In this sermon, the preacher talks about a man who was a menace to his enemies. His enemies tried to find his secret and eventually captured him. They bound him, blinded him, and made him work on a treadmill. However, this man had incredible strength and was able to defeat his enemies using the jawbone of an ass. The preacher then discusses the importance of examining one's prayer life and Bible reading when feeling spiritually dry, and encourages listeners to seek God's guidance in identifying what may be wrong.

I believe we're at that period in history which is described at the end of the twelfth chapter in the epistles of the Hebrews, when everything that can be shaken is being shaken so that the thing that cannot be shaken will remain. I know the Reconstructionists are going to rebuild America, but Arnold Toynbee, who is the greatest of modern historians – he must be, he's English – but Arnold Toynbee reminds us that nineteen times men have built what they call a permanent civilization, and the thing has fallen down. And I want to prophesy it will fall down again, too. I was introduced as a doctor – I'm not a doctor. Of course there's nothing wrong with being a doctor, it doesn't damage you too much. When John Wesley had been preaching for fifty years, somebody approached one of his most prominent preachers and said, well, Methodism won't last much longer because you have no doctors as preachers. And the young man said, well, our theology isn't sick enough to need doctors yet. So now you know why we have so many doctors in the church, we're so sick. In fact, without being facetious, I think the most tragic thing at this moment in history is a sick church in a dying world. A sick church in a dying world. I'd better give you a text. It's in the book of Judges, chapter 16. Chapter 16 and verse 6. And Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee. This is a question of a woman of the world to a man of God. It will be a great day, and God hasten it, when the world again begins to ask the church, what's the secret of your great strength? I believe in the present world situation, when everything's falling down. Oh, we thought those boys in Wall Street were impeccable. They wouldn't steal a penny. They didn't. Dear Lord, they went in for millions. One of them's got, what has he got, ten years, five years in jail? But he's allowed to keep 300 million dollars. I'd go to jail for 300 million too, if somebody gave me it. I'd have time to study and pray. There are just three kinds of people in the world today. Those who are afraid, those who don't know enough to be afraid, and those who know their Bibles. Actually there are two kinds of people in the world. Not black and white, not rich and poor, not communist and the other type. Or, if you want to put it theologically, not Calvinist and the other bunch. There are two kinds of people in the world, any nation in the world over. Number one, those who are dead in sin, and the other, those who are dead to sin. Those who have the world of flesh and the devil beneath their feet, and those who are kicked around like footballs, and some of them even profess his name. This man, in my judgment, is one of God's supermen. I'm not quite sure of this. How many of you are from a seminary? Oh, wonderful, I'm going home. I'm not quite sure, but I think I'm right in saying that Dr. Carl F. Henry was the founder-editor of Christianity Today, is that right? You're not quite sure? Go back to class tomorrow. I believe he was the founder-editor of Christianity Today. Just before he retired, he sent out, I think it was two hundred letters, to what he called the two hundred most intelligent preachers in America. That's a fallacy, I didn't get one. But this was his question. I remember Leighton Ford answered it pretty good. The best answer was given by Elton Troubler, the Quaker philosopher. The question was this, what do you see for the Church of Jesus Christ by the year 2000? Which is what, how many years away, twelve? Twelve years away, when our country will be in a bubonic plague called AIDS. What do you see for the Church of Jesus Christ by the year 2000? I'll give you an answer. The answer of the Quaker philosopher, Elton Troubler, was this. By the year 2000, I see the Church of Jesus Christ as a conscious minority surrounded by an arrogant militant paganism. I swallowed that, went to bed, woke up about two or three o'clock, turned it over in my mind. What did this guy say? By the year 2000? The question is, when wasn't the Church a conscious minority surrounded by an arrogant militant paganism? It was launched from the upper room. A bunch of unlettered ignorant men. Boy, you better fight for academic distinction these days. These men came out of the upper room, intellectual slobs. Huh? Nobodies. Let me tell you about two of them. They weren't on the Dean's list, they were on nobody's list. One was called Peter. He was always a terribly deramist. You know, he's a fisherman. That's all he'd ever done. Fish. But let me tell you, he wrote two books, first and second the epistle of Peter, that are still lasting, and he hasn't got any royalties yet. He's going to get them in the kingdom. The other was a fellow called John. He gave us the most beautiful thing ever written in English, the Gospel according to Saint John. Then he wrote the first epistle, then the second epistle, then the third epistle. And to prove his ignorance beyond doubt, he wrote the book of the Revelation, which the big shots over the road don't understand. Now if that's ignorant, I'm a candidate for ignorance. I've written a few books, I'm sure they'll last a hundred years. But anyhow, these are so-called ignorant men, but they had the anointing of God, and that's what matters. So here is this fellow. What shall I say about him? Will he upset the status quo? He was an embarrassment to his people, he was an embarrassment to his enemies. He's a typical of those, the people that do know their God. And get that, it's from Daniel 12, isn't it? The people that do know their God. Not the people that do know their Bible, there are tens of thousands of preachers in America know their Bibles, they're not that much good to God. The devil doesn't know they're around, and they gloat over their intellectual power. It doesn't say the people that do know their Bibles, it says the people that do know their God. There's a world of difference between knowing the Word of God and knowing the God of the Word. Every man that comes in my office, I ask him this question, doesn't matter, and they come from all nations of the world for some reason. I looked the man in the eyes the other day, I said, do you know God? He said, well I was saved. I didn't ask you if you were saved. Everybody's saved from the White House to the jailhouse these days. Do you know God? Well, well, well apparently you don't. The people that do know their God, there's going to come a sifting over our generation beyond any other sifting the world has ever known. And if we don't know God, we won't make it. So this woman comes to this man of God says, tell me I pray thee within the secret of thy great strength lieth. One of the greatest military strategists in history, in fact many nations use his textbooks today, was a man by the name of Napoleon. He fought the Battle of Waterloo on the 18th of June, 1845. That's my birthday, not the year. Just the day, 18th of June, make a note of it please. He had been more than conqueror in every battle that he'd been engaged in. Then he got up to an obstruction. And one day he gathered his warlords together. And in his office he had a huge map of the world. And he ran his finger around the ragged edge of a great country. And they were not very attentive so he snarled at them again, attention! Look at this! And he ran his finger around the ragged edge of a great country. And he birthed that classical phrase, there lies a sleeping giant, let it sleep. Because he said if that giant ever awakes and harnesses its mineral power to its manpower it will shape the world. He said that in 1815, 1845. What country did he outline? China. With a population now of a thousand million people. With a million people on its borderline, terrifying Russia, that's why Russia's afraid to move. Change the figures. Instead of saying there lies a sleeping giant, China, let it sleep. Change the figures. Show us history. Change the person. Instead of, instead of Napoleon put the devil there. And the devil causes all his demons to stand in front of him. And he outlined something on the world map, if you like, on the map of the ages. He says there lies a sleeping giant, the Church of Jesus Christ, let it sleep. If it ever rediscovers the faithfulness of God and the power of the Holy Ghost it will shape the world. And there's our secret, there's no secret in stretching your intellect if your soul is shrinking. What's the good of having a colossal mind if you don't know God? You see the x-ray can take a photograph of my throat, but it can't find my song, I wish it could. You can take a photograph of my heart, but you can't find my affections. You can show me my brain, but you can't show me my mind. The human personality is still the most complex and most amazing thing in the world. And I believe we're going to move into