In this sermon, the speaker shares the story of a brilliant foreign student who came to this country and excelled academically, earning multiple degrees and mastering several languages. However, he had a life-changing encounter with God when he obtained his PhD and was being sought after by various nations for his scientific expertise. The speaker emphasizes that the Sermon on the Mount is a manifesto of the kingdom of God and a portrait of Jesus Christ. He addresses the misconception that the teachings in the sermon are unrealistic, using the example of the statement "blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." The speaker asserts that God would not impose something impossible on us and encourages listeners to trust in God's work within them. The sermon also highlights the importance of following Christ closely and obeying Him implicitly.

We're talking again about the Kingdom, but this, what we call the Sermon on the Mount again, is the manifesto of the Kingdom. And it is again a portrait of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is a portrait of what He expects in our lives. Some people say it's out of reach, for instance the statement, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. But this is not realistic. Well, do you think that God would impose on us something which is impossible? You know, if you cover this floor with glass, and then you put some oil on it, and then you smear it with petroleum jelly, and you put somebody in the middle, and you set it aside and say, now you get up and walk here, they couldn't do it in a thousand years. There's no traction. The oil and the petroleum jelly and the glass on the knees would mean that they just could not, every time they tried to get up, they'd flip. There's no possible way that they could move. Well, does God impose things like that on us? I'm quite sure that He doesn't. Again this, as the Lord Jesus says, the Kingdom of God is within you. They were still looking for a Kingdom. And I remind you again that even after He taught them for three years, and they'd seen everything and heard everything, it was possible for them to hear from Him. And yet just before He departed, and He said He would come again, and they said immediately, will you set up your Kingdom? They still wanted a Kingdom, because every other Kingdom obviously is a visible Kingdom. This Kingdom is an invisible Kingdom. Every other Kingdom has a visible King, wearing a crown, having His entourage, and He has usually His castle, and He displays wealth and power. He has armies, He has other things to impress and show you that He's the head of the pile, He is the King. And Jesus has nothing of the kind. He has no crown, they gave Him a crown and so on, but He has no other crown. He has no dignitaries following Him. Everybody He has with Him is without any social standing really, fishermen and tax gatherers who are despised and still are. And lots of people of that caliber, but He had no distinguished people. And again it's so different when you visualize the setting up of the first Kingdom, if you like, in the Ten Commandments. You remember that Moses was allowed to go up the mountain. And you can visualize the mountain, I kind of visualize it this way, that here is a mountain peak, put it up like this. But the mountain is shrouded in cloud and vivid lightning. And here you have Jesus on an ordinary kind of a small little hill, a mount sure enough. But here this is ringed off, this is F, we'll say, excuse me, F for forbidden ground. Hebrews says even if a beast went in there it died. This is sanctified ground, this is holy ground. This is God's majestic presence and power and authority and dominion. And if you come in here you're going to be in trouble. You know you get a classical example of that in the case of King Uzziah. King Uzziah was what, he went to the throne when he was what, 16 years of age and he reigned about 50 years. And he was a very successful king. You can read that I think in about 2 Chronicles 26 somewhere there. And everything he did prospered. He extended the nation territorially. He had no problem with the farmers like the president has. The farmers were all in subjection. They increased their vineyards. He invented war machines. These great big catapults they put rocks in and held them. It says he invented many things. He built bridges. And everything he did prospered. He was very much like the man in Psalm 1. But then he became arrogant. You know, one of my simple definitions is this, that if you have power you need power not to use that power. Otherwise you strut around and show everybody I've got power. Now look who I am. And I don't want to tell you I can go into any area. So King Uzziah thought he could do it. The sanctuary was like this place. There was an awesomeness about it. Let's make it like this, if you like, for the building. And here is an altar. And that is forbidden ground as much as this was forbidden ground. But he says well what do I care. I am the king. I'm King Uzziah. And therefore he believed in the divine right of kings. I can do what I like, when I like. And we are told that about 80 priests tried to push him out of the way and say don't do that because if you do you are going to be in trouble. But he still persisted and the moment he crossed into that forbidden territory you remember that he was stricken with leprosy. I think that's an awesome thing. I don't think we, let me put it this way. I think so often we are hard on other people and easy on ourselves. Now that's a sign of spiritual weakness. You ought to be hard on yourself and easy on others. That's a sign of grace. You know I hadn't thought of this till last year. How merciful God is. He took a man like Moses who was stained with blood. He was a murderer. And he wasn't as smart as he thought he was. Because he killed somebody and pushed him under the sand and then you know rubbed his foot over the sand said nobody will find out. Well he forgot but God marked the spot anyhow. And yet despite the fact he was a murderer God used him. Maybe the Jews still think the greatest man that ever lived. He was a marvelous man. Where? 