Leonard Ravenhill.
Our Father we thank you tonight that we
do not have to descend into the depths
to bring thee up or ascend into the
heights to bring thee down.
We thank you that we found the way
through the blood past the veil to the
holy of holies with God.
Lord we thank thee that you said if
we draw nigh to God he'll draw nigh
to us.
Lord we turn our backs for this little
time on this vain vanishing world in which
we live.
This world which so loves darkness rather than
light that appreciates even the work of sin
to the work of God.
Lord we ask you to come yourself.
Malachi says and who shall abide the day
of his coming?
The Lord whom ye seek and Lord tonight
for myself and for this people I do
not seek blessing, do not seek healing, do
not seek joy but seek God himself.
We would say as Wesley said less than
thyself oh do not give.
Lord make this a terrible night for the
devil.
Make it a glorious night for our risen
Lord.
Make it a night when fetters will be
broken.
A night when heart shall be cleansed.
A night when people shall get spiritual vision
that will never go dim.
A night when people will put on the
whole armor of God and go to fight
the good fight of faith.
Lord we thank you for the blood of
Jesus Christ tonight.
We want to be numbered with a number
who overcome him the devil by the blood
of the lamb and the word of our
testimony.
Lord outside there's a perishing world and according
to your word it's doomed and damned and
lost.
Lord we pray that this meeting shall scatter
to the very ends of the earth.
Lord we pray that young men and women
shall die to every human ambition and become
alive in Jesus Christ tonight.
Lord again we asked do the miraculous.
Do what organizing cannot do.
Do what preaching cannot do.
Do not what logic cannot do.
Do what human zeal cannot do.
Do not do what religion cannot do.
Come by the power the power of the
risen son of God.
Lord get a hundred percent victory out of
this meeting.
A hundred percent defeat for the devil.
Let bondage to self die tonight.
Let bondage to this world die.
Let all the flowers of the world perish.
Let them wither tonight.
Lord I pray send the plague on the
garden of the devil as it were.
He puts his flowers out so fascinating but
tonight Lord again we're jealous for your glory.
We know there's a war going on in
the Middle East but Lord there can be
a bigger war in this place tonight.
But Lord we pray the devil will lose
in every life that anybody fettered by the
devil and sin will be liberated.
Christ will be exalted.
Let thy will become illuminated as never before.
We would glorify thee in Jesus name.
Amen.
Thank you.
Be seated.
Okay I have a text tonight in the
second letter of Peter in chapter 1 and
verse 20.
No second Peter chapter 1 and verse 21.
For prophecy came not in old time by
the will of man but holy men of
God spake as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost.
A few years ago I did a study
on the Holy Spirit and to do some
research I went to a very old edition
of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
I didn't have the American edition and as
I looked in there I discovered there were
just three pages out of thousands of pages
there were three pages on the Holy Spirit
and 31 pages on the papacy.
It's amazing how little attention we really give
to the Holy Spirit of God.
There's a creed some of you know called
the Apostles Creed.
I don't think the apostles ever heard about
it but you remember it begins, I believe
in God the Father Almighty what maker of
heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ is
only Son our Lord who was conceived by
the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary
suffered under Pontius Pilate.
In the average church meeting when you go
the Holy Spirit is the last person mentioned
in the last moment of the meeting.
We dismiss the meeting in the name of
the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost and
that's the end.
Most of you don't know anything about him
till you go to church next time but
there is such a thing as living a
spirit filled life.
Prophecy came not at any time by the
will of man but holy men of God
spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost.
It's not possible for me to transmit to
you what those words meant to me when
I first heard them in the early hours
of the morning a few months ago.
Just those very simple words moved by the
Holy Ghost.
If a man is moved by the Holy
Ghost he's never the same again.
The Holy Ghost does everything majestic.
He made this wonderful book with all its
various contributors.
There's no contradiction in it.
Many of the men never knew each other,
never saw each other and ate the work.
It's the most majestic book in the world.
A man that's educated and doesn't know the
Bible isn't educated.
A man that knows the Bible and isn't
educated is educated because again he knows the
word of the living God.
Holy men of God spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost.
Immediately I thought about the Holy Spirit's working
in creation.
I was thinking of the hymn that we
used to sing in England very often.
John Wesley died in 1791.
I was in a meeting some years ago
and I kept referring over and over and
over again to my good friend Dr. Tozer.
