In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of the ministry, which is to turn people from darkness to life and from the power of Satan to God. He references Paul's testimony before King Agrippa in Acts 26 and encourages preachers and missionaries to read this chapter regularly. The preacher also discusses the story of Joseph and how he was falsely accused but had evidence of his innocence. He highlights the difficulty of judging others and the importance of not misjudging. The sermon concludes with a reminder of the believers' inheritance in heaven, which is incorruptible and reserved for them, and the power of God that keeps them. The preacher also mentions a miniature Bible carried by the Apollo 15 astronauts and reflects on the wonder of the earth hanging in space. He challenges the idea that sin is necessary and encourages believers to live without sin.

We come with gratitude and thanksgiving to offer our praise to Thee. Though Thou art so, though Thou art so holy, Heaven's Almighty King, Thou wilt stoop to listen when Thy praise we sing. We thank You, Lord, in the language of Isaac Watts when he said, The hill of Zion yields a thousand sacred sweets before we reach the heavenly fields or walk the golden streets. Lord, we thank You we have a peace this world knows nothing about, a peace that passeth understanding. We thank You we have a joy that's impervious to anything at all because our Lord Jesus said, Your joy no man taketh it from you. Lord, I don't believe the devil can take it from us. Men cannot take it from us. Circumstances cannot take it from us. If we yield it, we yield it. Just as we so often say, people have lost their first love. Your word says they left their first love. They made a deliberate choice. And Lord, we deliberately choose tonight to worship You in spirit and in truth. We would challenge, if we could, the very angel and the cherubim and the seraphim that bow down before Thee. Lord, we think how they bow down and we stand up. We should bow too. We think of how they veil their faces because they cannot gaze You, they cannot bear Your gaze upon them. And they look through the filter of their wings because they cannot gaze to look on Your majesty and they cannot bear You to look on them in their insufficiency. Lord, we bless You. You're a miracle-working God. You brought us out of darkness into Your most marvelous light. We thank You we're not in bondage to sin and Satan anymore. We thank You for the great Emancipator, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I do not wonder, Lord, that Wesley cried, O that the world might taste and see the riches of His grace, the arms of love that compass me would all mankind embrace. We think of that scholar, that gentleman, that brilliant cultured man there in Oxford. When he wrote that lovely hymn, Can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood? Died He for me who caused His pain? For me who Him to death pursued? Amazing love! How can it be that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me? We marvel, He left His Father's throne above, so free, so infinite is grace, emptied Himself of all that love, and bled for Adam's helpless race. We thank You, Father, that You didn't choose the wise and the great and the famous and the rich, but You opened Your arms so wide and said, even there in that crowded, on the last day of the feast, that whosoever will may come. And we thank You that Paul stretches that out in his epistle when he says, If any man be in Christ. Lord, we thank You there's no such word as hopelessness in the Gospel message, that whosoever will may come, if they repent, if they'll turn their backs on sin, forsake that old way. We thank You for the grace that has begun in our hearts, but Lord, we ask You that You'll continue that grace. We've sung it so often, O to grace, how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be. Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter bind my yielded heart to Thee. Thine I am, O Lord, forever, for Thy service set apart. Suffer me to leave Thee never. Reign and rule within my heart. Lord, we thank You we don't sing any more prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it. We don't want to go away. We want to draw nearer. We want to get closer, closer, closer to Yourself. Let's sing the chorus. Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord, to the cross where Thou hast died. I am Thine, O Lord. I am Thine, O Lord. I have heard Thy voice. But I long to rise. But I long to rise in the arms of faith and be closer drawn nearer. Amen. Be seated, please. Good to see you tonight. David will be speaking next Friday night and then he's going back to New Zealand and hopefully come back later in the fall. So you have to put up with the old man tonight and the young man, the new man next week. Some of you live with the old man all the time. That's your fault. Let's look at the epistle. First epistle of Peter, the first chapter. I want to gather some thoughts around the 15th verse. But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. Charles West has a hymn in which he says, To perfect health, restore my soul. To perfect holiness and love. And holiness actually is spiritual health. Spiritual health without contamination, without the disease of sin. To perfect health, restore my soul. I think one of the tragedies with modern Christianity is that we're more afraid of holiness than we are of sinfulness. You can tolerate sin, but boy, we get up our hackles and feathers work when they say, when they talk about holiness. We talked a couple of weeks ago of the first part of this chapter. In the first verse, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. We talked about Peter being so vocal and volatile. Again, he spoke more to Jesus than all the other disciples put together. Conversely, Jesus spoke to him more than he spoke to all the other disciples put together. He always spoke whether it was in order or out of order. Have you ever done that? Maybe you haven't. But he blundered along anyhow, but finally he finished up in victory. Then we have what? I'll skip the second verse. You can see Brother John about that as you go out. He likes according to the foreknowledge of God. