God. Look at Joel 1:13, "Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl ye ministers of the altar, come lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God." Go over to verse 12 of the 2nd chapter, "Turn ye now even to Me with all your heart and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: and rend your heart, and not your garments." Come down to verse 17, "Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare Thy people, O Lord, and give not Thine heritage to reproach." Now, how do you get to that state? There is no way you can jump to that level in ten minutes. It is an operation. It’s a process. It’s a preparation. There has to be an individual breaking up of fallow ground in me. What is there in my individual life that obstructs the flow of the Spirit? If you are going to break up fallow ground you have to get your own life into a state of discipline -- and we are the most undisciplined generation of believers ever. There is no way of getting to revival unless previously there comes brokeness. What God wants is not to fill up empty pews. He is not concerned about filling empty churches, He is concerned about filling empty hearts. And empty lives, and empty eyes that have no vision; Empty hearts that have no passion, And empty wills that have no purpose. Have you ever thought about the enormity of the Jewish system? A great monolith of priests and Levites, and offerings and sacrifices, and new moons and Sabbaths, and Urim and Thumin. Then suddenly God puts one solitary individual there and he has one commission. "You go and prepare the way of the Lord." But he has all this against him: At least 2000 priests, a senior priest and elaborate temple. A system of buying and selling cattle and other things for sacrifice. An outer court, where you could come to a priest and tell him of your sin and your guilt and he would make an offering for you. And this fellow comes and he is saying that The religious system is all obsolete That God is going to manifest Himself independent of all of that And that there is Somebody Else! They say, "You must be the man." He says, "Oh, no, no, no! I am not the One. I am just coming to prepare the way of the Lord." Now think of the sorrow of God after Adam failed. Think of the sorrow of God after the whole system that He’d inaugurated failed. Think of something which may be even more awesome still: Think of the fact that 2000 years have lapsed since Jesus came and did a full work of redemption... and the church is still dragging its feet today! The human dilemma that we are in right now is that we have never been in a lower point. People say sometimes, "Don’t worry, we have got out of situations like this." Oh, no! We haven’t. Don’t you fool yourself. We’ve never gotten out of situation like this. You know why? Because we have never been in a situation like this. That’s why! We’ve never had difficulties like this. We’ve never had this plague of divorce. We’ve never had a million girls under 16 becoming pregnant, like last year. What did they say the night before last on the news, "Tonight 20,000 girls over the nation will get pregnant." Sex is a sport. Immorality is an accepted way of life. People say there are fewer divorces than last year. Well, how do you expect any more when they don’t get married? They did get married at one time and got divorced. They don’t even bother to get married now, just live together. Have a baby, so what? "We agree to part," that’s it. So we are a broken nation. Never, never in our history did we need revival more than today, the day in which we live. But you don’t wish revival... there is no such thing. People say to me all over the country, "I am interested in revival." I say, "Yes, so are a million other Americans." I find all kinds of people interested in it. I don’t find many people burdened for it. People are very interested in revival, but we don’t start to break the fallow ground. We don’t prepare the way of the Lord. I remember as a little boy I used to go to bed at night with a candle... you never had that joy, did you? I remember thinking how many other candles you could bring and light off that candle? I wonder and I wonder. I never found an answer, but I often used to wonder. It was Charles Wesley who wrote the hymn, "See how great a flame aspires, kindled by a spark of grace. Jesus’ love the nations fires, sets the kingdoms all ablaze. To bring fire on earth He came, kindled in some hearts it is, Oh that all might catch the blaze, all partake the glorious bliss." Jesus said, "To bring fire on earth have I come." Did you hear anybody preach on that text? What kind of fire? Well, surely not hell fire. Holy Ghost fire! The most devastating fire of all is not the fire that consumes a building. It isn’t even the fire of hell. The greatest, most devastating fire, is the fire of God. We say, "God is love, God is love, God is love..." And yet our God is a consuming fire. "Who shall abide the day of His coming," Malachi says. "He is like a refiner’s fire." Mathew 3:16, "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and Fire." But you see, that aspect is not stressed in the day in which we live. Everybody talks about the baptism. So what do you mean by the baptism? There is a baptism with the Holy Ghost and Fire. Not just with the Holy Ghost, but with Fire. When He comes He will "thoroughly purge His floor and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Which, again, can happen individually, or it can happen in a church, or it can come and work through a whole community or it can work through a whole nation. There will be a thousand people who, if you get a heart and a vision, will say, "Oh, you’ve got tunnel vision." Hmm? Well, I think the one reason why the Apostle Paul conquered... and triumphed... and out-smarted us... and out-suffered us... and out-prayed us... and out-sacrificed us... and out-preached us was because he settled for one thing: "This one thing I do." You’ve got to have one vision, You’ve got to have one heart, You’ve got to have one purpose, "This one thing I do..." I sell out to God’s will totally. Well, what does this become? Well, I believe this thing becomes an obsession, as I was saying to a brother this morning. For fifty years I’ve wept, and I’ve prayed, and I’ve groaned, and I’ve read, and I’ve fasted, and I’ve met with guys for nights of prayer, and days of prayer, and days and days of prayer, for revival. There isn’t much sign of it. Well, are you sure? You see, prayers never die. "What are these under the altar? The prayer of saints." You never pray a prayer that is born of God without it being on record with God. God never wastes anything. Do you think you and I have prayers born of grief, born of anguish, born of desire to see an overthrow of iniquity, (for after all that is what revival is) and you think God will let them die? Now again, the shadow of darkness and death is over this generation like nothing we’ve ever had before. And yet, the greatest tragedy of all is this: a sick church in a dying world. We have neither the vision nor the passion, nor at this moment, the intention of setting our house in order -- "to break the fallow ground" -- to prepare the way of the Lord. My hope is that as we go on here we are not just going to gather information and statistics about revival, but that we are going to individually seek personal revival. Copyright (C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 86: S. THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST ======================================================================== The Judgment Seat of Christ By Leonard Ravenhill "For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ." - Romans 14:10 KJV I want to tell you a story about when I was a young boy going to school. You know, I didn’t mind school too much, but in those days I was very envious of the school Captain. His name was Renton, and he sat just across the aisle from me. He was the best soccer player in the school and that’s what I wanted to be. He was the best at cricket, and I liked cricket. He was the best runner we had, and I liked running. He was not only an excellent athlete, but a very good artist as well. And on top of all that, he was the smartest guy in the whole school. If I could ever save up my stomachaches, I’d save them until the day before the final exam. But my mother was smart. She knew I was saving them up. I don’t know how she knew, but she always did. I’d get up that morning and say, "Oh mother, I don’t feel good at all. I think I should stay home today." But she’d always say, "You can stay home tomorrow - but not today." But staying home tomorrow wouldn’t do me any good because today was the day of the final exam. Today was the day of judgment! I know Renton never felt like that because whenever we had a test, as soon as the questions were put down on the board, he would get his paper and dash through them. He was through the first two or three subjects before I’d even gotten the thing read. He and another fellow used to say, "Oh boy, exams!" They knew they’d be first and second in the class when the grades came out, and so they were excited about taking the test. Final exams didn’t scare them. These boys were always at the top. They were not afraid of the Day of Judgment. They were not afraid - because they were prepared for it. QUALITY NOT QUANTITY "For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. "According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building upon it. But let each man be careful how he builds upon it. "For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. "Now if any man builds upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, "Each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire; and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work." (1 Corinthians 3:9-13) The above scripture is talking about the day all believers will stand before the Lord. When every follower of Jesus will account for his life and his deeds before all of heaven itself. Notice what it says very carefully, "...the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work." Not how much work, but rather what kind of work. Not the quantity but the quality. This scripture is speaking of your whole life’s work. In other words, your life’s work can be wood or hay or straw -- or it can be silver, gold, or costly stones. And on that day, the fire will put it to the final test. What fire? The Bible tells that God is love, but it also tells us that He is a consuming fire as well. (Hebrews 12:29) Paul continues by saying, "If any man’s work which he had built upon it remains, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire. " (1 Corinthians 3:14-15) This illustration would be extremely significant to the people of Corinth that Paul was speaking to, because not too long before this was written, their whole city was devastated by fire. They all knew firsthand what damage fire could do. When the fire swept through Corinth, every house that was built out of wood, hay, or straw, was devastated and left in ashes. But the more wealthy people there had houses built with beautiful pillars of granite, and some even had houses built totally out of marble. These houses made of costly stones were still standing after the fire swept through, though they were obviously very badly scorched. YOUR LIFE INVESTMENT Let’s visualize it another way. One man is given $10,000 and he invests it in wood - maybe some lovely mahogany. So this man’s entire life work is made out of wood. It’s very beautiful, but when the fire goes through it, what do you have? All you have is ashes, maybe up to your ankles, and that’s all there is left. The next man is given $10,000 and he invests it in hay. Another man given the same amount invests all of it in straw. Does that sound foolish? Well, people do it every day. Why? Because if you put $10,000 into hay or straw, it looks like you are getting a lot for your money. You could probably buy half the straw in Texas for $10,000, but, boy, you’re going to have a mess when the fire gets to it. Instead of ashes to your ankles, or ashes to your knees, it’ll be up to your nose maybe. But that’s what some lives are going to be like: wood, hay, stubble - then ashes. Now let’s look at a few people who made much wiser investments. There’s a man over here who has $10,000, and he invests it in gold. (He won’t get much at $400 an ounce, will he?) The next man invests $10,000 in silver, and another man invests the same amount in costly stones. Each of the six men I’ve just spoken of had the same amount of money, but they all chose different things to invest it in. Now, we are talking about your life’s work. Do you get the picture? Our whole life, from the very moment we begin to witness for Christ, including all of our service and our labor for Him, is going to be tested by fire. We must be very careful to make wise investments, or in the end, all that will be left is ashes. ETERNAL VALUE Will our life’s work stand the test of the fire when we come before the Lord? Will it have lasting eternal value - or will it end up in ashes? There’s an interesting difference between wood, hay, straw - and gold, silver, and costly stones. Wood, hay, and stubble are found above the ground. They catch the eye, just like many people’s ministries do. They are quite plentiful and easy to find. On the other hand, silver, gold, and precious stones are found below the ground. Nobody sees them - again, like many people’s ministries. They’re not just lying around in a field somewhere for anyone to pick up. They are much harder to come by; in fact, it takes a lot of hard work to get them. That’s why they are so expensive. They are of much higher quality than many other things, and much more rare too. Again, it’s the quality, not the quantity that sets their value. Many things are difficult in the Christian life, but we should desire to acquire those things which will hold their value, not only on earth, but in heaven as well. MINISTRY AND MONEY Every person’s life, including all of his ministry, is going to pass through the fire. There’s a lot of public ministry that’s going to go down in flames on that day, my brothers. The fire is going to take the big showy life of every man and burn it until only a bunch of ashes is left. I’m tired of seeing these fellows begging for money on television. I believe every dime that comes into any ministry will need to be answered for before the Judgment Seat of Christ one day. Jesus talked about these men who’d go and take widows’ houses. (Luke 20:46-47) Well, that’s what many are doing now. And they’re not satisfied that you give while you’re living, they ask you to hand over your house and all the rest to them in your will. They’re going to give an account to God in that day, but I believe we’re also going to give an account. A brother was telling me this week that when he got baptized and went down into the water, he suddenly realized that he had his wallet in his pocket. Not many wallets get baptized! We kind of say, "Lord, You look after my sins. I’ll look after the rest." You’ll give an account to God for every penny you’ve earned since you became the property of Jesus Christ. He doesn’t just take your sins - He takes all of you. Oh yes, many may want to get filled with the Holy Ghost and get a bank balance, but how many of you are big enough to say, "Lord, in this crucial hour in human history, let me fill up with the sufferings of Christ"? Can He share His sorrow with you? Are you prepared to challenge demon power and say, "Listen, I’ve moved into the place where the Apostle Paul was when he said, I glory in tribulations and necessities and reproaches’"? Watch out though, because if you’re going to get mature in God, all the dwarfs around you will criticize you and sneer at you and say, "Trying to be holier than the rest of us, huh? So you don’t have time for basketball or going to see a baseball game?" No, maybe you don’t, but that’s nobody’s business but yours and God’s. Do you get so near to the heart of God that you share His grief over the world and over the backslidden church that we have today? One of the most famous preachers in the country recently called at nearly midnight and said, "I’ve come to this conclusion: God Almighty has already taken His hand off America - for the simple reason that we’ve had so much light and we’ve rejected it!" It’s not only true that we live in a world of bankrupt politics, we live in a world (this is the most tragic part of all) of a bankrupt church. WILL CHRISTIANS BE JUDGED? I heard a woman say not long ago, "Well, praise the Lord. I’m glad I don’t have to account for anything when I go to heaven. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Wait a minute, you can never isolate a scripture by itself. There’s no condemnation for our past sins, and I’m sure we are all mighty glad of that. But God was always saying to Israel, "Remember when thou wast a bondsman in Egypt...remember your sin...remember your iniquity." You might say, "It doesn’t say the Christians are going to be judged out of the books." Yes, I think it does. Where? In Malachi (Malachi 3:16). It says that God has a Book of Remembrance, and I think it would do you good before you go to bed every night this week to ask God, "What did You put in Your book today for my life?" It doesn’t have to be some outward act. You can worship God on a tractor. It may not be the best way, but you can do it. The Bible says that "we shall all stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ" (Romans 14:10 KJV). I think that scripture means just what it says. THE HOLY DEAD A hymn writer says, "From earth’s wide bounds and ocean’s farthest coast, through gates of pearl, stream in a countless host, singing Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Hallelujah." All the saints of all the ages are going to be there. There’s another old hymn and probably not very many of you could recite it, but I’ll bet most of you know the chorus: "Oh, when the saints go marching in." You know, they dance to that every night down in New Orleans. They shuffle their feet along Bourbon Street and have a great time, but that song is not for them, it’s for the REDEEMED. It says, "When the saints go marching in." The saints will march into heaven in a multitude which no man can number. I can’t wait to see all the saints of all the ages. Man, I’ll be thrilled to look at Isaiah and Jeremiah and those major and minor prophets. We’ll be looking around and saying, "Hey, there’s Abraham. I didn’t think he’d look quite like that." But he’s going to be there, all right. And just think of seeing Matthew and Mark and Luke and John and everybody in Acts. Won’t it be wonderful to see those men who walked with Jesus! Let’s think about Paul for a moment. He gave his intellect to God. He wrote about 14 epistles and traveled all over Asia Minor. He was lashed at the post 195 times. He was in weariness, and fastings, and pain, and tribulation, and distress, and famine, and nakedness. He was subjected to false brethren and to perils of the deep. What do you think his reward is going to be for living a life like that? GRACE is free, but REWARDS are not free. You might say, "But you’re talking about works." Sure I am - because God did. Jesus did! COSTLY STONES Silver, gold, precious stones. What are the precious stones? When I read that, I think of the breastplate that was on the priests in the Old Testament. It was divided by four rows of stones - three stones in each row. Each stone was different. Each stone stood for the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel. The priest wore the breastplate over his heart as he went into the Holy Place to pray for the sins of the people. How do you handle this? Do you enter the holiest place of all to make intercession for the sins of the people? Do you enter into intercession at all? This is only possible through the blood of Christ and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Intercession is our job now. We don’t need to send a priest into the Holy of Holies. We can go ourselves! The New Testament tells us that we are all priests - that we are a part of the Royal Priesthood (1 Peter 2:9). Do you wonder why the world is poor and sick outside? Because we really don’t know how to pray, that’s why! Because we’re satisfied that we’ve left our lousy living and we don’t drink or lust or damn ourselves every day. We’re Christians now...and we’re so content and so happy and so satisfied. SILVER The silver . .. what is the silver? I guess you can interpret it in different ways. But I like to think of the scripture in the book of Proverbs that says, "The tongue of the righteous is as choice silver" (Proverbs 10:20). I believe that the silver may signify the words that we speak. I believe that God has an eternal record of every word we have spoken since we’ve been saved. That may be embarrassing. Oh, we won’t be ashamed of the good things we’ve said, but what about our idle words? You know, the gossip, the slander, the criticism, the prejudice. What about the time when somebody upset you and instead of being quiet, you just spilled out everything that was on your heart at that moment? And can you think of all the awesome words we’ve preached to thousands of people over the years? We’re going to answer for every word - and the fire is going to be put to them. Will they be wood, hay, or stubble - or will they abide the fire? GOLD What is gold a sign of? I believe it’s a sign of our devotion to God. If I could have a small melting pot here, I’d put your $10,000 worth of gold in it and melt it down. What happens when you burn gold? Nothing! It just changes