In this sermon, the preacher discusses the downfall of those who have gained wealth and power through dishonest means. He emphasizes that their kingdom will eventually perish, while the kingdom of believers will thrive. The preacher also highlights the importance of focusing on the word of God and not drowning it out with excessive human words. He mentions the need for believers to lay up treasures in heaven through their works, as they will be rewarded accordingly. The sermon concludes with a reminder of the significance of prayer and the importance of seeking a deep relationship with God.

...to some degree about personal revival, which comes again, of course, in the first place, by obedience to the Spirit. Paul says in Acts, I forget, is it 26 there, he gives the Spirit to them that obey him. And again, this is the key, not only to obtaining blessing, but to maintaining it. There has to be continual obedience. And again, there's a constant necessity, as Paul said to Timothy, to stir up the gift of God which is in you. The Greek actually there means to stir into a flame. It's like a fire that's going out, and you know you fan it, and gradually the flame comes back, and you've got to keep... It doesn't say God will stir you up, and it doesn't say I will stir you up, it says you stir yourself up. You have that ability. If you have the ability, which we all have to be lethargic, we don't need any training in those things, do we? Some things you don't have to try for. You don't have to practice failure, for instance. That comes pretty automatic. And laziness, you don't have to practice. And apathy. And there are some things which are... The flesh, because we're in this house of clay. Old A.B. Simpson used to talk about perishing things of clay. We live in a house of clay. And often it is true of us that the Spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. For many reasons. You get overtired, you get nervous, you have problems on your mind, and these all begin to drain. And then what we have to do again is go to the Word, which as we said is... We didn't go through it, but seven times is mentioned in the 119th Psalm. Read the verses there. Quicken me according to thy Word. Quicken me according to thy judgments. Quicken me according to thy loving kindness. When I see those things, immediately I'm aroused to think, Oh, the loving kindness of God. He could have cut me off and dropped me into hell before ever I was saved. But in loving kindness He pursued me. He followed me. And so there is this constant need that whatever provision God has made, I still have to appropriate. And this is again why some people mature more quickly than others. I remember a period in my own life when I thought, Well, I've got that in my mind. I've got it down in the book and that's all right. And I soon discovered that the head knowledge in itself is not enough. God works it in, but you work out your own salvation. And this again is why we mature at different rates. I thought this afternoon we would think about... We talked about revival in a personal way this morning. Pardon me. We talked about revival on the local level. And I don't think there is a better example of this than in the case of Charles Haddon Spurgeon himself. I don't know he was the most prolific writer, but he has the most recorded sermons, I think, of anybody in history. He had the Park Street Pulpit where he was before he went to the... some famous gardens in England. And then after that place they built a tabernacle and you get the tabernacle sermons. And there's an awesome amount. He's got oceans. Literally oceans of words. Whitfield went to hear a man one day and somebody asked him, what do you think about the preaching of the man? He said, well, he had a river of words with a spoonful of inspiration. Now very often I think we can... particularly in preaching, it's possible almost to drown a text in human words. I hear people say, well, you can't... people can't concentrate more than 20 minutes. Well, they do when they go to an opera. They listen to an opera for three hours and if they can listen to that, they should listen to the word because the word is supposed to be living and vital and vibrant. And it isn't a reflection on the preacher, it's a reflection on our capacity. It's like saying that it's no good giving a man a seven-course dinner. I've been to some places. I've lived all over the place. I've lived in mud huts. I've lived in castles. I've lived with the rich and the poor. And I've been to places where you... you know, you have finger bowls. An American got one. He drank it. But you have finger bowls you're supposed to use immediately after you've, for instance, had fish and somebody hands you a little towel, you hand it back and you have these flunkies around you and it's an awful job, you know. You sit down there, you know, and it's going to take two or three hours but, you know, it never gets boring. If you have the appetite, you enjoy it. It reminds me of, you know, in the... in the days prior to the Chinese Revolution, the Soong's, S-O-O-N-G. The Soong's were the intellectual family of China. I think Chiang Kai-shek was married to a Soong, a woman who had, I think, doctorate degrees, and the family was very brilliant. And one of the Soong's was an ambassador. He was the ambassador of China to England. And he went to one of these snobbish parties where dukes and lords and ladies were, you know, and he arrived late. He was supposed to offer the toast to the queen and he... well, the queen wasn't there, but she was going to offer the toast to him. But the toast was to the queen and he got there late. And so, as he came in, they'd already served the soup and they passed him his soup and he just bowed and nodded to each person he drank the soup and the snobbish Englishman next to him said to him, You see, because Chinese usually say it that