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Sir Ambrose Fleming said that was the best attested fact in history, the resurrection of Jesus. Hundreds of books have been written against it. One of the modern ones was written by Jack Morrison, not our Jack Morrison. He set off to prove there was no resurrection and he wrote the best book, modern book. You've seen that book? Who Rolled Away the Stone. It's a fabulous book if you can find it. I think it's reprinted now. Who Rolled Away the Stone. You know Christianity could have been destroyed the first day. All they had to do was produce the body anyhow and there would have been no Christianity. They didn't have to bribe and tell lies and so forth and so on. But anyhow, you don't look too cheerful. Let me give you something cheerful here. It's begotten us to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. To what? To an inheritance. What kind of an inheritance? Incorruptible, which means beyond the reach of death. Undefiled, which means beyond the reach of sin. That fadeth not away beyond the reach of time. Why, good night. If you weren't all Quakers, you'd have said hallelujah at least. Thank you. It's a lame one. Pretty lame hallelujah, but anyhow. How many of you are from YWAM? No. You young ladies, where are you from? Have you been before? You're from here? The new class. Good. Well, you have an appointment every Friday night here at half past seven. An inheritance, incorruptible. You know, Paul finishing his magnificent testimony before Agrippa at the end of the 26th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. I think every preacher or missionary should read that chapter every week at least once. Called to the ministry. What's the ministry? To turn people from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in me. I was thinking again today about that where Paul speaks, what, in the fourth chapter of Hebrews. He speaks about there remaineth a rest for the people of God. How many people have it? It's the most restless age in the world. The first preaching of Jesus was Matthew 11, 28. Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Then you have to cross a bridge. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me and ye shall find rest. How do you need rest if you've got rest? I will give you rest. But you don't get true rest until you yoke up with him. Take my yoke and learn of me and ye shall find rest. The children of Israel didn't find rest. They got one rest when they got out of Egypt. They weren't slaves. They didn't have to make the same bricks. Nobody whipped their backs. But they didn't get through to the promised land. They could have got it in 11 days. They didn't get there for 40 years. Then only two of them got in. We used to sing a hymn in the old days as you know. Come over in the wilderness so faint. Come over from the wilderness, O fainting soul. Come over into Canaan's land where the grapes of ash will grow and the milk and honey flow. The Bible talks of a land flowing with milk and honey. America is a land flowing with mink and money. And still we're poor. Go in and possess the land. That was the work of Joshua as David spoke about the other day. How many people are only halfway? There's a halting place. The church has got stuck somewhere between the resurrection and Pentecost. That's her trouble. She's never gone to possess her possessions. We're keeping up a formula. We're keeping us... More preachers are fighting to keep their congregations together than to fill the kingdom of Jesus Christ. We've lost sight of that. Well, now let me go on here. To an inheritance incorruptible. Verse 4. Undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. For who? Who are kept by the power of God. Do you remember what I said the other day? I showed you, I think I showed you a miniature Bible. I have an inch and a quarter by an inch and a quarter. Every word of the Bible is on it. It's a micro microfilm of the whole Bible. 750,000 words. And at the bottom it says this Bible was carried on by the Apollo team. Apollo 15 of astronauts. They sent it me from NASA. One of the astronauts slipped it in his pocket and walked on the moon. This Bible was on the moon. I treasure it. But he said, we look at the moon, it hangs on nothing, doesn't it? It's just a circle in the sky, a ball. He said the amazing thing was to look at the earth hanging on nothing. Well, dear Lord, did we spend billions of dollars to find that out? Job 26 says he hangs the world on nothing. You know, these people in government are stupid, as you know. They made rockets costing billions of dollars and shot them up. I could have produced them better than that. I'd have produced one and sent it to Japan. They make them so cheap, you'd be buying them in Kmart. But he said to look down and see the world was just a ball rolling in space. He hangs the world on nothing. Yet if you tell someone you can live without sin every day, they say you're crazy. Well, if you have to sin every day in God's name, put a list at the entrance of the church. Our young people are more stupefied than any young people in history. Tell them what sins they can commit, what sins they can't commit. We don't have to sin. You don't sin because you have to, you sin because you want to. One man sins to get drunk, another man sins to gamble. We've turned everyone to his own way, and that way gets worse, and he gets further and further away from God. He hangs the world upon nothing. Quickly, the preachers sometimes tease me because, you know, I talk about fishing too much. Well, I fished once or twice, fished in the Bahamas. I got a fish and I told you about this, this length. Anyhow, it did weigh 34 pounds, and we had the cook cook it for us, and they gave me the first slice because we're sitting at this elaborate table. The preacher got it. No, I didn't like it. Did you put salt on it? Salt? Why, all the salt bought in America comes from off the coast there in in the Bahamas, Nassau. It's the saltiest salt water in the world. That fish had been living in that water. It's this length. It was about 20 years old, and yet I have to put salt on it. Its skin is about as thick as this paper, whatever paper this is anyhow. That's a terrible thing, you can see through it. And the skin on the fish is only as thick as that, and yet the salt can't penetrate it. It's kept by a mysterious power of God he put in the ocean. The salt can't get through to the fish. I live in a filthy world. Are you telling me with the protection of the blood, the promises of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit, I