Let's look for a little while now in
the 2nd book of Chronicles and the 6th
chapter, 2 Chronicles, chapter 6.
We read from verse 1, Then said Solomon,
the Lord hath said that he would dwell
in the thick darkness, but I have built
a house of habitation for thee in a
place for thy dwelling forever.
Go over now in the same chapter, verse
16.
Now therefore, O Lord God of Israel, keep
with thy servant David my father, that which
thou hast promised him, saying, Thou shalt not
fail thee a man in my sight to
sit upon the throne of Israel, yet so
that thy children take heed to their way,
to walk in my law, as thou hast
walked before me.
Now then, O Lord God of Israel, let
thy word be verified, which thou hast spoken
unto thy servant David, that will God in
very deed dwell with men on the earth?
Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens
cannot contain thee, how much less this house
which I have built.
Have respect therefore to the prayer of thy
servant, and his supplication, O Lord my God,
to hearken unto the cry and prayer which
thy servant prayeth before thee.
Now he lays that on a bit, doesn't
he?
Have respect therefore to the prayer of thy
servant, the supplication of thy servant, the cry
of thy servant, and the prayer which thy
servant prayeth unto thee.
There's nothing indefinite about that, is there?
Now look at chapter 7, verse 1.
Now when Solomon had made an end of
praying, the fire came down from heaven and
consumed the burnt offering, and the sacrifices, and
the glory of the Lord filled the house,
so that the priests could not enter into
the house of the Lord, because the glory
of the Lord had filled the Lord's house.
And when the children of Israel saw how
the fire came down, and the glory of
the Lord upon the house, they bowed themselves
with their faces to the ground upon the
pavement, and worshipped and praised the Lord, saying
for he is good, and his mercy endureth
forever.
The emphasis I want to put there is
that he prayed, he built this magnificent place,
some people say it was the most costly
building maybe that ever was built, he used
gold instead of cement, he splashed the walls
with gold, and he used all kinds of
precious things, and yet he had the sense
to realize that if you lay gold six
inches thick on all the walls, you may
as well use it for a stable if
God doesn't come.
You see, people say, have you been in
St. Peter's, have you been in Westminster Abbey,
aren't they glorious, they cost millions of dollars,
I don't think God lives in either place.
He dwelleth not in temples made with hands,
but this man has built it according to
divine orders, and therefore he says, Lord I
built it, that's my part, now you do
your part, and he prayed, and when he
had finished praying, and that's an awful long
prayer, you better read it, the previous prayers,
when he made an end of praying, the
fire came down and consumed the offering, and
the glory of the Lord came down, and
when the people saw the glory of God,
they were speechless and bowed down to the
earth.
Can you remember the last time you were
in a meeting where the glory of God
came down and you walked out speechless up
to take your dinner or something else up
there, or as soon as you get out
did you say, by that's a great dress,
I saw one like that in Sears, they
say I got it at Pennies, you know,
we're so lost in trivia that we can
come out of the sanctuary where God is,
or at least we say he was, and
oh I got blessing in that second hymn,
I got blessing, but there's no awe about
it, there's no overwhelming majesty, again you take
a song leader around, well I don't care,
they're all right, don't think they do much
work for the money they get, but anyhow,
you get a song leader, but Phinney and
the early evangelists never took a song leader,
they weren't even evangelists, they were revivalists, instead
of taking a song leader, they took men
who could pray and men who could intercede,
now singing as a praise, I don't think
anybody on earth enjoys singing more than I
do, I like good singing, I like inspiring,
uplifting singing, but it only goes so far,
it's good that something goes up, that we
send an offering of praise to God, but
what about the glory coming down?
And it was after he had made, not
just a tabernacle, but he had made an
end of praying, he had made an end
of obedience, because he'd built his altars, he
had made an end of sacrifice, he brought
what God told him, and then he believed
God, Lord you said it, what does he
say?
He says let thy, verse 17 of that
6th chapter says, now then O Lord God
of Israel, let thy word be verified, now
come on bring it to pass, make it
real, you see that, I was in a
church recently, and the pastor said to me,
uh there were about a thousand people at
that time, it filled up to about 13
or 1400 people, and the pastor said look
how friendly our people are going around talking,
uh you know some people like a church
like a morgue when you come in, well
a bit later in the week I said
well yes that's all right, but uh to
me the church isn't a country club, I
would never break a meeting up, we do
it some, we did it last Sunday morning,
I'm not quarreling with what Tony does, I'm
saying my style is this, first of all
you have to get people into the sanctuary,
secondly you have to get them there mentally,
thirdly you have to get them there spiritually,
that happens about 10 minutes to 12, they're
so soaked up with the world outside, you
just get a stillness of God, you get
them quiet, you get the minds on something,
and then you're scattered in 60 directions, well
this is my, again this is my my
my idea, my thinking, my style, you have
it another way, that's all right, I enjoy
it, I'm not asking anybody to wear my
sackcloth, I'm just saying as I see it,
we live in a world of turmoil, a
world that's restless, a world where there's noise,
there was a certain London preacher when I
was in England, he started the, as a
habit or method when he was in Leeds,
the city where I was raised, and they
would have a hymn and a prayer and
a song and the choir would sing and
then he would read a scripture and it'd
say, and now two minutes silence, all the
lights in the church went out except one
light over the pulpit, you'll never realize how
long two minutes is till you sit there
and nobody's talking, nobody does a thing, and
he said so many people said to him,
you know I felt a kind of, for
once my mind wasn't thinking about even what
the choir's going to sing or you're going
to say, suddenly there was a stillness, I
was still, my spirit was quiet, my mind
was quiet, you know as though you slip
everything out of gears and shut the engine
off and relax and just say, I'm going
to rest before I drive the rest of
the way.