way. And he said, yes. And at the end of the dinner, they said, well, his excellency, Dr. Soong of China was not here, so we're going to ask him to give a toast to the queen right now. And he stood up and he gave a marvellous speech in flawless English. He sat down and looked at the colonel who was looking, you know, so dignified at him and as he sat down, he said, You know, you can never presume. Sometimes we kind of, as one famous Englishman said, you can never overestimate the ignorance of your congregation. That is true, but very often you can't overestimate the intellectual power of your audience. And the only way you can have real assurance in presenting a message is that you've got a word from God. And if you've got a word from God, you don't care whether it's a kind of a super-intellectual group or they're a bit dumb. Because I discover very often that the most intellectual, and I've often spoken to university groups and scholars far beyond me intellectually, but if God has given me a word, I know that that word is needed in that particular group, whatever the social standing, whatever the intellectual standing is, that I've got the word of the Lord and those people have to receive it as God's word and I have to deliver it as God's word. Not being nervous, not being mindful of those people. You know, Paul was at home everywhere and I think one reason of this, he bowed the knee, he said, I bowed the knee to the Father and if you bow the knee to the Father, you don't need to bow it to anybody else. If you bow the knee to the Father, you can stand on your feet before I don't care who's there in front of you. You won't be intimidated by their social or intellectual or even spiritual standing because you've got the word of God. All right, we talked about the revival in America that's sometimes called the 59 revival that it spilled over or at least there were kind of waves that went into England but Spurgeon said that even six years before the revival touched England or his part of England, he had had a measure of revival before that. Now, he's a phenomenon in many ways. I understand that all the biographers say that he was converted when he was 15. He didn't make it to the church he wanted to go to. He slipped into a church and sat under the gallery and he heard a very ordinary man give a rather ordinary message and yet it was God's word that was quick and powerful. It barbed into his heart. Now, there he was 15 years of age. At 19 years of age without any Bible training, without any seminary training, at 19 years of age, he's a very distinguished preacher. Now, I've heard people say that immediately he drew 6,000 people a day, 12,000 people a day. No, he did not. He had a period of, if you like to say, God's training in a smaller building and then he went to a place which became very famous, New Park Street Chapel. Now, he says that before the revival touched London in any great way, he already had had a touch of revival 6 years before that in the New Park Street Chapel. Now, he stayed in the New Park Street Chapel and within a year of him being there it was jammed out. So they pulled all the side walls out, all the side buildings out and made one great auditorium seating some 1,000 and within 12 months that was too small. This is showing again the power of revival on the local level. Now, he'd already enlarged his church once, he enlarges it a second time and then it wasn't possible for him to get the crowds in. They were turning 2,000 or 3,000 people away every Sunday. So he went down to what was called the Surrey Gardens, I think it was called Surrey Gardens, Royal Surrey Gardens Music Hall. Now, it wasn't a music hall in the sense that we think of a music hall. It was a conservatory where they had classical music once or twice a month and it seated something like 10,000 people. Now, you would imagine that this young fellow going to a place like that, he was still in his 20s, I guess, and you would imagine that when they move out of a place, say, that had 3,000, enlarge it to 4,000 and that when you take a place holding, well, some say 12,000 people, he gave out tickets first to his own people which were about 8,000 and then they discovered the first Sunday that they were there that while it did hold about 12,000, there were 10,000 people outside trying to get in. Now, it is true that there have been preachers who have preached to a greater crowd. Billy Graham's preached to 125,000. He preached to a million in Korea. Somebody said after that he had a problem. The next meeting he went to he'd only about 60,000 and he had a tremendous reaction. You know, it's a small crowd, 60,000 after a million. You can't see the last man whether he's got blue eyes or no eyes at all on the edge of the crowd. And the reaction was pretty bad. But nobody has preached consistently as a pastor to more people than Spurgeon did. So now we find him with this auditorium that seats 12,000 people. Then they decided he visualized building the largest church in the world. And he started a fund to do that. But you see, again, if God opens the windows of heaven, the door opens, the devil opens the doors of hell. And you get caught between the two. So he goes down to this building, this Surrey Gardens, what was it called? Surrey Gardens Music Conservatory. And the crowd was milling outside. When he got there he was nervous himself. Why? I thought we'd made accommodation. Aren't the doors open? Yes, they're open. It's jammed out. And 10,000 people outside. So he goes in. Here the place is loaded to the utmost capacity. And just as he was going to begin the service, somebody, nobody knows to this day who, somebody shouted, fire, fire. And immediately there was a stampede. And somebody else yelled, the galleries are collapsing, the galleries are collapsing. People began to jump from the galleries to save their lives. The result was that 28 