Audio Sermon: A Burning Heart

So shall I all my love exert, and love them with a zeal like thine, and turn them to a pardoning God, and quench their branch in Jesus' blood. Kindle a fire in this meeting tonight, that be a wall of fire, so that people will not go to hell fire. Let love burn in us like a fire, let faith burn in us like a fire, let hope burn within us like a fire, let zeal burn within us like a fire.

Again, Lord, make this a bad night for the devil, make it a glorious night for our Lord Jesus Christ. We give you praise in his name. Thank you.

If any of you want to be in the limelight, come up here, it's terrible. We're going to look in the Prophecy of Isaiah. A great biblical scholar, I think he was a Hebrew scholar, said that what Martin Luther called the Book of Isaiah, the Gospel of Isaiah, because there's so much gospel in it.

This other Hebrew scholar said this is the most profound thing that's ever been written by any man anywhere. It has to be, because it's not written by imagination, it's written by inspiration. And some of us are stupid enough to believe that the Bible has no errors in it.

All the errors are in the pews. OK, we're going to Isaiah. Did I give you the chapter? I didn't.

Well, it's 64. This book, how many books are there in the Bible? How many chapters are there in Isaiah? The Old Testament ends at the 39th book, and this wonderful Gospel of Isaiah, the first part finishes at the 39th chapter. The second part goes on from the, well it must go from the 40th to the 66th.

Last week we took a study, partly a study in Jeremiah. I don't know how it affected you, it affected me tremendously. I believe the greatest breed of men that ever walked on this earth were the major prophets in the Old Testament.

I wouldn't mind of being one of the minor prophets, but the major prophets are the greatest men that ever walked this earth. I quoted last week, I quote again, from a famous Jewish scholar who was converted to Christianity, and he made this definition. He said, The prophet, by the very nature of his calling, is a tragic figure.

He has a fierce, I love that word, a fierce loyalty to God, and a burning heart of compassion for a lost world. And this time he's pulled right to the very throne, at the other time he sees all the human corruption. Jeremiah writes through backsliders.

Thirteen times in the writings of Jeremiah you have backsliders. Only four times elsewhere, I think, in the Old Testament, a backslider is mentioned, that's in Hosea. So a heft of pressure is on the backslidden nation.

But the emphasis of Isaiah is the emphasis of holiness. It's the most needed thing in the church of God today. Until the church is holy there'll be no rapture, don't care what savior you have of the rapture.

The Lord isn't coming for a lending old woman, he isn't coming for a bag woman, he's coming for a bride. Pure and spotless. If you take the first chapters that we mentioned there, chapters 1-39, you'll find that the holy God, or holiness, is mentioned no less than twelve times.

If you take the second half of the book, chapters 40-66, you'll find that holiness, or a holy God, is mentioned no less than seventeen times. This man, it seems to me, is always hitting the peaks. He prophesies the birth of Jesus, he prophesies the second coming, he gives you a pen portrait in Isaiah 53, one of the most gorgeous chapters in the Word of God, who has believed our report.

He shall go up before him as a tender plant, as a root out of a dry... Did you ever see a root that was attractive? He's the root out of a dry ground. He has no form, no comeliness, and when we should see him, we should not desire him. Let me jump down that.

There was a Hebrew scholar in Scotland years ago by the name of Rabbi Andrews. He wasn't a rabbi. He was a little Scotsman, but he was more familiar and quoted more often the Hebrew scriptures than anybody in that great university.

In fact, when he lectured, he didn't have a textbook. He always took the book of Isaiah as his textbook. And he was slowly coming down, day by day, into that chapter.

And he came to that where it says he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquity. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.

A verse had always spoken of, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. Do you fathers take delight in bruising your child? One of the curses of America today is child abuse. It pleased the Lord to bruise him.

Why? Because that's the only way he could bring total glory to his father. An old man, a very wise man, he was English. He said a few years ago that Jesus did more to glorify his father for the thirty years he was on earth than he would have done if he stayed in heaven another thousand years.

He undid all that Adam did. Whatever came in for Adam, now there's a lovely hymn that was written by a Roman Catholic actually. It was written by Cardinal Newman.

I think it's magnificent. Praise to the holiest in the height, and in the depth be praise. In all his works most wonderful, most sure in all his ways.

O wisest love, that flesh and blood which did in Adam fail, should strive again against the foe, should strive and should prevail. Then he goes on to say, let me put it again, O loving wisdom of our God, and all that sin and shame, a second Adam to the fight and to the rescue. That's wrong.

Jesus is not the second Adam, he's the last Adam. If there's a second Adam, you can have a third, a fourth, a fifth, no sir! Jesus took all the powers of darkness and hell, and what came in through the first Adam goes out by the last Adam. That's why we thank Christ, that verse tonight, from it is well with my soul, my sin or the bliss.

You see, all our people know in the churches now, they've had their sins forgiven. And they've been submitting to inward sin for years. I don't believe there's a man on the whole TV that preaches salvation.

They preach forgiveness. Forgiveness is not salvation. They point out, there's a man in bed with some other man's wife in a motel, he says, you know the Lord loves you just as you are, well then why get changed? Commit adultery as long as you like.

He still loves you. Be a cheat, be a liar, be a thief, be a failure, he still loves you. But there's a scripture, isn't it the Psalm 7, don't look, I think it is, where it says God is angry with the wicked every day.

I heard somebody call today, God loves you but hates your sin, that's bunking. God hates you for committing the sin. Is God going to take your sins and judge them at the judgment and leave you alone? Well some say there's no trouble for us at the judgment, but it says that man who has failed God, he shall suffer loss, not his sins, he shall suffer loss.

You know five minutes inside of heaven with all the embarrassment. We wish to God we'd be more faithful. We wish to God we'd be more obedient.

We wish to God we'd have explored the possibilities of grace, as Lowry called them, the resources that there are in a Godhead. Do you believe that, Sonny? If you said no, I'd send you home. Well, let me just look at this a minute again.

Somebody told me recently they'd been up north and heard, I don't know, two or three conferences and everybody at the conference preached on woe, lo, go. Well that's illegal, that belongs to me. But here in this sixth chapter, simple words, monosyllables, so simple a preacher could remember them.

Verse five he said, woe is me, I'm undone. Verse seven it said, lo. And verse nine he said, go.

The first is the word of a man, the second is the word of a seraphim, the third is the word of God. The first is a confession, woe is me. The second is a word of cleansing, this will touch thy lips.

And the third is a word of commission, go. I keep seeing people appealing for money on TV and saying, help us to fulfill the great commission, I can help them in a weekend. The great commission of Jesus was going to all the world, it wasn't anything of the kind.

The great commission was God's message to his disciples. The last message of Jesus to the church is, repent, repent, repent, repent, repent, six times over in Revelation. And we're going out to people, men living in defeat are going to tell heathen people how to get saved.

Ask them what if they're saved. We used to say, stay in a beautiful old stadium in the Bahamas, half past six in the morning or six to half past, I did a chug, chug, chug of the motorboat. I go under the randle of the house, look in the channel, there was a man with a sombrero and he yelled at the top of his voice, but the raven in my hand said I'm saved from hell.

