In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of what is inside a person, as it will ultimately come out in their actions and words. He refers to Jesus' statement in John 14 about the prince of this world, suggesting that the world is governed by satanic power. The speaker expresses concern about the current state of music in worship, noting that hymns are being replaced by choruses that lack references to the blood or redemption. He also highlights the lack of emphasis on prayer in various departments and institutions, suggesting the need for a dedicated department for prayer.

I was thinking of a situation fairly recently where some people were in deep, deep trouble, domestic trouble, and it was quite serious, I'm sure. And it was as the Lord said to me one day, well, one proof of the spirit-filled life is you're able to sing in jail. Anybody can sing here this morning, good night, the flowers are growing outside and the sun's shining, you've all had a good breakfast, and you look nice, I'm not sure you are nice, but you look nice, and everything's easy, so why can't you sing, I'll sing praise, that's great. What if we're in jail at midnight with Paul and Silas, could you sing then? I try to think every day of the Christians in the Gulag archipelago, and I noticed Sullivan Hinson has another book coming out about now, and you should read them, they're very, very deeply challenging. When you think of Christians that haven't had a bath for three years, and haven't had a decent meal, and they sleep on, in their own urine and whatnot, on the floor of a dirty old rotten place. And they're saints. There is a theory abroad, it's a devastating, terrible theory, I think, that if you get really saved and filled with the spirit, you become a millionaire. Well, those fellows who preach that should take a bus, and or a plane, and go to Bangladesh, and go to some of these other countries where there's extreme poverty. There's a lot of teaching around these days, which only fits in the framework of the American economy. It wouldn't work anywhere else. You say to people, send us your tithes and offerings. Well, I've been in countries where the tithes and offerings are bananas and coconuts. But they still bring them, in gratitude. All right, this sermon on the mount is what? Well, it's the law of the kingdom. And the law of the kingdom is the royal rule and reign of love. First verse of the fifth of Matthew says, and seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain. And when he was set, his disciples came to him. He says at the beginning in the first verse of the eighth chapter, when he was come down from the multitude, great family, when he came down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. It seems to me that the multitudes are those that were there on the mountain. I don't think they just suddenly came up like mushrooms. Let's go back a minute here. When he was in the mount, he was set. Up in Oklahoma, when they talk, at least the group that we were with, the pastor would always say, now Lord, as we set before you. I never heard that word used that way. I always thought you said sat before you, but set. Now, I don't think, I don't think that just means that Jesus sat down. Because again, in the next verse, he says he opened his mouth. Well, how in the world could he talk without opening his mouth? There's a great deal that's implied. And again, we skip over those things. We just leap from one thing to another. You know, it's so easy to pass right over it. What is Jesus doing here? He's setting up the manifesto. He's teaching the manifesto of his kingdom. And I think when he was set, means more than just sitting on a bench. I think he's trying to imply here, I'm a king. And I'm sitting and I'm ruling from a throne. And when he opened his mouth, does not mean he just opened his mouth to speak. Obviously even Jesus could not speak without opening his mouth. What it does mean is, as you'll find out later, that they were startled because they said, this man is not like the other teachers. He speaks with authority and not as the scribes. The scribes, to use the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, were sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. All they were doing was rehashing all that had been said before. Jesus did not, N-O-T, he did not do that by any means at all. What is the Sermon on the Mount? It is the life of Jesus Christ put into words for us. And I don't hesitate to say, it is the spirit-filled life. Now people say, if I live the Sermon on the Mount, will that bring me in the kingdom? No it won't, because first of all you can't do it. But I'll tell you what, when the kingdom comes in you, then the norm of your life will be the Sermon on the Mount. If you're misfunctioning somewhere, you know when your automobile does something wrong, you say the plugs are wrong, the brakes are not working, you adjust the part that's weak. And if you live in the Sermon on the Mount, you find you're running out of meekness, or running out of something else, well make some adjustment here and just say, Lord I need to deal with this. Living the Sermon on the Mount does not bring me into the kingdom, indeed again I say it's an impossibility. But because the Spirit of God, the Living God is in me, then my natural outflow is everything that's here in the Sermon on the Mount. Look, if I have three vessels like this, skidded there, this one has oil, is that how you spell it? Yes. Water, coffee, must get coffee