Maybe you'd like to move down front.
There are seats to my right and to
my left.
There's vacant seats, and if you'd like to
move on up a little closer, we've got
some of the $15 seats open up here.
Amen?
And they're free.
I don't know about you, but I, I
like to see the whites of their eyes.
Amen.
God's been good to us already this week,
and we thank God for the services.
We thank him for the Spirit of Heaven
that we've already felt.
I praise the Lord for the message that
we just heard.
We need to see him, don't we?
We need to see him.
I want you to turn in your Bible
to Isaiah chapter 53.
Isaiah 53 and verse number 3.
Isaiah 53 and verse 3.
And if you'd like to move on up
a little closer now, you feel free to
do so.
Isaiah 53 and verse 3.
He is despised and rejected of men, a
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid as it were our faces
from him.
He was despised and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried
our sorrows.
Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of
God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him,
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray.
We have turned every one to his own
way, and the Lord hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, he was afflicted, and yet
he opened not his mouth.
And he is brought as a lamb to
the slaughter, and as a sheep before her
shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his
mouth.
Verse 8 will be our text.
He was taken from prison and from judgment.
Who shall declare his generation?
For he was cut all out of the
land of living, and for the transgressions of
my people was he stricken.
I want you to think on this subject
tonight.
Who shall declare his generation?
Shall we pray?
Father, we thank you for your word.
God, we thank you for the scripture.
Lord, we realize tonight that all that is
said here will be tinkling cymbal.
It will be empty, it will be vain,
it will be bouncing, sounding brass, unless you
send the Holy Ghost of heaven.
God, we are nothing but an old sinner
saved by grace.
God, I'm not worthy to stand in front
of men, I'm not worthy to say the
name of your Son, Jesus.
God, if I got my just, if I
got what I deserved, God, I'd already been
cut off, I'd already been in the grave
and in hell for all eternity.
But God, you didn't give me that, you
gave me mercy and grace.
I'm thankful tonight, and I thank you, God,
for the privilege to be here.
I pray now, Father, that you'd come and
touch these feeble lips and this stammering tongue,
and God, somehow would you help me to
show and declare his generation, and we'll praise
you in Christ's name, amen and amen.
You may be seated.
I was thinking earlier today about a generation.
A generation is anywhere from 30 to 40
years, as we read about it in the
word of God, a generation of time, a
generation as it appears.
I thought about the generation that we're living
in today, and has this generation that we
are living in, has it ever seen the
power of God?
I thought about a few statistics today.
I thought about how among teenagers in America
that only to the common cold in America
is venereal disease.
Can you imagine that we are now treating
in our country 10 and 11 year olds
for alcoholism?
We're setting up clinics on kids that have
become drunkards.
Do you realize in our nation last year
we killed one and a half million babies,
and yet we've got the audacity and the
brass to mention the name of Adolf Hitler
and call him a murderer?
We've got a nation that's feeling its appetite
on every debased form of debauchery that is
available to the human imagination.
We're making not millions, but billions of dollars
off of kiddie porn, lolita sex, lollipop kids.
You say, Brother Ralph, what are you talking
about?
I'm talking about the heart of America, and
that's rotten.
We're in desperate need, friends.
We've got the divorce rate in our nation.
We've got divorce across our land, and we've
lost the stability of the home.
And when you lose the stability of the
home, then, my friend, you lose an entire
generation of kids.
We used to have mighty preachers come out
of the homes.
We used to have spiritual men, godly men
and women come out of the homes.
But, my friend, we've lost the spiritual home,
and we're paying for it with this generation
that's walking our streets tonight.
The police chief of Los Angeles said that
we're now producing a generation of criminal that
the world has never known.
He said we've got young people in America
that'll step on you and kill you and
destroy your life and say they'll think nothing
more about it than they'd step on a
cockroach and kill a cockroach.
You know why, friends?
It's because we've substituted positive thinking for powerful
preaching.
We've left what God told us would work
for healing the land.
Today's Newsweek magazine, August 9, today's edition that
came on the stands today carries a lead
article on child molestation.
And it said in today's Newsweek magazine that
hit the stands that one out of ten
children in America this year will be sexually
molested in the homes of America.
Now, my friend, you can call us a
Christian nation if you want to, but I
think we're living off memories.
I think we're living off a past heritage.
I don't think that we're a Christian nation
anymore.
My friends, gone off of our land are
the Billy Sundys and the Gypsy Smiths and
the Bob Jones Seniors and the John R.
Rises and the R.
G.
Lees and the Dr. James Stewart, the Missionary
and the Edward Rogers and the Uncle Joe
Parsons and the Oliver B.
Greens.
They're gone off our land.
We've lost the men that had tears in
their eyes and faithless in their message and
had contact with another world and were not
unembarrassed.