Well that's wonderful, it's a fringe of anything. Are you saved from love? Are you saved from fear? Are you saved from doubt? Are you saved from anger? Are you saved from envy? Are you saved from pride? He came to save us now from sinning, Christianity is NLT, not a sinning religion, it's a victorious religion. Yeah, I love this, let me play with these, not play with them, but say these words again, can I? A wall logo.

Remember the first verse says in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon the throne. Do you know that, let me think how many times. I think there are fourteen references, mostly in Isaiah, about God sitting upon the throne.

So there he has vision, we go down then to the year King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord. And then he says I heard the voice, in verse 8, let me take the words again. He saw the Lord high, so it's a vision of height.

He saw into the abyss of his own heart, so it's a vision of depth. He saw a lost world outside, so it's a vision of breath. He saw God, it was a vision of deity.

The great curse in modern preaching is this, our people never see God. I don't believe one percent of the Christians in America or the world know God. They know theology, they know about God, they know references in the scripture.

But who really knows God? He had a vision of deity, he saw God. He had a vision of depravity, he saw himself. He had a vision of duty, he saw a lost world outside.

He had a vision of a holy God, he had a vision of holiness. He had an upward vision of holiness, he had an inward vision of helplessness. He had an outward vision of hopelessness.

The scripture clearly says, as you remember, that where there is no vision, the people perish. I'm going to skip over now, because if I get preaching all that, I'll keep you here all night. Let's go to chapter 64, please.

I've said before, I'll say it many times, I guess. I think every preacher should read Acts 26 on his knees every week, where Paul outlines what the preacher is there for, to turn people from darkness to light, the power of Satan to God, they may have forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance amongst them that is sanctified by faith that is in me. And then when you've digested that, go to the 40th chapter of Isaiah, and get the concept of God that this amazing man has.

You'll never get depressed. Some people have worn the page out, the corner of the page, Romans 8.28, that's all they know. What does it say here? In Isaiah 4, verse 13 says, Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him, with whom took he counsel, who instructed him, and taught him in the path of knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding.

Verse 15, Behold, all the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and a small dust in the balance. Verse 17, All nations before him are as nothing. They are counted to him less than nothing and vanity.

Now verse 18 is a question, To whom will he liken thee, or what likeness will he give thee, says the Lord. Then verse 22, It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth. Isn't that a picture? Verse 26 is more astounding, Lift up your eyes on high.

Who hath created these things? He's talking about the stars, the sun, the moon. Who hath created these things that bringeth out the greatness of his might, that he is strong in power? I skip one thing that's important. He bringeth out their host by number.

I heard a statement again on TV this week, that what we thought was one milky way, a way back somewhere in infinity. You see, the scientists don't believe in eternity, but they believe in infinity. The smart boys just now are deciding what position to give Jesus in history.

He's already decided where to put them in prophecy. No uncertainty about that in any shape or form. Oh, I forgot how many trillion stars they showed the world the other day.

I enjoy a scientist saying that, he thinks it's baffling. And then the next thing they say, they've invented a new chip for, what do you call them, computer? It's as big as your fingernail and you can store 250,000 statements on a chip. Well, God doesn't need fingernails, but he knows the name of everybody that lives inside them.

Isaac Watts has a hymn in which he says, He made the stars, those heavenly planes. He counts their numbers, calls their names. His wisdom's vast and knows no bound, the deep where all our thoughts are drowned.

What is a creature's skill or force, the sprightly man, the warlike horse, the piercing whip, the active limb, all are too mean delights for him, but saints are lovely in his sight. I don't think God enjoys the sun and the moon and the stars, they can't respond. He enjoys the man that's been digging ditches down the road all day, but he had a heart in tune with God all the time that he was praying.

You know, the salvation of America does not rest on the White House, I don't care who gets it, only one care I do. The salvation of America does not depend on the White House, it depends on God's house. And before God does anything, he'll clean up the church.

When he was on earth, he cleaned up the temple, if he comes again, he'll clean up the pulpit. Judgment must begin at the house of God, judgment must begin with the preachers. I think the most awesome task in the world tonight is not to be the President of the United States or the King of an Empire, but to be a man who stands between a living God and a dying people.

Somebody quoted to me again the words of Richard Baxter in 1500, Richard Baxter went to Kidderminster. My precious wife and I used to drive through that town, there's an oversized statue I suppose about 15 feet high, there he is with a book in his hand. When he went into that town, there was not one family that had devotions.

And when he died, there wasn't one family that didn't have them. They had to put five galleries up, wouldn't that be something? Five galleries to accommodate the crowd every Lord's Day. And he said the secret was that he was, he said, I preached as if to never preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.

I reminded the crowd last week, crowd, all you thousands there, the greatest stall winner in England, maybe ever, was neither Whitfield nor Wesley, it was Spurgeon. When he was still only 22 years of age, he preached to 3,000 people every Sunday morning, 3,000 every Sunday night. A newspaper critic says more people are healed when he prays, he never had a healing line, he never sold worn out handkerchiefs and dusters that he blessed.

More people are healed through Spurgeon's praying than all the hospitals in London. He led tens of thousands of people to Christ, listen to this you evangelist fellows, and he never made an altar call. He said, God has troubled you this morning about your soul's salvation, and he said the same at night, I'll be in my office tomorrow morning at 6, and I'll deal with you.

And there was a procession, and he stayed three hours every Sunday morning, pardon me, Monday morning, and three hours every Monday night, dealing with people. When he finished, Dr. A. D. Dixon went, he was a greater orator maybe than Spurgeon. And the first day he was there, he shocked the congregation by making an appeal, will you come forward and accept Christ? A newspaper reporter wrote, asked him afterwards, why did you, Mr. Spurgeon never ever in twenty years made an altar call and meet thousands of people genuinely born again.

They left the world of flesh and the devil and the filthy language, they became new men with new hearts and new hopes and new spirits and new wills. People don't get saved like that anymore. They come to the altar and weep a few tears, crocodile tears, and live like crocodiles the rest of the week, biting and devouring each other.

Well, the newspaper man said, Mr. Dixon, I don't think Spurgeon would have enjoyed your altar call last night. He never made them. Oh, he said, I believe in striking while they are in his heart.

The newspaper man, bless him, said to Dr. Dixon, you know what Spurgeon would have said? If the iron was hot with the Holy Ghost at eight o'clock on a Sunday night, it would still be as hot next morning at eight o'clock. I believe in that kind of salvation. If we don't get that preaching back, we may as well sell America out.

We've got to get some hellfire preachers. We won't find them in the cemeteries, but we'll find them somewhere, I mean seminaries. But God's going to find them.

I mentioned last week that the most amazing move of the Spirit of God was in about 1734, through that gravel-voiced, sour-looking man by the name of Jonathan Edwards. Do you know the New England Revival began as the cut out of an ordinary meeting? It wasn't staged. There weren't converted film stars and broken-down footballers on the platform.

No choirs, no singing. There was a consistency about the man that preached. And people said, yes, he read with a candle in one hand, and he had bad eyesight, didn't have good glasses, so he had to skip over his notes.

His daughter said, you complain of my daddy being severe, but you should live in the house with him and hear him weeping. I'd like to send a notice to all the deacons of every church in America. If your preacher doesn't weep over the congregation, weep over your preacher.

