Praise Him, praise Him, ever in joyful song.
You want us to sing another one?
No, that was when Christ is coming.
Okay.
Very good.
Okay, shall we pray?
We thank you, our Father, tonight, that those
of us who were afar off are made
nigh by the blood of the Lamb.
We thank you that your blessed Holy Word
says that He, the Christ, was a Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world.
And then in the book of Revelation, you
remind us, the Lamb is in the midst
of the throne.
We thank you tonight that we have boldness
to enter to the very throne of God.
We're not kept in the outer court, not
permitted just to come to the holy place,
but into the very Holy of Holies.
We thank you for such a Saviour tonight.
For our sins He suffered and bled and
died.
Not just for the people in Africa, not
for the people last century, not the people
who are unborn, but for our sins He
suffered and bled and died.
We thank you for that amazing fact that
just as by one man's sin this world
has been corrupted, by one man's sin has
been, salvation has been accomplished.
We bless you for your Holy Word.
You say that in the epistles of the
Hebrews, that Christ Himself, when He had by
Himself purged our sins, not with the help
of the Virgin Mary, not with the help
of some high priest, not with the help
of cherubim and seraphim, but by Himself.
Lord, I wonder how angels felt when Adam
transgressed and lifted the floodgates and let the
whole human race be polluted.
But Lord, we wonder how they felt when
He rose from the dead.
And in heaven there was a sound proclaim,
Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and
be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors.
The King of Glory has come in.
Lord, we thank you that what all the
blood of beasts could not do through millenniums,
countless offerings were made, sacrifices, burnt offerings, and
yet what they could not do, one did.
What no other lamb could do, the Lamb
of God did.
Took our sins in His body on the
tree, lifted the burden, not a million Samson's
could never lift.
Solved the problem, a million Solomons with all
His wisdom could never solve.
We thank you that we are reconciled to
God through Him.
And we thank you tonight He lives to
make intercession for us.
Lord, this is beyond our paltry, terrible, limited
comprehension.
We remember so often, Lord Jesus, that you
took our sin, that you also took our
grief.
Lord, maybe a million people have cried in
their grief today.
Some from the prisons of Russia, some from
Martyrdom, away there in China, some from sickbed,
and yet you've heard more than a thousand
languages and you understand them all in the
same second.
If you have a million different needs, we
bless you that you're so infinite, so majestic,
so awesome, there are no problems to you.
Lord, we bless you again.
There remains no more sacrifice for sins, if
this also were made of solid gold and
we brought the most precious beast in America
tonight, it would be no good at all.
We thank you that once in the end
of the age He appeared to put away
sins by the sacrifice of Himself.
And because of that, Lord, we know it's
possible for us to say that sin shall
not have dominion over us.
We thank you for your holy word tonight.
I thought if we drove up here tonight,
how often we've driven through the streets of
England, we've seen marks on the road where
martyrs were buried, burned to death to give
us this holy word.
And yet, Lord, how little likely we esteem
it.
Lord, it's a gibraltar, nobody will ever dynamite
it.
We bless you, Lord, your word is settled
in heaven.
They may not settle it amongst the theologians
in Dallas, but you've settled it in heaven.
We're glad you're not sitting on your throne
nervously waiting for an envelope to say that
men in Dallas agree with you.
You've already said, this is the word of
God.
And you've said, no man shall add to
it and no man shall take from it.
Lord, we bless you, it's valid tonight.
And if the world lasts a thousand years,
it will be valid.
We bless you, Lord, behind it is your
integrity, your majesty, your glory, your jealousy, your
word.
Give us a holy jealousy for it.
Lord, don't let men trample it underfoot before
us.
Every one of us here is redeemed, has
proved your word to be true.
We thank you again, Father, that coming into
your holy presence is fresh every time we
come.
We feel how impoverished we are.
We feel how unworthy we are.
Dear God, why should we call you the
maker of the universe?
The one who'll throw the billions of stars
into space.
The one who controls all the great systems
in the skies.
The one who has made everything that lives
and yet we can say our father.
Not the father of Abraham merely.
Not the father even of our Lord Jesus.
Jesus, I send to my father and to
your father.
And Lord, because of that we're sons of
God.
Lord, we're unworthy to be heirs.
We don't live as though we're heirs.
Forgive us.
And we're joint heirs.
Lord, nobody has explored the possibilities of grace
yet.
God, don't let this generation die impoverished because
we preachers don't explore the depths.
We don't dig deep into the mind of
God, of divine revelation.
Lord, take the veil away from your holy
word.
As our brother mentioned tonight, I think, Lord,
we thank you for those times it wounds
us.
You wound us to heal us.
You strip us to clothe us.
You cast us down to lift you up.
You steal everything in us and empty us
that you may fill us.
Think of our blessed apostle praying that you
may be filled with all the fullness of
God.
I don't know what that means.
But Lord, I'm a candidate for it.
And I believe these people come tonight.
They're going to be at home or somewhere
else that they came.
Not just by choice but because you constrain
them by your love.
Bless this word to us.
We thank you again, Lord.
This is fresh bread.
It's the bread of life.
The word of life.
We thank you.
Everything you have is life.
You said, I am the life.
I am the water of life.
I am the bread of life.
I am the light of life.
We thank you that you are light and
there's no darkness in you.
That you are life and there's no death
in you.