They were not about preaching the whole counsel
of God's word.
But you know, the more frightening in that
fact is, my friend, we've got a generation
now that where our leaders are in their
twilight years.
Dr. Lee Robinson, Dr. B.
R.
Ligon, Dr. Harold Smith, Dr. Percy Ray, Dr.
Harold Sightler, Dr. John Rollins, Dr. Ralph Dixon,
Sr. My friend, we look at Dr. J.
Bernard McGee all across this country.
We see the men that have preached and
touched this country, and they're down in their
sunset years.
They've come down to hoary hairs.
And what frightens me to no end, if
God permits this thing to carry, then my
God, what are my children going to have
for preaching?
Hey, who's going to be the man that
will stand and preach to this generation?
Do you realize tonight, my friend, we're out
of business?
Do you realize tonight that our churches have
become nothing more than orthodox rituals?
And you say, well, Brother Ralph, we're fundamental.
We're premillennial.
We're independent.
We think more of the signs in our
front yard than we do the Holy Ghost
of Heaven.
We're more proud of our little labels than
we are whether or not we've got the
power of God on our pulpit.
Listen, Isaiah 53, one of this same chapter
says, Who hath believed our report, and to
whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
I want to ask you tonight, where is
the arm of the Lord?
Where is the arm of the Lord being
revealed?
Who's declaring the generation of Jesus Christ to
this generation that's on earth tonight?
We're in sad trouble.
We're in bad trouble.
And the sad part of it is we're
like old Samson.
God's left off of us and we don't
even know it.
We think that if things get too bad,
then we'll just shake ourselves and do like
we've always done.
There's an old song that was written.
We have heard with our ears what our
fathers have told us.
We've had old-fashioned, heaven-sent, born of
God, sin-healing, my friend, life-changing, Holy
Ghost revival in past generations.
But today, in this day and in this
hour, what have we got?
We've got little weekend meetings and when they
end, we're all still weak.
We've got a little program plan.
We're going to have a revival in the
spring, whether we need it or not.
We've got to have a revival in the
fall, whether we need it or not.
And we've got it so organized.
Listen, we're organized and agonized.
You know I'm telling you the truth.
And our kids have never seen the mighty
power of a holy God on their mom
and on their dad or on their Sunday
school teacher or on their deacon or on
their preacher.
We've just got a little game we play
and we've got a little motion we go
through.
But I don't know about you tonight, but
I'm so sick of me, I could die.
I'm so tired of seeing my friend, my
own children, my son Mark sitting here tonight
and he's with me.
I've got an eight-year-old boy at
the house and a 15-year-old daughter
at the house.
But yet if they want to know about
old times, Holy Ghost revival, they've got to
go call up on their granddaddy's knee, who's
been preaching 47 years, and say, Poppy, tell
me what God used to do.
My God, what's wrong with my day and
my hour?
What's wrong with the church today?
What's wrong with the young people today?
What's wrong with those that are willing to
give their very soul and their very being
for God to do it one more time,
this time of eternity?
Are we going to be the only class,
the only generation that'll go in empty-handed?
Are we going to have to go in
off the power of history books and off
the dust of memories?
Oh, that God would give us a vision
and a broken heart that we could one
more time see God send revival.
It's not in the might of a man's
intellect.
It's not in the power, my friend, of
a man's lungs.
But what we need is some men and
women that'll find the power one more time
of intercessory prayer and fasting.
Lord, my friend, people that are willing to
have some separation on their lives, people that
are willing one more time to be laughed
at and to mocked at and to be
called holy joes and goody-two-shoes and
fanatics because they're so in love with Jesus,
it looks like they've lost their mind to
the world.
Miracles, my friend, have sounded out during the
Puritan revivals.
Jonathan Edwards preached.
He preached the breath of God, and he
preached the message, sinners in the hands of
an angry God.
And yet, my friend, we know that was
not Jonathan Edwards that preached because Jonathan Edwards
was not an orator.
Jonathan Edwards was a tremendous mind, and God
ignores him.
But according to historical accounts and all probability,
he wrote his message out verbatim.
And the night he delivered sinners in the
hands of an angry God, he turned his
back almost to the audience and read his
message by lamp to that crowd.
It wasn't Jonathan.
It wasn't what he had on that paper.
It was the God that he'd been laying
with, my friend.
It was God that opened up the floor
of that church and let them feel the
heat of hell and hear the screams of
agony.
Am I afraid of a man going to
hell without a holy God?
Listen, Charles Whitfield preached, we must be born
again.
Old Peter Cartwright was an ignorant and unlearned
man, yet he had enough sense to believe
in the power of God and not the
power of Peter Cartwright.
Charles Finney was so Christlike, and he laid
with God and prayed and fasted that his
very presence in a place would cause conviction.
