I am very grateful to God in his
mercy on me, in allowing me to come
back to your country, and especially to this
particular church building.
I am very grateful and I don't have
words that are fitting to thank you enough
for allowing me to come back.
And I have no words fitting enough to
thank our dear brother Denny and his dear
wife and family for loving us and trusting
us so often and opening so much of
your country to this very unworthy man.
But I do bless God for them and
for all of you, and thank you so
much for letting my wife and my son
be with me.
I haven't been with them most of this
year.
For some reason this year particularly separated us,
and you would be shamed of me if
I could tell you how much time we
were actually together as a family.
But we didn't plan it all together that
way.
But I do remember when I was thinking
of the finer details of coming here, how
I did say, Lord it would have been
so nice for Jenny and Samuel just this
year to have come because we've been so
much separated.
And it was so lovely that that day
our brother Denny said that Jenny must come
with Samuel.
And he didn't know it how I was
on my face before God after that phone
call to thank him for his tender mercy
and love.
I think it was Livingston, the great, godly,
holy David Livingston that said, no, nothing we
have done or could ever do could be
termed a sacrifice when you look at what
Jesus did on the cross for us.
And I agree with all my heart, and
nothing we've ever done is a sacrifice.
But I do know this, he makes up
in a billion ways that one would never
dare to say of how the hand of
God comes in the most amazing way to
honor you if you are willing to serve
him.
And though all hell comes against you, you're
always conscious every step of the way Christ
is right beside you.
And what more do we want?
And his love and tenderness.
I doubt that there is a man alive
on this earth that God has been so
tender with and so good to as me.
I will be stunned if God would show
me any other man in heaven.
As that in my lifetime, and I say
that from my heart, I will be staggered.
And I love him for that, and I
thank him for such people as you.
I honestly thank you for coming here tonight,
and for loving God enough, and his word,
as to be willing to come to hear
a very base and weak and despised man
as me.
I honestly thank you for that.
O God, in mercy on me, wash me
now deeply in the blood of Jesus thy
son.
I have no right to preach this holy
book apart from the blood cleansing me.
I have nothing to commend, nothing to point
to, to give me the right to preach
outside of the blood of Jesus, my Savior.
I want nothing but the blood to show
thee God.
And I ask thee to wash me now
and fill me with the Holy Spirit, that
in weakness thy strength may be made perfect.
For thou didst choose the weak and the
base and the despised things of the world
deliberately, that no flesh could glory in thy
presence.
And we are wondered at thy wisdom, Lord,
in choosing such base men.
But we agree, Lord, no flesh dare glory
in thy presence.
Come in mercy on me.
Have mercy on all of us, for this
night is nothing but sacrilege.
If God himself does not come in grace
and mercy, we have nothing even in ourselves
to change ourselves.
Outside of the grace and the love of
God, and just a willingness to want God
to have his way, thou can't work.
O God, make us willing.
Take down into the hearts of every man,
woman, and child here tonight every prejudice, every
fear, every doubt, every work of the devil
to harden the heart, to close the mind.
Wipe it away by the power of the
risen and resurrected Christ and the Holy Spirit.
And protect us now under the blood of
Christ from our only enemy, the devil.
Come now, visit us through thy word, thy
holy word.
Turn our lives, God.
Turn every life, God, to something they've never
been before.
No man can do that, especially the weakest
and the basest as I.
But God can, and in faith, because of
the motives of our heart that thou art
looking at.
Answer this prayer above that we're asking for
believing.
In Jesus the Christ's name, amen.
In the holy book, there is words Christ
said in John chapter 12 that are very
staggering.
If one takes every word God has uttered
as vital
necessity for you and I to walk with
him.
He says in chapter 12 of John, in
verse 23, Jesus answered them saying, The
hour has come that the Son of Man
should be glorified.
He's speaking now here about himself, the reason
he came from all his glory to become
a man.
This moment now has arrived.
The hour has come that the Son of
Man should be glorified.
You see, he was about to face Calvary
and die.
For all flesh, for all men, he tasted
death for every man, don't ever doubt it.
The hour has come that the Son of
Man should be glorified.
Then he says a strange thing concerning his
death that he was speaking about.
Verily, verily I say unto you, except a
corn of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abideth alone.
