Audio Sermon: Repent, Repent, Repent

The Book of Psalms is actually the Jewish hymn book, and with all the modern songs that we have, nobody has reached the heights of worship and adoration that David the Psalmist had. That wonderful psalm, Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, is there a modern tune to that? You don't know? You know it? Oh, I won't ask you to sing. It might be as bad as Mike, but we'll find it one day.

Well, how many psalms are there? 150? Out of the 150, there are eight penitential psalms. I believe all of them are written by David. Out of the eight penitential psalms, one is the greatest, and that surely is the 51st psalm.

I want to read a part of that right here. Have mercy upon me, O God. According to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions, wash me truly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shaped in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in inward parts.

In the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Make me to hear joy, and gladness of the bones, which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence. Take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit.

Then," that's after he's been restored, after he's been liberated, "...then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee." I was thinking of, I think the brother mentioned earlier tonight, about the glory of the Lord. Some people think the glory of the Lord may come like the shekinah glory. I think the glory of God comes when people who have been concealing sin for years suddenly feel conviction and they rush for mercy.

A brother told me tonight about a meeting in Wisconsin, I think last night, there were about 1,500 people there, the preacher was preaching on repentance, before he got halfway through a man ran up to the altar and said, I need to repent, I'm living in a gulf there, I need mercy, I need mercy. I think that's the glory of God. When suddenly the human heart is exposed to the glare and majesty of God.

Leonard Bernstein, as many of you know, is considered one of the greatest conductors. I think he's conducted what, the New York Philharmonic, or New York One State Opera something for years. He's considered a maverick because he breaks every law in the book.

He'll jump off the podium when he's conducting, or he'll join in the singing. And the other guys don't like that, it's not highbrow enough. But in his own right, he's one of the world's greatest classical professional pianists.

And years ago a friend of his was in Europe and he bought a piece of dog-eared manuscript that he paid a small fortune to receive. He came home to Bernstein's apartment in New York and he said, I want you to play this. And Leonard Bernstein looked at it and said, I can't play this.

He said, you can, you won't, but you can. He said, I can't. Why not? Where did you buy it? I bought it in Europe.

It was written by a man 200 years ago playing one of the most majestic organs in one of the great cathedrals of Europe. And he said, it's a masterpiece. So Leonard Bernstein said, I know that, but I can't do it.

He said, why not? You've got the music. He said, listen, if I'd been sitting up in that choir loft, if I'd heard that maestro really playing that piece, if I could get all his moves and cadences, maybe I could imitate it. But you see, he's 200 years away.

And I just can't get the strength, I can't get the measure of that man. I can't just interpret him by his music, whether they were black and white dots or whatever they are. You know, that's something that came to the problem of a preacher.

I'm reading to you a manuscript tonight that was written about maybe three, four thousand years ago. The Atmosphere. The book itself carries no atmosphere.

The only hope that we can get through is that the Holy Spirit of God who inspired this will take it tonight and inspire it to you. Only then does it live. The Bible itself says the letter killer, but the Spirit gives life.

Now, this is an amazing psalm. If you read it carefully, you'll discover it's among the Lord. There's nobody but David.

He doesn't even talk about Bathsheba. He doesn't talk about murder. He talks about himself.

Have mercy upon me, O God. According to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me fully from mine iniquity.

Cleanse me from my sins. I've sinned against thee. He isn't pointing the finger at anyone else.

And he comes with this gorgeous word that we have here, one of the greatest in the vocabulary of theologians, have mercy upon me. He has night's juices. Again, I say this is a monologue.

In your Bible it's written on beautiful paper. It's written with black ink. It's penetrated with scots and commas and all the laws of grammar.

Actually, this psalm is written with blood. It's penetrated with sobs and with tears and with brokenness. This man isn't dictating this to a charming young secretary at the side of him.

He's talking to God. He's a man that's cursed in a load of sin. There are at least three prayers in this wonderful psalm.

In the first verse he says, Have mercy upon me, O God. According to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Read it carefully when you're home.

There are three different words for sin. There are three different words for cleansing that he uses here. But here is a man bowed down in guilt.

Have mercy upon me, O God. You see, nobody I think in the whole Bible ever exposed his heart to the gaze of people as much as did this wonderful man David. He was the darling of his nation.

He was a young man. They had had a king before him who was very great and very wonderful. But before very long people were marching down the streets having parades and they were singing Saul has slain his thousands, but David did tens of thousands.

This man is hitting the charts. He's written the most courteous, most wonderful psalm in the whole of the word of God. That 23rd psalm, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not run.

Can't you see him on the side of a hill there in Israel? Many of course, many of you of course have heard Keith Green, at least you've had his records. He used to come to my home often, too often sometimes, two or three times a day. Sometimes he'd bring his guitar and I used to tease him about the thing.

He used to say there are no guitars, guitars are backsplit in hearts. Can you imagine David there on the hills of Bethlehem when I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained? What is man? People are still asking the question. You know there's a guy on TV sometimes.

When he's there, I like to hear him. He's called Carl Sagan. You know Carl Sagan? He's a what, atheist, unbeliever? Do you know that man who blesses me to death? He's so stupid.

Well isn't it amazing, a man of the intelligence, a PhD, has spent thousands of dollars trying to find out where he came from and he doesn't know where he's going. Isn't that stupidity? He's like a man sitting at the airport with his baggage and a ten thousand dollar suit and a big ring and you know one of these evangelist watches, twelve thousand dollars. And he's sitting there, you say where do you go? Oh I don't know.

I've got all this luggage, I've got all that, but I don't know where I'm going. You say boy you need your head checking. But you know I like Sagan for this reason.

Let me say this, amongst other things I've always wanted, I've never had one. I'd like a powerful telescope that looks away there into infinity almost. And Carl Sagan says you know we've discovered there's not one Milky Way with billions of stars, there are hundreds of Milky Ways with billions and trillions and quadrillions and sextillions of stars.

Great! It blesses me to death. Why? Because it says in the fortieth chapter of Isaiah that God knows the stars, he counts them and he knows all their names. Isn't that lovely for an atheist to admit that? That God counts the stars, he knows the names of all of them.

Well if he knows the stars surely he knows my name. And he remembers I'm dust, that's what the psalmist says. He knows our frame and he remembers that we are dust.

But here is a man, he's had all the opportunities, the greatest opportunities that any man has ever had in history. He rules over a great nation and he can control armies, he can control governments, but he can't control his passions. He's in trouble here.

And it's attributed of course by all the writers, it's attributed to the psalm of King David. Well I wrote a little note here tonight. I was thinking about the different men in history.

