There is still an altar, from which a
life cold can be taken to touch our
lips, to touch us and make us clean
where we're unclean, pure where we're impure, strong
where we're weak, and weakness where we're too
strong.
We thank you for the finished work of
Jesus Christ, that he, not a theology, not
even scripture, but he has made unto us
wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
But I don't wonder the poet George Matheson,
that blind poet, said, O love that wilt
not let me go, I rest my weary
soul in thee.
I give thee back the life I owe.
We bless you for the privilege of having
an exchanged life.
Paul remembered the time when he exchanged his
life, a moment when he was crucified with
Christ, and then from that moment on he
said, It's not I, but Christ that liveth
in me.
And he proved it.
Every move of his life proved that he
had an indwelling Christ.
He had a spirit that could not be
broken, a faith that could not be shaken,
a love that would not fade away, that
he could embrace whatever then shunned.
He has a strange philosophy.
He says that he takes the very things
that people run from.
He gloried in tribulation, in necessities and reproaches.
We know a man has gone very far,
very deep into God when he can say
that.
Not saying it to his fellow men, but
say it to the eternal God.
He's challenging you to lay upon him crosses
that nobody else wanted to carry.
Call him to ascend heights that other people
are not ascended.
Call him to loneliness that other people could
not endure.
How we bless you for this being made
real tonight.
As we think of thousands in concentration camps
in Russia and elsewhere that haven't been to
a meeting house for years.
If they'd lived on meetings like so many
people do, they'd have died ages ago.
But we thank you that they've learned to
feed on Jesus Christ.
They can say, He is my prophet, priest,
and king who did for me salvation bring,
and while I breath, I mean to sing
Christ for me.
I guess, Lord, they've learned with Isaac Watts
to say when, sing and believe and act
and practice, when mountain walls confront thy way,
why sit and weep, arise and say, I
can, I may, I must, I will the
purpose of my God fulfill.
We do not understand your ways, they're beyond
our understanding.
We have every creature comfort, and yet somehow
there's not much divine energy, spiritual energy.
We come in the words of the psalmist
tonight, Lord, and say, open our eyes that
we may behold wondrous things out of thy
law.
May we leave this meeting tonight as it
were a mile further up the road spiritually
than when we came in.
Maybe some need to leave behind in this
meeting grave clothes and rise in resurrection life
and ascend into the heights Your word asks
a question.
If ye be risen with Christ, we have
celebrated your resurrection, Lord Jesus, the time when
you brought the bondage of death and the
powers of, brought the gates of hell and
had dominion over sin, that we might follow
in your train.
Don't let us be a disappointment to you.
Quicken us according to your word tonight.
Save the travel of your soul in us.
In Jesus name.
Look at the good book.
The gospel is recorded by Matthew, sorry.
Sorry, chapter, I didn't give you the chapter.
Chapter six.
The good book tells us to contend for
the faith once delivered to the saints.
Now we can contend without being contentious.
On the phone today and in conversation with
other people in the last two or three
days, some people have been a bit upset
about something that was said in a meeting.
Unfortunately, it's something that's very prevalent now through
a certain school in the Chicago area.
I understand a well-known preacher in this
town said the same thing some months ago.
And it is that the Old Testament is
not relevant to today.
I was brought up properly, of course.
And one of the things we used to
be taught as children in England was this,
about the Testaments.
The new is in the old concealed and
the old is by the new revealed.
There is no rivalry between the Old and
New Testaments.
We cannot dispose of the Old Testament.
Last week twice I preached, or at least
attempted to preach, on one of the most
fascinating stories in the Resurrection Catalogue and that
was the Emmaus journey.
I just love that story.
And if you remember that Jesus, on that
journey, he overtook those two disciples.
They were confused, they were defeated, they were
despised, they were despondent, they were dejected.
Everything with a D, they were.
And Jesus crept up behind them and discovered
they were in that sad state.
What did he do?
Well, the first thing he did was open
their eyes.
The next thing he did was open their
understanding.
Then he opened the Word of God.
Then he opened their mouths because they ran
back to the city jubilant.
When they started on the journey they had
a gravestone on each foot and a tombstone
round their necks.
They were the most despised, dejected, disappointed, discredited,
everything else of any men on earth.
And Jesus overtook them.
That was the greatest Bible school in history.
It was seven and a half furlongs from
the city of Jerusalem to where they were
going to Emmaus.
And that's roughly, it's less than eight miles.
Now, I wasn't rich in my, I'm not
rich now.
When I was a young man I couldn't
do what John Wesley did, I didn't have
a horse.
I walked the length of England, I walked
the breadth of England.
350 miles long, 200 miles wide.
With a team of young men.
We hadn't enough money to buy ice cream.
We slept over the hedges.
We knocked at the door of churches.
We slept in our sleeping bags for years.
Not without getting up, but I mean, you
know, for years.
Some nights I felt I could go to
sleep for years, I'll tell you.
One guy said one day, he's very humorous,
he said, Well, I've done what Jesus did
today.
I said, What?
What do you mean?
I didn't see you doing anything.
Walking on the water.
I didn't see you.
He said, Wait till I take my boots
off.
You know, he got blisters about that size
all over his feet.
He said, I've been walking on the water
all day.
We used to reckon the first two hours
on the road we could walk eight miles.
We lost a bit of speed after that.
So this immense journey was less than two
hours.
And Jesus came.
