In this sermon, the preacher focuses on the Gospel of John, specifically chapter 17. He highlights the explosive impact of reading the Word of God and the significance of chapters 15 and 16, which discuss the story of the vine and the introduction of the Holy Spirit, respectively. Chapter 17 is described as a marvelous prayer. The preacher also mentions chapter 18 and the events that follow, including a man who shares his testimony of how Christ transformed his life. The sermon emphasizes the importance of not being comfortable in church and the need to take on difficult tasks and burdens for God. The preacher concludes by mentioning a meeting where converts who are now leading missions in different parts of America were gathered, highlighting the importance of evangelism.

Lord, we are evidence of the wonderful hymn that we have sung. We know it's two centuries old, but your love is longer than that, so longer than that, older than that. We bear the proof that Jesus, thou art all compassion, and pure and bounded love thou art. When there was no arm long enough, and no arm strong enough to lift us, we thank you that your arm reached us. As the old hymn says, from sinking sand he lifted me, with tender hands he lifted me, from shades of night to days of light, O praise his name, he lifted me. How blessed we are to be here tonight. What if thy form we cannot see, we know and feel that thou art here. We're never sure when we come here who will be here except yourself. Circumstances often hinder our best desires. We thank you that you never break your promises. You've no reason to. We thank you for your amazing track record, if we dare use that phrase, that never in the history of the world have you failed to keep a promise. You've never let your people down, whether they were individuals in prison or a million coming out of Egypt, wandering through the wilderness. You led them by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. We thank you for the pillar of fire you've given us, your holy word. A servant of yours in the old testament said, your word is like a fire that burns in my bones. We thank you for this book. We know it's not of human construction. We know there's no alternative to Jesus Christ. We know there's no alternative to your word. It's not a book of imagination, it's a book of inspiration and revelation. Holy men of God, some wore very poor clothing, some were shepherds, some were kings, some were colossal intellects like the apostle Paul. Others were very ordinary men, but they wrote under divine inspiration, never dreaming that two thousand years after, men and women all over the world would be reading their writings. I think just now, the day when Voltaire, a contemporary of Letchley, said that within a hundred years from the day he said it, the bible would not be found except in museums. Now he's buried and gone to ashes. But we thank you, your word is indeed a mighty fortress. Change and decay in all around we see, but we thank you, your word is incorruptible. You've already guaranteed it. Thy word, O God, is forever and ever, just like your kingdom is an eternal kingdom. Just as our king cannot abdicate, his kingdom cannot be destroyed, he cannot be overthrown, he cannot die. We thank you tonight that the head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now. The cheek that once was smitten, the face from which the hair was pulled, the face into which some ungodly rascals spit, that face is shining in eternity brighter than a noonday sun. We think of the revelation that Isaiah had centuries before Jesus came, when he said he saw him in all his majesty, in all his glory, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Even the cherubims used their wings to fill to the blazing glory of the king on his throne. We come to worship you tonight. We come to hear your voice through your word, through the simple expression of the preacher. We will be still and not about God. We come from a world of turmoil. Speak peace in this meeting, particularly to any heart excessively troubled. Speak a word of comfort to that person who's been wounded and grieved. We thank you there is a balm in Gilead. There is a physician there, beyond all human physicians, a miracle-working God. Whether you work visibly or invisibly, we care not. Again, we thank you for this word, which is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. We've sung, finish then thy new creation. May this service help to finish that new creation in us. You have begun a good work in us. You know we won't give up. We may stumble and stagger. At times maybe we rest too long, maybe times we rush too quickly. But we bless you for the Holy Spirit who's given to us to be our guide. Open your word, we pray, and open our eyes, and then open our mouths to tell what great things God has done for us. We give you praise in Jesus' name. All right, we're going to look at the gospel as recorded by John in the one of the best-known chapters, chapter 17. Since I only live inside my own personality, I don't know how you think, and I guess there are some things which are very common to us. And one to me is that how often I read the word of God and suddenly it explodes. I wonder why it didn't explode 50 years ago, I was too dull. Well, the fact was I knew so much then that nobody could teach me, you see. But a lot of that story, I've put it in my head, so I've got it in a nutshell, you see. It will be correct to say that this 17th chapter actually begins in the 13th chapter. In this 13th chapter of the gospel, this same gospel, we move into a new dimension. Jesus is speaking particularly to his disciples. Now, before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. Now, then there's a gap, actually, and we could really pick up the story here in this 17th chapter. I say the 13th chapter is an introduction to the 17th. I was reading that story in the 46th of Ezekiel today. You remember the man with a measuring line? There's a river of water, take it as a type of the Holy Spirit. He measures a thousand cubits and there's waters to the ankles. He measures another thousand and there's water to the knees. I take that to mean this, or it's my interpretation. The river is a type of the Holy Spirit. If we've water to our ankles, we must be walking in the Spirit. We can't walk in the Spirit very long before we get to our knees and start praying in the Spirit. That is, praying with the wisdom of the Spirit and the authority of the Spirit. Then the next measuring line, he measures a thousand cubits and it's water to the loins. Now, if you've been a wrestler, you know that the strength is all here in the loins. Remember when Jacob wrestled with the Lord. What did he get for wrestling? You may say, I want to pray life. You really do? Really, sincerely want to pray life? You mean you'd like the Lord to cripple you so you have to pray? What did Jacob get? The Lord touched him where he was too strong. He hung on to the angel. The angel hung on to him. But then he wrestled until the angel touched him in the hollow of his thigh, where he was strongest. And ever after that, he dragged the withered leg. I'm not saying this is the right thing to do, but I do know people who've actually ruined their physical lives, and some who have actually ruined their business lives, because they asked for a life of prayer, and God took them at the word. Sometimes this is called, has been called, the longest prayer of Jesus. If you do your homework and go through the New Testament, you'll discover there are 19 prayers of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, through the Bible, there are 650 prayers. They'd make an interesting study, wouldn't they? This is not the longest prayer of the Lord Jesus. I don't believe it is, anyhow. It's the longest recorded prayer. Someone said it's the most beautiful prayer. I disagree. I believe the