In this sermon, the preacher starts by discussing the story of Paul's shipwreck and how he cast four anchors into the sea when all hope seemed lost. He then shares a personal anecdote about a wealthy man who faced a terrifying experience during a storm on his yacht. The preacher emphasizes the importance of respecting the sea and relates it to the trials and challenges we face in life. He goes on to talk about the judgment day and how our works will be tested by fire, highlighting the significance of the quality rather than the quantity of our actions. The sermon concludes with a reflection on the Apostle Paul and his boldness in proclaiming the message of being a new creation in Christ.

Praise Him, praise Him, ever in joyful song. You want us to sing another one? No, that was when Christ is coming. Okay. Okay. Very good. Okay, shall we pray? We thank you, our Father, tonight, that those of us who were afar off are made nigh by the blood of the Lamb. We thank you that your blessed Holy Word says that He, the Christ, was a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And then in the book of Revelation, you remind us, the Lamb is in the midst of the throne. We thank you tonight that we have boldness to enter to the very throne of God. We're not kept in the outer court, not permitted just to come to the holy place, but into the very Holy of Holies. We thank you for such a Saviour tonight. For our sins He suffered and bled and died. Not just for the people in Africa, not for the people last century, not the people who are unborn, but for our sins He suffered and bled and died. We thank you for that amazing fact that just as by one man's sin this world has been corrupted, by one man's sin has been, salvation has been accomplished. We bless you for your Holy Word. You say that in the epistles of the Hebrews, that Christ Himself, when He had by Himself purged our sins, not with the help of the Virgin Mary, not with the help of some high priest, not with the help of cherubim and seraphim, but by Himself. Lord, I wonder how angels felt when Adam transgressed and lifted the floodgates and let the whole human race be polluted. But Lord, we wonder how they felt when He rose from the dead. And in heaven there was a sound proclaim, Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors. The King of Glory has come in. Lord, we thank you that what all the blood of beasts could not do through millenniums, countless offerings were made, sacrifices, burnt offerings, and yet what they could not do, one did. What no other lamb could do, the Lamb of God did. Took our sins in His body on the tree, lifted the burden, not a million Samson's could never lift. Solved the problem, a million Solomons with all His wisdom could never solve. We thank you that we are reconciled to God through Him. And we thank you tonight He lives to make intercession for us. Lord, this is beyond our paltry, terrible, limited comprehension. We remember so often, Lord Jesus, that you took our sin, that you also took our grief. Lord, maybe a million people have cried in their grief today. Some from the prisons of Russia, some from Martyrdom, away there in China, some from sickbed, and yet you've heard more than a thousand languages and you understand them all in the same second. If you have a million different needs, we bless you that you're so infinite, so majestic, so awesome, there are no problems to you. Lord, we bless you again. There remains no more sacrifice for sins, if this also were made of solid gold and we brought the most precious beast in America tonight, it would be no good at all. We thank you that once in the end of the age He appeared to put away sins by the sacrifice of Himself. And because of that, Lord, we know it's possible for us to say that sin shall not have dominion over us. We thank you for your holy word tonight. I thought if we drove up here tonight, how often we've driven through the streets of England, we've seen marks on the road where martyrs were buried, burned to death to give us this holy word. And yet, Lord, how little likely we esteem it. Lord, it's a gibraltar, nobody will ever dynamite it. We bless you, Lord, your word is settled in heaven. They may not settle it amongst the theologians in Dallas, but you've settled it in heaven. We're glad you're not sitting on your throne nervously waiting for an envelope to say that men in Dallas agree with you. You've already said, this is the word of God. And you've said, no man shall add to it and no man shall take from it. Lord, we bless you, it's valid tonight. And if the world lasts a thousand years, it will be valid. We bless you, Lord, behind it is your integrity, your majesty, your glory, your jealousy, your word. Give us a holy jealousy for it. Lord, don't let men trample it underfoot before us. Every one of us here is redeemed, has proved your word to be true. We thank you again, Father, that coming into your holy presence is fresh every time we come. We feel how impoverished we are. We feel how unworthy we are. Dear God, why should we call you the maker of the universe? The one who'll throw the billions of stars into space. The one who controls all the great systems in the skies. The one who has made everything that lives and yet we can say our father. Not the father of Abraham merely. Not the father even of our Lord Jesus. Jesus, I send to my father and to your father. And Lord, because of that we're sons of God. Lord, we're unworthy to be heirs. We don't live as though we're heirs. Forgive us. And we're joint heirs. Lord, nobody has explored the possibilities of grace yet. God, don't let this generation die impoverished because we preachers don't explore the depths. We don't dig deep into the mind of God, of divine revelation. Lord, take the veil away from your holy word. As our brother mentioned tonight, I think, Lord, we thank you for