Audio Sermon: Die, Wait, and Get Alone

Let's look at the book, the Gospel, as recorded by John. Let me remind you again, there are not four Gospels. There's one Gospel told by four different people.

You can think of the Gospels this way, like the plan in the tabernacle of old, it had an outer court, it had a holy place, and it had the holiest of all. You can think of Matthew, Mark and Luke, at least I do, as the outer court, John as the holy place, and John 17 as the holiest of holies. If I was to ask you tonight, why did Jesus come into the world, what would you say? I think some would say, well, he came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.

Well, there's nothing wrong with that. But you know, the primary purpose of Jesus was not to come into the world and save us from hell. That's a fringe benefit, as amazing as it is.

Why did he come into the world? Well, let's get it from him himself. John 17, this is a most amazing prayer. Oh, look at the last verse of the previous chapter, in case you've had a rough week.

These things I've spoken unto you, that ye might have peace. In the world you may have tribulation. No? Nobody's got that perversion.

In the world ye shall, you what? You shall have. Now, David tells a story that I haven't said. He's talking about different versions.

He said, well, there are ten versions, five wise and five foolish. Pretty good. John 17, okay, verse 2. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.

And this is life eternal, that they may know thee the only true God. And the only purpose that you and I exist is that we may know God. I've discussed this with a few fellows this week.

You see, we've stayed on the perimeter of all this stuff. We're here to be forgiven. We're here to have assurance.

We're here for this, that, and the other. But the Word of God here says that we may know thee the only true God. I don't believe that five people out of every hundred who profess the name of Jesus know God.

They know the Word of God. They don't know the God of the Word. You can't get anywhere unless you know the God of the Word.

And there's no skipping the basis. It's a case of going from one point to another. And everybody has to go through the same school.

There are many schools, but one, of course, is a school of tribulation. I want to go back to that twelfth chapter, though. John 12 and verse 24.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bring forth much fruit. You know, that little word, except, is very, very interesting.

It's a favorite word, actually, with John. You know, he uses it no less than 13 times in his version of the Gospel. Except a man be born again.

Except ye eat of his flesh and drink of his blood. Except we see his hands and his feet. It's except, except, all the way through.

You know, this is an amazing chapter. Look at verse 1. I'm not preaching tonight. I'm trying to teach.

I'm not much good at either, but anyhow. Chapter 12 and verse 1. Then Jesus, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany where Lazarus, which had been dead, he was there. He raised from the dead.

Isn't that wonderful? Come on, cheer up. Maybe you are dead. Either you are dead or you've been dead.

But what happens? We'll leap over the chapter a minute with me here. It says, Lazarus, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. Verse 10 says, the chief priest consulted that they might put Lazarus to death.

Why? Dear Lord, do you think all the nation will be excited? You know, as soon as you're alive, you'll be a target for everybody to shoot at. They won't bother you while you're dead, but as soon as you really get redeemed, filled with the Spirit of God, walk in purity, even your pastor will shoot at you. Well, as a pastor said, that's something of a congregation.

But when Lazarus was raised from the dead, why did he do that? Have you ever noticed that when men are cursing, you never hear them say, well, what do they say? They take the name of the Lord in vain, for Christ's sake. You never hear them say, for Buddha's sake or for Confucius' sake. Why not? Because Jesus Christ is still the greatest opposition that the devil has.

He has power, he has authority. And every time they saw Lazarus, they would rebuke. Maybe some of them went to the funeral, said a great oration over him.

Lazarus, one of our most generous benefactors in the church, a devout Jew, one of the most remarkable men alive, they buried him. Then Jesus goes and wakes him up. Don't you wish you'd come and do that to some of your deacons? Lazarus raised from the dead and immediately becomes a target.

There's no such thing as being a Christian in a world like this without receiving opposition, criticism, bitterness, obstructions, misunderstanding, misrepresentation. It's a package deal. It's not a job for sissies.

That reminds me of a man that was talking with a Christian one day. And the man began to ask this man some questions. And the fellow said to him, well, why are you a Mormon? Oh, he said, because my father was a Mormon, and his father was a Mormon.

He said, oh. He said, well, you say you're a Christian. Why are you a Christian? He said, because my father was a preacher, my grandfather was a preacher, but I myself was born again of the Spirit of God.

And he said, well, if you hadn't been born, what would you be? He said, a Mormon. Oh, he said, you're a fool. He said, no, he said, I'm born again of the Spirit of God.

There's an old holiness book, I don't know if you've seen it, called The Possibilities of Grace by Lowry. If you ever see it, buy it. And if you don't want it, give it to me.

The possibilities of grace have never been measured. I used to think that God went off the production line, because they taught me that in church. When the epistles closed, God kind of shut down business, and he finished producing those amazing men.

But today I've been reading of some of them. But you see, there's a price. Let me go back into this text a minute.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, to bideth alone. Who is he saying it to? Well, verse 19 says, The Pharisees therefore said, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing. Behold, the whole world is gone after him.

You see, that's what happens when revival comes. You don't have to make altar calls. People make the altar call.

You don't have to beg. People immediately become generous and gracious. And this is angering the Jews.

Every time Jesus goes down the street, either they see Jesus, who is the Lord of life, or they see Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. And they're blazing mad about it. It's a reflection on their religion.

They had formality. They had ritual. They had organization.

They had systems of purity. But they did not have life. And Jesus is concerned that they might have life.

Verse 20 says, There were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship him at the feast. Remember, these are the intellectual boys. The same came, therefore, to Philip, which of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus.

Now, that's the test when you go to the house of God. I've sent in two or three preacher fellows this week. That scripture's got hold of me more and more in the last two weeks than ever before, where Paul, he's a battle-scarred warrior.

He has no pension. He has no support. He limped, I'm sure he did, because his body had been battered.

I think his cheek was slit and healed up because he'd been stoned. Dear Lord. He'd been there so often.

He welcomed death. He's one of the most insane men that ever lived. He said, I glory in tribulation.

I don't just grit my teeth and say, Oh, Lord, I'm sanctified. If there'd been another hour in the day, I'd have broken down. He says, I glory in tribulation, in necessities, in reproaches, all the things that we try to escape, he embraced them.

