This sermon addresses the importance of the Holy Spirit in the church, emphasizing the need to focus on glorifying Christ rather than solely on spiritual gifts. It highlights the role of the Holy Spirit in convicting believers of sin and leading them to repentance, urging caution and discernment in confronting others about their sins. The speaker expresses concern about how music in churches can impact the spiritual atmosphere and hinder God's work, calling for a return to a focus on Christ and His gospel.

And thank you for the dear man that led the meeting singing here. Well the way you led it sir was something very precious and I would love to have got to know you. I was speaking today to our dear brother about how the meeting can be destroyed by the singing. And I would say he bore something in my heart that I'm starting a sermon. I've written a whole sermon since your conversation brother. I did not preach that now though. If you ever let me back I'll preach what you bore in my heart this morning or at lunchtime dear Don. Brother Don, I agree with you somehow today the church has allowed the world into their music. And the man who has the music in his control controls the whole meeting. He can destroy anything God could ever do from that moment to the day to the moment the meeting stops or he could pave the way. And I wonder what percentage of evangelical churches have no hope of God visiting them because of the very music and those in control of the music. Don't let the world into the church America. You don't win the world by becoming like the world. The world wins you always. There's not one case when the world try to be like the church, like to try to be like the world, that the world didn't win them. And all we have now is the world in the church and the church in the world tragically starting off with the music. The next thing we look like them, we go to the places, we try and grip them by the way they grip by the world with their entertainment, their type of music, their type of entertainment. Entertainment is sin in the pulpit of God and in the church. There's no place for it. Be careful. Be careful. If you're not sure that you are so sanctified by God and through the Holy Ghost and prayed through as much as a preacher before you stand before God's people with a message from God so soaked in prayer and a life that gives you the right to sing it, and you're sure that that's going to make entrance to the preacher sermon into the whole atmosphere and to people seeking God, don't ever get up and sing. Don't ever get up and play any instrument. Go to the theater if you want applause. Why come to the pulpit? Well now, that's a rebuke, isn't it? And I was only going to say thank you. My wife says, when you're tired, Keith, you go a mile around, and she's not yet to remind me that I'm going a mile around tonight, but it's just as well because people are still all arriving, so God knows what he's doing. Thank you sincerely, every one of you who traveled a long, long way, and I bless the Lord for you. Now, I know the cold hits this area like I don't know what hit me, but I appreciate your braveness, and I appreciate your courage in facing this weather and still staying on and coming out into this bitter cold and the snow and the ice all over the place, and I think those that have come are those who really want God's best, so I thank you for coming. Can I also just ask you one other thing? My wife sends out a newsletter. It's not like American newsletters, you know. We in Africa don't have the beautiful magazines that you send out as newsletters. We just have a piece of paper. We're from the jungle, you see, and my wife sends it out every couple of months to many, many people all over the world, and these people mostly pray for us daily, and I thank God for that, and I wonder if you'd like to pray for me and my family. I'll be very grateful. I know that you mustn't put your name and address down if you're not a prayer warrior. If you don't groan before God for souls, please don't give me your name or address. You don't groan before God for the church of Christ, for revival. If you don't know what it is to groan before God for others and not yourself, then please don't put your name down, because it'll just be a wasted piece of paper coming to you that you won't want in the end, but if you know what it is to weep for souls, if you know what it is to groan for souls, if you groan, if you're a warrior on your knees for the lost and not just consumed in prayer about yourself, then I would be deeply grateful if you would put your name and address on a piece of paper, your postal address, and you just give it to dear brother Don, who's trying desperately to let me read something in the back, but he doesn't know I'm half blind. Oh, it is a piece of paper. Okay, brother, at least I saw the page. Wonderful, Don. Thank you. I saw the page, but I didn't dare tell you at first that I can't read. I can't see much anyway, but it's good that I can't see your faces while I'm preaching, you know. I might stop. Anyway, there's a piece of paper back there at the back, two yellow pages, and if you just take a pen and you'd like to put your name and address down and give it to our brother. I'm not staying after the meeting because I've got to get up rather early tomorrow and be in a plane at 6 30, so I won't tell you what time I have to get up then just to do all the things I have to do, but I have to leave straight away after. I'm going to shake a few of your hands as I walk out, but I want to say thank you now and God bless you for coming from my heart. I'm deeply grateful for America giving me so many opportunities to come back here again and again. The way they are spreading tapes and videos all over the world. I get letters from China, so many countries where the Americans have sent videos, and these churches say we just brought all the people just sitting down listening to all these messages, and I am grateful the way American, the American Christians have such vision and have given me this great privilege of coming here every now and again, and then they just spread the messages, hundreds of thousands of tapes all over. I do thank you for that privilege you've given me. Will God wonderfully bless every single one of you. I really mean that. Now I'd like to pray and then bring the word God put in my heart, I believe, for our hearts tonight, and if I fail to say thank you to everyone I should have, please forgive me. Can we just bow before the dear Lord, please, in a moment of quietness. Our Father, we praise Thee for the wonderful word of God that Thou hast entrusted into our hands and hearts. We thank Thee for the Holy Spirit, and we ask that by Thy grace and mercy tonight Thou would come and make this a holy, sacred place for the hearts of men and women and children. That Thou would wash me now in the blood of Jesus, that I may be clean, that Thou would fill me with the Holy Spirit in grace and mercy, and that Thou would come and keep us under the blood of Christ, safe from the powers of darkness, and cleanse the atmosphere of this place with the blood of Christ, and pour Thy Spirit here, Lord, upon us, that we may know we have to do with God and not with men. Visit Thou us, Lord, quiet on us, still our hearts and our bodies and our minds. Come now, Lord, in mercy on us, especially on me, and bless this hour. In Jesus, the Christ's name, in Jesus Christ's name, we all ask these things of Thee, our Father in heaven. Amen. I would like tonight to speak to you about the Holy Spirit, and I'm very careful in starting by telling you that the Holy Spirit is some word in the Bible that somehow we have got all confused about. It is not the gospel of the Holy Spirit, and many churches today, in this generation especially, have the gospel not according to the gospel of Christ, but the gospel of the Holy Spirit. They make more of the Holy Spirit than of Jesus. They make more of the gifts than the giver, and everything is centered around the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit Himself. And this holy book, this holy book has told us that the Holy Spirit shall not speak of Himself. His whole work is to glorify Christ. His whole work is to make us into the image of Jesus Christ, that we may be conformed into the image of God's Son, and that's the work of the Holy Spirit. I read a book when I was shortly saved by R. A. Torrey. Torrey was D. L. Moody's theologian. Moody was the man who won millions to Christ, and Moody was probably the greatest soul winner in earth's history, him and Charles Finney. Millions and millions came to God through these men, but Moody brought nations to God. Scotland turned to God. John Knox brought Scotland away from Rome, but Moody brought Scotland to God. Moody brought a king and a queen to God. I don't know of any evangelist in history where God did that through a man who never went through a theological seminar in his life, who had no degrees, but Queen Mary knelt with Moody and gave her heart to Christ, and King George followed and gave out tracts, literally hundreds of thousands of tracts to generals and the leaders of the empire, were handed by Queen Mary on Moody's recommendation. She gave out safety, certainty, and enjoyment. She was a soul winner. She was a prayer warrior, and Moody was the man God used, but Moody wasn't the great theologian. That was Torrey, who God gave to Moody and to the millions throughout the world that had sought God. Now, here was a man who suddenly had an academic, we don't despise the academic achievement. We don't despise men who can't academically go into theological seminars and come out with fire, not deadened through doctrine. I pity the man who goes and gets degrees that take seven years, and he can't win a soul to Christ. I pity the man who doesn't realize that the God of Moody didn't need the degrees. He just needed fire, reality, and no compromise on this book. That was Moody, but the book that Torrey wrote, the Holy Spirit, the person, the work of the Holy Spirit, the personality and the work of the Holy Spirit, I got that when I was just saved and I was transformed into my understanding of God and His ways. And I would recommend that book to anyone. There are many books on the Holy Spirit which teach us. We can't bury the fact that the Holy Spirit is mentioned throughout the