In this sermon, the speaker shares personal experiences of revival and missionary work. They mention a time when they were in college and witnessed many conversions and dedication to the mission theme. They also talk about a revival they were a part of in New Zealand, where they saw the community being revived. The speaker then shares a disappointing experience where they were offered a salary to do missionary work but the offer fell through. They had to go back to secular employment to support their family during the Depression. The sermon also includes some humorous anecdotes about students finding a way to smoke during compulsory chapel sessions. Overall, the speaker emphasizes the importance of staying dedicated to God and experiencing a close relationship with Him.

Tuesday morning, 16 November 1982, Minister's Prayer Fellowship Conference at Twin Peaks. Speaker is Dr. Edwin Orr. I go back to 1930, I guess it was 36 or 37, when I got hold of your first book, Can God? That was the best book you ever wrote. And since then, and then he had all these revival experiences, bicycle days and so on in the early days, and then he got into, came back, got ordained. That didn't hurt you any, did it? And I was there in New Jersey for that, and then they lived with us in Long Island six or seven weeks. And their oldest was about the same age as our dick, our oldest was. And my wife said, we had little and they had less. Remember them, their days? It would be wonderful to hear how you got started. It was a great blessing to us in Long Island to read about those bicycle days and how you got into churches and loosened them up and had some revivals going. A lot of people don't know anything about that. They only think of your statistics and history last night. We want to get them beyond that, back to the roots. My father died of tuberculosis. So did my older brother. And my mother was in the sanatorium for about two and a half years. I was the most delicate baby in the family, and I was what they called predisposed. You have no idea how many gallons of cod liver oil, that's what they gave in those days, cod liver oil. I hate this stuff. But it's interesting, when I started out on a bicycle at the age of 21, plenty of fresh air, cycled 60 miles a day perhaps, only eating the plainest of food, it must have done something to my constitution. Well, I was converted on my ninth birthday. Mother led me to Christ. But I didn't have a dramatic conversion. At the age of 19, I went to a friend of mine, and I asked him if he'd go out and preach with me. So we started in the open air, in the notorious Shankville district of Belfast, where a lot of the fighting has been going on since. And we formed a little band of prayer, to pray for spiritual revival. I found that my grandfather and grandmother were both converted the same year. It was the year 1859, when 100,000 people in the north of Ireland were converted in that remarkable movement. So I was always very curious. My early interest in revival was sentimental. Now I trust it's more objective, but at the same time, just as real. In fact, more so. Well, our little band of preachers grew, until we had open air meetings on Sunday nights around the city. The head of an organization in London heard of what I was doing, and offered me a salary to give up my secular employment and go out and do this kind of work all over the world. But the day after I gave up my job, he disappointed me. He had to go to India and China and Japan and other countries for missionary conferences. He was going to be away for about a year. His committee wouldn't be responsible for it. A stranger while he was gone. So he wrote me a nice letter and told me to go back to business. Now this was during the Depression, when people were very discouraged. And at that time, my mother, a widow, my brother, ill, before he died, and my sister out of work. I had to give up and start in working to support the family. I was the only supporter of Mohammed. Now, in this little prayer band, I still remember the little sentimental things. For instance, when we met as a committee, we always left the chairman's seat vacant to remind us the Lord Jesus Christ was in the chair. And if ever we crossed purposes or had any disagreement, we'd say, well, let's ask the chairman now. And we'd have a word of prayer. One night coming home with Charles Coulter, he was a salvationist. I said, Charlie, is there anything deeper for a Christian? Oh, yes. So I asked him about it. I said, do you know anyone who's had a deeper experience? Well, he said, yes. I said, who? William Booth. I said, General Booth is dead. Could you please mention somebody that's alive that I can study? Well, as a result of that, Charlie and I went to see a young pastor. He belonged to George Jeffrey's movement, Elam, Pentecostal movement. Now, I was a convinced Baptist, and my friend was a salvationist, but we went to see this pastor. God bless him. He was having a campaign in the country somewhere, but he came up on his Monday off to talk to two boys. We talked from eight until ten. And I just told him frankly, I don't know what to believe. The Baptists teach this, the Methodists