To the effect that hardened criminals, some of
them who have fought until their bodies were
bruised and bloody, some of them who have
been pistol whipped, some of them who have
broken almost every law of God and man,
and feared neither God nor man, have feared
one thing.
And that one thing was when the judge
said that they were to be sentenced to
jail, but in solitary confinement.
And one very famous or really notorious criminal
sank on his knees and raised his hands
and begged the judge to lengthen his period
behind the bars, but let him be in
company with other men.
Because he said, if I'm alone year after
year after year, I'm afraid that I can't
stand the loneliness.
Prophets are a strange breed of men.
They're God's emergency men for crisis hours.
And the price of being a prophet is
that a man has to live alone.
All God's great men have been very, very
lonely men.
A lady once asked me what university I
went to, and I said I went to
Bush University.
She said, well I never heard of anybody
from Bush University.
Who else went there?
Well I said, I think Moses was the
first student there.
And he spent 40 years on the back
side of the desert.
And not only does he send a man
like that, but the other prophets in the
word of God were very strange men.
Isaiah was prepared to walk around the streets
of Jerusalem barefooted for three years.
Well that doesn't sound strange, except you remember
perhaps that when the prodigal came home, his
father said put shoes on his feet, because
no slaves ever wore shoes.
That's why the colored people used to sing
so joyously, all God's children got shoes.
I got shoes, you got shoes, gonna walk
all over God's heaven in shoes, because they
never had shoes.
And Isaiah was prepared to be identified as
a slave.
Another man was prepared to lay on his
right side for a period of time.
Another man like Jeremiah walked down the street
with a yoke around his neck and said
the nation was in bondage to sin, as
he was in bondage to that yoke.
And tonight I want to think about a
man that lived a very, very lonely life.
I said very often that when I, when
I turn over the pages of the Bible,
that one of the most challenging pages is
the white page that divides the testaments.
It doesn't say anything, it says one of
the most eloquent things that it's possible to
say.
It's a white page, but it covers a
period of 400 years of total darkness.
400 years of darkness without any light, 400
years of silence without any prophetic voice.
If I were to say to you tonight,
I'll give you a paper and pencil and
you can write and give me, from your
knowledge of the word of God, who was
the greatest man that ever lived outside of
Jesus Christ.
I guess you might come up with Moses
or you might come up with Paul and
you'll be wrong, because the greatest character reader
of all time was Jesus himself.
And he said that the greatest man that
was ever born of woman was John Baptist.
A man who spent some 20 years there
in the fastness of the desert.
A lonely man, a strange man.
His father was a priest of the course
of Abbey.
There were 20,000 priests at that time
and his father was a member, I think,
of the 12th caste or the 8th caste.
And it's an amazing thing when you think
of it, at least to me it is.
You know just like the tide has to
go the farthest out before it can return.
We as individuals, we as churches, we as
nations, as I see the picture, have to
come to a place of recognizing our total
barrenness before ever we bring forth life.
And you can tell me of a little
spark of revival in your church, thank God
for it.
But you'll never convince me there's any revival
in America.
I'm too smart to know that.
And I bring you statistics that will drown
you.
And I bring you evidence that makes us
realize the fact that we've out sinned Sod
and we've out sinned Gomorrah by a long,
long way.
We have blinded our eyes to truth and
we have put our fingers in our ears
to the voice of God.
And the great need in America tonight, I'm
convinced of this, as good as Bible schools
are with their assembly lines and producing their
preachers, the greatest need in America tonight is
prophets.
Amen.
And as D.A. Tozer used to say,
if you're going to be a prophet, brother,
you better settle.
Or it was Dr. Parker who originally said,
if you're going to be a prophet, you'll
have to preach repentance, and before you start,
dedicate your head to heaven, because you won't
last much more than six months maybe.
John the Baptist himself didn't.
This man's father then was a very wonderful
man and he had a very wonderful wife.
But she was a barren woman.
It was a barren woman that brought to
birth Samuel.
It was a barren woman that brought to
birth an amazing man by the name of
Samson.
It was a woman who one day was
no longer magnetized by her beauty, was no
longer fascinated by her beautiful garments, was no
longer adored or interested in the adoration of
the people, because unquestionably she was the queen
of the tribe.
But one day she came and threw herself
in prostration, and I think with tears that
had marked her face, and her hair no
longer beautifully done, and she fell down before
her husband and said, Jacob, give me children
or I die.
And I say to you with all the
power of my ransom being tonight, that I
think the time has come when we change
Patrick Henry's wonderful cry, when you remember he
said, give me liberty or give me death,
that if you've got an ounce of Christ
in you, this is the hour to say,
give me a revival or give me death.
Because if we can live without revival, then
we're not where God wants us to be.
Our brother spoke a searching word.
I wish you had heard it this morning.
Get a tape.
If you don't get any of mine, I
wouldn't care.
But get that tape that our brother preached
this morning.
That message on Hosea, brother that skinned us
alive and hung on our hides up.
That brother showed us, brother Conrad Morel whose
book is on the table there, he showed
us I believe exactly where the nation is
today.
And the judgments that are going to fall
if we don't get revival, and maybe it
is not an alternative of Christ or chaos,
but Christ and chaos.
Not revival or revolution, but revival and revolution.
Not revival without concentration camps, maybe the only
place you'll get it is in concentration camps.
But as sure as that's my hand, I'm
sure God is going to give us revival.
And this man had prayed and his wife
had prayed, and they decided that God would
give them just one thing that seemed very
natural, but she bore no children.
The husband was given a very wonderful privilege,
because only once in the life of a
priest, did he go into the temple and
minister in the way that Zacharias was ministering
on this occasion.
After all there was a long line of
twenty thousand priests, and most of them wouldn't
get in on it anyhow.
