Where Is the Secret — Leonard Ravenhill

Spiritual Pain and the Church’s Impotence

But I believe the greatest pain of all is spiritual. And I've been going through something of a crisis, I think, in my own life the last few days, trying to reconcile the omnipotence of God and the impotence of the church.

I find it very difficult to explain why we can talk so glibly about the Lord God omnipotent and his sovereignty. And yet the church just struggles on, staggers along. The text is in the book of Judges, chapter 16, and verse 6.

Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, where in thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee. This is a question of a woman of the world to a man of God. It will be a great day when the world again begins to ask the church, what is the secret of thy great strength?

I'm sure right now the world thinks that we don't have any. Tell me where in the secret of thy great strength lies. That is one of the European versions. You can dismiss the word secret if you like, and it isn't there by inspiration, it's there by inference anyhow.

Samson as a Type of the Spirit-Anointed Church

This is the record of one of God's supermen. I said last night, and say again, I think the curse of modern Christianity is there are too many of us too much alike. We settle to be like the guy next door, the man in the pew in front of us.

The preacher that had the church before I have it. Let's not break the mold, let's not get out of the status quo if you like. But I see in this man Samson a type of a spirit anointed man, and a type of a spirit anointed church.

You may not be convinced of this, but I am, that Jesus Christ died for something better than the thing that calls itself the church of Jesus today. A bunch of folk that only want to escape hellfire and clap their hands and go to heaven and live as selfishly as they were when they were unsaved.

Mr. Finney, the greatest evangelist, he was not an evangelist, I wouldn't like to put him in that horrible category. He was a revivalist, the greatest revivalist in American history. And Mr. Finney said that you do not do much for a person until you touch their selfishness.

Because self is the basis, it's your ego that's your problem. And here again we have a man, I say, a type of a spirit anointed man. I don't care which way you look around in the world tonight, we're in more trouble than ever we've been in history.

Shaking Nations and the Responsibility of the Church

Not merely locally. I remind you again, in the last twelve weeks, twelve governments have toppled, all their leaders, their prime ministers, their chancellors, their presidents have been removed. And just now Northern Ireland is on the edge, apparently, of civil war.

It's a battle of the papacy to break that dominion of Protestantism that she hasn't been able to break in history. She tried to break England in the invasion of the Spanish Armada, she tried by engineering World War I, and I'm quite sure World War II, and she engineered Vietnam too.

And she's struggling like the Communists are for world dominion. As I said to the brethren this morning, it's my conviction, disagree if you like, that we're moving into that bottleneck in history described in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews, in which it says that everything that can be shaken will be shaken, that the kingdom that cannot be shaken may remain.

Nations only sin so far like individuals. And God said my spirit shall not always strive with man, and he hasn't moderated that in any shape or form. And we've swaggered around and said we're the most favored nation in history, and nobody's going to dispute that, but we have the greatest responsibility.

Because this generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of heathen. Again we're so subnormal that if ever we become normal we'll think we're abnormal. Here is a man moving in the power of the Spirit.

Personal Anointing and Holy Ghost Revival

You see the two most elusive things in the world are not the abominable snowman and the lost island of Atlantis. The two most exclusive and elusive things in the world are number one, personal anointing by the Holy Spirit, and number two, Holy Ghost revival.

The great tragedy is we have no revivalists. Evangelists, they're ten a penny. Revivalists, no. Again revival changes the moral climate of a community. Men are never the same after it. Here is a man moving in the power of the Spirit of God.

Everywhere he goes he does something that cannot be explained. Again it's called, in a big word, supernatural. And soon the eyes of the nation are turned on him. He was a judge. Again he was a superman.

He went where nobody else dare go. He did what nobody else could do. And therefore the enemies are after him. They're pursuing him. They get a woman into the plot and say find out the secret of his great strength.

Worldly Ambition and the Sleeping Giant

I suppose it's fortunate for us that it's very seldom a man has ambition enough to want to rule the world, but some do. Alexander the Great conquered the world when he was twenty-seven and sat down and wept.

Because there were no more worlds to conquer. Hitler in my day desired to dominate the world and he almost made it. Came within an ace of making it. And in between the two you had a little corpulent Corsican by the name of Napoleon.

