In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the need for believers to submit fully to God and reverse the current state of affairs. He highlights the failure of evangelism and the lack of spiritual fervor in the church. The preacher then references the story of Peter and John going to the temple to pray, despite the disbelief of the people there. He emphasizes the importance of physically, mentally, and spiritually bringing people into the presence of God. The sermon also touches on the power of faith and the example of the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11. The preacher challenges the congregation to seek a life filled with the fullness of God and to have a deep hunger for spiritual growth.

I want to read from the Acts of the Apostles, the third chapter. The Acts, the third chapter, reading from verse one. Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour, and a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple. Who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked an alms. And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him, with John, said, look on us. And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them. Then Peter said, silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I unto thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength, and he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God, and they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him. Silver and gold I have none. It's a good thing I preached after the brother gave you the announcement a bit earlier. Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I unto thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. I think the most exciting interpretation of the Acts of the Apostles has been given to us in the days in which we are living, not by a charismatic enthusiast, but by a preacher who, until a few years ago, was considered just a normal, rather starchy, dignified Church of England vicar by the name of Dr. J.B. Phillips, whose translation of the New Testament I'm sure many of you own. He got a little tired of reading the King James Version in its sleepy, Elizabethan English, and he wasn't too electrified by the interpretation given by Moffat and some of the other modern translators, and so he decided he would read the New Testament all over, trying to disentangle his mind from the clichés, theological and otherwise, that he had stored up in his mind. He wanted to come with a fresh approach, and so he read the New Testament in Greek, beginning again with the Acts of the Apostles. And his own testimony was that as he read it, the further he got into it, the more it electrified him. And he summarized the New Testament Church in this language, which I've tried to engrave in my own mind, and I must confess it ignites me every time I talk about it. I think of the time when somebody approached Dale Moody and asked him, well, how do you know the Bible's inspired? And as quick as lightning, he said, because it inspires me. And I think we're sick in our spirits when the Bible doesn't ignite us. So J.B. Phillips summarized the New Testament Church this way. He said, this is the norm. You see, we're so subnormal in our spiritual life that if ever we become normal, we'll think we're abnormal. We're so far below par in the comparison with the New Testament Church that it's really tragic. But J.B. Phillips said this, this is the Church of Jesus Christ before it became fat and short of breath by prosperity. This is the Church of Jesus Christ before it became muscle-bound by all that organization. This is the Church of Jesus Christ where people didn't sign articles of faith, but they acted in faith. This is the Church of Jesus Christ where people did not say their prayers, but they prayed in the Holy Ghost. This, he says, is the Church of Jesus Christ where they did not gather together a group of intellectuals to study psychosomatic medicine, but they healed the sick. Now, if your church doesn't come up to that level, it's sick. Don't blame me for saying it, the Holy Ghost says it. Now, we talked a little this morning about the amazing power of the early church. We reminded ourselves that for 800 years the promise that had been given in the prophecy of Joel was unfulfilled, and then suddenly there was a dramatic intervention of divine life. Suddenly the Holy Ghost descended. The gift of God to the stricken world in which I live is his only son, but the world has turned Jesus down, thumbs down. The gift of God to his Church is the Holy Ghost, and in our day the Church has turned the Holy Ghost down. Well, we're prepared to let him come on our terms, but not his own terms. I think the major sin of modern evangelicalism is this, that we have limited the Holy One of Israel. This morning I quoted the Quaker philosopher Dr. Elton Trueblood, and I've been reading his recent, fairly recent book, The Incendiary Fellowship, which I find very, very interesting. But he says he was rather disturbed after he read Billy Graham's book, World Aflame, and after he read the book by Sam Shoemaker, which had a title something like, When He Has Come, and then when he read a third book on the Holy Spirit, that neither Billy Graham, nor Shoemaker, nor the other man, in all their elaborate interpretation of the coming of the Holy Spirit, not one of them mentions that dramatic word of concerning Jesus, that he has come to bring fire on earth. He says, I don't understand how they died past it. Well, I read his book, and if I can criticize a critic, I fail to understand how he could talk like so many of the modern men talk. They don't talk about revival anymore, they talk about renewal. Revival smells of kerosene lamps, and the sawdust trail, and repentance, and broken hearts, and tears, and anguish, and they don't like it. So they talk about renewal. That's about as substantial as candy floss. But in his interpretation, and talking about the church in our day, he manages to go right through the whole study without ever once mentioning the scripture we mentioned this morning, in Joel 2.28, that God has promised that he will pour out his Spirit upon all flesh. Not only that, but I read another book quite recently, and I was amazed that, no less an intellectual evangelical, as he's called, some think he's a neo-evangelical, Dr. Carl F. Henry, who used to be, of course, the editor of Christianity Today. He has written a book, which I found fairly interesting, on evangelism at the crossroads. And he talks about establishing the church of Jesus Christ in a new dimension, in the age in which we live. I never once does he mention an outpouring of the Spirit of God. Now, how you could have revival with an outpouring of the Spirit, I just would not know. I have said repeatedly, the difference between the early church and our church is this, that the church, the early church was supernatural and they're superficial. They began in the upper room with a bunch of men agonizing, and we're ending in the upper room with a bunch of women organizing. They witnessed the descent of the fire of the Holy Ghost, and the only fire we have in the church now is in the kitchen. Chet Pike is a very brilliant modern young man, maybe a millionaire. He is a vice president of one of the great broadcasting and magazine companies, and he said in writing the foreword of a book written by Jess Moody, a very interesting book again, which he calls A Drink at Joel's Place, in the introduction of the book he says this, I am not a Christian, but I am not convinced yet that the church that I see today is the church for which Jesus Christ died. Now, there is an un-Christian man who says, in essence, when I read the church of Jesus Christ so vigorous and so victorious, when he sees the power and the prayer and the progress of the new testament church, when he sees it going forth, conquering and to conquer, and then he sees the church as it is today, he said I'm not convinced that this is the church for which Jesus died. Well, I'm convinced, and I'm convinced that it isn't the church for which he died. I do not believe that the sweat and agony of Gethsemane and the horror of Calvary, and the three days in the tomb and the shattering of the powers of darkness, were the tremendous program of Jesus Christ for the pale, pathetic, powerless, prostituted Protestantism of the hour in which I live. The most precious thing on God's earth tonight is the church of Jesus Christ. With his own blood he bought her, and for her life he died. And I'm convinced again that there is no hope for the church until again we have a great outpouring of the Spirit of God. And it would be good if mentally tonight you could draw a circle just where you are and stand in the middle of it and say, Lord send the Holy Ghost, but send him inside this circle tonight. It's a very interesting thing to make comparisons, and if you have the Encyclopedia Britannica, I have a very good edition of it, and I notice there are about ten whole pages on the papacy, and less than half a page on the Holy Ghost. If you recite the Apostles' Creed, there are ten statements in the Apostles' Creed about the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and