In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of revival in the church. He suggests that revival is not simply a charismatic preacher coming to deliver a sermon, but rather a divine invasion that changes the moral climate of a community. The speaker also highlights the significance of prayer in experiencing revival, using biblical examples such as David and Elijah. He challenges the audience to humble themselves before God and prioritize prayer in their lives.

Singing that lovely hymn, Trust and Obey, it's from England of course, but it reminds me of an old Nazarene in England, and he used to like that hymn, and he would say, now we've sung the hymn, Trust and Obey, and if you don't, you'll rust and decay, which is sound advice. Outside of the good of God itself, I find the greatest stimulant to faith is reading biographies, or better still, if you can get them, autobiographies. I have a whole shelf in my library which is just made up of, again, biographies and autobiographies of people stretching back into the 1500s, and I marvel at the, I was going to say perspicuity, I don't know whether these precious folk from Africa and elsewhere would know what those words are. I can't say it in African anyhow. You know, I think of men hymn writers like, well, the precious man that wrote the hymn, We're Marching to Zion, and when I surveyed a wondrous cross, you remember his name? Isaac what? If I remember, he was conversant with Greek when he was six, and he did some Hebrew when he was nine. Isn't it great they didn't have video games in those days? We'd have missed half of the great hymns that we have. The amazing thing is that way back in the 16th century, 17th century, that people train their children in the things of God in a way that we've forgotten. I remember talking one morning, I used to rise somewhere around about five and pray with one of the few men that have seen revival in our day, Duncan Campbell. And he told me about the islands, those little bunch of islands off the west coast of Scotland, the Hebrides as they're called, the New Hebrides, way in the southeast. And he said there's, believe me, there's hardly a home in those islands where the father does not take the Bible before the children go to school, and he reads it every morning. He reads a psalm, which is a psalm in English, but in their dialect it's a psalm. At night when the children come home from school, the dishes are taken off the kitchen table and they're put there in the, in the sink, and again daddy takes the psalms and he reads them, and to the best of his knowledge expounds them. And from being the size of, well as soon as they could articulate almost, those, those children are conversant with the Word of God. On top of that they have to memorize the Shorter Catechism, which is about as thick as Scotch porridge. Well then I said I got the answer. That's the answer to revival. Paul plants, Apollos waters, God gives the increase. The Word has been lodged in the minds and hearts of those children for 15, 20 years. And suddenly there's an invasion from heaven, and that's what revival is. Revival isn't a big guy coming one Sunday and preaching till the next Sunday. That's a band-aid for a sick church. Revival is a divine invasion. Revival changes the moral climate of a community. If it doesn't, it isn't a revival. A big citywide crusade may cost you a million dollars today. Revival doesn't cost a cent. Crusades have a dominant personality. Revivals do not, except the personality of the Spirit of God. But again I love to read biographies. I love to read autobiographies. And I can think of some great ones, but I won't tell you because I don't get any commission on advertising books. But one of the greatest men that crossed the bridge of time, now I can tell you there's a great study of William Booths in two volumes by a man called Begbie. Now I say this very kindly because you know there's a certain connotation with the Word. They were not Pentecostal, though he preached the baptism of the Spirit. But let me tell you what happened. Begbie says when they had their great holiness meeting and the Holy Ghost was on the crowd, that men would be sitting at the back, you know backsliders usually sit at the back with a lot tonight, but they would sit at the back of the church and they would be under such conviction they would shred their hymn books. Now don't do that because I'll get fired if you do that. But be miserable, fall on the floor or something that's all right. And he and then he said when people resisted the Holy Ghost, now listen to this, and you've been in some meetings. If the Holy Ghost wasn't there you believed he was, you clapped your hands and shouted and had a wail of a time and you mistook noise for power. But he says the Spirit of God would lift men from the back of the auditorium and carry them over the congregation and drop them at the altar. Now how would you like to see that? You say amen but not tonight. See we would like a revival if God would only come on the track that we built for him in our denomination. Or as the old lady says, I don't belong your abomination anyhow. But anyhow we want revival our way. I've just finished a book, Revival God's Way. And the reason I call it that is because we've tried every other way. Now here's a man, one of the greatest men that ever crossed the bridge of time. A man that dealt in the supernatural. A man that raised the dead. A man that strangled the economy of a nation because he thought it was better to die in a revival than live in luxury and go to hell. A man who raised the dead. Everything supernatural was attached to this man and his life story is summed up in two words in the epistle of James, he prayed. So now you know I mean Elijah. He prayed. Do you think anybody would put that on your tombstone that you've prayed? I'm always fascinated with the with the fact the disciples came to Jesus and they never said Lord teach us to sing. They didn't say Lord teach us to do miracles. They didn't say Lord that sermon on the mount was the most awesome thing that's ever been preached and it certainly was. And Lord give us the techniques of preaching. We certainly want to be preachers. No no no they didn't say Lord teach us to sing. They didn't say Lord teach us to do miracles. They did not say Lord teach us to preach. But they said Lord teach us to pray. I think if I had my time over again I'd start a school for prayer. I take a dozen students every six months and tell them to forget there are such creatures as girls around. Take them to some big house and not allow them to drive their automobiles and get down to serious study and not only study but exercise of prayer. We've tried everything else but prayer. We've tried organizing and somehow it doesn't work as good as agonizing. We've forgotten about the upper room so we settled for the supper room. Now Elijah prayed. These men somewhere had heard Jesus pray and they said I'd rather do that than anything on earth. I would. I'd rather I'd rather preach than have my dinner. But I'd rather pray than preach. I preached with some of the greatest preachers in the world and some of the greatest churches in the world and yet I've never been particularly fascinated with great preachers. But I know some men who know how to travel in prayer and they certainly moved me to the very depths of my being. In preaching we stand before men for God. In praying we stand before God for men. As far as I'm concerned I don't care what diploma you get in the in the seminary or cemetery as folks like to call them. I don't care what diploma you get. If you get out of that place skilled and you know you're on the top list and you graduate with honors and your grandmother comes and weeps all the time that you have your gown on and all the rest of it. You know she she looks back to the time she changed your diapers and all those thrilling things. I don't care what happens. If you leave that seminary and you can't pray you're a failure. It's because you have some personality and logic and a good vocabulary and a good way of expressing things. Or you can get to the top of the ladder. It's not very very high anyhow in preaching. But when it comes to prayer that's a different category entirely. Now again the disciples said Lord teach us to pray. Lots of people say God has no favorites. I'm sure he has, he had, he has, he always will have. Else why did Jesus take in the critical experiences of his life, did he take with him Peter, James and John to raise the Jairus's daughter, to raise Lazarus from the dead. Why did he take them on the Mount of Transfiguration? And they said Lord teach us to pray and he took them there. And what did they do? They fell asleep. I think that's incredible. I don't think I've ever fallen asleep in a prayer meeting in my life. I used to take teams of students around England. We walked every inch of the way. We had no automobiles couldn't afford a skateboard even. And so we walked from the south coast to the north up to Scotland and to the east coast to the west