A Man of God - Part 13

They don't go to his home, but all the time he talked about, well, the type of teaching that A. B. Simpson had, opening the depths of the word of God, you know, Romans and Ephesians living in that area, and shut worldliness out, shut theatres out, shut everything else which he did. He loved music. He listened every night to a recording of, who did he listen to? Not Chopin, I'm not sure, but one of the great symphonies.

Every night he had one hour listening to good music. But again, I prayed with him many times. He was very, very wonderful in prayer.

He didn't shout. He just had a conversational talk with God, and he could cut an audience in two with a word almost. He got very sarcastic at times, and, you know, people kind of remonstrated with him for that.

He refused all invitations until the very end. He stayed in one church 25 years, and he didn't get a very big salary, so his strength, actually, was his devotional life. He wouldn't let anybody trespass on that.

He spent certain time with God all the time. Did you reflect some on your times with Keith Green? Well, Keith was a zealot. I mean, he bounced through that door.

I remember he, well, by this division, there used to be a wall, and Dave Wilson fully unfurnished all this for me, and Wilson would come one day. Green would come the other, as opposite as could be, because David was mature. He'd been a pastor for about 20 years then.

Keith, of course, had come from the guts, and he'd tell me about his past life and sordidness, but he was hungry for God. I remember definitely a turn in his life when I told him he shouldn't charge to go into concerts, which they didn't do. They'd gone back to it this last week, I think, but they didn't do that.

And I remember talking to him about eternity on one occasion and holiness on another, and he, you know, like a trout jumping up to get a fly, he got over it like that, and he would come back. I remember he bounced through the door, you know. He wanted to get through it before he opened it.

He'd open it and bounce through, and he's a big guy, and I remember he used to give me pops and give me a hug. He said, pops, he said, you know what all roads lead to? We used to say in England, all roads lead to Rome. It's an old saying.

Everybody travels to Rome, you see. He said, you know what all roads lead to? I said, no, the same thing. No, he said, you're wrong.

I said, why? He said, all roads lead to the judgment seat. I said, very good. And the other, I don't know, I've never read this anywhere, but I think it's right to say he had a holy fever, or if you like, a fear of God.

I mean, when you think he didn't live very long, but I still get letters about him. I get that book that his wife wrote on No Compromise Is Doing Good, and they still send his tapes out. In fact, he wrote the Catholic Chronicles that they withdrew.

Somebody wrote to me this week, and asked if we could have a set, because God used it tremendously, but it got them into trouble for not being friendly enough with the Catholics, so they withdrew it. And he loved to pray. He'd say, can we pray? And he'd get down and really pour his heart out, you know, and he had visions of what God wanted to do in this area, and he was, because other people couldn't keep up with him, they thought he, and maybe he was, he wasn't mature enough, in one sense, for leadership, or he didn't want everybody to jump up to his level, which you can't do anymore, and I could jump up now to the level of an Olympic runner, and I used to run.

I'd like to run when I can. I'm glad even to walk, but he was like that. I mean, he saw eternal things, and if they weren't clear to you, he couldn't understand your stupidity.

He couldn't understand why you're not leaping, and, you know, and going full pace. If he fasted, he fasted. If he prayed, he prayed.

There's a uniqueness. Well, my precious wife has a tremendous insight to people. The first time she saw him, she said, Len, the Spirit of God is on that young man, and in England, you know, you've got two kidneys that are supposed to match, function the same.

Well, in England, they say, well, that man isn't your kidney. In other words, you know, it's not your, if you want to call it alter ego, what you want to call it, but immediately he came in. She said, well, there's something unique about, and there was about him, and they don't have it now.

They know that. I mean, he was willing to live a full stretch. They expected us to do the same thing for him.

He was a good reader. He liked to read Tozer very much, and he liked to read David Brainerd, or he liked to read the three volumes of.