Again as in the revival, and I didn't
know that until recently, I read it, I
read it in the reading of Mrs. Guilford
where she said again that there's a, there
was a place of majesty even in the
stillness, not in the awesomeness of being lifted
to heaven for eight hours but in the
stillness, not in the traveling prayer but in
the stillness.
I don't know if you know a chorus,
speak Lord in the stillness while we wait
on thee, hush our hearts to listen in
expectancy, then speak O blessed master in this
quiet hour, let us see thy face Lord,
feel thy touch of power, for the words
thou speakest, their life indeed, living bread from
heaven now my spirit feed.
You see everybody, I don't care who it
is, we have the same danger here, everybody
has, of getting into a rut.
People say, I used to go to a
church, you sat down and then the song
leader says, one twenty three, everybody stand and
sing, up you go, down you sit, stand
up and sing this, down you sit, now
the reading of the scriptures, stand again, now
sit down, the choir will sing, now the
offering, now something else, it's mechanical.
Well I used to go to a church
on and off when I was in that
city when I wasn't teaching myself, you know
I found the folk that scorned ritual in
a couple of years were in ritual themselves.
I could tell you the chorus they'd start
with about at least thirty Sundays out of
fifty-two and it seemed I was always
in the thirty-two because every time I
went they sang you know, without him I
would be nothing, you know I'm like a
ship without a sail and I thought that's
true and you know everybody got stirred and
weepy and and then they go on to
another chorus and another chorus and then it
was let's all stand up and pray and
worship God, well I don't think that's worship
anyhow, I think it's praise.
What did they do when the glory of
God came?
They fell down and worshiped and if you
look through the scripture there's more instances of
falling down to worship.
It's the awesomeness of God, you don't want
to look anyway, you don't want to see
anybody, you don't want to hear anybody, you
want your ears to be deaf, you want
your eyes not to be on anything.
Now that's just again my interpretation but there
it is.
Solomon made an end of praying, the fire
came down.
Solomon made an end of praying, the glory
came down.
I used to go to a conference, one
of the largest in England.
I wasn't too much worried about who was
going to preach but oh I'll tell you
what, I always thought there's one of two
men I hope they'll ask to pray and
usually they asked one of just two men
out of dozens or scores or hundreds of
preachers that were there.
Whenever those two men prayed I thought you
know as the scripture said they'd hold of
the horns of the altar with one hand
and the hand on the congregation with the
other, there was always an inflow there was
always something uplifting, there was always something revealing.
Well if we need people to sing solos
to us and quartets and heaven knows what,
I wouldn't be at all adverse to taking
a man with me if I was going
on more meetings.
I'm not going in many next year, hardly
book one, but a man that could really
touch God like that, an awesome thing.
And this is a king Markiel, he's not
delegating it to someone else.
He made an end of praying, the glory
came down.
He made an end of praying, the fire
came down.
What more do you want?
Well let's talk here about let's talk about
prayer here now in Romans 8, Romans chapter
8, look at verse 22.
For we know that the whole creation groaneth
and travaileth in pain together until now.
Twenty-three, not only they but ourselves also
which have the first fruits of the Spirit
even we ourselves groan within ourselves.
And verse 26, likewise the Spirit also helpeth
our infirmities for we know not what we
should pray for as we are but the
Spirit itself or himself more correctly maketh intercession
for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.
What is he doing?
He's making intercession.
What does the next verse say?
And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what
is the mind of the Spirit because he
maketh intercession for us.
And verse 34 says what?
Who is he that condemneth it is Christ
that died yea rather that he is risen
again who is even at the right hand
of God who also maketh intercession for us.
Now that's a mighty lot of stuff isn't
it?
This is the victory chapter.
This is one of the greatest chapters in
the whole of Scripture.
I think if Paul had known it and
the Lord would have let him he'd have
sung when he moved into chapter 8 from
chapter 7, out of my bondage sorrow and
night Jesus I come.
Because Romans 7 is all bondage.
To put it in language of English literature,
do you remember there was a very famous
writer called John Milton?
What did he write?
Paradise Lost.
Do you know when he wrote it?
After he got married.
Then he wrote a second volume, Paradise Regained.
Do you know when he wrote that?
When his wife died.
Now there's no connection but it's historically true.
But you know it's exactly true in Romans
7.
Romans 7 is Paradise Lost.
Romans 8 is Paradise Regained.
I was in a meeting three weeks ago,
a fine young student came to me and
he said you know big hustling guy, heavyweight
champion.
He said can I ask you a question?
I thought well I better say yes if
I say no I could be in trouble.
So I said yes.
He said you know brother Raymond I've been
a Christian for so many years and he
said I want to tell you something really.
I'm a Christian and these were his exact
words.
But I feel as though I'm carrying inside
of me a dead body.
Oh I said I'll give you a scripture
for that.
There it is at the end of Romans
7.
Romans 7 24 O wretched man that I
am who shall deliver me from the what?
Body of this death.
Well that's what Paul said.
So cheer up you're in good succession.
Yeah but I don't want to keep the
body of this death.
No you don't need to.
In Romans chapter 6 I don't think 6,
7 and 8 are consecutive.
I don't think the man in Romans 6,
7 actually is necessarily a Christian man.
It is two of many Christians.
Unfortunately it's two of many Christians.
I don't doubt that.
Somebody asked a friend of mine who is
Romans 7 about?
He said it's for the man that's in
it.
If you're still in 7 get out of
it.
This young man says I've got a body
of death.
All right.
You see again in the 6th chapter of
Romans, one of the most quoted chapters again,
in verse 4 of Romans 6 it says
therefore we are buried with him by baptism
unto death or into death that likewise as
Christ was raised from the dead by the
glory of the Father even so we also
should walk in newness of life.
