Shall we look at the Gospel of Luke?
Sorry, the 17th chapter.
Luke chapter 17.
Let me say, in case I forget, somebody
asked me about a meeting.
We're having a meeting tomorrow night in the
Church of God, which is right down 323
Loop and then across Broadway and up round
the bend.
And we're going to have a prayer meeting
there tomorrow night at 9 o'clock till
maybe about 12.
And we'll be preaching there Sunday night on
vision.
On Monday night, the judgment seat of Christ,
as far as I know.
And Tuesday night on worship.
The meetings are at 7.
We'd like you to come.
Come tomorrow night, bring a friend at 9.
Stay and have a heavenly supper with us.
There's nothing to eat, but there'll be a
lot to listen to and learn.
There's also a prayer meeting in the little
fellowship we have in Van.
Some of you know about that.
Van is up the road there.
And in the middle of it, you'll see
a little church on the right with four
little white pillars outside.
Not pillows, pillars.
And there's a prayer meeting there now on
Tuesday night at 7 o'clock.
There's also a prayer meeting at the community
church that used to be the Agape Force.
They have that on Wednesday night.
I hear they're getting about 100 people, which
is very encouraging.
I'm always glad when I hear about prayer
meetings.
And it seems all over the country now,
people are ready to get down to business.
If you could have preached revival down, we'd
have preached it down 10 years ago.
We can't.
We can only do it God's way.
Oh, we've got to look at this word
here.
Okay, Luke chapter 17 and verse 32.
Not many words, just three.
Remember Lot's wife.
The preachers will tell you that a text
without its context is a pretext.
At least that's what I was always taught.
And if we deal with a text, we
should deal with what surrounds it.
That's except you get in the book of
Proverbs, you can't do that very well.
And you can't do that in the Old
Testament.
When you get to the begats, it's pretty
difficult to do it there.
But you can do it here.
Verse 32, remember Lot's wife.
Go back to verse 28.
Here's the framework.
Likewise also as it was in the days
of Lot.
They did eat, they drank, they bought, they
sold, they planted, they builded.
But the same day that Lot went out
of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from
heaven and destroyed them all.
Go a bit further back there into verse
26.
It says as it was in days of
Noah.
So shall it be also in the days
of the Son of Man.
They did eat, they drank, they married wives
and they were given in marriage.
I guess the Hebrew there says, if you
go back to the Old Testament, they married
wives and then they exchanged wives, which is
a habit these days.
Until the day that Noah entered into the
ark and the flood came and destroyed them
all.
To identify with this, we need to go
back to Genesis chapter 6.
As it was in the days of Noah,
it says here.
What was it like in the days of
Noah?
Verse 5, in Genesis 6 verse 5 says,
God saw that the wickedness of man was
great in the earth and every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually.
Now look at that, break it down here.
Every imagination.
That's evil without exception.
And it says they were evil continually.
Well then that's evil without intermission.
It was only evil, it's evil without mixture.
And Jesus says, as it was in the
days of Noah.
There was a recklessness, there was a defiance
of God.
Well then, as it was in the days
of Lot.
What did they do?
Verse 28 again says, As it was in
the days of Lot, they did eat, they
drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they
builded.
But the same day that Lot went out
of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from
heaven and destroyed them all.
Come down into Genesis a little bit further.
In chapter 17.
Maybe a bit further.
No, verse 18, chapter 18, I'm sorry.
I guess you know the background of this,
almost everybody does.
Verse 16, the men rose up from Thames
and looked towards Sodom and Abraham went to
bring them to the way.
And the Lord said, Shall I hide from
Abraham the thing that I do?
I think that's a fantastic statement.
Remember, Abraham is the only man in Scripture
that's called a friend of God.
Moses wasn't, David wasn't, Solomon wasn't.
Abraham was.
In the New Testament, we're called the friends
of God, of course.
He are my friends, but not in the
Old Testament.
Here's a man who stands supreme, he's isolated.
And yet God says there's something about this
one man, shall I hide from him?
Not shall I hide from the king of
Sodom.
Not shall I hide from Lot who's now
a multimillionaire, a businessman.
Shall I hide from Abraham the thing that
I do?
Can I violate the laws of friendship?
If you have a true friend, well, somewhere
along the line you'll exchange secrets.
We don't shout secrets from the house, though.
You whisper in somebody's ear, or you make
a covenant together.
The secret of the Lord is with them
that fear him.
And Abraham feared God exceedingly.
And God says, Shall I hide from Abraham
the thing that I do?
Now look at verse 19, it's important for
you young folk with families.
For I know that he will command his
children after him.
They shall keep the way of the Lord
to do justice and judgment.
That the Lord may bring upon Abraham that
which he has spoken.
The story of Lot is one of the
saddest, I think, in the whole of the
world of God.
What do you think of when you think
of Lot?
The scripture that we read there in the
17th of Luke and 18, remember Lot's wife.
What do you think of?
Usually we think about she escaped by the
skin of her teeth.
But you know, there are three words, remember
Lot's wife.
To deal with them would take at least
three hours.
In fact, it could take three days if
you took the whole background, the historic background.
Yet Jesus is saying to these people upon
whom judgment is going to come very soon,
remember Lot's wife.
Remember her because she ran away?
No, remember her for all her privileges.
If you go back into the, where are
we, let me see here.
Chapter 13 and verse 12.
Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan and
Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain
and he pitched his tent towards Sodom.
In the next chapter he gets into Sodom.
In the next chapter Sodom's got into him.
You know, we talk about this amazing man
Abraham as though he was the most immaculate
man, faultless, nothing of the kind.
God says, I called Abraham alone.
Did he go alone?
No, he didn't.
He took Lot with him.
Took another man with him.
God called him alone.
What happened?
He blundered all the way he went.
He had trouble with the old man, he
wouldn't go and move over Jordan.
He had trouble with the young man.
He got in bad company.
He went down into Egypt where God never
took him.
And when he got down into Egypt he
had young Lot with him.
And young Lot's eyes were open, bulging wide.
Look at the women.
Do you know there's a record they were
topless in those days?
Sin was a sport.
Sex was a sport.
Drinking was a sport.
Violence was a sport.
And young Lot goes and he feasts on
it.
So what happens when he gets a choice?
He pitches his tent towards Sodom because he
says it's like going to Egypt.
I can get in here and it's like
that wicked country I was in.
So be careful what your children see on
the TV.
