If you lose a thing, you don't know
why you've lost it.
But if you leave your first love, you
knew what separated you in that intimacy with
him.
And she said, Mr. Raisneil, just down the
street, there's a very high-class store, I
love to swim and I saw a beautiful
swimsuit.
Well, that's the way it goes, isn't it?
I looked and I coveted and I took.
She saw it a second time.
The third time she went in the store,
it was folded up on the edge of
the counter.
And she slid it under her coat and
told her mother that she found it.
And she said, tonight, in the middle of
the service, your voice died away, and a
voice said a thousand times or more, the
voice kept saying, swimsuit, swimsuit, swimsuit, swimsuit, swimsuit.
Well, I didn't know anything about the swimsuit.
The spirit did.
In fact, let's go back to the place
and pay for it.
She said, well, I don't have money.
I said, well, I'll give you a little
money to order.
What did it cost?
In days when money was money, I think
she said $15.
Oh, wow, that's a lot of money.
I'll give you a couple of dollars to
order.
Don't let my mother know.
She's the proudest woman in this.
Is your mother here?
Oh, she's at the back of the church.
She has that big straw hat on, that
cartwheel hat.
Not prepared to put things straight with God.
All right, let my mother come.
And the mother came and said, hello.
Oh, my daughter's here.
I don't know what she's doing here.
She's the finest girl.
She leads a youth meeting and she sings
in the choir and she gathers more permissions
than anybody else.
And why is she here?
I said, because she's a thief.
A what?
She said, well, she says so.
If you want to argue with her, argue
with her.
The swimsuit I told you that I found,
I didn't find it.
I stole it.
For 15 months I'd been troubled about it.
I'm going to confess it to God and
I'm going to pay for it somehow.
My mother stiffened and looked at me and
said, you little wretch.
And I said, mother, listen, bend your knees
and get down to the side of her
and put your arm around her.
And looked at me contemptuously for a moment.
Then she got down like this.
Went and she jumped off like the man
in Acts 3.
And she ran down the church, leaping and
praising God.
And she says, pastor, and he says, you
are the best girl in the church.
You're singing in the choir.
She said, for 15 months I've been a
backslider.
I've been the same.
And the word of God, the
lady at the altar, she
cheated on me for 15 months.
That's what she said.
Over 80 years of age, I've cheated on
her for 15 years.
I had a sewing machine.
You were preaching about something.
I didn't hear you for the last, well,
whatever time it was.
I didn't hear you for the last 20
minutes.
All I heard was a voice saying, sewing
machine, sewing machine, sewing machine, sewing machine, sewing
machine, sewing machine.
I did not mention swimsuits.
Who did?
The Holy Spirit did.
You cheated on your old mother for 15
years.
Your daughter has cheated on you.
What happened to David?
He took another man's wife.
He committed adultery.
I had in this area was preached actually
on this psalm.
Now I think of it.
I've seen some ugly women.
Company, of course, but Mrs. Tow
is Mrs. Shepherd.
40 years ago, every
page on burned it.
I cut up my uniform and burned that.
And for 40 years, she said, Booth preach.
I listened to Colonel Brango preach.
My sin, and I want to ask him
to restore unto me the joy of my
salvation.
I went through a tears.
I know he'll do it, but he prays
the greatest prayer of all in this 10th
verse, Create in me a clean heart, O
God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Put it this way.
Purge me from every sinful blood.
My idols all be cast aside.
Cleanse me from every sinful thought.
Praise my God, a heart from sin set
free.
A heart that always feels the blood so
freely shed for me.
A heart in every thought renewed and full
of love divine.
Perfect and right and a copy Lord of
thine.
Used to sing a hymn written
by an old methodist, Folks Jackson.
And clean.
A sunlit heart.
Like this visto.
Notice what, I wonder what David knew about
science.
He says, wash me naturally wiser than snow.
When you get up in the mountains, we
were last week, we were in California.
And there was a snowfall overnight.
And as we came back, the snow was
glistening.
It was blinding with its whiteness.
Because in every flake of snow, you know
the old saying, There have never been two
snowflakes alike.
Built a heart to praise my God.
After all, what's the problem with the world
that you and I live in?
What's the problem?
It's got heart trouble.
The heart of the matter is the heart
of man.
Isn't it amazing that one man can give
his life to God and become a saint
like an F.B. Meyer or some of
these giants of faith.
Another man made of the same corruptible material
becomes a Himmler or a Stalin or a
Hitler or a mafia member.
To people who have won fame
and wealth is the most mysterious thing.
At least you can take it apart and
show me sections of it.
You can't do that with a human heart.
Keep my heart.
Become the issues of life.
It's out of your flesh.
Jesus says, Blessed I shall see God.
You'll take costly offerings.
Had a beautiful, gorgeous, healthy child.
And I've seen some lovely children in Israel.
Pardon me, in India.
Flashing eyes, lovely teeth.
She was taking a little fellow about three
years of age.
And she had a crippled, deformed child in
her hand.
Talked to the lady and gave her a
tract.
Sack of literature and came home down the...
We're passing the other way now.
Morning meeting a man who was a
clerk.
And now I'm going to the temple.
He'd already had two hours with his God.
He's a Mohammedan.
Is it just a cold?
What is it?
Chapter 3 where Peter speaks to Ananias.
And he says, Why have saints...
Some logistics or statistics here.
How many millions of people in America today?
Never mind the heathen countries.
Be a clean heart.
It's coming down.
I said, Don't worry.
When it's coming up, you're in trouble.
Personal millennium.
Something else?
Did you
hear anything dead?
And then it came back with that leaf
in its mouth.
Between the chimney stacks.
He took a handful of...
Don't tease it.
That's not right.
Oh, he said this.
Bird doesn't care.
He said I...
This hand.
Seen it from that day to this.
Somebody say to Aaron Burr, One day you'll
miss the presidency of the United States by
one vote.
There's something greater than that.
A Christian.
So many people went forward in that meeting.
If I remember the argument correctly, it was
this.
The preacher said there are, say, 30 men
should be at this altar.
There were 29.
And he said I should have been the
30th.
And God said, Come on.
I want your life.
And I said, No.
Pressure.
He said, I said in my spirit.
Now you leave me alone.
And I'll never bother with you again if
you leave me alone.
He said he's never bothered.
Which city?
Statue.
And it's not very imposing.
Statue.
And he was dead.
Policy.
A policy, if you like.
Flaw in it.
It hasn't a thing as big as a
pinhead in it.
It is perfectly right.
And he said if he'll do it, I'll
do it.
He came to the 14th furniture and his
wonderful decorations and stuffing them into the crucible.
His father-in-law came and took Pulas'
wife away and said, He's an idiot.
He's a madman.
And finally he said, Look at him.
He's all sin
and well.
Pure.
Stay pure.
You won't be found, you see.
We're asking him to come.
He said, Then
will I teach transgressors thy ways.
Through seminary.
He's one of the most praying young men
in America.
He has a day, his uncle tells me.
Purity and purpose.
He used to sit with William Booth, told
me this.
And he was an old man of 80
when I talked with him.
He said Mrs. Booth would pull his sleeve
and lean over and say, Bramwell, it's
something he can take out all the corruption.
He said he can give me a heart
in every thought renewed and perfect and right
and pure and good.
A copy, Lord, of thine.
Thy nature, gracious Lord, impart.
Come quickly from above.
Write thy new name upon my heart.
In place of the
sin of witchcraft.
This is a sin of idolatry.
And they were both punishable by death.
In this corrupt world we must be pure
in our hearts.