If we are planted together in his likeness
of his death we are in his resurrection
knowing this our old man is crucified not
was, is crucified with him that the body
of sin might be destroyed for he that
is dead is freed from sin.
Paul quotes that later doesn't he in another
epistle.
Now again crucifixion, there were many ways of
crucifying a man.
You could crucify him on a traditional cross
like that.
You could crucify him on a cross like
a letter T.
You could crucify him on a cross like
a letter X, stretch his members out.
You could crucify him on a straight column
of wood, a tree trunk with a big
spike through it and stick him on it
and turn him around and leave him hanging
upside down if he wanted or he could
be crucified to the man he'd killed.
He had to carry the body of death
that he had created and therefore if you
saw a man coming down the road staggering
you kept away from him.
Why?
Because the corruption was going to eat him
up.
He's carrying a dead body.
The eyes had gone slimy if the birds
hadn't picked them out.
He's in a terrible mess.
It was much quicker to be crucified on
a cross.
This death could take an awful long while.
This man's going to find food or something
and he's going to be carrying continually a
body of this death.
And so Paul says well what shall I
do because the law can't help me.
He's very clear about that.
He says oh wretched man that I am
who should deliver me from the body of
this death and he doesn't stop there.
He says I thank God through Jesus Christ
my Lord.
So then with my mind I serve the
law of God but with my flesh the
law of sin.
You say well there you are that well
this body of mine is not serving the
law of sin right now.
I hope not but it's going to serve
the law of sin if Jesus doesn't come
because the wages of sin is death and
my body is going to serve the law
of death.
It has to unless again I'm raptured.
But my mind and my spirit do not
serve the law of sin.
Now if we were really correct when we
bury people in baptism they go under the
water.
When a man goes under the water he
can't see the world above him.
He doesn't talk to it.
He isn't eating it.
He isn't interested in it.
He's under the water and that's supposed to
be that when he went under the water
he's telling the world I died with Jesus
Christ and the world up there has got
no pull on me and I don't want
it.
I'm not interested in it.
It doesn't fascinate me whether it is the
cowboys who have one or two Christians playing
for them or the Atlantic Falcons.
I spoke to their football team last year
that some Christians among no no no the
thing is I've pulled out from the world.
I'm dead to the world and all its
toys its idle pomp and fading joys and
Jesus Christ is my glory.
Now if you go through Romans chapter 7
take a pencil and mark the I I
I I I.
More I's there and I a taller but
anyhow it's full of I's.
How many times?
I don't know about 30 or 31.
Then you take another pencil and mark how
many times the Holy Spirit is mentioned.
You'll have no problems he's not mentioned at
all.
Then you come into Romans chapter 8 and
mark the I I I and you've only
got two.
You've got verses what 18 I think yes
18 for I reckon and verse 28 or
38 rather.
I am persuaded now there's no way he
can get round it he has to use
the first person singular there.
But now go count how many times the
Holy Spirit is mentioned.
The Holy Spirit is mentioned 19 times in
the chapter.
So chapter 7 is the self-centered chapter
and chapter 8 is a is a Christ
-centered chapter.
Now notice what it says in verse 9.
There are some awesome things.
Somebody has said that this is the highest
peak in the in the whole of divine
range of revelation.
Maybe they're right.
Look at verse 8.
But ye are not in the flesh but
in the Spirit if so be that the
Spirit of God dwell in you.
Now underline that the Spirit of God dwell
in you.
Look at the beginning line of verse 10.
If Christ be in you look at the
middle of verse 11.
But if the Spirit of Him that raised
up Jesus from the dead dwell in you.
Who raised up Jesus from the dead?
The Father raised Him up and the Holy
Spirit raised Him up.
So that means here I've got the Spirit
of God dwelling in me in verse 9.
I've got the Spirit of Christ dwelling in
me in verse 10.
And I've got the Holy Spirit and the
Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from
the dead.
Now if God the Father is in me
and God the Son is in me and
the Holy Spirit is in me.
Well how in the world do I manage
to get tripped up so often?
How in the world do I do I
stagger around so much?
How in the world do I tread water
so much?
I ought to be moving like this every
day.
You know it's easy to sing it.
I see crowds of people singing ecstatically.
You know I'm pressing on the upward way
new heights I'm gaining every day.
And I think are you telling the truth?
If I stopped and said now I'm going
to turn this into a testimony.
Let's start here.
What what new heights have you gained today
you weren't on yesterday?
Then you follow on and you follow.
I wonder how far we get if you're
really honest.
How much do I gain every day?
Isn't it awesome?
Is there anything like this in the Quran?
Whatever the Islamic folk is saying today Mohammed
and they got nothing like that.
Buddha never said he'd live inside anybody.
Mohammed never said he'd but but Jesus Christ
is Paul says it's Christ in you.
He's not going to be in me.
He is in me.
Well is there any conflict between me and
the Spirit of God?
Me and the and the Son of God?
There shouldn't be.
Me and the mind of God?
Me and the will of God?
No no no no no.
Well you can you can think about that.
You can you can mark out the the
times again about the Holy Spirit.
What I want to stress here now is
again verse 22 the whole creation growneth.
Now by the whole creation I've heard people
say when the world is shattered by earthquakes.
When some of these this phenomena happens up
in the sky.
That's the whole creation groaning.
Others see it as the whole creation of
mankind.
The travail of mankind.
They show us pictures of many things.
They haven't shown us many pictures of Cambodia.
I think we have a little bit of
conscience about it that Kissinger was defending himself
this morning.
He didn't say anything about Cambodia I notice.
But boy there's going to be an awful
thing to account for with Nixon and I
think that guy when they get to the
judgment seat.
You see those guys never thought that they
said that history.
Wouldn't that be wonderful when God rolls the
film back?
Huh?
You think he's going to do that?
