In this sermon, the speaker describes a man who is burdened by a "body of death" and is desperate to be set free. He encounters a friend who offers to liberate him, but only on the condition that the truth was spoken. The speaker emphasizes the importance of being accountable for what is heard and urges the listeners to have a passionate love for Jesus. He also prays for the well-being of a brother and his wife and asks God to ensure that the message spoken does not fall on deaf ears. The sermon concludes with a reference to the Apostle Paul's dedication to spreading the message of salvation to all people.

Paul, finishing his letter to Galatians, says this, From henceforth let no man trouble me, For I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Moffat translates that, Don't you trouble me any more, because I'm branded for Jesus Christ. There's an old hymn that says, Let my hands perform his bidding, Let my feet run in his way, Let my eyes see Jesus only, Let my lips speak forth his praise, All for Jesus. Paul says in the same terminus of this wonderful epistle to the Galatians, God forbid that I should glory. If any man could swagger and put his shoulders back, This man has everything everybody's reaching for. He's of the tribe of Benjamin, he's of the seed of Abraham, He has a colossal intellect, he has acres of culture. And I think he's one of very few men in the history of the world who could really sing, Isaac Waltz's lovely hymn, When I survey this wondrous cross. My richest gain I count but loss, And poor contempt and all my pride. What is in essence he says in one translation, Everything that's an asset to me I count it but done, That I may win Christ. God forbid that I should glory, Save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you ever wondered sometimes when you've read a scripture, Why you've been asleep for so many years? The thing never woke up. And suddenly it burst like a bomb. And I was reading last year that statement of Paul's when he said, That there are people concerning the cross of Jesus Christ. I'm trying to think, the words slip my mind for the moment. Oh, they're enemies of the cross of Christ he said. Now notice what he said. He doesn't say they're enemies of Christ. The Mormons talk about Christ. Jehovah's Witnesses talk about Christ. Lots of people talk about Christ, but they're enemies of the cross. It's the cross which is offensive. It's the atoning work which the modernists and liberals and others are attacking. Somebody asked Mr. Gandhi one day, Mr. Gandhi, do you like Jesus Christ? I love Jesus Christ, I hate Christians. Jesus was the most perfect man, But he wouldn't accept the sacrificial death of Jesus. He accepted Jesus as an ideal man, A man who could thumb his nose, as it were, At riches and success and prosperity. I tell you again, the trouble with our generation is, We're not eternity conscious people, We're time conscious, position conscious, possession conscious, Power conscious, personality conscious. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. By which he says the world is crucified to me, And I am crucified to the world. Now you may have seen many things, And I've seen a few things around the world, But I've never seen a man crucified, And I sure don't want to. You know, there's one thing for sure, If you saw a man going out of Jerusalem with a cross on his back, You knew one thing for sure, Pastor, He wasn't coming back. And so many of us have been to the cross and we've come back. Ruskin said it's fairly easy to get a man to the cross, The problem is to get him on the cross. Bring your lousy fins to the cross. Ah, but what about self? You see a man going out of the city of Jerusalem, He's going to be crucified. He's the man that robbed you, He's the man that raped one of your children or somebody, And you follow him out and your pocket's full of rocks, Or you've some rotten eggs, Or you've some stinking fruit, Or even human excrement or any filth. And once that man is nailed to the cross, He has no right. And when he's there, you can make sport of him. I might say to this buddy, You try and knock out his right eye, I'll try and knock out his left eye. And that man will be a bloody mess. And then the bell tolls, Oh, there's a trumpet in Jerusalem, And everybody leaves the city to get back, Leaves the scene. Maybe five or six thousand if it's a Barabbas. Everybody wanted to see a kind of Barabbas crucified. And they would run back into the city. And if you went at six o'clock at night, There might be six or seven thousand people there. If you went at six o'clock in the morning, There was nobody there. I remember going to India, Some of you have been there I'm sure. And there on the wall of the cemetery, There were these huge horrible vultures. They keep their necks in like this, And no wonder there's no feathers on them. And then they stick their neck out about this length, And it has no feathers, And they have huge beaks. And they were the first to visit the cross in the morning. They came on the arms of the cross, And they pecked out the eyes, And they ripped open the body, And the blood ran to the ground. And then the dogs came out of the city, And licked up the blood. A man might be an aphrodisiac figure when you crucified him, But in the morning he's a wretch, He's horrible, You won't want to look at him twice. You wouldn't take your children, You wouldn't go yourself, He's a bloody, horrible, messed up spectacle. Now Paul says, The world is crucified to me. Well let me ask you, Is the world as filthy to you as that bloody man on the cross is? How is it you find it hard to concentrate on your Bible for half an hour, But you can watch the Cowboys for three hours on TV? Huh? Come on son, you preacher fella. You can't take two or three days off to fast and pray. I was talking to a lot of preachers one day, And I said, You guys, you go fishing, fishing, fishing. One fella says, What's wrong with fishing? I said, Nothing, Peter did it when he was backslidden. Oh we can find time to fish for three days, Time to go hunting for three days, Time for something else for three days. Dr. Tozer said to me one day, Len, Christians don't tell lies. They just go to church and sing them. Well isn't it true? How many times have you sung Jesus, you lover of my soul? And in that hymn it says, Thou, O Christ, art all I want. Plus, of course, a lot of money, And a stylish way to live, And a lifestyle, That's all I want. One of my favorite hymns is, Beneath the cross of Jesus, Thy fame would take my stand. And like so many other hymns, It's been amputated. But part of that hymn later says this, And I think it's one of the most beautiful things you can say, If you can really say it from your heart. Beneath the cross of Jesus, I ask, No other sunshine, Than the sunshine of thy face. I suggest, Pastor, That's what keeps those prisoners going in that hell hole. How often do you see him face to face, Not bring a shopping list of needs, And tell the Almighty, You'd like these delivering yesterday, Or as quickly as you can get them delivered? As I say, Prayer is preoccupation with our needs. Praise is preoccupation with our blessings. Worship is preoccupation with God himself. But I'm not coming for anything. I've come to adore him and magnify his name. You know, this man is, To me, after Jesus himself, I think he's my favorite character. He's such an awesome man. I love to read his ministry, Because there's a total absence of professionalism and commercialism. You may disagree with me, But where you disagree with me, You'll know you're wrong. But anyhow, you may disagree with me. But you know what? I think God's going to have to wreck the economy of America To teach the Church not to be greedy. Jerry Falwell says, The Church is suffering because of the sin of the nation. Nonsense. The nation's suffering for the sin of the Church. We're so calm and selfish and materialistic. We need to remember this, That when this man once had surveyed the Wondrous Cross, I think that word slips from our, Over our minds, you know. When I surveyed the Wondrous Cross. You've seen a surveyor. You know how meticulous he is when he's surveying something? And when Isaac Barhemi wrote it before Wesley was living. And nearly every version we have is, When I surveyed the Wondrous Cross, On which the Prince of Glory died. The original is, When I surveyed the Wondrous Cross, Where the young Prince of Glory died. And you'll hardly find a hymn book that has the last verse on. The last stanza of that hymn is, His dying crimson like a robe, Spread o'er his body on the tree, Then am I dead to all the globe, And all the globe is dead to me. Well maybe it's a good thing we don't sing it. We'd be