In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of obedience to God's commandments and the need to fulfill the Great Commission. He highlights the lack of burden for the world and the absence of fear of God among believers. The speaker shares a personal encounter with a young man who lacked understanding of mission and declined an opportunity to minister in the field. He also recounts a story of a woman who misunderstood the concept of salvation and the speaker's efforts to guide her. The sermon emphasizes the need for genuine mission work and the importance of using our time, talent, and money for God's purposes.

Proverbs chapter 9 verse 10 tells us, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. Let us bow and pray. Father, we ask that tonight as we go into this missionary conference, we may sense thy presence, remind us that mission is on thy heart. This is the primary commitment and concern and burden of the Godhead, to get this message of thy love and thy grace and mercy in Christ out to those for whom he died. Show us again, our Father, that we don't understand thy book, unless we realize it's the unfolding of thy great eternal missionary purpose. And give to us also, Father, the realization that the Church is the missionary society. This is the meeting of the local missionary society now. Father, we have missionary service agencies, but granted we'll always recognize what they are, what their role is, and realize that it's only the local Church whom thou hast given this task of sending those who will carry the message of thy grace. Go to that end. Bless us now and in these three days that follow that will come so quickly. Let everything be done that will bring honor and glory and praise to the Lord Jesus Christ, for we ask it in his precious holy name. Amen. I had the joy and privilege of being associated as a close friend, colleague with A.W. Tozer, during the two or three years that he was writing that very, very important book that I trust you have or will get entitled, The Knowledge of the Holy. I recall him saying to me that this is probably the greatest contribution that I can make to the body of Christ. And on one occasion, for he had a premonition of his rather early death, on one occasion he said, God has promised me that I'm going to live long enough to see the book published and know that it's been received. And he did, but only a few months after that. And it's so important for us to understand that the fear of the Lord is indeed the beginning of wisdom. Now, what is fear? The word in the Hebrew, in the Greek, implies reverence. But we've lost the sense of the meaning of reverence. I remember one saying that it is reverence of God, godly fear is a reverential trust. Some years ago, I was driving in North Carolina. There were well-marked limits to speed on the highway. I was anxious to get back home, and so my foot got heavy. And after a while, I heard that sound that I'm grateful to say is not too familiar, but is always frightening. That siren and that light, those days the state highway police used the red tourist light. My children described it as being the surrey with the cherry on top. Well, the surrey with the cherry on top was up next to me, and the light was shining at me, and the siren was howling, and the officer was pointing. Now, I want to ask you, do you think that what I felt was reverential trust? I reverenced him as a state police commissioned by the governor to keep people like me from breaking law. He was going to do his duty, there wasn't any question in my mind about that. He was, I trusted him implicitly to do his duty, and I reverenced him. But what I felt didn't seem to me to be either reverence or trust, it was plain old fear. The fear of the Lord is that. Reverencing who he is and what he will do, then it's the beginning of wisdom. Now, friends, if you aren't aware of the fact that God is God, you haven't started to get wise yet. The fear of the Lord is that kind of awareness that God is God. Now, the difficulty we have is to understand the nature of man. I'd like to ask you to turn to Romans, the third chapter, and I'd like to begin reading with the ninth verse, because this describes the kind of people that God sent me to, and it's the eighteenth verse that will give to you some insight as to what we find out about those whom we call Gentiles, Paul calls Gentiles, and another word for Gentiles was pagan or heathen. But then are we better than they? No, we're no wise, for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin. As it is written, there's none righteous, no, not one. There's none that understandeth. There's none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of ass is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known. Here's a summary. There is no fear of God before there are. My wife and I were the first two missionaries in the Anglo-Egyptian sedan, then called Anglo-Egyptian sedan, now known as sedan, which is west of Ethiopia, south of Egypt, north of Kenya and Uganda, and west of Chad, straddling the Nile River for about 1,800 miles. The sedan is as large as the eastern, the half of the United, or part of the United States, east of the Mississippi. So you're talking about a rather large country. In terms of square miles. But we were the first in that country to have the training from the Summer Institute of Linguistics. And when they found out that we'd had that training, the civil secretary asked the mission if they would second my wife and myself to the government to do a survey. They had been wanting to get someone to survey an area in which there were no missions working, and in which there was no education. And so we were put under the direction of the deputy director of education in charge of all education activity in the southern sedan. The