In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of having a consuming passion for Jesus Christ. He shares a story of a man who dedicates his life to teaching others about God, spending hours each night teaching and praying. The speaker criticizes the modern methods of spreading Christianity, comparing it to trying to melt an iceberg with just one match. He also mentions a missionary conference where missionaries made confessions and experienced a powerful move of God's Spirit. The overall message is that true success in spreading the gospel comes from a deep love and passion for Jesus.

I want to read some verses from the third chapter in the Acts of the Apostles. The Acts of the Apostles, reading the third chapter from the first verse. Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple. Who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked an alms. And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him, with John, said, Look on us. And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them. Then Peter said, Silver and gold I have not, but such as I have, give I unto thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up. And immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And he leaping up stood and walked and entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God. And they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple. And they were all filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him. There is no question about the need to evangelize the world in the day in which we're living, because there are more heathen living today than at any other period in history. But I'm not so sure that we can afford even to lay down our lives to spread the gospel, which is not quite the gospel of the Bible. I have been reading, I'm being very disturbed in reading of the New Testament church, not from any textbook of church history, but reading the authentic account here from the Acts of the Apostles, and I'm amazed at the disparity between what we label as Christianity today and what Christianity really was in the days of the apostles. We have to say that between us and them there's a great gulf fixed. And you would be very dumb tonight if you think that we're evangelizing the world because we're not. And I'm very glad I'm not God, because if I were God I'd blow the lights out and pull the blinds down and say, pfft, get out of existence church of God and the world as well. Because again we're not evangelizing the world. The first reaction of the world to the coming of the Spirit of God was one of prayerful mockery. When those men tumbled out of the upper room you remember that people just jerked their thumbs and said with a kind of snare they're drunk. Well I want to tell you something, the church never does anything when it's sober, anyhow it's time he got drunk again. We need what Spinoza calls some God-intoxicated men. The first day of World War II I was preaching in a crusade for the head Nazarene church in England, actually in Scotland, and as we came out of the service they announced that war had been declared and the city would be in darkness and everybody must carry a gas mask. And so as we went home from the church the pastor said to me, now I'm going to get a gas mask. One of the reasons of course, they were free. And he said I have to go in this building here and you stand by this lamppost if you're not coming in. And I stood by the lamppost in the street. The city was in darkness, the streetcars were operating without light, automobiles had no light, and it's a very eerie, weird kind of world we were living in. And an old streetcar rumbled up the street and a man got off it, he was well drunk, and he staggered on those rubber legs of his one way and another and then as he was going to fall he put his arms around the lamppost and me as well because I wasn't even as heavy then as I am now. And then he sensed that I was standing by the lamppost and he backed off. And he said, who are you? Well I said, my name's Leonard Wadeville. Ah, he says, mine's Stanley McTavish. Can you sing? I said, no. Ah, he said, I can. And he sang Maxwell, Tom Braise, or Bonnie, where early falls the dew. Though he said Jew, but that didn't matter. And then when he'd sung he rolled his sleeves up and he said, can you fight? And I said, no, no, I'm not in the fighting business. Who's a saver? I told him who my father was. What country did I come from? I told him. And then he began to tell me a lot about his personal history. And then he put his hand in his pocket and he took out a handful of great big English coins, a handful of silver, and you can tell a Scotsman's drunk when he offers you all his money. And he offered me this great handful of silver and I said, no thank you. Ah, he says, what kind of a man are you? You can't fight, you can't sing, you don't want to talk, you don't want money. Good mix. And he went up the street. Now if I had seen that man the next morning at nine o'clock, instead of nine o'clock in the darkness, he wouldn't even have spoken to me. He was intoxicated, he had another spirit. It's true he got it out of a bottle, but he didn't offer the fact. You see, Paul draws an analogy, a parallel here. He says, be not drunk with wine where it is excess, but be filled with the spirit. Because when a man is drunk, he's ready to fight. He'll fight a man twice his size. He's generous, he gives his money. He wants to talk, he wants to communicate. He's happy to tell you his pedigree. And because these men in the early church were drunk, they were ready to fight the good fight of faith. They were ready to sing the Lord's song in a strange land. They were ready, if need be, to go to prison for Christ's sake. I think there is nothing more exciting that I have ever read in my life, about the word of God, outside of the word of God, than reading the statement of what you might have thought was a very stuffy English clergyman by the name of Dr. J.D. Phillips. And when he made his first investigation of the early church, he did it by reading the Acts of the Apostles. And he did it by reading it from the original Greek. And those words began to leap off the page and grab him by the throat and shake him and make him realize that the church of which he was a part was a very, very, very, very distant relative to the church as it was originally conceived. As the brother of the song leader put a little thought in my mind this morning, unconsciously I guess, he said, after all the promises to those who are far off. Well, God knows we're far enough from Pentecost tonight to need the Holy Ghost to come to us. We're far off. We're far off theologically. We're far off in the time sense. We're far off because we have denied so many truths of the word of God. Now listen to Phillips. He begins to read the Acts of the Apostles. And this is what he says about the early church. This is the church of Jesus Christ before she became fat and short of breath by wealth. This is the church of Jesus Christ before she became muscle-bound by over-organization. This is the church of Jesus Christ where people did not sign articles of faith, but they acted in faith. And remember, faith is the only thing that is a fruit of the Spirit and a gift of the Spirit at the same time. But these people did not sign a particular Baptist doctrine or Pentecostal doctrine. They did not sign articles of faith. They acted in faith. These are people, he says, not saying prayers, but praying in the Holy Ghost. This is the church of Jesus Christ not gathering together a group of intellectuals to study psychosomatic medicine, but they healed the sick. After all, when Jesus sent out the disciples, it was before Pentecost. Now I'm not trying to stifle your theology, but if it's sick, it needs some help, and I'm prepared to help you anyhow. But you can't tell me a miracle that those men did after Pentecost that they didn't do before Pentecost. To list miracles and say this is Pentecost is