Holy Bible, and we need to know His work without diverting from Christ, but rather honoring Christ. If you go to a book like R.A. Torrey wrote, you'll find he takes the basics, the things most of you sitting here have come aware of, as you've gone through the Scriptures from cover to cover again and again, and I hope you've done that. You will become conscious of the things Torrey would speak of, and these other books would speak of, of the work of the Holy Spirit. It's God the Holy Spirit's work to take this book and to make it alive. It's dead. It's dead without the Holy Spirit. The letter killeth. That's a strong word, but the Spirit giveth life. This book in the hands of an unsaved man kills what God could do. This book in the hands of a man who has no revelation, by God the Holy Ghost of what he's reading, well, all it does is destroy. It's very seldom in the history of the Church that an unsaved man holding the Word of God ever did anything for God, but the moment a man is born of God and anointed by God and given the right to preach, ordained by God, this book becomes a throbbing life to souls. The letter kills. The letter kills to people who are not even saved. It's just a dead book in many aspects, but the moment they're saved and the Holy Spirit's in them, the natural man can't receive the things of God, but the spiritual man, the moment he's saved and the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, Christ in you is the hope of glory. That man suddenly, this book grips and every word is alive, suddenly weeps across the pages, whereas before he was saved, it was dead, dead. The letter killeth. It can do nothing without the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit giveth life, and it's God's book that God the Holy Ghost uses to give eternal life. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. The faith by which you are saved, by grace you're saved through faith, not of yourselves. That faith is the result of the Holy Spirit giving revelation to your heart in your darkness, in the unsafe state you are, and so faith is worked by the Holy Ghost by giving life to this book, and then when we are saved, it's the Holy Spirit's work to bear witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. You know you've passed from death into life. We know we're saved. He that believeth in the Son of God hath the witness in himself, God says. He that believeth not, God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son, and this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you, that believe in the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe in the name of the Son of God. You must know that you have eternal life, otherwise you don't have eternal life. You must know you've passed from death unto life, or you haven't passed from death unto life. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. He that believeth in the Son of God hath the witness in himself, and so that is the Holy Spirit's work. We could go on and on. He teaches us how to pray. We know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit, God the Holy Ghost, teaches us to pray as we ought to pray with groanings that cannot be uttered. That's not speaking about tongues. Groanings that cannot be uttered, sir, when the Holy Spirit's in you. The grief you have you never had before for the lost or for the saved. It's his grief. It's his groan. It's his hurt that puts you to your knees, and you pray for things that you wouldn't pray unless the Holy Ghost was there. It's his burden. It's his people that he longs to be revived and not to compromise with the world, and the grief you feel that you see the church compromising with the world is God's grief, and you pray, for God teaches you to pray as he shares his burden. He teaches us to pray as we ought to pray with groanings. You and I can't work up. We don't work up a burden. Any Christianity that works themselves up, they land up in the mental home where they should go there in the end. It's what you dedicate God consecrates. All we do is dedicate ourselves to God. God takes control by the Holy Ghost. Even in our prayers, we don't work ourselves up. We don't work burden up. We don't work compassion up for the lost. It's the Holy Spirit in us that drives us to the lost, that drives us to our knees, that groans in our prayers. It doesn't mean you've got to groan to say that God's praying to you. Some people don't have anything but a whisper, but that's the groan, the way you whisper from the heart. The Holy Spirit is the comforter. I love that. I can try and comfort you, brother, when you're broken and smashed by the church itself. It's so out of touch with God. I can try and comfort you when you're excommunicated because you've been born again. I can try and comfort you by the hurts when your family throw you out, or discard you, or bury you, or disdain you for coming to Christ and changing your lifestyle in their home. I can try and comfort you when your son wants the devil and not Jesus, but my comfort's not good enough unless I comfort you with a comfort wherewith I was comforted by God, and God the Holy Spirit comforts through the Word of God. 99.999, it isn't just some feeling flowing through you of a divine wave of love to give you peace. This comfort comes through His Word, and this Word must always be open, and God will comfort as you're wounded by God's people out of touch with God, not through with God. You will find comfort that you don't become bitter and twisted. You will find comfort that no matter what the devil brings against you, you don't come out bitter and twisted. The healing of God's Word, the healing of God's Word by the Holy Spirit, He comforts through His Word, and you're able to comfort others with a comfort wherewith you were comforted. What from this book burned into your heart will burn from your lips, and what burns from your lips will burn to the hearts of those that hear you, and so to the degree that God the Holy Ghost comforts you through this book, to that degree you can comfort the church. He is the comforter, and I could go on, but all these things you will find explained more eloquently and more with more depth by godly men like R. H. Horry. Get those books. Learn about the work of the Holy Spirit, the personality of the Holy Spirit. Tonight I'd like to bypass all those things, and I'd like to speak to you about one aspect of the Holy Spirit's work that you're not going to hear being preached very much these days in any pulpit, because it's a word that seems to offend. The Holy Spirit, Jesus said, when He has come will convince the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, and D. L. Moody said, if that hasn't happened to you, He doubts that anything has ever been done in your life by the Holy Ghost. You can't bypass this. You talk of all these things of the Holy Ghost in your life, Moody says. If this was not the first thing that happened in your life, He doubts that anything has ever happened in your life that was the Holy Spirit. In truth, He will convince, He will convict literally the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. When did He do that in your life, young man, old man, preacher, who teaches like a blind leader of the blind? Do you think Christ said that wasn't possible? And all that will happen is you who are blind will fall into the ditch, but all your leading will fall in the ditch with you. You'll take them to hell if you haven't been saved. The Holy Spirit, when He has come, will convict the world of sin, and only then will you know that you're a sinner and of righteousness, that you can become righteous. He will convince you, He will convict you that you don't have to remain in sin, though you are a sinner. You can be made righteous by God, and your life can be made righteous, and you can become a creature in Christ where all things pass away and all things become new. It's the Holy Spirit's work to convince the world of sin, of righteousness, of judgment. If you don't turn from the sin to become righteous, to seek God's righteousness, you'll face judgment. And this is the work of the Holy Spirit. And I agree with Moody. How can you be saved, sir, if you didn't know you're lost? How can you cry out to God to save you from hell if you don't know you're going to hell or judgment? How can you cry to God to set you free from a life of sin if you're not convinced your sin will take you to judgment? And if you're not convinced in your heart by the Holy Ghost that you can be made righteous? The Holy Spirit's work is to convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. But you know one of the greatest tragedies of our era and time is that we try to do the work of the Holy Spirit, and we just destroy the work of the Holy Spirit as Christians. We try to do the convicting work of God the Holy Spirit today everywhere, and we destroy His work by not trusting Him that it's His work, not ours, but not trusting Him that He can convince the world of sin without us interfering. I was once preaching as a young preacher some 30 years ago, a lot of fire, little wisdom, doesn't matter, so long as you're on fire, so long as you've got a little bit of wisdom and you're on fire. That's all God needs to turn the world upside down. No good having a lot of wisdom and no fire. You just turn them to hell. But I went around preaching, and I soon learned about how people try to do the work of the Holy Spirit, and the damage they do. I was warned by other young preachers and evangelists in my country who knew me, and when they heard I was going to a particular town with another young evangelist, they warned me about a man. They said, there's a very strange man there. He's so strange that he's really on fire. He tries to do the work of the Holy Spirit. He's so desperate to get people under conviction of sin. Well, they warned me, but I didn't know I was in for such a hard time. When I stood in the pulpit, there was this old man, old Umi, we call him, that means uncle, a boor, a farmer, and he sat in the front row of this meeting, and there he was listening, and all the people, and I was preaching, and the moment I named a particular sin, this man said, oh, and I looked at him. I'd named a sin, and he turned around, and he pointed. It's you. I looked at this man, and everybody who is pointing was sitting there, you know, all