Again, our Father, as we come into Thy
courts, we have already offered Thee praise and
gratitude from our hearts.
We thank You for these discordant hearts of
ours that You brought into harmony with Yourself
and with Your will.
We confess that too long we've been of
the earth earthy, and we long that we
may be more heavenly, that as we are
sung often but not always realize, the things
of the earth may grow strangely dim.
We thank You for the grace You've given
us in another week.
We thank You for every temptation that we
have overcome.
We thank You for every trial that we
have endured.
We thank You for every experience which has
been enriching to us, and brought us to
realize more of Your benevolence, Your love, Your
greatness, Your majesty.
We think of those who grovel around in
the world about us, without God, without hope.
There are millions who still sit in the
darkness, in the shadow of death.
There are millions in that area Your Word
speaks of, the habitations of cruelty, and the
places of evil, where the light of the
glorious gospel has not yet gone.
There are areas where this light once shone,
and the light has become dim, and in
some place even extinguished.
We thank You for everything today, that in
any way has brought light, illumination, to those
who sit in darkness, for those who at
this very moment perhaps are in prison cells,
for those who go down the jungle paths,
perhaps discouraged, stammering through a new language they've
hardly mastered.
Their bodies perhaps tortured by food that they're
not used to eating, almost crushed by the
environment of heathenism and darkness, where the powers
of darkness and rebellious spirits hold empire over
the souls of men.
We don't know how You'll do it, but
we pray that if Jesus tarries it out
of this very meeting, somewhere we'll be birthed,
that we reach those areas of darkness, where
too long Satan has been Lord and Master
and Governor.
We're amazed not just at Your patience with
those in heathen darkness, but we're amazed at
Your patience with the church so-called, sleepy
and careless and indifferent, that two thousand years
after Jesus died and rose again from the
dead, after He led captivity captive and gave
gifts unto men, our feet have been like
lead.
We have not mounted up with wings as
eagles, we have not run and not been
without becoming weary, we have not walked without
fainting.
We have spent, I guess all of us,
more time on ourselves, more money on ourselves,
more interest on ourselves than we should.
But Lord we ask Thee this afternoon, perhaps
we don't know what we ask, but we
ask Lord Jesus as You walked in the
midst of the seven golden candlestick, walk in
our midst this afternoon.
We would say, Samuel Thy servant, when he
was disturbed from sleep, speak Lord, for Thy
servant hear us.
I think of Wesley's word when he said,
O for a trumpet voice on all the
world to call.
We would like to send a shattering message
to every lost soul in the universe this
afternoon, that there is a fountain filled with
blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged
beneath that flood can lose all their guilty
stains.
That whether a man is a dying thief
or a living thief, he can rejoice to
see this fountain in this day, and there
may he though vile as he, wash all
his sins away.
We thank you for giving us this word,
we thank you it is a miracle book,
it's a miracle that's been preserved to this
day by the attacks that have been made
on it, by the volumes that have been
written against it, by the speeches that men
have declared against it, and yet we thank
you that it shines as clearly as the
beautiful sun shines today.
We thank you that it's your word and
therefore it's indestructible, just as your church is
your church and it's indestructible.
We thank you for something permanent in a
world that's constantly changing.
We thank you for this truth in the
midst of a thousand voices of error.
We pray thee, open our eyes that we
may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
Open our ears as we sing sometimes, that
we may hear voices, thy voice of truth
that thou send us clear.
Make this word to us what we need
this afternoon, if we're lethargic stir us by
it, if we have open wounds heal us
by it, if the path has become dark
illuminate us by it, if we have become
weak strengthen us by it.
Above all help us to see as we've
already sung in this majestic hymn that very
soon the tables are going to be turned
and the kingdoms of this world will become
the kingdoms of our God and of his
Christ and he shall reign forever and ever
whose right it is to take the throne.
We thank you Lord Jesus for shedding your
blood for us.
We thank you this afternoon for sitting at
the right hand of the majesty on high.
We thank you that you are the king
eternal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible
and hidden from our eyes and yet thou
art the unchanging God.
We believe we live in the most dark
cruel age that the world has ever known
and Satan strives with all his mastery to
bring destruction to our generation.
But we thank you that we have a
risen Christ, an exalted Christ.
You've told us with all power it is
that everything is under his feet.
We pray that this may quicken our hearts
and send us out with a love that
burns and blazes for thee.
That in this last day we shall witness
that blessed holy promise of your word that
you will pour out your spirit on all
flesh.
That just as the sun is shining this
afternoon on the wicked and on the righteous,
on the clean and the unclean, on men
who are captives and men who are free.
So we believe that you're going to give
us this great final demonstration as we say
so often a Pentecost that will out Pentecost,
Pentecost.
To give us a great last harvest for
Jesus who deserves all the praise and all
the glory.
We thank you then we shall join in
the everlasting song and we shall crown him
Lord of all.
We thank you for hearing us.
We thank you for blessing your word to
our hearts in Jesus name.
We started last week in the epistle of
Paul to the Ephesians chapter 6.
Ephesians chapter 6 reading from verse 10.
Finally brethren be strong in the Lord and
in the power of his might.
Put on the whole armor of God that
ye may be able to stand, able to
stand against the wiles of the devil.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood
but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers
of the darkness of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places.
Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of
God that ye may be able to withstand
in the evil day and having done all
to stand.
This is a very simple observation but to
me a very challenging observation that this chapter
begins in the nursery and ends in the
armory.
We have an awful lot of people who
want to stay in the nursery.
The apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians and
said he had to feed them with milk
and not with meat because he said you're
not able to bear it.
Now there is a very glamorous interpretation of
the spirit-filled life which is a novelty.
You can't find it in history but you'll
find it today.
It's all excitement and goose pimples.
It's all sugar and spice and all that's
nice.
It's very far removed from this chapter that
we have here which is a chapter speaking
of strife and speaking of contention.
There's a double warning here in verse 11
it says put on the whole armor of
God.
In verse 13 it says wherefore take unto
you the whole armor of God.
All our defense is revealed to us in
this chapter.
There's a recognition here again that there's a
contention.
We wrestle not against flesh and blood.
We do not have an obvious enemy.
We do not have a visible enemy.
We have an enemy but nobody knows how
old he is.
Nobody knows how strong he is.
Nobody knows what resources he has.
He's greater than man but he's less than
God.
He's supernatural but he's not supreme.
He's mighty but he's not almighty.
I suppose there never has been a warrior
like the apostle Paul that is in the
spiritual realm.
And as I've said so very often a
man with a with an experience is never
at the mercy of a man with an
argument.
There's a poem and I don't know who
wrote it and I can't for the moment
connect it in my mind but the theme
of the poem is this.
What an embarrassment it will be as a
believer to get to heaven without scars.
We're in a warfare.
And while again this uniform if you want
to call it that this this armor that
is described here is usually considered for the
defensive and yet men did not go to
war without their armor and then when they
the enemy began to pursue them run home
and put the armor on that's just a
bit too late.
We need this whole armor of God.
You remember that when the children of Israel
were warned of the enemy of death that
was coming over them that they had to
take a lamb and they had to spill
the blood it wasn't enough to kill the
lamb that was partly obedient partial obedience.
It wasn't enough to take the blood and
put it there in a vessel and keep
it in the house and give a signal
to the angels going past we've done as
we were the blood must be put over
the lintel and over the doorpost.
