Because I feel so miserable.
Well, that's why I don't get it.
I feel miserable too.
He said, you know, we sat on the
edge of the bed till nearly two o
'clock in the morning.
And finally he said, I yanked the bed
from the wall and he said, I walk
round that way and she walk round that
way and she wouldn't speak to me and
I wouldn't speak to her.
And somewhere after two o'clock I heard
her fall down and she cried with all
the power of her being, God have mercy
on me, I'm a sinner.
He said, she stayed and she wept and
she groaned.
And maybe half an hour after she got
up and said, well praise the Lord, I'm
really saved.
I've been a Methodist for years but now
I'm a Christian, I'm really saved.
And he said, she got into bed.
And I walked round and round and round
and round and I kept looking at her
in bed and I could see the tears
of joy had run down her face and
I felt mad, I felt bewildered, I felt
your rotten thing lying in bed so happy
and here I am as miserable as sin.
This isn't the right thing anyhow.
But he said, you know, it was just
while you were praying as though God sprung
a trap in my mind.
I saw every sin I'd ever committed, sins
of youth, sins of childhood, sins of youth,
sins of manhood, sins of the flesh, sins
of the spirit.
They came like an army.
You said, I wish God would spring a
trap and your sins go around your bedroom
all night.
And you know, He did that.
My sins pursued me all night.
I don't know what time it was but
he said, I fell down the other side
of the bed and just said, God, I'm
a sinner and I know it, have mercy,
forgive me.
And he met me, he said, and he
brought his peace and he brought his joy.
You know, there's a lot we want to
cover up.
We want a short-term approach to God.
Lord, you know all about it.
Forgive me, amen.
Get up, that's all there is.
Much more than that.
Much more when he restores his joy.
Much more when you come to the final
phase where David says here, Create in me
a clean heart, O God, and renew a
right spirit.
You see what we've done in our modern
smartness?
We've changed these words.
We don't call iniquity, iniquity anymore.
We call it infirmity.
We don't call it sin or disease, we
call it a defect.
We don't call it what God calls it.
God says, if you're not saved, you're at
enmity with God.
You say, I've never been found, I've never
been a drunkard.
Look, look, look, look, come on, come on.
Why did Adam get kicked out of the
garden?
Did he commit adultery?
Did he lie?
Or go back?
Why did Satan get kicked out of heaven?
For the simple reason he said, I'm going
to run my life, I'm not God.
The greatest sin in the world is not
adultery.
The greatest sin in the world is, I'm
going to run my life, I'm not God.
The first argument God has with you is
not that you're bad.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus did not come into the
world to make bad men good.
He came into the world to make dead
men live.
You may be religious as any man on
earth, but if you're good, and maybe you
give to the church, and more, you're considered
a nice person.
The only thing is, there's a spot inside
of your being which is a graveyard.
It's dead.
And it won't live until Christ himself comes
there.
All right, here's the key to the whole.
What's the heart of the problem?
The heart of the problem is the heart.
That's what Jesus said.
It's out of the heart proceedeth.
I don't believe in modern evangelism.
We preach salvation.
We preach forgiveness.
We preach heaven.
We preach peace of mind.
We preach you can be better.
Justification deals with my relationship with God.
Sanctification deals with the heart.
As I've said to you before, I don't
ask people anymore if they're saved.
Ask somebody, are you a Christian?
Yeah, I was born in a Christian home.
Sounds almost facetious, but you go to one
meeting, you go to a holiness meeting, and
you stand up and say, I've been saved.
Everybody says, Amen.
And two years after I got sanctified.
Hallelujah, that's wonderful.
Now you're in, you're one of us.
Saved and sanctified.
Go to a Pentecostal meeting, you get saved,
and you say afterwards, and I got the
baptism so long afterwards.
Praise God, he's one of us now.
See, it's just in different terminology.
This man's saved and sanctified.
This man's saved and has the baptism.
I'm not arguing with it.
But I say this, folks have heard it
so many times, it falls on deaf ears.
Supposing you stand up there and look very
sweet, and just next time there's a testimony
meeting, stand up and say, Christ liveth in
me.
Maybe when you sit down, your wife will
nudge you and say, George, when did that
happen?
I'm almost to listen.
We were in a certain town when somebody
said about a man who was driving out
in a gorgeous shiny Cadillac.
He used to be one of the worst
men in this city.
He ran around with women.
He didn't take his money home.
He drank.
He gambled.
He was a sinner, first class rotten sinner.
And somebody said to his wife, not too
long ago, it must be wonderful living in
that lovely home of yours.
You have a marvelous home, a beautiful automobile.
You have plenty of money.
And your husband, he isn't a drunkard, and
he doesn't run around with women, and he
doesn't waste his money.
