In this sermon, the speaker discusses the significance of God leading the children of Israel through the wilderness with a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. He emphasizes that our God is a consuming fire, highlighting the power and presence of God. The speaker then shifts to discussing Peter's preaching, noting that it was powerful, pointed, and painful. He shares an anecdote about a little boy demonstrating the importance of watching and praying. The sermon concludes with a story about a small gathering where the speaker is encouraged by a message from his father about a woman and her son with a physical ailment, prompting him to preach a simple salvation message and offer healing.

All right, Acts 2 verse 1. When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. Last night, for the first time in an awful long while, my wife and I watched TV for maybe half an hour. And it had to do with the coming, if you want to call it baptism of fire on the world, the Holocaust. And it was dreadful, it was frightening. And it seemed to me, by the pain as I saw it, it just leapt up to my mind, here's the alternative, Pentecost or Holocaust. If there isn't a Pentecost, there'll be a Holocaust. If there is a Pentecost, there doesn't need to be a Holocaust. A few years ago, a paper that most of you don't take called Christianity Today, Karl Barth said it was Christianity Yesterday, but anyhow. Christianity Today sent out a questionnaire to 20 of the most brilliant preachers in America. They didn't all get one, I didn't, anyhow. But the questionnaire was this, what do you see for the Church of Jesus Christ by the year 2000? There were some very, very interesting answers to the question, I wish I'd kept them. There was one by Elton Trueblood, the great Quaker philosopher. There isn't Elton Trueblood in the Holiness work. He's called a walking Bible, because he can recite scriptures anywhere. Like the man we had here recently, who can recite scriptures backwards way. Has memorized every word in the Old Testament, can recite any given passage. He was down at Baylor University and somebody said, I understand, sir, that you're starting on the New Testament now. He said, yes. He said, well, what's Romans 12? He said, which way do you want it? What do you mean? You want me to start at the first verse to the last or the last? I can do it either way. So the shrimp of a student there shrank. I don't think they've found him since. Elton Trueblood said this, by the year 2000, the Church of Jesus Christ will be a conscious minority, surrounded by an arrogant, militant paganism. Well, I swallowed that hook line and sink and went to bed and did what I do so often, didn't sleep. I thought over it again and again. By the year 2000, the Church of Jesus Christ will be a conscious minority, surrounded by an arrogant, militant paganism. Well, why don't we back up to 15 years and come to 1985? Isn't that where we are now? Why don't we go back to the days of the apostles? They were surrounded by a very, very arrogant, militant paganism. I've said before, my dear wife and I were with a friend on the southern lip of the Grand Canyon. And if you've been there, you know there's a rock, it has the legend on, that the river you see across there is X number of miles away, 7 miles I think, 450 feet wide and 18 feet deep. And it flows at a certain speed. If you look down, you can see some of those Navajo Indians down there. If you're down there looking up, the wall on your left is a mile high. If you look at the wall on the right, the wall on the right is a mile high. As I looked at it, I thought, what would you do if you saw a two-year-old infant down there, by him or herself? Which way would you tell him to go? They sure couldn't swim across that rapid river. It's too deep, it's too broad, it's too fast. They couldn't climb the rocks a mile high. They couldn't climb the rock on this side a mile high. And that to me is a perfect picture of the church of Jesus Christ when it was born. The river in front of it was Israel's message. They thought they had at that time a monopoly on God. The wall of this side is a mile high. It's the intellectual part of the Greeks which was still in tremendous power. The wall on the left is a military wall, because you have the power of Rome, which had already spread to England 55 years before Jesus Christ was born. We used to live in a city called Bath in England. It was founded 55 years before Jesus Christ was born. And here is the infant church. A wall a mile high, the greatest military machine in the world to confront it that way. The intellectual power of the world to stop it this way. The religious power of the world to stop it that way. And then it got through all of them. Without financial appeals, without much training, shut up to God. That's where we're going to be before too long. I hope you're reading Dave's book and he's beginning to get some negative replies to it now. He got a lot of encouragement, but now preachers are getting a bit mad about it. I believe the overall picture is correct. I can't cross every T and dot every I, but I believe his main message in the book is awesome. Indeed it might be God's last call to America. If you know any, tell me what does Almighty God owe America? Do you know what thing he owes it? With 250,000 professional preachers? With 3,000 radio stations sending the message of the gospel out in some shape or form every day? With these stupid so-called Christian TV programs? With a beautiful Christian Disneyland there operated by PTO? What more do you want? They're going to build a large one. They've just bought 22 prime acres right down, would you believe it? Right down in the middle of the, what is it, Palm, not Palm Beach, Palm Springs, where Bob Hope and all the smart boys play. How long is God going to watch us squander our money, squander our strength, waste our time? Almighty God doesn't owe America that much. I live in America, I love America, I have an advantage over you, I came because I wanted to. You came because you were dumped here, most of you. Your parents just happened to drop you and go off somewhere. That's not totally true. Betty, don't look disgusted. Fight me afterwards. But we're back in the same situation. We're heading for the greatest baptism of fire, almost more dreadful than hell itself. When the day of Pentecost was fully come, there are three great Pentecosts in the Bible. The first is at the beginning of the Jewish age, the second is at the beginning of the church age, and the third at the beginning of the millennial age, or what we call the kingdom. Often preachers refer to the church as the kingdom of God. That's nonsense. What did Jesus say? After this man I pray, our Father which art in heaven, send us a church. It's not an alternate use of the word. Thy kingdom come. Jesus says the kingdom of God is within