Don't say we're buying the youngster a TV
for Christmas on his own.
Send you to hell as quick as you
can.
He pitches his tent towards Sodom.
Now come down to chapter 19 and verse
1.
They came to Sodom at evening and Lot
sat in the gate of Sodom.
What's he doing in the gate?
I used to wonder why in the world
the scripture says the gates of hell won't
prevail against the church.
I thought what, does the devil carry gates
around pushing people away?
The gate was a place of government.
All the elders of government sat in the
gate.
People had their passports checked as they went
in.
They had their credentials.
They had to prove many things.
All the authority was in those people at
the gate.
And now this man is a man of
authority.
One of the most puzzling things about this
man in 2 Peter is it says that
Lot vexed his righteous soul every day.
I don't see much righteous about him.
I think he was righteous until he got
involved in all the commercial life and the
social life of Sodom.
He sat in the gate.
He was accepted.
I think again here he lost his righteousness.
You see we have identical situations in history.
I guess you've heard me say this before
and I hope I'll live to say it
again.
I think the one thing we learn from
history is that we don't learn from history.
I think at this point America is in
the lowest point of degeneracy she's ever been
in.
It's true that she was pretty low when
Jonathan Edwards and those Puritans came along.
There's no way we're going to legislate righteousness.
You stick notices up the road 55 miles
an hour.
Some of you guys broke it coming to
church tonight maybe.
You can repent right there but anyhow.
We'll leave that to you for a bit
later.
Do people keep 55?
I go down 55 and a thing goes
roaring past me.
I say to my sweetheart, to my wife,
that Mack truck.
Is it a Mack or what in the
world is it?
It's doing 75 miles an hour.
I don't know much about motors but I
know that that big thing that's roaring down
the road at 75 has not got a
Volkswagen motor in it.
Isn't that wisdom?
But you've got guys running big churches on
a Volkswagen prayer meeting.
I go to churches sometimes with 150-200
people in the choir.
If only 10% of them came to
the choir practice the choir master would resign
the first week.
But if the preacher got 10% of
his congregation I was in a church a
while ago with 12,000 members.
They had 53 deacons.
I asked the pastor, I said, tell me...
Oh, I nearly said his name.
I won't tell you his name.
I won't let you guess even.
You're 53 deacons.
How many can you see?
Eight?
Nine?
Isn't that marvelous?
What do you do with the other 50?
Fire them.
They're supposed to be full of faith in
the Holy Ghost.
They got elected because they own two Texaco
stations on a hot dog stand.
Apparently no deacons here tonight.
I'd be buried in hymn books, if you...
Oh, there's so many things in this story
we could take.
I'm not going to take them.
Chapter 19, verse 1, I read it again.
There came two angels to Sodom at evening,
and Lot sat in the gate.
And seeing them, he rose up and bowed
himself with his face to the earth and
said, Behold now, turn in with me, so
forth and so on.
Verse 3 says, He pressed upon them greatly,
and they turned into his house.
Verse 4, But before they lay down, the
men of the city, even the men of
Sodom, come past the house round about, both
old and young, all the people from every
quarter.
And they called unto Lot, Where are the
men which came into your house?
Bring them out to us, that we may
know them.
They were Sodomites.
Lot went out of the door and said
unto them, And he shut the door after
him, and he said, No, I pray you,
brethren, do not so wickedly.
Behold now, I have two daughters which have
not known man.
Why haven't they known man?
They were married.
Read in the chapter, they were married.
But the marriage was never consummated.
This righteous man had married his sons off
to some wealthy homosexuals, wherein God's name was
his righteousness.
Excuse me a minute.
Let me say the point of identification here
I wanted to read to you from.
I don't usually use translations, as you know,
but Philip's translation.
Jesus says, As it was in the days
of Noah, or as it was in the
days of Lot, so shall it be when
he comes.
Come on now, tell me you theologians.
Has God set a clock, and when that
clock goes off, he's going to pour judgment
on us?
Is it a case of time or temperature?
Does it not automatically kick over, like when
you have your air conditioner on, and you
set it at a certain thing and it's
cold outside, you open the door and immediately
that thing kicks on, it fights back against
the cold.
Does God wait until a country, a nation
gets so rotten, that the only thing he
can do in mercy, a judgment on Sodom
and Gomorrah was not a judgment of madness,
it was a judgment of love.
He did in a few hours what it
would have taken them to do, rot in
their sin for a number of years.
Here's Romans 1 in a modern translation.
The holy anger of God is disclosed from
heaven against all godlessness and evil of men
who render truth dumb and inoperative by their
wickedness.
It is not that they do not know
the truth about God, indeed he has made
it quite plain to them, for since the
beginning of the world, the invisible attributes of
God, his eternal power and divinity have been
plainly discernible through the things which he has
made and which are commonly seen and known,
thus leaving these men without a rag of
excuse to cover them.
They knew all the time that there is
a God, yet they refused to acknowledge this
God, or to thank him for what he
does.
They became fatuous in their argumentations and plunged
their silly little minds further into the dark.
Behind a facade of wisdom they became such
fools, fools who could exchange the glory of
the immortal God for an imitation God, like
mortal men of things that fly and crawl.
Therefore God gave them up to be playthings
of their own foul desires and dishonor their
bodies.
Moreover, since they considered themselves too high and
mighty to acknowledge God, he allowed them to
become the slaves of their degenerate minds to
perform unmentionable deeds.
They became filled with wickedness, rottenness, greed, malice.
Their minds were steeped in envy, murder, quarrelsomeness,
deceitfulness and spite.
They became whispers behind doors, stabbers in the
back, God-haters.
They overflowed with insolent pride and faithfulness.
Their minds teemed with diabolical invention.
They scoffed at duty to parents.
They mocked at learning.
They recognized no obligations of honor.
They lost all their natural affection, had no
use for mercy.
Lost their natural affection?
I had a man in my office a
while ago.
Boy, was he one thousand percent stronger than
Calvin.
Every baby in the mother's womb is already
predestined.
God knows its destiny.
Tell me that a million babies were destined
in eternity to go down the john last
year?
What kind of a God have you got?
I believe God asked for knowledge.
I don't believe He predestined them to that.
But these people have become so corrupt.
They are so lawless.
They obey nobody.
Laws of God are laws of men.
They are in a state of total rebellion.
