In this sermon, Dr. Tozer shares a story about a little man he encountered whose face was disfigured from suffering. The man said, "thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine," emphasizing the importance of going through trials and refining in our spiritual lives. Dr. Tozer reminds the audience that Jesus guaranteed that we will face tribulations in the world, but also assures them that God works all things together for good. He encourages the listeners to remember the suffering world and to be grateful for their blessings. The sermon concludes with a reference to King David's willingness to offer a sacrifice that cost him something, highlighting the importance of genuine sacrifice in our worship to God.

Second book of Samuel, chapter 24, verse 24. Using this just as a framework in which to put the thoughts that I want to share with you, but a good picture needs a good frame. And I think this is a very, very suitable frame for our thoughts tonight. The king, that is King David, said unto Aaronah, Nay, but I will surely buy it of thee at a price. Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 50 shekels of silver, and David built there an altar unto the Lord, and he offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the Lord was entreated for the land, and the plague was stayed from Israel. David's life is fascinating. He was prepared 30 years before he became a man of God, before he became useful for God. The next 20 years, two decades, he kind of reached a peak. He reached a plateau, and then after that 20 years, he went downhill for 20 years. Again, 30 years of preparation. Maybe you remember Joseph was the same. I remember he was up in Dothan, and his father sent him to Dothan. And then from Dothan, he went down into a pit. His brothers put him in a pit. Then from there, he went down into Egypt. From Egypt, he went down into another pit. And he was going down from being about 17 years of age. And then he started going up and up and up until eventually he sat on the throne of the king. But he did not have any official position until he was 30 years of age. So you have King David, who is 30 years in preparation. You have Joseph, 30 years in preparation. You have John Baptist, 30 years in preparation. And even the Lord Jesus himself. The magic thing, there's no magic about 30, as far as I know. I was reading the other day where King Solomon built a house for himself, and the walls were 30 cubits high. Cubits is about 18 inches, so it's a pretty tall house. And maybe you remember the ark that was built by David, that the walls were, pardon me, whatever you call them of the ark, they were also 30 cubits high. 30 is a, it's again a number of perfection. Now David has come to the end of his very illustrious life. The back end was pretty rotten. This is not the thing to inject maybe here, but I'm going to do it anyhow. There's a property of homosexuals, lesbians, and what have you got. And they've had their fun, and now the dividend has come. God's word is never wrong. And so they're reaping what they've sown. And with it there's come a special kind of cancer, and now there's another thing called AIDS, which is a great scourge. It's their property. They thought they could defy God and get away with it. But whatsoever a man sows he reaps. And King David did the same thing. He committed adultery. His children committed adultery. He murdered a woman's husband to have a good time, and one of his sons killed his brother because that brother violated his sister. So what you sow you reap. And so, and then he had a troublesome son called Absalom. Absalom was either trying to steal the throne from under his father or take the crown off his head. And it's very wonderful that when they told him Absalom was dead, he didn't say, well thank God I've been waiting for that for two or three years. He cried. One of those awful cries you find in the Bible. You can't learn it by elocution. You can't learn it in Bible college. It's a heart cry. He cried, oh Absalom my son. Very much I think like Jeremiah cried in Jeremiah 9 when he says, oh that my heads were watered. Just as Jesus cried over Jerusalem, oh Jerusalem you stupid Jerusalem. Jesus visualized all the prophets. The greatest men that ever lived were not scientists or millionaires or kings, they were prophets. In politics today we have no statesmen, all we have is politicians. In the church we have no prophets, all we have is preachers. And most of them are handmade. They roll off the assembly line of a certain Bible school and they all say the same words, think the same thoughts. They've been listening to professors who haven't had a thought from heaven for the last 25 years, preaching notes with dust on them. And it's almost time for us to cry, oh America, oh England, oh generation that we live in. Would to God that the heavens might be rent. But again we have here the King David saying that he will not render to God that which costs him nothing. This man is a runner, could have given him an offer to give him the things he needed for sacrifice. I'll give you the altar, I'll give you the, I'll even give you my plow, I'll give you the things I work with. You can break them up and I'll give you the bullet to put on them. And David says very rightly, shall I render to God that which costs me nothing. Now that ought to be your question, pardon me, every morning when you rise. And it may be, it should be the last thought on your head, in your head before you go to bed. Have I rendered to God today that which costs me nothing? As I've said so often, an experience of God that costs nothing is worth nothing and it does nothing. The basic thing about the Christian life is sacrifice. There's no way to live it without sacrifice. And yet so often we render to God, God gets the leftovers in most of our lives, doesn't he? We pray if it's convenient. We pray if we have time. We make a special sacrifice at a special time. But David says I'm not going to take anything, I will not present, I will not insult God with something that I got free and it's easy to give. There's no blood, no sacrifice in it. Okay, let's go back now to where we've been for a few weeks in Exodus, the 30th chapter. And if you're here for the first time we're glad, but the last few Friday nights we have thought about this almost forgotten art of worship. Worship. And again to make a blanket statement, prayer, prayer is preoccupation with our needs. Praise is preoccupation with our blessings and worship is preoccupation with God. The Keswick folk in England sing a great hymn, my goal is God himself, not joy, not peace, not even blessing, but thee my God. And you cannot worship without sacrifice, without cost. Again you think of the three wise men, I don't know if there were three, nobody else decides that, but there were three gifts brought to Jesus when he was a babe. We think there were three because there were three gifts, it could have been 30 men, 10 of them bringing gold, 10 silver, 10 frankincense and 10 myrrh. But this we know that they brought something which was costly. They brought gold, that was always recognized as a gift to a king. They brought frankincense because that's something that the priest has to use in his ministry. And they brought myrrh because that's what was put on people when they were embalmed, when they were dead. And again it's that which has the cost in it that counts before God. Now this chapter is very beautiful, the 30th of Exodus verse 30 says, Thou shalt anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate them that they may minister not for me, notice, but unto me. There are more people working for God than working with God. You hear people say, well I'm doing this for the Lord. Well maybe they are, it doesn't mean the Lord's doing it with them. More people work for God than work with God. You work us together with God, we are God's husbandry. Now again, that they may minister unto me in the priest's office. Now again we've referred to this before, if you go back to verse 22, there's a special kind of mixture of myrrh, and notice it says 500 shekels, sweet cinnamon half as much, 250 shekels of sweet calamus, 250 shekels of cassia, 500 shekels and so forth. And this is ointment which is to be compounded after the art of the apothecary, that's a big word we don't use so much today, we call it the drugstore. In England we always, in Europe they say the chemist. And he's to take all these ingredients and he's to mix this holy oil for one purpose only, for everything that's inanimate. It's to sanctify, it's to dedicate the furniture that's there in the tabernacle. Now again, this tabernacle is symbolic of the Lord Jesus as far as I'm concerned. You know, Solomon's Temple, it's been said it was the most expensive building ever made, even with inflation today. It was just laid over with gold, it was used as though, you know, like we say, like pouring out water. It's a magnificent, gorgeous place, but the tabernacle in the wilderness, badger skins, dyed red, ram skins, mercy on us. Well, isn't it typical of Jesus? There is no beauty that we should desire him. You know, the less of the presence and holiness of God in the sanctuary, the more elaborate we make the church. When the glory departed, we decided we would have gold vessels and stained glass windows and, you know, St. Paul's Cathedral or a crazy place like the Vatican. Just plaster it with gold, make it, you know, have some super artists. Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo, lay on his back and paint the glory of the Sistine Chapel and what have you got? I don't think God's any more interested in that than in his comic strip in the newspaper. He can't worship God. The tabernacle in the wilderness was totally unattractive. Again, it had three departments. There was an outer court where the priests ministered. But these ministers are not going to minister to people, they're going to minister to God. And let me lay it down again, that when you come out of a service Sunday morning and somebody says, I didn't get anything out of that, that's not the criteria. The first thing is, what did God get out of it? Did he get worship? Did he get adoration? Or did he say I wasn't even near the place? This ointment is made to put on inanimate things. But then when you come down to verse 20, you're going to have another ointment that cannot be used on buildings or altars. Thou should anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate them that they may minister unto me in the priest's office. You hear people say when they've been abroad, that while I was away on our vacation there, somebody said, did you see a certain thing on TV the other night? Well, I saw some of it. Horrifying. And somebody says, though we were not in America, we're a way out of America, but we say in America, we don't realize our privileges. You have any ice cream? Oh, well, I want buttered pecan. If you don't have it, I don't want it. You know, we're not too particular. You see a shop, 28 varieties of ice cream, 28 varieties of donuts. And there are hundreds of countries that have never seen either of them. We're so used to what we call the American way of life, as though it's our right. You know, the same thing is true in spiritual matters. Do you realize that in Israel only one man could go into the presence of God, and he could only go one day in the year, and he could only go for one people? Now, come on, does it ever overwhelm you when you go to a chair or at the side of your bed and say, as I kneel here, I'm doing what the priest had to go through, all the panoply area, putting on his garments of glory and beauty, and he had to be anointed with a certain oil, and you go through all the things he had to do, and he only did it for a very short time? In the outer court, again, there was daylight in the holy place, there was candlelight in the holy of holies, there was no light. Well, what do we do if there's no light? We clap and have a good time and get worked up and soulishly? I ask this every night everywhere I go, did you actually come here tonight to meet God, or did you come here to hear a sermon about him? When you go to the first Baptist, first Methodist, first something else, are you going there to meet God, or are you going to hear a preacher that you like? A man who can fit words together, make nice pictures, stir you maybe emotionally, make you feel real good that you're fundamental, whatever that means. We're an old Irishman, you say it means funny, mental, but anyhow, we feel pretty secure because we have the right words, and what have we got? Well, supposing tomorrow you're going to God's holy presence, say, Lord, I want to thank you that I don't need to put on vestments, and I don't need to come in nervously, I don't even have to come in pitch darkness. In the outer circle, again, in the outer court, there's daylight. In the holy place, there's a seven-branch candlestick. In the holy of holies, there's no light at all. There's no window there. There's no illumination. If God doesn't come, you're going to stumble around and be in the dark. But if we feel God isn't there, we work it out, and we make, we've got to, after all, it's the preacher's job to make you feel good. You may be rotten, but he's got to make you feel good, and you go home feeling nice, and you're glad that you set the oven right, you know, so your chicken won't be burned when you go home or something, and we just glide in and out like that. There's no sense of awe, no sense of majesty. We say to people outside, there's no fear of God between their eyes. I sometimes wonder how much fear of God there is before us. Okay, you're not too happy, so I'd better cheer up a bit here. Thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, verse 31, and they're going to make a holy anointing oil. Upon man's flesh it shall not be poured, neither shall he make any other like it. After the composition of it, it is holy, notice, it shall be holy unto you. Whosoever compoundeth any like it, or whosoever putteth any of it upon a stranger, shall even be cut off from his people. Now, the Lord said unto Moses, take unto thee sweet spices, stacty, onica, galbanum, sweet spices with frankincense, and of each, now notice a big difference here. When they were making the ointment for the dedication, sanctification, if you want, of the different pieces of furniture there, there's a measurement for each of those things. How many shekels of this, how many shekels of that, a half supply, and so forth and so on. But here there's no measurement given. No measurement. It says distinctly, uh, the Lord said unto Moses, verse 34, take unto thee sweet spices, stacty, onica, galbanum, sweet spices with pure frankincense, of each there shall be a like weight. And thou shalt make it a perfume, a confection, after the art of the apothecary. Tempered together, pure and holy. Now I've read this dozens of times, maybe in my life I've read hundreds and hundreds of times, and I've always emphasized the difference, so a lot. Arthur Pink is a very good expositor, he's a Scotsman, but he doesn't distinguish between the anointing of the things in the, that were inanimate, the buildings, and the anointing of the priest. You could not anoint the priest with the same ointment that you put on the furniture. You could not anoint the furniture with what you put on to the priest. Again, there's a measurement given for all the ingredients there, and here there is no measurement given. Now I had read this essay, I'm sure in my lifetime, hundreds, maybe thousands of times, and only today this thing leapt out of the, out of this chapter. Thou shalt beat some of it very small. Now you know, all these things have a special, special meaning. Verse 34 again, the Lord said unto Moses, take unto thee sweet spices, stacty. Well the only way you can get that kind of gum out of that tree, it doesn't yield it like fruit, like pears or apples or something. You have to take a knife and you have to wound the tree, you have to open it, and then it does two things. It exudes, it gives you this kind of, like a rubber tree, you could, you get some rubber suction stuff out of it. New England, you get maple out of the maple tree, but here this stacty comes out, and it does two things. It fills the area with fragrance, and also it has a healing balm, it heals itself. But the thing is, we're told that usually this has to be done in the, in the stillness of the night. For