Jeremiah, I said last week, was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He goes on to say later in the book, I'll weep over your sins in secret. We used to live in a town nine miles out of Manchester, England.

There's a block of stone half the size of this wall here, on one side of a doorway, a great big arch, another big lump of stone that side. And it says this Salvation Army co-op, as they called it, was opened in 19, I think it was 1910. William Booth died in 1912.

Because they had a revival. They built the largest Salvation Army hall outside of London, in a small industrial town. There were two girls there by the name of Jackson, the Jackson sisters.

Well they went the usual Salvation Army way, you know, gave out food, gave out all clothes, gave out furniture. In fact it used to be a skit, you got to the Salvation Army for soup, soap and salvation. And they tried everything, and nothing worked.

They were desperate, they were bearing no fruit, so they sent a letter to William Booth. He was half Jew and half Gentile, and he didn't want to waste words on the telegram, so he sent two words back to the young ladies, try tears. They did and revolution came, spiritual revolution.

They packed that auditorium that seats over 2,000 to the rafters, every Lord's Day. They had prayer meetings every Saturday. I would not be a member of a church that doesn't have a prayer meeting Saturday night.

Saturday night from 9 o'clock till midnight, or Friday night 9 o'clock till midnight. You do it, it will revolutionize your church. They tried tears, brokenness, and God in infinite mercy came.

Now let's get to this chapter again, I keep trying. I suppose the most thankless task in the world is to be a prophet of God. When God is angry with a nation, it has no prophets.

I don't know prophets in America today. Somebody sent a brochure out with my picture on it and said Leonard Raven is another Jeremiah. I never said that, I wouldn't sanction a foolish thing like that.

I'm not fit to lose his shoes, never mind be a prophet like Jeremiah. But you remember again in the 16th chapter of Matthew, verse 16, that Jesus said, Who do the people say that I am? Some say that I'm Elijah, some say that you're John Baptist risen from the dead. But some say that I'm Jeremiah.

What's the point of contact? Because Jeremiah was a man of tears, because Jesus was a man of tears. Oh yes, he whipped the people when he went into the temple, but wait a minute, read a few verses back, he wept before he whipped. And if you're going to whip them, weep over them.

That makes all the difference in the world. Do you think he looked at that temple as you look at it and want to take a picture? No, cameras, not thinking of that. Do you think he looked at it with human eyes? Don't you think he remembered the time? This was Herod's temple, the old one had gone.

Don't you think he looked there and saw Jeremiah preaching and Isaiah preaching and all the prophets? And this stupid people don't know he's the last, he's a prophet of prophets as much as he's a king of kings and lord of lords. And it is God's last call. I think you might take that scripture and change it where it says, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets.

Why don't we say, America, America, this is your last chance. I say to America what I say to you. God doesn't owe you a single thing.

The reason you're a dwarf spiritually is you won't eat the word of God, you won't wait on him, you won't hear his voice, and you won't obey him. The secret of revival is obedience. You can't obey what you don't know.

I don't remember that Isaiah talked about his tears anyhow. I'm trying to recall the statement, I didn't memorize it, but anyhow. The essence of it is by an old Jewish scholar in America that became a Christian and he said, No man who has ever seen the blazing light of God's glory will ever backslide.

You just didn't do it. You'd be afraid of missing eternal glory. Well, let me go a bit further and read the text.

Isaiah 64 and verse 4. All that thou wouldst rend the heavens. It's an omission, we can't do it. The Catholics will say, Gabriel, will you rend the heavens? Or Michael the archangel, will you rend the heavens? No, no, no, no.

They have no power. This is the man who knows the living God. This is the man who has seen God sitting on the circle of the earth.

He writes about him as the one who inhabiteth eternity. Go back into the previous chapter, 63 and look at verse 15. Look down from heaven and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory.

All that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains may flow at thy presence. That's a reference, of course, one translation of it, that the mountains may quake. Do you remember the holy mountain when they didn't go near to it because the glory of God was there and they didn't even stand near it? And he says, come again in that majesty, come in that glory again.

That the mountains might flow down at thy presence. When the melting fire burneth and the fire again causeth the waters to boil. To make thy name known to thine adversaries.

And that the nations may tremble at thy presence. He likes that word. Do you remember what he says earlier about preachers? To this man will I look, to him that trembleth.

It doesn't mean your knees knocked together like the first time you stood in a pulpit and never found your knees to tremble. He's not talking about that, he's talking about an inward trembling. To handle the word of the eternal God, to stand as a communication between the living God and the dying people.

Again, I ask you in God's name, is Jesus Christ risen? Does he stand in the midst where two or three are gathered together? Well if the living Christ is in the midst, how in God's name can he have a dead meeting? It's impossible. If the meeting is dead, he isn't there. We're going through motions, we're going through actions.

He's asked that the mountains may flow at thy presence. Look at verse 3. When thou didst terrible things which we look not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed at thy presence. For since the beginning of the world, men have not heard or perceived by the ear, neither have I seen, O God, before thee, what he hath prepared for them that wait for him.

Do you know what the Hebrew says? Death. Those who soak themselves in God. Those who saturate themselves with his holiness, with his majesty.

Let me ask you, when in your fellowship did you ever tiptoe out of the sanctuary without saying a word because the glory of God had been there so much? You go to the average church in Dallas this weekend and you can't get off the set without saying, well, do you think the Cowboys will win today? Oh no, it's World Series. Christians are worried about World Series, but they're not taking the world seriously. I asked you last week, when in God's name are we going to get serious about being serious? See, the prophet doesn't see the world as a politician sees him, or the industrialist, or the educationalist.

The true prophet of God sees the world as God sees it. In verse 6 he says we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags. You know, people say that today.

Oh, I'm just a saved sinner. That's like saying you're a married bachelor. That's like saying you're an honest thief, or a pure harlot.

You can't be a saved sinner. You're either saved or you're a sinner. He came, thou shalt call his name Jesus, he shall save his people from their sins.

He saved us from sins that we've committed, from committing a thousand more that would meet us at the judgment. You know, we live in a day when we're more afraid of holiness than we are of sinfulness. We accommodate ourselves to iniquity not only in the world, but in the fellowships round about.

Look back a minute, chapter 59, verse 16, would you do that? The chapter begins, Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear. But your iniquities and your sins have separated you from God. You can't see his face, he's hidden his face from you.

I went to a little college in England, just 35 men there. Samuel Chadwick was the wonderful principal. And he loved and said over and over, know the 80th psalm, O thou that dwellest between the cherubim.

Our people don't know where God is, so how can they call on him? He dwells between the cherubim, shine forth. Let's find it a minute and read it. Three times in the psalm he says the same thing.

Go to verse 2, Psalm 80, verse 2. Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine upon us, Not we'll turn ourselves, it's going to take omnipotence. Turn us again, O God, cause thy face to shine upon us, and we will be saved. O Lord, God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people? Verse 7, Turn us again, O God of hosts, cause thy face to shine upon us, and be saved.

The last verse, 19. Turn us again, O Lord, God of hosts, cause thy face to shine upon us, and we shall be saved. We say in a dispensation, we say this is the dispensation of the Holy Ghost.

I looked in an old edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica that I have. There were three pages on the Holy Spirit. There were 33 on the papacy.

