Leonard Ravenhill emphasizes the profound nature of faith and sacrifice in his sermon 'Sacrifice of Faith.' He discusses how the epistle to the Hebrews is a warning to believers about neglecting their great salvation, urging them to recognize the supremacy of Christ and the importance of worship and sacrifice in their spiritual lives. Ravenhill illustrates the journey of faith through the lives of biblical figures like Abraham, highlighting the challenges and tests they faced, ultimately pointing to the necessity of a deep, personal relationship with God that involves both worship and sacrifice.

Now we said yesterday that this book is essentially to God's people. It does not have a single word to say to lost people. And even when you've emphasized the third verse of chapter 2, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? This again is a warning to us. We do neglect this salvation, this great salvation, which first was preached by Jesus and then by those who heard him. And then it says, that great salvation is signs and wonders and miracles and diverse gifts of the Holy Ghost. Now that is the gospel. Anything less than that is not the gospel. It may be part of it. Further, this epistle is not addressed, as you know, but I have to remind you, it isn't addressed to the Romans, the Ephesians or Colossians. It doesn't bear any title. So people say, look at chapter 3 in verse 1. Wherefore holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling. Now that's the address. If you have been made a partaker of the divine nature, this epistle is addressed to you as much as the people of the day, the Hebrews to whom it was written. I'm going to suggest on the basis of the Word of God, that one reason why this epistle was written was, that these people were beginning to default. They were getting shaky and nervous. It's very difficult for us to step back 2,000 years in our thinking and get the framework in which these people were living. Uh, verse, excuse me, verse 35 of chapter 10 says, cast not away therefore your confidence, which has great reward. Verse 12 of chapter 12 says, wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees. Now it's no good having feeble knees, this is where we stand on our knees. If you kneel before God, you can stand before men. Their hands were feeble, their knees were feeble. They were getting shaky and nervous. Why? Well, let me put it this way. One of the ministries of the Spirit, through this wonderful epistle, is to show the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now these Hebrew Christians, and this reminds me of a place we were in not too long ago, where a lady said, well I'm interested in what you say about Hebrews, because I go to a church where Hebrews is out. They, they put a fence around it. You never read Hebrews, it's to the Hebrews. It's not to us, it's to the Hebrews. And therefore leave it alone. Well I said them Romans is to the Romans, leave that alone. Ephesians is to the Ephesians, Colossians. If you go on like that, all you have is the Amen at the end of the revelation. You'll have nothing left. If you're gonna be logical, which we're not usually, if you can't take the epistle to the Hebrews, you can't take John 3. John 3 was spoken to a Hebrew, Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. And it's the most preached chapter in the Bible. He must be born again, and so forth and so on. But the four musts in that chapter, he must increase, I must decrease, he must be born again, he must be lifted up. But it's all addressed to a Jew. Now this book is written to us, upon whom the ends of the age are come. And I remind you again of this. I don't know if you find it shattering, I do. Whether you live in the pew of the pulpit, that God hasn't said anything to mankind for 2,000 years. And if the world holds together another 2,000, he won't say anything. God finished talking to men 2,000 years ago. We've got to find out what he said, and we've got to catch up with what he said. And believe what he said, and embrace what he said, as these people did. Now let's visualize here the two men going down the street. Call one if you like, Isaac, call the other one Jacob. Not the old characters in the, in the Bible, but these men are living in the days when this epistle was written. And Jacob comes down, he says hi Isaac, and he says hi. He says listen I want to talk to you a minute. You're not still meeting with that bunch of silly people that meet up that back alley are you? Those Christians? Yeah? Well, I mean I, I know really you're embarrassed. You're too embarrassed to come back and join our church aren't you? I mean you know that really Jesus wasn't all he said he was. It's really a fake. He didn't rise from the dead. I mean nobody ever saw him, except of course a little holy club, a group of you, and a lot of screaming women who you never trust anyhow. I mean you're meeting in a little back alley. Look at the temple there. Hey there's the high priest just going in. I mean you know man we've got a monopoly on God. You're meeting in a little upper room somewhere. We have the great temple. Oh isn't it beautiful. You don't have a temple. There's a high priest. You don't have a high priest. You don't have the law and the prophets. Now this was literally true in their day. They did not have a temple. They did not have a sanctuary. They were despised. They were ejected. They did not have a priest that wore fantastic garments. They didn't keep up a calendar of worship in the sense of keeping the feasts of the Old Testament. They've been liberated from all this. And this man is trying to make this man feel inferior. Why don't you come and join us? Oh come back to all the display of the sanctuary. Come and see the priest, and see the sacrifices, and think of all the history, and think of that we have a monopoly on the great God who divided the Red Sea, and the God that flung the worlds into space, and he upholds all things by the word of his power. This is our God. And the new Christian listens a little while, and he says well do you want to say anything else? He says no I think I've said enough just about to squash you. And he says you haven't done anything of the kind. Well you don't have a temple. Oh yes. Well where is it? He says you're looking at it. This is it. God doesn't dwell in temples made with hands. People say I'm going to church. How can you go to the church when you are the church? You can go to the church house. This isn't the church, this is the church house. George Fox the Quaker, and he used to call them steeple houses. The church is the body of Jesus Christ. We are the church. We go to the church house. No I don't need a temple, I don't need a fancy altar. I am the temple. God indwells my personality. We are the temple of the Holy Ghost. Well you don't have anybody like Moses. After all Moses is the greatest man that ever, well just a minute the Christian says. Moses brought you out of Egypt, but he couldn't take you into Canaan. Well no you're right. But Joshua, he took us where Moses left off. Joshua took all of us, and he took us into the promised land. And the Christian comes up again, he says that's right, Moses brought you out of Egypt. Joshua took you out of the area you were in there, Kadesh Barnea, and he took you there on into the promised land. But, he couldn't give you rest either. Now you say we do not have a high priest. No, but remember this, your high priest, he dies, and somebody has to take his place. He has to bring an offering. Now my high priest, he made one offering by the sacrifice of himself, and he lives now at the right hand of the Father. I don't, we don't have to replenish our priest. We don't have to fill him in when somebody, another priest passes away. He doesn't have to bring one offering, he made a perpetual offering for sin. Once in the end of the age, he appeared by the sacrifice of himself. He lifted a burden Samson couldn't lift. He solved a problem that even Solomon could not solve. This is the excellency of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the author and the finisher of our faith. He didn't start like Moses, and Moses couldn't finish. He didn't start like Joshua, who couldn't finish the job. He is the author and the finisher of our faith. I was in a certain Baptist Church a few years ago, and they had a very fine congregation. I used to wonder why they had so many bushes around these churches. And I discovered it's where the fellows, and then they throw it away just before they go in church you know. And I looked in those trees and they look like Christmas trees. They were full of stubs of cigarettes. So one night, all the deacons were sitting here, a whole bunch of deacons. And I said gentlemen now I want you to relax in the meeting, and as I find my text, you take out your cigarettes and smoke. Oh boy they sat up in a row. Wow, smoke in church? Why not? If you defile the temple outside of the church, you may as well defile it inside. This place isn't sanctified necessarily. Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. If you fill it with smoke an inch at the other side of that glass, you may as well fill it with smoke inside the church. What's the difference? Our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. We are his workmanship. We don't have to bring an all, and we don't have to bring a sacrifice. There is one sacrifice. We don't have to seek a priest amongst men. There he entered once and for all. He presented his blood before the Father. And because of that, we have one who is ever living to make intercession for us. You could go into the tabernacle of old, or I mean to the temple and the priest wasn't there. But Jesus is on duty every moment of every day. He never sleeps, he never fails. He is the same from everlasting to everlasting. He's Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Now we're coming down into Hebrews 11. Now remember again, if you were not here yesterday, I'll have to tell you. There's a pattern in this wonderful chapter. The first person that's mentioned here is Abel. And he is there because he built an altar. An altar is a type of two things, sacrifice and worship. And the first and the hardest thing to do, harder than learning to pray. We'll pray because we're under pressure, we'll pray because we're embarrassed, we'll pray because we're up against a wall. Lots of things can drive us to prayer. Only one thing will drive us to worship, and that's love and adoration. And the least known thing in the Church of Jesus Christ today, is worship. We say well we'll go to church and worship for an hour. We don't worship for an hour, the choir sings, somebody talks, we have a son. That is not necessarily worship. I want to preach Sunday morning, God willing, on a lovely little verse that maybe no one ever preached on in this place, I hope not. Thou gavest me no kiss. Now apart from being sentimental, when did you last kiss Jesus Christ? When did you last take him by his feet? When did you last forget all the cares of the world, all the pressure on you? You didn't even have anything just to praise him about, but you took hold of him as it were by faith. And you adore him and you magnify him. After all you can't make God rich. You can give him a thousand dollars an hour if you like, you won't make God rich. You can give him all the advice that you think you've got, but you can't give him any, because he's the source of all wisdom. You can't make God strong. There's very little you can give God, but you can give him worship. When the whole world collapsed for that fantastic man Job, the first stroke you remember was bereavement, pardon me, was bankruptcy. He lost all he had. Second stroke bereavement, he lost his family. Third stroke his health, he got boiled. And here he is broken and baffled and bankrupt and bereaved, and he's lost everything. And what did he do? He says I'll worship God. And to worship him you defy your feelings, you defy whatever pattern that is there of chaos, and you just go before him and you magnify and you adore him, and you pour out your love. Because this is what, this is what worship is. It's a love trice. Some of you experienced this, maybe it's a few years ago. Remember the time when you were courting and the fellow wasn't kissing you, and sometimes he'd take you in his arms and look at you? That happens in true love. And he doesn't use a lot of adjectives, the man is just lost. Or the woman in adoration for the person, they're speechless. Now this is what happens in true worship, but we do not worship very often. The first man in Hebrews 11, built an altar, worship, contact with God. The second man is Enoch, he did not worship, yes he did, but he's famous because he walked. You cannot walk with God really until you really learn to worship. The next man is Noah, he built an ark. He worshipped and he walked, but he worked. And faith works. I was reading there in that little book, it's a lovely little book called Jude. It's an epitome of the whole Bible. And you know it says there in the 20th verse, it not only says praying in the Holy Ghost, it says building yourself up. Nobody ever has, nobody ever will, decide what percentage of responsibility for my spiritual development is mine, and what responsibility is God's. To say it's all God's responsibility, is to make him responsible for a backslidden church. For me to say that I do it all is sheer arrogance. But there is a percentage. Look at verse 22 of chapter 10 here, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Verse 23, let us hold fast the profession of our faith. Verse 24, let us consider. That's not God doing it, it's God making the provision. I was thinking this morning, I traveled a good deal around the world and I've seen sheep in many countries, but I've never seen a sheep with a suit on its back. You say no, all that sheep have is wool, right. And then you take that wool, and you wash it, and you comb it, and you card it, and you weave it, and you make cloth, and you make suits. But you never find sheep with suits on their back. The material is there for you to get, and wash, and comb, and card, and weave, and cut, and sew, and make a suit. Now if you go up to Canada right now, the fields will be getting white towards harvest, with beautiful wheat. I never saw any loaves growing in the field, did you? But you take that wheat, what do you do with it? You put it in a machine, you'll see a harvester go on, and it takes that wheat, and it grinds all the stalks up, and it breaks the chaff off, and then at the end you'll see this golden grain coming out. And then you take it, and what do you do with it? You put it between stones, that's the old way, and grind the very life out of it. And then when you've done that, you put some water in, you pummel it, and pummel it. My mother used to anyhow making bread in the old-fashioned way. You ladies don't do that, you just get tired pushing buttons all day. But my mother used to have to make the bread, and wash the clothes, and knit the socks, and do everything. I don't know what you women do, what do you do, sleep all day? But anyhow, you've got to get the bread, you see. You've got to take the little grains of corn, and they've got to be ground, and then you've got to mix water with them. And that isn't the end of it, you beat up that dough, and that isn't the end. You put it in a furnace, and burn the thing, or cook it. It's an awfully long process. From where you find it in the field as a little grain of wheat, to be ground, and then water, and then pummeled, and then roasted in an oven, and then come out as bread. By the same token, when God begins with us, it's the same thing. It's a long, long, long, long process. As I reminded you yesterday, when God started working on this man Abraham, he was 75. When he finished working he was 175. So some of you have a long way to go yet. When this man began with patience to build an ark, and stand all the ridicule of men, he needed a hundred and twenty years of patience before he finished the ark. Somebody says, have you read the life story of Saul? You never read the life story of anybody. All you read are the high spots. They don't tell you about their broken hearts, they don't tell you about a couple of deacons that