In this sermon, the preacher focuses on the story of a rich man who approaches Jesus and asks how he can inherit eternal life. The preacher emphasizes that all three evangelists mention the man's wealth. Jesus tells the man that he lacks one thing, which the preacher suggests is saving faith. Jesus instructs the man to sell all his possessions and give the proceeds to the preacher. The preacher then discusses the importance of living with an eternal perspective and the need for preachers to be fully committed to their calling.

Last week we looked at a very, very familiar text in the Gospel as recorded by Mark, chapter 10. Mark chapter 10, verse 17. Verse 17, Mark 10, 17. When he was gone forth in the way, there came unto him one running, and kneeling, and asking him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? As we said last week, this story is told by three of the evangelists, and they stress different points. But they all say the same thing about him, that he was very rich. Verse 21 here says, Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest. What was the one thing? Saving faith. One thing thou lackest. Go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give it to the preacher. I wish we would all do that tonight. I'll be here tomorrow while you bring your gifts. No, that's how we translate it, sell all you have and give it to the TV preacher. Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor. That's the number one thing he has to do. And thou shalt have treasure in heaven. Then come, take up thy cross, and follow me. He went away grieved, for he had great, what? Not great money. Not one of the versions talk about him having any money. He had great possessions. There are some things much more precious to us than even money. We love honor. We love to be appreciated. Many people don't have much money, but they're intellectually rich. They're socially rich. Or they are prestiging in the religious world. And yet Jesus says, Sell all that thou hast and give it to the poor. Then take up thy cross and follow me. Where? To the bank? Yes. To the bank? Yes. Bankruptcy. It's an extension of the bank. It's where all the banks are going, so you may as well get to know. Bankruptcy. Unless you're bankrupt, you can't follow him. While ever you have one grain of self-reliance, self-satisfaction, self-appreciation, self-desire, self-glory, you cannot be his disciple. It negates everything that the flesh clings to. Social standing, prestige amongst Christians even. Lots of people become worse, worse after they get saved than they were before. I'll need another night to explain that, but there it is. Let's jump to verse 29. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for what? For my sake. But he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time. Oh boy, there you are, there's prosperity for you. It's written here, but I haven't finished it. Now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and lands, with what? Persecutions. Come on, balance it up, get the prosperity there, the persecutions here, come on. Some of you look so miserable at this moment, what's wrong with you? I didn't know you had so much money you couldn't leave it. So much prestige, so much honor, with persecutions. We jump from this, let's go from this. This is the rich young ruler. Let's jump back to Mark chapter 1. No pardon me, let me go back there a minute. You see, what did Jesus say? He says, Sell all that thou hast, and he went away. Now notice, Jesus never followed him. Jesus never rebuked him. Jesus never corrected him. Wouldn't you have thought that here Jesus would have warned him? You see there are times when the Lord does not even intercept us or interfere with us. He said to one man, Simon, you're going down the road, Satan is going to ambush you, jump on you, tear you up. He was going to do that, but he didn't say, I sent Satan back to hell where he belonged to. He says, I have prayed for thee. That doesn't look very practical, does it? Why didn't he say, I cursed him, and he died on the spot? But why didn't he say to Judas, when he was going out to destroy Jesus and destroy himself, he didn't say to him, I've prayed for thee. Jesus was going to be destroyed by that villain that was going out. And he didn't say, well listen, I'll put a restraint on you that for five more years you won't do another thing, but at the end of the five years you'll die eaten of worms like Herod will do. He didn't say that to him. He let him go, though it involved the destruction of, it involved the destruction of Jesus as well as of Judas. And there are times when there is no explanation for what God does. As I've said often enough, I cannot explain God, I can experience Him. And if I believe my times are in thy hands, why do I have to worry? You know these big boys on TV, they all believe in the sovereignty of God till he comes to money. And then they break down. God can't get them out of a mess financially. And all the guy needs is five thousand dollars or fifty thousand to get a new engine for his jet. I believe in the sovereignty of God, not just other nations, but over my own life as well. My times are in thy hands, there's a timetable, I don't need to know it. The favorite hymn of Hudson Taylor in China was, Jesus I am resting, resting in the joy of what thou art. Thou hast bid me gaze upon thee and thy beauty fills my soul, for by thy transforming power thou hast made me whole. And when his wife was in a casket at the side of him, this fourteen thousand miles away from home, when the people that were on his staff were disgruntled, when the people in England lost faith in him, he didn't shrink and complain, he sang at the side of the coffin, they were peeping through the keyhole. And he was walking up and down with his arms behind him, Jesus I am resting, resting in the joy of what thou art. But it says about