The following message was delivered by Reverend Leonard
Ravenhill during a regular session at the Christ
for the Nations Institute.
His message is based on the 15th chapter
of John.
His subject is Becoming Mature in God.
Often in England I have the privilege of
listening to Dr. Campbell Morgan, considered by many
to be one of the greatest Bible teachers
that the world has ever had.
Before his lectures he used to have us
sing a lovely old hymn, Break thou the
bread of life, dear Lord, to me, as
thou didst break the loaves beside the seed.
Beyond the sacred page I seek thee, Lord.
Because there's an awful danger of stopping at
the sacred page and becoming bibliographers.
That is, that we worship the Bible or
we worship a text, we worship a theology,
instead of getting to the person of God
himself, the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit.
And this is what we ought to do
in the studies that we have, get beyond
the sacred page.
And I was trying to think how many
different ways there are of teaching.
I don't know them all.
I haven't done much teaching.
I did teach one period in a Bible
school in England, but that was years ago.
And if the students remember what I taught,
I don't, because I've forgotten it all.
But uh, there are many ways for us
to teach, and there are many ways to
learn.
And I notice you've got lots of, you
rich students, got your recorders here, and they're
very good, but don't substitute it for your
brain.
And secondly, don't substitute your brain for something
more important.
Just the other day I talked with a
lady and she said, you know Brother Raheel,
the things that I learn with my mind,
I forget.
But the things that I learn with my
spirit, I remember.
And how true this is, because again, the
Holy Spirit is the teacher.
I get into trouble sometimes, I get into
trouble often, but uh, in preaching, because I
say, now the last person you should take
any notice of is a preacher.
Don't believe them for a minute.
Listen to what they say, check it with
the word of God.
If it doesn't correspond, throw it out.
Doesn't matter how brilliant the man is, if
he's 60 degrees, 20 degrees, I've told you
enough, 32 and still be frozen.
But don't take too much notice of teachers
and preachers.
Take what they say, and take the word
of God as the slide rule, and run
it over what the teacher, preacher says.
And again, if it's worthwhile, he won't be
offended if you throw it out.
If it doesn't fit in with the book,
at least he shouldn't be.
And I thought again, of the word of
the psalmist this morning, when he says, my
word have I hid in my heart.
Now if you only had it in your
head, you'll forget it, for sure you will.
But if the word of God is hidden
in your heart, you'll not forget it.
Now again, don't take any notice of what
I say.
What you have to do is find a
scripture for it.
And uh, I did think if we get
to it, we'll talk about John 15 this
morning, and maybe tomorrow morning start on Hebrews.
But remember in John 14, 26, one of
the best known verses, but the comforter, which
is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will
send in my name, he shall teach you
all things.
Now if you stop there, you'd be in
trouble.
Or if you take the next phrase, and
bring all things to your remembrance.
Now if I were to say to you,
what, what is there on page 10 of
the fourth volume of the 1969 version of
the Encyclopedia Britannica?
Anybody know it?
You couldn't remember that.
Why not?
But doesn't it say the Spirit will bring
all things to your remembrance?
No it doesn't.
What does it say?
The Spirit will bring all things to your
remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you.
You know, if I'd fed the 5,000,
I'd have said, don't bother about the crumbs
given to the birds.
But Jesus never wasted anything, never wasted an
opportunity, never wasted even a crumb that fell
from feeding the 5,000.
He never wasted anything at all.
And he doesn't teach us in order that
we may forget things.
He teaches things, and if you're smart, and
you say that they're hidden somewhere in what
the smart people call the repressed complex of
your subconscious, well that's all right.
But I believe that they're hidden in our
hearts, and the Spirit of God is able
to take the thing which he has taught
to us and, and revive it in the
moment when I need it.
Not right now, but in that moment when
I need it.
When I'm in a situation, suddenly that flashes
into my mind.
Whether I'm on a bus, whether I'm in
a plane five miles up in the sky,
whether I wake up at two o'clock
in the morning, drowsily, and just want to
watch this.
And you know, I believe if I wake
up, I, I don't wake up because of
little trouble or something.
I wake up because the Lord has something
to say to me.
And so I used to kind of want
to go to sleep, and uh, but now
I don't.
If I wake up, I say, well now
Lord, what, what have you got to say?
And usually I find that the best writing,
if I ever do any best writing, is
somewhere between two o'clock and four o
'clock in the morning.
Whatsoever he says unto you, what, what he
wants you to learn, it's hidden there, and
he can touch it all the spring and
bring things.
Now, notice what it says, the comforter which
is the Holy Ghost.
Now, I, I think we've kind of used
that word so that some of the smart,
smart modern kids, and particularly these muscle men,
say what do you think I want a
comforter for?
Don't want somebody to pick me up, put
them on the knee, and rock me to
sleep.
The comforter, ah, it sounds a bit, well
as my principal Chadwick used to say, and
in my judgment he has one of the
finest books on the Holy Spirit, which is
reprinted in America now through the Christian Literature
Crusade, and it's called The Way to Pentecost.
I think it's as good as John Owen's
book, which was written in the 1600s.
But Mr. Chadwick used to say to us,
remember brethren, that the, the Spirit is called
a comforter, but he is not.
You know, sometimes I wish I could talk
in capital letters.
I, I, when I type, I can switch
to capital letters.
I don't type well, I type the Bible
way, and you shall find that, ah, when
I, when I want to emphasize anything, I,
I switch the key, and I'm able to
write all in capitals.
Now I can't do that talking, I, I
kind of wish I could.
But the Holy Spirit is not, N-O
-T, big letters like this, the Holy Spirit
is not a nursing mother for spiritually sick
children.
He's not a comforter in that sense.