They said more than one time Finney would
walk into a factory or a plant to
try to talk to the proprietor about a
warehouse to have a gospel meeting in, and
said he'd walk in.
Maybe he'd been in the woods for three
or four days, hadn't seen a human being,
but he'd been seeing him, just what our
brother was preaching about.
He'd been seeing him.
He hadn't been seeing the publicity committee.
He hadn't been talking to reporters of the
prayer.
He hadn't been meeting with the ministerial assassination
committee.
He'd been meeting with the power of another
world.
My friend, when he'd walk into that warehouse
and walk down those aisles, the power of
God was so great upon him that they
said he'd look back behind him and big
grown men would be falling out between their
plants, out between those factory machines, and laying
in the aisle and scrying out, Oh God,
be merciful unto me a sinner.
It wasn't Finney.
It's who Finney was walking with.
My friend, G.L. Moody was a revival
teacher, and my friend, he had that message
and he had the burden.
He could see the people.
He had that vision in front of him.
He'd never lost that.
Oh, Billy Sunday, he left the fame and
the fortune of the baseball diamond.
He walked off the field and he began
to follow in Jesus' steps.
My friend, he had a burden.
Dr. James Stewart, the missionary, God permitted it
to be my fortune in life to be
a personal friend of their family and to
keep his home.
I brought my first baby home to the
home of Dr. Stewart, and we were the
caretakers of his home.
We walked over the library and my friend,
God permitted me to see a little bit
of this man, even though it's my life.
I was rebelling and resisting the call to
preach, even though I was 27 before I
started preaching.
God had me in a school and a
university that I couldn't get away from.
He had me rubbing elbows with men like
Uncle Joe Parson.
He had me around like Dr. James Stewart.
He put me in a school, my friend,
to know that there was something real.
He had it where I had to hear
men like Brother Ted McGarry stand and exhort
and to lift up Jesus in a bloodstained
manner.
My friend, God put that place together, and
yet there's little James Stewart, that little old
bitty phrase, that small man.
And my friend, Brother Taylor, he'd come to
church even if he had Parkinson's disease and
his body was racked and broken and he
was sick and he would sit in church
and the physical man was gone and dad
would be up preaching and he would become
so engrossed in the message and that volcano
of fire would still be burning in his
bosom.
He'd sit there and he'd begin to rock
and he'd begin to rock and he was
sick.
He'd wasted way to less than 100 pounds,
but Sister Richard finally has to get him
up and take him out of the church.
You know why?
Because when God called him, God called him
and he'd place a fire inside of his
bosom that would not go out.
It would still burn and he saw him
going to hell and he saw the mission
that God gave him and at the age
of 14, on a soccer field, God's amazing
grace swung low to this earth and touched
that 14-year-old boy with old-time
conviction.
He picked up his soccer ball and walked
to the house and told his mom that
he had just been saved and he was
going to tell the world about Jesus.
Amen!
You know why?
He got a vision of the Lord Jesus
Christ, my friends, and by the time he
was 21, he had walked across Europe preaching
the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.
Listen, right before he died, I'd go by
his home and he'd sit in that little
rocker in the living room and his voice
would be so weak you couldn't hear him
and you'd say, Brother Stuart, how are you
today?
You'd see his lips moving, you couldn't hear
him and finally you'd just have to get
right down and put your ear to his
mouth and he'd be sitting there, winging those
little bitty hands, saying, I must preach, I
must preach, I must preach, I must preach,
I must preach.
Inside of him was a giant dynamo.
The flesh was gone, the strength was gone.
My friends, inside of him was a volcano
of God's amazing grace and just because the
old tabernacle had fallen apart, the volcano was
alive and well and he wanted to go
tell men about the power of his Savior
to save a lost son of God.
But we've lost that off this age.
We've lost that off this generation.
Their mama called and daddy said and then
the cemetery feels their doom with a godless
preaching and an education that takes away the
power of the Holy Ghost.
David Brainerd was so filled with Jesus' love
that he lost, my friends, his own self
and laid before God in prayer.
So they said that you could literally follow
the footsteps of Brainerd out of the woods
there where he had been in the snow
till his feet had frozen and his knees
had frozen and cracked open and his own
blood would be a trail out of the
snow where he had a burden for those
Indians and he agonized with God for hours.
Oh my friends, we need to be men
and women of God.
The only way that we're going to be
able to declare to this generation about our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is to be
empowered from another world.
We need to preach thus saith the Lord.
We need to preach your sins will find
you out.
We need to preach once again that heaven's
sweet and hell's hot.
Sin is black and salvation's free and that
Jesus died for you and for me.
I heard a man not many months ago
say he had preached to 55,000 people
and in his audience that day was young
men that had on cut off jeans and
no shirt and had women in short shorts
and halter tops sitting astride of their necks.