nonsense. It is not true. The men that staggered out of the upper room did not, N-O-T, did not get into trouble for speaking in tongues. They really got ridiculed for that. They did not get into trouble even for healing the man at the beautiful gate of the temple, great as it was. They got into trouble when they had been tried by the hierarchy, the big shots there, and when they saw the boldness of Peter and John. It was the boldness of a minority group standing up against the establishment anointed by the power of the Spirit. And when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, they were staggered and they were amazed. Now this is a very simple but a very sublime story. Here is a man crouched at the gate of the temple. To me he is a type of our modern sick, very sick society. To me it is an illustration of organized religion that passes him two or three times a day and can do nothing for him. That's what reads the story. They carried this man every day from his home to the temple, temple to home again. Twice a day he was carried, twice a day. There are 365 days in a year aren't there? So he must have been carried, what, 730 times a year. And if you carried him for 10 years, and remember, so often in the Bible it does tell you the age of men, it very seldom tells you the age of women. But it says a little later this man was over 40 years of age on whom this miracle was wrought. And if he had been carried 7,000 times in 10 years, then he had been carried 21,000 times in 30 years. He had been carried but he'd never been cured. He had been helped but he'd never been healed. He had received a word of greeting but he had never received a word of power. Now isn't it a very strange thing that Peter and John went to the temple at the hour of prayer? After all, the hour of prayer, why should they go pray with that bunch of backsliders? Because nobody in the temple believed what Peter and John believed, and Peter and John didn't believe what they believed, but they went up to the temple at the hour of prayer being the ninth hour. And this man may be crippled but he says, after all, this is Peter and John, they had a big revival yesterday, they must have got a stack of money like preachers usually do, and we've got a big hand out. And so the man there that has been crippled all those years, he suddenly makes his need known, and the Bible says he asked for an arm. Well phonetically that can get you into trouble. A teacher was telling some children about the man that sat at the beautiful gate asking for arms, and the little girl asked, why did he ask for arms when he needed legs? Well, I don't think he's any worse than most of us. I mean we don't let the Lord talk to us and tell us our need, we go with our big shopping list and say, Lord do this, and do this, and do this, and I want this, and I want the other, and I want something else. Here is the man crouched at the beautiful gate of the temple, year after year the priest, the high priest that tossed him maybe a golden coin, another priest that tossed him a silver coin, and then he looks on this man Peter and John and he says, I need an arm. And Peter said, silver and gold I have none. Now I've argued sometimes, I don't argue anymore about theology, but sometimes I've argued with men who say, now look, you know I believe in Acts 2.4, you can be filled with the Holy Ghost and speak with tongues. Right, that's good, it's in the Bible, let's accept it. And I believe that you must be filled with the Holy Ghost and you must speak with tongues if you're really filled with the Spirit of God. They're very insistent about this. And I say, well now you can't take a text from its context or its a pretext. If you deal with a text you must deal with a context, what goes before it, what comes after it. Now if you're going to clobber me with Acts 2.4 and say that I must be filled with the Holy Ghost and speak in tongues, I'm going to come back on you and say, yes my friend look, and this is what you have to do, you must have balls of fire on your head, you must have a rushing mighty wind in the room, and not only that, you must fulfill Acts 2.44. And you know they don't even know that's there. Acts 2.4 is they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and spoke with other tongues. Acts 2.44 is that they sold all their possessions and shared everything out. Did you do that when you got the Holy Ghost? Maybe we better have a multi-call right now. They sold all their possessions. And they shared it out. And whatever share Peter and John got, they'd already got rid of it. For Peter is telling the truth and he says, silver and gold I have none, but such as I have, give I unto thee. Now you can only give what you've got. Most of us want to give God what we haven't got. You can only give God what you've got. And you can only give anybody else what you've got. And Peter says, silver and gold I have none, but such as I have, give I unto thee. You see here is a man and he's crouched at the beautiful gate of the temple. He needs a man. He needs a message. He needs a miracle. And what that vast system of religion with its stained glass windows and its ritual and its formality which was so elaborate. What that system could not do. I remember a little earlier when Zacharias went down the aisle. He was a priest of the most high God of the course of Abir. There were 20,000 priests ministered in that temple in a year. And yet 20,000 priests and all their blood of gold and Jewish altar slain and all their ritual and all their formality spectacular as it may be still left that poor man crippled and indigent and paralyzed at the gate of the temple. I say he needed a man. He needed a message. He needed a miracle. And he found the man and the message and the miracle in two penniless but very powerful preachers. Two men who were consecrated. They were cleansed. They were compassionate. They were committed. They could communicate. And Peter says look on us. We don't usually say that. We say now you look to Jesus. But Peter says you look on us. And afterwards when they wanted to put a halo upon his head and make. He said look not upon us. As though by our power or our holiness we had made this man to walk. He isn't after any halos that men can give him. He has received the greatest thing a man can receive. This pride of eternity. He has been filled with the Holy Spirit of God. And I say again to you tonight that I believe that one reason we do not have revival is because individually and collectively we're happy to live without it. That's why. We're like a man looking in a shop window and he sees a Rolls Royce there and he tags it and he says boy it's $28,000. I'd like it but I can't afford it. The price is too high. I'm convinced that our modern method of trying to reach this world for God is the same as you putting me on a little rowing boat to a great big iceberg which is showing a mile of ice above the water and therefore seven miles of ice below the water. And all you give me is one match and I'm going to strike that match in my little rowing boat and hold it at the side of that super iceberg and you expect me to melt an iceberg with my one match. Most of the Christianity we export to the mission field today isn't worth taking there. Let me tell you that. I preached at a great Keresau missionary conference in Japan. There were hundreds and hundreds of missionaries there. And it pleased God that night to come down by His Spirit. The meeting began somewhere about 7 and ended at 9 o'clock. Suddenly men began to make confession. Missionaries began to make confession. They were still confessing at midnight. The next day one of the best known missionaries in Japan came to me. And he said, Brother Ravenhill, I want to tell you something. No, let me ask you a question. Do you know how long missionaries have been in Japan? I said no. They have been in Japan 120 years. At the cost of millions of dollars. Americans are here. People are here from New