did some dirty deed, or somebody in the choir that did something, or our church let them down, or are they got some unjust deal from headquarters, they don't put that in. They put the nice lovely spots in. You can't read the life of anybody. Not even here in the Bible, not everything is said about these people. We just get certain spots, we get projected into their lives, where God wants us to see, and understand, and learn some lessons. Nor build his ark. We didn't go through, and we're not going to see the characters here logically, as they are here. And in any case, they don't come really in sequence, from the beginning of the Bible right through the, this whole thing is mixed up in Hebrews 11. I mentioned Joseph yesterday, when he started up here, and they put him down into a pit, and sold him down into Egypt, and he went down into a jail, and then he fell through the bottom. And there he is for 13 years. Oh it's alright when faith is active, and things are going. What about when you get dumped? This is where character is for, in the secret place, where nobody sees. And for 13 years this young fellow, he's about 17 I guess, and for 13 years he's left there in a jail. Forgotten, he's in a heathen country, he has no father, he's nobody to communicate with. The fantastic thing to me, I don't know how to express it, I don't have a vocabulary big enough. How did these people, when you want to make a move, what do you do? You pray, and you search the scripture, and you put your finger on a promise, as I say I've done often with Hebrews 11 6. God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek it. But it says the word of the Lord came, and God spoke to Abraham and said get up and go. Now he didn't have a Bible. I don't know anybody he could go to and ask, what do you think the Lord is saying to me in this? Or what do you think, do you think God's guiding me, and should I go and shouldn't I go? God said get up and go, and it says he went out. And a little later in Hebrews 11 it says he could have returned, but he didn't. He looked for a city. Cain built a city, Abraham looked for a city, John saw the city. As I said yesterday, we talked about a leap of faith, a blind leap. Faith is not blind, faith is the most seeing thing in the world. What does it say about Moses? When he was born, was hit three months sure, but then it says that when he was come to years, he refused to be called a son of... choosing rather, verse 25 of Hebrews 11, to suffer affliction with the children of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Verse 27, by faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured a seeing him who is invisible. Now you say to somebody, you're talking to somebody, your eyes are wide open, you're looking at a woman with a fancy hairdo, pretty makeup or something, or a man, and you're talking, you can see them, and he says to you, do you see what I mean? You say, no I don't see it. And he talks a bit more, and you say, oh I see what you mean. Why? Because suddenly the eyes of your understanding were open, that's why. But then you have other eyes, just as you have other ears, you can hear and not hear. One of the greatest preachers in England was Dr., what was his name, the great exposer McLaren. When D.L. Moody came, McLaren was on the platform, and he saw one of the elders, the finest men in his church, walk to the front, and the man got saved. McLaren couldn't understand it, he went and talked to the man, he said, listen I preached a sermon just the other week on the same text, and it was more profound than this poor American, he can't even speak good English. How come you came out and got saved? You were there? You told me after it was a good sermon. He said, yes it was, but I never heard you. What did he do? He registered it with his mind. But he had ears, as the scripture says, he that had ears to hear, let him hear. Wouldn't it be nice if you could get every member of the church and line them up in sixes like that, come on we're marching to Zion, let's go now. And everyone's going to have more faith when we finish at the end, but you can't march people up like that. People move individually. Some people in the church, you have to whip them all the way, some of them have to hold them back, and some of them don't go anywhere anyhow. What does it say in the, what is it, the twelfth chapter there of, I think it is, yeah the twelfth chapter of Romans, it says in verse six, having therefore gifts, differing according to the grace that is given unto us, whether prophesying, let us prophesy according to the proportion of our faith. Now I reminded you that it says in in 1st Thessalonians chapter 3 about verse 2 there, all men have not faith. Faith is the gift of God and our repentance. Faith does not grow except it's activated. Building up yourself in your most holy faith. Do you want your faith to grow? A lady said to me one day, my faith doesn't grow much. Mr. Rayneal, what can I do to really develop my faith? I said, you get into such a jam that only faith can get you out. She said, oh I'll see you later. What did she want? She wanted a theoretical faith, a philosophical faith, a theological faith. She didn't want a faith that was activated. There is a sense in which however strong my faith is, it won't help yours if yours is weak. Or however strong yours is, it won't help mine if mine is weak. You've got to get in this thing yourself. Now God calls Abraham. I think sometimes we don't really realize these people of flesh and blood, they weren't plastic. They had nerves and sinews and emotions and doubts and fears, the world, the flesh, the devil, everything to oppose them. Now here is a man he lives down there in Ur of the Chaldees, the most lush part of the world at that time. Some people have even located the Garden of Eden there. And here is this man and he's prosperous. And the Lord says, get up and go. How did he know the Lord said that? If you think the Lord has spoken to you, what do you do? You test it. How? You test it by the word, excuse me, you test it by the Word of God. You test it by the Word of God. Very often you do as the Word of God says, in a multitude of counselors there is safety, and that's the best thing to do. On the other hand there are times when you ignore everybody. Because Paul says I conferred not with flesh and blood. There are times when God speaks so strongly, so surely, and you know it's God that you just push everything on one side and you go do it. I marvel, and I mean this, every time I read Hebrews 11, that these men and women without a Bible, without a committee meeting, without a bunch of preachers, could step out in naked faith, for that surely is what it is. And dare to believe God. Get thee up, into a land that I'll show thee of. Now God doesn't deal with all these men that say, he says you get up and do this, and I'll give you a piece of land, he gives him the boundaries of the land. Though when he comes to Moses, the Lord just told him to get going. He didn't say if you Moses become my servant I'll let you write five of the best sellers in history, I'll let you handle the greatest commandments, I'll even let you see my glory. He didn't begin to shower him with a lot of promises and strike a bargain. He seems to do this with Abraham. You can read all the books you like, and read them. Particularly read biographies, read how God made Hudson Taylor, read how God made that marvelous, marvelous man, Reese Howells. Reese Howells went and signed on the dotted line, when he'd only a shilling in his pocket, worth fourteen cents. And he signed the contract for about three hundred thousand dollars, and went to bed and slept. And folk all over England couldn't sleep. I can't sleep, why? They've got Reese Howells on their mind. Oh well, write to him tomorrow. Are you sleeping John? Can't sleep, Reese Howells. Oh well, what are you going to do? The Lord's telling me to send him five thousand pounds. Well send him. Man got out of bed, wrote the check, went to sleep like that. Maybe that's why you can't sleep, try it. But that's what happened. All over England people were sleepless. The man