In this sermon, the speaker begins by joking about the meeting time and congratulating a football team. He then focuses on a verse from Luke's Gospel, emphasizing the importance of receiving power from God. The speaker shares testimonies of people who have been transformed by God's presence and highlights the need for a hunger for God's word among believers. The sermon concludes with a reflection on the story of Elisha and the importance of faith in God's promises.

Father, we praise you for the wonderful way you work in each of our lives. Your working, even now by your Spirit. Throughout these days we have felt the working of the Holy Spirit. We have known the voice of the Shepherd and we worship you. And we bow before you and pray that you will heal as our brothers already pray that you will heal. We thank you Lord that you can do it now. Right now we pray for healing. You know that we need something that is more than man can do. That which only you can do. We pray for it. Heal. Heal Lord. It takes a moment for you. There is no difference to you between a great thing that seems impossible to us or something that seems easy. There is no difference to you. All alike to you. We pray heal. Heal now Lord. We receive it. We receive it for everyone here. We receive it for others who are not here. Whom we love. We receive the touch and working of the Spirit of God for our loved ones. Lord, those who hardly spare a thought for you. Those who can't pray, come to them we pray. Lift their hearts to God we pray. We look to you. Melt our hearts also Father. That we may know more how to pray and believe you. Grant our prayer we pray. We praise you here. And it lodged with you to work it out we pray. You work it out in us and through us. And in the lives for whom we pray. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. I heard a story of the Welsh revival that... Was it Evan Roberts? Evan Roberts. He said in Welsh, one word he said, let us pray. It's one word in Welsh. At the beginning of the meeting he said, let us pray. And that's as far as he got. Exploded in prayer. And well, maybe God will do that for us. As we gather before him. It was wonderful last night, wasn't it? And I was struck by the boldness of Tom Hamblin. I noticed that he was so bold, he didn't care what anybody thought about time. I think he stayed till 5 past 10. And then I thought, wow, that's amazing. And I prayed for boldness too. I guess you did, but I'm not sure you prayed for me. They're exactly the same kind of boldness. Anyway, I don't know what time we're going to finish tonight. But don't worry. I remember once being in a German conference. And I stood up to speak. And the leader of the conference was sitting on the front row. And I suddenly realized I didn't know how long I got to speak. So I had to ask him, what time does the meeting finish? He said, you can preach as long as you like. We're leaving at 4 o'clock. It's an afternoon meeting. We're leaving at 4, but you can stay as long as you like. It must have been German sense of humor. Anyway, as an obedient servant, I did finish by 4. I must just congratulate Epsom on winning the football match. I don't think it was really in doubt. I couldn't play today, but anyway. Let me turn you to a verse in Luke's Gospel. Chapter 24. And verse 49. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you. But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until you be endued, clothed with power from on high. Power from that highest place. Power from the place that cannot come from a higher place. It's the highest. Power from on high. The power to change a life. The very presence of God Himself. There can be no greater thing than that God Himself could come to me and dwell in me. And when He comes, He clothes me with the clothing of Jesus Christ. That I wear the clothing of Jesus. And of course, it's not outward clothing. It's inward clothing. That I should be clothed in my inner man. That I should be clothed with all the love and holiness and purity of Jesus Christ Himself. That I should be clothed within with the clothing of Jesus. Now, just to add another dimension to it and we've mentioned healing. It also speaks of the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, said Jesus, because He has anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. To preach deliverance to the captives. Recovering of sight to the blind. To set at liberty them that are bruised. And you know that God is doing that amongst us in this conference. He is doing it. And from time to time, you pray with someone and you counsel someone or you just pray a moment or preaching is done or whatever or conversations in a tent, whatever it is. And you pray. You can't see the effect always. You can see some effect, but you can't always measure the effect of what God is doing. But it's wonderful to hear people give testimony of what God has done in our midst. Both this year and in four years we heard of what God had done through a testimony at the beginning of the week. People have come to me and told me. It's wonderful to hear what people say. How God set them free. Drug addicts. People whose lives were steeped in depression. Those are the extreme cases, but others. People who've known such hurt and needed God in such a desperate way. God is moving amongst us. Wonderful in the early church that they were filled with the same spirit. We're all filled. We're all baptised with one same spirit. There isn't another. There is one baptism. By one spirit are we all baptised into one body. And there came a point in there, in the New Testament church, they were filled with the Holy Spirit. They had the words of Jesus. They had the prophecies of the Old Testament were being unfolded to them. All these things. And they prayed for boldness. The thing