Zealand, Australia, England. All kinds of missionary societies are here. And they have been here for 120 years. Do you know what degree of success we have had? I said no. He said including the Roman Catholics. We have gained a half of 1% of the population of Japan in 120 years. A half of 1%. These men turn the world upside down. This man says silver and gold. I have none. You see the difference between the church that was and the church that is, is this. They have nothing but they possess all things. Now we have all things and possess nothing. We got billions of dollars blanketing the world every weekend with radio programs. I met a very well known brother, not Billy Graham, but somebody on his staff was asked a while ago what he thought about the final third of this 20th century. He said I believe that mass evangelism is going to play a greater part. We don't need mass evangelism, believe me. America is not going to ride to spiritual victory on the back of Billy Graham and all the others. If America is going to have Holy Ghost revival, it's going to be when the local church gets it and the fire spreads there to another church there and the Baptist and the Methodist and the answer is in the local church, not in the mass system. Oh, if you'll only give us money we can get on another radio station. Do you know there are only 400 million radio sets in the world and half of those are in America? There are people in Africa who can't even afford a loincloth. I've walked amongst the people there in India on the dusty roads. White man alive, they can't even afford a cup of coffee, never mind a radio set. Oh, look, you want mass evangelism? Shall I tell you something? I'll tell you two things. Somebody will say, well that fellow Sauer-Greif, you see, he doesn't have an organization like Billy Graham and he doesn't have six, seven, eight million dollars like all the rest. That's not the problem. A man came to me a while ago and he was a Texan too. A big, fine looking man and he said, I read an article of yours and I read it to somebody else and I've come to make you an offer, do you know so and so? And I said, no, and he went through a list of men who had anything from five to thirty million dollars each. And he said, we're prepared to buy you the largest tent in America, we're prepared to buy you a whole lot of trucks and you can have Ravenel's Revivals on the side and they'd be no good because only God's Revival's very good anyhow. But anyhow, he was going to put Ravenel's Revivals on the side and give me the largest stipend, so that would be good. Billy gets 25,000 a year, so I would have got 30,000 at least. And he was going to do all this and give me the finest stage and the finest marquees and the finest singers and the finest gospel and everything else. And he said, we'll put you on the road and boy, you'll get it made here in America. Now if he'd told me that when I first came out of college, I'd have taken it up. Because when I came out of college, Spurgeon had risen from the dead. And he was going to shake the world. The only thing, he must have died somewhere on the tour because we never made it like that anyhow. And I said to this man, and now he said, this is an offer, nobody else will get this offer. You have all these millions of dollars behind you. You can have TV and radio and you can do this. And then I said, well, this is all very nice. Would you accept the offer? I said, yes, I will. Oh, he said, I said, wait a minute. He didn't let me finish. Yes, I will on one condition. What is the one condition? The one condition, I said, is that with this superlative outfit that you're going to buy me, you'll buy me the anointing of the Holy Spirit so I can fill that tent and go out and shake America for God. Well, he said, we can't buy you an anointing. Well, then I said, I don't want your trucks and your trailers and all the other things you've got. Because what's the good of having a great big cathedral and all the other trimmings if you don't have the superior anointing of God? Now, I'm not jealous about what he said, but Lord, you set the dial on your radio Sunday and maybe you're still in bed. You need to remember what old C.T. Stubbs said, Get up, get up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross. A lazy Sunday morning surely means harm and loss. The church of God is calling, in duty be not slight. You cannot fight the good fight while lying on your back. But anyhow, I suppose it's nice to lay in bed and you hear a radio program. And it happens to be a man who runs a radio Bible class of America from Grand Rapids. And he reaches 20 million people with his broadcast. And you don't need to change the dial, all you do is get another cup of coffee. Billy Graham comes on, he reaches 30 million. And don't change it, showers of blessing comes on from the Nazarenes and they reach 15 million. And don't change your dial because C.M. Ward is coming on with the Pentecostal aspect and he reaches another 15 million. And still leave the dial there and you'll hear something about I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest while you're still in bed. And you can sit another half hour or later. And when that's gone you can still leave the dial and you'll hear somebody come in like dear old Mr. Fuller or an old-fashioned revival hour. And you'll hear about 10 men follow each other like that, that are all saturating, a saturated community. And everybody wants the last buck out of you. And all we're doing is feeding a jaded appetite of people who have had enough light and they won't walk in light. And darkness has covered the earth and gross darkness covers the people. Do you know why? The one reason that these men were successful. They had a consuming passion for Jesus Christ. And it made no difference where they went. You see in this early church they were so different. As I said, and not facetiously, in the early church you had a bunch of men in the upper room agonizing and now you have a bunch of women in the back room organizing. Then it was the fire of the Holy Ghost, now it's the fire in the kitchen. Look, if Christianity is as supernatural as it is, not the Christianity of the Bible, and I don't care how successful it may be and how much money you can get and how many people you have in your church. Christianity is a super... Christianity is a supernatural religion. If it's not supernatural, then it must be superficial. The Christianity of the New Testament was impressive, art is impoverished. The Christianity of the New Testament was apostolic, art is almost apostate. When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, they don't see our boldness, they see our calmness. The early church was remarkable for its fire, and for its faith, and for its fruit. The early church was a living church, art is a languishing church. The early church, they died for him, we won't even live for him. The early church was a very poor church, silver and gold, I have none. And I was a little shocked, let me tell you this, because there's no good pulling punches, you know. If I hit the Methodist here tonight, you'll say amen, because you ain't Methodist. But I'm going to hit the Baptist right now. I'll tell you why I was amazed to discover that the Baptist, here in the South, yesterday, paid, what was it, 45 million to buy the Little League, a baseball or something? God pitious, I wonder what promise they got from the Lord for that. Huh? In any case, they might have bought a big league, they must have been a little league. Ah, this early church, that had the breath of God on it, that had the fire of God on it, that had the faith of God in it, that had the fruit of God, working every day. Again, I say, they were a living people and we're a languishing people. A friend of mine came from Japan last year, and in the course of speaking, I heard him only in one minute meeting, but he really upset me. Because, before he left Japan, he went for a haircut, it would be cheaper than