teach that, the Presbyterians teach this, the Episcopalians teach that, and the Salvation Army teaches this, and the Pentecostals teach that. I don't know what to believe. He said, let me ask you a question. Do you concede you have a need? I said, oh, yes. Do you think God can meet that need? Well, yes, I'm sure. He said, do you think he's made provision for that need? So he talked to me, and at ten o'clock he had me convinced. Just at that moment, the last thing, by the way, he said to me was, you seem to think, Edwin, that your besetting sins are the main hindrance. They're not. He said, the blood of Jesus Christ can cleanse you from all sin. The problem is your will. Clock struck ten. The senior pastor thought, now those two boys have been talking too long today. My friend, he needs his rest before he goes back to the campaign, so he came up to get rid of us. You know how a pastor gets rid of you? He says, let's have a word of prayer. And the four of us got on our knees, and we were on our knees till two in the morning. The Lord started to speak to me, and the very first question was, what about your besetting sins? I said, Lord, I hate them. I said, that's no problem. Lord, you know how to deal with them. I'll put them right. But then the question was, what about your will? And he touched me in a very sensitive point. I was going steady then with a marriage girl who had started me attending Christian endeavor meetings. Many a fellow started going to meetings because of a girl. But when the Lord said to me, are you willing to give this friendship up if I should ask you? I began to argue. I said, she's been a blessing to me. I mean, I was telling the Lord that it's business. Finally, I got to a place where I said, Lord, I don't understand this. Not my will, but your will be done. However, I said, if you want me to give this girl up, let her give me up, and I won't try and get her back. And for the first time in my life, I felt there wasn't a cloud between me and the Lord. It wouldn't be, in fact, very rarely do I ever mention that there were even, I would call it, maybe the word physical isn't the word to use, manifestations, but just as if God poured into my soul burning cold. Never had experience like it in my life. Walked home at two o'clock in the morning. I felt like jumping over the rougher city going over the bridge. Got home at three, knelt by the rocking chair, like Finney. Finney put a handkerchief to his mouth because he was praying so loud. Mother was a very light sleeper and I didn't want to disturb her, but I couldn't but pray. And sure enough, seven in the morning before I went to work, she said, you came in late last night. Now, I've been in the habit of equivocating by fifty-five minutes. If I came in at five to twelve, I'd say it was after eleven. Well, five to twelve is after eleven. So I was going to say it was after midnight, because three o'clock is after midnight. But I couldn't deceive her, so I said I came in at three. She said, where were you till three in the morning? By the way, when I was growing up, kids didn't stay out half the night the way they do nowadays. We were in by eleven, always. Girls were in earlier than that often. But, she said, where were you till three o'clock? Well, I said, Charlie and Coltrane and I went to a meeting. She said, where did they have meetings till three in the morning? Well, I said, it wasn't a regular meeting, I said. Just a pastor and two pastors and two of us. She said, what was all about? Oh, I, it's hard to talk to your own about things like that. Finally, I said, well, Charlie and I wanted to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I thought I'd get a maternal lecture. Well now, I'm glad to hear this, but you know, since your father died, you haven't always done, you know, thus and so. But instead of that, tears ran down her cheeks. She said, when your Aunt Nellie came back from Canada, she'd come into a new experience through the Christian Missionary Alliance. I didn't understand all that she said, but I wanted whatever Nellie had. She said, of course, I already had two children, and Nellie wasn't married. But she said, I left them with your dad, and I went to a meeting in the Botanic Gardens run by the Faith Mission. And I went forward. She said, nothing happened. But she said, on the way home that night, I thought, well, Lord, I've done everything possible. When I got home, she said, both your brother and sister had high fevers. Your father was distraught. And then she said, with a little tinge of sorrow, the rest of my life, I've been looking after a dying husband and sick children. But, she said, I wondered if the Lord wouldn't claim the unborn fruit of the womb. She said, that was just two months before you were born. So, the first experience of revival was in my own heart. My Pentecostal friends were disappointed I didn't speak in tongues. But God gave me a measure of the gift of faith. But I started out with 65 cents on a bicycle at the bottom of the depression. And, I had all sorts of experience after that. I remember in Kent, my old bicycle broke down and I discovered I needed new handlebars, new front fork, new back wheel, new