Leonard Ravenhill emphasizes the vital role of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer, arguing that the Holy Spirit is not merely an experience or influence but a person who guides, convicts, and transforms us. He critiques the modern church's neglect of the Holy Spirit, urging believers to seek a deeper relationship with Him that leads to true spiritual transformation rather than superficial charisma. Ravenhill highlights the importance of being led by the Spirit, which results in a life that reflects Christ's character and power, and he calls for a return to genuine spirituality that integrates God's life into ours.

John 16 and verse 8. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. And of righteousness, because I go to my father and ye see me no more. Of judgment, because the prince of this world is done. Now look at verse 13. How be it, and I'm putting an emphasis here. How be it when he, the spirit of truth is come. He will guide you into all truth, for he shall speak not of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak. And he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. So the various contributing forces to this meditation this afternoon. One was the fact that there's a slang phrase that I just about detest. And that is that you meet people who say something like this. Have you had the baptism? They take with as much attention as, have you had a flu shot? And most of them don't mean are you holy. What they mean is, you speak in tongues very often. Somebody sent me a little paper this week. And there was a phrase in it that really, really gripped me. Because it was written by a Pentecostal brother. And this is what he says. We're living in a charismatic generation that has despised, or neglected as he put it, the Holy Spirit. Now you need to sit and think an hour maybe over that. But it's very true. We're living in a day when there's much talk about charisma. You know we used to talk about a man having unction. The other day I talked with a very famous man and he said to me, you know so-and-so, oh he has charisma. Now somebody said the reason that Jack Nicklaus isn't as popular as a golfer as Arnold Palmer is, Arnold Palmer has charisma. So apparently you don't need to be sanctified to have charisma. It's another word for a kind of glowing, outgoing, radiant personality. You know somebody comes in the room and whoo, the atmosphere changes. They have that kind of personality. And so to many people again, you know the Holy Spirit is not a person. The Holy Spirit is an experience, or the Holy Spirit is an influence. But by biblical definition, by the words of Jesus here, the Holy Spirit is a person. As a person he can speak. As a person he can rebuke. As a person he can inspire us. As a person he can be offended. The other thing that disturbed me, and it did disturb me very much, was talking with a man who was a very distinguished minister. And he said he'd been talking to a lady whose husband had been one of these wild cards, a drunkard, a fighter, a drinker, a gambler, everything. But she wasn't too impressed with his life. He made it in the material world. He drives an enormous Cadillac. He has everything. And somebody said, but listen you know, he doesn't come in drunk. He doesn't gamble your money. He doesn't give you black eyes. He doesn't say, she says, look I want to tell you, I'll sum it up to you in a sentence. When he got saved so many years ago, his habits changed. His personality didn't. Well if it didn't, he didn't get saved. That's all I've got to say about it. If you still got anger and pride and jealousy and maliciousness and something like that, you need to get to the cross real quick. Because Jesus didn't die to deliver you from a lot of lousy sins and the penalty that whether you get forever, he died to transform your personality. You see the Holy Spirit does not come. The work of God is not to bless us, it's to integrate his life in your life and my life. Sins make special beautiful in the, in the other hymn book we sing from sometimes. Once it was the blessing, but now it is the Lord. Once it was the feeling, and now it is his word. And so he goes on. Wasn't these gifts I wanted, now they give it all. You see you can retain your gifts, even if you're backslidden. You won't retain your fruits. The fruits will wither, the gifts remain. Because God says the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. Now here Jesus says, now the disciples didn't like this. He says he's going to leave his disciples and another person is going to come. And he says when he has come, he doesn't say do the miraculous and raise the dead. This is what he says, when he has come he will reprove or he will convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. I read a prophecy this week, it was written in 1619. I didn't happen to know the writer personally, but it was written in 1619. It's a very marvelous prophecy, it's about these last days in which we live. And this man, though he does not substantiate his argument from Scripture, and he raises a host of theological and eschatological questions. But there's an awful lot of truth in what he says. But he sees at the end time what he calls an army of Melchizedek men coming forward. Oh you can translate that maybe into another way and talk about a bunch of super saints coming along if you like. Now once I start thinking about the Holy Spirit, I had automatically to turn to what is perhaps the greatest chapter on the Spirit in the Bible, that's Romans 8. Here's another thing that provoked me. The radio, the TV said that one of the great problems right now in the nation is absenteeism. People backing off from duty, responsibility, going to work. You know, the phone rings, it's Mary, she can't come in today, she has a terrible headache. Oh she'll be in tomorrow all right. This is Jack, he calls the office of the factory and says I can't come today. Oh I got real stomach upset. Of course he doesn't say he was drinking beer and a lot of junk till midnight last night, but he says he has a stomach upset and he can't make it. Somebody else says well I would have been there, but you know what my uncle came in from Australia and he's only here for 48 hours. So I'm not coming in today, I'm not coming in tomorrow. Well you say they're all reasonable. Well this is the point the Lord got through to me. He may not get it through to you the same way. Have you noticed that immediately your physical constitution is a little bit out of kilter, but it telegraphs up to your mind and your mind says something to your will. And your will says, can't go to work today, can't do that today, can't do something today. Not with a headache like this. Not with a stomach like this. Not when uncle John is coming, he could cut you out of his will. Ten dollars less. You could be in real trouble. Now let me ask you a very simple question. Does the Spirit get through to you as easily in your spirit as your tummy gets through to you? Hmm? I mean tomorrow you're going on a day shopping. And you get up with a burden tomorrow and you call sister Jane and say listen Jane I'm sorry I can't come. You know God put such a burden of Africa on my spirit. I'm gonna have to spend 12 hours on my stomach. You're going on a business trip and the Lord intervenes and says look I want you today to do that. Does he do it? Look