The Gospel is recorded by Luke in chapter
12, reading
verses 49 and 50.
I am come to send fire on earth,
and what will I if it be already
kindled?
But I have a baptism to be baptized
with.
I've been going to meetings, being old and
antique as I am, I've been going to
meetings for more than 70 years, all over
the world.
Pentecostal conferences, Methodist conferences, all kinds of conferences.
I've heard the baptism of the Holy Spirit
preached, I think, 50 different ways.
You can go to the greatest conventions in
America that, and they'll put a notice up,
we're going to preach about the baptism of
the Holy Ghost.
In 70 years I've never heard anyone preach
on this text.
I have a baptism, Jesus speaking of himself.
But the first part of that verse is
wonderful, verse 49.
I am come to send fire on earth.
You know, Charles Wesley gave us that lovely
children with him, gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
look upon the little child.
But you know, some people never get past
gentle Jesus.
Jesus is associated with fire.
The next time he comes, uh, what is
it, 2nd Thessalonians chapter 1 says, he's coming
with flaming angels, thousands of them.
It would have been wonderful if he'd come
like the first time.
It'd be more impressive.
And that wasn't God's plan, but he's going
to come.
But here he is, and he's saying to
these, uh, disciples, I am come to send
fire on earth.
And what if it is already kindled?
I have a baptism to be baptized with.
And how am I straightened until it be
accomplished?
I come to send fire.
Again, the symbol of the church.
I was preaching last Friday night in a
big church with with a big cross of
Jesus and one for the thieves.
I reminded them that's pagan, that's not Christian,
that's cruel.
The cross is no symbol of Christianity.
The symbol of Christianity is a tongue of
fire that's up on the head of each
of them.
And now God is a consuming fire.
I am come to send fire on earth.
I've got a quote from Wesley's hymn, so
you'll be disappointed, I'm sure.
But Wesley has a wonderful hymn on this.
It says, see how great the flame aspires,
kindled by a spark of grace.
Jesus loved the nation's fire, set the kingdom
on the blaze.
To bring fire on earth he came, kindled
in some hearts it is.
Oh, that all might catch the flame, all
partake the glorious bliss.
When he first the work began, small and
feeble was the flame.
Do you think now?
I should have brought the hymn book.
I'm getting forgetful.
When he first the work began, small and
feeble was its flame.
Now the word does swiftly run, now it
wins its widening way.
More and more it spreads and grows, ever
mighty to prevail.
Sin's stronghold it now o'erthraws, and shakes
the trembling gales of hell.
Sons of God, you'll make a praise.
He adored up open wide.
He has given the word of grace.
Jesus' love is glorified.
The last answer is, saw ye not a
cloud arise, little as a human hand?
Now it spreads along the skies, spreads over
all the thirsty land.
Jesus, mighty to prevail.
I can't remember the last line.
But you see, he got the idea of
a spark at the beginning, and gradually it
blossoms out, it goes through the whole world.
Now Wesley wrote that in 17, he wrote
it in 17, I think 76.
And yet it's prophetic because it's done that.
More and more it spreads and grows, ever
mighty to prevail.
With the expansion of the thing, you say
there's a weakening.
But when the church truly expands, there's a
strengthening.
God never planned any failures for us.
I'm come to bring fire on earth, what
will I if it be already kindled?
I have a baptism to be baptized with,
and how am I straightened?
Or Weymouth translates that, how am I pent
up?
I'm not free to let that flame go
forward.
This is my design.
I want a kingdom of fire, and all
the power of hell won't put that fire
out.
It's holy ghost fire against hell fire.
And when the church is really on fire,
she is indeed the most attractive thing in
the whole wide world.
Supposedly that I am come to give peace
on earth.
Well that's what we love isn't it?
Don't we recite from Isaiah, his name should
be called wonderful counselor, prince of peace, everlasting
father, prince of peace.
But listen to what Jesus says, you suppose
I came to earth of peace, I tell
you neighbor, rather division.
For from henceforth there should be five in
one house, divided three against two, and two
against three.
The father should be divided against the son,
the son against the father, and the mother
against the daughter, and the daughter against the
mother, the mother-in-law against the daughter
-in-law, the daughter-in-law against the
mother-in-law.
And so he's making this prediction.
Then verse 54 he says also, when you
see a cloud rise in the west straightway,
you say there cometh a shower, and so
it is.
When you see the south wind blow, you
say there will be heat, and it cometh
to pass.
You hypocrites, ye can discern the face of
the sky and of the earth.
How is it that you cannot discern this
time?
What time?
The fact that he was there, the son
of God.
The fact that he was a culmination of
all the prophets of all the ages.
Jacob said, I shall see him, but not
now.
I shall behold him, but not nigh.
A star shall arise out of Jacob that
shall rule my people, and here he is.
They'd read over and over again, a virgin
shall be with child.
They'd read about his kingdom coming, and then
here they are, blind.
They can discern the weather.
They had their predictors in those days, and
fortunes.
But he said, how is it you can't
discern the time?
You know, I believe God looks from heaven
and says the same to us.
I think he's saying, you dumb cloud.
What do I have to do next to
tell you?
All these things around about us, didn't I
tell you in the last days there'll be
corrupt living, corrupt families, families divided, a divorce,
diseases, damnation.
We finance damnation.
We invest money in every cruel damnable thing
that there is.
We know the gospel isn't being preached.
It's being diluted in a very, very tragic
way.
So, it's for us again to discern the
sign of the times.
Now, I want to bear this out actually
from the gospel according to Matthew, the 20th
chapter, excuse me.
Okay, are we in chapter 20 now?
Matthew chapter 20, reading from verse 17.
Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the 12
disciples apart in the way, and said unto
them, behold we go up to Jerusalem the
son of man shall be betrayed, and the
chief priests and the scribes, and they shall
condemn him to death, and shall deliver him
to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and
crucify him.
Then came, and they came to him the
mother of Zebedee's children.