They would all grist to his mill. I glory in tribulation. As I've said to you often, do you know what entertainment is? It's the devil's substitute for joy.

And the more joy you have in the Lord, the less entertainment you need. And yet we're suffocating with entertainment in these days. Sir, we would see Jesus.

When you leave the sanctuary, it's not how good the message was or how well the choir sang. The thing is, did you see Jesus? I've emphasized again and again in the last few weeks to myself. It's one thing when the world outside criticizes the church.

It's something else when Jesus criticized it. I get young people saying to me, I'm going to the mission field. We're going on a trip or something.

Our preacher is a good preacher. Every week he says, remember the last words of Jesus were going into all the world and preach the gospel. They were nothing of the kind.

There's not a man in the world who can prove that. The last words of Jesus to the disciples were going into all the world. The last words of Jesus to the church were repent, repent, repent, repent five times over.

We're sending people to the mission field who haven't even repented themselves. Reproduction is a law of life. As I said, I think last week, when they had the revival in 1905, away there in Korea, you could not be a member of a church because you knew the Apostles' Creed or because you could recite the 23rd Psalm or something.

The only way you could be a member was that you personally had birthed another Christian. Not when they came to the altar and you prayed with them. Forget it.

You had to get a target and pray and believe God for that person and say, this is my father. He was saved because I interceded. This is my mother or somebody.

Then when every person had a person born of themselves, use a simple analogy again. Does a shepherd bring forth a sheep? Surely he doesn't. He's the shepherd.

The sheep bring forth the lambs. And that's our job, to reproduce. I could go to a church, I was going to say for a hundred years, I'd be getting old if I did.

I could go to a church for ten years and if nobody ever got saved, they wouldn't worry me. I mean, say through the preaching these wretched altar calls we have Sunday after Sunday. It's not the pastor's business to be a soul winner.

It's the sheep's business to be so alive that they reproduce. Normally, the delight of a young couple, they get married, normally, there's offspring. Boy, if we, I said to somebody this week, one of my cruel jokes, supposing the Lord recalled every malfunctioning preacher like they recall malfunctioning cars in Detroit.

There'd be 99% of the pulpits are across the nation empty. Who preaches the whole counsel of God? I don't know if I quoted this last week, but it was quoting again anyhow. A fellow called me and he said, Mr. Raymond, my church doesn't want me, I'm going out and speaking in the streets and he says, God has called me to preach the full gospel.

I thought, well, that's an old one anyhow. Someone asked me once, do you preach a full gospel? I said, well, do you think I preach an empty one? I don't have an empty one. But this is what he said and I thought it was very wise.

God has called me to preach a full gospel and he said that includes hell. Your church doesn't preach a full gospel if it doesn't preach hell. If we don't preach judgment to come, we're not preaching a full gospel.

Most preachers are very selective. What did Paul say again? He says to Timothy, preach the word, be instant, in season, out of season. What's the other thing he says about it? Yeah, okay.

And then the other thing he says, which has stirred me so much just lately, he says, study to show thyself approved unto the deacons. No? Prove to show yourself acceptable. You have a nice, gracious mind.

You'll go around and drink coffee and eat hamburgers, whatever you have. You know, be a nice guy amongst the folk. The only job I have on this earth is to please God.

Study to show thyself approved unto God. I need God's approval before I deliver a message, after I deliver it. Has it been satisfying to God? Approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Okay. So, we would see Jesus. There's a great Baptist church.

It's on Wealthy Street in, Wealthy Street, where is that? Grand Rapids. It holds about 1,200, and I've had two or three so-called revivals there. The pastor's a big old German fellow.

Comes on a platform Sunday morning. There's 1,200 people. He just raised his hand and he yells, God is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silent before him.

Boys, you never see anybody go to sleep in that church. You never see any children get up and run around. But when you get up, there's a rim on the pulpit and inscribed inside it says, Sirs, we would see Jesus.

And that's our whole business, to bring people into a living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 23, Jesus answered them and said, The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Glorified, what do you mean? This is one of the most amazing pageants of glory in the life of Jesus.

How does the first verse begin? It raised a man from the dead, didn't that glorify the Father? They just had a procession down Main Street. Women were screaming, tearing branches off the trees, throwing the garments in the way. The whole town's excited.

And he's talking about yet glorifying the Father. He glorified him by raising Lazarus from the dead. He glorified him by rebuking the Pharisees and the others.

Again he stirred the town, look at verse 19, The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail, how ye prevail nothing, behold the whole world is gone after him. Now look at verse 37, Though he had done many mighty miracles among them, yet they believed not on him. You know, people say, All you have to do is believe.

Well, read the end of the second chapter of John. Not now, when you go home. Everybody jumps into John chapter 3 with its great must, You must be born again.

There are four musts in that chapter. What does it say there? At the end of the second chapter, that many believed on him, but he wouldn't commit himself to him because he knew what was in the heart of man. Believing isn't enough.

There's something more than believing. There's some miracle God has to do by his wonderful grace in us. But look, he's laying down now in this chapter.

Verse 23, Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life for my sake shall find it. If any man serve me, let him follow me. You see, here's the whole essence of the Christian life.

You know what those people out there in the world are doing? They're just crazy tonight. They want to live. They want to live.

And they're dying to live. Where the true Christian is living to die. Makes all the difference in the world.

Isn't it simple? I wish I'd had some corn. Now when we talk about corn in England, we think about wheat and barley. You think about this big stuff that you chew at this time of the year.

We give that to the horses in England. You take a little corn, an ear of corn, you take one of those little seeds off it. I remember a story in England in the world in 1922.

Who was it? Howard Carter was the man. Howard Carter and the Earl of Carnarvon. They were in the Valley of the Kings away there in Egypt.

Thousands of people had gone down those valleys searching for whatever they could find. And they saw a little mound and they knocked it away. And when they opened it and got in and shone a flashlight, there was more gold in there than had ever been discovered before.

It was a King Tut as they call him. King Tutankhamen. Or if you're a scholar, Amenhotep II.

He was an ex-brother to the Pharaoh that beat up the tribe of Israel. And they saw that amazing gold. And while they got the sarcophagus off the top, and then they saw a model of the king, all his features in pure solid gold.

