I'm not going to make any personal remarks
just because this is the last meeting.
You know my feelings about what you do
here and about you people, but I want
to give more time to what's on my
mind and heart.
I'm thankful for this attendance, but sometimes, and
I thought this evening, with such perfect weather
and as many Christians in all this area,
of various shades and grades and degrees, and
the hour in which we're living so awesome,
I marvel at the places running over, not
because of any preacher, but because of the
sheer emergency of the time that we're in.
And I know nothing that sizes it up
any better than a verse that jumped out
of the Magnificat, and that's not my text
tonight, from Luke 1.
And I didn't see it, I'd seen it
many times, but I hadn't seen it.
Verse 53, Mary said, He hath filled the
hungry with good things, and the rich he
hath sent empty away.
That's the way people leave church today, most
of them.
Old Sister Smith goes away happy because she
came for a blessing and got it, but
it may be the deacon so-and-so,
rich and increased with goods and needing nothing,
rich like Laodicea, went empty away because he
came empty and didn't come for anything anyhow.
It's a strange and weird time, but that's
not my text.
I want you to think with me about
what is a Christian's supreme experience.
That is, after he's become born again, because
that's the way it starts.
Paul tells us in a sort of autobiographical
chapter, in 2 Corinthians 12, what happened to
him.
I knew a man in Christ about fourteen
years ago, whether in the body I cannot
tell, or whether out of the body I
cannot tell, God knoweth.
Such and one called up to the third
heaven, and I knew such a man, whether
in the body or out of the body
I cannot tell, God knoweth.
How that he was called up into paradise,
and heard unspeakable words, which it is not
lawful for a man to utter, of such
a one will I glory.
Yet of myself I will not glory, but
in mine infirmities.
For though I would desire the glory, I
shall not be a fool.
For I will say the truth, but now
I forbear, lest any man think of me
above that which he seeth me to be,
or that he hearth of me, unless I
should be exalted, after whatever this was that
happened to him, above measure, it got him
into trouble.
He never would have had the thorn in
the flesh if he hadn't been for this
wonderful spiritual experience, or whatever it was.
Through the abundance of the revelations there was
given to me, the messenger of Satan, but
given to him of God.
Now that's one of those strange combinations, where
the sons of God, for instance, met with
Job, and says the old devil showed up
in the same crowd.
And that's what happened.
The messenger of Satan debuffied me, lest I
should be exalted above measure.
For this thing I besought the Lord thrice,
that it might depart from me.
He said unto me, My grace, that Bill
just sang about.
My grace is sufficient for thee, for my
strength is made perfect in weakness.
Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in
my infirmities.
He's not glorifying the infirmity, he's glorying in
the infirmity.
That the power of Christ may rest upon
me.
Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, reproaches, necessities,
persecutions, and distresses for Christ's sake.
For when I am weak, then am I
strong.
Now this is a strange threefold chapter out
of the biography of the greatest gospel preacher
of all time.
He relates how fourteen years earlier, he had
a trip to the third heaven, wherever that
is or was.
And from all that high adventure upward, he
dropped as low as you can get, the
other direction, into the valley of the thorn
of the flesh.
So deliverance wasn't granted.
God didn't give him subtraction, gave him addition,
more grace.
And found grace to stand whatever it was,
by the power of God.
Three chapters.
He rose to ecstasy, and he dropped to
agony, and then he rose to victory.
Have you had that kind of experience?
What did Paul hear?
I don't know, he couldn't tell about it.
How do you expect me to tell you
what he heard?
Was it anybody of the Spirit?
I don't know.
Where is the third heaven?
That's beside the point.
Was it a supernatural experience?
Well, let it go at that.
It was a rapturous sort of thing, but
it wasn't in order in the sight of
God as the best thing for Paul to
have, because he sent trouble immediately on the
heels of it.
Sometimes children have raptures, it's a good word.
Nothing sweeter than the rapture of happy children.
I used to, when I was quite a
youngster, read Alice in Wonderland, and then the
match volume through the looking glass.
Some of you maybe remember that.
That land on the other side of the
looking glass, where everything's backwards.
And I used to go over to the
next room and crawl up to the dresser,
wouldn't give anything to worry if I could
have got into that other territory.