deputy director of education met with us, he drew out on the map an area, and he said, apart from the Sudan Interior Missions Station at Charlie O'Neill, we have no insight at all, no understanding of how many tribes are there, what languages they speak, whether or not those languages are related, and if one or more of them might be useful as an educational medium. Can we use one of these languages? Can we, must we use Arabic, or should we use English? These are the problems we want you to help us answer. So we organized, I organized the trip to go down into the area, and in the course of that time, I went into a village of a very small tribe, as near as we could ascertain, there were only about 300 people in the entire tribe, but a separate language. In that area, we found 10 tribes, we found some with as few as 50 people, but keeping alive that culture and that language, and in some cases we found as much as a 95% incidence of syphilis, or, and yawns, sometimes together, both of them spirochete diseases. So we'd gone, I'd gone into this village, and was welcomed there, and they called the people around, using an Arabic speaker who knew the language as my translator. I proceeded to try to find out what the people knew. I picked up a stick that was there, a branch of a tree with some leaves on it, and I said, who made it? And immediately, the answer came, Wanamish. Well, where is Wanamish? They said, he lives at the head of the river up there in Ethiopia, in the sky. What has he made? And they said, well, he's made everything, had a name for the creator. And then they had a name for Satan, the evil one. He said, Wanamish is good. And then they, they just said, described the other one who was there, who was evil, and they, I proceeded to ask if they, what was sin, what was wrong, what, what pleased Wanamish? And they said, oh, he's very angry against lying. Who told you? Our stomachs tell us. Who, what else? Oh, he's very angry against murder. He's angry against stealing. He's angry with people because they don't say what's true. Who told them? Where'd they find it out? Sounded like somebody'd been there giving them a, a daily vacation Bible school, teaching them the Ten Commandments. But I was the first one ever to come into the village with a Bible. I was the first one, so they said, to ever mention the name of Jesus there. To our understanding, we can find that there'd never been anyone through there that had named the name of Christ to open the word of God, nor that they had contact with Muslims, other than as traitors do, they might go to get some cloth or some salt. So I found out that they knew a great deal more than my professors in school had taught me to expect. They knew the name of God. They knew that God was holy. They knew that God didn't bother them when they were alive. He was going to punish them when they died, because they'd been doing things that were bad, and that they'd been lying and stealing and murdering. And they had described all of this without my having to open the book before them. The next day, after I'd spent this time with them, and I won't take you further in it, but the next day I saw the chief go by, and he had a chicken by the feet, and he was walking rather rapidly. I asked him to stop and visit. He said, oh no, no, no, I've got to go to the witch doctor. Well, why are you going to the witch doctor? Because my grain is not doing well, and I've got to make a sacrifice to the evil spirit so that I will have grain to feed my goats, and I'll be able to have food for the family. Well, why don't you sacrifice it to Wanamish? And he laughed. He said, Wanamish doesn't want chickens, or at least we don't know that he wants chickens, and he never bothers us. It's one thing I would call you would know as Satan. He's the one that bothers us. He's the one that ruins our crops and kills our goats, makes our children sick, and we have to take all the chickens we've got to him. We can't waste them on Wanamish. Now I want to read the 18th verse again. In the way of peace they have not known, there is no fear of God before their eyes. They knew him. They knew all about him, but there was no fear of God. Now to confirm this, I want you to go to Romans chapter 1 verse 32. Previously, from verse 29 through 31, we're told about all the things which are described there by the words in the 32nd verse, who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death. And so we have a listing up above of things which those who do them are worthy of death. It then declares they not only do the same, but they have pleasure in them that knew them. No fear of God before their eyes. They know the judgment of God, and they have their pleasure with those who are under judgment with them. And in the first verse of the second chapter, Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest. For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest doest the same thing. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? No fear of God before their eyes. No escape. Judging others, and it sounds to me like the media, doesn't it, to you in the present time, that are so quick to morally pontificate doing identically the same thing. Judging those whom they think they're now vulnerable, and yet no fear of God before their eyes. I can expect that from the worldly godless media. I saw a sign the other day on a bumper. It said, let's exchange the media for the hostages. And I thought that there was wisdom that should be observed. But at any rate, the media seems to take such great pleasure in indicting those who have named the name of Christ and who had failure in their lives. I don't object to that. The thing that I find so tragic is Christianity that loses its fear of God. I don't expect anything else from the world, but I do think we have