A Vision of the Drowning Boat

This afternoon from the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 14, follow after love and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy. He that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not, put a little circle around that, not unto men, but unto God. Put another little circle there, under those three words, but unto God.

For no man understandeth him, how be it in the spirit, he speaketh mysteries. You ought to underline, in the spirit, he speaketh mysteries. Then you'll know exactly what it is.

But, he that prophesieth, now I'll be talking to you about this about day after tomorrow, so you ought to mark it here. He that prophesieth speaketh unto men. I put unto men there, because it's not unto God now, it's unto men.

Unto men, for three things, put a little circle, edification, exultation, comfort. Those are the three ministers of prophecy. Prophecy has no other ministry except those three ministries.

So just put a little circle around them, you got exactly what the Bible says. It's spoken unto men, not to God, and the three things it can do, only three, edify, exult, and comfort. Verse four, he that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself.

The word edify really is not a colloquial word that we ought to use today. We ought to say, he that speaketh in an unknown tongue buildeth his own spirit, his own soul, his own spiritual being. It builds him up, because the word edifies from the word edifice, or to build, or building.

So he that speaketh in an unknown tongue buildeth himself, but he that prophesieth buildeth the church. That's the difference. I would that ye all speak with tongues, but rather that ye prophesied, for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, and that the church, put a little ring around church, that the church may receive edifying.

It's very beautiful in chapter 12 and chapter 14 that the unity of the church is spoken of stronger than even the gifts of the Spirit. Paul wanted the church to be in unity and in love, and he was very strong on that. And when anyone gets out of joint with the rest of us, there's something wrong with somebody.

We're supposed to synchronize, we're supposed to flow together, and when we flow together, then the Spirit is flowing. Like we spoke to you this morning that when all the disciples were in the upper room, with one accord in one place, that's when the glory came. The one accordness in the one place is what did the trick there.

That when they got with one accord, just one sweet spirit, motivating the total number of them, and they were all there that should be there, then the Holy Ghost began to come upon them. That the church may receive edifying. Now brethren, if I come to you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you except I speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine? Even things without, without life, giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped unto them? Let us jump over to verse 12.

It continues that same idea through verse 11. Verse 12, Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek. Now there's a little thing you ought to put a note around.

A lot of people, they don't seek the gifts of the Spirit. They say, if God wants me, have me give them to me. He won't either.

No, they don't come that way. Seek that ye may excel, and then he goes right back again to the edifying of the church. You know, whatever I do in this conference, if I don't do it to build you up, I'm wrong.

If I do it to show myself off, I'm completely wrong, you see. Whatever I do, whether I teach, whether I sing, or whether I speak in an unknown tongue, whatever I do, I must do it to build you up. You know, you're the church, and so whatever you do, you must do it to build me up.

There can be no selfishness in this. When selfishness comes in, God goes out. And that's the reason that these kind of meetings are so sweet.

It's because we've forgotten ourselves, and we're living to bless one another. I've heard more people since I've been here concerned about somebody else than I'd heard for a long time. Now see, that's what God loves.

Those that are concerned for somebody else. And as we're concerned for somebody else, we're showing the sweet spirit that exists in the Lord Jesus Christ. Do it to excel to the edifying of the church.

That's verse 12. Verse 13, Therefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.

Your mind does not understand when you're speaking in an unknown tongue. It just doesn't. And if God gives an interpretation, it comes from down the other way, down into the middle of your body.

It comes up from there. It doesn't come down from upstairs. It comes up from downstairs.

And that's where your spirit is down there. And your soul is possibly upstairs, but your spirit is downstairs. And the greatest part of you is in your spirit, and not in your soul.

Verse 15, What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also. I will sing with the spirit. Put a little circle around sing.

We've got to sing too with this business. I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding. Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that cometh who occupieth the room of the unlearned say amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayeth.

For thou verilest giveth thanks well, but the other is not edified. There's that word edify again, you see. You ought to put a circle around every one of them, because Paul is so concerned that everybody else will be built up in God.

In verse 18, he clears the air. He says, I thank my God I speak with tongues more than y'all. Yet in church I'd rather speak five words with my understanding than by that by my voice I might teach others also than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.

Now if he spoke in tongues more than a whole church full of talking tongue people, it kept him pretty busy. And being an intelligent man, he wouldn't do it foolishly. So that means that that was a source of strength, a source of power, a source of receiving communication with God was in that fashion.

And being that way, then that's where you and I can receive strength, strength that others do not have, a power that others do not have, glory that others do not have through the same ministry of speaking alone in an unknown tongue, not in public, but alone. Verse 22 says, therefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not. Prophesying service not to them which believe not, but for them which believe.

It's already said that over up above there when it was for the church and when it's for you or for the church, and so again it's the same. If therefore the whole church come together in one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, unbelievers, will they not say that you're mad? But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is judged of all, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all, and thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest, and so falling down on his face he will worship God and report that God is in you of a truth. Now I think that's enough reading it today.

We'll maybe get along there somewhere and read again tomorrow. We just want you to become very familiar. Now as you know when Paul wrote this epistle, he did not write chapter 11, chapter 12, chapter 13, chapter 14.

He simply wrote one continuous letter, and so chapter 13 is divided from chapter 12 and chapter 14, but it shouldn't be, because without chapter 13, chapter 12 and chapter 14 is not worth very much. Who knows what chapter 13 is? It's the love chapter of the Bible, and all that we're receiving, we're actually receiving it not in harshness to other people, and not in criticism of other people, we're receiving it in love. And when we go back, we're to show more love than we ever had before, and they won't be able to understand.