Who were they?
James and John.
God is worshipping him, and desiring a certain
thing of him.
And he said unto her, what wilt thou?
She said unto him, grant that these my
two sons may sit, the one on the
right hand, and the other on the left,
in my kingdom.
But Jesus answered and said, do you know
not what ye ask?
Well, she asked a big thing.
In the other gospel, it says that they
asked that John and his brother asked.
Here it says his mother asked.
I guess there's a collusion in this.
They'd agreed together to try and give Jesus,
they believed he was going to have a
kingdom, and they wanted to sit on the
right hand or the left hand when he
came into his kingdom.
But notice they came worshipping him, and yet
in their worship there was begging.
It wasn't pure.
They had an ulterior motive, they were trying
to bargain with him.
Jesus answered and said, do you know not
what ye ask?
Are ye able to drink of the cup
that I shall drink of, and be baptized
with the baptism that I'm baptized with?
Now, we said there in Luke, let's go
back a minute there into chapter, was it
12?
Again, verse 49, I'm come that sent fire
on earth.
What was that fire?
Why didn't he, what hindered him from giving
them the fire at that moment?
A baptism.
A what?
Sorrow.
A baptism of anguish.
A baptism we call Gethsemane.
You see, there's no place in the whole
wide world where you can put the upper
room before the cross.
The cross comes before the upper room.
We try and turn that around.
As I said sometimes, very often now we're
asking people to tarry in the upper room
who've never knelt at the cross.
They get a false experience, and it evaporates.
We shun the cross.
I have a baptism to be baptized with,
but I want you to receive a fire
that will change that degraded will of yours.
It will endue you with power.
It will give you energy.
It will give you life.
He says, I want to do that, but
I'm straightened.
I wish it could be accomplished, but it
cannot be done yet.
So, let me go back again to that
other chapter again in Matthew chapter 20.
Remember, if we've gone a bit further back
in that previous chapter, a man listened to
him long enough, then he says, why don't
you ask my brother to settle the estate?
Settle a family dispute.
You know, there are people that think God
is only around to help us.
We've got a great utility God to be.
Your prayer need does this, your prayer need
does that, your prayer need sends you money,
prays and gets you out of a jam.
He's not somebody who worships in speechless adoration.
He's a utility God, and these boys on
TV are exploiting that to the nth degree.
You can read this again, chapter 20 in
verse 20.
Then came to him the mother of Hebrides
children with her sons, worshipping him and desiring
a certain thing of him.
What is that you would like me to
do?
Let one sit on thy right hand and
one on thy left hand when thou comest
into thy kingdom.
Jesus answered, you know what he asked, are
you able to drink of the cup that
I shall drink of and be baptized with
the baptism that I am baptized with?
They said to him, we are able.
So that he did, he took them at
his word.
I want my son to enter the kingdom
sitting on right hand, sitting on the left.
There's only one way into the kingdom, that's
death.
In the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 12
and verse 2, it says Herod, and that
Herod was Herod the gripper of the first.
He was a grandson of Herod the great.
Remember Herod the great tried to liquidate Jesus
when he was a babe.
See, before he could walk or talk, the
world was afraid of Jesus.
When they heard he was born, Herod was
troubled.
Why?
Herod's got a standing army.
Herod has a palace.
Herod has everything he wants.
You mean to say that little thing there,
sucking his mother's breast, that the king is
terrified of him?
Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him,
except when they're two old people.
Older people have more wisdom as you can
see.
You know, I think so often that we
talk so much about Hannah in the Old
Testament, we don't talk too much about Anna
in the New Testament.
She's a hundred years of age and she's
going day by day to pray.
And Simeon's an old man.
Just a bunch of old folk going, and
they will not die until God has sent
that precious child that he promised 750 years
before.
Magnificent.
You know what she's lost.
Are you able to take?
Yeah, we can drink the cup.
All right lady, I wonder if she was
living when her son was brutally put to
death.
Again Acts 12 and 2 says that Herod
killed James the brother of John.
It was Herod Agrippa I, the grandson of
Herod the Great, a terrible butcher.
A man who could be linked up with
Pharaoh that liquidated all the babies in Egypt.
Well, no, in Israel.
An ancient Hitler.
I'm trying to write a book, I'm not
doing too well with it.
On the judgment seat of Christ.
I think of the days when all the
armies of men that have been slaughtered, all
the babies have been butchered.
The million babies that were dragged out of
the mother's womb this past year in Christian
America and torn up and put down the
toilet.
Every one of them is going to rise
up in judgment one day.
And we say, Jeremiah, God says, I knew
thee when thou wast in the womb and
I sanctified and ordained thee there.
Is he the exception?
No, no, no, no.
Life belongs to God.
Whatever we do with it, we'll be accountable
for it.
We said that the one thing that sustained,
as it does all men who get in
there, the one thing that sustained Jeremiah, he
had more conflict than any other prophet of
old.
Immediately he was raised up, he was in
conflict, he was conflict when he was dying.
What was the secret of his power?
I'll tell you the secret of his power.
It's very obvious, he states it.
He says, thy fire burned within my heart
while I mused the fire burn.
Yesterday I took the prophecy of Jeremiah in
account.
Do you know he mentions 41 times he
mentioned fire?
They put him in a pit, burned the
fire out of him, destroyed the fire.
I think it was Amarishol's son, I think,
that wrote the hymn.
A verse of the hymn he wrote says
this, waters cannot quench it, floods can never
drown, substance cannot buy it, love's a priceless
crown.
Oh, the wondrous story, mystery divine, I am
my beloved and my beloved is mine.
The fire is unquenchable, the fire of hell
is unquenchable, the fire of the Holy Ghost
is unquenchable.
I know a lot of opposition against the
second blessing.
I challenge you to find me a man
that has made history in God's kingdom who
somewhere didn't have a second crisis after he
was born again to the spirit of God.