His hands were bound with some bandages that somehow survived 5,000 years. One of the fellows that was there said, Lord Carnarvon said to him, young man, dust those fingers. As he did, between the fingers there were some seeds.

And he asked, could he take them? Yes, sure, what good are they? You know, after 5,000 years they germinated. They kept the treasure of life. You can't find life, no scientist on earth can find life in a little seed like that.

And while it stays there, you can't do anything for it. He says, your life and mine may be like a little seed. There's no beauty that you should desire.

It has no fragrance. It has no value. It has no legs.

It can't run away. It has no wings. It can't fly away.

It's the most helpless, helpless, helpless thing. You see, we think God's looking for efficient men. He isn't.

He's not looking for supermen. Somebody once asked Hudson Taylor. He lived in a town where I had a pastor, of course, I was living when I was there.

Somebody asked him one day, the secret of his success, why have you been successful in going to China inland? Everybody else went to the coast. And they had their church. He went right inland China.

That was wild. They hated the white devils at that time. He went in there and had tremendous success.

Well, why do you think God granted you that favor? He said he'd been looking for years for the weakest person he could find, and at last he found me. It's not strength, it's weakness. My strength, he said, is made perfect in weakness.

What does it say at the end of the 40th chapter in Isaiah? If you ever come to my office, all my pictures are eagles. And I've a lot of ceramics. Have you? I've room for one or two more.

But anyhow, that's by the way. And you know, if I preached on that, somebody sends me a picture of an eagle or a model of an eagle. Beautiful eagles.

Or a book. And nearly everybody that preaches doesn't stay with the verse. He's so wanting to mount up with wings, he forgets the first caution there is they that wait upon the Lord.

As dear Dr. George used to say, the trouble with Americans, we're activists. We want to be there, we want to be here, we want to be there. They that wait upon the Lord.

Do you think he'll ever go to a conference where everybody wants to wait? Huh? Go to some big hotel in Dallas and they say, we're going to wait. We're not going to eat, we're going to be here for four days. Just waiting on the Lord.

Boy, they'd walk out in ten minutes. Fine, it's an excuse. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

What's it going to say? He giveth power to who? The warriors? No, to the faint. And to those who have no might, he increases strength. You see, we talk about doing things in the spirit.

Most of it's done in the flesh anyhow. We rationalize it. This is the way to do it.

Well, what do you wait on? Wait, one of the last arts in the church today is meditation. I want to write a book sometime, if I get time. I'd like to write a book on worship.

Do you know what the ultimate in prayer is? Speechlessness. I do not believe that praying in the spirit is necessarily praying in tongues. It might be, but I don't believe it is.

I believe that praying is when you have no language. As it says in the 8th chapter of Romans, doesn't it? Groanings which cannot be uttered. Here's a little woman going to church.

Who is it that shuts her down? It's the preacher. The preacher looks at Hannah and he says she's drunk, she's intoxicated. Remember, she's going there time after time after time and she doesn't say a single word.

But she prevailed in prayer because she brought the answer to her prayer. And I believe it's the same with true worship that just as the deepest form of prayer is speechless, the deepest form of worship is speechless. I believe it's speechless adoration.

I've told you this before, but let me tell you this quickly. A doctor told me, he said to me one day, you see that rug? I said, yes. He said, I bought it in Kresge.

Kresge was the grandfather of Kemah. I gave 69 cents for it. It was three feet long, 25 inches wide.

And he used these words. He said, Len, I come in my office in the morning, I lift the phone, call my secretary, say go home. I can't interview anybody today.

I have no dictation today. I just want to worship. And that frail little man just pointed the finger again at the rug and he said, you know what? I get on my belly, he used a good old Bible word, I get on my belly at 8 o'clock in the morning and I'm there till 10 and 11 and 12 and even 1 o'clock, 4 hours, 5 hours, without saying one single word of prayer or one single word of praise.

I've worshipped. I'm saying over and over in my mind, how beautiful, how beautiful the sight of thee must be. Thine endless wisdom, boundless power.

Now, what is prayer? Prayer is preoccupation with my needs. What is praise? Preoccupation with my blessings. What is worship? Preoccupation with God.

My goal is God himself. Not joy, not peace, not even blessing, but God. Total union with him.

Communion with him. Consumed by him. We don't do that anymore.

We want to make a bunch of notes and get an outline and get a tape and go home and have a good time. And not one inch further up the hill than when we came. You've got one grain of wheat falls into the ground to die.

The first thing is separation. You have the wheat like that. You take one of those little, what do you call them, seeds of it or grains? The first thing is separation.

You know, when I hear people say, I want to be like Jesus, I say, I doubt it very much. You want to be torn away from your family? Jesus had to leave his father's glory. A hymn writer, was it? Isaac Watts said he left his father's throne above so free, so infinite is grace.

Emptied himself of all but love and bled for Adam's helpless race. Right from the beginning, it was separation. He had to come out of the ivory palaces.

Barakov wrote that, an American. And the first time he sang it, I believe it was in England. I happened to hear him.

Out of the ivory palaces, into a world of war. Only his great eternal love made my Saviour go. And there's the first thing.

It's the breakaway. You know, lots of people are alright. They go to Bible school or they go to church.

But once they get out of that atmosphere, they go down like that. Because they have no inward relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. They haven't learned to worship him in spirit and in truth.

You get the corn, then you get the grain. The first thing is separation from the main stock. Then the next thing, you have to bury it.

Well, that's the part we don't like. Again, it's helpless. It can't fly away.

It can't do anything but do whatever the Master wants to do with it. And he puts it in the ground, in the dark, dirty ground, separate, lonely, to go through all the succeeding whatever happens in winter. Around there we don't have much winter.

But it has to stay there in the ground, in the darkness, in the loneliness. And you know, that's the thing that's the biggest test for most people, being alone. But you never get anywhere unless you get to be alone.

It's a paradox. I talked with a young man recently. He asked me what he should do, so I told him the same thing.

I said, get a copy of Goebbels' 1100-page book. And then when he read that, there's another one, 700 pages, on, what is it, looking unto Jesus. And get another one on the Welsh Revival.