And I mean, it's marvelous.
You must feel, it must be marvelous living
with your husband like that.
And she shook her head and said, no.
Well, hasn't God changed his life?
And she said, yes, his life is, yes,
yes, his manner is changed.
His life is changed, but his disposition isn't.
Has your disposition changed?
Have you really got rid of bitterness and
wrath and malice?
Do you still have a gossiping tongue while
you profess to be saved and spirit-filled?
Do you lie?
Not big ones, you know, neat little ones,
not black ones, just nice white ones.
Hmm?
Can God do more than forgive me?
Look, this is a simple thing, and it's
a penetrating thing.
There are no degrees of purity.
There are degrees of strength.
There are degrees of wisdom.
There are degrees, but there are no degrees
of purity.
Your heart tonight is either pure or impure.
There's no middle ground.
There's no gray.
It's black or white.
It's purge or polluted.
It's a throne where Jesus feels at home
in your personality because you live and move
and have your being in God, creating me
a clean heart, O God.
Wesley says, A heart in every thought renewed
and full of love divine, 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, Thy
new best name of love.
Refining fire goes through my heart.
Illuminate my soul.
Scatter Thy light through every part and sanctify
the whole.
My steadfast soul from falling is free and
I then no longer roll while all the
world is dead to me and all my
heart is love.
Have you got a heart like that?
It seems the least emphasis we put on
the majesty of the Holy Spirit is purity.
We've emphasized pure, pardon me, we've emphasized power.
As I said this morning, Can you tell
me a miracle the disciples did after Pentecost
they didn't do before?
They did all kinds of miracles before Pentecost.
They ran to Jesus excitedly and said, Jesus,
we had a wonderful time.
We cast out devils.
We did this.
And Jesus said, just a minute, hold off.
There's something more wonderful than doing that.
Rejoice, your names are written in heaven.
They had a supernatural ministry before Pentecost.
But I'll tell you what, after Pentecost you'll
never find Peter backsliding.
Oh, it's true that he needed a bit
of correction.
God purifies the heart with the blood.
He corrects the head with a rod.
And Peter still had a bit of homework
to do.
You know, when that sheet was let down
from heaven, he still had a bit of
bias he got out to deal with and
correct him.
But you don't find him running away from
a girl who puts her finger up.
Rather on the day of Pentecost he puts
his finger up and he says, you crucified
the Lord of glory.
Him God hath raised up, whereof we are
witnesses.
Well, it's all that Peter suffered a martyr's
death.
And he explains it all in Acts 15,
8 and 9.
This is my last word.
In Acts 15, 8 and 9 he says
this, reporting the coming of the Holy Ghost
to the Gentiles.
He's reporting to the people there in Jerusalem.
And he says, God who knoweth the heart,
Acts 15, 8 and 9, God who knoweth
the heart bears them witness, giving them the
Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us,
and put no difference between us and them.
What?
With balls of fire?
Or tongues or miracles?
No, no, no, not just there.
It may have been the same.
But the thing that Peter remembered about the
upper room was not the balls of fire
and the rushing mighty wind.
He said, he purified my heart.
He drove out cowardice and unbelief and fear.
The fear of man that bringeth a snare.
The fear of stepping out into God's will
because, well, we almost infer God may go
broke and let me down.
The fear of taking up a cross because,
no sir, fear goes out.
He hath not given us the spirit of
fear, but the spirit of love and of
power and of a sound mind.
Reader Harris finished a meeting in London once.
He'd spoken about the Holy Ghost.
And he said, many of you have needs.
And he said, at this side, on your
right, my left, there's a room.
And on the right, your left, there's another
room.
Now, all you Christians who are defeated, in
bondage, powerless, prayerless, loveless, all your spasms up
and down, sometimes on fire, sometimes cold.
You know, Peter warmed himself at a fire
until he got the fire.
And then he never warmed himself at anybody
else's fire.
Reader Harris said, all you people who want
power come down that aisle and go in
that room.
And all you people that want purity go
down that aisle, go in that room.
Do you know what the ratio was?
Ten to one.
Ten people seeking power for every person that
seeks purity.
But purity is the secret of power.
Love that is pure is passionate.
They're ready to blaze for God.
They don't care where.
In honour they prefer.
They're no longer saying, can I sit on
the right?
Can I sit on the left of that?
No, no, no, they don't say that anymore.
The Spirit of God came in that upper
room, in the area that they needed.
He came in fire and He sat upon
each of them.
And He burned up the dross that was
in them.
And they went out pure and passionate with
purpose and strength.
Is your heart pure tonight?
Do you know how long it will stay
pure?
It will stay pure as long as you
abide in the place of obedience under the
blood.