only one statement about the Holy Ghost. Sometimes I go to churches and they recite the Creed. Do you remember in that Creed they say, I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Christian Church. I sometimes wonder what they really mean by believing in the Holy Spirit of God. To me a normal person of the Spirit is a kind of power that periodically may come upon an individual, but the Bible makes it very clear, I'm sure, in our judgment as we read it, that the Holy Spirit is not a power but a person. If the Holy Spirit is power, we must learn how to turn that power on. If the Holy Spirit is a person, I must learn complete obedience to every command of his. Now, not only did Mr. Phillips give us that wonderful definition of the early church, but he quarrels even with the title of the Acts of the Apostles. Because he says, you see, that the Acts of the Apostles is really a record of some of the Acts of some of the Apostles. After all, you can't trace the history of some of the men who were in the upper room. We only know what happened to a handful of them. The others became very normal kind of people it may be, but nevertheless they were so normal in the sense that they were filled with all the fullness of God. You know, I'd be wondering if it isn't about time that we took that classic statement of Patrick Henry's. You remember how he said one day almost with his fist clenched, give me liberty or give me death. I think we could turn that just a little bit and get to the place, if we're ever honest in our spirits, where we don't say, Lord give me liberty or give me death, give me a revival or give me death. And in my judgment, until we get to the place where we prefer revival even to living, we're not going to get revival anyhow. The Acts of the Apostles is a record of the Holy Spirit. If you read the book carefully, you'll discover that no less than 52 times the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. And no less than 40 times is the Holy Spirit related to prayer, because the Holy Ghost is the spirit of prayer. And whatever the Spirit of God might do in your life tonight, or in mine, he will not do it to enhance my personality, to give me more power in prayer, to give me more power in preaching, to make me more acceptable to the multitude outside. The supreme work of the Holy Spirit is just one thing, and that is he wants to glorify Jesus. He has no other commission. The Father glorified the Son. The Son glorified the Father. The Holy Spirit glorifies the Son and the Father. Neither the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Ghost glorifies the Church. That's not our business yet. He's going to do that afterwards. A thousand, thousand, million, millenniums he's going to be doing that. And in the little passage of time that you and I have between here and the grave, and remember there'll be no time to pray after that. There'll be no fasting after that. There'll be no miracles after that. There'll be no operation of faith after that. All that we're going to do for God, we've got to do between now and when we shuffle off this mortal coil, as Mr. Shakespeare said. And I used to wonder why it says in the book of the Revelation that there should be no tears, and then before you turn the page it says that God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. Now how can he wipe away tears if there are no tears? Well there are no tears in heaven, I'm convinced of that. But I'm equally convinced there will be a lot of tears at the judgment seat of Christ. Regrets. I doubt that many men who have lived since the days of the Apostle Paul will stand very tall and very erect at the judgment seat of Christ. We shall see all the unfulfilled promises that were there, the riches that there are in Jesus Christ, but somehow we fail to appropriate them. We got entangled with trivia. We got satisfied with our little dimension of preaching and our small concepts of deity. It almost takes my breath away when I say to you and say to myself tonight there isn't a single thing God Almighty can do for this rotten generation in which we live. He gave his son, he hasn't got another one, and if he had he didn't need to shed his blood because Jesus Christ made a perfect atonement for sin. And when he died he said it is finished, and he wrecked the whole system of the devil. God has not got another son to give. God hasn't got another Holy Spirit to give. He has already given the Holy Spirit. Admittedly there can be a greater appropriation of the Spirit by us, but God has given the son, God has given us the Holy Spirit, God has given us his word, and if the word lasts another two million years God isn't going to write a P.S. at the end of the book of the Revelation and say, sorry I just forgot to tell John on the Isle of Patmos two thousand years ago, it's been in the back of my mind, I've got to get another translation out. No sir, God hasn't another Bible, God hasn't another son, God has not another Holy Spirit. All that God can do for this world is being done, and yet here we are teaching in bankruptcy. Communism is marching on, Romanism is marching on, evangelism is looking on. It's time you reverse the whole thing. It's time we came in total submission to God, in the rags of our own failure, in our spiritual anemia, in our wretched bankruptcy, and told almighty God we can't even evangelize, evangelize the ghettos in America, never mind the uttermost parts of the earth. This is a very wonderful picture I think in the third chapter of John. Peter and John went up to the temple at the hour of prayer, I don't know why, because nobody in the temple believed what they believed, and they didn't believe what the folk in the temple believed, but they still went to the prayer meeting anyhow. And here is a crippled distorted man at the beautiful gate of the temple, professional religion had gone up, the high priest had gone up and tossed him a golden coin I guess, and the younger preacher came up and he gave his money, and then he saw Peter and John and he said those are the boys with the money. They had a big revival the other day, why they'd five thousand converted, they must be loaded. You hear the evangelists groaning on the front scene here? And they said this man must have some, Peter and John, why? Why they're the only fellows, everybody's bypassing the temple. I'd like to see a revival that bypasses organized religion. And I'm convinced it's going to come. I'm convinced before long God's going to spew the whole lot of us out of his mouth if we don't get the Holy Ghost upon us. As sure as that's my hand. That's what, that's what he did in the first day didn't he? He didn't go to the Sanhedrin. He didn't say to Nicodemus could you get me a bunch of friends there in the theological seminary, I nearly said cemetery, and get those boys to support my ministry. Jesus didn't say that. He just took some fishermen and he took a tax gatherer and a few other fellows and got them together. And when the Holy Ghost came, he didn't fall on the members of the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees with all their intellectual powers. He didn't come upon Caiaphas, the high priest, or Alexander, his brother-in-law, or the distinguished men of the day. He bypassed them. He took some men comparatively illiterate and filled them with the Holy Ghost. You know at the end of this amazing story, after these men had done the mighty things in the power of the Spirit of God, that the intellectuals got them together and they couldn't explain the whole thing. It was mystifying. They said well, well a notable miracle has been done. That man's been bunched up at the gate of the temple year after year after year after year and nothing happened to him. But something happened now that folks be very careful because you see these men that did it were unlearned and ignorant. Oh brother that gets under our skin these days doesn't it? I mean fancy being a preacher. I don't have a degree at all. People call me a doctor. I say don't call me doctor. My theology is not as sick as that. And these men they were just wonderful simple men and they believed God. Unlearned and ignorant. One of them is a fellow called Peter and he wrote two of the best sellers of all time, the first and second epistle. That's not bad for an ignorant man you know. More than you've done with your Ph.D. anyhow. Another fellow is a fellow named John and he wrote that marvelous gospel and then the first epistle, the second epistle and the third epistle and then for good value the ignorant man wrote the book of the revelation that baffles all the wise men. How do you like that for ignorance? No wonder it says they took knowledge of them. Not that they had been to a seminary, they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. Now I take that man who was crippled and distorted there and wretched at the gate of the temple. He was over 40 years of age. It says they carried him daily. Every day they picked him up and carried him to the temple, from the temple back home, twice a day, 365 days a year, 730 times a year. 23 or 4,000 times if he'd been there for 30 years and I guess he had. And Sturgeon