In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of having a genuine experience with God that requires sacrifice and dedication. He compares the pursuit of spiritual anointing to the dedication of athletes and successful businessmen. The preacher also highlights the need for believers to agonize in prayer and seek the Holy Spirit's anointing through blood and fire. He warns against relying on material possessions and comforts, emphasizing the importance of a life fully surrendered to God. The sermon references the story of Gideon and Samson from the Bible to illustrate the power and impact of a spirit-anointed life.

Our text tonight is in the sixteenth chapter of the book of Judges. Judges, the sixteenth chapter, reading verse six. And Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee. And one of the old European versions of the scripture has an extra word in this text, and the extra word is secret. So then the text reads, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein the secret of thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee. Now you may not want to accept that word secret. You say it's not there by inspiration, and that's true, but it's there by inference anyhow. And this is a question of a woman of the world to a man of God. It will be a great day, and God hasten it, when the world again begins to ask the Church, What is the secret of thy great strength? I believe right now the world has a suspicion that the Church has no strength. About four hundred years ago in England we had a breed of men, a very unusual breed, most Englishmen are, but they were a very unusual breed. By any standard they were giants, morally, spiritually, intellectually. And history has classified them as the Puritans. There are quite a number of them, but I think the tallest of them, theologically, spiritually, was John Owen. John Owen left us a massive volume on the Holy Spirit. That isn't my interest right now. My interest is this, that he criticized men this way. He said the sin of men in the Old Testament was against the Father. The sin of men in the New Testament, he said, was against the Son. And the sin of men in my day, he said, four hundred years ago, is against the Holy Spirit. I think if he came back he wouldn't need to modify that criticism in any way. I've said, as you'll say tonight, say of the night, I believe that this is the most perilous hour in the history of America. In the last two or three years I have been able to preach at the National Convention of the Southern Baptists, at the Florida State Convention, at the Texas State Convention. And at each of them I've said I would like to give all the preachers a sheet of paper and a pencil, and ask them to write on that piece of paper what or who they think is the greatest threat to America today. And I've said, and still say, that I don't think ten percent of them could give me the right answer. They might start off with the devil and finish with the Democrats, and in between have drink and dope, and I don't know what else. Divorce? But I believe the greatest threat to America tonight is God. If you haven't read any books by Francis Schaeffer, who is a full-blooded American, in one sense, I think one of the great spiritual intellectuals of our time, he's running the Abrae Fellowship there in Switzerland. It's a rescue station for intellectuals. Some kids from the richest homes in America, kids that have had the very best of everything, their daddy's own planes and yachts. They lived in millionaires' homes, they'd had the finest of education, but they hit the gutter. They got caught in the vortex of modern life. And they've made their own pilgrimage there to the Abrae Fellowship in Switzerland, with a language something like this. Look, Dr. Schaeffer, you're our last hope. If you don't have the answer, we can't find the answer in the churches in America. But I'm interested in this observation he makes in his book called Death in the City, which is only about a dollar and a quarter, and if you want something to upset you, read it. He says, remember this, that God has given up on the cities of America. They rejected him and God has rejected them, on the basis of the first three chapters in Romans. But then he says this more disturbing thing. He says, remember that in China, 800 years ago, eight centuries ago, every leading town and city in China, 800 years ago, had a thriving evangelical church. Where is that church tonight? God said that he was married to Israel. God said he divorced Israel. God says ultimately he'll remarry Israel. In between, God hasn't bothered with Israel for 2,000 years. She's been the football that every nation has kicked around. Five times in history they have been almost annihilated. God hasn't bothered with Israel, the people he married for 2,000 years. What makes you think he didn't walk out on America? Or England? You don't legalize abortion. You don't take living babies out of living mothers. And where do the babies go? Mind your business. Maybe your dog ate them this week for dog meat. And I'm not facetious. Nevada has legalized prostitution. England has legalized homosexuality. We have nine million alcoholics. We have roughly 30 million people on some kind of drugs. We have an all-time high in venereal disease amongst kids under 15 years of age this past year in America. And England is very much the same. You see, you only shake your finger at God and break his laws so long, and God walks out on nations. Just like he does on men, he says, my spirit shall not always strive with man. And one of the terrible things about preaching is that while some people come forward and say they'll take Christ for eternal life, there are others who say no, not openly, secretly. And that very moment they say it, they're dead, as long as God lives. Because there comes a time when God knocks at the door of the heart for the very last time, and then he goes. This story of Samson, to me, is a story of a superman. To me, Samson is a type of a spirit-anointed man. He's a type of a spirit-anointed church. The two most elusive things in the world tonight, what are they? While we've been in the Bahamas the last three years, there was a scare. The newspaper articles, they thought they'd rediscovered the lost island of Atlantis, but discovered they hadn't. And right now, for some reason, I don't know. There are two expeditions on the Himalayan ranges trying to find the abominable snowman. If they were trying to find the abominable showman, I could give them the names of six evangelists. But they're trying to find the abominable snowman. Are these the most elusive things in the world? The abominable snowman and the elusive lost island? No, no, no, no. The two most elusive things on God's earth tonight are, number one, personal anointing by the Holy Spirit, and number two, Holy Ghost revival. In every other area you can energize, organize, get money, and you're just sweating your labor when it comes to it. God won't anoint you because you're a millionaire, and he won't refuse you anointing because you're a pauper. God won't send blessing because you have this gorgeous church, and I think it's very beautiful. And he won't bypass it either because you have it. You see, God is sovereign, and there are certain things that men must do if God is going to come and bless. Samson is a type of a Spirit-anointed man. I suppose it's fortunate for mankind that only once in maybe a thousand million men you get a man who wants to dominate the whole world. We've had a few of them in history. Remember they told you at school, perhaps, that Alexander the Great, at 27 years of age, conquered the world and sat down and wept because there were no more worlds that he knew of to conquer, and he was only 27 years of age. A man in my day almost conquered the world. His name was Hitler. Prior to him, a little, small, copulent Corsican by the name of Napoleon, one of the greatest military strategists in history, almost conquered the world. And one day he gathered together his warlords. On the wall of his office he had a great map of the world, and he snapped these men to attention, and he plunged his index finger around the ragged edge of a great country. And then he said to his generals, gentlemen, there lies a sleeping giant. Let it sleep! He said this before the battle of Waterloo, which happened to be on June the 18th, which is tomorrow, and it's my birthday. You know where I'm staying. But on the day of the battle of Waterloo, with his ambition to conquer the world, he ran his finger around that country. There is a sleeping giant. Let it sleep! He said if that country ever wakes up and discovers its mineral wealth and