In this sermon, the speaker shares the story of Jack Harls, a man who was desperate for God's power to preach the gospel. After his father's death, Jack made a vow to God that he would not eat or drink until he received this power. On the third day, God touched him and he went on to preach with great success, leading 18 people to conversion. The speaker also reflects on the state of churches today and encourages listeners to actively participate in God's work rather than just observing from a distance.

I want to read from 1 Corinthians 13 and in order to do a good job with that we have to read the last verse of chapter 12 He says, covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet I show unto you a more excellent way, or a far better way something far better than having all the gifts of the Spirit Though I speak with the tongues of men, with angels, and have not love By the way, the word charity is a Latin word, it simply means love It didn't mean then what it means today Catechist, it's just, it's a Latin word, it simply means love and so I'll read it that way Though I speak with the tongues of men, with angels, and have not love I am become a sounding brass, or a clanging gong, one translation says or a tinkling cymbal, or a clashing cymbal And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge and though I have all faith, so that I can move mountains and have not love I am nothing And though I bestow all my gifts to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not love, it profits me nothing Love suffers long and is kind Love doesn't envy, doesn't want itself, is not puffed up Does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not alone And by the way, if you want a definition of love, you'll find it right there Whatever it is, whatever love is, it never seeks its own Is not easily provoked, thinks no evil Rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things Love never fails For whether it be prophecy, they shall fail, whether it be tongues, they shall cease Whether it be knowledge, it shall vanish away For we know in part, and we prophesy in part That when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child But when I became a man, I put away childish things For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then, face to face Now we know in part, but then shall I know, even as also I am known Therewith I thought And all by faith, hope, love, these three But the greatest of these is love And I touched it January 46, 17 Paul, kind of easy for God to say, is just a noise But a noise, nothing but a noise That's my text There's quite a number of Old Testament examples of people who were just noises And New Testament as well, we're going to look at some of these Remember when Elijah and Mount Carmel had that contest with the prophets There were 850 prophets altogether, two different groups And they prayed, and were aware of praying, all day long, from morning to the evening, sacrifice And Elijah had a little fun, he said, hey, what's wrong you guys, cry louder Cry louder, he told them, you know Maybe your God is meditating One translation says, maybe your God is sitting on the top He's really giving them a hard time, you know Maybe he's in a journey, he said, or he might be pursuing something or someone Or maybe he's sleeping You guys better shout louder, you know They had a hard time, he had a sense of humor And of course nothing happened They jumped up and down, they cut themselves with knives They were screeching and screaming all day long And absolutely nothing happened until he prayed His prayer wasn't even three minutes long And he fell as I fell Bring up the sacrifice, bring up the wood, bring up the stony altar And lift up all the water in the trench Remember we poured barrels of water on that stuff, you know The prayer demonstration, but you know, 850 guys Figure out their hours, how many hours did they spend praying, you know And what happened? Nothing And sometimes that's the way we pray, we get nothing for our prayers We're not getting anywhere And why is it? Let's look at it Lamentations 2.17, it's a kind of an isolated part there That simply says, they made a noise in the house of God So I presume they were there worshiping, God said, it was just a noise, you know Well, she was concerned, didn't mean anything If my heart's not in it, God's not in it either And so it has to come from my heart to His In Mosiah 7.14, God said to Israel You have not cried to me when you howled on your beds So praying will be howling, just making noise, you know Well, this is what happened there There, Amos 8.3, God said Your songs in the temple are howlings Our singing may be just a noise too, you know Just a noise You know, you hear somebody with a beautiful voice And they sing so sweetly and great, you know And somebody with very few, singing just with so many fell asleep Why would they let that guy sing, you know Why would they do that I remember one time when Doris Hodge was singing Doris Hodge, she's married now, she was a woman, I thought she was a woman or something Anyway, she had battled a woman, she never had much of a voice The problem with people there, when she was through singing I should have seen God came in the song And everybody in the place knew it When I spoke afterwards, it was the easiest speaking I ever did I'll tell you, I knew what God was doing When I was through, I went to my chair And I looked at my chair and just prayed And when I sat there, I got up and said The conference room is over there And there must have been 150 people just stamping at the door To meet