In this sermon, the pastor emphasizes the importance of creating an engaging and spiritually uplifting atmosphere in the church. He believes that it is crucial to not only physically bring people into the sanctuary but also to mentally and spiritually engage them. The pastor shares an experience where the lights in the church went out, creating a moment of stillness and quietness that allowed people to connect with God on a deeper level. He also addresses a young Christian who feels spiritually dead inside and relates it to the struggle described by the apostle Paul in Romans 7. The sermon concludes with a powerful moment where a woman in the congregation gives birth to a cry, leading to a profound spiritual response from the congregation.

Let's look for a little while now in the 2nd book of Chronicles and the 6th chapter, 2 Chronicles, chapter 6. We read from verse 1, Then said Solomon, the Lord hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness, but I have built a house of habitation for thee in a place for thy dwelling forever. Go over now in the same chapter, verse 16. Now therefore, O Lord God of Israel, keep with thy servant David my father, that which thou hast promised him, saying, Thou shalt not fail thee a man in my sight to sit upon the throne of Israel, yet so that thy children take heed to their way, to walk in my law, as thou hast walked before me. Now then, O Lord God of Israel, let thy word be verified, which thou hast spoken unto thy servant David, that will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house which I have built. Have respect therefore to the prayer of thy servant, and his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee. Now he lays that on a bit, doesn't he? Have respect therefore to the prayer of thy servant, the supplication of thy servant, the cry of thy servant, and the prayer which thy servant prayeth unto thee. There's nothing indefinite about that, is there? Now look at chapter 7, verse 1. Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering, and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the house, so that the priests could not enter into the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord's house. And when the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshipped and praised the Lord, saying for he is good, and his mercy endureth forever. The emphasis I want to put there is that he prayed, he built this magnificent place, some people say it was the most costly building maybe that ever was built, he used gold instead of cement, he splashed the walls with gold, and he used all kinds of precious things, and yet he had the sense to realize that if you lay gold six inches thick on all the walls, you may as well use it for a stable if God doesn't come. You see, people say, have you been in St. Peter's, have you been in Westminster Abbey, aren't they glorious, they cost millions of dollars, I don't think God lives in either place. He dwelleth not in temples made with hands, but this man has built it according to divine orders, and therefore he says, Lord I built it, that's my part, now you do your part, and he prayed, and when he had finished praying, and that's an awful long prayer, you better read it, the previous prayers, when he made an end of praying, the fire came down and consumed the offering, and the glory of the Lord came down, and when the people saw the glory of God, they were speechless and bowed down to the earth. Can you remember the last time you were in a meeting where the glory of God came down and you walked out speechless up to take your dinner or something else up there, or as soon as you get out did you say, by that's a great dress, I saw one like that in Sears, they say I got it at Pennies, you know, we're so lost in trivia that we can come out of the sanctuary where God is, or at least we say he was, and oh I got blessing in that second hymn, I got blessing, but there's no awe about it, there's no overwhelming majesty, again you take a song leader around, well I don't care, they're all right, don't think they do much work for the money they get, but anyhow, you get a song leader, but Phinney and the early evangelists never took a song leader, they weren't even evangelists, they were revivalists, instead of taking a song leader, they took men who could pray and men who could intercede, now singing as a praise, I don't think anybody on earth enjoys singing more than I do, I like good singing, I like inspiring, uplifting singing, but it only goes so far, it's good that something goes up, that we send an offering of praise to God, but what about the glory coming down? And it was after he had made, not just a tabernacle, but he had made an end of praying, he had made an end of obedience, because he'd built his altars, he had made an end of sacrifice, he brought what God told him, and then he believed God, Lord you said it, what does he say? He says let thy, verse 17 of that 6th chapter says, now then O Lord God of Israel, let thy word be verified, now come on bring it to pass, make it real, you see that, I was in a church recently, and the pastor said to me, uh there were about a thousand people at that time, it filled up to about 13 or 1400 people, and the pastor said look how friendly our people are going around talking, uh you know some people like a church like a morgue when you come in, well a bit later in the week I said well yes that's all right, but uh to me the church isn't a country club, I would never break a meeting up, we do it some, we did it last Sunday morning, I'm not quarreling with what Tony does, I'm saying my style is this, first of all you have to get people into the sanctuary, secondly you have to get them there mentally, thirdly you have to get them there spiritually, that happens about 10 minutes to 12, they're so soaked up with the world outside, you just get a stillness of God, you get them quiet, you get the minds on something, and then you're scattered in 60 directions, well this is my, again this is my my my idea, my thinking, my style, you have it another way, that's all right, I enjoy it, I'm not asking anybody to wear my sackcloth, I'm just saying as I see it, we live in a world of turmoil, a world that's restless, a world where there's noise, there was a certain London preacher when I was in England, he started the, as a habit or method when he was in Leeds, the city where I was raised, and they would have a hymn and a prayer and a song and the choir would sing and then he would read a scripture and it'd say, and now two