that's going to, he's promised I'll give you the cash in about so many days, eight or nine days. And all he has is fourteen cents, and he has to give three hundred thousand dollars. Takes a bit of faith to do that. Either he knows God or he's a lunatic. But he paid every penny on the dot. When he went to buy the estate, Derwenfawr, as the Welsh call it, he found somebody else and bought it. The lawyer said, what can I do for you? He said, I want to buy Derwenfawr, as the Welsh say, Derwenfawr. Oh, the lawyer says, I just got a document, in fact the ink's hardly dry. This is, that man that went out, he just bought it for a group of people. I've got some lovely pictures, let me show you a picture here. Here's a picture of Skitty Fog, see that? That lovely picture. I mean, you know, the building. And he said, I don't want that, I want Derwenfawr. He said, you can't have it, we've sold it. I'll show you another building. What about that, that's a lovely estate, that would make you a great Bible school. I want Derwenfawr. It's sold. Here, read the thing yourself. You know what they do, you just go. The lawyer said to the office girls, I never worry when they do that, a man's a right to do what he does with his own, relax, with his own head. If he did it with mine, I might be in trouble. If he does it with his own head, it's his business. Rhys Howells read through the paper and he said to the lawyer, excuse me, sir, will you read this? I've read it many times. No, no, read this. And when he read it, he discovered that this man, maybe a hundred years ago, had said that this estate, whoever it was sold to, should never come in the possession of this group of people. The lawyer said, I never saw that. Well, is the document legal now? No, no, no, it's not legal now. What are you going to do with it? He said, I'm going to sell Derwenfawr. You want to buy it? Now he bought it, he paid on the dotted line. But you see, before he went, he said to the Lord, I need this, I need it as a Bible school. They have now about 250, 300 children there, all children of missionaries. I tried to get my boys in that school. It's about the highest standard of education after Eton and Harrow in England. It's a fantastic school. They wouldn't even take my boys, because you're not a missionary. But before he went, he got a promise from God, and the Lord said, I'll give you so many wedges of gold. Now you know we say about people sometimes, oh that woman has a talent. Ever hear her play the piano? Ever, ever hear her sing? See her play the piano? She doesn't have a talent, she has a gift. A talent, in the New Testament, every time is equated with money. A talent of gold, a talent of silver, it always gives you the value. Those are gifts, not talents. The Lord said he'd give him so many talents of gold. He found out how much a talent weighed, he found out how much of the gold was valued, he worked it all out. And I forget what it was, it was something like this, 250,000 dollars. He signed for 300,000. He went home and started praising the Lord, and he said, the Lord said, shut up. Lord I've just had a greatest act of faith in my life. I've signed for this place and I'm gonna get it, even all the people who bought it, they have to cancel the contract and give me the place. And the Lord said, shut up. He said, well Lord what's wrong? He said, how much are you gonna pay for this estate? Uh, whatever the figure was, three hundred thousand dollars. Oh, how much did I promise you? Two hundred and fifty thousand. Right, the Lord said, I'll keep my bargain, you pay the other fifty thousand. I've only got fourteen cents. Well the Lord said, I've only got two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Well Lord, the silver and the gold are yours. He said, exactly, but they're not yours, only two hundred and fifty thousand is yours. You've got to find the other fifty thousand. Well Lord, I can't do that. Well go back and tell the man you can't buy the estate. Well if I go back and tell him, he'll think I'm a fool. Oh, he said, don't worry, he thinks that already. He went back to the office and he said to the man, uh, oh, he said, you come to pay the three hundred thousand dollars? He said, no, I can't give you three hundred thousand. You've signed, you've made a legal document. Who owns this? Sir somebody, Lord somebody. Would you write and tell him I want this for an orphanage, and a Bible school, or a Bible school, and a school for missionary children? It's a really a work of charity. Would you write and tell him that this is what I want it for? He said, well yes, but it won't be any good. As a matter of fact, the people that bought it before you were giving me about a hundred thousand more than you. I knocked a hundred thousand off so you could get it for three hundred thousand. Can't he come up with the extra fifty? No, I can't come up with the extra fifty. Well, all right, I'll see. Reese Howells went back to see the man. He'd agreed already to give him two hundred and fifty thousand for it. When he went back, he said, well, has the man agreed to let me have it for two hundred and fifty thousand? He said, no. He said, oh my, he said you can have it for two hundred thousand. See, God tested his faith, tested his pride. Be a fool, go back and tell him you made a mistake. But I remember standing with Mrs. Howells, we were looking over the ocean, over the English Channel, and she said, Brother Ravenhill, let me tell you something. Everybody knows that Daddy had a shilling in his hand when he bought this estate. See that door? I said, yes lady, I see that door. Daddy, meaning a husband, Daddy went in that room at six o'clock in the morning, and stayed there till six o'clock at night, twelve hours a day, for eleven months. And never saw anybody. The only one day that he missed, was when he went to his mother's funeral. And the Lord said, you can have a day off and go to your mother's funeral, come straight back. And he stopped and talked with the man, a Mr. Griffiths, I think it was. And the Lord rebuked him and said, why did you stay and talk with that man, I told you to come straight back here. You know the Lord's very strict, we aren't. If you don't know God's voice, it's pure nonsense. You think God's a task master? God is a master of detail. Do you remember when they built that fabulous temple of old, and the pillars were way up there, and God said put some lily work at the top of the, why? Nobody's gonna go shimming up the pole to look for lilies up there are you? Nobody's gonna have a camera up there. The Lord is concerned with minute details. He always has been, he always will be. All faith doesn't leave but once, for 11 months, 12 hours a day. Isn't that something? I got that right from his own dear wife, just the two of us standing on that veranda, overlooking the English Channel, or maybe there they call it the Welsh Channel. I can see the tear in her eye, that little dark Welsh woman saying, and they have musical voices you know. Even when they're talking, they're singing. And she said, daddy was in that room, 12 hours a day, for 11 months. You see he got an underpinning to his faith. He got to the place where God was so near, that if he prayed, you almost put out your hands, to feel him. I remember a lady in a meeting said to me one day, did you ever meet praying Hyde? I said no, did you? She said I certainly did in India, she was an old lady. She said I remember he came to the cyclot convention. They didn't get him there to speak, didn't get him there to sing, they got him there to pray. If ever I was led, I have not been led to do it. I've had offers, I had a man, a group of about 12 millionaires offered to buy me the largest tent in America, give me a larger salary than Billy Graham, and I don't know what they weren't going to do. I didn't feel led of God. But if I ever felt led of God to launch a group, I might take a singer, because I might take this little fellow, he sings so well. They may not come, but anyhow. I would take a bunch of praying men, I wouldn't need the backing of a lot of million, I'd take a bunch of praying men like Phinney did. This