in. How do you spell it, like that, two e's? Now I give three people these vessels, one has one with oil, one has one with water, and one has one with coffee. And I say now you're to run to that door as quickly as ever you can and run back. And so they run, and they, and I say you must not spill it, and they try not to, and just as they're coming back, oh one of them spills it. Well supposing it's the one with oil, what comes out of the thing they spill? Okay. If it's coffee, what comes out? Wonderful. If it's water, what comes out? It's simple logic. Now look, if there's nothing in you, it can't come out. If somebody jokes you, and offends you, and hurts you, what is in will come out. If it's not there, it can't come out. Now Jesus says in John 14, the prince of this world comes. Now will you notice what he says? He doesn't say the king, he says the prince of this world. He concedes that this world is governed by satanic power. Now I don't know how far you've gone in this, I'm exploring it more and more myself. You know what troubles me so much these days, now I'm not against music, don't you get offended, if there's something in you, it'll spill out right now for sure. If your idol is music. But you know, I think we've gone a little bit overboard on that. Number one, I don't find anybody writing hymns, everybody's writing choruses. Number two, I don't find any choruses about the blood, or redemption. They're all happy and so forth, which is okay. They need balancing. The, um, what am I going to say here? All right, what is in me, let me say will come out. Jesus says the prince of this world come out, and he findeth nothing in me. And then the scripture says, as he, Jesus was, so are we in this world. The kingdoms of this world are governed. What I was going to say is this, every department that we, any schools we go to, they have a department for singing, they have a department for this, that and the other. But I never find one with a department for prayer. I say to my wife sometimes, sweetie there's another one, and you see a beaten up old bus that nobody would want but a Christian. And, uh, it says on the side Jack Jones and his singing family. You go a bit further and you see one, uh, well like, uh, TLC in our little town. We have a small college, Texas Lutheran College, and they've just gone on their annual singing tour. So on the bus it says TLC, uh, choir. I never find a college sending a prayer group out. I never find a bus down the road, John Jones and his wife and four children specialize in praying. Hey, as a matter of fact, I never found a fellow put his prayers on record. Martha, remind me about that dear, we make some records on prayer. Why not? Why not? You go to a church and they have a choir, and the choir has to practice. You wonder what they were like when they started, they're bad enough now. But anyhow, they've been practicing for the last five years. Every Wednesday night they have a prayer meeting from eight, and the prayer meeting finishes about 15 minutes after eight. Then it's the Bible study till nine, and then from nine, or they don't say we only practice 20 minutes or 30, they'll practice an hour or two hours. But you don't find that emphasis on prayer. Again in the gifts of the Spirit, there is no gift of singing. There is a ministry of singing admittedly, but there is no gift. There are apostles and prophets and evangelists and teachers and all the rest. Now I'm not kicking the singing, I'm just saying this, don't let it eat you up. Now you won't, you'd hardly believe this, but for three years I toured as a soloist of a revival team. We were called the Pilgrim Revival Party. And for three years I traveled as a singer. You know the singers usually get more pats on the back than preachers. You get congratulations, and they want you to sign their autograph, and they want this that and the other. And it's terribly easy to get inflated. You'll find a lot of people going around this country are getting very wealthy and get making records and singing. But I'll tell you what, you'll never find a man wealthy on praying. You go to a church now, they have a minister. Then they have a minister of music. Then they have a minister of youth. Then they have a minister of education. Then soon have a minister of garbage. Everybody has to be a minister in a church these days. I never find anybody with a ministry of prayer. We have a minister of prayer. Why not? What did Jesus say? What does the scripture say? May not always to sing and not to faint. You feel like fainting when you've heard them singing maybe, but uh what does the scripture say? It's so easy to follow the trend, the trend, the trend. Saying that to say this, I'll be very, very happy and excited when Agape has a section, a room built somewhere, maybe soundproof, where men pray, and even women. And one thing about it, it will never have a lock on the door. One of the most amazing prayer meetings I know, the only one that lasted more than 100 years, imagine that. Everybody didn't live through it for sure. But they began to pray one Wednesday morning on the uh, let me see, 13th of August 1727. Just as um, the clock, here's the clock, this is 12, okay. This is 11, in case you don't know. Here are the hands on the clock, the little one, the big one, and just as the hand moved up to 11, the Spirit of God descended on a group in Hernhut, in Moravia. That prayer meeting that began at 11 o'clock that morning was still going on here 100 years after, and the room never emptied once