Audio Sermon： A Burning Heart

So shall I all my love exert and love them with the zeal like thine and turn them to a pardoning God and quench their drowns in Jesus' blood. Kindle a fire in this meeting tonight. That be a wall of fire so that people will not let a 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. I give you praise in his name. Thank you. If any of you want to be in the limelight, come up here. Terrible. We're going to look in the prophecy of Isaiah. A great biblical scholar, I think it was a Hebrew scholar, said that the, 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. Okay, we're going to Isaiah. Did I give you the chapter? I didn't. Well, it's 64. This book, well, 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. Affected me. 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 to backsliders. 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 his pressures on a 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, I don't care whatsoever you have a rapture. The Lord isn't coming for a limping 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 to 39, you'll find that the holy God or holiness is mentioned no less than 12 times. If you take the second half of the book from chapters 40 to 66, you'll find that holiness or a holy God is mentioned no less than 17 times. This man seems to me he's always hitting the peaks. He prophesied the birth of Jesus, he prophesied 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... Do you ever see a root that was attracted? He's the root out of a dry ground. He has no form nor 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 choked me up, 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 30 years he was on earth than he would have done if it stayed in heaven another thousand years. He undid all that Adam did. Whatever came in for Adam. Now there's a lovely hymn, it 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. And then he goes on to say, let me get this in a minute. Let me quote it again. O loving wisdom of our God and all with 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 twice 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 is 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. 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 that the scripture isn't it the psalm said and don't look I think it is. But it says God is angry with the wicked every day. I heard somebody call today God loves you but hates your sin. That's bunkum. 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 we'll all be embarrassed. 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. The resources that there are in the Godhead. 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 two or three conferences and everybody at the conference preached on wall or go. Well that's illegal that belongs to me. But here in this sixth chapter it's simple words monosyllables. So simple a preacher could remember them. Verse five he said woe is me I'm undone. Verse seven it said low. 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 has touched 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. That's for only if they're saved. We used to say stay in a beautiful estate in the Bahamas. Half past six in the morning or six to half past I did a chug, chug, chug of a motorboat. I go under the verandah of the house look in the channel there was a man with a sombrero and a yellow top. He's like but the rain reminds me that I'm saved from hell. Well that's wonderful it's a fringe benefit. 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? Who 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? Wall logo. Remember the first verse says in the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne. Do you know that? Let me think how many times. I think there are 14 references. Mostly in Isaiah about God sitting upon a throne. So there he has vision. You go down there down then to in 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 lost world outside so it's a vision of breadth. 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 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. Now 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 has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor, 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 70, verse sorry 15. Behold all the nations out of the 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 in vanity. Now verse 18 is a question. To whom will he liken me, or what likeness will he give me? Says the Lord. Then 22, it is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth. In another 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 there 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 said there were the other day. I enjoy a scientist saying that. I think 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 him. Isaac Watts has a hymn in which he says, he made the stars, those heavenly flames. 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 wit, the active limb, all are too mean delights for him. But saints are lovely in this 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 he was praying. You know, the salvation of America does not rest on the White House. I don't care who gets him. 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 says, I preached as if to never preach again. And as a dying man to dying men. I reminded the crowd last week, crowd, hold you thousands there. The greatest scroll 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 the healing line. He never sold worn out handkerchiefs and dusters that he blessed. More people are healed through Spurgeon 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 six and I'll deal with you. And there was a procession and he stayed three hours every Monday morning and three hours every Monday night dealing with people. When he finished, Dr. A.D. Dixon went. He was a gradual 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 asked him afterwards, why did you, Mr. Spurgeon, never ever in 20 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 weave 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, 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 the iron is hot. The newspaper man blessed him and said to Dr. Dixon, you know what Spurgeon would have said? If the iron was hot with the Holy Ghost at 8 o'clock on a Sunday night, it'd still be as hot next morning at 8 o'clock. I believe in that kind of salvation. If we don't get that preaching back, you 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 17, what, 34, through that gravel-voiced, sour-looking man by the name of Jonathan Edwards. Do you know the New England revival began as a cut out of an ordinary meeting? It wasn't staged. They 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 weep over your sins in secret. We used to live in a town nine miles out of Manchester, England. There was 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 Corps, 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'd go 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 didn't have a prayer meeting Saturday night. Saturday night from nine o'clock till midnight. Or Friday night, nine 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 the 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, ask the people, who do the people say that I am? Some say thou art Elijah. Some say you're Elijah. Some say that you're John Baptist, risen from the dead. But some say thou art 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, 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 the prophet of prophets as much as he's the 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 we 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. But 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 was, it's 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 admission we can't do it. The Catholics would 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 inhabited 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 a name, 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 knee's not together like the first time you stood in the 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 you have a dead meeting? It's impossible. If the meeting's 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 three. 