Now if we had a condition like that
in our discipleship if you were told that
it was dangerous to go through that door
tomorrow morning without putting the blood over the
lintel and the doorpost we would do that.
But you see so very often we rush
out into a hostile world a terrifying world.
I've said before that I've been asked very
often like every preacher do you think we're
living in the last days and I say
definitely not we're not living in the last
days we're living in the last moments.
We may be living in the last seconds
as God counts time or if he counted
in our time.
I had a man came to see me
yesterday he stayed about seven hours and he's
a very well-informed man on international affairs
he's investigated government documents and he's photographed all
kinds of things and he almost left me
with a with a big cloud hanging over
my head except that he did confirm what
I have felt so very long.
Brother Herb said to me the other day
how long do you think we have before
the kind of the curtain falls?
And I said well I think maybe five
years at the very most ten years.
This man said to me you know I
think that two and a half years from
now we'll have ended all our liberties.
No no we're not going to be invaded
by communism that's not the thing.
We have a warfare that began in the
heavenlies and it still is there in the
heavenlies and it's been manifest in so many
other countries but it's been manifest more and
more secretly here in our country.
This man suggested that within two years we'll
have a health program which means that everybody
will carry a plastic card.
Now now that's the very way that Russia
overtook the and stole the the privacy of
people in that nation many years ago.
I said to you before and he confirmed
this I guess in five years we'll have
a cashless society.
You can't spend money nobody will accept it.
You'll have to have a card with a
number on it and if you if you
submit that if you don't submit that card
and you say well look I happen to
have convictions as a Christian this is an
anti-Christ system and but but remember I
have a wife and four children at home
and they're going to starve if you don't
feed me and he says listen I have
a wife and four children and I'll if
I do feed you.
So I have the choice of letting you
starve with your children or I starve because
I help you.
Now that that may sound unreasonable.
I'm quite sure it's in the offering.
As a matter of fact I I have
a secret suspicion that in Europe before very
long they'll not only devalue currency they'll abolish
it.
Italy is on the brink of financial disaster.
We keep giving her an injection.
She's not going to make it.
The papacy said last year that if the
if the Communists got a heavy vault this
year that they would begin designing a cathedral
in Jerusalem.
It would be a duplicate of Notre Dame
Cathedral.
You see the Jews have a seat on
the United Nations because they're established as a
nation.
No no no the Pope says they're not
a nation.
They don't own Jerusalem.
It's the Holy City.
I'm the Holy Father.
That's my city.
I don't recognize the Jews and there's an
antagonism there.
It's another interesting thing to me and I'm
not not nationalistic in this.
We're going to give the Jews another billion
dollars but we're going to sell Taiwan down
the river apparently.
There are three million Jews in Israel.
There are 13 million people in Taiwan and
a very aggressive healthy spiritual church there.
But we can do without 13 million people
in order to establish some relationship with China
and as much as we don't like Cuba
we'd like to make a deal with her
even though she has some soldiers in Angola.
Now this is all a mix-up isn't
it?
Sure it is.
But it shows you the affairs of men.
You see there are two kingdoms.
The kingdoms of our kingdom of Jesus Christ
and the kingdoms of this world.
Now we're not fighting a visible enemy.
If the devil was a visible enemy I'd
sell my car and my house and give
a donation towards making an atom bomb to
blow him off the face of the earth.
But unfortunately he's not a visible enemy.
And you remember that Jesus is talking in
the in the 14th chapter of Luke.
He says this.
What king going to war or making war
against another king sittheth not first down to
consult whether he be able with 10,000
to meet him that come up against him
with 20,000.
Now what you have to do with your
enemy obviously in fighting a battle you have
to know who he is, where he is,
what strength he has.
Find his strategy, outmaneuver him and either go
headlong into battle with him or back off
and say well no chance.
He's too much for us.
Now we're lining up the church of Jesus
Christ against the powers of darkness.
You know it's interesting that Satan does not
appear in the first two chapters of Genesis
and he doesn't appear in the last two
chapters of Revelation.
The first time we hear of him is
in the third chapter of Genesis the 15th
verse where the promise is there that thou
shalt bruise, he shall bruise thy head and
thou shalt bruise his heel.
And then you have a continuous pattern of
his activity right through the word of God.
Now Paul has already said you remember writing
to the Corinthians the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal.
You see unless we're careful they'll be hypocritical
enough to say because we have in God
we trust that's all we need.
Don't believe it for a minute.
Do you remember when the armies of Israel
were lined up on a hillside?
It's a story we tell to children but
it's too big for us.
And the king was there and his wonderful
son the prince was there and all the
children were men were there from their west
point of that day.
And a man came striding down the valley
there he was a monstrous man maybe 10
feet high and he had a voice like
a thunderstorm and and when he when he
when he tried he shook the earth.
And day after day he defied the armies
of the living God.
That was why he was there.
He opposed the God of Israel.
He was a champion the superman of the
philistines.
And you may remember even stepping into the
story of Samson where they said look we
don't need to bother too much.
You know the God of Israel the supernatural
the majestic the holy God.
He doesn't divide the sea anymore.
He doesn't lead his people by a pillar
of fire or a pillar of cloud.
He's gone out of business.
We can soon get hold of this man
Samson and reduce his power.
Now that is the antagonism.
You see however much satan fights against the
church it is not the church he's against
he's against the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
All right.
Nobody can go out and fight this Goliath.
A little boy goes up and says what
are you waiting for?
Run home and look after those few sheep.
His brother says that you didn't come to
bring our lunch you came to see the
battle.
I would have said where is it?
They've been there a long while there'd be
no battle.
And he slips up one day and he
says you know you know what I feel
embarrassed that the God of Israel has to
stand here and you're his representatives and you've
no power you've no authority.
Why in God's name don't you do something?
Why do you take his name on your
lips?
You have no power.
Isn't that what the world says right now
about the church of Jesus Christ?
Where is your power?
Where is your authority?
You want to shrivel it.
I'm quite convinced in my own spirit otherwise
I want to die now.
I believe that before long organized religion will
be bypassed and God is going to find
his prophets where Jesus found his.
By the side of the sea signing a
document an income tax form as Matthew was.
Jesus didn't knock on the door of the
Sanhedrin.
He didn't say Cleopatra sit on my platform
and give me some prestige just to give
me a start as an evangelist got it
pretty rough.
Why don't you go and talk to that
man?
You wait till you see him.
You wait till you hear him barking out.
And David says I want to tell you
something.
I've done my homework.
What do you mean you did your homework?
Well you see God says if you're faithful
in the secret where nobody sees you.
You see we like to show our ministry,
display our power.
Or come where you're prudential.
Well one night I was there playing my
harp and singing the 23rd psalm and having
a great time I heard the roar of
a lion I said hey put my sheep
down and I went after him I killed
him.
Another night a bear came along and I
punched him on the nose said come back
I'll kill you too.
Now look I saw a lion I saw
a bear give me a chance to go
to Goliath.
Do you remember how Goliath came to him?
Goliath ten feet high needed a man with
a shield in front of him.
You notice what David didn't ever bothered with
a man with a shield.
We're so busy running around after demons we
don't hit the devil.
Never didn't care how many demons we destroy.
In fact you can't destroy demons.
Jesus never destroyed demons he shifted them out
of one place to another.
