Welcome to From the Pulpit in Classic Sermons.
Each week we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers in the
Christian faith, and powerful sermons for modern preachers
too.
This week we have Leonard Ravenhill with his
message, Abraham in Light.
They look at the Gospel of Luke, sorry,
the 17th chapter.
Luke chapter 17 and verse 32.
Not many words, just three.
Remember Lot's wife.
The preachers will tell you that a text
without its context is a pretext, at least
that's what I was always taught.
And if we deal with a text, we
should deal with what surrounds it.
That's except you get in the book of
Proverbs, you can't do that very well.
And you can't do that in the Old
Testament when you get to the begats, it's
a bit difficult to do it there.
But you can do it here.
Verse 32, remember Lot's wife.
Go back to verse 28.
Here's the framework.
Likewise also as it was in the days
of Lot, they did eat, they drank, they
bought, they sold, they planted, they builded.
But the same day that Lot went out
of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from
heaven and destroyed them all.
To go a bit further back there into
verse 26, it says as it was in
days of Noah, so shall it be also
in the days of the Son of Man.
They did eat, they drank, they married wives
and they were given in marriage.
I guess the Hebrew there says, if you
go back to the Old Testament, they married
wives and then they exchanged wives, which is
a habit these days.
Until the day that Noah entered into the
ark and the flood came and destroyed them
all.
To identify with this, we need to go
back to Genesis chapter 6.
As it was in the days of Noah,
it says here.
What was it like in the days of
Noah?
Verse 5 in Genesis 6 verse 5 says,
God saw that the wickedness of man was
great in the earth and every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually.
Now look at that.
Break it down here.
Every imagination.
That's evil without exception.
And he says they were evil continually.
Well then that's evil without intermission.
It was only evil, it's evil without mixture.
And Jesus says as it was in the
days of Noah, there was a recklessness, there
was a defiance of God.
Well then as it was in the days
of Lot, what did they do?
Verse 48 again says, as it was in
the days of Lot, they did eat, they
drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they
built, but the same day that Lot went
out of Sodom, it rained fire and fire
and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.
Come down into Genesis a little bit further.
In chapter 17.
Maybe a bit further.
No, verse 18, chapter 18, I'm sorry.
I guess you know the background of this,
almost everybody does.
Verse 16, the men rose up from fence
and looked towards Sodom and Abraham went to
bring them to the way.
And the Lord said, shall I hide from
Abraham the thing that I do?
I think that's a fantastic statement.
Remember Abraham is the only man in scripture
that's called a friend of God.
Moses wasn't, David wasn't, Solomon wasn't, Abraham was.
In the New Testament we're called the friends
of God of course.
He are my friends, but not in the
Old Testament.
Here's a man who stands supreme, he's isolated.
And yet God says there's something about this
one man, shall I hide from him?
Not shall I hide from the king of
Sodom, not shall I hide from Lot who's
now a multimillionaire, a businessman.
Shall I hide from Abraham the thing that
I do?
Can I violate the laws of friendship?
If you have a true friend, well somewhere
along the line you'll exchange secrets.
We don't shout secrets from the house though.
You whisper in somebody's ear or you make
a covenant together.
The secret of the Lord is with them
that fear him.
And Abraham feared God exceedingly.
And God says, shall I hide from Abraham
the thing that I do?
Now look at verse 19.
It's important for you young folk with families.
For I know that he will command his
children after him.
They shall keep the way of the Lord
to do justice and judgment that the Lord
may bring upon Abraham that which he has
spoken.
The story of Sodom, pardon me, the story
of Lot is one of the saddest I
think in the whole of the world of
God.
What do you think of when you think
of Lot's the scripture that we read there
in the 17th of Luke and 18, remember
Lot's wife?
What do you think of?
Usually we think about she escaped by the
skin of her teeth.
But you know there are three words remember
Lot's wife.
To deal with them would take at least
three hours.
In fact it could take three days if
you took the whole background, the historic background.
Yet Jesus is saying to these people upon
whom judgment is going to come very soon,
remember Lot's wife.
Remember her because she ran away?
No, remember her for our privileges.
If you go back into the, where are
we, let me see here.
Chapter 13 and verse 12.
Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan and
Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain
and he pitched his tent toward Sodom.
In the next chapter he gets into Sodom.
In the next chapter Sodom's got into him.
You know we talk about this amazing man
Abraham as though he was the most immaculate
man, faultless, nothing of the kind.
God says I called Abraham alone.
Did he go alone?
No he didn't.
He took Lot with him, took another man
with him.
God called him alone.
What happened?
He blundered all the way he went.
He had trouble with the old man, he
wouldn't go and move over Jordan.
He had trouble with a young man, he
got in bad company.
He went down into Egypt where God never
took him.
And when he got down into Egypt he
had young Lot with him and young Lot's
eyes were open bulging wide.
Look at the women.
Do you know there's a record they were
topless in those days?
Sin was a sport, sex was a sport,
drinking was a sport, violence was a sport
and young Lot goes and he feasts on
it.
So what happens when he gets a choice?
He pitches his tent towards Sodom because he
says it's like I come to Egypt.
I can get in here and it's like
that wicked country I was in.
So be careful what your children see on
your TV.
Don't say we're buying the youngster a TV
for Christmas on his own and send you
to hell as quick as you can.
He pitches his tent towards Sodom.
Now come down to chapter 19 and verse
1.
They came to angels to Sodom and even
and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom.
What's he doing in the gate?
I used to wonder why in the world
the scripture says the gates of hell won't
prevail against the church.
I thought what does the devil carry gates
around pushing people away?
The gate was a place of government.
All the elders of government sat in the
gate.
People had their passports checked as they went
in, they had their credentials, they had to
prove many things.
All the authority was in those people at
the gate and now this man is a
man of authority.
One of the most puzzling things about this
man in 2 Peter is it says that
Lot vexed his righteous soul every day.
