In this sermon, the preacher discusses the role of a prophet and the importance of listening to God's voice. The prophet in focus is described as having a fierce loyalty to God and a broken heart. The preacher emphasizes the need for making vows deliberately and intelligently before God, rather than in the heat of emotion. The sermon also touches on the question of who Jesus is, with various opinions being mentioned, but the preacher highlights the significance of Jesus as the Son of Man. Additionally, the preacher mentions the sin and impurity of the nation, leading to their impending bondage and eventual dispersal. However, there is hope as the prophet predicts the coming of Jesus Christ and his eternal reign. The sermon concludes with a thought-provoking question about God's knowledge of unborn babies and a lamentation over the millions of abortions that have taken place.

Look just for a moment at the 16th chapter in the gospel, as recorded by Matthew. Simon Peter answered, verse 16. Matthew 16, verse 16. Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. I want to take that for a moment. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. This is Peter. I've forgotten the chapter, but in Mark, you have that same man cursing and swearing and saying he didn't know him. Well, you say, why don't you say that first? Why don't you tell us the bad things and then cover it up with his amazing confession? It's one of the most starting confessions in scripture. And the other is one of the most starting denials in scripture. And I don't change them around for the simple thing that they didn't happen that way. Here is Peter, verse 13 of chapter 16. Again, when Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I am? I, the Son of man, am. And they said, Some say thou art John Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. But who do you say I am? Simon said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And yet in Mark, he turns around and says, I don't even know him. And remember, that's after three years of living with him, three years of seeing his miracle working, three years in which he heard the greatest sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount, which has the answer for all our problems today. Well, why do you make the contrast? Because the scripture makes it. Here he is, this man who was always so right on the, hit the head on the nail, nail on the head, if you like. And yet just as vehemently, he denies his Lord, in an hour when Jesus needed him. What's the story? I think that, I think the story is this, let any man take heed lest he fall. It isn't good to make vows in the, in the warm atmosphere of a church. It isn't good to make vows when you're on an emotional high. We need to make our vows deliberately, coldly, intelligently, intellectually, before God. But here's the interesting thing, whom the man said that I, the son of man am. Some said our John Baptist, I guess it because he preached with the same fiery energy. Some say Elijah, another Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. Notice they, they leave out the mighty Moses with all his miracles. Moses preached a sermon on the mountain, brought his sermon notes down, you remember, drop them. Moses out 40 years in the wilderness, Jesus out 40 days in a place of temptation. But they don't liken him to Moses. They don't liken him to the inspiring Isaiah. They don't liken him to Zechariah. They liken him mainly here to Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. So let's go back now to Jeremiah. What's the point of identification between Jesus and Jeremiah? Well in my mind that they were both, I believe Jeremiah was the man of sorrows, a man of sorrows, until the man of sorrows came. As far as I can see he's the only one of the prophets who gets into immediate fighting with the people. And he stays in a battle scene, as it were, right through. Right to the end of his days. Maybe the outstanding thing, I hadn't noticed it till meditating a few days ago, actually this book is the greatest book in the Bible on backsliding. It's mentioned 13 times in this book. It's only mentioned three other times, and I believe that's in Hosea. But he's come to a nation that's just full of backsliding, and full of apostasy. As I read it my way, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to this man, he's stressing this, that sometimes God sends judgment without mercy. This man predicts that 70 years the nation is going to be put into bondage. Then they're going to come back, and they're coming back weeping, he says. But then they're going to be dispersed again. And it looks as though it's a rather despairing picture, which it really isn't, because if you go to study further in the book you discover that he speaks about the coming of Jesus Christ, and that he is going to come and reign forever and ever. I would say about this man, let's read here from in chapter 1, verse 4. The Lord of the Lord came unto me saying, Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. You know what? That made me wonder if, does God know every unborn babe in the body of a woman? Well God Almighty, how are they going to help when God Almighty knows every babe that's there, and a million of them this past year were dragged out of their mother's bellies to use the scripture, and flushed down the job. They only think of the immediate disgrace if they have any disgrace. I believe every babe is marked in its mother's womb. I can't remember being there. I can't remember the first day, but the first day I was born, my mother didn't tell me until the first time I came home from college, she said Len, this is a great day in my life. I said well it's a great man, great day in my life to get home to some good food. No, she said I'm just thinking the first day you were born, I laid my hand on you in the bed and said Lord make this boy a preacher, I don't let him live. And I've heard, if I'd have heard that I'd have been a bit scared. But the Lord says to Jeremiah, Before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, I ordained thee. Fancy there's an ordination. Ordained in his mother's womb to be one of the most outstanding men. In fact one section of Jewry today says that the number one character in ever lived amongst the Jews is Jeremiah. He's greater than Moses, he's greater than Isaiah. And he's so like Jesus Christ. Before thou camest out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. A prophet. That's the most thankless task in the world. You know I think when God is angry with a nation he gives it no prophets. There isn't a prophet in America today I know of. Somebody sent a circular out with my picture on and said I was a prophet. I never claimed that, I didn't give authority for that. It's nonsense. I was going to say you never find a prophet that's rich, not that I'm rich. You never find a prophet that's the man of the year. Never find a prophet where the red carpet is laid out for him. Immediately he takes up that mantle of prophecy, he gets the full load of the love of God and the full anger of the people. There's a great Jewish scholar in America years ago by the name of Bucks Basin, he's dead now. He had a brilliant mind, he had a brilliant insight into the Hebrew scriptures. I remember one thing he wrote, it comes back to me every time I read about a prophet. He said the prophet by the very nature of his calling, now what did he say? A prophet by the very nature of his calling is a tragic figure. He has a fierce loyalty to God. I love that word, he has a fierce loyalty. He has a burning loyalty to God and he has a broken heart over a lost nation. Tell me a man in America that has that. Don't get out with his TV station choice. Maybe the nearest to it is Jimmy Swaggart anyhow. He certainly says his piece. Verse 9 says, Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth. I put on the side, I write on the side of my Bible, I've got a friend and I've tried to borrow that Bible, I can't get it with a lot of notes on it. The Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth and the Lord said, I put my words in thy mouth. How many preachers will preach God? We don't preach the word of God, we