some reason it flows better in the night time. Do you think that there's some kind of hidden suggestion here? Do you think that you really wound? Okay, we were down in the Bahamas for nearly three weeks. A lady we've known very well, very gracious, always has a smile and whatnot. She was coming out of a crusade that they've just had down there by a Canadian, and as she came out, a policeman was coming up the road about 70 miles an hour, he hit her like that, threw the car across the road, she rolled up, but she got up, she stood up, oh she said, I got a pain. And the doctor said, fortunately for her, she didn't put a, if she put her head forward like that, she had one millimeter left of something or something that held her spine and her head together. And if she'd made her head go forward, it would have broken. But she kept it back. And I went in to see her, and there she was, radiant. She'd been there two weeks. Jacket, stiff thing here. Actually they put two steel pegs into her head about an inch, I don't know how in the world they got them in. And you could see those big screws there holding her head, and she had this steel thing around here, and a body in a cast. What do you do? What do you say to somebody? When I was in hospital, very much like that, people came in and said, are you sick? I was always batting my lip. I said, no, I'm just going to play tennis, can't you see? I just said, listen, I know a thing or two about that business. He said, how long were you in hospital? Oh, I was in hospital nearly three months. Stressed up from plaster from here to my hips, broke my back in three places, broke my left leg in two places, broke both my feet. I know a little about it. I know everybody that came in, a lot of famous preachers came to see me, and they all quoted the same thing. Oh, I got weary of it. They all quoted Romans 8.28. I didn't know it was in the Bible so many times. Oh, brother, the Lord's with you. Remember Romans 8.28? Think of it this afternoon, but I have an appointment, I have to play golf. I thought, yeah, I'm sure you'll be thinking of me all the afternoon while you're playing golf. But one day Dr. Tozer brought a little man in, his face was all pot-marked. He got on the last boat when the Chinese, when the Communists took over China. He just came up and looked at me, and his little face, he was not Chinese. He looked at me, he was yellow, his skin was all pitted, and he put his little hand up like that, and he just said this, Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine. Good day. That's what it's all about. Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine. Never mind what the playboys in evangelism say in Dallas. The last verse of the 16th chapter of John, Jesus says, listen, you want a guarantee in your spiritual life? Here is the guarantee. In the world ye shall have tribulation. That's as true, and that's as authentic as Romans 8.28. Again, you came driving up in a lovely car, sitting in this beautiful room, we're so grateful to you. But remember the suffering world tonight. Remember the people in Russia. Remember the people in Burma. Remember that locked-up country of Albania. Millions of people. We take it for granted. And yet somewhere all over the world, there have been people torn with daggers of this day of hatred, daggers of starvation. And on the other hand, there are things that the Lord just allows, in his own amazing way, to come into our life. We wouldn't choose them. We don't have sense to choose them. A little boy, I've quoted often there, the hotel isn't there now, the Morrison's Hotel in Chicago. A little boy ran around the little door, you know, one of those doors where four people make up a party, and he went around two or three times and shut off. And we were helping ourselves there at the cafeteria, and this man, big man, said, is there a little boy next to you? I said, no, there's one at the end of the line. Boy, he got a lovely tray, four desserts on it. Cabbage wasn't there for sure. Spinach? Ooh, he had some pie with a topping on like this, you know, and he, oh, he had all those delicious things, and his father said, come back here, take three of them off. Well, we'd be much the same if things were left to you. How many of, again, I ask you, how many of us can really say in truth, you know, Psalm 51 talks about truth in the word of God, how many of us can really say, I glory in, in what, in tribulation, in necessities, in reproaches, in adversity? Glory in them, dear God. Don't let them come my way. I mean, I'm so frail, and life is before me, and I want this, that, and the other. And we try to tell God how to do the business of developing us, and he's got more sense than to listen to us. Do you think one day you'll get down in gratitude and say, Lord, I thank you for all the prayers you didn't answer? Hmm? God, God isn't working to our timetable, he never will. But part of this ointment that's fragrant in the, in the, in the presence of God is, is made up of, again, of this stacte, out of our wounds and, and our trials. And then there's onycha, that comes from a, a seashell. Oh, I could quote a scripture there, that I cried unto thee. There's another thing here that's very interesting. Galbanum. You know, it's strange that, how nature works, as we say, but our God has made it work. I said, I said about this first thing here, stacte, that it works best in the night time. But galbanum is always best in the early morning, at sunrise. It's more fragrant. And sometimes God, in his mercy, allows us a spasm of great joy. It's not all dark, there's some darkness there. Whatever he's working out, he's working everything out to the counsel of his own will, and he's working everything for our good, as bad as it may look. But it says there that you shall take these things, make it a confection of perfume. You know, I read recently, it's, it's hard to believe, I don't know who worked it out, but there are 16 million known perfumes in the world. You think of that? All you know is Chanel 5 or something. 16 million identifiable perfumes. One of them will take a 500th part of a milligram, that's not too big. And it will affect 50 cubic feet of air. I remember stopping in a plane in Paris, I was going to be around the world, and I thought, take my wife something real nice, and there was a little, just a little bottle about that size. I thought, oh, that's a sample, maybe it's free. And I said, well, uh, that little bottle there looks very nice. I said, what is it? Nothing. He said something like $75. A dozen? No, no, one, one. I said, what is it? It's perfume. Isn't that perfume? No, that's cologne. You can have a bucket full of that for $75. Here it is, little thing, one drop. Changed the whole atmosphere of the room. Oh, thou shalt beat some of this stuff that you're going to put together, and it's going to be pure and holy and acceptable to God, and you shall beat it and make it very small. Well, we wouldn't do that today. We'd take all these things and put them in a blender and press the button, and here we go, like that, and say, it's ready, Jack. Don't sit down. Come on, it's ready, Mary. Beating it. I used to look at a goldsmith's place, never got inside it, but he, he had some papers about four inches square. They were thinner, they were thinner than, well, it was a kind of tissue paper, I suppose. And he had maybe 400 sheets, and he would lift a sheet up and put a drop right in the middle like that. He put a drop of pure gold. And when he got it done, he would strap it down at the corners, and then he had a mallet with a head about this size. And I noticed this muscle was up here, well, down there, but anyhow, it was, it was awfully big, that one muscle. The other was like mine, you know, my muscle's hard to find. But these were big, hard, and all he did, he'd look out the window and nod like, and he spun it around with his finger, and he stayed there eight hours beating, beating, beating, just as mechanical as a machine. And at the end of the day, that one drop of gold in the middle, it spread within about three-eighths of an inch from the edge of the paper. There's no other way to do it. It was making pure gold leaf, which is used for some very rare book bindings, or