In this sermon transcript, the preacher describes a dream of a great judgment morning at a camp, where the nations gather before the white throne for judgment. The preacher emphasizes the importance of using time wisely and not wasting it, citing the example of a man who diligently studied even while riding on horseback. The preacher also emphasizes that rewards in eternity must be earned and that there is no free pass into heaven. The sermon concludes with a description of the judgment seat of life, where people from all walks of life, including rich and powerful individuals, will stand trembling before Jesus Christ.

I used to have an old Nazarene teacher in Britain. He was the most eccentric man that I think I ever met, and I've met some strange men. One of the worst things I had to do was sleep with him. And it's nice when people get blessed in a meeting and raise their hands, but he got blessed at two o'clock in the morning. And he walked round the bedroom in that appraisal to God, and I tried to calm him down. Christians, yes, well let them join us, he said. But he got blessed on a streetcar once, and then he brought the glory of God. I was embarrassed to death, honest to goodness. I was hiding behind a newspaper, and people reading newspapers like this were going... And I was trying to calm him down, but he was a tremendous character, and he had a lot of athletic runs. And he used to say, if you don't trust and obey, you'll rust and decay. So, you'd better watch out. Let's read from the... The first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, the third chapter. 1 Corinthians 3, and read from verse 9, For we are laborers together with God. Ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me. Yes, verse 10, According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation. And another builder said unto him, Let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For up a foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire. The fire shall try every man's work. Notice what it says. Not what size it is, not what sort it is, not quantity, but quality. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, that he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. That's pretty severe. For the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. Last Lord's Day morning we spent what time we had, which is never enough in my case, considering the judgment seat for sinners. We think frivolously when all of life is over and our work on earth is done. Well, there's going to be a finale one day. But something is going to sound. The Lord Jesus said, don't get excited because I raised Lazarus from the dead. The day is coming in the bricks. In John 5 and 28, all who are in the grave shall hear the voice of the Son of Man. Again, as you know, the Word of God says, it is appointed unto man once to die, and after death the judgment. You can't send anybody in your place. You can't postpone your audience with God. You can't have an advocate there, a lawyer. It's going to be an awesome day, as I said, when he said, I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. With all that's going to come up in the next few days, with Mr. Nixon putting his version of the tapes out. There's one thing he never dreamed of, and that was that one day at the judgment seat of Christ, those tapes are going to be played. And we'll find out who did it, the Dirty Prince, whether he did it, or Miss Woods, or who in the world did it. One of the greatest camouflages in history, in American history, was the, I nearly said gentleman, I don't think that's the right name, Teddy Kennedy. When he was lost, he died, it was coming up. He wouldn't allow her body to be exhumed. He wouldn't allow the people to test it. He wouldn't allow her parents to come to the funeral either. Powerful money shut the whole thing up. It's going to come to light one day. The only thing that will keep you sane in a world like this, is shall not the judge of all the earth do light. And one day at the voice of the Son of God, that's going to be an amazing thing. You know, when Jesus was born, the one, and when Jesus taught, not too many people followed him. And when Jesus died, there were not many people there. It was a common thing for people to get crucified. The most disgusting thing is, there was nobody there on the resurrection morning, at least not one of the 12 disciples with all the vows that they had made. And so Jesus numerically, except when he fed the multitude, did not draw great crowds. But you know, this is the finale. There's going to be the mass of people like the stars of heaven for multitudes and like the sands by the seashore in Jundalus. Because everybody's going to rise at the judgment seat of Christ. John says, I saw the dead. He has a preview of eternity. Now listen, when you folk got married, you rehearsed the thing the night before, didn't you? Don't you think it would be pretty reasonable if we as believers tried to rehearse our standing before Christ in that awesome day? We're not going to be judged with that multitude of sinners. I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. People say sometimes, well if God is just, why is there a hell? Because God, hell is God's madhouse. There are people who are morally insane. It's a place where he's going to shut them off forever and ever. There is no mercy, there is no hope. And we're going to see the dead, small and great, stand before God. Sometimes I look, as I did the other day, a friend of mine has the Encyclopedia Britannica. And I thought one day those leaves are going to open and everybody mentioned on those leaves, from the Roman Empire, the Byzantine men, small men, the kings of the earth, the Caliphs of Baghdad, the Maharajas of India, the greatest statesmen, they're going to stand one day. They have to give an account to God for the life he loaned them. Can you imagine us sitting there for a million or two years watching God try everybody? Well we're going to see one day. They've liquidated person after person and got away with it. The Lord's been blind to them very often after all. Al Capone was supposed to have put to death at least twelve people but the government got in free contact. They never touched him for all his barbarity and devilishness. And the massacre they had on what, St. Valentine's Day? He got away with it. The man in the world said it's an unjust world. If you have money you can pull strings. Fear, prestige, power, money. Do not do a thing for us. We're going to sit back and we're going to see Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and the Judge of Judges. He is wisdom. And the world says every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. And I am going to say one of the greatest joys in it, stand at the judgment seat of Christ and give an account for the deeds done in the body. I remember just last week that we took a little of this. Maybe this is summed up best in a poem that I think was written here in America. I dreamed that the great judgment morning had come and the trumpet had blown. I dreamed that the nations had gathered for judgment before the white throne. On the banks stood a bright shining angel. He stood on the land and the sea and he swore with his hand raised to heaven that time was no longer to be. And oh, what a weeping and wailing. Ride for the rocks and the mountains. That's Scripture. The kings of the earth. Those