In this sermon, the preacher shares a story about a woman who worked in Africa and lived in a humble bamboo house. Despite facing potential dangers in the jungle, she had faith and trusted in God's protection. The preacher also talks about attending a meeting where people were sleeping and the preacher couldn't continue. However, a little woman with her legs swinging kept the energy alive. The sermon emphasizes the importance of repentance and highlights the unique qualities of John the Baptist, who was a powerful and influential figure in spreading the message of repentance.

Before he retired as the founder editor of Christianity Today, Dr. Carl F. Henry sent out a questionnaire to, he said, twenty intellectual preachers in the nation. I didn't know there were so many, but he sent his questionnaire out and the question was this, what do you see for the Church of Jesus Christ by the year 2000? I remember two of the answers, particularly one of them, was given by the Quaker philosopher Elton Trueblood. I don't like a lot of his theology, but he says some very, very acute things. And he said that by the year 2000, the Church of Jesus Christ will be a conscious minority surrounded by Narragansett militant paganism. I swallowed that, I went to bed, I woke up with a kind of mental indigestion about two o'clock in the morning, and the other thing about that statement, by the year 2000 the Church will be a conscious minority surrounded by Narragansett militant paganism. Then I did a little backtracking and asked myself if it is not true that the Church of Jesus Christ today, that we're surrounded by Narragansett militant paganism. And then I went a little further back and asked myself if it wasn't true in the day when the Church was born. The Church of Jesus Christ was not served to the world on a silver platter. It was born again in a Narragansett militant paganism. It was born in a sophisticated totalitarian society. And then I'm standing on the southern lips of the greatest hall in the world, which of course is the Grand Canyon. There's a legend there on a brass plate or a bronze plate. It describes the view that seven miles ahead of you, that yellow ribbon that's flowing is actually the Colorado River, which I think is about 450 feet wide and 45 feet deep at that point. If you're down in the basin, you'll be walled in with a wall on the left-hand side and one on the right-hand side, each of them a mile high. As I gazed at that, there suddenly came to my mind this question. Supposing you put a child a year or two years old in that canyon, how would he make it out? He sure couldn't swim across that fast-flowing river. He certainly couldn't climb up the side of the steep canyon there. And then I translated that to this. How did the Church of Jesus Christ get out of a situation like that? It was walled in on one side with the greatest military machine in the world, the power of the Roman Empire. It was walled in on this side with the intellectual splendor of the Greeks. And the roadblock ahead was nothing less than the monopoly, at least, the Jews thought they had on God. And here you have a bunch of unlettered, unknown men in the upper room. They pretty much had a pretty bad record for failure and doubt and fear. And they were the men who were going to penetrate both the intellectual splendor of the Greeks and the power of the Romans, and they did it. I want to talk tonight about being washed with fire. The message of God to the world is given in John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. The message of God to the Church is in Luke 3.16, which unfortunately is not known quite as well. But this is what it says. In Luke 3.16, it's the same as Matthew 3.11, by the way. John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier than I cometh. The latchet of his shoes I am not worthy to unloose. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Now I've got another text. It doesn't mean I'll preach twice as long. Don't worry, you'll be home for breakfast anyhow. But the second text is this dividing page between the Testaments. It's a white page. It covers a period of 400 years of almost unparalleled darkness. It has no message, it has an eloquent message. This is at least the second time that this nation has been into captivity. And suddenly across that 400 years of darkness, like Halley's meteor flashing over the sky, we get the incandescent personality of the greatest character Jesus said that ever lived. And then again by the name of John Baptist. I believe we're heading for the most disastrous days, not only in American history, but all history. As I said this morning, our problem is not economic, it is not moral merely, it is a spiritual problem. The answer is not N.O.T. in the White House. The answer is in God's house, if we get that house cleansed and all of us move up to our birthrights in Jesus Christ. The background of the life of Luke, pardon me, of John Baptist is given in the Gospel recorded by Luke. I confess I like to study John Baptist, he's like me, he's odd. The background is this, his father is a priest of the Cross of Abir, it says in this chapter. And he was going to perform a duty that he performed only once in all his priestly life. He never rehearsed it. There are 2,000 other priests in line, 2,000 Levites too. And each of them wanted the honor of going into the temple and making the offering that again he was only going to make once in his life. You can see him perhaps coming down the aisle of that great place, it held at least 6,000 people according to history. It says that the people were in the outer court, because the time of the sacrifice was announced about 9 o'clock in the morning when priests, 3 or 4 of them, stood on the porch of the temple called Herod's Temple. He financed it, it was a government job. And the priests stood there with their long trumpets, gave a blast, and immediately they did that, the temple was opened, the priest was allowed to come in and the others were allowed to follow him. Now here he is coming down the aisle, nervous, he hadn't rehearsed this before, he might fall over that long skirt he was wearing, his garments were heavy, so was the mitre he was wearing. And as he comes up to the altar, let's read about this man in Luke 1, verse 5. They were in the days of Herod, the King of Judah, a certain priest named Zechariah of the Cross of Abia. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth, and they were both righteous before God, working in all the commandments, walking in all the commandments, and the ordinances of God blameless. Verse 8. It came to pass that while he executed the priest's office before God and they ordered his course, according to the custom of the priest's office his lot was to burn incense when he entered into the temple. The whole multitude of the people were praying without, they had not yet come into the sanctuary, they were outside. They would follow him as he came up to the front to make this office. And verse 11 says, there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar. Now why does it say that? Does it matter whether he stands on the right or the left, or it does? If he stands on the left side of the altar he has a message for the nation. If he stands on the right side of the altar he has a message for an individual. Here is a man already troubled, he's already nervous about the whole situation, and of all things there's an angel waiting for him. And so it says that, I guess I'd be troubled too, that verse 12 says that when Zacharias saw him for the angel he was troubled and fear fell upon him. The angel said unto him, Fear not Zacharias for thy prayer is heard. Thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. Verse 15. And he shall be called great in the sight of the Lord. Do you know there is no other greatness than that? The greatest thing in the world is to be great in the sight of God. All other greatness vanishes. Here is a prediction upon this child, that he's going to be great in the sight of God. But look at this astounding thing. He shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. It doesn't even say that about Jesus. He was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. If you go a little further into the chapter, it says that in the 41st verse, it came to pass when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. But not if she wasn't filled with the Holy Ghost until she got into the presence of Jesus. She couldn't see him, but he was there. He was there in the womb of his mother, and immediately she came into the presence of the Lord