Trying to get through that old looking glass
to see what it was like over there.
Well, that would have given me raptures, I
think, but I couldn't make the trip.
And that's why people go to Disney World,
that's why some of them go on drug
trips at the other end of the line,
trying to get away from reality.
God has granted some rare experiences to Christians,
I don't deny that.
I think there have been two kinds.
Some who've had such a trip, others I'm
not so sure about.
I've heard about it, but they snowball when
they tell it, it gets bigger all the
time.
And I don't know whether they had a
vision or a nightmare.
But there is such a thing as a
trip to the third heaven, and it wouldn't
do for us to have one, why, you'd
want to put it on Technicolor, you'd want
to go around advertising, going to tell Friday
night about my trip to the third heaven,
going to write a book about it, hope
it's a bestseller and all the rest of
that sort of thing.
But somebody has said our spiritual experiences can
be impoverished by too many spiritual experiences.
That's quite true.
I wouldn't hunt too many of those.
If it hadn't been for this one, there's
a safe, I wouldn't have had all that
trouble, God said he was going to get
proud about it.
There's a hymn, one of the old hymns,
that we never sang much.
Hard to find it.
Spirit of God descend upon my heart.
Oh, that's a masterpiece.
And this line, I ask in no dream,
no prophet ecstasy, no sudden rending of the
veil of flesh, no angel visitant, no opening
skies, but take the dimness of my soul
away.
That's a good prayer.
I'm not asking for a fancy revelation.
I want my soul cleared up.
I remember one time, I was a young
fellow, I wanted to have some kind of
an experience, never could work up an experience
to suit me.
So now I'm going out in the woods,
way deep in the woods this time, sit
there and think maybe I'll see an angel
or hear a voice or something.
Got out there and got located.
And a rascal of an old crow landed
in the tree just above me and yelled
at me the whole time I was sitting
there.
I think the devil got into that crow.
And the devil got into me almost because
he got mad at the crow.
Well, I wasn't ready then for any revelation
if he had been run on the way.
I don't know what all this was.
I don't think it was eye trouble that
Paul had.
I know some folks were willing to give
him their eyes.
He must have had eye trouble.
But I rather think that Alexander McLaren said
it was more than a splinter in a
finger.
I think so too.
There was agony in it, I believe.
No doubt, day by day, week by week,
month by month.
The greatest Christian experience in the second place
is not a mighty deliverance.
That's wonderful.
Paul didn't get it though.
The Hebrew children said, now God is able
to keep us from going into this furnace.
But if not.
Are you ready for the if nots?
If God doesn't do that wonderful thing, and
I have to go through with this, I'm
going to glorify him anyhow.
Healing.
I don't think God is going to heal
everybody.
Or that even His intention is to heal
everybody.
I have some wonderful friends who think that
everybody ought to be healed according to the
will of God because that's what He wants
to do.
But He didn't heal the greatest preacher who
ever lived.
Paul, who was in the best shape to
get healed, anybody I know of, but he
didn't get it.
Some of the worst things on earth can
happen to some of the best people.
I've been on this road a long time.
I think of the professor in New Orleans
Seminary.
Some time ago I was there for a
week to speak.
He used to be there, and I think
he's come back.
My good man, oh holy man of God.
Went out holding meetings for a week, came
home, went into the house, found the body
of his butchered wife, and never found yet
the rascal who did it.
How do you put it together?
I don't.
You can't either.
I don't know why, but that's agony, beloved.
And he's the kind of man you wouldn't
think it ought to be coming his way.
I think of Amy Carmichael.
I love her works.
Sweet, tender soul.
And yet one night she didn't know they'd
been digging a hole out there on the
campus somewhere.
She took a little walk and fell in
it and so injured herself that no sedatives
could deaden the pain.
And for 15 years she suffered agony and
wrote the best thing she ever wrote in
all the years.
And you don't understand that of all people.
Well, you know, the Bible tells us about
the righteous man who, going through the valley
of Baca, leaves it a well.
And he said, when you go through the
valley of suffering, leave a well for the
next fellow to drink from when he comes
along.
And we don't do that.
But some people have, thank God.
Some people are healed.