I've often wondered why he didn't lift the
veil and show them into eternity.
Why did he preach history instead of prophecy?
They knew history.
They most likely could recite many of the
books of the Old Testament.
But he never touched history.
He went, I mean, he never touched prophecy.
He dealt with history.
And he told them everything from Moses through
the major and minor prophets.
Everything in the scriptures that spoke of Jesus.
Now, if the New Testament isn't relevant, why
did he do that?
If the Old Testament isn't relevant, why did
he do that?
I'm sure they'd have been more excited to
have gone back to the upper room which
they went to afterwards for supper and say,
you know, Jesus has lifted the veil to
us.
We've been seeing into eternity.
We saw a door open in heaven.
Remember, John saw that on the Isle of
Patmos.
If I could push that door in heaven
open just an inch and I'd let you
see through it, you'd never backslide again.
You'd never go cold in your devotion.
You'd never get discouraged.
If you could just get a preview of
sitting down with all the saints of all
the ages, wouldn't that be wonderful?
You don't seem very thrilled about it.
What did somebody say?
To join above with the saints we love,
that will be glory, glory.
But to sit below with the saints we
know, well, that's another story.
Isn't it true some saints you don't really
like?
Come on, be honest about it.
I mean, you can tell me after you
don't like me.
I won't be discouraged.
You know, I don't even like myself, so
don't worry.
But they went down the Emmaus Road and
he took the veil away.
They must have been the most thrilling Bible
studies that were ever held in the history
of the world.
But he went back and showed them right
from Moses, right through the major and minor
prophets up to that very moment, everything concerning
himself.
I don't care what your preacher says.
Let me tell you the truth.
I'm not saying he doesn't.
You know, this good book is only about
one thing, one person actually, and that's Jesus
Christ.
He is the first and the last, the
Alpha, the Omega, the center, the conference, the
life and the life of the Church of
Jesus Christ.
As I said last week, I see John
and he sees Jesus.
This is a man that knew Jesus more
intimately than any man had ever lived.
He laid his head on the bosom of
Jesus, heard that eternal heartbeat.
And there he sees Jesus in his resurrection
glory.
He fell at his feet as dead.
As somebody said, you're better dead at the
feet of Jesus than alive anywhere else anyhow.
But he was stunned with the marvelous majesty
of Jesus Christ.
Three chapters further on in Revelation, he's standing
at the door knocking and the church doesn't
even recognize him.
I make a guess that Jesus hasn't been
in some of your churches in the last
12 months.
He's still at the door.
He wouldn't be comfortable if he came in.
We think we're orthodox when we're dead.
The church has to move back into the
resurrection life of Jesus Christ or this generation
is going to go to hell quicker than
any generation has ever lived.
We've tried everything from child evangelism to campus
crusades.
Twenty years ago, campus crusades were going to
sweep the country.
A friend of mine gave what?
She told us one day after a break
that she'd given a quarter of a million
dollars to them.
I'm not throwing stones.
I'm saying they haven't done it.
Full gospel businessmen are going to do it.
They haven't done it.
We keep shuffling our theological cards.
And what we knew is a new revelation
of God.
These men dragging their feet on their mares'
throats, suddenly they get delivered and they go
back with wings on their feet instead of
weights.
I was reading 1 Corinthians 10 verse 11
today.
Remember?
I'll just quote it quickly here.
1 Corinthians 10.
The chapter is all about the children of
Israel.
It's a kind of a condensed history.
Then verse 11 says, Now all these things
which happened unto them were in samples and
they are written for our admonition or our
profit upon whom the ends of the world
are come.
The whole history, what do you call the
first five books of the Bible?
Do you know the name?
Pentateuch.
If you were able to read Hebrew, the
book of Psalms is in five books.
So the first five books of the Bible.
What is the book of Psalms?
It's a rehashing of the children of Israel's
journey from Egypt unto the place where they
got deliverance.
Restating it all.
We need to know that we upon whom
the ends of the world are come.
And it's all given for that very reason
it says here.
Come on.
If the Old Testament isn't relevant to today,
why did God Almighty give us the epistle
to the Hebrews?
It's a recounting of every step of the
children of Israel.
They came out of Egypt.
We're supposed to come out of the world.
They got delivered from the bondage of Pharaoh.
We're supposed to get delivered from the bondage
of the devil.
They hesitated to go into the promised land.
The trouble with the church tonight, you're going
to find all the answers tonight.
The trouble with the church is she has
halted somewhere between Easter and the upper room.
Somewhere between Easter and the upper room, the
church has camped.
Now let me tell you what I want
to tell you.
Matthew chapter 6.
It's about prayer.
A young lady thrilled my heart last week.
Going out, she told me that a friend
of hers had told her to come and
see me.
So she came for a few minutes.
She said, Mr. Ramiel, three months ago when
I came to this meeting, I did not
know a thing about prayer.
In three months, she said, my life has
just sought.
I get so much into eternity, into the
heavenly places sometimes.
She says, every time I get really into
the presence of God, I feel pressure on
my chest and on my back.
I said, well, don't ask him to take
it away.
Maybe that's his way to get his grip
on you.
She said, I've suddenly wakened up to the
wonder of a prayer life.
I don't know how old she was.
I wouldn't dare guess her age anyhow.
Let me guess, say she was 20.
I'm glad she found it then and not
when she's 80.
You've heard me say before, and I'll say
it again, I never judge a man by
his eloquence.