those times it wounds us. You wound us to heal us. You strip us to clothe us. You cast us down to lift you up. You steal everything in us and empty us that you may fill us. Think of our blessed apostle praying that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. I don't know what that means. But Lord, I'm a candidate for it. And I believe these people come tonight. They're going to be at home or somewhere else that they came. Not just by choice but because you constrain them by your love. Bless this word to us. We thank you again, Lord. This is fresh bread. It's the bread of life. The word of life. We thank you. Everything you have is life. You said, I am the life. I am the water of life. I am the bread of life. I am the light of life. We thank you that you are light and there's no darkness in you. That you are life and there's no death in you. We bless you for the provision that you've made for us for eternity. Lord, we think of this moment again as we must. Of our precious brothers and sisters away there in Russia, imprisoned. They prayed a thousand times and you have liberated them. But then Lord, I remember in Hebrews 11. After you tell us the wonderful things. Our faith was a key that unlocked the biggest gate. And yet you tell us about some people and you serve them not accepting deliverance. They chose continual torture. They chose continual starvation. They chose continual misery. They chose to rot because they believed it pleased God. Lord, I believe this is happening in Russia tonight. I believe it's happening in China and other countries. Lord, help us to enjoy our liberty. Lord, with no proof it will be like this a decade from now in America. Your word is out of the schools. Prayer is out of the churches mainly. But Lord, again as we remind each night. You have a remnant. You've always had a remnant. Lord, I don't just want to go to heaven. There's something better than that. I want to go to the marriage supper. I don't want to go to the marriage supper. There's something better than that. I want to be part of the bride. Lord God, give us a greater longing. Give us a greater yearning. Not only in eternity but here to see your face. To know that binding. It's a paradox. You free us only to bind us. You take away our will to give us your will. You take away our strength to give us your strength. Lord, I have no strength tonight. Physically I haven't much strength. I need strength for my voice. But I pray Lord you'll illuminate the sacred page. For as we've sung often before, beyond the sacred page I seek thee Lord. My spirit pumps to thee, thou living word. We give you thanks in Jesus' name. Okay, let me give you a verse anyhow. In the second epistle of Paul to the Quintet. Wait a minute, let me think. Yes, chapter 5. 2 Quintet 5 and verse 17. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. All things have passed away and behold all things are become new. Now if I'd preached on this when I was 22 instead of being 82, I would have said this is one of the most exciting verses in the whole of the Bible. But I've thrown that word excitement out. It belongs to the world. It belongs to football and all that junk out of the world. I don't think it's an exciting verse. I think it's a very inspiring word. What does it say? If any man. Think of it like a telescope, you have a telescope. So the barrel of the telescope is the text. If any man, and then I'll extend it. Being Christ. Any man, anywhere, anytime. Being Christ, he's a new creation. Well who says this? If there was such a thing as holy arrogance, I would say that this man has it. But there isn't such a thing as holy arrogance. There's holy boldness. Who is this man? This little Jew, five feet two according to tradition. A little hunchback, a big nose. He'll take encouragement if he's a big nose. And yet he throws this text in the face of the world, the flesh of the devil. If any man, being Christ, he's a new creature. All things have passed away, and all things have become new. I hardly ever know how to begin. Do you know how to begin to talk about the Apostle Paul? What did Spinoza say? He talked about a God intoxicated man. Well if ever there was a God intoxicated man, it was the Apostle Paul. He reduced everything to this. This one thing I do. He said, everything is done that I may gain Christ and be found in him. Okay? If any man, being Christ, he's a new creation. Let me go back a minute here. Go to the fifth chapter, verse one. We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Remember in the 27th chapter of the Book of Acts, the Apostle Paul is in a storm. It's called Euryclidon. It's a kind of a super storm. It's a tornado and everything else rolled into one. The most terrifying thing that can happen at sea. I remember once being in mid-Atlantic on the Queen Mary. I don't know whether we hit the storm or the storm hit us, but it nearly rolled over. Of course, I think they like to make us feel famous, you know. One of the officers said to me, Mr. Adrian, I've crossed the Atlantic about 300 times. This is the worst time there's ever been in this way. It almost went over. Well, Euryclidon was like that. It was a storm of storms. And it got so bad, you remember, they threw all the cargo overboard. They cut the lifeboats off. And for 14 days and nights, can you think of that? 276 people on the boat. We wouldn't allow it to go for river these days. And it's going through the Mediterranean. Loaded with, I think, grain usually, grain ships. 276 people on board. And when a man got on board, everybody laughed at him. He was in chains. He got on board as a prisoner. He ended the voyage as a pilot. They ran into trouble everywhere. 