if the Holy Spirit is power, let's turn the switch on. God knows we need it here and everywhere in the Church of God. If he's power, turn the switch on. If he's a person, listen to him. I'm convinced, I'll get to it maybe a bit a little bit later, that what it mentions in the 19th verse of Romans 8, about the manifest sons of God. Do you know what? God will hear your prayer. I don't believe that's a secret anymore of God hearing your prayer. The secret is you hearing God. Now when did you last hear him? Come on. Not reading streams in the desert or squirts in the wilderness or something. But when you're really down along with God, you read the Word of God and suddenly you heard a voice say no or yay. He's a person. Is it Watts or Wesley that says he speaks and listening to his voice, new life the dead receive, the wounded broken hearts rejoice, the humble poor believe? Somebody asked me the other day if I get discouraged with it. Not on your life I don't get discouraged. Why should I? I know what God has called me to do and I say it. And I found an answer to my problem years ago. I'm going to talk to preachers this week. Fine they'll get mad for sure, at least I hope so. And it's very thrilling to get them upset. But you know I got a secret from God. It isn't a secret in one sense. It's that word again about the Apostle Paul going down Damascus Road and he testifies three times about it in the Acts of the Apostles. And he says we went down the road I a company of people with me and you know he says there shone round about me and them that journeyed with me a light from heaven I heard the voice. Nobody else heard the voice. I don't read anybody else hit the dust. He was a violent man. God threw him off his horse. He couldn't have been walking all the way he was going. God threw him off his horse into the dust. He was violent. God deals violently with violent people. The heart of Lydia opened like a flower. Did you ever hear a flower make a noise? Mind if some of us had made a sunset it would wake up with a thousand earthquakes every morning just to show we did it. But the old Sun gets out of bed in all its majesty never makes a noise. God works silence in some people's lives. The heart of Lydia opens. But going down that Damascus Road Paul says I heard a voice. Have you ever realized again it's the very word that Daniel said. Others round about me saw a light. I heard a voice. Now the only way I get discouraged this afternoon is that it's out of a bunch of us over here less than 500. But if one doesn't hear the voice I'd be pretty discouraged. If one does I'm satisfied. The rest of you can get some light I hope. If you don't hear a voice I'm fine. Romans 8 again is the, is the, well of course it depends who you follow. Somebody said it's the most profound chapter ever written. And somebody else will come up and tell you Revelation something is the greatest chapter. And somebody else will tell you another. But certainly this, this beautiful chapter Romans 8 is the, is the chapter of the Holy Spirit. Oh you might say the epistle is because 26 times in the epistle the Apostle mentions the Holy Spirit. 18 of those times are in this chapter. He has eight different names for the Holy Spirit. But again what an amazing chapter this is. You see when all is said and done. The Holy Spirit when he is come Jesus says he will glorify me. He has nothing to give of himself. I tease people because I know it provokes them. I like to provoke them. That the Holy Spirit has no gift. The Word of God says Jesus died and rose from the dead. And what? He led captivity captive and he gave gifts unto men. He purchased them with his own blood and they were not there. The Holy Spirit is the, is the executor of the Godhead. I don't know how many people I've had in my lifetime who've told me listen when I die I'm going to leave you something in my will. There must be people in England nearly 200 years old because they told me 50, 60, 70 years ago they'd leave me something. I'm going to die. Maybe by now all they leave me is bills anyhow. So I hope nobody can find my address. But you see the Holy Spirit he's the executor of the Godhead. He takes the treasures Jesus purchased for us and he distributes them according to his will. Look at verse 34 of chapter 8 here in Romans will you for a minute. Or rather look at verse 33 for a moment. Who shall anything to the charge of God delect? It is God that justifies. Now look if you believe that you don't even never need to have a worry in your whole life from here to eternity what people think. As Brother Herb said earlier he didn't care. What about my reputation? Take it to the cross then you'll have no trouble with it. Get it crucified. What's reputation? Well I'll tell you what God told me in my 20s I was a young man. You know what God told me one day? You don't need to worry about reputation. Reputation is what people think you are. Character is what God knows you are. You can do what you like with my reputation, stamp on it, spit on it, distort it. I'll enjoy it. I'll laugh with you. You can't touch my character he has that. And that's inaccessible to you. And I've got better news than that. Not you afraid of you so much. It's inaccessible to the devil too. Sure. You see this man, this man's come out of Romans chapter 7. Oh what a chapter Romans 7 is eh? It's a soul in captivity. You know Romans 8 is? In the language of the modern day. It's a song of a soul set free. Romans 8, 7 is a funeral march. Romans 8 is a wedding march. Romans 7 the man is in the tomb. Romans 8 the man is in triumph. Romans 7 I don't believe is even about a saved man. I believe it's an unsaved man. Good night if you have all the rotten stuff in Romans 7 after you're saved. You better not get saved just to go join the Mormons or be a Mohammedan or something. Romans 7 is defeat. Romans 8 is deliverance. Romans 7 the man is a victim. He's conquered. Romans 8 he's a victor. He says in verse 37 recited things that might come and may not come. And then he said what? We are more than conquerors through him that loved us. That's nice isn't it? That's superlative if you like. Somebody asked an old country preacher what it meant to be more than conqueror. He says well it means you shoot at 13 ducks, 12 ducks and kill 13. Well that's a pretty bad bit of logic. But I'll tell you what it is. Being more than conqueror is getting victory and not being exhausted at the end of it. Jesus didn't rise after he came out of the temptation of 40 days. I like to read that story. You talk about what? Mocking the devil. He was led of the spirit into the wilderness and he was beaten and battered for 40 days and nobody knows what happened. You say I can tell you three trials. You can't. You can only tell me three that happened after he came out of the severe temptation. And then when he came out you know what it says? He came out in the power of the spirit. I like that. I guess the devil was tearing his hair and spitting and roaring and saying you know I just thought I got that fellow down where I want him. And Jesus says would you like to go through it again because I'll take you on another 40 days and lick you anyhow. Superfluous energy. Victory with a margin left. Where were we? Verse 33. Verse 34. Listen to this. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. All right. Remember he's a man in triumph. He's liberated. He says it is Christ that died. All right. If it's Christ that died, can the death of Jesus Christ be contested? It is Christ that died. Therefore this is our substitution. He says he's at the right hand of God. So he's not only our substitute, he's a sovereign. He's there in majesty on high. And you make an intercession. So there's supplication. What more do you need? You've got substitution for our sins. We've got sovereignty. He's triumphed over death and sin. And we've got supplication. He he liveth to make intercession for us. There's almost a holy swagger here isn't there in verse 8. He says there is therefore now no condemnation to those of us who are in Christ Jesus. As long as we walk after the flesh and not after the spirit. One of the most rousing hymns I think ever sung. We sang it up at Asbury the other week. I got them to sing it two or three times. Because of a pipe organ made up for what they couldn't sing anyhow. But it was majestic. Rest with him no condemnation now I dread. Jesus and all in him is mine. Alive in him my living head and clothed in righteousness divine. Bold I approach the eternal throng that I have access. My breath is in my nostrils. The only thing I own in the world is not a house or a car one beat of my heart. And I have the right to go to that eternal throng. I say reverently my God we're going to be terribly embarrassed when we get to heaven and look how we played around with Christianity. I have a sovereign, a Lord, a majestic Saviour with everything under his feet. I have one living there to make intercession for my feeble prayer. If I said a b c d e f g with a bird in my spirit he'd interpret it to the Father. Sure he'd live us to make intercession. Oh I like to hear men pray. I like to hear men sweat in prayer. Grieve in prayer. Weep in prayer. Roar in prayer. Because one of the ministries of the Holy Spirit is a ministry of intercession. But again this race is not to the swift. This battle is not to the strong. Prayer is not to the man with the most elastic vocabulary. If it was I'd swat the dictionary every day. Prayer is not according to a man who can present his needs most eloquently to the Eternal Father. What about the deaf and dumb? What about those who are retarded? Let me tell you something else. Time's running on. Look at verse 9 will you please. Romans 8 and verse 9. You're not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now that's enough to keep us going all afternoon. The Spirit of God dwelling in you. Look at the next verse. And if Christ be in you. My Lord, my Lord, my Lord. You mean to say you've been living on the miserable level you've lived this week and God dwells in you and the Spirit. Well just a got something else for you. Would you mind reading verse 11. If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you. Come on. If that miracle of regeneration happened in your life. If you are born again of the Spirit of God then God came to indwell you. The Spirit came to indwell you and the Son came to indwell you. Before ever you got the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Dear God why do we live at this poverty level when we've all these riches. Why is the church so weak when there's an unlink to omnipotence. Oh there's a sense in which you're justified if you pray in the language again of James when he says that that God won't rebuke us for our ignorance but we can pray for wisdom. But there's also the other side of the coin in which it says if Christ dwells in you he is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Disagree with me if you like and if you do you'll know you're wrong. But you disagree with me. You know I've discovered that an awful lot of people want to be good. There are not many people want to be spiritual. A lot of people want to be good. They don't want to be spiritual. Yeah I've seen mansion over the hilltop but don't ask me to take up my cross. My Jesus I love. Where the whole realm of nature mine. He says why don't you give me what you've got. You don't you never own the whole realm of nature. Stump up what you've got. You know we never fool God. All we do is fool each other and fool ourselves. Oh yes I can get emotional thinking love so amazing so divine demands my soul my life. Well pity didn't stop there. That's not too bad. My soul my life my all. That really hurts doesn't it? It jags you a bit. I mean you could have left that out couldn't you? I mean your soul and your life's enough without asking for all that. But you see God, God, God gave you everything in Jesus Christ and he asked everything in return. There's no part-time discipleship. There's no part-time spirituality. No I say I'm convinced again there are many that want to be good but there's very few that want to be spiritual. I talked just before I came to the meeting with an old veteran missionary. He's out in California just preparing to leave and go back to South America. I think when I first met him he was working in Borneo and had an awful time down there. He's beaten up, he's wrinkled, he's been through hell. His wife's health has been shattered. She gets restored. One day it's like heaven. The other day her body's in awful pain. Some wages there for serving God when they've been 30 years on the mission field. You say you're to be as bright as an angel. Well I'll tell you what I happen to read my Bible and it says the outward man perishes but the inward man is renewed day by day. And as you get older you'll find your body doesn't respond the same. Does it? Can you play tennis? No she says not. Okay your body won't keep up, your energies don't keep up, your mind isn't. The outward man perishes, say what you will. But you know he said, he said brother Ravenhill, you know I'm so disturbed about two things. One is the complacency in the church. The other is, and he's a veteran, he served God. Man he could have quit years ago. He'd done a lifetime's work and he went to another mission field. And he said the thing is God has been shaking me up so much in the last few months. I says glory, I say glory to God brother. He'd been doing the same with me the last few weeks. Oh yes, oh he keeps tearing me up, keeps disturbing me, keeps rebuking me. Keeps showing me areas that I know so little about. Well he said you know brother Ravenhill, down in South America the Spanish preachers in the, in the, in the Pentecostal churches particularly, they get people saved, they get them going on with God. And then when they get to a certain place he said you'll hear a man say, ah yes you wanted God, you wanted his blessing, you wanted the baptism, you wanted the gifts. But as soon as he took the pacifier out of your mouth, you started grumbling. Why you so happy, still got a pacifier? Hasn't he laid any challenge there? Hasn't he made any demands there? Tell us all we have to do is clap and have a whale of a time and give a little tithe and be blessed. Wait a minute, when he starts crucifying the flesh, when he says don't go to the cross, get on the thing. Oh then of course it becomes a different story entirely doesn't it? This is a tremendous chapter I said and I say again. It's all through the finished work of Jesus Christ. He has ascended and nobody can challenge the substitution he made for me on the cross. He's not only my substitute, he's my sovereign. You know sometimes I think, you