In this sermon, the preacher discusses the challenges of evangelizing in a world filled with lust and lewdness. He shares a story of a young man who is disheartened by the lack of passion and vision in those he encounters while evangelizing in New York. The preacher emphasizes the importance of finding and following the will of God, even when it goes against the norm. He also highlights the need for patience and references biblical examples, such as Noah building the ark for 120 years. The sermon concludes with a critique of how often people engage in religious activities without truly experiencing the presence of God.

You brothers at the back, you came from Lubbock? Very good, very welcome. Brother from Arkansas, and his wife? Good. Anybody from then? Who's from then? Oh, you are, now you live there, good. You're still welcome. We're going to have a carload from where? Jimmy's track at school tonight. I don't know whether he got lost, or they're fearful. Hebrews 11, OK. We put these mics on, these amplifiers anyhow. I hope they're not too loud, are they? Good. OK, let's say one or two things. Repetition is a law of learning, and so we have to learn every week. Remember, this epistle is written to Christians only. We, we, we. Nobody else, not the sinners. Again, it's not addressed like the other epistles, usually in the first chapter. It's addressed in the third chapter, in verse 1. Yes, verse 1 of chapter 3. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Jesus Christ, our Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him that appointed him. Going back to the 11th chapter now. Remember, we've said that this word faith occurs no less than 300 times in the New Testament, only twice in the Old Testament. See, we talk about faith, they acted it. We're going to have to come back to acting faith. That... Let me go back again a moment here into the second chapter. And this again, remember, is written to believers. We ought to give the more earnest things to the thing we have heard, lest we let them slip. If the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense or reward, how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? How great is it? Well, the next verse tells you. Or the same verse. At the first it began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him, God also bearing them witness with signs and wonders and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost. That's how great the salvation is. And anything less than that is not the gospel. We've gradually diminished it and diminished it. The liberals don't believe the Bible, and some of the fundamentalists say dispensationally, oh, well, that's for another day. That's a nice cop-out, isn't it, for failure. But God says, I'm the same yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus said, and God says, I am the Lord, I change not. He hasn't changed, sin hasn't changed, so who has changed? The church, obviously. Are those who profess to be the church? So in this chapter, okay, verse, chapter 11, the first person named here is, by faith, Abel. Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. So here we have Abel worshipping. If he sacrificed, he made an altar. We used to go to a fellowship sometime, and the pastor would say, now, come on, everybody, get up and come to the front, come to the front. The fire always falls on the altar. The fire never falls on the altar. The fire falls on the sacrifice. You can have an altar, it doesn't matter what kind of an altar you want. The fire falls on the sacrifice. And Abel, I don't know whether he had a lot of cattle or not, but anyhow, he brought an offering. His brother's offering, I'm sure, looked a lot nicer. It wasn't bloody, but it was from the ground, and the ground was cursed, and man was cursed. And so he tried to bring a cursed thing to God as an offering, and God said no. So we have, first of all, we have Abel, and he's there because he worshipped. The second character is Enoch, and we remember him because he walked. Now, why do we stress it always so much? Enoch walked with God. Abraham walked with God. Noah walked with God. But you see, the consuming thing about Enoch was he walked with God. And we talk about the Christian life. Ruth Paxson has a book on Ephesians, The Wealth, the Walk, and Warfare. I don't have that. Anybody have it? If you do, if you want to give it away, I know somebody who would like it. But that's what it is, the wealth, the walk, and the warfare of the Christian. So Abel is there because he worshipped. Enoch is there because he walked. And now we come to who? Noah, in verse 7. And he's there because he what? He worked. Faith, again, without works is dead. Remember again, we reminded you that here in the previous chapter, chapter 10, and verse 11 is a verse that's used so often, a kind of a threatening verse, to the unbeliever. But it's written to us, it's written to believers. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Robert Louis Stevenson said there's only one thing more fearful and that's when you fall out of the hands of the living God and he won't bother with us, either as individuals or nations. It's going to be a fearful thing at the judgment seat. Terrifying majesty. Glory beyond anything we can ever comprehend. By faith, Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet. Well isn't that what faith's all about? About things not seen, and you see them as real as though they were vividly in front of us. Because he was wooed with fear he prepared an ark to the saving of his house by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. Now let's go back into Genesis here. What's the chapter? Six, I think. Yeah. Genesis chapter six. Let's read from verse five, or verse four. There were giants in the earth in those days and also after that when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men and their then children the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown and God saw that the wickedness of man was very great in the earth and that every imagination and thought of his heart was evil continually. Now emphasize that. Every thought. Every thought. Every thought without interruption was evil continually. Every thought only without mixture. Every thought was evil without interruption. Every thought was totally maximum impurity. It was only evil. And it was wickedness, evil without intermission. It was continuous. It wasn't a case of, you know, you see a graph sometimes of something's like this and then it shows you something going