Here you have a man and he's dressed with gilts, every time he hears a baby cry it tears him up on the inside, he remembers the child that he gave to Bathsheba, every time he looks out of the castle he sees a soldier standing there, he remembers the brilliant young man he put to death, he planned his death. And here he is condemned, lashed with guilt, tormented within a man. You know the least emphasized work of the Holy Spirit today is conviction of sin.

We want the blessings, we want the fruit, we want the joy. But I'll tell you the most miserable man in the world is the man who really gets to know conviction of sin. Do you know why the world's in a mess it's in tonight? It's not politics, it's not Hitler, it's not the cult, it's not the devilish things that people teach.

The reason we're in this mess in America, what I call this moral desolation and spiritual destitution is due to one thing. The pulpit has lost its authority, the pulpit has lost its vision, the pulpit has lost its power. We're comfortable with sin.

Nobody commits adultery anymore, they're just having an affair. There are no fornicators, they're just having premarital sex. Nobody's guilty anymore.

Oh you don't preach condemnation, dear God. I mean aren't you burdened enough with the taxation and the possibility of invasion of Russia and other things. But when it comes down to the issue of dealing with this little thing in here that we call the heart of man, there is only one answer to the problem and that is the answer of the cross of Jesus Christ.

I think one of the greatest hymns ever written, let me put it backwards. I was speaking in a conference in Wisconsin in 1953 I think it was, and as we finished the service somebody struck up, so I'll cherish the old rugged cross. The next morning I was going to cross for breakfast, I have to speak at nine o'clock, and here's a lovely lady walking over the grass, and she said well that was a great meeting last night.

I said it was, I noticed as we began to sing at the end, so I'll cherish the old rugged cross, the tears are coming down your face. It's a wonderful hymn isn't it? She said yes my husband wrote it. Well it was doubly nice.

So you know we've got to go back to the cross. The most, the biggest lie I think the devil has put on our generation is this, that in history we pass Jesus Christ coming up the road two thousand years ago, that's a life on hell he's ahead of us. Whether you go the broad way to destruction or the narrow way you're still to confront Jesus Christ.

You may not hear it, you may hear his voice and this is why it may him tonight. You've heard his voice often, you've heard your mother praying for you, you've heard somebody pleading for you, you've heard that voice and you're deaf and deaf but listen, when you're lying in the grave there at the voice of the Son of God you'll get up at that very moment, there's no option about it. You see you're all heading up for the final checkout.

Whether you're a saint or a sinner you're cramming, whether you know it or not you're cramming for your final. I wanted to preach, which would take me about three days, in fact I preached on it one night for three and a half hours, three, no correctly, three hours and twenty minutes on the judgment seat. But I can't do that.

I want you to know something David, you're welcome to this pulpit anytime you want to come. You forgot to tell him so I told him. And when you come I'm coming with you.

So I said enough to meditate on that. I'll tell you what it terrifies me. I go into my office between midnight and two o'clock and some days I didn't even pick up my pen.

I didn't kneel. The majesty of God is so real, the awesomeness, that his whole world is going to the final checkout counter. There isn't a sin that's being committed unless it's under the blood that won't be brought to light.

The last thing that's crossed the mind of Senator Kennedy is he's going to meet that girl that drowned at Capiquiti. She didn't drown for the simple reason when they got her body she had no water in her lungs. I understand she had a baby in her belly, whoever caused that.

But he's going to stand, there'll be no exoneration, there'll be no pope to plead for him, there'll be nothing he can bring as a sacrifice. He's going to stand there, Mother Kennedy, as an honoured sinner in the sight of God. Everything that man has done is going to be brought to account in that grave.

Can you think of that? Isn't it awesome that the church slumbers when this is so true, that men and women have not been alerted? When did you last preach on flee from the wrath to come? When did you last preach that all wicked shall be turned into hell and nations will forget God? We don't preach that anymore. The sting has gone out of our preaching. There used to be a time when conviction of sin came and people went home and what did they do? They couldn't speak.

They'd go home now if they turned TV on and watch it all the way. They're terrified of facing reality. But here is a man, I acknowledge my transgression and God can do nothing until he confesses sin.

My note on that was this, that Mary Queen of Scots would have said I'm above the law. The law doesn't apply to me, but it does apply to her. Mohammed would have invented or produced a revelation that would absolve him from both crimes.

Charles II would have publicly abrogated the seventh commandment. Queen Elizabeth would have suspended Nathan. But this amazing man doesn't do anything of the kind.

He faces up to the fact that he needs mercy. I love that hymn that says, mercy there was great and grace was free, pardon there was multiplied to me, there my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary. What's wrong with this man? He's the most famous man in the world.

He's had more victories than King Saul has. The people in the streets are singing David, Saul has slain his thousands and David is tens of thousands. He's riding a great wave of popularity.

He's put down his enemies for Philistines. Everybody trembles at him. This anointed, richly anointed shepherd boy, how amazing, what a lesson.

Everybody else would have chosen Ahab, oh no that's not his name. His brother anyhow is a tall handsome man and David is only a shepherd boy. Isn't that a wonderful story of David and Goliath? I love that story.

I like to see that little boy David with his sling and he went out and what did he do? The first thing he said, I slew a lion. Then there came a bear. I took the lion and I caught him by the beard and punched his nose and sent him home.

Then there came a bear and I destroyed the bear. Now comes Goliath, boy I'll get rid of him. And Goliath is saying, who's this little creep that's coming here? He didn't realize this man, that stone he had in his sling was more powerful than an atomic bomb.

You know it seems as though he'll never do it, he swings it right and lets it go. This man has armor everywhere, his breastplates, his armor on his legs, his armor on his hands and his arms and he's totally protected and yet he has a little space here above his visor and the stone went right through and right into the head of Goliath. And you know such a thing never entered his head before.

Next thing he's laid out. What a foolish thing. God takes the foolish things.

Dear God, now you can't go to many schools. You can't be a preacher. I get young men distressed.

I want to go to a school. I want to go in the ministry. They say you can't go in the ministry until you've got an education, until you've got a degree.

So what? Our pulpits are full of degrees now. What are they doing? They're in splendid isolation. The emphasis is on the ice.

It's amazing here. Here is a man loaded with guilt, as I say condemnation. You know somehow we think that the salvation that we offer is only for the down and outs.

It's only for the men who got messed up. It's all right to be in New York. We work, David and my other son and Martha, we work with David Wilson when he first started in New York 26 years ago and he gathered up the scum of the earth as it were.

Prostitutes came every night to the place. Guys won't tell you how many people they killed, how many murders they've been in. Gang rapes, gang murders and the filth of the earth.

It is an abomination to listen to it. But how wonderful to be able to call Hebrew 725 to somebody who says listen there's no hope for me. I've been in prison 12 times.

I've been in so many rapes. I've been in so many murders. I've got a lust for all that's wrong and all that's sinful.