you, but there's going to be an ultimate kingdom too. So there's a Pentecost at the beginning of the Jewish age, a Pentecost at the beginning of the church age, and a Pentecost at the beginning of the kingdom age. There are three periods of supernatural darkness in the history of the world. They were terrible. And they're all dark days of judgment leading to Pentecost. You remember that the children of Israel were in Egypt? They got out of Egypt. Fifty days after they got out of Egypt, and Pentecost means fifty. Fifty days that they got out of Egypt, what happened? The law was given on the mount. That was the outpouring of the spirit in the shape of truth. Any nation in the world can live if it obeys the Ten Commandments. No nation on the world can live if it denies them or breaks them. It's a case if you fall on the stone, you'll get hurt. If it falls on you, you'll be crushed to pieces. I don't know what all the books are mentioned in the judgment seat. I'm going to preach at a church a week next Thursday night in Dallas, and by God's grace, I'm going to preach on the judgment seat. Judgment of sinners, a judgment nobody mentions, and that's to preachers. Not only judge for what we've preached, but judge for why we preached it. Not only judge for what we've preached, but judge for what we held back. We were afraid to preach. By the same token, every deed you and I have done, God is going to test it. Not for what we did only, but why we did it. God is a God who checks motives. All double standards will be exposed. It's going to be an awful day. Some preachers will have worked 25, 30 years, and when it gets to the judgment, all their works will be woe days double. They'll be consumed. They'll be weeping and gnashing their teeth, as far as I understand the scripture. Three dark days of supernatural darkness. The first day of darkness was in Egypt, and at the close of that judgment on Egypt, the children of Israel, of course, went over, got delivered, and what did they do? They had a celebration. It was the first Pentecost, which is still perpetuated amongst the Jews. Isn't that true? Still perpetuated. Three dark days in the history of the world. The first was on Egypt, the close of the judgment on Egypt, and that night, the firstborn of Egypt died. The second dark day was the day Jesus died on the cross. In the first dark day, the sons of men died. In the second dark day, the Son of God died. In the third dark day, which is going to be at the end of the age, it's mentioned, I guess, there in Matthew 24, and it says in Matthew 24, 29, immediately after the tribulation of those days, you see, all these days of judgment, of darkness, are days of judgment. And immediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened, the moon shall not give her light, the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken. So what? In the first dark period, the sons of Egypt died. In the second dark period, the Son of God died. In the third dark period, the son of the devil dies, the Antichrist. On that second judgment again, God passed the judgment of the world's sin upon the Lord Jesus. Not only it's sin, but it's human depravity. I've seen pictures all over the world. I like to go to art galleries, not modern art. And I've gone to art galleries in different parts of the world and asked, what kind of religious pictures do you have? And I've seen some very crude and almost rude pictures of Jesus on the cross. The fact is, nobody saw Jesus die, not even the Father. There was an old Egyptian philosopher, and on the day Jesus died, in Egypt even, was covered with darkness, as well as Israel. And the old philosopher said, either God is grieving over somebody, or he's angry with somebody. Well, it was both. It was the anger of God against sin, and he was grieving over his son. It was too awesome. In that moment when mercy and truth met together, and righteousness and peace, God turned his face away. And Jesus cries in agony. You remember, Lama, lama, sepakthani, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I can understand Peter, he was never very strong. John wasn't too strong. But why has almighty God forsaken me? There's an old hymn, there were ninety and nine that safely lay. A verse in that hymn says, none of the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters crossed, nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through, ere he found his sheep that was lost. Lord, whence are those blood drops all the way that mark out the mountain track? They were shed for one who had gone astray, ere the shepherd could bring him back. I guess I've said this before, I'll say it again. Two things missing in the modern church. Number one is a sense of the awesome majesty of the holiness of God. And because we've lost sight of his holiness, we've lost sight of sin. Sin is flimsy. Preachers get anybody to the altar for anything. God held them at the judgment. There are more abortions at the altar than there are in hospitals. And these are spiritual abortions, eternal abortions. The outpouring of the Spirit of God in the first Pentecost was the outpouring of truth. God gave us there the Ten Commandments. The second outpouring was on Mount Zion, the temple, was where God wrote the law again. Not on tables of stone, but on the table of their hearts. And he gave them the power by the Spirit to live out in perfect love every commandment that God had made. And finally there's that awesome darkness and the Antichrist thrown into the pit. But there's an unveiling of the splendor and the majesty of God. One chronic deficiency about Christians, we're so miserably earthbound. We're so swanky with our fancy cars, our fancy living. There's no distinction amongst most Christians, between Christians and sinners. We're just as greedy for money. We're just as greedy to be exposed. I want to be popular. I want to be famous. Forget it. Once you get in the limelight, you'll wish to God you weren't there. What I'm really concerned about is this second Pentecost. I better get to it here. When the day of Pentecost was fully come. Now I've read, I'll make a guess. I've read, I think, 50 different interpretations about this first part. When the day of Pentecost was fully come. I didn't find out till this week really what it was all about. I've read that those men were in the upper room, they were cringing, they were fearful. In the upper room they were, pardon me, when, before Jesus came to them, they were afraid of the Jews and there they were herded all together. And Jesus came and breathed on them and said, receive ye the Holy Ghost. You see, they had the Holy Ghost before Pentecost. John Wesley called that the witness of the Spirit. Jesus breathed on them. Remember he breathed on Abram, A-B-R-A-M, Abraham. Changed it. The skeletons all began to fly. I'd like to have seen that. I'm going to see it one day in some