This sermon emphasizes the call to drink the cup of suffering and baptism of fire, following the example of Jesus who endured sorrow, anguish, and the cross. It challenges believers to embrace obedience, sacrifice, and a deeper level of commitment to experience the fullness of God's power and transformation. The message highlights the need for revival, genuine prayer, and a return to true devotion to ignite a fire of love and zeal for God in the hearts of believers.

The Gospel is recorded by Luke in chapter 12, reading verses 49 and 50. I am come to send fire on earth, and what will I if it be already kindled? That I have a baptism to be baptized with. I've been going to meetings, being old and antique as I am, I've been going to meetings for more than 70 years, all over the world. Pentecostal conferences, Methodist conferences, all kinds of conferences. I've heard the baptism of the Holy Spirit preached, I think, 50 different ways. You can go to the greatest conventions in America, and they'll put a notice up, we're going to preach about the baptism of the Holy Ghost. In 70 years I've never heard anyone preach on this text. I have a baptism. Jesus speaking of himself. But the first part of that verse is wonderful, verse 49. I am come to send fire on earth. You know, Charles Wesley gave us that lovely children's hymn, Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon the little child. But you know, some people never get past Gentle Jesus. Jesus is associated with fire. The next time he comes, what is it, 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 says, he's coming with flaming angels, thousands of them. It would have been wonderful if he'd come like the first time. It would have been more impressive. But that wasn't God's plan, but he's going to come. But here he is, and he's saying to these disciples, I am come to send fire on earth. And what if it is already kindled? I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straightened until it be accomplished? I come to send fire. Again, the symbol of the church. I was preaching last Sunday night in a big church with a big cross of Jesus and one for the thieves. I reminded them, that's pagan, that's not Christian, that's cruel. The cross is no symbol of Christianity. The symbol of Christianity is a tongue of fire that's set on the head of each of them. And now God is a consuming fire. I am come to send fire on earth. I've got to quote one of Wesley's hymns or you'll be disappointed, I'm sure. But Wesley has a wonderful hymn on this. He says, See how great a flame aspires, kindled by a spark of grace. Jesus loved the nation's fire, set the kingdom on ablaze. To bring fire on earth he came, kindled in some hearts it is. O that all might catch the flame, all partake the glorious bliss. When he first the work began, small and feeble was the flame. Do you think now? I should have brought the hymn book, I'm getting forgetful. When he first the work began, small and feeble was its flame. Now the word does swiftly run, now it wins its widening way. More and more it spreads and grows, ever mighty to prevail. Sin's stronghold it now o'erthrows, and shakes the trembling gales of hell. Sons of God, you'll make a praise. He adored hath opened wide, he hath given the word of grace. Jesus' love is glorified. The last standard is, Saw ye not a cloud arise, little as a human hand? Now it spreads along the skies, spreads o'er all the thirsty land. Jesus, mighty to prevail, I can't remember the last line. But you see he got the idea of a spark at the beginning, and gradually it blossoms out, it goes through the whole world. Now Wesley wrote that in 17, he wrote it in 17, I think 76. And yet it's prophetic because it's done that. More and more it spreads and grows, ever mighty to prevail. With the expansion of a thing, usually there's a weakening. But when the church truly expands, there's a strengthening. God never planned any failures for us. I am come to bring fire on earth, what will I if it be already kindled? I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straightened? Or Weymouth translates that, how am I pent up? I'm not free to let that flame go forward, this is my design. I want to kindle a fire, and all the power of hell won't put that fire out. It's Holy Ghost fire against hell fire. And when the church is really on fire, she is indeed the most attractive thing in the whole wide world. Supposing that I am come to give peace on earth, well that's what we love, isn't it? Don't we recite from Isaiah, His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. But listen to what Jesus says, You suppose I came to earth with peace, I tell you neighbor, rather division. For from henceforth there shall be five in one house. Divide it three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, the son against the father, and the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And so he's making this prediction. Then verse 54 he says also, When ye see a cloud rise in the west straightway ye say, There cometh a shower, and so it is. When ye see the south wind blow ye say, There will be heat, and it cometh to pass. Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, how is it that you cannot discern this time? What time? The fact that he was there, the Son of God. The fact that he was a culmination of all the prophets of all the ages. Jacob said, I shall see him, but not now. I shall behold him, but not nigh. A star shall arise out of Jacob that shall rule my people, and here he is. They read over and over again, a virgin shall be with child. They read about his kingdom coming. And yet here they are, blind. They can discern the weather. They had their predictors in those days, and fortunes. But he says, how is it you can't discern the time? You know, I believe God looks from heaven and says the same to us. I think he's saying, you dumb crowd. What do I have to do next to tell you? All these things around about us, didn't I tell you in the last days there'll be corrupt living, corrupt families, families divided, the divorce, diseases, damnation. We finance damnation. We invest money in every cruel damnable thing that there is. We know the gospel isn't being preached. It's being diluted in a very, very tragic way. So it's for us again to discern the sign of the times. Now I want to bear this out actually from the gospel according to Matthew. The twentieth chapter, excuse me. Okay, are we in chapter twenty now? Matthew chapter twenty. It is from verse seventeen. Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way and said unto them, Behold we go up to Jerusalem, the Son of Man shall be betrayed, and the chief priests and the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify him. Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children. Who were they? James and John. Not as worshipping him and desiring a certain thing of him. And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She said unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on the right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask? Well she asked a big thing. In the other gospel it says that they asked, that John and his brother asked. Here it says his mother asked, I guess there's a collusion in this. They'd agreed together to try and give Jesus, they believed he was going to have a kingdom, and they wanted to sit on the right hand and the left hand when he came into his kingdom. But notice they came worshipping him. And yet in their worship there was begging. It wasn't fuel. They had an ulterior motive, they were trying to bargain with him. Jesus answering said, Ye know not what ye ask? Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and be baptized with the baptism that I'm baptized with? Now we said there in Luke, go back a minute there into chapter, was it 12? Again verse 49, I am come that sent fire on earth. What was that fire? Why didn't he? What hindered him from giving them the fire at that moment? A baptism, of what? Sorrow, a baptism of anguish. A baptism we call Gethsemane. You see there's no place in the whole wide world where you can put the upper room before the cross. The cross comes before the upper room. We try and turn that round. As I said sometimes, very often now we're asking people to tarry in the upper room who've never knelt at the cross. They get a false experience, and it evaporates. We shun the cross. I have a baptism to be baptized with. But I want you to receive a fire that will change that degraded will of yours. It will endue you with power. It will give you energy. It will give you life. He says, I want to do that, but I'm straightened. I wish it could be accomplished, but it cannot be done yet. So then we go back again to that other chapter again, in Matthew chapter 20. Remember if we'd gone a bit further back in that previous chapter, a man listened to him long enough, then he says, why don't you ask my brother to settle the estate? Settle a family dispute. You know, there are people that think God is only around to help us. We've got a great utility God to be. You pray and he does this, you pray and he does that. You pray and he sends you money. You pray and he gets you out of a jam. He's not somebody who worships in speechless adoration. He's a utility God. And these boys on TV are exploiting that to the nth degree. I'm going to read this again. Chapter 20 and verse 20. Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children with her sons, worshipping him and desiring a certain thing of him. What is that you would like me to do? Let one sit on thy right hand and one on thy left hand when thou comest into thy kingdom. Jesus answered, you know what he asked. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They said unto him, we are able. So that he did. He took them at his word. I want my son to enter the kingdom sitting on the right hand, sitting on the left. There's only one way into the kingdom, that's death. In the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 12 and verse 2, it says Herod. And that Herod was Herod the gripper of the first. He was the grandson of Herod the great. Remember Herod the great tried to liquidate Jesus when he was a babe. See, before he could walk or talk, the world was afraid of Jesus. When they heard he was born, Herod was troubled. Why? Herod's got a standing army. Herod has a palace. Herod has everything he wants. You mean to say that little thing there sucking his mother's breast, that the king is terrified of him? Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. Except one or two old people. Older people have more wisdom, as you can see. You know, I think so often of that. We talk so much about Hannah in the Old Testament. We don't talk too much about Anna in the New Testament. She's a hundred years of age and she's going day by day to pray. And Simeon's an old man. Just a bunch of old folk going and they will not die until God has sent that precious child that he promised 750 years before. Magnificent. You know what she's like. Are you able to say, yeah, we can drink the cup. All right lady, I wonder if she was living when her son was brutally put to death. Again Acts 12 and 2 says that Herod killed James the brother of John. It was Herod Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod the Great, a terrible butcher. A man who could be linked up with Pharaoh that liquidated all the babies in Egypt. Well, no, in Israel. An ancient Hitler. I'm trying to write a book, I'm not doing too well with it. On the judgment seat of Christ. I think of the days when all the armies of men had been slaughtered. All the babies had been butchered. The million babies that were dragged out of the mother's wombs this past year in Christian America and torn up and put down the toilet. Every one of them is going to rise up in judgment one day. Didn't we say the other day about Jeremiah, God says, I knew thee when thou wast in the womb and I sanctified and ordained thee there. Is he the exception? No, no, no, no. Life belongs to God. And whatever we do with it, we'll be accountable for it. We said that the one thing that sustained, as it does all men who get in there, the one thing that sustained Jeremiah, he had more conflict than any other prophet of old. Immediately he was raised up, he was in conflict, he was conflict when he was dying. What was the secret of his power? I'll tell you the secret of his power. It's very obvious, he states it. He says, thy fire burned within my heart while I mused the fire burn. Yesterday I took the prophecy of Jeremiah in account. Do you know he mentions 41 times he mentioned fire? They put him in a pit, didn't burn the fire out of him, destroyed the fire. I think it was Amarishol's son that wrote a hymn that, a verse of the hymn he wrote says this, Waters cannot quench it, floods can never drown, substance cannot buy it, love is a priceless crown. All the wondrous story, mystery divine, I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. The fire is unquenchable. The fire of hell is unquenchable. The fire of the Holy Ghost is unquenchable. I know there's a lot of opposition against the second blessing. I challenge you to find me a man that has made history in God's kingdom