preach about the word of God. We don't dare say thus saith the Lord because it isn't thus saith the Lord. Most preaching now is passing on opinions. This is my viewpoint, forget your new viewpoint. Now do I read Time magazine if that's all you want? The Lord put forth his hand and, can you think of that? The fingers of God that chiseled the stone on Mount Sinai and gave the commandments are tender enough to touch the lips of a prophet? That God will come and put his word in his mouth? Do you wonder he's so full of wisdom, which he is? So full of authority, so full of terrifying words? So full of terrible predictions? Yes, it's great to know the Lord's touched your mouth. Would you like this? Steve, you better get hold of this, maybe it's for you tonight. It's a tremendous verse, 10. See this day I have set thee over nations, not over the Israel merely, over the nations. You know there were not as many people in Israel at the time this was written as there are in New York City tonight, or as there are in Chicago. How can this man's message be to the nation? Because it comes to us now. Seven, six hundred and fifty years at least before Christ was born. This day I have set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms. Here's his message, to root out, to pull down, to destroy, to throw down, to build and to plant. Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me saying, send a man what seest thou. I'm going to go there to chapter four. You see, the prophet sees as God sees. He loves as God loves. He hates as God hates. Notice in chapter four, verse 19. Again I say this man has a fierce loyalty to God. He's a broken-hearted man. He says in this chapter four and verse five, my bowels, my bowels, I am pained at my very heart. My heart maketh a noise in me. I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet and lamb of God. Now notice he listens with his soul, not just his ears. He's listening in the inner chamber of his being. He's hearing that voice of God speak. The voice that's the most amazing thing this side of eternity. And because of that I cannot hold my peace. Let me go over here a minute. Chapter 15 and verse 10. Let me look at that with you. If this man had one complaint, it was this. He complained he'd never been born. That was his constant complaint. Nothing's going to ease up all the way. He's come in the kingdom for such a time as this. He is a voice crying in the wilderness. His message is one of rebuke. His message is unveiling the sin, the corruption of the nation. Do you remember what Isaiah starts with? This is a nation, a people full of iniquity, a people full of wounds and putrefying sores that cannot be bound up, neither mollified with ointment. They're totally incurable unless God in his infinite mercy intervenes. I believe that's the picture of America tonight. We don't need Russia to destroy, we'll destroy ourselves. Another decade from now there'll be nearly as many people with AIDS as don't have it. There's another disease now that comes to women and they don't even know. You can get it at 16 years of age, it won't show any rash on your face, it won't show anything. But when it's time to bear children, you'll be barren. I've talked with a doctor about this recently. I forget there's a character in the Old Testament there where they disobey God and God shut up the wombs of all the women in Israel. Women are throwing their babies down the john, pardon that phrase, but there it is, down the toilet now. They'll be screaming to God and when they want them they won't get them. Whether they're married or single, God is going to shut up their wombs. And there's a penalty that's being put on this precious nation tonight. Is it awesome that men will still go into that filthy living and know that at the most they've five years to live after they get AIDS and yet they think, well eat, drink and be married, tomorrow we die. The scripture says that, no it doesn't. The scripture says if there be no resurrection, eat, drink and be married, but for tomorrow we die. But if there's a resurrection, everything we've done in the past is coming up in the future. Jeremiah's complaint in 15 and verse 10. He says, woe is, woe is me my mother, that thou hast made me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth. I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent me on usury, yet every one of them doth curse me. Let's go to chapter 9 and verse 1. I think this is one of the most pathetic verses in the whole of the word of God. Oh that my head were waters, that mine eyes were a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. Remember in psalm 119 is it what, and verse 136 the psalmist there says, rivers of water run down mine eyes continually. Why do rivers of water run down his eyes continually? Because of the sin of the nation, because of their impurity. In the previous chapter verse 20 is one of the saddest texts I think in the whole of the word of God. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, we're not saved. Remember they sing the song of Moses and the lamb in heaven don't they? Which is taken from the 15th chapter of exodus, when they thought the horses had been thrown over and all their enemies had been destroyed. And Moses and the children of Israel sang. And there's one of the most perfect verses about the majesty of God in that chapter, in the 11th verse. Remember it says he's glorious in holiness. What's the next verse? Fearful in praises, doing wonders. Glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, and doing wonders. And these people have retained, have time and time again they've tasted the mercy and the grace of God. Go back to chapter 2 for a moment there. And verse 3 it says, Israel was, now that's the past tense. Israel was holiness unto the Lord, and the first fruit of his increase. All that devour him shall offend, evil shall come upon them, saith the Lord. She had walked in holiness and now she's walking in total unrighteousness, total rebellion, total sinfulness. Verse 13, my people have committed two evils, they have forsaken me. And it's not enough to forsake God, they've hewn them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. Again I remind you that 13 times he calls them a backslidden, wayward, rebellious nation. And here is one man that stands up against them. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we're not saved. You know where they sing that? In hell. In heaven they sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. There's no tears, there's no grief, there's no blemish. And in hell they sing the harvest is past. And some of them went right down the main aisle of your favorite church in town, straight to hell. They made a simple confession. And the stupid preacher says on the profession of your, I won't baptize anybody in the profession of their faith. You baptize them on the fruits of their faith. Put them on trial for three months. And everybody comes up usually with the argument, well remember the man that was going down the road and Philip came and found this Ethiopian eunuch? A black man, a wealthy man, an intelligent man. Why? He'd been to Jerusalem for to worship. And bless your life he wasn't long after Pentecost he went to Jerusalem and there's nothing there that convinced him. How easily the fires go down. And the man of God goes up and reads, finds this man an intelligent man. Why? Because he was reading Hebrew. There were no translations of the scripture. A wealthy man, how do you know? Because they were very rare. Remember there's some people called the scribes and they wrote the scriptures. It took them hours, it took them days, it took them months, took them months, years to write a prophecy. And then he buys one. He's not satisfied with being in the cabinet of Queen Candacy. He's not satisfied with his social standing. He's not satisfied with the stories he'd heard in Egypt there. He goes all that way, follow it on your map. And remember he didn't go by jet. He goes all the way from Ethiopia, way there across the Red Sea, up there into what was Palestine, now we call Israel. And he buys this treasure that he has. And it may have taken him a couple of weeks, he's been