I do.
I think eternity God's going to roll the
film back right to Adam and show us
what happened in the garden.
And he's going to show all the subsequent
history.
The fall of the Babylonian empire and every
other empire including the British empire and the
Roman empire and whatever empires you've got.
And he's going to show us everything that
ever happened in history.
It'll take a long afternoon maybe about five
million years but after all we're going nowhere.
There'll be no deadlines in heaven.
No tv cameras or other cameras.
We're gonna God's going to replay history to
us I'm sure of that.
He's going to show us every justification of
his anger, his wrath, as well as of
his mercy.
The whole creation groaneth now.
Why does he groan?
What did the children of Israel say when
the Jews rejected Jesus?
They said his blood be upon us.
They got the prayer answered.
After all God was married to Israel.
He said goodbye to his wife.
He divorced her for uncleanness and he hasn't
bothered with her for 2,000 years and
she's sure not out of trouble yet.
I think she's still going into a time
of what the word of God calls Jacob's
trouble.
I think the next five years are going
to be, I don't care what your denomination
has done in the last 500.
What it can do in the next five
years, what's going to count?
I believe it's going to be the vortex
of history.
You know when you pull the plug in
a bath or something bigger than that and
there's a suction hole.
You know when a big ship's going down
in the Atlantic, the sea may be very
calm, but the last thing they say is
pull away, pull away.
Why?
Because when that ship goes down, just like
water going down the drain, that great big
thing makes a suction hole and if you're
not clear it sucks the lifeboats and everything
down with it.
And I think we're moving into that suction
period.
This book's never wrong.
What you sow you reap.
We always think that about evil things.
It's true of good things.
What you've sown good is as true as
evil.
You sow good, you reap good.
You sow mischief, you reap mischief.
You sow gossip, you reap gossip.
You sow loving kindness.
Whatsoever you sow, you reap.
Well the whole creation groaneth.
But then it says here, verse 23, the
first fruits of the Spirit, even we groan
within ourselves.
And then verse 26 again, the Spirit himself
maketh groanings which cannot be uttered when we're
in prayer.
Now this comes down to the nitty-gritty.
I have no idea, God knows I don't.
I don't know any, I have any idea
what what immediate steps have to be taken
before God can trust me with groanings in
the Spirit.
I don't know what precedes them except obedience
and vision and passion.
You know that nobody writes history correctly because
nobody knows all history.
You get somebody writing the history of Northern
Ireland, now if he's a Roman Catholic, he'd
give you one history.
If he's a Protestant, he'd give you an
entirely different history.
You can't record history.
You can't write biography correctly.
And I've written a number, pardon me, I've
read a number of stories of the young
man again used in the Welsh Revival.
Now remember that God used him at 22
years of age.
And I read someplace not too long ago
and I've forgotten where, where for 10 years
prior to that revival he had prayed and
interceded.
That means he started interceding when he was
12 years of age.
Now God hands him a nation.
He started in a smaller way.
When the revival broke, when he first prayed,
he prayed in Welsh.
But when he prayed, there were not more
than 40 people there in the auditorium.
A revival never began in a mass meeting.
You can get your crowds of a hundred
thousand, fifty thousand.
I never heard revival break like that.
Revivals always started with a handful of people,
God's chosen people.
And this young man, God is trusting him
with revival.
Now the revival has got, he was a
big man.
The Welsh naturally, nationally and naturally are not
very tall.
I preach very often in Wales.
But they're not a very tall group of
people.
They're small, they're rather sallow skinned, they have
black hair, they look Jewish in appearance and
somebody, they sometimes say they're of the tribe
of Levi, because they're all great preachers, whether
they're anointed or not.
They're certainly great, great.
They're the greatest congregational singers in the world.
You've never heard singing till you go to
Wales and hear how they sing.
Except in Scotland they can sing the 23rd
Psalm better.
But in Wales they sure sing.
Now here's a towering figure of a man.
He has an auditorium packed.
And somebody who worked with him, Niprash, was
on his left hand.
My friend J.F. Perryman was on his
right hand, through the revival in Wales in
1904 and then in Guernsey and then afterwards.
And he said, I've seen some awesome things
in the life of this man.
The amazing thing about him was his sensitivity
to God.
And I don't know how to drill that
in your minds or underline it, but this
is what you and I really need, a
sensitivity to God or if not we'll go
along with the herd.
We'll do what others are doing.
He had a sensitivity to God.
So much so that Niprash says that I
talked to them about the things of the
Spirit until nearly midnight and went home excited
and elevated that I'd been able to share
with this amazing man the things of the
Spirit.
And then he said next morning I went
and asked could I see him again.
And I went to see him I think
he said about 10 o'clock.
But immediately he said, he asked me something
about what you do when you're growing something.
And he said I was staggered that this
man was, we were you know 50,000
feet high at 12 o'clock last night.
Then the first thing he asked me about
growing radishes or something.
And then there was, I tried to talk
again and he turned me off in something
else.
And I suddenly realized he said that he
sensed I was out of tune with God.
I hadn't had my devotions that morning.
I hadn't, I loved the Lord but I
hadn't given time to get my spirit still.
And immediately he felt a clash in his
spirit.
In other words he was sensitive like that.
F.B. Meyer went to see him, traveled
all the way from London to Wales to
see him.
And the landlady knocked at the door of
this precious fellow and said who'll come down
quickly, the greatest preacher in the world is
here, Dr. F.B. Meyer.
And he said I'll be down after maybe
in a couple of hours.
Oh it's Dr. F.B. Meyer.
Now most of us if you are praying
you know and somebody said well Billy Graham's
come to see.
Oh we'd jump up and say well Lord
you wait, Graham's here.
You know so important.
Oh we can cover it up with a
script you know, be courteous with this.
