Leonard Ravenhill emphasizes the profound nature of love as depicted in 1 Corinthians 13, arguing that true love is selfless, sacrificial, and reflective of Christ's character. He contrasts the superficial understanding of love in society with the deep, transformative love that God exemplifies and calls Christians to embody. Ravenhill challenges the audience to recognize that love is not merely an emotion but a commitment that requires action and sacrifice, urging believers to live in a way that magnifies Christ in their lives. He highlights the importance of being a living testimony of God's love, which should compel Christians to serve others and share the gospel fervently. Ultimately, he calls for a revival of true love in the church, one that transcends mere words and manifests in genuine actions.

Okay, we're going to read from the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, and chapter 13. The apostle John, uh, let me step back a minute. Often preachers refer to the four gospels. Well, there aren't four gospels. There's one gospel told by four people. Ask John, he agrees with me. I like John to come because he nods, he agrees with me. I like all the people who agree with me, and the rest of you I'll just put up with you. But John the apostle, you know, he was one that the snooty people in Acts, was it Acts 3? He said, you know, when those men came from the upper room, they, uh, kind of religious superstars looked down their noses, and they said concerning Peter and John, they're what? Unlearned and ignorant. They were, I can prove that to you. One of the unlearned was John. He wrote the gospel. As we say, the gospel according to John. Then he wrote the first epistle of John. Then he wrote the second epistle of John. Then he read the third epistle, and to prove his ignorance, he wrote the book of the Revelation, which baffles everybody. I'm after that kind of ignorance. I've got a good share of it, but I'm still after the other part. But John is usually called the apostle of love. I read carefully, uh, not turning the pages, but looking in a, a concordance today, that in his gospel and his three epistles, he mentions the word love no less than 24 times. And we speak of him usually as the apostle of love. We think of, uh, usually we identify, I think, best with the apostle Paul as a man going down the road with fire coming out of his nostrils, breathing out nostrils, burning everybody up. And yet it was he that wrote this, the most superb hymn of love that's ever been written, or ever will be written. Somebody once said concerning the apostle, boy, I read this 50 years ago, and I still remember it. He said, the apostle Paul's mind was so steeped in dogma, it was a mere machine for grinding out metaphysics. Now, if you don't know what metaphysics are, see any school teacher, or see John, or anybody that works in a bank, they'll be able to help you. No, Paul, the apostle, was a poet, and he was a pragmatist. He was very, very much down to earth. I led you into a trap so nicely tonight. If you weren't here the first hymn, be sure you're here for the first hymn next week. But anyhow, we sang a wonderful old Salvation Army hymn. It's in the cover, don't look just now, but it's in the cover at the front of the book. Thou that also share and let thy praises run. This is what this, this man who was married to one of the booths in the Salvation Army, Booth Clibbon, he was a very, I was going to say strange, you might get that the wrong way, a very excitable Pentecostal. Some of them are, you know. Many of them lost their fire, anyhow, they're as dry as Presbyterians. Anyhow, forget that. And he wrote that hymn, Thou that also share and let thy praises run. Look what he says about it, about love, divine love. Waters cannot quench it, floods can never drown, substance cannot buy it, love's a priceless crown. Oh, the wondrous story, mystery divine, I am thy beloved. Does that ever thrill you? Oh, the first time a fellow holds your hand, boy, he's so excited, he almost dropped it, electrified. Then when you've been married ten years, he touches it, feels like the tail of a dead fish. Some of you know that's true. But to say he's my beloved, that one day I'm going to be part of the bride? The king of kings, the lord of lords, is going to have the bride of all brides? It's breathtaking. You see, so much of our love is sloppy, mushy stuff. You cannot have true love, either physical or spiritual, without sacrifice, without pain. Waters cannot quench it, floods can never drown. That sounds like trouble to me. But there's another hymn here I wanted to quote to you. You know, John Wesley wrote that other hymn, that beautiful hymn we sang, love divine, all love excelling. You can talk about all the other love stories in the Bible, and they're all diminished when you think of the love. And when you think of the apostle Paul saying in Romans 5, the love of God is shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Ghost, that's justification. But John says in his epistle, not only the love of God is shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Ghost, he says, being made perfect in love. Perfect love. What does he say? Perfect love casteth out all fear. Herein is our love made perfect. This is 1 John chapter 4 and verse 17. Herein is our love made perfect that we may have boldness, when? To come to his throne. Sure, but dear God, I need more than that. I have boldness to stand in his judgment seat, with the billion eyes looking on, with the apostle Paul looking at me, with saints, apostles, and martyrs, and all the saints of the ages. The thousands who were burned at the stake in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, any other massacre. All the bloody history. History is not written with ink, it's written with blood. It's not written on paper, it's written on the skins of people. And part of our insanity is today we're building bigger war machines. Here's the situation. There have never been more decisions for Christ than today, and never less disciples. Never more talk about peace, and never more armaments. A brother stopped me tonight, he said there was a poll taken recently, somewhere in the country. Who do you think they voted to be the president of the United States? You never guess. Gorbachev. He came up top of the list in one section. He came with his smiles. He's a murderer at heart. He's a sworn communist. He's anti-God, anti-American, anti-Christ. And we're going to have a collision with these damnable systems before very long. And your theology won't stand the test. You can't love a theology, you can only love a person. And usually you love the person the most that loves you the most. And this is the extravagance of the Apostle Paul. He out-preached everybody. He out-suffered everybody. You know, some people think if you get a church full of really spirit-filled people, that solves all your problems. It doesn't, it starts them. There's nobody more troublesome than Pentecostals, but anyhow, there you are. And I mean that. You see, we say if we all got together and were united, wouldn't it be wonderful? Listen, they were all of one accord before Pentecost. They were dispersed after Pentecost. They didn't sit in a lump in the upper room. Dear God, we'd have got extra chairs, new carpets, a new stained glass window, and somebody with a new mouth organ or something. They were scattered abroad everywhere. What? Preaching. It wasn't the miraculous only though they did that. I told some preachers this week, I said, if you talk about restoration, I'm all for it. If you mean restoration to the true Bible standard, if you mean restoration to deacons as they were in Acts 6 who did signs and wonders and miracles, I'm for it. If you're talking about joining all the folk together just