may not do this, I think I live sometimes as though God, Jesus didn't quite get through with it and finish the job. Well I'll tell you what he said on the cross, just two words. Maybe we ought to write them here, maybe you ought to write them on a piece of paper, stick them on the mirror where you keep looking at your beautiful self. And see a sign there every time you look and it just say this, it is finished, three words. He can't come back and do anything else. If he did, he didn't do a perfect job, he did a perfect job. Not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain, you could stack their bodies until you couldn't see the moon. You could have a river of animal blood bigger than the river Amazon. But not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain, could give one guilty conscience peace, or wash away one stain. But Christ the heavenly Lamb takes all our sins away. The one tragic moment in hell was when Jesus said it is finished. And he pulled the empire down. And you see Jesus strutting, the only time he strutted in the book of the Revelation. And he says with a triumph, you know what, I finished the job. And listen, these are the keys of death and of hell. You know if we really knew it, Lucifer's got nothing left. He's got nothing left. Let me come to three simple things in this chapter, 22, 23, 26. Verse 22, we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits, it's really first fruit in the original, first fruit of the Spirit. Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to with the redemption of the body. Verse 30, 26. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself. That's the worst translation in this version. It's really the Spirit himself maketh intercession. You see the true spirit of prayer, the Spirit of God in me creates it. And he at the right hand of the Father communicates it. And the Father on the throne considers it. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit always work in harmony. Remember it's not Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It's this way, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not, N.O.T. as Tozi used to say, the junior partner in the Godhead. They're equal in majesty, they're equal in glory. Every work of, I say this many times to myself in prayer. I guess I've said it here more than once. And what's more, I'll tell you more than once again. Every work of the Holy Spirit is majestic. The world was a ball of mud hanging up there in the, in the universe. And the Holy Spirit brought it and he brooded over it. And go down the road just now and see all those blue bonnets and lovely flowers. He put them prodigal there with his colourer. He made the stars those heavenly flames. He counts their numbers, calls their names. His wisdom's vast and knows no bound. The deeper all our thoughts are drowned. Oh! He made this universe. He put the stars in their sockets. He was there before the trees of the fields, clapped their hands in the morning, stars sang together. He was there in the bosom of the Father. And he brooded over a dirty pile of mud and it became this marvellous world, that we haven't discovered yet. And one day he brooded over the empty womb of a young beautiful maiden and he conceived Jesus Christ there, just like he conceived creation. And one day that man was lying on a slab, cold and dead as dead as the slab he was on. And the devil thought man I just got him. I knew he wouldn't get up. He hasn't, he's not going to make it. And as I've told you before he, he said what can we do? And they put a stone there and then they put wax over the stone and seals over the wax. And then the sin of the world against the stone. And then Satan says every demon put your shoulders on that stone. We've only ten seconds to go and we can wreck the whole human race. And if you think the first countdown was in Florida, you're two thousand years too late. It was resurrection morning. And all heaven was looking on and all hell was looking on. And the earth had gone to sleep. Don't you get disgusted. Friends forget you. You remember that lovely pathetic hymn. Do thy friends despise, forsake thee, take it to the Lord in prayer. I always feel like saying would you hand them all a Kleenex while we sing that self-picking hymn. Do you realize that for three years he told them he was the resurrection and the life and demonstrated it. And not one of them turned up that morning at Easter. Why do you expect better treatment? All hell was looking on. All the angels are looking on. There's the stone, there's the wax, there's the seal, there's the soldiers, there's all the sin of the world. There's every demon with his shoulder. And in the last minute when Satan got to ten nine as what was it ten nine eight seven six five four three two. And he was just gonna say one. And the Holy Ghost went in and cheated him. Jesus jumped up from the tomb because the Word of God says in this very chapter of Romans 8. The spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead. Listen do you realize if you're born he raised you from the dead, trespasses and sins. Why get it so excited about Lazarus. If you're as dead as Lazarus, maybe you stunk more but you're as dead as he was anyhow. You say he opened the eyes of blind Bartimaeus. Didn't he open your blind eyes? He unplugged the ears of the deaf. Weren't you deaf? Didn't we sing it this afternoon? Hear him ye deafish praise ye dumb your ransom tongues employ. Hmm? I wonder how often our ransom tongues are employed. I wonder how often we do leap for joy. The Holy Ghost created the world. The Holy Ghost created the Christ in the matrix of the Virgin. The Holy Ghost raised up Jesus from the dead. And not only there. But remember it says what in Romans, pardon me, Hebrews 10. The blood of bulls and goats from the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctified for the puring fine How much more, how much more, shall the blood of Christ go through the eternal spirit. He needed the Holy Ghost even when he ascended. To say I like Jesus is putting it mild. But you see our language is so poor. I like him because he contradicts all the laws of nature. People say well how could a man maybe be born without a mother, without a father. Well the first man came into the world without a mother. He's the only person in creation that didn't have a navel. But Adam didn't have a mother. Jesus didn't have a father. He came into the world contradicting nature. He walked on the water. That scared him. That scared them. Just to show he could contradict. He didn't do it often. He didn't do it for fun. Most often he took a boat. Some people want miracles every meeting. You may come to ours and for a long while, maybe before you see any. We don't need them in that sense I'm sure. Man if we could have done what Jesus did. You'd never left the pull of Bethesda all your life. He went and healed one man and walked away and left maybe 500 cripples. That would have killed me. I shared meetings often with Miss Kuhlmann. And she'd say after the meeting when somebody said wasn't it marvellous. Oh she'd say but brother how many went away unhealed. That's what gets me. Not that three people were healed. There were 3,000 of them unhealed. Oh well the cameras don't put the pictures on that. Did you ever find a healer write a book on all his failures? Huh? You ever testify