In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of humbling oneself before God and coming to Him with a sense of helplessness and surrender. He shares a story about receiving letters from Africa and witnessing the violence and persecution that was happening there. The preacher encourages the congregation to not just rely on their knowledge or scholarship, but to seek God's voice through prayer. He also challenges them to be committed in their giving and to prioritize prayer over other activities. The sermon concludes with a discussion about revival and the need for it to have a lasting impact on the community.

I heard the lady say just a few days ago, she said, at last I've got my living Bible. I said, I've had one for 50 years. Not only a living Bible, but a living Lord. She explained the living Bible. I want to share some crumbs with you this morning from on this objective prayer. We have an unpredictable Field Marshal Montgomery in England. His great-grandfather was a Bishop in the Church of England, the Episcopal Church. And he wrote some very wonderful hymns. But the greatest hymns that he wrote were about prayer. And he has a phrase in one of his hymns. I made it a title of a chapter in one of my books. Prayer Grasps Eternity. P.T. Forsythe, a preacher that every preacher should read about. His books are being republished now. P.T. Forsythe was a man, I think, that Surgeon said would be popular. He was born, he said, a hundred years before his time. P.T. Forsythe says this. We do not pray in order to live the Christian life. But we live the Christian life in order to pray. There is nothing more demanding than prayer. I've often said to the disjusted preachers that you don't have to be clever to preach. If you did, I shouldn't do it. Maybe I still can't. But I've been preaching more than fifty years now, so I do mind a few corners. There's nothing more demanding than prayer. This is a ministry that has the most importance, and yet it's a ministry that we have seen, I think, the lightest. You preacher fellows, tell me how much instruction you received in prayer in Bible school, and it wasn't much, but I guess you received less in seminary. And the devil doesn't fear our preachers. He can sit back and fold his arms and all Sunday and listen to it all. But he does fear our praying. It's an amazing thing, isn't it, that the disciples heard the greatest sermon that was ever preached from the greatest man that ever lived. The greatest sermon, of course, was the Sermon on the Mount, and the greatest person that ever lived, the Lord Jesus, and yet never once did they say, Lord, teach us to preach. They saw Him do every miracle, even raising the dead, they never said, Lord, teach us to do the miraculous. Sometimes people have said, why do you insist on prayer so much? And I say, because, of course, the Lord Jesus did. You could tell the Gospel of Luke. We say sometimes there are four Gospels. There's only one Gospel told by four different men. And so the Gospel which is recorded by Luke gives you the accent on the prayer life of Jesus. Matthew reveals the Lord Jesus as a king, and Mark reveals Him as a servant, and Luke emphasizes that He was the Son of Man, John, of course, is emphasizing the deity of the Lord Jesus. But Luke says in every major crisis in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, He prayed. The other evangelists say that Jesus was standing in the River Jordan and the Spirit descended upon Him. Luke says it was while He was praying the Spirit descended upon Him. Go to the other end and you see the Lord Jesus being crucified, but Luke says even when He was crucified He was still praying. Father, forgive them. He chose twelve disciples, but Luke says, remember that He spent the whole night in prayer before He chose the twelve disciples. Wouldn't it be great if He spent the whole night in prayer before He chose Jesus? Most of you would never make it, excuse me. But Jesus prayed before He chose the twelve. You read it in there, pardon me, on the Mount of Transfiguration, but Luke says it was while He was praying that He was transfigured. And I believe that's the same Greek word there that you'll find in Romans 12, 1 and 2, be not transformed to this world, but be transformed or transfigured. Now again, I say I don't think there's anything more extensive. As you get older you change your values. I've been in many countries in the world and people say to me, who do you think is the greatest preacher in the world today? I'm not sure if you've ever mentioned Billy Graham or some of the Baptists, but I don't know. I haven't the slightest idea. I would have to live with a man a week before I knew whether he was a good preacher or not. Oh, he may be an orator. He may know how to gesticulate, modulate his voice, do all the histrionics of preaching, be very romantic or very silent, but I don't know whether he's a great man or not. I would have to live with him a week, or two weeks, or three weeks, or a month to find out what man of man he is. As Brother Adrian said, you can use the pulpit even as a show place. You can strut your ego. And you can get rated very highly, and otherwise, according to the way you display your gifts. But you see, prayer is something you do behind the door. When I have shut the door, it's rather a pity God doesn't take any recognition of our strutting. Who in the world would dare to strut in the place of prayer? You see, this is the most searching thing. I've written a little section in this book, and my section in this discipleship manual is on prayer. And I confess it did me a great deal of good in doing some research on it. Not every man who stands in the pulpit is king, in many areas. But who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Psalm 24 was the key to revival in the Hebrides. I thought many times, and better still, I prayed many times, with Duncan Campbell, the great, studious revivalist who died just a few months ago. Oh, how that man prayed, what intensity. And that revival, like every other revival, and I'm talking about revival, I'm not talking about a crusade, I'm not talking about a revival as we talk about it in the church. I'm talking about an awakening that disturbs a whole area. As dear Doctor has told us, the definition of revival is something which changes the moral climate of a community. You can have a revival these days, and a week after you can't find the people that made decisions. Nobody outside the four walls of the sanctuary knows it happened. But you never get that with a revival. We were talking last night, indeed it was early this morning, we got to bed about two o'clock, and something God designed, I'm sure, I never dreamed yesterday morning it would happen, but it was very beautiful. And we talked about historic revival. Just a few years back, I got a phone call one day. Doctor Sir Woodworth, who is the editor of Decision Magazine, called me and he said, Len, I'd like to come and talk to you about revival. We talked for three hours straight. Well, I did the talking. I'm pretty good at that, anyhow. And he said, I'm not going to talk, I want you to tell me what you know about historic revival. And I talked to him about these awakenings. Disagree if you like, but you know a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument. A man that's been through the process, you can come to him logically, you can come historically, you can come on any level, and he'll just stand there and let you blast him and say, but brother, I went through it all. And, uh, I think of this revival particularly. For the moment there in the Hebrides, which was like every other revival that I know of in history, was preceded