Okay, Romans chapter 8.
You know, somebody's likened the epistle to the
Romans to the vertebrae in the human body.
It is to the New Testament what our
vertebrae is in our physical system.
To some it's the most profound book, others
say of course it's not.
It's surely a marvellous book.
I think of an old hymn that we
used to sing when we were youngsters about
the Bible.
It is a golden casket where gems of
truth are stored.
It is the heaven-drawn picture of Christ,
the living word.
Now the whole subject from Genesis to Revelations,
or as the old man that got mixed
up said, from generations to revolutions, the whole
subject is Jesus actually, isn't it?
He is the centre, the circumference, the first
and the last, the beginning and the ending,
the light and the life.
Now go home and digest that.
No, stay a bit longer, I want to
talk to you.
It's very obvious that as you read this
chapter, it begins with what?
There is therefore now no condemnation.
Begins with no condemnation, it ends with no
separation.
But in between the no condemnation and the
separation there's an awful lot of tribulation.
Now let me be honest with you, here
I got interested in this chapter this week,
then switched from the theme, one theme in
the chapter.
Let me show you where the word is
now.
Verse 26, let me say this.
You know, if you read carefully through this
marvellous chapter, if you read through the seventh
chapter, as I've reminded you, to me Romans
7 is a graveyard, or a funeral service,
or a funeral march, and Romans 8 is
a wedding march.
I love this, you may not like it,
I'm going to say it because I enjoy
it.
One of the greatest English writers was John
Milton.
You may have read one of his books,
Paradise Lost was his classic.
He wrote it after he got married.
And his second volume is even better, Paradise
Regained, he wrote that after his wife died.
I'll bet you don't look at me like
that, you'll put me off.
But that's literally true, I mean I'm not
joking, that's really true.
Well, Paradise, I think if Paul had known
that hymn, Out of my bonded sorrow and
night Jesus I come, he would have sung
it coming out of Romans 7.
The trouble with modern theology, the preachers all
get stuck on wretchedness, oh wretched man that
I am.
You remember there's a hymn, I don't know
how it begins, you may not know it.
There's a phrase in it, prone to wonder
Lord I feel it, you remember that hymn?
Prone to leave the God I love?
Go sing that to your wife.
When you go home tonight sing, prone to
wonder wife I feel it, she'll say, what?
Prone to leave the wife I love, that
doesn't make sense.
Doesn't make any more sense to God, I
don't feel like leaving God, I want to
get nearer and nearer every day I live,
that's my one petition.
I want to get nearer and nearer, closer,
nearer to the heart of God as we
sing sometimes.
If you read through the 7th chapter you'll
discover that about 31 times the apostle uses
the first person there, I, I, I, I,
I, it's all I.
Finishing almost with, O wretched man that I
am.
Now go through sometime and mark every one
of the I's, I think that's 32, mark
them with a little red spot.
And then go through the same chapter and
mark all the times he mentions the Holy
Spirit.
You won't have any trouble because he doesn't
mention him once.
Then you come into the 8th chapter, see
how many times he mentions I there, what
are the verses?
I should have checked my homework, shouldn't I?
Verse 18, for I reckon, now he can't
put anybody else there but himself, for I
reckon.
And then verse from 18 you jump to
38, for I am persuaded.
Now the 9th chapter is all I, I,
I, I'm in bondage, I'm not the man
I want to be, I'm in captivity.
No Holy Spirit.
Come to the 8th chapter, 18 verses 18
and 38 with the I, then you go
through and read how many times, and the
Holy Spirit is mentioned about 26 times.
The law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus has made me free from the
law of sin and of death.
It's a wonderful epistle, this man's an amazing
writer.
He tells us that with all the corruption
that he mentions in the first two chapters
of Romans, and it's terrible, he brings us
through and shows us that Jesus died to
redeem us.
Or if you want to put it another
word, to pardon us.
But he goes from pardon to purity.
He can not only pardon us, a man
needs more than cleansing, forgiveness, all his old
sins washing out, he needs more than that.
That's wonderful to have your record destroyed.
A preacher told us in England about a
man that couldn't keep silent in a meeting,
we had a man in our Methodist church
like that, he was a nuisance.
I mean he was when I was a
little boy, boy I'd love to have him
now.
He used to explode about four times every
meeting, I used to think that's only once,
that's two, two to go, and boy when
he let rip he shattered the place nearly,
I mean he'd been brought up out of
a horrible pit.
And therefore salvation meant much more to him
than the stuffy little girls in the choir
who used to giggle when he shouted.
Well this man had a problem in the
church he was in.
