Three Prayers

I want to read some verses tonight from Psalm 51, the 51st Psalm, reading from verse 1 into the 13th verse. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

For I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in my sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Behold, thou desirest truth in inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Make me to hear joy and gladness at the bones, which thou hast broken, may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sin, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee." There are 70 books in the Bible.

Maybe they told you in Bible school there were 66, but they don't know. There are 70 books in the Bible for the simple reason that the book of Psalms, the Jewish hymn book, is divided in the Hebrew into five, which adds four to the 66, which again obviously makes 70. I think the book of Psalms is the best known and the most used book in the Bible.

If you go to Scotland, they sing Psalms every wonderful meeting they have. There are 150 Psalms as you know, and roughly half of them, 75, are written by David. Some of the Psalms are prophetical.

Some of the Psalms are historical. Some of the Psalms are autobiographical. There are at least 18 Psalms which are built around the life, the autobiography as you would say, of the amazing man David.

Out of those 18 personal Psalms, there are seven penitential Psalms. Out of the seven penitential Psalms, there is one which is outstanding, and that obviously to me is the 51st Psalm. It has no parallel in any literature anywhere.

I think the Psalm 2 is unique in its construction as you gaze at it for a few minutes, because in the first two verses here, you have three different words for sin. In verse 1, he speaks of transgression. In verse 2, he talks about iniquity, and he finishes that verse by talking about sin.

There are three different words for cleansing in this, in these two verses. Verse 1, he says, blot out. Verse 2, he says, wash me.

And in the same verse, he says, cleanse me. Three times in this Psalm, he mentions the Spirit. He mentions the Holy Spirit.

He asks for a free spirit. He asks, renew within me a right spirit. Three times in this Psalm, he mentions brokenness.

Three times in this Psalm, he mentions burnt offering. Three times in this Psalm, he mentions sacrifices. And the Psalm itself is actually divided into three prayers.

In the first prayer, he prays, the prayer of a sinner, have mercy upon me, O God. A little later in the Psalm, he prays the prayer of, I guess it's a word you've never heard, that when I was a young man, they used to talk about backsliders. They don't have any more.

We just outpoke out of fellowship. They're still backsliders. And the second prayer is the prayer of a backslider.

The third prayer is a man reaching for the ultimate, this side of eternity. He's asking for a clean heart. One of the great prayers, and many of the hymns are prayers, the great prayer of Charles Wesley's, O for a heart to praise my God.

And the pursuit of every religion in the world, is that somehow they might find peace with God, and not only peace with God, but that they may have purity of heart. And there is no other religion under heaven that gives it, except this marvelous, wonderful grace of Jesus. The thing that we sang tonight, there is a fountain, not there was, there is a fountain filled with blood.

Remember in New York, they had a very wonderful conductor by the name of Leonard Bernstein in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. He was quite a maverick. He broke about every law that he could break, that is of course in the musical world.

One day a friend brought to him a manuscript that he bought in Europe. Leonard Bernstein, in his own right, is a very brilliant concert pianist. And his friend said to him, Leonard, I want you to play this piece for me.

Showed him a dog-eared manuscript, he'd paid hundreds of dollars for it. And Bernstein said, I'm sorry, I can't do it. He said, of course you can do it.

You're one of the greatest pianists in the world. It's not that you can't do it, you won't do it. He said, I can't do it.

Of course you can do it. Now look, you kids either quit talking or go home. I don't spend time praying, fasting, seeking God for you kids to get up rough.

Bernstein said, I can't do that. The man said, you can, but you won't. No, no, no, no.

No, he said, you say this manuscript is 200 years old. You say it was composed in some great cathedral away there in Europe, and you bring me a piece of manuscript and ask me to interpret the mood, the music of a master that I never met. I can't get his emotion.

I don't know how he felt. I can't do it. I feel just about as helpless often when I come to the Word of God.

Years ago, a very envious preacher was watching a crowd of people trying to stuff themselves into a great theater in Scotland. The preacher wasn't having a very good time. People, there were almost acres of empty seats in his church.

One day he went to interview the brilliant actor, and he said, listen, I want to ask you a question. How is it I have hundreds of empty seats, and you have hundreds of people trying to find seats? What's the reason? The actor says, do you think it might be this, that I make artificial things look real, and you make real things look artificial? I said last night, a critic in the New York Book Review said recently, and it really griped me when he said it, that modern preaching has lost the awesome beauty and thrilling majesty of the gospel. I'm not offering you an option tonight.

I'm telling you it's imperative that you get saved. Well, if I were to read this, as it should be read after all, it's printed here in nice print on very smooth paper, and it's very well punctuated. It was punctuated.

The grammatical construction is very perfect. Supposing I were to try to read it to you like the man wrote it. He didn't write it.

He didn't dictate it to one of his very charming secretaries. He didn't speak it into an IBM machine. This, this, this, this psalm is not written with ink.

It's written with blood. It's not punctuated with periods and commas. It's punctuated with probs and groans.

When the man gave utterance to this, remember it is written by a king. Notice one particular thing again about this psalm is it is a monologue. He had committed adultery.

He committed murder to cover up the adultery. But there is no direct or oblique reference to the woman he committed sin with. Notice the emphasis.

It's a monologue. Have mercy upon me, O God. According to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgression, wash me throughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin, acknowledge my transgression.

The problem in the Church of God today, we all know what's wrong with the pastor and the deacons, but unfortunately we don't know what's wrong with ourselves. We no longer are prepared to sing, it's not my brother nor my sister. We rather sing, it is my brother, it is my sister.

I mean, I'm not holding up revival. Sure, I'm carnal. I don't pray very much.

I'm selfish. I've been heartbroken that Alabama nearly missed getting number one spot. That nearly killed you.

People went to hell yesterday. You didn't shed a tear about that, did you? I wonder if some of our churches aren't just great sports centers or great entertainment centers anymore. This man is in anguish of spirit.

All his joy has perished. He's still a king. He had a rebel son by the name of Absalom.

But he isn't praying about Absalom, trying to pull the throne from underneath him or steal a crown off his head. He isn't thinking about that. He says, my sin is ever before me.

I would to God tonight your sin was before you. The curse in modern Christianity is we're comfortable with our sin. David here is in anguish of spirit.

He'd enjoyed the pleasures of sin for a season. He satisfied his sex life on that gorgeous woman. And then he committed adultery.

After committing adultery, he committed murder to cover up the adultery. And suddenly he discovers that God is merciful enough to make it miserable. You may go out of this meeting tonight and say it didn't affect me.

Well if that happens, I suggest on the way home you order your casket. Because you're already dead anyhow. There's one thing pursuing this man.

Did you notice it? Have you considered it? I say he prays about the Holy Spirit. I say this man is praying with anguish. He prayed something like this.

Have mercy upon me oh God. I don't see many people coming to the altar for mercy. They come for help.