because they love Jesus, forget it. Oh, Jesus had a gap he loved. Well, why didn't he kiss the Pharisees? Why didn't he put his arm around the Sadducees? He hated them. He blistered them. And boy, I would blister them if I get the chance. I'm going to preach Sunday night in Fort Worth. There's going to be a lot of students there, I understand. Boy, they learn a lot. So you pray. We had a good meeting in in in Gilmore. Was it Gilmore? Oh, killed somebody. Do you know the only two classes of people in the world? Ask Brother John. Two classes of people, not black and white, not intellectuals and ignorant, not rich and poor, two kinds of people in the world only. Those who are dead in sin and those who are dead to sin. You can tempt a miser, a man who died with pockets full of gold and rattled gold, he won't move a finger or look at you. And if you and I get really crucified with Christ, this world won't have that much pull on us. You see, one of the one of the most forgotten emphases, if I can put it that way, about about the cross, you have the traditional cross. Let me put it this way. You know what a traditional cross is this way. And there's a cross just like a letter T in which a man's head was allowed to go back. There's a cross like a letter X where you spread your members out and you're crucified. And then there's a most hideous of all, was they would take the body of the man that you killed and they would lay you, lay him on the floor, then lay you on that dead man and strap wrist to wrist, neck to neck, legs to legs. And you had to carry that body wherever you went. They stood you up and said, get going. So every morning you woke up, you saw those glassy eyes. The stench of that body came to you. If I came along and said, I want to cut that, those ropes off that man, the law said you can do it on one condition. What is it? That we tie that body onto you. Do you love that man? No, forget it. Let him take the stinking corpse. And it's a lie. It's a damnable lie of the preachers that the apostle Paul finished in Romans 7. He did not. In Romans 7, he said, it's not I, it's sin that dwelleth in me. But further up the road, he said, it's not I, it's Christ that dwelleth in me. You see, it's easy to get a man loaded with guilt and condemnation and sin and fear of God and judgment and hell. It's easy to get that man to the cross comparatively. It's getting him on the cross that's the problem. And then when you get him on the cross, he's tempted. Come down from the cross and save yourself. What are you fasting for? Other Christians are feasting. Oh, they're always having suppers. If you want to make a church, go have chicken suppers two or three times a week. Have a prayer meeting, you'll pray alone. Have a chicken supper, you'll get crowds. But you see, once that man was cut free, he didn't want to go back to that corpse. Paul says, oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I heard G. Campbell Morgan preach a marvellous message on holiness. There were about 300 preachers there, English preachers. They wear their collars backwards way, because most of them are going backwards way. But, I think, lifting us to high heaven, he said, you know, even the saintly apostle finished at the end of Romans saying, oh, wretched man, it's a libel on the cross, he didn't. Listen, if there isn't deliverance from sin as well as sins, we're like Roman Catholics, or we're like Mormons, or we're like Muslims. The hindrance to revival in America is not humanism. I believe that the danger in America or England tonight is not, the reason we've digressed and corrupted, is not because of the strength of humanism, but because of the weakness of evangelism. We don't know the power of the blood. I love Romans, Hebrews 7.25. He's able to save to the uttermost. I don't care how deep your depravity is. Tell me about your malady. I'll tell you about the remedy. We sing a hymn sometimes. We should have sang it tonight, maybe. It is well, it is well with my soul. The second stanza, you may remember, says, though Satan should buff it, and trial should come. Then the next stanza says, my sin, not my sins, my sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part, but the whole. Is God going to save me 80% and say, work out your salvation for the other 20? No, he's not. When Jesus said, it is finished, all hell went into panic. All heaven went into jubilation, because whatever sin you may have, the foulest, vilest sin, that blood can cleanse. Whatever bondage you have, whatever you're fettered to, he's able to do an amazing thing, as I hinted in prayer. I love that phrase, not because it's Charles Wesley. He was a man of impeccable morality. His family was next to the royal family in England. One day, he had a wonderful mother, Mrs. Susanna Wesley. Sure, she's a wonderful mother. She has 17 children. You have to be wonderful to have 17 children. But one day, she got a copy of a book that was written in about the 1500s. What was it called? Life of God in the Soul of Man. There's my prompter. Life of God in the Soul of Man. And she gave it to Charles, and Charles read it. Then he went into Christ Church, Oxford, and sitting in the windowsill was a young man that was going to turn the world upside down. A registered Church of England minister. He knew his Hebrew. He knew his Greek. He was blazing with God in human zeal. And then God got all of it and sanctified him. Justified him. Sanctified him. Edified him. Electrified him. Because that young man read that. And it says on the cover of the present issue of that book, I never knew what true religion was until I read this book. And that was George Whitfield. George Whitfield. He was the first of the street preachers in England. So much so, did he move, the Bishop of Gloucester locked his doors against him and said, you can't preach in the Church of England. Who cares a hill of beans about that? But you don't name of the Bishop of Gloucester of that year, do you? I don't. I don't want to. I know the man that was emancipated. I know the man, like Charles Whitfield, who said, long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night. He was frozen in orthodoxy. He was bound with ritualism. He was bound with convention. And suddenly God illuminated him. And like the apostle, he says, I'm a debtor. Get that in your mind, preacher boy, or if you anticipate the mission field, you're a debtor as long as you live. You don't have a beat of your heart that's your own. You don't have a cell in your body, and you've got, what is it, 30 billion? And every one of them belongs to Jesus Christ. You don't have a dime of money your own. You don't have a thing. The scripture lays it down. You're not your own. You're bought with a price. We talk to people as though today they're doing God a favor to get saved. You know, we live in such a wretched day that, you know, they make these film stars die of AIDS, and they publish it as though they'd accomplished something. Dear God, you don't need much character to go to hell. There's nothing smart about sin. There's no sin that isn't bondage. And yet the church sits dumb. We're debtors to this whole community. I was glad Tuesday night some preachers came back Wednesday to the church and confessed they were broken up, wept. And I said to them Tuesday night, you don't need a vacation. What you need is a cave. Get one and be still with God. And so this fellow, popular fellow in town, went off for three days to fast and pray and seek God. But listen, you say preachers should do it. Wait a minute. God has elevated you to the priesthood. You're as responsible for the lost as I am. Priesthood of all believers, then make intercession. You've as much right to sweat as I have, as much right to fast as I have. The obligation is upon us. Well, what do you want? Do