So you have this massive corruption, and John
the Baptist came.
Poor guy.
God didn't give him his chance.
Supposing God had taken the pillar of fire
that led Israel through the wilderness.
Supposing he put it in the wilderness and
said, and everybody said, what's that?
It's the pillar of fire that led our
fathers.
He didn't do that.
Supposing the Holy Ghost had come like a
dove.
He didn't come like that.
And here's John Baptist.
What did he have?
I'll tell you what he didn't have.
He had no priestly robes.
He had no altar.
He had no sacrifice.
He had no choir.
He had no formality.
If you come through town and you've seen
the high priest in his garments of glory
and beauty, you'd say, how wonderful.
It tells us here what kind of people
were here.
I'll tell you what kind of people who
were here that are not mentioned.
There were two kinds of people watching John
the Baptist every day.
One found John.
They looked on John with great amusement and
the others looked on John with great amazement.
Some said, look at the freak.
That's an old camel skin.
The old fleas are jumping off it.
He's a rugged, ragged man.
Do you remember the other side of that
gap?
Malachi in the last chapter says, the Lord
whom we seek shall suddenly come to his
temple.
We're not seeking the Lord today.
We're seeking signs and wonders and miracles.
Forget it.
I've lived through a period when I came
to America first in 1950.
There were a host of evangelists.
Oral Roberts was not so well known.
Jack Cole was very well known.
A.
Allen was well known.
There were strings of men in this country
with five thousand, six thousand, seven thousand seated
tents.
And they had signs and wonders and miracles.
People were lining up, bringing people in wheelchairs
who were healed and walking away.
What did it do?
They went back to their beer.
They went back to their dancing.
They were not regenerate.
They were not changed.
They saw the miracles.
Who saw more miracles than the children of
Israel?
Did it lead them to holiness?
It led them to rebellion.
He said in verse three of this chapter.
He, John the Baptist came into all the
country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance
for the remission of sins, as it is
written in the book of the words of
Esau.
Where is that?
The prophet saying the voice of one crying
in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of
the Lord.
And listen, this is how he preached.
I was going to say to you as
that brother preached about fire.
This man had a tongue hotter than the
tail of a scorpion.
No, he had a tongue that was like
a laser beam.
Do you know what you're doing with the
Bible?
You never have an altar call.
I'm trusting the Holy Ghost will burn in
you this morning with so shame to your
barrenness.
You'd be so convicted of your prayerlessness.
Some of your own children are going to
hell and you haven't shed a tear over
them.
Your own church is bankrupt and you sleep
all night or watch TV for hours and
don't pray for 10 minutes.
So America isn't going to a head-on
destruction.
It isn't going to a head-on clash
with Russia.
Dear brother, whether you believe that or not,
I don't.
But anyhow, both America and Russia are going.
If you get past the clash together, we're
heading for Armageddon anyhow.
And after that we're heading for the judgment
seat of Christ, the most awesome thing that's
ever happened.
We're on a collision course.
I don't know whether this morning or yesterday,
I forget so quickly.
But I was thinking about last year, one
of the popular magazines, it took a census
across the nation.
Are you afraid?
Yes.
What's your number one fear?
I can't give the exact quotation, how it
came out, tabulated.
But one was, I'm afraid that we'll have
an atomic war.
Number two, I'm afraid I may get cancer.
Number three, I'm afraid my daughter, 16, may
come home and pregnant.
Or my son, 18, may come home with
AIDS.
And so it went on.
I'm afraid of an atomic war.
I'm afraid that the financial world is going
to collapse.
You know I was saved last year, not
on the 19th, when all the banks were
going to fold up, it was the 20th.
You know, held the world together.
A little English woman, she doesn't know that
much about money.
But the friend of a friend of mine
is one of the key men in world
finance.
He called that little English woman and said,
what should we do?
She said, don't close all the banks.
No.
They said, we're going to close all the
banks.
Let all the money float.
Don't do that.
Why not?
She said, call me back in an hour.
He called back in an hour.
And she said, it's all right.
Listen, this is fact.
It won't be reported in magazines.
We're not allowed to give God any credit.
You know what happened?
That precious woman called the leading intercessor in
30 different nations in an hour.
And said, listen, the whole economy of the
world is going to collapse.