minutes silence, all the lights in the church went out except one light over the pulpit, you'll never realize how long two minutes is till you sit there and nobody's talking, nobody does a thing, and he said so many people said to him, you know I felt a kind of, for once my mind wasn't thinking about even what the choir's going to sing or you're going to say, suddenly there was a stillness, I was still, my spirit was quiet, my mind was quiet, you know as though you slip everything out of gears and shut the engine off and relax and just say, I'm going to rest before I drive the rest of the way. Again as in the revival, and I didn't know that until recently, I read it, I read it in the reading of Mrs. Guilford where she said again that there's a, there was a place of majesty even in the stillness, not in the awesomeness of being lifted to heaven for eight hours but in the stillness, not in the traveling prayer but in the stillness. I don't know if you know a chorus, speak Lord in the stillness while we wait on thee, hush our hearts to listen in expectancy, then speak O blessed master in this quiet hour, let us see thy face Lord, feel thy touch of power, for the words thou speakest, their life indeed, living bread from heaven now my spirit feed. You see everybody, I don't care who it is, we have the same danger here, everybody has, of getting into a rut. People say, I used to go to a church, you sat down and then the song leader says, one twenty three, everybody stand and sing, up you go, down you sit, stand up and sing this, down you sit, now the reading of the scriptures, stand again, now sit down, the choir will sing, now the offering, now something else, it's mechanical. Well I used to go to a church on and off when I was in that city when I wasn't teaching myself, you know I found the folk that scorned ritual in a couple of years were in ritual themselves. I could tell you the chorus they'd start with about at least thirty Sundays out of fifty-two and it seemed I was always in the thirty-two because every time I went they sang you know, without him I would be nothing, you know I'm like a ship without a sail and I thought that's true and you know everybody got stirred and weepy and and then they go on to another chorus and another chorus and then it was let's all stand up and pray and worship God, well I don't think that's worship anyhow, I think it's praise. What did they do when the glory of God came? They fell down and worshiped and if you look through the scripture there's more instances of falling down to worship. It's the awesomeness of God, you don't want to look anyway, you don't want to see anybody, you don't want to hear anybody, you want your ears to be deaf, you want your eyes not to be on anything. Now that's just again my interpretation but there it is. Solomon made an end of praying, the fire came down. Solomon made an end of praying, the glory came down. I used to go to a conference, one of the largest in England. I wasn't too much worried about who was going to preach but oh I'll tell you what, I always thought there's one of two men I hope they'll ask to pray and usually they asked one of just two men out of dozens or scores or hundreds of preachers that were there. Whenever those two men prayed I thought you know as the scripture said they'd hold of the horns of the altar with one hand and the hand on the congregation with the other, there was always an inflow there was always something uplifting, there was always something revealing. Well if we need people to sing solos to us and quartets and heaven knows what, I wouldn't be at all adverse to taking a man with me if I was going on more meetings. I'm not going in many next year, hardly book one, but a man that could really touch God like that, an awesome thing. And this is a king Markiel, he's not delegating it to someone else. He made an end of praying, the glory came down. He made an end of praying, the fire came down. What more do you want? Well let's talk here about let's talk about prayer here now in Romans 8, Romans chapter 8, look at verse 22. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. Twenty-three, not only they but ourselves also which have the first fruits of the Spirit even we ourselves groan within ourselves. And verse 26, likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we are but the Spirit itself or himself more correctly maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. What is he doing? He's making intercession. What does the next verse say? And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit because he maketh intercession for us. And verse 34 says what? Who is he that condemneth it is Christ that died yea rather that he is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us. Now that's a mighty lot of stuff isn't it? This is the victory chapter. This is one of the greatest chapters in the whole of Scripture. I think if Paul had known it and the Lord would have let him he'd have sung when he moved into chapter 8 from chapter 7, out of my bondage sorrow and night Jesus I come. Because Romans 7 is all bondage. To put it in language of English literature, do you remember there was a very famous writer called John Milton? What did he write? Paradise Lost. Do you know when he wrote it? After he got married. Then he wrote a second volume, Paradise Regained. Do you know when he wrote that? When his wife died. Now there's no connection but it's historically true. But you know it's exactly true in Romans 7. Romans 7 is Paradise Lost. Romans 8 is Paradise Regained. I was in a meeting three weeks ago, a fine young student came to me and he said you know big hustling guy, heavyweight champion. He said can I ask you a question? I thought well I better say yes if I say no I could be in trouble. So I said yes. He said you know brother Raymond I've been a Christian for so many years and he said I want to tell you something really. I'm a Christian and these were his exact words. But I feel as though I'm carrying inside of me a dead body. Oh I said I'll give you a scripture for that. There it is at the end of Romans 7. Romans 7 24 O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the what? Body of this death. Well that's what Paul said. So cheer up you're in good succession. Yeah but I don't want to keep the body of this death. No you don't need to. In Romans chapter 6 I don't think 6, 7 and 8 are consecutive. I don't think the man in Romans 6, 7 actually is necessarily a Christian man. It is two of many Christians. Unfortunately it's two of many