put on something that's to be very exquisite. But it's that pounding, thou shalt beat some of it very small. Hmm. Don't you wish, Lord the Lord, a can of whisper in your ears, listen, you're going to have a rough time from now till the middle of July, but on the 18th of July I'll quit, and you'll have the rest of your life free. Hmm? Wouldn't you like all your troubles and trials and tribulation in a packet for three months, and say, well, it's pretty rough, it's nearly killing me, but boy, only four more days to go, and I'm through this, and after this I'm going to be as free as a bird and have a marvellous time. Huh? He's going to beat it very small. Oh, Lord, I wish you'd take the pressure off. Lord, I'm getting beaten up in so many areas in my life. I remember somebody showed me a book today of Samuel Chadwick's. You should get one, they're on sale up at the, I guess you've all already been to a gap in, spent your dollar, but they have a book there on the life of Samuel Chadwick. I was privileged to go to his Bible school. He was going down the street one day after preaching Sunday, and he went to the train, and there was a, well, they don't have much of anymore, except maybe out west, they had a blacksmith shop, and the blacksmith took a piece of metal, and he put it in the fire, and out of the fire into cold water, out of the cold water into the fire, out of the fire into the cold water, back in the fire, then he started shaping it, beating it. And gradually, you know, he got it over the horn at the end, and gradually, he saw this horseshoe coming out of it. And here's a man, and he's a brawny chest, you know, there's an old poem about the muscles of his brawny arms, under the village chestnut tree, the village, under the spreading chestnut tree, the village smithy stood. And Mr. Chadwick watched the boss with the little hammer go like that. And this man took the thing, you know, and he smote it for all he was worth. And then the man designing it, took hold of the thing, and put it in the heat, and then put it in the cold, and then put it in the heat, then put it on the anvil, and this went on for a while. And Mr. Chadwick said, I said, hey, just a minute, look at that man's chest, he's got rivers of sweat running down him, and he can't see hardly what he's doing. And you've got that tiny little hammer poking around, and he's smashing it for all he's worth. Why don't you change hammers? And the man said, what do you do? He said, I'm a preacher. Oh, he said, I thought so. You don't know a thing about being a blacksmith. He doesn't know what he's doing. He knows when I tap once, he has to hit at a certain angle, twice at another angle, three times more pressure, so forth and so on. And he said, it would be total failure if I just let him do what he wants to do. I have a design in my mind. You see those gates there? Well, once they were straight pieces of metal, and I shaped them, I designed them for a mansion up the road. And so he went on to state about the work that he had done. Oh, Mr. Chadwick said, well, thank you so much. Boy, you preached a great sermon to me. And he said, I didn't preach a sermon at all. I'm not a preacher. He said, yes, you did. Well, how did I preach a sermon to you? Well, you said that you point, and when you point, the man hits it that way. Pardon me, when you tap, he hits it that way. When you tap twice, he hits it this way. So where's the sermon? Oh, he said, the devil's been giving me a rough time. I've been asking the Lord, Lord, I'm just getting beaten up. But he said, I see what he's doing. The Lord says, look, I need you to help me. I need you to help me. My son Chadwick needs a bit knocking off there. So he comes and knocks a piece off me there. A week or two after he comes again, he knocks another piece off me there. You say, I don't believe that. Well, then you don't believe the Bible. What did Jesus say to Peter? Satan hath desired thee to sift thee as wheat. But I stopped him. I said, Peter, leave, I said, Satan, leave my darling little Peter alone. Don't trouble him. I don't want him to get upset. He'll think I'm cruel, and I don't care. Doesn't sound very practical, does it? Satan hath desired to sift you. He's got you put through a series of testings, and I have prayed that your faith won't fail. Oh, you thought you'd get faith by reading Smith Wigglesworth's life or somebody. Well, he was a good man. I met him once, but that doesn't mean anything for you. God works everything out of the counsel of his own will. He's going to beat and beat and beat. And if we're smart, we'll thank him that he honors us with doing that. For whom the Lord loveth he was, and what's the other word? Scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. I remember a testimony meeting in which a lady stood up and she said, God loves me more than any of you in this place. And everybody said, oh mercy, that's a wonderful testimony. God loves me? Why? Because he's been whipping me more than any of you got whipped this week. And he scourgeth every son, and he's really been giving, laying it on me for weeks now. And then I discover he's doing that because he loves me. You know, really this picture of this frankincense and an onychur and everything, you know what it is to me? To me it's a perfect picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, you have various ingredients in the other section, and you have different quantities. But notice here, there's perfect harmony. If these things were taught, the onychur wouldn't say, well listen, you'd better all take your place because I'm number one on the list. Notice how much there is of me in the stack to say, no, no, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. No, no, there's perfect harmony. All the colleges are there. Don't you think about the most easy thing in the world is to get imbalanced theologically? Go to one church that will brainwash you and wash you right out of some of the blessings of God. I don't know what all these things mean. I know what some of them mean. But have you ever really faced the fact that nobody did or ever will understand Jesus Christ? The angels didn't understand him. The church today doesn't understand him. The only person who knows all that there was and is in the Lord Jesus Christ is the Father. There are areas in the life of Jesus God Almighty he could never unveil to us. That this we do know that there was balance in his life all the time. He wasn't always healing the sick. He did some healing, but then he rebuked people who were in sin, and he did go into the temple, and he did shun the synagogue, and he did a lot of things that shows all through his life the fragrance. You know, some of it is very, very, very, very small it says. Isn't it amazing how often you can be a friend of somebody for years and do them a lot of favors, then one day you do a very little thing and whoop, that's the end of it. Big doors turn on small hinges. Very little things were revealed in your life more than standing here and preaching a sermon for six hours or 60 hours. Jesus, it says of him, he did all the things that pleased the Father. Now isn't it wonderful that God never made anything ugly? God never made a mechanical thing, did he? Everything that God made had life in it. They were all to bring forth their kind. The truth, proof of life is reproduction. And everything brought forth its life, brought forth its kind. Well, then that should be more than true of the church of Jesus. Do you often sit down and look at yourself and say, you know, I'm really, I'm pretty smart, I know a lot more than I knew five years ago, and yet really when I come to really look at this book I'm really dull of hearing. I'm really very slow in my perceptions. God's been trying to show me something all the time. I've been praying, well, people say to me sometimes, will you pray the Lord will remove this? I say, so no. Well, why not? Because I think the Lord put it on you. Why should I pray it off when he put it on? With so many false values. I, more and more and more, love to discover people whose lives are fragrant without trying to show that they're fragrant. As a guy said rather wittingly, wittingly or unwittingly, he said, you know, it's not much