from solid to liquid, but you don’t reduce it. Can you see all the saints standing in heaven? And there’s Leonard Ravenhill - standing before Christ whose eyes are filled with holiness. The whole place is breathing holiness. There in the presence and the majesty of an awesome God, the record of my poor life is read before all the saints of all the ages. And He puts the fire to my devotional life. Am I just a good showman? I sure like to preach because God called me to preach. I don’t care how I preach, and I don’t care whether you believe me either. I’m not responsible for that. I preach out of my heart all I believe, and I’d die for it. But say, am I just a showman? What’s my secret life like? I’ve said it many times and I’ll say it again - no man is greater than his prayer life. I don’t care how big his organization is. Let me live with a man awhile and share his prayer life, and I’ll tell you how tall I think he is, or how majestic I think he is in God. What’s your devotional life like right now? Would you like Gabriel to hand down the book of your devotional life for the last month so it could be read out loud at church this Sunday? The gold is going to be tried through our devotional life. GREAT MEN OF PRAYER You’ll discover this: The men that have been the most heroic for God have been the men with the greatest devotional life. America has produced some of the greatest prayer warriors in the world. John Hyde was one of them. I knew someone who had prayed with him, and they said it was just awesome when this man went into prayer. There’s a little book out on him called "Praying Hyde" that would be well worth your reading. Edward Payson, better known as praying Payson of Portland, was another great prayer warrior. He used to kneel at the side of his bed and pray, and pray, and pray. When they washed his body for burial, they found great big pads on his knees like a camel has. Tradition says that James had camel’s knees, but it’s a living fact that Payson had them. When they were washing him, somebody said, "What abnormal knees. They’re heavy with callouses." That’s because he used to pray at the side ofhis bed with energy - and he wore two grooves about six or seven inches long into that hard floor where he used to pray and make intercession. One day I was in the Bible School of Wales and there was dear Mrs. Rees Howells. (Her husband was dead now.) We stood on the terrace and she turned and said, "Do you see the room there?" I said, "Yes, I see that room." "That door?" "Yes." "Daddy (meaning her husband) went through that door at six o’clock in the morning and he stayed there until six o’clock at night every day for 11 months except the one day that his mother died." Let’s preview eternity and look at all the apostles and all the saints of all the ages. Look, there’s Charles Finney with his amazing revivals. There’s William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. There’s John Wesley. Here are all the great heroic figures we’ve all read about, and they are all watching while the book is handed down and somebody’s going to read the record. Would you volunteer and say, "Well, I’ll be happy to read my record to this multitude"? Suppose I say, "Gabriel, hand me the record for the year of 1724." When I open the book to that year and go to the "B’s," I find the name, David Brainerd. He was a young American who died at the age of 28. All he possessed was a cowhide that he wore with a rope tied around it. He used to ride over the Susquehanna River to follow the Indians. David had a severe case of tuberculosis and only weighed about 95 pounds. I remember reading his diary once. He said, "I got up this morning and the Indians were still committing adultery and drinking and beating their tom-toms and shouting like hell itself. I prayed from a half hour after sunrise to a half hour before sunset. There was nowhere to pray in the Indian camp. I went into the woods and knelt in the snow. It was up to my chin." No, he didn’t have a heater with him or anything else. He was just there in the frigid snow, tuberculosis and all. He continued, "I wrestled in prayer until a half hour before sunset, and I could only touch the snow with the tips of my fingers. The heat of my body had melted the snow." What amazing intercessory prayer! Well, God pity us. We can’t even get people into our churches to pray, and we have velvet cushions on the seats and nice stuff on the floor so our darling little knees won’t get hurt. David Brainerd, Praying Payson of Portland, John Hyde, and Rees Howells - when God puts the fire to their devotional life, I don’t think there will be anything lost. It won’t be wood, it won’t be hay, and it won’t be stubble. TRUE JOY I’m embarrassed to be part of the Church today because I believe it’s an embarrassment to a holy God. Most of our joy is clapping our hands and having a good time and then afterwards we talk all the nonsense of the world. We’re overboard on laughter and happiness. There’s an old saying in the world, "Laugh and the world laughs with you." I change it and say, "Laugh and the Church laughs with you, but weep and you weep alone." Because there isn’t enough real joy in the house of God, we need entertainment. Entertainment is the devil’s substitute for joy. Because there isn’t enough power in the house of God, people are always looking for something to take its place. We point the finger at the world, but we need to turn to the Church and say we’d better all get sackcloth and ashes and humble ourselves and say "Almighty God!" When I see the Church in the New Testament, they didn’t have stately buildings or paid evangelists or a lot of money. (They couldn’t get on television and beg!) But I’ll tell you what they did - they turned the world upside-down! Have you ever seen the little plaque that reads, "Only one life, ’twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last?" Well, that’s not what the poet wrote. The poet wrote this: "Only one life, ’twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last. And when I am dying, how happy I’ll be, if the lamp of my life has been burned out for Thee." Do you think all Christians die happy? Not on your life! Some of them die as miserable as sinners. Why? Because they’ve misused their time and wasted their lives. Many of you have laid dying on a hospital bed and prayed, "Lord, if You would only spare me, I’ll do this, that, or the other." Well, have you done it? I discovered this poem the other day and I want to share it with you. His Plan For Me When I stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ And He shows His plan for me, The plan of my life as it might have been Had He had His way - and I see How I blocked Him here, and checked Him there, And I would not yield my will, Will there be grief in my Savior’s eyes, Grief though He loves me still? Would He have me rich and I stand there poor, Stripped of all but His grace, While memory runs like a hunted thing, Down the paths I cannot retrace. Lord, of the years that are left to me I give them to Thy hand Take me and break me and mold me, To the pattern that Thou hast planned! -Author Unknown The only thing that will tie me in victory continually, through the blood of Christ, is that I give Him my adoration and my tribute every day. It’s more than my service. It’s more than giving money. But I need to love Him, magnify Him, and adore Him. I need to take Him, as it were, by the feet and worship Him. If we will do this, then we will experience real joy and lasting happiness. CROWNS, CROWNS, CROWNS! I don’t believe there will be any envy in heaven, but I could remind you that there are at least five crowns to be given in reward. Paul says the Lord will give him a crown of righteousness, which he says the Lord will not only give to him, but to all those who love His appearing (2 Timothy 4:8). There’s a crown for the martyrs - those who have died and those yet to die. Crowns, crowns, crowns! We won’t all be the same in heaven. There will be great distinctions there. When you see a political convention, you see people holding up signs from California or somewhere. Well, maybe there will be signs in heaven. "These are the Prayer Warriors." "These are the Great Sufferers." "These are the Travailers." "These are the Missionaries." "These are the Failures." All kinds of people are going to be listed in that Great Day. There will be great distinctions between people in heaven. There was a little woman in Ireland who had two shops. She paid all the family expenses with what she made from one shop and she saved all the money that came in from the other shop for missions. She ended up sending four of her children to the mission field and she financed each one of them. Man, she’s going to have a reward some day, isn’t she? Because she was doing it as unto Him! Take a look at the dying thief. Oh, he’ll be in heaven all right because Jesus said he would - but he wasted his life. Then look at John Wesley for example. He was saved soundly when he was 35 years of age, and he served the Lord for the next 53 years. You couldn’t think that the dying thief, a man who got in at the last tick of the clock, is going to have the same reward as John Wesley, could you? Wesley made an awful lot of money. Do you know what he did with it? He built orphanages and churches. He printed Bibles and hymn books. There was no time wasted in his life. He was methodical and systematic. He went to dinner with the greatest man in English literature and the man said, "Now you’ve finished dinner, let’s fold our legs under the table and have a nice time of conversation." Wesley said, "I’m sorry, I have to go." "But it’s not yet nine o’clock, why are you going?" Wesley said, "I have an appointment in the morning at four o’clock." "At four o’clock tomorrow morning?" "Every morning of my life," he said. "With whom?" "With God." He disciplined his life. He disciplined his body in eating. He disciplined his hand in his pocket. He’ll stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ...an awesome prospect for any of us. "We ought to live every day as though we’ve come out of another world into this world - but with the power of that world still upon us. We should live and speak and move in that power, and have our whole being in Jesus Christ!" THE FRAGRANCE OF WORSHIP I heard the story for years, about the woman who came to Jesus with an alabaster box of ointment, before I understood it - before I realized that she came for one reason only. She came to worship Jesus. How do I know? Because she brought the most sacrificial gift she had and because she never said a word while she was there. How do I know? Because she didn’t wash His feet with water, but with her tears. She didn’t dry His feet with a towel, but she dried His feet with the hair of her head. And she poured out that costly fragrance and then wiped His feet. So what happened? The fragrance she poured out on Him came back on her. Do you wonder why your life isn’t more fragrant? It’s because you don’t take time to be holy. You don’t take time to be with Jesus. Because you think all the knowledge you get at Bible school is enough. Oh no, God isn’t going to measure your intellect. He’s going to try your life with His fire. Did you get up this morning and thank God you were pure? Did you thank Him that He broke that devilish fever you used to have for sniffing cocaine or something? Are you really glad you’re not a prostitute anymore, but now you’re a part of the Bride of the Lamb instead? Are you glad He removed your bad temper and all those creepy horrible things that used to master you? I think again of a statement A. W. Tozer made to me once. He said, "Len, you know, we’ll hardly get our feet out of time into eternity that we’ll bow our heads in shame and humiliation. We’ll gaze on eternity and say, ’Look at all the riches there were in Jesus Christ, and I’ve come to the Judgment Seat almost a pauper.’" For God had not only given us Jesus Christ - He has with Him freely given us all things (Romans 8:32). A DIFFERENT PEOPLE I remember crossing a square in the city of Bath in the 1940s. I saw two very fine young ladies - well, one was a young lady and the other was only a girl. They were beautifully dressed and as they marched across that square I thought, "There’s something different about those girls." Then I discovered that they were princesses. It was our present Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth, and her sister, Margaret. They were part of English royalty, and you know, there was a dignity about them very different from anybody else who walked there. Well, as Christians, we are part of GOD’S Royal Family, and it should be evident to all that we meet that we are a different type of people. If we can’t live as a different people on this earth, we’ve no right to live here. We shouldn’t be affected by changing customs or changing styles or changing opinions, or whether the stock market goes up or down, or whether the clouds are gathering for war. Those things don’t make any difference. We ought to live every day as though we’ve come out of another world into this world - but with the power of that world still upon us. We should live and speak and move in that power, and have our whole being in Jesus Christ! BAPTISM OF OBEDIENCE That final day is going to be awesome. Have you figured how you’ll get on when you stand there? You and I will stand there alone on that day and be judged for every aspect of our lives - for our praying, our giving, our talking, and our doing. I still believe in the majesty of that eternal court, with the King of kings and the Lord of lords and the Judge of judges. You see, there’s no possibility of any rehearsal, and what’s more, there’s no possibility of any repetition. Because, again, this is the Final Judgment, and to some God will say, "Come, ye blessed," but to others He’ll say, "Depart from Me." No, it’s not so simple to be a Christian after all. It’s a majestic thing. We ought to live our lives conscious of eternity - ready to be cut off at any moment. If you were to stand before the Lord at this very moment, would you like your life story read by all the millions in eternity? None of the outcasts of hell are going to be there. Won’t it be wonderful - or will it? Or do you think you might shrink a bit when you hear now God used David Brainerd or John Wesley or some little washerwoman that had a life of intercession? There’s no burden too heavy, or no situation too hard for the one that you love. If we are love-controlled, love-motivated, and love- energized, it will be all right when we stand up there, because if there’s anything about love - it’s obedient. We need to become a people who are baptized with obedience. We need to be submissive to the total will of God, not concerned about human opinion, and not asking for more to spend on ourselves. We need to say, "Oh God, I want this life of mine to glorify You, so that when I stand in Your awesome presence, as John says, I shall not be ashamed at Your appearing" (1 John 2:28). [Except where otherwise noted, all Scriptures are quoted from the New American Standard Bible, The Lockman Foundation 1977. Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version.] Copyright (C)1996 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 87: S. THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION ======================================================================== The Power of His Resurrection Php 3:10 By Leonard Ravenhill Philippians the third chapter and verse ten: "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;" There are obviously four statements in this verse: First, "that I may know Him." Second, "and the power of His resurrection." Third, "the fellowship of His suffering." Fourth, "being made conformable unto His death." Paul is writing here to the saints at Philippi. Philippi was named by Alexander the Great for his father, Philip. We are told that this was really the birth place of the Roman Empire because of a battle fought here and won. But Paul is considering in this epistle something infinitely greater than any perishing empire of men. It is wonderful, to me anyhow, that here is this aged man... battlescarred and worn, but notice his prayer: his aspiration never dies his vision never becomes dim, the fever on his spirit never, in any way, got dull He does not pray to be released from prison... he might have done that. He does not pray even that he might have a ministry here... though I am sure he aspired to that. He does not pray that his body may be healed... I am sure that though he was not diseased, he was possibly terribly weak by the suffering he’d endured. His aspiration is this: First, that I may know Him. Usually the text gets that weight put on it: That I may know him, and sometimes, the other part: The power of His resurrection. Now, there is no question, at least in my mind, about this: The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the standard of power in the New Testament. What is there after that? ... It is the miracle of miracles! I don’t think an Easter Sunday goes by, indeed it does not, in that I am not reminded of just a little phrase from an old hymn: "Today he rose and left the dead, and Satan’s empire fell." Sometimes I hear people say: "Lord, destroy the work of the devil." He has already destroyed the work of the devil! The proof, the standard of God’s power in the New Testament is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The standard of God’s power in the Old Testament was the deliverance of the people of Israel through the Red Sea which brought them finally into the land of promise. In the Old Testament the miracle is the raising of a dead nation, because they were in captivity, in Egypt, which is a type of the world. They were under the dominion of Pharaoh, which is a type of the devil, and they were brought as the Word of God says, "God called them with a strong hand. He delivered them with a strong hand and a stretched out arm." All the way from Moses to Malachi there is a constant referring to "Look what God did when He delivered Israel." Now, is anything bigger than that? Have you got a problem bigger than that? Can you imagine anything that demands on God more than that? So, He delivered them. He brought them out of captivity. He snapped their fetters, and He led them by His own hand and His own arm. In the New Testament the standard miracle, the standard of God’s power, is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Then, because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, there is of course the resurrection of the individual from the dead. We are told so again and again. Ephesians 2 for instance says: "You have been quickened who were dead in trespasses and in sins." Now, he does not say that we will die. He says that we were dead. And the same miracle power that raised up Jesus from the dead is the power that raised us up from the dead. You know, I don’t think it put any strain on God to make the world. He just created it. It did not put any strain on God to create light. He just spoke the word and said: "Let there be light," and there was light. But I am going to suggest to you that in a sense it put a strain on God to raise Jesus from the dead. In the sense that it tells us in Ephesians what is "the exceeding greatness of His power to us all who believe according to the working of His mighty power when He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and set as His own right hand in heavenly places." There is an awful lot of energy there! He says: "the exceeding greatness." You see, there are measures of God’s power exerted through the Word of God. Sometimes a thing doesn’t even cost God as much power as others. But it says here: "the exceeding greatness of His power towards us who believe according to the working of His mighty power which He WROUGHT in Christ when He raised Him from the dead." There was a very tragic thing happened during the past week. A young couple with a very beautiful child discovered the child was missing. Sounded an alarm. Eventually they received a phone call to say that the child will be returned unharmed for JUST a couple of million dollars. The child happened to be the grandchild of one of the great tycoons in South America. A man who has made multi-millions of dollars out of tins. Immediately contact was made with him and of course he got everybody stirred up about this awful tragedy that happened in Europe. A child had been stolen. The demand was two million dollars. He said: "We’ll pay it." Now, do you think it took any energy for that man to reach over and take his check book and, having ten million dollars just write out a check for two million dollars? That demands no energy, only to write the check. But what I am going to suggest is that there was nothing in writing the check. There were awful anxieties and problems in his spirit, in his mind, everything was tormenting him. When he thought about all the possibilities that there were in getting that child back. To interpret that this way: God said, "let there be light," and there was light. But I don’t think He said, "let there be Calvary," and there was Calvary. You are dealing here with moral and spiritual principles. You are dealing with powers of darkness. Now, Jesus Christ was a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And I think again that we forget so much of the agony of the Father from the time Jesus left the ivory palaces to come into a world of woe. The loneliness was on the behalf of the Father, because He had no one in heaven with whom He could communicate. And He sees His Friend going there to the cross. His Son is going to bear the whole sin of the whole world. There is only one way to do it ... as the hymn writer says: "Thou didst not spare Thine only Son, but gavest Him for a world undone." But you see, Calvary is the expression of the love of God. Calvary expresses the love of God. The resurrection explains the power of God. You think about all the colossal Epistles that Paul has written. He’s got the most amazing track record of any man that has ever lived outside of Jesus: He has raised the dead, he has opened the eyes of the blind, he has cast out demons, he has written more epistles than all the other men put together. AND YET HE SAYS: "I WANT TO KNOW HIM." It isn’t that he does not know Him; he says there is a fuller revelation of Him. I’ve been thinking about this text for a few days. Then I read a letter from an old friend - he is 96 years old now - and it just fits right in with what I had been thinking. He said, "Ravenhill, I have been thinking about that word where Paul says ’That I may know Him and the POWER of His resurrection.’ Now look," he said, "for sixty years I’ve been trying to fathom that, but I do not understand the mystery of it. There is something there I can’t unearth." It reminded me of when we were in Ireland. There was a little godly man by the name of Busby in a town called Dungannon. He was a strange character for sure; that is why he liked me, because we were both strange. He had a marvelous ministry of prayer and healing. One day we went to his little house, it wasn’t much more than a shack, and he said: "Well, I’ve got it, I’ve got it." "You got what?" "Remember I told you there is no water around here?" He had started digging a well four feet in diameter. It was a heart breaking job, but he is a muscular man. He had been a weight lifter, though he was only about five feet high he had a tremendous physique. He went down fourteen feet and then he came to a slab of rock. As hard as any rock you ever saw in your life. And his friend said: "Well, Smarty, there you are. What are you going to do now?" He said: "Shift the rock. It’s a plug. And when I pull that plug the water is going to come." He just turned that rock on one side and water poured out. He could hardly get out of the well fast enough. You know, when I read what my old friend said I thought: that’s right. There is something in this word resurrection that as yet we have not fathomed. There is a plug here if you like, we’ve got to lift it and discover what there is lying underneath it. Look again at Paul. Man I would be intoxicated with joy if I had a ministry like it. I get people sometimes who say: "You wrote me a letter; it turned my life around." Well, I thank God I can be His servant in that... But Paul has written letters that turned millions of lives around. Starving people have gone to his epistles and found strength. Thirsty people have gone and found something to drink. The weak have gone and found energy in them. The hopeless have gone and found hope. People that were just at the end of their tether suddenly started to live because this man had an inspiration. Yet he says: "despite that, you won’t spoil me. I may have written epistles, I may have raised the dead, but let me tell you something I want to aspire: I want to know Him, and I want to reach out in life. I want to know my resurrection Life." You see, no other religion in the world has a resurrection. This is the crowning miracle of God. Paul builds like a pyramid upside-down with all his epistles. Fourteen if you count Hebrews as his. And putting Hebrews at the top, he turns them all over and balances them on a fine point saying: "with all I’ve given you... about the mercy of God, the majesty of God, predestination, all the future, ALL is balanced on one thing: THE RESURRECTION. And if there is no resurrection you are through, you are yet in your sins!" Well, what is unique about it? Other folk had experienced resurrection. Didn’t Jesus raise people up from the dead? Yes He did. Because He said: "I AM the resurrection." The resurrection isn’t part of my theology, the resurrection IS A PERSON. Paul made it clear in the twenty-fourth chapter of Acts. He said: Because Jesus rose everybody will rise. One day a man lifted a latch as it were...( you know, like sometimes you’ve opened a door and everything in the cupboard was falling out and you try to get it back and somehow it wouldn’t, and you thought, "Oh, I’ll let it go." Pum! Out it comes. We’ve all done it.) One day a man lifted a latch and he let iniquity come into the world. And by one man’s sin he polluted the whole human race. To pollute one life is bad, but to pollute millions and billions of people since creation...!? Then Newman says in his hymn, which isn’t quite right, "Oh loving wisdom of our God, when all was sin and shame a second Adam..." No, not a second. If there is a second there might be a third. He was the LAST Adam. "Loving wisdom of our God when all was sin and shame a last Adam to the fight and to the rescue come. Oh, wisest love that flesh and blood which did in Adam fail." I can’t prove this, but I’m sure that one day Jesus said in Eternity to His Father, who was heart broken over the sin in the universe, "Father will you let me go to earth and show them you can live in flesh and blood and be a perfect example of Your Holiness? I can live there and obey You even if the gates of hell came upon me." And He wants us to think as He did, like the Word of God says, "As He was, so are we in this world." God expects me to have the world of flesh and the devil under my feet. I’ll get bruised. My emotions will raise or fall. My days will be dark or light. It has to be that way . It is the way the Master went... I was reading today where Paul says, "Sorrow came upon me." I was reading of Jesus when He went into the garden and it says, "As he went into the garden He was in great heaviness of spirit." Don’t let the devil trick you on your emotions. Your standing with God does not change because your feelings change. I get up one morning, I could conquer the world with two fingers; I get up the next morning and I feel if somebody blew on me I’d nearly fall over. Emotions are so uncertain. They are so unpredictable. You can’t chart a course for them. Jesus says I am the resurrection and the Life. Oh, I love, I love, I love to think of old Parker, maybe not the greatest preacher, but sure a great preacher of England. Visualizing that resurrection morning when the stone was put over the grave... and those precious women... (Remember this: they were the last at the cross they were the first at the sepulchre). And that one precious woman, can you imagine that one? She was going to carry the body of Jesus, and you know what? If it’d been there she’d have done it too. Because there are times that with your zeal and human love you can do things you could never have... she would have taken that body if she could. But no. She got there and the stone was there - just before she got there, anyhow - and then over the stone the wax and over the wax the seal. And then the soldiers and then finally... I can see Satan saying: "I’m not sure if I can manage this," and then some demon says: "Your majesty, let’s roll the sin of the world against the stone. Now we’ve got Him. The stone, the wax, the seal, the soldiers, the sin of the world." "Well, I’m not sure that we’ll keep Him captive." And a demon says: "Your majesty, supposing every demon puts his shoulder against that stone we’ve got Him now."... When I hear the Cape Canaveral countdown I always think: Friend, you are two thousand years too late, because the countdown was the resurrection morning. Old Lucifer says: "We’ve got Him now, hold Him. We’ve got the stone, the wax, the seal, the soldiers, the sin of the world, every demon. HOLD IT, HOLD IT, HOLD IT, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five..." He was just going to say two... and the Holy Spirit slipped in and RAISED UP JESUS FROM THE DEAD. How do I know, because Romans eight says that. "The Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead." His resurrection is wonderful, but He raised me from the dead! God perpetuated that miracle in me: "You hath He quickened who were dead on transpasses and sins."...not you will die, but you were dead. Some of us would even admit more than that, we stank as well. We smelled, we made other people feel the rottenness of our lives. When Jesus says, "I am the resurrec..." I like that. I happen to know at the end of the Revelation Jesus says: "Listen, I am He that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive andI have the keys of death and of hell." And friend, you won’t die one minute before God wants you to if you are in His will. I don’t care if you rot in a concentration camp or what. He has the time of your death, He has the time of my death. He has the keys, nobody will destroy us. HE HAS THE KEYS. "All power is given unto Me," He says. Well, I say, there were other resurrections. YES, but they were all different. You know, Jesus was quite comfortable in the presence of death, it didn’t trouble Him. Who did He raise from the dead? He raised Jairus’ daughter, He raised the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus. Three people He raised from the dead. What is the difference between their resurrection and His? Oh, a lot. First: theirs had no vicarious power to it. Second: they were all called forth from the tomb, He wasn’t. Third: when they came forth from the tomb they were all bound with cloths, headbands, and their feet. And we know Jesus walked out of it. He slipped out of those cloths like a... like a caterpillar slips out of a cocoon. He did not need anybody to call Him forth. So everybody else that was raised from the dead: Number one: somebody else called them --- nobody called Him. Number two: they were bound with cloths --- He was not bound with cloths. Number three: they all went back and died again. Didn’t they?... at least I have not seen them around. So I kind of figure they must be dead. But what does the scripture say about the Lord Jesus? Well, let me read it to you. Romans chapter 6 verse 8 it says: (Oh man, this puts the clincher on the whole thing.) "Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him." Man, that’s worth a thousand Alleluias; if you say one I’ll forgive you. Death hath no more dominion over him. Yes, sir!. The other men died twice. It’s appointed unto man once to die. Some of them, poor souls, had to die twice, that’s pretty rough isn’t it. You say, Enoch and Elijah did not die, did they? Hey you wait. Get to the end of Revelation see what happened. Who lies in the streets of Jerusalem? So God is going to fulfill... you see we live under a moral law. God said, "whatever a man shall sow, that also shall he reap." And if God says in Adam all die, they are going to die. But he says, "Jesus came..." knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him." Now lets step back a minute. I say that the Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead is the Spirit that quickens us, because man is dead in trespasses and in sin. That’s why sometimes you can’t drive home to people how bad they are. Sometimes we say, "they sit and reject the gospel"... they never heard it. They never heard it. With these ears yes...When Moody came to England he upset a lot of the preachers. He thought they were so, you know, nice English, stuffy Englishmen with their academic degrees and everything. Moody was a murderer, well, I mean he murdered the English language anyhow. Man, he could not say Jerusalem in three syllables, he said Jusum. He called Daniel, Daneel. It took the English about a week to figure out what he was talking about. He murdered the king’s English. He was not even a good looking man, he’d never gotten away with it in our day, he didn’t have a nice toothpaste smile, and a nice personality. But brother I’ll tell you, God was on that little shoe salesman from Chicago. There’s no man swept England since like old Moody did. Alexander McLaren, the king of the pulpit in the North of England, was in the meetings, on the platform and he listened with amazement. One day in one of the services at a big auditorium a man came down the aisle weeping and he collapsed at the altar. Alexander McLaren saw his main deacon come down to the altar. The main deacon of the First Baptist Church of Manchester, now at the altar listening to an illiterate American!? He said, "I went down to him and put my arm round his shoulder and said, ’brother Smith -or whatever he was- what are you doing here? You are a deacon." He said, "Yes, sir. I’m a deacon in your, church." "But I don’t understand," said McLaren, "as a matter of fact brother look, uh, I’m considered a great preacher and I preached on this text about three weeks ago and you listened to every word." The poor deacon said straight back to him, "But I never heard a thing you said." He heard it, but the inward ear was not open, he was dead, he was unresponsive in that sense. No man comes unto the Father, except the Father draw him. "You hath He quickened." Now listen, if He quickens. I don’t believe that necessarily everybody gets saved in the first meeting that they hear the gospel in, and I didn’t, for sure. I think there are times that, just like a worm eating in somebody’s heart, the Spirit of conviction comes until people get sleepless and troubled and worried and anxious and then finally you don’t have to coach or beg or threaten, the Spirit of God has done His work. But we don’t like it in these days. I’m making no excuses. I’m just saying this: people didn’t used to get saved like they get saved now. You know, even the Pentecostals that I know don’t have any tarrying meetings anymore; they used to when we were kids. The used to say to a deacon going out, "You know, I believe that I know there’s something wrong in my life and I’d like to come to a tarrying meeting. I want to tarry." And they used to have "tarrying" meetings. They had select company of deacons who stayed in that meeting ’till people met God. They wanted to be endued with power from on high. I don’t care which way its done, that’s not the point. But I’m saying, there no longer seems to be that raw deep conviction of the Spirit of God where men and women say, "Foul I to thy fountain fly, wash me Savior or I die! " Again, we offer people heaven. We offer them peace of mind. We offer them forgiveness. I never heard Graham clearer than when about a month ago he said, "Look, I’ve come to this conclusion, that salvation means this: Is your heart occupied by God?" Isn’t that what it really is? Christ in you the hope of glory? You see, again Paul runs his flag, to the Corinthians of all people - if there was a cesspool on earth it was Corinth. He runs his flag up there in his second epistle chapter 5 verse 17 where he says, "if any man,..." I love that! I never say it to myself, or pray it without getting goose pimples. "If any man be in Christ," any man, anywhere, of anytime, if he be in Christ he is a new creation!. God is not in the patching up business. He does not plug you where you are leaking; He makes man a new creation. Don’t we sing it in that lovely hymn of Wesley’s: "Finish then Thy new creation, pure and spotless let us be.?" Wesley was right when he said, "Justification is sanctification begun." Sanctification is instantaneous and progressive. The Christian life is process, crisis, process, crisis. Except it is uphill. If it were level it would not be so bad, but brother it’s uphill. Now when a man is born again in the Spirit of God... what does it say in Romans 6:4 and 5... if it really happened: "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. " And writing to the Colossians he says, "If ye be risen in Christ." The if there is not a question, it really isn’t. It’s a bad translation. Should be: "because you are risen in Christ seek those things which are above." When Jesus was raised from the dead He just shuffled off that coat, that cloak He was wearing and left it behind. Now if a man is a new creature in Christ all those habits are going to break away. You know why? Because habits are the clothing of the soul. And if you have filthy habits, when you are born again of the Spirit of God and become a new creation those dirty, filthy, rotten habits will drop off just like that. I remember preaching the first day of World War Two. I was to start an eight day crusade in the head church of the Nazarene in Glasgow, Scotland. That night before the meeting they announce World War Two had began. Well, that shattered our meetings, I’ll tell you. It was a big church, I don’t think we got more than fifty people, and we started to have the meeting in a side room, and I preached my heart out every night. One night I just said, "Look, if you have business to do, if you do not know you are born again of the Spirit of God, if you’re still bound, and fettered, and burdened, and your consciences lashes you, and the fear of death, and the fear of judgment torments you, come and receive Christ, confess your sin, ask for cleansing ask for the Holy Spirit." And I said, "We’ll wait. We won’t sing. You just walk out into that side room." If I remember right three people walked out. We prayed. We talked with them. Then I looked back and saw a fine rosy cheeked Scotch boy there and he beckoned me. I went to him and I said, "hello." He said, "My name is...Donald Wilson," I think he said, "Ach" he went on in his Scottish way, "Mr. Ravenhill, I am not a Christian. I believe I’m a very good boy. But oh, I need Christ." So I said, "Well that’s great. If you know that it’s a wonderful thing. Do you come from a Christian family?" He said, "Ach, no. My father is a communist, and he’s a very, very vicious communist." "What about your mother?" "Ach, she was a Christian, but she’s backsliden." I asked, "Well, how do you know?" "Ach, I know. She goes to movies." - You see, when you are born again, over in Europe, movies go right out. You never enter a movie house... otherways you are feeding the devil’s children with God’s money... you are spending time there... I’m just telling you what he said - Then he asked me about salvation, I told him what it meant. He not only got rid of his sins, he gave his life to Jesus, and Jesus became not only his Savior, but his Lord. And also, "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus..." I said, "Do you know what it means? Let me lay the cards on the table. It means that if you repent of your sins, and you take Christ as your Savior, you go home and when you get in you shut the door and you put your arms up like this and you say to your daddy... Will your daddy be home?" "Ach, he’ll be smoking his pipe in his chair, and reading the Glasgow Herald, and... Ach, he’ll be there drinking his beer maybe, and mother will be there." "All right," I said, "now you have a good chance. Shut the door, put your back behind it, fold your arms so you can’t get out and just say ’father, I’ve become a Christian tonight. I’ve taken Jesus as my Lord and my Savior." "Ach, ach, ach," he said, "does it mean all that." I said, "Well, He says if you are ashamed to confess Him, He’ll be ashamed to confess you before His Father in heaven." Well, I’ll tell you, the meetings did not swell too much. Everybody was terrified; there were threats that we were going to be wiped out by bombing every night. Yet a couple of dozen people came. At a latter meeting there was a man sitting there. A scared man with kind of a red thing around his neck. I just made a short appeal, I said, "Maybe there is someone here needs Christ tonight. If you do, you just up and walk into that room. I’ll come and pray with you." This man got up, and walked into the room. I talked with him. Asked him if he knew the... "No, no, no, ach not at all," he said, "not at all. I’m a communist." Oh, and he ranted away about communism, about the evils of this and that...but he said, "Listen that’s not the problem. I’ve got a wee laddie, he’s not fifteen. Do you know what he did? Two nights ago he came home and shut the door and put his arms up like this and said, ’Daddy, Mommy, you’ve got a new son. I’ve been saved and Jesus is my Lord and He’s my Savior. And he knocked me for a loop. I didn’t want to smoke, I didn’t want to drink my beer, I thought, ’what my laddie?’" "My god," he said, "I should have shown him the way." "My laddie’s got saved?" he said, "My laddie, where did it happen?" "Oh," he said, "there’s a..." (I think they call the English sasinack?) "sasinack preaching down there in the church and I went." "Oh," he says, "those are good folk, they are the only people have a street meeting down at the cross there. Now laddie," he said, "you’ll be in good company if you stay with those people." - That was a good testimony for a communist- He said, "You know, if my laddie got saved, if he needed saving, sure I need it." You know that big rough man that looked like he could have turned around and thrown me right through the building, he just bawled like a child. He said, "I am a sinner, I need a Savior. I’ll do anything you tell me." I said, "there’s only one thing to do: break your heart at the cross. Don’t make any excuses. Say: ’I’m a sinner. A sinner who on Jesus rely, and come for a pardon God cannot deny,’ and He’ll take you in." Well, I did not go back to that town for a few years. When I preached again in that stately church, the war was over. As we sat there the pastor, James Baxter McClagen, said to me, "Brother Ravenhill, you see that well dressed man over there on the left, the one with the white Scotch collar on and the..." "Yes," I said. "That’s Wilson." It did not ring a bell. "Wilson. Oh..." He says, "come on. You remember the communist that got saved because his laddie stood up and testified..." "Yeah." He said, "Well, that’s him. You know, he is about the strongest Christian in this church. Man, you can rely on that man, he’s as sure as the dawn. And as a matter of fact, he wants you to go to their home for a meal." I went to the house and the whole family had gotten saved, teenage daughters, mother had gotten back to God... I looked at the house, it was beautifully painted, beautifully done and he added, "You know, Mr. Ravenhill, I was the kind of guy who wanted to get the world right, and I wasn’t right myself." And he said, "I’ll tell you how much change it makes: Jesus Christ has not only changed my life, He’s changed the whole home. I wasn’t content even to live in the slum I was in. I thought, ’No this is not the place we should be.’ I discovered the Gospel did this: it met me personally, it met me domestically, it met me socially. Because I’ve been able to go back in the factory and tell men there of the miracle of the Gospel, that He took out the habit. And what I was cursing other people for I had in myself. I had money, but I spent it on liquor, smoking, all the other things, and since Christ came He completely changed and revolutionized my life." That’s the Gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. This is a classical case in my mind. Again, " you hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and in sin." Let me look at Colossians 3:1 and 2 before I finish. Paul says, "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things ’which are beneath.’" The destination is this:that the life is the life above. The design is this:set your affection on them. It’s one thing for God to make it possible, it’s another thing for us to appropriate that thing. Step back a minute into Colossians. It says again what Romans says in verse 12 of chapter 2: "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven all trespasses;" Now verse 20: "Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; ’Which perish with the using’) after the commandments and doctrines of men?" Now chapter 3:1 "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, ’wherein’ Christ sitteth on the right hand of ’the Father’" I am going to finish with this: Look, Paul, to me, is the most mature Christian that ever lived, the most successful ministry, the man who had such revelations that God said keep your mouth closed about it! (I sometimes wonder if he had a preview of what John finally saw in the book of the Revelation, but God says you can’t say a word about it. Somebody else is going to do it). Here is a man who’s reached the peak, as it were, of spirituality and yet he says, "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection." The resurrection of Jesus Christ ended all His ministry. It made a final, complete separation, and He had perfect peace when He lost the crowd, when He lost His miracle ministry. When he wasn’t teaching the basic laws of His Kingdom, the Kingdom of Love, nor Teaching the Sermon on the Mount. And He was contented just to walk, walk, walk in His resurrection life. Are you and I as contented as that? This man says, "Look, I’m in prison." I’m sure he was, because at the end of his epistle he says, "Listen, there are saints in Ceasars household." And I think maybe he was in a basement chained up down there. And again he did not ask for deliverance, he says, "You know, that resurrection power that quickened Him, I want that resurrection." It says here what it says nowhere else in the New Testament: "I want to attain the out resurrection from the dead. He is talking, I believe, about the out resurrection from the dead, but he is also talking about that resurrection power. Why? Because he says, "If you are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above." Not things earthly, sensual, devilish. Have as little as you can with it. Seek the lofty things, the holy things, the life of prayer, the life of inspiration, the life of joy in the Spirit. Remind yourself now, not when you "shuffle off this mortal coil." Tell yourself every morning: EVEN NOW I’M A CHILD OF GOD. Sure the world will rough me up. It roughed Him up. "Is this vile world a friend to Grace to help us on to God?" No sir, it’s not. As Tozer used to say, "Len, remember, keep this in your mind. Remember this: that while you and I are on earth we are passing through enemy territory." Yes, it’s hostile country. The old enemy is going to shoot darts at us. Oppositions are going to come. We are speckled birds . The world doesn’t like what we do. Doesn’t like what we say. Doesn’t like the way we act. It is a corrupt, evil, sinful, wicked world. It follows its god. It is ruled by the prince of the power of the air. There is an eternal antagonism between the two. But keep your head up. Remember that you can draw day by day, by day, by day, hour by hour, moment by moment on the resurrection life of Jesus, because the resurrection life of Jesus is the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus form the dead. The older I get the more I realize every work of the Holy Spirit is majestic. He gave us this Word, and I thank God it doesn’t go moldy like the bread to the children of Israel. They kept it too long, it went moldy. Well, this has been round two thousand years, its sweeter than honey in the honey comb. It’s more precious. The Holy Ghost made it. Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The Church, which is His body, was the creation of the Holy Ghost. The Child in the womb of the virgin Mary was conceived by the Holy Ghost. The dead in Christ He’s going to raise. And in that raising, gone is every sin that man has ever committed from here back to eternity... If a man will come...no matter what kind of sin it is. You can rate it as you like... put it in different categories, makes no difference. The Word of God says that Jesus was raised from the dead and He dieth no more. And because He lives we shall live also. The death of the Lord Jesus, the cross, proves the love of God. The resurrection proves the power of God. And "if He were risen from the dead," God intended we have under our feet what He had: The world, the flesh, the devil. Jesus is risen. He’s cut off from the world. He lives in it, but He is not of it. Again, I can’t explain what this does to me, but when I think that for 40 days and nights He didn’t say a word to the world. When I think that for 2000 years He’s never bothered with the Jews. Makes me wonder...if God turns His back on America before long we are in for an awful, awful lot of trouble. Worse than we’ve ever dreamed of. Maybe if Gabriel could shout a word to America right now, or to England, or to Australia, so called civilized countries, he’d say, what Jesus said: "Oh, Jerusalem, oh Corazin, oh Bethsaida, if thou knewest the day of thy visitation." We don’t know how blessed we are... We’ve food, we’ve clothing. You think it might take a judgment, or prison to get some people really together? To break down bad spirits, and unforgiving spirits, and hardness of heart? Will it have to be done in tears, because it hasn’t been done at the cross through the love of the Lord Jesus? Let’s aspire, by the grace of God, day by day. Lets say with Paul: "That we may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship..." I’m not asking to slip out of the fellowship. The Church of Jesus is suffering and I want to suffer with them in that sense, as best I can in spirit, and maybe we’ll do it physically. "That I might know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering, being made conformable to His death." Because if I really died. If that baptism I went into is a symbol only of something that had happened at the moment Jesus died, I died with Him. The moment that He rose, I rose with Him... And I am not dragging a withered limb. He did a complete job. Sure there are corrections, there are improvements, there is growth in grace. But He died that we might be cleansed, He died that we might be pure, He died that we might lead a victorious life. The resurrection life of Jesus quickening our mortal bodies. One day that resurrection will actually take place in a triumphant shattering of all the graves. They are going to come "from earth’s wide bounds and ocean’s farthest coasts, through gates of pearls will stream in a countless host, singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Alleluia. Won’t it be wonderful to sit down with Paul and ask what he really meant about this resurrection power? Lets keep reading, and lets keep believing, and lets keep obeying. PRAYER: Father we thank you. We are so glad again we have not followed a cunningly devised fable. We thank you for the revelation of truth which is eternal. We pray for an expansion of vision. An expansion of revelation. A deeper willingness to go further with Thee than we have gone before. That we may go and walk circumspectly, that if You would appear at our side, we wouldn’t embarrass You, because we are walking in the place of obedience. Let Your blessing be upon Copyright (C)1996 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 88: S. THE TAMING OF THE TONGUE ======================================================================== The Taming of the Tongue By Leonard Ravenhill Until recently, we were pretty much in the dark about the human body. But then came the X-ray with its peeping eye...a marvelous instrument which has saved us much human misery. It was able to show us the human heart, but it couldn’t show us the soul or it could show us the throat, but not the voice. The brain, but not the mind. Nevertheless, medical science has done much to help this outward man that perishes. If our eyes are getting dim, we can get glasses. If our kidneys or heart fail, we can have a transplant. But as far as I know, there is one member of the body that has never been transplanted. If we used our arms and legs as much as we use this part, we’d be incredibly stiff and sore. But this member never gets tired, and I’ve never seen one with a splint on it. As you get older you may get dentures - but you will always have the same tongue you were born with! There are artificial joints made these days, but no artificial tongues. My mother was pretty smart when it came to the tongue. She sprinkled her daily conversation with wise sayings like "Keep your tongue between your teeth" and "Think twice before you speak once." The Scottish people have some proverbs, too: "Keep your tongue a prisoner and your body will go free" and "A long tongue shortens friendships." My mother would also tell us, "Remember, one day you’ll answer to God for every word you say." The Bible mentions many kinds of tongues: a flattering tongue (Psalms 5:9) a proud tongue (Psalms 12:3; Psalms 73:9) a lying tongue (Psalms 109:2; Proverbs 6:17) a deceitful tongue (Psalms 120:2) a perverted tongue (Proverbs 10:31; Proverbs 17:20) a soothing tongue (Proverbs 15:4) a healing tongue (Proverbs 12:18) a destructive tongue (Proverbs 17:4) a mischievous and wicked tongue (Psalms 10:7) a soft tongue (Proverbs 25:15) a backbiting tongue (Proverbs 25:23) James also talks about the tongue. He says it’s a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. He calls the tongue a fire, the very world of iniquity. James says it is untamable, a restless evil full of deadly poison, used both to bless God and to curse men. But James also told us that a man who doesn’t stumble in what he says is a perfect man. (James 3:2-10) I wonder how startled James would be today to find out how much man has "conquered." We’ve put men into big, fancy tin cans, and shot them off into space. We’ve sent men into submarines without coming up to the surface for months. Man has had the moon under his feet and he’s left his footprints on the ocean floor as well. We’ve also put some fantastic canisters up into the sky, bouncing our voices off these satellites to countries around the world. Look at how we’ve harnessed the wind with giant windmills, and made the rivers and waterfalls drive our turbines. What incredible power man has over his world! And yet, he has still not conquered his own tongue. A Damaging Sword In Psalms 64:3 the tongue is called "a sword." This sword has certainly damaged, bruised, wounded, and killed more people than all the swords in all the wars since history began. You’ve seen it many times. That newly married couple - so lovey-dovey for days and days on end. But one day the fellow lost his temper and slashed into the heart and affections of his wife with uncontrollable anger and with words he might regret forever. But it was said. The damage was done. How often we need to remember that old saying: We cannot call back the arrow we’ve shot into the air, the water under the bridge, or the spoken word. One of the earliest poems I ever learned was: Angry words, O let them never From the tongue, unbridled slip. With the soul’s best impulse Ever check them, Ere they soil the lips. Angry words are quickly spoken, Bitter thoughts are rashly stirred. Fondest links of life are broken. By a single angry word. Is there something that could be numbered greater than the incomprehensible amount of stars in the heavens? What about the sands by the sea, every blade of grass, or we could add all of these things together. There would still be something that would exceed them in number! It’s the things said by this little monster called the tongue. This uncontrollable little red rebel that lives in a red cave guarded by two rows of white soldiers called teeth. Think about how many words are being spoken today just over all the telephones worldwide. And how about all the words slung around the globe by our TVs and radios? The tongue has done more damage than any other instrument in the human body. We are responsible for the words that we speak. "And I say to you, that every careless word that men shall speak, they shall render account for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned." (Matthew 12:36-37) Our own words snare us. (Proverbs 6:2) We are ensnared by vows and promises spoken, but not kept. By reckless criticisms and rash judgments. "How can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man out of his good treasure brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth what is evil." (Matthew 12:34-35) The human heart can be a snakepit, a dungeon of devilry, a foxhole of filth, a pit of perversity. Actually, it’s the manufacturing place of all uncleanness and all sin. The showcase of the heart is the tongue. My simple words cannot exaggerate the corruption of the heart. And the filth that comes out of a filthy heart comes through the lips. But when I’ve said all I can about it, the strongest thing is surely said in Proverbs 18:21 - "Death and life are in the power of the tongue...." A Rolling Story A rolling stone gathers no moss, but a rolling story gathers something fresh every time we say it. Every time we repeat it, something is added and something is taken away until it’s nothing like the truth. Some little bit of gossip starts with a whisper, then it swells and becomes a tumult, and somebody’s left heartbroken. Do you wonder that Proverbs 10:19 says, "When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise"? Or Ecclesiastes 10:14, "The fool multiplies words..."? How often we sing (full of self-pity) "Oh what needless pain we bear...." Someone should write a verse about what needless pain we cause when we lacerate people, wound them, and bruise them with our tongues. I want to sound a word of caution about the flippancy of our language, and the carelessness and exaggeration in the language used by preachers. What awful things come from their lips these days that cannot be justified by Scripture! Just this week I spoke with a big, strong professional football player who has now become a full-time evangelist...a very godly man. He broke into tears as he told me about the slander and deceit used against him among Christians. He said through his tears, "Mr. Ravenhill, I’ve suffered character assassination." I said, "Friend, you’re under a delusion that most Christians are under. There’s nobody that can assassinate your character. Character is what God knows you are. Reputation is what men think you are. They might have lied, wrecked your reputation, and made it almost impossible for you to get into other pulpits, but remember this" (as you read this, you remember it too): "The only one who can wreck your character is you. God doesn’t listen to gossip except to judge it. The only one who can lower or higher you in the estimation of God is you by your obedience or by your disobedience." Products of the Tongue Have the Christians of today improved over the Christians in Corinth? They didn’t have a Bible to read but Paul wrote boldly to them, "For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you to be not what I wish and may be found by you to be not what you wish; that perhaps there may be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances." These are all products of the tongue. Hey, friend, before we go any further, make out your checklist. Have you been in unprofitable, ridiculous debates, arguing just to win someone over? So very often we win the debate and lose the friend. Paul said that among these professing Christians there was strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disturbances. After Jesus Himself, I believe that Paul was the greatest preacher who ever lived. But when writing to the Corinthians, he said, "And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling." (1 Corinthians 2:1-3) That doesn’t sound like the Apostle we think of, clothed with all the armor of God, pulling down strongholds and putting the devil to flight. But then he goes on in 1 Corinthians 2:4, "And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom..." I doubt he was a fascinating preacher, juggling with words that sparkled. His job was to glorify Jesus. If we preach and people remember us, we’ve missed it. He says that his preaching was not with persuasive words of wisdom, "but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." He didn’t spend hours like some preachers, selecting the most fascinating and flashy words. Maybe we might say "fleshy" words. His concern was to project Jesus Christ only and Him crucified. There was nothing flippant or fleshly about what he said, and certainly nothing foolish. Paul warns us, "In reference to your former manner of life, lay aside the old self...be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth...Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice."(Ephesians 4:22-31) Paul also exhorts us, "There must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting..." (Ephesians 5:4) I’ve heard preachers eating dinner together get into borderline jokes, and then someone pushes it further until it’s totally disgusting. I like humor, but I don’t like stupidity, filthiness, or coarse jesting. Oh how many silly, stupid things are said. Dr. Tozer used to say to me, "Len, be careful. Remember, never, never, speak lightly of the devil. Don’t tell any jokes about hell." The devil is not almighty, but we must not forget that he is mighty. All too often Christians speak too lightly of the kingdom of darkness, as if to treat the whole thing as unimportant. (Jude 1:9) Muzzle Your Mouth David says, "I will guard my ways, that I may not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth as with a muzzle." (Psalms 39:1) We usually think of other parts of our body as being agencies of sin, but not our tongue. David says "I will guard my mouth." Colossians 4:6 says, "Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned, as it were, with salt." Not pepper! Sometimes anger gets in our speech and spoils everything that we’ve said. Psalms 12:3 says, "May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that speaks great things." These surely are stern warnings to believers. Psalms 15:1-5 asks, "Lord, who may abide in Thy tent? Who may dwell on Thy holy hill? He who walks with integrity, and works righteousness, and speaks truth in his heart." So there you have it: walking and talking. Walking uprightly, speaking the truth in your heart. And in Psalms 15:3, "He does not slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend." I believe we sabotage a lot of our prayers because we’re doing what James says - one minute we’re blessing God, and then afterwards we’re cursing men. Not blaspheming or using vile language, but criticizing them. One minute our tongues are speaking about holy things, and the next, unholy things. You see, the tongue is an index of the heart. Do you wonder that I shudder when I look at a large congregation singing, "Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise..."