I judge him by his Bible knowledge.
No man, your pastor or anybody else, is
greater than his prayer life.
He may be the head of your religious
corporation.
He may be the head of your denomination.
He may be the head of your Bible.
No man is greater than his prayer life.
One of the great ecstasies of my life
was to pray, just the two of us,
with Dr. Tozer.
At times I was almost afraid to open
my eyes, lest there was a deity there
or an angel or somebody.
It wasn't something he affected.
You knew that when he prayed, he glided
right out from where he was into the
presence of the eternal God.
Just like you see when those little air
jets take off like that.
Why did he pray like that?
Because he lived like that.
Will you understand if you don't think it
out?
Prayer is not something we do.
Prayer is something we are.
Remember the word of Jesus?
The first call he made was, come unto
me.
The second call he made was, follow me.
The third call he made was, abide with
me.
Come to me and I will make you.
With some effort and a bit of skill,
some Bible school might turn you out as
a preacher.
Schools can make preachers after their own brand.
But only God can make prophets.
Only God can make messengers.
Matthew chapter 6, verse 1 says, in the
King James Version of course, Take ye that
ye do not your arms before men to
be seen of them, otherwise ye have no
reward of your Father which is in heaven.
Verse 3, but when you do your arms,
verse 4, that thine arms may be in
secret.
The marginal reference for arms there is righteousness.
Don't strut your righteousness.
I'll tell you one thing.
Nobody ever struts in prayer.
Prayer is a language of the poor.
The self-sufficient don't need to pray.
The self-satisfied don't want to pray.
The self-righteous cannot pray.
Don't blame the devil for obstructions in your
prayer life if you're sabotaging your own prayer
life.
Prayer is the most demanding thing.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the
Lord?
He that hath clean hands, that's in his
relationship with the world.
And a pure heart, that's his relationship to
God.
Verse 6 says, but when thou prayest, enter
into thy closet.
When thou hast shut thy door, pray to
thy Father which is in secret, and thy
Father which is in secret shall reward thee
openly.
Now if you read the version in Luke
11, that obviously Luke gives, he begins by
saying this, that some disciples came to Jesus
and said, Lord, teach us to pray.
I'm going to skip over that and say
this.
I get men ask me, can I come
and spend two or three days with you?
No, no, no, no.
I don't have the time.
I want you to teach me to pray.
Prayer is not taught, it's caught.
It's something that you latch onto in the
secret place, and once you get that union,
you're not going to let hell or earth
or anybody separate you from it.
How many times a psalmist and others say,
I cried unto the Lord.
They didn't give a marvellous oration.
There's an old poem, part of it says
this, What am I?
An infant crying in the night.
An infant crying for a light with no
language but a cry.
Those maternal instincts of women are marvellous.
A baby comes in the home, how wonderful,
till two o'clock in the morning, forget
it.
Mary, where were you?
He was crying.
He was?
What's wrong with him?
Oh, his diaper needed changing.
Well, good night.
Mary, you were up an hour ago.
Is he crying again?
Need his diaper changed?
No, he was frightened.
How do you know?
Well, he was in the dark when I
put the light on, he stopped crying.
A bit later, Mary, what's wrong with him?
We got a bad model here.
He cries because he's uncomfortable, he cries because
he's in the dark.
What was this?
He needed feeding.
Wouldn't it be marvellous if a two week
old baby said, Ma'am, I'm hungry.
She wouldn't run to the baby, she'd run
out of the house as fast as she
could.
She'd think he was some doll that they
put a battery in or something.
What am I?
An infant crying in the night.
An infant crying for a light.
It doesn't say he wants a light, it
doesn't say he wants feeding, it doesn't say
I need my diaper changed.
But the mother knows with a maternal instinct
the cry of the child in pain, the
cry of the child in hunger, the cry
of the child when it's afraid.
David says, I cried unto the Lord.
What did he cry?
Bow down thine ear and hear me, I'm
poor and needy.
How can you be poor and needy?
You live in a mansion.
How can you be poor and needy?
You have a standing army.
How can you be poor and needy?
You own all this territory.
You're the idol of the crowd.
You're the top of the list.
You hit the top of the charts with
the new psalm.
He wrote the greatest psalm.
But I'm poor.
You will never persuade a spiritual man that
he's rich outside of the things of God.
Thinking back over that book of Revelation, the
third chapter there, where the Lord says to
a church, remember the church that exported clothing
was advised by God to buy clothes.
I mean the city.
The city that exported eyesalve is told to
buy eyesalve that she may see.
The city that had the greatest bank in
the world at that time was told, come
on, you buy from me gold.
Everything they boasted in, God said it's rubbish,
it's nonsense.
Thou sayest I'm rich and increased in goods.
Look at our exports.
Look at our bank.
Look at the people here through the eyesalve
we export.
You say we're rich.
Socially we're rich.
Materially we're rich.
In everything you're rich.
And you don't know.
You see, the reason that they didn't recognize
Jesus as a son of God like John
did was because while they said they could
see, you know, God said to them, you're
blind.
They said we're rich.
He said you're poor.
They said we wear the best clothing in
the world.
He said you're naked.
He contradicted every claim that they made.
I'm wondering if, think of it, when you
go home.
I'm wondering if Jesus Christ isn't standing at
the door of some of our modern charismatic
and Pentecostal churches.
We're so rich.