in 100 years. And little boys and girls prayed in the Spirit, groaning, weeping. There's a bunch of islands down in the Bahamas, I've been through them, and further down where St. Kitts and St. Thomas and so forth. And men came from that group where the fire fell, and they stood on the auction block. The only people sold in those days were Negroes, and they'd wait till they'd finish selling Negroes, and then they would step on the block, lovely blonde curly-headed German boys, big husky boys, and say sell me. Why? Because there's no way to get into those slave plantations unless you're a slave. It's easy to say I want to be a slave of Jesus Christ, if somebody makes you a slave. Somebody puts too much pressure, what do you think I am a slave? Well that's what you said a few minutes ago. And so these men were sold into slavery. They'd come and take their teeth and punch their stomachs, and tap them all over to see if they were sound, you know, and then they'd say, well what would I bid for this man? A hundred gold sovereigns. And then they had to pay the money into the hand of the young man. Then he would take it to his pastor, Spenberger or somebody, and say there, send it back to Germany so the next young man can come out. And that's how they got into those slave camps down in the southern islands there of the, the Bohemian group, as we say the Caribbean. There's no other way in. Well it's a kind of an analogy, that's the only way that Jesus could get in this world, he came as a slave. One of the lovely hymns, we used to have an old holiness book in England, and one of the verses of the hymn was, still lives with me, he was poor to give me treasure, he was slave to make me king, he was hated without measure, heaven's love to me to bring. I don't believe the Holy Ghost is going to fall on us while we're singing. Well if he does, it will be because somebody's born the, the pain and anguish in prayer. What were they doing in the upper room, singing? What were they doing at hound hut, singing? Singing is right, it's beautiful, it releases your spirit. You find in the old testament, the king would say, bring me a minstrel, and then it wakes up, you know. Today they talk about what, getting the adrenaline moving, there's something in you needs moving. Now by the same token, we often pray and ask God to do things, and he says, do it yourself. How? Well Paul says to Timothy, stir up the gift of God that's in you. He doesn't say pray that God will stir it up, he says, stir it up yourself. As we would say, get going, get going. Don't say, Lord help me to pray, start praying. Don't say, Lord would it be reasonable to fast, start fasting. Don't ask about it, talk about it, do it, stir up the gift of God which is in you. You see, there's such a heavy leaning these days on, what God will do for us, what God, you know what God says? He says, look I've given you all the material here, and now he says, you build up yourself in your most holy faith. Now we pray, Lord build me up in the faith. God says, build yourself up in the faith. How do you build yourself up? By studying the word, by meditating on the word, by practicing the word. Build yourself up in your most holy faith. Again he says, keep yourself in the love of God. You say, Lord today, keep me in your love. He says, keep yourself in the love of God. Refuse to let somebody upset you. Just ignore what Satan's bringing, keep yourself in the love of God. After all, you've as much right to develop that space, if it is a space between your ears, or whatever, whatever between your ears then. You've got to develop that as much as your body, or your soul, or your emotions, or anything else. You've got intelligence, use it. I remember once being in a pastor's office, and he said, you know, today we live on the power of the Holy Ghost, and we're not smart really in our group, we we're not a brainy bunch. We don't put much stress on the intellect. Or we get blessed, and we sing, and we have marvelous, some Sunday mornings we don't even use the Bible. We have a marvelous time. Well all I can say is they're out of kilter, that's all. Faith cometh by hearing. What, the choir? Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. He said, I don't go for these PhDs, you know, Christian PhDs, and smart people that study Greek, and juggle with Hebrew, and all the rest of it. So I went to his library, and I put my hands up like this. I said, listen, I'll take all these books. Eh, you can't take those books. Why? Well I said, this was written by Dr. So-and-so, this is written by, and you go digging in all those books, you despise his brains, but you pick his brains every time. Because most preachers preach dead men's brains anyhow. But all he was doing was going to some scholar, and picking the best of scholars. Now he despises scholarship, and learning, and human wisdom, and yet he's happy to use it. God gave you a brain. You're as accountable to God for that brain, as for anything else. And you better use it. And you say, I don't have much of a brain. No, well that's not true. That's not true. As I said yesterday, when a baby is born, it's complete. It doesn't have legs like tadpoles. It's physically complete, its mind is complete. In the sense its brain is anyhow. But you can develop that brain. If it lives in a home where there's no music, most likely it won't bother with music. If it lives in a home where there's a piano, and two or three guitars, and something, it will automatically absorb an appetite for music. If