The word comforter comes from two Latin words,
come, which you can spell C-U-M
if you like, comfortis, F-O-R-T
-I-S, comfortis, and it means with strength.
Now he doesn't come to amuse us, he
doesn't give us gifts just so we can
wear them like jewels round our necks.
When the Holy Spirit comes, he comes not
merely to strengthen me, but when I've been
weak in, in, in the church, he makes
me strong so the church isn't weak in
that area anymore.
Now, another interpretation of that word is that
he is the advocate.
And we use this as we say a
kind of, you're standing in a court, you
need an advocate, and all, excuse me, the
Holy Spirit is the advocate.
That is, he's your attorney.
He comes alongside to help.
Well it's nice, but it's not really true.
He doesn't come alongside, he comes inside.
And he comes with strength.
Now you don't have to, don't have to
agree with the thing I've said, I've already
made that clear to you.
But sometimes I think that in the last
analysis, the sign of God's blessing in the
Old Testament is prosperity.
And the sign of God's blessing in the
New Testament is adversity.
In other words, what's your breaking point?
After all, after you die, which could be
five minutes from now, there are no rich
people, don't let anybody fool you.
The only thing anybody owns, some of you
millionaires sitting here, the only thing you own
is one beat of your heart, that's all.
Doesn't matter who you are, what you are,
we're all in a common denominator there.
But you see, we're going to have a
thousand million, million, billion, trillion, quadrillion years after
we die to be happy.
Now I think in one area we've slipped
up.
We've kind of suggested, if you get saved
and filled with the Spirit, you're going to
be happy.
Well I've got news for you, as soon
as Jesus was filled with the Holy Ghost,
he had the worst experience he ever had
in his life.
He went in the wilderness and fought the
devil for 40 days, 40 always being a
period of probation under the divine eye, and
for 40 days he had combat with Satan.
But remember this, he didn't come back on
the edge of a nervous breakdown.
He came back as full of the Spirit
as he went into the wilderness.
He returned in the power of the Spirit.
Now if you're looking for the Holy Spirit
to come and fill and possess you just
for fun and send you around to banquets
and breakfasts, all you'll do is get too
fat anyhow.
But he doesn't come for that reason.
His objective in coming into your life is
to make you not an ornament merely, but
an instrument, not something just to show, but
something to use.
I'll never forget, well in fact let me
say this, one of the greatest privileges I've
had, and I met many of the greatest
preachers in the world, and preached in many
of the greatest pulpits in the world, which
doesn't make me a saint to do for
me, but one of the greatest privileges I
had ever was to share the study of
one who I thought was America's greatest preacher
for the last 30 years at least, Dr.
Tozer.
And I used to slip into his office
very often, and one day I went in
and he was a very, he was one
of these you know sparkling personalities, these boys
that come up you know, a big white
tie and a smile this and oh I'm
here you know, you should have been in
my last crusade, oh we had a marvelous
time, packed the place out and we had
5,000 helium, it tells you everything except
the love offering.
But Dr. Tozer wasn't like that, he was
a kind of a negative personality, narrow-shouldered.
He wrote a book called The Pursuit of
God, and you know an experience of God
that costs nothing, is worth nothing, and it
does nothing.
Tozer was in that little office up there
in Chicago, the office wouldn't be more than
12 feet by 12 I'm sure, and he
was there 25 years before he produced that
book.
It was the essence of all the teaching
of the Spirit for 25 years.
Now other little guys want to go around
borrow somebody else's sermon.
I was in a place not long ago
where a lady said to the preacher as
he went out, you know that was a
marvelous sermon, you know Spurgeon couldn't have preached
better than that.
Well sure he couldn't, he stole it from
Spurgeon.
But you've got lots of preachers, they're not
preachers really, all they do is borrow books
and buy sermon outlines from Zondervan's and go
somewhere and pick a bunch of Mr. Somebody's
sermons up and somebody else, and all they
do is change the text.
They've got more thieves in the pulpit than
in jail.
But Tozer never did this, Tozer did all
his own studying, all his own pondering, all
his own digging.
And that day when I went in his
office he just switched on his chair and
he said, you know Len, God isn't concerned
whether you're happy or not.
Well I kind of thought for a moment,
I said he's not, he said no, no,
no, no.
God doesn't care whether you live in a
palace or a pigsty.
He's not a bit concerned where you live,
how you live yet.
But you see what God is trying to
do between here and the grave is bring
you and me to maturity.
He's trying to get you ready, I believe,
for a place in the millennium and then
a place in the ages and ages and
ages of his kingdom which is everlasting, everlasting,
everlasting.
And he doesn't care whether you go through
hell from here to the grave to get
you there.
Now you'll find a lot of people that'll
preach more smoothly, particularly about the spirit.
Oh boy, all you do is clap your
hands and have a lot of fun and
say, boy is it great to be filled
with the spirit.
Now if you're filled with the Holy Ghost
and the devil doesn't know you're around, you
didn't get what the Bible wanted you to
get.
This is the roughest experience there is.
This is making yourself a candidate that God
can take you and do with you just
what you like and you don't squeal.
You see, I know a man in England
that lived in a gorgeous mansion, this was
just before the automobiles came in, he had
carriages, horses, everything.
One day he was telling the Lord, Lord
I, oh I'm so glad, I'm so glad
you love me and I love you Lord
my Jesus, I love thee.
For thee all the follies, you know, and
this sort of sentimental stuff we sing at
communion so very often, you know, we're the
whole realm of nature man.
Well most people are liars in church because
they won't even struggle to get there Wednesday
night.
Never.
Give them the whole realm of nature, they
won't give them a bit of the bank
balance.
So how are you going to believe them
anyhow?