They come because they want to go to heaven. They come because some cheap jack evangelist told them if they came here and just prayed the sinner's prayer, God be merciful to me a sinner. They get a mansion on main street, a five-decker crown, a free ticket to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

They're going to rule over five cities and have immunity from judgment. That's about the best deal you could get anywhere, isn't it? Except it's a pack of lies, that's all there is to it. Have you seen many heartbroken people at an altar recently? Really weeping, really groaning.

David says a thing that haunted me for years. I never got any help on it until praying one day. He said take not thy Holy Spirit from me.

Why did he say that? Because there had been a very wonderful king by the name of Saul. He was the most handsome, gifted man in Israel. And one day with all the pomp and majesty they anointed him to be king in Israel.

They took some holy, some oil that was sanctified because the oil that they put on the priest was not the oil they put on the mobile things there in the temple. It was a different oil. It was a very precious oil.

And they took the horn of a, of a cow and and then they filled it with oil and they dripped, dripped, dripped it on the head of Saul, the king of Israel. Do you know what happened to him? He was filled with the Spirit. He was not only filled with the Spirit, he had gifts of the Spirit.

He prophesied. And yet the man who received the anointing to rule over a nation, the man who was filled with the Spirit, anointed in the Spirit, gives us the Spirit, he died a suicide. David says, my God, don't let this happen to me.

Do you remember after he lost the anointing of God, he did like so many other folk, he tried to find an answer. And eventually he ends up groveling at the feet of a dirty, spiritist medium. And he says, listen, I want you to bring up Samuel.

And I think it's the only time in history it ever happened. And the Spirit of Samuel came up. And as soon as the, the king saw the prophet, he thought, oh well, we were good friends, he'll have a good word for me.

And he says, Samuel, listen, I want to tell you something. The Lord has departed from me. Will you call upon your God? Not my God, he didn't say.

Not even our God. Will you call upon your God? I've lost everything, but most of all I've lost the witness, the power, the presence of the Spirit of God. Pray for me.

And the finger of the man of God went up like the finger of Nathan went up to David. And he says, God hath forsaken thee. And he ran out and committed suicide.

Do you know anything more tragic this side of eternity than a man who, a woman who at one time had a great, close, wonderful walk with God, and then somehow got fouled up with sin, and they grieved the Holy Spirit of God, and they haven't found any restoration? I remember a woman came out to an altar in a meeting we had in 1937, away in a crusade in England. I've seen some ugly women, but she was the ugliest of them all. She was as wrinkled as a prune.

She was about six feet high. She was dressed in black. She looked black.

She stayed at an altar and wept for about an hour, heartbroken, sobbing. I went to her finally. It was in a tent.

Knelt in the sawdust there, and I said, listen, woman, what in the world is your problem? You've been weeping here for an hour. And she said, I'll tell you what my problem is. Forty years ago I was an officer in the Salvation Army.

And one night I got into quarrel with another officer, and she wanted her way, and I wanted my way. And I went home and said, so that's Christianity. She was already a graduating officer from the Salvation Army.

She said, I was so angry I took my straw bonnet and tore it up. I cut up my tunic and I put it on the fire. I tore the pages out of my Bible and stuffed them on the fire.

And she said, from that day until tonight, forty years ago, the voice of God I have never heard. I heard William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, thundering out the judgments of God. And people streamed to the altar.

And I sat there like a stone unmoved. I heard that religious special the Salvationists had by the name of Colonel Brangle, the tender man preach. People streamed to the altar.

I was totally unmoved. Now she said, I'm seventy-two years of age. I've had forty years in the wilderness.

I have never read my Bible. I've never been to a meeting I enjoyed. I've never felt any emotion of the Spirit.

I've never been blessed by a hymn. I've never been in a church meeting I enjoyed. And God has never spoken until tonight.

I'll tell you, by the time that woman got up from her knees, she was a very, very different person. Oh, David had a wonderful experience, but you see, all his joys withered. You know, a lot of people want to be filled with the Spirit, but they don't want to be emptied.

They want resurrection life, but they don't want to die. They want to be clothed upon by the Spirit. They don't want to be stripped.

David says, don't take your Holy Spirit from me. There was a Baptist preacher who said, if God took his Spirit out of my church, my folk wouldn't know. We'd function like we do every Lord's day.

We'd go through the mechanics. We'd stand up and sing, take an offering, let the choir sing, and say something about the missionary pledge, and we'd go home. We wouldn't even know he'd gone.

Notice what he says, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Who is the Holy Spirit? He's not an influence, he is a person. He is the Spirit of truth.

And when he comes in a ministry that we don't see too much of, and begins to convict, because he is the Spirit of truth, he convicts of error. Because he's the Spirit of life, he convicts of death. Because he's the Spirit of power, he convicts of weakness.

Because he's the Spirit of joy, he convicts of the emptiness of our hearts, where there is no real joy. Because he is the Spirit of freedom, he convicts of bondage. Because he's the Spirit of fire, he convicts of coldness.

And there's nothing the church of the living God needs more, or maybe we need more, in this sanctuary tonight, than that the Spirit of God begins right at the first pew, and comes right on here, and goes right round, and begins to say, this is your problem, and this is your lack, and this is your need. Oh, this man had marvelous experience with God. Have you ever tried to visualize him singing on the hills of Bethlehem one night, when the stars were shining, and he's playing on his harp, and singing that marvelous 23rd Psalm, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

I'd like to have heard, I'd like a tape recording of that. I give about 10,000 other tape records that are not worth it, but I'd like to have heard him sing the 23rd Psalm. I think when he sang, uh, in the valley of the shadow of death, I will say no evil, I kind of figure myself, he was thinking about the time he went into the valley of the shadow of death to fight Goliath.

And we often forget, he didn't just fight Goliath, Goliath had a shield-bearer. Remember, he put five stones in his sling, at least in his pouch. Do you know why he put five? Because Goliath had four brothers, and he hoped they'd all come.

He'd have got rid of them all the same night. And remember, Goliath is covered with metal all over, except there, just, just there's a little spot, the little boy, he threw a stone at, and hit him right there. That's where the stone hit him.

You know, such a thing had never entered his head before. And, uh, he, he just went down like a log. Oh, isn't it wonderful? We've got the smartest preachers in the world these days, and they're just about the most powerless.

They went to seminary because Grandma paid their way. I wish she'd died 10 years before, but Grandma paid their way. And then they got a diploma, and they stuck it on the wall.

Well, do you know what? The devil isn't interested in diplomas. We've got the cleverest ministry that the church has ever seen, and the most bankrupt preachers that I know of. Yeah, you folks saying it's right, you're not preachers, but that's all right.

When the preachers get convicted, they'll say you're right. Okay, well, there you are. Can you imagine David on the hills of Bethlehem? Oh, it must have sounded wonderful in heaven as the little fellow sat there, and he prayed his heart, and he sang his praises unto God.