looking a bit upset. How do you preach on? But I tried, and I named another sin. You want to preach when someone's trying to do the Holy Spirit's work? You see, this man was desperate. There was no truth being preached in the town, or any pulpit of the town, and when truth was come, he was in such a state that he couldn't bear the thought that people wouldn't come under conviction of sin, now that somebody was preaching about sin, and he made sure they got knowing you're not going to bypass it if it's meant for you. But all he did was damage. I mean, nobody could be reached when a man tries to do the work of God like that. All you do is want to get out of the building, and the preacher want to get out of the pulpit. Brother, don't do the work of the Holy Spirit. Can I warn all you zealous Christians? Can I warn all you zealous Christians? It's his work. Trust him. All you do is damage. Trust him, brother. The Holy Spirit's work is to convict the world of sin, of righteousness, of judgment, not yours. We had a missionary lady in our missionary society back home in Africa, and she's quite a character. She married one of the godliest men in our land's history, a Mr. Rossi Fenta, and her name was Koba Fenta, but she was a character. Oh my, you didn't play the fool with this woman. She was really a character, though she was a missionary, and she was needed, and everyone's needed. But this dear lady, when she was a young missionary, there was someone who felt that there was something in her life, in Mrs. Fenta's life, that was very unacceptable to be in the life of a young missionary serving God. There was something in her life that really was unacceptable to be in a missionary's life in the AEB, the mission I serve in. So this older Christian, this older missionary lady, who'd been a longer time, it seems she came up to Mrs. Fenta in despair in the end that this thing wasn't being dealt with in her life. And she looked at Mrs. Fenta, and she said to her, you know, there's someone in the AEB who does this thing. And Mrs. Fenta, of course, looked at this lady, and she thought, oh, my troubles here. The lady said, yes. So Mrs. Fenta said, oh. So the lady said, yes, she's in the AEB, and she does this thing. She shouldn't do it. She's a missionary. They shouldn't do it. So Mrs. Fenta, of course, feeling very uncomfortable, said, oh. The lady looked at her in despair, you know, and she said, yes, and she's in the AEB. She shouldn't do it. Oh. In the end, the lady despaired so much she lost it, you know. She said, no. They're the ones that does it. So Mrs. Fenta, of course, she looked at her feeling wounded and smashed and crushed, and she said, no. Now, I don't know what no means. I don't think it's very victorious in the Christian vocabulary, but I think maybe it was trying to say shame on you for not waiting and leaving the Holy Spirit to do that in His time when I'm ready. Do you know how many Christians are stumbling for the rest of their lives because we jumped the gun? Sir, do you know how long it took you to get you where you are? Have you forgotten the patience God had with you, lady? And you look at these younger Christians, and in one moment they better throw the line and be everything you are, or you'll grieve, and you're going to do the work for God. And all that you do is get them to stagger and stumble for years, and years of stumbling, if you just left it to God, they would have let God have His way when the Holy Spirit convicted them. Another danger, another danger is how many people try to do the work of the Holy Spirit in a prayer meeting, on their knees. They don't pray, they preach. They don't speak to God ever. It's just one stance of hypocrisy. That's their opportunity to speak, and so they're going to get everybody under conviction of the things they think the people need to hear, so they can speak now, so they're going to pray at people. You don't pray at people, you pray for people. You don't pray to people, you pray to God for people. Otherwise, your sin is more of a grief to God than their sin, or their inconsistency. Don't doubt that. It's one stance of hypocrisy. It's a grief to God and man. Don't think you're spiritual, sir, if you don't pray to God in a prayer meeting, you pray to people. That proves how carnal you are, and how little you trust the Holy Spirit. I was in a prayer meeting where a man who had been a missionary for many years, somehow he just lost control, and on his knees in his prayer meeting full of evangelists and preachers and missionaries all over the building from all over southern Africa, this convention, this half-night of prayer, he was praying on his knees. Suddenly, he starts praying in such a way that grief came upon the whole meeting. I mean, such grief that it was the end of the whole convention. Virtually, he destroyed a convention. On his knees, he decided to pray at people. So, he started speaking his mind on his knees, things he should never have said. He started crying out, God has a slung in the cross. Now, you don't know our language back home. That means there's a snake in the grass. Everybody's thinking, who's he speaking about? You get uncomfortable when a man starts praying that. You know, there's sin in the camp. That's why the things are going wrong in the missionary society. That's why the blessing of God is not what it should be. There's sin in the camp. It must be dealt with. It must get out. It must deal with the sinner. Oh my, people were getting grieved. He went on and on and on. You know, I thought it'd never end. And a cloud of grief fell upon that conference. And they closed the whole prayer meeting, not for the half night of prayer anymore. They just closed it when he said amen. And he just destroyed that night of prayer. No one wanted to pray after that. Everybody was on their knees groaning in grief, thinking, who is he speaking about? Who's in sin of these preachers? Who's bringing the curse of God upon us? Well, I went outside. And by the time I got outside, I was saying to the Lord, Lord, does he think that about me? Has the devil told him things that he's, is it me he's thinking about? Before I could think too long, another person came to me and they thought it was them. Within a few minutes, there was about 12 people who came to me, all thinking it was them. Maybe he thinks it's me. He had the whole lot of us under conviction. I think the only person that wasn't under conviction was the person who was meant for. I'd be surprised if the person who was meant for got convicted, because it wasn't God, the Holy Ghost, guiding that man. So don't pray about people in front of them. Be careful what you do and what you say if you do. Don't pray about sin in someone's life if they're there with you. Pray to God about people before you single out someone, sir, that's hearing you on your knees, because all you're doing is sinning a greater sin than the person you think is a grief to God, who's become a grief to you. Don't doubt it. Don't doubt it. You are a grief to God. I don't know how many prayer meetings I've been in in the last 32 years, and I've been in many, many, many hundreds, and I don't know how few I ever attended where there was no one praying at people, preaching at people on their knees. Suddenly, there was someone, someone there, the devil made sure destroyed any blessing there could be in the prayer meeting by someone who wasn't praying to God, but praying to people. Don't do the work of the Holy Spirit. It just tells God straight, you don't trust Him. You're going to have to do His work for Him by lying, by lying that you're speaking to Him, and you're all so unspiritual you're only speaking to people. My brother is also a preacher. My brother was the first one saved in our home, and our home was destroyed by sin. We lay in ruins, but God took hold of my dear brother and saved him in the most amazing way. He suddenly found himself sitting in a meeting under one of the greatest men of God that has ever lived in this world. I have no doubt of that. A man who influenced thousands throughout the world to walk with God, a holy walk, just by his life. People have said to me all across the world as I've gone to different countries who know as they hear me preaching of Him, you can never recover if you just stand in His presence. If you just stood in His presence, your conscience wouldn't allow you to recover till the day you die, that God could make a man so holy. You know, he was the only man that I ever met in my life that I wept by just standing looking at him. I wept. I trembled at the consciousness of how God could make a man that holy, this side of heaven. If you let Him, He shone. He shone, not with a superficial shine like we think of Moses, you know, just some glow, no, integrity and purity and godliness and the character and the nature of Christ was just shining through His every reaction that people would weep standing in His presence. But He was the preacher, the most holy man of God I ever knew or was privileged to know in my life that I've met many of the godliest men in this world and prayed with them, but never did I know a man that could come near the godliness of this man. Will McFarlane was his name, and he was in our country preaching, and my brother by some amazing miracle, not seeking God, was found in that meeting dragged, not wanting God, not being there for God. And under the anointed preaching, as very few have ever been anointed through his life, my brother was so crushed by conviction by the end of that sermon, he couldn't stand. When he stood, he fell. He was like someone who had become drunk under conviction. He was so crushed at the consciousness of God, but somehow my brother made his way weeping and fell on his knees, and this godly man knelt beside him and cried out to God when he saw the brokenness of this boy. He put his arm around and cried out to God for him to save his soul, and oh God saved my brother that night. Oh God saved my brother. He became a new creature in Christ, but that godly man left and flew to another country, like to Canada. Three months later, my brother heard that this godly Will McFarlane was in South Africa again, and he made a phone call and said, I hear Mr. Mac is there. This godly, godly woman, Mrs. Ellen White, where all the godly preachers would go across the world, that's where they put her, this