by agonizing prayer. There is no substitute for prayer. Again, when you went to, you know, when you're candidated for a church, they ask you about this, and did you have this degree, and did you go to seminary, and how many buses were you running in the last church, and how many came to send this to you, how many times did they ask you how much you prayed? Hmm? Did you ever ask a preacher that? It's the most important of all, not the size of his hat. The size of his hat. As Brother Rudd just said, it was so beautiful a few minutes ago, our work, not what size it is, but what sort it is. We've got all our priorities confused. Oh, well, of course, he never ran a big semi-school in the United States, maybe he won't do it now, you know. Look, if you want to know how popular a church is, you go Sunday morning. If you want to know how popular the preacher is, you go Sunday night. That's pretty rough on most pages. And if you want to know how popular the Lord is, you go Wednesday night, and he loses every time. No church is greater than its prayer meeting, not even its monthly budget. You can give and it won't help you, it'll send your money around. You see, we say, now, you bring your tithe. That's not what the scripture says. In any case, tithe is Old Testament. If you tithe, you're in the wrong place, you should go to a synagogue. In the Old Testament, they tithe. In the New Testament, you give God everything you have if you surrender. A fellow told me not long ago, he was preaching about surrendering, and saying, you know, your pocketbook should go as well. And he said, even while he was sitting there, the pastor put his hand in his pocketbook, and he said, when you get baptized, I like them to keep their wallet in their pocket, so that gets zipped as well. One man told me that he always insisted on tithing before he took people into membership, and then he baptized them because he liked the tither in his pants. Well, I don't think he was so sharp with money, that's all right. If he does that, what the scripture says, as soon as they bring you all the tithe, it's a problem. Because if you tithe your money, you should tithe your time. And if you tithe your time, you'll give God two hours and twenty-four minutes, which is a tenth of every twenty-four hours. But that's his demand. On top of that, you give him an offering. So at least you give him three hours a day. Could I ask you if any of you are behind in the tithe? Oh, no, no, no. Oh, I give my money every week. I sort it out. Then I give a bit more to mention. I'm not arguing about that. That's easy to do. You've only to flick your pen or put your hand in your pocket. But when he comes down to the place of prayer, there is nothing demands more of him than the place of prayer. It's either the loneliest place in the world or the most glorious. I love that song. Thank you for singing it. A dear friend of mine that just died recently, a very, one of the most godly men I've ever met, never had a church of more than a hundred members. He had a long head, a great singer, never been to Bible school. He did all his work on his knees. As a teenager, he came home at night from the foundry where he worked, went upstairs with a Bible and a lexicon, and stayed there from six to seven at night till twelve or one or two in the morning. His father said it's hard to get him down. He used to sing that song. He hadn't a very tuneful voice, but I can still hear Harry Todd singing that lovely song. And I shall know him when redeemed by his side I shall stand. And in my section, when I preach on the judgment seat, I try to get the books opened, as the revelation says, and get the book of prayer. Can you imagine the book being opened, and the Lord says we'll deal with America right here. And he brings in a young fellow that died at the ripe old age of seventy-eight, a man that used to kneel up to his chin in snow. There was nowhere else to pray. And he says, when I got up this morning, the Indians were drunk. They were still committing acts of immorality. And my heart was so broken. His body was broken. When he passed, he had a bark like a wolf. When he sneezed, he sprayed the snow with his own blood. As you say, there's a bit of a flower there. And he picked it up and did that with it. It would stretch like that. It was a part of his lungs. He was chopping them up while he made intercessions. He resisted even unto blood. Little David Brainard says, I prayed before sunrise. I prayed till after sunset, all in one stretch. And when I knelt in the snow, it was up to my chin. But when I finished my intercessions, I could not even reach the snow with the tips of my fingers. That's different from prayer. I pray, I try to, but I have Walter Walsh operating in my room, I admit that. I can tell you, I can tell you, it's getting a little chilly. You see, you've got to live very close to God before you start threatening him. I don't think he's anything more pathetic than most primates. He's most of our primates. He's giving God a shopping list, let's face it. You need this, Lord, and bless the building, son. And do this and do that. And I'm just in his face. Oh, you're coming to the supper Friday night, aren't you? Potluck supper. All in one breath, almost. But you see, this is the most demanding thing, this business of prayer. Let me give you a picture. I'd better because time's running late. There is one prayer, I think, in the Word of God that reveals to us very clearly all the necessary ingredients of true intercession. Now, if two people are talking and I barge in, I'm an interrupter or an interferer. If they're talking and I come in with my talk, I'm an interrupter. But you see, what God is looking for in this day is intercessors, not prayer warriors, merely. Not people who go to prayer meetings as good as that is, but people who themselves, you see, the intercessor is one. And God has to work through. God says He won, but not that there was nobody praying. They were all saying prayers. They rang the bell morning and evening and went to prayer, but there was no intercessor. The last time I was in Wales, in the Bible School of Wales, and there's a life story of Rhys Howells. Buy it when you go out. It's one of the greatest books written in the last 50 years. The last time I spoke in that Bible School, Mrs. Howells said, come here, go to Raiden Hill. And we went upstairs. We stood on a veranda overlooking the Welsh Channel. And she said, you know, go to Raiden Hill. Everybody knows that Daddy, meaning her husband, everybody knows that Daddy bought this house estate with a silly in his pocket. He signed on the dotted line for something like a quarter of a million dollars, and all he had was 14 cents. Now that's either faith or foolishness. But she said, you see that room there? I said, yes, lady. She said, my husband went in that prayer room every morning at 6 o'clock and stayed there till 6 o'clock at night, 12 hours a day for 11 months without a break, with the exception of the one day that his mother died. You see, faith isn't something that is given to us in a block, injected into us, and it stays there. Faith develops. I feel faith. I sometimes say to young people, my muscles are hard to find, because I've never done any hard work. I haven't swung an axe. I've always had a kind of sedentary occupation, sitting in a swivel chair. I've got muscles there. They might be as big as Mr. America's this morning if I'd done all the exercise, but I didn't do it. Now listen, reading the Bible won't make you a saint. No, sir, it won't. If a man says to me, now, Ragnar, you need some muscle, you need something on your chest, your legs are so thin. Now I've got a book here, and I'm