Wesley has a hymn in which he says, Stay thou insulted spirit, stay. I believe almost every church in America insults the Holy Ghost every Sunday. Jonathan Edwards said, We got together, we preachers.

And I guess it would mean shepherd. Remember, there were a vast number of intellectuals. Jonathan Edwards, I believe, was the greatest brain America ever had or ever will have.

He went to university at seven. At 13 years of age, he was voted the, what do you call it, invalid Victorian. A little later he became, went to Yale.

Was it Yale? Yale. He became president. Then he had a very bad time after that.

But he said, We have made up our minds, we preachers. Listen to it. Excuse me, I keep saying that.

Listen to it. I know you're listening with both ears. Some of you with your eyes, too.

Thank you. We made up our minds, we would never pluck any unripe fruit. The curse of American evangelism, we're plucking unripe fruit.

We're asking people to be saved, they don't know they're lost. The preacher hasn't got power in his own life, so he can't say what power he can reach by this man. It's an awful, I don't believe the spiritual temperance of America with all the fancy shows we have on TV.

A little boy I turned on the other day, I was looking at Jimmy's faggot. Don't like all Jimmy says, but anyhow, he's the best of the bunch, I think. And who'd they get got PTL? As I say, PTL means picket the listeners.

There's little Jimmy there, and his wife all dolled up with butter all over her face, a can of red paint on her lips, and somebody else's eyelashes, and somebody else's fingernails. Must be terrible when they go to bed at night and she takes her fingernails off. Then she leaves her dentures in the bathroom, and then she hangs her wig on the bedpost.

What a life. You could almost buy that at K-Mart. But the little guy, Jimmy Baker was saying, oh well, yes, there have been revivals.

Look at Mr. Finney, but he only drew thousands. We're seeing millions. The greatest revival since Pentecost is on the world.

I challenge you to find out why there's one city with a revival in it. One. A little squirt like him talking about Finney? I remember standing outside of the great church in Rochester, New York, and there was a placard there, it was in bronze, it said, Charles G, Charles G, that's Charles Grandison Finney, labored in this city for six months and a hundred thousand people were born again.

You could marry Jimmy, get Jimmy Stragett, I never said Maynard James, but you don't know him, he's my favourite picture, but anyhow. You could get Jimmy Stragett, Orville Roberts, Dave Wilkinson, put them all together. They couldn't go to a city in Benidorm, so I'd done in six months.

Do you know why we don't have revival? Because we're content to live without it, number one. And the second thing is the price is too high. And the third thing, we couldn't handle it if it came.

Usually you don't put a newborn baby in a refrigerator, do you? What's the good of God getting thousands of people saved and putting them, you know, a fine old Baptist preacher, Vance Havner, I like old Vance. He wrote the foreword to my last book, he did a good job. But that's a good book.

But anyhow. He said some people down where we live got refrigerators. He said we've got them all over our town, they've got steeples on them.

That's about it, isn't it? Go back please into chapter 63. We'll come to the other in a minute for sure. He's talking about Israel and he said in verse 9, in all their afflictions he was afflicted.

He was with them through the wilderness, he was with them in every step of the way. In all their afflictions he was afflicted and the angel of his presence prayed them. That's verse 9. In his love and in his pity he redeemed them.

Listen. He redeemed them, he bared them up, he carried them. Did you hear it? He saved them, he redeemed them, he bared them up, he carried them.

And verse 10. But they rebelled. What a dirty crowd.

They yelled like mad to get out of Egypt and when they got out they said can't you take us back? We're missing the onions and the garlic. I'm going to emphasize that again. You preach, you fellows preach on it.

Please. The angel of his presence prayed them, he redeemed them, he bared them up, he carried them, as in David, but they rebelled and vexed the Holy Spirit. Therefore he turned to be their enemy.

I'm not scared of Russia. Why should I be? Show me one scripture where God tells me to be afraid of my enemy. You can't show me one.

I don't believe number one enemy of America is Russia. Number one enemy of America is God. I'm scared to death that, to use that phrase, that God one of these days will cut us off and walk out from us like he walked out of Russia in 1917.

We're blessed, we're overloaded. You go into a store, you don't know which kind of bread to get. There's ten kinds of brown bread and whole wheat bread.

More sausages, you could link them from New York to California nearly. This brand, that brand, the other brand. Forty kinds of cheeses.

Good night, we've got everything. In a world that's stopped, are we grateful? You see, this man makes a statement that not many people like. I think it's at the end of the 58th chapter.

This is linked in with revival. I don't care what you say. I say it and so it's right.

Because it's my conviction. Isaiah 58 and verse 13. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath.

I say that because of all our football matches on the Sabbath so God got ahead of us. Take thy foot from thy Sabbath from doing thy pleasure on my holy day. And call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable.

And shalt honor him, not doing thine own things, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words. Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord. You know, you're having trouble in your family, maybe the trouble is you're breaking the Sabbath.

Oh well, there's not much in breaking the Sabbath. Well, your neighbor thinks there's much in committing adultery either. You choose to break the Sabbath, you're as guilty as he is.

You don't like your other neighbor, he steals. But he only steals about once a year. And the Lord says, keep thy day.

Ten commandments, only one of them has remember in it. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it whole. God is always taking Israel back and says, remember thou was a bondsman in Egypt.

Remember this, remember that. We've got awful short memories. How many times have you made a vow to God and broken it? I've heard of so many women when they were having a baby delivered and they thought they were going to die and they made vows to God and two months after they found they haven't kept any of them.

A year after they found they haven't kept any of them. We were saved in an accident, we were delivered from this or the other. And we forget, we have short memories.

You know, we don't have a holy God. We have a utility God. He's there to answer your prayers, send you money, send you gifts.

God forgives. Verse 6 in 64. This isn't a sermon, obviously, it's just commenting on things that are burning in my heart.

We are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. But listen, wait a minute, why don't we go to John? And John says, he that doeth righteous is righteous even as he is righteous. He didn't come to break a few filthy stinking habits in my life and change my cursing lips to blessing lips.

He came to do more than that. I believe, again, the greatest miracle in the world is that God can take an unholy man out of an unholy world, make that unholy man holy, put him back in an unholy world and keep him holy. That takes all the blood of the cross and all the power of the Holy Ghost and your will and total submission to God.

A world famous preacher was in my office not long ago and I said, tell me this, you cross the world, you've been to many cities, can you give me the names of ten holy men that you like? No, I can't. Well, think about the holy preachers. I can't.

You know, holiness is not a luxury, it's a necessity. One of the most astounding verses I never preached on and it is where God says we can be, in Hebrews, what, 12 or 13, we can be partakers of his holiness. And then two verses after the most shattering verse it says, without holiness no man shall see the Lord.

How many people do we die at burial of black slidden? And we say some nice holy words over them. Some people put what they call holy water. They die black slidden.

Without holiness, no. Is there sanctification in the sepulcher? Does the miracle take place between there and the resurrection? No serving, you're right. As a tree falls, so it lies.

Let's go to verse 7 in 64. There is none that stirreth up himself that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee. For thou hast hid thy face from us and hast consumed us because of our iniquities.

My definition of a prophet is that prophets are God's emergency men for crisis hours. We don't need a prophet in America. We need a prophet in every pulpit.

