In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of not trusting in our own feelings but in God who raises the dead. He encourages believers to live by faith rather than by their emotions. The preacher shares a story of a man who was an alcoholic for 37 years but was able to quit drinking through the power of Christ. Despite presenting the gospel to him, the man was not interested in receiving Christ. The preacher also shares a personal experience of visiting a hospital and feeling discouraged, but still choosing to fulfill his duty as a pastor.

Thank you, Ralph. It's just a great privilege to be here, and I was going to say that we're in a big race to see who is going to have the awakening first. The United States are candidates, but I don't think that's really true, because God is sovereign, and he knows where and when and how he's going to bring the awakening. If you have been there when God came, you never get over it, do you? You want more, and you want to see him come again, and in the way that none of us have ever yet seen in our lifetime. And so that's what we're praying for, looking for, believing for, expecting, and I don't really care where it starts or when, as long as it's in my lifetime. That's all I want, and I didn't used to think about that until I got a little older, and now I think about it. But we're expecting God to do great things, and I don't think it's just some wishful thinking. There is a tide rising, there is an expectancy building, there is a preparation God has been carrying on since 1971. He is building a people who believe and are expecting and are praying and are looking for the awakening, and it takes time for that. And I believe that the revival that broke across western Canada in 71 and came down to the United States and met us in our church in 72. We had a great moving of God for three weeks without a crusader evangelist, nothing but God and our church, and saw God do great and powerful things. And I believe that God has taken these years to build a people steadily, slowly, to build a people whose hearts are burning and whose lives are right, and who are filled with the Spirit and who are yearning to see the only thing that will save our world today, and especially our western civilization. No, that's not the purpose. The purpose, of course, is what you heard this morning if you were there. The purpose is to glorify God, to build his kingdom, and to see his will done on earth. And so, of course, but it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, and we're going to see it happen. And it could happen right here, we don't know where it's going to happen. We were having fun in the car on the way up, I rode to the Van Nooses, and we had my briefcase in the back, behind the back seat in the van, and every time I wanted something out of my briefcase, the two ladies in the back would have to pass it to the front seat, and it's heavier than a suitcase. It's like lead. And they said, you know, what is in this? I said, well, there's over 200 sermons in there, and I'm not going to preach them all tonight, relax. And I said, the reason that that's so is every time I go to a meeting to speak, this is true. I carry at least 200 sermons or more, and one reason is because I don't know what I might want to use, but I knew pretty well what I was going to preach when I came here. And the other reason that I bring so many sermons is because I never know if that's going to be the time and the place when the awakening will start. And if it does, I want to be ready to run flat out. I don't care if I never get back to my church. I don't know how they feel, but I mean, I love it, I love that church and those people. But if God wants to start the awakening right here this week, I'm ready to just run right flat out until I die and go to heaven. Amen? See, I'm serious. I'm serious. I'm not playing games. I quit that long ago. I'm serious. It's coming, folks. It's coming, just don't sleep through the revival. Get to heaven and God will say, did you enjoy the revival? And you'll say, what revival? God will weep. Don't miss it. Don't miss it. Well, anyway. Better stop that and turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 1. I want to read verses 8 to 12. I read from that today once already, but I want to read it for the text tonight. 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 8 to 12. Words of Paul by the Holy Spirit. Maybe I should say the words of the Holy Spirit by Paul. More accurately. 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 8. For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life. But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us, in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us. You also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons, thanks may be given by many on our behalf. For our rejoicing is this. Now listen very carefully to this verse tonight. Underline it in your Bible. For our rejoicing is this. The testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom. Not from the flesh. From the conscience, not from the flesh. A lot of difference between the conscience and the flesh. The witness of our conscience, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, this is transparent honesty of heart and life. Not from the flesh. But by the grace of God, we have had our manner of life in this world, and more abundantly to you were it. When God turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Then, say they among the heathen, the Lord hath done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for us, whereof we are glad, turning in our captivity, O Lord, as streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seeds, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bring his sheaves with him. And that's the psalm that God gave to me in Revival. And especially that first part, when the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. And then was our mouth filled with laughter. God changed my name to Isaac in the Revival. That's not my name. My name's Richard, and my middle name is Malcolm. My mother was born in Scufflands. And God put a laughter in my heart. Isn't it a wonderful thing when God moves in, and it's marvelous how he even affects our emotions. And when God has come in and cleansed our hearts and set us free from sin and self, and filled us with his Holy Spirit, and our lives are straightened out, and we are right with one another, and his power and blessing is flowing, and it seems like the love of God is flowing around knee-deep, and everybody is singing, and our emotions are running high. And then, about a month later, we start sometimes to come back down to earth, and we start to have trouble with our emotions again. And the devil comes around, he sits on our shoulder, and he says, Why don't you feel like you did during the crusade? And why don't you have all the same joy, and all the same excitement, and all the same lightness of heart? And how come it is that you have burdens now, and how is it that there is some sadness in your heart? And why is it that you seem to have pressures in your life, and that now you are facing some emotional struggles again? I thought that the old self-life was crucified, and that you were filled with the Spirit! And you begin to have trouble with your feelings. Did you ever start a day really good, and have it end really bad? You know, you start out, and the sun's shining bright, and you had a good night's rest, and you're just as happy as a lark, and you're singing, Oh, what a wonderful morning! And you start out, and everything looks like it's going to go great, and that just ain't the way it ends. And you come to the end of that day, and you're ready to go to bed, and you feel all sad and depressed and down, and