lady said a man told me this, that he went up to Hyde one day, and he said brother Hyde, could I have the privilege of praying with you? Well he said all right, all right, meet me in the morning in a room at the back of the big auditorium. This was at the cyclot convention in India. And he said I went to pray with him at a quarter to ten. We knelt together, the two of us, there was a stony silence for about 15 minutes. And I thought well he must be waiting for me to pray. So he said I prayed, oh you know I prayed heaven and earth together, I really got going for about 15 minutes, then I quit. I think he said it was quarter to ten when he started praying, and he finished at ten. And then he said John Hyde began to pray. He hadn't been praying many minutes. He said I wasn't going to answer the door, this is the one chance in my life to pray with one of the greatest praying men in history. No, John Hyde can answer it, but I won't. No, I'm not going. Finally the door opened, and somebody's head came in. He wasn't looking, the man wasn't looking, and said brother Hyde, it's a quarter to three, and you were missing at lunch, and you're to speak at three o'clock. This man said I nearly fell dead. Quarter to three? We started praying at quarter to ten, I prayed till ten. John Hyde started praying, can't be quarter to three. But as he heard the door shut, the man fished in his pocket, pulled out his watch, sure enough it was quarter to three. Man, he said I never knew time fly like that. I was sure he hadn't prayed for more than half an hour. Takes a long while to lay a foundation, took a good while to lay the foundation for this lovely, lovely, unusual church. Faith doesn't grow overnight. Faith has its foundation in the Word of God. You can't trace all the dealings with God, of God, in the lives of these men. Let me get to Abraham, although I won't get through the other days, but God says to Abraham, get up and go. Here he is in Ur of the Chaldeans, he's going right up there, over the top, round by Syria, down through Palestine, away there into, where I think he shouldn't have gone, into Egypt. Now he was a man, and he had a wife. Can you see this man Abraham going to his wife and saying, hi Sarah? And she says, hi darling, just been looking at the garden, my everything's growing, and looking at those cattle, and the house looks so marvelous now, you've got it all finished. And he says, that's right dearie, it does. We're going, we're going. Where are we going? I don't know. How far is it? I don't know. How long will it take us? I don't know. Who lives in the country we're going to? I don't know. What's the climate like? I don't know. What do you know? I don't know. We're just going. What does it say in that second verse, in the 50th of Isaiah, I called Abraham alone. Did he go alone? No, he took his nephew Lot, his father Terah. He needed the old man to help him with wisdom, he needed a young man in case some of the cattle ran away, and he could chase them. After all he was 75, Abraham at this time. It's hard to go it alone, isn't it? And to hear that hymn, it was alone the Savior prayed in dark Gethsemane. But all these characters were lonely men. If you haven't read Dr. Tozer's books, you've missed some of the greatest classics of these days. You should buy them, they cost you a dollar fifty about, there's about 12 or 13, get every one of them. In his last book, at least the last book they put together of his writings, the last chapter in that book is, the saint walks alone. The saint walks alone. He always does, God makes men alone. Get up Abraham and go. Wouldn't it be nice if he'd gone to his wife and said, hi Sarah darling, you know we're going and, no no, just let me tell you this, uh we're going on a journey. You've never traveled like I have. Oh you know sweetheart, this is going to be thrilling. We're going to go about, it's easier to take the cattle and everything with them, that way we've got a job. But don't worry dearie, don't worry, I've got it all mapped out. I've worked it all out very carefully. There's a four-lane highway the whole way. The first night we're going to stop at Howard Johnson's. They've got a gorgeous warm swimming pool. And then the next night we're stopping at Quality Courts. And then we're stopping at Holiday Inn. Oh I forgot to tell you, Howard Johnson's have 28 varieties of ice cream. And then uh, we're going up the road a bit further and there's a donut shop. They've got 28 varieties of donuts. And a bit further up the road there's a super, oh there's a super hotel. You never, darling you never realize, you lay on your bed, you put a quarter in and it shakes you to sleep. Fantastic. It's, it's just terrific. This is going to be the greatest trip you've ever had in your life. The only thing I can figure is, he went up the edge of the river Euphrates to get water for his cattle. And what problems do you think he had? Do you think he never got headache? Do you think he never got a thorn in his foot, he had no hose? Do you think none of the cattle ever ran away, or the cattle ever got sick? There's a thousand, there's a million problems in this pilgrimage that aren't mentioned. God isn't concerned about the details, he's concerned of how he made the man. God isn't concerned about you. As Tozer said, he doesn't care whether you live in a palace or a pigsty, he's concerned to shape you. And he's only from here to there, to shape you for eternity. What is this like? A dressing room for eternity. If God is concerned that you live comfortably and you always have a few thousand in reserve, and you spit and polish your car and everything, what is he doing for the Christians in China this morning, and the Christians in Russia or somewhere else? How many of them are going to die today, do you think, while Brezhnev is trying to make some deals with America? Did you hear Mr. Jackson on TV this morning at seven o'clock on the Today Show? I always listen to that. Boy, he was strong against making new alliances with Russia. What are you paying for beef now? What's that got to do with my faith and my life? It's got a lot to do with it. Because all those grain bins across America that have been filled for the 20 years are empty, there is no grain in this morning. Why? Because we did the deal with Russia and let them have it cheap and gave them 400 million dollars credit and made you pay higher beef prices so Russia could have it. Every bargain that's been made with Russia in the last few years, she's got all the credit and America's been the sucker. And this is what Jackson was saying this morning, and I certainly admired him for it. We've no money, the dollars are less value than ever, and yet we're sticking this in the pockets of the communists. All right, better get back to Abraham, I might get off on a tangent. Get up and go Abraham. Abraham got up and he went. Not knowing whither. It ought to be much easier for you and I to go because the scripture says he goeth before his own sheep. You can follow in the footprints of Jesus the whole way. This man has no precedent. This is the amazing thing about Hebrews 11, he can't say, oh well I've just been reading in the Bible where God dealt. There's no Bible to read. You don't have an excuse for your unbelief, neither do I. You don't have an excuse for your weakness. We're shot. Lest you think these men were the product of an angel, archangel and a woman or something. No sir, doesn't it say clearly about this man Elijah, he was a man of like passions even as we are. He braved 800 prophets and then he sat under a tree because he was feeling washed up. And he handed the Lord his resignation and the Lord took it. You better not reside, he'll take it maybe. Abraham got up and he went. He took the young man with him, he took the old man with him. What happened? They got up the road and he got stuck for 15 years with the old man. Maybe that's your trouble, you're stuck with your old man. Not your husband, an old nature, an old selfish thing you won't let God deal with. And he got stuck for 15 years. And then when the old man died, he moved. And then he got stuck with the young man. You