In this sermon, the speaker, David Thomas, shares his personal experience of witnessing for the Lord and the sacrifices he made for his faith. He recounts a conversation with a businessman who expressed a desire to have a similar experience. Thomas explains that his own journey involved facing challenges and walking long distances to spread the word of God. He references a biblical story from Ezekiel 47 about a man standing in a river, symbolizing the flow of life and healing. Thomas emphasizes the importance of walking in the Spirit and allowing God to guide and transform one's life.

...to make it to one thing and say it must be this, but it's not isolated, it's not just singular, it's plural. Art of interest or whatever, let's leap over for a minute into the 47th chapter of Ezekiel. Ezekiel is the prophet of degrees. Everything's done in, in, in, in periods. You know, like it's done in your life and mine. Master old God could have made the world in a day, he could have made it in a second, he could have spoken, it would have rolled off the end of his tongue as it were, but it pleased the Lord to take six days over it. It could bring us to maturity quicker, but he doesn't. He works out his prophecies in our lives. And then the Spirit of God moves in the 37th chapter of Ezekiel, you, you remember, the Spirit moves over a valley of bones and instead of bones now they come together and you have a valley full of skeletons. And then the Spirit moves again and instead of skeletons you have sinew on the skeletons. And then the Spirit moves again and you have flesh on the bones and the sinews. And then the Spirit moves again and you have skin on the flesh and on the bones and on the sinews. He's moving, isn't he, isn't he? It's not the complete miracle, but it's a series of miracles. And then finally, instead of having a valley full of bones, you have a valley full of corpses. You've got lovely eyes, lovely hands, lovely feet, but they can't do anything. And then finally the Spirit breathes on them and they become an exceedingly great army that God did it in stages. He didn't do it in one act. You've got ten chapters in the same book of Ezekiel. And again he's going by the years. He sees a river. He comes to the door of a sanctuary. He was born under the altar, the place of death. Oh, I think sometimes we've offered again some kind of blessing, some kind of anointing by this Spirit at a cut rate price. We say that people are known with problems. You see, you're vexed with an unclean spirit. You're fooling around with sex. You've got someone else. You're seeking the life of God. Now, you see, your problem is this. You make Jesus your Savior. You didn't make him your Lord. Now, as we said, if you didn't make him Lord and Savior, you didn't make him a Savior. Because if you're such thing as Savior, who did I want? Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I know He said to these same people, You come and consecrate. Consecrate what? Corruption? You can't consecrate carnality. You can't consecrate impurity. They shouldn't be in lions and lions and have a blind eye and have a lame leg. It must be a perfect offering. It's whatever the man or woman can really ask God to be sure of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost does this. He applies the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The promise God is wanting to give. It was the promise of the Father. It was the promise of the Son he could receive. It was the promise of John. Then why don't we receive the promise? Why is it that we spit it out? Pour the promise. Why is our church so dry? Why are our individual lives so fattened and unproductive? Well, let's look at this picture for a moment in Ezekiel 47. He saw a man there standing in a river. The river of blessings. The river that has started under the eye to the place of death. And it goes out. And wherever it goes, it gets broader. And wherever the river went, there was life and there was healing. And he says, I walked into the river and it was water to the ankle. Remember the man in the third chapter of the Acts of the Apostles? It was all right at this end. It was rubber and he got problems. But why didn't he get up and run around? He goes, I can't stand it. And immediately the man of God puts him in his ankle bones. He sees things. How can he walk unless he's got flying things? As I said this morning, I've done my share of walking. I walked the length of England, which is 400 miles. I walked the depth of it, more than men's preaching. Streets and everywhere else. Market places. Anywhere else the Lord opened doors. And he used to walk to the park. Pull a cart without goods in. And I'll tell you, walking 20, 25 miles a day is really rough on your ankles. You need good, strong ankles. But the river that he was standing in was water to the ankles. And the first thing he has to do when the Spirit of God comes, is learn to walk in the Spirit. And then he don't forfeit the lust of the flesh. And then he moves in a thousand cubits and it was water out to the knees. And it wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest that this is the Spirit leading a person to the flesh while his knees