wonderful woman of God, and she said, yes, Mr. Mac is here, godly. The man that led you to Christ is here, but only tonight. He's only he's only flying through. He's making a stop over in Johannesburg on his way to Rhodesia. Today we call that Zimbabwe, but he's just making one night. Tomorrow he's flying out, and my brother said, but I want to see him, but I can't see him tonight. There's a dance. We had this dance arranged months ago. Oh, six months ago. They bought the tickets, an annual event, you know. It's something that they did with their friends every, this was happened before he was saved. He had organized this dance. Now, here's the man who led him to Christ, and he has a dance to go to. So Auntie Ellen White said, a dance. Well, if you want to see him, you'll have to come tonight. So Dudley said, well, we'll come on the way to the dance. Will he see us? Let me tell you something. If you knew Mr. Mac Farland, to come to him and say, I'm going to a dance. You led me to Christ, but I'm on the way to the dance. I mean, that's unthinkable. It's unbelievable. She said, well, come on the way to the dance. So my brother arrived, and there was Mr. Mac Farland, thrilled to see him. He says, Mr. Mac, I would love to spend a lot of time with you, but I can't because we've arranged this dance. I wish I could get out of it, but we can't get out. We can't offend everybody. It's an annual thing we've done for years, and I'll only be able to be here for a few short moments, but I wanted to see you. So Mr. Mac Farland, of course, looked at him and said, Dudley, how's things going since you've been saved? Are you growing in the Lord? Are you reading the Bible? That's the first thing you must find out to find out whether somebody's alive. You feel the pulse. How's your quiet time? I asked them that. Not how you were there when you were saved, but how's the quiet time today? You're as real as your quiet time was this morning. That's how real you are with God. You're not as real as how you were saved and what you changed years ago. You're not as real as how you're being used. You're as real as your quiet time. That you soak yourself in the Bible is the greatest priority of life, the most guarded thing in your day, every day of your life, that nothing will keep you from, no one will keep you, nothing the world offers, nothing the church offers will keep you from the time with God. The greatest priority that you nurture and guard with your life is the time unhurried with God. That's how real you are, sir. That that is the most vital thing in life, because if it isn't every day of your life, you're backslidden, and you're a grief to God, and you can be guaranteed you're a grief to men, because you're as real as your quiet time. How's the quiet time, Dudley? You pray through to God. How many chapters are you reading? After a while, Dudley said, well, sir, will you pray for us? We've got to go now. So Mr. McFarland prayed for them, and off they went to the dance. So Dudley says they're driving along in the car, him and Ann, his fiancée, who wasn't married, they both came to Christ now. They're driving to the dance, and for some reason, as they drove, the car went slower and slower. Eventually, the car was crawling along the road, and Ann didn't say to him, well, why are you driving so slow? There was just this deathly silence. The two of them didn't speak. Eventually, they finally got to the dance, and they sat in the car looking at each other. They didn't say a word, just looking, and after a while, they got out of the car and went into the dance, and there's all his friends. Oh, you're late. Come on, sit down. Out comes, with all the dancing, all the music, you know, all the smoking, and the smell of alcohol, and the laughter. Let's give you some drink. Yeah, let me pour you a drink. Alcohol, you see. Dudley said, no, no, thank you. We don't drink anymore. Ann and I, we don't want any drink. We don't drink anymore, and his friend looked at them. This friend knew him from school days. He said, what? You don't drink anymore? Are you mad? Come. Daddy said, no, we don't drink anymore. Oh, you don't drink anymore. So, they're all looking at Dudley now. A little bit of shock going on here now, and then, of course, the next thing is the joke. Unsaved have to tell jokes, you know, to laugh in these occasions, and they have to be wrong jokes, so he was telling a joke that was heading wrong straight from the start, and Dudley listened to this fellow. He said, look, just stop. Just stop, man. I can see where this is heading. I don't want to hear it, and why do you always have to bring Jesus Christ's name in like a dirty word with all your other swearing words? So, this fellow said, are you crazy? What's wrong with you? Since when does Jesus Christ's name matter to you, and since when is a joke wrong? You've gone mad. So, he jumped up, and he grabbed Ann, and he said, come on, let me get you away from this madman. You come and dance. At least you can have a happy time. I'm not going to let you sit with him, so Dudley stood up and said, no, don't you touch her. I know you. Don't touch Ann. I know you. You won't dance with her, not you, and this fellow shouted. He lost his temper and screamed. Are you mad? What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? Why is it wrong? And Dudley looked at him, shaking at the way the fellow was screaming. He really got angry, and Dudley said, I've become a Christian. It's because I'm saved. I've given my heart to God. I've given my life to God. That's why I'm saved. So, this fellow looked, and everyone looked at him, amazed. And he said, but Dudley, if you've given your life to God, what are you doing here? Dudley said, I don't know, but I'm not staying. He grabs Ann and runs into the car, no slowness. Where do they drive? Back to Mr. Macfarlane, of course, as fast as they could. Knock on the door. They call Mr. Mac. Oh, Dudley, we've been expecting you. Didn't think it would take this fast. Come in. Dudley sat there. They talked. He said, why didn't you tell us? You knew it was wrong. Nobody's ever told me my life dancing is wrong, and you couldn't, as a saved person, go into such a place and survive. And you couldn't feel comfortable. You're just agonized. Why didn't you just tell me I wouldn't have gone? Mr. Mac said, I didn't tell you, Dudley, because I wanted God to tell you. You see, Dudley, if I told you, you'd stop for me, out of fear of me, of respect for me, but I'm not always going to be with you. I'm not always going to be with you, but Dudley, God is always going to be with you, and now that God's told you, you will never do it again. You'll never do it again. Mr. Macfarlane, when he was saved, he was 18 years old, and they say he had such integrity before he was saved. Can you imagine what he was after salvation? And one day he became such a holy man of God, but when he was saved, all he had in every breath in his body was this zeal for God. He just wanted to live for God and for God's smile. He was on fire for God, 18 years old, sitting on a tram. The trams are like the buses, you know. The old days, they went in rail lines across the street. I don't know if you people know what trams are, but those days when he was a young man going to his workplace, sitting in the tram, he said, now he's saved. All he's thinking of is Christ, commuting with God. And suddenly a little voice said in his heart, look around you. Look at all these people. They're all going to hell. There they all sat in their misery, going to work. Their blood will be on your hands if you don't warn them from hell. You know they're going to hell. This is your opportunity. Speak to them. Warn them of hell, or their blood will be on their hands. Well, he battled about this, you know. He got into a bit of a state. He thought, well, I'll have to do this. So he got up, and he turned around in the tram with all the people who were sitting in silence, and he shouted, you're all going to hell. And so he started quoting a few verses to his sleep, and the wrath to come, and the judgments, and come to Jesus, and you all go to hell. Two minutes later, they stopped the tram, and the conductor took him, and he ran him and threw him out of the door. And he went on his face, on his body, into the pavement. Oh, he got hurt. Although he didn't, he wasn't just on his feet. He was on his face, sprawled, hurting, wounded. And the bus drove off, and nobody looked back to see him. They just drove off and left him. And he got up. Oh, he was hurting. He was hurting more inside than outside. I mean, there's the shame, the humiliation of being treated like an animal, just roll into your face. Here he's standing, they're trying to regain some composure, and feeling hurt and wounded. And suddenly, God said to him in his heart, deep in his heart, it was not me that told you to do that, my son. It was not me that told you to do that. Let the Holy Spirit lead you as to when to speak to men about God, and about sin, and about judgment. Or don't speak. Trust me about that. You'll just do damage. You have not been given the right to offend when you got saved, because people are going to hell. You have no right to offend. And if you offend, it has to be only people who are so evil that they will be offended, and anybody righteous. But you've been given the right to become a gentleman, sir, for the first time, a real gentleman. Christians are gentlemen. Christians are gentlewomen. No offense is required. You have no right to offend. You've been given a common sense by God, quickened by the Holy Ghost. And I've learned by gracious, godly people that the more of a gentleman you are, the more you are Christlike. Not the offensiveness, or how many people you can leave running for the because of the way you had no common sense. Be careful. Be careful. The closer you are to Christ, I guarantee you, the more of a gentleman you are, until written across your life is respect by godless people, by your life that gives them the right. Trust God by the communing in the morning with God to lead you, and to guide you, and to speak to you when to speak, but otherwise to keep your mouth tight and let your life to the speaking. He will lead you if you wait for him, and you would suddenly find God saying to your common sense, that's what he speaks to, what you know. This is the right time, sir. Now