I don't see much righteous about him.
I think he was righteous until he got
involved in all the commercial life and the
social life of Sodom.
He sat in the gate, he was accepted.
I think again here he lost his righteousness.
You see we have identical situations in history.
I guess you've heard me say this before
and I hope I'll live to say it
again.
I think the one thing we learn from
history is that we don't learn from history.
I think at this point America's in the
lowest point of degeneracy she's ever been in.
It's true that she was pretty low when
Jonathan Edwards and those Puritans came along.
There's no way we're going to legislate righteousness.
You stick notices up the road 55 miles
an hour.
Some of you guys broke it coming to
church tonight maybe.
You can repent right there but anyhow we'll
leave that to you for a bit later.
Do people keep 55?
I go down 55 and a thing goes
roaring past me.
I say to my sweetheart, to my wife,
that Mack truck.
Is it a Mack or what in the
world is it?
It's doing 75 miles an hour.
I don't know much about motors but I
know that that big thing that's roaring down
the road at 75 has not got a
Volkswagen motor in it.
Isn't that wisdom?
So you've got guys running big churches on
a Volkswagen prayer meeting.
I go to churches sometimes with 150, 200
people in the choir.
If only 10 percent of them came to
the choir practice the choir master would resign
the first week.
But if a preacher got 10 percent of
his congregation, as in the Church of Hollywood
there were 12,000 members.
They had 53 deacons.
I asked the pastor, I said tell me.
Oh I nearly said his name.
I won't tell his name.
I won't let you guess even.
You're 53 deacons.
How many can you see?
Eight, nine.
Isn't that marvelous?
What do you do with the other 50?
Fire them.
They're supposedly full of faith of the Holy
Ghost.
They got elected because they own two Texaco
stations and a hot dog stand.
Apparently no deacons here tonight.
I'd be buried in hymn books if you.
Oh there's so many things in this story
we could take.
I'm not going to take them.
Chapter 19 verse 1.
I read it again.
I came to angels to Sodom at evening
and Lot sat in the gate.
And seeing them he rose up and bowed
himself with his face to the earth and
said behold now turn in with me so
forth and so on.
Verse 3 says he pressed upon them greatly
and they turned into his house.
Verse 4 but before they laid down the
men of the city even the men of
Sodom come past the house round about both
old and young all the people from every
quarter and they called them to Lot.
Where are the men which came into your
house bring them out to us that we
may know them.
They were Sodomites.
Lot went out of the door and said
unto them shut the and he shut the
door after him and he said no I
pray you brethren do not so behold I
have two daughters which have not known man.
Why hadn't they known man they were married.
Read in the chapter they were married.
But the marriage would never consummate it.
This righteous man had married his sons after
some wealthy homosexuals.
Where in God's name was his righteousness.
Let me say the point of identification here
I wanted to read to you from I
don't usually use translations as you know but
Philip's translation.
Jesus says as it was in the was
in the days of Lot so shall it
be when he comes.
Come on now tell me you theologians has
God set a clock and when that clock
goes off he's going to put judgment on
us.
Is it a case of time or temperature.
Does it now automatically kick over like when
you have your air conditioner on and you
set it at a certain thing and it's
cold outside you open the door and immediately
that thing kicks on it fights back against
the cold.
Does God wait until a country a nation
gets so rotten that the only thing he
can do in mercy a judgment on Sodom
and Gomorrah was not a judgment of madness
it was a judgment of love.
He did in a few hours what it
would have taken them to do rot in
their sin for a number of years.
Here's Romans 1 in a modern translation.
The holy anger of God is disclosed from
heaven against all godlessness and evil of men
who render truth dumb and inoperative by their
wickedness.
It is not that they do not know
the truth about God indeed he has made
it quite plain to them for since the
beginning of the world the invisible attributes of
God is eternal power and divinity have been
plainly discernible through the things which he has
made and which are commonly seen and known
thus leaving these men without a rag of
excuse to cover them.
They knew all the time that there is
a God yet they refuse to acknowledge this
God or to thank him for what he
does.
They became fatuous in their argumentations and plunge
their silly little minds further into the dark.
Behind the facade of wisdom they became such
fools.
Fools who could exchange the glory of immortal
God for an imitation God like mortal men
of things that fly and crawl.
Therefore God gave them up to be play
things of their own foul desires and dishonor
their bodies.
Moreover since they consider themselves too high and
mighty to acknowledge God he allowed them to
become the slaves of their degenerate minds to
perform unmentionable deeds.
They became filled with wickedness, rottenness, greed, malice.
Their minds were steeped in envy, murder, quarrelsomeness,
deceitfulness and spite.
They became whispers behind doors, stabbers in the
back, God haters.
They overflowed with insolent pride and faithfulness.
Their minds teemed with diabolical invention.
They scoffed at duty to parents.
They mocked at learning.
They recognized no obligations of honor.
They lost all their natural affection, had no
use for mercy, lost their natural affection.
I had a man in my office a
while ago, boy was he one thousand percent
stronger than Calvin.
Every baby in the mother's womb is already
predestined.
God knows its destiny.
Tell me that a million babies were destined
in eternity to go down to John last
year.
What kind of a God have you got?
I believe God has foreknowledge.
I don't believe he predestined them to that.
But these people have become so corrupt, they're
so lawless, they obey nobody.
Laws of God are laws of men.
They're in a state of total rebellion.
Being well aware of God's pronouncement that all
that do these things deserve to die, they
not only continued in their own practices, but
did not hesitate to give their thorough approval
to others who did the same.
As far as I see, we parallel today
in our moral or immoral condition, the conditions
of nor and the conditions in the days
of lot.
But who worries about it?
These people are warned of judgment.
The word of God says, remember lot's wife,
because she has stacks and stacks and stacks
of advice before this inevitable thing came upon
her.
