In this sermon, the speaker discusses the decline and fall of the Roman Empire and draws parallels to the current state of society. He identifies five factors that contributed to the downfall of the empire, including higher taxes, excessive spending, obsession with pleasure and sports, focus on building armaments instead of addressing internal issues, and the decay of religion. The speaker emphasizes the importance of prayer and the strength of a church's prayer meeting as a measure of its spiritual health. He also highlights the need for preaching that can draw people away from worldly distractions, such as television. The speaker concludes by referencing the biblical story of Noah and suggests that society is heading towards a similar state of moral decline.

Lord, I remember the word of a hymn. Years ago we sang, O Lord of heaven and earth and sea, to thee all praise and glory be. How shall we show our love to thee who giveth us all? Thou didst not spare thine only Son, but gavest him for the world, and done and freely with that blessed one thou givest all. We thank you, your goodness, everything which is essential to holiness and godliness in the life that now is, and that which is to come. We pray in the word of the psalmist this morning, that as we open your word, we pray like those on the Dimaeus road, you not only open the word, you open their eyes, you open their understanding. Lord, we pray we may go from this house with a new sense of our obligation to be love slaves of Jesus Christ. So let the words of our mouths, the meditation of our hearts be acceptable this morning in Jesus name. Thank you, be seated. Somebody has said that the religion of the East is confusion, and the religion of the West is confusion. And I think the older we get, the more we realize we get confused. You listen to the radio, one man says, Jesus will come before you get home, driving your car, so don't worry about that. And then the next fellow on the radio says, they're going to rebuild a temple in Jerusalem, and that's going to take about 25 years or 50 years, so the Lord won't come till the temple's finished. I talked with a Jewish doctor recently, a very brilliant young man. In case you think you haven't got anything, this young man's been to our house twice. A few years ago he was in Brooklyn, and he'd go around the corner and smoke pot, then he got on to drugs that just smashed his mind to pieces. He lost his brains, and then he got saved, then he got filled with the Spirit, and then he took his PhD in 16 Semitic languages. So you see what God can do out of a wrecked life, if that life is yielded to him. And he was telling me that already he had been to Israel, and some of the more devout Jews there are already rehearsing. They have a team of rabbis that they've sent to Europe, and they're training them to restore the old sacrifices of the Old Testament. They expect to come back and exercise their rights. Another very interesting thing, I was telling you about some people that are here this morning. Of course they don't live in Palestine, they come from a better part of Texas. They live near us, and they're like lots of others. They take literally, you know, that trip to be fruitful and multiply. The dear lady here, I don't know how she sat through two nights of listening on these beautiful soft seats, but she's seven months pregnant with her, what, seventh child, I think. They already have had their seventh, because they take literally the scripture, be fruitful and multiply. So they're busy, and they're going to be busy for a few years, I think. So, but the one about the Cooke's family, there's just a man and wife, he works in the oil fields. They get up at 4 to 4.30 in the morning, have an hour together, an hour of prayer and Bible study. Then they raise the children at 5. I think have a prayer time with the children till 6. Then the mother, she isn't busy, so she homeschools them, cooks for them, washes for them. She cooks for the Cooke's and everybody else. So there are, what, seven children, and the other two make nine of them. But the oldest boy came to our class a few weeks ago. We prayed over him. I think he's 12. He's already memorized the whole book of Proverbs. The other boy is 10. I think he's memorized about 12 chapters of Proverbs. And that's what we need to do, get the word of God into the hearts and minds of young people. But I told this Jewish scholar, and he said, there's a group, I don't know the exact name, I think it's the Yeshiva Jews in New York. And when the children, when the boys get to 5, not 15, 5, they start learning Hebrew. Now you say your daughter is at school and college and she's carrying a load. She carries 15 hours a week. These boys at 5 study Hebrew every day until they're 15, and by the time they're 15, they do it for 15 hours a day, not a week, like your daughter. They're determined to restore their language. I think very often we waste the years of our children. We don't start to really get a grip on them until they're, well, older than they should be, let's put it that way. I mean, you know how dumb you are yourself, so you don't want them to be like you, do you? So get them studying the word of God, get them memorizing the scripture. I thank God I memorized it 80 years ago and still remember the scriptures I learned, the psalms and hymns and songs and so forth. Well, I'm glad you're here, and very gracious for the hospitality we've had, for the help from the pastor and from Sister Green, bless her heart, and her assistant, whatever she is, and the secretary and a few other people and all the good food you sent, and what Joyce can beat she passed on to us. And so we've done pretty good this weekend. Now I say there's an awful lot of confusion about where we are in prophecy, and I promised to tell you this morning exactly where we are in prophecy. And of course you can't take the opinions of men, that won't do, so let's look at the word of God, the gospel recorded by Luke in chapter 17. Luke chapter 17. Verse 20 says, When he was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not, N-O-T, with observation, but neither shall they say, Lo, here, lo, lo, there. Behold, the kingdom of God is within you. He said unto them, The days will come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and ye shall not see it. They shall say unto you, See here, or see there, go not after them. For as the lightning that lightneth out of heaven shanneth the dip out of heaven, so shall also the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected of this generation which he was. And then here's the clincher, here's the whole situation that we're in now, in the world, in this next verse. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man. And they did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot. They did eat, they drank, they bought, they planted, they builded. But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. So shall it be in the day when the Son of Man shall be revealed. Now look for a moment at the 21st chapter and I think the verse there is 25, 21-25 And there shall be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth, distress of nations with perplexity. Do you know what that is? It's distress of nations with no way out, no exit, no exit. This situation we're in now has never happened in history before. This is the most terrible hour in history. Confusion of nations, there are wars. I think about over a hundred wars actually taking place right now. One of the comforts that we're supposed to have from Washington is that we made peace with Russia. We're not on a collision course with Russia. No, we're on a collision course with God. We made peace with a devilish nation. We could break Russia, we could have broken Russia twice, but we bailed her out. We'll bail her out again now. Well, of course, if we didn't bail her out, we'd have revolution. We'd have people killed. Well, if we, if we bail her out, we'll still have people killed. So right now there's distress of nations. No man has an answer for it. The only answer is that God intercedes, intervenes in mercy and comes to visit us with a real Holy Ghost revival. Well, as it was in the days of Noah. That's the whole thing, isn't it? So look at the sixth chapter of the book of Genesis and verse 11. You've got the whole thing there. Look at verse 5 for a moment. God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth and every imagination of his heart and thoughts were evil. Continually it's evil. If there's such a thing as pure evil, it's pure evil. It's unbroken evil. It's every profanity, every form of evil, sexual, mental, whatever you want, social. That's where man is today. Verse 6, it repented God and made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart. Now look, I guess how many of us actually, come on, I'm not trying to be funny here. How many of us feel you have the Holy