I think I need a vacation. I said, brother, I think you need a cave. We've got preachers all getting vacation.

They need a cave. Get alone with God. Stay there.

That's the cost, being alone. Pushed into the cold. Into the dark.

He was one of the most brilliant men that ever read. Read the 7th chapter of Acts when you go home. Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.

He was an intellectual. Maybe he knew a dozen languages. It says he was a statesman before ever he got the Ten Commandments.

He was mighty in word. He wasn't a mighty speaker. He stammered.

But he was a lawmaker. He dined with kings and queens. He had all the luxury of the world round about him.

And you know, the trouble with most of our preachers today is not that they're not clever enough. The problem is they're too clever. The Lord had to put him in the backside of the desert to cool down and get a new relationship with God.

Wouldn't it have been wonderful if it said, Gabriel came down in the middle of the night glowing with eternity and put his hands on him. And he sees an old stump of a tree there that it passed a hundred times. The thing's burning like crazy.

And at the end of the day it's still burning. Isn't it amazing where God meets people? There was a little Baptist preacher in England. He wasn't even a preacher.

Fifteen years of age he was going to a Baptist church. And it started to snow. So the Lord improved it.

He let him run into a Methodist church. And in a Methodist church that morning Spurgeon got saved. Do you know he preached nearly twenty years in London and never once made an altar call? He said, if you're troubled about your spiritual life meet me in my office at seven in the morning.

He said the same to the congregation at night. At nine, twenty years of age he had five thousand people listening to him. He had no newsletters.

He had no TV program. He had no hype. Let me say it again.

It'll do me good if not you. You never have to advertise a fire. There are different kinds of fires.

I know that. But Spurgeon had the presence of God with him. In fact I talked with an old lady once who had heard him preach so often.

She never heard me thank the Lord. You think of a man who was despised in his day. Down the road you had F.B. Meyer the Baptist preaching.

At this end of London you had William Boo the founder of the Salvation Army. In St. Paul's Cathedral you had a man called Dr. Clifford. Do you know Dr. Clifford got three thousand people every Sunday afternoon at a Bible class? Come on, you've got some big places in Dallas.

Not Sunday afternoon particularly if the cowboys were playing. The Lord loses every time the cowboys are around. They're just so lost in sport.

The God of this world is sport. Let me put it, the King of this world is sport. The Queen of this world is entertainment.

And between them they get the money, they get the time, they get everything. Be very careful. Very often we sing a hymn about the Indian brother loves it came in a minute ago.

I lay in dust life's glory dead. Do you want the will of God to this degree? Do you want the will of God to this degree that he can take a third off your life? Moses forty years in the backside of that he could never have made it from the royal palace with all its luxury eating, drinking, dressing. He could have never made it from there through the wilderness.

God had to cool him down for forty years in the backside of the desert. And again we shrink from loneliness. The Lord Jesus himself had thirty years until he came to you have to sit down there somewhere brother, there's no room.

If you come late next week we fine you five dollars. This day brother's working overtime. But you see you can't say it's a law.

You've got to lose everything you have to gain everything he has. Jesus left everything. Just the other week I was reading it, it hit me as never before.

He was teaching in the synagogue. What did they say? They said we were not born of what? Fornication. Every day of his life they said he was a bastard.

You tell a man that he'd just about knock your head off. You're doubting my mother's purity or something. But every day they said we know who he is.

No son of God he's the son of Joseph. All these people are bewitched by him. Who wants that scorn? Who wants that loneliness? Who wants that isolation? You know every great man that God has used has had to walk alone.

Sure eagles are wonderful, they fly alone except at mating seasons. I remember in mid-Atlantic on one of the ships, Queen Mary, Elizabeth of the United States, somebody said there's a whale over there. And the whale goes alone except at mating seasons.

Great animals walk alone. Great men walk alone. All those men, those Puritans, the greatest giants intellectually, I think, since the Apostle Paul, live separate lonely lives.

It's true often they have fellowship. But you see they were walking on different levels. There are so many different levels in the spiritual life.

There's a common poem, what does it say? The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight but they while their companions slept were toiling upward in the night. I've told some of you guys what the secret is. There's going to be something for God.

Eat as little as you can within reason. Sleep as little as you can within reason. See as little as you can of folk.

Get in the loneliness. Hear God's voice. Get God's vision.

William Booth was half a Jew and half a Gentile. They put him out to the Methodist church. When he got out his wife grabbed his arm and she said well darling what are we going to do? He said we're going to the lost, the least, the last, the lost.

Well, we aren't in the Methodist church, it doesn't make any difference he said. So when he first started he was ridiculed on the stage in England and the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote to him and said you know you'll never do anything in the Salvation Army. They didn't.

All they did was go into 70 countries in 90 years. Not 70 cities, 70 countries. The richest people in the world came and bowed their knee.

Some of the brightest men came. Again when there's fire they're attracted. I reached on my shelf, I took a book down today, The Life of C.T. Stud.

I'd have a letter in there from Norman Grubb, the man that wrote it. And I saw, I turned the page to Tedworth, the house where C.T. Stud lived. If you see the picture on TV or a book you see a picture of the, what do you call it now, in Washington the Supreme Court with those huge pillars.

The front of his house was like that. It's an enormous place. I used to pass it every Tuesday.

I went to the largest Royal Air Force camp in England during the war to speak every Tuesday night. I used to look in the moonlight, see that marvellous thing. What did he do? He was the greatest cricketer in England that time.

And he and Paul Hill and a bunch of others that came from the top of the ladder socially, intellectually, they were all Cambridge. Seven of them got together, went to China, broke through China. When he comes home he's still a fire burning in his heart.

Fifty-three years of age, he's weary, he's done a mystery job, he'd been to India for a little while. He comes back at fifty-three years of age. He gave us a wonderful little ditty, I wish every pastor could say it.

He wrote this wonderful poem, better than Shakespeare. Someone to live within the sound of church or chapel bell. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.

There's a challenge for you. And at fifty-three years of age he went out and founded the African Mission. Gave every penny he had away, put about eight thousand to ten thousand dollars in the bank for his wife.

She was one of the stewards of Ireland. I used to go to a city where her folk had lived. And there's that gorgeous woman, a society lady.