She didn't remember her father Abraham and his
righteousness, the greatest man who had walked the
earth.
She didn't remember her father and his righteousness.
After all, you only go six chapters back
and God's flooded the world, destroyed the world.
And he's hung a sign over it, my
spirit will not always strive with mine.
Wake up America, we're going to hell as
quickly as we can.
He'll cut us off before long.
We don't break his laws every day.
We don't transgress his commandments and get away
with it.
There's a payday.
I call it a final checkout counter.
When everybody's bills will be due.
When every sin that isn't covered with the
blood will be exposed before billions of people.
It goes further down there into Timothy.
2nd Timothy chapter 3 says this, Do you
realize that in the last days the times
will be full of danger?
Men will become utterly self-centered, greedy of
money, full of big words.
They will be proud and contemptuous without any
regard for what their parents taught them.
They will be utterly lacking in gratitude, in
purity and in normal human affection.
They will be men of unscrupulous speech and
have no control over themselves.
They will be passionate and unprincipled, treacherous, self
-willed, conceited, loving all the time what gives
them pleasure instead of loving God.
They will maintain a facade of religion but
their conduct denies its validity.
You must keep clear of people like this.
The time is coming when men will not
tolerate wholesome teaching.
Again God's problem in the Old Testament was
not the Amalekites or Hittites or Jebusites or
Hittites or any otherites.
God's problem in the Old Testament was Israel.
God's problem tonight is not humanism in the
school.
That's an excuse to lazy pastors.
We need to get the Bible back in
the home.
We need to get prayer back in the
house, in the school.
We need to get prayer back in the
home.
Ask your congregation to order.
How many of you fathers are not really
fathers in the home?
You're not the king in the home, not
the bully, you're not the king, you're not
the priest in the You don't gather the
children around your lap and every day read
the word of God and instruct them.
I had the privilege of praying many mornings
between five and six o'clock with that
precious man that God used in the Hebrides
revival in 1950, Duncan Campbell.
I remember one day talking, it was before
six and as Bunyan would say, the water
stood in his eyes or the tears were
there.
I said, how is it in the outer
Hebrides?
Amongst those so-called stuffy Presbyterians, you saw
more of the spirit of God.
Well, he said, I'll tell you one reason
I think.
The little boys and girls there from five
years of age see daddy bring the Bible
out every morning and if there's pressure on
the farmer somewhere, he leaves it till supper
time and all the dishes are put in
the sink.
Then he takes the word of God and
he reads it.
And all those children have to learn the
shorter catechism, which is really an epitome of
theology.
There's your answer.
Those children have had the word of God
in their hearts since they were five or
six, Paul plants of Paulus waters, God gives
an increase.
The revival there was due again to two
old ladies, 184 and 182.
They joined hands and made a covenant.
Oh dear, I get tired of people making
promises.
The highway of most of our lives is
filled with broken vows and unfulfilled covenants.
Lord, if you get me out of hospital,
I'll pray next hour, every day, the rest
of my life.
And you forgot God the week after.
That woman dying in labor pains, the doctor
said the odds are against you.
And she said, well, if you get me
through this, I'll be a different woman.
But she wasn't, except she had another baby.
But apart from that, there was no miracle
wrought in her.
Let me look at here a minute.
And this is the important thing I want
to say.
In the midst of all this devastation, in
the midst of all the corruption, there was
one man stood alone.
He was unchanged with the system, with the
customs.
Young lot pitched his tent towards Sodom.
Then he went in Sodom.
I remember an old man said to me,
but son, look, you know what?
The devil will help you in your Christian
life.
I said, he will, yes.
He'll help you get to the top of
the ladder.
And when he gets to the top, he'll
push you over.
Very often success is the worst thing that
can come to us.
We need adversity.
We need to fight the world, the flesh,
the devil.
It says concerning this man Abraham, he stood
before the Lord.
Does that ring a bell?
Does it say in 1 Kings 17 verse
1 that Elijah stood before the Lord?
He didn't kneel, he stood.
He's waiting for two things.
He's waiting for a commandment and he's waiting
for authority to carry it out.
And Abraham has every conceivable evil against him.
The city's swarming with filth.
People delight in it.
They buy it.
They sell it like we do.
Friday night.
Some taverns will be open till two and
three in the morning.
So will dance halls and discos and all
these hell holes.
And the churches will be locked up.
Maybe there's only one fault with modern Christianity.
We don't take God seriously.
Why should the man in the street believe
God if we don't believe him?
Why should they obey what you say, preacher,
when you don't obey what God says to
you?
Sure, I'd like to write another book on
revival.
I've got something boiling inside me.
I don't think I'm going to do it.
Because, you see, I don't have to do
it.
The secret of revival isn't a secret at
all.
It's splashed right across the Word of God
for over a thousand years.
And it's the priest that's to lie between
the altar and the doorpost and let him
weep and let him travel.
I went to a certain famous college, I
went in a Bible college, a great big
display thing, you know, with a guy with
a tennis racket, all plastic, of course, plastic
gold.
Somebody kicked me a football, somebody else with
a baseball, somebody else with a volleyball, somebody
else with a basketball.
I mean in miniature.
I got on my knees and I was
looking and a fine young fellow said, Sir,
could I help you?
I said, I'd be very happy if you
could.
What are you looking for?
I was looking to see who got the
trophy for praying.
He said, what?
I said, don't you have a model of
somebody praying in these famous Bibles?
Are you serious?
I said, yes, are you?
Do you think you're going to get a
reward in heaven because you knock more home
runs in the Wesleyan, what do you call
it, Bible school?
Or as you go to, where does it,
Pentecostals go when they die?
Springfield, yeah.
Do you think you're going to get a
reward because you hit more home runs?
Come on preacher.
I had a young man came to see
me this week.
He thinks God has called him out of
the business career to become a preacher.
Give me some tips.
I said, read Acts 26 on your knees
every day for the next month.