church, I'm sure. Whenever I see a stack of old cars, I'm reminded of that marvelous stack of bones. I don't know, a mile high, a mile broad if you like. You think you've got a tough job preacher. How do you like to go preach in a bone yard? Would you like to go there, brother? You'll be there when it comes to life again maybe. And the prophet spoke and the bones began to fly through the air and, you know, the knee bone met the other bone and the back bone met the other bone and the colored people used to sing that. You remember that? Marvelous old song. Do you sing it? Do you ever sing it? I'm going to ask you to sing it so you got away with it tonight. It's a marvelous song though. I think it's wonderful. So instead of a stack of bones, you've got skeletons. Boy, they look lovely. The bones were together and then the sinews came on the bones. That looked a big improvement. Then the flesh came on the sinews and then the skin came on the flesh. God could have done it like that. He could have made the world in one minute, never mind seven days, but he didn't. He could have purified you, sanctified you, edified you and made you a complete Christian ten years ago. It's not God's fault you're dumb. And some of you look real dumb tonight, but anyhow, it's not God's fault. I remind you again that whether you take Finney or Wesley or anybody, not one man that ever lived ever had a bigger Bible than I have. The only thing he knew how to use it. I had a man in my home this week on Monday that has spent nine years in seclusion and he's written 80 exercise books full of notes that God has given to him. Had marvelous revelations and inspiration. A man in my office today, a world-famous preacher, and he said, I'm going to shut myself away for prayer for some days or some weeks. When the day of Pentecost will fully come, let me take you to where the beginning of this is. You know, I guess in a world like this, when folk come along and talk to all these young people, they say, remember the last words of Jesus. We'll go into all the world and preach to God. They weren't. That was his last word to the disciples. The last word of Jesus was repent. Six or seven times over in Revelation. What's it saying in Luke? Let me find this. I'm trying to work from some notes, and as you know, I never use notes, so I'm falling over my notes. The last chapter in Luke says, chapter 24, verse 49, Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you that tarry in the city of Jerusalem. You see, he said go, but he said stay. We could get rid of 50% of the missionaries around the world and the temperature wouldn't drop one degree. I remember preaching in that great Calvary Baptist Church in New York. About 45 people stayed back for prayer, and I preached a message I love, Isaiah 6. And I said, go home, get a sheet of paper, put your name at the top and the date, and write down what you know is wrong with your life. When you've exhausted it, draw a line underneath and say, Spirit of God, you reveal to me what's wrong. A few months after I was preaching in that great historic church of A.B. Simpson on 8th Avenue, wonderful church. I grouched that desk and put my feet where A.B. Simpson used to stand and thought, what a marvelous thing to stand here. Didn't make me preach like him. I did preach one night, and an old lady came, she said, you know who you reminded me of tonight? No, A.B. Simpson. He used to preach just like you. Well, of course, I told her he didn't copy me, but anyhow. People say the call is the need, or the need is the call. That's wrong. I can prove that very easily to you, because that's exactly what Moses thought. Didn't he think that the need was the call and it got him into trouble? Go. Everybody wants to be on the go. You know, when you begin to find how mature you are, you'll find it by sitting still. There's lots of people who've gone that should never have gone. There are lots of people sitting still who should go. And the thing is to know the mind of God. And he led them out as far as Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them and carried up into heaven, and they worshipped him. What do you wonder what they'd do? They worshipped him and ran to Jerusalem with what? Now, people say they were there in the upper room, they were weeping, they were mourning, they were repenting, they were fasting. Do you know what they were doing? They were rejoicing. From the mountain where he was lifted up and got to the temple and suddenly everybody froze up. They'd seen him go. He said, I go to prepare a place. I can imagine him saying, he's gone, he's gone, we can die tomorrow, he'll have a place, he'll be ready when we get up there anyhow. They had seen him fulfil his word. I go to prepare a place. And he had been caught up into the heavenlies. They were continually in the temple. Well, where were they in Acts 2? They were in the temple, in one of the upper rooms of the temple, waiting there. Waiting for what? Why were they happy? For number one, they were obedient, they'd done as he told them. And obedience always brings happiness. If you've no joy, check on yourself, maybe you're disobedient somewhere. But obedience always brings, may not bring you money, may not make you popular, but it brings inward peace, it brings an inward joy, it brings an inward sense of satisfaction. Obedience brings happiness. So they were all there in the upper room. And they were continually in the temple. They didn't just run in and come out, they were going to tarry. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And you know what they were doing? They knew that every time God had promised to Pentecost, that as in the case of when the paschal lamb was slain, it was 50 days after that, that the revelation was given on Mount Sinai. These were Jewish men, they were learned, wise. They knew that there would be 50 days after. I believe, by the pain with all my heart, they were rejoicing and saying, one day less, only 45 to go, only 43, only 42. Oh boy, it's coming quickly. He told them to go to tarry. Hmm. Let me read this again here. When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly, I love that word suddenly. Didn't Malachi say, the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come? Wasn't it while shepherds were watching their flocks by night that suddenly history was changed and the angels came proclaiming that Christ had come? Suddenly, there was a sound of a heavenly host and they weren't singing, get it straight, they were shouting. I can't find a place in the scriptures where angels sing. They're going to sing, but they're waiting for us to help them, you see, so they're going to have to wait a while. But this thrills me. They were at the countdown. People were passing and saying, you know, there's a bunch of folk up there, they've been in there, they say, about 35 days, 40. Nuts, they're crazy. What