going around the world, I want to leave this book with you, and when I come back you'll be a transformed man. It's written by Mr. America, you know, this steepleman. He goes around the world, comes back two years later, and he says, you don't look any different, and I say, I don't feel it. And you know that book he gave me, that silly book? I've read it every night. I smell it. Every night after supper I put my feet up in a chair, and I get a bag of potato chips and a toast, and I read that book, and as a matter of fact I can recite the first chapter and the third chapter, and most of the fifth chapter, and, well, a little bit out of every chapter. I mean, I've committed it to memory. Look at my flabby muscles. My chest grow bigger. I don't feel any stronger. You mean to say that you've read that book and done all the exercises? All you didn't say, do the exercises. You said, read the book, it will change your life. Well, by the same token, if you merely read the book and the Bible and don't put it into operation, if it doesn't get in your bloodstream, it won't change your spiritual muscle. You know, everybody in this sanctuary this morning, and it's a lovely sight to see so many, but every one of us here are just as spiritual as we want to be. No man that ever lived, you can take Kinney on one hand, or you take Mr. Sturgeon on the other. No man that ever lived ever had a bigger Bible than you have or I have. The only thing is, they use it better. And recently I was reading Hebrews 11, heroes of faith, who faith has subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. I read it and knelt down to pray. And just as I was praying just like that, a voice from heaven said, son, do you know what? Those people in Hebrews 11 that did all those miraculous mighty things, they subdued kingdoms. One man just had the jawbone of an ass, and he flew a thousand men. When one man said, well, there you are, a jawbone of an ass, does God still use them? The lady said, he doesn't, I'll post it every Sunday morning. But with a jawbone of an ass flew a thousand men. And yet nobody in Hebrews 11 ever had a Bible. Isn't that pretty shattering? People say, do you think we're living in the last days? No. Certainly we're not living in the last days. Why not? Well, I like a phrase that was used by Dr. Kuhn of Asbury, one of the most brilliant men in the world today, I think. Jack Taylor going to Asbury to have a revival in the spring, I trust, a great time. But Harold Kuhn says, remember this, that Christianity was not presented to the world on a silver platter. Christianity was born in a sophisticated totalitarian world. A bunch of men in the upper room are going to come out, and they're walled in on this side by the mightiest military machine in the world, the Roman Empire. They're walled in on this side by the brilliant intellectualism of the Greeks. They're not stepping ahead because the Jews have a monopoly of God. How in the world are we going to break it down? And yet they entered those free worlds, those unlettered men, without social standing, without prestige, without money. It's amazing how much money we've spent in the last 25 years on evangelism, isn't it? Oh God, the Holy Ghost is working around the world today again to mention what has been mentioned. I've known Norman Goode more than 40 years. He's one of the outstanding men of our day. That man has a good income from an estate in England. Every year when his dividends come, he turns the check over right from the back of his, shoves it in the office. Never makes an email. Just a few weeks ago, that wonderful man Bill Godford, he's doing a job around the country. Without announcing, he's getting 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,000 people a night for Bible teaching, not dramatic evangelism, you know. Not a healing life. Just taking the Word of God and expanding it. Recently he had a need. He didn't tell anybody about it. It wasn't much. I mean, it wasn't a big need. You know, on the Baptist level, only a quarter of a million dollars. What's that? And he just told the Lord about it. Talking with a man the next day and he said, he asked something and he said, oh, how much is that piece of land? He said, a quarter of a million dollars. He said, is that so? And he said, by the way, you were telling me about so-and-so, and he went on talking and he said, yes, yes, I went on talking and the man was writing and he said, well, there you are Bill. And Bill said, thank you. Quarter of a million? No, no, no, it wasn't a quarter of a million dollars. You wouldn't expect that, would you? It was half a million. He said, there's 250,000 for you for the land and there's 200,000. Never please, look, if I saw my boy standing outside of that door this morning with a tin can saying, could you help me? Please help me. Please help me. I'd go out there and say, boys, look, I promise I'd supply all your needs. What are you begging here for? We all thank God. All our stunts, all our, of course we don't ask directly. We just say some hints. I believe that pure faith is about the hardest thing in the world to come by. Keep your mouths shut. You see, when we talk about interesting powers, it's part of the dynamic and do the fireworks. Look, when you have power, you need power not to use power. I'll tell you when you need power and everybody else is slandering you and criticizing you and saying wrong things about you and God won't let you open your mouth. You could kill yourself as quick as that. And then you say, no, no, no, no. Romans 8 says it is God that justifies it. Oh, you may suffer. Remember how Joseph started up here? And his daddy said, go down to Dothan. I never knew that was in America until the other day. And the Lord said, go down to Dothan. And when he got to Dothan to get keys, they sold him down into a pit. And then from the pit, they sold him down into Egypt. And in Egypt, they put him down in a prison. And when he got in the prison, they put him right down at the bottom and he forgot. And then he starts going up and up and up and up. You know why? Because one day a fellow came home from the war and his wife said, you see that? Sure, that's Joseph's coat. What are you doing with it? Oh, what am I doing with it? You told me he was a holy man, the holiest man you'd ever met. He came in my bedroom the other night and when I screamed, he ran out and grabbed his coat. And it's there. No questions asked. Put him in jail. Huh. I think some of us are like the girl that used to come to the church I pastored. And I asked her a question one day. She said, I'll tell you a prank. Say, I feel like giving God a push. You ever feel like giving God a push? I mean, you know you're going to do it. Why don't you do it now? Why keep me waiting anyhow? Three years in jail. I wish some of you peaked. I know some of you should be there. But I mean, I wish you'd go to jail. Go and be quiet. Get away three years. That's what most of us need. We don't need more books, more knowledge. We need to hear that still small voice that says do this or don't do this. I better read what I wanted to read to you. I'm not going to read the chapter. I'm going to tell you that in this chapter there are all the ingredients for true intercessory prayer. I believe the greatest curse in our modern evangelist barrenness. We're seeing full altars, crowded altars, but not many revolutionized lives. We have two shaves and public persistence and six weeks after you can hardly find a person in this city that was born again of all the thousands that came up for something. Look at the first book of Samuel and the first chapter. First book of Samuel, the first chapter. And here we have the prayer