And he said, darling, I gave away my fortune today. To who? Oh, I gave about fifty thousand dollars to a man called William Boone. What's he doing? He's rescuing the perishing.

I gave another fifty thousand to a Yankee. Who in the world was he? Oh, I don't know, just some guy called D.L. Moody that wanted some money to go back. And he gave D.L. Moody five thousand.

And he said, but don't get nervous, darling. I put fifty thousand in the bank for you. She said, keep your money.

What are you going to do? You've given all your money away. Well, he said, I'm going to trust God. Well, she said, Charles, it so happens that the God that looks after you looks after me, give him his money back.

So he could give it away. You see, we want to make very, very small investments for the maximum. But when it comes to the issue, it's give all of our houses as I remanded two weeks ago.

Jesus says to the rich young man, sell all our houses and give it to the church. No, give it to the poor. Now you sell all the houses, give it to some big shot on TV to keep gasoline in his jet or whatever it is.

Thank you. I knew I'd get some response as soon as this brother came in tonight. Accept a corn of wheat, fall into the ground and die.

It's a lonely business. Why are you fasting? They're feasting. Why are you lonely when they're in company? Why are you listening to God? They're listening to all the popular preaching of the day.

But God's making you. He's not making them, he's making you. They have to hear God's voice and obey him.

My sheep hear my voice. And God won't say the same to you that he says to me maybe, except to be obedient and to be pure. But you see, this thing is kind of torture all the way through.

First of all, you have the ear with all the 60, what did it say? You put one in the ground, you may get 30 fold, 60 fold or 100 fold. Nobody on God's earth knows what's in that man that comes to the altar. I mentioned to you last week, what was the man that went to the mission in New York? Water Street mission, the most derelict man in New York, God got hold of him.

He became the greatest soul winner in New York. But I have to let go of everything, no strings attached. I'm not coming, Lord, so I might be a great soul winner.

The first thing God requires of you is not that you're a missionary, not that you're a soul winner. The first thing He requires of you, you love the Lord your God with all your heart, which means you boot out every distraction, whatever it is. He might be playing dominoes.

I had a man came to a church, I pastored, he was a brilliant man in the British Navy. And you know how he lost his blessing, lost his anointing? Stamp collecting. Good night, that takes some licking, but anyhow.

Just collecting stamps. Before he got fascinated with them, he'd go home from the Admiralty, which was in Bath at that time, get his Bible, he could read it in Greek. He was a marvellous speaker.

But he got fascinated in stamps, he put all his money in stamps, and before long there was no anointing there at all. He looked very innocent. The devil doesn't always come as a roaring lion, he comes with deception.

He knows your vulnerable spot better than you know it yourself. So anyhow, you get the, you take that one kernel off, you put it in the ground. Here it's thirty fold, there it's sixty, there it's a hundred, you've nothing to do with it.

Do you know what happens? It has a husk on it. Do you know what that husk does? It deteriorates and the stuff inside actually feeds on that husk and produces life, increases. Well that's tough.

Torn away from the rest of the family kind of, put in the darkness, left there in loneliness, in the cold, forgotten, ignored. You know, one way you can test your spirituality is how much you rejoice when you're ignored. When they leave you out and you're eligible, you should be in it, but they leave you out.

Boy, I rejoice in being ignored. I used to like to be, you know, in the front of the band and invited to big conferences. Now I couldn't care less about the whole thing.

But you haven't done with it. Okay, this thing has grown now. It's reproduced itself, say, there are 60 or 80 or 100 of those little things on the store.

Now what do you do? Well, you send it to a mill. It goes in a threshing machine, gets beaten up, and all the chaff comes off it and you have a pure little kernel there. Then what do you do? You take it to another mill and make it into flour.

Then what do you do? Well, you got that flour and my mother used to get it and she used to knead the, what do you call it, the dough with her fingers. Now they have big machines. In fact, the first time I got a spanking, do you know what it was for? Just a little innocent trick.

It didn't cost anything. Mother had mended the fire, as we say. She had some coal there and she put some coal on the fire, went next door to my grandmother's and I got the shovel and put it in the door.

And she didn't like it. What have you done? I said, what do you mean? What's this here? Oh, I, oh boy. Yes, brother, I never did it again in my life, I'll tell you that.

You know, she punched that stuff. If you see a machine in a factory where they make bread, boy, they have those big electric hounds going punching and driving and driving and driving. It goes through that torture.

And it comes out a machine, it's cut off at length to go into a tin. And out of the tin you put it in an oven and you bake it. Boy, look at the things it goes through.

How many of you have ever read, oh, do you still read Oswald Chambers? How many of you have read Oswald Chambers? Good. He has a recurring phrase in his writing. He says, Lord, make me broken bread and poured out wine.

He was a man, he was a was a man, he was a man, he was a man, he was a man, he was a man, he was a man, he man, he was a man, he was a man, he was a man, he was a man, he was a man, he was a man, he man, he was a man, he was a man, he was a man, he was a man, he was a was a was a man, he was a man, he was a man, he was a man, he man, he man, he man, he man, he was a man, he was a only one perfection I know of this side of eternity, that's a perfection of love or a perfection of obedience. And it talks about perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord. There's no finality to the Christian life this side of eternity, forget it.

No finality. You can make a final submission to him, but there's no finality to progress, there's no finality to maturity, there are degrees of maturity. You see, we go to conferences, everybody's talking tongues in this when everybody's talking wholeness in this, somebody's talking sacrifice in the other.

But you know, we need all those different aspects like you have all the people in an orchestra. I can't play anything, my choice. I don't like Mozart or Bach, I like Handel, in fact everything I do goes by Handel.

So you see all those wonderful instruments harmonizing. It's stupid when you say you, I had a friend he bought a violin and he thought it was pretty good and he took it into a shop and the man says yes. And he says well there's a little thing I want you to change on it.

He said well take care of it. He said it will take me three months to get it right. So he had this gorgeous violin and he had the bow and when he went back for it, the man said oh I'm sorry it's been sold by mistake.

He's been what? It's sold? Who did it? Oh one of the assistants when I was away, when I came back the other week, I said where's that violin? It's gone. He said but I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you two hundred dollars for the bow.