When they got a new fine pastor from
one of the theological seminaries, somebody warned him,
now you better watch because Sunday night this
man, he goes off like a bomb, he'll
disturb you.
And sure enough he did.
The fellow let rip when he talked about
redemption and being saved.
Little old guy who had enough sense to
damn a multitude of people, never mind himself
and his load at God.
When you ask people and they say I
don't know whether I'm saved or not, well
they're not saved.
What does Bunyan say about the man who
carried the bundle on his back and he
came to a place, he said where it
was walled in on either side, I came
to a place that was somewhat ascending and
I saw a cross, and when I saw
the cross the burden loose from off my
shoulders, fell from off my back and rolled
into an empty sepulchre and I beheld it
no more forever.
And he gave three leaps for joy and
he was a Baptist.
So what do you think Pentecostals would do?
I gave three leaps for joy, he said
my burden rolled away.
I saw it go off my shoulders, it
rolled down the hill into the empty sepulchre.
You see, the message of Christ is based
on an empty cross, on an empty sepulchre.
Now this little old guy used to shout,
so when the preacher went to see him
during the week, he said now friend, I
knew you were coming but he said a
college friend of mine came in and he's
in my, he's in the room there, would
you kindly stay in my office?
And you can look at the books, so
there were encyclopedias and all kinds of things.
The man's sitting there talking to his college
friend and suddenly the guy explodes with a
monstrous hallelujah.
He says, what's this all about?
That's not a Bible you're reading.
He said no sir, it's an encyclopedia.
Hallelujah!
What makes you excited about it?
He said sir, it says here there's a
place where the sea is 33,000 feet
deep and a place near the Philippines where
they can't even find the bottom.
Hallelujah!
For what?
He said because he cast my sins beyond
the depth of the sea and he said
if the devil tries to get them he'll
get drowned anyhow.
Maybe his theology wasn't very good but I
like the idea.
He's put our sins away, your sins, maybe
he didn't have many.
Maybe you were college sins or upper class
sins or maybe you were a prostitute.
I don't care a hill of beans what
you were.
If you came to the cross and you
found pardon.
Pardon is one thing, purging is something else.
But he came not only to give us
pardon, not only to give us purging but
to give us peace.
Peace through the blood of his cross.
And Paul says he is our peace.
Again I remind you that before he left
the disciples in John 14 he says peace
I leave with you but wait a minute,
what brand?
My peace.
The peace that ran through his life when
they tried to push him over the precipice.
He wasn't flustered, he had the same peace
that he had when he walked down the
road.
The same peace that when they were spitting
in his face or again yelling to him
come down from the cross.
A peace dominated him, a peace that passes
all understanding and all misunderstanding.
My peace I leave with you.
He gave us his joy, in the 16th
chapter of John there he says joy, my
joy and no man taketh it from you.
Now if you lose your joy you lose
it, it's your fault, it's nobody else's.
The devil has no power to take it,
circumstances happen.
You may not feel an emotional kick, that's
not it.
People say I don't know where I'm really
saved, I say are you married yet, do
you feel married?
Do you have to feel married?
Now some of you I won't look at
you too closely.
Okay let's look at this verse 26.
This is the chapter on the spirit.
Likewise also the spirit helpeth our infirmities for
we know not what we should pray for
as we ought.
But the spirit itself or himself it should
be maketh intercession for us with groanings which
cannot be uttered.
Go down to verse 34.
Who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ that died, yea rather he
is risen again who is at the right
hand of God making intercession for us.
So what do you have?
You have the intercession of what?
The son of God himself?
Intercession of the Holy Spirit?
In verse 27.
Verse 34.
Who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ that died, yea rather he
is risen again who is at the right
hand of God making intercession for us.
We don't know how to pray as we
ought.
Verse 26.
But the spirit maketh intercession for us.
Verse 27.
Because he maketh intercession for the saints according
to the will of God.
Christ also makes intercession for us.
So you have the intercession of the spirit,
the intercession of Jesus Christ at the right
hand of the Father and the intercession which
he gives us.
Now I come to this conclusion, you may
disagree, if you do you are wrong.
But I believe that prayer is the gateway
to intercession.
I believe that intercession is the gateway to
travel.
I believe that worship, that praise is the
gateway to worship.
There is no way of leaping into an
experience of travel.
To use a common phrase, it's an education
in the spirit.
We move in our steps continually making progress
or we should in the realm of prayer.
We get beyond our simple petitions.
They may still be simple in one sense.
But we get again from prayer to intercession.
If two people are talking and I go
and say, hey listen just a minute, well
obviously I'm interrupting.