The founder of the Quakers said he found
something in him that wouldn't keep peace and
he wanted to get rid of the thing
in him that wouldn't keep, wouldn't, was always
troubling him.
William Booth said I found that I ebbed
and flowed until one day I, the Holy
Ghost came in his fullness.
And then he wrote that marvelous battle hymn
that the modern salvationist doesn't know.
They marched, the Salvation Army was a penniless
organization.
It went into 70 countries in 90 years,
not 70, it is 70 countries.
Men and women left their castles in England.
Professors left their professions.
University people went, why?
Because there's a fire.
They could see that fire as clear as
Israel could see that pillar of fire at
night.
The Holy Ghost is here.
And old William had them going, singing, marching
down the street.
Thou Christ of burning cleansing flame, send the
fire.
Thy blood-bought gift to daily fame, send
the fire.
Look down and see this waiting host, give
us the promise, Holy Ghost.
We want another, I'm not sure we want
it, we need it.
You see, the thing between where you are
now and the baptism of fire is a
cup.
I better get to it or I'll talk
too long.
Verse 22, Jesus answered and said unto her,
Ye know not what ye ask?
Are ye able to drink of the cup
that I shall drink?
Remember again, he said, I have a baptism
to be baptized with.
He'd been baptized in Jordan, he wasn't talking
about that.
The man who introduced him to the world
said, I baptize you with water.
The baptism is external.
When he comes, he'll do something internal.
He'll baptize you with the Holy Ghost, the
literal Greek is, he shall baptize you with
Holy Ghost fire, not with the Holy Ghost
and with fire, you can't separate them.
God's a consuming fire.
He shall baptize you with Holy Ghost fire.
But you see, there's something between here and
there.
Some of you haven't been here before, but
I'm glad to see you.
But let me say this, I say often,
I don't know where you are spiritually, but
there's not a man who's walking with God
that doesn't know he could have been further
up the road than he is, if he'd
really taken care.
If somebody had taught him when he was
born again, you know what happened?
He was born and he was put in
the refrigerator.
There's a dear old, the last of the
line amongst the Baptists, I think, Vance Havner,
he wrote the foreword to my last book,
he's a great character, and he said some
people, where he lives up in Greenville, where
is that, South Carolina?
Oh, he said they're still living in the
last century.
He said the man came selling refrigerators, he
didn't know what they were, they still had
iceboxes.
And he said, well, this is what you
do with the refrigerator.
You take this plug and stick it in,
but they didn't have any electricity, so it
didn't help very much.
But in his drawl, I couldn't imitate, you
know, he said, you know, oh, in my
country, we've got the biggest refrigerators in America,
they've got steeples on them.
Now, I didn't say that, the Baptists said
it.
Richard Chadwick used to say to us, gentlemen,
when sold, don't bring them to birth and
put them in a refrigerator.
The church never had more equipment than she
has now, she never had less power, never
less anointing, never less of the miraculous, never
less than the omnipresent God.
As I've said before, when you last tiptoe
out of church Sunday morning breathless, awed by
the awesomeness of God's majesty, God's glory, God's
omnipotence, we know what's going to happen.
Stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down.
Now the choir will sing, sit a bit
longer.
Now the box is coming, drop some offering
in it.
And now we're going to have another song.
You know, if we'd spent as much time
teaching people to pray, we'd have taught the
choir, we'd have set the world on fire.
What's the good of having all the machinery
in the world if you're not going to
drive it?
I don't care whether you come on a,
I'm going to say, a skateboard, no, if
you come on a Volkswagen tonight or a
Rolls Royce.
We're all dependent on one thing, when we're
sitting in the car, we turn the switch
and if there is no start there, you're
finished.
Your car may be insured, it may be
the cleanest car, it may be wonderful condition,
but it needs a spark to drive it.
But look at all the equipment in the
church.
If the fire of the Holy Ghost really
came upon the church today, we could shake
the world in six months, without a shadow
of doubt.
You know not what you ask.
I wonder how often God says that to
us.
As I've told you many times, I say
privately in my press, I don't want to
get to the judgment seat.
With maybe trillions of eyes looking on me,
I'm here, Jesus is there, and everybody that's
lived since Adam is going to see me
come up for trial.
I do not want God to say to
me in that day, son I had many
things to tell you, but you couldn't bear
them.
I've got a new saying and I'm always
pushing it down people's throats now.
When are we going to get serious about
being serious about revival?
We're not serious about it.
I got a big brochure this week.
Oh I don't know how many big celebrities
are going.
The man that's running the thing, I want
you to come as my personal official guest
and I'll pay all your fares and I'll
pay your hotel fees and everything.
And it said so and so is going
to speak and there's going to be a
special session.
Don't get this often, so I'll give you
the address if you want.
There's going to be a special session maybe
twice or three times in the week to
teach puppetry.
And then it goes on to say we're
going to teach mimes.
I'm not being prestigious.
Can you imagine the men coming out of
the upper room teaching those rebel priests and
gods puppets?
Coming with their faces painted white and their
hands and clowning?
Dear lord we've enough clowns outside the church,
why bring them in?
Why should the world take us seriously when
we don't take God seriously?
Come on!
Are you able to drink the cup and
be baptized with the baptism that I should
be baptized with?
Watch the cup.
Scripture chapter 26 please in Matthew and verses
39 and yeah 39 to 42.
Here's the baptism for you.
He went a little further and fell on
his face and prayed saying oh my father
if it be possible let this cup pass
from me.
Nevertheless not as I will but as thou
wills.
And he cometh to his disciples and finding
them sleeping said to Peter what could he
not watch when you were now?
Watch and pray that he ends not into
temptation.
What was the cup?
Well I'll tell you what ingredient one ingredient
was.
It had betrayal in it.
The men who'd sworn allegiance to him when
it came to the crisis they quit.
Can he drink of the cup?
Watch in the cup.
I believe in that cup there was internal
suffering, mental suffering and spiritual suffering.