good being humble if nobody knows about it. Hmm? I mean, don't you think if people really understood all the qualities that are in me, all those hidden virtues and powers that they're pushing right to the front, and I'd be, I'd be prominent, I'd be a somebody. I was pastor of a church in England, not church of England, church in England for about three years. And we had continuous revival. People lined up Sunday night to get into the church like a movie house. We had seven prayer meetings a week in that church. We had the most fiery bundle of young people I've seen. In that, in that three years, less than three years I was there, at least 11 people went to be missionaries or into full-time service. And I didn't want anybody to know, I didn't care, but the newspaper announced that I was leaving, and so a lot of other people came to the church. And one lady came, and I remember she said, you know, I've come here so often for the last three years, and you've really preached some sermon, but the outstanding thing to me is the children's story Sunday morning. Freaks you below, doesn't it? Because I always stopped the service and said, if any of you intend to sleep, will you sleep now during the children's story, and you can be awake while I preach. And I used to try and find the best story I could for the children. And you know what? All the, all the people poke their ears up when you tell a children's story. Maybe because they're still childish, but anyhow. I came in here one, one Sunday, she said I'd had the roughest week of my life. And you told a story about the hedgerow. The hedgerows in England, they have thorn bushes. Keep the cattle out, keep the thieves out too. And I told about the, the boy who kicked his football over the wall, over the, over the hedge. And he tried to get through the hedge here and there, he couldn't, and finally he thought he could squeeze through. So he went through, and as he got through, he pushed with one hand, and and then he let go of it, and this thing, thorn bush came back and lashed him on the forehead. He got pricked on his forehead, and then he discovered it's standing on some nettles. He was having an uncomfortable time, and then something else happened. I don't know what else in the world didn't happen to him. And when he got through, the bushes were saying, well, and you see, he broke part of one of my branches, but boy, I whipped back, and I slashed his forehead with my thorns. And the nettle said, well, I got my revenge too. Boy, did I sting his legs. And so they went on, and somebody looked down, and saw a bunch of violets, and said, what did you do? Did he hurt you? Yeah, yeah, he did. What did he do? Oh, he, he just crushed, he crippled me, he's crushed the life out of me. What did you do? I gave him all my fragrance. And she said, I, I, I thought of that for, for the last year or more. Every time when somebody would try to do something to take me down, I say, here's a chance for me to put my fragrance back. See, fragrance doesn't make any noise. Again, we get lopsided in our, in our gifts, in our ministries. There's no lopsidedness here. They're all unified together. They're all blending together. There's a perfect harmony, and therefore there's a perfect offering to God. It's a sweet smelling savor. What does the 45th Psalm say? All thy garments smell of myrrh, and of aloes, and of cassia. And I believe this is what this picture is about. To show us the beauty of the Lord our God. To show us the perfect example of the Christ who said, for their sakes, I, I sanctify myself. For after all, the work of Jesus was to glorify the Father. That's what he said in that 17th of John. I come to glorify the Father. And then he says that the Spirit comes, and when he has come, he will glorify me. And so the Son glorified the Father, and the Spirit glorifies the Son, and the work of the Church of Jesus is to glorify the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now this, this is a sweet smelling sacrifice unto God. I'm talking here again about worship. We go through the ritual of service. I think most of them are an abomination. I passed a big church recently. They won't let me preach there anymore, which is quite an honor. And, uh, I did it standing room only Sunday morning, packed out Sunday night. I suppose the church halls may send 800. Sunday night, Sunday morning, it's jammed. Sunday night, maybe 40 people. Monday night, prayer meeting, 10 people. Week after week, month after month, year after year. So obviously they don't go to take anything for God. Come on, what are you going to take, what are you going to take when you go worship Sunday morning? A couple of dollars for missions? Or are you going to take something which is a sweet smelling savor? God's been compounding something in your life this week. You've been in the darkness, and maybe you're still in the darkness. Well, there's a special ministry in the darkness. The Word of God talks about the treasures of darkness. There are some things we'll never discover by just being in the light, any more than we'll discover by just being free, as we call it. But you see, these ingredients are mixed. The high priest is going to receive the anointing. The man who's going into the holy presence of God. The man who's going to come out, and when he comes, he reveals the glory of God. We don't see much glory of God. We go into church, we come out just about the same as we went in. Our eyes are neither wet with tears, nor wet with tears of joy. We're not speechless. We have not entered into the holy place. He hasn't entered into us. It's been a ritualistic performance. We've done the right things. We clap so long, and we stood up so long, we sat down so long, we did something else so long. How fragrant do you think our service usually is? Is that a sweet incense going up in the presence of God? Somebody's come with a lacerated heart, and out of that lacerated heart, wounded and bruised, like the woman lying on the hospital bed. She's been there now about four weeks, maybe five weeks, and she's just about to turn the hospital around. The doctors say, but listen, listen, you're a fraction, a millimeter, and your head would have snapped off, and you'd be dead. And you have two great big steel things, I'm sure they were thicker than my fingers, pushed right into her head there. I don't know how in the world she could have them in and live. And yet she's radiant by day and by night. And the doctors say, why didn't you go see her? We've never had a patient like this. What in the world's wrong with her? There's nothing wrong with her. But you see, all she says is, you know, I have never, never in all my Christian life experienced the presence, the nearness of Jesus. The place is fragrant with his presence. At night when the hospital's still, I can hear groanings and other things. But oh, this place is really, really, really filled with the glory of God. Again, you can't make God rich. If you give him a million dollars every hour on the hour, you can't make him rich. Because keep it in mind, the earth is the Lord's. He may have loaned you a bit of it, but it's still the Lord's. It's going back to him. It was here before you came. It'll be here when you're gone. And all we can give him is that adoration, is that worship. Just speechless adoration. Just as one old hymn says, we're lost in wonder, love and praise. But this is beyond, it's beyond the mere language of praise. I looked at my hymn book today. There were three brothers in Scotland called Bonar, B-O-N-A-R. And I think it was Andrew that wrote, Fill thou my life, O Lord my God, in every part with praise, that my whole being may proclaim thy being and thy ways. Not for the lip of praise alone, I ask, not for the lip of praise alone, nor even a praising heart, I ask, but for a life made up of praise in every part. Praise in the common things of life, its goings out and in. Praise in each duty and each deed, however small and mean. So shall no part of day or night from sacredness be free, but all my life in every step be fellowship with thee. You see, in this mixture here, there's no strife. One of these ingredients isn't trying to master over the other. There's perfect harmony. They're all beaten