I project myself against two people with my
conversation.
If there's two people fighting and I go
and I push them apart, I'm interfering.
If I stand between a holy God and
a dying world with the spirit he wants,
I'm an intercessor.
I put myself between.
I'm not asking the church to do it.
You know the revival, Adam called me from
Denver today talking about revival.
Okay.
Do you know there was a revival in
Denver?
By Wilbur Chapman who was still around when
I was a youngster.
A great American evangelist, he's not mentioned much.
He went to Denver.
Do you know what happened?
The spirit came on that city till all
the shops closed.
The anniversary of that event will be the
13th of January.
He asked me to fly up for the
night and spend the night with him in
prayer and then have a prayer date at
which I can't do because of something else
for the day who knows.
But it's the anniversary.
It's the 100th year from the time when
the spirit came and locked up that city.
We don't do that anymore.
We get a big shot evangelist flying in
his private plane and put a lot of
show on and get some broken down starlets
from Hollywood and broken winded footballers.
And they put a show on.
The trouble is that when they leave town,
the presence of God leaves town.
If he was ever there anyhow.
That is not revival.
Call it anything you like.
Call it emotionalism.
Call it evangelism.
I picked up a little thing.
I'd forgotten I'd ever written it and I
saw it the other day in my office
there.
I thought that looks good.
It said and I saw my name at
the bottom so I knew it was.
He said the reason we do not have
revival is that we're content to live without
it.
When we're not content to live without it,
we'll have revival.
If we put as much zeal into business
or if we go down to business with
God like those guys at West Point, shiny
buttons, we're looking for a few good men.
Well God is looking for a few rotten.
They want to become God.
They want to be cleansed and anointed in
the spirit.
There's no academic distinction demanded.
There's no social distinction.
He can't be there year of royal birth.
He can't be there because his daddy owns...
I almost said a hamburger joint but I
won't say that.
Uh...
You can't get there by any other way
except crawling there.
On our hands and knees.
Imagine God closing a city down, 1905.
Nobody went to work, nobody went to business.
Everybody went into churches and they waited on
God.
The man that called me was Charles Blair.
He had maybe the biggest church.
One of the biggest churches there in Denver.
Is the 13th a Sunday, do you know?
13th of January.
It's either the Sunday...
It is, thank you.
Well that's the day, a big football day.
And the Denver Broncos are in the running
for the...
What is it?
Soap bubbles.
Do you know what he's going to do?
He's going to continue the Sunday morning meeting
right through in the afternoon in intercession.
Isn't that something?
He says, we're getting real concerned about revival.
I say, well bless you, I'd love to
be there.
I can't make it, I'd love to be
there.
Again, God does not answer prayer.
He answers desperate prayer.
Yes.
Prayer does not change things.
Prayer changes people and they change things.
Yes.
I've come to this conclusion.
Martin, you check me about this.
I'll ask you during the week now.
We pray so often, the word of the...
Is it the Psalmist or Isaiah, which says,
arm of the Lord awake.
Well if Jesus Christ is the head, who's
the arm?
We must be the arm.
We talk about the body.
What's the body?
It's not a corpse.
No.
The body.
We must be the arm.
Yes.
Arm of the Lord awake and put on
strength.
The Spirit maketh intercession for us with what?
With groanings, which cannot be uttered.
I know I get into trouble about many
things.
It doesn't trouble me.
I get into trouble but it doesn't trouble
me.
Groanings which cannot be uttered or taking the
epistle of Jude.
Praying in the Holy Ghost is praying in
tongues.
I don't believe that for a minute.
Are you going to tell me that Phinney
never prayed in the Holy Ghost?
Are you going to tell me John Wesley
never prayed in the Holy Ghost?
Why, John Wesley used to meet a bunch
of guys.
The trouble with Wesley, I have a lot
of trouble with Wesley.
He was more spiritual when he wasn't spiritual
than I am when he am spiritual.
He used to stay up all night and
pray.
There were just stuffy Church of England, brilliant
scholars of Oxford University.
He was a don in the university.
In other words, he was a scholar, a
teacher in the university.
Oh, brother, would I like to have dropped
in with that crowd.
Who was there?
John Newton, you know, that wrote that amazing,
no, yeah, Amazing Grace he wrote.
How Sweet the Sound.
He also wrote There is a Fountain Filled
with Blood.
William Cowper was there.
No, he wrote When There is a Fountain
Filled with...
Newton wrote Amazing Grace.
Charles Wesley was there.
John Wesley was there.