And the Lord says you love me so
much.
Yes Lord, there's nothing, oh why do you
say, sell your mansion, get rid of your
servants, sell your carriages, sell your horses, and
go down, live down in the center of
the slum area in Manchester.
Well you can't go around anything like that,
because if you get, try and get around
it, you know what the Lord will do?
He'll take you back, you see lots of
people are trying to find a new axe
head and you have to go back to
the place where you lost the axe head.
Oh well the Lord will let me off
here and I'll learn something.
You won't learn anything up there, you'll just
stultify and become weak and ineffective until you
go back to the place where God demands
this obedience here, because you were promised obedience
on any level.
Now let's get this straight too, you know
you could grow more, not just because I'm
here, forget that.
But let me tell you this, the other
night I happened to preach a message on
the cross.
There's a lot of seminarians in, doctors, professors,
what have you got.
One man came up almost in tears, he
nearly pulled my hand off, he said Brother
Ramiel I learned more tonight in just that
one meeting, because I preach for an hour
and fifteen minutes admittedly, but he said I
learned more tonight in this one message than
four years in seminary.
Why?
Well the Spirit revealed, now here's another thing,
I was on the hormone, a lady was
having a birthday and somebody in the house
said well how old are you?
She said I'm approaching thirty-seven and I
nearly said from which side, but she said
I'm approaching thirty-seven, but I'm only fifteen
years old spiritually.
Oh I said, will you explain that to
me?
Explain what?
Well you're thirty-seven or thereabouts, you're fifteen
spiritually, how do you figure that out?
Oh I've got it marked in my bible
here, I was saved on such a date
as twenty-five past nine, oh I said
that you mean fifteen years ago.
Well I'm fifteen years, oh no no no,
you may not be fifteen months old.
I've seen people who've been saved for twenty
years that aren't twenty months old, and I've
seen people who've been saved only twenty months
who are twenty years old in the Spirit.
See it's not a case of years, the
rungs on the ladder to maturity are the
rungs of obedience and submission.
Now the Holy Spirit will bring all things
to our remembrance, and this is essential then
that we get these things tucked away not
merely in our minds but again down in
our hearts.
Again God is wanting to bring us to
maturity and you, you, you, you, you, every
one of us here this morning, irrespective of
age, class, anything else, even intellect, you this
morning are just as spiritual as you want
to be.
Can't blame the devil, your mother-in-law,
or anybody.
You are as spiritual as you want to
be.
No man that ever lived had a bigger
bible than you have.
When I used to hear Campbell Morgan I
used to think, now I wish I could
get a bible like his, he gets so
much out of it.
Then I discovered it was just like mine,
just a plain King James, sleepy Elizabethan English
bible.
Why did he get so much out of
it?
Because he labored over the Word of God,
that's why.
You have a whole bible, you have a
whole Savior, you have a whole, the Holy
Spirit who wrote the book and inspired the
book and makes known the book and knows
the mysteries of the book, and it's he
who is going to bring all things to
our remembrance.
It's he who, if we're going to learn
at all, surely is going to be our
teacher.
Now, I said we'd do a little digging
anyhow.
In the 15th chapter of John, you know
what it's about, I am the true vine
and my father is the husbandman.
Now the best background to John 15 is
Ezekiel 15.
And there in Ezekiel 15, in the first
few verses you have what I think is
the background to this marvelous chapter of John
15.
Ezekiel 15, the word of the Lord came
unto me saying, some of man, what is
the vine tree more than any tree or
than a branch which is among the trees
of the forest?
Now, shall wood be taken thereof or shall
wood be taken from the vine to do
any work or will men make a pin
of it to hang any vessel thereon?
Behold it is cast into the fire for
fuel.
The fire devours both the ends of it
and the midst of it is burned.
Is it meat for any work?
Behold, when it is whole, it was meat
for no work.
How much less shall it be meat yet
for any work when the fire is devoured
and it is burned?
Now when he's saying that, he's saying this,
that he never used the wood of the
vine for anything at all.
I was in a conference in Canada a
few years ago, and there was a missionary
there who had been in Saudi Arabia for
about 40 years.
He had the most amazing display of souvenirs
that I have ever seen.
He had a sword given to him by
the king of Saudi Arabia.
He had many, many marvelous things.
He had a camel, big beautiful camel, and
it looks as though it was made out
of a kind of glass.
It had lovely streaks in it, lovely veins
in the wood, and I said to him,
that's a very wonderful thing.
He said, well it was carved by one
of the finest men in the East.
And I said, well it looks beautiful.
What kind of wood is it?
Oh it's made of wood of the olive
tree.
Well I said, what about this thing over
here?
Now this isn't made of the same wood,
this is red.
And he said, well that came from a
branch of a cedar of Lebanon.
Fine.
All right, what about this thing over here?
This is different, it's not like that red
wood, it's not like that olive, this is
entirely different.
Oh he said, that's myrtle wood.
The myrtle tree only grows in Israel and
America.
I don't know whether that proves you're one
of the lost tribes, but anyhow, that's really
true.
It only grows there and it grows in
this country.
And the wood was very different, it was
very beautiful.
And then I said to him, look you've
been in the Middle East and you must
have seen millions of vines.
He said, sure I've seen them all my
life.
Well here's something made of myrtle wood, there's
something made of a cedar of Lebanon, there's
something made out of an olive tree.
Did you ever see anything made out of
the wood of the vine?
And then he smiled, he said, no and
you know I've never even thought of that
in my life.
Because the Bible says in the 15th chapter
of Ezekiel, you don't take the wood of
the vine.
That's not why you produce the vine, it's
no good for wood.
You produce a vine only for one thing
and that is that it may bear fruit.