But if it die, it bringeth forth much
fruit.
If it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
He that loveth his life shall lose it.
What a tragedy that you could do that.
And he that hateth his life in this
world shall keep it unto his life eternal.
If any man serve me, let him follow
me.
Amazing words here.
Except a corn of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth alone.
But if it die, it bringeth forth much
fruit.
Can I read at the outset of the
sermon, please?
What could make a man desperately seek God?
What could make a man desperately seek God
for vital reality in Christianity before he dies?
Before he dies, this one profound statement
caused me to seek God in such a
way.
Only one life to live.
It will soon be past.
Only what's done for Christ will last.
I never recovered from that moment till this,
when I read those words on a wall
in a building.
After having laid that statement before you, I
would like us now very, very carefully and
prayerfully to look again at these verses.
Christ said, verse 24, except a corn of
wheat, unless a corn of wheat falls into
the ground and die, it abideth alone.
It just remains one corn of wheat, that's
all it is.
But if it die, if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit.
Now in its context, in its context, it
initially speaks of Christ's death that would result
in the salvation of millions.
That is what he's saying as he says
these words.
In its context, it initially speaks of Christ's
death that would result in the salvation of
millions.
But, beloved, it also applies in principle, in
its context, to us who would follow Christ.
And he's so careful when he speaks now
as he's about to face death, to throw
death upon us, who he saves for fruit.
The whole principle is to turn to you
and I, not just to tell them he's
about to face death and what would happen.
The millions and millions and millions that would
be reached if one died, he turns to
us with the same principle in its context.
And he staggers you and me almost in
the same breath.
Christ goes on and he looks to you
and I now concerning this principle of what
he had to do to bring forth fruit
that would stagger the powers of hell and
the world for eternity.
You see, the next verse is not about
him.
He that loveth his life, he says, shall
lose it.
Oh, my.
You want to hold on to your rights
and to everything that you have in life
and can hold on to that will waste
everything God could ever have done through you.
You have a choice, though you're saved.
He that hateth his life, oh, gives up
the right, has no rights, demands no rights,
expects no rights, oh, he shall keep it
unto eternal life.
To lose our lives, not physically, not physically,
but to lay down our lives, no matter
what it costs us, in such a way,
in such a way, for God to be
able to bring forth fruit through us while
we live.
To lose our lives, not physically, but to
lay down our lives, no matter what it
costs us, in such a way, for God
to be able to bring forth fruit through
us while we live.
In this little moment called life.
I'm writing books, one book I will one
day hope God will let me publish.
This moment called life.
It's all you've got.
It's gone in one moment, friend.
For God's sake, don't hold on to it.
You'll never have another moment called life.
It's almost gone before it starts.
Beloved, I have come to believe with all
my heart that in Christianity a life of
fruitfulness is born through a moment of death.
Can I repeat that?
I have come to believe with all my
heart that in Christianity a life of fruitfulness
is born through a moment of death.
I have come to believe that a Christian
must have a personal calvary to find vital
reality with God and to ever be greatly
used by God.
There are only two types of Christians.
You will never find three.
Don't look for them.
You will only find two types of Christians,
beloved.
Those who have had a personal calvary and
those who have not.
And within moments you know which group they
belong to.
You cannot, cannot hide a man who has
had a personal calvary.
My son Samuel, who is here tonight with
us, at the beginning of this year, he
was 11 years old.
And he came through on this farm, his
grandpa's farm, where we have our annual leave.
I won't tell you how many days I
managed to find, but I was there for
those few days.
And I was alone with Jesus.
And Samuel opened the door, waiting to see
if I would beg him to come in.
He had his Bible in his hand.
And I said, come in.
So he came and stood and looked at
me with his Bible in hand and said,
Daddy, do you want to know how to
be able to win many, many, many people
to Christ?
So I looked at him and I said,
yes, I would.
He said, then listen to this, preach this,
and many, many people will come to Christ.
And he took what he had been doing,
obviously, in his devotions, alone with Jesus, in
the other bedroom, marked passages where he had
little pieces of paper, and he began to
read these little verses and that little passage
and that, all linking up, comparing Scripture with
Scripture.
And eventually his train of thought leading up
to how to make people seek God and
go through with God and get saved, what
they must do, step and how God will
assure them, giving them the witness that they
are saved if they do that.