this precious man here, he went away because he had great possessions. But it says something more than that. It says that Jesus looking upon him loved him. Why did he love him? A number of reasons I think. Did he love him because he bowed down to him? Remember this is reversed to their customs. In those days, and it's common in the East now, the poor people will fall at the feet and beg at the feet of a rich man. But here you have a rich man begging at the feet of a penniless man, a homeless man, a man that has no authority, a man that's scorned in the synagogue and the temple. And this man comes with courage. And publicly, if you read the beginning of the chapter, Jesus had blessed little children in a home. And then it says he went out in the way. So this is up to the public gaze. And here are all these people that know this nobleman. In England we might call him a lord these days. He's a distinguished man in society. And then he bows in front of this man who's a rebel. The man who contradicts the theology of the day, the customs of the day, everything of the day. And here's a wealthy man, maybe one of the best known men in the country, and he's at the feet of Jesus crying, have mercy upon me. And Jesus looking on him loved him. Not for his courage, and not for his homage, but because he was a human being who had a need. That everything outside of him was not satisfying. He's known as, maybe as a man that does everything. And yet he comes cringing to the feet, again I can't overemphasize this, of this poverty-stricken, itinerant preacher that's the most rebellious man as far as the theology is concerned. And yet here he is publicly declaring his desire. You see he's driven there by need. It says Jesus looking upon him loved him. Now go back please to Mark chapter 1. In the story we just read it was a ruler that came to him. Here in verse 40 of chapter 1 in Mark, it says there came a leper beseeching him and kneeling down and saying unto him if thou wilt thou canst make me clean. And Jesus moved with compassion. You see Jesus said something to the rich man, or said nothing pardon me, he just looked at him and he loved him. It doesn't say here he loved him, it does more than that. He said he had compassion. And because he had compassion what did he do? He touched him. I admire fellows like dear Sonny and these fellows here, these precious Indian guys that go down to the strip as they went last week or two weeks ago, or the work Dave Wilkinson's doing, or Joe Forth, going and touching the people. You have here a man who's a leper. Nobody ever touched him, they withdrew themselves. He was out of society, out of religion, he lost his title, everything because he's being declared a leper. And yet when he comes to Jesus, Jesus touched him. What in the world do you think he felt like? Maybe he'd never felt a touch of a human being for years. And he comes up to Jesus, he knows he smells, he knows he's nauseating, he knows he's repulsive. I've seen some amazing sights around the world. One of the most amazing was going to a leper colony in Thailand. And there were men whose arms were eaten off up to their elbows, men whose legs were eaten off up to their knees. I remember we went through some gates, we weren't supposed to go to the leper colony. We had a girl at Bethany Fellowship, one of the most beautiful girls I'd ever seen. She was a missionary there with her husband. And she went and sat in the middle of all those corrupt men. One man, his face was eaten away, he had a thread of flesh holding his eyeball in. You could see down his throat where his tongue was joined. There were others there, their fingers were green with gangrene and pus was running out. And yet they clapped their stumps and sang, Jesus loves me, this I know. You think you'll ever forget a thing like that? A leper, out of society, and the purest man that ever lived, before even angels bowed, goes up and touches that leprous man. What in the world do you think he felt like? Every barrier went down. He isn't looking out of his eye corner for the high priest or something, he doesn't care now. Here is the man who's stirring the nation and he comes to me. To do what? He touched me. He touched me. Oh, come on, help me, don't be cripples. Martha, you and I are singing, then they'll all leave. He touched me. Oh, he touched me. Singing, and oh, the joy that floods my soul. Something happened, and now. You know, the piano's nearly as lame as we are, it's got notes that don't work. So if you live, if you work here, tell them this week, please, to tune it up, call a doctor. So give us a note, let's sing it again, he touched me. He touched me. Oh, he touched me. And oh, and oh, the joy that floods my soul. He touched me. If you didn't like that, you say, well, I'm not a leper. So I'm going to bring you in, I'm going to read about the lunatic in chapter 5. Mark chapter 5 and verse 5, isn't it? Let's start at verse 1. Mark 5 and chapter 1. They came out over on the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, and when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had in his dwelling among the tombs, and no man could bind him, no, not with chains. Because he had not, because he had often been bound with fetters and chains, and he plucked them asunder, and he broke the fetters, neither could any man tame him. Always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones. When he saw Jesus far off, he ran off and worshipped him. Isn't that amazing? A man, demon-possessed, runs to Jesus. Dear God, he'd been to that synagogue and temple, seen the high priest, the other priest, and everybody. He'd seen the ritual for the burnt offering and everything else. Never did a thing for him. It was theory. And now he sees again this holy, wonderful man. See what it says. When he saw Jesus far off, he ran and worshipped him. Oh, I think some other versions say he fell down and worshipped him, and cried with a loud voice, What have I to do with thee, Jesus thou son of God, of the most high God? I adjure thee by God that thou torment me not. For he said unto him, Come out of him. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, My name is Legion, and we are many. And he besought him so much to send him into the country, out of the country. There was nigh to the mountains a great herd of swine feeding, and all the devils besought him. All the devils in accordance. Does that say a thing to you? Hell is so bad, demons didn't want to go back to it. And yet there's no deliverance except through Jesus. You know, I was talking to some fellows. I hope they're improving. There's Sonny, he was in yesterday. I preached to two preachers yesterday. That's about the most difficult thing in the world. Preaching to two preachers. No offering for one thing. So next week when you come, bring an offering. I said, You know what's wrong with modern preaching? Three things. One thing, it has no intensity. What was it? Intensity. Number two, it has no majesty. And number three, it has no eternity. I don't know if you listened to the end of that court trial, what it was over Oliver Green tonight. I thought it was beautiful, the summary. He was very, very moved. And the fellow that asked the questions was moved. And I thought, Well, why in God's name? They're only acting. That whole trial won't mean that much in eternity. And yet preachers stand almost like toffee bobbies in the pulpit. You know, I think one problem with the church today, we have too many preacherettes making sermonettes for christianettes who smoke cigarettes. We've got eternity in our hands. I'm convinced that the greatest thing about those preachers was they lived in eternity six days a week and came down to earth on the seventh. Our preachers are golfing on Saturdays and goofing the other five days. And then they want to come and preach in the pulpit as though they've been living in eternity. It's a profession with most of them. Preaching is not a profession, it's an obsession. If it doesn't burn in you, if you're in sleep, normally you're not a christian. You're not hardly a christian, let alone a preacher, in a hell of a world like this, that's on the brink of the greatest disaster ever. But the demons did not even want to go back to hell. I once heard, I heard Gypsy Smith many times, in fact I had dinner with him a number of times. Because he came to the college, he didn't come to see me. And I sat next to him. He's a great man, boy could he talk. Do you know his chief subject? Well, uh, just ahead was, was Jesus. After that his chief interest was Gypsy Smith. But anyhow, he was always talking about the things he'd done. And I remember he said one day, do you know what? Pigs have more sense than men. Somebody said, well how do you know? He said, Jesus gassed the devils into the pigs and they all committed suicide. They wouldn't even let the devil live in them. But that, I don't know if you have a copy Martha, we'll have to look up, dearie, if we can get it and give it to brother Jack. Jack, do you know a book called, uh, what was the fellow that, Germany, that cast out the demons, do you remember that? Blumhart. Blumhart's Battle, do you know that book? We need to get it. You know, if the church was really in business doing this, the psychologists wouldn't dare to sing their dumb song. Tell me, do you know a man possessed of devils, possessed of lust? He may not break up property, but he breaks up lives, contaminates girls, breaks the hearts of women. What church can you take him to where he'll sit under the anointing of God and people don't leave the sanctuary? I'll tell you when God is present, when people don't leave the meeting. I remember preaching three nights. I arrived a day too early in, uh, New Zealand about 15 years ago. I'd just got in the house and somebody called and said, we hear Ramiel's coming. Man said, he's been in my house five minutes. Ask him if he'll come to the south of the island, 400 miles away. It's Christmas. There won't be anybody around. They all go to the beaches. It's hot there. It's Christmas day, burning hot usually. I said, well, I'll go. He said, you may not get 30 people. Do you know what we got there? There were nearly 300 people there. The second night, the church was packed. The third night, the rafters were packed. I know for three nights, I preached my heart out and I dare not give an altar call. I sat in the back room and people sat there for two hours and more. I didn't know what to do. I was afraid of injecting flesh, so I left it. So one old man said, Ramiel didn't even know how to handle it. I didn't know how to handle it. Maybe I would now. I sure didn't then. But you see, when the hush of eternity is there, you hardly dare say a word. You want to go home on tiptoe. You don't talk about junk. I preach one of the greatest, some of the greatest churches in this country. One Sunday morning, I went in. Here's a congregation of 3,000 people. Just as I went in the room, the pastor said to one of the deacons, say, two touchdowns today. Two what? Boy, I could have thrown the Bible at him. Talking about football, a few minutes before we go and talk to 3,000 people, I want us to learn a hymn, not just now, a Quaker hymn, a wonderful Quaker hymn. We should sing it. Every church in the country should be made to sing it for a year. It begins, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, forgive our foolish ways in England. In England, in America, feverish ways. It's more suitable. We're so feverish anyhow. Reclothe us in our rightful right. He goes on to say, where Jesus knelt to share with thee the silence of eternity, interpreted by love. It says, breathe through the heaps of our desire, thy fullness and thy balm. Let sense be dumb, let flesh require. I'll