And so just once in his priestly life,
when at nine o'clock in the morning
on the temple porch of Herod, because Herod
financed the building of it, some men stood
with their trumpets to heaven and sounded the
blast, and the court opened its doors, and
the priest went down the aisle there, and
as he went down nervous, under the burden
of his garments, doing something that was unrehearsed,
doing something he would never do again, he
walked up there to the front of the
temple, and as he walked there, I say
I believe nervous, I believe he was maybe
just shaking from head to foot.
And lo behold as he got there, right
to the side of the temple, there was
an angel standing there.
Well don't you think some of you preachers
would be startled if an angel came and
stood at the side of you next Sunday
morning while you were preaching?
I think I might.
And as soon as he saw the angel,
his nervousness was intensified, and the angel said,
fear not, I am Gabriel.
Gabriel sent from the presence of God, and
he says he stood on the right side
of the altar, because when he was going
to speak to the nation, he stood on
the left side of the altar.
But here he is on the right side
of the altar, and he says, fear not,
thy prayer is heard, thy wife Elizabeth has
conceived and will bear a son.
And I think that some of the greatest
shocks you and I could have would be
to have our prayers answered.
We're so used to praying and nothing happened,
that if they got answered we'd be startled.
My wife is going to bear a son,
yes she's going to bear a son.
And he should be great in the sight
of God.
The man couldn't believe it, and because of
this, you remember he was smitten with dumbness.
And eventually they brought him a pad and
a table and he wrote, and he said
what his name was going to be, and
they said, well there's nobody of this name,
surely you'll call him by some other name.
It was of this little child that Jesus
said, he should be the greatest man that
was ever born of woman.
And when this woman was pregnant with this
child, she went to see a cousin who
was pregnant, and immediately she got into the
presence of Jesus, I'm going to stress that,
not until that.
Immediately Elizabeth came with a child in her
womb and got to Mary with a child
in her womb, then the child left within
her womb and it says, and this is
the wonder of the whole thing to me,
it says that Zacharias was filled with the
Holy Ghost, it says Elizabeth was filled with
the Holy Ghost, and it says of John
Baptist, what it doesn't even say of Jesus,
that he was filled with the Holy Ghost
from his mother's womb.
What an amazing thing.
Everything about this is all according to a
divine plan, moving in the realm of the
Spirit of God.
You see I discovered something afresh today in
reading this, and I thought it was very
beautiful.
I'm convinced, you may be convinced otherwise, but
I am convinced there never has been a
supernatural birth either of an individual or revival
without prayer.
And it says here in the thirty-seventh
verse of the second chapter of Luke, there
was a widow of four score and four
years, and she departed not from the temple,
and she was over a hundred years of
age, come on now you pretty girls at
forty and fifty, she was over a hundred
years of age, she didn't depart from the
temple, she stayed in the presence of God
with fastings and with prayer, and in the
night and in the day, and she was
praying for deliverance to come to the nation.
Think of this amazing man Simeon.
Mary and Joseph come into the temple, and
they present to Simeon a child.
There's nothing unusual about this.
This is a routine.
Every day he dedicates children.
And suddenly as he dedicates his child, suddenly
he says, My God, here is the salvation
of the nation.
Do you think that wasn't echoed around Jerusalem
that night, that a deliverance coming was going
to get Israel from under the heel of
the oppressor?
Don't you think the Pharisees and the Sadducees
and the high priests and others trembled when
they heard this word?
Why did that man dare to say of
this child, who was so much like the
baby he dedicated ten minutes ago, why did
he suddenly say, this child is for the
hope of the world and for the salvation
of Israel, and he's going to redeem them?
Why did he say that?
I'll tell you why, because there's no guessing
about it.
It says in verse 25, the Holy Ghost
was upon him.
It says in verse 26, it was revealed
to him by the Holy Ghost.
And it says in verse 27, that by
the Spirit he came into the temple and
took him in his arms and blessed him
and said, Now let my son depart in
peace.
And the Holy Ghost never makes a mistake.
Amen.
He was led in the Spirit.
He gave us, he prophesied in the Spirit.
Amen.
And the Holy Ghost was yet poured out.
Yes.
He says, Here is the child.
Here is the design of all the nations.
First of all, Old Testament prophecy terminated in
the womb of the Virgin Mary, and our
New Testament prophecy was born in the womb
of the Virgin Mary, that Christ was the
fulfillment of the old and he was the
fulfillment of the new.
And then we know very little about John
Baptist.
He went into the womb of us until
the day of his showing forth.
Oh, I'd love to have heard John Baptist
preach, wouldn't you?
I'd like to have seen this man when
God says, John, you've been here 20 years
now, you better go out and preach.
I told you this morning, it takes God
20 years to make a man, it took
him 20 years to make John Baptist, and
then he preached for six months.
You boys went to Bible school for six
months and been preaching 20 years, no wonder
you're dry.
You better go back, go back to the
wilderness, go back to the desert, get into
the loneliness.
There's nothing on God's earth like silence.
Just take your Bible, forget everything and everybody,
and shut yourself away, till that you have
a new revelation from God himself.
And John came.
Oh, I'd like to have seen him.
He was a strange man, he didn't wear
any clerical attire like in our country, all
the preachers, Pentecostals or Presbyterians all wear their
collars backwards way.
Because most of them are going backwards way.
But anyhow, they, they, they, they wear clerical
attire.
But he had no distinct garments.
The priest would go down the street and
they would say, there's the priest, and there's
the high priest.
They wear the distinctive marks of God.
But John wore no strange garments.
He was strange by the fact he wore
only eleven girdles around his loins.
That was his strange dress.
He was no gourmet.
He didn't go through the, you know, the
long, long menu and say, menu and say,
well, I, I don't know, my jaded appetite,
there's nothing, you sure you don't have shrimp
with a special dressing or something?