with God That's what my sermon meant Because it's God So don't make the mistake of judging someone who doesn't have a sweet voice And can't hit the high notes Or can't hit the low notes, you know That's got nothing to do with it Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings God has perfected praise There are only 50 things that matter Hollows in the temple God said, your songs That's what he said Well, in his 523 God says Take away the noise of your songs Stop it Cut it God answered The heart isn't in it, you know It's not a performance Teaching is not a performance And singing is not a performance They are ministries And the Holy Ghost has got to be in them Or else they don't do anything They waste our time and God's time And people's time as well In Leviticus 2.13 God said This have you done again Covering the altar of the Lord with tears With weeping And with crying out It is so much that what? It is so much that he regards not the offering anymore Nor receives it with goodwill at your hand So the question is why God? Why? And three times he said Because you guys are dealing treacherously With the ones of your youth That's why And Jeremiah speaks about a woman Treacherously departing from her husband And every woman may do that too So God was not interested in their praying Their crying, their tears even at the altar Because they weren't right with their lives So very just a noise, you know As far as God was concerned Just a noise In India one time A tourist We went to a Hindu temple We went to get inside And have a look at things And see how the good things are There was a couple of ugly I mean really ugly stone gods in there And people were kneeling all around And scrunching and screaming to these things But to get in the temple You had to walk through a thing It was probably as long as from here to the back wall Kind of an arbor, you know With branches and stuff on it To get in And on the top of this thing there were bells Little bells about this size And the lady came along with a baby And so we saw she hit this bell She hit the next bell And we think this is to waken their God They might be sleeping, you know And at the end there was a big bell About this big, you know And so she lifted this baby up Right away the baby should hit the bell The kids didn't know that So she basically rang the bell with her kid, you know I mean, their God might be asleep But I mean, she was awake, you know What nonsense That was today You know, you know Nowadays we're still doing it But sometimes we're doing it in evangelical churches too In a slightly more refined and cultured and evangelical way Well, now it has to go Matthew 6 Jesus said When that thing is ringing that petition Like the heathen do They think they're going to be heard for their much speaking I suppose for their loud speaking And sometimes I've seen this in some countries too Where they have a water wheel And it's a prayer wheel So every time the prayer wheel turns It answers the prayer for somebody Or has something to do with getting prayers answered And sometimes they have the same kind of wheel Just in the wind And as the wind blows it Blows it in But you know, sometimes what we're doing is no different It's just a little more refined and cultured, you know God isn't listening So Down in Santiago, Chile You know, in the Catholic Church They worship the Virgin Mary But they say It's not real worship It's the difference between pastoral and lateral And I think it's lateral, not pastoral Whatever that means And so, but I saw some people So I got in my mood We came and got some movies And there was a statue of the Virgin Mary Probably 15 feet high About 6 feet off the ground Dragged by a sidewalk And people were kneeling down there And they had their arms stretched And they were screaming at the tops of their voices You know, to Mary Not telling me they didn't worship Mary They were acting as if she was their God Again, big noise Nothing happened Then I speak with the tongue of men and of angels And have no love For now, I'm a clanging drum I'm a clashing cymbal I'm just a noise Hey, he's talking to a Christian Then I speak with the tongue of men and of angels I don't have the love of God in my soul I'm just a noise And then we were told in Ephesians 4 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and sorrow You know, these people were making noise to be seen Down in, I think it was Binghamton, New York I had a crusade and preacher's daughter She was, I mean, there were 60 people in the room Who had known her first Because she was always talking and laughing And punching people in the ribs And having a great time And God got a hold of her And when she gave her testimony, she said I was in Moses' personal place Because I wanted to be noticed And God took care of that So, we don't want to be noticed We want Christ to be noticed I don't know how often, I'm sure most preachers do this At least if we love God, we're doing it We pray, Dear God, don't let the people see me Don't let them remember me Let them see Jesus John 12 says so We would see Jesus And that's why we're here Is to represent Him And not just make a noise Well, we read in 1 John 4, 18-16 God is love God is love I remember a couple of times We were having some, I think it was her parents Who were coming to stay, they weren't Christians And so one thing they did Because they didn't contest the parents With how wonderful it was to be a Christian They practiced smiling all the time In front of the mirror and all this kind of garbage, you know So they'd be smiling when they looked at it It was