We're so self-satisfied.
We've got so much stuff.
God Almighty says, well, stew in it.
Hide in it if you want.
What is the outworking of it?
Nothing.
One of the great men in World War
II was Montgomery, Field Marshal Montgomery.
You may remember he beat Rommel in the
deserts of Africa.
His grandfather was a bishop in the Church
of Ireland.
And he wrote a hymn on prayer.
Part of the hymn says, All earthly things
with earth will fade away.
But prayer grasps eternity.
Do you ever pray and feel that you've
got hold of the horns of the altar?
Bow down thine ear and hear me.
I'm poor and needy.
This poor man cried.
He repeats, repeats, repeats.
You see, nobody is wealthy in the presence
of the living God.
Neither materially nor spiritually.
Oh, if only I was weak.
Well, if you're waiting to be weak, forget
it.
Strong, I mean, forget it.
He uses weak things.
He uses the weak things of the world
to confound the mighty.
He takes the things that are not, to
bring to naught the things that are, that
no flesh shall draw in his presence.
Isn't it about time the church wakened up
to realize, with all the organizing she's done,
that God Almighty doesn't look at organizing.
He only looks at agonizing.
It doesn't matter what the esteem of the
world is, or the congregation is, in the
sight of thy denomination.
God doesn't look that way.
When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, verse
6.
And when thou hast shut the door, isn't
that nice, to shut the door?
It's an interesting study to read about doors
being shut.
Remember when the virgins went in, the door
was shut.
Notice they were not harlots.
They were virgins.
You go to some churches, oh, everybody in
the church is going up there to be
part of the bride.
Don't believe it for a minute, that's not
true.
You may make it to the wedding, but
there's only one bride.
I'm not going to get sidetracked there, I'd
like to, but I won't.
But they hammered on the door, the Lord
opened to us.
And what did he say?
He said, I know you not.
Matthew 7, a bunch of people, oh, we're
the greatest revival team in the world.
We've just cast out demons, healed the sick,
raised the dead, done every miracle.
Devils are afraid of us, men are afraid
of us, everybody's afraid.
We have such power.
And what did the Lord say?
He said, depart from me, I never knew
you.
Notice what he said, he didn't say, I
don't know your ministry.
He knew their ministry, but they were using
his name to build up their ministry, like
so many TV boys are.
And when you get to the government seat,
some little old washerwoman that lives scrubbing clothes
somewhere in the hills of, where?
Anywhere.
In the States, she's going to be up
at the front.
Some of these big TV lords and dukes
of the kingdom of God, I've never ragged
to cover them.
He takes the weak things, he takes the
things that are not.
In that day, the last shall be first
and the first shall be last.
You may not like it, but that's God's
way.
You know, you can pray, but you can't
give God advice.
I gave him it for years and he
shut me up.
So I don't try it anymore.
When our prayers close the door and close
your ears, close your thinking, and pray to
thy father, which is in secret, and he
shall reward thee openly.
Verse 9, let's jump to it.
After this manner, therefore pray ye, Our Father.
Now that was new.
I don't remember God, Abraham ever called God
Father or David, did they?
Once again, not my father, but Our Father.
You know, when you read this wonderful reading
through, there's not a pronoun in the first
person singular in the whole prayer.
Look at verse 12, Forgive us our, there
you are, not me and my, forgive us
our debts.
Verse 13, Lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from evil.
You know, this wonderful preaching here, not mine,
I mean in the book here, when you
come to really summarize the whole thing, it
abolishes all our cares and all our fears.
The reason we have fears and cares is
we have never observed the truth of this
marvelous prayer.
God said, pardon me, Jesus said, I cannot
call the high and lofty one who inhabits
eternity, whose name is holy, before whom cherubim
bow down, looking on his blinding glory through
their wings to filter his brilliance, covering their
feet because they're embarrassed that he would see
all their faults.
He says, I can call the one who
made the heavens and the earth.
The high and lofty one who inhabits eternity,
I can call him my father.
Why are we such poverty in our Christian
living?
Because there's such a small concept of God,
that's why.
He's my father.
Dear old principal, at the little school I
went to in England, loved an old Methodist
hymn, God is the refuge of his saints
when storms of sharp distress invade.
Ere we can offer our complaint, behold him
present with his aid.
Let mountains from their seats be hurled down
to the deeps and buried there.
Convulsions shake the solid earth.
Our faith shall never yield to fear.
My mother used to tell us when we
were children, if you worry, you do not
trust.
If you trust, you do not worry.
Why should I have such repose in a
world that's falling apart for the simple reason
that God is working everything after the counsel
of his own will?
Beyond my understanding, it's beyond my reasoning, it
doesn't have to act as I've said too
often, God does not offer me or you,
or all, you or me, any explanation.
Not a single explanation is due to me
from God.
I rest in his faithfulness, our father which
art in heaven.
Hallowed be thy name.
He doesn't advise them to pray for saints,
not even to Abraham, though later you remember
some of them said we have Abraham to
our father.
But he says the high and lofty one
who inherited eternity is your father, who is
in heaven.
And the first part of this petition, notice,
is not to the one who's praying, it's
for God, thy kingdom come.
You know, some people won't touch the book
of Matthews to say it's written to the
Jews.
It's the folk that usually say, of course,
and Mark you, when you hear somebody say
the Old Testament isn't for today, do you
know what?
He's got every liberal preacher in America behind
him.