I sat in Billy Graham's home and heard
his father-in-law, Dr. Bell, the missionary,
then living, of course, tell about the healing
of the other daughter in a miraculous way,
nearly dead, lung gone, not in the will
of God, bitter against the will of God,
not married and all out of fix.
And she got right with God and then
said, maybe God would heal me.
And a few folks had her prayer.
She said, I'm not taking any more treatment.
That doctor called up her dad, the doctor,
and said, what are we going to do?
He said, we'll do what she wants to
do.
She got well, she's married, she's as healthy
as anybody today.
That's a miracle.
And I came down that mountain that night
on cloud nine.
I said, Lord, you're still in the business.
And I've had an incident in my own
hometown along that very line that's thrilled my
soul.
Now, some have the ecstasy and some have
the agony.
Don't ask me why it's partitioned like that.
Don't ask God anyhow, but two questions.
Don't ask him why.
Don't ask him where or when or how.
That's all his business.
There are only two things to ask him.
And Paul asked him both when he got
saved.
Who art thou, Lord?
And what will you have me to do?
That's all you're supposed to ask.
Get straight on that.
God will straighten out the rest of it
in the hereafter, if not now.
The greatest Christian experience is to find sufficient
grace.
His grace is.
It is.
It is now.
It doesn't say it will be if you
pray long enough.
It's already sufficient for your every need.
I don't know why it is that you
have a testimony meeting in some places and
the fellow who was the town drunk gets
up and tells about being converted.
That's wonderful.
And everybody says, Amen.
But let some good brother stand and say,
Well, friends, I didn't have an experience like
that, but by the grace of God I've
been kept 60, 70, 80 years by the
power of God.
And the attitude is so what?
Why doesn't that excite some of us?
And then healing.
One person gets up and tells about being
healed.
I love to hear it.
But somebody else wasn't healed.
And they say, Well, that doesn't add up.
How do you know it doesn't add up?
In the book of God.
Sometimes it takes a thorn.
There was given me a thorn of the
flesh.
Jesus did not glorify suffering.
Paul did not glorify the suffering.
He gloried in it.
Jesus said this woman whom Satan had bothered,
bound.
He gave the devil credit for all this.
Paul said in one of his letters, I
wanted to come visit you folks, but I
was hindered.
And he didn't use that preachery word.
I was providentially detained.
Oh, that does sound so preachery.
That's all right.
But he said the devil got in the
way.
I like it that way.
That's what happened anyhow.
Satan hindered me.
In the world you shall have tribulation.
So don't be surprised if it comes along.
Satan is going to cast some of you
into prison.
Well, that was very interesting news.
And so it goes all through the book.
The greatest Christian experience is to believe that
all things are working together for good, whether
it looks like it does or not.
And that his grace is sufficient, but the
factual must become factual, and we must live
as though it were true.
Grace for all gears.
You remember the day of the old model
Ford just had two gears, high and low.
High wasn't very high, and the low was
very low sometimes.
Not much of a Ford, but we got
around in it.
And then we put in that intermediate gear.
Well, I thank God that they that wait
on the Lord shall travel in high gear,
mount up with wings as eagles, run and
not be weary, walk and not faint.
Maybe somebody here tonight is saying, that preacher
doesn't know it, but I'm in extreme low
gear.
Some of you look a little bit like
a chair-up friend.
It can't be that bad.
Well, there's grace for all kinds of gears
in the will of God.
And when you're in that will, you have
nothing to fear.
I've told you already, I think, about when
Augustine started out on a trip and his
mother wanted to go, and he said, Mother,
you're too old.
You might not make it.
She said, My life is hidden with Christ
in God, and if you're homed, H-O
-M-E-D, be homed in God.
You can't die away from home.
That does me a lot of good, because
I'm away from home in some old dark,
dismal motel room most of the time.
Wake up in the middle of the night,
what if something would hit me here?
It hasn't yet.
Oh, it hasn't, but not bad.
And I say, Well, I'm homed in God.
Nothing can get through God's protection to me.
God knows what He's doing about all this.
And we read about the sparrow that nests
in the temple.
I love to hear the birds, and they're
around here.
I heard this afternoon, I've been disappointed, because
one of my favorites, the Hooded Warbler, hasn't
been singing.