They say, well they've got something strange, but they've also got something I can understand, and that's love, that love is poured out. They're not critical of me because I don't understand, and they're not critical of me because I don't have the gifts they have, but there pours forth a love, and that's what we wish to come forth with. Now I forgot to bring along with me one of my books on the gifts of the Spirit this afternoon.

You'll excuse me for it. My next month's magazine, which is our May magazine, they haven't been mailed out yet. I picked this one up just from the printers before I left.

It hasn't been mailed out yet. Our May magazine, this big dove you see here is in the baptistery of my church. It's an enormous, enormous thing that fills a whole wall and has a light behind it.

Looks like the dove's taking off anytime. It's very, very pretty. It's the baptistry at our church there in South Bend, but the leading sermon for the next month is the gifts of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit in our magazine.

I hope that you'll be able to get it, and also our next message in there is from my wife writing about mothers who changed the world, and that's a very, very fine, very fine message also. And then a story from the Philippines and some of the great crowds we're still having out there. The revival never ceased.

Once God broke it open, it just kept on going. And then the next page gives our sixth annual international camp meeting. It comes up in July, and maybe if you're free in July, some of you might can come up and be in our camp meeting in South Bend, Indiana.

You would enjoy it very, very much. But not having the book on the gifts of the Spirit with me, let me, yes, I'll borrow it. Thank you very much.

I appreciate that. We call them not gifts of the Spirit. We call them the weapons of our warfare, that these gifts of the Spirit are actually the equipment that God bestows upon you to fight his battles with.

And that I will be showing you in the message today, tomorrow, and the next day, how these are the battle array that we use. Now we gave you an introduction of this yesterday, and now we will go into the first three of these gifts. They are the gifts of revelation, the gifts of revelation.

Now here in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, we are told that the first of the gifts is the gift of the word of wisdom. Now what is the gift of the word of wisdom? First, it is not the gift of wisdom. There is no such gift in the Bible.

The Bible nowhere says there is a gift of wisdom. This is a supernatural gift, as all nine gifts are supernatural. These are not natural gifts.

These are not things that you learn. These are not things that you cultivate. These are supernatural gifts from God through the Holy Spirit to the church.

Now, and when you once get a hold of that, then you realize that you don't grow into these things. They come from God and they flow through you, and the first time they flow, they flow as if they had been flowing before. And so they don't flow baby-like today and mature-like tomorrow.

They don't do that. These are gifts of God that are gifts, that are gifts complete the first time, the second time, the third time, and all the time. And so, let me say, write down your questions as I'm talking, so you won't forget them.

And I'll come to the question time right on schedule, but then you'll have your question written down. As I go, I'm sure questions will come to you about the gifts of the Spirit. Now, the gift of the word of wisdom is when God gives you a word of his wisdom.

Now, a word of his wisdom has to do with the future. He makes you wise to what he is going to do. I'm going to give you an example.

When I was about 18 and a half years old, I received a vision of the mission field, and the Lord spoke to me and said, if you will not live the regular life of young men and go and choose your wife right away and establish a home, but if you will be near to me and close to me, I'll do some very wonderful things for you, and I'll let you minister throughout the total world. And he showed me a vision of all the nations of the world that I may tell you about someday if I get an opportunity to. Now, unbeknownst to me at all, in England, there was a man that was very spiritual named Howard Carter who conceived the whole philosophy of these gifts of the Spirit as we understand them today.

The one man got this whole thing. All the books and all the teachers that teach on the gifts of the Spirit in our time got the whole thing from this one person, Howard Carter of London, England. He has two books.

You can order them from my place if you wish, that he has himself, and he has inspired a dozen others to write books on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But he was dealing in prayer, and the Lord spoke to him. He was the president of a Bible college in London, and God spoke to him and said, I have a companion prepared for thee.

He shall come from afar. He will come when you are exceedingly busy, and these are the words he will say. Brother Carter looked, he'd had many things like this to happen, so he wrote it in his book.

And the next day, the next morning at the breakfast when all the students, the faculty was present, he said, you know, God told me something last night, and he read it. He says, I will have a companion for you. He shall come from afar.

You will be very busy when he comes, and these are the words he will say when he arrives. And some of the faculty smiled, said, well, says you're going to get married, aren't you? He was at 40 and hadn't been married yet, and so he said, well, I'm going to read it again. He wasn't sure himself.

He says, no, it says he, he, he, guess I'm not going to get married, it's a he. And so he closed the book. And over two years after that, he came to this country to minister in a camp meeting in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

Now at that time, I was in the state of Oklahoma conducting crusades, and I had my sister with me, traveling with me at that time, and I had just turned 20. I was in my 20, and suddenly I told my sister, I said, I'm going to cancel this meeting here, and I'm going to Eureka Springs. She said, you don't want to cancel your meeting.

You've got such a great meeting. I says, no matter how great it is, I'm closing this thing out. I'm going to Eureka Springs.

She said, what for? Well, I said, I don't know what for. I'm going to Eureka Springs. Well, at least you'd be the boss and you just got a sister.

You might lose it and you'd get married, but she was just my sister. So we closed out the meeting and, and, and went across to Eureka Springs. And this man walked out the door the first day I was there, and I was standing on the sidewalk.

And I said, how do you do, sir? I'd never seen him before. I didn't know one thing in the world about him. I said, how do you do, sir? And I gave him those words exactly like God had given them in London.

He just stood there almost paralyzed. He said, what did you say your name was? Well, I said, you don't know me. My name's Lester Sumrall.

He said, well, evidently God does. Well, I says, evidently he does. I've been preaching since I was 17.