He just caught the flies as they were
going past.
The locusts.
Pull the wings off and put them on
a hot rock.
He had locust burgers every day.
Breakfast, dinner and supper.
And all the prophets had honey, you know,
and Jesus ate honey too, and, and John
Baptist had honey, and, and, and the prophets
in the Old Testament had honey.
Samson ate it.
You know, it's true that wherever honey goes,
no, no, no germs ever follow.
It's one of the greatest foods you can
get.
And John Baptist had it.
Strange in his dress, strange in his diet,
strange in his doctrine.
But I don't care how you measure this
man.
Sometimes we think he's kind of an errand
boy just opening the door to let Jesus
in.
Look, you do a bit of research and
you'll discover that John Baptist was a preacher
and a prophet in his own right, and
he preached no less than 29 different points
of doctrine in, in, in the, in the
slight evidence that we have in the New
Testament.
29 different points of doctrine that he preached.
I say there had been a period of
400 years, that's an awful, do you think
that God Almighty might favor America by giving
us 400 years of total darkness, and do
you think we could survive it?
A lot of people want Jesus to come
today because they're scared stiff of suffering, that's
right.
After all, the church has been getting washed
and tormented and stripped and prostituted.
There's a little man, some of you read
his book God's Smuggler.
How many read his, the book God's Smuggler?
Wonderful, exciting book.
I know that, knew that little man and
said, I gave him that title before ever
he put the book together.
I said, well, you're God's smuggler.
And he had been over in China, and
he said when he was in Shanghai he
noticed men sitting on the side of the
road.
They'd been for a haircut, and when their
hair was cut they left a cross in
the middle of their heads.
Cut it, the patches out, left the hair
standing up in a cross there.
And then they had to sit on the
sidewalk, and the young communists came past and
hoisted all the flesh they could have spat
on their heads.
The church tonight is suffering untold agony.
You listen to the sweet little boys over
the radio, they'll tell you that that the
Russians are going to come and burn the
country up and they're going to put us
into hell itself.
But you know you little darlings, you being
so faithful, you're so thin with your fasting,
and your homes are so poor and poverty
stricken, and you haven't two dimes to your
name, and you're so stricken and helpless, that
just out of his great mercy the Lord's
going to rapt you out of it so
you won't have to suffer one little stroke.
All the suffering is for the Christians in
Russia and the Christians in China.
But no body in America is going to
suffer because we're the most faithful people on
God's earth.
Isn't that lovely?
Well the man who tells you that is
a liar.
I know a preacher who was in Shanghai
and when he was there because he had
preached pardon me, he was in Formosa and
because he had preached in Shanghai twenty years
before and found the Chinese people were in
Shanghai were in Formosa where they are now
he went in to see them and he
greeted them in his eloquent Chinese and they
ignored him and he said but I'm the
pastor I used to teach you in Shanghai
and they ignored him and he said now
look, this isn't Oriental Courtesy what in the
world are you doing?
I'm your pastor.
One man looked up from his busy work
and just frowned and said you're a false
prophet.
A what?
You're a false a false prophet?
Why I gave you lectures on Mormonism and
the other reasons?
I am not a false we remember when
you were our pastor in Shanghai and you
had some maps of the world and some
wonderful pictures of the Roman Empire and you
had a marvelous church this chart on the
Antichrist and you had some more on the
dispensations and you told us that for long
we were going to be washed in blood
here in China that people were going to
cut us down as though we were grass
they were going to rape our women in
front of us they were going to burn
our churches and tear our Bibles up and
subject us to the most gross humiliation and
suffering it was possible to have but you
said don't you worry about that because just
before that happens the Lord is going to
take all his dear little children out from
this you are not going to suffer the
man said with tears streaming down his face
my wife was dragged out of my arms
and the last time I heard she had
had three children to the Russian guards my
daughter was taken away and my sons and
my children were taken away you told us
everything that was true except one thing we
weren't snatched out of this misery the Lord
didn't spare us we are living in anguish
and suffering oh we are living here now
in a little bit of ease and comfort
but there is nothing that can bind up
our broken hearts no money no creature comforts
our wives are gone our children are gone
our churches are gone our homes are gone
everything is gone you are a false prophet
we can't listen to you you better watch
it preacher because one day you might go
into concentration camp and some of your church
members spit on you for saying the same
thing it's easier to stand up and say
excitedly we glory in tribulation in infirmity in
necessities and you go home and have a
steak dinner this size and put your feet
up and watch the rams play Sunday afternoon
and feel that you've really got another star
in your crown because while very reluctantly you
did go to church Sunday night not many
people do that you know and that really
proves I'm a saint sure does oh brother
we're heading for trouble I'll tell you God
let these dear people the darlings of his
heart he let them go into captivity for
400 years under Pharaoh and then they went
in and out of captivity you'd think they'd
learn the lesson and then they have 400
years and God never speaks 400 years and
God never moves 400 years of ritual and
formality of sacrifice and all the ritualism that
they went through that somehow it was a
form of godliness and God decided to upset
the apple cart if you like what did
he do send a legion of angels no
no no no he took a little man
out a baby out of the womb of
its mother he separated this man and he
educated him in the spirit and sent him
into the wilderness and he came out and
he had no forward man and he asked
for no program and he wasn't seeking prestige
and he didn't beg for anybody's power and
he didn't find some secret way of promotion
if you'd walk down the desert there you
could hardly tell a man the colour of
his skin was sunburned on the inside and
fire baptized on the inside and fire baptized
with the sun on the outside and you
could almost see the way he'd go because
his tears were rising like steam off the
ground they have broken my laws you see
we think if we're really blessed and successful
evangelists you get a bigger home a bigger
car more prestige and brother you think you're
good because now you can buy $150 suits
whereas you wore $30 suits not too long
ago but brother if you've walked up with
God I'll tell you what you do your
heart's more broken now than it was when
you started 10 years ago you see the
nation going downhill more rapidly than she's ever
gone before prostitution is increasing crime is increasing
immorality is increasing lawlessness is increasing and in
the richest most comfortable country in the whole
world we stink in the nostrils of almighty
God tonight and England is equally true it's
equally true of England as well ah but
provincial men who walked with God they felt
like God they saw like God they wept
like God they yearned like God they had
no satisfaction in seeing the beauty of the
temple the ritual the formality all the things
that they went through no no no no
God has gone from them and our brother
emphasized that this morning the spirit of the
Lord departed from him and he was not
and one good Baptist preacher said to Dr.