Now wouldn't you think the logic of John
15 would be this, I am the vine
and ye are the grapes?
That would be logical, wouldn't it?
Why didn't it say I am the vine
and ye are the grapes?
I don't know that we're ever likened to
grapes at all.
Well as I see it, you see grapes,
they're about one of the most fruitful, beautiful
fruits that we have, most useful I meant.
Because you see if the grapes are not
ripe you can still use them, you can
make vinegar out of them.
And when they're ripe you can eat them.
And if they get overripe you can dry
them and make resins out of them.
There's no waste in them.
So if the scripture said I am the
vine and ye are the grapes, we might
get a little conceited and think well we're
useful at all times, in all places and
so forth and so on.
But this is not what the scripture says.
The word of God likens us to salt.
And if a salt has lost its savor
it's not good for a single thing.
You know if you take salt that has
lost its savor and put it on your
garden it will make a garden that's bad,
worse.
There's not a thing you can do with
salt that has lost its savor.
There's not a thing you can do with
a church or with a believer that has
really lost his or her savor.
Now lots of questions have been asked here.
Why did the Lord use this figure, I
am the vine and ye are the branches?
Let's first of all notice this, that he
doesn't say I am the vine.
What does he say?
He says I am the true vine.
Or the Greek would turn it around, I
am the vine the true.
Now this is a little word that John
loves very much.
He not only says I am the true
vine, but he says of Jesus I am
the true bread which came from heaven.
I'm not only the light of the world,
I am the true light.
Now you've got a lot of unique things
about this very very wonderful gospel of John.
Somebody has called it the most profound book
ever written.
And you know we're living in a day
when all the slant is on education both
outside of the church and in it.
You have to man of the academy, seminary,
and distinctions and letters and degrees and all
the rest of it, at least to suit
certain people.
You know after Peter and John did that
marvelous miracle in the third chapter of Acts,
they were hauled up before the big shots
of the day and when they couldn't get
beyond it they said well a notable miracle
has been done.
This man's been crouching at the temple for
40 years and we can't get by it.
But look this is what you've got to
do now.
Now forget about the miracle and forget about
this man Peter and this man John because
they're unlearned and ignorant.
Oh that's hard to put up with isn't
it, even when you're sanctified.
Ignorant, unlearned.
You don't know much.
I know as much as her anyhow.
Well anyhow, this is something that's really, we're
unlearned and ignorant.
Well you know one of those unlearned men
by the name of Peter he wrote two
epistles.
Two of the best fellows of all the
ages and I think the first epistle of
Peter is the most practical epistle.
I might speak on it one day.
The most practical epistle, the first chapter of
the first epistle is the most practical of
all the epistles.
Peter wrote two epistles.
John the other ignorant man wrote this profound
book and then he wrote one, two, three
epistles.
That makes four.
And then just to show how ignorant he
was he wrote the book of the revelation
that still baffles all the wise men.
So if you're a candidate for God's ignorance
instead of man's wisdom you might come up
with something.
But if you're still hunting around for a
lot of distinctions and labels and degrees and
whatnot you may just pass like a ship
in the night.
You see there is a wisdom which is
from above and God never shares it with
the worldly.
There is a gift of wisdom.
Jesus Christ has made unto us wisdom.
There is a wisdom in this realm that
has nothing to do with wisdom in that
realm.
But again John has a different accent.
Do you know that 92 percent of what
John says in his gospel is just John's.
He doesn't borrow it like the Matthew, Mark
and Luke.
We call those the synoptic gospels and we
call this the autoptic gospel because this is
like autobiography.
This is something that's going on around here
around this man and around the Lord Jesus.
The others borrow each from the other but
John doesn't.
92 percent of what he says is new.
After all neither Matthew, Mark or Luke have
anything to correspond with John 15 does he?
And if you've got water to the knees
here you've got waters to swim in when
you get to the 17th chapter, that profound
chapter which is of course the Lord's prayer.
And the prayer we call the Lord's prayer
is of course a disciple's prayer.
Teach us to pray the Lord's prayer.
Jesus prayed and nobody else can pray in
that sense.
So 92 percent of this gospel is John's.
Now what is John doing?
Do you remember the first chapter and the
first verse?
In the beginning was the Word and the
Word was with God and the Word was
God.
What's he doing?
Well in the beginning is eternity, the Word
was with God, equality and the Word was
God, deity.
Now he's got the whole book compressed into
that one verse.
He's establishing the deity of the Lord Jesus.
You get a corresponding idea in the first
verse of the first chapter of Matthew in
which he says the book of the generation
of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the
son of Abraham.
Why does he mention those two?
Because he's about to do something.
The business of Matthew is to establish the
kingship of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so he relates Jesus here, the son
of David, that relates him to the throne
and he is the son of Abraham.
And that connects him with the altar.
Now here you've got, let's look at them
here, what have you got?
Let's go right to the beginning of the
book, the whole book.
You've got Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers.
What's the next book?
Good, smart.
Right, what does the fifth book do?
The fifth book is a recap of those
four books.
Now you've got the book of Psalms.
How many books in the book of Psalms?
No, no, no, those are chapters, those are
Psalms, true enough.
How many books?
Five, good, good.
Now the orthodox view is that the Bible
has 66 books.
Now 66 isn't a biblical number, but the
book of Psalms is not one book, it's
five books.
So you have to add four to 66,
that makes 70.
70 is a biblical number.
70 elders in the Old Testament, 70 went
out preaching in the New Testament.
Now Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
The fifth book is a recap of the
other four.
Now I'm not going to do all the
work for you and make you lazy, you
dig for yourself.
But you'll find there are five books in
the book of Psalms and the fifth book
is a recap of what happened in the
first four.