He was born on one island, the isle of Corsica. He died on another island, the isle of Elba. But in between he almost got dominion over the world. He gathered together his warlords one day and hearing them shift their feet around he moved up to a map of the world he had on his wall, the old wall of his office.

And he ran his index finger around the great country and then in the sternness and the anger of his ambition he wanted to dominate the world. He wasn't after running Sears Roebuck or some triviality like that.

He wanted a world beneath his feet. Somebody has said you can get what you want if you want it bad enough. And I believe that's just about true in the spiritual area anyhow. And then when he had outlined that great country, snapped them into a tent and said, see there lies a sleeping giant.

Let it sleep. Because he said if that world, that nation ever wakes up and harnesses its manpower to its mineral power, if that sleeping giant wakes, the world had better watch out if it starts moving.

He said that in 1815 before he went to the Battle of Waterloo. There lies the sleeping giant. What was the country outlined? China, the biggest headache on the horizon tonight. As mysterious in its power as it's been in the occult.

China says she can throw a hundred million men into battle and she wouldn't lose them. She'd be glad to get rid of them because it will be three plates of rice each. That's 300 million plates of rice.

And that's the reason she wants Vietnam. It has the richest rice fields in the world. China in 30 years from now will have a thousand million people. The population of America will be about, with birth control and all the other things we have, abortion will be a third of that.

A thousand million people, a quarter of the world's population, more than a quarter. And way back there, it seems to me, he was not only the greatest military strategist in history, but he was a prophet.

When that nation, if it should wake up and harness its manpower to its military power, to its mineral power, let the world look out. Because if that giant gets up and stretches and yawns and decides to move, she'll shake the world.

She's got a million men lined up on the border of Russia and China tonight. There's another mysterious upheaval inside of the country. Do you remember when we were moving around and saying, well, we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima at 60 minutes to 8 on the 6th of August 1945, and a bit later on Nagasaki?

And Mr. Truman said, if there's any sign of war, if there's a sign of a fire of war, we'll drop the bomb and get rid of it. Now there are 50 ,000 bodies lying there in Vietnam to prove that politicians are liars too.

And we didn't drop the bomb and end the war in the first week. It dragged on and there are what, just about 1 ,300 or 1 ,400 women that haven't got their husbands back and their little children that pray every night, bring back my daddy.

But Watergate is more important. Another thing. We lose our humanity. If that nation wakes up, we'd better watch out. You see, a few years ago, we alone had the bomb and we made the world tremble. You'd better watch out, because Sam, if he gets angry, you could be out of the picture.

Now China has it and she has no Christian conscience. If you go back, and I don't care the color of your politics, if you step back in your thinking, you'll discover this, that since Mr. Nixon shook hands with China and Russia, another thing has gone right for America, another thing has gone right for him.

When you line up with atheistic countries, the Russians liquidated something like 15 million Christians to get to power, and China liquidated maybe 12 million people. And you and I forget, we're after bread and butter, we're mesmerized by materialism.

But I want to tell you, I believe from his throne, he still says, your brother's blood crieth to me from the ground. And God is not only a God of love, he's a God of vengeance. And the worst days are not over, we're moving into the most terrible days in history.

Moral Decline and Judgment

Economically, we're not found. The dollar bill in your pocket? Well, it says Federal Reserve on it, the government doesn't own one cent of it, it's owned by the big banking companies. And right now, the American government is paying $500 a second to the banking companies.

They love this country so much. Can you tell me why only the Rockefellers have banks behind the Iron Curtain? Why doesn't anybody else have it? They were recently trying to get the CIFA out of the fluctuating gold standard.

And who went over? Mr. David Rockefeller. Can you tell me why we never hear about the United Nations or Mr. U Thant, who gets about $50 ,000 a year for running it? You never hear about that. It's all Mr. Kissinger, Mr. Kissinger.

I'm not anti-Jewish. But by the same token tonight, the President's report was read by Mr. Stein, another Jew, and I think Simon is a Jew. And they run the movie industry and they run the banks and they've got us just about where they want us.

And again, I'm not against the Jewish system at all. Well, you may not come back, I don't care in that sense if you don't come back. If you don't come back for the simple reason you're disturbed and shaken out of your lethargy and begin to think that maybe you have some responsibility to be a Christian, never go to church Sunday morning and give a dollar so the kingdom won't fall apart.

