Because, again, Jesus isn't coming until the world
knows, that's what Luke says.
The gospel must firstly preach to all nations.
You say, I believe he might come tonight.
You don't.
You'd live different if you did.
If you believed Jesus was coming tonight, you'd
have spent half a day in prayer.
You wouldn't have said some of the foolish,
stupid things you said.
You wouldn't have manifested bitterness and temper and
anger.
If you believed that Jesus might come tonight,
brother, you and I would be living on
an entirely different plane.
So forget your false philosophy and theology.
David becomes burdened with this thing.
Well, you know, it's a blessed thing to
have a gospel as big as this.
I like Paul when he's writing to Corinth.
That was a moral dump.
Paul's life, when I think of Paul's life,
dear Lord, there were no airplanes or trains
or anything else.
He was born in the historic capital of
the world.
Crosses.
He ended up in the military capital of
the world.
Rome.
In between, he went to the religious capital
of the world, Jerusalem.
He went to the intellectual capital of the
world, Athens, in Acts 17.
And he went to the immoral capital of
the world.
Corinth.
You didn't need to string 20 adjectives together
to describe a rotten man in the days
of the Apostle.
Paul, you said he was a Corinthian.
When you said that, you knew he lived
in a sewer.
And yet Paul goes there and he lifts
his voice up like a trumpet.
Charles West has a hymn in which he
says, All for a trumpet voice on all
the world to call.
Do you know one reason why we don't
have revival that shapes America or the world?
It's very simple.
Because we're satisfied to live without it, that's
why.
When you get to the place where your
first love is restored and you're excited, you'll
be up fever pitch, you'll say, I've got
to go tell somebody somewhere.
And not fall over out of fever.
Paul never, never, never followed anybody else preaching.
You talk about taking an old car, you
don't know what's inside an old car.
Well why do you want to take over
an old church, they're full of problems anyhow.
Go start anew and get to a new
country.
But Paul in that moral dunghill says this,
If any man be in Christ, I like
that.
If any man be in Christ, any man
anywhere at any time, be in Christ.
When we were at King's Island, we were
there nearly two years, and I'm thankful my
boys went through that course, before they went
to the mission field, all on different mission
fields.
But when we used to come over the
bridge there, down into Canal Street, and when
we went down Canal Street, there was an
old sign outside the building.
Unfortunately they tried to make it modern.
Isn't it terrible how they cover rotten old
buildings up with a new facade?
And I like to look at that old
building.
Do you know why?
If ever you see it, if you can't
find it, get Winky Plattner, he's a bit
of a bookworm.
I'm not saying he's a worm, I'm saying
he's a bookworm.
But anyhow, I asked Winky to look out
for a book called Water Street, Down in
Water Street.
Oh that's a place, if I remember right,
Hadley opened it.
And he didn't go for the best, he
went for the worst.
He went for folk that nobody would take
in.
Prostitutes, drunks, jailbirds.
The folk that lay on the bowery there,
if you've never seen them, that's which site
would stick in you.
Somebody brought an old man in one night
on his rubber legs, he was weaving one
way and rocking and rolling and drunk, and
when they said, if you want to find
Jesus, come to the front.
So he came, and said he wanted to
find Jesus, and nobody had much sense with
him.
And so he said he believed Jesus died
for him, and so they baptized him.
Well to cut a long story short, he
holds the world record for being baptized.
Outside of the Mormons, they get baptized every
weekend.
But, and they get baptized for the day.
But do you know this man was saved
and baptized 15 different times.
That's pretty good, isn't it?
He went to an altar one night, somebody
said, go pray with him.
No, I prayed with him twice.
You pray with him.
I prayed with him three times.
Do you want to try your hand?
No, no, no, I prayed with him twice
too.
There's no hope, his brains are gone, he's
not good, he's not good.
Poor old Jerry McCauley, nobody wanted him.
