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  (AUDIO) VISION
  by Leonard Ravenhill
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the need for a deep spiritual awakening
and urgency for prayer and repentance. It highlights the importance of
surrendering to God, recognizing the impending judgment on nations and
individuals, and the critical role of vision in disturbing complacency
and inspiring action towards holiness and mission. The speaker
challenges listeners to confront their own sinfulness, seek
purification, and be willing to be sent by God for His purposes,
emphasizing the significance of personal holiness and a genuine
relationship with God.

Duration: 58:41 Topics: "Spiritual Awakening", "Urgency of Prayer and Repentance"
Scripture References: Isaiah 6:1, Psalm 139:23, Romans 12:1, James 4:8, Matthew 28:19

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the need for a deep spiritual awakening and
urgency for prayer and repentance. It highlights the importance of
surrendering to God, recognizing the impending judgment on nations and
individuals, and the critical role of vision in disturbing complacency
and inspiring action towards holiness and mission. The speaker
challenges listeners to confront their own sinfulness, seek
purification, and be willing to be sent by God for His purposes,
emphasizing the significance of personal holiness and a genuine
relationship with God.

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CONTENT
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Do you think the lights can't go out in America? God was married to
Israel, he divorced Israel. She's being kicked around like a football
and God in heaven hasn't bothered about it too much. Do you think he
didn't walk out from America? Do you think a few of our dollars are
holding the kingdom of God together? Our feeble prayer meeting is oiling
the machinery of the church of God? Brother, sister, let me tell you
tonight, if you and I knew what time it was on God's clock, maybe we
wouldn't sleep at all this week.

Because God only puts up with nations as with individuals so long and
then judgment comes. I'm saying that not just to you older folk, but
particularly to the younger folk here. Vision is a disturbing thing.

I think most of us need a bed of thorns, a broken glass. You say this is
severe, sure it is. What do you think, I'm asking you to become a Boy
Scout? I'm asking you to wake up, I'm asking you to put on the whole
armor of God.

I'm telling you that if we don't soon concentrate in prayer, we'll soon
pray in concentration camps. Have your choice. Millions of lost men and
women.

And you don't legalize homosexuality and you don't have women's lib and
all the rotten things going on now before God before very long will pour
out judgment upon us. And I'm quite convinced of this, the answer to
America's problem is not, N.O.T. is not in the White House. The answer
is in God's house.

Nineteen times in the history of the world man has built what he called
a permanent civilization and nineteen times that civilization has fallen
down and ours is going to collapse before very long because we've
rebuilt it with the debris we got from another generation. We've rebuilt
it because there's still corruption in the human heart and there is no
cure for selfishness and arrogance and pride. And if God in mercy
doesn't rent the heavens and send us revival, soon we'll have the
bloodiest third world war that will make the second world war look like
a garden party.

Men used to laugh at the bible when it talked about destroying a quarter
of the earth. We can do that, never mind God. We've got enough atom
bombs and hydrogen bombs to blow a quarter of the earth away into
powder.

We don't need the arm of omnipotence, we need our perverted brains to do
it. Time is desperately short for those millions who still sit in
heathen darkness. I keep saying this, I don't care what denomination you
belong to, what your church does has done in the last hundred years
doesn't interest me that much.

It's what your church does in the next five that's going to count. Does
God have any answer? Well I'll tell you what, if Christianity hasn't a
message that can purify your heart and indwell you by the holy ghost and
keep you pure, you'd better pack up and go somewhere I don't know where
because no other religion in the world has it. Do you know that
Christianity is the only religion in the world where a man's God comes
and lives inside of him? Do you know that Jesus did not die to make bad
men good, he died to make dead men live.

I have to see some old friends here tonight, some old faces too. The
prophecy of Isaiah chapter 6 and reading from verse 1 into verse 9.
Isaiah 6 verse 1 into verse 9. In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah
saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train
filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims, each one had six wings,
and with train he covered his face, and with train did he cover his
feet, and with train did he fly.

And one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of
hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. And the pulse of the door
moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with
smoke. Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of
unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

For mine eyes I have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of
the seraphims unto me, having a life call in his hand, which he had
taken with the tongues from off the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth
and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, thine iniquity is taken away,
and thy sin purged.

Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who
will go for us? Then said I, Here am I, send me. And he said, Go. There
are three simple words in verses 5 and 7 and 9 of this reading.

In verse 5 the word Woe, in verse 7 the word Lo, and in verse 9 the word
Go. The first is the word of a man, the second is the word of a
seraphim, and the third is the word of God. The first word is a word of
confession, Woe is me.

The second is a word of cleansing, Lo, this hath touched thy lips. And
the third is a word of commission, Go. This scripture is very clearly
dated for us because in the first verse here it says in the year that
King Uzziah died.

Bible scholars seem to be generally agreed that Uzziah and Isaiah were,
as we would say in the colloquialism, they were buddies. If you read the
first chapter you'll discover there that Isaiah reigned in the son of
Amos, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah,
Jotham, Hezekiah, and kings of Judah. Uzziah reigned for a span of more
than 50 years.

He was a reformer, he was a kind of political wizard, he did very much
to, if you like, build the status of the nation. He was Lord Acton I
think who said that power corrupts but total power corrupts totally. And
this man got to the place where he arrogated to himself an office that
God said that even a king could not touch.

He went into the sanctuary to minister holy things and when he did that
the curse of God fell on him and he was smitten with leprosy. I think
that as I said this morning we've lost a sense of awe and majesty about
the things of God. In the days of David the king or Uzziah the anointing
of a king was the greatest thing that happened to a nation.

Millions of people gathered and a horn of oil was placed on the head of
the king and everybody had a period of jubilation and feasting and
rejoicing. And so perhaps you can think of some of the awesomeness when
a king became depraved or disobedient. You know you may read the
scriptures and understand them much more quickly than I have done.