But then you tell them that and you know what? They had religion. They had crucifixes around their necks. Many of them never missed their mass or missed something else and yet they were perfectly dominated by sin.

And then you say there's one by the name of Jesus he's able to save to the uttermost or they'll come unto God by him. Somebody mentioned yesterday that wonderful book of Bunyan Sturgeon's Progress. Boy Bunyan was some preacher.

Do you know when he lived? He lived in the reign of Charles II of England. Do you know who was the leading preacher in that day? Nobody but John Owen. The greatest preacher in history at that period.

The greatest preacher to all of some of the charlatanists. John Owen has about 16 volumes of sermons. I've had about six of them.

I've never read them. He's a great preacher. Every time parliament opened the king said to John Owen you must give some orations.

Every time there was some distinguished gathering of celebrities from the world tell Dr. John Owen he must appear in the royal chapel and he must preach to us on a certain subject. So this man had favor with the king. He had favor with the elite of England.

One day he was summoned into the presence of the king. So he thought well I suppose I'm going to get a commission to preach somewhere. And the king in his archaic English said to him listen Dr. Owen I want to ask you a question.

You are the greatest preacher in England today. You have a colossal intellect. You have marvelous reasoning.

You have rhetoric. You have scholarship. You read it all together.

You're the most stirring preacher that there is. Is it true that you've been going up the road to listen to a babbling Baptist by the name of John, I nearly said John the Baptist, John Bunyan? So he said yes your honor. He said you, the greatest preacher, you go to listen to an uneducated man like John Bunyan? He said yes sir.

I went into a shed where the roof was leaking and the walls were not very secure. The wind was blowing in, the rain was blowing in, and I listened to him for four hours. I stood there astonished at the power of a man, the authority he had, the wisdom he had, the strength he had.

It was like arrows shooting into my heart. I would listen to him for hours. I don't understand why you do that.

Well said Dr. John Owen, listen sir I would gladly take off my robe. He has to wear certain robes in the presence of the king. I would gladly take them off and throw them at your feet if I could preach like that man, that unlearned unlettered man.

What happened at the upper room? Did they all come out with degrees? Well the one thing for sure they didn't come out to do nines. Can you imagine them coming out of the upper room with light face and white hands doing silly stuff that they have these days? They came out of the room in the energy of God, in the power of the Holy Ghost. Pentecost in scripture is married.

It's married to poverty, it's married to power, it's married to persuasion, it's married to prisons, it's married to persecution. Pentecost today is married to prosperity. It's a million miles away from Pentecost.

There has to have come another time when we're not merely saying what we're saying but actually we say, Lord I humble myself at thy feet. I'm so unworthy that I should even be the least of one of your disciples. So go back to John Bunyan.

Remember in his story he talks about the man who turned his back on the city of destruction to go to the city of God and he tells him to follow that shining light and he followed it and then the pilgrim says, I came to a place that was somewhat ascending. There was a wall on this side and a wall on the other side and then right ahead of me I saw a cross and when I gazed upon the cross the burden loosed from off my back, fell from off my shoulders, rolled down the hill into an empty sepulcher and I beheld it no more forever and he gave three leaps for joy. I think one for the Father, one for the Son and one for the Holy Ghost.

Listen, a Baptist got delivered of his sins and gave three leaps for joy. Well dear God, what should a Pentecostal do if he gets rid of all this stuff? He ought to have a war dance. He ought to be magnified in the Lord.

Listen, my guilt has gone. Sure it's the sinners and it's the scholars. The highest family in English history at that period when John Wesley was around was the Wesley family.

John Wesley's grandfather was a bishop, his father was a preacher, they were all hymn writers. So John Wesley, pardon me, Charles Wesley came into a living relationship. Listen, he was a communicant.

When that man got saved he was as clean as Nicodemus. There wasn't a thing you could lay on him. He didn't smoke, drink, swear, do anything.

He took sacraments. He even went to pray with men at three o'clock in the morning when he wasn't sane. Listen, dear God, my problem with Wesley is he was more spiritual when he wasn't sane than I am when I am sane.

He loved the Lord. He came to Georgia to rescue the Indians, he said, who were without God and without hope. And he slept where? In some nice hotel.

No, he slept on the ground. Woke up in the morning with his hair frozen to the ground. Couldn't release his arm in the frost.

Got one arm released, released the other, got his legs free, got his hair free out of the mud, stood up and he said, I brushed the frost off my coat and I sang the doxology to magnify God. And he wasn't even born again yet. He had such compassion for people in their ignorance.

Dear Lord, I'm sick to death of this psychology stuff. I don't find the psychologists, Christian psychologists, getting on a boat and going up the Amazon and then going up the Oronoco River to another place. There are Indians there that have been there 2,000 years.

They're without God. They don't go and rescue them. They cross with no message.

They come messing up Christians. Oh, these poor little Christians, always trouble. Somebody comes with a soft message and soothes you, you know, and says, well, dear ones, you're really a problem.

Your image is too small. Well, if you're a Christian, you shouldn't have images anyhow. Hark the herald angels sing, says Charles Wesley, and glory to the newborn King.

Adam's likeness now effaced, stamp thine image in its place. So Charles Wesley had an experience of God. Maybe his greatest hymn was, And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour's blood? Died he for me who caused his pain, for me who him to death pursue.

And here you have this scholar, this gentleman, this brilliant man, accepting to royalty. And then he writes this verse, No condemnation now I dread. You know, so you look so nice tonight, and inside of you there's something twisting, condemnation, guilt, unconfessed sin, rebellion against God, and you'll never have mercy.

I don't care what you do. You can go through the ritual. You can be baptized and come out.

All you're doing is going to dry sinner and come out a wet sinner. But this man has been radically born again of the Spirit of God. And if any man, I love that, there's such a defiance in that word of Paul, is it in 2 Corinthians 5, 17? If any man be in Christ, any man, anywhere, at any time.

If you have a message less than that, you didn't go to the heathen at the Amazon. You can't go to people in those far-off countries in bondage. You can't go down the street to the prostitute.

You can't go around the corners to the drunkard. And listen, be very careful. He may turn round and ask you, you're preaching victory over sin.

Do you have victory over sin? Do you have victory over lust? And are you pointing the way? You know, our young people, there's so many signposts pointing the way. We don't need guideposts to point the way. We need guides to lead the way.

We need guides in the portrait. We need guides in the Sunday school. Anyhow, this man is burdened with guilt.

He's born down with grief, and so he comes and he cries, Have mercy upon me, O God. According unto the multitude as I send a mercy, blot out my transgressions. Watch me truly for my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

Against thee the only have I sinned. You say that's not correct. He didn't just sin against God.

He sinned against Bathsheba. I'm not sure he did. He sinned with her, but I'm not sure he sinned against her.