And my friends, every conglomeration of humanity you
can imagine.
And yet that so-called preacher preached that
day on God loves lovers.
God loves lovers.
I was just in New Hampshire a few
months ago in revival service and I was
in the only church in that city that
was open.
My friend, seven other churches that had the
doors nailed shut going out of business, nobody
interested, nobody wanting it.
The only church open in a radius of
31 miles in seven villages in that area.
And the only church that was open 31
miles away was a congregationalist church.
And you know what the preacher preached that
morning?
Fox hunting in New Hampshire.
He stood and said, we ought to thank
God for Fox hunting and what it's done
for tourism and to provide jobs in our
neighborhood.
Then we wonder, we've gotten to the core
and our kids have no God to believe
in.
We need a revival, my friend, and the
kind of revival and renewal we need is
going to have to begin here among God's
people.
It's going to have to begin in the
heart of God's men, men that have said
I'll die in the service for you, Jesus.
It's going to have to start with us
fellas who will say, Oh God, I know
you call me and I know you've brought
me and I know you brought me this
far, but God, I know there's more power
for me and there's more that you want
me to do if I'll just give it
to you.
My friend, today's generation has never seen revival.
We're strangers to the Holy Ghost conviction.
We've convinced ourselves that we have to do
it ourselves.
We, we have to promote it up or
blow it up or truck it in.
My friend, we've got people that are starring
on programs like a solid goal, which propagates
the hellish doctrine and religion of rock music
and Christian homes and all the homes of
America.
And they'll co-host there during the week
on the weekends.
And yet there'll be on religious talk shows
on Monday through Friday.
We've got churches so desperate for a crowd
that they'll bring in stars that sing during
the week in Hollywood and in Vegas, and
then they'll bring them to the house of
God on Sunday.
We don't need to sell our birthright for
a little bowl of popularity pottage.
We are never supposed to be a popular
crowd.
We're supposed to be a peculiar crowd.
My friend, we've got religious puppeteers instead of
prayer warriors.
Listen, you say, Brother Ralph, I can't be
as eloquent in the pulpit as R.G.
Lee.
I can't paint wide pictures like B.R.
Lakin.
I can't quote scripture like Brother Sammy Allen.
I can't exhort like some of these brothers
do.
Yeah, but you can go in your prayer
closet and you nail the door shut on
this old world and you can agonize for
a host of the dying world to see
revival.
There's a place of service for every man
and woman that wants to be used by
a holy God.
This generation today has only seen topless bars
and bare bottoms.
We're living on the lust of the flesh,
and we've tossed this generation to lust instead
of to love.
We've, my friend, we've got situation ethics being
propagated as the way to live, and we've
got even men of God, quote unquote, propagating
a gospel of living and doing anything you
want to do.
We've got a church being organized in Florida
that's got a section that's supposed to be
there for those that like to commit adultery,
one section for those that like to drink,
one section for those that like to gamble,
because God's a God of love and he
made us like we are.
We've got high school young people that have
totally cut themselves off from any kind of
moral restraint.
We've got kids in your church and in
my church that has to go live in
that hellhole when the school year is going
on.
High school newspaper in Michigan City, Indiana, not
many months ago, featured five nude men and
women on the front page of that school
newspaper, and they dared the school officials to
do anything about it.
Did you know we had more kids killed
in our public schools last year than was
killed in Vietnam in the years 1972 and
73?
Killed in the public schools.
We've had the philosophy brought out that God
is dead by our actions.
It used to be that you could label
a place a porno shop or a dirty
bookstore, but now because of our liberalized thinking
and because we don't want to offend anyone
from the pulpit or over our radio program
preacher, we've got Playboy and Penthouse and Hustler
Magazine and every drug store, every 7-Eleven,
every little corner store, it's popped all over
your town.
And friend, it ain't like it used to
be.
It's rotten, raw, explicit sex, and every kind
of deranged kind of ungodliness, and my friend,
demonism that you can imagine, and it's being
pumped in.
I walked into a mall just a few
days ago.
I was in Gate City, Virginia, in Revival,
and walked in a mall, and I turned
around the corner, and there was a drug
store, and the first thing that I walked
into that drug store was a six-year
-old boy and an eight-year-old boy,
and they had a Hustler Magazine apiece, and
my friend, and there they were laughing, and
I thought, what kind of man would I
be today if I had grown up without
that kind of images in my mind?
What kind of man would I have been
as a teenager if I'd have had my
hands on that kind of filth and ungodliness
to plant the seeds of absolute abandonment of
any restraint on my body?
And yet we've got a nation that's been
cut loose to its own self, and unless
we have revival from another world, Romans 1
shall be our portion.