Maybe he was living as near heaven, and as high in spirituality as any man. But remember also, he wrote the 139th Psalm, which is one of the most devastating Psalms. It's one of the most challenging things ever written in the Holy Word of God.

Because in that 139th Psalm, he's more bold, I think, than ever he was anywhere else. He says to a holy God, who is of holy rise, and to behold iniquity, search me, O God. Dare you say that tonight? Now, come on, we're not playing games.

This is not a theater, it's not a show. Dare you shoot a prayer to heaven right now, and say, Lord, in the next 20, 30, 40 minutes, however long that preacher is, will you search me like you search Jerusalem with a candle? He says here in this Psalm, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

You've got to be living very close to God, when you dare to challenge him, to come and take your heart apart, and say, there it is, have a look at it. Search me. He doesn't say that to Gabriel.

He says to a God, who is of holy rise, and to behold iniquity, he says it almost defiantly, search me, O God. In this Psalm, he doesn't say that. He says, hide thy face from my sins.

Psalm 139, he challenges God to exposure. Here he says, don't, don't, don't. My sin is ever before me.

You see, he got a girl into trouble, and every time he heard a baby cry, the sin entered his own ears, as though it were his own child. He looked out of his castle, and there's a man standing to attention, and every time a smart young soldier salutes him, he remembers he put a man to death. You know, we pray very often for revival, but revival is the most uncomfortable thing.

You know what? I'll make a guess here, that possibly nobody in this meeting has ever been in a revival. We've been in revival meetings, but that's not revival. When revival comes, there's a plague of misery.

When revival comes, people don't say, I wish it quickly, I get home, because I want a hamburger before I get to bed tonight. Look, you won't forget, remember, hamburgers, or anything else. Once you see you've got something in your bosom which is worse than cancer, once you realize that that son, that daughter of yours, who is unsaved, is doomed and lost forever and ever, it'll shatter your life.

You're eating and you're drinking. I've said before, I say again without any fear, because God gave me one day in prayer, there's just one reason why we don't have revival. Do you know what it is? Because we're content to live without it, that's why.

We're not too worried with a bit of money in the bank. Look at this lovely church, or the church you go to. At the present moment there's no rationing of gas, but maybe.

I have a kind of secret feeling in my heart that God Almighty is going to wreck the economy of America, not to get sinners right, to get the church right. We in the church are not going to suffer for the sin of the world, the world is going to suffer for the sin that's in the church. Because there never has been a demon this side of hell, or any satanic system, whether you mention fascism, or communism, or Catholicism, or in the world you've got.

There's no human system can ever hold up revival, it's God's people hold up revival. Well, do you think you dare pray that prayer tonight, Serge Milgaard? You never believed ten years ago, would you, that within a decade 40, 50,000 homosexuals would march through, not 40,000 in four cities, but four cities with 40 to 50,000 homosexuals would march blatantly through cities. But the poor fellow that got murdered just recently in Frisco, wasn't he the guy that walked up when he said Mr. Carter walked down Pennsylvania Avenue with his wife, so I'm going to walk up and take my office in the capital of the state.

I'm going to take my office with my arm around my wife, who happened to be a man. I think the homosexuals may lie a little bit low now that one of their glorious number has managed to murder 32 young men after his devilish practices. You'd hardly think that there are 30,000 boys who are hired out by their parents for sexual pleasure of men in the state, I believe, of California alone.

How long do we have to challenge God? Again, I ask you, how long do we put on our coins in God we trust to hold his commandment? We've legalized abortion, we've legalized prostitution in Nevada, we're legalizing state lotteries. You see, the church is the offender here because we've changed the language. It used to be in the good old Bible days, this man here talks about iniquity, but we've changed iniquity to infirmity.

The Bible says sin is a disease. We don't say it's a disease, we say it's a defect. We say sin is error, missing the mark, the lonely.

Do you know what God says? God doesn't say that sin is error, he says sin is enmity against God. We say sin is a blunder, God says sin is blindness. I preached in a great church in Dublin, Ireland, right across from the Abbey Theatre where Handel played the Messiah first completely.

It's a stately Methodist church. And I remember that night a number of people came to Christ, even a number of Catholics. About two years after I was in a conference with the, well, the group that was founded actually by C. G. Sturt, and a man came up to me.

Do you remember me? I said no. Oh, I thought you'd remember me. Well, you've all got to look at me, I'm sorry you have in one sense.

And you could look at me, and you see me, and you say that's a great thing. I look at you, I don't know whether you're Mary, Jane, or who in the world you are. And somebody says, do you remember me? No, I don't remember you.

Very often I don't wonder, but anyhow. The man said, do you remember me? I said no. Do you remember preaching the Abbey Theatre one night? Oh, I remember that, yeah, three years ago.

Do you remember saying, I thought you were a terrible preacher. You said, I would like to touch a spring in your mind that would open all the sins of your life, from the day of your accountability, sins of the flesh, sins of the spirit, sins you remember, sins you've forgotten, big ones, little ones, but all your sins. And I'd like them to march around your bedroom tonight saying, I was born of your lust, I was born of your evil desires.

I said, I remember saying that. He said, wife and I went home. We didn't even take our usual cup of tea and cookies before going to bed.

And he said, we went upstairs, and I sat on one side of bed, she sat on the other. We sat there for nearly an hour, and she said in a sweet way, get into bed. You know, like husbands and wives do.

Get into bed. He said, I said, get into bed yourself. An hour after, why don't you get into bed? Why don't you get into bed? I can't, because Ravenhill said tonight, he wished all our sins would have a resurrection.

We sat a bit longer. Are you going to get into bed? Are you going to get into bed? No. All right, he said, I yanked the bed from the wall, pulled it back from the wall, and he said, I walked round that way, and she walked round that way, and we went round and round and round and round and round and round.

He said, about two o'clock in the morning, suddenly she crashed to the ground. And she wept and she groaned and she prayed. And then he said, she got up and said, I feel great.

Well, I don't. Well, why don't you pray? He said, she got into bed. I went on walking round and round and round and round, and then I hit the floor too.

And I began to pray like David, have mercy upon me, O God. You know, that's a wonderful word, mercy, isn't it? Hmm. Something I, I, no claim on God at all.

He could cast me to hell. He could put me in a thousand hells. I deserve every one of them.

And yet he has something which is almost indefinable called mercy. You'd have to go to Scotland to hear them sing the 23rd Psalm. You'd have to go to Wales to hear them sing a hymn that says this, Great God of wonders, all thy ways display thine attributes divine, but countless acts of pardoning grace above all other wonders shine.

Who is a pardoning God like thee? Have you thought today that the heathen in their blindness have been bowing down to wooden stone? I read it this morning in Psalm 115. They have gods who have eyes that can't see and ears that can't hear and throats that can't speak and feet that can't move, and they cry. I've seen them do it.