Being well aware of God's pronouncement that all
that do these things deserve to die, they
not only continued in their own practices, but
did not hesitate to give their thorough approval
to others who did the same.
As far as I see, we parallel today
in our moral or immoral condition, the conditions
of Noah and the conditions in the days
of Lot.
But who worries about it?
These people were warned of judgment.
The word of God says remember Lot's wife,
because she has stacks and stacks and stacks
of advice before this inevitable thing came upon
her.
She didn't remember her father Abraham and his
righteousness, the greatest man who had walked the
earth.
She didn't remember her father and his righteousness.
After all, you only go six chapters back
and God's flooded the world, destroyed the world.
And He's hung a sign over it.
My spirit will not always strive with mine.
Wake up America.
We're going to hell as quickly as we
can.
He'll cut us off before long.
We don't break His laws every day.
We don't transgress His commandments and get away
with it.
There's a payday.
I call it a final checkout counter.
When everybody's bills will be due.
When every sin that isn't covered with the
blood will be exposed before billions of people.
It goes further down there into Timothy.
2 Timothy chapter 3 says this, Do you
realize that in the last days the times
will be full of danger?
Men will become utterly self-centered, greedy of
money, full of big words.
They will be proud and contemptuous without any
regard for what their parents taught them.
They will be utterly lacking in gratitude, in
purity and in normal human affection.
They will be men of unscrupulous speech and
have no control over themselves.
They will be passionate and unprincipled, treacherous, self
-willed, conceited, loving all the time what gives
them pleasure instead of loving God.
They will maintain a facade of religion but
their conduct denies its validity.
You must keep clear of people like this.
The time is coming when men will not
tolerate wholesome teaching.
Again, God's problem in the Old Testament was
not the Amalekites or Hittites or Jebusites or
Hivites or any otherites.
God's problem in the Old Testament was Israel.
God's problem tonight is not humanism in the
school.
That's an excuse to lazy pastors.
We need to get the Bible back in
the home.
We need to get prayer back in the
house, in the school.
We need to get prayer back in the
home.
Ask your congregation tomorrow, how many of you
fathers are not really fathers in the home?
You're not the king in the home, not
the bully, you're not the king, you're not
the priest in the home.
You don't gather the children around your lap
and every day read the word of God
and instruct them.
I had the privilege of praying many mornings
between five and six o'clock with that
precious man that God used in the Hebrides
revival in 1950, Duncan Campbell.
I remember one day talking, it was before
six and as Bunyan would say, the water
stood in his eyes, all the tears were
there.
I said, how is it in the outer
Hebrides?
Amongst those so-called stuffy Presbyterians, you saw
a move of the Spirit of God.
Well, he said, I'll tell you one reason,
I think.
The little boys and girls there from five
years of age see daddy bring the Bible
out every morning.
And if there's pressure on the farm or
somewhere, he leaves it till supper time and
all the dishes are put in the sink,
then he takes the word of God and
he reads it.
And all those children have to learn the
short of catechism, which is really an epitome
of theology.
There's your answer.
Those children have had the word of God
in their hearts since they were five or
six, Paul, plants, Apollos, waters, God gives an
increase.
The revival there was due again to two
old ladies, 184 and 182.
They joined hands and made a covenant.
Oh dear, I get tired of people making
promises.
The highway of most of our lives is
filled with broken vows and unfulfilled covenants.
Lord, if you get me out of hospital,
I'll pray next hour every day the rest
of my life and you forgot God the
week after.
That woman dying in labor pains, the doctor
said the odds are against you.
And she said, well, if you get me
through this, I'll be a different woman.
But she wasn't, except she had another baby.
But apart from that, there was no miracle
wrought in her.
Let me look here a minute.
And this is really the important thing I
want to say.
In the midst of all this devastation, in
the midst of all the corruption, there was
one man stood alone.
He was unchanged with the system, with the
customs.
Young lot pitched his pen towards Sodom.
Then he went in Sodom.
I remember an old man said to me,
but son, look, you know what, the devil
will help you in your Christian life.
I said, he will, yes.
He'll help you to get to the top
of the ladder.
And when he gets to the top, he'll
push you over.
Very often success is the worst thing that
can come to us.
We need adversity.
We need to fight the world, the flesh,
the devil.
It says concerning this man Abraham, he stood
before the Lord.
Does that ring a bell?
Does it say in 1 Kings 17 verse
1 that Elijah stood before the Lord?
He didn't kneel, he stood.
He's waiting for two things.
He's waiting for a commandment and he's waiting
for authority to carry it out.
And Abraham has every conceivable evil against him.
The city is swarming with filth.
People delight in it.
They buy it.
They sell it like we do.
Friday night.
Some taverns will be open till 2 and
3 in the morning.
So will dance halls and discos and all
these hell holes.
And the churches will be locked up.
Maybe there's only one fault with modern Christianity.
We don't take God seriously.
Why should the man in the street believe
God if we don't believe him?
Why should they obey what you say, preacher,
when you don't obey what God says to
you?
Sure, I'd like to write another book on
revival.
I've got something boiling inside me.
I don't think I'm going to do it.
Because, you see, I don't have to do
it.
The secret of revival isn't a secret at
all.
It's splashed right across the Word of God
for over a thousand years.
And it's the priest that's to lie between
the altar and the doorpost and let him
weep and let him travel.
I went to a certain famous college, and
as I went in a Bible college, it
was a great big display thing, you know,
with a guy with a tennis racket, all
plastic, of course, plastic gold.
Somebody kicking a football.
Somebody else with a baseball.
Somebody else with a volleyball.
Somebody else with a basketball.
I mean, in miniature.
I got on my knees, and I was
looking, and a fine young fellow said, Sir,
could I help you?
I said, I'd be very happy if you
could.
What are you looking for?
I was looking to see who got the
trophy for praying.
He said, what?
I said, don't you have a model of
somebody praying in these famous Bibles?
Are you serious?
I said, yes, are you?
Do you think you're going to get a
reward in heaven because you knock more home
runs in the Wesleyan, what do you call
it, Bible school?
Or as you go to, where does the
Pentecostals go when they die?
Springfield, yeah.
Do you think you're going to get a
reward because you hit more home runs?
Come on, preacher.
I had a young man came to see
me this week.
He thinks God has called him out of
a business career to become a preacher.
Give me some tips.
I said, read Acts 26 on your knees
every day for the next month.
Tells you what your job is.