about all your failures? Come on now. Oh I once prayed for so-and-so. I saw so-and-so do me that. Fine I'm not saying that. I'm just saying this. On the law of averages we've got about a hundred failures for every healing or miracle. Jesus didn't take a walk on the water for fun. He walked on the water when he was in it. But I'll tell you what he did it. That's what matters. The only man that ever did it. Not Peter did it. You say he sank. I say he didn't. The scripture says he did. It doesn't. It says he sank when he was going out. How do you think he got back? Do you think Jesus gave him a pick-a-back? He walked back to the boat. Sure he did. You see he only had his eyes on Jesus going out. But when he came back he had Jesus with him. I think he hung on Jesus arm. I would anyhow. Walking or no walking. They say we both go down together or not at all. No, no, no, no, no. No chance of that. But isn't it lovely that Jesus contradicts the laws of men, the laws of science. And one day they were talking to him. And he says you know one day. Oh he's gone. Hey that must have been nice to see Jesus going on. Stupid people say Wilbur Wright was the first fella to go through the air. Forget it. Elijah went with a chariot with four motors on too. Well I don't have any horses he had. But Elijah went up didn't he with a chariot of fire. That must have been great to see. See God's never behind anybody. I mean never behind in the sense of too late. He's always ahead of everybody. And you know that same Jesus that went walking up the clouds. Wouldn't it be wonderful to see. I've dreamed I've been doing that many times. Woke up all perspiring for sure. But I dreamed I was walking up clouds. You know one day he's going to come stepping down the clouds. Won't that be wonderful. Particularly if you've just got your gas bill and all the other bills. And you're just wondering what to do. And suddenly whoopee there he is. You thought it was an earthquake. 10,000 of his saints. Wouldn't it have been impressive if he'd done that the resurrection morning instead of leaving it to the end. I remind you again he didn't try to impress anybody. Jesus never went to anybody after he was raised from the dead. No sinners. No sirree you come by faith. This prophecy of 1613 said what we'll need in the end time is a great miracle, a revival of miracles. We've had them for the last 50 years in this country. Nobody no nation on earth's had more. No man had more than Charles Price. Read his books I think we have them. One of the great saints of Pentecostalism. They dragged him to court because he was healing people. He said I never healed anybody. I never gave a prescription but I happen to work for a master who's pretty good at it. The Bosworth brothers came up. Or Robert, Jack Cole mentioned them. I met most many of them. We've gone through that phase it didn't turn the nation to God. Somebody told me I was going to send his name. I won't. But Miss Cooman's ministry had diminished tremendously before she died. She wasn't getting the same power. She knew it. David Wilkerson told me that she didn't tell him. She told his friend. I'm the last of the line. God isn't going to work for anybody that nature, that style anymore. He's going to do it in a better way. But again don't look so sad please. It's all the power of the Spirit. Oh one other thing I should have told you about the Holy Spirit. You know he's a good writer. Oh some guys that wrote for him weren't much good. One was a guy, never went to school, herdsman of Tikoa. Not sure he got all his calligraphy nice. But I'll tell you what, boy they left me a marvelous book. Holy men of God's take as they were moved. You ever feel something churning in you? I do at times. I hear women say we were in a house not too long ago where a young lady was expecting a baby within a few days. She said you know this thing moves in the night. My how it stirs. In the meeting it was kicking. He's enjoying my preaching actually. But he said man one part when you were speaking that he was kicking me like mad. Great, great. That's good. Maybe he's got to be a preacher. The Holy Spirit's energies. Did you notice that in that hymn we sang this afternoon? Eternal light, eternal. The Holy, I love that phrase, the Holy Spirit energy. You know if you, if you link the force of the sun and all nature and every atom bomb and hydrogen bomb and everything else, it wouldn't be a firecracker compared to the power of the Holy Ghost. He raised Jesus from the dead. What do you think kind of power did that? Hmm? He blasted a hole in hell itself, through the power of the Spirit. Jesus raised from the dead. He led captivity captive. All right let me skip to this quickly. What does it say in verse 22? The whole creation groaneth. Doesn't it? Doesn't it? Doesn't it? Wasn't another earthquake last week? They didn't report how strong it was in the, on the Richter scale. But another one in Turkey somewhere. You, you count back the last five years. The strength of earthquakes. The hundred, even millions of people being destroyed. The other night I was laying in bed, the lightning was flashing till the whole countryside was lit up. You could have read a book with it. Man if you could harness just one of those flashes, that would last you in electricity all the rest of your life for the whole city. But the whole creation's groaning today. I believe physically it's groaning. I believe the skies are groaning. I believe the earth is groaning. I believe the upset in the, in the weather is part of the groaning of creation. There's no legislation can put it right. We ourselves groan within ourselves. Do you? Come on. Do you? Do you? Don't answer me, answer God. Do you? Do you? Do you ever groan within yourself? Not for longings, merely for yourself. That somehow you might come to maturity and strength. Do you groan? I like that hymn that we sang this afternoon. I like it, I don't like it. I choke up when it says, give of thy sons to bear the message glorious. We've got three of them in different countries I thank God for. Give of thy wealth to speed them on their way. Yeah, I do that by the grace of God. I like to go out and preach because we give the money to missions. It's great. Pastor says how much do you want? I say as many thousands as you can give me. Give me every dime. I won't touch a penny of it. Won't even take expenses for coming. Give me the money it's needed in South America. Let's get moving where there's darkness. This man told me he'd been to the area where Paul and Irene are. He said I'll tell you what, that's a different kind of Christianity than you'll find anywhere. He said you didn't drop one hint of light, that bunch down there obey it. They obey it. They're all just young couples in their 20s to 30s. With a breathing of God on that community. Already had warnings and prophecies of what God's going to do. They've got teenagers that Paul says they can pray. And pray till two or three o'clock in the morning. They pray like veterans, like men in America or England at 50 or 60 years of age who walked with God for 40 years. And these kids were three and four and five years of age. But they pray with groanings. And then verse 26 that says the Spirit himself as it should be maketh intercession for us. Which groanings which cannot be uttered. Now people say of course that means tongues. And I