There are many great biographies and many great
autobiographies that are written in two volumes.
Haber Begbie gave us two great volumes on
the life of William Bull, the founder of
the Salvation Army.
There are two great volumes on the life
of the founder of the China Inland Mission.
The founder of the China Inland Mission was
Hudson Taylor, and the first volume is describing
the expansion of his own spiritual life.
It's called The Growth of a Soul.
The second volume is called The Growth of
a Work, which shows us the expansion of
the China Inland Mission.
There are two great volumes on the life
of one of the greatest women that ever
lived, that is the wife of the founder
of the Salvation Army, Catherine Booth, a woman
with a very remarkable prayer life.
And since I do a bit of writing
myself, I don't think it's very difficult...
Is this too loud?
It sounds loud to me.
But I don't think it's very difficult to
write the life of an individual in two
volumes.
I do think it is difficult to write
the life of an individual in two words.
And yet the biography of one of the
greatest men that ever crossed the bridge of
time is written in two simple words.
He prayed.
Here is a man who could strangle the
economy of a nation, he could change the
weather, he could raise the dead, he could
put to flight the armies of the alien.
And yet James reminds us of this amazing
man, Elijah.
In this context he says, is there any
among you afflicted, let him pray.
So there is prayer mentioned again.
Is there any sick among you, let them
call for the elders of the church and
let them pray.
And then a little further in that same
chapter, verse 16 of the last chapter in
James, it says, confess your faults one to
another and pray one for another.
And then in the next verse it says,
the effectual fervent, or as some marginal references
are, the boiling prayer, the fervent prayer of
a righteous man availeth much.
Let me tell you what I have told
myself often and told thousands of other people,
that no man anywhere at any time is
greater than his prayer life.
If you want to take your spiritual temperature
then just check up on your prayer life.
I think the most privileged men that ever
lived actually were the twelve disciples who walked
around and were able to listen to the
greatest man that ever lived, the Lord Jesus
Christ.
I think I would have liked to have
lived with Jesus any one day in his
life.
And you remember that these men, they were
there at the Sermon on the Mount, the
greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest man
who ever lived.
It had all the answers to our modern
life.
Don't let anybody fool you that Christianity has
been weighed in the balances and found wrong
and it has not.
Christianity has been tried, found difficult and rejected.
They heard Jesus preach, but they never said,
Lord, teach us to preach.
I'm sure more than once they heard Jesus
sing, because the Bible says that he sang.
No doubt he sang psalms.
But they never said, Lord, teach us to
sing.
They saw Jesus wield his power over death
and sickness and demons, and yet they never
said, Lord, teach us to do miracles.
And I do not know how often, but
they heard Jesus pray, but they did say,
Lord, teach us to pray.
I pray that prayer every day.
I guess I've been praying for 70 years,
but I still pray, Lord, teach me to
pray.
Because there is no know-how in it.
Some people say that God is not selective.
He is.
He always was.
He always will be.
How many disciples did Jesus have?
Well, you know that without going to Bible
school, he had 12.
How many did he take on the Mount
of Transfiguration?
Do you remember?
Three.
They said, Lord, teach us to pray.
Now, if you want to study the prayer
life of Jesus, you would take the Gospel
as Luke has recorded it.
Because in every crisis in the life of
Jesus, Luke says that he prayed.
You see, Matthew shows the Lord Jesus Christ
as a king.
Mark shows him as a servant.
Luke reveals him as the Son of Man,
and John reveals him as the Son of
God.
And therefore, in every crisis, in every great
experience in the life of Jesus, Luke emphasizes
the fact that Jesus prayed.
All right, the other disciples say that Jesus
was there in the Jordan, and the Spirit
descended as a dove upon him.
But Luke says it was while he was
praying the Spirit descended upon him.
The other evangelists tell us Jesus was crucified.
But Luke says that even while he was
crucified, he was praying.
Jesus spent a whole night in prayer before
he chose his 12 disciples.
I've often wondered what would happen if a
church spent a whole night in prayer before
it chose its deacons.
Maybe they wouldn't make it.
Very hard.
He spent all night praying before he chose
his 12 disciples.
And while the others explore the fact that
Jesus was transfigured on the mountain there, Luke
says that it was while he was praying
that he was transfigured.
Now the disciples said, Lord, teach us to
pray.
And here they are, in one of the
most amazing events in the life of the
most amazing man that ever lived, and they
said, teach us to pray.
And he prayed, and they fell asleep.
I think that's almost the unpardonable sin.
Except for the fact that a little later,
he took the same three men into the
Garden of Gethsemane.
The same men who said, Lord, teach us
to pray.
And he took them into the Garden of
Gethsemane, even when they failed to pray on
the Mount of Transfiguration.
And do you remember, after a little time,
he came back, and what were they doing?
Sleeping.
And he went away, and he came back,
and what were they doing?
And he went away, and he came back,
they were still sleeping.
And I know you didn't saw your hymn
book happen, because you've fallen asleep more than
once praying, haven't you?
I have, the pastor has.
But anyhow, teach us to pray.
And they fell asleep.
I was with a very brilliant, famous, Baptist
preacher not too long ago, has a very
wonderful church, one of these multi-million dollar
budgets, you know.
And he said, what so often preachers say,
you know, sometimes you just feel like giving
up.
You sweat.
You know, preaching is the most expensive job
in the world.
Oh, it's the cheapest.
After all, you come home from the office,
you hang the phone up and say, let
the boss get drowned or something, I don't
care.
I'll be back in the morning at 9
o'clock.
The preacher, after he's called, is on call
24 hours a day.
Either he gets called from heaven or he
gets called from earth.
When I read about men getting $13 an
hour, I figure I earn about 25 cents.
Because I pray for a church for months
before I go, and I pray for a
church months after I've been there, and I
pray while I'm here.
So do other preachers.
And yet prayer is indeed the most rewarding
thing in the world.
Don't get discouraged with your Sunday school class,
don't get worried with your church.
Why, the most disgusting men in history.
I say they were the most privileged men
in history to listen to Jesus, to see
Him do miracles, to listen to Him pray,
to hear Him sing.
But they never believed Him anyhow.
You say, how can you prove that?
Oh, I can prove that very easily.
He taught them for a little, around three
years.
He kept telling them over and over and
over again that He would die and rise
from the dead.
And they didn't believe Him.
Why didn't they?
Because there wasn't one of them down at
the tomb on the resurrection morning, that's why.
If they believed Him, they'd have been lining
up waiting, and Peter would have said, hey,
let me get to the head of the
parade.
And so they'd say, you come back, you're
always at the head, let me get there.
I want to welcome Him as soon as
He comes out of the tomb.
I want to bow down and say, my
Lord and my God.
There wasn't one of them there.
The Lord teaches us to pray.
Again, no man is greater than his prayer
life.
No church, I don't care how many you
have, whether you have 20,000 members like
Mr. Chrisman, no church is stronger than a
prayer meeting.
Your life isn't stronger than your prayer life.
You see, in preaching, a man may have
a very elastic vocabulary, he may be very
dramatic in his presentation, and in preaching he
reveals what he knows of the Word of
God.
In prayer, he reveals what he knows of
the God of the Word.
Usually my wife travels with me.
She's not doing so now.
Our sons are back from the mission field.