Jesus, she was filled with the Holy Ghost. And then in verse 67 it says, And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and he got some gifts of the Spirit. He prophesied. That's pretty good going, isn't it? He was filled with the Holy Ghost the day he was born. Do you think he spoke in tongues that day? I'm only asking the question because I didn't look up the Amplifier to see what it said about it, so I thought you might know. But without being facetious about it, it says he was filled with the Holy Ghost. That's the momentous thing. His mother was filled with the Holy Ghost. His father was filled with the Holy Ghost. And the preacher of the day, it says in the next chapter, in verse 25, There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. The same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Ghost was upon him, and revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came by the Spirit into the temple. If that isn't an advantage, tell me what is. A fellow comes into the world filled with the Holy Ghost from the moment he was born. His mother filled with the Holy Ghost, his father filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesied, and his preacher filled with the Holy Ghost. You couldn't have a better start than that in a rotten world like this, could you? He got it going for him. This rare, strange character was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. It says in the 80th verse of the 1st chapter, The child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the desert until the day of his showing unto Israel. Remember later, Jesus is going to say about this man that of all the men, and he must have included Jeremiah and Isaiah and the others, that there was no man ever stood greater. There was no greater man ever lived than John Baptist. Now there is a kind of a veil over his life. There are a lot of things we don't know. We do know this, and it's a great clue as far as I'm concerned, that he was in the days of the wilderness until the time of his showing forth. I can't prove this except by inference and I think common sense. I believe that this man was the man of sorrows until the man of sorrows came. I don't know what time of his life, maybe he was 12 years of age, maybe older, and he went into the university where God likes to take men, the University of Siloam. He took Moses there. Moses was loaded with intellectual power. He got acres of culture. He'd been trained as a prince. He's 40 years of age. He's a statesman. He makes law. Read the 7th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. And he seems to be a fully accomplished man. Forty years. Learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. I think he learned more the second forty. He lived with his mother-in-law. And then when he was 80 years of age, 40 years shut there in the stillness. Not learning, unlearning. Not finding out how great he was, finding out what impossible task he had. Now John the Baptist comes into a situation like that. Now look, this man is no dumb man. He's still in the spirit of God. All the gifts he had, I don't know. But no man is going to be there in the wilderness, talking with God, reasoning with God, thinking about God. A man who knows everything about the law and the prophets. This man has not come to establish a new denomination but to explode an old abomination. That's all the ritual. Here is a man who is going to appear there in the wilderness. What a character he is. I don't know how he made it. He had no mailing list. He had no sponsors. He was an unusual and wanted, unpredictable, unreasonable kind of man. If he'd gone down the street in Jerusalem, somebody would have said, oh look at the high priest. The word of God says that he wore garments of glory and of beauty. And in case you don't know, he didn't buy them at Sears Roadblock either. Every thread was put in by hand. All the exquisite, delicate work was put there by hand. All the precious stones on his breast had to be shaped and fashioned by hand. All the engravings, it took years and years and years. And somebody said, you see there, the garment of the high priest. Garments of glory and beauty. You see, he's our high priest. We have a monopoly of God. John Baptist turns up in the wilderness the very opposite of that, sartorially. A leavened girdle about his loins. He must have looked like a hippie. Well, at least he's leathered around his hippies anyhow. But anyhow, the fact is there, he's a strange contradiction. I'm going to suggest to you that this man was versed in the law and the prophets. He looks on a bankrupt, decadent nation. He sees forms of godliness. He'd heard over and over and over the high priest reciting the thirty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, that when he is come he'll do all this and that and the other, you know. He looked in the eyes of the blind. But this nation that had been called for holiness unto the Lord was bankrupt and derelict. It had no spiritual power. For four hundred years it had deteriorated. And then suddenly you find one man. Maybe we still need to learn that one man with God is a majority. He didn't need financial backing. He didn't need an advanced man. He didn't even have a guitar. And he had all the accessories that we have. Isn't it staggering how little we do with all the stuff we've got today? We broadcast more gospel in one day to America than the rest of the world does in a month. We've got more Bible schools in this nation than the rest of the world put together. We've more billions of dollars invested in poverty and most of it stinks anyhow. But there's a strange feeling amongst people today that it's time for an awakening. I spent most of the last two or three years in Southern Baptist churches. Big ones. They didn't have it in the church the other week with seven thousand members. Went to another one with six thousand. I found a deeper hunger for God and deeper hunger for prayer. I'm startled when I go into those churches and find they have a 24-hour prayer meeting. It never stops year in and year out. But when the preacher stands up Sunday morning a bunch of men go out into a room and there they lay hold of God and hold up that preacher. At night a bunch of women go out and they pray all the time the preacher's preaching and they're seeing marvelous powers of God manifested. Not just physical miracles but spiritual and moral miracles. There's a capacity right now, pardon me, there's a cavity in the religious life not only of America but of the whole world that even the modern charismatic good as it is has not filled. And I believe the one answer that's going to release the power of God, the one thing that's going to change as this nation was trained on the power of God, is a baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire. That's the only thing that will melt the ice. John comes into the wilderness. Well that's about the worst place in the world to start a crusade isn't it? I'm having a congregation and no seats for them to sit up. No publicity. He's nothing going for him. Well of course he could say he was a pastor of the fastest growing Baptist church in the world. The only one there was anyhow. So he got up on his side. I preached in a certain place and a brother came to me and he said, Rayden if you would continue preaching like that and then ask God to give you the gift of healing you could, well you could just about fill any auditorium in America I think. Well I said that's very good. You know in this nation we've had more miracles of healing through Oral Roberts, Catherine Truman and the rest in the last 40 years than all the nations on the heavens. And we're nearer hell at this moment than ever we've been since we became a nation. Not because of them, in spite of them. You see there's a strange magnetism about this man. He's filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb and I'm going to tell you that I believe with all my heart that he was a man of sorrows. I believe one day you'll find that he prayed day after day all about which when the heavens and come down. I believe there's one simple reason we do not have revival in America. Do you know what it is? Because we're content to live without it that's why. When it's more important for you to see God when the heavens and baptize the nation with mercy and see people by the thousand turns of God than to make a dollar or become a famous guy or the best dressed man in town or the finest church. When we get desperate about it. I'm convinced God does not answer prayer. God answers desperate prayer. Did you notice something