people were injured, 7 people were killed. There was panic. And then he got up and somebody said, well, preach, preach. And he gave them a word, I think, from Jeremiah about judgment shall come in the house of the wicked. But you see, immediately you start doing anything which is going to damage the kingdom of God. All Lucifer is going to fight back anyhow. Now that was not the worst. It was not just a physical evidence. The worst was they began to slander him. They began to criticize him. Some people even said it was fellows that didn't believe in the doctrine that he preached that shouted fire, thinking it would just scare people. Not dreaming, of course, that people would lose their lives and all the other things that we never think of when we do the crazy things we do. When we are just disobedient, when we are just careless. But, you know, that source stayed in his mind that a number of years after he went to a great conference. I'm not sure if it was in Brighton, England. And when he got there there was a crowd outside and it brought back memories. And when he got inside the place was jammed and they were standing everywhere. And they said he had to lean on a door post. He blanched, he went white. When, again, he visualized the stampede in that Surrey Gardens music hall which caused disaster, caused death. You see, it had built that thing up in his mind and there was still that fear which you could understand. But, again, if we're going to do the will of God what's going to happen? Well, as soon as we start making headway for God what happens? You get opposition. In the 19th of Acts the 19th of Acts there's a like thing. Where is it now? OK. Let's say verse 24 of Acts 19. saying that there be no gods which are made with hands. So not only this our craft is in danger to be set at naught but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana or what do you say? Diana? Diana? should be despised and her magnificence should be destroyed whom all Asia and the world worshipeth. Wherefore, when they heard these sayings they were full of wrath and they cried out saying greatest Diana of the Ephesians and the whole city was filled with confusion and caught Gaius and Aristarchus men of Macedonia Paul's companions in trouble and rushed with one according to the theater. And when Paul would have entered in unto the people the disciples suffered him not. Well, here again you get the same thing. As soon as the heaven begins to move all hell is stirred. Now, I understand by I think pretty good authentic history that what like we sing choruses we sing hymns before preaching outside that horrible building at least that's used for a horrible purpose right now where those captives are in in Islam there by Islam in Iran that they're chanting this is a holy day they're chanting not political slogans right now but religious slogans chanting chanting chanting. Well, that's exactly what they did. I understand that in a before a great celebration in the temple of Diana that the congregation was ordered to chant certain praises to Diana and they would chant them hundreds of times they chanted for about two hundred times why? Because to stir people's emotions up. Before Hitler made a speech in the grand in the great sports parley in Berlin there there were a hundred and twenty thousand men they'd got steel helmets on they had their military gear they were at attention and they stood in the burning sun for two hours before Hitler spoke with what? With the best military bands in the country and they would stand there and the bands would strike up and then they would sing some great national anthems and they would all get stirred up emotionally and then Hitler would come in because already they were emotionally stirred up and it's very easy to impress people when they're emotionally stirred. A friend of mine used to quote the fact that I don't know it was Hitler said Goebbels said to Goering or Goering said to Goering and Goebbels and I'll just get mixed up in the two but one of them said to the other when Hitler had been talking for about fifty minutes oh he's getting nowhere he's getting nowhere now they couldn't say pray for him he says wait and then suddenly that burst of oratory became and oh my was he eloquent did he stir them and Goebbels said to Goering or Goering said to Goebbels he's alright now the Holy Ghost is on him now that tells me one of two things it tells me that somewhere they'd been in meetings where they knew something about the Holy Ghost and the other thing that they knew if the Holy Ghost came upon someone that they were very different from when the Holy Spirit was not upon them but you see there's also what the Greeks called the athletics there's a place to which the oratory gets and I always call it like going down the runway and suddenly you take off you don't know when it is sometimes in a meeting you get off in the first five minutes me sometimes it takes me 25 to get off but the fact is there is a point where you realize that another power has overtaken I don't read sports pages usually but I saw a picture of this one of the footballer fellows there in Dallas and they were interviewing him and asking him some questions and I always like to read interviews and he said well when I'm talking to you I'm one person he said when I'm playing but he said once I get the ball I feel I'm possessed by something else you see it's an inner consciousness it's a sudden inspiration if you like which can work humanly as well as by a divine power well Paul had the same experience or if you want to reverse it Spurgeon had the same experience as the apostle Paul immediately he began to move in the power of God he got opposition he got opposition from the world and the flesh and the devil he got enemies of the cross they were against him the people were against him the devil was against him maybe often his own fears and