front wheel, new three-speed gear, new crank, new pedals, new tires, new tubes, and several other new parts. So, I prayed for a new bicycle or the money to buy one. A couple of days before Christmas, I was staying with a friend in Kent. But I got there late and they went out to a meeting without me. The phone rang and there was my answer to prayer. The Baptist minister had taken ill. The deacons were in desperation trying to get another preacher. They called this one, that one, the other one. Nobody could come. Most people made all their arrangements for Christmas. Can't change their arrangements. But I said to the man, you're doing one thing about me. He said, Mr. Orr, don't be offended, but we're so hard up, we'll take anybody. I preached the Christmas sermons in that church. A man came up to me afterwards and to make a long story short, he wanted to know if I'd be offended if he offered me a Christmas present. A bicycle that he had custom built at Coventry. The best bicycle made in the world in those days. I said, what makes you offer it to me? I had no intention of refusing it. But he explained his father died, left him some money, bought a car, couldn't bother with a bicycle anymore. He said, well, I was preaching. He thought the Lord had told him give that young preacher a bicycle. Those were the experiences. Now in the first year or so when I wrote that book, Can God, I did not have campaigns. I went around as a witness urging people to pray. Days were getting darker. Hitler had arisen and things were getting worse. But I was invited to take up a big position after I'd been preaching for a while and I turned it down. I went to Norway, arrived in Oslo with 11 kroner. Let's see, what would that be today? That's about two dollars. Something like that. And there I saw a revival for the first time. I had remembered something when I was a boy of nine, the movement of God under W.P. Nicholson. I was too young to take it in. Although it was a movement of the Spirit of God. But in Norway, this was following the visit of Frank Marx. It was tremendous stirring. I didn't know anyone there but the door opened very quickly and I stayed in the Baptist seminary and went with the students. One church after another, all the churches were full. Great meetings in the Calamary's Garden, Assembly Hall, and I preached in Bethlehem and Albert Loomis for Sunday and all these places. That was the first time I'd really seen revival that affected the whole country. And that's what drew Armand Gesslein and me together. We both had a kind of baptism of fire there in that sense. And by the way, we both married Norwegian girls. Except he got his from the north of Norway and I got mine from the south of South Africa. I got 24 karat gold. I don't know. Well, we saw revival in Norway. We saw a touch of revival in Copenhagen and Denmark. And the same sort of thing in Scandinavia. In those days it was a movement, definitely a movement. It should be written up. Trouble is, people don't write these things. They're more often writing biographies of individuals than they write of movements of the Spirit of God. Then in Riga, whom should I meet but Jimmy Stewart. James Stewart, the Scottish footballer. And there was a movement of revival in Latvia. The Lord had anointed James Stewart and when he went to Hungary there was such a movement that traffic was disrupted. That's another story out to be read. Ruth, his wife, his widow, has told about it in a couple of chapters, but somebody needs to write that up. He was Stewart's wife. Dynamite. Yes. Dynamite in Europe. But it needs to be written objectively. That was one reason why we have this Oxford conference. We get all sorts. For instance, our speaker last summer was Joseph Zung from Romania who was expelled by the communist government. One of the leading figures extraordinary revival throughout Romania. Still going on. So that's one reason we meet together to get people to tell their testimony for God. We want it done in such a way that it's not promotional, but it's recording the works of God. I crossed over to Canada and Oswald Smith asked me to preach there at Great People's Church. That was a church in which there was a perennial movement moving on year by year. He was the man with the great missionary burden. By the way, he's still alive. He's 93. Still takes part in the services. I became his associate pastor afterwards. We got to know him quite well. In those days, we had such a movement in that people's church. It's the largest church in Canada. We had to move to the Massey Hall auditorium. And then from there I went into the States and preached in places like Moody Church and Church of the Open Door and so forth. But as far as real revival was concerned, I remember speaking in a Wheaton College chapel on the 13th of January 1936 and about a thousand students in those days. A student there sent up a note. You have spoken on revival. When do you think you'll see revival? Well, he came up to see me afterwards. I said, well, what are you doing about it? Because you were having half nights of prayer. Well, I said, that's the case. Then I said, whenever you begin to put things right with the Lord, you