tell you what most preachers do. They hang the sweaty mantle of the prophet on the back of the office door before they ever go on the platform. They're so loaded with psychology, ability, how to expound the word, how to do this, how to get through to the people. That's all going to get kicked out. Should never have got in. But I'm convinced God is going to raise them up, and he raised a voice in Tyler as God's my witness. I'm not old. I'm not as old as my dear friend here. You're older than me, aren't you Beatrice? Three months. Oh dear. You look three years older than me. Oh, that was cruel. Beatrice, she's a good Methodist, another young Methodist there. But you know what? God's going to answer the situation that we're in. Not through politics, not through some devices of men. I look for these fellows to come in some Friday night and stand up, Spencer, some of them are, Sonny, and just say something and take the whole thing over. I'll be so happy. We have a little routine here, and as you know, we've a lot of decorum. We left it at home tonight, but normally we have some. We're not as starchy as they should be, but anyhow. You know, God's going to reveal himself. You know, I don't ask God to bless my preaching anymore. I don't. I say, Lord, you get glory after the meeting. Forget me. Whether I preach well or I don't preach well, whether I talk well or I cry, I don't care a hell of these. The glory of God has to come back to the temple, and you'll bring anybody in. You'll bring people demon-possessed with lust, with pride, with anger, with every hellish thing. But the presence of Jesus will be so real that people will shrivel up almost. I mean, shrivel on the inside. But here's a man, and he comes to Jesus, and I'd say, oh, all right. Where were we? Mark chapter one, wasn't it? Mark chapter one. I want a clock that goes slower if you can get me one. I'm going back as we're in here. Verse 41, Jesus moved with compassion. You see, his love was manifested when he talked to the rich young ruler. Looking on him, he loved him. He saw the potential in him. He saw there's no other way for him to go. Again, he didn't bargain with him. He didn't say, I'll change the status for you. The Word of God says that there's no man that comes unto the Father except he repents of sin and takes up his cross. We don't all pay the same price. I told you last week of a young man that I had to deal with a while ago. He's on the verge of becoming one of the most prospective tennis players in the world. And he said, Mr. Ramiel, I can see my career going. I said, let it go. Do you think you'll be sorry in eternity you let a few balls slip past you? Some men have to give up a career as a doctor or something else. And I would add, dear David said up there at the community church last year, don't just bring the Lord your sins. Bring him your life. Bring him your will. Bring him your intentions. Bring him your hidden potential, if you want to put it that way. He's not just looking for your lousy sins. He doesn't keep them up there in heaven. He's looking for men who are totally committed from the soles of their feet to the crown of their head. That once you yield, you say, Lord, I've no time of my own. I've no desires of my own. I've no purpose of my own. I've no pattern of my own. Here I am. Going back to Blumhart there. We've got to get some copies of that, wherever we get them. I don't know if we have one, but anyhow. Blumhart was the man, they told him there was a girl up in the hills that was sick. And if I remember right, he prayed about eight hours a day for that girl. For what? A year? No, more than that. Eleven months. He went to the side of the bed and she writhed and she formed, as they often do, with green saliva coming out of her mouth. She had a vocabulary like the devil himself. She knew every curse word, every profanity, every ugly, dirty, twisted, tormenting thing. And she screamed out and he prayed and nothing happened and prayed again. And people scorned him. But eventually, anyhow. One day he resisted the devil and demanded a deliverance and the girl immediately became sane. The miracle was so great that the Kaiser, the King of Germany, later gave him a disused warehouse in town and they put beds in it and they brought people from America to go there. Brought them in straitjackets. On the boats there were no planes, obviously, then. And yet they brought all kinds of people. And by fasting and prayer, there's no psychology and have you got some inner feelings that need healing? Come on, forget it. They didn't tell him, you need a better image of yourself. You don't need any image. All you need is his image in you. You need to sing Christmas carols every day. Had Adam's likeness, now he face. Stamp thine image in its place. Thine image in its place. That's all you need. You don't need a better image of yourself. You need a worse image. You need to see corruption. I read again the other day about that precious Quaker, Stephen Grellet, one of the most brilliant men that ever came to America. I asked the preacher fellows, did they know him? They didn't know about Stephen Grellet. He was going on the edge of a field, there was a forest, and he said suddenly every leaf on the trees became a tongue. Every tongue began to chant one word. What did it chant? Eternity, eternity, eternity. He threw himself down on the floor. He got up. He didn't, no, he didn't get slain in the spirit for five minutes and get a bump at the back of his head. What did he do? He went into a room and he stayed there for five days grieving. He said, when he showed me eternity, when I saw the Christ, I saw my corruption, my vileness from my feet. There isn't one good thing in me. From the sense of my will, even my will is corrupted. My desires are corrupted. My appetites are corrupted. And so what does he do? He cried and got deliverance. What did