Elijah says gather all the people of Israel. He was a prophet. There were less people in Israel than there are in Chicago today.

Less people in Israel than there are in New York City. That poor, doomed, damned city down there called Mexico City where the priests have run it. I thought about those poor people trapped there for days.

I couldn't sleep some nights. Not only trapped because a man has a big what do you call it block of stone over his legs or his arms are pinned down he can't move. Do you know what it is? Despair wasn't physical it was spiritual.

Because to have been taught as a Catholic he must die either holding the crucifix or kiss it and the priest must pronounce his last rites to him. And the poor man's in a place as black as hell and he's suffering pain and there's no cross to kiss and there's no priest to talk to him. Well I ask you how will those priests escape the damnation of hell? They won't.

The biggest flaw the devil ever imposed on mankind is the Roman church. Only Swaggart dares say anything against it. Of course he goes overboard sometimes.

I've done that sometimes. I've often insulted people in fact I enjoy it. Swaggart said one day he showed us a wonderful woman in India.

I've been down the streets of India where women are there trying to feed a baby in the breast of not a human. They're ragged and dirty and smelly and flies swarm round them. And he says Mother Teresa puts maybe 12 people a day over her arm.

And whispers a scripture to them as they die. She's full of good works but he said over TV in the New York area she'll go to hell if she doesn't repent. He lost about a dozen Catholic stations like that.

But he'll have a dozen more stars in his crown when he gets up there anyhow. We're not laboring for wages that down here if we do we're idiots. I've been praying and groaning one night and I said to Martha I woke up and I said are you awake dear? Yes.

I said you know what? I said the man that chooses to be a preacher is an idiot. They should give him a certificate. Or let him have a pin in his lapel.

I'm crazy. If you've chosen to be a preacher you're crazy. But if God has chosen you don't let go of it.

If the deacons get as mad as the devil let them get mad. It's the greatest honour in the world to be able to declare the whole counsel of God. But isn't this a shocking thing? Let me go back a minute here.

You know people have said so often you see in the Old Testament they didn't know the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was with them but he wasn't in them. Forget it.

What does it say in this 63rd chapter in verse 10? They rebelled and vexed the Holy Spirit. Therefore he was turned to be their enemy. You know one of these days they're going to discover the Holy Ghost has gone.

And he'll go out of mercy and leave us alone. We'll preach the same. We'll gesticulate the same.

We'll shout the same. And the meeting will be as flat as the floor. And God will do that in order to drive us back to the place where we realise there's nothing in our flesh, nothing in our theology, nothing in our doctrine, nothing in our terminology.

It must be the Holy Ghost. He wrote the book. He inspired it.

He interprets it. Okay, verse 10 in 63. But they rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit.

Therefore he turned to be their enemy. And he fought against them. God now instead of delivering them out of the hand of Pharaoh, he brought water out of the rock, he sent manna from heaven, he gave them quails and now he turns and becomes their enemy.

Brother listen, if God is your enemy you've no friends anywhere. No matter how rich you are, how famous you are, how big your church is, how big your denomination is, whether you have a TV programme or not, if God goes out what do you send? Verse 11 Then he remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? Where is he that put his Holy Spirit within him? The Holy Ghost was in Moses. That's fair enough, isn't it? He's called a prophet.

Do you think a prophet was ever void of the Holy Ghost? Now we're in 64. Verse 7 There is none that calleth upon my name that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee, for thou hast hid thy praise from us and hast consumed us because of our iniquities. Do you know what people? There'll be people in hell fire screaming the name of their pastor forever and ever because he had in the Holy Ghost fire.

Why did Isaiah have this concept of God? Because he saw the Lord high and lifted up. What did he do? He fell at his feet. What did he pray? Help me, I need power to preach.

No, he didn't. He said two statements. I'm undone and I'm unclean.

And if you can get people to the altar and get them to confess in brokenness I'm undone, I'm unclean, you can get somewhere. If you only want God to forgive their lousy sins and make them a little nicer to live with, forget them. I wouldn't even bother with them.

God's business is to make us holy. When Saul had an evil spirit he did evil things. Jesus said when a man has an unclean spirit he does unclean things.

On that basis a man with a holy spirit does holy things. If you have the Holy Ghost you live a holy life. If you have a holy life you'll be easy to live with.

If you have a holy life nobody on earth or in hell can offend you. Once you get a clean heart, a sanctified heart I like to call it, it won't make a hill of beans who likes you or dislikes you. Psalm 119 verse 156-65 says, Great peace have they which love thy law and nothing shall offend them.

I've got one or two friends I know who were never offended. Well why do we get so offended? Because somebody hurts our prejudiced ego or something? I love that verse of Jesus he says, the prince of this world, he admits that, the prince of this world can, and findeth nothing in me. Well that's what I want to live.

Because the devil's smart but I'll tell you what he can't do, he can't hit nothing. And the only thing you retaliate is there's something in you, there's some pride and somebody hurts it, some bitterness and somebody touches it, and immediately you spring out like a lion, a tiger jumping out of a ditch. Great peace have they which love thy law and nothing.

You know the great joy in having nothing, do you know what it is? You can't lose anything. Isn't that profound? If you've no opinion of yourself nobody shall rub your nose into dust. What Luther said, either is law need fear no fault.

You sit on the floor you can't fall anywhere can you? If you've written yourself off, you don't want to be of any reputation, doesn't matter what people say about you. Great joy in having nothing, you can't lose anything. I remember somebody walked through to a friend of mine and said, you know, I don't like your preaching.

He said, shake hands. He said, why? He said, I don't like it either. So the poor guy didn't know what to do.

He was embarrassed. He thought he'd defend himself. He said, but I don't like it, it should be 100% better than it is.

If you've no pride nobody can get worried, touch it. But there's a great embarrassment in having nothing. A friend of mine came at midnight and I had nothing to say before him.

That's why the church is today, she's nothing to give this world. I've come down here to a shocking chapter, pardon, verse here, in Isaiah 64 and verse 10. Well, I've heard preachers again say, you know, Isaiah doesn't say that.

Isaiah doesn't say that. Isaiah say that. Isaiah say that.

You can't limit by evocation. Okay, verse 10 in 64. My holy cities are a wilderness.

Zion, the chief part of Jerusalem. Zion is what? A wilderness. Jerusalem, a desolation.

Our holy and beautiful house where our fathers praised thee is burned with fire. And all our present things are laid in ruins. You're going to tell me he said that without tears? I won't believe you.

I won't believe Gabriel if he told me. A man doesn't look over desolation and waste. He doesn't see the mounting condemnation that's going to come against this people without grief, without tears.

I was looking at that, let me see if I can find it here, in Jeremiah, no, in Lamentations. Lamentations chapter 1. You know, the old Methodist used to sing a hymn, Blessed are the men of broken hearts who mourn for sin with inward smart. Not mourning for their own sin, necessary, mourning for the sin of the nation.

Now, if this is a broken man, tell me where there is one. Lamentations 1 and verse 20, he says, Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress. He is distressed about what? Himself? No, his people.

My bowels are troubled. My heart is turned within me. I have grievously rebelled, or we have grievously rebelled.