My son David was talking about when he was in New Guinea, talking about it today to some preachers there. They have their temples, they have their evil spirits. I remember being in Thailand and watching men kneel before the, uh, that great big golden, uh, uh, statue of the reclining Buddha.

Maybe you saw it if you went to Thailand. And they bring their gifts. They cry with their broken hearts.

The gods who have no hearts. There's one thing about this man, he is not fooling about anything. He's not saying, Lord, I made a mistake.

And I know you're a God of mercy and love. Three times in this psalm he mentions brokenness. He says, the bones which thou hast broken.

He hath got a broken bone in his body. In 1951, I jumped out of a burning hotel. Somebody asked me how many stories high.

I think about 300. Well, that's what it looked like at three o'clock on Sunday morning in my pajamas. In a burning hotel, there was no way out.

And I leapt out of the window down onto the sidewalk and broke my back in three places and, and this leg, leg in three pieces and my feet were in bed. I lay there in sub-zero weather. And a man came around the corner.

He said, what are you doing here? I almost said having my lunch. What do you think I'm having? He said, you can't stay here. I said, listen, I don't want to, but I want to tell you something.

He said, why don't you get up and go away? I said, because I'd broken my back and my legs and my feet. He said, I don't think it's so bad. What did you do? And there was a sheet of flame about 50 feet long, I guess, coming out of the bedroom I'd been in.

I said, I leapt out of that room. He said, you didn't. Well, I said, somebody's missed it.

I thought I did. He said, well, you don't need to stay here. Something may come around the corner, would you believe? Is this American humor? He said, if something may come around the corner and you'll get hurt.

And thinking he was doing me a favor, he put his arm under my, my broken legs and under my back and he tried to lift me. And as he did, all those bones just screamed. I didn't scream.

I bit my, bit my lip. I bit a piece of, a hole actually in my lip. But I'll tell you what, those bones that were broken really, really gave me hell.

And David says, when you have a broken relationship with God, if you've got any conscience about it, if you've got any tenderness about it, you want to live a day like that. You say, the bones which thou hast broken. Oh, we had a lovely prayer meeting tonight, before the meeting.

Tomorrow night I'm going to talk about problems. It'll be a very different meeting, I assure you, and a very enjoyable meeting. Not many meetings I have are enjoyable.

I'm not here to cater to folk, but tomorrow night we'll help you more than any other message maybe. And then we're going to follow it with prayer meeting, well, in the other chapel. Yeah, we're going to have it nice and warm.

And we're going to pray from about 10 o'clock till 12, or 1 or 2. But you know, I heard a man pray tonight. And he prayed with brokenness. I think the one tragedy about most of our prayer meetings, there are no tears in them.

I've been preaching for 30 days in the First Baptist Church in Atlanta. And I preached on the prodigal son one night, that was the third part of the message. And I said to that church, look, this message is not for sinners, harlots and drunks here, it's for this church.

You've no compassion for the lost. You live in Peach Street, where if you stop your automobile, a girl will open the door and sit at the side of you and tell you the price of her body. You've got to lock the door so the girls get in the cars.

At the back of the church is an enormous old mansion, it's packed, oh that's a sick word, with people we call gay. What in God's name is gay about homosexuality? It's the damning sin. It'll destroy our nation.

And I said, you have no compassion. The pastor's daughter, a red-haired lovely girl, was sitting there. If the pastor's daughter was selling a body on that street, would you have sat in this church for the last six, seven years without trying to rescue her? Or the pastor's son going to hell, would you have sat here? I told them I wouldn't preach that week.

I said, Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, we're going to put microphones up around the church and we're going to pray. Do you know the first night about a thousand people turned up? The second night maybe four or five hundred, and so the third night. And I said, I want you to make a pledge, not to me, not to Dr. Charles Stanley, you make a pledge to God that from tonight you want a broken heart over lost men.

That you'll do everything in your power to be here Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights. And then, when I go away, you'll launch a crusade, you'll find a place, and every week you'll go and rescue the perishing and care for the dying. I said, I'm going to ask Dr. Charles Stanley to pray.

I said, if you'll make that vow to God, not me, not him, you'll come and stand here. And I guess three hundred or more people came, sobbing. And Dr. Stanley came up, precious man of God.

Do you know what he said? He said, look, I can't pray for you tonight, I'd be a hypocrite. He said, the reason you haven't loved the lost is I haven't loved them. I've been asking God, get these dirty prostitutes and jailbirds and homosexuals and drunk folk out of the city that are cursed.

I wanted him to remove them, not give me love to reach them. You know, that takes an awful lot of courage for a guy with a church of seven thousand members and a lot of elite, beautiful folk there. But they started a rescue squad too.

And they go out every week now to rescue the perishing and care for the dying. You see, we say to people now, be very careful because if you sin, it will hurt you. And number two, it will hurt the person you sin with, but you missed it by a million miles.

Because the first thing that sin does is hurt God. The curses are light esteem of sin. I passed with a large church in England in the 1930s.

I was quite young then. I was going down the street one day and a lady opened the door and she said, hello, I come to your church often. I said, thank you.

She said, would you come in and drink some tea? I said, no, I don't have time. It's five minutes before five o'clock and I'm due home. I was living with one of the deacons and his wife.

I'm due home at five o'clock. She said, that's not the reason. She said, the reason is, you know, I'm very poor and I can't offer you very much.

I pushed her on one side. I went in the house. The reason I didn't want to go in the house was because it was about the filthiest house in that city.

It stunk like a sewer. The woman's fingernails were all dirt. Her hair looked lousy.

The house smelled. I walked into the house and she reached into the sink that was full of all dirty dishes and she pulled out a cup. She said, would you take tea? I said, yes.

She reached for a tea pot and she poured the tea out and it was as black as your shoe and I don't like tea like that and I sure don't like cold tea. I like nice piping hot tea. It was black.

She said, do you take cream? I said, yes. She said, I don't have any. She said, do you take sugar? I said, yes.

She said, I don't have any. And she handed me a cup and outside of it there was the whatever she'd drunk before all splashed down on the outside and I happened to see when she lifted it out of the sink there was some old dirty tea leaves or something at the bottom of the cup and she just filled it and she gave me cold black sugarless creamless tea in a dirty cup and she reached it over the table with a dirty hand. She said, drink it.

I put out my hand to reach it and as I put out my hand I lost all sense of that filthy house and that filthy woman and that filthy cup. My mind went 2,000 miles away to a place called Gethsemane where a man took a cup filled with human depravity and sin. The purest man that ever lived and he saw all the wretchedness of that wretched life of yours and mine and he shrank from it because he was so pure.

It was a far dirtier cup than I had to drink from and he said, father if it be possible let this cup pass. I believe every time you sin you put something in that cup and make him drink it again. David doesn't think he's just some stumbled around.

David doesn't think he's just made a mistake. He says, listen. In the language of a hymn of our day he would say, nothing in my hands I bring but simply to thy cross I cling.