She's at home with our sons and grandchildren.
But also when we're traveling, I say to
my wife, sweetheart, look, there's another bus.
You know, some beaten up old Greyhound bus
nobody would use but an evangelist.
And he has it painted a nice, quiet
purple or something like that.
And on the side he has his name,
you know, Billy Brown and his bouncing babies.
We'll come and sing at your church for
a fee.
And Bible schools send their choirs round.
Do you ever know of a Bible school
that sends its prayer meeting on tour?
Do you ever heard of a seminary where
we prepare men for the ministry, who sends
young ministers on tour to teach other people
how to pray?
A neighbor of mine came just before he
left Sgeen a few months ago, and he
said, you know, we were down at a
great song fest the other night.
It happened to be the Gaithers.
Oh, it was wonderful.
My wife and I went.
And I guess there were two or three
thousand people there.
It was marvelous.
I said, wait a minute.
How much did you pay?
Five dollars each.
I hope you all put five dollars in
the offering tonight.
If you didn't do it tomorrow night, look.
They paid five dollars each, ten dollars for
the two of them to hear some singing.
It took them an hour to go, an
hour to come back, over two and a
half hours during the show, whatever it is.
And there'd be three thousand people there.
I said to him, supposing I rent that
same auditorium a month from now, and I
notify all the churches in San Antonio, that
I'm going to hold a night of prayer.
I won't charge them five dollars for coming.
I'll let them come free.
Do you think I could get three thousand
people to pray?
No.
No, he said.
How many would I get?
Oh, you might get two hundred.
Oh, if I did that, I'd think it
was amazing.
I figured I'd get about forty people to
come.
You know, and I'd see all the singing
groups going round.
Now, I have nothing against singing groups, if
they can sing.
Not many of them can, but anyhow.
But you see, you'd imagine the Bible said,
sing without ceasing.
It doesn't say that, does it?
No, no, it's always to sing and not
to faint.
Well, I understand that.
When I've heard some singing, I feel like
fainting.
I confess that.
Look, you can sing from here to eternity.
You won't scare the devil.
If you want to know the quality of
your spiritual life, check on your prayer life.
If you want to know if you're filled
with a spirit, what's the proof of being
filled with a spirit?
We can get fifty answers to that.
I'll give you two.
In the Old Testament, it says that King
Saul had an evil spirit, and therefore he
did evil things.
Jesus said men have an unclean spirit, and
they do unclean things.
Well, if a man with an unclean spirit
does unclean things, and a man with an
evil spirit does evil things, wouldn't it be
logical and biblical to say a man with
a holy spirit lives a holy life?
After all, the greatest miracle in the world
is not raising the dead.
I've been in meetings where I've seen paralytics
jump up, and I remember once praying for
a blind man.
He got his sight.
I've seen people's withered arms grow straight, and
I think I've seen everything in the book
except raising the dead, which I'm trying to
do tonight.
I've seen all those physical miracles, but I
want to tell you something right here, that
the greatest miracle in the world is not
getting withered legs straightened out and crossed eyes
straightened and deaf ears unplugged.
The greatest miracle in the world is that
God can take an unholy man out of
an unholy world, make that unholy man holy,
put him back in an unholy world, and
keep him holy.
Only the gospel of the grace of God
can do that.
I heard somebody say quite recently, you know,
if you're going to really be a good
Christian, you'll have to pray if you want
to live the Christian life.
P.T. Forsythe was a contemporary of Spurgeon.
Spurgeon said P.T. Taylor Forsythe was born
a hundred years before his time.
And people today, theological students, are beginning to
read P.T. Forsythe.
And he changes it around, and instead of
saying you need to live the Christian life,
or you need to pray in order to
live the Christian life, he says the opposite.
You need to live the Christian life in
order to pray.
What is prayer?
Prayer is the language of the poor.
Read over and over and over again the
word of the psalmist when he says, bow
down thine ear and hear me, for I
am poor and needy.
Or he says, this poor man prays.
We kind of think you need a big
vocabulary, you need a great deal of education,
you have to paint stained glass windows with
words.
Look, you'd learn a good lesson if you
start right tonight to realize this, you can't
impress God.
You don't have to.
He knows you better than you know yourself.
Prayer is the language of the poor.
The self-sufficient don't pray.
They don't need to.
The self-satisfied don't pray.
They don't want to.
The self-righteous can't pray.
They've no chance.
I was talking at lunchtime today about being
with one of the great men who had
had revival in our day.
That was a man by the name of
Duncan Campbell.
And we used to rise at five o
'clock in the morning to pray.
So enough he needed some good Scottish tea
to get him revived, and once he had
a cup of real hot tea, he could
pray.
I remember talking about an experience that he
had.
You know, there's no way of fathoming the
mysteries of God.
God cannot be explained.
He can be experienced.
Duncan Campbell was in a conference with about
1,200 people.
He was fingering through his Bible, ready to
preach, and he turned to the chairman and
said, I'm going.
And the chairman said, well, we'll wait till
you come back.
He said, I'm not coming back.
Well, this is the final night.
Look at all these people.
They've all come to hear you.
What are you going to do?
He said, I'm going to Scotland.
He said, when?
He said, right now.
Well, what do you mean?
You're walking off this platform to go to
Scotland?
He was in Ireland.
And he said, yes.
Well, why did you agree to come and
preach tonight if you were going?
I didn't know I was going until a
minute ago and the Holy Spirit told me,
go to Scotland.
Are you sure it's the Holy Spirit?
Well, he said, brother, it isn't my spirit.
I don't even go to Scotland.
He ran off the platform.
He caught the boat.
He got to Scotland.
He went from one island to another in
the Hebrides there.
And when he got off the boat, it
was a rowing boat, and he got a
boy to row him over to this island.
And when he got there, there was a
boy working in a field, and he called
him, and he said, where is the elder
of the kirk, as they call the church,
the kirk?
And he said, oh, he lives way not
far up there.
Would you go tell him that Duncan Campbell
has arrived?
And this great big Scotsman, highlander, helander, they
say, big, scrawny man, came down and he
says, ach aye, aye, how are you, brother
Campbell?
He said, fine.
And he turned round and he said, the
meeting is in the church up there tonight.
And Duncan Campbell says, the what?
Oh, he said, I went round the island
on my bicycle about five o'clock this
morning and told all the people to come
and hear Duncan Campbell.
You tell them that I was coming to
the island tonight.
Right.
He said, how did you know I was
coming?
Why, brother, he said, how did you know
to come?
Oh, well, he said, I was preaching in
Ireland last night, and just before I got
up the Spirit told me to come.
Well, you know, all that started through two
little old ladies.
Well, one was old, she was eighty-four,
her sister was younger, she was eighty-two.
And they called for the preacher one day,
and they said to the preacher, look, we're
going to have revival, the children are going
to the devil, they're drinking, they're dancing, they're
sinning, we're not going to die until we
see revival.
And they looked at the deacons and they
said, ach, now don't you make a covenant
with God unless you mean it.
And the little old lady put her skinny
hand out at...
Oh, she couldn't speak, you see, she was
blind.
And she felt for one preacher's hand or
a deacon's hand and her sister's hand, and
they joined hands and they made a covenant
before God they would not die until revival
came.