Tozer he told me this himself he said
Len a Baptist preacher said something the other
day that shook me but I think he's
right he said if God withdrew the Holy
Spirit tomorrow my church would function just the
same he wouldn't even know that he'd gone
we keep up the formality the money is
coming in people are nice one or two
come to the altar but oh what a
difference when a man gets a heart that
craves for revival that longs that God will
make bear his heart that all nations will
have to acknowledge when John Baptist came he
came with no lip that was buttoned he
had nobody to please he had no program
he had no priorities that he was trying
to push ahead I remember preaching on one
occasion a brother came up very graciously afterwards
and he said you know brother I believe
God's given you a ministry well I didn't
need anybody to tell me that because if
he hadn't I wouldn't preach but he said
if you'd only get along on a mountain
somewhere and just persuade God to give you
the gift of healing I think you could
have the well you could be one of
the top ten preachers in America well the
Holy Ghost never told me I had to
be one of the top or one of
the ten bottom ones I wouldn't care where
I was but he said you know this
is a great drawing card oh brother miracle
is the answer well I want to tell
you tonight miracle is not the answer because
you've got men that have been taking tents
over this country now and they have the
same ministry and they can't draw the cards
anymore because they got fed up merely of
miracle and you know what it says in
John Baptist it is true that Jesus produced
miracles and I've heard men say about four
-fifths of his ministry sure it was because
he had no gospel to preach yet only
the gospel of the kingdom and he was
trying to persuade them by the very things
that he did that he was a fulfillment
of the prophecy of Isaiah that when he
has come the eyes of the blind shall
be opened the ears of the deaf and
stop the lame will leap as a harp
of music and he did it all he
fulfilled every command every command and every miracle
was done through him Jesus did them all
sure he did because when he went into
the temple in the seventh of John a
woman said to the big shots there well
why don't you arrest him will the Messiah
do more miracles when he comes on this
land she was persuaded by his miracle ministry
he was the Messiah but I want to
tell you something from Arthur he was 400
years of stillness people were not running out
to the desert saying have mercy on my
son he's a lunatic people were not saying
hey do you see who I am I
used to be blind at the street corner
but now my eyes I can see I
used to be deaf I used to have
a crippled arm there was no river of
derelict humanity following John Baptist indeed it says
very plain in the word of God John
did no miracle he did no miracle no
sir never open blind eyes no sir never
unclogged deaf ears no sir he never raised
a dead man no he didn't raise a
dead man he raised a dead nation and
he did it without the miraculous in the
realm of the flesh he did it in
the power of the Holy Ghost oh when
John came I say he was a success
on any level he did it in the
power of on any level he did the
Holy Ghost I think John had already had
his program from God and the Lord said
you better get busy boy because you're not
going to be around here very long no
sir they'll chop your head off if you
start preaching this boy we'll do with a
few men that are prepared to lose their
heads for Jesus right now I say again
most of you men know to preach better
than you do know than you do preach
but you won't do it because you'll get
kicked out of the synagogue that's why you
really have to trust God and that will
be a test for and you've been paying
in the minister's pension fund oh brother wouldn't
that be awful to have to sacrifice that
for Jesus you say I'll lay everything on
the altar I'll set my golf clubs and
my minister's pension fund and my big TV
and if anything else you can have Lord
but don't don't intrude just too much on
me kind of thing oh I like to
think of John Baptist standing there no sponsors
nobody to agree or disagree with him he
stood there and they came to see this
strange man and by the Holy Ghost and
I tell you this if a man is
anointed by the Holy Ghost you see when
you're a young guy you want people to
recognize your ministry and you have to go
around begging you know I've said I've been
around your way for a while now let
me see yes I'm free I've got three
spare weeks in June let me just fill
it up for you you know nice to
be a beggar for Jesus isn't it I've
got three brother if you have no ministry
you'll have to find a place for yourself
you know what the good book says the
Bible says that a man's gift will make
room for him and I've never asked for
an opening and I never will and if
God shuts me off that's fine I'll go
on the back side of the desert and
pray and weep and seek God but I'll
never ask anybody to open the doors to
me John did no miracle but oh brother
when John preached why man alive he had
no appetite for advertising no no those stickers
you know you put on the backs of
well you say they had an automatic well
he could have had a little card couldn't
he and stuck it on the back camel's
tail or something and had the camels going
waving a little card here John Baptist up
in Enum near Salem after all he was
a Baptist and you know what they are
for advertising but anyhow he didn't advertise about
his meetings I say again you don't have
to advertise a phrase but you have the
synagogue was empty the temple was empty the
crowds were up there heard the news what
news oh there's a strange man do you
know what they say some people say you
know it almost scares you to say it
but do you know what some people say
Elijah has risen from the dead you see
there's only one spirit of the prophet as
you can identify the prophet right away when
God anoints a man like that they're all
in the same spirit whether he be Isaiah
or Jeremiah or Elijah or John Baptist there's
just one mark of identification there's some supernatural
authority they have in the word of God
and John was doing no miracle and he
wasn't offering a donkey or a camel for
the one who brought most visitors next Sunday
brother they were hanging on every tree they
were climbing the banks they were listening to
Republicans and sinners and harlots and thieves and
the big shots had a committee meeting up
in Jerusalem that they said we've got to
go down and feed this fellow the big
fat belly priest came and one said we've