it was who said he was carried but he was never cured. He was helped but he was never healed. Until one day these men came and Peter and John said look on us and he looked and Peter stretched forth his hand and he touched him and immediately he touched him the man felt as though 10,000 volts of electricity went through him. You see he not only saw the man in his need he got down and touched him in his need. We see the need but we don't get to it somehow. And immediately the power of the Spirit of God went into that man and every joint was unlocked and immediately he stood up and the crowd came round and they wanted to put a halo on and Peter said look not on us. I like that. When the man had a need he said look on us and when they wanted to give him some glory he said don't look on us as though by our power or our holiness we had made this man. This is not native to us, it's not natural to us, it's supernatural. You know every God-breed revival has done the same for this poor crippled world that Peter and John did for the man who was lame and helpless at the gate of the temple. Again I say there's a great difference. The church that is today is not the church that was. I said as I finish this morning you don't have to advertise a fire, you surely don't. I think our very advertising sometimes is an admission of our failure. After all you fellows go to go to Chicago I don't think you get the newspaper when you get there and see who the strip teasers are and the ballast shows on State Street do you? Well if you don't go and look through the flash pot list what makes you think that some old drunken sinner goes looking to see who's preaching in your town next Saturday? He couldn't care less. What sinner wants to find out who's the best preacher in town? No sir, but you let God the Holy Ghost breathe on some church where there are miracles and signs and wonders and brother you won't have room to stand up never mind get a seat. Now I used to think that the problem with this about these fellows in the New Testament here in the third chapter of Acts I used to think the problem was that but when they came toppling out of that upper room and the world pointed the finger and said these men are drunk I kind of figured that the the thing that got them persecuted was the fact that they spoke in tongues and for a long while I went along with that idea I don't think that that's true anymore. No that wasn't the reason they were in trouble with the authorities. I believe the reason that they were in trouble with the authorities is what was not even that they wrought a miracle on the man who had been there for 40 years in his helplessness surely the reason that they that the high priest and the rest of the gang were were mystified by Peter and John was this that when they saw the boldness of Peter and John you see these men before the day of Pentecost they were they were fear stricken but once the Holy Ghost came those men who had fear were no longer full of fear but it says that they were fearless the Holy Ghost came on them for something more than eloquence Peter was always eloquent the Holy Ghost came upon them for something more than joy why they said the sedentary return with great joy he came upon them for something more than miracle what miracle did they do after Pentecost that they didn't do before Pentecost can you tell me one I heard Oral Roberts the other Sunday give an elaborate description of how the Holy Ghost came upon him and this is he did all the miracles but I could have said all of my friend every miracle was done by the apostle before Pentecost never mind after Pentecost then they come running and say devils are subject to us we open the eyes of the blind we unplug the ears of the deaf everywhere we go the signs and miracles the spirit of the Lord is upon us I was more than to convince by mere miracle that something happened to these men in that upper room something shattered their nervousness something galvanized them into shock troops for Jesus Christ something blinded them to danger something deafened them to all the threats of the world something put them outside of the reach of bribes something gave them strength to strip their backs and have the flesh torn off and then at the top of it sing the doxology something enabled them to sing when they were destitute and afflicted and tormented something made them happy when they could wander around in sheepskins and goatskins something happened to men when prisons couldn't shake them and floggings couldn't break them and scourgings couldn't make them apologize these men were ostracized and criticized I reminded you this morning and remind you again because we forget it we kind of imagine they lived in our circumstances and they did not once they embraced the faith of Jesus Christ they were outcasts they were ostracized they were victimized they were penalized and yet somehow they were not only blessed they were buoyant they were men who were fasting and they were fighting they were condemned but they were committed they were common men but God made them uncommon by the Holy Ghost and I dare suggest to you this night in the midst of this stricken age in a day when the enemy has come in like a flood and all our organization can't keep him at bay there's only one answer and that is the Spirit of God will lift up a standard against him but he's got to find vehicles in which many can indwell for the Holy Ghost doesn't dwell in a temple made with hands if it costs 10 billion dollars he dwells in human personality yes sir these men were very different these apostolic men were known for their boldness and we are known for our coldness it says that when these men were preaching they were all amazed when we preach everybody's all amused it might be right to say that they were apostolic and I think we're almost apostate here is a man crippled and helpless I guess he'd been in a temple many times and he'd heard the priest stand up and say with great wonderful intonation of his voice and stalking his marvelous beard and holding his priestly garments that when he has come according to the prophecy the eyes of the blind shall be open and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped and the lame shall leap as a heart and the tongue of the dumb shall sing but as far as the man at the beautiful gate of the temple was concerned it was like giving a starving man a menu card you give him the menu card but you don't give him the meal I think in a lot of our churches these days we give them an elaborate menu card but we don't give them a meal somehow we talk but we don't transmit we speak the high saluting language of eternity but somehow it rings with the clay the vessel that occupies or controls instead of being controlled by the spirit of the living god they went up to the temple at the hour of prayer the crippled man looked up hoping hoping for something you see he was like a lot of us he asked for something he didn't need it says that he asked for arms you know ams but phonetically it sounds like these arms a little girl in sunday school said why did he ask for arms when he needed legs well i think by the same token i wonder sometimes where we pray you know if god answered some of our prayers we'd be the most earth we've got so used to praying without any answers it doesn't disturb us anymore most of our praying is giving god information anyhow you'd think he was as dumb as we are we tell him what our needs we give him a list of this and a list of that a list of the other it's just like giving him a shopping list and god's sick to death of hearing the whole lot it seems to me brethren we'll do anything except prostate ourselves in humiliation and admit our bankruptcy we're orthodox we're as sound as anybody could be but remember the book in the church in the book of the revelation jesus said that she came behind in no point of orthodoxy but she was dead and i'm not concerned that much about romanism tonight or liberalism as i said this morning i believe god almighty's problem in america tonight is not liberalism or romanism or communism but dead fundamentalism we know the language that we don't have the power of the spirit we talk about the holy spirit and think that we're doing him a favor by even mentioning his name i'm amazed how tricky the theologians can be you see you want the holy spirit in this dimension but not this dimension he can come this way but not that way he can bless us and lift us out of the red and and help us to get everything floated financially but please holy ghost please don't well i mean it would be nice if you would heal somebody it would be nice if you exercise your authority but but don't let anybody understand up in my meeting and speak in tongues because that'll go around this town like mad and they'll say we're pentecostal wouldn't that be awful you see you wouldn't be pentecostal really you'd just be biblical but we're so far from being biblical that we settle for anything these days now i'm not contending just for the gift of tongues but i'm telling you you can't have the holy ghost on the basis of your theology you can't have the holy ghost the way you he is sovereign and when he comes better