longest prayer Jesus prayed was in Gethsemane. I believe it was the most awesome prayer. So awesome that no one heard it. These words speak Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father. I heard Paul talking to somebody a few days ago, and he said, my father. He didn't know what a kick I got. That was so lovely to me. Sometimes my wife calls me the old man, but I still love the old lady, even if she does. But when I thought my son said, I heard someone say, my father. Have you ever had to digest this, or think of it? I confess to you, I haven't. I've read the Bible for 70 years, and just this week this thought came to me, meditating on this chapter, which shows how new things can come. That Jesus began his life without a father, and the end of his life without a father. He started his life without a physical father, and on the cross he said, my father, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Think of all this amazing history between those two awesome events. These words speak Jesus, lifted his eyes to heaven. Now, we always close our eyes. I don't know why. I think I do know why. Let me save myself there. To save us from distraction. I remember walking to Dr. Tozanovich one day. He always came out with something that leveled me to the ground anyhow. One day he said, Len, remember, none of us will go up to Jesus at the judgment seat and look him straight in the eye. Not one of us. You know, people talk as though we're going to say, oh Jesus, oh I love you. You'll be so terrified when you see him, you'll will be speechless. Oh, I've only seen one portrait of Jesus as given in Revelation. His eyes as, pardon me, his hair as white as snow. Mary Antoinette, you may remember in history, was a young lady at 21 who got the heart of the King of France, and she manipulated him. She was the most beautiful woman in the world, they said, but she grieved him, and he put her in a bath seal. It's been destroyed now. The walls were 30 feet thick nearly, I guess, about the length of this room. They put her there one night with this fantastic hairstyle she had, this face that looked as though it was enamel, those flawless blue eyes. They put her there in a cell. Told her she would die in the morning with the executioner's, you know, that horrid guillotine chopping her head off. They put her in that cell, smiling when she went in, gorgeous. She heard the bell at Notre Dame Cathedral toll out night, hour after hour, five, six, seven, and then at eight they took her out to chop her head off. But when they went in the prison cell, that gorgeous young lady was a hundred years old. Her skin had all shrunken, her hair was as white as snow. Why? Because she'd been living in terror. These words spake Jesus, lifted his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. I believe, I didn't check today, I'm working on memory here, but I think this is the seventh time that John mentions the hour. Do you remember Jesus came to his, the mother of Jesus came to him and said, perform a miracle here at the marriage in Cane of Gully? He said, my hour is not yet come. Remember the seventh chapter of John, he said to his disciples, you go up to the feast, I'm not going up, but three verses after it says he went up. He was saving time. It's one thing that you young folk have to beware of. I think you should have a clock in your room, in every room, in every college, in every house, redeem the time. He won't forgive you. The Lord will forgive you, the clock won't. People say faith can do anything. If you believe that, I'd like to kneel there and you pray over me and say, Lord make Lenway, and it'll change him from 77 to 27. Wouldn't I get up joyful? I don't believe any of you have faith to do that. Faith can't do anything I want, it can do anything God wants. But God isn't there to manipulate it. Mary Antoinette was a hundred years of age in the morning. She'd gone through hell and torment. She'd heard that bell call. Say, would you like somebody to bring you a prophecy your grandmother made when you were, say, six weeks old? And she said, when you're 17 you're going to have a major accident that will cripple you. When you're this, when you're that. Would you like to read your future? I believe Jesus had been reading his future for many, many years. As far as I remember, he's the only person that came in the world with a specific intention of dying. His hair was as white as snow, his feet like burnished brass. That's why Dr. Thornton said none of us were looking straight in the eye. I was reciting to myself one of the great hymns of Charles Wesley today. Lo, he comes with crowds descending, ones for favoured, sinners slain. Lo, the tokens of his passion, though inglorious, still he bears. When he was resurrected, what did he do? He showed them his hands and his feet. How forsake? Why in the world didn't he go down the street and shout over the cemetery wall and raise the dead as he said he would do? Why did he go to the river or the lake and turn it into blood and show his majestic power? No, he showed them the tokens of his passion. Lo, the tokens of his passion, though inglorious, still he bears. Calls of endless exultation to his ransomed worshippers. Hallelujah, Christ, the Son of God appears. I say Jesus had been, oh, let me say this. What was the supreme desire of the Lord Jesus? Right. What did he say? Lo, I come to do thy will. In the volume of the book it is written of me. He's saying here he wants to glorify the Father. Glorified? Crucified. I think he mentions glory about seven times in this chapter. Again, I didn't read them today. The only way God can be glorified is when he's crucified and all the things that follow after, of course. His supreme joy, he said, was I always do those things that please the Father. Never once in those 33 years did he back off from the will of God. He was never intimidated. Go back for a minute here into the seventh chapter of the gospel of Luke. I'll go back, yes, okay, into Luke. Let's go back into the second chapter. Sorry. His parents had been to the feast, remember, one of the greatest feasts in the history or in the record of that marvelous people, the Jews. Verse 43 says when they had fulfilled their days they returned to and returned. The child Jesus carried behind in Jerusalem and Joseph and his mother knew of it. That's the most incredible story in the New Testament. Incredible why? That they'd been given the privilege of escorting Jesus out of a womb right to the cross, to the tomb, womb to the tomb, and they lost him. I thought there's a lot of bodyguard there day and night. When did they lose him? They lost him immediately. They came out of church, just like you do Sunday morning. You'll have forgotten the sermon before you've gotten 100 guys out of church, particularly if the Cowboys are playing. I think that's the greatest religion in Texas, football. They lost him. Why? They supposed he was in the company and he wasn't there. Remember the Resurrection morning? She supposed it was the gardener. She thought he wasn't there and he was there. They thought he was there and he wasn't there. Some people think if you build a gorgeous church and put stained glass windows, have a big pipe organ and all the trimmings that the Lord is there. Not so. Not necessarily. They supposed he had been in the company and they sought him among their kinfolk and they turned again. After three days, you know you do pretty good if you backslide and you make a recovery in three days, you're doing pretty good. Because don't backslide anyhow. They lost him and rediscovered him in three days. Where? In the temple. I imagine they searched every room. It was an enormous place. One part was the upper room. There were other rooms. They sought him with despair and his mother went to bed. What do you think she did the first night? What would you do if you lost a 12-year-old boy? Try