crazy, you know They thought it was the way they'd do it And so sometimes when you put on a face It doesn't agree with the heart And the heart starts complaining Because the face isn't right, you know And I can understand that as well Anyway God is love He doesn't have to try to love He doesn't have to practice, you know God is love Sometimes we have to practice You shouldn't do it that way We'll talk about that a little later on 2 Peter 1 verse 4 says That we have become partakers It doesn't say to what extent But to some extent We have become partakers of God's divine nature Which means that we are to be From day to day converted A loving person A person in whom God can Pull his spirit from him Remove himself You hear it, you know, for that reason God should serve us and take us all home to heaven That is what happens In his plan And he has us here So we can be a channel for his love And for his grace and power God is love with partakers Let me give you an illustration of that In China When Mao was in power There was a thing called The Red Guards A group of people, they were young people They were given permission from the government To go through China And murder or beat up Anybody who was religious Or wealthy Or intellectual And they murdered thousands of people All over China And finally got a little bit out of hand So the government stopped it In the meantime, tens of thousands had died A bunch of these Red Guards Broke into a house, a Christian home one night And clubbed everybody to death The woman recovered But all her family were dead Well, one of the things found in this report She found that the leader of the gang That murdered her family Was living just two or three blocks from where she lived How did she handle that? How did she handle that? She started praying for this guy And then she heard That he had a son that was sick And he didn't have any money Couldn't get a doctor to go to hospital And so she prayed about the whole time And she went down to this man He did not, of course, recognize her She said nothing that would have happened And she said her son wasn't well He didn't have any money And she said, I'd like to let your son back to hell What? He didn't have a wife And her son was alive and couldn't understand it But she took this child home And she took him back to his father Three weeks later And then she told him who she was And he looked at her He fell out of bed He got up and he wept Wept, wept, wept And she led him to Christ She led him to Christ Calvary love You can't do that naturally Supernatural, yes By the grace of God But the potential is there Because the Spirit of God lives within us Partakers of the divine nature, the Word of God says Now it says in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 9 That we are taught of God to love one another How are we taught? How do you think we're taught? We're taught in three ways By precept, command and example Precept 1 John chapter 4 there's a verse that says Beloved The word beloved means divinely loved ones Beloved let us love one another For love is of God And everyone that loves is born of God And knows God Listen carefully He that loves not Knows not God There are twelve cases in 1 John Where love is made the acid test of reality In the Christian life He that draws in love draws in God And God in him Twelve cases like that This is the acid test He that loves not Knows not God In the ministry a lot of people Are even going to churches That don't know God Those who said probably not more than 20% Really know God I don't know where they got the statistics from I know where I got them He that loves not Knows not God Precept Command This is his commandment That we should believe In the name of his son Jesus Christ OK We evangelicals We've all managed that What about the rest of the verse? Love one another As the Lord has commanded It goes together in one You can't separate the two Well we've managed to separate these two In the evangelical church we've had We believe on Jesus But we don't love one another Do I really believe in Jesus? If I can't love my brother and sister in Christ? Well people say Well yeah that's fine But kind of You don't get it when you get converted It takes maybe 5, 10, 15, 20 years Before you get into this love thing Is that what it says in 1 Peter chapter 1? He says Seeing you have purified your soul From the burning of truth through the spirit Unto untamed love of a brother As soon as you love one another With a pure heart Fervently Be you born again If you're born again You should be loving your brother and sister With a pure heart Fervently And then you'll be treated All your brothers and sisters It says With all purity OK Precept, communion Example First John 3, 16 Hereby we perceive The love of God Because He laid down His life for us And we ought to lay down our lives For the brethren It's not how it is That's how it ought to be That's what he said Fathers Just in lines Prayer can be in lines Sermon can be in lines Maybe in a temple Well you guys are alone God said They hated and despised Their assemblies Let's put in a place finally To what purpose He said To what purpose Is the multitude of transgressions They dedicated the temple Calling the lions to be killed Is it a hundred and forty thousand Something like that They had to have a special place They didn't have the altar It wasn't big enough for animals And when it was done Because it was speaking of becoming a place One sacrifice would have been plenty And because there was not many Assemblies they thought They'd get nothing as God They're killing no animals