you're not going to offend him in front of all his friends standing there where he's got to defend himself. Now is the time he's alone, and after a while you know he's respecting your life. Now speak, but be careful how far you go. There are very few times that you suddenly can stand up and just cry out without any invitation by the right your life is giving you, or them asking you. Wait for God's guidance, or all you do is damage, like Mr. Macfarlane. You just get nirs. You just get thrown out of buses. You just get sprawled on and wounded, and walking around wounded, saying, what have I done wrong, and just have shame on your life in the end if you don't wait for the Holy Spirit's guidance. I'd like to write a book one day, you know. They've tried to got me to write books for the last couple of years, and I just can't. I said, but how does a preacher write books? I'm preaching just about every night of my life, you know, with that costs. How am I going to get to write books? And now they're taking my sermons, and they're writing them out for me. I don't mind them. The Americans really do things, don't they? God bless them, but I suppose I'll have to get writing, and I'm trying. Believe it or not, one of these days we'll try and put books up, but I think the first book I'd like to write is, this will be the title, How Not to Do the Work of God. How Not to Do the Work of God. I don't know who'll buy it. Chapter one, How Not to Witness. I have three sons, my darlings, and my wife's darlings. They're our joy. They're so different, you can't believe they came from the same father and mother. Are your children like that? My eldest is six foot four. Well, he's high as can be. He takes a size 14 boot. He's an embarrassment with a big boot like that. And then he has another brother. He's 19. He's no. Then there's Roy. He's 17. He just turned 18 three days ago. And Roy, uniquely different personality. Then there's little Samuel. He's 10 years old, the darling of the home completely. We don't all, we all just love little Samuel. But Roy, Roy was the problem child. Have you got a problem child in your home? Well, Roy was our problem child. He was such a problem that he left people gasping for breath. We didn't know what he was gonna do next, you know. I mean, I've never seen a man nearly die in the pulpit, apart from when Roy was in the congregation. I saw a man nearly dying through my son. I saw people gasping and groaning and the man in the pulpit hanging. I won't tell you what Roy did. We tried to quiet him. We tried to shut his mouth. We tried everything, you know. We never went back to the church, of course. We had many wonderful times with Roy, but we got exasperated and we went to a doctor, to a specialist across the country to find out what to do. We were given advice by our doctor to go to this child specialist and have some sort of treatment or something. So this fellow made a lot of tests and he said, your son is hypoactive. So I said, hypoactive? What does it mean? I know what hyperactive is. Hyperactive is, you know, when a child can't sit still and can't keep quiet. You put a plug in his mouth, he's still making a noise. And chain him to the chair and he's still trying to move. That's hyperactive. So he said, no, hypoactive is hyperactive multiplied by one million. I said, oh. And I looked at my wife and I said, we're going through quite a time and we're scared. Even the principal has called us into the school. And I said, you know, we need help. Can't you give medication, anything? We don't know what to do. So he said, no, well, there's Ritalin, but I don't recommend it. He said, listen, you grow out of it. He said, there's no medication that really helps you. He's going to grow out of it. Maturity comes. You can't make a child mature. That comes. The moment he's mature, this will all be gone. You've just got to wait. Until then, you will age. And I looked at this man and I thought, is he really trying to be funny? You will age. We aged. Oh, we aged. Dear Roy, oh, I love him, you know, but Roy put us through, he put the whole family through aging process. One day we were waiting in a queue along a beach. We were going along the beachfront, the seashore in a hot summer's day in Africa. We don't go where the crowds are for many reasons, but we were walking along and there was a big sign on the top of a building with a big ice cream, you know, about a hundred feet into the air, this ice cream all swirling up a big painting, that ice creams were being sold there in this hot day. And I tell you, no one could pass it. You're all hot and they shouldn't be allowed to put those signs up because we're all just drawn to it and our crowd, Roy just points and that's it, let's go. So we got there and there were everybody, I don't know how many people, two long rows coming out of the ice cream parlor there, this ride down onto the street in long rows. Eventually we got to the door, no one was speaking, everybody was just thinking of the ice cream. There was deadly sirens in these queues, even the children were just waiting to get there, you know. We got inside and there was about 20 people in this queue, in this row and there's 20 people there inside now and then right outside, but deadly silence and suddenly there was a man smoking, but he, I don't know what was quite wrong with him, he was in a bit of a state because he really was smoking, you know, just smoke coming up and I looked at him and I felt a bit sorry for him, but Roy looked at him and Roy said, stop! Everybody looked and this man looks at him and Roy says, stop! You know, with his horror in his eyes, so the man says, what's wrong with you, boy? Stop smoking now, he says, put it out, put it out! So the man looks at me and I said, Roy, stop, he said, put it out now! So the man, he says, you're going to hell! You will go straight to hell, put it out quickly! So the man threw it down and put it out, he says, sorry! And he looks at Roy and I, of course, was trying everything to stop him and he said, now don't you ever smoke again or you'll go straight to hell! He was very small, well, no one laughed, everyone choked and gasped and looked and trying to hide their faces and this poor man was dying, looking, didn't know where to look and I grabbed Roy, you know, I died a bit that day and then he did the same a few weeks later and he did worse! I won't tell you what the woman did that he, I can't tell anybody what happened in that home! It was unbelievable what that woman did when he screamed! So I said, listen, Roy, come, you've got to deal this, we've got to sort this out for him! You can't do that, you can't go screaming at people, he must have been listening to Christians and conventions and conferences and everywhere, just picked up little things here and there that smoking was sin! Well, I said, Roy, if he gives up smoking, he's still going to hell! That's not going to save his soul! You don't tell a man to stop smoking if he's not saved! You don't put the cart before the horse boy, he has to have an encounter with Jesus! You can make him stop smoking, you can make him stop drinking, stop swearing, you can change his clothes, make him stop going here and there and go to church, he's still going to hell! That won't save him, he's still going to hell, it doesn't matter! It's not what he does, it's what Christ did that saves him! And when he gets through to Christ's salvation, these things Christ throws out of his life, these things just throw out of his life! But you don't make a man change and change everything before he thinks he can be saved, nothing will do that salvation apart from faith in the blood of Christ and the risen power of Christ, and Christ will set him free to what he ought to be! So don't you ever speak like this again! Well, Roy, finally the message got through, you know, the message got through and he never did that to us. By the by, just before I leave, Roy, just to be just, Roy did get mature and he's become one of the most gentle, caring, wise, discerning, godly, upright people I've ever met in my life, person that I've ever met in my life. I cannot tell you in words befitting, befitting what my son has become in the hands of God. In case you're all sitting there worrying about my life with my son, you can have comfort, he's changed, he's become godly and a great blessing. Of course it's different if someone is under conviction, then it's different if the Holy Ghost is convicting a person, it's different, and he comes to you for advice as to what's right in a Christian's life, and he looks to you, then you've got to be honest and true and straight without compromise. Mr. Macfarlane was preaching in a prayer meeting one day, the oldest prayer meeting I think in our land's history. Oh, men in their 90s coming every week to pray through for Africa, to pray through for the world, and the bloodbath the world thought would happen in southern Africa, one of the reasons it didn't happen was that prayer meeting, the godliest saint. Mr. Mac preached one night there, he's preached many nights, many of those people came to Christ when he was a young man through his ministry, but he gave this word to God. I was in the meeting and after the meeting they had tea and refreshments, cakes, and everybody after the meeting was standing around because they traveled from all over the city, they had fellowship before they left the prayer meeting, after Mr. Mac had preached and prayed through, now we're all having fellowship, but a man stood there and he was in the prayer meeting, he heard Mr. Mac preaching, he suddenly lit a cigarette up, he starts smoking the cigarette, you know, I saw Mr. Mac looking at him, I mean to stand there in that hall after that service and light a cigarette, eventually he said to Mr. Macfarlane, there's nothing wrong with smoking, is there Mr. Macfarlane? I mean Spurgeon smoked, he said, and he looked at Mr. Mac, he said, people tell me that it's wrong for a Christian to smoke, I can't see what's wrong, it's not a moral sin, it's not morally decadent, I'm faithful to my wife, it's something to do with the health, they say, but I can take you to people who smoke till the day they die that are more healthy than people that haven't smoked, I can take you to people who drink coffee, it does more damage, they haven't got a right to tell me to stop smoking, they drink so