Leonard Ravenhill emphasizes the vital importance of the Word of God in a chaotic world, urging believers to return to the spiritual nourishment found in Scripture. He reflects on the need for the church to awaken from its slumber and actively engage with the truth of God's Word, which is unchanging and powerful. Ravenhill laments the current state of society, where many prioritize worldly pursuits over spiritual truths, and calls for a revival of faith and commitment to the Gospel. He highlights the indestructible nature of the Bible, contrasting it with the fleeting nature of worldly ideologies, and encourages believers to rely on God's Word as their guide and strength. Ultimately, he reminds the congregation of the urgency of sharing the Gospel in a world that desperately needs it.

baggage with praise return again from the husks of this world to partake of heavenly manna as we have drunk physically we would come and drink spiritually of this fountain of life. I think of Wesley's hymn when he said thou of life the fountain art freely let me take of thee spring thou up within my heart and rise to all eternity as we have earlier expressed we need the every hour we need the every hour we live we need thee particularly in this hour your presence again makes the feast we need the every hour we've come from a world that doesn't need the any hour so it thinks crowds the out of its thinking out of its legislation out of its education out of its social program it still is a choice and it's still made the same way not this man but the others we're still a crazy world we still prefer the unholy things to the holy and the visible to the invisible we live in a bunch of people who set their affection on things that are beneath and not things that are above people have eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear and hearts that do not feel we remember paul says such are some of ye but you're washed you're sanctified we'd still get up with that mob of lost people but for your infinite grace we thank you this afternoon for the love that sought us and the blood that bought us and the grace that brought us to the fold the wondrous grace i suppose not one of us came the first time you called us you were like stubborn sheep we went every one to his own way and you called and called and we deafened our ears and we steeled our wills and we went on our way and it was a broad way that led to destruction we're glad you didn't give up on us you didn't fail to pursue us we have to sing as that old hymn says he he drew me and i followed on charmed to confess that voice divine we thank you in the midst of the chaos of modern life that there's still a a pillar of truth in our midst we thank you feeble as it is for the voice of the church we thank you for the book you've given us this indestructible book this book that needs no correction it knows it needs no p.s at the end of it you don't call it in and revise it you've no second thoughts to add to it when you said it you said it and it made it perfect we thank you for those who pioneered and made it possible often at the price of their own blood to bring this book to us it is indeed a golden casket where gems of truth are stored it is the heaven-drawn picture of christ the living word we pray this afternoon lord that you take the veil from the book and speak to our hearts afresh we think again of the terrible terrible injustice of the fact that we've kept the book to ourselves for centuries as it were and there are millions and millions of heathen in fact there are more heathen in the world we believe at this moment than any period in history as we saw the closing of vietnam and cambodia and laos we realized they shut up to a materialism a militant atheism something which is opposed to all that's righteous and true and holy and it must be a hell on earth to live there these days you wonder about the persecution of the believers wonder how many of them have already met his martyrs death how many homes have been torn apart how many churches have been pulled apart we can't understand their misery we can't because we don't know a thing about it it's all shut up the papers suddenly drop their headlines on vietnam they turn to lesser things to other things there's a girl the way they're in california suddenly captures the headlines of all the newspapers in the world by endeavoring impurity and insanity we can turn the world upside down with a headline of a newspaper of people who gossip the day through about that one thing and make their speculations and find a way out of the situation while millions perish while in our ghettos there are people half starved wherever around us i think so often of the indians there are tens of thousands of them almost unreached in this very land in almost in the shade of the spires of our tall churches it's an unholy world it's an unequal world it's an unrighteous world it's an unlovely world it's an untrue church really because you told us first to preach the gospel of jerusalem then most part and yet we thank you for the truth that does shine amidst all the error we thank you for all the courageous christians amongst all the timid ones we thank you for those who go to countries where there are solid walls of heathenism and darkness and superstition still in some areas cannibalism unbelievably ugly and unbelievably unclean unbelievably violent and often it's young women that have to face the horrors of this thing there are more women on the mission field than men anyhow god we thank you for all of god to carry the light and the truth into the darkness and heathenism thank you for those who try to reach others in the ghettos for those who are trying to reach the nine colleges and universities where morality seems at an all-time low where nobody seems to bother too much and then again we thank thee for truth we thank thee for righteousness into that young man we met this week who said his eyes have been opened and he realized it was easy to run down the street and give out traps but not too easy to stand on the corridor in the university and oppose homosexuals and lesbianism and vice right outside of his own door and he said this will cost me a lot bless him bless others like him youngsters just gone to universities and their eyes are suddenly opening to the wickedness and the violence and the total absence apparently of conscience in many areas no thought of god they live like animals die like animals forget there's an eternity we don't have it in us to arouse them your spirit must do this lord it will take the work of the holy ghost to come to them whose consciences are seared look at this man asking to come back in the country as an open murderer a rapist and now he wants to get back because he's been around the world and hasn't found anything better lord god we again see that unless you run the heavens and come down where we'll go over the precipice like other nations like other empires and we are asking again we tell you we're not throwing our hearts on the willows we are trusting in thee as wesley said in that hymn jesus thou art all compassion pure undaunted love thou art man you don't get exploding you don't lose your temper like so often we have done in the past suddenly get ignited if you didn't surely you pull the switch and burn us all up you've threatened even to spew the church out of your mouth so what you'll do with the world it's past guessing you must be near that situation you must be almost impatient with the with the patience of the church you know iniquity our incredible satisfaction with our spirituality our unbelievable coldness toward thee and toward last men and women our cries with isaiah arm of the lord awake and put on strength or as wesley put it spirit of faith come down reveal the things of god and make to us that god that had known and witness with the blood or as again he said some other hymn there give me the faith which can remove and sink the mountain to a plane give me that child like praying love which longs to build my house again thy love let it my heart all power and all my simple soul devour enlarge inflame and fill my heart with boundless charity divine so shall i all my strength exert and love them with a zeal like thine and turn them to a pardoning god and quench their brands in jesus blood lord again we recognize that in ourselves we're totally inadequate we can't do a thing of ourselves we may have all the zeal we may have all the information we may have all the statistics on how many people are lost or how many communists there are in russia or how many planes they have to fight us and when we said it all what have we said we might as well quote three blind mice it doesn't do up for us it means that you must come and invade these personalities of ours and so dominate them and rule them and control them that we totally have no will of ours we sing take my life and medically we sing take my will make it thine and yet often our wills get up and get in front of your will teach us all to resist this teaches again to put on the whole armor of god to withstand the fiery darts of the enemy we know lord it's a warfare that we're in it's not an escalator ride to heaven for you not carried to the skies as one said on flowery beds of ease but