And therefore the sword bereave us. Look in chapter 2 and verse 11. This isn't some hot flush this man has when he is in a meeting and he suddenly feels, Oh, I've been rather naughty, I haven't been good, I haven't read my Bible enough, I haven't given enough permission, forget it.

That's sheer rotten emotion that preachers work on. Tell me, if you will, after this, or send me a post. Do you know a man that lives in this situation? In verse 11, Lamentations 2, mine eyes fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured out for the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the children and sufferings swoon in the streets.

Verse 11 says, All that pass by clap their hands at thee, and they hit and wag their heads at the daughters of Jerusalem, saying, This city is a city that men call the perfection of beauty and the joy of the whole earth. It was a very embodiment of God's holiness. I think again when Jesus stood there at the temple, he was thinking back to the time when Solomon had built that temple.

And when they prepared an altar, when they prepared to sacrifice, and the glory of God came and all the priests backed out. They couldn't minister for the glory of God. Ever been in a meeting like that? You want to be in a meeting like that? You want to get your church to pray that someday the preacher will go and he didn't say a word? John Knox, the great reformer, when he preached in St. Giles Cathedral in Scotland, I stood outside it and looked at it there in Edinburgh.

He went through it one day and he went through the whole performance, about 3,000 people in the sanctuary. The choir sang, somebody else sang, somebody read a scripture and so forth. He raised his hand and said, God be with you to the next Lord's Day.

I have no message. Do you know a preacher has the guts to say that? It would have dug up some old whiskery sermon, wouldn't it? Some note says in the back of his Bible he's preached a thousand times. He dares to say, I have no message.

And people remember that as much as when he was at his peak as an orator. Go back a little earlier here in Lamentations to Jeremiah chapter 4. One of the most best known verses in scripture, I guess, is in chapter 4 and verse 3. Thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground and sow not among thorns. Over to verse 8. For this, gird yourselves with sackcloth and lament and howl.

Do anybody preachers doing that? They don't do that anymore. People love to quote the second chapter of Joel. He's going to pour out his spirit and all flesh.

But there's something important before that in chapter 1 of Joel. Verse 11. Be ashamed all ye husband men if you like you preachers howl ye vine dressers for the wheat, for the barley, because the harvest of the field is perished.

The vine is dried up. The fig tree languishes. The pomegranate tree and the palm tree and the apple tree, even the trees of the field are withered because joy is withered from the sons of men.

There is no joy. Joy reaches its highest peak when there's a Holy Ghost revival. Now when we clap our hands and try and bring God down.

We try and work up an atmosphere but God comes down. Joel 1. verse 13 gird yourselves and lament ye priests howl ye ministers of the altar. Come all night in sackcloth.

I was invited to a conference this past year. I got a fantastic brochure with the names of I don't know how many professors and doctors and leaders of movements and what have you got on revival. I didn't go.

We're going to lose this day. I said listen I don't scorn scholarship. I have a son with a PhD in his wife's house and the other boys are pretty smart.

I wrote back to the man and said sir you sent me about 60 names. This doctor is a professor of something at a certain university. This man leads a certain movement.

This man is one of the best known Christian philosophers. I said you sent me all those men. I've never heard of them.

I'll tell you we're drawing the men to God. Not just because we have no degrees. Dave Wilkerson has no degrees.

Billy Graham has none but what was given to him. Swaggart has none. The men that are pulling the crowds in America today are men who have no degrees.

They've been to the university. I went to Bush University. I told a lady when she asked me what university did you go to.

I said Bush. Well do I know anyone that went there? I said Moses. She said Moses who? Maybe she thought it was a basketball player Moses.

I preached in a big college and seminary and I said to the professor sitting there preaching on Hannah actually in her travel and I quoted this. It says the priests weep between the altar and the doorpost. I said you have a graduation class here for those who howl and if they learn to howl can they get another degree in weeping between the altar and the doorpost? It's foreign to us.

We want revival our way. Go to hell. If you're depending on somewhere you're going to work it, it'll never come.

The Christian life will only work one way that's God's way. Revival will only come one way that's God's way. Billy Graham is going to have another gathering.

Last time he had it in Busan in Switzerland. They sent free tickets for men in Philippines and Borneo and Timbuktu and what have you got and they came and had a nice vacation and they had a good time I guess. It cost 14 million dollars.

I'll tell you something in the presence of God. Revival doesn't cost a penny. It costs obedience, broken hearts, writing the world off and saying I don't care, I hang about the world, the flesh and the devil.

If some of you guys could get your church to say, listen, we won't watch TV for a month. We'll meet every night in the sanctuary for prayer, for intercession, for our town. Everybody's a success away from home.

You preachers go to somebody else's church, have a great time. You left the bankrupt church behind so you kicked your heels in somebody else's pulpit. But Jerusalem is the place, the home base is where revival must come.

Beginning at Jerusalem. And that's the hardest place. They were the most despised, discredited, disappointed, disillusioned men in the world.

You wonder why people don't believe you. They didn't believe Jesus, so forget it. Even when he was risen from the dead going down the road, going to Emmaus.

We trusted. It was in the past tense. They didn't believe then.

Went to the upper room, there was Thomas and they said, you missed it, he's just been, who? Jesus. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard a woman screaming up the road saying, he's risen, he's risen, he's risen.

You know, those high-powered women that scream their heads off. You won't get me to believe. Until I take my finger and put it in his side and I put my finger in the nail prints.

Boy, if ever a man lived to regret it. Next time they went to the meeting, Jesus turned up. You know why Thomas missed it? Because he went to a meeting late.

That's why you miss it so often. Sometimes the blessing is in the first hymn or in the prayer. I get more out of hymns and out of preaching usually.

Except my own of course, but anyhow. There never has been revival without intercessory prayer and tears. I thank God I get precious friends that I can pray with and weep with.

Billy Graham is going to repeat in Amsterdam what he did at the other place. One of his closest friends wrote to me afterwards, he said, I wrote to him, I said, what was it like in Lewisham? Did you have a night of prayer? Was there brokenness? Did the fire come down? I said, no, no Len, you'd have been disappointed, I sure would. It would be the same thing this next time.

If it cost 50 million dollars. Obedience, trust and obey, there's no other way. As the old Englishman said, I have to trust and obey.

It's as simple as that. Gird yourselves, lament ye priests and howl and lie all night in sackcloth. Ye ministers of my God, there you've got it.

What do you say that for ministers? Wait a minute, come on. I heard Dr. G. Campbell Morgan preach often and I remember more than once he said this, one of the saddest days in the Christian Church is when we divided the professional ministers from the laymen. There's no difference in the sight of God.

Because I'm 12 inches above you here doesn't mean I'm any bigger in the sight of God. It made us a kingdom of priests unto God. We're a royal priesthood and we're a holy nation.

If you're born again of the Spirit and the Holy Ghost is in you, you've as much access to God as I have. You see, the thing again that troubles me, as I've said often, I'll still say, I read Hebrews 11 where those were fantastic, that vast scope of men and women, all they had was not money and prestige, every one of them had faith. They subdued kingdoms, brought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped them out of life.

Come on, and not one of them ever had a Bible. What in God's name, what excuse do you have? Suppose you died tonight and went straight to judgment, you won't do that. See, when a man's dead, he isn't dead.