I'm glad for those who can cast out
demons sure enough.
But isn't it something when you have a
helmet of gold and a wonderful uniform and
a sword with diamonds maybe in the like
some of the daggers we have over in
old England there and you can't do anything
with it.
Well in God's name I ask you what
do we do with all the millions of
people in pews and all the money we
have and all the societies we have.
The temp is shrinking, devilry is expanding.
We're nervous and afraid.
I was thinking this week of one of
the hymns of Charles Westwith.
I like Charles Westwith's hymns very much and
he's facing the powers of darkness and the
invasion from hell and he said should all
the hosts of death and powers of hell
unknown put their most dreadful forms of rage
and malice on I shall be saved for
Christ displays superior power and bounteous grace.
Does it matter how big the enemy is
if you're 10 times stronger than he is?
So you want to go fight him?
Yes I want to go fight him.
Can you see his brothers looking around the
tent and say what will we say to
dad when we go home?
We'll have to say a lion flew him
or somebody destroyed him.
That Goliath will take our little brother and
break him over his knee and throw him
to the birds.
In fact the big shot said he'd do
that.
After all there's a little boy hasn't got
a shield.
Of course he has a shield.
Doesn't say so in the book.
It does if you read carefully.
It doesn't in my version.
Well it does in mine you better get
mine.
You know why because it says God said
to Abraham I am thy shield.
Isn't that better than a shield of stainless
steel about three feet thick you hold up
against the enemy?
Yet faint holding it anyhow.
He has an eternal God between him and
the one who is going to destroy him
and you can't get through God.
The psalmist says the Lord is a sun
and a shield.
They're watching little David go down the hill
and he's skipping along with happy you know
praising the Lord and singing the 23rd Psalm
he scoops down to say what did he
get?
I don't know.
Something somebody lost I guess.
He slipped five stones in his pocket.
You know why?
Because Goliath had four brothers and he was
hoping they'd come and he'd wipe the lot
out.
He got five stones.
I say this is going to be ridiculous
isn't it?
Yes yes yes.
That's what Paul said after his struggle with
the intellectuals you remember at the 17th of
Acts.
The intellectual capital of the world.
He said the struggle with Epicureans and poets
and and all the other intellectual group and
then he comes to Corinth from the intellectual
capital world to the festival of the world.
The capital of immorality.
And he says I'm coming to you.
Do you know what with?
Not with the wise words of the poets
and philosophers and Stoics and Epicureans and all
the learned people.
I tried that.
It didn't work.
I'm coming to you with a gospel which
is the power of God unto salvation and
he established in the festival the hell on
earth he established the church of Jesus Christ
in Corinth.
The very gates of hell couldn't prevail against
him.
Little David goes and throws the stone.
Well the big man was like everybody else.
He was protected everywhere except in his head.
That's where the devil gets most people anyhow.
Got a breastplate, arm plate, leg plate, name
plate and and yet his forehead.
Little David goes I guess he sat back
and said wait for this, wait for this.
He sees the stone going up.
You know such a thing had never entered
his head before and that's all it needed.
One stone.
Isn't it ridiculous when you've got men trained
in warfare?
Oh come on what has the church of
Jesus Christ got with scholarship that isn't anointed?
Give me scholarship on fire and I'll get
excited but you just start dividing the word
of God.
I thought you're up in some old laboratory
and you start you know discussing or dividing
or dissecting dead doctrine and through.
Forget it.
Give me a mouthful of sand this is
refreshing.
The ridiculous things, the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal.
I think David would have said that if
he'd known it in his day.
He didn't know it but Paul said it
later on you remember.
All right we're fighting against what?
Well Paul says here we're fighting against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness
of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high
places.
Now that's that's a pretty terrifying record isn't
it?
They remind you of something.
Chapter 1 verse 18 listen to what he
says.
The eyes of your understanding.
Now are your eyes open?
This is what he says.
If the eyes of your understanding are open
and then he says that you are enlightened
and you know what is the hope of
his calling and what are the exceeding riches
of the glory of his inheritance in the
saints and what is the exceeding greatness of
his power unto us Lord who believe according
to his mighty workings according to his mighty
power which he wrought in Christ when he
raised him from the dead and has set
him in his own right hand in heavenly
places.
Now now we're fighting against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this
world.
Look in this verse anyhow.
In this verse 21 he says that Jesus
is far above those principalities and he has
principalities above principality and power and might and
dominion and every name that is named.
Now what's the opposition to the Christian?
All right sum it up in scripture.
The world, the flesh, the devil, the rulers
of the darkness of this world.
When satan was cast down he brought down
the third part of the heavenly host.
So there's your opposition.
Oh of course your own lust and sinful
nature.
The world, the flesh, the devil, principalities, powers,
the rulers of world systems, my fleshly desires,
the lust of the eye and all those
dazzling bewitching things that they're all militating against
my spirituality.
Such a pretty mighty host to fight against
isn't it?
But I said if you if you knew
tomorrow morning that as soon as your children
went through that door there were all kinds
of monsters wanting to devour them, the school
system will pollute them if you've nothing else.
The hellishness, the filth, the sewers that run
through schools.
Somebody reminded me last night he'd been reading
something of Wesley's.
You know I turned that over in my
mind.
I tell you one thing he didn't fight.
He didn't fight about the lousy school system
like we do.
They didn't have the devil piped in on
tv in every home.
It was the golden age for the church
of Jesus Christ to shake the world in
my judgment.
You know why?
Because most people couldn't even read in his
day.
And if a certain came to town they
couldn't afford to pay to go.
Sure they came in their thousands.
Sure the anointing of God, but the principalities
and powers and rulers of darkness hadn't invaded
the world as they've invaded today.
I'm not saying he wouldn't triumph today or
Luther or something.
I'm saying the odds against the church of
Jesus Christ are a thousand times stronger today
than they were in Wesley's day or Luther's
day.
The thing that used to be done in
a corner is shouted from the housetops.
There are multiplied billions of dollars invested in
filthy, in pornography, in the film industry, in
the drink industry, in the gambling industry.
The devil's got the whole thing sewn up.
So against us there are principalities and powers,
the rulers of the darkness of this world.
The satan and the third part of the
heavenly host, the world, the flesh and the
devil, that's an army, that's legions.
And you say, well here I am all
by myself.
Just quoting Acts 1.8, ye shall receive
power.
I don't feel too strong against that multitude
anyhow.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, let me
tell you something.
When Jesus rose he put all things under
his feet, not some things, all things.
Against me the world, the flesh, the devil,
principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness
of this world, appetites which I have perverted
unless God trains me.
But who's for me?
Well look, who's for me?
The Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost.
You know they're a pretty strong combination.
And since only a third part of the
heavenly host fell, then two-thirds of the
heavenly host are on my side.
And I have the church of Jesus Christ.
I have the prayers of the saints.
I have all the wealth of God couched
in this book.
The greatest book of wisdom, the reason the
devil drives us from it.
He wants us to read other books about
the book rather than read the book.
You see because the word of God is
quick and it's powerful.
It's like the delayed bombs, people drop bombs
over those awful Germans, drop them in England.
And the kind English people drop them over
in Germany.
And uh, and you know what?
They didn't always go off when they were
dropped.
And they learned to detect.
They said there's a bomb there, it won't
go off for 24 hours.
There's one there, it won't go off for
36 hours.