that mean? It meant that like Apostle Paul, he said, I'm a debtor to the whole world. Listen, friend, you're a debtor to every lost soul. Why in God's name don't we change our language once? Don't say I have a friend and she's lost. Say I have a friend and she's damned. Be honest about it. Till it burns you. I was praying a while ago and as I prayed, I said, Lord, let this thing bite me on the inside, as though I got some teeth. Bite me on the inside. I picked up an old volume of one of the Puritans. When I opened it, he said, you know, I asked God to let something bite me on the inside. So I thought, well, hallelujah, I'm not as crazy as I thought I was. But you see, unless it burns in me, it won't burn in you. You say you get excited. Sure, I do. I have the biggest job in the world, the biggest message in the world. Hebrews 7.25 is as real now as when it was written. He's able to save to the uttermost and the guttermost the vilest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus a pardon receives. Do you know why church is so dull? Because we don't see deliverances. We see people go to the front. Good Lord, they've done that 20 times and no change. But once they quit and say, I don't go to movies anymore. I talked to a young man just yesterday. He's an oddball. He has to be. He's a friend of mine. What does he say about these pigs anyhow? He cast the demons out. What did they do? They went into the pigs. What happened? The whole community came and they prayed. They didn't pray Lord, they said, Lord, get out of our country. They prayed him to get out of their coast. Why? They love their swine more than they thought about the man who had been delivered. And listen, if you go to a church and walk with God, boy, you'll be an oddball these days. Like this young man said to me, he goes to a big church, not in this area. He goes to a pretty big church and they call the young people, a lot of young people, teenagers, young married folk together. You're going in a room there to settle what we're going to do in this situation. Or if you don't want to go there, there's a prayer meeting here. Three people went to the prayer meeting. This other room is packed. They're deciding where to go on a swimming party with another church. Why in God's name do you want to go with a lot of half-naked women? If they're half-naked, they're only half a brain, you can be sure of that. Who wants to be strutting their bodies around? And because he won't go, because he says, I can't go to movies, I could but I won't go to movies, I won't go with these swimming parties, he's marked in the church as being a divider, a divisionist. So what? You can't be a popular Christian in the truest sense of the word. We're in a foreign element. From the moment that Adam stepped out of union with God, we're living in enemy territory and it's not getting better, it's getting worse. And even to walk in holiness is ridiculed and righteousness. They sought him to depart out of their course for doing, for destroying their pigs. They didn't say, oh well, forget about the pigs, this man's been a danger, we didn't let our children go up the road, this lunatic, he'd be jumping over tombstones, coming out and grabbing people, beating them up. They didn't look at that side, they looked at their material thing. As I've said to you before, I'll say it many times I hope, an experience of God that costs nothing is worth nothing and does nothing. Take up your cross and follow me. Stephen Grellet's father was a friend of the king of France. His daddy owned some of those porcelain factories, some of the finest porcelain today is from Limoges, and his daddy owned some of those big places. The result was the family turned on him. But after he had heard the voice of God, after he'd seen eternity, I tell you again, dear friends, we are not eternity conscious, our preachers are not eternity conscious, we're position conscious, possession conscious, power conscious, personality, we're not eternity conscious. Friend, you, eternity is no option, you've no, there's no alternate, alternate to it. He made us for eternity. And however long you live, if you live to be twice as old as dear Beatrice here, the one purpose we're on earth is to give pleasure to the Lord, that's what we're here for. Not to make a name, not to be a famous preacher, famous writer, famous ministry, we're here to give pleasure to God. And the bottom line, every night before you go to sleep should be, Lord, have I given you pleasure today? Not have I given out a tract, as good as that may be. Not have I preached a sermon, that might be good, but Lord, have I given you pleasure? Have I displayed your disposition, your grace, your mercy, your peace, your love? This precious man knew that he'd been delivered from a thousand hells. He knew the dangers of society, he got in with the rich people there, and before long he settled down kind of with all the aristocratic people in Philadelphia. And then he had this experience of walking by the trees, every tree streaming out that voice, like a thunderclap, eternity, eternity, eternity. You know, if I had only one sermon to preach, if I could preach it broadcast over the nation, I'd preach on eternity, duration without end. God has set eternity in the heart of man, we're made for eternity. So this precious man renounces everything he has. Do you know what he did? He learned as many languages as I have fingers and toes almost. He went to slave camps, he went into settlements where only black people were herded together, he went to orphanages, he went to every crowned head in Europe, he climbed over the Alps, didn't ride a horseback, he climbed over the Alps, he went to the king of Russia, the Tsar of Russia, he went to the king of France, the king of Belgium, there's a king in Italy, he went there, he even went to the Pope and witnessed to him. And as a Quaker, he