Then he ended, closed the Bible and said,
now do that, Daddy, and you'll win many
to Christ.
And I said, thank you.
I was quite stunned.
I looked at him and I said, Samuel,
it looks to me like you're going to
be a preacher also.
And he said, no, Daddy, I'm not.
I don't want to be a preacher.
I want to be a prayer warrior.
I want to be able to be someone,
before I die, that can go on his
knees and ask God concerning souls to be
saved.
And whenever I pray, God will immediately answer
that prayer.
Whatever I cry out to God, that God
would answer that prayer immediately.
I want that, Daddy.
Far more could be done to win souls
if I was a prayer warrior in truth,
Daddy, than if I was a preacher.
Well, I looked at him feeling quite rebuked
and I tried to justify myself.
And I said, well, Samuel, you can't be
a preacher of any worth unless you're a
prayer warrior first.
To the degree that your life is soaked
and consumed in prayer, to that degree only
will you be anointed by God when you
preach.
To the degree that your life is consumed
in prayer.
To that degree only that you pray will
God anoint your ministry.
Forgive me.
Tragically, beloved, most Christians in this world will
never ever be able to testify that God
answered their prayers immediately before they die, ever.
Now that is tragic.
Most Christians will never be able to testify
that God answered their prayers immediately before they
die.
You see, such fruit is born through vital
reality with God only.
There's no such a promise in the Bible
of answering any prayer you've ever prayed or
ever will pray in your life without a
condition.
And I could give you thirty minutes to
an hour of the scripture upon scripture of
those promises with the conditions.
Such fruit, as my son said, is the
thing needed more than preachers.
A life like that.
It is born, it is born only through
vital reality with God.
1 John 3, verse 20.
For if our heart condemn us, God is
greater than our heart and knoweth all things.
Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then
have we confidence toward God.
And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him.
Because we keep His commandments and do those
things that are pleasing in His sight.
Such fruit, beloved, as my son saw, is
the greater need, is born only through vital
reality with God.
And you will not find one verse in
the entire Bible that will disagree with that
in its context concerning prayer being answered.
A number of years ago, I was in
this building at your Bible school.
A young man was in the meeting who
God began to smite him with such conviction
of the grief he was to God, though
he was saved.
I want to repeat that.
Being saved doesn't make you a joy to
God, sir.
You can grieve the Spirit.
You can quench.
This boy was so smitten by the Holy
Ghost as he sat in meeting upon meeting
through that week of Bible school that I
was so privileged I will never cease to
thank God for eternity, you trust me with
that.
He went home grieving.
No joy, grieving.
His parents, his family saw this boy was
in a terrible state of grief and sorrow,
smitten by God, the Holy Ghost.
They heard him that night sobbing.
The father said, I couldn't sleep, Keith.
I listened to that boy crying, oh God,
oh God, oh God.
And the father wept, listening to his son
groaning before God in desperation about his condition,
though he was saved.
The consciousness suddenly of the grief he was
to God just went on until the
house came to a hush, a hush listening,
a hush watching him try to survive through
the day when all he wanted to be
was alone with God.
His mother said, the little waste bin was
filled with these little tissues, wet through as
he had sobbed through the night, sobbing before
God in desperation about his condition, though he
was saved.
One morning he came out and everyone looked
again, but this boy came out with a
glow on his face and he said words
that made heaven rejoice, louder than you and
I can shout hallelujah, brother, don't doubt.
Father, mother, I've surrendered my all to God.
I am absolutely surrendered to God.
My life is laid fully on the altar
of God.
His life was so changed that that house
was shaken into silence.
He was so transformed that home was in
a staggered, stunned silence at how God could
so transform a man who sought him like
that and would not let him go till
he found what he wanted, God having his
way.
But then the dear father who was driving
me from the airport to preach, a man
you all know and love as I've come
to love, he said at the table, family
prayers, devotions, the son asked that night, why
is it that our family never comes near
us, our grandfathers, grandmama, why is it that
the cousins, the uncles, the aunties, so many
that never come, they want nothing to do
with us, why is it?
They never come to the house of God
to hear daddy preaching.