Spirit of God in your heart? Raise your hand. You believe you have the Holy Spirit. Okay. I'm not trying to trap you. The Word of God says that you and I can grieve the Holy Spirit of God, doesn't he? Well, if the Holy Spirit is in me, what grieves the Holy Spirit will grieve me. It grieves me to see a sick church in a dying world. The church has no power. The church has no authority. The church is ridiculed. I have a friend who has a very high position in California and he says, every time he mixes up with many of the intellectuals of Los Angeles, every lunch time somebody raises the Jimmy Traggett scandal or the last day, not last day, P.T.L. P.T.L. It's still living and as long as those men live, it will be there. It's a report. You can't wipe it out. You can't just shed a tear over TV. These men say we led millions to Christ. They broke millions of hearts. People can find it in them. So listen, if you're going to walk with God, you're going to know ecstasy that nobody knows. You're going to have sorrow nobody knows. We're going to have joy in the Holy Ghost which is indescribable. But we're going to have, we're going to have baptisms of sorrow. We're going to grieve over the nation. We're going to know pains. You know, there's an old saying in England, if a couple, when they're married, if a woman had the first baby and the husband had the second, there'd never be a third. Because we don't know what pain is. But I'll tell you what, I believe that soul travail is infinitely more than physical travail. Jesus saw of the travail of his soul. We reminded ourselves last night, his hair was as white as snow. Why? Because he went into Gethsemane and everybody forsook him. So why do you go? Do you expect better treatment from this world than Jesus? God, if you do, you'll be disappointed. When did his greatest friends desert him? In his hour of need. They deserted him in Gethsemane. They deserted him at a cross. They weren't even there at the resurrection morning. When the whole of hell trembled. When Jesus led captive, and he captured and gave gifts unto men, they didn't say a word. Who was the guy that wrote or Verdi, when he wrote his, what's his, Aida? And they celebrated the opening of that great, if you want to call it a great, what do you call it, opera, in the conservatory in Milan. The place was packed to the rafters and when he finished, the people ran out screaming Verdi, Verdi, Verdi. And they were crying Verdi at five o'clock the next morning. He had to come to the window of their hotel and they shrieked and screamed Verdi, Verdi. It's the greatest thing ever written. Jesus did the greatest thing ever done. There wasn't a person there. You get disappointed in people. How many times has he told them, if they take, nobody will take my life. I lay it down and I'll take it up again. And there he takes up his life. He shattered the powers of death. He broke the gates of hell. He defeated the devil and not one person was there to cheer him. So why do you expect the congratulations even of Godly people? Because the earth was what? Isn't this the history of the world right now? Look, it's all condensed. Not into two chapters but two lines here. Look at it. Verse 11 of Genesis chapter 6. The earth was what? Corrupt before God. And the earth was filled with violence. We've got a new theme out now. Mr. Bush says we're going to have a new world order. How come men with a corrupt nature, an old nature, start a new world order? I heard that in World War I. I remember the 4th of August 1914. I stood in the street and the boys came shouting, special, special. No radio in those days, no TV. Boys carried newspapers saying war is declared, war is declared. That was 1914. It lasted to 1919. Then we had 20 years of peace from 1919 to 1939, the beginning of World War II. But in between, when the church had the greatest opportunity, she's Pentecost, she had no power, she had no authority. So right now, the earth is filled with a violence that the world has never known. Do you remember what? Three years ago, a plane was going, was it going off the coast of Korea with about 290 people in and they shot it down because there was an American in that plane who hated Russia and the Russians shot it down and we just said, well, that's business. Just 300 people perished. That had never happened in history before. We keep repeating this. Violence is on a scale that it's never been known. Dave Wilson lived a mile from us up the road where we live. He came in to see me a few weeks ago. He doesn't come down often and he said, Len, you can't believe when you live with us, we live with them in New York City in the subculture there for nearly three years. And he said, you can't believe the difference in New York today. He said, well, 15 boys shot 15 other boys in less than two weeks on the streets of a civilized country. In the last week, five boys had killed five others. Our children came up from South America. They go to the junior college in Dallas. Well, they go to a school in Buenos Aires, not the Buenos Aires now, they go to a school in Asuncion. Well, when they came up here, of course, the children down there aren't as well dressed as they are up here. They come up here, kids, girls look as well as they would for a tryout at Hollywood, the way they're dressed up, the makeup and earrings and all the junk they have, pardon me. But what were they amazed at? Were they amazed at the prop? No, they were amazed that the children retaliated. They were sassy to the teacher. They ridiculed the teacher. They scorned the teacher. Some of them even beat the teacher. They said, we don't do that in our country. Do you know all the top scholars are down there? Every one of them is an Oriental. Do you know the top scholars are in the schools in America? Orientals. Our kids have everything thrown at them, given to them. These kids have come home oppressed. Did you see that woman on TV? I don't watch TV much. I do watch it. And there was a woman with six children from, where did she come from? Well, the boat people. And she came to this country with three children. She lost her husband coming over. And here were the six children and they were asked questions. What do you want to be? How old are you? I'm nineteen. Do you date? Oh, no. No, you don't date. We never date. I will not date. My boys never dated until they were twenty-one years of age. Never one, except the youngest. And he dated at nineteen. But we never allowed dating. What you call dating in England, we call it flirting. Fooling around. So they said to the woman, what do you want for your children? What do your children want? What do you want to be? The little guy said, not I want to be, I'm going to be a doctor. Do you know as a boy, breaking my own story here, there's a boy going to school with our grandson down in Assumption. He's sixteen years of age and they've accepted him at Princeton, one of the five leading universities in America. But they've accepted him without a test. He's so brilliant. He's miles ahead of the teachers even. But his parents tell him, this is your one chance in life. Make the best of it. And so I love to watching TV or playing ball down the street. These kids are reading and doing their algebra and doing some foreign languages. I used to say, in my simplicity, that by the year 2000 in America, the number one population will be black, the number two Hispanic, and the number three will be white. The number one language will be English, the number two language will be Spanish, and anything else after that. But you know, the sociology is saying now, by the year 2000, the number one population in America will be Hispanic, the number two will be black, the number three will be white. The number one language will be Spanish by the year 2005. The number one language Spanish, number two language will be English. People ask me how many, I don't know how many languages my children speak, quite a number. My boy teaches in France and he's a senior curator at the Smithsonian University. He does a lot of work for National Geographic and his daughter has a Ph.D. and all kinds of degrees. Well, what about the old man, what does he... I speak only two languages, English and American, outside of that I'm lost. But as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the day of the Son of Man. I think some of you went to school and maybe you remember that one of the classics, I don't have a big library, I have about, I don't know, 3,000 books, I don't think that's many, but I do have two big volumes of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the greatest empire in history up to that time. Here's a summary of it. It declined and went into the dust. Why? Number one, because of the rapid increase of divorce and the undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis of human society. Number two, higher and higher taxes. Oh, watch my lips, there'll be