The holiest man that lived since the days
of the Apostle, John Wesley said, was a
man by the name of John Fletcher.
When somebody said, Mr. Wesley, don't grieve over
his death, you'll see him there in heaven.
My brother he said.
John Fletcher will be so near to the
throne of God.
This is Wesley.
John Wesley, John Fletcher will be so near
to the throne of God, and I'll be
so far away that I'll only see the
reflected glory of Jesus, the King of Kings,
in the face of that man.
Why does that leave me?
I don't think he's right.
But I like his attitude.
But those are the men that birthed Methodism.
They were not rich men, they were intellectually
rich.
I believe every man that John Wesley had,
and you can get it, all the books
have been rewritten now.
A friend of mine has republished them not
too long ago, called Schmuel.
You know Schmuel's writings, Martin?
I've sent for a catalogue, six catalogues, I'll
give you one.
Schmuel has reprinted what used to be called,
what were they calling it?
Wesley's?
Now, in the American edition, they're called Wesley's
Veterans.
I believe every man that he had with
him was equal to him spiritually, not intellectually.
You don't need a whole crop of intellectual
men, but spiritually they were equal with him.
They knew how to travel in birth, they
knew how to pray.
We talk about a poverty stricken crowd.
Nobody that lives in monasteries ever lived as
carefully as those guys.
Monasteries became rotten with riches, the very thing
they tried to run away from.
Everybody left their money to monasteries, thinking they
were giving it to the Kingdom of God.
So the monasteries became vastly wealthier, had pure
gold candlesticks inside and all the rest of
the junk.
But these men lived only, Wesley says, let
me live to preach thy word.
I give you a phrase of Charles Wesley,
he says, this is colossal I think, enlarge,
inflame and fill my heart with boundless charity
divine.
So shall I all my strength exert and
love them with a zeal like thine and
turn them to a pardoning God and quench
their brands in Jesus' blood.
Give me the faith which can remove and
sink the mountain to a plain.
Give me that childlike praying love which longs
to build thy house again.
Thy love, let it my heart or power
and all my simple soul devour.
Wesley picked up a piece of paper one
day, a ragged piece of paper, a hundred
years before he was born, a beautiful little
French, petite French lady, Marie Antoinette Bourguignon.
What's her hymn start with?
Come, Saviour Jesus from above, assist me with
thy heavenly grace.
Empty my heart of earthly love and thought.
That's where it starts.
The Lord won't love totally in your life
if you love your wealth, if you love
your position.
If you love something else, he won't take
second place.
Come, Saviour Jesus from above, assist me with
thy heavenly grace.
Empty my heart of earthly love and for
thyself prepare a place.
Nothing too dramatic?
Now what about this?
Nothing on earth do I desire but thy
pure love within my breast.
This, only this will I require and freely
give up all the rest, wealth, honor, pleasure,
and what else is short, enduring world can
give.
Tempt as ye will, my soul rebels, for
Christ alone resolved to live.
Thee will I love and thee alone with
pure delight and inward bliss to know thou
takes me for thine own.
Oh, what a happiness is this.
Well, he lived like that.
It wasn't that he got bowled over when
he found that piece of paper with that
written on.
It became the, I was going to use
a big word that doesn't matter there.
They used to have a standard bearing or
the old families in England have a flag
and it became the thing that he put
on his flag so to speak.
Nothing on earth do I desire but thy
pure love within my breast.
Do you think he didn't get tempted a
thousand times about that?
His family was next to the royal family
in England.
He lived in a home with servants.
He rode through the night.
Two hundred and forty thousand miles he traveled
on horseback.
Never once molested by the highway men.
Got to the place where he could only
feed like the squirrels he ate acorns or
he ate blackberries off the side of the
road.
And yet it never troubled him.
Why?
Because it's consumed with a holy passion.
I love that but I've never preached on
it where Jesus says the prince of this
world cometh and findeth nothing in me.
I want to be there.
Or do you want to be there, Dale?
The prince of this world cometh and there's
no territory in me that responds to him.
So he's in despair.
He finds God has worked such a miracle
of grace he's not only got rid of
all my lousy sins he's got my sin
principle out of me and he's come and
so possessed me that the devil can't find
any area in me.
The prince of this world cometh and he
findeth nothing in me.
But how could he if Wesley says that
this love consumes him?
He'll give up the love of the world
prestige, everything that...
You know, sometimes I guess I'm funny.
Well Sharon knows that but she wouldn't tell
you that.
You know, I sometimes wish I could slip
to heaven just for a rehearsal of the
judgment day.
It would be amazing, wouldn't it?
Of course you can read it in the
book of Revelation.