And God told the man, she's in Scotland,
he's in Ireland, and he quit preaching and
he started on that journey, saying that to
say this, God rent the heavens.
And he said, Brother Abner, I remember one
meeting particularly we'd moved into, I think it
was to Stornoway, and they'd gone into a
fairly large building and the place was full
of preachers, they wear their collars backwards way
in England, you know, most of them are
going backwards way, but anyhow, they wear their
collars backwards way and all over the place
there were ministers and Duncan says, I preached
and it was like throwing a rubber ball
at the wall, my words bounced back on
me.
So after preaching for fifteen minutes, he said,
I said to them, bow your heads, bow
your heads, and I call on a boy,
sixteen years of age, not on the deacons,
not on the preachers, not on the PhDs,
not on those distinguished theologians, oh, they knew
the word of God, they knew it in
Hebrew, they knew it in Greek, there's a
boy that didn't know too much about Greek,
there was a brilliant scholar at sixteen, but
he'd have to know two languages by that
age in Scotland, anyhow, I mean two others
than the language you knew, you'd have to
know Greek and Hebrew or Greek and Latin
or some other language, and he said to
this boy, pray, and the boy stood up,
and he said with his Scottish accent, they
say, ah, as a child, you say, he
stood there in that crowded place and he
said, ah, what's the good of praying if
we're not reaped with God, and he began
to recite the twenty-fourth psalm, which became
the key to revival and maybe is the
key here, who shall ascend into the hill
of the Lord?
He that hath clean hands, that's our relationship
with people, and a pure heart.
And he went on and he quoted and
quoted and quoted, and then he began to
pray.
A sixteen-year-old boy began to pray
and Duncan said, by the way, he prayed
ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, forty minutes,
forty-five minutes.
And then just as though in heaven, God
had his hand on a switch and pulled
that switch after that boy had prayed forty
-five minutes, the heavens opened and God came
down.
On the church?
Yes, and on the tavern at the end
of the street and on the dance hall
at the other end of the street.
And they closed down and they haven't opened
since and that was 1950.
The effectual, fervent prayer, oh, that boy didn't
learn to pray over the weekend, but he
learned to pray.
This man, Elijah, prayed.
He prayed the effectual, fervent prayer of a
righteous man.
He was one of the rarest men in
the world because he was what?
He was a prophet.
Do you remember when John the Baptist came?
They went out to see this strange man.
People were not going to the established churches.
They were going to hear a rugged, rugged,
uncouth man, a bearded eccentric with a chronic
vulgar tongue.
And people said, who in the world is
this?
He doesn't talk like the Pharisees.
He doesn't talk like the Sadducees.
He doesn't dress like them.
He doesn't eat like them.
You know, listen, here's a simple, oh, it's
not philosophical, it's smart, but it's very simple.
Do you know what?
You never need to advertise a fire, either
physical or spiritual.
Who is this man in the wilderness?
You know what they said?
It must be Elijah that has come back.
He plays a great part in the history
of the church.
Who appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration?
Jesus, three disciples, Moses and a rather important
man.
In the book of the Revelation there are
two final witnesses, and one of them is,
Elijah comes onto the stage.
You see, he is again one of the
most dramatic men in history.
He comes in a crisis hour because at
any period, any given period, the prophet is
God's emergency man in a crisis hour.
And I'm going to tell you, and I'll
tell you if Nixon was standing there and
the peanut farmer there, I want to tell
you something, that I believe that when the
books are opened in eternity, that awesome night,
I may preach on it one night, the
judgment day which may last a hundred million
years because we're not going anywhere, I believe
when those books are opened in eternity, we'll
discover that Watergate was not just a political
tragedy or a moral tragedy, it was a
spiritual tragedy.
Do you know why?
Because eighteen, five, ten, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty,
eighteen different preachers preached before Nixon in the
White House and not one of them got
through to him.
Answer this in your own mind.
Do you think Elijah would have got through
to him?
Hmm?
Do you think John D'Arcy should have
got through to him?
People often ask me why I don't have
a radio or a TV program.
Well, I figure if I got anointed well,
I'd never get back a second time anyhow.
Do you think John D'Arcy should have
a radio program, a TV program?
We'd tear him up.
Elijah comes on the stage, let's condense the
history.
Fifty-eight years before he arrived, there had
been a dividing in the kingdom.
Immediately before he came, there had been a
succession of evil kings.
Seven of them, six of them.
The second did more evil than the first,
the third did more evil than the second,
the fourth did more evil than the third,
the fifth did more evil than the fourth,
and the last one, Ahab did more evil
than not the king before him, but all
the aggregate iniquity of all the kings.
Look at the end if you want to
read it afterwards, the first book of Kings,
the 16th chapter.
It says in verse 30, Ahab, the son
of Omri, did evil in the sight of
the Lord and above all that were before
him.
He did more evil than all the compounded
iniquity of the kings before him.
And it came to pass as if it
had been a light thing for him to
walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son
of Nebat.
He took the wife Jezebel, the daughter of
Abel, the king of the Sardonians, and he
went and served him, and he worshipped him,
and he reared an altar in the house
of Bab, and he built, which he had
built in Tamarith.
And he did build a grove, and he
did more to provoke the Lord God of
Israel to anger than all the kings of
Israel that were before him.
And then to make bad worse, as the
Irish say, do you know what he did?
He rebuilt the city of Jericho, which God
said should not be rebuilt.
Notice the iniquity, will you?
He did more evil than all the kings
before him.
He walked in the sins of Jeroboam, he
took a wife of a strange group that
God said he shouldn't have married into.
He served there, he worshipped him, he raised
altars, and every day that stinking incense went
up to God from those vile altars.
And then he rebuilt the city of Jericho
and laid it in the foundation of human
blood.
What's that saying?
Well, I'll tell you what it says.
It says that when he appeared on the
stage, the nation was submerged in iniquity, entirety,
impurity, idolatry, infidelity, and everything that we happen
to be doing right now here in America
or England.
I mean, who are we fooling?
I mean, do we put God, in God
we trust on our coins and then say
to hell with the Ten Commandments?
Do we put in God we trust on
our coins and legalize abortions?
And in the state of Nevada, one section,
prostitution is legalized and other states are pushing
for it.
We've legalized state lotteries.
We've kicked the Bible out of the school,
but we've in God we trust on our
coins.
Hmm?
A thirteen-year-old girl had an abortion
in California a while ago.
Her parents were curious.
Do you know what the law said?
It's got nothing to do with you that
your daughter as a child at fourteen years
of age keep your hands off her life.
You know one state has legislated that if
your son does not want to carry the
garbage out, you've no right to have authority
over that boy and take that garbage out.
Of course, the people who say you're not
to train your children like that train their
race horses very carefully.
Now, come on, how much longer are we
going to tell God to hell with the
Ten Commandments?
You don't have to go to court now
to get divorced.
You just write in and say, Jack and
I disagree.
You can do that in the state of
Florida, can't you?
You will write in divorce law you have
in other places.
We've over ten million alcoholics.
We've nearly ten million drug addicts.
One very famous man whose name you know
said to me just recently, but you forgot
one thing by the way, last year the
divorce rate was down.
Well, in God's name where do you expect
it to be?
They don't even get married.
How can they get divorced?
They're not even married.
Girls used to get embarrassed.
They were pregnant.