no taxes. Then a few weeks after we found an excuse to make taxes. They make another excuse before long. But no, number two, the cause of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, number two, was higher and higher taxes, spending of public monies and free bread and circuses of the population. Number three, demand craze for pleasure, sports becoming every year more exciting and more brutal. Number four, the building of gigantic armaments when the real enemy is within, it's the decadence of the nation. And number five, the decay of religion, faith fading into mere form, losing touch with life and becoming impotent to warn and guide the people. Is that where we are now? Repeatedly, you prayed this morning for fire. Where is fire? One of the great characters you do know, I'm sure, in history was John Bunyan, he's a Baptist. Okay, forgive him for being a Baptist, but anyhow, there was John the Baptist. I mean, there was Bunyan. Charles II was on the throne of England and he sent more than once for John Bunyan and Bunyan comes a very simple man. He doesn't have, he doesn't have the gear and the collar and the clothes. The greatest preacher in the world at that time was John, what was his name, I don't know, John Owen, sorry. And the king sent for John Owen and the messenger said, His Majesty wants you Dr. John. Well, he only goes to open parliament. He only, only goes to preach on special occasions. When he went in, the king said, Get him out, John. I don't know. He said, I want to ask you a question, John. He said, You're the greatest preacher in the world today and yet I hear that you've got the wrong listening to that babbling Baptist, that tinker by the name of Bunyan. Is this true? He said, Your Excellency, I went the other day, I walked for four miles in the rain to hear a man in a room where the water was dripping through the ceiling, but I heard a man and he said, Your Majesty, I will gladly take off my robes and my collar and dispossess myself of my dignity as a great preacher in America, if I, in England, if I, only I could preach like John the Baptist. You see, there's something a diploma won't give you, a degree won't give you. It's the anointing of God. He's a jealous guy. And you can't anoint yourself and nobody else can anoint you. And there's only one, there's only one degree that matters. It's John 15. I have already ordained you. Without ordination you can have a string of degrees. You can have 32 degrees and still be frozen. Thank you. Some people said that's right. I mean, they should know. They've been like that so long. Must have a drink of ale. I told somebody the other day, I take a cold beer every day. They said, You don't? I said, I sure do. Every day of my life I take a cold beer. Root beer. But, I'm going to drink. I don't have time to tell you all I want to tell you. I'll be here till three o'clock. But, I suppose the greatest honor roll in the world is in Hebrews 11. And you remember there that Noah is mentioned in Hebrews 11 who because of the fear of God he built an ark. If you read the 10th chapter it says, You need patience after you know the will of God. Noah needed patience for 120 years to do the will of God. When God called Abraham he was 75 years of age and when he finished with him he was 175. And you thought going to Bible school for six months would make you an apostle. It takes God a long while to get our self-confidence and arrogance and ability. I love the old hymn that says, O love that will not let me go I rest my weary soul in thee. The last verse says, O joy that seeketh me through pain I cannot close my heart to thee I trace the rainbow through the rain. And what's the last verse saying? I can't think of it but the end of the verse says, I lay in dust life's glory dead but from the ground there blossoms led life that shall endless be. I can read Hebrews 11 every day of my life and finish up on the rug in my tears. Why? Here are men and women flesh and blood like you and I. They didn't have education. They didn't have a thousand Bibles. They didn't have books. They didn't have radio. They didn't have TV. What did they say? They all had one thing in common in Hebrews 11. Who by faith subdued kingdoms wrought righteousness obtained promises stopped the miles of line. Women received their dead raised to life again. I read that and the Lord said read again. I read it on my knees. The Lord said read again. I read it on my knees a second time. I read it on my knees a third time as I finished and I just closed by saying every one of these people had one thing they had faith. To subdue kingdoms wrought righteousness stop the miles of lines they put to flight the armies of the aliens. And then the Lord said this to me and not one of them ever had a Bible. So what have you done with it? You possibly have 26 versions of the Bible. You can know Greek and Hebrew without knowing God. Half the preachers in the country know Hebrew and Greek but they don't know God. Is the devil afraid of diplomas? You hang on the wall? Of course not. If I asked you the greatest preacher since the apostle Paul you would say no question about it John the Baptist. No, no. In modern life who's the greatest preacher? Oh well obviously the greatest preacher was a man who packed 4000 people in the morning and 5000 people at night and he was only 20 years of age. His name was Spurgeon. But I don't believe Spurgeon was the greatest preacher. I did talk with a woman 95 years of age in 1937 who used to go and listen to Spurgeon and she was through with him. But I believe that John Bunyan was a far greater preacher. I think I have about 10 volumes of sermons of John Bunyan. He, he, he talked about, he has a whole book on the groanings of the damned in hell. Do you think anybody will preach on that? That first Baptist church, the second Baptist church in Houston? Not on your life. The pastor of the second Baptist church he says I have a report. How many of you read that report in the Wall Street Journal? Not everybody nearly. In the Wall Street Journal it gave a rundown on the church which is now a tourist attraction. It has 5 saunas out, 5 tracks for running. It's got everything that panders to the flesh. And they very carefully tailored their message so that any man can come in in any degree of sin and not be offended. Can you imagine Jesus not trying to offend people? Did he say to the rich young ruler increase your tithing? He didn't. I must have got the wrong version. One of my sons says, you know the Bible, there are 10 versions, 5 are wise and 5 are foolish. And I think he's right about that. But no story. It doesn't matter who we are, it's leave all and take up your cross and follow me. Okay. So God, let me go for a minute to a book we don't read very much. The book of Jude. And read just a verse from there. There's only one chapter in Jude as you remember. Verse 5 says, I will therefore put you in remembrance that though you once, you once knew this, how the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterward, destroyed them. Do you hear that? How many men went out of Egypt? There are a million people went out. How many people went to the promised land? Two. That's about the percentage of people that listen to what God says. These people obeyed God. They sprinkled the doorposts with blood. They got away from bondage. They got away from Pharaoh. And what happened? The people, how the Lord, having saved them out of the land of Egypt afterward, destroyed them. Isn't that awesome? They didn't die by Pharaoh. They were covered with the blood. They stepped out to go to the promised land. And yet God destroyed them. Because of what? Not sexual impurity. Not for open rebellion. But what? Because of unbelief. The biggest hindrance to revival in America or England today is unbelief. If I mention to you Sodom, what you think about? You think about sexual impurity. But what about the other scripture that talks about Sodom? What did they have? Pride and what? Fullness of bread. Almost every time Mr. Bush talks. Be proud of America. Be proud of America. Do you remember one day Mr. Nixon threw his finger up and said, The eagle has landed. What is it? What is it? What are the words of the Is it Habakkuk says, If you set your nest among the stars, I'll still come. I heard Wilkinson say one day. And of course it's better from an American than an Englishman. From the very day that Nixon pointed and said, The eagle has landed among the stars, we've gone downhill in every shape and form. If God has a controversy with us, the only way we can set it is by repentance and humiliation and obedience. So here we have again in the epistle of Jude. Let's look at verse 12. These are spots in your feasts of charity when they when they feast with you, feeding them, feeding themselves without fear. Clouds are they without water carried about with winds. Trees whose fruit is withered. Raging water is the