become operative. When he learns to pray in the Holy Ghost, making the note praying without it, without the Holy Ghost, the prayer meeting is the driest meeting in the Church. But oh, when the Holy Ghost is there, what a difference there is. You don't pray with one eye on the cross and say, because Lucy's on tonight and of course I do love Jesus, but I love Lucy as well and I hope we can get home in time. No, sir, no, sir, no, sir. When I was a kid, a while back in England, they used to talk about two famous pastors. There was a pastor who lived in Latvia. I've forgotten his name for the moment. The guy was P, I think it was Petrus, like Louis Petrus in the Scandinavian countries. But this man was remarkable for his prayer life. But there was another man by the name of Pastor Bloomheart. And Bloomheart became famous. Not because he was a brilliant, eloquent preacher. He became famous because he could pray. The only church that's going to make hell foundation's core in the day in which you and I live is a church that prays. Do you know why we have more frauds, freaks, and fanatics in Pentecostal? Because the devil is afraid of genuine Holy Ghost operation. That's why. So he gets our eyes on some rascal that came along, and he did some miracles, but boy, he's still got the biggest offering that's been ever asked. And he spent an hour or two taking an offering, and only 20 minutes preaching. Oh, he knows for a fact that he's been drunk more than once, sir. That's another scandalous thing. I say that, and I say it every Pentecostal preacher in the country, and I say it with respect, because some of the Buddhist and Holiest men are more Pentecostal. But you've got more freaks and frauds and fanatics in Pentecostal world, because Satan wants to infiltrate the genuine work of God if he can, and he threatens people. He scares them off. He puts the scapegoat in the field. Oh, brother, if I could only do one thing in the Holy Ghost, then God is my witness. Before even preaching, if I were linked up to every home in America, there's a whole world to mess. If God gave me a choice and said, you can only do one or two things, I would rather pray in the Holy Ghost than do any other thing. If I never came out of the room as long as I live, you see, all you have to do is really read this book of intelligence and then go to church and face up to it and say, you know, my church isn't in within a million miles of the New Testament. You don't have kids going to sleep at the back, or putting their arms round doors, or spitting the bubblegum and whatnot on the fuel, and the Holy Ghost is brooding in the assembly. They're afraid of the Holy Ghost. It's not merely an unhealthy fear, which it might be at times, but there's an awesomeness about the Spirit working. Jude says in the 20th verse of his epistle there, he talks about praying in the Holy Ghost. I wish we stressed this, as we stress other gifts and other signs that we believe, many of us, some people believe this is an authentic sign, the Spirit of the Spirit. But I don't care if you speak this kind of nonsense, if you can't really pray in the Holy Ghost, you're not going to fascinate me anyhow. If you're going to pray in the Holy Ghost, you're going to bite the rug. There are times you'll wake up full of your tears. There'll be times when your family won't let you really say anything. There'll be times when you don't want to eat. You don't want to see anybody. It's an appalling thing. It's an awesome thing. It's a terrifying thing, as Paul Johnson says, to realize that God has done all he can do for the world in which I live. He's given Jesus Christ. He's given this holy world His revelation. He's given the Holy Ghost. He says with Jesus, I've given you everything. That is the one thing we need to beat the world, beat the devil in this generation, that God hasn't given us in Jesus Christ. I think of Graham Hart. Again, praying. He didn't have any healing lines. He took the burden of six people. He brought their names on the paper, stick them on the wall where he couldn't see it, put a name on the middle where he went to part his hair in the morning, as long as there were constant reminders, lest he should forget. And so long all over Germany, in the early 1800s, around 1810, they knew about this one man of God that had power to prevail against the power. He could go there and burn the powers of darkness. Oh, come on. Let's be honest about it. We're not here for fun, are we? We're not here just to have a vacation, are we? We're here to rediscover some of the power of God. And doesn't God say that if we really pray, I'll give you power over all, all, all, all part of the enemy? Doesn't He say that with Jesus, He has truly given us all things? Does He say that after we die, we may also be born in heaven, and we shall be loosed from earth, and shall be loosed from heaven? And when you get home, your God is not there anyhow. Blumhardt took people on his heart, and usually in the space of a few days, very seldom did it take him weeks before he got them released. He would fight on his knees as though they were a visible fault. He would argue as though there were no reason. He would argue against