reading day by day with amazement. Wide open eyes, wide open mind, wide open heart. And when the preacher goes along he says, I'm reading. What are you reading? I say he's intelligent. How could he read Hebrew? He's in a country that didn't use that language in any shape or form. He said, what are you reading? He said, I'm reading Isaiah, chapter 53. I'm reading about somebody, it says he was wounded for our transgressions, and he was bruised for our iniquities. And the justice meant of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. Is he speaking of himself or of somebody else? What did he preach unto him? Prophecy? No, he preached unto Jesus. And that somehow the Spirit bore witness in the heart of that man, this is the person you're seeking, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Maybe he took him back a little further in, and read to him a virgin should be born. With all the prophecies that Isaiah made, so beautifully fulfilled in Jesus. And the man of God says, do you believe? He said, yes. He said, what hinders me from being baptized? Well there you are, I mean, he made a confession, and maybe within an confession he was baptized. Well listen, you bring me a man that's read Isaiah for three weeks, I'll baptize him too. If he's read Isaiah and he's convinced that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, I won't send anything to him except make a complete repentance, and sever all your connection with the world, and declare that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the only Redeemer, that he died for our sins and rose again according to the scripture, to ascend to the Father and justify us. I say this man is weighed down with grief. Go on to his next book, you remember that he has a, he left us a notebook of his, in Lamentations. I say he was the man of sorrows until the man of sorrows came. He's had a preview of history. He knows the torture that these people are going into for 70 years. He knows they're going to come back, and then they're going to be dispersed again. And then there's going to be a final gathering, and finally Jesus is coming, the Messiah is coming to reign over the world forever and ever. Look in Lamentations chapter 1, verse 12 he says, Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. Go down again now into chapter 2. Seems to me that in the first chapter of Lamentations you have a song of a city in mourning. In the second chapter you have a song of a people with a broken. In the third chapter you have the song of a prophet who's a broken hearted prophet. Now look what he says in verse 11, My eyes fail with tears. That's why later he cries, O that my head were waters. My eyes fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured out on the earth. We read in the other, if you go back in the previous chapter, chapter 1 and verse 20 says, Behold O Lord, I am in distress, my bowels are troubled, my heart is turned within me. His bowels are troubled, his heart was turned within him, and his liver is poured forth on the earth. For a moment go over to the next chapter. In verse 11, what a severe thing he says here, He hath turned aside my ways and pulled me to pieces. Pulled him to pieces. My bowels are troubled, my liver is poured out, my heart is turned within me. Well why is he so troubled? As he mentions here in verse 11, My eyes do foil with tears, my bowels are troubled. Well go up the chapter, let's go up to the fifth verse in that same chapter 2. The Lord was as an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces, he hath destroyed his strongholds, and hath increased the daughter of Judah, mourning and lamentation. He hath violently taken away his tabernacle. God has been stripping them. He has destroyed, taken away the tabernacles of the Uruguayan. He hath destroyed his places of the assembly. The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised the indignation and his anger on the king and the priest. The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary. Isn't that enough to grieve us? When I read this, I thought of an experience I had about 20 years ago. I preached in a Christian missionary alliance church. We had some very wonderful meetings. And one night I said, I think we should stay to pray. Some people went, others didn't. There was two or three oldish people at the front. And I said, you know, I see great danger for America. Maybe every preacher should preach on this, America, if thou knewest the day of thy visitation. Because before long, as I've said to you, I agree with what Dave Wilkerson said in some ways in his book. I do not believe the number one threat to America is Russia. The number one threat to America is God. You get to a place, God says, my spirit will not always strive with individuals or with nations. The scripture says it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. Robert Louis Stevenson that wrote children's books. He was the one also that wrote, come ill, come well, the cross, the crown, the lightning or the thunder. I lay both soul and body down for God to plow them under. And Robert Louis Stevenson said, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. It's a more fearful thing to fall out of the hands of a living God. Jeremiah was a man of sorrows. Jeremiah wept. Well, didn't Jesus weep? Who is Jeremiah weeping over? Jerusalem. You know, in the rotation of scripture you get lamentations, the major prophets of Jeremiah. And then you come down to the minor prophets, as they're called. The school men call them the minor prophets. I don't think there's much minor in them. They have some awful statements that they make. But actually, Joel lived years and years, more than 150 years before even Jeremiah was around. And yet God had warned them over and over again what he would do. But people don't hear. That terrible landslide in, was it, Puerto Rico last week? Somewhere over there, that whole hillside moved. And people were warned, you better go because the river has broken its banks, it's coming this way, it's going to cut the ground. And washer, oh no, no, no. My grandfather lived in this house. And they showed a pile of mud and they said, there are 300 boys and girls and men and women buried under that mud. And they were warned and took no notice. Well, isn't that the task of the prophet, to be a voice crying in the wilderness? To be crying when nobody wants to hear? The popular man today is the man who tells the people what they want to hear, or what they already know. But not what God wants them to know. So I'm going back to that verse again there. Chapter 2, verse 10. The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground and keep silence. They have cast up dust on their heads. They have girded themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang their heads down. Mine eyes fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured out for the destruction of the daughter of my people. I've said to my wife a few times, and one or two other folk maybe. When are we going to get serious about being serious? The church loves its games, it loves its fun. How many people came to the square dance here a few nights ago? A dozen? Or a hundred or two? And not here tonight. I think jokes are out of place in a funeral parlor, don't you? Well fun and all the silly stuff that goes on in churches today is out of place in a world that's rushing to hell. Or to use Jimmy Swaggart's common phrase often these days, America's going to hell in a basket. Used to be when people's bodies were broken they laid them in a long basket chair and wheeled them out. That's what it means, wheel them out. They're helpless, they're paralyzed. Is there a voice of the prophet in the land? I think it can be said of us, we've committed two evils. We've forsaken him, the fountain of living water, and we've hewn him out cisterns that can hold no water. Isn't it amazing how rubbish sells? There's a big boy in his glass palace out in the west coast, what's his name? Bob Shuler. You know his constant argument is, your trouble is you have, your self-image is so poor. You need a better self-image. That's not your trouble, your trouble is your self-image is too good. Take your