can expect something to happen. So the students, we doubled their prayers for revival at Wheaton. They were looking forward to the coming of Robert McQuilkin of Columbia Bible College in South Carolina. They felt sure the Lord would break through and revival would land. But alas, when Dr. McQuilkin came through, that godly man, he developed laryngitis. He couldn't speak a word. It was their annual campaign, and Homer Hamiltree was the song leader, and they had to pinch hit by asking somebody to come over from Moody and from Northern Baptist Family to take the meetings. What a disintegrated series it was. The students hoped some of it. But one Thursday, I believe, it was Walter Wilson, a medical doctor, belonged to the Brethren, but who had a message on the Holy Spirit, spoken chaplain. But he had to catch a train. He had interrupted his schedule, and he had to catch a train to St. Louis, so he took off before the benediction. And the student passed up a note saying we heard about revival again. When are we going to see revival at Wheaton? And Hamiltree answered in a very perfunctory way, well, I suppose we'll pay the price. So the student stood up and said, I'm the student that wrote that note. Some folks think I'm a big man and a chaplain, but things are not right in my life, and he started confessing his faults. By the way, that was Don Hillis. He's now Associate General Director of Evangelical Lions Mission, brother of Dick Hillis, twin brother. And someone shouted, let's all pray. They got to their knees. That was one of those phenomenal meetings. It went on 38 hours, I believe, at that time. There were some humorous aspects. Wheaton had a strict rule against smoking. Some student couldn't break the habit, didn't choose to. They discovered what you might call a fail-safe method of having their smoke and getting away with it. During chapel, chapel was compulsory, they went in, they went down a steep staircase to the furnace room. There they could smoke through the butts into the furnace, no evidence. They had to come up another staircase right in front of the platform. So they had to wait until everyone was moving out. Then the monitors counted their attendance going out. This time they'd had their cigarettes, they had timed it fairly carefully. They're waiting for the shuffle of feet for the singing of the last hymn. Ten o'clock, quarter past ten, ten-thirty. Who's preaching today? Eleven, fifteen. When the clock struck twelve, one fellow turned pale and he said, it's the rapture and we're left behind. Ah! Well, I was in Nacogdoches in Texas at the time. I got a telegram from President Buswell saying, glorious revival, quite independent human instruments have broken out at Wheaton. I changed my schedule and went up by train, no flights in those days, and got into the tail end to see what it was really like. I began to see that we may have revival, not necessarily waiting for a movement throughout the country, because they had a real revival. By the way, out of that revival came some remarkable missionaries. Let's see if my memory serves me right. One from the Congo, Wilbert Norton, and another one went to Costa Rica. I could tell of several. Among those who were affected, who didn't go to the mission field, were people like Carl Henry, Harold Rizzo, Stacey Woods. Well, Dr. McQuill went back to Columbia, South Carolina, and told his students at Columbia Bible College, which is a missionary college, they were all converted there, about the revival. They started praying. Oswald Smith was to come down for an Easter campaign. I was preaching for a young Presbyterian minister in Atlanta. His name was Peter Marshall. Heard that name, I suppose. Wasn't well known in those days. Strange how many people I met became famous afterwards. But I went over from there to Columbia, and the Lord poured out the revival right away. We couldn't report extraordinary conversions in the college because they were all converted and dedicated to the mission field. But a nurse came back from the hospital and said, I've led 27 people to Christ this week. Oh, the meeting was powerful. So I began to see that sort of thing. That encouraged me. So when I went down to New Zealand, that was the next place, we saw a real revival in the community. A place called Narrawahia. During the heat of that revival, I went into the post office. On the back of an envelope, I wrote that hymn, Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart Today. J. Oswald Saunders has written an account of that movement. We were as men that dreamed. So it began taking on a different complexion. Went over to Australia and we saw movements of revival. Out of the great movement in Melbourne, ended up in the big circus stadium there, came the Campaigners for Christ. You've heard of that organization. Most of the young men revived, became leaders of that movement. Then in South Africa, a movement of about 6,000 progressed conversion. So that takes us up to the end of the war, up to the beginning of the war, I should say. I went back to study. I became associate pastor with Oswald Smith and then I went to Northern back to Sandridge to study. I'm glad I did. You know, when I