who somewhere didn't have a second crisis after he was born again to the Spirit of God. The founder of the Quakers said he found something in him that wouldn't keep peace and he wanted to get rid of the thing in him that was always troubling him. William Booth said, I found I ebbed and flowed until one day the Holy Ghost came in his fullness. And then he wrote that marvellous battle hymn that the modern Salvationist doesn't know. They marched, the Salvation Army was a penniless organisation, it went into 70 countries in 90 years, not 70 cities, 70 countries. Men and women left their castles in England. Professors left their professions. University people went, why? Because there's a fire. They could see that fire as clear as Israel could see that pillar of fire at night. The Holy Ghost is here. And old William had them going, singing, marching down the street, Thou Christ of burning cleansing flame, send the fire. Thy blood-bought gift today we claim, send the fire. Look down and see this waiting host, give us the promised Holy Ghost. We want another, I'm not sure we want it, we need it. You see, the thing between where you are now and the baptism of fire is a cup. I'd better get to it or I'll talk too long. Verse 22, Jesus answered and said unto her, Ye know not what ye ask, are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink? Remember again he said, I have a baptism to be baptized with. He'd been baptized in Jordan, he wasn't talking about that. The man who introduced him to the world said, I baptize you with water. The baptism is external. When he comes he'll do something internal. He'll baptize you with the Holy Ghost. The literal Greek is, he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost fire, not with the Holy Ghost and with fire, you can't separate them. God is a consuming fire. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost fire. You see, there's something between here and there. Some of you haven't been here before but I'm glad to see you. But let me say this, I say it often. I don't know where you are spiritually. There's not a man who's walking with God that doesn't know he could have been further up the road than he is if he'd really taken care. If somebody had taught him when he was born again. Do you know what happened? He was born and he was put in a refrigerator. There's a dear old, the last of the line amongst the Baptists I think, Vance Havner, he wrote the foreword for my last book, he's a great character. And he said some people, where he lives up in Greenville, where is that? South Carolina? Oh, he said they're still living in the last century. He said the man came selling refrigerators, they didn't know what they were, they still had iceboxes. And he said, well, this is what you do with a refrigerator. You take this plug and stick it in, but they didn't have any electricity. So it didn't help very much. But in his drawl, I couldn't imitate, you know, he said, you know, oh, in my country, we've got the biggest refrigerators in America, they've got steeples on them. Now I didn't say that, the Baptists said it. Mr. Chatham, it used to say to us gentlemen, when sold, don't bring them to birth and put them in a refrigerator. The church never had more equipment than she has now, she never had less power, never less anointing, never less of the miraculous, never less than the omnipresent God. As I've said before, when did you last tip to out of church Sunday morning breathless, awed by the awesomeness of God's majesty, God's glory, God's omnipotence? We know what's going to happen. Stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down. Now the choir will sing. Sit a bit longer. Now the box is coming. Drop some offering in it. And now we're going to have another song. You know, if we'd spent as much time teaching people to pray as we taught the choir, we'd have set the world on fire. Yes. What's the good of having all the machinery in the world if you've nothing to drive it? Yes. I don't care whether you've come on a, I'm going to say a skateboard, no, if you've come on a Volkswagen tonight or a Rolls Royce. We're all dependent on one thing when we're sitting in a car. We turn the switch and if there is no spark, there you're finished. Your car may be insured, it may be the cleanest car, it may be in wonderful condition, but it needs a spark to drive it. But look at all the equipment in the church. If the fire of the Holy Ghost really came upon the church today, we could shake the world in six months. Without a shadow of doubt. You know not what ye ask. I wonder how often God says, that's worse. As I've told you many times, and I say privately in my press, I don't want to get to the judgment seat. With maybe trillions of eyes looking on me. I'm here, Jesus is there. And everybody that's lived since Adam is going to see me come up for trial. I do not want God to say to me in that day, Son, I had many things to tell you but you couldn't bear them. I've got a new saying and I'm always pushing it down people's throats now. When are we going to get serious about being serious about revival? We're not serious about it. I got a big brochure this week. Oh, I don't know how many big celebrities are going. The man that's running the thing, I want you to come as my personal official guest and I'll pay all your fare and I'll pay your hotel fees and everything. And it said so and so is going to speak. And there's going to be a special session. You don't get this often so I'll give you the address if you want. There's going to be a special session. Maybe twice or three times in the week to teach puppetry. And then it goes on to say we're going to teach mimes. I'm not being facetious. Can you imagine the men coming out of the upper room teaching those rebel priests and grouse puppets? Coming with their faces painted white and their hands and clowning? Dear Lord, we've enough clowns outside the church. Why bring them in? Why should the world take us seriously when we don't take God seriously? Come on! Are you able to drink the cup and be baptized with the baptism that I should be baptized with? What's a cup? Scripture chapter 26, please, in Matthew. And verses 39 to 42. Here's the baptism for you. He went a little further and fell on his face and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. And he cometh to his disciples and finding them sleeping, said to Peter, What could ye not watch when ye were now? Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. What was a cup? Well, I'll tell you what one ingredient was. It had betrayal in it. The men who'd sworn allegiance to him, when it came to the crisis, they quit. Can he drink of the cup? What's in the cup? I believe in that cup there was internal suffering, mental suffering, and spiritual suffering. Do you want to drink the cup? I'm straightened, he says, I cannot do anything now. I cannot do anything. There's a baptism I have to go through. The Holy Ghost can't come down until I go up. I can't go up until I've done the will of the Father. And he goes through the agony of Gethsemane. He goes through the lonesomeness. He drank of that cup. I say it was internal. Why? Because in Isaiah 53, verse 11, he says, He travailed. Isn't that internal? Deserted by others, and in the darkest hour, not only deserted by men, deserted by God. Can you drink of that cup? Do you want to travel? You see, what people are seeking for today is a painless Pentecost. There isn't such a thing. The day of Pentecost was fully come. What happened immediately after Pentecost? They prospered. Yes, they did. They went to jail. It wasn't prosperity. It was prison, pain, privation, persecution. The men are dishonest that preach on TV today. They're liars. It's in the case of blessing, and God will open the windows of heaven on you. Jesus goes on to say, when that man in the other chapter that we didn't read of, when he says, settle this dispute between my brother and myself about the family estate, Jesus says, lay not up for yourself treasure on earth, where moth and rust get up and thieves break through and steal. You know, there's a lot of wealthy Christians who'll get to heaven bankrupt. And there's a lot of Christians almost bankrupt, living in poverty. They'll be super millionaires when they get into eternity. But this is the way. But if you read in the other version of that, if you're going to follow the Lord, it's division in the family. Your father and mother will hate you. Jesus got to the place where his brother said he's insane. You know, people say, I want to be like Jesus. I doubt it. You want to get kicked out of your family because you love God? You want to be so true to God that a Thomas comes and doubts you? That a Judas sells you? You really want to be like Jesus? Well, why don't you practice it? Why don't you have 40 days and 40 nights of fasting? Forget all the paperwork. We make such rash vows. When the temperature's running high in a meeting, we make vows, vows, vows. I say the pain was internal. He shall see of the travel of his soul and be satisfied. I'm sure it was not only internal, I'm sure it was mental pain. I'm sure it was bodily pain. Because it says in the, what, the 50th chapter of Isaiah there, I gave my back to the smiters. We don't do that. We fight back. We don't like somebody to carve us up, scorn us, ridicule us, humiliate us, misrepresent us. And he got the whole works. And then he never muttered once. What did he say? He said that when it came to the agony of the cross, that men shot out the lip. I don't understand those disciples, I never will. Why after he came from the judgment hall and was going to the cross, why didn't they line up on either side of the road and applaud him and say, this is the way our king comes into his kingdom. Instead of that, men shot out the lip and scorned and said, if God's your father, let him deliver you. I say again, the perennial challenge to a Christian is come down from the cross and save yourself. You made a decision in a missionary meeting, I'm going to give more money to missions, and you backed off. I'm going to spend more time with God. Forget it. You didn't do it. You know when Elijah, before he called down the fire, he went back and he built the old altar. We don't want to go back to old altars, to old vows, to old commitments. We're always trying to make new things. God knows they'll be broken down anyhow in a few weeks. Christianity has not been weighed in the balances and found one thing, it's been tried, found difficult and rejected. It's too tough. There's no part-time service. Leave all and follow me. Drink of the cup, in the darkness and agony of Gethsemane. I've told this story, I'll tell it again briefly. I was going down the street in Oldham, which is nine miles outside of Manchester. I was in my early twenties, and I pastored the largest church in town. In fact, the largest wholeness church in England. Going down the street one day, I passed this house, a lady opened the door. Hi! I said hi. She said, you're the pastor at the tabernacle. I said yes. I often come to your church. I sit on the back seat. I'm very poor. Fine. I don't like to come. I don't want to come and give anything in the offering. But she said, I want you to do something. She said, would you come in my house and drink a cup of tea? Well, usually, of course, I want tea. I said yes. The only thing is that I went in, you know, you went in like this. Boy, that house did it smell. I got in there and, you know, the books, she bought books from a junk shop nearby. I'd seen her in the shop many times. She had them like a wall, when you went in the door, that you could just keep your hands on top of them, go right through to the back room, the dining room, which was dining room and everything else. Oh, you will have a cup of tea. I said, sure I'll have a cup of tea. She had lovely fingernails. They got pussy patoot around them, you know. Well, in common language, her fingernails were all in mourning. Clogged up with dirt. The kitchen sink had dishes this height, from here about this height. There was a plate there with some old bacon on it. It got, what do you call that stuff? Penicillin. You've heard her say that before. She didn't know she could have sold it. Penicillin, yes siree. She got that fuzzy, horrid looking stuff. Well, you take tea, yes. She reached in the kitchen sink with a stack of cups, and you know the tea had run on the outside, and she picked it up, mercy on us, looked as though it had about a hundred bugs at the bottom. Dried, dirty, rotten old tea leaves. In fact, some were mouldy. Well, now she said, I'm going to give you a cup of tea. I said, all right. She poured the tea into the cup, it was as black as my shoes. And I don't like black tea. Do you take cream? Yes? I have not. Good. Do you take sugar? Yes? I have not. And with that dirty hand shaking, I saw that black stuff that was supposed to be tea, cold as ice, and I hesitated. I felt like tipping it up. But I knew I was on trial. And she held the cup out. Well, I hesitated. Drink it. And as she handed me that cup of dirty tea, my mind went 2,000 miles away from the town I was in to a place called Gethsemane. 