But I wondered for years why in that 51st David says take not thy holy
spirit from me. What was in the back of his mind? Why did he say that?
Because before him there had been the first king of Israel. The people
desired a king like other nations.

I don't think God intended it. They wanted it. They got it.

And God did with the nation what often he does with people. He granted
their request but he sent leanness into their souls. And you remember
how king David became a very wonderful king.

He became a great poet. He became a great songwriter. He wrote about 75
of 150 songs.

But now he isn't strumming his harp. He's cringing before God. Take not
thy holy spirit from me.

Because immediately before him there had been the greatest king that
they'd ever had. He was the first anyhow. But immediately he was
anointed.

The spirit of God came upon the king of Israel. And he not only was
anointed king he prophesied. He had gifts of the spirit but he died a
suicide.

You wonder the scripture says how the mighty fallen. David says take not
thy holy spirit from me. You see the man who once had the anointing of
God.

The man who once had prophecy. He goes cringing before a spiritist
medium and says bring up your God. Not my God.

Not our God. Bring up thy God. And I think the only time in history when
it was genuine the spirit came from the dead and spoke.

The spirit of Samuel. And the king thought that the prophet might be
easy on him and he said God has taken his spirit away from him. He said
he has taken his spirit away from you.

And again I remind you the man who had the anointing of God the Holy
Ghost and the man who prophesied died a suicide. He fell on his sword.
And here again the same tragedy happens.

The man who had been anointed the king over Israel and here he dies in a
colony with a leper's rag upon his lip. And Isaiah says in the year that
King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord. It's my opinion that if this man
or at least if this king had died before this that Isaiah would have
seen the Lord before this.

But you see there was an obstruction. Now if I would just give you a
title for this message tonight it would be this. It would be vision.

The church tonight has more vision than it's ever had. Unfortunately
television. But in the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord.

This is a threefold vision. In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the
Lord. In the year that King Uzziah died I saw lost world.

In the year that King Uzziah died I had a total revelation of myself. A
threefold vision. In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord high.

But he not only saw the heights of God's holiness he saw the depths of
his own depravity. He saw the breadth of lost world. It was a vision of
deity he saw the Lord.

It was a vision of depravity he saw himself. It was a vision of beauty
he saw lost world. It was a vision of holiness he saw the Lord high and
lifted up.

And the cherubim were not singing about the attributes of God. They were
not singing omnipotent omnipotent or omnipresent or omniscient is God.
Those are the characteristics of God.

They were singing about the very nature of God. They were saying holy
holy holy is the Lord. And in the book of the revelation it says that
they cease not to say by day or by night holy holy holy is the Lord.

And the supreme need of the church of Jesus Christ tonight is not
another manifestation of miracles it's another manifestation of God's
holiness. I hear a great deal as I travel about the gifts of the Spirit
and they're wonderful. I don't hear as much about the gifts about the
fruit of the Spirit.

I hear very much less about Roman six which talks about having your
fruit unto holiness and I hear less still about bringing forth fruit
meet for repentance. It was a vision of holiness he saw the Lord high
and lifted up. It was a vision of hopelessness he saw his own heart.

It was a vision of helplessness he saw lost world. You see there is a
sense in which the theme of this wonderful book is the theme of
holiness. A few years ago in the synagogue in Rome of all people there
was a very brilliant scholarly rabbi by the name of Lozatto and he said
concerning the prophecy of Isaiah it seems as though Isaiah had a pre-
sentiment that his book would be attacked.

There is no book in the Bible that has been attacked by the critics
except maybe Genesis more than this this wonderful book of Isaiah. And I
suppose even a first grade student Bethany knows where this book is
divided. The book is divided from chapters 1 to 39 and then from 40 to
66 and in the first part of the book he speaks about the holiness of God
12 times and then in the second half he speaks about the holiness of the
Lord 17 times and in the whole of the Bible there are only four more
five more references two in Jeremiah and there are three in the book of
Psalms.

Now this man has a qualification which is the loftiest qualification a
human being can carry. The greatest office in the world is not being the
president of the United States or the king of the British Empire. The
greatest honor in the world the most exclusive order that God ever had
in my judgment is the order of the prophet and the prophet by the very
nature of his calling is a dramatic and I think not only a dramatic
character but I think also he's a unique character because you see the
true prophet of God is is torn two ways.

He has a desperate love for his nation and he has a fierce loyalty to
God. He has no price tags. His thus saith the Lord falls on whoever it
might fall and he cares not about consequences.

And Isaiah says in the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord. You
see Uzziah is right in front of him. He's blocking all his vision and
God can't get to him until he removes the idol from his life.

I believe that we're living in the most critical year in history. It's
whether God can get us out of our theological play pens, get us out of
the nursery into the armory to put on the whole armor of God and fight
the good fight and resist principalities and powers which is the
rightful task of the church of Jesus Christ. Now of course immediately
you talk about vision somebody will give you a nudge and say now you've
got to watch these kind of people you know.

Visions are so dangerous. You ever hear Christians warning other
Christians not to get too rich? I don't. They'll even tell you how to
make it, play the stock market.

They won't warn you about getting too rich. They won't warn you about
getting too intellectual but brother they'll chase you and warn you lest
you get too spiritual because if you tell you get too tall spiritually
they look such dwarfs and that wouldn't be good would it? One man said
quite recently in assembly said it's a dangerous thing if a few people
in the pew get more spiritual than us preachers we'll chase you. Amen.

So vision is dangerous. Well it could be. If you have a vision without a
task you'll be a visionary.

If you have a task without a vision it's drudgery. But if you get a task
wedded to a vision you'll be a missionary. And in every front street is
a mission field right now.

You've got heathen driving Cadillacs. You've got perverts riding Lincoln
Continentals as well as Volkswagens. I'm assured of this in my being
tonight that there have never never never been more lost people in the
world than there are at this moment and let me tell you something for
nothing.