But God said to what purpose Is all of this What are you doing? What are you at? Why are you doing these things? Where is your heart? Well Precept command example Call of God Verses 1, 6, 3, 12 Goes like this The Lord made me to increase And abound in love One toward another And toward all men Even as we do toward you To the end That is, to the purpose To the end Listen carefully That he may establish your hearts Unveil them in holiness Before God as my Father At the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ With all his saints You are not ready, am I You are not ready for the coming of Christ If you're not filled with the love of God That's what he's saying That's what it's all about So when Christ comes And you can meet the church Walking in love Abounding with thanksgiving That's not how it is It's how it ought to be All right then To go back to 1 Corinthians 16, 14 He says Let all your things be done with love Let all your things be done with love Everything you do Do it in a loving way Sometimes we do things And we go into a tent We don't like doing it But we have to And so We're bitter in our soul And then We wonder where it is We get nowhere We never went and sold to Christ We never did anything Never seen a blessing A fellow who was a high school teacher For many years And then wound up as a university professor For 25 years, he told me He never went and sold to Christ Although he was known to be a Christian Evangelical professor I know no student ever came to talk to him about God For 25 years this went on And nothing ever happened And then one day He had a meeting with God I just happened to be there Listening I have prayed, oh people He was praying for God to come He meant spiritually, you know Kill me God He said, oh God, kill me now Dead! He said, I'm already dead God Kill me Dead All of a sudden I heard him say Oh What belief He was flooded with the Spirit of God And the very next Sunday He spoke in the Baptist church And halfway through his sermon A lady came up and said, sir Can I stop preaching? I have to get to the office I met with my brother And I gave him an invitation And the Lord was crowded with people He told me that night I heard him many times at the time He said, girl, more happening right now Than it's happened in 25 years What happened? He'd been flooded with the love of God That's all He spoke and said The fullness of the love of Christ Comes when you die to yourself Don't forget it It's costly Well You know the guy, I think his name is Schultz He does a Snoopy comic Anybody read Snoopy comics? You know, he's not a Christian He says he is, but he doesn't believe he was born again But there's an old saying You know, the stop clock is right place away, right? So now he's wrong, you know And you're still thinking how he's wrong? About the stop clock? One day he did a cartoon Which I saw And he was looking at God He's wet, he's cold He's lonesome, he's shaking, he smells fine He's all by himself, shaking And the kids all come And they stick their hands on his head And they pray for God to bless them And the Bible speaks about that Maybe he got it, I think he got it from the Bible If a brother or sister be naked And blessed as you would want it They would put an animal inside him Being lambed and killed, but you give him nothing That's not a prophet What's that all about? Because sometimes we're like this Sometimes the people we pray for And what they really need is a $10 bill You know Or something else OK, Snoopy We forget him 1 John 3.18 says Now many children Let us not laugh in word Neither in tongue But in word And in truth And that's going to be a take off From Ezekiel 33.39 Which says With their mouth They show much love But their heart Goes after their colorlessness So he can talk I heard about a couple And he defended her And she froze up And he couldn't make her talk And so on So one day he wanted to go for a walk And she went with him And so they were walking around And she didn't talk He thought she was her word So when a bird sang She stopped to listen And he said to her Do you know what I think that bird is saying? She said no He's saying And she said No, I think it's saying I'm sorry I'm sorry So, yeah He ran Terribly Anyway I mentioned before I think that in 1st John There's 40 references to love There's only one reference to love In the whole of the Quran Just one But there's almost 600 references to hell And eternal punishment These people are living in terrible Fear of hell You know And I was thinking If you die Of suicide, death And you can kill others It's a moral thing That's why it's almost Any woman would do it Occasionally a woman wouldn't I don't know if they promised a woman You know what the promise of man was? He's going to wind up with a beautiful castle On the shores of a beautiful river All kinds of wine to drink And 40 virgins to take care of his sexual needs And God will give you Such sexual ability That you can take care of 40 virgins That's what the guys are dying for It's a moral thing Absolutely Absolutely Somebody's got to work for it No one has eternal life Without anyone I feel so sorry these people die And find themselves not on the bank of a beautiful river They find themselves In hell No one has eternal life Without anyone They don't know that Somehow we need to tell them that So they'll understand An interesting story from India A Christian worker Walking down the street Saw a blind man sitting there And he just walked by He had to walk by him a couple of times And the Lord said I want you to just sit down and talk to him So he sat down and sat