Leonard Ravenhill emphasizes the significance of John the Baptist as the greatest man who ever lived, highlighting his role as a prophet during a time of spiritual darkness and silence. He contrasts the prophetic voice of John with the complacency of the church today, urging believers to seek a genuine revival and a deeper relationship with God. Ravenhill warns against the dangers of unbelief and laziness in spiritual life, calling for a return to fervent prayer and repentance. He stresses that true greatness is found in being great in the sight of God, not in worldly accolades or achievements. The sermon serves as a powerful reminder of the need for the Holy Spirit's fire to purify and energize the church in these challenging times.

I've mentioned more than once this weekend, in different languages, that God very often locks nations up, He sends them to jail. Sends Israel to jail for four hundred years under the Pharaohs, and He sends them to jail for four hundred years between the Testaments. I've got two texts tonight. It doesn't mean I'll teach Christ as long. But maybe I should warn you, perhaps right now you should fasten your seatbelts. I think there's a little turbulence ahead. The dividing page between the Testaments, this white page, covers a period of blackness. It says nothing, it says everything. There have been four hundred years of prophetic darkness without any light. Four hundred years of silence without any prophetic voice. And it could be while you're here they might shoot one of those things off in the sky across the water there. They did the last time we were here, and it's fascinating to see a streak of light go up in the sky. But I want to suggest to you that this amazing man that streaked across that sky, John Baptist, was more incandescent than even one of those flaming rockets, more brilliant than Halley's Thomas, more disturbing than an earthquake. He is in that rare category of being a prophet. Quite recently a lady told me that in her church a preacher had been denouncing prophets. They don't exist anymore. They're finished with the apostolic dispensation. If that's your prayer, then at least be honest. If there are no prophets, there are no evangelists. You'd better not read the fourth chapter of Ephesians anymore, because he gave some prophets, some evangelists, some teachers. And if you've kept one out, you'll have to get rid of that if you're desperately honest and biblically and intellectually and theologically honest. Prophets are God's emergency men for crisis hours. An evangelist tells you to get rid of your sin because it will hurt you. The prophet is concerned not that your sin is hurting you, but your sin is hurting God. The evangelist says if you don't get rid of sin, you're going to be in trouble. God says if you don't get rid of sin, he'll get rid of you. The greatest character reader of all time is Jesus Christ. And he said concerning John Baptist that there was not a man born of woman that was greater than he. And Jesus, of course, remembered Isaiah and the other prophets. Now the book of this man is very wonderful. His father was a priest by the name of Zacharias, and he was of the cross of Abriah. His mother was one of the daughters of Aaron. There were 12,000 priests at that period, and every one of them did one thing only once in his life. And that was to go into the temple and minister at the temple. It was on your health. And when the trumpeters stood there on the porch of Herod, Herod built it, named it. And they stood there every morning with their silver trumpets and sounded a blast over Jerusalem, and the great doors of the temple were opened. And the priest came forth down the aisle. It was unrehearsed. He was under the burden of those heavy priestly garments and a mitre upon his head. The people were allowed to follow him. And men proceeded in and took the dust away from the altar. And as this man, Zacharias, came down the altar, he came down, and the word of God says that there was somebody to meet him there, an angel. I think most of us would be a little shocked if we met an angel. We read about them, but we don't meet them. And when he saw the angel, he was disturbed. And the angel said, Fear not. It's very precise because it says that the angel, there appeared unto him an angel of God standing on the right side, that's from the right side of the altar. Does it make any difference where it stands? Of course it does. It used to be on the left-hand side of the altar he had a message for the nation. It used to be on the right-hand side of the altar he had a message for an individual. And here is a man already nervous. There were more than 6,000 people in that assembly. Because on one occasion there was a riot in the temple and 2,000 people were almost destroyed and another 4,000 people were injured, according to history, were injured. And here is a man already nervous in this situation. And suddenly Gabriel calmly steers and says, Fear not. I've got a message for you. The Lord sent me all the way from the ivory palaces into this world of wars to tell you that your wife is going to bear a son. Oh, come on. I'd have enough trouble for that, telling me that. Good night. She's a wrinkled old woman. She's got rheumatism and I don't know what she hasn't got. And she's going to bear a son. I think some of us would just be as disturbed if the Lord whispered in your ear tonight, I'm going to answer the prayer that you've prayed for the last 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 years. We might have the same unbelief. You know, the reason that the tomb in Israel didn't enter the promised land and maybe there were two million of them was not because they committed adultery, not because they went after strange gods. They had one terrible disease which is rampant in the Church of God today. They had unbelief. And unbelief causes them to die in the wilderness even if they were the chosen people of God. And because of this unbelief, God struck him dumb. If the Lord did that tonight, I'd need to turn this into a healing meeting. It is because everyone was dumb because of our unbelief. It's the most prevalent disease. I said facetiously, but I still say it again. That we're the most unbelieving believers that God has ever had to deal with. And I remind you again that if you will live another hundred years, God has not got a single word to say to our generation. God hasn't spoken to the world for 2,000 years. But he said his last word in his son, Jesus Christ. And more than one preacher said to me, I've read your book, Writer, Bible, Tatters, and the thing that stuck with me was this. He said that one day somebody will read the Bible and believe it, and when they do, they'll all be embarrassed. Well, I still hope, I still look for that thing to happen. It's an amazing thing, but it's to me a very inspiring thing. That in the crisis periods of history, initially I'm in the church, particularly in Israel, I'm on this occasion. The man who was going to deliver the nation was born of a barren woman. Read the 32nd chapter there of Genesis. What does it say? There came a day when a woman was no longer satisfied with a pretty dress and a nice hairdo and rings on her fingers and bells on her toes and whatever she'd got. She came in one day and said to her husband, Jacob, give me children or I die! I can spell out to you, simple as I am, I'm hardly a collegiate, I'm not a centenarian, I'm not a smart man. But I can tell you one reason we do not have revival in America or England or anywhere else tonight. Do you know what it is? Because we're content to live without it. And when you've got a spiritual bellyache, when you get to the place where you say, God Almighty, I'd rather see revival come to America than get a thousand dollars a day or become the most famous preacher in the world, you'll be getting somewhere near to the place where Almighty God might start moving your barrels of compassion. John Knox prayed that prayer, you remember, until Bloody Mary said, I would rather hear the trump of an army coming than hear that John Knox is praying. I would to God's people who are as much afraid of my prayers, what about you little people there? Do you remember that Samson, the man that pulled the pillars down and wrecked the system of his day, was born of a barren woman? Do you remember that Abraham gave birth to Isaac when he was 100 years of age and she was somewhere around about 80? Turn the pages back, I don't have time tonight, I've just stirred up your mind. And we're in this situation. 