of this very remarkable woman, Hannah. If you notice verse three, this man went up out of his house yearly to worship and to sacrifice. Verse six, as he did so year by year. Pardon me, verse six provoked. Her adversary provoked her. Verse seven, as he did so year by year. Still in that same verse, so she provoked her. Notice at the end of verse seven, she wept. Notice at the end of verse ten, she wept sore. Notice in verse twelve, she continued praying. This always reminds me of the life of the Lord Jesus. He went on into Gethsemane. You know, that's about the most unused portion of the life of the Lord Jesus. You very seldom hear any Germans on Gethsemane. Saying that reminds me of this. I do not know, but you can find in the New Testament anywhere where Jesus prayed with his disciples. He prayed for them, he prayed before them. But I think the praying of Jesus was on such a level they would never have understood his praying. Jesus walked into the garden of Gethsemane. He knelt in the garden of Gethsemane. He prostrated himself in the garden of Gethsemane. Now here is an ingredient of prayer that must be ours if we are going to pray for real Holy Ghost revival. So she wept, and she wept until she was sore, and she continued praying. Alright, verse ten, she was indigenous of soul. Verse eleven, look on the affliction of thy handmaid. Look in the end of verse sixteen, she had a complaint and a grief. Now all these things are ingredients of true Holy Ghost intercession. Praying, praying with tears, praying with bitterness, praying with grief. Why was she praying? She was praying for one reason only, and that was that she was being slighted by her friends because she was a barren woman. Now what did she pray for? Well, you say, Brother Raymond, she prayed for a child. Well, supposing I say she didn't. You say, you can't prove it. Oh yes I can. She didn't pray for a child. No, she prayed for a man-child. That's the best claim. And she prayed for a man-child because a male child proves the sanctifying of the womb, the Old Testament says. The Jews still think that. Alright, she didn't pray for a child, she prayed for a man-child. And God gave her a man-child. No, He didn't. You say, well He didn't give her a girl. No, He didn't. Well, what in the world is to say? She didn't get a child? She didn't get a boy? She didn't get a girl? No. What did she get? She got a prophet. God doing more than she could either ask or think. You know, so often when God answers prayer, He's not answering prayer to get us out of our embarrassment. He's answering prayer to supply a need that He has up the road. You think 20 years up the road God needed a prophet. And so He gets this woman out of this state. And you know, the joy of this whole thing is that, oh, there's so much involved in this. You say now, by the grace of God, after this conference, as a pastor, as a deacon, as a Sunday school teacher, or as a church. You see, this ministry is not mentioned in the gifts of the Spirit. There are evangelists, teachers, apostles, workers of miracles. But it doesn't say it gives anybody the gifts of prayer. It's understood that whether we're men or women, every one of us has right of access. He has made us a kingdom of peace from God. Some of the greatest people I know in the world today are women. Some of them busy women. I remember one woman telling me not long ago, I must be in the prayer closet at six in the morning before the house is stirred. I must get an hour with God before even I touch any dishes. I mentioned the other night, someone asked me again last night about a man in America. America is a strange country, isn't it? It has to be. Look at yourself. It's a strange country. America has given birth to the greatest modern churches. Catechism was revived here. Jehovah's Witnesses were born here. Mormonism was born here. Seventh-day Adventism gone. All the modern heresies were born here. So wait a minute, let's balance this thing out. America has had some of the greatest prayer men in history. You know, when the Seminole Methodist preacher came to our house, his clothes were never very good. His trousers were always worn at the knees. And his wife didn't pat them, she used to darn them. I remember saying to my mother one day, he doesn't have very nice clothes. His trousers were always worn at the knees. Well, the preacher's trousers were still worn, but not at the knees. He was a man who prayed. There's a man not far from Chicago now, one of the greatest men in the world today. All we've had are praying hymns. Thank God for them. We had our EM bounds. I got eleven of his books. I put seven of them in that one volume, A Treasure of Prayer, which is a library of books that you can't find hardly around the world. I had to get them air-mailed from other countries and insure them so they got here safe and got back safe. Here is one of the greatest men in press. His daughter used to write to me. She said when my daddy was just a youngish man, he was up every morning at four praying. But as he got older, he was up at three in the morning praying. And I have a picture on the wall of my office of a man, no hair, except some little white blobs here and a beard snow-white down here. And I got Billy Graham's picture there, David Wilkerson, some of the others I pray for, James Robertson, one of the great upcoming men, I think, these days. James Robertson, the evangelist with, I guess, with a seven baptism. And people look at my old picture and say, well, who's that? Is that your grandfather? No. Kind of wish he was. But how old do you think he is? Oh, maybe he's not as old as he looks. Maybe he's only about 70. He looks 95. No, no. They make their guesses. And then I say, well, I'll tell you who it is. It's the great American man of prayer, Dr. E.M. Bowne, with a snow-white beard and luscious hair, at the ripe old age of 45, his daughter sent me the picture. Do you remember somebody came to Jesus and said, well, what do you know anyhow? You're not 50 years of age. He was 30. And a man at 30 doesn't like to be figured as 50 any more than a woman at 30 likes to be considered 50. Why do you think they thought he was 50 years of age? I'm sure because he came on earth to do one thing, and this was what you and I are here for, this world, God, just to do God's will. This morning before the birds rubbed their eyes, people were lining up outside of a little house there in Ireland, in Portadown, with a little prayer woman, her hands are all scarred with toil. She's saying that she's very beautiful with her shaggy feet. And Presbyterians were standing with Pentecostals and Baptists and others, and even Catholics, because that little woman in that little house knows how to pray. And 5 o'clock every morning, they're lining up at the door with their problems. Not a psychiatrist, not even a Christian psychiatrist. This is a new abomination we have. You see, if you had the good simple spirit, we wouldn't need all this junk. It's much easier to send somebody to hospital than pray the prayer of faith, isn't it? Much easier to say, well, you need to go and lay on a couch and let some guy talk to you. What was it that somebody said recently? A neurotic builds castles in the air, a psychotic lives in them, and the psychotic dog rams on the whole lot. That's about it. But you see, we've lost the glory in the house of God. It should be if our churches are healthy, that in every church, as far as I'm concerned, somebody would have one of these gifts. Somebody the gift of wisdom, somebody the gift of knowledge, somebody the gift of healing, somebody the gift of faith. That's all. Let's be honest, at least. As I said the other day, I get tired of