don't believe it does. I believe you can pray in tongues sure. But I don't believe that's what it's talking about here. If it was God would say so. He happens to be smarter than we are. If he said it was praying with tongues of the utterance. But it's beyond tongues. It's beyond tongues. It's groanings which cannot be uttered. It's Hannah again in the place where she's determined by the grace of God to bring forth that child. And it's not for her sake, it's for God's sake. It's not to take her barrenness. But God needs a prophet 20 years up the road. And she's determined to see that God gets that man. And the priest can think she's drunk. And everybody else thinks she's spiritually insane. Why does she care? Let God come on you with a burden for somebody or something somewhere. You won't get a hill of beans whether you think your dress is 50 years old. Or your hair's the wrong style. Or your nose isn't the right shape. You won't, you won't even see nor feel. You live in a different world. As this precious brother says, God doesn't really want to bless us. He wants to integrate his life into mine. All right. Let me step back. The creation groaneth. We groan. The spirits groan. Why? Now you may disagree with it. Do you know I believe maybe at the judgment seat you'll discover that Watergate wasn't a moral collapse. It wasn't a political collapse. It was a spiritual collapse. There were 18 different selected preachers went to Nixon and not one of them got through to him. I read a very biting thing. I get the New York Times book review as a gift. Somebody bought it for me and I enjoy it. It reviews 50, 60, 100 books a week. There's a book reviewed by the name of Lancelot. It's in the 20th. It's in the February edition the 20th of this year. 20th of February 1977. The writer in it says this. If I can remember it exactly. This is a paraphrase and you're very close. Don't talk to me about Christian love. Where is Christian love? It's been preached over radio, over TV, and over the pulpit. And that was the end of it. Now listen to what it says. The Jews knew better. It mentions a name. I won't put the name in. Let's say the men who preached to Nixon. He says they laid down with Nixon and they got up with a different set of fleas. The Hebrew prophets did not hobnob with corrupt men. They were bred in the wildernesses. They were bred in the deserts. They knew better than to compromise with men like that. They had a commission from an eternal God. Maybe Watergate and all that's come out of it will be laid at the charge of those preachers, never mind your politicians. Do you know how many times so-and-so preached before Nixon? No, but I'll tell you what. If Elijah got there the first time, he'd never have got there the second anytime. And you know what? Nixon and all the bunch with him would never forget that Elijah stood there in the power of the Spirit of God. Let me come to the last comment here. It's in the 19th verse. We'll step back. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. Now that's the thing that really bit me. That's the thing I've chewed over in the night. I got out of bed when I couldn't sleep and gone to my office. Manifestation of the sons of God. Is that why the whole creation grown us? Come on now. Is that why the men who preceded Stalin could liquidate 60 million people in Russia in that blasted damnable revolution they had? Because the church failed? The whole creation waited for what? The Lord to come? No it doesn't wait for the Lord to come. It waits for the church and Jesus Christ to put on the whole armor of God and get the quickening of the Spirit of God. Because the secret of verse 19 terminates in verse 18. Because it says over in 17 that if we're children we're heirs. Oh go back, go back a minute. Go back to verse 14. It's an introduction to it. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God they're the sons of God. All right we have not received the Spirit of bondage again unto fear. Do you remember in the second verse he says the Lord the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Not only inward bondage but the fear of man, the fear of consequences, the fear of tomorrow. We're free. And Jesus says whom the Son sets free is free indeed. So what is it saying here? It says in verse 14 as many as are led by the Spirit of God they're the sons of God. So the sons of God obviously from that very verse they're led by the Spirit of God. In verse 15 we're not in bondage therefore we're liberated by the Spirit of God. And then it says we have the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, I'm your father, our father. So we have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts. What love do you need? In God's name I ask you. If the Spirit of God can lead me tomorrow. If the Spirit of God can liberate me tomorrow. If the Spirit of God loves me tomorrow what do I need? I've all that I need not for the years of time alone but for eternity. Now let me read again verse 19. The earnest expectation of the creature waited for the manifestation of the sons of God. But look at the end of verse 18 which I believe spells the secret of this thing. For what does it say? The glory which shall be revealed in us. Not revealed to us in eternity but revealed in us. What I said before let me repeat again. It's beautiful to pray. I don't believe that's the secret these days. I'll never diminish prayer. I like to emphasize it. But the importance at this moment I feel is not that God hears us but that we hear God. What is it saying? You know you've got to a British sad pitch when Satan tries to cast out Satan. I listened to a comment the other night. Do you know there's a national agitation against TV right now? Do you know the PTA is doing in California? It's put every every one of the major stations CBS and ABC and all the other junk. Every station is being monitored from now till January next year. Do you know they said that your child if your child is an average American child your child by the age of 15 will have seen 11,000 murders on TV. Your child by the age of 18 will have sucked in 20,000 hours of TV. Now I'm all for Christian schools go ahead. But I'll tell you what first number one a Christian school is no substitute for a Christian home. Number two sending children to a Christian school won't make them Christians any more than people going to church will become Christians. Number three if your children are truly spiritual they'll get more persecution in a Christian school than outside. Do you know why? A friend of mine a distinguished American told me this just a few days ago maybe a week and a half ago. That if children got more persecution in a Christian school than outside. Do you know why? Because people started flooding their children to school. They want them to be good. They want them to be exempt from drugs and filth and rotten literature and everything. But once the Christian child tries to get the other person saved the other boy saved and talk about God he gets more as much persecution as he did in the other school. The kids want to be good their parents want them good they're not spiritual. Now there's no sense there's no sense in saying we're going to outlaw filth in Christian schools if you tap it in the house on your TV. Now I'm not going to talk to you again about this I'm going to talk to you today. If you say