And the father said carefully how they had
been ostracized and thrown out and forbidden to
make contact with the others when they had
got saved because his parents and his mother's
parents were deeply religious but in such darkness.
And they were so fearful of coming to
light because when you're in religion, how do
you say you're wrong?
It's a billion times harder for a man
to come to light and to God than
for a drunk who has no argument.
So the father looked and said, when we
came to Christ we were forbidden to make
contact and they keep us at bay.
That is why this boy for the first
time, he'd heard things but for the first
time tears came down his face at the
consciousness of this and he said, but surely
there must be something that we can do,
there must be something to get them to
come to the house of God just once
to hear the truth being preached before they
go to hell.
There must be something God can do.
And he prayed.
If I can remember rightly, the father said
no one really could pray after that prayer.
As he wept, the way he'd never wept
before praying, oh God, it doesn't matter what
the cost, I would be willing for anything.
I would be willing to do anything, God.
If thou would just be able to bring
them all to the house of God to
hear the gospel being preached and truth just
once before they all die and go to
hell, God.
It doesn't matter what the cost, God.
On to this prayer.
That boy was in the car days later
with his two brothers sitting in the front
and he was in the back in the
car, lost control, it went down and down
and down and the brothers were alive in
the front, but they turned, this boy was
dead.
If I rightly remember, they had a cell
phone and somehow contacted the mummy and the
daddy who were driving the opposite direction and
told him he's dead.
Daddy and mummy pulled off the road, weeping.
And then he said, wait, mummy, isn't God
good?
Isn't God good that he so met with
this boy before he took him?
He was so right with God.
And they began to thank God and worship
him for his goodness.
That's godliness.
But then the father said to me, the
day of the funeral came, Keith, and I
was preparing in the church.
I think his brother, Roman, was to give
the sermon itself, but the father was the
minister of that church, the pastor.
And he was preparing the things as the
people were streaming in and streaming in.
And he looked up and he was shaken
as he suddenly saw his father and his
mother coming through the door.
And his brothers and sisters and their husbands
and the children, the cousins.
Every single relative on earth to that family
walked through that door into that church days
after that boy had prayed that prayer.
And that father broke at the consciousness of
God's faithfulness to a boy praying when he's
right with God.
Listen, beloved, listen carefully.
God will resort to anything to answer the
prayer immediately, fully of any man who has
vital reality with him.
I want to repeat that carefully.
There is nothing God will not resort to,
to immediately, fully answer any prayer, any man
who has vital reality with him prays.
That boy had found vital reality with God
in the first prayer.
He really cried out to God.
The only way God knew to answer that
prayer fully and immediately, in integrity and obligation
to answer that prayer, to all his promises
to that boy, was to do what he
did.
And God will resort to anything to not
fail his word or the person who fulfills
the condition to answer anything whatsoever we ask.
We receive of him because we keep his
commandment and do those things that are pleasing
in his sight.
O beloved, John Knox, he cried
words that the church will never recover from.
Give me Scotland or I die.
Now I want you to think about that.
God gave him Scotland when he prayed that
prayer.
God gave him a land because God knew
that man would die.
No sacrifice was too great to him for
God to answer his prayer.
Have you ever prayed like that in your
life for anyone in compassion, let alone for
a nation?
Moses cried out, blot me out of thy
book.
Eternally think of it.
Wipe me out.
But save his people that God was about
to destroy.
No sacrifice was too great for Moses for
God to answer that prayer.
God had to answer it.
Paul cried out, I would wish myself cursed
of God.
A curse of Christ.
Not just to be blotted out, but cursed
by Christ.
He had such compassion for those who it
seemed couldn't be reached for his own people.
Oh, but that Israel could be saved.
I could wish myself cursed of Christ.
Do you know the gravity of the meaninglessness?
He had no regard in eternity for his
own soul when it came to if God
would just answer that prayer.
Have you ever come near the standard, the
capacity of the depth of what God would
want a man or woman to pray?
Or does life make you unable to pray
anything for anyone in a way that could
move heaven, to stagger this world?
Here was the heart of Christ, beloved, when
men prayed in such a way that God
saw they were willing to die.
Here was the heart of Christ, beloved, when
men prayed in such a way that God
saw they were willing to die that others
may live.
Have you ever, will you ever, ever, ever
pray like that?
