or what we choose to do ourselves.
Lord, give us that holy work that will
last, the results we have sung tonight will
last for eternity.
Not for the years of time alone, blessed
as it is now to know in whom
we have believed, but for eternity.
Bless your word to our hearts again in
Jesus name.
Thank you, be seated.
Acts chapter 7, 7th
chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.
Pardon me, it's a 6th.
Chapter 6 and again verse 8.
We did a study last Friday night, if
you were here, in this chapter.
I don't know what you got out of
it, I got a lot.
The book of Acts in some ways is
the same as the book of Genesis.
Genesis is the beginning of creation and the
Acts of the Apostles is the beginning of
the church.
There are a lot of first things in
this chapter as I mentioned last week.
For the first time they heard the rushing
mighty wind, for the first time a ball
of fire fell on each of them, for
the first time they decided to choose deacons.
It says at the end of the previous
chapter, chapter 5, in verse 40, to him
they agreed and they called the apostles and
beat them and they commanded that they should
not speak in the name of Jesus and
they let them go and they departed from
the presence of the council rejoicing that they
were prosperous.
I haven't noticed that before, has anybody noticed
that before?
It doesn't say that?
Rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer.
There's not much about prosperity in the New
Testament unless you twist the scriptures.
Pentecost meant prisons, persecution, privation, poverty.
The very opposite to what we need today,
we're clamoring after everything the world clamors after.
Well thousands had been born again, wonderfully born
again of the Spirit of God.
It says in chapter 6 verse 1, in
those days when the number of the disciples,
notice the disciples not apostles as it multiplied,
they started murmuring, well that's average for a
church I'm sure, and they said they would
choose them out men.
I'm going to preach to a lot of
preachers next Tuesday so.
Somebody said I used to pray for you,
now I pray for them.
Well you better, I'm getting some hot shot
ready.
Then the week after I got to preach
to about 250 preachers, which I enjoy, I
love to do that.
The more I can make them suffer here
the less they will suffer up there anyhow.
Verse 3 says you choose out seven men,
honest, boy it's hard to find those, seven
honest men of good report and full of
the Holy Ghost, oh mercy that's worse still,
and wisdom.
Where do we stop?
That we may appoint over this business, we
will give ourselves continually to prayer and the
ministry of the word.
That's the only thing a preacher has to
do.
He doesn't have to visit the sick, doesn't
have to go to hospitals, that's why they
chose deacons.
All he has to do is live on
his knees and seek the face of God.
We will give ourselves continually, not periodically, continually
to prayer and the word of God.
Then of course the question always comes up,
well what about the dead?
Who buries the dead?
The deacons.
It doesn't say that here, it does in
another verse, it says let the dead bury
the dead.
What a revolution we'd have in the nation
if every preacher decided he wouldn't do any
more office work and visiting and blowing balloons
up for the ladies tea party or whatever
the world is talking about, and play with
the Sunday school crowd on the Saturday afternoon
because he's the best softball player.
I don't read about that in the Acts
of the Apostles.
They're saying please the Jews, the whole multitude,
and they chose Stephen.
They're saying please the whole multitude and they
chose Stephen.
Who?
The multitude did.
He was the first choice, he didn't get
on the third ballot, he got on the
first.
Now in the 13th chapter of Acts it
says the Holy Ghost said separate me Saul
and Barnabas.
The Holy Ghost doesn't speak here, he doesn't
need to.
The men were already full of the Holy
Ghost.
They'd seen this blazing example in this extraordinary
young man who was full of God, full
of wisdom, and he was full of faith.
Boy he's got some qualifications.
Verse 55 of chapter 7 says, but he,
Stephen being full of the Holy Ghost, looked
up steadfastly to heaven and he saw the
glory of God.
This man is not only the first deacon,
he's the first martyr.
He went into heaven with a chorus.
A chorus of what?
Jagged nerves, broken bones, groaning body, blood running
down his face, his cheeks were shattered, his
body was shattered, his bones were shattered, and
yet he looks up steadfastly.
He doesn't pray any fire down from heaven
on these men who oppose him.
And the Nazarene disciples didn't go and rescue
him.
He didn't say well send an angel from
heaven because Peter had an angel that lived
at home.
He doesn't care about that.
He knows that in this situation he's in,
where he's sinking under this pile of stones,
where he's bloody and battered and broken but
not beaten, that this is the will of
God for him in this situation.
To me he's a supreme example of Romans
12, 1 and 2.
You remember that?
Present your body a living sacrifice.
Isn't he a living sacrifice?
He's dying by the inch.
There are men in Russia who would have
preferred 20 years ago to be put at
the world and shot.