Because the Word of God says, the blood
of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth.
The Greek says it keeps on cleansing.
While ever you stay in the place of
obedience and submission you'll be cleansed and you'll
stay clean.
And you'll have the anointing of the Spirit
of God.
There are three prayers.
Do you come up in one category tonight?
The prayer of a sinner, have mercy on
me, I'm loaded with my sins.
The prayer of a backslider, you once knew
better days.
This good book was, as it says, sweetened
on the honey and the honeycomb.
And now it's dry and boring and the
sports page in the newspaper is much more
thrilling.
Huh?
Or do you say, well I've been groping
and I long for purity.
I long for inward cleansing.
I'm tired of temper.
I'm tired of pride.
I'm tired of secret lust.
Give me half a minute here.
I preached in that famous Calvary Baptist Church
a number of times when I was a
teen child and Stephen Offord would call me
and say, Len, I'm going out of time,
will you come and preach?
So I preached one night there.
A message I love still to preach on
Isaiah 6, woe, lo, go.
And I said at the end, you know,
God is able to cleanse you and indwell
you and take you out and use you.
I didn't ask them to come to the
altar.
I asked them to raise their hands.
About 50 did and I said, go home
and meet God.
Get a piece of paper and write your
name at the top.
Write the things you know are wrong with
your life.
I'm lazy.
My praying is spasmodic.
I don't enjoy the word of God.
I'm not eager to testify.
Put them down, then draw a line and
then say, Holy Spirit, you show me what's
wrong with my life.
And he will.
And then at the bottom put what David
put, I acknowledge my transgression.
These are my sins.
I'm sorry.
I repent.
Cleanse me and keep me in the line
of victory and take me where you like.
Six months after we were on 8th Avenue
preaching in that historic church of A.B.
Simpson, I said to my wife, Sweetie, let's
stand here.
We won't want to shake hands with everybody
going out.
And just when I thought everybody had gone,
I went forward and the young lady said,
Hi, you're Mr. Raymond.
You preached in Calvary Baptist about six months
ago, didn't you?
You told us to write this catalog and
then ask God to cleanse us.
And then say, Here am I.
Send me.
She said, I did exactly what you said.
It took me a long while.
I stayed up and I made my list
and the Lord cleansed me and I said,
Now Lord, take this vessel you've cleansed.
And she said, I have a good job
here in the city as a secretary to
a famous man.
But I've resigned it.
God got hold of me and cleansed me
and gave me His power and gave me
His love and gave me authority.
I've resigned my job.
I'm going to Bible school and I'm going
to a certain mission field.
I said, Here am I.
Send me.
And He did it.
He took me.
He cleansed me, anointed me and He's sending
me.
Would you like to go to the mission
field right now and if somebody came up
to you or you were in a dirty
alley in New York and somebody said, Well
listen buddy, you're talking to me about being
clean and about being anointed.
Are you clean?
Is your heart pure?
Huh?
Have you got some selfishness tucked away?
Some anger?
Some pride?
Some jealousy?
Some secret lust?
Some grudge?
Some unforgiving spirit?
This is not a luxury.
It's a necessity.
The pure in heart see God.
Not only they shall, they do.
Right here, they see His revelation.
They see and know and understand Him.
Whether you pray as a sinner, pray as
a person to be restored or pray for
cleansing and the fullness as He did and
anointing of the Holy Spirit, God can meet
your need and answer your prayer.
Praying Father, we think of those millions at
this moment lost without God and without hope.
We would like you to reach down in
this meeting and pick us up and distribute
us around the world as flaming apostles of
a message for the lowest and the hardest
and the wickedest and the stoniest heart and
the most rebellious spirit that we know of
Christ who is beyond Buddha and Confucius and
every other religion.
One who is able to save to the
uttermost all who come unto God.
But Lord, it must be done in us
first.
Oh, I just sat in the back and
thought, oh, how accountable we will be to
God for the precious truth He's given us.
And you know, being accountable to God is
not a drudgery to me.
I think it's going to be exciting.
I want to be standing before the Lord
and say, Lord, I did all I could
do with what You gave me.
And God is pouring out a treasure of
wisdom to us, isn't He?
Let's close in prayer.
Brother Joe, would you close us?
Father, we're so thankful this night that You're
able to speak to us through a man
like Brother Ravenhill.
Lord, every word was so impressed upon our
lives and we want to take it with
us.
And I ask that Your Holy Spirit would
even bring this to our remembrance and that
repentance would come and purity would come, vision
would come, anointing would come, that we would
be able to be sent even to the
uttermost.
Thank You for this night, O God.
I love You and ask You to take
care of us as we go.
In Jesus' name, amen.