Christians. I don't doubt that. Somebody asked a friend of mine who is Romans 7 about? He said it's for the man that's in it. If you're still in 7 get out of it. This young man says I've got a body of death. All right. You see again in the 6th chapter of Romans, one of the most quoted chapters again, in verse 4 of Romans 6 it says therefore we are buried with him by baptism unto death or into death that likewise as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life. If we are planted together in his likeness of his death we are in his resurrection knowing this our old man is crucified not was, is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed for he that is dead is freed from sin. Paul quotes that later doesn't he in another epistle. Now again crucifixion, there were many ways of crucifying a man. You could crucify him on a traditional cross like that. You could crucify him on a cross like a letter T. You could crucify him on a cross like a letter X, stretch his members out. You could crucify him on a straight column of wood, a tree trunk with a big spike through it and stick him on it and turn him around and leave him hanging upside down if he wanted or he could be crucified to the man he'd killed. He had to carry the body of death that he had created and therefore if you saw a man coming down the road staggering you kept away from him. Why? Because the corruption was going to eat him up. He's carrying a dead body. The eyes had gone slimy if the birds hadn't picked them out. He's in a terrible mess. It was much quicker to be crucified on a cross. This death could take an awful long while. This man's going to find food or something and he's going to be carrying continually a body of this death. And so Paul says well what shall I do because the law can't help me. He's very clear about that. He says oh wretched man that I am who should deliver me from the body of this death and he doesn't stop there. He says I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord. So then with my mind I serve the law of God but with my flesh the law of sin. You say well there you are that well this body of mine is not serving the law of sin right now. I hope not but it's going to serve the law of sin if Jesus doesn't come because the wages of sin is death and my body is going to serve the law of death. It has to unless again I'm raptured. But my mind and my spirit do not serve the law of sin. Now if we were really correct when we bury people in baptism they go under the water. When a man goes under the water he can't see the world above him. He doesn't talk to it. He isn't eating it. He isn't interested in it. He's under the water and that's supposed to be that when he went under the water he's telling the world I died with Jesus Christ and the world up there has got no pull on me and I don't want it. I'm not interested in it. It doesn't fascinate me whether it is the cowboys who have one or two Christians playing for them or the Atlantic Falcons. I spoke to their football team last year that some Christians among no no no the thing is I've pulled out from the world. I'm dead to the world and all its toys its idle pomp and fading joys and Jesus Christ is my glory. Now if you go through Romans chapter 7 take a pencil and mark the I I I I I. More I's there and I a taller but anyhow it's full of I's. How many times? I don't know about 30 or 31. Then you take another pencil and mark how many times the Holy Spirit is mentioned. You'll have no problems he's not mentioned at all. Then you come into Romans chapter 8 and mark the I I I and you've only got two. You've got verses what 18 I think yes 18 for I reckon and verse 28 or 38 rather. I am persuaded now there's no way he can get round it he has to use the first person singular there. But now go count how many times the Holy Spirit is mentioned. The Holy Spirit is mentioned 19 times in the chapter. So chapter 7 is the self-centered chapter and chapter 8 is a is a Christ-centered chapter. Now notice what it says in verse 9. There are some awesome things. Somebody has said that this is the highest peak in the in the whole of divine range of revelation. Maybe they're right. Look at verse 8. But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now underline that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Look at the beginning line of verse 10. If Christ be in you look at the middle of verse 11. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you. Who raised up Jesus from the dead? The Father raised Him up and the Holy Spirit raised Him up. So that means here I've got the Spirit of God dwelling in me in verse 9. I've got the Spirit of Christ dwelling in me in verse 10. And I've got the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead. Now if God the Father is in me and God the Son is in me and the Holy Spirit is in me. Well how in the world do I manage to get tripped up so often? How in the world do I do I stagger around so much? How in the world do I tread water so much? I ought to be moving like this every day. You know it's easy to sing it. I see crowds of people singing ecstatically. You know I'm pressing on the upward way new heights I'm gaining every day. And I think are you telling the truth? If I stopped and said now I'm going to turn this into a testimony. Let's start here. What what new heights have you gained today you weren't on yesterday? Then you follow on and you follow. I wonder how far we get if you're really honest. How much do I gain every day? Isn't it awesome? Is there anything like this in the Quran? Whatever the Islamic folk is saying today Mohammed and they got nothing like that. Buddha never said he'd live inside anybody. Mohammed never said he'd but but Jesus Christ is Paul says it's Christ in you. He's not going to be in me. He is in me. Well is there any conflict between me and the Spirit of God? Me and the and the Son of God? There shouldn't be. Me and the mind of God? Me and the will of God? No no no no no. Well you can you can think about that. You can you can mark out the the times again about the Holy Spirit. What I want to stress here now is again verse 22 the whole creation growneth. Now by the whole creation I've heard people say when the world is shattered by earthquakes. When some of these this phenomena happens up in the sky. That's the whole creation groaning. Others see it as the whole creation of mankind. The travail of mankind. They show us pictures of many things. They haven't shown us many pictures of Cambodia. I think we have a little bit of conscience about