about this woman that bore this child? She was a barren woman. Have you noticed the barren women in history produced the greatest sons? Remember Abraham's wife? She bore a marvelous son. Remember that Samson's mother was barren? Remember Hannah? Oh she got more of a husband's affection, more of his income maybe. There came a day when she said this won't do anymore. For years and years and years she'd gone to temples, she'd gone to conferences, she'd gone to other places and her adversary provoked her year after year but there came a deadline. You find the same thing there in the 30th chapter of Genesis. Rachel had received more attention from her husband than the other wife. She's the queen of the tribe. Everybody admires her. I guess her hair was never out of place and her dress was beautiful and her personality was charming. One day she comes in and says to that husband, I don't think her hair was done very well. I think her eyes were sore with tears. She throws herself at his feet and says, Jacob give me children or I die. Do we pray like that? Isn't it time we changed the prayer of Patrick Henry Fogg? Give me liberty or give me death and say to a holy God who may take us at our word and give us revival or let's die. Because if we don't get revival we're sure going to die anyhow. We watch the deterioration of the nations, we see the corruption in the nations, we see the paralysis of the united nations. Who in the world are they united? I'll show you what they're divided. Other help us fail and comforts flee. If the church of Jesus Christ has anything to say, well now's the time for her to wake up, stand up, speak up or shut up. Because there's no other hope in any other direction. All the women that were barren brought abnormal children. Here is a child that's going to be born and the prophecy given shall be that he's going to be filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. Can you imagine people going to church or going to the temple and saying you know what, a lot of empty seats. Oh yeah it's getting worse too. Worse? You know why? No. Oh there's a fellow down the road a few miles away started a new coat. He's a strange man. You see when God wanted to do something he wasn't going to dress him up like the other guy up there. He couldn't have been a greater contradiction could he? His hairy chest, bit of an old camel skin around his neck. We'd have sent him out in double knits and alligator shoes and a big diamond ring on here you know on his hair teasled and you know how pretty these evangelist boys look these days. When they go past you say that lady up there, I mean that man was wearing something there. No no no. This is one of the rarest breed of men in the world. I believe today the tragedy of our pulpits is that most of them are filled with puppets instead of prophets. Prophets are God's emergency men for crisis hours. The prophet by the very nature of his calling is a tragic figure. He has a fierce loyalty to God. He has a strong devotion and love for the nation. He's torn between the two. He knows that God is of holier eyes than to behold iniquity. I know some people get a little upset because I have an English tongue. I was in a meeting, a lady came to see me, blonde, beautiful. Of course the beauty went down the sink every night but she made a pretty good job of it and she brightened her eyes. Lovely blonde hair, you know what we call a suicide blonde, dyed by her own hand. And she said you know I don't like your preaching. I said well shake hands, I don't like it either. I wish it was 10 times hotter. She said I don't like the thing you say about our nation. I said it's no good preaching about England when I'm in America or America when you're about England, let's face it. I left my nationality at the cross with my sins. I'm an Englishman, no no no, I'm a Christian. The other paraphernalia doesn't matter very much. I said again that we need this breed of man, this man again is a tragic figure. You see he senses the wrath of God. He wants with God, he talks with God, he lives with God. He has his dwelling with the wild beasts. Here is a man of chronic austerity, of vulgar tongue, merciless against those in high places. You know in that awesome terrible day that's coming before long when God pulls the blinds out and blows the lights out and every man that lived from Adam until that moment is going to stand at the judgment seat of Christ. I think at that moment we'll discover that Watergate was not a political tragedy or just a moral tragedy, it was a spiritual tragedy. Do you know why? Because 18 different preachers preached to Nixon and not one of them got through to him. Do you think John Baptist would have got through to him? If only some man had gone and endured with power and dared to say the thing that needs to be said, he might have repented there and then. John Baptist comes into a situation, he can't quote the scripture if two of us agree because there weren't two of them there anyhow. He doesn't have a revival party with him, he has no solarists, he has none of the backing that we seem to need these days. But there he appears after the darkest period, 400 years of darkness and then suddenly a flashing, blazing personality. 400 years of stillness without any prophetic voice and then just like a thunderclap going down the valley they hear the word repent. That's a dirty word in evangelism today, you don't talk about repentance. I hear a little bit about the fruits of the Spirit and sometimes I hear a little bit about fruits unto righteousness from Romans chapter 6. I hear very little about bring forth fruit, meat for repentance. Now John the Baptist, I don't care how you measure him with your little instate, geographically, socially, politically, spiritually, doesn't matter how you measure him, he was a giant. If you want to know the background of his life, look in the third chapter of the gospels recorded by Luke. It says now in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being the Tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip the Tetrarch of Arturia and of the region of Trachonitis and Lysanias the Tetrarch of Abilene. That's about as refreshing as a mouthful of sand, isn't it? Do you care of the Tetrarchs? What's a Tetrarch? Mr. Brooks will tell you after the meeting. He lost the blocky in between but that's all right. When the world cares about Tetrarchs and rulers, but I'm showing you the setup into which he came. And then he gets from back to us as the Irish and says, Annas and Carth has been the high priest. It's illegal to have two high priests. The word of God came unto the son of Zacharias in the wilderness, his name was John, and they came into all the country about Jordan preaching the baptism of repentance and the mission of sin. Verse four says, he was a voice crying in the wilderness. That's all he did. Nobody went after John saying, have mercy on my son, he's a lunatic. He wasn't straightening with the dams, he had no healing line. He didn't raise a dead man, he raised a dead nation. This man has had a volcano building up in his spirit thirty years. He'd wept, he'd groaned, he cried over those which rend the heavens. And he knew that God was the omnipotent God. He knew that they'd come to the end of an era. He knew that he was a fire-baptized, God-energized man to stand in the breach. He stood there in the valley preaching and crying, prepare ye the way of the Lord. Verse five says, every valley shall be filled, every mountain and hill shall be brought low. The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places shall be made plain. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, all generation of vipers who had warned you to flee from the wrath to come, and so forth, bring forth fruit, meat for repentance. Now discover how effective his ministry was. They came from Jerusalem, you'll have to read the different versions in the gospels, let me bridge it for you. They came from Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. So geographically he was a success. Socially he penetrated every level of society, because it says, that while he preached, verse nine, the axe is laid to the root of the trees, every tree therefore which bringeth not good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. The people asked him, you know the difference between revival and evangelism? You see, most of them have never seen the revival. They've seen somebody stick a notice outside of a church, revival begins Wednesday night, finishes a week Thursday. The Holy Ghost never read it, so he never came. You know, I think that about the most stubborn, pitiable Christians God Almighty has ever had to raise. I don't care how much Greek you know, can you tell me any version of the scripture, get the 24th, where it says the Holy Spirit comes 11 o'clock Sunday morning, leaves at 12, comes back 7 o'clock Sunday night, leaves at 8, and you don't need him until Wednesday night. I never saw that anyway. As Dr. Tovey used to say to me, Len, you can be sure when revival comes, for a number of reasons, the lights don't go out in a sanctuary, maybe for weeks. And the other thing is, there's a change in the moral climate of the community. This man attracts people like a fire attracts the bugs at night or the moths and things. You know there's one thing for sure, you never have to advertise a fire. Whether it's physical or spiritual, you never have to advertise it. While he's preaching, now nearly every meeting finishes with an altar call. There are no altar calls in the New Testament. Tell me where there is one, will you? The difference between evangelism and revival is this, that in evangelism we give out the call, in revival people do the calling. Look at the context here. He's preaching about the axe being laid to the root of the tree, and it says in verse 10, the people asked him, saying, what shall we do then? Verse 12, the publicans came to be baptized, and they said, Master, what shall we do? And of all things the nation was invaded with those Roman soldiers who wore their breastplates and their plumes, and they stood round, they were heathen, they were the lesser breeds without the law, if you want Kipling's word for it. They'd watch the priest go into the high place, they'd watch the Feast of Tabernacles, Pentecost, and all the other anniversaries the Jews had, and it never fazed them. And somebody said, if you want to see real religion, a man on fire, a man that somehow has something strange we can't define, when you have a day off go down into the wilderness, and even the Roman soldiers were there, soft as they were in their heathenism, and even as he preached he said, the soldiers said, what shall we do? Now remember that's preaching. When before you get through preaching somebody says, what shall we do, what shall I do? Do you wonder it says there in Hebrews chapter 12 that the Lord makes his ministers a flame of fire. Well listen, you're not going to upset the apple cart, you're not going to shatter the theology of the day, you're not going to interfere with organized religion and get away with it. A few days after a bunch of the big fellows came down from Jerusalem, and they watched and said, this is a strange thing, people are filling the trees, standing on the bank, look at the crowd he's got, derelict, morally derelict, he's got prostitutes, thieves, liars, Roman soldiers, hey there's some people from our church down there too, all listening to this man. Well we'll soon straighten him up. See John was strange in every way, he was strange in his dress, he didn't wear a cladical attire. I don't think there's too much cladical about an old skin around his neck and a pair of leather shorts, that's what he wore. He was strange in his dress, he was strange in his diet. Morning, noon and night he ate locust burgers. That's all he had to eat, there was nothing else around. He caught those big flies, they're huge things, pulled the wings off, put them on a rock, and boy he enjoyed the locust burgers and the wild honey. They said he's a strange man, he never begs for offerings, he doesn't do any miracles, and yet he's magnetizing people, and I hear all kinds of testimonies about people being changed by the by the power of this man's ministry. Strange in his dress, strange in his diet, strange in his doctrine. The only thing he held like a thunderbolt at them was this, repentance. There's not much said about it anymore these days. This is a day of easy believism. I think it was Paris Reidhead that first said to me today, the evangelist says come here and say a prayer like this, God be merciful to me a sinner, and this is what you get. Eternal life, a mansion on the main street of heaven, a five-decker crown, a free ticket to the marriage supper of the Lamb, rule over five cities and immunity from judgment. You couldn't get much more for five minutes at an altar could you? Except it's a lot of rubbish, it's not true. No longer it seems do people feel the exceeding sinfulness of sin. It's said that Finney would preach as many as 28 nights and never make an altar call. He did not preach the love of God, he preached the wrath of God. He did not preach mercy, he preached judgment. He did not preach grace, he preached the law. And night after night people would go home bewildered, confused, and wondering the world was ever going to happen. W. P. Nicholson was the prophet of Northern Ireland, I met him many times. Nicholson would preach until sweat would run off the end of men's noses and off their chins, and they'd be doing this with their handbooks, and they'd shred their handbooks, and he'd stand up and sing, say, stand up, sing, God save our gracious King. People would say, are you crazy? Not that I know of, he'd say, not that I know of. Well don't you realize those people were just ready? He said, listen, I want to tell you something. Why you left them on the edge of hell? He said, if they stay in hell 24 hours they'd be glad to get out tomorrow night at the altar call. We don't do that, we're afraid the fish will get off the hook, if they were hooked. John comes with his devastating power, seems to be setting up a rival organization. The big shots come down and say, we'll soon squash this. One of them walks up and says, hey fellow, I want to ask you a question. Where do you get your Bible school training? Who signed your diploma? They asked him, who are you? I like his answer, I think it's choice. I think it stood over that for 30 years. He said, I'm a voice. Most pictures only echoes. I'm a voice, I come with authority. Do you remember the Apostle Paul with his acres of theology? Ever a man was baptized with the Holy Ghost? If ever a man had a confrontation with God, he says, going down that Damascus road, God revealed himself to me, in the wilderness he revealed himself in me. And he had dominion over demons. He did more than a hundred ornery men could do at a thousand creatures. And yet in his life, late in his life, he says, pray for me. Boy, I think everybody wanted him to pray for them, but he says, you pray for me, that utterance may be given me, or that I may never preach the word of God without that authority. I don't offer you a suggestion tonight, I offer you to an ultimatum. You either meet God or perish. You either say, Lord, fill me with the Holy Ghost, or on the other hand, drift. They said, well, you must be the Messiah. No, not now. Listen, he said, you don't get big ideas about me. You listen to those little dwarfs that you hear preach. You know, sometimes when I read John Baptist, I think my preaching compares to his preaching like candy floss to prime rib. I don't think there's much authoritarian preaching around, or some doctrinal preaching. I don't think there's much that brings God under assembly, and people tiptoe out of the place, and for hours they don't speak, but you get that in the Bible. You get that I'm convinced in the days of John Baptist and others. So they flocked unto him from Judea and Samaria. They came from all the social castes, and one day he had the greatest privilege of all men that ever lived, I think. He had been tall, but somewhere in his ministry, and I guess just like Jesus died between two thieves, I think he lived with most of them, and I think he was baptized between maybe a prostitute and a drunkard, or a prostitute and a murderer. And John baptizes this man, and suddenly he comes to the most amazing person the world has ever seen, and suddenly the heavens open. Mark uses a special word because, of course, it's referred to in each gospel, and Mark gives a special word. It's the same word that was prayed by Isaiah when he says, oh the bowels ring the heavens, and God rang the heavens, and the spirit has a dove. The spirit is not a dove, he was likened to a dove. Then John gave them to the greatest statement ever made since creation. He'd never seen him before. He sees this man in all his moral and spiritual grandeur. He thinks of the decadent nation that's only beginning to stir, and he lifts his voice and he says, behold, I suggest to you that voice not only echoed down the Jordan Valley, it went down every cavern in hell. Here is one who is greater than the