You know the word of God is like
that sometimes.
You read it and sometimes you're on a
plane or somewhere else and suddenly it explodes.
The word is quick and it's powerful.
You know if we ever rediscover the greatness,
the majesty of Jesus Christ in his risen
glory will shake the world.
We've gone to sleep on it.
Now Satan, as I say he's not, he's
greater than man but he's less than God.
There's a very beautiful description of him in
the 28th chapter.
At least the consensus of opinion is that
this is about Satan in the 28th of
Ezekiel.
Let me read it to you.
Verse 12 says, Son of man, take up
a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus and
say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God,
thou sealest up the sun full of wisdom
and perfecting beauty.
Listen, thou hast been in Eden, the garden
of God.
Every precious stone was thy covering.
The sardis, the topaz, the diamond, the beryl,
the onyx, the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald,
the carbuncle and the gold.
Will you notice that nine of those twelve
stones were in the breastplate of the high
priest?
Thy workmanship and thy tablets of thy pipes
was prepared in thee in the day that
thou was created.
Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth.
I have set thee so.
Thou was upon the holy mount of God.
Thou hast walked up and down in the
midst of the stones of fire.
Thou was perfect in thy beauty.
Thou was perfect in thy ways from the
day that thou was created till iniquity was
found in thee.
By the multitude of thy merchandise they have
filled the midst of thee with violence and
thou hast sinned.
Therefore will I cast thee as profane out
of the mount of God and I will
destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst
of the stones of fire.
Thy heart was lifted up because of thy
beauty.
Thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of
thy brightness.
I will cast thee to the ground.
I will lay thee before kings that they
may behold thee.
Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries and the multitude
of thy iniquities by the iniquity of thy
traffic.
And then in the 14th chapter of the
book of Isaiah, in verse 12 it says,
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,
son of the morning?
How art thou cut down to the ground,
which thou didst weaken the nations?
For thou hast said in thine heart, I
will ascend into the heaven, I will exalt
my throne above the stars of God.
I will sit also upon the mount of
the congregation in the sides of the north.
I will ascend above the heights of the
clouds.
I will be like the Most High.
Yet thou should be brought down to hell
to the sides of the pit.
Now I can't conceive that that description in
Ezekiel is about anyone else but Satan.
He was in the garden of Eden, he
was the anointed cherub, after the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit.
He was the greatest being maybe that God
ever, it was fascinating.
I believe that when the woman Eve saw
him, she was dazzled by his beauty.
Every precious stone was his covering.
He had authority, he had power, he had
majesty, he had dignity.
And then somehow, nobody knows how, he desired
to be as God.
You see, the offer to every man who
falls is the offer that came in the
garden of Eden, you should be as God.
In other words, you still have power.
Satan came to Jesus and said, kneel before
me and I'll give you power over all
the kingdoms of the earth.
That has been offered.
Alexander the Great was offered the world, he
almost made it.
Spyrus, the king of Persia.
Right down to Adolf Hitler.
Offered power, offered authority, man craves for power.
Now here's a scripture that just floors me
every time I read it.
You can tell me about the devilish destruction,
you can try and estimate all the millions
of people destroyed by death and wars and
plagues and every diabolical thing that Satan engineered.
And then I'm staggered by a statement of
Jesus, when he said to his disciples, I
give you power over all the power of
the enemy.
Isn't that something?
I'm delegating authority, I'm delegating power.
You know, if we'd spent as much time
training people to pray as we've trained them
to sing in choirs.
And people get angry, people come to me
say sometimes, you know, I feel I have
a ministry of song.
I say, well sing.
Sing, I don't care.
But I'll tell you what, there is no
gift of the Spirit that's a ministry of
song.
The church is so sick today, you can
get somebody to come to your city and,
and, and rent an auditorium seating 5,000
people to get five dollars to sit for
four hours or five hours in an all
-night thing.
And if you paid them five dollars they
wouldn't come to an all-night of prayer.
If we had spent the time, you see
prayer, as we know it usually, as I
said, prayer is preoccupation with our needs.
Praise is preoccupation with our blessings.
Worship is preoccupation with God.
Jesus says when Satan tempts him on the
level of the flesh, on the level of
his personality, on the level of world dominion,
he says listen, it is written.
What is written?
Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God.
We have not taught people to worship.
We have not really taught people to pray.
I had a letter the other day asking
me to go to a certain school.
Will you come and teach me for three
or four days about prayer?
I don't know too much about it, but
I'll sure go.
No church is greater than its prayer meeting.
Not stronger than its prayer meeting.
I don't care what church it is, whether
it's this or I preach in a church
with 3,000 people not too long ago,
3,000 people jamming the church Sunday morning,
2,000 people, 1,000 midweek service.
That's a miracle these days.
But do you know what holds that church
together?
They've got lots of teenagers and 20-year
-olders who are meeting all over that city
in prayer and intercession and they're pouring out
their hearts for revival in that city.
That's what a king's ransom.
Mr. Carter keeps telling us he'll turn the
nation around.
He said in six months he'd lower the
unemployment by two million in six months and
somehow the Lord raised it two million in
the first month he was in.
It's a bit embarrassing.
He'll turn the nation around.
Well, I'll tell you when I believe him
and I've seen him swim up Niagara Falls.
It's a total impossibility.
Paul says that we don't wrestle against flesh
and blood.
Well, maybe we should say we don't wrestle
at all and be honest about it.
You know, I got so mad this week
about the powers of darkness.
I'll tell you I just felt like saying,
hey Herb, look I'm through with a whole
bunch of you and I'm through with myself
and I'm going to shut myself on a
farm.
I'm going to do nothing but pray, seek
God, wrestle in prayer.
We're living in bankruptcy as the church of
Jesus Christ compared with where we ought to
live.
I'm convinced of that.
I'm embarrassed to be part of a church
that's an embarrassment to Jesus.
He wrote that we might have principalities and
powers in subjection to us.
The rulers of the darkness of this world.
Mr. President, Queen of England, they have no
idea that they're tools of the darkness of
this world and there's nobody has eyes to
see except the true believer whose eyes have
been anointed.
You notice this, that Paul said you're to
put on the whole armor of God.
It's not something automatic.
You've got to put it on.
You know, I think I'll say this, you
can throw me out if you like, but
if you're a good parent you need, you
need 30 minutes on your knees as soon
as your children leave the house every morning
to cover them with the blood and protect
them against the powers of the world in
which we live.
Now I mean that and I'm sharing it
with you.
You may as well throw your child in
a sewer and send them to the, to
the, to most schools.
They'll get to know more about sex, impurity,
drugs, all the devilry that's going on.
It's a, it's a university of iniquity these
days, the average school.
And it wouldn't be so bad if it
would be over in a month or you
could put somebody out of office, but brother
I got news it's going to get worse
than it is.
It's not getting better and the only way
to stem the tide is the church of
Jesus Christ, a militant church.
Isn't this what it's saying?
It doesn't say put on the armor of
God, it says put on the whole armor
of God and it repeats it, put on
the whole armor of God, that you may
stand and withstand when you don't understand.
Withstand the fiery darts of the devil.
We have a shield of faith with the
helmet of salvation.
Our feet shall be the preparation of the
gospel of peace.
Again this, this person we're dealing with is,
is no man.
Do you know what Jesus called him?
The Son of God called Satan a prince.
