A Man of God - Part 6

And he said, I listened the first day and thought, well, I can still get the train overnight and get back to my office Monday morning. But, boy, he said Sunday night was better, so I stayed the next day. And then I thought, well, I'm in trouble any other general day after me.

Oh, no, no, because I can use this other day as my day off for this week. And he kept bargaining with himself like that. And he goes home on Saturday, Friday night.

He goes in the office. He said, William Booth just turned around and said, Rutherford, where have you been? You know, barked at me. And he said, yes, sir, quietly, General, I've been to heaven.

You've been where? I've been to heaven. What do you mean you've been to heaven? He said, sir, the Spirit of God is on a man in Wales, a young man, almost without tutoring. He hadn't been to a Salvation Army college, but God is upon him.

He's been in hiding for 13 years. Dear God. He's only 26.

He hasn't made me pray for 13 years. I said to preachers when I go to church, I said, listen, you say I need a vacation. You need a cave.

I said, could you go for three? Surely you can't go for three hours without turning TV on. You don't need grace to pull down strongholds. You need grace to stop TV.

That's the devilish thing. It's not the devil. It's your choices.

Anyhow, he said, the General said, well, tell me about it. Tell me about it. He said, the General just relaxed in his head.

I told him how God had worked. And he said, there's no begging people. They come and rush to the scene and cry.

And he said, the police are not arresting anybody. The judges are not. The courts are closed.

The taverns are closed. They have prayer meetings. They're coal mined.

They used to take a little tin, you know, with the, what do you call it, a food tin you take. And they call it, I mean, they're snapped. You've only a little time.

And they need a snap before they start working. And then they spend the rest of their time praying in the dinner or singing in the coal mines. And he said, I went down to tell him what miracles were being done.

He said, the General put his finger up. He said, remember Russell. He said, in the very early days, the very first days of the salvation.

I mean, it was just like that. The glory of the Lord came down. We're getting too commercial.

We're getting too mechanical. We'll have to go back to the glory of the Lord in the same way. And all the Bible says is pray without ceasing.

It doesn't say preach without ceasing. It doesn't say do miracles. It says pray.

And somebody may ask me if I know you fellows. Well, I'd say, well, I've met them, but I don't know anybody. He said, I've prayed with him.

I don't care who he is. And I know some of the outstanding personalities in the world today, but I haven't prayed with them, so I don't know them. But once a man opens his heart, and it's one thing for us to stand before God on behalf of people.

It's a great thing to stand before God on behalf of people and stand before God and stand before people on behalf of God. As I quoted the other day to some people, what is it, about the 34th chapter of Exodus, where Moses had been on the mountain, and God says, let me alone. I said, that's God saying to a man, leave me alone.

I said, did God ever say that to you? I said, it's wonderful when a man lays hold of God. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing, in one sense, when a man lays hold of God. But when God lays hold of a man, and God says, let me alone, and I'll utterly destroy these people.

But I was not there. John Wesley preached on Romans 8, 16 more than anything else, for the witness of the Spirit. Oh, well, I want the Spirit to bear witness.

I'm walking in holiness. I want you to bear witness. I'm speaking truth.

I said, do you want to borrow his language in Romans 9, where Paul said, I call the Holy Ghost to bear witness, and I lie not. Can the Holy Ghost bear witness? I said, in essence, what Paul says is, I'll be damned if need be, if only you'll just render heavens and come down. And I said, you keep praying again.

I said, well, 64, all that thou wilt render heavens and God shoots back, render your hearts and not your garments. Don't put a one-hour prayer meeting on. Make it a lifestyle.

I used to, I told the deacons, the last church I had in England, I said, listen, I'll take the church on this condition. Number one, that you meet with me at least a half hour to 40 minutes before every service. Number two, you abolish offerings so we don't have to beg from the poor people.

And that you meet with me Friday night, 9 o'clock till midnight. We did, and God turned that church around. And I don't know any ministry that's had the same time in prayer.

Have you read George Burns at all? No. Well, have you read Robert Merrimack? No. No, George Burns.

Have you read Robert Merrimack Shane? Yes. Well, Merrimack Shane, I stood outside of his church in, anyhow, it's on the coast of Scotland, Aberdeen, Scotland. Well, he was a man that prayed and wept and prayed and wept and prayed and wept until his health went.

So he went to be a missionary. He was a brilliant man in Hebrew. And he went and had a rest in what was Israel then or Palestine.

And while he was there, W.C. Burns came in the church and the Holy Ghost was upon him because he'd spent days and weeks in prayer. And the whole town was rocked with revival. The whole city was moved.

There'd never been revival before. And since that's had the Kilsas revival. So, anyhow, W.C. Burns has this tremendous move of God.

And we would book him up for London and book him up for Manchester. Oh, the anointing is on him. Open the way, let the guy go.

After that, God picked up my note, dear brother, and took him to China and dropped him in China. And he died unknown from a modern Pentecost. Go and pray.

And he went and prayed and fasted and wept in that area. So what happened? After him, Jonathan Goforth went. Mrs. Goforth says, they would go to a meeting in the morning at nine and stand and sing and praise God.

And they'd still be praising him at five o'clock. Nobody sat down, even though they were tired. You go the next day, there'd be no singing.

It would be prayer the whole day. You go the next day, there's neither singing nor prayer the whole day. In the quietness, she said, in the quietness was more productive than the other meetings.

I told the people this week, we've forgotten how to be quiet. Be still and know that I am God. All these Israelis will be filled with the Spirit.

Anyhow, Jonathan Goforth went. The whole ground was broken up and teared, tear-stained by W.C. Burns. Jonathan Goforth went.

After him came what's with me. And I don't know if you've read the life of John Sung. Have you read his life? That's the most fabulous thing I've read outside the New Testament, I think.

But I quoted him as being the most distinguished scholar, foreign scholar ever came to America. He learned English. He learned German and did his Ph.D. in German.

He took his B.A. degree, his M.A. degree. Learned a new language. Took his doctorate in three and a half years.

And finally, he went to Union Theological Seminary in New York. And when he was there, the young man said to him, you look more like a preacher than like a scientist. Well, five different nations begged him to come on their payroll and be their leader in nuclear fission, even those years ago.

And he refused them. Well, to cut a long story short, one night he knelt down. He said, well, Lord, my daddy's a Methodist preacher, and I'm not born again.

I don't know God. And right there, God came upon him. He jumped up, opened the door, ran down the corridor in Union Theological Seminary right there on the next street, leaping and praising God.

And on the next day, they certified him insane and put him in a institution. And there the Lord said to him, I can get you out of here. But stay here.

I forget the number. Like 195 days, I'll teach you my way. And he learned, dear brother, how to analyze a chapter eight different ways.

And then he went back to China. He threw all his diplomas overboard in the China Sea, and he began his ministry. Married the girl that the neighbor had said they'd marry when they were kids.

To cut a long story short, I was preaching at a meeting, and I quoted the story. And a big oversize woman at the organ, she'd been playing, tears rolling down her face. So afterwards, she said, well, that was a lovely meeting.

I said, I noticed you were weeping. I said, that story of Jang Sung, did you hear it before? She said, no, Mr. Red. I used to play in his meetings in revival in China.

I said, well, did I exaggerate? She said, you couldn't exaggerate that, man. Doesn't matter what you say. But she said, I'll tell you one thing.

That I went after he died. And he died as a young man. He died of tuberculosis.