She's part of the deal. But he doesn't blame her here. He says, I am the sinner.

You know, we all know what's wrong with somebody else, but it comes from me being feeling condemnation and guilt, and we start making excuses about it. But it's an amazing thing again. And he said, Against thee only have I sinned, and none this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

Behold, I was straightened in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. He prays the first part of this wonderful psalm. He prays it as a sinner under condemnation, under guilt.

And he uses three different words in the first two verses for sin. And he uses three different words there, which I want to emphasize at the moment. He uses three different words there for cleansing.

I'm talking here about the urgency to get rid of that thing. If you had some diabolical disease and sin is the disease, would you want to get rid of it? If you got rid of it, would you keep quiet about it? If you got miraculously delivered from cancer via some medical prescription, wouldn't you feel obligated to run out and tell everybody that there's a deliverance for cancer, that they can be healed and made whole? If a man, you know, you ask some people, Are you astray? They say, I don't know. Supposing you're walking up the road, you have a sack of 80 pounds on your back, and somebody snatches it off.

And you say, somebody says, Have you lost your burden? You say, Oh, I don't know. Let me feel around. If you lost your burden, you know pretty quickly that that burden has gone.

And one of the most joyful things we sang tonight. You know, I'd almost like to stop the whole meeting and say, Listen, you sang a truth tonight. Explain it to me.

What did you sing? Blessed assurance. Why do you have assurance? How do you have assurance? Again, the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. And the Apostle Paul, as we mentioned yesterday about faith, in the ninth chapter of Romans, he says, I call the Holy Ghost to bear witness.

Do you do that? Do I do that? Can I call the Holy Ghost to bear witness that when I pray, I pray with as much zeal and passion and longing and yearning in the secret place as I do openly? Am I as consistent there as I am publicly? The Holy Spirit bears witness. It was a favorite preaching of John Wesley. He preached on that text more than any other text.

The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are born of God. No condemnation, Wesley says, now I dread. Jesus and all in him is mine.

Alive in him, my living heaven. Clothed in righteousness, divine gold, I approach the eternal throne and claim the crown through Christ my own. There's nothing more awesome, I think, than seeing God take the beggar from the dunghill and make him a prince unto God.

Some of Wesley's greatest preachers were the vilest men in the country. He gathered a bunch of men around him. They weren't intellectually his equal.

They weren't socially his equal, but spiritually they were his equal. They fasted when he fasted. They submitted to all the rigorous life that they had to live in those days, because they had been emancipated.

They had lost their burden of guilt. They got a message to declare to others that he is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God. You know, lots of people get neurotic and all this stuff.

It's due to the fact that if you could push it right down, it's guilt, it's condemnation, it's hidden sin that has to be cleansed. It has to be done away. And so David prays here, have mercy for me, my past sins.

And then he prays again. He mentions in this chapter, he mentions the Spirit three times. He mentions sacrifices three times.

He says, Thou desirest not sacrifice, else I would give it. Well, what can you do? There's no other way to God. We mentioned about it last night about Elijah.

And what did he bring? He didn't bring a pair of turtle doves. He didn't bring a handful of meal or something. The sacrifice of God out of a broken and a contrite heart, a broken spirit and a contrite heart of God, thou wilt not be despised.

That's so very seldom real in our lives, is it? Brokenness. You know, we've got used to sin. We're used to it.

People can sin without any fear anymore. Dear God, it used to be in meetings the Spirit of God would come like a cloud. People would go home and they wouldn't sleep.

They'd keep awake night after night after night, as in the days of Jonathan Edwards, when the whole community was lifted with God. And that's what I want. I want God to come on the community, not just a blessing here and a healing there and a vision over there.

I want the Spirit of God to come until taverns are closed. Nobody wants to drink, until people don't curse, until every home becomes a tabernacle where God lives, where every father becomes a priest. He ministers the things of God to his family, but he becomes a king walking in righteousness and in holiness.

David here, thank you. I thought we'd get a hallelujah before the week was over. It's pretty dried up around here, okay.

But here, thou desirest truth in the inward parts. That's an absent thing these days. How many people have truth in the inward parts? If we have truth in the inward parts, we'll have integrity.

There isn't much integrity around anymore. There isn't much honesty around anymore. As I said before, the missing feature for me in modern preaching, there are three things missing, immensity, intensity and eternity.

I would like to hear preaching so people can't do their office work. They can't do any other work. They say my number one priority is to get right with God.

I want to get rid of this guilt. I want to get rid of this shame. It's amazing how people can cover sin, isn't it? You know, we think of revival as a happy time.

Oh boy, we shouted, we danced with more blessing. Listen, I talked with a man from years ago. He was 90 years of age.

He'd been in the Shang Tung revival away there in China when the Holy Ghost came on the whole community. And he said, by the way, you know, the meetings would start in the morning. And the same thing is recorded by Jonathan Goforth's daughter, or wife actually.

She said when revival came, we'd go to the sanctuary with maybe two or three thousand people. We'd go in at nine o'clock in the morning and stand up and sing. And we'd still be singing at five o'clock at night without stopping.

And nobody got tired. The next day you'd go and they'd start praying. And they'd pray from nine till seven or eight at night.

And nobody got tired. You'd go another day, there wasn't a word of prayer, there wasn't a word of singing. But she said we'd sit for five, six, seven hours in total silence.

And that was the most penetrating of all, be still and know the time God. You had no voice, no human voice, just the Spirit of God got down the corridors of the mind, the avenues of the heart and began to stir memory. You know, we don't mention conscience much anymore, do we? We don't believe in conscience, so we invent a lie detector.

I go for the old-fashioned conscience. But once guilt is really registered by the Spirit of God on us, you know, a man is not just a sinner wandering away from God, he's a rebel, he has to stand up against God. I will not have this man to rule over me.

I'm going to run my own life. And therefore you have all the mess that we have in the nation. Our divorce courts are packed.

People say, but Brother Abner, remember, Sunday morning in America almost every church in the nation is packed. So what? For how long? An hour. The jails are filled 24 hours a day, every day in the year.

And it doesn't balance out. The only reason jails are filled to that degree again is that the Church of Jesus Christ has lost vision, lost the sense of its wholesome task, to say that Jesus Christ is able to save the demons. He says, wash me with hyssop and I shall be clean.

Cleanse me and I shall be whiter than snow. Well, what did he know about snow? Well, there was snow on Mount Hermon. But did he know what modern science says? That not only is every snowflake different, but every snowflake has one little speck of dirt in it.

There isn't a snowflake that comes down from the sky that doesn't pick a little one bit of grain of dirt in it. But he says, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness.

These are his requests. Cleanse me. Take away my deafness, still voice.

Then what does he say? Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Here he's praying like a backslider. He remembers the heights that he had with God.

