In this sermon, the speaker reflects on the transformative power of God's mercy and grace. He shares a personal experience of being freed from chains and following God. The speaker also highlights the lack of boldness in testifying about one's faith in school and the absence of prayer in some schools. He then challenges the audience to consider the billions of people who are still in spiritual darkness and urges them to have compassion for the lost. The speaker emphasizes the importance of meditating on God's word and the need to understand the context in which biblical passages were written. He concludes by sharing a story from Papua New Guinea, highlighting the dangers faced by missionaries in reaching out to headhunter tribes.

I speak tonight from the 51st Psalm, reading from the first verse into verse 13. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions, wash me truly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother concede me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward part, and in the hidden part, thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. The Bible contains 70 books. The orthodox view is that it contains 66. But you see, you come to Bible camp so you can learn the truth. There are 70 books in the Bible because the book of Psalms is five books and not one book. Every one of the great teachers, Campbell Morgan, all the great experts in exegesis, have divided this book, and the Jews today still use the book of Psalms as their hymn book, and they have it classified in five sections. So then you have 60 books. Pardon me, you have 70 books in the Bible. There were 70 elders in the Old Testament. There were 70 that Jesus sent out on a great missionary effort. And 70 is a biblical number. 66 is not. 666 is. Unquestionably, the book of Psalms is the best known book in the Bible and the most used. Very often a sinner can at least recite a part of the 23rd Psalm. And in this book you have 150 Psalms. Roughly half of them, 75, are written by David. Out of the 75, 18 of the Psalms are autobiographical. Some Psalms are prophetical. Some Psalms are historical. Eighteen of them are autobiographical. They're wrapped around the personal experiences of David. And out of the 18 autobiographical Psalms, you'll have eight penitential Psalms. And out of the eight penitential Psalms, you'll have one superior Psalm, and that is the 51st Psalm. A friend of mine has been invited to preach. He's an Englishman. Invited to preach in one large conference in America next month. And to the amazement of many people, he declined the offer. It would have been rewarding in many ways and opened many doors for ministry. But he wrote to me and he said, Len, I can't get the green light on it. You see, I've committed myself to take a lot of college students and university people, and we're going to get together and be alone for three whole weeks, and I'm going to teach them the art of meditation on the Bible. We've given up meditation and we've substituted memorization, and they're not the same. When you meditate on the truth of God, as the old saint said, when you meditate and muse on it, the fire will kindle within you. And this very man said, I will meditate upon my precepts and have respect unto thy ways. One of the unfortunate things, I don't know how better to put it than that, is this, that it's not possible to get the atmosphere in which this Psalm was written. Print is very cold. Leonard Bernstein, the very controversial conductor until recently of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, was given a piece of dog-eared manuscript that a friend of his had bought at a great price in Europe. It was a manuscript of music, and Bernstein is quite an accomplished musician, a pianist and plays other instruments. And this friend said to him, Leonard, take it, take it to the piano and play it for me. I can't do that, he said. Well, he said, you can, but you won't. I can't. Well, I gave hundreds of dollars for this thing. It was written more than two centuries ago. That's the problem, he said. You see, he said, if you had one of these modern magnetic electric devices there, and you could have put behind the cathedral organ or the harpsichord where this particular author was making this piece, and I could catch the cadences, I could get his moods, I could get the expression when he danced over the keys or when he touched them very tenderly or when he thundered out, then of course I might copy and reproduce the atmosphere. But between him and me there's a great gulf of two hundred years. Between us and the psalmist there's a gulf of thousands of miles, a gulf of thousands of years, and a gulf of thousands of degrees of spiritual temperature. The man that wrote this psalm wrote, as I said, seventy-five, roughly, and it seems to me that he dared to do what Moody said a hundred years ago nobody would dare to do these days, let somebody, he said, invent a camera that can take a picture of the human heart. How many of you would sit for a portrait, and then when you sat for the portrait, how many of you would take it round and say, this is a picture of my heart, see the uncleanness and the depravity and all the secret lusts and desires that I have? No man's going to hang his heart up for everybody to gaze upon it. And yet David does this. You can see him almost as a boy on the hills there of Judah, and round about, and he's writing the twenty-third psalm, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Or as somebody translated it, the Lord's my shepherd, that's all I want. And he goes on to say in that psalm, even in the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil for thou art with me, thy rod, thy staff, are my comfort. At the other end of the spectrum he wrote the hundred and thirty-nine psalm. There he's living as near to God as he or possibly any other man ever lived. He's right in line, he's in dead focus with the known will of God in his life. Everything else has been subdued. He has got what Wesley called a heart in every thought renewed, and full of love divine, perfect and right, and pure and good, a copy, Lord, of thine. A heart resigned, submissive, meek, my great Redeemer's throne, where only Christ is heard to speak, where Jesus reigns alone. And he dares to say at the end of that psalm one of the most daring things that I think ever fell from human lips. He says in the psalm, as you remember, or whither shall I go from thy presence? Whither shall I flee from thy spirit? If I take the wings of the morning and go to the uttermost parts of the earth, thou art there, and if I make my bed in hell, thou art there. One of the old Puritans said that one of the agonies of hell is the Holy Ghost will be there still convicting men of sin and there'll be no place to get rid of it. If I make my bed in hell, thou art there. But then defiantly almost, or with desire, he says, search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thought, and see if there be any wicked way in me. One of the old hymn writers took that up and wrote the hymn, Search me, O God, my actions try, and let my life appear as seen by thine all-searching eye, to mine, my ways make clear. Search all my thoughts, the secret springs, the motives that control, the chambers where polluted things hold empire over soul. And there in that psalm, David says, search me and know me, but in this psalm he doesn't say that. He's already been exposed to his own iniquity. He isn't saying, search me as you searched Jerusalem with a candle. He says, hide thy face from my sins and blood out all mine iniquities. Yeah, the man that wrote this psalm is a broken-hearted man. The construction of the psalm is fascinating. In the first two verses you have three different words for sin. In the same two verses you have three different words for cleansing. In the psalm you have three different prayers. At the end of the psalm, three times he mentions offering. Three times he mentions brokenness. Three times he mentions sacrifice. This psalm in my Bible is written on nice, smooth, beautiful, expensive India paper like yours. And it's printed with a very nice type, but it wasn't written that way. The psalmist didn't click this thing off on a typewriter. I don't think for a minute he sat down and wrote the thing faultlessly from the first letter right down to the last. I don't think he was born in an excitement, in a kind of volcanic experience or dynamic experience of emotion. This psalm is not written with printer's ink. This psalm is written with blood and tears. This psalm is not punctuated with commas and periods. This psalm is punctuated with sobs and groans. The man that wrote this psalm is in a strange dilemma. He doesn't want God to come any nearer. The torment is bad enough. He has what they used to call