much coffee, they bring more damage to themselves, when you draw the line, there's nothing wrong in smoking, Mr. Mac, what do you think, it's not wrong for a Christian to smoke, is it? Mr. Mac shook the whole hall, I mean Mr. Mac doesn't shout, he just doesn't shout, this godly man, he shouted and no one could believe it, he looked at this man and he said, you know it's wrong, why do you ask me what you know is wrong? He walked away, well that was the end of the socializing, do you know that man that night, put his cigarettes down, never smoked again, you know that man that night through that rebuke, met with God in such a way that he left his work and became a soul winner, a preacher, and he became a great preacher, he became a soul winner in our land, he needed a rebuke to stop playing the fool with God, and he got it from one of the godliest men, this time that there is a Nathan needed to the David, who thought his sin was it, oh have you noticed though, when I spoke to Mr. Mac about this incident, Mr. Mac said, Keith, if a Christian comes to you and asks you if something's wrong for a Christian to do, it's because he knows it's wrong, he's under conviction, and if the Holy Spirit is in him, he knows, when Nathan came to David and confronted David about his sin, did you know what David said when he got on his knees, smashed by that confrontation about his sin, he said, my sin is ever before me, my sin is ever before me, they know, and sometimes it's needed, sometimes it's needed for a Nathan, but be sure it's God leading you when you confront a man, or all you'll do is damage, be sure that it's God leading you before you confront someone about their sin brother, but when they're under conviction, that's different, how does God the Holy Spirit convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment, how does God the Holy Spirit convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment, two things, he anoints the word of God, and he anoints a life, those two things only does God the Holy Spirit use, he anoints the word of God to the degree to which you soak your message in prayer preacher, and to that degree only, and he anoints a life to the degree that you soak your life in prayer, he anoints the word, he honors his word above all things God says, Hebrews 4 verse 12, the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing, don't bypass using the word in the pulpit, this is what God uses to convince the world of sin, but oh God showed me how he honors this word above all things, and how he anoints it to the degree that you pray, and soak your life, and the people you'd have preached to, and the word especially, to that degree God give us another Jonathan Edwards, that started the first revival in America's history, a revival that went on sweeping across your land over 120, 30 years, until millions, and millions of your forefathers were saved, by the revival started through a man called Jonathan Edwards, taken on by George Whitfield, and even further by Charles Finney, and even further in the prayer revival, where millions came to God, and even further by Moody, but just kept on back like wave, but it started through a man that prayed for three days, he did not eat, three nights he did not sleep, he groaned before God, give me new England, weeping, give me new England, and as he was groaning for God, God gave him a message, God led him to scripture upon scripture, as the tears poured down, as he turned the pages, he wrote a sermon that is the most famous sermon in earth history, apart from the sermon in the mount, God gave him sinners in the hands of an angry God, and so I dare you preachers in America to just say the title, let alone preach the content, you have revival just saying that title, they don't know there's an angry God awaking them, but because of the way he groaned in prayer, soaking his prayers, soaking his people, soaking his nation, soaking himself, soaking this book, with groans through three days, and three nights, not sleeping, not eating, weeping for God to come, God came with such a thunderbolt, the devil couldn't stop it for 130 years, and that's why America is the nation she is today, beloved, you think you're here because of your great politicians, you're not, you're here because your forefathers sought God, he became the greatest nation of earth for that reason alone, and what God tolerates is because of what's left of the repercussions of those God-fearing people, but don't doubt it unless you get another Jonathan Edwards among your millions of preachers, unless you just find one more, you lose everything America, I guarantee your greatness is about to go soon, because the scales of the tipping is in God's hands, I don't know when it's going to go down on the one end, where there's more evil being produced to the world, and influence in the world, and there is good, but when that scale goes down, then you're close to it, God give you another Jonathan Edwards, or you're finished, you won't know what's left of your country, and how devastatingly fast it will come, trust me about that, I'm no prophet, my common sense tells me about your history, and looking at you now, all preachers anoint the word with prayer, don't go out there to impress with hours of preparing great homiletical messages, and not soaking it in prayer groaning before God for souls, do what Jonathan Edwards did, and see what God does for 130 years after your sermon, but God give you one more man that won't go out there homiletically prepared through hours of preparing to impress, but they'll never see revival until they get down on their face, and start groaning for hours, and come out with a little bit God gave them as the tears fell on verses, but they had to give, though no other preacher in the whole land dared to say the word hell until Jonathan Edwards did, that's what God gives you when you start praying preacher, more than you start preparing, God showed me how much he anoints this word, when as a young preacher, he put it upon my heart to memorize these books, chapters upon chapters, and he gave me the ability that I didn't know how it came, and I didn't know what God was saying, but I obeyed him as I took hold, and found that it was all there, God just burned into my soul, and I stood there weeping through the nights as I saw what God was giving you, but when I stood in the pulpit, I saw how God anoints his word above all things, how he honors his word as it stands above all things, when I didn't say one word apart from just quote the words Christ said, before I'd finished just what Christ said, I looked across and I couldn't believe what this effect is, men were falling down all over, falling off their chairs, unable to sit as they writhe in pain of the conviction the word of God brings, oh God showed me how whole congregations fall on their face halfway through a book that I'm quoting, I don't know how God does that, but I know something, he honors his word, he uses the word more than anything else, the anointed word to the degree that you soak it in prayer, but oh I soaked it in prayer, as sometimes I haven't had more than 10 minutes preparing for a sermon, but I spent the whole afternoon and hours weeping, and suddenly the whole town converges on a building until there's no room, and there they are outside of the windows, on the walls, sitting on the cars, and the loudspeakers, and the whole town just came and come, and most 20 minutes after you're preaching are on their faces before God, and when you pray, sir, God comes, when you preach, very little happens, but when you anoint the word through consuming your life in prayer, and the people you to be preaching to in this holy book, oh what's what God does for another Jonathan Edwards in this land, please find one though among your ranks of preachers, and he anoints a life, he anoints a life to the degree that that life is soaked in prayer, when I was a young Christian, I used to stand on the beachfront talking to God after my readings, I would go down for two hours, and walk in the dark until the sun rose, and then after praying, and walking in prayer, and calling on God, and praising, I would end as the sun rose singing praises to God, then I got in my car, and then I drive to my work, and my heart would begin to sink, and sink as I realized, oh I've got to face a day with defiling people, I feel defiled in their presence, oh they didn't seem to matter that I was saved, I used to groan before God, and say God it's like I'm being defiled here, they know I'm saved, but they just keep this defilement, I didn't know, and I thought I was being defiled, and that's all that's happening here, but one day God showed me because of the way I started the day, sir, if you begin the day with God, then that is the greatest priority in your life, God himself, not religion, men aren't sleeping, I found out soon as a boy started weeping in my company, and I said what's wrong with you, he said it's your life, and I thought that boy had no conviction of sin, had no respect of my Christianity, and he began to groan like he was in pain, and I said what's wrong with you man, he said it's your life, your life so condemns me that I can't sleep in the nights anymore, I can't enjoy my sin, and he just ran from me, couldn't bear being in the car with me, and I began to realize God is doing something, the devil tells you you're not being used, suddenly the worst sinner in the whole firm, the company that I was working for grabbed me, pulled me into his office, threw me down to the floor, and I thought I was about to be hurt, I said what's wrong with you sir, and he fell down on his knees, and he said oh I'm a sinner boy, help me to find your Jesus, the worst sinner was under conviction, weeping, groaning, woman touched my arm and just said Keith, I'm losing my husband, I'm losing my children, my life is full of sin, the whole firm knows it's a scandal the way I'm with men, but now my husband found out, and she's weeping, and she said you're a Christian, everyone knows that Keith, can your Jesus help me, I can't stop my sin, I can't help myself, can Jesus set me free Keith, so that I don't lose my husband, he's found out, I said of course Jesus can set you free, and we prayed, we stood there crying out for God to save her soul, you know God so saved her that the men who committed wickedness with her