There's no hope outside of a holy God.
My friend, listen, we've got the one-world
philosophy being preached.
We've got one world being given out.
We've told the kids it's okay to support
the gay rights movement.
We've tried to take any taste of sin
out of the mouth of people.
We've got free contraceptives being distributed in our
junior high school without parental knowledge.
We've got preachers in the pulpit that fear
the church boards more than they do the
Holy Ghost of Heaven.
You know what we need tonight?
We need some old-fashioned militant men of
God one more time.
My friend, you need to throw away your
little peace button and your little anti-nuke
button, and you need to get you a
war button, and you need to declare war
tonight on the devil in his town.
We need to get back a holy hatred
of sin.
We need to one more time stand with
a clarion voice and beg God to let
us stand in the gap these last few
minutes before Jesus comes and warns this generation
that there's a judgment day coming.
There is a payday on the way.
You know, it's all right to hate some
things, friends.
They'd like you to say today it's wrong
to hate anything, but it's all right to
hate a few things.
I hate the devil, and I've got scriptural
grounds to hate him.
I hate sin.
It's all right to hate sin.
Bless God.
I hate the Antichrist.
I hate the spirit of the Antichrist.
I hate the false prophet and his spirit.
I hate compromise, and my friend, I hate
rattlesnakes.
I hate cancer.
There's some things you don't have to love.
There's nothing wrong with taking a stand.
Listen, you don't need to get around this
all night and say, oh God, let me
be Moody.
God, let me be Cartwright.
God, let me be R.G. Lee.
That's not what we need to pray for
him.
We don't need to pray to be like
these men that have blazed the trail before
us, but we do need to get around
this altar and say, almighty God, father in
heaven, I'm just sick of me and my
little ways and my flesh and my weakness.
God, would you come tonight with a burying
party from the third world, oh God, and
bury my old flesh.
Bury my waltz and bury my will and
bury my desire, God, and let me die
out to everything around me.
Let me die out to men and what
men think and the praise and the platitudes
of men.
And God, let me see you high and
holy and lift it up, God.
And then God, would you give me what
those old boys had?
Would you give me a vision of a
lost and a dying world?
Would you give me a heart, God?
Would you give me zeal?
Would you give me anointing?
Would you give me tears?
And then God, would you wind me up
like a toy soldier and shit me on
the devil so that when I die, I
can leave a happy devil behind?
Hey, listen, if there's anybody shouting at my
funeral, I want the devil to be in
there.
I want him to be shouting at old
Ralph's gone.
Hey, listen, you ought to be a thorn
in his flesh.
You ought to declare war on him and
his crowd.
He's a liar, deceiver, a damner, destroyer, deluder.
He doesn't play fair.
And he'll take you and he'll mess you
up and he'll mess your wife up and
your youngins up and your family up and
he'll catch up.
He's a destroyer.
We need the war.
Well then, Brother Ralph, what are we going
to do if we preach?
What are we going to preach?
Listen, our brother just talked a moment ago
about seeing Jesus in Hebrews 2.9, but
we see Jesus who is made a little
lower than the angels.
Why?
For the suffering of death, power, glory, and
honor that by the grace of God should
what?
Taste death for every man.
In other words, I've got one that's tasted
for me.
I've got one that's paid the price for
me.
Now, listen, in Luke 4.20, and he
closed the book and he gave it again
to the minister and sat down and all
the eyes and the eyes of all them
that were in the synagogue were fastened on
him.
Who'd they see?
They saw Jesus.
My friend, if you only had one word
in your vocabulary tonight, if you had a
stroke and had to learn to speak all
over and you could only learn one word
when that nurse, when that therapist came in
and said, you're only going to have, be
able to learn one word.
And what do you want to learn?
And yet we're going to teach you to
say one word.
Jesus, Jesus.
My friend, if your heart could only have
one desire, it should be Jesus, my friend.
If your body could only have one hunger,
it ought to be Jesus.
If the deacon in your churches could only
have one duty, that duty ought to be
Jesus and nothing else, my friend.
And if a man or a woman, a
boy, a girl or a teenager came across
this old earth and had to live a
few years and they realized they could only
have one friend in a lifetime, it ought
to be Jesus, the Lamb of God.
What more could a man want than Jesus?
And preachers, if he could only have one
message, it ought to be Jesus.
Hey, Jesus, who is he?
He's altogether lovely.
No one ever cared for me like Jesus.
What a friend we have in Jesus.
Oh, hail the power of Jesus' name.
There is no friend like Jesus.
Jesus is the sweetest name I know.
Jesus, love of my soul.
From Genesis to Revelation, we see Jesus.
He is the only answer.
Jesus tonight, he is the lily of the
valley.
Jesus is the rose of Sharon.