in old days. We don't see too much of it anymore. Because, you see, we've made Christ so easy and salvation so easy that the blood of Jesus is only something to rinse your dirty hands on and not something to plunge your nature through and through anymore. And the kids find it easy to run to the altar and go back and sin a day or two after that, and so do many of us. We have Romanized our Protestantism. Instead of going to the priest every weekend and confessing and hearing him, seeing him make the sign of the cross and pronounce absolvo deus and feeling that somehow he's communicated something that God gave him and we're free. Instead of that, instead of going every six days, we save our sins for six months till we have a revival. And most of the revivals you fellows conduct and you know this and it may hurt you but I'll tell you anyhow. Aren't they the same people that come to the altar? They went to the altar last year you were in that church and they were at the same altar the year before you were there and they were there the year before that. And all we have now is a sinning and repenting cyclone. That is not the thing that Jesus died for. And we need to shout from the housetops and tell people everywhere today in the church and out of it that Christianity is N.O.T. not a sinning religion. This man is under the strange grip of the Spirit of God. And as I said last night, I think it's to the credit of a man like Charles G. Finney that that man dared to preach until people couldn't sleep. He had no headquarters to write to, he had no church, he had no personal ambition, he didn't keep up a record of how many attended his meetings or how many people hit the altar. His motives were entirely pure. You see he wasn't building a reputation and he wasn't building a church, he was trying to build a kingdom of God and that's an entirely different thing. Charles G. Finney would go to a town and settle as dear brother Conrad Morrell said today, maybe someone should do that, a bunch of us go to a city and tell God we wouldn't leave until the heavens were rent. Finney did it. Finney so moved in the anointing of the Spirit that people would go round the block rather than look into his piercing eyes. He was quite a man, he was seven feet four in height I understand. He had one of the most brilliant minds of any lawyer that America has ever had. When somebody asked him to take up a case he said, no I'm carrying a brief for Jesus Christ and I don't intend ever to put it down. He preached with this fiery eloquence. The hearts of many women burst open, they saw their sin as God saw it. You see we modified it. One of the things that David here prays, and only if you've been in the same torment of soul could you ever know what it means, he isn't trying to get a little release from a guilty conscience. Nobody's brainwashed him in some psychological way. He's haunted with sin, on the one hand the condemnation of adultery and on the other hand the condemnation of murder. And he's haunted by his sin. And yet, painful as it is, knowing the exceeding sinfulness of sin, he prays in this psalm, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. You know for years I pondered over that. I hung my ear out to see what any preacher could say and I heard some of the words greatest and nobody gave me any relief on it. And then I think I found an answer, at least it satisfies me. You see David had had that experience that I spoke of last night when I said and repeat tonight, that I believe the most elusive things in the whole world. You know you can become a millionaire if you want to do it. You can do almost anything, physically or intellectually if you want to do it. But there's one thing you can't get and there's one thing you can't scheme for and there's one thing that nobody can give you by the laying on of hands and that is the anointing of the Holy Ghost. God still has prerogatives and he has no sale price on them. But David knew the anointing of the Spirit. They took the horn and they put the oil upon his head and the oil is consistently in the Word of God, a type of the Holy Spirit. When he has the holy anointing oil upon him, oh what a marvelous man he is. He sings the high praises of God as much as any man that ever lived. But he had been preceded by another man. In the dramatic language of the novelist, a man who was tall and dark and handsome, he stood head and shoulders above everybody in Israel. And not only was he anointed to be king and he received the Holy Spirit but he received gifts of the Spirit because he prophesied. And yet he ended up a suicide. The man who one day made the nations tremble. Have you heard the news? They not only have a king in Israel but a king who has been selected and anointed by the God who made the universe. This is the most unique man in history. Wouldn't you think a man would nourish and cherish the gift and the anointing of God like that? There was a day when people stood back. His very name struck fear into the heart of the Philistines and the other people. But he lost that holy anointing. And finally you see him go to a dirty witch. And he's begging this witch if she'll only help him and could she call up the spirit of Samuel and would she give him some good news? And she called up the spirit of Samuel. I think the only time it was ever done with the permission of a holy God. And as soon as Saul saw him he saw the old prophet and recognized him. And he said Samuel I want to tell you something the Lord has departed from me. And he thought of course the man would be accommodating and compromising like some of you would be if one of your deacons came. And he said you know I really am not worthy. Oh now don't say that brother. None of us are faultless. You're as good as any deacon I have. They're all rotten anyhow. But you're as good as any I've got around maybe. And don't take it too seriously. Brother now look the Lord will forgive and I forgive and everything's alright. He says Samuel I want to tell you something. I've lost the anointing of God and God has forsaken me. And he says God hath forsaken thee. What a situation to be in. I think the most pitiable man tonight is not the man that's just about two degrees from the grave rotting with cancer in a hospital. Is not the young man whose intellect has suddenly slipped and they put him in a mental institution. Is not the woman who's creeping down the road blind. They're not the most pathetic person in the world as tragic as their situation is. In my judgment the most pathetic man this side of heaven or hell is the man who once had the anointing of God and he lost it. Because there's nothing on God's earth if you make a million dollars a day as a substitute for the anointing of the Spirit of God. If you make a million a day you can't buy it back anyhow. And there was a day when they brought the bracelet and they brought the crown and they said who do these belong to? And the young fellow that had killed or helped to put to death the prophet king of Israel said I killed him. And who are you? I'm an Amalekite. Oh the Lord had told him just previously told the king go out and utterly destroy the Amalekites and everything that they have. But he was selective. He used a little wisdom carnal but it looked all right. And because he didn't destroy the Amalekite the Amalekite came and destroyed him. Always works that way. And David remember that this man is frantically searching for blessing and he cannot find it. He'll give everything he has if only God will restore unto him his power. But God will not touch him. I mean if that's your theology I don't care it's there in the book. Then what do you do? David here is remembering that horrible experience and it's happened to more than once. It's happened in the year that King Uzziah died. Because Uzziah thought he had divine prerogatives and he could go to the temple of the Lord and he could minister at the altar if he wanted. He was a king he got rights. That same man had had the holy anointing upon him but he died with a leper's rag upon his lip in a lousy house. And David the man who had given us these the most amazing hymns that were ever written. Even better than even Isaac Watts his wonderful author of a thousand tongues, Charles Wesley with his twenty thousand hymns that he wrote. That same man is tottering now on the brink of disaster. I believe that the old preacher who for some years with great honour I think filled a historic pulpit of John Wesley in City Road London. Moffat Gawtry. I remembered for thirty years a phrase he wrote he said this, The man who is only seeking forgiveness for his sins and an escape from hell fire is toying with Christianity. That's not Christianity. Those are the first stages. He has received forgiveness of sins. He knows his name is written in