a sphere of Holy Ghost power this world has never dreamed of. There lies a sleeping giant, let it sleep. How many preachers, you know what, coming in the car I learned something today. One thing, don't drive as fast as your pastor does, he's crazy. And the other thing was this, you know, he's a bit of a football fanatic. I was trying to get quiet and he had the crazy ball game and all the way here. But he's going to repent in about half an hour. Some of these preachers are boasting, we have three Sunday morning services. Somebody in my office the other day told me, I come from California, we have five Sunday morning services. What do you do after the first hour, do you say to the Holy Ghost, get out of here, some of the airstorms are coming. Five Sunday morning services, they don't have one Sunday night service. If you want to know how popular the church is, you go Sunday morning. If you want to know how popular the pastor is, you go Sunday night. If you want to know how popular God is, you go to the prayer meeting. I don't even have a church, I have a prayer meeting. Brought one of my full-blooded Americans, Indians with me tonight, if you get rowdy, watch out, you're in trouble. Another dear brother from Oklahoma. Just a prayer meeting of about 80 to 120, 30 people. This brother comes from Oklahoma every Friday night, right down to, we have it in the basement of last day, at 7.30, in case you want to come. Two lots of people drove up from Houston. Two lots of people came down from Detroit. They come from all over the nation. Does that make me happy? Yes, it makes me sad. Why in God's name, why in God's name do they pass 500 churches on the way to find one prayer meeting? This is, this is the most critical hour in history. I believe our choice is this, concentrate in prayer, or pray in concentration camps. God help these little children. America will not exist another ten years, nor will England, unless we have a Holy Ghost revival. Nobody's going to put Humpty Dumpty together again. That's not a nursery rhyme, that's theology. All the king's horses, nor the king. Man is fallen and depraved, and you never put him back together again. Neither the reconstructionists, nor what the other. Oh, the guy's preaching restoration, what a lovely thing. What do you mean by restoration? Everybody get together? That's no good. If you mean restoration, the Bible, I am for it. If you demand that Acts 6 is a descriptive condition of a deacon from here to eternity, that deacons are full of faith, that the Holy Ghost, they do signs and wonders and miracles, those are deacons. Bible standard. I pray for restoration. If you're evangelist, I explained in the 8th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, and remember it was Stephen that, it was Philip that saw a city rocking from one end to the other, under the power of the Spirit of God. You see, the supernatural is unfashionable today. I'll come to that a bit later. Anyhow, here's a fellow. He's a terror to evildoers. Everybody's afraid of him. They've tried to sabotage his plans. They've tried everything. They don't work. So what do they do? They bring a woman in. You usually get a woman in the plot, don't you? Don't say anything, Martha. Tell me after. The women come in the plot. So Delilah comes and says, tell me, I pray thee. How did you lift those gates and carry the holiday inn on top of the hill and leave it there? He picked the whole thing up and took it away. You see, what the artists do, we've such a conception. Everything America has to be big, doesn't it? If it's not big, it doesn't count. Okay. He didn't say amen, but it's true. I've traveled many countries of the world, and whenever I have a free day, I often go into art galleries. One reason because they're free. When I go in, I ask at the desk, I say, do you have any biblical characters? Yes, in room so-and-so there's this picture. Do you have a picture of Samson? Every time I've seen a picture of Samson, he's way up there, ten feet high. No, it's even bigger than that. It says Saul, the king of Israel, was head and shoulders above everybody else in Israel. Saul, head and shoulders above everybody else in Israel. And we portray Samson as being head and shoulders above him. That doesn't make sense. I know women ask some very difficult questions. Do you think a man's going to look up to a man fifteen feet high and say, body, what's the secret of your strength? He'd most likely say, Wheaties. He wasn't physically stronger. How do you know? Because I happen to read Hebrews 11, time would fail me, it does me every time I preach. Time would fail me to tell of Gideon and of Samson, who through his muscles, know who through faith. The big money men have had their day. I used to say, the church in America is going to suffer for the sin of the nation. No, the sin of the nation is going to, the nation is going to suffer for the sin of the church. We've lost our authority, we've lost our power, we've lost the miraculous. What's the good of going with a lot of Bible outlines to a foreign country to try and fight Mohammedanism? You may find a guy much quicker than you are. This book is supernatural from beginning to end. You see, you've got three pictures here. First is a picture of Samson. The people that do know their God shall be strong to exploit. And somehow he had a relationship in faith with the eternal God. And his enemies were powerless against him. The Bible begins, well let me say, let's take a picture of Samson. Then it's, he too is a picture of Israel. She began in the miraculous. What's happened? She's lost her power. She's in a terrible mess now. But she'll be worse a year from today. I believe the time of Jacob's trouble has not yet come. The most, next ten years, will be the most fascinating years in history. And I'm sick of the church standing on the side of the road watching the parade go past with people going to hell. The reason the world is going to hell fire tonight is because the church has lost holy ghost fire. Half the preachers in the country have been snoozing this afternoon. Or cruising, one of the two. Sitting with their feet up watching a ball match, and the nation's going to hell. Are you going to tell me that they believe that this Bible, that when a man dies without God he perishes and goes to eternal hell? Don't believe it for a minute, they don't. Let me assure you preacher, or young preacher, preaching is not a profession, it's a passion. It's not a passion, it's an obsession. It's this one thing I do, forget anything else. Don't get on somebody's board and some other board. Enough people aboard anyhow. Stay by this one thing, this one thing I do. Israel began in the miraculous. I've often wondered, I don't know why, you know, in the ark, not the Noah's ark, the other ark, they had the, what did they have, the tables of stone and Aaron's rod that budded. I wonder why they didn't have that staff that Moses had. He divided the sea like that, isn't that amazing? Isn't it fantastic, all the miracles they had? Remember Moses got angry and smote the rock? What did he do? He smote the rock once, that's all. And he got forty years punishment for it. Adam sinned once, got kicked out of the garden for it. Now we sin freely and it doesn't worry us at all. Well, people say, well Ravenhill preaches sinless perfection. I don't. I say that while everything in the flesh is possible to sin, it's possible for a Christian to sin, but it's possible for him not to sin too. It's not impossible for him to sin, it's possible for him not to sin. If we don't have victory over sin, the Mohammedans don't, the Buddhists don't, the Confucianists don't. We've got the one message, the old rugged cross. The best attested fact in history is the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. One of the great English preachers, there are a lot of them. I heard many of them sixty, seventy years ago. I'm in my eighty-first birth year now, so. No, I'll be soon be in my eighty-second. Still going strong. I've got a volcano inside. It gets hotter every day. We know the resurrection is uniquely the message of the New Testament. It's a message more of the New Testament than the blood is actually, the cross. Dr. Parker was preaching once, and he said there's the tomb of Jesus, and there's the stone over it. And then to make sure that Jesus was inside of that tomb, they put wax round and sealed it up, made it airtight we would say. And then the Romans came and put stamps all over it. The sign of Rome, the King's sign. So there you have the stone and the seal and the wax. Well then I did a bit of homework on that. Isn't it amazing? You know many unbelievers in the world have more belief in the Bible than we have. How come it the Romans sealed that up and put sixteen soldiers to guard a dead body? What? That's idiocy. But there's Christ behind that stone. There's the stone. There's the seal. There's the wax. Sixteen soldiers. And then what? Well I believe the devil said listen, I'm not sure that he'll escape again. And he rallied every demon in hell and said listen put your shoulder to that stone. But before you do that, rake up all the sins of the ages and put them against that stone. We don't know what this man's gonna do. He's declared he's the son of God with power. It's been declared he's the fulfillment of Isaiah. We know he was born of a virgin. We know his life. He opened the eyes of the blind, the dead were raised. He powered over death. He powered over demons. Come on now. And the Word of God says in such were some of ye. We're supposed to carry on that tradition. Where are we? Scraping the surface. So there's the stone. There's the wax. There's the seal. Every sin committed is rolled against that stone. Then every demon in hell is told to put his shoulder to the stone. So there you have the stone, the seal, the wax, the sins of the world, the demons, all there. And Satan says hold it. And there was the first countdown in history. It wasn't at Cape Canaveral. It was at Resurrection Month, with every demon looking on and every angel looking on. And the devil terrified. Lest Jesus should break the power of death and the power of sin. And remember at the end of Revelation he says to us, I have the keys of death and of hell. And suddenly Satan says, there's only ten more seconds. And he goes to start the countdown. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three. He's just going to say one. And the Holy Ghost beat him to it. Because it says in Romans chapter eight, the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead. And immediately that seal burst. Immediately everything was liberated. Satan was conquered. And so you get a bunch of men. Some, some years ago my dear wife and a friend, we stood on the southern lip of the Grand Canyon. Any of you ever seen the canyon? How many have seen the Grand Canyon? The rest of you should be ashamed. What do you go to other countries to see them for? Spending taxes here, and your spare cash. Well I looked at the, there was a little stone there and it had a, what they call a legend on it. And it said the river across is seven miles away. It's 450 feet wide, it's 45 feet deep, it's the Colorado River. Look at the bottom, the Navajo Indians are there. The wall at this side is a mile high. The wall at that side is a mile high from the canyon bottom. And there's the river. And as we stood there I just had a thought like this. Supposing a two-year-old child was down at the bottom of that canyon. Could it climb a mile high wall? No. Could it climb that wall? No. Could it swim that river? No. To me it was a picture of the Church of Jesus Christ in the upper room. A church born. They came out with the same color hair. They were the same men that went in, except they were purged and anointed by the Holy Ghost. How could they get out of the mess they were in? That the canyon this side is the Roman Empire, the greatest military machine in the world. They can't climb it. This side, the intellectual power of the Greeks. That river over there is the Jews with their monopoly of God and the Scriptures in their language and what have you got. And that little bunch of men came out of the upper room. Well how in God's name do you explain it? I have preachers from all over the world come and see me. I don't care what breed they are, pardon the phrase, denomination or abomination if you like. I asked them this. Is the Pentecostal church in your country very powerful? Well yes, some are not. Well tell me this. About a hundred and twenty men in the upper room with women, burst out and within a few years they pierced the intellectual power of the Greeks. They penetrated the Jewish monopoly. They didn't use the Roman roads, they gone to the best parts of the world. 55 BC, the Romans were in England 55 BC. But then these other precious men followed on the roads that were made. How many? A hundred and twenty. Who financed them? They had no finance. People say we want another Pentecost, forget it. If we had another Pentecost we'd all be in jail. The preachers would be in jail within a month. Pentecost in the Bible is married to poverty, privation, persecution and pain. They hardly got out of the upper room. They were slammed in jail. They had no army, they had no money. They didn't go pronouncing curses on the hierarchy of the Jews. And yet those hundred and twenty men went out and turned the world upside down. Now here in Fort Worth and Dallas, you don't have a hundred and twenty people filled with the Holy Ghost. You have a hundred and twenty churches claiming to be filled with the Holy Ghost. Well why in God's name is there so much prostitution? Why is there so much crime? Is your holiness just around the little fireside with you and your dear wives, sending a buck here and there to missions? Do you know what happened to those men in the upper room? They were praying men. Dear Lord, two churches after, the whole property was rocking with the power of God. I had a dear black boy in my office this past week. His clothes weren't worth a dime. I don't know where he picked the shoes up, they were rotten too. But as he taught, I got so warm, I got so blessed. I asked him what he was doing in America. Oh, I've only been here a few weeks. What do you think of it? I'm disgusted with it, Mr. Ravenhill. Our Christianity in Nigeria, where I am, is so different from here. I said, well, what's your pastor like? Is he a very learned man? He said, dear Mr. Ravenhill, my pastor is twenty years of age. And he said he is not the most anointed man in the church. The pastor is twenty, he has a pastor's heart. The assistant to the pastor is nineteen years of age. He'll come in a meeting and see somebody's legs all twisted, and say, brother, Jesus wouldn't have that. I say to you in the name of Jesus rise and walk, they get up and walk. He goes to the blind and says, Jesus has won you blind. And he pronounces a word that they can see. I said, in God's name, keep him there. We'll put him on every TV station in America if he comes here. They'll revive the PTL, that means pit of the listeners. And the 700 Club and TBN, whatever that means. But these young men are so innocent. You know what? And I say this cautiously and kindly, though you stole me maybe, it's okay. They haven't had the disadvantage of being brainwashed. As I said in one of my books, somebody's going to pick that Bible up one day and believe it. We'll all be shocked. We don't need a new revelation. All we need is to get back to the book. Get down to prayer. Tell me this, when are we going to get serious about being serious about the most serious thing in the world, the destiny of millions of people? I'm trying to write a book now on the judgment seat of Christ. It terrifies me. Almost every time I go to my office desk, I break out in a sweat. I try to go to bed at half past nine at night, and get up at midnight, and take a few hours without getting interrupted by phone or telephone or people. I was reading the twentieth chapter in Revelation some months ago. And as I read in the chapter, I came to that phrase that says, it talks about the second death. I've been going to meetings for seventy-five years. I've preached in some of the biggest churches in the world, some of the biggest conferences. But in seventy-five years of going to church, I've never heard a preacher preach on the second death. I've heard them preach on the second coming, the second birth, the second Adam, and there wasn't one, there was only the last Adam, and the second covenant. But never on the second death. I pushed my chair back, and the tears rolled down my face, and said, oh God, why doesn't somebody preach on this? I pity the preacher. I pity you guys who teach in theological seminary. If you withhold the light, you may as well take scissors and cut it out of the Bible. You don't believe it, and you pass your unbelief on. I read that, and the tears crossed down my face, and I can't read it now without weeping. There's a million roads into hell, there isn't one out. And yet you could stay all afternoon watching football, and America's on the verge of its greatest tragedy ever. We can't live another ten years. We defied God. Our homes are broken with divorce. Our children are broken with grief. Our minds are broken with drugs. Our bodies are broken with liquor. Everything's broken, but the church isn't heartbroken over it. And until she is, there'll be no movement of God. He's going to hand us out a blessing. Dear God, we've lived on the highest rate, socially, of any people in history. We have the finest houses, but not the finest homes. We've more people making decisions and less disciples than ever. So I'm pondering that word. Sitting in my chair after two o'clock in the morning, the second death, I was sure there was a voice. I turned my head. Do you know what the voice said? As I was pondering turning over hell, turning over the second death, the voice behind me said, hell has no exits. I tell my class often on Friday night, listen, I'm going soon to heaven and I'm not going for the weekend. If you want to stay down here, stay. But you sang tonight about going up there into the glory land. I don't know whether I'll ever get back, if I do. One night I might preach on the judgment seat. That's going to be the most awesome thing ahead of us. You know, people say, oh I believe in a rapture. You don't. I'll tell you why. Some of you boys won't be where you were last night, at midnight, if you believed in a rapture. I asked a seminarian that came in my office, what time is the, what time