he'll come as he wants to come he might fall on your church one day and you'll find people littered over the floor and they'll be unconscious hour after hour after hour after it happened amongst the stately dignified presbyterians away there in scotland duncan campbell told me as i mentioned this morning that in the first six months of the revival there he went to church at eight o'clock at night to preach and never left the house of god before four o'clock in the morning for the first six months of the revival they had all kinds of miracles but never once did anybody speak in tongues they had miracles of interpretation they had miracles of prophecy some night when he gave out the text people would just go back and put their hands up and look toward heaven and they'd be in that position four hours afterwards now you try holding your arms up for four hours without letting them down brother you'll be crippled but because the power of god was there they were gazing as it were into the very courts of heaven and then it were hour after hour after hour after hour and when they prayed towns and villages 20 and 30 miles away were affected by the power of the spirit oh i love to see people pray like that again brother some of our prayers didn't even hit the ceiling 40 miles away it's so energized in the flesh it's so much what we want instead of what god wants it's so stately and undignified it isn't punctuated with sobs it doesn't start with groans it has no sweat and no blood and no agony about it you can't have revival you can have preaching you can have blessing you can fill your church you can't have revival without it why did peter and john receive the holy ghost i believe because they met the conditions we mentioned this morning in the second chapter or the first chapter of joe where god says rend your hearts and not your garments there have been 40 days of walking along with god you know preacher if you packed up for the next 40 days and got 40 days in a cabin somewhere at the back of the desert you'll be a different man too and then when you gave god 10 days bonus to so you could wait and really get free of the holy ghost you'd never be the same man after that let me tell you here i'll tell you one night i've mentioned it before but it always thrills me just recently i got an invitation to go to south africa it's a country i've never preached in and when god leads i'll go the little colored man there in the town called durban just a little small black man uneducated illiterate and that precious mark one night he got so disturbed about his sin that he went into a church and it was a baptist church must have been quite good and uh he got saved you know not one of these sweet little things where you put your finger up or shake hands with the preacher or just sign a decision card no no no it wasn't that kind of thing at all the spirit of god came on him and he hit the altar and when he got up he was like john new onion's pilgrim the burden had loosed from off his shoulder and fallen from off his back and rolled in the empty sepulcher and when he went out he said to the preacher my this is wonderful and the preacher said could i do something for you he said yes give me a church the preacher said what did you say he said i said give me a church give you a church why he said i want everybody do you know he said something died in me when i was at that altar and something came to life and my burden has gone and i feel i'm a new teacher and i'm not the man i was when i went to the altar we don't get many conversions like that anymore we put a crown on people's head before they start in the race we offer them a mansion on the main street of glory before they sign any terms with god we suggested a few hot tears and an altar is a down payment on the most blessed experience for all eternity but he didn't get that kind of christianity thank god you know believe that one of the greatest needs in america today is a party of two or three men to go around and preach old-fashioned biblical regeneration we're trying to get people filled with the holy ghost or we're trying to get men to tarry in the upper room and they've never known to care for it we're offering them so much in a package deal there's nothing to do after they leave the altar five minutes after they've wept there the little fellow got up walked out of the church returned to the church five weeks after the preacher thought i've seen that little fellow before i wonder who he is and after the meeting he said i'm glad to see you could i help you and the man said yes yes yes you sure could he said i uh uh and the preacher thought now i've seen this fellow he's one of those awkward fellows that comes down again and what could i do for you he said uh would you like to give me a church i remember you now you you asked me that about five or six weeks ago didn't you and he said yes sir i did well he said you've only been in my church twice and each time you come you've asked me to make you the pastor of a church that's right he said well the preacher said there's nothing doing in any case what makes you you you say you never finished school and you haven't been to a bible school that was a great advantage but he didn't know that and and he'd never been brainwashed never got a schofield any hell he uh he he he hadn't had all the disadvantages of education spiritual education you see and the preacher said to him i'm sorry i can't do anything for you the little colored man looked at the white preacher and he said sir i haven't been in your church for over a month when you turn me down the first night i was converted i walked out of the city of durban i walked up the road i came to a forest i found a path in the forest the path led me to a stream i walked by the stream i found a hole in a rock and i put a mark on it and so for 21 days and 21 nights i never saw the face of a man i never heard the voice of a man but i saw the face of god and i heard the voice of god and i didn't let any food pass my lips but i drank water at the stream every day and i said lord you and i are gonna have this by the time i come out of this cave you either tell me i'm gonna be a preacher and i'm gonna preach till i die or you tell me that you haven't anointed me to preach now when a man does that he means business with god and not only that god means business with him the little colored man said i waited on my face 21 days and 21 nights didn't sleep too much ate nothing saw nobody's face heard nobody's voice but the voice of the lord said son i've called you to be my ambassador go preach the gospel i'm going to fill you with the holy spirit you're going to lay hands on the sick and they're going to be healed and he said sir god has met my need and i don't care whether you accept me or not god has told me i'm going to preach oh the preacher said now you hold off and you come back in about a week i i've got to see the deacons they're a real bunch to get by anyhow so he got to see the deacons and the deacons said well you know we've got a little church in shantytown it's only got five members and he's illiterate why he mangles his english and he doesn't know too much about interpreting the bible and you know if we give him that church they'll be so sick of him after two or three weeks they'll they'll all quit and come back to the mother church and we can close it down we'll have a good excuse and then we'll start all over again i walked into dr tozer's office one day had a piece of doggy that's why he writes i'll leave records of some of the most amazing prayers ever prayed in history you get like the atmosphere you're born in if you're born in a frivolous atmosphere you'll be frivolous all your life if you're spiritually born i mean spiritually born in deep piety you'll be deeply pious all your life so much depends on where we're born as somebody said if you're born in fire you'll never set off a smoke what's the command from the father from jesus rise stand upon my feet and listen if you stay on your knees before men you'll stand on your feet all your life i mean if you stay on your knees before god you'll be able to stand on your feet all your life i have appeared unto thee for this purpose to make thee a minister and you know what nobody else can make you a minister but god preaching really is not something that's taught it's caught you can have a colossal mind vocabulary rich illustrations all the rest of things won't make you a minister hmm i have appeared unto thee for this purpose a witness both of the things which thou has seen and of the things which while will i appear unto thee you know this this marvelous man never boasts he could have said i'm number one missionary i've traveled to more countries anybody i'm number one theologian i've given more theology i'm number one writer i've written more epistles 14 if you include uh hebrews which i think he wrote my richest gain i count but loss again sometimes do you remember another phrase of his which i think is very wonderful he says forgetting those things which are behind now notice what he says he doesn't say forgetting the bad things sometimes the good things are a big encumbrance to us it's a