it that Kissinger was defending himself this morning. He didn't say anything about Cambodia I notice. But boy there's going to be an awful thing to account for with Nixon and I think that guy when they get to the judgment seat. You see those guys never thought that they said that history. Wouldn't that be wonderful when God rolls the film back? Huh? You think he's going to do that? I do. I think eternity God's going to roll the film back right to Adam and show us what happened in the garden. And he's going to show all the subsequent history. The fall of the Babylonian empire and every other empire including the British empire and the Roman empire and whatever empires you've got. And he's going to show us everything that ever happened in history. It'll take a long afternoon maybe about five million years but after all we're going nowhere. There'll be no deadlines in heaven. No tv cameras or other cameras. We're gonna God's going to replay history to us I'm sure of that. He's going to show us every justification of his anger, his wrath, as well as of his mercy. The whole creation groaneth now. Why does he groan? What did the children of Israel say when the Jews rejected Jesus? They said his blood be upon us. They got the prayer answered. After all God was married to Israel. He said goodbye to his wife. He divorced her for uncleanness and he hasn't bothered with her for 2,000 years and she's sure not out of trouble yet. I think she's still going into a time of what the word of God calls Jacob's trouble. I think the next five years are going to be, I don't care what your denomination has done in the last 500. What it can do in the next five years, what's going to count? I believe it's going to be the vortex of history. You know when you pull the plug in a bath or something bigger than that and there's a suction hole. You know when a big ship's going down in the Atlantic, the sea may be very calm, but the last thing they say is pull away, pull away. Why? Because when that ship goes down, just like water going down the drain, that great big thing makes a suction hole and if you're not clear it sucks the lifeboats and everything down with it. And I think we're moving into that suction period. This book's never wrong. What you sow you reap. We always think that about evil things. It's true of good things. What you've sown good is as true as evil. You sow good, you reap good. You sow mischief, you reap mischief. You sow gossip, you reap gossip. You sow loving kindness. Whatsoever you sow, you reap. Well the whole creation groaneth. But then it says here, verse 23, the first fruits of the Spirit, even we groan within ourselves. And then verse 26 again, the Spirit himself maketh groanings which cannot be uttered when we're in prayer. Now this comes down to the nitty-gritty. I have no idea, God knows I don't. I don't know any, I have any idea what what immediate steps have to be taken before God can trust me with groanings in the Spirit. I don't know what precedes them except obedience and vision and passion. You know that nobody writes history correctly because nobody knows all history. You get somebody writing the history of Northern Ireland, now if he's a Roman Catholic, he'd give you one history. If he's a Protestant, he'd give you an entirely different history. You can't record history. You can't write biography correctly. And I've written a number, pardon me, I've read a number of stories of the young man again used in the Welsh Revival. Now remember that God used him at 22 years of age. And I read someplace not too long ago and I've forgotten where, where for 10 years prior to that revival he had prayed and interceded. That means he started interceding when he was 12 years of age. Now God hands him a nation. He started in a smaller way. When the revival broke, when he first prayed, he prayed in Welsh. But when he prayed, there were not more than 40 people there in the auditorium. A revival never began in a mass meeting. You can get your crowds of a hundred thousand, fifty thousand. I never heard revival break like that. Revivals always started with a handful of people, God's chosen people. And this young man, God is trusting him with revival. Now the revival has got, he was a big man. The Welsh naturally, nationally and naturally are not very tall. I preach very often in Wales. But they're not a very tall group of people. They're small, they're rather sallow skinned, they have black hair, they look Jewish in appearance and somebody, they sometimes say they're of the tribe of Levi, because they're all great preachers, whether they're anointed or not. They're certainly great, great. They're the greatest congregational singers in the world. You've never heard singing till you go to Wales and hear how they sing. Except in Scotland they can sing the 23rd Psalm better. But in Wales they sure sing. Now here's a towering figure of a man. He has an auditorium packed. And somebody who worked with him, Niprash, was on his left hand. My friend J.F. Perryman was on his right hand, through the revival in Wales in 1904 and then in Guernsey and then afterwards. And he said, I've seen some awesome things in the life of this man. The amazing thing about him was his sensitivity to God. And I don't know how to drill that in your minds or underline it, but this is what you and I really need, a sensitivity to God or if not we'll go along with the herd. We'll do what others are doing. He had a sensitivity to God. So much so that Niprash says that I talked to them about the things of the Spirit until nearly midnight and went home excited and elevated that I'd been able to share with this amazing man the things of the Spirit. And then he said next morning I went and asked could I see him again. And I went to see him I think he said about 10 o'clock. But immediately he said, he asked me something about what you do when you're growing something. And he said I was staggered that this man was, we were you know 50,000 feet high at 12 o'clock last night. Then the first thing he asked me about growing radishes or something. And then there was, I tried to talk again and he turned me off in something else. And I suddenly realized he said that he sensed I was out of tune with God. I hadn't had my devotions that morning. I hadn't, I loved the Lord but I hadn't given time to get my spirit still. And immediately he felt a clash in his spirit. In other words he was sensitive like that. F.B. Meyer went to see him, traveled all the way from London to Wales to see him. And the landlady knocked at the