getting one in the States. The very courteous Japanese gentleman put a cloth around his neck and got him into a right position, and then he said, you Americana? He said, yeah, I'm a Yankee. Ah, America very rich. America a very great country. So he went on. You businessman? No, I'm a missionary. Ah, me missionary too. Oh, my friend said very quickly, but I'm a full-time missionary. The man nearly flipped his ear off. He said, I'm a full-time missionary. Oh, I thought you were a barber, a hairdresser. Ah, that is only on the side. I am a full-time missionary. I am consumed with a new religion philosophy of this area. What do you call it? Sodagaki? Oh, said the missionary, tell me about it. Well, my shop opened 9 o'clock this morning, my shop closed 5 o'clock tonight. I go home, I bathe, I eat, I go out at 7 o'clock, I take with me my religious books, I knock on doors, and I knock on doors from 7 o'clock at night until 2 o'clock in the morning. Because if you've been to Japan, you know, when you get outside of Tokyo, there, if a hut is only as big as this desk, it has a TV, a tenor on it, and they watch their programs, and they're all in wrestling, and all the other junk that people want. And he said, I go to doors, and I knock on the door, and I ask, may I go in, and I teach them. I teach them my philosophy from 7 every night until 2 in the morning. At 2 o'clock I go home. I usually get home by 2 o'clock. And then from 2 o'clock to 4, I spend in prayer before my God to renew my strength. And then at 4 o'clock I go to bed until half past 7. My friend was more than shaken when he heard this because he was a mystery, and he sure wasn't living a bad place. And he said to the man, how long have you done this? Ah, he said, 6 years. For 6 years. I go to bed in the morning at 4. I get up half past 7. I have never felt fitter and stronger. But you see, I draw strength from my God. I have been pouring out my life for my God, and I renew my strength for my God. And then I go out. And this gospel, as we call it, is spreading. They have guaranteed, one of the leaders says, we'll put Christianity out of Japan in the next 10 years. It's taken 110 years to get one half of 1% of the people of Japan into a nominal concept of religion, the Christian religion. Now tell me this. Are the things that you are living for worth Christ dying for? We are living in a crippled society. Their cloaks are the very gates of our churches wherever we go, whatever denomination we have. Here are the people, and here they are, paralyzed morally, spiritually, in every other way, impotent. They've given up on organized religion. They've done as a boy I told you about the other day said, I live in a plastic society with a, with a, a, a, the church is a ghetto. A stained glass ghetto where people just go and they have their fun. And as Joseph said, all we do is sanctify it. We have our little happy time and we just pray over it and think it's wonderful. We used to go to the supper club and now we have suppers down in the, in the, in the basement. Not the upper room, the supper room. Not the fire of the Holy Ghost, the fire in the kitchen. Not a holy zeal that consumes us. Peter and John go to the temple at the hour of prayer and they know when they go that they have, they have no purse, but they have power. They have no prestige, but they have power. They're up against the tremendous system of the day, I say again, the Roman Empire with all its power, the Grecians with all their learning, and the Jews that felt they had a monopoly on God. And here are a couple of penniless but not powerless preachers. And when they see that man, he immediately, he asks for arms, Peter looks upon him. But you must do more than look upon him. One of the amazing things is, God bless our dear brother going to Australia. I've been in Australia. Central Australia, it's 140 degrees. But remember this, will you, that when you get to Australia, you think you're in New York. You've got superior hotels, you've got TV, you've got automobiles, you can charter your private planes, you can run in your automobiles. And around the edge of Australia, it's 1969. Anno Domini, the year of our Lord. But if you fly in a jet for two hours into the center of Australia, where you see those great big black people with shiny skins, it isn't 1969. Anno Domini, it's 1969 B.C. They're living 2,000 years nearly at the other side of the cross, while Christians in Melbourne and Adelaide and Perth and all the other areas sit at ease in Zion. And the strange thing is, you get a man here, a burden for Australia, and you get people in Australia, a burden for 3-4 million Indians in America that nobody bothers to reach hardly. And if you want to see uncivilized people, go to the west of Canada there. Where, just a few months ago, they had about six murders in about four or five days. And those Indians are as wild as any film you've ever seen. And there are areas up there in the frozen snows, if you like to go there, where it's perpetually white. And there are people there in the cold chill of unbelief and of sin. I say again, we have more people without God and without hope tonight than any period in history. And I'm convinced in my own heart that the church that is, is not the church to which Jesus Christ died. It would do us good if we canceled every crusade, every gospel crusade in America for a year. I think what we need to do is evangelize the evangelists and counsel the counselors and teach the teachers and call the whole church to prayer and put a notice outside of your church, calls for spiritual repair. Or if you like to do it, like a man did in America over a century ago, he put a notice outside of his church, this church will have revival or a funeral. He put himself on the altar, literally. We have revival. When Peter saw this man crouched at the gate, he remembered the exceeding grace and precious promises of God. And when the people brought him to question afterwards, you remember what he said? He said, well, this is that which was spoken by the prophet. And then he says, for therefore being at the right hand of God, exalted and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he shed forth this which you have both seen and heard. I say again, nobody ever goes to sleep in a meeting where the Holy Ghost is. And Jesus Christ gave us a full work of redemption because humanity is cursed, not merely physically and mentally and in its spirit, it is totally cursed, and therefore Jesus gave us a full redemption. Now Peter isn't afraid of the stuggle's call, and when he sees this crippled man, I say he not only looks at him, but he puts forth his hand and he touches him. You remember about six, oh no, it's ten years now since little shrimpy David Wilkerson as he was then, he was getting fatter and more prosperous, but then he was thin and skeleton-like, and he went into New York and challenged the system of iniquity there. And then out came the book, The Cross and the Switchblade. And almost as soon as it came out, Vincent Peale got a copy of it and read it, and he went back to his stately church there, the church where Nixon had been going until he was president, and lots of socialites go in New York, and when the people got to church that Sunday morning, he roasted them. He said, I've got people sitting on these pews here, and all you've done for twenty-five years is polish that pew with the seat of your britches. You've never witnessed to anybody you've done nothing, and he said, here's my stately church in New York, and we're not known for song-winning, and we're not known for extreme or perishing, and our streets are flooded with immorality and drunkenness and profanity, and girls who are lesbians and bisexuals and homosexuals, and the whole brood of hell has come upon us, and a little boy comes from the country and challenges New York, in God's name, what are you doing in my church? And he didn't get too many smiles when they went out of church that Sunday