into a place where there's perfect unity and perfect harmony. And the Word of God says that we, in a fellowship, were to have the fullness of the blessing and were to be in the unity of the Spirit and in the bond of peace. It must have been very beautiful when the priest, ah yes, he doesn't have to open his mouth. A lot of us would be a lot better off if we didn't open them, don't you think? He didn't have to say much. As soon as the priest came out, here is this holy anointment, nobody else can have it. There's no imitation. As I said before, when I see this, it says if you imitate the holy anointment, you're banished from Israel. Oh, there's a lot of imitation of the anointing of the priest. It'd be very dramatic when you preach, you know, you do this kind of thing and shout, particularly if your argument's weak, shout strong. Isn't it silly to dress a man up in imitating the garments of the Old Testament priest, when maybe he's a drinking, smoking old rascal that doesn't know the first thing about God? I get lots of young men asking me, I'm wondering what to do about ordination, what do you do about it? I say, forget it. There's only one ordination, John 15, I have ordained you. If he hasn't ordained you, you can have enough ordination papers to paper this room and you'll have nothing anyhow. And if he ordained you, there'll be something mysterious, it's that indefinable something. As somebody said, our preacher keeps talking about unction, what does he mean? A little old colored preacher says, well, I don't know what unction is, but I know what it ain't. You know what he meant? He knew when he had the anointing of God, but oh, mercy, he knew when it wasn't there. Who needs this sweet-smelling savor more than a daddy and a mummy? No, I wouldn't ask if he's a deacon of so-and-so or a preacher of so-and-so, I wait till the children come from school and say, hey, are you the pastor's daughter? Yeah. Oh, I'm going to ask you a question. That is a nice fellow, he's always there, he plays baseball and he hits more home runs than anybody in the, and he's a nice guy, he comes to the parties we have in the church. What's he like at home? He's an old grout. We have a den, that's where he growls. That's why they have dens, so he can go growling it. What's your mother like? She's all right, she's a gossip though, and boy, she's got a nasty tongue or something. Look, if you're not a king and a priest in the home, forget it anywhere else. If you don't have authority in the anointing at home, forget it in public ministry. We put so much emphasis on the man being anointed, this man knows his Greek, knows his Hebrew. I don't care if you can go from Revelation to Genesis in backwards way in Chinese, it won't make you a saint. And even reading the Bible won't make you a saint. God wants it working in, he'll work it in, we have to work it out. Work out your own salvation. Let's narrow it right down, I won't call your names, though I could start, but I won't. As God has looked into my life today, or yours, has there been some fragrance coming out? The indwelling spirit of God, so beautiful, love and joy and peace and long-suffering and gentleness and meekness, all compounded by the great master of the apothecary. Sometimes when evidence has to overflow more than others, no doubt, but are they all there together or not? Are they all there in the church? Is one ministry struggling against another? Is one deacon trying to edge out somebody else? Is one ministry trying to eclipse the other? Again, I say, as I think of it, it must have been very beautiful when the priest came out and it seemed as she kind of glory of God. You know, we don't know a thing about it, do we? Oh, mercy on us. And you know what? We're content to go on and just have a nice service. Do we ever leave it and say, surely God is in this place. Either he show me how twisted and how deficient I am, or on the other hand he show me all his mercy toward me. When all thy mercies, O my God, my rising soul surveys, transported with the view I'm lost in wonder, love and praise. Ten thousand thousand precious things my daily thoughts employ, nor is the least a praising heart that takes those gifts with joy. You know, we forget the pit from which we've been lifted. As we go to prayer, we're going to pray for Dave Wilkerson. He has the next week up in the Brooklyn Tabernacle. That's quite a church. I'm going to preach there in a month or two, I understand. It's quite a church. It must be one of the most mixed up churches in America, and yet one of the most beautiful. About 1500 people worship there Sunday morning, black, white, ethnics, anybody. Come on, who are they from? Where are you from? Vietnam. Where are you from? Puerto Rico. Where are you from? Costa Rica. Where are you from? Somewhere else. Just about all nations seem to gather there. And David says they have the most adorable worship service, and they have a choir of all kinds of folks, and yet they sing with a language almost out of this world. This ointment, look, there's nothing, I don't care where you go. I've said this often, and I don't get tired of saying it. The more joy you have of the Lord, the less entertainment you need. And you can search God's earth and go here, there, and anywhere you like, but listen, there is no substitute for the real joy of the Lord. There is no substitute for going in his presence, even if he humbles you to the dust. Even if he's been working on you in an area where there's still some stubbornness, and he keeps pounding and pounding and pounding, and he says, I'm going to beat this thing small till I get out of it what I want. So cheer up, maybe you have another year to go. He's not going to let you go. But you know, when you come out of it, oh my, when you come out of it. And people may nail you down and say, listen, what's happening? You're not the same person I saw. What happened? You say, well, I can't really tell you. I do know this. God has been working in my life. You know, Christianity isn't, it's not something we do in a herd. The Lord takes us and he shapes us. There aren't two Apostle Paul's, there aren't two Peter's, there aren't two John's, there aren't two Moses. But you know, when you read that 24th chapter in Exodus and Moses, I've mentioned before, goes up the mount, he leaves the millions of people, he goes up with the 70, he leaves the 70, he goes up with the four, he goes up with the four until he's alone. Do you ever think he forgot the burnings, the shaking mountains, the awful revelation of the holiness of God. And God keeps him waiting there for six days and says nothing. But God is in heaven. I'll tell you what, I'd climb a mountain and I'd stay there 60 days, if need be, to have what he got. Because the six days he kept was only preliminary to the 40 days of revelation. Can you imagine that man ever being moved or disturbed after 40 days when God unfolded his glory and majesty? Do you wonder he quit when he was having a banquet there in a palace of a king? It must have been there. He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter and people say, you idiot, you could have had monuments all over Egypt now, you might have been Ramesses III. And he gives it all up with a snap of the fingers. Why? Because somewhere in that lousy rotten country with its slavery and everything else, one day God opened heaven and he saw the glory of Jesus Christ. That's what it says. Choosing to suffer affliction with the children of God rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ. Come on, do you esteem the reproach of Christ? Or do you run to him every day and say, Lord, somebody scratched me, somebody hurt me today. We ought to go and say, Lord, I'm glad today, somebody rejected me in your name, somebody hurt me in your name, somebody refused me in your name, cast me out. You see, you can't have your hands full of everything. You have got to drop it all in order that we may grasp all of him. Moses has to leave the millions, Moses has to leave the seventy, Moses has to leave Aaron and her, Moses has to leave his friend Joshua, and then God comes. And you know why you haven't been making much progress? Because there's somebody hanging on to that's right. Or there's something that