Evidently he does know me. He says, would you come to my room? Well, I says, I guess so. You're a little old Southern boy who's getting mixed up with an Englishman, and a college president, and a university man.

And I said, yes. And I went to his room, and he opened this little book, and he said, I have a companion prepared. He was already prepared, prepared for you.

He shall come from afar. He will be a total stranger when he comes. These, did you know you said those words? Well, I says, I didn't know it when I was saying them.

I said, it sure sounded kind of funny saying them to a stranger when I said them, but I didn't know quite what I was saying. He says, well, God directed you to say them, and said, we are to see the world together. I said, where are you going? He says, I'm going around the world.

I said, that's where I'm going. He said, let's go. Now, that's what God did in my life.

Now, from the time I was 18 and a half until I was about 20 and a half, that's what God did. In about two years there, he found me. I was in Tennessee at the time God gave me that.

I began preaching in Florida, and I began to preach up to the little country school houses. Churches wouldn't have me, and so I just preached in little country school houses up, you know, started at the bottom, started up, and I'd gotten as far as Tennessee. And then later than that, I went into Oklahoma and Arkansas, and that's as far as I'd gotten with this business.

And so God had spoken to a man in England, to a boy in Tennessee, and had brought them together in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Two years passed in the time God spoke to me, and God spoke to him. Now, that is the word of God's wisdom, you see.

God's all wise. He saw. We got together.

He is a first-class teacher, and I was a dynamic evangelist. And what did we have? Everywhere we hit, we just turned the place upside down. Every time, you just, he could, in the same meeting, he could get up and teach for an hour, and I could get up in 15 minutes and bring every sinner there to the altar.

And we had a combination you couldn't beat. And he was a teacher, and I was an evangelist. And we went throughout the whole world for several years.

Some fields, some mission fields, were never the same again when we two walked through there. And it was so strange. People began to believe in God when they saw an American and an Englishman living together.

That's right. And especially one born in New Orleans, Louisiana, as corny as it can get, with this man that was brought up in the confinements of London in a very wealthy, wealthy home, and become a president of a Bible college. It was a very, very exact Britisher.

He lost a little of it before he died, living with me. He could even say, you all. The gift of the word of God's wisdom is when God makes you wise to what he is going to do.

In the Bible, it worked. There was a man named Noah. God said, Noah, you're planting corn here, and it looks pretty good.

But said, you know, Noah, see these mammoth giants that are being born of the sons of God here? He said, I'll have to do something about that. If you want to know what he did about it, you get my book up there on the battle of the ages. It's the only book I know of that will tell you the whole facts about it.

It'll tell you the battle of the ages. And he says, I can't do it because we're going to, we won't have a pure woman left on the face of the earth soon because of this horrible mess that's going on here with these men of renown, these giants that are in the earth. And we won't be able to bring a redeemer to the world if we don't do something about it in a hurry.

And says, I'm going to have to have you to build a boat, and I'm going to bring the water over here to you, and let you sail away right out of your corn patch. Now, man, that was a big one to believe, wasn't it? What would you ever do with a God to tell you a thing like that? He said, Lord, I've been a farmer so long, I don't know how to build a boat, and I've never seen in the water anyway, and I don't know anything about it. The Lord says, if you don't build a boat, you're going to be lost like the rest of them, and that'll make a man build a boat.

Did you know it? And so that old farmer Noah began to build a boat right out in the middle of his corn patch, and everybody thought he was crazy, but he built it. Now, listen, God told him that over a hundred years before it took place. You see, that's a word of God's wisdom.

That's a word of God's wisdom. God said, Noah, I will destroy this earth for the flood. God told him that.

He didn't find it out the day the rain started. He found it out over a hundred years before. God told him.

Now, that's what the word of God's wisdom is. When God tells you before a thing comes to pass what will come to pass, then you are then dealing in the word of God's wisdom. You say, Brother Summerall, why does it say a word of God's wisdom? Well, God can never turn you loose in his big storehouse.

He's got too much of it in there. He has to give you a word of it. When you go into a lawyer's office, and you got all those books all the way around the whole wall there, and you ask him a question, he only gives you a word.

He leaves the rest of it in those books. He's got some more up there, all right, but he only gives you a word of it. He gives you what you need at that moment, and that's the way God does.

He gives you a word of his wisdom, and a word of his wisdom is what you need. Now, when a man like Daniel said there shall be empires of gold, of silver, of brass, of iron, of clay, then he was speaking in God's wisdom, with a word of God's wisdom, saying that these empires, they should be like lions. They should be like leopards.

They should be like bears. He was describing their temperament before they were born. Before they were born, he was telling you about their temperaments, and what kind of nations they would be.

And every one of them lived out exactly the temperament that this man predicted they would before they were born. That is a word of God's wisdom. This is one of the greatest needs in the church today.

We ought to know what's going to happen tomorrow, and you know, the whole world's crazy about this gift. They'll run to Gene Dixon. They'll run to the soothsayers.

They'll run to the astrology books. They're trying to find out what's going to be tomorrow. The gift of the word of wisdom, that's what it's for, but we won't go to God for it, you see.

We won't say, God, what's going to happen tomorrow? You say, Brother Sumner, do you know what's going to happen tomorrow? I most certainly do. If it wouldn't keep telling you all the books I got up there for sale, I'd tell you more about it, but I have a book up there that says the word of God in the crisis of life, and when I was opening up a new church in Brazil, I said, Lord, what's my end? Tell me now. The Lord gave it to me.