can't live in victory and purity every day? You may as well be a Mohammedan. The Christian religion is religion of purity, of power, and of peace, and of joy. And sin is an intruder. Sin is not natural. People say, well, you need a little bit of sin to keep you humble. Why not a lot? Why not have a lot and be real humble? I've never seen a sinner humble. They're arrogant and proud. They'll boast of their drinking. They'll boast of their lying. They'll boast of their cheating. They're not humble. They're arrogant. They're defiant of God and defiant of man. They're opposed to all that's truth, and all that's pure, and all that's holy. I can be kept by the power of God. My will has to be in it, too. I have to surrender all my rights to myself. I said to a preacher today, if you're going out to preach to young people, what is never said, I hardly listen to TV anymore anyhow. But nobody says when they come out to make a decision, oh, you're saved now. Nobody ever says, take up your cross and follow me. Oh, don't tell young people that. You'll discourage them. I could be smarter than Jesus. He says, if you don't take up your cross, you're not my disciple. And the cross is not the same for everybody. In one sense, it is. The Bible, Paul's verse, what I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, he's not talking about when he, if you're a Shakespearean, to shuffle off this mortal coil, as Shakespeare says. He's not talking about when we cross the bridge. You've got to think of this, too. We talk about the narrow way and the broad way. But you know, once you step off the edge of time into eternity, there's no U-turn. It's straight to the throne of God. Oh, there's a scripture that says it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Every man and soul, woman that ever lived from Adam is going to fall into the hands of the living God. Either in his wrath, at the judgment seat, the great white throne, or the judgment of believers, which we've lost sight of mostly. If we lived and moved and had our being in the light of the judgment seat, it would change us. It would curb our lips. It would change our lifestyle. It would alter our values. We don't live there. Why should the world believe what we say when we don't believe what God has said? How many of us live in a narrow connection with God? In a close situation where we know when we, the spirit is grieved. It's a beautiful thing. It's a wonderful thing. And yet it's a terrible thing to claim to be a Christian. It means I'm Christ when I'm like Jesus Christ. I can be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Now look at verse 6. Wherein ye greatly rejoice... Oh, you say, oh boy, that's me. Wherein I greatly rejoice, though if need be... Oh, rejoicing is great. Everybody's in that line. We want to clap and be happy. So here we are at verse 6. I'll tell you in case anyone came in late. It's the first epistle of Peter, the first chapter and verse 6. He's just a little Spanish guy. He's dodged down. Wherein ye not rejoice, but greatly rejoice, look what it says. Oh, you say, I love that. To rejoice. I like to rejoice. You should be happy. Sure we should. As I quote in my prayer tonight, Jesus said, your joy, no man taketh it from you. If you lose your joy, you lose it. Nobody else can lose it. The devil can't take it. You've got to surrender it. Oh, for the joy that was set before it. What was the joy? To hang naked on a cross? I don't believe Jesus had a stitch on him. Part of the crucifixion was humiliation. Part of the humiliation was nakedness. And the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame. Why? Because he said, I always do the things that please the Father. And it pleased the Father that he should bear sin publicly. Where now, if need be, greatly ye rejoice, though now for a season. Have you ever noticed there are seasons in your life? Sure you have. Boy, some days you go on top, don't you, all the time. Next day, boy, down you go. You feel heavy and you blame it on your liver or something else or your wife or somebody. Though now for a season, if need be, for a season, year in heaviness. Heaviness? Right after what? Well, it's just been talking about joy. Which, is it Peter calls it, joy unspeakable and full of glory. And then it plunges straight into, wherein if need be, year in heaviness through manifold temptation. It's a seasonal thing. Everybody has those seasons. Was it, I've forgotten now, one of the mystics, well there were two actually that wrote on the dark night of the soul. And somewhere or other that comes along. It says Jesus going into the garden, being in heaviness, being very heavy, the Son of God was heavy. Even though he said he never lost the joy because he was in the will of his Father. But there are seasons. He used to talk about the old lady in England that, they said she was never sad, she was always happy, on top of the world and everything else. One day she had a new pastor. And he came along and he said, they tell me you're the most joyful woman in the church. Doesn't matter what comes, you've had trouble and trials, you've had bereavements, you've lost money, you've done this, you've done that. And then she said, yes. Well, my dear, how old are you? Ninety four. What's your secret? Secret? Oh, I have a scripture. What's your scripture? It came to pass. Well, he knew his Greek, but he didn't know what that meant. She said, what? It came, what do you mean it came to pass? She said, it came to pass. So next time you're in trouble say, well it's coming to pass. You knew that without me telling you, but you're too dumb to realize it. You know there are times of ecstasy when you feel you'll burst almost. There are times when you feel as if Gabriel had one arm and Michael the other couldn't get lifted up. It's got nothing to do with spirituality. Very often it's nerves, it's emotion, it's not spirituality, but the devil tricks us about it. In heaviness through manifest, through manifold temptations, not temptations, but what's the hymn? Oh, there's a hymn we sing for a lady, she's here tonight, we didn't sing it. When peace like a river, remember a part of that verse says, when sorrows like sea billows roll. But there are times when temptations come like that, one after the other. We can be tempted physically, emotionally, spiritually. There are temptations that work on children that don't