and back again. We did the triangle at West we did on horseback but we'd no horses, we walked. And we did street meetings and we'd come in at night maybe ten o'clock or after very tired and one of the fellows would say well Skipper as they always call me, Skipper I need to pray. And I knew what it meant. It meant that everybody in the team, seven of us, would all pray. And I mean pray. There's a children's hymn we used to sing in England. I often say my prayers but do I ever pray. Again as J.B. Phillips reminds us that in the early church they did not say prayers but they prayed in the Holy Ghost. And I don't believe that's praying in tongues either though that could be very precious experience. The highest form of prayer has no speech. And I prayed but a voice was not heard. Well it talks about in Romans 8 about groanings which cannot be uttered. Well if they can't be uttered then they can't be tongues or anything else. There's something deeper in the spirit. There's a place where vocabulary runs out. Prayer actually. It's soul communion with God. It's a two-way street. I speak to God, God speaks back to me. But the disciples were privileged to see the holiest man that ever lived and the greatest praying man that ever lived. And they fell asleep. So don't be too sharp on them. I guess you've fallen asleep many a time praying. And they got a second chance. The second chance was in that awesome place, the Garden of Gethsemane. Supposing you were set, you were privileged to just live, relive one day that Jesus had in his, in his three and a half years of ministry. What day would you choose? An exciting day of raising the dead? Well what would you choose? Oh a long while I settled what I would choose. I would choose not a death. I would, I would like to have crept up to the edge of Gethsemane and heard him pray. I'm not sure I could take it. There's a scripture that talks about groanings which cannot be uttered. There's that 22nd prophetic psalm where Jesus is saying that he's a worm and no man. You know why you don't pray? Because prayer is the language of the poor and you're too smart to pray aren't you? The self-sufficient don't need to pray. The self-satisfied don't want to pray. The self-righteous cannot pray. But David though he's a king, he has armies everything, he repeatedly says bow down thine ear and hear me for I am poor and needy. Now you can strut in the pulpit. You can show your skill, you can juggle with the Greek and impress people. But I challenge you to strut when you've shut the door and you strut, you pray. Strut before God. Do you think you dare do it? Is there anything that cuts us down to size more than going into the closet and waiting on God in prayer? I find it incredible at least with Peter James and John that after they failed him on the Mount of Transfiguration that they should again in the garden of Gethsemane they failed him. He came and found them sleeping and he went away. He came a second time and they were sleeping he went away. He came a third time and he said as though he'd abandoned and sleep on now. I said last night I say again that your church, that the Sunday morning crowd in your church proves how popular the church is. The Sunday night crowd proves how popular the preacher is. The prayer meeting proves how popular God is. No the disciples didn't say Lord teach us to sing. I live in an atmosphere of celebrity. I'm not a celebrity but they are. David Wilkerson lives across the road from us. Dallas Home lives behind us in a field there. Winky Prattney lives just up the road. The Gaffney folk are up the road. The Last Days are up the road here. The Calvary Commission's down the road there. Until recently Barry Maguire lived up the road just just near to us. And Keith Green lived a mile from my home. All these celebrities. And Barry Maguire came in the house. He's a beautiful guy, wonderful guy. And I was teasing him. I said well when I when I see you I think of that scripture where the disciples came to Jesus and said Lord teach us to sing. And he said that Jesus didn't say that. Oh no I got it mixed up I'm sorry. It was Paul who said sing without ceasing. No no no it was Jesus said my house should be a house of song. Huh? Is any among you sick? Let them sing one to the other. If you heard a lot of the modern singing you'd be sick after it too. The emphasis is on prayer. Listen no man is greater than his prayer life. No church is stronger than it's than it's prayer meeting. I don't care where it is. I go to churches with five, six, ten thousand members and I say the same thing and the deacons don't like it you know. You're going to be a preacher? What kind? Are you going to go into the mold of other preachers? If you do you may get moldy too. But are you going to get in the mold? Nor would you like to really be a New Testament preacher. Because if you're a New Testament preacher you've only two things to do. According to what the fifth or sixth chapter in Acts all you have to do is give yourself continually to prayer and the Word of God. Many of you have read or will read perhaps the great expositions of Scripture by Dr. Alexander McLaren. He, boy that was a great time in English history. McLaren was preaching in Manchester. Alexander White was preaching in Scotland. Dale who wrote that volume on the atonement was preaching at Cars Lane Chapel. Spurgeon was in London and the best preacher of them all as far as I'm concerned. The most lofty preacher. The man who could lift you out of the meeting into eternity in the first five minutes you were there. Which doesn't seem to operate anymore because there's a terrible poverty in pulpit praying. Sunday morning it's usually bow your head Lord bless us we thank you for the weather we're here again bless the offering bless the choir amen. Why don't you fire the pastor and get a tape recorder. No more inspiration in it. But Dr. Parker that'll lift you into eternity. Immediately close your eyes he's saying oh thou that dwellest between the cherubims. When did your pastor last pray something like that? Shine upon us. Now they had a touch of the other world about them that we don't have. Well I say to my dear wife often I and I'm sure you will pray for it is an awful lot of pain. And I say to read out look there's a bus going down the road. Did you count it? Baptist second Baptist church third Baptist. It's usually first Baptist. I never go to a first church because the first should be last. But anyhow you see a sign and it says first Baptist church choir on tour. Or some college choir on tour. Or some seminary maybe choir on tour. But I never saw a prayer meeting on tour did you? I preached in a church a while ago and the president of a local holiness church was there very nice guy. And they asked him to come and introduce his quartet. And he came up and said you know that they're wonderful they've won prizes singing and they're very popular and they go out every weekend. Of course we have three other teams too. We we send out four quartets every weekend. So when it got nice and cozy in the meeting I said well Mr. President I'd like to ask you a question. You ever send four quartets of praying people out to help these little churches? I thought I was in heaven there was silence for the space of half an hour. We don't stress prayer. You go to a church they have a minister they have an assistant minister they have a minister of music they have a minister of young people they have minister of something else. You ever find a minister of prayer? I only know one church that has that. I know when I'm coming down the road the cops are pretty keen in our area of Texas and I'll say to my wife or my wife says Len why don't you go after look at that truck how he's going. Why don't you keep up with him? I say well sweetheart I don't want to go to jail. Oh he's speeding down the road. And now they've got tandem trucks you know they've got this other thing at the back they're frightening they're terrifying they make the road shake. Now I don't know much about engineering I couldn't tell you the difference between a Mack truck and a Ford truck but I'll tell you this I know that when that monster goes down the road at 70 miles an hour with all that weight on it it does not have a Volkswagen motor in it. Now you've learned something tonight I hope. You say why if it had a Volkswagen motor he put it in gear you'd rip the thing to pieces he'd pull the gears out. Exactly. But we've got a lot of 18-wheeler churches with Volkswagen prayer meetings in them. This amazing man was able to pray he prayed the scripture says he prayed the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. He came into the history of Israel he walks on the stage if I asked you how he came you oh you know how he went he went up in the chariot of fire. How did he come on the stage? Tell me who were his father and mother. Tell me what district he came from. He's a fish bite or a from thieves but and nobody can locate that place his father and mother we don't know. He suddenly comes a full-grown man he comes in