Stand with me in prayer.
And in the book in eternity, you'll see
the books open, and that little woman will
come forth.
She saved the economy of the world, along
with 30 other intercessors around the world.
And after they prayed, some superman, my friend's
friend knows him, but won't give his name.
He said, I don't know his name.
He said, he put all his billions of
dollars and refloated all the banks in the
world.
Otherwise on the 20th of October last year,
not the 19th, the 20th, the whole world
economy would have collapsed.
And a praying woman with 30 other intercessors.
And you think intercession doesn't count?
I would rather be an intercessor than be
the greatest priest in the world.
I'm too old to want anything.
No, I want a new intimacy with God.
I want a new touch of fire on
my soul before this day is through, before
this meeting is through.
I can't wait.
I've heard for 50 years, there's an awakening
around the corner, there's an awakening around the
corner.
God help us, I can't wait.
Oh, there's going to be a new awakening
in five years.
In between a million people will die without
God.
To use Wesley's words, I'm asking God to
open a door, which earth and hell may
strive to shut, but strive in vain.
So John was preaching.
If you go back to the account, I
won't do that.
If you go back to Matthew's account, he
talks about the pulling power of this fire
-bred prophet.
Again, God was going to lead Israel by
a pillar of fire.
It doesn't give a pillar of fire, it
gives you a man on fire.
A man who has touched God.
Dear God, I've seen a thousand, ten thousand
bumper stickers, God is love.
Forget it, God is fire.
Change it.
I suppose Solomon built the most extravagant building
that was ever built, till Bob Shuler came.
Bob Shuler, what did he build?
He built a glass house.
Do you know what it caused?
It caused a greenhouse effect on evangelism in
America.
Poor Bob.
You know, Solomon used gold like we use
cement.
He got all his priests dressed up, he
got the choir in order, he got an
altar of gold, pure gold.
He had everything in order, but there was
one thing missing.
Altar is no good, sacrifice is no good,
unless the fire falls.
Remember he prayed and cried, let the fire
fall, and the glory of God so came
the priest couldn't minister.
I want to go to meetings like that
Mike.
If your grief over your bankruptcy gets so
bad you can't stay there, you feel it's
burning, get up walk to the altar.
You may be the key to revival, if
you can get your pride burned up, your
self-satisfaction, your self-sufficiency.
Okay, let me rush to this now.
He's preaching to the multitude in verse 7.
They came to be baptized of John, and
he called them a generation of vipers.
Isn't that wonderful?
The ecclesiastical guys in the dog collars, that's
like me going into the papacy or, or
Westminster Abbey and saying to all the people,
you swine.
Do you think I'd be voted man of
the year?
Do you think if John the Baptist preached
once on TV he'd ever get back again?
We don't have a voice in America today,
they're all echoes.
They all borrow what the other man has
done.
There's no man lying in the presence of
God till he hardly dare open his mouth.
I got two precious brothers with me, brother
Bracey and brother Sonny.
We have a prayer meeting on Thursday mornings,
and it's wonderful.
Bracey's the moderator, he's a very wonderful man.
Bracey was in Africa for a few years.
How many years?
Five?
Terribly hot.
He didn't leave because it was hot, but
he left.
Sonny, Bracey was in Africa a few years,
and it was too hot.
Sonny was in hell for a number of
years, and it was too hot, so he
got out of it.
Do you know where God trained him?
In the bowels of ships, at a stevedore,
down in Houston amongst the roughest, toughest men.
Do you know why he challenges me?
He brought an offering to God.
He brought his house.
He takes boys off the streets.
He takes the incurables, and God cures them.
He's always working on a shoestring.
Do you see that?
What's a couple crouches?
I wish they did crouch.
On TBN, made an appeal the other week
for money, got 25 million dollars, gone hell
with the judgment.
I heard T-E, what's it, E-B,
E-B, how is it?
What?
Oh, E-B Hill.
Boy, I enjoyed that dear old black man.
Do you know one thing he said with
a big voice of his, you know?
Watch who your children marry.
Don't let them marry anybody.
You don't get racehorses out of mules.
Isn't that a good one?
Then sister, what's her name?
His name, Jan, Jan.
She's there with a pink wig on.