you want me to preach or go on talking? Here's Madame Burigno. This is a hymn that changed Wesley's life. She was a sweet little, petite little French lady. She lived a hundred years before John Wesley. And she wrote this hymn, Come Savior Jesus from above, assist me with with thy heavenly grace, empty my heart of earthly love. That's where it starts. You can't love football. You can't spend Sunday watching football and professing you love Jesus. You don't. You love that damn little TV thing. It's become your God. If you'd rather watch TV than pray, then that's your God. What does she say? Come Savior Jesus from above, assist me with thy heavenly grace, empty my heart of earthly love, and for thyself prepare a place. Oh, let thy sacred presence fill and set my longing spirit free, which pants to have no other will but day or night to feast on thee. While in this region here below, no other good will I pursue. Empty my heart. I'll bid this world of noise and show, with all its glittering snares, adieu. That path with humble speed I'll seek, wherein my Savior's footsteps shine. Nor will I hear, nor will I speak of any other love but thine. Henceforth may no profane delight, henceforth may no profane delight divide this consecrated soul. Possess it thou who has the right as Lord and Master of the whole. Now listen, Wesley not only believed it, he lived it. What's the last stanza? And this is a wealthy lady, and this is a young man that might have become the Archbishop of Canterbury had he stayed in religion. He might have been the Prime Minister of England if he'd gone into politics. He had a genius of a mind. He read his Bible most days in French or Spanish. He read his Hebrew, he read his Greek. But God got over every fiber of his being and sanctified him. So he says, henceforth may no profane delight divide this consecrated soul. Possess it thou who has the right as Lord and Master of the all of the whole. Now look what he does. He kisses the world goodbye. Wealth, honor, pleasure, and what else this short enduring world can give. Tempt as ye will my soul rebels, for Christ alone is all to leave. Thee will I love and thee alone with pure delight and inward bliss to know thou takes me for thine own. That's the miracle of miracles. I can understand God loving you. You weren't as rotten and self-righteous as this little Methodist guy was. But the dear old Scotchman, what was the man that was in prison so long? Rutherford. Good, thank you Martha. I'll give you a treat tomorrow. She has a treat every day. She lives with me. But what did Rutherford say? In the sands of time of singing, he said, it would a well-spent journey from here to heaven if I had to die seven times. It will be still worth it. It'd be worth it if he had a million lives to lay at his feet. A million minds to think of him. A million hearts to love him with. A million tongues to sing our great Redeemer's praise. I used to think that the secret of Paul's life is in, is it 1 Corinthians 7 where he says, a love of Christ constrains me, 1 Corinthians 5? But I changed my opinion on that. I believe that the motivating force in the life of the Apostle Paul was this. He said, I give him my body. I give my soul. What is it? Is it Philippians 1? Is it Philippians 119? Who remembers it? I haven't got my finger on it anyhow. Oh, it doesn't matter. Oh, I'll tell you what it is. That Christ may be magnified by my body. How in God's name do you do that? Well, soon you'll see some little flowers. Nobody bothers about them. They're called dandelions. You don't make a collection of dandelions to present anybody, except your mother-in-law maybe. But when they come up, you take a dandelion and take a magnifying glass and look through it. It's about the most beautiful flowering creation. It's so marvelously constructed, but you need the aid of a magnifying glass. Your 20-20 vision won't do it. And you take the flower and look through it, and suddenly the whole world comes out of it. And Paul says, this world is short-sighted, but let my body, let them look through my body and see Christ. Is that how you live before your children? There was a principal at the little college I went to by the name of Thomas Cook. And the local pastor's help in the house went down to the butcher's shop. That's when the butcher used to sell nothing but meat. Now he sells everything. And she was restless. And the butcher said to her, Annie, her name was. Annie, you're so restless today. What's the problem? Oh, she said, sir, they're taking up the rugs and they're taking out the furniture. They're making such a fuss up at the pastor's house, you'd think Jesus was coming. And he smiled. He said, that's sweet of you to say that, Annie. The next week she went to the butcher's again on Saturday. And he said, Annie, dear, oh, I'm so glad to see you. I keep thinking about what you said, that they were making so much fuss up at the mansion, at the pastor's house, you'd think Jesus was coming. She said, sir, he came. That man was in a house for a week and he impressed the little girl, not with his theology. The way he lived, he conducted himself like Jesus would conduct himself. That's why Wesley says, nothing on earth, wealth, honor, pleasure, and what else? He was saved at 35. Turn it around, he's 53. 53 and 35 make 88, in case you don't know. And that's when he died at 88. What did he have? I've told you before. He left six English pound notes, six silver spoons, a handful of books, a Geneva gown he preached on. Yes, that's it. Six silver spoons, six pound notes, a Geneva gown. Oh, there's something else. Oh, I know, I know now. The Methodist church. I knew there was something. He could have driven around the country in a chariot. He rode horseback. Dear God, in the middle of the night, in the moonlight, he was on the back of the horse reading a Greek primer, studying the word of God. He rode more miles than any man in history except an American. Do you know who that was? Asbury. Asbury became the American Wesley, outdid John Wesley by about, I think, 25,000 miles. It was a consuming passion. It wasn't something they put on on Sundays. They lived and moved and had their being in God. Wesley cries day by day, refining fire go through my heart, illuminate my soul, scatter thy life through every part and sanctify the whole. My steadfast soul from falling free shall then no longer rove, while Christ is all the world to me and all my heart is love. Okay, let's get on with this a little while, eh? Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not. In the King James Version, oh, I call this, in one meeting I said the Sleepy Elizabethan English. Boy, a man was ready to crucify me after that. But that's what it was, wasn't it? Sleepy Elizabethan English. You know, we don't treasure this word as we should. We don't treasure the martyrs who were burned at the stake. And they smuggled Bibles into England at one period from Holland in bales of cloth. And now you can buy the thing anyway and find it in a junk store for almost nothing. This is not a book. You say, what is it? It's a library. It's got 66 books in. 66 most amazing books that ever came to mankind. It has the answer to all our problems. But we're so arrogant we won't embrace it. The Sermon on the Mount is the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest man who ever lived. It answers all our problems. A natural man can't live the Sermon on the Mount. You may as well tell him to fly up in the air. He can't do that. But it can be done by the grace of God. A man can love God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength and his neighbor as himself. You know, one of the, I think, one of the tragic things about the day in which we live, we don't know the difference between love and lust. We don't know the