a crisis period and an evangelist and pardon me not evangelist but prophets are God's emergency men for crisis hours and they have no price tags and they have no denominational labels and they can't be corrupted and they've got a mandate from God. God is preparing them in America today and in other countries men that are going to come out before too long and they're going to do what prophets always do they bypass this is get me fired tonight they're going to bypass organized Christianity. Not one squeak of an amen. So I better tell you again they're going to bypass organized Christianity. Thank you. You're not all asleep thank you very good. Where did John Baptist go? Did he go and ask permission of the high priest if he could preach? Did he say give me a license in case somebody comes and checks on me? You think between Matthew and Malachi there's a gap of 400 years 400 years of darkness without any prophetic light 400 years of stillness without any prophetic voice and suddenly dramatically a man of men appears of all the places in the wilderness. I don't know how the fellow lived he didn't even have a newsletter and he didn't have a radio broadcast. A good man said to me one day Ravenhill I like your preaching but you know you need to hide away for a while and get the gift of healing and then you could pack any church in the world I think. Well I can go to countries where I can get forty fifty thousand a night that's not too bad. But I said you know the greatest revivalist ever was a man by the name of John Baptist and scripture says very clearly he did no miracle. They didn't run after him with a sick and the blind and the lame and scream have mercy on my son he's a lunatic. He did no miracle he did a greater miracle than raising the dead he raised a dead nation without any support. He didn't have broken down footballers and ex-folk from Hollywood shimmering and shining and telling you they're born again and they're half naked breasts that they have and all the rest of it. The next time you see them they told us about a guy was saved last year and right after that he took his eighth wife. No man saved would do a crazy thing like that anyhow. But there's John Baptist in the wilderness. Revival comes at the darkest points in history. Our hope is not in not not in the new crop of preachers as good as they are. I'm at the end of the line I'm not envious. But you see what the church has had in the last 25 has not moved this nation to God. We have more perverts, we more drunkards, we more divorcees, we more crowds in jails than ever we have had in history. Despite million-dollar crusades. John comes on the, pardon me, here's how this man comes on the stage. He comes 58 years after the dividing of the kingdom. He comes like everybody every other prophet he comes without permission from anybody. He has a divine mandate. He has what's repeatedly called in the scripture the burden of the Lord. Now you can tie the Apostle Paul to a post and lash him 195 times because he said I was beaten 50 times, I was beat 40 stripes save one, that's 39. And they did that five times and so he was lashed 195 times. He hung on a piece of wood in the Mediterranean for 36 hours a night and a day I was in the deep. In weariness, in fasting, in painfulness, in perils amongst false brethren, in perils and he stacks the whole thing up. And if you think he wasn't a despair to the devil well you differ from my opinion of him because the devil just about exhausted every devilish weapon he had. And he put enough on that man to crush the whole nation. And Paul says you know our light affliction which is worth for a moment. Must have had a sense of humor. Why some folk from the past they got a hangnail they think they should have a healing meeting that night. Somebody hurt my feeling. I need some help. Oh come on that'll never do much in the kingdom of God. Maybe the last thing we tell converts we tell them about all the privilege of being saved. The last thing we tell them is the moment they got saved they lost all the rights to themselves. You became a soldier and a soldier can't say well I'd like to go to war but my and I love America but my wife can't sleep by herself. We've only been married a month and she's very nervous. And in any case I my father went to the other war and he came back minus a leg and oh I'd hate to lose a leg. Brother once you sign on the dotted line you become anything the government wants you to be. Not it'll send is a number back and say number so-and-so was liquidated in war. You've got no right. And in case you don't know it the most severe the most severe form of Christian warfare is in prayer. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world. And as I said last night Samson pull down strongholds. Do you pull any strongholds down in your prayer meeting? Or is it Lord bless the church and we need some money. Lord send in the money for a new organ or send in the money. Oh mercy on us. That which troubles the modern church the most troubled the New Testament church the least. They were caught up in God. The Prophet sees as God sees. I say again if you claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit whether you believe in tongues or not you claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Look if you claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit the things that grieve the Holy Spirit should grieve you. If not you're not on the right wavelength. The saddest thing in the world I believe in God's eyes tonight is this church. So restricted so confined. Like Lazarus Jesus calls Lazarus from the tomb and he comes out shuffling and there he is but his feet are down and he's gagged and his hands are down. He's alive all right. Jesus says get up and come and Lazarus got up and came but then he says loose him. We've got millions of church members that are not loose. Take them to a prayer meeting they'll sit all through it never open their mouths. We're tied up by tradition. We're tied up by customs. We're tied up by fear and all these fetters must go. We must be liberated and as the good book says put on the whole armor of God. Anyhow look at the bad weather that this man contacted as soon as he gets mature. It says and you get the account of it I won't read it all in the first book of Kings and the 16th chapter verse 30 says Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. Now there had been six kings before him and the second king did more evil than the first and the third did more evil than the second and the fourth did more evil than the third and when he comes down to the end this one king does more evil than all the aggregate iniquity of all the kings that were before him. Now notice will you that this marvelous man Elijah did not raise a committee. He did not raise an organization. He didn't even go to the school of the prophets which existed at that time. He comes on the scene in the most dreadful hour. Every kind of iniquity and impurity and impiety was operating here if you read this list through. Idolatry, iniquity, impiety, impurity the whole land was smothered with it. The trouble with us we don't get roused about anything hardly except somebody disagrees with your theory on pre-trib or post-trib and that gets you angry. But a world going to hell fire doesn't trouble you too much. But when you see things from God's perspective you get a you get it what Dr. Tozer said to me once when if you're going to have any form of prophetic ministry and that's not speaking about the future it's speaking forth the Word of God in the context of our lives. If you're going to do that you need a little bit of anger on your soul. Jesus was angry went to the temple angry he whipped them but wait a minute before he went into the temple he stopped on the shoulder of the hill and he saw Jerusalem and he wept over it. So if you're going to whip them weep before you whip. Jesus looks at them with those holy eyes of his and he's saying my God my father to think Jeremiah walked down this street Isaiah walked down this street Zechariah walked down this street. They are these amazing men we call minor prophets and and my nation's so deaf and blind they never recognize them and they'll never listen to them. Do you remember the word of Jesus he says won't you Bethsaida and won't you Chorathin. It will be better for you in the day of judgment if you'd been like Sodom and Gomorrah and to have heard all that you've heard and be so lifeless and unconvinced and undisturbed. You remember when Paul that colossal character he was born in the ancient capital of the world he finished up in the military capital of the world he went to the religious capital of the world Jerusalem he went to the intellectual capital of the world which was Athens and he went on the mountainside where the Stoics and poets and philosophers and all you've and he preached but he says as I went down main street I saw temples to strange gods and in the sleepy Elizabethan English of the King James Version it says that he his spirit was stirred within him. The Amplified