Acts 26, to open the eyes of the
blind, to turn them from darkness to light,
from the power of Satan unto God, that
they may receive forgiveness of sins, and an
inheritance among them that are sanctified.
When you've done that, read all the minor
prophets and soak yourself in them.
Get out of the way of pygmies and
walk with giants.
Get away from the modern trash that they
sell at CBA next week.
And read what God says and measure up
to some of the standards God has.
We don't need any advice, and God doesn't.
We try and give it to him.
You say, I wonder what would happen if
we really knew that judgment was coming, say,
next week, Wednesday night.
I'll tell you what would happen.
Every church would be packed out.
I told you the other week of a
friend of ours who came back from Korea.
Of course, wide-eyed, oh, there's Dr. Cho.
Cho, is it?
Dr. Cho, Paul Cho.
That's a church of 300,000, 400,000
now.
But the thing was, she went up the
mountain.
There was a cave there, and there were
nearly 2,000 women in there, praying as
though they were all delivering a baby in
agony.
Hour after hour after hour after hour.
Do you know why?
Because you can walk to the borders, and
on the border of North and Korea, there's
a million Russians lined up, ready to come
over and plunge the whole nation into blood.
So every time they go to church, the
pastor says, you memorize this chapter next week.
You memorize that hymn next week.
It's an open secret.
There'll be no Bibles around in a few
years.
There'll be no hymn books around in a
few years.
We'll be huddled in concentration camps.
We'll be hiding in caves.
The streets will be running with blood.
We're going to be martyred.
Oh, if we knew that.
Come on now, come on.
Don't suggest we don't know.
Yeah, you say, if we were going to
be murdered, or if we were going to
be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah.
Well, don't you listen to what Mr. Reagan
says?
That Russia's deciding what temperature to roast us
at.
And if you don't think there's going to
be a bloody thing like that can happen,
what do you think about the Word of
God that talks about the Battle of Armageddon?
What do you think about the Scriptures that
nobody quotes these days?
That Jesus is coming in flaming vengeance.
Forget all about your rapture.
Come on, preachers.
How many of us will be clear from
the blood of the people in our streets?
If I were a Protestant Pope, I'd close
every church in the nation for a month.
There wouldn't be another word of preaching.
Your people can't handle the light they have
now at the judgment seat.
And all you'll do on Sunday is add
condemnation to them.
They can't handle it.
Every one of us know to live better
than we're living.
And that's our condemnation.
We know to be praying better than we're
praying.
We know how to fast better than we're
fasting.
We know we should be weeping more than
we're weeping.
We know we should have gone to a
place where God Almighty can give us groanings
that cannot be uttered.
And that's a hundred million miles past praying
in tongues.
It's an inner grief.
It's something that has no language.
God says so.
I don't say so.
I'm convinced with all my heart we're in
the most severe decade.
I don't think we'll last a decade.
Five years that America's ever had.
And she's not going to be changed by
legislation.
She's going to be changed by revival.
And revival only comes by birth, by travel.
I get too many visitors.
I wish I didn't get some of them.
But the other day a very refreshing young
man came to me.
In the course of talking he said this.
Do you know anything about a lady?
What's her name now?
Oh, she was in England when we were
there.
Agnes Sanford.
Some of you read Agnes Sanford's books I
suppose.
Six years ago somebody told her that that
San Andrea Fault, is that what you call
it?
Is going to split wide open.
And that section is going to slip into
the Pacific Ocean.
That section of California.
She went and bought a house on the
San Andrea Fault.
Defied the devil, defied her friends.
And she's living there.
And has been holding on to God for
six years.
Without tremendous catastrophe will not come.
Isn't it amazing that this righteous man so
called?
I'm angry with Lot.
Wait till I see him.
I'll tell him off.
I'll tell you that.
Why didn't he go pray with Abraham?
He didn't pray with Abraham.
We were in a prayer meeting the other
night.
Where somebody prayed and said, Well, this coming
Saturday my family and they're a very well
known family.
World famous.
They'll be at a ball game.
All the grandkids are going to have a
ball game.
But they won't come to the prayer meeting
tonight.
No church is stronger than its prayer meeting.
The church isn't praying, it's playing.
The pastor isn't praying, he's straying.
The devil fights your prayer life.
I think of that woman I get up
now two or three in the morning.
I think there's that precious little woman on
the San Andrea Fault there.
And she's got the destiny almost of millions
in her hands.
She said, they're not going to pray until
I leave.
I'm going to pray.
I'm going to put out my life.
She won't get a congress medal for it.
She won't be asked to go to the
White House.
In most cases she won't be asked to
go to God's house.
They'll think she's a fanatic.
But there's that one precious woman that's become
my heroine.
Oh yes, yes, I love the stars and
stripes.
I keep saying I'm going to get a
flag.
It hasn't come yet, but anyhow I'm going
to get one.
But when I see people singing, Is this
what you do with your hand on your
heart?
And half of them cheat the income tax.
Anyhow they don't love the country.
They break every blessed law they can break.
They're hypocrites.
And stand my consciences of thee.
Oh America, America, how beautiful.
Accept the IRS.
Go to hell.
You know I think one of these days
most of them are going to wake up
and take God seriously.
I spoke about two weeks ago about the
barren women in the Bible where Rachel got
fed up of the jewels and all the
glory and everything.
I noticed this woman Roth's wife.
Oh brother was she something.
I'll tell you what a note I made
here about her.
When the judgment came what said.
Verse 14 of chapter.
Wait a minute.
19 says this.
Lot went out and spake unto his sons
-in-law which had married his daughters.
There you are.
His sons-in-law had married his daughters.
The marriage was never consummated.
So they had their sex between themselves.
The dogs that they were.
Which had married his daughters and said, Get
you out of this place for the Lord
will destroy this city.
But he seemed unto them as one of
mock.
Now this woman had seen the most righteous
man in the world.
Abraham.
She'd seen her father when he was on
stretch for God.
And she forgot about the holiness of Abraham.
She forgot about the holiness of Lot.
She forgot that God had already poured his
judgment out in water and flooded the earth
and now he's going to burn the thing
up.
Let me stick this in your mind again.
Like it or not.
There's one reason we don't have revival.
Do you know what it is?
We're content to live without it.
When it becomes number one priority.
We'll do something about it.
There's only one reason the world tonight is
going to hell fire.
And that's because the church has got holy
ghost fire.
I don't care whether you've got Holy Insomnia
Church or Pentecostal or what it is.