the guy And introduced himself And started preaching the gospel The guy came and spit in his face How did he handle that? He got up and got out of there And man, he felt terribly And really mad The Lord said go back and in He argued Oh I can't go back and in He'll do the same thing Well I went back So he went back and he got spit on again I think he went back four times And each time he got spit in his face But the fifth time The guy got saved And he was blind And when he went back To the village from which he came He was in the city because He was begging He went back to the village from which he came And he wrote about 50 papers of Christ Now this Christian worker Didn't know what God was going to do With this blind fellow And he couldn't understand why It was so important he get back there And talk to him But God had a larger plan He always had a larger plan It's a lot larger than ours is I want you to find out Now back soon in India I met a man But he wrote a book It's called The Return of God's Glory He was not a great writer He was poorly written I don't think you can get the book here in Canada I've got a copy somewhere in my library I'm so glad I read it You know he used to call him the Billy Graham of India And rest in this name And he used it in thousands of people Found Christ their saviour And finally back soon Came to the conclusion This was not the way to reach India's needs So he broke with the missionaries And luckily Some of them were angry because he did this But he went on his own And here's what he did He got together half a dozen God helping people And said look we're going to find what God really wants us to do We're not going to do anything Until we find what He wants us to do And they fasted and prayed for several days And God made it clear That we could go as a team To a certain marketplace And evangelize So they went to this marketplace And evangelized And nothing happened So they went back to fast and pray again Which is the right thing to do And God showed them When you go to a marketplace You don't need to know God You just did your own thing So they went back to the marketplace And had a prayer meeting And God helped them And came again to me And said He's accepted Christ And here's what he said When they started doing God's work In God's way The glory of God returned He said we have had many Who have ever been as powerful As any kind of minion of Charleston ever had The power of God You know He probably did My last I heard of him He was 83 or something He had annual conference 20,000 people showing up He probably had the start of about 700 churches in India And suddenly running into thousands of people Back soon Do you know where he found Christ? In Antioch, Canada Back soon John Song Song Song Song was a great evangelist in China That's where he found Christ He found Christ in the United States of America Song Song He had the message out of that Anyway Well when Paul wrote To the church of Thessalonica He said among other things Your faith grows exceedingly And the love of every one of you all Towards each other abounds And I'm so pleased to know This is happening in the church of Thessalonica They were a godly church at that time There was still a church in Thessalonica As loud as it was then A little friend of mine was there He said the singing seemed to be great And he said at one point He couldn't go on with it He just sat there and wept So maybe this is a good thing happening At Thessalonica I don't really know OK You know sometimes You know It's winter time And you hear somebody They're stuck in a snow bank in front of your house It's a neighbor So you all go to the window And you look out the window And one guy looks at his watch and says I wonder how long it'll take him To get out of the snow bank 18 minutes His wife was out there pushing His kids were out there pushing And he sees you standing at the window When you explain You're having a You know, a day on vacation He's got a bunch of kids So you go and put on your best smile And ask him to think about Sending his kids to your Sunday school And he says You don't understand why I saw you looking out the window He doesn't know it took 18 minutes You know that But you should have known it would happen again You know Remember once in a bank My wife and I found Ten dollars lying on the floor So we picked it up and said to the teller It's not ours, whose is it? She said, hold on now, you kept it I said, no, somebody's lost this You know, so we gave it to the teller And said let us know If somebody comes in looking for it And so she phoned and said Oh there's an old man in here And he was so concerned Because he had so little money And he was so glad he got his ten dollars back You know We could have stuck it in our pocket And gone home Hey, thank you Lord for the ten bucks But that's not really what I wanted You know Love Seeks not Her own Under any Circumstances We'll always be thinking of the other person And how to be a blessing How can I be a blessing to this person How can I help them, how can I encourage them And some of you will be saying That's not practical There's a lot of things that aren't practical But I've heard And I say they're not practical Because you have to adapt yourself At that point You're ready to adapt yourself And live to the glory of God Spoken so Praising God With all of my might In the sea of God's delight Self is drowned And I am free Christ in love Will win me And that's it That's what it's all about You know If there are Romans in heaven I'm going to go and preach Maybe spread them a few others besides You