14 days and nights. No starlight, no sunlight. The seas were boiling. The waves were rolling. I'm sure the sails were tearing. And the bows, what do you call them? The masts were all snapping and breaking in pieces. And day by day, can you think of it? Women saying to their children, Well, darling, maybe the sun will shine tomorrow. You said that yesterday. Oh, well, maybe tomorrow. You said that the day before. We've no food. I'm sick. Everybody's sick, weeping, crying, screaming, roaring, panicked. I believe it's a picture of the end time that we're moving into. What happened? Again, they threw the treasure overboard. Finally, they cut the lifeboats away. And then they were in helplessness. And yet Paul says to them, Look, if you don't abide in this ship, you won't make it. And if you and I don't abide in him, we won't make it either. We'll panic. We're going into the worst situation in world history. And so he says, You stay on board. And if you stay on board, you'll be saved. But then it says, When all hope was gone, it wasn't until he took over, he cast four anchors into the sea. As I thought of that today, I remember I used to have a Bible class in the Bahamas. A lot of young wealthy millionaires, they had their private planes and private yachts. One came in one night, because we started a service. Somebody said to him, Well, how was your trip? Oh, wonderful. He bought a new yacht. Not a big one, he said, only 40 feet. Three deck ago, just think. And he said, But you know, when we got round a certain island, a squall hit us. And he said, I was terrified. He made a phrase I've often thought of. He says, I have great respect for the sea. I remember in Mid-Atlantic, once the sea was up there. And I said to an officer, Hey, what's that mountain? He said, mountain. I said, that thing. He said, that's not a mountain, it's water. I said, where's it going? He said, it's not going, it's coming. I said, oh, that's good. So it came. And the next thing, it lifted the boat up there, and we were looking down there at the sea. So I know a bit about the trouble. So this young man said, you know, I didn't know much about my boat, but I cast out my strongest anchor and hoped that it would catch underneath on a rock. And he said, there, the sea was beating us onto the rocks all the time. And the whole night, he said, I was in the state of fear. My children were on the lower deck. My wife was in the bedroom in the next deck. I had the captain and the other guy. And he said, it was terrible. Well, that's something like the situation here. Paul casts four anchors. Let me suggest that in this chapter here, 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 1, he says, here's the first anchor. We know that if the earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God. What did he call it? We have a building of God. A house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Let me apply this. I've never been in my life before until thinking about this night. Let me find a chapter here. What does it mean? Get hold of this a minute. Here is Paul. And he says, the number one anchor I have, I have a home eternal in the heavens. Did you get that? Suppose you change it a bit and say, I have an eternal home. For what? That was his anchorage. How do I know? Well, I'll tell you. Go into 2 Corinthians chapter 11. 2 Corinthians chapter 11. I think somebody mentioned coming up in the van tonight about troubled trials for Christians. 2 Corinthians chapter 11. And he says in verse 24, Notice that? Of the Jews? Elsewhere he says, I'll tell you, I can boast exceeding anybody else, I'm a Hebrew of the Hebrews. That was being the most elite person of the most elite folk in the world. I'm not only a Jew of the Jews, I'm a Pharisee of the Pharisees. And yet, with all he had, his scholarship and ability, he says it was Jews that beat him up. Of the Jews, five times received, he died forty stripes, saved one. That's quite a thing. Now, there's an awful, awful list of things here. Thrice I was beat with rods, once I was stoned, three times I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day, 24 hours. What? 36 hours? I was in the deep. Now listen, you've got a series of perils here. It had been a modern man, he'd have said, Listen, I've got seven new books coming out. They're all perils. Number one. Now you can have them for five dollars each if you buy the set. They're cheap, 4.95. And he's going through the whole list. In perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in perils of the heat, in perils of the city, in perils of the wilderness, in perils of the sea, in perils among false brethren. Do you see what's happening? You don't. OK. He says five times, I received forty stripes. What times five times forty? Two hundred minus five. Well, these things didn't all happen in a week. He's typed to a whipping post. And the first time it's excruciating. A man comes with a whip. It's got five big lashes at the end. And on the end of them there's a spike of copper which is sharper than glass. And they whip it down his back. And he knows, he's counting, Oh my, that's ten, that's thirteen, that's fifteen, that's twenty. Forty stripes? They stop at thirty-nine because that's the legal measure. You can't go further than that. Well, listen. How in the world do you think? When they were taunting him, do you know what he was saying under his breath? Tear up my flesh. What do I care? I'd rather hold me to him in the heavens. This thing will only last a few minutes. When did he do the second time? And then he did the third time. His skin was raw. His back was raw. The flies were buzzing round him. He's bleeding. He's suffering. And he says, OK, keep going, keep going. I'm not breaking. Do you know what? The glory of God came to him there. The only way you'll get the glory of God is by suffering. You won't get it by sitting in a book reading the deeper life. You'll get it if we suffer with him, not for him. There are people suffering for God in Russia tonight. But they're not suffering with