This generation of Christians is is is responsible for this generation
of lost men and women. The only hope is that again we get vision but be
very careful. Button your lip.

Don't shoot a prayer to heaven and say God give me a vision because it
may break your family up. You may have to say goodbye to your girlfriend
for five years. You may have to leave business and live on what you've
got and sweat and weep and pray and travel.

So don't get too heroic while you sit there in your pew tonight. You
know there are cliches in the church of Christ. I've heard people say
things in America and I've gone to another country and heard the same
thing and one of the cliches that goes around and has been going for
years goes something like this.

Well you know you can be so heavenly minded you're no earthly use. Isn't
that brilliant? You'd almost think Shakespeare said it. You can be so
heavenly minded you're no earthly use.

Oh come on grow up. The church of Jesus Christ tonight isn't so heavenly
minded it's no earthly use. It's so earthly minded it's no heavenly use.

A long while since I was in a Quaker meeting but I enjoy them. In the
year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord high and lifted up and his
train fill the temple. And I'm convinced that the next revival will have
to be and it will be a revival of holiness.

I noticed that Nikki Cruz recently said this that we need a revival in
America but supremely we need a revival of holiness. And there are some
people who almost swear by every word that Charles G Phinney said maybe
the greatest evangelist America ever had. But you know when he finished
his career and 72 percent of the converts of Mr. Phinney were abiding
fruit.

Only 64 percent of Mr. Moody's converts were abiding fruit. Because
Moody attacked the emotions and Phinney attacked the intellect. He said
you're not a sinner because you have to be.

You're a sinner because you want to be. He didn't say you're just a
prodigal wandering away from God. He said you're a rebel with your fist
up against God.

I see people with stickers on their automobiles. I saw one the other day
in big letters it said if you love Jesus don't honk. Well most people
have a sticker if you love Jesus honk.

But somebody got fed up of that so they had a new one on if you love
Jesus don't honk. Well I'll take it either way. But anyhow I see a lot
of stickers on automobiles and it says on one side you know a big
sticker there smile God loves you.

Well you better be honest you might smile them to hell. You better put a
sticker on the other bumper that says God is angry with the wicked every
day because that's the other side of the coin. You may have a
sentimental God but God is just.

God is holy. The greatest threat to America is not communism. You think
I'm nervous? I'm not nervous.

But I'll tell you this I'm also scared to death lest God walks out on
America. He won't put up with our sin much longer I'll tell you that for
nothing. We don't have 300 hours of gospel broadcasting every week.

Well the rest of the world doesn't have a fraction of that and get away
with it. We're not going to fill all the courts we're filling with crime
and everything else and get away with it. We're not going to spend all
afternoon watching the vikings and get blazing mad because the preacher
preaches 10 minutes too long Sunday morning.

I should have said the rams excuse me I'm sorry. But it's just as stupid
to watch the rams play the goats as it is for the vikings to play isn't
it? But you know a lot of our piety won't stand any investigation
really. It won't stand a close-up picture that God would give it.

In a year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord high and lifted up. I
wish we could see him like that tonight. And his train filled the temple
above it stood the seraphims each one had six wings and with two he
covered his face and with two he covered his feet and with two did he
fly.

But I think I'll go to the end of the chapter first and remind you that
this man saw a world that was lost. And you know who goes to the world
that's not the gold-plated intellectual theologian. He doesn't go he
sits in his swivel chair dividing theological tweedledees from
tweedledums usually.

Why did Gilmore go to Mongolia? Because he had a vision. Why did Judson
go to Burma? Because he had a vision. Why did a little Scotsman there go
from what Blantyre David Livingstone to divide Africa? Because he had a
vision.

It cost him his wife it cost him his children that he buried. It cost
him living in hell. But you see he sat down to count the cost he wasn't
going on a cruise he was launching a lifeboat he expected a storm he
expected adversaries.

And Hudson Taylor says if you want God to open the window of heaven well
as sure as he opens the windows of heaven the devil will open the door
of hell and you'll get caught between the two of them. And if you want
anything less than that well stay at home. I can say this with all my
powers if I were to die five minutes minutes from now that one of the
attractions in Bethany years ago and I guess today is my heart beats on
two levels with it.

One is because it declares the message of holiness and the other is to
get the message of Christ to a lost world. Did you sing that hymn
tonight as though you were singing three blind mice? Tozzi used to say
dear Tozzi used to say we Christians don't tell lies we just sing them
in church. And did you sing it tonight with any effect at all when it
said how many millions still are lying as the scripture says fast bound
in sin and nature's darks of night.

Why are they there? There are more lost people tonight than any period
in history and I don't believe the church is ever as sterile and blind
as it is right now and those millions are going to rise up at the
judgment and point the finger at us because we failed to get to them the
message of redeeming grace. You know we all are inclined to live in a
state of splendid isolation. You can hear the most dramatic presentation
you can see the pictures Mr. Hegri's gathered from around the world and
go out there and and suck a lollipop and just talk about nonsense.

But you don't do that if you get vision. The most disturbing the most
explosive the most shattering thing that can ever come to a man a woman
is vision. And when you get a vision of a lost world teeming millions
and millions of people without God or without hope.

I remember going into Papua New Guinea took a plane as far as I could go
and then went down the path uh Alan MacLeod was with me at the time. And
I remember after we'd spoken to different tribes there I got up one
morning and I slipped down a jungle path. It was very beautiful a lot of
gorgeous wild orchids wild bananas birds of paradise everything as the
hymn writer says where every prospect pleases and only man is wife.

And a woman came out of the bush and she looked at me and I looked at
her. A little later we went down into a village where the doorway was
about 27 by 27 you took a crawl to get in. It's a lovely house it had
wall to wall mud and the old guy there cooked something and he tore it
apart with his fingers they have no knives or forks.