door of this precious fellow and said who'll come down quickly, the greatest preacher in the world is here, Dr. F.B. Meyer. And he said I'll be down after maybe in a couple of hours. Oh it's Dr. F.B. Meyer. Now most of us if you are praying you know and somebody said well Billy Graham's come to see. Oh we'd jump up and say well Lord you wait, Graham's here. You know so important. Oh we can cover it up with a script you know, be courteous with this. Well first of all that applies to God, be courteous there. He would not come down. He was very very sensitive in the spirit. He would walk into a room and say, when there'd been a lot of discussion about him, some very unholy things had been said. And he said to the people now don't discuss this anymore in the house. And when he came in it was just as a, he would say somebody's burning toast. Instead of that he said, have you been talking about it again? And they all bowed their head, they had. He was as sensitive as that to it. Now he's sensitive the other way. Nepras says the most awesome thing I saw in the life of this man was, was one night in a meeting when he stood up to speak and suddenly his whole being began to shake and he fell, he collapsed. He said as though somebody had thrust a, an arrow, thrust a dagger in his liver or something. He collapsed on the floor, this man about six feet high and he shook and he began to groan and groan and travel and they went to touch him and it was just as though there were vibrations coming. They couldn't get near to him and he said I have never never seen a man have a personal Gethsemane like that. And particularly in a public place, it didn't embarrass him at all. And the whole audience was hushed, but what else would they do? You see a strong man groaning, you hear his weeping, you hear his sobbing, you feel as though he's going to be torn apart, you want to go and put your arm, nobody could touch him. But he said when he stood up, he almost needed a veil on his face. The glory of God shone out of him as though he was having a personal transfiguration. He'd had his Gethsemane. Now how many, how many of our popular preachers do you think would do that? In the first place, would God trust them with it? In the second place, do you think you could put that on TV if you're preaching? Hmm? Now the other night we, I was preaching down in Nacogdoches there and I preached, the first night I preached, I don't like Sundays because anybody comes Sundays, they're not spiritual, they come out of obligation, the wife drag them there or something, I like to get Sunday over. Monday we got going, Monday night was I, I felt one of the most awesome meetings I was ever in. God just came and saturated that place. Tuesday night I spoke on David and his sin. I just said the altar's open if you want to come and it was lined immediately with students all over the place. Maybe we sat half an hour and then suddenly one of these women that has a spirit of intercession, she let out an utterance and the Lord said to me what I never thought of before, he said that wasn't a scream, it was a cry. You see when you get an inward groaning of the spirit, it talks here about groanings which cannot be uttered. Now some people say that's praying in tongues, I don't believe that because it says it can't be uttered. I'm not denying there's a prayer language for some, but I'm saying there's something higher even than that, there are groanings which cannot be uttered. Hannah had it. She goes in the sanctuary, what's the hardest thing to put up with? Criticism of sinners? Contradiction of sinners? No. Criticism of saints. Oh Mary Ann isn't going shopping anymore for three months, she's made a vow to the Lord. That's a silly vow to make. It isn't to Mary Ann. And the only thing it's reason as silly to you is because you love to shop and do nothing maybe. But Mary Ann's going to give that time to the Lord. This man says I won't watch TV for six months. This man, they put restrictions. I met a man just a few weeks ago and he amazed me, he said, I'm so glad to see you, I want to tell you, you know, you're on the right line. Well thank you, I didn't need that, I believe God told me that. But he said, you know in our church this last night was the 52nd night of prayer. Isn't that something? 52nd night of prayer. We're burdened for the nation, we're burdened for this crisis hour over the world. So, so I'd finished praying, the altars filled, the people were sobbing and so forth, and suddenly this woman gave birth to, to a cry. Now it says of Hannah she prayed, her lips moved but her voice was not heard. The most eloquent prayers have no language at all. The nearest you get is a groaning in the spirit. You remember what it, what it says about, uh, what is it where Moses, uh, is in Deuteronomy? See this, look at his numbers, Deuteronomy 3. Deuteronomy 3. Yeah, Deuteronomy 3, sorry, 23. Deuteronomy, pardon me, 3 and verse 23, I besought the Lord at that time, saying, O Lord God, thou hast begun to show thy servant thy greatness and thy mighty hand for what God is there in heaven or earth that can do according to thy works and according to thy might or power. I pray thee let me go over and see the good land that it is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain and Lebanon, that the Lord was wroth with me for your sakes and would not hear me. Now sometimes men are in grief because of what? Because of the revelation and the burden that God has given. I saw recently a book that said, in fact there were two on the bookstore, I didn't buy either of them, because it talked about, uh, intercession unlimited, and the other was prayer can do anything which is totally wrong, it can't. The scripture makes that very clear. Look in the 14th of Ezekiel, Ezekiel 14.12, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, leap over to verse 14, though these three men, Noah and Daniel and Job were in it, they should deliver, but their own souls, by their righteousness, saith the Lord God. And verse 16, though these three men were in it as I live, saith the Lord, they should deliver, look, listen to this, with their praying they shall deliver, verse 16 says, neither their sons nor their daughters, but only they should be delivered, and the land should be desolate. Look at verse 18, that though these three men are in it as I live, saith the Lord, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only shall be delivered for themselves. And verse 20, if you wanted the last time, though Noah, Daniel and Job were in it as I live, saith