One old guy that had been to hell
and back, as bad as that man ever
was, called up to him and began to
talk to him.
If I remember right, he said something like
this, he said, You say you can't get
in.
No, they talk to me about, what's it
called, about redemption or something.
Somebody hits me on the back and says,
hold on brother.
Somebody else comes and says, let go brother.
I don't know, I don't know.
I don't know what it's all about.
Well he said, there's a scripture that says,
Him that cometh unto me, I will in
no wise cast out.
Now, him that cometh unto me, I will
in no wise cast out.
If he doesn't cast you out, what does
he do?
Oh he said, he takes me in, he
takes me in, he takes me in.
And that's how he got assurance.
Yes sir, two amens, yours and mine.
Amen, yes sir, assurance.
You know old Jerry said, this is so
wonderful.
I'll never go to a meeting but what
I take a sinner with me.
I'll take a prostitute on each arm.
I'll take some derelicts on each arm.
And he did that.
He'd go lay at the side of the
man without shoes.
He'd go up to some old harlot and
say, Well Jenny, now come on now, you
know I'm a new man.
You want to come to a meeting tonight?
She'd say, Jerry, are you going to a
meeting?
Do you got religion?
Oh no, I ain't got religion.
What have you got?
He said, I got Jesus.
A lot of people got religion but it
didn't do much for them.
Like the donkey that ate the tracks.
He got religion but it didn't do anything
for him.
So Jerry said, no I ain't got religion,
I got Jesus.
You don't drink?
No, no, no.
You don't go with bad women?
No, you don't go?
No.
Jerry, what happened?
He said, he gave me a new heart.
Oh, I'm going.
To cut a long story short, when Jerry
died, you'd have thought it was the mayor
of the city they were burying.
They laid him in a cheap casket there.
He got shrunk and hollow.
He was aged.
He was beaten up anyhow.
The drink and lust had eaten his life
up.
But they said when they laid his body
there, his eyes were sunk away deep there.
And in a crowded meeting, they opened the
door.
And a bunch of women streamed down and
every one of them had a white carnation.
Every one of them had been a harlot
or a jailbird but they had a white
carnation because they'd found something called the blood
which is able to cleanse.
And every one of them bent down and
kissed old Jerry and dropped tears in his
eyes.
They said that by the time they'd done,
those sockets were filled with tears that spilled
out of the eyes of prostitutes and jailbirds
and drunkards and lousy people.
And when the hundred women had come down,
they opened another door and a hundred men
came down, each wearing a red carnation, symbolic
of the blood that had cleansed them.
And even those old derelicts shuffled up and
bent down and kissed the poor old carcass
that was there.
Oh no, he wasn't a theologian.
But I said to often, a man with
an experience is never at the mercy of
a man with an argument.
What happened Jerry?
Oh, I once read a story about a
man in Timbuktu.
No, no, no, no.
He doesn't go on that.
He doesn't go on a theological binge.
He says, listen, he found me.
And all I did was come to him
and I cried out, mercy upon me, O
God.
According to the multitude, blot out my transgressions.
Which means that if you had a blackboard
here with a lot of things written on
and I go up with a duster and
wipe it all out, it's gone, you can't
put it back.
Let me tell you one thing before I
pass to the next section here.
I, I, I had the privilege of, of
being assistant pastor to Dr. Fawcett in a
church, you know, both in England.
And he was going away and he said,
Len, you've got to preach for me, I'm
going away.
And I didn't want to do that.
I was very young and I was inexperienced,
but I preached.
And I preached that night that if you
want to give men their trespasses, who trespass
against you, God won't forgive you.
You may go through a psychological somersault and
persuade yourself, but if you've got any grudges,
your sins aren't forgiven.
Because if you won't forgive, why should God
forgive you?
At the end of the meeting, there's a
woman, she's a big woman in our district.
Well, she was 300 pounds, anyhow.
And she stood there and I, I said,
good night.