Have mercy upon me. I don't plead the right of a king. I don't say, lord remember all the psalms I've written.

Remember I'm going to inspire people for thousands of years. I'm one of the greatest men that ever lived. He says, God almighty I sinned.

I'm in a sad state. I feel as though I've got a broken bond, a relationship between me. I don't enjoy your presence anymore.

Come on there's a hundred people here tonight. I've enjoyed your presence today. This book is no longer a love letter.

You remember you used to read it with joy and ecstasy. I preached only once in Marble Collegiate Church in New York. Dr. Vincent Peer's church.

The Thursday night before Good Friday. I preached on being born again and the woman there said, never heard a message like that in this church. But a young Jewess came up to me, charming, beautiful.

Signed too. Me and gave himself to me. And immediately the wonder of your own redemption goes off your spirit.

You're in bad shape. It should be the first thing we do with our waking thoughts. I don't get out of bed immediately.

I wake in the morning. I like to sing a hymn quietly in my spirit to God every morning. My last prayer is when I pray for my loved ones who are usually somewhere away.

And I say, Lord now tonight I thank you for protection. Wake me with thoughts of thyself. I don't think I ever wake up in my life without thoughts of him.

And I like to sing a song to him. He loved me. He gave himself for me.

Well I've got through my introduction. Now let me preach for a little while. All right.

I said there are three prayers in this psalm. And here's the first of them. He says, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to the multitude of my tender mercies.

Blot out my transgression. Take the record of my sin. Erase it all.

You know I preached around the world. I preached in some of the greatest pulpits in the world. Met some of the greatest preachers.

And I finished part of my education in the subculture of New York with David Wilkerson a few years ago. With prostitutes and jailbirds and criminals. There's a place to prove your faith.

I went into the, I nearly said the college chapel. I went into the chapel one morning and it was packed. There's some of the most gorgeous girls you ever saw in your life.

They weren't 50 cent prostitutes. They were a thousand dollars for the weekend. One girl came up driving in a white Cadillac convertible.

She had a snow white mink coat on. She came in with a friend and she said, Hey my friends on drugs get her off. David Wilkerson said you need guys.

And she burst into tears. And she took off that white mink coat and she said sell it. And sell my Cadillac.

I got five other mink coats at home. That's 12 years back when money was money. They cost seven or eight thousand and she got five, six mink coats.

And she got a caftan of jewels. And uh she got saved. She was a madam.

The youngest madam in the history of New York. She had a hundred call girls. None less than a hundred dollars a night.

And she said if you saw those girls go out at night at nine or ten o'clock you'll be sure they were film stars. They have gorgeous genuine diamonds and rings and furs and they look gorgeous. But she said I checked up on them last week and I discovered that every one of those girls when she comes home at four or five o'clock in the morning said the same thing.

I cry myself to sleep. Nobody loves me. You'd think the church today was a kind of club for the elite.

We exist for one thing only that's to take what nobody else can take and nobody else wants and see it get redeemed and cleansed and filled with the Spirit of God. I went into the chapel this morning particular morning and all the girls were lined up there and all the boys sitting at this side and little Puerto Rican smiled and he said oh brother Ravenhill here this morning. Brother Ravenhill's going to teach us.

We like brother Ravenhill coming along. Now everybody stand up and let's sing the national anthem. Oh good night sing the national anthem.

What do you want to sing the national anthem for in a gospel meeting? So they all stood up and he said everybody sing the national anthem. When they stood up he said now ready. Amazing grace how sweet.

Well that was their national anthem. And before we got through every girl's blouse was wet with tears and the other boys were sniveling and when he got to the end the little guy said let's sing it again but let's change it to when we've been there 10 million years. And I said why didn't you change it to when we've been there 10 billion years? Because it's going to last forever and ever.

But you know it's really great when you when you get folk like that. You know the government closed down a rehabilitation center in Lexington Kentucky not too long ago. They spent 10 million dollars trying to rehabilitate criminals and homosexuals and drug addicts and they confessed they didn't cure one and it cost 10 million dollars to have a failure.

But the government often invests millions in failures because nothing knew about that. But in this particular thing they got nowhere with it. And you go to a place like teen challenge and you say perverts and murderers and liars and drunkards and thieves.

I'll tell you what it really is amazing grace that saves wretches like that. One thing and I passed I preached with Dr. Fawcett I think the greatest preacher I ever heard and I was his assistant for some years. He was going away one weekend and he said to me you'll have to preach Sunday night.

I didn't want to preach but I preached. And I'll tell you what I preached I've never preached on it before or since. That if you will not forgive men they're trespass against you God will not forgive your sins.

It wasn't a big church it was always packed it seated 400 and it was packed. And as I went out there was a woman standing like this. I said good night.

She said no. Oh boy. Good night.

No. What do you want? I want to see you. I said well I'm here.

I'm not talking to you till the church is empty. Well a few weeks before that she'd been drunk and a man said a nasty thing to her and she knocked him out with one punch. And they sent for the policeman and and they said we'll get you out of here we've sent for a cop.

And she stood behind the door and as soon as he came to that was two of them laid out. And here I am with a heavyweight champion of Great Britain. Women's division.

Telling little me that she's going to talk to me. I said all right let's go in the office. We walked through the church to the office.

I said will it be seated? She said no. All right. Well I said I've been in church seven o'clock for the prayer meeting this morning.

I preached this morning. I took a men's class this afternoon. I preached my heart out tonight.

I'm tired. Do you mind if I sit? She said no. Won't you sit? She said no.

And she went to the door and she stood with her back to the door and folded her arms like this and you sure couldn't see the door when she stood there. She weighed 300 pounds. I said okay what's happening? Oh well what's happening? What happened in the meeting tonight? I don't know.

You don't know? Of course you know. She said you you just held me up to ridicule. You talk about drunkards and fighting people and and and folk that steal and and liars and everybody in the place knew you meant me.

I said I never thought of it. Yes you did. With all right.

She said you said that if we won't forgive our enemies God won't forgive us. Listen Ravenhill I've never spoken to my neighbor on the left side of the house for three years and I haven't spoken to anyone for five years and I'll go to hell before I speak to them. Oh I said good for you.

You go to hell. I'm going to bed. She said what? Well I said you've made up your mind.

You're going to hell. Go to hell. I'm going to bed.

I'm tired out. I just won difficulty. She wouldn't move from the door and I sure wasn't going to try and move but I'll tell you that for nothing.

So I waited a little while and she said again angrily. I mean it Ravenhill. I've got to hell before I'll forgive my neighbor.

I said well go to hell and let me go home. She just bowed her head and I knelt down. I don't know how long I knelt.

It seemed hours and then suddenly boy she hit the floor and that floor shook I'll tell you that. And she had a I think it was a handbag. It looked more like a suitcase but it was a thing about this size and she opened it.