a right to expect more from the Church of Jesus Christ. There was a time back in the middle of the 19th century when there was an advent of something we've come to call higher criticism, modernism. We've known it as liberalism. It attacked the veracity of the word of God. It attacked the deity of Christ. It attacked the necessity, the resurrection, the virgin birth, the holy sinless life, the atoning death, the resurrection of Christ, that it was all men. There were another company of people who believed in the authority of the word of God and the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and the victory of Calvary and in his resurrection. These people became known as those who held to, adhered to the fundamental. The people that stood at that time in the beginning of that conflict had an experience with God. They'd met God. They'd been born of God. And they were simply articulating a list of essential truths they called fundamental truths. But they had a real relationship with God. Their children came along. Some of them met God, but many of them adhered to the fundamentals. And their grandchildren, and now their great-grandchildren and their great-great-grandchildren, have been led to believe if they give an intellectual assent to a list of essential truths, they can assume that they're born of God. And what we have done has been to fill the churches of America with people that have nothing more than an intellectual assent to a plan of salvation, that have never been born of God. This isn't new. In 1950, living in Greenville, South Carolina, there was a, in Spartanburg, thirty-five miles to the east, was a South Carolina Southern Baptist Convention, and the main speaker was Robert G. Lee from the great Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. The next day after Dr. Lee had spoken on this subject, three people who'd been present in that meeting came to see me because they knew the concern I had. I'd expressed it in their presence. This is what Dr. Lee said. For forty years, I've been a close observer of what is going on in our Southern Baptist churches, and I am convinced that no more than one out of our ten of our people have any experiential knowledge of the new birth. And the preachers went, and he said, Brethren, if I'm an error, I've put it too high. If the facts were really known, it's probably far less than ten percent. Andrew Blackwood, in his book of twenty years ago called Contemporary Evangelical Thought, said he was convinced that probably no more than ten, one out of ten of the members of the Evangelical churches of America knew anything experiential about the new birth. And A. W. Tozer, writing on one occasion and speaking on many, said that in his opinion, based on his close association with Evangelicals, and he said, including my own fellowship, I seriously question if any more than one out of ten of our people know anything about the new birth. Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses. I'm not here to confirm or to correct what they said. I'm only here to say that there are a multitude of people in that community called Christian, Evangelical Christian, that have never understood anything about the fear of God. Because when they are told that sin is a congenital disease, that they'll be only because of its inheritance factor, and because all they need to do is nod their head or say uh-huh in a half a dozen places, and signs, walk somewhere and sign something, and that they're now qualified to take their place among the company of the redeemed, you can expect that there will be no fear of God before their eyes. They've never understood that when God wants to bring a cannibal out of, then change him into a Christian or a savage and turn him into a saint, there's some things he does. In this same tribe, that same day, I was learning about what God had made and what the people knew about him. I thought that because they, I said to one of them, you say it's wrong to lie and steal and murder? Yes. How do you know? Our stomach tells us. That's where we say heart, but they said stomach. We had one tribe nearby, when we translated that verse, be not afraid, it is I, because they put the seed of personality in another organ. The way the verse came out was, don't get a shiver in your liver, it's only me. So we have to recognize that organs have been associated with the seed of personality in different cultures. And I said, how do you know that, well, how do you know it's wrong? Because my stomach, have you ever, because I said to one man, boy, have you ever committed murder? He said, looked at me, he squinted, he said, do you work for the government? I said, no, I don't work for the government. He said, you tell the government what I say? No, I don't tell them what you say. He said, yes, I've killed people. Now, because they knew they were sinners and knew they had sinned and they knew what sin was, I thought they were ready to be converted. And I said, would you like, I've got a message from one of me. I've got a message from him. He loved you. He gave his son to die for. And if you'll accept him, he won't punish you when you die, but you can go to be with him. Would you like that? About four of them understood what I was saying. And they said, yeah, we would, we would. I got the idea. Well, I said, come over here. So I went into the inquiry room that was over under the next tree and we sat down there and I started to talk just to them. And so finally I got around to giving them a prayer and taught him what to say and they prayed it. And then I had to leave and I only spent a little more time with them. But boy, when I got back to my tent, I want you to know I wrote a letter to the church, Calvary Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan that supported us because I wanted