get rid of selfishness and pride and before long you'll find you've got problems with your new nature as well as your old. In this sense, that you just want to relax and be lazy and say my name's in the book of life and I'm just going to wait till the Lord comes and boy I wish he'd come today and we get out of this problem. It does not matter what degree of spirituality we have, it's going to be opposed one way or another the whole way. Now he gets rid of the old man, fine. He gets rid of the young man, great. Now he had been down into Egypt where he should never have gone in my judgment. You see here is a man that we think is a giant of faith, Abraham, the man of faith. But he disobeyed God in taking the old man and the young man with him. He got down into Egypt and somebody said, you see that fellow that just came in, boy what a, that lovely blonde he has with him, boy she's beautiful. She must have been some girl you know, she was 80 years of age. Some of you at 18 look washed up, but anyhow, excuse me, 80 years of age. Oh isn't she lovely. I say, is this your wife? My wife? No I'm not married, she's my sister. You wouldn't think a man like that would lie would you? But under pressure he did. Oh she's your sister, oh what a darling. Take her into my harem. And she got shipped off with the other wives, and as soon as they got in there, brother plagues and trouble broke out. And this man says, hey there's something gone wrong here. When did it happen? It happened as soon as that blonde came in here. The whole place isn't it? Well let's find it out. Listen is this your wife? And he said, yes she's not my sister, she's my wife. Now wouldn't you think he would have learned his lesson, when he took two men he shouldn't have taken, and then when he told a lie he shouldn't. And then he goes to his wife and then he says, hi darling, how are you feeling? She says, great. He says, I've got good news for you. Good news is usually bad news with you. We're not moving again are we? No we're not moving. No it's far better than that. What's the news? We're going to have a baby. Oh wait till I write home and tell my mother this. I'm 80 years of age and I'm going to have a, oh, oh she laughed, oh she laughed. Yeah. Don't do it now, but when you go home, read the whole of the fourth chapter of Romans. Will you do that? Because do you know what it's all about? It's about a fellow called Abraham. He was not weak in faith, it says in verse 19. He considered not his own body, now dead. Did you hear that? He considered not the deadness of Sarah's womb, and death and death together don't produce babies. A man asked me not long ago, he said our denomination is, is going to join up with another denomination. We're both you know, just about flat out. What do you think's going to happen? I said well I never knew two corpses get married and have a baby. Well, two dead movements couldn't produce much. Verse 19 of the fourth chapter of Romans, being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about a hundred years old. Neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb, he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief. Notice verse 19 says he was not weak in faith, here it says he was strong in faith, feeling, being fully persuaded, that what God promised he was able to do. There's no reason, there's no logic, there's no biological support, there's no other support. But he says God said it, and God is. I don't know how in the world he's going to do it. But you see, he shook a little bit over here, took two men with him, and he shook a little bit down there, and told a lie about his wife. And now his wife comes and says well darling you know what, I know what it is. You know it's quite a custom around here, if a woman is barren, she can't have children, that you take a servant girl and have a child by her. But as soon as a baby's born, it must be put on my knee, and legally the baby's become mine. And poor old stupid Abraham fell for it. Mammoth faith that he was. He'd made a mistake with the old man, the young man, he made a mistake when he told a lie. And now he's in a situation, where he falls for the statement of his wife, and he takes a servant girl, and she has a child. There's a verse in the Bible isn't it, that says be sure your sin will find you out. My mother used to explain it this way, you know if I stole some gel or jam or something, I left a bit on my cheek. She said you've been in the jam again? I say no. She said what's that on your cheek? Be sure your sin will find you out. That's not be sure your sin will find you out, that's be sure your sin will be found out. Lots of people sin and it's not found out. It'll find you out, it'll keep you sleepless, it'll trouble your conscience, doesn't have to be found out. See lots of people say well the Lord can't be too grave with me, hasn't punished me, given me leprosy, I'm not sick. He used to do that in the Old Testament. When Moses' sister criticized him, she became white as snow. When Cain threw his brother, God branded his forehead. God doesn't do that, he has appointed a day. He's saving it all up, you got by. Oh no you didn't. Oh no, you try to forget it, you try to, but it's there, it's waiting, the record's there. He's appointed a day, in which he's going to pass judgment and send judgment, give judgment. What did Abraham do? Father the child to this girl Hagar. Did he reap what he sowed? No, we're reaping it now. We've got the Arabs there, thousands, millions of them. All because of what Abraham did. But he is a pardoning God, he is a forgiving God. And surely enough, this little fellow comes along. Now you've got problems, now you've got problems. Here is the boy, the child of the flesh. Here is the child of promise, the child of the spirit. And they fought one against the other. And one day when Abraham came in, after Ishmael had been beating up Isaac. This woman comes in frantically and she says, Abraham cast out the bond woman and her son. She didn't say put him in the basement and feed him, she says get rid of him because he's not going to stay in this house. And they got rid of him. And for some reason, I don't know why, we're always trying to excuse carnality. You'll have the carnal nature till you die. You'll have the carnal nature until you're willing to let God crucify it and put it away. You don't have to have it any longer. You'll have a human nature, you'll have temptation. I don't know why we plead so much for carnality. People suggest sinning is normal, then Adam wasn't normal because he didn't sin. When God made him, there was no sin in Adam. But afterwards he sinned. Right, sin is not normal, sin is abnormal. You say you preach sinless affection, no I do not. I do not preach that it's impossible to sin, I preach it's possible not to sin. I cross the Atlantic many times, maybe 20 on the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, biggest ships in the world. And you have to do drill. You get there and you throw a thing over your head, tie it around here, and big fat thing you know, there isn't room for you. And some little lady usually says when this enormous thing on, officer what is this for? They always start saying, like saying we're going to play tennis lady, what do you think? There you are with this enormous life jacket. And then the man says now this ladies and gentlemen is for when the ship goes down. It's for what? Say look if this ship's going down, back it up, because I want to get off. Where's it going to go down? In the middle of the Atlantic, 2,000 miles to go to England, a thousand miles back to America. I'm not going to swim with this thing on me, not even though it has a little thing here that lights up at night, because nobody can see it, that's just psychological anyhow. What does a man say? He doesn't say this life jacket is for when the ship goes down, he says it's for if the ship goes down. The Queen Mary crossed the Atlantic, sometimes with 15,000 men on board during the war. She didn't sink once obviously. She made 500 safe trips across that 3,300 mile track of water. Sinning is not normal to the Christian life, sin is