7. Read the 7th chapter of Acts. Not now but later. You'll get a wonderful description of Moses because it says he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was mighty in word. Now that doesn't mean he was an orator. We think a man is mighty in word when he's a great orator you know and he displays all this stuff. Whether he's an evangelist or a politician. He has to show you his might of word, the strength of his vocabulary and everything else. But it says that Moses was mighty in word but he couldn't talk. How do you know? Because it says he stammered. He didn't want the job. I guess some of you are really longing for leadership. Well if you are, you're very stupid. That's the last thing you should want. I have never thought leadership in my life. It's too awesome. I don't care whether you're going to take a bunch of folk from here or lead a church or anything. The awesomeness of being a leader is just frightening really. Because so often people pattern themselves after their leader. And if he's not a spiritual man, well God help the group that follow him. He may be a preacher, that doesn't mean he's spiritual. He may be the leader of a group, that doesn't mean he's spiritual. He may have got there by sure being brushed and getting to the head and pushing other people down. But Moses again was a murderer. And yet not once in his life did God ever cast that in his face. Not as the scripture says, cast things in your teeth. God never said, look you better watch your step because I know you're a murderer. He never said that. But one day he disobeyed God for about 30 seconds. He got furious, he got angry. And for that 30 seconds of bad temper he got 40 years punishment. Now we think that God doesn't do things like that. Oh yes he does. You see the higher you testify you are, the more God has the right to test you and the more the devil will assail you. If you've got a lofty idea of yourself, big, you know influential, outstanding, gifted, talented. One of those geniuses that somehow people have not yet recognized. Isn't it awful when you're full of genius and nobody recognizes it? You wonder when the church is in a mess it's in. It doesn't realize what I'm a kind of a secret hidden apostle for. Well I'm not a gazette, I'm just another cynic. But you know that secret thing in me, yet there's so much undiscovered wealth in me and so forth. So what? You know the most difficult thing in our lives is the drying out period. The apostle goes down the Damascus road and infinitely, mercy of God, infinite mercy of God. God revealed himself to him. And then God says, I've got a school, there's not many students in my school. But I'd like to take you there. And so the man of God says, well Lord you do just that. Because I've been the worst assailant of Christianity, I'd like to be the best example of it. The Lord says, all right. I reveal myself to you on the Damascus road. Now come behind the bushes here, get lost. For about three and a half years. And I reveal myself in you. Now there are a lot of people that God has revealed himself to. But not many people he reveals himself in. You see. And this is something that we need to realize. After all you can blame so many people for your static spiritual life if you like. Or what I mean not just static that you're fired off. But I mean you become static, stationary. You can blame the in-laws or the outlaws or the devil or somebody else. But really if you're in God's will, it is God that worketh in you. He's got the program, he's got the timetable. So Moses is forty years on the backside of the desert. He's loaded with intellectual power. If it stayed as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, he might have been Ramesses III or somebody. We might have images fifty feet high in the Nile Valley. And somebody saying well that's Moses, that's Moses. And you know standing with reverence in front of it. But what did he do? He chose. Now there's your problem all through life. What is life? It's a series of choices. You get overwhelmed and say to yourself well I know this. That's the biggest choice I'll ever make. And five years after you think well boy all I did was I decided to get out of my playpen. Hmm. I left the things which are behind. Now the Lord says listen you climbed out of this little playpen that you're in here. It's a playpen kind of thing. You were in this playpen and the Lord says climb out. Look there are mountains here. What about getting up there? Because that's all life is. It's a series of choices. And Moses deliberately made a choice. Not to be a king. Not to be the darling of a princess that thought he was the most amazing king. You know there's a lot of humor in the Bible if you read it carefully. I've got a streak of humor I think. The Irish fellows have. But anyhow I've got a streak of humor. You know it's wonderful that the reason that Moses was hidden in the bushes. His name Moses means drawn out. That was the name they gave to him later. But it's amazing when you think that actually he had a sentence of death on him. You know if you study carefully you'll find the life of Moses, the life of Jesus parallel very easily. Where was Moses born? He was born in a slave system. Where was Jesus born? He was born in a slave system. Again the Church of Jesus Christ was not born in a free society. The Church