Well first of all that applies to God,
be courteous there.
He would not come down.
He was very very sensitive in the spirit.
He would walk into a room and say,
when there'd been a lot of discussion about
him, some very unholy things had been said.
And he said to the people now don't
discuss this anymore in the house.
And when he came in it was just
as a, he would say somebody's burning toast.
Instead of that he said, have you been
talking about it again?
And they all bowed their head, they had.
He was as sensitive as that to it.
Now he's sensitive the other way.
Nepras says the most awesome thing I saw
in the life of this man was, was
one night in a meeting when he stood
up to speak and suddenly his whole being
began to shake and he fell, he collapsed.
He said as though somebody had thrust a,
an arrow, thrust a dagger in his liver
or something.
He collapsed on the floor, this man about
six feet high and he shook and he
began to groan and groan and travel and
they went to touch him and it was
just as though there were vibrations coming.
They couldn't get near to him and he
said I have never never seen a man
have a personal Gethsemane like that.
And particularly in a public place, it didn't
embarrass him at all.
And the whole audience was hushed, but what
else would they do?
You see a strong man groaning, you hear
his weeping, you hear his sobbing, you feel
as though he's going to be torn apart,
you want to go and put your arm,
nobody could touch him.
But he said when he stood up, he
almost needed a veil on his face.
The glory of God shone out of him
as though he was having a personal transfiguration.
He'd had his Gethsemane.
Now how many, how many of our popular
preachers do you think would do that?
In the first place, would God trust them
with it?
In the second place, do you think you
could put that on TV if you're preaching?
Hmm?
Now the other night we, I was preaching
down in Nacogdoches there and I preached, the
first night I preached, I don't like Sundays
because anybody comes Sundays, they're not spiritual, they
come out of obligation, the wife drag them
there or something, I like to get Sunday
over.
Monday we got going, Monday night was I,
I felt one of the most awesome meetings
I was ever in.
God just came and saturated that place.
Tuesday night I spoke on David and his
sin.
I just said the altar's open if you
want to come and it was lined immediately
with students all over the place.
Maybe we sat half an hour and then
suddenly one of these women that has a
spirit of intercession, she let out an utterance
and the Lord said to me what I
never thought of before, he said that wasn't
a scream, it was a cry.
You see when you get an inward groaning
of the spirit, it talks here about groanings
which cannot be uttered.
Now some people say that's praying in tongues,
I don't believe that because it says it
can't be uttered.
I'm not denying there's a prayer language for
some, but I'm saying there's something higher even
than that, there are groanings which cannot be
uttered.
Hannah had it.
She goes in the sanctuary, what's the hardest
thing to put up with?
Criticism of sinners?
Contradiction of sinners?
No.
Criticism of saints.
Oh Mary Ann isn't going shopping anymore for
three months, she's made a vow to the
Lord.
That's a silly vow to make.
It isn't to Mary Ann.
And the only thing it's reason as silly
to you is because you love to shop
and do nothing maybe.
But Mary Ann's going to give that time
to the Lord.
This man says I won't watch TV for
six months.
This man, they put restrictions.
I met a man just a few weeks
ago and he amazed me, he said, I'm
so glad to see you, I want to
tell you, you know, you're on the right
line.
Well thank you, I didn't need that, I
believe God told me that.
But he said, you know in our church
this last night was the 52nd night of
prayer.
Isn't that something?
52nd night of prayer.
We're burdened for the nation, we're burdened for
this crisis hour over the world.
So, so I'd finished praying, the altars filled,
the people were sobbing and so forth, and
suddenly this woman gave birth to, to a
cry.
Now it says of Hannah she prayed, her
lips moved but her voice was not heard.
The most eloquent prayers have no language at
all.
The nearest you get is a groaning in
the spirit.
You remember what it, what it says about,
uh, what is it where Moses, uh, is
in Deuteronomy?
See this, look at his numbers, Deuteronomy 3.
Deuteronomy 3.
Yeah, Deuteronomy 3, sorry, 23.
Deuteronomy, pardon me, 3 and verse 23, I
besought the Lord at that time, saying, O
Lord God, thou hast begun to show thy
servant thy greatness and thy mighty hand for
what God is there in heaven or earth
that can do according to thy works and
according to thy might or power.
I pray thee let me go over and
see the good land that it is beyond
Jordan, that goodly mountain and Lebanon, that the
Lord was wroth with me for your sakes
and would not hear me.
Now sometimes men are in grief because of
what?
Because of the revelation and the burden that
God has given.
I saw recently a book that said, in
fact there were two on the bookstore, I
didn't buy either of them, because it talked
about, uh, intercession unlimited, and the other was
prayer can do anything which is totally wrong,
it can't.
The scripture makes that very clear.
Look in the 14th of Ezekiel, Ezekiel 14
.12, the word of the Lord came unto
me, saying, leap over to verse 14, though
these three men, Noah and Daniel and Job
were in it, they should deliver, but their
own souls, by their righteousness, saith the Lord
God.
And verse 16, though these three men were
in it as I live, saith the Lord,
they should deliver, look, listen to this, with
their praying they shall deliver, verse 16 says,
neither their sons nor their daughters, but only
they should be delivered, and the land should
be desolate.
Look at verse 18, that though these three
men are in it as I live, saith
the Lord, they shall deliver neither sons nor
daughters, but they only shall be delivered for
themselves.
And verse 20, if you wanted the last
time, though Noah, Daniel and Job were in
it as I live, saith the Lord God,
they should deliver neither their sons nor their
daughters, they shall only deliver their own souls
by their righteousness.
Now what do you do with it?
And sometimes people are crushed, because they see
the possibilities of grace, and, and things God
is not doing, on the other hand, they
see how near to judgment of people are.