that they lacked was boldness. And it can be that a person may have everything but lack boldness and needs to pray for it. But here in this chapter, Luke's Gospel, this event, Jesus said, Tarry ye in Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high. He said, I am going to send the promise of the Father on you. It was necessary for them to wait a fixed certain number of days until the day came that was ordained and then the Holy Spirit was sent upon them. And now, we don't have to wait for that door to be opened. We don't have to wait for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. All we do now is ask. And He will give us the promise of the Father. And on the day of Pentecost, that is exactly what Peter said. Now, as we look at this subject, and I'm going to turn you to the Old Testament, to 2 Kings 2. I'm going to turn you there to look at this. But, I want, you know, I look on you as a congregation, a great company of people. We've been singing in tongues. We've been worshipping. We've been having a wonderful time. Full of the Holy Spirit. The meeting full of the Holy Spirit. You full of the Holy Spirit. We full of the Holy Spirit. Everything wonderful. And then I preached to you about the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Well, of course, there may be some, I guess there are some who don't yet know the baptism with the Holy Spirit. But when I look at this subject, I'm looking at the ways in which God works with us to fill us with the Holy Spirit. And in the same way, we need to look at the way God will work in us continually and will refresh His work in us because it can be that a joy be lost. It can be that disobedience take place or whatever happens. All manner of things may happen. I'm not wanting you to examine and ask every person to ask the same question over and over again. But I do want you to ask this question in this way. Am I going on with the Lord? Because if we're going on with the Lord, we are full of the Holy Spirit. And as we've heard, it's a crisis followed by a process. And as Ron Bailey said, if a crisis is not followed by a process, it produces an abscess. Actually, it was George Burr who said it. But there is a vital need for every one of us to go on with God. Spiritual growth is not just a matter of time, it's also a matter of obedience and walking with God. And we must all walk with God. Now, I turn you to 2nd Book of Kings, to this chapter 2, to a chapter that is very famous, I'm sure most of you know the events of this chapter. We should read it, at least read part of it. And chapter 2, verse 1. It came to pass, when the Lord was about to take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. And Elijah said to Elisha, Stay here please, for the Lord has sent me on to Bethany. But Elisha said, As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So they went down to Bethel. Now the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, Do you know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today? He said, Yes, I know. Keep silent. And Elijah said to him, Elisha, stay here please, for the Lord has sent me on to Jericho. But he said, As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So they came to Jericho. Now the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho came to Elisha and said to him, Do you know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today? So he answered, Yes, I know. Keep silent. Then Elijah said to him, Stay here please, for the Lord has sent me on to the Jordan. But Elisha said, As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So the two of them went on. And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went and stood facing them at a distance, while the two of them stood by the Jordan. Now Elijah took his mantle, rolled it up and struck the water. And it was divided this way and that. And the two of them crossed over on dry ground. And so it was when they had crossed over that Elijah said to Elisha, Ask, what may I do for you before I am taken away from you? Elisha said, Please, let a double portion of your spirit be upon me. But he said, You have asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so for you. But if not, it shall not be so. Then it happened as they continued on and talked, that suddenly a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire and separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it and he cried out, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen. So he saw him no more and he took hold of his own clothes and tore them into two pieces. He also took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him and went back and stood by the bank of the Jordan. Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water and said, Where is the God, the Lord God of Elijah? And when he also had struck the water, it was divided this way and that and Elisha crossed over. It's a wonderful event. And I notice this cry of Elisha when Elijah departed from him. In this, he departed without hasting death. He departed in a whirlwind straight into heaven. Of course, when we look at this story, I suppose in our minds we kind of blank off what happened to Elijah because we can't relate to it. We've never happened to it. It never happened to me. I think I'd have noticed. But when he went in, what happened to Elijah? Elijah filled with faith, filled with fellowship with God and then he passed straight from this world. His body must have been renewed. I don't know all the theological implications of it but he passed straight into the glory. I guess he must have been in bliss. I don't know if you've ever had an experience that was anything like bliss. Have you ever tasted bliss? I've known bliss. I've known bliss through the presence of God. Such bliss that you wonder whether