After a meeting a lady came to me
and said you actually knew Dr. Tozer personally?
I said yes.
I prayed with him, I talked with him,
I ate with him and it was a
very wonderful thing to know him.
Well during the week I used my prerogative
and I used quite a number of the
hymns of Wesley which I like very much.
The same lady came to me and said
did you know Mr. Wesley personally?
I said no, he died a couple of
years before I was born.
It's 1791.
You know this wonderful little brochure that the
distinguished president composed.
I think John, you put this together John?
You put this together?
Now don't get embarrassed, just say yes.
Thank you very much.
I know he's very shy but anyhow.
You know immediately I read this thing, I
was ignited by it.
Last year we had a marvelous conference.
If you remember the theme was holiness unto
the Lord.
Do you know to this very week I
hear people from all over the world who
come and tell me that that was a
life-changing experience.
You know somehow we've got the idea that
there's a famous book, let me see, I
don't know when it was written in the
1500s, The Imitation of Christ.
Do you remember that book?
But that's totally wrong.
You can't imitate Christ.
Christianity is not the imitation of Christ.
Christianity is the impartation of Christ.
The glory of living in this world is
the glory that Christ can live in us.
As the apostle said, the life which I
now live in the flesh, I live by
the faith of the Son of God who
loved me and gave himself for me.
But immediately I got this folder.
I began to think of how many times
I've preached and thought about the subject of
fire.
I was raised in England in case you
don't know.
And for the first 15 years of my
life I went to a Methodist church.
And we had a wonderful pastor most of
the time.
He was the most marvelous guy for drinking
tea.
Came to our home at least once a
week or once twice a week.
And he always came for tea.
But I liked him.
I loved him.
You see on what he did in the
weekdays, he was a pastor.
On Sunday he was chairman of the board.
Thank you.
Well I was one of the board.
But the fact was that while I was
interested honestly for the first few years, I
used to read my Methodist hymn book.
I almost brought it tonight.
I've carried it around the world wherever I've
gone because I love the great hymns of
Wesley.
Particularly the ones related to fire.
It seemed that the whole of that revival
was surrounded by the emblem of fire.
As I said last night, the first great
revival, the greatest revival in English history was
due to the Wesleys and it wasn't in
buildings.
As a matter of fact the Bishop of
Gloucester locked his doors against John Wesley, Charles
Wesley, and who was the other fellow?
Whitfield.
He would let them in the place even.
How many of you remember the name of
the bishop of that time?
None of you.
That's exactly what he deserves.
After all he wouldn't let the greatest preacher
in the world go in there.
So I say I just sat back in
my chair or in the pew and I
over and over and over read again those
amazing hymns of John Charles Wesley.
And one of them he says, Come Jesus
Lord with holy fire, Come in my quickened
heart inspired, Cleansed in thy precious blood.
Now to my soul I self-reveal, Thy
mighty working let me feel since I am
born of God.
Me with a quenchless thirst inspire, A longing
infinite desire, And fill my craving heart.
Now listen to this.
Here's a man with acres of culture.
Here's a man who's one of the greatest
men in the country and he cries to
a God.
He's already soaked in theology.
He was in Oxford University.
He was a don or a teacher there
for some period.
And yet he's conscious that while he has
a measure of the grace of God, there's
a great vacancy in his heart.
And he says this awesome thing, Less than
thyself O do not give, In might thyself
within me live, Come all thou hast and
art.
Everybody that comes in my office and all
kinds of people, all shapes and sizes and
colors and tribes.
I ask them all one thing.
Do you know God?
They usually hesitate.
Sometimes I press it and say, does Christ
live in you?
In me?
Well, if he doesn't, he's not a Christian.
If any man be in Christ, he is
a new creation.
God doesn't patch us up.
He remakes us.
He gives a new heart, new spirit, a
new life, a new outlook.
Well, not only does he say that, Wesley
wrote another hymn in which he says, Refining
fire go through my heart, illuminate my soul,
scatter thy life through every part and sanctify
the whole.
The same thing came to a man who
was half Jew and half Gentile.
He reminded me much of Keith Green.
How many of you heard Keith Green?
What a great guy he was, wasn't he?
Someone asked me, did he used to come
to your house?
Never more than five times a day.
I wouldn't care.
Coming in the day, he came at two
o'clock in the morning.
I want to share something.