2,000 miles away, 2,000 years back. And the Father gave a cup of all the dregs of impurity and wickedness in it. And he didn't give it to Gabriel. He didn't give it to Michael the Archangel. He gave it to his son. This is what he's come to do. He's come to consume iniquity. And he's going to do it in the garden of Gethsemane by himself when everybody's betrayed him and his nerves are down and he can hear the enemy coming. And he's thinking of all the years he's demonstrated his power as a son of God. He's walked on the water. He's raised the dead. He's cleansed the leper. He's put insane people, and they didn't believe on him. So what's the difference today? Do we believe on him? Remember, there wasn't one of the twelve disciples ever had a Bible. Not even the apostle Paul had one. You know, don't boast too much about your Bible knowledge. It's going to face us at the judgment seat. I wonder sometimes, I don't have a big library. I have a few nice books. I was handling one yesterday and I thought, will these books rise up in judgment against me? We're looking, I say again with all my heart, we're looking for a painless Pentecost. We want to invest a dime and get a million dollars back. Can you drink of the cup? We're able. So they drank and they were crucified. Today it's considered sadistic. If you say people have to take up their cross even. Don't tell young people about the cross, they'll be discouraged. Am I suggesting Jesus wasn't smart? If you're going to be my disciple, kiss the world goodbye. You see, when people are born again these days, they don't get separated from the world. Most likely their pastor is the most worldly guy that is around. But if you're going to get what he wants to give, if you're going to get the real true baptism of the Spirit, you have to drink of that cup. They said we're able. And he said you shall drink indeed of my cup and be baptized with the baptism that I'm baptized with. But to sit on my right and on my left, it's not mine to give. The Father's going to do that. But verse 24 says when the ten, the other ten disciples were around listening, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. Now he rubs their noses in the dust. You're looking to sit on my right hand and my left in my kingdom? He could have said aren't you prepared to go, are you prepared to go through hell to get there? You can't show me a revival in history that hasn't been born of travail and pain and loneliness and dark weary nights. As I read this I thought again today of seeing there's a model up in Scotland, nine miles out of Glasgow, there's a great big, big, big house. It's a national memorial to David, I was going to say David Brennan, no. What was his name? David Livingstone. And it shows the room where he died, where for years and years he prayed. It's like some of those houses in India that just got bamboo and then leaves woven in. And there he is kneeling over a bed, if you can call it that, two bamboo rods and with some leaves on, and a candle flickering, there's an automatic electric candle flickering there. And they said every night he would kneel at that bed and you would hear him crying with his hands raised. God, when will the wound of this world's sin be healed? He fought the Portuguese slave traders. He did many, many marvellous things. Why? Because he had to get 70 of his own. His precious wife died, he buried her in the jungle. Then the baby that she born died, he buried the child at the side of its mother. Another child he had died, he buried that. And the record I have said that he said this, as he laid them to rest, and he buried them of course the Christian way, said they'd die and come back in the resurrection. You see, the reason he brought his wife, he married the daughter of Moffat, the great missionary, Mary Moffat. She kept writing and saying, David, why don't you let me come over there? People say that you don't care, you don't love me. People say you got tired of me. People say this, say that. So finally she came. I believe she brought one child, another one was born afterwards. What did she get? He told her not to come because they didn't have the drugs that we have today, the quinine and all kinds of stuff. She got malaria. And as he pointed the finger down, he said, Mary, darling, Mary, people will say you were killed with malaria. No, no, no such thing he said. You were killed by the cruel tongues of people in Scotland that drove you out of your native home and sent you here. But that grief didn't change his zeal for God. It added fuel to the fire. The devil's trying to rob me. The devil's trying to hinder me. And he worked with great zeal. He prayed more than ever he prayed. And they said night after night his voice would echo through the forest. So God, when will the wound of this world of sin be healed? Dear God, all our paths are concerned about is adding one or two members. Getting another bus to bring the people in. There can be no revival again, I say, without travail. I want my son to sit on the right hand. Well, listen, here's his answer. Verse 24, When the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. Jesus called unto them and said, Know ye not that the princes of the Gentiles exercised dominion over them, and they are a great exercise of authority upon them? But it shall not be so among you. Whosoever will be the greatest among you, let him be your minister. And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant. That's the switch, isn't it? They want him to sit on the right hand. He says, well, the way into my kingdom, if you want to go up, you go down. Exalt yourself, I'll abase you. Be abased, and I'll exalt you. Save your life, you'll lose it. Lose your life, you'll save it. It's reverse logic. Verse 27, Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant. Even as a son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life. Not to give his theology. Not to declare, I have a mandate from the Father to instruct you. He gave them all he had. He gave them the Sermon on the Mount. He gave them evidence that he had dominion over sin and death and disease and devils and everything. And yet they were unbelieving. I say one thing, reverting to the other thing again. I'm straightened, I'm tied up, I can't do anything yet. That's what he said in Luke 12 there. I have no release. I have a baptism to be baptized with. Before that word of John that startled you when he said, when he comes he'll be baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire. But he didn't do that. Not immediately. He says, I've got to go through the Father's will. And the Father's will is Gethsemane. The Father's