next verse says. For me of their own shame. Wandering stars in whom they reserved in the blackness of darkness. And Enoch also the seventh from Adam prophesied of the Lord saying the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints. What do you think he felt like? Here's an old man with a beard down here. I don't know his age, maybe he's a hundred and fifty years of age. And he goes around the street that doesn't have a church, it doesn't have a Bible, they've never heard of preaching. And he says the Lord is coming with ten thousand of his saints. What an idiot. And right after him comes this man by the name of Noah. It's a very remarkable thing. When you just look at the six chapters over there in Genesis, again for a minute. We said verse eleven. The earth is corrupt before God. The earth was filled with violence. God said to Noah, the end of all flesh is come before me. The earth is filled with violence. That's the second time it's mentioned in verse eleven. How was the earth still with violence? The only violence we know of was what? There were two men called what? Cain and what? Who got killed? Who? So there you are. It doesn't pay to be righteous. Why did Cain kill him? Because Abel was righteous. He couldn't bear to live with him. He was honest and upright. He didn't, he wasn't profane. He wasn't greedy. He wasn't covetousness. There's no covetousness. And the most, it's like Spurgeon said, you don't need to put a twisted stick on the floor and say it's got ten twists in it. All you do is put a straight stick at the side of it. And that twisted stick looks worse because of a straight stick at the side. So here is a man and there's just two of them, brothers. One is upright and righteous. The other is cheating and doing every damnable thing he can. And he hates, he's irritated by his brother's purity. His brother's purity shows up his impurity. His brother's honesty shows up his dishonesty. His brother's strength shows up his weakness. He gets mad. He says, I'll get rid of him anyhow. Tell me this. Come on you preachers, but Frank and pastor here. Why does it say in, uh, is it James 5? The effectual servant prayer of what? Why does it say a holy man? Why does it say righteous? Look at chapter seven of Genesis. And verse one says, the Lord said unto Noah, come thou and all thy house into the earth for thee, but the Hebrew emphasizes thee only have I found righteous. You see, holiness is my relationship to God. Righteousness is my relationship with the world. What did we say last night that the apostle Paul stood with three things? phoenix and reason within of temperance and what? And what? Righteousness and judgment to come. That keeps coming up the whole time. Righteousness. If, listen, don't blame the devil for your prayers not being answered. Psalm 24 is the basis of prayer. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord he that hath clean hands and a pure heart? Or is that Psalm 24? Well, he that hath clean hands are my relationship with the world. A pure heart is my relationship with God. If I don't have that, it's no good praying. I'm praying with desire for myself or desire for God to do something for me instead of me being an agent for God. All right. The earth is filled with violence and the earth was corrupt before God. Now, come on, let's look at this situation. All people know Noah for. He's a righteous man. Oh, I'll tell you what. He keeps his promise. He's the best man in the world to do business with. He's upright. He doesn't grind for the last cent. He's a perfect gentleman. He'd rather lose an argument and win a man than win an argument and lose a man. He's a model of his religion. We would say it's Christianity. So, what happens? When God was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, he didn't go to Lot. Lot sat at the gate, because that's where the government was. I used to wonder why does the Bible say the gates of Sodom and Gomorrah were closed. He pitched his tent towards Sodom and pitched it. Then he left the tent, which you wander around in, and he bought a house in the city of Sodom. He got fascinated with materialism. Today we're cursed with materialism. Old age doesn't bring all the wisdom in the world, but I'll tell you what. When you see nations dissolve, as I've watched them in the last 80 years, I'm afraid, as one of your great legislators said, who was the president of America, that said, when I remember that God is just, I fear for my nation. I forgot his name for the moment. But listen, in 1970 years ago, I was 14 years of age anyhow. I learned a piece of poetry. I've got a shelf full of poems and American poems, world poems, English poems. I can't find it anywhere, but this is what it said. As far as I remember, because I've known it 70 years. It goes like, England thou privileged nation, how truly thy children are blessed. Thou hast, since the great reformation, had liberty, riches and rest. Such blessings are not of thy making. It is God who has given thee all. But if divine laws are outbreaking, like Babylon too thou shalt fall. Thy armies and navies will fail thee, if thus the Lord God thou forsake. Political schemes won't avail thee, if sacred commandments thou break. For God has his eyes on this nation. O England, to thee will be sent the doom of thy just condemnation except, ah, except thou repent. That was written just before 1914. From then, England went downhill. Remember, England had colonies. It used to own a country called America. That broke away before my day. Then it had another colony, a very wealthy colony that broke away in my day. That was called Canada. It had another colony that was very, very wealthy. That was called India. It had another colony that was very wealthy. That was called Australia. And so to use the figure. England is an old lion. She was robbed of her whelps. She's robbed of billions and billions and billions of dollars. And nothing could stop it. And England, America is going the same way. We're conceding and conceding and conceding until we have nothing left to give. Arnold Toynbee is considered a great modern historian. Listen to what he says. In his study of history, he traced the lifespan of 21 civilizations. And they failed to survive. And they went through a cycle like this. Number one, slavery. Number two, faith in the divine. Number three, courage. Number four, emancipation and independence. Number five, prosperity. Number six, selfishness. Number seven, apathy. Number eight, dependence on the welfare state. And number nine, slavery. You say we'll never go back to slavery in America. I want to tell you at this moment there are more slaves in America than in history. And the same in England. We've slaves to AIDS. We've slaves to drink. Yeah, you tell me we've won how many battles. Come on, be fair. We're the top of the list for divorces above five. What do you call them? Industrialized nations in the world. We're the highest in divorce. We're the highest in AIDS. We've got a lot of records we don't like to recognize. We're just going to pieces and we can only have restoration to true sanity by a movement of the Holy Spirit of God. Okay, God says to this man Noah, I'm going to flood the earth. What's the story here? Well, if you read the story, it says for a hundred and twenty years, I used to hold street meetings. That's where people live. I spent fifty years in streets. I preached at midday. I preached at midnight. And I waited till the movie houses emptied at ten o'clock. Then I preached them and very seldom did we close a meeting at midnight without people kneeling in the street. We'd take up our coats and put them down. Say Sir Walter Raleigh put his cloak down and if he can put it down for Queen Elizabeth of England we'll kneel. And men and women would kneel in the streets and repent and it would happen again if they heard the message. We're so busy feeding the front row, the less of the five thousand are dying of hunger. I don't give a hell of beans and I'll insult you people I'm so sure here. There are two things to me which are the test of a church today. Number one, how strong is its prayer meeting? The test of your preaching. How many people can you pull away from TV Sunday night? It was a period of darkness. I tried to visualize this precious old man going up and down the street with his hand in there. The Lord is coming with ten thousand of his saints. You see he was a prophet. A prophet is a seer. S E E R. He could see through clouds. He could see through time. What does it say in Hebrews like? They endure the seeing him who is invisible. And unless you and I see who is invisible you'll go down under the weight of what's going to happen in the next two years. We've got to see as it said last night. Jesus Christ is going to end up the universe by sitting on a throne. It's going to end up with a bang. It's going to end up with people recognizing Jesus Christ as the king