Revelation.
But when God unfolds all the things that
these men sneer that kind of thing wealth,
honor, pleasure and what else this short enduring
world can give?
You wonder that one of the greatest American
preachers ever Jonathan Edwards said God stamp eternity
on my eyeballs.
That's pretty tough, isn't it?
I say often for myself and others Lord,
we're so earthbound.
Anything like Jim?
We're earthbound.
With our petty little circle our family.
Oh no, a bit bigger than that the
church.
No, a bit bigger than that Garden Valley.
Heaven help us.
Which is alright.
But when eternity comes in the whole life
is completely revolutionized.
Every distortion, everything is brought into focus.
Nothing on earth do I desire.
It's a mess, it's a dunghill.
All I want is life, pure love within
my breast.
That love so amazing, so divine that everything's
a love crooked, perverted, rotten, corrupt people.
And then Paul says what to the Corinthians
and such are some of ye, but ye
are washed, ye are sanctified.
Oh, you know this.
I've lost my watch.
I've got an old one here but it's
a good one.
Because it keeps stopping.
It keeps stopping.
So if you hear an extra hour you'll
know why.
It's because my watch keeps stopping.
Not my fault.
They blame somebody.
This is the thing that really got me.
Let me see.
Let me find the verse it's here in
this chapter.
In Romans 8 again.
I would dare to say to you tonight
that not one percent of the preachers in
America will use this text.
And it's the greatest text for Christmas.
Verse 32 of Romans 8.
He that spared not his own son but
delivered him up for us all how shall
he not with him also freely give us
all things?
God help us.
We've stopped at John 3.16. You go
to the average church every Sunday morning it's
the same thing.
The preacher runs the same sermon or as
somebody said he runs the same train he
just changes the engine.
He does a red engine one week and
a blue one the next and a green
one the next.
God has with him what did I say?
He has freely given us all things.
My something here.
He that spared not his own son an
old English hymn says thou didst not spare
thine only son but gavest him for a
world undone and freely with that blessed one
thou gavest all.
Delivered him up for us all.
Think of the scope of it.
You take the whole race all the human
race put them all in one great circle
here.
Whether they're red or yellow black or white
barbarians, scythians bond or free Paul sums the
whole thing up and he says there's neither
Jew nor Greek which is race distinction bond
nor free class distinction male nor female sex
distinction.
You can't get outside of that circle can
you?
He delivered him up for us all.
But why don't they all know?
Why are people in Haiti still living under
terrible superstition and witchcraft?
Why again are the people up the Amazon?
I think of that place so often.
The first book Norman Grove wrote was about
a young man called Fenton Hall.
He was the Babe Ruth of English cricket.
An aristocrat six feet four in his stocking
feet champion tennis player in the Royal Air
Force champion cricketer he went up the Amazon
was there three weeks and died.
And people in England say what a waste.
Why didn't he stay?
He could have been a clergyman he could
have been an archbishop of Canterbury.
Maybe he did more than 50 archbishops did.
By going up there and dying and preparing
the way for others to go.
He was amazed when he got there to
see those tribes that have been there ever
since as far as we know almost the
dawn of creation hadn't one word there's some
words you couldn't explain the cross to them
didn't know what a cross was.
Can't talk about atonement and those other marvelous
words regeneration brother you start with ABC's.
And yet we these smart boys go to
college now and then try and tell you
how much of the Bible they don't believe.
You know when I was a boy they
used to call that higher criticism.
Started in Germany.
Do you know who paved the way for
Hitler?
The church.
If higher criticism hadn't come in and doubt
cast on the virgin birth and the physical
resurrection of Jesus Hitler would never have got
his way.
See that's why the devil wants to get
the Bible out of schools in America and
prayer.
My priority is not to get the Bible
in schools I have to get it in
homes.
Prayer in schools what about prayer in homes?
I put the deacons on the spot in
one church you know one of those nights
I felt real rude and mad.
So I brought all new deacons I said
never have a family altar come on you
may as well live in Russia.
Boy did they shed some tears.
He spared not his own son but delivered
him up for us all.
That's the first great scope that great circle
there.
And the second great circle is this that
he has with him freely given us all
things.
Do you think God has any afterthoughts?
Let me reverently say does he scratch his
head and say oh I was going to
tell the apostle Paul that I should have
told John on the Isle of Patmos does
God have afterthoughts?
No.
He spared not his own son but freely
given us all things.
Look at the who's here.
In verse 33 who shall lay anything?
Verse 34 who is he that condemneth?
Verse 35 who shall separate us from the
love of Christ?