He called him the prince of the power
of the air.
That's his dominion.
In the, in the tenth chapter of what,
Luke?
Jesus says he witnessed Satan pitched out of
heaven.
He was thrown overboard, get out of here
before you contaminate any more angels or archangels
and God threw him in.
I know godly men who will not fly
a plane.
Do you know why?
Because you're going through the territory of Satan.
I admire their convictions, I may not share
it all.
I certainly think twice before I went in
that supersonic plane that's coming to Dallas I
see, and uh, and fly twice as high,
fly what eight miles high it's going to
fly?
That Satan was cast out into the air.
The book of the revelation says he's soon
going to be cast down on the earth
before he's cast down into the pit.
But you know we ought not to be
scared because again here, here is our defense.
We have the prayers of the saints.
We have one living at the right hand
of the majesty on high.
We've already stolen his plans.
The apostle Paul says we don't have to
be ignorant of his devices.
If you're ignorant of the devil, you're ignorant
because you want to be, not because you
have to be.
We know he'll attack us on every level.
You may not know the moment, but we
know his methods.
Jesus stole all his secrets.
The wiles of the devil, the tricks of
the devil, the cunning of the devil, the
craft of the devil, principalities, powers, the rulers
of the darkness of this world, and they're
all engineered, they're all controlled by his majesty
Satan that Jesus again called the prince of
the power of the air.
Do you remember what Peter called him?
It's not a nice term.
He called him a roaring lion.
You know what Paul called him?
One who goes about as an angel of
light.
I'm not in any way diminishing what Finney
did or Wesley, but I'll tell you what,
they want bucking a thousand cults like we
are today.
They want two thousand gurus in this country.
As a matter of fact, there's nobody around
much but Indians at that time.
We've two thousand gurus in this country that
may be, that have nested mainly with the
intellectuals and many of them with young intellectual
jewels too.
Missionary societies are craving for money.
Mr. Sun Moon has got millions of dollars
and he's buying up property all over the
place.
We've got Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses.
We've got all the lesser cults.
You see, the apostle, he intensifies this as
he goes on in his writing.
Listen to what he says to Timothy.
You know it, I'm going to remind you
of it.
He says this now in the last days
that perilous times shall come.
Now doesn't this sound like San Antonio light
tomorrow morning?
He breathes.
We're dealing with somebody.
Listen, you can no more beat the devil
than you can lift yourself with your shoe
strap.
He's six thousand years of studying human nature
and human governments and human religious systems and
he knows every weakness.
He knows every way to pull a house
down.
He knows how to destroy empires.
We're not wrestling flesh and blood.
If he did, I'd take a sword, I'd
put on a uniform.
He said in a letter not long ago,
Brother Radney, when you pray, you smite the
nations.
Isn't that a nice thing to answer?
When you've got friends like this, you don't
need headaches.
You smite the nations when you pray.
You know, if some of you would honestly
say, Radney, I don't know what you're talking
about, why don't you talk Greek?
You can't remember the time you laid on
a belly and you didn't merely say prayers,
you prayed.
You talked about praying in the Holy Ghost,
not praying what I want, praying what God
wants.
Not praying that I may be blessed or
things go easier, I'll make a bit more
money, but wrestling.
Somehow God says, look there's a barrier needs
to be shifted in Russia or China.
You pray against that.
You don't have to anybody's applause.
And God comes on you with his strength
and you pray, maybe not with a language.
Somebody said not recently, well you know Romans
8 where he says, praying with groanings that
cannot be uttered is praying in tongues.
No it's not.
You may pray in tongues better if you
do, but that's not praying in tongues.
It's beyond tongues.
As much as tongues may be on, it's
praying a language that has no language.
The poet says, what am I?
An infant crying in the night.
An infant crying for a light with no
language but a cry.
That little baby cries, the mother knows it
needs feeding.
It cries half an hour after and father
says, well what's it doing this time?
Needs feeding?
You never fill it up.
No dear, it doesn't.
It's uncomfortable.
It needs changing.
It cries again.
Oh does it need feeding again?
No, changing not.
It's frightened.
I'll put the light off.
The baby stops.
The mother has an intuition.
She knows when the baby cries.
It has no language but a cry.
And the greatest prayers in the Holy Ghost
have no language.
It's a cry.
It's something born in the heart of God
that comes into my heart.
I can't explain.
I won't.
And I'd do it if the King of
England was there or Mr. the President of
the United States or Billy Graham.
I wouldn't worry me a hell of beans.
Just I'm a fool.
I'm a fanatic.
I don't know what I'm talking about all
night.
Wait till he opens the register in eternity
and see.
That's why if I wake at two or
three in the morning, which I do most
mornings anyhow, I want to know why.
If God burdens me, I'm out of bed.
I go in my office.
Don't applaud.
It's all right.
I don't want anybody's opinion.
I don't care a bit.
God tells me this.
I do it.
The normal thing is go to bed and
sleep.
If I wake up, but if I've had
too much supper, that's your fault.
But if you wake up for some other
reason, there's no physical reason why you should
wake.
Ask God why you woke up.
What are you trying to say?
You see, one of the hard things, the
hard thing for a believer is not, is
not to stand the criticism of the sinners.
You can do that.
Or as the Psalm 1 says, the contradiction
of sinners, it's the criticism of saints that
gets you down.
Here's a little woman, she's barren, and she
goes day after day, and she prays, and
she weeps, and she groans, and the big
shot priest says, you know what, I think
that woman's going off her rocker.
She's drunk.
I'm going to have to say something to
Hannah about this.
He didn't care what he said or what
he thought.
She prayed.
You know what she did one day?
She came in and said, hey uh Eli,
I want to show you something.
This is the baby I prayed for.
Now what do you say?
Hmm?
You'll be amazed how many children you could
have birthed into the kingdom of God if
you'd travailed, and I'd travailed as we should
have done at the right time.
Again, this isn't sugar and spice.
You don't preach this kind of sermon, you
know, when you go to a banquet, five
dollars for a breakfast, or five dollars for
a supper, they kick you out.
I know because I've had the experience.
That's why I don't go anymore.
I'm tired of playing in play pens.
Let them play pens and blow bubbles, that's
their business.
Time for action.
It's time for warriors.
We need saints, but we need soldier saints
to put on the whole armor of God.
Hannah prayed.
Hannah groaned.
Read the chapter.
She wept.
She had a sore spirit, a troubled spirit.
She prayed, and she wept in her praying,
and she travelled in her praying, and she
groaned in her praying, and she had a
troubled spirit.
Sure, but I'll tell you what, like the
good book says, it all turned around when
the baby was born.
You know, there's never been a revival in
history that hasn't had trouble.
Paul in writing, and I must tell you,
Paul writing here, you know, again says, these
are perilous times, but not if he's writing
to a young man, like some of you
fine young guys.
I pray for you fellows every day.
I pray for TLC too.
Skip says he's to pray for the dead.
But you know what Timothy, Paul is doing?
He's writing to a young fellow, and you
know when he looks at him, he says,
oh my God, if I could lift my
heart out and put it into the body
of that young man Timothy, if I could
give him my vision, my passion, if I
could explain to him all that God revealed
to me three and a half years in
the wilderness, God, I'd do it gladly.
I'm old, and I'm beaten, and I've been
stoned, and shipwrecked, and the night and the
day in the deep, in weariness, in fastings,
in painfulness, all hell broke loose on me,
but I made it.