Well, listen, I'll be here tomorrow.
No, no, I've got to tell you now.
He's a great big guy, six foot one,
a map of gorgeous curls he had.
He put his arms around me and almost
killed me and said, I love you.
It's a strange kind of love, isn't it?
Guy comes and hugs me and I, all
right, I believe you.
I suppose you know he was half Jew
and half Gentile.
I used to tease him, he must be
bored, he must be related to William Booth,
founder of the army.
But William Booth wrote one of the greatest
battle songs that was ever written.
Thou Christ of burning, cleansing flame, send the
fire.
Thy blood-bought gift today we claim, send
the fire.
Look down and see this waiting host.
Give us the promised Holy Ghost.
We want another Pentecost, send the fire.
To make our weak hearts strong and brave,
send the fire.
To live a dying world to save, send
the fire.
The fire of God so came that people
crossed the Atlantic.
One of the most distinguished scholars in America
at that time, he was a senior orator
in the university, was a young man by
the name of Brangle.
And Brangle crossed the Atlantic Ocean and signed
up with the Salvation Army when he was
despised and rejected.
William Booth looks at him and he said,
who are you?
He said, well, I'm Dr. Kemble all the
way from America.
Now, Bickle stopped talking up there to you.
Good to see you.
Thank you for coming.
I guess you came after the offering, did
you?
Just like you.
But William Booth, I'll tell you one thing,
dear friend, among others, you never have to
advertise a fire.
If you have a fire, you don't need
the circus act in front of it to
attract people to the fire.
Fire is the most attractive thing in the
world.
The God I serve is a consuming fire.
You'll never see that as a bumper sticker.
You'll say God loves you, but you never
see a bumper sticker, do you?
Our God is a consuming fire, but he
is.
And what did the prophet say?
The Lord whom ye seek.
I'm not looking for God in Anaheim.
Is it Anaheim?
We're still here?
Well, it's still the wilderness of America anyhow.
I'm not looking for blessing this week.
I'm not looking for anointing this week.
I'm not looking for joy this week.
I'm looking for God to come.
If God doesn't come to America, we're sunk.
But I'll tell you what, there's not a
thousand sudden Hussain's can keep God away from
the place.
We're not afraid of the enemy.
Because greater is he that is in us
if we're born of the Spirit of God.
If the Spirit of God resides in us,
if the wisdom of God is with us,
greater is he that is in us than
he that is in the world.
So again, Booth gets his mighty army going.
You talk about signs and wonders, they really
had them.
You know, one of the advantages of being
old, well, I'm not really old, but I'm
getting older.
And I look back on some of the
experiences, they almost said adventures.
And one afternoon in the hills of Wales,
I talked with a man who was the
right-hand man for William Booth.
Let me show you how attractive a man
on fire really is.
You've got John the Baptist in the wilderness.
He doesn't wear any, what was it, say,
doctor's robes.
Distinct thing, except of course he wears a
leather girdle about his loins and old camel
skin over his body.
And yet they went from Jerusalem to Judea
and Samaria.
And he was a man on fire for
God.
He was God's incandescent man.
It takes God to set a man alight
with holy fire.
And John the Baptist was there, he had
no financial backing, he had no five-piece
band, he had no newsletter.
Would you believe that?
He didn't even have a five-serne the
camel.
He didn't have any signification except that God
was with him.
Jesus Christ said of him, when ye are
to see in the wilderness a reed shaken
by the wind, this man is the most
anointed man in the world today.
You never again have to, you never have
to advertise a fire.
I was thinking today about a hundred years
ago, I wasn't around.
And it was a marvelous time in England
because at one end of London you had
William Booth preaching his hellfire sermons.
Another end of the city you had Dr.
F.B. Meyer who was the very opposite.
In the middle of the city you had
Spurgeon.
In another place you had Dr. Parker.
In Westminster, not Westminster Abbey but St. Paul's
Cathedral, every Sunday afternoon 3,000 people gathered
to have a Bible reading.
And yet there's a young man only in
his 20s in Wales, and the man I
talked with in the hills of Robbyn had
said he received notice that the Spirit of
God had come upon a young man by
the name of Evan Roberts.
He took the overnight train intending just to
see what God was doing.
He went in this auditorium, of course compared
with this place it was small, there were
800 people there.