Tells you what your job is.
Acts 26, to open the eyes of the
blind, to turn them from darkness to light,
from the power of Satan to God, that
they may receive forgiveness of sins and an
inheritance among them that are sanctified.
When you've done that, read all the minor
prophets and soak yourself in them.
Get out of the way of pygmies and
walk with giants.
Get away from the modern trash that they
sell at CBA next week and read what
God says and measure up to some of
the standards God has.
We don't need any advice and God doesn't.
We try and give it to him.
You see, I wonder what would happen if
we really knew that judgment was coming, say
next week, Wednesday night.
I'll tell you what would happen.
Every church would be packed out.
I told you the other week of a
friend of a friend of ours who came
back from Korea.
Of course, wide-eyed, oh there's Dr. Cho,
Cho is it, Dr. Cho, Paul Cho.
That's a church of 300,000, 400,000
now.
But the thing was, she went up the
mountain, there was a cave there and there
were nearly 2,000 women in there praying
as though they were all delivering a baby
in agony.
Hour after hour after hour after hour.
Do you know why?
Because you can walk to the borders and
on the border of North and Korea, there's
a million Russians lined up ready to come
over and plunge the whole nation into blood.
So every time they go to church, the
pastor says, you memorize this chapter next week.
You memorize that hymn next week.
It's an open secret.
There'll be no Bibles around in a few
years.
There'll be no hymn books around in a
few years.
We'll be huddled in concentration camps.
We'll be hiding in caves.
The streets will be running with blood.
We're going to be martyred.
Oh, if we knew that.
Come on now, come on.
Don't suggest we don't know.
Yeah, you say if we were going to
be murdered, we were going to be destroyed
like Sodom and Gomorrah.
Well, don't you listen to what Mr. Reagan
says?
That Russia's deciding what temperature to roast us
at?
And if you don't think there's going to
be a bloody thing like that come happen,
what do you think about the Word of
God that talks about the battle of Armageddon?
What do you think about the Scriptures that
nobody quotes these days, that Jesus is coming
in flaming vengeance?
Forget all about your rapture.
Come on preachers, how many of us will
be cleared from the blood of the people
in our streets?
If I were a Protestant Pope, I'd close
every church in the nation for a month.
There wouldn't be another word of preaching.
Your people can't handle the light they have
now at the judgment seat.
All you'll do on Sunday is add condemnation
to them.
They can't handle it.
Every one of us know to live better
than we're living, and that's our condemnation.
We know to be praying better than we're
praying.
We know how to fast better than we're
fasting.
We know we should be weeping more than
we're weeping.
We know we should have gone to a
place where God Almighty can give us groanings
that cannot be uttered, and that's a hundred
million miles fast praying in tongues.
It's an inner grief.
It's something that has no language.
God says so, I don't say so.
I'm convinced with all my heart we're in
the most severe decade, if we last, I
don't think we'll last a decade, five years
that America's ever had.
And she's not going to be changed by
legislation, she's going to be changed by revival.
And revival only comes by birth, by traveling.
I get too many visitors, I wish I
didn't get some of them, but the other
day a very refreshing young man came to
me.
In the course of talking he said this,
do you know anything about the lady, what's
her name now?
Oh she was in England when we were
there, Agnes Sanford.
Some of you read Agnes Sanford's books I
suppose.
Six years ago somebody told her that San
Andrea Fault, is that what you call it,
is going to split wide open and that
section is going to slip into the Pacific
Ocean, that section of California.
She went and bought a house on the
San Andrea Fault, defied the devil, defied her
friends, and she's living there and has been
holding on to God for six years without
tremendous catastrophe will not come.
Isn't it amazing that this righteous man so
called?
I'm angry with Lot, wait till I see
him, I'll tell him off, I'll tell you
that.
Why didn't he go pray with Abraham?
He didn't pray with Abraham.
We were in a prayer meeting the other
night where somebody prayed and said, well this
coming Saturday my family, and they're a very
well-known family, world famous, they'll be at
a ball game.
All the grandkids get, we're going to have
a ball game, but they won't come to
the prayer meeting tonight.
No church is stronger than its prayer meeting.
The church that isn't praying is playing.
The pastor that isn't praying is straying.
The devil fights your prayer life.
I think of that woman, I get up
now two or three in the morning, I
think there's that precious little woman on the
San Andrea Fault there, and she's got the
destiny almost of millions in her hands.
She said, they're not going to pray till
I live, I'm going to pray, I'm going
to put out my life.
She won't get a Congress medal for it,
she won't be asked to go to the
White House.
In most cases she won't be asked to
go to God's house, they think she's a
fanatic.
But there's that one precious woman that's become
my heroine.
Oh yes, yes, I love the stars and
stripes.
I keep saying I'm going to get a
flag, it hasn't come yet, but anyhow I'm
going to get one.
But when I see people singing, is it
this way you do it, with your hand
on your heart?
And half of them cheat the income tax
anyhow, they don't love the country.
They break every blessed law they can break,
they're hypocrites.
And stand my consciences of thee, O America,
America, how beautiful, except the IRS, go to
hell.
You know, I think one of these days
most of them are going to wake up
and take God seriously.
I spoke about two weeks ago about the
barren women in the Bible, where Rachel got
fed up of her jewels and all the
glory and everything.
I noticed this woman, Lot's wife.
Oh brother, was she something.
I'll tell you what a note I made
here about her.
When the judgment came, Lot said, verse 14
of chapter, wait a minute, 19 says this,
Lot went out and spake unto his sons
-in-law, which had married his daughters.
There you are, his sons-in-law had
married his daughters.
The marriage was never consummated, so they had
their sex between themselves, the dogs that they
were.
Which had married his daughters and said, get
you out of this place, for the Lord
will destroy this city.
But he seemed unto them as one of
Mark.
Now this woman had seen the most righteous
man in the world, Abraham.