and some other issues say that when he saw these temples to strange God he was angry about it. You get angry about it you go down the street see a Roman Catholic deception and call it a gorgeous church Jehovah's Witnesses what a pretty building they've got somebody else's going does it does it hurt you you say it's a trap to get people to perdition no no no no it was spirit was more than stirred he was angry the billions of dollars invested in these things the deception of the priest the deception of the people oh come on if you want to see something in the way of devotion and concentration and sacrifice I preached in a great curries hour convention in Japan a few years ago to missionaries from Japan and much of the far Middle East and what have you got two years after that in Rockford Illinois I looked in the newspaper a little city newspaper and there was an announcement that the the president of that group he's an American that he would be uh speaking at the Wesleyan Methodist church on the Tuesday night so I said to my wife sweetheart let's go and hear this brother he's a good brother he chaired the meetings I had with another with a speaker from Wheaton and I went and after the meeting he looked quite weary quite exhausted and I said you you you seem very tired yeah jet lag no are you sick yeah what's wrong nothing well what do you mean you're sick and nothing's up well I'm not sick here or here or here I'm sick in my spirit I've been nursing and aching heart across the 14 hours flying from Japan or whatever it was for what well he said last night just before I left Tokyo I I went in a barber shop I sat in the chair and this little fellow comes along clips my hair for so long and then suddenly he says uh so you're a Yankee he said no sir not a Yankee I'm an American I suppose that's what yeah you're an American you are a businessman no ah you are a tourist no well sir what are you he said um I'm a missionary oh oh little man clapped his scissors and his comb together and he said and I am a missionary too you're a missionary ah you seem to me to be like a hairdresser ah yeah I cut hair in the morning uh from nine o'clock till five at night I go home I bathe I fill my pockets with tracks I take my little phonograph and and I go out to to the houses I have some lectures seven lectures I knock on a door say please could I come in your house I want to teach you I think I call it surigaki or something it's a combination of religion and politics he said this is going to do a miracle do you know two thousand years after Jesus Christ came there has never been a Christian revival in Japan nor has there ever been one in a Mohammedan country do you know right now through the money that we've given back to those big fat guys there with all the money there in the oil industry they're building 22 Islam universities around the world I reminded you last night in the last 20 years 21 years in England the Church of England has closed down 600 branch churches and in the time that they've closed down 600 testimonies the Mohammedans have built 350 Mohammedan mosques in a country that gave the world the bible in a country that mothered the salvation army in the revival pardon me in a country that that saw the Methodist revival in a country that basically has done more for Christianity than any other nation going back to for two or three centuries and now it's so pagan what do you upset with a little uh haircutting Japanese fella because he said to me look I go out every night at seven o'clock I come to your house and say I give you lecture number one next week I give you a lecture number two I will come seven weeks I go in homes and he said I I finish at two o'clock in the morning and he said I was pretty I pretty angry about this I said to him how long have you done this oh he said for seven years you go out for seven years every night at six o'clock and you don't get to bed till two in the morning I didn't say that you didn't say that I didn't say that you didn't say that no I didn't what did you say I said I go home at two o'clock in the morning and then I pull a curtain on one side and I have I I I worship for two hours I wait upon God these were his literal words to renew my strength sounds a bit like Isaiah 40 they that wait upon the Lord here's a pagan here's a man who's totally out of touch with God as we would say and yet he works without any pay from six at night till two in the morning manages to get home by two o'clock has two hours of study goes to bed at four and gets up at half past seven and has done that for seven years come on now you supermen you strong men with all your muscles what are you building them for not a tennis ball around or a golf ball these people put us to shame and the young man in my office just the other week from Nigeria I guess it's a big country and he was so excited I said well what were the meetings like wonderful brother Ravenhill the meeting starts at seven o'clock hundreds of people gather at five o'clock and they pray and they pray and they pray the power down for two hours and the meeting lasts from seven to nine and then people go home and in this part there's a curfew you can't be on the streets after 11 o'clock and so the people go home put the children to bed daddy stays with them mother stays with them one of them comes back to church and they pray all night I've got just old I'm antique I can remember the time when if you went to a Pentecostal church or a holiness church there were more people at the altar before the service started than were at the altar after the service they prayed the power down they prayed the anointing down they scared me to death you see those old men sweating and perspiring and saying lord come down tonight come down in your glory and I was scared stiff the room would split me come down then somebody would say lord send the fire and I was saying don't don't don't I mean I I didn't want to get burned up the greatest favor my daddy ever did for me never took me to a professional football or any other match but one night when I was 14 I heard they were going to pray my father a man called Walter Dacre a man called Albert Barnes not the commentator do you know once I'd tasted of that prayer meeting that started about I don't know 10 o'clock or just after went on till 2 in the morning when I saw those men take off their coats when I saw my big strong dad with his arms up and tears rolling down his face and his shirt sticking to his back and I heard those men interceding and I heard them traveling and I saw the power of God boy I was spoiled forever if you get born in a fire you'll never be satisfied with the smoke neither the junky smoke this way or the smoky atmosphere of your particular sweepy church Elijah comes on the stage this man's done what he should not do he's raised raised gross to asteroth and to bail he's married a Sidonian woman and God said they shouldn't marry outside of their own Jewish faith and he's married this horrible woman and she gets into power and just as you might turn the lights out one by one she she gets everything in her hands and she drives the preachers underground and she's got everything she wants and under cover of darkness she invades the land with idolatry with false priests and that stench goes up in the nostrils of God every day like it does today now coats well you know this is a great country God sent me here I know where I know when the place they call me to come and I'm grateful for it but if ever a church ever a country needed to pray surely America did you say well look how much good we've done well I reminded you last night we give money away to the third world countries and yet the third world countries have more billionaires than the rest of the world put together who's siphoning the cream off the top but no country in the world has a bigger debt to pay than we have why because we gave the world Mormonism we gave the world the Jehovah's Witnesses Spiritism was revived here go on go on tell me how many of the modern cults were born in America that are cursing the world now on the other hand some of the greatest praying men in history were born in this country I mentioned Monday night David Wilkerson my neighbor brought a man to see me little guy insignificant looking he's been praying a minimum of eight hours a day and a maximum of 16 hours a day in the back of a little church away up north nobody there just between him and God now come on you seminary boys you can hardly sit on this nice chair in seminary for an hour never mind pray for eight hours or pray for 12 or pray for 16. There's a 65 year old man in Waco who prays six hours a day there's a young man not far from where I live but he lives in Kilgore in east Texas and that young man is uh this year 34 years of age and he prays 10 hours a day you don't find the pictures of these men on the front of your newspapers or decision magazine or any other magazine they're married to the will of God they don't want publicity their their service is that kind of service you remember what it