syllogism if you want to a little phrase keep it in your mind very often the christian life the good things are the enemy of the best you haven't done anything that's wrong this week but the best things you'll miss them you were doing something that was nice and innocent and sweet but wait a minute you missed the ball of gold while you're preoccupied with that thing again you see the preacher doesn't have to go to bed at night when the bell rings he doesn't have to get up when the bell rings we're talking about books here there's a book by a man called william gouge g-o-u-g-e it's published by creagles ask your grandmother to buy it for you for christmas cost you 30 dollars 36 dollars it's 1140 pages it was written in what 1640 i think it's just the epistle to hebrews it's about so thick it's like a big old family bible for 36 dollars that man preached in an area of london called blackfriars just like you go to new york and you have queens over here and never saw any queens around lived in a dirty old place called brooklyn for three years when teen challenge was just starting this man lived in blackfriars london and for 32 years every tuesday night he preached on hebrews the average preacher in town can get through it in one night it's amazing he could stick in that book for 32 years the most amazing thing to me is this he finished his private devotions by two o'clock in the morning almost all those men john wesley john fletcher you name them almost all of them had their devotions between four o'clock and five o'clock in got barnes there one of barnes's commentary he wrote those commentaries or commentaries whatever you want to call them between five o'clock in the morning and eight o'clock i have no argument with barnes he does pretty good you see the bible is so vast there's no man can be a good expositor of the whole bible it's like trying to cross the ocean in a rowing boat boat boat all coming down mount shasta on a skateboard pretty difficult the thing is find out which is the best book on best right on every book gouge i would say is the best on hebrews you could read read arthur pink on on quite a lot i don't know how many books he wrote i may be out for 20 of these i don't know but if i were giving a tip on preaching i'd say this when you get a text in your mind don't stack your desk up with you know matthew henry here and barnes here and ellie card here and somebody there forget it you'll stultify your own thinking go to them as a last resort not as a first resort you know the amazing i look like my library someone's admiring it today i said well it's not that big i've given two three libraries away the one i have isn't too big now not that i've read everything in it but i'm challenged when i look at them and say you know all those men that wrote they didn't write on what were you saying you used today you think you tie it with a word no word processor you think of barnes writing 40 volumes from genesis to revelation longhand and not even a ballpoint writing like my dad used to write sometimes with a quill a goose feather you have to split it dip it in the ink and lift it and then you've got it all the ink all over the page and start it all over again i tried it a few times horrible now guys sit down on a wordpress and a winky was saying before he went to new zealand he went up to last days and he sat down in the office there and typed and it came out on a machine up at bethany isn't that magic it's evil it must be fantastic it must be evil i can't use one but you know again with all these gimmicks and gadgets we're not producing anything better in fact we're not producing anything near those guys one book i guess you've got that book of alexander white's did your bible characters joe you didn't you naughty boy i told you to get it last time you were out of that out at that book place those are the greatest characters ever written just fantastic bible characters by alexander white that's w h y t e he's an illegitimate child nobody wanted him he became the greatest preacher in scotland maybe they never surpassed him you see if you keep looking at your resources you'll be disgusted if you look inside you'll be discouraged if you look outside at the world it's a disaster the only way to is to look up it's glorious everything has death and despair in it this is the best summary i have appeared unto thee for this purpose to make thee a minister how long does it take oh i remember when i came from the little college i went to somebody said you know you need to read the m bounds so i got a copy of the m bounds famous american writer read the first page get up why do you throw him on one side because he said it takes 20 years for god to make a minister i said that was the old way i mean i've just come out of college there are no spurgeons risen from the dead as soon as i go and preach somebody will say well spurgeons are possibly here look at this young fella but i found out he's right you were born with disposition two young ladies there are you twins i thought so you see how observant i am but you differ in your dispositions is that right sure there you are disposition is something we're born with character is something that we built you build your correct character out of knowledge out of convictions in fact it's a it's a word not used much these dear old ladies with gray hair remember used to say about somebody in a church oh he's a character you don't say that anymore what do you say oh she has a marvelous personality that's seven o'clock at night see her at seven o'clock in the morning before she gets all the war paint on and see what she looks like oh she's gorgeous at seven o'clock ten o'clock it's all gone down the sink she looks aside at freak that right character is what i build i build it on convictions i build it from revelation from god disposition you can conquer it little by little you can get it under control but character is something really under god that gets me under control i've appeared to thee for this purpose oh let me see here the thing i i want to make you a minister a witness of the things which thou has seen and and those which i will appear unto thee do you think he when he got up from the damascus road and brushed his britches or whatever he's wearing do you ever think he thought he'd be caught up to the third heaven he never wrote a book on it it would have been the best i'm sure his whole business is to magnify christ not project paul he'll tell you that people say he's a babbler he was maybe the greatest theologian that ever lived but he surely wasn't a great speaker apollos was a speaker of the early church remember people divided up in corinth i'm of paul i'm of polis i'm of keefus paul oh boy he has a staggering colossal intellect i'm of apollos boy he plays on me like playing oh something makes me shiver up and down my back when he's talking i get vibrations and sweat and yeah oh well i like peter you see he's the only one of the three that walk with jesus he lived with him for three years and they got tied up in men excuse me i've appeared unto thee for this purpose to make thee a minister what's the next thing under witness no man should be allowed to be a minister if he can't witness i go into men's offices i see hey this man was ordained in 1943 or something and then from there he went to yale and studied something then from where he went to bruceburg in germany and studied some hebrew and greek and oh boy he's got more diplomas than a psychiatrist in fact i was in an office in canada i saw that this fantastic display in beautiful frames of this young man from his high school diploma to his college diploma to bible school diploma to seminary diploma to studying in some foreign country and the janitor said what are you looking at i said oh those rollings oh he's a super brilliant man i said i what time do you come here in the morning oh i usually open this office at eight o'clock i said i guess when the devil peeps in he runs away he said you know those diplomas terrify me he said what i said don't you think the devil's scared to death when he sees a man loaded with wisdom and scholarship and greek and hebrew never thought of it like that i said well don't bother because it doesn't scare him a bit i know little hebrew he used to repair my slacks in brooklyn i know little greek i used to park my car in his parking lot on eighth avenue in new york and i can say alpha beta gamma delta and go through you know the greek vocabulary so what no not despising scholarship but now it's become a number one most important thing talk with a young man this week that wants to go to bolivia he's applied to four different mission societies what did it tell him oh you need to get more training you need to get more scholarship you need to get back into school for three or four years can't do that my heart's burning this is the commission to the preacher i've appeared to thee for this purpose to make thee a minister and a witness here's a simple thing stick it in your mind keep it write it down if you can't remember it a man or a woman with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument if it's happened in your life demons devils