And he hands you a piece of something you don't ask any questions what
it is could be a neighbor but you don't ask. And uh you sit there and
chew on it you've no salt no pepper no uh you know nothing nice like you
get at Becky's. You uh just have to sit there and eat.

But what do you do when you get in a situation like that? Laugh think
it's funny. I walked in the jungle I put my hands up I wept some hot
tears and I said my god why? With the greatest revelation God has ever
given to man why do you have to usually oppose to the pews and get wall
to wall carpet? And these people have never heard the name two thousand
years after Jesus died. If I were a gambling man I would gamble they'll
hear the name of Karl Marx up in those areas before they hear the name
of Jesus.

The zealous communists will be there before the Christian is there. My
boy David went on a boat one day in the in the south seas on an eight-
hour journey they hit a storm. It took them 30 hours no no drinking no
facilities on board no meals no toilet and they tossed on the ocean.

And when they got to this particular island he said to his friend well
you know maybe we're the first people here with the gospel. One of those
what 30,000 islands that string the south seas. They went up a rugged
path they came to a house that was made of bamboo and leaves and rattled
the doorway and a man came and they spoke and he spoke pidgin English.

Oh yeah yeah he said and he went back and he brought a bible with a
green cover immediately. David says I felt I could vomit. Well the bible
with the green cover was issued by the Jehovah's Witnesses.

They'd been there a couple of years before the missionaries got there
and Jesus says there are people who are so zealous that they'll come to
sea and land to make people seven times more the children of hell than
they are themselves. I remember preaching at the Karasawa convention up
in Japan to a bunch of missionaries and afterwards one of them said you
know Ravenille the tragedy is this the gospel of Jesus Christ has been
preached in Japan for 103 years. That was 12 years ago.

103 years the gospel has been preached and the total penetration to the
population of Japan is half of one percent and I said to the
missionaries the way you're going it'll take another 103 years to gain
the other half percent. Two years after I went to a mission I went to a
meeting the chairman of that meeting I'd spoken of was speaking up there
in Illinois and after the meeting I said well how are you? Fine. How
long have you been in the country? Oh boy he said these days of jets.

You know just yesterday I was in Japan. Yes yes I was I was in Tokyo. He
said as a matter of fact I got my hair cut there because everything in
Japan is cheaper anyhow and uh and he said I got my hair cut and he said
as I sat in the chair the little fellow was snipping away and he said
you a Yankee.

Well I'm an American. Businessman? No. Oh tourist? No.

What are you? Oh he said uh I'm a missionary. Oh good missionary. Ah
shake hands.

I am missionary too. Oh I thought you were a barber. Well yes barber
barber in the morning eight o'clock till five then I go home I bathe and
uh and then I go out with fill my pockets and I have a phonograph and I
go with this this new philosophy they have part religion part politics
what they call it is agagaki and and he said I go out at seven o'clock
at night or eight o'clock and uh I finish at two in the morning.

You don't get to bed till two o'clock. I didn't say that. You did.

I didn't. What did you say? I said I don't get home till two in the
morning. Don't you go to bed? Oh no no no no no I pull the curtain on
one side and I wait upon my God from two o'clock till four to renew my
strength.

Hey that sounds a bit like Isaiah 40. They that wait upon the Lord but
he's waiting upon a stone image. This brother said to me brother
Ravenhill I I felt so blazing mad and I was slipping down in the chair I
thought he's miss cutting my hair all together while he was talking and
then I said to him well listen I'm not asking you what you did last week
how long have you done this? Oh sir he said I have done this for seven
years.

You've not been to bed before four o'clock in the morning for the last
no sir we're gonna clean uh this business of false religion out of Japan
we we uh Christianity hasn't done much for us nobody we're gonna get rid
of this. I'm giving my life for it. The mystery said I almost wish I'd
never been in that chair.

I felt so embarrassed I felt so what I'd come all this way halfway
across the world it cost thousands of dollars to keep me here and I'm
sleeping all the time this fellow's peddling his damnable literature.
You know this book is never wrong it says that men with zeal unholy zeal
filled with the spirit evil spirit they out zeal us they out pray us to
their God they out fast us they do everything far better than we do it.
Think of one prison house I think of it when we sing that hymn as we
sang it tonight lost in the dark some prison house of sin tell me this
when did you last break your heart over Russia anyhow? There are men
sitting in the camps there in their own urine tonight ill-fed ill-
clothed worse off than animals you know I kind of think that maybe Jesus
got more praise out of some of those folk today than he got out of us
because we saw too many alternatives and really we do have television
too whose business is it? When Peter was taken to prison they sent a
message around the church nobody goes to bed tonight when one suffers
all suffer everybody stays up boy I'll tell you they prayed that night
because they wanted to go to bed but not only because they wanted to go
to bed but because they loved Peter.

To quote dear Dr. Tozer again he used to say Len you know when you and I
get to the judgment not many of us will look God straight in the eye
we'll bow our head for what we could have done and we haven't done. How
many millions are there in Russia tonight? Conservative guess 160
million most of them never seen a bible most have never heard the word
of God how many are there in China? A mere 800 million that's all 20
years from now there'll be a thousand million. I reminded you as I
reminded some friends the other night that the greatest one of the
greatest modern writers in America Dr. Schaefer in his little book Death
in the City reminds us that 800 years ago in China eight centuries ago
in China every town and village had a thriving New Testament church.