you can survive the experience. And there's no doubt that God wants to so teach you joy in a dimension you can only guess at until you've tasted it. Bliss. Joy unspeakable and full of glory. It would be nice to have a taste of bliss in the fellowship, wouldn't it? Where everybody was so beaming and so full of joy and unable to speak or communicate anything for the extreme joy. But that is God's inheritance for us to know the joy of Jesus. It's ours. The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. It's ours. When Elijah went up in that whirlwind and I don't know whether he gave a great cry of joy, I don't know. But Elisha couldn't see much more. He'd gone. And what Elisha felt, he expressed it, he cried out. He cried out this spontaneous cry. I don't think it was premeditated or worked out obviously. He simply cried out, Elijah was his father in the faith. And he said, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen. He said, you are our defence of our nation. You are the army of our nation. You are the spearhead of our defence. You are the shield. You are our strength. He recognised that in Elijah, in a prophet of God was the hope of all that he could hope for within the nation in which he lived. And no matter what the blindness of the politicians, the hope of the nations is not in the armies of any nation, whether it be a superpower, whether it be a strong power like Britain, relatively strong. Our defence is not in our armies. And I remember the word, I believe it is in Jeremiah, when God said through Jeremiah that even if all your enemies were wounded men, yet they would rise up and conquer you because of the disobedience within the nation. But the strength of any nation lies within the realm of the ministry of the word of God. Put it another way, I am not talking about preachers only. I am talking also about congregations because preachers are also nurtured by congregations that pray and respond. I believe with all my heart that preaching is not one man on his own. It is an expression of what is happening in the body of Christ. And there is a relationship. But here it is that the hope of what happens in our churches, this is the hope of our nation. I am not talking about political success, economic success. I am talking about the salvation of a lost generation. And He called him, My Father. And He gave a great cry of anguish because a man of God had passed from sight and he felt the poorer because a man had left this world who knew God. If you read the biography of Oswald Chambers, and he died in his forties, you can feel the shock and the grief because that man was ministering to thousands. People knew he had a voice of sanity, of holiness, of the true glory of God. They knew. They loved his voice. And when he died suddenly, his widow was confused. She did not know where to go. The news flashed round the world. Of course they rejoiced him, but the sense of loss, that is what Elijah felt. The longing that a voice would rise up. The longing for a voice in the midst. The longing for the prophetic voice. Not just one voice, many voices. God should raise up many men in boldness to speak without fear the word of God in the midst of the churches. But also fearlessly wherever there is opportunity to speak that word. The word is repeated again later in the book of Kings when Elijah himself died. The presence of a king and the king cried out exactly the same words. The sense of loss. And although we may, whatever our ministry, whatever we may think of ourselves, one thing is clear. The challenge of this comes right back to each one of us. We may say he will bear it or he will bear it or whatever we may say, but actually it comes right back to each one of us and that there should be a hunger for God's word. Most of all among God's people. We should not be surprised at the lacks that there are in the world. But when the people of God lack hunger for God's word, then we should be most concerned. We cannot expect the world to be spiritual or holy or understand or pass godly laws. We can't expect it. For we do expect fullness of the Holy Spirit and the laying hold of God for the promises of God among the people of God. And here's a man, Elisha, faced with the certainty this day, on this day of which we are reading, that Elijah was going to depart. He didn't know whether he would die by faith as Moses died. He didn't know. But what we do find here in this chapter 2, verse 2, that Elijah said to Elisha these strange words. He said, Stay here, please. It was as if Elijah, strangely, was offering to Elisha a discouragement. And three times Elijah repeated the discouraging words. Don't follow me. Stay where you are. Just settle down here. Remain where you are. Leave me alone. I'll go. Didn't explain anything. He just said, Stay where you are. And Elisha's response, we know, he said, As the Lord lives, as your soul lives, I will not leave you. But when you consider this in our lives, you can see quite simply that when God stirs us up to go on with God, it isn't only that God will stir us up to go on with Him. We will also bring into our lives the opportunity to stay where we are. That opportunity is there. God will not only keep speaking for us to go on, He will also allow us an opportunity to have a real choice. Stay where you are. If I said to you tonight, Don't go on with God. Don't go on with God. Settle down. Relax. Take a lifestyle that you can be a Christian, you'll get to heaven. Almost certainly. But it will be alright and you can, you don't need to seek God so desperately. It will be alright. There are certain minimal things you can do. It's strange that there is another gospel can creep in that to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to be filled with love for Jesus is not to be expected for everyone. That's