400 years of stillness and life, patheticness. They'd hung their hearts on the willow. Remember, please, John the Baptist came into a world that was a totalitarian world, a sophisticated world. The Romans had it in their grips, the Greeks had it in their grips intellectually and the Jews had a monopoly of God, so they thought. And God sends this man. Jesus said he was the most remarkable man in history and Jesus was never wrong anyhow. And do you know it says something about John that it doesn't say about anybody else in history? Well, it says a lot of things about him. But do you know what it says there? The angels said he should be great in the sight of God. Oh, I like that. That's the only greatness I would ever like. I remember years ago somebody said to me, boy, you've got a job. You're going to be in a conference and some of the greatest preachers in the country are there. They're all great. You know, he was right. In three days, every one of them graded on me. They had all the decorations you could think of, the degrees and diplomas. Oh, come on, sir, I'm not deciding your learning. Do you think the devil runs in your office once or twice a week to see if you've got your BA degree and your MA degree and your PhD degree from head to toe and says, boy, I'm getting out of here. He's too smart for me. You could have enough degrees to pay for this house and the ceiling as well and it wouldn't save the devil that much. Jim the Baptist would be great in the sight of God. Oh, boy, that's something you might tip it with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. And then it says that when his mother had conceived him she went to see this relative of hers and when she got there this relative lady was also pregnant. And it says that John the Baptist was being quiet until then and then he suddenly woke up when he got in the presence of Jesus and got filled with the Holy Ghost. That's dangerous, isn't it? John the Baptist is the only man in history that I know of that was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. Well, how in the world could he speak in tongues? If you have to speak in tongues to be filled with the Holy Ghost a little guy must have spoken in tongues two minutes after he was born. I'm not speaking in tongues. I'm telling you to get out of culture because you see it says in 1 Corinthians 12 he gave to one and he gave to another and he gave to another the gift of tongues. If everybody had to have it the Holy Ghost smarter than me he would have said that everybody must speak in tongues. He didn't say that. There is a valid experience in tongues. I don't doubt that at all. You see, we like to make everybody come through the same cookie-cutter the same theological pattern we were in. If you didn't get it my way, brother you didn't get it. That's all the way. I'm sorry for you. What does it prove to fill with the Holy Ghost that you have a holy life? That's the one indisputable fact of being filled with the Holy Ghost. When Saul, the king of Israel had an evil spirit, he did evil things. Jesus says when a man has an unclean spirit he does unclean things and logically, biblically if you have the Holy Ghost you'll do holy things. Did you know that a dove has nine wings nine feathers on one wing and nine on the other? Can you imagine a dove saying well, it's a dirty economy I'll have to get off the ground with one wing. No, he'd be in a mess. He'd be going round and round and round. He can only use one wing. He uses two. Well, there are nine feet to this spirit and there are nine groups of this spirit. Why try and get off the ground with one wing? In the Southern Branch Candlestick in Israel there were nine beds on either side. Again, evidence to me of the nine gifts of nine feet to this spirit. They're all very beautiful. I'd like to go to a very pentecostal church and I put them into this one here. Sure I would. They went to church every day. They broke bread every day. They had prayer meetings every day and people were saved every day. Know any churches like that around? That's not my standard, that's God's standard. I'm quite sure that church is near being born. I don't personally believe it's born yet but I'll tell you what I do believe. I believe as we go down into the sorrows and agonies people say, you know what we've so much distress in nations we've so much iniquity and everything's collapsing don't you think that this is a sign of the end times? No, I don't. No, I don't. Why? Because the Bible doesn't. You know what the Bible says? It says these are the beginning of sorrows, not the end. These are the beginnings of sorrows. The travel is yet to come. I said the other day, you know when the ship was going down and they thrown the cargo overboard and thrown everything overboard except for people then they handed the ship to a preacher. Isn't that great? This nation is going to get to the place England is going to get to the place the present civilization is going to get to the place where they'll be glad to hand the wreck over to the preacher. The anointed of God anyhow. Oh, what a man this was. Ah well, of course people aren't born like this these days are don't you know what it says? It says it came to pass when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary and the babe bleeped in her ear Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. Isn't that lovely? And it says that Zacharias, verse 67 his father was filled with the Holy Ghost. That's a good drawing, don't you think so? And it says they went into the temple and there's a man by the name of Simony was devout waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Ghost was upon him and he had some discernment it was revealed to him by the Holy Ghost and the Spirit came on the temple. Boy, there's an atmosphere to be born in, eh? Your mother's filled with the Holy Ghost your father's filled with the Holy Ghost your temple's filled with the Holy Ghost hey, there's not much room for anything else and John Baptist is filled with the Holy Ghost. I haven't been in a Quaker meeting for a long while. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost. Isn't that something? Thank you sir, thank you. That was a preacher salvaging his congregation. He was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's youth. Again I remind you he was a prophet he wasn't an evangelist how could he have been an evangelist if he didn't have a mailing list? He didn't take any offerings. He didn't have an advance man. Man, if he'd been smart he could have been selling pit rock on the very place where Abraham offered Isaac. He could have been taking tours around Israel and saying this is the spot where Moses divided the Red Sea would you like a bucket of sand for 50 bucks? He was filled with the Holy Ghost and you know what? He never did a miracle. I'm almost getting weary of miracles and I see most of them except raising the dead. All they do is stir up a lot of controversy and curiosity often. John did no miracle the word of God says. Nobody ran after him saying have mercy on my son he's a lunatic. Nobody said can you raise the dead nobody said can you unplug my deaf ears or touch my brother's eyes with a blind. Nobody said that. He never raised the dead man he raised the dead nation. Only a Holy Ghost for a man could do that. You see somewhere behind those rocks where he'd been along with God for 30 years. If you saw the steam rising it would have been his hot tears when he'd said oh that I would send the heavens and come down. And then God sent this strange man at the other side of the 400 years of darkness you have the man of prophet by the name of Mike Malachite. Do you remember what he said looking through that 400 year tunnel of darkness? He knew this condition of the nation. I remind you again God Almighty was married to Israel but she played the whore. He put her in prison for 400 years she got out and he sent her to prison again and she's in prison again for the second 400 years. And then he left her for 2,000 years because she hasn't bothered to reveal things anyhow. Do you think the few dollars that she's in the kingdom of heaven together? Do you think the high and lofty woman inhabiting eternity is wringing his hands in case America lets him down? Forget it. We're possibly nearer judgment than Russia. But after all they've had more Bibles. Last time I was in Australia there were three ladies sitting in front of me beautiful looking ladies. They just had a scarf around their head tied under their chins their hair parted in the center and they sat there looking like three Madonnas. They were really beautiful and I figured that woman must be 90 years of age that must be her daughter, that must be her daughter. And after the meeting