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, beside thee what he hath prepared for them that wait for him. Do you know what the Hebrew says? Death. Those who salt 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 glory of God has been there tonight. You go to the average church in Dallas, and you can't get off the steps 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 six he says, we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags. You know, people say that to me, 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 saves us from sins that we've committed, and 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 at chapter 59 and 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 Trebek was the wonderful principal, and he loved and said over and over, 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, Turneth again, O God, and calls thy face, not we'll turn ourselves, it's going to take omnipotence. Turneth again, O God, calls thy face to shine upon us, and we will be saved. O Lord God of hosts, how long will thou be angry against the prayer of thy people? Verse 7, Turneth again, O God of hosts, calls thy face to shine upon us, and be saved. The last verse, 19, Turneth again, O Lord God of hosts, calls thy face to shine upon us, and we shall be saved. We say, you know, 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 he would mean shepherds who, remember there are 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 him, valedictorian. A little later he became, when Yale, was it Yale, it was Yale, he became president. And then he had a very bad time after that. But he said, we 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, can be reached by this man. It's an awful, I don't believe the spiritual temperature of America with all the fancy shows we have on TV. A little boy I turned on the other day, I was looking for Jimmy Swaggart, don't like old Jimmy Swaggart, but anyhow, he's the best of the bunch, I think. And who did I get, got PTO. As I say, PTO means pity the listeners. There's little Jimmy there, and his wife all dolled up with butter all over her face, and a can of red paint on her lips, and somebody else's eyelashes, and somebody else's fingernails. It 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 can almost buy that it came up. But a 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. So now, I challenge you to find out why there's one city with 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 100,000 people were born again. You could marry Jimmy, get Jimmy Shraggart, and I never said Maynard Jean, but you don't know who he is. He's my wife's favorite preacher. Anyhow, you could get Jimmy Shraggart, Oral Roberts, Dave Wilkerson, put them all together. They couldn't go to a city in Benidorm, Saigon 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. Because 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. Well, 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 nine, 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 saved them. That's verse nine. 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 ten, but they rebelled. What a dirty crowd. They yell like mad to get out of Egypt. And when they got out, they said, can 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 saved 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 script 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 10 kinds of brown bread and whole wheat bread. More sausages that you could link them from New York to California, nearly. This brand, that brand, the other brand. 40 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 century. 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 isn't 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 my day. Ten commandments, only one of them has remembering it. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. 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 broke 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 found they hadn't kept any of them. A year after found they hadn't kept any of them. We were saved in an accident. We were delivered from this or the other. And we forget, we've 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 pities. 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 righteousness is out 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's 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 is total submission to God. A world famous preacher was in my office not long ago. I said, tell me this, you've crossed the world. You've been to many cities. Can you give me the names of ten holy men that you know? 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 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 bury who are blackslidden? And we say some nice holy words over them. Some people put what they call holy water. They die blackslidden. Without holiness, no. Is the sanctification in the sepulchre? Does some miracle take place between there and the resurrection? No sir, 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 damn 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. You know, his despair wasn't physically, it was spiritual. Because he'd 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 of lack of 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, sure, there's a wonderful woman in India. I've been down the streets of India where women are there trying to feed a baby in the breasts of mother England. They're ragged and dirty and smelling flies swarm around 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, I said, are you awake, dear? Yes. I said, do you know what? I said, a 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 honor in the world to be able to declare the whole counsel of God. But isn't it a shocking thing? Oh, 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 is it saying, 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, we'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 realize 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 inspires it. He interprets it. OK, 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 prayers. 