So it's the same pattern that you have
with Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, a recap
of the other four, five books of Psalms,
the fifth a recap of the other four,
and then you have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John, and then you have the Acts of
the Apostles.
What's the Acts of the Apostles?
It's a recap of the other four books.
It's the Church doing everything that Jesus did,
isn't it?
Right.
So now then, Matthew sets forth Jesus as
a king.
Mark's emphasis is to show Jesus as a
servant.
Luke's emphasis is to show Jesus as being,
can I put it this way, a solid
man, as much as John is going to
be showing being solid God.
Again, in the beginning was the word, eternity.
The word was with God, equality.
The word was God, deity.
So John is showing us the Lord Jesus
Christ as very God of very God.
But wait a minute, we missed one out.
What about Luke?
Matthew shows him as a king.
Mark shows him as a servant.
Luke shows him as what?
Man, totally dependent on God.
Now, if you want to read the prayer
life of Jesus, all you have to do
is read through the epistle of the gospel
of Luke.
In every crisis in the life of Jesus,
Luke adds one word, prayer.
The others miss it out.
Luke doesn't.
Well, Jesus was standing in the Jordan when
the Holy Ghost descended upon him.
The Spirit descended on him.
When?
Pardon?
When he came upon the water.
Right, but what was he doing?
Repent.
Right.
Why don't the others mention it?
They don't have to mention it.
Luke is showing us that Jesus here, as
a man, is so dependent on himself.
And he is praying when he comes up,
when the baptism comes on him.
Now, go to the end of the story.
He's crucified.
And Luke says, while he was crucified, what
was he doing?
Saul went in.
Paul would have been saying, hey buddy, you're
going to hell fire, why don't you repent?
And this, why don't you wake up, you're
going to hell fire.
Isn't it amazing Jesus didn't testify on the
cross?
You know, some of us kill ourselves trying
to get one person, and they've written us
off long ago, you're dead, forget it.
The best thing you could do with some
folk you've been chasing a year, is leave
them alone a year.
Give them over to Satan.
Oh, that's not a very loving attitude, is
it?
Well, I didn't write the Bible, in case
you don't know, and that's what the Bible
says.
Amen.
My dear wife and I were in a
conference about three years ago, and I mentioned
that, and the lady's face was up, she
was a salvationist, she said, hallelujah.
Everybody looked around, you know.
What did we say hallelujah for that for?
She said, Brother Amiel, just a year ago,
somebody we'd been toiling with, and praying with,
and struggling with, and doing everything we could
to get them to the Lord, I said
to my husband one day, let's give them
over to Satan, let Satan talk to them
for a year.
And when people in the church and she
talks about being filled with the Spirit, and
the Spirit is the Spirit of love, and
that's the kind of thing you do.
Well, you can't be smarter than God, you'd
better wake up to that fact.
Some of you have been trying, but you
can't be.
And she said, you know, just this, I
think was it this past week, she said,
or this past month, that man really came
into a new relationship with God.
Oh, he's been through hell this past year.
He's been struggling and tormented, he's doubted, he
almost was tempted to commit suicide, and people
say, you'd better have a night of prayer
for him, you know, you're thought if he
commits suicide, it won't be my fault at
all, the Lord told me, commit him to
the devil, let the devil handle him for
a while.
And so we let, and you know, he
came out of it all right.
You never know what freedom's like till you've
been in jail, really.
And he'd been in jail, Satan had him
bound.
Oh, Jesus wasn't testifying on the cross, no,
no, he prayed.
So he prayed at the beginning, when the
baptism came upon him, he prayed there in
the last aspect of his life, when he
was dying on the cross.
It so happens that Luke reminds us that
Jesus one day decided to take twelve disciples,
didn't he?
And other evangelists recall the fact that he
chose twelve disciples.
Do you know what Luke says?
That before he chose the twelve, he spent
a whole night in prayer.
No, we don't do that, do we?
We go to a promise box or something
and spin our finger around and get a
promise out of it.
Then you have the audacity to say, I
got a promise from the Lord.
You didn't, you got it from Moody Press,
they made it.
Oh, we don't do like Jesus did.
The Son of God needed a whole night
before he made a major decision in his
life.
And then he recalls, of course, the transfiguration,
that glorious, wonderful experience that Jesus had.
But Luke says that it was while he
was praying he was transfigured.
I'm going to talk about prayer, or at
least try to tonight, and tell you some
things that I think are pretty amazing.
But if you want to transform personality, you
can't get it by coming to the altar
and getting the baptism in one shot.
After all, Peter had a marvelous experience in
the upper room, and he had a pure
heart, which we don't emphasize.
The emphasis on the baptism these days is
power.
God's emphasis is purity.
As a matter of fact, he's concerned about
holiness.
He makes you go through hell to prove
what kind of a God he is.
But you can be as holy as anybody
has ever lived on this earth, and have
the worst harm, and they're broken down on
a mobile, and maybe no job.
God, you see, when you get to heaven,
you're not, if you go straight to heaven
out of your million dollar home, or out
of your super Cadillac or something, they won't
even know you have it.
You come to church with mink, and diamonds,
and everything, the Lord never sees them.
He looks straight through to your heart.
You may be in rags on the inside.
Or you go to a banquet, they go
study.
You don't know whether you're going to a
banquet now, with the holy people, or you're
going to a film show.
I went to, we went to one some
years ago, and good night.
The skirts and the women were poured into
the dresses, and you never saw such a
sight you had in your life.
I wouldn't have known it was a banquet.
I wouldn't have known it was a religious
outfit.
I either thought I was going to a
preview of a movie show.
You see, we've got a kind of idea
that if, you know, this good old book
says the Lord looketh not on the wife.