of Jesus Christ wasn't served up to the world on a silver platter. The Church of Jesus Christ was born in a sophisticated totalitarian society. The Romans were over in Ireland or over in England 55 years before Jesus was born. They'd spread their awful tentacles and like an octopus they were gripping the world. The world was in a state of slavery. We think the world's in a mess now. Well all it's done is make a complete circle. In England they sing Britain's never shall be slaves. And here we say we're in the land of the free. Never seen anybody free yet. As soon as they get free they decide to become enslaved to dope and drinks and tobacco and lust. And who's free? Most Christians are not free. As I said the other day they're like Lazarus. There's Lazarus inside of the, here's a stone and they roll the stone away. And Lazarus comes out looking a bit like, how'd he look, a bit like this. Now he's come out of there, that's death. Jesus says come out, he comes out, he walks out. But he's bound hand and foot with grave clothes. Can't see where he's going, can't do anything, his hands can't serve, his feet can't walk, he shuffles like this but he can't see or smell or do anything, he's no good. You can't question that he's alive, he is alive. Otherwise he'd still be in the morgue or the tomb. Jesus speaks the word and he comes to life but he's bound hand and foot. Pardon me, he's bound hand and foot with grave clothes. Isn't it true to say, you know people say, well you mustn't judge. That's the most stupid thing in the world, you judge all the day you live. Don't you? For instance Jesus says, cast not your pearls before swine. Well you've got to judge the swine before you cast your pearls, haven't you? You don't judge. Oh but you do judge because it says there in the 7th chapter of John that we're to judge righteous judgment. Now if you don't judge, you'll live under somebody else's judgment anyhow. But God has given you the capacity, not only intellectually but spiritually to discern between good and evil, right and wrong and so forth and so on. Moses is taken to the backside of the desert. Moses chose to suffer affliction with the children of God. Rather than to enjoy, why did he do it? Because there's a little thing that occurs about twice I guess in the epistle to the Hebrews, the 11th chapter. What did he do? I don't know how he came to the conclusion, I don't understand it but I'll tell you what it says. He chose rather to suffer affliction with the children of God. Considering what? The reproach of Christ greater than all the treasures in Egypt? How did he know about Christ? Well that's what the book says and I take it. So again, life is this you see. Are you going to jump into that which immediately looks the most profitable? Even in Christian world. In the story of that little fellow, his playmate said to him well your daddy hasn't been our pastor very long, has he? He said no he hasn't, about 4 years. I hear he got a call to another church. Yes, a big church. Big church with a big house. They're going to give him a big car and a big salary. So little fellow said, is your daddy going to take it? He said well daddy's praying but mother's packing. Why not? It's a bigger church with a bigger income. You know one of the greatest men that ever lived in England and never had a large church. He's a man by the name of John Fletcher. John Wesley said he was the greatest saint that had lived since the Apostle Paul. He lived in a place called Maidley, Shropshire. And they said when he went past the tavern, men would take off their hats. And they were half drunk, they'd be there by the wall and they'd say there goes the man that loves our souls. John Wesley said he was the most holy man. He believed that he'd lived since the days of the Apostle. He's a very profound teacher. He wrote a thick volume on the checks to antinomianism. You should get it. Make your headache a bit, but then it's worth reading. We need mental challenges. We need spiritual challenges. But this godly, saintly man. And it shows you again you see that it doesn't matter how smart you are and you may be very smart, you may be very holy. You still make mistakes and misjudge. God will share a lot of things with you. He'll share his love. His love is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost. He'll give you power. The power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you. He'll give you wisdom. He's made unto us wisdom and righteousness. But there's one thing he'll never share with you. That is his glory. And another thing he'll never share is infallibility. We still make mistakes. They're good for us sometimes to make mistakes. And John Wesley said of this godly, saintly man. The most saintly man he'd ever met. He said, you know now, I can die comfortably. And I'll hand the reins of Methodism over into the hands of John Fletcher. But one day John Wesley stood at the grave of John Fletcher. And Wesley lived about 30 years after he'd buried John Fletcher. When somebody said to Wesley, Mr. Wesley, you're grieving that your wonderful friend has died. He said, yes. This person said, well don't grieve, why not? Well, you're going to be with him in eternity forever, aren't you? And he put it like this. He said, well I'll tell you. This is what I think. If you describe this as eternity, this way of eternity. And here is the throne of God. He said, John Fletcher has graduated, in my opinion, to be round there with the apostles. But he said, J.W., John Wesley, will be so far away, I'll only see the reflected glory of Christ in the face of John Fletcher. Now that's quite a statement, isn't it? By a man that we think was one of the greatest men. At least I think Wesley was one of the greatest men ever. But