were they waiting for? A celebration. Of what? Of the second greatest birth in history. The greatest birth was the birth of Jesus and the Holy Ghost came and filled the empty womb of the Virgin and the Holy Ghost has come and filled the empty womb of those men, the empty mind, the empty hearts. Filled with God? If you think you need a status symbol after you're filled with the Holy Ghost, you've got mental trouble. The greatest status this side of eternity is to be filled and have the Holy Ghost bear witness in his own way that you're filled with God. Oh, we've got churches where they pray, O Spirit of God, you're welcome today. I ask you in God's name, if the Holy Ghost came to them as he came to them, there'd be panic. The Lord didn't say, all get together and be quiet and if you hear a noise like a rushing mighty wind, don't get nervous. If somebody speaks in tongues, don't panic and run to the door. He didn't mention a word about tongues. He didn't mention a word about the noise. But they were in subjection, they were obedient to him and the Spirit bears witness. This brought a new revelation to me in reading this chapter. I've read so many interpretations of it. The day of Pentecost was fully come. They were all with one accord. I'll tell you what they weren't doing in those ten days. They weren't picking fault with each other. Thomas wasn't saying, you know Peter, you're still vacillating in your heart. Peter wasn't saying, you know Thomas, you're doubting. You don't believe anything will happen. There was a common need. They were in poverty. Remember, these were the most disgusted, dissatisfied, dissatisfied, disappointed men in the world. They'd followed a man, they'd given up their businesses, they'd invested time and money and everything they had to follow this little carpenter fellow and he ends up on a cross. Is that any way to start a kingdom? It's the only way to start a kingdom. Do you know why God won't bless you? Because you won't die, that's why. You want to keep your stuffy little package of notes and sermons and go off and set the world on fire and you've a heart like a refrigerator. The Holy Ghost was going to come in his own way and he's going to come in his own way in America. Nobody's going to lay the track down and say, Holy Ghost, you're welcome as long as you keep with our theology. Again, I am really honestly amazed they didn't panic. What's this terrifying, oh there must be a tornado or something. Nobody panicked. They had a peace because they were in the will of God, because they were obeying God. And if the place had fallen apart, they'd still have had that same tranquility. Oh, what of a God we have. I say they were waiting for a second birth. The angels have stood there, shall I say flabbergasted or awed, that the heaven of heavens cannot contain God and yet he's crammed into the womb of a virgin. How do you explain it? You can't explain it. How amazing he took these men that were so defiled, these men that had failed him so much, and he gave them another chance. Suddenly, you know, there's a big conference coming up next week, it's going to be a battle there at the Southern Baptist Church in Dallas. You know, we've prayed here and I've prayed during the week that somehow some man will stand up, he isn't scheduled to preach, and suddenly the Holy Ghost will come upon him and he'll scare them all to death. He'll be indecent, he'll jump on the pew and prophesy. Oh, they'll pull him down, but maybe he'll pull the house down too. You know, God has a way of taking the nobodies and making them somebodies till they're known by everybody. He did that with Moses. He was a nobody, he became a somebody, he's known to everybody. What happened? Well, it says that there came a rushing mighty wind that appeared unto them cloven tongues as of fire. Have you noticed the bishops? Well, even the Pope has a hat that goes up like that, but it's split in the middle. It's supposed to represent the two tongues, the split tongue. It's a cloven tongue. For what reason? I believe to bear testimony to the Old Testament being true and to bear testament to the New Testament being true. A cloven tongue to me represents regeneration and sanctification, purity and power. Isn't it amazing? The Lord didn't come as a big hand on them. Be serious about it. If you saw now suddenly a tongue came, a curly flame on the head of this precious sister here, this and this and go around there, would you beat it to the door? I mean, that's the Holy Ghost that comes so many times. Would you stay out of curiosity? Would you be frozen? Or would your heart be open and say, God, come my way. Do as you like. I don't care so long as something comes that's revolutionizing my life. He come with cloven tongues as of fire. I'm sick to death of plastic preaching, fireless preaching, powerless preaching. I'll make a stab at this. I'll answer it at the judgment seat. You know, I believe that Almighty God, I believe the Holy Ghost has forsaken 99% of the churches in America and England as far as I go. And we don't know his God. We get preachers who are eloquent and they have zeal and they may stake allegiance and zeal for anointing. And you know there's nothing, it can produce an immediate result, but not a lasting result. People are stirred emotionally, they're stirred soulishly. What happened? Tell you what it says in the second chapter. Am I right in saying that fire is the chosen emblem of God's glory and majesty, divine authority? What led the children of Israel through the trackless wilderness, a pillar of fire by night, a pillar of a cloud during the day? Our God is a consuming fire. You see 10,000 times or 10 million times on the back of an automobile, God is a God of love. For everyone to see, God is a consuming fire. Peter began to preach. He's a spokesman here, you know that. How did he preach? Did he say, gentlemen, in my opinion? Or somebody just found a spare leaf of the gospel according to Mark down at that wonderful place called Oxyrhynchus, you know, on the side of the Nile where you sometimes go for swimming. This man has been shut up with God for 10 days. Brother, if you shut yourself up with God and talk to nobody but God, your preaching will change too. It was powerful preaching. Why? Ye shall receive power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you. It was pointed preaching. Ye crucify the Lord of glory. It was painful preaching. Why? They were pricked in their heart. In other words, they were needled. I go for a blood check-up about, what, every month at the hospital. I went the other week and the guy that stuck the needle in was used to digging trenches. The attendant usually comes and puts the needle in just the tip of the needle and, boy, she gets that big thing of blood. I said, are you going to bring it back? Oh, I need another one. Well, bring that one back. This guy didn't do