the book of life. But oh he aspires to more than that. Because you see naturally if a boy has a father who is intelligent and smart the boy wants to be like his father. And if I'm really born again of the spirit of God I want to be like my father. And of all the miracles that can be done in this world to me the supreme miracle of God is this. That another religion in the world can compare to it. Christianity is not a comparative religion it's a superlative religion. It doesn't compare with other religions it contrasts with other religions. And the wonder of the grace of God is this that God can take an unholy man out of an unholy world and make that unholy man holy and put him back in an unholy world and keep him holy. There is not a religion in the world that can do that. Ah yes David says not only do not take thy spirit take not thy holy spirit from me. I say again as I said last night I believe we're living in a day of the insulted holy spirit of God. We've mechanized our Christianity. Leighton Ford in his latest book says when you have a revival of the altar call doesn't need to take more than just a few minutes and then you can deal with all the seekers if there are hundreds of them in about 15 minutes. Maybe you can if you're mechanized Christianity. But once a man gets under the wrath of God once the holy ghost exposes his depravity and his sin and he sees a yawning hell and he sees an offended God and he sees the corruption of his nature it'll take him more than 15 minutes to sweat it out before the cross. And the wonder of revival is this that when you get real born again spirit people convicted people you don't have to say put your finger on that text and say God so loved the world that if John Smith believes on him that proof takes salvation but they don't last much longer than the atmosphere they were born in. We need a revival but oh brother we need a revival of revised theology I think. We need a revival of holy ghost conviction. We need a plague of the spirit of God over America and over the world tonight. And the man that can do that will be more of a benefit to America than the General Motors or anybody else or any philanthropic society or any of your other societies where you can put your millions in and get tax exemptions. We need some man that can touch God and if ever I wanted to live in my life where I can touch God I'm not concerned how many people I'm gonna, but I am concerned that I can so pray that I touch God. I want my relationship with him that when I pray I can get through the clouds of time and if I can only just touch the very harms of the altar I want to live there. David says take not my holy spirit from me. Ah the holy ghost these likens of so many things. Wasn't the prophet, I don't know why so many of you Baptists stop half way. After all the first preacher that preached about the baptism of the holy ghost was a Baptist. And some of you boys haven't preached on it because if you did they'd throw you out of the synagogue. And you may sing all for Jesus and I believe that good brother means it in his dear life but most of you don't mean it so far that you're ready to be kicked out of your denomination or your boy if they dropped you out of the convention it'd break your heart. But I'm gonna tell you this brother, unless there's a dramatic move in some of these denominations almighty God's gonna pass them all by and leave them high and dry and he's gonna birth some new radical wonderful thing greater than any Pentecost they ever had in the New Testament. It's time for it. And the spirit of God is the spirit of fire and he convicts of coldness. He's the spirit of purity and he convicts of uncleanness. He's the spirit of life and he convicts of death. He's the spirit of power and he convicts of weakness. I said last night let me repeat because repetition is a law of learning. I'm totally convinced otherwise I wouldn't be here tonight. I'm totally convinced that our present Christianity is an embarrassment to a holy God. Our ritualistic acceptance of people because they've been baptized and they promise to tithe is an abomination in his sight. Oh we need some old fashioned Holy Ghost conviction around these days. You would think this man might be satisfied wouldn't you? After all he was a king of Israel. But you see once God awakens in the heart of that individual God he's gonna fight and wrestle until that man either capitulates or he drives the Holy Ghost away. And God's spirit doesn't always strive with men or with nations. I say the man that wrote this psalm wrote it with a broken heart because he says at the end of the chapter that thou desirest not sacrifice. Oh you'd imagine if you signed up just to pay tithes regularly almighty God will slip over a lot of things and you've got it made. You better forget it that's not true. Isn't it easier to sacrifice? Isn't it easier to offer something externally? Isn't it easier to make a vow? Isn't it easier to offer some form of discipline? He says thou desirest not sacrifice else I will give it. Well that was the only way to God in the day in which he lived. According to your sin you brought a bullock or you brought doves or you brought some other thing and the priest made intercession for you. But he says now thou desirest not sacrifice why not? Because you cannot substitute sacrifice for repentance. There is no substitute almighty God knows for a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Oh when conviction comes this way when conviction comes as it does in true holy ghost revival men don't sleep very comfortably. You know in the great cassock convention in England where six or seven thousand people gather they usually talk about the deeper things of God. They explain in their way the baptism of the spirit or entire sanctification or a closer walk with God. One night a preacher went there until they assembled thousands of people mostly missionaries and preachers. He preached a little message any child of ten could understand and then he preached on restitution. And people went out murmuring huh no need to come to travel hundreds of miles. Indeed travel thousands of miles for mission fears to hear a simple message on restitution. There's nothing very profound about that. It was so profound that when they went to the tent meeting in the morning at nine o'clock there was a great big line outside of a post office and within half an hour they'd sold every one of the postal orders and money orders that they had and hundreds and hundreds of letters were written that day and thousands and thousands of dollars were paid in restitution. And people had been praying for blessing and they were blocking the word blessing because they were in debt up to their ears. Because there were things they wouldn't put straight and God won't bless on those conditions. Oh David isn't prayer acting here, David isn't seeking blessing here, he isn't asking God to relieve the burden, he's after something infinitely more than that. He says Lord, Lord will you hide. Don't search me anymore I can't bear it. Hide thy face from my sin. What does he say? My sin is ever before me. He looks through the window. He lived in a palace. There's a soldier guarding, standing to attention there with his spear. And as soon as he sees that smart disciplined young man standing to attention he remembers the young man, he put a note in his hand and sent him to the chief captain and said when you put this young man at the forefront of the battle he is very courageous. He wanted him out of his way so he could steal his wife. And he says my sin, oh I look and my sin is before me. The sin comes into my ears because I hear the cry of a babe and I remember that I fathered a child of Bathsheba. My sin is before me, my sin comes in my ears, my sin is before my eyes. Have mercy upon me oh God. Nobody in the world can sing hymns like the Scots people, well I mean the psalms like the Scots people, particularly the 23rd psalm and particularly to the tune Crimmond, or even the tune St. James is magnificent. And I've stood many times in Scottish pulpits and heard them sing and been thrilled as they sang those songs. There's only one group of people can beat the Scots I think and that is in congregational singing and that is the Welsh people. And when they sing some of their hymns I kind of think I've got a mouse running up and down my back. When they sing oh the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free. But I remember being in a congregation one night and they'd sung through the hymn a little later and then suddenly somebody was ignited and he began to sing at the top of his voice Great God of wonders all thy ways displayed and attributes divine, the countless acts of pardoning grace above all other wonders shine. Who is a pardoning God like thee? Or