Because the worst thing you could ever say this side of eternity is that you're a Christian. I'm not going to look in any direction, but you know, half of you are chewing gum tonight. Would you chew if you were listening to Mr. Nixon?

I think it's awfully bad manners. Disgustingly ignorant to chew in the house. You say this is God's holy house and you're chewing. Tomorrow night I'll mention again that we need some reverence for God's house.

In my judgment, when you cross those doors, through those doors, you ought not to open your lips. You could get a hymn book and meditate and make it easy for the preacher. Prepare the atmosphere with devotion and love and adoration.

After all, you've been in a rotten world all day. Why bring it in here? Why talk chit chat? You've had all day to chew in the office or somewhere else. Why make this a snack bar? That's just a gentle rebuke.

Whether we like it or not, we've got Chan on our hand. Whether we like it or not, we've come to that place where everything is disintegrating. The family is disintegrating. Morality, morality, that's an old-fashioned word.

Homosexuality is legalized in England, legalized in England. Abortion in this country. And we're not going to go much further without the judgments of God. Either he bends low in mercy or he extends, he extends his mercy a little further or he sends judgment one of the two.

And maybe it's just as simple as this. That either we concentrate in prayer or we pray in concentration camps. Which do you think? Oh God won't let America go to him. Why not? I remind you again, he loved Israel but he hasn't bothered with Israel for 2 ,000 years.

She'd be kicked around like a football. And then he's going to take her back and embrace her. And then he lets the Jews be liquidated. Six millions of them, Buchenwald and Dachau, another concentration camp.

Don't take it from an Englishman, take it from American. One of the most articulate and I think discerning of modern preachers in America. Francis Schaeffer who runs the Liabri Fellowship. I'm a fool man.

The Church’s Lost Fire

And he reminds us that 800 years ago in China that every decent-sized city and village had a thriving New Testament church. 800 years ago when there were nothing but Indians in this country. And England was still a backward country.

800 years ago they had thriving New Testament churches in China. And if there's one tonight it's underground, hidden away. And he reminds us too, he says, disagree if you like, that God has given up on the cities of America, they're already doomed.

They legislated, got out of the picture. God said, well you've done with me, I've done with you. And we've seen this strange, could I call it circus. I said yesterday, say again, that you never advertise a fire.

And if the church had been on fire we wouldn't have any drug addiction. The kids went to drugs. From drugs they went to the occult. From the occult now they're taken up with Satan worship and a lot of other things.

And the church is comparatively impotent. Oh that New Testament church was something. As I said to the preachers this morning, there's nothing in the New Testament that says we should go to church twice on Sunday.

It's an accommodation to our laziness, now greed, because we're hungry before the sermon's over. But they didn't do that in the New Testament church, because you remember a man got into trouble and his wife came three hours afterwards, and the service was still throbbing and thriving.

The Sleeping Church and the Need for Intercession

All right, change the characters. Instead of seeing Napoleon there, putting his finger around the ragged edge of a great country. Instead of seeing a map of the world, see a map of the ages. Instead of seeing Napoleon, see the devil there.

And instead of talking to men, he says to demons, look there is the church of Jesus Christ. There it is, you see that? The church asleep. Let it sleep. Because if the church ever wakes up to the resurrection power of Jesus and gets an endowment of power from on high, she'll shake earth and hell as well.

Let it sleep. Oh if you talk about this story you've got to bring to my mind, at least being in England, when our school teacher told us, the best known story in all American literature is the story of Rip Van Winkle.

And she told us about the old man going up the hill and falling asleep and coming back afterwards, you know. And she made an awful mess of it. My teacher thought I was stupid. I was sure she was. And I found out that I was right.

Do you know why? She told me about a man who went up a hill and fell asleep, and came down after 20 years and started talking. That's not the story. When he went up the hill there was a sign outside of the tavern, like we have still in English taverns.

They have the queen's head or a bull or the golden unicorn or something. And there was a sign hanging in the breeze. It had on the head of George III was painted on it. And when Rip Van Winkle came down the hill, they had erased the face of George III and they painted a face of another George there, namely George Washington, another good Englishman that you used to have around here.

They had erased one face and painted in another. And the point, the moral of the story is not that he went to sleep for 20 or 30 years. The point of the story surely is this. He slept through a revolution.