that. He got the needle in and he pushed it way up my arm. I thought, mercy, he'll come out at the other side. And then he couldn't get the syringe to work so he pulled it out. And he put another one in and that wouldn't work. So he went to the other arm and worked that. He weighed 300 pounds. I might have punished him. I don't know. But anyhow, we don't get much preaching like this. God pity us anymore. These men whose hearts were encrusted with unbelief and tradition and religious orthodoxy that followed God every detail of their lives according to the calendar of the Hebrews. And yet when poor Peter begins to preach, they quicken. You know, there's a unique thing said about John the Baptist. He's one of my favorite characters. There's something said about him that isn't said about Jesus. It says he was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. It doesn't say that of Jesus. Not only was he filled with the Holy Ghost, his mother was filled with the Holy Ghost. His father was filled with the Holy Ghost. His preacher was filled with the Holy Ghost. Well, God help us, what kind of a man do you expect him to be? If he's got a father filled with the Holy Ghost, a mother filled with the Holy Ghost, a preacher filled with the Holy Ghost, I don't wonder he could go into the desert for 30 years and live amongst wild bees. Most preaching, you couldn't live on it 30 hours. 30 minutes is killing. I can't tell you how I pined in my spirit as I read this. 99% of the people that go to church on Sunday, whether the Pentecost or the Presbyterian, they do not go to meet God. They go to hear a sermon about God. If God showed up, supposing they'd had the gifts of the Spirit in the upper room as they were waiting and John starts picking fault with somebody and says, you've got this in your life and you've got that, but they didn't. There was such a common need. They were all humiliated, not only humble. You see, if a Christian, you've got one of two choices as a Christian, to be humble or be humiliated. If you're not humble, God will tear you apart and your ministry apart, make you look a fool, make you look an idiot. He's not concerned how well you preach, about your eloquence, how many come to the altar. He's concerned about your character. If you've no character, don't count a hill of beans. God was going to make these men holy. When they heard that, they were pricked in their hearts and said to Peter and the rest of the brethren, what shall we do? You see, in revival, people make the altar call. You don't have to make an altar call. There are no altar calls in the New Testament anyhow. They're artificial. We try to help God out. We sing some whining little chorus, there's room at the cross for you and everybody gets sloppy and crying, and come to the altar where they've been 50 times before anyhow. I preached at Jimmy's Fraggers the other week there. I didn't think I had too good a time the first day. In fact, I thought I fell flat. You've had experiences like that, Jacob. Don't tell me you haven't. Don't look so sanctified right now. Second day, God, the glory came down. In fact, they said the course of the school changed that day. They've said it repeatedly since. Not because I was there, but God came. I didn't have to make an altar call. They flooded the altar. They laid in the pews. They couldn't even get to the altar. They were so shaking that all in the pews they were laid out, young men and women, seeking God. We don't get much conviction. The least preached aspect or ministry of the Holy Spirit today is when he comes, he shall bring conviction. We skip that. On my desk somewhere, I have a little portrait written by a girl nine years of age. She was the daughter of Jonathan Edwards, who preached that awesome, unrepeatable sermon of sinners in the hands of an angry God. You remember how he preached? And as he preached, people fell off their seats and clung to the pillars holding the rest of the building up. And instead of saying, pardon me, I didn't expect this confusion, he lashed them and lacerated them. He whipped into them with the word of God until they thought they were mincemeat almost. Dear God, we get people to be saved who don't know they're lost. We're asking them to come into the kingdom. They haven't the first idea. Oh, well, I've always been a good church member. Friend, God's first argument with you is not that you're bad, it's that you're dead. And that's not very flattering. You to a group of intellectuals, go to scholars, go to universities and begin to tell them that they're dead with all their brilliance, with all their genius, they're dead in their relationship to God. They said, Peter, watch what we do. I say his preaching is very plain, very powerful, very practical, very painful, because the Holy Ghost is upon him. Doesn't the psalmist say in one place, my heart was hot within me and then I spoke? The trouble today, we have too many dead preachers giving out dead sermons to dead people. Again, I'm going to tell you, I believe with all my heart that in Adobero, they were in a state of ecstasy. They couldn't contain themselves. Just another two days and the Holy Ghost that came down on the Virgin, he's going to come down on us. Her womb was empty, our lives were empty, our brains were empty, he had to come to quicken their wills. He had to come to quicken their consciences. Oh, the idea is now you get to fill her Holy Ghost and you prosper. Do you know what they did? When they were filled with the Holy Ghost, do you know what their course was? Prison, persecution and poverty. Preach that in a full gospel business meeting and see how you get on. You get filled with the Holy Ghost and watch it, where will you go? You'll go where those other men have gone. They put them in prison. They were poor, they had nothing. Isn't that an awesome word? It is to me where Paul says, I have nothing and yet I possess all things. Now we've got everything. We've got young preachers who have all the answers, know all the theology, know all that's going to happen, know all the in-quote church history world without end. But they don't leave any revivals. Come on, sweetheart, get in the car. It's two o'clock in the morning, there'll be nobody there. Poor fool. Everybody in town thought there'd be nobody there. I tried to get up this street and I backed away. I went round another street, it was jammed. The light going up, they spoke, here's the fire. I'm going up different streets, couldn't get in. Finally, I said, Martha, dear, we can get down here. I left the car there and stupid me, I said, come on sweetheart, come on, come on, hurry, hurry, hurry. When I got near it, it knocked me flat nearly. It was a big cotton mill. There's a lot of oil in the floors. That thing had been up a hundred years. Gathering oil, dry wood and oil, cotton. Oh boy, did it make a bonfire. Well, that's exactly what