you see again, he esteemed this holy man. And though he wanted to hand over the reins of the great flourishing Methodist church, God said no. Going back then here to this wonderful man, Moses made his choice. But God hid him away for 40 years. I don't know the answer, let me tell you again. I don't know why, one day I will. Excuse me. In the old Testament economy, a man could be a soldier when he was 20. Because he didn't need brains then or now to kill anybody, so he could be a soldier when he was 20. I take the view of the precious Quaker friends, I don't think Christians should fight. We're supposed to live as Jesus would live. That's what the scripture says. Doesn't matter what your theology is, the scripture says that we should do what Jesus did. He was in this world and we should follow in his steps, Peter says. And then he tells you what the steps are lest we imagine them. He says he did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth. Can you imagine Jesus with a machine gun, cutting people down? Can you imagine him dropping a bomb on Hiroshima at what? 16 minutes to 8 on the 6th of August 1945. Can you imagine Jesus liquidating a city and sending, I don't know, thousands of people to destruction? A man came to our church when I was pastoring in Bath and he was a high air force officer. He came to me one day and said, Brother Angel, I'm going to have to quit in the air force and I'll have to go to jail. He said, I can't lie on my belly, I can't guide a plane and press a button and drop a bomb on, say, Dresden or Hamburg in Germany. And when that bomb goes down, say, maybe I killed, I destroyed maybe 30 prayer meetings tonight. I cut them off, I can't do it. And he went to jail. I visited him in jail for a long while after that. The church has been so far back from this Sermon on the Mount. You see again, if God is going to get the best out of us, there has to be a hiding place for all of us. Again, a man could not, could be a soldier when he was 20, he could not be a high, he could not be a priest until he was 25, he could not be a high priest until he was 30. Now you find the answer to this, nobody's ever given it to me. Jesus did not minister till he was 30, John Baptist did not minister till he was 30, the Apostle Paul was more than 30. So was Moses. Moses was in school for 40 years. We think we're washed up. I'm not 80 yet, I'm getting up there, but I don't think I'd like to start my work for the Lord at 80. But that's when he started. You see, there's no timetable. You can go to a Bible school and they put you on the assembly line, you come off, you've got the same notes that 10,000 other students have in the country, you've got the same diploma and about as much vision, as much passion maybe, because they become mechanical. There is a hiding place. I used to talk very often, just Dr. Tozer and I, and he'd tell me about the days when he was a youngster and how he lived on a little farm up in the hills of Pennsylvania. He never went to Bible school, never went to seminary. He wrote some of the finest modern literature that we have on the spiritual life. But he did all his digging there in the Word of God. He read the Mystics, he read Madame Guillaume and The Ladder of Sanctity and The Cloud of Unknowing and all those other wonderful, wonderful books that are hard to read, but he read them. Taught himself a little Latin, taught himself a little Greek. Without any aid, but he did all that spade work. The thing is, he came up not as a copy of a copy of a copy. You know, there's a saying amongst artists, you never copy copies. Somebody once painted a picture and then they let somebody else copy it, then they passed it on and they copied from the copy, copied from... And when he got to the end, the picture at the end, when 20 people had done, was nowhere like the picture at the beginning. Because they hadn't copied the original, they had copied copies. Now, I don't know whether you've got so far in your spiritual life that like the Apostle Paul, he says, you be followers of me, even as I am of Christ. I've followed so closely, I've obeyed him so implicitly that if you follow, well, I'm willing to take the responsibility as it were. So when I get to the judgment, I set the standard, here you are, you follow me and you'll be okay. Everything will be great for you in that great day. Now, how many preachers dare say that? Or evangelists, or teachers, or missionaries? How many say, now don't look to me? Why not? Why not? As I say, I like to do a little sketching now and again, I don't get time to do it, but I used to like to draw eagles. And I've been sketching about a year ago, you know, drooling, thinking of things, and I sketched an eagle. So somebody came in my office and said, well, oh, I like this bird. I said, yeah, it's a nice sketch. I said, oh, you know who did it? I said, yes, yeah, I know who did it. Oh, well, could I get one? I said, sure, take that one. Don't you want it? I said, no, I did it. Oh, well, sign it for me. I mean, I want to put it up in my office. Sign it. It's not on your life. Not if you give me ten dollars, I won't sign it. Why not? Because I'm rather disgusted. It's not quite proportionate. I've done it spasmodically. It's not really symmetrical. I can see faults in it. Well, I don't care. Oh, but I care. Because, you see, you stick it on the wall of your office and say, Ravenhill did that? Well, look, I want to tell you this, that. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. Now, you do a little homework and at the end of every day, ask yourself if God can autograph your life. Because it says, we are his workmanship. What has he been working in us? What has he been working out of us? You say, well, I'm busy doing this. No, no, no, no, no. Come on, come on. Get your priorities right. Number one, you're to represent Jesus Christ every breathing moment that you have. Not when you feel like it. Not when you get the chance to show off, you know, in a conference or sing your life out before a crowd or preach. No, no, no, no, no. Come on. Do you know when we're most true to ourselves? In my judgment, this is almost philosophy, I'm sorry, but I'm going to say it anyhow. Do you know when we're most true to ourselves? In our unconscious moments. When we're not putting a show on. When somebody catches us like that. Sometimes we've gone to a home. The ladies come to the door and say, Oh, I didn't know I wouldn't have had these curlers and this and that. I say, Oh, that's all right. You go to a house and somebody says, Oh, oh, oh, I'm sorry, but now listen, everything isn't tidy. What she should have said is, Nothing ever is tidy in this house. Like the pastor going to the house. Somebody said, Go and see so-and-so. They've been to church twice or three times. Can't be to see them. So he went and the lady, Oh, I didn't know. Oh, she said the house is like a pigsty. Come in, make yourself at home. Now, she didn't mean it all in the same way, but there it was. It was usual. It was a pigsty. It was never straight. You see. Our unconscious moments. We're greater because we put a facade up. We want to. Do you ever feel you want to appear spiritual? Do you ever get the desire to impress? It's a great weakness amongst Christians. You know, I want you to really know I'm spiritual. And we put on airs. I think that hurts God. It's a facade. But I'll say this and finish on this section here. If God's going to do a great thing in you, he's going to shunt you off somewhere for quietness. I'll be quite sure of that. I get calls and calls and calls from theological students who say, Mr. Abner, I'm leaving school. I'm going to graduate, but I'm not ready to go into ministry. What shall I do? And I've got a standard answer for all of them. I say, stick your head in a haystack for six months. A man called me last year and he said, Brother Raven, I heard you preach on Elijah. And he said, just as you said the secret of Elijah's life is this. In one chapter God says, go hide thyself. And in the next chapter, go show thyself. As soon as you said, go hide yourself, the Lord said, that's what you... You know, God has used that in so many... It's not my word. It's God's word. Go hide thyself. And so many young men have said, that's what I've got to do. He said, it was May last year. He said, May, June, July, August, September. I'm booked every night to speak because I need the money to get the rest of the time in school. And I went home, he said, and I said to my new wife. She had another wife, but she was just a recent acquisition. He'd just got married and he said, I... I... I... I... Well, darling, I want to tell you something. I feel that God is telling me to do what Raimiel said. Go hide my head in a haystack. And I'd like to cancel every meeting right till September. And she said, well, I... I... Well, do it, if this is what God says. So he phoned a farmer and said, I'd like to work for you during the summer till five at night, and then quit. And all I ask of you is, you give me a bed and food for myself, my wife. I'll sleep in a hayloft if need be. And he said, he accepted me. And he said, a buddy of mine... A buddy of mine called me. And he said, you know, I've been thinking of what Raimiel said from Elijah there, go hide thyself. And he said, I think I should hide myself. So he said, well, I'm going to a certain farm and there's other farms around. Let me ring and ask the farmer. So he phoned and asked the farmer. And the farmer said, well, my neighbor is wanting a man for the summer. He needs some help. And this other man got the job. This young man got the job too. And they stayed the whole summer in quietness, waiting on God. I said, what I literally said to him was, go hide your head in a haystack and when you've done your work in the day, come home and sit with the farmer, have your supper, then put your head under a pump and get some cold water on it and get out and be quiet. I did this thing years ago for myself. I've only seen eagles twice. I think once in Scotland and once over in the, over in the Rockies. Sometimes where we are down in, in Seguin there, some birds come over and sometimes they say they're eagles. They're Mexican eagles. They come over to spy on the workers or something. But anyhow, they come over there. But you know, I've never seen eagles in bunches. They fly alone. Only twice I've seen whales. I saw one in the mid-Atlantic. Actually, the Queen Mary who were on Hitter were right in the middle. Just got it dead in the middle. Cut the thing in two. We were on a friend's yacht down in the Bahamas about three years ago and we were patrolling a certain area, fishing, trying to get some fish to eat. There was wonderful groupers and the pilot, the skipper, he has a crew on his boat and he turned the boat around and as he turned around, I looked over and said, what an immense log. Somebody said, log? And I looked at the end, there was a fin. Oh, it's a whale. It was basking in the warm water. It was maybe about seven or eight inches under the water. Looked like a huge log. Lions don't roam in packs when they're hungry. They go alone. The king of the forest goes alone. The king of the air flies alone. The king of the sea, if you like, flies alone. Great men walk alone. You don't get half a dozen John the Baptists, do you? How many Elijahs do you have? Hmm? How many Apostle Pauls? He goes and hides himself. God's university is a school of silence and it's a school of loneliness. And loneliness is one of