We bless you for the provision that you've
made for us for eternity.
Lord, we think of this moment again as
we must.
Of our precious brothers and sisters away there
in Russia, imprisoned.
They prayed a thousand times and you have
liberated them.
But then Lord, I remember in Hebrews 11.
After you tell us the wonderful things.
Our faith was a key that unlocked the
biggest gate.
And yet you tell us about some people
and you serve them not accepting deliverance.
They chose continual torture.
They chose continual starvation.
They chose continual misery.
They chose to rot because they believed it
pleased God.
Lord, I believe this is happening in Russia
tonight.
I believe it's happening in China and other
countries.
Lord, help us to enjoy our liberty.
Lord, with no proof it will be like
this a decade from now in America.
Your word is out of the schools.
Prayer is out of the churches mainly.
But Lord, again as we remind each night.
You have a remnant.
You've always had a remnant.
Lord, I don't just want to go to
heaven.
There's something better than that.
I want to go to the marriage supper.
I don't want to go to the marriage
supper.
There's something better than that.
I want to be part of the bride.
Lord God, give us a greater longing.
Give us a greater yearning.
Not only in eternity but here to see
your face.
To know that binding.
It's a paradox.
You free us only to bind us.
You take away our will to give us
your will.
You take away our strength to give us
your strength.
Lord, I have no strength tonight.
Physically I haven't much strength.
I need strength for my voice.
But I pray Lord you'll illuminate the sacred
page.
For as we've sung often before, beyond the
sacred page I seek thee Lord.
My spirit pumps to thee, thou living word.
We give you thanks in Jesus' name.
Okay, let me give you a verse anyhow.
In the second epistle of Paul to the
Quintet.
Wait a minute, let me think.
Yes, chapter 5.
2 Quintet 5 and verse 17.
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he
is a new creation.
All things have passed away and behold all
things are become new.
Now if I'd preached on this when I
was 22 instead of being 82, I would
have said this is one of the most
exciting verses in the whole of the Bible.
But I've thrown that word excitement out.
It belongs to the world.
It belongs to football and all that junk
out of the world.
I don't think it's an exciting verse.
I think it's a very inspiring word.
What does it say?
If any man.
Think of it like a telescope, you have
a telescope.
So the barrel of the telescope is the
text.
If any man, and then I'll extend it.
Being Christ.
Any man, anywhere, anytime.
Being Christ, he's a new creation.
Well who says this?
If there was such a thing as holy
arrogance, I would say that this man has
it.
But there isn't such a thing as holy
arrogance.
There's holy boldness.
Who is this man?
This little Jew, five feet two according to
tradition.
A little hunchback, a big nose.
He'll take encouragement if he's a big nose.
And yet he throws this text in the
face of the world, the flesh of the
devil.
If any man, being Christ, he's a new
creature.
All things have passed away, and all things
have become new.
I hardly ever know how to begin.
Do you know how to begin to talk
about the Apostle Paul?
What did Spinoza say?
He talked about a God intoxicated man.
Well if ever there was a God intoxicated
man, it was the Apostle Paul.
He reduced everything to this.
This one thing I do.
He said, everything is done that I may
gain Christ and be found in him.
Okay?
If any man, being Christ, he's a new
creation.
Let me go back a minute here.
Go to the fifth chapter, verse one.
We know that if our earthly house of
this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building
of God, a house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens.
Remember in the 27th chapter of the Book
of Acts, the Apostle Paul is in a
storm.
It's called Euryclidon.
It's a kind of a super storm.
It's a tornado and everything else rolled into
one.
The most terrifying thing that can happen at
sea.
I remember once being in mid-Atlantic on
the Queen Mary.
I don't know whether we hit the storm
or the storm hit us, but it nearly
rolled over.
Of course, I think they like to make
us feel famous, you know.
One of the officers said to me, Mr.
Adrian, I've crossed the Atlantic about 300 times.
This is the worst time there's ever been
in this way.
It almost went over.
Well, Euryclidon was like that.
It was a storm of storms.
And it got so bad, you remember, they
threw all the cargo overboard.
They cut the lifeboats off.
And for 14 days and nights, can you
think of that?
276 people on the boat.
We wouldn't allow it to go for river
these days.
And it's going through the Mediterranean.
Loaded with, I think, grain usually, grain ships.
276 people on board.
And when a man got on board, everybody
laughed at him.
He was in chains.
He got on board as a prisoner.
He ended the voyage as a pilot.
They ran into trouble everywhere.
14 days and nights.
No starlight, no sunlight.
The seas were boiling.
The waves were rolling.
I'm sure the sails were tearing.
And the bows, what do you call them?
The masts were all snapping and breaking in
pieces.
And day by day, can you think of
it?
Women saying to their children, Well, darling, maybe
the sun will shine tomorrow.
You said that yesterday.
Oh, well, maybe tomorrow.
You said that the day before.
We've no food.
I'm sick.
Everybody's sick, weeping, crying, screaming, roaring, panicked.
I believe it's a picture of the end
time that we're moving into.
What happened?
Again, they threw the treasure overboard.
Finally, they cut the lifeboats away.
And then they were in helplessness.
And yet Paul says to them, Look, if
you don't abide in this ship, you won't
make it.
And if you and I don't abide in
him, we won't make it either.
We'll panic.