You know Paul is always talking about things
in this chapter you know most of you
can recite Romans 8.28 can't you?
Romans 8.28 What is it?
All what?
Things.
Well now he uses the word here again.
He has freely given us all things.
Now leap up to the 37th verse in
all these things.
What things?
All things proceed from Jesus Christ.
We've been thinking of that in Hebrews chapter
1 haven't we?
God says of him thy throne O God
is forever and ever.
He upholdeth all things by the word of
his power.
You see everything in the whole world and
in creation is moving up to Jesus Christ
right now.
It's all come from him.
It is in him.
It's going to be for him.
But this is so enormous.
In all these things.
What things?
Well you get some questions in some little
books don't you?
Fill in the put words the missing words.
What's he talking about?
What has he been talking about?
Who?
Who is he that condemneth?
Does somebody dare to challenge the finished work
of Jesus Christ in my life?
Who is he that condemneth?
Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ?
Now these are the things in this very
verse.
35.
Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ?
Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, peril, nakedness, or sword.
In all these things we are more than
conquerors through him that loved us.
For I am persuaded that neither death nor
life nor angels nor principalities nor powers come
on, come on.
Seems to me here that the apostle Paul
put his shoulders back and, if you like
it, thumbed his nose to the devil and
said, listen, I challenge everything you have there
in hell.
You can heat your furnaces seven times hotter
and make all the weapons of persecution you
like, but there's nothing can separate me from
the love of God.
I'm the only one that can do that
by my unfaithfulness, by my disobedience.
Nobody else can do it.
It may cost you off the membership role.
One of our boys used to say, well,
it's about as good as having it on
a sausage roll if you're not saved.
So what if you get thrown out of
court?
What happens?
What matters?
You know, the apostle here says, all things.
Just as he says, all things, not some,
all things work together for good.
In all these things we're more than conquerors.
But this last verse, it seems to me,
is pushing into our day.
There's neither height nor depth or any other
creature.
You see, since Paul wrote this, if you
can think of it this way, which isn't
good, the horizon of the universe was there
in the days of Paul.
Now it's somewhere up there.
We're pushing the horizons back.
We've got a thing called the sun here.
We've got a thing called the world here.
I understand that you could put 500 worlds
in that one sun, 500 of our one
world in that sun.
You could put a thousand of those worlds
in a sun that's up there in space
in the universe that they found a while
ago.
I'll put way there in infinity.
Supposing there are demon powers.
And there are demon powers, sure enough.
But supposing there are some green men living
in another world.
He says, neither things present, nor things to
come, nor height, nor depth, nor holy defiances,
neither height, nor depth, nor any other creature.
Tell me when I go out the world,
we will hear about it.
There's a flying saucer landed down there.
There's some mysterious little men running around.
We don't know what kind of power guns
they may shoot your ears off or something.
Nor any other creature, he said.
God hasn't missed anything.
The redemptive work of Jesus Christ is not
an unfinished work.
It's a perfect work.
Right?
God hasn't omitted anything.
He has freely given us all things.
What all things?
Well, let me read it without you looking
at it.
I'll tell you what it is.
It's according to his divine power.
He has given us unto us all things.
I didn't put that there.
Peter didn't put it there.
The Holy Ghost put it there because it
compliments what John Paul had said.
In the second epistle of Peter, chapter 1
and verse 3, according to his divine power,
he has given unto us all things that
pertain to life and godliness.
People get, oh, God's given us all things.
I'm going to believe God for Christmas, a
nice Christmas gift, a Rolls Royce.
Oh, not a, surely not a black one,
a blue one.
Oh, he's going to give me this.
We're always on the level of thinking like
poor, so-called rational people outside.
I don't wonder the good old book says
the world loves its own.
It does.
You can climb the social ladder, you can
climb the religious ladder, you can climb the
church ladder.
God has anticipated every motion that I need
to make in my life, every motion, every
emotion, every subtlety of the devil, every cunning
trap of the devil.
He can make us alive in the Holy
Ghost to this degree.
As I've said before, if we prayed longer
in the morning, we wouldn't be praying at
night to get over our troubles.
It's our fault we didn't get alerted.
We weren't wise in the spirit.
We say, oh, well, I've got to be
at Dillard's at a certain time.
I'm always saying Dillard's.
I should get a commission on that.
Dillard's first, and then, of course, we're going
over to Sanger Harris where all the big
shots shop.
And then we're going to my shop where
the poorer guys go, JC Penney's.
We've got it all planned out.
Well, what if you say before you go,
Lord, maybe the best thing for me this
morning is to have a flat tire when
I get right down on three.