She said, I'm not going, I want to
talk with you.
And I said, all right, talk.
Oh, no, not till everybody's left the church.
Now, she'd been in a drunken brawl a
few months before she was saved.
A man said something dirty and she hit
him once and he hit the deck.
So they sent for the policeman and they
said, the cop's coming to get you.
She waited round the door.
When the cop came, she hit him like
that and he was number two, he hit
the deck.
And she said, I want to see you
when everybody's left.
I thought I might be number three, I
might hit the deck.
I'm not going to talk here.
She said, let's go in the church office.
So we went in the church office and
I said, sit here.
I'm not sitting.
She shut the door and she put her
arms up like this and you couldn't see
the door.
I said, what's your problem?
What's my problem?
She said, you held me up tonight in
ridicule.
You talked about folk who drink and lust
and gamble and do all the right, but
you, everybody knew you meant me.
I said, lady, you weren't even, oh now
don't lie about it.
You know, you know you meant me all
the time.
I said, I didn't mean you at all.
I never thought about you.
She didn't move and I didn't.
So, waited a few minutes and I said,
I'd like to go home.
I said, I came to the prayer meeting
at seven o'clock this morning and I
preached this morning and I taught the class
this afternoon and I preached tonight and I'm
really tired.
Didn't take any effect.
So, I said, well, she said, well, you
see, I'll tell you what it is.
She said, I've got neighbours on either side
of me.
When I was a fighter, a drunkard, she
said, they locked the doors when I came
home at night.
Nobody wanted to talk to me.
And she said, radio, I'll go to hell
before I'll talk to either of those people.
I said, that settles it.
You go to hell and I'll go home.
She said, you mean that?
I said, well, if you won't forgive, God
says he won't forgive you.
So, I said, go to hell and I'll
go home.
She stood there with her arms folded and
I thought, well, this is a problem.
I can't phone.
There was no phone in the room and
I can't knock on the door.
The church was away where nobody would hear.
What in the world am I going to
do?
So, I just bowed my head in prayer
then I knelt down and suddenly the building
shook.
She just fell down, boom, like that.
And she had a bag, a handbag, you
know, it looked more like a trunk, these
things ladies carry around with them.
And she opened it and she put out
cigarettes, matches, lipstick, movie tickets.
I thought, good night.
This is a place for a woman to
start sorting her handbag.
I'm tired out.
I want to go to bed.
This old reprobate that's been converted doesn't care
a hill of beans.
And I said to her, well, what are
you doing?
She looked at me and she said, If
I'm coming to Christ, I'm coming clean.
She used to buy bundles of movie tickets
and she put them there.
A cigarette, a match, even my lipstick I
won't need, she said.
And some of these other things, I don't
need them.
Well, I said, that's a good move.
You know, we hear a lot about the
fruits of the Spirit.
That's okay.
We don't hear too much about Romans 6,
fruits unto holiness.
We hear less about fruits unto repentance.
Do you know why some of us never
get stabilized in our Christian experience?
Because you've done things you could put right
and people don't listen to your testimony because
you don't put things right.
That's why.
If you owe money, you should try and
restore every penny you've ever stolen or misapplied.
Go back to people.
You don't have to ask God to keep
you humble.
The Spirit will keep you humble.
If you don't be humble, it will humiliate
you.
Now, there's your option.
Either be humble or be humiliated.
Because God won't let you get by or
me or anybody else.
She got up from the seat, from her
knees.
After she prayed, have mercy on me and
give me thy Holy Spirit.
And that big face of hers looked as
big as a pumpkin.
She smiled and she said, She got all
of me.
She couldn't get near me really but she
put her arms out like this.
And she said, It's wonderful.
She went home and told her fighting husband.
And he said, I got a new wife.
God, I'm going to watch this.
You're not going to fight anymore?
That relieved him.
She'd whipped him so many times, poor guy.
That it was worth getting saved just for
him.