psychologists doesn't matter who they are if god has done a miracle in your life god witnesses with your spirit it doesn't matter what men say they'll never shift you you'll do as it says here you'll stand on your feet those things in which i will appear unto thee again he never thought to be caught up into the third heaven he never thought he'd go on those missionary journeys and accomplish all he did he never thought that demons one day would cry out when a preacher was kicking them around do you remember what they said they said the greatest thing that can be said this side of eternity the demons looked at the men that were trying to cast them out and they said jesus we know and paul we know do you think there's any honor greater than that in the world if the devil has a list of the 10 most wanted men in america i hope i'm on that list i'd rather be the last on the list of the 10 most wanted men that be the first is one of the great preachers of the country which i'm not but if i was i'd still prefer to be on the devil's danger list i don't believe the devil was ever comfortable while paul was living i think he gave the demons all a half day off when paul died never see anybody like him again fanatic making the minister of under witness both of the things which thou hast seen now you may have learned a lot since you came here but wait a minute brother you got years ahead if jesus tarry's i remember when i left school boy was i boiling i was boiling to get out and preach there's a city over there called bristol there's a city here called london there's a city up there called newcastle john wesley used to saddle his horse in bristol right to london right from london to newcastle but i didn't have a horse another car another bicycle so i walked it well england's not a big country well you try walking 400 miles you'll find it's pretty rough and then walked it back and then walked it again stopped in villages had meetings just took sleeping bags knock on the door of a country church could we sleep in your church we've got sleeping bags where are you from cliff college oh i've heard of cliff college yeah that'd be all right or no sometimes they turned us out in the rain i enjoyed every minute of it sometimes we couldn't get anywhere so we had a cart and we had a belt end in it when there's old army belt ends and we stuck it up somewhere and slept in that we got washed out many times blown down all the rest so what what about paul in weirdness in fastings in painfulness in perils of the deep in perils of mine own countrymen in perils of robbers and it make you feel pretty sheltered somebody there's a there's a rock outside off the coast of abedin there it's a rock i guess as big as this room in the sea and it has a tower there the tower has grills you know grills bars there they put an old saint in there in fact i think it was some samuel rutherford who left a diary from which was extracted that great hymn the sands of time are sinking nobody had seen him for weeks for months well he was pretty yellow when they got in pale the sea beat on that rock from the north sea one of the angriest seas in the world and he would splash up and come through that iron grill and soak him the food was rotten there he was a preacher went to see him and said well uh how are you feeling well he said i'm feeling all right are you in good shape he said well maybe not too good physically but spiritually i'm great there's one thing that's just one thing that's troubling me well what is it brother rutherford he said god has offered me no challenges since i came here they've been in prison without any food and a blanket to cover him the spray cold spray comes in cakes his face with salt can't keep his things dry hasn't got one single creature comfort and yet he's rejoicing as much as the apostle paul ever rejoiced i have appeared unto thee what just so you can say oh i saw jesus personally no i've got more than that in mind i've appeared unto thee for this purpose to make thee a minister testify a witness of the things which you've seen and heard and which will i reveal unto thee now listen delivering thee from the people you know there are more traps for preachers than anybody else i remember a church where i was raised just where i went to college we had a touch of revival there there was a lady with a lot of money one of the four men that came up with the revival team he got very friendly with this lady not in her own way but she'd money later he became the pastor in that church married a couple of years after they had a child they have those big boat-shaped prambulators you know that they push babies around him all he had to do was whisper that he needed something that woman paid every bill that that man had he could ask anything he got it what did it do weakened him he didn't lean on god he lent on the woman he ended up in distress not morally spiritually delivering thee from the people and from the gentiles unto whom now i send thee now here's what the ministry is to open their eyes you know it's something to look out on i preached in a church a while ago 3 000 people in that church just a gorgeous church one of the greatest preachers in america oh i have maybe 45 doctors in my congregation and uh i'm sure with at least 30 lawyers businessmen so i'm looking at that crowd of 3 000 and close circuit downstairs tv with another seven or eight hundred in saying to myself i wonder how many of these men that look so smart and sharp in their lovely suits and these women how many of them are blind their eyes have never been open and the ministry as ambassadors of light it's our job to open their eyes and then it's backed up with something tremendous here open their eyes to turn them from darkness to light a bit deeper now and from the power of satan unto god what a mandate nobody from it nobody else has this mandate brother joe this is my challenge every time i stand in the pulpit wherever i stand father we thank you so much for this opportunity that we've experienced tonight oh god lord we're so thankful for the the years uh and lord not only the years but the depth of of uh knowing you that our brother ravenhill represents tonight lord i pray that in some way that we will have put into our spirit just the seeds of of the making of a man of god lord that you would put into our spirits this night lord the importance of the anointing the importance of preparation as a spiritual man lord god that we will realize that there is a vast knowledge of jesus christ that is available to us and that there are many that have gone before us and they have written things down oh lord lord that has been recorded but i pray oh god that we really hope that this teaching has ministered to you and in some way drawn you closer to our lord jesus next embrace god has nothing to add and he says if anybody adds to the book he'll add the plague and if anybody takes away they're going to be in a serious situation and i say again it to me an awesome thing that if the world does last another 2 000 years which i'm quite sure it won't not in the present setup god has nothing more to say to mankind he's said it all what more can he say than to you he has said i remember walking into dr tolson's office and it was i think maybe the most unique privilege of my life to talk to him on many occasions just the two of us alone and i remember when i walked in this particular day he said len lock the door and let your hair down you know relax and he said this very wonderful disturbing challenging thing he said in all then not many of us are going to look god straight in the face at the judgment seat most of us will hang our head and he said i i'm not too troubled about the things that i've done but i have to answer for it's the things i could have done that trouble me if i'd been more alive in god you know it's true of all of us and christians anywhere that you are just as spiritual as you want to be the proper's in your own hand you can talk all you like about being sanctified and our baptisms of the holy ghost and all very wonderful but the holy ghost won't drag you out to bed at four o'clock in the morning and make you pray even if you're getting overweight he won't push you from the table and make you fast the proper's in your hand you're as spiritual as you want to be it's equally awesome to me to realize that no man that ever lived ever had a greater bible than i have you can think of finney brilliant lawyer preacher spurgeon it isn't amazing that spurgeon was saved at 15 he never went to bible school and by the time he was 19 they had to build an auditorium that seated 5 000 and he filled it twice every sunday at 19 years of age without any bible school training some ladies in the church i passed had asked me to go see their mother she was a beautiful character she looked like whistler's mother she sat in a high carved chair and she had a little lace thing on top of her head and a lace collar and a footstool she was the very essence of dignity when i went in i just bowed and said well i'm very privileged to see you she was 95 years of age and she said you know my daughter's come home on a sunday night so excited and and they tried to