Well some bows, they're not worth as much as a violin but they're very precious. But all it is is a horse's tail. Horse's tail over catgut.

And then you can get genius out of it. You know what? The Lord may allow you, he doesn't often do this, to know his ultimate, your ultimate potential for him. You see it's not if you come to God what you bring to him that's the criteria.

The criteria is what he can bring to you if you're willing and obedient you eat of the fruit of the land. But again make me broken bread and poured out wine said Oswald Chambers. What did he do? He went to India in World War I 1914.

He gave addresses to soldiers, many of them were drunks and all kinds of rebels in the British Army. But out of that stuff he wrote, his wife wrote the book My Utmost for His Highest. But you see it's when you're torn away from everything.

We all want to lean, we sing leaning on the everlasting arms but we're leaning on lots of other things beside that. Yet God is a jealous God, he wants me for himself. He doesn't say the first thing is to be a soul when he says I shall love the Lord my God with all my heart and soul and mind and strength.

Don't you think these people were stunned and even the disciples? When as I say they'd seen him down Main Street everybody cheering and waving this is Hosanna, this is a fulfillment of the prophecy. Thy kingdom upon to thee riding upon a coat of an ass. You don't know the king in history ever wrote on the back of a donkey.

They all wrote on the back of a beautiful stallion or something. But he takes the meekest thing and yet it's the most difficult thing to ride. He's no saddle, he shows his dominion over it.

And the thing is that I get nowhere until he has total dominion over me, over my heart, over my mind, over my emotions, over my ambitions. It's easy to see it as we've done so many Friday nights again. I lay in dust, life's glory dead.

The greatest temptation, I'll say this and finish. You know the greatest temptation to the average Christian or every Christian? Come down from the cross and save yourself. Come down from the cross.

Why do you live the way you live? Other people aren't living that way. I know many who've lived on the verge of poverty for years by choice. Why? Because they said it's my way of showing I'm victor over the world.

We sing a hymn, all of its pleasures pomp and its pride. Give me but Jesus my Lord crucified. The poorest man that ever walked the earth was the greatest man that ever walked the earth.

And yet right from his birth it was rejection, rejection, rejection. This is the carpenter's son. His family kicked him out.

They said he was mad. The synagogue kicked him out. They tried to push him over the precipice away there in Jerusalem.

And yet he doesn't run to anyone except the Father. It says that they went, where did they go? They went to sleep. He went as was his custom to pray.

You see my resources are not in my long years of preaching, not just in knowing the word of God. He is my resource. He is my strength.

The Lord said to Abram, didn't he? I am the sun and the shield. Not I'll put a shield between you and your enemies. I am your shield.

Well dear Lord, if the Omnipotent One is my shield, who can get through? No one except by his permission. We sing a hymn here sometimes, hidden in the hollow of his blessed hand. Never foe can follow, never stray to stand.

Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care. Not a blast of fury, touch the spirit there. Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blessed, finding as he promised, perfect peace and rest.

The most difficult thing to find in the world is peace. The most desired thing. And yet the Lord says, not only he is our peace, the Father says he is my strength.

Jesus says he is my peace. It isn't something he kind of breaks off and gives me something. You know I think we think about that scripture we quoted tonight.

That they may know thee, that they may have eternal life. That they may know thee, the only true God. What is eternal life? Is it some commodity God has and he cuts a bit off and drops it in me? No.

What does he say? He says the gift of what? The what? The gift from God? No it's the gift of God himself. I think also the homeless people are slow too. I've been reading more and more Romans 8. You know what it says in Romans 8? It says the spirit of Christ is in you, the spirit of God is in you, the Holy Spirit is in you.

If you have the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in your life, what's the problem with the end of the chapter? More than conquerors through him that loved us. Not just conquerors at the edge of defeat, but more than conquerors running the race and having spare energy left at the end of the track. More than conquerors through him that loved us.

This is the most amazing thing to me, this side of eternity. Dear Dr. Toth has a lovely book there, Man the Dwelling Place of God. What does it say in that chapter we have tonight? That they may know thee, the only true God.

What does John say in his epistle later? He that hath the Son hath life. You're not a Christian because you've given up your lousy sins, because you read your Bible every day and say a prayer. You're a Christian only with the indwelling spirit in us.

I look at a person, I don't ask people if they're safe, good Lord, everybody's safe from the White House to the jailhouse. Bunch of hypocrites too. Of course they're not all outside the church.

Churches are full of them. Somebody said to a man in England, I remember once, he said, I'm not coming to church. He said, why? It's full of hypocrites.

He said, well, come brother. He said, there's a seat empty next to me almost every Sunday. There's no excuse for it.

The normal Christian life is not up and down. The normal Christian life is consistent, as we used to sing, constantly abiding, constantly resting, absorbing this precious Word of God, be willing to be a corn of wheat, to fall into the ground, to be forgotten and die. You see, we don't want to die.

You see, one of the problems, I don't know what the PTL is doing, never liked the thing anyhow, but I'll tell you what, they won't let it die. The thing needs to die. I preached to about 450 or 550 preachers last year, and I preached on Samson.

And he prayed a prayer that's the ultimate in prayer as far as I'm concerned. What did he say? Lord, strengthen me just once. Just give me one more chance.

And he meant business. How do you know he did? You see, Samson is a type of Israel, it began in the miraculous, it dipped, it finished in the miraculous. He's a type of the early church, it was born in the miraculous, it's dipped right now, it'll end in the miraculous.

There's going to be a revival, there's going to be a Pentecost, it'll exceed Pentecost before too long, I believe with all my heart. But Samson prayed, strengthen me just once. How do I know he meant business? He said, even if I die.

What did he do? He built a house down. What happened? He died. And what does the scripture say? He killed more in his dying than in his living.

He says, give me one chance. He doesn't say, Lord, get me out of this prison. He doesn't say, Lord, give me my eyesight back again.

He doesn't say, Lord, kill all these wretched liberals outside. He says, just give me one more chance. Strengthen me just once.

And I said to the preachers, forget all the stuff you've been talking about. If you dare say to God, in the presence of God, not me, I don't care that much what you do. I said, if you dare come and say, my ministry is a failure, I'm just about frozen in my heart, I've no compassion for the lost, I've no burden.