And they came to preach and they said,
can you get me to go someplace?
I want to get out of this state.
Do you know the places that run homes
for unmarried girls are hardly occupied these days?
It's no embarrassment.
The most beautiful woman in the world walks
down the street.
You see, we've changed the language and made
it easier for sinners now.
Can you think of anything more stinkingly horrid
and hellish than homosexuality?
And we call them the gay people.
In God's name what's gay about it?
Well, why don't we call them sodomites?
She has this gorgeous beautiful woman who advertises
the automobiles and is so vastly beautiful above
the rest of women.
Happens to have three bastards by three different
husbands.
It doesn't bar her from society.
She's not worried about it.
We're living in a day of moral and
spiritual rebellion against God.
Do you remember the great sweep of the
life of the apostle Nahari?
He began his life in Tarsus, the historic
city, the historic, most historic city maybe in
the world.
That's where he began his life.
He ended his life, he began in the
historic capital of the world, he ended his
life in the military capital of the world,
which happened to be Rome.
In between he went to the religious capital
of the world, Jerusalem.
He went to the immoral capital of the
world, which was Corinth.
He went to the intellectual capital of the
world, Athens.
And they discovered this little Jew, he knew
as much about their philosophy, he'd have earned
a dozen PhDs.
He talked with the stoics and the poets
and the professors and all the brilliant men
and they were marvelled at his reasoning.
Then he says when he went down Main
Street there in Athens, it says in the
sleepy lit piece of English of the King
James Version, his spirit was stirred.
Well, that's not too hot a word.
Do you know what it says in the
Amplified?
I'm not too fond of the Amplified really,
but I'll tell you, I like this what
it says in the Amplified.
It says that when he went down Main
Street in Athens and saw that city given
up to idolatry, he was angry.
Did you ever hear anybody preach on being
angry as a proof you're filled with a
Holy Ghost?
We can't suggest if you get filled with
a Holy Ghost you become sloppy and everybody
pushes you around and you'd better go with
plenty of spittle because you have to kiss
everybody when you go in church and then
you have to lick them all when you
come out.
This is a proof you're filled with a
spirit, not pure bunkum.
He went down the street and he saw
the street enclosed with strange gods.
They don't move us anymore.
Come on, they don't move us anymore.
You say, oh, the Jehovah's Witnesses have put
a lovely Catholic church.
Well, that's as far from God as anything
heathen.
After all, the Mass is blasphemy.
You say, I know some Spirit-filled Catholics.
Well, let them get out of the lousy
church if they're really filled with a Holy
Ghost because the Spirit happens to be the
Spirit of Truth and they live in the
lie.
Maybe our Biggie Teddy could be with some
of those folks.
Now, I know some godly charismatics too.
You see, he doesn't worry us too much.
Do you know there are two thousand gurus
in America tonight?
Did you read recently about a girl in
the Pentagon, I think it was, or one
of the places up in the capital there?
A sweet girl had been really marvellously saved
and full of the joy of the Lord
and sometimes when she answers the phone, she's
not too decent.
You know, when she puts down the phone
she says, God bless you.
That's a terrible thing to say up in
Washington.
I wonder why she's even, don't mention this,
but she's even being heard to say praise
the Lord in the office.
So, do you know what they did in
Washington?
They pushed her in a back room where
nobody goes more than about once a day
looking after cardboard boxes because she happens to
say God bless you or praise the Lord.
She says, I don't understand it.
They tell filthy jokes in the office.
They use bad language in the office and
nobody says a thing.
Or you can talk all the corruption you
like, but if you mention God, if you
mention Jesus, then immediately you're in trouble.
Paul goes down the street and he sees
temples to strange gods and his spirit gets
angry.
You say, well I like the text that
says be filled with a spirit, so do
I, but there's another side to the coin.
Do you know the same scripture that says
be filled with a spirit also says be
angry and sin not.
And I don't really believe you can pray
without some anger on your spirit at times.
The trouble with our generation is built with
our individual selves, we're comfortable in our sin
and we're comfortable in the world's sin.
You see, the thing about the strange thing,
a prophet is by the very nature of
his calling, he's a strange, he's a unique
character, he's a tragic figure, why?
Because he loves God with a fierce loyalty
and he loves the nation.
And he's torn between his love for the
nation, and he knows that God is on
the holy horizon to behold iniquity and that
the devil in God's patience runs out.
After all, it wasn't to the liberals, it
wasn't to the Catholics, it wasn't to the
Jehovah's Witnesses, it wasn't to transcendental meditation, it
was to his church that Jesus said, I'll
spit it out of my mouth.
And I'm convinced we're getting desperately near to
that day.
Listen, our option is very simple, either we
have revival in America or we'll have revolution.
I believe we'll either have to concentrate in
prayer or pray in concentrating camps.
Of course, that doesn't move you, perhaps, you've
got a nice new car, or you've ordered
one.
There's an awful danger of seeing everything in
the framework of the American economy.
Our present lush living.
And when you lay your darling little head
on your bed tonight and put your back
on your beauty rest mattress, will you remember
there'll be millions of people that sleep without
covering tonight and they go to bed as
hungry as they get out.
One of the great masterpieces of all time
was Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire.
It's a very fascinating work.
It is exactly that.
It's the history of the rise and fall,
the decline of the Roman Empire.
Let me give you its five reasons for
the collapse of the greatest empire in the
world up to that time.
These are the five reasons.
Number one is the rapid increase of divorce
and the undermining of the sanctity of the
home.
He's writing about an empire nearly two thousand
years back that the number one cause of
its collapse was the increase of divorce and
the undermining of the sanctity of the home.
Number two, the spiralling of taxes and extravagant
spending.
Number three, the mounting craze for pleasure and
the brutalising of sport.
Two thousand years ago.
Do you know why we have radio 24
hours a day?
And in many cities we have TV 24
hours a day?
Because the big boys are afraid you might
have time to sit down and think.
And the thinking man is the most dangerous
man in the world.
They know the best way to trap people
is just keep them happy, keep them silly,
keep them like idiots.
Put anything on TV you like but keep
them occupied.
And two thousand years that great empire began
to deteriorate because again of the great increase
in amusement and the brutalisation of sport.
Number four was the building of gigantic armaments
and the failure to realise that the real
enemy lay within the gates of the empire
in the moral decay of its people.
Number five the decay of religion and the
fading of faith into a mere form leaving
people without any guide.
You know that's a pretty good analysis of
the day in which we live isn't it?
My simple analysis of history is this.
The one thing we learn from history is
that we don't learn from history.
If we did we wouldn't be in the
mess we're in now.
But when you've said everything else as I
said yesterday when you've said everything about the
decay round about us the greatest tragedy in
the world tonight to me is a sick
church in a dying world.
A sick church in a dying world.
Elijah comes on the stage and says oh
there's a rare hope in this.
Have you ever wondered preacher?
Have you ever wondered what you would do
if you were the only man in the
world who had the truth of God?
John Baptist was the only man in the
world with the truth.
Well there was a few old people there
praying, maybe old Hannah and a few others.
But as regards preachers he was the only
preacher in the world with the truth.
And he stood up against them.
You see we need to rediscover this that
one man with God is a majority.
Have you heard the news?
What?
Oh thousands of preachers have been heading away
in caves.
Have you heard about this woman?