to be expected for elders and for one or two who are very zealous in the church. But not everybody will be. And so, then we begin to expect that actually salvation produces a kind of Christian behaviour that is not holy Christian but it's fully, it's in that direction. And we accept it. And sometimes we even compliment people on a state of life that's in the right direction, that's great, you're there and people can say things and actually they're not there. And they're all set to go back. And Elijah said to Elisha, Stay where you are. Just don't go on with God. And I guess in one form or another that word will come to you. Don't go on with God. Satan will offer it to you in different ways. Too hard. Not the time. There'll be theological reasons. God's sovereign will isn't for you to go on with God at the moment. God is the sovereign. You can't go on with God anyway. It's not up to you. And therefore, the fact that you feel dull, you feel you can't pray, it's because the time in the nation is so difficult that it's God's time now. The churches are all dull by God's will. So in the end, the sin can be laid at the door of God because He has willed it. Blasphemy when you put it like that. The indifference of a heart to the things of God, to the salvation of others, the coldness of heart not to love, not to be able to weep, not to seek Him. All these things are an indication of one thing that there is sin and compromise in the heart. And Elijah said to Elijah, You've got an opportunity. Stay here. Unto every one of us will come an open door and an opportunity which we can justify by the state of others around us. We can blame others. We can blame elders. We can blame the church. We can blame the nation, the government. We can blame everything. But in the end, God will come to us to hold us accountable for our responses to His Word and His grace. We are to go on with God. Every one of us. It's His challenge to us. When He ministered throughout Israel, the number that followed Him grew smaller and smaller. When I read that 120 gathered in the upper room, the amazing fact to me is that there weren't 500 because 500 saw Him raised from the dead. But where were the 380? Where were the others? Where were the thousands who were healed? Where were the thousands who were healed and been taught by Him? And all these things that happened over all those years. But in the end, 120. And when I read about what happened in the book of Acts, I think it's revival. But when I look at it from Jesus' standpoint, He said, they rejected Me. Only a remnant, a small number have followed Me. The response to His ministry was completely out of proportion to the blessing that had flowed through it. And He said, they rejected Me. Now God pours out blessing on blessing. And who dares say whether our response is in proportion to what He said and done. But in the end, here is the simple challenge. You've got to go on. You've got the opportunity to explain and excuse and all the things that you can say why and all the reasons you can. Even Bible verses can be brought. All the reasons why, but none of them will stand in that day. And this is what Elisha said. He said, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. And if I were to give one great condition for the baptism with the Holy Spirit, it is all centered around our response to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He said, if you love Me, it will happen. He put in another word. He put it a little longer than that, but He said, if you love Me, keep My commandments. I will pray the Father and He will give you another comfort. It will happen if you love Me. And those men who followed Him, they really echoed this word of Elisha as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, we will not leave you, we will follow you. And they followed Him. They followed Him through all the brokenness, through all the brokenness of their own hearts, through all their own failures, through all the searchings, through all the things. Many people have a holiday from following Jesus. They have a week out or a month out. I will not leave you. So they went down to Bethlehem. It goes on. Three events happened. I notice also that the sons of the prophets had something to say. And I love the response of Elisha when he said, Be quiet! Shut up! When somebody prophesies something to you, you must not always say, Oh! You must not always let it deflect you. I was struck by what Tom Hamblin said last night. He and his wife tested it. Even every word that was given to them, they tested it. They held it before God. And sometimes it's the advice of others who have not gone on with God. Whether it's their example or their advice, something in it, the leaven is working and it's affecting more and more people. And Elisha had to say, No! Be quiet! Keep that word to yourself. I don't want to hear it. And so, they came eventually to the Jordan and they crossed the Jordan. When they crossed the Jordan, it's a picture in itself, one of those events in the Old Testament where the crossing of the Jordan or the crossing of the Red Sea, it's a significant event. All part of this picture linked with receiving power from on high. But let's now go to verse 9. And so it was, when they had crossed over, that Elijah said to Elisha, Ask what may I do? What may I do for you? You know that Jesus said this very same thing when He was in the upper room. He said, You ask. You've asked nothing till now. Now ask. And we appropriate that word for ourselves. And we say, Oh, that's a word is to all believers. But it isn't to all believers. It's to all those who have persevered. You are they who have continued with me in all my temptations, He said. And when they had gone on with Him through the difficulties, through the trials, through the