men that don't know how to spend their money. What is it? The Rockefellers have what? Two hundred and fifty homes in this country? Billions of dollars? The DuPonts? All the other czars of wealth? The barons who own the banks? The word of God says that when they see him, they're going to cry rocks and hills fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sittheth upon the throne. So this is what it says. Oh, what a weeping and wailing when the lost heard of their faith. They cried for the rocks and the mountains. They cried. But their prayer was too late. The rich man was there but his money had melted and vanished away. A pauper he stood in the judgment. His debts were too heavy to pay. The gambler was there and the drunken and the man who gave them the drink and the fellow that gave them the license and forever in hell they did sink. And oh, what a weeping and wailing when the lost heard of their faith. Mercy is soon gone forever. In heaven they sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb. That will be wonderful. I don't find there's any music in hell. I'd make a guess. There's one chorus they sing and that will be from Jeremiah 8 or 9. The harvest is past. The summer is ended and we're not saved. The moral man came to the judgment. The birdie is terrified because acts would not do. The men that crucified Jesus passed off as moral men too. And so he goes on and he describes all these people who are going to stand there at the judgment seat of Christ. They're going to rise from every battlefield in the world. The Caliphs, the Maharajahs, the Kings. Those rich men that don't know what to do with the money down in Saudi Arabia right now. They're going to stand nervously trembling. Man if you're one of those nice people that doesn't shout hallelujah I think you might shout that bit. I can't wait to see Hitler bow the knee to Jesus Christ. And right after him maybe big fat Mussolini. He's going to bow the knee. He's going to explain why he ordered the massacre of people in Ethiopia. I'm going to see Napoleon and Charlemagne. All these amazing characters in history that never for a moment dreamed that when they design their great mausoleums what they're going to call them. That the voice of the Son of God, even if you build a pyramid higher than Shiites. That the voice of the Son of God they're going to rise. But it's the other side of the coin I'm interested in tonight. The judgment of the believers. So. We used to sing a hymn often in England. Ten thousand times, ten thousand in sparkling raiment white. The armies of the ransomed Lord may go up in streams of white. It's finished, all is finished. That cry against death and sin. Spring open wide the golden gates and let the victors in. What rush of hallelujahs will ring from earth and sky. What ringing of a thousand hearts will speak the triumph night. The day for which creation and all its tribes were made. As when he might have said from earth's wide bounds and oceans farthest coasts. Through gates of pearls stream in a countless host. Singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost, hallelujah. The man that wrote When the Saints Come Marching In. Didn't write it for that bunch of foolish fellows down in New Orleans to jazz and play and sing. Oh, I think of the unholy dead. God dipping down into just extravagant, wicked, perverted people. And then he dips down into France in the reign of the kings and then he goes to Spain. And then he goes round the world. He comes to Chicago's nightclubs. He goes to London with Soho. With its corruption he goes over the channel as it were. And he touches everybody sleeping. Wasted their lives in impurity and devilry. He's gonna bring the men that first polluted a girl's body. He's gonna bring the men that make millions out of drugs. He's gonna bring them brewers. He's gonna bring them all there. And if not one of them can bribe God. If not one of them has an excuse. Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful to watch Pharaoh stand there while Maltese comes up and witnesses against him. I rather like Moses. I don't remember seeing him. But anyhow, I like reading his amazing exploits. And one day I'm going to see that awful, awful man. Yes, sir. And not only see Moses, but I'm gonna see Ramesses I, Ramesses II, Ramesses III. Charlemagne, the great king. Rulers of empires. They won't have a thing. Everything for which they live has gone into dust. They took nothing out of time into eternity except a guilty conscience. And a hideous record of every body that they slaughtered down the ages. It's all gonna come to the surface and shall not the judge of all the earth do engage. But Paul here is talking about another group of people when he talks about that we shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ and every man's work is gonna be tried by fire. You may remember he says the same thing in Romans 14. He says, why dost thou judge thy brother in verse 10 or why dost thou set up not thy brother? For we shall stand. All stand. We shall all stand. He's writing to believers. He's gonna hitch that onto the second chapter of Romans. Because our past in the mercy of God has been erased. He's plunged it in the sea of its forgetfulness forever. Now we're not going to judgment to decide whether we go to heaven or to hell. The cross. Judgment passed for us at the cross, thank God. Now I could take a number of nights on this. I'm trying to write a book on it as a matter of fact. You know one of the awesome things in the little epistle of Jude with Satan? They're reserved in chains until the great day of judgment. Writing to the Romans he says, don't you realize that some of the saints are going to judge angels? Won't that be something? I don't know who they are. But someday the saints are going to stand before millions maybe of angels and angels are going to be judged. By mortals like you who have a resurrection body and a glorified man. Writing to the, let me see, where does he say it? In 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 5. And verse 9 he says, oh let me go back, verse 8. We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labor that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that every one of us may receive the things done in his body. According to that he hath done whether it be good or bad. The most sublime point on love ever. He carried in his shoulder that Roman garment what he thought was the death sentence of the early church. No sooner was Jesus born Herod said I liquidate him. No sooner was the church born and Paul says I liquidate him. And that man breathing fire. What you think I'm going to sit here and see the face of my father destroyed? You think I'm going to let a bunch of non-descript people that don't have an intellectual amongst them start destroying the Hebrew faith? Not on your life. I'll exterminate them, I'll put them to death. And that fire breathing man was so transformed by the power of God. He wrote one thing to himself, he loved, bared us all things. Oh, isn't that a thing? Isn't that a change? Doesn't that make you the most deceiving maybe now in your body? Paul believes that Jesus so loved the world, that God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son. I think he kind of got over that but I'll tell you one thing he never got over. Because he wrote God so loved the world. The apostle Paul says Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. Now