wouldn't remove his hat. They said, when you step into the presence of the Pope, you must remove your hat. He said, oh no, no. Yes, he said, no. Well, come in this way, they opened the door and put him through, and then a man grabbed his hat, took it off, so he had to stand before the Pope without a hat, but not without a message. He told the Pope he needed to be saved, isn't that wonderful? Well, I'd go to Rome tomorrow if I could tell the Pope that. Let me go back to this. Again, see, about that man, you know, he went to slave... he sat with children in the gutters of India in order to pick up words. He went to slave camps, he went to leper colonies. I'm a debtor to everybody. I don't care the color of his skin, the size of his head, or if he has a purse or not, or a home or not. He's without God. It's easy to say that, isn't it? That neighbor of yours is without God, but listen, something else is worse. He's without hope, both in this life and the life which is to come. The reason so many rich people go apart, they've got everything that's visible and they haven't got the invisible, and that's true of poor people too, of course. But this man just spent his life, and do you know what? Twice. Once he was preaching in Paris, and he got the crowd intoxicated because he said there's no value in the Mass, that Jesus alone can save you. They hung him up on a lamppost, and he was just about gasping his last, and somebody cut him down. So the next night he preached again, and instead of putting on the lamppost, that was getting old-fashioned, they threw him in the river Seine, tossed him right into the depth of the water. He got out. Twice he stood before men with a cutlass, all mad with drink, and had chopped his head off, and he didn't run and scream. He stood there. In season, out of season, he was in death's loft, like the Apostle Paul said. You know, if you can talk somebody into salvation, somebody else will talk them out. It's a miracle of God. Do you wonder what Wesley said? Thy nature, gracious Lord, imparts. Come quickly from above. Write thy new name upon my heart, thy new best name of love. He won't learn that until he's created a clean heart. And you see, there's no difference in the lifestyle of many Christians. They're as worldly. They have to go running to a movie, or running here, or running there, to find a bit of satisfaction. But not when Christ comes. When Christ is my all in all. As I've said to you, I picked it up last year, I don't know where from. You can't say, Christ is all I need, until Christ is all you have. You've got to lose everything. Every interest. Maybe break up good friendships. Maybe back off. And the Lord says, go hide yourself. I tell every young man that comes to see me, hide yourself. Get Gurnall's, what's Gurnall's car now? Oh, good. Here's my student, prompting me. Spencer, good old Spencer, thank you. The Christian incomplete armour. Don't get the abridged edition. You can get it for about fifteen, it's twenty-seven. You can get it for about, what, fifteen dollars, Jack? Or sixteen? Fun? For seventeen, it actually is thirty retail. So there you are, you've saved that money, you can put that in the offering. The Christian incomplete armour, eleven hundred and thirty pages, and balance it with that wonderful book written in 1591 by Isaac Ambrose, Looking Unto Jesus. That's the whole secret of the Christian life, Looking Unto Jesus. If you look around you, you'll be disgusted. If you look inward, you'll be disappointed. If you look upward, you'll be delighted. Don't keep looking around at folk in the church, they're worm-eaten anyhow. There are very few people who have a passionate passion for God. Why don't we face up to it? There was a woman that, again, weighed about ninety-five pounds. A little Irish lady took a one-way ticket to India. Amy Wilson Carmichael. She was the one who cried, give me a passionate passion for souls. Give me a pity that yearns. Give me a love that loves unto death. Give me a fire that burns. Give me a prayer power that prevails, to pour itself out for the lost. Victorious prayer in the conqueror's name, all for a Pentecost. Give me a love, listen, a love that leads the way, a faith which nothing can dismay. She got criticised and ridiculed and money began to dry up. She didn't send out a begging letter, she prayed. This little woman weighs ninety-five pounds. For all her life, she had a curvature of the spine. The last three years, they lifted it in and out of bed. And it's that little crippled woman that says, give me a love that leads the way, a faith which nothing can dismay, a hope no disappointments tire, a passion that will burn like fire. Let me, this little shrivelled woman, let me not sink to be a cod. Make me thy fuel flame of God. She's still alive. Our dear Paul, in South America, has every book I think she's written and very much fashioned his lifestyle. He wants, pardon? She's dead now. I know, but he has the book. In fact, the, a man that used to be the milkman, bring milk to our house, the old-fashioned way, brought it from the cow to the, I guess you know it comes from cows, doesn't he? He, he brought it in a big can to the door and you, you took your jug and he poured milk in. You know, he sent me a letter two weeks ago. It, that was nineteen what, forty-two about when he came to our house. We kept lending him books. He became a preacher. He's been a powerful preacher. He showed me a picture of a church that they'd bought. And the joy is, they've about eight or ten people out of that church gone to the mission field. But he said, you know, one of the joys of my life, I've kept up a correspondence with Amy Wilson Carmichael through her secretary until she died at the age of what, eighty-five I think, or eighty-three. And for years he's, he kept up a correspondence with her, that wonderful woman. And there she shed, spread