is, what do you call it, the curfew in the seminary? I don't know which seminary it was, except it's Dallas Fort Worth somewhere. He said in the seminary, the curfew, weeknights, is ten o'clock. What about Saturday night? That's two o'clock Sunday morning. I said, what in God's name are divinity students doing out till two o'clock in the morning, unless you've been to nights of prayer? Are you asking for a baptism of revelation? You say you want to be like Christ. What do you mean? Do you want to get seminary? Do you want a crucifixion? What do you mean like Christ? That hell has no exits. Then I went to speak at a place, and they let a whole bunch of fellows come out of a local jail. They came in white suits. And as they came in, a friend said, these are parolees out of prison. And right on to that phrase, hell has no exits, the Lord put this on, hell has no parolees. Nobody's going in for a year or two, it's forever and ever and ever. And we must all appear. Teddy Kennedy may have gotten up some privilege from the Pope, I don't know. He's going to stand at the judgment seat one day and tell us what happened to that girl at Chappaquiddick. She didn't drown because she'd no water in her lungs. She did have a baby in her belly. It's all going to be explained. Who killed, what do you call him, what's that union leader, Jaffa? Hoffa. The Lord knows all about it. The mystery of the death of Marilyn Monroe. God, it's all going to be revealed. How long is it going to take? I don't know, we're not going anywhere. It might take two million years. Boy, that'll be great. You just signal to an angel, he'll bring you a glass of water. Not, oh, this is poor water, but he'll bring you a glass of water out of the river of life, and fruit as much as you want. Can you imagine Jesus sitting there, judging the whole world? Every nation kindred and turned. The Roman Empire will come back to life, the Medo-Persian Empire, the British Empire, every empire. Every bloody battlefield is going to ease the debt. Millions are going to be raised at the voice of the Son of God. I thrill at that. Of course I can thrill at the sense of judgment of the unsaved. It's when you come to the judgment of believers that we're in trouble. Oh, I know that some fellas in town here got more faith than the Apostle Paul. Isn't that wonderful? They say, if he had the revelation we have, he would never have had a thorn in the flesh. I'll tell you what, I'd rather the Apostle Paul reward at the judgment than theirs, even if they don't have their private jets. Think of all these epistles, fourteen if you give Paul Hebrews, and he's going to reward it in eternity for everybody that's been blessed because of them. Everybody that's been saved, emancipated. You see, this is the one message the world needs. Forget the Quran and the Vedas and sacred books. This is the God-anointed book. This is the God-anointed message concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. So central is the gates of Gaza. Again the people that do know their God should be strong and to exploit. Let me go down in the chapter a minute here. I don't have a clock, you notice that? You'll be home for breakfast don't worry. Listen to the question, listen to the answer. Tell me this woman says, looking on this amazing man, what is the secret of your great strength? Listen to his answer. In verse 17, Samson said unto her, Fasten me with green wisps that were never dried, then shall I be weak as other men. Now look, his enemies know he wasn't like another man, she knew he wasn't like another man, he knew he wasn't like another man, and yet he's going to forfeit it? Do you know what I'm sick of in the Church of Jesus Christ today? I'm sick of mediocrity. I'm sick of guys copying what the other guy does. I'm sick of men being anointed and then they stick their name on the thing. I believe Almighty God's going to send us a revival and no man will dare put his hand on it. It won't be Aldo Roberts University or somebody else. It will be so gloriously supernatural that from A to Z, you won't have to force people to church, they'll run there to see the glory of God. I told a man on the phone yesterday, phone long distance, some other country or somewhere, I said, brother here's the situation today. We go to the house of God, we read the Word of God, we sing the praise of God, we pray to God, but where is God? Did you come here tonight to meet God, or to hear a sermon about him? Did you expect a confrontation with a God of glorious holiness? I like the hymn you sang tonight, it's beautiful. Holy, holy, holy, holy, holy. All the saints adore thee. That keeps me going. I don't preach for money. I've got millions of books out in about 15 languages, never made a penny out of them. I never asked for a penny in my life. I've had guys, oh my lawyers will come and set up a ravenille revival meetings, incorporated, tax-free. A lady called me about six weeks ago, a multi-millionaire. She said, Mr. Raymond, send me all your bills, I'll pay them. I said, listen, I've been preaching the gospel 66 years, I've got three wonderful sons, two of them, two of the greatest preachers in the world. The other one's the head of the new department that they put up at Smithsonian, the new museum there. And I said, I've trusted God for 66 years, am I going to let him down now? I have food and clothing and that's all God said. Some of these other countries don't even have that. When this boy tells me, he said, Mr. Raymond, there's nothing supernatural, there's no brooding of the Spirit of God in your meetings. He said, you go to a prayer meet, you just get down and start praying. People walk out. He said, our teenagers, your teenagers, good Lord, what do you do to fascinate them? Buy them all the junk? He said, our teenagers come to pray at nine o'clock at night and they're still praying at two o'clock in the morning. The Spirit of God comes down. Men work in the field in the blistering heat and they walk 15 miles to the church at night and stay till two or three in the morning. Then walk through the forest, many wild beasts and dangerous, horrible snakes and things. They don't care. He said, the magnetism is not great preaching, the magnetism is the presence of God. God's going to get some men who aren't gluttons for gold. Some men whose creed isn't greed and whose God isn't gold. I don't hear a thing about this man and his legislation. He's destructive of his enemies. When Martin Luther bobbed up after the Hundred Years of Darkness in Europe, God reached down and took Martin Luther, a Catholic priest, remember. What did he fight? He fought the monster of Rome. We still have the heresy of Rome. But now to Romanism, we have humanism, communism, socialism, what else? Russellism, or now it's called what? Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism. Mormonism makes three million dollars a day. We're not going to beat them with little bits of literature given out at street corners. A man called me a month today, and he said, Mr. Abraham, tell me something. I said, I will if I can. He called from Florida. He said, Mr. Abraham, I'm writing a book. I said, who isn't? Everybody's writing a book these days. Can you help me? I don't know. Financially, no. What's your question? So I gave him one or two answers which satisfied him. I said, by the way, what's the name of your book? He said, the name of my book is In Search of an Evangelist. Boy, I wish I'd thought of that. I could do a lot with that. But then I began to read an evangelist in the eighth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, linking it with the twenty-first chapter, in which Paul says that he and his friends went to the house of Philip, the evangelist. What did he do? He rocked a city. They weren't just staying in a house, or in the synagogue, what a wonderful—the whole city. They were talking about it in the banking places. They were talking about it on the streets. Everybody's talking about the wonderful works of God, through a man who doesn't wear clerical garments. He hasn't got his color backwards way. He hasn't got a sign on his forehead, Holiness unto the Lord. He's a very ordinary-looking man. And yet he has power over demons. He has power over death. And the whole city's rocked. Listen, friend, get this in your head. You young preachers, you never have to advertise a fire, whether it's physical or spiritual. The most fascinating thing in the world is fire. And our God is not just a God of love, he's a consuming fire. And he's going to come in the judgment fire before long, unless we have a Holy Ghost revival beforehand. I go back to that now. I'm sick of mediocrity. Fasten me with seven greenwoods that never had any sweat on them. Okay, they tried and it doesn't work. Now we go down to verse 17, or the end of verse 16. Delilah said thou hast mocked me and told me lies. I pray thee wherewith thou mightest be bound. He said if they fasten me with seven ropes that were never occupied, then I shall be weak like other men. Good Lord, he interlines it. That's the second time. He says I don't want mediocrity. Then you skip over to verse 17. Oh, go back please, sorry. The end of chapter, verse 15. Thou hast mocked me these three times, and told me not where thy great strength lies. It came to pass