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 program or not. If God goes out, brother, you're sunk. 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. You know what, people? There'll be people in hellfire screaming the name of their pastor forever and ever because he hadn't the Holy Ghost for them. 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 the Holy Spirit does holy things. If you have the Holy Ghost, you'll 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 156-165 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 prigidly ego or something? I love that verse of Jesus. He says, The prince of this world, he admits that, a prince of this world come and find us nothing in me. Well, that's where I want to live. Because the devil's smart, but that's 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, there's a great joy in having nothing. Do you know what it is? You can't lose anything. Isn't that profound? If you have no opinion of yourself, nobody can rub your nose into dust. Was it Luther said, Either is law, need fear nor fall. 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 up 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's embarrassed. He thought he'd defend himself. I said, but I don't like it. It should be 100% better than it is. If you have 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. Let's come down here to a shocking chapter, pardon the verse here. In Isaiah 64 and verse 10. Well, I've heard preachers again say, you know, Isaiah doesn't have to. Are you going to try and persuade me you'll waste your time if you spend two years doing it? Are you going to tell me that a man whose people have known the holiness of God and deserted it, the protection of God, he's been a wall of fire and now he's moved out? Are you going to tell me this man had dry eyes when he said, Oh, but thou wouldst render heavens. It's the same old, said in the same tone that Jeremiah said in chapter 9. Oh, but thy head will waters. It's the same old that broke the heart of Jesus and he looked on Jerusalem. He says, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you can't limit thy elocution. Okay, verse 10 in 64. Thy 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 pleasant 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 heart who mourn for sin with inward smart. Not mourning for their own sin necessarily. Mourning for the sin of the nation. Now, if this is a broken man, tell me whether it's one. Lamentations 1 and verse 20 he says, Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress. He's distressed about what? Himself? No, his people. My bowels are troubled. My heart is turned within me. I've 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's in a meeting and he suddenly feels, Oh, I've been rather naughty. I'm being good. I haven't read my Bible enough. I'm giving enough permission. Forget it. That's sheer rotten emotion that preachers work on. Tell me if you will after this. I'll send you a post. Do you know a man that lives in this situation? In verse 11, Lamentations 2, Mine eyes fail with fears. My bowels are troubled. My liver is poured out for the destruction of the daughter of my people. Because of children and sufferings shown in the streets. Verse 11 he says, All that pass by clap their hands at thee, And they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, Saying, This city is the 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 a temple, He was thinking back to the time when Solomon had built that temple. And when they prepared an altar, When they prepared the 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? Do you want to be in a meeting like that? Do you want to get your church to pray that someday the preacher will go on his death and say a word? John Knox, the great reformer, When he preached in St. Giles Cathedral in Scotland, I stood outside of 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, And he stood up, raised his hand, And he said, God be with you till the next Lord's day. I have no message. Do you know if 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 there if you're 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. Did anybody preach doing that? We don't do that anymore. People love to quote the second chapter of Joel, you know. 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, O ye husbandmen, if you like you preachers, howl, ye vinedressers. 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. Not 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 all this. I said, listen, I don't scorn scholarship. I have a son has an M.Ph.D. in his right hand. 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 Wilson has no degree. Billy Graham has none, 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, I was 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 some way 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 Luzern in Switzerland. They sent free tickets for men in the 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 costs 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 say, I don't care to 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 a 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 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. Do 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 than 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've got precious friends that I can pray with and weep with. Billy Graham is going to repeat what, 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 Lucerne? Did you have a night of prayer? Was there brokenness? Did the fire come down? No, Len, you'd have been disappointed. I sure would. It'll be the same thing this next time. If it costs 50 million dollars. Obedience, trust and obey, there's no other way. As the old Englishman said, I trust and obey, rust and decay. It's as simple as that. Gird yourself, lament ye priests, and howl, and lie all night in sackcloth ye ministers, and my God, there you've got it. What do you say that's for ministers? Wait a minute, come on. I heard Dr. G. Campbell Maldon 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. He's made us a kingdom of priests unto God. We're a royal priesthood and we're a holy nation. You're as much, 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, that 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, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lies. Come on, and not one of them ever had a Bible. What in God's name, what excuse do you have? Supposing you died tonight and went straight to judgment, you won't do that. You 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've preached of his. Do you think God's going to reward you for preaching Spurgeon? Forget it. Oh, fellows say, I've been preaching so much. Good. I've preached through my Revival of Paris. I preach a message to all over. Great. Keep laying up treasure in heaven for me. They say, what, for you? I say, why, do you think God's going to reward you for a sermon you stole? There's going to be some trouble at that, I'll tell you. Sanctify a fast and call a solemn assembly. People scorn 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 though this public, I fast twice in the week. You