Now Lord, if you put what's in me
in that young man.
So he says to him, listen Timothy, you're
a soldier.
Next time you say I led somebody to
Jesus, will you do a right job?
Don't say you've got a kingdom coming, don't
say you've got a mansion on Main Street,
and a five decker tram, and a free
ticket to the marriage supper of the Lamb,
and you're going to rule over five cities.
Tell them that, it won't all be true.
But will you whisper in the other ear
and say, listen, you're a soldier of Jesus
Christ, and this moment you lost all rights
to yourself.
You've no time of your own, you've no
money of your own, you've no interests of
your own.
This very moment you became a soldier of
Jesus Christ, now put on my armor and
go out and fight the good fight of
faith.
That's what he says to Timothy, hold fast,
fight the good fight of faith, put on
the whole armor of God.
And he says that no man that woreth
entangleth himself with the affairs of this life.
I don't know why, but God brought this
to my mind.
I preached in a certain town a while
ago, a big husky young man came, typical
football, you know, about as big as Goliath,
he looked, enormous fellow.
And he says, I'm cutting classes every morning,
I'm getting so much time, I'm going to
get this all down, and boy, I believe
God's going to work.
And you know, by about the third morning,
you're sorry he came.
He says, I want to talk with you.
He says, I went home last night and
started praying, and the Lord says, well sure,
I'll answer your prayer right away, quit playing
football.
Well, I'm getting a test to be a
professor.
You told me you're a soldier of Jesus,
quit playing football.
How many hours do you spend preparing for
football?
How many hours do you spend in prayer?
You want to fight flesh and blood on
the battlefield, to fight principalities, and now come
on, settle it.
You know, that big giant, the tears ran
down his face, he said, my career is
gone, my career is gone, I can't be
a pro.
In a matter of life, you'll be the
biggest pro you ever dreamed of, once God
gets over here, knocks you into shape, and
gets on a battlefield, and you start knocking
devils down, instead of men that weigh two
pounds more than you do, or something.
What's wrong with being an athlete?
Nothing, unless it keeps you of your prayer
life.
You see, the life's too short.
This young man, Paul, covets for him the
very best that he can have, and so
he says, don't get entangled with the affairs
of this life.
Oh, it may not necessarily be a ball
game, it might be a girlfriend that's going
to get hold of you too soon, or
a boyfriend.
You see, that word discipline is almost as
filthy as the word repentance.
No, evangelist preaches repentance, it's a dirty word,
it kicks you out.
Or by the same word discipline, it comes
from the word disciple, it's from the same
root.
But we're not disciplined, we're not disciples, we're
followers.
We're following so far behind, the preacher can't
see us, and I guess the Lord can
hardly see us, we're that far behind in
what he's telling us to do.
But all the disciplined man, tell me one
man that's moved his generation for God, that
hasn't been a disciplined man, because I don't
know him.
Sure Mr. Wesley did wonderful.
Mr. Wesley was never in bed after four
o'clock in the morning.
John Fletcher was never in bed after four
o'clock in the morning.
Hudson Taylor said, the sun never rose on
China but what it found me on my
feet.
No wonder that good hymn says, take time
to behold his feet off with thy Lord.
You see, there are no leaps.
I was reading just today a chapter that
we love, everybody loves it so much.
No we don't, we love part of it.
One thing in Sturkey, isn't it beautiful?
It's so lovely, it's all about love.
Makes you feel so nice, so loving, so
lovely.
But you know we don't dwell too much
on the tail end of that chapter.
Do you know what it says?
Paul says, knowledge will cease, tongues will cease,
nobody will have a miracle ministry in heaven,
won't they be miserable?
And there's so many things that won't be.
But I'll tell you what hit me hard,
it was when we were up at Ashbury,
Brother Herb was there, it wasn't his fault.
But this hit me hard and I meditated
over it a few times.
Right in the middle of all that excellence,
Paul says, when I became a man, I
put away childish things.
And people say, you see he wasn't bothering
me with gifts and miracles.
No, no, no, don't you, don't, don't say
that.
Everything that God makes is precious.
But I'll tell you what, I believe there
was a moment when Paul consciously entered into
manhood spiritually.
Like a boy that has a bar mitzvah
in the Jewish faith, he becomes eligible for
certain mamas when he, when he passed that
thing.
All right, in the case of the Apostle
Paul, in the case of John, John says
what?
I write to you little children, I write
to you young men, I write to you
fathers.
I don't think he's talking about them in
the physical area, I believe he's talking about
them in the spiritual area.
There comes an area where a man, where
a boy changes to manhood.
I could take you to the track in
the floor of a factory, where I was
working, it was about five minutes to five
in 1930.
And I heard the voice of the Lord
as clearly as those men did by the
Galilean sea.
I took my tape measure off my neck,
I was cutting a suit in the tailor's
factory.
There were eight thousand people in it, there
were Jews, I worked opposite the natives.
The other man was a communist.
The other man had been something, I don't
know what, he was a drunken, a liar,
and a dirty rascal.
And I put my hands together there and
I said, Lord I heard your voice and
I make you a promise.
I won't look back, I won't turn back.
I don't know what it means, but I'm
going right ahead.
I applied to go to a Bible school.
You can't work your way through Bible schools
in England.
I had money, I had a dollar and
a half.
And uh, I wrote to the school and
I hope they'd say no.
I just told them everything that I didn't
think they should like about me, you know.
And they said, come ahead, come ahead.
That's about the worst news I ever got.
It's about the only time I got really
accepted fully.
They said, come ahead brother, you're the kind
of fellows we're after, that's all right, God
will make a way.
I got right to the end of my
money.
I went up on the second corridor one
day.
I'd left a broom or something there.
And a big fellow came down, he says,
hi Len, how are you?
Oh sir, fine, fine.
How are you enjoying this school?
I said, uh fine.
Are you coming back?
Semester's nearly through, term will you say?
I said, uh well, well he said, are
you coming back?
It's yes or no, isn't it?
I said, uh well, it's no and yes.
It's no because I have no money, it's
yes because God will provide a way.
Oh, is it money?
Yeah, he says, I'll pay all your bills
to leave school.
I said, thank you sir, and I left
him, in case he changed his mind.
I just hurried down that corridor and I,
boy you talk about leaping for joy.
I said, hallelujah, hallelujah.
I never traded on his generosity, I never
bought any new clothes, I never ran a
bill up, he just paid for my tuition
in that school, right to the very last
day I was there.
I say that because again, he can do
the same thing for you, if that's what,
if that's God's way for you.
All right, I'm going to deal with putting
on my helmet of salvation next week, God
willing.
But I'm going to ask you this, while
I think of it, I'm going to ask
you to pray.
I'm going to Dave Wilkerson's school for three
days, first week in March, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
over the hedge to the, used to be
a gappy forest, now it's Christian Communications, to
teach there, then up near Oklahoma, between, not
far from Oral Roberts, not far from the,
well, it's the largest Nazarene college in the
world, I think.
So I'm hoping to set both places on
fire, Oral Roberts' place and the Nazarene's.
But anyhow, and we're going to have some
preachers come there, so I'm asking you now
to pray, that's all that matters, that you
pray.
I have an invitation to talk to a
thousand to fifteen hundred Presbyterian preachers in August,
which will be a great challenge.