them to know what a good investment they were making. We'd only been in that tribe one day. We had three converts, four converts. Well, about two and a half months later, I was back there and I found that my, they call themselves Jesus boys. They were, I said, where are, oh, you mean the Jesus boy? We'll call him. One of them came, he was staggering drunk. They'd just been to a beer feast and they were still Jesus boy. They still went to the witch doctor. They still went to the demon dance. They still went to the beer feast and they were Jesus. And yet they'd done everything the people that I had, quote, led to the Lord back in, in the States had been expected to do. Only difficulty back in the States, they slept between sheets, ate with silver, didn't have beer feasts. And so here they were. I realized then I had to go into the scripture and find out what God wants to do when he turns a cannibal into a Christian. Back in Indiana, we had a, I was pastor of a country church. And during time I was at Taylor University, every Sunday I'd go out there. They have us eat our lunch in a different place. That was a day of meat stamps, you know, and it was kind of nice to have a good meal when you didn't have to pay. I never asked what they did about it, but they always had plenty of everything. But they had a quaint thing. They'd make that schedule out three, four months, five months, six months in advance. And I remember one day I was at the door greeting the people, and there were two older men down beside. And one of them said to the other, who's eating the preacher today? Well, that was their way of saying what family is taking the pastor and his wife home for dinner? But when I got among these people, I'll tell you, that eating the preacher had a double meaning. Because they had a reputation of having had a salty flesh, they liked it. And some of their neighbors who didn't go home at night ended up in a stew, not with their wives, but with the people that they, whose territory they crossed. And so I figured that I'd better find out. I read in the scripture that, take heed lest ye be devoured one of another. But it had a meaning there that I didn't think Paul intended to convey. And so as I went back to the Word, I find that there's three things God does when he wants to bring a cannibal to Christ. First, he puts a sample of his grace up next to him to live Christ. And then he puts an intercessor up next to him to intercede, legally represented, and then someone to witness to him. Maybe the same one in all three offices, but often it isn't. And then the first thing that God does is to awaken the sinner. He expects the witness to use the appropriate scripture. And then, having been awakened, is to use scriptures that bring that sinner to a realization of his crime. Ah, now we're getting down to the fear of the Lord. When he, the spirit of truth, has come, he will convict the world of sin. And what is that? It's sin. What is it? I use the word disparagingly. People think sin is a congenital disease. No! Sin is a high treasonous crime against Almighty God. It's treason. It's rebellion. It's anarchy. It's transgression. And the sinner is an enemy. And he's not prepared for grace until God the Holy Ghost has brought him to conviction. And the reason we don't see more people saved is because we don't see more people lost. And no one is going to be saved until they've discovered their lostness. And yet we've almost lost the skill of preaching to give to sin the character of transgression and to cause, prepare sinners for grace. If I had my way, and I don't, and it's probably wise and good I don't have it, but I would declare a moratorium on the public preaching of the plan of salvation in America for 12 months and demand the preaching of the holiness of God and the righteousness of God and the law of God until sinners begin to cry out, what must I do to be saved? We've gospel-hardened a generation of sinners telling them how to be saved long before they discover they have any need to be saved. We've filled our churches with the unconverted who have no fear of God before their eyes. What a tragedy it is. But you expected more. I came to the baptism of the Holy Spirit back in 1953. There wasn't any charismatic movement then. It was just a hungry heart that sought God and wanted Him. I was a member of a Baptist church. I was deputation secretary for the Sudan Interior Mission with a national ministry and missionary meetings. And then I became hungry for God and I was filled with the Spirit of God and He gave me several gifts of the Spirit, including the gift of tongues and my friend, I got the order of the boot. I've almost decided to have minted a cowboy boot and put on the lapel. I discovered there's a lot of people that are members of the royal order of the boot. And I was one of them. Kicked out of the church and kicked out of the mission society. Why? Because God had met my heart in and of Himself. And then there came a... I paid a terrific price. One of the best known names in America had a businessman leave Wheaton, Illinois and go around the world to warn the mission societies to have nothing to do with Ferris-Reed. It was like a tree falling that was heard around the world. And I didn't deserve that attention. I wasn't worthy of it, but I got more free advertising then and people would be able to pay for it. I didn't particularly feel thrilled about it, but I did find out I had to give thanks to the Lord for it because He said giving thanks always for all things. So I did it. Though I could have gotten along without it, if you don't mind my saying so. Then came the charismatic movement. Oh, I was thrilled. The burden of my heart in seeking God was that I might have power for witness and ministry. When I went to Africa as a dispensationalist