who has grace so rich and free? Now maybe this is your vacation and coming to a conference like this is a nice change for you and I'm very glad that it is. But tell me this, the world population stands somewhere at three and a half billion people tonight. Did you give a passing thought to the heathen who in his blindness bows down to wood and stone? Did you think there are some people still in the state that they were in in the days of Micah when a man said what shall I give? What shall I give for my soul? Shall I give God rivers of oil, or countless sheep? Or shall I give him the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? And I remember standing there in the jungle in the heart of Papua New Guinea with the rain or really the steam it wasn't much more than the the very atmosphere itself drips. And I stood in the burning heat of that jungle and looked across a range of hills and said to the missionary who lives over the hill? We don't know. There have been three people went over but they never came back. You see, they're still headhunters over that hill. If you go over that hill you better pray because you'll be in the broth pot before dinner time. Isn't that a reproach on Christianity? Two thousand years after Jesus died. Oh, they're tormented. Sure, I spoke up in the forest there to different tribes and had to have different translators. And when we finished we we opened the door of a little house that had a generator for electricity an American-Australian couple actually. And as we stood at the door the silence was like Egyptian silence you could feel it. It was uncanny. It seemed to be pregnant with evil. And the people who'd been in the meeting all men, the women didn't come out at that time of night. And those fellows, scores of men only in a loincloth. They began to run out from that house down the hill. And as they went they put their finger in their mouth and went like this. When they got tired of that they whistled and they shouted. Why? Because they feel that the whole atmosphere is full of evil, that hell is lurking in every area. And when they die, they die in torment. Oh, they can see the great black abyss. They don't know anything about it at all. Two thousand years after Jesus came. And today somewhere in Japan some little wrinkly old woman whose bones wrinkle, they're dry and she throws a few grains of incense over the side of an extinct volcano and mutters a prayer. And if you've travelled, as I have through India you've seen men on beds of spikes and you've seen others drinking the dirty water of the Ganges. And sometimes even today a woman will slip down to the river and if she has a weak child and a healthy child she'll toss the healthy child in the river as a sacrifice to her God. If you come in this country or some others you go to Washington and gaze on that thirty million dollar cathedral of the Roman Catholics you'll find people making the stations of the cross and going through all the ritualism. And when you ask them when they come out what they know, they know no more than the heathen in the jungle there. They have no assurance. There is only one religion in the whole world gives a man assurance that he's forgiven that his sins have all been put away and he's a new creature in Christ Jesus and that's a Christian religion. And David comes burdened. Not only burdened but David comes broken hearted. And he uses this great word I always think of a kind of elastic word that stretches out so far. He doesn't come with any justification at all. He doesn't say Lord I've been your servant and I've destroyed your enemies and I've liberated your people. He comes covered with one word. He says have mercy upon me oh God. Wasn't it Paul writing to Timothy who talks about his experience and then suddenly he says well I did this, I did that. But God who is rich in mercy. My it's a good thing he's rich in mercy because most of us would be in hell tonight. So what an amazing thing that you can bring a man whoever he is. Doesn't matter what kind of sin has crippled his life. He may be the most hopeless drunkard. He may be a sex pervert. Just the other day I got a letter from the president of the Bible school that Dave Wilkerson started away there at Rhinebeck in New York. One of the latest converts. He was actually converted I think in Houston when Dave Wilkerson was down there some months ago. This young man sat there rather cynical. I thought he'd been round a few corners as the Irish say. He's unusually handsome. Quite gifted. And he got in with a Hollywood crowd. And he became and you put it in quotes escort to one of the wealthiest women in the whole world. And all he did was ride with the jet set from Hollywood to Gay Paris or for a change Spain or for a change into Rome. He's living with the world's most beautiful women and there isn't a thing that he can't have and there isn't a thing he can't buy or they won't buy for him. He's become an idol of society. What he used to dream about when he was a little farm boy. The stories he used to read about Cinderella and Prince Charming and now he's got the charming princess and he's the prince and he's living it up. But a lot of appetites were awakened in him and he soon found he had an appetite not only for sex an appetite for drink and before long when you lounge around in the sun with half naked folk even that gets a bit tiring and so they started getting kicked out of drugs. Simple you know. Sniffing and then men lining and then LSD and then something a little more electrifying and before very long he found himself in his land of enchantment and then he found himself on trips that sometimes took him to the gates of hell and he felt as though he were a deity and the next time he took it he was crawling around hell with all the snakes and all the unclean things. And somehow nobody knows why except again in the mystery and majesty of God he was confronted with the gospel of the grace of God. To say to a man like that you know that if you really mean business if you come with a broken and a contrite heart if you're coming not really to get rid of a penalty because God's going to beat you up for eternity if you don't but if he really says God didn't make me for this and I'm feeling better than living like an animal and satisfying every lust that I have and I long to know God there's a blank in my life. When David made the altar call to the surprise of those who knew him the young man walked boldly down the aisle and he crumbled up and he said if there's any chance all I can do is ask for mercy. Oh how much do you know I believe the only reason America isn't roasting like Sodom and England burning like Gomorrah tonight is that we're living on God's mercy that's why. We've out sinned Sodom by a long way we left them behind years ago. Dear brother Comrade Morella and I did a crusade earlier this year in the great city of San Francisco and if there's a spot near to hell I don't want to find it. The dirtiest, filthiest, weirdest folks witchcraftish practice Satan worshipish practice no holds barred anything you like in sex, perversion anything you like on the streets at night in the shop the most grotesque, hideous pictures of sex I never thought that ever they'd publish them but they're open for display. Yes sirree if we don't wake up soon I'll tell you there's only one thing God can do with sin he either forgives it or judges it and sometimes he has to judge nations and England and America have been spared in my judgment for these reasons one we have published more Bibles between us than any other nations in the world number two we have cared for the Jews better than any nation in the world and number three we have launched more missionary societies but right now we're living on borrowed capital we're living on the hangover from the Puritan age and the starch has nearly gone out and we have to let people know that this altar is no cheap place for you to come and just wash your hands and run off and go back and trade in iniquity this altar is open only for one thing and that is that men and women really mean business with God and you say to the fact you are a sinner whether you like it or not God says it your conscience says it other people might say it but David here is not concerned because the Spirit of God has come upon him and he says have mercy upon me O God according to thy loving kindness according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgression wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity cleanse me from I like those words brother there's nothing mealy-mouthed about that purge cleanse wash oh those are words that really have deep profound meaning to them it doesn't matter what state of sin you may be you may be a self-righteous sinner you may be a choir member sinner you may be a preacher