weakness were against him it doesn't alter the fact that he went on to preach to about eight thousand people continually you think could God trust you and me with a congregation like that he never got swell headed to preach to eight thousand people twice every Sunday for about twenty years that's an awful awful lot of people to minister to well you say then he was an eloquent man yes he was an eloquent man he was a good student yes he was a good student he had great authority yes he had great authority but then why was he eloquent why was he such a good student why did he have such great authority when people asked him the question they said now you've got the greatest church in the world the tabernacle what's the secret oh the secret goes back six years he said he said we have had for six years the dew has never ceased to fall and then he changed the figure he said the rain of blessing has never ceased to fall for six years on the tabernacle on the previous meeting house park street chapel and he said the reason behind that was we have the greatest bunch of praying people that you could ever find in England now it used to be that when people went to tour that place it became a kind of you know tourist anybody going to London the spiritual didn't want to go to Westminster Abbey necessarily they wanted to see the Spurgeons tabernacle and they would always be taken to a back room and say as soon as the preacher stands upon his feet you've got a bunch of maybe 50 people in the back room holding up his arms like they held up the arms of Aaron and Her you see you find people saying over and over again well you know Charles Finney had a razor like mind he was I read somewhere he was 7 feet 2 I don't know whether he was if he was today they would have drafted him to a basketball team but anyhow I don't know whether he was 7 feet 2 but I know intellectually and spiritually morally he was but you see everybody says look what a great man Finney was bloody had father Nash and father Cleary that used to go in the basement and pray for him each of them prayed 12 hours a day well I think if I had 2 men like that I'd be prepared to have a campaign in hell almost 12 hours a day those 2 men they never surfaced I think the greatest people in the world today are unknown I think that that fellow that's not too far from here and I won't tell you the time unless you go looking him up and he wouldn't like that this young man of 32 was mature that he can pray 10 hours a day to me he's one of the great men of our generation other people will deliver the baby he conceives the thing he brings it to birth somebody else gets the glory but one day the sword and the reaper it all rejoins together in the old testament it said that those that stay at home will have the same reward as those that go to battle everybody wants exposure everybody wants a place in the sun as they used to say everybody wants their share of credit now what was the name of that fellow that held the rope that let Paul down the wall in a basket I can't remember the name what was the name don't scratch your head nobody knows it isn't in the scripture but I'll tell you what he did a great job that day if he hadn't held on the rope and somebody else let him fall down what would have happened there might have been no Paul to go on there are so many people covered up their ministry there's a scripture there in the book of the revelation Antipas Antipas A N T I P A S and all it says is Antipas my faithful martyr where was he martyred why was he martyred what period of church history what country was it I don't know and I don't care but I know this that you see there are different crowns in eternity and one is a martyr's crown and everybody will have that Antipas will have it there's no record in here to inspire my faith no no no no but God just said Antipas my faithful martyr you get a list of people who did amazing things by faith in Hebrews 11 it doesn't mention Joshua I think he had faith boy I'd need faith to go walking around the city without a sword or a atom bomb in my pocket and just say you know at the end of the week the last time you go around ooh 13 times that's unlucky we can't do that but they went down and presto the walls fell down but he doesn't get any credit for it it just says by faith the walls of Jericho fell down oh put him on the honors list huh? John doesn't recall that he was on the mount of transfiguration other people one of the greatest events in the life of Jesus I want my name in there no he doesn't say it was there you know you may disagree and if you well you disagree with me you'll know you're wrong but you may not think this is right but you know I kind of figure you can't have your reward here and hereafter we say sometimes Jesus paid for our sins and God doesn't ask me to pay you can't pay a bill twice well if you can't pay a bill twice can you be rewarded twice for the same thing you see the Pharisees they stood at the street corners doing what? stroking their beards why? because they loved the praise of men and Jesus says and verily they have their reward their reward was to hear people say go past and say you know that man was there at eight o'clock this morning and you know he was there when I was a little boy twelve years of age and that's fifteen years back and he's always there and he always has his hands tight and his eyes closed and he's always muttering prayers he's one of the most praying men in the world and the Pharisees boy he ate that up mmmm he talked about peanut jelly to a little boy and jam boy that's nothing like what he got he got a kick out of that I'm the holiest man in town I'd love to hear them say that and hear somebody else and Jesus says that's his reward they have their reward and you go to a meeting somebody says who'll give a million dollars they had a meeting in Dallas not long ago and they started off who'll