I was in a church not too long ago they had five pastors it's a very
wonderful I think one of the greatest in America they told me about this
young preacher that they got this marvelous fellow has a gift of gold as
it were you know uh it's a kind of wizard with young people and oh my
what God is doing in the church and I preached one night there on vision
not quite this same message that young man walked down that altar a
brilliant young man I forget what university doesn't matter anyhow he
was quite a scholar he came to the altar at nine o'clock at night he was
still kneeling at that altar at seven o'clock the next morning they said
afterwards we don't know all that happened except that wonderful young
man that we thought so wonderful was an entirely different man after
that somehow God did a cleaning up work in his in his heart and put some
vision and put some passion there you know he's lost all interest it
seems in everything all he does is wander away and pray for hours and
hours and hours he weeps for the loss he dies into the word of God oh
you can be a good preacher without vision I'll tell you something but
nothing you can be a missionary without vision too you can do it out of
sheer obligation and feeling you should do it but all let a man get
vision let his eyes be anointed with the power for another world and
neither men nor devils will stand against that man we had an old preach
in England you remember by the name of William Booth he started the
Salvation Army in 1865 and he said the reason he started it was because
he had a vision of lost men and women and he said if if after my
students have graduated I could do one thing he said I would take every
one of my students and I would hang them over hell for 24 minutes and
they'd never backslide our oldest boys are missionary in Paraguay in
South America when he was a little fella we were going through a city in
England the city of Leeds as we went in our little English car I
remember him looking through the window and he said daddy what's that
building and I said it's a jail well what's it for so I told him and
that tower what is it for well it's where they hang men why do they hang
them I told him and something leapt out of the pages of history I never
forgotten it it was a man in England by the name of Charlie Peace he was
the he was the Al Capone of England he broke every law of God and man
and he did it with bragging and swank and arrogance broke into banks he
raped women he murdered and finally the law got him and one day the
judge in the city of Leeds pointed the finger and said you're found
guilty by the jury and you hang by the neck until you die and God have
mercy on your soul and they put him in a prison cell for three weeks
which the law demands a man should have 21 days for the amendment of
life a chance to repent and they guarded him night and day the night
before he was to go to the gallows an officer went in and said Mr Peace
and Charlie said yes they're going to tell me I die in the morning well
I'll be here I got my faults but he said I never failed to pay a bill
I'll die in the morning okay in the morning the prison governor went
into the cell and the doctor according to law and the hangman who was
peer point I think and the prison governor and the prison chaplain and
they started their procession from the cell where he had spent the last
night on earth to go through a door 30 feet away and go up some steps
and get his head in the news and pull the string and that's the end of
him but as they went the was reading from a little book you know the
preacher was nicely dressed you know and he had his cassock on and all
the other gear and and he walked in front of the the dying man or the
man to die and he was reading very summerously and suddenly the the
criminal snatched the preacher and said what are you reading oh oh the
preacher said I'm reading from a uh I'm reading from a book uh it's
called um meditation meditations he said you and your meditations I'm
not interested in that city called heaven and gold streets but you said
something a minute ago about a place called hell and listen you said
this that hell is an eternal fire where people burn and they're never
consumed hell is a is a is a bottomless pit where you fall forever and
you never die hell is a second death where you're eternally dying and
never die are you going to tell me that when I fall off the end of that
rope that something comes out of charlie piece and falls forever and
ever and ever and he's never consumed you mean to say that I'm going to
be eternally burning and not be consumed you mean to say I'm eternally
falling and never reach the bottom you mean I'm going to feel the grip
of icy death forever and day is that the hell of the bible well said the
preacher that's what they told me charlie piece said sir I haven't got
more than five minutes to live let me tell you something if that is the
true state of hell now I'm sure you've all heard sermons on the second
coming I'm sure you've heard sermons on the second birth and you've
heard sermons on the second covenant and you've heard sermons maybe on
the second adam did you ever hear a sermon on the second death or aren't
we grown up enough to hear that kind of stuff these days charlie piece
said if the hell that you've described just now is the real hell let me
tell you preacher this if you covered england with broken glass from one
coast to the other than england is about 140 miles wide at that point
and if you cover the ground with broken glass and you made me kneel on
my hands and knees and crawl and leave a trail of blood behind me and if
I snatched one man from destruction I would say charlie piece you're a
wise man to be a christian because you not only saved yourself from
eternal burnings you saved another man charlie piece went to the gallows
I hope he shot a prayer to heaven before he got there and you know in
our beautiful spiritual superiority we say I have some lovely neighbors
they happen to be jehovah's witnesses and they don't believe in hell I
talk with some nice mormons oh I love to hear the mormon choir and not
one of them believes in hell I'm sure mr sun moon doesn't and a lot of
these other guys around I've got news for you if we did our prayer
meetings will be throbbing with broken-hearted weeping men and women but
the church of god is in such a state today if you weep over lost men
they think you're a sissy or somehow your mentality's gone but I've got
news for you jesus wept the apostle paul wept jeremiah wept and he that
go forth weeping bearing precious seed and when god shakes out the tears
of weeping men and women they'll be more precious than all the jewels
the world ever knew dry-eyed praying never brought revival put that in
your pocket and you can't find me a revival in history that wasn't
preceded by by the same thing that women have when they're bringing
forth children with travail and agony oh I remember being on the down
what is it pennsylvania and uh new jersey I think and I slipped out from
the meeting one night and walked down the forest where they said david
brainerd used to pray and over the wall there were the there were the
broken down old graves of the indians he used to talk to now remember
that little man he weighed maybe 90 pounds when he sneezed he sprayed
blood when he coughed you'd think he was a fox barking and he said one
day god does it matter how I live or where I live while men perish I'm
not interested to make money I'm not interested to be non-men die he
said of an occasion he knelt in the snow with the snow up to his chin he
had to make a hole in the snow and here's a man who when he coughs you