that's wonderful. The love of God at least for a season stretches over all mankind. And then the love of Christ stretches over the church. But he says you want to know something more wonderful than God loving the world, loving the church? He loved me. Now let me ask you a question. Have you made love to Jesus Christ or do you only make it when you can? Love is the greatest motivating power in the world. And yet this man who wrote and said he loved me, the man who never forgot the fact that one day God reached over to the man, not a drunkard. He was even a super edition of Nicodemus. He said he never broke the law. He's a scholar, he's a gentleman. He's everything going for him. He says the tribe of Benjamin and the seed of Abraham. He's not only a Pharisee, he's father of the Pharisees. He says I'm a Pharisee of a Pharisee. I've got everything going for me. Oh boy. And then you know what he says? Well he did what we sing and don't do. You know what he did? He said my richest gain, my count that lost, and poor contention. Everybody was reaching for these honors and he says they're done. He becomes almost defensive. They're done to me. And though he overflows with love he says in the second letter to the Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 11. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we persuade men. I haven't read it. Some of you fellows should read that marvelous sermon of John and Andrew and sinners. It seems to me people are trying to tell me now that God is in their suggestions. They want God to cool it a little while. It's too stiff and difficult. I don't watch much TV but I did see Barbara Walters interviewing Dean Crosby not too long before he died. And he said he was a wonderful fellow. Teenage boys decided to have a weekend. You don't mean that in a day like this. You think you've got to change God and accommodate him to our lousy dirty living. You mean you shut the door in your boy's face because he slept with his girlfriend before he was married. Definitely Dean says. We're trying to turn things around. You see Paul here says knowing the terror of the Lord therefore we persuade men. It's going to be wonderful in eternity to see the apostle Paul. Let me go back to this text a minute here. At the judgment of sinners we're going to see the scum of the earth. Oh we'll see a lot of self-righteous people. We'll see a lot of people who will be goodies. But they rejected Jesus Christ as Savior and that's the only way that we get into heaven. But at this other judgment it's so different. This is not the judgment of the unholy dead. When you look at people and you want to shrink and say God the smell from them almost kills me. No, no, no, no, no. That's true. That's true. I can, I'm convinced we, one of the greatest before the judgment feet and watch God judge people of all the ages. If it takes a hundred million years for time is over, eternity has begun. God can take ten million years judging Hitler. So what? It will not be exciting. And all the characters in history. But Paul here is writing to believers and he says we're labors together with God. We are God's husbandry. Look, let's forget about all the sewers that God's going to pull the caulk out of and pour them all in some vast auditorium or somewhere and show us every sinner, every perverse, every liar, every drunkard, every... Let's look at the other side of the story and look at all the holy dead. Won't they be wonderful? I love reading mystery biographies. A bunch up there and I say, hey brother, look there. See all those wonderful men there? There's Gilmore of Mongolia, David Livingstone, but I'm going to see them all. C.G. Studd, you may name them. They're all coming to the judgment feet and every man... I think it would be interesting to see all the Johns. John Wesley, John Knox, John House. See a fellow there, who's that? Oh, that's John. We're going to see them all one day at the judgment feet of Christ. Won't that be wonderful? Ten thousand times ten thousand is a hundred million in garments white. Ten thousand times ten thousand. In sparkling raiment white. The armies of the ransom God. They walk up the streets of light. It's finished, all is finished. You can't pray anymore. You can't win souls anymore. You can't sacrifice anymore. It's all over. It is a finale. People up there, you know, Zechariah and Malachi. They're all going to be there at the judgment feet. And then we're going to see Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, eh? Well, everybody, eh? And they're going to see all the people in the Roman church. And the epistle to the Philippians. And the epistle to the Philippians. You know, Epaphras. Epaphradisis. That man in the book of Revelation, I thought of about two o'clock this morning. And I don't know a thing about him. Neither do you, so I'm underground here. Because the word of God, the book of Revelation says what? Antipas, my faithful martyr. Nobody knows a thing about Antipas except he was martyred. The devil's crucifix is said to be a crucifix upside down. So they took Peter and crucified him upside down. They once crucified five thousand people down the Appian Way. And we're going to see the twelve apostles. Oh, Mary and Martha. I'm going to have a word with that Mary. She's blessed my life at any time. You know, she's still that ointment on the feet of Jesus. It will be fragrant in eternity. And we're going to see all the heroes of faith. The people who were massacred in the St. Bartholomew Massacre or St. Valentine's Day or some of the Oh, all those people that were butchered for Christ's sake. I remember being on an island in the South Seas and they said the first missionary to this country was martyred right there by that rock. They chopped his head off. They put him to death for being the gospel. Yeah, it sounds facetious, but won't it be wonderful to see John Wesley face to face? And John Knox and even Calvin. All right, let's bring him in. And John first and William Bruce founded the Salvation Army. And those men who were the womb in which God conceived the revival away there through the Christians who were slaughtered in the box arising. You can't find out where they're buried. But you know what? God's got every martyr. He's got every name. He knows the geographical section where they're buried. And at the voice of the Son of God, they're going to rise. Now, that's beautiful. But listen to what Paul says. If anyone build on this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest. That's the 13th verse of 1 Corinthians 3. For the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work. Notice that it's fire trying every man's work, not what size it is, what sort it is. Now, pour a thousand million eyes and give them a count to God. And He's going to take the whole of your life of service and put it in a crucible. See, we say a lot about God is love. I see it stuck on bumpers of all the world is God is love. I never see a speaker that says our God is a consuming fire, but He is. I'm convinced in my spirit the reason the world goes to hell fire tonight is because the church has lost holy ghost fire. There's no way out of the world. So the sinner goes to hell fire, the believer goes to judgment fire. All stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And the fire shall try every man's work. Oh, this was very real to the people here at Corinth. Do you know