work on men. When I was a little boy, I had an incurable carnality. I was a thief, I stole jam. My mother made the best jam in England, and boy when I saw her make it, put it in jars and then she put a top on it, you know, and she stuffed it up on a, you know, on a place in what we call the pantry. But boy I found a way of climbing up there, and I got the jar at the back and took some out, you know, oh boy that's great. Then I looked at the hole and thought, boy how do you fill that up? Well I'm going to get spanked, so I may as well take another, so I took another. But my mother always found out, and she'd say, Len, I want to see, I say, mother I'm so busy. She said, oh it's all right. Well, Len, I'll wait, I'm busy. Okay, well it'll do when your daddy comes. Oh no, I'm not so busy. I go in and my dad, you know, he's a good old boy, he's an old Methodist, but he believed in the laying on of hands, and boy he could lay them on, I'll tell you that. And yet, you know, I couldn't get victory over jam, over jelly. So if I go into my neighbors, if I go into your house when you're not there, and you see some of this old jam, it's not me. Would you believe it's no temptation anymore? Can you believe that, John? Boy, when you get to be 80 years of age, if you steal jam, you're in bad shape, aren't you? But a temptation that works on a child at six won't work on a man at 60. I look like that hymn that says, I need thee every hour, most gracious Lord. When I was a boy in England, we used to sing a hymn moments, no, we used to sing a hymn, what was it, a day? It's not days dying in the West. No, no, that wasn't written then. Day... No, Lord, for tomorrow and its need I do not pray, but keep me, guide me, hold me, Lord, just for today. Somebody said, I don't live a day at a time, and they wrote to him, I need thee every hour, most gracious Lord. That gets a bit nearer. Somebody said, I don't live every hour, an hour at a time, so they wrote to him, moment by moment, I'm kept in his love. You're going to tell me the Lord can hang the world on nothing and he can't keep me one heartbeat from sin? I don't live an hour at a time or a day at a time. I live a moment at a time. Moment by moment, I'm kept in his love. Moment by... My moment, I live from above. I remember the first time I saw a diver go down off the coast of England. He got over the side of the boat and he went with those enormous helmets, you know. I saw some bubbles coming up. I said to my dad, where's he gone? He said, walk on the bottom of the ocean, the sea. I said, I'd love to go with him. I wouldn't go with him now for a thousand dollars a minute. But as a little boy, I thought, wonderful, walk on the bottom of the sea. But they used to wind the thing on board ship and pump air in. There were two tubes on the man's head. He wasn't from another world. He'd been in another one, another world. One air, one took air into his helmet, the other took it out. Moment by moment, I'm kept in his love. Moment by moment, I've life from above. As long as I stay in submission to him, in obedience to him, put me in hell if need be. Paul wrote in one epistle and said there are saints in Caesar's household. And an old friend of mine used to say that was next door to hell. Caesar's household. Every vile, corrupt thing of state, a nation, anything else was practiced in that household. And yet God put servants in there to be light in darkness, salt in its corruption. And the Lord says, well, there you are. You know why God doesn't take some of us? Because he's afraid of us. We're not mature enough to take it. It's not his goodness that I have no scars, it's that he won't trust me. I learned lots of things from my neighbor, whoever he is. He told me one last year that I thought was very good. We used to talk in England about King Arthur and his knights. There never was a King Arthur, as far as I know. But they said, you know, they wore a breastplate. It was really thick leather with some protection underneath. And when they sat around the round table eating, before they went to battle, you couldn't tell one from the other, who was a major, who was somebody else. But then they went out to fight. When they came back, they hung these breastplates on a rack there. And they sat in just a small tunic. They sat around the table. And you could tell the warriors because they had scars. Amy Wilson Carmichael, one of the greatest writers ever. She has a wonderful poem, Hast thou no scars? I've heard you sung as mighty in the land. Where are your scars? You know, when we get to the judgment seat, that's what's going to count. Not how many words we preach, though we'll have to account for those. How many scars have we? How often have we taken issue with the devil? How often have we had vicarious faith? Wherein ye greatly rejoice. So now for a season, if need be, Ye are in heaviness through moneyful temptations. Again, the temptations come on different levels at different times. You know, this sounds a bit odd, doesn't it? Particularly to modern folk. Sometimes the devil says, listen, I'm shorthand. The Lord says, Satan, I'm shorthanded. I need you to help me work on Jacob Aranza. He needs some help. You say, what the Lord will call? Well, isn't that true? You know, when people say to me, you know what the devil said to me? I said, tell me. I'm all ears. The apostle Paul never said the devil spoke to him, as far as I know, did he? That's conceit. If you say the devil spoke to me, don't believe that. I only heard the voice of the devil in the Garden of Eden, where he misrepresents man before, God before man, hath God said. And then he misrepresents man before God. When he says, hast thou considered my... Fancy God saying to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? He's my exhibit on earth. There's nobody like him in the whole world. I wonder if God says that of any of us in this area. Look, you demons, there's nobody like John or Dale or whoever's here. David or Jacob. God says, hast thou considered my servant Job? There's nobody like him in there. What does Job say? What does say? What does the devil say? Devil says, you put a hedge around about him. And before ever the devil can come and intrude in your life, he has to get a permit from God to do it. You're precious. You cost more than the whole world to God. Our son's working now in the Smithsonian Museum. If ever we go up there, there's