it lives in a home where there's art, it will want to paint and do other things. So the brain is complete in the child, but it does not have learning, it does not have knowledge, it does not have wisdom. You add it, you add it, you add it. Now what Peter says, what in his second do it faithful, read it not now but after. Add to your faith what? Well faith, add to your faith virtue, and wisdom, and knowledge, and so on. Add, keep adding, keep adding, keep adding. The soul is capable of expansion all the time. There are fuller, higher, greater revelations than ever we have seen and known. So the Sermon on the Mount gives me a portrait of Jesus Christ. Everything in this was in his life. He was poor, and he was meek, and he hungered and thirst for God. He was merciful, he was pure in heart, and sure he was persecuted for righteousness sake. And all that comes in there has to come into this life of mine. So here then we have a picture of our life, we have a picture of his life. Now I, I can't, I can't substantiate this. But you'll find as you pray, and as you meditate, that God will give you things that you can't find in books. That's a proof again that he's speaking, it's a proof again of his eternal wisdom. We do not know, we cannot know, and maybe we never will know, the amount of grief that God had when Adam wrecked his, wrecked his program. Where is it revealed in the Word of God? How distressed was God when Adam is put into a perfect environment. No snakes, no wild animals, no thorns, no poisons, nothing offensive. He's put into a perfect environment. Let's make this do for the environment. Here it is, it's, there's no one there but Adam, and then he's of course, he's walking with God. So God says, I'm going to set up my kingdom on earth, and here the only person in it is this man Adam. No hostility, no opposition, no difficulties, just a perfect environment. Here is, Jesus is called the last Adam. Now you'll discover if you're perceptive at all, that lots of hymnology is not theology. One of the great hymns, it was written by Newman, praise to the holiest in the height, and in the depth be praised. In all his works most wonderful, more sure in all his ways. And then the other stanza says this, all loving wisdom of our God, when all was sin and shame, a second Adam to the fight, and to the rescue came. Now there is not a second Adam. If, if this Adam is the first Adam, and Jesus is the second, you can have a third, a fourth, and how many? No, no, no, Jesus is not the second, Jesus is the L A S T. He's the last Adam. God started first of all with Adam, a perfect wonderful man. We've no idea of his perfection really. He fouled it all up. That was in the beginning of creation. Do you remember Wesley's love divine or love excelling? He says, finish then thy new creation. This is a new creation. That's the first creation. It got fouled up through Adam. This is the new creation. And it begins with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. All right, this man has no difficulties, has no opposition. He's a perfect environment. Now let's make this little thing here the throne. This is where Jesus sits. He's sat down. And immediately in front of him are his disciples here. And then it says there was a great multitude. I don't know how great it was. Nobody else does either. It was a great multitude of people. And in the multitude you have Pharisees, and you have Sadducees, and behind them you have the Roman soldiers. Now this man starts off with no opposition. Jesus starts his kingdom in the midst of a terrible system. Christianity wasn't served up to the world on a silver platter. Christianity was served up to the world in a in a sophisticated totalitarian society. 55 years before Jesus came, the Romans were in England. They'd already set up their kingdom in England. 55 years before Jesus Christ came into the world. This man starts out with no opposition. This man starts out with every opposition. He's got political opposition because the Romans have taken over. He's got military opposition. He's got religious opposition. He's got every opposition. All through his life. Now look, don't get the idea the more holy you become, the devil will keep off. Because you see, any area you surrender in your life, Satan's going to try and get it back. He'll fight like hell itself to get it back. And the more spiritual you become, it's a paradox. The more spiritual you become, the more opposition you get. Wasn't that true of the early church? Weren't they all together in the upper room? They had a whale of a time. Man, they came out and had great things. A great time. But they were in trouble before long. You see, we get it all in one meeting, don't we, Nebata? Now praise God, I went in the meeting, you know, and I got the baptism in the spirit. I came out being happy, lived happily ever after. Great, great, wonderful. Huh? Well you got it very cheap, that's all I can say. Because it so happens here, that if this is, if you want to call this p for Pentecost, that the fellows who went to Pentecost, listen, graduated after three years of teaching with the greatest man that ever lived. And they still weren't ready for Pentecost. Hmm? Three years. Between the time they signed up, if you like, to the time they got to the upper room. Pentecost meant what? Oh, another P you say, power. Well, cut it out. First of all, Pentecost meant purity. Read Acts 15, 8 and 9. God who knoweth the heart, bear them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us, put