He remembers the time when he could say, the heavens declare the glory of God. When he would lay for hours in meditation and adoration of God himself. But it's very different now.

In Psalm 139 he says, one of the most daring things that's ever been uttered from human lips. What does he say? He says to the holy God, whose holy of eyes is too holy to look upon sin. And then he calls on God, he says, in Psalm 139, search me, O God.

Isn't that something? Do you say that tonight, brave as you are, secure as you are, spiritual as you are, satisfied as you are? Can you say to the holy one who's going to search you with eyes of fire of the judgment, can you say, Lord spare me, don't embarrass me there. Search me, O God, my actions try. And let my life appear as seen by thine own searching eye, to mine my ways make clear.

Search all my thoughts, the secret springs, the motives that control. He bears his heart. The heart that caused him to commit adultery.

The heart that caused him to murder, to cover up the adultery. He says, search this heart of mine with all its impurities, with all its rebellions, where all my evil is at. Search me, O God.

What does he say in this psalm? Here he is, loaded with guilt, condemnation, terrified to hear the cry of a baby, because it reminds him of the baby that he fathered. Looking on soldiers, he's ashamed because he knows that he's put a soldier to death. Does he cry here? Search me, O God.

No, this is what he says, hide thy face from my sins. Lord, don't go away, but don't go any nearer. And then he prays this awesome thing.

Take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Do you know what? If the Spirit of God convicts you of sin tonight, you ought to run to this altar before I finish speaking even. There are people in hell tonight who would like one more chance to hear the voice of God and they can't have it.

Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. You don't have that joy, so you stick in front of that dumb idol called television to try and get a lift. I say what I said last night.

Entertainment is the devil's substitute for joy. There's no joy like the joy of sins forgiven. To say no condemnation, no, I dread.

The Methodists used to sing a hymn about the first to be saved. They talked about the health of Jude and peace with heaven. That reminds me of when I used to look across the aisle in the Methodist church, we had a fellow there, he was about the most wild man in the whole community, he got saved.

And you know, it was all right when our preacher was there, but when they sang that hymn, and can it be that I should gain, surely at the end, he put up that big hand, he had a hand as big as a shovel, I thought, and a voice worse than anybody ever heard. And it struck up in the wrong teeth, no condemnation, no, I dread, the preacher would jump in the pulpit. But you see this man had been liberated.

He had changed, he had fetters, he had guilt, he had habits that made him a victim. He might as well have been chained with chains of iron. But what if you don't have chains of iron? Aren't chains as heavy as they're made of gold? So you have intellectual chains, so you have moral chains, so you have theological chains.

But when the Spirit of God comes and begins to liberate, it's something entirely different. Everybody gets emancipated. I met my darling wife in a town outside of Manchester about 1937.

She came with a bunch of nurses, and I preached one night, Saturday night, it was a cold, miserable English night, it was summer. It was terribly hot, I think it was 65. I don't think there were more than about 60 people in the meeting.

I preached on this psalm, and I emphasized, I said, you know, when joy goes out, you try to come that faith with everything. As everybody went out, this one woman at the back, I'm sure she was about six foot two, and she was surely an ugly piece of work. She came down the front in a black dress, black hat, black outlook, never saw a woman looking so miserable.

And she grabbed hold of that little wooden rail at the front, and she shook like this. So I said, well lady, tell me, what's your problem? And she said, my problem. My problem? I said, yes, what's your problem? Oh, she said, I can tell you that immediately.

I heard the voice of God tonight, the first time in 40 years. And that big old rugged face cracked, and she smiled. She said, Mr. Rainer, in the meeting tonight, when you said, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, I said, Lord, I lost my joy 40 years ago.

She said, for 40 years, I've never had joy. I've never had satisfaction. I've never had peace.

I'll tell you how it started. She said, I was one of the most promising women preachers in the Salvation Army, and I had a partner, and we would select the hymns and so forth. I got to the meeting this night.

My friend said, look, I've got the hymns here. She said, no, I've got the hymns here. And the girl said, no, I'm going to have my hymns.

And she said, we'd quarrel about it. And at the end, she said, I said, look, I'm tired of quarreling with you. And here they are, they're trained officers in the Salvation Army.

They're supposed to be saved and sanctified and edified and everything else. And she said, I went home blazing mad. I took off my uniform, I got my scissors and I cut up the coat.

I took off the skirt, I cut off the skirt, and I burned it in the fire. We have open fires in England. And then she said, I took my Bible and I tore it up page by page, and I put that on top of the fire.

I took my straw bonnet and put that on the top. And she said, immediately I did that, the light inside went out. Immediately I did that, and loneliness came over me, and it's been there for 40 years.

She said, Mr. Raymond, you don't understand this. I said, I think, she said, no, there was no man on God's earth that preached in those days like William Boole. I heard him preach.

If thou run with a footman and they have wearied thee, how wilt thou join the swelling of the Jordan? And she said, I would tremble, but immediately I got out of the atmosphere. I went home, and I went to my son. After that I heard his greatest preacher.

I heard Brangle. I heard Dr. Brangle preach, a brilliant American. Do you know why he went over there? He was the greatest orator in America at that time, the senior orator in all the universities.

And he went to England. When he got to England, they said, you have to see William Boole. So he said, who are you? He said, well I'm Dr. Brangle.

From where? America. I want to join the Salvation Army. Do you know why? The Salvation Army had a banner, which they still have, and it said on the banner, what did it say? Blood and fire.

Blood for the cross and fire for the fire of the Holy Ghost. They preached the baptism of the Spirit. They never mentioned tongues, but listen, they went into 70 countries in 90 years.

You're talking about Stavnerola. Dear God, when a man's been in the presence of God and he's in purity, everything around him is impure. Everything is ugly.

Everything is repulsive. He sees people as though they have cancers hanging all outside of them. And this amazing man, Stavnerola, from where was it? The 1500s, got marvelously born again of the Spirit of God.

Do you know why, what he was like? He lived in the secret place of the Most High, so that when he was going down the street and a priest was coming, the priest would cross the street rather than looking to the eyes of that man. There were kind of waves of power going out of him, the power of the Spirit of God. There were no miracles, there were no tongues, there were no visions.

He preached salvation. Truly, through him being born again of the Spirit of God, but the blood of Jesus Christ, God sent. It doesn't matter how filthy you are, he can make you pure, change you from pollution to purity, change you from rebellion to being a subject of the Most High God.

He got rid of all the trimmings he'd had as a Catholic priest and he got marvelously born again. What happened? He admitted that every priest practically was living in impurity. The Pope was living in impurity until he sacked up sin in high places and low places.

What did they do? They finally arrested him. They hung him up on a rope, pulled him up and they let him crash to the ground 12 times over till every bone in his body was broken, but he was rejoicing. Why? The whole city had been transformed.