you won't give up, there's something he's been trying to pound it, pound it, pound it, and you say, no, Lord, just, just let me have this, I'll let... No, no, no. Dear old F.B. Meyer, he was preaching in London at the same time as Spurgeon, and the greater giant of the pulpit, as far as I'm concerned, that preached in the City Temple, Joseph Parker. And Mayor said, I've been having trouble in my life, and one day I said, all right, all right, Lord, all right, here, here's my life, these are the keys to my life. He took one off and put it in his pocket, said, there, Lord, you can have them all. And the Lord said, no, you can have that, it's that one I want. That's it. All to Jesus I surrender, except the one thing I really like. Hmm? All to Jesus I surrender, but Lord, you're not going to take me there, are you? Yeah. Yeah. That's the way he makes us. That's the way he dismantles us and then puts us back together again. I think there's nothing more silly than folk going to church Sunday morning. I don't think it's silly going to church, but they go dressed up as though they were going to a Hollywood party. You know, lady looks to see if her stockings are right or something, and she goes up so sweet. Maybe she's as ugly as a cockroach on the inside. Does the Holy Ghost watch us going in? The Lord looketh on the outward appearance? No, he doesn't even see the outward appearance. Doesn't matter whether you buy your shoes at Gucci's there in New York, or they have a branch now, I'm sure most of you know that, in Dallas. Whether you pay a hundred and fifty or three hundred and fifty dollars for your shoes, you got them in K-Mart. What mighty God isn't interested in it? Wouldn't it be nice if we wanted to add a service one Sunday morning, the preacher says, look, I realize this fellowship's bankrupt. God hasn't walked these aisles in the last ten years. We sing or worship the King and we have the slightest idea of what it means. It's not worship. Worship again is speechless adoration. It's adulation. Adulation really means praise and exaltation beyond what a person is worthy. So you can't use it there. You can use it in the limited sense. It's excessive appreciation. It's excessive thankfulness. Why? We don't have time to be still. We don't have time for God to come and work these things. We think he'll do it this way. We read a book about that. We want to book off five easy steps into sanctification and three easy steps into glorification or something, and the Lord says, hold it, that's not the way I'd do it. I guess every one of you, let me say this, and I'm through. We were at a certain island just a few days ago as a matter of fact. A lady who was raised on that island said this, look, we've got all these denominations, and she mentioned them. These people have a monopoly of truth. They're just outcasts. You can't eat at their table. They fence the Lord's table. You can't eat at the Lord's table. I remember W.P. Nicholson went into a meeting like that and one of the elders in the church said, excuse me, sir, you're a stranger, isn't it? That's right. Well, you can't take communion here this morning. Oh, why? Well, he said, we don't know you. This is the Lord's table. He said, that's why I'm come, because it's not your table. The man looked at him so strangely. You need a letter of recommendation. I've already got one up there. He says, you bring that stuff and let me partake of the Lord's supper. These people are discussing of all these strict denominations, who is the holiest man? And everybody said, well, you know the holiest man that ever walked this island. The island's only a mile and a half long, half a mile wide. There's a thousand people on it. And yet the most holy man that's trod this island in the last 50 years, he happened to be a Methodist and a very poor man. You know, there's something very mysterious about personality. Somebody can walk in a room and change the atmosphere. Somebody else can come in with all the fragrance in the world and they don't, you don't get any notice. It's nothing to do with education, nothing to do with psychology. There's a mystery about every person, every person. Yes, yes, I know what we say. I know what was said recently, fairly recently, you know, by the great Catholic theologian Thomas Merton. He said, every man is an island. Well, he borrowed that anyhow. That was said 500 years ago. The way they're in England, as a matter of fact. Every man is an island. Pardon me, the other way around. No man is an island, he said. And I turn it around and say, every man is an island. There isn't a carbon copy of you, brother, sister, in this whole, whole, wide, wide world. And you have a potential, not of doing it in the energy of the flesh, not doing it ambitiously, not because you hate sin and you wish every lousy prison was closed and every prostitute was saved. No, no, no, no, no. First and foremost, because in all those lives, the first is not the damage they do to society. The fact is they defy God and will not let God rule their lives. The greatest sin in the world is not adultery or some of these other rotten sins. The greatest sin in the world is to say, I can run my life and not God. After all, that's why Adam got kicked out of the garden. That's why the devil got kicked out of heaven. He didn't start a war there. He didn't dig up a slab of gold off the street. He didn't fight with other archangels. He said, I want to be as God and nail it down here. What is the most amazing thing in the world? What is the most precious thing? Worship. How do you know? Because Satan offered to make a deal with Jesus Christ that if you kneel down there and your knees just touch the ground and you worship me, I'll give it all the kingdoms of the world. That's the value of worship. Because he'd been in eternity and he'd seen worship and adoration that made him almost explode when the angels praised and worshipped and adored God. And they saw Jesus in all his pristine glory and beauty, the glory he had with the Father before the world was. And the devil was as dumb and amazed as anyone else. And he said, that's what I want. And he said, Jesus, you just kneel down there. Because immediately kneel, you're in subjection. Immediately you kneel, you're confessing inferiority. Immediately you kneel, you're acknowledging my lordship. And Satan would have given the whole world just to see Jesus bow the knee for one minute and watch out. Maybe he'll offer you the same thing. You don't need to go to mission field. Why walk on some blistering sand out somewhere when you can be wearing the best shoes that have been made? Why go and live on a rotten diet? Beat your body up. Stay home, make some money, get it out. He'll offer you some prize. He's going to try and take all you've got and offer nothing in return. He'll offer it and it'll be a very nice gift-wrapped parcel. And like some gift-wrapped parcels I've had, the paper and the bowl was worth more than what's inside. And that's just about the way he comes. Again, if you really learn to worship, you'll pray. But even if you learn to pray, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll learn to worship. These two things must be harnessed together, a kind of a positive and negative thing. Oh, I want to see that glory return. I'm getting old and I still believe I'm going to see God around the heavens and the earth. I believe it's going to be, it's going to come back, that we're going to go to church. And we won't say, as this lady said to me, well, we have a prayer meeting, Mr. Rainer, every Monday night and we, it's one hour, and the first half hour we talk about church business and the pastor reads a verse and we pray from ten minutes after eight until half-past and at half-past he pronounces the benediction on the dot. I said, what you Israelis say, say, get God, get out of here, we're through. Oh, we would never say anything like that. I said, you say it, not by word, but by deed. Ah, yes. It's something, again, I can't teach you and what's more, nobody on earth can teach you. But I'll tell you what, once, it's like an old grumpy bachelor I knew, and ah, these men are sloppy. You know, you put a ring on a woman's finger and she holds you under her thumb the rest of