self-image to the cross and get it crucified, get a new one. Self-image is based in pride mainly, it's your ego. We don't need a better self-image, we need to see ourselves corrupt and perverted before God and useless unless he comes with his redemptive power and does a miracle in us. I'm going over to chapter 9 now. Oh that my head were waters, that mine eyes were a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. He doesn't just see them needy, he sees them destroyed. God has removed his tabernacle, God is removing his favor, and there he stands in splendid isolation. What to do? To weep. I say again, when are we going to get serious about being serious? Five minutes inside the bed, maybe every one of us will be embarrassed that we landed there so poorly when we could have landed there rich. We'll be sorry that we escaped trials and tribulations and didn't volunteer to carry burdens other men wouldn't carry. Let me use my old phrase again, revival tarrys for number one reason, we're content to live without it. I thank Christian people, they live from one event to another. We're going to a big concert, we're going to a conference, we're going here, we're going there, and in between they're half backslidden. Wasn't it Watchman Nee wrote a book, The Normal Christian Life? You're not the normal Christian life is now to be dumb and deaf and speechless. The normal Christian life today is just about to be paralyzed, just sit in a pew and give an offering and that's it. The old Methodist used to sing a hymn, blessed are the men of broken heart, who mourn for sin with inward smart. But I only want to do that. I was looking for a book yesterday in my little library, I couldn't find it. And I don't think it was by accident I picked this up. This is the narrative, and there's a picture of that handsome man. Do you know that is Jonathan Edwards. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, I taught with him a few times in London. He said he was the most brilliant intellect America ever had. This may not seem too much, but you know what? Let me give you some statistics here, if I can find them. Jonathan Edwards entered Yale College, Yale University at the age of 13. At 17 he graduated at the head of his class as a valedictorian. Then he was a tutor for two years in Yale. Well then you remember he had an amazing experience with God. He says he was famous in European universities as a philosophical writer. Jonathan Edwards left a glorious legacy of deep spiritual literature to the church as the human leader of the religious revival known as the Great Awakening, which visited the colonies, British colonies from Georgia to Maine. At the early age of 10, John manifested his spirituality and intellect at 10 years of age by writing a great tract on the nature of the soul. One rarely meets his writings. In his writings any bursts of lofty ecstasy, which are found in the works of Samuel Rutherford and John Howe and Robert Hawker and Andrew Monner. It says the biographical account, it's a very brief biographical account of Jonathan Edwards would not be complete without mentioning his wonderful wife Sarah. Sarah Pierre Point Edwards passed from death unto life when she was five years of age, had a conscious relationship with Jesus Christ at five years of age. My God our kids at 15 go to Sunday school year after year and never get an awakening in their hearts. Why don't they? Because they don't have preachers like Jonathan Edwards. They preach theological slop, they preach about prosperity and all the other junk. You could get in a decent club. Sarah Pierre Point Edwards passed from death unto life, a conscious relationship at five, when only 13, a singular reputation as a youthful Christian was already known to not a few. They would say there's a young lady in New Haven who is loved of the great being, other words she is loved of God, who made the rules of the world and that there are certain seasons in which this great being comes and visits her. Isn't that awesome? 13 years of age, she had confrontations with the one who made the world, the being who put those stars, he made the stars, those heavenly flames. He sits on the circle of the earth, the nations that are dropping a bucket and he, the mighty, lofty God comes and talks with a 13, 15, 16 year old girl. It was a preparation for an experience, a life that God was going to build in her and make her a pyramid of strength at the side of her amazing husband, who was going to go see that fantastic revival, then become the head of a university and get kicked out of it because he didn't like what he said. Excuse me, this is horrible dry thought. They say there's a young lady in New Haven who is loved of the great being, who made and who made and still rules the world. There are great seasons, certain seasons, in which this great being, in some way or other, but invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceedingly delight. She has a strange sweetness in her mind and singular purity in her affections. She seems to be always full of joy and pleasure and no, no, nobody knows why. Why, if God came to me once every three months like that, I think I'd know why. She had a willingness to wait upon God. There's a secret for you. I cannot find words to express how the love of God appeared to me, my safety and happiness and eternal enjoyment in God's immutable love. Come on, tell me if there's a girl in the whole of Texas can write at 17 years of age of a relationship with God like that. Whose fault is it? The pastor's fault, the church's fault. We just get people saved, they give up smoking, dancing, cursing and we think that they should get wings and a halo. I cannot find words to express how certain the love of God appeared to me, my safety, my happiness, my eternal enjoyment in God's immutable love. Most of our 15, 16 year olds couldn't tell you what immutable means. They think it was an insurance company. This great unchangeable God with immutable love comes to me. I'm melted and overcome by the sweetness of his assurance. I fall into great flows of tears and cannot forbear weeping aloud. These words seem to come over and over to my mind, my God, my all, my God, my all. The presence of God is so near and so real I seem scarcely conscious of anything else. I'd better use a little snapshot as it were here of this revival. The great awakening of 1735 came in the course, ordinary course of a faithful pastor's ministry. He hadn't gathered people for prayer or repentance or anything else. It was just in a normal course of his life, but remember he was a praying, weeping man. It's interesting for pastors and evangelists to know that no publication, public, pardon me, invitations were ever given by the pastor. You know the altar call is a modern invention. You have to have an altar call because the Holy Ghost hasn't convicted anybody. In the old days conviction was read the third chapter of Luke and here he is. He's no people, nowhere to sit, nowhere to, pardon me, he's no pews, he's no anything. He's in the burning sun and he preaches and the Roman soldiers, they've come from Rome and never seen anything like this. They've seen a false corrupt system and they're starving and they cried out as he prayed, repentance, what shall we do? And he says repent. The publicans asked what shall we do? Repent. They came north, south, east and west with a man that had no advertising. He'd never find a profit advertising anything. He's never selling anything. He never appeals for funds. He's totally cast on an almighty God. If he isn't well for God's sake don't dare go out. Naked faith is the most precious thing in the world and it's the scarcest thing in the church of Jesus Christ today. Why fast? Why pray when you can have a tv show? When you can send out a newsletter and get money? There are few men that are really shut up to God, married to the will of God, married to the intentions of God, married to the sufferings God will give. Their wages are to bear the suffering of Jesus Christ. Their wages are to hear the secret voice of God. It's interesting also for past evangelists to note that there are no public invitations ever given by this pastor or fellows