And I suggest to you that's exactly what the Church of Jesus is doing today. Sleeping through a revolution. Moral, spiritual, financial, political, economic. It's revolution. Everything's disturbed. There are no foundations.

But does it disturb the church? Any of you preachers put a special night on because the country's in the mess it's in? I used to think rather deeper life conferences. No sir, I've abandoned hope on those.

I believe the only hope is for a bunch of men and women to get together. Or let me change it now. I say a bunch of men. Let's leave the women out of this. A bunch of preachers mainly I'd like, that would go together to some place, not for a day or a night, but for a month.

And not one of them preach. Get together and storm hell, and bind the powers of darkness, and release the blessing that God wants to give, but will not give, because the church is too weak and impotent to take it.

The Secret of Samson’s Strength

What a question. Tell me where in the secret of thy great strength lies. You see wherever you go, I've been in art galleries around the world, and wherever I go and see a picture of Samson, he's a superman.

You know the average man in Israel was so high, and saw the king of Israel's head and shoulders above that man, and Goliath was head and shoulders above him, and Samson's somewhere up there. Now do you think a woman would go to a man 19 feet high and say, excuse me buddy, but what's the secret of your great strength?

It's pretty obvious isn't it? Do you older men remember the time Primal Carneiro was around? Do you remember him? You remember him? He was world champion boxer for about a day I think. But he took about 23s in boots, and he got a fist like catcher's mitt.

No wonder nobody could stand up against him. He's a colossal man. About nine feet or something came in the ring, you know, and he fought this way. He had to fight downwards, you know. He couldn't fight anybody this way, there's nobody level, so he punched them down, you see.

Would you go up to a man and say, hey do you take cornflakes every morning? Would you ask him some stupid question like, what's the secret of thy great strength? Why you do the things you do? You lift the gates of Gaza, nobody ever lifted them.

But you see there's one thing here that brother you might covet more than all the gold in Fort Knox or the tea in China and anything else. You know it says, the most amazing thing you can say of this man at this side of eternity, I care not who he is from Billy Graham to who you've got.

The most amazing thing that can be said of any man is not he's a super millionaire and makes Paul Getty look like a pauper. The greatest thing you can say about a man is what was said about Samson, the Spirit of God rested upon him.

There is no substitute for it, there is nothing like it, there is no possibility of getting this handed out with your diploma or your degree. Now I don't know how you pray, maybe I pray stupidly, but often when I pray I say to God, Lord I'm so glad you're not corruptible.

I'm so glad God doesn't go to the church with the most money or the most buses or the most something else. The Lord thy God is a jealous God. And in case you think, well I'm just talking to men. No, no, no, no.

I think Bertha Smith, my dear old friend we saw a few weeks ago, and she, oh brother Ramey as he said, and we, I held her tight, gave her a kiss and and when we left I said, well now go on, keep, keep growing young.

She's only 85, the little dear, and she's going to come and see you. Look the Spirit of God anointed that woman in China and he could anoint you, you sister, brother, make, there's no class distinction with God, there's neither Jew nor Greek race distinction, there's neither bum nor free social distinction, and there's neither male nor female class distinction, sex distinction when it comes to anointing.

The Holy Spirit’s Power Through Unlikely Servants

When I was a little boy there used to be a woman that my beloved friend here Dr. Willis will remember the Mara Shaw, she came to a church I pastored. Now she was a woman, so she was awkward, but apart from being difficult to understand, she was an amazing, you know at 17 years of age with a curvature of the spine, when her daddy, who happened to be William Boole, the founder of the Salvation Army, she said daddy I'm going to France.

She spoke French more eloquently than the French, that's what they said themselves. Darling you can't go, he kicked everybody to the ends of the earth, but not his own darling daughter. Stay at home dearie, you could pray and help.

She went to the subculture of France, like Wilkerson, and I worked two years with Wilkerson in the subculture of New York. She went to the subculture of France, to the prostitutes, took a basement, because they'd no money, girls who never even put up their own hair or fire their own fingernails, left castles and mansions in England to join this daring, brilliant young woman.

And she went to the underworld of Paris, and when she collected all these prostitutes and jailbirds and others, the prefect of police came in and blew his whistle and said, stop! You can't handle this, do you know who that man is?