She put out cigarettes, matches, lipstick, some gambling tickets, a book of tickets that would take her into a movie house for so long and some matches. Oh boy I thought what a thing. Just like a woman start cleaning a handbag here of all places.

I said what are you doing? Do you know those tears, those eyes that hadn't wet for years were sore with weeping and she said this amazing thing. She said Ravenhill if I'm coming to Jesus I'm coming clean. Got rid of her smoke, her matches, her lipstick, her gambling tickets, movie tickets.

You know when she got up my goodness she was radiant. I began to fear for my life. I feared for my life at first and I thought she's going to explode.

I was going to get killed the other way. She was so excited. She was so thrilled.

I feel great. Something happened in here. I feel all new and clean and good boy.

Oh it's wonderful. I said go home and tell your husband. He was excited and a drunkard.

She went home and put things straight with her neighbors. About three months after I preached on hell and she went home and at two o'clock in the morning she was sobbing and her husband said what's wrong with you Annie? Are you all right? Yes. What are you crying for? Ravenhill said oh yes it's always Ravenhill.

What did he say this time? He said if we're not really born again of the Spirit of God we'll perish. We'll go to hell forever. You can live in a godly home and yet perish.

You can have a godly father, a preacher, a father, a praying mother and yet perish. Now I don't understand. This is beyond me.

She said you know we've been happily married. I didn't think they'd have five minutes of happiness. They were always fighting but she said we've been happily married and I don't want to go to heaven and you go to heaven.

She said shut up and go to sleep. Half hour afterwards she was still weeping. An hour after she was still she was still weeping.

The next morning she was at our house. We were bacheloring at that time. Dr. Fawcett and I. There's a knock at the door.

I went and she said can I come in? I said sure. Do you want a cup of tea? She'd walked about a mile. All the 300 pounds uphill.

I don't know how she made it. Bottom gear I guess but anyhow she came up and she said you didn't hear the news did you? I said no. It sounds exciting.

She said yes about three o'clock this morning and she told me what I've told you. She said my husband's at the bedclothes and away they went and he jumped over the end of the bed and he said God be merciful to me a sinner. And my drunken swearing glass beaming husband gave me a hug and and and we just about danced in that bedroom and she said I've got a saved husband now.

About a month after that on the Monday morning again she was there. When I opened the door the tears coursing down her face. Oh I said come in let me get you some tea.

No I don't want it. Did you hear the news? No no no I didn't. She said last night my husband went to the coal mine and and the roof came in and they scraped him off the floor and put him in a sack.

They won't let me see him. He's in his casket and she said you know it's very strange. One minute I feel all torn up inside and another minute I feel so full of joy and praise.

She said you see if I hadn't done what God told me to do and go to my neighbors and forgive them and get straight and then he got straight I sure would be weeping this morning he'd have gone to hell. But you see a month ago he got saved all because I did the right thing. You know we set some dangerous precedents.

What did David do? He committed adultery. Then what did he do? He committed murder to commit discovery adultery. What did he do later? He came home one day and as he went into his mansion there was a body and he said turn it over whose is the body? It's my son.

What did he sow? Murder. What did he reap? What did he sow? Murder. In his own family.

What did he do? Commit adultery. What did he reap? Same thing in his own family. You better watch it.

Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. Have mercy upon me. You know we treat sin very lightly.

Did Adam sin before he got kicked out of the Garden of Eden? As far as I know once. A woman came in adultery to Jesus and Jesus says well you'd make a good Christian if you'll commit adultery only once a week instead of every day. What did he say to the woman? Go and sin no more.

And yet we sin and repent every day. You know most of us would make real good Catholics because that's what they do and Mohammedan. Christianity is not a sinning religion it's a victorious religion.

I was in a very famous conference a while ago there was a national speaker there and in his church they happen to say this every every Lord's day they recite a creed that says this we have sinned today in thought and word and deed. Well the devil couldn't do more than that could he? We've sinned today in thought word and deed but they also sing the idiom which says vouchsafe oh Lord to keep me this day without sin. You hear people you see a speaker on an automobile sinner Christians aren't perfect just sinners patched up or something.

Oh come on yes. I've enjoyed being with your pastor he's a delightful person to be with. He's rather unique he's a married bachelor.

Ask his wife. Oh you say you're fooling he can't be married and be a bachelor well can you be a sinning saint? I have another friend he's a truthful liar. Oh and I have another one he's an honest thief.

You say listen you're in one camp of the other well so are you you're either a sinner or a saint you can't be a sinning saint there's no such thing. He that is born of God does not commit sin he does not habitually commit sin if he commits sin he has a broken heart over it the other man commits the same sin and he goes on and does it again but he the believer realizes he's hurt God's feelings and he's transgressed what does he do? If he's truly man of God he has a broken and a contrite heart about it. He doesn't blame Bathsheba or something he says it's me oh God I did it.

We've been singing we're gonna sing it tonight a lovely hymn written by an American millionaire who lost his four daughters all in one day and he wrote that lovely hymn when peace like a river H.G.

Stafford the first stanza says when peace like a river the second stanza says if satan should love it the third stanza I think is superb Wesley didn't do any better he says my sin all the bliss of this glorious thought my sin not in part but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more there is no other religion under God's heaven where a man's God comes and lives inside of him my faith it doesn't make me live in heaven it lives in me Paul says the life which I now live in the flesh Sturgeon said you know a little bit of faith will bring you to heaven a little more faith will bring heaven to you David prayed the prayer of a sinner oh I don't know anything more joyful than seeing a man emancipated from the power of sin and he may be brilliant he may be a scholar and he may have

kept his marriage vows and he maybe doesn't lie and do any evil practices in business but I remember one of the most scholarly men I'm through on this section here one of the most cultured men England ever had are the most cultured brothers Charles Wesley and John Wesley when Billy Graham came to London on about his second trip about 5,000 people met him in the Victoria station and they sang Charles Wesley's hymn lifted the rafters it was reported all on the on the tv it was reported in all the newspapers that that old railway depot with it with it it shook as as about five or six thousand people began to sing Charles Wesley's hymn and can it be that I should gain an interest in the savior's blood died he for me who caused his pain for me who him to death pursued amazing love how can it

be that thou my god should die for me and then they sang the other the other stanza long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night thine eye diffused a quickening ray I woke the dungeon flame with light my chains fell off when you say to some people are you saved they say I don't really know if you were carrying a hundred pound weight on your back and somebody and somebody met you and said has somebody taken the weight off your back you say I don't know I'll feel oh yes I didn't notice it had gone you clown if you were carrying a hundred pound weight on your back and somebody snapped it off you know the very moment it was taken in the very place that it was taken if you were tied up in a dark room with chains and the chain was fastened to the wall and in case you got