Spurgeon's dead. Thousands of Baptist preachers will resurrect his sermons Sunday and preach them. He still lives, and he's going to get payment at the end of the journey for every sermon you preached of his.

Do you think God's going to reward you for preaching Spurgeon? Forget it. Oh, a fellow said, I've been preaching Sunday church. Good! I've preached through my Revival Parish, I preach a message to all old people.

Great! Keep laying up treasure in heaven for me. They say, what, for you? I say, what, do you think God's going to reward you for a sermon you stole? You're going to become troubled about that, I'll tell you. Sanctify a fast and call a solemn assembly.

People scorned the Pharisee that stood. He went up to the temple, he went up to the front, he lifted up his voice and he said, I thank God I'm not as other men are. Extortion is unjust or even there is poverty.

I fast twice in the week. You can't get Christians to fast once a week, never nine times. He fasted twice every week, because of what the law said.

Remember that hymn that says, Fasting alone in the desert, there was Jesus alone. No, sorry, we don't know how to fast. Call a solemn assembly, get the elders and the inhabitants of the land.

This chapter in Joel here for a minute again. Verse 11 says, The day of the Lord shall utter his voice before his army, for his camp is very great, for he is strong that executes his word, and the day of the Lord is great and very terrible. Therefore now, not tomorrow, the choice in America lies either we, either we concentrate in praying or we pray in concentration camps.

Make a joint. Most preachers spend more time in bed than they do out of it. If you're under forty years of age and you don't see any reason why you should be in bed after four o'clock in the morning.

John Wesley met with his friends, and they were friends. John Newton that wrote Amazing Grace, William Cowper that wrote There is a fountain filled with blood. And a bunch of other intellectuals and they met at four o'clock in the morning, unless he said we prayed at ten at night till four in the morning and then we stood up and raised our hands and sang the doxology.

You don't need to do that now when you're a popular church, do you? When people are tired and you can spend anything you like on the church, do as you like, get some nice soft seats so they'll sleep better during the sermon. Where are the fasting, weeping, praying pastors? Verse twelve, Therefore also now sayeth the Lord, Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. Are you reading verse thirteen? Verse thirteen, Judge yourself.

Lament ye priests and herald ye ministers of the altar. Come all night in sackcloth. Is there anybody that mourns? Sackcloth is indicative of mourning, of grief, of sorrow.

Our preachers have to go to the best suits they can get. Sackcloth. And not only sackcloth, but it talks about ashes.

That means that something has been consumed. Now he doesn't let them off again, he says that word in verse twelve. Then fifteen, he says, Draw the trumpet in Zion.

In Zion? Not to the world? I'm not worried about a revival in the world, I'm worried about a revival in the church. Getting cleaned up and purified and sanctified. And getting all the dumb things that take up your time.

You can always tell a church that's bankrupt that it has a sign outside in another building. Family gathering. Entertainment is the devil's substitute for joy.

There's a king in America. I'll tell you his name, the king of America. I'll tell you the name of his queen.

The king is called sport and his wife is called entertainment. And come on now between them sinners don't tithe. Don't they give God a measly pence of what they earn? They'll spend every penny, isn't that true? And borrow money to get drunk and borrow money to go to all this weekend World Series.

Some of these guys will shout their heads off, they couldn't squeak their heads off. gay men in church. But they're screaming like Comanche Indians.

Brother. That brother is a full-blooded Indian bless him, I love him. I'm asking you, when are we going to get serious? People write to me, are you writing another book on revival? I've almost made a vow today I won't go to any gathering of men about revival unless they lay all night between the altar and the doorpost.

Are we trying to improve on God? Oh well, Rayner is arrogant, he talks revival, he won't come and no, I won't go, why should I? This is God's prescription, it's not Westminster, it's not Phineas, it's not Sturgeon's, it's God's recipe if you like. You can't tell people to weep, they weep when they're heartbroken. They weep when they're terrified.

I don't wonder Paul said, knowing the terror of the Lord. You see, today we are all so sweet and sugary, dear God. We're in bad shape.

Skip down to verse 17 a minute before I leave this. I'm not supposed to preach Friday nights, you know. But verse 17 says, Let the priests and ministers of the Lord weep between the porch and the altar and let them say, Stay at thy people, O God.

I believe the shortest cut to hell is down the middle aisle of the average church. Why did Jeremiah stay with it to the end of the road? Because he says, Your word burns like a fire in my heart. Why did Isaiah go on with all the opposition he had? Because he says, When he cried to God, the Holy One, a cherubim took a live coal from off the altar and put it on his lips and said, After he confessed, I'm unclean, I'm undone.

Then the angel came on the cherubim with a pair of tongs, took a live coal and he touched him where he was unclean, on his lips. Wesley said in his day, Gossip is the curse of the church. Gossip, slander, criticism, ridicule.

I've been to ministers' meetings where they told borderline jokes. Then somebody gets a bit bolder and tells a blue joke and everybody laughs. I've never been to a dinner with ministers yet with any intelligence there.

They don't talk about golf, they talk about football. Talk about their Sunday school numbers. Watch your golf handicaps.

We got dirty preachers like that in the pulpit, no wonder the church is dirty. Let the priests and ministers of the Lord weep between the porch and the altar. Let them say, spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach that the heathen should rule over them.

I'm going back to 64 now. I can find it somewhere here. You know, we talk about Jesus living to make intercession for us.

I'm just thinking of this word here in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah where we have a picture of his crucifixion. He says, Therefore in the last verse will I deliver him a portion with the great. He shall divide the spoil with the strong because he hath poured out his soul unto death.

I may be off my horse here. I think the dying thief suffered as much as Jesus did physically. The Catholic church has made a lot.

You see, you go and see a plastic Christ with blood running down his forehead and his hands and his side ripped open. But this is very clear. It says his soul was made an offering to sin.

All thy billows, the wrath of God came upon him. He tasted damnation because God blew the sun out and wouldn't let men see the crucifixion. His disciples forsook him.

God forsook him. My God, my God, he cried. The loyal lama said back to him.

Why hast thou forsaken me? He was separated from his Father for a moment so that you and I didn't have to be separated for eternity. That's right. That same verse, 12 of 53.

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great. He shall divide the portion with the strong. Because he has poured out his soul unto death and he was numbered with the transgressors.

And he bared the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. Didn't he pray for them? Every crisis in the life of Jesus, read the life of Jesus in the gospel according to Luke. And you'll find the prayer life of Jesus.

He says that when he stepped down into the water he was praying when the Spirit descended upon him. He says he was on the mount of transfiguration and the Spirit descended upon him there. In every crisis you'll find the Spirit descending on Jesus he's praying.

Oh dear. I'm going to just talk a little about this. 64th chapter verse 10.

Again I can't think of this man saying this with dry eyes. Our holy and beautiful house where our fathers praised thee. The Pentecostals talk about the Holy Ghost coming on a hoover street that nobody has ever been in a meeting like that since.

It's not God's fault it's our fault. We sat satisfied with clapping our hands a new few songs and tuck our feet. Our holy city.

I remember when the bombs came on England and the bombs hit indiscriminately. One of the great pictures of World War II was the cross on top of St. Paul's Cathedral with a background of terrible black clouds with all around the buildings and they never hit the house of God in that sense. But they're talking historically here.