yourself to sleep? Think it would just be fine? You think he'd do it the next night too? And the next night too? He's not here. Or maybe those men that you know come every time down by the pool of Ceylon selling goodly pearls. They've taken him away. Stolen him. Finally they found him where? I imagine Joseph pushing the door of the sanctuary open saying, he's there. Where? Isn't it amazing a 12-year-old boy is up on the front row asking the wise heads questions? It says hearing. Does that imply he answered? Hearing and asking them questions. If you don't have a 12-year-old, you haven't yet discovered how ignorant you are. Oh heaven, you people need to pray for extra wisdom. I mean your boys don't have a computer. You don't know what that means anyhow. It's like buying your husband a sewing machine for Christmas. I would have loved to have been eavesdropping. It's a lot of questions he was asking. It would be very wonderful. They'd be very wise questions, I'm sure of that. Do you think those wise heads ever forgot that youngster? Say that's the boy that came in the temple that day and got us all puzzled and embarrassed us. I wish they'd lose him. I felt like that about some church members too. But sorry we lost the verse here. Go from that incident to another incident just as embarrassing, more embarrassing, in the fourth chapter. Verse 16. As his custom was, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day and stood up to read. Why? That wasn't his job. It was the rabbi or the chief rabbi or one of the best of the priests. They delivered up to him the book of the prophecy Isaiah. And he found a place. He found a place. I like that. He wasn't going to read anything you know that would not mean anything. So he wrote from the 61st chapter. The spirit of the Lord is upon me. Do you wonder it closes the verse by saying, and the eyes of everybody there were upon him. I don't know what his voice was like. I'm sure it was majestic. Maybe it was even at that day like the sound of many waters. What did he say? The spirit of the Lord, verse 18, is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. Something they didn't do. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, recovering the sight of the blind, and fed at liberty them that are bruised. You know that upset a lot of people today. Or they'd say in one pious phrase, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. You mention healing, they think you're an idiot. Well I happen to think that Jesus isn't crippled. I happen to believe that Jesus Christ has more power and authority now than he had in the days of his flesh. And he had dominion over death, he had dominion over lunatics, he had dominion over palsy. Do you wonder he embarrassed them? Oh yes, they said very piously, you know, they read the 35th chapter of Isaiah, when he's come the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, then shall a lame man leap at the heart, the tongue of the dumb shall sing. He didn't read it, he did it. So he embarrassed them. The spirit of the Lord is upon me. You know there's no greater thing this side of eternity. I'm sure Paul, you believe in that too. When a man can say the spirit of the Lord is upon me. I won't give you two hoots for all the decrees the preachers have. You can have 32 and still be frozen anyhow. I'm glad money can't buy this, because no man can lay hands on you and give you the spiritual wisdom. I don't believe so. You can't buy it, you can't get it by climbing the intellectual ladder of education, getting some great degree in a university. God almighty doesn't happen to read diplomas, and I'm not facetious in saying that. If you're going to be a preacher, covet this, whatever it costs you. If you have to fast one day a week, if you have to miss two nights in prayer, so what? When I was in my 20s, many times I wouldn't go to bed for three or four days. Stayed in the church after Sunday night service. Went to church Saturday night, had a street meeting till midnight. Went to the church, wrapped up in a cloth and lay at the side of my books, my library there, to wait on God. Some of you have read, I'm sure, old Dr. Jowett. He was a good Englishman, of course, but anyhow. He coined a phrase I've thought of thousands of times, you have to bleed to bless. You have to bleed to bless. If the Son of God couldn't be a real true blessing, as God wanted, without bleeding, how can we? He came to do the will of his Father. A century back in Scotland, there were three famous brothers. Andrew, I think one was Andrew Bonner, and the other was, what was he called? Horatio Bonner. He wrote this lovely hymn, Go labour on, spend and be spent, thy joy to do the Father's will. It is the way the Master went, should not the servant tread it still. Toil in honour, in thy toil rejoice, for toil comes rest, for exile home. Soon shalt thou hear the bridegroom's voice, that in thy pride behold I come. Men die in darkness at your side. I don't care if you live at work in one of the most fashionable up-to-date computers. The man across the other computer's dying without God and without hope, as much as the heathen up the Amazon. It's much more sterling to see stark naked people, isn't it? Dying in some rotten, uncivilized country. People in the world offer story, they're dying without God tonight. They can't spend their million. People in Washington, trying to solve problems for the world, can't solve their own marriage problems, can't solve their own drinking problems, can't solve their own gambling problems. We're led by idiots. This world will never be put straight till the Prince of Peace does it, you can be sure about that. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, recovering the sight of the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable years of the Lord. And he closed the book and gave it to the minister and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened upon him. I don't wonder. Well, if the ungodly people said he speaks with authority and not as the scribes. Preaching can be as empty as beating a drum, and that needs authority. Define it, if you like, as unction. Define it, if you like, as anointing. As the old teller preacher says, I don't know what it is when I know when it isn't. When I don't have it, he said, I know when I haven't had it. It's that mysterious something that God is pleased to put upon those who will travel and wait for that anointing, without which preaching has no power and has no authority. I'm going to read this again. The Spirit of the Lord. No, I'll read a verse of 17, chapter 1. Chapter 17, verse 1. These words spake Jesus and lifted his eyes to heaven and said, Father. I say, when I heard my son Paul say the other day to someone he didn't know I was listening, say, my father, I felt such a joy. I know what kind of a son I have. An anointed man, a preacher, a pioneer in one of the most difficult fields in South America. Doesn't look so old, but he's been there about 25 years anyhow. Can you remember Isaiah looking up into the face of God and saying, Father? Can you remember Jeremiah looking up into the face of God and saying, Father? Or any of those stalwart giants we think of? Take all the men, if you like, in Hebrews. Any one of them ever called the creator of heaven and earth? Isaiah doesn't do it. He calls him the high and lofty one who inhabited eternity. He sits upon the circle of the earth. He falls speechless before God. Here Jesus has come through this long, long period. I'll suggest to you tonight, disagree if you like, that I took to this point Jesus had been in training for what's coming. As I say, would you like to read your own biography before you die, knowing it was accurate? That little fellow who sat there puzzling the high priest and the distinguished people there was possibly like some of the Jews that there are in New York today, and I have