him. They're suffering because they won't bow to communism. They're supposing you liberate them tomorrow. Do they know anything else except they've suffered? And I don't minimize that. I know it's terrible. I pray for them every day of my life. So my name is Leonard Ravenhill. Maybe if I were in Russia it'd be Leonardo Ravenillo. And somewhere there's a relative of mine and he's been tortured for 20... Do you know there's been some men in Russia been in prison since 1917 in the bloody revolution? And we shake hands with Gorbachev, one of the most wicked men in the world, one of the most handsome, quiet-looking men, like the Pope. He's a sweet old looking guy, isn't he? They call him Holy Father but they dress him like Mother. But this blessed man says, Listen, you can do as you like. He's hanging on a piece of wood. The wood bashes him up against a rock, tears his clothes, bruises his body. And he says, It's alright, I've got homies who are in the heavens. You can't watch this out of me. You can't strike it out of me. You can't terrify me. Do you know what? A man who's intimate with God is never intimidated by men. You can't threaten him. Why do this one know he's a homie thrown in the heavens? Because John 14, Jesus says, I go to prepare, not repair. No, there'll be no work for some of these boys repairing old property in heaven. Not, I go to repair a place, I go to prepare a place for you. But listen, more than that, you talk about a man having scope. Do you realize this man is one of the few men, maybe Moses did it, I don't know. He's one of the few men in history who had a vacation in heaven. I think Brother Brady went to inspect his mansion to see how big it was. It was room for all his books and things. I need a big room for my books anyhow. I have a homie thrown in the heavens. You won't move me. Dear God. You know all these titles men give each other. I'm the bunkhouse, don't I? Don't you think? Somebody wrote to me, Reverend Leonard, I hate that out-reading. Somebody wrote, the right reverend. What do you do with the left reverend? Then somebody else, the very reverend. Go on, what are the others? Abominable reverend? Bishops, archbishops? Your pastor, I thought he was a bishop. I stood here there and he's got an arch at the front. He's an archbishop now. All these silly titles. I don't care a hell of beans. The most coveted thing this side of eternity was on the Apostle Paul. If you could have slipped in the back door in hell, you'd hear the amplification saying, all you demons, every demon, get out of this place. Get down to earth. The Apostle Paul is going on a mission of destruction. This man could pull down strongholds by himself. Mighty in God to the pulling down of strongholds. All hell was alerted. Do you remember somebody tried to, the son of Stephen was it? Tried to drive a demon out of the land? And the demons have some self-respect. They said, Jesus we know. Sure, Jesus kicked them around. And Paul we know. You talk about a man for all season. This man has power over demons. He's power over disease. He's power over death. Dear God, when are they going to come out of the stomach? When are the Pentecostals going to get Pentecostal? Take the title off your plate. It isn't Pentecostal. Methodists take the title. They aren't Methodists. Presbyterians, where are they in God's name? What an amazing thing. There on the Damascus road. I believe all hell trembled when the Apostle Paul met Jesus on the Damascus road. That was in a meeting. Do you think the Apostle ever dreamed that inside of him he was going to conceive like a woman conceives children? He's going to conceive fourteen churches? Or Ephesians? Did you give him Hebrews? Okay. I got to one point there. I hope you get all of it anyhow. We know. Not Paul doesn't say, I know. If you have entered in with Christ, you should know. We know. We've got a dear brother here walking across America. How far have you done now so far? 2700 miles carrying a chain ball to show people what bondage we have to sin. I'm glad he's doing it. I'm not going with him. That's his job. Do it. I'll pray for you. You have the works, I'll have the faith. Well that's pretty reasonable, isn't it? At least it's not painful for me. Well why in God's name did you get under the weather? When some little trivial thing comes, why do you go down? Get up every morning and say, whatever comes today I have a home eternally in the heavens. I'm not going for the weekend. I'm not going to discover the earth. I'm going with the greatest geniuses who have ever lived. I'll be able to take a year or two or a hundred years with Isaiah or Jeremiah. Dear God. We're not paupers. What does John say? John says, of the scripture, I will not leave you comforters. I think it's Moffat's translation. I won't leave you orphans. Dear God. I've got a home eternally in the heavens prepared for me by Jesus Christ. That's number one anchor. I'm not shifting. I'm preaching this to myself tonight. The last two or three weeks have been the hardest I think I've ever lived. I've told my darling wife. Such opposition of the enemy. Such confusion. You know people make promises what they'll do this, that. They don't do them. You can just about be sure if somebody promises you something I think that's the thing they won't do. Isn't that right, sonny? There you are. It's correct. Sonny says so. What did he say? We have a home. That's number one anchor anyhow. We have a home eternally in the heavens. Okay, well. Okay. Of Jews, I received five forty stripes. I won five times. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Listen. Do you know how this man started? He watched the first young man, maybe a teenager, stoned to death. And he did nothing about it. That's the model universe. Here's a young man and I think he's the smartest. In fact, he became a deacon by a majority vote. Stephen, the young man full of faith of the Holy Ghost. He did signs and wonders. God, don't let him get stoned to death. We need him in our little church. We're opposing the Roman Empire. We're opposing the Jews. We're opposing the Greeks. This young man is our hope. He's a genius. He's a God-given genius. I know that one of the greatest preachers, maybe the greatest preacher America ever had was Jonathan Edwards. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones told me that once himself, talking face to face. He said the greatest genius America had as a philosopher and as a teacher and a preacher was Jonathan Edwards, who later became the principal of Princeton School. And he says of the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Paul is equal with Plato and Socrates and the greatest geniuses of the Greek splendor. Yes? No. Because you see, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle and others, they came to their brilliance by reason. Paul came by revelation. One's talking about the visible. The other's talking about the invisible. One's talking about this world. The other's talking about the other world. Paul had movings in his spirit that no Greek ever had in all his lifetime. And so right through this terrible catalog here, in journeyings, in puddles of waters, in puddles of rubbers, can you imagine him held up and the stupid rubbers are checking on him? You know, they knew all these Pentecostal preachers were rich. So the rubbers got over him and checked all his pockets and found nothing. He's an amazing man. He had nothing. He says that. Isn't that wonderful? He says, I have nothing. I have no acceptance with my people. I have no acceptance with the Jews. I have no acceptance with the intellectuals. They say he's the biggest fool on earth. So he was in the eyes of the world but not in the eyes of God. I had a man in my office on Saturday night. I said to him, Arthur, darling, we'll have a quiet day today. We won't have any visitors. Well, we didn't. We don't miss eyes. That's low for us. This fellow came in just before bedtime and he says, look at those. So I looked. He had some black alligator shoes. $300. I had to get shoes like that to mix with the men I mixed with in Dallas. Well, let them blow bubbles. Have you got $300 shoes, Joe? If you had, I'd never own you up again. Our dear Paul was on a wonderful missionary and he came in one day before he went back to South America. He says, Daddy, look at these. What in the world have you got? I've been to Canton Fair. I've got these old cowboy boots for $10. I said, what? He said, I bought these cowboy boots. Look at them, Dad, underneath. There's no hole in the bottom. I said, listen, some old drunkard. I don't care who had them. They're sanctified now. I've got them, he said. $10 for a pair of warmer, almost 20-year-old cowboy boots. Came in the other day. Dad, I've got some boots. I said, you bought boots, yes? I've got a pair for $10 at the Army Service in town. His wife went out with it, $25 or $30 market. And she came back with this pack of used clothing for the children. They're missionaries and they don't waste money. They count it precious. It's got blood on it, sacrifice on it. And the Blessed Apostle, he had no way. He had nothing. They tell me now that Mr. Wiseman, you know Solomon Roberts, has come up with a new theory now that Jesus was rich because he had a seamless dress, and he had a donkey, and also he had a sliding business. He was a, what do you call him? A carpenter. And he put those three things together and made Jesus rich. He was, he was very rich. Do you know how rich he was? He had nowhere to lay his head. There are still missionaries like that. Maybe God will have to bring us down to this before we get a revival in America. I used to be silly enough to say that the church of Jesus Christ in America is going to suffer for the sin of the nation. No. A nation is going to suffer because of the sin of the church. Paul looks like, does he say in Timothy, so that he was ordained? What does ordination do? A guy told me, I've been ordained. Oh, wonderful. What does it do? Are you taller? Is your head bigger? Oh, I'm ordained. So what? So he said to me today, do you know Tammy and Jimmy are back on TV? I said, so is Edward Kennedy. He committed murder, but he's back on TV. What's TV? Junk parade. TV, terribly vicious, terribly vulgar. All the rotten things you can think about in. But here is a man, he's driven with a holy passion. I don't care what comes, he says. Come hell or high water. I have a home eternal in the heavens, that not a thief in hell can take it from me. When he goes to prison, he won't give the devil the credit. He doesn't say I'm the prisoner of the devil. He doesn't say I'm the prisoner of Caesar. He says I'm the prisoner of Jesus Christ. He orders my steps, he orders my stops. Did God want a weak character like this? Where's our integrity? Only takes a week now, we can't go to prayer meetings. I've told you before, I'll tell you again, either we're going to concentrate in prayer or we're going to pray in concentration camps. Don't you worry about that too much. It's going to happen. God's going to get a bride, and he doesn't care how he purifies it, he's going to purify it. Blessed be his name. In German Schaffner. I'd better get on here, eh? What did I get? I got the number one. OK, number two is those ten. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. That's his second anchorage. We must all appear. I've got that broken down, I can't give you it tonight because it's so lengthy. All of us, we must. It's inevitable. There's no alternative. You know, once you slip out of time into eternity, whether you're on the broad way to destruction or the narrow way to life eternal, there's no U-turn. If I tell you there's a better place than heaven, will you believe me? Of course you won't, but there is. A better place than heaven, where is it? Here and now. Because you've time to put right the wrongs in your life. You've time to strengthen what remains. You've time to adjust. Your prayer life is too weak. Your anticipation is too weak. Your faith is too weak. Well, get it right. Once you're over the bar, it's too late. The only reason you're alive in the world is this life is a preparation, it's a preparation for the next life. That's all it is. And Paul says, listen, you can't rob me of anything. We have this treasure in urban vessels. Beat this body, bruise this body, starve this body, toss me in the sea. I'll be redeemed tomorrow and I come out of it when I went in it. Take all the skin off my back, it will grow again, I'll still be sanctified. None of these things move me. Listen, he didn't say none of these things hurt me. Of course they hurt him. But they didn't move him. You've got a thousand things that will hurt you, not one of them needs to move you. It's easy to sit in church, is it? My hope is built on nothing less than Christ, the solid rock I stand and the wind blows tomorrow when you go over. The first thing you do is not call on God, you call on the pastor. What do you live on, God or the pastor? Many times I heard G. Campbell Morgan, the greatest preacher in the world, when I was 28 years of age, I heard him say this one day, if I was out of the pulpit for a week, I'd backslide. That really troubled me. I thought, dear God, I thought you lived on God, not preaching. And I heard him say once to a crowd of preachers, I talked to my friend there and asked him, how did you get on last night preaching? He said, my friend said, I enjoyed myself. He said he did. He enjoyed his eloquence, he enjoyed his exposition, he enjoyed the rapport with the people. Is that what preaching's about? Preaching's not a profession, it's an obsession. You don't preach because you want to, you have to. Worries me if I preach not. As long as you have breath in your body, you're debtors to this generation. I love these dear fellows like Bill Cook, and others that go down on the square, where all the prostitutes and hopeless people gather in Tyler on a Friday night. I spent much of my life there. You know, the greatest revivals in history were in the streets. The Salvation Army was in the street, people booted them out. Who was the Archbishop of Canterbury when John Wesley was in the Church of England? Do you know? Of course you don't. Wesley couldn't get in the church, they locked the doors against him. George Whitefield couldn't get in. John Wesley was kicked out, and Charles Wesley was kicked out. And like Jesus, what did Jesus preach? In the synagogue occasionally, mostly in the street. If I had the energy, I'd be there now, I'll tell you that. Dear God, there are people in our streets, in Tyler, never heard the gospel. They've been to church, and they've heard an artificial gospel, an easy believism, come forward and get saved, and they've been a dozen times. A woman told me, I've been to the altar 14 times, never get anything. And she said, if it doesn't happen tonight, I'm through with Christianity. The pastor and I stayed about an hour and a half with her. She got marvelously born again in the Spirit of God, and became the best prayer writer and best teacher in that church. Why? You know, we don't value the souls of people. I happened to preach a couple of times away at, what's that Methodist called? Asbury. A couple of revivals there. And on the countryside there, they have the greatest racehorses in the world. There's marvelous farm. The most beautiful horses you ever saw. And do you know what? When one of those mares is foaling, they sit up all night with that beast, and they stay with the little baby to foal after it's born. Well, dear God, don't people who come to an altar deserve more than a beast? I don't think anybody should come to the altar and get saved, and leave within an hour of coming to the altar. I never did. I had never conducted a street meeting in England, midday or midnight, in that most famous of all arenas. I preached there, and saw people come to Christ at Park, what do you call it? What's the big park called? Hyde Park in London. I preached at a bowling in Birmingham. I preached outside of the great post office. In Perth, Scotland. Preached in Ireland. And almost every time, people melt in the streets, and it wasn't easy to believe in them. It was, listen, you leave your sin, and you repent, and come to God, and they came. We don't give people time to repent. When are we going to get serious about being serious about the most serious thing in the world, the salvation of other women? To do brain surgery is terrible. To do open heart surgery. But to be a preacher is infinitely more. Dear God, if you move your scalpel too much doing open heart surgery, you may kill somebody. But if you say the wrong thing, you may lead them to hell in a meeting too. I don't believe I can go to any meeting without somebody being born of the Spirit in one way or another, moving up to an elevation. Or somebody dying. Somebody here tonight, God's not going to speak to you after this meeting, what does He owe you? You've heard the gospel since you were that height. You saw more convenient there, but it never came. You see, this man is driven. I'm a better to the barbarian, to the Jew, to the Greek, to the high, to the low. And it doesn't matter where you take him. Put him in prison. You see, this man trusted any man being Christ. Did he live it out? Sure he did. Where did he begin his life? He began his life in Tartus, the capital, the ancient capital of the world. That's where he began. He ended up in Rome, the military capital of the world. In between, he went to the religious capital of the world, Jerusalem. He went to the intellectual capital of the