difference, did you hear me? Between love and lust. Lust demands. Love gives. Lust brings bitterness. Love brings joyfulness. Love brings rejoicing. Lust brings remorse. Love brings happiness. Lust brings sorrow. And yet the world loves its own. It will honor its own. You know, I'm amazed at the discipline. Oh, you can't get young people to discipline. That's a dirty word. What's the news been saying this week? One of the girls that hopes to win a gold medal, is it next month or whatever it is, at Calgary? For over a year she's been rising at half past four in the morning. Her mother drives her 150 miles to a skating rink. That's there and back. Every day of her life she's up at half past four in the morning. Somebody said, can you put your life into a phrase? I can put it in one word. What is it? She said, invincible. I'm going to get that thing. I live for it. I dream about it. I pray about it. I practice for it. And as Paul says, they do it for a corruptible crown, and we for an eternal crown. Dear God, what kind of crowns are we going to have in eternity? Salvation is free. Rewards are not free. All you'll get up there is what you sent up from here. Oh, people say about money, I can't take it with you. You can send it ahead of you. I'll help you. You tell me you've got some money I don't want, and I'll give it to Mishries who don't buy automobiles and fancy style, in fancy style. They live on the verge of poverty joyfully, for Jesus sake. You see, the young people these days, speaking generally, have no role models. Oh, so and so, he's a hypocrite. He works in the bank. He tells dirty stories to the girls. Oh, so and so, there's no role models. Do you know, when Wesley really got rolling in England, a woman would go in and say to, a man would go in rather, and say to his wife, darling, I've got good news for you. What is it? Mr. Wesley has accepted. Oh, she burst into tears. What do you mean Mr. Wesley accepted you to be a preacher? You know very well that no preacher that Mr. Wesley has lives to be on 32 years of age. They were burned out. 32 years of age. Wesley was a genius. There's a series of books, I have the old English edition, a hardback edition called Wesley's Veterans. In America, it's re-published as Wesley's, what's it called? In England, Wesley's Veterans. Schmool sells it. Anyhow, you better find her. No, I can't. As I tell you, I'm not losing my mind. I just lose my memory now and again. I've got a plug for myself. Nobody else does. But anyhow, when those men, Wesley was a genius, and you know what? He drew men around him. They were not his intellectual equal. They were his spiritual equal. They wouldn't pray. If he prayed and fasted, they prayed and fasted. They never asked any questions, and he never exacted upon them for his own sake. He was consumed with a passion for the Lord Jesus Christ. He wasn't there to raise up Methodism. God doesn't raise up denominations. He raises up men. And first, what are they? What do they say? First they're a movement, and next they're what? No, it begins with them. You've got to alliterate it. First a movement, but then it ends a monument. But you know, God is trying to find men today. He'll find up some women too. Because he's promised you to pour out your spirit, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Again, I'm pushing the Pentecostals, because they say we believe. They do not believe the Word of God. If they did, you'd have to, every deacon would have to be tested to see if he was full of faith of the Holy Ghost, if he could do signs and wonders. Christianity is either supernatural or superficial, and the glory has to come back. You see, we haven't won on the mission fields. Why? Because we've taken a list of doctrines, and one day youngsters go to a school, and they hear about the Qur'an, and they teach their doctrine. And the missionary goes and teaches, there's no life in it, there's no power, there's no authority, there's nothing that stirs the conscience and wakens people up. I remember reading 50 years ago a statement by John Ruskin. He was a famous art critic, and he said, I don't know if you heard that John, but he said preaching is 30 minutes to raise the dead. I thought that was facetious, but it isn't. When I go in church now, every row that I see is death row. They're dead in trespasses and in sin. And my job under God, as I said Tuesday night, when the woman saw the barrel of meal didn't fail, and when she saw the oil spurting out, she said nothing about it. Other miracles happen. But when Elijah raised the dead, she said, by this I know thou art a man of God, that the dead are living. And that's her job. People are dead in trespasses and in sin. They may be rich, they may be smart, they may be intellectual, but they've got a space in there that only God can fill. Philosophy won't fill it, education won't fill it. And Paul knew. What does he say here? Do I speak with the tongues of men and of angels? No, let's go to the last verse of the previous chapter. What does he say? Copy turnestly the best gifts, but I show unto you a more excellent way. You know, the holiness people kiss the whole thing goodbye there. They say, the apostle said, forget about gifts. I show you a more excellent way. And then they go and they say, you see, Paul says, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. And if you don't, and, and they say, the apostle says tongues are nothing. Miracle, he doesn't say that. He says, I may speak with the tongues of men of angels, but if I don't have love, I'm nothing. The tongues are valid from here to eternity. These smart boys in Dallas will tell you the Old Testament is a dispensation of the father, the New Testament dispensation of the son, and today the dispensation of the Holy Ghost. Then they want to give the Holy Ghost directions. He can come, but he mustn't come with miracles. He mustn't come with signs and wonders. He must go down the track and the Holy Ghost says goodbye. The greatest sin in America tonight is not adultery. It's not this damnable herpes and all these other sex combinations of the killing people. The greatest hindrance to revival in America tonight is unbelief. We're unbelieving believers. As I've said, somebody one day is going to get this book and read it and believe it. When they do, we'll all be embarrassed. I had a dear black boy in my office the other day and I asked him where he was from. He told me, I said, what's it like in your country? What church? He said, our pastor is 20 years of age. He's what? 20 years of age. He's the official pastor. He's not the leader though. Boy, the pastor has to be everything here, doesn't he? Janitor, electrician, wash the dishes, buy the chicken for the chicken suppers, clean the chickens. He's just about to do everything. You know, this fellow said, he said, our pastor is 20 years of age, but the leader of the church is 19 years of age. I said, what? He said, he goes in the meeting, sees somebody twisted like the beautiful gaze of the temple and he says, Jesus doesn't want you like that. Rise and walk. They get up and walk. Sees a man with a swollen jaw or something. He says, be healed in the name of Christ. The man's delivered. Somebody else has some other disease and he speaks with authority. You know, nobody said about the Holy Ghost revival under the Pentecostals. There's a book everybody should read, Seven Pentecostal Pioneers, and that was in my period in England. Nobody said sarcastically, faith healing is fake healing. They didn't. When you saw a twisted, deformed man go in church and saw him walk out, you didn't have to tell people to come to church. They stormed to get there. They went outside the church and lined up to get into service next afternoon at three o'clock. English people doing that. Boy, I was in a meeting where a man got healed. You know those English people forget all their starch, forgot their modesty. They threw books in the air, threw their hats in the air. A man was miraculously healed and somebody told them it doesn't happen. Boy, aren't you glad God doesn't read Christianity today? It's Christianity every day if we really were obeying God. So here we have it here in the authorised version. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity. You know Tyndale translated from the original Greek and he translated that, what was it, Latin word? Cardian, I think, from which you get charity. You see, and right through this reading of the King James Version, charity is selfless longing of this kind. Charity envieth not, charity bondeth not itself. What do you mean by charity? By charity you give away your surplus, your old clothes and your surplus cash. We had a little lady came to a church I passed in Sheffield, England. She was about 80 pounds, went through. As pale as death, her husband was three times that weight and boy, he punched her around. She'd come with black face, black mouth and never, never once disturbed. She was gorgeous. One day she came in a new coat going out of the church. She went in the foyer and she always said, Mr. Ramey, look. Hoo, I said, what a gorgeous dress and what a lovely coat. She used to come in with a coat, you know. Somebody gave her, another lady. The only reason the lady gave it was charity. She'd worn the fur off her back, you know, it wears off. So this sanctified lady couldn't go to church. The collar looked like a cat that's been scolded. Hardly any fur on it. So she took the old coat and gave it to this little woman. Listen, would you give Jesus an old coat like that? In as much as you do it to the least, you do it unto him. So this rich lady was praying one day saying, my Jesus, I love thee. And they said, you can't love me vertically without loving horizontally. Go buy that poor woman an outfit. So she went and bought her this gorgeous coat, pair of red shoes, a red handbag. Boy, she looked super. I said, you're gorgeous. Well, you always win a woman's heart with flattery. And she believed me, and she was. She looked great. Why, this lady was going to buy that outfit for herself. And when she looked in the window, the Lord said, that's charity giving her your last year's clothes. Love buys her the clothes you wear last years. Well, in case you want to know, I take a 39 regular. But charity. No, the word there, the classic word there is, is not charity, it's love, it's agape. And the word agape is not in classical Greek. You can't find it in anything written by Aristotle or anybody else. It's a word specially coined by the Holy Ghost for us. You see, there's a poem that says, love ever stands with open hands, and while it lives, it gives. For this is love's prerogative, to give and give and give. God so loved the world, he gave Michael the archangel to die for us. No? Oh, sorry, Gabriel. No, he gave the choicest in heaven. Do you ever think of the loneliness of God when his son for 30 years was on earth, and heaven was empty? I know he said, Jesus said, my inner father, a one in spirit, but heaven was empty. What do you think the cherubim and seraphim were doing that Isaiah saw? That God so loved the world of sinners, lost and ruined by the fall. You see, we've lost all concept of the depravity of man. We look for depravity in the prisonless, and there's more depravity in the church maybe than outside of it. And only the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. That cruel moment on the cross, he understood why Peter ran away, he understood why the others went, but in that black hour, and he was naked on the cross, that was part of the humiliation, and there he was in stark nakedness. The most gorgeous character the world ever had. The holiest, purest man. He never had the wrong thought or wrong desire. He never deviated from the will of God one degree, and yet the blackness of hell came. He said, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why? I don't know whether you understand this. Brother John Maynard, he can correct me after if he doesn't. But you know, I don't believe Jesus died on the cross. I do. I believe he died in Gethsemane. He died at that moment when he said, Lord, I'm willing to take the sin of the whole world. And what did the psalmist say? All thy billows run over me. And he tasted death for every man. Hell is separation from God. I believe there's an eternal hell. As I told the class the other night, I was reading at two o'clock a month ago in my office, and I read the 20th chapter of Revelation, thinking about the judgment seat. And I came to that verse that says there, the second death. And just like that flashed into my mind. I've been around the world preaching. I've heard preachers since I was, for 75 years I've heard preaching. I've heard sermons on the coming, on the second blessing, on the second Adam, on the second birth. I've never yet heard a sermon on the second death. And I no sooner read that, suddenly a voice behind me said this as clearly as my voice is heard by you, except a clearer voice. I've been reading about the second death. And the voice said this, hell has no exits. What do you do? Go to bed and sleep on that? Not on your life. I sat there and groaned and called, dear God, where is the church today? Who's rescuing the perishing and care for the dying? Oh, they tell me the big churches in Dallas. Do you know what? There are people disgusted with that church who are going there. You can fill a church, increase a church without increasing the kingdom. Side two. The Lord doesn't patch us up where we're leaking. We're a new creation. That's what made the apostle so marvelous. He'd been emancipated. And so he wants to tell the world, I'm a debtor. Well, I'm going to get a bit further soon. Let's change this word from charity to love. Love suffereth long in this kind. Love envieth not. Love vaunteth not itself. Oh, let me step back a moment to verse three. Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, though I die a martyr's death, giving my body to be burned, and have not this divine love, it profiteth me nothing. Look, you could have the patience of Job, the self-reliance of Nehemiah, and the courage of Joshua, and the eloquence of Demosthenes, if you like, and wed them all together. It will be no good in the sight of God. Eloquence without love is nothing. It's sounding brassy, he says, and it's tinkling cymbals. Knowledge without love is empty. Sacrifice without love is valueless. Do you remember, wasn't it, was it in Vietnam two or three years ago when there was, what do you call this, immolation? Some of the priests there poured gasoline and set themselves on fire. They became a living sacrifice, because they've been told if they die that way, there's a special place in heaven for them. I was going to say, God doesn't ask you to live, to die for him. He asks you to live. No, he asks you to die for him. He invites you to a cross. Bluntly, before I get past it, in the middle of this, I was going to ask you about that, John, later when we meet sometime. Paul suddenly breaks off this greatest hymn that's ever been written of love, and he says, when I became a man, I put away childish things. When did he become a man? Jesus went to the temple when he was 12. A young Jew goes to the, as in Bar Mitzvah. A Jew has a Bar Mitzvah. A tradition kept amongst the Jews is a place where they become, they have to take responsibilities of manhood. I believe it, when he went to the cross, and he says in Galatians, does it, God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice what he says, by which the world is crucified to me, and I'm crucified to the world. As the doctor told us, he knew one thing