great admiration for them. There's a sect there, I don't know what you call them, Hathidic, is it something? They wear flat hats and they've big black curls coming down to their shoulders, and I understand every one of those men can recite the first five books of Moses, isn't that right? Oh, Hathidic, thank you. Now you got that straight. I don't know what it was, but it's straight. Can you imagine Jesus reciting all those books? Can you imagine him reading again about the virgin should bear a child? Can you think of him reading through Isaiah 53? Who hath believed our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? He should grow up before him as a tender plant. He should be like a root out of a dry ground. There's no beauty about that. There's no beauty that we should desire of him. I say, Jesus up to this time has been preparing for this awesome thing that lies ahead of him. We can break this chapter up into many areas, I don't want to do that. I want you to notice, if you will, when you read through John, I think about 33 times he mentions the world. You know, one of the tragedies of the world is, today is, the early church, the world couldn't get on with the early church, it can get on with us, we're not a four-minute sign, we don't cause it any trouble. If we displayed some of the power of God, they might take some notice, but we don't do that. Out is all theology, it's all paperwork. I looked up these things today, just to go quickly through them. In 1 Corinthians and chapter 1, the apostle Paul talks about the wisdom of this world, which is foolishness with God. Do you think God's interested that we've got a thing floating up in the sky right now, a machine full of technology, and it can spy on the Russians? Do you think that troubles God in eternity? The wisdom of the world is foolishness with God. Friendship with the world is enmity against God. How friendly are you with the world? What secret society do you belong? Some of you guys, Masons? I actually used to kick the Masons around a lot. I clashed with one in Ireland, he said, it's not a religion. I said, well, why do you go to a temple? They meet in a temple. Who meets in a temple except the thought they go to worship? The wisdom of the world is foolishness with God. The friendship with the world is enmity with God. 1 Corinthians 7 says, the fashion of this world passeth away. John, in his first epistle, says, if you love the world, the love of the Father isn't in you. You forfeit God's love as soon as you get fascinated with the love of the world. I read an article recently where the preacher was saying, you know, so many people lose their first love. That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says, thou hast left thy first love. You don't lose it. I got an old coat. It was about 20 years. I lost it this week. Boy, was I upset. It's out of style, but it's good to me. It keeps me warm. I was glad when I found it. I lost it. But the address to the people there in the book of the Revelation is to people who left their first love. Something else got them, and they gave all their consuming passion and desire to that one thing that they got hold of again. Love not the world, neither the things of the world. It's all about the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which all belong to this world. What I'm wanting to say now, really, which has been in the back of my mind for days. I haven't got hold of it as I should. I'm sure of that. Chapter 13, Jesus introduces his disciples to the Lord's Supper, and immediately introduces them to the washing of feet, which has gone out with most people. That's chapter 13. Chapter 14, in verse 26, he mentions there for the first time the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost. That always reminds me of my dear old teacher in England, old Samuel Chadwick. He said, remember, he's the comforter, but he is not. These are his exact words, because I heard them say so many times, and I've quoted them many times since myself. The comforter, which is the comforter, the Holy Spirit is not a nursing mother to spiritualistic children. That word comforter in English, in Latin, is comfortis, com-fortis, with strength. What did Jesus say? When the Holy Ghost has come, what? You shall receive what? Power. In other words, you shall receive strength, the Holy Ghost coming upon you. Back in the 1600s, one of the giant stalwarts of that day, that was the period of Puritans, like John Owen and all that crowd. John Owen was maybe the greatest of them. He said, the sin of men in the Old Testament was against the Father. The sin of men in the New Testament was against the Son. Well, I think we can say nowadays, the sin of the Church very much is against the Father, the sin of the Church against the Son, and the sin of the Church against most churches is the Holy Ghost. They want the Holy Ghost to take and lay a track, and he'll run down their theology, but he says, forget it. Now, this may be a pretty stiff yardstick. You can beat me up next time you come back. I'm going to say it anyhow. I believe every church is either supernatural or superficial. I don't believe in any middle ground. I'm not interested merely in healings. I've seen many, and I thank God for them. I've seen blind people get their sight, seen people leap out of chairs. It's not that I've not any compassion for that, but the least emphasis that's put on the Holy Ghost today is that when he has come, he convinces the world of sin. The Church is comfortable with sin. I hear of churches now that have special classes for young couples or young divorced couples. Fifty years ago, you never heard of a divorcee in the Christian Church. You never heard of marriage counseling in the Christian Church. The meetings were so breathed upon by the Holy Ghost, I dreaded to go in some meetings even when I was 14 or 15 years of age. In those days, if you went to a healthy, spiritually healthy church, if it was a holiness church, preaching the baptism of the Spirit as purity, sanctification, or whether it was Pentecostal, preaching the baptism of the Holy Ghost with gifts. Whenever he went to either of those churches, Sunday night, if the service started at six o'clock at half past five, the altar was filled with people praying the power down. We had one old boy took his coat off. Boy, did he shout as though the Lord was dead. Come down tonight. I used to tremble. I was scared. I'm not facetious. I imagine the Lord would come down. I'd be terrified if he came. You hear people saying, Church, Lord, you're welcome. If the Holy Ghost came to some churches, there'd be a stampede to the door. David Wilson was telling me not long ago, he said, Len, you know, I know God has given me certain gifts, but they work more in the open air, in the street meetings, and in churches. Last year, in New York, he pointed to a big fellow, 350 pounds. Boy, you better be watch what you're saying. He said, you're running away from your wife, and he ran away from David up the street. Came back 15 minutes after with his, well, I won't say anything about the wife, but anyhow, he was about 350 pounds, and she was a little less. And all the pickaninnies were running after that, there were about five or six children coming. He said, I was running away from my wife. I've been living an evil life. When he went this year, that man met him and told him how Christ transformed his life. Pointing out people in the crowd like that doesn't make church too comfortable, does it? We'd rather go to the church. You know what it says as you enter the door? It says everybody keeps silent, and they sure do. If you said amen, they'd turn the fire hose on you. So, John 13 is, well, let's say it again, repetition's good. John 13 is where he introduces his disciples to the Lord's supper, then he washes their feet. 14, he says, let not your heart be troubled. Verse 26, he