the devil kicks you around a little bit, and he says, How come you started out so great this morning, and you're feeling so bad tonight? I thought you were a Spirit-filled Christian. What happened to you? Ever have that kind of a day? Well, it reminds me about the bricklayer that got up early one morning. He felt great, and he was going to go to work, and he got through breakfast in a hurry. His wife fixed a good breakfast. Toast wasn't even burned. Coffee was just right by the time he got out the door. He was singing and whistling, and he got to work 30 minutes early. He couldn't believe it. 30 minutes early. And he noticed that where they had been laying brick up on this tall building, that there was a bunch of brick that had been left on the scaffolding, and they didn't need it up there. And he thought, Well, I'm here early. I might as well get that brick down off in there. So he got an idea, and he saw a big barrel laying there. So he tied a rope around the barrel, and he went up on the scaffolding, and he fixed up a pulley. And he put the rope over the pulley, and he said to himself, I'm going to pull the barrel up there, and I'm going to fill it with bricks, and I'm going to get those bricks down. So he pulled the barrel up there. He got it up there. He tied the rope to the scaffolding down at the bottom, and then he went up on the scaffolding, and he filled the barrel with bricks. And he, boy, had it all worked out. And he went back down, and then he was going to have to let the bricks down, so he untied the rope. But the barrel loaded with bricks was twice as heavy as he was. And so when he untied that rope from the bottom, the barrel of bricks started coming down fast. And before he realized that he was jerked off the ground, he was too high to let go. And so he was going up, and the bricks were coming down, and they met in the middle. And, oh man, he got clobbered. That barrel loaded with bricks hit him on the way down, and busted him, and broke a few bones, and bruised him, and cut him, and he's hanging on for dear life. And then the bricks went on down, and they hit the ground. And when that barrel of bricks hit the ground, it broke the bottom out of the barrel. And all the bricks spilled out. And he was up there holding on to the rope. But now he was heavier than the barrel. So he started coming back down fast. And he didn't dare let go of the rope, so the barrel was coming up fast. And on the way up, it hit him again. Oh my goodness, and by the time he got to the ground, he landed right on the pile of bricks. And he got busted and broken some more. And when he hit that pile of bricks, it just knocked all the sense out of him. And he forgot what he was doing, and he let go of the rope. And now the barrel came back down again fast. Oh boy, why are you laughing? Do you like to see other people miserable too? And then the barrel came down and landed on him. And later in the hospital, he said, I'll tell you one thing, I learned it just doesn't pay to go to work early. Oh boy. You ever have any days like that? They start out good, and they end up terrible. Well, I had a day like that recently. I started out, I'd had a great time with God in the morning. And got to the office, just come back from a great meeting where God had blessed night after night. And got back and found the staff had done everything they were supposed to. And the church was going ahead just great. Everything was wonderful. In fact, they had one of the biggest crowds on Sunday night while I was away that they had ever had. And I thought, I'd better go away again. It was just great. The place was so jammed, they couldn't even find seats for people. I was feeling great, just wonderful. And then through the day, I started running into problems. And I visited some people that were sick and dying, and I dealt with some people that were in deep trouble. And I ran into some other problems. And by the time I got home that night, I found that my feelings had gone all the way from here, clear down to the bottom. And I walked into the house that night, and I said to myself, I feel terrible. I feel depressed, and oppressed, and beat down. What has happened to me since this morning? Now, you never had that happen to you. You have had it happen to you. Don't you know that it's impolite to sit and stare when someone asks you a question? Have you ever had that happen to you? Good, I'm speaking to your condition. All right. What I want to say tonight in this message, and I'm going to tell you right at the beginning. It's like the old black man who's preaching. He said, first, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to tell you. And then he said, after that, I'm going to tell you. And then I'm going to tell you what I done told you. So, first of all, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to tell you, and it's going to be this. That the only way you're ever going to have victory in your Christian life, and to have that spirit-filled, and crucified, and Christ-exalting life, is when you come to the place where you have taken your emotions to the cross of Calvary, and they have been crucified, and you have started to live by faith rather than by feeling. And I have found that there are thousands and thousands of precious Christians who are being defeated in their Christian life because they are reading their spiritual temperature and their spiritual condition out of their feelings instead of out of the Word of God. Do you know that there are a lot of people who are defeated just because they feel bad, when actually, as far as God is concerned, there isn't anything wrong with their spiritual life? And you know there are a lot of people who feel just fine, who are absolutely out of victory with God? Have you ever met anybody who was not a Christian, who was absolutely happy and enjoying life, and he was not a Christian at all, and he was living for the devil? Do you know any people like that? I do. I know some people like that. David said that he knew some people like that. He said he looked around him, and he saw people that were just as happy as a lark. He said, they're spreading like a green bay tree. He said, everything's going great for them. He said, they don't have any troubles. They're not in trouble like other men. They don't have any sorrows. They're fat and flourishing. He said, they're prospering. And he said, even in their old age, they're having a great time. And he said, I am filled with troubles from morning till night. And he said, I got looking at those people, and I almost slipped. I almost back-slipped. See, because a person feels great doesn't mean that they are right with God. Is that right? And because somebody feels bad doesn't mean that they're not right with God. And God wants to speak to our hearts, and He wants to bring us to a place where He can absolutely set us free from our feelings. I believe if I could get the people in North America, if I could get God's people, born again Christians, saved by His grace, washed in His blood, and born of His Spirit, if I could get them to bring their emotions to the cross of Calvary and get liberated from their feelings, I believe we'd see a revival that would turn North America absolutely around. Because everywhere I go, I see people that are children of God, that are living by their feelings. I read a paragraph out of the Reader's Digest, and this isn't even a spiritual magazine, and this is what it said. It said, hypochondria is the hidden epidemic. It says, Americans are probably the most pain-conscious people on earth. We are becoming a nation of pill-grabbers and hypochondriacs, escalating the slightest pain into a searing ordeal. For years we have had it drummed into us that any hint of pain is to be banished as though