The beautiful house where our fathers praised thee. We don't have to praise. I've never been in a church in the world where they don't have to worship.

I've been in meetings where they say let's all raise hands and worship. That's not worship that's praise. Praise is the gateway to worship.

Worship is the gateway to adoration. Adoration is what you do in prostrate on the floor. Dr. George used to say to me often now Brother Leonard if I go before you remember you and I worship God face downward.

You can't be distracted looking at the rug. That man would lay three, four, five hours on the rug. He showed me the rug.

And he said then I can stay there on my face three, four, five hours without saying a word of prayer, without saying a word of praise. I'd just worship. I might be turning over in my mind Faber's marvelous words how beautiful, how beautiful the sight of thee must be.

Thine endless wisdom, Thine endless power and awful purity. O 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.

Burn fearfully night and day till all the dross of earthly love. He said I get there three or four hours. I gave on his holiness one day.

I gave on his incredible majesty another day. I gave on his ineffable love another day. I moved to tears and brokenness as I meditated the mercy of God.

Why doesn't he cut us off? The commandments of Jesus, of God, ten commandments have been broken ten million times in America today and God seems to relax and do nothing about it. But he's going to do it. Why doesn't he judge now? Because he's appointed a day.

Paul said that to the philosophers didn't he at Athens? What is it? 16th, 17th of Acts? 16th? The Epicureans and Stoics and philosophers and poets. And he said you worship an unknown God. I want to tell you about that unknown God.

I hate the devil every day more that I live. I remember in Thailand that brother Steve was here last week, he'd gone to Thailand. I remember going up a street at four o'clock in the morning and they have great wooden fences there made of teak.

It doesn't rot, they don't paint it. And there's a little door on the shelf and they put a big bowl of rice. And there's a big hefty freeze coming down.

And the boy goes and takes the rice and throws it in the bag. And off they go. I went to the great temple with a reclining Buddha, 120 feet long, covered with gold.

And people bowed their noses to the ground and were crying there to a God who can't hear, to a God who can't feel, to a God who can't move himself, never mind anybody else. Millions of them. Indomination to that.

Doesn't move the church. You get more people to your church with a chicken supper than you get ever a night of prayer for people in Russia. The beautiful hours where our fathers praised thee.

It's burned with fire and all our pleasant things are, revised version says, ruined. I've been to say that they could look at all that waste and destruction, they could see their history and now they see all that their fathers built and the prophets built have been destroyed and it's crumbled away and nobody's moved to tears. I think it's very near the day that we're living in.

There's a wonderful book by J.I. Packer, not because he's English but he's a great preacher. It's called Knowing God. I copied this from it today.

Well, I paraphrased it a little myself. This generation has unashamedly sold itself to the gods of greed. I've put a sign there.

Greed in Christian circles today is called prosperity but it's still greed anyhow. This generation has sold itself without blushing to the gods of greed and sex and pride and self-will but the church is mumbling on about the goodness of God and we're as near hell as the nation has ever been. All preach the goodness but listen there's another side to the coin.

It says the goodness and severity of God. I want to take you to a reference. Remember Moses was up on the mountain and he pleaded with God turn away from my fierce wrath he says and later in the chapter Aaron says to Moses you turn from your fierce wrath.

You see he's lived in the presence of God till he's like him. You'll get like the people you live with. If you live with a holy girl you'll become a holy man.

If you live with a bunch of backsliders you get like them if you're not careful. Moses has been with an angry God and he got angry. The trouble is we don't have to be angry.

We get angry over something a child does. When you do that you're the child and he's the father. Do you think somebody will have the courage you know Methodist, Baptist, what have you got? Church of God? I'm going to preach there some night Church of God near the end of town.

Do you think any denomination dare make all its ministers together to fast and pray? You go to a conference and ministers are talking, hey we're going duck hunting you know. One of our deacons has a hut up on a hill and there's a lot of ducks. They'll go duck hunting.

They'll go deer hunting. But God has them at the judgment bar. They'll sing let the whole realm of nature night.

They'll give hunting three days. They won't give God three days on their face before God fasting and praying. We've lost the fire.

Our God is consuming fire. Where did Moses get his life revolutionized? At a burning bush. Ezekiel says the fire burned him.

Jeremiah says I have a fire burning in me. People slang terms. I hate people asking, have you had the baptism? What in the world do you mean? He shall baptize you in the Greek.

He shall baptize you with Holy Ghost fire. There never has been a moving of God without God, the Holy Ghost, the fire of the Holy Ghost coming. First consuming sin and then enlightening intellectually, measure the way, the Holy Word of God.

Yes, we sold ourselves out to Satan. Things that used to be done in the back street now you can see on TV shows. You're stupid enough to watch it.

Nobody grumbles about adultery anymore. My friend, my neighbor couldn't come tonight, he's with boys sick. He'd just come back from Sweden.

You know, sex is a sport there. Kids fornicate on the way home from school. But while they're the most reckless kids in the world, remember this, that they have the biggest suicide rate too, of all the nations of the world.

Mercy. I think of all the gimmicks and everything else we have in evangelism today. And yet those men came out of this world without money, without prestige, without a purse, just power.

Rejected by men on every level, but accepted by God. Rejected by orthodox religion, the temple crowd wouldn't acknowledge them. But they went out anointed with the Holy Ghost.

And what happened? They turned the world upside down, it says. We turn the world upside down. I'll just go back and quote this and finish.

Again in John 2, in 12, verse 12, it says, Therefore all shall now serve the Lord. Turn ye even to me with all your heart. No divided heart.

With all your heart. Not a heart that's half interested in sports, or even business. With all your heart.

And with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. And rend your hearts and not your garments. In other words, don't put a professional outside when there's nothing inside that's really moving.

I know now people live today that don't know God. You know a few years ago we framed all the trouble of the world on Mussolini, the wicked fascist, and Hitler, and the old Georgian Stalin. We had about four or five men, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin.

If we get rid of them, we've cleaned the world up. We've got a bigger madman than all of them by the name of Gaddafi right now. The devil isn't short of captains for his army.

They're not short of fun. They're not short of courage to do the most wicked, violent things in the face of the world. So why in God's name are we such an idiot? Oh dear.

We've got a precious brother here, an Indian. A real Indian, not a diamond store Indian. He was telling me last week about the condition.

You know, one of the greatest mission fields in the world is on our doorstep. It's neglected. The black people often say they've been neglected, not like the American Indians.

If the American Indians had been as violent as some of the blacks who the Burmese have been for thousands of years ago. I thank you for this, dear brother. Here are the American Indians.

This is the percentage of alcoholism. In the Navajo tribe, it's 50%. In the Sioux tribe, it's 80%.

In the Shoshone-Arapaho tribe, it's 90%. In the Apaches, it's 95%. In the Kiowa tribe, it's 30%.

The mortality rate amongst the American Indians is four times the rate of whites and blacks. That's a mortality, that's a death rate. They died mad in drink.

I'm sure there are hundreds of murders never reported. The suicide rate among Indians is four times higher than that of the white people. Now, here's the thing that makes me kick and get mad.

The Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses continue to make Indian converts all over the nation. What in God's name have they got?