lying anyhow, most of us, if we sang it. Remember this man is the man who was going down the Damascus Road. He doesn't boast about his sins. Boy I've been to some meetings where Thought that came out of hell as it were, Almost boasts how many women they raped, Or how many times were in jail. I got sick of the whole thing. There's no sense in glorifying sin. You can cover it all up and say, He lifted me out of a horrible pit. But Paul stands and testifies. Particularly in the 26th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. And he's before a gripper. And Paul was smart. He was more than smart. He was anointed. He had wisdom. He stands before a gripper, the last of the Jewish kings. The first one was Saul, the king of Israel. A gripper is the last one. And he says, King of Gripper, Do you understand the prophets? And before he can answer he says, I know that you know them. Nailed him on the spot. And then he says, I was going down that Damascus Road. Here's a man with a colossal intellect. Here is a man who would have been a greater, greater, in my judgment, rabbi, a teacher than Hillel. But he carried inside of his toga there the death sentence of the church. Jesus was hardly born before Herod decided to liquidate him. The church was hardly born before Saul decided to liquidate the church. And he says, I carried there in my garment a document signed and sealed with all the authority that if I found anybody teaching or preaching or living in the name of Jesus, that I could put them to prison. And he goes down that road and he says, he admits that he was a wicked man. He was a murderous man. He destroyed whole families. And he says, I was going down that Damascus Road breathing out threatenings. You know, usually Bible teachers tell us that John was the apostle of love. Well, he may have been, but he never wrote anything as profound on love as this murderer did because he wrote the 13 verses in 1 Corinthians 13. I may speak with the tongues of men and of angels but ever I have no love. Isn't it amazing that the man, if people come in late will you make them sit at the back please now and let's not disturb the meeting. Just check them when they come in and push them on a seat and send them home. Okay, that's my love. But anyhow, well I don't think meetings should be disturbed. It's awful to get the stillness of God and then we tear it up. Then they are shaking hands and fooling around. I think we need to rediscover the majesty of God. Paul goes down that Damascus Road he's breathing out threatening and then there's a divine intervention. He got everything settled everywhere but he forgot one thing like our generation is doing. He forgot about God. That stupid world outside there thinks that Jesus Christ was somebody that came up like Buddha or Confucius or somebody else and it doesn't realize yet that all roads lead to the judgment seat of Christ. I can't wait to see Mussolini bow the knee to Jesus or for that matter Teddy Kennedy. It's going to be exciting at the judgment seat. Paul goes down that Damascus Road intercepted and you know what? He says when I went down that road God revealed himself to me and then I went in the wilderness and God revealed himself in me and then he's one of the rarest men ever because he was caught up into the third heaven and he saw things unlawful. God said you can't ever say a word about anything you saw. God would never put that kind of cruel bondage on a woman but he put it on a man. Seeds split I'm sure but this man, imagine his ministry. I tell you again if I could do what John did in the fourth chapter of Revelation where he says I saw the door of heaven open just a little bit. If you could peep into eternity tonight man alive, you wouldn't worry about sweating and sacrifice and praying and yielding your life to God. As Tozer said to me once he said Len, five minutes inside eternity we'll all wish we'd been more sacrificial we'll all wish we'd been more prayerful we'll all wish we'd fasted more we'll all wish we'd been more obedient. I don't know what quite Paul meant but in that super hymn again the greatest hymn of love ever written 1 Corinthians 13 he talks about love then suddenly breaks off and he says when I became a man I believe there's a conscious entry into spiritual manhood. I believe there's a place where you can go to your own funeral and rise up in resurrection life. I believe there's a place where you can kiss the world, the flesh and the devil or kiss them or kick them and they get out of your life forever and from that moment you become a God-possessed and a God-intoxicated individual. This man staggers me. He suffered enough for a hundred men he worked enough for a hundred men he was born in the ancient capital of the world Tartus he finished up in the military capital of the world Rome in between he went to the intellectual capital of the world which was Athens you'll find that in the 17th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles and when they saw him going up the hill oh no he wasn't your handsome personality he never made it on TV he didn't have a smile big enough he didn't have a personality radiant enough how do you know? well I'm going to suggest a man to me what did he say what was it three times I was stoned once I was stoned three times I suffered shipwreck a night and a day I was in the deep I was lashed 295 times I'm going to suggest he was tall and dark and handsome I suggest you he dragged his legs I suggest you his eyes were slanting I suggest you there were creases in his face where they'd healed up after they'd torn him and lashed him and the man hasn't got a single word of complaint about it he even says I want to fill up the sufferings of Christ not that Christ didn't fill them up he says I haven't filled them up yet so pour it on what do we pray for Lord give me a good day and keep the devil off me and let everything go as easy as you can and this man, a colossus in the spiritual life a dwarf physically a colossus intellectually and this man says Lord I glory in tribulation come on, do you do that? as spirit filled as you are do glory in tribulation in necessities, in reproaches our God is a good God because we're preaching a prosperity doctrine why don't the boys that preach that get on a plane and go to the third world and teach it where it's needed let them go to Detroit and have a crusade on that and see how they get on just now it might get tarred and feathered there are two ways to live the Christian life get all you can out of it or put all you can into it and Paul put all he could into it this man went into the quietness with God a lady came to me one day and she said what university did you go to? I said Bush University Bush University? did any famous men go there? I said Moses she said Moses who? do you know the trouble with most folk is they go to Bible school a few months they have a short course, Bible course and then they go running down the street with a sack of tract and they don't know God they know the word of God they don't know the God of the word and you find spiritual wrecks all over the place here is a man who knew the word of God most likely like a devout Jew he had memorized the first four or five books of the Old Testament which some devout Jews do even today and he goes into the wilderness and God revealed himself to him and I guess you'll understand that I might not say it to a Sunday night congregation I'd say it to a Monday night congregation so you must in a degree know God I believe he came out of that experience spiritually pregnant I believe all these epistles that you'll find here this man who is a mystery society all on his own he has no financial backing I thank God I've got a pioneer son in South America where the inflation rate is the highest in the world apart from Israel we said the other day why don't you get a refrigerator because he said it's six hundred dollars in Sears it's six thousand dollars in our city I said gas has gone up another ten cents he says I pay five dollars and fifty cents every day for gas and he never begs never goes running around I believe every time we appeal for money it's a slapping God's face I've come to this conclusion the biggest obstruction to revival in our day is unbelief we do not believe God because God says that if he orders a thing he pays the bill people say God has revealed this to me I want you to pay the bill I wouldn't give them a dime and you don't need to give me a dime I don't care the world is sarcastic now about all the money that's been wasted for this and that and the other and they don't see any living power of God Paul pregnant with these epistles fourteen if you give him Hebrews and I think he wrote it and then he sets off on