Now this woman gave birth, I say, not
to a scream, but to a cry.
People have begun to leave the church, it's
a large church, holds about 15, 16 hundred
people, and the students were going out, because
they were in exams that week too, and
all down the aisle, just about at every
pew there were people, and as soon as
this was, this cry, this ooh, this cry
went out of this woman, I opened my
eyes, being on the platform, and the whole
church froze.
People began to lean on the pews.
They were looking like this, from where the
noise came, and they stood maybe five, or
seven, or eight minutes, then suddenly the woman
began to travel, groaning, groaning with, and sobs,
such as you've never heard in your life.
And you know, some people ran up to
try and comfort them, and I thought, oh
woman, don't, for goodness sake, you're giving yourself
away, you don't, you don't know what she's
doing.
They thought she's a problem, a personal problem.
That woman prays five or six hours a
day.
When somebody goes up, you know, that's used
to going up and saying, well, just believe
this little word, and bless you, God loves
you, and all that.
I thought, sister, take your hands off her,
you'll almost defile her.
Here's a woman that's about a million miles
up the road from you, she is travailing
in birth, and she traveled, and traveled.
Now a few left, but others got down,
and all over the place.
We started that meeting at seven o'clock,
we finished at half past eleven.
The next night we started at seven, we
finished at twelve.
The next night we started at seven, finished
about half past ten.
The last thing you think about when God's
on a place is time.
We're so caught up.
Now, what happened in those revivals?
What happened with that woman that prayed?
What happened with Evan Roberts?
When the spirit of travail came upon him,
and he doesn't feel well, it's very unmanly,
women cry, but you know, you don't want
to cry, men don't like to cry, and
in front of a congregation it's not the
thing to do.
You don't care a hill of beans about
folk.
You'd stand on your head and weep if
you, if you felt God wanted you, you'd
beat your breast and shout your head off,
what do you care?
How many people have experiences like that?
And yet they're going back, going back again
to revival.
I, I guess I've told you before about
the time when Duncan Campbell talked about the
revival.
I prayed with Duncan Campbell many mornings, five
o'clock in the morning.
Man, that man had a heart.
Oh, he prayed with this strong Scotch voice,
you know, and lift his hands up and
beat the furniture, and, and I knew he
was reliving the revival that he'd seen up
there in, in Scotland, time and time again.
The night again, when, when, when the meeting
was like brass, when there was nothing doing.
The word was going forth, but his words
were like, you know, like throwing a rubber
ball at a wall, it bounces back, he
wasn't getting anywhere, and he stopped and pointed
to a teenage boy, 16, and asked that
16-year-old boy to pray.
And I can see the tears in his
eyes, as Duncan told me, just two of
us sitting in, in a room at five,
or between five and six in the morning.
Ah, Brother Ravenhill, he said, it was wonderful
to hear the laddie pray.
For the first thing he did was to
stand up and quote the, uh, 24th Psalm,
who shall ascend into the hill of the
Lord?
He that hath clean hands and a pure
heart.
You see, we think prayer is the easiest
thing, you just pray about it tonight.
Oh, no, no, no, no, oh, no, no.
If you were called to the White House,
and, uh, you were going up the driveway,
and somebody dug a hole there, and you
happened to slip in it, covered with mud,
you wouldn't feel too comfortable going in to
see His Excellency, the President of the United
States.
If you're going to the presence of the
Queen of England, you couldn't go in your
jeans and something else, you go, it's always
underlined, you go in formals, and you do
this, and if you're going to be elevated
to be, uh, if I were going to
be made Sir Leonard Ravenhill, I must put
a tailcoat on, I must wear a certain
collar, I must, everything is done just right,
you see.
All things done decently and in order.
And you know the same is true in
prayer, in our spirits.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the
Lord?
He that hath clean hands, our relationship with
our fellow man.
And what's the second thing?
A pure heart, our relationship with God.
And the boy quoted the psalm, Ach, he
said, Ach, and then, when he'd said that,
he prayed.
Ach, Duncan says, brother, you never heard a
prayer like that in your life.
Oh, there were a lot of ministers there,
there were a lot of deacons there, a
lot of elders from the Presbyterian Church, a
lot of well-to-do people, and yet,
this man of God calls a, a 16
-year-old boy, not these guys who are
all loaded with degrees from Edinburgh and degrees
from somewhere else, he calls on a 16
-year-old high school boy, and the boy
in the spirit recites Psalm 24, and the
boy in the spirit began to pray five
minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, forty
minutes, forty-five minutes.
And Duncan said it was just so, psst,
and so the Lord pulled a switch in
heaven.
The Holy Ghost came on the church, yeah,
but he came on a gambling place down
the road, he came on a tavern.
But when the boy had prayed, he said
he turned, just as though he could see
him, and he said, Satan, in the name
of Jesus Christ, through the blood of the
everlasting covenant, you get off this area, get
out of this town, and you don't, I
resist you, I rebuke you, out!
Then the Spirit of God fell.
I should have said that first, then the
Spirit of God fell, and in the community,
there was a moving of the Spirit of
God.
Hm?
Now, do you think if I stood up
in a church tomorrow, say I was in
First Baptist Church in somewhere, and the preacher
said pray, and I just stood up and
prayed and quoted Psalm 24, and then prayed
that necessarily it would happen?
No.
You see, if there was a formula to
revival, we'd all buy it.
If there was a formula to revival, we'd
print it and say, you come to our
Bible school, we had a direct revelation from
heaven, this is how to set a city
on fire, you'll do it this way.
And we'd be like the Pharisees, because you
see, the problem with the Pharisees, they got
tied up in ritualism.
The Pharisees were the holiness people that got
lost, lost the blessing, and when they lost
internal purity, they stressed external purity.
They looked at a woman length of her
skirt.