them. He would plead with his forces. The blood, the sweet blood of Christ, and the power of the Holy Ghost, we stand there in physical combat everywhere where the powers of God live. So one day they brought a girl, that had more than one demon in her. You see, we don't do this in our very nice, beautiful Baptist churches, where they're pious to heaven, or our holiness churches, or even our Pentecostal churches anymore. We send them to the psychiatry, psychology, psychiatry, and modern science, and very often the doctor's work. We have to do that only because the church has lost the secret of operating, and I use that word wisely, operating the gifts of the Holy Ghost. If you want to get a good, intelligent book, that's better than a wall. He has a wonderful little book. You can buy it here for a dollar. Read it. Do more than that. Buy one for every one of the elders in your church. Do more than that. Read the chapter that's in the prayer meeting till you've read through the book. It's the most sensible book I know on the subject of gifts of the Spirit. It's worth its weight in gold as far as I'm concerned. You see, Bloom, my heart, knew what God wanted him to do. Some of you guys are preaching, and maybe God never wanted you to do it anyhow. You should have had a prayer ministry. You should have had a ministry casting out demons. You should have had a ministry on revelation. You should have had a ministry of prophecy. You don't have it. The church is impoverished. It's a one-man ministry. If you had a hospital at the corner of your street and you were sick and that hospital had a thousand beds and only one doctor, would you go to it? You say, well, one doctor couldn't manage a hospital with a thousand beds. How do you think one pastor can manage a church with a thousand people, mostly sick, who all have different needs and need intelligent instruction? Would you go to the local store if you had a Macy at the corner of the street that had gimbals or a Seuss Robex, a Monkey Robes, and they only had one man serving on every counter in that vast store? You wouldn't go there. Do you think somehow we can function in the church with one minister doing everything? You can't do it because it's not New Testament. That's why. Oh, brother, don't think we're going to get revival by God just coming and blessing your family. He won't do that. God's looking to try and get a breakthrough in our generation. I'm convinced of this. And somewhere we've got to rediscover. And if you're discovering man, you keep that man in your assembly as long as you can. Get some people now to pray in the Holy Ghost. They brought this girl to Bloomheart and he prayed and she, the demon wouldn't come out. He fasted and the demon wouldn't come out. So if I remember it, he appointed eight hours a day to concentrate on the deliverance of that one girl. That's compassion, isn't it? That's vision. That's what Wesley called an even scum, he said. That means that this man could come, he'll not let me go until I bless not me but her. She's not in the right mind. She's demon possessed. Her body's not a temple of the Holy Ghost. It's a temple of unclean spirit. He couldn't find somebody else to pray. So eight hours a day he prayed. Do you know how long? A year and eight months. One year and eight months. The holes in the road where he used to pray. The road was almost rotten with his tears. It seemed as he went on praying he got further and further and further and further into a part of darkness. And he said, demon I'll catch you if I go to the very bottom of hell to get you and I'm going to strangle you by faith in Jesus Christ and you're going to have to let go of this girl. We don't do this anymore. There's always a back door you can get out of. You know that little wonderful little door if you think the will of the Lord. Oh, these more spiritual. You can't get through that door for the next week. There's so many spiritual cripples going to get, trying to get through it. You won't be getting the back of the line. Water to the ankle. You can walk in the spirit. Water to the knees. And the Lord begins to take you by one hand but he doesn't take you past to that line. He doesn't say, you're a bit old to that line. Your wife doesn't understand or your husband doesn't understand. And he's leading you waters to the knees and then waters to the loins. What did God say to his servant in the Old Testament? Oh my, oh my, my servant, don't get worried. Look, out of those loins of yours I'll bring a people stronger than any people. Loins. It's really the only way of food for them. Oh brother, you're making progress and you've got parts water to the ankles and water to the knees and you get to the place to waters to the loins and you don't care a hill of beans who gets the glory. You pray and say God Almighty if you're going to bless the Nazarenes at the end of this kingdom. Hallelujah. Lord, I agree with you. I'm not arguing. You send a Bible there and most likely he might send it to you anyhow. But oh Lord bless us. We've got all the truth and you know there's nobody really on the ball as much as we are. Well, I think the ball must be busted. You've been sitting on it that long and