sinner tonight you may be an intellectual sinner you may be a poor depraved ignorant sinner but I want to tell you tonight there's only one door by which any man can enter in and be saved in England some years ago a very rich title lady who lived in a fabulous home and had a lot of servants and lived in a large estate and had everything that money could offer and she had one daughter and she just that darling daughter that got all the fashionable things and was the belle of the ball always one night she came home and told her mother she felt sick mother pushed it off you don't need much some little tablet will take care of it but a week after the girl was worse and a few days after she was worse still the mother said we better visit the doctor and when they went the doctor said oh this is this is serious and I don't have the answer you better take her to London she went to London to Harley Street the doctor said well what are the symptoms and she told the doctor what she felt and the doctor said all right we'll take some x-rays and we'll take certain tests and you'll come back in two or three days and she did and the doctor said well I've got bad news for you you have a disease we don't know very much about it's it's a very rare disease and we can diagnose it but we don't have the answer yet and the mother said in despair you can't do a thing for the girl I didn't say that but I'm telling you that we don't have the real answer to the situation now we're prepared to take your daughter and we're prepared to give her surgery and we're prepared to do this that and the other and the mother said all right I'm not really interested in this doctor but what would the cost of this be no charge no charge I don't accept charity well you see in areas like this we're so glad to get information that we'd be glad to explore the body of your daughter and if we can find the answer to the situation and really you're giving us thousands of dollars or as they say thousands of pounds worth of experience I'd be very happy to do it along with so and so a brilliant surgeon and we look for a complete deliverance in this case there's no charge the lady stiffened and said no charge I don't accept charity if I can't pay for my daughter then I'm not going to accept your offer the doctor said all right you'll take a fee yes yes I'll take a fee how much oh well a quarter of a million dollars a what a quarter of a million dollars and I want to tell you something I won't accept two hundred thousand my fee is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash and I won't even touch your daughter until you pay it and she backed off and she said look I oh well really that's I mean I don't want charity but I the price is too high and he said woman look you do one of two things I won't even accept your two hundred and fifty thousand you either take this as a free gift or your daughter can die on your hands and there's the door no don't turn me away I'll accept it and you know it doesn't matter what station of life you're in you may be some high and lofty political wizard you might be a beautiful film star you might be somebody dragging your feet through the edge of hell and secretly fooling in sex you kids or messing around with drugs that nobody knows but I'll tell you this that it matters not what that sin may be and it matters not who you are you can't pay anything for it he paid the price and you accept the gift and the gift is more than just the relief of my conscience the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord David prayed this prayer have mercy upon me and you know what he got it because afterwards he wrote that amazing psalm where he says he lifted me up out of a horrible pit and he not only lifted him up he set him up on a rock he put his feet on a rock and he not only set him up he tuned him up he put a song in his mouth when I was a little kid in a Methodist church in England I could only just see over the pew and there was a fellow across in the aisle there he was the fattest man I ever saw until I came to America then I saw dozens but he was the biggest fattest man I think I'd ever seen in my life and you know our preacher loved that great old Methodist hymn that won the heart of Billy Graham about 15 years ago and he made it the key of his crusades and they sung it Barrows has had it sung thousands of times since Wesley's lovely hymn and can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour's blood and you know every time we sang that hymn this big man I always used to say he had a hand as big as a shovel he was so fat he had to take that big lump he had in front of him and rest it on the pew in front otherwise he couldn't have stood upright so along him like that and you know I'd see him singing and I'd watch and the tears would slip down his craggy face while they were singing and then do you know what I used to look at the pulpit and say to myself this isn't our regular pastor and he's going to get a shock in a moment and sure enough when the dainty ladies in the choir sat down and the audience just sat down and took their seat old Sam would be standing and his hand would tremble he'd hold the pew and he'd raise that big shovel of a hand up like that and in a voice as musical as a bullfrog he'd strike up again long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night thine eye diffused a quickening ray I woke the dungeon flamed with light my chains fell off my heart was free I rose went forth and followed thee and when you think he went through he'd put both hands up and say tis mercy all immense and free for all my God he'd found out me and when you get an experience like that where your record has been put behind God's back and the relationship is there and you can read your title clear till mansions in the skies brother you've got something to testify about we don't get many salvations like this anymore do we? old kids will run to the altar every Saturday night in a youth rally but their mouths are sealed when they get to school on a Monday morning very often in one of the schools up north they have a sign you know those wicked old boys in the high court passed it for us and it's signed says no prayer in this school and underneath in fine print it says in case of enemy action forget the above sign you know we've got deity on a string he's got to be good because he's good he's got to answer prayer when we want but we're not going to do what he says oh you say well we can't pray in our school but there's no law that says you can't take your Bible to school and there's no law that says you can't read it in the time of recess you can do that and who knows you might even educate your teacher if you try most of them need it oh but when a man gets a burning heart when he's got a new relationship with God isn't it something isn't it wonderful but he not only prays the prayer of a sinner he prays the prayer of a backslider we don't have any of these anymore you know no backsliders mark you we have a few people in church that um well the following are far off you know I mean they'd like a closer walk with a few of those people we've no backsliders anymore that's a dirty old word we don't use anymore it's an old fashioned word I'll tell you what it may be an old fashioned word but it's a pretty bitter experience to go through some of you remember when this book was sweeter than the honey and the honeycomb as the psalmist says but it isn't like that anymore now some of you remember the time when you could go away for an hour or two hours or even a day or even a night and shut yourself up with God and pray and have waves of glory go over your soul but no more not since Johnny Carson came around have mercy upon me now he prays and he says restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and that lovely hymn my brother sang this morning was so beautiful and I think it was the same author who said where is the blessedness I knew when first I sought the Lord where is the soul refreshing dew of Jesus and his word and he looks back nostalgically on a spiritual experience and he says of those days how sweet their memory still but now I feel an aching void the world can never fill and it can't Judas sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver some of us sold him for less than that one man sold his birthright for a mess of poppies some of us sold it so we could get in with the what the elks or something maybe you're a little better off than that you got joined up with the masons my old John Wesley used to blast the masons he gave them trouble and some of you are thirty second degree masons and you're thirty second degree down the hill ever since you got that way alright hit it again he said he's not a mason he's just a Baptist restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold thee with thy free spirit you know I feel sorry for lots of these kids that are around I think they're justified in lots of arguments that they have I don't agree with the method but some of you fellas you tell the congregation to stand up what do you do you recite a man made creed and you say now we recite this very carefully let us pray let us say and you go through a confession we sin today in thought and word and deed well the devil can do more than that if he tried and it's totally impossible for us to live a life of victory we can never be cleansed this side of eternity and we say you're going to sin every day in thought word and deed and then when they do it you call them a bunch of rascals now look if you believe in that at least be intelligent write a list of sins out the kids can commit and they'll know where they are I say as I said at the beginning Christianity is not a sinning religion sin and salvation are not opposites and they mutually exclude each other as I said I had wonderful fellowship for weeks with brother Conrad Morell but he's a bit of an odd fellow doesn't do his hair like mine as you can see for one thing apart from that you know the other odd thing about him is he's a married bachelor isn't that strange his wife shaking her head very vigorously she says he isn't she ended his bachelor days he's a married man no he isn't he's a married bachelor and I know a man who's a truthful lawyer and I know another man who's an honest thief and a woman who's a virtuous harlot you say look you're mucking around with the king's English why don't you be sensible a man is either a bachelor or he's married a man is either honest or he's a thief a man is either a truthful or a liar he can't be both well how can a man be a sinning Christian then they mutually explode each other if some of you boys you know lots of you preachers know to preach much better than you preach but you then preach a life of victory because they kick you out of the church you're in that's why and the reason you're loaded up with carnality is that you make sinning easy and repentance easy but God doesn't do that most of our people could be Mohammedans emasculated Christianity that we have today he died not only that we might be forgiven he died not only to restore the joy of salvation to us but David reaches it seems to be to the very peak here and he prays in this tenth verse and nobody ever living ever prayed anything higher when he said create in me a clean heart oh God and renew my spirit within me and you remember the word of Jesus he says blessed are the pure in heart now there are no degrees in purity your heart is either pure or impure it's not fifty percent pure and fifty percent impure there are degrees of strength some people are stronger than others there are degrees of wisdom some people are like that but there are no degrees in purity a thing is either totally pure or if it's only two percent impure or one percent it's impure create in me a clean heart oh God oh we sing it sometimes don't we offer a heart to praise my God a heart from sin set free a heart that always feels the blood so freely shed for me a heart in every thought renewed and full of love divine pure perfect and right and pure and good a copy law divine this is the excellence of the Christian religion this is possible only one way and that is through the blood of Jesus that our brother quoted tonight and brother Jim quoted tonight the blood of Jesus Christ God's son you see the Lord really drops the boom on this sinning business when the woman was taken in adultery he didn't say go and sin less he said go and sin no more he that is born of God does not commit sin oh you say then you're preaching sinless perfection no you're saying that it's impossible for a man really born again and indwelt by the spirit of God no I don't believe it's impossible for him to sin I believe it's possible for him not to sin he may be caught out he might sin but he doesn't sin intentionally he's caught out and then he prays not only take not thy Holy Spirit for me but he says give me thy Holy Spirit in this heart that you've cleansed come and fill it possess it just come and take the ownership control my entire personality after all every one of us here tonight we're either self controlled or spirit controlled you either do what you want to do or you do what the spirit wants you to do David is praying for a heart that is cleansed David is praying for a heart that is filled with the spirit of God in the 126th Psalm you remember there he says how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity for there the Lord commandeth the blessing and it's like the oil that was put oil consistently in the word of God the most consistent type of the Holy Spirit I think in the Bible the oil was put on the head of the priest and then he tells you specifically that the oil upon his head ran down his beard not down his face it ran off his beard onto his garments it ran off his garments onto the floor the sanctifying oil never touched the flesh you have the other picture there in Noah's Ark where when the Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat God's servant opened the window and he let out a bird a raven carnivorous bird you see a type of the crows on the road we were driving the other day and somebody had hit a rabbit or something and in the distance you could see all these birds there and they were stripping the flesh off the carcass there and as we got nearer they all took off in flight now remember up in Canada seeing these huge ravens as big as the domestic hen and there they were eating there up in the Eskimo country trying to tell for something that was frozen a dead thing and when the Ark window was open and the raven went out boy he thought the millennium had begun everywhere he dropped his feet there was flesh flesh flesh and he stayed out and he enjoyed the flesh and a few days after the man of God Noah he opened the same window and he put out a dove and the dove went around and he got a bit tired and he was going to settle down here and he said no I won't settle there that's flesh a dove will die rather than eat flesh and he threw over here and was going to settle and he said no I wouldn't soil my feet on a carcass that's death and death is a type of sin I won't touch that carcass and he went around and the word says he could find no place he could find no place for his feet to rest and he returned to the ark the dove is a type of the Holy Spirit the dove they told me only marries once the dove can be so offended and so aggrieved that it will die of grief it won't even eat meat no and it won't even eat meal at times it gets so broken hearted it will die right there oh the other bird can live out and have a great time eating everything it wants but the dove comes back and he has to open the window and take the dove in I'm going to say this as I'll answer the judgment there could be in a meeting like this tonight a dozen Charles G. Finners that some of you boys won't pay the price to have the Holy Ghost because if you take all your hands off the whole deal and say Lord I would rather be filled with the Holy Ghost than live for six weeks or six days anointed in the spirit of God you know what he might do he might do what he did to a friend of mine who is one of the most knowledgeable men in the world of God that I know and one of the most saintly praying men of faith I could tell you miracle after miracle God has done for him but he got a little dry in his experience there was no known sin it just seemed as though God was not enduring and blessing and he did a sensible thing he got away from men and women he got along with God and he cried to God he said Lord I don't understand the obstruction I don't know why this thing has happened but oh I don't care what it costs the dearest idol I have known you can take my friends and my time and all I have you can completely revolutionize but I want you to give me such an anointing of the Holy Ghost that the Holy Ghost will abide until I die and as sure as he was bending there that intellectual businessman that man with a profound knowledge of the word that man that could talk about the Holy Ghost but he would never mention gifts of the Spirit and somebody told him there were past generations and he said the last thing he had preached against tongues and everything and the Holy Ghost came upon him and he said in five minutes I don't know why but he said they poured out of me a river of language that I didn't know a thing about and he preached in tongues pardon me he spoke in tongues he stayed there for hours in ecstasy and he knew as soon as he crossed that door and went and told his friends they shut every door in his face and they did yes sir your problem if you really get filled