Oh, no.
Don't ask God for things like that.
We don't glory in tribulation.
We glory in police cars come and help
us out or tow away wagons or something.
What if God stops me on the road
because some poor old sinner is going to
come up and he needs me to talk
to him and there's no one else who
will talk to him all day.
Those wonderful Quakers.
Remember, in your day, did they talk about
having an authentic stop in the spirit?
You're going to do something and suddenly, like
that, God says no.
And you can't explain it.
It's just God said no.
An authentic stop in the spirit.
A plan that you thought was perfect maybe
for a week or a month or so
and suddenly collapses the whole thing.
Why?
Because he's going to get more glory out
of the ruins and you'll get out of
the whole thing, that's why.
But, Brother Raymond, it's a scientific day.
You're right, it is.
It is.
Are you suggesting that God has an invading...
Yes, I'm suggesting you've forgotten about it.
I'm going to tell you what he's done.
What did Jesus say?
He could call down twelve legions of angels.
Wasn't that what he said?
And the smallest denominator of a legion is
five thousand.
Five thousand is a legion.
Twelve fives are sixty.
So that's sixty thousand, isn't it?
Am I getting my numbers right?
Sixty thousand what?
Oh, I read this today.
I get such fun and joy out of
it.
It came to pass that night an angel
of the Lord went out and smote the
camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty
-five thousand people.
One angel killed a hundred and eighty-five
thousand.
I'm leaving this to Dale to be working
out while I do this.
What's six thousand times a hundred and eighty
-five thousand?
Work it on a computer.
I think it comes to about a hundred
and ten or a thousand million which is
more than a billion.
So if the Lord sent an invading army
if we were in that danger and we
had faith you know we sing Oh God
our help in ages past our hope for
years to come.
Sufficient is thine arm alone but give us
a bigger air force.
Sufficient is thine arm alone but give us
submarines that have more power than the Russians.
Who do we fool?
You think God doesn't do miracles?
How do you explain the six days war
that the Jews had?
They were outnumbered in every way.
They were going to be completely wiped out.
Those little guys got in the sky and
smote Pharaoh and his hosts.
Modern Pharaoh.
Genovese was going through the Red Sea not
a dog's chance.
Look over their shoulder Oh look who's coming
see the dust Oh Pharaoh's coming all his
armies run off.
And them got a chariot between them.
That was the greatest baptism service in history.
They all got baptized at the same time.
Well this is reality I'm not fooling.
When the Lord showed me that that the
smallest denominator some say it's 10,000 make
a legion of angels.
If one angel can destroy 185,000 people
and you multiply that by 10,000 times
it it could wipe the population of the
earth out in one night.
And it wouldn't strain his arm to do
it.
He could wipe all existing communities all existing
systems out.
After all he's going to hand everything over
to the sun freely he has given with
him he's freely given us all things.
He's not only given us as I say
pardon and peace pardon and purity and peace
what about joy love and joy in the
Holy Ghost.
Not many people have joy.
As I've said before the more joy you
have the less entertainment you need.
Joy to the world the Lord is come.
The world doesn't know a thing about Jesus.
All it knows about the manger.
I'm afraid I'm afraid and I'm not embarrassed
to say I'd like to preach to 10
,000 preachers.
You boys are all stuck again at the
crib at the crib.
We're supposed to have gotten out of Egypt
the type of the world and away from
Pharaoh the devil the type of the devil
but where are we?
We're stuck somewhere between the resurrection morning and
the upper room we're still stuck there.
My prayer is that we'll do what old
Lowry said years ago and old Nazarene we'll
explore in this coming year the possibilities of
grace.
The only reason the world is morally bankrupt
tonight is because the church is spiritually bankrupt.
We're not going to find a new little
few petty answers.
The rate we're going the world can last
another million years we won't evangelize it.
There has to be an invasion of God's
power.
He came the first time what did he
do?
He split the whole BC before Christ AD
and Odomini every letter every letter written today
and what is it now in America?
50 million or 100 million letters are written
every day and every one of them is
testifying to the birth of Christ.
Even the atheist when he signs a letter
puts a date in every business contract you
do you put the birth of Jesus there.
Well how are we going to get away
with it at the judgment seat?
He didn't save us just to be pretty
angels when we get up there.
What did our hymn say tonight?
Charles Wesley Adam's likeness now he face stamp
thine image in its place.
I said to brother Dale today we're better
off than the disciples that were with Jesus
they only had Jesus with them we can
have Jesus in us.
Christ in you.
He can be born again in us.