tells them about the Holy Ghost coming, come fortish with power. Chapter 15, the incomparable story of the vine. Chapter 16, the marvelous introduction of the Holy Spirit. Chapter 17, this marvelous, marvelous prayer. Then you go into chapter 18. I will say this is disastrous. I said, Jesus has been in training up to this point for the most horrendous experiences that a human being could ever know. When Jesus spoke these words, let me go back a minute and think of this. So many people say that Jesus spoke this 17th prayer, this prayer in the 17th chapter, with a sense of gloom and doom. I don't believe that for a moment. I believe he said it joyously. Why? Well, look at the last verse of chapter 16. These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I've overcome the world. Do you think a man's going into gloom when he knows he's already conquered the world? Hasn't he prayed in the 15th chapter that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves? Doesn't he say in this 17th chapter, verse 13, now I come to thee, that these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy, my joy to do the Father's will. Let that joy dominate your life. He's not talking about happiness. Happiness and joy are as different as night and day. Happiness depends on happenings. Everything happens to go right, you go up with them. Everything happens to go down, you go down with them. But joy is a stable thing. It does not depend on happenstance, happenings. You know, usually when the king dies, he disposes of a cattle to this person, and horses to that person, and money to that. What did Jesus, the king of kings, what did he leave? Well, it says, he says, am I peace I leave with you. Give them peace that passeth all understanding, and if you've got it right, all misunderstanding. Not just peace, my peace, the peace that dominated him when they tried to push him over the cliff. The peace that dominates him now when he goes into Gethsemane. They may have my joy. And again, in the 15th chapter, he has prayed that their joy may be full. But we want it on the platter, don't we? What does the Lord give us? He gives beauty for what? What does ashes mean? Something's being burned to a cinder. Maybe that's why we're afraid to be consumed, because that God will reduce us to ashes. All our plans. When God's fire upon the altar of my heart was set ablaze, my ambitions, plans and wishes at my feet in ashes lay. That's an old hymn. But you know, God can do more with the ashes than you can do with the whole thing. They may have my joy. A joy unspeakable and full of glory. A joy that can let him look from the cross, all the ignominy of the cross. A peace that passes understanding, where misunderstanding too, when he's there on the cross. But this is the gateway. The most horrible thing is there in this 18th chapter. We go from the sublime, majestic. You know, I'm wondering why, because of a certain book I read not too long ago, I'm wondering why no one ever emphasized the moral majesty of Jesus. In that seventh chapter of John, he walks into a crowded place. They're all murmuring because of him. That's him. He raises the dead. That's him. He does miracles. That's the man. He torments people with his teaching. The Pharisees are ashamed of him and embarrassed. So are the Sadducees, so are the priests. And yet he stands up in the middle of a feast with more than a thousand people in the temple, clothed on in moral majesty. He went and read in the scripture there. Well, when he was even 12, he read there and listened on the front seat. I believe there he had a moral majesty. In other words, he had a God-created character. In the seventh chapter, with all the murmuring there, he's not embarrassed to say, you poured out water every day. And he stands in the place where the priest has stood, and he says, listen, you come unto me. I am the water of life. He said he is the bread of life. He said he is the light of life. Do you think they took that sitting down kind of thing? Who does he think he is? He is the bread of life. If you eat of him, you have life. He is the water of life. If you drink of him, you don't thirst again. He is the light of life that will guide you. He makes all these stupendous claims of things that we can't live without. We can't live without bread. We can't live without water. We can't live without life. And we can't live without God. Without Christ, you can exist. And again, there are no alternatives to Jesus Christ. The only wise thing I know H. G. Wells said was that there's a God-shaped blank in all of us. I think he borrowed that, anyhow, from Augustine. Because Augustine says we'll never be satisfied until God takes up his abode in us. You and I are supposed to be the... that God is supposed to be in residency in our beings. I didn't read the verse. I'm going to read it here. John 18, verse 1. When Jesus had spoken these words, words of wisdom and comfort, in the 17th chapter, he went forth with his disciples over the book Kidron, where there was a garden into which he entered, and his disciples, and Judas also, which betrayed him, knew the place. For Jesus often resorted there. If you want to know the prayer life of Jesus, you'd have to read this account of the gospel given by Luke. Luke says he was in the river being baptized, and as he was praying, the Spirit descended upon him. Luke says he was on the Mount of Transfiguration, and as he prayed... If you want a new personality, I'll tell you this, the only way to get it is to have a prayer life. Because you can't pray and be unclean. You can't pray and have a grudge. You can't pray and have bitterness. We blame the devil so often. Most of us sabotage our own prayers. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? The man that has received the decree? The man that wears his collar backwards? The man that has priestly garments? The man that stands behind the normate desk with stained glass windows? No! A man can be ploughed a field and ascend into the hill of the Lord. He that hath clean hands, that's our relationship with the world, and a pure heart, our relationship to God. Again, those old Methodists used to sing a great hymn, No Condemnation, Now I Dread. Oh, I was going to read a verse from here. I've forgotten it now. I don't know whether Charles Wesley based this on this John 17, but I like it. He says, Arise my soul, arise, shake off thy guilty fears. The bleeding sacrifice in my behalf appears. Before the throne my surety stands and my name is written on his hands. He ever lives above for me to intercede. He's on the way to do this through this garden. His all-redeeming love is precious blood to plead. His blood atones for all our race and sprinkles now the throne of grace. Five bleeding wounds he bears, two in his feet, two in his hands, one in his side. Five bleeding wounds he bears, received on Calvary. They poor effectual prayers, they strongly plead for me. Forgive him, O forgive, he cries. Now let that ransomed sinner die. The father hears him pray, his dear anointed son. He cannot turn away the presence of his son. His spirit answers to the blood and tells me I'm born of God. My God is reconciled, his pardoning voice I hear. He owns me for his child, I can no longer fear. With confidence I now draw nigh and Father, Abba, Father cry. Made possible only because of this. Jesus who knew, and the Judas also which betrayed him, knew the place. For Jesus often resorted him. I'm going to suggest to you, disagree if you like, that Jesus had to approximate up to this horrible experience he was going to have in Gethsemane. Again I say you'd have to read Luke to find the prayer life of Jesus. He's praying as the dove descends upon him. He's praying there on the Mount of Transfiguration. Come on, in a quick, don't answer audibly. How many people were on the Mount of Transfiguration? Six, if you've got