Lord, come and just take total possession of me, my spirit, soul and body, my mind, my faculty, my wills, my present, my future, all I know, all I don't know. Here it is. You come to this altar and say, Lord, strengthen me just once, even if I die.

And then let him slay you. That's all I said. You know, they stampeded to the altar, there were hundreds came and they wept and they groaned and they prayed.

One man wrote to me afterwards, he said, I got more in that one meeting. He said, 40 years ago, I was on fire for God, I'd lost my vision, I kept up the terminology, kept up the action in the church, but the fire had gone out, the passion wasn't there. And he said, I met God in a new way at that altar that night, I'm completely changed.

All the form of glory has come back. The Lord had kept his word, I restore unto you the years that a palmer would have eaten. But he had to do it in his denominational convention, everybody knew him.

He has one of the best churches in our denomination. He's one of the best preachers. But he said, I knew on the inside it wasn't so.

And he said, I had to humble myself. Well, that's the way, isn't it? Reverse logic. Exalt yourself, you'll be abased.

Abase yourself, you'll be exalted. Lose your life, you'll find it. Keep it, you can lose it.

Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die. So if God put you in a place, you're going to be forgotten for a year or two, stay there, be quiet. Be like the grain, it can't run away, it can't fly away, it can't say, I can't stay here, it's rotten.

Again, people don't smell it because it's perfume, it doesn't. It's just as poor as anything you can imagine. And yet within it there's something that when God touches it, life can flow out of it.

My last word, I remind you again as I do so often because I love that dear woman, Irish woman, Amy Wilson Carmichael, that God took to India. She went the railway, do you know what she did? She got a one-way ticket and stayed there 35 years. Curvature of the spine, lifted her in and out of bed.

The last three years of her life, she needed all the attention a baby needed. And yet look what's come out of her life. All those amazing books, if you haven't read them, you should read every one if you can get them.

She's a kind of feminine, she's the opposite of Oswald Chambers in that kind of writing, reading. But you see, God had to get her alone, get her by herself. You know, there's nothing too expensive.

Let him break your plans up. Forget everybody, forget everything. Find it's God, not your ambition.

And get some promise from God. Then do what Jesus did. What did Jesus do when the devil came? He threw the book at him, didn't he? It is written, it is written, it is written.

And if it's written and it's yours, you can hammer against every principality and power and everything else. And know that God Almighty is going to bring you through into fullness. This fellow loves talking about, well that fifteenth chapter again, pruning the vine.

You know, we take all that fifteenth chapter and what does it say there? Ye shall ask what ye will. Who? Anybody? Did you just pluck in it? No, no, no. Who can ask what they will? The one that's being pruned.

And remember again, it's the branch that bears the fruit that gets the knife. I don't know much about gardening, I don't want to. My dear Martha does the gardening, it's beautiful.

I know this, that when a branch is born a bunch of grapes, that branch never bears fruit again as long as it lives. You've got to cut it right back. And out of that little bud there another branch comes.

And we back off from the pruning and all God wants to do is produce more in us. He promises in verse 2 ye shall bear fruit. The promise of fruit, verse 8, much fruit.

And twice 8 is 16, verse 16, permanence in fruit bearing. Promise in verse 2, plenty of fruit in verse 8, permanence in fruit bearing in verse 16. He wants us fruitful in himself.

And the only way to bear fruit upward is to bear root downward. And remember he has the right, it's his right to do as he will with the seed that's his. And he wants us to be fruitful unto every good work.

Is it next week you go to Oklahoma? Two weeks from now. Good. I was expecting a brother, he came to see me the other night.

I haven't met him in my life. I think Spencer knows him. Fonsey? Tom Fonsey? Well he caught with you.

Well he came in, you know, the news, the media says that there have been millions and millions of people with their eyes glued on the, you know, the idiot box, what do you call it, TV, watching these trials. I looked at this young man, he gave me a hug, he said, I just came to thank you. I read your book, Why Revival Tarries, years ago, it changed my life.

I said, well that's great, thank you. I said, who are you? Do you know what he said? Now you know the Apostle Paul said he was a what? It begins with F. I'm a what? A fool for Christ. He said, do you know who I am? I said, no.

He said, I'm a mule for Christ. Boy that's not very flattering, it's about the most idiotic thing. Do you ever have any, ever have mules, Daniel? He never had them.

They're too difficult. They're more obstinate than fords. I said, oh he gave me a hug, oh boy that's great.

I said, well, your name is Fonsey, F-A-U-N-C-I-E. He said he'd try to come tonight, he may come next, I'll try and get him next Friday night. Do you know where he was two weeks ago? In Nicaragua, treading through slush and mud.

I said, what do you mean you're a mule? He said, I have a pack on my back, full of little Spanish Bibles, I go through the jungle. He said, Brother Raymond, you've no idea, it's heartbreaking to go through the jungle. Little boys, eight and nine years of age, with what do you call them, M40 or something machine guns, just cutting the kids down.

Oh, kill them, the communist kids. He said, but they're children. Jesus died for them.

And he said, you've no idea, they get news in the forest, oh that Yankee guy's come with a pack, and he said they'll walk 12, 15, 18 miles, just to get a copy of the Scriptures, and weep when they get it, and go back and read it to others. I said, well good night, are you married? He said, yeah, I've got a wife and two children. He said, you know what, he came in such a nice car, you know, you send out a newsletter, you don't ask for a car, you just say the old car's nearly killed.

You don't ask, you just give hints. It's amazing what the power of faith and hints can do. But he had this lovely car, this lovely van.

When I came looking at the thing, he said, Brother Raymond, I've a wife and two children, I've never asked anybody for a penny in my life. He said, some of the outstanding things in my life, one was I met your Paul and talked with him. He said, he knows God.

I said, he sure does. I said, he works on the same principle. But he said, he's going back in two weeks, about another two weeks.

And he'd been to Dave Wilkerson. Dave Wilkerson had some Spanish New Testament or something, he loaded him up. And he says, you've no idea what it's like in the jungle, the uncleanness, the vileness, the impurity on every level.