It's a pillar of fire over it.
After tonight we're going to start our meetings.
Every Friday night we're going to start with
10 to 15 minutes of total silence.
The scripture says be filled with the spirit.
It also says be still and know that
I'm God.
We come out of the fever of the
world.
And you've been racing up the road.
And you come in here and expect somebody
to become sanctified.
We need 10 minutes, 15 minutes to clear
our minds of all the dross and all
the thinking and all the material things.
The church is earthbound.
We're as materialistic as the man up the
road.
The Lord's going to utterly destroy this place.
He seemed unto them as one that mocked.
I had a man and his wife came
from Pittsburgh.
Where is it, Pennsylvania?
To see me yesterday.
Very delightful man.
I'll tell you why I liked him.
Because he agreed with all my idiosyncrasies.
Notice what he said.
Brother Ravenhill, I've read your books.
My heart beats like yours.
But you know what?
People won't accept my message.
Did they ever accept the message of a
prophet?
If you see a man saying he's a
prophet and he's well dressed and has no
scars, forget it.
Maybe he's a prophet.
P-R-O-F-I-T.
Like most of the big radio boys.
He seemed as one that mocked to his
sons.
And when the morning arose, the angels hastened
to Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, thy
two daughters, which ye have noticed the son's
-in-law left out.
Lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of
the city.
And while he lingered, even Lot was lingering.
You talk about mercy?
While he lingered, then these angels laid hold
of his hand.
Now, on the hand of his wife, on
the hand of his two daughters, but not
his son's-in-law.
They brought them forth and set them without
the city.
It came to pass when they brought forth,
then forth abroad, he said, Escape for thy
life, look not behind thee.
Verse 26 says, But his wife looked from
behind and became a pillar of salt.
Isn't it amazing?
With hell raining from the sky, she defied
God?
It's equally amazing to me tonight, with judgment
coming down on us very soon, that most
of the churches are locked up at this
very hour.
We're never going to win the world by
organizing, it's only by agonizing.
But then notice, stepping back, backwards and forwards
a little bit, but anyhow, in the 18th
chapter.
Verse 22 says, The men turned their faces
from thence and went towards Sodom, but Abraham
stood before the Lord.
He wasn't going to be moved by anybody.
Abraham drew near and said, Will thou also
destroy the righteous?
He never prayed for Sodom, he never prayed
for Gomorrah, he prayed for the preservation of
the saints.
People say, Oh bless America.
There's a fellow in Dallas preached, not the
4th of July this year, 4th of July
last year, we were in the Bahamas having
a rest, and somebody turned the thing on
and said, Here's a young fellow preaching from,
I never said his name, but I won't.
His first name is Bob, anyhow.
But he was preaching from Dallas.
At the end, before he preached, the other
man come in Yankee Doodle Trout, you know,
stripes, white and black, and a blue vest
with stars on, and a tall hat and
a stick, and the guy danced on the
platform singing Yankee Doodle Dandy, you know, just
like Isaiah did.
You know what Isaiah did in the first
chapter?
Then he tries to get serious.
Oh, how come you need...
Oh, my dear wife and I, we have
decided to give America to God.
Good Lord, that's like giving a bride a
bag of manure.
Give America to God?
Rotting with venereal disease?
Rotting with AIDS?
With more illegitimate babies than we've ever had
in our history?
With more drunkards than we've ever had in
our history?
With more people on drugs than we've ever
had in our history?
It doesn't alarm the world.
It doesn't alarm us.
He did not pray for Sodom.
He did not pray for Gomorrah.
What did he say?
He said in verse 22, The men turned
their faces from thence and went, but Abraham
stood.
And the next verse says, Abraham drew near
and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous
with the wicked?
Put a ban to that of fifty righteous
within the city.
And notice he mentions that all the way
down.
In verse 23, the righteous.
In verse 24, the righteous.
In verse 25, the righteous.
In verse 26, the righteous.
He gets down to the end where it
says, If they lack fifty of the righteous.
Verse 29 says, He spake yet again and
said, Peradventure, there shall be forty found there.
And he said, I will not do it
for forty's sake.
Verse 33 says, The Lord went his way.
As soon as he had left communing with
Abraham, then Abraham returned unto his place.
And then you go on to that terrible
scene again.
These girls are spared.
How are they spared?
An angel, God, in heaven, in mercy, comes
to these girls who have had object lessons
in righteousness and holiness.
They've seen the most amazing man.
They've seen Abraham.
He was a standing joke in Sodom.
You ever go up the hill there and
see that old man, you know?
He's a marvelous looking character.
Oh, he has such a marvelous beard.
Oh, he's such a marvelous figure.
But watch out, because if you're there, he'll
most likely shed blood and build an altar
and pray.
And you know, when he prays, he scares
you to death.
We can't even have any pulpit prayers.
The most shabby thing in church is there
is pulpit prayers.
Oh, my Lord.
I'm reading this verse again here.
Verse 16 in chapter 19.
While he lingered, the men laid hold, or
the angels laid hold on his hand, on
the hand of his wife, on the hand
of his two daughters.
What did they do?
I'll tell you what they did.
They got from out of the place.
Lot's wife, of course, here now, has looked
back and she's turned into a pillar of
salt.
She's looking back to the country club.
She's looking back at the place where she
bought all the jewels.
She hasn't got them with her and they
were ashes before long.
As I've said before, we sing, let the
beauty of Jesus be seen in me.
We sing the end of that chorus.
Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in
me.
All is wonderful, passion and purity.
All thou spirit divine, all my nature refine.
Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in
me.
You see, when a man is purifying gold,
he puts the mixture, the gold, the alloy,
in a crucible, modern crucible, an induction crucible.
And he sits there with a sieve and
he takes the scum.
Gold is the heaviest of all metals.
It falls to the bottom.
The rubbish comes to the top, he takes
it off and throws it away, takes it
off, throws it away.
He doesn't take it off this time.
Why?
Because there is none.
It's pure.
How does he know he's pure?
Because as soon as it's pure, it reflects
the maker.
Reflection there.
Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in
me.
But brother's going to take the dross out
and he's going to put you through the
fire to take it out.
We speak of the Holy Ghost and with
fire, but that's not what the scripture says.
The word of the scripture, the Greek says,
Holy Ghost fire.
It's not the Holy Ghost plus fire, it's
the Holy Ghost who is fire, because our
God is a consuming fire.