And I thought, Well, what's happened to him?
Somebody shot him, I reckon.
But this afternoon, I heard his sweet little
chip down the road, and quite a song
he has, really.
And the Wood Thrush came along and sang
for my edification.
But you know the sparrow in the temple?
The sparrows are despised, but this variety, there
are 15 or 20 or more kinds of
sparrows, for that matter.
The song, and the White-throated, and the
one that I like best is the sparrow
when I used to hoe corn and cotton.
The hotter it was, the louder he sang,
all the rest would shut up.
But he sang right along, it couldn't get
too hot for him.
The field sparrow.
Well, the sparrow here puts his nest in
the temple.
You know, a lot of people want to
abide in the Lord, but they don't get
the thing right.
You can't be rested till you're nested.
You can't just run to God every once
in a while, and you get in a
jam, you get in trouble.
You've got to nest, and two words, one
says abide, that's a good word, and that's
what you're supposed to do.
And dwell, that means settle down.
Are you settled down in the Lord, or
just when things are going pretty good, you
forget about it, and then that awful news
comes, or that doctor says you've got this
or that, and then you run to the
Lord in a hurry.
Why aren't you nested?
You'll never be rested like you ought to
be, till you're nested, till you're abiding there.
There are so many depressed people these days.
Missionaries come home, many of them crack up,
and preachers, and there are books galore on
the subject.
Why can't I be like the great saints
of the past, and not have all these
depressions and so on?
What are you talking about?
Which saints are you talking about?
Moses, almost ready to quit.
David's had to look up to sea bottom.
I'm going to fly away and be like
a bird, and be at rest, oh, for
the wings of a dove.
And Jeremiah said one of the worst things,
Wilt thou be unto me as a lyre,
and as a brook that fails?
That's an awful thing to say to Almighty
God.
But he went on preaching anyhow.
Poor old Elijah under the juniper, all the
good folks are gone but me, and I'm
not feeling so well myself.
Jonah, let me die, let me die, after
his great revival meeting, let me die.
Spurgeon, with his gout, never could get rid
of whatever that, what form of rheumatism or
whatever it was, that the dear man go
to France, so I'll come back and preach
some more.
But oh, so beset with depression.
How about Robert Murray McShane, and Robertson and
Brighton, they didn't live long, both died young,
but beset so much of their lives with
depression, that doesn't justify it.
But don't get too blue about the thing,
they made it.
And they're blessing us today, even with their
short-lived testimony.
Well, Jesus said, you said, but Jesus said,
let not your heart be troubled.
Yes, and he also said, now is my
soul troubled, and what shall I say?
That's what he said.
Oh, I know, he had the weight of
a whole world on him.
And he was human, you can't take it
apart and put it back together, but there
was a sort of a drawing back, as
he faced what lay before him.
Think of the agony of it, they tell
me that the original drops of blood, there
is really clots of blood.
It was as if there were clots of
blood falling to the ground.
So, he knew he had the weight of
all the sins of all the world upon
him.
I don't ever expect to get to the
bottom of what that agony was, how could
I?
There's a picture that, oh, one of the
evangelists sent to me, and I've hung it
up over my desk.
It's not pretty, it's Jesus in the garden,
I know there are many pictures of it.
Some of them, I don't care much about
them, it looks like he's not having any
trouble at all in some of these pictures
of Jesus in the garden.
But not this one, he's hanging on to
a rock as it were, down here lie
the disciples asleep.
And it's written all over him, agony, agony,
agony.
I can understand the blood in a case
like that.
Some time ago, two preachers were talking, one
said, man, I sweated blood over that problem,
and the other said, don't let me ever
hear you say that again.
You don't know what sweating blood is.
Don't ever say that again, he was absolutely
right.
And then don't get your head up, dear
friend, about something that's not worth the trouble.
Some dear saints remind me of a man
swatting mosquitoes with a sledgehammer.
Don't ever do that, you'll bust up all
the furniture and break out all the window
panes.
And you'll get all excited over something not
worth it.
Go tearing around, swatting right and left, and
you won't kill many mosquitoes after all doing
that.
So, spend your energy on something that's worthwhile.