They would be absent from the body present
with the world.
They've been deteriorating for 20 years, rotting for
20 years, almost fruitless, living in uncleanness, filth
you can't imagine.
And yet they're more free than the men
that torment them outside.
Again he's a supreme example as far as
I'm concerned of the Philippians chapter 1, where
the apostle says that Christ may be magnified
by my body.
Whether it's a broken body, a battered body,
a bloody body, why do I care?
It's Christ being magnified, yes.
Every drop of blood goes into the body,
as it were, of that young man over
there.
Why aren't they stoning him?
He's the genius of the world at that
time.
He's the greatest theologian maybe the world's ever
seen.
But his hands are bloody and he stays
there and watches a young man get stoned
and not long after he's going to be
stoned.
I guess every stone that hit the apostle
Paul when he was stoned, he'd remember every
stone he saw thrown on Stephen.
This man presents his body as a living
sacrifice, just doing the will of God.
Years ago there was a bloody persecution, I
don't know which one it was, there was
one in 1560, matter of fact there were
two, there was one in France at that
time and there was one in Scotland.
And if you haven't read the book you
should read it.
I don't know if it's sold here but
we could get some, what's it called, fair
sunshine?
One of the greatest books you'll ever read
about men, most of them before they were
30 years of age that were put to
death by the British because they wouldn't bow
to the king and they preached through Scotland.
A marvellous crowd of heroes and they rejoiced
in that they were counted worthy to suffer
for his namesake.
I was saying about that time one man
questioned God, why are these fair young men,
these brilliant young preachers we have, why are
they dying, why are they killed like sheep
on the mountains?
And he said the Lord said go up
on the mountain there's a lighthouse and he
went up.
And the lighthouse keeper suddenly shot his light
onto the side of the hill a half
mile away, a quarter mile or something, and
as he did a flock of birds got
up and they flew all in directions and
then suddenly they swooped down underneath the lighthouse
and went into where they lived.
And he said well what's that?
Why did you do that?
Because I noticed that when you turned the
light on and the birds were exposed that
wild dogs came out and started biting them
and killing them.
But did you notice they all fled home?
And sometimes the only way I can get
some of my people home is to let
the devil chase them home, persecute them home.
They get so settled down, so relaxed, so
contented.
Remember Bunyan's Pilgrim?
How many of you read Pilgrim's Progress?
Let me see.
Good, thank you.
The rest of you make progress and read
it this week.
It's a great book.
And you remember if Pilgrim got on the
road and then he got onto Bypath Meadow,
it was nice, and he laid down, and
giant despair caught him and took him to
Doubting Castle?
He got relaxed, he got satisfied, he got
content.
Sometimes the only way God can move us
in revival is adversity.
And God knows we're going into it before
long.
How many places closed down this week in
Dallas?
One paid off 200, another laid off three
or four hundred, and gradually this wretched thing's
coming nearer home.
We've escaped it for quite a while, but
it's coming.
Not only that, the judgment of God is
coming.
Well let me go to this anyhow.
You have one of the finest summaries ever.
This young man, I believe would have been
another apostle, Paul, but God didn't see fit
to let him do that.
He had the potential.
If you read this, this is a marvelous,
marvelous display of Old Testament theology, Old Testament
history.
It's very much like that which Peter gave
on the day of Pentecost.
And the result after Pentecost, they were thrown
in jail.
What's the result here?
Well it says over there in verse 54,
as he was giving this marvelous message, when
they heard these things, they were cut to
the heart.
They cut him with stones, he cut them
on the inside.
Their sufferings were worse than his sufferings.
He destroyed their security, destroyed their theology, destroyed
their confidence in history.
Yet again I say, hideous suffering.
But there's one thing in this story.
Let me go back where I mentioned last
week.
He really takes them apart.
Verse 44.
Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in
the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto
Moses that he should make it according to
the fashion that he had seen, which also
our fathers that came after brought it with
it with Jesus into the possession of the
Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face
of our fathers unto the days of David,
who found favor before God and desired to
find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.
He wanted to build it, remember, God wouldn't
let him.
But Solomon built him a house.
Oh that was great.
Solomon built the greatest temple the world's ever
seen.
A fabulous building.
But notice the next thing, he wipes it
out.
Verse 48, he says, Howbeit the most high
dwelleth not in temples made with hands a
set of prophets.
Heaven is my throne and earth is my
footstool.
And what house will you build me?
We're still in that silly business today, aren't
we?
Everybody's outbidding the other guy.
We were in Phoenix, Arizona some two or
three years ago.
There's a very marvelous preacher there, Dr. Jack
Jackson.