it were the ultimate evil. That's the kind of a society in which we live. My wife and I travel together sometimes. She couldn't come with me here. She'd just been with me for three weeks, and she really needed to stay home for a little bit. But when we travel sometimes by ourselves in an automobile, she reads to me. But one day she was looking through a magazine, and she was looking for a needlepoint advertisement for something she wanted to do in needlepoint. And finally she came to a page that was covered with these needlepoint advertisements, and she could not believe what she saw on that page, and so she read it to me. She said, you're not going to believe this, Dick, but there is a needlepoint picture here that you can get and make with needlepoint and frame it and hang it in your house. And it's a motto to hang in your house. And I thought she was going to give me some beautiful motto. I said, what is it? She said, I'm going to read it to you. This is what this motto says that you can make with needlepoint and hang in your house. It says, as soon as the rush is over, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. I worked for it, I owe it to myself, and nobody is going to cheat me out of it. He has one of those in his office. You're going to pray for Ralph, aren't you? You think I made that up, but I didn't make that up. You can buy that thing and make that thing and hang it in your house. When the rush is over, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. I worked for it, and that's true, some of you are sure working for it. And if you keep on working for it, you're going to have it. That's the kind of society in which we live, and I am afraid that God's people have been brainwashed by the behavior sciences of our day, and I'm afraid they have also been brainwashed by some of God's children, and I don't want to be critical of other servants of Christ. But I tell you what, there have been a lot of things preached in the name of Jesus Christ that are not according to the Scriptures. And there have been a lot of Christians that have been brainwashed into thinking that if they do not feel exactly right all the time, that they're not right with God. But that passage we read tonight from 2 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 12, I want you to look at it again with me, please. 2 Corinthians 1 verse 12, and I'm going to read the verse, and I'm going to read it wrong. Okay, are you with me? I'm going to read the verse wrong, and I want you to stay with me, and when I give the wrong word, I want you to shout the right word at me. Are you ready to help me? You're not. They're still not answering me, Ralph. They're still being impolite to this guy from Canada. Are you going to help me? Ah, see, I knew you were hospitable and you were going to help me. All right, verse 12. Now watch me, I'm going to read it, and when I read the wrong word, you give me the right one. For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our feelings. Oh, your Bible doesn't say feelings. Isn't that interesting? See, everywhere I go, I hear Christians rejoicing in their feelings. See, everywhere I go, I hear Christians rejoicing and telling how wonderful they feel, and they're talking as if their feelings are an indication of their spiritual power in life. And they are rejoicing in the testimony of their feelings, and they're saying, oh, I am rejoicing and praising God because of how He has made me feel. Now, they don't say it just like that, but that's what they're really saying. Now, it's perfectly all right to say that God gave you peace, and then He washed away your sins, and He set you free, and He gave you joy within. That's fine. But be careful that you're not caught in the trap of your feelings. Because they do not indicate your spiritual condition. For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, that is a conscience void of offense toward God and man, that is a will surrendered to the Lord and right with God, not with fleshly wisdom. It isn't a thing that comes from the flesh. I want you to know that your feelings come from the flesh. You say, well, listen, I had this experience, and I want you to know that I felt the presence of God. You may sense the presence of God in your inner spirit. Listen to me carefully. You may sense the presence of God in your inner spirit, but you don't feel the presence of God with your human emotions if you have emotional feelings, they are your emotional feelings reacting to the presence and working of God. Did you hear me? We are emotional beings. We have been made with emotions, and emotions are what we theologians call amoral. They have no morality. Feelings, emotions are neither good nor bad. They are neither sinful nor holy. Emotions are not moral because emotions are automatic. They are things that happen to you like the measles. You see, they are things that are not directly under the control of your will. You cannot decide by your will how you will feel. Have you ever felt bad and said to yourself, right now I'm going to feel good, and you felt good. It doesn't work, because you cannot control your emotions directly by your will, and you never sin unless you make a choice with your will. And therefore your emotions, your feelings are not spiritual things in themselves. They are a human reaction to what's happening to you. And therefore your emotions may indicate sin in your life, or they may not indicate sin in your life. They may indicate that God is at work in your life, and He is cleansing you and setting you free, and filling you with His Spirit and doing wonderful things in your life to which your human emotions are reacting, and they may indicate that. And you may be full of joy and praise, and your feelings may be spilling over because of what God is doing in your life. But I want you to know that that is your human emotions reacting to what God is doing. Well, I tell you there's some real strong teaching that needs to be made in this area. Because people are trapped by how they feel. You say, well, when you feel bad and you don't feel spiritual, and you don't feel filled with the Spirit, and you don't feel on fire for God, you can't really accomplish anything for God. That is not true. That is false. Just as false as it can be. I had just come to a church, not the one I'm pastoring now, but another one, and I'd only been there about a month, and finally one day my phone rang and somebody said, Pastor, did you know that Mrs. Bolliard is having surgery this afternoon about two o'clock? Well, I said no, because I didn't even know Mrs. Bolliard. I didn't know even two-thirds of the people in that, or even three-quarters of the people in that church yet. Didn't know their names, didn't know who they were or anything about them. I'd just gotten there, and I was just beginning to get to know a few of the people, and I said no, I didn't know that, and they said, well, that's true, and not only is she having surgery at two o'clock, she's a young housewife with a husband and children, but she's not a Christian. Now, this call came to me on Monday. Any of you pastors have any trouble on Mondays? How many pastors here have any trouble on Mondays? A few of you. Well, Mondays can be rough days for me. I really put in some work on Sundays, and Mondays can be a hard day, and so this particular Monday I was feeling very exhausted, and I was feeling kind of depressed and kind of blue and down, you know, just kind of crushed, and I was going to try to make it through the day. I was going to be on the stage, usually my day off, and just thanking God for the good Sunday we had, you know, and I figured by tomorrow I'd feel better. And now I got this call, and I hung up the phone, and I said, Lord, I don't feel like going over