no difference between us and them. What? See, people say, oh I go to a Pentecostal church. Well, praise God, I'm glad you do. Why is it Pentecost? Oh, because we have a healing service every Sunday. People get healed in our meetings. They got healed in John Wesley's meetings too, and they got healed in the early Quaker meetings. People always attach the miraculous to Pentecost. Now listen, you're all smart, that's why you're here. Thank you. You're smart. Tell me what miracle the disciples did after Pentecost they did not do before Pentecost? They went out on a big healing meeting before Pentecost, didn't they? And they came back running and shouting and said, Lord, even devils are subject to us. We can cast out demons and unplug their fears and heal the sick. And Jesus said, wait a minute, wait a minute. You know, I think some of these boys will be, I think they'll feel a bit let down when they get to heaven. There'll be nobody to heal and no chance to raise money. Streets are paved with gold in heaven. You know who the evangelists are, they'll be digging the streets up. But the fact is that again, Jesus says, listen, now look, don't you get carried away on an emotional wave here just because you've had a wonderful ministry and healed the sick and done a few things. That's all beautiful. Do you know what the greatest thing is not to do miracles? The greatest thing is that your dirty name that once was in hell has been cleansed, your nature, your life, and your name is now on the greatest honor roll that the world ever had. Isn't that lovely? Hmm? Slaves of the devil become slaves of Jesus Christ. Or as a good book says, we who were afar off are made nigh by the blood of the lamb. How beautiful. But again, I remind you that Jesus is going to set up his kingdom. Now look, he does it in, oh, it's difficult to meet people with a hostility, don't you fool yourself. You'll get in company. Sometimes I have, they bombarded me with questions, sometimes aboard ships. In the afternoon, I go into the lounge of the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth or some other boat. The men would sit around and say, hey, come on, preach. And you'd sit down and they'd start talking philosophical and political stuff. I hardly knew where I was. And boy, I pray like mad and stay my ground and say, well, I've got something you have. You can change this and change that. You have nothing that changes the heart of a man. You have nothing that turns him from a beast into a saint. That when you've done everything, you can educate his brain, feed his body, stir his emotions and do all the other things. There's a, as H.G. Wells, I think maybe the most sensible thing he ever said. He said there is a, a blank in human personality which only G.O.D can fill. And no man is a complete personality without God. That's what we were made for. We're made for God. Says in Revelation, we're made for his pleasure. It doesn't say we're made to be great singers or great preachers. We're made for his pleasure. If his pleasure is to let you rot in a prison cell, it's his pleasure to let people down here in the Gulag Archipelago. Here they are living in total misery year after year. Why don't these boys with all their tremendous power go and liberate them? Why don't they get parachuted into that area and say, we've come to tell you how to tithe and give you money and do this, that and the other. And yet God is working out his pleasure in a filthy lousy prison cell. How often did the Apostle Paul spend his time in jail? As I mentioned last night about reward, you see, one day we're going to be in Paris. Sure, I think we'll all weep at the judgment seat. Jesus will say one day to this lady, what's your name there? Nonny? Oh, that's a name I haven't heard before. All right, he'll say to Nonny or say to Martha or say to somebody else, one day you slighted me. And you say, Lord, I'm sorry, I think you got it mixed up. When did I slight you? Well, you didn't give me some money to help me. You didn't buy me a pair of shoes, you didn't do this, that and the other. Well, Lord, now please explain, I'm muddled up, I don't understand. Well, you used to go to church every Lord's day and across the aisle there was a little widow. And you used to go in your nice dress and your shoes and always so nice and neat. And people would say of Nonny or Martha or Jack or somebody, you know, they're always well dressed, they always look so nice. And that little woman came year after year in old clothes and shoes that led in the wet and so forth. And you often said, poor soul, you knew that sometimes she didn't get a good meal in three or four days. And you said, what a pity. And you know, every time you ignored that woman, you didn't hurt her, you hurt me. Because in as much as you've done it to the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me. I might have a hundred dollars in my pocket, I never carry money as a matter of fact. I don't have 10 cents, got a label here for something. But I don't, I never carry money. But if I had a hundred dollars in my pocket, and even if I didn't need that money just then, and somebody comes up and says, Brother Abraham, this is between you and I here, a couple hundred dollars. I'd take it. Why would I? Number one, because they're going to be rewarded not for giving to me, but for giving to Jesus Christ. I'm the least of the brethren. And when they give to me, God has some reason I'll need that money. And because they give to me, they give to him. If I withhold