you want to mature us you want to get us to a place where we can bear the burdens you want us to carry and have the understanding you want to share with us that the will and the zeal to do the perfect total will of god remember they have some friends today there's fewer away bless them you can see them they're as near to thee as we are we ask your blessing on their lives we pray for henry and annie as they go off this week across the world there across the atlantic we pray you'll bless them and guide their steps and maybe inspirational to them quicken their hearts as they see some of the sights remember the history and think of martyrs who were burned and the people who did so much to get the gospel to the ends of the earth and yet the nation itself is a morally spiritually bankrupt nation again our government we see again our helplessness money can't help us right now armies can't help us science can't help us if you don't help us we're finished we can dig our grave and write our epitaph and say we passed on like other nations and other empires but be merciful to us again we say as we've said before give us a year to dig around the tree and fertilize it like the man who saw his tree threatened and he said spare it one more year let me fertilize it if it doesn't bear fruit cut it down lord it's a hazard to ask you to spare us only one year but you have sent somewhere in one of the prophecies that you'll come and you'll do a swift work and we look for you to do it just as a fire can burn down a multi-million dollar building in hours and ruin it forever so we believe the fire of the spirit can come and burn into all these societies and corrupt forms of government and all these other things that are around burning and destroy them and hastening and bringing the coming of our lord jesus christ so again thank you for blessing each of our lives since we were together thank you for the blessing in our meetings the lives that sought thee particularly the preachers that were humbled and broken before thee we ask that they may go forth and carry the word with power and authority that christ may be glorified and they may help to hasten your coming in your kingdom and we give you praise in jesus name yes i i think that the whole mess that we're in now is really you can trace it right back to the church the corruption that has ended the church and the attack of course again has been on the word of god that i want to talk about today one of the contemporaries of john wesley a very brilliant man by the name of voltaire he was a brilliant man somebody talked to him one day about jesus christ and this this very eager christian said there's never been a man in history like jesus christ voltaire said forget it what do you mean he said there's a man living in england now he's exactly like jesus christ he's as pure he's as gentle he's as loving what's his name john fletcher he lives in shropshire that's rather testimony when the world's leading atheist says of a christian he's as pure and lovely and gracious as jesus christ john wesley's testimony of john fletcher was when he said i can die comfortably and have methodism over to to john fletcher he's so spiritual but john wesley stood the great side of john fletcher and lived i think about 50 years after so god had other plans but but when he buried him uh he somebody said to him don't grieve you're going to see him at the jungle you're going to see him in eternity and reputedly john wesley said my friend this man is so pure and holy maybe the greatest man since the apostle paul he'll be so near to the throne of god and i'll be so far away i'll only see the reflected glory of jesus in his face that's quite a thing for john wesley to say well if john wesley's going to be all that way back i don't know but the good book says one day there's going to be one shepherd one fall one man in their foreheads one song in there now that's the only one that's ever going to be as far as i can see but uh the other thing that mr voltaire said was this when somebody challenged him about the bible he said look i'm going to make a prediction a hundred years from this date he said you will not find the bible anywhere but in a museum well that was somewhere i don't know wesley died when they set out in 1780 it's nearly we're nearly 200 years ahead of that and instead of the bible going out of existence and being a museum piece it's the still the most printed book in the world it may not be the most read people have it in the home often as a fetish but by the same token again what that man said boomerang because the house in which he wrote that statement became the distribution center for the geneva bible society in the very house where he wrote that prophet he distributed bibles all through europe till the house got bombed why do men have said the word of god well for a lot of reasons you see the bible to me is like gibraltar i haven't seen it my wife sailed through there some years back but i know it's a famous rock and the waves beat in anger against it they blast up against that thing they knock a ship out into pieces they kill you if they got behind you but they break on that rock what do they do they break the rock all they do is break themselves i thought as one man said i don't remember the poem i remember years ago went something like this last evening or last eve i paused behind beside the blacksmith's door and heard the anvil ring its best for chime and looking in i saw upon the floor all hammers worn with beating years of time how many hammers have you had to wear and batter how many anvils have you had to wear and batter the hammers so only one said he with twinkling of an eye the anvil wears the hammers out you know and thus i'm used beyond god's word out for centuries skeptics have beat upon but as i looked around i see the anvil still the anvil lies unharmed the hammer is gone and every man that beats against this word dies and it stands at his graveside this is as indestructible as god himself forever forever and this is what i'm saying because somebody did say that dearly lancy that many of us know in building a house she she's followed the prescription that they said the last few years that if you're building a house be sure you had some bibles in the wall because we're going to live to see the day when if it isn't destroyed by an act of government people will come to your door and say and you have a bible yes have you seen this one let me see your bible oh that's another one this is worth 30 dollars but i'll give you it for that because they do not want king james version particularly around so they give us going to give us a corrupted bible which is agreed upon by jews and gentiles and the roman catholic church it will be a corruption and the only way that they can penetrate and break down the church of the living god again is really to get the word of god uh to be corrupted polluted and this got me thinking this week about how precious the word of god is the psalmist said in somewhere let me look here psalm 119 right you know in psalm 119 you've got you've got what 176 verses i think i think uh let me check in case you think i'm wrong 176 verses how could i be wrong 176 verses and it's divided you see first aleph you see aleph and death and gimel and that really is just the hebrew alphabet dividing the whole of that book now do you know that every verse or every other verse in the 119th psalm mentions the bible read let me read this section from verse nine wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word okay with my whole heart that i sought thee or let me not wonder from my commandments thy word have i hidden in my heart that i might not sin against thee blessed art thou o lord that teach me thy statutes with my lips have i declared all the judgments of thy mouth i have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies as much as in all riches i will meditate in thy precepts and have respect unto thy ways i will delight myself in my statutes i will not forget thy word now we've got it rings the changes and if ever a lady used to our prayer meeting and we used to let women pray too you know that boy she killed me you know every time every verse end she'd say and lord and lord and she lorded it i'm sure a hundred two hundred times in a prayer and that gets remarkable because you can change that now look what he says here he says in this verse nine according to thy word in verse 10 he calls the word the commandments uh in verse 12 he calls on the word of god the statutes in verse 13 he calls it the judgments in verse 14 he calls it the testimonies in verse 15 he calls it the precepts and in verse 16 he says i delight myself in thy statutes i will not forget thy word now remember it's the word of god which is as hebrews 4 says which is quick and powerful why should why do they object to the first of all because it exposes our morality or lack of it it not only exposes our morality it exposes carnality and not only that it exposes all human failure and nobody likes exposure you see again hebrews 4 says that the word of god is quick and powerful you know that word quick actually means like pushing something in your flesh and twisting it you know it hurts and i'm not sure that it's right to say to