We're going into the worst situation in world
history.
And so he says, You stay on board.
And if you stay on board, you'll be
saved.
But then it says, When all hope was
gone, it wasn't until he took over, he
cast four anchors into the sea.
As I thought of that today, I remember
I used to have a Bible class in
the Bahamas.
A lot of young wealthy millionaires, they had
their private planes and private yachts.
One came in one night, because we started
a service.
Somebody said to him, Well, how was your
trip?
Oh, wonderful.
He bought a new yacht.
Not a big one, he said, only 40
feet.
Three deck ago, just think.
And he said, But you know, when we
got round a certain island, a squall hit
us.
And he said, I was terrified.
He made a phrase I've often thought of.
He says, I have great respect for the
sea.
I remember in Mid-Atlantic, once the sea
was up there.
And I said to an officer, Hey, what's
that mountain?
He said, mountain.
I said, that thing.
He said, that's not a mountain, it's water.
I said, where's it going?
He said, it's not going, it's coming.
I said, oh, that's good.
So it came.
And the next thing, it lifted the boat
up there, and we were looking down there
at the sea.
So I know a bit about the trouble.
So this young man said, you know, I
didn't know much about my boat, but I
cast out my strongest anchor and hoped that
it would catch underneath on a rock.
And he said, there, the sea was beating
us onto the rocks all the time.
And the whole night, he said, I was
in the state of fear.
My children were on the lower deck.
My wife was in the bedroom in the
next deck.
I had the captain and the other guy.
And he said, it was terrible.
Well, that's something like the situation here.
Paul casts four anchors.
Let me suggest that in this chapter here,
1 Corinthians 5 and verse 1, he says,
here's the first anchor.
We know that if the earthly house of
this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building
of God.
What did he call it?
We have a building of God.
A house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens.
Let me apply this.
I've never been in my life before until
thinking about this night.
Let me find a chapter here.
What does it mean?
Get hold of this a minute.
Here is Paul.
And he says, the number one anchor I
have, I have a home eternal in the
heavens.
Did you get that?
Suppose you change it a bit and say,
I have an eternal home.
For what?
That was his anchorage.
How do I know?
Well, I'll tell you.
Go into 2 Corinthians chapter 11.
2 Corinthians chapter 11.
I think somebody mentioned coming up in the
van tonight about troubled trials for Christians.
2 Corinthians chapter 11.
And he says in verse 24, Notice that?
Of the Jews?
Elsewhere he says, I'll tell you, I can
boast exceeding anybody else, I'm a Hebrew of
the Hebrews.
That was being the most elite person of
the most elite folk in the world.
I'm not only a Jew of the Jews,
I'm a Pharisee of the Pharisees.
And yet, with all he had, his scholarship
and ability, he says it was Jews that
beat him up.
Of the Jews, five times received, he died
forty stripes, saved one.
That's quite a thing.
Now, there's an awful, awful list of things
here.
Thrice I was beat with rods, once I
was stoned, three times I suffered shipwreck, a
night and a day, 24 hours.
What?
36 hours?
I was in the deep.
Now listen, you've got a series of perils
here.
It had been a modern man, he'd have
said, Listen, I've got seven new books coming
out.
They're all perils.
Number one.
Now you can have them for five dollars
each if you buy the set.
They're cheap, 4.95. And he's going through
the whole list.
In perils of waters, in perils of robbers,
in perils by my own countrymen, in perils
of the heat, in perils of the city,
in perils of the wilderness, in perils of
the sea, in perils among false brethren.
Do you see what's happening?
You don't.
OK.
He says five times, I received forty stripes.
What times five times forty?
Two hundred minus five.
Well, these things didn't all happen in a
week.
He's typed to a whipping post.
And the first time it's excruciating.
A man comes with a whip.
It's got five big lashes at the end.
And on the end of them there's a
spike of copper which is sharper than glass.
And they whip it down his back.
And he knows, he's counting, Oh my, that's
ten, that's thirteen, that's fifteen, that's twenty.
Forty stripes?
They stop at thirty-nine because that's the
legal measure.
You can't go further than that.
Well, listen.
How in the world do you think?
When they were taunting him, do you know
what he was saying under his breath?
Tear up my flesh.
What do I care?
I'd rather hold me to him in the
heavens.
This thing will only last a few minutes.
When did he do the second time?
And then he did the third time.
His skin was raw.
His back was raw.
The flies were buzzing round him.
He's bleeding.
He's suffering.
And he says, OK, keep going, keep going.
I'm not breaking.
Do you know what?
The glory of God came to him there.
The only way you'll get the glory of
God is by suffering.
You won't get it by sitting in a
book reading the deeper life.
You'll get it if we suffer with him,
not for him.
There are people suffering for God in Russia
tonight.
But they're not suffering with him.
They're suffering because they won't bow to communism.
They're supposing you liberate them tomorrow.
Do they know anything else except they've suffered?
And I don't minimize that.
I know it's terrible.
I pray for them every day of my
life.
So my name is Leonard Ravenhill.
Maybe if I were in Russia it'd be
Leonardo Ravenillo.
And somewhere there's a relative of mine and
he's been tortured for 20...
Do you know there's been some men in
Russia been in prison since 1917 in the
bloody revolution?
And we shake hands with Gorbachev, one of
the most wicked men in the world, one
of the most handsome, quiet-looking men, like
the Pope.