she pressed him daily. Do you see that? She becomes a nuisance. She pressed him, she harassed him. When he walked that way, she stopped him. When he went that way, she stopped him. She harassed him and vexed him to death. And he told her all his heart, there's not come a razor upon my head. You see, he was an Azrite. If you turn back and look at verse 17, verse 18, verse 19. Sending wheat to Russia, subsidized. America's borrowing, pardon me, Russia's borrowing money from America at the cheapest rate. And there's no tag on it. She's supporting that bloody war. And God watches Afghanistan being raped every day. And poor old Khrushchev is scratching his head. He doesn't know which way to stop raping a nation. Do you think we can get married to a vile nation like that? We've joined a pact with them without judgment. If ever you prayed, you better pray now. You go home and say that fanatic English when I won't listen to him again. That won't worry me a bit. You see, when I preach, I have one of two or three ambitions. You'll go out to the meetings sad, mad, or glad. Mostly mad, but that's okay. This is the most critical hour in America's history. It's the most critical hour in human history. Let me go down this a minute into chapter 13. At the end of chapter, verse 2, says, His wife was barren and bare not. The angel of the Lord appeared unto her and said, Behold, thou art barren and barest not, but thou shalt conceive and bear a son. Now verse 4. Be aware, I pray thee, drink not wine nor strong drink, eat not any unclean thing. For lo, thou shalt conceive and bear a son, and no razor shall come upon his head. For the child shall be a Nazirite unto God from his womb. A Nazirite had what? He had three vows. One was he couldn't touch anything dead, which is typical of people who are dead in trespasses and sin. And yet you were fellowshipping, some of you guys were fellowshipping with millions this afternoon, and happy. You never shout hallelujah in a meeting. You shouted hallelujah when there was a touchdown, got up and clapped your hands and did a war dance. Huh? So nodding your head, be honest. My dear friend, you're in serious trouble when the things of the world are more exciting to you than the things of God. A Nazirite, he cannot touch anything he's dead. That's why he got into trouble going back to the lion. But anyhow. The other thing, he can't drink wine. The dead thing is a sign of worldly people who are dead in trespasses and in sin. Wine is a sign of worldly pleasure which makes people giddy. Dear Lord, we're the most. You know what? I've tried three times to do that. I did it at last. That's okay. You know what? There's never been as much entertainment in the history of the world as today. And there's never been less joy. And the devil's substitute for joy is entertainment. You go to a church where people are born again every week. There should be one church in Dallas, Fort Worth area, where you can say to somebody, you can't go to that church twice without being saved. Whether preaching is good or bad, the glory of God is so real, you shrink to think the holy being God is there reading your personality. There's no secret shut up in you that he doesn't know. He couldn't touch dead things, a sign of worldly people. He couldn't drink wine, a sign of worldly pleasure. And thirdly, he must wear his hair long. It was a sign of reproach. It was a sign that he wasn't subjecting himself to common style and fashion. That's hard on you ladies, isn't it? I talked to a man just recently. How's your sister doing? Oh, she's blazing angry. She's in a fury. She's in a storm. Boy, she walks the room going up and down every day gnashing her teeth, storming, storming. What in the world's wrong with her? She's trying to join the Jehovah's Witnesses and they won't have her. Why? Has she been divorced six times? No, she smokes. You can't be a Jehovah's Witness and smoke. You can be a good Baptist and smoke. You can be a Pentecostal and smoke and drink your wine. You can't be a Mormon and smoke. You can't be a Mormon and drink. When Mormons are going to another country, their parents back them. The Mormon Church doesn't back them with its multi-millions of dollars. If you have three children they must all do two years in a foreign country and you must pay the financial bill. When they leave this country they sign the note. They will not write back to their girlfriend. They won't phone them. They won't see their mothers or daddies. They won't watch TV. They won't go dancing. And they go to another country and live at a better state. Not morally, but at least they've got some discipline. But today we don't discipline people. And there's no way to spiritual success without discipline. And you go to a seminary. And I'm saying this in the presence of God. Most of the young fellows that come to see me that have been to seminary and some have graduated say, I lost ground in seminary. I got so involved in this and involved in the other. My private devotions vanished. So what? Again, are you stretching your head and your heart is shrinking? This man tells a woman the secret. She says, darling, you've been lifting gates. You're going to kill yourself. Darling, just read your head on my lap. You know, lay your head on my knees. If it stayed on his knees it'd never got on hers. She fascinated him. Maybe, maybe had some very potent perfume on and drugged him. But she got him. He couldn't do a thing. He was powerless. I've got to skip over. Include something else here before I get there. Chapter 13 and go on to verse 24. The woman bear a son and called his name Samson. The child grew and the Lord was with him. Listen, here is the most coveted thing in the world. I do not scorn scholarship. I have a son with an earned PhD. My wife has a very brilliant mind. I don't. She does. Another son is one of the best preachers in the world today. The other, as I say, he's just been made the senior curator in the new, what's the museum? Smithsonian Museum in Washington. I don't despise scholarship. I despise it when you look down your nose and think if you don't have a degree, you're nobody. We never had more degrees in the church than we have to do today. But you know Sid Lord Baxter's book is good. I guess you've heard of him. He says you can have 32 degrees and be frozen. Now he's an Australian. Don't look at me so sad. Sure I believe in degrees. But you know what? I don't know how you pray. I know I pray. And in prayer I just lift my voice to God. Now if I go on twice as long you see it's your, their fault. Oh goody give me a minute. Put it there. Thank you so much. What does it say in this 25th verse of chapter 13? The spirit of the Lord began to move upon him. You can't show me one man since Pentecost to today that's ever been effective in the kingdom of God in a powerful way that didn't have a second blessing. I don't care how you explain it. There's a precious book called The Deeper Experiences of Famous Christians. Read it. There's a man called, how many of you have read anything about George Fox? Do you know George Fox? He was a Quaker. Wonderful man. He had gifts of the spirit. Boy you wouldn't like to meet him. He'd come up to you if he'd never seen you in his life. He'd walk up and say, I see in thee the spirit of a fox. Thou art cunning. I see in thee the spirit of a reptile. I see in thee thou hast a tiger spirit. And he manifested all the gifts of the spirit but never produced them as part of his theology. But he said, I've been to the cross. You see you've got two difficult things. If a man is really guilty, you know in the New Testament there are altar calls. In a revival you never have an altar call. People get up and come to the altar before the meeting's through. When you're in a revival you never pronounce of any diction. You didn't. I've been with people in Wales that went through the Welsh Revival in 1904. Meetings lasted until two or three in the morning. And nobody dared close a meeting down. You see we try to induce conviction. You can't find altar calls. Finney did have a, what do you call it, a mourner's bench if you like. Thank you. But when people are convicted of sin, they're glad to really sing with meaning. Foul I to that fountain fly. Wash me Saviour or I die. Because they realize it's death. You know there's a great art critic in England years ago, last century, by the name of John Ruskin. And he defined preaching this way. Preaching is thirty minutes to raise the dead. I thought that was facetious. But boy this year I've prayed over that. You know what? Every row of people in the church, even here tonight, is death row. Most people have never been miraculously born again of the Spirit of God. They never suddenly have a transformation of personality. All bitterness removed. Hatred removed. If any man is, any man anywhere at any time is a new creature, he's a new personality. He has a new heart, a new mind, new desires, new vocabulary. He's a new creation. He goes in a factory and they say, hey John you haven't cursed for two hours. I notice at the break you weren't smoking. I notice you don't come out with some of the filthy stuff. What in the world happened to you? Oh I got saved up at a certain building. That ought to happen every week. But I say when I cry to God, I