people or unsaved if you're going to a decent gospel meeting oh you'll come you'll enjoy it i never enjoyed going to the dentist never in my life he was a liar and he asked him he just sat in a chair he said it won't hurt they knew it would you never go anywhere like that without getting hurt do you but the word of god is quick uh the other night before we left this meeting a very charming lady came up and she said i want to tell you something i haven't slept for five nights the lord spoke to me on monday night and for five nights i haven't had a wink of sleep and and until yesterday i was wishing well i hope it goes on before the weekend i can't take this one but then she said the lord saw god to me she said i wish it stayed for three minutes not the church didn't wish that just one woman but uh again you see the effectiveness of the word of god the word of god is quick and it's powerful and it's sharp as a twin so it hurts it can divide between soul and spirit and not many people know the difference between that anyhow if they go to a meeting where they get disturbed and they clap their hands and sing and get you know tears jerk and so forth it's a great meaning but it may be totally soulish anyhow it may not be on the spiritual level at all but the psalmist says thy word of our head in my heart now let's make sure of this i've tried to say this to you so often we ought to particularly if you have children that they should at least memorize one verse of scripture a week in fact i know a home where they memorize one every day and they not only memorize one verse of scripture a day they memorize one word of the one letter of the greek alphabet and those kids who recite the scripture then by the end of the week that they're saying an alpha beta gamma delta so forth then a bit later they have to quote a word and then after that they were taught doctrine and that that manner is a brilliant doctrine his wife's a brilliant doctor too and they've taken those children and they've had their own bible school in their own house they have drilled the word of god because you see the time may come when we don't even have a visible bible i would be at all surprised if i may not live to see it though i'm i'm totally uh in disagreement with what schaefer schaefer is the head of the abbey fellowship and he certainly has a very wonderful rapport with with scholars with with students and whatnot but i don't think the world has got 30 years to repent forget it if we don't repent in the next five we've had it we don't have all that time you you just can't have detente with russia and all this other rotten stuff that we china you don't mix up with that kind of thing and make pacts with them they're not sincere anyhow they don't mean business anyhow and we're just stating off the evil day before before what the bible calls the time of jacob's trouble and i'm quite sure a number of us maybe all of us will live to see the invasion of palestine in what we call again uh from the word of god the battle of armageddon this is this is a an unholy pact the jews right now are raging mad why because they've made such concessions they've had to make such concessions for kissinger maybe to get a little glory but anyhow it's it's so temporary and we better not throw dust in our eyes and think that we're answering a p in fact the book is just the very opposite of that it says whether they say peace and safety then come a sudden destruction as travel upon a woman with child it's no good saying everything's all right and the woman's going to carry a baby and she knows it's due tomorrow say forget it's not going to next year anyhow boy she'd look at you and say you're crazy no sir this this there's going to be an outbreak that there has to be and the only way to stem the tide again is is through the church of the living god in this particular book from holland this magazine said that how could how could christians let the war go on in vietnam why didn't we stampede around here there and raise war against it well i can understand that to some degree but but by the same tone as i've said to you before has anybody suggested we we have a week of prayer and fasting for revival to come to these countries when peter went to prison in the new testament the whole church stayed out of bed because one man was in prison now with more than 100 million in prison i don't hear anybody suggesting we have a night of prayer i'm sure general ford isn't christian didn't even know they exist uh who's going to do it you see and and again i believe that the whole deterioration of the world is due again to the fact that the church of jesus christ has gone to sleep and we're going to pay you you see those those virgins and they were all virgins that slept there before before the bridegroom came there weren't five virgins and five harlots they were all virgins but they all slept too they all slept and at midnight in the midnight hour the time of when it's darkest we say it's darkest before the dawn intense darkness immediately before that when they when it was expected that why why have they done they're waiting for the bridegroom but they fell asleep you've got people all over the place so you know i believe the lord may come before tonight they don't believe that at all if they did they won't live as they do think focus live the way they live if they believe that jesus is coming tonight they know the chance to spread their accounts how many of us have read on our tiptoes and say lord as far as i know i'm walking every bit of life you've given me i'm an obedient to the vision i've been grieving over the lost world this week i've been traveling in birth the christmaker i'm more burdened maybe for russia than i am for for america how many of us are really living tiptoe like that for god i don't think there are many and yet this is what is required of us if we are the children of light we don't walk in darkness as others do now this book has been attacked by the intellectuals but it's being attacked by the fundamentals to some degree or at least it's being attacked by the scholars the best way to pollute the preachers was to pollute the colleges and this is exactly what happened this what we call liberalism or again in england they call modernism as as so polluted asia remember they come out without any sense of responsibility as to what the church is all about to them it's a job to them it's how many buses you have what your sunday school attendance is but when you come right down to the spiritual level talking about being born again of the spirit of god i was thinking the other day we're going to uh be saying an awful lot this next year in the bicentenary about famous people but i remember those are a remarkable letter written by remarkable englishman to a remarkable american dated if i remember right uh seventeen hundred and and uh what was the date 1745 anyhow it was it was uh george whitfield writing to benjamin franklin and he said as i see you growing more and more important in the world of learned men i commit to your diligent and unprejudiced study the mystery of the new birth for remember that without a bit not one of us can enter the kingdom of god what a pity with a george whitfield link up message through oh yes it's true that franklin was interested in his voice people got saved a mile away listening to george whitfield preaching amplification he must have had a voice remember god was so on him that when there were only 12 000 people in boston he drew 14 000 people at night you don't have a preacher living that can do that some of them can't do that well apart from tv and and yet the anointing of god was on that man one of the great classics was written scribble angus google wrote a book called the life of god in the soul of man it was that book that brought george whitfield to christ he was going down one of the corridors in the university of oxford the man was sitting there and he saw george whitfield george whitfield was oversized too big physically it's a daily cross-eyed you can go to more fields up to his church my friend passes that church right now and uh as he went down the corridor remember here here is a man who liked john wesley was a man of impeccable morality he never drank in his life he never went on on night shows and stuff he was a gentleman he was a scholar there hasn't been a greater brain in england perhaps since george john wesley and comparable was george whitfield and whitfield said as i went down that corridor this young he wasn't john wesley was charles wesley said when i saw him i angered him for god and later george whitfield said you you may think me superstitious but i can show you the crack in the floor where i read that book when i met god i read the life of god to him religion was it was a matter of morality and christianity is not morality on its tick toes a man could be passed particularly these days for church membership like nicodemus a ruler of the jews he was a scholar too he was a member of the sanhedrin that was the holiest club in the world he he had everything going for him he was a pharisee and jesus said you've got to be born again i i don't think there's anything leading to heaven's week we you're turning tv on they're talking about miracles and signs and