Evan Roberts came down and sat down on
the front seat and bowed his head and
he bowed his head and he bowed his
head and the people wondered he was there
for three solid hours praying.
Our people get up and walk away.
But then he stood up and preached for
15 minutes and the glory of God filled
the place and they were broken and weeping
and they went back to their, they went
back out of the building.
Evan Roberts went to wait all night on
God in prayer for the next day.
But the man who should have gone home
after the first day two days, then three
days, then four days, and five days.
Then he sneaked back in the office and
old William Booth was there.
So he just turned and said to this
man with a gruff voice that William Booth
had, where have you been?
So Major Russell said, sir I've been to
heaven.
You've been where?
He said I've been to heaven.
No he said I'm asking you sensibly where
have you been missing all these days?
He said I've been to heaven.
I don't understand that.
He said well I went to Wales.
There's a young man flaming with the power
of God.
Here is a man who's comparatively unlettered.
I don't think he received any ordination except
the ordination of John 15 which is the
only genuine one I have ordained you.
What other ordinations matter?
William Booth said tell me about it.
He told him about the power of God
that God came on communities.
The taverns were empty.
The police courts were empty.
All that was filled were prayer meetings and
other places.
God was sweeping through town after town and
immediately the old general began to weep and
he said we used to have it like
that in the early days of the Salvation
Army.
I'm glad you went there.
Well how is it that a man like
that, a man with comparatively little theological background,
a man that has no wonderful personality, has
no signs and wonders and miracles, do you
know the poor guy only had God?
Isn't that terrible?
Do you know the difference between the early
church and the church today?
They had the endowment and no equipment.
We have the equipment but no endowment.
As I said last night, Noah built an
ark about 43,000 days but nobody took
any notice of him.
Nobody takes any notice of the gospel in
America these days hardly or in other places.
But God's going to prove that he's God.
He's still the same living God yesterday, today,
and forever.
So William Booth says I'm glad you saw
and heard the power of God.
So after that this man has a new
zeal, he has a new enthusiasm, he has
a new fire in his heart.
He's seen the working of the Spirit of
God.
The Salvation Army went into 70 countries in
90 years.
They were ridiculed and scorned but eventually even
the Queen of England invited William Booth for
high tea as they called it.
And other people received him joyfully.
But it went through its travel because you
see it began to show the mighty power
of God.
There was fire whereas the other places was
a coal.
And the key of the whole thing was
this.
William Booth had on his banner, he had
a flag that he made himself.
He not only wrote the battle song, Thou
Christ of burning cleansing flames send the fire.
He also put on his banner blood and
fire.
There was blood and there was a cross.
He preached on the baptism with the Holy
Ghost not for power but for purity.
These days it's all power, power, power.
What about purity?
Without purity no man shall see the Lord.
I don't care if you raise the dead.
I don't care if you're the mightiest preacher
in the world.
You won't get there.
God isn't going to let sin invade the
area where he lives.
It ruined this world.
It's not going to ruin God's plan any
longer.
Well thinking again about the power of the
Holy Spirit.
It says here, holy men of God speak
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
Now this is something I haven't totally thought
out and I have never preached it before.
But as we were flying over, and I
don't like flying it's for the birds, but
as we came over the rocket the pilot
said we're flying at 31,000 feet.
At that moment I was having a wonderful
experience with God.
He was speaking to me about these words.
Holy men of God, holy men.
The prophets were holy men.
They were lowly men.
They were lonely men.
They were direct men.
They were difficult men.
They were men who walked with God and
then came down to earth in the power
of the Spirit of God.
One of the old preachers years ago said,
Ebenezer Brown said, I live five days in
eternity then I come down to earth and
share the spoil with my congregation in my
church.
That's a wonderful way to preach.
But the Holy Spirit, these men speak as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
Doesn't it say in the beginning the Spirit
of God moved over the face of the
earth?
And what happened?
You've got this wonderful creation he made.
But my mind moved further again.
Here's a choice little girl, a beautiful young
Jewish maiden.
Everybody knows her.
She has a habit of squeezing up in
the temple where an old man goes day
by day and he raises his hands and
he cries to God, I shall not go
until the glory of God has been manifest.
His name was Simeon.
Let me tell you something very interesting.
Maybe not to you, but to me.
Three years ago Martha and I were in,
Martha's my wife, my secretary, my gardener, I'm
the supervisor.
But we were in this meeting and the
man came off the platform, came straight down
to me and he said, you're Simeon.