wouldn't know who you'd be listening to either Well I saw them on tape one time But what to you He was so filled with the love of God That many times he was overcome in his sermon And he'd stand there And he said sometimes he'd walk around In a little circle Stomping his feet And rolling his head and say Good God What can I do for these people They're so lonely How can I help them God give me power to preach the gospel And this went on and on You know And Wesley He was a Roman And went to his Calvinist And they had some problem there But Wesley preached In the manner of sermon And somebody else told me Nobody think He'd be in heaven, he was a Calvinist You know And he said, Wesley said Listen, he'd be so close to his friend He wouldn't even see him You know Yeah But it must have been something to hear him And went through a bit of town Word would spread like wildfire They didn't have telephones in those days I wish we didn't have them today But anyway, you know But word would spread like wildfire And if he was to preach In San Antonio There'd be 2,000, 5,000, 10,000 people Everyone closed All stores closed The school empty People came running from the fields What's this here And he preached once in And they brought him his horse to another place And he preached 6 times in a day When he was not feeling well The doctor told him That he shouldn't preach more than 4 times a day And he said But preaching Is my medicine I get better when I preach But after he left They said for months There'd be waves of spiritual power Moving it in all directions From that one sermon And the last 2 years of his life They hired a young man To stay on this bridge And work there Because the man was very close to death He died at the age of 56 He had TB He split blood the last few years of his life After he died The young man said He said it's all true He's exactly what you've heard At night He was up many nights Waking for so long He said In talking to Jesus All the time It's all true what I've been heard And so 56 It was God coming home To the kingdom of love Wouldn't it be nice to Again, if there were three ways If you could see what's real When you hit heaven, you know Anyway Forgive my false imagination Every once in a Bible Do you find this phrase The love of the spirit For the Lord Jesus Christ's sake And for the love of the spirit That you strive to get with me When you preach to God for me Romans 15-30 It's the only place you read about the love Of the spirit And in Christ's name we have this phrase That only occurs once in the Bible The love in the spirit The love in the spirit You know Romans 5 We read this It says the love of God Is shed about Or poured forth in your hearts By the Holy Ghost Who is given unto us So the love of the spirit in our hearts Is to pour out the love of God In our souls That's what he's doing That's what he's trying to do Many times you can't do it Because you're not really interested You get a loan program to work Where again at any time If you've got that kind of a job You better get a better job Or you have no time That's possible too It's not a money thing you know A man's life does not consist of The things that he possesses Jesus taught us that we've forgotten that You know the Samaritan dream thing Doesn't mean a thing to God It's not a dream It's a nightmare I don't have to have a house with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms I know a guy, I went to take care of him Years ago, he was a nursery farmer He was down in the state And he built himself a shack 12,000 people square feet He said 12 bathrooms and he said I don't want to go to the bathroom I don't want to go longer than about 6 feet So he assumed He built a house On the same property In a kind of a, sort of a ceilidh almost He said 2,000 square feet little shack You know He's dead now I'm not going to judge But I'll tell you something He was a great witness for God No matter what He was always, no one could stand him He didn't know how to talk to a gal He didn't have a clue The reason being, when he left home He was 14 years of age Running for his life His dad was chasing him to pitchfork He said if your mom ever caught me I'd have been dead That's how he started So he didn't know how to talk to people But no one would listen to him So he led people to Christ He had a long line of people As many But he started with zero, with nothing And he didn't quite get over that As he might have and should have But anyway The Holy Spirit for people He's trying to fill us with the love of God Is this succeeding in your life? How's it going? Do we love one another with a pure heart? Fervently Have fervent love among yourselves For love for color For much of sin Do we have that? We can't operate As a dad or a mom Or as a child With parents unless They're touched by the love of God I can't forget a conference one time Leonard Radinio Was one of the speakers And Leonard Radinio was about my age Then, he's dead now Pardon me, he's alive now in heaven And He had preached for two hours You know And his wife was sitting down here And he was telling this story And he said, honey, I forget to ask this story How does it go? And she said, oh, it's just a little problem But He didn't have to go And he had another seven docs I forget the guy's name Tremendous preacher He was down here too And he had to leave early And it was walking I had to leave early And I left alone on Friday And it was Sunday And I had been doing some messages In the love of God And we had a sharing time Friday night It went on for 40 minutes at least It was just incredible What was