wonders the greatest thing we need in america tonight is a message on being born again at the school of god what it really means for a person to come out of darkness into life from death to life from the power of satan unto god and the reason that this world is so unpalatable is it punches our pride it says it doesn't matter if your grandfather was a duke or if you're an intellectual or or if you've never done anything wrong as far as you know that doesn't get you into heaven that's morality not spirituality a man must be born again and that's why jesus later says when he talks in in in john 6 he's talking about this word this word the preacher kept saying to me this past week he said brother raven i i ache in my spirit when i think of how great preaching has died i i never hear anybody that can preach i go to a meeting a fellow gets up and says well praise the lord whether they spread out from the other and i was just really i don't want to keep you too long i know the choir sang a little bit too long you just let me tell you this he almost apologizes man he ought to go till they're prepared to tear him out of the pulpit he ought to blister them at least on their souls he ought to come with such a message from heaven that people i i think the church of martin martha's church away the hills of of ireland there if i remember right the the door is right behind the pulpit the door is right behind the pulpit why because it's the only way the preacher could escape if you had a staircase up at the side people might rush up but there was a time when men used to present truths from it simeon of oxford if you go to oxford university you should go simeon was at oxford and you know he saw preach they nailed the door up they nailed the door up he couldn't get in his church he had to talk outside speak outside so powerful was the word of god but he stayed there and won the hearts of the people and still until he stayed there 52 years and saw a revival you see the word of god is quick oh if there's no holy ghost on it it's dead you may as well read queen anne you may as well read the encyclopedia britannica and expect to get blessed you see the word of god condemns itself it says the letter killeth you know you've got to walk down the aisle kiss the preacher and put you through the tank tonight and you remember pay your tithes and that's it oh no no no you can do that every night of the week as far as that goes for 10 years it wouldn't save you but when a man comes into a real living relationship with god it is through the word of god which has been quickened to it and the word which has been a dead letter suddenly becomes alive it's quick and it's powerful and the thing that amazed those people that listen there were lots of orators in the days of jesus good night the other some of the great orators romans and the greeks were around at that time you're not going to suggest they never heard that but when they heard jesus they said this man speaks with authority and jesus himself says in the sixth of john verse 36 there he says the word i speak to you their spirit and their life i think it must have been lovely to hear jesus he was always emphasizing he was alive i heard of a preacher recently that belongs to a fundamental group he said if you go in any one of our churches you'd never figure that we belong to the group whose name is on the there's no life and yet jesus said what i am the way the truth and the life without the way there's no going without the truth there's no knowing without the life there's no growing i am the way is external i am the truth is internal i am the life is eternal i'm come that they might have life this was a sole purpose as i said to you often you see we've lost the wonder of our salvation we've got theologically minded listen you can't push anything over me i happen to be a good reader i know this i know that yeah but when did you last get over these feet as i said the other night to a congregation the night before i was wishing with all my heart john had been there that night when the glory came up when did you last take jesus by the feet and forget all about your prayers and forget all about your praises and just worship him and adore him and magnify him and make almost the angels envy that you're such a heart full of love and adoration because that's what a worship worship is speechless adoration very often or or is it like loud adoration but adoration it certainly is but you see until you have life it's like reading a love story you laugh at the silly things in a love story then when you fall in love heavens you think good they didn't even put it straight they don't know what they're talking about it's exactly the same talking about jesus jesus is a historical figure jesus is somebody the church talks about puts him in stained glass window but when he becomes a living reality to us when he would rarely say as charles wesley thou old christ art all i want and more than all in thee i find that he is the alpha and the omega the beginning and the ending of our faith he's all i need we sing the chorus like that sometimes but he is all i need he is all i need jesus is all i need but remember this that much as he was all they need they turned him away you know except the spirit of god comes in the normal planning way there's not a slightly chance of these millions at the last getting saved you can give them all the tracks you like they'll stuff them in the pockets and some people keep a record i've i've heard people say you know i've given out ten thousand nine hundred and seventy six tracks in the last five years i've knocked on 450 doors and so on so on all he did was wear your knuckles out anyhow unless the word of god is quickened even a track won't do it god may use it at times i'm not disputing that but you see when we're making a substitute for intercessory prayer that that's life that's power that's authority i've been returning this over in my mind again i'm thinking all the organizations all the systems that there are these days and yet somehow we don't draw a line and say to satan you're not going to pass that line because we stand in the name of jesus christ who is the lord of life he is the way he is the truth he is the life and he's come to give us life and not only give us life but give us that life more abundantly now if i had god's word in my heart to me it has a detergent effect there's another script i couldn't find it because i put my i got my uh concordance thank you concordance packed up so i couldn't find it but you know the word of god is likened to a strong tower if you have that experiences for this but maybe it's because you're not grown up enough spiritually but i'll tell you what they're coming the word of god is like a strong tower and the righteous run into it and they're safe you remember that when satan attacked jesus and if he attacked jesus he'll attack you don't worry about if you're worth attacking and every time he came to say to jesus what did he do jesus hit him back with the word of god it is written it is written it is written now you can't quote the word of god unless you know it you can't know it unless you're learning you can't let it assimilate you see what you have to do is with truth is to is to listen carefully and assimilate it slowly and obey it completely that that's the only way of growth there'll come a time in your life when all you can do is hide in the in the strong tower of god's word nobody can get you out of the mess nobody can explain what's going on you're running to the top the righteous run into that tower but they're safe isaiah talks about a day what is it about chapter 63 somewhere where he says there's coming a day and i think we're near that day when a man shall be as a hiding place why because he's a he's a mature man in god and because he has knowledge of god and the ways of god people are going to run to him like they run to a doctor they're going to run to him like they go for somebody to repair a tv set or something here is a man who has knowledge of god and he's going to be shepherded in this time of tribulation this time of stress which is i i think it's already starting in the earth and the only way that i'm going to be secure is to hide in that strong feelings won't do it you know that sometimes you're on top of the wave aren't you you feel my i don't care if there are 50 devils today i could beat them all with one hand tied behind the bell the next day you feel if the devil is no bigger than a fairy he'd lick you you know you feel boy you know why because god is a jealous god because you cannot trust the feelings there's a hymn that says i dare not trust the sweetest frame but holy lean on jesus name and i remember tozer asking a group of people one day said what does that mean i dare not trust the sweetest friend well i haven't told a smart mother and sometimes you know when things didn't go right she'd say now then listen tomorrow you'll be in a different frame of mind see i dare not trust the sweetest friend this this framework i'm in right now is not secure all my security is in god and in his word and you know i i thrill you may not get blue sprinkles on your heart i do but but the good book says thy word of god is settled forever it's settled