will is the cross. The Father's will is, I go down into the depths, and I lead captive in a captive and give gifts unto men. As I've said, there's two great reasons we don't have revival. One, we're content to live without it. Number two, it's too costly. We don't want God to disrupt our status quo. We want to eat, drink, and be merry, and tomorrow we'll live. But the Christian life can only be lived one way, and that's God's way. And God's way is that I leave all and follow him. God's way is that in the hour when I think I'm going to have joy or something, suddenly that cup turns into a cup of bitterness. When I think I've arrived at something, the Lord shatters that. You know, we think, well, if I had the privilege of Mrs. Saunders or Mr. somebody else, I'd be a real saint. And I read this, Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be a servant. I didn't come to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give my life. I was reading a couple of pages in the Marashal's life yesterday. I like to turn to that book. She was the oldest daughter of the founder of the Salvation Army, and had the privilege, when she was 85 years of age, she could preach up a storm, if you ever talk about a storm. And then one night she said, I went to Brussels. I went to a large mansion. It was loaded with antiques, costly things. It was beautiful. It was owned by a Christian. And there was a sweet girl there. I noticed each morning about 9 o'clock she'd come out of the servants' quarter radiant. I said to her one day, my dearie, I want to ask you a question. I've noticed for the last few mornings, when you come out of the servants' quarter after having breakfast, you're so radiant. Well, it was a big, big old house. We used to have a house with none of the chimneys in it. I think there were 12 fires, and she had to light the fire every morning. Take out the ashes from everyone and carry the ashes out. Get the kindling work. Get the fire going first of all in the dining room, so the precious folk wouldn't be shivering, you know, when they're eating all the wonderful stuff. And the mademoiselle said, but what time do you... Oh, I begin, my dear lady, I begin at 5 o'clock in the morning. 5 o'clock? Yeah. At what time? Well, breakfast is at 8. Usually I finish the last fire. I've got the last fire going by about half past 7. Well, how do you do it? I just kneel in front of it and I sweep all the ashes on one side. I put them in a bucket. And then I get some paper, then I get some kindling wood. And boy, getting cold to catch fire is a job. I go in that room and get that fire going. I go to the next. I go to the next. I go back. The first one's gone out, so I do it over again. But eventually I get to breakfast a minute or two before 8 o'clock. And I've lit my 12 fires. Don't you get impatient? No. Well, you say the fire had gone out? Yeah, they often go out. Well, do you get up early in the morning for devotion? She said, no, not very early. Well, how do you maintain your spiritual life? She said, every time I light a fire I say, Jesus, while I'm kindled this fire, kindle a fire in me. Kindle a fire of your love in me afresh this morning. Kindle a fire of your devotion in me. Here's this precious little girl talking to one of the most powerful women in the world. A woman who at 21 years of age went to Paris and turned the city upside down. Preaching against all the prostitutes. The queen of the underworld was there. Men came from the Sorbonne. The greatest intellectuals with their long beards and their pipes. And listened to her. And yet this precious little girl, the mother said, that young lady taught me more than most sermons I'd ever heard. She had to light the fire then get bellows and blow the things up. Try and get them going. And she said, every fireplace I never miss one morning saying, Lord as I'm kindling this fire, kindle your fire in me. The fire of love for your will. The fire of love. The fire of joy. The fire of peace. The fire of compassion. If those came back to the church we'd turn America upside down in six months. Ours is all theology. We get a starving man, we give him a cookery book. Does it help him? He looks in the cookery book and he sees a dish there with potatoes on and beef and all that. What do you do? You tantalize him. Oh, I hope one day you can come to our, we're going to have this, you see. This beef and then we're having this and we're going to have some turkey and something else. And the poor man's ravenously hungry. We give him a picture but we don't give him the goods. The average church today, you go in Sunday morning, they give you the menu but they never give you the meal. They give you now a line of theology. This is our precious doctrine. Some of those people have been reciting doctrine in hell. Jesus never intended it should be a meeting. As I've said to you before, if you say a word, two or three are gathered in his name. If the living Christ is in your meeting, if there's a living Christ, how in God's name can you have a dead service? It's totally impossible. I remember talking once in the Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh with Miss Kuhlman. And we were talking about the church as it is and various other things. And she said, I talked with some young students the other day and they said, well, we go to a certain church, oh we have a wonderful pastor and a marvelous choir and he's a great teacher. But nothing ever happens. We come to see your meeting and there's a power of God there. And I was in meetings there where billows of power went over the meeting. All kinds of miracles were done. What does the pastor say? He says, well, of course, where two or three are gathered, he's in the midst. Did I say to them? No, what did you say? Well, if he's in the midst and you believe he's the same yesterday and today and forever, why doesn't he do in the midst here what he did in the midst there? We try and bail God out. The stupid pastors have been to a seminary, as I say again, cemetery. Our pulpits are full of dead men preaching dead sermons to dead people. But there's going to come an awakening. God Almighty doesn't care if he sends America bankrupt. He doesn't care if we have to stand in bread lines. He doesn't care if our automobiles rust because we have no gasoline. And that could happen very easily. If Russia gets Iran, she can bottleneck all the oil in the world there. And that's what she's after. And she's going to fight desperately for it. But again, you see, this is so expensive. We have to do more than believe in the Lord, we have to believe on the Lord. We have