talks about wood hay and stubble they're all above the ground and then silver gold and precious stones are all under the ground and all the things above the ground the ministries that catch the eye the ministry is always boasting what we're doing and how we're expanding and we're doing this when I first came to America in 1950 I used to rush home from the meetings I did mostly the center of America and I used to go there and listen to a man and he excited me and he had a ministry up there in uh Seattle Portland I guess and oh I listened to that man I thought it was wonderful side two gone in that room this week we've had these miracles this week we've had that miracle and so he goes on and goes on and I was fascinated with it but you know just uh one night when he'd been ministering nearly 25 years like that he'd been to Africa and had these super meetings you know 3,000 people filled with the Holy Ghost because they raised their hand and what have you and there's no doubt there's a lot of what he said was creditable a lot of it was exaggeration too but after 25 years of having a worldwide ministry and the miraculous ministry he got very sick and he said to his wife one morning darling I wish you'd call my assistant pastor and deacon so-and-so and a pastor down the road and somebody up there I I need them around my bed right now and she thought since he predicted so many things he was going to say well I'm going to die this afternoon at four o'clock or something instead of that when they stood there he said gentlemen last night after my sweet wife left me I was meditating and Jesus appeared at the end of the bed in all his beauty his eyes like a flame of fire like John saw him he said I was breathless and he just pointed the finger to me and said son the 25 years of ministry that you have had are wood and hay and stubble and when I put the torch to them all you'll have left is ashes do you wonder he didn't sleep all night now I want you men to pray I want you to pray that God will give me at least one year to live as I should have lived and pray as I should have prayed and so forth and so on and God granted him that you know there's a lot lots that passes for first-class stuff in Christianity that when God sees it and he gets the torch to it it's going to go down like ashes wood and hay and stubble and showmanship Elijah comes on the stage he's got plenty of enemies hundreds of them and his life is very beautiful it's very simple because there's a point well obedience was the key thing in his life hearing the voice of God was number one obeying was number two then you get the third thing God said to him go hide thyself and then in the next chapter he says go show thyself and it's wrong to show yourself when you should hide yourself and wrong to hide yourself when you should show yourself boy he'd be a nice kind of deacon to have wouldn't he says he prayed and the rain fell he prayed and the people fell he prayed and the fire fell well you could sack all the other deacons if you'd won like that that's all you'd need you could run the church with a man that had such authority in God but I like to you know that when this woman thinks she's got everything in the bag as we say she's in the garden maybe cutting some roses and she turns around and sees this rugged ragged man and who art thou and before he doesn't say your majesty he just comes with a divine mandate and he says to her listen woman there's going to be no rain for the space of three years according to God's word no according to my word he says here you go now you watch this and he says look I'll shut up heaven and James says there was no rain for the space of three years do you know what I think I think if we were as spiritual as we think we are we would have come here tonight in sackcloth and ashes I don't think we'd have gone so far if we realized how near judgment both America and the rest of the nations are I think we would have turned the uh what was the cry of that um great man give me liberty or give me death what was his name who I didn't hear it Patrick Henry is that it I believe the Christian should have turned that around by now and said that because we love God so much not give me liberty or give me death but give us revival or give us death he shut up heaven there was no rain so he strangled the economy you you can't run your fertilize your country you can't have crops if you've no rain but he said it's better the nation should die in revival than live and go to hell fire do you think we are prepared to pray lie you prepared to pray like that are you prepared to let your car rust in the garage are you prepared to start I stood in bread lines in world war one never mind world war two in England got up at four o'clock in the morning as a a youngster not not not 10 years about 10 years of age and it's pretty tough and people come to this country you take them in a Skaggs Albertson or somewhere and they look and say ah ah ah ah 30 kinds of meat 40 kinds of cheese 100 kind of biscuits you go in a restaurant and ask the children what I don't know what I want stupid waitress she brought me coke and I wanted pepsi we're the most mollycoddled petted group of folk almighty god's ever had to deal with we don't even have days of gratitude never mind days of repentance so he did all the wrong things he rebuilt Jericho that god said should not be rebuilt and he did as god said they do they'd lay the foundation in the blood of a child and they did that and he built groves to ash trough and bale and he'd everything to infuriate a holy god and not be bothered too much but here's a man who's burning in his spirit and he says there's going to be no rain according to my word for these three years well she didn't know much about god but her husband did and then the lord says to him immediately he becomes number one personality in that country god says to him go hide thyself now lord this isn't the time I'm on the crest of the wave I mean everybody knows me you know they'd no tv they'd no telephones but everybody knew Elijah was around do you know they actually turned the the military out to find him they were going to put him in jail I think a lot of preachers should be in jail but by the same token wouldn't it be wonderful if they were looking for us because we could we could shut up heaven because we could bring deliverance to a nation go hide thyself and he went and hid himself you'll be surprised how many fellows have written to me and said I got one of your cassettes you can get a cassette of this message tonight if you like too but you know the one thing that stuck in my crop was this go hide thyself and you'll be amazed how many men have taken off a month and some even longer one of them a world famous preacher said I heard your tape and I went and hid myself the whole thing is this you see if you God well well God's a gentleman shall I put it that way he honors his own word and he says go and hide thyself uh and uh there's a beautiful stream drink from the stream and I have commanded the ravens I wish it wasn't a raven but it is I commanded the ravens to feed thee there now a raven is a carnivorous bird it eats flesh when he put one of those out of the ark it went round and never came back because it ate all the junk that was around when he put a dove out the dove won't even settle his feet on anything that's dead the stink offends him and the dove went back to the ark and you say I prayed for the holy spirit why doesn't he come because you stink you stink with pride you stink with indifference you stink with laziness you stink with bitterness and the holy ghost doesn't come and so he went and hid in the cave and the bird brought him bread and flesh in the morning now do you think he got nervous about it we're talking about faith this morning faith does three things it reckons that god is and it risks and it rests and that's just what he didn't climb a tree every morning and hang on with one arm and say lord keep my dear little bird don't let anybody shoot my bird down now there's a lot of men with arrows around here don't let them spoil my breakfast the bird came punctually on time every morning brought him bread and flesh in the morning and bread and flesh in the evening which I think means you should only have two meals a day but there you are and he stayed there the steps of a good man are ordered by the lord well if he orders your steps he orders your stops if you're not stopping you're stepping if you're not stepping you're stopping mind me the dear dear dear black man I went one day into dr tozer's office and coming out a friend said oh the doctor's in a real good mood today he's got a letter there it's a it's a just a piece of paper ordinary looking paper and a bit dog-eared and uh and uh he was holding it up and stroking it and my friend said to him uh I suppose that's a letter from one of your admirers he said no no I get those too I got a letter the other day from a lady she said I'd take 12 christian magazines and I prefer yours above all of them he thought that was good