the daughter came up and said in broken English oh so beautiful tonight, beautiful atmosphere. God very near. I said well, you speak pretty good English but kind of broken English where are you from? Russia. Russia? How did you get here? We escaped over the border and got through China and got into Hong Kong and some people graciously got us down here. Well I said you must be very thrilled to be in Australia plenty of food, plenty of clothes. No response. It must be nice to worship in a sanctuary like this and feel God's presence and hear the singing of the choir and these lovely hymns. It must be nice. She translated it to her mother and to the old lady, old lady said no. And then she came out with a pattern of words. What did she say? She said I'd go back to Russia tomorrow if I could get there. What did she mean she'd go back to Russia? Because she said when we meet in secret God, she said I don't want food, I don't want clothes, I want God. And she said hidden in the mountains in a cave I felt more of God than I felt in any meeting I'd been in Australia. Some of you must have met Nicholas Bengl. Wonderful man of God. And I spoke with him and he was at Ralph Wilkerson's place not too long ago. I have a tape on it. And he said I want to get back as quickly as I can to Africa because I don't feel God's moving in America. And he's a head of bread, blood stock can be costly too. I guess the most awesome thing in the world is when God comes down on a people. Brother Bill had a sing this morning and the pianist played a little of it tonight, that lovely waltz, Him, God, me, O thou great Jehovah. And as he sang it I thought of that phrase that said let the cloudy fiery pillar. Listen, when the pillar of fire was on the sanctuary did you think they'd have to go ringing doorbells to tell people the glory of God was hanging over the temple? You never have to advertise a fire whether it's physical or spiritual. And I pray with all my being this afternoon, Lord, I know this church has had a wonderful ministry, but from tonight, not because I'm here, when you put the fiery cloudy pillar over this beautiful thing that stands over the roof here so that everybody in Florida and even to the West Coast will know that God abides here. Not preachers with a better standard but the Holy Spirit of God broods here. I don't care if there isn't a miracle that you can see with your eyes. It's men come here who are defeated by sin and crushed by sin and disowned by sin and they get cleansed and filled with the Holy Ghost. The greatest miracle God Almighty can do on earth is this, that He takes an unholy man out of an unholy world and makes that unholy man holy and puts him back in an unholy world and keeps him holy. He takes all the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, the resurrection and the part of the Holy Ghost to do that. You can't do it by shaping him up theologically and straightening him out to that little thing that you hang on in your petty little group anyhow. John the Baptist was a prophet and prophets are usually terrible men. They so fear God they don't care either men or devils. They don't borrow sermon outlines and get everything that Spurgeon's ever written. They get them in the secret place of the Most High and they spend their hours alone with God. I have a boy that I think has a prophetic ministry. He's in South America right now trying to build a Bible school in an orphanage in Paraguay where every letter is censored that comes out of the country. They're thinking about as difficult as you can get them. But after dinner every day he goes into his room at about two o'clock and he waits on God till five o'clock before dinner he'll go minister. I wish every preacher did that. Sometimes I think books would become a curse. You borrow your sermon from the sword of the Lord well it can't be yours anyhow. You know God's going to do a new thing in this day in which we live and he'll have to find some new men to do it. John Baptist came onto the scene in a very difficult day. Listen to this a minute later. The third chapter of Luke, chapter one, verse one. Listen to this how interesting it is. In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar Pontius Pilate being the governor of Judea headed the tea-trock of Galilee whose brother the tea-trock, his brother Philip the tea-trock of Arcturus and the region of Cacanitus and Lysanias the tea-trock of Abilene Amos and Caiaphas being the high priests the word of the Lord came unto John the Baptist. Isn't that interesting? It's about as refreshing as a mouthful of sand. Do you care who was the tea-trock of Galilee? Do you care if Philip was tea-trock of another area? Tell me which Caesar was on the throne. Was it Tiberius or which Caesar was it? Julius Caesar? Or Caligula? Who was on the throne? You don't know. Well why does God put it there? He puts it there to show you that this man isn't coming to a group of people that were simpletons. They were living in slave conditions. They were compelled to carry a burden for any man that called them if he were a Roman leave their bundle and take up another bundle and go on their way. They were under dominion to an invading power. They had no rights. And God Almighty found the man He hid him away there year after year after year. I'm going to tell you when I get to eternity I'm going to ask John Baptist some things about what happened. I marvel at the way God makes man. I marvel at Moses on the backside of the desert. I would have been saying Almighty God why don't you move? Ten thousand people die every day in Egypt. Your chosen people they perish why don't you do something about it? And God says hold your tongue and stay here another ten years. And they shaped him up in forty years. How do you think Jesus felt when they told him there's a man called John the Baptist drawing thousands of people and Jesus is hammering nails and making a yoke for an ox or an ass making a coffin for somebody to be buried in and there is a man with ministry drawing the crowds. You see the man who is in the will of God has perfect peace. It doesn't matter if there's an earthquake outside. As I reminded you this morning in John 17 Jesus says the hour has come. That's the seventh time he said it in that gospel. Jesus knew the divine timetable he knew when to move and not to move. And John the Baptist is there in the wilderness. People were going up to the temple. It must have been marvelous to go to the temple one afternoon and as you went you saw the high priest and the word of God says he had garments of glory and beauty. He had a breastplate with twelve precious stones of the tribes of Israel on. He had a beautiful thing on his forehead and it was woven in fine gold and it said holiness unto the Lord. He had psalms hanging on ribbons from his wrist. He had the commandments written in a belt that he wore around his body. And everybody saw his excellence as a high priest and they bowed. And he had about as much unction as this rug. They were sick to death and going to the sanctuary and hearing a form of godliness and when they'd seen the high priest in all his garments of glory and beauty they went down the road to see a rugged, rugged Baptist. Eleven years without his loins. Bit of an old dead camel over his shoulder so he wouldn't get sun stroke. And here they saw this unpredictable, unusual unlettered, unscholastic man. He had no price tag. There was nobody who could silence him. There was nobody who could buy him off. They refused to sign a contract not to ruffle the feathers of the Pharisees or disturb the people in the synagogue. They couldn't hitch him up to any political wagon. Don't you think it must have been... Come on, come on, are you in the meeting already? Come on now. Don't you think it must have been an awesome thing for that one man to know he was the only man in the world that had the truth of God? There's dogs in heaven, I tell you, that would just about shatter me. They had their new moons, they had their Sabbaths, they had their Olsens. Did you think at Easter when you'd just passed through that the Jews were celebrating the Passover at the very day they crucified the Son of God? And he was there and they didn't know? John the Baptist was in the school God takes all his students to. A lady asked me one day what university I went to. I said, I went to Bush University. She said, Bush? Bush University. Do I know anybody that went there? I said, well, maybe you do, Moses. She said, Moses who? Bush University where God takes all the men he's going to handle. Oh my. He took the greatest intellect the world has ever known, the Apostle