world, in the 16th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. There were Stoics and Greeks and philosophers and poets. Dear God, what did they look down on those days? These athletes, you know, these boys at Pompeii. They've got iron brains, I think, too, many of them. And he looked at all these athletes and he walked in the midst of them and they looked and said, what will this babbler say? Paul wasn't an editor. He said in 2 Corinthians 10 and verse 10, they said when they saw him, his bodily presence is weak. He's a shrimp of a man and his speech is contemptible. He had a lisp on his lip and a limp on his lint. And a limp, is that what I'm going to say? A limp. I'm puzzling myself. I thought, is that good? Shakespeare could have done better than that. He had a lisp on his lip. I'd say, when he saw that ball up against the wall and said, it says, hey Jack, you throw a rock and knock his eye out and I'll knock the other one out. You take that boulder and smash it under his rib and he walks like a young man and he never said a word. What happened? Heaven opened. You say, heaven doesn't open to me. Of course, you went to too much. As soon as he puts the pressure on, you cry. He could have said, God, oh that rock, help me. I think my ribs are broken. Oh my God, broken. Oh, don't let those wicked men do that. And they just pound him and pound him and just grind him up and this so-called tender-hearted apostle did nothing. But a little while after, he goes through the same thing. But wait a minute. While this man is there looking up, he prays that the very life of Christ is in Stephen because he doesn't say, I call that fire down from heaven and burn the earth. He says, Lord, have mercy on them. Forgive them. And heaven opened. And what happened? Oh, this is so gorgeous. What's gorgeous about it? Because that whole bunch of fellows there said, we got rid of Jesus. We know what happened. Somebody stole his body and hid it away. They put it on a raft and sent it out to sea or something. Jesus got rid of him. And here's Stephen, the blood pouring down his face. A broken arm. He can only stand on one leg. The other is broken. And he looks up and heaven opened. And he says to that unbelieving crowd, I see Jesus. He didn't see the prosecutors. He didn't see the blood. He didn't see the suffering. I see Jesus. He's my life. He's everything to me. Well, is it the psalmist that says that Jesus sat on the right hand of the Father? He didn't. Jesus got so excited he jumped off his throne and said, come on, son. He was the first man to die. And he died as nobly as Jesus on the cross. Why? Because he knew he, too, had a home eternal in the heavens, not made with hands. Everything that man makes is corruptible. Leave that piano there a hundred days and then what? Everything you see is corruptible. We live too much for the visible instead of the invisible. We're like the world. We have the same values. We have the same interests. Dear God, when you see the invisible you don't care if it's blood or what it is. But listen, he says. What verse did we read there? Verse 10, was it? We must all appear at the judgment seat of Christ. And then previously he says what? We shall go and every one of our works will be tried by fire. You see, you can't escape fire. The sinner goes to hell fire. The believer goes to the fire of God. I remember every time I went to see Dr. Tozzi it stopped me dead on my track going in. And when I went in one day he said, just like that, he said, Lynn, what you and I talked about last time you were here, eternity. I've been thinking of Jesus sitting on a throne. He said two things I've said a thousand times since about 1953. Number one, he says, none of us will walk to him directly and look him in the eye. To those eyes like a flame of fire. And Paul says to these people, is it in chapter 3? The fire shall try every man. Wait a minute. Find that for me somebody. Is it chapter 3? Oh, I wasn't going to say you. I'll let you breathe. At least I'll breathe a minute while I'm planning it. All right, 1 Corinthians 3, and verse 3. If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereon, Oh, pardon me, go back to verse 11. For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man, there are six things there, silver, gold, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble. And the fire shall try every man's work. Who is he writing to? He's writing to the Corinthians. I said he began life in the ancient capital of the world. He finished in the military capital of the world. He went to the intellectual capital of the world in the 16th of Acts. And he comes here to the corrupt capital of the world. In the day when the apostle Paul lived, if a man was bad, licentious and filthy, you didn't take 20 adjectives, just say he's a Corinthian, you know what he is. He's at the bottom of the barrel. He's vile, he's corrupt. And yet it's to that man that Paul says, is anyone being Christ? This is no amateur. I was reading yesterday by dear old Dr. Criswell. He said, you know, when you read Romans chapter 1, now you won't like it from an Englishman, so I'll take it from one of America's greatest preachers. He said, Romans chapter 1 describes America today. Well, I'll tell you, if you ask Philip's translation, read it. I read it by Brother Joe the other week, it knocked me flat. Dear God, the corruption, the violence. Can you imagine your grandfather ever dreamed that homosexuals would run for office politically? That homosexuals would be ordained to the ministry? But it's coming our day in the name of freedom and liberty. Paul says, every man's world. When did he say it? The Corinth that the Apostle Paul wrote to was the second city of Corinth. It was built by the famous Julius Caesar. One side of the road, the houses were made of precious stone. That is, they were marble and granite