it. Six. Peter, James, John, Jesus, Moses, and who else? Elijah. Who did God speak to? Pardon? No. To only one person, Jesus. We say a thing, a lovely American hymn, blessed assurance. You know, God gave assurance to Jesus in this pilgrimage, in all the crisis periods. And there on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Father answers from heaven, or calls from heaven, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. If I die conscious, I don't know whether I will or not, but if I die conscious, I'd like to die conscious of the Lord saying to me, this is my beloved Son. I have a very dear friend who says, his one ambition in life is to hear God say, you are my beloved Son. Not a son, but the Son. In other words, you're a chosen vessel unto me. How many miniature Gethsemanes do you think there have been? Jesus has prayed for his disciples, he's prayed for himself in the first five verses of the 17th chapter. Verses 1 to 5, he prays for himself. Verses 6 to 19, he prays for his disciples. Verses 20 to 26, he prays for the world. Read it and emphasize how many times as you read it, I have kept them in thy name. He has prayed for unification for them. That's about the most common thing used out of this chapter. Everybody see that Jesus prayed that we all may be one, he did not. Not in the way you think of it. What did he pray for? That they may be one, even as we are one. It's vertical before it's horizontal. Charles Wesley, again, gave us that lovely children's hymn. I used to sing it to my mother's knee every night till I was about 10 years of age. Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon a little child. Think, I guess, from, is it 2 Peter, where it says, Peter talks about the gentleness and meekness of Christ. You see, in these days we think gentleness means softness, and we think meekness is weakness. The very opposite. Jesus was meek, but he got angry. Was he soft? I'll tell you how soft he was. He said to some people that were usurping authority in his father's house, you're a bunch of hypocrites, that's not very loving language, is it? He loved his own. I don't ever read where he loved Pharisees or publicans. He loved sinners. We're supposed to love everybody these days. Only do we throw your Bible over the wall and accept some church dogma, but that's not consistent with this. He finishes the 17th chapter, I've declared unto them thy name and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them. And later he said he loved them right to the end. So now he's going into Gethsemane. I can't recall the hymn, but I remember we used to sing a hymn in England, Go to dark Gethsemane, ye who feel the tempest's power, your Redeemer's conflict see, and watch with him one little hour. Turn now from the world away, learn from Jesus Christ to pray. I guess you heard hundreds of times people say, I remember the day I was saved. If you're a Nazarene of the old holiness folk, you'd hear them say, I remember the day I was sanctified. If you go to a Pentecostal church, you'll hear them say, I remember the day that I was born again. I remember the day I was filled with the Holy Ghost. I've never yet heard the person say, I remember the time when I went to Gethsemane. You ever heard of Gethsemane? In the heyday of his preaching in the Welsh Revival, and he was only 23 years of age. Evan Roberts, who was an oversized man for Welshmen. They're a small race and then, but he was a kind of a giant. 12 or 1300 people there, and suddenly he crumbled. You know, like you see those, I'm not facetious here, you see them dynamite those buildings, and they go down like that. And he just fell flat, and he groaned, and he roared on the platform in front of 12 or 1300 people. Somebody was going to lay hands on him, and somebody wise enough said, the Spirit is upon him, leave him. He's having a Gethsemane. It's an awful price to pay, but God gives beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning. We want the joy, but not the mourning. The garments of praise, but not the spirit of heaviness. Jesus has prayed this awesome prayer, magnificent prayer, majestic prayer, call it what you will. Again, he's clothed in moral majesty. He has a sense of unity with his Father, the creator of the universe. But he's going into the most horrendous, unimaginable horror the world has ever known, by himself. Using a hymn, earthly friends may fail and leave us, one day soothe, the next day grieve us, but our Lord will ne'er deceive us. He's going into that mockery, that foolish, burlesque of a trial that he had before Pilate, and before a Roman king. He doesn't tremble. What is he girded with? He's girded with the righteousness of God, he's girded with the fact, this is the way that God has chosen for me. Again, as Bonner says, this is the way the master went, should not the servant tread it still? You know, most of us, if we're honest, we want to go to heaven on easy street. Don't overburden me, don't talk to me about sacrifice, don't talk to me about fasting, don't talk to me about anguish. He's going into this horrible experience of Gethsemane. Read about it when you go home, read the 22nd chapter, pardon me, the 22nd psalm. He talks about the dogs are waiting for him, and the lions are waiting for him, the devourers are there, the unimaginable darkness that there is there. All thy billows have gone over me, if I can use it, for I don't know any better language, from that nerve-wracking experience, that torturous experience on his body, his mind, and his spirit. He goes from there to something even darker, it would seem to me. What's darker than Gethsemane? What's darker than Gethsemane? Well, the judgment hall again, he's diverted, he's alone, then he goes on his way to the cross. I've read that over and over again this afternoon, in Hebrews 13, 13. Let us go with him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. Here he is, the holy one of God, who's of holier eyes than to behold iniquity. He's given it back to the smiters. All the horror of Isaiah 53 becomes real. We're told that by one man's sin, disobedience, sin entered into the world, and because of that, every graveside testifies to the sin of Adam. Every broken life, every jail that's filled with wicked men tonight, every broken home testifies to the sin of Adam. But then we're told by one man's obedience, many were made righteous. You have this almost word-perfect picture of Jesus there in Isaiah 53. He's wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. I've often wondered why the disciples didn't leave the judgment hall behind him, cheering him. Master, you told us this was coming up. You said that wicked men will put you to death. Time and again you've read Isaiah 53. He goes down from a place of judgment to where? To Golgotha. He was always an outsider, so then he was born outside of marriage. When he becomes a young aggressive young man, he's put outside of his own family. They call him a madman. That's how then your family do that. Later they put him out of the synagogue. Usually a great American evangelist, not oftenly quoted, called Alexander. His wife was English. She wrote a hymn, a children's hymn. We sang almost every week at home when I was a child. There is a green hill far away, without a city wall. I wonder why it was without a city wall? Which means of course outside the city wall, where our dear Lord was crucified. There is staggering under his cross, and he's going to where? Well, whether you like it or not, I'll tell you where he's going. He's going to the sewage farm. Read Leviticus, read Numbers. Where was he going? He's going outside of the city. Why? Because all malefactors go outside of the city. All lepers go outside of the city. All the unclean go out of the city. All the filth of the city is poured out there. And there he goes. Nobody applauding, nobody cheering him, then scorning him all the way down on his