I talked with him, his place seats 5
,000.
So a guy down the road gets envious
and he puts a building up seating 6
,000.
Which of course scared the devil to death.
He hates big churches.
Well he doesn't really.
We love them.
God does not dwell in temples made with
hands.
He inhabits human personality.
But there's a thing here that really got
hold of me.
In chapter 7, then said the high priest,
Are these things so?
Isn't this great, a young guy that has
no theological experience as the high priest and
everybody else on the high horses and they're
scared to death of him?
As Robert Murray McShane said a couple of
hundred years ago, There's nothing more terrible on
God's earth than a holy man.
There's nothing the devil fears more than a
holy man, a God-possessed man.
A man emptied of self and filled with
God.
A man with no other ambition than to
please God.
See these fellows thought they were having a
great time.
Here's this young man, they've slit his eyes
maybe, slit his cheeks, broken his bones and
he's looking right past all these rascals that
are stunning him and he sees right into
eternity and he sees Jesus.
Isn't he an example again of blessed or
pure in heart for they shall see God?
They said in the chapter there, 55 of
chapter 7, He being full of the Holy
Ghost.
Now I don't believe anybody's filled with the
Holy Ghost if they're not pure.
Acts 15, 8 and 9.
You see the emphasis today is on power.
God's emphasis is on purity.
We've been chasing miracles.
God knows how we have.
I've got a book here.
Now if you belong to school here you
won't be allowed to read this because, not
because it's bad, but because you have required
reading.
This is a recent book, The Seduction of
Christianity.
It's one of the finest books I've ever
lived, I've ever read, pardon me, apart from
my own.
I'm trying to find a page here, I
thought I'd mount it.
You know this is a day of great
heresy.
This is what they call unity sea.
James Parks Morton, the Dean of New York's
Episcopal Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, one
of the greatest churches in the world, at
Pentecost he said we invited the Rabbi of
New York, the abbot of the Venn community,
Satyamanda of the Hindu alliance and the chief
of an American Indian tribe, all for unity.
I can't find the page.
Where's my wife?
Remember the page about Dr. Cho?
Anyhow, I hope you'll read it.
This is the most, the greatest modern exposition
of the in-laws that, what am I
trying to say, Eastern religion has made into
Christianity today.
Everybody's been going over, in plain loads even,
to see Dr. Cho's church in Korea.
And they wonder why it's so successful, because
when they go to the altar they take
a bunch of flowers and lay it on
the altar for their dead relatives.
And he's never separated them from that.
Not only that, his whole philosophy is founded,
as this book says, and it gives you
the outline, apparently it gives you the quotation
for his own book, where he, got it
here, we do not believe the leaders of
positive confession.
Now he names the guys over in Dallas,
he gives you the names, and while Dr.
Hunt was giving this in Dallas, I think
it's Maddox's, is it Maddox's point of view,
while Hunt was explaining this from one of
the big churches in Dallas, two men told
him if he didn't quit, they'd rough him
up.
And they're supposedly spirit-filled people.
He says, we do not believe the leaders
of positive confession movement are deliberately involved in
sorcery.
However, the terminology, while sounding biblical, promotes concepts
that are not found in the Bible.
They are found in occult literature, and moreover,
practice some of the positive confession readers do
not only admit, but teach the methods.
Nowhere in the Bible does it indicate, or
even imply, that the people of God are
to use the same methods as part of
the pagans.
But Yogi Cho, this famous man with his
400,000 members, however, not only says miracles
must all confirm to his law of the
fourth dimension, but anyone, in italics, including occultists,
may apply the law of the fourth dimension
and perform miracles.
It sounds like the dark ages of the
force.
Nevertheless, Pastor Cho assures us that he learned
this from the Holy Spirit, when he asked
in prayer why occultists could do miracles like
Christians.
Cho, he learned this fourth dimension when he
asked how these other people could do miracles.
Cho commends the Japanese Buddhist, Saga Kaki, for
performing miracles through the visualizing, a picture of
prosperity, repeating phrases over and over, and developing
the human spiritual fourth dimension.
The human spiritual, not the Holy Spirit.
He scolds the Christians for not doing likewise.
Prophecy of Economics newsletter, Frank Doyle, states that
anyone, Christian or not, can totally control his
own flow of God's riches because of the
law of prosperity that can be used by
anyone.
Now, Dr. Cho commends the Japanese Buddhist occultists,
and he practices the same thing, and covers
it with a Pentecostal message.
I understand now that the assembly of God
has taken his license away, for the simple
reason that they were still bringing, the people
that came to the altar were still bringing
flowers.
This shows how this Eastern religion has penetrated
almost every area of so-called Christianity in
America today.