? Goodness me, if they did have 1,000 tongues, there would be 999 times more gossip and criticism and slander than there is now! Earth would be hell and the Church would be as bad. Oh, no! If we can’t control the one we have, how could we manage 999 more? How often do we sing our great Redeemer’s praise? For five minutes in two Sunday morning hymns? And the rest of the week it’s careless and silly talk. Talk of anything but the deep things of God. Showcase Of The Heart Our words reflect what’s in our hearts. If a man loves sports, he talks sports. If he loves money, he talks money. If he loves art, he talks art. I marvel at the slackness of speech among Christians and at how often preachers are guilty of gross exaggerations in their reports about their meetings, and at how carelessly they slander others. I was at a ministers’ conference some years ago and we drove back and forth in packed buses all week between the hotel and the conference center. But never once among all those ministers was the conversation about God or holiness or the coming of Jesus. It was sports, or golf handicaps, or how big their Sunday School was. It was just senseless chatter even among preachers. But preachers aren’t the only ones guilty of conversation which is unprofitable and unedifying. Do you wonder that the psalmist in Psalms 51:1-19 cries "Create in me a clean heart"? We’ve already considered the foulness of the human heart, yet God can take that heart and make it pure and beautiful and eloquent for Himself. There’s nothing that gives us away as much as our speech. Our speech shows where our hearts are. You can’t cover up your heart. If there’s bitterness in our hearts, it will come out through what we say and how we say it. If there’s hatred, hatred will come. If there’s anger, anger will come. No wonder James says that the tongue can’t be controlled. The heart is engineering all that the tongue is going to say. The heart is the factory that produces all these vile things, and the tongue is the showcase of the heart. Surely one of the most amazing things about the transforming grace of God is that man loses his filthy language, lying tongue, and unholy anger when he gets saved. There’s little use carrying a big Bible and wearing a lapel pin saying how spiritual we are if we explode at the office, speak unkindly to our children, or if we’re critical and bitter and become known as somebody who carries on. Stick Out Your Tongue In the springtime my mother used to say, "Put out your tongue and let me see what it’s like." She’d say, "Oh, no! You’re not in good condition," and then she had some horrible concoction that we had to take. I wonder, if we had to put out our tongues at the end of each day if they would be unclean with gossip, slander, criticism, or bitterness? Or do we have them under control, as Paul says, "sound in speech which is beyond reproach"? (Titus 2:8) Is our speech always with grace, seasoned with salt? I helped at a funeral once where there were several teenage children. They sobbed and groaned and carried on as I’d never seen anyone do at a funeral. I said to my senior pastor, "Oh, how much they loved their mother!" He said, "No, they’re just crying in remorse. They were the most disobedient, backbiting, sarcastic children ever. They always abused their mother with their words. They gave her an awful time. They just cut her to pieces with their tongues." Many of us suddenly feel this same unbearable guilt when someone dies and we can’t take back the words we’ve spoken or heal the wounds we’ve made. This is a day when people are screaming about ecology. We want pure rivers and pure air. What about pure hearts? It’s a pity we don’t raise our voice in the Church and call everyone to recite Psalms 51:1-19 and cry with David, "Create in me a clean heart!" Or, as Wesley put it, O for a heart to praise my God. A heart from sin set free. A heart that always feels the blood, So freely shed for me. A heart resigned, submissive, meek, My Great Redeemer’s throne, Where only Christ is heard to speak, Where Jesus reigns alone. If Christ were speaking internally all the time, we wouldn’t come out with the rubbish that we utter so much. When you get to my age, you look back and it’s an awesome thing. I think about the millions of words I must have said in 60 years of preaching. Speaking at least 120 words a minute, I can speak 1,200 words in ten minutes. In 60 minutes I’ve spoken 7,200 words and I’ve done this twice a day sometimes and done it for years. Then there’s all the words I’ve written. What a day when all the great orators stand before the Lord. Oh, that we might find men today whose hearts are burning with love and devotion, and because their hearts are burning, their speech will burn - with love, with adoration, and with hatred for sin. My prayer is, "Lord, teach me to hold my tongue. Teach me to do as the psalmist says, set a watch at the door of my lips that my speech may always be seasoned with grace. My tongue never a sword. My speech always edifying, uplifting, and that which glorifies God." Amen. For further study Psalms 12:3-4 Psalms 34:13 Psalms 37:30 Psalms 39:1; Psalms 39:3 Psalms 120:2-3 Proverbs 20:15 Ecclesiastes 5:6 Romans 3:4; Romans 3:13-14 IICor. 12:20 James 3:2 All Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible,(C)1977 The Lockman Foundation. Copyright (C)1996 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 89: S. TODAY'S SLEEPING GIANT ======================================================================== Today’s Sleeping Giant By Leonard Ravenhill Solemnly and slowly, with his index finger extended, Napoleon Bonaparte outlined a great stretch of country on a map of the world. "There," he growled, "is a sleeping giant. Let him sleep! If he wakes, he will shake the world." That sleeping giant was China. Today, Bonaparte’s prophecy of some one hundred and fifty years ago makes sense. Today Lucifer is probably surveying the church just as Bonaparte did China. One can almost behold the fear in his eyes as he thinks of the Church’s unmeasured potential and growls, "Let the Church sleep! If she wakes, she will shake the world." Is not the Church the sleeping giant of today? Some years ago the newspaper headlines carried the story of a young Chinese student who "flunked" his exams here in America. So humiliated was he and so withered by anticipated scorn that for three years the youth hid in the belfry of a church and became skin and bones. Because of his shame, he froze in winter and blistered in summer under that church’s thin roof. As today’s Church of Jesus Christ thinks about the day of reckoning that is surely coming, oh that a holy fear would come upon her (even if it drives her to extremes) in order to arouse her from her present paralysis! Consider Samson’s fall. He didn’t get drunk; he didn’t commit murder; he didn’t steal. Samson fell simply because he succumbed to the natural, and fell asleep. That one small act put him into captivity, made a false god popular, and scattered the forces of the true and living God. If even yet you feel a hangover of the old interpretation that the Samson of the Bible is a distant relative of Hercules or Atlas (famed in mythology for carrying the world on his back), then think again. Samson was no human monstrosity. He was no super-edition of a Goliath. If Samson had been a colossus, then why did Delilah ask the question, "Wherein lieth thy great strength?" Let the final word be from the Word of God itself, for in telling the story of men mighty in faith, the writer to the Hebrews says: Time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson,... who through faith ... stopped the mouths of lions" (Hebrews 11:32-33). Only two men in Scripture stopped the mouths of lions--Daniel and Samson. But no giant could single-handedly, as Samson, "put to flight the armies of the aliens," or toy with opposing armies. Here, Samson slays a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass; there, he kills another thirty men. Here, he takes the gates of Gaza for a ride; there, he tears a lion like paper. To add insult to injury, the Spirit’s comment is "he had nothing in his hand." Note well, yea, read for yourself the whole story of the secret of this mighty exploiter, this more-than-conquering believer: "The Spirit of the Lord rested mightily upon him. " Everything in the story adds up to this staggering fact: Supernatural power was upon Samson. Now turn back ten chapters in this wonder book of Judges and have a little peep into the life of Gideon. Surely as a boy, Gideon had heard from his father the hair-raising stories of a mighty Deity. In Judges 6:1-40, Gideon is older, and while threshing corn, is fearing an attack of the Midianites. For seven years, the once liberated slaves of Pharaoh had again become captives. Dens and caves were their homes. No longer were they able to sing the Lord’s song. It must have sounded like a fairy tale when that angel appeared to Gideon and informed him, "God is with thee, thou mighty man of valor." Yet he shot back the answer, "If God be with us, where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of?" This answer makes clear that Gideon was expecting some supernatural evidence. To him, the seal of the Lord’s presence would be something that could not be rationalized. Alas that today there is more evidence of religious sensation before our eyes than evidence of spiritual regeneration and supernatural phenomenon! Not many Christians today can forget the fact that the devil goeth about as a roaring lion, but we seem to have lost sight of the fact that the Lion of the tribe of Judah has defeated the roaring lion of hell, and therefore every anointed Samson or Gideon or church can also slay the lion of hell. Though wicked men are doing wickedly, God’s promise to us is that "the people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits" (Daniel 11:32). This much is sure: If we could merit revival by fasting, there would be many martyred by starving. If we could organize revival, we would pool our thinking to outwit the powers of darkness. If we could buy this elusive revival with the mammon of unrighteousness, we could get a score of what we call Christian millionaires to underwrite the thing for us. If we could blast the devil from this present world, we would pledge the politicians for an atom bomb. God pity us that after years of writing, using mountains of paper and rivers of ink, exhausting flashy terminology about the biggest revival meetings in history, we are still faced with gross corruption in every nation, as well as with the most prayerless church age since Pentecost. This is a plea for the return of the supernatural; but I must also give this a word of explanation. For a decade, all over this land there has been a ministry of the miraculous (more or less), and thank God for all who honor Him and remain faithful. But having said that, here is a plea for sane thinking and a spiritual evaluation of the evangelistic field. To a large degree, have we not substituted seeing for hearing? In Acts, Philip the evangelist could have transferred the Ethiopian eunuch to a city seething with revival fever where the eunuch could have seen "the lame leap like an hart and the tongue of the dumb sing." Instead, he pitched right into the Word of the living God, and beginning at the same Scripture preached unto him Jesus. We need the miraculous but we also need Christ-centered teaching. Our crucified, exalted Christ must have preeminence over all other slants of truth, for while the Church is languishing, the world is perishing. "Awake, awake, put on strength, 0 arm of the Lord..." (Isaiah 51:9) Again let me say, Samson’s size was not the secret of his strength. The fact that he was the same size after he backslid negates the idea that he was a giant. His only external peculiarity was his long locks, uncut because he was a Nazarite. Nor had his long hair in itself any abnormal power. Samson’s secret was obedience. As long as Samson trod the straight and narrow path of obedience, he was invincible. Let us remember, too, that Samson, who began in the Spirit, fell into the flesh, and so had a prison term to bring him to his senses. Finally, by one last mighty miracle, he finished in the Spirit. Backslider, this is a word for your recovery, for God can restore the years that the cankerworm and the caterpillar have eaten. He who is able delights in mercy. Samson’s final act of power was the crowning achievement of a spectacular life’s work. After he had slipped out from under the harness of obedience, he was forced into separation from the world in a prison. Once an army trembled at his very sight; later a single boy came to lead the blinded Samson into the temple of Dragon, the fish-god. How the mighty had fallen! Yet now, God took this "weak thing" into a temple full of lords of the Philistines and set him between the pillars. "Samson took hold of the pillars ... the one with his right hand and the other with his left ... and he bowed himself with all His might" (Judges 16:29-30) Holy jealousy gripped him. Mighty as he had been in other things, Samson now proved mightiest in prayer: "Lord, strengthen me ... this once!’ (vs. 28) Would to God that every professed believer in the whole of Christendom would borrow this prayer and mean it. Then with dramatic conclusion, Samson sealed the doom of many more of the enemies of God in his dying than in his living. Is this the dying hour of this dispensation? Many say it is. Some Christians have already hung their harps on the willows, and yet others seem to delight in speaking of the Church’s present lapse as a proof of divine inspiration. But I myself believe that if the Church will only obey the conditions, she can have a revival any time she wants it. The problem of the Church is the problem in the garden of Gethsemane-sleep! For while men sleep, the enemy, sows his seed through his cults. Lest men sleep the sleep of eternal death, 0h arm of the Lord, 0h Church of the living God, awake! If the church is going to attain to her potential in this last hour, it is apparent that we are going to have to dust off an old word that many of us have forgotten is in the English language -- DISCIPLINE! To some, this word discipline will have a monastic flavor, for it smells of the Middle Ages or throws onto the screen of the mind a picture of an unwashed hermit or a hollow-eyed anchorite. Be not deceived. Every smart "top brass” military expert has arrived there because he wore the harness of discipline. Leonard Bernstein in his music-talks holds his baton like a magic wand over mesmerized million because of discipline. This brings to mind the words of the poet: The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward through the night! If any man wants to write a bestseller, let him attempt a book on How to be a Saint in Six Easy Lessons. Such a writer would be fishing with bait that this generation of believers wants; but I, for one, would not swallow it. In a brilliant sermon called "Discipleship," G. Cambell Morgan says, "Jesus Christ could speak to the sorrow-burdened heart of humanity words so full of mother-love and father-love as to make men crowd and press round Him. On the other hand, He could suddenly speak words that flashed and scorched and burned until men drew back in astonishment." Bracketed in the last group would be these two commands: "Take my yoke upon you" and "My disciple, take up your cross and follow me." Both of these words imply discipline. When we sing in a sunlit church "Oh to be like Thee; Oh to be like Thee," we get weepy and feel an emotional lift. But permit this simple challenge: Do we really mean ’Oh to be like Thee’ -- like the Christ of God, who was a man of discipline? Do we really mean ’Oh to be like Thee’ -- fasting alone in the desert? Do we mean ‘Oh to be like Thee’ to touch the depths of prayer that make us cry, ’All Thy billows are gone over me.’ Do we mean ’Oh to be like Thee’ -- to become habituates of the fastness of the prayer chamber? Do we mean ’Oh to be like Thee’ -- in a will like His, for He said, "I always do the will of my Father." Is that not discipline? The religious sentimentalist who sings "Just a closer walk with Thee" but walks close to the ungodly and sits with the blasphemers, is not taken seriously in either heaven or hell. Be very sure, friend, that this vile world is not "a friend to grace to help on to God." We need to pray the Father to put some blood into this "water" that runs through our veins. Our Simon-like natures need the Upper Room fire to clean us out and the discipline of the Spirit to shape us into soldiers. Twenty-five years of discipline in a crow’s nest of an office up behind his church in Chicago brought about a Dr. A. W. Tozer, who produced a book, The Pursuit of God. This in turn produced on the ocean of spiritual teaching waves that lap their way to the ends of the earth. After I spoke at a session in the Bible School of Wales, Mrs. Rees Howells called me for a private talk. We stood on the veranda of her home overlooking beautiful Swansea Bay I can see her finger upheld as she said, "Many talk of my husband’s buying this place with a shilling (fourteen cents) in his pocket. What they forget is that he prayed twelve hours a day for eleven months to know the mind of God." Brethren, that’s discipline! Today, immediately when one gets out of step with a nearby Christian, he is considered a legalist. Just remember, in "that great day of Judgment" when we must an stand before His throne, no man will be ashamed he was dubbed over-spiritual, though many will weep, groan, and "suffer loss" because of lack of discipline. Discipline is a harness by which we enable the Spirit to get the best out of our frail humanity. The Apostle Paul was a disciplinarian like his Master: He disciplined his body: "I keep my body under." He disciplined himself to loneliness: "All men forsook me." He disciplined himself to scorn: "We are fools for Christ’s sake." He disciplined himself to poverty: "We suffered need." He disciplined himself to rejection: "We are despised." He disciplined himself to death: "I die daily." He disciplined himself to suffering: "Persecuted, but not forsaken." May this be our prayer, "Oh Lord, I bow my neck to Thy yoke!" Since the hour Adam first rose to his feet, man has not stood, as today, between such potential and such peril. America is still the richest nation in the world. It is a mighty crucible into which refugees of almost all modern nations are poured. It has far more Bible schools than any other nation. In these Bible schools is dedicated manpower. Here, too, is wealth to get this manpower to the ends of the earth, and here is linguistic ability unmatched in the annals of time. Even the gathering at Pentecost had not the potential, humanly speaking, that this vast nation has. Do you wonder, then, that from every angle, hell has America under cross fire? This mighty land is cursed with blessings . I fear that unless she awakens, repents, and puts on the whole armor, of God, she will be blessed with cursings. Already other nations are in the slavery of oppression. Can America and Britain long remain free? Unless we are to have the war of wars that will usher us into the night Of nights and the judgment of judgments, we must have the revival of revivals. Pale, pathetic, palliating preaching must be driven from the church like the idols it promotes. It is time for the church to cry again, "Where is the God of Elijah?" Ambrose Fleming called the resurrection of Jesus Christ "the best attested fact in history" Yet at Easter time, vain effort is made to rationalize the stupendous event of the Resurrection in order to try to save face before pseudo-intellectualism, which boggles at the fact that the Lord of glory died and rose again, triumphant over death, over hell, and over the grave. Who, then, can dispute the following biting statements of Murdo MacDonald in his book, The Vitality of Faith: "Ever since the Renaissance, men have been trying to water down the Christian creed. Give us a religion purged of everything that defies logic, a religion stripped of the supernatural and emptied of miracle, a religion that is smooth and palatable and rationally acceptable-this has been the popular cry" Surely the church, weak in heart and courage, has gone out of the way to oblige. The doom of this decaying civilization is spelled out in our crowded divorce courts, our all-time high of alcoholics and drug addicts, the number of illegitimate births or the number of abortions. A Gallup poll shows that these days most people accept lying as part of everyday business. Virtue is scorned. Truth lies fallen in the street! Somewhere in the archives of the British Admiralty at Whitehall, London, they have the record of a fine piece of maritime strategy. Ships of five nations were anchored in a bay in the South Pacific. A fierce storm was gathering offshore. The British captain decided to run, not away from the storm but into it. Everything available was battened down. Out crashed the ship into the boiling seas-pitching, tossing, rolling, and shuddering. Indeed, she did everything but go down. A couple of days later, buffeted but not broken, she returned to the port to find the ships of the other nations piled up on the beach. The storm of the ages is about to break. Let the church call its crew to a new dedication. Remembering that Christ is at the helm, and with Christ’s Crest as our ensign, let us run into the storm. After the storm, we, too, shall return-to see upon the shores of time the battered, piled, wrecked, hell-inspired ideologies of the hour. Copyright (C)1996 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 90: S. WE WRESTLE NOT! ======================================================================== We Wrestle NOT! By Leonard Ravenhill ****************************************************** We are slackers, and as far as I can discern, at the judgment seat of Christ there will be no medals for slackers. Dear reader, do you and I realize that we are just one heartbeat from a fixed state of reward, be it of joy or shame? ****************************************************** Napoleon Bonaparte made a lonely surprise visit one night to the outpost sentries on one of the vital positions of his battlefield. Stealthily he moved along in the gray light of the morning. One sentry after another immediately challenged him. Finally, the crafty warrior stole up to a strategic spot. There was no sentry to challenge him. The wily Napoleon moved closer and saw a pair of boots protruding from under a shock of corn and a rifle propped beside them. He made no comment - just picked up the rifle and himself stood guard, waiting for the awakening of the snoozing soldier. Finally the corn stirred, and up jumped the guilty defender and grabbed for the gun that was gone. Can you imagine his confusion and chagrin? What a bitter and shattering experience - caught napping by *Napoleon!