nothing's happened. You can't believe you're on the ball. Ah, when you get to waters to the loins. Hmm? If you're going to wrestle you've got to have good strong loins. You see those wrestlers boy how crippled they are. Boy what anger they've got. Loins, the air, the simpleness. In the air there's pride it's conceived and carried. Waters to the loins. Have you got me a preacher? Well you're just defending this particular aspect of doctrine and quite sure they'll get to know it headquarters and if they don't get to know it you're convincing that you're a little bit off tolly and you've even got one member in your church full of the Holy Spirit. That's awfully dangerous. And you've an idea of somebody else who's in a bit full of the Spirit and we don't quite agree unless they're converting any second and I don't care what you call it then but I'll tell you something as Jimmy said because I don't want to call it penny talk. Forget it but we need something in this day in which we live. And then finally you notice another thousand cubits because you see whether you've got waters to the ankles or waters to the knees or waters to the loins you've still got your feet on the bottom. I never learned to swim. I lived in the middle of the city in England and my mother never thought there'd ever be anyone to swim for any horse. The only thing we have around here is a bathtub in the house you can't swim. It's a waste of time. But once or twice I did go to the swimming bar and the instructor told us what to do but boy I was always smart. I always kept one foot on the bottom. All I could swim and kick like this and splash and the teacher would say well here you still got your foot on the bottom. You know if you've only a toe on the bottom you have a kind of security. When you walk in the Spirit that's all right and when you get water up to the loins and you're moving in that area the Spirit that's all right and then the Lord says no you're going to take one more step and I've got news for you there's no bottom. You're out in the deep now. I've been telling you for this water to the ankles, water to the knees. Why are you going right out into the deep now? Oh he might even tell you to be careful. I don't know he might even tell you to quit that church because anyhow they're not going places. You've tried and he might say well you go down the street and start a harlot in a little house with a few really redeemed people who know how to pray. Well no he may not but I'll tell you this. We've put a lot of strange interpretations on the work of the Holy Spirit. One of the most popular preachers in the country preached on the Holy Spirit not long ago in his TV program. And he said I ascribe all my miraculous ministry to the fact I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Since that day all these miracles have happened. I challenge you to find me one miracle that the disciples did after Pentecost they didn't do before Pentecost. They cast out devils before Pentecost. They healed the sick. They opened the eyes of the blind. Even devils were subject to it. It wasn't the air outside of them that was transformed. It was they who were transformed. Good children had their hearts baptized according to Acts 15 8 and 9. I don't know whether Nicodemus was in the upper room. I can't figure it out. But you see God did. If you get filled with the Holy Ghost you become a famous personality. It's certainly not true. Because you don't know where even some of the disciples went after they were filled with the Holy Ghost. You can only trace half a dozen of them that were very mild. What happened to the other 120? I don't know. Maybe they were the powerhouse. They're pouring in the Holy Ghost while these men went through. Because you see on one occasion the disciples were still in Jerusalem but what happened to them? They were dispersed. They went everywhere preaching except the apostles. You can't find in the New Testament where some of those men were born again. You couldn't find it if you tried because it's not there. When the children of Israel went over to the Red Sea they sang a song that when they got to the other place and crossed God and they built him this permanent memorial they built a stack of stone. The first of the times was their deliverance from Satan and they sang a song and the breeze blew it away. But when God delivered them and brought them into the land of promise they sang a song and the it away. But when God delivered brought them into the land of promise they sang a song and the breeze blew it away. But when God delivered them and of promise they sang a song and the breeze blew it away. But when God delivered them and brought them into the land of promise they sang a song into the land of promise they sang a song and the it away. But when God delivered them and brought them into the land of promise they and the breeze blew it away. But when God delivered brought them into the promise they sang a song and the breeze blew it away. But when God delivered them and brought them into the land of promise they sang a song it away. But when God delivered them and brought them into the land of and the breeze blew it away. But when God delivered