Purity had got into high places. The priests were getting saved. The politicians were getting delivered.

The drunkards were no longer staggering down the street. The women weren't going into prostitution. It was a moving of the Spirit of God, but you see that man had a broken heart and yet a broken life and there's no hope for us brethren.

We're not going to stand here and say that way to heaven, that way to blessing, that way to healing. Forget it. We've had men that had the greatest chance in history.

You know if these men that recently fell on TV, if they'd been liberals, we just said you see the reason started they didn't believe in the virgin birth. The second thing they didn't believe in the atonement. The third thing they didn't believe in the Holy Ghost.

They were not preachers. They were the holiest men in the world. They told us they were born of the Holy Spirit.

They were filled with the Spirit and guided by the Spirit, but he doesn't guide us into immorality. Listen if you get filled with the Holy Ghost it's terribly hard to sin once you get filled with the Holy Ghost. The first thing you have to do is resist the Spirit.

The second thing you have to do is to grieve the Spirit and the third thing you have to do is quench the Spirit and that isn't easy. I don't believe a man when he says I've struggled for three years with pornography. That's a reproach on God.

Didn't the Spirit convict a man of sin and he has to tread that down. Doesn't the Word of God that he's preached for years burn like a fire in his heart? Why the psalmist himself said thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. You see today we're comfortable with sin.

Isn't that true? Yet you stand and sing amazing grace to save a wretch like me, but if I say listen you wretches come to the altar you'll get offended. You'll stand and sing where the whole realm of nature lies and you'll sing about I surveyed a wondrous cross with Isaac Watts and then when you get to the end you'll sing poor contempt on all my pride. But as I say listen you've got pride you've got the same thing the devil had when he was kicked out of heaven.

But pride is there and arrogance and only the blood is able to take it and to cleanse it. I was preaching in a certain university. There were as many people as are here maybe more and on the Monday night one of the most famous preachers in America he's the national broadcast preacher for his denomination he preached and when he finished there was a rush to the platform please sign my bible they're wanting autographs or photographs.

I stood in line for a little while then I went up behind him I said sir I'm not a hero worshiper. I mean look well what do you want? I want to tell you I enjoyed you know look at these hundreds and hundreds of teenagers young married people pouring out of this university tonight and I said I would go along with about 99 percent of your message. You did a good job.

Oh thank you he said but I said listen you made a terrible blunder you spoke as though sin is permissible in the life of the believer. I said while you were preaching about sin I was thinking of a woman that came to Jesus bowed in sin and guilt and Jesus smiled on her and said don't sin less. He said what? I said oh you preach that's how the bible says.

He said to a woman at the other side of the cross go and sin no more. You don't sin because you have to. You sin because you want to.

You sin in your sin. This man likes lust and he lusts after women. This man likes greed and so he's greedy for money.

You've got a besetting sin it says in in the what in the 12th chapter of Hebrews. That's a besetting sin. I love that scripture.

Let me go back a minute here. One the greatest broadcasting preachers in America was Dr. R. R. Brown in Omaha. I had the privilege of preaching in his tabernacle and he said he talked with a lady one day and he said what's your favorite portion of scripture? Oh she said Dr. Brown I so love that word in the epistle of God that says when we sin we have an advocate with the father.

Isn't that wonderful? He said I don't know it isn't in my bible. She said sure it is. I said well here you are lady show me.

So she searched through and she found the first what? Epistle of God. Read it. So she read it.

If we sin what? Not when we sin if we sin. Now there's another verse of scripture that says when ye fast. You know we've changed the letters over.

We've changed it from when you fast to if you fast and we've changed it from if we sin to when we sin. We don't have to sin in thought word and deed and struggle. We can have perfect victory over sin.

We can have dominion over sin. It doesn't have to have power over us. I was going to say I don't like to use the word love.

I do love hymns. I've got a whole rack of wonderful old hymn books and years ago I was preaching at the meeting in London. It was in an area the street is called Orange Grove.

It never saw an orange in a million years. But it's a wonderful Gothic old building stained glass windows with pulpits. It's as ornate as this is ugly.

It was beautifully carved and I stood there I got all of that I got all of that pulpit and I put my feet there and I held on tightly. Do you know why? The pastor of that church used to be Augustus Toplady. He wrote Rock of Ages left for me.

Let me hide myself in thee. What does he say about him? Be of sin the double cure. You see the trouble I believe the preachers are there the most guilty men this side of eternity.

They don't have a message. You can't be saved by confessing your sins. People who are not in the catholic church every day and particularly weekends there's far more to it than that.

I need more than I need more than forgiveness. I need justification. I need more than justification.

I need adoption. Dear God what a wonderful thing to be adopted. You stare at me and say well he's only a little Englishman forget it.

I'm royalty. I belong to a royal priesthood and a holy nation. I'm supposed to live above the world above the habit the customs of the world the desires of the world.

So the hymn says what? Be of sin the double cure. Cleanse me from its guilt and power. You see you don't have too much trouble if a man is desperately on it.

You don't have much trouble with that man that has guilt and condemnation. He has a form of godliness but no life in him. You don't have too much trouble getting him to the cross.

Your trouble is to get him on the cross. We say come to the front. Come and find life.

I won't invite you to come to life tonight. I'll invite you to come and die. Jesus is asking you to live for him.

He's asking you to die for him. Abandon all your desires. Abandon all your habits.

Abandon all your appetite and say for me Christ is not important. It's not a case of Christ first in your life. It's Christ only.

Oh there used to be a slogan 20 years ago in America. Take Christ into partnership. He doesn't want partnership.

He wants ownership. He's not going to be a sharer. He wants to govern the whole of your life and he's a holier-than-to-behold iniquity.

So this man Christ. Let me go back a minute and say that precious woman got such a deliverance that night. I can't tell you the ecstasy I had.

If she'd give me ten thousand dollars I could have been happier. She went out and said Mr. Rayner for the first time in 40 years I've listened to preaching. I'd gone home and I'd wept.

But only tonight did God speak to me and she said I've got peace back tonight. I've got joy back tonight. And you know from that night that was Saturday night.

I went to the church in the morning and it was about six inches of snow outside. I went to open the church for the Sunday morning prayer meeting. She was standing in the snow and all the years I've passed that she was the first person at every prayer meeting that we had.

She said you don't know what it's been like. 40 years of torture. 40 years of waking up in the night and guilt would come and condemnation would come and fear would come.

Boy she said everything that the devil could bring he brought into my life. And then in one split moment I knew I was pardoned. I knew he had restored unto me the joy of his salvation.

There are some of you sitting here tonight. Once this book was sweeter than the honey in the honeycomb. Now you can live a week and not touch it.

There's a time when you do in prayer. If you love people you want to be with them. If you love God you spend time in prayer.