* When the Lord of glory returns, will He find us Christians sleeping at our post of duty? John the Apostle warns that we be not ashamed before Him at His coming. I well remember a Bible conference in England where I stood on a platform beside a wrinkled old lady. She had a faraway look in her eyes and the drip of a tear from them too, as hundreds of people were singing: There is a love constraining me To go and seek the lost; I yield, O Lord, my all to Thee, To save at any cost. That "elect lady," known to prisons and scarred in spiritual battle, was none other than the Marechale, eldest daughter of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. She had written the above stanza as part of a lovely hymn. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Will He find us Christians sleeping at our post of duty?" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The versatility of Paul is amazing. To the Thessalonians the very same man who stormed down the road to Damascus is "as gentle as a nurse"; to the Romans he reveals the brilliance of his legal mind; and to the Corinthians he is "a wise master builder." But to Timothy, Paul is "a soldier of Jesus Christ." Years later the famed English cricketer, C.T. Studd, who deserted the playing field for the battlefield of world evangelism, used to twit folk about being what he called "chocolate soldiers." In his "Quaint Rhymes of a Quondam Cricketer," he has this ditty: Get up, get up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the Cross, A lazy Sunday morning surely means harm and loss; The Church of God is calling; in duty be not slack; You cannot fight the good fight while lying on your back. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We are not living in a day of militant Christianity. The very suggestion throws many into a spiritual pout..." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Let’s face it: We are *not* living in a day of militant Christianity. The very suggestion throws many into a spiritual pout, for they believe the Lord did all the fighting. (Appalling philosophy!) They glibly tell me,"The battle has already been won at Calvary." Christ *did* win, but that does not eliminate human responsibility. The folly of this philosophy was burned into my mind recently while visiting tough mission fields. Men hardly expect our soldiers on earth’s battle fronts to make their own ammunition as well as to fire it at the belligerent enemy. Yet on the mission battlefield we kept hearing of the lack of conquest when the folk at home cease to pray. The new missionary is snowed under with readjustments. His mind has to get readjusted to a new language; his spirit has to get readjusted to a heathen atmosphere; his appetite has to get readjusted to new foods; his soul has to get readjusted to new emotions. All things are new - new pressures he never dreamed of, new burdens he never thought of, new physical challenges. On top of these, the new missionary has to do his own sweating in prayer for victory against foes,entrenched for millenniums, who stubbornly resist ejection. All this time we at home fail to pray. We are slackers, and as far as I can discern, at the judgment seat of Christ there will be no medals for slackers. Dear reader, do you and I realize that we are just one heartbeat from a fixed state of reward, be it of joy or shame? A missionary just wrote, "On many mission fields there is no lack of new missionaries who have technical knowledge." Of course the know-how for building, educating, and the like, is not to be despised, for there are countries right now where one cannot enter simply as a gospel missionary; he must be an artisan.Nevertheless, today the missionary cries,"We are in need of men of burning hearts, men who can knock on doors, or trail in the bush, men motivated by holy compassion for souls." I do not doubt that many Christians who read this chapter will mourn that they are not eligible for the foreign field. Others will mourn that though they crucified the flesh and the lusts thereof, they neglected the bit of the text which demands crucifying the affections. There is no question that this demand for crucifixion is tough on young folk. But men who were called to earth’s battlefields crucified their affections. In the last war, I saw rivers of tears as men left our country for the mud and blood of the battlefield. The athlete might come back with a shattered body, he might come back blinded, he might come back with a flag over him - but what of that? The risk was coolly calculated, for England was in peril. So, tears or no tears, heartache or no heartache, sacrifice slipped out of one’s vocabulary. But some men who once missed years of home comfort to fight on earth’s battlefields will not miss even one night’s comfort now to pray for mission fields. Today there is so much physical comfort for the pray-ers. (Our churches are more air-conditioned than prayer-conditioned, and are well-heated, too.) Not so for Master David Brainerd. The lone forest buried in snow, saw him grief-stricken and broken-hearted over the lawless, immoral, drunken Indians. Of our Saviour one wrote, "Long nights and chilly mountain air Witnessed the fervour of His prayer." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Prayer *must* have priority. Prayer *must* be our bolt to lock up the night, our key to open the day." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Prayer is battle. Could it be that in our churches the right slogan over the door of most of our prayer rooms would be "We Wrestle *Not*"? I often see listed in churches names of athletes who will play ball of some kind, but I would like to see these "muscle men" operating where strength really counts - that is, in the place of prayer. Prayer taxes even the physical frame; prayer wears on the nerves; prayer involves the whole man. Prayer *must* have priority. Prayer *must* be our bolt to lock up the night,our key to open the day. Prayer is power. Prayer is wealth. Prayer is health of the soul. "Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, Uttered or unexpressed, The motion of a hidden fire That trembles in the breast. Prayer makes the darkened clouds withdraw; Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw; Gives exercise to faith and love,Brings every blessing from above." Shall men crippled in earthly warfare call Christians "chocolate soldiers" because we fear the gashes the enemy of souls might inflict upon us? God forbid! Shall men whose hearts once bled as they left wife and children (many with a one-way ticket) rise to our condemnation because in the greatest warfare the world has ever known, and for the greatest Captain of time and eternity, we can neither rise to pray nor skip the blankets for one night? Again I quote Scripture: "God forbid!" When Paul the Apostle says, "Some have not the knowledge of God; I speak this to your shame," *did he mean you?* Copyright (C)1996 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 91: S. WHAT DO I STILL LACK? ======================================================================== What Do I Still Lack? By Leonard Ravenhill What percentage of responsibility for my spiritual maturity is the Lord’s, and how much of it is mine? To say that I alone am responsible for my soul’s development is conceit. To say that all the responsibility is the Lord’s is impudence. I find it humbling, inspiring, and challenging to recognize that the greatest saints who ever lived did not have a bigger Bible than I have. They just knew it better. Indeed, they had far less of the divine Revelation. Today we have the complete message of God to man. He has nothing more to say to us. As the old hymn says, "What more can He say than to you He hath said?" God has no "P.S." to add to the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. For years the Holy Scriptures were wrapped up in tongues that only the scholars could read. "There was no open vision in those days" (1 Samuel 3:1). Then, blessed day, the whole counsel of God was released in our mother tongue. With this unveiling came the glad news of the priesthood of believers -- Hallelujah! Do you wonder that Bishop Walsham How bursts into song about the Holy Word: "It is a golden casket, where gems of Truth are stored. It is the Heaven-drawn picture of Christ, the Living Word." Trees are fascinating to most of us. I like to see the burdened fruit trees showing off their labor. The English like their mighty oaks and the Americans their redwood trees. At the moment, in the area where I write, the peach trees are richly endowed with fruit; but, it does not grow already canned. No! God gave us the fruit; we do the canning. Trees do not grow furniture, even in this scientific age. We have the trees. From them we make the chairs, etc. So it is with the spiritual life. Here is a stunning truth from Second Peter, Chapter one, verse three: "His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain TO LIFE AND GODLINESS." Paul backs up Peter in this area when he says, "How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). And to top these precious words, here comes Paul again with a staggering statement: "The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; HEIRS OF GOD, AND JOINT-HEIRS WITH CHRIST." Stop there? NO, add the remainder: "...if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together." (Romans 8:16-17) With all this limitless resource to inherit in this life, why then, O why, do we settle for minimum spirituality? These scriptures just quoted shatter all our excuses for carnal Christianity and explode all our feeble bumper-sticker excuses on bumper-sticker evangelism: "Christians are not perfect, just forgiven." (Some backslider must have written that one.) Sinning is not permitted to believers. "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin." (1 John 3:9) Not that it is impossible to sin; but it is, by the blood of Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit, possible not to sin. John again shouts the triumphant note, "Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world." (1 John 4:4) God, then, has made it possible for you and me to have victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil! Here are the Master’s commandments to His own. These are not options but imperatives. With His enabling and our striving, we can explore what Lowrey called "the possibilities of Grace." We can leave the playpen in the Spiritual Nursery and "go on unto perfection." (Hebrews 6:1) Here are His commands: "Little Children, keep yourselves from idols (1 John 5:21) "Building up yourselves on your most holy faith..." (Jude 1:20; Romans 10:17) "Keep yourselves in the love of God .." (by obedience to His Word) (Jude 1:21) "Put on the whole armor of God..." (equipment for beating Satan) (Ephesians 6:11) The Scnpture is very clear here: "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." (James 4:7) Christian maturity is not a weekend operation. On the other hand, remember there is no finality to the Christian life this side of eternity. While we are in the flesh, we "press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." (Php 3:14) We hear continually about "Weight Watchers." O that we watched our spiritual growth as carefully! I believe in instant purity: "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1:7) I do not believe in instant maturity. Faith in the finished work of Christ is one thing. To add to your faith, as Peter says in 2 Peter 1:5-7, is something else. As a tree must be pruned regularly to bring it to maturity, so we need pruning. It is easy to sing, "And pour contempt on all my pride." If I do that at all, I will do it conveniently protecting myself from any "bleeding." It is when the Lord does it -- or worse still when He uses some other human being (less spiritual than I am) to do the pruning - then can I kiss the rod? This is a process in spiritual growth. Can I take it cheerfully when I am slighted, when my name is cast out as an evil thing (though I am totally innocent)? Can I joyfully help to promote another to a position that I would like and which I am more capable of handling? I heard a preacher asking another if folks came to the altar at his last meeting. He replied, "Yes, but most of them are altar tramps." It’s easier to go to the altar than to get on the cross. There is no magic in a trip to the altar. You will not grow an inch by walking a few yards to the altar, unless there is a total repentance and a holy vow to God that you will not fall into the same hole again. That holy band of "Heroes of Faith" in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews staggers me. They had no Bibles, no millions of cassettes as we have, no Bible seminars, no daily radio Bible teaching, and (fortunate souls) no Gospel T.V. preachers whining about lack of funds. (When did the Lord run out of supplies?) Yet what things these folks in Hebrews 11:1-40 accomplished: subdued whole kingdoms -- (O that some person rich in faith could subdue the worldwide kingdom of the drug trade)-- wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. What miracles, what men, what faith! These "pattern" folks of our faith did not get to the heights in one leap: "They climbed the steep ascent to Heaven Through peril, toil, and pain. O God, may grace to us be given, to follow in their train." Asked why he was used of the Lord so greatly in China, Hudson Taylor replied, "God had looked long for a man weak enough, and He found me." He takes the weak things of the world to confound the mighty. Spiritual wisdom does not come with years; neither does maturity. The key to both is obedience. Whatsoever He saith unto YOU, do it. An insatiable thirst for God will produce an unquenchable love for holiness (as He is Holy), resulting in a passion for the lost. Remember, friend, you are just as spiritual as you want to be. Copyright (C)1996 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 92: S. WHAT IS YOUR VISION? ======================================================================== What is your vision? From Leonard Ravenhill’s last meeting, a prayer meeting for ministers at Calvary Commission. We are going to look at what Paul had to say about ministry, in 2 Corinthians 6:3-8 Giving no offense in anything, that the ministry may not be blamed. But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, by pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true... This word may not seem very relevant to us, but I don’t let one day go by that I don’t pray for my oppressed brother in Bosnia. I saw on the news this morning of a new wave of persecution there. How many young men have died there in the last two or three years - died a martyrs death? How easy it is to sit and clap our hands and tap our feet and sing, "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness..." But, what about when you come to the third stanza? When all around my soul gives way When your whole life... your wife is raped in front of your eyes... you have no life... no church... everything goes ... you are dragged through the town. That is what is happening over there this very hour as we are here. I don’t think we value our privileges as we ought. Paul talks about redeeming the time, buying back the opportunity. Of the things we waste, we certainly waste time. The word that has been very much on my mind these past two or three weeks is in Ephesians. Ephesians 2:7 "But in the ages to come ... " How often do we preach on that? I think there is a danger of something I call "The Peril of the Immediate." We are living in the framework of the immediate. We live there as much as other men. We are not supposed to. We are to live as men branded for eternity. "In the ages to come... " Look at Elijah. Elijah was told to hide in the cave. He goes in there for three whole years! Most of us can’t stand three hours without turning on a radio or TV. Try three days, try three weeks, cutting yourself off from everything external, everything worldly that has been labeled and poisoned by the world systems. We need to think and get things straight. Hebrews 11 tells me Moses endured as seeing Him who is invisible. Paul tells us the things that are seen are temporal and the things that are unseen are eternal. We need to be careful of living in the visible all the time. Visible values, the durability of things that are only for time. Think of Moses when he was on the backside of the desert, not for four days, not forty days, but forty years - one third of his life! There was a price on his head after having been kicked out of the greatest royal family in the world. He no longer had seven course meals. He lived on the back side of the desert. Do you think he ever thought that one day he would stand on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus and Elijah? He endured as seeing Him who is invisible – Christ. And what did he do? He considered the reproach of Christ – not the Kingdom of Christ – the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. Did he see Him coming in the clouds? Did he ever see by faith that he would stand on the Mt. of Transfiguration? Did he go further, to the end of the age when a multitude which no man can number out of every kindred, tribe and tongue would sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb? We live too much in this world. We’re earthbound. How many of us know someone who is eternity conscious? What America needs is somebody who will go through every church in the country and preach for a week on eternity: Preach one day on the Judgment Seat of Christ. Preach one day on the Judgment of believers. Preach one day on the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Again, I’ve told you before, I don’t just want to go to heaven, I want to go to the marriage supper of the Lamb, I don’t just want to go to the marriage supper, I want to be part of the Bride. The last word of Jesus was not "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel" - that was for the eleven disciples. The last word of Jesus is in Revelations: Repent, repent, repent. What is Jesus coming for? A bride. The Word of God says He is coming for a bride without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Do you think the church is that today? What does Jesus say about the church? That she is poor, wretched, naked, blind and pitiful. A while ago I went to a wedding of a millionaire’s daughter. As the bride came down the aisle it was just as though a voice said to me, "look." I looked at her. She was beautifully dressed, very educated, quite brilliant. As I looked at her coming down the aisle, I thought, "Is Jesus Christ coming for a bride who is poor and wretched? If I was an artist I would paint the bride on a crutch, one leg almost withered, wearing rags, the other garments looking scruffy like a woman off the streets. Poor, wretched, naked, blind and pitiful – so something has to happen to the church before the Lord Jesus returns!" One fact should be already decided in our hearts and that is to live with cruelty towards our lives, and abasement of our lives in this present evil world. What about Elijah? He goes into a cave for three years - three years is a pretty good long time isn’t it? He did it. It says in I Kings 17, "go hide thyself." It says in I Kings 18, "go show thyself." One minute he’s found before a king, later he dares to stand before the Israelites... A man who is intimate with God, is never intimidated by man. The fear of man goes out entirely. I certainly believe with all my heart we are not eternity conscious, we live for the everyday. We ought to live with eternity’s values in view. Those people were excited - and us? We have labored for Christ, we have labored with Christ, one day we are going to see Him. As the hymn writer said, "Face to face with Christ my Savior, face to face what will it be , when with rapture I behold Him..." Who would be delighted right now to go and stand before the King? You will have to answer for all your preaching…Very often we take a text and drown it in words… I woke up this morning about three o’clock thinking about that. I’ve been preaching for over 70 years. Take 120 words times 60 minutes, times 60 times a year, times 70 years... and I have to give an account to God for all those words. The more I read the Word of God the more it pierces my heart. It makes me stop and think and meditate. I meditate now more on eternity than I ever have in all my life. Our people are not eternity conscious. Do you think a person who is ready for eternity would miss a prayer meeting? I don’t know of anywhere on Earth where there is more freedom than in a prayer meeting where God anoints those who pray and you almost, as it were, rub shoulders with God. Again I say, when Ahab was breathing down the neck of Elijah, and Jezebel was digging a pit for his feet, do you ever think he thought for a moment he’d stand on the Mountain of Transfiguration with Moses and Jesus? Apparently Moses could see through the space in time... he could see and he endured. "He chose to suffer." Suppose you were a twenty year old or a thirty year old in Bosnia or one of these other countries today. You wouldn’t have a home to go home to. Some of these young men today come into my office and say, "These are wonderful