re-preach your sermon you preached a long while about all she knew but anyhow i said that's right and she said you know you remind me so much of sturgeon you you must preach like sturgeon i said now look lady thank you for the compliment but i'm sure sturgeon was a million miles ahead of myself uh and then i said did did you ever hear sturgeon oh many times many times she said she used to go to london to buy things in the spring we went on thursday bought on friday toured the city on saturday and went to spurs and stabbed knife on sunday he was amazing he said he would come in and say something and people would be smiling and and maybe bring tears to your eyes and you'd rub the tears away and the next thing is still the voice was way up there in eternity lifting the congregation into the presence of god i think one of the things that does disturb in america is that there's very little pulpit praying sturgeon will let anybody pray in his meeting he didn't say deacon so-and-so johnny brown he said it was more important to prepare what you're going to pray about than what you're going to preach so very often the prayer is the same bow your head thank lord lord thank you ahead this morning bless the choir of 18 and the offering and help us with the building front and thank you for all the blessings and that's it you've got three problems with the congregation one is to get them there physically the second is to get them there mentally the third is to get them into the presence of god we're so attacked to springs and all other things from the dirty world that we've been in for a week that it's difficult you usually don't get people there about 5 to 12 then they're looking at the watches and want to get home to watch the rams play the goats in the afternoon hebrews 11 as we said yesterday is an awesome chapter and the thing that really fakes me about it is that while they subdued kingdoms and wrought righteousness and obtained promises and stopped the mouths of lions and did all the fancy fantastic things they did by faith not one of them ever had a bible i say again the only only proof you have that you're in deadline with the new testament if you say we're in the apostolic success and there's only one way to prove it that is our apostolic success and then it's irrefutable hebrews 11 24 times in that chapter faith is mentioned it's mentioned 32 times in the epistle it's mentioned over 300 maybe about 330 times in the new testament only twice in the whole of the old testament because again they didn't find articles of faith like we do to join a church they acted in faith i looked for a book for about 30 years i got it fairly recently called the possibilities of drake written i think by a mazarin preacher well isn't this what it's all about you were in the church not too long ago and the pastor said to me you see that fine looking man over there with a balding head and nice yeah yeah yeah he's worth three quarters of a billion dollars see the man on the left president of the national bank see the man over there one of the biggest lances in the district what's that got to do with spirituality you'd almost imagine that because um fat boon or somebody gets the baptism they give god some festive god isn't looking for festive sometimes i wish i could shout from the housetop god is not looking for sponsors maybe a tv man all god is looking for is men who have culturally abandoned to his will and for those of us to move up in simple faith to really really exercising this remarkable thing called faith which again as i said yesterday has been so abused faith can do anything that's nonsense it can't you can only do what god wants if faith can do anything why don't you get a group of preachers together let them fast a week and believe god and for the devil to get saved that'd clear a lot of mess up wouldn't it nobody has faith to believe that why don't we pray the lord would raise up raise up sturgeon and a few of the great saints but he doesn't do it that way you can have all the faith in the world and pray and have hands laid on you and do anything else you like and if you're 70 years of age you won't wake up 25 years of age tomorrow morning there are certain things that faith can do there are certain things that faith cannot do now we said yesterday again that the epistles of the hebrews is really an exposition of the wilderness journey of the children of israel and uh the book of stone the marvelous dealing of god dealings of god with israel i i think if i can use this language and understand one of the heartbreaks of god must be the the slowness by which we mature spiritually i'm not talking about a lot of head knowledge i'm talking whether you know greek or hebrew or you can explain and give me the structure of the epistles of romans or something else i'm talking about our personal relationship our personal development in spirituality remember in the uh ezekiel is the is the is the prophet of um of degrees everything's done a little at a time you know and as i said the other day i do believe in instant purity because there are no degrees of purity i think it's pure or impure there are no degrees of purity i believe in instant purity i do not believe in instant maturity listen there isn't a man on god's earth at night now and i don't care whose name you name there isn't a man that's yet arrived spiritually there's still more land ahead for all of us to possess i don't care what miracles you've seen i don't care what faith you've operated there's still so much territory as he said yesterday the children of israel could have got out of they could have got out of egypt into the promised land in about 10 or 11 days it took them 40 years why hebrews explains why because they um they entered not in because of unbelief now hebrews 11 the key word is faith the key to me to hebrews totally is hebrews 11 6 he that cometh to god must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him no of them that diligently seek him remember the woman that lost the piece of silver she didn't seek for it she thought diligently she thought with urgency she must recover it and god never encourages laziness sometimes i think pastors are about the laziest people in the world you see they don't have to get up for a certain time they don't have to bed they can go to bed when they want that is if they're just pastors if they're disciples they can't we tell people who come to the altar you're saved your name's written in heaven you're going to have a five-decker crown you're going to have a free ticket to the marriage supper of the lamb and a free mansion on main street and oh we put all the blessings and they're not all true either but why don't we tell them the other side of the coin if you've really been redeemed if you've been bought by the christ if he's redeemed you from your sin if he's come to take possession of your personality one aspect of this thing is you're a soldier of jesus christ and a soldier has no right you can't find me one man in history inside or outside of the church who has been a success in any particular sphere who has not been a disciplinarian not one john wesley was contemporary with some of the greatest figures in history and one day one evening he took supper with dr johnson one of the most famous men in literature they had what wesley had a weakness for partridge pie and after they'd eaten and they talked a while wesley got a little disturbed and he said i well i shall have to go go go well they hadn't risked what the old doctor lifted out that great big turnip that he had and looked he said why man it's only a few minutes to nine o'clock fold your legs under the table take it easy let's talk oh wesley said i have an appointment in the morning at four o'clock four o'clock who are you going to meet in the morning at four o'clock god he said meeting every morning at four o'clock if you only buy one book out there buy a treasury of prayer dr e.m bounce one of the great characters in american history one of the greatest prayer men of prayer his daughter used to write to me and she said brother rayville my daddy normally rose at four o'clock in the morning for the main part of his life but as he got older he rose at three o'clock why some of you had just finished seeing johnny cartman at that time or a night show or something yes wesley rose at four o'clock the m bounds was at four o'clock john fletcher rose at four o'clock robert mary mitchell who is a is the opposite number in english history to your very marvelous in fact one of the most unsurpassed men in american history who died at the ripe old age of 29 david brainerd rose before sunlight the founder of the chandler inman mission dr hudson taylor said the sun never rose to find me in bed books can be a curse as well as a blessing they become crutches for him that talks about certain things being guides and not our chains and sometimes we reach for a book it stirs it and we get an outline we copy what somebody else says and we take some second-hand theology and second-hand thinking to people who possibly read the book before you did and said he hasn't gotten it this is the greatest unexplored thing i was going to say shall we say