You want to drink the cup?
I'm straightened he says I cannot do anything
now.
I can't do anything.
There's a baptism I have to go through.
The holy ghost can't come down until I
go up.
I can't go up until I've done the
will of the father.
And he goes through the agony of death's
remedy.
He goes through the lonesomeness.
He drank of that cup.
I say it was internal.
Why?
Because in Isaiah 53 verse 11 he says
eat travail.
Isn't that internal?
Deserted by others and in the darkest hour.
Not only deserted by men, deserted by God.
Can you drink of that cup?
You want to travel?
You see what people are seeking for today
is a painless Pentecost.
There isn't such a thing.
The day of Pentecost was fully kept.
What happened immediately after Pentecost?
They prospered.
Yes they did.
They went to jail.
It wasn't prosperity.
It was prison, pain, privation, persecution.
The men of dishonest are preached on tv
today.
They're liars.
It's an occasional blessing and God will open
the windows of heaven on you.
Jesus goes on to say when that man
in the other chapter that we didn't read
of, when he says settle this dispute between
my brother and myself about the family estate.
Jesus says lay not up for yourself treasure
on earth where moth and rust corrupt and
thieves break through and steal.
You know a lot of wealthy Christians will
get to heaven bankrupt and a lot of
Christians almost bankrupt live in poverty.
They'll be super millionaires when they get into
eternity.
But this is the way.
But if you're reading the other version of
that, if you're going to follow the Lord
it's division in the family.
Your father mother will hate you.
Jesus comes to the place where his brother
said he's insane.
You know people say I want to be
like Jesus.
I doubt it.
You want to get kicked out of your
family because you love God?
You want to be so true to God
that the Thomas comes and doubts you?
That a Judas tells you?
You really want to be like Jesus?
Well why don't you practice it?
Why don't you have 40 days and 40
nights of fasting?
Forget all the paperwork.
We make such rash vows.
When the temperature is running high in the
meeting, we make vows, vows, vows.
I'd say the pain was internal.
He shall see of the travel of his
soul and be satisfied.
I'm sure it was not only internal.
I'm sure it was mental pain.
I'm sure it was bodily pain.
Because he said in that what the fifth
chapter of Isaiah, I gave my back to
the smiters.
We don't do that.
We fight back.
We don't like somebody to carve us up,
scorn us, ridicule us, humiliate us, misrepresent us.
And he got the whole works.
And then he never muttered once.
What did he say?
He said that when it came to the
agony of the cross that men shut out
the lip.
I don't understand those disciples.
I never will.
Why after he came from the judgment hall
and was going to the cross, why did
they line up on either side of the
road and applaud him and say the king,
this is the way our king comes into
his kingdom.
Instead of that, men shut out the lip
and scorn and said, if God's your father,
let him deliver you.
I say again, the perennial challenge to a
Christian is come down from the cross and
save yourself.
You made a decision in a missionary meeting.
I'm going to give more money to missions.
And then something kept, and you backed off.
I'm going to spend more time with God.
Forget it.
You didn't do it.
You know, when Elijah, before he called down
the fire, he went back and he built
the old altar.
We don't want to go back to old
altars, to old vows, to old commitments.
We're always trying to make new things.
God knows they'll be broken down anyhow in
a few weeks.
Christianity has not been weighed in the balances
and found wanting.
It's been tried, found difficult and rejected.
It's too tough.
There's no part-time service.
Leave all and follow me.
Oh, drink of the cup in
the darkness and agony of Gethsemane.
I've told you, I've said again briefly, I
was going down the street in Oldham, which
is nine miles outside of Manchester.
I was in my early twenties, and I
passed through the in town.
In fact, the largest, oldest church in England.
Going down the street one day, as I
passed this house, a lady opened the door.
Hi.
I said, hi.
She said, you're a pastor at the tabernacle.
I said, yes.
I often come to your church.
I sit on the back seat.
I'm very poor.
Fine.
I don't like to come.
I can't give, I don't want to come
and give anything in the offering.
But she said, I wanted to do something.
What?
She said, would you come in my house
and drink a cup of tea?
Well, usually, of course, I want tea.
I said, yes.
The only thing is that I went in,
you know, you went in like this.
Boy, that house did it smell.
I got in there and, you know, the
books, she bought books from a junk shop
nearby.
I'd seen her in the shop many times.
She had them like a wall, when you
went in the door, that you could just
keep your hands on top of them, go
right through to the back room, the dining
room, which was dining room and everything else.
Oh, you will have a cup of tea.
I said, sure, I'll have a cup of
tea.
She's lovely fingernails.
They got passive patoot around them, you know.
All the common language of fingernails were all
in mourning.
Clogged up with dirt.
The kitchen sink had dishes this height from
here about this height.
There was a plate there with some old
bacon on and they've got, what do you
call that stuff?
Mold?
Penicillin.
You've heard of it before.
She didn't know she could have sold it.
Penicillin.
Yes, siree.
She got that fuzzy, horrid looking stuff.
Well, you take tea, yes.
She reached in the kitchen sink with a
stack of cups, and you know the tea
had run on the outside, and she picked
it up.
Mercy on us.
Looked as though it had about a hundred
bugs at the bottom.
Dried, dirty, rotten old tea leaves.
In fact, some were moldy.
Well, now she said, I'm going to give
you a cup of tea.
I said, all right.
She poured the tea into the cup.
It was as black as my shoes, and
I don't like black tea.
Do you take cream?
Yes, I have none.
Good.
Do you take sugar?
Yes, I have none.
And with that dirty hand shaking, I saw
that black stuff that was supposed to be
tea, cold as ice, and I hesitated.
I felt like picking it up.
But I knew I was on trial, and
she held the cup out.
Well, I hesitated.
Drink it.
And as she handed me that cup of
dirty tea, my mind went two thousand miles
away from the town I was in, to
a place called Gethsemane.