He's a sweet old looking guy, isn't he?
They call him Holy Father but they dress
him like Mother.
But this blessed man says, Listen, you can
do as you like.
He's hanging on a piece of wood.
The wood bashes him up against a rock,
tears his clothes, bruises his body.
And he says, It's alright, I've got homies
who are in the heavens.
You can't watch this out of me.
You can't strike it out of me.
You can't terrify me.
Do you know what?
A man who's intimate with God is never
intimidated by men.
You can't threaten him.
Why do this one know he's a homie
thrown in the heavens?
Because John 14, Jesus says, I go to
prepare, not repair.
No, there'll be no work for some of
these boys repairing old property in heaven.
Not, I go to repair a place, I
go to prepare a place for you.
But listen, more than that, you talk about
a man having scope.
Do you realize this man is one of
the few men, maybe Moses did it, I
don't know.
He's one of the few men in history
who had a vacation in heaven.
I think Brother Brady went to inspect his
mansion to see how big it was.
It was room for all his books and
things.
I need a big room for my books
anyhow.
I have a homie thrown in the heavens.
You won't move me.
Dear God.
You know all these titles men give each
other.
I'm the bunkhouse, don't I?
Don't you think?
Somebody wrote to me, Reverend Leonard, I hate
that out-reading.
Somebody wrote, the right reverend.
What do you do with the left reverend?
Then somebody else, the very reverend.
Go on, what are the others?
Abominable reverend?
Bishops, archbishops?
Your pastor, I thought he was a bishop.
I stood here there and he's got an
arch at the front.
He's an archbishop now.
All these silly titles.
I don't care a hell of beans.
The most coveted thing this side of eternity
was on the Apostle Paul.
If you could have slipped in the back
door in hell, you'd hear the amplification saying,
all you demons, every demon, get out of
this place.
Get down to earth.
The Apostle Paul is going on a mission
of destruction.
This man could pull down strongholds by himself.
Mighty in God to the pulling down of
strongholds.
All hell was alerted.
Do you remember somebody tried to, the son
of Stephen was it?
Tried to drive a demon out of the
land?
And the demons have some self-respect.
They said, Jesus we know.
Sure, Jesus kicked them around.
And Paul we know.
You talk about a man for all season.
This man has power over demons.
He's power over disease.
He's power over death.
Dear God, when are they going to come
out of the stomach?
When are the Pentecostals going to get Pentecostal?
Take the title off your plate.
It isn't Pentecostal.
Methodists take the title.
They aren't Methodists.
Presbyterians, where are they in God's name?
What an amazing thing.
There on the Damascus road.
I believe all hell trembled when the Apostle
Paul met Jesus on the Damascus road.
That was in a meeting.
Do you think the Apostle ever dreamed that
inside of him he was going to conceive
like a woman conceives children?
He's going to conceive fourteen churches?
Or Ephesians?
Did you give him Hebrews?
Okay.
I got to one point there.
I hope you get all of it anyhow.
We know.
Not Paul doesn't say, I know.
If you have entered in with Christ, you
should know.
We know.
We've got a dear brother here walking across
America.
How far have you done now so far?
2700 miles carrying a chain ball to show
people what bondage we have to sin.
I'm glad he's doing it.
I'm not going with him.
That's his job.
Do it.
I'll pray for you.
You have the works, I'll have the faith.
Well that's pretty reasonable, isn't it?
At least it's not painful for me.
Well why in God's name did you get
under the weather?
When some little trivial thing comes, why do
you go down?
Get up every morning and say, whatever comes
today I have a home eternally in the
heavens.
I'm not going for the weekend.
I'm not going to discover the earth.
I'm going with the greatest geniuses who have
ever lived.
I'll be able to take a year or
two or a hundred years with Isaiah or
Jeremiah.
Dear God.
We're not paupers.
What does John say?
John says, of the scripture, I will not
leave you comforters.
I think it's Moffat's translation.
I won't leave you orphans.
Dear God.
I've got a home eternally in the heavens
prepared for me by Jesus Christ.
That's number one anchor.
I'm not shifting.
I'm preaching this to myself tonight.
The last two or three weeks have been
the hardest I think I've ever lived.
I've told my darling wife.
Such opposition of the enemy.
Such confusion.
You know people make promises what they'll do
this, that.
They don't do them.
You can just about be sure if somebody
promises you something I think that's the thing
they won't do.
Isn't that right, sonny?
There you are.
It's correct.
Sonny says so.
What did he say?
We have a home.
That's number one anchor anyhow.
We have a home eternally in the heavens.
Okay, well.
Okay.
Of Jews, I received five forty stripes.
I won five times.
Three times I was beaten with rods.
Once I was stoned.
Listen.
Do you know how this man started?
He watched the first young man, maybe a
teenager, stoned to death.
And he did nothing about it.
That's the model universe.
Here's a young man and I think he's
the smartest.
In fact, he became a deacon by a
majority vote.
Stephen, the young man full of faith of
the Holy Ghost.
He did signs and wonders.
God, don't let him get stoned to death.
We need him in our little church.
We're opposing the Roman Empire.
We're opposing the Jews.
We're opposing the Greeks.
This young man is our hope.
He's a genius.
He's a God-given genius.
I know that one of the greatest preachers,
maybe the greatest preacher America ever had was
Jonathan Edwards.
Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones told me that once
himself, talking face to face.
He said the greatest genius America had as
a philosopher and as a teacher and a
preacher was Jonathan Edwards, who later became the
principal of Princeton School.
And he says of the Apostle Paul, the
Apostle Paul is equal with Plato and Socrates
and the greatest geniuses of the Greek splendor.
Yes?
No.
Because you see, the philosophy of Plato and
Aristotle and others, they came to their brilliance
by reason.
Paul came by revelation.
One's talking about the visible.
The other's talking about the invisible.
One's talking about this world.
The other's talking about the other world.
Paul had movings in his spirit that no
Greek ever had in all his lifetime.
And so right through this terrible catalog here,
in journeyings, in puddles of waters, in puddles
of rubbers, can you imagine him held up
and the stupid rubbers are checking on him?
You know, they knew all these Pentecostal preachers
were rich.
So the rubbers got over him and checked
all his pockets and found nothing.
He's an amazing man.
He had nothing.
He says that.
Isn't that wonderful?
He says, I have nothing.
I have no acceptance with my people.
I have no acceptance with the Jews.
I have no acceptance with the intellectuals.
They say he's the biggest fool on earth.
So he was in the eyes of the
world but not in the eyes of God.
I had a man in my office on
Saturday night.
I said to him, Arthur, darling, we'll have
a quiet day today.
We won't have any visitors.
Well, we didn't.
We don't miss eyes.
That's low for us.
This fellow came in just before bedtime and
he says, look at those.
So I looked.
He had some black alligator shoes.
$300.
I had to get shoes like that to
mix with the men I mixed with in
Dallas.
Well, let them blow bubbles.
Have you got $300 shoes, Joe?
If you had, I'd never own you up
again.
Our dear Paul was on a wonderful missionary
and he came in one day before he
went back to South America.
He says, Daddy, look at these.
What in the world have you got?
I've been to Canton Fair.
I've got these old cowboy boots for $10.
I said, what?
He said, I bought these cowboy boots.
Look at them, Dad, underneath.
There's no hole in the bottom.
I said, listen, some old drunkard.
I don't care who had them.
They're sanctified now.
I've got them, he said.
$10 for a pair of warmer, almost 20
-year-old cowboy boots.
Came in the other day.
Dad, I've got some boots.
I said, you bought boots, yes?
I've got a pair for $10 at the
Army Service in town.
His wife went out with it, $25 or
$30 market.
And she came back with this pack of
used clothing for the children.
They're missionaries and they don't waste money.
They count it precious.
It's got blood on it, sacrifice on it.
And the Blessed Apostle, he had no way.
He had nothing.
They tell me now that Mr. Wiseman, you
know Solomon Roberts, has come up with a
new theory now that Jesus was rich because
he had a seamless dress, and he had
a donkey, and also he had a sliding
business.
He was a, what do you call him?
A carpenter.
And he put those three things together and
made Jesus rich.
He was, he was very rich.
Do you know how rich he was?
He had nowhere to lay his head.
There are still missionaries like that.
Maybe God will have to bring us down
to this before we get a revival in
America.
I used to be silly enough to say
that the church of Jesus Christ in America
is going to suffer for the sin of
the nation.
No.
A nation is going to suffer because of
the sin of the church.
Paul looks like, does he say in Timothy,
so that he was ordained?
What does ordination do?
A guy told me, I've been ordained.
Oh, wonderful.
What does it do?
Are you taller?
Is your head bigger?
Oh, I'm ordained.
So what?
So he said to me today, do you
know Tammy and Jimmy are back on TV?
I said, so is Edward Kennedy.
He committed murder, but he's back on TV.
What's TV?
Junk parade.
TV, terribly vicious, terribly vulgar.
All the rotten things you can think about
in.
But here is a man, he's driven with
a holy passion.
I don't care what comes, he says.
Come hell or high water.
I have a home eternal in the heavens,
that not a thief in hell can take
it from me.
When he goes to prison, he won't give
the devil the credit.
He doesn't say I'm the prisoner of the
devil.
He doesn't say I'm the prisoner of Caesar.
He says I'm the prisoner of Jesus Christ.
He orders my steps, he orders my stops.
Did God want a weak character like this?
Where's our integrity?
Only takes a week now, we can't go
to prayer meetings.
I've told you before, I'll tell you again,
either we're going to concentrate in prayer or
we're going to pray in concentration camps.
Don't you worry about that too much.
It's going to happen.
God's going to get a bride, and he
doesn't care how he purifies it, he's going
to purify it.
Blessed be his name.
In German Schaffner.
I'd better get on here, eh?
What did I get?
I got the number one.
OK, number two is those ten.
We must all appear before the judgment seat
of Christ.
That's his second anchorage.
We must all appear.
I've got that broken down, I can't give
you it tonight because it's so lengthy.
All of us, we must.
It's inevitable.
There's no alternative.
You know, once you slip out of time
into eternity, whether you're on the broad way
to destruction or the narrow way to life
eternal, there's no U-turn.
If I tell you there's a better place
than heaven, will you believe me?
Of course you won't, but there is.
A better place than heaven, where is it?
Here and now.
Because you've time to put right the wrongs
in your life.
You've time to strengthen what remains.
You've time to adjust.
Your prayer life is too weak.