I thought, imagine pulling it off to wipe
the feet of Jesus.
E-B Hill was mocking the Christian women.
He said the Christian women are late for
church.
They found they had the wrong wig on,
so they went home to change it.
You have a yellow one on Sundays, a
silver one on Mondays, a brown one on
Tuesdays, a red one on Wednesdays, and heaven
help you if you get the wrong one.
Isn't it pathetic what's happening in the church
of the living God?
Let me tell you this a minute here.
Verse 7 says, the multitude came forth, he
called them a generation of vipers.
Now look, this is preaching.
In verse 10 it says, the people asked
him, what shall we do?
Notice that?
Verse 9, the people said, what shall we
do?
Look at verse 12, then came the publicans
to be baptized and said, what shall we
do?
Then the soldiers came and said, what shall
we do?
That's preaching.
There's no alter car.
The Roman soldiers, Kipling would call them the
lesser breeds outside of the law.
They'd come from a country of gods and
priests.
But when they heard John the Baptist, they
said, what shall we do?
How do I get rid of this leprosy
within?
How do I get rid of this bondage?
How do I get rid of my pollution?
What shall we do?
The people cried, the publicans cried, the soldiers
cried.
And when the Holy Ghost hits you, you
cry.
You won't sit there nursing your your feebleness,
nursing your prayerlessness, nursing your coldness.
You should have got up and been at
the altar already here, when the brother was
preaching.
You can't buy this anointing.
I thank God for the incorruptible Holy Ghost.
Again, the Holy Ghost doesn't do anything small.
He made the world.
He made the Christ in the womb of
the Virgin Mary.
He came on a bunch of men in
the upper room that were failures.
And what did he do?
He turned the world upside down.
Are you going to do it again?
Let me look here.
In St. John's account, it says this in
chapter 1.
This is the record of John, chapter 1
and verse 19 says, this is the record
of John, when the Jews and priests, look
at them, priests and Levites came from Jerusalem
to ask him, now look, I'll tell you
something that this man didn't have.
He didn't have a mass transport system to
get people to see him.
He's in the most difficult place.
He didn't have altars.
He didn't have a choir.
He didn't have any financial backing.
Again, he had no pillar of fire there.
Again, there wasn't a man on earth had
ever seen a prophet.
And it says he came in the spirit
and power of Elijah.
And then you say, but Elisha had a
double portion of spirit.
But listen, it was Elijah who was on
the Mount of Transfiguration.
It was Elijah that this man was likened
to.
It's Elijah that lies in the streets, isn't
it?
In Jerusalem at the end of time.
And here is another addition.
God has brought us this fearless anointed man.
Look at verse 33, please.
Pardon me, verse 31.
Let me back up again.
Verse 29.
The next day, what next day?
John Jesus coming unto him and said, Behold
the Lamb of God that taketh away what?
This is a misquoted verse.
It doesn't say the sins of the world.
It says the sin of the world.
The very essence of sin.
The very nature of sin.
God is of holier eyes and to behold
iniquity.
Well, how as Wesley says, God, the heaven
of heavens cannot contain God.
But God was contracted to a span and
pushed into the womb of a woman.
How do you explain it?
There's no explanation for the incarnation.
God was contracted to a span.
I don't understand how God became man.
But lest do I understand how he became
sin.
It says here, the Lamb of God.
Do you know that's the most terrifying expression?
Who were there?
The priests and the Levites.
Do you know what he's saying?
Listen you priests.
This word declares your bankruptcy.
Your altars are obsolete.
Your lifestyle is obscene.
You're out of business.
I tell you, I believe the very gates
of hell tremble.
This is about all John said.
Behold the Lamb of God.
He didn't say the Lamb of Israel.
He didn't say the Lamb of the high
priest.
He didn't say the Lamb of the people.
He said the Lamb of God.
And they knew.
They knew instinctively because they knew the word
of God.
That the Lamb that was made a sacrifice
was spotless.
The priest had to look over it from
head to tail and test it.
And see it had no warts.
See it had no disease.
See it had no incapacities.
Check its eyes to see they were seeing.
And its ears to see they were hearing.
And he said this is the Lamb of
God.
This is the most perfect Lamb that ever
was.
Isaac Watts wrote some great hymns.