in heaven god's never going to change his mind and i tell you again as i've said to these people this week remember this that all god has ever said he said finished talking to men two thousand years ago he's got nothing else to say to men or he'll speak through messages but as regards doctrine and prophecy it's all in this book if it doesn't fit in with this book toss it out his word is settled in heaven again in hebrews when it says thy throne on god is forever and ever a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom you see this is all rooted again in the word of god if i have god's word my feelings may be different my environment may be different my social standing could be different my bodily health may be different does that change god does it change his plans does it change his attitude he settled it forever and therefore if i have this word written in my heart if i know his statutes if i know his commandments if i know his testimonies after all god's been very kind you know he's uh you remember that maybe the classic story of cornell the pretender as we call him to the english throne and he had a big wart on his chin one day he sat for the greatest portrait painter in the country and he painted him and they brought mr cornell in to see the picture he was angry he said paint me what and all he left a big ugly wart on his chin off he thought it didn't look nice on a man like him he said paint me water not we can be sure of one thing god will paint us water and all he won't leave the wards off he won't leave the marks off he hasn't left them off these characters here and as i say to the people when i when i go through hebrews 11 and realize nobody in hebrews 11 ever had a bible in here look what they did with it i was thinking again of that word that says the first should be last and the last should be first and this was through a certain circumstance that came and i was thinking what what a topsy-turvy thing it's going to be at the judgment seat of christ we're going to be amazed i don't know when you when you think you're going to your position will be when you when you when he gives the grades out you know when we finally get our clearance papers march off into eternity uh it's it's a pretty challenging thing but i i was thinking when god says the last shall be first my there's going to be some old little ladies i didn't know much about or a fellow that was mentioned in the letter i got yesterday from another friend he's a blind man he lives in ireland right now he spends seven to eight hours a day on his knees in prayer one of the great men of prayer of our day i think i thought well if he were more handsome he had a bad accident and his face is twisted and his mouth is twisted but he's one of the great preachers he can preach and the only thing that gets him from being accepted is he has no personality as such he's an ugly looking man right he is but he's a great man of prayer you know i thought one day some of these shiny you know gifted talented preachers that strut and do all the stuff on tv you'll be searching say did you see something a guy lives in a little cottage down there there's no roof on it you know if there's any slum property some of the preachers there won't be any but some of the deteriorating properties you think of it you know and some of those mansions that that we think of i got a mansion that they're going to be occupied by people who wouldn't dream of you wouldn't select them tonight i guess to go in those places and then when i think back over all the ages you know this book as i've said not only does blood run from genesis to revelation that covers a stain with blood it's given to us by martyrs men who burned at the stake there's a time in england when a man would give a load of hay for one page of the bible didn't care what page it was i'm sure he hoped he wouldn't get the bigots or the bigot this bigot that bigots it wouldn't help him too much but for one page of the bible he gave a whole field of hay and he would cut it and give a lot of hay and when he got it people would come from the other you can have this you've got a whole page about yes yes be careful no you can't touch it you can't touch it you can look at it you see i remember going to a church in the north of england where they still have the bible a big thing like this with with iron clasps and a dirty rusty chain and the bible is still chained to the wall in that church as a relic of the of the of the former days remember what first samuel says in those days there was no open vision and i i'm still humiliated i i still almost dry my teeth when i say look how those men matured in faith in hebrew hebrew 11 and not one of them ever had a bible how did they know god's voice oh it's easy for me to sit in a nice chair and push the button you know lazy boy that's especially his hands were preachers and uh put your feet up and then start reading about heroes of faith doesn't take much i don't have to be too much to a right as far as i know we've got some bread at home and uh have a few things and have a car i need to face god tomorrow face the world maybe a sneer or a jeer but supposing the walls go out the roof comes in you see if you told the folk in cambodia a few years ago what was going to happen they wouldn't have believed you if you told the people in these other countries and it can't come to pass that's exactly what they said in germany when they told them about the dictator they'd have a dictator in russia and they got a dictator now in italy and they said you'll get when they said forget it remember where the country of the bismarcks and the kaiser were a military nation we'll never take hitler forget it he only does he's a he used to hang wallpaper in my mother's house that was his job who she stared at it licking wallpaper and sticking it on the wall became one of the most terrible men in history how did it happen well i'll tell you what i believe prepared the way for hitler the first higher criticism of the bible came from germany and they undermined the truth of god's word simple things you know like jonah and the way when they got down to the virgin birth and then the physical resurrection and then the apocalypse and so forth and they prepared the way if you're going to sow seed you need prepared ground they prepared the ground the whole way devalue the word of god now we don't devalue it the same way we devalue it with subtlety with craftiness but because they're just covering up more lies you can get a book on it they'll take the hair off your head if you want there's a new book out on on nixon right now make it make you think he's a the out the poem was a gentleman if you want to read it cost you two dollars same as the book teddy bear b-a-r-e teddy bear on teddy caribou the only reason he didn't run for the presidency this book exposed him over half a million had been sold and shown the corruption in in in dealing with the case and remember again the two great signs immediately before the flood were what violence shall cover the earth and the earth was corrupt before god is there a part of what isn't it strange or is it strange that does it does it joy your spirit when you hear them say as they said last night on the news i've been here this morning the christians and the arabs are fighting in in lebanon and the city and tens of millions of damage and it showed a bunch of men all shooting sweeping that these are the christians at this side these are the arabs that they're not christians at all they're not arabs but they're sure not christians i don't believe that would happen if a christian doesn't mow people down like that but but again where is the peace on earth it's estimated there are a million men lined up now on the on the on the line between uh between russia and china you know that since that there are 30 pardon me or not there are 51 000 american men on the 38th parallel in korea that's cost us millions of dollars since the end of that war how many men are there in europe there's far more than that there are more men under arms at this moment than in a period in history and yet we keep blindly going on talking about peace and rest and the word of god says again that when they say this then come a sudden destruction but it doesn't seem to alarm us in the church of the living god that's that's the greatest distress as far as i'm concerned i'm a voice crying in the room this doesn't worry me all i have to do is say my peace if a man falls over the precipice it's not my fault if i told him it was only a yard away now there is another point about the word of god by the word of god is what it's a lamp to my feet and god has guaranteed as long as you follow this book on your knees and that's the only way to read it that you'll not walk in darkness but we'll see the light if you're going down the road and you've no light and suddenly i remember reading a story where there's a boy about this man that was running away and he didn't know which direction he suddenly realized oh i can hear the sea and a flash of lightning came and it was about two yards from a precipice he was a dash to destruction he turned back why because the light revealed where he was or on the other hand somebody might have dropped a string of beads or