Two thousand miles away, two thousand years back.
And the Father gave a cup with all
the dregs of impurity and wickedness in it.
And he didn't give it to Gabriel.
He didn't give it to Michael the Archangel.
He gave it to his son.
This is what he's come to do.
He's come to consume iniquity.
And he's going to do it in the
garden of Gethsemane by himself, when everybody's betrayed
him, and his nerves are down, and he
can hear the enemy coming.
And he's thinking of all the years he's
demonstrated his power as a son of God.
He's walked on the water.
He's raised the dead.
He's cleansed the lepers.
He's put insane people.
And they didn't believe on him.
So what's the difference today?
Do we believe on him?
Remember, there wasn't one of the twelve disciples
that ever had a Bible.
Not even the Apostle Paul had one.
You know, you don't boast too much about
your Bible knowledge.
It's going to face us at the judgment
seat.
I wonder sometimes, I don't have a big
library.
I have a few nice books.
I was handling one yesterday, and I thought,
will these books rise up in judgment against
me?
We're looking, I say again with all my
heart, we're looking for a painless Pentecost.
We want to invest a dime and get
a million dollars back.
Can you drink of the cup?
We're able.
So they drank, and they were crucified.
Today it's considered sadistic if you say people
have to take up their cross even.
Don't tell young people about the cross.
They'll be discouraged.
Well, are you suggesting Jesus wasn't smart?
If you're going to be my disciple, kiss
the world goodbye.
You see, when people are born again these
days, they don't get separated from the world.
Most likely they're pastors, the most worldly guy
that is around.
But if you're going to get what he
wants to give, if you're going to get
the real true baptism of the Spirit, you
have to drink of that cup.
They said we're able, and he said you
shall drink indeed of my cup, and be
baptized with the baptism that I'm baptized with.
But to sit on my right hand and
on my left, it's not mine to give.
The Father's going to do that.
But verse 24 says, when the ten, the
other ten disciples were around listening, they were
moved with indignation against the two brethren.
Now he rubs their noses in the dust.
You're looking to sit on my right hand
and my left in my kingdom?
He could have said, aren't you prepared to
go?
Are you prepared to go through hell to
get there?
You can't show me a revival in history
that hasn't been born of travail, and pain,
and loneliness, and dark, weary nights.
As I read this, I thought again today
of seeing that there's a model up in
Scotland, nine miles out of Glasgow, there's a
great big, big, big house.
It's a national memorial to David, I was
going to say David Brennan, no.
What was his name?
David Livingstone.
And it shows the room where he died,
where for years and years he prayed.
It's like some of those houses in India
that just got bamboo and then leaves woven
in.
And there he is kneeling over a bed,
if you can call it that, two bamboo
rods and with some leaves on, and a
candle flew flickering, there's an automatic electric candle
flickering there.
And they said every night he would kneel
at that bed, and you would hear him
crying with his hands raised.
God, when will the wound of this world's
sin be healed?
He fought the Portuguese slave traders.
He did many, many marvellous things.
Why?
Because he had to get family of his
own.
His precious wife died, he buried her in
the jungle.
And the baby that she'd born died, he
buried the child at the side of its
mother.
Another child he had died, he buried that.
And the record I have said that he
said this, as he laid them to rest,
and he buried them across the Christian way,
and said they'd die and come back in
the resurrection.
The reason he brought his wife, he married
the daughter of Moffat, the great missionary, Mary
Moffat.
He kept writing and saying, David, why did
you let me come over there?
People say that you don't care, you don't
love me.
People say you got tired of me.
People say this, say that.
So finally she came.
I believe she brought one child, another one
was born afterwards.
What did he get?
He told her not to come because they
didn't have the drugs that we have today,
the quinine and all kind of stuff.
She got malaria.
And as he pointed the finger down, he
said, Mary, darling, Mary, people will say you
were killed with malaria.
No, no, no such thing, he said.
You were killed by the cruel tongues of
people in Scotland that drove you out of
your native home and sent you here.
But that grief didn't change his zeal for
God.
It added fuel to the fire.
The devil's trying to rob me, the devil's
trying to hinder me, and he worked with
great zeal.
He prayed more than ever he prayed.
And he said, night after night his voice
would echo through the forest.
So God, when will the wound of this
world of sin be healed?
Dear God, all our pastors are concerned about
is having one or two members, getting another
bus to bring the people in.
There can be no revival again, I say,
without travail.
I want my son to sit on the
right hand.
Well, listen, here's his answer.
Verse 24, when the ten heard it, they
were moved with indignation against the two brethren.
Jesus called unto them and said, Know ye
not that the princes of the Gentiles exercise
dominion over them, and they are a great
exercise of authority upon them?
But it shall not be so among you.
Whosoever will be the greatest among you, let
him be your minister, and whosoever will be
chief among you, let him be your servant.
That's the switch, isn't it?
They wanted to sit on the right hand.
He says, well, the way into my kingdom,
if you want to go up, you go
down.
Exalt yourself, I'll abase you.
Be abased, and I'll exalt you.
Save your life, you'll lose it.
Lose your life, you'll save it.
It's reverse logic.
Verse 27, whosoever will be chief among you,
let him be your servant, even as the
Son of Man came not to be ministered
unto, but to minister, and to give his
life.
Not to give his theology, not to declare,
I have a mandate from the Father to
instruct you, he gave them all he had.
He gave them the Sermon on the Mount,
he gave them evidence that they have dominion
over sin, and death, and disease, and devils,
and everything, and yet they were unbelieving.
I said one thing, reverting to that thing
again.
I'm straightened, I'm tied up, I can't do
anything yet.
That's what he said in Luke 12 there.
I have no release.
I've a baptism to be baptized with.
Before that word of John that startled you,
when he said when he comes he'll baptize
you with the Holy Ghost and fire, but
he didn't do that.
Not immediately.