She'd seen her father when he was on
stretch for God, and she forgot about the
holiness of Abraham.
She forgot about the holiness of Lot.
She forgot that God had already poured his
judgment out in water and flooded the earth,
and now he's going to burn the thing
up.
Let me stick this in your mind again,
like it or not.
There's one reason we don't have revival.
Do you know what it is?
We're content to live without it.
When it becomes number one priority, we'll do
something about it.
There's only one reason the world tonight is
going to hell fire, and that's because the
church has got holy ghost fire.
I don't care whether you've got Holy Insomnia
Church or Pentecost or what it is.
It's a pillar of fire over it.
After tonight, we're going to start our meetings.
Every Friday night, we're going to start with
10 to 15 minutes of total silence.
The Scripture says, be filled with the Spirit.
It also says, be still and know that
I'm God.
We come out of the fever of the
world, and you've been racing up the road,
and you come in here and expect somebody
to become sanctified.
We need 10 minutes, 15 minutes to clear
our minds of all the dross and all
the thinking and all the material things.
The church is earthbound.
We're as materialistic as the man up the
road.
The Lord's going to utterly destroy this place.
He seemed unto them as one that mocked.
I had a man and his wife came
from Pittsburgh, to see me yesterday.
Very delightful man.
I'll tell you why I liked him, because
he agreed with all my idiosyncrasies.
Notice what he said, I've read your books,
my heart beats like yours, but you know
what?
People want to accept my message.
Did you ever accept the message of a
prophet?
If you see a man saying he's a
prophet, and he's well-dressed and has no
scars, forget it.
Maybe he's a prophet, P-R-O-F
-I-T, like most of the big radio
boys.
He seemed as one that mocked to his
sons, and when the morning arose, the angels
hastened to Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife,
thy two daughters, which he had noticed the
sons-in-law left out, lest thou be
consumed in the iniquity of the city.
And while he lingered, even Lot was lingering.
You talk about mercy?
While he lingered, then these angels laid hold
of his hand, and on the hand of
his wife, on the hand of his two
daughters, but not his sons-in-law.
They brought them forth and set them without
the city.
It came to pass when they brought forth,
then forth abroad, he said, Escape for thy
life, look not behind thee.
Verse 26 says, But his wife looked from
behind and became a pillar of salt.
Isn't it amazing, with hell raining from the
sky, she defied God?
It's equally amazing to me tonight that with
judgment coming down on us very soon that
most of the churches are locked up at
this very hour.
We're never going to win the world by
organizing, it's only by agonizing.
Then notice, stepping backwards and forwards a little
bit, but anyhow, in the 18th chapter, verse
22 says, The men turned their faces from
thence and went toward Sodom, but Abraham stood
before the Lord.
He wasn't going to be moved by anybody.
Abraham drew near and said, Will thou also
destroy the righteous?
He never prayed for Sodom, he never prayed
for Gomorrah, he prayed for the preservation of
the saints.
People say, Oh bless America.
There's a fellow in Dallas preached, not the
4th of July this year, 4th of July
last year, we were in the Bahamas having
a rest, and somebody turned the thing on
and said, Here's a young fellow preaching from,
I never said his name but I won't,
his first name is Bob anyhow, but he's
preaching from Dallas.
At the end, before he preached, the other
man come in Yankee Doodle Trousers, you know,
stripes, white and black, and a blue vest
with stars on, and a tall hat and
a stick, and a guy danced on the
platform singing Yankee Doodle Dandy, you know, just
like Isaiah did.
You know what Isaiah did in the first
chapter?
Then he tries to get serious, Oh how
come you need, Oh my dear wife and
I, we have decided to give America to
God.
Good Lord, that's like giving a bride a
bag of manure.
Give America to God, rotting with venereal disease,
rotting with AIDS, with more illegitimate babies than
we've ever had in our history, with more
drunkards we've ever had in our history, with
more people on drugs than we've ever had
in our history.
It doesn't alarm the world, it doesn't alarm
us.
He did not pray for Sodom, he did
not pray for what did he say?
It said in verse 22, the men turned
their faces from thence and went, but Abraham
stood, and the next verse says, Abraham drew
near and said, will thou also for they
destroy the righteous with the wicked?
Put a bench without a fifty righteous within
the city, and notice he mentions that all
the way down.
In verse 23, the righteous, in verse 24,
the righteous, in verse 25, the righteous, in
verse 26, the righteous.
He gets down to the end where it
says, if there lack fifty of the righteous,
verse 29 says, he spake yet again and
said, peradventure there shall be forty found there,
and he said, I will not do it
for forty's sake.
Verse 33 says, the Lord went his way
as soon as he had left communing with
Abraham, and Abraham returned unto his place.
And then you go on to that terrible
scene again.
These girls are spared.
How are they spared?
An angel, God in heaven, in mercy comes
to these girls who've had object lessons in
righteousness and holiness.
They've seen the most amazing man.
They've seen Abraham.
He was a standing joke in Sodom.
You ever go up the hill there and
see that old man, you know?
He's a marvelous looking character.
Oh, he has such a marvelous beard.
Oh, he's such a marvelous figure.
But watch out, because if you're there, he'll
most likely shed blood, and build an altar,
and pray.
And you know, when he prays, he scares
you to death.
We can't even have any pulpit prayers.
The most shabby thing in church is pulpit
prayers.
I'm reading this verse again here, verse 16,
in chapter 19.
While he lingered, the men laid hold, or
the angels laid hold on his hand, on
the hand of his wife, on the hand
of his two daughters.
What did they do?
I'll tell you what they did.
They got from out of the place, Lot's
wife, of course, here now, has looked back,
and she's turned into a pillar of salt.
She's looking back to the country club.
She's looking back at the place where she
bought all the jewels.
She hasn't got them with her, and they
were ashes before long.
As I've said before, we sing, Let the
beauty of Jesus be seen in me.