the Lord God, they should deliver neither their sons nor their daughters, they shall only deliver their own souls by their righteousness. Now what do you do with it? And sometimes people are crushed, because they see the possibilities of grace, and, and things God is not doing, on the other hand, they see how near to judgment of people are. Now this woman gave birth, I say, not to a scream, but to a cry. People have begun to leave the church, it's a large church, holds about 15, 16 hundred people, and the students were going out, because they were in exams that week too, and all down the aisle, just about at every pew there were people, and as soon as this was, this cry, this ooh, this cry went out of this woman, I opened my eyes, being on the platform, and the whole church froze. People began to lean on the pews. They were looking like this, from where the noise came, and they stood maybe five, or seven, or eight minutes, then suddenly the woman began to travel, groaning, groaning with, and sobs, such as you've never heard in your life. And you know, some people ran up to try and comfort them, and I thought, oh woman, don't, for goodness sake, you're giving yourself away, you don't, you don't know what she's doing. They thought she's a problem, a personal problem. That woman prays five or six hours a day. When somebody goes up, you know, that's used to going up and saying, well, just believe this little word, and bless you, God loves you, and all that. I thought, sister, take your hands off her, you'll almost defile her. Here's a woman that's about a million miles up the road from you, she is travailing in birth, and she traveled, and traveled. Now a few left, but others got down, and all over the place. We started that meeting at seven o'clock, we finished at half past eleven. The next night we started at seven, we finished at twelve. The next night we started at seven, finished about half past ten. The last thing you think about when God's on a place is time. We're so caught up. Now, what happened in those revivals? What happened with that woman that prayed? What happened with Evan Roberts? When the spirit of travail came upon him, and he doesn't feel well, it's very unmanly, women cry, but you know, you don't want to cry, men don't like to cry, and in front of a congregation it's not the thing to do. You don't care a hill of beans about folk. You'd stand on your head and weep if you, if you felt God wanted you, you'd beat your breast and shout your head off, what do you care? How many people have experiences like that? And yet they're going back, going back again to revival. I, I guess I've told you before about the time when Duncan Campbell talked about the revival. I prayed with Duncan Campbell many mornings, five o'clock in the morning. Man, that man had a heart. Oh, he prayed with this strong Scotch voice, you know, and lift his hands up and beat the furniture, and, and I knew he was reliving the revival that he'd seen up there in, in Scotland, time and time again. The night again, when, when, when the meeting was like brass, when there was nothing doing. The word was going forth, but his words were like, you know, like throwing a rubber ball at a wall, it bounces back, he wasn't getting anywhere, and he stopped and pointed to a teenage boy, 16, and asked that 16-year-old boy to pray. And I can see the tears in his eyes, as Duncan told me, just two of us sitting in, in a room at five, or between five and six in the morning. Ah, Brother Ravenhill, he said, it was wonderful to hear the laddie pray. For the first thing he did was to stand up and quote the, uh, 24th Psalm, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart. You see, we think prayer is the easiest thing, you just pray about it tonight. Oh, no, no, no, no, oh, no, no. If you were called to the White House, and, uh, you were going up the driveway, and somebody dug a hole there, and you happened to slip in it, covered with mud, you wouldn't feel too comfortable going in to see His Excellency, the President of the United States. If you're going to the presence of the Queen of England, you couldn't go in your jeans and something else, you go, it's always underlined, you go in formals, and you do this, and if you're going to be elevated to be, uh, if I were going to be made Sir Leonard Ravenhill, I must put a tailcoat on, I must wear a certain collar, I must, everything is done just right, you see. All things done decently and in order. And you know the same is true in prayer, in our spirits. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? He that hath clean hands, our relationship with our fellow man. And what's the second thing? A pure heart, our relationship with God. And the boy quoted the psalm, Ach, he said, Ach, and then, when he'd said that, he prayed. Ach, Duncan says, brother, you never heard a prayer like that in your life. Oh, there were a lot of ministers there, there were a lot of deacons there, a lot of elders from the Presbyterian Church, a lot of well-to-do people, and yet, this man of God calls a, a 16-year-old boy, not these guys who are all loaded with degrees from Edinburgh and degrees from somewhere else, he calls on a 16-year-old high school boy, and the boy in the spirit recites Psalm 24, and the boy in the spirit began to pray five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, forty minutes, forty-five minutes. And Duncan said it was just so, psst, and so the Lord pulled a switch in heaven. The Holy Ghost came on the church, yeah, but he came on a gambling place down the road, he came on a tavern. But when the boy had prayed, he said he turned, just as though he could see him, and he said, Satan, in the name of Jesus Christ, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, you get off this area, get out of this town, and you don't, I resist you, I rebuke you, out! Then the Spirit of God fell. I should have said that first, then the Spirit of God fell, and in the community, there was a moving of the Spirit of God. Hm? Now, do you think if I stood up in a church tomorrow, say I was in First Baptist Church in somewhere, and the preacher said pray, and I just stood up and prayed and quoted Psalm 24, and then prayed that necessarily it would happen? No. No. You see, if there was a formula to revival, we'd all buy it. If there was a formula to revival, we'd print it and say, you come to our Bible school, we had a direct revelation from heaven, this is how to set a city on fire, you'll do it this way. And we'd be like the Pharisees, because you