there, but now I've got to go over there to the hospital and try to lead that lady to the Lord. And God said to me, What makes you think that you can lead her to the Lord? Well, that was a good thought. And so we discussed that a little bit, and I decided he was right that I couldn't do it anyway. And so I said, Lord, why did you have to let this happen today on Monday? You know, some people... Do you know that pastors get discouraged sometimes? Did you know that? Now, you know, some people are funny about preachers. They think that every night they go to heaven and come back every morning. You know. I got news for you. That's not true. I mean, they're just real people with all kinds of same problems everybody else has, and they get tired, and they get exhausted, and they get discouraged, and they get blue. And so this was one of my bad days. And I said, Now, Lord, this is really bad. I don't feel like doing this, but I've got to do it. So I got in the car, and I started driving toward the hospital. And you say, Then you felt great. No, I didn't. I felt terrible. And I went over there, and I went up the elevator to the room where I was supposed to be, and I walked in, and I didn't know the lady, but she'd been coming to church, so she knew me. And so there were two ladies in the room. When I walked in, she said, Hello, Pastor Sibley. And I said hello, and I went over, and we pulled the curtain, and I sat down, and I started passing the time of day, and it was getting late, and the Lord said, Well, get on with it. I said, Okay. No, the Lord didn't say that out loud to me. You understand that, don't you? I said, You understand that, don't you? Some of you look at me strangely, you know. God doesn't say to me, Now, hear this. I never hear voices or anything. I'm perfectly okay. All right. But you understand what I mean, don't you, that God gives you a nudge in your inner spirit, and you know that he's pressing you to do something. And so I started talking to her, and I said, Mrs. Bolliard, I need to ask you a question. I said, Have you ever received Jesus Christ as your personal Savior? And she said, No, sir. And I said, Would you like me to tell you how to receive Christ? She said, Yes, sir. So I went ahead, and I explained the gospel to her. You know, I began with, All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And I said, Do you believe you're a sinner? She said, Yes. Then I went to John 3.16, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. I explained how he died on the cross. And I said, Do you believe that? She said, Yes, I believe that. And so then I went over to the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God's eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. I said, Do you believe that the price of sin is death, and that if you don't know Christ, you're going to die without God and go to hell? And she said, Yes, I believe that. And then I went to Revelation 3.20, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice and will open the door, I will come in to him. I said, Do you believe that? She said, Yes, I believe that. And I said, Well, Mrs. Bowie, would you like to receive Christ? And she said, Yes, sir. And I said, Right now? And she said, Yes, sir. Now, wait a minute, you can't do that. I don't feel spiritual today. Huh? I don't feel spiritual today, and I don't feel filled with the Holy Spirit, and I don't feel like there's any power in my life, and it's impossible for me to lead anybody to Christ today, because how could I have God's blessing on my life, and how could I have His power in my life when I don't feel good? Huh? And so, I said, Well, let's pray. So we bowed our heads, and she prayed a sinner's prayer, and confessed her sins, and asked Jesus Christ to come into her life, and then I prayed, and we lifted our heads, and I said, Did you receive Christ? She said, Yes, I did. And she's living for Jesus Christ today. Do you know God doesn't care anything about how we feel? What God cares about is whether our heart is submissive to Him. Is your will yielded fully to God? Do you believe that? I think of another case in that church that was very interesting to me. There was a lady who started coming to the church, and she had a husband who was an alcoholic. And this lady was a Christian, and she said, Will you please come and visit my husband? So I took one of the elders that did evangelism with us, and we went to visit this man. And he really didn't want to talk about the gospel, and so we sat and talked with him, and every time we tried to bring up the gospel, he would change the subject. He did not want to talk about it. And this man that I took with me had been an alcoholic for 37 years, and God had transformed his life and made him into a soul winner, and he's still a soul winner today. He wins people to Christ constantly, week after week. And so I took this man, and so finally I thought, Well, we're not going to get to talk to this man in any other way. So I said to him, Listen. I said, Do you know that this man was an alcoholic for 37 years? Would you like to hear how he quit drinking? The guy said, Yes. So I said, Tell him how he quit drinking. So he started in. Oh, God blessed him. He started in telling his story, and he started weaving the Scripture in, and the doctrines of the gospel. He did a magnificent job, and he presented the whole gospel. And when he got all finished, we said to this man, Would you like to receive Christ? And he said, No. No, not interested. That's that. So we prayed, and we left. Well, a few months passed, and his two daughters who had gotten saved out on the west coast with a bunch of hippies out there, and they had come to the Lord, and they had gotten baptized in the ocean, you know, and they baptized a thousand young people in one service. And these two girls came back to town and found out that their mother was coming to our church, and so they started coming. And then the father took sick, and he was seriously ill. And so I thought, Well, I'd better go see him. So I went to the hospital, and when I went in the hospital and went to go to his room, I had to go by one of those little rooms where people wait, you know. And there sat his wife and two daughters. So I stopped in to speak to them before I went in his room. So one of the girls come up to me, and she stood about one foot from my face, and she looked me right in the eyes, and she said, Pastor, we're going to pray for you while you go in and lead my father to the Lord. And I said to myself, Well, yes, of course. But, you know, we've already tried that very thoroughly, and nothing has happened, and, you know, I hope that's what happens, but I'm not so sure about that. And I said, Well, I'm going in and talk to him. And she saw I was hedging. So again, she looked me right in the eye, and she said, Pastor, we're going to pray for you while you go in and lead my father to the Lord. And I said, Okay, all right, we'll try. You pray. So I admit I went in without any faith at all. And I said, Alan, and I started talking to this man. And every time I tried to talk to him about the Lord, he'd change the subject. So finally I decided I wasn't going to be able to do it, and I was just about to quit when he said to me, Do you believe the Lord is coming soon? And I said, I sure do. And so I started talking to him about the second coming, and he was very interested in that. And so then I thought, Well, I'll steer it around to the gospel, you know. So I talked to him a little bit about the second coming, and then I started steering it around to the gospel. And just as soon as I got on the gospel, he knew what I was doing, and he said, I don't want to talk about that. And I said to myself, See, that's what I thought. See, I'm trying to get it across