It's in that book there, and I'm doing it. He told me that I was to train young men and about his power, and we're building that school of evangelism just to train preachers, and to train them just exactly like you do here at CFO. Give them one week.

Say, if you couldn't learn it in a week, you never would learn it anyway, and going back home. That's a Bible school for you. That's right, and you want to know the truth? If you couldn't learn it in a week, you would never learn it anyway.

How many knows that? Brother, if I've got truth, if I can't convey it to you in a week, it's very likely I couldn't convey it to you in 40 years, and if you couldn't pick it up in a week, it's like you couldn't pick it up at all. You got to have a heart for this thing. You got to have a spirit for this thing, and when you do, you pick it up then.

Can you say amen? Then you pick it up, and so I do know my future, and you read there in Psalm 71. I know my future, and the Lord told it to me by his word, and I thank him for it. Now, the gift of the word of wisdom is when God makes us wise as to the future.

Jesus, of course, exhibited this gift, as I told you the other night in the auditorium meeting, because he told us all the things that would be coming to pass in the end time, and when he told us all these things that would be coming to pass, then he was predicting the future, and that's the gift of the word of God's wisdom. Paul did the same thing. Peter did the same thing.

Jude did the same thing, and John did the same thing, so all these men who saw the future were seers, that saw the future, they were the men that had an understanding of the times unborn, of times unborn, and these were functioning in the gift of the word of wisdom. Anything that projects and tells you what will come to pass that has not yet been born, that is a word of God's wisdom. Now, we could give you, you know, illustration after illustration of it, but I believe if I make it clear to you what it is, then you can pick it up from there and find your own illustrations, and that'll be a lot better than me giving them to you.

So, the gift of the word of wisdom is when God shows you the future in a supernatural way of what will come to pass, that is a word of God's wisdom. Now, in the Old Testament, the person who projected that was called a prophet, was called a prophet because he prophesied. Other times he was called a seer because he could see that which could not be seen by others.

In the New Testament, we simply call it the gift of the word of wisdom because the highest office in the New Testament is an apostle and not a prophet, and the apostle definitely, you would expect him to have this gift of functioning in this area, to be an apostle, because an apostle is one with a combination of the five ministries, the total ministries, an apostle is one with the total ministries of the church, and there are some living today, of course, always have been, and so we thank God for apostles. And you can prophesy the simple gift of prophecy, which has no relationship to being a prophet. You can prophesy, which as I told you has only three abilities, and none of them are the projection of the future, that when you project the future, it's not the simple gift of prophecy anymore, then it is the ministry of God speaking through you with the gift of the word of God's wisdom.

Now if you have any questions, write them down, and I'll be back to you in just a moment with it, but let's go to the second one. And the second one, now would you help me get my times right? It's 4 10 now, this meeting goes on to what time? To quarter to five. That means at 4 30 we have our questions, is that right? No, more than that, 4 50, oh dear me.

All right, I'll try to get to two of them as quick as I can. The second gift in the area, you see there are nine gifts, there are three categories, there's revelation, power, and inspiration. Now we're dealing in the first gift, in the first category, and that's revelation.

The first of those is a gift of the word of wisdom, the second the gift of the word of knowledge. The difference between the gift of the word of knowledge and the gift of the word of wisdom is this, the word of knowledge functions of that which now exists. Knowledge is a fact, a fact exists, and their wisdom, wisdom does not have to exist.

Wisdom can be that which does not yet exist. You can be wise to something that others do not know. You can have a dimension that you understand that nobody else, but knowledge is not that way.

Knowledge is a thing that does exist, and it may be out and beyond your comprehension at the moment, but it's a thing that does exist. So the gift of the word of knowledge is when God tells you something that has already taken place on the face of this earth. Now, a man in the Bible who had this gift, maybe above others, was Elisha, and it's real interesting to read how Elisha had this gift.

An army was coming against his king, and he was sitting in his little cottage, and he said to the king, he says, king, they're coming up on the southeast corner tonight. He says, go out and beat the daylights out of them, and so his king went rushing out and won the battle, and then the next afternoon, he says, and they're coming up on the northwest corner tonight. He said, just go out and go get them, and so he went out and got them again, and finally the old heathen king says, we have a traitor among us.

Somebody is telling this king in Israel here where we are. They said, no, they're not. There are no traitors here, so they've got a preacher named Elisha over there, and he knows everything you're doing, you see.

Now, they were there. The armies were there. He saw them there, so it was a matter of knowledge.

It was not a matter of wisdom. It was a matter of knowledge. Let me give you a personal one.

I better give you two. I'll give you one in my own life first. The same Mr. Carter that I became associated with, Mr. Howard Carter, you know, being an Irishman plus a Christian puts me in a kind of funny position sometimes.

I walked right off and left him. I forgot to ask him where he was going when he'd get there. I was excited.

I put my sister in the car, and I said, I'm taking you home to your parents, and I went moving back down into the far south to take her home to her parents, and I got down there and sold my car, and I said, where's that Englishman at? I've lost him already. I don't know where he was. He said he was going around the world, and that's where I'm headed for, but I don't know where he is, and so I got on the Sunset Limited.

We didn't have airplanes in those days, and I started off across Texas, and I thought it was the whole world. The time he got across the thing took about two days and nights to cross Texas in that thing, and we finally got into California, and I spoke in Bethel Temple in Los Angeles, and I said to Dr. Turnbull, I said, where's Howard Carter? He says, in Japan. I said, well, thank you very much.

I spoke to Reverend Frodsham out at Manhattan Beach. I said, where's Howard Carter? He says, he's in Indonesia. Well, that's several million people apart, and I said, that's interesting, and I spoke to Dr. Lillian Uhlmans, a very good friend of his.