morning. Not many people said to him, you're the greatest preacher in America that Sunday morning. And they went to church next Sunday morning breathing a sigh of relief because he has a habit of blowing his top about every six months, and do you know what he did? He blew his top the second Sunday morning. And oh, were they distressed and were they upset. And I had the privilege of preaching one night in that church at a banquet, and my, the Lord really came and helped us there. You know that's true of so many, isn't it? As I said the other day, we're more concerned about people that live on the other side of the world than we are of people that live on the other side of the street. Now Peter says, silver and gold, I have them. You're asking for arms. I don't think really seriously you need arms. But he doesn't ask that impotent system of religion that he might be healed and made whole again. He knew they could do nothing. He'd been sitting there year after year after year, and maybe all people did in our language is take pictures of him or pass him a dime or talk to him in comfort. And then little Peter comes along and John, he says, fasten your eyes on us. The promise had been given you to receive power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you. And they came out of that upper room where God Almighty had been able to do His work in them. And He had cleansed them and He had endured them and they came out. Doesn't say much about their flashing personalities. All they were concerned about was they did not misrepresent that Jesus Christ who had died and risen again from the dead. And the Holy Ghost, you see the Holy Ghost is totally brethren. I believe in the total incapacity of the Holy Ghost to do anything that's normal. And I would say that you and I should button our lips before we say we're children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. What does the Holy Ghost do? It says that holy men of God spake as they were moved. Wherever the Holy Ghost is there's movement. In the beginning this world was a ball of clay shut up in the womb of the universe. And God spoke. And that big lump of clay came out. And then the Spirit of the living God brooded over the face of the water of creation. And when the Spirit brooded out of chaos you've got cosmos. You've got light coming out of darkness. You've got life coming out of death. The Spirit of God brooded. And then the Holy Spirit brooded on the dark chamber of a woman's womb and did another miracle. He conceived Jesus Christ. The mothers don't like that. They say after all you don't really believe that a woman bore a son without having a human partner in that. That God did some kind of supernatural thing. And the Holy Spirit came in the matrix of a virgin. Sure. You see I'm very simple. So I don't have problems some of you intellectuals have. Because years ago when I was praying the Lord said this to me. He said you know son I made the first Adam without a mother so I could make the last one without a father. It's just as simple as that. The Holy Spirit brooded in the beginning over chaos. The Holy Spirit brooded over the dark chamber of a matrix of a virgin Mary and conceived Jesus Christ. And then Jesus is put to death and he's in a dark tomb. And as I said last night the door is being shut. The stone is rolled over it. And there's wax over the stone and seals over the wax and soldiers there. And all the sin of the world there. And every demon in hell there. And you know what he says? You say Jesus says I lay down my life. But wait a minute. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost never work independently. They always cooperate. The work of the Son was to glorify the Father. The work of the Spirit is to glorify the Son not glorify the preacher. I don't care how many gifts of the Spirit you have. I don't care how many miracles you have. The Holy Ghost never came to endure you to make you a somebody and put a halo on your head and make you stutter around and think you're somebody. No sir, the work of the Holy Ghost is a very serious work. The Son glorified the Father. The Holy Ghost glorifies the Son. And the Church glorifies the Holy Ghost and the Son and the Father. And Jesus is lying there cold and all hell is looking up. And everybody's run away and quit. And the Word of God says in Romans 8 the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead. The Holy Ghost can't do anything small. He made this world vast and wonderful as it is. He can feed Jesus Christ. How do you get eternity into humanity? How is that one, the Heaven of Heavens, can it contain? How do you press Him into the matrix of the Virgin Mary? How does the ancient of days become the infant of time? I don't know. It's a miracle of the Holy Ghost. But He did it. And then the Holy Ghost that brooded in the beginning and the Holy Ghost that brooded over the Virgin Mary and the Holy Ghost that raised Him from the dead found a bunch of nervous men in the upper room. And they were there for fear of the doom. And suddenly there was a rushing mighty wind. You know the Holy Ghost is likened in the Bible to a dove but He did not come as a dove on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Ghost is likened to water but He did not come as water on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Ghost is likened to the anointing oil but He did not come as oil on the day of Pentecost. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost came in symbol of the two most potent forces in nature for what is more devastating than a hurricane. And the Holy Ghost came as wind and fire and they're terrible when when you put them together they're irresistible. And I wish you Baptists were as insistent on the baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire as you are with water. Boy you'd have shaken the world by now. Because somebody has wildfire we settle for no fire and the world goes to hellfire. Rather if God could only get that intellect of yours and a bit more of the Holy Ghost on it and maybe more of the Apostle Paul and Mr. Peel. Well I think Peel is appalling and Paul is appealing but I think if the Spirit of God could really get on that intellect of yours brother you might shake that community for God. The Spirit not only brooded over the beginning He not only brooded over the Virgin Mary He not only raised us from the dead but He came there to those men in the upper room. And you know a drowning man will catch it as straw. It's getting terribly late. We're going to have to have revival soon. America can't rot at the rate she's rotting unless one of two things happens. There's a divine intervention of God's mercy in revival or we have another bloody war that will shatter us. I'm hanging on to a simple word at the end of the Book of Malachi where it says the Lord whom ye seek and friends I want to tell you tonight though I've talked about revival I've preached about it round the world I've written books on it but I want to tell you that revival in itself is no novelty. It is not revival we need, it's God we need. The Lord whom ye seek Do you know why you came to an altar and got nothing? You were seeking a blessing not the Holy Ghost not a person, maybe a gift, maybe an endowment. But the Bible says the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly, I like that word the angels were keeping watch over their flocks by night and suddenly there was a sound of a heavenly host they had been waiting in the upper room day after day and getting a little disturbed that nothing happened and suddenly there was a sound of a rushing mighty wind on a Wednesday the 23rd of August 1727 away there at Hermhut in Germany a group of people were waiting and just as the clock moved up to eleven o'clock just as sure as that clock was going to strike eleven the heavens opened and the Holy Ghost came down and we had the birth of the greatest revival maybe that we've ever had, the Moravian Revival. Do you know what the