He says the Old Testament isn't for today.
He's got every Jehovah's Witness behind him.
They say that the teaching doesn't start till
it comes to Matthew, and as you know,
they call all their places where they gather
kingdom halls.
I'm afraid they won't be anywhere near the
kingdom when it comes about.
My first and foremost interest is not in
myself.
The only thing I can petition in this
wonderful prayer is give me this day my,
give us, again it's collective, our daily bread.
The first thing I have to have a
total focus is that my sole desire for
living, my only reason for living, is to
see the kingdom of God come and set
all the rotten systems in the world.
Then we'll know peace till the Prince of
Peace comes.
These disciples, oh I can't tell you how
they said it.
The trouble with Prince, there's no atmosphere in
it, is there?
There's no emotion in it.
I don't think they went on and said,
hey, Lord, teach us to pray.
I imagine they said something like this, Lord,
Lord, teach us to pray.
They said as John taught his disciples, but
I don't know a prayer that John prayed
or taught.
I do know this, it was inadequate, otherwise
they'd never ask for more teaching.
There is no record I know of in
scripture, correct me afterwards if I'm wrong, I
could be.
I do not remember a record of Jesus
ever praying with his disciples.
He prayed for them, but not with them.
I've told you before, when I went to
hear Dr. Toth for the first time, to
preach in his church for a week, it
was awesome.
I said to his leading deacon, I can't
wait till prayer meeting night to hear Dr.
Toth pray.
He said, by the way, he doesn't come
to prayer meetings.
He said, what?
He doesn't come to prayer meetings.
Why not?
The people got up a petition to the
elders, asking him to stay away from prayer
meetings.
Because they said when they went to a
prayer meeting there would be silence.
Nobody dare pray until he prayed.
And after he prayed, nobody dare pray because
he had prayed.
He got so far into eternity when he
prayed.
Don't you think it was like that with
the Lord Jesus Christ?
Lord, teach us, give us that contact with
the throne.
Help us to come with confidence like helpless
children and say, God Almighty, maker of heaven
and earth, the source of all life and
joy and power and authority, teach us to
pray.
Come to these dumb lips.
Come to these stormy hearts.
Come to these blind eyes.
Teach us.
Take us by the hand like a mother
takes a child.
If I could have had one experience in
the life of Jesus, it would be when
he prayed.
I prefer that to seeing him raise the
dead, or see him walking on the water,
or see him astounding the Pharisees and Sadducees.
I would have liked supremely and only to
hear Jesus pray.
It must have been awesome.
It might have been dreadful even.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors.
Verse 14, If ye forgive men their trespasses,
your heavenly Father will forgive you.
But if you forgive not men that...
You can't pray with a grudge in your
heart.
If you have a grudge in your heart,
you may as well forget all about it.
You sabotage your prayer before you open your
lips.
Prayer is the simplest form of speech, Montgomery
said, that infant lips can try.
Prayer, the sublimest strains that reach the majesty
on high.
O thou by whom we come to God,
the life, the truth, the way, the path
of prayer thyself hath taught.
Lord, teach us how to pray.
But you can't do it with one sitting.
I've prayed with some of the greatest preachers
in the world, and I found out their
poverty, their need.
I've prayed with some simple coal miners in
Wales, and boy, they carried me to eternity
in less than five minutes.
It's not something academic.
It's not something even just because we know
the Word of God.
It's not a competition in words, or as
I say sometimes, we try to paint stained
glass windows with words, but we don't impress
God.
In the first part of this wonderful reading,
remember, he emphasizes arms.
In verse 16, he says, Moreover, when ye
fast, you know what we've done?
We've switched some words.
Notice it says, when ye fast, not if
ye fast.
You go down to John's epistle, the first
epistle in chapter 3, and it says there,
if we sin, that we put the when
to when we sin.
Sin is not normal to the life.
People say, well, sin is normal.
Well, if sinning is normal, then Adam was
not normal, because he didn't sin.
Then how many times did he sin before
he got thrown out of the garden?
A hundred thousand?
Once.
Out.
Again, Jesus found a dirty woman.
What did he say to her?
Go sin less?
No, go and sin no more.
A man called me the other way, from
Lindale.
Went to a certain church there, I won't
mention it.
It does have a spire, but anyhow.
He said, Mr. Rainer, I'm glad at the
end of the day to go to the
Lord and tell him all my sins.
I said, you are.
Aren't you?
I said, no.
If all you do is sin and repent
every day, you may as well be a
Catholic or be a Mohammedan.
Christianity is not a sinning religion, it's a
victorious religion.
The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth.
1 John 3 says, 1 John 3.
The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth.
It's in the present continuous sense they tell
her in the Greek.
It means this, that once you plunge into
the blood of Christ, as long as you
stay there by obedience, you'll be kept pure.
It's only when you step out of that.
You can't walk in the light and walk
in darkness at the same time.
It's like this nonsense of being carnal Christians.
They're not carnal.
If you're carnal, you're dead.
Forget your preacher.
Listen to what Romans say.
To be carnally minded is death.
There are no degrees in death.
You can't get dead and dead and dead
and deader.
Though some churches I've been, I thought every
night I went it got deader and deader
and deader.
There are degrees of life.
A little baby in its mother's arms, and
you see a big athlete, oh, he's got
a medal, he went to the Olympics.
Different degrees of life.
Different degrees of strength.