I said, doctor, where's Brother Carter? Says, he told me he was going to Hong Kong. Well, I said, dear me, from Japan to Indonesia to Hong Kong. I went on up to San Francisco, and I spoke to Dr. Craig at the Great Glad Tidings Church there, and I said, Dr. Craig, where's Howard Carter? He says, I believe he's in Australia.

Well, I said, I think I better start praying and stop talking. I said, Lord, where is this man that you told me I was to travel with? I've already lost, and there are several hundred million people out there in the Orient, and nobody knows where he is. I said, where is this man? The Lord very sweetly says, just start at the bottom and work up.

You know, the Lord's nice to you, isn't he? He really makes it hard on you sometime, though. So I said, all right, Lord. So I bought a ticket on an old junker, and we pulled out of San Francisco.

I had $12 in the world to go around the world on, and hadn't asked any organization about going or any churches either. I forgot to do that too, and here I was going around the world on my own and had no money, but I felt good. And I got on this boat, and the first place we stopped was in Tahiti, and that was an experience, and then in Rarotonga, and that was very delightful, and then into New Zealand.

And when my boat was pulling into Wellington, New Zealand, something happened, and this is the way it was. Brother Carter was there, and I didn't know it. I thought he might be in Japan.

I was going to start the bottom work up. I'm in the bottom of the world. I'd have gone to the South Pole if I'd have thought he'd have been down there.

I was going to work up from the bottom, and so I went as far bottom as you could go bottom, and I was going to come up. But he was in New Zealand, and I didn't know it. He was in a minister's conference like this, you know, and they were in a retreat out in the country, and God spoke to him, and he was praying in the afternoon and said, the young man, the young man that I gave you is going to come now.

Brother Carter was upset. He says, well, he ought to. Says, I lost him.

Says, lost him the very first same day I found him, and hadn't heard from him since. That was three or four months ago, you see. I was really lost, and so Brother Carter said, well, where is he then, Lord? He says, he's on a boat coming into Wellington Harbor right now.

Says, tomorrow morning, he'll get off of that boat, and he'll go into Wellington and look for an Assembly of God church. Says, find an Assembly of God pastor and send him home with a message to him and tell him you'll meet him in Australia in a couple of months. And so he comes walking out of a prayer room, and there are all these ministers in this conference.

He says, is there a man here from Wellington that's a pastor of an Assembly of God church there? And a great big old New Zealander that stood about six foot four stood up and says, I am the pastor from Wellington. He says, I have a young man coming in there tomorrow morning that's going to be looking for your church. Would you please go home and give him this message please? He said, how did you know he's coming? There are no telephones here.

Oh, he said, the Lord told me. The Lord! Some preachers get upset if the Lord talks, you know. Really upset him, and Brother Carter was such a quiet little man, he never did raise his voice.

He said, yes, the Lord told me that he'd be in there looking for your church tomorrow morning. He said, I'd go just to find out. You know, unbelief is a wonderful thing, and so he handed him a card, and the man took off for home into Wellington.

Well, the next morning, my boat pulled up by the dock, and I got off, and I said, well, I got to find somebody just to say hello here. I didn't expect to find Brother Carter there. I was just going to say hello.

I was going to stay on the same boat on over to Australia, and my ticket took me into Sydney. And so I began to look around. I said, I wonder if there are any full gospel people here, Assembly of God people, so I began to ask.

Brother, I found everything but that. I went for two or three hours, and I found everything but what I was looking for. And finally, I said, well, I don't know how to find these people.

I've asked for every conceivable name. I said, Foursquare, Pentecostal, Pentecostal holiness, Church of God, Synod of God, and they just kept shaking their head. I said, dear me, I don't know how I'm going to find anything.

And finally, I said, say, do you know of any bunch of religious people that shout and yell? He said, yeah, I think I do. He says, across the railroad tracks and up that hill over yonder. I said, that might be what I'm looking for.

And so I went walking away over there, climbed up a little hill and little white church, and there was a Parsons next door, and I knocked on the door, and this good big New Zealander came to the door and said, yes. I said, sir, you don't know me. He says, my God, I do.

He was scared. I said, no, sir, you don't know me. He said, you are Lester Sumrall.

Then I like to faint. I said, wait a minute here. I didn't send any cables.

I didn't know you existed. He says, yes, but Howard Carter does. I said, yes, he knows a lot of things.

That man, I'd already gotten acquainted with some of the things that he had. He conceived this whole thing in jail. God gave him the whole outlay of the gifts of the Spirit when he was in prison for being a conscientious objector, and he wrote the whole thing down and began to teach it in the college that he founded when he came out of prison after World War I. And so he handed me the card.

The card says, go into Australia, and I'll be over in a couple of months, and we'll go together from Australia throughout the together. But now that was a word of knowledge. You see, God knew where I was.

I was on the boat. So God said to Howard Carter, who was back in the bush in a retreat with some ministers, says, this young man is on a boat. He's down close to Wellington.

He'll get off the boat tomorrow morning. He'll go over to the preacher's house, send a note down to him, and tell him where you may answer the Lord's faith. Isn't it wonderful to have communications like that? Now, that's what the Spirit is trying to do, and they're a bunch of liars.

Haven't you heard what I said? Amen. They're a bunch of liars and deceivers. But now this is what you and I can have available to us, you see, if we want to, if we want to.

I'll give you one other. That's all. Just one more.

I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, preaching, and a lady invited me out to lunch. You know, preachers are, God save them, they get in the most awkward situations. You know, people will invite you out to eat, and they don't expect you to eat at all.