Paul. God revealed himself to him on the Damascus road. God revealed himself in him, he says, when he got along with God. Something that most of you preachers hear is not that you don't know enough, you know too much. You're too smart. You have too much knowledge. Too much psychology. You're being told how to do it. God uses bankrupt men. A bunch of men in the upper room, haven't got a degree between them. You could have 32 and still be frozen anyhow. Have you not heard it said? Oh my, what a wonderful thing. I say again because I've got a kick out of this. This man was no evangelist. He'd have had a mailing list. He'd have had, you know, got a radio program. He'd have got something. He'd have had bumper stickers on the cars. You say they had no cars. Well he could have stuck them on camels, couldn't he? Every camel going with a thing on its tail every time he wagged like this. Come and see John the Baptist. Come and see John the Baptist. Listen, I want to tell you preacher boy, if you don't have the Holy Ghost, you'll need every dime you can scrounge out of widows and everybody else. You know the difference between evangelists and prophets? Evangelists have to go looking for work. People come looking for profit. You get the anointing of God and people will come from the ends of the earth. Now I'm not smart. I'm not a brilliant man. I'm an ignoramus and I gave all I had to Jesus and he took it. But my darling wife's somewhere there and she'll tell you I've got a file at home like that, invitations to a 10,000 seater conference in Sweden and a big conference in Australia and I don't even bother to go to them. Why not? Because I don't think the Lord wants me to go. He told me to come to the feeble-minded so I came. But isn't it wonderful that there's a man in the desert, in the desert! Good nighties, no seating accommodation. He didn't have a soloist or a three-priest combo. They had revival without guitars. Can you imagine that? No records to sell. Isn't that amazing for the people? Poor fellow. You know, it's really bad. He's nobody but God. You know, when you get there, you'll get some praise. People say, Mother Angelica, sign my Bible. What's your favorite scripture? Oh, I've got a scripture nobody else wants. God gave me it about 50 years ago and I hang on to it every day. You know what it is? The Lord preserves us from the sinful. That's my thing. You don't want that. You're too smart. I can't even look after myself. The Lord preserves us from the sinful. And you know why He's done it? John the Baptist was in the wilderness. Scorching, horrible wilderness. Nowhere to sit. No miracles to attract them. But you see, for 400 years there had been no voice and suddenly there was a booming voice. Where did it begin? It began where every revival began. He began preaching where Jesus began preaching. He began preaching where Peter began preaching. He began preaching where we're afraid to start preaching. I hear a little bit now and again. I hear a lot about gifts of the Spirit. Occasionally I hear something about fruits of the Spirit. I don't hear much of Romans 6, fruits unto holiness. I hear far less about bringing forth fruit, meat for repentance. Now I baptize, I don't know how many scrolls or hundreds of people in my day. But you know what? I started putting people on probation for three months before I baptized them. Why? Because they've got to bring forth fruit before I know if they're really through with God. And if I brought them into the meeting publicly into the church I denounced them publicly too. I said, listen, I'll accept you publicly but if you leave I'll tell the congregation why you left. It took the trade down a little bit, you know. But that's all right. Oh, I'd like to have heard John Baptist preach. Preaching is the greatest job in the world. If it wasn't, I wouldn't do it. But really it is. It's the hardest job in the world. Everybody's going on strike for more money. I figure I get about five cents an hour for preaching. That's a lot, isn't it? The hours I put in prayer and fasting and waiting on God and the nights I don't sleep. I don't say that bravely, I'm just telling you a fact. That's about what it works out as. You pay all your expenses, you do the other things. Oh well. I get a lot of comfort. My books are sold pretty good. They're in about twelve languages and I don't get a penny royalties out of any of them. I give it all to missions. You give me a couple of thousand dollars this week, it'll be fine. I put it into a new book I'm publishing and I won't get a dime out of it. It'll go to missions. I enjoy doing that. You know I do it because the Apostle Paul wrote fourteen epistles if you include Hebrews and he never picked up a penny royalty. But boy, he's going to get it one day. That's why you tell the businessmen, prophets and evangelists you tell the evangelists in heaven they'll be digging the streets up, they're made of gold. John did no miracles. Oh, I'd like to do the miracles he did. I was reading the other night at home we live out there in a quiet spot in the country and I hadn't pulled the curtains over and when I looked there, there must have been fifty or sixty different types of moths and bugs dressed up as everything you could mention fighting and getting into the light. And you know once the light was stuck there in the darkness, heathen darkness compounded with religious darkness he was living in an icebox he was living in a, if you like, in a cemetery. And God says you go there, and John went. And you know they came north, south, east and west. And he began to preach what? Repent! You don't hear much about that anymore. Much easier to give somebody a little tract called four laws, eh? Four spiritual laws. I wouldn't give it to anybody. I'd give it to somebody who was saved but not somebody unsaved for two reasons. Number one, the blood isn't mentioned in it. Number two, repentance isn't mentioned in it. By design. Bill Bright himself said I don't want people to think that Campus Crusade is negative. Well that's his business, but it's not scriptural. Oh, repentance is to leave the things I've done before and show that I in earnest grieve by doing them no more. I've seen people come to notice. We say to people, come on now, you just tell the Lord you're sorry and then go put things straight. The Bible doesn't say that. It says you go and leave the altar and put things straight and then come and straighten it out with God. You know why? Because after we shed a few tears and we feel happy and we've got rid of the Lord we forget that we have to go and humble ourselves to a neighbor or somebody who's wronged and injured and hurt and crushed. We can't change God's order. But I'll tell you how effective this man's preaching was. Oh my, it must have been wonderful. Do you know what the soldiers did? The Roman soldiers, the heathen, when they had a day off, they went to Hades. They didn't go to the lousy leper houses. They didn't go to the flesh pot. They said, have you heard the news? Oh, there's a man, some people say fell out of the sky, came from heaven. He was a strange man in his dress. He doesn't wear a clerical uniform. He has no double mitts and no alligator shoes and his hair isn't teased. He's a very common kind of a fellow. He's not like the modern flashy, fleshy evangelist. But man, when he preaches, people cry out. When John Wesley preached people fell to the ground as though they were poleaxed and they didn't get up two minutes after like they do in modern meetings. They stayed there four or five hours. And they carried them into another room and covered the women up and carried the men in another room. And after three or four hours of spiritual convulsions, where often they vomited, the pains of hell got hold of them. We live in a day of the cheapest, shallowest evangelism the world's ever known. It stinks. We're so determined to get somebody in the altar for something. One big shot said, if you have a Sunday school class come forward and I'll pray for you. Well, why come forward? We could pray for you sitting out there anyhow. You see, this man had been baptized, killed with the Holy Ghost. And a spirit filled man is an awful person. Those Roman soldiers had breastplates on. And the words of that man full of fire went through those breastplates just like a hot needle would go through butter. I'll tell you how effective. I've got a few notes he left behind here. It tells me how, how effective his preaching was. Then came publicans to be baptized and they cried, Master, what shall we do? And the people came and when they came they cried out, what shall we do? And the soldiers were