Your anticipation is too weak.
Your faith is too weak.
Well, get it right.
Once you're over the bar, it's too late.
The only reason you're alive in the world
is this life is a preparation, it's a
preparation for the next life.
That's all it is.
And Paul says, listen, you can't rob me
of anything.
We have this treasure in urban vessels.
Beat this body, bruise this body, starve this
body, toss me in the sea.
I'll be redeemed tomorrow and I come out
of it when I went in it.
Take all the skin off my back, it
will grow again, I'll still be sanctified.
None of these things move me.
Listen, he didn't say none of these things
hurt me.
Of course they hurt him.
But they didn't move him.
You've got a thousand things that will hurt
you, not one of them needs to move
you.
It's easy to sit in church, is it?
My hope is built on nothing less than
Christ, the solid rock I stand and the
wind blows tomorrow when you go over.
The first thing you do is not call
on God, you call on the pastor.
What do you live on, God or the
pastor?
Many times I heard G.
Campbell Morgan, the greatest preacher in the world,
when I was 28 years of age, I
heard him say this one day, if I
was out of the pulpit for a week,
I'd backslide.
That really troubled me.
I thought, dear God, I thought you lived
on God, not preaching.
And I heard him say once to a
crowd of preachers, I talked to my friend
there and asked him, how did you get
on last night preaching?
He said, my friend said, I enjoyed myself.
He said he did.
He enjoyed his eloquence, he enjoyed his exposition,
he enjoyed the rapport with the people.
Is that what preaching's about?
Preaching's not a profession, it's an obsession.
You don't preach because you want to, you
have to.
Worries me if I preach not.
As long as you have breath in your
body, you're debtors to this generation.
I love these dear fellows like Bill Cook,
and others that go down on the square,
where all the prostitutes and hopeless people gather
in Tyler on a Friday night.
I spent much of my life there.
You know, the greatest revivals in history were
in the streets.
The Salvation Army was in the street, people
booted them out.
Who was the Archbishop of Canterbury when John
Wesley was in the Church of England?
Do you know?
Of course you don't.
Wesley couldn't get in the church, they locked
the doors against him.
George Whitefield couldn't get in.
John Wesley was kicked out, and Charles Wesley
was kicked out.
And like Jesus, what did Jesus preach?
In the synagogue occasionally, mostly in the street.
If I had the energy, I'd be there
now, I'll tell you that.
Dear God, there are people in our streets,
in Tyler, never heard the gospel.
They've been to church, and they've heard an
artificial gospel, an easy believism, come forward and
get saved, and they've been a dozen times.
A woman told me, I've been to the
altar 14 times, never get anything.
And she said, if it doesn't happen tonight,
I'm through with Christianity.
The pastor and I stayed about an hour
and a half with her.
She got marvelously born again in the Spirit
of God, and became the best prayer writer
and best teacher in that church.
Why?
You know, we don't value the souls of
people.
I happened to preach a couple of times
away at, what's that Methodist called?
Asbury.
A couple of revivals there.
And on the countryside there, they have the
greatest racehorses in the world.
There's marvelous farm.
The most beautiful horses you ever saw.
And do you know what?
When one of those mares is foaling, they
sit up all night with that beast, and
they stay with the little baby to foal
after it's born.
Well, dear God, don't people who come to
an altar deserve more than a beast?
I don't think anybody should come to the
altar and get saved, and leave within an
hour of coming to the altar.
I never did.
I had never conducted a street meeting in
England, midday or midnight, in that most famous
of all arenas.
I preached there, and saw people come to
Christ at Park, what do you call it?
What's the big park called?
Hyde Park in London.
I preached at a bowling in Birmingham.
I preached outside of the great post office.
In Perth, Scotland.
Preached in Ireland.
And almost every time, people melt in the
streets, and it wasn't easy to believe in
them.
It was, listen, you leave your sin, and
you repent, and come to God, and they
came.
We don't give people time to repent.
When are we going to get serious about
being serious about the most serious thing in
the world, the salvation of other women?
To do brain surgery is terrible.
To do open heart surgery.
But to be a preacher is infinitely more.
Dear God, if you move your scalpel too
much doing open heart surgery, you may kill
somebody.
But if you say the wrong thing, you
may lead them to hell in a meeting
too.
I don't believe I can go to any
meeting without somebody being born of the Spirit
in one way or another, moving up to
an elevation.
Or somebody dying.
Somebody here tonight, God's not going to speak
to you after this meeting, what does He
owe you?
You've heard the gospel since you were that
height.
You saw more convenient there, but it never
came.
You see, this man is driven.
I'm a better to the barbarian, to the
Jew, to the Greek, to the high, to
the low.
And it doesn't matter where you take him.
Put him in prison.
You see, this man trusted any man being
Christ.
Did he live it out?
Sure he did.
Where did he begin his life?
He began his life in Tartus, the capital,
the ancient capital of the world.
That's where he began.
He ended up in Rome, the military capital
of the world.
In between, he went to the religious capital
of the world, Jerusalem.
He went to the intellectual capital of the
world, in the 16th chapter of the Acts
of the Apostles.
There were Stoics and Greeks and philosophers and
poets.
Dear God, what did they look down on
those days?
These athletes, you know, these boys at Pompeii.
They've got iron brains, I think, too, many
of them.