We receive a new nature with new desires
new interests If it's according to the legal
document of God's will all things are passed
away.
You've got preachers that admit they stick their
feet up sat at Sunday afternoon and relax
and drink admit they stick their feet up
sat at Sunday afternoon and relax and drink
cokes and eat Fritos and go all soggy
to preach at night.
They've lost sight of eternity.
We're not an eternity conscious people.
Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly
crown.
Why did he come to a hell of
a world like this to be buffeted and
bruised and outcast?
The first thing he did before he could
walk or talk was divide a city all
Herod was troubled all Jerusalem with him and
a few old stupid people down here an
old woman a hundred years of age and
Simeon who's tottering on his legs and a
young woman who's pregnant and reckons it was
a miracle and she has a cousin that's
pregnant and she's all totally excited maybe there
weren't twenty people in Jerusalem at that time
that believed that Jesus was the Son of
God.
I quote this as I quoted before that
the Quaker philosopher Elton Trueblood was asked what
do you see for the church at the
end of the 20th century?
He said that by the end of the
century the church of Jesus Christ will be
a conscious minority surrounded by an arrogant militant
paganism.
The church has always been there.
It's there today never mind the end of
the 20th century.
It was born amidst paganism it was born
in the most cruel system in the world.
The Romans had given a bloodbath to Israel
and give another bloodbath in A.D. 70.
The church has always been a conscious minority.
We shouldn't be too conscious of minority we
should be conscious of the fact that we're
linked to omnipotence.
He'd given us all things.
I don't care what this generation needs Jesus
Christ had thought ahead of us.
When he wants us to come he brings
supermen back.
I don't believe God went out of business
when he created Finney and Wesley and all
the superstars of history.
Forget it.
We need bigger men than that not with
bigger heads bigger spiritually.
With new revelation with new depth with new
anointing with new faith that dare to disregard
all the wretched rotten systems that we have
today that profess the name of Jesus Christ.
Multi-million dollar gospel corporations I can't believe
it.
Sour grapes, you see.
I don't even have an office staff except
my wife and she has to quit sometimes
and I I'm not a bit envious of
anybody.
Not a man in the world could make
me envious.
Some stupid old man up in Oregon has
46 Rolls Royces.
That's what you get when people love you.
Everybody says they love me I can't even
get one Rolls Royce.
Oh, I want you to bathe your soul
from here out that whatever you're going to
need wherever you're going I don't care if
God does show you up in the Amazon
there.
Maybe God's going to go to some heathen
country and show us what true revival's around.
We've so much false religion here so many
plastic Christians so many puppets in the pulpit
instead of prophets.
He's going to have to cleanse his temple
again.
Is God embarrassed that I don't draw on
him more day by day?
Answer it for yourself.
Am I standing at the street corner like
the poor old Salvation Army standing there rattling
their tin cans?
William Booth set the world on fire.
He entered 70 countries in 90 years.
He was lampooned on the English stage but
the day came when Queen Victoria invited him
to Buckingham Palace to have afternoon tea.
Not that that means too much.
Shows you the full circle.
I'm still believing God's going to do something
beyond all we can ask or think.
He's going to do a new thing.
I believe it's hidden in this word we've
got to discover it.
If it's outside of this word you can't
trust it.
If it's inside of this word we need
to find it.
I'm trusting this coming year and I don't
care if the congregation dwindles I hope it
doesn't but if it does I'll do like
Jesus stand there one night and say will
he also go away?
I'm asking God to put me on a
new elevation not for my sake, for his
sake.
I don't want to be anybody.
I don't want to see his name blasphemed
and misrepresented anymore.
Don't want people shouting big things about little
things.
I want you to come and do something
which only the sovereign hand of God can
do.
If there was that invasion of a what,
5,000 times 185,000 tonight the world
would know, I'll tell you that.
Why can't it happen on the spiritual level?
He has given Jesus Christ for you and
with him he's freely given him all things
you'll ever need.
Power, peace, faith.
It's all wrapped up in his gift.
When he gave him, he gave the utmost
there's nothing else in heaven to give.
Gabriel doesn't supersede Jesus or Michael or anyone
else.
Everything was wrapped up in that babe there
that's why before he could walk at all
the devil tried to kill him.
And all through his life he was shadowed
with death all the way.
Well you can stay where you like I
hope you won't.
I hope you'll reach out as I'm going
to do.
I'm going to say, Lord uncover from your
word what things I need to possess I
know I need it a lot.
He has freely given us all things that
pertain to life and godliness.
He's not overlooked a thing in your life
or mine.
We are not alerted to it through the
word of God.