threats, through all the opposition and everything that happened, eventually He said, Now, you ask me. And Elijah said to Elisha on this last day, this last moment, He said, Now, you've stayed with me. You ask me what you want. And there is something in the heart that presses on with God. God opens to us this tremendous promise. You ask. You ask. And I will do it. And He said, this strange request, He said, I want twice what you've got. I think Elisha was, Oh, well, twice what I've got. I think Elijah would have thought back, I've got the dead, the miraculous provision, prayed, a drought for three and a half years, all the things he would think back to all the things he'd know. And Elisha said, I want twice what you've got. And He said, You've asked a hard thing. That's hard. And I love that phrase because I guess most of us spend hours if they're added up together asking God for things that are actually quite easy. I need money. I need to pass this driving test. I've already taken it six times. I need special grace now. I've got a terrible exam coming up. All the things we've prayed for in our lives. All manner of things. God says, I will do it. Especially when we're young, walking with the Lord, He says, I'll do that. We bring our needs, we bring our, all that we have, so many things where He gives us, but then comes the question, well, we ask something really hard. And I suppose the hardest things are not actually to do with sudden miracles, they're to do with something to deal with the hearts of men that are so rebellious. You think of people you cannot imagine being Christians. So hard to imagine them being Christians, you think, no, I can't pray for them. You don't say it that way, but you don't pray for them. And Elijah said, Elijah said, you've asked a hard thing. I hope you'll ask God a hard thing tonight. I hope you'll ask God something very hard about you. Something about your character, your habits, your mind, something you've never been able to deal with, something that's plagued you, something that's tripped you up, some relationship you can't get right, some person you cannot love, something that's happening, I pray tonight that you will ask God an impossible thing in your life and in another life. Something that's held you up from going on with God, something that's about you that's been indifferent, something that's turned cold, something that's so that others, nobody else would ever believe that you could be zealous, on fire, pouring out your heart. They can't believe it and you can't believe it. You've got so used to it. It's an impossible thing. Ask God. Ask God the impossible thing. If God measures the answers to our prayers according to whether it's big or little, then we would have to always approach these things only in the basis of moving always from things we can sort of cope with in our minds. God wants to intervene in our lives and through us in the realm of the impossible. The realm of the possible He can leave to us. We don't have to pray, clear up the dinner plates Lord. He just does it. He won't do it. And there's so many prayers we pray. God would say to us, why don't you do it? Make my life a bit happier. God would say, I have done so much to open the doors of joy to your soul but they are centered not in the selfish desire of a soul for happiness but in the glory of my Son. And if you seek the glory of my Son you shall know joy so that you will be beside yourself with joy. You won't know where to put yourself with joy. You've asked a hard thing. Maybe you can't even think of a hard thing because your mind has never gone into the realms of longing for God to move. But this is one of the terrible tragedies that hearts can begin to make expectations so that we expect nothing of God before the end of the week. We expect something of God in the distant future when the nation changes, when the churches change, when others change. But when I change, no, no, no, I'm going to be like this. God says, ask me and I will do it for you. He asks us to ask things. He said, I will do things which you know not. Things you can only guess at. There are things that God wants to pour on our souls that we don't even know about but we've got to enter into. God will open a door that we will wonder where we've come to. And we'll say to ourselves, I don't know anybody who's seen this. Surely they are there. But because we've seen it, now we understand it. You've asked a hard thing. But if you see me, if you keep your eyes on me, it shall be done for you. Very simple. Very simple condition. Just keep your eyes fixedly on the Lord Jesus Christ and your prayer will be answered. Look unto Jesus with all your heart. Not looking to the right or the left. If anything distracts you from Jesus, cut it off. Keep your heart fixedly looking on Him. And I notice that He was caught up in that whirlwind. I don't know where He went but I know where Jesus went. Jesus went to the right hand of the Majesty on high. There to be made as a man Lord and Christ. There to receive the Holy Spirit. There to receive the promise of the Father. And from there to pour out that promise on as many as shall ask Him. Keep your eyes on Him. Look at Him. Not only just in the fact that you're following Him but look at Him, where He's gone. Look at Him where He is. Seek Him where He is. Don't seek Him in the pages of history where He was two thousand years ago. Look at Him where He is now. Keep your eyes on Him. Not the history of Him. On the presence of Him. The present tense of Jesus. He is now on the throne of glory. He is now ministering His Spirit. He is now working miracles from that place. If you keep your eyes on Him it shall be done. It's an unshakeable promise. If we keep our eyes on Jesus our prayers will be answered. Glory to God! It's true! Keeping