of kings and the Lord of lords. Okay. Here's a man who goes up and down year after year after year. The crackpot. The silly old guy. He was saying that fifty years ago. Oh, did you hear the new thing? What? There's a man up the road building something. God gave him the dimensions of the ark. How long was the ark? Four hundred and fifty feet long. Seventy five feet wide. Which is about twice the width of this. That was the beam of it. And forty five feet high. It was the most amazing thing. It wasn't made to sail. It wasn't a, it wasn't a, it wasn't a commercial liner. It wasn't a fishing boat. It wasn't a, a pleasure cruiser. It had no sails. It had no motor. It had no rudder. It was made to do one thing and one thing only. And that was floating. It did float. And God ordered all who were going to the ark. And only eight people out of all the people that were on the earth at that time went to the ark. But look at the ridiculous thing for a minute. Remember they'd never seen rain. Did you ever realize that? God watered the earth with dew. And this old crackpot, he's like the old man who used to be around there, you know. He used to walk around with his hands up saying the Lord will come with ten thousand of his saints. What do you think happened to this man? First of all he cut down a tree. Don't you think he got into trouble with the ecologists? That tree is on the edge of the garden of Eden. God put that tree there. And you cut it down. Why? I'm going to build an ark. What's an ark? Show us a plan. I don't have a plan. Have you noticed that he did one thing and only one thing? He didn't tell a blueprint of the ark to other people. He didn't start the franchise on the ark. He said I'm going to build an ark. I don't know whether people helped him or not. But the ark is 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 feet high. And he goes year after year after year. He must have had a wonderful family. He had sons and daughters. Don't you think they'd come home one day to dinner and say Dad do you think you got it wrong? I just came up in the square and one said aren't you one of Noah's kids? Yes my name's Shem. Well don't you think your daddy's crazy? I mean he's still saying he's building an ark. We can see part of it. But do you remember you don't remember the old man that used to walk around he not crying the Lord cometh with 10,000 of his saints. Well daddy do you think you got it wrong? I mean this man was talking in the square. He said you can trust Noah is a very righteous, very wonderful, kind man. But he's not. He's been building this bowl for 50 years. And I don't think he built it behind the bushes. I think he built it in the most prominent place it was possible. But then he didn't sell a blueprint of the ark to other people. He didn't start to franchise on the ark. He said I'm going to build an ark. I don't know whether people helped him or not. But the ark is 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 feet high. And he goes year after year after year. He must have had a wonderful family. He had sons and daughters. Don't you think they come home one day to dinner and say, Dad do you think you got it wrong? I just came up in the square and one said, Aren't you one of Noah's kids? Yes, my name is Shem. Well, don't you think your daddy is crazy? I mean, he's still saying he's building an ark. We can see part of it. But do you remember, you don't remember the old man that used to walk around Enoch crying, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints. Well, daddy, do you think you got it wrong? I mean, this man was talking in the square. He said, You can trust Noah. He's a very righteous, very wonderful, kind man, but he's nuts. He's been building this bowl for fifty years. And I don't think he built it behind the bushes. I think he built it in the most prominent place it was possible. But there's such a difference between Noah. You say you're rough on America. So I am, because I tell the truth. But listen, there's never been a nation in history as privileged as America. Sodom and Gomorrah. What did Jesus say later? He says, Warn to you, Bethsaida. Warn to you, Chalazion. For it's the mighty works, he says, that were done in you, and I can't find in the Bible where the mighty works were, and I can't find in history. But I believe it because Jesus said he did mighty works. Maybe he raised a dozen people from the dead. Maybe he delivered a hundred people from the devil. Maybe he took people out of bondage and they were all his mighty works. And Jesus says, If the mighty works were done in Sodom and Gomorrah, or Bethsaida and Chalazion had been done in you, they would have, Gomorrah would have repented. Sodom and Gomorrah saw no miracles. The two most privileged nations in history, as far as I'm concerned, are England and America. Under God, the Bible which had been in Latin, and I remember a church in England where they have the old Bible, it's this height, and it has a chain on it so nobody can steal it. You could go there and read a page, or you had to wait for a pastor, because nobody else could read Hebrew, and it wasn't translated. And you say, Read me, and you could stand in line, and he'd read two or three passages of Scripture. And then later, maybe he'd read some Greek. And you tried to memorize it. You went back to your farm, milked your cows, did what you had to do. But who could afford a Bible so big? You couldn't afford them. They're museum pieces. Then one good Englishman says, the day will come when I'll put the Bible into the hand of every plowboy. And he did it, and got burned at the stake for doing it. But England gave the world the Bible. England gave the world the greatest revival since Pentecost, the Methodist revival. Under Wesley, that went to the ends of the earth. England gave the world the next greatest revival. That was the salvation. I mean, they were both in the streets. The doors were locked against Wesley. He can't preach in the churches. It'll be a great day when they won't let us do that. We'll go back and preach to the poor and needy. I wouldn't go to a church that doesn't have a street meeting. I wouldn't go to a church that doesn't have a half night of prayer every week, because you can't say that you wait on God. You don't have any money problems. I went to a church and the deacons asked me, would I do this? Would I do that? Would I do the other? I said, sure. Now, will you accept my terms? They said, do you have terms? I said, sure. What do you think you're doing? Renting a donkey? I got terms. First, you come to every meeting half an hour before meeting time and pray with a pastor. We have a half night of prayer every Friday night from nine till midnight or after. And another thing we do. Oh, what's the treasure guy going to say? I said, we abolish offerings. What? The treasure almost had epilepsy. So, what we did, we abolished, you know, sticking something under your nose, stick something in. And we put boxes at the door. I remember coming out of my office. I've been praying with five men that came forward to be saved that night. And there's the treasure walking up and down. I thought, good night. What's wrong with him? I said, what's wrong? Your mother died or something? No. No. The offerings have doubled today. They doubled because we didn't stick a bag under everybody's nose. And we never had any problem with money after that. Okay. So, America is one of the most privileged nations in the world. Sodom and Gomorrah never saw a Bible. Sodom and Gomorrah never had a gospel crusade. I checked with Billy Graham's office. So, one of my friends, he's the vice president of Jolly Green Church. He works at Bethany Fellowship. And I said, check with Billy Graham's office. Ask how many Bible schools there are in America. Ask how many seminaries there are. And the office said, we can't give you the exact number, but this we do know. In America and Canada, we have four hundred and fifty Bible schools and two hundred and fifty seminaries. That makes seven hundred. If each of those schools only turned out one man on fire for God. That would be seven hundred in a year. It would be seven hundred in a year. Ten years would be seven thousand. There should be seven thousand men in America that are blazed for God. Where you know when you go, you'll hear the word of God. It's not twisted. It's not tormented. It's quick and powerful. It'll cut you to pieces, but then it heals you. God doesn't just beat us down. He lifts us up. He doesn't just only trip us. He clothes us. He doesn't just empty us. He fills us. He gets self out of us and fills us with himself. He takes out thinking limited vision and what does he do? He gives a vision of his holiness and then a vision of the lost world. Sodom and Gomorrah didn't have Bible schools. Sodom and Gomorrah didn't have seminaries. Sodom and Gomorrah didn't have three thousand broadcasts every day like