that amazing mission have you ever thought of this that Paul did everything in his ministry that Jesus did except walk on the water and he didn't need to do that he raised the dead he cast out demons before he went to this church at Corinth he went to a group of people the intellectuals again in the 17th of Acts and when he came up the hill they said well what will this little fellow say they were super intellectuals stoics and epicureans and poets and philosophers and they knew they listened to Paul and they were where did this little squirt of a fellow get all this knowledge and then as J.S. Stuart of Scotland said finally he took the trumpet of the resurrection and he said you know you've got alters to all kinds of gods and you've won to the unknown God and I know him you don't know him but you know he said in the sleepy Elizabethan English in the 17th of Acts that when Paul went down that street a spirit was stirred within him I'm not very fond of the Amplified except where it agrees with me and in the Amplified it says he was angry in his spirit when he saw the temples to gods strange gods when he saw the sacrifice that they made I reminded you the other night that when I preached in Karaza conference in Japan that afterwards I saw the director when we were living in Rockford with some dear friends who are here tonight and the man told me he'd flown in just the night before and he got a haircut and while the man was cutting his hair he said ah you are an American and he said no you're a Yankee he said I'm not a Yankee I'm an American ah you're a businessman no oh you're a tourist no what are you a missionary ah the man said I'm missionary too I'm a missionary for this Zagagaki which is a combination of politics seems we're trying to get that in this country a bit eh help God out with a moral majority that'll never salvage the situation God isn't looking for a moral majority he's looking for a holy minority sure it's nice look if we cleaned every hell hole up if we could abolish every prostitute I mean get them all abolish prostitution and drink and gambling and everything we'd still be a lost nation we might be harder to win in our morality than we are in our immorality this Christian leader says I sat in my chair this Japanese fellow told me as I told you he goes out at 6 o'clock at night till 2 o'clock in the morning with his pocket full of tracks and with a phonograph and he gives lecture number 1 this week and lecture number 2 the next week and lecture number 3 until he's given 7 lectures and the man finally said you say you don't get to bed till 2 o'clock every morning I didn't say that you did say that I didn't say that what did you say? I said I got home at 2 o'clock in the morning and then I pull a curtain on one side and I bow before my God for 2 hours I need to be still it sounds like some fraudy thing the devil's put over on the 40th chapter of Isaiah they wait upon the Lord to renew their strength and the angry missionary said well how long have you done that? and he said for 7 years you don't go to bed till 4 in the morning no what time do you get up? promptly at half past 7 that's heathen for you that's a man that's going to burn in hell forever and ever but he thinks he has an answer to the situation of this world Paul made up his mind that once he'd surveyed that wondrous cross once he'd felt the tremendous burden lifted once his conscience had been cleansed he said I'm a debtor to the barbarian to the Greek, to the intellectual whoever he is I have THE message not A message THE message Christianity is not a comparative religion it's a superlative religion again it's the only religion in which a man's God comes and lives inside of him I'm not going to ask you tonight if you once ran to an altar and shed a few tears and said you repented I'm asking you does Christ live in you tonight? because if he doesn't you're not a Christian you may be morally excellent you may read your Bible you may tithe and give to the mission field but does Christ live in you? is compassion in you? is love in you? is zeal in you? oh yes Paul went and preached there to those intellectuals but there is no epistle of Paul to the Athenians he told them about a man called Jesus who died for the sin of the world and then he says and he rose from the dead he what? he rose from the dead you know it's only two years ago that it hit me like a two by four meditating on a message for Easter that I realized after three years of teaching there wasn't one of the disciples that believed Jesus not one of them that's a harsh criticism it's a true criticism how can you prove it? because if they believed him they'd have been lining up at the tomb waiting for him to come out the stone was rolled away from the tomb to let Jesus out no he was out a long while before that that was to let the disciples in they could never have shifted it you know sometimes I say to an audience in another message we're not saved by the death of Christ ooooh you can feel reaction when you say that we're not saved by the death of Christ we sing about five hundred hymns on the death of Christ or the blood of Christ but we're not saved by the death of Christ we're saved by his life if he doesn't live tonight you and I are not living we're fooling ourselves he died for our sins he rose for our justification and Paul sees every man everywhere diseased with sin he sees him bound by sin and so off he goes on his one man crusade sometimes got a bit of help but you know this fellow was so hot this should encourage some of you preachers who get discouraged he had a bunch of spirit filled men with him that they couldn't put up with him they said he prays too long he fasts too long he works too hard and he's going to kill us well this is a better way of killing yourself I mean it's the best way you can die kill yourself with Jesus but I'll tell you what he outlived a lot of them but he says this man has forsaken me and that man has forsaken me and he says but you know what they all forsook me nevertheless the Lord stood by me you know sometimes God has to break every prop on which we lean so we discover we're not leaning on our theology and our nice feelings and the fact we were saved five years ago or filled with the spirit two months ago sometimes he has to pull all the props away to make us realize who he is and where our life and our power is coming from so Paul comes from the intellectual capital of the world to the immoral capital of the world in Athens they worship the brain in Corinth they worship the body all they talked about in Athens was scholarly stuff every day it was learning they loved to hear some new thing and he turns from the people who were always spinning around wonderful philosophies from those who were always learning to those who were always lusting in Paul's day if a man was living at the bottom of the barrel of the gutter you didn't have to string ten adjectives together all you said he's a Corinthian and when you said he's a Corinthian you knew that he was given over to the devil's spirit stolen body he was eaten up with lust and greed and licentiousness he was a liar he was a possessor of the devil and Paul goes into that city blessed man of God that he is oh when I discovered this a few years ago I felt I could have jumped and gone through the ceiling you know what it seems to me he's one of the few men that had all the gifts of the spirit but he never exploited them why in God's name didn't he make a shortcut into Europe and rent one of the great stadiums they had in those days we think we've got great stadiums do you know in Paul's day they had stadiums that seated 250,000 people why didn't he rent them why didn't he send a man with a trumpet round town saying Paul the Apostle is come he can do everything Jesus did I'm going to put on a great big show of healing divine healing bring the sick bring the blind bring the lame bring the dead because he raised the dead he didn't do that he started with a handful of women that was his entrance into Europe he never once made a racket of healing or anything else he was too jealous for the glory of God dear pastor and he goes into Corinth and the old German commentator Meyer says blessed and sublime miracle of God that a man could step into a cesspool and build a church of Jesus Christ it was like trying to build a 120 story a building skyscraper on a bed of jello no sirree they didn't put the red carpet out for him who's afraid of our gospel anymore put on a city-wide crusade the mayor comes and all the stinking folk in the city that live like the devil and they come and receive the evangelist nobody ever received Paul like that what we're trying to do today we don't want a real Pentecost we want a