Jesus is the light of the world.
Jesus is the bread of life.
Jesus is the resurrection and the life.
Jesus is the great physician.
Jesus is the rock of ages.
Jesus is the solid rock.
Hey, Jesus, he is the great provider.
He is the great physician.
Jesus, if a man only had one book
in his library, it ought to be the
book Jesus.
Yeah, Jesus is my pastor where I go
to feed.
Jesus is my spring where I go to
drink.
Jesus is my haven where I go to
hide.
Jesus is my refuge.
He is my hiding place.
He's my deliverer in the storm.
Jesus, my friend, is in the tabernacle of
the Old Testament.
He's unbounded.
He's abiding.
Listen, everything you look at in the word
of God, if you go far enough, if
you look, you'll find Jesus from Genesis to
Revelation.
It's Jesus.
It's woven in.
The blood's all around us.
It's under the solid cover.
It's Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Everywhere you look, it's Jesus.
Yet we want to play church, but it's
Jesus.
Hey, when you come home, Peter, and your
wife says, did you hit her just right
there?
Say, I don't know, but I just saw
Jesus.
Hey, who are you preaching for?
You ought to be preaching for Jesus.
Did they receive it?
Did they hear it?
Did they reject it?
I don't know.
I was too busy looking at Jesus.
Did they like it or did they love
it?
Don't know.
I was looking at Jesus.
Hey, look at him tonight.
Who's the lamb?
Listen, Isaiah 42.1 says, behold my servant
whom I behold.
Listen, in whom my soul delighteth, I put
my spirit upon him.
He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
He's the one that'll carry it out.
I won't stand before the judgment bar of
God, but I'll send the judgment seat of
Christ.
I'll give my accountability to this same lovely
lamb.
Lord, listen, when I look at Jesus, when
I look at him, when I look in
the tabernacle, and I see that lamb sacrificed,
what is that?
That's the lamb of God.
When I look in there and I see
that veil, that's Jesus.
That's the way to God.
When I see that candlestick, I see Jesus
as the light of God.
When I see that showbread, I see Jesus
as the bread of life.
Everywhere you look, you're going to see him.
And for that reason, we have a high
degree of accountability to him tonight.
Isaiah described Jesus as Immanuel in Isaiah 7
.14. He described him as the mighty God
in Isaiah 9.6. He described him as
the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, a
righteous King.
He said in Isaiah 32.1, a King
shall reign in righteousness and a Prince shall
rule in judgment.
He called him a divine servant.
He called him the army of the Lord
in Isaiah 53.1. That's the verse we
just read.
And then he called him the anointed preacher
in Isaiah 61.1. The spirit of the
Lord God is upon me.
Because the Lord has anointed me to preach
good tidings unto the meek, he has sent
me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim
liberty to the captives and the opening of
the prisons of them that are bound.
Who's bound down tonight?
Who's the captives?
Those that don't know Jesus.
They're slaves of Satan and don't even realize
it.
They're bound up.
They can't do anything.
Nothing ever goes right.
They're bound down.
They're captives.
And their master, Satan, Lucifer, he never wants
them to do anything except go to hell.
Amen.
Jesus said, I came to take care of
that.
Aren't you glad the word of God?
Aren't you glad Jesus said, whosoever will, may
come.
Hey!
If he hadn't said that, I wouldn't have
got in.
He didn't say when you got enough money.
He didn't say when you got enough smarts.
He didn't say when you got a PhD
in theology.
He didn't say when you had any degree,
any approval, any membership.
What if you didn't have the right pedigree?
What if you wasn't born in the right
family?
What if your skin wasn't the right color?
You couldn't have got in.
But he didn't say that.
He just said, show up and I'll handle
it from there.
Whosoever will, may come.
That's what Jesus wants us to say.
Isaiah 63, 1 talks about Jesus not only
as the anointed preacher, but Isaiah called him
the anointed traveler, the mighty traveler.
Isaiah described the mission of Jesus.
He called him that his mission was the
illuminator.
In Isaiah 9 and 2, the people that
walk in darkness have seen a little light.
No, Isaiah said a great light.
They that dwell in the land of the
shadow of death, upon them hath the light
shined.
He said, those of you that are living
down there in the valley of the shadow
of death, there's a light that will lead
you out.
There's a light at the end of the
tunnel.
There's a light at the end of the
valley.
Who is he?
His name is Jesus.
He's a lamb of God.
He's the judge in Isaiah 11 and 3.
He's the reprover in Isaiah 11 and 4.
He's the lawgiver in Isaiah 42 and 4.
He's the liberator in Isaiah 42 and 7.
He's the burden bearer in Isaiah 53 and
verse 4.
He's the sin bearer in Isaiah 53 and
verse 6.
My friend, he is the intercessor in Isaiah
53 and verse number 12.