They don't care if you don't eat. They're there for ulterior motives. They want to get something out of you.

And so when I get invited out, I often say, what for? And not very often is it for food. It's always to get something, you know, want to know something, you know, or something. And so I got invited out.

I thought it was for a dinner, but it wasn't. It was to hear a story, and I get invited out to hear a story sometime. And it's awful to have to sit and listen to them, you know.

You don't even enjoy your dinner, your story so long. But this was a good story. The lady said, Brother Sumner, something happened to me, and I've asked several preachers, and they don't know what it is.

She says, I felt the Lord to ask you. I says, all right, here we go. And this is what she told me.

She says, I was sitting here in this walk-in chair by that window there, reading my Bible. And the Lord spoke to me and said, your son and his wife and two children are getting in the car at home now. She said, yes, Lord.

Says, he has hitched up his boat behind it with his puller, his trailer. He said, yes, Lord. So they put their food in the car and all they need to be fishing.

She said, yes, Lord. She didn't want to go anyway, so she just said, yes, Lord. Says, they're pulling out of the yard.

And she said, yes, Lord. And down the highway they go. She said, thank you, Lord.

And she followed them. Says, they've gotten to the lake. They pulled up to the end under a big tree.

She said, yes, yes, Lord. And said that they unhitched the trailer, let it go back down into the water, loose the boat, and now the boat is in the water. She said, yes, Lord.

Says, your son has put the children into the boat. And now he has helped his wife into the boat. And now he is in the boat.

And now he has pushed the boat back from the land. And now they're out 30 steps from the land. Says, your son, reach for one of the children.

Now, says, the boat toppled. And says, the children are in the water. Now, the wife is in the water.

Now, your son is in the water. Now, the boat is wrong side up. Now, the son tries to save three at one time.

He's trying to grab the children. He's trying to grab the wife all at the same time. This child is dead.

That child is drowned. The wife is drowned. And your son is drowned.

She says, my God, my God. She grabbed the telephone. She called her son's house.

There was nobody there. She said, what can I do? She called the fire department and said, my son has just drowned in such and such a lake. And his wife and two children get out there.

The fire department said, who said so? God did. Ka-plunk. That was a crazy one.

God just told her her son was drowned. She called the police department. She said the same thing.

Down went the telephone. They thought she was crazy. She called the fire department again.

They said, oh, it's you again. And down it went again. She called the police department.

It's you again. And down it went again. And she became frantic.

She called the fire department and said, listen to me. Please listen to me. My son is not at home.

He's gotten into his car. God showed me. He went to this lake.

They're drowned. For God's sake, have mercy on a mother who's weeping and crying. If you have a heart, go.

And she touched their hearts. They said, madam, for a weeping woman, we'll go and let you know. So the fire department with their equipment to revive people went out to the lake.

They found the big tree at the end of the lake, and there was a parked car, and there was a boat overturned. Those men looked at one another and said, this is the strangest thing we've ever seen. They took their hooks, and they pulled them in, and they brought up three bodies from the bottom of the little lake.

The little woman said, Brother Sumrall, what in the world was that? And I said, well, that's the gift of the word of knowledge, one of the gifts of the spirit functioning. It was a fact. It was something that was taking place at that moment, and God communicated to you through the Holy Spirit, through the Holy Spirit.

I said, if you had had any understanding, it's very possible he'd have kept that channel open and would have kept doing it. But in your ignorance, you closed the channel yourself. You just closed up the channel.

And you're ignorant because you didn't understand it. You ask other people. They didn't understand it.

And because the ignorance of everybody, you damned up the channel of God that wanted to flow through you. God's blessings cannot flow in perpetual ignorance. I just said something.

God's blessings cannot flow in channels of ignorance. You have to learn fast in order for God to bless you. And for God's blessing to continue to flow, it must flow in understanding and intelligence and in knowledge.

God is not willing that any should be ignorant, but that all should come to the truth. That's a new Bible. Praise God.

I've used up part of my time and all of all of my time and part of yours. And pardon? Pardon? Yeah, sister, I don't know what I said, really. I was, I hadn't said that before.

God's blessing cannot flow in continued ignorance, in perpetual ignorance or something like that. Yeah, she has it on the tape over here. Don't get scared.

Now, it's your questions that we are ready for. Now, I was hoping to get clear through this, this first category today, but you see, we missed it. And so tomorrow we will begin at one of the most important of all, the discerning of spirits.

You'll love it. You'll love it. You'll love it.

You'll love it. You'll love it. It's not discerning of devils.

Read it again. It's discerning of spirits. And it's very sweet.

It's really sweet. It's really sweet. And I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.

No, no, I would be, I would be doing wrong, because in this class, I am, I have been told and instructed by, to give you this period of questions and answers. I was told to. And if I didn't do it, then I wouldn't be doing right.

I must subordinate myself to the powers that be. Yes, sister? All right. Almost everything in that spiritual links together like a chain.

You can understand that, can't you? Yes. If I had a tea tree here, I could say, this is tea, and you would believe me. If I had tea leaves here, I could say, these, this is tea, and you would believe me.

If I had something cold in this glass, like we had at noon today, and I'd say, this is tea, you would believe me. If I had a cup here with some fluid in it, I'd say, this is tea, you would believe me. It's all tea.

It's a, it's different manifestations of tea. Now, in prophecy, in simple inspired prophecy, and in chapter 14 and verse 3, it tells you specifically that New Testament prophecy has three things. He that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, to exhortation, and to comfort.