people saying, oh, praise God, we believe this book from cover to cover. And they spend the next 20 minutes saying, well, of course, these gifts aren't for the dead. Who made you the judge of God's Word? You start judging God's Word, you're as bad as a limber. I'll tell you something for nothing, friends. One thing that burns in my heart these days, I'll tell you something, God is not looking for sponsors. He's looking for men who are humble enough and weak enough and poor enough and helpless enough to say, nothing in my hands I bring. Neither my scholarship, my drink, nor anything else I come to do in my nakedness. Sure, Norman Gove said, now I'm getting letters from Africa. Do you remember five, ten years ago they were cutting people's heads off and throwing them in the river until the river was as red as the stripes on that flag there? The river changed its color with human blood. He says, oh, the church will be liquidated, but the blood of the martyr is always the seed of the church. And right now in those areas where the devil got a hundred percent control, God has a hundred percent control this morning. The dead are being raised, the eyes of the blind are opened, people go with crippled arms and nobody says anything, but God is there so much that they suddenly lift up their hands and pray, oh, my hands are healed. My hands are healed. A fellow walks out of the church and says, oh, I forgot my church is. Isn't that nice? Wasn't he saying Hebrews? You know, the people to the Hebrews have not got one single word to say to the sinner. Oh, but I've got a massive sermon. The man said, I've got a colossal sermon on humility. I can't find a place big enough to preach it in. And you know what we say about Hebrews 3, don't we, in verse 2? How shall we escape all that judgment, brother? You're sure right. I used to preach on the judgment day for about an hour and a half, sometimes two hours and a quarter to preach it. And I used to preach it much more. I can't get even permission from the Lord to preach it very often anymore. But Hebrews 2, 3 says, how shall we escape if we neglect? It is not talking to the sinner. So great salvation, which first was preached by the Lord Jesus and then by the apostles with signs and wonders and divers miracles of the Holy Ghost. Now that's the best definition of New Testament theology. The power of the church that I know of in the word of God. And anything less than that is not true Christianity. It may be a part of it. Mr. Phinney said, when God the Holy Ghost is brooding over a group of people, the power of the living God is so great we pull the world in. But when God isn't there, the world pulls them out. Why did Hannah pray? Hannah prayed because she was desperate. I've said very often people challenge it. You have a right to do that. It's in the Fifth Amendment. But I've said very often that God does not answer prayer. God answers desperate praying. You find in the 30th chapter of Genesis a situation like this where a man has two wives. This man has two wives. She's a minor. He loved her. But there was no attraction about her. She was no beauty queen. Her eyes were sore. Her figure wasn't good. But she had a bunch of lovely kids around her skirt. Hannah was the darling. He gave her more of his treasure. He loved her more. But inwardly she was fine. You find the same thing in the 30th chapter of Genesis where Rachel is the beauty queen of the tribe. Everybody says, I saw Rachel there. Oh, isn't she beautiful? Oh, isn't she the life, huh? I can see Rachel coming down one morning or coming out of the other fold in the tent. And her hair isn't done and she hasn't put on her beautiful garments but she throws herself at the feet of her husband. What did he say? He says, Jacob, give me children or I die. Wasn't it bloody Mary that said, I fear the prayers of John Knox? More than all the armies of men. Why? Because Knox brings it, brings that paraphrase. He says, give me children or I die. You see, I think sometimes we want revival just so that we can say, the last church we was in had revival. Or we want revival to fill our empty pews. Who shall ascend into the hell of the Lord? He whose hands are pure is Lord of the pure. I was saying to the dear brother teacher there, today about a man that had a big, big meeting in England for the people's life. A lot of people came. And he said, there is a life. As Mr. Spurgeon said, the sinner lives on that level. The man who was born again lives on that level. But Spurgeon says, there is a man who lives as high above the regenerate standard as the regenerate standard is of the sinner. And this man said at the end of the meeting, God, the Holy Ghost can come in that life of yours. He shall receive power after the Holy Ghost. How many want power? Now raise your hands. He said, let's bow our heads. And then he said, everybody that wants power walk down that aisle and go in that room. Everybody that wants purity go down that aisle and walk in that room. The ratio is about twelve people wanting power to everyone that wanted purity. And the silent note about the coming of the Holy Ghost is Acts 15, 8 and 9 where it says, And God who knows the heart, Peter is reporting on the house of Cornelius. And he said, God that knows the heart there then witnessed within them the Holy Ghost even as He did unto us and put no difference between us and them purifying their hearts by faith. People say, you need the Holy Ghost to do miracles. What miracles did they do after Pentecost they didn't do before Pentecost? Can you tell me one? They came back at Sunday and said, Lord it is great. were you all with us or not? We had a marvelous church. We cast out devils. We raised the dead. We cured the blind. And Jesus said, God rejoice in me. Rejoice your name for it is written in heaven. And yet Peter vacillated. He vowed, I'll do anything rather than save you. And Godly got the words out of his mouth before he fell asleep in the greatest prayer meeting in history. He could have stood there and seen the man wrestling because I don't believe Jesus died on the cross. Jesus died in Gethsemane. If he hadn't have died there he'd never have died in Calvary. He settled it. This is the will of God for me. And I say tears is an integral part of doing God's will and saying in the Holy Ghost because Hebrews says that Jesus with strong pride and with tears gave me children or I'd die. Hannah says, I want something more than all that God can give me or my husband. I want a child and to this child she prayed. And do you know what? Even the man of God looked down his nose and said, there she is, silly, silly woman coming into the sanctuary staying there for hours. She doesn't even say a word. Just her lips are moving. You know the most eloquent language in the world is silence. You know that is a language that is not listed as a language. It is the language of the Holy Ghost. Grown means it cannot be uttered. Somebody tried to tell me that was tongues. Tongues are uttered. You can hear them. Prayer is the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try. Prayer, the sublime is strange. It will exhaust your vocabulary. It will break up every word you have and you have to get in a place of prayer with groaning. There is only God the Holy Ghost. Because you see there are three groanings in Romans 8 but there is a whole creation groaning. And we groan within ourselves that we don't know how to groan and then suddenly the Holy Ghost comes and he does the groaning. They suddenly tell us this morning about a lady I met who was with John Hyde in India. She said, one of her friends said, Mr. Hyde, it would be the greatest privilege in the world if I could pray with you. Could