brought them into the promise they But when God delivered them and into the promise they and the breeze blew it away. But when God delivered them and brought them into the land of sang a song and the breeze blew it away. But when God delivered them and brought them promise they sang a song it away. But when God delivered them and into the land of and the it away. But when God delivered and the breeze blew brought them into the land of and the But when God delivered them and brought them into the land of and the breeze blew it away. But when God delivered into the land of and the breeze blew it away. But when them and brought them into the land of and the breeze blew But when God delivered brought them land of and the breeze blew it away. But when God delivered brought them into the and the a God-inspired life, a God-regulated life, a God-ordered life, a God-endued life. He set himself up. He didn't search his heart. He thought if we search our own hearts, we're very lenient, but he let God search him. The Lord began to put his finger on this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this. The Lord said, you've built up one of the most famous businesses in London. Now, I want you to put it there on the altar. Remember that the river of life proceeds from the altar, the place of death. And you have a reputation. Put your reputation on the altar. And put your bank book on the altar. You're a wealthy man. And the Lord began to make claim after claim, and he did it. When he got up from his feet, he didn't have to talk about it. There's an old preacher down in Florida tonight, Dr. Harry Jessup. Some of you may have read some of his books. One of the finest old holiness preachers I ever heard. He's 85 years of age. I was saved under him, as a matter of fact, 50 years ago. Harry Jessup, the distinguished theologian, met this man. You know, when God transformed that man, his face shone like the face of Moses. And Harry Jessup wrote a book with this title, I Met a Man with a Shining Face. And everybody that met that man after his Christ experience with God, saved as he was, after he'd laid everything on the altar, after he'd asked for cleansing, after he'd asked for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, everybody knew he was indwelled. One day another businessman came into his office. They talked business. This man, David Thomas, witnessed for the Lord. And as they were leaving the business house and taking a cab, the man turned round and threw his briefcase in the bag, took off his hat, and he said to David Thomas, Sir, I would give everything that I own in this world to have an experience like the one you have. And as thick as lightning, David Thomas said, Friends, that's exactly what it cost me. Here I bring my all to thee, friends in time and earthly, soul, soul and body thine to. Oh, if you get through with the Holy Ghost, it'll ruin your ghost average. Oh, you'll have to go back to the old ways they used to have in the old holiness churches, the old Pentecostal churches. When they had the glory and when they had the fire, the glory that came to the Joseph Street, the glory that, uh, the Margarines used to be called a Pentecostal holiness, but they maybe got a bit nervous and got the Pentecostal. They got the, you know, when they had the glory in those old days, they moved over this land like a streak of fire. The fire's gone out. The anointing is gone. The church is an object of ridicule. I finish what I began. Our present Christianity is an embarrassment to God. And the only way out of the mess, the only way to victory, the only way to simpleness, the only way to revival, is that I come with a broken and a contrite heart and confess my bankruptcy. And not just tell God, but say, Lord, put it on record. I told you as I began the meeting tonight, Lord, speak to me. And then I said, after that, I promise to obey thee. I'm going to keep those promises. Wouldn't it be something that people wrote home and said, say, who do you think was at the altar last night? Our pastor. What a dream he'd go. Said he was a real good preacher. Sure he did, and he did. But, uh, maybe tonight the Spirit put his finger on his shoulder and there was a lot of dryness and emptiness and tirelessness and fruitlessness. And he was only in water up to his ankles where he'd been standing for the last ten years. He hadn't really moved up the waters to the knees. Uh, Gabriel could look in his book and couldn't find the last night your pastor spent in prayer. And if Gabriel sits high heavenly here and did what David said, throw my tears in my bottle, he couldn't find the last tear your pastor shed over a lost world. Oh, no, no, no, no, he couldn't do that. A famous Baptist said one day to Tozer, and I finish right here, and Tozer told me this, that this Baptist preacher said, you know, if the Holy Ghost left my church today it would function exactly the same. He wouldn't even know he'd gone. That's not really true of many Baptist churches. It's true of most churches in the country, I'm convinced of that. It's a big price to pay, isn't it? Or is it? Huh? If you do lose your golf average, if it doesn't knock the priest out of your permanent