They said, you can't work on Sunday, there's
a commandment, remember the Sabbath day to keep
it holy.
And this, this man reports that he, he
saw his wife pull a gray hair out
of her head on Sunday.
She was immediately censored, because she'd worked on
Sunday, pulling a gray hair out of her
head.
You went to buy some eggs on Monday,
you made very sure they were not laid
on Sunday, because the hen worked, you see.
So hens, I don't know what they had
to get constipation or something, but they weren't
allowed to lay eggs on Sundays, the hens
didn't know that, so they kept laying them.
But you see, they made 5,000 laws
in addition to the 10 commandments, which is
what always happens.
Now it just doesn't mean when revival comes,
sweeping and devastating, again revival changes the moral
climate of a community.
Revival will leave the lights on for hours
and hours, but remember this, immediately God comes
with holy fire, the old devil comes with
false fire too.
And when the Spirit of God fell on
Azusa Street there, a man that crossed the
Atlantic to get into it said, yes brother
Amiel, it was awesome some nights, but you
know it was misery some days.
They had afternoon meetings too, and there was
one man with a white beard, looked like
old Santa Claus, but one half of the
beard was brown, because the tobacco juice always
ran out of his mouth at that side,
so his beard was all covered at that
side with tobacco juice.
He had a soup jacket on, you know
what that is?
Well it's 57 varieties of soup on it,
he always spilled it.
And there's a dirty man with a dirty
beard and dirty soup on it, and he
gets up and said, this morning about five
o'clock I had a revelation from heaven,
and they forcibly removed him.
They had to stop people.
There again you see, if you're going to
handle the things of God, the only thing
you can do it, if I can use
a word, is you need the tools of
God, which are the gifts of the Spirit.
You need somebody with discernment, don't you?
To discern the Spirit of the man, you
need somebody with the word of knowledge.
You need somebody that can say, look there's
a man and there's a shadow on his
spirit, he's come in the meeting to upset
it, and before he opens his mouth you
get him out of here.
Or once he starts, you get a grip
on him.
You see, there could be no place on
earth, after all, the thing that God loves
in the whole universe, he loves most, is
his church.
As the hymn says, the church is one
foundation, with his own blood he bought and
for a life he died.
And God's desire for the church is that
she should be as fair as the sun
and as clear as the moon.
She's supposed to put on her beautiful garments.
She's supposed to be as fascinating to the
world as a first-class wedding.
I remember being in London by St. Margaret's
there, and if you can't get married in
Westminster Abbey, you go to, in case you're
thinking of going, you can get married in
St. Margaret's, and here was a society wedding.
Oh boy, I'd never seen a wedding like
that.
I'd seen weddings at home, you know, some
of our girls got married in the church
and occasionally a decent wedding at the local
parish.
But mine, this girl, she's a longer train
than a peacock.
She looked out about three yards of lace
behind, and you know, page boys carrying, and
she's a little crown on her head, and
oh the dignity and the majesty, oh boy,
boys are boys.
That's what God desires for his church, not
to be dressed like that, but purity of
holiness.
The anointing of the Spirit, that's the crown
of the church.
Not flashing jewels, but with the gifts of
the Spirit, operating in humility and grace and
tenderness, so that the most attractive thing in
the world is the church of the living
God.
That's what God wants.
I believe that the most exciting thing, as
Phineas said, that when God is in residence,
then people of the world are pulled in,
and when he's not, the world pulls people
out.
So again, let's maintain the fire in our
own hearts.
Let's believe God on the local level, that
God will do something here at Agape, and
in this community, with all the different Christians
that are here, that will spread north, south,
east, and west, that God may be glorified.
There's not much time left, and if ever
we pray the prayer, it surely shall be
the prayer of the disciples.
Lord teach us to pray.
Prayer can be one of two things.
I think it's the most exciting thing in
the world, to be shut up alone with
God, or on the other hand, it's pretty
boring.
It's either a delight, or it's a duty.
Montgomery said that prayer is the Christian's vital
breath, the Christian's native air.
His watchword at the gates of death, he
enters heaven by prayer.
I believe again, I never read Hugel much,
but the other day I was reading a
bit of J.F. Hugel, and J.F.
Hugel says, I try to say to people
who say, well, you know, I got married
and settled down with two or three children,
and I just wish my life was to
come over.
I'd sure delay my marriage, number one, and
I'm sure I'd be a missionary, and I'd
sure want to minister, you know, minister this
way or the other, and I said, I
say to them, look, the greatest ministry of
all is not public.
Now, I never read that, except what I've
written myself, but he said the same thing.
The greatest ministry of all is a hidden
ministry, is a secret ministry.
A young man wrote to me yesterday, I
don't know if I've told you, who's been
a Baptist pastor, and God has called him
to intercession.
He wants to come and live in this
area, and he said, I've no income, I
just need a place to shelter, and I
don't know how God's going to work it
out, but he told me to go in
the Lintdale area.
Why, I think that's an honor.
When you've been to Bible school, when you've
been to seminary, and then God says, shut
down, the road, there's a roadblock here, I'm
opening another path.
You talk about the narrow way, there's nothing
narrower than the path of prayer, that's not
crowded, it's a pretty lonely path.
I've only once climbed a mountain, I discovered
this, the higher you go, there were two
or three things about it, well obviously it
gets steeper, it gets lonelier, there are less
people, and the air is harder to breathe,
the higher you go up.
You know that's true in the spiritual life,
you've got to do like Moses, he left
the congregation, remember in the, what is it,
the 24th chapter of Exodus, I think it
is Exodus 24, yeah, he said unto Moses,
come up unto the Lord, verse 24, verse
1, thou, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders
of Israel, and worship ye afar off.
So he'd already left the millions, if there
were a million people in Israel, he'd left
them.