Oh, but upon?
Oh, you'd think it was the other way,
wouldn't you?
Oh, you, of course, you'd put something a
bit better than that on, wouldn't you?
I mean, and notice the, your shoes are
a bit rubbed there.
You know, there'll be a lot of millionaires
there, nice old people, and other people.
This is the World Bank.
I mean, it's ten dollars, you know.
Go out into the highways and byways and
compel them to come in, if they have
ten dollars.
But, oh brother, there's a lot of wonderful
stuff going on, and don't we strut and
show our stuff, huh?
You know, I don't go to banquets or
breakfasts anymore.
I gave them up when I became a
man and put away childish things.
You'd think Almighty God was interested in where
we live, or how we live, or what
clothes we have.
As I said the other day, there's no
status symbols to a spirit-filled person.
That's the status symbol, to be filled with
God.
Everything from there is downhill.
And God isn't concerned to make you and
me happy.
If He is, He's not doing much for
His children in Russia and China this morning,
is He?
Hmm?
You think He's got it rough?
Some of you have read the book, I'm
sure, by Brother Andrew, God Smugly.
You read that book?
I'm sure you have.
Wonderful book.
I think I gave him the title for
that book in my office in New York
one day.
I said, you're God Smugly.
He had just come back from China.
He'd been trying to reach Watchman Nee.
Couldn't see him.
Watchman Nee has lived in a room 11
feet long.
Do you know how long that is?
11 feet long from the end of the
platform there to about there, a little less
than that, about there.
A room 11 feet long and 4 feet
wide for 20 years.
Hmm?
And you're going to build another apartment on
the house, huh?
Excuse me.
11 feet long and 4 feet wide.
Been brainwashed.
One of God's choicest saints in the world.
Doesn't ride in a Cadillac, doesn't have any
money, doesn't go to a smorgasbord, doesn't go
to any banquets, in case you don't know.
Could you last it out?
Could I last it out?
Do you think you have that spiritual fortitude
to stick in a hole like that and
not break down?
You know, he's a puzzle that they've brainwashed
him 10,000 times and he doesn't crack.
Why doesn't he?
Well, some people would say he isn't filled
with the spirit, he doesn't speak in tongues,
he hasn't this, he hasn't the other.
But I know a lot of folk who
have all the other stuff that will crack
within 12 hours.
They crack within 12 hours.
You know, we'd better look out.
They're boasting testimony.
Maybe we're getting them into trouble in this
country.
If the economy collapses, we might be in
bread lines.
I wonder if we'll have what it takes
to stand there.
Hmm?
I wonder if we'll be as happy there
as we are around the breakfast there.
Who do you think we sat with at
the breakfast?
Oh, it was worth it.
It was a long way to Houston, but
you know, it costs so much in the
plane and so much for the tea.
But it's worth it we sat with John
and Mary Jones, you know, 55 oil wells
and a home in California and something else,
and they have a yacht and they have
something else.
Isn't it amazing every time you rub off
something, when you go and get some vicarious
blessing and feel so superior when you come
home.
And they gave us their car, and they're
going to write to us at Christmas.
Now, don't put any stars on your crown.
You see, the Lord is concerned to get
us right down to reality, and he can't
get many people there these days.
Oh no, sir.
Oh no, no, no.
It's rather amazing.
I thought of it, I don't know, I
think it was in the night.
Isn't it strange that lots of these kids,
and I think that the protests are very
valid.
I don't like the way they protest, but
what they're protesting about is valid in many
areas.
But isn't it amazing that many of these
kids, many of them brought up in affluence.
When we were at Teen Challenge, we used
to meet kids there who'd ridden around in
Jaguar XK120s and Ferraris and hot-bellied automobiles
and fooled around with the prettiest girls in
the country and had enough, more money to
spend than I earn in a week, wage
nearly.
You know, when I talked with those kids,
I found very many of them so empty.
And isn't it strange that these kids, and
we've given them everything.
You know, the greatest disease in America today
is boredom, bored to death.
Isn't it strange these kids are going to
meditation, and because we've lost the glory of
God, we're trying to soup everything up more
and more, more fervor, more energy, more the,
you know, get girls on, have a Holy
Ghost show on TV or something.
Just, we're trying to win the world, that's
the only way.
There's nothing more supernatural about girls wiggling and
boys clapping their hands on a so-called
godly TV show than a fly sticking to
the ceiling.
The kids are turning from all the materialism.
They're sick to death of it all, and
they're meditating, and they're not turning to God,
they're turning to gurus.
A lot of the rich kids say, oh
it's contemplation, it's quiet, I want to get
in the forest and be quiet.
We have a boy studying in New York
right now, well he's teaching at the university
there, and he and his wife, they, whenever
they get a chance, they pack, put a
pack on their backs, and away they go.
Get on a bus and glide in the
country, and, and live under the trees, they
have sleeping bags, and say it's lovely to
get by a splashing stream, and hear the
birds sing, and get away from, you know,
you know, well sure it is.
Recently, sixty percent of the population of the
famous city voted to get back into the
country if they could.
You see, we've been working everything out, we,
we've been so desirous to get the crowd
on any level by anything.
As I said the other day, you never
have to advertise a fire.
Get the fire of the Holy Ghost, you
couldn't have an empty church if you tried.
Now, if you run it on specials, converted
cowboys, or broken down TV stars, and, you
know, a fellow was once a great ball
player, but he got rheumatism, so he got
saved and started being an evangelist.
And so, if you run a church like
that, well, you're going to have severe competition
every time you open the newspaper.
Oh, look what they've got across the river
there at such and such a church.
Boy, I didn't know he was around.