Now, let me give you the name of
the book, here it is, The Seduction of
Christianity.
It's by David Hunt, and it's published by
Harvest House.
Now, you're not to buy this if you're
in the school, because I guess it's against
the law, which is all right, as far
as I'm concerned.
I want you other people to read it
and pray over it, and to read God.
All right, let's get back to chapter 7
here.
This amazing man has given his great speech,
and the high priest said, are these things
so?
And he said, men and brethren and fathers.
Notice he brings them in, men and brethren.
But he's talking to a Jew, because he's
a Jew, and he identifies himself with them
on that level.
Men and brethren, the God of glory appeared
unto our father Abraham.
Does that do anything for you?
Not the glory of God, the God of
glory.
Appeared who?
To our father Abraham.
Where?
Read the text, in Mesopotamia, which was a
jungle of false gods and heathen temples and
cruel practices and depravity, and yet God goes
and meets a man in that hell hole,
in that dump.
I doubt this, and I don't know your
history.
I doubt if any of us have really
seen the God of glory.
We seldom see the glory of God.
Moses saw the glory of God in a
bush that was burning and not consumed, and
he went near and took his shoes off
his feet.
And you know you're getting pity near God
when you don't keep your shoes on, because
of the dirt of the world on them.
The God of glory appeared.
It's in the 32nd, I think it's in
the 32nd chapter of Exodus, pardon me, chapter
33, where Paul, where pardon me, I'm getting
Paul in, he must have lived a long
life.
Moses.
I can't think as quickly as I used
to.
Can't do anything as quickly, but anyhow.
Except eat, maybe.
There you have Moses, one of the greatest
men in history.
He prays this prayer in the 33rd of
Exodus, show me thy glory.
In the 24th chapter it's seen the glory
of God.
But he wanted to see the God of
glory.
In the 24th chapter you have one of
the most remarkable pictures outside of the book
of Revelation.
They sat down and ate a meal with
the God of glory.
They saw the God of glory.
Moses went up in a cloud, you remember,
on the mountain and the temple, and the
people saw the glory of God, they did
not see the God of glory.
If I'd parted the Red Sea and done
all the miracles that he did, I think
I'd seen the glory of God.
But you see, he doesn't want to see
the glory of God, he wants to see
the God of glory.
I think he would have said this with
tears, would I gonna, show me thy glory.
I think in the back of his mind,
I'm guessing, I think he's saying, you showed
Abraham, as it's recorded here in the 7th
chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the
God of glory, not the glory of God
appeared unto our father Abraham when he was
in Mesopotamia, of all the hell holes in
the world, and yet God appears to him.
The backside of the desert where there's nothing,
but smelly old sheep and dust and dirt
and heat beyond our heat, and there God
Almighty comes.
I'm longing for the day when the glory
of God will come, that will be wonderful.
But further still, if you would dare to
do it, to show us God himself.
Remember when the priests ministered there in the
Old Testament, after they built the tabernacle, after
they built the temple?
Solomon built the most expensive building ever built,
he laid an altar, but he knew it
wasn't much good.
I've heard preachers say, come forward, the fire
always falls on the altar, the fire never
falls on the altar.
You can't show me a case in the
Bible where the fire fell on the altar.
The fire falls on the sacrifice, and the
reason his glory doesn't come into him won't
be sacrifice.
But once they got the beast there and
he prayed, let the fire of God, God
comes in fire, God is a consuming fire.
One Friday I'm going to speak on that.
I can't think of that without thinking of
William Boole, the penniless half Jew and half
Gentile, kicked out of the Methodist church, walked
out of the stationing committee onto the side
street in Leicester, took over his wife's farm,
she had a curvature of the spine, one
of the most wonderful women that ever lived
as far as I'm concerned, but in weakness.
Amy Wilson Carmichael had a curvature of the
spine for 30 years and raised thousands of
children.
And one of the great prayer warriors of
our day, our precious son that preached there
the other week, Paul, I think he has
every book that Amy Carmichael has written, and
sought himself.
It was she who walked from prayer that
asks that I may be shouted from winds
that beat on thee.
From fainting when I should aspire, from faltering
when I should climb higher, let me not
sink to be a clod.
Here's a 90 pound woman with a curvature
of the spine, trusting God for every penny,
saying let me not sink to be a
clod.
She's not a muscle man, not somebody that's
pressing 300 pounds or whatever you do every
day.
She's a frail body, but God loves frailty.
He takes the weak things, not the superior
thing.
You say, well he took Samson, well Samson
was a rag until the Holy Ghost came
on him anyhow.
William Bull set out to conquer the world.