working, fellow workers during the public revival. No invitations to come forward and to accept Christ were known in the Puritan world. The sermon was an invitation with the glorious gospel of the grace of God. You know Spurgeon maybe won more people to Christ than any man since the Apostle Paul. Do you know he never once made an altar call? Spurgeon, the last of the Puritans we'll call him, himself a fellow, followed this pattern. At the conclusion of his sermon on Sunday he would say, now who you were, those of you who are convicted, come to my church office in the morning and he'd give the hours. And if you can't get there in the morning, these other hours I'm there to counsel you. In his long and varied ministry in London it was the unusual thing, it was the unusual thing for, pardon me, it was the usual thing for there to be a steady procession of inquirers from the vestry in the early hours of the morning right through the entire day. Why? They'd had a night on the conviction. I say this tongue-in-cheek kind of, I think the biggest idiots in the world are evangelists. You've got those great wheat fields up in Kansas, isn't it Kansas where they have the big wheat field? You see Jebby Meyer, if we come a bit slower, we find out he says, break up your fallow ground. Do you know any man with all his modern machinery, can he go break up the fallow ground, sow the seed and water the seed and reap a harvest in 20 minutes like evangelists expect to do? He can't do it that with his $150,000 reaping machine. Break up the fallow ground, sow the seed. We're asking people to be saved that don't know they're lost. We're asking people to be filled with the Holy Ghost. We're asking them to tarry in the upper room and they've never tarried at the cross. If you think I'm angry tonight, you're right, I am. Dr. A.C. Dixon was invited to fill the puppet, uh, pulpit. He wasn't a puppet. After the death of Spurgeon and God gave him a mighty ministry for many months, he introduced what was an innovation in the church and he publicly invited people to come forward and accept Christ. Dr. Dixon in introducing this method said he believed that it's striking the iron, in striking while the iron was hot. On the following morning there was a letter of the British Weekly which the writer said, we cannot help wondering what the great Spurgeon would have said of that principle. We're inclined to think he would have said if the iron was heated by divine fire at night it would still be hot the next morning. Does the Holy Ghost depart when you go out of the church? The voice of the preacher may, but the voice of the prophet doesn't. The voice of the anointing man. We were in a place a few years ago and the pastor introduced me to a fine man and his wife. I said by the way is that your lovely Rolls Royce out there? It was gray like. A friend of mine just bought a new gray car, beautiful car. He said it's yours for the week. Well that was too short a term, take me a week to learn to drive the thing. No he said you can have it the whole way. Oh I don't want to drive it. I said the first thing I'll do is hit a lamp post or something with it. What was I going to say there? Oh we went out to supper, because I don't eat before preaching. And Friday the day off we went to a meal. During the day there was a very rosy cheek lovely lady says, I've seen you. I said well I've seen you too, but I don't know where. She said I sat on the front bench of the every night you've preached this week. For five nights I haven't slept one the wink of sleep. I said that's great. What's great about it? Why didn't you sleep? I'm so convicted. I'm so disturbed. I'm so torn up. My past is coming alive. The ghosts of yesterday are coming. Five nights I've had no sleep. Now you can tell there's a touch of revival when people are like that. I said well come tonight God will deliver you. And she's about the first. She ran to the altar at night and got wonderful deliverance. Yes he said if the iron was heated by divine spirit it would remain hot at least until Monday morning. From Sunday night to Monday morning the fire still burning. Listen to this. The Puritan preachers feared more than anything else the sin of plucking unripe fruit. You get that? They feared the sin of plucking unripe fruit. They were afraid of sham converts in their ministry. They were afraid that they in their zeal for souls might lead people into a false profession of faith. And thus by means of be their means of damnation rather than their means of salvation. There are hundreds of evangelists in America and across the world sending people to hell every every time they have a crusade. Do you know why they were like that? Because these men if ever a bunch of men in the 17th century you get these fantastic giants. William Gurnall with his whole armor of God. And well you have you have them I can't think of that. John Owen with his masterly exposition of Hebrews. You have men who lived in constant fear of God. Not cringing fear but filial fear. I don't want to hurt God. I tell you what the judgment seat of Christ preachers will have a worse time than anybody. There's a judgment for sinners, there's a judgment for believers, there's a judgment for teachers isn't there? Be not many teachers knowing we shall receive a greater condemnation. But you see we're all on the counting business. We count the number in the congregation, we count the number. You've got to put something on the newsletter if you've been in evangelism. I'm going to read this again. The Puritans feared more than anything else more than anything the sin of plucking unripe fruit. They were afraid of sham converts in their ministry. They were afraid that they in their zeal for souls might lead people into a false profession of faith in Christ and thus be the means of their damnation rather than of their salvation. Thomas Shepard, what did he found? He was a founder of Harvard. One of the great Puritans Puritans said it is easy for a man to drop a tear or two and be sermon sick. But to have a heart rent for sin and from sin this is a great humiliation and this is hard. There's another statement here it doesn't matter you'll take my word for it I'm sure. You know Jonathan Edwards is considered, well he's talked about today, as a man with a granite face. It says here that he held a candle in one hand and his notes in the other. He had bad eyesight and he looked and he turned over a stack of notes preaching sinners in the hands of an angry God. But nobody was disturbed until a certain moment when the Holy Ghost came upon them and they fell off their seats and they hung on to the pillars that were supporting the gallery and they screamed they cried for mercy and instead of that he whipped them with the word of God. He didn't put a bandage on them just because they were weeping. He didn't comfort them because they were weeping. He just applied more and more of the wrath of God. What happened? He had the greatest percentage of lasting fruit maybe of any man that's ever preached in America. Because he gave the seed time to take root downward before it started bearing any fruit upward. And go back to this verse again in Jeremiah 9 going back to verse 20 in the previous chapter. The harvest is past the summer is ended we are not saved. For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt? I hurt because the nation is hurting. Got any preachers like that? And he says in chapter verse 22 is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? And because of that he says oh that my head were waters, that mine eyes were a fountain of tears. Look over a minute for a moment there in Lamentations chapter 1. In verse 12 he says is it nothing to you all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me. Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of this fierce anger. He has tears. The children of Israel had tears when they sat down in Psalm 137 and they remember the former glory of God. Do you know why we are not embarrassed with our barrenness? Do you know why we don't cry for the glory of God? Because we've never seen it. We've never seen the glory of God come and stop in a meeting and everybody goes silent and the preacher quits. And there's an hour of silence maybe or there's an hour of groaning and weeping. We don't have it. We're so mechanized. I'm judging myself here as well as others. This chapter is a favorite of mine, the ninth. Oh that my head were waters, mine eyes were fountain of tears. I can remember on three different occasions with years between them preaching on the harvest is past the summer is ended and we're not saved. Thousands of people who sat in Billy Graham's meetings never got through of any other meetings. We were there in a lost eternity with the filth of the ages. Filth is pardon me, hell is God's madhouse where he shuts up all mad people. Hell is God's sewer where the drainage and filth of the world goes whether it goes out of a some back alley in Chicago or out of the Waldorf Astoria where a woman's maybe dripping with diamonds and yet living in less lust and sin. I say Jesus was a man of sorrows. Remember he goes over the hill and he weeps before he whipped them. Sure he did but before he whipped them he wept over them. I believe as he looked over Jerusalem what did he say? Oh thou that killest the prophet you killed Jeremiah. What did they do with Jeremiah? They said we're going to stop your mouth we'll put you in jail and they put him in jail. He's so concerned of the bondage of the nation he puts a beast's yoke around his neck and goes in the pulpit and says as I wear this yoke you are yoked up to evil you're yoked up to iniquity. And he grieves over their blindness he grieves over their rebellion. He grieves over their willful selflessness. All that my head will waters. Whenever I read that I think of the news when it was taken to David your son Absalom is dead. What did he say? I'm glad to hear that. He's been after my life. He's tried to take the crown off my head. He's tried to take the throne from underneath it. You say he's dead. What did he say? Oh oh Absalom he's a broken-hearted man. You can't say that oh by eloquence you can learn go anywhere you like in the world you can't say it. It's born of grief. It's born of sorrow. It's born of pain. It's born of anguish. Jesus looks over Jerusalem he knows how soon he says this generation will not pass away before there's persecution. And in AD 70 Titus went you remember and raped that whole city until blood ran up to the knees of the horses they say. And Jesus was thinking of that and they turned him and they said we're doing you away. He says no your house is left desolate and they're still suffering tonight. They're still going to have a rough time in Israel. They're still going to be kicked out of that country and they'll come back repentant when they come. There's a horrible situation coming up. Oh but my head were waters. I say no eloquence can teach you that. One of the great unbelievers in Scotland in the days of Wesley was a man by the name of David Hume. He was going through London one day morning at five o'clock. Listen five o'clock in the morning not evening. And it was misty and rainy. He went around the corner and crashed into a man. The man said David Hume a scholar like you up at this hour what in the world are you up for? He said I'm going down to the mile end there. At this hour for what? Oh there's a man there by the name of George Whitefield who preaches every morning at five o'clock. And hundreds and hundreds and hundreds gather to hear him. At five in the morning in the dark yes. The man said but David you don't believe a word he says. He said no I don't but he does. I've never left the church wondering if the preacher really meant it. Was he beating treading water? Was he saying words? George Whitefield had the voice they said like a mighty organ. He could roar or he could whisper. One day when he was preaching the wind must have been blowing that way. A man a mile away sitting on the side of the road heard him preach and got saved. Now they sit on their noses and can't get saved. But they said there was one word which he would use. In fact they said he had such a voice he could even quote one word Mesopotamia to a crowd and they'd weep with the intonation of his voice. But he never used his voice to that end. They said if he preached on hell you'd think he'd been living there a week. If he preached on heaven you'd think he'd been living there a week. Got any preachers like that? The preacher is his own atmosphere. If I've no fire in me I won't spill anything out on you for sure. If I come in as an iceberg you'll all go icy. George Whitefield would preach. One woman said to him one day he was a portly man though he's a youngish man he was pretty heavy built. He had cross eyes, English stage crack jokes about Dr. Squintum they called him. And she said I've listened to you. He used to stand on the high pulpit. I've listened to you three times today and three times I've been wet with your tears. They come off bounce off your belly she said and they fall on me and she's a little woman. Three times today I've been wet with your tears. Why do you weep sir? Because you don't weep. I say if your preacher doesn't weep you weep over the preacher. I say if your religion hasn't changed you change your religion. Weeping is an integral part of revival. Doesn't it say there in Joel 2 what's the verse 17 let the priest the ministers of the Lord weep between the altar and the doorpost. Let them say spare thy people O Lord and give not thy heritage to reproach that the heathen should rule over them. Do you know anybody wants to do that? We have conferences we call people to repentance. You can't you can call them to listen only God can call them to repentance. We should live in a constant state of repentance. Why should I repent every night when I go to bed if I've done nothing wrong all day? I think what we have to do is not live in a state of repentance it's living in a state of brokenness. How can we be whole when the world is damned and rotting before our eyes? In the news the other day they said the young girls 16 and under getting pregnant all over the nation. The tide has risen this last year and the girls of Texas hold the record for this year of girls 16 and under getting pregnant. We have great scourges in the nation does it matter? Whitfield would preach and say all he could say under tremendous anointing and then when he could get no further they said he'd lift his hands and just say all. And there was something in his voice that was not of men it seemed as though the very heart of God was breathing through him. And he would say all as Jeremiah said that my head were waters. And unashamedly he was a brilliant scholar remember. And unashamedly he would stand there and talk to coal miners at five o'clock in the morning. You don't have an evangelist in the country. I know of the guy at five o'clock in the morning to talk to a crowd. He'll talk in a plush office over tv and you know all the trimmings. But where is the confrontation of the men of God? Oh that my head were waters mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. That seems to have passed away. I'd like to see 300 pastors come together for a whole week and stay prostrate before God. Wouldn't you like to see that brother Ray? No fancy lecturing just getting there in prostration heart searching and saying God if we can do it if we can birth revival if we can give our bodies our spirits our minds to total control by you if we stay here it doesn't matter whether we die here. See this class of prayer is hardly known. It's in the ninth chapter of Romans where Paul says I could wish myself a curse. Back in Exodus when Paul when Moses says this burden is so great for me kill me I can't bear it. Do you know anybody that's got soul passion like that today? I've got a burden for Tyler. I'd go on record as telling I don't care what it costs. If I spend the whole of the rest of my life in Tyler. If I become the most despised rejected man. If I lose most of my friends. I know some that would die with me. But you know we talk so often about Hannah bearing that baby. Year after year she went to the temple and she groaned and she wept. But there's another Anna isn't there? It's Hannah in the old testament and Anna in the new testament. And she was one of the prayer group