Do you know how many people he's murdered? Do you know who this woman is? You can't handle this! She said, no I can't. What are you going to do? She said, let the Holy Ghost handle it. When they started to sing a hymn, a woman picked her skirts up and exposed herself, the waltz ran, the marichal, smart, wise, said, do you want to dance?

Sure. Cleared all the benches off the floor. They cleared all the benches off the floor. Now she said, here's the agreement. We'll play our instruments while you dance for 40 minutes, and then you'll listen to me preach for 40 minutes.

Good. So these harlots and drunks and everybody danced and jazzed around. And at the end of 40 minutes, the marichal raised their hand, and this woman, the queen of the underworld, stood on a chair, and all she did was that, and all the men trembled, and they quit.

And the marichal said, I preached, but I kind of didn't look at the clock. They danced for 40 minutes, I preached for an hour and 40 minutes. And she said, when I finished, here were drunks and prostitutes and bearded professors from the suburbs.

And the chief of priests came in and said, what kind of power do you have? I've never seen men, look at those men crying, those men have never cried in their life. These are the most blatant harlots that we have in this city.

A little frail young woman, so don't be discouraged, you know, don't write yourself off. There may be some hellhole in America that God would take some of you girls and he couldn't take anybody else, you'll be so effective.

I used to look at some of the street girls in summer college, brilliant girls, we had a teen challenge, going out at 11 o 'clock into areas I'd have trembled very much for my daughter to have gone in years ago.

In fact, my three boys went out at 12 and 1 o 'clock in the morning to go down 111th Street and Broadway and down some of those back alleys. Great, great for you, you know. A weekend like that would do more for you than reading six books on soul winning.

Because how do you find out you've got what it takes to meet it? You back off and get out of the picture. But you see the secret is this, the Spirit of the Lord rests upon him. Shut him up in a city, he lifts the gates and away he goes.

Not by Might but by the Spirit

No, no, this man isn't a, he isn't a colossus. Because if he is, he contradicts the scripture. The Bible says it's not by what? You know that little, little, little book of Zechariah we never use, but we quote it so often.

Isn't it chapter 4 where it says it's not by, nor by, but by my. Isn't that easy? Oh, we only thought if somebody give us a few more, if somebody, you know, if Paul Getty would give a thousand million dollars to the Southern Baptists, we could shake the world.

No, we'd only increase the salaries of a big shop. Well, let's get on with the message. But a thousand million dollars wouldn't help us. The church never had more gimmicks and gadgets and ability, put us on more TV stations.

Ah, forget it. Tell me one man that's been on TV for 25 years but shaken the nation, will you? Tell me a million dollar crusade, and I respect the man in the, tell me a million dollar crusade that's changed the moral atmosphere of any community.

Can you tell me one? This old man came up to me after a meeting, he said, Brother Ray, I remember more decay I have. I remember that after he preached three nights, he needed a police escort to get into his tent.

It's such an anointing of God. You don't, anybody needs a cop these days with him, do you? Who's afraid of preachers? Evangelists. Forget it. But oh, when the anointing of the Spirit of God is there, there's something entirely different.

No, no, no, no. The good old book says it's not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. The Lord said it's the lame that take the prey, and so those who have no mighty increase.

The Lord by God is a jealous God. And all he's waiting for today, I'm sure, is to find some men that don't want to steal the glory, or get a crown on their heads, or get any credits for what they do, but they're jealous for God.

We say to people, you're a sinner, you know it will take you to hell. If you don't give up this lousy habit, you could end up in a mental institution with your drugs, or you'll miss Mark and get saved for your own sake.

We better tell them, say, what sin is doing to our God, do we? That every sin that men and women do sends, as it were, a repercussion into eternity, and God feels it, because it's a rejection of his Son anyhow.

God’s Power in Weak Instruments

What's the secret of thy great strength? He does the most ridiculous things, doesn't he? He has no money, he has no chance, in one sense, and yet he does what nobody else can do, lifting the gates of Gaza and carrying them away.

Some men come to attack him, and he lifts up the jawbone of an ass, and he slays them. Isn't that something? Isn't that, eh? We get so nervous and say, oh, there's never been power in the world like this.