And he looked at all these athletes and
he walked in the midst of them and
they looked and said, what will this babbler
say?
Paul wasn't an editor.
He said in 2 Corinthians 10 and verse
10, they said when they saw him, his
bodily presence is weak.
He's a shrimp of a man and his
speech is contemptible.
He had a lisp on his lip and
a limp on his lint.
And a limp, is that what I'm going
to say?
A limp.
I'm puzzling myself.
I thought, is that good?
Shakespeare could have done better than that.
He had a lisp on his lip.
I'd say, when he saw that ball up
against the wall and said, it says, hey
Jack, you throw a rock and knock his
eye out and I'll knock the other one
out.
You take that boulder and smash it under
his rib and he walks like a young
man and he never said a word.
What happened?
Heaven opened.
You say, heaven doesn't open to me.
Of course, you went to too much.
As soon as he puts the pressure on,
you cry.
He could have said, God, oh that rock,
help me.
I think my ribs are broken.
Oh my God, broken.
Oh, don't let those wicked men do that.
And they just pound him and pound him
and just grind him up and this so
-called tender-hearted apostle did nothing.
But a little while after, he goes through
the same thing.
But wait a minute.
While this man is there looking up, he
prays that the very life of Christ is
in Stephen because he doesn't say, I call
that fire down from heaven and burn the
earth.
He says, Lord, have mercy on them.
Forgive them.
And heaven opened.
And what happened?
Oh, this is so gorgeous.
What's gorgeous about it?
Because that whole bunch of fellows there said,
we got rid of Jesus.
We know what happened.
Somebody stole his body and hid it away.
They put it on a raft and sent
it out to sea or something.
Jesus got rid of him.
And here's Stephen, the blood pouring down his
face.
A broken arm.
He can only stand on one leg.
The other is broken.
And he looks up and heaven opened.
And he says to that unbelieving crowd, I
see Jesus.
He didn't see the prosecutors.
He didn't see the blood.
He didn't see the suffering.
I see Jesus.
He's my life.
He's everything to me.
Well, is it the psalmist that says that
Jesus sat on the right hand of the
Father?
He didn't.
Jesus got so excited he jumped off his
throne and said, come on, son.
He was the first man to die.
And he died as nobly as Jesus on
the cross.
Why?
Because he knew he, too, had a home
eternal in the heavens, not made with hands.
Everything that man makes is corruptible.
Leave that piano there a hundred days and
then what?
Everything you see is corruptible.
We live too much for the visible instead
of the invisible.
We're like the world.
We have the same values.
We have the same interests.
Dear God, when you see the invisible you
don't care if it's blood or what it
is.
But listen, he says.
What verse did we read there?
Verse 10, was it?
We must all appear at the judgment seat
of Christ.
And then previously he says what?
We shall go and every one of our
works will be tried by fire.
You see, you can't escape fire.
The sinner goes to hell fire.
The believer goes to the fire of God.
I remember every time I went to see
Dr. Tozzi it stopped me dead on my
track going in.
And when I went in one day he
said, just like that, he said, Lynn, what
you and I talked about last time you
were here, eternity.
I've been thinking of Jesus sitting on a
throne.
He said two things I've said a thousand
times since about 1953.
Number one, he says, none of us will
walk to him directly and look him in
the eye.
To those eyes like a flame of fire.
And Paul says to these people, is it
in chapter 3?
The fire shall try every man.
Wait a minute.
Find that for me somebody.
Is it chapter 3?
Oh, I wasn't going to say you.
I'll let you breathe.
At least I'll breathe a minute while I'm
planning it.
All right, 1 Corinthians 3, and verse 3.
If any man's work abide, which he hath
built thereon, Oh, pardon me, go back to
verse 11.
For other foundation can no man lay than
that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
If any man build upon this foundation, gold,
silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man,
there are six things there, silver, gold, precious
stones, wood, hay, stubble.
And the fire shall try every man's work.
Who is he writing to?
He's writing to the Corinthians.
I said he began life in the ancient
capital of the world.
He finished in the military capital of the
world.
He went to the intellectual capital of the
world in the 16th of Acts.
And he comes here to the corrupt capital
of the world.
In the day when the apostle Paul lived,
if a man was bad, licentious and filthy,
you didn't take 20 adjectives, just say he's
a Corinthian, you know what he is.
He's at the bottom of the barrel.
He's vile, he's corrupt.
And yet it's to that man that Paul
says, is anyone being Christ?
This is no amateur.
I was reading yesterday by dear old Dr.
Criswell.
He said, you know, when you read Romans
chapter 1, now you won't like it from
an Englishman, so I'll take it from one
of America's greatest preachers.
He said, Romans chapter 1 describes America today.
Well, I'll tell you, if you ask Philip's
translation, read it.
I read it by Brother Joe the other
week, it knocked me flat.
Dear God, the corruption, the violence.
Can you imagine your grandfather ever dreamed that
homosexuals would run for office politically?
That homosexuals would be ordained to the ministry?
But it's coming our day in the name
of freedom and liberty.
Paul says, every man's world.
When did he say it?
The Corinth that the Apostle Paul wrote to
was the second city of Corinth.
It was built by the famous Julius Caesar.
One side of the road, the houses were
made of precious stone.
That is, they were marble and granite and
extensive.