the most difficult things to bear. But that's where God makes men. Dr. Wilbur Smith said the greatest expository ever heard was Dr. G. Campbell Morgan. Well, I listen to Campbell Morgan very often. I remember him saying one day, you know, this book is so profound, I know so little about it. He'd written 50 books on it at that time. But he never went to Bible school or seminary. He got up in the hills of Wales, got his Bible, explored it. I don't know if you can find this book now. I've got one or two copies, but I won't sell them. A book on the life of a man called John Sung, S-U-N-G. If you can find it, buy it. Don't sell it. About the young man that came to this country, maybe the most brilliant foreign student that ever came. Could hardly speak a word of English when he came. He mastered English. Didn't know a word of German. He mastered that in six months and took a study in it and examined it. He was in this country three and a half years and in that time he got his B.A. degree, his Master's degree, and earned a Ph.D. and learned two or three languages. That's pretty good homework. Met God when he got his Ph.D. at the time that three or four different nations were asking him to become the head of their nuclear fission or what we would say atomic research department. One night, somebody said to him, you look more like a preacher than you do a scientist. Now I don't know how you have to look like to be like a preacher. I've never worked that one out, but you look more like a preacher than a scientist. Why didn't you go to Bible school? So he went to Union Theological Seminary in New York. And he said everything he believed about the Bible he didn't believe when he'd been there about three or four months. They brainwashed him and he was fed up. One night, he just fell at the side of his bed and said, God be merciful to me a sinner. And like that, the burden fell, the light came, he came from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, and he opened the door of his bedroom and ran through the corridor like the man in Act 3 leaping and praising God. So, being in a theological seminary, they were kind to him. You know what they did? You'd never believe it. You'd think they did it maybe in a brewery or something. They had him certified insane. They took him to an institution in White Plains, a place where folk go off the rocker as we would say, and they shut him up. He escaped. They took him back. God said, you stay here for, I think it was 153 days, I'll reveal myself to you. God revealed himself to him. He stayed there for that number of days, and in that time, he learned how to analyze a chapter of the Bible in eight different ways. I used this as an illustration, a meeting, there's a big old lady there and the tears rolling down her face, and she came up, she said, Brother Ravenhill, that was, oh my, that was a tremendous thing you said about John Soong. I said, yeah, I noticed you were weeping. Have you read the book? She said, no, but I used to play the organ for him in China in his meeting. And I'm told now that where the church is strongest in China with all its persecution, maybe you were too busy to pray for it this morning, but where the church is strongest in China today, it's strongest where two great men taught. One is Watchman Nee and the other is John Soong, and the other is amongst the very old people where Jonathan Goldforth was. But God allowed him to go into a mental institution for all that time, and in it, God revealed himself and he revealed his word. See, we want it all serving up, don't we? You want to come to a school or go to a seminary and everybody serve it up, now go out and, you know, you make all the bullets, now fire them. Don't put too much work on me, too much sweat, too much... Well, you can go that way if you want, but it's a very poor way to go. If God is going to take you a long way up, he'll sure take you a long way down. If he's going to fill you, he'll empty you. If he's going to clothe you, he'll strip you. There's very little that's gratuitous. Grace is free, that's true. We're not going to be rewarded for grace in eternity, we're going to be rewarded for works. God works it in, you work it out. Work out your own salvation. I tried to say the other night, we're going to be staggered when we get to the judgment seat and see what little rewards many of us are going to have. The first should be last, the last should be first. Some of the greatest people I know in this world at this present moment never come to the surface, they never have any public ministry. Two little ladies that live not too far from here, that spend five to six hours a day in prayer. My friend that didn't go to bed any night for thirty years that died not too long ago, prayed every night for thirty years from ten o'clock till five or six in the morning. That wasn't in Finney's day. You see, if this is really, if these things mentioned here are the clothing of a child of God, and let's think of it right here for a moment. You know, here are these eight, shall we call them eight attributes. What am I doing, making an eight? OK. These eight things that are mentioned here in the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord doesn't say, look, you only get one of these, look, I'm going to give you meekness, you're going to be blessed because you're meek, you're going to be blessed because you're pure in heart, you're going to be blessed because you're merciful, you're going to be blessed because, what, you're poor in spirit, you're going to be blessed because, no, no, no, no. It's just like the gifts of the spirit, it says he gave to one, what? The gift of tongues. He gave to another, what? But it never says that about the fruits of the spirit. I've only