why? Because they had class distinctions like we have. Because there were people that lived in lovely homes that were made of granite and marble. And across the track, people lived in houses made of wood and wattle. That is, they mixed clay and they mixed straw. And the rich got richer in those days and the poor got poorer. And there was a great gulf between the two. They didn't mix. But not too long before the apostle wrote this to the Corinthians, the city caught fire. It had the biggest fire it's ever had. And when the fire was over, the houses made of wood and hay and stubble were just so deep in ashes. But the houses that were made of beautiful marble and beautiful chiseled granite were still standing. And Paul says that's a picture of the day when God takes all the works of your life and he puts the fire of his judgment on it. Now, if you're built on a good foundation, silver, gold and precious stones, you'll be alright. But if your life has been showmanship, you've just done things to get some nice commendation from people. Well, the fire will try every man's work. Again, not what size it is, what sort it is. Now, let's put it this way. Supposing we give six people $10,000. And I say to this man, look, you go buy $10,000 worth of wood and you buy hay and you buy stubble. And you go buy $10,000 worth of gold and you buy $10,000 worth of silver and you buy... And they come back with what they've purchased and here's a man, he's bought $10,000 worth of wood. Well, if it's good mahogany, you wouldn't get too much wood for that. And I put the fire to it. What happens? It just filters down and maybe there's enough ash to come up to my knees. But, at $10,000 he invested, which is typical of his life's work, will not stand the fire. He invested in wood. Wood, hay, stubble are above the ground. Silver, gold and precious stones are beneath the ground. There's an awful lot of service done for God that's above the ground. It captures the eye. And you feel good when you've done it. And somebody sends you a letter of thanks or something. Well, that's all right. Listen, get this in your little head. If you do anything for God, He won't reward you twice. We say to people sometimes, if God has forgiven your sins, He won't demand it of you. He doesn't demand payment twice. Then He doesn't give reward. If you received your reward of men, you'll get no reward up there. Jesus based everything on reward. He said the Pharisees liked to stand at the street corner. They stroked their beards. They held their hands together. They said long prayers. Why? Why? They received their reward, Jesus said, because they received the praise of men. That's what they wanted. All right, your investment of wood. It's burned up. Your investment of hay is bigger. And you set fire and it comes down. And instead of ashes to your knees, you've got ashes here up to your chest. And then you set fire to $10,000 worth of stubble. And there's so much ash you can't even walk to it. But it doesn't alter the fact. None of them was able to abide the test of the fire. Now this man has bought $10,000 worth of gold. I have a little crucible here, an induction crucible. I put his bar of gold in. I press certain buttons and the heat begins to multiply. And what happens to the gold? The only thing that happens is the gold changes from a solid block to liquid. But it's quality has not changed. You haven't burned anything out of it. You get a thing of Hema Chorus that says this. Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me. All his wonderful passion and purity. All thou spirit divine. All my nature refined. Until the beauty of Jesus is seen in me. When a man is purifying gold, he stands over it with a ladle and he takes the scum off the top and throws it out, and takes it off and throws it out, and takes it off and throws it out. And one day he looks, one time he looks and he walks back. Because when gold is pure, it acts like a mirror. And when I look into that crucible, I can see the perfect image of myself. So he refines and he purifies us until he sees his image in us. This is the whole work of redemption, where to be transformed into the image of his son. But you see gold there is a type of devotion. You know people say sometimes, well in the previous study there of course, in Revelation 20, it says the books are open. Well I'm glad there are no books open for the Christian, I assure. You better go back to Malachi, it says in the third chapter, there is a book of remembrance. Gold is typical of our devotional life. I think when I was here before, I spoke on worship. One of the most neglected things, is to get in the presence of God and gaze on his holiness and majesty with feetless adoration. Prayer is preoccupation with my needs. Praise is preoccupation with my blessings. Worship is preoccupation with God himself. Tell me, when did you last bask in the presence of the eternal God? Not ask him a thing. Not pray. Not pray. Just gaze on his holiness, on his mercy, on his majesty. One day before a several millions, he's going to take my devotional life, and he's going to put it in a crucible, and he's going to tie it by fire. Silver. What is silver? I was reading on it today in the book of Psalms. It says in the 12th Psalm, verse 3, The Lord shall cut off all fluttering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things, who have said with our tongues, we will prevail, our lips are our own, who's lord over us? For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord, I will set him on high, I will set him in safety from him that prophetheth. And the words of the Lord are pure words, as silver is tried in a furnace. Did you ever sit down and contemplate that from the first day you were saved, and you became the property of Jesus Christ, he's been running, as it were, a tape on your conversation, and every word you said, good or bad, slanderous, worshipful, critical, I'm going to play it all back one day. Because the word of God says that man should give an account for every idle word that he has spoken. We're so prodigal with our words. I guess if I'm speaking at a good rate, I speak about 150 words a minute. Well then in 10 minutes I speak, what, 1500 words. And six times that in an hour is 6000, and six times is, what, 9000 words an hour. We're told the average lawyer uses 20,000 words a day. And all those words are accumulated. The good words, the bad words, the critical words. John Wesley said in his day that the greatest tragedy of the church in that day was that there was so much criticism. Unjust criticism. Critical speech. The word says, with thy mouth, thy mouth shall art justified, and with thy words thou shalt be condemned. Years ago we were going through Birmingham, Alabama. Stopped to see a friend of mine, and he said, well, by the way, good to see you. And he said, sit in the chair here. And I said, no. And I said, no, no, no, no, you sit in the chair. He said, I'll tell you something if you sit in the chair. Last night my wife said that so-and-so and so-and-so were coming to spend the evening with us. And I said, it's the biggest gossip we have in the church. So he said, I thought, okay. And he said, I pinned the microphone on the back of the chair. And I ran my tape around here, my tape recorder, and I listened, and I put thy good church and the pastor and this and that and the other, and she knew what was wrong with everybody except herself