And again, you never have to advertise a
fire.
Every time you advertise in the newspaper, you're
advertising your bankruptcy.
If a pillar of fire ever comes in
your church, you'll never advertise again.
Now, it may be comfortable, but it's true
anyhow.
His wife looked back at what?
At the country club.
At the place where she bought her, what
do you call them now, Christian Dior clothes
and all the rest of it.
And all the jewels.
They weren't a bit of good now.
But where your treasure is there will your
heart be.
She was following outwardly, but inwardly she was
fretting, not following.
She's worried about the house.
She's worried about all the antiques.
She's worried about all the treasures in the
place.
But notice verse 29.
It came to pass when God destroyed the
cities of the pen, God remembered Abraham.
Come on.
The one man that prayed and is delivered,
God remembers him.
Because he'd obeyed God.
He'd heard the voice of God.
And therefore God answers prayer for the man
who didn't pray for himself.
I don't read that Lot built any altars.
He was too busy building his bank book
up.
I don't read anywhere that he prayed.
Old Abraham is keeping his daily habit of
contact with God.
He builds his altar.
He stands against the ridicule.
I imagine people come and want his autograph.
They see that camera that's taking his photograph.
But impervious to all the thinking of the
world, he's impervious to whatever Lot, his nephew
might say.
He's seen the face of God.
He's heard the voice of God.
I tell you, if you see the face
of God, the voice of God, all hell
won't move you.
I'm glad you chose that hymn tonight.
I've been thinking of it during the week.
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the
Lord.
You may tremble on the rock, but I'll
tell you what, the rock will never tremble
under you anyhow.
The foundation is laid in the blood of
Jesus Christ in the exceeding great and precious
promises of God.
I say again, as I've said in one
of my books, one day somebody's going to
read the Bible and believe it.
When they do, we'll all be embarrassed.
That's why you get kids in foreign countries
who only have about one chapter of the
Bible and they read it and they believe
it.
And the ministries are astounded.
Oh, I went to school in America.
Doesn't matter whether you went to school in
America or in hell as far as they're
concerned.
Shows the works of God and they can't
do it.
I've told you, I'm sick of theology on
paper.
I'm sick of just reading the Word of
God and I go to a meeting and
somebody says, God is here.
Oh, shut up.
If you put 500 roses in a room
and bring a blind man in, he'll tell
you whether the rose is there or not.
You won't have to tell him.
If God is there, I don't need you
or Gabriel to tell me God is there.
I'm a spirit, God is a spirit.
His spirit bears witness with my spirit.
You can't persuade me God is there if
He isn't.
Because we sang my favorite hymn, All Hail
King Jesus.
We had a marvelous feeling in our bellies.
We had a brother pray there a few
nights ago.
I'll never forget it.
He was very, very, very profoundly moved.
And he said, God, the reason why our
young people are not in the church is
they've never seen the Shekinah glory.
They see the lights of the world and
the lights of the world dazzle them because
there's no light and glory inside.
When the glory comes, you know what?
We won't put these lights out for weeks.
In the Welsh Revival, I was living then.
I was living a few years after.
But I went to Wales and I met
people a hundred years old who went through
the Welsh Revival.
As I say, I talked with Duncan Campbell.
The tears would come in his eyes and
he'd say, Brother Raymond, most of our people
have never seen the glory of God.
God remembered Abraham.
Verse 30, Lot went up out to Zor
and he dwelt in the mountains and his
two daughters were with him.
Now, these are the two girls.
Come on now.
They've seen all their city consumed.
They've seen their buildings consumed.
They've seen their government consumed.
They've seen their markets consumed.
They've seen everything consumed.
What did they do?
They get their father drunk and lie with
him.
The bitches.
You say, that's a bad word.
Well, I looked it up in the dictionary
and it said, Bitch is a female dog
or a dirty woman who is immoral and
corrupt.
And they got their father drunk, it says
in verse 33.
They made their father drink that night.
The firstborn went in and lay with him
and perceived not when she lay down.
He came to pass on the moral.
The firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I
lay with my father yesterday night.
I made him drink.
Go thou in.
And it says verse 35, They made their
father drunk.
Verse 36, They were both daughters of Lot.
Were in childbirth their father.
Could you think a girl who'd been rescued
by a living immortal angel dragged by the
wrist would dare to get her father drunk
and lie with him and become a dirty
dog herself or bitch?
That's a dirty word, but I use it.
Because that's what she was.
It used to hurt me profoundly.
I worked in the first days with Dave
Wilkinson in New York 20 years ago.
I remember when the girl came back in
the office, she was spectacularly beautiful.
She came up in a snow white Cadillac,
a convertible.
Boy, she was something.
What are you here for?
My friend here needs help.
Dave came in.
I said, Dave, this girl says, Dave said,
you need help.
Oh, well, I used to go to church.
I was filled with the Spirit.
I spoke in tongues.
And I can recite the 23rd Psalm.
I can do this.
What are you doing now?
Never mind.
What are you doing?
Why have you come here?
I'm prostituting.
She said, I sat on the front row
in the choir and enjoyed the services.
And now here she is.
I read an awful word in, what was
it, 1 Samuel, I forget the chapter.
Remember the sons of Eli, how they corrupted
themselves and God says, the house of Eli
will never be purged.
Bring all the sacrifices you need.
And they are wiped out.
I believe some denomination will be wiped out
before long.
They've toyed with truth.
Preachers are not going to be judged only
for what they've said, but what they wouldn't
dare to say they're going to be judged
for too.
And that's going to be tough.
One man stands in the gap.
You know what preachers do when it gets
going, going gets hard, decide to go into
politics.
Guys keep calling, I think I should go
into politics.
I think I should go to Washington.
I say, that's like, it's like taking an
ice cube and dropping it in a volcano
and say you'll cool it down.
You won't do a thing when you get
to Washington except become as corrupt as the
rest of the gang.
If God has called you to the ministry,
it's the loftiest thing in the world.
Don't stoop to be a king.
Don't stoop to be the President of the
United States.
Don't stoop to be the King of England.
We deal with the loftiest, mightiest, eternal things.
We're not settling temporary judgments as to whether
they shall widen the road or cut down
some houses and make a new road.
We're dealing with eternity.
Well, I'm praying the next three nights.
Tomorrow night we're going to speak on prayer.
Sunday night on holiness and vision.
Monday night I think on the judgment seat
of Christ for sinners and for saints.