He wrote his battle song, Thou Christ of
burning cleansing flame, send the fire.
Thy blood-bought gift today we claim, send
the fire.
Look down and see this waiting us, give
us the promise of, I'm sick to death
of reading the Acts of the Apostles.
In one sense, in another sense, it fires
me.
I'm tired of church history, time to make
history.
Look down and see this waiting us, give
us the promise, Holy Ghost, we want another
Pentecost.
Whether we do or not, we need it.
Then he goes on, he says, to make
our weak hearts strong and brave, send the
fire.
To live a dying world, to save, send
the fire.
O see us on thine altar, lay our
lives, our all this very day, to crown
the offering now we pray, send the fire.
Tis fire we want, for fire we plead,
send the fire.
The fire will meet our every need, send
the fire.
There's no other answer but the fire of
God.
So the glory of God appeared in the
tabernacle.
Suddenly there's a descent of fire and they
see the sizzling things burned up.
And what happened?
The glory of God came till the priests
backed their way out.
They didn't even turn their backs to the
altar, they were afraid.
Dear God, we go to sermon Sunday after
Sunday and before we get out we're talking
about the cowboys.
Or we're talking about some other trivia.
There'll be no move of God, the Holy
Ghost.
Talked with Dave Wilkerson yesterday, he was talking
about an article on trembling.
I said, well listen, before you start writing
about the people trembling, go back to Isaiah
61, remember it says, let the priest tremble.
Why in God's name should I expect the
congregation to tremble if I don't tremble?
Why should I expect you to weep for
the lost if I don't weep for the
lost?
Why should I ask you to fast if
I don't fast?
Why should I ask you to reduce your
sleeping and think of those who are going
to be in endless hell for a billion
years unless the church wakes up?
The God of Abraham appeared unto our father.
What did he do?
He left everything that he had, his home,
his country, his kindred, all his ties, all
his flesh, all his investments, and he went
out not knowing whether he went.
And then afterwards he earns that awesome title
of being the friend of God.
Dear Lord.
Moses says, show me thy glory.
You know there are 13 different Hebrew words
for glory in the Old Testament.
There are 10 different words in the Greek
in the New Testament for glory.
I believe glory is a manifest presence of
God.
An overwhelming sense of realizing first his presence
and then his person.
See this young man doesn't do all the
exploits that Apostle Paul does.
But again the blood of the martyrs is
the seed of the church.
The blood that fell from him became seed
in the heart of that brilliant young man
there.
And he's going to do what this man
should have done.
But God says the best thing I can
do is cut this man's life off and
take that man who's the biggest rebel in
the world and make him, he's the biggest
persecutor, I'll make him the greatest preacher.
He's a murderer but I'll make him a
missionary.
He's a fool but I'll make him come
to the place where with all his colossal
intellect and his marvelous background he says, I'm
a fool for Christ.
Why does he stay on and become the
chief Rabbi?
Why does he become more famous than Gamaliel?
With all his wisdom and knowledge.
Because one day he had a vision.
This man is drenching in blood.
That is Stephen.
His bones are snapping.
His jaw's broken.
Maybe one eye's gouged out but he sees
the crowd of persecutors he sees through into
eternity.
And Jesus is there on the throne, standing
off the throne to welcome him.
The Apostle Paul doesn't see him like that.
He's going down the Damascus road and he
has in his toga that Roman garment he
wore.
He has a document that's signed and sealed
that he can persecute anybody who's called by
the name of Jesus Christ.
And he went out on a one-man
battle to destroy the powers of God.
And yet on the way God in his
infinite mercy met him.
You know, you know that word glory is
about as hard to define as love.
Somebody says, I love you, ask them what
they mean.
A woman says, oh I love thy dog.
Oh it's my husband coming.
I love my husband.
Same love for the dog and the husband.
In Greek there are at least 10 different
words for love.
Saw his face, the face of an angel.
He hadn't a gripe against his enemies.
Boy it doesn't take stones to knock us
out.
Somebody just attends us and hurts us and
dear God we wonder if we'll ever go
to church again.
Do you know one, one of the pastors
in town went visiting down one street twice
in one week and he hadn't been in
the other house up the street twice in
a year.
The lady was so upset.
I think most pastors are going to die
for service or milk bottle service.
I say that to say this, we all
get to have what a day of rejoicing
that will be.
Are you going to dare to tell me,
try and inject me with the idea that
this blessed young man that's bathed to death,
dead before a howling mob, will only have
the same reward as a dying thief?
Now I don't know whether I said this,
I say things in my sleep.
Then I get up and write them down
sometimes, you get them upside down.