went to Oxford to study revival, I got an enormous letter from some Christian saying, Having begun in the spirit, are you now made perfect in the flesh? I've never regretted going. It's like trying to be a workman without tools. You could want to be the best carpenter in the world, but you have to learn your trade. And I found that, for instance, in my field particularly, where I had to convince people about, for instance, Armand said last night, in the 1930s, Edward was his brother and this country was convinced that these were the days of the apostasy and God couldn't work. It wasn't until Billy Graham had his breakthrough in Los Angeles that he even believed that massive evangelism was possible again. But time in the Air Force, we couldn't call it revival, but we saw movements of the Holy Spirit. Jefferson Barracks, I still remember, this may sound very odd, so many men in bad coats. I was amused by it. I got reprimanded from the station hospital. Our meetings were so big and so packed we couldn't have any chapel holding and we were out there in a very treacherous climate in the St. Louis area and the men all caught cold. Thousands of them out in the open air arena. Of course, whenever they were reprimanded officially for this, it meant we had to rearrange our meetings because it was a movement of the Holy Spirit. The same thing overseas, a place like Mauritius. But 1949, in fact, 1948, I was back in this country, and it was in 49 in the spring, about March the 1st, that we had that Pacific Palisades meeting. Armands referred to it. That was a touch of revival. Hundreds of pastors. You know, there's some people, you know, who simplify history and they think Billy Graham came to Los Angeles and the result of his very faithful preaching a revival broke out. No, no, no. The revival movement was underway and Billy himself was revived up here at Forrest Hall. But he's been called to evangelism when Sherwood worked for his community. And he said that it wasn't until he went to Kennedy he saw what revival really meant. Billy is an anointed evangelist. Sometimes his evangelistic campaigns are undergirded by revival. Other times they're not. He can't manufacture the situation. But you notice when Billy says this is the nearest to revival we've ever seen type of thing, he means that's when the Holy Spirit was working the most among his people. But because people say, well, is revival possible nowadays? 1951 I went down to Brazil. I came back, told my wife, let's all go to Brazil. The whole family. She said, what about school for the children? I said, we'll find something. But I said, 81 churches in Sao Paulo have started weekly prayer meetings for revival. And there's going to be a movement. And we saw a movement throughout Brazil. It wouldn't be fitting for me to, shall I say, give you a rundown of my experiences there, but I'm going to just quote from, this is a dissertation recently written by Charles Gates of the Nazarene Mission. And the title is The Brazilian Revival, 1952. It's Antecedents and Effects. I should say the British, American, and Brazilian Bible Societies reported 1952 a year of triumph. Never before have so many scriptures been put in the hands of the people. The American Bible Society said in many ways 1952 was a triumphant year. The Brazilian Bible Society said while most of the growth of the evangelical movement could be attributed to day by day witness of its members, special efforts also drew the attention of the people. In a nationwide evangelistic crusade crossing denominational lines, drawing the interest of the multitudes, a special evangelistic team went from center to center calling for repentance and dedication to Christ. Time and time again, the largest auditoriums couldn't seat the thousands who came to hear the gospel. Hundreds upon hundreds came forward accepting Christ. A British missionary of the Brazilian Foreign Bible Society said there were some who compared this movement with the great nationwide revivals that laid the foundation of Protestant growth in the United States. The strong feeling in 1952 was a crucial hour of victory in winning Brazil to Christ. Well, you find this from all the observers. And my friend was interested to find out what really happened as a result. You find that the Presbyterians took in more converts in 1952 than any year for about 45 years. Probably it was three times the average. You find a similar movement among the Baptists. Among the Assembly of God it was just guesswork. They couldn't keep up with it. They had 130,000 members in 1951. In 1955 when they first made a count, 307,000 standing. That was the way things were going. And I would say Brazil was the happiest year of my life. My colleague Bill Dunlap was listening. In Beirut, where Bill was on his own for the first time, the churches increased more one month in the previous 20 years. One church had more in the Sunday, in the early morning prayer meetings each day than the whole Protestant population at the time before the Revival. So we've seen such a revival. In India, Coimbatore, the Bishop of Coimbatore, Appasamy, has written it up. I believe in revival. But you see, when people ask me about