think you've broken this rose up because he split pieces of his lungs
out and if you've taken a piece like that I think the doctor would tell
you your lungs will stretch like this and it was a piece of his own lung
he couldn't even get enough food to live on now it seems you to send the
missionary to padded and secure and save to the mission field we're not
evangelizing the world we're losing the evangelizing evangelization the
world continuing as I said the other night when when 50 million people
went down the drain laos cambodia and vietnam may be the most aggressive
mission society in the last 10 years there has been the alliance
particularly in what in vietnam where they did a super work and saw god
work and now those places are places of hideous hellish torture and god
pity us we need slumber need mattresses to get to sleep at night the
answer is not political wizards the answer is god's prophets and god is
going to get them my time is nearly gone a vision of a lost world do you
think you really dare pray for one the second vision he had was a vision
of a holy god that's beautiful i like the hymn written by oliver wendell
holmes in this country lord of all being thrown before thy glory flames
from sun and star centering soul of every sphere yet to each loving
heart our dear and he goes on in that hymn and he says before thine ever
blazing throne we have no luster of our own as i tried to share with you
feebly this morning i found the secret of dr tozer's life one day as we
talked together i remember talking in london with dr martin lloyd jones
he said are you going back to the states i said yes sir will you see dr
tozer i said yes it was about three years before he died and he said
will you thank him from me for writing this book the pursuit of god i
said i will and in tozer's office one day i said dr martin lloyd jones
sends his greetings and he thanks you for writing that book the pursuit
of god and i remember he just smiled you know that kind of lame smile of
his and he said len that book the pursuit of god is 25 years of study i
never had a vacation for 25 years now you can sit down and write a book
get a girl to copy have a ghostwriter make a fortune for 25 years i
gazed on his holiness his blazing majesty his purity and he read
everything that he could on the majesty and the holiness and the beauty
and the perfection of jesus such is the blazing holiness of god and you
know what the blinding holiness of god is so great of jesus and his
majesty that even seraphims are to put their avail their faces like you
put on your sunshade so the sun won't blind you they know sunshade and
so they close their wings and they filtered that blazing light through
their wings because even seraphim cannot become the holiness of god and
then they put two wings over themselves because they couldn't bear the
scrutiny of the holy one oh we need a new revelation of the holiness of
god brother it won't be hard for you to get on your belly and worship
him if you see the holiness of god it won't be hard for you to turn off
the tv and some other junky things that eat your life up or at least
dissipate your spirituality when you feed on his holiness his love his
majesty his purity my god how wonderful thou art thy majesty so bright
oh jesus jesus dearest lord forgive me if i say for very love thy sacred
name a thousand times a day burn burn within me love of god and told us
that i get so near to god sometimes i i almost wish i could slip through
the gates i see his matchless holiness and then i look down on the
corruption of the church and the filthy manure heap on the world and my
spirit breaks i ask in god's name why are we so earthbound i ask you why
don't you take some time every day to gaze on the blazing holiness of
the son of god we are gonna see him soon anyhow brother hegri was asking
me the other day showing me a book written by a man called dr davis a
man who years ago was one of the leading advocates of socialism in
england he got marvelously converted and he became just as radical for
god as he'd been for socialism dr davis says this i find and i find it
deeply moving he said forsyth had seen once and for all the agony of god
in christ crucified and that abysmal vision convinced him that the
material progress of society was but froth cast up by the sea whose
undercurrent is tragedy hence his historic insistence on the holiness of
god and the historic fatality of the cross forsyth persisted in the one
determination to keep saying no to history even when events seemingly
confirmed human pretensions don't some of you gray heads hear an echo
today in the like i heard 50 years ago we're going to build a new
country we're going to pull down the hills of wealth and fill in the
private fill in the valleys of poverty we're going to make the crooked
places straight we're going to wave a magic wand and bring in a
millennium peter forsyth says no i'm determined to keep saying no to
history even when events seemingly confirm human pretensions and i think
that was the part of his genius i saw the lord high and lifted up his
train till the temple and the seraphim were crying holy holy holy there
used to be an old holiness preacher in america and every time he opened
the bible he spoke on holiness or sanctification or purity or something
and one day somebody said to him you know you're interesting to listen
to but every time you open the bible it's holiness hey brother he said i
don't have to open it it says holy on the covers before you get inside
it already says holy anyhow you know we're very fond of miracles i've
got a few in my life and they're very wonderful you know what the
greatest miracle is that an omnipotent god can do the greatest miracle
of a holy god is to take an unholy man out of the world make that unholy
man holy put him back in an unholy world and keep him holy they took the
finished work of jesus christ all the power of redemption and all the
power of the holy ghost to take a man a criminal a vile man a rebel and
break his spirit and purify his heart and fill him with the holy ghost
and make every member of his body a servant of righteousness that have
been a servant of sin i'll hurry up i don't want to but i will all right
we need a vision of a lost world i say again reverently don't pray it
may change your whole habit of life god may tell you to live on one meal
a day god may tell you to fast two days a week god may tell you since
you're too old to make it to sell half you've got and give it to a good
organization like this or some other and feed somebody on the mission
field he may tell you to get to prayer and fast until your children get
a vision of a lost world and want to go to the mission field an
experience of god that costs nothing is worth nothing and he does
nothing the last vision he had a vision of himself now that's pretty
devastating it was robbie burns wasn't it and said he would somehow the
power to give us to see yourselves as it is see us well i think robbie
burns wrote some magnificent things but i think that was nonsense i
don't need to see myself as others see me this man over here i i think i
have one friend that likes me and uh that man that likes me maybe
brother dick here everything i do is right this man over here doesn't
like me everything i do is wrong well what would a human opinion i don't
need to see myself as others see me i sure don't need to see myself as i
see myself but all to see myself as god sees me was it d l moody that
said if god gave man the power to invent a camera that would show us our
own hearts we'd all want our pictures taken but not one of us would show
it to anybody we've got those pockets of sin and corruption and