shoulder. They shut out the lip. They laughed him to scorn. And God is silent. This is his beloved son. And then mystery of mystery says it pleased the Lord. It pleased the Lord to bruise him. The Lord has laid on him every sin you or anyone else ever committed. Some people make a lot of the cross of Jesus. It wasn't the cross that killed him. Surely it was our sin that killed him. There used to be a teacher in Edinburgh University, New College Edinburgh, years ago, a century ago. He was a Scotsman that had a fantastic knowledge of Hebrew. He taught Hebrew every morning to those university students in the divinity class. And he always used a Hebrew text Bible as his textbook. He went through Isaiah 53. And one morning he stopped in his lecture and he said, listen to this. He quoted it in Hebrew, then in English. His soul, not his body. His soul was made an offering for sin. I'll tell you what he said, how he interpreted that. They said, gentlemen, it was damnation and he took it joyfully. He takes you to pangs of hell. Why? I say he was born without a father. He finished without a father. Why? Because he says, my God, why has thou forsaken me? I can understand Peter. He was always vacillating. I can understand Thomas. He was always doubting. I understand the frailty of God. Here I am in a crisis moment. If ever I needed you, it's now and I'm deserted. It was black as hell. This hymn book, we might try and sing it. We never sung it. Man of sorrows, what a name for the son of God who came. Ruined sinners to reclaim. Hallelujah, what a savior. Bearing shame, bearing shame and scoffing rude. In my place condemned he stood. I've ever figured those three crosses here, the central cross with Jesus, here's a thief and there's a thief, and all the crowd are going there laughing, mocking, scorning, and Barabbas comes up and says to a buddy, you know, I should have been on that cross. That was mine. That miracle working fellow took it. Oh, what a marvelous man. I'm glad he took my place. I'd be writhing in agony. When at last you see him writhing in agony for you. How in God's name do you get through your prayers without breaking down at times? I could have wept the whole day today. Of course, modern preachers don't. It's too embarrassing. It's too infringing to preach. You want to weep when you preach. Don't get a hell of beans. The man who does, preacher who doesn't weep for the lost should expect people to come and expect people to come and weep for their sins. The reason they don't come and weep for their sins, he never weeps for them, that's why. The billows of hell broke over him. Before he gets to Gethsemane, he can stink the horrid, wretched drainage. The drainage of the city went there. All the corpses went there. All the lepers only were allowed to walk there. Anybody deranged had to go and be put outside the city wall. Everybody they thought was unclean and undesirable was put there. Come on now. You say that's a horrible figure. Well, friend, let me tell you something. You may be a church member. You may have paid your dues and your tithes, and heaven knows that will get you to heaven, in some churches. But honestly, let me say this. If you're not born again of the Spirit of God, you go to hell anyhow. And it will be the misery of that place I've described a million times worse. When some of these proud preachers get there and discover the girl they passed a hundred times at the end of the block while they were preaching salvation, she's selling a body every Sunday. All the people in the tavern, within a few hundred yards of this building, just yesterday I think it was, a precious man, 56 years of age, shot himself. I wondered why. I hadn't knocked at his door, I admit that. I wonder if anybody ever did. I think the greatest tragedy in the world tonight is not Ethiopia, as terrible as it is. It's not Afghanistan being raped and devoured every day by the wicked vile Russians. Disagree with me, if you like. I believe the greatest tragedy in the world tonight, I believe the greatest tragedy in the world tonight is a sick church in a dying world. We dare to bear his name, and we're destitute of power. We've all the blessed excuse the modernists and liberals have given us for not believing in the Old Testament, for not believing the miracle of working power. I've said many times to Dale and Beth and a few others, I'd be happy to go to heaven tonight. I've preached over 60 years, and I've had some wonderful meetings, but I want to see God do something in this garden valley ever before I die. The devil kicked us around like a football. We were going to have a great church, we got a great building down the road there, and it dissolved somehow. We had another great group up the road, and they've gone. What are we going to do, run away and let the devil have the whole place? I remember the first time I heard people in the Christian Missionary Alliance Church singing a hymn, Oh to be like the blessed Redeemer. It made me think, I wonder if I really wanted to be like him. He was never popular, he was never very well accepted. Do I? Come on, do you really want an intimacy with God that he shows you the world as he sees it? I preached in a big church in Canada a few years ago. Two lovely girls, they're school teachers in England, they're actually Welsh. One of them came forward, she's a brilliant scholar, I think he studied in some universities, Oxford and wherefore. She came to the altar and she wept and wept. I mentioned her name, I knew her daddy well, I've known her for some years. And when she got saved, she said, Please God, she said, Please God, will you show me the world as you see it? I said, do you really mean that? Do you like the Lord to cut the world into, like sometimes you take your rosy cheek, the apple cut it into and find it's all rotten and corrupt inside? Would you like God to show you the fallacy and hypocrisy of modern Christianity? Would you like God to expose to you the power and awesomeness of a devil, devilish colony called Russia? Here Jesus is lonely. That's hard to take, isn't it? It's harder to take when in a state of anguish and a state of confusion, when you feel the whole world is breaking to pieces and God isn't doing much about it. I think the most awesome thing in the world tonight is for a person to dare to say they're a Christian. It makes me tremble, I'll tell you that. Do you want to know the key to preaching? It's in the words of Jesus that we read tonight, Isaiah 61, in which it says, For this man will I look to him that trembleth at my word. I don't tremble at crowds. I used to, my knees used to knock. I don't tremble at crowds anymore. I don't even tremble at the power of the devil, I don't think. But I tremble at the awesomeness of delivering God's word. Yes. I believe in every meeting where God is, somebody is born again. By the same token, I believe in every meeting where God is, somebody dies when they reject the message of salvation. You could go to hell from this meeting where God is. Jesus had his miniature Gethsemane, I'm sure, before that final Gethsemane. He had his repeated audiences with the Father. I think maybe he even had miniature, as it were, transfigurations where he communicated with the Father and saw the glory and holiness of God. Do you wonder he was as strong as a lion, that he didn't tremble before kings, he didn't tremble before rulers, he didn't tremble before the antagonism of hell when hell broke loose on him? He says, this is the will of God that I'm here. For this hour, he says, I came into the world. Everything up to here has been preliminary. Everything's been an exercise in my spiritual life. And now, Father, I'm ready. I believe some of you can have a death when you're in a class meeting. You make a decision about a certain thing, but there comes a time when you have to make the final decision to die. Die to your