thank God again and again in my closet by myself, I'll pray to my precious wife, raise my hands, I say God I thank you for the incorruptible Holy Ghost. You can't buy him. The Spirit of the Lord moved on Samson. And you'll find that recurring. Skip over for a minute into chapter 14 and verse 6. Samson had a weakness. He liked girls. And he's going down to a place called Timnath. And they said, well look, you can go down this road to Timnath if you like. Or you can go down that road to Timnath. But don't go down that road. Why? Because there's a lion in the way. What is the lion a type of? The devil is a roaring lion going about who he may devour. And Samson comes and the lion jumps on him. He says, oh boy I'm going to enjoy this fellow. I'm going to munch him up. And Samson gets on and tears him in pieces like a little kid of a goat. We are more than conquerors. But the devil's roaming free range it seems to me tonight. He says the Spirit of the Lord moved mightily upon him. He wrenched him as though he were the kid of a goat. You know that's the greatest honor. Listen, get all the degrees you can. I'll tell you the highest degree this side of eternity. Here's a man full of demons. And somebody goes up and tries to cast the demons out. And the demons have self-respect. They looked at the preacher guy and they said Jesus we know and Paul we know. The greatest honor in the world is to be known in hell. Preach if you're not known in hell you're not worth a hill of beans as far as I'm concerned. I know some of you guys have already got your eyes on Mr. you know that Mr. Dr. Criswell's getting old and you're hoping to get his job. Forget it. Listen you can't get victory over sin in your life. Quit talking about it. Get rid of your hypocrisy. And get victory over sin. Lust of the flesh, lust whatever lust it is. But you see when there's true revival around the devil has to back off. You know we sow to the wind we reap the whirlwind. You think I'm anti-American. I'm not. God called me here I know where and I came. I've been here since first time I came 1950 crossed the Atlantic nearly 20 times and got tired and came to live here. But listen America has sown to the wind she's reaping the whirlwind. What did America give to the world? She gave the world Mormonism. She revived Spiritism in 1840. She gave them what used to be called Russellism which is called Jehovah's Witness. We gave those false cults to the world. What are we? That was the wind we sown. What's the whirlwind? The world in wind right now we have 2,000 gurus in America. We've got people. What's this? What's this girl that's raised up this Spiritist deal? Shelley MacLean. She says she was beheaded years ago. I believe that. She talks such nonsense. And Sylvester Stallone said he was a king or something 3,000 years ago. They're claiming, oh I'm reincarnated. What do you mean? Oh I lived 3,000. I say listen I've got news for you. You're not even living now. Forget 3,000 years ago. Forget you one of the Pharaohs or Cleopatra come back to life. You're not even living now. You're dead in trespassing. You don't know a thing about God. They've fallen to seductive spirits. But it's going to get worse because it doesn't debar sin of any kind. We've never been so laden with sin as we are now. Our young people have never been as fogged and bewildered as they are. And God is going to have to raise up a pure testimony of people who walk in holiness and righteousness. Jesus I know. Oh I'm a bit fanatical. Do you think there's a sign in hell, the devil's most ten wanted men in America? Come on professor. With all your Greek and Hebrew bless you. Are you a menace to the devil? You don't have to leave your home. You may have three children, four children, whatever it is, 44. You can still be a menace to the devil. I'm going to preach. You see I go to anybody as you can see. I've been preaching for two, two Tuesday nights of the first assembly of God in Kilgore. God has been blessing. The place is jammed. I'm going to preach on travail next Tuesday night. And that's going to bring revival. Real travel. You can have the highest ministry in the world. I'll tell you what it is. It's praying. It's praying. I preached around the world for 50 years on prayer. And then I discovered talking with precious Dr. Tosa. How many of you read Dr. Tosa? Great. Read everything he's written. And then read mine. But anyhow. He said to me one day. He said you see that rug? I said sure. He said brother Len I come in this office. I pick up the phone. Tell my secretary to go home. No dictation today. No interviews today. And these are his exact words. He said I get on that rug at 8 o'clock in the morning. I get on my belly on that rug he said. At 8 o'clock. I'm still in at 9. I'm still there at 10. I'm still there at 11. I'm still there at 12. And I haven't said a word of prayer. And I haven't said a word of praise. I've worshipped. I tell Dr. this and Dr. that and others that come in my office. And you know they break down and weep. Mr. Raymond I don't know anything about worship. Of course you don't. Let's all worship. That's not worship. That's praise. Let me capsule it and then pass on. You see prayer is preoccupation with our needs. Praise is preoccupation with our blessings. Worship is preoccupation with God. Here's an old English hymn in the back of my Bible. My goal is God himself. Not joy. Not peace. Not even blessing. But it's thee my God. It is his to lead me there. Not mine but his. At any cost dear Lord by any road. The last stanza says one thing I know I cannot say him nay. One thing I do I press toward my Lord. My God my glory here from day to day. And in the glory there my great reward. My goal is God himself. Check a minute quickly in your mind. Do you know God? Not your Bible. Not your studies. Do you know God better? What's the date today? 17th? 17th of January? Than you did last year 17th of January? Have you got nearer to the heart of God? Do you gaze on his holiness? Do you gaze in the highest form of prayer as no words? It's groanings which cannot be uttered. Not even praying in tongues. It's beyond that. And worship is the same. It's speechless adoration. We don't know it. It's going to come back to that. It's going to come back to places where we meet so solemnly and God's presence is so real. Nobody dare speak. Nobody dare speak in tongues. Nobody dare prophesy. The preacher can't preach. The holiness of God is consuming us. And when that happens people will come. We have a very aggressive devil today. It's just about true that he's going about seeking whom he may devour. I'm going to wind this up anyhow. I could have summarized this whole story like this. Here is a man, he's a menace. He's a menace to the powers of darkness. He's a menace to all his enemies. So what did they do? They find his secret. The first thing they did was bind him. The second thing they did was blind him. The third thing they did, they took him to one of those things like we have in the old castles in England, the treadmill. And he's pushing on a bar. He's going round and he's making meal. You see one of the things this joker did. You talk about the power of God. His enemies, two, three thousand men tried to take him and they couldn't. It picked up the jawbone of an ass. Isn't that something? You think it's typical of preaching? But anyhow. It picked up the jawbone of an ass and slew his enemies. What do you think? All hell got nervous when they saw a man pick up the jawbone of an ass. You see we've got people who think the only way we can recover anything in America is sweep out the old boys in Washington. Pat Robinson's already failed. He stepped down from the highest calling in the world, from being a pastor to try to be a president. That's a fall. We want some holy men. The secret is not in the White House, it's in God's house. He's looking for ordinary men, the one to get rid of sin and defeat and bondage. And instead of taking the curse of the devil, curse the devil, get him out of the way. So he takes the jawbone of an ass and he slays his enemies. Another time, he must have been quite an athlete. It had been in the Olympics. He caught 3,000 foxes. Have you ever seen foxes? Boy, how they go. Boy, they're terrific. He caught 300 rather and tied their tails together and stuck a faggot between and turned them loose and he burned down all the crops of his enemies. So now they put him in the basement. Okay. He's going round day by day. You see the greatness was returning. What did they do? They shaved his head. Look at verse 22 or 21, pardon me, in chapter 16. The Philistines took him and put out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and they bound him with fetters of brass. That's pretty potent stuff. It's not the widths or ropes, it's fetters of brass. And he degrimed at the prison house. How be it, the hair of his head began to grow again. Do you see that? You know, the only way God will get hold of some of you guys is to stick in jail somewhere. The Apostle Paul produced his greatest epistles in a jail. You might have seen him in jail writing, writing. Well, you were here two years ago when I passed. Why don't you get up and exercise your ministry? You've cast out devils, you've raised the dead, you've done the miraculous, you've, you've