down and up and up. I don't believe that's what happened here. I believe the wickedness of man began on this level and it just went up and up and up. It didn't come down at all. It increased in intensity. It became more and more diabolical. And yet a holy God, whose eyes are holier than to behold iniquity saw this in the creation that he had made. It repented God, verse 6. It repented the law that he had made man on the earth. It grieved him at his heart. Now how in the world do you interpret the grief of God? Huh? We're such a flippant crowd. Jesus wouldn't be comfortable in most of our meetings. We're too gay, we're too happy. And by gay I mean frivolous. Jesus was a man of sorrows. And Paul says at the end of the journey to Timothy be sober, be sober, be sober. The emphasis now is be silly, be joyful. The emphasis is not holiness, it's happiness. And yet God is wanting more and more holiness of his people. Verse 7, the Lord said That takes me back, I remember as a boy climbing up a bank in a town called Doncaster. I didn't know what was on the other side. I climbed up the bank and there was a lily, a big gorgeous lily open on a lake that was covered with scum. I've never forgotten it. It showed up in its beauty by the scum around it. And here Noah shows up in his holiness by the hellishness of those around him. He shows his consecration in the midst of all the corruption. And it says, concerning this man Noah, listen to how God graduates this man. Noah was a just man, number 1. Number 2, perfect. Number 3, and he walked with God. And in chapter 7 verse 1, The Lord said unto Noah, One man. Only one man. Surrounded by a multitude that no man has numbered. Some people have said there were millions. I don't know how they come to that conclusion. But the fact was, in the midst of all that corruption, he wasn't contaminated, he wasn't intimidated. He shut the whole thing off. It's of the devil, it's not of God, it's not pure. It's perverted, it's polluted. And he shrank from it, he hated the thing. Because he had the nature of God, and God hates it, and he hated it. And so God says to him, The end of all flesh, verse 13, The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth was filled with violence through them, and I will destroy them with the earth. Make thee an ark of gopher wood. Verse 15, This is the fashion which thou shalt make of it. The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits. Do you know how long that is? Four hundred and fifty feet. That's quite a boat. One, I think it's Dake in his notes on the Bible, says this was the greatest ship ever made until 1880 or something. No, he missed it. How many people on that ship that Paul went across the Mediterranean on? Three hundred and seventy-five. No first class, second class, all like cattle. That must have been a horrible trip. And yet look at the size of this boat. This is the length. This is the fashion thou shalt make of it. The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits. The breadth, fifty cubits. The height, thirty cubits. So what do you have there? It's four hundred and fifty feet long, seventy feet wide, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high. Well, if you work that out, the only comes to fifty-six thousand two hundred and fifty cubic yards, not feet. A hundred and sixty-eight thousand seven hundred and fifty cubic feet. Boy, that's some ship. And the Lord told him to get all the cattle in, and then he says, take all your food. They weren't going to stop shopping. Oh, people say, oh, that ark, boy, it must be stinking in that ark. You know, I don't believe it had one polluted smell in it at all. Some have typified it as a type of the millennium, because the animal, the lion didn't need the lamb. There was perfect harmony. He was how long building it? Do you remember? How many years? A hundred and twenty. Okay, a hundred and twenty. A hundred and twenty years, that's right. How many days was that? Forty-three thousand eight hundred. How many hours? Boy, I got a computer years before anybody. She came with me tonight. I just said, Martha, work that out. That's what she worked it out. It's forty-three thousand eight hundred days. It's one and a half million hours. And God said he looked down from heaven for one and a half million hours. You know how quickly we forget? They knew the story of Abel. Abel had slain the, whatever, he slew a lamb and shed blood. But God looks down on these people. The question in my mind, how many people helped him to build this ark? Didn't I think it was? It's not a bit like the thing you buy in a, you know, Toys R Us or something. It wasn't a boat at all. It didn't have a sail. It didn't have a motor. Where was it sailing? It wasn't sailing anywhere. It wasn't made to sail. It was made to float. My father had a piece of gopher wood and it's very much like, what's that wood that they make airplanes out of? The boys make airplanes. Bolster. Bolster, like that. As light as that. And this huge craft with all the animals of the world in it and all the people that God wanted to save were in it. I wonder how many of them helped him to build the ark. Hmm? What do you think happened to him there? Don't you think everybody said, you know that old crackpot? Oh, let's take the grandchildren. They haven't seen this crazy old guy. Oh, we've seen him for years. It's going to rain. Remember, they'd never seen rain. There'd never been rain. God had watered the earth. We sang it tonight. You notice that? Drop thy still dews of quietness. Do you know when the dew falls? When there's no wind. You never get dew when there's a wind. And so he says, drop thy still dews of quietness. In other words, let's all be quiet before him and he'll drop his dew upon us. Or take time to be holy, if you want it in some other language over him. We don't have time for that. Everything's in a hurry. Particularly in America, we're so fast with everything, aren't we? We wanted to finish something yesterday instead of tomorrow. But these men helped to build the ark. I don't believe it was, I believe it was just a floating log cabin. So don't think America had the first of them. It must have been, they didn't saw it into planks and whatnot. Why should they? I believe that they just put those logs together and somehow cemented it, whatever they did with the cracks in between. Or maybe it swelled up and, I remember going to an auction in Ireland and there's a wonderful barrel there about this height, I don't know, a hundred gallons. And the