see, the problem with the Pharisees, they got tied up in ritualism. The Pharisees were the holiness people that got lost, lost the blessing, and when they lost internal purity, they stressed external purity. They looked at a woman length of her skirt. They said, you can't work on Sunday, there's a commandment, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. And this, this man reports that he, he saw his wife pull a gray hair out of her head on Sunday. She was immediately censored, because she'd worked on Sunday, pulling a gray hair out of her head. You went to buy some eggs on Monday, you made very sure they were not laid on Sunday, because the hen worked, you see. So hens, I don't know what they had to get constipation or something, but they weren't allowed to lay eggs on Sundays, the hens didn't know that, so they kept laying them. But you see, they made 5,000 laws in addition to the 10 commandments, which is what always happens. Now it just doesn't mean when revival comes, sweeping and devastating, again revival changes the moral climate of a community. Revival will leave the lights on for hours and hours, but remember this, immediately God comes with holy fire, the old devil comes with false fire too. And when the Spirit of God fell on Azusa Street there, a man that crossed the Atlantic to get into it said, yes brother Amiel, it was awesome some nights, but you know it was misery some days. They had afternoon meetings too, and there was one man with a white beard, looked like old Santa Claus, but one half of the beard was brown, because the tobacco juice always ran out of his mouth at that side, so his beard was all covered at that side with tobacco juice. He had a soup jacket on, you know what that is? Well it's 57 varieties of soup on it, he always spilled it. And there's a dirty man with a dirty beard and dirty soup on it, and he gets up and said, this morning about five o'clock I had a revelation from heaven, and they forcibly removed him. They had to stop people. There again you see, if you're going to handle the things of God, the only thing you can do it, if I can use a word, is you need the tools of God, which are the gifts of the Spirit. You need somebody with discernment, don't you? To discern the Spirit of the man, you need somebody with the word of knowledge. You need somebody that can say, look there's a man and there's a shadow on his spirit, he's come in the meeting to upset it, and before he opens his mouth you get him out of here. Or once he starts, you get a grip on him. You see, there could be no place on earth, after all, the thing that God loves in the whole universe, he loves most, is his church. As the hymn says, the church is one foundation, with his own blood he bought and for a life he died. And God's desire for the church is that she should be as fair as the sun and as clear as the moon. She's supposed to put on her beautiful garments. She's supposed to be as fascinating to the world as a first-class wedding. I remember being in London by St. Margaret's there, and if you can't get married in Westminster Abbey, you go to, in case you're thinking of going, you can get married in St. Margaret's, and here was a society wedding. Oh boy, I'd never seen a wedding like that. I'd seen weddings at home, you know, some of our girls got married in the church and occasionally a decent wedding at the local parish. But mine, this girl, she's a longer train than a peacock. She looked out about three yards of lace behind, and you know, page boys carrying, and she's a little crown on her head, and oh the dignity and the majesty, oh boy, boys are boys. That's what God desires for his church, not to be dressed like that, but purity of holiness. The anointing of the Spirit, that's the crown of the church. Not flashing jewels, but with the gifts of the Spirit, operating in humility and grace and tenderness, so that the most attractive thing in the world is the church of the living God. That's what God wants. I believe that the most exciting thing, as Phineas said, that when God is in residence, then people of the world are pulled in, and when he's not, the world pulls people out. So again, let's maintain the fire in our own hearts. Let's believe God on the local level, that God will do something here at Agape, and in this community, with all the different Christians that are here, that will spread north, south, east, and west, that God may be glorified. There's not much time left, and if ever we pray the prayer, it surely shall be the prayer of the disciples. Lord teach us to pray. Prayer can be one of two things. I think it's the most exciting thing in the world, to be shut up alone with God, or on the other hand, it's pretty boring. It's either a delight, or it's a duty. Montgomery said that prayer is the Christian's vital breath, the Christian's native air. His watchword at the gates of death, he enters heaven by prayer. I believe again, I never read Hugel much, but the other day I was reading a bit of J.F. Hugel, and J.F. Hugel says, I try to say to people who say, well, you know, I got married and settled down with two or three children, and I just wish my life was to come over. I'd sure delay my marriage, number one, and I'm sure I'd be a missionary, and I'd sure want to minister, you know, minister this way or the other, and I said, I say to them, look, the greatest ministry of all is not public. Now, I never read that, except what I've written myself, but he said the same thing. The greatest ministry of all is a hidden ministry, is a secret ministry. A young man wrote to me yesterday, I don't know if I've told you, who's been a Baptist pastor, and God has called him to intercession. He wants to come and live in this area, and he said, I've no income, I just need a place to shelter, and I don't know how God's going to work it out, but he told me to go in the Lintdale area. Why, I think that's an honor. When you've been to Bible school, when you've been to seminary, and then God says, shut down, the road, there's a roadblock here, I'm opening another path. You talk about the narrow way, there's nothing narrower than the path of prayer, that's not crowded, it's a pretty lonely path. I've only once climbed a mountain, I discovered this, the higher you go, there were two or three things about it, well obviously it gets steeper, it gets lonelier, there are less people, and the air is harder to breathe, the higher you go up. You know that's true in the spiritual life, you've got to do like Moses, he left the congregation, remember in the, what is