You know the King's done that?
He's married a gorgeous woman, she's a heathen,
and she's got her hands on things, and
she's chased the preachers away, and every street
corner they're smoking incense to strange gods.
The God of Elijah has been put out
of the picture, the God of Abraham and
Isaac has been put out of the picture.
And this woman has got everything in her
hands, just where she wants it, and she's
feeling real happy about the whole thing, and
I think one morning she goes out to
cut some flowers, and she turns round and
she looks, and this little man puts his
finger up, and he says, listen woman, I
want to tell you something.
You don't have this nation in your hands,
I've got it in my hands, and I'll
prove it to you.
You see this key?
It's called faith, and I want to tell
you something.
There will be no rain on the earth
for three years, according to God's word.
He didn't say that.
He said, there will be no rain on
the earth according to my word.
Boy, you've moved up when you can preach
like that.
Come on, if you're really a Christian and
a true American, you ought to be in
the place tonight where you have changed Patrick
Henry's words from give me limited to, or
give me death, or give me revival, or
give me death.
When I was a real boy in World
War One, I stood in bread lines at
four and five o'clock in the morning
to get a loaf of bread.
I know what that means.
A letter like this, too.
Are you so jealous of God's glory that
you'll say, Brother Ray, if you can shut
up heaven, shut it up tonight, because this
is what it means, that if you shut
up heaven, you're going to destroy all the
crops, you're going to destroy all the cattle.
You can't go without rain three and a
half years, enough crops, enough cattle.
I'm willing to stand in bread lines as
long as God will open the window of
heaven if He takes that.
Well, oh God Almighty, I'm
willing to stand in heaven if I'm
willing to stand in bread lines as long
as God will open the heaven if He
takes that.
as long as I'm willing to
stand in as long as God will open
the window of heaven if I'm willing to
stand in bread lines as long as window
of heaven if
I'm willing to stand in bread lines as
long as God will heaven if I'm willing
to stand in bread lines as long as
I'm willing to stand in bread lines as
long as God will open the heaven if
I'm to After all, if you want to
speak of a monk's life, it's this.
God said to him, go hide thyself.
In the next chapter he said, go show
thyself.
And he's wrong to show yourself when you
should hide yourself, wrong to hide yourself when
you should show yourself.
Go hide thyself.
1950, I met a very wonderful man.
He was in this country last year again.
His name is Buck Sink.
He's a very high-class Indian.
To cut a long story short, I talked
to him about the Christian faith in India
and asked him some questions about it.
And he said, you know, the Americans are
very nice people, but I've never been in
a church in America where they knew how
to worship.
I said, oh.
He said, not in England either.
I thought, well, he must be wrong, but
there you are.
He said, neither in England nor America do
they know how to worship.
I said, Buck O' Fink, supposing I come
to your church, your fellowship on the Lord's
Day, what would it be like?
Do you know what he said?
Yeah, I've been thinking.
He said, Brother Amiel, the first three hours
of the service, yeah, well, the first three
hours of the service is praise, adoration, thanksgiving.
Sometimes you don't know whether you're in the
body or out of the body.
And then the second three hours, we go
to prayer and supplication, intercession.
I was a bit nervous, but I risked
it, and I said, then what?
Oh, the third three hours, we have breaking
of bread.
One man has a hymn, another has a
song, this woman has a rebuke from God,
that man's just finishing a 30-day fast,
this person over here has a revelation.
I said, Brother Fink, when you go to
the Lord's house on the Sabbath day, you
don't stay for nine hours every service, do
you?
He said, no, not every Sunday.
He said, some day the glory comes down
when they're 12 hours and 13 hours.
Well, that's what it was like.
You pray for a New Testament church, somebody
lives a Sunday night here, boy, you're in
for trouble.
A preacher told me one day he had
a New Testament church, I said, how do
you know?
He said, because I've got every problem they
had.
Well, that's one way of looking at it.
But do you remember, a woman told a
lie, a man told a lie.
Have you ever really been in the real
good Pentecostal service?
I don't mean just with tongues and miracles,
they're all right.
I mean, you know when somebody comes in
and the preacher says, hold it a minute
while we sing the next, before we sing
the next song, Brother Jack, did you draw
on Sunday?
He says, yes, free Saturdays of July for
the Holy Ghost.
Hey, deacons, carry him out.
That's Pentecost as much as tongues.
If we had a New Testament church, we'd
be in jail within three months, most of
the preachers.
The man didn't come home for his wife
came to church, I'm glad the scripture puts
it in, do you know when she came?
About three hours after.
And she didn't expect to find the church
locked up and the preacher going for a
crusade in the sins of truth.
She went three hours after the service was
started, it was still on, and the preacher
says, hey, Sister Sapphira, did you do this?
Yes, he says, you're right, for the Holy
Ghost.
Carry her out.
Isn't that funny?
They weren't committing adultery, they just lied.
Now, preacher, you try that, but be very
careful.
Be sure you say, I'm a knife and
Sapphira, because if you raise your hand and
say you liars die, you could lose 90
% of your congregation, maybe.
Because lying doesn't mean too much these days,
does it?
Can you imagine going to a church, you
know, I think that maybe economically, before long
we'll be driven to just one service on
the Lord's Day.
Maybe gas will cost too much.
Maybe other situations will drive us to the
place.
After all, in God's name, I don't care
whether you're Pentecostal, Presbyterian, or whatever, in God's
name, whatever name you call yourself, do you
know any place in Scripture where it says
the Holy Ghost comes at 11 o'clock
Sunday morning and leaves at 12 and comes
back 7 o'clock Sunday night and goes
home at 8 and doesn't come back till
Wednesday night at 7 o'clock?
Who's running the business?
God or the deacons?
Oh dear, dear, this business, this business of
starting on the right moment and finishing at
the right moment.
You see, one of the great things God
demands of men who are going to be
great in His presence is to spend time
with Him.
You can be a smart aleck because you
know how to juggle with text.
Don't let anybody fool you that because you
get a diploma from the seminary of a
Bible school that you're a preacher.
They can give a blind man a license
to drive a car.
It doesn't mean he should drive it.
They can give a fellow a license to
be a preacher, but if God hasn't called
him, he'd be better selling hamburgers.
Go hide thyself.
Oh, we stress tithing, don't we?
There's no tithing in the New Testament.
There's no tithing in the New Testament, like
circumcision.
But anyhow, we don't stress circumcision, but we
stress tithing.
Why?
No tithing in the New Testament?
Well, what does the scripture say?
Bring all the what?
Tithing.
Well, if you say I tithe all my
income, when I make a thousand dollars, I
very carefully take a hundred dollars out and
I give God a bit of extra on
top of that.
But wait a minute.
It says bring all your tithe.
If you give God a tenth of your
money, you should give God a tenth of
your time.
Now, there are, what, 24 hours in a
day still?
And a tenth of 20 hours is 2,
and your 4 hours is over 4 times
60 minutes 240, so you give God 2
hours and 24 minutes every day out of
your life.
That's your tithe.
On top of that, you're giving some time,
so at least you give God 3 hours
minimum every day out of your life.
Did you do that?
Anybody behind on this tithing time?
Raise your hand.
Oh, most of you are behind.
That's great.
Not really.
What about tithing our conversations?
There are so many areas that we neglect
in life.