today, I can't say we're in the midst of that kind of revival throughout the United States. I rejoice in the loosening up there's been. This remark was made in London, not in this country, but the former principal of the London Bible College was speaking on the house churches in Britain. There are about 200,000 house churches over there. And he said, well, you know, there are some who are critical of this renewal movement, but it has changed the attitude to worship. I well remember the old days when people would say, let's cut through the preliminaries and get to the speaker. He said, isn't that a wonderful idea of worship of God? Whereas today, people are more concerned. That's one good thing. But my great fear has been among the manipulators, those who take advantage of movements of the Spirit. For instance, I believe there's a gift of prophecy. There's such a thing. It's supplementary. This is the main thing. But sometimes God speaks to his people. But have you ever met the manipulators who want to get their way? I get up and say something. One of the favorite expressions to begin, Behold, I, the Lord, thy God, am speaking in the midst of thee. A friend of mine said he was in a meeting where somebody thought he needed straightening out. And the man said, And behold, my servant Patrick has done wonderful things for which he will receive his reward, but he has yet many things to learn if he will only learn to listen. So I said, Pat, were you impressed? He said, not a bit. He said, my name's not Patrick. Pat's my nickname. Here was a man claiming to be the Holy Spirit and calling me Patrick. That's what I call manipulation. Almost everything the Lord can do, the devil will seek to counterfeit. And you'll find people who'll get into, and what makes me shudder is those who want to make money for it. They'll do anything for it. That's what scares me. And let me, on the other hand, be very fair. I was speaking at the central seminary of a denomination that has denounced the charismatic movement every year. The faculty asked me, what advice do you have? Now, I'm a Baptist minister, and I always held the view there's nothing wrong with us Baptists that a revival couldn't cure. But they knew that I was speaking from a non-charismatic point of view. But I said, do you think the charismatic movement was pulled up and dissolved next week? They said, we never said that. I said, how about next year? Well, not next year, no. Well, I said, would you conceive there may be a revival when the Lord comes? Yes. I said, now let me ask you a fair question. Do you think there are any deficiencies in the charismatic movement? They said, we think the biggest deficiency is there isn't enough stress in the holy living. I said, I feel the same way. But when I go among my charismatic friends, I try to make what is lacking. I don't fight them. I said, I've learned so much from them. So, I keep an open heart towards all God's people. Now, the last word. People say, what do you think is most missing today? I'm going to put my finger on it. The first word in the mouth of John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus, the twelve disciples, the seventy disciples, the first word in the last message of the Lord Jesus to his disciples, the first word of exhortation by the Apostle Peter at Pentecost and the Apostle Paul throughout his ministry, is the word repent. It is the first word of the gospel. It is the point of the sword of the Lord. The last word of the revelation, sir? Yes. First thing, most Christians don't know this. When I say, what's the first word of the gospel? John 3.16, love. Or somebody will say, only believe. But the first word is repent. The Lord Jesus said, repent and believe. You say, is that two things? No, no, one thing. If I said, leave Los Angeles, go to London, is that one commandment or two? Sounds like two, but it's only one. You couldn't go to London without leaving this. And you cannot truly believe without changing your attitude, which is the meaning of the word repent. There's a problem. Most people don't know what the word means. Metanoia means change of thinking. Instead of that, we go around telling people just to invite Jesus into their heart. I remember in the Hollywood Christian group, Billy Graham was the speaker and I was the chairman. Half a dozen came through that night, but one who raised his hand was Mickey Cohen, public enemy number one, the gangster. But he went back on it. He had heard that Roy Rogers was a converted cowboy, a Christian cowboy, and Colleen Townsend, a Christian actress, Tim Spencer, a Christian songwriter, Don Moore, a Christian footballer, Frank Carlson, a Christian senator, and Mickey thought he could be a Christian gangster. He really did. He told my friend who talked to him, you didn't tell me how to give up my career. He meant his rackets. You didn't tell me how to give up my friends. He thought he could invite Jesus into his rackets, help him be a better gangster. Yes, there's a lot of young people in our churches who think they can be Christian fornicators. And in London, Kenneth Anderson said to me, Edwin, have you ever met a Christian con man? Have you ever met the