harnesses that mineral wealth through its manpower, let the rest of the world look out. That giant will shake the world. If you're interested, the country that he outlined was China. America's biggest headache tonight. Russia's biggest headache. Doesn't the book of the Revelation say somewhere around about the ninth chapter that one day 200 million men will come marching from the east? From where? Well they don't have 200 million in Japan. The only country could be China. Do you remember you being taxed up to your ears to make atom bombs and hydrogen bombs? And wasn't it Mr, uh, who was the president? Wasn't it that Baptist president? Truman. No wonder he made so many mistakes. But anyhow, wasn't it Truman that said after that bomb was dropped on Hiroshima or Hiroshima at 16 minutes to eight on the 6th of August 1945, if there's another war, if the world is threatened, we'll drop the bomb the first week and get it over. About 50,000 bodies of the choicest American boys in Vietnam that tell you that was a lie. You've been taxed to your ears to make atom bombs. We don't use one of them. Why? Because when America dropped that bomb, as I say, at 16 minutes to eight on the 6th of August 1945, she had the big stick and she was telling the world what to do. But remember tonight, China that has no conscience has that atom bomb. You don't need aircraft. All you have to do is to make an intercontinental ballistic missile and put a warhead in it and shoot the thing, and boy, they can blast us to smithereens. Interesting, isn't it, that Mr. Briznev, Leonardo Briznev, is going to have a political reception tomorrow with pomp and circumstance and white-gloved soldiers and drums and bugles, and he hates us like the devil. And Nixon doesn't hate him much less, anyhow, that we play hypocritical games of politics. Did you nearly roll out of bed the other night? Was it Tuesday or Wednesday? They shot the thing off across the water there, one of those rockets, at 3.30 in the morning. It rocked your house and your windows. And it was a new gadget that's going around in space right now, and it's specially put there to listen in for anything that Russia sends over and relay and release a message within seconds, once Russia starts firing these missiles, which they know we have and we know they have. For the last 12 years, some men under the mountains there in Colorado have marched down under an area that's thicker than this place with concrete, and they simulate pulling a switch. They never pull the right one because it has a bit of wire on, so they want that if they pull the right one, rockets would shoot out from all over America to blast everything in the sky. And the article I had on that says, the men who are waiting for Armageddon. China's our biggest headache. Napoleon said over a century ago, century and a half, there lies a sleeping giant, let it sleep. If China ever decides to yawn and stretch and go on the march, let the world look out. All right, you don't like politics, let's change it. Instead of seeing Napoleon there, instead of seeing a map of the world, see a map of the ages. Instead of seeing Napoleon, see the devil. And he brings all the demons out of hell and he says to them, there, see that? He runs his finger around the ragged edge of something. What is it? The Church of Jesus Christ. And he says, there is the Church of Jesus Christ asleep. Let it sleep. Because if the Church of Jesus Christ ever rediscovers the power of the Holy Ghost, and harnesses what it already has for the power of the Spirit, let the earth look out, and let hell look out. For the Church anointed in the power of the Holy Ghost is the greatest power after the power of a triune God. Tell me where in the secret of thy great strength lies. I first heard about America when I was a little boy in a school in England. I had a teacher I didn't like. I never had one I did like, as a matter of fact. But this one I particularly didn't like. She didn't like me either. I don't know why. I've always been attractive. But anyhow, she didn't like me. And she thought I didn't know much, and I knew she didn't. And she told us a story. The best known story, I don't care whether you go to Russia or Africa or wherever you go around the world, there's one story that's known above all of the stories in America, about America. You know what it is? The story of Rip Van Winkle. I don't know whether he's a Democrat or Republican, but he's very famous. And she told me about this man who went up a hill and he fell asleep, and when he came down the hill he got involved in argument with a group of people. All I know, she said he slept for 20 or 50 years, she wasn't sure. And that's all I learned about the man. And that's exactly what the story isn't, which proved her ignorance anyhow. You see, the story is this, that when he went up the hill there was a sign hanging outside of the tavern. On it was painted the head of George III of England. England had a lot of money in America at that time. When he came down the hill they had painted out the face of George III, and they had painted the face of another famous Englishman. Could he guess his name? George Washington. You didn't know he was English? How ignorant can you get? But anyhow, they had erased the face of George III, they had painted there the face of George Washington. What's the secret of the story? Is the story a secret that he went to sleep for 20 years? No! The secret is this, he slept through a revolution. And I tell you with all the power of my being tonight, I believe that's what the Church of Jesus is doing in this very moment. Sleeping through the greatest moral, spiritual, social, economic revolution in history. America can't hold together five more years, nor can mankind under the present systems that we have. A week tonight I'm going to preach, God willing, on the second coming, the King is coming. Tomorrow night I want to preach on revival praying. Tuesday night I believe on vision. Wednesday night, if the Lord gives me permission, on the judgment seat of Christ. Thursday night maybe on the cross. Friday on problems in the Christian life. Saturday night there'll be no preachers unless these boys do it. I'm not preaching twice a day every day. Scripture says six days shout thou labor. They've already put me on for Saturday morning. That could cost you a thousand dollars, but that's all right. And in case you are going to give me anything this week, let me tell you this, you'll give me all that you can, because I won't take a penny of it. I've got three sons on the mission field. I've got one that needs money right now. Whatever comes in this church, even if you give me ten thousand dollars, I give him every penny. I won't take any expenses out for eating or traveling or anything. It's all going to missions, so you'll know I won't get a dime. All right. The Lord asked the question, what is the secret of thy great strength? Abnormal days demand abnormal men with abnormal methods and abnormal messages. And Samson is one of the most abnormal men in the Bible. You know, we got this man kind of mixed up in our thinking. Wherever you find a picture of Samson, you'll find him a kind of colossus. You know, he's got muscles like watermelons and muscles on his chest like a range of mountains. And that's exactly what he wasn't. Of course, we've read mythology. Maybe you have. Read about Atlas carrying the world on his back. Hercules kicking a range of mountains over. Or if you're not so well educated, Jack and the Beanstalk. Let me come down to your level. But every man is a giant. He's a Hercules. He's a colossus. Now, I don't think women are stupid, always. Can you imagine a woman looking up to a man 19 feet? You see, here's a picture. Here is the average man in Israel. And here is Saul, head and shoulders above the average man. And here is Goliath, head and shoulders above the man who's taller than the rest of them. And here is a colossus Samson up there. Now, you can't imagine a woman going to a man and saying, I say buddy, what's the secret of your great strength? It's pretty obvious that you'd think a man. I'm not going to suggest he was no bigger than the staff here. That wouldn't be right. But by the same token, I don't think he was six feet six or six foot seven. He was a normal man doing abnormal things. And everybody asked the question, you lock him up in a city, carries half the city away with him. He meets a lion and destroys it. Two thousand men come from West Point. He picks up the jawbone of an ass and slays them. When I said in one meeting, the Lord doesn't use the jawbone of an ass anymore. One of those nasty little ladies on the front seat said, yeah he