ever met in my life one person who claimed he had all the gifts of the spirit. And he impressed me for a day or two until he told me his wife was coming to the conference. And he said, you know, she's remarkable, she has every gift of the spirit too. I said, oh, I can't wait to see her. And he said, you know, just last night she called me and said, you watch at noon tomorrow between 11 and 12 o'clock, she was 350 miles away, between 11 and 12 o'clock two women will walk into your conference, one in blue, now watch them, particularly the one in blue. She said this the day before. About half past 11 in the morning two women came through the door, one in blue. I stayed clear of them, I didn't know which world they'd come from, whether they'd come from earth or hell or where they'd come from, so I stayed off. And this man was impressive and the woman. And then the last morning my darling wife and I were there eating with them at breakfast and he said, we do have a remarkable fellowship, we have a big house. They were in the atomic research section of NASA, NASA, N-A-S-A, not NASA, not Nassau, NASA. And he was very brilliant. And he said, we've worked up a fellowship, we've 70 to 80 people coming in our home. I said, well it must be wonderful, you've all those people and you both have all the gifts of the spirit and he said, yeah, but, well, yeah. We've got three lovely sons too. I said, oh. He said, that's one of the problems. I said, what do you mean, it's one of the problems? Well, he said, right now my wife and I have decided to separate, we can't live together. I wasn't interested. It doesn't work out. What good is it? You can have gifts, you can display them almost like a woman displays jewelry. What good are they if the spirit isn't there? You see, here's the danger, you could have some gifts of the spirit, tongues of something else and be backslidden and still use your gifts because the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. You've got people going to the big, I can't get on some conference platform, not that I want to, I don't accept every invitation I get by a long chalk. And I certainly don't go to the biggest place or I won't be here. Or where I get most money or I won't be here. But, I'm very careful where I go as the Lord tells me. But I can't get on some platforms. Why? Because my stress is holiness and revival. But I'll tell you men going around this country that can get as much in a week as I would get in a month and they go to the conference and explain gifts and they're living with another man's wife. No. They've left their wife and taken another woman. Charisma without character equals nothing. It's zero. And what is this Sermon on the Mount? Again, isn't it wonderful that this is an invisible kingdom? This is all inside of us. It's not external at all. It's internal beauty. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. God doesn't look on the outside. He'd be a little sad if he looked at some of us maybe. But oh, when he looks inside. I remember going to see a lady. She came to one of our meetings in Bradford, England. And I honest, I've seen some ugly women. But she was the ugliest, ugliest woman I have ever seen. She could have been a witch without any makeup. She had a nose like a banana, a face of shrunken and big pleats and her eyes were too big. And she said, would you come and have some tea with us? You know, in England we didn't get a lot of tea and so we went to a little house. She had one room and in it she had a little bed. She had the bathroom, all the commode and everything. And at the side, she had a little gas stove where she had to cook. She had to cook in there. She was extremely poor, but she was extremely powerful in prayer. And before we left, she said now, she had a deep voice, it matched her ugly face almost. But you know, she said, let's pray. Well, I didn't pray. My other two buddies, they didn't pray. But you know, I've never forgotten the prayer of that woman. One of the most marvelous things I've ever heard in my life. You know, when we knelt down, she looked like, I say, an old witch. When we got up, she looked like a cherubim as far as I was concerned. Just radiant with God, just touched God in areas. I just felt she got hold of one horn of the altar, as it were, and had the other on her since she was communicating life and power and blessing through that prayer. You see again, as a good book says, there are vessels to honor and some to dishonor. And we're in the Bahamas, we stay with friends who are pretty well off and they're servants and everything's served up so exquisitely. Big mahogany table and all the silver is there and you get all the attention you want or don't want and it's real style. It's almost like Buckingham Palace so I've never eaten there. One day after we'd had a very wonderful meal, I walked through in the kitchen and there's the big colored lady and she was cooking, very joyful kind. And I gave her a pat on the back. I said, you gave us a marvelous meal today. Not that, not always marvelous but somehow you excel. I think we had about five vegetables that day and I don't know what in the world we didn't have with, excuse me, with papaya and all those wonderful fruits they have down there. And as I turned to go out of the back door onto the veranda, I noticed the kitchen sink and it was piled up with greasy dishes and pans and I don't know what in the world wasn't there. You know, I suddenly thought, well one day, why doesn't she take them straight off the burner, you know, and bring them on the table and stick them on the table and say, hey you, hand that pan round like, oh no, no, no, no. But the only reason you can serve this dish up, this fish is served on a silver platter this