Before you die, having held on to life,
not willing for any real sacrifice that would
make you lose anything life really held out
to you.
When I heard that boy's testimony from his
father, who is a godly preacher, I thought
of these words as I sat looking at
his father driving, listening.
I thought of these words, Ye shall seek
me, ye shall find me, when ye shall
search for me with all your heart.
God said that.
There's no other way to find vital reality
with God outside of that.
I want to ask each one of you
here tonight, when will you seek God with
all your heart?
When will you seek God in the way
that you will find vital reality that will
stagger this world beginning in your home?
When will you lay down everything in life,
brother, sister, to find a true walk with
God that will bring forth fruit every step
you take, every prayer you pray?
When will you become desperate?
When will you become so desperate that you
will not seek, you will not cease to
seek God, like that boy, until you find
Him?
I will not let thee go, except thou
bless me.
Unless you have your full way, O God,
I will not let thee go.
When will you, like Jacob, have a personal
Calvary?
Oh, what would you have been for the
world, Jacob, if there had not been a
Peneir, where you died to self, and would
not let God go until He had His
full work done in your heart, and stopped
fighting?
A crucified man is not evidenced by forsaking
all and going to the mission field.
I want you to listen carefully.
That's not a crucified man.
A crucified man is not evidenced by forsaking
all and going to the mission field.
We had a young boy, when I was
first a preacher, coming to big youth conventions,
and he had this desire to always serve
God, to go out as a missionary, to
preach.
He grew up, he went out, he came
into our mission, and God used him.
But he had this longing to go further
into deeper Africa, where it wasn't so westernized,
and he said, so gospelized, where there were
few workers.
Not all these churches everywhere preaching the gospel,
the privilege of this country, that I want
to go where there's...
He had this, and I said to him
one day, as he was having this more
and more in his heart, and determined to
learn the language of the land, and determined
to start deputation work to get supporters to
the mission he was going to go with,
I said to him, are you sure this
is God?
The need is not the call.
You must be called by God.
You must know you're in the center of
the will of God, or you cannot blame
God what happens to you if you go.
The need is not the call.
He looked at me for a while before
he answered, and that hesitation made me tremble.
Eventually, after all the preparation, the sacrifice, and
everything, he, his wife, his little children went
to this land, the very third world, and
cut off this mission, sent them to a
place where there were any cut-off, where
no missionaries had been for a long, long
time, and the rains came, the weather came,
oh, and disease came.
And the radio couldn't reach anybody, and their
child got this sickness, and they tried to
get in this van, and the van couldn't
go in all the water, and so they
walked, and the child died in their arms.
And then, while trying to bury the child,
the husband, the same disease getting hold of
him, and this woman dragging him, pulling him,
weeping through the rain, and the mud, and
the slough.
So, eventually, some natives there, they found him,
and took him.
Somehow, radio contact was made, helicopters, and they
were, somehow he survived.
And she, Ron got the same, oh, his
child dead, he nearly died.
He just somehow scraped through, and they got
him back.
Though they doubted he could ever live, he
was in such a state when he got
there, but he got to.
He came to see me, and my wife,
and he said, I'm going back.
The devil's not keeping me from the will
of God, no matter what he's done.
And I said, no, you're not going back,
you're not going back, unless God writes on
the wall with his finger, go.
Don't dare go.
The need is not the call.
God doesn't do that.
Be careful.
The need is not the call to go,
but the need is the call to pray.
If you never, ever remember a word this
man has ever said in this nation, in
your life, please, just remember this.
Christian, the need is not the call to
go, but the need is the call to
pray.
The need is the call to pray.
There was a missionary family from America, that
a man wrote to me a little while
ago, about a year ago, and he said,
in our church, this family stood in the
front of the prayer meeting and said, we
are going, but you must pray.
We will not survive without your prayers.
We will be destroyed without your prayers.
You're saying we're going.
You must pray.
He begged us.
I think he said it was two years
later.
See, this man came back, and it was
this last week, I think, when he was
writing, he said, this church was staggered at
the end of the prayer meeting.
A very weak, sickly man staggered up in
the front of the meeting and he said
these words, I am dying.
My wife is dead.
All my children are dead.
I am dying, but I managed to get
back and I asked God to let me
live to get to this meeting, and I
waited.