days to be alive". Sure they are - you go from an air conditioned home, to an air conditioned car, to an air conditioned church, where you collect a copious offering and go home to rejoice in the Lord. What about those who get nothing? Paul gets to a place where he says, "I have nothing, yet I possess all things." Paul goes through all sorts of cleansing. He did not end up in Romans 7 "it is sin that dwelleth in me." He ended up in Galatians 2:20, "Not I, but Christ liveth in me." That is the ultimate in the Christian life. I don’t care how many tongues we have or how many miracles we were able to perform. The word of God says again, "Christ liveth in me." The life I now live in this mortal body is Christ controlled. People say that in the Old Testament Christ was with them but not in them. But Peter doesn’t say that! Christ was in them. Do you think a man could go and pray and say on behalf of the rotten nation he lived in, "Lord kill me," again, he also says, "Take my life. I don’t care. I’m not bothered by living." I want to be so God possessed. Of course, some say that’s fanaticism. People get weary of hearing about all the trouble in Bosnia but they can’t wait to hear what is going on with the baseball strike. And I’m talking about men in ministry, I mean preachers. They rush out from church Sunday morning for home and go watch baseball or football. So they are trying to serve two masters. No man can do that; you can only serve one master. The more I read this word I find Christ didn’t come to just take me to the cross - as Paul says in Romans 6, you can be crucified with Him. But I think the most amazing thing Jesus said is, "The prince of this world cometh and findeth nothing in Me." He wastes his time tempting Jesus! He had come through forty days of relentless temptation and trials, after that He was put out of the synagogue, and after that He is being put out all the time. He was born outside - we sing, "Jesus was born in a manger". He was buried outside - because He would defile the city it if they buried Him within. He is still outside - the church. Isn’t it amazing? In the book of Revelation Jesus is still outside the church standing and knocking, trying to get in. How many churches would He have to say that of today? We must allow God to be in complete control of us with no ambitions of our own, with no concern but to glorify the Father. There’s not much time left. As I said last night, "Believer, we are not in the last days - we are in the last of the last days! In Hebrews 1 it says, "God, Who in sundry times and in divers manners spake, hath in these last days spoken by His Son…" that was 2,000 years ago. As for reading the Book of Revelations, it speaks of things that will shortly come to pass. Dr. Tozer used to say to me very often that we were in the last chapter of Revelations. More and more and more we should be the light in this dark world. You may not know what a wonderful privilege you have of being an example to young men. Show them you’re not tied up with money, you’re not tied up with position, you’re not tied up trying to be the best preacher in your denomination. Live close to God day by day. "The Spirit beareth witness." John Wesley preached on that more than anyone else. I’ve never heard anyone preach on Romans 8:16, "the Spirit beareth witness with our spirit." In the Acts of the apostles it says the same thing: We’re witnesses, so is the Holy Ghost. We don’t need outward acknowledgments. We don’t need outward labels. When I think of what it means in Jude, "Praying in the Holy Ghost," it means more than just tongues, it means the Holy Ghost running in me. If I’m filled with the Holy Ghost then what grieves the Holy Ghost will grieve me. It’s not all joy and excitement. Did the disciples ask the Lord "teach us to preach"? No. They heard the sermon on the mount, the greatest sermon ever preached birthed but They never said, "Lord teach us to preach." Jesus sang a hymn and went into Gethsemene, I think He sang often, but They never said, "Lord teach us to sing." They never said, "Lord teach us to laugh." No. They said, "LORD TEACH US TO PRAY." If I could go back in time, I think I would spend more time in the Word of God and getting into the depths of the lives of men like Praying Hyde. I was told of a man whose friend prayed with Praying Hyde. He said, "I was in India for a convention and I asked for the privilege of praying with Praying Hyde. John Hyde said, ‘I will be praying tomorrow morning.’ As I went in to pray it was nine in the morning. Then someone knocked on the door and I thought, ‘You just get praying and someone interrupts.’ Then there was another knock at the door. I didn’t move, Praying Hyde didn’t move. Then someone opened the door and said, ‘It’s a quarter to three and you preach at three.’ I had been on my knees from nine in the morning to three in the afternoon and didn’t even know where the time had gone! It was an awesome experience listening to this man pour his heart out in prayer." I’m not saying everyone gets to that level - but I believe the greatest thing we can do is pray. Every time I pray, I don’t want God to make me popular, I don’t want to have the biggest church in town. - Jesus never had the fastest growing church, in fact His church went down and down until one day there were only eleven and He said, "Will you go away also?" - I don’t think we should pray for God to take people out, I’m saying this, you ought to get near to the heart of God. I trust that God will give you that privilege of travail that very few people have had. Paul had it. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t think of Paul travailing in birth. Look at his theological background. Look at the epistle to the Romans, look at his epistle to the Ephesians and yet with all that he is still craving that he may get near to the heart of God. "I could wish myself accursed... my own death." I don’t think you have to die a martyr’s death to be a martyr. You can be a living sacrifice, you can die to advantages, you can die to temptations, you can die to privileges, you can die to all those things that don’t add to spiritual life, that don’t add to spiritual vision, that don’t add to spiritual understanding. When God works in me, He is so altogether different from the theological concept I once had... Don’t live in the immediate. Remember, Moses saw Jesus in the distance. I see Jesus coming to rule on the Earth. Not to die, not to be pushed around, but He’s coming to rule the Earth. The Word of God says at least some will reign with Him. Who? Who reigns with Him? The overcomers, overcoming temptation, overcoming the world, overcoming our own desires, being completely God controlled. I thank God for what He has done in my life. He hasn’t stopped and He won’t stop. The Word of God say, "We shall all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ." And, "Will not the Judge of all the Earth do right? " That is going to be awful, but if I didn’t believe that I think I would go insane. Who is going to account for all the bloody massacre in Rwanda today? All the wars of the Earth, all the Generals, the Kings of England the Presidents of the United States, are going to stand before God. When He takes all the masks off and uncovers everything. Everybody - every preacher will stand before the God. This is the final reckoning day, I want to live with eternity’s values in view. If we judge ourselves in the light of God’s Word we need not fear the judgment. If we walk in the light as He is in the light... that’s all He asks of us, to walk in the light. And this is what I desire: That you would get more vision than I’ve ever had. More power than I’ve ever had. More understanding than I’ve ever had. God help us. This is the most difficult period in human history. Never have there been so many nations upside down. The World is like a ship caught in a storm: it has no anchor, it has no compass, it has no chart. I believe, brethren, you will live to see many from Washington begging the Church of Jesus Christ to bring deliverance. They have ignored it, laughed at it, they have scorned it, but they will come to a place they are so politically helpless, so financially helpless, so morally helpless they will have to call on God. He is the only sure answer. One thought that amazes as I study the life of Noah is that there is no mention of his prayer life. But when I come to Ezekiel 14, the three most righteous men that ever lived, Noah is one of them, Job another and Daniel. What awesome prayers they offered, but there will come a time when God won’t listen to you anymore. One fellow said, "I just finished three years in Seminary." I asked him, "Did anyone ever preach a sermon on eternity?"... "No." "Did you ever hear a sermon on the judgment seat of Christ?"... "No." "Did anyone preach a sermon on "The Bride of Christ?"... "No." The man burst into tears. I said, "In God’s name, why do you go to seminary? To learn how to bury the dead?" There is an eternity in front of us! There is a world that now is in more rebellion than ever! "As in the days of Noah" they rebelled against God. For 100 years Noah never preached a new message, he preached repentance, he preached righteousness. Alexander White used to say, "You can preach divine healing, you can preach prophecy, you can preach anything, but you can’t preach righteousness; people won’t have it." I still hope God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh. Let Him pour out His Spirit, not our man-made thing. We laugh and watch TV all night. When the burden of the Holy Ghost takes hold of you, you taste what happens in revival. I think revival preaching is open heart surgery. The other preaching isn’t a semblance of the message. I’m trying to say that as bad as it is, and we are living in the most critical hour in human history, God hasn’t given up. He’s still not willing that any should perish. He still loves men and women. I want to be in that place where I can bear the birth pains. For years I finished every night of prayer meeting the same way. I would say, "O Lord, don’t say to me on that great day, ‘Ravenhill, I had many things to say to you but you could not bear them.’" You don’t tell your family secrets to your little children. You want to talk to someone who understands. I BELIEVE GOD WANTS TO GIVE US EARS TO HEAR. I BELIEVE HE WANTS TO GIVE US NEW UNDERSTANDING. I BELIEVE HE WANTS TO GIVE US NEW REVELATION. Copyright (C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 93: S. YOUR DAY IN COURT ======================================================================== Your Day in Court By Leonard Ravenhill "For we shall all stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ."- Romans 14:10 In a very brief and very brilliant biography of a famous English preacher, one of the greatest preachers that ever preached in America or England, it says that he had some very strange habits. One of these habits was to carry in his pocket a handful of precious stones...a diamond, a sapphire, a ruby, an emerald, and so forth. He would walk into a park and take one of those precious stones and hold it up to the light of the sun, moving it around, seeking different shades or different illuminations from it as the sunlight hit it. And as the people would go past, particularly the children, they would all shake their heads indicating that they thought this fellow was just a little bit odd. The preacher that I am referring to is Jonathan Edwards, and back in the 1700’s he preached one of the greatest sermons ever preached in America. It was called "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." The people fell off their seats and clung to the pillars that were holding the gallery up -- crying out in despair. And he didn’t say, "Oh friends, please excuse me. I never meant to embarrass you like that." There was a reason for his power and anointing that day, because before he preached, he prayed. Over and over and over again he prayed, "Oh God, stamp eternity on my eyeballs." I don’t know anybody else who’s ever prayed it. Maybe we’ve said it -- but if God should stamp eternity or even judgment upon our eyeballs, I’m quite convinced we’d be a very different tribe of people. Someone once said to that great scholar, Daniel Webster, "You have a colossal mind. What is the greatest thought that you have ever had?" He said, "I’ve thought about many things, but the most awesome, the most terrifying, the most shattering thought I’ve ever had, is my personal accountability to God one day." There are roughly 3/4 million words in the Word of God and one hymn writer calls the Bible, "A golden casket where gems of truth are stored. The heaven drawn picture of Christ, the Living Word." I suggest, like Jonathan Edwards selected a precious stone and lifted it up to the light of the sun, we select one word out of this "golden casket" and hold it up to the light of eternity -- and that word is "Judgment." You can tell God that you’re not concerned about what I have to say about it, but I hope you will at least say, "Please, Lord. Will You give me some new illumination on this awesome fact of judgment?" THE BOOK OF REVELATION I want to read from the book of Revelation. Very often preachers call this the book of the Revelation of Saint John -- but that is not the title. It is the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. Revelation means the unfolding, the taking away of the veil. I find the book of Revelation a book of mystery, a book of majesty, and a book of misery -- because it shows me the final stage of lost men and women. It shows me that forever and ever they are going to be cut off from God. If there are a million roads into hell, there’s not one road out. But if in heaven they continually sing, "Worthy is the Lamb," in hell the only thing they sing is "The harvest is past, the summer is ended and we are not saved" (Jeremiah 8:20). I suggest you read Revelation 17:1-18, Revelation 18:1-24 and Revelation 19:1-21. This book has an imprint on it that no other book has in the Word of God because it says, "Blessed is he who reads and those who hear" (Revelation 1:3). There are a lot of people who read but how many of them really hear? In Revelation 20:11-12; Revelation 20:14-15, it says, "I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. THE JUDGMENT OF SINNERS Those passages just quoted from the book of Revelation are usually understood to be referring to the judgment of sinners. "I saw a great white throne" (typical obviously of purity) "and Him who sat upon it." We read these things and they kind of slide over our minds. But listen to the awesomeness of this: "...from whose presence earth and heaven fled away and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne and books were opened..." Various titles have been given to this awesome event. John Wesley called it "The Great Assize." Billy Sunday in his wonderful way called it "Payday Sunday." A cowboy preacher once called it "The Last Roundup." You can call it, if you like, "A Date With Destiny," or better still, you can call it "Your Day in Court." This book of Revelation begins by telling us that these things will shortly come to pass, and that was 2,000 years ago. We live too much in time. We’re too earthbound. We see as other men see. We think as other men think. We invest our time as the world invests it. But if we took hold of eternity as a reality, I’m convinced we’d be a different breed of people. It must have been very awesome to be living in the days of His flesh. The old boys in the Synagogue muttered and quoted about somebody coming someday, but most of them really didn’t believe it. Why didn’t Jesus come sweeping through the sky when it was as black as night over Jerusalem? Why didn’t He come with ten thousand saints? Why didn’t He come with the sound of trumpets? Why didn’t He come to the world like that? But when He did come, they couldn’t believe that somebody clothed in flesh and blood, who had to eat and sleep and do everything else like they did, was the Son of God. But Jesus began to make a stir. Why, He actually raised a man from the dead! My, that must have excited them. Just imagine Jesus going to the tomb and saying, "Roll away the stone." (He didn’t roll it away. There’s some labor we have to do.) And then He cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus!" As Campbell Morgan says, "He said, ’Lazarus, come forth.’ If He had just said ’Come forth,’ all the cemetery would have come -- and it wasn’t their time yet!" So Lazarus came forth. I’ll bet the disciples were a proud bunch that day, saying, "What do you think about our Master now? He’s even raising the dead!" WHEN ALL THE DEAD ARE RAISED But Jesus’ raising Lazarus from the dead is only a preview of what’s yet to come. In John 5:28-29, Jesus says "...an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; those who did the good deeds, to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment." Did you get that? He says that the day is coming in which all who are in the grave shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they shall rise! From Adam, wherever he is right now, in the sands or in the dust -- all who are in the grave shall hear the voice of the Son of God. You see, Jesus said, "I am the Resurrection and the Life" (John 11:25) and I believe He did rise from the dead. In the end of the book of Revelation, He says, "I was dead, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades" (Revelation 1:18). I’ve crossed the Atlantic about 18 times on different ships, and almost every time I’ve crossed it, I’ve looked overboard and said, "Hey, you down there, you’re gonna get up one day! You thieving buccaneers who died in the Spanish Main, and the folks who sank in the Lusitania and the Titanic, and all those who sank in the great ships during the wars -- you’re all gonna get up one day." At the voice of the Son of God, they’re going to rise. Millions, billions of them. And they’re all going to stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ. That’s going to be a spectacle. Where is it going to take place? I don’t know where, but I know it will take place, since the Bible is the only book in the whole world that you can rely on. The book of Revelation is not only the end of the Bible, but it deals with the end of time and then it deals with the things that happen after the end of time. Look for a minute at Revelation 6:12-17, And I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon become like blood; And the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. And the sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; For the great day of their wrath has come; and who is able to stand?" WHAT WILL JESUS LOOK LIKE? In contrast, at the end of the book of Revelation it says of the redeemed that they’re going to come and they long to see His face. What do you think Jesus will look like? Fanny Crosby, who was the first woman in American history to address the joint session of Congress, was blind for 84 years. Someone once said to her, "It’s a shame a great Christian like you is blind. You can’t see the sunset. You can’t see the lovely flowers. You’re at such a disadvantage." "Oh, NO," she said, "I’m at a great advantage over you. Don’t you realize the first face I ever see will be His face?!" Do you wonder that she wrote so many hymns about His face? Again, what do you think Jesus will look like? In Australia they show me pictures of Jesus with lovely blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a flaxen beard. And the Chinese have an interpretation of Christ through their artists! And there are some dreadful pictures, I think, that have been done by the so-called great masters. But I’ll tell you what -- the Word of God paints a very different picture of Jesus than all of these put together. The Apostle Paul got a picture of Jesus, not with a lamb in His arms, and not like the stained glass windows where Jesus looks pathetically feminine. He sees Jesus, and he says He’s "the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, to whom be praise and glory forever" (1 Timothy 1:17). So we’re going to see the King of kings. He’s the Judge of judges in the Court of courts. There is no tribunal after this. It is finished! And when I hear people singing "Put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the waters," or "Shake hands with Jesus," I say, "Forget it!" Listen, when you see Jesus, you’re not going to go up and say, "Hey, buddy, I’m glad You died for me." When you see Jesus, you’ll be almost paralyzed with fear unless you have a glorified body and a glorified mind. John was given the book of Revelation as a prisoner on a devil’s island -- but he was in the Spirit when this enormous revelation was given to him. The picture of Jesus here is not a picture of a pathetic individual pushed around by anybody who wants to push Him around. I think sometimes we think we’re going to march up and say, "Well, Jesus. You know how many years I served You, and how many souls I won for You, and how many sermons I preached for You...!" Oh, no...it won’t be like that at all. The Bible says that " His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire; And His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been caused to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. And in His right hand He held seven stars; and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength. (Revelation 1:14-16) And here is John, who used to lean his head on the bosom of Jesus and hear that divine heartbeat. John was the man that I believe knew more about Jesus than anyone else, and when he saw Jesus in His majesty, this man who had walked with