No degrees in death.
Isn't it false that Ephesians says, You hath
he quickened who were lame?
Doesn't it say that?
You hath he quickened who were sick?
Don't look so intelligent.
Come on.
What did it say?
You hath he quickened who were?
Dead.
You see, we preach to people and we
shoot over their heads sometimes because we preach
as though we're saying everybody here is secretly
an adulterer, secretly stealing money from his boss.
He's a liar.
He's this, he's that and the other.
The first argument God has with a man
is not that he's bad.
There are degrees of badness.
I don't believe the first argument God has
with any man on earth is that he's
bad.
His first argument is he's dead.
And a man can't move when he's dead.
God has to make the first move to
him.
He can't talk when he's dead.
He can't move when he's dead.
You and I were totally helpless.
God made the first move toward us.
We used to sing a hymn.
We haven't sung it in a long time.
Marvellous Grace of Our Loving God.
Have you ever used to sing that?
No, you don't remember.
You're tired, dear.
Marvellous Grace of Our Loving God.
Grace that exceeds our guilt and our sin.
Oh, my, that's wonderful.
When ye fast, not if ye fast, when
ye fast.
Let me tell you the decline.
The decline in the spiritual life.
Do you know when it begins?
When you've been on a mountaintop experience obeying
God, the first step down is you cease
to fast.
And the second step is you cease to
pray.
And the third is we cease to give
alms in the way that God has called
us to do it.
Except that we hang on to tithing.
Because some churches, you know, preach as though
if you die and you didn't pay last
week's tithe, Peter will hold you up at
the gates for it anyhow.
So you better pay up your tithing.
Oh, they preach it's not by works.
But, boy, don't they emphasise works in your
church?
Tithing, tithing, tithing, tithing.
There's no tithing in the New Testament.
They gave out of their abundance.
The most prosperous group I know in England
have no tithing.
They give out of their abundance.
They have a good business deal.
They don't say we give God 10%.
Look, oh, I give God a tenth.
You don't.
You don't give him a thing.
That's his income tax.
The offering is on top of that.
What God is crediting with you in eternity
is not the tenth you give.
It's what you give over the tenth.
The tenth is his by law.
An Old Testament law if you want to
keep it.
Oh, that didn't go over too well, so
let me skip on.
Verse 19.
Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth.
Next verse.
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.
What?
Aren't we all going to be the same
in heaven?
Not on your life.
The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain
in his day, wrote Cowper in the days
of John Wesley.
The dying thief will go to heaven, but
he won't be part of the bride because
he hasn't developed the spiritual character.
Do you think John Wesley, who for 35
years disciplined his life, lived on the poverty
level almost, made a fortune, built churches, built
orphanages, printed Bibles, printed hymn books, for 53
years kept his body under control, everything else
under control.
He's only going to have the same reward
as the man that died on the cross,
the dying thief.
You say, are we saved by works?
No, but we're rewarded by them.
We won't all have the same.
Do you think I expect the same reward
as the Apostle Paul?
Dear God, no.
People these days lay distress on what I
suffered for the Lord Jesus.
I think you'll get some reward for it.
I don't believe it's the crux of the
matter.
The thing is not suffering for him, the
thing is suffering with him.
When I go down the street and I
see everything as he sees it.
I see corruption as he sees it.
I see false religion as he sees it.
Do you think Jesus walked down the street
smiling when he saw the temple that was
once so majestic, the priests had to come
out and say, we can't minister for the
glory of God.
Come on, tell me the last time you
went to your big fancy church, or a
little church, and you had to stop the
service.
The glory of God was so majestic you
couldn't breathe hardly.
Most of our meetings are as exciting as
a Tupperware meeting.
I'm not talking about solid excitement.
I'm not talking of miracles for the sake
of it.
The greatest miracle is the presence of God.
When you tiptoe out and you've met him
in his glory and majesty and you've seen
that with all you have, in your cleanness
looks unclean, like even Job said, that he
felt he was unclean.
Peter had been with him in stupendous miracles.
One day he came there and he said,
depart from me, I'm a sinful man of
God.
I'll tell you, if you live in the
blazing light of Isaiah 6, you'll never get
proud.
You'll never get self-satisfied.
You'll never get contented.
Young preachers write to me and say this,
that and the other about my books or
my ministry or my text.
I say, listen, I feel less confident now
than I did 50 years ago.
Side 2 Lay out for yourself no treasure
on earth.
I don't know if you remember a few
years ago there was an amazing article in
Reader's Digest.
We used to take it then.
We don't take it these days.
A man was in some bazaar somewhere in
the Orient and he saw a man with
a, like a tree and he had lots
of necklaces hanging on it.
He said, I'd like that green one.
How much is that?
Well, he said, it's rather unique, I think.
Notice how the beads are made.
I think the clasp is gold, various things.
And he gave him some money for it.
The man brought it home and gave it
to his little child in England.
The child was playing with it and it
broke.
So he grabbed all the pieces together, all
the beads, put them in a little sack
and he went to the jeweler's shop.
And he said, could you thread these beads
for me, please?
There are, whatever it was, about 75 or
80 of them.
Well, it's rather tedious.
I could do it.
Come back in a couple of days.
He went back.
The man said, where did you get this?
I bought it in a bazaar when I
was somewhere in the Orient.
Somebody suggested it might be real jade.
Yeah.
So, it's fairly valuable.
No.