Lord and the prophets, and every preacher the world has ever known. Here he is. He's going to do what the law could not do. He's going to do what mountains and bodies and beasts and rivers and blood could not do. He's going to bear the sin of the world. I wonder if John didn't explode when he said that. I think I would. A few days after, they said, hey, you know, the man you baptized the other day, have you noticed your crowds going down? His is going up. He said, that's great. Well, aren't you envious? No, that proved my point. You see, John knew this, that when Jesus came, that just as I put my hand up and when I do that, I cover my pencil, you can't see it. Well, he knew that immediately Jesus came, he was going to be excluded, or what you call it, eclipsed. Not only eclipsed, he was going to be exiled in jail. Not only exiled, he was going to be executed. Boy, we could do with a few preachers like this around these days, don't you think? Well, he knew that immediately Jesus came, he was going to be excluded, or what you call it, eclipsed. Not only eclipsed, he was going to be exiled in jail. Not only exiled, he was going to be executed. Boy, we could do with a few preachers like this around these days, don't you think? You know, he meant business. He really lost his head over the business. Do you think that God somewhere whispered to him, do you remember that story of John's song, where God said to him, I'll keep you in prison and reveal myself to you, and he read through the Bible, what, forty times in a hundred days or something? And then God said, John, go to it, you're going to live just fifteen years. You know, preacher, if you knew you'd only six months to live, do you think it would have changed your preaching style? If you knew that that economy is going to collapse, I have a secret feeling that maybe God is going to strangle the economy of America, and other nations, but we're in America, he's going to strangle the economy of the Merica, of America, to get the church back on track. The church, the sin of the church is going to make the world suffer, not the world make the church suffer. We're so far removed from apostolic Christianity. We're so satisfied to play church. We can go without any signs of supernatural power. I tell you, I believe John had turned over in his mind when he thought of how God manifested himself in the Old Testament, and he said, my God, is this frozen thing, this decadent, dying religion I'm in, is that related to what our fathers did? Why, at one time, if a child got nervous, he would lift the tent he was sleeping in, he'd see a pillar of fire and say, that's God's presence. If the church isn't supernatural, obviously she's superficial. And I'm very glad, amongst other things, that you can't buy an endowment of power from on high. God still says your money perish with you. John was filled with the Holy Ghost. Every sermon he preached was packed with Holy Ghost life and energy and wisdom and power and authority. He drew people like a magnet. And when they wanted to crown him, he said, no, no, no, don't, don't you even touch me. You know this one who's coming? I'm not even worthy to get down and take the shoes off his feet. Now, I have baptized you with water. There are two baptizers. One is John, one is Jesus. There are two areas. One is the body, the outward body washed with water, and the other is the inner man. And one is a water of baptism, and the other is a baptism of fire. You know, back in his day, which happened to be, I don't know, I think, what, 1500, John Owen and those boys around, they were some preachers. John Owen said this in his day. The sin of men in the Old Testament was against the Father. The sin of men in the New Testament was against the Son. The sin of men, in my day, he said 400 years ago, is against the Holy Spirit. You know, a thing that troubles me deeply is this. The Holy Spirit, H-O-L-Y, is neglected in the charismatic generation. The emphasis is not holiness. The emphasis is power and gifts. I say John did no miracle. We've lived through a period, the last 40 years, of more miracles than anybody in history. And yet the greatest miracle in the world. I've seen miracles there. I've seen miracles here at Bethany. I've seen paralyzed people get out of chairs. I've seen blind people get their sight. All kinds of folk with diseases get healed. And yet the greatest miracle in the world is this. That God can take an unholy man out of an unholy world, make that unholy man holy, put him back in an unholy world and keep him holy. Well, I thought you just said amen, but it is warm. Takes all the redemptive work of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit of God. The great snag in the day in which we live is this. That we have thousands, tens of thousands even of ministers, and the only thing they have to prove that they're a minister is they got a piece of paper about 10 inches long and 9 inches deep stuck on their office wall. And the devil never read it once. Well, I hear people say, well I believe this, that when you're really born again, you receive the baptism of the Spirit. I believe that. According to the 12th chapter of 1 Corinthians, if a man is born, when the Spirit of God works on him, when he's been redeemed, when the blood has cleansed him, when the Holy Spirit has come upon him, the Spirit baptizes him into the body of Christ. And when people say, have you received the baptism of the Spirit? You can say yes, if you're born again. This is not the baptism of the Spirit, it's the baptism of Christ, John says. He shall baptize you. It's an upon baptism, it's an endowment. Isn't it really awesome that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, conceived by the Holy Ghost. He had no natural father. People say, I can't understand that, it baffles me, it troubles me, that Jesus, the last Adam, was born without a father. That shouldn't puzzle you at all. The first Adam was born without a mother. Where's the problem? Jesus was born of the Spirit, but he never ministered until he was anointed with the Holy Ghost. John Baptist did not minister until he was 30 years of age. A priest could be a priest at 25 years of age in the outer court. He could not go into the Holy of Holies until he was 30 years of age. Jesus did not minister until he was 30. Neither did John Baptist, neither did the Apostle Paul, neither did Moses, neither did any great Old Testament character. In other words, they had to come to maturity before they were allowed of God to have this endowment of power. I'm not saying it obtains the same in this day in which we live. I am saying that the baptism of the Spirit is into the body of Christ, but the endowment of power. Jesus was born of the Spirit, he walked in the Spirit. Remember the prophecy of Isaiah 61 says, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good tidings. In the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Luke it says, Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. And he didn't come out of that wilderness experience on the edge of a nervous breakdown. He came up and licked the devil on every level and was still filled and anointed with the Spirit of God. I don't believe there's a ministry tonight in the world adequate enough to meet the generation in which we're living. We've all kinds of excuses. Again, I don't think it's any more difficult than the day of John Baptist. I don't know where he did his training. Maybe he went to one of those, you know, communities that were there the other side of Jordan. I don't know. For this I know when he came out he was set on course and for six solid months he preached like no man had ever preached on earth, I believe, before. And yet he says this is only the entrance into something greater. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Mr. Chadwick used to say to us at Cliff College, remember this, the symbol of the Church of Jesus Christ is not a cross. The cross is a cruel thing. The symbol of the Church of Jesus Christ was a tongue of fire that sat upon each of them. Have you noticed how often in the Lord of God fire is mentioned? You go to the third chapter of Exodus and you'll find a flaming sword, the fire of judgment. Lest they should go back into the Garden of Eden. From Genesis you go to Exodus and there you have the fire of consecration. That was the fire of condemnation in the first place. This is the fire of consecration. You go through the three chapters, the first five books, and read the first, in each of the three chapters there's fire. Fire of condemnation, fire of consecration, false fire. You come down to Malachi. Malachi is the last prophet. He's looking down that long tunnel of 400 years of darkness. He comes out with that amazing statement, but when he comes, who shall abide the day of his coming? Who shall stand when he appeareth? He's like the refiner's fire. Come into Matthew chapter 3, verse 11, he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire. Come into Luke chapter 3, verse 16, he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire. Come into 1 Corinthians chapter 3, the fire shall try every man's work. Go down to Revelation chapter 5, God says either be hot or cold and get out of here. Go into the 12th of Hebrews, our God is a consuming fire. He makes his angels ministering spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire. Part of my enjoyment is reading hymns. I like to read them in the old versions. First Baptist book is a fantastic book. The Salvation Army book is great. And so very often you find that the writer wants to express his longing, his yearning. There's something in him that cries and can hardly become articulate. There's a preacher in England by the name of Edwin Hatch years ago. Finally he finished up in a Bible school in Canada. He had no problems financially. He had no problems with the cloud. But he said, I went home one night and said, God, the atmosphere is not instinct with deity. The people can listen to eternal truths, and as we would say, they never turned on. You walk out of the sanctuary this Sunday, thousands of churches and folk will be saying, do you think the cowboys will pull it off? They were talking about holy things a few minutes before listening to them, and they switched off like that. Edwin Hatch said, I went home, I didn't think about my success, about the money, about the crowds, about my popularity. He said, I just knelt there and I snatched a piece of paper and he began to write a hymn. I don't think he ever corrected it. The hymn was this, breathe on me breath of God, fill me with life anew that I may love what thou wouldst love and do what thou wouldst do. And he finishes by saying, breathe on me breath of God, till I am wholly thine, till all this earthly part of me glows with thy fire divine. A hymn I think Charles Wesley wrote, see how great a flame aspires, kindled by a spark of grace, Jesus loved the nation's fires, set the kingdoms on ablaze, to bring fire on earth he came. Kindled in some hearts, it is all that all might catch the blaze, all partake the glorious bliss. And when William Booth stood on the streets of England with no money, his only assets a wife who had a curvature of the spine and a bunch of little children. He went home and wrote the battle song of the Salvation Army, one of the finest hymns I think there was ever written. And they still sing it, they still have on their diner blood and fire. And he wrote that marvellous military hymn that always stirs me, Thou Christ of burning, cleansing flames, send the fire. Thy blood-bought gift today we claim, send the fire. Look down and see this waiting host, give us the promised Holy Ghost, we want an appendicast. I'm not as sure that we want it, but God in heaven knows we need it. He finishes by singing, to make our weak hearts strong and brave, send the fire. To live a dying world to save, send the fire. O see us on thine altar, lay our lives, our all this very day, to crown the offering now we pray, send the fire. My dear friend Pastor Brooks stole my thunder tonight, sang that hymn written by a little Irish woman who had a curvature of the spine 30 years. Pastor Hegery went to a fellowship away there in India, the Donovo Fellowship, maybe Wilson Carmichael wrote it I think. Give me a love that leads the way. Here is a woman who in the last three years of her life was lifted out of bed. There came a day in Ireland when the Holy Ghost fell upon her, and from that day she said to her friends, listen I'm going to India, there'll be no furloughs for me, I'm not coming back, I don't want glory and praise, I don't need any rest, I really want resurrection life. And she nursed that little weak sick body through more than 30 years of her adventures there in India. I like the last stanza about him, give me a love. He's a little sick woman, can you imagine her, she weighs about 90 pounds. Give me a love that leads the way, a faith which nothing can dismay, a hope, no disappointments, a passion that will burn like fire. Let me not sink to be a trod, make me thy fuel flame of God. Look in America tonight we're in a more broken condition than we've been since this nation began. We've more broken homes than ever we've had, we've more people broken mentally, we've more kids broken on drugs, we've more girls last year had babies with broken bobbies now. We've got more broken people in drugs, we've got more people in drugs, everything's broken except the hearts of God. I don't find many tears in prayer meetings, do you? David has said to me more than once, well daddy these Baptist churches we've been in, man I've been in prayer meetings that lasted 3-4 hours after midnight, and people sobbing and groaning for revival. Why do you think the sinner has any right to repent and break his heart over his sin if he doesn't break my heart that he hasn't got a broken heart? I'm not sure if Amy Wilson Carmichael when I'm finished wrote this verse, no it's in the hymn Lest I forget Gethsemane. The last stanza isn't in many hymn books anymore. Fill me O God with thy desire for all who know not thee, then touch my lips with holy fire, to speak of Calvary. He shall baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire. What does fire do? Well there's one thing for sure, if this building got on fire, those pillars that look so strong, they'd sure bend. And there's a lot of stuff in us needs bending, but only the fire of the Holy Ghost will bend. This much is sure, if you're going to take dross and impurities, you need to put it there in a, what do you call it, I've forgotten the name of it for the moment, in a crucible, put it in an inductive crucible maybe, and there you press the buttons and that gold begins to melt and melt and the dirt flows up because gold is heavier than metal, and the gold goes to the bottom and a man sits there scumming the dirt off, throwing the dirt off, throwing the dirt off, throwing the dirt off, and finally quits. And you say well why did you quit? He said it's pure. How do you know it's pure? Because he said I can see my face reflected in it. We used to sing maybe years ago, you know, about the face of Jesus. We'd like to see the face of Jesus. And part of the hymn said that all thou spirit divine, all my nature refine, until the beauty of Jesus is seen in me. You know, you burn out the dross, you burn out the impurities, you burn out the pride, you burn out the lust, you burn out all the excuses we have. We burn out all the failure. I'm convinced in my spirit there's one reason why the gold goes to hell fire tonight, and that is because the church has lost holy ghost fire. It is fire we want, for fire we plead, says William Booth. The fire will meet our every need. Fire is the most destructive force nearly that we know. After all, atomic energy, you see those awful explosions, what is it? It's fire. You see those rockets going up, what is it? We've learned to channel fire into certain areas. There is no power on earth like the power of the Holy Spirit of God. There is no other power that can change the condition of men, except through the blood of Christ, the cleansing, and then this endowment with power from on high. There's no releasing like the power of fire. We had a meeting in another country, came out of a lovely church, the lady said to me, you know I've sung that hymn, I guess for 60 years that we sang this morning, trust and obey, and I never knew what it meant until we sang that stanza, but we never can prove the delights of his love until all on the altar we lay. For the favor he shows and the joy he bestows are for those who will trust and obey. People say no, the fire, the fire falls on the altar. Oh no it doesn't. Oh no it doesn't. The fire falls on the sacrifice. You can build the altar, the fire doesn't fall on the altar, the fire falls on the sacrifice. So where, so Mr. Booth says, oh see us on thine altar, lay our lives on all this very day. You know sometimes you're tempted to kind of hold back a bit, there's some lovely people here, and be very careful you might offend them if you talk about a second blessing, a second baptism, or sanctification, or the baptism with the Holy Ghost. Can you show me a man