away there's a man there with a two by four gonna clobber you on the head and somebody came and clobbered him and smashed the chains and took you out in daylight do you think you might happen to know you're in daylight instead of a dirty lousy cell without any light do you think you'd happen to know the chains have gone you know would you would you would you have to be told that the man no longer had dominion over you well man alive if you get saved one of the great things about being saved is I don't need anybody to tell me because he bears witness with my spirit because I passed from darkness to light and from the power of satan unto god and I'm not dead anymore do you think lazarus knew when he came out of the grave do you think mary went on one side and and his sister and the other

one and said hey buddy you're alive we've got a thousand a hundred lazarus's here tonight you know why because jesus went and spoke lazarus he says he cried with a loud voice lazarus come forth and he came forth you know how he came forth i'll show you he came forth like this how do you know because the bible says he was alive but the grave clothes around him we've got thousands of baptists and and even pentecostals who are alive so they still have the grave clothes on and jesus says lose him he was alive but he's bound he can't get his feet going or his hands going on his muscles he can't talk properly come on we've got a hundred people here tonight with grave clothes on you're bound with fear and you're bound with religious customs and you're bound with habit and you've got life just a

little spark and you just need one more touch to be free boy some gospel to preach isn't it huh you know beggar boys on tv always begging nothing listen we've not only got the biggest gospel in the world we've got the only gospel in the world jesus is not a savior he is the savior and then of course there's the other prayer restore unto me the joy of thy salvation martin luther called the devil the ape of god he imitates and you know what we do when we haven't enough joy you know the devil substitutes it for joy entertainment amusement and most of us have more fun watching some lousy tv show than ever we do in prayer in the house of god restore unto me the joy of thy salvation the fruit of the spirit is not joy jesus says to his disciples i'm going to leave you but listen i want to tell

you something i not only give you joy i'll get my you my joy and listen no man taken it from you you know some of us you young folks you have a great future coming you can possibly end up in concentration camp and when you are i'll be up there looking down on you so cheer up but uh do you have what it would take to to to to go in a lousy concentration camp for the next two or three years you know that poor world outside's a pretty dumb foolish place you see they can put us in prison they can wall us in but in case you get there remember this so while they can wall us in they can't roof us in i've got when you look out in the world tonight it's a pretty dark lousy world even the politicians are getting honest so we must be near the end of time and and last night they told us that it's a

very gloomy prospect for 1979 it sure is oh yes the outlook is very dark but listen the upload is glorious all the joy the world has it's going to end before very long and ours is just going to start isn't that great we've got a foretaste of glory divine right now oh boy when we get the whole load what's it going to be like man if you didn't have a glorified body you'd explode that's right the last benefit we get from god is a body like unto his glorious body won't that be wonderful david says restore unto me the joy where is the blessedness i knew when first i saw the lord where is the so refreshing view of jesus and his word what where's that feeling i used to have and those memories that now i have an aching void the world can never fill you know i'm i'm i'm i'm rough at times but i

kind of figure right now most of our churches are full of empty people so very little joy restore unto me the joy i was in a meeting a while ago the girl came to the altar beautiful looking girl about 17 i guess she's golden braids and she knelt there along with a lot of other people and we stayed helping people and it was 11 o'clock at night somebody said could you help that girl she's been weeping for an hour and we can't get anywhere with her so i went and i said listen it's time to quit weeping what's your problem she said mr ravenhill i sing in the choir i'm a sunday school teacher i'm a youth teacher i collect money for missions my mother thinks i'm the greatest thing on earth but you know for 15 months i've had no joy i went into a shop down the street and there was a lovely

swimsuit and i looked at it you know you look and you covet it i went in the second time i went in and it wasn't on that old dummy there it was on the edge of the couch and i picked it up and slipped it under my coat and i went home and told mother i found it you see here's the mystery of the spirit of god she said in the middle of the meeting tonight your voice died away and i was wishing oh god i wish you'd quit preaching she said i think a hundred or a thousand times the holy spirit said swimsuit swimsuit swimsuit swimsuit swimsuit swimsuit swimsuit i never mentioned swimsuit and the lord said the reason you lost your joy number one you took the swimsuit number two you lied about it number three you're content to live in that misery well i said are you prepared to go back to the shop

where you're still listen i said i don't have much money but i'll give you a dollar or two towards it and i'll get your mother oh no no no no my mother doesn't know anything about this good night i go you're gonna leave me i said sure sure i'm not gonna lie to you the word of god says you've got to put it right with other people bring forth fruit meat for attention but my mother's more proud i don't care if you're who you're whether it is your mother here and she looked around she said she's the lady at the back with the big cartwheel hat on i said to a fellow hey you get the lady with a cartwheel hat down here quick mother came back down and she said uh hello mr raven i enjoyed your service tonight and she said uh i said uh neil by your daughter oh my daughter's here what is she doing

she's the best girl she sings the best she collects money she teaches what is she doing here uh i said she's a thief what my daughter's no thief tell your mother she said mother you know that swimsuit that gorgeous swimsuit i didn't find it i stole it you stole it i said mother get down on your knees and not be so sanctified and sanctimonious and your girl needs your help put your arm around her shoulder tell your helper to make restoration and thank god she's honest enough to get cleaned up kneel here you know the mother stood there for a minute then she went i was scared she'd break him too before she hit the ground do you know what that girl did she said lord i acknowledge my transgression restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and as if you pulled the switch she jumped up and she

ran down the church and said hey preacher my joy has come back she said what she said i've been cheating for for 15 months i've had no joy i've been teaching a class it was a burden to me i've had no joy i i stole a swimsuit and i grieve the spirit of god you see you've got options about the spirit of god you can obey him you can grieve him you can resist him you can quench him i looked at that girl like the man in act three leaping for joy i got up and i was putting my my clothes on i put my arm through one sleeve and i was getting the other and the man said huh would you would you have the lady at the altar oh the cartwheel lady yeah i went to her and i said she wasn't at the altar when her daughter said i cheated with my mother for all that time my mother said this i was very upset

when my daughter told me she cheated for 15 months but she said mr rayville in the middle of the meeting tonight your voice died away and i heard a voice saying sewing machine sewing machine sewing machine sewing machine i didn't mention sewing machine who did spirit of god she said you realize my daughter cheated me for 15 months i have a mother at home over 80 years of age i've cheated her for 15 years about a sewing machine and i've got to go home and confess and put that thing right what do you do what you saw you read the mother cheated her mother the daughter cheat this mother why is your child cheating you because maybe somewhere you cheated something you never put it right and as i said last night you've no right to expect your children to obey you if you want to obey god you're

reaping what you've sown you're reaping on the natural level what you've been sowing on a spiritual level restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit then will i teach transgressors thy ways and then he preaches he prays finally the most marvelous prayer of all he realizes it's not enough to get a clean slate it's not enough to feel that joy come back he says oh god there's some cancer in there oh i don't know how to express it there's no human language can the holy ghost would have to tell you about it but you've got something worse in your heart tonight than cancer in your body the carmel mind is enmity against god it resists god it fights to have its own way instead of obeying god's way and david says create in me a clean heart of god and and renew a