that went and prayed with Simeon and others. How many years I don't know she's nearly a hundred years of age. And Simeon's old. And they believed that they would live to see the day when the Christ of God would come. Remember Simeon in the temple is overcome with joy and tears and he says now let your servant depart in peace. I've seen the salvation of God. Well if God would break out in in in Tyler and give us a move like that. I guess within a month of that I'd say Lord I'm I'm happy to go if you want me. I'd like to stay a bit longer. You see tears are not some fluffy thing that comes out just without emotions being stirred. When Jesus wept it wasn't some emotional thing. It was grief that was born of his anxiety for that people that he knew were going to be flooding the streets with their blood before long. And I remind you again as I said the other week remember we talk about tongues. Tongues isn't it wonderful so many people speak in it. So what? It's wonderful until you reckon there's a school not many miles from here with 120 students uh with 1250 students. Almost everyone speaks in tongues nobody knows they're in town. Only 120 in the upper room and they turn the city upside down. There are supposed to be what is it 15 million people in America at least that speak in tongues and approved they're filled with the Holy Ghost and half of them you couldn't drag them to a prayer meeting. Their displays are show off when there's an assembly there. Before the Huguenots were kicked out of France in the 1600s they were a quiet people like the Quakers. The Holy Ghost came and moved on them and to their amazement they spoke in tongues. But right after that came the bloody revolution that swept the monarchy into the garbage can where the French put up their tricolor liberty fraternity and equality. Then there was no move until in the middle of the 1700s of the 18th century when John Wesley came they didn't have tongues but they had one of the mightiest revivals in history. 1904 in Azusa Street in California there was great anointings of God and a number of those men were Nazarenes that were used of God. What happened that was 1904 10 years after the first bloodiest war in history came World War I. In between there was an outpouring of the Spirit in England. I remember in 1930s going to hear George Jeffreys what a preacher and there was an outpouring of the Spirit and thousands of people spoke in tongues. Then what happened that same horrible thing happened judgment fell. All through history before there has been a bloodshed, a bloodbath. God in mercy has visited his people with or without tongues but the Holy Ghost has come. There's been fantastic reaping of souls and now we say that the whole world in almost every country. Then judgments coming to every country. It's God giving a tumbric verse and saying you've seen this thing. Are you so blind? You can't see. Are you so deaf? You can't hear. Turn the pages of history. If you can't read your Bible, read history. And every time there's been a moving like that it's been followed by a bloodbath. I read that scripture it's a comfort to me. You know preachers actually tease me and say well Ramiel how long have you been praying for revival? 60 years at least. 60 years? We're no nearer now. Well we are at least by the calendar we're nearer. I'm not the only one. There used to be a couple of men lived in Pittsburgh when I first went there in 50. One was called Hyde and the other was called Whitehouse. They had some of the most remarkable ministries of this generation though there's not much said about them. They had power with God. They had power in prayer. They had power over demons. They had power over sickness. The average church doesn't have that anymore. Let the priest the ministers of the Lord weep between the altar and the doorpost. I don't know where the scripture is. It came to me just before I came to the meeting. Remember what time was it? Well at Nineveh remember how God visited them? Remember a time when a when one king put sackcloth even on the beasts in the field? You know many of us are arrogant and we don't know it. We're spiritually bankrupt and we don't know it. We're further from God than we think otherwise some awesome things will be happening. I know there's an undercurrent of prayer in Thailand. I'm glad of it. I want to be in it. I told God I'll go in public. I don't care what it costs me. It cost me my health. It cost me my house. If it cost me a lot of people who think I'm okay and then suddenly think I've gone berserk. I don't care. I want to see a company of people who can wield the power of the Holy Ghost in prayer and the devil fears to come in that area at all. The priest weep between the altar and the doorpost? No sir. You see this man Jonathan Edwards sure he preached that sermon but you know again he spent hours in travel. I have a facsimile of the letter of his daughter. She was about nine years of age. She said people think my daddy was just a hard stern rough preacher but they should hear him weeping in his closet. They should see my mother come out of her chamber as she says in the morning and she needs a veil over her face. She's rode radiant with God. Now the Christians think if they watch PTL in the morning they'll come back radiant or something. I hope they don't come back as ugly as Tammy. We've seen no glory. All we've seen is sermons and little bits of movements. Oh I've got some of my neighbors think I'm not quite there. You still believe that God will break in? Well he said he'll pour out his spirit and all flesh but only on presidents. Only on college professors. Only if you have a degree. Forget it. He says your sons and your daughters should prophesy. It's going to be a young people's revival. Young men will see visions and old men dream. And not my servants and handmaids. Not my bankers. Not your politicians. Not your leading TV stars. On my servants and handmaids. Again I'm so moved when I read this about this precious girl. At 13 years of age having repeated visitations of a holy God and saying she bathes in his immutable love and his grandeur and his majesty. Come on let me ask you when did you last do that? When did I last do it? It's not easy to say this. I've said it many times but I'll say it again. America is going to hell fire tonight because she's lost holy ghost fire. When I heard of those four fellows in that plane fighter planes following that team of murderers over the over at night time. They had to pick up and all the rest of it. I thought well bless the fellows. What a venture. Almost they could have been shot down killed themselves. Do you know what we need? We need some people who are reckless for God. Don't care about public opinion. Don't care what godly people say. What the ungodly say. But they get hold of the will of God and they run with it. Say you can beat me. You can chop me up if you like. I'm going to do God's will. I ask the question so often. Why should Tyler go to hell with all these churches in it? Do you know one church in Tyler where just one person is saved every week? Millions of dollars invested in property. Hours and hours spent training the choir but not much time in prayer. And it's only one city. But I know this. I know there are people in Tyler now asking when is the next move of God coming? We're anticipating there's something there's a rumbling underneath. And I'm sure there is. I say before God I'm not I'm not trying to be a hero. I don't care what it costs. You know I say that prayer is the gateway to intercession. Intercession is a gateway to travel. Travel is a gateway is a gateway to birth. See there are depths of prayer that I'm convinced we haven't touched yet. Dare you say to God I wish myself accursed. You know the Greek says I'll be damned if need be. If I can get out of your way and you can flow past me with your power move me. Moses says kill me. Another occasion he's so desperate says blot me out. Don't let my name ever be known. Don't regard me. Don't think of me. Blot me out. If that isn't a consuming passion tell me what is. I've got to think there and close here. I remember I've told you preaching in Ireland in a tin church tin building and behind me was a picture of a lovely lady. They married me and my mother. She kind of frizzy hair which you know nice ladies have. And a lace collar. And underneath it said Amy Wilson Carmichael. I couldn't believe it. She went out of that church with a curvature of the spine. She bought a one way ticket to India. Never came home. The last 13 years of her life had to be lifted in and out of bed. She had a curvature of the spine. She had weakness all her life. It was she I believe who wrote give me a love that leads the way. A faith which nothing can dismay. A hope no disappointments tire. A passion that will burn like fire. Let me not let me not sink to be a cloud. 