I said, I'm who?
He said, you're Simeon.
He said, you've prayed all these years.
I've prayed over 60 years for revival.
And he said, you won't die until revival
comes.
So that's why I came to Anaheim this
week to see revival come.
I'm tired of meetings.
I'm tired of reading books.
I'm tired of writing them.
I want to see God manifest himself.
I want God the Holy Ghost.
I want God the Holy Ghost to bring
such conviction of sin that people can't sleep
at night.
I want the Holy Ghost to come on
people that you're going to see us shopping
and somebody will start singing blessed assurance.
And before you're through, you'll have a prayer
meeting.
That'd be wonderful chaos.
I like that kind of chaos.
I'm just believing God to do it.
You know, I heard the peep, who was
the young guy that preached this afternoon?
How many were here this afternoon?
Was that a wonderful service?
I wasn't there.
But everybody said they never heard Brother John
as fresh, as anointed as he was.
I mean, not for a long while.
You see, you get like the peep you
live with.
He's getting old and wise like me.
And is that terrible?
He had to clap for himself.
Nobody would clap for him.
But I'll tell you what, John, I didn't
tell you this.
As I sat there in the back room
tonight, the only thing that kept coming to
me was rebirth, rebirth, rebirth.
I believe this week, Vineyard's going to have
a rebirth.
God, God is going to re-energize and
give a new vision, give a new power,
give a new authority.
We're only in water to the ankles yet.
We've got to get water to the knees
and the loins and then waters to swim
in.
It's time to get out of the shallows
into the deeps.
We're going to the most serious period in
human history.
And we need to see the church of
God.
What makes me so sad is to see
a sick church in a dying world.
But dear friends, God's going to change that.
I'm not hanging on by the skin on
my teeth.
I'm hanging on by the promises of God.
He says, in the last days he'll pour
out his spirit on all flesh.
Your sons and your daughters, look at the
thousands of young people.
There's enough people here to change the history
of the world.
It all depends if you're hungry enough for
God, if you're sick of failure, if you're
sick of weakness, if you're sick of powerlessness,
if you're sick about not having vision and
strength and power to prevail in prayer.
The resources are there in God.
When I sang about this little girl, everybody
says, you know, that's Mary.
Everybody knows Mary.
Isn't it?
But did you hear the rumor about her,
about Mary?
Oh, nothing wrong with Mary.
Oh no.
Well, you know, her boyfriend, oh yes, Joseph,
nice guy.
Do you know she's pregnant?
She's what?
Oh, you're thinking of a Mary.
I'm thinking, oh yes, I am.
And you say that that Mary is pregnant,
yes.
Did you ever think of that?
Did you ever think that that little thing
who's been invaded by God, the Holy Ghost,
do you think she knew when God invaded
her?
That one day she's empty, she's barren, then
the Spirit of the living God comes, and
He, what?
Conceived by the Holy Ghost.
People say you can't believe that.
I can.
I'm so simple, I have one verse of
the Bible all to myself.
The Lord preserveth the simple.
I'm, I can't take care of myself.
So the Lord preserveth the simple.
Do you remember a hymn, glorious hymn, praise
to the holiest in the heights and in
the depth be praise, in all his works
most wonderful, most sure in all his ways.
The second standard says, O loving wisdom of
our God, when all was sin and shame,
a second Adam to the fight.
No, sirree, you can't have a second Adam.
If you have a second Adam, you have
a third Adam or a fourth.
There's the last Adam, the first Adam, and
the last Adam.
Well, how can a baby be born without
a father?
Well, the first Adam was born without a,
was born without a mother anyhow.
So where's the problem?
I mean, maybe your problem, but it isn't
God's.
God has no problems, except with some of
you stubborn folk.
But think again, here's this precious little woman.
How many times do you think she'd been
to the temple, and she'd heard them read
out of the prophet Isaiah, a virgin shall
be with child.
But listen, with the knowledge something else came.
She also knew that the child she conceived
one day would hang on a cross and
bear the sin of the world.
She knew that the Isaiah 53 said, surely
ye hath borne our griefs and carried our
sorrows, yet we did esteem in stricken, smitten
of God and afflicted.
Would you like that?
You see, it's very wonderful to be filled
with a spirit, but sometimes God gives you
revelations of things ahead, and all you do,
you have heartache.
You can't always share it.