ribs were about, oh, a quarter of an inch apart. And a friend of mine, he bid frantically to get it. I said, the thing will hold a gallon of water. He said, it will in a few hours. You keep filling it, the wood swells and it swells and it swells. It'll be a perfect barrel tomorrow. And I went to see and it was. Then I knew I had a PhD. But how the Lord made provision in this ark. You can do so much, I do the rest. He put one window in the ark and it was at the top. I remember some years ago I went to have a crusade down in Trinidad. They'd just put up a wonderful building. The Queen of England opened it and this Englishman preached right after that. But she left unfortunately. But it's built like two saucers and there's a space, there are no windows, so while you're preaching the birds come in and it's a great time. And I believe the ark was like that. It had no glass windows as we think of. But it had a door in the side. And it had a window in the side. And our David being so sharp, bless his heart. He said, you know I've had a window, no the window's in the roof and the door's in the side. If the window had been in the side no one would have seen all the corruption sailing past and God would let him look on that defilement. And yet you have the ark made just for a choice number of people. I think for years they scorned him and cursed him and ridiculed him and said, rain? He says the waters are going to break up from the ground and waters are going to come down from above and meet and flood. You see that's why the ark, it was made to float, it would rise. And there's no notice here of any storm, any thunder. There must have been. I'm sure once the waters started getting behind those rocks they started bouncing down the hillside and making a terrific crash. Or on the other hand, maybe they had to stay there and watch that flood coming up. I imagine every beast that was there somebody jumped on its back to get out of the way. Climb the hills, get as high as you can. And the silence was killing. It was just coming up like this, there's no way of stopping it, it's creeping up relentlessly, relentlessly. Suddenly they start screaming, what are we going to do, what are we going to do? For a hundred and twenty years. You see, there are two great things in life, maybe there are more, but I've reduced them to two because I know you don't like to think too much. Okay, two great things in life. One is to find the will of God and the second, more difficult thing is to do it, when nobody else is doing it. The third thing you need is patience. It says in the tenth chapter to have patience. It says in the twelfth chapter, let us run with patience. Noah built an ark for a hundred and twenty years. That's patience, isn't it? I wonder what kind of... Do you think the family had a row? Do you think there were arguments? I think if you've gone down to Noah and you heard him there with a saw working, when you got near you'd say, there's something wrong, I hear it. And it wasn't the saw, it was the groaning of his own spirit. He was building a coffin in one sense for the rest of the world. For him it was safety, for them it was destruction. And no man could enjoy that situation. So he has a hundred and twenty years of grief. They were stony-hearted and rebellious. They enjoyed their defilement. They enjoyed their corruption. They totally... God looks down for a million and a half hours to see if there's an altar, a curling smoke, somebody to repent. Not one, not one. It was fashionable to be sinful like it is today. Total iniquity, total corruption. And yet Noah sticks it out. You notice this? Once he went in the ark, he never came out again. People may have said, hey, come out old boy, you've been in there a while. He had been in a while. I think there's a scripture, I couldn't find it today, where it says that God didn't speak to him until the seventh day. He lets him put the door, but he says there's one thing you can't do about that ark. You can't shut the door. When I shut it, no man will open it. When I open it, no man can shut it. And that's the thing we need to learn. Revelation 3 says that. I'll open a door no man can shut. I'll close a door no man can open. And so he is in the ark of safety, and the whole world is rocking round about, and yet there's a deep settled peace in his heart. He's in the centre of the will of God. I think it's the same man that wrote that hymn that we sang tonight, who says the storm may roar without me, my heart may low be laid round about me, and shall I be afraid. Isaac Watts wrote to him that says, let mountains from their seats be hurled down to the deeps and buried there. Convulsions shape this solid world. Our faith shall never yield to fear. In another he says, let mountain walls confront my way. Why sit and weep? Arise and say, be thou removed, and they shall be by power of God cast in the sea. Be thou removed, faith bid thee restart, for yonder sea arise, depart. I may, I can, I must, I will, the purpose of my God fulfil. What did he do with a man like that? No wonder Wesleyan enjoyed him. That's such a concept of the majesty of God. I think I've always believed in the majesty of God, and I believe in the sovereignty, but this last year God showed me more the sovereignty of God in my own life. In my own life. I've been very slow to learn, I know that. I listen to my boys and in the home or outside, it's heavenly to be there. Their walk with God is so majestic. Anyhow, these people are here. Verse 17 of that 6th chapter says, Behold, I, even I do bring a flood of waters on the earth to destroy all flesh. When is the breath of life from under heaven, and everything that is in the earth, it shall die. But with thee I establish my covenant, thou shall come into the ark, thou and thy sons and thy wife, and thy son's wife with thee. Now verse 21, Take thou unto thee of all the food that is eaten, that thou shall gather it to thee. It shall be food for thee and for them. So anyhow, there's the background. You've got a man laboring for a hundred and twenty years. Listen, God isn't going to tell you what he tells that dear brother, nor tell him what he tells me. God says go work it out. Lord, how long? Do it till I say stop. When the ark is finished, that's OK. So he goes and does it. A hundred and twenty years, you have need of patience to do the will of God. Let the other guy do what he likes. God is making me, he's not making Bob here, he's making Bob, he's not making up. He's got a different design for us. A hundred