I don't want my child to go to a school where there's a pollution C doesn't live in a house where poison comes down the tube. Your children not need more than one hour a night on TV. Under 14 years of age you won't like this it's true they should be in bed by eight o'clock. They shouldn't date until they're 19 not one of my precious sons did. Because you see kids don't wake up they wake up physically sexually they wake up they can do all kinds of things after the 14 or 15. And if you if you precipitate them into that well don't start screaming to almighty God for it. You see your children need a Christian school okay they need a Christian home balanced by love balanced by a thing that's old-fashioned discipline. Now of course we wouldn't get this because equal rights laws would storm us. You know the greatest schools in England and in this country until five years ago were not co-ed. That knocks the bottom out of it they should be girls schools or boys schools but that's gone forever I'm afraid. But once they start mixing up at teenage and they get a life physically and sexually in other ways you start problems so you better protect them. Isn't it terrible now that the devil can come down that tube. Now you're going to have to compensate somehow sure enough sure enough. My boys went to good schools as we would say they were not well the first one was a pretty good school the good schools were in England the schools where they still parade in the central hall in the morning sing a hymn have a bible reading that doesn't make them Christians in themselves. They're still good and they don't jostle with girls and boys because there's only boys that that's another deal. I'm saying that to say this I believe we've come right back to the days of Elijah. There's nothing new under the sun that's what the book says. I went to school where there was filth. They told rotten stories they had some dirty books they told lies they cheated they stole. Admittedly it wasn't as popular. Do you know more women more married women left home last year deserted home than men? In God's name where are we getting? Three weeks ago there was a great big seminar. Everybody has seminars. I think I'm gonna have a seminar on seminars because everybody's having seminars. There was a big seminar and it was jammed up in Minneapolis on the Christian family. You know whenever any seminars where we were kids I'm going to tell you something for nothing shoot me if you like but I'm going to tell you that if you take time with your children in the morning at night in prayer and instruction and cut the dummy thing out and somehow get their engagement you never need it you never need to go to a seminar or a cemetery to raise your family. No sir. You know somehow Mrs. Wesley managed the 19 without oh I've heard people mercilessly criticize Maxwell L.E. Maxwell one of the finest schools in the world today away in Canada. They've over a thousand I think 1200 students they've school age I don't think they're preschool they're school age and high school and a marvellous system and people are criticizing but the proof of the pudding's in the eating he has seven children every one of them has done or is doing work on the mission field or is married to a missionary. A fellow called me the other day and he said I'm the son of so-and-so and I'm so-and-so I said I remember when your your father lift your shirt up and spanked your bear behind. He's about six two now he's a big fine one of the greatest preachers in the country. They have 10 children and every one of them is either a missionary engaged to a preacher on the mission field or working somehow or somewhere. A disciplined home balanced with love the reading of the word of God. All right we've come back to the days of Elijah. Now here's a simple thing in the days of Elijah there's only one Ahab only one Jezebel with thousands of Jezebels and thousands of Ahabs now. Where are the Elijahs? Who are the manifest sons of God? I'm working on it and and as the Lord helps me I'll bring you something on it if I get more illumination. But you know what I think really I'm not too sure it's super saints kind of Melchizedek type. I think the last part of verse 18 is that we verse 18 the glory which shall be revealed in us. Do you know what I think? Contradict me if I'm right and I'll be glad of the information. I don't believe one man ever candidated to be a prophet. Did he? Where did Elijah come from? I'd like to know where his dad and mum were. I get more interested in fathers and mothers I get older. He must have had a dad and mum somewhere don't you think? Huh? What was Moses dad and mum? Amram and Jacobet was that it? Boy that's funny names to write down on your birth certificate. Who's your father? Jacobet. Amram. Hey they must have been a couple. They didn't care what the government said. The government said you give us that kid and we'll drown it. They said not on your life we don't obey governments we obey God. Think God doesn't joke? The princess goes down to have a bath and she sees a basket with a babe and she says oh oh what a beautiful and you know what he's one of the Hebrew children drown him. That's what she should have said if she'd obeyed her daddy. Hey not only Moses father and mother didn't obey the king she didn't obey him. She says take him home I'm gonna have him he's my boy he's gonna be a prince I'll look after him. Ha ha he that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh. I guess God laughed at that. The little baby that should be drowned the government paid his expenses read the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles sealed a mighty scholar he became a statesman. Oh yes. Do you think he ever candidated to be a deliverer? Do you think he'd been praying on the back side of the desert Lord take me back as quickly as you can because I want to go see Pharaoh. Pharaoh was the last man in the world he wanted to see. Pharaoh said let Moses come back I'll cut his head off. Did he candidate for it? No the Lord sawed him. Take off thy shoes from off that. Oh it's all right I've been keeping a register on you Moses. Got the whole thing. Jesus 30 years learned obedience. Oh you and I wouldn't do that. We take every difficulty out of the way of our kids so they get flabby and there's no challenges. Jesus learned obedience by the things he suffered. Romans 8 oh it's a marvellous chapter it's full of excitement and right in the middle it says well I reckon the sufferings of this present time are not. Oh boy. I mean why did he put that in? If he'd left it out it would have been a glorious chapter. Why put a cloud in the sky? It's like saying why do you put black keys on white? You know it's a wonder they abolished that. Black and white get on all right there but right in the middle of Romans 8 with all its excitement the sufferings of this present time. If you haven't read it for a while would you get a book a bit later of Dr Tozer where he says God talked to the man that listened. You know he says he's never spoken to a man yet that didn't have a broken heart. A man that didn't weep. A man that didn't sorrow. He comes and he takes Moses. Then sometime this read the 24th chapter of Exodus. See God doesn't deal with us all the same. Everybody's not going to be manifest sons you don't want to be. All we want to do is go to heaven. Praise the