You didn't know I was here.
I waited to see if anyone had prayed
for us, anyone, just one word.
No one prayed for us.
You failed.
That is why we were destroyed.
We went, but you forgot to pray for
us in truth, as you are there.
The need is not the call to go,
but the need is the call to pray.
The call for prayer warriors is a far
greater need than the call for priests.
Can I repeat that?
The call for prayer warriors is a far
greater need than the call for priests, because
no priest will survive without the prayer warriors.
Oh, for crucified lives that will go to
their knees for missionaries to survive and not
to return devastated.
Oh, for crucified lives that will go to
their knees for missionaries to survive and not
to return devastated.
Only a crucified life will be willing to
spend their lives consumed by prayer like wreaths,
towels, and praying hides.
Only a crucified life will be willing to
spend their lives consumed by prayer, but without
them the world will stagger.
It is as they pray that the world
is affected.
The missionaries survive and advance and souls are
won only as the church prays.
But only the crucified lives in the church
will pray in a way that will keep
the missions open and advancing and the souls
being won around this world.
You wonder why so few are won throughout
the world?
Because the church has so few crucified lives
consumed by prayer.
And the missionaries are far and sparse between
and battling in every aspect of life.
The ranks are so thin, it is tragic.
Is that the will of God?
But it is because there are so few
praying.
Don't doubt that, beloved.
Don't doubt that.
A crucified life does not necessarily result in
forsaking all to preach.
But a crucified life does result in forsaking
all that is not essential in life to
pray.
In losing your life to be consumed in
a life of prayer.
We are all called, beloved, but can only
fulfill that calling properly when we've had a
personal calvary.
The priesthood does not have to prove he's
called by always being busy with things.
He proves he's called by giving himself to
prayer and to the ministry of the word.
In that order, the disciples cried out in
despair, we will give ourselves to prayer and
to the ministry of the word.
In that order, always.
But those who are not to preach prove
they are fulfilling God's purposes for their lives
by praying.
And deeply conscious that it is as vital
a ministry as preaching, for the preacher will
die.
The preacher will die disillusioned if they don't.
They become deeply conscious that their ministry is
as vital as any preacher that ever went
and as costly.
Do you honestly believe that if you stay
home, God expects less of a sacrifice from
your life for the world than the missionary
who forsakes his job, his work, his home,
his family, his land?
Do you honestly believe God is so unjust
to single out some with self-sacrifice and
you are bypassed to live in such pleasures
and hold on to all life's luxuries and
joys and know nothing of dying yourself?
Do you honestly believe that is God's way,
beloved?
The crucified preacher is nailed to the cross
because of love for the lost.
He loses his life to win the loss
for Christ.
He denies himself what others call their legal
rights.
He dies daily to things other people regard
as the normal, legitimate, rightful things that we
have to have.
This world is not his home.
He sets his affection on things above, not
on things on the earth.
He lives to lay up for himself treasures
in heaven.
For him to live is Christ, but to
die is gain, for his treasures are only
in heaven, sold.
He has no shelter on earth if he
is a preacher that his affection is attached
to, that would keep him from anything God
sends him to.
Don't doubt that, beloved.
Only a man crucified of self who has
had a personal calvary will find himself able
to spend his life denying himself of all
else so that he can be consumed in
a life of prayer.
But without the wreath houses and the praying
hides, the church will stagger across the world.
The mission field will become empty of workers,
baths of workers, and those workers will battle
to survive because there's no praying hides left
and wreath house.
The prayer warrior who is called to pray,
prays for the mission field.
He sacrifices his life as much as the
missionary who forsakes all to fulfill that calling.
The prayer warrior is the reason the mission
field have workers.
We do not send people to the field.
God does.
We pray for the Lord of the harvest
that he will send forth laborers.
None of us can.
Only God can truly call a man who
will survive, who will truly be called of
God, anointed of God, equipped by God, and
who will be fruitful.
But God waits for us to pray.
Listen in case you missed it.
Pray!
God waits for that.
Do you?
As we ought, do you not think the
world would have these terrible rags of missionaries
who will survive and bring the world to
Christ ten times over in our lifetime if
we had done our bit?
As we ought to have and not held
on to life?
Church of Christ?