a little bit of... Now, where's my fancy paper? There's a piece of a girl's pinafore. You remember the pinafores they wore in old age? You hardly do. They had little holes all around. And this little pinafore has a piece of brown on it. Looks like a chocolate mark. What is it? It's the blood of Abram Lincoln. When they carried him out of Booth's Theatre, they passed a little girl and his blood spilled on the dress of that little girl. And it's a national treasure. Nobody can buy it. The Rockefellers, nobody can buy it. It has something on it. What does it have? It has the blood of Abram Lincoln, the great emancipator. Your life, if you're really hid with Christ in God, has the blood of Christ on it. And Satan can't touch you without permission. It's to this very man, Peter, Jesus says, Hey, Peter, just a minute. You're always in a hurry, I know. Satan, Satan's down the road. He's going to ambush you. He's going to jump from behind the bush and get you. At least he was. I heard him muttering to a demon, I'm going to get hold of Peter today. And so Jesus says, Peter, Satan hath desired thee to sift thee as wheat. But I said, go back to hell and leave my child alone. No, he didn't. What did he say? I have prayed for thee. Dr. Sangster, Westminster, wrote an article one day and then he wrote to me about it. And he said, Brother Rameo, pray for me. He said, I'd rather be in a good man's prayers than in his will. So I wrote back and said, I'd like to be in them both. But if I had to make my choice, I'd say that I'd rather be in a good man's. If you are standing with God, I'd rather a man pray for me than give me a thousand dollars. I have prayed for thee. You say, well, if I could wake up every morning and say, boy, I'm going to a rough world today. Business is rough. I've got friends who fail me. I've got Christians who don't stand up to test. I'm in a mess and I'm in a dilemma. I have oppression from the north, south, east and west. I have temptations coming to me all the time. I just wish somebody would pray for me. But what in the world's wrong with you? He's been living to make intercession for you from the moment you were born again. Jesus prays for me every moment of my life. I know we should pray one for another. The scripture says that. But let's not forget the fact that he liveth to make intercession for us. My one prayer constantly is, Lord Jesus, make my imperfect prayer praying to the Father. Make it perfect. I've got to rush through this. In heaviness through manifold temptation. Now look at verse 7. That the trial of your faith being much more precious. Now, now, we've switched from what? Temptation to trial. Some of you know that lovely couple that, uh, what do they call them? Elliott's Pharmacy down in the, uh, where is it? Hideaway. Burned to the ground this morning. Didn't save a single thing. They didn't expect that when they got up. But there you are. The trial of your, temptation may go as quickly as that. Trial may stand as long as it stood for some of your number, your opposite number in Russia. That precious little woman. She's not only had a new dress. Maybe she hasn't had a bath for six months. Hasn't had a meal for six months. They showed a man and his, his face was, was about the color of this wood or, or paler. They'd been locked up for 20 years in solitary confinement. Hadn't spoken. They brought him out. He couldn't see. He had to veil his eyes. His skin was yellow. He's a pastor. And they said you can be released if you'll bow the knee and, and say communism is, is, is the savior of the world. And he wouldn't do it. And he's gone back to solitary confinement. I try to think of that man every day of my life and pray for them. I wonder would I have stood up to the pressure? Would I have cracked? Would I have disappointed Jesus? But he liveth to make intercession. I don't defend about death any news on this. If you have, let me know. In the book of Revelation, it talks about Antipas, my faithful master, martyr. Who was he, Jack, do you know? Antipas. That's the whole biography of the man. My faithful martyr. Three words. Somewhere he was put to death. Maybe they gouged out his eyes. If somebody wants to read something about Christianity's suffering. Brother Jack will get you a book. I think, what's it called? A Martyr Mirror. What, what is it on? $30? $20. It's $31 to buy, I think. It's about a thousand pages of the saints in the ages. You know what? I think, brother, there must be two heavens. You mean I'm going to walk the streets arm in arm with the apostle Paul or Peter? That people are the fingernails pulled out one by one? One eye gouged out. One leg cut off. Then the other eye gouged out. Then the other fingernails taken off. Then the toes taken off. And we'll leave you. We'll leave you. No torture. No torture. All you have to do is say Caesar is Lord. That's all. Caesar is Lord. You can get out of this prison. You can go back to your children. You see the picture of the amphitheater. The old picture I saw as a child. Never left me. It shows the grill there with the lions there. Ferocious lions with their paws and big mouths open. And women were standing there nursing a babe. A babe at the breast. And they said, if you don't renounce Christ and say Caesar is Lord, throw three grains of incense in that bowl. Say Caesar is Lord. If you say Christ is Lord, we'll pull the grill and watch. And they pulled the grill. And men had to stand there while the lions came and tore the baby from the breast of the mother. And chewed the baby up in front of the mother. And tore the mother up. Dear Lord. People stay away from Friday night to other night prayer meetings. Any trivia is good enough to keep most of them away. Thank God they don't come. If your heart isn't here, it's no good coming anyhow. We're here with a purpose. With a holy intention. And I'm more convinced than ever. Organizing, I don't care a hill of beans about it. The more I'm reading of revival. Now I'm seeing more and more. There's less organizing. It's agonizing. I got a letter today from a young man that said 13 of us. Young people are meeting, I think, every day for prayer. 13. That's not a good number. Remember at the last supper. 