This side of the road, the houses were
made of wood and they mixed clay with
chaff and they put that to walls between
the wood hen stubble and when the fire
came, in the reign of King Nummius M
-U-N-N-I-U-S, a fire
came through the city and it burned up
every single wood hen stubble.
The houses of the rich people, granite, they
were standing.
They were as precious as silver and gold
and precious stones and the fire didn't touch
them.
But the fire burned up the houses of
the poor.
See it this way, wood hen stubble is
above the ground.
That's ministry above the ground.
Oral Roberts has built towers, what, 70 feet
high?
He's built a building 600 feet high and
the poor deluded man says Christ was 300
feet bigger than that, that's a lie from
hell.
He's going to see the city of faith
is wood hen stubble.
It doesn't look like that, what a judgment.
PTO is going to try again.
They spent 20 years building wood hen stubble,
ministry above the ground.
Silver, gold and precious stones.
What are they?
Hidden ministries.
People often ask me, how much do you
pray?
I say that's not your business.
You pray.
I pray as long as God wants me
to pray.
Silver, gold and precious stones, they're hidden away.
The greatest ministries in America are hidden ministries.
Let me look a minute here.
Keep going to and fro.
I know.
Okay, well, the fire's going to try every
man's work.
And if every man's work abides, which he
has built, I need to receive a reward.
I'll tell you what, it's going to be
a staggering thing at the judgment.
That some of the least known people in
America are going to be the head of
the rewards.
One star differs from another star in glory.
Notice what it says.
The fire shall try every man's work.
What?
Size it is?
No, what sort it is.
Not the quantity, the quality.
Do you know that even a cup of
cold water given with joy and love to
a person is like a prophet's reward?
It's kind of a reward in that day.
Let me, I'll get back on track in
a minute here.
1 Corinthians 11.
Now let's think of that word again.
1 Corinthians 11, I forget what it talks
about.
I thought I keep losing my, not my
mind, just my memory.
Oh, thank you.
2 Corinthians 11, yes.
Yes, yes.
When he was in the heat of revival,
when he's having the greatest manifestations of God,
listen to what he says.
Lest I should be exalted above measure, I
was given a thorn in the flesh.
Suddenly they'll pull me right down to the
earth.
You know, God takes the run from under
us sometimes to show how poor we are.
You know, I used to preach, good Lord,
I preached about 150 words a minute, for
an hour and a half every Sunday night.
We had the whole town stirred for three
years.
I was only in my twenties.
And people lined up like a movie house
to get in church Sunday night.
And everywhere I went, oh, Ramuel's martyr, Ramuel's
this.
Now I'm handicapped, my mind slips.
And it's humiliating, but I still enjoy it.
It's the best preaching there is, that I
can do.
I got you off the hook.
Oh, thank you.
2 Corinthians 12.
I take pleasure in infirmities.
Okay.
Isn't that something?
I take pleasure.
I don't just grit my teeth and say,
Lord, it's rough.
I hope it's not going to last another
day.
I'm just about through.
The Lord says, listen, you're going through a
storm for 14 days and 14 nights.
Everybody else around will panic you.
In the church, they'll think you're crazy.
You hang on to this.
What do you do?
You went on the deck the next day.
And the captain says, well, preach, how are
you getting on?
He says, wonderful.
And I can imagine the captain of the
ship says, that was a hell we went
through last night.
I was sure the boat would go over.
The women were screaming.
There were babies born.
There were people dying.
People were jumping overboard.
It was terrible.
How did you get on?
He says, wonderful.
Preach, you're crazy.
What do you mean, wonderful?
He says, right in the middle of the
storm last night, there stood by me an
angel of God.
A what?
An angel of God.
Who I am and whom I serve.
And I've got a message for you.
You know, we're going to go through all
the tribulations and trials in the next two
or three years.
Sam Nunn was asked to run for the
presidency of the United States last year, this
past year.
And he said, could I honestly stand in
front of a congregation and say to them,
will you please elect me, Senator Nunn, to
steer America through the four most difficult years
in their history?
He's not a preacher, but he knows a
thing or two.
Did you bring me that stuff?
Did you find that stuff about Japan, brother?
I have it for you.
You have it, good.
I submit, you know, I know preachers disagree.
If you disagree with me, you know they're
wrong.
But anyhow.
You know, some people say the Russians are
going to take over America.
Forget it.
They haven't enough money to buy the Japanese
out.
They can't do it.
The whole west coast of this country belongs
to the Japanese.
The middle states belong to the Japanese.
I heard this past week.
A Japanese guy comes in and says, Oh,
I like your hotel.
Much like, pretty hotel I buy.
I buy.
How much?
So the good old American had the price
up there.
Oh, he never buys it.
Two million.
So he said, oh, I'll tell you what,
I'll try.
Four million.
Up come the little yellow boys with suitcases.
Cash.
Two million dollars cash.
Four million dollars cash.
So he can dodge the tax.
They're bringing the money with them.
There's hardly a piece of ground, a foot,
twelve inches wide, twelve inches in a way,
that doesn't belong to the Japanese.
They're in authority all over the place.
We're sold out.
We don't need to be sold out.
We're sold out.
There's no way we can recover this horrible
trillion, or what is it?
Triple trillion debt that we're in.
I'll tell you that a play for those
children of yours is going to go through
the roughest period in American history.
And some of us are going to go
into it.