abnormal. The Christian life is victorious. You know lots of people who profess to be Christians could just as well be, they could just as well be Mohammedan. They've no more victory than a Mohammedan has. Jesus Christ came to deliver us from sin, and keep us from sin, and give us victory over sin. As long as I'm willing to live in subjection to him, if I get out of line, then I'll go back into the old thing. Sin isn't like a rotten tooth, you pull out. Sin is a disposition. If a man has evil spirits and you drive them out, a greater spirit must come in, or else more evil spirits will come in. And as long as I keep under the blood, and I keep filled with the Spirit of God, I can live in victory. If I get out of line, I'll go and commit sin again, then I must run to the place of refuge. If we sin we have, not when we sin, if we sin we have an advocate with the Father. All right back to Abraham. The child of promise came. Now God has dealt with this man. He's brought him from his relatives. Oh you can't imagine the tearing up the walls, saying goodbye to the in-laws, and outlaws, and everybody else, and going on that silly prism. Everybody says don't do it. Your husband's had a brainwave. Nobody else has ever did it in history. What does he think he is? More famous than somebody else. He's trying to become great I suppose. And Abraham forgets every other voice and says I heard the voice, I've seen a I've seen the city that has foundations, I'm looking for it. And he goes on the pilgrimage. And he made his mistake with two men. He made his mistake going into Egypt. He made his mistake with this woman. And now everything's all right. They've got rid of the bond woman and her son. The house is free. He meets his darling wife. The boy comes in every day. A big fine boy says, hi dad I was out hunting today. My you wait till you get these hamburgers we just made. Boy they're delicious. Oh we're gonna have a good meal. And he's out one day and the Lord says you see that peak up there Abraham? Yeah I can see that clearly Lord. He says take now thy son, thine only son. By faith Abraham when he was tried, offered up Isaac. Verse 17 of chapter which, 11. By faith Abraham when he was tried, offered up Isaac. And he that had received the promises, offered up, listen, his only begotten son. That doesn't include Ishmael does it? If he'd have said offer Ishmael that would have been easy. Oh brother that would be easy. There are some things in your life if the Lord said offer that you say thank you Lord I've been waiting to get rid of this. Oh you can have this. Oh I'd give addition a thousand dollars. And the Lord says take thine only son. Not Ishmael. Take him up on the mountain. My you must have looked at that mountain. What was it? Three days journey. Somebody said typical of the death and resurrection. Look this is where he is, Abraham and his son. There's Mount Moriah three days away. They walked together for three days. What do you think they talked about? Football or some nonsense? From there to there, who suffered? Who suffered? Abraham or his son? The boy didn't know what it was about. The boy carried a basket of fire which was quite customary, threw little bits of stuff in to keep replenishing it. And finally said daddy I'm carrying a basket of fire. And you say we're going up there. But he said daddy where's the sacrifice? Who suffered from there? The moment God said offer thy son. I'm going to suggest to you that that, Abraham opened his eyes in the night, saw his boy asleep in the moonlight. And he could see himself putting the dagger in that boy. He put the dagger in that boy 10,000 times before he got to the bottom of that hill. The boy didn't suffer, the father did. All right, the moment Jesus left heaven, until he got to the cross. Who suffered? Jesus or the father? My judgment, Jesus didn't know what it was all about for years. He couldn't as a child, it would be too much. The father does the suffering, the father has the agony, the father is lonely, heaven is empty. He's giving his only begotten son. They get to a certain place, and Abraham says to his servants you stay here. There's always a point where you leave the choices dearest friend you've got. Moses come up the mountain, bring Aaron and her, leave them behind. You and I will go talk together up here, you can't bring anybody else, it's totally private. You disciples pray here, I'll go yonder, it's totally private in Gethsemane. You stay here servants, I and the lad will go yonder, and what? Sacrifice. No he did not say that. What did he say? He said I and the lad will go yonder and worship. Sacrifice is always involved in worship. You decide you're going to sacrifice, you're going to worship some part of every day, fence it off. Well there's only one thing you can do, that is lift the phone off the cradle, because it'll go 25 times in 10 minutes if you decide to worship. You have to tell Mary Jane, Mary Jane you've been coming for coffee for the last five years, every Wednesday morning from 9 to 10. The Lord's told me to take it just to worship, not for prayer, not for praise, not even to join me, he's told me to worship him. Goodbye. It costs to worship. I and the lad will go yonder and worship. Right, all right. Now he gets up on the hill. He says to the boy, son get hold of this rock. Yeah, what are we going to do? We're going to build an altar. Get hold of that rock, bring it here. You need an awful lot of grace to build an altar, you're going to be sacrificed on yourself don't you. It's easy to build an altar to sacrifice some thing or somebody, but when you're going to be sacrificed on it. I have known many a preacher, I remember meeting one up in the snows away there in Hudson Bay country. I went to preach to the Eskimos and the Chippewa Indians and I don't know who. There's a fine young man there, he went from Northwestern Bible School in Minneapolis. He'd been there not too long when paralysis came and his leg, and there he was dragging a withered leg. He had three little girls, they didn't have mini skirts on, they looked as though they bridled dresses on. You know folk tossed stuff into the missionary barrel. These little girls skirts were trailing the ground. Now remember that fellow Ray, I remember talking with him. He put every gift he got, personal gift, Christmas gift, children's birthday gifts, he put it all in the church. He bought them new furnishings, he bought them a new furnace, because we were shivering in the snow even then. He built that church out of the grassroots and got it to a healthy church. You know what they did? Voted him out, voted him out. You need a lot of grace to build an altar, you're going to be sacrificed on yourself. Then the boy is put on the altar, he is led as a lamb, he doesn't open his mouth. His daddy bound him up, laid him on the altar. Dore, the great artist, has a fine picture of Abraham. Abraham's head is turned away, he puts his hand over the eyes of the boy so he won't see, and he's bringing the dagger down this way into the boy. He's made that pilgrimage, remember, three days. Burdened, broken man. He's built the altar, he's bound up the boy. Now this dreadful moment he's seen a thousand times, and he lifts up the dagger, gets his hand up, gets it down halfway, and the boy says, stay thy hand. You know what I think most Christians would have said, that's the voice of the devil. Right down there by where the river turns there, I remember looking up and seeing these three trees and that big rock, and God said go now and offer thy son. And the devil doesn't want me, but I'm going to do what God says. The book says my sheep hear my voice. The same voice that said offer thy son, said stay thy hand. Why? Didn't God want Isaac? Never wanted him from the beginning. God wasn't after Isaac, he was after Abraham. He wanted to see if it switched his allegiance. He got what he'd always desired, his son. And through his son, the multitude was going to be like the stars of heaven. He was going to fill the whole earth and become the most famous man, or one of the most famous in all history. God wasn't after Abraham, Isaac, he was after