happening And one of the guys said You know, the Lord got ahold of my heart This love thing And he said, I've been going looking at people's new lives. He said, as I was going home yesterday, I saw a fellow at a McDonald's, and he'd gone in and left his car right in front of me. So I stopped, pulled in, and went over. He said, just a little thing, you know. He said, I would never have done that before. That's his problem. But the batteries are dead, you know. And then he was driving along, and he saw two ladies sitting in the car, and they were talking, looking at phones. And the lady next to him, she was talking, and she mentioned the very name that they had mentioned. So he talked to her, and she came out, and she said, oh, we're looking for them. Where are they? So he took him down, laid hands on him, and he said, I felt real good, you know. Then he was driving along, and he saw two people, two ladies, and they were in a motorized unit, and they were talking there, and he went in to see if he could help them. The guy said, my mom, she's got diabetes, and she's getting on to a hormone. I don't know what to do. He said, lady, I'll get help out of you. He went back to Texas. I've got a name, my name, whatever, you know. And so then he was telling the story, you know. He said, I felt so good. I just felt so good. And he said, you know, that last lady I talked to, I bet she was 80. And he didn't know she was 80. And she got up and said, how dare you? I'm 85. And the place just exploded, you know, see. We don't have much of that in Christian circles anymore, do we? I mean, it doesn't happen every day. It's on a show, and people are looking at their watches, and it takes 45 minutes. Boy, boy, I went and talked to the Jenkins about this, you know. That's how it goes, right? And then a fellow got saved, and he was the poorest of the poor. And a fellow could read a lot, and he came one day and said, well, what's this tithing thing in the Bible? Well, he said, it's you give God one in ten if you can afford it. No, it says right here that tithe is the Lord's. It doesn't say if you can afford it. Well, I didn't know what to do. So he said, well, well, well, yeah. So again, he says, one in eight and ten is God's? Well, if you don't do that. And he started tithing. He'd be doing the best he could in the whole congregation. Finally, the man had a meeting with this guy, and asked him what the secret was. He said, it's called tithing. He said, what's that? He explained it. And they all began tithing. You know what happened? The church was subsisting in money from the states. And not very long after they'd got tithing, they were supporting their own preacher, and helping support a preacher in the congregation. And while he was tithing, he said, you know, I thank those people. I don't need it right. I wasn't thinking right. Good. And he should be giving in time. Good measure. Postpone, shouldn't be giving, running over, shall one get into a busy place. The same measure that you want or give, it shall be measured to again. If I don't have it, how do I get it? I think you know. People have to die to a soul. Come to an end of myself and my strivings. My wants and all that. How do I do that? You have to live with Christ at the cross. You can't crucify yourself. Galatians 5.24 says, They that are Christ have crucified the flesh for their passions and lusts. But if you could crucify yourself physically, you'd always have one hand left. You want more crucified. You can't really do that. But you can be willing for God to do it. And so today's people, we have to get desperate, get along with God, instead of God. You know, some people don't like Jack Hiles. Of course, I think he was a little clobbered at times, but nobody ever argued against the saving he did. I was in Chicago, which is quite a ways from Hammond where he was. I stood in the south. One day, a guy from Jack Hiles' church was reading my Bible telling him to go to Christ. In Chicago, you see. And he'd get 150 buses picking up people. But Jack, one time, he had an old Baptist church in Texas and nothing ever happened. Forty, fifty members, never ever got saved. And then his father, who was an alcoholic, died. And this brought Jack Hiles to a climax. When the funeral was over and all the relatives had gone home, he went up to his daddy's grave, which was in a seminary, a cemetery, which was secluded. And he threw himself over his father's grave and this was his prayer. Dear God, I won't eat, and I won't drink, until you give me power to preach the gospel. And so on and so forth, but I won't move until you give me power to preach the gospel. All they ever said was this. On the third day, or after three days, God touched me. Here in the Baptist church, he preached to 18 people working here the first time he preached. That church went from 40, 50 members up to 2,000 members in about six years. Getting up to hand in the air. And he said, whenever I feel the power isn't there, I'll do it again. I'll get fasting. I'll get other people fasting. We fast and pray until the power returns. Then he said exactly the same thing. When the glory seems to be depart, you start praying. Fast for some days. Call on God. It'll come back. The love of God is poured out in my heart and all hearts by the Holy Ghost who was given unto us. So the Spirit of God has to do it. We have to get God's power to crucify the self. To die to self. So we can live unto God. Except a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it abides alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. Much fruit. Much fruit. Let's pray.