For when I get up in the morning,
I have beside the bed there, God is
able to make all the grace abound toward
you, so that always having all sufficiency in
all things, you may abound to every good
work.
In other words, there'll always be enough of
everything you need to do all God wants
you to do, as long as He wants
you to do it.
What more do you want?
That wraps it up, doesn't it?
That's all I can think of, that takes
in all the territory.
And then I've got another one up on
the wall.
The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me.
Psalm 138.8 The Lord has started a
good work, the Bible says He'll perfect that.
God starts something, He doesn't make a failure
out of it.
We have need of patience, beloved.
Oh, I think of the widow who came
to Jesus, avenged me of my adversary.
She really meant vindicate, that's a better word.
She wanted justice, I've not been treated right.
Vindicate me of my adversary.
The Bible does say, Shall not God avenge?
And He will, the vengeance is His too.
And sometimes, I think about the preacher who
said the other day when Walter Cronikite used
to broadcast the news, he'd always end up
by saying, that's the way it is.
He said, I always said, no Walter, that's
just the way it looks.
That's right.
Many times after hearing the news, or reading
the news, I find myself out walking.
Careless seems the great avenger.
Lord, where are you?
Why don't you come down and straighten out
this mess?
Where is the great avenger today?
History's pages but record.
One death grapple in the darkness, twixt old
systems and the word.
Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on
the throne.
That's the way it looks.
But that scaffold sways the future.
And behind the dim unknown standeth God, within
the shadows, keeping watch above His own.
To God be the glory.
Fanny Crosby could have sat around and said,
Why did that nurse get hold of the
wrong poultice and lay it on my eyes
when I was a baby and blind me
for ninety years?
Now, if anybody had anything to grumble about,
she had it.
But she went through the valley of bacon.
She didn't do that.
She left wells behind her.
And what wells?
To God be the glory.
Blessed assurance, redeemed how I love to proclaim
it.
All the way my Savior leads me.
Draw me nearer.
Jesus, keep me near the cross.
He hideth my soul.
Jesus is tenderly calling.
Savior more than life to me.
When Jesus comes to reward His servants, rescue
the perishing.
Some day the silver cord will break.
I shall know Him.
Pass me not, O gentle Savior.
That's what I call digging wells.
And there's not a Sunday goes by but
we drink water from some of those wells.
Written by a woman who never saw.
And she could have been cynical all her
life, like this dear girl today, Johnny.
A normal girl to suddenly have such an
awful accident and be completely paralyzed from the
waist down.
Looks like for the rest of life.
Well, she could drive, but she's written and
said some marvelous things.
Seems like the Lord has to half kill
some of us to get things like that
to come from us.
But it's going to get better.
Some time ago I was invited up to
Hampton Institute, the great black college, to preach
to over 400 black preachers.
I tell you, I nearly preached myself to
death.
I said, if I get white folks to
back me up like this, I might turn
out to be a pretty fair kind of
preacher.
We had it.
And I was preaching on this rock I
stand, and you know how they can get
the rhythm of the thing.
And I ended every paragraph by saying, on
that rock I stand.
And they saw it coming.
They caught on.
So I'd get to that, and when I
came around that place, the whole crowd.
And on that rock I stand.
But we had a revival meeting there pretty
soon.
And I had the time of my life.
And then they stood up and my heart
melted when they started, farther along we'll know
all about it.
I sat down and patted one foot and
just bowed.
I said, I'm just bowed for sheer joy.
I said, Lord, this crowd's going somewhere, and
I'm going with them.
They're going somewhere.
I don't care what.
And if I only had had a recorder
and could have taken that down, I'd play
it every day of my life.
Because that was just spontaneous, unpracticed, from the
heart it was a blessed thing.
It's a good thing to be ready for
it.
Have you ever stopped to think, dear friend,
what remarkable things we are here tonight.
These bodies of ours.
Doctors will tell you that it's a wonderful
thing if you really think it over.
For instance, your eyes don't see.
You see with your eyes.
Your ears can't hear.
We say, you hear with your ears.
You weren't in there, there wouldn't be any
hearing done.
Your tongue can't talk.
You talk with your tongue.
Take your tongue out and lay it on
the table.