with the Holy Ghost won't be the contradiction of sinners it will be the criticism of saints most likely and that's harder to take I'm not saying he will do that I'm not saying he has to do that but brother if you're telling God how he's going to bless you you better get ready to dry up on the vine you can preach your sermons and be a good evangelist and get good love offerings but what's that got to do with it our evangelism in the last twenty years hasn't saved America neither have mass evangelism than any other kind and how are you going to prove to me that the evangelism we've used for the last ten years is going to save America it's not God's going to have them do a new thing it's going to have to get men who are totally abandoned and say here I am I bring to thee my friends my time my earthly stuff my reputation as evangelist the opinions of other people oh brother don't tell me you can die easily to all you may have to say about all through all life before you get through where you can say yes to God after all Jesus didn't just kneel and get seven and say oh right Lord I'll take it he sweat did you ever sweat trying to get an issue settled with God we give a mentalist a yes Lord I'll be a slave and I'll love you from now on amen and on we go and we repeat all the same silly dried up stuff we've had for the last six months or six years there's a price to pay I know that Jesus paid it all you say but I want to tell you something there's a price you and I have to pay too I know it because I paid it to some degree I know that we said at the beginning of the meeting it's good to be in a meeting like that it sure isn't it's bad too you know why because the Holy Ghost may not come back to you for the next six months or six years or the rest of your life he doesn't have to you he faces up with you with your bankruptcy tonight that some of you preachers are preaching a theology and you're shouting behind the denomination you're scared stiff to preach the revelation God has given because again it immediately hit the high road but you know what I find I find some of the holiest saintliest anointed men in America today are men that are being kicked out of their denomination it's the kind of day we're living in and we'd better face it God's going to do a new thing in this he sure is I mention and I mention it again and finish my dear wife and I were in a certain group I suppose not much more than a year ago maybe a year and a half and the people asked me to speak in the morning session I didn't want to but I did and I shared some things God had given to me when we finished the service the brother said to me would you like to see Mr. so and so and I said yes I if it's possible I would well he's upstairs the microphone was connected to his room he's been listening to your Bible study this morning I didn't know anything about the man except he was a Scotsman and he was 83 years of age and I figured I'd seen lots of old Scotsmen wrinkled, bent, withered. My wife and I went up the stairs and they opened the door and there the Scotsman was sitting behind a table. He had a wrap over his legs. He went as a missionary because he knew the language and he went amongst the Jews in Palestine all the way from America told the people God had called him there they helped to finance him to get there they promised him support while he was there they promised him scriptures and all other things he'd need and he got all the tools for the job and when he got there he began to pray and you know the Lord said go back home. There's a bigger need in America right now than there is here you go home and I'm going to give you a ministry not a public ministry you're going to be shut up in a room I'm going to lay an affliction upon you just to tie you up and I'm going to put you in a room and I'm going to give you the ministry of intercession not many men have it oh there are men who pray and there are prayer warriors but intercessors not many we went in that room and I expected to see a droopy wrinkled old man I saw a man looking much younger than I looked and though he lives in that room his cheeks were as red as though they were painted and his eyes were bright and flashing and he said come in brother Amiel I've wanted to meet you I'm so happy and we talked for a little while and he My mother always told me as a little boy if you ever get in the presence of royalty you never turn your back on them if you should go into the presence of a king or a lord or a duke remember you don't turn your back and walk to the door you say thank you sir and you retire to the door and you walk out backwards and when I saw that man I knew he was a man of royal birth and royal standing and I did what my mother told me I said thank you sir and I and I have met some of the greatest men in the world in many countries of the world but never men of unequal to that man I backed off and said thank you sir and my wife and I walked out then my friend who is a brilliant fellow from Harvard said to me you know he's one of the most unique men in the world I said well he's certainly a man of fantastic man for 83 years of age no no no not physically not not not even his bible knowledge though is profound he said you know the great unique thing about that man at 83 years of age is this he hasn't been to bed for 25 years not one night 10 o'clock at night he takes his bible he's still living this isn't a man in finnish day this isn't E.M. Bounds this isn't praying time this isn't America has had some of the dirtiest wickedest men and America has poisoned this generation more than any other nation in the world and all you have to do to prove that is think of Hollywood and the rotten stuff that comes out of some of these printing houses but to alter the balance and I do it very gladly America has had some of the greatest praying men in history again E.M. Bounds David Brain had burned himself up and died at 28 years of age Payson prayed until there were scoops in the in the hospital knees used to rub up and down as he made intercessions and the only reason America holds together tonight is not smart politicians the church is the salt of the earth it's praying men that are keeping America together or else she'd burn like Sodom and Gomorrah tonight that little man hasn't been to bed for 25 years 10 o'clock he opens his bible and reads one half of psalm 119 and it's pretty long you may remember and then he turns over and he reads half of the Sermon on the Mount as recorded by Matthew that's the long section you remember Matthew has it here for chapter 5 and chapter 7 and if you read through it I think you'll discover it's got about what is it 130 verses in it the short edition is by Luke he only has about 30 but he reads half of the Sermon on the Mount and half of psalm 119 and then the next night he reads the other half and he turns over and he reads he has them committed to memory but he doesn't trust his memory he reads them and he prays over them and he prays for the nation a man couldn't do that unless he has the anointing of the Holy Ghost and whatever emphasis you may put on tongues and gifts of the spirit I think it would be nice occasionally to press your finger down on the 20th verse of Jude where it speaks about praying in the Holy Ghost oh brother that's harder than preaching that's harder than talking that's harder than running a church that's harder than being a Sunday school superintendent or teacher praying in the Holy Ghost because the most eloquent prayer in the Holy Ghost has no language it has groans it has tears the greatest prayers in the Bible were prayers that were prayed by women like Hannah and she never opened the lips nor did when he lost his language and said if not and Paul where he says I could wish myself a curse to my brethren and the literal Greek there means I could wish myself down before me God would send revivals to the Jews brother you've got to have the Holy Ghost on you to pray like that and you see the reason our prayer meetings dry up you won't interest me if you tell me of 10,000 members in your church I'd sniff at it if I want to know how popular your church is I'll come Sunday morning if I want to know how popular the preacher is I'll come Sunday night if I want to know how popular God is I'll come into the Wednesday night prayer meeting and God will lose every count I'm sure of that you've got to be a good preacher to pull a crowd these Sunday nights that's why most of us can't do it it's fashion to go Sunday morning but Bonanza's on Sunday night and there's a few other good shows all the good shows are on on Sunday night and Wednesday night all the world has seen to that alright when were you last in a meeting where people groaned in the spirit because you've got more taverns in town you've got multitudes of lost