He said I've got to go through the
Father's will, and the Father's will is Gethsemane,
the Father's will is the cross, the Father's
will is, I go down into the depths,
and I'll be captured, and be captured, and
give sin to men.
As I said, there's one great, two great
reasons we don't have revival.
One, we're content to live without it.
Number two, it's too costly.
We don't want God to disrupt our status
quo.
We want to eat, drink, and be merry,
and tomorrow we live.
The Christian life can only be lived one
way, and that's God's way.
And God's way is that I leave all
and follow him.
God's way is that in the hour when
I think I'm going to have joy or
something, suddenly that cup turns into a cup
of bitterness.
When I think I've arrived at something, the
Lord shutters that.
You know, we think, well, if I had
the privilege of Mrs. Saunders, or somebody else,
I'd be a real saint.
As I read this, whoso will be chief
among you, let him be a servant.
I didn't come to be ministered unto, but
to minister, and to give my life.
I was reading a couple of pages in
the Marischal's life yesterday.
I like to turn to that book.
She was the oldest daughter of the founder
of the Salvation Army, and had the privilege,
when she was 85 years of age, she
could preach up a storm.
You can never talk about a storm.
And then one night she said, I went
to Brussels.
I went to a large mansion.
It was loaded with antiques, costly things.
It was beautiful.
It was owned by a Christian.
And there was a sweet girl there.
I noticed each morning, about nine o'clock,
she'd come out of the servants' quarter, radiant.
I said to her one day, my dearie,
I want to ask you a question.
I've noticed for the last few mornings, when
you come out of the servants' quarter, after
having breakfast, you're so radiant.
Well, it was a big, big old house.
We used to have a house, I don't
know how many chimneys in it.
I think there were 12 fires, and she
had to light the fire every morning.
Take out the ashes from every one, and
carry the ashes out.
Get the kindling wood.
Get the fire going, first of all, in
the dining room, so the precious folk wouldn't
be shivering, you know, when they're eating all
the wonderful stuff.
And the Marischal said, but what time do
you?
Oh, I begin, my dear lady, I begin
at five o'clock in the morning.
Five o'clock?
Yeah.
In what time?
Well, breakfast is at eight.
Usually I finish the last fire.
I've got the last fire going by about
half past seven.
Well, how do you do it?
I just kneel in front of it, and
I sweep all the ashes on one side,
I put them in a bucket, and then
I get some paper, then I get some
kindling wood, and boy, getting cold to catch
fire is a job.
I go in that room and get that
fire going.
I go to the next, I go to
the next, I go back, the first one's
gone out, so I do it over again.
But eventually I get to breakfast a minute
or two before eight o'clock, and I've
lit my twelve fires.
Don't you get impatient?
No.
Well, you say the fire has gone out?
Yeah, they often go out.
Well, do you get up early in the
morning for devotion?
She said, no, not very early.
Well, how do you maintain your spiritual life?
She said, every time I light a fire
I say, Jesus, while I'm kindled this fire,
kindle a fire in me.
Kindle a fire of your loving me afresh
this morning.
Kindle a fire of your devotion in me.
Here's this precious little girl talking to one
of the most powerful women in the world,
a woman who at 21 years of age
went to Paris and turned the city upside
down, preaching against all the prostitutes.
The queen of the underworld was there.
Men came from the Sorbonne, the greatest intellectuals
with their long beards and their pipes, and
listened to her.
And yet this precious little girl said, the
young lady taught me more than most sermons
had ever heard.
She had to light the fire, then get
bellows and blow the things up, try and
get them going.
And she said, every fireplace I never miss
one morning saying, Lord, as I'm kindling this
fire, kindle your fire in me.
The fire of love for your will, the
fire of love, the fire of joy, the
fire of peace, the fire of compassion.
If it all came back to the church,
we'd turn America upside down in six months.
Ours is all theology.
We get a starving man, we give him
a cookery book.
Does it help him?
He looks in the cookery book and he
sees a dish there with potatoes on and
beef and all that.
What do you do?
You tantalize him.
Oh, I hope one day you can come
to our, we're going to have this, you
see, this beef and then we're having this
and we're going to have some turkey and
something else.
And the poor man's ravenously hungry.
We give him a picture, but we don't
give him the goods.
The average church today, you're going Sunday morning,
they give you the menu, but they never
give you the meal.
You're giving out a line of theology.
This is our precious doctrine.
So those people have been reciting doctrine in
hell.
Jesus never intended it should be a meal.
As I've said to you before, if you
say where two or three are gathered in
his name, if the living Christ is in
your meeting, if there's a living Christ powering
God's name, can you have a dead service?
It's totally impossible.
I remember talking once in the Carnegie Hall
in Pittsburgh with Miss Kuhlman.
We were talking about the church as it
is and various other things.
And she said, I talked with some young
students the other day and they said, well,
we go to a church, oh, we have
a wonderful pastor and a marvelous choir and
he's a great teacher.
But nothing ever happens.
We come to see your meeting and there's
a power of God there.
And I was in meetings there where billows
of power went over the meeting.
All kinds of miracles were done.
What does a pastor say?
He says, well, of course, where two or
three are gathered, he's in the midst.
Do you know what I said to them?
No.
What did you say?
Well, if he's in the midst and you
believe he's the same yesterday and today and
forever, why doesn't he do in the midst
here what he did in the midst there?
We try and bail God out.
The stupid pastors have been to a seminary,
as I say again, cemetery.
Our pulpits are full of dead men preaching
dead sermons to dead people.
But there's going to come an awakening.
God Almighty doesn't care if he sends America
bankrupt.
He doesn't care if we have to stand
in bread lines.
He doesn't care if our automobiles rust because
we have no gasoline.
And that could happen very easily.
If Russia gets Iran, she can bottleneck all
the oil in the world there.
And that's what she's after.
And she's going to fight desperately for it.
But again, you see, this is so expensive.
We should do more than believe in the
Lord, we should believe on the Lord.