give a million dollars one guy flashed ten he gave ten and then others gave one one one they didn't even ask poor people who only had half a million you know or folk on welfare who only had a quarter of a million no no once he got to a million and it stopped they shut the meeting up like that yeah I give one oh there's brother John over there oh there's brother Jack over there over there what does the scripture say he says don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing he says don't display your charity before men well those are scriptures we forget but I don't believe I I believe a man gets his fill and he gets satisfied in seeing his name at the top of the list oh you know everybody else they only gave a quarter of a million and one or two gave half he gave a million he gave the biggest amount and there his name's flashed I think that's his reward I don't believe he'll get a reward in eternity for it he got what he wanted he got the praise of men he got to be highly esteemed in the eyes of men it shouldn't worry us whether we're esteemed or not if the spirit is bearing witness with my spirit I'm doing God's will well forget it if you live on the esteem of men well I've got one friend and he esteems me very highly hey it'll be hard on you if he gets hit with a truck this afternoon won't it he'll have nobody to esteem you he'll be flat on your face he'll be flat on his back but you'll be flat on your face what will you do because you're living on the esteem of others no no no Spurgeon had his enemies Spurgeon had people who were constantly out to kind of assassinate him if you like you know the same thing happened in the Welsh revival that wonderful young man by the name of Evan Roberts God trusted him at 22 years of age to lead a nation in revival and you know after a year they tried to assassinate him a group of men went from Wales into Leicestershire where he was staying with the home of Mrs. Jessie Penn Lewis and her husband and they planned his death somebody tipped off the police and they stopped what for because they didn't like what he was preaching why didn't these people like the apostle Paul because he's damaging their income they make shrines they make images of the goddess they're making wealth out of religion this man says it's all false it's no more value than the dirt you tread on in the street and those are not poor you see we live in a strange world if you do wrong they'll put you to jail and you know what if you do good they'll put you to jail too Paul never went to jail for pinching stealing somebody's purse you know or robbing widows of other tithes that was all he had left of the TV boys no sir he didn't do anything wrong but he went to jail the Puritans went to jail John Bunyan went to jail he spent what 15 years in jail and what happened well he wrote the greatest book outside of the bible the most circulated book if you haven't read it you should read it Pilgrim's Progress which has been circulated more than any book in history except again the bible itself it was a product of a period of darkness we talked of this morning a period of opposition now Spurgeon gives credit all the time to the fact that behind him there was a whole fellowship of prayer which continually made intercession on his behalf it was said that no man if you could open a man's heart the queen of England used to say the queen Victoria used to say if a heart was open you'd find Calais written on it that's Calais maybe you call it that's a lovely town opposite Dover it's on the French coast and she liked to go there for a rest she liked to go there and relax and she said you'd find Calais I think imprinted on my heart but they said of Spurgeon his love after Jesus Christ his great love was for the city of London itself he loved it he prayed over it he wept over it he travailed for it well there's a cost again not only a cost in discipleship as Bonhoeffer says but the cost again of this is that Spurgeon would not be sidetracked into anything else it's an amazing thing when you think of a young boy that has no training in the Bible he has no training in seminary he's drawing the greatest crowds in the world and then he opens a what he called a pastor's college where hundreds of men were trained for the ministry now people say the success of this amazing preacher was this because he held to Calvin's doctrine well I won't give Calvin that credit I say it's because he held to the word of God he stressed so strongly the blood of Jesus Christ the atonement which is not stressed too much in our day we sing a hymn or two about it but it is not stressed as it should be stressed not only the atonement because that's half of the coin the other half of the coin is what well the resurrection of Jesus and then he fought desperately for again for the inerrancy of the word of God now that really is a pattern because you see at the same time that Wesley was pardon me the same time that Spurgeon was being stirred that 1859 revival was not only wonderful here in America it actually as I said it came after a period of tremendous prosperity it came a time after well atheism was rampant spiritism had been revived there was a new wave of free love there was everything diabolical and then God suddenly began to do it but do you remember how he did it I didn't tell you yesterday there was a collapse in the military system too some of the banks couldn't pay out at least one railway one railway system closed down then there came the outburst of blessing in 1850 what 57 58 round there anyhow now the same thing is this revival broke out in London about 1859 but I have a book in my office there it's called this year of grace written by Gibson if you ever see it by it's the record of the year of grace 1859 when the spirit of God came on men in Northern Ireland there is a record of revival in Scotland when in 1859 now in all these cases without