that didn't have a crisis experience after he was born again, that ever moved a generation for God. I challenge you to find me one, even Spurgeon. Somewhere there's a longing, somewhere there's a realization that there's something more in the Christian life than the average person has. And he longs for inward purity, and he longs for inward power, and he longs for inward piety I'm sure. Fire releases, they took the three Hebrew gyllen and tossed them in the fire, what happened? Well I guess the poor guys didn't have a penknife to cut the ropes off, so the fire burned them up. All that happened in the fire was, the fire burned up what the world had put on them. That's all it did. It didn't slay them, it released them. Years ago there was a great old holiness preacher in America, there were a lot of great holiness preachers from America. Shel Haymer and P.D. Watson was preaching in England. It wasn't a very large fellowship. And he preached about a crisis experience after we were born again, which would purify the heart, the Holy Ghost and indwell, give you victory where you had defeat, give you purity where there'd been impurity, give you power where there'd been weakness, give you zeal where you'd been full of lethargy. Get rid of your ambition just for wealth and material things, and being mesmerized with the world. And he said I looked at that congregation, I think there weren't more than 30 people, and thought no, these very well dressed Englishmen, they had immaculate clothes on, you know, and their big gold watch chains, and he looked at them and thought, I think maybe I shouldn't make an altar call here, because they're good preachers these guys. But he made an altar call. Three men staggered to the altar. Oh they were good preachers. One of them after that, he'd such a dramatic experience of being filled with the Holy Ghost, he got so released he was a king's counselor. His name was Reader Harris, he founded the Pentecostal League of Prayer, which afterwards dropped its title to League of Prayer for certain reasons. But he was one, he became a leader of one of the great movements in England. The only man by the name of John David Thomas, he became the leader and the guard of a society called International Holiness Mission. Then there was another little fellow. What was his name? Oswald something. What was it? Oh Chambers, I knew, I thought somebody knew him around here. Oh what is in the eyes of many people, one of the most outstanding men. But he said there was something inside of me I longed, I longed for power, for victory over the flesh, even this flesh that's so lazy, over attacks, over secret ambitions and jealousies and pride, and my indifference to a lost world. Years back I went to a place in Dundee, lovely Dundee, famous for its cakes. I went with a man called James Baxter MacLagan, he was a Nazarene pastor and it was in a church called the Terryfield Mission at that time, it's now a church of the Nazarene. We came out of the train depot here and there was a big sign outside of the church, James Baxter MacLagan will preach the anniversary sermon Saturday afternoon at three o'clock. He was a little fellow and I said you know that notice is nearly as big as you are. I understand this place gets packed. He said oh you'll be filled, they come from all over for this great anniversary service. I said well that's great, you're a good preacher. He said I'm not going to preach. Oh I said that's interesting, who will be preaching? He said you. Oh I said I didn't know that. I said you can't do that, but he did it somehow. He sang a solo and we had a good service and then he said now I've got a friend, Leonard Raymill from England, he's going to preach. Well I was caught on the spot but I said some things out of this very text about being baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire and I said you know this is not an experience just for missionaries and it's an experience for every believer. Now I can't prove this and you can't disprove it. You know I've often wondered where all the bunch went out of the upper room. I don't know where they went. About 120 filled with the Holy Ghost, they were dispersed, where did they go? Well you can trace about five of them, but not long ago I was asked to dedicate a baby, a lovely baby. The mother was a lovely lady whose mother was a lovely lady and suddenly it came to me like this. Oh I like to get a verse when I have to dedicate children and the verse I got was this. Paul says to Timothy, I know the unfamed faith that is in thee which dwelt first in thy mother Lois and in thy grandmother Eunice and I suddenly realized, at least I think so, that maybe his grandmother was in the upper room. It wasn't that far away. His mother was a devout woman whose mother was a devout woman. Here's the grandmother, here's the mother, here's the little guy. You know we need an awful lot of holy mothers in America right now. We need an awful lot of godly fathers. We're heading for trouble quicker than I can tell you. I'm not a racist in any way. I love all, I've preached all over the world to different people. I love them all. I never see a man's skin, it's his heart that troubles me. But say have you ever thought even outside of the Church of Jesus Christ, the mess we're in, you realize every new nation that's born is a colored nation and a new white nation is being born. When I was in New York and editing the paper for Dave Wilkerson, I used to go into the United Nations and you know the stuff's all free. Government always gives other people stuff away and I went there and got all kinds of material for a magazine and going down the corridor I'd see a man with beautiful robes on and a gold chain and other things and they'd say hi and I'd say hi and I suddenly realized boy we're on the way out. We're on the way out. Every new nation that's born is a colored nation and many of them are full of resentment and bitterness the way we've treated them. And we've fallen down over the job. We got so lost in materialism that our first glory and ambition is was not to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're going to suffer for it. And you know we're moving along as though with another thousand years to do the job. I don't know if Mr. Hickley went to the Curacao conference I did in Japan. After I preached a mission he said to me Brother Abel, we white missionaries have been in Japan 113 years. That's 12 years ago so it's 125 years. In that period half of one percent of the population is nominally Christian and that includes Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Catholics, and what have you got. Half of one percent in 125 years. I said gentlemen listen it's easy for me to say but I'm going to remind you of this. The way you're going at it is going to take another 125 years to reach a half of one percent. I suggest to you that when John the Baptist was filming waiting patiently for God to anoint him and put him in the wilderness. He was thinking that millions of people have been lost in darkness. They did religious theology. They did theology and religion and formalism and keeping Sabbath days and they died without God and without hope. When you go to bed tonight friend there will be more lost people in this world than when you got up this morning. And this generation of believers is responsible. Oh yes he's responsible for this generation of lost men. Let me go back to the meeting. As I finished the meeting I said time's up. We've five minutes to get a train. Look I want to tell you something. I don't care who you are. If God is going to seal the travel of his soul in your life. If God is going to do what he wants to do, inhabit you by his spirit, control your life, you're going to have a spirit-filled, spirit-controlled, spirit-directed, spirit-inspired life. Well he won't come whether still. Peter remembered the upper room not by balls of fire and rushing mighty wings or gifts. He recorded in Acts 15 at night God purified his heart. You never find him backsliding after that. And I said if you want this experience raise your hand quickly and they put their hands up and I counted 12. I said is there a 13th that's not unlucky. A little woman on the back seat went like that and I said I saw it. I said now let's sing spirit of the living God fall afresh as we do. You come down here and and pray. And I left the platform. That little woman shot down the way she went. 15 years after we were in a meeting, a WIC meeting, Worldwide Evangelization Crusade meeting in Manchester. We got there late. We had been delayed. It was a wet, dirty, horrible