to you tonight that God is not half so interested in how you feel as He's interested in what you do and whether your will is yielded to God and whether you obey Him. And so then I said something to him that preachers say that they don't mean. You know, preachers say things they don't mean sometimes. I'm confessing for all the rest of the preachers here. And so I said to him, Before I go, why don't we have a word of prayer together? That's not what I meant. I meant before I go, I'm going to pray and you're going to listen. That's what I meant. But he didn't know that I didn't mean what I said. And so he said, Okay. And so I bowed my head and I said, Dear Lord. And he said, Dear Lord. What, what, what? So I thought, Hey, that's pretty good. Let's try another one. So I said, I'm a sinner. And he said, I'm a sinner. And I thought, Here we go. And we walked right through the sinner's prayer and he followed me every phrase right through to the very end. And I said, Thank you, Jesus. And he said, Thank you, Jesus. Amen. Amen. And we lifted our heads and I said, Did you receive Christ? And he said, Of course. Oh my goodness. We're so proud we get in God's way all the time. And we think he needs us to be just all polished and fine and fit and ready to go and full of joy and excitement and all of our emotions at a fever pitch so he can use us for his glory. What a bunch of nonsense. You say, Did that man really get saved that way? Well, I'll tell you he got saved. He quit drinking and smoking and swearing instantly. He never touched anything again. He never said another curse word. He was transformed. And we gave him a New Testament and our elders were very active in that church, the same as the one I'm in now, so I didn't even get back to him for two weeks. And I went to call on him two weeks later and I went in to sit down and he's just full of joy. And I said, You've been reading your New Testament? He said, I sure have. I said, How far have you got? He said, Well, I started in Matthew and I'm on the 20th chapter of Revelation. In two weeks. And that man went home from that hospital. God gave him back his life and he went home from that hospital, lived a wonderful Christian life, was in church every service. His wife could not believe what had happened in their home. She now had a man of God for a husband. And five months later on Easter Sunday afternoon he went in to take a nap. And when his wife went in to wake him for the Easter Sunday night service, he was in heaven. Just as quiet as that. See, I want you to know that God can cleanse us and fill us and empower us and use us if we walk by faith and walk in the Spirit and we do not need to live by our feelings. There's a passage of Scripture that I learned when I was a kid. And it goes like this. Many of you learned it. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof. But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. There are three drives to the self-life. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. There they are. Pride, covetousness, and sensuality. Pride, covetousness, and sensuality. That's the three drives to the self-life. And I want to tell you that that is the three stages in any civilization. Every civilization, every nation, begins young and proud. And the United States years ago was a young nation and a young civilization, and it began full of energy, and full of strength, and full of hard work, and it was a proud, strong, young nation. That's the way any nation gets started. And then after a while, that nation succeeds, and it becomes successful in the world, and it becomes economically sound, and it makes it among the community of nations, and it becomes materially sound. And when it becomes materially sound, it goes to the next stage, the stage of materialism, or covetousness. And that nation then is totally preoccupied, not with the pride of its youth, but it's totally preoccupied with things, with materialism, with money, and with what can be gotten in this world. And then when that nation has lived through that stage until it is completely sated with things, and completely filled with material things to saturation, then there is nothing more to want materially, and then that nation goes into its third and last stage, which is the third stage of the self-life, sensuality. And it becomes a nation totally caught up in experiences, and in its feelings, and the thrills it can get out of life. And I want you to know that the United States and Canada are in the third stage. And they are living in the era of emotion, and all of our learned men, and all of our communication media, and all of our educational facilities are teaching us from morning till night that the only thing that matters is how we feel. And on our bumpers of our automobiles we have stickers, if it feels good, do it. And we are told that if we could only get our emotions straightened out, we would change our behavior. But the Bible says if we would get our behavior straightened out, we would change our emotions. Exactly the opposite. And the thing that God wants to teach us in these days is that as Christians, He wants to set us free from living by our feelings. For if you live by your feelings, you're walking by sight, you're walking in the flesh, you're walking by experience. But if you live in the Spirit, you walk not by sight, but by faith. And where you go to determine your spiritual temperature is the Word of God. And you read your spiritual condition out of the Word of God instead of reading your spiritual condition out of your feelings. And someone says to me, well, isn't that hypocrisy? Isn't that hypocrisy? What are you saying? Are you saying we should go around and act different than we feel? Let's talk for a minute about hypocrisy. What time do you get up in the morning? Come on. Okay, 6 a.m. That's when I usually get up. Sometimes I get up an hour before that, but generally that's the time I set my alarm. I usually wake up before that. Okay, somebody gets up at 6 o'clock. What about somebody else? Four. Hey, he's got us all beat by two hours. Well, I don't know what you do to get up, but let me tell you what I do to make sure that I get up. I set my alarm and I put it all the way across the room on the dresser. I don't put it next to the bed. I put it all the way across the room on the dresser. You know, and then by the time I've turned it off, I'm up anyway. And if I were to say to you, if I were to say to you tonight that when that alarm goes off that I jump out of bed and I skip across the room singing, oh, what a wonderful morning, you know, that would be hypocrisy. Because that's not what I do. I get up and I turn off the alarm and I go wash my face so God won't have to look at it like it was when I got up. And I do a few other things so that I can get into His presence. If I were to say to you that to get up in the morning when you don't feel like it is hypocrisy, what would you say to me? You'd say, no, you're crazy. You'd say, man, we've got to get up or we'll lose our jobs. See, is it being a hypocrite to do something you don't feel like doing? No. If you say that you feel like doing it when you don't, that's hypocrisy. If you lie about it, that's hypocrisy. But it's not hypocrisy to do something you don't feel like doing. And I want to tell you what I can do when I don't feel like doing it. I can pray when I don't feel like doing it. Can you pray when you don't feel like doing it? Well, I hope you get that series on prayer back there. There's a great sermon in there that you should... I have to say it because about half of it is another man's sermon. That's why I'm saying it. You need to hear the testimony of Sid Lowe Baxter about how God taught him how to pray. I'll tell you something. You can pray when you