And she'd whip people in the neighborhood.
They said, Did you hear the news?
Did you hear the news?
Mrs. Crook, her name was Crook.
Mrs. Crook being saved up at the tabernacle?
Good night.
What are they going to do next?
They keep getting these folks saved.
About two months after I preached again, I
preached on hell.
A husband woke up at 2 o'clock
Monday morning sobbing.
And she was sobbing.
He said, Honey, what are you sobbing for?
Because Ravenhill said, Oh, Ravenhill again.
It's forever Ravenhill.
What did he say last night?
He said, If you're not saved, you'll go
to hell.
Now look, I'm saved.
And you're going to hell.
I don't want you to go to hell.
You know, we've had a happy life.
Well, he didn't.
He never knew that.
But anyhow, we've had a happy life.
And I don't want you to go to
hell.
I want you to get saved.
He said, Shut up.
He slept about half an hour.
He did.
And he woke up and he said, Are
you still crying?
Yes.
Oh, he said, Listen, there's no hell and
devil and all that stuff.
Get to sleep.
She was at our house that morning at
nine o'clock.
We were a pair of bachelors knocking at
the door.
Her face was radiant.
I want to tell you something.
Did you hear the news?
No.
What happened?
She said, About three o'clock this morning,
my husband jumped over the end of the
bed, threw off the bedclothes, and he knelt
down and he cried at the top of
his voice, God, be merciful to me, a
sinner.
I didn't even know he knew it.
I didn't even know he knew the scripture.
What did it?
Well, I said, We've prayed, haven't we?
Yes, we have.
Oh, she said, It's wonderful.
You know, the neighbors couldn't believe it.
Why, he's got saints.
About five weeks after, on the mumbly morning,
she was at my door, with Dr. Thorpe's
door, rather.
I opened the door.
There she was, drenched with tears.
And I said, Please come in.
Can I get you some, a cup of
tea?
What happened?
She said, You didn't hear the news?
No.
My husband working in the coal mine, and
the roof fell in and they scraped him
up.
They put him in a sack.
They won't even let me look in the
casket.
Her big fat face was all red with
tears.
And then she smiled.
She said, Isn't it wonderful?
I didn't get the hang of it for
a minute.
And I said, Your husband's dead.
Isn't it wonderful?
She said, He's in heaven.
He's in heaven.
And if I hadn't said, I would forgive
my neighbors, that night you said, that I'd
really to get it straightened out and forgive
my neighbors, God wouldn't have forgiven me.
Then I couldn't have told him, really I
was saved.
And I wouldn't have prayed for it.
But you see, because I obeyed God, he
came and obeyed God.
And if he hadn't got saved, I'd be
the most miserable woman in the world.
My husband went to hell, went to hell.
Because I taught him to drink and do
a lot of devilish things.
But he's in heaven.
You see how it worked?
David was willing.
David was obedient.
She was willing.
She was obedient.
She had to go to the neighbors.
She had to straighten things out.
And people believed, because they saw the results
in her life.
All right, David prayed the prayer of the
sinner.
I'll be quick here.
Now he prays the prayer of the backside.
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.
Have you lost your joy?
Oh, I'd like to see you clap your
hands and be happy.
But a lot of you are putting a
mask on.
You haven't got joy really.
How can you have joy if you're disobedient?
How can you have joy if you've got
grudges and secret things in your heart against
others?
You can't have it.
Restore unto me the joy.
I remember preaching in a certain town.
I remember it forever.
I met my darling wife there.
I preached one Saturday night in this tent
and a woman came to the altar.
She was something.
She could have played the part of a
witch without any make-up.
I almost looked for a broom to see
if she came on it to church.
She was haggard.
She had a black suit on.
Her face was drawn and pleated.
She had more, as wrinkled as a prune.
She came to the altar.
I had preached that night on Psalm 51.
Not like this.
And she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.
It was in an old tent.
And I said, Could I help you?