My friend, in Isaiah 53 and verse number
5, he's referred to as the only savior.
John said in the New Testament that this
same Jesus that Isaiah saw, John said that
Jesus was the son of God.
He said he's the son of man, divine
teacher, soul winner, bread of life, great physician,
water of life, defender of the weak, good
shepherd, prince of life, light of the world,
the controller of the servant.
My friend, John knew about him too, and
he described him.
He said that he's the king.
He's the crucifier.
He's the giver of the Holy Spirit, the
uplifted savior, the conqueror of death, the great
intercessor.
Paul said, listen, old Paul knew Jesus.
He said in the book of Romans, he
said Jesus was the peacemaker in 1 Corinthians.
Jesus was the Lord of Glory in 1
Corinthians.
He also said that Jesus was the only
foundation in 1 Corinthians.
He also said Jesus was the sacrificial lamb
in 1 Corinthians.
Paul said that Jesus was the conqueror of
death.
He also said in 2 Corinthians that he
was the image of God.
In Galatians, Paul said that Jesus was the
liberator.
In Ephesians, he said Jesus was the goal
of all character.
In Philippians, he said Jesus is the supreme
prize.
My friend, in Colossians, he said that Jesus
is the head of the church.
In Colossians, he said that Jesus is the
head of the church.
In 1 Thessalonians, he said Jesus is the
coming Lord.
I want you to know it.
In 1 Timothy, he said that Jesus is
the blessed and only potentate.
In 2 Timothy, he's the judge of all
things and all beings.
In Titus, Jesus is the redeemer.
In Hebrews, he's the captain of our salvation.
In Hebrews, he's the great high priest.
My friend, in Hebrews, he's the author and
the finisher of our faith.
Peter said Jesus was the shepherd and the
bishop of our souls.
Listen, I want you to know these guys
in the New Testament, they knew about Jesus
and they knew how to honor him.
They wasn't splitting hairs and cutting a fella
across town.
They wasn't dissecting the boy down the road.
They wasn't choosing up sides and smelling armpits.
They was preaching Jesus.
Hey, a lot of your critics won't have
much to criticize if all you've got is
Jesus to preach.
Amen?
Praise Jesus.
Lift up Jesus.
Listen, in the book of Revelation, Jesus is
the Alpha and Omega.
He's the faithful witness.
He's the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
He's the Lamb.
He's the Word of God.
He's the King of Kings and he's Lord
of Lords.
In the first verse of Matthew, what do
we see?
Jesus.
Matthew 1.1, the book of the generation
of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the
son of Abraham.
In the first verse of Mark, we see
Jesus.
In Mark 1.1, the beginning of the
gospel of Jesus Christ.
In the first verse of Acts, we see
Jesus.
In the first verse of Romans, we see
Jesus.
In the first verse of 1 Corinthians, we
see Jesus.
1 Corinthians 1.1, Paul called to be
an apostle of Jesus Christ.
Listen, in the first verse of 2 Corinthians,
we see Jesus.
Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ by the
will of God.
Out of the 27 books of the New
Testament, 24 of those books start with Jesus.
Jesus is in every book of the Bible.
His message is there.
His work is there.
My friends, the thing that we're going to
have to ask ourselves tonight, we're going to
have to look around.
We're going to have to think how many
times we've had opportunity in our churches.
We're going to think how many times we've
heard the gospel preached.
We're going to think how many times we've
gone through the motion.
We're going to think how many times we've
been to camp meetings and jubilees and, my
friend, had revivals.
And we're going to have to answer ourselves,
what have I done with Jesus?
I ask you the question again, who is
going to declare his generation?
What hope does this generation have?
What hope does your own blood relatives have?
Some of you sitting here tonight, you've got
brothers and sisters that if they died tonight,
they'd die and go to hell.
Some of you sitting here tonight, you've got
mamas and daddies that if you get a
phone call tonight, they're going to be dead
and in hell before you get home.
Some of you sitting here have got a
lost wife or a lost husband.
Some of you parents have got lost sons
and lost daughters.
Some of you grandparents have got grandchildren that
all they've got to look forward to is
an eternity without God.
Falling in total darkness forever and ever and
ever.
Screaming, my God save me, but it's too
late.
Hey, you know why?
You know why?
Because this world, this generation has not seen
Jesus in us.
They haven't seen Jesus in us.
If they'd seen Jesus in us, then we'd
be the light of the world.
If they'd seen Jesus in us, we'd be
the salt to keep this thing from rotting.
We can't blame, we can't blame the drug
heads and the pimps and the pushers and
the prostitutes and the dopers tonight.
We can't blame them for what's going on
out there.
You know who we're going to have to
blame?
We're going to have to blame church members.
We're going to have to blame preachers.