Pentecost was. It was a spiritual bonfire. You see, fire has an awful habit of going out. Oh, you missed something, Mr. Ray. Yes, I missed a few things. You missed telling us that when they were filled with the Holy Ghost, they spoke in tongues. Yes, they did. Do you know what kind language is? Not unknown tongues. I met an old man some years ago and he said, you've read Hudson Taylor? I said, I used to live in a house opposite where he lived. He lived there before me. My daddy was coming down the Yangtze river on one of those old slow steamers. And you know, they don't have chairs there. They have seats like you have in a stadium in racks. And he said, my daddy was almost on the front one. He wanted to get the breeze from the Yangtze river, big old yellow river there. And he turned around and saw a venerable gentleman and said, excuse me, sir. They began to talk with him. And the man said, well, you're a missionary too? Yes. Have you received the Holy Ghost? No. And he said, he reached forward. My daddy could almost, could feel his beard on his hair. And he said, he reached forward and raised hands, his hands on my daddy and prayed. And suddenly my dad started speaking in tongues. Who was the man that did it? Hudson Taylor. A man that never spoke in tongues in his life. And then he laid his hands on a man in front of him who was a stranger and immediately the man burst like a bomb. Well, you know, in the last Pentecost, again, God is going to pour out his Spirit on all flesh. And not by your leave, with it or without it, he's going to do as he wants to do. It's Holocaust or Pentecost. And the biggest hindrance to revival is not humanism, preaching as much as you like. It's not humanism. It's not communism. It's not Mormonism. It's not Moonism. The biggest hindrance to revival in the church today is uncleanness in the church. You say, well, they spoke in tongues. Yes, they spoke in tongues. In Corinth, they spoke in tongues. Spoke in unknown tongues. You know what tongues are for? Well, the script is explicit. It says they're not for the believer. They're a sign for the unbeliever. There's a very godly, holy man in the assemblies of God years ago by the name of Follet. Dr. Follet. His forebears came to America in the 1600s when the Huguenots were persecuted in France. They had an awakening by the Spirit. Very sedate, wonderful, godly, holy people. And one day the Holy Ghost came on them and the whole gathering of them, hundreds of them, began to speak in tongues. Right after that you had the French Revolution. Tongues, every time they've come in history, have been a sign of coming judgment. The Huguenots had marvelous movings of the Spirit of God. They got kicked out of France. Not many years after that, you remember they had that bloody revolution when they kicked the monarchy into the garbage can and they put up their tricolour of red, white, and blue and they put on liberty, fraternity, and equality. But the warning was when the tongues came in the church of coming trouble. I remember the 4th of August 1914. I was a tiny boy but I remember war was declared because my cousin went to war. Right before that we'd had the Jeffery brothers in England. Little Stephen, only about 5 foot 1, the height of Wesley. No training. He bought himself a dog collar as we call it. Took his Bible, went and rented halls with no money. He rented a big Victoria Hall in Sunderland because we went up some years after and people who were in that revival remembered it. Little man comes to town, started Monday afternoon, my goodness. They don't start meetings Monday afternoon. The women are tired with washing and the children are something else. He said to his song leader, open the door, see how many are in. He said, how many seats do we have? He said, 3,300. He said, well, there are 3,000, what? 3,200 empty. What? He said, close the meeting. Sing a hymn, let's go down to Dundee, down the River Tay. What does a man do, what does a spirit do? He guides men to do ridiculous things. Stephen said, are you sure? Yes sir, he said, there are not 100 people in the place. Why don't we close it? We can't even pay for the lighting. He said, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I was talking to my father this morning and he said, Sam, this afternoon you'll only have a handful of people. There'll be a woman there and she'll have a little boy at the side of her. The boy has a boot five inches deep, he has a short leg. Just preach a simple salvation message. Ask people if they want to be saved. Nobody will raise their hand. Anybody wish to be healed? The lady will raise her hand and tell you she has a little boy. You think that's going to happen? No, I don't think so at all. It's going to happen. Sure, God told me. So he preaches and he never preached very loud or very eloquently for a Welshman. And at the end he said, anyone wish to be saved? Raising a hand, no hand. Anybody wish to be healed? My little boy has a deep boot, five inches. Bring him on the platform. And he had said to the song leader, I'm going to lay hands on him. The little boy will put his boot on and run for life. And mother will run after him and all the congregations are after her. But tonight there won't be an empty seat. There'll be 3,300 people in. Everything happened as he said. Bring the little boy on the platform. So everybody remembered the scripture, watch and pray. They all prayed like this, you know. Watch and pray. They watched to see what was going on. And he knew they were watching because when the leg dropped everybody, ha! The little boy ran off, mother ran after him. They went through the town. Do you know what happened? You've not got a man in America or anywhere in the world could do this. You can have Billy Graham and Oral Schwaggart and all the rest of them. Oral Roberts and Jimmy Roberts and Oral Schwaggart. I'd like to see those three men work together. They couldn't have meetings like this man had. No money, no backing, no advertising, just a little notice, a tiny thing in the paper. You'd have to have big glasses to find it. But he was coming to town for three weeks. He had meetings morning, afternoon and evening. You see people going down the chair, a big deacon with a chair on his back. People took their camp beds and put them all around the building because by law in England you can't stay in a building after a closing time. You couldn't at that time. To enter the place at 10 o'clock. People walked around the building to get a place. They stood in the wretched English weather, sleep, five o'clock in the morning. You see a woman coming down the street. The man on the little camp bed would get up and shake the snow off him or the wet. He kept that seat for his wife. And for three weeks that went on. Not only went on, it lasted there for years because I went into that town three years after, about three years. We had a