some treasures at your feet if you're in the dark you might walk and think you're walking on gravel you might be crushing a precious diamond a necklace or something but if you've got light now exactly the same with the truth with the word of god the word of god is a lamp to our feet it's a light to our path and we don't walk in darkness sure people consider it oddballs church in the state it's in where they have chicken suppers and all the riffraff that they have these days if you talk about a night of prayer they most likely laugh allow you to scorn but we were listening recently to a tape of a church up there of some people who've been actually through the museum of where david is and we got a tape on that and it was very interesting to hear these people say in our church when you come to the door there's a sign on the door no speaking past this point and for half an hour there's a half hour of stillness before god before the meeting and and they run the church on a disciplinary basis which very few people dare to do do in the day in which we live god is a god of discipline god is a god of order god is a god of authority and i still say again that when people get saved don't just tell them they've got a mansion in the sky and all the rest tell them they're soldiers of jesus christ and they lost all rights to themselves immediately they were born again put on the whole armor of god and you're under orders to do as god says whatever he calls uh says i'll do whatever burden he gives i lift it whatever hardship he says all i'll do is say lord don't answer he don't does not have to explain to you anything he's doing it's not your business even to ask him trust and obey there's no other way and when we raise our hats and say you see that man that's gilmore he went to mongolia served there seven years he never saw a convert see that picture there there's one of the greatest gentlemen in history they call him the greatest gentleman in england 21 years of age he was senior in kendridge university he was a he was the greatest student of the day won the smith prize at 21 years of age and he was called and he went to india i preached just at the side of his church in the black hole of calcutta there henry martin took his genius and transferred translated the bible out of original greek into original arabic one of the hardest languages in the world and for years later and finally was dragged before one of the emperors there they were going to cut his head off because he made this invasion into their country and right now if your headache is the oil is going to go up for three three or four dollars let me give you a bigger headache do you know you know what they're doing with that oil they don't want to do with it with so much money okay do you know one thing they're doing they're financing a new revival of islam in africa because christianity has penetrated and stolen so many of their people that right now there is a revival of millions of dollars out of america going over to the arabs is going back to fight christianity satan's going out at full speed the church is asleep and yet again it seems to parallel the very period in which john wesley lived one of the men in john wesley's day said if you went to church you didn't know whether it was a christian church or islam or buddhism the church was dead the preachers were drunk then they were sporting and they were this that the other day anything but men of god they're not quite as well as that was it pretty bad last sunday night as we went to the church we were at there's a massive church in the center of just the most gorgeous place in almost white stone the doors were all what do you need to serve do you remember seeing that what what do you need to serve it's something i'm for once a week well that's as much as i could take a son preaching i'll tell you that i may not stand and survive the whole meeting but uh what a what a tragic situation satan doesn't have any hours off they don't have a half day in hell don't you forget it they work full stretch they and yet again when i've read about this man saying we we ought to be concerned about the political situation we ought to be concerned well i don't hear the apostle paul saying oh jesus saying anything about julius caesar or any other caesar in his day i don't hear jesus blasting slavery the only stuff like that jesus dealt with was inside the church where the money changers was the money changers the pigeon sellers get out of here this is god's house as i've told you before after you've read the four gospels as we call them the whole balance of truth in the new testament is to the church it's the church that's wrong it's the church that's sick when you go to the old testament who is god after the amalekites all that god is after in the old testament is israel he loved israel he divorced himself from israel he's going to remarry israel read the 11th chapter of roman well this doesn't sound very good does it well i'll tell you what i'm finding more and more you may not have to do this what i have to do i have to go on my bed some days and open to hebrews 11 and stick my finger on it and defy my feelings and defy the mail and defy the news letters i've just gotten defied the time magazine and defied news magazine and newsweek and say lord this is true hebrews 11 6 he that cometh to god must believe that he is and he is a rewarder of them that diligently seeking and god god is too big to fail god doesn't sponsor the failures i hear people getting happy saying every promise in the book is mine well they're not mine and i don't want them there's one promise god has made and he made it to the church not to the sinners he said to the church i'll skew you out of my mouth when you get so cold and lethargical and indifferent now those churches were very much against heresy they would have fought they would have fought liberalism they would have fought do you know those witnesses they were very correct but they left their first love they didn't lose it they left it it wasn't something like the boy came in our yard yesterday the fellow that bought the house and he put some trees in and he said you know i said well the lovely trees he said it cost me 200 dollars had 200 dollars he said yes i i paid for them then i lost my bill for when i paid for them i had 200 dollars in it poor fellow he lost that he didn't throw it away out of his car saying well i bought flour brought trees of 200 dollars is nothing to me he lost it no no he lost it but the lord jesus said to the church thou hast left not lost thou hast left thy first love and the last word of jesus to the world wasn't what you hear so often i see there's a new book out i think on christ's last message to the church going into all the world of preaching gospel well you'd better think again it wasn't that at all christ's last message to the church was repent to the church in the book of the revelation over and over and over and over and over again repent which is something intellectual it's not emotional i sit down and size up listen i'm doing the wrong thing i'm doing the wrong time i'm doing i'm grieving god and i repent of that and it actually means to turn from that direction to going this direction i i put my mind in line with the will of god and this again is why i need to know the word of god because the word of god reveals god's name it's god's book of correction it's god's book of cleansing it's god's book of comfort it's god's book of quickening the psalmist says oh look quicken my heart you ever get an experience like that you ever read the word and something something snaps back and you say oh boy that's wonderful my that worked well the psalmist prayer is answered again in hebrews 4 where it says that the word of god is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword you know we talked so much about stephen pardon me about their apostle being the peter being the great example of being a spiritual man i i think that young stephen to me is far beyond beyond peter for the simple reason you read about stephen he was filled with wisdom it was filled with knowledge he was filled with love and yet when he preached they could say nothing and they railed on him why did they rail on him he was the purest man in the world why did they rail on jesus he was the purest man in the world because immediately he began to speak with the authority of god and they saw their corruption and they saw the shallowness of their former religion a form of godliness that's all it was it had no power but the word of god is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword there it goes on and on and on and if i'm going to read it the word of god is going to hurt me there's no question about it god wounds me that he may heal me he strips me that he may clothe me he empties me that he may fill me he humiliates me that he may lift me up he lets me say i'm nothing that i see that he is all in all and it's true as we sang in that lovely hymn i need thee every hour in joy or pain i don't need him just in the good hours i need him in the bad hours i don't need him just in the bad hours i need him in the good hours you'll go overboard as easily in ecstasy of joy as you can in grief you can get off the track in your good