It's a burden God has given you, and
you have to bear it.
And I'm saying again that that precious little
woman, she bore the reproach, oh that brat,
I thought she was better than that.
And she's having a child.
They criticized her mercilessly.
I can imagine all around the city of
Jerusalem, they were scorning this precious little woman,
but she didn't care.
You see, God is indwelling her.
I'll tell you, when the Holy Spirit of
God comes and indwells you with a new
birth, you'll know about it.
You'll have a song.
What did she do?
Immediately she magnified the Lord.
She didn't say stand up and clap and
sing.
Immediately she burst.
My soul doth magnify the Lord.
She didn't care about the Romans.
She didn't care about the high priest.
She didn't care about anybody else.
She's indwelt by God himself.
She's going to bring forth a son.
And she's told his name is Jesus.
He'll save his people from the sin.
And he's gone there for the rise and
fall of many generations.
What a blessed, blessed experience.
Then I began to think of the wonder
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Everything in the life of Jesus was by
the Holy Ghost.
He was conceived by the Holy Ghost.
Then what happened later?
At the beginning of his life, he's conceived
by the Holy Ghost.
At the end of his life, what does
it say?
It says of that same wonderful Lord Jesus
Christ that he prayed.
He prayed in the Holy Ghost and who
by, what was it, what was the scripture?
Offered himself without spot.
How does that begin?
Oh well, let me, I can put it
together I think.
But here's the end of his journey.
He's done signs and wonders and miracles and
yet it says he offered himself by the
Holy Ghost.
Jack's looking up the scripture for me.
Nobody else can memorize it.
Sure you need to go to Bible school,
the whole bunch of you.
Oh when he had by himself purged our
sins, offered himself without spot to God, who
through the eternal Spirit, the Holy Ghost is
full of majesty, never does anything small.
Every time a man is born again, it's
a miracle of God.
He can take the rotten, corrupt human personality
with all its twisted depravity and deformity and
hellishness and cleanse it and indwell it and
rule in it and live in it by
the power of the Holy Spirit of God.
Why himself purged our sins, offered himself through
the eternal Spirit to God.
The Holy Spirit is full of majesty.
What's it saying in, you see I believe
in my heart actually that we can't really
praise God apart from the indwelling of the
Holy Spirit of God.
I don't believe we can pray without that.
Doesn't the scripture talk about the Holy Spirit
of God?
Does it say of him that, now that
scripture has escaped my mind again, but anyhow.
Oh in Romans chapter 8 it talks about
the Holy Spirit of God with what groanings
that cannot be uttered.
You know I believe, I believe the Virgin
Mary had the most horrible pregnancy that ever
was.
It's one thing for a woman to carry
a baby a number of months, that's not
so bad, but getting it through the birth
canal is something entirely different.
The devil didn't want Jesus Christ to be
born.
As soon as he gets out of his
mother's womb, there's a price on his head.
Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him.
He divided a city before he could walk
or talk.
That's the first thing he did.
The last thing he did on the cross
was divide men.
And during his lifetime he divided men.
So Jesus Christ, so Virgin Mary again I
believe, knew a burden of prayer that none
of us knew at all.
She's going to bring forth all heaven is
looking on, all hell is looking on.
The devil's going to stop this if he
can.
And to prove that again, Jesus does wonders,
does some miracles.
And then is it an amazing thing that
the Son of God at 12 years of
age startled all the theologians.
He went to the temple and stood there.
And what did he say at 12 years
of age?
Don't you know that I was at that,
he said, Jack then, he said I must
be by my father's business.
Good it was.
Okay, at 12 years of age he knew
about his father.
But listen, he didn't go down as a
miracle worker.
He didn't go about as a boy evangelist.
He didn't make a sketch of the Daniel's
image or something and go around giving lectures.
He went like an ordinary boy.
The amazing thing is they lost him on
the way going home.
The most treasured child the world had ever
had and his mother and father lost him
after staying at a meeting.
That's incredible.
But again, the Spirit of God, Jesus, pardon
me, the Holy Spirit's energies again in that
sixth chapter, eighth chapter of Romans.
There I was saying earlier about Thomas Binnie
that lived seven years after Wesley.
He wrote him eternal light, eternal light, how
pure the soul must be when placed within
thy searching sight.
It shrinks not, but with calm delights can
live and look on thee.
The spirits that surround thy throne may bear
that burning bliss.