giving you laboring the point of dates and personality names but in every case I find a background of intense praying a background of intense agonizing a time when men committed themselves to intercession not just saying prayers now I say soul winning again soul winning should not be a profession it must be a what a passion now let's get this straight too that when you talk of intercessory prayer and travel let me put it in a nutshell for you travel travelling prayer cannot be taught it can only be caught and it can be caught two ways it can be caught by the spirit doing something directly in your own heart or giving you to get in a fellowship where people really know how to pray where they really know how to intercede where they don't pray with one eye on the clock that's fatal to prayer the clock has to be forgotten friends have to be forgotten food has to be forgotten now when revival comes again as I said the other day in giving you that outline that you can't computerize it you can't rationalize it and also so I said you can't rationalize it you can't computerize it you can't organize it you can't subsidize it you can't denominationalize it you can't nationalize it the only thing we can do is prepare the way of the Lord and I reminded you again I think that's one of the most awesome tasks ever given to a single man like you he didn't have twelve disciples like Jesus God says to John the Baptist prepare ye the way of the Lord and you discover that behind every revival God has burdened some people to prepare the way of the Lord but when that revival comes it's not going to be a blueprint of the last revival I read a little while ago something that was tremendously inspiring to me and disturbing because I thought at times I'd been in revival in a measure I have but not to this degree one of the great revivalists of America was Dr. Jonathan Goldforth now he went over to China and had awesome meetings but his wife said look I want to tell you about the revival she said there was nothing you could predict you can't say you know tomorrow is going to be a wonderful day we've had a marvelous day today for instance he said the spirit would descend and they'd be caught up and you wouldn't hardly know if you were in the body you couldn't feel anybody at the side of you you were so caught up in the spirit for eight and nine hours in pure adoration non-stop not stopping for a cup of coffee a cup of tea or running just eight and nine hours just caught in endless waves of ecstasy and majesty that you didn't think were possible this side of eternity the next day of course the meeting was going on 24 hours a day but the next day the phenomena would not be that you were caught up and left speechless and almost exhausted with the marvelous majesty of God to interfere here I'm not sure if Mel Tarry didn't say that in the revivals in Indonesia there were times when stillness would come and the angels would sing but I met a man by the name I didn't meet him but I listened to him when I was a little boy he wrote a history if ever you see it buy it it's worth it's worth a lot I've just got a copy I'm not selling it and a friend of mine has put it in a hard binding I saw the Welsh revival by David Matthews David Matthews used to come and preach at the church when I was a boy and David was saying one day I remember distinctly he startled me he said in the Welsh revival a preacher was preaching and suddenly he said ha and he put his finger up like that and they heard the angels singing the most amazing music you could ever hear now you can't order that you see if Billy Graham could order it boy he'd have that angel cry everyday Oral Roberts would buy the whole thing out but you just can't do it God manifests himself as he will so one day we're caught up into awesome spellbinding praise and adoration the feature the next day was stillness you sit there nobody drop off to sleep nobody will say what's happening around here there will be a series maybe a time of praise not as intense as yesterday or a time of prayer and then suddenly God cut everything off be still and know that I'm God and she said the most awesome thing to me was not the praise now she said there were other days when you get seven and eight hours of agonizing prayer you think people were being torn apart they were groaning they were wrestling against principalities and powers they were seeing as Whitfield said I see people everyday slipping over the edge of the abyss into eternity I remember when I was a boy we had in our church in our church room where we prayed we had different pictures and one was somebody had taken the Niagara Falls and instead of water going over it was little people all falling into the abyss of hell I never forgotten it now George Whitfield said when he preached he could see people at the end of the room falling into hell that's what fired him or he said that when he was giving a message they said for instance if he was going to preach on hell you would think when he came on the platform he'd been there for a day you could almost smell the brimstone he was so devastating he was so full of anguish to arrest you people but if he preached on heaven you would think he'd been in heaven for a month he brought the glory and majesty of God with him now usually our preachers have to come and tell one or two funny little stories and you know it's kind of conditioning the audience and everybody thinks what a nice guy no no no no that's pure nonsense but saying again you see that one day you've got eight hours of majestic praise and maybe you could only stand that once in your lifetime I don't know the next time the next day the next day the day next day the next the next the next day the next the the next day the next next day the next the next the next the day Little a brilliant Hebrew scholar. Now you remember the prayer of John Knox, give me children