13 of us are meeting. Another man said my whole church is meeting now 7 o'clock to 8 every Friday night until there's a breaking of the heavens and God comes. That brings more delight to the Father than anything I know of. The Lord didn't say men ought always to preach. He said men ought always to pray. And I still think it's the greatest thing in the world to have a minister of intercession. Which is possible. A college education isn't possible to everybody. Not a preaching ministry. Not a healing ministry. But a prayer ministry is. And I treasure more than ever as I look back. I used to hear people say when you get old you're always looking back. I do quite a bit of that. I think of the saints I've known. Not the places I've visited around the world. But giants I've known. Most of them are praying people. Most of them are mature people. Old people anyhow. Fairly old. And this is a great avenue that's open to all of us. You've heard me cry many times. Really mean it. Cried with tears. I don't understand that a judgment seat in front of billions of people. All the saints of all the ages. All those marvelous people in the Old Testament. All the people that were burned at the stake. Martyrs in England. I don't want God to say in front of those millions. I stand there ravening like many things to tell you in Texas. But I couldn't trust you. You couldn't bear them. You were too preoccupied. You talk with your lips about love and devotion. But you were easily turned away. And I refuse that. More than ever I'm trying to treasure my time. Maybe I don't have much left. The trial of your faith. It's much more precious than gold. Though it be tried by fire. We treasure gold, don't we? That it might be found to the praise, none and glory of an appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now okay. We said then that verse 15 is a center of this. It's a kind of a hub. You can be as holy as it's possible for a man to be on earth. And suffer the most severe temptation. That doesn't mean we're unholy. The trial of our faith is consistent with a holy life. Temptation is consistent with the holiest man that ever lived. Was tempted for 40 days and nights. And the scripture says he's tempted in all points like as we are. He's tempted as a man. I believe he was tempted sexually in every other way. And yet what did he do? He outwitted the devil. He outmaneuvered the devil. And he was faithful in that which God had committed to him. As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy. Isn't it Romans 6 that talks about holiness there? But you can look that up again. Now look at verse 22 of this same first chapter. It says seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth. Obeying the truth of the spirit unto unfamed love of the brethren. That ye love one another with a pure heart. But not only that, but with a pure heart fervently. Go down to verse 9. Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. Do we walk with that dignity? When I was at that little Bible school in England, just 30, 35 of us. I sat here at the end of the hour and there was a picture there of a man with an amazing face. His name was Thomas Cook. His book New Testament Holiness is still published. In those days there were no airplanes, of course, and so forth. And he was asked to preach. He was a Methodist, preached for the Methodists in Africa. So he went by boat. Down the English Channel, through the Bay of Biscay, down through the Suez Canal. In the Bay of Biscay, it was a bit rough. And in the big dining room, the men used to sit there and, you know, after dinner was served, they sat there and played cards and smoked and so forth. And he needed to go through the whole length of that dining room. And it's pretty big. I went through the length of the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth many times, seating for nearly 500 people. He walked down the aisle there and these men were smoking and drinking and cursing. As soon as he came in, they stuffed their pipes away and put their cards under the table. One fellow said to another, hey, what happened? What do you mean, you know what happened? Didn't you see everybody stuffed their cards away, hide their pipes? Why did he do it? Well, he said, could he do anything else with a face? Like that man had? A face of purity? A face that somehow wasn't normal amongst men? He walked like royalty. We're a royal priesthood, we're a holy nation. And the failure in America and elsewhere today is, number one, that the father is not the king in the house and he's not the priest. And if he isn't, he's failing. We need a revival of home worship. Altars in the house. We're a royal priesthood, a holy nation. We're to show forth the praise of him who brought us out of darkness into his most marvellous light. Now, let's go over here into the 19th verse of this second chapter. This is thankworthy. If a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully, suffers for conscience sake, he suffers like some men. I had some men in my church that wouldn't fight. Because they said, I can't see Jesus with a machine gun. And the scripture says, as he was, so we in this world. So what did they do? They went to prison. Well, I appreciate that. If a man for conscience toward God, not just a conscientious objector, but he says this, I cannot do this. My Lord wouldn't do this and I won't do it. Or if he suffer conscience toward God and he endures grief, suffering wrongfully. The first time I came to America, I stayed a while just outside of Philadelphia. I remember going to a country church. It was downtown in a very small town. As we came out, just after nine o'clock, the sun was setting. It was a lovely, lovely evening. I'd never seen a night like that in my life. And I was talking to the pastor and he said, don't look right now. Don't look now. There's a man coming up behind you. But you must look at him. He came past. Man, what a face. Any girl would have envied his colour, his bright blue eyes. He walked with dignity and as he came out, the pastor said, hello brother. Hello, he said in a very gracious way. What do you think of that man? I said, never seen anybody like him in my life. Well, what impressed you? I said, he had something unearthly. He had a peace. He had a dignity. I can't explain it. To say of a man, he had a beauty, but he had. He said, do you know how he got it? I said, no. He said, well, X number of years, 40 or something. 