She said, My name is Mrs. Shepherd.
I said, Oh, that's a nice name, Mrs.
Shepherd.
I'm 73 years of age.
I had no joy for years.
The story was this simply.
40 years ago I was an officer in
the Salvation Army.
I fell out with my companion.
The lady who was running the Salvation Army
Corps with me.
We quarreled.
And I got bitter.
And I told her that night.
I said, Listen, I'm going to have my
way.
And she said, You're not.
I rule this thing.
Do you know what she told me?
She said, I went home from that meeting.
I said to her, Listen, goodbye.
I finished with you and the Salvation Army
and everything else.
And she said, I went home.
I took off my Salvation Army bonnet.
I tore it up and put it on
the fire.
I took off my tunic.
I cut it up and put it on
the fire.
I got my Bible.
I pulled every peg out of it and
put it on the fire.
I turned my back on God and the
Army.
And she said, Listen, after that I went
to hear old General Boo because I admired
him.
But I never heard a word he said.
I heard some of the fiery preachers of
the Salvation Army holding men over hell.
It never moved me.
She said, Raymond, tonight a miracle happened.
I heard God's voice for the first time
in 40 years.
And I want to pray the prayer of
David.
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.
What a little thing.
But she said, you know, even if he
does that, I've 40 years of wasted life.
40 years and I can't in any way
get back.
So simple.
I prayed with a girl in Ohio.
She came to the altar.
A beautiful girl.
She had long braids.
She said, Mr. Raymond, I sing in the
choir.
I raise money for missions.
I teach a class in Sunday school.
I do everything the church asks of me.
But the Lord caught me out.
She said, in the middle of your message
tonight, your voice died away.
And a voice said to me, swimsuit, swimsuit,
swimsuit, swimsuit, a thousand times.
I never mentioned swimsuits.
Who did?
The Holy Ghost because he convicts of sin.
She said, I stole it from a fashionable
store down the road.
I took it home and told my mother
I found it in the street.
And tonight the Lord said, swimsuit, go and
pay for that swimsuit.
It's the only way you can get your
salvation restored and the joy of your salvation.
I said, all right, I'll help you to
pay for it.
I'll ask the pastor to help me to
pay for it.
I'll go to the shop with you tomorrow
and tell the people you stole it.
Is your mother here?
She said, yes, she's at the back.
She's the lady with the big, big hat
on.
So I said to one of the deacons,
would you bring that late?
I don't want her mother to know.
No, no, no.
My mother thinks I, she thinks I'm a
saint.
She thinks I'm an angel.
I said, well, you don't and I don't
and the dog doesn't.
So what good is it?
Your mother thinking that.
I don't want my mother to know.
I said, well, good night.
You're not going to leave me?
Sure I am.
Why?
Because you want to be a God.
Yes, I will.
All right.
That girl got so blessed, she jumped up
and clapped her hands and ran down the
aisle.
And she said to the pastor, listen, I've
been cheating on you for two years.
I was a thief.
I've been singing in the choir, teaching kids
in Sunday school, raising money for missions.
But I've got my joy back.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.
I'm having a whale of a time.
Oh, I forgot to tell you.
In between, her mother did come to the
altar.
She said, what's my daughter doing here?
She's the nicest girl in church.
Well mannered, educated, teaches a class, collects permissions.
Why, what is she here for?
I said, she's a thief.
A what?
Well, she told me she's a thief.
My daughter is not a thief.
I said, your daughter is.
She said, Mother, I never found that swimsuit
in the street.
I stole it.
Stole it?
I said, Mother, listen, don't sit in judgment.
Put your arm around her neck.
Tell her you forgive her.
I said, we forgive her.
God forgives her, whether you do or not.
Forgive her.
Mother knelt down, you know, like this.
I was sure she'd crack before she reached
the bottom.
Just expected she'd snap in two, but she
didn't.
And the girl got up and ran away.