and twenty years. We'll go on to, not now, we'll go on later, to Abraham. It was seventy-five years when God called him. It was a hundred and seventy-five when God finished with him. So cheer up, Bracey, you've a long way to go. A hundred and years for God to make a man. You know these young preachers come into my office. Boy, they get insulted. You know, they discover, when the older men come in, they talk about God. When the young men come in, they want to tell me who they know, where they've preached, how many souls they've won, everything else. As though they've turned the world upside down. It takes God twenty years at least to make a man. And he says, Abraham, I'm going to work with you. We'll see all the obstructions. It takes a hundred and twenty years of patience looking from heaven. He's delighting the heart of God. I'm talking here of Noah. He's doing everything according to the pattern. The world around is getting more corrupt. They have excursion parties coming round to mock him and saying this clown talks about rain coming down. You know, I wrote a book, which God used, I'm glad. Sodom had no Bible. I think I'll write another one. Sodom had its prophets. It had one. Why weren't these people alarmed? Why didn't somebody come in and say, I was shopping today to, you know, to a brother. Hey, Jacob, whoever it was. Hey, you know that old man that goes down Main Street, yelling, the Lord is coming with ten thousand of his. He's disappeared. And the police can't find him. Nobody can find him. He's just vanished. Enoch. He had no Bible under his arm. He had a great advantage. He never went to a Bible school to get his mind all messed up. He just walked with the Lord. And yet Enoch walked with God. What's he saying? Can you imagine this fiery prophet going down the Main Street in Jerusalem or wherever it was? Where would it be? Sodom and Gomorrah? What's he saying? Enoch the seventh from Adam. Remember there's another Enoch in between. Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied saying, behold the Lord cometh. How did he know the Lord was coming? Pardon? Sure. In a walk. Boy, I'd like to have been out behind the Lord and Enoch with a tape recorder, wouldn't you? Huh? You know the wonder about these men, invisible things were visible to them. I tell you, Cain built a city. Abraham looked for a city. John saw the city. The man of God sees things as really now as though they were actually in front of him. And they're not this stupid thing they've got now of visualizing, is it? What do they call it? Visualizing. Again, I remind you about these fellows in Hebrew. They absolutely stagger me. I can't read it without tears. What did they do? Let me run down it quickly. They subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. Women received their dead raised to life again. And not one of them ever had a Bible. Dear God, what am I going to do at the judgment seat? I've got every word almighty God is ever going to say. Every word. He doesn't write a p.s. at the end and say, oh I forgot to tell John on the isle of Patmos. Or I forgot to tell Elijah just before he shattered all those priests. It's all down here. For us, upon whom the ends of the age have come. But with patience they endured. I didn't count it, but one of the key words in Hebrews is they endured, they endured, they endured. There used to be a song when we were youngsters in Scotland that one of the guys used to sing it often, keep right on to the end of the road. And somebody said that's what the epistle to the Hebrew is. Keep right on to the end of the road. It's there at the end of the road. But let me look for a minute. Let's look at, in Luke chapter 17. Luke 17 26. As it was in the days of Noah so shall it be also in the day when the man comes. Listen, they ate, they drank, they married wives. Why does it say the next thing? They married wives and were given in marriage. Do you know what one translation says? They exchanged wives. They weren't loyal to one wife, they exchanged wives. A thing very common in the day in which we live. And they did that till Noah entered into the ark. And the flood came and destroyed them all. Right to the very last meeting. Some bride is coming out of her building and suddenly somebody says, hey look what's coming down the road, a wall of water. And right after the marriage she's swept away. Then in the next verse it says, verse 28, likewise also as it was in the days of Lot. They did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted and they builded. Well isn't that what we're crazy about now? Go, what did somebody call Dallas? The city of what? Cranes or something. Everywhere you go there's a crane on top of a building. They've already a million surplus square feet of office space and they're rushing millions more. Until the very day Noah entered into the ark. Nothing disturbed them until the flood came, or in the case of Lot, until fire rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. Let's look here in the first epistle of Peter, where is that? First epistle of Peter, chapter 3, and verse 18 says, Christ also hath once for all suffered for sins, that just for the unjust that he might bring us to God. Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, by which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient. When once the long suffering of the Lord, you see that? The long suffering of the Lord, a hundred and twenty years, a million and a half hours, he looked for at least one heart to turn toward God and they didn't. They're like our day, they were mesmerized by materialism, totally lost in materialism. They bought, they sold, they planted, they built it. And it gets increasingly worse. You can have earthquakes in California, you can have an earthquake in the stock market, what difference does it make to people if they don't get a hill of beans? I noticed churches around here, I think it was terrible, going into Lindale, a Baptist church, tomorrow night having a special celebration at a Baptist church, Halloween. TV showed the picture in the news of Green Acres, Saturday night, big Baptist church, the wealthiest Baptist church in town, having a Halloween party. Why didn't they want to glorify the devil? And yet they do. And this wickedness is spreading the earth tonight. We don't need Russia to destroy us, we'll destroy ourselves before long. These people, these sodomites, I talked with a doctor today that Brother Bracey knows, and in the course of talking I said, well the conditions are getting