don't feel like it. I can witness when I don't feel like it. You know that? And people can get saved when I witness when I don't feel like it. And I can preach when I don't feel like it. And I can do what I know is right when I want to do what I know is wrong. Amen? Well, your amens are getting weak. I don't know if you're going to sleep or the sermon's too long. Huh? See, God's trying to speak to us because He wants us to go to the cross and deal with our feelings. You say, Pastor, can you really support what you're saying tonight from the Word of God? Can you really back that up with the Scriptures? And very quickly, I want to give you some men in the Bible who suffered in their emotions and in their feelings who were godly men. Would you like to look at that with me? Let me ask you a question first. What about Paul the Apostle? Do you think he was a good Christian? Think he was filled with the Spirit? Think he knew about the crucified life? Think he had the power and anointing? Rather than have you ignorant of our trouble, do you think that a man can be filled with the Spirit and get in trouble? Well, some of you found out that as soon as you met God in Revival, you start getting in trouble. Because the devil was right in there doing everything he could to defeat you, and you start having trouble like you'd never had. And he said, I don't want you to be ignorant of our trouble. It's said of Paul that he was always either in a riot or a revival or both. And I think that's probably true. He said, we got in trouble, which came to us in Asia, and we were pressed out of measure. He said, we were so depressed that you couldn't measure it. He said, the pressure on our lives was so great there was no way to measure it. It was totally beyond our strength. And it was so bad we thought we would die. Now, you talk about bad feelings? This man suffered in his feelings. But the answer to his problem is in verse 9. But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, and when we go to the cross, there are three things that need to be crucified. The entire man is crucified with Jesus Christ, spirit, soul, and body, and raised with Him in His power. And that means our emotions need to be put to the cross, and our feelings need to be given over to crucifixion so we can be set free from our feelings and begin to walk by faith and not by sight. You've got to look at one other passage about Paul. Go to Romans 9. Romans 9 and verse 1. I'm going to read verse 1 wrong again, and I want you to correct me now. Romans 9, verse 1. Get ready to shout out the right word to me when I read it, when I give you the wrong one. I like to hear the rustling of the leaves. Do you have it? Romans 9. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans. Right there. Got it? All right. Chapter 9, verse 1. Here I go. You get ready to correct me. I say the truth in Christ. I lie not. My feelings also bear... Oh, yes. But you see, there are hundreds of thousands of Christians reading this verse like this. Listen. I say the truth in Christ. I lie not. My feelings also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost. Somebody says, if I'm filled with the Holy Ghost, if you're filled with the Holy Ghost, brother, I'll tell you what you'll have feeling like you've never had it. The Bible doesn't say that. The Bible doesn't say that anywhere. That's not in the Bible. And that's not what Paul said. Paul didn't say that it was my feelings that bore me witness in the Holy Ghost. He said it's my conscience also bearing witness in the Holy Ghost. And then he says that I have great heaviness, great heaviness, great depression, a great dark cloud on me. And continual sorrow in my heart. What? Can a man be in victory and filled with the Spirit and the power and blessing of God in his life when he has great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart? Paul did. Paul did. See? Do you see that? You see, our victory in Christ is not dependent on how we feel. It's dependent on our faith and our surrender of our heart and life to the Savior and to His Lordship. That's what it's dependent on. Well, he suffered greatly because of his desire to see the Israelites come to Jesus Christ. I can't turn to Jeremiah tonight. I don't have time. But let me give you the reference. Jeremiah 8, verse 20 through chapter 9, verse 1. Jeremiah is the weeping prophet, you know. And he says he wishes that his eyes were a fountain of tears that he might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of his people. Here is a man who was called the weeping prophet. Let me ask you, do you believe that Jeremiah was a man of God? Was he a mighty prophet full of the Holy Ghost? Absolutely. Listen, this man had a spiritual victory that few of us will ever have in this life. He spent, listen to me, he spent 23 years of his life writing a book. 23 years of his life he spent writing a book. It was the masterpiece of his life. Inspired by the Holy Ghost. 23 years of work. And he sent it over to the king. And the king's secretary stood and read it to the king. And it was in a scroll. And they took a knife and page by page as he read it to the king, the king said, cut off the next page and throw it in the fireplace. And they threw it in. They cut off the next page as he read it. And they threw it in the fireplace. And they didn't have any copiers or any typewriters. And by the time he finished reading, the king had burned the only manuscript of Jeremiah's life work. I don't know what you would have done. I don't know what I would have done. Imagine. I mean, it's gone. Up in smoke. A book that took 23 years to write is life's masterpiece. And the only manuscript, and it's gone. Burned. By an ungodly man. And the secretary went back and he said, Jeremiah, you're not going to believe this. He said, the king just burned up your life's work. What do we do now? And Jeremiah said, get your pen. Oh brother, do you know that's why it's in the Bible? He wrote it again. He did it again. You talk about victory. I mean, that's why it's in the Bible. He wrote it all over again and it's in the Bible. Victory. But this is the man who suffered and who wept until he was called the weeping prophet. But he was a man of victory. Because he didn't live by his feelings, he lived by faith in the Word of God. Well, I have to give you one more. So let me ask you this question. Would you say that Jesus Christ was a man of victory? Huh. Would you say he was someone that never, never, ever was out of victory one time in his whole life? Do you agree with that? Here is the perfect God-man filled with the Spirit without measure totally in victory at all times in his life. But now I want you to see. I want you to see some Scripture. Turn with me to Matthew 26. Matthew 26 and verse 35. Matthew 26 and verse, well, verse 37. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be sorrowful, this is Jesus, began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Talking about feelings now, very heavy. Then said he unto them, and my soul is exceeding sorrowful. Notice the words that are used. Exceeding sorrowful even unto death. He said, I am under such an emotional pressure that I think I will die. Tear you here and watch with me. He said, I need you three fellows to pray with me. I am absolutely crushed with emotion. I'm talking about the perfectly victorious Savior. This is him. He is sorrowful. He is exceeding sorrowful. Even unto death he is depressed beyond measure. Turn with me then to Mark 14. Mark 14. I want you to see this a number of times and each time there's some different words added and that's why I'm going to the different passages. Mark 14 and verse 38. Jesus said, Watch ye and pray lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready but the flesh is weak. No, I haven't got the right scripture. I want verse 33. Pardon me. Verse 33 and 34. Mark 14. And he taketh with him Peter and James and John and began to be sore amazed. You know, that word really bothered me for a long time. Who? Jesus amazed? Can you imagine Jesus being amazed at anything? Doesn't that bother you? I mean, that upsets me. Jesus, the Son of God, the eternal creator, amazed? Not just amazed, but sore amazed. And he said it. It wasn't somebody saying it about him. He began to be sore amazed and to be very heavy. And here's that depression again. And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death. Pray with me. This is Jesus, the perfectly victorious Jesus. You have to turn to one more passage now. Go to Luke. Luke chapter 22. End of the gospel of Luke. Chapter 22 and verse 44 because there's something very important added here. Luke 22, 44. And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly. Now he's in the garden. Jesus has not yet been tried. He has not yet been flogged. He has not yet been spit on or buffeted or had the crown of nails or the thorns or had the nails through his hands and feet. He hasn't been crucified. Jesus is in an agony. What kind of agony? It's not physical agony. He is in emotional agony. See, I am convinced that there are Christians upon whom God puts a burden to pray. And they mistake the burden for depression and they go get a pill. See, that's one of the reasons You see, I'm old enough to remember Christians talking about praying through. Praying through. What did they mean? They meant that God put a burden on them and they meant they got into an agony and they couldn't stop and they prayed and they prayed for hours sometimes, sometimes all night, sometimes for days. And they prayed until they prayed through and God lifted the agony. They weren't talking about physical agony. They were talking about spiritual agony and emotional agony. Because of the burden of a lost world or lost souls or something that needed changing by the power of God. And Christians have become accustomed to thinking they ought to feel good all the time and they're so worried about how they feel that they miss the burden of God. But being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly. You see, being in an agony, he didn't run to the nearest drugstore. But being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly. Do you see that? Well, you say, what kind of an agony was he in? Well, I don't know, but it was something. And his sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Over the years, I've had a lot of wonderful physicians that have been my very close friends, Christian doctors. And I've asked them over and over, can you explain to me how a man could suffer emotionally to the point where blood would pop out through the pores in his skin and run down his flesh? Can you tell me what the connection is, how a man could be in such an emotional agony that he could sweat blood? And they can't tell me. I have been in such an emotional agony at one time in my life when I wanted to die. Have you ever wanted to die? I remember one time I was getting ready to fly to Minneapolis to go to an annual council of the Christian Missionary Alliance. And my wife didn't know it, but on the way to the airport, I prayed and I said, Oh God, I wouldn't want anybody else to get hurt, but if there's any plane going to crash today, let me be on it. I was serious. But I didn't sweat blood. I've counseled a lot of people in my life and I've seen a lot of people in terrible emotional agony, but I've never seen anyone sweat blood. And I want you to know that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, the God-Man who was absolutely perfect and who never sinned and who lived in total victory every moment of his existence on earth and was given the Holy Spirit without measure, I want you to know that he suffered in his emotions and in his feelings like no other human being ever has or ever will suffer. But he was in perfect victory. Absolutely in perfect victory. Because he walked by faith and not by sight. And Jesus was in victory. You say, how do we know? Because in all of these cases we've read you tonight, there was one thing that was uniform. And it was this, that he prayed and said, Oh my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done. And I want to tell you tonight, child of God, that if you can bow your head before your Savior and say, Oh my God, not my will, but Thine be done. And mean it with all your heart and know that your will is surrendered to God. I want to tell you that you are living in absolute victory and I don't care how you feel. And you can be cleansed by His blood and your self-life can be put on the cross and you can be liberated from your feelings and you can learn to live by faith and walk in the Spirit and you can serve God no matter how you feel. And you can be blessed and used of God and never have a day in your life go by when God doesn't use you for His glory. It doesn't matter whether you're sick in body or sick in soul. You can be filled with the Spirit and you can walk in holiness and in victory regardless of how you feel. That's the teaching of God's dear word. That's absolutely true. You say, what's the answer? Well, the answer I've given you many times tonight, Paul said, we had the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves. We should not trust in our feelings, but in God who raises the dead. Faith, walking by faith in God rather than faith in our feelings. That's what God wants to do for us. I'm going to close. Can I give you one more story before I close? I've got, yeah, I think I have five minutes. Can you listen five more minutes? Yeah, wake your neighbor up. No, let him sleep, please. Let him sleep. Five more minutes. I'm going to close. The first time I was ever in Regina, Saskatchewan, I'm an American, by the way. The first time I was ever in Regina, Saskatchewan, I was asked to come up there and speak at the Canadian Revival Fellowship Conference and that was in 1975. Now, don't listen to that phone because it doesn't matter at all. One thing God did for me in Revival was set me free from the phone. Okay? I'm liberated. I just let it ring. Doesn't bother me at all. Besides, I have a secretary. Okay? Now, I was speaking at the Canadian Revival Fellowship Conference in Regina. It was a great weekend. We started on Friday night. A blizzard came in. It's good it did because the place was jammed. If we hadn't had a blizzard, people would have been standing out in the snow. The place was packed. It was a great weekend. I was having the time of my life and I was in the prayer room every night and people were meeting God and just about the end of the thing one night it was 12 midnight and the door opened and I just happened to look up and my wife was standing there and she was going like this. So I went to the door and I said, What's the matter, honey? And she said, Are you trying to kill yourself? I said, No, I'm just in here praying with these people. She said, You come with me and go to bed? She was right, of course. I went with her and went to bed because I was getting exhausted. And that was a fantastic weekend and it was Monday and we were finally finished and a bunch of us went to the airport and we were going to fly back go to Toronto and then back to the States. And there were about 12 of us, I think, and we said, Listen, let's all get seats together on the plane and we'll sing revival choruses all the way back for three hours to Toronto. That's a little loony but we were going to do that. We were all excited and, you know, we got up there and something went wrong and we could not get any seats together. In fact, I was lucky to get a seat with my wife and they just put us all over the plane because God had a different plan. And so we got set down and we got up into the air, you know, and we're now cruising at 31,000 feet, you know, in three hours we'll be in Toronto and blah, blah, blah. And so I said to my wife, Listen, honey, I am absolutely exhausted. I feel like a dish rag. I have been wrung dry. I haven't got a thing in me. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, I am empty and I am going to sleep for the next three hours. Don't let anyone bother me. So I put the seat back and I went sound to sleep. I don't know how long I slept for a while, I guess, probably for an hour. And all at once I woke up with a start and there was a lady down, kind of, you know, hunched down in the aisle and she was tapping me on the knee and she looked up at my face so pitiful and it was one of the ladies from the revival, from the meeting. And she said, Pastor Sipley, I hate to wake you up. I know you're tired. But she said, there's a lady up here in the plane sitting next to me and her 23-year-old son who has a wife and two children has just died and her heart is broken and her husband's given her some money and she has a novel in her lap and he told her go to Toronto and try to get over it and she is trying to run away from her sorrows. And I've been sharing Christ with her and she's at the point where I think she's ready to be saved. Will you come up and help her? Hey, do you ever get mad at the Lord? You know, I was mad at the lady and I was a little upset at my wife because she didn't stop the lady though that wasn't her fault. And I was a little mad at God for not letting me sleep. And then, you know, common sense prevailed. And I said, okay, you sit in my seat. I'll go up there. And I went up and sat down by this dear lady and I started to talk to her and she started to cry. And I said, would you like to receive Jesus as your Savior? And she said, I really would. I've been in church all my life but nobody's ever told me that. And she said, I just thought I was a Christian but I've never received Christ. And I said, well, you can receive Him. And I said, would you like to receive Him now? And she said, right here? I said, yeah, it's a great big jet. Nobody's paying any attention to us. I said, they don't care what you're doing. Nobody's looking. I said, you can just bow your head and we'll just pray together very quietly and you need to pray out loud and you can receive Christ. But I said, the first thing you're going to have to do is forgive God for taking away your son. Now, I don't mean that God had done something wrong to her. But I mean that she felt that God had done something wrong to her so she had to forgive God. And so she said, all right. So she started praying, our dear heavenly Father, almighty God, you know, and she's wandering all over the place. And I saw she wasn't going to get anywhere so after she had stumbled around for a couple minutes I said, let me help you. So I started leading her in a prayer and she was doing pretty good and then I said, and dear God, I forgive you for taking my son. And she just started to bow and she cried and she said, oh God, I forgive you for taking my son. And then, and then God moved in. And her heart just opened up and she confessed her sins and she invited Jesus Christ to come into her life and he saved her. And we talked a little bit about she was so happy and God had lifted the burden and his peace and joy flooded into her heart. And so now, I thought, well she needs this other lady now who's a fine Christian so I went back and I said, I said, okay, you go back up and you get her name and her address and all that, you write to her and follow her up and everything. So I sat back down in my seat and I said, now honey, I'm going to sleep. And so I put back the seat and I just started to doze off and the pilot said, we're now making our approach to Toronto. Do you think, do you think that God really needs my feelings? He doesn't need my feelings. You say, don't you like good feelings? Sure. Don't you ever get blessed? Sure. Don't you ever express emotion toward God? Sure! Can't you tell? Oh, I get so blessed sometimes in our worship services and get choked up and the tears run down my face. I have a marvelous time. But I know that's me reacting to God. That's not God. That's me reacting to God. Do you understand what I'm saying tonight? And there's some of you sitting here tonight who are never, ever going to have total victory in your life until you take your feelings to the cross and leave them there. You can leave them there. And refuse, in the name of Jesus, ever to live by your feelings again and commit them to the death of the cross and let him fill you with his resurrected life and determine you're going to live by faith and not by your feelings. Let us bow in prayer. Amen. Our heads bowed and our eyes closed. No one looking around just quietly before God in prayer. You say, Pastor, God is really speaking to my heart tonight and God has shown me that the reason I haven't had complete victory is that I've been living by my feelings instead of by faith and I want to be set free. I want you to know God is here and he'll meet your need. And with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, if you want to go to prayer tonight and get down on your knees and turn your feelings over to the cross and over to the Christ of the cross and let them be crucified tonight with him by faith, now is the time to do it. God will set you free. And with our heads bowed and no one looking around, we're all praying for one another, why don't you just get up out of your seat and go to the back of the auditorium and go right straight to the back and go into the prayer room. Someone will be there to guide you and to show you where to go and just get down on your knees and pour out to God your problem and there will be someone there to help you. We're going to wait a few moments in quiet prayer if God is speaking to you tonight and you need to be set free, you get up and go right now. Thank you. Thank you. I tell you, God will change your life. He'll transform your life. Everyone praying for one another because we love each other so much and because we care so much about the pains and the defeat of each other and we'd do anything to help each other to victory. You just get up and go tonight. The Lord has deliverance for you from your feelings. While we wait, you may want to go with those who have gone. See, this may be your night to change your entire life. From tonight on, you don't ever need to be in bondage to your feelings again. You may have some bad feelings after this, but you don't ever need to be enslaved to them ever again. God will set you free. Just get up and go to the prayer room and deal with that tonight in his presence. Lord God, I pray that in thine own way thou will take the truth that has become so real to our hearts tonight and translate it into our lifestyle in such a way that we will always be in a forgiving spirit. That is to say, God forgive me for allowing my feelings to control me. Spirit of the Living God, teach us what it means to have our faith finding its resting place not in device nor creed but to trust the ever-living one his wounds for me shall plead. My heart is leaning on the word, the written word of God. Salvation by my Savior's name. Salvation through his blood. May that be true in every one of our hearts and lives as we go home rejoicing knowing that we are walking by faith. Without faith it is impossible to please him. Faith is the substance of things hoped for evidenced by the fact that we do not see. I pray that thou would seal the truth to our hearts dismiss us with thy love thy blessing thy benediction. We'll thank thee for it and praise thee in Christ's name. Amen.