Now, that is the only thing that New Testament prophecy will do. But a person who foretells the future has been commonly called a prophet or a seer. Or in our church, we, in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, he could be an apostle or a prophet.

The two, the two top ministers, that both of them could, can project the future and tell you what will, what will come to pass. And so, the ministry of prophesying. Now, Philip had four daughters that prophesied.

I am sure they were not telling the future. They were doing these three things. They were in the church.

They were in the church edifying through speaking, exhorting when speaking, and comforting when speaking. That they were carrying forth these three ministries. And so, the gift of the word of wisdom, which was the ministry of the Old Testament prophet, not always, he was sometimes called a seer, sometimes called the man of God, that he projected the future.

So, prophecy in its simplest form is a inspirational gift. It is not a prophetic gift. It's an inspirational gift.

It's an, has to do with the three gifts of inspiration. And projecting into the future has only to do with one gift, and that is the gift of the word of wisdom. Did that help at all, sister? If not, ask me another question about the same thing.

Could you, did that help? Well, you think about it. Let's have another question. And we don't mind you asking the same question twice because I'll possibly answer it differently.

The question that she asked, yes, I will. The question that was just asked was, she was a bit confused about the word prophecy and the word prophet are projecting the future of the difference between common, ordinary, inspirational prophecy and the ministry of the prophet that tells about the future that is unborn. And that was the answer.

Pardon? What was your question, sister? The word of wisdom. Well, that's exactly what I was talking about there. The word of wisdom is the projection of the future and the gift of prophecy, an inspirational gift for these three manifestations that we read to you from 1 Corinthians 14 and 3. That simplifies it, doesn't it? I wouldn't say so at all, no.

Not in the church of the Lord. Yes, yes. In the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, the nine gifts of the Spirit, any of these gifts could flow through a housewife or a farmer or an electrician or anyone that the gift was flowing through him because now we're in the body of the church, you see.

And this thing, as we've read here, is the edification of the church. I mean, it just keeps talking about the edifying of the church, the church. And actually, we are just channels that these things flow through.

When in the Old Testament, a prophet was like being a pastor. That's all he did. He just did that and nothing else, and that was all that he did.

But with this, this gift of the word of wisdom might flow through you tonight, through her tomorrow night, through her tomorrow night, and through him tomorrow morning because the gift will flow through the channel, you see, that are open. Yes, sister? Yes, you may. I don't know.

I don't know. When God gives you something, I think you're supposed to say it. I don't know about that other.

So, yeah. Yes, please. How did that lady stop the channel that she said she had? Through ignorance.

She was so confused about this thing until if God had tried to talk to her again, she'd have run for her life. Who? Well, they try to find somebody that can enlighten them, and that's what she did until she found me. But the sad thing is this, the preacher didn't know anything about it.

Every preacher she went to said, my God, I don't know anything about that. She didn't know what was happening. She couldn't tell you what it meant even.

She thought some people had told her she'd become a spiritist, and she was scared. I said, well, my Lord, don't be afraid. The Lord loves you.

You were sitting there reading your Bible, praising the Lord, and the Lord says, well, you're good enough to know something. Well, they could have been at the bottom of that lake for two weeks before they ever found out where they were if God hadn't been good enough to show her what was going on. Sister? Had she known what was happening, could she have eliminated the accident? I don't think so, no.

I don't know. I don't think she would have. I don't, because she didn't know what was going to happen at all.

I don't know that she could have. That she, after it was revealed to her that they were in the water, could she have made it? They started praying. You don't know, no, no.

And dealing in the, and dealing in the world of the unknown, we better leave it, hadn't we? Yeah. What was the third gift of revelation? The third gift in revelation is the gift of the discerning of spirits. And it's a great one.

You'll be thrilled with it tomorrow. It's not the discerning of devils. And this is what, as I said, I believe it last night, that this is the great gift that the church needs, and how we would clean the church out.

The difference between the Old Testament prophet and the New Testament prophet is that he gave the church to the prophet. Yes. In the Old Testament, the prophet was the big pastor that pastored the people, and had a projection of the future.

In the New Testament, we have the prophet in the church, and it can be a housewife, it can be a deacon, it can be any member of the church, but that this anointing of God comes, and he projects it to the people. It's not a vocation, like it was in the Old Testament. It's not a vocation.

And it's, in the Old Testament, evidently, that's all they did. You know, they just went around, you know, prophesying this and that and the other. But in the New Testament, it has to do with the edifying of the church.

So it's in conjunction with the flow of the church. Of course, you are the church. It has to do with the building up of you.

Please. Who? Whoever had your hand up, would you please? Yes. Well, there's a lot of spiritual phenomena outside of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

And of course, visions are one of them. You see, the night that I was saved, on one side of my bed, I saw a coffin. On the other side of my bed, I saw a Bible.

And God said, you will choose one of these tonight. And that's the night I got saved. I said, well, I don't want to go to hell, so I'll take the Bible.

And so I saw it, just like I see you. And when I was 18 and a half, and God was preparing me to travel with this man, I saw all the people of the world going to hell. And I saw them, just like I see you.

And so I don't think, I don't think God's joking and playing with us. Paul says, 14 years ago, he saw something, you see. He says, whether in the spirit, out of the spirit, in the body, out of the body.

I don't know about that, but I said, I saw something. And they have to be very closely related with biblical truth. Once they get out of line with biblical truth, then they are not from God.

And so, the abuse of anything is wrong. But I want you to know that in these last days, God is going to deal with people in that way. I mean, young men should see visions, old men should dream dreams.

And God's talking spiritually there, he's not joking. And we're living in that time today when the spiritual phenomenon will take place, and it is taking place. And I don't think it's nice to disparage anything that God does.