Lord. Got one or two gifts. Hallelujah. I'll make it. But God's going to have some manifest sons in these last days in these last hours. Now they'll prove themselves by hiding away like Moses did for 40 years. By being still before God like John Baptist was for maybe 20 years. By being forgotten like Jesus was for 30 years. And then that 24th chapter I wind up with it there. Do you remember what God said to those men there? He says Moses leave the multitude. You can bring Aaron and her and Joshua and who was the other? I can never say that name at all. Nahab and Abihu. You see Israel are going to be down there. They're still my people. The certainty are going to be here. They're my people. But the others are going to be there. And you know what it says? That God did not. N-O-T. He did not lay his hands on the nobles. There's one group. Here's another. There's another. And he says Moses come up here. Why? Why didn't they all do that? Because they all didn't want to hear the thunder and the roar and the lightning and the flashing of God in his holiness. Moses had served his probation well. Joshua isn't there yet. Aaron and her are not there yet. You know I encourage, I don't know how you encourage your spirit. I encourage my spirit that all over the world, here in America and elsewhere, there are men who are secretly waiting on God. I got a letter the other day, stirred me. Fellow said I heard you preach a few weeks ago in a certain place. You preached on Elijah. I'm right in the middle of it. And you know I've got everything I wanted. I've been to college. I've been to seminary. I have a nice church and I'm booked. Every night this year I'm booked into the middle of September. And just as you were speaking and you said go hide thyself. The Lord said cancel every preaching engagement you have this year. And he's had to write dozens of letters. He said I've cancelled every one. I've got a job on a farm where I can finish at five. And you know what? One of my buddies from the college has done the same thing. He's gone to another farm and they're going to let him work there and me work here. And we're going to meet after we've washed at night. And we're going to get along with our Bibles and the Word of God. We're going to have every night from a few weeks now right until the September waiting on God. A business person said to me just recently I don't know whether I should stay in this office all this time. In this great poem that I've mentioned to you before, find it. If you can. W.H. Meyer's great majestic poem on St. Paul. He says God will forgive thee all but thy despair. He'll forgive everything except your despair. You know what? There's no amount of mercy and pleading on a deathbed that will restore all the wasted years. All the wasted money. Sure folk joke I'm stingy. Sure I am. I believe from the day I got saved every penny I have belongs to Jesus. It doesn't belong me. It says in the Old Testament. Oh the Old Testament. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. These prosperity boys on radio always talking about the Old Testament aren't they? Do you know what God did for Abraham? Listen I'll tell you something God did. Number one when he divided Canaan he didn't give an inch of ground to the Levites. They were to serve God entirely. But the compensation of this nobody could carry the ark of God but the Levites. Do you think God doesn't compensate man? I say when we get the pacifier out of our we kick. You're giving us your own ideas. You're all right when you preach the word. Sometimes you inject your own thoughts. Well I've got good company. Paul says the same thing. He says I'm preaching here not by commandment. I'm telling you what's in my own mind and I'll do that till I die. But let me say the last thing. One of the most thrilling stories I ever heard when I was a kid. I like my mother to tell it. She's a great storyteller too. And she showed us those men coming with a big rod like this. Struggling and the knees were buckling and they only just made it over the border. Carrying a bunch of grapes. Man alive this week grapes were a dollar eighty a pound. That would be worth about a million dollars I would imagine the way priced. Now I don't know whether they were all little grapes or they were so big you know that the whole family ate one. I don't know. But they were so big that man they carried them out. Huh? They carried them out of the promised land into Egypt. Well what do you think they did? Give them to the birds? They didn't have any hogs because they didn't believe in pigs. Might be hard on our friend Jake here. But anyhow they didn't believe in hogs. Have you ever visualized those people sitting down and saying you know what? Man these grapes. You know I think they stuffed them with honey before. Oh are they luscious. Well listen listen listen. There's not enough for everybody. Every not a million people could have a grape there weren't enough. But I'll tell you what they were the greatest grapes. But you know why? They were happy to have the fruits of the promised land that they didn't want to go in. There happened to be 31 kings in the promised land. They didn't want to get their little fingers hurt or the fingernails crushed or have to fight the 31 kings. And the walls were to high heaven. And everything is terrible in there but oh I like the fruit. Say are you going back again? Just it's John's birthday. Bring bring me a bunch Rudy. You know I mean you know if you could make it real you know. Do you think we could open an agency? Could I open a branch office or something over there? Or could we get an underground railway to bring them through? They ate of the fruit of the land but they never went in. Oh we've been awful people. A lot of people want to be blessed and happy. They don't want to take up their cross and follow him. You see Jesus has a cross for you that he doesn't ask for me and one for me doesn't ask for you. Oh I'm getting old. I'm just young enough to start and I can do it. I've nearly enough invitations to go. But you know George Muller didn't go around the world till he was 70. And then without radio or TV or anything he preached to 7 million people after he was 70 years of age. And at 90 years of age it was fresh as a daisy. He must have touched some of that marvellous stuff in Romans 8. The resurrection quickening your mortal body. The spirit that worketh in us. Oh come on forget about the glory that shall be. It's time we had a bit right down here. It's time that we were so candidated that God whispers into your heart and says listen I'm going to make you one of my manifest sons. But the only way to do it I'm going to drop you in a jungle in South America. I'm going to drop you in a hell hole in New Jersey and ask you to live your life out there and you better tell your bride before you go that. Sorry I'm tearing the flowers. You better tell your bride before you go that this is where we're going to live. See she loves you enough to live in a lousy rat infested place. Yeah it's easy to sing give of thy sons to bear the message glorious. It's easy to feel moved isn't it. It's another thing to get let the spirit of God so possess us again that I'm not just after blessing. But to be made a blessing. Not to know little of his life but integrated with him that my life and your life may be hid as Paul says with Christ in God.