Now it doesn't make me a hero, I'm
asking for your prayers, because I don't have
anything in myself to do it, but God
has.
If he wanted someone else, he would have
ordered them to go, but he lets me
go.
Then up to another place, just to the
side of the Southwestern, was it Southwestern Seminary,
at Fort Worth, in August.
God has given me a tremendous burden for
preachers and students, particularly.
I feel this is a great year in
America, I think it's going to be a
fatal year.
We'll be in a vastly different situation a
year from now.
Let me wind this up with this.
I'm saying that right now, I believe that
you could lift up your hands, if you
could plug into the world and say it
in a thousand religions, you could lift your
hands up and cry, in the words of
the scripture, walls to the inhabitants of the
earth, for the devil is come down.
I'm quite sure he's intensifying every power that
he has to destroy the Church of Jesus
Christ, in this hour in which we're living.
I'm sure that before long, if the world
perished ten years, most of us will be
in concentration camps in this country.
I can tell you why there's a million
acres reserved for this very reason, and you
won't be put there because you're mentally insane,
you'll be put there because you won't bow
to the government, because you won't trade with
a plastic card, because you won't bear a
sign that can be photographed now with a
laser beam on your forehead and you can't
see it.
That all money will have been destroyed and
credit cards only will be accepted.
I'm going to tell you something else, I
won't, it's a secret, but it's a terrifying
thing.
I said that it's, can I take five
more minutes, okay?
I said a few years ago, nobody accepted
the devil as a person, they ridiculed him.
And I remember reading a poem years and
years ago, that said something like this, men
don't believe in a devil now, as their
fathers used to do.
They forced the door of the broadest creed
to let his majesty through.
There isn't a print of his clothes and
hood, or a dart from his fiery bow,
to be found in the earth or air
today, for the world has voted it so.
Who is it mixing the fatal draught, or
drought, draught, who is it mixing the fatal
draught, that poises, let me say, who is
it mixing the fatal draught that pulses heart
and brain?
Who fills the beer, you know you carry
a dead corpse on the beer, who fills
the beer of this passing year, with ten
thousand thousand slaves?
Who blights the bloom of the youth today,
with a fiery breath of hell?
If the devil isn't and never was, won't
somebody rise and tell?
Who does the steps of the toiling saints?
Who digs the pit for his feet?
Who sows the tares in the fields of
time, wherever God sows his wheat?
For the devil is voted not to be,
and so the thing is true, but who
is doing the kind of work the devil
alone should do?
We're told he doesn't go about like a
roaring lion now, then who shall we hold
responsible for the everlasting row, to be found
in home and church and state, to earth's
remotest bounds, if the devil by unanimous vote
is nowhere to be found?
Won't someone step to the front forthwith and
make his bow and show how the crimes
and frauds of a single day spring up
we want to know?
For the devil is voted not to be,
so of course the devil's gone.
We simple folk would like to know who
carries his business on.
Yes, he did things secretly.
Yes, we know there was an occult system.
I met an old man in the alliance
who'd been on the roof of the world
in 1914, just before 1914 he was in
Tibet.
He was known for casting out demons, and
he had a tremendous ministry in it.
He went to cast out demons, he climbed
one of those icy mountains, and he went
to cast out demons on a girl, and
as he cast out the demons in her,
said, listen leave us alone, we're only little
demons.
That man whose name I forget, we have
a book on him somewhere, do you remember
him?
Christie, Christie of the alliance, do you remember
old Christie?
I heard him once, I'd have crossed the
Atlantic, I heard that man pray for 10
minutes, I would cross the Atlantic to hear
him pray, he's dead now.
You talk about praying, I'll tell you where
it was, it was in the opera house
in Chicago, having a big mass meeting there.
That old saint, he was blind, he felt
for the thing like this, you know, and
you know he opened heaven, the glory of
God came down.
I thought, I don't want to give power
over demons.
And you know the demons in that girl
said, we're only little demons, and Christie said,
where are the big ones?
You know what they said audibly?
The big ones have gone over the mountains
to Europe to help in the war.
Principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness
of this world, testifying unconsciously that they were
agents of the devil, helping to engineer war,
helping to confuse minds, helping to stir up
enmity and hatred.
Now we've got the great high priest of
devilry in the country.
This little woman, Vasilia Schling, do we sell
a book, Persecution?
I haven't seen it till yesterday, it was
printed, she wrote it in 1973, it was
printed in English in England in 1974, printed
in this country the same time, I got
it yesterday, but right on time.
You see there's a priest, a great high
priest, they call him the black pope, Anton
Levy, Olivier, Lavey.
He started the Satan movement, this is what
he said, he substantiates his theses by referring
to those of Walsh Hulks, that's the guy
that started the Illuminati and all the rest
of that junk.
All right, he calls himself a practicing Satanist.
Lavey drives a car with the license plate
Satan 9, he has a black house in
San Francisco with a ritual chamber for Satan,
he has written the Satanic Bible.
And on the next page it says, in
Michigan at a bookstore near a colleague they
sell 100 copies of the Satanic Bible for
every one that they sell of our Bible.
That's the influence that he had.
The Satanic cults, I'll paint that, Lavey himself
said that the Satanic age began in 1966
when the theologians said that God is dead
and when sexual freedom league came into prominence
and the hippies formed their free sex culture.
From that point on Satan, Satanic cults have
expanded in every major city in the United
States.
There were 450 priests ordained to the Satanic
movement in 1971.
In the same year 4,000 people gathered
to worship the devil in Michigan.
All right, here's the other thing.
They have a takeoff of the Lord's Supper,
the consecrated wavers are passed round and you're
invited to become part of the body of
the devil.
During the cultic rituals incense was mixed with
hashes and whiskey and other other alcoholic drinks
were served instead of wine.
And the most internal music provided the background
for these vile scenes.
Now for centuries Satan's policy has been to
spread the belief that he doesn't exist but
now today he's come out into the open.
Anton Lavey, I call him the apostle of
iniquity, has established this this church which he
says is a Satan church.
It's a counter to the churches we know
it and it is registered as a religious
body in America which means again it's tax
-free.
Now what does this man say about his
goals?
He says this, in his opinion Satanism will
lead to totalitarian world government.
In this police state the leaders would practice
black magic, the weak members of society would
be eliminated and Satanism made the state religion.
It is no surprise to hear that Lavey
has the appropriate flag in his chamber.
Do you know what it is?
The flag of the U.S.S.R.
United States of Soviet Russia.
Hanging, it hangs in his lower chamber.
Furthermore books about Satanism are published by a
communist press and sold in large bookstores on
the west coast of America operated by the
communist party.
Now this is what this is the effect
of Satanism.
Communism in its various forms has already shown
itself true with a grotesque wholesale slaughtering of
a hundred and twenty million lives.
But now Satanism is unmasking itself.
Beneath the mask now we see what?
Murder, carnage and sadism.
Now listen to this, in Los Angeles a
young lady, school teacher was murdered.
When they found the corpse a heart was
missing, her lungs were missing, other parts of
her body were missing and they had been
used by a documented statement here, they had
been used in a sacramental ceremony, in a
ceremonial sacrifice to the devil.
In another case a 21 year old murderer
told a criminal investigator, Satan is my master.
So he cut off the victims and leg,
legs and arms and then he ate the
heart of the man he killed.