it, the 24th chapter of Exodus, I think it is Exodus 24, yeah, he said unto Moses, come up unto the Lord, verse 24, verse 1, thou, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel, and worship ye afar off. So he'd already left the millions, if there were a million people in Israel, he'd left them. Now he has seventy plus about four, but verse 2 says, Moses alone shall come near the Lord. And then it says, then went up verse 9, Moses, and Aaron, and Nadab, and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel. And then it says a bit later, verse 11, the nobles of Israel laid, he laid not his hands. Verse 13, Moses rose up and his minister Joshua, and they went into the mount, and he said to the elders, tarry ye here. So he's left the seventy, pardon me, he's left the million people, he leaves the seventy, he leaves the four, he's only got Joshua with him now, and he goes on the mount. And verse 16, the glory of the Lord, a boat on the mount, and the cloud covered it six days, and on the seventh day he called to Moses. Isn't that something? You'd have thought Gabriel would have been there with a band. You'd have thought the archangels would have been standing in a circle and say, look how far you've come, you've climbed this lonely mountain, look at Israel over there, look at the seventy down there, look at the four you left there, and here you are now, and God is, God's going to be here in five minutes. God kept him waiting six days and never spoke to him. You know, he must have known the Spirit, otherwise he would have said, I missed it, I shouldn't have been there, I mean, I should be ruling over Israel, I must have had a dream. He waited six days, God didn't speak to him till the seventh day, till he got all the worldly thoughts out of his mind, be still and know that I'm God. And then God revealed himself. What does it say in Hebrews? Why did Moses endure? Because what? He considered the riches of Christ greater than all the riches of Egypt. What do you mean he saw the riches of Christ? He never lived near Christ, he lived two thousand years before nearly, or over a thousand. There's a gap from Moses to Malachi's a thousand years, so at least a thousand years before, and Moses saw Christ where? Well, do you know what I figure? I figure he saw him that day when he was wrapped up in the cloud. I think the three super revelations in the Word of God are Moses on the cloud, and the second one when the Apostle Paul is lifted into the third heaven, and the third one when John was on the Isle of Patmos. If you'd gone to Ephesus, you'd go down the street and see the little old church. It wasn't a Westminster Abbey, it wasn't a place like Spurgeon's, it was a small despised church, and the pastor was the great, amazing man John, who wrote the gospel, one and two, three epistles, and then revelation. He was a pastor. You say, oh I've been waiting for ten years, I've saved my money, and I've made this trip, and I can't wait to hear your wonderful pastor. I know he's a marvelous man of God, I can't wait to hear John. Oh, I'm sorry, John isn't here. Oh, is he on vacation? Yeah, he's on vacation at the government expense, he's in jail. What? Yeah, you see that little peak out there on the sea? That's the Isle of Patmos. Now if you go over there, he'll be there, there's no road off, and no helicopters, you know, no way to get out. It's a devil's island, the filth of the world is on it. And you get somebody to row you over in a and somebody says, most likely that man with his back towards you on that rock, looking at the sun, that's him, I guess. And you go along, and he's there with his head up, and a radiant smile on his face, and you touch his shoulder and say, hey brother John, he says, hello. And you say, I don't understand why such an amazing man as you, you're in this devil, I mean, I don't understand why I live in the Isle of Patmos. He says, I'm not in the Isle of Patmos. But where are you? Do you remember his answer? He says, I'm in the Spirit. Adam Gihon says, could I be cast where thou art not? That were indeed a dreadful spot. But with thee, my God, to guide the way, it's equal joy to go or stay. Or as a hymn writer says, where Jesus is, it's heaven there. In other words, you can wall a Christian in, you can't roof him in. You can cut him off from everybody. You can't, Paul says triumphantly, fits his fingers to his nose to the devil, and says, well, what shall separate me from the love of God? Tribulation, distress, famine, peril, nakedness of sword. End of Romans 8. Come on, bring anything you've got, he says to Satan, because nothing can separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. I've lost my church, I've lost my fellowship, I've lost my notes on Romans, I've lost my notes on Ephesians, he says, I got nothing left. No, I've got everything left, I've got God, he says. I've got God. I'm in the Spirit. And you can be in the Spirit washing dishes, you can be in the Spirit cleaning up the toilets, you can be in the Spirit chopping trees down. He doesn't dwell in temples, he dwells in us. The Spirit of God is in you, the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit is in us. If all that's true in Romans, do you wonder he dares to finish the chapter by that marvellous verse, Romans 8, verse 37, and he says, you know, to the believer that's got the world, the flesh, and the devil pressing on him, and he's got all the frightening, threatening things of collapsing industry, and collapsing financial things, and collapsing. You know, he says at the end of Romans 8, if the first part of Romans is true, the Spirit of Christ is in you, the Spirit of God is in you, the Spirit of Jesus is in you, then Romans 8, verse 37 is wonderfully possible, because he says, because of that, in all these things, we're conquerors? No, we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us. Now, if it's a victorious life, there's only one way to have a victory, that's to have a battle. And brother, till you get to the pearly gates, if you're going to be any good for God, the world, the flesh, and the devil are going to battle against you. Bet, bet. Jesus says to his disciples, don't get worried, you're going out to Caesar's world, don't get worried, I have overcome the world, and because I've overcome the world, he shall overcome the world. Isn't that a great salvation? Or would you rather be a Mohammedan? Greater is he that is in us, than he that is in the world. We are more than conquerors, through him that loved us. Thank you. See you tomorrow.