or I die. Remember the prayer of, who was it, Rachel in the 30th chapter I think of Genesis there, where she flings herself down in front of her husband, and she says, Jacob give me children or I die, chapter 30 verse 1. Rachel envied her sister, Jacob give me children or else I die. John Knox translated that to give me Scotland or else I die. This blessed young man, this brilliant young scholar said, give me this city or I die. As I said to a very famous preacher not long ago, I'm glad you have a TV that covers the nation, I'm glad you have a missionary problem, but outside you've got one of the greatest rivers of prostitution in this country, and behind you've got a monstrous old mansion filled with homosexuals from top to bottom. The scripture says begin at Jerusalem. It's alright saying we have a TV program, do you know how many letters we got from California, do you know how many letters we got from Georgia, do you know how many letters we got from Denver. Who doesn't get letters if you have a TV program? But who's touching all the lost people on your doorstep? Well this man says this city, I'm going to take this city for God. Now after when he had died it became a place of curiosity, people went along and they wanted to see the church and they wanted to walk in his office, and the old janitor there would say, when preachers came and say could I see his office, yes. There's his desk, sit behind the desk, put your elbows on the desk, put your head in your hands, now weep. That's what he used to do. They got the spiral staircase with its big lovely cushions, and see this great auditorium, church as they say in England, kirk as they say in Scotland. Put your elbows on the cushion, put your head in your hands and weep. That's what he used to do. You see as we, in the next session, in a few minutes I think I'm going to talk about this, about intercession. Again intercession cannot be taught, travail cannot be taught, it is caught. You can ask for it, you may not necessarily get it until you've been through a school of proving. You see, again, you go to, people talk about why did China collapse? You know there was a period when no missionaries did any teaching in China, all they did was evangelize, and then they decided to teach in schools and do other things, and immediately they did. The spirituality deteriorated because God sent them there ostensibly to spread the gospel. Oh well this is one way to get favor, oh no you don't need anybody's favor if you've got God's favor. All hell can oppose you, and all the government can oppose you, but if you've got God's favor you'll get through. You see anything, one of the times I didn't talk, I talked a number of times with Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones in London, England, and he said to me one day, Brother Ray, I don't have any problems spending hours, you know he's done marvelous expositions of Romans and Ephesians, and he said I love it, he said the hardest thing in my life is prayer. And I was the most brilliant preacher in England, drawing the biggest crowd, and then he says well it's the hardest thing in anybody's life. Again let me put it in your mind in case you don't have it there, in your life and mine as a Christian the good is the enemy of the best. Satan isn't going to try and get you drunk tonight or become an adulterer or a liar or something, he's going to get you to spend an hour with those girls or those boys, and there are times when you need that, but there are times you don't need it. You see, the good becomes the enemy of the best. A fellowship with each other is no substitute for fellowship with the Father. Fellowship with each other is good. Fellowship with the Father and the Son is the best. Teaching kids in another country is all right. I think maybe before long it's the only way we'll get into other countries anyhow. We've so messed up the gospel. For instance, who's going to be admired when they come to America? Didn't Mel Tarry say as soon as he came in, in the airport he went to the newspaper, Steinman? Oh! America! America! Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, Great Bibles, pornographic literature, all that. In my country, heathen country, we don't have nude girls, we don't have all this stuff. Go on the beaches, nudity, see gay people marching through the city. All the profanity. Who wants our religion anyhow? Why does it show up? I can remember when Billy Graham used to say he was glad he belonged to Christian country. Now he's come to the conclusion, he said not long ago, there's no such thing as a Christian country. He should have known that at the beginning. There isn't. There are Christians in a country. There are some countries better than others. But man alive, a Christian country wouldn't have a jail in it, would it? Except for you folk that do over 55 an hour. But apart from that, there'd be no people in jail for crime, because Christians do not commit crime. Christians didn't used to get divorced. I can remember in England, when in the newspaper it said that the Lord and Lady or Duke and Duchess of so and so are being divorced. And immediately you said, oh boy, filthy people. If you're a divorcee, you are not allowed in Buckingham Palace. You are not allowed in the Royal Enclosure at, say at Royal Ascot when the Queen went to see her horses running. You're a leper if you're a divorcee. That doesn't, that doesn't obtain anywhere. Doesn't obtain in the Church anymore. You'll find people now in high places in the Church. Charismatics, Pentecostals, everybody's having problems. I wrote a man recently, he's one of the most staunch interpreters of Wesley's Second Blessing Holiness. I said, hey, everybody that I find now, the churches I go in, they're plagued with divorce. Do you have any problem in the Holiness folk? And he said, yes, it's becoming a problem with Holiness people. Brother, how