does at our church every Sunday. But the jawbone of an ass? Why are you so sure he wasn't a giant? I always thought he, had a bible and it has a picture of Samson. He's a huge man. I'll tell you why. Because the sign is written outside of his church there, not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Again the word of God says, the lame take the prey, and to those who have no might, increase the strength. Again the word of God says, he takes the things that are not, to bring to mark the things that are not. No flesh should glory in his presence. It is a normal man doing abnormal things. He's an embarrassment to his enemies. He's the very epitome, he's the very answer to that text that says, that when you're walking in the spirit, no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper. Oh, but in all things we are more than conquerors through him. You see over and over and over again it says in his life, the most precious thing you can say of any man this side of it, and I would rather have this than you give me a check for 10 billion dollars tonight. For it says before ever this man does what nobody else could do. It says of him, the spirit of the Lord rested mightily upon him. And you can't get that by college or seminary. It's still God's prerogative to give it to those who are hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and so desperate that they'll do what this man did as we'll come to the end of the story and find out. The woman says, what is the secret of thy great strength? What do you have that nobody else has? What's the mystery? Well you have this energy, this supernatural power. You see the church began by being supernatural, she's ending by being superficial. She began in the upper room with a bunch of men agonizing, and she's ending in the supper room with a bunch of women organizing. The world doesn't ask us this question anymore, does it? What is the secret of thy great strength? He gives the answer, he says, if you fasten me, verse seven, if you fasten me with seven green wisps that were never dried, then I shall be like another man. No I wish he didn't say that, he didn't. What did he say? He said if you fasten me with some of those vines that climb around the trees, if they're green and they're not brittle, scrap me up with them. And if you fasten me with seven green wisps, I shall be a reverend. No no no, he doesn't say that. He says then I shall be weak like other men. You know the greatest curse of modern Christianity is that there are too many of us that are too much alike. We second to normality. Oh we reach for the stars in business, a fellow says I'm not going to sit behind this desk all the time, I'm going to own the business. A fellow goes to university and says I want to graduate with honors. The athlete will give all his time. Look at that fellow Mark Stitt. Oh yes he may be earning five million, he has his own yacht and everything now. But I notice he says for the last four years particularly, eight years in all, I spent no less than eight hours in the water every day. I was determined. I'd do what no other man did. And I tell you this for nothing, an experience of God that costs nothing, is worth nothing, it does nothing. If you're going to get this anointing by the Holy Ghost and keep it, you'll have to wade through blood and fire to get it, and you'll have to face hell to keep it after you've got that anointing. For the devil doesn't fear organizing, he fears agonizing. He doesn't mind our brilliance, our genius, our intellectual power. He fears that somehow we link our impotence to omnipotence. And that won't cost you a penny except a broken heart. It may cost some of you boys a few silly hours with your girlfriends. The other night God moved on that church in Merritt Island and many young people came for, maybe 60 people came out one night. There was a moonlight madness sale and my dear wife and the lady with us at the time, they wanted to get some bargains. We went along. This young lady came up to me breathless in the mall there, and she said, by the way, you know, the devil's doing all he can to keep me from praying tonight. I met a lady the next day and she said, you know, I just met one of our young kids, a girl 16, that trusted God to fill her with the Spirit last night, and she went home and prayed the whole night through. That's 16 years of age. Does that sound foreign to you? You may be 60 and never did that. I met a boy 17, he said radiantly, this is the first time in my life I've invited the Holy Ghost to take full control of my life. I met another teenager joyously and he said, my, this is transforming. God has come into my life as never before. I went to get a hair trim the other day, ducked all I got nearly. As we came out, my wife and I met a fine looking man. He said, Brother Ravenhill, man, he said, I could shout and leap down this mall. I've been looking for answers and I found the answer to spiritual power and anointing this week. I'm a new man. I'm energized by the Spirit of God. Fasten me with seven green ropes. They fasten him, he gets up. That's not the secret. No, he says, fasten me with seven new ropes. And they fasten him and he gets out, because he said, if you fasten me at all times I'll be weak like those other guys around here. But they fasten him, he gets out. Now, he did have to wear long hair. He was a Nazirite. A Nazirite had three things incumbent upon him. He could not drink wine, a sign of worldly pleasure. He could not touch anything dead, a sign of people who are dead in trespasses and in sin. He could not have his hair cut. Now, just having long hair isn't the secret of power. If it was, many of our churches would explode. No, no, it's not a case of long hair. What's the secret? Somebody asked me that in the office. I'll tell you what the secret is of the Christian life. For tonight, next night, every night of your life, trust and obey. There's no other way. I don't care if you go to theological seminary. I don't care how much learning you have. The whole secret is this. Trust and obey. There's no other way. Whatsoever he says to you, do it. When I was youth leader in the church I went to, we had a tremendous time. We had many people stay. We had fantastic meetings. And I remember asking God to take full control of my life. But it meant parting company with girlfriends and boys. Oh, you've read about Sherwood Forest and the fellow that used to go down there robbing hoods. Well, I didn't go robbing anybody. I went in the Sherwood Forest to pray at night. Took my mother's little pedigree dog. I walked over the golf links. I got down under the wildbracken, the wild furred. I got up in the morning before six, particularly Sundays. While everybody else slept, I went across into the forest, got under the bushes and prayed. And if I've had any secret in my life, the only thing I know is that I'd given God time, all the time I could, to talk to me as well as me to talk to him. Pass me with rocks. No. Fasten him with weeds. No. Unlock my hair and fasten it to a beam. And then when you get my hair fastened there, I'll be powerless. And they did that. And he shook his head and nearly pulled the house down. And then she said, now that's not the secret. He said no. And you know what she did? It's an old trick women have if they can't get their own way. She pulled the stops out. She said, you don't love me. And of course he said, oh yes I do. Oh yes, I'll tell you what my secret is. My secret is I'm a Nazarite. I've kept every vow that God has asked me. I haven't touched wine. I haven't touched anything dead. I haven't had my hair cut. And with the instinct that women have, she knew right there she'd got his secret. Now she had said repeatedly to him, the Philistines would be a problem. You know that you can cut this man's life down into three simple things. First, what did they do? They bind him. Secondly, what? They blind him, put out his eyes. Thirdly, they grind him. Put him in the basement and make him tread round and round and round and round and round. Grinding time for the Philistines. But wait a minute. There's something else. If Samson is a type of the spirit-filled man, and I'm persuaded he is, if Samson is a type of the spirit-anointed church, and I'm sure he is, then later in the chapter it says that he was going to Timnath. Now he could go that way to Timnath, or that way. Didn't make any difference. The road was just as short because he was going to see his girlfriend. The road's never long when you're going to see her. But he must not go that way. Why not? Because there's a lion in the way. Now if Samson is a type of a spirit-anointed person, the lion must be a type of