our eyes only on Him faith shall flow from Him. Desires! Understandings! And so the fulfilment of our deepest longings and desires. God will fulfil His promise. He is faithful. And so, Elijah was taken up. Elisha was, and the mantle of Elijah was there. He picked it up. He torn his own wretched garments of something that was not worthy of the name of the Son of God. That's what those apostles did. They weren't waiting in that room saying we are apostles. We are just waiting for some further confirmation. And then we are going to go out and build this church. And we are going to plant churches. And we are going to do that. And we are going to. And we are going to. They were torn their garments. They had no confidence in themselves. They were broken men. They had eyes only for one. That He should work, that He should fulfil His promises in a power and dimension that they didn't know about. But they were praying for it. Can God not quicken your heart? Can God not illuminate your heart? Can God not take you in a place in prayer in the knowledge of God that you could only dream about or imagine that someone else would have it? It's yours. It's God's will for you. A life of faith. A life full of the Holy Ghost. A life in Christ. And Elijah took this and he went back and when he said, he struck the river and he said, Where is the God of Elijah? I don't think he said it with a doubting voice. Where is the God of Elijah? I don't think he said that. I think, where is the God who is now going to be revealed? He expected. But when Elisha asked Elijah, I want a double portion of your spirit. What was he praying for? Was he praying to be a famous preacher? A great man of God? Somebody they write biographies about. Make me somebody. Give me such a comfortable life. You know, some of the images of success in the Christian ministry are actually nauseating to God, I believe. I think he was looking at Elijah who was a rugged man. A man who had suffered. A man who had lived in lonely places. A man who had gone without sleep. A man who had gone without food. A man who had risked his life. A man who had been persecuted. A man who had stood alone on Mount Carmel against the false prophets and against the false gods of his generation and rejected with all his heart and soul the false gods of his generation. And who can doubt that our nation is filled with false gods? And I am not talking about those that come from India. I am talking about those that have risen up amongst us. The worship of the flesh. The worship of the pleasures of the flesh. The old Greek gods, the sensual gods. The gods of wisdom. And all those gods were, they were just extremely powerful supermen with bad tempers. Those gods of the Greeks, you can imagine. They were strong, powerful, but sinful gods. And Elijah had stood against the false gods of his generation and had raised up an altar which had been cast down. The altar was gone so that the spirit of sacrifice to God was unknown. And people were sacrificing continually to their own flesh. And Elijah said, I want to be like you. I don't want to be a pale follower in your example. I want to be like you. I want to be like you in every part. I think if this were what the apostles said, they would say, Jesus, make us like you, not in part. Make us holy like you. Make me like you in my thinking, in my loving, in my fearlessness, in my devotion to the Father. Make me like you in holiness. Make me like you in joy, in prayer, in hope, in comforting the weak, in encouraging sinners to come to God. Make me like you. Make me a man who makes others hungry for God. Make me a window on the eternal like you, Jesus. Elijah said, Give me a double portion of your spirit. I want to be just like you. Just like you. Jesus said, I'm going to give you my clothes. You're going to be clothed with power from on high. I'm going to give you this power from on high. And all he asks is, Ask. Ask me. Ask me. He doesn't mean a casual little sort of, you know, Would you mind? I've got a bit of spare time. So many people haven't got time for God. So many in the churches haven't got time for God. Not time for everything else. And it's only an indication that there are many altars in the life. We have to build that altar. It's already built. We have an altar. Jesus is there. He was offered on it. And he invites us to be one with him in that. Well, You are the man. You are the woman. This is what we've heard this week, if you haven't been in the morning sessions. In the end, God's word comes down to one thing. God is speaking to you. And wants a response from you. Not from another person. He wants a response from you. He wants you to think in your heart in response to what he says to you and to give your answer. I guess if in your heart you're not drawn by the Lord and you're wondering what to do about it and you ask God to change that indifference, repent of it, ask him to move on your heart. But don't say in answer to this question, stay where you are. Yes, maybe I should stay where I am. Say, No! I will not leave you. I will follow you. I will go on with you. But it's time for our response. Time for your response. You've got to look to God because you've got to go on with God. It's not an offer for something in a meeting only. It's between you and God. That's what God wants in the end. That your eyes be fixed firmly on the Lord Jesus Christ. He will give you the promise of the Father. He will clothe you with the same inner garments of Jesus. He will heal you, yes. He'll do so many things that you can't guess at. And He'll do it now. Respond. Respond quickly. Respond with all your heart. Amen. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Oh, Lord. Yes, Lord. Oh, Father. Amen. Praise You, Lord. Praise You, Lord. Hallelujah. Lord, destroy the false gods, Lord.