and he turned the page over she said because it fits the bottom of a bird cage without cutting the lord has many ways of humbling us why was he so happy he had received a letter from this little black man on the west coast of africa yes the west no east coast of africa uh what's the town there I've forgotten the time elizabeth town I think it is a man by the name of duma d-u-m-a now I told this story in a church in south carolina there's a big fellow at the back the usual big husky men you know baptist preachers and there he was get nodding his head nodding his head and he stowed down at the end of me says hey I just I was thrilled to hear that story about duma duma that came in the meeting for the first time and and he got saved he went to the altar and he make god and you know the silly fellow got excited about it isn't that distressing he was like the man in acts 3 or bunions pilgrim where he says I I came to a place that was somewhat ascending and I saw a cross and the burden of sin rolled off my back and it rolled down the hill and it went into an empty sepulcher and I saw it no more forever I gave three leaps for joy one for the father one for the son one for the holy ghost and and he was so liberated and this dear black man had got rid of all his sins and nothing exciting about that is it I mean you know just going to hell and you just turn around started going to heaven going out the preacher said to him well I'm glad to see you can I do everything anything for you said just give me a church give you what oh you're the little fellow that we don't often get black people here you you're the man that was at the altar no I'm not yes you are I know the color of your coat I I saw you kneeling at the altar you're the man that was at the altar he said no I'm not he said what do you mean no you're not he said that was an old man I'm a new man he said well he got his theology straight anyhow if any man be in Christ is a new creation well I can't do you have any education no no not really have you been to bible school no that was an advantage and he didn't know it uh nobody brainwashed him he comes back into the church a month after he sits there and going out the pastor says oh I seem to have seen you somewhere before could I do something for you said yes give me a church ah oh now I know ah I know who you are you said that a month ago you haven't been in the church since and you come back and ask for a church where have you been he said sir when you rejected my request I walked outside of Durban I walked until I came to a forest I went when I saw a path I followed the path in the forest I got to a stream I walked by the side of the stream and I saw a cave and I went in and before I went in I took a rock and I marked on the side of the wall outside the cave one two I stayed in that cave 21 days and 21 nights never ate any food I drank water from the stream like Elijah and I said God you tell me whether I'm going to preach or not I'm tired of talking with men and he said God said you're going to preach and he stole him specifically you're going to be a baptist preacher he told him something rather nerve-wracking for baptist preachers he said you're going to heal the sick now he's written to Dr. Tozer they gave him a church of five members over the track they said it'll close in a month he can't preach he's no experience he isn't educated well whether he is or not he died two years ago but whether it is or not by the time it finished preaching he was getting 1500 people every sabbath day every lord's day sunday morning and sunday night and uh often he was called to heal the sick or minister in the name of God for healing he'd send a message round to a deacon another deacon and he'd say meet me at a certain such a hospital and we'll pray for the sick one night he called two men and he said I want you to meet me at the hospital and going in he checked in with the lady at the count and I need to see yes um number number 22 in room 13 and one deacon said to the other did I hear it right did he say room 13 did she say room 13 yet well that's the morgue yeah so they went striding down the hospital and one deacon went a little bit nervous and said pastor uh do you realize what she said she said room 13 and that's the morgue he said that's right well you're not going to pray for the dead are you why not I preach to them every night I mean you're going to pray for a dead man he went and saw number 22 he pulled the curtain on one side here's the man on a lying on a table there his hands up like this you know and a cloth over his head and and little uh the little fellow doomer wasn't very tall and the man on the table was up to his chest so what did he do he pulled the cloth off him and he got on top of him and he laid on top of him and uh and he he said no in the name of Jesus and as soon as it said in the name of Jesus the corpse went well if that corpse had done that with me on top of him I'd have hit the ceiling I'm sure about that and he just said in the name of Jesus and then he said rise and walk and he took him by the shoulders and the man sat up and they got his clothes and walked him home well lots of people say I don't believe that well of course you're one of those unbelieving believers the church is loaded with them we believe intellectually we do not believe actually you don't go to church expecting anything Sunday mornings do you no you don't that's that's why you get it well like people get out of bed and say oh it's going to be one of those days and it is the prophecy is fulfilled so why should they worry you expect it you get it little doomer oh mercy mercy I would have loved to have seen him more than any preacher on earth it was about the 17th of November when he went into that little cave by himself and for about 20 years he maintained an apostolic powerful minister in that baptist church what was the secret he got filled with the holy ghost in that room well let's say that if you like but I'll tell you what the secret was that every year when it came to the 17th of November he went back into that cave he said goodbye to his wife and the deacons and he stayed 21 days and 21 nights back in that cave by himself every year didn't keep a little card in his pocket in case he forgot I got saved on the 15th of June got filled with the spirit so and so and I've read all the apostolic apostolic books I'm sick to death of paper theology I'm sick to death of reading books about miraculous dealings of well whoever you want to think of Dr. Price Smith Wigglesworth Jeffreys doesn't help me I live in a day when there's stagnation in the air I live in a day when we need an Elijah I need to find some men who have sense enough to realize when they're running out the best thing I can do is go hide in a cave for a week or two weeks or three weeks till I renew my anointing and my vision and my strength for they that wait upon the Lord wait on the Lord you don't wait on the committee you don't wait on the church you wait on the Lord I've commanded the ravens to feed thee there and they never fail and after it finished his probation there when the Lord said go hide thyself in the next chapter he says go show thyself and you just go down the road and I'll guide you and he meets a widow woman there gathering a few sticks what you gonna do well she said um I'm going to make a cake it's the last cake I'll ever made it's all I have left and uh I'm going to make a cake for my son and we're going to eat it and what what die everybody else is dying we've managed to last out we're about the last of the group and and after this we're gonna eat it and die now you'll see change signs on walls maybe you've got one in your house prayer changes things I I change that prayer doesn't change things so much prayer changes people and people change things on the God you've been looking for God to come from heaven and give you wings or something and he's looking for you to get changed to the place where he can trust you to the place where your faith is vibrant make me a little cake for isn't that selfish who wants to sponge on a widow except radio preachers but who wants to sponge on a widow make me a little cake first oh well okay let's make your cake may as well die today as tomorrow and what happened well that 50 gallon barrel that she kept the meal in he said make yourself a cake and she went and and you know what that barrel was full to the top and it was spilling over and the little oil can she kept was shooting like an Oklahoma gusher and going out of the front door and the neighbors were gathering oil nothing of the kind I'm convinced that she took the last handful of meal out of that barrel every day and she shook the last drop of oil out of that can every day because you only live a day at a time and you only need enough food a day at a time as it were and God will take care of tomorrow you obeyed today and he's made provision today and his love in time past forbids me to think he'll leave me at last in trouble to sink while each Ebenezer we hold in review confirms