we have. Sodom and Gomorrah didn't have a church at every street. But the judgment of God came. The Lord says to Noah, go into the ark with our house. Listen, there's one thing you can do if you're walking with God. I don't give you seventeen children. Some of you may have two years from now. One woman told Wesley. She said, I love to preach. I'm a preacher too. And Wesley said, I beg your pardon. He said, oh, oh, I'm not ordained by you Mr. Wesley, but I am a preacher and I want to go. I want to go and preach like you do. I'd like to preach in the churches. So Wesley said, have you read a Bible school? No. Do you know your Bible? Well, I know it fairly good. But, but I know as sure as I live, I know that God has called me to be a preacher. He said, are you married? Yes. Have any children? Seventeen. He said, he's not going to be called you. He's giving you the congregation. He said, I'm not going to be called No preacher is a success unless he's a success at home. The first time I went, second time I went to a college, the guy hugged me and said, we'll listen to you because your son's walk with God. Two of the, two of the best preachers in the world today. There was at the top of the tree in his profession. And my precious Martha took care of them. I was away evangelizing. Every day they read mystery stories. Every day they heard about God. The greatest wealth I have, I don't have any antiques. I used to have, got rid of them. Only myself, I'm antique. But I've got sons that I delight in. I'd rather listen to my sons preaching anybody, even you Frank, and even you dear brother. You know, you, when people ask you, do you have any sons? When you've got a son fifty-three years of age, you begin to think you're getting old enough. You will, some of you. But again, look at the privilege we have. There are three thousand Christian bookstores in America. Sodom and David. I've worked in that one. We've four hundred and fifty Bible schools. Gomorrah didn't have one. I'm saying this. How long do you think God is going to put up with our iniquity? It's all right to read the sixth chapter of Genesis. We did. But you see, it also says, I won't give you the verse, you know it's there. It says in that same chapter, My spirit shall not always strive with man. The effectual servant prayer of a man righteous man availeth much. But in the fourteenth chapter of Ezekiel, it says, If the three most righteous men that ever lived pray, I won't hear them. Doesn't it say that in the fourteenth chapter of Ezekiel? Noah. What's the list? I didn't mark it. I should have marked it. It's funny here. Oh, I got right to it. Ezekiel. Let me quote it to you. Ezekiel chapter fourteen verse twelve says, The word of the Lord came to me, and came again saying, Son of man, the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously. I will stretch out my hand upon it, will break the staff of bread, I'll send famine, and I will send famine, and cut them off. Now look at verse fourteen. Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in the earth, they should but deliver their own souls. Look on verse seventeen. Verse sixteen. Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith God, they shall deliver neither their sons nor daughters, only they should be delivered. Of verse seventeen, I bring a sword. And verse eighteen. Those three men were there. Were in it, as I live, saith the Lord, they shall not deliver. They shall deliver neither sons nor daughters. Verse twenty. Don't know Daniel. No. And Daniel were there. So you have Noah, Daniel, and Job. The three most righteous men that ever lived. And there they are praying and sweating and fasting and weeping and saying, Oh God, give us a chance God, for I've given you a chance for years. What day is this? It's Sunday. It used to be called the Sabbath day. Then we changed it to Sunday, for the heathen God of the sun. It isn't Sunday now. It's S-U-N Sunday. Who keeps the Sabbath? Today, twenty miles from where I live, there's Canton Fair, which is a hundred years old. There'll be maybe twenty thousand people. You can buy anything from a door to a donkey, or food to furniture. Fifteen acres of junk, most of it, or jewels or gold. And it's crowded out. Recently, there was a match I heard on TV. It was last year, where a ball match, where they were playing baseball, went the sixteenth innings till two o'clock in the morning. Men sat there and shivered. Oh, they'll sit in the sun today baking. Oh, they'll sit They won't do that for God. They won't come to church for twenty hours. People queued up all night recently to hear an opera in New York. Last year, dainty English ladies laid on the sidewalk all night, so they could watch the Wimbledon Tennis Championship. What would they do if we laid down on the gutter all night for a revival? We're going to pray that God in mercy will come before and destroy America and send us Holy Ghost Men. We're going to pray not men that want to pick our pockets, but men that want us to walk with God. As I said last night, America doesn't have one prophet today. Do you think you can get statistics like I mentioned last night, that America, since nineteen seventy three, has liquidated twenty five million babies of pregnant girls? If we had prophets today, they'd be walking down the street in Dallas with bare feet, sackcloth, and ashes on their heads, pleading that God would have mercy upon us. You don't know one man will do that. Billy Graham won't do it. Oral Roberts won't do it. None of them will do it. They've made millions out of us. That day is gone. The big power evangelists, multimillion... Can you imagine the apostle Paul ever dreamed of the multimillion dollar gospel corporations? I can tell you a man now that has millions in the bank. I remember Billy Graham admitting he had twenty-two million dollars in a sludge fund a few years ago. I've got a missionary son, one of the finest men in the world. I think we very, very seldom... And because I happen to be president, my wife's a treasurer, very seldom he even has ten thousand dollars, and he has to pay for a month's radio before ever he speaks. He can't go whining on TV, I'm four million dollars behind. That's bunkum. And I'm glad he's had the same principle where he never asked for money, never refused it. If it comes, I'm accountable to God if you give me a million dollars. And I live in the light of accountability. Wasn't it your great statesman? Noah Webster gave us the Bible. Daniel Webster was us. You're the philosopher. What's the greatest thought that ever crossed your mind? And immediately he answered without thinking. He didn't have to rake something up. He said, the greatest cross thought that ever crossed my intellect is my personal accountability to my Creator. Don't you wish everybody lived like that? The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, your preacher, your politician, living in righteousness and true holiness. Sodom and Gomorrah didn't have Bible schools. Sodom and Gomorrah did not have Christian bookstores. Sodom and Gomorrah did not have radio. Sodom and Gomorrah did not have a hundred monthly magazines, Christian magazines from Christianity Today to What Have You Got. They didn't have them. I don't like all Billy Graham has said and done. He doesn't like me, I'm sure of that. I'll tell you one thing about him. Amongst others, I was talking with one of his closest friends, and he said, you know when Cecil B. DeMille was making that film of Ten Commandments, the first person he thought of, Billy Graham's tall and handsome. We can put a beard on him. We'll ask him to take the role of Moses, and we'll give him two million dollars to do it. And he turned it down, he wouldn't take it. After that, a very famous shirt company in America, the same friend of Billy Graham's told me when he turned down two million dollars, the shirt company said, we want your picture with one of our shirts, and say, Billy Graham wears our shirts, we'll give you a million dollars to you. And he turned it down. Not many men would turn two million dollars down, but he did. And I think up to the life he had, he walked with God. But here's the point, we've had our chance, we've missed it. Our men have been bleeding us. They thought, the Bible said, instead of feed the flock, fleece the flock. And they fleeced us for all they can, until there's nothing else to give. So now it's God's privilege, and our privilege, for God to get some anointing. I walked the length of England. I walked the breadth of England. I took five college men with me. We slept in the fields at night, or we slept in old disused churches with broken windows and birds flying through and rats on the floor, for five years. Not one of us ever got a penny wage. I never heard those men grumble. We slept in a tent. We went to a town and stayed eight weeks. Those churches are still standing sixty years after, because we lived as