But I know, I know that Jacob didn't
say this, it's too wise for him to
say.
But anyhow, what do I want to say?
All right, this span of life that we
have now, this is the only place where
we'll have victories.
In eternity we'll celebrate them forever, but between
here and the time you die is the
only place where you can lay up treasure
in heaven.
We won't all be the same in heaven.
You know people say, well you've got money,
you can't take it with you, nobody can
send you on ahead if you want.
In Revelation it says, there hold fast to
that which thou hast that no man take
thy crown.
Not no devil take your crown, no man.
God wanted me to do a job, I
let it go, so he gave Sonny the
job.
So in eternity, not for a weekend dear
God, but for the rest of eternity he's
going to wear a crown I should have
worn.
You better obey God because you'll be poorer
up there.
You know once you quit this life, that's
the end of maturity.
There'll be no maturity the other side of
heaven.
I believe that your glory on in heaven
will be relative to your glory on earth.
I believe your joy in heaven will be
relative to your joy on earth.
Oh what a day it will be when
there's an exposure.
Again when this young man goes up there
to the judgment seat.
Verse 55 of this seventh chapter again says,
but he being full of the Holy Ghost.
You know that's the answer.
You say I got the baptism 50 years
ago.
I'm not concerned when you got filled with
the Holy Ghost.
It could be two hours ago, two years
ago, 20 years.
What I want to know is not when
you got there, I want to know tonight.
Are you filled tonight?
Are you filled with the Holy Ghost tonight?
Are you filled with holy compassion?
Are you filled with holy love?
Are you filled with all his zeal?
There are no degrees, come on.
There are no degrees of purity.
A thing is either pure or impure.
If you saw them selling butter down at
Kroger's or somewhere and it said 10 pence
a pound and you said is this all
right?
He said yeah.
Is it pure?
It has a label.
Yeah there was a little accident during the
mixing.
Each pound has about five grains of arsenic
in it but don't worry about that.
You're going to buy butter with arsenic in
it?
It's not pure.
It may be 98 percent pure but the
two percent is deadly.
Again this young man is pure in heart.
He's filled with the Holy Ghost.
There Duncan Campbell used to say to me,
do you remember brother Ravenhill?
The fundamental ethic in the Christian religion is
sacrifice.
You can do nothing without sacrifice.
It's based on sacrifice.
On his sacrifice and our sacrifice.
There couldn't be some embarrassment at the judgment
seat.
Well of course it was a very fashionable
message.
Can you imagine somebody in Dallas at the
first Baptist or first Pentecostal or first Methodist
or last Methodist or what you want?
Can you imagine him go down and saying
to these men your father's persecuted them and
before the coming of the just one whom
ye have been murderers and betrothed you crucified
the Holy One.
Isn't that what Peter said on the day
of Pentecost?
You crucify the Lord of glory.
So they gnashed on him with their teeth.
These words I say cut them to pieces.
That's what it says here.
They were cut to the heart.
God in heaven sent us some preaching like
that.
Where people leave the sanctuary bleeding.
Feel as though God got in and whipped
something out of them.
He found impurity in the heart, the carnality,
the pride, the selfishness, the pettiness.
Again as the hymn writer says all the
vain things that charmed me most and helped
me least.
They were cut to the heart.
But at the moment when they thought they'd
silenced him the heavens opened and he says
behold the heavens are open and I see
Jesus there.
Well is that too small a price to
pay to see him?
He dies in triumph.
He dies in victory.
To use our language this young man is
utterly sold out to God.
I don't believe a man is a martyr
for Christ because he gets burned at the
stake.
I don't believe he's a martyr because he
gets shot.
That proves he is a martyr.
I risk being misunderstood.
I've said it before.
Jesus didn't die on the cross.
He died in Gethsemane.
Not my will but thine be done.
The cross is the evidence of his death.
He's already died.
There's a poem here some of us love.
At least I love it, no one else
will do it.
My goal is God himself.
Not joy, not peace, not even blessing but
himself my God.
It is his to lead me there, not
mine but his.
At any cost dear Lord, by any road.
So faith bounds forward to its goal in
God and love can trust her Lord to
leave her there.
Upheld by him my soul will follow hard
till God has last fulfilled my deepest prayer.
No matter if the way be sometimes dark,
no matter if it cost be often great.
He knows how I best shall reach the
mark.
The way that leads to him must need
be straight.
One thing I know I cannot say him
nay.
One thing I do I pray to all
my God.
The secret of the life of the apostle
was this, if you want to know.
It's this one thing I do.
He never got in sight track.
He never got into business like so many
preachers do.
This one thing I do it will be
hell to get there.