the devil, who goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And when Samson went down the road, the lion thought, boy, my, I'm going to have a good lunch today. Look at this fellow coming. I'm just going to tear him up. And Samson thought the same thing. He's going to tear the lion up. He had his mother and father with him, and he said, Mommy, Daddy, would you sit round the corner? I've just got a little bit of business to do. And when they went round the corner, he took hold of the lion as though it were a kid of the goats, and he ripped it apart, and he threw it down. Now that's wonderful, but the next statement in the verse is more wonderful. It says that after he destroyed the lion, he said nothing about it. I'm sure a woman wouldn't have done it like that. But anyhow, Samson destroyed the lion, and he said nothing about it. Oh, if we destroyed the lion, we'd have photographed it. We'd have stretched it out. It was the longest, strongest, heaviest, fiercest, terriblest lion in the whole world. And I killed it all by myself. He slew a lion. He pushed the devil back, and he said nothing about it. I'm looking for a revival, and I'm sure it's coming. A Holy Ghost tidal wave that's going to engulf the whole world, and we're going to have such a revival that no man will steal the glory. He slew a lion. Let me ask you a simple question. Not so simple. All right. Do you push the devil around, or does he push you around? When I was in Australia, a lady said to me after one service, Mr. Ravenhill, I've had a terrible day today. I said, you look like it. I've never seen a more miserable face. Mr. Ravenhill, do you know what happened today? I said, no, I couldn't guess. When I got out of bed this morning, the devil was standing on the rug at the side of my bed, and he's never left me all day. I said, lady, how conceited can you get? After all, if the devil's been in your home all day, he hasn't been anywhere else in the world. Satan can't be in two places at the same time. God can, Satan can't. Demons might be. He might sublet certain areas, but Satan can't. I looked her straight in the eye, and I said, lady, you say Satan's been with you all day. I seriously doubt he even knows you're living. Does he know you're living? I got saved when I was 14 years of age. I never doubted it, never been ashamed of it, talked around the world about it. And according to this book, when I was born again, my name was written in the book of life. I'd like to get it written somewhere else. Not in Westminster Abbey. I've never been a competitive preacher. I don't think, care whether you think I'm the worst you've ever heard or the best. It won't move me either way. I say what God wants me to say. But I'd like to get my name written somewhere. Do you remember in the days of the Apostle Paul, he cast demons out of some people. Jesus did that. Everything that Jesus did, Paul did. And one day he cast demons out of a person. Do you remember the time when Jesus cast demons out of a man that had a legion of them in him? And if you take demons out of a person, you must put them somewhere. They can't live disembodied. They can't float in the air. They have to occupy something or somebody. And you remember that Jesus took a legion of demons out of a man. And if you think pigs aren't smarter than men, tell me this. When they put the demons into the swine, they committed suicide in about 40 seconds. The man had had the devil in in 40 years and he wasn't smart enough to commit suicide or bad enough. But the pigs wouldn't even have the devil. And hell is so bad, the demons said don't send us back from whence we came. Now, one man one day said I'm not getting on. I'd like to be famous. I'd like to do something. And somebody said you find a man with a demon in. Cast the demon out. This is what you do. You say in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, come out of him. The demon will come out. The man tried it and it worked. The demon came out of the man. But he never sent the demon anywhere. So the demon turned around and he beat up the preacher. Kicked him, bruised him, and finally he came back. And he said listen preacher, Jesus I know, and Paul I know. But who are you? I never heard of you. I think the most embarrassing thing of all the embarrassments, to quote Dr. Tozer again, I remember him saying to me one day, Len, not many of us are going to stand erect at the judgment seat of Christ with all our talk and all our boasting. Not many of us will lift our unblushing heads. Most of us will bow our heads in the presence of a holy God. I think the most terrible moment of trembling, when we stand there alone without your pastor, without your wife, without your husband, you stand there as an individual. Remember you've had as big a Bible as I have or anybody else has ever lived, and you've to give an account to God for this word that he gave you. I think the most embarrassing thing will be when God calls Satan to bear witness. I wonder, I wonder what do you say? I wonder if he'll say Jesus I know, and Paul I know, and Rachel I know, or Billy Graham I know. Will he say he knows you? Did you ever draw a line and take your rights in Jesus Christ, and draw a line by the precious blood, and then put the promises of God against it, and the power of the spirit, and say yes, yes Satan you shall not pass that line. When I was a boy in the little church I attended in England, they used to talk a great deal about Pastor Fetler of Latvia. Latvia got absorbed in the United States and Soviet Russia. He used to talk to some degree about a German, Pastor Blumhart. Blumhart was reading the word of God one day, and he read that terrible statement. If he were always asking God to do something, God said do it yourself. He said Lord tie up the powers of Satan, and Jesus says listen I give you power over all the power of the enemy. And they sent to Blumhart and said there's a girl down the road there, she's demon possessed. She sits up in bed, she'll tear her clothes, pull her hair, she uses the most obscene language, she vomits some green stuff out of her mouth, and she's the most terrible person we've ever met. And he went along, and he stood over that girl, and demanded her deliverance, and nothing happened. He went the second day, and like that she was delivered. He became famous for casting out demons. One day they asked him to go to a girl many miles away, and he went. The girl sat up in bed, and laughed, and screamed the most devilish hideous noises he'd ever heard in his life. And everything he said the demon counteracted. And every time he said he would come out, the demon said I won't. And every time he pled the blood of Jesus, the demon said some obscene things about Jesus Christ. Because a long story short, this man was so determined that he'd exercised his authority over all the power of the enemy, that he went to that girl's bedroom eight hours a day for two years. Every day he had a woman sit outside of the bedroom, so nobody could say there was anything wrong going on. And he'd decide that demon, and the demon, and all the demons in hell laughed at him. He took toll of his body, he would sweat, he would almost bleed. Well the preachers said why don't you give up? This girl's beyond hope. Well you think it doesn't happen? Listen I spent two years in the subculture of New York with David Wilkerson editing his paper. I've seen some of the most beautiful girls in America. They used to sing in the choir, and they could recite scriptures when I saw them. They could sing hymns without a hymn book, and became prostitutes for a thousand dollars a weekend. I remember a girl we had there, demon possessed. She'd been to one of the great school smiths, a vassal. She had more culture, and refinement, and dignity than any girl I've seen practically. But she played around, acted with sex, acted with drugs. Demons got a hold of her. And one day as we talked to her, David Wilkerson sat through and said to her, does your mother know you live this way? Where do you live? Why don't live at home anymore? My mother's old-fashioned. You know, just wants to live at home with servants, and cars, and all the luxury. I've given that up. Where do you live? Anywhere. Who do you sleep with at night? Anybody. Black men, yellow men. You're a prostitute? Sometimes. I'm also a lesbian. I've taken drugs. I've been to hell and back. Wish my mother could get liberated. A few weeks after, we were having breakfast with a bunch of cutthroats, and murderers, and jailbirds, and prostitutes, and the vilest of the vile. One boy leaned over the breakfast table. He said, oh, you know that kid that's in that film that Ravenhill and David Wilkerson