Do you honestly think God stood back and
let so many be unreached of his personal
will?
I cannot blame God through doctrine and sit
back and say, I have no responsibility, not
with the Bible I read.
The prayer warrior is the reason men will
go to the mission field and the prayer
warrior is the reason missionaries will stay in
the mission field.
Take the prayer warrior away and no missionary
will survive or go.
That's God's order according to the book I
have called the Holy Bible.
This world, beloved, waits for Christians.
This world, beloved, waits for Christians who, like
the seed, will fall into the ground and
die to become fruitful before they have physical
death.
This world is waiting for nothing else.
In case you're waiting for something else politically
to happen, financially to happen, economically to happen
before we do our thing, this world, beloved,
waits for one thing only, for Christians who,
like the seed, will fall into the ground
and die to be able to bring forth
much fruit.
This is not only Christ's death, it's ours
while we live.
David Livingston said, I will place no value
on anything in this life that does not
pertain to the kingdom of Christ.
Have you ever heard another man on earth
utter such words?
No wonder God had to use him and
let the whole church just look on.
I will place no value on anything in
this life that does not pertain to the
kingdom of Christ.
This is the language of the crucified Christian.
Only one life to live.
It will soon be past.
Only what's done for Christ will last.
Everything else will be forgotten in eternity.
When did
you have a personal calvary, child of God?
When did you, like Jacob, give up the
fight and cling to God desperately until he
met with you, to make you holy and
not aggrieved to God and man as he
was?
When will you have a personal calvary?
I call on you with all of my
heart to find that place now or very
soon before this moment called life is gone.
Come, lay your life on the altar of
God for God's sake, and for the world's
sake, and for your own sake.
Because you lose it if you're going to
hold on to it any longer.
You lose everything God could have done, and
would have done, and waits to do, but
will never force you to give him your
all.
And it will cost you all to do.
For your every priority will change, your every
value will change, and your every minute will
be redeemed when you do that, and not
waste it on folly, even legitimate folly.
Oh, come, lay your life on the altar
of God.
Become the instrument of the revival the world
waits for.
Come, lay your life on the altar of
God.
Become the instrument of the revival the world
waits for.
Or get to heaven just a corn of
wheat alone, though you could have borne much
fruit if you just were willing to lay
your life on the altar of God in
desperation and cling to him till he has
his full way with all that's wrong in
you.
Bow our heads, please.
Father, in mercy, keep us under the blood
of Jesus, and meet us, these people, for
Christ's sake, in his name.
I want everyone sitting here tonight who would
say, God, I give up the fight tonight
to my rights, my life.
I let go of my life.
I'm saved, but I let go of life
tonight, that I may bring forth much fruit
that God may through me.
I'm willing for a personal calvary, O God,
by thy grace and the Holy Spirit's work
and the blood and my faith work that
in me tonight.
I lay my life on the altar of
God.
I take my hands off my life, my
rights.
I let go of everything, and I say,
God, no matter what the cost, I want
fruit.
Not my life, just fruit to a life
that was willing to die to love, and
I'm willing for that tonight, God, I take
upon.
I will not let thee go except out
of him thy way fully in me, Lord,
no matter what the cost.
I want those who desperately, desperately, desperately need
to say that to God here tonight to
stand right now, please.
I know it will cost, and you know
it will cost, so be careful when you
do it.
All of those standing, come, make your way
past those who sit, and come and stand
in the front here, please.
All who are seated, will you stand with
me, please, and pray for those in the
front here, for you have the right to
pray for them.
Your life gives you the right.
All in the front, I know your custom
is to go and pray through, and that
is right, but we're going to have nights
here of seeking God that I'm going to
let you do that, but tonight, I want
to ask you just to pray these words
with me aloud, will you?
Will we all bow our heads, please, and
pray from your heart, O my God, forgive
me for the wasted life, every moment that
I wasted holding on to my life, though
thou hast saved me from hell.
O God, forgive me for the grief I
have been to thee, for every compromise, every
word, everything I'd ever done or left undone
that has grieved thee and was a rebuke
to thee.
After thou hast saved my soul, O wash
me in the blood from everything, things I've
overlooked, to confess, and even forgotten.