heathen. The lesson breathed without the law. When they heard John Baptist preaching they cried and said, what shall we do? And he said, do violence to no man neither accuse anybody falsely of being content with your wages. That's preaching. That's preaching. We're so fundamental. All right, you're fundamental. Will you show me a verse in the Bible, New Testament, where there's an altar call? Come on, you know your Bible whether it's the Schofield and Amplified or this horrible thing here, this living thing. Dirty thing that it is, but anyhow. I won't handle it except with my handkerchief. There are no altar calls in the New Testament. It's a convenience for the time when we couldn't wait for a Holy Ghost to convict men and women and we wouldn't let them go until they were there in agony. One of the greatest preachers of this generation the past 50 years was a great artist of Andrew S. W. P. Nicholson. I met him, I preached with him, I preached with him under my nose. Some nights that man would preach on hell until people sat there and their knuckles went white and their sweat went off their noses and off their chins and they'd be singing like this and he'd say, stand up. God save our gracious King. Long go home, he said. Wipe your nose and eat fish on Friday. That was his benediction. And you know what happened? Drunkards went home and could not sleep. One of the outstanding men in Ireland told me and he said, I listened to Nicholson from the backseat of a great Presbyterian church and when I came out he said I cursed him and God and said a team of horses wouldn't get me back to hear that man but I was there the next night. And when I came out I cursed him but I went back the next night and when he made the altar call he said I get up and there was a stampede and my drunken companions and harlots were rushing to the altar and we didn't stay there a few minutes we drove. The pain from hell got all of us. We realized we were not prodigals, we were rebels. Can I ask you to have some common sense and if you've got a sticker on one side of your automobile that says smile God loves you will you put the balance of the other side of the coin and say God is angry with the wicked every day? You might smile and make us into hell. Ah we've lost all sense it seems to me but a people of magic we've lost you see if you've got sin in your heart tonight you haven't got a little disease that the common evangelist will put a bandaid over you've got a cancer in your breast and it will burn you for all eternity. If I were to ask you what is the greatest sin in the world some would say adultery some would say this some would say the greatest sin in the world you know what it is? Why did Adam get kicked out of the garden? Did he get drunk? Did he commit adultery? Did he beat his wife up? Did he blaspheme God? Did he get kicked out because he said I run my life not God. And the greatest sin in the world is to say I will not let God rule my life. If I can imagine these men who've been to heathen temples and bowed to Jupiter and other strange gods when they saw a man flaming with righteousness I remind you that this country was not born on the 4th of July 1776 it was born 34 years ago in the British Revival of the Swedish country. The 4th of July 1776 is when the birth took place in the nation that had been born. And when that great political scientist came from France Tocqueville he went back to France eventually and he said I searched in the universities I went to the libraries I even went to Congress I read the records of the government I could find no secret for America's greatness I could find no reason to explain why little broth America went out of the grip of a giant called the British Empire three times in thirty years and then he said just before I was going to take the ship somebody asked me to stay and catch the next ship and go to church and I went I was so excited in that church I stayed another week and I went to another church I stayed a little longer and I went to another church and I discovered the secret of America's greatness and he said to the French people put this down in your history books America is great because she's good and when she ceases to be good she ceases to be great now brother take the stars and stripes down and put a black flag up there like I do for my country where I live in this country pay all the taxes you pay too and everything else and I say listen America is in the greatest crisis do you know what I believe with all my being that if we were as spiritual as we think we are we'd all have come to church tonight in sackcloth we'd all have come to church with a handful of ashes that we took out of the furnace and we'd be anointing out on the other heads with ashes mourning in the sight of our holy God I have prayed with tears and brokenness asked my sweet wife with two or three fellows Lord I see America like a tree the tree in the Bible and the men were going to cut it down and the man said please spare it spare it just one more year that we may fertilize it and then if it does most will cut it down you know I prayed that about a year ago a little less with a group of men and women and I see that those boys are running out there's no salvation for America brother just by pumping money into the dollar they put a two dollar bill out it's just a trick of the economy it's worth a dollar fifteen cents twelve years from now the same rate of inflation it will be worth one cent precisely the present rate of inflation the two dollar bill is worth one dollar and fifteen cents it was worth two dollars in nineteen sixty six in ten years it's lost eighty five cents we're crumbling on every hand we're still living in the aftermath and we have to get I wondered how Richard Nixon put up with all that preaching he got every week I found the answer I preached in the fine Methodist church a while ago and the preacher told me that his bishop was invited to preach for Nixon the condition is this that before you come you send us a word for word record of your sermon and everything we don't like we shall delete and then when we get it back you have to rewrite it minus all the deletions boy John Baptist would have gone for that wouldn't he he had had it on the throne as well as the prostitute somebody said don't would you have gone to the White House on those conditions I said I sure would you would I never thought it of you you submit your sermon and let them take all the forms out all the parts that would hurt Nixon and the others you'd really let them cut them out and then you'd yes I would you're not the man I thought you were I said well hold it a minute when I preach my sermon I'd say let us pray then I said everything I missed in the sermon I sure hit it during the prayer boy I'd have come down with all the unction almighty God till Nixon would have been rolling on the floor and Kissinger and all the rest of them squealing that is if God anointed the thing what about preaching there's so many teeth and a lot of lovely information and illustration but you see John was very conscious of this oh I looked at God he was conscious of this do you know what John knew when he came out of the school of silence he knew that he had only six months to minister preacher look if God told you you had only six months more to minister how would you minister hmm do you think it changed your style all right they came from north south east and south east south south east south east south east south east south east south east south east south east south east south east south east south east south east east east south east south east south east south east east south east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east east 400 years of stillness and Matthew comes. Read Matthew 3.11, he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire. John 3.16 is the message to sinners. Luke 3.16 is the message to the church. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. His Father is in his hand and he will throughly pour on this floor. Have you noticed how many of the great hymns that were brought in Revival have fire in them? A man stood out on the street, stepped out of a church in Leicester, England. And his wife had a curvature of the spine and some little kids. And he said, what are we going to do? She said, what are we going to do? He said, we're going to the ghetto most. And willingly he stepped out into the ghetto. And he wrote a song and he put it on the banner that's still on the banner of the Salvation Army. He did that in 1865. And his battle cry was this, Thou Christ of burning, cleansing flames, send the fire. Thy blood bought gift today we claim, send the fire. Look down and see this waiting house. Give us the promised Holy Ghost. We want an appendix. I don't know whether we want it tonight, but God in heaven knows we need it. We need an appendix or we'll break out of the walls of a sanctuary. I said I asked God to hang a pillar of fire over this church from today until Jesus comes. And I said to God tonight, is there any reason there'd be more than 120 people? Why we shouldn't go out full of the Holy Ghost and all of the flooded and all that God touched us tonight? It's got to happen somewhere. Why not happen here? It's got to happen with somebody. Why not happen with us? But man you've got to want that with all your heart, soul, mind and spend more than you want money or breath or popularity or any other thing. Look down and see this waiting house. Let us stand and say to make these weak hearts strong and brave, send the fire. To live a dying world to save, send the fire. Oh see us on thine altar lay our lives out all this very day. You see when that man challenged the host of Israel, of Baal. He said you can have all day, I'll give you eight hours and you can build it out and put your bullocks on it and pull your hair out and tear your breast and shriek and cry and do everything you like. But listen I'll tell you what the deciding factor is. When fire comes, and then he mocked them. He said your God's on a journey or he's gone shopping or he's been with his mother-in-law or somebody. He says your God Baal isn't there. Now listen, you watch this. And he wouldn't say Lord vindicate me. He said let it be known this day there is a God in Israel and the fire fell. And the fire doesn't fall on the altar as people say. The fire falls, no the fire never falls on the altar. The fire falls on the sacrifice. You thought it might fall on the altar. It might splash up. No sir the fire falls on the altar. And it burned up the sacrifice and it licked up the water and it consumed everything. We were in a meeting a while ago. And the lady said as we came out Mr. Rainer I'd sung that hymn for I guess 50 years and I never knew what it meant until tonight. And it was an old common, it was a shrewd hymn. Trust and obey there's no other way. But she said when we got to that phrase that we never can prove the delights of his love until all on the altar we lay. I suddenly realized I never put everything on the altar. I thought by touching the altar there was something magic. But until I lay everything on the altar the fire doesn't fall exactly. Yes Charles Wesley wrote some of the greatest hymns. Wrote about 3,000 of them. I pick on him, look up every few days and read some of those majestic marvelous hymns that set Methodism rolling. One of his hymns was refining fire go through my heart, illuminate my soul. Scatter thy light to every part and sanctify the whole. The hymn we sang tonight is a beautiful hymn. Don't often hear it sung as well, breathe on me. Not breathe on the congregation, not breathe on America. Breathe on me brethren God, fill me with life. It was written by Edwin Hatch, a brilliant English preacher. He had a crowded church, he had plenty of money. There was nothing he needed but one night he said I went home and I grumbled before God and said I've got everything, I've got a crowd, I've got popularity, I've got money but the atmosphere isn't instinct with deity. Were you ever in a meeting like that? Where the atmosphere was instinct with deity? And he said I've just reached for my pen and the words came so quickly I could hardly get them, breathe on me brethren God, fill me with life I knew that I may love what thou wilt love and do what thou wilt do. Breathe on me brethren God, till I am holy thine, till all this earthly part of me glows with thy fire divine. I preached in a little tin church in Dublin, Ireland. There's a picture behind me of a lovely, lovely lady. A little Irish lady who for thirty years had a curvature of the spine and she went out and founded the Bonneville Fellowship in India. Amy Wilson and Carmichael. Our boy in South America I think has about every book he loves to read about her. Because she was one of those lovely missionaries that went to the mission field and said I'll never come back God call me there, I'm not wasting money to come home. My boy came home a few weeks ago. He'd been on the mission field ten years. And usually you get a year off for every five years you serve and he should have been home for at least two years. He stayed five weeks and he said daddy I don't feel God in America. Would it be alright if I go back? I said sure, I'd like to come with you. He went back. That little lady with a curvature of the spine went to the missionary. And she never came back. Dignified lady. She wrote a lovely little phrase like this. Give me a love that leads the way. A face which nothing can dismay. A hope no disappointments tire. A passion that will burn like fire. Let me not sink to be a clod. Make me thy fuel flame of God. Isn't that a prayer? For a woman who might have stayed at home and said I have a curvature of the spine. Every time I move. Now if you took me in my body. The last three years of her life. She needed the attention of a newborn baby. They lifted her in and out of bed every morning and night. They fixed diapers on her. She was in a shocking state. But forever triumphant. Nobody ever heard a murmur. Nobody ever heard a complain. Why? Because there came a day when she put everything she had on the altar. Then he said Lord here I am. Spirit, soul, body, my mind, my will. All I know, all I don't know. Here I am. There is a little phrase that says only one life till soon be past. Isn't it pretty? And only what's done for God will last. Why did we leave the last two lines of it? Because it hurts us. Because the poet wrote it this way. Only one life till soon be past. Only what's done for God will last. And when I am dying how glad I shall be. If, if, if the lamp of my life is being burned out for thee. Do you think all Christians die grossly? Some of them die as unhappy as drunkards. Do you know why? Because they missed it down the road. Because false never died. They lived, they were selfish, self-seeking, self-concerned. Spent their money on themselves. Planned their own life. Did what they wanted. And tried to cover it up and say they were Christians. Oh, I can totally talk. Oh man, it wasn't that. We had a man in our house the other night. He came to our house to stay two days. He stayed about five. And he came from California, Los Angeles. And I said to him, what about that man Anton Levy that runs that satanic church? He says, that's something by the way, no. That is something, that church of Satan. Where the man has a black dirty beard and his hair shaved. Do you know when they begin their service? They begin their service at twelve o'clock midnight. And they stay till six in the morning. And they pray on ground that the devil will blast Christianity. And he has a membership, sir, of ten thousand people. And he has a waiting list of people. And you have to pay every meeting you go to. Doesn't that shame you and shame me? If I told you I won't preach tomorrow night at seven, I'll preach at midnight till six tomorrow morning. The morning after, maybe I can do that. Preach the hour and twenty minutes the other night to some preachers. It wouldn't be too hot. But listen, do you think you don't love your darling little body and your pretty little girl and your little soul so much, that you'll say, no, we won't have a night waiting on God. Wasn't it Douglas MacArthur, one of the great journalists that said, the only man I've seen totally dedicated is a communist. Didn't Dr. Abdukar, who was concerned about the races, the poor outcasts of India, come to America and then to England looking for Christianity? He said, I never saw anything that challenged me. So I went to a conference of 27 nations that were studying Hinduism, Buddhism and so on. And he said, I found as much dedication there as ever I found amongst Christians. You see somebody fooled you and told you all you had to do was get saved so you wouldn't burn in hell forever. And then they all appear in tithe regularly. You get a crown so big you need props on your shoulders to hold it up. Well it was a liar who told you that. Jesus Christ didn't die just to save you from hell, he died to save you from yourself. He died to save you from failure and from sin and from self-pity and self-seeking. And give you a chance to put yourself on the altar, you've only one life. Remember the famous American that said he was sorry he'd only one life to give for his