his good pleasure to see us right through my God shall supply your need but he only supplies what I need today George Muller kept 2,000 orphans and he never asked anybody for a dime Dave Wilkerson feeds 10,000 children a day doesn't talk about it but he does it I know for a fact so many of these ministries spend all they have on themselves and they can trust God for anything except money they can trust you for healing but they can't trust for money if they can't trust for money they ask you to go on a cruise with them oh let's preach now we're getting off this man did according to the word of God he comes in one day and the lady says is this what I get I've been good I've washed your shirts I've looked after you I never charged you a penny you lived in the prophets chamber I've given you the best food I could and my child is sick and dead ah he said I guess you haven't realized that I'm the greatest man of faith on the earth have you oh I've got faith don't you worry about that I can put things straight for you where's the kid why he's lying there dead well throw him up here to me here did he do that he took the child what he ran up into a loft have you got a loft in your life or have you got a place behind the old boiler in the basement if you live in an old style house have you got a place where you've worn the rug through with your knees have you got a place where heaven always seems nearer than anywhere else on earth he ran up into a loft he prayed nothing happened he prayed again nothing happened so what do you do you say well it isn't God's will oh no no no the last time he put the child on the floor and he leaned on the child within his compassion he got hold of it and he prayed let this light child's life come into again and the child came in alive now do you think he walked downstairs the steps like this and said oh you're busy in the kitchen well your baby's alive I've left him on the couch huh don't you think he went down excitedly with holy excitement with joy and he said here look come come I'm not going to tell you what time you come oh oh how wonderful by this I know thou art a man of God not by the barrel of meal not by the oil but by this by what that he brought life where there was death and that's the job of the church you hath he quickened to a dead just because he can get him more people you can build your congregation that doesn't mean you're extending the kingdom you're getting a lot of folk who disgusted with the other church they were in very often a cave church becomes a cave of the dolan how many times do we see people really biblically regenerate I told one of the leading tv uh preachers Dave Wilkinson and I had lunch with him dinner with him a while ago and I said look you do a pretty decent job but you know the average tv preacher or radio preacher does not not he does not preach biblical regeneration he preaches forgiveness there you are you're wicked you've done a lot of sin Jesus died to save you you just bow your head now and as you bow your head you just pray this prayer after me God be merciful to me a sinner there you are now you're in the kingdom I don't believe it for a minute what's wrong with that old-fashioned dirty word in evangelism called repentance and a bigger word than that in many cases making restitution well I'll deal with some of that tomorrow night as I preach on the 51st song are we raising the dead people who are dead in trespasses in sin are they having an awakening I hear so much about the holy ghost I get sick about it sometimes for this simple reason if you read the first acts of the apostles the emphasis is not on the holy ghost it's in whose name have you done this and the minister of the holy ghost is supremely to do what to glorify Jesus read the acts again and notice how often thank you so much read how often in the in the first five chapters in whose name have you done this even the big high priest knew that that he didn't do it in his own power and Peter stands up with boldness talks about that name that is above every name the name to which one day every knee shall bow as I said 90 percent of the preaching in America or anywhere else yesterday was about a man who lived 2,000 years ago and of the other 10 percent nine percent was about his second coming but how many of us are drawing power on the risen Christ today huh he says I give you I give you power over all things not only that but he says this that when you and I are really born again of the spirit he he is he has made us heir and that's a staggering thing we're heirs of God and we're joint heirs with Jesus Christ and with him God has freely given us all things now come on brother as I said this morning I read those verses in Hebrews 11 and I'm shot under where men and women subdued kingdoms wrought righteousness obtained promises stopped the mouths of lions women when we raised the dead and not one of them ever had a bible in God's name what are you going to do when you stand by a little darling self he won't look at the style of clothes you're wearing or your hair do you're going to stand one day before a billion people at the judgment seat of Christ whether you save the lost there's a judgment for believers there's a judgment for sinners people quote the scriptures quote it tonight in a different way there's no condemnation to us it says of the believer remember in first Corinthians 3 that many people will suffer loss did you ever know anybody happy who suffered loss when you look at all the turns in the road that you missed when you look at all the opportunities God gives you gave you and you wouldn't take them up you say we buried somebody yesterday we had a wonderful service and a lot of us cried and the preacher says well remember our dear one has gone to heaven and there's no more tears and the same book of revelation isn't it says God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes so where do we shed the tears i suggest you at the judgment seat it's not a throne of mercy it's a throne of mercy tonight you may be the most twisted distorted perverted creature on God's earth you've committed enough sin to damn a million people maybe but he'll forgive you in his infinite mercy but there'll be no forgiveness there it's a throne of judgment and we don't preach that ever hear ever hear a sermon on on tv on the judgment that day i'm trying to write a book on it now in fact i've just written an article uh for um last day's ministry which is coming in two sections the judgment of the sinner then the judgment of the believer but i don't know anything that's more awesome than you saying you're a christian because you're saying you're a joint heir with Jesus Christ you're saying you know all the resources that are needed for this generation are there in Jesus Christ and yet we have not adopted we've not gone through with the things that God has given us let me wind this up if i were to say to you tonight who is the greatest character of in the old testament in prayer what would you say well a lot of people would say Jacob he prayed all night no he didn't intend to he prayed all night because he was in a jam somebody brought a report and said your brother's coming no you don't mean it my brother the last time i saw him he said next time i see you i'll kill you my brother's coming well he was a good jew he didn't want to give too much away so he said look if you can get him satisfied by giving him a herd of cows give him a herd of cows and if he's not satisfied give him some sheep and if he's still not satisfied give him some camels and he got it all fixed up and he sent everybody away even his wife and children and he went over the brook and he got behind a big rock and somebody jumped on him well who do you think he thought it was he didn't think it was gabriel bringing the meal my brother's got me well i'll tell you what i'll die fighting that doesn't sound much like a prayer meeting sounds like a church business meeting maybe but not not a prayer meeting and he wrestled to get away he tried to get away and and you know all i learned out of that story is this that when he went to pray he was a handsome man tall and strong and and everybody would have envied him and when he finished that time of prayer he came crippled he had a limp limping leg that he dragged for the end of his life and i think the idea reason you don't praise you're afraid of your health or you're afraid of your little self you must have so many hours and god almighty knows he didn't touch you and cripple you in that area now be careful be careful how you pray because that's what he just might do and suddenly it dawns on jacob this is not my brother this is somebody stronger he tries to get away and then suddenly he says no no and then the other person tries to get away and he hangs on to the other person and he says i will not let thee go until thou bless me and god changed his name and changed his nature from jacob to israel a prince with god but lest he got intoxicated it says in the 41st verse of isaiah there it says fear not thou worm