I forgot one of the old Puritan preachers
said in the 1600s, you have to go
through hell to get to heaven.
You have to lose everything in order to
become the part of the bride of Jesus
Christ.
One thing I know I cannot say him
nay.
One thing I do I press toward my
Lord.
My God my glory here from day to
day and in the glory there my great
reward.
Christianity hasn't been tried and found one thing.
It's been tried and found difficult and rejected.
It's nice and emotional in a meeting and
you feel nice and the pastor says you
asked Jesus to save you, you're saved and
maybe you're not.
But when he starts to show you that
you have to take of your cross and
follow him and other guys are not doing
that, there's a difference.
I remember going up the coast in California.
I'd never seen grapes growing.
They won't grow in England anyhow.
And I saw those amazing vineyards and I
went in one of them and saw some
of the bunches you know they side.
And that thing struggled through storm and wind
and rain and there were the lovely drapes,
drapes, drapes I mean.
And they do bloom on them and a
guy comes with a knife like that and
he bangs them in a bucket.
Mercy, have mercy on them.
Another guy throws them in a dump truck.
Then they put them in a machine and
pound them.
If you go to Italy they put them
in a thing like a big cup and
the guys get off the floor with the
nice dirty feet and jump in and stamp
it you know.
Which adds flavor to the wine of course.
The only way you can get wine is
to crush everything that's in that grape.
The only way you can get bread is
to grind it and grind it and grind
it to flour.
Then put it in an oven to bake
it.
Then slice it up and then chew it
up.
There was a great preacher in Scotland in
the time of Queen Victoria.
A brilliant scholar, Hebrew scholar, Greek scholar.
His name was George Matheson.
He wrote a number of wonderful hymns.
I think the best one was after his
girlfriend threw him up, jilted him.
They were to be married.
The day was set and he was stricken
with blindness.
And they took him in to see the
girl and she said, I can't marry a
blind man.
What a handicap, a blind preacher.
They had no cars, they had buggies.
Drive the buggy around and you can't read
your books.
You've collected a library, they're no good.
And she laid all this, you know, the
negative things on him.
Well he had set his heart on this
gorgeous lady.
She was quite brilliant too.
He went into his room and said to
someone, would you write this down?
He wrote this.
She, her love had broken.
Oh love that wilt not let me go.
I rest my weary soul in thee.
I give thee back the life I owe,
that in thine ocean depths its flow may
rich or full of thee.
Oh joy that seekest me through pain, I
dare not ask to fly from thee.
I trace the rainbow through the rain and
feel the promise is not vain.
That morn shall tearless be.
Oh joy that seekest me through pain, I
dare not ask to fly from thee.
He's the man who wrote, make me a
captive Lord and then I shall be free.
Force me to render up my sword and
I shall conquer thee.
I think in life's alarms when by myself
I stand.
Imprison me within thine arms and strong shall
be my hand.
My heart is weak and low until it
master find.
It has no spring of action sure, it
trembles with the wind.
It only stands unbent amid the bloody strife
when on thy bosom it has lengthened, found
in thee its life.
You see everybody's looking for freedom.
God is looking for captive.
Make me a captive Lord.
Get me, get my mind, get my heart,
get my attention, get my love, get my
devotion.
In other words I'm looking for slaves.
And if you become my slave, I believe,
disagree if you like, if you do you'll
be wrong anyhow.
I believe the measure of my yieldedness to
God is the measure of God's yieldedness to
me, Sonny.
He gives me a fraction of himself.
If I give him 50% he's only
obliged to give me 50.
If I give him 75, 75.
But if I give him all, all, all,
all, he gives me all.
Make me a captive Lord.
Captivate my senses.
Captivate my affections.
Captivate my heart.
Captivate my will.
Captivate my life.
Don't make me run it.
Make me a slave.
Give me the orders every time I step
out every day.
I remember the time I walked down the
Nile in a church and claimed to be
filled with the Holy Ghost.
And it was a great experience.
But it, I was going to say it
didn't last long.
It lasted as long as I wanted it
to till I was totally obedient.
But now I realize this, I need day
by day an anointing to live, to guide,
to understand.
I guess Moses had been past that old
bush there dozens of times.
Thank you.
Dozens of times.
At this time it had been ignited.
What, uh, Watchman Nee called a normal Christian
life.
I don't think he got the hang of
it anyhow.
The normal Christian life is a life of
sacrifice.
It's a life of dying daily.
It's a life of living daily.
It's a life of seeing an open heaven,
seeing the risen Christ of God in all
its fullness there.
God is going to get revivals through unless
we're full-time.
And I don't mean you give up your
job and become a full-time preacher.