priest trousers, and they get a little shiny at the knees, and if you do begin to get a little prematurely old, wouldn't it be worth it if every time you get to your knees they have to press the panic button in hell and say, hey, you know that pastor we used to attend from Milldale Conference, that's where he really got on fire again. My, my, my, he's going to pray. Satan doesn't tremble when we preach so often, but oh, brother, I say again, if there's going to be a moving of the Spirit of God, the only group, the only people who can make hell's foundations quiver in these days are men who know how to pray and know Holy Ghost. Then he said you should take a piece of paper, and he said we should write on that paper what we know is wrong with ourselves, our failure, our weakness, our carelessness, our tearlessness, our dryness, our lack of compassion, our selfishness, our covetousness, write them all down. And when you don't mind anything else to write, strike a line under it. And then pause and say, Holy Spirit, will you show me what's wrong? And he'll begin to show you things you didn't know were there, and he'll add those on. And then when there's nothing else, you put a line at the bottom and say, Lord, I'm guilty of all these things, but tonight, through the blood of Christ, I claim cleansing. Why don't you tell God right now, and tell the devil, and testify to the world that after this night you're not going to be a bankrupt Christian. You're not going to be a prayerless Christian. Then instead of reducing the prayer meeting in the church, you put an extra prayer meeting on, and you start, at least two or three people start a half-night of prayer for every Friday night from nine o'clock till eleven or twelve, and you'll see how it all really grows. Well, it will. That's a bit of a Holy Ghost that doesn't. Is there anything flowing out of you tonight except complaints and grief and bitterness and unhappiness and sorrow? Are those rivers really flowing? The Lord said to you and to me tonight, come on. We're nearly at the end of the dispensation. Jesus doesn't want to come to a bankrupt church. He wants to come to a church that's moving in the power of a Holy Ghost. He once had the anointing. He lost it. Well, he's very merciful. That's why I brought you here tonight. Maybe that's why we've got a better speaking system and there's more comfort and it's more congenial and there's more atmosphere. God brought you here tonight because he wants to get through to you. He wants you to leave your bankrupt life there and go out into a stream of blessing and you'll be better to live another six days in the Holy Ghost than six years that you've been living in the past. You're going to say to him tonight, Lord, I don't care about Brother Robertson or anybody else there tonight. It's my concern. I want the Holy Ghost that out of me there may flow rivers of living water. He gives us spirit. He says he gives us spirit to them that obey him. Will you obey him tonight? We pray. Our Father, we would not underestimate the privilege of being gathered together like this. Many countries in the world where this could not happen, but here we are, not by accident, but by divine order, right in the perfect will of God. You brought us here. You wanted to speak to us and meet us tonight. This great, wonderful country is feeding to destruction and the answer is not, we know, in legislation or any other thing, but the obedience of your church to come back in humility and in tears and in brokenness and confess our failure. Lord, I think of the man just now when the tree was going to be cut down and he said, Lord, don't let them cut the tree down. Spare it just one more year that I may fertilize it and if it brings forth no more fruit, then cut it down. Lord, may be some of us are on our last year. Oh, God, tonight. Do what arguing, do what reasoning, do what preaching canna do. Bring that conviction of our personal bankruptcy, our personal dryness, our personal emptiness, our personal lack of love for the last world, our personal lack of consideration. Lord, for the next moment, for tonight, we completely rebuild our own economy, as you promised to defeat me. And speak, dear Lord, until we know that we're cleansed and filled with the spirit of God. I'm going to ask that our heads bowed and eyes closed that we sing just once. Spirit of the living God, pour all the flesh on me. I don't like making all these calls and usually don't make them, but there are some that have come out already and I'm going to ask you if you want to join them as we sing this once just proudly. Don't look around to see who's coming. You say tonight I've got to meet God. I'm desperate. I don't want blessing. I want to be broken. I want to die. I want to be cleansed. I want him to fill me. I want him to undo me. There's still some room at the altar, not much, but you can come. Let's say it in a whisper, and you rise and come as we sing. Spirit of the living God. You sing it a new time. Spirit of the living God, pour all the flesh on me. Break me, melt me, melt me, mold me, fill me. Break me, melt me. Let's sing that part. Break me. Are you coming now, John? And then you lift up.