Now he has seventy plus about four, but
verse 2 says, Moses alone shall come near
the Lord.
And then it says, then went up verse
9, Moses, and Aaron, and Nadab, and Abihu,
and the seventy elders of Israel.
And then it says a bit later, verse
11, the nobles of Israel laid, he laid
not his hands.
Verse 13, Moses rose up and his minister
Joshua, and they went into the mount, and
he said to the elders, tarry ye here.
So he's left the seventy, pardon me, he's
left the million people, he leaves the seventy,
he leaves the four, he's only got Joshua
with him now, and he goes on the
mount.
And verse 16, the glory of the Lord,
a boat on the mount, and the cloud
covered it six days, and on the seventh
day he called to Moses.
Isn't that something?
You'd have thought Gabriel would have been there
with a band.
You'd have thought the archangels would have been
standing in a circle and say, look how
far you've come, you've climbed this lonely mountain,
look at Israel over there, look at the
seventy down there, look at the four you
left there, and here you are now, and
God is, God's going to be here in
five minutes.
God kept him waiting six days and never
spoke to him.
You know, he must have known the Spirit,
otherwise he would have said, I missed it,
I shouldn't have been there, I mean, I
should be ruling over Israel, I must have
had a dream.
He waited six days, God didn't speak to
him till the seventh day, till he got
all the worldly thoughts out of his mind,
be still and know that I'm God.
And then God revealed himself.
What does it say in Hebrews?
Why did Moses endure?
Because what?
He considered the riches of Christ greater than
all the riches of Egypt.
What do you mean he saw the riches
of Christ?
He never lived near Christ, he lived two
thousand years before nearly, or over a thousand.
There's a gap from Moses to Malachi's a
thousand years, so at least a thousand years
before, and Moses saw Christ where?
Well, do you know what I figure?
I figure he saw him that day when
he was wrapped up in the cloud.
I think the three super revelations in the
Word of God are Moses on the cloud,
and the second one when the Apostle Paul
is lifted into the third heaven, and the
third one when John was on the Isle
of Patmos.
If you'd gone to Ephesus, you'd go down
the street and see the little old church.
It wasn't a Westminster Abbey, it wasn't a
place like Spurgeon's, it was a small despised
church, and the pastor was the great, amazing
man John, who wrote the gospel, one and
two, three epistles, and then revelation.
He was a pastor.
You say, oh I've been waiting for ten
years, I've saved my money, and I've made
this trip, and I can't wait to hear
your wonderful pastor.
I know he's a marvelous man of God,
I can't wait to hear John.
Oh, I'm sorry, John isn't here.
Oh, is he on vacation?
Yeah, he's on vacation at the government expense,
he's in jail.
What?
Yeah, you see that little peak out there
on the sea?
That's the Isle of Patmos.
Now if you go over there, he'll be
there, there's no road off, and no helicopters,
you know, no way to get out.
It's a devil's island, the filth of the
world is on it.
And you get somebody to row you over
in a and somebody says, most likely that
man with his back towards you on that
rock, looking at the sun, that's him, I
guess.
And you go along, and he's there with
his head up, and a radiant smile on
his face, and you touch his shoulder and
say, hey brother John, he says, hello.
And you say, I don't understand why such
an amazing man as you, you're in this
devil, I mean, I don't understand why I
live in the Isle of Patmos.
He says, I'm not in the Isle of
Patmos.
But where are you?
Do you remember his answer?
He says, I'm in the Spirit.
Adam Gihon says, could I be cast where
thou art not?
That were indeed a dreadful spot.
But with thee, my God, to guide the
way, it's equal joy to go or stay.
Or as a hymn writer says, where Jesus
is, it's heaven there.
In other words, you can wall a Christian
in, you can't roof him in.
You can cut him off from everybody.
You can't, Paul says triumphantly, fits his fingers
to his nose to the devil, and says,
well, what shall separate me from the love
of God?
Tribulation, distress, famine, peril, nakedness of sword.
End of Romans 8.
Come on, bring anything you've got, he says
to Satan, because nothing can separate me from
the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus.
I've lost my church, I've lost my fellowship,
I've lost my notes on Romans, I've lost
my notes on Ephesians, he says, I got
nothing left.
No, I've got everything left, I've got God,
he says.
I've got God.
I'm in the Spirit.
And you can be in the Spirit washing
dishes, you can be in the Spirit cleaning
up the toilets, you can be in the
Spirit chopping trees down.
He doesn't dwell in temples, he dwells in
us.
The Spirit of God is in you, the
Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit is in
us.
If all that's true in Romans, do you
wonder he dares to finish the chapter by
that marvellous verse, Romans 8, verse 37, and
he says, you know, to the believer that's
got the world, the flesh, and the devil
pressing on him, and he's got all the
frightening, threatening things of collapsing industry, and collapsing
financial things, and collapsing.
You know, he says at the end of
Romans 8, if the first part of Romans
is true, the Spirit of Christ is in
you, the Spirit of God is in you,
the Spirit of Jesus is in you, then
Romans 8, verse 37 is wonderfully possible, because
he says, because of that, in all these
things, we're conquerors?
No, we are more than conquerors, through him
that loved us.
Now, if it's a victorious life, there's only
one way to have a victory, that's to
have a battle.
And brother, till you get to the pearly
gates, if you're going to be any good
for God, the world, the flesh, and the
devil are going to battle against you.
Bet, bet.
Jesus says to his disciples, don't get worried,
you're going out to Caesar's world, don't get
worried, I have overcome the world, and because
I've overcome the world, he shall overcome the
world.
Isn't that a great salvation?
Or would you rather be a Mohammedan?
Greater is he that is in us, than
he that is in the world.
We are more than conquerors, through him that
loved us.
Thank you.
See you tomorrow.