Abraham, stay thy hand. And he stayed his hand. I wonder what Isaac felt like. Isn't it amazing, I have two things to say. Isn't it amazing here, Isaac disappears now. In the next chapters you don't find Isaac, except in a fantastic situation. The next time you find Isaac, where do you find him? You find him with a bride. Eliezer went out and he searched for a bride. Eliezer a type of the Holy Spirit, searched for a bride for Isaac. You remember when they went out and they found this young lady and a father says do you want to go? She said oh yes. But you've never seen him. Well we haven't seen him have we? We're going to be married to somebody we've never seen. We've never seen Jesus. We're the bride, I hope we are part of it. Are you sure you want to go? Oh yes, he's told me about his master. He is the most fantastic man in the world. How many camels did they have, was it 17? And he only unloaded one load. And that sent her into a spin. She says what you mean he sent me all this, all these treasures. Oh he said you wait till you see the rest. Oh she says no, I couldn't, I'd die on the spot. You mean to say that this man's going to marry me that has all this? You mean to say this perfect gentleman, this man that owns so much, he's going to be my husband? Right after his, his death as it were. And his resurrection, for that's a type of this. You see, do you know why God let, let, let this man live for one reason? Because God couldn't even win with Abraham. Do you know what it says in verse 18 of the same chapter? Of whom it was said that in Isaac should all thy seed be caught. And verse 19, accounting that God was able to raise him up. Because Abraham says all right Lord, I'll go every inch of the way with you. But I want to tell you this, as soon as he dies, I'm going to say in the name of the living God, rise up and walk. And that's exactly what Abraham would have done. His faith was that strong, he says all right you can take him. I'm prepared to let him go, it's hard but I'm going to test you. But the voice said stay thy hand. I was in New Zealand a few years ago and spoke about Abraham. And after the meeting, a very fine old man came up to me and he said, I enjoyed your little talk. Boy that's rough when you've prepared the best. And he calls it a little talk. He said I enjoyed your little talk. And I said well that's nice. But he said you missed the main point. I said maybe I missed more than one. No he said you know that business where you, you said stay thy hand. Right. He said you didn't put enough emphasis on the, on the ram in the bush. I said tell me about it. Well he said it wasn't there when they built an altar. I said oh no. It wasn't there when he bound his thumb up. No. It wasn't there when he pulled out his dagger. No. It wasn't there when he lifted the dagger. No. It wasn't there when, when he got the dagger halfway down. Well I said I read my Bible many times, I never saw any of that in it. Well he said it's not in. I said well how do you know? He said because I'm 70, two years of age. And I've been a shepherd over 50 years. I know every trick with sheep. And particularly old rams. He said that ram wasn't in the thicket. It wasn't in the thicket until the voice said stay thy hand. And immediately he heard a rustling and he looked and there was a ram in the thicket. Well I said it sounds pretty good. But, but why are you so convinced? He said I'll tell you. I've seen a ram in the thicket. He's been going after the sheep and he got halfway in and he couldn't make it. He tried to back out and he couldn't make it. The thick thorns got in his, in his wool and he was trapped. But he said a ram will not stay in a thicket for 30 seconds. He'll do one of two things. He'll put those four legs down as though they're iron and he'll throb them in the ground. And he'll put his head down, he'll get his horns in the bush that he's trapped in. And when he gets those horns really in, he'll do one of two things. He'll either pull that bush up by the roots or he'll pull his horns off and get out. But you won't trap him. The test of faith. Right to the very last second. What's God doing? He could have got me out of this. He's had three days to do it. He could have done it in the last hour while I was building the altar. He could have done it in the last 10 minutes while I was tying my sweater. He hasn't done it all right. Well Abraham didn't do it quite like that. That's how we do it don't we. Lord, Lord when are you going to take the pressure off? Lord when are you going to give deliverance? The Lord says not today, not tomorrow. When you get to that place where it looks like total despair and the dearest thing you have. And he doesn't always spare your Isaac, sometimes he does. Took the Lord a long while to make Abraham. He could never have stood that when he started for murder of the Calvary. Do you think he wasn't torn up in his affections? Do you think he wasn't torn up in every area? Could you train a boy to be 17 or 18 and then wrap him up yourself and take a dagger? Do you think he wasn't torn up? Do you think maybe he wasn't looking through his tears? Maybe he was shaking. And yet deep down underneath. For after all we're human beings. He had a faith that didn't shrink. He said I don't know how but God will get out of this. Did you ever sing a hymn that says his love in times past forbids me to think. He'll leave me at last in trouble to sink while each Ebenezer I hold in review confirms his good pleasure to see me right through. I jumped out of a burning building that looked about 10 times higher than this, onto the sidewalk in 1951. Broke my back, my legs, my feet, just about everything. People came in hospital. People sent me telegrams from around the world. Famous preachers came to see me. Folk phoned me. But nearly everybody quoted Romans 8 28. I never knew it was in the Bible so many times. One day a little man came in. He was one of the last missionaries to escape from China when the communists kicked them out. His face was all pockmarked and he'd suffered. He stood at the end of my bed with Dr. Tolson. I remember he put his hand up like that and he said Brother Ravenhill. And I looked at that man and I thought my here's a man that suffered. He's been through the mill as we say. I looked straight at that little man with his hand up. He could hardly see over the bed. I was on a high bed all you know in plaster from my chin to my toes. And he raised his hand like that and he looked straight at me. And he just said this and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress. That's what that same hymn says isn't it. And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress. Sometimes the only way that God can enrich your life is to take everything away. You say God clothe me, he'll strip you. You say God fill me, he'll empty you. You say God I need a new lease of life, there'll be some Isaac you have to put to death. And he won't spare it. That's God's way. The way up, is down. The way to gain, lose. Be the first, be the last. Be something, be a nobody. Paradoxical, nonsense, right outside of that door. Common sense, spiritual sense, when you're on the inside. Tomorrow we're going to talk about Moses. Maybe you'd like to read about him before then. Father we thank you for this hour, together, this time of fellowship. We would, in sheer gratitude, remember the suffering church, our precious brothers and sisters in Russia, China, Burma, some of these countries where they're locked in. We can't minister, we can't share, we can't hear too much. We pray for them. We pray for ourselves, that we'll not have a flabby faith. We pray for a faith that will not shrink, though pressed by many a foe. That will not tremble on the brink of poverty or woe. That will not murmur or repine beneath the chastening rod. We look unto thee, the author and the finisher. You've begun a good work in us, and you'll perfect it, as we stay in submission and obedience to thee. Be with us as we go our separate ways, and crown this day with blessing. Give us an unusual meeting tonight. Deluge this place with the power of the spirit, in Jesus name, amen.