to do more than have a blessing just because we feel better, we feel inflated, and we maybe get a gift or something. You know, I find people who get gifts of the Spirit, they're more proud after they get the gift than they were before. They're proud of the gift. The indwelling of the Holy Ghost, to me, is the most majestic thing this side of eternity. The Holy Ghost produces holy people. Holy people live holy lives. Produce holy daddies and holy mummies. So here's a question, you answer it for yourself. Do you want to drink the cup that he drank of? I'm strained, I can't get to it. Between me and that mission that John Baptist said, when I come out baptized with the Holy Ghost, between here and there, there's a Gethsemane, there's a cross. I say this and quit here. The Welsh men are not very tall. Not of the nation. There was a young man in 1904, in a town called Newcastle, Emlyn. And they had about 35 people in the meeting. And he just put his big hands up and went over like that. He said, bend us, Lord, and then break us. Bend us, bend the church, break the church. One night in a crowded meeting with more than 1,200 people, suddenly the God came upon him. And the writer puts it very beautifully, I think, though terribly. He said that great preacher who had been captivating crowds and turning cities on fire had the public Gethsemane. He suddenly crumbled to the ground as though somebody had squashed him downwards. And there he was, that big... I nearly said hulk, but you know what I mean. A man maybe six feet and more tall. And there he was in front of all those... It wasn't a spectacle, it wasn't a demonstration. It was a personal visitation of the Holy Ghost. And he writhed, and he groaned, and he traveled. And some men at the front said, let's go help him. Somebody said, don't put a finger on him. They said when he got up, his face was transformed as though he needed a veil over it. And from then he moved into a new sphere of power, a new sphere of authority. We're not going to gather people together and tell them to repent. Only God can do that. I read again Joel chapter 2 today. We quote it so often. He's going to pour out his spirit and all flesh. But wait a minute, the price is tremendous. Lay all night between the altar and the doorpost. Can you get... I'd love to see... I'd love to see a couple of dozen preachers. That would get together and lay between the altar and the doorpost. Two nights a week for the next three weeks. With the Holy Ghost coming upon them. Not speaking in tongues in the sense that so many people think. But speaking with a tongue we've never heard. Speaking of traveling. Which according to Romans 8 is beyond language. It cannot be uttered. It can't be uttered in tongues. It can't be uttered anyway. It's God the Holy Ghost groaning through us. He groaned. Jesus saw the trouble. Are you going to suggest he didn't groan? Of course he groaned at Gethsemane. Disagree with me if you like. I believe Jesus right now is groaning in heaven. If he's the same yesterday and forever, don't you think he groans over the church as it is today? The hateful, misbegotten thing that it is. Powerless, lifeless, without authority. Well bless you, most of our people can't keep fixing themselves. Never mind cast out devils. We can't pull down strongholds. But I'm convinced it's going to come. There's going to be a great turnaround. And it won't be inside the denominations as far as I'm concerned. Oh, it's nice to read, what is it? Hebrews 13, 13. Jesus, that he might sanctify. That is, purify. That is, edify. That is, release. That is, transform. That he might do that. He suffered without the gate. But the second half of the text says, let us go with him outside the camp. Let's be cut off from everything that's organized and man-made and supervised. People say Radner's a radical. You know, you shouldn't take any notice. You know he has no covering. Well I didn't know that, you know. For me, I've been going around the world now for the last 50 years without a covering. I didn't know. But the Lord knew I had it, so he kept me. Who was John the Baptist covering? People knew when John Baptist came. He did no signs, no wonders, no miracles, but when he spoke, boy, the words were like fire. They burned in the hearts of the people. If a thing doesn't burn in me, why in God's name should it burn in you? I wouldn't listen to a preacher that didn't kindle something in my heart. I know I kindle anger in some people, and I thank God for it. Nobody else has done it. Sometimes I'm able to kindle joy by the power of God. You see, it's this cup we back away from. I backed away from that rotten cup that woman had, and then forcibly she said, drink it. I tell you that moment, I was seeing a man in a garden, and he's saying, Father, this is the most degrading thing in the history of the world. If it's possible, please. The Lord let him do it. It pleased the Lord to bruise him. But when it pleased the Lord to bruise you, what do you do? Ring for help? Phone to somebody? Call the church? Or do you get along with him who alone is able to heal, heal you alone as a palming gillian? See, God isn't training boy scouts. He's training soldiers. I think I'm going to talk about that next week. No man that warroth entangleth himself with affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. You know, the smart advert they have on TV and other places. You see these smart boys at the West Points. What do you call them now? The cadets. We're looking for a few choice men. You know, oh, I'm one of about, there's a hundred thousand others in America. I'm only one out of a half a million. And boy, doesn't that feed their ego. Come and be one of the specials. That's exactly what God does. I have chosen you and ordained you, so you don't need any other ordination. And out of the twelve he chooses three. Peter, James, and John. People say you shouldn't be selected. God's selected. He always was, he always will be. And out of the three he chose one. And God has a process of elimination. He doesn't ask you to drink a cup a week or a month after you say, but you gradually move into that area where you realize this is what he's after. It's after me going to the cross, not just to go to it, but get on it. Oh, I'm glad he died for me. Have you died for him? Isn't that a fair exchange? I remember when I was a little boy, they announced in the church that an American was coming. I sure did have feathers, you know, and a war paint on him. His name was Baraklov. He had just written a hymn that I think is one of the sweetest hymns ever written. And he played it to