If you don't understand it, just keep quiet about it. It's very easy to be critical if you're standing on your feet. And so, it's a much nicer thing that you don't quite understand, just leave it alone and let God do what he wants to do.

Sister. Well, that's a shame. That's a pity.

Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't know either. But, you know, just because a church has a name on it, don't mean they got what's inside there at all.

They don't mean that at all. You don't know what's inside of a place, you go and investigate it. But don't believe in names, and don't believe in tags, because tags can be very misleading.

A church might have the word Pentecostal on it, be a million miles from being Pentecostal. Pentecost is an experience with God, and it's not a name tag that somebody can carry around with them. And then be nice if a lot of people took the tags off, and, you know, and got another kind of tag.

Because, and sometimes you can find citadels of unbelief right where there should be faith. And so, God help us to be in the right place. Brother? He was listening, wasn't he? Yes, sir.

Oh, yes, excuse me. He says, at what age would you define a young man from an old man? And I told him that I knew when you get old, and when you stop seeing visions, and you start dreaming, that anytime you say, boy, the good old days. I miss the good old days.

Well, you're already dreaming. You stop seeing visions. And anytime you say, the world's not what it used to be.

Well, you're not a young man anymore. You're still in the good age. Good.

I think you can be a young man when you're 75. Yes, sir. I certainly do.

That as long as you can see good in the world, and you don't get all messed up inside, and think everybody's bad, and you get discouraged with the world. Every day you can start brand new, and bless everybody, and love everybody. You're still young.

Glory be to God. Hallelujah. All right.

We got to go in a hurry here. Yes, sister? Yeah. Was it last night that I told them that I wanted this gift of interpretation so bad? Were you in the service last night? And I lived with that thing for six weeks.

I think the Lord took me through it on purpose. And every day I expected it, wanted it, but I didn't get it. But my desire was so strong, I'd spend hours praying.

And anytime anybody spoke in tongues, I'd open my mouth to see if something would come out. And you know, it wouldn't come. I didn't have anything.

And yet, the moment that I became pastor of the church, God was making me live up to, you know, my little doctrine, you know? Preachers have little doctrines that are no good. And so, they're not in the Bible. And so, at the moment I became pastor, the first message that was given, I interpreted it.

And I've been interpreting ever since. It was born. It never ceased.

It was born in that hour. Now, other gifts have come to me in other ways. And we don't have time to tell you about them now.

Our time's sunk, and it would take you a long time to tell you. But prophecy came to me in another way, when I was in a deep, deep, deep, deep spiritual need. And when I rose up, I rose up in prophecy.

And it was the first time that ever happened. And so, it came to me. That's the reason I call these things the weapons of our warfare.

It came to me in the midst of a battle that I won. And so, and this was a battle too, this interpreting. That was a battle.

I fought that thing for six weeks. And finally, it was, I won. And thank God.

And you'll win. All of you can have the gifts of the Spirit. I mean, we're not letting anybody off.

Every one of you can have the gifts of the Spirit. You must expect it. You must covet it.

You must ask God for it. And you must find a place for it to function, in Jesus' name. Yes, sir.

On the same line, seeking to speak in tongues, would your mind grasp the word before you say it? Interpreting? In speaking? No, no. In speaking, I don't have a thing that touches there at all. Not a thing.

Not an idea. And sometimes, it comes out, I almost laugh out loud. It sounds like Chinese.

And another time, maybe two minutes later, it sounds like somebody in the jungles of Africa beating a tom-tom. And I say, how did that ever get there? You know. And so, there's no relationship.

No relationship above the nose. No, sir. Not at all.

There isn't. Yes, sir. Do you do it at will? When I speak, when I speak in tongues, it's at will.

It's at will, because it's something I do so much, you see, when I'm alone. You see, like in my room this afternoon, I just speak unto the Lord in my heavenly language, and it does something. You see, how many meetings I've been in today? You see, I had the young people for an hour, and we were in the circle this morning for an hour, and then I had the morning service for an hour, and this one for an hour.

You see, there's four hours already, besides the other hours, just today. So, you need some source of strength, and that's your source. That's your source of strength, you see.

Glory. All right, sister. Now, all right.

Now, Jesus said that if you seek or you ask for a fish, will you be given a serpent? And if you ask for a bread, will you be given stone? It is impossible with a good spirit to seek God and get the wrong thing. If it was, I wouldn't seek God. So forget it.

If you seek God, it is impossible to get anything else. Now, there are counterfeits. There are counterfeits, but they have no relationship to what you're talking about.

I can take you to the jungles of Africa, and you can go out at midnight and hear them beat the tom-toms, and they rattle away and say things that they don't know what they're talking about, and the devil is talking through them, things that they don't understand. Well, there's a counterfeit, all right, but it has no relationship with your asking the Lord to give you something and some blessing. Some people get so far off until it's pitiful.

You can go into a spiritist meeting, and the medium can get unconscious, and she blubbers and says things and messes around there, and there is a counterfeit there, but that has no relationship with a child of God under the blood of Jesus Christ asking God for a gift. Fear not. I am with thee, saith the Lord.

Be not dismayed. I am thy God. Glory be to God.

Raise your hands, and let's praise Him. Receive the Holy Ghost while you're at it. In Jesus' name, let the Spirit speak through you.

Let the anointing of the Lord speak through you. Let the glory of the Lord be manifest in you. Lord, bless and fill these with the blessed Holy Ghost.

In Jesus' name, in Jesus' holy name, in Jesus' holy name, let the blessings of God be rich upon these.