He's most famous when I survey the wondrous
cross.
He's got a famous Christmas hymn.
Joy to the world the Lord is come.
But he wrote this hymn too.
Not all the blood of beasts on Jewish
altars slain could take one guilty conscience.
Make one guilty conscience clean nor wash away
the stain.
But Christ the heavenly Lamb.
How many lambs had they sacrificed by the
high priest through all the system that they
had of sacrifices.
I like what brother David said.
Every offering in the Old Testament.
Every sacrifice had to have fire.
And fire hurts.
You can't have the baptism with the Holy
Ghost without it hurting you.
It will burn up your career.
It will change your direction.
It will alter your lifestyle.
It will alter your vocabulary.
I'm going to.
This is.
I'm talking about the.
I'm talking here about John the Baptist.
The incandescent man.
Tomorrow morning I want to talk about the
indestructible man.
But listen.
Here is a perfect Lamb.
John.
John the Apostle wrote about John the Baptist.
Behold the Lamb of God.
I'm going to tell you.
See.
You know what?
We preach the terribly handicapped.
You know it's handicapped just for this thing.
I preached at a church last Sunday morning.
Didn't hold 200 people.
They had an amplifying unit.
John Wesley at my age.
82.
Preached to 80,000 people.
Everybody heard him.
In the old Crystal Palace in London.
Mr. I nearly said doctor.
Never claimed that.
Or a reverend.
Spurgeon.
Not too long before he died.
He spoke to 27,562 people I think
it was.
Maybe that's an exaggeration.
2561 I think it was.
27,651 or 2 people and everybody heard
him.
We've no voices anymore.
We don't have anointing.
So we turn up the amplifying.
Have a switch here.
Shout.
In arguments we shout.
People not being moved.
Shed a tear.
Listen.
There's more to preaching than flaming oratory and
surface tears.
I'm craving that old-fashioned preaching will come
back.
There are three things missing in modern preaching.
Immensity, intensity and eternity.
If you don't touch eternity in a meeting,
I don't care how eloquent the man was.
If you don't shrink it sometime, I don't
care.
If you don't feel, dear God, I'm unclean.
I thought it was all right.
Behold the Lamb of God.
It echoed down the Jordan Valley.
It echoed down every cavern in hell.
Jesus has been living 32 years to say,
I bring fire on earth.
And now John is introducing him.
He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost
and with fire.
That's a painful experience.
I felt the same as you mentioned David
a bit earlier.
Some people cringe yesterday when, when brother Mike
was talking about money.
Because he said, we talk about prosperity.
I'll tell you what the Bible name for
it is.
Covetousness, which is as a sin of idolatry
for which you could be stoned.
Do you know while he was saying that,
I could see a parade.
I had a vision of hundreds of men
walking down the road.
And they had a Bible in one hand
and a bank book in the other.
And for some of you, the thing that's
keeping you from getting the anointing of God
is, you're living in the Old Testament.
You say, I don't live in the Old
Testament.
I say you do.
Why?
Because you give God a tenth of your
income.
If Jesus had said to the rich young
ruler, give a tenth.
He was already giving a tenth.
He kept all the commandments.
If Jesus said, well double it, he'd have
doubled it.
But Jesus didn't say, give me a bit
more, give me it all.
It's all or nothing.
Do you know what Christianity is?
Christianity is Christ plus nothing.
If you believe that, you'll be running to
the altar not clapping.
You'll get that thing you've been craving for
us.
Do you know what?
You'll get on fire for God as I've
said.
One reason we don't have revival is, we're
content to live without it.
The reason you don't have it, there's something
you're hanging on to.
It may not be bad.
It may be pretty good.
But it's not the best.
It's keeping you.
It's got you in bondage.
You know sometimes we want liberating.
And the best thing is, as brother mentioned
in another way, the best thing is we
go through trouble.
Where was, where were the three Hebrew children?
Everybody in town knew they prayed three times
a day.
But when they got in the midst of
the fire, they saw the form of the
fourth.
And you're in the midst of the fire.
You're asking a pastor to pray you out
of it.
That's why God wants you to reveal Christ
to your family.
Christ to your church.
Let me skip on quickly now.
I will skip on quickly.
Verse 31 says, I knew him not.
So there you are.