about a man carrying a cross, he wasn't coming back. It's a period, it's a full stop. They took him to the place of total humiliation, exposed him as a malefactor, as the vilest of the vile, outside the city. There was no room for him in the inn. There was no room for him outside, except outside, there's no room for him in the average church now. The greatest revolutionary who ever lived was Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I've been reading about some of those precious people, like my dear friend here, Dale Brown, he belongs to an old breed of Quakers, he's not old, but he belongs to an old breed. His daddy and mummy are having, this coming week, they've been married 71 years, isn't that something? My, most of these young folk can't marry, it's 71 days. But what tremendous character they had. Paul says, the world is crucified. Oh, here's a man crucified, six o'clock at night, immediately got on that cross, he had no rights. You could spit on him, you could throw filth on him, you could blast him with rocks. Once he hung there, he had no rights at all. He lost his religious rights, he lost his civil rights, he lost every right. No right to look or talk to his family, there he's impaled on a cross. At six o'clock, everybody went to see him at sundown, particularly if he was somebody like Barabbas. And they mocked and scorned and ridiculed and said, you know, he stole, he did this, he did that, he did... Then the crowd went when the city was locked up. They went home to get in the city before the gates were locked. But at six o'clock at night, there might be 10,000 people, six o'clock in the morning there was nobody there, except the vultures came and settled on the arms of the cross. I remember seeing some vultures this height when I was in India. They have long necks, they've no feathers, they put their horrible necks out, they've got beaks about this side. So there's a man crucified, he's helpless. One of those horrible birds pecks his eyes out. And when there's nothing else to peck, they reach down and rip his belly open with the terrible beaks of the light razors. And then his inner being begins, his bowels flow out, and blood falls on the door. Nobody goes to see a crucified man, he's the most unattractive thing in the world. And Paul says, the world is crucified to me, it hasn't a bit of attraction, it's sordid, it's corrupting everything that's in it, it's all contaminated. The pity of a man, 700 club fellow, bless him, he had a ministry, stooping down, he wants to be a president, that's a step down. When Cary was the great pioneer Baptist preacher in India, and he had a wonderful life there. As a matter of fact, he had five wives, not all at once, but one after the other they died. But he had one son that was brilliant, and his son signed up to be the ambassador for the court of St. James in England. Somebody came along and wanted to see this dear old man, and they said, we'd like to see your son, we understand he's more gifted than you, he's brilliant. He said he stooped down from being a missionary, to be an ambassador for the King of England, stooped down. You know, most of our thinking is thinking like the world. Oh, we've two girls in our church, they're going to be in the volleyball team at, where was it going to be? Where is it? Oh, forget Greenacres, but where your treasuries are, will you help me out? No, I was thinking about the Olympics coming up. You know, if our young people were trained in the fear of God, they'd never dare to step out of line in any shape or form. They dare not do that. They'd be so afraid of grieving the Holy Spirit of God, but there's no fear of God before their eyes. There's no fear of advancing at the judgment when God says, as I said to some guys the other day, listen, God says, you hold fast to that which he's given you. It may be rough, it may be tough, but it's your ministry, hold to it, or you'll be walking around eternity, and a man will be wearing a crown that God was going to put on your head. It isn't the devil that takes it away. It isn't the church. Hold fast to that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. Let it be bloody if need be. Let it be stained with your own blood. What do you care? In eternity, are you going to suggest the dying thief will have the same reward as John Wesley with his dieting, and not just dieting, fasting, and spending his money so cautiously? Of course he made money. He built churches, he built orphanages, he printed Methodist hymn books, he printed Bibles. He didn't come to himself. And every dime you've ever earned since you were saved belonged to the Lord. I'll tell you why. Because lots of you have stood in this audience time after time, and you've asked, let's sing Take My Life and Let It Be. And whether you knew it or not, you were praying. You prayed, take my silver and my gold. What have you done with it? Take my moments and my days. So you were saying, my time belongs to him. Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love. Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee. Take my heart, it is thine own. Take my will and make it thine. Have you violated any of that today? Since you sang it six months ago, have you lived up to it? I told the crowd a week last Tuesday, and they were somewhat a bit shocked about some of these guys that last year were the big shots on TV, and now they're spies. Do you know why? Because they're apostates. An apostate is not a man who continues to teach false doctrine. An apostate is a man who comes at the true light of God and backs off from it. So maybe, you know, if God Almighty recalled malfunctioning preachers, like the automobile folk recalled malfunctioning automobiles, 90% of the churches would have no preacher this Sunday. And I say that not with tongue-in-cheek, I mean it. The most solemn obligation a man has is to be called to the ministry. There's nothing lower, there's not, there's lots lower, there's nothing higher. It's the highest calling, this site of eternity. We used to sit, my darling wife and I, with a man, and he has a hospital of his own, his wife's a doctor, but he specializes in open heart surgery. I used to see him taking his knife and fork, and I used to visualize a good night. This morning that guy, then I'd turn away, I thought, oh he's, maybe two hours ago he was bloody, and he'd be doing that. But you know, a true meeting with the Holy Ghost is open heart surgery. You can't have a meeting, somebody will die in this meeting, this is God's last appeal to you. How many times has he come, you slap the door in his face, he doesn't owe you anything, your business is to yield to him. People will die in the meeting, or people will live in, come to life in the meeting. Well let's speed this up now. We took out the word charity and we put in what? The word love. What is 1 Corinthians 13? Well I'll tell you what I think it is. I think it's a full-length portrait of Jesus Christ. You take out charity and put in love, you take out love and put in Christ. Christ suffereth long in this kind, Christ envieth not, Christ vaunteth not himself, Christ is never puffed up, Christ is never rude, Christ is never resentful, Christ is never glad when others go wrong. Christ what? It's slow to expose. Supposing God suddenly flashed your life and mine on a screen here tonight, which he won't do, he will at the judgment, but he's slow to expose and he's always eager to believe the best. He's always kind, he's always gentle. So we took out charity, we put in love, we take out love and put in Christ and you nod and say that's nice. Well see if you nod this time. We'll take Christ out and put I, put I there, I suffer long I'm I envy not, I don't puff myself up, I don't give myself any airs, I'm never resentful, I'm never glad when others