But you see, again, here is a demand
that God makes.
Every great man that I have read of
has been a disciplined man, and he has
been a man who has spent time with
God.
Take time to be holy.
Speak often with thy Lord.
A few years ago, I preached in the
great Curacao Mishna Conference in Japan.
About a year after that, I noticed the
chairman of that conference was speaking in...
We were living in Oxford, Illinois.
And I said to my wife, darling, let's
go and hear this man.
He was the chairman of the conference I
was at, the missionaries from Korea, Japan, all
over the place.
After the meeting, I went to him, and
I said, well, how are things in Japan?
He said, all right.
I asked him a few questions.
All right.
I said, man alive, you get a cold?
Are you under the weather?
What's wrong with you?
Oh, well, I'm having a bit of a
bad time.
For what?
Last night, he said, just before I left
Tokyo, I decided that I'd have a haircut.
It's a little bit cheaper.
He said the man put the cloth around
my neck, and he clipped away at my
hair, and then when he got me nice
and comfortable, he said, are you a Yankee?
I said, not really a Yankee.
I'm an American.
Oh.
Tourist?
No.
Businessman?
No.
Well, what are you?
He was a missionary.
Oh!
But, man, look, it fizzles, and it...
I shouldn't say it fogs.
It fizzles, and it...
it's cold.
And he clapped and he said, I'm a
missionary, too.
And then he said, my friend said, a
missionary?
I thought you were a barber.
Oh, I am a barber in the morning
from nine till five.
Then I go home and have supper.
Six o'clock I go out.
Seven o'clock I get to a house,
and I give them literature, and I play
a phonograph.
I go, you see, we've got a combination
of religion and politics called Zangagashi, and we're
going to turn the whole of this nation
upside down.
You know, I discovered when I was there
that the Christian witness had been one hundred
and thirteen years in Japan.
It's a dozen years since I was there.
The Christian witness had been in Japan a
hundred and thirteen years, and half of one
percent of people in Japan, and that included
Protestants and Catholics and Jehovah's Witnesses and what
have you, they made a half of one
percent of people that had been converted in
that nation in a hundred and thirteen years.
I said to the chairman of the conference,
and you know, the way we're going out
of here will take another hundred and thirteen
years to get half of one percent.
Those people will die by the moon and
not be saved.
Don't let anybody fool you they're evangelizing the
world.
I heard a guy say on TV out
in somebody else's house, I don't listen to
many TV Christian shows, this guy says, I
want to tell you that America is evangelized.
Somebody should change his diagnosis.
America evangelized?
We've not tried?
Broken homes?
Yes sir, we've got broken homes, broken lives,
broken minds, broken families, broken marriages, but we've
no broken hearts over it.
He said, a little man said, I go
out at seven o'clock at night and
I don't get home till two o'clock
in the morning.
You see, this is going to change the
whole life of Japan.
My friend said, I could feel myself going
down in the chair.
I thought he'd missed my hair.
I was quite embarrassed.
Wait a minute, he said, you go out,
you go knocking on doors at seven o
'clock at night and you don't go to
bed till two in the morning.
I didn't say that.
You didn't say that.
I didn't say that.
What did you say?
I said, I go out and I knock
on doors at seven at night, I give
them lecture number one, I come back to
your house next week, give you lecture number
two, I come the week after, give you
lecture number three, I get in homes and
I give them a course and I leave
them literature.
But you said you got home, you went
to bed at two in the morning.
I did not say that.
What did you say?
I said, I go out and knock on
doors at seven at night, I get home
at two o'clock in the morning and
then I pull the church number aside and
I bow before my God from two o
'clock until four o'clock to renew my
strength.
I don't go to bed till four o
'clock in the morning and I get up
at seven thirty in the morning.
He said, I felt so angry, I said,
how long have you done that?
He said, for seven years.
You've lived on three and a half hours
sleep for the last seven years?
Yes, what am I going to do?
You're going to change the whole structure of
my society.
My friend said, I paid for my haircut.
I went to the airplane feeling as though
somebody had hit me here and hit me
here and hit me with a two by
four and all the way across the Pacific
as that plane flew and I heard the
buzz of the engine, I was hearing a
man who is a heathen say, I only
need three and a half hours a day.
I wait on my God from two until
four.
It sounds a bit like Isaiah 40, doesn't
it?
May the grace upon the Lord renew their
strength.
And he said, that heathen man rebuked me
and did me more good than most of
the preaching I'd heard for years.
God says, go hide thyself.
He went and hid himself.
Let me push this in.
Get up and go home if you want.
I won't be able to worry about you,
but he'll only go watch some dumb TV
so he may as well watch me anyhow.
But, you know, I have a lovely little
cassette.
There's a great Pendy Castle preacher in this
country years ago.
He's in England right now, I think.
I guess he's about six feet three or
four.
He's a black man.
He's a great preacher.
And I got this cassette from him.
It's about a little Baptist preacher called Duma.
And I gave this illustration in South Carolina
and there's a big fine-looking preacher at
the back.
He came up afterwards and he said, Thank
you for the story of Duma.
I said, Why, have you heard it before?
He said, No, I didn't need to.
He said, Because my father was the pastor
of the church that you talked about when
Duma got saved.
A little black man that ran down the
aisle and got saved.
Going out, the preacher said, Can I help
you?
And he said, Yes, give me a church.
Give you what?
Give me a church.
He said, You saw me go kneel there?
Yes.
Well, I'm not the man that knelt there,
he said.
Boy, he must have begun to become a
new preacher.
Some people don't know what's happening when they
come.
They don't know what they want.
They don't know what they've got.
So they don't know if they lose anything.
But this man knew he'd been changed.
The pastor said, I can't help you.
He came back again a month after to
the church.
Going out, the pastor said, Can I help
you?
Oh, I know who you are.
D-U-M-A.
Duma, Duma, Duma.
The man that asked me for a church.
Can I help you?
He said, Yes, give me a church.
I don't have one.
Finally, the deacon said, Let him preach to
those six-coloured people across the tracks, because
he hasn't been to bridal school, and he
hasn't been to a seminary, and he has
no education, hardly.
So, don't worry.
Well, it so happens that right now, Duma
has a church of about 1,400 people
every Sunday morning, and even white people go
hear him.
And they don't do that in South Africa.
Here it is, little, little black.
He said to the preacher, Whether you give
me a church or not, I'm going to
preach.
He said, When you told me I couldn't
preach, I went up the road.
I walked out of the city.
I found a track through the forest.
I found a stream.
I walked by the stream.
I found a cave.
I took a rock and I marked the
cave.
And I stayed there twenty-one days and
twenty-one nights, just listening to God.
Telling God, I don't care about the men.
You tell me whether I'm called to preach
or not.
And he said, God said, I called you
to preach.
I'm not only there.
You pray for the sick and they'll be
healed.
Well, that isn't too good news for Baptist.
One lady said to me, Our pastor doesn't
believe in divine healing.
I said, I saw him in hospital the
other day kneeling at somebody's bed.
What was he doing?
Praying they'd die?
You may not lay hands on the thing,
but he was praying unless it was a
deacon.
He was praying that they'd be recovered.
Nicholas Bengu said in this tape, Listen to
my friend.
They call him to the hospital.
Preachers have to take so many turns when
folk die who are not church members.