anyhow. And she had a great time. And she said to her husband, you know, it's time we were going, we should go across the city. And he said, well, my friend said, look, we'll take coffee before we go to bed. Why not stay here and have a donut and coffee? Now, you are a bit of a gossip, aren't you? And she said, well, she said to her husband, right, right, right. So he said, as I slipped out, I just turned like this, and I pressed the button, and I went in the kitchen, and she said, listen, listen, I didn't say that. Now, listen, you've given $10 for this. Give him $20, get it, get it. We've got to have it. He said, I walked in with a coffee and just said, do you take sugar and cream? And she said, this tape you're saying, this is what I've been saying for the last hour, isn't it? And finally he said, yes. She said, well, we want the tape. He said, we can't have it. I'll give you $10. We can't have it. I'll give you $20. We can't have it. Well, I don't want coffee or anything. I'm going home, and I'll never come in this house again. That was a mean trick you did. Well, he said, if you're so upset, I'll, uh... On the box, when she was going out of the door, she said, uh... You don't have another coffee, do you? Yes, I did. Just now you said there was. No, no, no, no. You asked me if I had a coffee. Well, who else has a coffee? Well, while I was recording in here, they were recording up there in heaven. And you've got to give account for it. We're so flippant with our words. We're so quick with our judgments. We're so easy with our criticism. We stab and we injure them. And yet all my words are going to be broken before a thousand million people. And then there are precious stones. What are you going to do with the precious stones? Well, the priest in the Old Testament, he wore a breastplate. A little larger than this. It was divided into 12. It had 12 precious stones on it. And there was a different tribe's name on every stone. And he went into the holy place of all. And he bore the nation before God in prayer. You say, there's going to be no books in heaven. Oh, yes, there's going to be books in heaven. You know, we all try to put on a face and appear we're more spiritual than we are. Don't you think so most times? And this is a great final judgment. This is the exposure. We're going to get our ratings in eternity. We're not all going to be the same in heaven. Forget it. We're going to be graded. We're going to have different offices. Different positions. A book of remembrance and prayer. Hey, Gabriel, bring the book of prayer for... Let me see. When? When was John Wesley saved? 24th of August, 1778. Oh, bring me the book of prayer for about 1650. And he brings this big volume and I say, Here are all the saints. Where are the agape for? In case you didn't know, we're the super saints. And you're going to judge us before very long. And there are all the Methodists. Oh, man. And there are the circuit riders. And there are men like... What was that fellow? Blackwood? No, no, no, no. What was it? The famous Blackwood preacher? I forgot his name for the moment. What a tremendous character he was. Son? No, Beddington was one, surely. But before that, there was another tremendous man. He knew God so well that he went to a cabin... He went to a logging camp one day. And when he got there, the men had moved on. You see, they had no telephones or communications. Peter Cartwright. When Peter Cartwright got to the logging camp, everybody tricked. But there was a big old place they used for a dining hall and they used to preach in. He didn't know. A man was walking through the bush and seeing him. And Peter went in and he lit the lamp. And he opened his hymn book and he said, Friends, let us sing hymn... There wasn't a soul in the place. The man said, I always thought he was crazy. I'm dead sure now. And then he said, Let us pray. And he prayed. He taught us. And then he prayed a tremendously anointed word. And showing again, you see, sometimes you have to do the thing which is contrary to reason and the flesh and everybody else's advice. And Peter Cartwright stood there and preached his heart out with anointing about being born again. There wasn't a soul. He blew out the lamp and he took his cold and he had his lull from his hearth. And he laid on the floor and he went to sleep. He was crossing Brooklyn Bridge a few years after. There was a big ungainly man as he was walking over. The man said, Excuse me, sir, aren't you Peter Cartwright? He said, Yes, I am. He said, I was praying for you. Do you remember such and such logging camp? Oh, yes, we had some wonderful conversions. Yeah, we used to get five or six people a night. No, no, no, no, he said. You went there one night. We had moved up the valley and I discovered I'd left my special axe there. You know, they didn't leave them on the floor. They stuck them in a tree. And he said, I said, OK, when it's sundown, I'll go. And he said, as I came to get my axe, you went in that building and you lit a lamp and I sprinted through one of the tracks. And he said, you said, everybody, we're going to sing and worship God. And you sang a hymn. And then you prayed and then you sang again. And then you poured your... He said, I couldn't stay long enough to talk with you. But I walked home through the forest. And before I got to the logging camp, I knelt down. Oh, you see, all those things that are known just to God are going to be rewarded in that day. All right, Gabriel bring the book of prayer. Gabriel comes and spreads the book. Revelation. I think he has a very wonderful voice. And he just pours out a record of that year. And one of the many preachers he talks about is a man by the name of, let's see, he died at the ripe old age of 28, David Brainard. And you read the page where Brainard says, I got up this morning and the drunk, the Indians were immoral. They were practicing sexual immorality and they were drunk and swearing and fighting. There was nobody there to pray. So he said, I went out in the forest and I knelt down and the snow was up to my chin. And I wrestled for those Indians from sunrise until sunset. This is a man with a massive body. He weighed about 90 pounds. This is a man who when he sneezes, sprays the ground with his blood. When he coughs, you'd think he had a flower in his throat. And you pick that petal up from that flower and stretch it, it'll stretch a yard because it's part of his lungs. But you see, one day he fell in love with Jesus and he says, does it matter where I live or how I live it, men perish. Let me live with eternity. Eternity's values involved. Don't get me trapped in materialism. Don't let me envy the other man, the other preacher. Give me the secret place of the most high and there I pull out my soles of God. Do I need anybody else's ears? We were in a certain town in Texas not too long ago. I talked about prayer and a lady came to me. She said, Mr. Raymond, I wish we could come about 80 miles down the road here. We have two old ladies in Texas. They're around about, I guess, nearly 80 years of age. And you know, those darlings, they're Texas today. Where are we, March. February was last month. 9th of February, three years ago. A friend of mine was carried through the doorway of his little house. And when they carried his little body through that doorway, it was the first time he'd been through that doorway in 12 and a half years. He had never been out to buy a suit or a shirt or anything. He lived and wore what people sent. The size didn't matter. He hadn't been to bed one night for 30 years. Came by himself. 