career. Maybe die to a courtship. Die to your plans. And there's a moment when you die, and then comes the awful revelation as to why God has caused you to be saved and filled with his Spirit. Not just to be easy to live with, though we should be easy to live with if we're filled with the Spirit. I'm sure Jesus was easy to live with. Go labor on, spend and be spent, thy joy to do the master's will. It is the way the master ensured not the servant tread it still. Toil on, and in thy toil rejoice, for toil comes rest, for exile home. Soon shalt thou hear the bridegroom's voice, the midnight cry of it. But before then, men die in darkness at your side. I don't know why this came to me, but in the 1930s, 1932, if I remember correctly, I met Norman Grubb for the first time. He was the son-in-law of C.T. Stead, that amazing Englishman. They had a school in England. Later they had, and I think they still have a school at Washington, just outside of Philadelphia there. I was wondering why today they turned out men of such tremendous spiritual quality. Seemed every man that went out of the classroom was a pioneer. I think the first book that moved Paul was Fenton Hall's Life, written by C.T. Stead, written by Norman Grubb. They remained, they produced such a race of spiritual giants at that time. Constantly they had fresh information. People were coming in from around the world. They didn't used to go out loaded with cameras and all the stuff they take today. They didn't go for a weekend giving tracts out in Guatemala and think they'd done God's service. The original missionaries went out on a one-way ticket, no return trip. They had men again like Fenton Hall. A little family in Ireland where a lady has two little shops. One she runs to pay the family bills and the other one she runs to raise children for missions. She has four children on the mission fees. She's paid all their fees and supported them all their lives. Do you know what the reason was? Because they got sunk in the Word of God. Every morning, though they were busy people, every morning their breakfast was eight o'clock. It was nine o'clock. They had an open service every morning in the year. Met around the Word of God from nine o'clock till twelve. I was privileged to share some of those mornings. I felt I could hide down the mouse hole sometimes when I heard those mature missionaries. Not just telling of their achievements in going and pioneering in fields where it seemed as hot as hell and as dark as hell, but their intimacy with God. And they would tell you the only reason that they went as they did and carried the load they did was because they had such a revelation of the awesomeness of God and of eternity. The hour has come. All the years of preparation, all the years of opposition by the devil, all the opposition by demons, all the opposition by the church, and he's come to the final hour. He said glorify your son. As the father glorifies the son, the son glorifies the father. I know it's a dark way, it's a bloody way, it's a lonely way, it's a hard way. I don't know, you can't imagine it, I can't. The Lord has laid on him, that precious sheep of God, the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Wounded so I could be healed. Rejected so I could be accepted. Cast away and forgotten by the father for a while so you and I could enter the kingdom of heaven. And yet we talk about our dry days, our hard days. I'm determined this year more than ever to know Jesus Christ in a new way that I haven't known him before. I want to discover his majesty. I want to discover that glory he had with the father. If I could be bathed with tears, so what? It's a short journey from here to eternity. Once you get through, it's an awful long way after that. When we get inside the gate, we wish we'd ask God for heavier burdens. We wish we'd ask God for more difficult tasks. We wish we'd ask God to give us something nobody else wants to do. There's a world to be won, a more difficult world I don't think there's ever been. There was a meeting last week, and I'm through with this, and Dave Wilkinson brought about 50 of his, really all his converts who are now leading missions in different parts of America. 50 of us, or 60 gathered together there. One of them had come from Guatemala. He was there when the Pope was there about, what, three months ago. I remember they flashed on the screen, here is the Pope with an audience of 400,000 people, but they didn't report what he said. He said to those 400,000 people, there is one great enemy of the church in South America. It's evangelical Christianity. What do you think of that? Just before Christmas, the headlines down in El Paso, a man called me said, the headlines of our paper say tonight, the Pope says to the 800 million Catholics, you do not do not need to go to God for forgiveness, just come to the church. The usurper, the liar, has taken over. There's never been as much opposition to the true gospel of Jesus Christ as there is today. We don't go to a man on a cross, he left the tomb empty, he left the cross empty, that we might be received to glory. The hour is coming for all of us before too long. I beg you, I entreat you, find what is the will of God for your life and do it. May not be exciting, may tell you go be a businessman and get money and give it to people on the mission for you. He may also the whole cause. But I tell you this, the supreme joy of life is knowing that you're in the will of God. That's our number one problem. Number two problem is doing it when you know it. But the thing is, once we have qualified in his will, he'll give us all the grace, all the strength. He prays that they may have my love, not a mushy sentimental love, that strong love of God, the love that led him to be nailed to the cross. It was love that held him there, not nails. Those idiots that said, if you're the son of God, come down and save yourself. He could have done it easily and confounded them. He could have breathed on them and destroyed them. And he takes humiliation and slighting and ridicule and scorn. Again, in that garden where we shall never understand, he was crushed. Will you understand it if I say Jesus didn't die on the cross? He died in the garden to the will of God. That's where he died. If he hadn't died there, he'd never have died there. The cross was an open manifestation that he had died in the will of his father there in the garden. I come to do thy will, O my God. If the cup can pass wonderful, if not, I'll drink it. I don't know what you feel, but I feel when I've... I haven't said what I'd like to say altogether, but I feel I live in easy street. Do you think you dare ask God tonight for yourself, not your pastor, for a baptism of compassion? Maybe from here till you die you'll weep every day so that other people don't weep in hell. You'll take time to call on God. Seek his face and treat him. Ask God to let you adopt a country or adopt a people in your heart that you're going to pray and travail for until he is glorified there. For that's what he's doing in the garden. He's traveling for your birth and mine. The pains of hell got hold of me, he said. It's not an easy way. It's a difficult way, but it's a glorious way. And ask that we pray for a few minutes anyhow. Feel free to pray. Maybe you want to pray for yourself tonight. Maybe you do want to pray for your church, that it's dry and unproductive, nobody has any tears, nobody has any grief. We live in a city. What's our city got to 75,000 people? Nearly all of them lost. Nearly a million people may be over there in Dallas. Most of them lost despite all the churches. Thank you. Tell God you want to reveal his will to you. Ask him when the hour is going to be when you have to make a major crisis decision that will alter your lives and maybe who knows tens of thousands of people on a lost country tonight. Let's pray for a season.