A bully goes whizzing past your ear. They've shot at him, they've done all kinds of things. You know, I can't help but think of that lovely hymn that Isaac Watts wrote, you know, he wrote when I surveyed the Wembley's Cross.

He wrote the hymn when we're marching to Zion. But he also wrote, am I a soldier of the cross? And all the time I prayed to him, he kept coming back, am I a soldier of the cross? Not a Sunday school teacher, and that's good. But there where there's hell broken loose, he says, they've burned churches down, they've slaughtered people, it's a hell hole.

And he says, I'm going back, I have to go back. He's not playing the hero, he isn't taking a picture of some of these little kids with his arm around them, you know, with the machine guns and all that stuff. He's got a passion, he said, I have to go to them.

It's not a case of one thing I have, there is a love constraining me to go and seek the lost. I'll tell you what, I had a lady, I stood beside her, she was about six feet, Craggy, the daughter of William Boo, the founder of the army. And the tears were bouncing off her craggy cheeks, there is a love constraining me to go and seek the lost.

I yield, O Lord, my all to thee to save at any cost. There is a fire that falls on me as in the upper room, destroying all carnality, dispelling fear and gloom. There is a life that was given me, a life divine and strong.

What do you think it was like being at the table with her daddy William Boo there, and her mother, one of the most amazing women that ever lived. At the other end of the table, Colonel Bringle across the table eating, and these other great warriors of the day. Do you know what to do? I hope you don't have a TV for your kids to go, shall we? Get good preachers, don't criticize people around the table, talk about the things of God.

And they want, you know, they say, that man's a real misfit. I mean, if I, I was hoping my, oh I hear my two preacher boys tonight. I was going to say, well here's this soldier, he's stained and been through roughing him, he's asking for preacher, I want to get back there, that's where the action is, that's where the fight is, that's boy, it's like that with a devil every day of your life.

Not trying to get some poor sick Christian to get a bit more spirit, to read a bit more Bible, go to another conference. A living relationship where every day, if you don't have the life of Christ, you're sunk. It's demon possessed everywhere, the forest is full of hideous, wicked, sinful powers.

And yet here's a man by himself, he can't run to church at night and find some comfort. He's learned how to live on Christ is my life. Don't fall for that dumb stuff they preach these days, that Paul ended up at the end of Romans 7, he said it's no longer I, it's sin that dwelleth in me, forget it.

He didn't stay there, but up the road he said it's not I, it's Christ that liveth in me. You can't flatter a man when he knows it's not him, it's Christ doing it. It's not that he had one of the most colossal intellects in the world, it was a man that was perpetual in a place where he wouldn't come down from the cross.

Whip him, strip him, do anything you like. There's a fire in him, no waters of discouragement could put out. There's a life in him, all the lashes that lashed his back 195 times couldn't whip out of him.

They threatened him, you couldn't threaten him out of him. Christ! You know what? It's going to take that to bring this generation back to God. I'm sick of churchianity.

I'm sick of people just being nice on Sundays for an hour, God help us. I'm wanting God to create, before I go to heaven, I don't know where I'm going, I could go tonight, it'd be nice. No, I want to go and get a few more scars, I have enough scars.

The money doesn't matter, you'll get the same offering tonight anyhow. Just to let him do as he likes with us, put us in a lonely place, in a dark place, to seemingly be forgotten, and yet to know his eyes on me every moment. His concern is for me.

Well, for those of you who don't know these, we have a number of full-blooded Indians tonight, precious brothers, I love them, they're ladies, and at two weeks from this week, they're going up to Oklahoma for two weeks, to what, a powwow is it? A powwow, is that Indian for a seminar? If it is, if it is, you'll get half this congregation there. No, they're going right into the midst of a two weeks of nothing less, I guess that's the right word, is it expensive to say? It's debauchery from morning till night, sex, perversion, drinking, witchcraft, dancing in their tents around flames and all kinds of stuff. And these precious men are going there for two weeks, they've no denomination behind them, they're just God.

I think the Lord has healed me, I don't know how many times. The only thing He's healed their car more times than He's healed me. The thing can hardly get up the road without it expires.

And yet they get there, and they get back, pray for them. We're going to pray for them now in a few minutes. Our brother Jacob is away this week.

Where's Joe Foss, anybody know? Pardon? Oh, I think we've got him. There's a Google where they pray and never ask for money, just humble, wonderful folk. There's someone else.

Oh, let's pray for the crusade, Dave Wilkinson's crusade in New York, he's on, I guess. We need to pray for them, that's another, hell hole is the only word you can describe. We know with all the little crusades we have and all the zeal we have, at the speed we're going, if the world lasts another thousand years, we won't get any nearer.

There has to be an outpouring of the Spirit. I want to see God stop the traffic like He did in the Welsh Revival. I want to see people walking through Sears Roadworks and suddenly get on their knees and start exalting the Lord or interceding.

Oh, they may take us to jail, well that's good, we'll all get a free holiday, we'll get fed. All expenses paid in jail, isn't that nice? Lynn doesn't want to come on, okay Lynn, we'll leave you behind. Well praise God, isn't it wonderful to know the Lord.

What's the time now? Spencer, are they expecting us to finish? Do they want the chairs to go in the other room? There's a bigger little wedding tomorrow. They were supposed to rehearse in there but I got them to, I knew either they'd be quieter or we'd scare them. You know these brothers came from, where's Little Texas? Near where? Near Montgomery, isn't that wonderful? You left, what time did you leave? Eight o'clock last night, they drove all night and all day to get here.

Isn't that wonderful? If you were like the other carnal people, we'd clap but we don't, we just rejoice. Isn't that wonderful? People say, oh folk, boy, when the cowboys are playing they get on a plane and they go to New York or somewhere. Look, people coming all that way for prayer meetings.

Another family here, drive four hours here every Friday night and four hours home. Anybody else out of town from where? Arlington, good, good. Anybody else from Arlington? Great.

Where are the rest of you from, City of Destruction? That's what Bunyan called it. I'm waiting for my errand boy. Maybe he's having a pow-wowing show.

Fun. Yeah, I know but I don't know if they're going to have, did they rehearse the whole thing? Oh, good, good, good. Well, er.