and extensive. This side of the road, the houses were made of wood and they mixed clay with chaff and they put that to walls between the wood hen stubble and when the fire came, in the reign of King Nummius M-U-N-N-I-U-S, a fire came through the city and it burned up every single wood hen stubble. The houses of the rich people, granite, they were standing. They were as precious as silver and gold and precious stones and the fire didn't touch them. But the fire burned up the houses of the poor. See it this way, wood hen stubble is above the ground. That's ministry above the ground. Oral Roberts has built towers, what, 70 feet high? He's built a building 600 feet high and the poor deluded man says Christ was 300 feet bigger than that, that's a lie from hell. He's going to see the city of faith is wood hen stubble. It doesn't look like that, what a judgment. PTO is going to try again. They spent 20 years building wood hen stubble, ministry above the ground. Silver, gold and precious stones. What are they? Hidden ministries. People often ask me, how much do you pray? I say that's not your business. You pray. I pray as long as God wants me to pray. Silver, gold and precious stones, they're hidden away. The greatest ministries in America are hidden ministries. Let me look a minute here. Keep going to and fro. I know. Okay, well, the fire's going to try every man's work. And if every man's work abides, which he has built, I need to receive a reward. I'll tell you what, it's going to be a staggering thing at the judgment. That some of the least known people in America are going to be the head of the rewards. One star differs from another star in glory. Notice what it says. The fire shall try every man's work. What? What? Size it is? No, what sort it is. Not the quantity, the quality. Do you know that even a cup of cold water given with joy and love to a person is like a prophet's reward? It's kind of a reward in that day. Let me, I'll get back on track in a minute here. 1 Corinthians 11. Now let's think of that word again. 1 Corinthians 11, I forget what it talks about. I thought I keep losing my, not my mind, just my memory. Oh, thank you. 2 Corinthians 11, yes. Yes, yes. When he was in the heat of revival, when he's having the greatest manifestations of God, listen to what he says. Lest I should be exalted above measure, I was given a thorn in the flesh. Suddenly they'll pull me right down to the earth. You know, God takes the run from under us sometimes to show how poor we are. You know, I used to preach, good Lord, I preached about 150 words a minute, for an hour and a half every Sunday night. We had the whole town stirred for three years. I was only in my twenties. And people lined up like a movie house to get in church Sunday night. And everywhere I went, oh, Ramuel's martyr, Ramuel's this. Now I'm handicapped, my mind slips. And it's humiliating, but I still enjoy it. It's the best preaching there is, that I can do. I got you off the hook. Oh, thank you. 2 Corinthians 12. I take pleasure in infirmities. Okay. Isn't that something? I take pleasure. I don't just grit my teeth and say, Lord, it's rough. I hope it's not going to last another day. I'm just about through. The Lord says, listen, you're going through a storm for 14 days and 14 nights. Everybody else around will panic you. In the church, they'll think you're crazy. You hang on to this. What do you do? You went on the deck the next day. And the captain says, well, preach, how are you getting on? He says, wonderful. And I can imagine the captain of the ship says, that was a hell we went through last night. I was sure the boat would go over. The women were screaming. There were babies born. There were people dying. People were jumping overboard. It was terrible. How did you get on? He says, wonderful. Preach, you're crazy. What do you mean, wonderful? He says, right in the middle of the storm last night, there stood by me an angel of God. A what? An angel of God. Who I am and whom I serve. And I've got a message for you. You know, we're going to go through all the tribulations and trials in the next two or three years. Sam Nunn was asked to run for the presidency of the United States last year, this past year. And he said, could I honestly stand in front of a congregation and say to them, will you please elect me, Senator Nunn, to steer America through the four most difficult years in their history? He's not a preacher, but he knows a thing or two. Did you bring me that stuff? Did you find that stuff about Japan, brother? I have it for you. You have it, good. I submit, you know, I know preachers disagree. If you disagree with me, you know they're wrong. But anyhow. You know, some people say the Russians are going to take over America. Forget it. They haven't enough money to buy the Japanese out. They can't do it. The whole west coast of this country belongs to the Japanese. The middle states belong to the Japanese. I heard this past week. A Japanese guy comes in and says, Oh, I like your hotel. Much like, pretty hotel I buy. I buy. How much? So the good old American had the price up there. Oh, he never buys it. Two million. So he said, oh, I'll tell you what, I'll try. Four million. Up come the little yellow boys with suitcases. Cash. Two million dollars cash. Four million dollars cash. So he can dodge the tax. They're bringing the money with them. There's hardly a piece of ground, a foot, twelve inches wide, twelve inches in a way, that doesn't belong to the Japanese. They're in authority all over the place. We're sold out. We don't need to be sold out. We're sold out. There's no way we can recover this horrible trillion, or what is it? Triple trillion debt that we're in. I'll tell you that a play for those children of yours is going to go through the roughest period in American history. And some of us are going to go into it.