come with authority to well first of all
what Bible school did you go to and
I don't see your diploma nailed up on
the tree there do you have a PhD
or anything like that what's the distinctive feature
of your ministry where did you get your
authority who are you who are you I
like his answer he said I'm a voice
most preachers are on echoes he said I'm
a voice I heard a fellow preach a
brilliant sermon in New York a while ago
and I could tell when he left Campbell
Morgan and he took up DeWitt Talmadge and
when he left DeWitt Talmadge and got on
to Arthur Pink and when he left Arthur
Pink and got on to I could tell
he he put all the bids together you
know but oh brother that wasn't true when
you heard John Baptist here is a man
with a divine revelation he preached like nobody
on earth because he'd been living so long
in heavenly places and he knew the judgment
of God was going to come very soon
and remember this one knew that after Pentecost
they shook the city and shook the environment
not many years after the whole city was
raped and wallowed in blood under the invasion
of Titus and we were going to get
revival in America before we were wallowing in
blood and bypassed the revival and still wallowing
in blood anyhow John preached in the anointing
and it says they came from anywhere you
measure him this fellow is a success socially
why because it says that the soldiers came
to hear him and it says the publicans
came to hear him and it said the
people came to hear him but oh they
must have felt awfully indignant when he looked
up and he didn't tremble and he wasn't
worried and he didn't say well I have
to slip home and bring you my preaching
papers he just stood there and said I'm
a voice and a voice crying in the
wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord
do you know this man did what no
other man in history was ever privileged to
do more than Isaiah though he saw it
afar off more than anybody else he was
to introduce Jesus and one day Jesus stood
in the water and not only was he
crucified between two seas he was baptized between
two seas because there were only harlots and
murderers and drunks that were getting baptized anyhow
and Jesus stood there and the soldiers came
to him and he said
I'm a voice and a voice crying ye
the way of the Lord do you know
this man did what no other man in
history was ever didn't say well I have
to slip home and bring you my preaching
papers he said I'm a voice and a
voice crying in the wilderness prepare ye the
way of the Lord do you know this
man privileged to do more than Isaiah though
he was baptized between two seas because there
were
only
harlots and drunks
that were getting only harlots and drunks that
were getting seas because there were only harlots
and drunks that were getting baptized between two
only harlots and drunks seas because there were
only harlots and drunks that were getting baptized
between two only harlots and drunks that were
getting baptized between two seas because there were
only harlots and drunks seas because there were
only harlots and drunks that were getting in
about sin in about redemption in about the
holy ghost in about his coming in about
all tribulation why this is the most exciting
book in the whole world and John Peacht
and all he was preaching shooting the arrows
of God into the hearts of men and
women did J.
W.
did that one night he said I brought
my quiver full of arrows on their tip
with the fire of God and I'm going
to shoot them and he drew and he
said here is the first arrow and the
arrow is repentance here it comes, and the
whole audience stepped down.
Because, but he got them anyhow.
And John was preaching something we're bypassing these
days.
We offer people heaven these days without repentance.
We offer them a jewel crown without repentance.
We say if you just come here and
want to be baptized, and you'll be good
and pay your tithes, so the preacher won't
have to work, just let him get fat
and lazy, and help us along.
And you can be a real good member
in a Baptist church or some other church.
But brother, I tell you, John didn't preach
that.
Oh, we don't preach like these old fellows
used to preach.
Oh, Nicholson of Ireland, I heard that fellow
preach, and the audience would weep, and then
they'd laugh, and then they'd get mad, and
then they'd shake.
And you'd think, boy, if he drops, if
he drops the net now, he's going to
get hundreds of people.
And you know what he'd do?
He'd stand up and sing, stand up, now
sing, God save our gracious King.
You'd think, what in the world is the
man doing?
And then he'd say, well, good night, God
bless you, go home, keep your nose clean,
and eat fish on Fridays.
That was a benediction.
You say, that's ridiculous.
Why does he preach a thing like that?
I'll tell you why.
Because he knew when God had shot an
arrow in the heart of a man, he
didn't have to stop there and plead, and
say, let's sing this once again.
And you know you could be, you could
die in an automobile wreck before you go
home.
He said one night when he was preaching
on John 3, 16, and nobody honored the
word that had been preached, he preached on
hell the next night.
And he said, there are twelve hundred people
here.
Look, this is my farewell to you.
Get to hell, the whole twelve hundred of
you.
And he went home and prayed that they'd
have nightmares and they'd be in hell.
A friend of mine preaching with him said,
look, it's a good thing we've only got
one meeting on Sunday night, because you've ruined
the whole crusade.
Nicholson said, what did you think of my
sermon on hell?
He said, it's the most terrifying sermon.
Did you feel that it was real?
He said, I could almost smell the sulfur.
Did you feel that God has made a
hell for wicked men, as well as the
devil?
Did you feel that there are a million
roads in and no road out?
That while heaven is eternal life, hell is
eternal death?
That while heaven is eternal life, hell is
eternal darkness?
While in heaven there is no mourning or
sorrow, in hell it's everlasting mourning?
While in heaven they sing the song of
roses, in hell they groan and groan.
The harvest is past, the summer has ended,
and we're not saved.
Did I make hell as real as that?
My friend Peter Conley, some of you may
know he died just recently, dear old Peter
Conley, said, Brother Nicholson, you made hell more
real than any man I've ever...
He said, all right, son.
I didn't kill the meeting by getting them
to sing the national anthem and my little
bit of fun there, keep your nose clean
and eat fish on Friday.