10 o'clock at night, you'd see him slip up into that little closet that he had. Right through the night till 5 or 6, whenever the burden lifted. I walked in to see him one day. He was, I think, nearly 80 years of age then. He had a complex many of you girls would have been jealous of. He had flawless skin, pink cheeks, dark blue eyes, vivacious. God married him to burden. God married him to grief. God married him to passion. God married him to a burden. I'd like to have written a story short. Oh, I would have put some polish on that, but he wouldn't let me do it. One of my great joys, I guess, partly through my books, is this, that I get people writing to me who tell me, Brother Ranger, I wish you could come down here. There's an old saint here nobody knows anything about. And he's been praying two hours a day for the last 15 years and the last 20 years. You know, it's the saints of the salt of the earth praying people of the salt of the church. And if you want an expanse in your soul, then learn to pray. How do you learn to pray? How do you learn to swim? Do you sit in a chair with your feet up, drinking coke and learn to swim? Do you get down and you struggle? How do you learn to pray? That's how you learn to pray. You see, we'd all like to be saints, if we could skip base one, base two, get to the third base and come on for the home run kind of thing, eh? Jowitt said years ago, Jowitt of Charles Lane Chapel, Birmingham, made this statement, which I think is beautiful. He said, listen, the secret of Christian life is this, you have to bleed to bless. An experience of God that costs nothing, is worth nothing and it does nothing. So Paul here is giving us a warning. I, I struggled for years, honest to goodness, I, I struggled for years with a, with a scripture that says, God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. But the same book of Revelation says there are no tears. Well, there are no tears in heaven. I figured that out this way, that the tears are going to be at the judgment seat of Christ. As Don Quixote said, he said, Len, look, I want to tell you something. Number one, not many of us, if any of us will look God straight in the eye and say like his son, I finished the work thou gavest me to do. We've tripped over too many things, we've been diverted. We started spiritual, we entered in the flesh, we were spiritual, and we became soulish. Get this in your mind, you young people, look, the devil isn't going to try and get you to commit adultery, get drunk, steal, do all the other things. In your life, as a child of God, the good is the enemy of the best. And if he can get you tied up with good things, he'll be as happy as if he got you drunk. For the simple reason, you'll miss God's supreme will for your life. You say, well, I don't have to have a girlfriend. I don't know. That's between you and God. I don't know, I can't give you do's and don'ts, that's not the thing. But we're talking here about living with eternity's values in you. In World War II, I did a Padre's out, Chaplain's out, in one of the largest airport camps in England. As I went up the hill, up the mountainside, over there in the fields, there was an enormous mansion, it was no bigger than this place. It had its private racecourse outside. It was where C.T. Studd was raised. Do you remember the day when he had an encounter with God? He was the Babe Ruth of English critics. He gave about $30,000 to D.L. Moody to help start Moody Bible Institute. He gave another $50,000 or something to William Brood, who was struggling with the Salvation Army. And he set out dead flat with nothing, because he forgot, of course, God anyhow. You know where that man is, if you see it? The Cambridge Seven. Seven brilliant young men. And then when he came home, he was beaten, had malaria and whatnot. Fifty-three years of age. And nobody wanted him. He was washed up. But he said, I made a statement some years ago. It's Jesus Christ, the God who died for me. No sacrifice that I can make can be too great for me to make for Him. I'm only 53. I have three short years and ten. And at 53 years of age, broken in health, crucified again mercilessly by Christians who should be ashamed of themselves. He went to Central Africa and started the Heart of Africa mission, which today is worldwide evangelization crusade. Scripture says, Accept the corn of wheat, fall into the ground and die. This is the crux of the whole matter. If you like, you can go back into Romans, and you can say with Paul, I have a sinful self that has to be crucified. I have a human self that has to be controlled by the Spirit. I have a true self which can be released in Christ. And I can make my vow to God and by His grace keep on course. About the great people, John Huston, John Knoxon, John Calvin. But won't it be interesting to see the dying thief who got there with the last beat of his heart? John Wesley was converted at 35. Turned 35 round, it makes 53. 53 and 35 make 88 when he died. You think the dying thief is going to have the same reward as John Wesley, who for 35 years, or 53 years, poured his life out for God? Salvation is free, rewards are not free. I could spend the night on all the crowns that there are for believers. There's going to be a crown of righteousness. There's going to be a crown for the martyrs. There's a crown, the apostle says, which God the righteous judge shall give me in that day. And not only me, but all them that love His appearing. But there are going to be different crowns. Everybody won't have the same. Some over two cities, some over five cities. Who are they? I don't know, I don't care. But let me show you the investment of a life. As I said this morning, if you want to think of it this way, the royal family in England is like this. They're the top of the pile. This is the worst ordinary people. Here is John Wesley's family, the highest family next to the royal family. Now in my book, John Wesley was a genius. From being 35 years of age. In fact, let me go back. Do you know my problem with John Wesley? He was more spiritual when he wasn't spiritual than I am when I am spiritual. Do you know before he was famed, he fasted all day Wednesday and all day Friday? Have you got as far as that? No, we live easy. We live sloppy. Because all Jesus wants is love slaves. He doesn't want bosses. He doesn't want managers. He wants those who work together with him. All right, John Wesley is converted at 35 years of age. For 53 years, he lived a disciplined life. Went to bed at the right time. Got up at the right time. Did everything at the right time. He died at 88 years of age. When he died, just before he died, the IRS came after him. You can think they did it in those days. They asked him, what are you doing with six silver spoons? Well, you see, when he died, all he left was six silver spoons. A faded Geneva gown he used to preach in. A handful of books. Six pound notes worth five dollars each. He said, get six poor men. Don't give me an ostentatious tune. Oh, they've got a disc on the wall of Westminster Abbey now. They didn't bury him like that. The last 600 sermons that Mr. Wesley preached, he preached six of them in a sanctuary. He preached the other 594 in the streets. Nobody would give him a pulpit. He used his dad's