interviewed? She went berserk in a coffeehouse the other night, somewhere down 111th Street. Boy, she fought. Even the cops couldn't control her. Finally, they tied her up with the belt. She's in the nuthouse. A few weeks after, the boys were talking again. They said, you know that kid that went to the nuthouse? She's come out. We saw her downtown the other night. She looked a bit weird. Could explain. A few weeks after, we were having breakfast. One of the boys said, you know that kid that went to the nuthouse and got out? Oh, she was a charming girl. Oh, she could show her jewelry, and she could pose. She had the most amazing eyes. She'd culture. Oh, she could quote Latin and French and all the stuff. Oh, she was some doll. What about her? They pulled her body out of the East River last night. Side two. She got personality, culture. Think she was going to the... I never found a prostitute that was going to be a prostitute anyhow. I could show you new girls in New York tonight that look like the Queen of Sheba. They're dripping with diamonds, and they charge more than anybody else that you don't have to approach them. They'll approach you, sit in any hotel in New York. Go to the Americana on 8th Avenue. Go to some of the super hotels. Some pretty girl come up the side of you, tell her a price, and before you know she'll follow you to bed if you don't chase her. But I'll tell you this. There's not one of those girls, when she comes home at three or four o'clock in the morning, that doesn't cry herself to sleep, and call herself the dirtiest dog in the country. Let me tell you just this other thing. I went in the office one day. Here's a tall boy, like a beanpole. He had a girl with stringy, dirty hair. Her nose was eaten away with drugs. Her teeth were all taken. Her eyes were hollow. Her temples were in. And I said, Hi, can I help you? I don't want to help her. Help my wife. She's just on drugs. She's going to die. Is she your wife? No. No, we've lived together three years. She's not my wife. But I gave her the first shot. And she's, look, she can't get off it. We can't get the money. And he lulled her with his big, snaky-looking eyes, and they stunk the pair of them like a polecat. What are you going to do? Pray. Pray? She needs something more than prayer. She needs help. She needs a doctor. You need to get her in an institution. She's going to die. We don't have any doctors. What can we do? Well, there's one thing you can't live together here. She can go in the girl's room over there. You'll go upstairs to a boy's room, and we'll come and see you later. Two days after, that girl walked in a prayer meeting. The picture of death. Wobbling earth. Sunken jaw. Dirty, smelly, blurry eye. She came out half an hour after as though she'd been to heaven and back. Her so-called husband was lolling up by the wall. Hmm, half asleep. She came out. Triumphant. His nickname was Bunny. She said, Bunny, Bunny, it's happened. What's happened? I'm a new creature. I just knelt down there and said, Jesus Christ, I'm rotten. I'm a sinner. I don't even know where you are. I don't know how to pray, but oh God, I'm in a mess. I'm going to hell as quick as I can go. Will you do something? And somebody said, believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins and ask him to come and cleanse your heart. And she did just that. And as quick as that, he changed her. Bunny said to me, will it last? Will it last? Will she die? I said, no, she'll live. Two days after, he went in the same prayer room. He came out just as transformed. I used to teach the staff there, two mornings a week, Tuesday and Thursday. And he said, I'd like to come in every Tuesday and Thursday. I said, you'll get Mr. David Wilkerson's permission. You can come. He came. That boy now, that boy who was the despair to the police, despair to everybody. That boy who was eaten with drugs and devilry and dope and vice. He had lived with women. They'd lived, oh, the rottenest life, barnyard morals. Yes, sir. And Jesus Christ got hold of them and changed them. People said, you won't do much with them. They don't have any brains. I'll tell you what he did. That boy went to Bible school. At the end of the first year, they asked him to leave because he was asking the professors questions they couldn't answer. He took Greek as extracurricular work. And his wife said, you know, it's amazing. We used to be out till two or three in the morning on drugs and dope and sex parties. And now there he is at two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning, studying the Bible, getting a concordance, finding some Greek wisdom. And he divides, devours the word of God. And you know what he's been doing for the last, what, three years now now, I guess. Four years, four years. That man has been hidden away in a little prairie tree with a bunch of people, soaking himself in the word of God. He was a despair to men, he was a despair to devils, he was a despair to everybody. But there came a day in his life when he said, look, I'm not going to play at Christianity. If Jesus Christ is going to have anything, he's going to have everything. If he'll take this life of mine and cleanse it and organize it and quickly he'd have me. What power do we have over the power of the devil? The greatest battle in the world is going on right now. The greatest battle in history was Gethsemane. The second greatest battle is going on now in the heavenlies. And if America doesn't have revival, she'll rot in her own sin. And that goes for England too. I'll talk tomorrow night about revival and the price of revival. It's an awesome price, but it can be paid and revival can be had. You think that there's no power in prayer? You think there are not men who almost single-handedly can put barriers up and Satan cannot pass? Let me quote one. When the great plague was sweeping over Scotland about 1550, a Presbyterian minister got up one morning. He was reading the word of God, I give you power over all the power of the enemy. Submit yourself to God. Resist the devil and he will, not he shall, not he could, not he might, he will flee. He put on his clerical collar, his three-quarter coat, and in the gray light of that awful morning, and I've been in Scotland in summer at four or five o'clock when you're shivering on a summer's day. At five o'clock he marched down the boundary line of the city and pushed and pushed and said, Satan you shall not enter this city. Death you shall not enter it. Plague you shall not enter this city. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I resist you. People locked in their bedroom windows and looked and said, oh, oh it's the, it's the clergyman. Something must have gone wrong with him. He walked down the boundary line, he walked down the other boundary line, he couldn't walk down that boundary line because it was the North Sea and he couldn't walk down this because it was the River Tay. He walked down that boundary line and defied the devil while people laughed at him. The plague rolled on and rolled on and rolled on until it came to that boundary line and everybody inside the boundary was saved and everybody outside of the boundary perished. You know why the devil keeps you so busy with trifles, little things? Because he's afraid you might discover the riches in Jesus Christ, that you have a right by yourself or with some other one to stand against the power of the enemy. But he doesn't run because you say boo and he doesn't run because you pray for five minutes. It means getting together and declaring war on the powers of darkness. There's a lion in the way. Did that worry Samson? Did he, did he organize a committee? Did he suggest they got some weapons, swords? He went up in the strength of God and he tore the lion. The devil is devouring this age at a speed he's never devoured any other. There are more heathen people in the world tonight than any period in history. And this generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of heathen. I don't care if that heathen is a film star going into a Waldorf Astoria tonight dripping with diamonds. And the people I saw, they're in the heart of Papua. My boys just come out of Papua. I've been there. They have wall-to-wall dirt in the homes. This is not funny. I got pictures of this. People say don't show it anymore. There is a woman, they're naked anyhow. There's no sex appeal about them. And she has a baby on her breast and there are pigs all over the house. And this little pig can't feed on its mother. So she rolls the baby on the floor and picks the pig up and feeds it. You go in another home, there's a woman suckling a dog because her little puppy is sick or its mother