It was his own cousin.
He didn't know him.
John had been dwelling with the wild beasts.
He didn't know Jesus.
But it says here, I knew him not.
For the Spirit bear record saying, I saw
the Spirit descend from heaven upon him.
Now listen to this verse.
I knew him not.
That's the second time he says that.
But he that sent me to baptize with
water, the same said unto me upon whom
thou should see the Spirit descending.
He didn't say that.
But what did he say?
He said on whom you see the Spirit
descending and remaining.
Pentecost is not something that happened.
Pentecost is a relationship.
I got married to my darling wife.
We've been married since our 50th year.
And she's more precious now than ever she
was.
Why?
Because I'm not depending on a piece of
paper I got to tell me 50 years
ago I married Martha Wilson.
It's a relationship.
And if you have a true experience of
God, it's not an event where you had
a wonderful transformation and spoke in tongues every
day you live.
It's a new anointing.
It's a new revelation.
It's a new vision.
It's a new compassion.
I said to dear David on the platform,
David if 120 people out of, there are
10 times that number here, if 120 people
catch fire, we could change the history of
America.
If you got so filled with God that
you didn't go anywhere, you didn't go to
lunch, you say I can't live.
I'm tired of being so bound.
What did the fire do to the three
Hebrew children?
It burned off the fetters the world put
on them.
That's all it did.
It didn't burn the hair.
It didn't burn the clothes.
They were transformed men and the nation had
to take notice of them.
I better hurry on this.
Why is it people have craved for this?
There was a meeting not as big as
this in England over a hundred years ago
and the committee were on the platform and
one of them got a list and he
said William Booth you are appointed to be
the pastor at so-and-so.
Mrs. Booth got up and she said not
so William and when they got outside he
took hold of the hand of his wife.
She had the curvature of the spine.
She's the genius.
He was a genius.
He's the moneymaker.
He's half Jew and half Gentile.
She was the prayer power.
She prayed with an almost awesome power.
So what happened?
He says I waited until the Holy Ghost
came.
In my office I have an American flag
and I have the Salvation Army flag and
on it it says the battle song of
this man who wasn't a poet.
This is what William Booth wrote.
Thou Christ of burning cleansing flames 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.
The greatest world population is now five billion.
We're going to get to it by reshuffling
our theological cards.
God has to do more than bless us.
He has to invade us, purify us, cleanse
us, direct us.
He says to make our weak hearts strong
and brave.
Send the fire.
To live a dying world to save.
Send the fire.
O see us on thine altar lay our
lives out all this very day.
God doesn't want your stinking money.
He doesn't want your career.
He wants your spirit, your soul and body
to be a living sacrifice.
And when we get there the fire comes.
The fire comes because you won't let go
of what you've got.
You won't let go of your pride.
You're such a wonderful preacher.
You're such a good deacon.
You're such a good cynic.
Forget it.
Brother you're on the brink of bankruptcy.
Admit it.
There are areas of this world that will
be reached through this meeting today if we
obey God.
There'll be new missionaries born.
There'll be new men with vision.
There'll be new men with passion.
There'll be new men with holocaust anointing.
The woman will be writing home to her
mother and say my daddy, my husband went
to Kansas but it's not the same man
that came back.
Your children will be saying mommy what's happened
to daddy?
He prays but he never watches tv anymore.
He prays.
My daddy's weeping in the other room.
He's never done that.
I don't believe you can have the anointing
of the Holy Ghost.
You say but it doesn't say a word
about the prayer life of John Baptist.
Of course it doesn't.
He was nurtured in prayer.
He was born in prayer.
The greatest prayer meeting in the world was
held.
With who?
A woman a hundred years of age.
Simeon nearly a hundred years of age.
Do you wonder he was born filled with
the Holy Ghost?
Do you wonder kings tremble because of him?
Do you wonder like a fire there's nothing
more attractive than fire?
And people came from every level.
Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria.
Geographically they came socially different levels.
The people, the publicans and the soldiers, they
came from every religious standpoint.
They've never seen anything.
This is a phenomenon.
They're like most people in America.
They've never been to a meeting where God
comes.
I never get you to sing emotionally.
There's room at the cross for you.
Brother there isn't room at the cross.
There's room on the cross.