error in the whole world after all did did god finish his production did he close the assembly line if you want to put it that way did he did he finish with great men when he finished with wesley and finley and booze and spurgeon and a few other fellows there do we have to relax and say well of course they're not living in those days god doesn't do that anymore i think there are some of the greatest men ever on in the earth today the only thing that holds america together certainly isn't the church it's some godly man in it i told you the other day i know a man in this country is very sick right now maybe dying he's 90 years of age he hasn't been to bed one night for the last 30 years prayed every night from 10 o'clock at night till five or six in the morning by himself that's tremendous burdens for different areas of the country or different parts of the world no woman in chicago looks after a sick mother but she prays five hours a day no little man in canada who's even lived in a tent through seven winters up there in his last letter he told me he said they laid me out for the third time sent for the relatives and said well he is dying this time i know he fooled us twice before but he can't survive he gets so weak with fasting and prayer they find him frustrated enough to lift him into bed and and give him attention like a newborn child and he carries such burden he sweats and he groans now he's pretty heavy he weighs about 95 pounds you see we read about brainerd 200 years ago we read about these other men and think think god somehow doesn't produce men the great men never strut on tv that's what placed the dwarf the men with the greatest most profound knowledge of god and spirituality are men who are heading away and i say again it's a slow business growth true growth in grace is really really really a slow business when i first read em bounds i read him in the few days i did go to bible college and and when he said in his book power through prayer it takes 20 years to make a sermon because it makes takes god 20 years to make a man i thought well i'm not that serious after the winter when i get out of this place they'll think virgin risen from the dead nobody's ever thought it but that one old woman and she was too old to really understand but i'm saying that to say this you see that there are that we've got to explore this book and i told you that that hebrews 12 is corrected as god god is never wrong as you know and we're moving into a bottleneck in history that's mentioned in hebrews 12 where it says that everything that can be shaken will be shaken that the kingdom that cannot be shaken may remain god is going to shake every system in the world like our financial system is like that right now economically we're struggling morally we're broken up everything is being shaken just so that god can honor his son and show the kingdom that cannot be shaken will remain now this epistle is not addressed as you know like the epistle to the you say it doesn't carry a title oh yeah yes it does as i said yesterday this this epistle has not one word to say to lost people and listen there isn't an epistle in the whole bible that i have after the acts of the apostles the whole balance of the new testament is is to the church correction to the church ministry to the church if you read the first five books of the bible genesis exodus leviticus numbers deuteronomy deuteronomy is a recap of the other four books if you take the five books of psalms which there are five books in psalms the fifth is a recap of the other four if you take the new testament matthew mark luke and john and then you come to act what is that the book of acts is the church doing everything that jesus did and until she does that she's not a healthy church the apostle paul did everything that jesus did didn't he and the world doesn't have to believe us because we stand up here and denounce this and denounce that and denounce something else isn't amazing that in his day jesus never made any reference to the system of slavery that was crippling the world under the roman empire isn't amazing that paul never said well there's a new caesar come on the throne and he's more diabolical than the previous season they never bothered with those things like we did they presented jesus christ as the answer to the problem tell you again you see paul he was born in where he was born in the historic capital of the world tartus he ended in a military capital of the world rome in between he went to the religious capital of the world jerusalem he went to the immoral capital of the world which was corinth he went to the intellectual capital of the world which was athens and he said he was all things to all men and he was whatever you can find it i'm going to let me have it there's a poem written somewhere in the 1800s by um f w h myers m y e r s it's pointless i thought i found a good version just recently it has 72 standards and it had the five standards i wanted were not in it and all it's called is st paul it's one of the most dramatic things ever written outside of the bible one phrase of it says this then with a rush the intolerable craving shivers throughout me like a trumpet call all to save these and perish for their saving to die for their life and be offered for them all he talked about the world gazing at the cross with an empty wonder consumed with emptiness when you think of the majesty of god when you think of the enormity of the gospel how in the world can we present a gospel that people can go to sleep while we preach it should be the most dynamic revolutionary thing the old crakers used to say that a man is his own atmosphere just as though you had a a cup here of boiling water and if you take tea in it well it will make tea if you put coffee in it makes coffee if you put beef essence you get some hot soup kind of thing by the same token they said if the man is charged with god he'll charge the atmosphere of course the same people said the preacher has to give one whole day tuesday when he doesn't see any faith not even his wife he shuts himself away to listen to god and he spends the whole day with god getting his sermon for sunday then he spends all day saturday playing golf no they said he played all day saturday he was alone to prepare the man to deliver the prepared sermon and then on sunday he wasn't accessible because he came into the charged with god he'd been in the presence of god so much he was so overflowing that there was such a tremendous overspend so three days a week he wasn't accessible as i said the other night to the preachers if you're a preacher you have only two things to do not bury the dead not go visit the sick you've two things to do if you're going to stay by the new testament all you have to do is give yourself continually to prayer and the word of god now if you push the sickness visitation on the elders and other things on the elders and go play golf they shall fire you actually if you're going to be truly a new testament preacher if you're going to be a true testament follower in that sense act chapter six says you've only two things to do i went to a certain church it is a pastor they laid down certain conditions offered to buy me a new house very good things very good very good now i said here are my conditions number one we abolish offering no right to take collections from drunkards and thieves and other people god's people should support my house number two we're going to have a half night of prayer in this church every friday night number three you elders you're going to visit the sick that's his job according to new testament not my job act six says are two things to do only as a preacher that is give myself continually to this word of god and to prayer you do the rest in the church is not my obligation you can't find a great preacher that ever take around drinking tea with women and running to hospitals here there and everywhere in fact the priest who told me in new york in one of the very fine old churches there he said i'd kill myself in this city because one hospital is 20 miles this way outside of the city and the other is 15 miles and if i drive through i takes all the afternoon if i get the subway i have to fight my way out and i'm killing myself chasing people if church went down down down down and like that till he left it embarrassed i'm saying again this book nobody ever had a bigger bible than you have maybe they used it better and that applies to me as well nobody ever had a private way a backstair up to god there's only one way nobody ever had any more anointing of the holy spirit than you if you really desire that anointing whether you preach in the pulpit or sit in the pew a teacher's understood that as i meditated this morning i i remember a friend who said you know i i wouldn't like to inherit a million dollars i wouldn't know what to do with it now god says he not only gave jesus christ but with him he has freely given us all things what are we doing with it again i tell you this again because i want to drive it like a nail in a sure place but god has nothing more to say to humanity he finished talking 2 000 years ago and we haven't caught up with him yet