If you love people you want to talk with them. You say I love God. You can't love somebody you don't know.

Most of our people don't know God. They know religion. They know formality.

They know ritual. They know how to clap and sing. But really knowing God, hearing his voice, submitting to his voice, submitting to his commandments, it's something entirely different.

So he prays have mercy upon me. He prays then restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Then will I teach transgressors.

Wait a minute. I've rushed past something there I think. In verse 10.

Creation, mere thing, house of God, renew right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence. Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.

Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways. Why don't you search? Why don't you say I'm looking for something lofty.

I'm looking for an experience of holiness. I'm looking for an experience of sanctification. For the very reason you know that that inappropriate doesn't have it.

He isn't leading the way. But this man says you do it in me. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways.

Now listen to what he says in the next verse. O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. What does he say that for? He's not dumb.

But he says it's no good me opening my mouth if my life is a contradiction to what I say. Let me go back a moment there. He has an experience of God when he says this.

That is this little verse. I skipped over it. It's in the context of that same word.

Make me to hear joy and gladness, but the bones which thou hast broken. Did you ever break a bone? I told you I leaped out of a burning hotel in 1951 in Chicago. Three stories up.

You know the world champion in the Olympic Games recently was asked, when you dive off that high board, how high is it? He said, standing here and looking up, it's 30 feet. Standing there by yourself and looking down, it's 300 feet. I know what he meant.

I was up in a burning hotel. It seemed 3,000 feet up. Jumped out, got in the street with a broken back, broken legs.

My left leg in three pieces, both my feet broken, three breaks in my back. And then I lay in the cold. And a guy came through kindly.

You know, I can't understand American humor. He looked at me lying helpless at half past two in the morning in the snow. And he said, what are you doing here? Well, obviously I was playing tennis.

What are you doing lying here? He said, you can't stay here. I said, sir, I don't want to. I said, I can't get up.

I tried. And he lifted me up and he laid me in a bank of snow. Dear Lord.

I was there about two minutes. I was shaking like this. I thought, well, what's he going to do, kill me in the slow process? Then suddenly the ambulance came.

And the next thing I knew, the thing was screaming. We were going down the road to the hospital. But you know, when he lifted me up, he put his hand under my knee there and under my head and every bone in my body screamed out.

I thought of this text. Come on, this should come home to some of you. He says, when you're out of touch with God, you walk with God.

And now something's come in. Business has come in. Sport has come in.

Christ is not the attraction. Prayer is not the attraction. Testimony is not the attraction.

And David says, the bond which thou hast broken, thou hast severed thy relationship. The greatest pain in the world is not a pain, not even trouble for women. The greatest pain is to have conviction of sin, is to have a burden of guilt, to know that we've defied and defiled a living God.

So he, Christ, created me a clean heart, O God. I heard G. Campbell Morgan preach many times. I think about a great life.

In the 80-odd years I've traveled, I would go to a preacher's forum and one Monday I'd listen there to G. Campbell Morgan. The next time I'd listen to one of the greatest preachers there, Dr. Hanks from Westminster. Another time it would be Dr. Black from Edinburgh.

Another time it would be Palmer, all the way from Cambridge University. On one occasion it was C.S. Lewis. I listened to these great, wonderful preachers and only twice did Campbell Morgan disturb me.

One was when he said, preaching is my life. Rubbish. You're in trouble if preaching is your life.

Christ is my life. I can live without preaching. I had to do it for two years.

I was ready to go around the world and preach and study up two years in pain and agony and all the therapy and stuff that I had. I can live without preaching. I can't live without Christ.

The second thing was, he preached the message on holiness and everything he said I was saying under my breath. Of course, you know, all the preachers there, hundreds of them in their political colours, you know, the chosen people and the frozen people too. And when he said something that was glorious, I would say in a steadfast way, hallelujah, hallelujah, praise the Lord.

The fellow behind me kept looking at me and said, get out of here you lunatic. And he kept going on an ascending scale about holiness. And I was just enjoying every moment of it.

And then he said, now listen, remember, I'm not preaching sinless perfection. Of course he wasn't. You say, well, we can live without sin.

We can live without practising sin. There's no experience this side of heaven that in a sense guarantees I won't make mistakes. It's not sinless perfection.

It's not angelic perfection. It's not Adamic perfection. It's Christian perfection.

A perfection of love, a perfection of obedience. What did you sing tonight? Perfect obedience. Why did you sing it if you don't do it? So, G. Campbell Morgan gave this marvellous.

And then he said, look, I want to caution you. The blessed apostle Paul, with his amazing walk with God, finished up in Romans 7 saying, O wretched man that I am. That's a lie from hell he didn't do that.

How does he finish in Romans 7? In Romans 7 he says through the chapter that the law is power. You see, Romans 7 is a funeral march. Romans 8 is a wedding march.

He knows a famous writer in English history. What was his name? He wrote Paradise Lost. Thank you.

John Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Do you know when he wrote it? After he got married. Then he wrote a better book, Paradise Regained.

Do you know when he wrote that? After his wife died. Now those are two historic facts. It's humorous, but there it is.

But you see, most of the preachers got stuck at the bottom of Romans chapter 6. O wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me? And he said that's where Paul died. He did not.

That's a lie from hell. There he says it up there in his life. O wretched man that I am.

It's not I, it's sin that dwelleth in me. You go to Galatians 2.20 and it's not I, it's Christ that liveth in me. You can't have indwelling sin and indwelling Christ.

He won't stay where there's impurity. He won't stay where there's pride. He won't stay where there's grief.

He won't stay where there's love. You're trying to make Christ accommodate himself to your lifestyle. He says no.

Then he finishes. Paul says O wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me? Can the priest deliver me? No.

Can the sacrifices deliver me? No. Can holy days deliver me? No. Well what do I am? What do I do? O wretched man that I am.

Okay, let's wind it up. He doesn't stay there. O wretched man.

Who shall deliver me from this bondage of death? You see a man could be crucified on a cross like a letter C and his head would go back. He could be crucified on a cross like the average cross you see. He could be crucified on a cross that was an X and you stretched his limbs out and nailed him to the cross that way.

Or there was a cross which was merely a big trunk of a tree with a spike and you stuck the man's body on it and turned him and left him upside down anyway. But there's another crucifixion which was worse than all of them. And that was if a man killed another man, you took him to the corpse of the man he killed and you stretched him on the corpse and you tied the living hand to the dead hand and then you stood the man up and you pushed him off and he would struggle with that wretched body that he had.

And Paul says I have a body of sin. Who can deliver me? You see Romans chapter 6 says if you really, you know if the Baptists believe what they talk about that when they buried in baptism and raised in newness of life they set America on fire, they set the world on fire. But they're in bondage to worldliness and sin themselves.