main feature of that revival was in my judgment? That when the Holy Ghost came on that community at eleven o'clock on that Wednesday morning the 13th of August 1777 a prayer meeting was born at eleven o'clock that morning that was still going on 100 years from the morning the Holy Ghost came. It's the longest prayer meeting recorded in history. In that community you could go into the prayer chapel at midday and find half a dozen people praying you could go at midnight and find half a dozen children at eight and ten years of age praying you could go some mornings at two o'clock and find two or three wizened up old men praying you could go at any hour in the day for over 100 years that prayer room was never empty and when the Holy Ghost comes he moves, he moves, he moves he moves over those people they moved out to the ends of the earth do you know what happened? they felt very long they had more missionaries on the mission field than they had people on their church walls isn't that something? I don't know whether that's ever happened in history there but you see the Lord suddenly came to his temple and I look for the Holy Ghost to come in a meeting like this one night you know with all due respect if people knew that Billy Graham was coming here tonight you'd have them sitting out there by the thousand but you know one night the Holy Ghost is going to come and some people have wished to God they made it to the conference that night and they'll have missed it he's going to come suddenly to his temple he's going to say to you brother silver and gold you have not but you can't say such as I have did I unto thee you see it's a great joy to have nothing because if you have nothing you can't lose anything if you have no opinion of yourself nobody will ever make you cry because they hurt your feelings because you have no opinion of yourself anyhow if you have no pride all the preaching in the world won't bring conviction because God has cleansed you in that area you know one of the great things about being dead is nobody else can kill you if you really died in your spiritual life died to public opinion, died to everything doesn't make any difference what people say you're dead, dead to the world and all it's toys it's idle pomp and fading joys by the same token if you're broken nobody else can break you if you have nothing you can't lose it and so there's a great joy in having nothing but there's a great peril in having nothing you remember a man knocked at the door one night and the fellow upstairs says what do you want he said I need help, I need hospitality, I need a meal who are you? I'm so and so you remember when you were in a jam at a certain place yes I remember that well you said to me any time of the day or night you don't worry about it just come to my house and I'll give you the most gracious hospitality oh I remember that and the man says to his wife hey come on get up I know it's two o'clock in the morning and it's a cold morning but let's get up and make a meal my friend has come, you know the man that once found me in distress and he's come and he needs help and she says do you know I don't have a loaf of bread all the groceries are done I was going for groceries tomorrow and brother we're in a mess and he says to his friend come in and then he rushes down the street and he says hey hey come on give me bread and the man says I'm not opening my store at this hour he says come because a friend of mine has come and I've nothing to set before him I wonder how often we have given an audience storms when they needed bread I wonder how often we should have given them an egg and we gave them a scorpion I wonder how often we dish something up that didn't matter too much and they take it because my people are so naive oh no no no no the man Peter had been so nervous and so full of fear and failure now he's able to go to a man wrinkled at the beautiful gate and he's able to put forth his hand and touch him and he says hey come on I'll give you something and he touched the man and immediately he touched him his ankle bone and he stood up and he leaped and he praised God now it was this that set the community on fire it was this that caused them to be brought before the hierarchy because in the next chapter they drag them up there you remember and when they see these amazing men they didn't wear any clerical attire they possibly hadn't got a diploma between them but oh brother they had something we don't have we so much they didn't have they didn't have the freedom to preach the gospel that we had they were up against hostility the whole time I say again it seems to me they had nothing and yet they possessed all things now we have all things we have more Bibles in America than ever we had in our history we have more books on the Holy Ghost than ever we've had in our history we have more Bible schools than ever we've had in our history we have more Bible conferences than ever we've had in our history but somehow we don't get any ignition we don't get any fire there that burns and so what do we do we go back to the old settled ways that we had when we came and just feel it was nice maybe to meet one or two folks you see Peter and John had gone through that process with the spirit there in the upper room and when they came out they were full of faith and they were full of fire and the result they bore fruit to the glory of God and they could say to that crippled world such as I have give I unto thee there's no guesswork about it he doesn't say I'll find somebody who knows this but he has gone through an experience and a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument I know in whom I have believed he did this miracle in me I think the pastor said or brother Jim said there last night that he didn't remember any great evangelist who was a baptist well of course he's excluding Billy Greff but one of the greatest evangelists we ever had in England oh well it was a baptist minister a man he shook the whole of one section of England under the power of God and you know he was a successful preacher before he did that but there came a day when he recognized this that there was restriction in his life and the Holy Ghost didn't have all the way that he wanted in his life there were certain areas that he dare not surrender you know one of the great monsters of our day is the fear of man we're afraid to be put out of the synagogue we're afraid that we get a new endowment and somebody thinks we've gone Pentecost or gone something else doesn't make any difference look brother there's a crippled world at the door of your church what's happened in the last five years or the last year since you were here there are kids getting lost in immorality and drunkenness vice all the horrible things that sex is producing and all the drugs that we have in these days and yet again it seems to me the church stands on one side impotent and she can no longer say silver and gold have I none there was a day when Thomas Aquinas often called the greatest theologian that the church of Rome ever had and he was watching them pour tribute money down a chute in the Vatican to be stored up and the Pope turned round to him with a smile and said Thomas Peter can no longer say silver and gold have I none and Thomas Aquinas shot back and said to the Pope know your holiness and neither can he say such as I have give I unto thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk I was preaching in a church away in Perth a few years ago it was called Perth Scotland and no it was not it was Dundee and it was a Saturday afternoon rally and I'm not too fond of afternoon rallies really and I went along just to be a companion to the preacher and we went up in the train it was a cold day I remember the River Tay was frozen great blocks of ice on it and there was no heat in the train and we huddled up as best we could there to try and keep warm and as we approached the church there was a big sign outside and on that sign it