The next night maybe on worship.
I promise you it will be good.
There are some people fasting and praying for
that meeting.
I'm amazed how many people have phoned me
and said, I don't go there but I'm
going to go.
Not because you're there but God wants you
to go.
Personally, I don't care whether you come or
not.
I admit I wouldn't like to preach through
empty seats.
But on the other hand, if God's there,
I wouldn't like you to miss it.
God used Abraham, one man.
God used Duncan Campbell with the background of
old, crippled old ladies, 82, 83, 84, who
fasted and prayed for weeks.
Who made a holy covenant before God they
wouldn't die until you rent the heavens and
God did exactly that.
It troubles me there's so little passion in
our praying.
We can get enthusiastic at a football match
or some other thing but when it comes
to eternity and lost men and women, there's
not much zeal, there's not much passion, not
many tears.
I remember walking on the main street in
Edinburgh in Scotland and I looked at the
cathedral there and remembered John Knox.
That precious, precious man.
A brilliant scholar.
But he lost sight of his eloquence.
He lost sight of his monumental sermons and
he got angry and he got to a
place of passion.
And you remember he took the words of
Rachel, Give me children or I die.
And again she didn't say that when she'd
made her hair nice and put on her
best dress.
She flung herself at the feet of her
husband and said, Give me children or I
die.
In the 1500s, Richard Baxter went to Kidderminster.
My dear wife and I went through that
town often.
When he went, there wasn't one family in
the town that had family devotions.
He had revival on the local level to
this degree.
They built five galleries in that huge church
and he packed every one of them.
Before the revival, there wasn't one family in
town that had devotions.
When he died, there wasn't one family in
town that didn't have them.
I'm burdened about that word.
We use it so often.
I guess you preachers use it.
This church, we're part of the body.
Are you really part of the body?
Christ is the head.
If you sever the head from the body,
you've got nothing.
If Christ isn't the head of your church,
you've got nothing.
You may have a good bank balance and
a good account.
Come on.
Are we the body?
Because Jesus said, this is my body.
His most sacred, holy body, he says, is
broken.
Do you know a church that says to
God, break us to pieces if you like.
Take our deacons away.
Take our Sunday school teachers away.
Break us.
But in holy pity, do something for this
hell bound community I'm living in.
John Knox says, give me Scotland or I
die.
At the same time, John Wells shot the
road.
A poor man has a blanket on his
bed and he gets out of bed in
the morning at 3 o'clock.
There's no heat in the house.
He takes out a big old Scottish plaid
and wraps it round.
He's groaning on his belly on the floor
and his wife says, get into bed, laddie.
Get into bed.
He says, woman, how can I sleep when
there are 3,000 people in this parish
going to a lost eternity?
I picked up the wonderful diary of McShane.
I read it often.
McShane was the brainard of Scotland.
He died at 29.
He was a genius in Hebrew.
He went as a missionary to Israel.
And when he got there, God said, go
back home.
Maybe I mentioned last week a man that
was in our house two weeks ago from
a little fellowship called Zion.
I walked in the upper room there after
preaching one Sunday morning to about 80 or
90 people.
I went up to see this man, Rex
Andrews.
Wide head man, little white beard, blue eyes,
cheeks any girl would envy.
Pink.
I was looking at one of the most
amazing men America has had in a hundred
years.
Do you know why?
The man I looked at hadn't been to
bed one night in 30 years.
Not 30 days, not 30 weeks, 30 years.
Living in America and nobody knew.
All the big preachers were getting on TV
and showing off.
Here's a man shut up with God from
10 o'clock every night till 5 in
the morning.
I'm embarrassed to say I get up early
and pray when I think of that man.
4, 5, 6 hours every night of his
life for what?
30 years.
I look at my dear wife every morning.
I give her a hug and kiss her.
I think she's lovely as she was when
we got married 46 years ago.
I've been faithful to my wife for 46
years.
Can't I be faithful to God for 46?
Despite the world, the flesh, the devil and
everything that wants to hinder me?
Can't I make a vow to God?
I don't make vows these days.
Because I know if I make them, I'll
keep them.
If I know if I wouldn't make one
or two of them I'd like to make,
I'd be dead in six months.
Maybe God will test me on it.
I'm sick to death of mediocrity.
I'm tired of assembly lines that turn off
kids up at, what do you call it
now?
Springfield, off the assembly line.
The guys don't know God, never mind the
baptism of the Holy Ghost.
They speak in tongues, proves nothing as far
as I'm concerned.
Every Mormon nearly over in Utah speaks in
tongues.
They'll tell you that proudly.
Every Christian scientist will tell you every miracle
Oral Roberts has had, they've had.
There's only one proof of the Holy Ghost
in your life and that's a holy life.
That's the only proof.
And the second proof is you're easy to
live with.
Don't ask my wife here, come round the
back door some day, ask her if I'm
easy to live with, if I'm not, write
me off as a hypocrite.
You see, and I'd better wind this up,
God demands holiness if you're going to pray.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the
Lord, neither hath clean hands.
Not the man that's doing tricky business.
And the pure heart is emptied of all
self-interest, self-seeking, self-glory, self-ambition,
self-righteousness.
Self has gone out.
And the Holy Ghost has come in to
take total occupation.
Yes, these girls were saved out of fire.
They could see the smoking city.
And they dare to go in the tent
and make their father commit, get them pregnant.
I'm amazed how hard some people can become
after they profess to have been filled with
God.
They can go back to worldliness and thawedness
and materialism and stand up and talk about
repentance.
Why doesn't God Almighty slay them?
Because He's appointed today and He's going to
judge us.
Here is one man who stands in the
gap.
God can't try to look for a man
to stand in the gap because here's a
man that's forgotten about worldly interests.
He doesn't go look after his sheep.
He isn't looking after a new piece of
land.
He's seen the deterioration and I don't believe
for a minute these girls went to hell
and perished without hearing prayers of their father
Abraham over there.
Seeing the tears of their father Abraham.
When he said goodbye to Mesopotamia with its
idols and materialism, it was forever.
He got married to the will of God
and he stayed with the will of God.
God isn't looking for brilliant men.
He's looking for genius.
He's looking for holy men.
He's looking for men totally emptied of self
who say, I am determined by the grace
of God to be the holiest man in
this community without telling anybody about it.
It's a relationship between God and myself.
No, this man doesn't pray for Sodom and
Gomorrah.