So what? You get this man going around with a body, he wakes up in the morning and looks into the glassy eyes of the corpse. The corruption is beginning to stink and he wants to get away. I happen to see that man on the road and I say well I'll set you free.

I take my knife and I cut the ropes off him or I start to cut them then a Roman centurion comes up to me. What are you doing? Oh this is a friend of mine and I don't want him to die. He's going to carry this body of death.

It's gradually going to creep into him until he is full of maggots and corruption. Don't do this let me liberate him. He says you can liberate him on one point only.

What is that? That when you cut that corpse from that, when you cut that corpse from that living man we take the corpse and we tie it onto you. Are you willing to bear that body of death in his place? Oh no. So the man goes staggering on.

We've got so many Christians now. They've got rid of one or two dirty habits. Oh you've grown out of your bad temper.

Ask that woman who's been married to that bad tempered man 25 years. Is his temper getting better? That man who has dominated with lust. Is it getting less? It's getting stronger.

So finally the apostle says oh wretched man that I am. The law can't do it and they say I never can do it. And he doesn't stay there.

He says thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. The only way to have liberty is in bondage. The only way to have life is to die.

And we're invited to death. Jesus didn't make any terms with the rich young ruler. He says take up your cross and follow me.

He didn't bargain with him. And the only way that you and I are going to have victory, perfect victory over sin is when we cry out with David. Created me a clean heart.

You know thousands of people and I'm not trying to revive anything. Thousands of people pointed the millions at Jimmy Traggart and the PTL guy. Okay so what? Messing around a little while with some harlots.

But wait a minute. The law says thou shalt not steal. The law says thou shalt not commit adultery.

But Jesus says I say to you if you look on a woman to lust and you're lust in your heart, you've done the same thing. I was up in Michigan in 1953. There's a big handsome fella there about six foot two.

I said are you a pastor? He said I'm a missionary. I said to who? He said I've given my life to going around the different, what do you call them, camps that the Indians have. Thank you, reservations.

And I said now you're getting, oh he sent out some wonderful deliverer. Let me tell you about one. He had a fancy name, you know Eagle Feather or something.

And he was the worst man. He was always fighting. He was always drunk.

He was the devil of a man. Everybody hated him. And he said in one of my meetings he just trumbled down and said listen can God do anything with me? My mind is dirty.

My life is dirty. I hate. I'm bitter.

I don't know a thing about love or kindness and gentleness. I'm a brute. I'm a savage.

I'm a drunkard. I'm a feist. I'm an adulterer.

And the guy poured out his sin. So he stayed with him. And the man got wonderfully changed by the power of God.

So the missionary was away for about a year or more. And he went back to the camp. And when he got there as he went in, one of the young men came to him and said well so glad to see you.

So he said well how's Eagle Feather doing? He said well he's in jail. For what? Well you won't want to believe it. He's in jail for committing adultery.

No he's not. Yes he is. No he's not.

Yes he is. No he's not. Let's go to the jail.

So the jailor let them in through one gate to another. And finally there was Eagle Feather when he saw the man who'd led him to the Lord. He just put his head down began to weep.

And then he stopped and embraced the missionary. And he said well what's going to happen to you? He said well I got sentenced for so long, so many years. For what? He said well I committed adultery.

He said you didn't. He said I did. He said you didn't.

Tell me the story. He said I came around, I came around through the trees on my horse and there was a beautiful girl I knew. She was a princess in another tribe and she was skinny dipping there.

She understood and I pulled up my horse and I got behind the tree and I looked for a moment and immediately I felt oh I'm guilty. I've lost it. And he said I jumped on my horse and I galloped away as quickly as I could.

What he didn't see was another man came through following him and that man actually raped that girl and blamed it onto him. And he got a sentence for a number of years. And he said I'll never forget the joy that came to that man when I said to him listen yes you felt the temptation but you didn't in any way defile yourself with that woman.

There's a sense of guilt that you have. But he said I don't have guilt anymore. I told the Lord that in a raw moment of weakness I lusted after that woman.

It's never happened since. You see what these men did is one thing. But listen they can stand and apologize as much as they like but I want to tell you this terrible thing.

The sin that they've done is in the history books of America now. People are mocking the Pentecostal message because the leading men that have defiled it were not the opponents of the Pentecostal message but exponents of it. That's why God is going to give us a revival of holiness.

Not to vindicate the assemblies of God or the Pentecostals but to vindicate his holy name. To show us that he cannot have people who want to walk in purity. So here's this wonderful wonderful word that this man has.

Creating me a clean heart. Well how many of us believe Jesus is coming? Let A who? A what? It begins with B. Oh Mac knew that. That's one thing he knew.

The Lord's coming for a bride. Boy I've seen some weddings around the world. I've been to weddings.

I've seen brides you know tall ones, small ones, wide ones, not so wide but and thin ones, rich ones, poor ones, educated, wise, otherwise but I've never seen a dirty bride. I'm still wounded every day I think about these men who have the world at their feet and they've lost it all and the history books will rise up against them. There are tens of thousands of young people who will never go to church in America.

They curse and everything else because of these men but wait a minute. When they point their fingers at the church and they say some of those preachers are adulterers. Some of those preachers run off with women.

Some of those preachers steal money and so forth. That hurts me. I go to a higher authority.

I go to the one who according to the hymns, the church is one foundation. What does it say? With her own blood he bought her and for her life he died. In heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride.

So he's coming for a holy bride. Supposing he comes five minutes from now. Are you impure of faith? If not you'll be left behind.

The scripture distinctly says that he that hath this hope. If every morning you get in your car you say Lord I hope there's a raft to the moment. Are you? Have you a grudge against anybody? Have you any bitterness against anybody? Are you very close with God in prayer? Is this blessed word electrifying to you? Are you thanking the whole thing in that moment? Supposing I had a bowl here and I could take a handful of gold and tips and put all these pieces of gold in there.

And in the other pocket I have a handful of silver tips and I put them in there. And I put an emerald in there that's worth fifty thousand dollars. I put a diamond in there worth a hundred million dollars.

I put them all in that cup. And then the last moment I take some little bits little scraps of steel and I drop them in. Then they put a magnet over.

What happens? Does the diamond at the bottom rush right through to the top? Does the emerald come up to the precious? No scrappy little bits of steel leap up to the magnetism. Well Jesus Christ is coming. Is he coming for a dirty bride? Listen to what he says of his church.

Forget all your theories about mid-trib, pre-trib, pre-trib, post-trib and any other trib. Forget it. I find as I check with pastors, do you believe right now we're living in a Laodicean church age? When instead of being guided by men of God we go by public vote of members.

Which is wrong? Well thank you for your patience and listening. I'm going to preach on the morning in intercessions. So let the bishop close the meeting.