days as well as days when you're under real pressure i need thee every hour the comfort the guidance of the holy spirit of god and he uses this word this is his rod this is his staff i rod and my staff they comfort me isiah talks about comforting a thing with nails well i don't think if anybody drove a nail in my hand i think it was but you see that must be some archaic english actually what it is he faceted he made it secure with nails there's nothing keeps my faith more secure than the word of god i can read wesley i can read church history i can hear what god's doing every magazine i read somebody's turning the world upside down apart from that i wouldn't have known but uh when i come to this book and i begin to read what what's dear to the heart of god when i see that he loved israel and eddie chastised her for 40 years he loved moses again the man that murdered and god forgot about his murder he excused it because he repented but as a man of god when he disobeyed god he got punished 40 years for 40 seconds of that temper see god has no spoiled children if you go to a church where they smooth you down all the time you better forget it because it's not a correct church not a correct ministry very often we do that so we won't offend people we won't hurt them but you can't you can't handle this word this this word is a rock this word is a staff this word is a light this word is a pillow on which we put our weary heads this word is a lamp for our feet this word is a stimulant for our faith this word you can say maybe in a simple sentence all the word of god is it's a map from us to heaven and it tells you where the enemy is it tells you who the enemy is it tells you what you can expect but not only that it tells you where you can draw all your supplies to defeat all the powers of the adversary against us because the word says that greater is he that is in you and that's the whole thing you see we have the word in the skies the psalmist says well you consider the heavens the work of thy fingers fabulous and we have the word in creation then we have the word through the prophets we have the word through the lord jesus who was what the word was made flesh and dwelt among us he is the incarnation he was the spoken word too and then we have the written word you know i i think often uh maybe i said it before i don't know i'm getting too old to remember but i i think so often a pilot you know he passed judgment on jesus well maybe he never heard the scene jesus maybe all he did was judging by reports but you know i i've got the whole record here pilot didn't have this i've got 2 000 years of church history pilot didn't have that sometimes i think if if i really had enough sense i don't maybe the lord won't give me but maybe if i got out of bed one morning and stood there just quietly and said let it rain on you one of the most one of the great the most privileged people in the whole world christ is your savior you have this book of revelation god has given you you know that you're made and born for eternity you ought to be able to look down your nose at the world the flesh the devil and and step out and and reach heights that as yet you never reach i still think i'm in uh in ezekiel's river you know to the to the water and knees and the waters and to the ankles and the knees and the loins and so forth i'm sure i haven't and i wish i had i wish i had but you see that's what this river is it's a progressive revelation it finishes with the the revelation the scholars call it the apocalypse which is not to be confused with the apocrypha which is between the old and new testaments the apocrypha itself by its very name means it's without authority it's it's something uncertain the apocalypse is the is not the revelation of the revelation it is the revelation of jesus christ it is again the only book i am reading it just the beginning of it but again today it is the only book in the bible that pronounces blessing on itself in that first very first chapter blessed is he that readeth they that hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things now there are three things you've got to do with the word of god first of all you've got to read it and when you read it you've got to hear having inward ears you hear it and then thirdly we've got to keep the things which were written for the time is at hand and that time was two thousand years ago he said it's at hand how much nearer must it be in the day which we're living as i say i wish i i haven't done this in my imagination yes but i couldn't draw a plan for it i i wish i could just see god's clock at the edges like that and see how near that second hand is one of the statesmen in this country said at the end of world war ii i think it well no it was when we dropped the bomb i think on hiroshima 60 minutes to wait on the 5th of august 19 and what 46 he said i think it's five minutes to 12 on god's clock time is running out one of the last things clever winston churchill said was i wonder what would happen if god lost patience with humanity well i'll tell you we don't tread his commandments underfoot like the way we're doing break his laws play all our big ball games i nearly spilled the beans i didn't last sunday night maybe we have two of the cleveland browns football players sitting under my nose now i'm a saint i forgot i don't think i was without courage i usually like saying things like that what do they do we play all our ball games on sundays christian athletes play it wouldn't make any difference god said you should not do that he said withdraw your foot from the sabbath and i said time and again he says in the in in his book you've got to observe the sabbath keep and then you hold it to the wall if you give god a tenth of your money that's okay that but sunday is god's time on your time and give him it and worship him and adore him but you see this is the revelation again the apocalypse actually means the the clear understanding that the veil is drawn away and and all the revelation does is show us the majesty all he shows you about tribulation sure he shows you armageddon lifts the lid off hell and lets you look into hell but the supreme message of revelations is sorry that jesus christ is king of kings and lord of lords that finally all roads don't lead to rome they lead to the judgment seat of christ he's still victor he's still lord the old devil cheated and he got in and he's running governments he's running the schools he's running god alone knows what he's running in the world but supremely jesus christ is standing back in the shadows a little while but he's going to come forth in majesty he's going to come forth in glory oh i wish you'd been there last thursday night we had a whale of a meeting i don't know how to describe it i i don't know how they felt i don't know where they were i wasn't on earth i was somewhere up in the sky seeing jesus there you know taking the title deeds i wept because there was no man worthy oh that moves me profoundly there wasn't a man isaiah jeremiah nobody could take the book out of the hand of him that sat on the throne and john says i wept because i've told you that word only occurs once in the new when jesus is weeping over jerusalem oh you'll kill the prophet you poor blind stupid people and you're going to do the last final league you're going to kill the son of god and after this god's picking god's picture out of his mouth and he hasn't bothered with israel for 2000 years if you think he won't beat his church and will beat america you've got another thing coming but in that final moment i i'd like to really preach on that i didn't preach long that night maybe two hours an hour and a half but i i'd like to develop that thing i'd like to see all these men i'd like to see calvin there and calvin says no i wrote those institutes i'm sorry i did he wrote them when he was a youngster he revised a lot afterwards then he had they're all forgiven but calvin there and wesley and finney and booth and all the saints you know go around my room mr booth could you do it no no i can't do it moses can you do it no i i was with the lord oh come on now the greatest man that ever lived after jesus you come because you raised the dead you didn't paul you do it he says i'm the least of the apostles no chance for me and you ask no one will stand with him suddenly a voice shouted man i think that voice would be greater than gabriel's trumpet i'll eat a glorified body i've done the bits if i didn't in that moment when he when he shouts there in eternity and he and he and he says we've not oh man that's very hard and everything that i've read and a half is 144 000 helping with the heart you might have one joe you might go okay well i watch for you because you break the string and be sure you get unhappy and break the string but at that big moment what i call the most awesome moment in eternity i i i can't just grasp it it is to me the most awesome moment when all the judgments are over if you like or before i don't care about and suddenly jesus takes the title deeds surrendered by the first adam rescued by the last adam and he says everything that asked breath would not be wonderful he's going to praise the lord things in the earth under the earth in the sea under the sea