He doesn't pray that some government, some good
sanctified men will become rulers of town or
presidents or in the local government.
He's praying for righteous men.
Preserve the righteousness of your saints.
If we can get a holy band of
people, we can see God do as much
as ever he's done in history.
People will say we're arrogant, we're funny.
Well, surely in God's name we don't really
like that much, do you?
I'd rather be considered the biggest idiot in
the world with the anointing of God than
be the smartest man outside.
I don't see much of these big fashionable
churches.
How about these big wonderful preachers?
I'm trying to write another book I get
scared to write.
I'll tell you why.
Because once I say something to you, God
puts it on the plate and says eat
it yourself.
Otherwise I'm just giving you advice.
I'm waving my hands.
Go that way for healing and this way
for blessing and that way for something else.
I say to me that one of the
awful things of our day is that Calvary
has become a tourist attraction.
Oh, I went to the place where Jesus
was crucified.
I picked up a little stone.
I brought it.
I thought you'd like a souvenir.
I put it down.
I don't want it.
There are lots of people going to Calvary.
Not many people getting on the cross.
Not many people who really want to die.
I've gone round the circle but listen.
If it isn't a presentation of Holy Ghost
fire there'll be a judgment fire before long
in America.
You may agree or disagree with Dave Wilkerson's
new book.
I think most of it hits the nail
on the head.
Some I don't understand.
Some he doesn't understand as far as that
goes.
But America's in jeopardy.
There's nobody who can rescue us.
We can't make friends with communist nations and
other nations.
God is going to get us to the
place where he's going to break the nation.
But before he does that he'll break the
church.
As far as I'm concerned we've out sinned
Sodom and Gomorrah.
I say they had no Bibles.
And that book sold very well.
They hadn't.
But nobody ever wrote to me and reminded
me until years after I'd written it.
I'll tell you what they did have.
They had two of the greatest preachers that
ever lived.
Noah was a preacher of righteousness he said
in Peter.
Everybody remembers him because he built an ark.
God remembers him because he preached righteousness.
He didn't preach anything but righteousness.
He preached the second blessing the second coming.
Miracles, healing, signs, wonders.
Anybody will listen to that but preach righteousness.
Brother you're out of business almost.
Not only was Noah a preacher of righteousness
but a more amazing man.
Enoch.
Imagine in the early days of the world
Enoch with 10 preaches according to the 24th
verse isn't it in Jude.
There he is standing at the beginning of
the world and he says Jesus Christ is
coming with 10,000 of his saints to
execute judgment.
Dear God we've forgotten it.
Never mind those people.
Noah preaching righteousness Enoch preaching Jesus Christ is
coming in judgment.
Who wants to hear it anymore in our
churches?
No give us something sweet and sugary and
nice.
Something that won't hurt us.
Something that won't send us home weeping and
broken.
There's enough trouble in the world without going
to church to get it.
Come on carnal trouble is one thing.
Spiritual trouble is another.
Carnal burdens are one thing.
Your business troubles and other things.
But when it comes to the burden of
the Lord which is spoken of so often
by the prophets the minor prophets an entirely
different thing.
But he says my yoke is easy my
burden is light.
As we sang that hymn tonight never thought
of it until we sang it tonight.
Strength for today.
Why did you give me more strength today?
Because you didn't need it.
If you'd needed it if you'd been carrying
a bigger burden it would have given you
more blessing it would have given you more
power it would have given you more anointing.
You didn't need it.
You didn't ask for it.
You wanted to sail through this day like
yesterday with as little burden and as little
obligation as I can have.
Five minutes inside eternity friends we'll all wish
we'd been more holy.
We'll all wish we'd carried bigger burdens.
We'll all wish we'd had more tears.
We'll all wish we'd had more trouble.
It's too late there's no turning back.
If we don't write if we don't write
pardon me if we don't see revival God's
going to write America off I'm sure of
that and England as far as that goes.
The sons of Eli betrayed God and they
wiped their generation out.
I wonder what would have happened if Hananias
and Sapphira hadn't grieved God.
They might have had some of the most
wonderful children baptised with the Holy Ghost and
revolutionised the world.
But they got greedy they got self-satisfied.
Let me quote McShane again quote McShane said
a hundred more than a hundred years ago
there's one thing for sure the devil hates
in the world and that's a holy person.
He doesn't mind half-hearted people.
He doesn't mind people who want to be
sanctified on Sunday and caramel on Monday who
enjoy a prayer meeting but enjoy a bowling
alley tomorrow night just as much.
He's looking for a heart of people whose
hearts are pure pure in their purpose pure
in their intention pure in their desires.
It's getting late.
Just now he put I'm going to close
in a minute.
It's getting late for the Americans.
All kinds of people are writing Dave Wilson
your book has stirred me.
They call me from many countries often I
just read your book it's been translated I've
been challenged I say forget it brother you
need to be changed not challenged.
We get challenged every time we go to
church who gets challenged?
Who comes out with a miracle heart?
Who comes out with a fire of God
burning in him that all the waters of
hell and discouragement can't put out?
We build monuments to our heroes we don't
copy them in lifestyle we don't copy them
in passion.
Abraham was like Elijah a man of like
passion as we are.
God discouraged sometimes but on the other hand
he held on.
He held on when all Sodom went down
he held on when his nephew went down.
He held on when the city burned but
he lived to see God honor his prayers
and God will honor our prayers.
God is going to have to give us
holy men men who look in the face
of God and say Lord I'm not concerned
about my preaching and my name in this
district I want to be a channel of
blessing from your throne to a world that's
doomed and damned.
When we get desperate as I've said before
God does not answer prayer he answers desperate
prayer.
We're going to pray for a season now.
I'm not going to sing I'm going to
ask you to leave if you wish to
leave when we get down you can go
out or you can stay and pray for
a half hour or more as the Lord
leads us I can't transmit in words what's
in my heart I wish I could I
wish I could kind of cut a vein
and say there's a spot of my blood
that's what they used to do and cut
a vein couples that were going to get
married used to cut a vein and put
their wrists together and pledge made a covenant
with blood you don't have to cut your
vein the blood is you have to discipline
your life under God you have to be
willing for ridicule you have to be willing
for sarcasm you have to be willing for
somebody saying he thinks he's holier than we
are so why worry we need God to
render heavens only that's going to give me
a chair please that's the only answer that
we have that's the only answer