Wash me with the blood of Christ from
every sin, every compromise, every grief I have
ever given thee, and let the blood go
deeper.
Wash me through and through, and through and
through, create in me a clean heart, O
God.
Renew a right spirit within me, then shall
I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall
be converted unto thee.
But begin with me, God, fill me with
the Holy Spirit, take control of me, take
my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord,
to thee.
Take my moments and my days, let them
flow with ceaseless praise.
I lay my life on the altar of
God, and I ask thee to make me
an instrument of revival that this world is
waiting for on my knees.
Let there be much fruit through what happens
on my knees as I call on God
for others.
No matter what it costs, that God will
answer my prayers immediately.
In Jesus Christ's name, for his sake, and
out of love for him alone, I dare
to ask this prayer of thee with my
whole heart.
Amen.
Now, beloved, I know I preach differently.
Don't be offended.
It's because I'm base and weak, but my
heart is true.
I have nothing in me that wants to
offend.
Forgive me for my baseness.
Pray for me for my desire that God
would please just use this weak base, despise
man, in spite of myself.
Pray for that.
For these nights I'm here, pray for that.
Pray with me that the hardest heart against
this man because of his weakness and baseness
will forgive me and come and let God
bless him through that which burns in my
soul for the church of Christ.
And God will answer our prayers, you know,
if we pray for that.
In faith, when we write with him, we
have Friday night and Saturday night and Sunday
morning and Sunday night, four meetings.
Oh, let God have his full, complete will
and way in your life in these four
meetings.
Don't look to the man, just pray for
the man that God will take, this base,
weak man.
And do that in his grace and mercy
and nothing less than that in your heart
that you will never, ever recover till the
day you die.
And that this world will be staggered from
now onwards till the day you die.
Brother Denny, please come and commit us to
Christ now.
When you've prayed, go and find people and
beg them to come.
Won't you do that?
Our heads yet.
Take my life and let it be
consecrated, Lord, to thee.
Take my...
Our hearts to you this evening.
We thank you, Father, for this exercise before
you.
Lord, you know us.
You know this congregation, Father.
You know our needs.
You know the prayers that we've prayed.
Not just me, Lord.
All of us, Father.
You know the prayers we've prayed, Father.
And you know our needs.
We thank you for putting your finger on
our needs tonight.
Oh, God, would you raise up a congregation
of crucified Christians who pray, Lord, who agonize
on their faith like that dear Kaufman boy
did?
Oh, God, what would happen if the whole
congregation would be like that?
Lord, we bring our longing prayers before you
tonight and we thank you for speaking to
us.
Oh, Father, we pray that you'll continue to
speak to us.
We pray, oh, God, we give you the
right, we give you the freedom, Father, just
get the plow out and plow down through
our hearts, Lord.
We don't want to stay the way we
are.
We want to hear it, Lord.
We want to hear it strong.
We want to hear the truth.
We want to hear it the way you
would say it if you were here.
God, we just commit our lives into your
care as we go from this place tonight.
Would you watch over every heart through the
day tomorrow?
Don't let them lose their way through the
day tomorrow.
God, we trust you for this and for
the meeting tomorrow night.
We pray in Jesus' name.
All right, you can go back to your
seats.
I think we'll do that.
You can go back to your seats.
Only God can bring each one of us
to those places where everything dies.
Only God can do that.
But God cannot take us where we do
not want to go.
He will not.
It's against His nature.
So, we bring to God a willing heart
to see this.
Say, Lord, I'm willing.
You can take me wherever you want to
take me.
That's my encouragement.
Just leave that prayer upon your heart as
you go through the evening, as you lay
upon your bed tonight, as you go through
the day tomorrow.
Just remember, only God can bring you there.
But He will not take you where you
don't want to go.
He just can't.
So, let's give Him our love.
Are there any announcements before we dismiss the
meeting tonight?
All right, let's have a prayer and then
we'll dismiss.
You can stand to your feet.
Father, we look to You again.
You're our Father.
We look to You to bless the further
service.
We're going to share.
We're going to open our hearts to one
another.
We're going to admonish one another.
We're going to confess our faults to one
another and love one another.
God bless the further service.
Give us steady mercies as we travel home
and sanctify our day tomorrow with Your presence.
We trust You for that.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
God bless you.
You're dismissed.