done everything Jesus did. Come on, get out and have some ministry. He stays in jail in the darkness, in the loneliness and hears only the voice of God. God sends Elijah into a cave. He had room service of course. The ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning and in the evening, which means you should only have two meals a day. But in the stillness he discovers God. America were the most active people in the world. Dear Lord. A friend of mine said when he came to New York, boy, he said the light was changing. I ran across the road and oh, a dozen horns, you know, and taxis blasted away. And he said, I suddenly thought of the scripture that talks about the quick and the dead. He said in America if you're not quick you're dead anyhow. So here he is. Let me picture him. Here he is, he's at this bar. He's treading around and grinding corn. Do you think that man with sightless eyes isn't dreaming of the days when he saw his enemies flee from him? He isn't picturing again the lion coming. If the lion comes now it'll devour him. I tore it up. I redeemed the time while I was free. So of you young people end up in jail, I'm telling you that. We've got people in high places who will sell America to communism for their own advantage. They're trying to get world religion. They're trying to get world government. Rockefellers and others. And it will come to pass, not in my time I guess. But it will come to pass unless there's a Holy Ghost revival. So there he is. The people are having a great time. Let me read it for you correctly. The hair of his head began to grow again. A sign of God's mercy. God's favour. Can you imagine this man who for maybe two or three years has been in jail. And he puts his hand up one day and goes into a great ecstasy of joy. Oh God my hair's coming back. It will never be cut again. I'll never ever backslide. But Lord thank you for this little token of your mercy. Oh I love you. I adore you Lord. For this sign of your mercy. Verse 23. The lords of the Philistines gathered together to offer great sacrificial unto Dagon their God. To rejoice for they said our God hath delivered. You see. Do you know the Jehovah's Witnesses say? They say we get more converts from evangelical churches than any other people. And many of them specialise. We get them from Baptists. They've gone through the ritual but they've never actually been born again of the Spirit of God. So they begin to laugh and to mock. Verse 24 says the people saw him they praised their God. For they said our God hath delivered into the hands our enemy. The destroyer of our country which slew many of us. It came to pass when their hearts were merry that they called for Samson to make sport. And they called for Samson. And he made sport and they set him between the pillars. So they send a boy down. Remember there was a time when 3,000 men couldn't lay him. But now blind and crippled as he is. One boy takes him by the hand. Where are you taking me? I'm taking you into the temple of Dagon. Oh I've been. It's a it's a tourist attraction. I've been there. Well you're going to face the multitude. If you read a bit further in the chapter it says there were 3,000 men in the gallery. The auditorium usually holds three times as much as the gallery. So figure there were 10,000 people here mocking, laughing at this man. They wouldn't have done that when he had the anointing. But now he's blind and bound. They scorn the God of Israel. Where's your miracle working God? Where is your power? So what happened? Samson said to the lad that held him by the hand. Notice that in case you think I made that up. Verse 26. A lad, a teenage boy has this Superman by the hand. When 3,000 men can do it one boy does it. He takes him by the hand and said let me I pray thee feel the pillars whereon the house standeth that I may lean upon them. The house was full of men and women. They were there and they were upon the roof. 3,000 men and women beside and they made sport. Verse 28. Samson called unto the Lord and said O Lord God remember me I pray thee and strengthen me I pray thee. Only this once I told you he's a type of Israel. He began in the miraculous. He lost it. It's restored. He finishes up better than he began. Israel is going to have trouble. I have a thing on my desk. A man last year was in Israel. He got to the government and he went up to the border of Syria and looked over and there were 30, 32 divisions of Russian tanks there ready to come over the border. And he said to this high government official if they break that barrier can you handle them? Surely we can't. We can't handle 32 Russian divisions. Well he said I'll tell you what God said to me. The man said what? Who? Take me to the head government. So he went to the heads of the government in, in Israel. And he said over the border there that I've seen the 32, 32 divisions of tanks. They're going to come over. He said when they come over in Israel he said you drop your atom bomb. The man said we don't have an atom bomb. He said yes you do. He said no we don't. He said just a minute you have five atom bombs. And I'll tell you where they are. And he named the five areas where they've got those atom bombs hidden. Today in Israel. The official said to Israel we've got to find out where the leakage is. And he said it's this way. He said what do you mean? He said it came from heaven. God told me. And he gave the name of the five areas where those bombs are. And he said when they break through take one of those bombs and release it on Damascus and destroy it. Wipe it out. I'm telling you what it says on that tape that I have. There's some momentous things happening. But you see I'm believing God's going to fulfill his word and pour out his spirit and all flesh. But this man's going to finish in a greater blaze of glory than he began. And what did he do? He prayed. Let me read this prayer. It's in verse 28. Samson called on the Lord and said Oh Lord God remember me I pray thee. And strengthen me I pray thee only this once. Do you hear that? He says Lord I won't even come on my knees begging for mercy again. Give me one more chance. I won't blow it this time. You gave me an anointing no man has had since the beginning of time maybe and I blew it. Some of you, you used to have a prayer life. You used to have a passion for the last. This word was sweeter to you than your necessary food. And now it's as dry as sand. This man went business. He's calling on the Holy God. Lord strengthen me just once. Put a mark there in eternity at the side of my name. Samson prayed give me one more chance. He meant it. How do I know? Read the next verse. Samson took hold of the two pillars on which the house stood and on which it was born. And the one with his right hand and the one with his left. Now listen. Here's the confirmation of his prayer. And Samson said let me die with the Philistines. I'm willing to die. I'm not asking you to deliver the nation so I can live like a king. I'm asking you to bring glory to your name even if I die. And he pushed the pillars house that the house came down. And it says at the end of the same 20 30th verse. He slew more in his dying. There were more at his death than he slew in his life. You know the trouble with many of us? I preached two years ago to an assembly of about 2,500 people. There were more than 500 preachers there. R.T. Kendall who succeeded Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones in London, one of the other speakers. I preached on Samson one night. I said some of you pastors you're propping up your ministry. You're asking for more finance. You've got guys on TD now saying oh please send us money or this ministry may die. Let it die. It's only when it dies you get resurrection. Some of you young men need to die to ambition. You want to be a famous preacher. Don't dare pollute the sanctuary. Don't pollute this holy death just to satisfy your big fat ego. If somebody calls you to be assistant pastor to a little church up in the wild part of what do you call the country up north? Not Oklahoma. It's the other name like that. No no right up in the wilds in the snows. Off the border of Wyoming. Okay. Oh no I'm hoping I'm hoping my professor is going to tell Dr. well let's say Adrian Rogers. Dear brother I love that fellow. Or my good friend Charles Stanley. I preached in his church for a month. Boy he's some man of prayer too. He sweat and rolled on the floor weeping. Oh I hope somebody's going to recommend me for a high job. Brother get a job washing people's feet. Wash people's feet. If you can't wash the feet wash the old people's cars. Forget all about your own ambition. Get a desire in your heart to see the strongholds of the devil pulled down. Let's see God blast a hole into Romanism. Blast a hole into communism. Blast a hole into Mormonism. These young people are so blinded. And again I remind you they're not going to hell for a weekend. It's forever and ever. I wind this up right now. One difficulty is to get people to the cross. The other difficulty is to get them on the cross. And when you get there the condition is difficult. The continual perpetual ever-fresh temptation of the devil to people is come down from the cross and save yourself. Why are you fasting when people are feasting? Why are you