your life. Until he got married. And oh, when he got married, she was the only one that fell through a hole in the sky. She was the angel, she was this, she was that, she was the other. You know, it's exactly like that in falling in love. When you go to church because you have to, when you worship and stand up because you have to, when you do things ritualistically, but when you get hold of him in love and speechless adoration, and you don't need a crowd, you just say, I see, I think of you, my Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine. I love you in the midst of adversity and infirmity and calamity and tragedy. I shake my fist at the wall, the flesh and the devil. It's nice to sing these hymns that he's with us and close to us when we're all here in a fellowship. But when the walls go out, the roof comes in, what then? Do we go down the drain like others? Or do you say with George Matheson, when that gorgeous woman gave him up, he lost his eyesight, and he wrote that lovely hymn, O love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee. I give thee back the life I owe, that in thine ocean depths its flow, may richer, fuller be. O joy that seekest me through pain, I dare not ask to fly from thee. I trace the rainbow through the rain, and feel the promises not vain, that morn shall tearless be. O joy that liftest up my head, O cross that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from thee. I lay in dust life's glory dead, and from the ground there blossoms red life that shall endless be. You don't have to wait to heaven, as Spurgeon said. A little faith will take you to heaven. More faith will bring heaven to you. You know we ought to be living in heavenly places now. I may think somebody in a stinking prison running with urine and filth in Russia has offered more praise and worship to God. They haven't had to look after fifteen things that are perishing things of clay. Somebody said the safest place to be these days is in a concentration camp. Why? Because you know everybody there at least the Christians are pure. Because if they weren't they'd have sold out by now. And they have a worship and an adoration and they reach heights and ecstasies that we don't know a thing about, because we're trying to get them second hand. That old Christ art all I want, more than all in thee I find. Is that really, is that really true? As we go to prayer I'm going to ask you again to pray for Dave as he's going one of the toughest spots. We live in Brooklyn and well, nobody goes there by choice too much I think. It's a tough rough hard place. It's not with Joe Foss, they're going up to a, no not to a crowded auditorium, they're going up to New Jersey soon. This man's working in a crack in the ground as it were. Thank you, look you turn a stone over there's a lot of rotten cockroaches and filth and your holy nose it's so impure. And he said this man has written to us and said would you come and help me to establish a church. I do have a little church we just need a lift. Could you bring some folk from Calvary Commission? He said yes. He said by the lending how many members he has? I said no, he said seven. I've a kind of idea there won't be much love offering out of those meetings. Huh? My wife would never let me go out for a newspaper after nine. Tomorrow's paper will be issued tonight in New York at nine o'clock. I just slipped to the corner. It's only a block and a half away. She wouldn't let me go unless she went as my bodyguard. And when she did boy I knew I had a bodyguard. I knew I was as safe as could be. And he's taking a bunch of men and you know what they said we've nowhere for you to sleep. And we don't know where we'll put you except maybe you bring your own bags and sleep on the floor and we don't know what kind of food. I like that kind of stuff. I think it's very near to apostolic stuff. I think Paul had the same thing. Stinking prisons. Oh mercy. So let's pray for him as he goes up there. You know there may be a modern apostle Paul hidden in Brooklyn tonight dissipated, drunk, devilish. And Jesus gets hold of him and purifies him and fills him with the love of God. Some woman who's known for miles as a rotten corrupt prostitute. A lot of mafia folk up there and other things as there are in other cities and they're going right down in the midst of all that corruption. I think that makes God happy. There are some other dangers. Melody came to our house this afternoon I said don't come in. Too dangerous. Well you don't know she's going to have a baby and it could happen tonight. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have it born in a prayer meeting. No don't bother please keep it a bit longer. But we'll be praying for you Melody as you. I'm sure you will have a good time. God's going to be there and Dallas's wife is expecting a baby too. And again there are so many people asking for prayer. So many pastors despairing. You know that the whole nation's out of the hands of the Baptists, the Methodists, the Pentecostals. Brother it's so near to judgment. The only way for us is to you find out in your own life tonight if you're really where God wants you. If you love him for who he is. Not what he's just done for you but for who he is. And believe tonight that somewhere oh yes there's been a move of God in India right here in some parts. There's a move of God in some other country. Somebody had a move of God in a church I think about 400 miles away. But they're very small. Well thank God they're better than nothing because one day you see the fire will spill over and God is going to pour out his spirit on all flesh. Could you take time tonight? Why do you need pumping up in a prayer meeting? In God's name if you can't pray here where will you pray? We want to hear you pray. If you just say I love you with all my heart, soul, and mind, and strength. If you say Lord I've been blocking my own usefulness. I've been holding on to the last key in my pocket. I've been resisting you because you've been pounding, pounding, pounding at this one thing. What is it? What is it? Is it a girlfriend? Is it a career? And you won't get anywhere till you let go of it anyhow. Pray for your own needs. Pray for the need of your church. Pray for the ministries here. Last days. Liturgy is going to the ends of the earth. Joe Fossey's group up the back street here. If we have any streets up the back field there's Gates of Life. Up the front street there there's a gaffey. Down the road here there's Youth of the Mission. Dear Lord how long are we going to be here before the fire falls? You see you make a mistake. We think because we build an altar that the fire the fire never did and never will fall on the altar. The fire falls on the sacrifice. And you can have a gold-plated altar. You can have a priest in all his robes. You can have stained glass windows and every blessed thing you like. But if there's no sacrifice there's no fire. If you say I want God's love, well God is a consuming fire. And he says that love is stronger than death. And then the context is speaking of fire of God. Oh that in me says Charles Wesley. Can I finish with him? I keep finishing. All that in me the sacred fire might now begin to glow. Burn up the dross of base desire and make the mountains flow. Burn burn within me love of God. Burn fiercely night and day till all the dross of earthly love is burned and burned away. In other words keep pounding Lord. I'm sure I'll give in before long. But right now I'm still hanging on. But Lord just give it the last blow in this prayer meeting tonight. And for a thousand millenniums I'll praise you. And maybe on some distant shore or up the black alleys there in the Amazon. There's not an angel in heaven can put a computer over this meeting. Only God knows its possibilities. So let's bring him a sacrifice of praise. Let's bring him our joy. Let's bring him our adoration. Let's make a new vow if need be tonight. From here this is a milestone. I'm sick of my bondage. I'm sick of selfishness. I'm sick of planning my life. You take it and do with it as you like. Even if you pound me and pound me until there's nothing left. And then he takes all of it makes it a fragrance. And blesses the whole church of God. Let's pray.