crusade there and got the aftermath of that. But you see we've got to have financial backing. We've got to have this, we've got to have that. Well have it! And the longer you live on the flesh, God will let you live on the flesh. I had a multi-millionaire in my office this week telling me how he gave millions away. He's been giving preachers $10,000 watches with diamonds all around. I said you see this? Cost me $150 and you know it's over time just like yours. He said yes, yes, yes. He's been giving Rolls Royces away. I didn't need his money. And a man came in the afternoon that wants to do a job for God and he hasn't got a penny. The man in my office today, a millionaire, maybe a multi-millionaire. I never ask people for a dime. Why should I? I've got all God promised me. Food and clothing and a house. He didn't promise any more. If ever I grumbled at the supper table, mother would say, well mother there's no jam left, it's only bread and margarine and a cup of tea. It's more than God promised. He promised you bread and water. You've got butt on it, so be grateful. You haven't got water, you've got some tea leaves in it, so drink it. I have an idea God's going to cut us all down to size within the next five years. We've lived so extravagantly, we've wasted time, we've wasted money, wasted opportunities. Oh well, the Spirit of God came. He came in tongues of living flames to teach, convince, subdue. Powerful as the wind he came and viewless too. And his gentle voice we hear, soft as the breath of even, that checks each thought and calms each fear and speaks of heaven. I don't wonder the world isn't attracted to our meetings. Our God isn't big enough. When he comes with tongues of living flame, when he starts doing the work instead of the preacher trying to pick everybody off, it's a very different thing. He comes as a spirit of fire and he convicts of coldness. He comes as a spirit of power and he convicts of weakness. He comes as a spirit of life and he convicts of death. He came to these men, and what happened? They had no fear. No fear of man, no fear of the organised religion of the day, no fear of death, no fear of threats, no fear of judges. They were fearless. God hath not given us a spirit of fear, but the spirit of love and power in us our minds. And we lose down. We lessen our hold on God as it were, and he lessens his hold on us. He's a spirit of victory and he convicts of death. He's a spirit of joy and he convicts of dullness. He's a spirit of fruitfulness and he convicts of barrenness. He's a spirit of peace and he convicts of rebellion in the heart. This is a wild guess again. I doubt if any of us have been in a real Holy Ghost meeting that balances up to the New Testament. What if we all rushed to church Sunday with the expectation these men had? Do you know what he said? He's going to send the Holy Spirit upon us. He said, the only thing I require of you is obedience. I ask you to wait. You don't understand. As I've said to you often, God doesn't owe you an explanation. Go do it. What do you want an explanation for? Immediately we want an explanation, we doubt God. Go do it. As the mother of Jesus said, whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. Okay, these men saw their Lord offended and they went all the way back to Jerusalem. And I'm sure again they didn't stop at the door of the temple. They went into the temple and they were still praising and magnifying God, adoring him, worshipping him, saying he's coming in a day or two because Pentecost means 50 and it's 50 days since they put him on the tree or since he was resurrected. And he's coming in all his splendor and coming in all his power. Again, we don't go to meet God. We go to hear a sermon about God. But one of these days he's going to come. You can't announce him. You can announce a preacher if it's any good. You can't announce the time. He comes unexpectedly. He comes as a rushing mighty wind. He comes as a cloven tongue of fire. He comes as a spirit of conviction when people wriggle. You can preach your heart out to men and try and bring conviction by using fantastic illustrations. It's useless. I've tried it for years. I've seen when God has come on the community when we were in England. We had no money. We had a tent seat of about 700 people. We walked the length and breadth of England. We couldn't afford bicycles, never mind cars. We slept in fields. We went to churches and said we have sleeping bags. Can we sleep on your floor? I'll tell you what we did. We just about prayed more hours than we were awake and fasted as much as we had to fast. We had no money for food anyhow. But do you know what happened? This past year, I got invitations to go preach the 50th anniversary of two churches we raised up. Fifty years ago, those churches were established. They're still going strong. I asked my dear brother the other day, what's the difference between the baptism of the Spirit and the Acts of the Apostles and the baptism of the Spirit now? And he gave me the answer. I wanted it, because it's the same answer I had myself. I've had preachers from all over the world, all kinds of denominations, and I've said, well, you said there were 120 in the upper room. Now we've got at least 120. We've maybe 520 churches full of the Holy Ghost. Not people, but churches full of people full of the Holy Ghost. In Dallas alone, nobody knows we're there. Aldo Roberts has 4,000 students. He said, oh, filled with the Holy Ghost, nobody knows we're there. I'll tell you where they'll go tomorrow night. They have a special disco of their own. That's what they have. These Spirit-filled students have rented a hall down in Tulsa, where they have their own disco. You see, they don't want to disco with some of these scruffy girls and scruffy fellows, so they get sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost so they can dance better. One of the big churches on the East Coast, David told us, what, three weeks ago, Sunday morning. One of the churches had got this aerobic dancing, and then dancing in the Spirit. Now, Saturday night is ballroom dancing in the church. They dance in the flesh Saturday night and dance in the Spirit Sunday. Where in God's name are we going? Again, the Spirit is the Spirit of joy. The more joy you have in God, the less entertainment you need. Entertainment is the devil's substitute for joy. Those crazy Englishmen last week went to a football match from Liverpool. That's where the Beatles came from. That's where Bob Hope came from. Hopeless Bob, he came from there. Oh, where are the sedate gentlemen of England? They're gone. Same in any country. But they don't see anything very majestic about our living. The way we conduct ourselves, our integrity, integrity has gone down the drain. A man will make you a promise, he won't keep it. Of course, he's full of the Holy Ghost, because he speaks in tongues. He