worse. He said that a doctor in the town where he lives was indicted in the court today, a doctor a brilliant qualified doctor was indicted for sodomy with a child. Can you think of a man studying all those years to get a degree? Can you think of his daddy and mummy putting all the money behind him that their son may become a distinguished surgeon or physician? And then for a few minutes pleasure cursing the life of a boy? His wife's heart is broken, his parents' hearts are broken, his life is damaged. For the rest of his life he's a vagabond, he's marked. I'll tell you what, a lot of these guys didn't believe the Bible they're beginning to realize the wages of sin is death. All you have to do, these guys get AIDS and they find out it's very, very real. And yet we're back in that same condition today, but who cares? Who cares? Who preaches righteousness? Nor a preacher of righteousness. Why was Abel slain? Because he was righteous. And the most horrible thing you can have in a factory today is a righteous man or a righteous woman it seems. Because he won't participate in all the corruption that's around about him, he stands out very clearly. His light shines so distinctively. And yet despite these facts the generation we live in is not repentant. Let's look at the second epistle of Peter in chapter 2 and verse 5. Or verse 4, pardon me. If God had spread not the angels that sinned but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness. You know, I was taught that the angels that fell from heaven are the evil spirits up in the sky. That's not true. The angels that fell from heaven have been chained in hell ever since they fell. I don't know where the other demons came from. Ask Bracey after the meeting. No, the angels are chained. You know, the more I read of this, the more I see the paralysis of the church today. Okay, let me read from verse 5. He spread not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, the preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly, turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example of those who after should live ungodly. And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. But I don't read it in anything about it. It vexed him, it troubled him. But when those dirty people came to beat his door down, he was prepared to give his daughters away to many who had lived their filthy homosexual lives. And verse 9 says the Lord, or verse 8, it vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to reserve the unjust until the day of judgment to be punished. But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise government, presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries. Whereas angels with a greater power than might bring not a raving accusation against them before the Lord, that these as natural brute beasts made a token may be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not and shall utterly perish in their own corruption. You see, the church, it's so simple and yet it's so profound. The church is supposed to be what? Salt. What does salt do? Stop corruption. Is the church doing that? No, the world is corrupting the church. The longer we spare time, the more dirty the so-called bride becomes. I don't believe the church is the bride. I believe there's a called-out number of the bride. Paul said, I want to attain by any means the out-resurrection. He's going to be resurrected. What does he mean, the out-resurrection? The holy dead? No, they're going to be resurrected. The holy dead first and finally, the final judgment. But I want to attain the out-resurrection from the dead. By any means. I don't care what it cost me. What could it cost me more than he had? He died daily. His back had been skinned 195 times with a lash. He'd been in weariness, in fastings, in painfulness, in tribulation, in perils amongst false brethren, in perils. And he goes on amongst all that kind of... And yet there's one thing I'm striving for. Not to make heaven, but to be in the out-resurrection. The Y1 folk have a book called the Anastasis. Paul David got on a plane the other day in New Zealand. A fellow came up and said, Hi David. And it's the captain of the Anastasis. Anastasis, he was coming over there. By the way, I'm warning you, I'll be preaching at Y1 on Sunday night. Brace is preaching in Gilmore. So everybody go to Gilmore Sunday night in Gilmore. And if you can't go, remember to pray for him. But you know it's terribly critical. We blame everybody for the mess that we're in. The only reason we're in this mess is the reason the world's going to hellfire because the church has lost Holy Ghost fire. You know, I said to somebody on the phone today, you know what? I've read over and over again where the apostle says do the work of an evangelist. Well, what's the work of an evangelist? Boy, I read this, was it middle of last night. Let me read what the work of an evangelist is. And tell me if you know one. Here we have Acts chapter 8 verse 2 The word? Yes. Now notice hearing and seeing. Paul said my preaching is not in word only, but in power and demonstration of the Holy Ghost. Well, this is what it is. The people of one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. This is an evangelist. He's not an apostle. It's not the same man, is it? Is it a deacon? It's a deacon. Philip the deacon. Boy, wouldn't you like half a dozen deacons like this in your church? Brother Bracey, I hope you get them. Hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. Unclean spirits cried out with a loud voice and they came out of many that were possessed of them. Many things with palsies or paralysis and lame were healed. There was great joy in that city. Dear God, what's the good of having a TV program broadcasting to people in Timbuktu if folk are dying on our gutters? Paralyzed with disease. Paralyzed with lust. Paralyzed with greed. We can't go to another nation. I'm not going to another nation. I'm scared if I went to another nation, I'd go to a number right now by invitation. I won't go. Supposing they ask me what's happening here in Mindo, what would I say? If they say, oh, we were reading today what a real Pentecostal evangelist is. Signs and wonders. Paralyzed people are healed. The lame are healed. Demons are cast out. A man that's been raging and tearing up his body and tearing up his family and tearing up his community and now he's going down there saying, praise the Lord. What a lovely day. I love you. Hallelujah. That's better than a million broadcasts. I'm sick to