We should do more than have a blessing
just because we feel better, we feel inflated,
and we maybe get a gift or something.
You know, I find people get gifts of
the Spirit the more proud after they get
the gift than they were before.
They're proud of the gift.
The indwelling of the Holy Ghost, to me,
is the most majestic thing this side of
eternity.
The Holy Ghost produces holy people.
Holy people live holy lives, produce holy daddies
and holy mummies.
So here's a question you answer for yourself.
Do you want to drink the cup that
he drank of?
I'm strained, I can't get to it.
Between me and that mission that John Baptist
said, when I come I'll baptize you with
the Holy Ghost.
Between here and there, they forget feminine, there's
a cross.
I say, listen, quit here.
The Welsh men are not very tall, not
of the nation, but there's a young man
in 1904 in a town called Newcastle Emlyn,
and he had about 35 people in the
meeting, and he just put his big hands
up, went over like that, and said, bend
us Lord, and then break us.
Bend us, bend the church, break the church.
One night in a crowded meeting with more
than 1200 people, suddenly the God came upon
him, and the writer puts it very beautifully,
I think, though terribly.
He said, that great preacher who had been
captivating crowds and turning cities on fire, had
the public get feminine.
He suddenly crumbled to the ground as though
somebody squashed him downwards, and there he was,
that big, I never said host, but you
know what I mean, a man maybe six
feet and more tall, and there he was
in front of all those.
It wasn't a spectacle, it wasn't a demonstration,
it was a personal visitation of the Holy
Ghost, and he writhed, and he groaned, and
he traveled, and some men at the front
said, let's go help him.
Somebody said, don't put a finger on him.
They said when he got up, his face
was transformed as though he needed a veil
over it, and from then he moved into
a new sphere of power, a new sphere
of authority.
We're not going to gather people together and
tell them to repent, only God can do
that.
I read again, Joel chapter 2 today.
We've caught it so often, he's going to
pour out his spirit and all flesh, but
wait a minute, the price is tremendous.
Lay all night between the altar and the
doorpost.
Can you get, I'd love to see, I'd
love to see a couple of dozen preachers
that will get together and lay between the
altar and the doorpost, two nights a week
for the next three weeks, with the Holy
Ghost coming upon them, not speaking in tongues
in the sense that so many people think,
but speaking with a tongue we've never heard,
speaking of traveling, which according to Roman Vedas
is beyond language.
It cannot be uttered, it can't be uttered
in tongues, it can't be uttered anyway.
It's God the Holy Ghost groaning for us.
He groaned, Jesus saw the trouble.
Are you going to suggest he didn't groan?
Of course he groaned at Gethsemane.
Disagree with me if you like.
I believe Jesus right now is groaning in
heaven.
If he's the same yesterday as then forever,
don't you think he groans over the church
as it is today?
Poor misbegotten thing that it is.
Powerless, lifeless, without authority.
God bless you, most of our people can't
keep victory themselves, never mind cast out devils.
We can't pull down strongholds, but I'm convinced
it's going to come.
There's going to be a great turnaround, and
it won't be inside the denominations as far
as I'm concerned.
Oh, it's nice to read, what is it,
Hebrews 13, 13.
Jesus, that he might sanctify, that is purify,
that is edify, that is release, that is
transform, that he might do that.
He's suffered without the gate, but the second
half of the text says, let us go
with him outside the camp.
Let's be cut off from everything that's organized
and man-made and supervised.
People say, Redner's a radical.
You know, you shouldn't take any notes.
You know he has no covering.
Well, I didn't know that, you know.
For me, I've been going around the world
now for the 50 years without a covering.
I didn't know, but the Lord knew I
had it, so he kept me.
Who was John the Baptist covering?
People knew when John Baptist came.
He did no signs, no wonders, no miracles,
but when he spoke, boy, the words were
like fire.
They burned in the hearts of the people.
If a thing doesn't burn in me, why
in God's name should it burn in you?
I wouldn't listen to a preacher that didn't
kindle something in my heart.
I know I kindle anger in some people,
but I thank God for it.
Nobody else has done it.
Sometimes I'm able to kindle joy by the
power of God.
You see, it's this cup we back away
from.
I backed away from that rotten cup that
woman had and then forced her, you see,
to drink it.
I tell you, that moment I was seeing
a man in a garden and he's saying,
Father, this is the most degrading thing in
the history of the world.
If it's possible, please.
The Lord let him do it.
It pleased the Lord to bruise him.
But when it pleased the Lord to bruise
you, what do you do?
Ring for help?
Phone to somebody?
Call the church?
Or do you get along with him who
alone is able to heal?
He who alone has a barbing gillian.
See, God isn't training boy scouts, he's training
soldiers.
I think I'm going to talk about that
next week.
No man that warreth and tangleth himself with
affairs of this life, that he may please
him who has chosen him to be a
soldier.
You know, the smart advert they have on
TV and other places.
You see these smart boys at the West
Point, what do you call them now?
The cadets.
We're looking for a few choice men.
You know, oh, I'm one of about, there's
a hundred thousand others in America.
I'm only one out of a half a
million.
And boy, does not feed their ego.
Come and be one of the specials.
That's exactly what God does.
I have chosen you and ordained you, so
you don't need any other ordination.
And out of the twelve, he chooses three.
Peter, James, and God.
People say you shouldn't be selective.
God's selective.
He always was, he always will be.
And out of the three, he chose one.
And God has a process of elimination.
He doesn't ask you to drink a cup
a week or a month after you say,
but you gradually move into that area where
you realize this is what he's after.
It's after me going to the cross, not
just to go to it, but get on
it.
Oh, I'm glad he died for me.
Have you died for him?
It's not a fair exchange.
I remember when I was a little boy,
they announced in the church that an American
was coming.
I sure did have feathers, you know, and
a war paint on him.
His name was Baraklov.
He had just written a hymn that I
think is one of the sweetest hymns ever
written, and he played it to us that
night.