poor as the people, because we slept in the tent, because we had no amenities of life. And if I were younger, I'd tell you what, I'd still do it again. There's no thrill like going to bed, knowing you've just seen two drunkards or harlots or somebody saved at nearly midnight, when every preacher in town is asleep. The church is asleep today. Didn't Paul say in his day, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and God shall give thee life. So now, what's wrong with this fella? Let's look at Noah just a few minutes before we close. He's got his ark half built. What did he stand? He stood years of scorn, ridicule. This man says the earth is going to break up, water is going to shoot up, water is going to come down from heaven. They'd never seen rain. They'd only ever seen dew. This crazy man, he's a nice man, do business, but don't listen to his religious stuff. Oh, he's got a good family. They're all kind and gracious. The proof of your spirituality is in your family. Where is your family? What appetite do they have? What's the good of having success in church if your family's a failure? Many of the preachers have to admit that children are not saved. That children aren't walking as they should walk. And that's disgraceful. So these are all the things Sodom and Gomorrah didn't have. They didn't have Bible schools. They didn't have seminaries. They didn't have 3,000 broadcasts every day in which somebody said something about Christ or things. They didn't have hundreds and hundreds of Christian magazines. Okay. Well, what's wrong with this fellow? One thing about him, he's got all his family in the ark. It doesn't say they argued with him. He told the family we're going in and they stayed in the ark for seven days. And you know what? I don't read of anybody knocking at the door and saying, hey let us in. We've repented. We're sorry. We want to come. We can see now you've finished your ark and you said when the ark is finished the rain will come. They didn't beat the door down. When the first drops of rain came they didn't come and say let us in, let us in, let us in. They didn't. And not only obeyed God and his family were saved in the ark. What did he do in between? Do you think he was selling lifeboats? Do you think he was saying if you have enough money I'll just make a little room for you in the ark amongst others. Because that's what we do. We chase people with money. I know loads, I know one family where there were seven millionaires in one family. I never asked them for a dime. I never will. Our blessings have become a curse. Now let me tell you the whole reason why Noah wasn't successful. He didn't tell them nice stories. He didn't say you're the most favorite people in the world. I've heard the voice of God. He didn't say I have a word of knowledge I want to share with you. And he had a word of knowledge. He didn't say I have wisdom. And he had wisdom. What's it say? It gives you the whole answer to what seems failure in the second letter of 4 of Peter and the chapter 2. And it says in verse 5 or verse 4. If God spared not the angels that sinned but cast them down to heaven delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved as a judgment. And he spared not the old world but saved Noah the eighth person a preacher of righteousness bringing a flood upon the world. And it goes on to say after that he delivered just lost. But then he preached righteousness. And that's one thing people won't have today. You can talk about gifts of the spirit. You can talk about healing. You talk about righteousness. Being upright in character. Totally honest. Totally pure with nothing of the world upon you. What does Titus say? Titus the God called us out of darkness. What's the scripture? I can't remember it for the moment. Anyhow it's there in Titus where the Lord. Well let me say this. For the world outside the whole answer is found in that verse. The earth was filled with violence. And the earth prison population of America is the highest now than ever. Do you know the wise boys in Washington say the way to stop crime is build more prisons. That's like saying the way to stop death is starting more cemeteries. Isn't it ridiculous? We have no answer to the crime and the slime. Crime time on your TV is usually not prime time. It's slime time and crime time or wine time. And you gulp it down. Preachers Sunday morning are blasting against impurity and they watch it six nights a week. The stinking hypocrites. I think one night God should kill every preacher dead that's watching a dirty rotten TV. That might stir some of the dead deacons up. I'm sure only God could do that. Nobody else would do it. So for the world it's all summarized as far as I'm concerned in Genesis 6 and 11. The earth is corrupt. The earth is filled with violence. So we won the war in the Middle East. What did we do? We sent 23,000 air flights. It cost half a billion dollars a day to run the war. And the devil that we tried to chase bombed. There were more bombs dropped in the few weeks we were bombing than in World War II. And the fellow that we were bombing is still loose. Isn't that success? We won the war. What did he do? Sit down and cry that he lost it? We'd just like to get hold of what do you call him? Hussein? What would we do with him? We got a guy from Panama. What was his name? Noriego. He's living in a luxury prison. What have we done with him? We've had him two years. We haven't done a thing except cut his hair. And give him three meals a day and take care of him. We'll maybe put him in the same cell with us and if we get him, let them live together. We've no answers. Come on, face it. We've no answers. We're humiliated before the world. The world laughs at us. So the earth is corrupt before God and the earth is filled with violence. Let me tell you about the believers. It's in 2 Timothy chapter 1 also come in the last days. Notice what it says in the what? Isn't that what you've been asking for months? Are they the last days? What did Peter say on the day of Pentecost? He said, God hath in these last days. And that was the first day of Pentecost. And now it says here in the last days. And then it says in Revelation chapter 1 will shortly come to pass. We're not living in the last days, friend. We're living in the last hours. We're living in the last moments of God's mercy. God's going to come with vengeance if we don't. Because he hasn't come, we think he won't come. Yes, he will. He kept every promise he ever made. Perilous times. Do you notice that? Not dangerous times, not difficult times, but perilous. We have diseases now that we've never had before. We've never had herpes before. We've never had AIDS before. Do you know what darkness is? Darkness is the gift of the church to a world that's already dark. Well, you say, how do you make that out? Because, listen, when I was 80 years ago, I was 4 years of age. I put my hand in my daddy's and said, Daddy, take me to the army. I knew where the salvation I was. Friday night, Saturday and Sunday, they had a street meeting and I loved it. They praised God. They magnified the Lord. People met in the street and repented, but there are no more street meetings. The Salvation Army met there. The Pentecostals met there. The Baptists met there. And the Methodists met here. There were four, at least, burning and shining lights in the town, but they've all gone. There isn't a church or a street meeting anymore. Why don't we? That's where the people are walking in darkness. The next thing we did, the prayer meeting has died. So that light went out. The Sunday night meeting has died in more churches. So that light's gone out. So why do you wonder people stagger in darkness? Our young people have never seen a church on fire. They've never seen people who hate prophets and express prophets. Now some of you God has trusted with the ministry. Hasn't trusted me with some of you God will trust. I know a number of millionaires. God trusts them with it. He won't trust me. I give it all away. I can use it for God. But I know millionaires who I know. I suppose Dave Wilson takes in as much money as anybody. But Dave supports all kinds of other ministries. He supports lonely missionaries. They don't all come. Lots of people that have these big gospel corporations. They tithe money that's been already tithed. Okay. Boy the Baptists are strong on tithing aren't they? Come on now. Don't blush. You won't blush anyhow. You've forgotten how to do that. Do you pay your tithes? Yes. Yes. I guess you don't. You say you're judging me. Well let me prove it. The Bible said bring all the what? The what? The tithes. It's the that's the problem. You tithe your money. That's not difficult to take your purse. I'll give God a tenth and he'll keep nine tenths. Do you tithe your time? You live 24 hours a day. If you give God a tenth that's 2 hours and 24 minutes every day you spend in worship and adoration. You