You know why?
Because God said you're supposed to keep this
thing from rotting.
And you know what I did this afternoon
when I read that one out of 10
children in America will be sexually molested this
year?
I said, where's Jesus?
Where's Jesus to that little boy that doesn't
understand that man who's satisfying his sexual desires
on an innocent child?
Hey, they look at the TV, they see
the devil.
They see power in the occult.
They see the force being propagated.
They see the glory and the glamor of
the rock industry.
They see the satisfying of the sensual flesh.
And if there's a religious program on, it's
nothing more than a Christian Johnny Carson show.
Some good entertainment, but no preaching.
No Jesus.
What?
Well, who's going to declare it?
So what are we waiting for?
Every time God has sent revival, he sent
it through me.
I can't explain this to you.
I don't have the vocabulary and I don't
have the knowledge of some of the great
men that are sitting here in the thought
of tourism, but I have understood this much.
God said, I hate sin, but yet he
loves sinners.
I got that much.
And I finally figured out that he said,
there's going to have to be a sacrifice.
And he sent the lamb and he let
his own son be nailed to that tree.
And then I finally got a little glimpse.
He stepped over fallen angels and said, you'll
never have another opportunity.
You're cut off for time and eternity.
But he got down on one knee to
follow me and said, come on to me.
I haven't gotten much of this, but I
finally did understand.
He said, I'll take the weak things and
the beggarly things and I'll compound the mind.
And he said, he said, I want you
all fallen wretched sinner boys that have saved
the grace to go tell a lost world
that Jesus saved.
He is the mighty God.
If he had wanted to today, every pine
I've been through it.
Every lamb could have preached.
Jesus saves, Jesus saves, Jesus saves.
If it had wanted to, every bird that
song today, instead of melody, it could have
been a message.
Jesus saves, Jesus saves, Jesus saves.
If he had wanted to, every rock and
every stone on this ground could have preached
today.
Jesus saves.
He's got the power to make a preach,
but he didn't do that.
He said, no, you stay solid unless he's
on fallen, broken vessels of clay to tell
a world that Jesus saved.
Oh, does anybody, does anybody here tonight sick
of yourself?
Are you sick of your up and down?
Are you sick of your in and out?
Are you sick of your own and all?
Are you sick of your hit and miss?
Are you sick of your gossip?
Are you sick of your long tongue?
Are you sick of your false thing?
To criticize and see Jesus, the lamb of
God, that we could declare his generation to
a generation that has no hope.
Let's stand and bow our heads.
Oh, may God help us.
Listen, without any singing, without any playing, but
just by the harmony of a great trio
in heaven, God, the father, God, the son,
and God, the holy ghost.
Would there be a preacher tonight?
Renew a holy vow.
Would there be a preacher's wife?
Crawl into Calvary tonight and say, God, forgive
me for playing preacher's wife.
Would there be a deacon or a layman?
Would there be a young man or a
young boy, a teenage girl, maybe a young
lady that would come up to Calvary tonight
and say, oh, father, I may not can
go and preach.
I can't go down with Joshua on the
battlefield, but let me get up there on
the hill with Moses and hold up his
hand.
Hey, we need some prayer help tonight.
We need some men and women of God.
Are we sick of ourselves?
Are we sick of our own insides?
Do you want to see God do it
one more time?
This side of eternity, my friend, who will
stand and who will be found faithful?
Are you sick of playing church?
Are you sick of playing religion?
Are you sick of going through the motions?
Are you sick of having a burden one
week and losing your burden the next week?
Have your tears during camp meeting, dry sockets
at the house?
Tonight, the world has been brought together, my
friend.
We're seeing the closing hours of a closing
day.
And if you
feel a need to pray, then you come
and join me with
heads bowed and eyes closed, men and women
that are praying.
Now, folks, there's people already in the altar,
but there's some of you standing back there.
You don't even have your head bowed.
You're not even praying for God to search
your heart.
This is not a game.
This is not pretend.
This is for eternity.
My friend, you need to get in tonight
while there's still time.
This may be the last gospel service you'll
ever be in.
This may be the last time the Holy
Ghost will ever tiptoe around where you've been
sitting.
Today is the day of salvation.
This is the hour that's been appointed unto
man, that you'll face the mighty power of
the Holy God.
And if you grieve the spirit tonight, sir,
ma'am, if you play church tonight, I
fear for your very physical safety.
Today is the day of salvation.
This is the hour.
It's repent or perish.
It is revival or removal.
We need to make restitution for the Holy
God for our lawless living.
We need to make restitution with God for
our prayerless lives, because we won't push away
from the table and not fast a meal
for a lost or a dying world.
We need to make restitution for our wicked,
doubting, unbelieving hearts, that God can do it
again.
Today is the day.