her vision through that young man. As long as he's alive, she'll be alive. You, you can never tell your influence upon another person. It's impossible to measure it. Anyhow, let's go back now. I've got to wind up. I'm sure it's time. Jesus moved with compassion, put forth his hand and touched him and said, I will be thou clean. As soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him. And straightly he charged him, verse forty-three, and forthwith sent him away and said unto him, see that thou say nothing to any man. Isn't that a task? I don't think the Lord would ever say that to a woman, but anyhow. He said, see that thou tell no man anything. Go thy way and show thyself to the priest. Oh boy, boy, there's a stumbling block. What? Oh, Jesus, can't you change that? I mean, couldn't you say, I met somebody in the road and he spoke to me? You go tell him who? Jesus Christ. That priest hates Jesus Christ. Go tell him, let him see what it means when Jesus speaks the word and his flesh is as white as a child's. What did he do? He went and began to publish it much abroad and blaze it. Boy, those are lovely words, aren't they? Published it and blazed it. He didn't put his candle under a, under a coffee pot or something. He let it shine. He began to publish it much abroad and blaze abroad the matter insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter the city than to live out in the desert and the other places. And they came to him from every quarter. You see that? The people in the city hated him. I can imagine the priest saying, let Jesus come in this town again and we'll show you what we'll do with him. And Jesus doesn't do that. He goes the other way. And so the whole city go after him. As I've said before, you never have to advertise a fire. You never have to advertise a revival. When the Holy Ghost is brooding, nights turn into day. The lights don't go out. People don't get weary in the flesh. They get renewed. The Welsh revival went on month after month after month. In this country, I stood outside of that great church in Rochester, New York. There's a tablet about this size. It says in this church Charles G. Finney was here, gives the date, for six months and one, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. One hundred thousand people were born again. Tell me a man in the country that can do that today with all his TV show. A man that will go and stay in town until the very heavens break, until the walls of hell break down, until people turn over in their sleep wondering why and there's no doctor can diagnose it. It's that amazing thing we call conviction of sin that we know so little about. They're not just getting saved because they're going to hell. They're going to get saved because they're conscious. Am I going to get worse and worse and worse than I am now? There has to come a stop to it. And thank God that wonderful hymn we sang tonight is true. Written, remember, by Cowper. That is a fountain filled with blood. The same man that wrote that other one, hymn, God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. Side two. Round and round till finally the coachman, Cowper said to the coachman, would you stop and see where we are? The coachman got off and went up the steps, knocked at the door, came back, Cowper said, well where are we? He said, we're at your door. He'd been right round town in a fog and God brought him back there. Do you wonder, he said, God moves in a mysterious way. You know, some people can't get saved here. It's almost impossible. God will take them somewhere else. For a certain reason, I've been praying about all the young men that have gone into the forces this week. All the young mysteries have gone to another country. It's a new climate, a new language. And there they are, feeling, you know, why didn't you stay at home and play tennis with the other folk at home? What are you doing in the mission field here? The food's rotten, the atmosphere is rotten, the people are vulgar. Everything is against all your culture and sense of, and they stay there. And it's the same with young men that have gone to the forces this week. Gone into strange environments. You know, I don't want one man here to die on the battlefield. If you die, die in the mission field. We need to pray more than ever for the young people today. There's a thousand seductions today that weren't here ten years ago. And not only do you stay in prayer and cover your family with the blood every morning when you get up, like Job did for his children, lest they should transgress. But we have a faithful covenant-keeping God. I'll say one more thing. In 1950, I met Dr. Tozer for the first time. And as we prayed during the week, he said to me one day, you know, Brother Leonard, as he said, I want to tell you something. I think he said we had 30 young men from this church went into World War II. 30 of them. And we covenanted together. I think the church fasted and prayed every Wednesday. And only one of them was injured, and that was his own son. But not one of the 30 was killed. Every one of those young men, maybe there's no other church in the country has that record. They banded together. The devil isn't going to have these boys. They're going to come home. You know, we pray for such decimal things, and very often little selfish things. Once inside eternity, brothers and sisters were going to be very embarrassed at the smallness of our faith and expectation. When God has said all these things, all things pertaining to godliness, America won't survive another decade if we don't have a Holy Ghost revival. I don't care who becomes a leader. Two men came in my home, Wednesday, I think it was. No, Tuesday. And the first that was there said, you know, I've been reading Jeremiah. The second one came in in the afternoon. He said, I've been reading Jeremiah. I think a brother came in yesterday. He said