jacob the context is strange isn't it it says it says fear not thou worm jacob and it talks about threshing mountains well how can a worm thresh mountains well do you know anything else that can go in at one side of a mountain and come out at the other side except a worm an elephant can't do it and the giraffe certainly can't and there's no other animal under god's heaven that can go in at one side of the mountain and come out but do you remember that jesus says in psalm 22 there i'm a worm and no man the trouble with some of you guys you get your greek and your hebrew and as somebody said they over over the head of jesus they put in greek and hebrew and latin and a wise man said if you've got it don't stick it over his head put it at his feet and don't get it stuck in your head that you're more terrible to the devil he knows by the way you're not going to scare the devil with scholarship otherwise god would have ordained scholarship it's not bad but we never had a more scholastic ministry in the history of the world than we have today and we're the most paralyzed section of the church that the church has ever known as far as i'm concerned no i don't think it was jacob what about moses well he was an awesome prayer i took a volume down on my shelves it's about that height it's about that width and i wouldn't sell it for a hundred dollars strange enough i found two i gave dave wilkerson one and he said len this is something to read it's about a man called payson i call him praying payson of portland oregon he didn't have wall-to-wall rug he had a floor like this and when they died and they were washing him to bury him he had big calluses on his knees and at the side of his bed he had grooves about seven or eight inches long deep grooves at the side of his bed he actually wore away the wood with his knees as he prayed he always prayed with some some energy and and he wore holes almost in the floorboards praying payson of portland the contemporary of wesley and finney and tenant and those men that came to america a lady asked me if i'd met john hyde i said no well she met him in the cyclop convention in india and they took him for one thing not to sing not to preach but he knew how to pray when the great american evangelist went to england to a town called herford you you call you call them her you say herford we say herrifords where those white-faced animals come from the evangelist was having a meeting there and people wondered why charles alexander was exalted as being another moody why the british said we've got a hundred preachers can be preach him under the table three days after he arrived john hyde arrived in town and somebody said you've got a fellow american here we don't think much to him we hear he gets great moves in america but he gets nothing here people just walk out they showed the man his bedroom and they said dinner will be ready in an hour they have dinner in the evening in the classy houses at home seven o'clock he said no thank you would you kindly not bother with any dinner for me and i shall not be down to breakfast and i shall not be down to lunch tomorrow are you feeling all right yes i'm fine thank you i'll just get a drink of water from the bathroom that's all i need and he got on his face and prayed they came back from the meeting that night when they came back they uh he said well how did he get oh mercy how did we get on the place was filled with the glory of god people just streamed to the altar it's the greatest thing we've ever seen in the way of revival in this town in living memory afterwards alexander said when john hyde came to town god came to town david brainard dies at 28 years of age a master in the art of prayer no no he couldn't have lifted 10 pounds off the floor he wasn't a muscle man i believe he weighed less than 100 pounds he said i looked out of my room and there the indians were in sexual immorality they were fighting and they were drinking their beer and they were smoking and they were dancing and i had nowhere to go so i went into the forest where the snow was so deep he said i knelt down it was up to my chin and i couldn't put my hands out because of the snow but i wrestled in prayer from a half hour after sunrise until a half hour before sunset and he said by the time i finished praying i couldn't even touch the snow with my fingertips his little hundred pound body sweating melted all the snow and now we've got wall to all rugs in church and heaven knows what air conditioning when it's too hot and heat when it's too cold and you can't rally people to pray as i said that was it last night maybe maybe the the the alternative is this we either we either concentrate in prayer or we pray in concentration camps which do you want make a choice how long does god listen to the or look down we break his ten commandments a million times a day in a so-called god-ordained country and so do other countries and he puts up with it but then his patience runs out you think he might send america into captivity why not he loved israel he was married to israel and he let her go into captivity for 400 years under the pharaohs and then 400 years between malachi and matthew god doesn't hesitate to send us to the woodshed we haven't packed the prayer meetings in prosperity we've lived with more prosperity than anybody under heaven in the last 25 years now there's nowhere to turn so there's only one answer as far as i'm concerned and that is to get an endowment of power in the place of prayer i do not know of a revival that's ever ever happened without prayer i asked duncan campbell one morning about six o'clock we were praying and i said tell me again about that experience that you had in that church where after he'd had a whole sequence of real revival meetings and by that i mean when the lights don't go out maybe for days when taverns are closed and so forth and so on what about the night you preached and nothing happened you felt that the heavens were brass you felt that you were just tied up you couldn't even get your words out you could hardly articulate and then suddenly you stopped and you called a boy i don't know john mcdonald or somebody and said laddie laddie would you pray 16 year old boy from a high school would you pray and the boy stood up and he in his scottish way he said ah ah what's the good of praying if we're not right with god you know most of us sabotage our own prayer by our own cleanness by our unforgiving spirits and the laddie stood there like the scots he knew the psalm book which is really the hymn book of the of the jews and he recited the 24th psalm who shall ascend into the hill of the lord he does have clean hands and a pure heart and he went down the line like that and then suddenly duncan said there's a change in his voice and he began to pray prayed 10 minutes 15 20 25 30 40 45 minutes 16 year old boy praying as though he had the hold of the horns of the altar praying as though if god didn't answer he would die praying like john knox when he said give me scotland or i die praying like jacob's wife when she said give me children or i die the boy prayed with passion you you're hardly a passionate prayer when did you last day did your preacher ever fall in the pulpit collapsed under the burden of his awesome task in the welsh revival and evan roberts was unusual because he's a tall man on the welsh a rather small race he was big more muscular and one night as he was pleading there suddenly the holy spirit came upon him and he collapsed he just fell and people wanted to touch him and somebody said leave him and he writhed in agony he groaned in his spirit he was like a woman trying to bring birth to a child and he groaned and he and he almost screamed and he gasped he prayed with anguish like gethsemane they said he had his gethsemane was public they said when he stood up his face was transformed like that of an angel this laddy stood there prayed 45 minutes and when he prayed there's a change in his voice again and duncan said i looked and that tall 16 year old highland he was pointing his finger in that direction and i've heard people say this they didn't mean a hell of beans but he pointed the finger and he said satan satan you get out of this territory now i command you to leave this area by the blood of christ by the promises of god by the power of the holy ghost be gone and immediately he said that it was though god pulled a switch in heaven and people stopped dancing at the other end of the village and people stopped drinking in the tavern on this side of the village and what's more they've never opened since that's revival that's pulling down strongholds it's something foreign to us i preach the prayer meetings now are not prayer meetings anymore it's it's mostly bible study well i give a bible study in my prayer meeting friday nights but i don't monopolize the time i want the people to pray montgomery was right when he said all earthly things with earth will fade away brother brother you'll wish sometimes i'll wish when you get to the judgment seat you wish you hadn't prayed