stood in fear as he walked into a room within days of her salvation, they stood in fear of the transformation of her life, the owner of the firm called me in swearing and cursing him, in the end because I didn't react and defend myself as he was screaming at me, he sat down and he said you're a Christian aren't you boy, I said yes sir I'm a Christian, he said you must be mad, there's no God, there can't be a God, and if there is a God how can you love him, because anyone who created this world must be a monster with all the suffering and the hurt, don't you tell me to trust a God that is such a monster if there is a God, so I said oh there is a God sir, and he is love, he's not a monster, he said you prove to me there's a God, you prove to me God is love and I'll give my life to him now, he was the owner of one of the biggest companies in our country, and I said sir I'm so scared of you, the way you swear and the way you scream, I can't prove anything to you unless you keep quiet, but if you don't say a word until I'm finished, you know there's a God and that he is love, and I spoke I don't think for 10 maybe 15 minutes, telling him of my life, bringing in scriptures, my family, what God did, and suddenly this man it was like someone who'd never ever grasped the concept of God and suddenly he knew what he's wasted, he threw himself across the table that I got frightened, his head hit the table so hard I thought he was hurt, he just like somebody who suddenly grasped something he couldn't grasp before, and he threw himself a bow and he grabbed me and I stood and groaned in pain and said help me, help me to find your God Keith, I need his soul, he came to Christ, the next day my manager called me into the office, he called Keith you come here now, everybody sat fearful, our manager didn't scream, he was angry, so I walked in there thinking what am I in for now, sat down and he says what have you done to the man, it's you I know, everyone knows, I said what do you mean sir, he says the the owner of the firm he says I've always hated him, I've always lived in fear of him, for 30 years I've worked for him, and he's sitting there with a bible open on his desk, you know what he says to everybody coming into the office, he says what do you want, don't you sit, tell me what you want before you sit, so we've got to say what we want, and he says it's not good enough, you can sort it out, you're not keeping me from business, can you believe God can change a man like that, you know to the day he died, that man never allowed anyone to sit before he asked him what do you want, and most people he said go away, that's not important enough, I want God's word, brother, sister, you think God isn't using you, because people are still in their sin, people are not sleeping, people are not enjoying their sin, people are groaning, you don't know what they're going through, no matter how much they laugh in front of each other, if you're just vital with God in the morning and the night, if you just meet with God and you make this life being consumed by prayer beginning in the morning, if you walk with God through the day, don't listen to the devil that says you're not being used, he anoints the word to the degree that that word is soaked in prayer, and the preacher is soaked in prayer, and the people he's to preach through is soaked in prayer, he anoints the word to the degree that the message is soaked in prayer, and he anoints a life to the degree that the life is soaked in prayer, don't doubt that, and to the degree that you soak your life in prayer, beloved, so will God convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment without you bringing in the error preaching or a sermon, your life becomes a sermon, you are our epistle known and read of all men, you have been declared to be the epistle of Christ, the message, the letter of Christ, written not with ink but by the spirit of the living God, do you know that the outworking of the scriptures and the life is used by God the Holy Spirit to virtually stagger and condemn the consciences of them that have no open ear to the word of God, your life is written, you write, God writes the word of God, you live it, and it's more powerful sometimes than the spoken word of God if it's lived, but to the degree that you consume it in prayer, but there's one more thing, you can pray until you're blue in the face preacher, and you can pray until you're blue in the face, soul that loves Christ, and you will not be used by God to convince the world of sin and righteousness and of judgment because the initial anointing after salvation is when you're filled with God the Holy Spirit, and that's missing from the pulpits today, name the preacher that moved the world to God and you will find that after salvation he came to a place where he absolutely surrendered to God and let God control them, fill them with the spirit, being filled with the spirit is not a glass of water, half fill, and now you fill the other half, the Holy Spirit is a person, he dwells in you completely as a person, not half of the Holy Spirit, so what does it mean to be filled with the spirit if the whole of the Holy Spirit dwells with you and is filled in its complete entirety? All it means is you don't fill the other half empty, you just become controlled, and you're not controlled by the spirit with salvation, no one is, he comes in you, but you all become aware there has to come a moment of absolute surrender in your life as a Christian, Andrew Murray said, unless this comes in your life you will become a grief to God and man even if you're saved, every saved person will eventually become a grief to God and man unless he comes to a place of absolute surrender whereby God fills him, takes control, and only when you're absolutely surrendered can he take control, when you give up the fight and say God what's left of life, I'm not going to fight you anymore, I want the fruit of the spirit to be the vital evidence that I'm filled, controlled by the spirit, that's the other one, gifts, gifts getting away most of the time, you know why? Because we bypass the fruit and read 1 Corinthians 13 to see what a grief gifts are to God and man if there isn't fruit, oh the fruit is the vital evidence spontaneously in every reaction, not by effort of my own, no matter how trying the circumstances you spontaneously react with the fruit, Christ the fruit of the spirit is Christ and as you soak your anointed life, your spirit-filled life in prayer, Christ is revealed to a greater degree as you soak to the degree that you soak in prayer, the greatest preachers that ever moved the world to God can tell you and you read their life, they all came to a place of absolute surrender and where they trusted God to fill them with the spirit and the anointing of God came upon their ministry from then onwards, Modi on the street falling on his knees as God filled him with the spirit but from that time onwards millions came to God, nations came to God, same preacher anointed as he prayed, John Wesley, Hudson Taylor, William Booth, name them, the men that moved the millions and the masses to God, Charles Stoney, name them, these men were filled with the spirit of God and then anointed by that anointing to the degree that they prayed. Now I want to speak to every one of you sitting here tonight and I know this is going to cost you but it's going to cost you far more if you don't heed to God. How many of you are saved? Probably everyone here. I doubt looking at all of you from the godly homes you seem to come but when were you absolutely surrendered to God? When did God anoint your life with the spirit of God? He's in you but he's not controlling you. When preacher did your ministry become anointed by the Holy Spirit? When did you absolutely surrender and absolutely controlled God controls you? You're not perfected in that moment before it's a life of ups and downs, more downs and ups as a saved person until you absolutely surrender from then onwards it's just a consistent growth. That's what is vital for you to be, growing more and more into the image of God, more and more effective for God but until absolute surrender in a Christian's life you'll have more downs and ups. You know you pray yourself blue in the face, you've got to come to absolute surrender. Preacher and Christian, young and old, when will you find the initial anointing of the Spirit of God in your life? Be filled with the Spirit of God. Tarry in Jerusalem for the Spirit's descent upon you that you may be witnesses, not before. How many of you, how many of you need to say God what's left of life? I absolutely surrender. I lay my whole being in the altar of God and I ask thee to fill me by faith. I trust thee to take control of me God. Thou art not in control. I'm in control God of this life. I'm saved but what a mess I've been making and witnessing and trying to do God's work and trying even to pray. I'm not anointed. I need to be filled with the Spirit. I absolutely surrender so that I can be taken control of by the Spirit at the fruit of the Spirit. God can be there and tonight I want that anointing so that as I pray God can anoint my life to convince the world to do the work of the Holy Spirit through my preaching and through my living God. How many of you need desperately to say to God tonight I'm saved God but I'm not sanctified. I'm not filled with the Spirit. I'm not controlled. I'm not. I haven't got this anointing and I want my life to be. I prayed for revival God but tonight I need to pray differently God begin this revival I've been praying for and others begin than me God. Here's the one who has the need. Let me become the instrument of revival that I've been praying for and expecting to come in others. Begin here God otherwise I have no right to pray for anyone who isn't right as a Christian. God revive me. Make me the instrument of revival. Anoint my life. I bow before God. I absolutely surrender and I want thee God to fill me and anoint my life and I will consume my life in prayer God that the anointing daily can stagger the world through the Holy Ghost convicting and through my life. I wonder how many of you need to say that desperately to God for what's left of life and I know it might cost you but imagine the cost that you say no through pride. I want those of you who need to say that to God to stand right