And we sing the end of that chorus.
Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in
me.
All is wonderful, passion and purity.
All thou spirit divine, all my nature refine.
Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in
me.
You see, when a man is purifying gold,
he puts the mixture, the gold, the alloy,
in a crucible, modern crucible, an induction crucible.
And he sits there with a sieve, and
he takes the scum.
Gold is the heaviest of all metals.
It falls to the bottom.
The rubbish comes to the top, he takes
it off and throws it away, takes it
off, throws it away.
He doesn't take it off this time.
Why?
Because of Islam.
It's pure.
How does he know it's pure?
Because as soon as it's pure, it reflects
the maker.
Reflection there.
Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in
me.
But brother's going to take the dross out.
He's going to put you through the fire
to take it out.
We speak of the Holy Ghost stand with
fire, but that's not what the scripture says.
The whole, the word, the scripture, the Greek
says, Holy Ghost fire.
It's not the Holy Ghost plus fire, it's
the Holy Ghost who is fire, because our
God is consuming fire.
And again, you never have to advertise a
fire.
Every time you advertise in the newspaper, you're
advertising your bankruptcy.
If a pillar of fire ever comes in
your church, you'll never advertise again.
Neither may be comfortable, but it's true anyhow.
His wife looked back, at what?
At a country club, at the place where
she bought her, what do you call them
now, Christian Dior clothes, and all the rest
of it, and all the jewels.
They weren't a bit of good now.
But where your treasure is, there will your
heart be.
She was following outwardly, but inwardly she was
fretting, not following.
She's worried about the house.
She's worried about all the antiques.
She's worried about all the treasures in the
place.
But notice verse 29.
It came to pass when God destroyed the
cities of the pen, God remembered Abraham.
Come on.
The one man that prayed and is delivered,
God remembers him.
Because he'd obeyed God.
He'd heard the voice of God.
And therefore, God answers prayer for the man
who didn't pray for himself.
I don't read that Lot built any altars.
He was too busy building his bank book
up.
I don't read anywhere that he prayed.
Old Abraham is keeping his daily habit of
contact with God.
He builds his altar.
He stands against the ridicule.
I imagine people come and want his autograph.
They see that camera that's taking his photograph.
But it's impervious to all the thinking of
the world.
It's impervious to whatever Lot, his nephew, might
say.
He's seen the face of God.
He's heard the voice of God.
I tell you, if you see the face
of God and hear the voice of God,
all hell won't move you.
I'm glad you chose that hymn tonight.
I've been thinking of it during the week.
How firm a foundation these saints of the
Lord.
You may tremble on the rock, but I'll
tell you what, the rock will never tremble
under you anyhow.
The foundation is laid in the blood of
Jesus Christ, in the exceeding great and precious
promises of God.
I say again, as I've said in one
of my books, one day somebody's going to
read the Bible and believe it.
When they do, we'll all be embarrassed.
That's why you get kids in foreign countries
who only have about one chapter of the
Bible, and they read it and they believe
it.
And the messengers are astounded.
Oh, I went to school in America.
Doesn't matter whether you went to school in
America or in hell, as far as they're
concerned.
Shows the works of God and they can't
do it.
I've told you, I'm sick of theology on
paper.
I'm sick of just reading the Word of
God, and I go to a meeting and
somebody says, God is here.
Oh, shut up.
If you put 500 roses in a room
and bring a blind man in, he'll tell
you whether the rose is there or not.
You won't have to tell him.
If God is there, I don't need you
or Gabriel to tell me God is there.
I'm a spirit.
God is a spirit.
His spirit bears witness with my spirit.
You can't persuade me God is there if
he isn't.
Because we sang my favorite hymn, All Hail
King Jesus, and had a marvelous feeling in
our bellies.
We had a brother prayed there a few
nights ago, I'll never forget it.
He was very, very, very profoundly moved.
And he said, God, the reason why our
young people are not in the church is
they've never seen the Shekinah glory.
They see the lights of the world, and
the lights of the world dazzle them, because
there's no light and glory inside.
When the glory comes, you know what, we
won't put these lights out for weeks.
In the Welsh Revival, I wasn't living then.
I was living a few years after.
But I went to Wales and I met
people a hundred years old who went to
the Welsh Revival.
As I say, I talked with Duncan Campbell.
The tears were coming into his eyes, and
he said, Brother Raymond, most of our people
never seen the glory of God.
God remembered Abraham.
Verse 30, Lot went up out to Zoar,
and he dwelt in the mountains, and his
two daughters with him.
Now, these are the two girls, come on
now.
They've seen all their city consumed.
They've seen their buildings consumed.
They've seen their government consumed.
They've seen their markets consumed.
They've seen everything consumed.
What do they do?
They get their father drunk and lie with
him.
They're bitches.
You say, that's a bad word.
Well, I looked it up in the dictionary,
and it said, bitches, a female dog, or
a dirty woman who's immoral and corrupt.
And they got their father drunk, it says
in verse 33.
They made their father drink that night.
The firstborn went in and lay with him
and perceived not when she lay down.
He came to pass on the model.
The firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I
lay with my father yesterday night.
I made him drink.
Go thou in.
And it says, verse 35, they made their
father drunk.
Verse 36, they were both daughters of Lot,
were in childbirth their father.
Could you think a girl who'd been rescued
by a living mortal, an immortal angel, dragged
by the wrist, would dare to get her
father drunk and lie with him, and become
a dirty dog herself, or bitch?
That's a dirty word, but I use it.
Because that's what she was.
It used to hurt me profoundly.
I worked in the first days with Dave
Wilkins in New York 20 years ago.
I remember when that girl came out in
the office, she was spectacularly beautiful.
She came up in a snow white caddy
like a convertible.
Boy, she was something.
What are you here for?
My friend here needs help.
Dave came in.
I said, Dave, this girl says, Dave said,
you need help.