He ate, he pulled it out living in
blood and he ate the heart.
Do you think how diabolical a person can
become?
Cut off his fingers, cut off the members
of his body, ate his heart out of
his flesh A week later when he was
arrested in Salinas in California, he was in
possession of a satanic Bible and he had
the skeleton fingers of a man that he
destroyed.
In 1971 in New Jersey a young boy
persuaded two other boys to kill him, murder
him and destroy him because he said, I
shall arise from the dead and I shall
come back as a leader of a legion
of demons.
A young female Satanist who swears, she once
saw the devil himself during a black ceremony,
was convicted of manslaughter for stabbing a 60
year old man and she said, I enjoyed
doing it and she said this while she
was giving elaborate ritual in a prison cell
in Miami.
The Manson family declared that they practiced black
magic and all that they did as you
know made headlines.
All right here's the last thing.
The rise of the church of Satan is
an unmistakable sign of the times we're living
in.
The days come when communism and Satanism are
achieving their common goals.
These are the goals, revolution, chaos, persecution of
Christians, the takeover of world power, the formation
of a world state, a world ministry system
and a world government.
And right now Mr Carter says, I want
to normalize relations with China which liquidated 42
million Christians.
I want to get a little closer to
Russia with all its diabolical destruction of the
church of Jesus Christ in that conflict, not
totally destroyed.
But you see the enemy has come in
like a flood and you know what God
says and here's our hope, against this flood
of iniquity, this avalanche of devilry.
Thank God for Wesley Finney.
I get a lot of thrills out of
them.
They never faced public pornography.
Wasn't it this week they voted in Miami
whether to allow topless bathing there?
Go down some streets and you're blessed if
you go down some streets there in in
San Antonio, these other cities where they have
vile nude parlors and all the other devilry.
With such a flood of pornographic literature and
filthy films and everything else, the devil's having
a whale of a time.
And yet God has said this, and this
is my hope.
I'll tell you what, I have no hope
in organized religion as such.
Twenty-five years the big shot evangelists have
had millions of money and they haven't moved
this nation to God, not one of them.
So God's going to do a new thing.
As sure as my name is Leonard Rains
he's going to do it.
You know how I know?
Because number one he said, when the enemy
comes in like a flood, and he has
never come in like a flood like he
has today.
But when the enemy comes in like a
flood, the spirit of the living God, not
something we organize, not something we work up,
but something that God sends down.
Something supernatural to counter that which is supernatural.
But instead of just the supernatural, it's the
super person himself, the Lord Jesus Christ in
all his supremacy, who already has everything under
his feet.
We have to explore the possibilities of grace.
And then finally, a word that cheered me
up as I read it today.
Oh they went through hell to get there,
sure they did.
What do you think God's going to do?
Give us all a Rolls Royce and a
mansion?
Some of us may find the greatest times
of prayer in jail.
We may have the most exciting times, we're
in the concentration camp up north that they've
already got with a million acres.
But not only have we the promise that
when the enemy is coming like a flood,
not only have we the promise that he
is above all principalities and powers, we have
another promise, they overcame him how?
By the blood and the lamb and the
word of their testimony.
You know that rung a bell in me?
I like choruses, I like hymns, but I'll
tell you what, all the new choruses are
about love and sweetness and blessing and hallelujah.
There's a shocking diminishing of appreciation of the
blood of Jesus Christ, most of the modern
choruses.
And you don't defeat the devil by singing
or by organizing.
There's one thing that terrifies the devil and
that is the blood of Jesus Christ, God's
Son.
Because by it Jesus destroyed principalities and he
destroyed powers.
Now he says I've made all the provision,
what are you going to do?
Are you going to put on the whole
armor of God?
Are you ready to start sweating?
You've been singing long enough, you're going to
start sweating?
Do some fasting?
Drawing some lines and saying to Satan you're
not going to pass that line?
You see Satan's got an awful lot of
power.
I sometimes wish I could have edged up
to some of those men that prayed in
the Old Testament.
I'd like to have prayed with Daniel wouldn't
you?
Man that must have been something.
You know he prayed and he didn't get
an answer for three weeks and he didn't
panic.
He said it's all right God's got it
all worked out.
One day a beautiful person came to him
and said hi.
You know the very first day you prayed
God heard you and I was coming back
to tell you how things were going and
I got a block in heaven.
I met the Prince of Persia.
He withstood me.
What?
You expect me to prevail where the Prince
of Persia held up one of God's holy
beings?
He held me up for three weeks.
But I got through to you and I
want to tell you what God said.
You know I kind of think if the
prayers of Daniel could be held up for
three weeks.
Mine could be held up for three years
the way I pray.
I don't sweat and toil too much.
I do sometimes.
I cry and weep.
I call on God.
But you think of it as there are
barriers in the heavens.
You know maybe one day when you're praying
God will tell you what the what the
high priest of devilry is.
What the demon is that hangs over San
Antonio or the God of lust that hangs
over Hollywood or the God of covetousness that
hangs over Las Vegas or the God of
confusion that has his headquarters right over the
White House and all those other boys up
there.
That was the secret of revival in in
in the in Argentina.
The boy the man that our dear Paul
has worked with for 10 years Miller.
God showed him he says there's a there's
a demon over this area and and you
know what the scripture says?
You don't grab a crusade and then pray.
You first bind the strong man.
That's why I say you pray for me
six months ahead of now.
Because if we get him tied up here
it'll be easy there.
If you leave me to sweat and toil
and boil while I'm preaching man I it's
had enough weight in people.
Never mind shitting the devil.
So you better get underway then put some
weight behind it and pray and believe God
and say Lord I'm believing you for victory
in every one of those meetings.
Where brother Adrian has a chance to pray
to preach to preachers.
This is our confidence.
Our weapons are not carnal.
You can't have a marvelous sword.
You can't have a shield with diamonds.
You can't make a helmet.
But I'll tell you what we've got the
blood of the lamb.
The lion of the tribe of Gouda hath
prepared.
No man was found worthy to open the
books.
Oh that's a scripture.
I told the students the other week there
at Asbury.
I said this is the most scaring scripture
I think in the in the awesomeness of
eternity.
That no man was found worthy.
And he said do you know what he
said?
There is nobody in heaven on the earth
under the earth or in the sea.
Now that's pretty good going.
If you can find any place after that
go.
I don't want to go with you.
Nobody in heaven.
Nobody on the earth.
No there was nobody found.
And I wept.
And you know that word weeping is the
same word that Jesus wept over Jerusalem.
It isn't somebody because they've got a broken
finger.
It's a man with a broken heart.
Nobody can take the books out of the
hand of him on the throne.
The title deeds of the universe are there.
And suddenly a voice said weep not.
I wonder he didn't say that John jumped
3,000 miles in the air.
Weep not the lion of the tribe of
Gouda hath prevailed.
And he takes the book out of the
hand of him that sat upon the throne.
And he's worthy.
He's worthy.
Let's see that we put on the whole
armor.
You pray as you've never prayed before for
those children.
You pray as you've never prayed.
God showed me coming to the prayer meeting
Wednesday night.
I was coming down the road.
I thought there won't be a crowd there.
And the Lord said you know what I
did.
I put a star in the sky and
people came thousands of miles because of the
star.
I'll put a star over your fellowship and
people will come.
I believe you'll do it if we obey
him.
That's a hymn that we love so much.