sacrificing when people are spending all they can on themselves? Forget them. God's making you. He doesn't make churches. He makes individuals. He's waiting for some men that say listen I want to die. I'm so tired of bondage. I've secrets in my life. I've pride. I've envy. I've lust. I've greed. I'm restless for recognition. I want to be a preacher. And you're not fit to preach. It's the hardest task in the world. It costs blood, sweat and tears. I go to bed nine o'clock, half past nine at night, get up at midnight, stay up two or three or more hours in the stillness, in the quietness. And I say to young fellows that come to me, listen what you need to do is eat as little as you can within reason, sleep as little as you can within reason, pray and study and fast and read the word of God. And read about some of those Puritans. Do you know their secret? The secret of the Puritans is they lived six days in eternity and came down to earth on the seventh. Only a man who's done that will cry, uh, Jonathan Edwards, Lord stamp eternity on my eyeballs. Are you going to tell me you wish, you, you, you, you want the rapture at any minute? You'd like to, the Lord to have raptured you this afternoon, preacher, deacon, Sunday school teacher while you're watching crazy football? Or you stay up at night and you can't go to bed? You can't even get victory over that blasted thing. How would you get victory over sin in some other countries? You'd never get it. You see, God's looking for a pure people. God's problem in the Old Testament was not the Malachites, Sittites, Perizzites, Jebusites and all the rest. God's problem in the, in the, in the Old Testament was Israel. God's problem in America tonight is not communism and all these others. It's a lazy, bankrupt church. We're safe because, I asked, are you safe? Yeah, I'm safe. What are you safe from? Oh, I'm safe from hell. Are you safe from lust? Are you safe from bad temper? Are you safe from bitterness? Are you safe from death? What are you safe from? He's looking for some people who dare come and say, Lord, I want to really die to self-interest, self-seeking, self-glory. I don't care what other people think. If they think I'm crazy, I'm giving up my career if need be. My precious son, one of the best priests in the world today. God brought him under conviction of sin at 15 years of age. And he testified. I stood in meetings and I trembled from head to foot. It took him from 15 to 18 years of age to come and get saved. People would say to my wife, we were living in a Bible school. You see, all the young people said last night, why didn't you go with your David to the altar? Martha said, the Lord will deal with him. For three years he was under conviction of sin. When he came to the altar, I didn't bring him my lousy sins, he said. I brought him my career. He's a wonderful artist. I planned my studio. I planned, and I said, Lord, I'm not bringing my sins. I'm bringing my will. I'm bringing my talent. I'm bringing my brain. I'm bringing my emotions. Take all I have. You gave him your lousy sins and went and ran away and did as you like. Repeated many of the sins, which is total defeat. But when you saw hate sin, you say, Lord put sin to death in me. Kill my self-life, and then his resurrection life will come. Preacher, student, do people come up and ask you, young people, what's the secret of great strength? Why are you different from the pastor that we had last year? Why are you different from any other Sunday school teacher we had? You see, you're going to meet all those children you teach at Sunday school. You're going to meet everyone at the judgment seat face to face. And this is the last. I told a big shot evangelist in my office recently. I said, keep blasting away. Blast as much as you like against abortion, but remind those women that baby you aborted, you're going to see it face to face at the judgment seat. And the baby is going to see its mother face to face. And you evangelists who bring a lot of young people to the front, they've been to the front a dozen times. They've been to 10 different bible camps for Baptists for others, and they're still not born again. You brought them up to confession. Confession is not regeneration. You're going to see every one of those people you brought to the altar at the judgment seat, and they're going to see you. Your blood is on their hands. I know some of you don't take a bit of notice. What do you think I care? I'm not responsible. Your blood isn't on my hands tonight. If you go to hell, it's your fault. If you die spiritually bankrupt, it's your fault. Provision has been made in the cross, the old rugged cross. Provision is made through the Holy Spirit coming to indwell us and anoint us. And don't you tell me that you go and teach in the seminary, the Old Testament was the dispensation of the Father, the New Testament, dispensation of the Son. Today is the dispensation of the Holy Ghost. But why do you outlaw gifts of the Spirit? Are you dictating to the Holy Ghost? Forget it. Men are getting turned out of churches, Baptist churches, Methodist churches, Episcopal churches, not for heresy. You won't get kicked out of church for being an adulterer. You'll get kicked out if you start preaching about holiness, about the Holy Ghost coming to anoint you, about some of you young guys getting together at nights and praying with a pastor at least two nights a week, Saturday night, meeting at nine o'clock and preaching, praying till one or two. This place would be electric every Sunday if you do that. You don't do it by advertising. You don't do it by being nice. We do it by obeying God. I'm not going to make an altar call, don't get worried. I'm going to ask you to go home, take a piece of paper, write your name at the top, write the date, then write underneath what you know is wrong with your life. Number one, I have no passion for the lost. Number two, I have no tears for the lost. Number three, I'm no burden to five billion people of my generation. Go down, you know what's wrong. My prayer life is dry, my Bible reading is a bore. Put the list, come on. My Bible is boring, my prayer is boring, my eyes are dry, my soul is dry. And when you're finished, put a line underneath and say, Lord, you show me now what's wrong. I need to show you another thing. I'll say this quickly. I was in a big Baptist church in the south a few years ago, and I mentioned this. Next morning, when I was on the road, I used to teach at 10 o'clock in the morning for an hour and a half, and preach at night, because I believe teaching brings illumination and preaching brings conviction. So my sweet wife and I were going across the parking lot, and this woman comes running with a sheet. Hey, Mr. Amiel, it took five sheets, it took five sheets. I thought she'd been in a sale buying sheets. I said, what do you mean it took five sheets? You told us last night to take a sheet and sign. I knew what was wrong. I had pride, I had a dry spirit, prayer wasn't real, my Bible was boring, I had no love even for my family, never mind, and the neighbors, never mind people in Timbuktu. And then I drew a line and said, show, and the Lord began to show me, and he filled up five sheets. I couldn't go to bed till long after midnight. But once I went and I said, Lord, I can't handle these things. I take them to the cross, put them to the cross. I want to die to all my own ambitions and my failures. I want the blood to cleanse me, and I want the Holy Ghost to come and take residence in my life. He doesn't dwell in temples made with hands. He lives in men and women. He's looking for some new brilliant young guys. Abandon your intellect to God. He'll send you to New Guinea, where I was, up in the forest there. There's a brilliant American with an NPHD, had a ragged shirt on, and he's getting a man that stank like a pig, and he's asking to grunt some words, so he could put a vocabulary together with the Wycliffe preachers. What's the good of money? Won't be worth a hail of beans at the judgment. He's looking for some real people who mean business. Well, this has been a, you know, I have a lot of wealthy friends, not materially wealthy. They called me today and said, when you and dear Martha go up to that place, we don't know what it is. Nobody's ever heard of this church. That's a good sign. We're going to be praying all the time you're there. They've been praying tonight. And those are my richest people who pray for me. I'd rather be in a good man's prayers than in his will. Of course, if I've been in both of them, it'd be better. Prayers of purity is good. Do you know the hymn, All to Jesus I surrender? Well, sing it if you mean it, if you don't, keep dumb. Don't add to your condemnation. If you sing it, sing it with your hand as a sign of surrender. You know, wherever you go in the world, raised hands as a sign of surrender. No secret weapons. I'm defenseless. Here I am, Lord. And mean it. And in your heart, say, Lord, tonight, I'm going to mean business with you. If it takes me two hours, I'm going to sign my name. I'm going to let you do some digging. And I want to be pure. Before I go to bed at midnight tonight, I want to be pure. I want the Holy Ghost to tell me I'm clean and useful to God. Let's stand and sing, All to Jesus I surrender.