country. Do you remember the same man that said give me liberty or give me death? It's come to a place where if you're half a Christian at all you ought to be saying give me revival or give me death. Alright. Can I quote one verse and skip quickly through? You know what we're doing, we're changing our hymns because they're not nice. We've got a new Baptist hymn book, eh? Do you remember the hymn we sing sometimes? And the last verse of the first, last line of the first hymn says that could he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I? And when you get your new book will you read it? Because they've taken that harried word worm out because we aren't worms. And they've changed it, could he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I? How pathetic can you get? Do you know the son of God in that prophetic psalm 22 on the cross? What did he say? I'm a worm and no man. God isn't looking for Hercules, he's looking for worms. He isn't looking for brilliant PhDs, he's looking for men who are sold out and want nothing but the glory of God and to be filled with the Holy Ghost if all he does is take you in a dark room and you sweat and pray and grieve and never see the public again. As I told you the other night, you won't hear many of you. A friend of mine was carried out of his little home up in Illinois just the other week in, I think last week in February. A man almost 90 years of age in a little cheap casket, the cheapest they could get and they carried him through the door of his little house. It was the first time he'd been through the door of that house in 12 and a half years. Never been to a shop, never bought a suit, wore a shirt if anybody gave him one. For 12 and a half years in busy materialistic America, he's been burning his heart out for God and before he died God gave him a promise, He said there's going to be a revival. I call it the Pentecost to our Pentecost, Pentecost. The Pentecost that won't hang any glory on anybody's name. He said God whispered into his ear, in the next revival a hundred million, a thousand, a billion people, is it a thousand million? A billion people will be saved in the next revival that sweeps the earth. I'll tell you what, this John Baptist didn't tell to a world that was boomed and dabbed. He didn't have a bunch of pretty boys there that looked as though they were going to a nightclub and little girls with swinging the hips and pretty skirts and lovely hair-do's and gorgeous teeth telling a world that's boomed and dabbed, something good is going to happen to you. Could you imagine in all honesty, could you imagine that Lord could stand on the deck of the ark bemoaning the world was going to be flooded and clap his hands and sing to a world that was going to perish within 12 hours? Something good is going to happen to you, it's the biggest lie that's put on TV. Something good is not going to happen to us if we don't have natural repentance, something terribly bad is going to happen to us. But I've got a great comfort, I'm not hanging my heart on the river. I've got a little river I hang on to there in Malachi, do you know what it says? The Lord whom you seek, and that's who I'm seeking. I'm not seeking blessing, I'm not seeking miracles, I'm not seeking phenomenal meetings, I'm seeking God. And do you know what it says? The Lord whom you seek shall, what? Suddenly! Lord Shepherd you're sitting there and saying is it terrible the Romans are getting more power and it's more dead than ever in the synagogue and the priest doesn't care and there's nothing happening. And suddenly there's a sound of the heavenly host saying glory to God in the highest, here he is, he's come! And those men have been waiting in the upper room and saying I wonder what really happened, I wonder, you know, and suddenly, suddenly, suddenly there was a sound of a rushing mighty wind. I'm glad nobody's got God's timetable. He's going to invade some meeting like this or somewhere, he's going to invade a meeting with a rushing mighty wind or whatever manifestation he wants and it'll be the last phase before judgment fall. You see, because Jesus is coming for a bride, and you say God is preparing a bride, I don't find that in scripture, I'll tell you what I do find, it says the bride is making herself ready. People are finding purity. Their accent is on power today. No, in the day of Pentecost it was purity, purifying their hearts by faith. Hold on, let me rush through this now. He's a baptizer of the Holy Ghost in fire. What does fire do? Well, it purifies. 1666-65, London was devastated by a plague. At night they took trucks through the city and they threw bodies of mothers and fathers and children in and they had mass graves and there was no way of conquering the disease. And suddenly in a year after, 1666, the great fire of London, it went down every rathole, it burned out every bit of infection and after the baptism of fire in London not a single person died of the plague. What do you do with gold? You purify it. You purify it. And if you want to refine it with gold, if it's a modern man, he has an induction crucible and he has a spoon and he takes the scum off and the scum off and the scum off and the scum off and then you stop and you say, is it pure? And he says, absolutely pure, there's not a spot of dirt in it. How do you know? Because when I looked in it I saw my image. Did you ever say to Curtis, let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me? All his wonderful passion and purity, all of our spirit divine, all my corrupt nature, it's I. And so when you look in, the beauty of Jesus is seen in me. Fire purifies. On the day of Pentecost with two symbols irresistible, wind and fire. They got married and you can't stop them. Ask the fellows that fight fire out on the west coast. The symbol of the church of Jesus Christ is not a cross, that's a heathen's sign. The symbol of the church of Jesus Christ is a pair of farts that sat upon each of them. Why? In the book of the Revelation, what does God say to the church? I would be allowed, I have to tell them, if you're not at Easter house, chew out of my mouth. Fire purifies, fire energizes. I don't care whether you're coming or Volkswagen or Rolls Royce. If you go out and turn the key, it's no good saying, well I paid insurance on it anyhow. If you can't get any admission, you're finished. Now when the Lord came on those men in the upper room, he ignited them all. Peter ran away from a girl's finger and then he put that strange finger up against the horse. You crucified the Lord of glory. They spake with boldness and with authority and with power. As I said, if you've got a newborn baby in the Grand Canyon, how would it get out? How does a newborn church get out? Here you've got walls in my house. The Romans are in power. This side of my house, all the Greeks are in power. There you've got a river in front of you. The Jews have got control. How do they get out? They get out. God didn't change the color of their hair. He didn't put an atom bomb in their pockets. He didn't give them credentials to be accepted with the synagogue and the temple and everybody. He filled them with the Holy Ghost. And everywhere they went, they turned the world upside down. All right, fire cleanses. Fire purifies. Fire energizes. But you know, there is no such thing as getting one baptism of the Spirit that will take you through all your life unless you do certain things. You know how lots of people lose the anointing of the Spirit of God? Call it the baptism, sanctification. I don't care what you call it. You know how more preachers particularly lose it? Not because of sin, because of laziness. Laziness. If I light a fire here, how long would it burn? I'd have to keep cleaning the stuff away and replenishing it. And you can cry to God all your life, but the apostle Paul says to Timothy, Timothy, stir up the gift of God that's in you. I find as I get older, I'm inclined to be more lazy, so I make myself do things. I'm old enough to retire now, get shoved on one side. I refuse to do that. I'm not going to retire, I'm just going to re-fire. Oh, that's fire, you've got to wash it, watch it. Stir up the gift of God which is in me. John, pardon me, not John, I finished, the greatest maybe evangelist in America ever had Nobody, with all our talk of the spirit and all we do, nobody ever does what Phinney did. Phinney went and stayed in a city till God split the heavens and came down. And I stood outside of his church there up in, which was it, Rochester, New York. And there's a marker outside about this length and that depth and it says, Charles Phinney preached here for, I