length. And all these other things are exquisite. But what about the things that burned on the back stove? What about all the grease and the dirt? She didn't sit down and enjoy the meal. You know, I get a lot of help out of that. So many of the greatest saints, the most usable people for God, never surface. These arrogant little people that strut and shout their stuff on the platform, you know, as though, well just take advantage while you can see me because once I'm gone the kingdom will fall apart. They almost imply that. Jesus had no ostentation, he had no show. After all, a man comes and he sits on a piece of a hill here, it's not like this, there's no thunder, there's no lightning, nobody's terrified. Under the old economy what was it? Everything that came to that mountain that shouldn't, if it should, if it approached, was cursed. That's the old economy, it's cursed. The first word from his lips was blessed. What a difference. There, nobody could draw near. Here, everybody draws, it is true that immediately in front of him were the disciples. As I said yesterday, setting up that kingdom was to me just an astounding thing because if you, if you think of Jesus sitting here, then immediately in front of him were the disciples and here's a great multitude and here you have Pharisees and Sadducees and Roman soldiers and everybody that was going to take no notice of him as it were. He's trying to establish a kingdom with all hostility and over here Adam had a perfect environment. No hostility and he messed it up. I can't prove this but I kind of think one day in eternity Jesus said to his father and you know, we never dwell really much on the father, do we? When did you last hear a sermon on God the Father? Holy Spirit? Oh, hundreds of books on the Holy Spirit. We don't think much about God the Father. As I say again, if you take the old song that says, out of the ivory palaces into a world of walls. God was lonely, heaven was empty for 30 years. Heaven was empty for 30 years. We don't think of the loneliness of the father. I don't know what clues you have to the grief that God had when his whole system collapsed. When Adam wrecked it. Well, look, how do you think God looks down on the world today when every blessed commandment that he made is violated? Seems as though the government goes out of its way to dismantle the 10 commandments. Murder doesn't matter anymore. Rape doesn't get off with rape. Thieving, abortion. In God we trust in our coins. And I say it respectfully, but to hell with everything else he said. Well, how long do you think God's going to wink at the nation doing that? With more light, more gospel, more broadcast, more literature than any nations on earth. We also have the world's record right now for crime. We have the world's record for divorce. Come on now. We pollute the Sabbath. Divorce, whichever Sabbath you want, the Lord's Day anyhow, too. God looks down and sees the wreckage around him. Two thousand years since Jesus came and you've got areas of the world that are still locked up in hedonism. I'm always hitting against the kids with guitars. I'm nothing against guitars or anything. But it's much easier to get a guitar and get on the road and make a bit of money and settle down and get your records up than it is to go and lose yourself in a jungle somewhere for Christ. This generation of Christians is, IS, ten feet high, is responsible for this generation of heathen. And I remember going up a path in the wilds of Papua New Guinea where people hardly wear a G-string, where there's no, where there's not a shop or a hospital or a school or anything. It's dirt and that's all it is. You go in houses, they've walled to all dirt. It's totally uncivilized. I said, I'd like to go over that range of mountains. They said, well three white men have gone over, not one of them came back. They ended up in the soup. Cannibals they are. Well, do you think the church is going to make it any faster the next two thousand years when she's done this too? People say, well, of course, we're going to saturate the world with TV. Well, good night those people up there they've never seen a TV they can't afford a shirt never mind a TV. So somebody says, well look, Mr. So-and-so was telling us he has a TV program in the States and every Sunday he touches 10 million people. Okay, he touches 10 million. Mr. So-and-so was on he says he has 15 million. Mr. somebody else comes on he says he has 23 million. And they go on and you hear all these big boys talking. And when you add it all up say you've got 195 million people every Sunday. That's pure nonsense. Pure nonsense. Why? Because as soon as this man's program goes off the same 10 million listen to him. When he's gone off the same bunch of we don't cover more than a few million we saturate people from morning till night with the gospel. You say, are you against TV preaching? I don't think much to it. I think it's nice for people in hospital and so forth. But I'm going to suggest the man that was in a nightclub last night switches on Sunday morning says I don't know who to listen to this morning. When you're away somewhere do you go into a hotel and then at night say well I hope let's see channel a where do they have the night shows and the strippers you don't turn to that junk. Well if you don't turn to the program of the ungodly what makes you think the ungodly turn to our programs? By and large they don't. I still think there is no alternative to going into all the world to preach the gospel that God takes individuals unredeemed men need redeemed men to go and tell them he worked his miracle in me. Isn't that what it's all about? He did it in me. Because he did it in me as the Quaker would say he can do it in thee. Well my time is up.