But that is surely theirs alone, since they
have never, never known a fallen world like
this.
Binnie said that in 1798.
A fallen world like this?
You could have searched America.
You could have searched England and not find
one scrap of pornography.
Hardly ever find a drunken.
The standards are very high.
But man has fallen.
Look at the condition of him tonight.
As we mentioned last night, kids 16 are
veterans in iniquity these days.
They've nothing to learn.
They know all the secrets so-called of
sex.
Look at the sports madness that we have.
Look at the bias there is to worldliness
and godliness.
So this man goes on to say a
fallen world like this.
And then he says there is a way
for man to rise to that sublime abode,
an offering and a sacrifice.
A Holy Spirit's energies and advocate with God.
These, these prepare us for the sight of
holiness above.
The sons of ignorance and night may dwell
in the eternal light through the internal sun.
There's nothing more glorious than to see a
depraved man transformed by the power of God.
All his old habits are broken.
He becomes a new creation.
He has a new ambition.
He has new vocabulary.
I say again, I don't believe you can
really pray without the Holy Ghost.
That's what the word of God says.
Praying in the Holy Ghost, it doesn't mean
necessarily praying in tongues.
It may, it may, but it means praying
with the of God and the strength of
God.
It means of enduring strength to bring forth
to birth.
There are few people that have that strength.
Miracles don't happen by accident.
I was reading the other day about a
revival that there was in the 1600 by
a man by the name of John Hunter.
John Hunter.
No, no, not John Hunter.
What's his name?
You can't remember that.
Oh, John Livingstone of shots.
He was to preach a communion service and
there was some hundreds of people expected there.
Do you know what he did?
He stayed up all night.
He wept and he fasted and he prayed
and he prayed in the morning, preached in
the morning and the anointing of the spirit
of God on the text.
I will sprinkle clean water upon you and
you should be clean from all your filthiness
with I cleanse you.
And then God says, not for your sake
do I do this or house of Israel,
but for my holy name's sake.
And 500 people were born again of the
spirit of God that morning.
And years after they were still abiding fruit.
It wasn't a decision.
It wasn't a mental flip.
The spirit of the living God came upon
them.
God forgives us.
Jesus Christ redeems us.
The Holy Spirit regenerates us.
The men, the men became a new creek,
became new creatures in Christ Jesus.
As I told you last night, I tried
to tell you the glory seems to depart
it from the pulpit.
I think there are three things missing from
today's preaching.
Maybe, maybe I'm proving it.
Number one is intensity.
Number two is immensity.
And number three is eternity.
The revival that swept through England went to
Oxford University.
And as a result of that, Wesley and
George Whitfield were brought into the kingdom, but
it never touched Cambridge University.
30 years before that, there was a man
in the church of England by the name
of Charles Simeon.
He prayed, preached in the power of the
Holy Ghost.
Listen to this preacher.
I'll tell you how he preached.
He preached until he got the devil man.
He got the deacons mad and that's worse
than getting a devil man.
Do you know what they did?
They ripped the seats out of the, out
of the building and put them in outside
in the graveyard.
What happened for 10 years?
Come on preacher, you think you have power
of your personality?
Here is a man who for 10 years
never had anybody sit in the church with
no seats.
He didn't say, Lord, I don't deserve this.
He preached until he packed the house with
the glory of God.
And people came and stood for 10 whole
years to hear that man.
There was a man in the same period,
a Baptist, I've forgotten his name for the
time being.
They said when he preached 10 minutes or
15 minutes and the anointing of God came,
the whole congregation stood up and they stood
up and stayed standing up until he finished
preaching.
To me, that's preaching.
When people are fascinated not by personality, preaching
is more than logic on fire.
Preaching is more than a profession.
It's a passion.
It's more than passion.
It's obsession.
You have the wonderful experience of the apostle
Paul himself.
This one thing I do, forgetting everything that's
behind.
And he became obsessed with the fact that
Jesus Christ was a prince of peace.
He himself is coming down the road loaded
with guilt, with bloody hands.
And suddenly Jesus Christ comes.
Why did Jesus leave his throne and confront
this murderer?
Because he was carrying inside of his garment,
this toga.
He was carrying a garment.
He was carrying a authority to bind all
the Christians and put them to prison.
The amazing thing is the man who's the
greatest persecutor of the church became the greatest
preacher.