from that person, I withhold from him. If I were to come here and stamp on this fellow's toe like that, he'd pull it away. They say, yes, because his toe would hurt. No, no, no, no. His brain would hurt before his toe hurts. If I give him a drug and then stamp on his foot, I could stamp or I'd get tired before him. He wouldn't feel it. Why? Because his mind is drugged. But while he is alive, I could twist his arm. But if he's drugged, he doesn't feel it. But if his head is alive, I can only feel injury because my nervous system and telegraphs up into my mind. My mind is alert and therefore, I respond with my mind, my head. Now, one of the most amazing things I heard about Watchman Nee was before anybody knew him hardly, he came to England. He came to a conference of bishops. They'd heard about this gifted Chinaman and the assembled bishops, about 200 of them were there. And there was a big throne here, a carved chair for the Archbishop of Canterbury. And there's a throne here for the Archbishop of York. And after the preliminaries, they said, now this distinguished little Chinaman is going to teach and speak to us. And he came with his usual Oriental courtesy and bowed, you know, bowed and bowed and bowed. Then he took everybody's breath. He walked behind the throne of the Archbishop of Canterbury and he put his hands on the head of the Archbishop and he said, the Spirit of God is in you. And then he marched over to the Archbishop of York and laid his hands on him and said, the Spirit of God is in you. And then he went behind every bishop and he said the same thing to every one of them. Oh, they were getting bored. What in the world is he doing? What is he doing? And then he stood in front of them and he put his hands on his own head. He said, the Spirit of God is in me. And the Spirit of God in me will never try to hurt the Spirit of God in you. If I hurt you, it is not, the Spirit of God would not hurt another saint. My self-life has got back and I better get rid of it quickly. I'm operating on my feelings or my emotions or my sense of justice. No, no, no, no. The Spirit of God in me will never hurt. Because you see, I am a part of the body. And as soon as I say, I tread on that brother's toe while he's alive, not sleeping and drunk, his mind immediately registers the fact I stand on his toe. Jesus Christ is the head of the body. And before I hurt that person, I telegraphed to the head which is Jesus Christ and he's hurt. First, before anybody else is hurt. Now this is what this thing is really talking about here. I say again, Jesus Christ has every bit of opposition. He's setting up his kingdom. He's opposed by Pharisees and Sadducees, a political system, a religious system, by soldiers. Well, this is totally ridiculous. He's a king. He says, I'm setting up a kingdom. Did you ever know a king that didn't have a penny to his name? Did you ever know a king that didn't have a palace? At the end of his life, when he died, what did he do? Did he say, Peter, there's a mansion of mine up in, let me see, where is it? Oh, it's up in Bethsaida. Bethesda. And then there's another, I have a castle up in Galilee. And as a matter of fact, I have a ranch in Judea. That's for you Mark. Did he start distributing his wealth? What did he give the disciples? Look, there's an interesting thing here in this chapter. The Sermon on the Mount, whether you read the long version, as I call it here in Matthew, or the short version that you read down in Luke. Jesus does not pronounce blessing on one visible or material thing. Everybody, everything that's blessed is invisible. You can't see mercy. You can see somebody acting in mercy. You can't see poverty. You can see the results of poverty. You can't see meekness. Everything that Jesus blesses here is an invisible. There is nothing visible. Now when he dies, what does he do? Well, he certainly doesn't leave a castle to anybody. He doesn't say I have 300 horses, which was a symbol, status symbol those days. What does he do? Well, he says, John, here's my mother, now she's your mother. Take her, look after her. He says to the disciples, peace I leave with you. No, no, no, not just peace, my peace. Jesus was never ruffled. He's meek and lowly of heart. So when they try and push him over a precipice, he doesn't get nervous and excited. When they plan to destroy him, he doesn't start working up and getting a sweat and a fever, because he knows they're after him all the time to destroy him. And so his legacy to his disciples is not material. His legacy is invisible. Peace I leave with you, my peace. It's not just peace, it's my peace that I leave with you. Isn't it wonderful that just within a step of going to Gethsemane, he says to his disciples, listen, I'm going to leave you something. I'm going to give you something. You're going to have joy. No, you're going to have my joy. And you know what he says? No man takes it from you. You see, the world can come right up to the edge of your skin. But from there inward, it's all mine. I shake my fist at calamity, tragedy and adversity. At the world, the flesh and the devil. And say, look, you can do everything you like. You can take my house. A tornado comes and my house is gone. If I had investments which I don't have, but if I had a million dollars invested, the stock market goes down. Now look, if you lose your house and you lose your property, and even if you lose your hair, you nice people, you'll still be as precious to God as when you were a multi-millionaire and when