Not fairly valuable.
Uniquely valuable.
Why?
Come here.
He took a magnifying glass.
He said, you see these beads?
There are actually 78 of them.
A string of beads.
What are they worth?
Oh, a benzo buys them, maybe a quarter
of a million dollars, maybe.
What?
I bought them for three dollars in the
Orient.
Look here.
Well, it's only a string of beads.
No, it's not.
What is it?
He said it's a love letter from Napoleon
to Josephine.
On every bead, there's a different word.
He's declaring his love.
What a gorgeous woman she is.
She's the only woman in the world like
this.
And he's pouring out his love.
This thing is worth a king's ransom.
I wonder how many people have passed it
in that bazaar.
I don't want it.
My wife's got enough baubles and stuff without
taking any more.
She needs to get rid of a lot.
That's a goodwill store.
So what's the good of taking some more?
The one man bought it and discovered.
It reminds you of the man, surely in
the Scripture, that went over a field and
he stumbled and he found there was a
pot of gold.
He went and bought the field.
Do you know one day God's going to
get this blessed book and reveal it to
us and say, look, I gave you a
love letter.
You didn't read it too often.
You didn't have hold it in your embrace.
You didn't weep over it much.
You read it as though it were a
newspaper.
I opened to you the possibilities of grace.
Again, listen you young guys.
No man that ever lived ever had the
bigger Bible than I have.
You can have Finney, Wesley, Booth, the foundation
of the great missionary societies, Gilmore of Mongolia,
Judson of Burma, Carey of India, CT study
in Africa, Cambridge 7 in India, only had
this book.
Spurgeon said of the Bible, it's a checkbook
signed in the blood of Christ.
And God just asked you to go by
faith and cash those checks at the counter.
Dear Lord, don't you think some of us
are going to be a bit embarrassed when
we get there?
To that awesome judgment seat?
Because this God is my Father.
Verse 25, I'm going to rush over this
now.
But let me say again, lay up for
yourselves treasures in heaven.
How do you do that?
By obedience.
We won't all wear the same garments in
eternity.
We won't all have the same crowns in
eternity.
There are at least five crowns.
There's a martyr's crown.
Anybody want one?
There's a crown of righteousness.
There are five distinct crowns.
We won't all be the same.
We'll have distinctions.
One star differs from another star in glory.
Not just in the sky when you look
up and see twinkling stars and planets.
Do you think I expect to have the
same eminence in eternity that William Booth had?
Or the blessed Apostle Paul?
John Wesley said the holiest man that ever
lived from the days of the Apostle Paul
was a man by the name of John
Fletcher.
I happen to have a copy of his
life at home.
The book is called Wesley's Designated Successor.
Wesley said the great Methodist church now is
moving over the earth.
I could only die comfortably if I could
hand the reins of the Methodist church over
to John Fletcher.
He is the most holy man this world
has ever seen since the Apostle Paul.
Well, he didn't miss it by much.
John Wesley stood at the grave of that
young man.
And John Wesley was living about thirty years
after he buried the man that he wanted
to give the leadership to.
At the grave, someone said Mr. Wesley, don't
worry now.
You know, life's very short.
You're getting old and you'll soon be up
there in eternity with him.
He said, friend, John Fletcher will be so
near to the throne.
This is Wesley, mark it.
One of the greatest men and holiest men
that lived.
He says he'll be so near to the
throne I shall only see the glory of
Jesus reflected in the face of that man.
I'll be amongst the least of all saints.
Wonderful testimony.
Here's a cure for your anxiety.
Verse 25 I say unto you take no
thought for your life.
What you shall eat or what you shall
drink nor yet for your body what you
shall put on He's not life more than
meat and the body than raiment.
Turn over the page or maybe on the
same page as above.
Verse 31 Take no thought saying what shall
we eat or what shall we drink or
wherewithal shall we be clothed for after all
these things do the Gentiles or unbelievers seek.
You're heavenly far farther north what you need
of all these things.
What things?
All the things in the chapter.
Read it.
It's a fascinating chapter.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God which
is the emphasis of the first petition remember
in the prayer and his righteousness and all
these things shall be added unto you.
Wherefore take no thought for the morrow.
You say I have to take thought for
tomorrow.
I've got a family.
I've got a refrigerator.
I've got my refrigerator full of food.
I've got a closet full of clothes.
I don't need to take anxious any thought
but that's not the word.
The Greek word says take no anxious thought
for tomorrow.
Don't be worried about the visible.
Don't be worried about the perishable.
You and I are supposed to be living
on a stage above this world.
We see it.
We're in it.
We're not of it.
We're not moved around with its changing tides
like other people are.
For one reason and that is we have
a father in heaven.
Your father in heaven north what things ye
of need of.
What a blessing he doesn't leave it to
me.
Again, would we choose the hard places?
We pray sometimes asking God to take things
out of our lives he put there so
he'd prove our characters.
He doesn't want to move them out of
the way.
He wants me to give me strength to
get over those things.
He wants me again to be more than
conqueror according to Romans 8 37 more than
conqueror through him that loved us.
Every day I pray.
I think not only of countries I've been
in but the different priests that they had
there.
I remember in Thailand getting up early one
gorgeous morning and walking down the road the
priest was already going down to the sanctuary
and people were coming to the door with
little bowls of rice to give to him
and he had a man with a sack
pouring it all in to give to the
temple gods.