You know, that fellow like me, Shin, Shin,
what a great man he is.
Gee, just to show you how full of
God and power he is.
What do you think of men coming out
of the upper room and doing a silly,
stupid thing like that, eh?
Well, a lot of you are laughing at
yourselves.
You went and heard them and you, you,
you ticked up a big love offering for
them.
Nearly everywhere I go, I, we, we were
in a church the other week, and we
got, and it was a Southern Baptist church,
we got four to five hundred people every
night.
And you know, the normal course is, the
preacher usually says, Reg, you know, we've had
the biggest crowd we've ever had, but I'm
sorry, this is the smallest love offering I've
had in five years.
Why?
Because when I preach, I hurt people.
I won't lie, I won't comfort them, I'm
not trying to be popular, don't care if
anybody likes me or not.
The Lord never told me to be liked.
Jesus was one of the most hated men
that ever lived, as well as one of
the most loved men.
I said in a meeting in Dallas, at
Garland, wasn't it?
Garland, where we were preaching on John 7
out of interest.
Son of man, the son of God, my
father, my father, my father, my father, again
establishing what he said in that first verse,
equality and eternity.
I am the true man and my father
is the husbandman.
All right, notice what it said, my father
is the husbandman.
Now, what's the secret of abounding in the
Christian life?
Well, it's in this verse, that's all.
The secret of abounding is abiding.
Abide in him and you'll abound.
Well, uh, what's the secret of communion?
If we abide, we'll abound.
If we have union, we'll have communion.
Now, this doesn't sound right, does it?
Every branch in me that beareth not fruity,
taketh away.
Right.
Every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it.
Purgeth what?
The branch that bears the fruit.
Oh, I thought once I started bearing the
fruit of the Spirit, the Lord would kind
of leave me alone and not touch it.
Oh no, because you're bearing fruit, he puts
the scissors in here and he puts the
knife in there and he starts cutting.
Oh, oh, I thought kind of, you know,
kind of, you just went from here and
everything, I'm going to kind of escalate it.
And I said to the angel, well, take
me up a bit higher today, you know,
I'm pressing on the upward way.
I used to be, but let's take the
escalator.
I want to go a bit easier.
And the Lord said, just a minute, just
a minute, they, uh, I need to do
a bit of pruning here.
My father is the, and the branch that
bears the fruit gets the knife.
Now, if, if, uh, if your life is
fruit bearing, then this is a sign that
God is going to come and bring that
knife into your life.
You see, as I said a few minutes
ago, Peter went to the upper room.
Sure he did.
And he got filled with the Holy Ghost.
Right.
And that cleansed his heart, but it didn't
correct his head.
Because a bit further down the road, the
Lord says to him, now Peter, come and
look at me.
He says, not so.
Not so, I'm not touching anything unto you.
Oh, you're not.
Oh, I see.
You see, I think a lot of people
have got terribly upset.
And, and, and it's part of the evangelist's
fault too, and the preacher's.
Because we kind of suggest that all you
have to do is just get filled with
God, and here I'm, it's as easy as
that.
Nonsense.
If I were to say to you now,
thinking of it logically, I know your answer.
If I had a glass of water here,
filled right to the very brim, and I
held up that glass of water, and I
said, look, there's a glass of water, and
it's filled right to the very brim, isn't
it?
Yeah.
Now, can I fill that glass of water
again?
Can I fill it without emptying it?
And logically you'll say, no.
Well, you can.
I can fill that glass of water, and
fill it right to the very brim, and
I can still fill it without emptying it.
Do you know what I'd do?
I'd drop just one drop of dye in
it, and what else?
It was water.
Now you'd say, I say, what does it
fill with?
You say, fill with red water.
Put it this way.
Supposing you pushed everything out of this room
with a Now I say, can you fill
this room with anything else, without taking the
sand out?
And you say, no.
It looks on the surface, logically, you can
only fill a thing once, at one time,
with one thing.
Now you can fill this room with about
six or seven different things all at once.
You see, we suggest you come and get
through with the Holy Ghost.
That's the answer.
Oh, no, no, no.
Oh, there's growth in grace, there's tribulations and
distresses, there are processes.
You have a baby, and other things being
equal, you hope it's a normal baby, lovely
little thing there, sparkling and shining and laughing,
and got no hair and no teeth, and
then you say it's like its father.
I think that's true.
But apart from that, as a baby, it's
a perfect baby, isn't it?
It's a perfect baby, sure.
It's a lovely little laughing thing, playing with
its toes, got bright little eyes, and it
smiles, and it coos, and it does.
It's a perfect baby.
You may find that child at seven a
perfect little boy, you may find him at
fifteen a perfect athlete, and he goes on
in degrees of perfection.
Now, by the same token, how can you
fill what's full?
Well, first of all, you can be filled
with the Holy Ghost.
Nearly every preacher cites Peter as being the
best example.
I don't think Peter is the best example
at all.
Sure, Peter was filled with the Holy Ghost.
But I think the early church set all
its ambition on a young man that died
maybe before he was twenty years of age,
a young fellow by the name of Stephen.
What was he filled with?
He was filled with the Holy Ghost.
He was filled with power.
He was filled with wisdom.
He was filled with grace, so that when
they saw him, they could say nothing against
him.
His life was filled, filled, filled.
Now I say you can fill this room
six, seven different ways all at once, can't
you?
Sure.
We could fill it with people, pack it
with people, right, number one.
Number two, it must be full of air,
otherwise we couldn't breathe.
Number three, it's full of light, otherwise we
couldn't see.
Number four, the people begin to sing and
shout and pray, so it's filled with noise.
Number four, some lady might walk through with
a very pungent perfume on and everybody says,
oh that's good, isn't that lovely?