And I was so excited.
Praise God that girl got out.
I was putting my coat on, got my
arm through one sleeve of my coat.
It was running, it was snowing outside.
And somebody said, Brother Ravenhill, would you help
this lady?
This lady with a big cartwheel hat?
Now she wasn't at the altar when her
daughter made the first confession.
She said, Mr. Ravenhill, tonight your voice died
away.
And her voice said to me, sewing machine,
sewing machine, sewing machine, sewing machine, sewing machine,
sewing machine, sewing machine, sewing machine.
A thousand times.
Now, I never mentioned sewing machine.
Who did?
God did.
The Spirit convicted her, right in the area
where she'd done the sin.
She said, my daughter, did you know what
she said?
That she's cheated me 15 months ago.
I have a mother at home over 80.
I've cheated her for 15 years over a
sewing machine.
I've seen that sewing machine in my dreams.
I could hear it tonight while you were
talking.
Oh, now, come on.
We expect people to come to the altar
and have about two minutes there, you know.
Kneel at the altar and you say, well,
bless God, you're forgiven.
And you've got a mansion on the main
street of heaven.
You're going to get a free ticket to
the marriage supper of the Lamb.
You're going to rule over five cities and
have a five-decker crown.
And you give them the world and kingdom
come in five seconds.
It's a lot of, if you pardon the
word, baloney.
I mean, if you wouldn't, baloney.
Theological baloney.
It won't do you a bit of good.
It's nonsense.
I'm sure dear Olsen must have told you
that Finney would preach as many as 28
nights and leave people in misery night after
night.
He didn't try and get them through quickly.
You want to commit sin 15 years and
forget it in 15 seconds?
God says, no, you'd better straighten some things
out.
You see, David comes here and he doesn't
say, Lord, I feel unhappy about this.
I'm in a bit of a pain down
here.
He says, God, I've got a broken heart
about it.
A broken and a contrite heart.
Thou wilt not despise.
I look at TV evangelists and talk, you
come in the ad and smile and say,
God bless you, God bless you.
It gives a bit of literature.
Don't worry, the bus will wait for you
before you go home.
And Leighton Ford says, you don't need more
than 15 minutes at the altar.
My, Finney would have chewed him up about
that and Wesley.
The man said to me, I like your
teaching in the morning and I can't come
tonight.
I'd love to come, but I'm going to
a meeting because a man has promised me
if I go, I'll get the gift of
falling backwards.
I said, let's see.
He made some apostles and some prophets and
some evangelists and some teachers and some falling
backwards.
Doesn't say that, not even in the Amplified.
Oh, well, didn't you know they used to
fall in Finney's?
I listened to it, sir.
Don't you come out bunking with me.
I've read more of Wesley.
I read Wesley before you were born.
People used to fall down slain of the
spirit in Wesley's day.
But you know what?
They had a side room where they put
them and it took them three or four
hours to come back to a place of
total repentance and seeking God.
Can I rush through this and say this?
Look, don't you, don't you pray for revival
unless you're, unless first of all you do
as old, what is it, Mr. Moody said,
you draw a circle on the ground like
that and stand out in the middle and
say, Lord, start reviving this circle.
I preached in the First Methodist Church right
opposite the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.
Some people came to Christ that night.
Some were Catholic.
Some were Protestant.
And about three years after my wife and
I were in a conference in Northern Ireland,
a man came to me and he said,
well, Brother Raisman, do you remember preaching in
the First Methodist Church down in Dublin's Fair
City?
I said, I do.
Remember the people coming forward?
I do.
He said, my wife and I didn't come.
We went home.
My wife said, I don't want any tea.
And he said, I don't.
Don't want any snack before I go to
bed.
I don't.
He said, we went upstairs and I sat
on one side of the bed and she
sat on the other.
We sat there for about 20 minutes, 30
minutes, and I said, she said, why don't
you get into bed?
Why don't you get into bed?