Each preacher has to take so many funerals.
Beumer was called.
He called to the deacons and said, Could
you come down to church with me?
A hospital with me tonight?
They said yes.
He went to the counter and the nurse
said, Could I help you?
Yes, so and so.
She said, Oh yes, he's in room 13.
And one of the deacons said, He's in
room 13?
That's the morgue.
And Beumer walked down to the great big
hospital and he came to the sign 13
and he walked in and all these corpses
were laid in little sections there, you know.
And the deacons said, We've, we've kind of
been with you many times when you prayed
for the sick and they'd been healed but,
this man's dead.
He said, That's right.
So were I going to pray for him?
Mm-hmm.
You know, we're a bit nervous.
One day we'll strain omnipotence.
They stood back and he put the covering
off the corpse.
I got this all on tape from Nicholas
Bangor, a very wonderful man and he said,
The little black man got on top of
the corpse and laid his hands on the
corpse and said, In the name of Jesus,
rise up and walk.
And the corpse went, If he'd done that
with me on top, I'd have hit the
ceiling, I'm sure.
The corpse got up and walked home with
him.
You know, such things are not done in
decent Baptist churches.
I don't know why a Baptist minister should
do a thing like that.
Isn't it terrible?
Hmm?
Just a little man.
I told you what he did.
He spent 21 days and nights with God.
He drank water from the stream.
He washed his face in the stream.
He never heard any human voice.
He never saw any human face.
He never ate any natural food.
He drank water from the street.
Like God said to Elijah, You get bread
and flesh in the morning and bread and
flesh in the evening.
Maybe that means you should only eat twice
a day.
He didn't even get bread and flesh.
He drank water.
And today he has one of the most
healthy, thriving churches in South Africa.
Oh, I know lots of men who had
a far better ministry five, ten, fifteen years
ago than they have now.
They hit a plateau.
They lost their anointing.
They keep up their terminology and their gesticulations
and all the rest of it.
But there's no power there.
Well, is that the secret?
You don't shut yourself away for 21 days
of night and eat nothing and just drink
water?
Is that the secret?
No, no, no, no.
The secret is that I think it was
about the 17th of November when he went
in and shut himself alone in that cave.
Do you know what he's done?
And it's 20 years about since he did
it.
Every year when it comes to that date
he kisses his wife and children goodbye and
he spends 21 days and nights in the
same cell waiting on God.
Some people think you still get through but
it's like sitting in a new automobile.
Well, your new automobile doesn't run until ten
years after on the same ceiling of gas,
does it?
The hardest thing in the world is to
get the anointing of God, I think.
The easiest thing is to lose it.
The most difficult thing is to maintain it.
Because we all get satisfied with numbers or
a successful church or to have a nice
parsonage or to have a big car or
to have this or what.
As I said on Sunday night if you're
not known in hell, preacher, you're not worth
a hill of beans.
The demon said, Jesus I know and Paul
I know.
It's going to take men who know the
power of God and power of the game
to change it probably many times in the
day in which we live.
Go hide thyself.
He hid himself.
Go show thyself.
He comes out and the Lord says, I've
commanded a widow woman to feed thee.
Well, who in the world wants to sponge
on widows except evangelists?
But isn't it lovely when he says, I've
commanded the ravens to feed thee there.
I've commanded a widow to feed thee there.
And he says, will you make me a
cake?
You know, she's going down the road and
he says, hey, will you make me a
cake?
Make me a cake?
I've a little boy at home and he
says, listen, I've just enough means and a
little hell and I'll put them together and
make a cake and my little boy and
I are going to eat them and die
like everybody else.
You mean to say that if you pray
for revival death comes?
Revival is one of the most terrible things
that can happen to any country.
Revival almost always precedes persecution.
Revival has swept through China.
Look where they are now.
Revival has swept through Korea.
The Christian and Missionary Alliance had their best
moves of the spirit in the last few
years.
Where?
Well, in Cambodia and Laos and particularly in
Vietnam, people were saved by the thousands and
tens of thousands.
But behind the eyes of the
people of
Cambodia
and the people of Laos and the people
of Cambodia and the people of Cambodia and
the people of Cambodia and the people of
Cambodia and the people of Cambodia and
the people of Cambodia and the people of
Cambodia and the people of Cambodia and the
people of Cambodia and the people of Cambodia
and the people of Cambodia and the people
and the people of Cambodia of Cambodia and
the people of Cambodia and the people of
Cambodia and the people of Cambodia and the
people of Cambodia and the people of
Cambodia and the people of Cambodia and
the people of Cambodia and
the people of Cambodia and the people of
Cambodia and the people of Cambodia
and the people of
Cambodia and the people of Cambodia and the
people of Cambodia and the people and
the people of Cambodia and the people of
Cambodia and the people of Cambodia and the
people and the people of Cambodia and the
people of Cambodia of Cambodia and the people
of Cambodia and the people of Cambodia and
the people of
Cambodia and the people of Cambodia and the
people of Cambodia and
the people of Cambodia and the people of
Cambodia and the people of Cambodia and the
people of Cambodia and
the people and the people of Cambodia and
the people of Cambodia and
the
people of Cambodia and the people of Cambodia
and the people of Cambodia and the people
of Cambodia and
the people and the people of Cambodia and
the people of Cambodia and the people of
Cambodia and the people of Cambodia and
the people of Cambodia and the people and
the people of Cambodia of Cambodia and the
people Lord God.
His name was Payson.
I called him Praying Payson of Porterham.
A lady asked me one day, did you
ever meet John Hyde?
I said, no I didn't.
But I know of a man who prayed
with him for five hours, and when somebody
knocked on the door and said, Mr. Hyde,
it's time for you to speak, he said,
I said, under my breath, leave the man
alone, we haven't been praying half an hour.
But when I pulled out my watch, we
had been praying for five hours, out of
which he said, I've prayed fifteen minutes, and
Hyde prayed the other four hours.
And forty-five minutes.
And then of course you had Jonathan Goldforth,
the great man of prayer, who had revival
in China.
And you had Jebson, who founded the Empire
of Jesus in Burma.
Oh, and then you had that little man
that weighed, what, some massive weight, ninety-five
pounds?
He cued himself, praying.
He said, I woke up this morning, the
Indians were committing adultery, they were still drunk
and beating their drunk, and there was nowhere
to go, and he said it was shivering
cold.
And I walked out in the forest, and
I knelt in snow up to my chin,
a half hour after sunrise, and I prayed
till a half hour before sunset.
Think of it.
And when he sneezed, you'd think he'd been
tearing up some beautiful red roses, because when
he sneezed, he sprayed the snow with his
blood.
And when he coughed, he would say, pick
that flower up, and when he picked it
up, he would scrape it like that, it
was part of his lungs.
He died at the ripe old age of
twenty-eight.
His name was David Bright.
If America has touched the world, and it
has with false religions, it has had some
of the greatest examples of praying men in
history.
Oh, and then my friend E.
M.
Bowne.
His daughter wrote to me, I think she's
still living, his son's still living, he's about
ninety-seven.
And she said, Brother Raven, I'm glad you've
republished my daddy's books.
I've put all the seven books in one
volume, called The Treasury of Prayer.
You can buy it.
If you buy the books second-hand, they'll
cost you five dollars each, cost you thirty
-five to forty dollars.