painless Pentecost Pentecost in the New Testament was married to what? poverty, prisons and persecution we're trying to marry it now to prosperity personalities and popularity no sir we're going to have to come back to God's way after all that's the only way that the gospel works God's way not my way not your way not our interpretation God's way and it's a tough way again it's the cross that's the offense not Jesus we have nice pictures of Jesus none of them make sense really but the cross is the offense and Paul goes down into the center of a hell hole with every vile thing that earth could have in human personality and what does he do? he doesn't come and say I've come with a super healing crusade I've come with the latest philosophies from the Greeks he comes and he says I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified there used to be a great professor I think he was in Harvard or Princeton by the name of Professor James he wrote a classic which has been reissued called what's his classic? you remember his classic? thank you so much that's it varieties of religious experience and when he was about 40 years of age a disease got hold of him and he began to slow up and get shaky and people always ask the obvious don't they? I jumped out of a burning hotel in 1951 in Chicago three stories high it looked 3,000 stories from where I was at three o'clock in the morning 15 degrees below zero and the fire department didn't come and so I jumped out of that burning hotel and hit the deck and brought my back in three places and this leg was in three pieces and my feet were broken and I was in plaster from my chin to my toes looking like an Egyptian mummy or an Egyptian daddy or something and people would come in hospital and say are you sick? we state the obvious people came up to Professor James and said to him you're sick yes? somebody said you can find the answer to your problem in France in Paris they've got a wonderful doctor and he has the answer to your problem when he got there the doctor said no you need to go to Vienna when he got to Vienna they said no you should cross the English Channel to London when he got to London they said no the answer is in a doctor in Edinburgh and he went to Edinburgh and the doctor said you're being fooled there is no answer to the question he came home and he was walking down the street near the university one day somebody came up to him and again asked the question are you sick doctor? I've seen your picture in the paper yeah I'm very sick would you like to find the answer? well do you think he'd say no? he said I've spent a fortune going to Europe to try and find the answer there's no answer or he said there's a little man down the street there he can help you on this street number so and so he's got the answer for you he went down the street knocked at the door a little laboring man came his hands were all rough and he said ah pardon me I've seen your picture you're a professor at the university he said yes I am I've come to you for help and the little man said you've come to me for help? mm-hmm I've got a disease that's incurable and someone told me you have the answer to my problem he looked at the brilliant professor and said would you come in sir and the man went in the house please take a seat he sat there he said sir I have no knowledge of chemistry there's only one thing I can do for you what's that? he said I can anoint you with oil in the name of the Lord and pray for you the professor said my pride said no my intellect said kneel in front of a labourer he possibly can't write his own name and you know so many philosophies and Greek and what not kneel in come on get out of there but he said you know that disease inside of me said I my mind and my heart said this disease is going to kill you why don't you kneel and he said I knelt and he said all the little man did was put some oil on his hands and lay his hands on my head and as we would say felt that 10,000 volts of electricity went through him he said I jumped up and said I'm healed I'm healed I'm healed the point is he'd been round the world and spent a fortune he'd been here and there and everywhere and we're trying to put Humpty Dumpty together again what will you do if your children ask you who Humpty Dumpty is you don't know you may have a PhD I guess you don't know who Humpty Dumpty is you say was he a relative of yours yes and yours Humpty Dumpty is a type of a fall of man that man fell and there's no way to put him back together again the old argument anybody can scramble eggs who can unscramble them Humpty Dumpty is a human race we're trying to show oh brother World War I was the last war to end wars World War II became a devilish thing we have the United Nations a pretty paralysed thing it watched its folks rape Cambodia it watched people rape Afghanistan it couldn't do a thing to get 52 students out 52 hostages out neither could our government as far as that goes neither could our bombs or our ships or anything you talk about paralysis where are all the philosophies where are all the wise men we've had so many educational programs and I don't know what in the world we don't have and yet as you say the prisons are full divorce courts are full we've got more insane people at this moment than we've ever had in history we've got more people with broken minds through drugs more people with broken bodies through venereal disease more girls with broken bodies through unwanted pregnancies more broken homes more broken hearted children everything's broken except the church of God isn't broken hearted about it God in heaven you expect me to kneel and weep as the pastor said I've got business to take care of I've got other things to take care of I'm not saying you're to sell your house or sell your business necessarily I'm saying that most of us as Christians need to rearrange our priorities that's what we need to do I say the greatest thing ever said about any man that ever lived was said about this man the apostle Paul I repeat it again because it's a challenge to me but the greatest place to be known is not that you're a famous preacher or a great writer or some kind of personality that's hogwash forget it do you know the Christian singers are going to have a hall of fame now my neighbor Barry Maguire told me recently he said Len I got a letter they're asking me to send a sum of money to build a hall of fame for the great singers don't you love that kind of humility I won't send them a cent he said competition amongst preachers competition amongst evangelists isn't it disgraceful we've used the blood of Christ to our own end we've begged for it over radio and TV to build something that we want God promised to supply my needs not what I think I need but what he thinks I need and I want to tell you he does it too Paul comes back to Corinth sure he's been round and round and round but he doesn't come with his philosophies he says I'm determined to know nothing amongst you save Jesus Christ and him crucified to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness but to those of us who know him here's a man who could testify he kept the law blameless here's a man of impeccable morality here's a man of the highest scholarship here's a man with acres of cultures and he had to do what everybody else did he had to kneel at the old rugged cross and the answer to our generation is here but it's not in politics it's not in the United Nations it's not in reshuffling our theology it's going back to the cross of Jesus Christ because by his death there's life and there is no other life outside of the Christ a man is not living now I've got through my introduction do you want me to preach or shall I go home I'll take just a few moments more Paul here is writing to the church at Corinth about 18 months after he'd had a revival there as we speak as I say the greatest thing you can say about any man was said about Paul when some men tried to cast demons out of another man and they turned round the demons said Jesus we know and Paul we know oh boy I envy that I would rather be the last man on the devil's most wanted men list than be the first man in the world to say you preach better than Billy Graham or Oral Roberts or somebody else I don't that doesn't interest me but oh brother I want to be on the devil's danger list preacher I think if you're not on the devil's danger list you're not worth a hill of beans you must be very good maybe you can organize a church and you can fill the pews and very showy the question is are we known in hell Jesus I know and Paul I know after all it's going to take that for the hour in which we live we're not going to move this world again with big crusades I remember talking with Catherine