death of paper theology. I want to see it in flesh and blood. Flesh and blood, brother. You know, it's more likely revival will break out somewhere else than in churches. I talked with dear David, you know, little David. He kills Goliath, I mean, Joe Foss. Dear little Joe went to a prison last Monday. They were having a week's revival in the prison. Somebody preached on the Monday night and the Lord came on those prisoners. Do you know what they did? They went to the guard or whatever you call him and said, please, we want you to lock us all up in the jail chapel tonight. Lock you up? Why? We want to spend the night in prayer. And those wicked men, some of the only recently saved, were put in the building and they locked it up and they prayed from ten at night till six in the morning. You can't get people to do that in any church in this area. I don't care what in the world you call them. They'll go to a little convenient prayer meeting. You see, the formula for revival doesn't have to be made. It's there in the Word of God in Joel told. Weep between the altar and the doorpost for the priests. Who are the priests? Oh, our pastor. Forget it. He has made us a kingdom of priests. Because I stand ten inches higher than you in the pulpit doesn't mean I stand higher before God. I happen to have an R.E.V. if you want it, you can have it. Ordination. What good is it? It's an abomination unless God's given it. There's only one ordination that's John 15. I have ordained you. And if God has ordained you all hell can't stand against you. But just to think that those precious men said, we've been so blessed tonight. And he said when he went in, he didn't know just how to start. And one of the prisoners got up, went to the organ and began to play the organ. What do you play now? Oh, he walks with me and he talks with me. And after that they sang Just a Closer Walk with Him. And all heaven came down on the place. In a jail. They'd better go to jail some of us. Find out what God's like there. My brother was telling me he was down at, do you know Freddy Garcia? Freddy has a wonderful church in San Antonio. And he has a wonderful staff. Dear God, if I lived in that town I'd go, do you know the whole staff of the church is on welfare? They've been on welfare for 12 years. They've never taken a penny to run the church. One man and they said his house is no bigger than mine. He has 50 men in the house at one end. He has 12 women in the house at the other end. Dear God, what are we doing with big houses? One man, one little Spanish guy. Oh, Mexico or whatever in the world he is. And then he's got 50 men and they swear their allegiance to him because they know he isn't just standing behind the desk and saying, doing this and that. He can say, what things you've seen in me do and God be with you. So cheer up Marjoram, I'll have 50 men soon in the house. You're just training now, you've qualified so now. Isn't that wonderful though? Hmm? All the staff for 12 years living on welfare. I think that's fabulous. Dear God, everybody wants money. You know all the guys come in and say, Mr. Enio, I'm finishing Bible school. Okay. Will you pray for me? Okay. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Do you know what the next thing is? They go to Bible school. Next thing is they get a newsletter. Then they go and get somebody to ordain them. Even if other people disdain them, but anyhow. First they do is get a newsletter. Then they get an ordination. And then the next thing, they've got a tax-free organization. Oh, board members of course. They've got board members. I told you about the preacher who asked to meet the board members next Wednesday and 700 turned up. They were all board in his church. We so lean on flesh. Dear God, we lean on flesh. I want to see an emancipated church. I don't listen to one man. I have to do this Friday night because specifically this is a prayer meeting. But I would not be a member of a church that had just one pastor, or even two. But in the Bible they all had two at least. I like the five pastors like David had in their church. He just resigned a church of 1500 Sunday morning and 500 in Sunday school at the same time. And the guy's gone out. He has no financial backing. He has no newsletter. He has no people guaranteed to give him $25 a month or something. And there he is tonight. He's in Minnesota. And tomorrow he flies to New York to be in that marvelous tabernacle. Monday he goes to Amsterdam. Tuesday he goes to Germany. Wednesday he comes to London. Next day he goes to Manchester. He'll be staying in Sheffield for a few days. And then going down to Southern Ireland which is 97% Catholic. And people are meeting in homes there. David went last year. He said the glory of God is in the house. People got together. They used to be the upper crust you know, whatever that means. Lawyers and doctors and others. They were the boys that golfed together and goofed together and did everything else together. Now they got saved. They worshiped together. They prayed together. And down in a hellish place like that's saturated with Rome. You see Rome when she's in the minority, Rome in the minority is a lamb. When she's in equality she's a fox. When she's in the majority she's a lion or a tiger. People say, oh I know nice Catholic people. There are no Catholics in America compared with the ones in Western Ireland or these other countries. I fear the Church of Rome more than I fear Communism. They both want world dominion and they're going to fight like the devils they are to get it. But when I hear of things like that, dear Lord I don't sleep many nights. I try and sleep as little as I can eat as little as I can and pray as much as I can. But when I hear of these precious men in prison from ten at night till six in the morning and I meet a brother that was over in the prayer meeting a week today a week of this morning at the Rock Church at five o'clock in the morning over a thousand people praying and he said God was coming down in tremendous power. Then other people keep calling in where started the prayer meeting? Well they won't be in secret very long because the whole thing was going to explode. So I told him what? I told him about Freddie Garcia I told him about the Rock Church. I made some notes I don't have a computer like Martha. Oh a man called me three days ago he said are you going to the conference? Well I don't go to conferences usually. I said where? He said oh the prayer leaders of America are meeting with the prayer leaders of