If you'll come to your death don't come
to it.
Get on it.
It will be painful to be crucified.
Your pastor will discourage you more than anybody
else.
People in the church will say look at
the sign on the church of the Pentecostal
church.
Ask them where is the fire?
Listen to what's it Wesley says.
Oh Wesley cries out.
Just like William Booth cried.
They'd known they'd seen the fire of God.
They read church history.
Listen let me quickly try and rush this.
You know we have such weird ideas of
blessing.
You think you have to stand here.
One of the most powerful witnesses for revival
died weighing less than 90 pounds.
I was a youth leader in our church.
I got the people to pray.
Somehow when God filled me with the Holy
Ghost boy I needed to pray.
And I prayed with fire.
And the old people in the church didn't
like it.
I thought they'd see it sometime.
But I'll tell you what.
God changed the whole of our youth.
We never had any entertainment.
We prayed Friday night.
We prayed when everybody's in bed Sunday morning.
I went into the forest and tied my
mother's little dog to the stump of the
tree.
And I prayed at night.
I got up and I stood over a
hill and said God send revival to my
city.
If you weep over Jerusalem I'll weep over
my city.
Do you know what happened?
Three years after I started preaching that city
was shaken with revival.
Because I prayed no.
Because across the tracks there was a little
Pentecostal preacher by the name of Jewett.
J-E-W-I-T-T.
That little man had three breakdowns.
Not mentally physically.
By fasting.
His wife said when you pass, when you
pass his room.
You would think he was wrestling with the
devil himself.
He fasted and prayed and said I won't
die till revival comes to my city.
George Jeffries came.
One of the greatest preachers I ever heard.
Not an eloquent preacher.
But he had the anointing of God.
The whole city was shaken.
I called my wife, my dear sister a
couple of months ago.
I said Annie, how is Bridge Street?
You see, you see the greatest abomination in
America is evangelists that come and stay a
night and off they go.
They get big advertising, big crowds, big offerings
and leave nothing.
It isn't how you preach.
It isn't just what you preach.
The greatest evangelist and best known, better than
Billy Graham was D.L. Moody.
And Dr. Chaucer said to me Len, remember
Moody murdered King's English.
He said Jerusalem in one word Jerusalem, not
Jerusalem, one slurring word.
He said Daniel, Daniel.
What happened?
He went to London.
For what?
One night?
He stayed six weeks.
The whole city was shaken.
He went from London to Scotland.
It wasn't, it still is I think the
greatest country of preachers.
What happened?
Oh there's an American coming.
Boy his English is poor.
His exposition not clever.
But there's something about him.
There's something around you.
Who was the greatest preacher in Scotland?
Alexander White.
Not before or since.
Has anybody preached like Alexander White?
He went and sat on the platform spellbound
and said I can't explain this man except
there's something mysterious about him that God is
upon him.
There's a wonderful book called The Greatest Thing
in the World, Henry Drummond.
Henry Drummond went and sat there and listened
to him.
The greatest man in Scotland came.
Why?
Because he's a man on fire for God.
He had a passion.
Cultured Englishmen don't weep when they preach but
he wept.
These brilliant men that knew their Hebrew knew
their Greek was spellbound.
By a Chicago salesman.
One thing now finish with it.
In the reign of Charles II in England
the greatest preacher was John Owen.
He has about 12 or 15, he has
six of his books.
He has about five on the Holy Spirit.
So John Owen was preaching.
He preached at every government celebration.
The king called for him one day and
he said Dr. Owen, in his ancient English,
he said thou art the greatest preacher in
the world today Dr. Owen.
I call you to preach before the government.
I call you to preach in parliament.
I call you to preach before the courts
when kings come.
But he said Dr. Owen I've heard a
strange thing about thee.
You're loaded with wisdom.
And he said no man can hold a
crowd like you do.
But Dr. Owen I've kept repeatedly hearing that
you go down the road to air a
babbling Baptist.
He doesn't have your authority.
Please don't go to that man.
John Owen said your majesty I would take
off my scarf.
I would take off my robes and I
would kneel at the feet of this babbling
Baptist that you call Bunyan.
John Bunyan a tinker, a man without education.
But he has something this nation has never
seen.
And he said king your majesty I would
give all I have to get that.