But until every part of you is just
filled with God.
I was going to say something else, maybe
better not.
Oh, I'll say it this way.
I believe that God wants to make every
day a Sabbath.
If you only have one Sabbath, one holy
day a week, you're not a Christian.
Every day is a Sabbath.
Every day is a holy day.
He wants to take us every day, whether
we hear good preaching or bad preaching.
If you can depend on preaching, boy, you'll
die.
There's not much good preaching around apart from
Friday nights that I know.
Pardon my humility, but anyhow, there you are.
You know, if we get soaked in the
word, we'll go every day from one degree
of glory to another.
The trouble with the children of Israel, they
got out of Egypt and they got stuck
God intended it to be a stepping stone,
it became a stumbling block.
He determined it was, God said it should
be a gateway, it became a terminus.
He wanted it to be a thoroughfare and
a stopping place.
We've so many people got out of the
world, given up lousy habits, glad to get
rid of drink and dope and that's wonderful,
but how many have entered into the fullness?
I remember taking my sins to Jesus.
What do you think he does with them?
Collect them like you collect stamps?
He doesn't want your stinking sins, he wants
you.
He wants your life, he wants your will.
You see the devil will blind you.
You know the devil's got two tricks amongst
others.
Either he says you're so good you don't
need to be saved or you're so bad
you can't be saved and he's a liar
on both camps.
God is looking for men and women who
will be totally, totally, totally sold out to
him.
You'll get stoned by your critics, you'll be
lonely.
I think the last time I went into
my office, now dear Paul was there and
he was in the chair there and he
said, Daddy I've realized this, if you're going
to walk in holiness, we're going to be
lonely people.
Moses said, show me thy glory.
We're seeking blessing, we're seeking success, we're seeking
ministry.
God is seeking sacrifice.
And anything that costs you nothing is worth
nothing to God.
If there's no blood on it, if there's
no tears on it, if there's no brokenness
on it, keep it to yourself.
His body had to be broken.
How do I expect mine to be spared?
He had to suffer indignities and scorn, he
had to make a supreme sacrifice.
Can I expect less?
I want to go from one degree of
glory to another.
I want that daily lifeline between heaven and
my soul.
We sang a hymn last week, I think,
for the first time.
I wanted to sing it tonight.
I believe God is going to really bless
us in prayer tonight.
I hope you, precious sister, the Lord will
burden you to pray.
And Jacob, you've got to pray tonight because
Jacob's going away to Europe next week.
So let's remember to pray for him every
week.
I hope you're burdened to pray.
We ought to rend the heavens tonight or
plead with God to rend them.
Tell him we're not satisfied with blessing.
We're not satisfied to have a bit of
money in the bank.
I'm less satisfied now when I've got what
lots of people want in, some measure of
success, written some best-selling books.
They don't cost me a thought.
I need a new revelation of God.
I need not to see the glory.
I've seen the glory of God.
I was in a prayer meeting in a
town called Skipton.
That's a corruption of sheep town in England.
Our leader had come to America, the first
of our batch that had ever been across
the water.
And he came here, was here about four
months, and he wrote good letters back.
He was at this big convention, that big
convention.
He came in this room that night, the
City Auditorium.
We were in the back room.
I remember it was like a moon-shaped
room.
If ever I'd been near the upper room,
it was that night, funny.
God came in his glory.
Those men poured their hearts out in intercession
till their shirts were sticking to their backs
and tears rolling down their faces.
I felt the whole place would explode.
I'm not seeking power for the novelty of
being in it.
I'm seeking power because there's a dead, doomed,
damned world out there, and the church can't
do a thing to it.
They don't want our theology.
They don't want our socials.
They don't want all the trimmings we have.
They're looking to see men ablaze with God.
Maybe next Friday night I'll speak on that.
This is, I remember, Edwin Hatch's.
I said last week, this man had everything.
A successful church, lots of money.
One night in his office he cried, Oh
God, breathe on me.
You know, if God really breathes on you
tonight, you'll never forget it.
Your heart will be changed, your life will
be changed, your vision will be changed.
Let me find it here somewhere.
Thank you.
174.
Breathe on me.
Not on us.
You're not praying for last days.
You're not praying for your church, whatever it
is.
Breathe on me, me, me, me.
Show me thy glory, Moses.
He didn't say show it to Israel.
He didn't say show it to the kings,
the enemy kings, so they'll be staggered and
dumbfounded.
Breathe on me, breath of God.
Show me thy glory.
I'm going to pray that every day I
live.
If I don't live two days, I'll live
another 200 or 20 years.
I don't care.
I want to see God do something and
he's going to do it.