Christian who says, Well, all right, I did. Yeah, but you can't sue me. You're a Christian. Jack Hayford said to me, there's another side to that question. In Romans it says, to believers, a magistrate is an ordained servant of God to punish evil doing it. If you always do right, you don't need to fear the magistrate. But if you, as believers, don't do right, you have every reason to fear him. It's a shame when the church won't settle these things, has to go to the law. But there's your problem. You remember when Larry Flint was born again? The fuller students were intrigued to say the least. Somebody got a copy of the first editorial and I read it there. I don't subscribe to the hospital, so I had to look at the Xerox copy of the editorial. Born again? Yes, I'm born again. And I follow the spirit of Buddha, Muhammad and Jesus. Poor fellow still doesn't know the score. But you see, he was inviting Jesus to come into the hustler. Maybe the Lord wanted to take him right out of it. That's our weakness. In evangelism today, take the three evangelistic parables. The lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son. How do they end? Rejoice with me, for I have found the sheep that I lost. That's the end of the story. Then the Lord Jesus said, There is more joy over one sinner who repents. Why did he add that? If he hadn't added that, someone would have said the sheep never repented. Story of the lost coin. Rejoice with me, I find the coin I lost. That's the end of the story. But the Lord said, There is more joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Why did he say that? Because otherwise some theologian would have said a coin is incapable of repenting, therefore it's not required. But in the story of the lost son, he didn't add a word, because it was in the story. And I find that that's one of the great things today. When someone said last night that Glenn Shepard, who was Marvelous, Glenn Shepard stressed repentance. My heart gave a little leap there because that's what I've been preaching when the doors opened in the Southern Baptist Convention. I tell my Baptist friends, I'm an evangelical of evangelicals, I believe in conversion, but repent and be converted. I believe in believers baptism, but it says repent and be baptized. We have all sorts of substitute things. Come forward and be baptized. Oh no. I think this is the missing note. And if there's a genuine movement of the Spirit of God, it won't only be seeking after the gifts. It will mean a deep conviction of sin and transformation of life on the part, first of all, of God's people, but most of all on the part of the masses. So, one of my friends said, well, you know, I use Revelation 3.20 a lot to invite Jesus into your heart. But honestly, Edwin, he said, I hope they'll change. Now, I'm disappointed if they don't. Why don't you tell them? You go anywhere in the states today, you'll find ramps for handicapped people and so forth because of birth defects. George Gallup told me last year that the number of born again people in the United States has gone up 46% to 53%. I quoted that in the Rose Bowl to 50,000 people. They started to applaud. And I stopped them. I said, I don't believe a word of it. I had lived in the same house for 33 years in Los Angeles. That's a record for California. But you couldn't kid me that more than half of the people in that street are born again. We've got a weakened gospel. And I find that when real revival comes, there's a... Mind you, I think the Lutherans have something to talk about preaching law to bring people to Christ. People have got to know what sin is and why it is sin to bring about conviction of sin. So when I have a chance of doing that, I try to inject that thought. We've got to get back to essentials. It's a primary doctrine. By the way, just something flashed into my mind. At the Oxford conference, a friend of mine who's a bookworm gave us a paper. Never heard anything like it before. He spoke about Hebrews where it spoke of repentance from dead works. And he says, isn't that a strange phrase? We think of repentance from sin. But it says from dead works. Now, what are dead works? Well, he said, immediately we think of our Roman Catholic friends going barefoot in a pilgrimage with their feet bleeding as they climb the mountain, St. Patrick's Mountain, and Ireland, and all this sort of thing. That's dead works. But he said, aren't we evangelicals guilty of the same thing? In some ways, hasn't the invitation become a dead work in some places? Where they try to get them forward by hook or by crook just to get them to move forward. The result is we're taking in lots of people who don't know the first thing about repentance. Repentance from dead works means that we get to the place where unless the Lord is in it, we shouldn't stoop to it. We shouldn't try to duplicate it. I've been helped so much when I find that a man like Evan Roberts, someone who was mentioned last night, Frank Marks, wouldn't speak unless he was anointed. What a boon to the church that would be when we would be delivered from the obligation of speaking when we don't have a message. Well, what did you ask me, to give you a chunk of my heart?