you were on the top of the chart singing, you know, number one record and everybody's saying sign my autograph. Oh, I think you're wonderful. You know, that kills a lot of these people when they start going down and then they're forgotten. They, they die up, they dry up and die up on the vine. And that popularity is just very dangerous. But you know when you live for Him, and you know Jesus doesn't care whether you live in a gorgeous big beautiful house, and I like big, I like lovely houses. If we come up here and build a house, I need a lot, I need a large office. I need to walk up and down in it. I need room for my books and room for everything else. I, you know, I, I long ago settled for this, that I'm not concerned what people possess. I know millionaires, multi-millionaires, great folk. I know some very extremely poor people. It used to trouble me that the things that people possess doesn't trouble me at all. I, I, I often teach a Bible class and the ladies put their hands together like this. And one lady actually had an opal from one nut to right down there. She couldn't even get the ring on her finger. And it was surrounded by three rows of gorgeous diamonds. Another one had a huge thing in her lapel here. That was an opal too, surrounded by three great big stacks of diamonds. They've got rings on their fingers and, well not bells on their toes, but they have rings on their fingers. And wealthy, and you know it troubled me, and then I got over that. You see, it's not what a person possesses that troubles me, it's what possesses the person. I know some poor people who are far more proud than rich people. I know some people who have no brains at all. I'm sure they've a space between their ears, but they're very arrogant. I know people who are very brilliant and they're lovely to be with. They have a gentle, meek, quiet, gracious spirit. Let's go back here a minute before we close this section. This opposition, here is Jesus, he's setting up his kingdom, he's confront, here are the disciples, here's the multitude, here are the Pharisees, here are the Sadducees. You know the difference between the Pharisees and the Sadducees? Well, pardon? Pharisees believed in the resurrection, the Sadducees didn't. That's why they were Sadducees. Well, and then you have the Roman soldiers, and you have every kingdom set up against Jesus. And he comes out, why, oh dear, dear Lord Jesus, why do you do things like this? Did you ever know a king going to a city on the back of a stupid donkey? It looks as though Jesus is planning to be stupid. I like to read that word there in Jude. Jude is an epitome of the whole Bible actually, at least the Old Testament. He's going to come with ten thousand of his saints, won't that be wonderful? Eh? Won't that be wonderful? You don't think so? All right, think it over. I'd like to think he came one Sunday afternoon when all the football matches, you know, when there's fifty thousand here and a hundred thousand devout Christians watching stupid men kill each other. I'd like to think he'd come with ten thousand, you know a lot of them would be shocked to be found in a football match Sunday afternoon. But he isn't going to write and ask us if it's convenient for him to come at a certain time, he's going to come. He isn't going to inform the White House, he'll inform God's house but not the White House. Can you see Jesus coming down the cloud with ten thousand of his saints? Won't that be wonderful? I'd like to paint something like that if I could. I paint a bit, I paint best with a brush about so wide. But I'd like to paint Jesus coming down the cloud, oh that's going to be so thrilling. Maybe coming down in the chariot that Elijah went up in, wouldn't that be good? You know every time I see somebody put that stupid old man on top of a house at Christmas, big fat red oversized guy and six deer in front, you know every time I think of that, I always think of Elijah and his chariot of fire, going the other way of course. And I'd like to think Jesus might come back in that chariot, horses blazing, radiant glory that will make the sun go grey if it happens in the daytime. Well why in the world didn't he do that the first time? At the feast of Pentecost we estimate at least a million people went in Jerusalem, they made roads you remember, they got branches and they fastened the branches together and then they interlaced them with leaves and they shouted from the heat, and a million people camped in Jerusalem. Wouldn't it have been wonderful if he'd come down at the feast of Pentecost as they celebrated Pentecost many years before Pentecost, it's an Old Testament, in fact it's the greatest of Old Testament feasts. And with more than a million, some people say there were three million there, and if he'd come down in the clouds, wouldn't that have been wonderful? Don't you think they've all fallen at his feet and worshipped him? But he comes through the back door. I'm not going to follow him, he's illegitimate anyhow. Never had a father, so I'm not following a fellow like him, you can be sure of that. All his life he's shadowed. No he doesn't come with ten thousand of his saints. Now some people, if they don't see a miracle every time they go to church, they're bored. Well as soon as you start living on anything but Christ himself, you're sick and you'd better get away and think it all out again. He is the center, he is the circumference, he is the alpha, he is the omega, it's all him, anything else is periphery. How many times did Jesus