Canada up in where was it? Porcelain somewhere for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Are you going? I said no not if I can help it. All the others are programming oh Joe Smith is going to speak from nine to ten fifty minutes break for coffee and then Brother Brown is going to speak from ten fifteen to eleven and everything is you know anything to keep the Holy anything to keep the Holy Ghost away. But God is finding his own men. We are nervous about the Holy Ghost we are. How many of you have read that book Azusa Street? Have you got one? Do you have some with you tonight? You've got to get it. It's marvelous. And read it. Boy they spent hours in intercession. Hours. Went to meetings and nobody was appointed to do anything. And the Lord looks to the helpless. When there is nobody in the way the Lord works. When we are in the way it doesn't work. We've got things so organized. Oh boy boy boy aren't we marvelous. As I told you the other day you know we go to the house of God, we read the word of God, we sing the songs of God we pray to God but where is God? When do we go out speechless? Dear me it's a good thing it is. Halloween this weekend now the World Series is over. But oh well of course basketball or something. You know the Apostle Paul never had to deal with pastors who got spring fever with baseball and winter fever with Superbowl. He never had to deal with that. All he had to deal with was devils. That was easier. You can get people delivered from the devil and drink and smoking but you can't get them delivered from sports. It's a strange day isn't it? I don't know if I mentioned this I'll mention it again anyhow. You know that orphanage that Brother Brother Joe's putting up is getting their completion. It's three stories high like the Ark Noah's Ark was three stories. And the ground floor is for teaching the middle section is for what's the middle section for? Oh the ground floor is for the school the second is for living or something and I don't know what the top one's for. He's taking a hundred of those people they pick up on the street and he said one little boy 10 years of age he's 10 years of age physically and mentally he's 25 years of age in sin he knows everything about lust, incest every vile thing and his languages are wicked and they've been dealing with the little guy. I heard recently girls getting pregnant going to Bible camps getting introduced to drugs in Bible camps tell you what we'd better get a spurt on I mean we know the church knows the world doesn't know it's in the same condition as it was in the day of Noah the church doesn't care the world doesn't care time's running out the church doesn't care if we did we'd never have a prayer meeting without tears we've lost control today I read the 19th verse in the 18th chapter of Genesis do you know why God blessed Abraham amongst other things he knows how to command his children he knows how to command his children do you think Noah took a vote with his family as to whether they should go in the ark or not of course not he received orders from the Lord and he didn't care what happened he was prepared to follow the Lord in everything and the Lord expects that same filial devotion from us there are two great monsters hindering revival in America or England one is unbelief and the other is evangelism evangelism well I read to you from the 8th chapter of Acts Philip an evangelist he didn't call him an apostle he didn't call him a revivalist but he healed the sick he cast out demons and that's in this blessed book our pastor doesn't believe that well God isn't judging your pastor he's judging you why don't you believe it why don't I believe it why do we put up with this mediocrity prove the point if I were in a church these days boy I'd give the pastor a rough time I mean even if I was a teenage I would just the last thing do you remember when the angel came to Gideon and said God is with thee thou mighty man of valor what did he say he said if God be with us where be his miracles our fathers told us of yeah we believe the God of our fathers divided the Red Sea we believe he sent angels food down every day we believe he split the rock but we don't shout like that it's history it's history that's why I say I'm sick of paper theology and I said to a preacher in our house the other day I'm waiting to find a Pentecostal pastor who can stand at the door of his church and say to the world outside a world that's scared and a world that's scarred this is that which is spoken by the prophets everything they had at Pentecost why in God's name do we stick a name up Pentecostal we're a million miles from it all Methodists we're nowhere like the Methodists all Salvationists we're so afraid of the supernatural we'd rather have no fire than false fire and I'm not after false fire I can't read Azusa Street or the other tremendous book seven Pentecostal pioneers I'd be content again God is the same I mostly decide to put everything on one side this one thing I do a pastor has nothing else to do but live for God walk with God hear the voice of God obey God forget everybody else there's no judgment I'm going to of men I don't have to go to Springfield like some Pentecostals or Nazarenes go to some other place my business is to walk with God and it's your business and this is the rule book and as I tell you again I can't imagine that I have to go and stand on a dais before 50 billion billion people at the judgment seat right after one of these people in Hebrews 11 who never had a Bible and yet they accomplished all these things for God I've got the whole mind of God here and I'm restless until I see it come to pass we need to pray for Jopha oh let me say this one thing an aunt called me two nights ago from New York City and the hub of all the corruption of New York City is on West 42nd Street do you know it? West 42nd Street there are transvestites you think that woman's going past it's a man there are pimps there are prostitutes the whole street's a line on either side with big glaring nude pictures and movies it's a center of corruption he said brother I went down the east side of the street and it's lined with young people giving out tax you know our church is sending some young people to New York to give out tax save your money those young people are not redeemed if they're not careful they'll be all contaminated when they come back seeing all that lust and lewdness this young man said I walked down the street and you can hardly move shoulder to shoulder hey take