think it said six months and had a hundred thousand people born again. Can anybody in the country can do that now? A hundred thousand people. No advertising, no radio. The fire of God, sir. Yeah, but down there in the basement, down here in the basement, he had two men that he called fathers just because they did. Father Nash and Father Cleary. And each of those men prayed twelve hours a day. They held his arms up like they held up the arms of Moses, that Moses' arms were held up by Adam and Eve. We give Phinney a lot of credit that most of the cult maybe belongs to the men he prayed. But nobody goes to a city like that. Mordecai hummed it. Graham must have done the Mordecai hum and an old man told me, you can remember when Mordecai hummed it. He used to go to a town like this, put up a tent and in three days he had to have a police guard to get him in and out. Because he shook hell. And he disturbed the boys and he terrified everybody around. And many even went with guns and the police had to escort him right to the prison. And when he was over there they escorted him out and back home again. That's a pretty high price to pay, isn't it? We should baptize you with the Holy Ghost, the purifying baptism, the empowering baptism. Look at those smoking things that go through the sky there that cost millions and they go up to other planets and I don't know where they don't go these days. Man must empower air. It's nothing compared to the power of the Holy Ghost. Let me say one thing. I warn you again about this business of laziness. You young preachers, we ought to have a schedule. You can't find me a man. I challenge you to find me a man that God has used down the ages who hasn't been disciplined. Have a time to go to bed, doesn't matter who in the world is in the house. Have a time to get up, doesn't matter who in the world is coming tomorrow. Most of the great men, Wesley, Ian Downes, a bunch of others were never in bed after four o'clock in the morning. Athletes discipline themselves. Mark Spitz went down to the Olympic Games in Mexico a few years back swaggering, talking, what he was going to do, he didn't get a thing. Thought he was going to break all the records. All it broke was his heart. Everybody licked you. In the back, Stokes Armstrong beat you. No he didn't. Yes he did. No he didn't. Well who beat you? I beat myself. In the back, Stokes Armstrong beat you. No he didn't. Who beat you? I beat myself. He went to the Olympics. In where? Munich? He got a gold medal, two gold medals, three medals, twelve medals, five medals, six gold medals, seven gold medals. And he would have got eight, but there wasn't one. Why? From the day he became a failure, listen, from the day he became a failure he said, the next day when I got home to America I hit the water and I spent eight hours a day every day for four years in the water. Not less than eight hours. When I wasn't there I was using bells and other things and I got my body into such a condition. And I understand he was so humble that the man who was training him couldn't even swim two yards. But most of us would have said, well do you know you can't even swim a yard? But the man said, listen you don't turn your hands and your head isn't in the right position. And he walked along and said, now Mark try it this way and I'll talk you this way. And for eight hours a day, listen, for eight hours a day for four years he disciplined his body. And Paul says they do that for a corruptible crime, what should you do for an eternal crime? Hmm? All right, the last thing, a few years ago I was preaching in Scotland. And we had to catch a train at five o'clock. About the only time I can quit if I now have to quit, but so I had preached, I had gone with the district superintendent of the Nazarene church and as we entered the church he said, I said, your name is across the top. Man, he was a little man, I said, your name is as big as yourself nearly. And he smiled. And I said, it says there that this Dr. MacLagan, James Baxter MacLagan will preach the anniversary service this afternoon in the Territory Mission, which is now our Nazarene church. Okay. As we went in he said, Len I'm not preaching. I said, well that's great, I am. Oh, but you are. I said, what do you mean? Your name's there. They come to hear you. They don't know me. I just feel as though I've got nothing. Well that's true of us. So he got on the platform and he played a little machine concertina and he's a beautiful singer, he sang and he said, now after a while we're going to take an offering and then we're going to sing and then we're going to preach. Boy, preachers can pull some dirty tricks. And I prayed quickly and then quickly I just skimped through it. Not this message, but it was a similar message on the baptism, how God can come and purge you. You go every night and tell God you're sorry of being jealous. What do you do? Make a cheap rinse of the blood of Christ? Christianity is not a sinning, repenting religion. It's a victorious religion. If my boy kicked, he kicked the football through the window one day and he came and said, do you know what I've done? I said, I had a good idea, I didn't have. He broke the window. He said, yes I did and I'm so sorry, will you forgive me? I said, all right, all right. And I hugged him and kissed him and he went out and he said, what did that say? I told him I was sorry and he forgave me and he kissed me. I forgave him. Our relationship was restored. Did I put a new window in the house? He paid the bill. I paid it. Then he came the next day and said, did you hear about God? And I said, I did. And it was a bigger window this time. And you get a bigger leveling for that anyhow. And he came the next day and the next day and all he did was keep coming in this way. Now God did a leveling. God did a time. And I do it every day, as you know. And I hear people say, we've got to sin every day. Well, why don't you be kind, pastor? And write a list of sin out for those teenagers in your church and tell them which sins they can commit and which sins they can't commit. You'll help them because they're baffled enough and have no idea anyhow. A man comes down the aisle and he says, I'm an adulterer. I'm married but I have six other girlfriends. I'm an adulterer. Well, if you get saved, you can only commit adultery once a week. I'm a drunkard. Well, you'll have to stop having a six-pack every day. You'll have to cut it down to one. Do you say sin life? Do you say sin man? Well, what about the sins of the spirit? Pride and envy and jealousy. They cripple the church of God. What about anger and wrath and malice? What about laziness? What about selfishness? Well, I'll give you a chance to come to this altar tonight. But listen, I'll tell you this. I put the fence ten feet high. You don't come here to get blessed tonight. You come here... There's only one reason for an altar in the Bible and that's to die. And if you don't want to die, stay where you are. That's still, but I've got to meet God with a clean heart and tell you the truth. When you come running out for a blessing and next week run out to somebody else's altar for a blessing, forget it. I said to that congregation that afternoon, listen, if you come to the altar today and put your all on the altar and say, Lord, consume me. Oh, see us on mine altar lay our lives out all this very day. The hemorrhage will say, if we cry on the altar right now, will you pray? Shut the fire. So if you're coming, please come seriously. Stay till God meets you, whether you stay an hour or three hours. That's all I ask. There's a big lost America outside. There are more healed in the world tonight than any point in history. Fifty million people went down the drain just the other week. We didn't break our hearts too much in Laos and Cambodia. And Laos and Cambodia and Vietnam. Fifty million people are lost. A hundred and ten million have signed away to their doom. Mr. Forbes signed away. I think the treatment, we can't go behind. We told Russia she can keep everything. She's stolen. Listen to that. Holy God there. He's a just God. He's a righteous God. And if you don't tremble for this nation, I do. I tremble for my nation too. I consider meetings of this kind and not the kind you get on average Sunday night service at a different tribe. You're a different people. I don't say that to honor you. The reason you're here tonight isn't because there's a hunger for God. Or why come on a Monday night? Maybe I'm talking too much here. Let me quit. Let's sing and if you want to come, come to the altar. I won't ask you again. I'll ask the pastor to close the meeting after the lesson.