walk on the water? Hmm? Once. How many times did he cross the lake? Many times, but normally he used the convenient thing, took a boat. He didn't walk on the water for fun. He didn't come down with ten thousand of his saints, he's going to do that. I can't help but think next Sunday morning, I guess I'll wake up with that little thing and I'll say what I've said for about 50 years every Easter morning. Today he rose and left the dead and Satan's empire fell. And when he came out of the grave that morning, these fellows that had had three years of training, not one of them believed him. How do you know? Because it had been lining up at the sepulcher ready for the rock to split and Jesus come out. Not one of them, that's disgusting isn't it? There's nothing like teaching and then nobody takes any notice of you, that's tremendously interesting. Thank you. Nobody waited for him as he came out of the tomb. And you know what? I'm trying to think of it, I think I'm right saying this. I don't remember he ever did a miracle after he rose from the dead did he? I don't read he had any teaching classes. I like to think that as soon as he got out of the sepulcher that seeing it was not sunlight yet. I wish he'd gone down the road there and after all he could get in without any problems. He didn't have to knock at the door or ask permission. I wish he'd gone into the bedroom of Pontius Pilate while he was sleeping and just tap him on the jaw and say well now what are you going to do? And then go down the road to Caiaphas the high priest and pull his hair and his beard and say well now what? Wouldn't that be something? And he says in John 5 28 that he's going to speak one day and every person in the grave wherever they are they're going to rise with the voice of the Son of God. I wish he'd gone down the road and just talked over the wall of the local cemetery and said well you come up we'll give them a sample. And a couple of hundred people get up and walk in the city with him. That would have been impressive. But Jesus never never never sought sensation. He never used it just to draw attention. He didn't even try and get people saved that way. He'd given them three years of ministry and they wouldn't believe him. I let them go to hell that's all there is to it. You say that's rough well isn't that what he does? Why didn't he appear after his resurrection to unbelievers? Why didn't he go to Caiaphas and say you folk were so snowed under with all your Old Testament custom and shedding blood and talking about the Aaronic priesthood and everything else that you never believed I was the Son of God now this is your second chance. There was no second chance. If you and I had been there on the cross dying with a thief on either side we'd have been shouting our heads off trying to get them saved. And Jesus never spoke to them he ignored them. Oh it's true one of them spoke to him but he didn't speak to them he wasn't yelling to them. Well don't you realize I'm the Son of God I told you I'd be crucified I'd be put to death and I'm going to rise. No no no no he did not do that. This is the disturbing thing to me so often in ministering the Word of God. I like to preach sure I do but I know this that any any message you preach is a savor of life unto life and death unto death. Somebody says I saw something for the first time somebody hears God's voice for the last time and if they live another 50 years God won't speak to them he doesn't have to. He doesn't cast his pearls before swine either. The great danger in America right now is that we've more so-called evangelism we've more broadcasts we've uh what over 5,000 radio stations all broadcast a little bit of the gospel every day. We've got more bible schools than all the nations of the world put together. We more printing houses we more books on the Holy Spirit more books on prayer we're snowed under but to whom much is given God says much will be expected and demanded in that great day. People say we're a great favored nation so we are but we're a very in a very perilous position right now. God loved Israel as I reminded you yesterday. He was married to her. He wrote her a bill of divorcement for 2,000 years he hasn't bothered with her. Jews are being kicked around the world they've been persecuted ostracized pulverized anything else you like and God lets them get messed up as look where they are now they're in tremendous danger right now. The whole Middle East could explode we're in a very difficult situation. And so let's bring it right down to us personally look if God speaks to you obey him. Don't put it off. Don't wait for a time. Say I better do this thing that God's speaking to me about now. You'll have the same opposition he had. The more you're determined to be holy the more the old devil will stir up strife and opposition and enmity and very often a man's foes are those of his own household. The relatives won't like you the in-laws and the outlaws and everybody else. Or say you're crazy after all your daddy sent you to college and you're just getting ready for a good profession and then you join a group like the agape. They're all dropouts anyhow. So what what's the good and somebody will throw it at you. And this is where you have to make up your mind you're going to follow the lamb with us whoever he leadeth. And say first my priority is first this that Jesus Christ loved me and gave himself for me. And he left everything for me and I'm leaving so little for him. Thank you we have a break I believe now.