Went to another country they had flags flying
in the breeze and they said those those
represent prayers which have blown away there to
the invisible God somewhere in the sky.
You know nobody has laid the plan out
for salvation and the plan for life for
the Christian like the word of God.
This is why the devil tries to drive
us away from the word.
What the devil fears most of all I'm
convinced of this is that you and I
get really intimate with God.
He's more than a beneficial father that hands
me out blessings.
He's more than a rescue station when I'm
in trouble.
I don't use him as a convenience.
He isn't running a convenience store to hand
me out everything I need.
He's trying to develop my character for eternity.
Again one star differs from another star in
glory.
Again we look back in eternity many of
us and wish we'd just had enough courage
to ask God not to give us burdens
equal to our strength but give us strength
equal to the burdens.
I often pray.
I don't know how you pray.
I pray in my own simple way but
often I pray Lord lay some burden on
me that nobody else wants.
I don't care what it costs.
I don't care about the loneliness.
I don't care about the grief.
I don't care about the sleeplessness.
I don't care about the criticism.
I want to know that in this life
I'm getting the very best from God which
is nonsense in the eyes of the world
and nonsense in the eyes of the people
in your church.
I thank God for experiences with men that
were not famous.
Two that traveled on a team I had
that were just princes in prayer.
There were about six of us on that
team walking the length.
We didn't have five dollars between a lot
of us.
We lived most meals on a slice of
bread and a half of a tomato.
Sometimes a little bit of bully beef.
I learned more in the time I spent
with those three men than I learned before
or since.
We'd come in from a street meeting at
midnight when we'd maybe been stoned or water
thrown on us or something.
We'd just get a cup of cocoa and
we'd go a slice of bread maybe half
a tomato.
Say well boys after midnight let's go pray.
And Harry Toff they'd call me Skipper instead
of Captain Skipper.
I think we should pray.
I knew what that meant.
We all pray.
If one suffers you all suffer.
If one prays we all pray.
And we'd go down to pray.
That young man himself would sometimes pray four
or five times minutes or an hour without
stopping.
We wore a thick blue wool shirt and
I'd tie something like this and I'd look
at the end of prayer and see that
man just exhausted.
I can remember some of his petitions.
I can remember his intimacy with God.
When he finished the other man who was
totally blind maybe the greatest intercessor I ever
met.
We had a meeting in a church in
London just outside of London and I had
to go back into the city on the
train.
We had breakfast.
Very frugal breakfast.
I said to this young Welshman Glen I
have to go down into the city I'll
be back this afternoon.
I left him at ten o'clock in
the morning kneeling by a wooden chair on
a wooden floor and when I went back
at three in the afternoon he was still
pulling his heart out.
Yes he went to the Bible School of
Wales intimately taught with the what was the
man right Rhys Howells one of the great
intercessors of our day.
Have you read his book Rhys Howells Intercessory
You need to buy all you fellows.
Rub your nose in the dust and you're
good.
You see a man with a praying ministry
never struts.
You never see his picture on the face
of your church magazine.
All the others want that.
He doesn't.
He lives with God.
He's intimate with God.
He has a love relationship with God.
He talks with God.
God talks with him.
Everything is dust after that.
He knows the heart of God.
He knows the mind of God.
One of these times I think we'll say
now next time we come there's going to
be no quitting at nine o'clock or
half past we're going to pray as long
as God wants us to pray till midnight
or one or two in the morning.
We should do that.
Once you do that once we soar into
the heavenlies I was in a prayer meeting
last Saturday night where I felt such a
wonderful touch of God.
There was some real, I felt concise, intelligent
praying.
So remind me brother Dale I'll put you
on charge of reminding me next time we
come to say that next time we come
we're not going to finish at nine o
'clock we're just going to pray.
I still pray Lord teach me to pray.
There's no vocabulary.
Prayer is not a vocabulary.
Prayer is a spirit.
Prayer is a disposition.
Prayer is a life.
I forgot that book I was going to
bring it tonight.
You need to call at the house and
I'll let you have it.
Teach me to pray.
You can pray a more forceful prayer without
opening your lips very often than you can
with your lips.
And if you had a voice like a
bull it wouldn't move a gun.
When something's kindled inside you know that there's
something creative.
You don't have to go to Bible school
to learn to pray.
And how do you pray?
By doing it.
By basing your the Word of God as
a foundation for your prayer.
Praying first and foremost for the Kingdom of
God.
But the Kingdom of God will come first
in your own heart if it isn't there.
And then there'll be another.
There's no hope for our generation if we
don't get a move of the Spirit of
God.
You may as well consign your children to
death.
I've got no children now.
Young children.
But I've got grandchildren.
Just as precious.
I think of them day by day.
There's nobody going to change this world unless
we have a divine intervention.
God comes and stops society in its tracks.
That's the only way.
Forget my needs.
Forget what I want.
And I pray earnestly, zealously, only Thy Kingdom
can.
To uproot every other kingdom.
Financial kingdom.
Kingdom of the cults.
Kingdoms of heathendom.
There's no power enough to do that.
It's only divine power.
We're going to pray for a little while
now.
I want you to pray.
Even if you only pray, pray maybe with
tears.
Lord, teach me to pray.
Start me on a prayer course tonight.
Start me on a new route of prayer.
Something I've never known in my life before.
If you pray, he'll do it.
Thank you.
So let's pray for a season.
Thank you.