40 years ago. He was courting a girl in this town, a very beautiful girl. And talk about lovesick. Boy, was she in love? Were they in love? And then in a meeting one night, the call of God came to him. To leave all and follow the Lord and go to the ministry. He used to sing a hymn. Here I give my all to thee. Friends and time and earthly store. Soul and body thine to be. Only thine forevermore. He sang that. I give my all to thee. She's my all. She's my hope. She's my expectation. She's going to be the mother of my children. She's the most beautiful woman in town. And the Lord said, postpone the wedding, postpone it. Go to Bible school. You go to a certain school for three years. Going home, he said to her, you know, dear. I thought I was a wonderful me. Oh, I thought it was a lovely meeting. She said, well, I thought so too. Did the Lord speak to you? Yes. What did he say? Well, nothing in particular. What did he say to you? He told me to postpone the wedding. What? Told me to postpone the wedding. No, no, no. I've told the relatives we're getting married on a certain day. We talked about that. No, no, no. God says that I'm to postpone it. He postponed it. He went to Bible school. She went to some other fellow to let it, cut a long story short. Within a few, within a couple of months, it was obvious she was pregnant a little later after that. And she spread the story. As soon as he discovered I was pregnant, he deserted me. And it wasn't true in any shape or form. Well, he said it isn't true. She said it is true. So anyhow, eventually the girl had the baby. They tried, there were no, what, 30 years ago, there were no tests and so forth. So he took the blame. The girl said, he's the father of my child. Well, he wasn't. But all the relatives backed her story. The judge backed her story. He said, well, I don't have, in any shape or form, I have no obligation morally, legally, any other way. I'm not the father of that child. But she's in trouble. I loved her and I love her to a degree. I'll help her. He paid towards the support of the child. He held on. She held on. People said, you see, the child looks very much like him. He must be the father of the child. Sign 2 Crush. They rushed her to hospital and they thought she was dying. She was bleeding profusely. What she's saying, what is she saying? She was calling for the boy, the fellow to come. And there, just before she died, she said, he was not the father of my child. He was not the father of my child. And yet they said that, that, that, what do you call it? Conviction that was on him. Condemnation that was on him. It had a wonderful effect on his life. He says, I'm suffering wrongfully as the word of God says. Now take it. You know, I think the only exercise some Christians take is jumping to conclusions. Hey, look at this thing. Where did you get it? Where did I get it? Why? Well, you know who it belongs. That belongs to Joseph, the man that comes in our house. There's only one coach of many colors. It's Joseph's. How did you get it? He came in my bedroom last night when you were away. And he tried to molest me. And as he ran away, I snatched his garment. There's the evidence. What happened? He went to prison for how many years? About 17? And he was as innocent as Gabriel was of the thing. But there's the evidence. So often we have the evidence, so we think we have. People say, you know, it's easy to judge. Friend, you need your head examined if you say that. The hardest thing in the world is to judge. It's easy to misjudge. This and this puts that together. No, it doesn't. And very often, even Christians, we're so rational, we have so much common sense, we think. But I wonder how many people have suffered greed and enjoyed it joyfully for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's 20. Now I'm going to wind up. 20. What glory is it if when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? But if when ye do well and suffer for it, and ye take it patiently, it is acceptable with God. He goes on to say later, but I won't go into that epistle. Let me take it right in the next verse. If you do well and suffer for it. Boy, that's hard to take, isn't it? You do well and somebody says it mistakes your motive, twists it all around. And yet in your heart, you know, you're doing it for the glory of God. And somebody else says you're doing it for the glory of man. I know there's somebody saying, if you send us a donation, we will, the entrance of our new office, we'll put your name. You know, $500 donation, $1,000, $10,000. Isn't that nice? Of course, the scripture says, don't let your left hand know what your right hand doeth. But the big TV boys say, come on. We'll say, hey, Johnny Jones, look what he did. There's $4 million sent down by Jack Morrison. Then they cross it out and say, no, we got the wrong name. It wasn't Jack Morrison that sent it. But what do we do? We want to go on exhibition. I love when people have given me money and said, give this to somebody who's in need. I love to do that. I said, make it clear. It's not my money. I'm passing it on. Because in as much as they gave to that person, they didn't give to that person. They gave to Jesus Christ. Verse 21, for even here unto where ye call, because Christ also suffered, listen to this closely, leaving us an example that we should follow our pastors. No, no, that's wrong. We should follow our elders. No, it should be that. Because Paul says, you can follow me. And if you do, I'll be accountable with you to God. What does he say? Leaving us an example that we should follow in his steps. What were his steps? Number one, he did no sin. I'm to follow in that. That's what it says. I didn't write it. Two, neither was guile found in his mouth. Three, who when he was reviled, reviled not again. Four, when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. He never vindicated himself, did he? Again, it wasn't till this past Christmas I realized that precious little girl going up the hill, big fat tummy, and somebody says, that's Mary, supposed to be the most religious girl in town. She can recite all the first five books of Moses. She's a very devout person. And she's pregnant. She has no husband. What a tramp. What a tramp. What happened? Do you remember years after, 30 years after, Jesus was in the temple or somewhere, and they said, listen, we're pure-blooded. We were not born of fornication like you. In other words, you came into the world, you're a bastard. He never vindicated himself. Why did he need to? Boy, we shiver and shake. Somebody misrepresented us. Somebody