He goes something like this, out of the
ivory palaces into a world of woe, only
his great eternal love made my Savior go.
Out of the ivory, angels bowed down and
seraphim bowed and agriplein stood, and men spit
on him.
He had all the glory of heaven, but
he's nowhere to sleep at night.
It would take eternity to unveil to us
what it meant for Jesus to come.
He drank a cup, a cup of separation
from his Father, a cup of separation from
the glory in eternity, a cup of separation
from of the worship, because Hebrews 1 says
the angels were commissioned to worship him.
Men didn't worship him, they spit on him,
and he laid it all on one side
joyfully, and took up a cross to be
battered and bloodied.
I told you I love that hymn, that
American hymn, My Faith Looks Up to Thee.
It was written in the Old North Church
in Boston Common.
I preached there once, and I had them
sing that hymn.
The second standard says, May thy rich grace
impart strength to my fainting heart, my zeal
inspire.
As thou hast died for me, so may
my love to thee pure, warm, and changeless
be.
Supposing God were as fitful in his attitude
to you as you are to him, what
would happen?
A little serpent girl says, I'm on my
knees two and a half hours every morning,
and every time I strike a match and
light a fire, I say, Lord as I
kindle this fire, kindle your fire in my
heart, the fire of the Spirit of God.
And I've been here for years, I must
have lit hundreds and hundreds of fires.
She wasn't at the table serving meals with
all the celebrities.
She's up at the crack of dawn, she's
carrying a heavy bucket of coal, she's clearing
the dirt up.
And it's a ritual most people wouldn't have,
but she turned it into a sacrament.
She turned the tables on the devil.
And when he says, well, you could be
praying, I couldn't do more than that.
She said, I'd bow there some days, lady,
and I'd just worship.
I see the flames go, and I think
of the sacrifices that were made.
No, don't pity me, she said, I've got
a wonderful job.
They pay me to have my devotions.
They pay me to sustain my prayer life.
I wish there were a lot people like
that.
Look out, he might bring you up this
week and ask you to drink of the
cup.
Can you share my baptism?
Oh, you can have the baptism of the
Holy Ghost, that's not his baptism.
My baptism, a baptism of sorrow, a baptism
of desertion, a baptism of pain, a baptism
of loneliness, a baptism of darkness, it's all
combined.
But can you drink it?
Or do we try make some excuses?
All he's asking for is obedience.
Obedience is the key to everything.
Well, I don't know if I said all
I wanted to say, but I'm not going
to say any more anyhow.
We're going to spend some time in prayer.
Now, let me say this to you very
lovingly.
Last week there were disturbances.
There were people, you can pray in tongues,
you can pray anything you like, but don't
do it audibly.
Don't mutter, mutter, mutter and distract people around
at the side of you.
Some of them come from houses where children
are muttering and carrying on all day.
Some services like that, we don't.
I like stillness.
I want to know what you're praying about,
therefore I need to listen.
The people didn't come next to you to
be disturbed.
You don't help them when you're muttering all
the time.
Do it, do it in your heart, do
it quietly, not audibly.
This is serious business.
Time is running out fast for all of
us.
I don't believe the economy will last five
more years.
The next decade will be the toughest America
has ever had, unless again like in 1742
when God raised up some men.
And I want to remind you of this
when I finish.
The greatest revival that swept America wasn't staged,
it wasn't advertised, it wasn't financially backed, it
didn't have broken down film stars next to
footballers.
It was in the ordinary course of a
meeting of, I believe it was Presbyterian, Jonathan
Edwards preached this sermon, sent it in the
hands of an angry judge.
There was nobody advertised, nobody projected.
In my later years I've been on the
road, I say yes I'll come, but don't
put my photo in the picture in the
paper.
Just tell the church I'm coming to be
helpful to the church.
I don't want publicity, don't want preeminence, I
don't want projection.
Jesus said, how can you be blessed of
God when you receive honor one of another?
I've got a placard, I say this height
on my desk that all these men that
are coming to this great revival conference in
Dallas, it's not David Wilkinson, it's another one,
it's a Maranatha thing.
This man is, there are about six of
them in the fastest growing churches in America.
And this man's written so many books and
all that junk.
What in the world does he mean to
God?
Another thing.
He resisteth the proud and saves such as
are of broken spirit.
It's a lonely life, but it's a glorious
life.
Nobody stood by Jesus, maybe nobody stand by
you.
Then he again said, come down from the
cross and save yourselves.
You see somebody else saving his neck and
you follow him and you lose your blessing,
lose your reward, lose your power.
Amongst other things you pray for what you
like, but I'm quite sure about this tonight.
Many of us have unsaved loved ones, unsaved
children, unsaved relatives.
The other night we prayed for the Indians
and we pray for them tonight.
Brother Spencer's here tonight.
He's a full-blooded Indian and he's a
burden for his tribe.
And we want to back him in prayer.
I don't know why Americans don't look after
the Indians.
There's two million of them.
And I guarantee all but a hundred thousand
are going to hell.
It doesn't worry us.
We go to a mission field.
We go to another country, get churches to
raise money, want to send one of our
children down to South America somewhere.
Why not get them on a bus and
give them some sandwiches and send them to
an Indian reservation?
It's not glamorous.
People perish on our doorsteps and we're praying
for Spencer.
God will anoint him and anoint others to
go into those reservations.
Again, we need to pray for our young
people.
It's getting more and more difficult every year
now for children to be educated.
We pay them to poison the children.
It's all the creation story, outbringing, evolution.
And the whole balance is going to the
devil.
And it's not going to be stopped by
legislation.
It's going to be stopped by revival.
Only God can put up a barrier against
that rotten corruption that's sweeping the land.
Now, if you need to go, we'll understand
if you go.
But please, again, if you're not going to
pray, be quiet.
If you're going to pray, speak audibly so
we can share your prayer.
Can you give me a chair, brother, please?