selfishness and rebellion and arrogance you know lord take my sins but
leave me alone take my wife and let her be consecrated lord to thee take
her silver and gold that's about it isn't it millions of lost people
tonight here am i send somebody else but when i see myself the hymn i
just say search me oh god my actions try and let my life appear as seen
by thine all searching eye to mind my ways make search all my thoughts
the secret springs the motives that control the chambers where polluted
things or hold empire all the soul search till thy fiery glance of cast
its holy light through all and i by grace and brought at last before thy
face to fall do we pray that kind of prayer you see this vision isiah
has here is not the first vision because he has a vision in the very
first verse of the first chapter he sees a corruption of the nation and
if you read the previous chapter the fifth chapter his eyes are very
discerning he says war to you and war to you and war to you and war and
he's full of woes until those eyes that turned upward and saw the
holiness of god those eyes that turned outward and saw lost world those
eyes turn inward and when he says himself he has no woes for anybody
else it's war is me i'm undone it's not my brother not my sister the
colored folk used to sing but it's neo god standing in the need of
prayer ah yes god can do more than save us from the wrath of judgment he
can do more than get rid of the record of our lousy sins it is so in the
plan of god that he can cleanse us and purify our hearts and indwelleth
by his holy spirit but all when those eyes turn inward and god begins to
read unsparingly because you see the one thing god will pity your
ignorance he'll pity your poverty but he won't pity your iniquity if you
hide it there's one thing god will god tolerate in men on women and that
is rebellion it is sin it is pride it is anger it is jealousy it is
secret lust no sir the redemptive work of god in christ was to purify us
from all iniquity it will not make us perfect it will not make us
faultless but it will make us lord sin with all the power that we can
loathe it and once we've got tired of ourselves and we've got purified
then then god begins to open up new areas and you say lord make me a
living sacrifice to go there i'd be just happy to die for you in that
area what's your problem tonight your erratic will do you get stirred up
every time somebody comes and stirs you and then you simmer down
afterwards have you got an erratic unstable will like that or do you say
no i've got i've got something more chronic chronic that i've got
chronic selfishness in my heart or you say it's not chronic selfishness
i have a secret lustful nature hg wells got almost to the end of his
life before he found what he said that man was incurable sure he's
incurable what's the problem well the problem is man two things i'm
through some years ago and often when i was in new york with teen
challenge i'd go on to west 20 40 44th street the legitimate theaters
are there and they come out usually about 11 or midnight and there used
to be a man hanging around there and he'd go to a pretty chorus girl and
say well sweetie would you uh i'm a gourmet cook and i cook in french
wine and uh i'd like to take you home for a meal and then we'll dance
would you like to come and bring your partner there and my friend will
come and that man went for years like that he said i never engaged in
sexual immorality i love people i love talking i love to dance i love to
cook and one day he was sitting in a bar i think in new york and he
suddenly said is this all life is for make money eat drink go to sleep
have fun that's not much better than animals so i went down to kentucky
and he knocked on the door of a monastery and asked them would they take
him in and they did and they they cut his hair tongue showed his hair
and took his worldly clothes and burned them and put a a new rig on him
gave him a pair of sandals gave him a cell to sleep in gave him a board
to sleep on gave him a place at the refectory table he took vows to
poverty celibacy i don't know what every every conceivable thing that
would discipline him poverty celibacy silence give me the meanest task
in the in the monastery and they did it and before long he oh of course
he got up at midnight to pray prayed till one o'clock went back to bed
till three and got up and prayed till four and went back to bed and got
up at five you know pretty easy going and uh he went on like that for a
few years and he said you know folk are idiots to live in new york all
you do is breathe in gas fumes then it's not healthy and it's stupid to
live to make money and you know just wear nice clothes and all the rest
my i'm in a monastery this is paradise i haven't spoken to anybody for a
long while year or two except if he got permission to do it from the
abbot he'd have no problem with his rent he'd have no problem with the
stock market he'd have no problem anything else about one day the man
that let him in at the door the man that said he said he's like a
reincarnation of saint francis of assisi is such an angelic face he
walked so safely he looked so good but one day somebody trod on the toes
that man metaphorically and he blazed in anger and suddenly his god of
eden was invaded with anger and the man raised his fist and there's
gonna be a fight he said my god i thought i left that in new york but i
see if it's still in the heart of a man cutting his hair and putting him
new clothes on and giving him shoes and disciplining his life it won't
discipline the devil in him sure he needs something more than that there
are more dead men in the world tonight than ever all right as i cried
what did he cry always me i'm undone notice he doesn't pray for he
doesn't pray for the drunkards in the previous chapter he doesn't pray
for the dissipated people he forgets everybody he says it's me it's me
it's me lord lord come on search my heart i'm undone i'm unclean my lips
are unclean god is in heaven tonight i'm sure that's one of the curses
of the church our lips are unclean with gossip with scandal with
exaggeration with lying with pure nonsense often with silly sports
language much more than we talk about the deity i'm undone i'm unclean
and god says that's great that's just what i need to hear and there's an
altar there it was like like a table except it had bars across it and on
the altar was a sacrifice and under the altar there there was a fire and
the dead coals were taken out and they were live red beautiful red coals
and and from the sacrifice blood was dropping onto onto those red coals
and a cherubim came with a pair of tongues and he took one of those live
coals the fire symbolic of the holy ghost and fire and the blood
symbolic of the finished work of jesus the redemptive work and he took
that twofold symbol of blood and fire and he laid it upon my lips and he
said lord i'm iniquitous taken away by sin purge then he said here am i
i'm purged of all my selfishness self-seeking self-glory you know self-
righteousness all the other hyphenated sins i'm purged now lord you can
take me now my lips are clean now love that is pure is passionate the
life called from off the altar and he laid it upon my lips and said lord
i'm iniquity is taken away in my sin purge and then he said i felt all
the release i felt the purity i felt the presence his holy presence and
i said here am i send me and he said no one thing we don't need to see
ourselves as others see us we don't need to see ourselves as a preacher
sees us you know you and i need to see ourselves tonight as god is going
to see us at the judgment morning and you'll have nobody to lean on not