didn't say the right thing. So what? This is the condition I did not lay it down. He did no sin. Jesus did no sin. Follow in his steps. Get victory day by day. John says, doesn't he, he that is born of God does not commit sin. As I say, we are so used to that. But Jesus said to the bad woman that came, what did he say? Go and sin less? No, go and sin no more. And that's the other side of the cross. That's before the Holy Spirit was given. Once you make up your mind that by the grace of God, that sin is not having any more dominion over you, that besetting sin, take it to the cross, get it nailed there. And day by day, draw the supply of grace and victory that it's possible to have. Why haven't we evangelized the world? Dear Lord, I can think back now, 70 years at least, going to missionary meetings. What's going to happen? We're sending missionaries. This country has been sending missionaries. Why haven't we changed the world? Because we've exported American Christianity. We've exported English Christianity, not biblical Christianity. Boys, all over the country, all we're hearing now is preachers going down the drain. We heard of some more today, mostly through wine and women and wealth. We don't want new Christianity. But the scripture says, as he was, so are we in this world. Not when I get a resurrection body, but now. I can get rid of the sin I want to be rid of. I can have dominion over it. I can walk in purity. He did no sin. Neither was guile found in his mouth. No duplicity. And here's an example that we should follow. He did no sin. Neither was guile found in his life. When he was reviled, he didn't answer back. When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. Now, verse 5 in the next chapter says a lovely thing there. After this manner of all time, holy women spake as they were instructed in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands, and so forth. So there you are. You can be misrepresented. People will lie about you. You know, it's a great thing when people are lying about you. They're leaving somebody else alone anyhow. Be satisfied. Why should you worry about it? I say this again. Look, if you voted me, which would never happen. If they took a vote in America, and out of 230 million people, they voted. Lennon Draven is number one Christian. The Lord won't say, oh, I had him down here. In fact, he wasn't even on the chart. He's down here. The public vote puts him up there. Another year they take a vote, and instead of being up there, I'm down here. Does God go up and down in his judgment? The only person who can change God's mind about me is me. The only person who can change God's mind about you is you. Whether they like you or dislike you, tell the truth or tell a lie. You can't influence God. He's righteous. He's holy. Our present, let me say this. I've said this before, I guess. You know, I'm convinced of this. We're born with disposition, but we build character. We're told, build yourself up in your holy faith. I look around my books. I had a friend in today who was counting some of them. So, I'm going to count them, see they're all there. But anyhow, I look at those books and say to myself, look at that massive volume. The life of John Wesley, the life of Luther, life of C.T. Studd, the life of, what was the lady that went to Africa? Mary Schleser of Calabar. Or the life of, what's the lovely lady that went to India? Amy Wilson Carmichael. Or if you've been fortunate, a lady we used to take to meetings, or come to our meetings in Ireland, Eva Stewart Watt. She and Lady Mandeville, a title lady, used to stand on the street every day of their lives. Stood on an old box there. Boy, did they pour the hearts out. Boy, how they preached and preached. Not many listened, and yet God did speak to hearts. But the point is that whether you take Wesley or Finney, nobody ever had a bigger Bible than I have. All he did was use it better. All he did was take time to be holy. And God isn't concerned. As I told a fellow the other day, boy, was he disgusted. He talked about my ministry, my ministry, I'll do this. I said, brother, God isn't interested that much in your ministry. He said, what? I said, he's interested in you. He's interested in make character. Your ministry doesn't matter that much to God. He wants the man. He wants you to be pure. He wants you to be holy. He wants you to be anointed. He wants you to have visions, true vision, of the possibilities of grace. Well, we have a number of folk missing tonight. I think about 18 of the men, was it about 18? Where's the brother from Gates of Life? Well, about 18 of them went to, where, Oklahoma? No? Oh, just the four Indians. Oh, oh, it was 18 going with Joe Foss down to Mexico. Got them mixed up. So anyhow, a bunch of them are in Mexico tonight. A bunch of them are up. And it looks as though the Indian school that we've prayed for more than a year, maybe two years, is going to open up so that our brother Spencer can go in there. And each time, they've opened it now and told him he can go in. It's been closed, but God has wonderfully opened that. So we need to pray about that for him. We need to pray about Joe Foss and his work down there. We need to pray for Gates of Life. We need to pray for YWAM. We need to pray for the work here that's going through transformation. Any other special? Certainly need to pray for the young people. I hear so many terrible reports. I'm sure you do. Well, God's on the throne. And if you're living in a good relationship with him, unburden your heart tonight. You don't have to shout. You don't have to maybe even speak if you don't want to, though it's helpful. We're to, what does the scripture say? We're to pray one for another. We're to pray one with another. If two of us agree. That's why when sometimes people have come in and taken over the meeting and been muttering all the time. Well, I can't agree with you if I don't know what you're saying. So I ask you to pray and right to the point. Still pray that Tyler will have an awakening. It's our supreme need. So we can be kept by the power of God. If you go to the jaws of hell, as it were, it doesn't make any difference. We can be kept through the power of the blood, through the promises of God and by the power of the Spirit. Let's go to prayer. Please unburden your heart for these great needs, particularly for Africa again. Africa is in tremendous need of revival.