now and say God it's me. All of you that are standing all of you that are standing will you bow your heads please. Will you pray aloud these words of me and remember God does not look at the words that proceed out the mouth. God look at the heart from whence they come. It's not sin that I'm leading you in prayer and though you're conscious you're following a man's words so long as in your heart you say to God these words are mine. He's looking at your heart. Don't you dare believe God will turn his face and say no. God's wanting this more in your life than anyone standing here and the devil is trembling to know what could be the result from the next step you take till the day you die. The anointing that will come in your life as you pray from now on which is the greatest greatest discipline of your life. You will find God with you in a way that will stagger the powers of hell every step you take virtually though you sometimes won't even know it. Now you trust God's holy obligation and his integrity makes him obligated to answer the soul that wants God to have his way and to be used of God. Don't doubt that. All of you pray aloud with me from your hearts as best as you can but pray aloud please oh God forgive me for so much time I've wasted being saved but not absolutely surrendered. I absolutely surrender my life to thee tonight God wash me in the blood of Christ from all my inconsistencies create in me a clean heart oh God renew a right spirit within me then shall I teach transgressors thy ways and sinners shall be converted unto thee but begin with me God make me the instrument of revival the revival I've been praying for so many years begin it tonight in me anoint my life God sanctify me through and through with the blood of Christ and fill me now with the holy spirit I don't seek gifts I want the fruit as the evidence that thou art in control of my life not by effort of my own but just spontaneously seen in every reaction no matter how trying the circumstances give me the discipline that nothing will keep me from prayer in the morning and in the night that I may walk with God through the day anointed to the degree that I soak my life in prayer consume my life in prayer God and win the world to thyself through me I pray these things in Jesus Christ's name and because I love thee God please honor my prayer amen can we all stand please now beloved above that you have asked or thought that God would answer I believe God is going to answer these prayers I have no doubt I have letters and phone calls from across the world ministers preachers who said sir I never won one soul to Jesus in truth though I've preached for 20 years but since I stood up and prayed that prayer my whole congregation has turned to Jesus Christ I have no doubt that if you prayed that from your heart God is going to honor you for he's the same God that honored them in their multitudes all church of Christ the only reason I come to your land is not to tour is not to impress I have nothing to impress I come back because I believe God God can bring revival here and if I can just get you praying for it properly let alone seeing it I don't care who God uses in this land doesn't matter to me to bring you back to God but your land needs the church to get revived and once the church has come back to God in truth and becomes vitally real that the world is uncomfortable in the church and the world is not comfortable in the church the church becomes uncomfortable in the world and not comfortable in the world oh that's revival when the word of God comes back in the pulpit without books to try and undermine and explain away the standard as God says it in its uncompromised state from your lips in your life without any apology but with always compassion even if your harshest word is there let it throb with love but don't you compromise then revival has come sir in your life and in your pulpit when this book is held out uncompromised and when the church gets out of the world and the world gets out of the church unless it comes to Christ that's revival until then don't stop praying but now be the instruments of revival in your community and I believe you will be Mr. Corvall please come here sir forgive me asking you but I want you to commit us to Christ now I'm going to be leaving and I forgive me for not shaking all of your hands I'd love to but I have to get very early up and I'm getting old I think pray for me I'm coming back to your land three times next year and God is very good to let me I'm bringing my whole family through I believe twice next year Mr. Bill Gothard wants to bring my whole family over and let me speak in some of his conferences where they're going to video these things and to send them across to all the preachers I thank God for that he's a very good man pray for him he's got a standard that's why you should pray for him pray for dear brother Denny Keniston working amongst the Mennonite Amish groups but the fruit there these people come out of legalism thank God for a high standard but thank God when they don't put the cart before the horse thank God when God has to save us out of the world you know he has to save other people out of the church out of religion but they needed an encounter with Christ and then but oh the fruit there the fruit of these godly men that bring me over that have any love for this type of preaching or place for it and to see God raising up the examples of the believers under these godly men like Bill Gothard these generations of young people who never went to a school they were protected from the defilement of the government schools these days the moral decadence from those who don't come from a home of God now you see these godly godly people and their thousands and thousands raising up with pure faces and purity and nobleness and integrity in spite of the decadence of the world you honor men like that you pray for them and they'll be bringing me over my family will you pray for me if God spares me this could be my last sermon I don't mind dear Lord I don't mind I will not mind but if he spares me and you pray for me I know I'm nothing don't doubt that in case you think my sharing these things tonight thinks I'm something I'm nothing God took 30 something years before I dared to say how he honored the word just pray for this man God spares him that God keeps him true to the word and in his life and that my family may never be destroyed by the devil because I'll leave them alone most of their lives they didn't have a daddy and I wouldn't have done that for a million dollars but I will do it for Jesus and his calling and for souls for that reason I come back to your land will you pray for this poor man who has no right to come here with anything but Jesus Christ in this book that God gave us so pray for me that as I come back God will use this poor weak face despised man in case you think it's not true just wait God will show you that's just what I am somewhere along the line don't make anything of men okay I always think if people ever talk about this man I fail God do me a favor if God met you do me a great favor a great honor just speak about Jesus then God won't have to throw me in the dust brother commit us to Christ don't forget if you want to receive a newsletter you give a little piece of paper to this dear brother to bring it home bring a prayer away you pray as a wonderful communication so pray and I know God will honor your prayers and protect me now my dear brother is going to commit us to Christ we're going to go to prayer in our homes go home tomorrow God take you safely have you never missed the quiet time ever until God says now you can go then you have the right to stop the quiet time if you never miss the quiet time you will never backslide the devil cannot touch the man who never misses God in the morning in the night he cannot touch the man who tries he can't but he'll wipe you out if you miss God wipe out your testament anyway if not your soul brother you pray now for us please I'm going to be at the door I might shake one or two hands but forgive me going now and thank you for coming all this way and if I come back and I meet you again I'll be very grateful God bless you as you pray God bless you Keith we love you oh father you have sent a man of God our way and you have spoke your words he's the man the message is in the man and Lord if we would look at our lives and see has there been enough of the power of the Holy Spirit in our life to convict our own sons and daughters about their need of Jesus maybe the way that they are they're in rebellion they're unsaved is because there's been hypocrisy in our own life maybe we've been unwilling father to face up to the fact that the life that has been lived has not been our life in honesty in truth but it's been our life in pride and hypocrisy and it's not been the Holy Spirit there oh let your word burn tonight and father our commitment as we've stood those that stood tonight to do this is no deeper than our real love for you and as this man goes on down the road we ask for a special watching over him father have mercy upon him and his family provide for their needs I know he's bared his heart to us today and God may we support him in prayer if you bless some of us to have funds to stick with this family and now father I pray for your blessing on each one here and that as they take these cassette tapes that are being offered free and the videos back to continue to spread the word he spoke the truth we're in the balances our land father we deserve to be wiped out right now have mercy upon us and we pray that you would use us as unworthy as we are to go out tonight saying God my life take it make it count for you take out of my heart this love of the world the pleasure and all this vanity and take me to my knees to spend more time in prayer to be more concerned for the lost my neighbors lord I haven't told them about Jesus whatever the area you're doing your work in tonight I pray father that you'd continue on that you really start a revival in my heart and our hearts and bless this man and bless his family thank you for sending him to us watch over us now as we go home back to our ways we thank you in Jesus name amen God bless you you're dismissed there's restrooms over there on the next building if you need help you need to pray you come on up there are men here and women