go wrong, I'm always slow to expose, I'm always eager to believe the best. Pretty tight isn't it? And yet that's what the Christian life really is. Because Paul again gets away from sin that dwelleth in, he said it's not I, but Christ liveth in me and the Christ, the life which I now live in this flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. He isn't strutting and boasting, he says no boasting for me except in the cross of the Lord Jesus by which the world is crucified to me and I unto the world. I had a call from a man, he came in this meeting last year from Alaska, now he's in New England. He called me today, sent his greetings to those of you who know him Al, and he said well I've come home to my dad, he hates me. He said when I walk in the room I hate to see you, I hate the sight of you. He said I'm never going to pick that bible up and read it like you do. You hear what he said? He said dad you don't need to. When you see me I'm a living epistle read and known of all men. They know where I was, they know I'm transformed, they know my personality is different, they know my language is different, they know my appetites are different, my lifestyle is different. Dad you've no excuse, I'm a living epistle. And his dad just said get out. But what a way to live. That day by day I want to be a duplicate of Jesus Christ. He didn't die to rescue us from hell, that's a fringe benefit. He died that Christ might be magnified in our bodies whether by life or by death. I guarantee when we get to eternity and the records are open we'll discover that people died for Jesus Christ today in Russia and Afghanistan, these other countries. It's a way of life with them and they don't shrink at any threatening power. But what does this one have? Let me read this quickly to you. In verse 3 of 1 Corinthians 13 I'm reading from a King James. There are seven things he says about this charity. It suffereth long and is kind. Number two, it envieth not. Number three, it vaunteth itself. Number four, it's not puffed up. Number five, it doth not behave itself unseemly. Number six, it's never selfish, it's totally unselfish, it seeketh not her own. Now look, this King James version makes it easy. It says it is not easily provoked, that isn't in the Greek. I remember when we were in England one day, the boys bought the newspaper and they showed me something like this, and then like this, and then it went like this, and then there's a line down there. I said, what in the world is that? They said, daddy, we had no TVs, it was going to be on radio, it's a race, and they're going to race right around this thing two or three times. What's this for? Oh, this is for when a man gets too much speed and can't make the corner, so he shoots off for safety. You see, that's a kind of a safety valve in the King James version. It's not easily provoked, it's not in the Greek. It says he is not provoked. He's not provoked. He's every reason to be, but he says no, dear God, I'm bigger than that. All this trivia you fall over, forget it. Boy, it doesn't take persecution to turn our feet out of the way, just somebody has to offend us. Oh, Christmas, we've gone to the Smiths. I nearly said Browns, but I'll say Smiths. We went to the Smiths for six years to dinner, and you know this Christmas, they didn't even ask us, oh, he's not terrible. Well, you can be sure the angels wept over that. How easily we're offended. What did Paul say when they said he was going to have persecuted? What did he say? He lifted his voice up. He said, well, hallelujah, none of these things move me. He didn't say none of these things hurt me. They did hurt him, but they didn't move him. This is a man who says that Christ may be magnified in my body. No, he wasn't the orator. Do you remember when he went up the hill to talk to the intellectuals of the world? In Acts 17, he talked to the Epicureans and poets and Stoics and philosophers, and they looked down their noses. They said, what will this babbler say? He wasn't an orator. In 2 Corinthians 10 and verse 10, he said that they looked down their noses and said, his bodily presence is weak, and his speech not worth listening to. Apollos was the orator of the early church. This man isn't a fireball preacher, but think what God got out of him. No one man in history ever affected the world like he did. He wrote 14 epistles if you give him Hebrews, and never collected any royalties. But I said, what, he's going to get them at the great day. What a day when the Lord gives him all the royalties and all the rewards. He had to have the love, the love that is indestructible that he speaks of. The love that suffers long in his kind. It seeketh not her, she seeketh not her own, that love seeketh not her own, she's unselfish. Thinketh no evil, unbiased. It believeth all things, it's unbreakable. And endureth all things, it's unshakable. You see this enduring love that he has, why? As he suddenly shed off all his old philosophy and old testament knowledge, this man could recite at least five books of the old testament by memory, but it's not that. He says the love of God has been shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Ghost, and there is no fear in love. That's why John says, perfect love casteth out fear. There's no fear of death of the true Christian, there's no fear of death, there's no fear of judgment in one sense, on the other hand he has more fear than anybody else about judgment. The time's gone. Let me tell you one thing, the first day of world war, I remember the first day of world war one, it was the 4th of august 1914. I was seven, so you can do your homework. But the first day of world war two, I was in Scotland, going to hold a week's meetings at the head church of the Nazarene, and of course a lot of obstruction, then the blackout was there and everything else. But the same day that I went up there, a man by the name of Lax, L-A-X, Dr. Lax of Poplar, he was the leading Methodist in London. He lived in an area of Poplar, which is a very deserted, horrible kind of place, but he rescued the perishing, he cared for the dying, had a ministry to the people in the streets, and so they made him mayor of the city. There was a lady who used to sit at a certain corner, he passed her every Saturday. She was rather oversized, and she had a huge head of red hair, a big beehive, and she had the worst vocabulary, this side of hell. And when he came up, she'd say in a cockney way, I governor, governor, flowers for the lady, flowers for the lady, and he bought flowers every Saturday from her. Then one day he said, Mrs, what's your name? Benger. Mrs. Benger, I bought flowers from you for two years, you've never been to hear me preach. I'll be there, so she went to church. Everybody knew her, profane, filthy, drunken, fighting woman. Mrs. Benger was there in church. To the amazement of everybody, and greater amazement, she walked up to the front and began to cry, just broke her heart and said, no, God can't put me together, I'm too broken. But you see, there's no despair with God. We talk about that man, he committed murder. Listen, Jesus said, if you look on a woman to lust, you're guilty of it. If you hate your brother, you're a murderer. You're not found out, maybe to the judgment seat, but it's coming up. They prayed with him and said, he's merciful, and he'll take you. And as he used to say in the old days, she wept her ways to the cross. Well, the same time I went to Scotland, he went to Scotland. He was away three weeks, I was away two weeks. When he came back, one of those cheerful deacons came up and said, oh, Mrs. Benger hasn't been to church since you left. She skipped both Sundays. Boy, and he said, you know what? The other night, somebody was passing that favorite tavern of hers and she came and she was