died. When you see films like that, you don't say, oh let's see them again, they're so funny. Isn't it appalling that a people two thousand years after Jesus Christ came and they'd never heard that blessed name? Isn't it appalling that God has given us this book, the greatest treasure in the world, and our feet are wet underneath and the man watered to the ankles and knees, the loins are watered to swim in. And the devil wants to keep us somehow occupied with lesser things, because he knows that if he can move on he's going to strangle our generation. I remind you tonight that two-thirds of the world right now is under the dominion of communism and the wreck they're going. They're going to trap us as well. The answer isn't in politics. The answer isn't in finding out who's the guilty party in the Watergate. The answer is, is the Church of the Lord. Is she going to ask for this endowment of powerful and high? Let me say this in case I forget tomorrow, that if perhaps if we were as spiritual as we think we are, you and I would have come to church tonight in sackcloth with a handful of ashes to put on our unworthy hands. Maybe the choice is simple. Either we concentrate in prayer or we pray in concentration camps. Which way do you want it? With that our seven years of cleansing? Most of you have a nicer home than the Queen of England. You've air-conditioned everything. She has a big air-conditioned house. The wind blows through it everywhere. You can turn the heat on, you can turn the cold on. Your children cry if you get Pepsi instead of getting the real Coke. Poor darlings. If you don't have 28 varieties of ice cream and 28 varieties of donuts, mother doesn't know what she's shopping for. I have an idea there are some bread lines coming up the road, but I won't talk about that. I'll talk to it tomorrow night, because then that gives you a chance to stay at home. There was a lion in the way, but he slew it. Go back just 10 chapters briefly. 10 chapters in this book. It's a lovely book, Judges, isn't it? Do you remember the other story there? We always tell the children these stories. The story of a little fellow, I think maybe 17 or 18 years of age. His name was Gideon. He was threshing corn. And while he was threshing it, an angel came. And the angel said, God is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. You know, if the angel had said that to me in the same circumstances, I'm impudent. I would have said to the angel, so you tell jokes too, eh? God is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. Just a minute, angel. You see that cave up there? That's where I live. You see the next cave? My uncle lives there. You know what? When he said that, Israel was in bondage to the Midianites. And they never saw any supernatural manifestation. And you know, the greatest tragedy of our day is this. While your children may have seen rockets going up to the sky, and they know all about so much science, they know more science than the scientists knew a hundred years ago. What they learned at school. But they've never been in a holy ghost revival. They've never seen God come and put a fence around a community and plague that community. And men can't swear, and men can't drink, and men can't fish. God is with thee, thou mighty. Wait a minute, God is with us. What am I up at night, at midnight, threshing corn for? I should do this at midday. But he didn't do it at midday. Why? Because they were in captivity to the Midianites. God is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. Do you know what he answered? He said, if God be with us, where be his miracles that our fathers told us of? That'd be a pretty stiff yardstick to measure most of our meetings with, wouldn't it? Where be his miracles? My grandfather told me that he remembers walking through the greatest aquarium in the history of the world. They waved to the fishes as they went through, when they were delivered through the Red Sea. He told me at night, when he was nervous, he lifted the edge of the tent, and there was a fiery, cloudy pillar, the pillar of God's holy presence, fire. He told me he had a pair of shoes he wore for forty years that never wore out. He had a suit that he wore for forty years, it never smelled. Every morning God opened the windows of heaven and sent the man, and he split a rock and wore to follow them. Those people lived on miracle. They ate miracle. They walked on miracle. They saw miracle, and yet they never entered the promised land. We've got thousands of people that will go thousands of miles to see miracles, but they don't want a life of holiness. They want to see God operate, but they don't want God to operate on them, do some divine surgery, and circumcise their hearts, and take away their evil spirit, and take away their bad temper, and take away their carnality, that he might make them the dwelling place of his spirit. The book of Daniel is the book of revelation of the Old Testament. Do you remember what God said when he gave Daniel the vision? He said, seal it up, it's not for today. When he gave John the vision in the New Testament, he said, don't seal it, it shall shortly come to pass, and that was two thousand years ago. So he must be very near to the coming. But God said to Daniel, in the last days, are we living in the last days? I don't think so. We're living in the last minutes of this dispensation, not the last days. But in Daniel it says, in the last days when wicked men do wickedly, the people that do know their God, but in all this there, not the people that know their Bibles. You can get Bible notes this height. You can know the Word of God without knowing the God of the Word. You may know the Word of God because you have that kind of mind. You like statistics, and dividing chapters, and penetrating words. You can be loaded with the Word of God, and yet hardly know the God of the Word. The scripture says, in the last days when wicked men do wickedly, not the people that know their Bibles, but the people that do know their God, shall be strong and do exploit. Are these the last days? Are wicked men doing wickedly? Let me telescope history. In my day there have been three outstandingly wicked men. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini. Forget Mussolini, forget Stalin, what about Hitler? He lengthened the coastline of Germany a thousand miles. He put more kings off their thrones than anybody else. Do you remember when he stood there with more machines, and weapons, and airplanes, and tanks, and devilish things than any man in history? And he raised his hand, and he said, the Third Reich will live a thousand years. The Third Reich. The First Reich, you may or may not remember, was the Holy Roman Empire. When they built shrines to the Caesars, where if you wanted to save your life, you went to an image of Caesar, and you put three grains of incense there, and said, Caesar is God. And Hitler longed for the day when men would worship him, and he said, the Third Reich, with his clenched fist, will last a thousand years. It didn't last a thousand weeks. But he lengthened the coastline of Germany a thousand miles. He pushed kings off their thrones. He said, I'll make Germany the master nation of the world, or I'll pull the world to the edge of hell. And he did that. And the world has never recovered financially from that time. I don't believe it ever will. When wicked men do wickedly. Oh, they've done it. He liquidated six million Jews. Read that marvelous book. It used to cost ten dollars. It's that thick. Fifteen hundred pages on the Third Reich. One man. Not a man linked to God. A man that sold himself to the devil. He didn't go to bed at ten o'clock. He didn't sit up and watch brainless Johnny Carson either. He read Napoleon. He was determined to be a greater military strategist than Napoleon himself. He went to bed at three and four o'clock in the morning after being guided by a spiritist medium who made every move for him correctly until the last one. And you can win battles and lose wars, and that's what he did. That little man who just had a Charlie Chaplin mustache on his lip and a stripe on his arm, and everybody laughed and said, what will he do? He said, I'll conquer the world. And they sneered at him. But he came within an ace of doing it. And if a man dedicated to evil, if a man dominated with selfish desire, can make America give its finest sons and rape Europe, if you fail to pay thirty dollars income tax, they will send you to jail. But remember that world war from the last two wars. Russia owes America 1.5 billion dollars. England owes America 11.5 billion dollars. France owes America 7.5 billion dollars. If you got that twenty