95 pounds let me not sink to be a cloud. Make me thy fuel flame of God. I believe she too wrote give me a passionate passion for souls. Give me a pity that yearns. Give me a love that loves unto death. Give me a fire that burns. All for a prayer power that prevails to pour itself out for the lost. All for a prayer power that prevails to pour itself out for the lost. Victorious prayer wasn't it in the Savior's name. All for a Pentecost. You know we're so soon so so afraid of false fire we live without any fire. We're so afraid of some strange things happening. Well God wouldn't it be wonderful if they did in some of our churches. Think of the first baptist in church or green acres. If the spirit of prophecy came on some teenager there who last night was somewhere else and yet the night before he got concerned about his soul. God's going to do that. The clergy can sell their clothes. The revival that comes next time we won't be time to build buildings. We'll have fellowships in homes all over the place. You go down the street you'll hear the cries of hallelujah magnifying God. You go another block you'll hear people groaning and travailing in birth and up here you'll see people coming out exalting the Lord and saying my children have been born again. My drunken husband has been born again. Miracles are happening. We're so wanting physical miracles we're satisfied to live without spiritual miracles. And number one on God's list is spiritual miracles. Are you going out Ray? Are you going along with me as the preacher says? Well let me ask you this is it. I'm not doing this for any other reason except well to satisfy me. Is your heart wanting that what I've been talking about tonight? Do you want that in your heart? That fire that holy fire that burns. Why did this man maintain his attitude right through his long time? Why did they throw him in a pit and drag him out? Why did they shoot him up in prison? Why do the kings gloat over them? And yet he goes on. Why? Because he says God's word is like a fire burning in my bones. He can't hear the voices and then he's got the voice of God in him. He can't see the visible. He lives in the eternal that the temporal doesn't matter. Well I'm going to believe God for something to happen in Tyre. Believe him to do something in the town where you live. But you know if the glory of God falls in Tyre people will come two or three hundred miles to see what's happening. JB in Virginia will be on driving that big new car they've got. Breaking the speed limit to get here to see what God's doing. You see the more intensely you love God the more intensely you'll hate sin and you'll hate the devil. The more you have of purity the most you'll hate impurity. The more freedom you have the more you'll hate bondage and other people. The more sight you have the more you'll hate the blindness other people have. It's all there in the precious book of God. Ray do you want to say anything about India? Do you want to say anything about India before we pray? Yeah. Preachers. Yeah. There's a church has a some real big problem somewhere between uh Fort Worth and Dallas that needs our prayers. They very much need our prayers. I had a young man call me yesterday and he said I'm at a I've forgotten where it was it's a seminary anyhow a cemetery. But he said you know what I got my revival tariff a month ago in August and it's torn me up inside out and absolutely devastated me. But God started a prayer life in me and I've got with some other fellows now with a bunch of fellows praying and we feel the whole college is on the edge of a move. Some men of God are coming in during the next week or two pray for us. We have a dear lady up in Oylton we go to that little village sometimes. Tremendous prayer warriors. She's been up at five or four o'clock every morning for I don't know how many years interceding. I'm happy to be on her prayer list. I'm happy how this boys are on the prayer list. But she's been sick the last week and she's been losing weight. The doctor tried to get her to the doctors but she's held out against doctors for years. And she went the doctor discovered she has cancer of the colon and cancer of the liver. Why didn't some harlot get that? Why didn't some prostitute get that? Because God's stretching the mercy over that harlot, that prostitute. He could cut them off. He hates and he loathes them more than we do. They need mercy. This precious woman has lived with God and moved in God for years and years and years. But the ranks are thinning out. I'm praying I'm praying for some of your children by name. I'm praying that God will make them like this precious daughter of Jonathan Edwards. Consciously born again at five or four years of age. Vegetations from God at 14, 15 and 16. Does that make you hungry? One of these nights I'm going to come here and just give out a text and sit down. Go to immediate prayer. Well we're going to go to prayer now and if you have to go you're free to go. We're going to pray. Usually we finish half past 10, quarter of 11. Do you think the Russians might have got in? I need to pray for that. Good to have Jake, I always call him Caleb, Jacob back again. He's been in England. He said in some cities they're closing churches at the rate of eight a week. And one town they said 22 are closed. 22 churches are closed. But the report here it says England. The Islamic revival in Great Britain. The greater light, the greater the darkness when that light goes out. The country of Great Britain, once literally on fire with the message of Jesus Christ, produced some of the greatest spiritual war is in history. America owes much of its religious heritage to Great Britain, to the men and women of Great Britain. The sad thing is happening in Great Britain as well as the U.S. The light has gone out. This has paved the way of a religion and even Satan worship. Our own country is becoming inundated with Hinduism, Moonism, Buddhism, Mormonism, Krishnaism. You know I'm absolutely startled at the aggressiveness of iniquity and the somnolence of the church. We're sleeping while the house is on fire. God must do something. If he doesn't I don't want to live. I've had a good innings. I haven't always been the best boy in the class but anyhow I've caused the devil a bit of trouble here and there. But God wants to give one great drastic act of mercy to our generation. I'm sure of that. There are more lost people in the world tonight than any period in history. Therefore it's our greatest opportunity. I want you to pray for what's on your heart. Pray for India if that's your burden. Pray for Sweden if God burdens you for it. I'll pray for Thailand. I'm sure of that. Pray for this precious woman that's so destroyed now with this disease. Every ministry around here, this one, every one of them needs a quickening of the Holy Ghost. We can get so content in what we're doing and forget what he wants to do. Is he willing that any should perish? Not any. Well it's not any perishing it's many perishing. It was this man Jonathan Edwards you remember before the revival that prayed, God stamp eternity on my eyeballs. Stamp eternity on my eyeballs. Do you wonder he had a wife like that? Do you wonder they had a daughter like that? What's your ambition for your children? You want your boy to be a quarterback for the Cowboys? Some old drunkard wants the same thing. What do you want your daughter to be? Laid out before God. Give me a chair please. We're going to pray and if you want to go feel free to go anytime you like. Thank you.