Kuhlman many times and she said I'm the last of this type there's going to be no more big crusades like this I think she was right I believe God's going to fulfill his word and pour out his spirit on all flesh and your sons and your daughters will prophesy my goodness when I hear my son preach I feel sometimes I hardly get when I listen to when he sits in my office and he talks about the revelations God has given to him but remember this when he was 16 years of age that boy used to pray five and six hours a night and when he's at home after supper he goes in the room he's the last to go to bed he's the first up in the morning I don't wonder God has given him treasures and revelation and a pioneer spirit and a faith and a courage God is a jealous God I believe he's going to pull the plug do you know what I said about three months ago I believe I'm going to live to see the end of Christendom now quote me correctly I didn't say the end of Christianity that will never be destroyed and then I discovered Malcolm Muggeridge has a book about the end of Christendom organized Christianity as we know it's organized religion because it is not apostolic it doesn't have the life and the vitality and the power we don't stop the devil in his tracks there are more lost people in the world tonight than any period in history and yet we sleep comfortably in our beds maybe Gabriel couldn't find the last time you shed a tear for lost humanity or fasted and prayed over some situation Paul has preached to these people and he's seen them born again and 18 months after they're still little shrimps they're still undeveloped I remember preaching in a great Methodist church in Dublin Ireland right opposite the famous Abbey Theatre it was a conference there was a fine very fine Methodist preacher there that night Leonard Evans and he said this rather awesome thing he said 35 years ago I was born in Wales I think at the time was clinically my mother was going across the market square heavily pregnant walking to the hospital and she met a friend of hers Gwyneth coming the other way who was in the same condition when do you expect your baby so and so when do you expect your baby so and so well when you get your baby will you send me a note and I'll send you a note there's no telephones in the hospital back there yeah I'd gladly do that and Leonard Evans said I was born on a certain day and my mother sent a note to this lady and four days after that lady had Signed 2 intellectual in the world but I did go to college and I've had a well I've always kept up athletics I've been a soccer player and a cricketer and I feel fit conditionally mentally and physically and spiritually the little fellow who was born four days after I was born is still on the bed that he was laid on when his mother brought him from hospital oh he's six feet two in length but he's never said mummy his mother has been his slave 35 years of age he still changes his diapers she still feeds him with a bottle if she gives him anything solid she has to tear it with her teeth and watch he doesn't choke she's not had a vacation for 35 years she never took her baby out and had him photographed she didn't go down the street with a nice buggy and people stopped she takes him out at night they have a long long basket thing and they take him down through the park at night in the stillness when there's nobody there to see their perpetual embarrassment you say but that's abnormal thank God it is every physical birth is a miracle as far as I'm concerned it's very unusual to find a man at 35 still a helpless babe yes it is physically but not spiritually the church today is more like a nursery than an armory we don't put on the whole armor of God we expect the pastor almost to change our diapers and bottle feed us he said you babes in Christ that's his diagnosis and then he diagnoses the diagnosis he says the reason you're cramped and limited is your carnal there is among you envy he diagnoses it further there's envy and strife isn't this what chokes the church of God maliciousness gossip a child has a head it has a mind but it has no knowledge and we have millions of people in the nation and other nations who are ever learning but they never come to a knowledge of the truth there's stacks and stacks of cassettes and they love to hear them but they never get through as Joseph used to say it goes about an inch and a half in the mind it doesn't get down in here babes they don't want to go to battles they want bottles what are symptoms of children they hate to be corrected don't they do your children answer you and say well mum what did I do wrong you want to spank me while I'm standing here not on your life they resent correction you know many of God's people do I heard last night raging away there I'm not going back again well I didn't even ask them to come so I'm not offended very much like the lady who went in the Louvre there in France you know and she had a log net that's a pair of glasses on a stick you know that they hold in an opera and she went round and looked at all the pictures and she said to the gendarme there at the door she said I don't think much of these pictures he said lady people don't judge the pictures the pictures judge the people she had no concept of what painting was about I say again to you what I'm repeating all the time that most of our people didn't go to church yet to meet God they went to hear a sermon about him if God blazing holiness suddenly came down here and he put a searchlight in your heart have you something you want to hide and cover up children are masters at deception aren't they he says you're carnal and a carnal mind is enmity against God and you say Lord help me with my temper or help me with God won't help you with your temper he won't help you with your secret lust he won't help you with your jealous fear of pride no sir he won't help you he'll put it to death if you like him to put it to death but he won't help you to master it Paul says there's enmity against God the obstruction to revival isn't in the white house it's in God's house when Jesus came to earth before he cleansed the temple I think if he came back he cleansed the pulpit and then he cleansed the temple get rid of this wretched stuff which hinders God look supposing a multimillionaire dies and he leaves his little boy he leaves his son anyhow fifteen million dollars and a private Lear jet and a boat and two mansions and the boy thinks boy I'm going to have a great time I'm fifteen now and I've wanted to pilot that jet and I've wanted to race our boat and I've wanted to do a lot and I've wanted to do before long I'm going to have fifteen million dollars I'm going to have a great time and then he goes and here the will is read and he discovers he can't touch a thing his father put a clause in the will his father isn't trying to disinherit him he says yes this is my son and the boy's mother says yes this is the child I bought to the man that we buried the other day and his aunt can come and say that's my that's my nephew and the doctor says I delivered him and he has a ton of evidence but he can't touch the spoil why because he's incapable his father says you can't manage fifteen million dollars in a Lear jet and everything else I've left you but when you're twenty one you can take it and Paul says this in Galatians 4 1 the heir as long as he is a child differeth not from a servant you can bring your credentials I believe one of the main obstructions to revival is that we're not big enough to handle it they had revival in Korea in 1905 you could not be a member of the church unless you personally had won somebody to Jesus Christ not when they came to the altar weeping and you helped them but you personally had travailed Paul says I travel in birth that's a lost art in the church when were you last in a prayer meeting where somebody travelled I felt this morning after the morning service a woman looked as though she was travelling there in agony in prayer you want to do it giving out tracts you given billions of tracts out they are meant to sing occasionally yes speaking generally no Paul says I travel in birth Jesus says he sees at the travel of his soul God says that when when Israel of all when she travelled when Zion travelled she brought forth children everybody in his brother talks about Mr. Phinney what a marvellous man he was maybe we never have heard much about Phinney if he didn't have father Nash and father Cleary that prayed 12 hours a day each of them hidden away I remember a city I worked in in England there was an old old old old old lady there who remembered Phinney coming to town and when he came down the street they knocked on the door of the little house there was a grill