Oh, well, I used to go to church.
I was filled with the spirit.
I spoke in tongues.
And I can recite the 23rd Psalm.
I can do this.
What are you doing now?
Never mind.
What are you doing?
Why have you come here?
I'm prostituting.
She said, I sat on the front row
in the choir and enjoyed services, and now
here she is.
I read an awful word in, what was
it, 1 Samuel, I forget the chapter.
Remember the sons of Eli, how they corrupted
themselves.
And God says, the house of Eli will
never be purged.
Bring all the sacrifices you need.
And they're wiped out.
I believe some denominations will be wiped out
before long.
They've toyed with truth.
Preachers are not going to be judged only
for what they've said, but what they wouldn't
dare to say they're going to be judged
for too.
And that's going to be tough.
One man stands in the gap.
You know what preachers do when they get
going, going gets hard, decide to go into
politics.
Guys keep calling, I think I should go
into politics.
I think I should go to Washington.
I said, you want to act like that's
right?
It's like taking an ice cube and dropping
it in a volcano and say you'll cool
it down.
You won't do a thing when you get
to Washington except become as corrupt as the
rest of the gang.
If God has called you to the ministry,
it's the loftiest thing in the world.
Don't stoop to be a king.
Don't stoop to be the president of the
United States.
Don't stoop to be the king of England.
We deal with the loftiest, mightiest, eternal things.
We're not settling temporary judgments as to whether
they should widen the road or cut down
some houses and make a new road.
We're dealing with eternity.
Well I'm praying the next three nights.
Tomorrow night we're going to speak on prayer.
Sunday night on holiness and vision.
Monday night I think on the judgment seat
of Christ for sinners and for saints.
The next night maybe on worship.
I promise you it will be good.
There are some people fasting and praying for
that meeting.
I'm amazed how many people have called in
and said I don't go there but I'm
going to go.
Not because you're there but God wants you
to go.
Personally I don't care whether you come or
not.
I admit I wouldn't like to preach from
empty seats.
But on the other hand if the God's
there, I wouldn't like you to miss it.
God used Abraham, one man.
God used Duncan Campbell with the background of
old crippled old ladies, 82, 83, 84, who
fasted and prayed for weeks.
Who made a holy covenant before God they
wouldn't die until you rent the heavens and
God did exactly that.
It troubles me there's so little passion in
our praying.
You can get enthusiastic at a football match
or some other thing but when it comes
to eternity and lost men and women, there's
not much zeal, there's not much passion, not
many tears.
I remember walking on the main street in
Edmonds, Scotland.
I looked at the cathedral there and remembered
John Knox.
That precious, precious man, a brilliant scholar.
But he lost sight of his eloquence.
He lost sight of his monumental sermons and
he got angry and he got to a
place of passion.
And remember he took the words of Rachel,
give me children or I die.
And again she didn't say that when she'd
made her hair nice and put on her
best dress.
She flung herself at the feet of her
husband, give me children or I die.
In the 1500s Richard Baxter went to Kidderminster,
my dear wife and I went to that
town often.
When he went there wasn't one family in
the town that had family devotions.
He had revival on the local level to
this degree.
They built five galleries in that huge church
and he packed every one of them.
Before the revival there wasn't one family in
town had devotions.
When he died there wasn't one family in
town that didn't have them.
I'm burdened about that word.
We use it so often.
I guess you preachers use it.
This church we're part of the body.
Are you really part of the body?
Christ is the head.
If you sever the head from the body
you've got nothing.
If Christ isn't the head of your church
you've got nothing.
You may have a good bank balance and
a good account.
Come on are we the body?
Because Jesus said this is my body.
His most sacred holy body says he's broken.
Do you know a church that says to
God break us to pieces if you like.
Take our deacons away.
Take our Sunday school teachers away.
Break us.
But in holy pity do something for this
hell-bound community I'm living in.
John Knox says give me Scotland or I
die.
At the same time John Welsh up the
road a poor man has a blanket on
his bed and he gets out of bed
in the morning at three o'clock.
There's no heat in the house.
He takes out a big old Scottish plaid
and wraps it around.
He's groaning on his belly on the floor
and his wife says get into bed laddie.
Get into bed.
He says woman how can I sleep when
there are three thousand people in this parish
going to a lost eternity.
I picked up the wonderful diary of McShane.
I read it often.
McShane was the brainard of Scotland.
He died at 29.
He was a genius in Hebrew.
He went as a missionary to Israel and
when he got there God said go back
home.
Maybe I mentioned last week a man that
was in our house two weeks ago from
a little fellowship called Zion.
I walked in the upper room there after
preaching one Sunday morning to about 80-90
people.
I went up to see this man Rex
Andrews.
Wide head man, little white beard, blue eyes,
cheeks any girl would envy, pink.
I was looking at one of the most
amazing men America's had in a hundred years.
Do you know why?
The man I looked at hadn't been to
bed one night in 30 years.
Not 30 days, not 30 weeks, 30 years
living in America nobody knew.
All the big preachers were getting on TV
and showing off.
Here's a man shut up with God from
10 o'clock every night till 5 in
the morning.
I'm embarrassed to say I get up early
and pray when I think of that man.
Four, five, six hours every night of his
life for what 30 years.
I look at my dear wife every morning.
I give her a hug and kisses.
I think she's lovely as she was when
we got married 46 years ago.
I've been faithful to my wife for 46
years.
Can't I be faithful to God for 46?
Despite the world, the flesh, the devil and
everything wants to hinder me.
Can't I make a vow to God?
I don't make vows these days because I
know if I make them I'll keep them.
If I know if I wouldn't make one
or two of them I'd like to make
I'd be dead in six months.
Maybe God will test me on it.
I'm sick to death of mediocrity.
I'm tired of assembly lines that turn off
kids up at, what do you call it
now?
Springfield, off the assembly line.