You can buy them all for two fifty
or two ninety-five, in that one volume.
Do you know what he said?
When my father was young, he used to
rise at four o'clock in the morning
to pray.
But as he got older, he realized there
was so much unfinished work, that he rose
at three o'clock in the morning to
pray.
Huh?
The effectual servant's prayer.
Okay, let's wrap it up.
It says he ran off into a laugh,
and he prayed, and nothing happened.
He prayed again, and nothing happened.
And the third time, he not only prayed,
but he knelt, and he stretched himself on
the child as an act of compassion, and
he prayed.
The next thing you see him running down
the steps, and he says to the lady,
do you think he said, uh, I want
to tell you something, your baby's alive.
I think he came down those steps, and
he says, he has the baby in his
arms, and he says to the woman, hey,
see, your son lives!
And she said, by this I know that
I am the man of God.
What?
By the meal, by the oil?
No, no, no, no, no, no.
By the fact that you raised the dead.
Well, isn't that the job of the church?
You happy figure knew him dead in Christ,
which is an insult.
What does revival mean?
It means that dead men live.
It means that dead prayer life of yours
that meant so much years ago, it doesn't
mean as much now.
Many of you prayed and all about your
boyfriend, that you'd get the right one, and
since you've got him, you almost quit praying
to your husband, or vice versa.
You prayed and you thought business would go
down, but since it's successful, you think ten
dollars a week to the kingdom of God
helps to pay what he wants.
And then the writer says, all earthly things
with earth will fade away, but prayer lasts
an eternity.
Do you wonder the disciples said, look, I
would love, of all, I would rather have
heard Jesus pray in John 17, which is
the Lord's prayer.
The prayer that we pray is not the
Lord's prayer.
We pray the disciples' prayer.
You can't pray the Lord's prayer.
He couldn't pray the disciples' prayer.
They couldn't pray the Lord's prayer.
The Lord's prayer is John 17.
In the first five verses, he prays for
himself.
Verses 6 to 19, he prays for the
disciples.
Verses 20 to the end, he prays for
the world.
That's the way to pray.
I'd love to have heard Jesus pray.
More than being raised to the dead.
He lied to us, the man, and in
case you're ready to excuse yourself, he was
flesh and blood like you and I are.
He got stomach aches sometimes.
He had nerves.
He had sinews.
He had emotions.
He had all the world and all hell
against him.
But he stood in the power of the
Spirit of God.
He's got a wonderful biography.
Listen.
It says Elijah prayed and the rain fell.
Elijah prayed and the people fell.
Elijah prayed and the fire fell.
I'd almost start a church in hell if
I could get six deacons that could do
that.
Who's the greatest man of prayer in the
Old Testament?
Elijah?
I don't think so.
Who?
Oh, you say, I think Jacob.
Why?
Because he prayed all night.
No, he didn't pray all night.
At least he didn't intend to.
Do you know why he prayed?
He prayed because he got in a jam.
Do you remember the time you prayed most
fervently when you were in a jam somewhere?
Physically?
Emotionally?
Financially?
He said to you, listen, we'd better not
watch Sonic Carson tonight.
We'd better just pray and get down to
business here.
We're in trouble.
Then he came and said, I've seen your
brother coming.
Have you finished my brother?
Yes, he did.
Oh boy, that's disturbing.
Why?
Because the last time he saw me he
said, listen, next time I see you I'll
kill you.
You better start praying if your brother's going
to kill you or not.
And he divided the cattle and he divided
the sheep and he divided the servants and
when he got them all away he says,
I'm smart, you know.
When my brother sees the cattle and sees
those, he'll think I'm there, but not me.
Smart me.
I'm going to get over the stream and
get behind the big rock.
And he goes over the stream, got behind
the rock and somebody jumped on him.
Well, who in the world do you think
he thought it was?
There's only one man in the world, he
was a prayer guy.
He said he began to wrestle.
Doesn't it sound like a prayer meeting?
It sounds like it's a business meeting, but
not a prayer meeting?
Somebody's got him in his grip and he
says, I, I, I, not this country, my
brother.
I'm going to cut my way out of
this.
One thing I learned out of that lesson,
you know what it was, one lesson I
learned out of it?
That when he went to pray he was
the most handsome man in Israel.
Tall and handsome and everybody admired him.
When he came out of that prayer meeting
he dragged a withered leg all the rest
of his life.
That's when he got out of the prayer
meeting, a withered leg.
Isn't that the reason we don't pray?
Because the flesh is weak.
Many of us are governed by our appetite,
our bodies, we'll sleep, we'll do this.
Now who's the boss?
He dragged a withered leg and when he
began to realize that there's somebody had such
a grip and somebody touched him.
That's not my brother, he can't, he's not
as strong as that.
And he felt the person and then he
hung on.
Charles Russell paraphrases that in an old hymn,
he says, wrestling I will not let thee
go till I thy name and nature know.
Yield to me now for I am weak,
but confident in self despair.
This person's going to leave him now but
he hangs on.
I will not let thee go unless thou
bless me.
Simple thing.
I think the greatest man of prayer in
the Old Testament was Moses.
God called him and they, here Moses come
I want to talk with you.
Moses says I'm listening and he says Moses
look, you know sometimes you make a mark
on the wall and then you rub it
out.
I'm going to rub this nation out like
that.
Two, three, four, five million some people say,
I'm going to liquidate them.
They cried, I reached the bondage and I
delivered them.
They cried for food, I gave it.
They cried for meat, I gave it.
They cried for water, I split the rock.
And yet they rebelled and asked a strange
God, they defy me.
Now listen, don't you get too worried about
it Moses because I'm going to liquidate five
million people and raise a new nation out
of your loins.
A man with half an ounce of calmality
would have said Lord I can't wait till
I get up in the morning.
I'm going to stand up before them and
say listen you backslidden rebellious lot, almighty God's
going to roast you today, kill everyone, I
won't even bother to pray to hell with
all of you.
I want to tell you something just before
you perish.
I'm so holy, I'm so wonderful he's going
to raise a new generation of people out
of me.
God says I love to destroy these people.
You know what, it's a wonderful thing when
a holy God reaches down and takes hold
of a man just before you get a
grip like that.
I only know one thing more wonderful than
a holy God reaching down and taking hold
of a man.
And that's when a man reaches up and
takes hold of God.
If you read I think the eleventh chapter
of Deuteronomy Moses says look God, if you're
going to leave this world on me, forget
it.
If you're going to leave me to torture
this nation, these exact words, he says kill
me.
Alright put it in the other language now.
This is not God getting a grip on
Moses, it's Moses getting a grip on God.
Read the story again.
I love to destroy these people.
Now wait a minute, Moses says you're not
going to do that.
Charles Wesley paraphrases it again when he says
this.
When God says leave me alone and I
love to destroy the, Charles Wesley puts it
this way, let Moses in the spirit go
and God cries out leave me alone.
That's not Moses crying to God.
God has a grip on him and God
is crying leave me alone.
Moses says I won't let you alone, destroy
the nation, but destroy me with them.
And isn't it in the Romans chapter 9
where the apostle Paul says I could wish
myself a curse for my brethren.
Do you know what it really says?
He says I'll be damned if I need
to be in order that my brethren may
be saved.