said so and so, so and so, so and so will be preaching the anniversary service on Saturday afternoon at three o'clock and as we went in I said to my friend he wasn't very tall and I said you know those letters seem to me nearly as big as you are this is a great announcement that you're going to preach and he's a great singer he was going to sing and he said you know lad I'm not going to preach at all I said well who is he said you are well I said I never knew that but he said well I didn't till now but I feel you should preach and I said well I don't feel I should and we walked in and they sang the hymns and he said now I'm going to sing a solo for you and then Brother Adrian is going to preach and that was the next intimation I had and I was really caught out and then let God have the ashes God will do more out of the ashes than you can do with a whole personality and as I finished I said now just bow your heads in prayer we've five minutes to get off this platform and catch the train it was just round the corner and we're going back to Perth but I want to pray for some of you and I want to ask you and so I said to them if you this afternoon will search God to really fill you with the Holy Ghost it's going to cost something because an experience that costs nothing is worth nothing and it does nothing but if you will let God almighty have his way in your life take all the hands off let him consume all that you have now Brother sang that song the other day I will praise him but the last time that you remember when God's fire upon the altar of my heart will set aflame my ambitions plans and wishes at my feet in ashes lay if you'll let God do this I'd like to pray for you raise your hand they began to put up their hands and I counted I don't often do this but I counted and there were twelve and I said anyone else and there was a woman at the back with red hair and she kind of walked like this and went like that and I said good I saw her just like this she did fifteen years after my wife and I went to a mission rally in the heart of Manchester got in late and I had to sit on the back pew there was a great auditorium it was packed all of these missionaries telling of the wonders of God well I thought that's what they were going to do but that wasn't till the night meeting and they had a fellow preach in the afternoon and he just got nowhere fast and I think he was so comforted he got there so fast he sat down and the chairman said now we have a little time before tea would you like to hear a testimony and so nodded he said to a little woman here she was sitting on a chair and her legs didn't even touch the floor and she was kicking her feet like this I thought she would like to kick the preacher but she couldn't reach him but anyhow she kept shaking her feet and he said I'm going to ask Paul to testify and she got up jumped off the chair hit the floor hit the desk and in two minutes she had that sleepy audience all sitting up and listening and eating out of her hands oh she radiated God man she said I want to tell you that for years as a Christian I had no victory I had nothing to give I had no power I had no prayer I had no passion I had no purpose and I used to read books and think well any anointing is on me for distinguished people or preachers or missionaries or somebody and every time I heard somebody say come on young person you're not too young come on you lay your all at the altar and let God cleanse you and fill you with the Holy Ghost and let him have the ashes and do as he will and work a new creation she said the devil would say to me now of course he means everybody here but you after all what do you do you work in a factory and you put the brush round just cleaning the dirt up you don't have enough skill even to work on a machine and she said I swallowed that lie of the devil that she said one afternoon I was away in Dundee and I thought to myself oh I've been in Dundee I know Dundee all right I was in the Cherokee Mission oh oh yeah I remember being in the Cherokee Mission I went to move James Baxter McLagan funny I remember that meeting and Mr. Ravenhill spoke oh oh this is interesting and he said at the end if you come to the altar and get on and what is the altar for the altar in the Old Testament is one for one thing and only one thing it isn't for you to come and get a repair job done it isn't for you to come and get an emotional bath the altar is for one thing it's to die on and if you don't want to die on don't come and she said I went to the altar that afternoon because he said God can do more with the ashes and she said all right Lord you never had a bigger job on your hands than you have with me I didn't even finish my schooling I can't even write a decent letter and she said at the altar I said Lord burn it all up my pride my weakness my failure my timidity take away the things that hinder and give me what I don't have give me power give me passion give me prayer give me purpose I don't care how long I live it's how I live that matters and she said Mr.Ramiel said twelve have raised their hand who's the thirteenth and he said you won't be unlucky and she said I wasn't and I remember saying now look thirteen people raised their hands I have about three minutes to get to that train and so you hit the trail down here as we see the spirit of the living God fall afresh on me and I had to hurry and get out and you know as I turned to go off the stage I looked and this little woman with the red hair she went down that aisle so fast I'm sure she's the first person in history that did a mile under four minutes she really went down like a spring and went into that bathroom and fifteen years after she was in the missionary council and she said you know that day when God met me I didn't know much English it was my worst subject I couldn't write a letter but she said once the Holy Ghost came and took my fear and took my weakness he took away the fear of man he took away the fear of the future he took away the fear of everything and he came because the spirit of God God hath not given us the spirit of fear but the spirit of love and of power and of a sound mind and he gave me purpose and he gave me passion and he gave me a program and she said when I get home I apply to a bible school and they took me and she said you know when I graduated in that bible school I was the dumbest child that went into it when I came out I was with the top few right at the top there and then I went to the school of linguistics in Paris I couldn't even speak good English but the Lord did something you know as it says in Romans 12 that he doesn't really renew your body but by the renewing of your mind your intellect she got a baptism on her intellect it became alive and she became proficient in English she could write beautifully she became proficient in French and in French and when she graduated she graduated way at the top of the ladder the dumbest she had been and she said you know when I was in Dundee I wouldn't go out in the dark at night and I was very nervous I never talked to men if I could help it and I certainly never talked to a man in the dark and when I went to bed at night you know religiously like these most distinct ladies do the first thing she did was look under the bed and she looked to see if there was anybody waiting to steal her they're very precious these ladies and she looked under the bed and then she made sure the windows were locked and then she made sure the door was locked and then she said now I lay me down to sleep I'm sure the Lord will take care of me because we've got six bolts and bars and all the other things and I'm alright I was so nervous but she said the rest now you know I'm not afraid of the dark anymore I live right in the heart of the bush and I just have a little house made of bamboo and I have leaves on the door and some nights she says I wake up and I hear something going she said you know when I was working in that factory a mouse would run