this track and some have little microphones little speakers and they're talking the gospel to these people going down the street on both sides of the street dozens of people and he's in despair he said Mr. Rayleigh what do you do when evangelizing fails I've come up to New York all this way I'm treading on the heels of somebody in front giving out this track no this is a better track little speakers again free from the wrath to come or something else and those kids have no more passion than a cat walking down the broadway they're not there with a broken heart they're not there with a vision they're not there with a compassion that would die I'll say this and I didn't tell my darling wife yesterday I was having a real time with God today which I often do and I said Lord I believe I'm in that position now where if I could die on a cross in the middle of Tyler be crucified to save this area I believe I would do it I'd do it joyfully do you know what the Lord said you don't have to do it and I believe you, he told me I believe you mean that and I do if I could die to redeem it I believe I would do it the Lord said listen if you follow me you'll get crucified it's a bit slower maybe but you'll get crucified oh I hear people saying oh don't ever let him in your pulpit oh somebody said a while ago well let him in your pulpit but don't let him pray oh I thought that was beautiful isn't it awful when you get marked for praying oh dear Lord it's a corrupt generation and what the church has today is not the answer for this situation it's going to take holy men who have been shut up with God nothing else is going to do it we're going to have to go deeper we're going to have to be more sacrificial we're going to have to bear more ridicule the world is corrupting and corrupting outside and the church is going down the drain with it but oh if you're happy have some nice people don't be offensive don't preach too much righteousness don't preach against sin it's something isn't it God has a remnant and yet as I mentioned last week at the end in Revelation God says that is it the harlot is going to or the dragon is going to turn all the power on the remnant on the remnant we're going to be targeted more and more with doubts and fears I've had something burning in me for ten years and it burns more fiercely than ever to write this book there are times I can't go in my office I'm so awed with the awesomeness of God and the task that we're right on the verge of a tremendous judgment unless we have a tremendous earthquake in revival and people say why don't you pray and ask God to take it away, I've prayed for 60 years to get it, I'm not going to ask him to take it away I'm asking him to deepen it I'm asking him to intensify it if others don't want to that's your business but we're very very near to judgment, he's not going to watch us corrupt, he'll have holier eyes than to behold all our brothels 50 million dollars a year is made out of porno literature now tens of thousands of boys and girls have been brought into the porno trade and drunkenness increases and they're married and given in marriage married and swap your wife, change them like an old car and yet this holy God looks down I marvel every day we're not burning like Sodom and Gomorrah Sodom didn't have all the Bibles we have if they heard a preacher it was the wild old boy going down the street, Enoch, say 10,000 saints he's coming with or read 2nd Thessalonians 1 it's coming in flaming fire we'd much rather sing gentle Jesus meek and mild which was written by Charles Wesley than read this other hymn in which he says lo he comes with dreadful majesty those who set at naught and pierced him and nailed him to the tree deeply wailing sure there's going to be hallelujahs and praises we hear but you know it comes to this place it says in what is it the 5th chapter of Revelation there, there comes a time when just as a flood came down and destroyed there's no time to repent there's no time to get things right they were suddenly cut off, they screamed and yelled at the ark for lore and he didn't hear them he didn't even concern himself he'd had 120 years of ministry Babylon is going to collapse in a day, our sisters are going to collapse there'll be a smash in the stock market worse than there is and a lot of stuff is coming up but then what does it say it says, it doesn't say the poor men it doesn't say the Indians up in the South America up the Amazon it doesn't say the men in the gutters it doesn't say they're nobodies, it says the kings of the earth, the famous men of the earth the captains, the greatest intellects they're going to howl rocks and hills fall on us and what does it say in Revelation, they'll seek death and they won't find it when the judgment of God will come men will jump from the 40th story of a skyscraper and land on their feet and not break a bone they'll take poison they won't die, they'll show themselves, they won't be killed God's going to say, oh now you're seeking it now, you're not going to escape anything that terrible judgment is coming but dear God, what does the church care, if we really cared we'd have a prayer meeting every night, not for an hour, from after supper till midnight, every night till the glory of God comes, and I talked with some preachers this week, I found a bunch of preachers, the other side of Dallas who are desiring to do that they're desiring to really pray and seek the face of God and those are the men I want to be with and you want to be with so let's pray, pray for the Indians again for I don't know when when Spencer's going, I think he is going, and those Cree Indians are having a revival on the northern border of Canada, right on the farthest border the Cree Indians are having a move there hundreds have been saved in the last two months Joe Foss has gone, one team has gone up north and the other Joe's gone south let's pray for them pray for all the workers, team challenge, or world challenge however in the world they are but God is looking for some holy men, the most attractive thing in the world I believe is an incandescent man John the Baptist no money, no organization no choir, no anything and yet everybody went to see him exactly the same as in Azusa street, when people came from the ends of the earth because the fire of God had fallen, and I'm not going to be satisfied with anything less than that so please pray tonight, pull your hearts out for revival for our nation, for revival in other nations it's a desperate hour so let's go to prayer