can't get Christians to fast once a week, never mind twice. He fasted twice every week because of what the law said. You 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 Lord shall utter his voice before his army, for his count 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 choice. Most preachers spend more time in bed than they do out of it. If you're under 40 years of age, I don't see any reason why you should be in bed after four o'clock any 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 12, Therefore also now saith the Lord, Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. Are you reading verse 13? Gird yourself, lament ye priests and howls, 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 the best suits they can get. Sackcloth. And not only sackcloth, but it talks about ashes. That means that something is being consumed. Now he doesn't let them off again, he says that word in verse 12. Then 15, 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, 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 tenth of what they earn? They'll spend every penny in that tomb. And borrow money to get drunk and borrow money to go to, oh, this weekend, World Series, some of these guys will shout their heads off, they couldn't squeak amen 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, Reign of Arrogance, 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 sinners, it's not surgeons, 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, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare 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, I'm iniquitous. 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 God, they talk about football. Talk about their Sunday school numbers. What's your golf handicap? 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 should divide the spoiled with the strong because he has 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 for sin. All my billows, the wrath of God came upon him. He faced in 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. Eloi, Eloi, lama, sebachthani. 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 from him for eternity. That's why. That same verse, 12 at 53. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great. He should divide the spoiled with the strong because he has poured out his soul unto death. And he was numbered with the transgressors and he bare 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. 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 Azusa street but nobody's ever been in a meeting like that since. And it's not God's fault, it's our fault. We start satisfied with clapping our hands a new few songs and tap our feet. Our holy city. I remember when the bombs came on England and the bombs hit this indiscriminately. One of the great pictures of World War II was the cross on top of St. Paul's Cathedral with a background of heavy black clouds but all around the buildings, 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. Torrey used to say to me often, now, Brother Leonard, if I go before you, remember, you and I worship God's face downwards. You can't be distracted, you're looking at the road. That man would lay three, four, five hours on the ruggie, show me the ruggie. And he said, man, I can stay there on my face three, four, five hours without saying a word of prayer, without saying a word of praise, I 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, boundless power and awful purity. 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, burn fiercely, night and day, till all the dross of earthly love. He said, I get there three or four hours. I gaze on his holiness one day. I gaze on his incredible majesty another day. I gaze on his ineffable love another day. I'm moved to tears and brokenness as I meditate the mercy of God. Why do you make cut us off? The commandments of Jesus, of God, ten commandments are being broken ten million times in the narrative 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, of 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 came 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 and a shelf and they put a big bowl of rice. And there's a big hefty priest 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 in damnation tonight. Doesn't move the church. You get more people to your church with a chicken supper than you get every night of prayer for people in Russia. The beautiful house where our fathers praised thee, it's burned with fire and all our pleasant things are, revised version says, ruined. Are you going 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 has 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 posterity, 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 a nation has ever we've been. Oh, preach the goodness, but listen, there's another side to the coin. It says the goodness and severity of God. I won't take you to the 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 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 God, 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. And 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 from that church of God near the end of town. Do you think any denomination dare call its ministers together to fast and pray? You go to a conference, the minister says, 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 about the whole realm of nature and mind. 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. We quote, people slang terms. I hate people asking questions. Have you had the baptism? What in the world do you mean? He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. In the Greek it's, 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 in every other 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 just came 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 the room 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 said. We turned on the upside down. I'll just go back and quote this and finish. Again in Joel 2. In 12, verse 12, it says, Therefore also now saith 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 profession on outside when there's nothing inside that's really moving. I don't know how people live today that don't know God. You know, a few years ago, we blamed all the trouble of the world on Mussolini, a wicked fascist, and Hitler, and the old Georgian Stalin. And about four or five men, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin. If we get rid of them, we've got a great deal of trouble. We've got to clean 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 sons. They're not short of curry to do the most wicked, violent things in the face of the world. But why in God's name are we so timid? Oh dear. We've got a precious brother here, an Indian, a real Indian, not... a dime-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'd be neglected, not like the American Indians. If the American Indians had been as violent as some of the blacks at the Burmese camp 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, you know what they call it, Arapaho, 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 the mortality, that's the death rate. They die 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 done?