tombstone as a pulpit. So what did he leave when he died? Six pound notes, six silver spoons, a handful of books, a faded Geneva gown. Something else, what was that? Oh, I know, the Methodist shirt. That is worth something. He didn't waste a penny. He didn't waste a moment of time. In the moonlight, on horseback, he'd be reading a primer, a Greek primer, or a Latin primer, getting his eyes down and quoting it going down the road. In the moonlight. As the hymn writer says, give every flying minute something to keep in store. You say this is bondage. It's blessed bondage, I'll tell you that. The angels aren't waiting till you just get inside the pearly gates to give you a six-decker crown and jewels and a free ticket to the marriage supper of the Lamb and the title deed to a mansion on Main Street and a few other gorgeous things the evangelist lied to you about. There's nothing gratis in eternity. We have to earn everything that we're going to be rewarded for. There's nothing free. Well, the time's gone. You know, there's another ministry I think is very wonderful. I've heard people say, now you've got money, now look, I wish you'd give us $10,000 for this thing we're going to do, you know. The Lord will reward you. Now, you don't listen to them folks at all. I wouldn't. Or let's put it this way. Here's a man, wealthy, so he has to be affectionate. And they bury him in a gold coffin because he's affectionate. And the pastor says, friend, I want to tell you something. You know, we have wanted money so long and Brother Jack Jones here departed the light last night. We're burying him this afternoon in the most beautiful coffin we've ever had. And I want to tell you this. He has left $10,000,000 for our church, our mission society. And the Lord says, oh, I wonder, somebody says, won't he get a reward when he gets to eternity? Well, I'll tell you in my book he won't get $10,000. Why not? Well, come and look at him before I put the lid down. Here he is, laid out in style. Good looking man. They've torn his checkbook up. He doesn't need it where he's going. So, he's left us $10,000,000. And, just before I put the lid down I want to remind you of the scripture. You say, he's given it to the Lord and he'll get a reward. All right. But it happens to say in this old English Bible I have, the Lord loves us not very dearly to me, I mean. And secondly, he didn't give it. He'd still have it if he was alive today. Death took it with a pistol point and said, give it up. Now, this isn't from Shakespeare. It's from an American who said, well, this is what you should do then if you've got money. Do your giving while you're living then you'll know it's not. It's not very classic poetry but it's rather sentimental. We're all going to appear at the judgment seat. Now, I know you're a strong Christian. You're very faithful and you feel so happy. Let me ask you just a couple of things. John Wesley lived 53 years of discipline, holy life. Sure, he made money. Do you know what he did with it? David Brainerd. Ooh, America is such a rotten country that we've hacked every abomination in this country. Tell me what we didn't hack. Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, go on. They were all born in this country. They cursed the world. Before you saw your hymn book out there, let me tell you something. Some of the greatest men that ever prayed were born in this country. I was through with this. I was in a conference. A lady came to me and she said, Brother Raven, did you ever meet Praying Hyde? I said, no. No, I didn't meet Praying Hyde. Did you meet him? She said, yes, at the 5 o'clock convention in India. What was he like? Oh, a marvelous man. She said, you know, sometimes we ask men like you, will you come and preach for us? We ask another, will you come and preach the Bible? We ask somebody else, will they come and sing? And all we did was John Hyde, we used to say, Brother Hyde, you'll be back next year, won't you, to pray? And she said, he prayed in the back room. She said, one of my friends said to him one day, Brother Hyde, I'd like to pray with you. Should I pray with you? And he said, yes. Yeah, come in the morning about half past nine. And he said, I got there early and I slipped in that room and I knelt down to pray and John Hyde came in and he said, I'd pray. Oh, I prayed the longest I'd ever prayed in my life, about fifteen minutes that I was dried up, I didn't know what else to pray about, so I slept. He said, I looked at my watch when John Hyde began to pray, it was ten o'clock. Do you know what the most eloquent prayer is? When you don't say a word. Hannah, never said a word till she got a prayer answer. And she said, he prayed, he went up into the heavenlies and then he stopped and we had just got going in that prayer meeting when somebody knocked at the door and he said, my friend said, well I'm not going to the door because I don't want to break this prayer meeting up. And I hope the folk go away anyhow, but they knock again and they knock a third time. And I didn't go to the door and John Hyde didn't go to the door and then somebody put their head around the door and said, Brother Hyde, you ought to give a bible reading on prayer. But her friend said, well that's about the craziest thing I've ever heard. He hadn't been praying fifteen minutes, he'd been praying a quarter to three. He started praying a quarter to ten, a quarter to eleven is one hour, a quarter to twelve is two, a quarter to one, a quarter to two, a quarter to three, what we've been praying five hours, it's ridiculous. Until I looked at my watch and saw that we had prayed five hours. One of the greatest men the world has ever had was John Hyde. One of the greatest men the world ever had was the praying patron of Portland, the man who had a floor in his bedroom like this and he wore grooves in the floor and when they buried him they found the unhoosed from his knees and they found that there were ruts in the ground where with his intercession he had worn the floorboards away. Well of course I could keep going for a long while telling you about the great men of this country who prayed. What thrills me more is that I know that a great wonderful, I'm not too thrilled with great preachers as such. I was in a conference, a great national conference of somebody and somebody said could we pray for the region and I said yes, let's pray, let's have a prayer meeting. We got behind the platform and we prayed. One man whose books you've read on prayer, a very famous man, squeezed up to me and put his hand on my shoulder and said Len, would you lay hands on me that the spirit of prayer would come. I don't pray. He was a speaker. He can talk eloquently about prayer. But you see prayer is the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try and prayer is so vast that it exhausts our vocabulary and then as the epistle says there in Jude says we really start praying then in the Holy Ghost. When I do not pray what I want I don't give God a shopping list. He begins to read through me. After all if you have a friend you can laugh with anybody. You can't weep with anybody. You can't have anybody share your secret. And even Jesus says my yoke is easy. My burden. I was in a conference one day with Raymond Edmond the great educator of where was he outside of Chicago there. What's his school? Thank you. Wheaton, Wheaton, Wheaton. And Dr. R. Brown said tell Dr. Raymond about