It wouldn't start talking.
You talk with your tongue.
You can see a brain, but you can't
see a mind.
Ever thought of that?
Now, the tenet's you.
Call it spirit, soul, or whatever you want
to.
You're the tenet.
Your body's the tenement.
You're in the flesh.
That doesn't mean the old nature there so
much as the body in that case.
Well, what's going to happen when the tenement
leaves the tenement and they take the tenement
out to the graveyard and say, dust to
dust, ashes to ashes.
What became of the tenet?
Well, if you were a Christian, you went
to be with Jesus.
Of course.
But marvel of it all.
I don't understand all about what happens between
death and the resurrection.
I wish the Bible told me more about
it.
There's some things that I'm not absolutely clear
because I can't get that far yet.
But I'll get that far one of these
days.
Be a wonderful thing.
And God has shown us in his word
enough to quit up our appetite for the
rest of it.
As my dear one lay nearly at the
point of death, I used to preach on
living in the great until.
The New Testament's just full of until, until,
until.
Sarah heard it a number of times.
At the last, she couldn't talk.
She had the thing in her mouth to
breathe through.
But she could scribble a little.
And only I could decipher it.
And I've got it put away in my
book.
I can't tell you some things I'm going
through until.
And that's what I'm waiting on.
Just until.
Sometimes I get letters from folks since I've
told that.
They don't answer yours truly.
They say until.
You write to me sometimes.
Just put until.
I know what you're talking about.
And I think of that dear saint that
suffered so.
Oh, suffered so.
She always insisted there be a vacant chair
beside the bed.
She said, I like to think that Jesus
sits there.
It makes it easier to talk with him
when I try to pray.
Visualize him being there.
And then she went to be with the
Lord.
And the nurse told it this way.
She said, I had been out of the
room for just a few moments.
When I came back in, she was gone.
Lying there just like always.
Except that one hand was out on the
chair.
That's the way I want to go.
I think you do too.
I want to get home before dark.
This good man wrote that marvelous prayer poem.
And you know they've put it to music
now.
In one place where they had music of
it.
And it's distributed from the Bible College.
And I've been hearing folks tell about blessing
received.
Lord, I want to get home before dark.
I'm not going into that.
But I think many of you tonight, you've
had your things you can't understand.
You don't understand.
You got a thorn in the flesh?
Maybe not.
Or something that, Lord, why?
What have I done to have all this?
Well, he knows.
And he has said, I've done it with
a purpose.
Because my grace is sufficient for thee.
I believe most of you folks, at least,
would like to say, Brother Haven, I've not
been coming here just to pass away the
time.
I've heard the messages that the men have
wrote.
God's blessed me.
I don't want to take what I've heard
and just sort of put it away as
a souvenir.
I want to do it.
How many of you have firmly resolved by
the grace of God that this preaching and
teaching you've heard this week, you are not
going to just accept it as information and
be dismissed?
Some of you have told me you've already
started working.
And you want to make this a reality
in your lives.
Because we're accountable for what we hear.
It's not as easy as it looks just
to walk out and say, well, it was
up to Ben Lippin and I heard so
and so.
Friend, you are under responsibility.
But it's a blessed responsibility.
And I beseech you in the name of
Jesus.
I could ask you how many will do
it, but I don't know.
I'm not going to force everybody to get
up and say, you wouldn't sit there.
But you look honest.
I'm going to leave it between you and
God.
Because I believe God knows already.
You have maybe last night or sometime already.
You say, Lord, that preacher said the thing
I needed and I want to do something
about it.
And I can, but by the grace of
God.
He'll give you the victory.
You don't need so much the ecstasy.
We're going to have a lot of that
in the world to come.
When you have got some of the agony,
get through to God's victory.
That'll carry you through.
Father, bless what's been said.
I never know what heartaches are represented in
a crowd of this size.
What desperation.
What problems that avenge me and avenge me
of my adversary, Lord.
Where are you?
Like Mary and Martha.
Lord, if you'd been here, this wouldn't have
happened.
No, don't let us go at it that
way, Lord.
But let us say, thy will be done.
Help me to believe that grace is sufficient
for this need.
I pray it in Jesus' name.
Amen.