has one or two miracles. Where's integrity? Where's character? All we do is stress that they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues. Okay. The great weakness of modern Pentecost is it emphasizes power without purity. When the Holy Ghost is given in Acts 15, 8 and 9, verses 8 and 9, and Peter's reporting to the big shots, and he's telling them the Holy Ghost has come to these people, he says, God who knoweth the heart, bear them witness, that's in the house of Cornelius, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us. And everybody says, well, then they spoke in tongues. It doesn't say so. Maybe they did. But the second half of the text is so important, purifying their hearts by faith. These men were already miracle workers before Pentecost. We've cast out devils in thy name. We've done everything you did, Jesus, we've repeated. And yet they were unclean. God is looking for a sanctified people, a pure people, a holy people. That'll take care of your preaching. That'll take care of your witnessing. It was a tongue. The tongue is the organ, obviously, of speech. It's the way we communicate. And when a man is on fire, you know the way he communicates. It's by the tongue we bear witness, it's by the tongue we preach, it's by the tongue we prophesy. And these men became prophets and became preachers of a breed that had never been seen on God's earth before. And when we get humble enough and broken enough and helpless enough to get to his feet and cry for that cleansing, we'll get it. Cry for that anointing, we'll get it. It's costly. You can't get through with the Holy Ghost your way. You get through with the Holy Ghost God's way. If it means ten days on your face, so what? I'm finding more and more men, these preachers, who are going away for a week, not leaving a telephone number. They don't always know where they're going. I'll call him and see how he's getting on. Be still and know that I'm God, is as much a command as be through with the Spirit. You can't show me a man that's ever made his mark for God in this country or any other, any man of God who hasn't had periods when he set himself up. Some little boy, Evangelist, I'm through with this little boy, Evangelist, wrote to me at the beginning of the year. He sent me a schedule. He had 35 planned revivals out of 52 weeks. And he thinks he's working for God. He is. He's working for God, he's not working with God. If the flesh isn't cut out in us, God will let it wear out in us. He'll wear everything that we lean on, every crutch, everything we have. He'll let it break and show us our poverty, and show us our vanity, and show us our pride, that he may become all in all to us. We need to pray a little while. You know, Melody and the crowd over at the California for this pro-life rally. I had a marvellous thing this week. Our first seven years in America were at Bethany Fellowship. And they were just coming up. I remember when they were poor. But it's been amazing how they've expanded. Do you know where they're going now? They're going to start a Bethany Fellowship up the Amazon. Now, who wants to go up the Amazon? Why don't you have a crusade here and make money? I've been in love with the Amazon since I was 14 years of age. Norman Grubb wrote a book. His first book was called Henton Hall. A young man, six feet four in height, champion boxer in the British Empire, champion cricketer in the Royal Air Force, champion in everything. And he got marvellously saved. He laid his money all away. He got a huge check out of the British government in World War I, I guess. And he gave it all away. And lived by faith ever after. Never asked for a dime. Rode a bicycle through England, through Ireland. In the old days when you had... Remember the sticky stuff we put on for the dough? You know, my fingers used to stick more to the tyre than the patch stuck. Then when I got it in, the tyre stuck to the tyre. I mean, the inner tube stuck to the thing. Oh boy, did I get mixed up with them. And they said he will be praying at the side of a road in Ireland. And he'd wait till the farmer came, as he was holding that thing to the... He went up the Amazon. He lived only six weeks. And that genius died. What happened? The blood of the martyr is the seed of the church. He only had one convert. And that young convert became a... What do you call it now? A guide through the forest? It's a fantastic story. Let me wind up here. I reminded you, before the war in England, World War I, there was an outbreak of tongues all over the nation. Before the outbreak of the horrible bloody revolution that butchered the Huguenots, there was an outbreak of tongues. Before the revival in China, there was an outbreak of tongues. All these areas where there was an outbreak of tongues was followed with persecution within less than ten years. What's the punchline? Just this. There's an outbreak of tongues in every nation in the world today, nearly. And it's a warning to us in the church. It's a warning to those outside that judgment is coming very quickly. There's never been the moral darkness in America the rest of the day, or the moral darkness there is in England. And God is going to wean us, and prune us, and prepare us. Clap your hands and shout all you like about miracles. There's always a prelude to judgment, and judgment is always, I mean, to tongues, and tongues is always a prelude to coming judgment. I believe this is the most dangerous hour in history. Unparalleled. And we're not safe because we have a mighty army or air force. We're safe only as we have the protection of God himself. Let's have some prayer. Let's pray for the this pro-life rally. Pray for Dave Wilkerson. He's going away in a day or two. He's going up to preach to, I think, to about 4,000 preachers and missionaries that are coming from all over the world, I think. He's going up to Springfield. He has a tremendous anointing now. People get offended, he won't see them. He shouldn't. I'd rather offend every man on earth than offend God. If men don't like it, let them forget it. Let them go somewhere else. He's shutting himself away with God. It's going to be a marvelous anointing that he'll get. Let's pray for the founding of this school, as these people go up the Amazon. That's a tremendous challenge. How a young man I'd want to go to. Raw hedonism. Come on, if you can preach, show your skills, go pull some strongholds down. Don't talk to old ladies and youngsters that just want to be amused. Go where hedonism is raw. It's where the devil's kingdom is rife. You can breathe the impure air of devilry. You can sense evil spirits everywhere you move. That's the challenge. Again, there are more lost people in the world tonight than there's ever been in history. And it's to end where I began. It's either another Pentecost or a holocaust. Let's pray. Give me this chair. Jacob, please help here.