And the agent lady says yes, and you
say that's really lovely.
Now it's full of people, it's full of
noise, it's full of light, it could be
full of heat, and it could be full
of perfume, and maybe you find six other
different ways.
It can be filled all at once.
Now you notice how many times, if you
haven't done this, take a, um, take a
concordance or something and notice how many times
the apostle prays for people who are filled
to be filled.
They're filled with the but that you might
be filled with the knowledge of his will.
Now there are some of you here this
morning, I don't question, filled with the Holy
Ghost, but you're wondering which way to go,
right or left or center or back or
forward, and somebody says go up, somebody says
go down, somebody says go right, somebody goes
left, and you say oh boy what am
I going to do, these are all smart
people, forget them all, and just get along
with him that you may be filled with
the knowledge of his will.
Now you have a part of the word
again, they were all filled with the Holy
Ghost, but what do you get in the
fifth chapter?
You have Ananias and Sapphira.
Well I can't prove they were in the
upper room, but on the other hand you
can't disprove that they were either, so it's
a 50-50 choice.
Maybe they were in the upper room, maybe
the Holy Ghost came, maybe they'd done miracles,
I don't know, but now the apostle says
what?
He says why has Satan filled our heart?
Well that's rather starving isn't it?
I've seen men who are blazed for God,
been marvellous revivalists and teachers, backslide, become undone
and become some of the loathsome, most loathsome
men you could ever find.
Now we didn't get far, did we, in
the 15th of John?
Anyhow here's the secret, if you're going to
look back, can I just say this, supposing
this were a tap here, and I bring
a glass, I take my glass and I
turn the tap on, there's a reservoir there
with billions of gallons of water, and if
I stay here until I die holding that,
I won't exhaust that supply.
Well that supply is typical of the Spirit
of God, inexhaustible.
Here is my little vessel, my heart, I
come and ask him to cleanse it, and
then I put myself in the line of
God's blessing, to be filled with the Spirit
of God.
Now here is the flow, out of out
of him shall flow, it's not out of
me shall flow rivers of living water, it's
out of him when he comes and indwells,
because if I get out of God's will,
boy I can dry up like that.
So it can't be out of me, it's
out of him indwelling me, out of him
shall flow rivers of living water, because he's
indwelling me.
Now I put myself in the place of
obedience, and I ask God to fill, and
God fills.
Here comes the inflow, well if you get
an inflow and it goes over the top,
you're going to get what?
You're going to get an overflow, and if
you get an overflow, you're going to get
an outflow.
Now look here's a lovely thing about it,
you try it, you take a cup or
a vessel and put it under a tap,
turn the water on, and once that vessel
is filled and there's an overflow, you don't
see the vessel, all you see is the
overflow.
And you know if you and I are
really filled with God, you're not stutting around
saying, you know I got filled, I used
to be a Presbyterian or something, but now
I'm filled with the Holy Ghost.
I mean you know, you haven't seen anything
like me around for years have you?
And they say no, and we hope we
don't again.
You see we try to put something over
as though I am something, I am something.
No no no, you stay under the inflow.
Other words, you abide, you'll abound.
If there's an inflow, there's an overflow, there's
an outflow.
If there's an inflow, you won't want to
be seen at all, because there isn't one
gift or ministry of the Spirit that God
will give to you to exalt you.
You see right now, God isn't even exalting
His Church.
Jesus came, the prophets came and exalted the
Father, the Son came and exalted the Father,
the Holy Spirit came and He exalted the
Son, the Church comes to exalt the Son,
the Father and the Holy Spirit.
But God isn't exalting His Church now.
You can sing all you like about a
mansion over the hilltop and music coming in
from impeccable angels from world without end, but
you know you and I have got just
one very very serious obstruction before we make
it, and that's the judgment seat of Christ
for every sinner and for every believer.
Now that's going to be tough.
To quote Tozer as I finish, Tozer used
to say, Brother Ravner, I don't think many
men will stand tall at the judgment seat.
You see God has given us a whole
book to explore, and most of us haven't
got out of Acts or we haven't got
out of Ephesians, so we stick in about
one book.
Lowry, 20 odd years ago, spoke about the
possibilities of grace.
Nobody ever measured them.
Now here we are in waters, where are
we?
Some of us just got the soles of
our feet wet.
I heard Campbell Morgan, after he'd written 50
books on the Bible, say he didn't know
much about it.
Now a fellow comes from Bible school with
a trumpet under one arm and a diploma
under the other.
He's got nothing to learn, just trying to
find a church worthy of him.
But the man who knows the most knows
the least.
I confess I don't feel I know my
ABC spiritually.
When I read some of the profound works,
when I find what some of these men
and women of God have done, when I
find out I've shied off, I say as
I began, you this morning are as spiritual
as you want to be.
You've got the prop in your own hand.
Your Bible will never fly into your hand
any more than the newspaper.
If you want the newspaper, you pick it
up.
If you want the Bible, you forget it
and pick this up.
If you want to watch TV, it won't
turn itself on.
You'll have to do it.
If you want to waste your time, you'll
have to do it.
You're a responsible person, you're an entity.
So let's keep this in mind.
Growth in grace is not according to a
number of years.
If you obey God and stay in this
school six months, you could be 50 years
old by the time you leave.
And you could stay here six years and
only be five months old.
So it's up to you.
Again, it's whatsoever he said unto you, do
it.
Abide.
And if you abide, you'll abide.
Three promises.
Verse two, we'll bear fruit.
Verse eight, not only a promise of fruit.
Verse eight, plenty of fruit.
And verse, twice eight, 16.
Verse 16, permanence in fruit bearing, your fruit
shall remain.
Thank you.