The guys don't know God, never mind the
baptism of the Holy Ghost.
They speak in tongues, proves nothing as far
as I'm concerned.
Every Mormon nearly over in Utah speaks in
tongues.
They'll tell you that proudly.
Every Christian scientist will tell you every medical
order Roberts has had they've had.
There's only one proof of the Holy Ghost
in your life and that's a holy life.
That's the only proof.
And the second proof is you're easy to
live with.
Don't ask my wife here, come around the
back door someday, ask her if I'm easy
to live with, if I'm not, write me
off as a hypocrite.
Preserve the righteousness of your saints.
If we can get a holy band of
people we can see God do as much
as ever he's done in history.
People will say we're arrogant, we're funny.
Well surely in God's name you don't like
that bunch do you?
I'd rather be considered the biggest idiot in
the world with the anointing of God than
be the smartest man outside.
I don't see much of these big fashionable
churches, how about these big wonderful preachers?
I'm trying to write another book I get
scared to write.
I'll tell you why, because once I say
something to you God puts it on a
plate and says eat it yourself.
Otherwise I'm just giving you advice, I'm waving
my hands, go that way for healing and
this way for writing and that way for
something else.
I say to me that one of the
awful things of our day is that Calvary
has become a tourist attraction.
Oh I went to the place where Jesus
was crucified, I picked up a little stone,
I brought it, I thought you'd like a
souvenir, put it down, I don't want it.
There are lots of people going to Calvary,
not many people getting on the cross, not
many people who really want to die.
I've gone around the circle but listen, if
there isn't a presentation of the Holy Ghost
fire there'll be a judgment fire before long
in America.
You may agree or disagree with Dave Wilkerson's
new book.
I think most of it hits the nail
on the head, some I don't understand, some
he doesn't understand as far as that goes,
but America's in jeopardy.
There's nobody can rescue us.
We can't make friends with communist nations and
other nations.
God is going to get us to the
place where he's going to break the nation,
but before he does that he'll break the
church.
As far as I'm concerned we've out sinned
Sodom and Gomorrah.
I say they had no Bibles and that
book sold very well, they hadn't, but nobody
ever wrote to me and reminded me until
years after I'd written it.
I'll tell you what they did have, they
had two of the greatest preachers that ever
lived.
Noah was a preacher of righteousness he said
in Peter.
Everybody remembers him because he built an ark.
God remembers him because he preached righteousness.
He didn't preach anything but righteousness.
Peter's second blessing, the second coming, miracles, healings,
signs, wonders, anybody will listen to that but
preach righteousness.
Brother you're out of business all of them.
Not only was Noah a preacher of righteousness
but a more amazing man.
Five minutes inside eternity friends, we'll all wish
we'd been more holy, we'll all wish we
carried bigger burdens, we'll all wish we had
more tears, we'll all wish we'd had more
trouble.
It's too late, there's no turning back.
If we don't write, if we don't write,
if pardon me, if we don't see revival,
God's going to write America off I'm sure
of that and England as far as that
goes.
The sons of Eli betrayed God and they
wiped their generation out.
I wonder what would have happened if Hananias
and Sapphira hadn't grieved God.
They might have had some of the most
wonderful children baptized with the Holy Ghost and
revolutionized the world.
But they got greedy, got so satisfied.
Let me quote Maxine again, quote Maxine said
a hundred, more than a hundred years ago,
there's one thing for sure the devil hates
in the world and that's a holy person.
He doesn't mind half-hearted people, he doesn't
mind people who want to be sanctified on
Sunday and caramel on Monday, who enjoy a
prayer meeting but enjoy a bowling alley tomorrow
night just as much.
He's looking for a heart of people whose
hearts are pure, pure in their purpose, pure
in their intention, pure in their desires.
It's getting late, just now it is, I'm
going to close in a minute.
It's getting late for Americans.
All kinds of people are writing Dave Wilson,
your book has stirred me.
They call me from many countries often, I
just read your book, it's been translated, I've
been challenged.
I say forget it brother, you need to
be changed not challenged.
We get challenged every time we go to
church, who gets changed?
Who comes out with a miracle heart?
Who comes out with a fire of God
burning in him that all the waters of
hell and discouragement can't put out?
We build monuments to our heroes, we don't
copy them in lifestyle, we don't copy them
in passion.
Abraham was like Elijah, a man of like
passion as we are, God is scary sometimes,
but on the other hand he held on.
He held on when all Sodom went down,
he held on when his nephew went down,
he held on when the city burned, but
he lived to see God honor his prayers,
and God will honor our prayers.
God is going to have to give us
holy men, men who look in the face
of God and say, Lord I'm not concerned
about my preaching and my name in this
district, I want to be a channel of
blessing from your throne to a world that's
doomed and damned.
When we get desperate, as I said before,
God does not answer prayer, he answers desperate
prayer.
We're going to pray for a season now.
I'm not going to sing, I'm going to
ask you to leave, if you wish to
leave when we get down, you can go
out, or you can stay and pray for
a half hour or more as the Lord
leads us.
I can't transmit in words what's in my
heart, I wish I could.
I wish I kind of cut a vein
and say there's a spot of my blood.
That's what they used to do, and cut
a vein.
Couples that were going to get married used
to cut a vein and put their wrists
together and pledge, made a covenant with blood.
You don't have to cut your vein, the
blood is you have to discipline your life
under God.
You have to be willing for ridicule, you
have to be willing for sarcasm, you have
to be willing for somebody saying he thinks
he's holier than we are.
So why worry?
We need God to render heavens.
Only that's going to...
Give me a chair please.
That's the only answer that we have.
You've been listening to the From the Pulpit
and Classic Sermons series.
This week you heard Leonard Ravenhill with his
message, Abraham and Lot.
Tune in next week to hear John Piper
speak about the price of God's own blood
on From the Pulpit and Classic Sermons.