He said, I'll tell you, if those 1
,200 people stay in hell till Sunday night,
they'll be glad to get out.
And I'll tell you something, Sonny, he said,
when I make the altar call on Sunday
night, there'll be more than 100 people converted.
Peter Conley told me himself, I preach with
him often, Peter says, well, I couldn't wait
till Sunday night.
And he said, Nicholson came.
Man alive, he said, he must have been
in eternity, he was saturated with the Holy
Ghost.
He said, he stood there and the people,
he hurled God's thunderbolts at them, and boy,
he got those people to, they were holding
on their seats, and then he said, now
come on tonight.
The Almighty God shot an arrow in your
heart the other night, you better obey God,
this may be your last chance.
And if you're coming, get up and come.
And they stampeded to the altar, they were
falling, they were cursing as they came to
the altar.
Here's another so-and-so, they didn't know
any better.
But brother, you go to Northern Ireland and
go to the government there at Stormont, and
ask them to open the book to the
year 1922, and there's a great big line
across the state book, the national book, and
it says, we anticipated revolution, God sent revolvers
through W.
P.
Nicholson.
That man knew God.
His main theme was repentance, repent, repent, repent.
And John said, repent.
And while he preached repentance, the soldiers, with
their bracelets on, these Roman heathen, were so
scared stiff, it says that even while he
preached, the soldiers began to cry out.
Because he was crying in the spirit, they
groaned in the spirit.
And the soldiers said, well what shall we
do?
And before they finished crying, the publicans over
there began to cry and say, what shall
we do?
And before they could finish crying, the people
over here said, what shall we do?
They were all crying, they were mourning, they
were sorrowing.
Oh, we don't see many heartbroken people come
to the altar.
And if they go, before they can get
broken, we say, now darling, wipe your eyes.
You know, the Lord loves you.
Just put your finger on this promise.
Rather they put their finger on that promise
a dozen times and got nowhere.
Let them wallow in their misery.
Let them get to the place where they
feel hell is opening.
Let them go away from the altar, not
out.
For God's sake, don't try and put a,
a, a, a, a bandaid on their cancer.
Open the cancer, pull them, send them home
terrified.
They'll get to God before the week's out
or before next year, sure, sure they will.
Because God, as we heard today, never begins
a work he doesn't finish.
And God, you can't build a skyscraper on
a desert, can you?
I remember in New York there, they'd pull
the building down and I watched those men
go down and down and down.
I thought, good night, they'll get to Australia
if they keep going.
And I said, well, where are they?
The man said, don't you know that Manhattan
is one solid rock?
And they're going to go down till they,
the only reason you can build a building
a hundred stories high is because you go
down dozens and scores and maybe hundreds of
feet to the bedrock.
But once you get to the bedrock, oh,
but we're afraid of going to the bedrock.
We're afraid to tell people they've got to
repent and turn their back on sin and
hate their sin and love their sin, but
John did it.
And man alive, he disturbed the whole non
-miracle, just the miracle of regeneration, which, listen,
I believe in miracle.
I've been in meetings that we have had
and afterwards said, if they're sick, we'd be
happy to pray.
And I've seen God open blind eyes.
I've seen people get up out of chairs
when they were crippled.
I've gone to hospital and prayed for people
who were dying of cancer.
And one woman I prayed for is healthier
than me now, and that was 30-odd
years ago, and I've seen God do that.
But I want to tell you the greatest
miracle that deity can do is to take
an unholy man out of an unholy world
and make that unholy man holy and put
him back in an unholy world and keep
him holy.
Amen.
That's the redemptive work of God in Christ.
We had a woman in town when I
was a pastor, I went as pastor, and
she was distorted and crippled, and brother, you
couldn't tell that woman.
And in a healing meeting one night, the
preacher touched her and her body just went
astray to six o'clock, and she's a
beauty queen in the town now, and she
smokes and she drinks and she lives in
lust and she spends her night gambling and
she's still healed.
Oh, I thank God for miracles, God does
them, but again the greatest miracle is that
God can take a putrid heart.
God can take a heart of stone and
make a heart of flesh, and in my
judgment he doesn't put a heart of flesh
at the side of the dirty old stone
either, I don't go along with carnal Christianity,
that's nonsense.
You ain't got a record, I've got the
list there, I gave it our brother with
62 tapes.
And one of them is a fantastic record
that every preacher ought to get on carnal
Christians, and I tell you it's something.
He may blow Campus Crusades sky high, but
brother, he stands on the word of God,
I'll tell you that.
But you can't have the cross of Jesus
in your heart and be as carnal as
you were before he came in, because that's
nonsense.
You can't be carnal as spiritual, because to
be carnal in mind it is death, how
can you be dead and be alive?
You don't have to have a second blessing
to put off the old man, you put
off the old man when you're born again,
if you're done you're not born again, you
put off the old man and put on
the new man, and become a new creature
in Christ with devalued regeneration, to try and
make room for a sanctification or a baptism
with the, I want to tell you the
greatest miracle this side of heaven, because it's
the basis of everything else anyhow, is an
operation of God by the Holy Ghost, where
a man gets convicted of his sin, and
he gets born of the Spirit of God,
and he lives in the Spirit, and he
walks in the Spirit, and he loves the
Word of God, which is the Word of
the Spirit, and then he goes on and
he has repeated in, repeated anointings of the
Holy Ghost.
But the agony of Calvary and the hell
of Gethsemane was there only for one purpose,
that he might redeem us from all the
power of sin, and I say again, make
an unholy man holy, and put him back
in a unholy world, and keep him holy.
And I remind you again friends that Christianity
is not a comparative religion, it's a superlative
religion.
It doesn't compare with any religion in the
world, it contrasts with every other religion in
the world.