over the floor and I'd jump up and shout and scream as though a mouse could knock a woman over weighing 110 pounds but anyhow she was terrified of the mouse she said now I wake up in the night and I hear something at the door and it's a lion or a tiger or a panther wanting to get in and she said I just turn over and say sorry I'm not on the menu tonight and I just go to sleep and then about two o'clock somebody knocks at the door and I go there and there's a towering black man and he says Missy my wife where are you my wife very sick I come here five miles please tell my wife having baby Missy my wife died and she says just wait till I light my lamp she says I put a wrap on me and tie myself up and get my lamp and we go to a river and the only way you can cross it is a log that isn't too straight and it's all slimy and the black man says now you Missy you give me your lamp I hold two lamps you walk behind me and he walks on there slipping and it's slipping and she said and as he goes there's a big thing there it's only got one cavity but boy that cavity could take anybody and there it is and it's mouth open welcome says the hippopotamus and a little later welcome says the crocodile and she said I just go singing bless the children oh what a forfeit all is at rest I am my stage and I'm happy and great and then she says I get a little frog around me and we go woohoo and the fella says well you're alright that's a lion we've killed about ten people but I'm sure we can make it and she said I deliver the baby and I stay with a woman that's terribly sick and then he says I'd better see you back home and she says no you don't need to go I've got another person with me in fact he's not only with me he's in me and she said that's the reason and she said you know the little helpless girl that used to sweep the floor of a factory here up there in Dundee has been working on the mitten field now and God has not only revolutionized her life and revolutionized her psychologically and intellectually and not only helped me with my language and not only helped me with my learning but she said the Holy Ghost did a miracle in me and then he did a miracle for me because in that part of Africa we had been having revivals and he said I want to take you right back to where I started it all happened when I went to the altar and said Lord let the fire fall let the fire consume all my weakness and all my fear and take the actors and do with them just as you will I preached in a little tin church a way down in Belfast and as the preacher said but the radio is going to speak I just looked up behind before I got to the desk there's a picture of a very charming Irish lady she's very frail she had a curvature of the spine she went out to India and founded the Donover Fellowship and you've read her books I guess Amy Wilson Carmichael you know the last three years of her life they have to lift her in and out of bed but you see you can't make bread unless you put the corn through the mill you can't have wine unless you crush the grapes many of us want to be a blessing but there's only one way to be blessed there are two things that God demands that you're going to be a blessing first you'd be broken and the second thing you bleed and you can't be a blessing unless you be broken unless you bleed and she went out and founded the Donover Fellowship and she wrote some of the most wonderful hymns that we have in our modern hymnology and she wrote a thing that goes like this give me a love that leads the way a faith which nothing can dismay a hope no disappointment fire a passion that will burn like fire let me not think to be a clog make me thy fuel flame of God a little woman with a curvature of the spine hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of little neglected kids some of them pulled out of the gutter some of them were being put there for the crocodiles to eat and she started a rescue mission and there are hundreds of people now in good positions in India that rise up and call that little Irish girl blessed because despite the thing that God never healed because you see sometimes God can get more out of a broken life than a whole one some of us are too sick to be much good for God feel like to come and do a little breaking in it somewhere and Amy Wilson Carmichael took that frail body of hers and said to God here it is on the altar do you hear the language is it extravagant give me a love that leads the way supposing God has his finger on a man here tonight why not with all due respect the modern breed of evangelists haven't done too much we have conferences for evangelism but nobody ever thinks of having one for revival I'd like to see somebody call three or four or five hundred ministers from any denominations together for about two weeks together and get them behind closed doors and let them talk like men and let them pray like men and let them express their failure and let them call on God have you a love tonight my friend that leads the way what have you to give to your generation what have you to give to your school teenager have you a testimony that vibrates with reality what have you to give to your community preacher love compassion concern maybe we should pray this prayer tonight give me a love that leads the way a faith which nothing can dismay a hope no disappointment fire a passion that will burn like fire let me not sing to be a cloud make me thy fuel flame of God and I finish with this little verse of the man that set the world afire just a hundred years ago William Boone half Jew half Gentile founded the Salvation Army you remember he wrote about Christ as burning cleansing flame send the fire thy God brought gift today we claim send the fire look down and see this waking host give us the promised holy ghost we want it at a penny cost I'm not sure whether we want it brethren but we need it very badly I guess if I could talk with you face to face over a table pastor you would say to me my church though it's a fundamental church is one of the neediest churches in America tonight I've got elders but they have no fire I've got people they have no faith I've got people that have no passion I've got people that have no purpose I've got people that come and pray and because they do not pray they have no passion because they have no passion they have no purpose you know in the economy of God when the holy ghost comes as Cosa said no man ever was filled with the holy ghost without knowing it if he gives you tongues that's your business if he gives you something else but I tell you this that when the holy ghost comes you'll know it for after all if a man is dead in trespasses and in sin and he can be born again at night then a man who is already born again should come into a new experience with God he'll know that he's passing through this new experience I say as I said last night I believe there are enough people here sincere and dedicated to the degree they know already there are enough if we could really lay our all on the altar and you come to the place where you really want to die and he takes the full total responsibility of a personality for your spirit and your soul and your body and your mind and your faculty and your will if we could get to that place this meeting could make history for America it could not only make history for America it could make history for this generation in which we are living you know I was fourteen and a half years of age when God saved me I never doubted it until three years afterwards you even told me what you liked but I knew there was things wrong in my life and I remember going to an altar and meeting God and I remember quoting Romans 6 6 that Romans 6 7 he that is dead and I read it and I read it and I read it and I read it and I read it and I read it and I read and I read it and I read it and I read it and I read it and I read it and I read it and I read it and I read it and I read and I read it and I read read it and I read it and I read it