I do that? And he said, yes, in the morning at nine o'clock. The man could hardly sleep for excitement. He went along to hear Mr. Hyde, to meet Mr. Hyde. They got down to pray and waited about twenty minutes. No, neither had prayed and the man thought, well, Mr. Hyde is waiting for me to pray. So he prayed longer than he'd ever prayed in his life, about twelve minutes. And he was through. And he said there was a pause and then he said, oh, how Hyde prayed. Just one word that went down every avenue in mind and spirit, just like Jesus when he said, Father. I suddenly realized there is God, a holy God who consents to be our Father. There is God, a holy God who consents to be our Father. He said it was nearly ten o'clock when he started praying. We'd only been praying a few minutes. Knock at the door and he said, I didn't want to go. I didn't want to spoil the prayer meeting. Knock at the door. No, I won't go. Knock at the door. I'm not going to go. Then somebody opened the door and said, Brother Hyde, it's nearly three o'clock. Time for you to teach the class on prayer. And the man said, stupid fellow, nearly three o'clock. Yeah, it's nearly three o'clock. Started praying at ten to eleven to twelve to one to two to nearly three. And it passed like half an hour he said. I'll never forget that day. I'm sure he never would. All earthly things. Oh, dear brother Rogers, sure. When God puts a fire. A holy God. Oh, no, no, no, no. Doesn't matter what your evaluation is. No, it doesn't matter if you're number one preacher in America. That doesn't make any odds. Or number one preacher in the whole world. What about when the day when God says bring the book of prayer and let's get that famous preacher's prayer life. Do you ever imagine yourself standing on a dais with a thousand billion people looking on? All the saints. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Wayne, the Old Testament there, Abraham, Isaac. All these saints looking on. Jacob who wrestles. My Lord, I wonder when, when, when the books are open if there'll be anything in the wrestling chapter. I say again, over the prayer closet in most of our churches we should just put we wrestle not and leave it there. One of the great joys of my life, I happen to be a link with the, with a previous century. One day you might be saying I heard all Ravenhill say so and so. Well that's all right. I'll be looking down on you from glory. I talked with an old, old man about forty years ago. He was one of the right hand men of William Booz, the founder of the Salvation Army. He told me about the wrestling, the nights of prayer they used to have. It was standard equipment in the days of revival that every church or every, every group as they call them, core, spent the whole of Saturday night in intercession. I talked with a man who went through the Welsh revival. I talked with a lady ninety-four. She couldn't speak English, I couldn't speak Welsh. We had an interpreter and she told me about the Welsh revival. But you know, every one of those revivals were preceded by prayer. Brother Rogers says one day you're going to say, oh he's a famous evangelist. Wait a minute, wait a minute. The revival in the Hebrides was the background was a little old lady of eighty-four and her sister eighty-two. And she brought the deacons together and got them to join hands and she says, ach, in the Scottish way, ach, if you don't want to do it, don't make any vows before God. That little woman prayed in the Holy Ghost. She used to send for Duncan Campbell in the morning just as if she was giving him directions for the day. And he told me one day she said to him, Duncan, you get on your motorcycle and up the hill and down the valley they say, up the bray and down the glen. And she says, ach, go up the bray and down the glen and up the bray and down the glen and up the bray and down the glen. Go to so and so. He was going down the road this lovely morning and there was a beautiful Scottish girl and she was sobbing on the side of the road sitting amongst the heather. He shut off the gas and went back to talk to this lovely girl who was, I think, about seventeen. He said, maybe I could help you. Ach, she said, you couldn't help me. Only God could help me. Ooh, he said, my heart left. I thought, well, here's a girl. God's working on her. I'm going to leave her to the Lord. Ach, yes, he says, maybe only, ach, she says, you couldn't help me. Only God can help me. What's your problem? Ach, she says, away over the bray there. Somewhere over the bray there's a man there called Duncan Campbell. And the slightest idea she was talking to him. God is going to bring him down here, she said, into the valley to my village. My uncle and my brother, I think I said father last night, my uncle and my brother, she said, are unsaved. God's going to save them. Are you sure about that? Ach, she says, Ginny and I prayed. We prayed all last night. You prayed the whole night through? Ach, she says, we prayed the whole night before that. You prayed two whole nights? We prayed the whole night before that. Now I said, my eyes are full of fear. I said, how old are you? She said, sixteen, seventy. How old is your friend? Sixteen. You prayed three whole nights? Ach, she says, my uncle is going to be without God. And my brother's going to be in God's hell. He says, oh, God's going to send Duncan Campbell and he's going to breathe down in that valley. Duncan said, I pulled my coat open and took my scarf off to show his parakeet collar. And he shook her by the shoulders and said, look girl. And he said, her eyes were so swollen, big blue eyes and those red cheeks of that lovely Scottish girl. And she looked straight in his eyes. And he said, I just said to her, my dear, I'm Duncan Campbell. Ach, she says. And he said, you know, I'm not embarrassed to tell you. She just threw her arms around my neck and sobbed louder. She says, you're a covenant-keeping God. You're a covenant-keeping God. He said, I went down in the valley and I preached. And that first night her uncle and her brother were amongst those who were saved. Now there's no rubber stamp for revival. Duncan Campbell was in Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones' church in London, we consider maybe the most greatest evangelical church in Europe, some say the world. I've talked many times with Duncan and talked many times with Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones. He had been preaching there in a meeting. Five young women met him outside of the building and they said, one of them, the spokeswoman said, we'd like to ask you a question. What do you do for follow-up work with your conference? He said nothing. Well she said, I'll tell you what, me and these four nurses, we were saved in a big crusade in the city some months ago, six months ago. Didn't change my life a bit. All I did was went up, go up, they asked me to quote the scripture, put my finger on the text and put your name in this and recite it and I did and that's all that happened. Duncan Campbell told me this, in five years of revival, he only ever personally dealt with five people in the whole of the revival. One girl wouldn't go and hear him. Finally she went and she said in a joke going in, do you know what he'll say tonight? Oh I don't think the Lord wants me to preach on that text. And she said, you see there are five of them he'll say. The Lord told me to preach on the five foolish virgins. They got into church and there was no room except on the front row. And the girls reluctantly went on the front row and Duncan stood up after a while and he said you know God won't let me preach on the sermon I've prepared all day. I've got to preach on the