us that night. He goes something like this, Out of the ivory palaces into a world of woe, only his great eternal love made my Saviour go. Out of the ivory angels bowed down, and seraphim bowed, and ad reverence to him, and men spit on him. He had all the glory of heaven, but he's nowhere to sleep at night. It will take eternity to unveil to us what it meant for Jesus to come. He drank a cup, a cup of separation from his father, a cup of separation from the glory in eternity, a cup of separation from the worship, because Hebrews 1 says that the angels were commissioned to worship him. Men didn't worship him, they spit on him. And he laid it all on one side joyfully, and took up a cross to be battered and bloodied. I told you I love that hymn, that American hymn, My Faith Looks Up to Thee. It was written in the Old North Church in Boston Common, I preached there once, and I had them sing that hymn. The second standard says, May thy rich grace impart strength to my fainting heart, my zeal inspire. As thou hast died for me, so may my love to thee pure, warm, and changeless be. Supposing God were as fitful in his attitude to you as you are to him, what would happen? A little serpent girl says, I'm on my knees two and a half hours every morning, and every time I strike a match and light a fire, I say, Lord, as I kindle this fire, kindle your fire in my heart, the fire of the Spirit of God. And I've been here for years, I must have lit hundreds and hundreds of fires. She wasn't at the table serving meals with all the celebrities, she's up at the crack of dawn, she's carrying a heavy bucket of coal, she's clearing the dirt out. And it's a ritual most people wouldn't have, but she turned it into a sacrament. She turned the tables on the devil. And when he says, well, you could be praying, I couldn't do more than that. She said, I bow there some days, lady, and I just worship, I see the flames go up, and I think of the sacrifices that were made. No, don't pity me, she said, I've got a wonderful job. They pay me to have my devotions. They pay me to sustain my prayer life. I wish we had a lot more people like that. Look out, he might bring you up this week and ask you to drink of the cup. Can you share my baptism? Oh, you can have the baptism of the Holy Ghost, that's not his baptism. My baptism, a baptism of sorrow, a baptism of desertion, a baptism of pain, a baptism of loneliness, a baptism of darkness, it's all combined. Well, can you drink it? Or do we try and make some excuses? All he's asking for is obedience. Obedience is the key to everything. Well, I don't know if I said all I wanted to say, but I'm not going to say any more anyhow. I'm going to spend some time in prayer. Now, let me say this to you very lovingly. Last week there were disturbances, there were people, you can pray in tongues, you can pray in anything you like, but don't do it audibly. Don't mutter, mutter, mutter and distract people around at the side of you. Some of them will come from houses where children are muttering and carrying on all day. Some services like that, we don't. I like stillness. I want to know what you're praying about, therefore I need to listen. The people didn't come next to you to be disturbed. You don't help them when you're muttering all the time. Do it, do it in your heart, do it quietly, not audibly. This is serious business. Time is running out fast for all of us. I don't believe the economy will last five more years. The next decade will be the toughest America has ever had. Unless again like in 1742 when God raised up some men. And I want to remind you of this as I finish. The greatest revival that swept America wasn't staged, it wasn't advertised, it wasn't financially backed. It didn't have broken down film stars and ex-footballers. It was in the ordinary course of a meeting, I believe it was Presbyterian, Jonathan Edwards preached this sermon, there was nobody advertised, nobody projected. In my later years I've been on the road, I say yes I'll come, but don't put my fortune in the picture in the paper. Just tell the church I'm coming to be helpful to the church. I don't want publicity, I don't want preeminence, I don't want projection. Jesus says how can you be blessed of God when you receive honor one of another? I've got a placard, I say this height on my desk that all these men that are coming to this great revival conference in Dallas. It's not David Wilkinson, it's another one. It's a Maranatha thing. This man is, there are about six of them in the fastest growing churches in America. And this man's written so many books and all that junk. What in the world does it mean to God? Not a thing. He resisted the proud and saved such as are of a contrite and a broken spirit. It's a lonely life, but it's a glorious life. Nobody stood by Jesus, maybe nobody would stand by you. Then he again says come down from the cross and save yourselves. You see somebody else saving his neck and you follow him and you lose your blessing, lose your reward, lose your power. Amongst other things, you pray for what you like, but I'm quite sure about this tonight. Many of us have unsaved loved ones, unsaved children, unsaved relatives. The other night we prayed for the Indians, we'll pray for them tonight. Brother Spencer's here tonight, he's a full-blooded Indian and he's a burden for his tribe. And we want to back him in prayer. I don't know why America, I don't know why Americans don't look after the Indians. There's 2 million of them and I guarantee almost 100,000 are going to hell. It doesn't worry us. We go to a mission field. We go to another country, get churches to raise money. We want to send one of our children down to South America somewhere. Why not get them on a bus and give them some sandwiches and send them to an Indian reservation? It's not glamorous. People perish on our doorsteps. And we're praying for Spencer, God will anoint him and anoint others to go into those reservations. Again, we need to pray for our young people. It's getting more and more difficult every year, every year now, for children to be educated. We pay them to poison the children, throw the creation story out, bring in evolution. And the whole balance is going to the devil. And it's not going to be stopped by legislation, it's going to be stopped by revival. Only God can put up a barrier against that rotten corruption that's sweeping the land. Now if you need to go, we'll understand if you go, but please again, if you're not going to pray, be quiet. If you're going to pray, speak audibly so we can share your prayer. Can you give me a chair, brother, please?