so drunk, she couldn't even walk. She slipped over the step and she laid in the gutter. They had to pick her up and wipe off the wet, the rain from her. Boy, he said, I went home and I prepared a sermon and thou art the man, but this time it was thou art the woman. And he said, I didn't look at the congregation. She always sat in the same place, you know, the same two chairs, every Sunday night. And he was preaching and suddenly he pointed and he looked, she wasn't there. Oh, I know what she did. The English preacher usually sings until, well, before the offering, he says, now you sit down and they take the offering and he usually bows in prayer while they're taking the offering. Oh, she slipped out while he was praying. So going out, he said to the, one of the elders, look, I can't, I can't shake hands at the door. I think, where's the tavern? They gave him the name of the tavern. So he went. When he got there, there was the same row, the same noise, smell of stale beer and tobacco. And he went to the owner of the tavern who was working there. He said, you know, Mrs. Benger? Yes. Is she here? Yes. Oh, thank you. He looked in the room. She wasn't there. Went another room. She wasn't there. Went another room. She wasn't there. He said, you said Mrs. Benger was here. Yes, she's upstairs in the room on the left. Oh, he said, I see. So she comes here and does her drinking secretly so nobody will see her. He didn't say that. He thought it. And the tavern keeper says, this is a very old building. When you go upstairs, she's in the room on the left. Open the door very, very cautiously. Oh yes, I'll do that. I don't need warning about that. He opened the door very cautiously. And here's this monstrous woman with a flaming red hair. There's a woman lying on the bed, her arms were about that width, as yellow as butter. She was eaten away with cancer. And just as, as he opened the door, it made a little noise. Mrs. Benger was there. She had a little tray and she had two tiny egg cups and she had some bread. And he looked, she looked up and she said to the lady, she said, darling, you won't have to die without communion. My pastor, somebody's told my pastor, he's a loving man. I know he's very tired. He's been busy all day in London and he's come all this way to give you communion. He said, he said to himself, boy, I'm the biggest sinner in town. I didn't come to give a communion at all. So he went to the side of the bed and he said, just a minute. And he went downstairs and asked for another egg cup. And he poured some of the wine in, and so there were three egg cups. This rebel, wicked, fighting, blaspheming woman, and a poor woman that didn't know a thing about salvation. And, and the, the bad drinking woman says, my pastor's going to give us communion. Isn't that wonderful? I've told you you should have communion before you go to heaven and see Jesus. And here he is tired out. Oh, I've always loved him. I love him more for doing this. I love him so much. And now he's going to give us, he said, just a minute, lady, we're going to have communion, but you're going to give it to me. He said, I'm the chief offender. I didn't love this woman. I didn't come to do this. I came here because, but I'll tell you the story after. And he said, I had communion. He said, I had communion in big Methodist churches in America. I had communion aboard ship on the old ships they used to have crossing the Atlantic. He said, I've had communion in many places, but never a communion service like that. The glory of God came down. And he said, we gave that little, that little woman a piece of bread. We explained the whole thing to her. And he said that the bad wicked woman took a piece and gave it to me. And I treasured it so it was gold. And then I ate it. And he said, I took that cup. And for the first time, it seemed as all life was in it. He said, I, I bowed in my heart before. I said, Lord, I've misjudged this woman so. You know, in my mind, I'd cast her out as being a traitor and being a cheat and everything else. So he went down and told the tavern keeper. He said, you know, this Mrs. Benger is a very wonderful woman. She sits baking in the sun during the day, sells her stuff. You know, for three weeks, she's come here every night and bathed my wife, washed her, washed her feet, prepared a meal for her, because there's no help in those days, 35, 40 years back. She said, she's been an angel in this home. All the neighbors said she'd been drinking there. And so the pastor said, pardon me, I believe, whatever night it was, Tuesday night, had you been drinking? No, I haven't drunk since. I talked to you about Jesus that night in the Methodist church, but you rolled into the street. She said, I was so tired. And when I stepped on the step, it was slippery and I rolled into the gutter. I couldn't stand up. I was too tired. Somebody had to pick me up. You know, the only exercise some Christians take is jumping to conclusions. Oh, this has to be right. That has to be right. So, the last thing I'm closing. A man comes in, a military leader of a nation, and he grabs all of a sudden, he says, whose is this? Whose is it? I know whose that is. It belongs to Joseph, that religious fellow you talk about. What's he doing here? Oh, he came into my bedroom and he would have assaulted me, but I screamed and he rang out and I dragged this coat off him. Well, Joseph was as innocent as you are, but there was circumstantial evidence, and he got him sent to jail. And remember, the favor of God was on him at that time, even though the favor of God didn't save him from going to jail. You know, sometimes things come to us, again, like Elijah praying that there'll be no rain for three years, and the brook dried up. Then he rang, he boomeranged on him. You know, sometimes the thing that's come in your life that's most difficult is an answer to your prayer. And you get on the phone and say, oh, brother, will you pray God will take this burden off me? I say, no, because he put it on you. I'm not going to try and undo what God's put on you. You want God to pull down every hill and fill in every valley and make every crooked place. He says, listen, I'll give you the strength to do it. I'll give you the wisdom to do it. This is your time of maturing from here to eternity. See, he doesn't defeat all our foes and do all the things we ask. Prayer is not an escape. It's not God moving the mountain. It's him giving me grace to climb that mountain and get victory in his glorious name. And this love has to be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. There has to come a new level of sacrifice. There has to come a new level, not of service for your church, but for him. That every day, at the end of the day, the question you ask is, Lord, have I pleased you today? Not have I made more money. We're here to bring delight to the heart of God. And at the end of every day, I need to say, Lord, the bottom line is, have I pleased the heart of God? Isn't that wonderful? To be able to please the eternal God. Well, go home and read that chapter and change it around a bit. Take out charity, put in love. Take out love, put in Jesus. Take out Jesus, put in yourself. Maybe the next day, your children will be saying, Mom, who's the man that's come to live in our house? You could be so transformed. Let's sing one verse of when I surveyed the wondrous cross, then if you need to go, you can leave, but I hope you'll stay. We need some... I want you to pray especially for Sunday night. I have to preach in Dallas at a church called Fort Worth. What's it called now? Common Ground. Isn't that a name for a church? Common Ground Church. You pray, I'll get a double portion. I'll sure need it. When I surveyed the wondrous cross, let's sing it, and if you wish to leave, you can leave.