Now can you imagine how the people are
going, hey, did you hear, did you hear
the other day, the brother of Barabbas, you
know Barabbas and his brother were the Jesse
Jameses of the day, and they said, did
you hear the news, Barabbas and his brother
got converted the other day, did you hear
about that old harlot, who's always spending all
her bad times in most cases.
The first thing God requires is purity, you
can have all the gifts after that, thank
God for them.
But remember what God is against, is that
thing inside that's against him, and that's enmity
against God.
You don't do much for a man when
you get him saved, you've got to deal
with selfishness in him, and that's the thing
that we want to yield on.
Your rights to yourself, you say I don't
understand why I'm not successful spiritually, because you
haven't surrendered your rights, that's right, surrendered your
rights.
You get up when you want to, you
buy what you want to, you don't pray
and say, should I buy this automobile, should
I do that, should I, I know a
young fellow some months ago that bought a
marvellous automobile, it was only a few months
old, and as he went past he said
to his buddy, hey we've got to go
back and buy that car, that's a beauty.
And the same fellow says, yeah the young
fellow gave it up, he had to go
to war, it's a marvellous car.
You know there's about $1500 on it, you
can't afford to miss it, and he said,
I can't, here let's exchange it.
And he took it and he signed up
for it, he drove down the road back,
it went wrong.
And it's been going wrong ever since, do
you know why?
He bought it because he wanted a little
prestige that would be the best outside the
church, and a few other things, and he
admitted that later.
But he won't go back and humble himself
about it.
All this selfishness, this carnality, there's something that's
there that should not be there.
Somebody said to a friend of mine, well
who's wrong and certain about it, an unsaved
man or a saved man?
He said it's for the man that's living
there.
What's the best answer I know?
You shouldn't be living there anyhow, you should
get out of it.
Fire is energy, fire is power, fire for
purity.
Let me say one thing, I quoted this
before but it always thrills me, I thought
about it as I meditated this morning.
I went to preach in a little town,
a lovely town, actually called Dundee in Scotland,
excuse me, famous for its marmalade and famous
for its Dundee cakes, famous because Mary Slessor
was born there.
I went along to preach with a Nazarene
preacher.
As we went in the Cherryfield Mission, this
sign was up, it said James Baxter McLagan,
he was the president of the southern section
of the Nazarene church in Britain, just before
he died recently.
But he was in Scotland, and I had
the privilege of doing a crusade for him
in every church he was in.
And he said Len, I've got to go
up in the train this afternoon, I've got
to leave Perth and go up to Dundee,
would you come?
And we went.
And I saw his name outside and I
said well Jimmy, I said you're only a
little fellow, the sign is bigger than you
are.
And he said you know Len, that sign
says James Baxter McLagan, he's going to preach
this afternoon.
He said you know it's real funny because
he isn't.
I said well who is?
He said you are.
Well I said that's a dirty trick.
We were shivering in the cold, the river
was blocked with ice, the roads were impassable
nearly, and I said you bring me all
this way, I've come up from England, come
to Perth, and now you've got this in
my lap.
I said well I'm not going to preach.
But he got up and he played his
concertina and he sang with his lovely voice
and then he said you're going to stand
up and sing, and then I have an
Englishman here, he's never preached in this town
before, and he likes this city, Dundee, famous
of course for Mary Slessor, famous for this,
and most famous of all for a man
that had revival by the name of Robert
Mary McShane, who died at the ripe old
age of 29.
But he shook the city for God, with
all his tuberculosis.
Well I didn't know what to do but
I stood up and gave what God had
given me, and I said some of you
are strangled in your spiritual experience, you're still
fettered, you've still got bondage, fear, doubt, weakness,
nervousness, powerlessness.
You've never made a total commitment, you've never
said look, look I said do it this
way, you see here is an altar, and
the altar is only there for one reason,
and the altar, what are you an altar
for?
The altar is there for one thing and
only one thing, and that is sacrifice.
The altar is there for death, and if
you don't want to die, well don't be
sick of it, the altar.
But I said if you come and put
your whole personality on the altar and let
God burn up all that's there that isn't
any good to him, and then let him
have the ashes, he'll do all of the
ashes, and you could do with a whole
personality.
Now I said I've got five minutes to
get away and catch the train, but I
want to pray for you as I leave,
and if you, if you're going to trust
God this afternoon, whatever your experience has been
before that, I'm not telling you just how
to get in and laying one, two, three
down, and what you think, I'm telling you
to come in your bankruptcy and your helplessness
and say I'm powerless, I'm loveless, I'm fearless
to the last, I have no passion, I
have no power, put everything on the altar
and say Lord let the fire fall on
me.
And I said how many of you will
do it?
Raise your hand if you're going to put
your hands up all over my counter, I
said there's ten, eleven, twelve.
Will you bow your heads now as you
sing Spirit of the Living God as I
go after the door, will you run down
the altar and go in that back room
and pray?
And they began to get up.
A little woman at the back with red
hair, she put her head round like that,
put her hand up as quick as that,
and I said there's number thirteen and it's
not unlucky, there are unlucky numbers with the
Lord.
Now come on lady, you get up too,
and she went like that and I went,
and that little woman got up and she
ran, I'm sure she did a hundred yards
in less than ten seconds, she nearly flew
down that, that track.
And I went home and shivered on the
train.
Fifteen years after my dear wife and I
went to a big missionary rally, a worldwide
missionary rally in Manchester, England.
We got in late, I had to sit
at the back.
The speaker had a bad time that afternoon.
Speakers can have them, I had them and
you had them.
Nothing seemed to go right.
And finally he sat down.
He even said, my, that was a terrible
atmosphere wasn't it?
The devil was there.
It wasn't the devil, it was the janitor
that was at fault.
The place was overheated, there was no ventilation,
it was hard to keep your eyes open.