I'll surrender my talents, my gifts and all
the privilege if only I can get one
anointing like that.
Dear friends I'm glad the Holy Ghost can't
be bought.
He says your money perish with you.
He'll use you when he can release you.
Let me say this fire releases doesn't it?
Fire burns up every fetter.
God has a habit of breaking things that
he uses.
He took the alabaster box of ointment but
he broke it first.
Jesus took bread and break it.
Jesus says this is my body which is
broken for you.
Why are you trying to save yourself?
Bunyan wrote a little phrase I learned only
a few days ago.
He said there was a man the world
thought mad.
The more he gave the more he had.
And it doesn't begin by giving.
You say if I own more.
In other words you say if I owned
a bakery I give it to God.
He has to give you five rows and
two fishes not a bakery.
You can't give him what you don't have.
You can't even give him what you do
have.
I'll tell you what it cost to follow
the Lord.
I got all my business things raised up.
I had about 200 samples of the best
cloths made in England.
I'd taken the training to design clothes and
so forth.
I was doing quite well and the Lord
said no.
I was talking about a bracelet the other
day.
What's that hymn we used to sing bracelet?
I will praise him.
How many of you know that chorus?
I will praise him.
Praise the lamb for sinners slain.
Do you know that?
Give him glory all ye people for his
blood can wash away his sins.
What about the second stanza?
When God's fire upon the altar of my
life was set aflame my ambitions plans and
wishes are my feet in ashes lay.
You say my life isn't beautiful.
He gives beauty for ashes.
He gives the oil of joy for mourning.
If these people are really mourning for God
here and not just out of self-pity
they'll get over the oil of joy.
Every church they represent will be quickened.
God doesn't inhabit golden palaces or glass palaces.
He invades human personality.
So Wesley says refining fire go through my
heart, illuminate my soul, scatter thy life through
every part and sanctify the whole.
In other words hymns.
How does it begin?
I think this is one I love the
most.
He wrote 200 years ago.
Come Jesus Lord with holy fire, not with
blessing, not with prosperity.
Come Jesus Lord with holy fire.
Come and my quickened heart inspire, cleanse with
thy precious blood.
Now to my soul thyself 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 here's the crux of it.
Less than thyself oh do not give.
I don't need blessing, I need God.
I don't just need revelation, I need God.
I'm moving I want by the grace of
God to live, move and have my being
in God.
I'm getting old and frail, my body's weaker.
I guess I sleep less than any man
here.
I've learned to, I've become the master of
the thing.
Go to bed at nine o'clock, lengthen
your life, get up at midnight.
I got into bed at three o'clock
this morning and I feel as fresh as
ever in my life.
To use a almost vulgar phrase, my body's
getting frail but I got a fire in
my belly.
What did Jeremiah say?
Thy word is a fire in my bones.
It burns.
If it won't, doesn't burn in me, why
should I expect it to burn in you?
But listen again, he says, me with a
quenchless thirst inspire, a longing infinite desire and
fill my craving heart.
Dear Mike, since I left here I've prayed
every day, God keep this place clean.
You see we're heading for a collision with
the Church of Rome.
We're fighting cults.
America gave to the world Mormonism.
America gave to the world Jehovah's Witnesses.
Now we have more gurus in this nation.
We have more false gods than any nation
on earth.
Why?
Because the living God has been driven out
of the sanctuary.
We'd rather clap and dance and break our
hearts and mourn in his presence till the
glory comes.
We're trying to work something up, it has
to come down.
I hope I last another, I think I
will last another year.
Next year we get 500 extra chairs, somebody
may have to stand.
God's going to do something in this city,
I tell you that.
I'm not saying that to encourage these fellows.
You see all the staff sit on the
front row, have you noticed that?
The scripture says the pharisees love the front
seats in the synagogue but they still may
catch fire.
There's a precious bunch of men here, they've
given up careers.
David could be at Oxford beating his brains
out studying some ancient language and here he
is working in dirty old cancer, I mean
cancers.
You know an experience of God that costs
nothing is worth nothing and it does nothing.
The old Methodist, I'll take five minutes, the
old Methodist Fox Jackson said, I want dear
Lord, I want dear Lord, I want dear
Lord, I want dear Lord,