million dollars back, the dollar wouldn't be so sick. They'll hound you to jail if you don't pay your thirty dollars. But we don't make nations do that. We don't. We're poor dupes, aren't we? They do what they want with us. They've got us on a spring. We're puppets. Don't care the way you call the Democrats or the other crats or anybody else. They've just got us where they want us. We're not going to straighten this thing out economically, socially, financially. The only way we can restore the balance in America is a purging, holy ghost revival that will cleanse people from the politicians in the White House right down to the jailhouse and the brothel house and the ale house. I'll write out tight up in the last days when wicked men do wickedly. You don't remember too much of Mussolini. I could tell you a lot I won't. Stalin, but Hitler. And God says, when you see the devil put his supermen out, keep watching. I'm going to send my supermen, and he's going to send them as sure as that's my hand. I'm not sure he's going to Dallas Theological Seminary to get him or even a Pentecostal seminary, but he's going to get his men. He always has. He always will. They got Samson. He's a menace. He embarrasses them. He lifts the gates of the city. He destroys their chosen men. He sets their stock of food on fire. He catches 600 foxes. This man, you can't do again anything. The anointing is on him, and no weapon that is formed against him can prosper. And it was like that with the early church. All right, they got his secret. The woman said, you must be tired chasing foxes and lifting gates of the city. Put your head on my lap. Have a sleep. And he did. That must be the most expensive haircut in the world, I think. The next thing he hears is the same sweet, no, wicked lady saying, come on, wake up, Samson. The philistines be upon me. And he woke from his sleep, and he wasn't any smaller than when he went to sleep. He forgot to put his hands up, because they cut his hair off. He'd given his secret away. But he says, I'll go out as I did at other times. And here is one of the saddest texts in the Bible. He wished not that the Spirit of God had departed from him. He didn't know God had left him. A couple of simple things. In Cornell University a while ago, they did a very simple thing. They had an ordinary gas stove like you have at home. They put a dishpan of cold water here, and a dishpan of cold water here, and they lit the jets, and they got this water boiling, and they put a frog in it, and suddenly he, it was boiling. As soon as he hit it, he swore out, and he kicked, and out he got. He said, if I stay here, I'll cook to death. They lit the jet on the other dish of water at the very lowest point, and they put a frog in it. And two professors sat down and watched the frog for five minutes, then they turned the jet up once, and they sat down five minutes, they turned the jet up again, and sat down five minutes, they turned the jet up again, and sat down five minutes. And you know, as it got hotter, he wriggled and wriggled, but he adjusted and settled down. Then it got hotter, but he wriggled and he settled down. He adjusted, except for the last time. And he just did. He didn't adjust the last time. When they dropped the frog in boiling water, he said, get out of here, I'll die. When they turned it up, just progressively, killed him, all right. What killed your spiritual life? What killed your prayer life? What killed your Bible reading? Was it Johnny Carson? Was it your love for sport? What was it? Oh, Satan didn't get you drunk, you didn't commit adultery, you didn't steal money from the business that you're in. But little by little, Satan turned the jets up, and he got you exactly where he wanted you. All right, here we are finally. They got the man, they bind him, they blind him, they put him down in the basement, they put some bracelets of brass around his arm, they made him go round and round and round and round and round, grinding corn for the Philistines. Are you going to suggest if you got in that basement, you wouldn't have heard that man crying? Don't you think he might have been saying rather angrily, God, why didn't I die after I of the city? Why didn't I die after I did my expose? I'm dying in misery and spiritual bankruptcy. And while he's there, he turns his sightless eyes and says, who art thou? I'm a boy. What kind of a boy? A Philistine boy, a Philistine boy. What are you doing down here? I have come to take you. That must have been like a dagger in his heart. There was a time when a thousand men couldn't take him, and one boy is going to take him now by the fingers and take him away. Where are you taking me? I'm taking you into the temple of Dagon, the fish god. They're having a conference. Everybody's saying, you know, God is dead. Doesn't that sound familiar? The God of the children of Israel, he used to deliver them. Oh, he did miracles. But he's out of business. He died of old age. And we are the kings of the earth. Our religion is the religion of the day. Where is the God of Israel? The man who could destroy a lion and destroy an army and lift the gates of a city, now he's taken by the fingers. And he says, son, steady, steady. Can you take me on the platform? Some steps up, but go cautiously. Now I'm blind. You know what it says? It says there were three thousand men in the gallery. The gallery usually holds a third of the auditorium. So I'm going to guess there were ten thousand people there. And they bring Samson in and they laugh. Oh, that must have cut him to bits. They scorn. They say the God of Israel is dead. The God of the Philistines is ruined. The God of sensuality, the God of lust, the God of materialism, the other God has gone out of business. And those sightless eyes began to feel tears in that heart that had been crushed for so long. Did something it hadn't done for a while. But I don't care who the man is. I don't care how brilliant he is, how famous, how well he preaches. No man under God's heaven is greater than his prayer life. When Samson realized he was in this jam, do you know what he did? He says, oh Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me. I pray thee, strengthen me just once. Is it amazing that while he believed in the God of Israel, he didn't say give me my eyes back and I'll chase the enemy. He didn't say take me back and make me one of the leading kings of the earth like I was. He didn't say give me liberty. He didn't pray for restoration. He was jealous of God. He says, God, will you please come? Strengthen me once, whether I'm blind or not. I pray you in mercy touch me. Do you know why I know he meant business? Because he says, strengthen me and touch me, verse 36, even if I die with the Philistine. And when a man can look up into the face of a holy God whose breath is in his nostrils, and he knows God can stop his heart beating like that, and the next second he can be a corpse, and he says, God, I mean business so much that I want this anointing. I would rather live just a few hours with the anointing of God than live the rest of my life blind and helpless and useless. Strengthen me, I pray thee, just once. God doesn't answer prayer. God answers desperate prayer. This man is more desperate than ever in his life. He says, God, give me this anointing, even if I die. And that anointing came. He pushed out the pillars and the house came down, and the word of God says he killed more in his dying than in his living. Do you know what we're going to have before long? A Holy Ghost revival. Do you know who the evangelists are going to be? Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men see visions, your old men dreams. And not my servants and handmaids, not on my preachers and theological seminary professors, but on my servants and handmaids. That's what Jesus did when he started. He didn't go to Caiaphas and take him to the upper room. He went to fishermen, he went to tax gatherers, he went to poor men, and he trained them for three years and filled them with the Holy Ghost and sent them to turn the world upside down. And as it was in the beginning, even now, it shall be in forever and forever. God's going to pour out his Spirit. God's going to let this wicked, materialistic, glunken, sex-perverted, damned generation know he's God. Whatever the Philistines may say or do, he's looking for somebody that's desperate to get cleansed and filled with the Holy Ghost. My last word. If you live the next 365 days like you've lived the last 365, will the devil have any worries about you? Will he know you're around? Is your life on the altar for everything that God wants to take out of it? Does anybody say, you know, I don't understand the secret of that man in our church. He's different from other men. He has more power, when he prays. He has authority. He can command unclean spirits to come out. We were in a place just the other night. A lady sent for me in a hotel, Holiday Inn. They're millionaires. She's got everything, but she was sick. She called my dear wife. Martha said, would you pray for Mrs. So-and-so? I said yes. I went in the hotel and prayed for her. She said, I'm nearer death than I've ever been. She's had serious trouble. And we went in and just simply laid hands on her and prayed. And came out. And we hit the road to come up here. She's gone back to the Bahamas, but her daughter-in-law was speaking to her, and she said, I tried to get Brother Raymond. I tried to find him. I couldn't find him in Florida. I wanted to tell him that when he prayed that night, I woke up a new creature in the morning. The pain had gone. The sickness had gone. I was completely delivered. It's rather amazing we have choirs. Well, that's all right. And we have choir leaders. That's fine. And we have education ministers. I wonder why we don't have a prayer minister. We've got bus ministers. I don't know how many more ministers are going to get in the churches. Minister of the church, minister of music, minister of education, minister of busing. I wonder this afternoon as I meditate, why don't we have a prayer minister? Is it because most of us have faith in prayer, but not many can pray the prayer of faith? Look, you'll forget everybody outside of this building. Forget your wife, your sweetheart, your friend right here. Do you want to come to spiritual maturity? Do you want to die like Samson, spiritually bankrupt? Or do you say tonight, Brother Raymond, more than anything on God's earth tonight, I want to be cleansed and filled with the Holy Spirit. And I'm prepared to challenge a holy God in the presence of this congregation. I'm prepared to pray Samson's prayer. Strengthen me, just once. If God will give me that anointing, I don't care whether I live six days or six years, but I want that anointing. Samson never lost it. He died with it. He died in the greatest revival he'd ever had. I know we're going to have a Pentecost soon, but without Pentecost, Pentecost. God is looking for the men and the women. Do you know, if my program had gone around, we would either be in Australia or New Zealand tonight at some of the greatest conventions in the world, and God said no. And I didn't know when your pastor asked me why I said to my sweetheart, darling, we're not going. I'd like to have gone to New Guinea to see our son and his wife and the children there. I'd like to have gone to these big conventions, there'll be hundreds of minutes, and God said no. And then they say, come to Merritt Island for one night. We stayed four. And then your good pastor said, well, if you're coming that way, why not come in? Now, I don't carry secrets. I'm just telling you, this is how God orders things, isn't it? So I don't know where you are, but I know I'm writing God's will tonight in this church. I brought the message God wanted you to hear. And I'm not responsible for a single soul after this moment. Day you pray, some of you sixteen-year-olds, you could be God's anointed for the next generation. I don't think there'll be a generation. I don't think, I think Jesus will come within the next ten years anyhow, maybe five. But he's going to shake the world before he comes. He's not coming for a feeble, who is he coming for? He's coming for a bride, not a widow. He's not coming for an old lady shuffling to the grave with bunions and cataracts on her eyes. He's coming for a young, beautiful bride, robed in white, robed in holiness, strength, strong, victorious. Are you hungry and thirsting for him tonight? As he looks at your shabby prayer life, as he looks at your powerlessness, as he looks at your dry eyes, as he looks at your lack of love for souls and concern for a lost world and for his coming. Our Father, we're glad that you look down from heaven at this moment. We remember him that has sought thee thou never saidst no. There's not an angel or an archangel who knows every heart bowed before thee at this moment, but you know every one of us. You know every grief over our failure. You know every obstruction that we've allowed to come in between. A life fully, totally yielded to thee. A life dominated, controlled entirely by the power of the Holy Spirit. I pray for each one of these dear ones here. If there are some unsaved, bring them into a conscious knowledge of this moment, at this moment of sins forgiven. Who is a pardoning God like thee? Or who has grace so rich and free? But Lord, we believe that most of these know thee and are longing for that deep inner cleansing, for the blood that this moment shall cleanse them through and through, and the Holy Spirit invade them from the crown of their head to the sole of their feet. Lord, as we've sung in this hymn, this gorgeous, wonderful expression, until my heart is clean, purify every heart bowed before thee. Whether it be sin, whether it be doubt, whether it be fear, whatever it is, I pray just now, Heavenly Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit and through the precious blood of Jesus, you cleanse every one of these hearts. But Lord, every person here at this moment will say, come in Holy Spirit, take full control of my life. I pray thee tonight, Lord Jesus, get some bond slaves out of these people. Get some prayer warriors, get some mishrays, get some sow winners, get some Sunday school teachers, get people who from tonight shall know what it is to become strained and restrained by the Holy Spirit. We're conscious of this desperate hour in which we live. We know that money cannot reach lost men and women. We know that human organization cannot do it. But oh God, we thank thee that all power is thine. And as you came on those men in the upper room, they were unlearned. They were ignorant. They had no prestige in the world. But when they came out, they were filled with the Holy Ghost. And they went out to bear fruit and bring glory to thy great name. I pray that homes will be transformed here. Homes that don't have a family altar, that from tonight, husband and wife will get together and read the word and pray. Those who have no passion for the lost, will find tonight that tears of compassion come, as they think of millions who are still in darkness and in the shadow of death. I pray for men whose lips have been sealed in the office, where men tell dirty stories and they're arrogant in their sin, that they'll have grace and power to testify, to witness boldly for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for the breathing of your spirit tonight. Lord, you said the evening and the morning were the first day. I beseech you in the name of Jesus, not for my sake, not for the sake of this lovely church of Pastor Peter. Lord, that I ask for your glory. You start a fire here in this church, that the whole community will know that God has come. That a fire will spread right through Florida and through America tonight, with all its need, as needy as America is, as needy as England is, as needy as other countries are. That it will please me to make this house the birthplace of a revival that will shape this country for a holy God, and save us not merely from communism, but save us from the devil and his power. That we'll save our young people, that we'll save the teenagers, that we'll save the children in school. Give us expecting hearts. Bless us, we pray, as we come in the morning sessions to meditate over thy word. As we consider tomorrow night the mighty possibilities of being linked to a holy, omnipotent God in prayer. Oh, that thou wouldst this week rend the heavens and come down. Show us what it's like when God walks down the aisles, when God grooves over the atmosphere, when God is allowed to have his way. Do that, Lord, which we'll be conscious of as the power of God. Not the work of the flesh, not the work of men, but the work, the mysterious, marvelous, miraculous work of the Holy Ghost. We covenant with you tonight that we'll give you every bit of the praise, we'll give you every bit of the glory. We say thank you for presencing yourself with us. Thank you for convicting us. Thank you for cleansing us. Thank you for purifying us. Thanking you for invading our personalities tonight with your spirit. May we go out in the power of the risen Son of God to live on an elevation of spirituality we've not known before. Lord, we thank you for the power of God. Dismiss us with thy blessing, we pray, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.