your darling husband or your sweet wife or your wonderful pastor or your
dear sunday school teacher as good as that you'll stand there naked in
his presence your bank balance won't matter that much to god your
intellectual iq won't matter that much to god your spiritual and moral
standing will all the teaching you've had you'll give answer and god
knows you forgot bethany have had as much as anybody on earth and if
you're lagging behind tonight you'd better get straightened out for
you'll be in awful trouble i'll tell you that i don't need to see myself
as others see me i need to see myself as god sees me it may make me sick
it may keep you at the altar all night and i'm not asking you to be an
altar tramp tonight to just come out and kiss the floor with your knees
and say lord i'm sorry and get away forget it stay there you're going to
let god do some surgery on your heart you better come prepared to stay
an hour or two i was in a meeting just a few weeks ago a large church
maybe as many people or more than this but there were about 50 preachers
there 60 i think and as i finished the message it was on isaiah not not
like this but i i preached on isaiah and at the end i said now i'm going
to let you come to the altar but no men are coming and no women are
coming no men no women well who just preachers and i said close your
eyes and come to the altar you preachers there was a stampede they
swarmed to that altar and there were so many that they had to creep up
the aisles and kneel up the aisle there's a middle-aged man he was
climbing over the others and he came up and he said mr raven i said yes
he said could i speak through the microphone a minute well that's always
a risk you don't know whether the guy's going to contradict you or give
some heresy and i said oh all right all right two minutes only and he
said brother raven has been here for three days and he's been saying
maybe god brought me here for one man like paul saw on the damascus road
where everybody saw the light but he said i heard the voice and he said
folk i want to tell you i'm the man i'm a i'm a well-to-do businessman
but last night after brother ravenhill spoke i didn't go to bed i walked
around this campus till about four o'clock this morning round and round
and round and round and then tonight the arrow of god shot right into my
heart he said i'll tell you what it means for me i have to give up
business god has told me where to go and i'm a middle-aged man but i'm
going and i don't care what it costs can cost me my life can cost me
every penny but i'm going and i'll have to learn a language but i'm
going and i'll tell you where i'm going and he started to weep he said
will you pray for me i'm going to iran maybe one of the hardest
countries in the world and i don't care if i never come back i'm going
god call me i've seen a vision i'm going so those preachers stayed at
the altar till morning that's why i said that i'm tired of folk that
come out every time you make an altar call forget it you can go home and
do that if you want but i'll tell you this that when you come to an
altar and you're prepared to put yourself on the altar and you're
prepared to say holy god take a fire brand from heaven blood and fire
and put it down on that part of my nature where there's corruption where
there's rebellion your lips may be just lazy lips that don't testify and
don't pray i don't know no i don't you see you've got four people living
in you did you know that isn't that a myth four people living in you the
person you think you are the person other people think you are the
person you think other people think you are and the person god knows you
are let me give you one illustration if you're in a plane i'd say fasten
your seat belts there's a little turbulence coming no i this isn't out
of my life story it's out of the greatest book in the world this book
it's about a church that had a dramatic birth and did a wonderful job
for god and then something happened she was very prosperous everybody
commended her things were going as well as they could and so she said
well of course i owe it to posterity to leave a picture of myself and so
she began to draw a picture of herself very beautiful just about the
most perfect woman that ever lived and she looked at it and said isn't
that spectacular never be a church like that as long as the life lasts
but a good picture needs a good title what could oh i know i just just
think for thousands of years people will admire me and she's going and i
say lady lady she says arrogantly what do you want oh i don't want
anything except to tell you that while you were painting that picture of
yourself uh another picture was being painted oh so you painted me no i
wouldn't dare do that but god who is so perfect in his coloring god who
lit the stars the god who formed the earth while you were sitting there
he was painting you now listen sit down gaze at the picture of yourself
aren't you gorgeous well sure well lady just uh hold yourself together a
minute i'm going to show you the picture he painted behind it watch me
pull this cord and i've got the picture there of an old beaten up old
hag that looks about 200 years old and she says in anger and indignation
who's that and i say my dear it's you no that's me yeah yeah that's you
as you see yourself there your hair is beautiful and wavy here your head
is nearly bald there your eyes your teeth are perfect there you are your
teeth are corrupt there your eyes are blue there your eyes are bloodshot
there your face is round and full of lovely color and here your face is
shrunken and wrinkled and underneath you said i'm rich and increased in
goods i have need of nothing and god says of you that naked and wretched
and blind and poor and miserable is the same person one as she falsely
saw herself you see if you live with dwarfs you'll be a giant but if you
see some giant you'll see little dwarf if you judge yourself by the
average church goer maybe you won't have too much trouble but dear
friend we're not going to be judged by the standards of the churches or
somebody's creed we're going to be judged by this word god almighty is
going is why we didn't invade our resources that god not only gave us
jesus christ to save us and redeem us but he says with him he has freely
given us all things and the unexplored wealth of god is the greatest
tragedy in the day in which we live a vision of a lost world a vision
almost a terrifying vision to me of a holy god a vision of myself
supposing i were to probe into your prayer tonight now we won't go back
10 years your your past week's record monday tuesday wednesday thursday
if i could say gabriel give me the prayer record of that man sitting
there i'm going to read it to the now listen this is an invasion of
privacy well it so happens god doesn't know a thing about that he's
going to read your prayer record before a thousand billion people in
eternity so wake up all right i see people wearing a badge it's fun to
be a christian well i never found it that way it's the greatest
responsibility on earth it's the greatest privilege to inherit what god
has for us before we slip over the bar into eternity to go to heaven
with scars because we wrestle against principalities and powers to learn
something of secret praying and traveling in birth that revival may be
born in russia or in a hellish hall like china or somewhere else not
merely for the redemption of men but that christ the travel of his soul
thank you for watching this video feel free to like this video and
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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/_GxZsCxpvRY.mp4
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