trained here in this city, my Bible was the size of a Sunday school quarterly. Ephesians, Philippians, part of Colossians, all the juicy parts had been assigned to somebody else, but that was really all that was ours, the church epistles. Everything else belonged to the Old Testament, the Future Testament, the Jews, the Tribulation, somebody else had it. Now I'm out with people that have never seen a white man, never heard the name of Jesus, never been taught... I could have said Christ was born 40 years ago and died yesterday and they wouldn't have known the difference. They had no idea of history. And I remember going before God and saying, I think it's a dirty trick, Lord. You're sending me out here to finish Paul's work and you took away all the equipment you gave Paul. I don't see what's right and fair about that. If I've got to do Paul's job, why couldn't you have left Paul's equipment around? Because I'd been told we didn't need mighty signs and wonders anymore because we had the book. But it was the book that told me about them. And here I'm being told they're not for us, they're not for today, we don't need them. My heart was hungry for that I might be affected in my witness to the loss. And now I'm hearing about people being baptized. I'm hearing about a great movement. I'm hearing about full gospel business. And I'm expecting that what Christ said when he left, that after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, you shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the outermost part of the earth. And it never happened. It never happened. I talked to one of the business leaders and I said, what's happened? Where is this movement? What's gone wrong with it? Here's what the word says. When the Holy Ghost has come upon you, you will be witnesses. Well, we had our international convention in Singapore last year. There were 2,500 of us. But that's not mission. That's not mission. Mission is when you go and you live with the people and you see the gospel planted, the church planted, and the people built up and established in the Lord. A few people making a trip to a beautiful hotel. I don't care where it is in the world. Only one could get any witness there, the elevator operator. I was in a hotel and the elevator operator says, oh boy, I'm glad you're not like them. I never told her. I just wanted to find out what them were. And she said, I've been saved four times today already. Then I went to the first one that came. I got mad that they would button in my, and my boss said, look, when these folks are here, the only ones they get nerve enough to talk to are the elevator operators because they're captive. And so she said, just go along with them. Say yes, yes, yes. And if you say yes often enough, five or six times, then they'll leave you alone. She said, I've been saved four times already today. Now that's not mission. That's not mission. It's going in where the people are, learning their language and living with them and serving them. That's mission. And I thought I was going to see it, and I didn't see it. My heart ached. They said, are you going to become part of this movement? And I said, no, not until they become biblical. What do you mean biblical? I said, not until they get the fear of God before their eyes, and they understand that Christ said, if you love me, you will keep my commandment and my commandments as you go and teach all nations all that I've given you to teach them. And when the Holy Ghost is come upon you, you'll receive power that you can be witnesses, both in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the outermost part of the earth. And I said, when they become biblical. And I despaired that there was a full gospel church, a charismatic church anywhere in the country that had a missionary burden. And then, God, in his sweet grace, gave me an invitation from a church here in Minneapolis called Soul Fire Calvary Temple. And Harry Kahn said, go. They got a missionary vision, and they got a missionary burden. And I came, and I discovered that there was a church that had the world upon its heart. And I began to realize that maybe God had a possibility. And I dare to believe, I dare to believe that the great, untapped resource for mission is in the charismatic, full gospel church. The fundamentalists who have nothing but the word written in the book and the fear of God, afraid to disobey the word, have carried the heavy end of missions for a hundred years in Britain and America. Because the word said go, the people went. It said give, and they gave. Because of fear of God and because of love for the Lord, because of a desire to serve him. But often without power. Without any power. And then God gave this movement. We have a list of 5,600 independent, charismatic, full gospel churches in America. Did you know there were that many? 5,600. Several of them being formed every week. Many of them every month now. One of the most, oh, so few have a burden for the world. A burden for the world. No fear of God. No fear of God. A very young man whose name you might recognize had left where he was, was in our area. His mother had been a great blessing to me, and I knew his stepsister. And so I asked for a meeting with him, and we had lunch together. He came as my guest. We sat there, and I said, Peter, now that you're free, the one thing I've noticed in your ministry that is missing is a real understanding of mission. I said, if you're willing to go to the field and minister the word, I will be responsible with some others to raise money so that you can go to the field as many months as you want. And he said, oh no, I'm not interested in mission. I said, what? I'm not interested in mission. I don't believe that missions are relevant for us today. I think everything that God is doing is right here in America. My heart was aching, but I knew where he was. I knew where he was. And I've been crying out to God now for some 20 years that there would be a breakthrough among the full gospel churches, the charismatic churches, and that they would have, but I know what it is. They must have a fear of God. A fear of God. Let me illustrate it. Would you turn, please, to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2, and I want you to read verses 41 to 43. Acts 2, 41 to 43. I want you to see it, because I believe the spirit of God wants to say something to us tonight and in this conference. I believe he has something that is important that he wants us to have. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about 3,000 souls, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayer. Now listen. And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. Always that way, when people begin to fear God and reverence his word and obey what he's revealed, God begins to work. I will confirm it out of a second perspective. Would you turn to Acts chapter 5, verse 5. Here we're dealing with Ananias and Sapphira, who had lied to the Holy Ghost. Verse 5, and Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost, and great fear came on all them that heard these things. And then in verse 11, and great fear came upon all the church when Sapphira fell down, and upon as many as heard these things. And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people. When the people of God begin to fear God, God is released to work. And what we must have more than any other single thing in this day and in this time is a baptism of the knowledge of the holy, the nature of God, the wonder, the grandeur, the truth of God, and the authority of the world. Is it going to come? I would submit to you that holy fear of God has been and ever will be one of the prime motivating forces in mission. You're going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. You're going to give an account of the deeds you've done in the body. You're going to give an account of what you've done with your time, your talent, your money. You're going to explain to the Lord Jesus why our obedience wasn't consistent with our worship. We sing, oh, how I love thee, oh, how I love thee. And we do mean it, except he said, if you love me, keep my commandments. And his commandment was that we should go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever he's commanded. We have to explain what we've done with our talent, with our money. I say the fear of the judgment seat of Christ, the bema, ought to be enough to motivate us. The love of Christ hasn't. The love of Christ, said Paul, constrains me not to live for myself, but to him who died for me and rose again. But apparently we've become so enamored with the love of Christ, we've forgotten that he is God. We must see him again as John saw him. Every time I read the first chapter of Revelation, I'm brought down on my face. John on the island of Patmos, surrounded by believers that have come to be with him to have a Bible conference. He's the last one. He knew Jesus. He leaned on his bosom, and he remembers the good old days when he walked with the Lord. But you see, he's too pally with the memory. We read, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard a voice behind me. He was looking back. He was looking somewhere else. And he said, I turned, and I saw one like unto the Son of God, his head like wool, shining like gold, his face the brightness of the sun. He heard about the paps with a golden girl. Out of his mouth went a two-edged sword. And he said, when I saw this Jesus glorified, exalted, reigning on the throne, I, who leaned on his bosom, fell at his feet as dead. And I believe he would have died. But he said, I heard a voice, heard him saying unto me, Arise, and stand upon thy feet. John, who'd lived with him and walked with him, needed a revelation of who the Lord Jesus Christ is, in his reigning authority, as the sovereign head of the church. How much more do we need? And if John could fall at his feet as dead, how much more ought we need? Dead to ourselves and our plans, our aspirations, our hopes, our programs. Lord Jesus, what wilt thou have me to do? The mission begins with a revelation of who God is, who the Lord Jesus Christ is. And great fear fell upon all, and mighty signs and wonders were wrought by the hands of the apostles. There is a relationship between our worship, our fear of God, our trust in him, our recognition of him, and what he's free to do. I see for this church a great future, great ministry. I told Mrs. Peterson that I'd been praying since I'd learned of our brothers going into the presence of the Lord, not for a continuation of ministry, but a beginning of ministry. A beginning. And I sense today, with the anointing upon Pastor Peterson and the sense of his presence in the service, that there's a time of new beginning. But if there's one message that's got to go from this pulpit and the pulpits of the land until it's penetrated all of the sister churches who share this truth concerning the fullness of God's spirit, it is the holiness of God, the righteousness of God, the nature of God, until great fear comes upon the hearts of all who love and worship him. Might it begin tonight and in these days as God draws us on our faces before him. Let us pray. Let us pray. Hallelujah, Lord Jesus. God, I just pray right now that our hearts will be quickened together as we not only love you, but our hearts are broken with our reverence unto you, unto you. I want you to stand with me. I want us to come to the altar and sing together this chorus. I want us to come just all around this altar. Just come real close, everybody. We're going to pray together, seek God together. Oh, Lord, please light the fire.