Him and talked with Him for three years, says, "And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as a dead man" (Revelation 1:17). If John responded like that, what do you think you and I are going to do?! Well, of course, if you have a judgment, you must have a judge! I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ needs a new revelation of the majesty of God! This is the King of kings! And He’s the Judge of judges! And this is the Tribunal of tribunals! And there’s no court of appeals afterwards. The verdict is final! There will be no biased judgment! People have said to me, "There is no justice in the earth today!" Well maybe there isn’t! But I hang on to the Word which says, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25). THE UNHOLY DEAD We see here the Judge in all His awesome majesty, in all His glory. What do you think the unholy dead, great and small, are going to do when they see Him on His throne? Do you think they will worship Him? No, they are going to be terrified! This is the great exposure! Everything is going to he exposed at the Judgment Seat of Christ! They couldn’t find the 18 minutes on the tapes that Mr. Nixon had. Well, I’ll tell you who has a perfect record of them! And the transcripts are going to be read one day before everyone! There will be a thousand million or billion people when you stand there at the Judgment Seat without your wife to lean on, or your husband, or your preacher, or a friend. You can’t send your lawyer. You can’t send a representative. Paul writes in Romans 14:1-23, "We must all stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ." There is no exception. Can you see those millions of unholy dead? All the criminals who ever lived. All the prostitutes. All the men who make millions from pornography. Can you think of the pimps who pollute those little girls on West 42nd Street in New York? Can you imagine when God takes hold of history and empties it?! When every man who ever walked the streets of ancient Babylon with all its lusts, or Corinth which was just one colossal cesspool of impurity, must account for himself? When all that has happened in Las Vegas last night is going to be "thrown on the screen" in eternity! Every king that has ruled over England, the caliphs of Baghdad, the maharajis of India, the multi-millionaires, the billionaires -- they’re all going to stand one day! Can you imagine that? At the Judgment Seat of Christ they will have to account for all of their deeds done in the body. Every judge that sits in the high court is going to be judged one day by an Infallible Judge. How long will it take? I don’t know and I don’t care...because we’re not going anywhere! I think one of the joys of eternity will be that the redeemed will see all the unholy dead judged, but the unholy won’t see the judgment of the saints, because they won’t be there. MEMORY IS ETERNAL You may say, "Well, Mr. Ravenhill, I won’t be in serious trouble because I don’t have a good memory." Well, you’ll have one that day. There’s going to be some awful revelations. There’s going to be some weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. John says the books were opened (Revelation 20:12). What books? I’m not really sure what the books are, but I think the book of the Ten Commandments for one, and I think maybe the Book of Memory for another thing (Malachi 3:16). You see, memory is an amazing thing. Memory will last into eternity. I don’t think the redeemed will remember their sorrows and heartaches, but I’ll tell you the unholy dead will remember every time somebody put a tract into their hand. They’ll remember it through eternity and wish to God they still had a chance to respond. They’ll remember every one of their mother’s prayers they ever heard. They’ll remember every word of every sermon they ever sat through. They’re going to remember everything. How do I know? Because one day a man in hell prayed. It was not only the wrong place to pray, but he prayed to the wrong person (to Abraham), and he of course got the wrong answer (according to the answer he was looking for). "Child, remember that during your life, you received your good things..." "But I don’t want my brothers to come here!" But Jesus says, "REMEMBER" (Luke 16:19-31). Memory is eternal. It will never die. Your memory isn’t faulty. Everything you’ve done, every idle word you’ve spoken, and every action will one day be recalled. THE GREAT AND THE SMALL The unholy dead are going to stand, great and small, before God. Sometimes I look at my Encyclopedia Britannica and I think of all the history that is going to pass before me in the flesh. I’ll be interested to see Julius Caesar and Tiberius Caesar. I’ll be fascinated when Pontius Pilate stands before Jesus. I think he’ll be more uncomfortable than Jesus felt standing before him! It will be awesome when we see the founders of these cults stand before God. When, in God’s name, is the Church going to open their heart and mind and see that every man will stand accountable to God? I don’t care if he flies his own private jet or how many cities or millions of people he rules. It doesn’t matter. The great of the earth and the lowest of the earth are all going to spend their time in eternity. They are going to live there forever and ever, "where their worm does not die" (Mark 9:48). Hell won’t be the same for everybody. Some will be beaten with a few stripes, some with many stripes (Luke 12:47-48). But I tell you what -- I’d rather be the least in the Kingdom of God than the greatest in the kingdom of the devil, both in time and in eternity. You might say, "I don’t really believe in God and I don’t like to hear this kind of stuff." Well, friend, let me tell you lovingly. If you like to drink, go with the drinkers. If you like to lust, go with the prostitutes. In hell, if you’re given to lust, you’ll have that lust, but there’ll be nothing to satisfy it. In hell, if you drink, you’ll still be thirsty, but there’ll be nothing to satisfy your thirst. You’d give a king’s ransom for one drop of water, but there isn’t any -- never mind the other stuff you drink. WHEN MERCY IS GONE FOREVER Oh, we’ll wish we could change some things once we reach eternity, at least lost men and women will. We read in the sixth chapter of Revelation, "They said to the mountains and rocks ’Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come: and who is able to stand?’" He says in Revelation 9:6, "And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; and they will long to die and death flees from them." I believe there’ll be a day when a man will put a gun to his head and blow his brains out, and, to his amazement, he’ll still be living. He’ll throw himself from the top of the Empire State Building and still be living. "They shall seek death, but shall not find it." There’s an awesome aspect for you. Men seeking death and not finding it. Can you think of men seeing every sin they have ever committed? Sins of the flesh and sins of the spirit. Sins against God and sins against man. They are pursued by the hounds of hell baying after them and they say, "If only I could die and get out of this!" And yet if he tries to die, he will not die. In Revelation 4:1-11, you have Christ on the throne, you have a rainbow over the throne which is a covenant sign of mercy, and you have four and twenty elders. But there’s nobody here sharing justice with Jesus. He sits supreme on the throne. There’s no four and twenty elders. There’s no sea of glass. There’s no rainbow of mercy. Mercy has gone forever. IT’S NOT TOO LATE FOR MERCY YET I don’t care how twisted and corrupt your life is at this moment -- it is not too late to ask for forgiveness. God can and will forgive you if you repent of your sin, plead for the blood of Christ, and ask for mercy! It is not too late to ask for mercy. You may wonder, "Can God really forgive all the rottenness and corruption in my life?" He certainly can. Why? Because today Jesus is still on a throne of mercy. You can find His grace and His help. But when we see Him at the judgment, He’s no longer on a throne of mercy. He is on a throne of justice. His first time on earth He was a tender Christ, the Lamb of God, who went about kissing little babies and blessing people. There’s nothing more beautiful than a little lamb and there’s nothing more terrible than the wrath of the Lamb. One day God’s mercy is going to be cut off and then we will have the wrath of the Lamb. Think of all the tribes and nations that will be judged. Think of Pharaoh and Herod the Great standing before Jesus and having to account for their deeds. Did you have your tribulations today? Maybe the bacon burned this morning or some other tragedy happened. Did you think this morning that somebody for Christ’s sake is going to lose his head in Afghanistan or Vietnam or Russia? Do you think that Stalin ever dreamed that after all the bloody purges he made, he’d have to answer for every precious drop of blood he ever spilled? The Psalmist David says, "Store my tears in Thy bottle" (Psalms 56:8). I don’t believe that anyone ever shed a tear, whether in compassion for souls or because of a broken heart, that fell to the ground. Our tears are stored by God, and God is going to count them out one day. The Jews perhaps may cry of Hitler, "God, scourge him, scourge him. Turn the furnace up in hell." But listen, God doesn’t need any reminders. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25). If a man is torn with lust, if his mind is full of wickedness, if by his own actions he asks to be cast away from God with his own sin and misery forever and ever -- then what? Well, what do you think it would be like if you’d killed six million people like that? God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing. THE GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF GOD I think we’d better watch this business of giving people only part of the Gospel. We need to be very careful of our sloppy evangelism techniques. Yes, it is absolutely true that God loves us, but will you remind people of the goodness and the severity of God? One thing that’s wrong with the world is that it thinks it’s done with Jesus Christ and it hasn’t even started with Him yet. For He stands at the end of the trail for every man -- rich or poor, bondsman or freeman, black or white. Will you remind them that there is a day when mercy is cut off forever? Will you remind them that people pray in hell, but nobody answers? The dead, great and small, are going to stand before God in that awesome day. The books are going to be opened, and justice, not mercy, will prevail. There is no mercy. Mercy is gone forever. Multitudes of people will be crying, "The harvest is past and the summer is ended and we are not saved" (Jeremiah 8:20). Will you remind them while God is still sitting on a throne of mercy, that everyone, without exception, will one day stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ? Be wise, repent, and believe the Gospel. Copyright (C)1996 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 94: S. ZEAL - LOVE ABLAZE! ======================================================================== ZEAL - LOVE ABLAZE! By Leonard Ravenhill Enoch had prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones." If Jesus had entered history like that, or had come on a dark night over Jerusalem in a blazing chariot of fire (like Elijah went up to heaven), then the clamoring crowds would have accepted and adored Him. But as the poet once said, "They were looking for a king, to bring salvation nigh, He came a little infant thing, that made a woman cry." CLEANSING THE TEMPLE The local folk knew Jesus well. He was the best carpenter in the nation. But now He had stepped out of bounds. He accepted the nomination of that wild preacher John the Baptist as the Lamb of God. He had agreed to let the people mount Him on an ass and enter the city amid cries of "Hosanna." Now He had stirred the city by routing the moneychangers and cattle dealers from the temple. For almost thirty years He had watched men desecrate the place. He was outraged at their insolence and greed. He was disgusted that they had carpeted the temple courts with animal excrement and polluted the place with the stench of urine. Each of the Gospels tells of the whipping Christ. But Luke makes a very valuable difference as he records the events in the life of Jesus. He says that before Jesus had entered the temple, while He was still entering Jerusalem, He had stopped to weep over the great city. So we have the weeping Christ before we had the whipping Christ. Since He was about His Father’s business at twelve years of age, Jesus had trod the temple courts and had always been grieved and outraged that they were defiled not just with animal dung, but with red-eyed extortioners, cheating moneychangers, and cattle dealers. For thirty years He had been growing in grace and in the knowledge of His Father -- now He knew His mission! And His explanation for this one-man attack on the sacrilege and defilement of the house of God is summed up in these words: "Zeal for thy house will consume me." Zeal! What a baptism of this same zeal the weak and wilting Church of this day needs. Zeal in this context is love ablaze. Zeal without reason becomes fanaticism. Jesus was not a fanatic. Yes, His love was blind to all the possible dangers of His mission. This love ignores personal safety, disregards the odds against it, drops "sacrifice" from its vocabulary, requires no crutches, ignores all danger, is intolerant of sin, but not fanatical. His was no sudden burst of anger; He had contemplated it all His life, but now the hour had come and men fled before His whip and holy anger. SPIRITUAL ECOLOGY "Pollution! Pollution!" cry the ecologists about our food, air, waters, and our auto emissions. But where, O where are the preachers crying out against the pollution in the churches? The heart of Jesus was broken over a nation that had the elect prophets of the Lord as its advisors. But who had heeded these prophets? They had not dined at kings’ tables; they, like their Master, were despised and rejected of men. Some were men with scorching tongues; but they were also men with weeping eyes. Ah! but tell me if you can, where are the weeping preachers today? The cattle dealers in the temple were more interested in selling sacrifices than in offering them. And so today there are Christians at this very hour fighting feverishly for some political cause, and yet they are never heated over the wretched filth in their own church. Will we crusade against uncleanness in the "Church"? If not, better tell the sleepy saints again to eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we shall be raptured. But Jesus will not rapture a ruptured Church! THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD There are some frightful tragedies in the world at this moment. When "wise" men swept aside the Bible, they told us that we would move into a new freedom for men. These wise men have proved that they are otherwise. Other smart men put their brains together to make a bomb so that we can turn a living city crisp in seconds. Then think of the implication of Afghanistan and Iran, the daily bleeding of millions in Kampuchea, and the masses waiting to leave Cuba. These are horrible things to contemplate, and yet I think there is one thing infinitely worse. It is a sick Church in a dying world. Never has the great U.S. ever been more broken than today. Broken marriages, leaving millions of broken homes. Thousands and thousands of teenagers whose minds are broken with drugs. The people’s confidence and trust in the government is broken. The economy is broken -- the once-mighty dollar is broken. All is broken except the hearts of the believers. We need broken hearts to face this colossal mess. Weeping is not only in order in the pulpit; it is commanded! "Let the priests weep between the porch and the altar...let them howl" (Joel 2:17; Joel 1:13). Jeremiah wept over the sin of Israel. David wept. Paul wept. John wept. Shall we remain dry-eyed in the most crucial chapter in world history and in our own? COUNTERFEIT ZEAL The present lethargy in the Church is almost unpardonable. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have zeal. The Mormons claim they are gaining more people from the evangelicals than we are gaining from them. The cultists zealously persist in getting a hearing in the streets. Saul of Tarsus had fanatical zeal. He threw men and women in prison and broke up their families, persecuting them from city to city. Miraculously God cleansed him, baptized him with fire, and made him a model zealot for His Kingdom. It is not enough in these days of such vast worldliness in the Church to say that we are fundamental or uncompromising in "doctrine." We must be ablaze with Holy Spirit-born anger. ("Be angry, and yet do not sin" (Ephesians 4:26). We must feel the hurt of God over the devil’s domination of this age. We must apologize to the Almighty that we have turned to our own way, and have been more loyal to a man-made theology than to the exceedingly sober words of our Master. Like Paul, we must be able to say in His holy presence, "This one thing I do...." I bear a broken heart over the coldness in the Church (including my own!). True, the zealous man of God lives for one thing only: to please God. He is impervious to the opinions of others about his zeal. He cares not what it costs him to burn out for God. In sickness or in health, in poverty or in wealth, whether he is esteemed or despised, flattered or flattened, considered a fool or a philosopher, through evil report or good report, kisses or curses, he is set to do the will of God! This man sees the Church today fouled with showmanship, bingo and bake sales, dances, tinsel and trivia, "holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power" (2 Timothy 3:5). He sees the ministers condoning divorce in high places. Maybe his minister is divorced and remarried himself. Jesus today sees His Church unclean with disobedience by a watered-down gospel. We do not obey His commandments to "love one another," or rejoice to act out Matthew 23:11 - "But the greatest among you shall be your servant." If there comes a man into the assembly with a gold ring, we do give him honor (James 2:2). If he has great wealth but little spirituality, he is still welcomed as a member of the board. We do not insist that our young preacher boys tarry (until they get a seminary diploma? No!) until they are endued with power from on high! THE PHARISEE’S PRAYER The Pharisee who prayed in the temple said, "God, I thank Thee that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers." There are many so-called Spirit-filled men today, who cannot even pray that prayer! Unjust they are for sure; they pay low wages and tell their workers that they are "doing this sacrifice for Jesus." Adulterers - there are famous preachers in this awful category. They, of course, have an explanation for their infidelity, yet many are accepted at conferences as keynote speakers. Extortioners - the radio preachers almost have this as a monopoly. A $25 Bible (God’s Holy Word) is offered for a $100 gift! Other books are offered at five times their cost. "You are judging!" someone will say. Correct, I am told to judge (John 7:24). Jesus says, "Judge with righteous judgment." Also I, along with other true preachers of the Gospel, am a watchman and so have to warn others. Also, "judgment must begin at the house of the Lord." This bait to get money is an abomination. Preachers whine for money over the radio and television. "For this ministry" they say, and yet much of it is to sustain their extravagant lifestyle, costly airplanes, and fixing up luxury Bible conference grounds. And now they have joined the Pharisees who "rob widows’ houses." After emptying your pockets while you live, they ask for your house and estate after you die. What next? STEALING THE GLORY This is a day of the personality cult. Men on T V. gospel shows are presented as having given up so much for the Lord. All they gave up with their retirement from stardom was hell and eternal punishment. Let it be shouted from the housetops that no man does God a favor. Elegant living, etc. for the rich evangelists proves nothing except that they have not left all to follow Him. The Spirit-filled need no status symbols. The flattering introduction for gospel preachers is another great piece of blockage to revival. John 5:41; John 5:44 need soul-searching consideration. My heart is burdened and burning. God’s house is polluted. The sinners scoff and say of the rich preachers, "Their creed is greed and their god is gold." We need a baptism of holy zeal to get us back to holy indignation that the money grabbers are back in the temple, and that God’s heart is hurting. The Church began in the Spirit; now She is operating in the flesh. There is no pillar of fire over the sanctuary. There are no preachers who can hold the hell-bound spell-bound. I am not sure that it can be proved that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. It can be proved that the Church is fiddling while the world is burning! The one reason that we do not have revival today is that we are content to live without it. O for a generation of believers who can honestly say, "The Zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up." Copyright (C)1996 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/ ======================================================================== Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/writings-of-leonard-ravenhill/ ========================================================================