right spirit within me well that's out of reach i like the hymn we sang tonight there is a fountain filled with blood if i remember right it was written by a slave trader a man who used to raid the coasts of africa and and drag babies out of the arms of the mothers and drag young wives away from the husbands and chain them all up and eventually he became so bad and vile that he became a slave too he committed enough sin to kill to send a thousand people to hell but he said there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from emmanuel's vein and sinners plunge beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains if you're a sinner tonight you need to pray this because you're at enmity with god because you're a rebel against god because this book doesn't mean a thing to you because you sing about

the cross you'll be better never to sing another word about the cross don't even take it on your lips till you repent because you receive a greater condemnation for knowing about it not obeying restore unto me the joy of thy salvation oh to get the songbirds back in your heart oh for a closer walk with god a calmer heavenly frame a light that shines upon the road and leads me to the lamb but christianity is the most shattering thing on earth you say mr raven you're going right over my head tonight i i never committed adultery and i never murdered anybody oh let me say two things i'm through i preached in a conference a holiness conference up in michigan a few years ago the other speaker was a big handsome american years ago he gave his life for the indians and all the reservations i think

there are about 400 of them in america and canada and he knows everyone and he came to share some experiences and he said i went into one camp and the worst young man on the reservation i don't know his name you know some fancy name eagle feather or somebody he said he was the most licentious lousy man he'd raped so many women he'd been involved in fights in drunkenness in raids and other everybody even wicked men cringed when they saw him and he said would you believe one night as i preached about the finished work of jesus christ that jesus can not only forgive a lot of rotten sins there but he can clean out all the festering hideous carmel devilish things in the heart and do what we sang about tonight that blood do you remember you sang about it the blood that can make us whiter than

snow you say how can i don't know how david knew but science said in every flake of snow there is one spot of dirt that coming down through the skies every flake of snow gets at least one spot of dirt and david says if you wash me there won't even be one spot there i'd be whiter than snow he said that man came he confessed his drunkenness his fighting his immorality his murder and everything and the whole whole of that reservation felt that god had done a miracle he said i went about back about three years after when i got there a man met me and he said you heard about eagle feather no what about him he's in jail for what well uh he fouled up the daughter of another chief on another chief's camp my friend said he didn't yes he did he's in jail for it he admitted he'd done it he didn't do

it my friend said he said the next day i went down saw the chief in the reservation got to know where the man was went to the jail and as he went there the jailer said to him hey do you know this eagle feather yeah what about him he said he's the most amazing man we've ever had in this place he said you know he's been here now oh i don't know a year two years maybe and he said the whole prison's changed they used to curse tell dirty stories lie he said at night they sing hymns they read the bible he's got about 10 of the worst men in jail converted and he said when i went in hi how are you hallelujah he said fine how are you eagle feather fine well what are you doing here oh i commit adultery with beautiful princes no you didn't yes i did no you didn't i got a sentence i i've at least

another year two years to do my preacher friend said no you didn't he said no i didn't well then why did you take the rap for it you didn't even put your hands on that girl did you no you didn't have sex relations with that girl no and yet you took a jail sentence for it well i was coming around the side of the lake on my horse having singing some hymns being having good time with some other indians and i came around and beautiful princess coming out of the water no clothes on now i stay my horse behind three and look a second time at that beautiful girl and jesus say if you look on a woman to lust you've committed adultery and that one moment i saw that gorgeous woman i i felt a response oh i felt ashamed seemed as though the light went out seemed as though the song died in me and i knew

i'd looked on her to lust it transpired that after he came past on his horse another man came down and saw that girl and he'd seen the young indian watching the girl who was nude and the man went and raped the girl and put the blame on the indian and the indian took it because he said i committed adultery in my heart if you were always honest about committing adultery that way there'd be a lot of folk at this altar tonight i think well you say i'm not bothered that way but jesus says if you get angry real mad and you say you know if i could really get away with it i'd really murder that you've already done it let me wind it up with this you remember well you won't remember the story of no building an ark and when the water subsided he opened the window and he let a bird out i wish he

hadn't let that bird out it was a raven but the bird went out it's a carnivorous bird oh boy as far as that bird was concerned the millennium had started there was food everywhere bodies floating a raven won't steal meat what pardon me it won't steal seed out of your garden it won't eat your lettuce it only eats flesh and everywhere the bird went there was a body it ate and it never came back and a day after a couple of days after he opened the same window and he let a dove out but a dove won't eat flesh it's a unique bird number one it only marries once number two it has no gallbladder it has no bitterness number three that if it approaches something it not only will it not settle on anything dead the smell of death turns it away and as soon as that dove what as the hymn writer says like

the wandering dove that found no repose on earth around he flew straight back to the window he says i'm not comfortable here all there is is the smell of death corruption i'm going back where i belong and you say i've i've asked god so many times to fill me with his spirit and he doesn't why because you're full of corruption that's why because you're full of pride and enmity and jealousy the dove won't settle where there's flesh the holy spirit won't settle he'll bear witness that you'll say but he won't come up and take his masterful abode and direct your life while the self-seeking self-interest self-pity pride jealousy anger laziness indifference no no i hear people say sometimes my husband and i took the lord into partnership that's a terrible thing to do he doesn't want partnership

he wants ownership the dove went out there was nowhere to settle nor looks in there the little thing's beating its wings against the window and he takes it in he can't stay where there's corruption that's why i went through revival get looked and one of these nights i'll do it maybe tonight i i'm not gonna pet you i'm not gonna pat you on the back i don't have to write any reports to headquarters because i've no headquarters i don't write statistics i'm not interested in them but i'll tell you what when jesus went to the cross for you he didn't close his eyes going there and i'm gonna say will you please close your eyes and sing very sweetly just as i am without one plea have some guts about it god had his eyes open when you sinned and he still has them open tonight and if you come to

this altar come with your eyes open and say lord i'm guilty of this sin i'm guilty of this crime i'm guilty of this lust the final simple thing a friend of mine living in manchester england the houses are joined together and they're on the rooftop they build little houses and they keep their doves there this man went along one day and he saw these doves and he said to a man i understand you've got a new dove there he said it's a gorgeous thing it's a gorgeous thing i never paid so much money i never saw such a beautiful dove you want to see it he said yes wait a minute and he reached down and he took some grain in his hand and he whistled and the bird came and just as it was going to take the grain he shut his hand like that and the bird went back onto the roof the young man said you

shouldn't do it you shouldn't tease it like that oh it will come again opened his hand and whistled the bird came he shut his hand like that and the bird went back on the roof a third time he whistled and the bird came and as he was coming he shut his hand and laughed and said you see you see it will come the man said look there and instead of going back into the little house the dove went over the roof