your experience. All right. So he went down there to Uruguay I think. He learned the language. He was all ready to go. And down there you have to bury a person the same day. And so his wife ordered the grave to be dug. She only had one dress, a white one apart from the one she was wearing. So she took a wedding dress and she took some berries and plunged the dress into the berries and hung it up to dry. Went back and she started mopping his brow. He had a death rattle in his throat. It was terrible. And her mind was spinning. Why does this man with education and degrees come here and going to do a missionary job and the world falls apart. He's going to die and I'm going to die and I'm going to die and I'm going to die and I'm going to die and and I'm going I'm going to and I'm going to die and I'm going to die and I'm going to die and I'm going to die and I'm going to die and I'm going to die and I'm going to die and I'm going to die and die and I'm going to die and I sleep right through till half past eleven. And then I get up. I go pray, I go work. Rest a bit during the day. Why not? No matter what union you're in, it doesn't say if you go to bed at ten and get up at six, does it? You see, we live, even as God's people, we live very much on our five senses, and our sixth sense, which is nonsense. We're spiritual beings. God is a spirit. I am a spiritual being. I respond to God with a spirit. The only contact I have with God is through my spirit. You know what? If you listen, He'll talk to you. You don't have to keep a diary and tell everybody how many wonderful answers to pray you have. I'd rather God whisper to me and tell me to pray than somebody call me and say, I don't play golf anyhow, but supposing I did, and say, hey, come on, we're going to have a foursome, come and play golf, or come and do this, come and do that. That doesn't interest me at all. You see, life, what is life? Well, here you are, this is what life is. Life is an island of time, surrounded by an ocean of eternity. And you get off one way, but whichever way you get off, you're going into eternity. And if you start to hear your life, as one hymn writer says, live with eternity's values in view. You'll change your prayer life. You'll change the way you use your time. You'll change the way you use your money. You'll change the way you use your conversation. You'll change the way you use your everything, because you'll suddenly become eternity conscious. I have a sign in my office, Eternity. Somebody gave me a nice flat watch, a nice steel one, it's very nice. And I made up my mind when I go out west, I'm going out to Arizona, Shopdale, and some friends of ours, they have a shop, they engrave things. I'm going to have Eternity put on the back of my watch. So Walter Scott had engraved on the back of his watch, The Night Comer, when no man can work. Don't fool yourself, all Christians die happy. Christians die miserable. Lord, if you'd let me live a bit longer, I'd use my time better, I'd use my money better, I'd use my health better. Forget it, forget it. I've been trying to get that through to you for ten years. And you can squeal and howl and he won't lend me a life necessarily. Isn't it great that while other people invest their life in stupid things, Hollywood career, some other junk, that you and I can get in line with God's will and pray and hear his voice and sacrifice some for him and surrender our choices and say, take my will and make it thine, it shall be no longer mine. Or say like the old Scott, make me a captive Lord and then I shall be free. Force me to render up my sword and I shall conquer thee. I think in life so long when by myself I stand, imprison me within mine arms and strong shall be my band. You can't show me a man that God has used in history who has not been a disciplined man. You can't show me a man who somewhere in his career didn't suddenly get off the three foot end and dive into the deep fifteen feet, if you like, of prayer. And I said, you know one thing that I do want to be known, I'm not ambitious to be known as a good preacher, but I want my name in big red letters, ten feet high. Where? In hell. If I'm not known in hell I'm not much good. Why? Because the demons said one day, when some tellers tried to get them out of the man they said, Jesus we know. That's great isn't it? Every demon tells you the name of Jesus. But listen, they said Paul we know. And they said to the preachers who were trying to get the demons out of someone else, well who are you? Never heard of you. You know at the judgment seat of Christ I believe that God will bring the devil to stand there and witness against us. And we'll see how many times he cheated us, how many times he deceived us. On the other hand how many times we were more than conquerors through him that loved us. How he denied ourselves, took up our cross, followed him. Gave every flying minute something to keep in store. In other words we got orientated, we got the wavelength of eternity and after that the things of earth were all strangely dim. For to stand and look at our blessed Lord in his face there and say Lord as best I knew how, I did your will. You see that? Bring out the record. John Wesley would be leaning over there listening and looking and saying I wonder what those Christians did in 1978. Boy they were a slabby lot. They did more singing than sighing and they did more feasting than fasting and they did more other things than sweating and praying in the Holy Ghost. John Wesley was a genius. He had about a dozen men with against principalities and powers. They were as poor spiritually, not socially, not intellectually, but spiritually they were his equals and they banded together. Leckie a secular historian says when the bloody revolution swept over France, they swept the monarchy into the garbage can. They took a hog and cut its throat and put it on the altar of Notre Dame Cathedral. Another day they took a famous harlot and stripped her and stuck her on the cathedral altar just to, just to, well, spoil it whatever you want to say, desecrate it. And when they got rid of the monarchy and got rid of everybody else, every institution crushed it to death, they put up their tricolor, red, white and blue, liberty, fraternity and equality. And Leckie is a secular historian and he says this, that when that mighty river of impurity was going to sweep over England, God raised up a man. Well, God's looking for men today. We're in such a mess, governments can't help us, money can't help us, the bankers can't help us, education can't help us. Either God splits the heavens and comes down and gives us one great breathing outpouring of His Spirit, what I call a Pentecost, Pentecost, Pentecost. Oh, we're finished. Again, because I've got the answer, it's in Joel chapter 2 where it says, your sons and daughters shall prophesy, not the greyheads and the wise men and the rich men, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men see visions, your old men dream dreams, and on my servants and handmaids I'll pour out of my Spirit. I believe there's going to be such a gully washer as the old saint used to say, there's going to be such a rending of the heavens and a manifestation of God's glory and power right before a real tribulation breaks in. It's going to be the greatest manifestation of God the world has ever seen. Jesus will see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.