five foolish virgins. So months later this girl went into the meeting again. Duncan didn't know her name. He stood up and he said the Lord won't let me preach on the word I've prepared. He wants me to preach on this. Mary the Lord has come and called us to thee. And her name was Mary. For five months that girl fought God off and he wouldn't speak to her once. You know there's one thing about pregnancy that once a woman's pregnant she's got to stay with that baby till it's delivered doesn't she? Do you realize that's the same with revival? You see the woman comes and says to her husband I'm pregnant I'm going to bear you a child. When it gets nearer the time of deliverance she cuts her program off. We used to read in the newspapers in England the Queen of England has cancelled all her engagements for the next six months. Oh she's going to expect a baby. She isn't going to ride horses. She might fall off the horse. Jacqueline Kennedy said I've given up all my programs. A baby's going to be born. I'm not going skiing. I might have an accident. I might get hit in the body with a ski and it may injure the unborn child. And as you get nearer and nearer the time of deliverance the woman's calendar goes upside down. She breaks down her social engagements. She discovers things she used to love to eat make her sick. She finds something she's never eaten. She's got a longing for it. The whole program is broken up in every level. This is exactly true about revival. You see when she lays there the man of God says he's drunk. Rather strange. The church never does anything when it's sober anyhow. What we all need to do is get drunk. The first accusation of the world against the men of God from the upper room was not that they spoke in tongues. They wanted to choose it up. They drank. The first day of the war I was doing a crusade in Scotland. First day of World War II by the way. I'm going up the street. A Nazarene preacher with me said I'm going to get a gas mask. Not only because they were free. Everybody in Scotland went for that. But because it was compulsory. I said I'll get mine when I go back into England. He said you stand by this lamp post so that when I come out of that light room in the dark I'll walk straight across to you. I stood there about 15 minutes. The city was in total darkness. A street car came up. Stopped right where I was and a drunken man got up. Wobbled like this and he was slipping. He put his arms around the lamp post and me as well. He said I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I said that's all right. What's your name? I said Leonard Ravenhill. He said my name is Sandy McTavish. I said well Sandy that's all right. Are you a Scotsman? No. I said I'm Englishman. No good. He rolled his sleeves up and said can you fight? I said no I can't fight. He just went through the whole work. He said can you sing? I said no. Listen to me. So he stuck up with a voice like a bullfrog and Maxwell said I'm Gregor Bonny. We're early forms of Jew. They meant due but he said Jew so that's all right. And he said who's your father? So I told him who my father was. He put his hand in his pocket and brought out a handful of silver. You know Scotsman's drunk when he offers you all the money he's got. And he says do you want some money? I said no thank you. He says what good are you man you cannot sing you cannot faith you don't want money. You know good. And you know as I stood there immediately I remember the scriptures be not filled with wine but be not drunk in the flesh but be drunk in the spirit. Because if a man is really drunk in the spirit he's ready to fight principalities and powers he's ready to go. He's ready to witness he's ready to establish his credentials that he is a child of God by faith in Jesus Christ and tell the world. Read the Acts of the Apostles which is really the Acts of the Holy Ghost through the Apostles and you'll find the Holy Ghost is mentioned 52 times in the Acts of the Apostles and you'll find that prayer is mentioned 48 times. Because in my judgment one of the greatest truths that a man is really born again of the spirit of God is given there in in in uh in Jude verse 20 where it says praying in the Holy Ghost. There is no other word way to pray. I said this is a man up in in uh near Chicago 28 years has never been to bed one night. Isn't that something? One of the greatest men in the world today. Won't let me write his story. Won't let me take his picture. 28 years hasn't been to bed one night. 10 o'clock he goes into his prayer chamber. Prays till 5 or 6 in the morning when the burden lifts. Does he sleep? Of course he's a human being. But you see he's learned to push the clock around not let it push him around. You see you've got 24 hours a day. You sleep 8. You work 8. What do you do with the other 8? By the same token in the light of the judgment seat you live 60 years. You sleep 20. You work 20. What do you do with the other 20? Pretty serious. No turning at all. I used to think that all Christians die happy. I've seen Christians die as miserable or more miserable than sinners. Do you know why? Because they suddenly realize they're going empty handed. They suddenly realize they've been cheated. Particularly in the area of prayer. Hudson Taylor said you can only do God's work in God's way with God's power at God's time and then you get God's blessing. If we're going to have Holy Ghost revival brother you're not going to have it by drawing plans and saying Holy Ghost really breathe on them. We're going to have them when we really pray in the Holy Ghost and obey the word of God. The preacher has got two things to do only in the light of the New Testament. Do you know what they are? Acts 6 gives himself continually to prayer and the word of God. He's nothing else to do. He doesn't visit the sick, visit the hospital, visit the dead. That's why they appointed elders. It's their job to visit the sick. It's their job to minister to the sick. You've only two things to do in the light of the judgment. Bless and listen brother we're in for trouble. Preachers say sometimes there's nothing wrong in playing a game of golf. No but let me remind you there's no reward for it either. You can't even do it good enough to get credit here. So what do you think the Lord's going to do with it? That's why I said last night with the brethren one day we ought to get a few preachers together. Not allow your ladies in, not allow the deacons in and get right down to business and find where we've left the target in the last twenty-five years. We've spent multiplied millions on evangelism. We've had crusades and this and we've had lectures on that. But there's no nation under heaven further from Holy Ghost revival this morning that I know of than England and America. No nations. God is moving in sovereign power in Indonesia. Our boy wrote to us just recently and said some men came in from the Solomon Islands. He's in New Guinea. And told how God breathed on the men one morning. There was the sound of a rushing wind and they rushed out thinking a typhoon had come and he would pick up the boats and smash them on the rocks. When they went out the sea was as calm and level as this floor. Somebody said it must be a jet in trouble. And they looked round there was no jet. They went back in church and sat there and suddenly just like a flutter of thunder God came. Nobody preached. God came. I tell you again as I'll answer the judgment. I do not believe that most of our people come to church to meet God anymore. They come to hear a sermon about God. They don't expect to tip to us saying God is in this place. You see if you and I are going to get right to the heart of God, if God's going