the barriers have gone down. Everywhere. And yet God wants to lift up a standard against this. Well, that ought to be something that burdens our hearts anyhow. But you see, this man sees, he sees the sin of the city and he says, well, and he had been a Mishri, he had learned Hebrew and he had gone over to Israel, Palestine as it was then, and God said, return to your own city, so he went back to Dundee. And he sowed and he sowed and he wept and he wept. And he didn't see a breakthrough. But while he was away, a man called W.C. Burns went. Burns one day went to do some shopping down in Glasgow. There weren't many automobiles, in fact, there were none in those days. There were a few horse and cart buggies going around and horses with, you know, big old flat carts taking freight around. And he stood at the side of the wall and his head was down and he was sobbing, sobbing, sobbing on the street. And a woman went past and she came back and said, William. And he looked and it was his mother. His mother said, William. And a woman went past and she came back and said, William. And he looked and it was his mother. His mother said, William, why are you weeping down here? Oh, mother, he said, listen, listen, listen to the thud of Christ's feet. They're going to a lost eternity. Now, here is a man warning himself then, just like David Brainerd did. I mean, W. Robert Murray McShane, he had tuberculosis too. But he spent hours and days in intercession. He broke his heart. He travailed for revival. And while he was away, really partly on a health cruise as well, they told him this would restore his health. And partly to be a missionary, do a missionary job with the Jews there in Israel. While he was there, revival broke out. Well, isn't that too bad? The man that did all the sweating and all the praying and all the travailing? No, when he came home he rejoiced. Oh, how he rejoiced. You see, that's why God could trust him with, with an experience where he's going to take all the burden and all the trouble and somebody else comes and reaps the harvest. That the good book says the sower and the reaper will one day, what, rejoice together. You know, I would rather be the least in the kingdom of God than be the greatest in the devil's kingdom, wouldn't you? I'd rather be an unknown because one day we're going to be pretty well known, you know. It's not going to take long before the 17th and 18th of Revelation becomes true, that Exon and all these other boys are going to be howling and screaming one day. And you know there's no division between the chapters in the, in the, in the Revelation. And the next chapter says the saints are shouting hallelujah. They're groaning and traveling, they've lost their millions, they've no hope. All their crime has come up to them. All the times they've, you know, done all the dirty work they do in high places. Intrigue and managing markets and all the other things. These cartels and these monopolies and all the other things that have robbed and destroyed. And they live like the kings of the earth and it's going to go wow like pricking a balloon one day. And you know when they lose everything you and I gain everything. When their kingdom perishes our kingdom just comes in. When they've lost everything we gain everything. And as that good old song says, I don't think there are many great modern songs, but one I like is, it will be worth it all when we see Jesus. These people we don't know. These people who laid the foundations in prayer and then died often without seeing what they'd labored for. One day God says that those that have labored in secret he's going to reward them openly. Won't that be a day? Man you talk about going to a homecoming. Won't that be a homecoming? With the apostles and the prophets and the saints of old. You know with all Elijah and Isaiah and all these folk in there. Oh boy it's not going to be great to sit down with Abraham and Isaac and all that redeeming. That's going to be a day. We'll all be wishing then we'd suffered a bit more and prayed a bit more and been zealous a bit more and labored a bit more. For while salvation's free there's going to be no free reward. There's going to be no buxy crowns you know. God, Gabriel isn't waiting till he get in the door to tap a five decker crown on your head full of diamonds. Oh no no no. We're saved by, we're saved by grace. We're not rewarded by grace. We're rewarded for works. You won't get any more up there than you're sent up there. That's why it says lay up for yourselves what? In heaven? I used to wonder you know how in the world will it be the last shall be first and the first shall be last. But the more I get to know some of these big shots I find that you know somebody recently said that the average preacher in America does not spend ten minutes a day in prayer. And you think of a little guy hidden away in Texas that'll pray ten hours today. Now I can understand why the last shall be first and the first shall be last. Why one day the nobodies will be somebodies and the somebodies will be not quite nobodies because there'll be no nobodies in heaven so cheer up. We'll all have some status there for sure but oh my what a different thing it's going to be. Do you remember a phrase I've never heard anybody preach on it. I haven't preached on it myself where the psalmist says store my tears in my bottle. Every time somebody shed a tear in travel you know it was plucked off their cheek and Gabriel stored it in heaven. And one day all those tears are going to be poured out and it'll be like spilling all the jewels and all the treasures of earth. So different. They've crystallized into jewels. It's going to be very different in that day. So let's believe God. Let's maintain personal revival. Let's believe God. Get a bunch of folk together and really pray and believe God for local revival. Thank you. We have a break I think.