on the sea everything is going to break into the loudest roar that there isn't a seismograph in the world to register talk about earthquakes they're pit and pricks compared to it you see god is jealous for his and he's going to give jesus everything that jesus should have isn't that great he's going to give him all the honor and all the glory and all the praise and he's going to keep pointing to one thing the blood that was shed there on the cross the land is all the glory in emmanuel's land i don't believe god will ever let us forget throughout eternity the blood the price is some pain for our redemption and in that moment i tell you it's going to be so rapturous i don't know how long why there's a what there's 144 000 in the orchestra my friend gets that crowd to preach who thinks he's doing well but 144 000 in the in the orchestra and then 10 000 times 10 000 is what 100 million must be right plus thousands of you see everything in revelation is numbered except praise you can't limit praise four and twenty elders four living creatures 10 000 times 10 000 144 in the orchestra everything's numbered isn't that great you like numbers isn't it great i know i'm way there but anyhow there'll be some representatives there i think praise the lord oh yeah he walked around western Australia now and then repainted it and gilded it you know and and if you get there three o'clock you'll hear the fire sing i guess but you know that's they're all dumps compared to what the glory and this is the thing when you get under the weather don't don't say lord do this for me do that you you just start gazing on him and he will let it happen you see him ascended in his majesty in his glory and he and he walks up and takes the title beads out of the hand of the one on the throne and all creation bursts glory to god forever that's going to be wonderful i hope i've got a voice louder than i ever thought the preacher we were with last week had a fantastic baritone i i'd asked him to sing the great uh no the king is coming the king is coming and he didn't know it too well he hadn't rehearsed it but he sang around the second country you're not saying good morning oh wow on the on the thursday night and i do want that he sang the day uh day is dying in the west you know that man oh do you know about him too when you know day is dying in the west oh he got to the end holy holy holy lord heaven and earth are full i saw him breathe like that and he's a chest like a big football you know and he sang oh lord of i shouted i didn't expect it it was something you know i i told him i said did you put it on the tape he said no because he said you preached too long i can't get everything out so i said well do put it on the tape and i i wanted i wanted to he said he will put that on him but that again gives me some concept of of the majesty you think of a hundred million people in the car like that with voices like he has or voices like gali gucci or all these famous singers of around nobody out of key nobody nobody out of boy that's going to be fantastic and uh there's no time they do don't know how long it's going to they last 100 years wouldn't that be great if you're thirsty you just call an angel and bring a drink from the water of life and uh if you want some fruit the fruits for the healing of the nations you just sing another angel bring an issue of fruit and uh oh yes yes you know what we sing sometimes don't we will be worth it all when we see jesus we i think one of the reproaches when we get to heaven will be how petty we got how soon we got upset over trivialities we let little pinpricks hurt us we we got wounded our egos got bruised somebody didn't like us somebody turned us down it looked so stupid and silly you know you think now don't don't ever look back and think when you're a child how easily you would upset me boy i i don't know what the kids if i went back you know to england when i that silly thing happened when we were playing soccer one day what the kids would say you know it looks so ridiculous and as we grow in grace and in the knowledge of god and as you get your you get into the treasures as you see again the majesty of god god's faithfulness his immutability that this word can't change because god can't change his throne can't be moved he settled it forever it's eternal and sure as god and and all this area is for for us to explore the possibilities of grace we ought to grow you know i don't know any reason why they must say it shouldn't be temporary told spiritually how tall do you think you are 10 inches i love when they ask questions like that but uh how tall are we what what how far have we really progressed in in god how how precious is this word do i do i read it do i love it do i digest it do i take its counsel does it bruise me when i need to be bruised does it heal me when i need to be healed does it chastise me because god is too kind to be unkind he's too kind to say i'm okay when i'm not he's too kind to put the sticking plaster on me when i need surgery he won't do it but on the other hand he won't go the other way either but you know if i say lord i think it's time you beat john up he's having it too easy you know the lord will take a bit of notice of me say i'll look after john maybe i'll beat you up before i beat him up and i say well lord that's not fair it's always easy to say lord do this for someone to do that but but me on the other hand i'm not to be self-centered like that i'm going to have a vision of a lost world and again i say as we began if we if the church doesn't wake up one god he's going to do what he says he's never failed to keep a promise he'll spew the church out of his mouth organized religion as we know it he'd love to go back to the living rooms like this it'll have to start back in basements uh maybe the only way we'll do it is a breakdown in the economy so we can't run these big joints why don't we get worried about vietnam and why didn't he get worried about the why don't we get worried the guy's building a six and a half million dollar church down in in florida that that disturbs me as much as the lousy things that go down on down in new orleans in bourbon street particularly when the fellow says you know before you get home today jesus may come boy he's going to look sick with a six million dollar church on his hands isn't it jesus comes tonight now the big baptist church putting four million dollar church up there in in jacksonville so ridiculous so inconsistent but god's a god of love he's a god of patience and i i i've been telling myself it's not true that i'm going to read more and more my my danger is i get so burned that maybe i don't read enough of the book sometimes i get down to the prayer i can pray for hours that doesn't worry me i can get lost in prayer but these days i'm saying to myself yes i need to balance out a bit and get more into the book let it stir me let it provoke me let it hurt me if god wounds me he'll heal me if he stretch me he'll clothe me if he shows me my bankruptcy he'll he'll come with all his fullness and all his riches he's promised to do it all things are yours in the end god and your christ and christ is god i'll break I'll praise the Lord. I'll praise the Lord. Father, in the face of this incomparable beauty and majesty that you've given us in this book concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, in his ascended majesty and glory, when gasping millions will look on, saints and prophets and martyrs and heroes, people who perhaps this very day have been martyred in Russia and China and other countries, and we're going to see them standing there in their robes. They're going to see the Christ go forward and take the book out of the hand of him that sits on the throne. We're told about that chorus and you've given us the words of it. They're going to sing blessing and honor and glory and power be unto him that sits upon the throne and unto the Lamb forever and ever. In the light of that, we have to say as one old saint said, weak is the effort of my heart and cold my warmest thought. But when I see thee as thou art, I'll praise thee as I ought. Till then I would thy love proclaim with every fleeting breath. So may the music of thy name refresh my soul in death. Father, again, we thank you for the measure of life we have. We're glad, Lord, we're not in the nightclubs. We're not in the flesh pots. We're not in the world. We're not of it. It's not of ourselves. It's of your grace. We're not there. You've taken us out. We know you'll keep us out. And we want to press up and press on. Lord, what a disappointment it would be to be a disappointment to thee. Surely we don't want to disappoint each other, but much less do we want to disappoint thee. May we be kept looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. We rest in thee. We trust thee. We thank you again that you've said you'll never leave us or forsake us. May we go back into a world that's so hostile to thee, hostile to thy son, hostile to thy word, hostile even to the true church. We pray, Lord, that we may bear that yoke manfully and we may have on the whole armour of God and withstand every oppression and challenge of the devil. So I accept our thanks again for your presence with us in Jesus' name.