to whisper its secrets in my ears then I don't think there's much else worth living for for this. Everything's determined on this. It's possible even to program a revival effort like this and miss the deepest thing of God because we've shut God down. We've shut God down. We've shut God down. We've shut God down. We've shut God down. We've shut God We've shut God down. We've shut God down. We've shut God down. We've shut God down. down. We've shut, we've shut We've shut God together. When I said to my wife darling, just a few weeks ago, I said look we're not going on that trip round the world next year. I'd love to go because I could see my boys on the mission field. I've got a boy in New Guinea, another one down in South America, another one just arrived on the west coast, Ivory Coast of Africa. I'd love to see my boys. We haven't seen one of them for nearly eight years. I haven't seen the grandchildren that are four, three and five years of age. I haven't even seen them. I'd love to do it." And the Lord says, no. You say, why? Oh, I don't know that. See, God doesn't have to explain to me why I was doing it. He still has prerogatives. He says, stop, and he doesn't say why. He just says, stop. Let me say this and finish. Duncan Campbell was telling me of an experience about two girls, one is called Mary Morrison and the other was called Jean Wilson, a Scots girl and an Irish girl. They were out in the Hebrides, that little bunch of islands off the west coast of Scotland. They had been there for eight years. The president of their group came and he said, girls, you girls are the living legend. People around here call you saints. They see your little trailer house with the light on early in the morning. They see you down on the beach behind the rocks there praying. You've made a name here. Now the committee has decided that because you've been so faithful here and it's been barren, we're going to move you to another island. You know, you've worked so hard, the Lord's going to reward you. Now that's about as illogical and stupid as you can get and have a degree. Can you think of a farmer breaking up all the fallow ground in, say, Kansas? He labors a few years, he doesn't get any harvest and somebody says, you've been a good worker. We're going to transfer you now down over into Oklahoma. There's a farm there and you're going to reap what you've been sowing over here. Oh come on, let's not be so stupid. The girl said, look sir, we've spent hours praying here and weeping here. Please don't move us. Why should somebody else get a broken heart over this area? Please don't move us. And they stayed. Duncan Campbell went four years after, the twelfth year. They got him to come for a conference and he preached. And one day Mary said to him, well this is, God is brooding, the sanctuary's packed out. But he said, the break hasn't come yet. He said to her in the afternoon, Mary, you're going to preach tonight. She said, oh no sir, they've heard me for twelve years. Mary, you're going to preach tonight. Mary stood up there. She gave out a text. She preached on the rich man in hell. She'd been preaching about ten minutes and just as though someone came through the door. He closed the Bible and she said, Brother Campbell, the Holy Ghost has come. And she sat down. And the very moment she said that, God broke on that church. Not only that, he broke out in the tavern in town, where men were drinking and smoking and dancing and lusting. Suddenly God blanketed that whole area. And revival was born at that precise moment. There's one word I hang on to, and finish with this. It's a little word, but a fantastic word. Standing at the other side of four hundred years of barrenness and darkness, the minor prophet Malachi said, the Lord whom ye seek. But wait a minute, are we seeking the Lord? Are we seeking miracles? Are we seeking answers to problems and barrenness? The Lord whom ye seek, so suddenly. I like that. Do you know why? Because it says that while shepherds were watching their flocks by night, suddenly there was a sound of the heavenly host. It says that while they were waiting there in the upper room after ten days, suddenly. And you know I believe we're going to be in a meeting like this, somewhere sometime before too long. And suddenly just like that. All the accumulated prayers of thousands of people are going to be answered in a moment. God's going to ignite the things. And the Holy Ghost's revival will be upon us. It will beggar all our ideas of revival. It will show us the glory of God. It will not only do something inside the church, it will get out to communities. Because you see God must do one of two things with sin. Either pardon it or punish it. As I said preaching to the evangelists there in the Southern Baptist Convention. If I were to ask you this morning, what is number one threat to America? You might start with the devil and dope and divorce and all the rest and miss it by a thousand. I believe the greatest threat to America this morning is God. Because the nation only sins so far. And God walks out on them. The darling of God's heart was Israel. He didn't threaten the Amalekites, Hittites, Peruvites, Jebusites. He threatened Israel. One day they nailed him to a cross. He said just a minute before you do it. You think I'm getting rid of you? You're getting rid of me? I want to tell you something. I'm getting rid of you. Your house is left desolate. And God hasn't bothered with Israel for 2,000 years. God hasn't said a word to mankind for 2,000 years. It's here he left us a checkbook. As Mr. Sturgeon said every check is signed in the blood of Christ. All we have to do is get a hold of it and honor it. The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come. I look for that suddenness, that unexpected manifestation of God the Holy Ghost. And this is going to come in answer to believing prayer. There are some Hannah's I could mention them, I won't. I know where they are some of them. I know a little hard-working woman in Chicago who cried before me. She said Brother Ravenhill I'm not making advance in my Christian life, in my prayer life. I said how much do you pray? She said well my mother's been very sick you know. And I said that's not a question. How much do you pray? She said well I've got a job and it takes me half an hour longer to get there and half an hour longer at night. I didn't ask you the question. How much do you pray? And reluctantly with tears she said that's my problem. I haven't moved in my prayer life in the last year and a half. Please tell me I won't quote your name. How much do you pray? She said I'm still only praying five hours a day. Look you're not going to pray five hours a day because you make up your mind. Any more than the woman that sees the Olympics says well I'm going to teach my little boy to run 20 miles a day. No you have to build up, you have to get revelation, you have to get set in with God. We have to realize what a mighty holy God he is with all his sources. But God is looking for somebody. So the Holy Ghost can come in them as he came on the Virgin Mary. For the church is always described as a woman. He's looking for a church that will become, or a people that will become spiritually pregnant and stay with the thing. You'll have to change your calendar. You'll have to say goodbye to some friends. You'll have to revolutionize maybe your eating and your sleeping and your spending and your traveling. But in the light of eternity as our brother said, what is it? Before that great and terrible day when we stand before God. I pray that it may be your prayer and it is my prayer that we'll always pray what the disciples prayed. Lord teach us to pray.