clap and you worship God as much as you do in church. Otherwise it's hypocrisy. You do it as a show. When you're alone what do you? I weep more when I'm alone than I do preaching. I often break down and I'm not ashamed of it. How can you carry the burden of the Lord and believe people are damned? I stand at a church and I see pews and pews filled with people. Do you know what they are? They are death rows. Most of them are dead in trespasses and in sin even in a sanctuary. So why do I want to go home and lie? I don't need entertainment. I'll tell you what dear friend. The more joy you have in the Lord the less entertainment you need and the less entertainment you have you need that dumb old TV on. It taps the light out of you. When TV came on the first it was two hours in the morning before breakfast or two hours at night after supper. Now it's 24 hours a day. It's become the master in many homes. Your TV in your home is your life support. You pull it at supper time and see what the kids do. How many times have they argued about this channel or that channel or that? It's become a master. We're slaves. We're back into slavery. We're more drunkards in America than ever in history. We're more people divorced than ever in history. We're more people with AIDS than ever in history. We're more people with herpes. We're more people in jail. We're back. We're slaves. And the same is true in England. There's hardly a lively church in England. There is one of course, a young man by the name of David Watson. He wrote to me. I wish I'd written back to him. David was in Cambridge. He got a very high degree. And instead of joining a Pentecostal church, would you believe he joined the dead old church of England? And God set him on fire, filled him with the Holy Ghost. And the church didn't like that. So they sent him to York and they put him in a church called St. Cuthbert. And one of the old deacons set him up for the first... And the first day he went there were ten people, I think eight of them from his own family. And when he came down, one of the deacons said, Hey, I want to tell you something preacher, this church is redundant, it's dead and you'll close it within a year. Within a year he couldn't get the people in. So they didn't move Westminster Abbey from London but there's another minister there called York Minister that holds maybe three thousand people and put the young preacher there and he packed it to the rafters doing what dear Joyce thought if I'd be lifted up, we're not to lift up tongues, we're not to lift up miracles, we're to lift up Christ. Christ died for us. Christ rose for us. Christ lives to make intercession for us this morning. And unless you and I are in a state of purity where we can call upon him and say we don't care whether we live or die, it's useless to sing with your hand on your heart my constituent of thee or America the beautiful if you're paying double. Somebody won't even pay income tax. The Bible says render to Caesar the things of the Caesars. But we render to Caesar the things of the gods. How many people go to ball parks today? Why isn't Christ as exciting at home Sunday afternoon as he is in a meeting where we clap our hands and have a good time? Why do I adore him? You don't have to tell me to be faithful to my wife. I've loved my precious wife being faithful 52 years. A neighbor of mine, his daddy died just a few weeks ago. And his daddy and mummy are being married 72 years. The Quakers have never had a quarrel. But they've been faithful. If I can be faithful to a woman, can't I be faithful to God? Can't I keep his commandments? Can't I keep his Sabbath? I've got a billion years in eternity. I've been living and you'll be living. You'll be living in a burning hell, even if you do come to a meeting where people love you. You'll be in a burning hell a million years from now unless you repent. Or you'll be in the eternal bliss of heaven. And there's not a living man can describe heaven. I have not seen nor heard nor have I been into a heart of man what God has prepared for them that love him. As I said last night, I'm looking forward to going to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Unfortunately, the Bible doesn't give me the menu. I'll tell you, the best meal we ever had in our lives. And Jesus is sitting there at the head of the table, all the apostles, all the saints of all the ages. And by the mercy of God, we'll be there. Remember that good old Englishman wrote a hymn, Amazing Grace. You know, I never heard that hymn till I came to America, in that terrible... And it's the national anthem of the Baptist, of course. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. And the last verse says what? When we've been there ten thousand years. No study. I never sing that. I sing when I've been there ten billion years. I won't be a day old. I would not be wonderful. I get up every morning, and I have to reckon now, I'm getting in a few days, I'll be in my eighty-fifth year. How long am I going to stay around? Another five years. But when I've been there ten billion years, I won't be any older. I've got eternal life. I'm going to a home eternal in the heavens. What have you got for serving your master? Misery? Fear of judgment? Fear of hell? Godliness is profitable for the life that now is, and for that which is to come. Okay. I guess you wonder why someone gets so excited about these things. Let me finish. One of the greatest hymn writers in America was blind when she was six weeks old, and she's still blind at eighty-four. When I first came, I kicked up a row about it. I said, you go to Bridgeport, and there's a stone about this size, you have to tread the grass down to look at it, and on it, it says anti-family. She has done what she could. I said, that's disgraceful. You Americans letting anti-family sleep beneath that little tombstone. There's a life-size model of a very famous American. You know, it was Barnum. You know, he's a great guy. He only invented a circus. And across the aisle, there's a little fellow, twenty-seven inches. He was in the circus that made the little guy a millionaire. He went to England. Barnum took the little dwarf with him to England. And they've got monuments life-size, and there's a little stone that says anti-family. She had done what she could. Well, some people got old of that. Ravenhill kicked up a row, and they put a stone of about this height now. And it says, you've got a stone, and she wrote some of the greatest things we have. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. She also wrote, oh, I was going to tell you, I forgot this. Anyway, she wrote about three hundred wonderful hymns. But, one day, somebody said to her, anti-family, God isn't just. Yes, he is. No. I want to tell you about the sunshine, but you've never seen the sunset. You've never seen beautiful flowers. I can't describe them. They're so glorious. And you've been blind for eighty-four years, and God has shut off most of the beautiful world to you. You're terribly disadvantaged. And she said, listen, friend, I want to tell you, I'm not disadvantaged at all. I'm advantaged. The woman said, what do you mean advantaged? Being blind. You can't see the flowers. You can't see the sunset. You can't see the people. What do you mean you haven't had that? She says, darling, don't you realize the first face I ever see will be his face? Isn't that victory? Do you want to see a road tonight, you'll see him face to face, and tell the story saved by grace? I won't ask you, because I like embarrassing people. That's part of my job. I wonder how many of you this morning, before you started sticking that bug juice on your lips, did you look in the mirror and thank God you couldn't see? What would you do with books if you couldn't see? Every day I thank God for my sight. I lay in house four times, I've been at death's door. I jumped out of a burning hotel, brought my back in three places, this left leg was in three pieces, both my feet were broken, my precious wife came over the Atlantic, she had enough money to come over and get the fare. Doctor told us to the bottom of my bed and he said, Len, I don't understand this. Afterwards he said, we got so far into the devil's territory in that revival, he decided to kill you. I went home and I had to come back to America for surgery, because I jumped out of a burning hotel, I was half crippled. Coming across the Atlantic, the ship caught on fire. I thought, well Lord, what's happening? I run away from a burning hotel in America, I get trapped in a burning ship in the middle of the Atlantic, but I've got a bigger fire than I've got a fire inside. I've stood up maybe two hours this morning, I couldn't even stand. I used to sit in Wilkerson's meeting in a chair to preach. So at least I'm learning to walk again a bit. So, I promise you next time I go I'll be a bit hotter and stronger, I'll be better than ever.