people some of your own kids don't break your heart even some of your back spitting church members don't break your heart anymore and we're praying for people at the other side of the world and they're going to hell at the other side of the street but that's not true when the Holy Ghost comes you see we're not going to get revival riding on the back of Billy Graham or Oral Robert they've been around a long while and the nations know I was going to say know better but we don't have revival in spite of them not because of them in spite of them we don't have revival. Revival comes and it can only answer the problem in America when the local church gets on fire and begins to illuminate that immediate area and rescue the perishing in that immediate area and see God breathe on that immediate area. And no church usually at least the church is never higher in spirituality than the individual pastor is. There are some strange warnings about the Holy Spirit in the Bible and I The word of God says that we can grieve the Holy Spirit of God. The word of God says we can resist the Holy Spirit of God. The word of God says horror of horrors that we can quench the spirit. You can so quench the spirit in some churches you'll never have revival you better sell the building and go to a new location that's the only hope you have sometimes. The spirit has been quenched. Grieved and grieved and grieved Let me say one thing and go. We live much in England in the area of Manchester. I had a friend there, a pastor told me about a neighbor of his. We have the old fashioned houses all joined together in a row. And sometimes between the chimney stacks they'll put a row of little houses for their birds, doves, pigeons. This man had some of the finest doves in the area. He would pay greater prices for them than any other man in the he would teach them tricks. This particular dove that he had bought, the most expensive of all, became very affectionate. When his visitors came he would say now you watch this bird. I can whistle and they'll all come down but I'll make a special whistle and that bird will come by itself. And he put his hand down for some grain. And he whistled and the bird came. And when the bird settled there on his wrist and it was going to peck he closed his hands like that and the bird went back on the roof. His friend said you shouldn't do that. Tease the bird. Oh he'll come back again. You just watch. The bird came and when he was going to peck he closed his hand and he laughed. His friend said now that's not right. Now don't do that again. Don't make the bird miserable. Oh he'll come back. Watch. And he whistled again for the bird and the bird came and was going to peck and he closed his hand. And the bird went back on the roof. No he didn't. And he The bird went over the roof and he's never seen that bird from that day till this. You can't build a theology on an analogy. I know that. But the analogy bears out. Because you can grieve the spirit and you can resist his overtures. And you can argue against his claims. But there can come a time when the Holy Spirit of God walks out on you and he'll leave you in misery. Leave you out unanointed. Leave you reciting those dry old sermons. I went to hear one of the ten top preachers in America not too long ago in New York City. In an auditorium holding thirteen hundred people. This man is known to everybody here by name. Two things I remember about him. He said I interlace America. I go into the largest of the churches in my denomination. And he said I want to tell you something. I don't know ten churches in the America with the anointing of God on them he said. Isn't that something? You know that night he stood up and he recited a sermon that he had in one of his sermon books. I'd read it and it was the most unanointed thing I had ever read. It was just ritual and formality and word for word correct. And it fell flat to the ground. And he came to the door and said to me Len what's what's happening? I preached here in this city and this church was packed with fifteen hundred people every night ten years ago. And now the one hundred and fifty people in that great auditorium that night listening to him. There's only one hope for America. There's only one hope for England. There's only one hope for my day. That is that we get back to the place where the spirit of God is no longer grieved. Where as our brother said last night I love the hymn the old holiness used to people used to sing it. Welcome, welcome, welcome holy ghost we welcome thee. Welcome thee to search our hearts. Welcome thee to break us. Welcome thee to get us to the place where you strip us of all our sham and all our ritual and all our pride. All our ambition. All our competitive preaching and singing that goes on so much. Why in the world do you think your kids want your Christianity? You're having problems they don't want it. I wouldn't want it either. If I were a Christian I saw some bad tempered parents. If I knew some of the things that go on in church I wouldn't want it. Why be a second edition of what's going on anyhow? Your kids are looking more critically than you think. They're looking for parents that are saved, have victory over sin, have the indwelling Holy Spirit, have a nature like God himself and a heart full of compassion for the lost world. Have you got a broken heart tonight? Maybe you had it a long while before. Maybe you before you came here you've been trying to find an answer. Have you got a contrite spirit? Are you more concerned that you'll get cleansed and filled with the Holy Ghost and be in the will of God if he sends you to a hut in Minnesota somewhere for the rest of your life than you are about promoting yourself and promoting your books or your records or your ministry? Oh there's going to have to be some death friend. Useless to cry in prayer that I may know thee and the power of thy resurrection. There's only one way you can have resurrection. You've got to die first and that costs an awful lot. There's only one way to be filled and that is to be emptied first. There's only one way to be used and that's to be cleansed first. There's only one way to be clothed with power and that is to be stripped of everything. And you know once you're stripped, it's not difficult. It's not difficult to go and confess to others where you've been wrong and where you've failed and where you've failed your church. Comparatively easy. Do you know what? Because you've got rid of all pride and self-esteem and self-glory and self-interest and self-seeking and self-promotion and self-righteousness and he's taken over now and he is the master of ceremonies and he is ruling the life and he is dominating your spirit. Do you want to pray this prayer tonight? Do you want to pray? Maybe the most unique thing about this psalm is, have you ever realized it? It's a monologue. He doesn't pray about Bathsheba. He doesn't pray about Israel. He says, have mercy upon me, O God. According to the multitude of thy tender mercies, but out my transgression wash me truly from mine iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. I acknowledge my transgression. Come on tonight. It's not your brother nor your sister. It's you, my friend. It's not you or the preacher or the deacon. It's you, my friend, standing in the need of prayer. Come on now. Say, God Almighty, I don't care what it costs if I have to humble myself before my church next time. If you do, some of you will have revival in it because you're the bottleneck in the thing really. Do you want a pure heart tonight? Pure in your motives, pure in your desires and the indwelling spirit of God? Well, pray it. And obey him. And come and meet God at this altar. Shall we pray? I'm not going to ask you to sing. I'm going to ask you to come and meet God at this altar if you really mean business. And stay till God meets you, whatever it costs you. Break me. Cleanse me. Fill me. Do something in me tonight that will never need to be done as long as I ever live. Revolution in my life. Strip me of everything but oh, fill me with the Holy Ghost. Are you coming? A number have come already. We're not going to sing. I'm not going to pull on your emotions. I'm not going to beg. I'm not going to offer Christ at auction prices. I'm going to ask you tonight. Are you coming? Are you going to meet him? Come on teenager. This is a great night of your life. I thank God I know there's an altar in my teens. I thank God I know there's an altar in my teens. I an altar in my teens. I thank God I know there's an altar in my teens. I thank God I know there's an altar in my teens. I thank God I know there's an altar in my teens. I thank God I know there's an altar in my teens. I an altar in my teens. I thank God I know there's thank God I know there's an altar in my teens. I