What's the good of blaming the devil?
He gets blamed for enough anyhow.
The janitor came up and said, we've got
ten minutes before tea is ready.
I, I, I wonder, would you like to
have a testimony?
And they said, yes, yes, devil.
And he said to a little lady sitting
here whose legs didn't touch the ground, she
was kicking like this all the time, I
suppose she was wanting to get to the
preacher and kick him, I think she'd like
to have done it.
And she was kicking away and then he
said, come on now Miss So-and-so,
testify.
She jumped off the chair, hit the deck,
came here and she said, I'm going to
tell you what the Lord has done to
me.
God fill me with the Holy Spirit.
And she went, and you know in five
minutes, we were all sitting on the edge
of our seats like this and she was
telling us what God did.
She'd just come back from Africa, away in
the woods, they had a Holy Ghost for
his idol.
I used to live by myself up in
a city called Dundee and I thought, oh
Dundee, famous for marmalade.
I once preached there and I said, yeah,
that's right.
And she said, you know when I lived
in Dundee, all I did was sweep the
floor in a factory.
I never finished my schooling.
My handwriting was very bad.
I, I couldn't spell.
My English was hopeless.
I just pushed a broom around the factory
floor and swept up the dirt and thought
you to say, hi Mary.
She's such a nice woman, isn't she?
It's a pity she couldn't do something more,
be a typist or something, but she just
doesn't have it.
And then she said, I shoved this broom
year after year around the floor.
And she said, you know I couldn't ever
speak to a man.
If a man came, I blushed and I
got sensitive.
And you know at night I lived with
myself.
I used to go and shake the door
and make sure it was locked.
And I used to check the windows and
see they were all fast.
And I always looked under the bed to,
you know, these ladies think we're so precious,
somebody's going to steal them.
And so she'd lock the door and seal
the windows and she looked under the bed
and then she said, I get in bed
and if there was a noise, I'd sit
on the...
And one day she said, I was sweeping
in the factory and a mouse ran over
the floor.
And as soon as the mouse ran over
the floor, I jumped on the chair and
I screamed, a mouse!
And she laughed and she said, you know
now, I've got a little frail house, way,
way, way in the bush, all by myself.
I have a medical chest there and my
other things.
And some nights when I'm in bed, I
turn over and I hear...
And she said, I just turn over and
say, you better go on, I'm not on
the menu tonight.
And the lion goes away.
And two o'clock in the morning there's
a knock at the door and I see
a big man there with a lamp and
he says, oh missy, please come wife, they're
here, she had baby, she seemed to die,
please come.
Wait a minute till I lock my lamp
and she said, I throw something over me
and put a belt round me.
And then she said, we come to a
river and there's a slimy log and the
big man takes a lamp in each hand
and I follow him over very carefully and
there's a big thing there and it only
has one cavity.
But oh, it's such a big one and
it's wide open like that and I get
halfway over and when there isn't a crocodile,
there's a hippopotamus and his big eyes are
rolling and she says, I go on and
say, it's all right, it's all right, I'm
not on the menu.
And she said, I go and deliver a
baby or I stay and give a woman
a bath or do some other things and
he says, no, I'll come back.
There are two very ferocious lions here that
have eaten, it doesn't make any difference.
He'll give his angels charge concerning me.
Well, you know, there are some big pythons
and snakes and they could get over a
little lady like a little rocket.
No, no, no, my feet won't stumble.
I'll get home all right.
I used to run away from mice, I
don't run away from lions.
I used to run away from white men,
I don't run away from black men.
And she said, you know, not only that,
but she said, I'll tell you how it
all began.
My wife and I were at the back
and I was behind a lady with one
of those enormous hats that I think are
horrid, except on occasions like this, because she
said, I was in a meeting and Mr.
Ravenhill preached.
Well, I got behind the hat and she
said, I went to hear another man preach
and I'm glad he didn't and I don't
remember much that Mr. Ravenhill said, except he
said, if you put everything on the altar
and let God burn it up and let
him have the ashes, he'll do more with
you than you could ever do with any
education or anything else in the whole wide
world.
And she said, until that day, he said,
you know, Jesus took workmen, Peter, a fisherman,
and he took a man that was a
tax gatherer.
He isn't looking for PhDs and he's looking
for ordinary people who bring all they have
and say, yes to God, do what you
want with me.
And she said, Lord, that's the only chance
I've ever had in my life, I'm going.
And she said, I was the one that
ran down the aisle.
I just flew down that aisle and I
said, Lord, I don't know what it's all
about, but here I am, body, soul, spirit,
my mind, my faculty, my will, my past,
my present, my future, help yourself, but give
me the Holy Ghost.
And she said, he fell in fire and
he burned up my fear and he burned
up my nervousness and he burned up all
my ideas.
And she said, I went home and I
got a form and I wrote to a
Bible school and said, I'm very dumb, I'll
be the worst student you ever had, but
will you take me in?
And she said, they took me in.
And she said, you know what I did?
I couldn't spell when I got there, I
couldn't write.
By the time I finished, I was the
best student in English.
And then she said, I went to France
to study French because of the place I
was going to.
And she said, I came out at the
top of the list studying French.
And then I got to the mission field
with a bunch of new recruits and I
came out top in languages.
That's not bad for a girl that swept
the floor that couldn't write her own name
hardly.
I came out top in English, top in
French, top in the new language.
And she said, I'm learning a new one
right now.
And she said, it all happened because one
day I said, Lord, here's the whole lot,
do as you like with it.
You just translate, you just study, you just
then do me and do as you like.
And she said, if you'd told me that
day that I'd become a missionary, that I
would see revival, that we would see God
do miracles, I couldn't have believed it.
But she said, once I let go, I
let God.
And she said, I'll tell you something, I'm
not very sure about the day I was
saved.