outside and asked the lady did she have a basement and she said no I don't have a basement well well what's a grill oh that's a cellar that's a cellar could we rent it I never rented my cellar I keep coal in one section of it and it only has the light that comes through that grill there are no facilities there isn't a tap there there's no toilet there there's no anything there and those two precious men rented that basement for 25 cents a week and they never came on the platform they were never seen you can't get praying men I know praying men in this country who pray 10 hours a day and 6 hours a day you couldn't get them on this platform for a thousand dollars a night the greatest people in this nation or any other nation are the hidden ones they never surfaced when a woman gets pregnant my the nearer she gets to that baby being delivered she you don't see her playing tennis and you don't see her riding a horse and you don't see her on the water skis no no no it's too dangerous for this little treasure I've got and you know what when we begin to travel when you really get burdened for souls you won't care about your hairstyle so much you won't care too much about how long you sleep once you see the lostness of men as the apostle Paul saw them and you say I don't care how I live or where I live as long as revival comes and the nearer we get to the time of the birth the greater the pain the greater the loneliness the old boys at the side of the wives sleeping then he wakes up and says are you sleeping Mary no darling I haven't slept well it's five o'clock in the morning I know I haven't slept in and there are things she can't eat that she's craved for and the things she craves for that she never ate a whole social life is upset a mental life to some degree a physical life is upset but we want revival please don't disturb us as I said this morning that revival in Nagaland in North India I wondered why God gave us a reproduction of the Acts of the Apostles everything that happened in the first five chapters of Acts has happened in that revival and then I discovered there's been a secret group of people praying for the and we don't know the names and we never will until we get into eternity babes there's a time when a girl is too young to be pregnant there's a time when she's too old to be pregnant there are times when churches are too young to really handle revival and there are times when they're too old and stale to have it too there are times when nations are ready and there are times when God Almighty is ready and you've got a mighty lot of very spiritual men in this country and some of them write to me and say rave near the upper tree because God bypassed this nation that's why we've all the messes that we're in you know what the next nervous thing is what men are nervous about you know there's a United Nations in Europe it's called the European Common Market and it's only come up in well not so many years and this year the tenth annual nation has joined it Greece and so people say it's a restoration of the ten kingdom confederacy of Rome well be that as it may the fact is that those ten nations in Europe exceed the import export of America and Russia put together their dollar the euro the euro dollar is sounder than the American dollar and right now there's a nervousness that the Arabs may pull out their money and put it there in the euro dollar and if they do boy we're going to be we're going to go down the drain maybe God will have to make us line up for bread and maybe God's going to have to starve us till we can't run around and tired ourselves out chasing in our automobiles and doing all those foolish things we do but after all you don't see much difference in the lifestyle of Christians from the lifestyle of sinners do you? Sinners go every Friday night they don't come home till two o'clock in the morning and then they go to a disco Saturday night till two or three in the morning well all the darling Christians in the switching to number five because they're cold I don't have to write a book on revival I'm trying to write one now revival God's way because we've tried every other way we've tried big healing crusades we've tried to glamorize the gospel we've tried offer free Bibles we've tried everything we've tried everything except getting to the place where God the Holy Ghost can get hold of these lives of ours and indwell them and control our thinking and control our living and control our eating and control our praying and control our worshipping. You know Christianity is the only message in the world that has an answer to the sin problem. Oh yes we call it scripture when it's convenient. You hear people say well they that are in the flesh cannot please God. That's the scripture. Well I'm in the flesh. They that are in the flesh cannot please God. That's from where? Roman faith. That's right. Well isn't there other scripture? Yes it says that. And do you know what it says right after it? But you are not in the flesh. You are in the spirit. Now what do you do? Where do you hide? But Paul says at the end of the Romans, oh wretched man that I am. That's right he does. He's talking about a cross. He says the world, oh the world is so ugly I see cancers in it. Not physical cancers, putridness and everything that God hates. It's a moving mass of uncleanness and sin and rebelling against God. The world has no charm for me. And do you know what? I'm crucified to the world. They think I'm an idiot. They say this man has the greatest intellect ever. And he follows a man that they say rose from the dead. Nobody ever saw him anyhow. Or some of the Christians did. Said he appeared at one of their private clubs on one occasion. But I mean he never walked around or did anything. I heard one of the greatest preachers ever give a marvellous message on holiness. He excited me. I shouted a few times. People round about me stared at me as though I was a leper. But I enjoyed it. And I thought this is really the thing. Now he's just going to put the icing on the cake. And then he says, But I want to remind you of this. Paul the apostle to the end of his days was saying, Oh wretched man that I am. He's a liar. He did not. Because in that same epistle of Galatians 2 he says in Galatians 2 standing, I am crucified. Not I was. I am crucified. Do you know the biggest challenge to any believer is this? Come down from the cross and save yourself. Why do you give fifty percent of your income to missions when those guys only give five percent? Why do you pray a whole night a week when your own pastor doesn't do that? Why? And we compare ourselves among ourselves. Come down from the cross. You made a mistake. OK I'll wrap it up here. Paul says, Oh wretched man that I am. What's he talking about wretchedness? He says I, I, I, the body of this death. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The law can't do it. He's very clear about that. The law could convict of sin, he couldn't cleanse from sin. Oh wretched man that, you know what he's talking about. Do you know there were a hundred and twenty different types of crosses? The traditional cross you'll see somebody wearing or on a picture it's like that. There was another cross like a letter T where a man was nailed and his head was pushed back. There was a cross like a letter X where a man was nailed. Where a man's members were put up on that cross and he was nailed that way. There's a cross which was just a tree straight up and it had an enormous spike and they pushed a man's body and turned him round on it and left him hanging anyway. But the worst form of crucifixion was to take the man who had committed the murder and tie him to the body of the man he'd murdered. His hands to his hands, his feet to his feet, his body to his body, his neck to his neck. And then they would stand the man up and say off you go. And he would carry a body of death and he would have to lean up against a tree to go to sleep. And he'd wake up in the morning with those horrible rotten eyes looking at him. And he'd smell the decay of the body and he got worse and worse and worse and worse. And he might see a friend down the road and say, Hack, hack, jack, stammering as best he could. Set me free, set me free. And Jack looks round and he says, Well, there's no centurion here. I've got a knife. And he's just cutting the man free and he's just going to cut his hands free and the centurion says, What are you doing? I'm liberating this, this old college friend of mine. Can I do it? And the centurion says, Yes, right, just, just, just, just a minute. You can do it on one condition. What is the condition? That we crucify that body to use. Are you willing to take that body, that corrupt body? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Paul says, Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? But you see, in the original there's no division between chapter 7 and chapter 8. He says, I thank God through Jesus Christ, my Lord, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. I notice a lot of airplanes flying around here. I don't like flying. But my, I like to see them go up and come down. And my, see that great big Boeing, well that great big 707 or something. And I watch one unload at about 300 people for how in the world does it get off the ground? What an enormous thing. And it struggles for a while, you know, and it goes running then suddenly goes whoo. Next time you look he's circling around there. I've got an envelope here I use as a bookmark. How many of these would it take to weigh as much as a Boeing 707, still with 400 people. Now you watch this, this is a bit of magic. I'm going to send this floating around the room. Here you are, now paper, off you go. No, stay up. I didn't tell you to come down. Stay up. Well, you're badly behaved. Why don't you stay up when I tell you? Why doesn't it stay up? Because the law of gravity pulls it down. Well why doesn't it pull it down? Why doesn't it pull that big machine down with five or six hundred people in? Because there's a thrust on that engine and it rises over the pull of gravity. And the thing is not to get a plane off the ground, that's not the hardest thing. The hardest thing is to bring it down. You notice a plane when it comes down suddenly puts all the motors on and it's belching out all that smoke. Because gravity's trying to pull it to the ground and destroy it. And he has to fight going forward and he has to fight the pull going down and that's the trickiest part of flying. And if we don't get rid of the depravity within us where that monster is trying to pull us down all the time. John Owen was maybe the greatest of the Puritan divine. And we don't usually think they were strong on holiness. They had a vast conception of sinfulness but not too much on holiness and getting out of bondage. But John Owen talking about the thing in this very chapter says, the inbred sin which is not put to death in us will produce, cause scandalous soul-destroying sins. If that sin isn't destroyed in your life it will destroy you, it will leave you ineffective and powerless. There's a little town not far from where I lived in England. There was a man there by the name of John Marston. He was very wealthy. He bought up all the property in town. He owned the whole town. He tried to lodge town. Except that right in the middle there was a Quaker lived in a little nice white house with a lovely garden and a picket fence. And one day when John was talking with his friends somebody said, you own the whole town now I hear. You're a multi, multi-millionaire. And that was a sterling millionaire. And he said, yes I own the whole town. And the man said, hey wait a minute, you don't own the whole town. Oh well, well, right in the middle of the town. I've tried to get him to sell it. There's that old Quaker and he lives in the house because he was born there and his father was born there and somebody else was born there. They've lived in the house for two hundred years. Well then don't you say you own the whole city? You don't own the whole city. You own it all except right in the center there's a piece of property that you can't get hold of. So the next day John went down in his carriage, his horses and the little Quaker was there in his garden and he said, oh Sir John, it's so nice to see you. He said, yes, this house of yours, what are you asking for it? Oh nothing, he said, I'm not telling it, it's not in the market. Now look, look, look, he said, you know I own the whole of this city, except for this little patch of a garden of yours. Not more than about a hundred feet long and twenty-five feet wide and then you've little house. Now listen, I'll give you, I'll give you ten times it's value. No, I can't sell it. I'll give you twenty times it's value. No, I can't sell it. At that time in England we had a coin, it was about as big as almost the watch face here and it was worth about five dollars. It was called a guinea, a golden guinea. And the rich man had a pocket full of them and he said, listen John, I'll tell you what I'll do with it. He said, I'll start at the edge of your garden there and I'll come right down here and I'll cover every inch of ground with a solid, genuine gold and sovereign. I'll put one there and one there and one there. I'll have my servants come and lay all these gold pieces out. My, look at the wealth you'll have if I cover all your gardens with gold and sovereign. Now I'm sure you'll sell it, won't you? And he said, yes. I knew you would. I knew you would. He said, wait a minute, wait a minute. So John said, you don't doubt that I'll do it. No, no, no, no, no, no. He said, I want you to change the coins. I didn't mean change the coins. He said, well, instead of laying them down that way, stand them edgeways like this. And he said, if you'll stand them edgeways like that, I'll sell it to you. And John said, you know that I'd have to sell every bit of property I have. I can't, I can't pay the price. Little Quaker said, the next time you're in your club and with your friends saying, I own the whole of this city, remember to say, except the little bit in the center, which is owned by the little Quaker. And I think the Lord looks down on some of our lives and says, you know, I own all of that life. And Satan says, just a minute, there's a little pocket of carnality in that deacon. There's a little pocket of carnality in that preacher. There's a little pocket of carnality. She's got her little cancer there. Oh brother, if you whisper in my ear going out of the church, I've got cancer in my body, I'll be sorry for you. But if you've got a cancer in your spirit, if you have a cancer in your body, you'll suffer pain. But if you have a cancer in the spirit, you'll make the church suffer pain. The Lord looks down on many of us tonight and says, I possess all except one spot in that man. That man won't yield his pride. That woman won't yield her covetousness. That woman has such a sweet life except she blazes in unholy temper and her children cringe and say, can I say this lastly? Sometimes when I'm busy in my office and my mind kind of blocks a little bit, which it often does, I get a piece of paper in and I'll start doodling. And I like to draw eagles. I have quite a few pictures of eagles in my office and I have a few models of eagles. Folk usually give me them. So I've got a few You can get my address later. But anyhow. And I'll sketch these eagles, you know. And one day I've been sketching and a man came in my office and as he went past my desk he looked and said, Hey Ravenhill, I see you, you, you, you did that eagle, didn't you? I said, yes. He said, can I have it? I said, sure. Oh, thank you, thank you, he said. He stayed about an hour and going out he picked up his book and he picked up the sketch of the eagle and he said, can I ask you to do one thing? I said, yes, and I won't do it. He said, you don't know what I'm going to ask you. I said, I do. Well, what am I going to ask you? You're going to ask me to autograph that picture that I did. Yes. Will you autograph it? No, sir, not if you give me a hundred dollars I won't autograph it. I won't autograph it if you give me a thousand dollars. I want to put it on my office wall. I said, that's what I'm afraid of. Somebody comes and look at that thing, it looks like a cross between a, almost a giraffe with wings and a, a, a, a, a, a, a beak isn't right, and that's a very vital thing. The beak of an eagle is the only type of beak in the world. And I said, that beak, it's a cross between a dove and a pheasant and an eagle. Man alive, I wouldn't put my name on it. Thank you, he said, and as soon as I shut the door, the Lord said this to me. You wouldn't autograph your workmanship? No. Well, at the end of the day, can you bring your life to me and say, Lord, I'm going to Because the scripture says, we are his workmanship. Can you bring your life to me and say, Lord, will you autograph my life today? Have I pleased you in the way I live? Have I pleased you in the way I responded to people? Have I pleased you in the way I resisted temptation? Have I pleased you? Can you autograph my life? Well, ask yourself the question. When I asked one of the greatest Christians in India, not very long ago, I addressed an international group of preachers. I shouldn't have done that. They were all far beyond me. This man is called Augustine, and in India they call him St. Augustine. He speaks in whispers. He fasts. He prays. He's either hilariously happy or, more often than not, he's a man of sorrows and impures. For his great country of seven hundred million people, and it's hardly evangelized. And I made it my job to sit next to him at the dinner table. And I said, Brother Augustine, let me ask you a simple question. What is the main instruction to revival in India? Why doesn't Christianity spread? What stops it? He said, Christians. Christians. They profess to have left false religion, and yet they're bitter and cantankerous and jealous and greedy. And there's no line of difference in their lives. He asks you to live the life of Jesus Christ. And you know what Peter says? That Jesus left us an example that we should follow in his steps. And then he gives us a step less we should we want to manufacture them ourselves. He said he did no sin, and neither was guile found in his mouth. And when he was rebuked and pushed around, he just took it all sweetly. You say, do you expect me to live without sin? God does. If he doesn't, will you tell me what sins Christians can commit and which sins they can't commit? Write them out, because our kids, our young people, our teenagers are more confused than any children that ever lived. You say you're preaching sinless protection. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. I've crossed the Atlantic about twenty times in some of the greatest ships that sail. They don't sail now. And I've been in some terrible storms in the middle of the Atlantic. The Queen Elizabeth is nothing but a rowing boat when you get in the middle of the Atlantic when waves are forty feet high, and the old thing tosses and swirls around. And you know, I was not troubled while the ship was in the sea, but if the sea gets in the ship, that's something else. And I knew when I got on board that ship, it wasn't impossible for it to sink, but it was possible for it not to sink. And it isn't impossible for you to sin as a believer, but it's possible for you not to sin. Sin is not like the Roman stuff, sinning and repenting every day. Many of us could be Mohammedans the way we live. Christianity is cleansing, and the heart he cleanses he fills with his spirit and makes conqueror over sin. That malignancy in your life tonight that has troubled you for years. People say you'll go out of your all you do is go into it. Some of you are more bad tempered now than you were five years ago. More covetous than you were five years ago. We're carnal. God won't trust us with his treasures, because you'd never trust a child with your treasures. He won't trust us with the birth of revival, because the immature can't bring birth. He won't trust us with the riches, because we've not come to maturity. Oh God, the Church is so immature these days. In the absence of the apostles, they were all amazed. But now in the Church we all want to be amused. Isn't it time we grew up? Isn't it time we went to the cross and said, Lord, crucify my self-life? Self we'll live, because you're a personality, but selfishness and self-seeking and self-importance and pride and anger and all those things. You took your sins, but did you get the cleansing? Did you get the indwelling of the spirit? The world is waiting not for a new definition of Christianity. It's waiting for a new demonstration of Christianity. And do you know where to begin? I was in one of the most fashionable churches in America not long ago, with nearly seven thousand members. And the Lord told me to preach on the prodigal son Sunday night. And I'd been in that church for twenty-eight days. And everybody in the church seemed to have been to the altar and God did some miracles and it was a marvelous time. I thought, preach on the prodigal son Sunday night. Goodness there was no fish to catch. And right in the middle of the preaching the Lord said to me, talk to the prodigal fathers who are here tonight. And I said, some of you deacons and some of you elders and some of you famous doctors here and lawyers and others. You just might as well be in Russia as be in America. Because you're not the king in your home and you're not the priest in your home and you don't open the Bible every day and get your children and instruct them. So don't pray for revival down the street. I said, I want every prodigal father to get up right now and admit I'm a sailor in my home. I'm not the king. I'm not the priest. I don't read the word of God. I don't counsel my children. Get up! And you know they screamed down the aisle. They were so blinded with tears they were falling over each other. Revival is drawing a circle and standing in it and saying, it's not my brother nor my sister. It's me, oh God, standing in the midst of the midst of prayer. It's me saying, Lord, I don't care how you come with your knife of circumcision, to use a scriptural phrase, and cut out the flesh. I want to live a holy life in this world. I want dominion over sin. I want victory over temptation. I want to be a model husband. I want to be a model father. I want to be a model pastor. I want to be a model deacon. But crucifixion's a pretty hard thing. It was done publicly. And it's embarrassing when you're known as a creature, isn't it? When I came to an altar one night to get really cleansed and ask God to crucify me, I was the youth leader in the church. I led the prayer meetings. I used to go pray in Sherwood Forest by myself for hours. And one night God exposed the carnality in my heart. I was jealous of other people that worked there. And oh, I walked down that aisle. That church seemed a mile long and everybody knew me. And I could say, it's Len Ravenhill going. And when I got there somebody came up with a Bible and said, what do you want? I said, I want God to make Romans chapter 6 and verse 7 real in my life. And he said, you mean Romans 6.6? Knowing this, that our old man was crucified. Oh, we're buried with him in baptism. And you know when a man goes under the water he can't see the world above. He can't talk to it or think about it or see it. And if you were really buried in baptism, that was only a sign to the world outside. I said goodbye to the world. All its customs, all its styles, all its ways, all its habits, all its interests. I'm buried with Christ. And when I come out of the water I'm rising in resurrection. And the preacher that came to deal with me said, you mean Romans 6? I said, 6. I said, I mean Romans 6.7. He that is dead is freed from sin. And I'll be free and cleansed as long as I'm obedient. And if I become disobedient I get polluted again and I need cleansing again. I'll grow in grace as long as I submit to the revelation God has given me. It's time we got mature in God, isn't it? Isn't it time we grew up and said, Lord give me some burdens to carry, give me some strength against the complex way of life and every aggressive iniquity that's sweeping over the nations? The supreme need of the nation tonight is a revival of holiness. May we all stand please. God just make everything that we've heard, either tonight or tomorrow. Father we thank you for sending this emergency man in this emergency hour. And God I know in my own heart it's lifting the veil from my eyes. And we need it all to be challenged as husbands, as wives, as brothers, as sisters, as children. And most of all, servants, dead to the world and alive to God. It's not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with what the man said tonight, but have you spoken to us? And God we need to make decisions tonight. What we heard, was it the truth or was it a lie? I can speak for myself and I can know that I'm going to be held accountable eternally for what was spoken tonight. Eternally. And Lord Jesus, I feel all of us are held responsible for what we've heard tonight. Give us the passion to be passionate with you. To love you first with our hearts and our minds. And our soul and our strength. And Lord, we ask you to bless our brother and his wife and keep them and strengthen them. Strengthen them. Their soul, their spirit, their body. And may we remember him often in our prayers. God, what was spoken tonight, was the truth God, don't let us fall on stony places. Don't let the cares and the riches of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke it out of our lives as it has so many times. And God, if we're honest with you tonight, we know that we have allowed, we have willingly allowed ourselves to be deceived. To be duped. By our own carnality. May repentance begin in here as we walk out through the weeks, through the rest of our lives. It's worth it all. We have eternity, Lord. We have eternity to be with you. We have seconds and moments to be wrestlers and intercessors for the kingdom and the glory of God. Amen and amen.