day. We got in the back of the building. It was too hot. Folk were sleeping. Everybody blamed the devil and it was a janitor. Poor devil gets blamed for an awful lot of things he's not responsible for. And people were sleepy and tired and you know the preacher couldn't make it. He quit. There's a little woman sitting on a chair there and the legs didn't touch the ground. She kept doing this like this. I thought yes I'd like to kick him too. But anyhow she just kept those legs going and then at the end the preacher said now we've got 15 minutes before tea or supper you would say. Would you like to hear a testimony? Yeah we've been bored so far. Let's take a little bit more of it kind of thing. And he said will you come? And that little lady jumped off a seat like this and you know in two minutes she had that congregation just sitting on the edge of the seat. She was telling about her work in Africa where she lived in a jungle area in an old beaten up place that was made of bamboo or something, twigs and mud and everything and she said in the middle of the night something goes at the door and I just turn over and say I'm not on the menu tonight you can go. And then she said somebody knocks at the door and I go there there's a man about six feet six and he says oh missy my wife very sick she'd die please come. She said you know I got to turn my wife around in the meeting on Wednesday afternoon in the Cherryfield Mission and I thought boy that's interesting. Yeah I remember being a check. Could you have been a little squirty thing at the back with red hair that red hair that went like this and I thought that must be that must be that woman. And she said you know when I worked in Dundee if a mouse ran over the floor. Now I never, nobody understands women but I don't understand how a mouse that weighs an ounce and a half can knock a woman over weighing 150 pounds. But they jump on chairs and howl and scream as though the house is on fire and she said if a mouse came I was terrified. Now she said I can go through the forest I can hear the roar of a lion and it does not worry me he shall give his angels charge concerning thee. I come to a log and the man takes my light and and and he balances over the log and there's a guy in the water and he's only got one cavity and you're welcome to fill it any time you like. There's a big hippopotamus and then she looks at the other side there's a crocodile and she says you know it doesn't worry me a bit mice used to worry me wild beasts don't worry me hippos don't worry me nothing worries me. I go and deliver a baby I stay with a woman or she has a fever and the man says I take you home and no no don't take me home. Well it's dangerous oh no no no I go through the forest singing blessed assurance and I get to that log a little bit shaky sure enough but I you know it's a bit greasy and one drop pretty strong poison one drop and uh I make it home she said. It all happened one afternoon I'd gone to meetings on the deeper life I'd gone to holiness conferences I'd gone to Nazarene conferences and the devil always said but this is only for prospective missionaries this is only for those who are going into the ministry. I may exclude him myself. Then she said Len Radnil said this if you come to the altar put everything you have on the altar and let God's fire you know when God's fire upon the altar of my heart was set ablaze my ambitions plans and wishes at my feet like let him burn everything up he'll do more with the ashes than you can do with a total personality. She said it gave me hope I I had almost no education I I just swept the floor of a factory. Could that really be true that I'm a candidate because I'm born again but that same holy spirit that has come on so many could come in and dwell my life and turn it round that if I get let go and say fire of God burn up all this grass in me but he'll take the ashes well that's all I did with the first money ever made anyhow I was on the ash I'd make me a new personality and fill me with the holy ghost. I'm going to try. She said I shut down that aisle I thought yes you did I I'm a witness to that. She shut down that aisle. She wrote to Birkenhead Bible School went there for three years and she said this poor dumb girl that could hardly write at all I came out in the top 10 students and then I went to a language school in Paris I came out with the top 10 students then I went to a mission field and I learned another language on top of one language I already learned and I'd been a bit more at English and I learned a third language and I'm learning another one and you know what? God has kept his word because it says in the twelfth of romans there he's not going to give us a new heart but he he talks about the renewing of your mind and she said that day I'll never forget it I sure think you wouldn't forget it either when all the helplessness cease again we're living in the most critical hour in history you say yes you're pretty gloomy about it oh forget it I'm not I'm not I think we may be shocked when the holy ghost does invade if you read the life of William Bull he said that when the holy ghost struggled with men that were sitting on the back seats in the exit to hall London and they wouldn't yield to God the holy spirit lifted them by the scruff of the neck and carried them over the audience and dropped them at the altar call how would you want to see that tonight that would shock some of us wouldn't it doesn't fit our pattern I've got news for you the lord isn't going to give you a phone call and ask you if he can do it well how he can do it or what pattern he's going to do he's sovereign he doesn't have to copy any other method he's ever done but I'll tell you what again the greatest need tonight we need preachers filled with the holy ghost we need deacons filled with the holy ghost we've got a world going to hell quicker than any period in history that is one answer and only one answer a fire baptized church the last thing I remember Norman Grubbs saying I'm in one meeting I'm so old I remember actually seeing C.T. stood on one occasion I remember Norman Grubbs saying this the last letter we had from C.T. I think before he died was this don't send me any missionaries don't send me any missionaries that have not been filled with the holy ghost I ought to use the word actually that have not been baptized with the holy ghost for they surely fail as Paul said the other day I didn't hear what he preached this morning he preached at the Agape forest last Sunday morning there's a tremendous anointing there and he said sometimes in Argentina you feel as though you've come up to a wall of demonism and heathenism and darkness do you ever wonder if Jesus still weeps over his church so much to be done so little being done man alive the world the communists are eating this world up so fast and we're treading water comparatively oh I know there are spots of fire here and there no I'm not hanging my harp on the willow do you know I believe that just as he did in the days of his flesh Jesus did not knock on the door of the Sanhedrin he didn't go to the temple he didn't say I'd like to choose some of your best men educated philosophers learned men men of social prestige he didn't say that he went for fishermen and the tax gatherer he seems to have done that down the ages here's the word and I'm through with it do you think there's going to be another Pentecost not quite I think there's going to be a Pentecost that will out Pentecost Pentecost I base it on Joel 2 again he's going to pour out his spirit on all flesh your sons and daughters prophesy your young men see visions your old men dreams and on my servants and handmaids not my bishops not my very learned wealthy my servants and handmaids I'm tired of seeing some phases of revival where men get the glory the next one is not going to be a Methodist revival a salvation only a Pentecost it's going to be God's and he's suddenly come to his temple well are we seeking the Lord are we seeking blessing or help or revival that fills empty seats the Lord whom he seeks shall suddenly come and they were keeping watch over their flocks by night and suddenly there was a sound of a heavenly host and they were sitting in the upper room and had been there for days and suddenly there was a rushing mighty wind and God has come suddenly unexpected ways unexpected time to unexpected people he's going to do it again but before power there has to be purity the fire will purify the fire will empower the fire will liberate because it's a person who comes the person of the Holy Spirit himself