he'd been reading Jeremiah. You know, I say to them, forget him. Forget Jeremiah. Why? Well, tell me this. We're not living in Jeremiah's day. Did Jeremiah have a church at every street corner in Jerusalem? Did Jeremiah have thousands of Bibles? America has three or two, six hundred million Bibles in America. Church at every street corner. Broadcast. Religious tracts by the thousand. Religious books. Religious broadcasts. Conferences. Seminaries. Seminars and all the rest of it. All this heaps upon us. To whom much is given, much is expected. And it's time for us to wake up. I love to see these precious Indian guys. They rebuke me every time they come. Their zeal for God. Their love for the two and a quarter million American Indians who own the country. The most intoxicated people in the country. They drink more liquor. Their young men die by suicide four times for everyone that dies a white man. And this is a reproach on the conscience of America. It should be. Other people living in poverty and reproach. You see, we have, what were you clinging on to tonight? Why do we sell off? Your reputation, your lifestyle, whatever it is. I'm not saying sell a little bit of furniture. That won't bring the kingdom of God any nearer. But if you're hanging on to something which is hindering your spiritual life. I opened a book yesterday to show a fellow. This new definitive study of the life of Jonathan Edwards. Boy, I opened it, you know, it's such a lovely picture that I opened it. Boy, what did I do? I just fell down. It said this precious man that was the key to revival in America, that shook the country, that changed the whole country. He prayed and read his Bible 13 hours every day. And it's 13 children in the house. You see, there's so much to be got from God. You can't just live on meetings as good as they are. You can't live and go into most churches anyhow. We're to live on Christ, on him, on his word. And more and more I want him. I don't, there's nothing I want more. Nothing on earth do I desire. Let me quote this and I'm hopeful. Wesley, a woman that wrote a hundred years before Wesley, come Jesus, come Saviour Jesus from above, assist me with thy heavenly grace. Empty my heart of earthly love. That's where it begins. And for thyself prepare a place. Nothing heroic in that. Listen to this. Nothing on earth do I desire but thy pure love within my breast. This only this will I require and freely give up all the rest. Wealth, honor, pleasure, and what else this short enduring. I don't know what she gave up. I know what Wesley gave up. If it stayed in the Church of England, he would have been the most distinguished archbishop of Canterbury England ever had. He gave it all, he died almost penniless. He slept in a forest in Georgia and got frozen to the ground, struggling to get one arm free, then to get his head free, then to get his legs free. And he wasn't even saved. Dear God, that man slays me. He wasn't really born again and he used to meet and study the Bible at four o'clock in the morning with Calper and all those other fellas. It's thirst for God. You see, there's a secret. The whole secret is hungering and thirsting after righteousness, after God. Nothing on earth do I desire. Boy, we've got a good way up when we can say that. But thy pure love within my breast. This only this will I require and freely give up all the rest. Wealth, honor, pleasure, and what else this short enduring world can give. Tempt as ye will, my soul rebels, for Christ alone is all to live. Thee will I love and thee alone with pure delight and inward bliss. To know thou takes me for thine own. Oh, what a happiness is this. When some fella comes up and really says to a girl, I love you, and he marries her, and we're going to stay together from here to eternity. Boy, it changes everything in her life. And once we get married to him, and that's what salvation really is. I renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil, all creature comforts, all other things, and say, I'm married to the will of God. And whatever it takes, I'm going to do the will of God. Because the good book says again, he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. We're going to pray in a minute, but let me remind you, our neighbor that comes sometimes, I know Jacob comes, but he's going off in the morning again. And the other neighbors away, John that prays with us on Thursdays, he's gone away on a crusade. Joe Fossey's gang must be somewhere troubling the devil, I hope. Good. And these Indians are going to have a powwow, is that what you call it? In when? August. Next month. What day? Third week in August. How many thousands? Four to eight thousand. It's a program of devotory from morning till night, my dear brother says, drunkenness, and sin, and shameless. And they're going up, a team of them are going up. Are you going, Sonny, as well? Pardon? I don't know yet. Oh, well, pray for Sonny, there you go. Well, they're going up anyhow. The second week in August, let's really pray that they'll leave a tremendous impression there by the power of God. People know these precious guys, how drunk they were, and lost in drugs and everything. And God's transformed them. So he can do it in others, he's done it in them. He's able to save to the uttermost all who come. Well, I'm glad you came tonight. I don't know whether you are, but I am. So whether you're a leper, you were a leper anyhow, we were all lepers. He healed the leper, he healed the lunatic, so if you're in that class, you're safe. And he healed the Lord, the rich man. Everybody on the spectrum, he came and delivered them. And he's still able to do it. We want to see God move in our day. As I've said, I'm tired of reading church history. It's time to make it, whatever the cost may be. Okay, let's, uh, maybe you could sing, He Touched Me. Could we do that? And as we sing, as we sing it...