Do you know what power the new megaton bomb has? No, and I don't care either. Why not? Well, I won't do your homework for you, but let me tell you, there's a story in the Old Testament where some angels had been around, and one of them, I think, was going home later, and he banged his wings a bit too much, and he trailed it through a town, and the tip of an angel's wing destroyed a hundred and seventy-eight thousand people.

Did you ever read that in the Old Testament? Good job he didn't trail both wings, he might have destroyed the earth. One wing of an angel destroyed a hundred and seventy-odd thousand people, and you expect me to tremble because Russia has power.

If it were really true what's on our coins, in God we trust, I'd be scared to death in Russia tonight, because under God we could get angels to go there on White Main Street however it need be, and maybe it'll come to that.

Jawbone of an ass. I heard of a preacher preaching this one day, and he said, you know, of course the Lord doesn't use things like that, the jawbone of an ass, anymore. A little lady that didn't like a pastor on the front row said he does at our church every Sunday morning, that, you know, he still uses the things that are not, to bring to naught the things that are.

Oh if I'd just something else I could bring to the, that's not what the Lord says, he says what's that. Your problem isn't that you need something else, it's that what you've got you won't surrender, that's your problem.

What is that in my hand? It's a shepherd's rod. Throw it down. Right, what is he called after that? Is he called the rod of Moses? No it's called the rod of God. What is that in my hand? The jawbone of an ass.

And it's as powerful as an army. What is that in my hand? Oh just my lunch. I have a rather big appetite and I, I was going to have the day out. Would you like to have it to me? Because if you do it'll feed another 400, 4 ,999 people.

It'll only feed you if you keep it. And that's all what will happen with you if all you want to do is keep it, keep it. But remember if you save your life you'll lose it, and if you lose it for Christ you'll find it.

The law of multiplication is death. Accept a corn of wheat, fall into the ground and die. Oh my Lord, die. Me, I mean I'm a graduate. I went to Bible school and seminary and I've all those degrees. Would you expect me?

Sure I expect you, for the simple reason God expects you to die to it. As long as you limp along on those crutches of your own ability and all the rest of it, God will let you struggle. But when you throw them down and come to the place of total bankruptcy you'll do something entirely different.

More Than Conquerors and the Lion in the Way

Yeah this man is a superman. Everywhere he goes he gets victory. You could link him up to Romans 8 .37, every weapon that is formed against thee. No, no weapon rather that is formed against thee shall prosper.

Then Romans 8 .37, he's more than conqueror. While the Spirit of God is on him, he's more than conqueror. And while the anointing was on the Church of Jesus Christ in the apostolic day, she was more than conqueror.

She went into the Roman Empire, she went into the intellectualism of the Greeks, she went up to that formidable obstacle of the Jews, and she penetrated every one of them. This man was very natural, he fell in love with a girl.

There were two ways he could go to this way or go that way. Well he mustn't go that way. Why not? Because there's a lion in the way. Now if Samson in typology is a type of a spirit anointed man and a spirit anointed church, that lion must be a type of the devil that goeth about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

Now this has troubled me profoundly today. It may not disturb you, you may go home and go to bed and forget the whole thing. I'm not responsible for that. But it disturbs me profoundly that we talk, in the language we talk, about omnipotence and about the delegated power that Jesus gives us and we're so wretchedly impotent.

There's a lion in the way. Go this way and this way. No sir I'll go this way. And he went in the way with his father and mother and he said, hey sit here a little because I have a bit of business to do around the corner.

And when he got around the corner the lion sprang at him and he caught it by the jaw and ripped it as though it were a kid of the goats. Now that's a miracle but it seems to me the next part of the verse is more miraculous.

It says that when he split that lion in pieces he said nothing about it. Oh that's more than we could do. We'd have published it, photographed it, said our denomination did it, stretched it out. It's the longest, strongest, heaviest, fiercest, terriblest lion that ever lived and I killed it all by myself.

Binding and Loosing in Spiritual Warfare

Do you know what I'm looking for friends? And God won't let me die till I see it, I'm sure of that. I'm looking for a sweeping Holy Ghost revival that will out Pentecost, Pentecost and be so big that no evangelist will steal the glory.

That it won't put a crown on anybody's head and not build an institute with his name on it. There was a lion in the way. Everybody else sprang. He goes up to that lion and the Spirit of God is upon him and he takes that lion and rips it apart as though it were a kid of the goat.

Do you know anything about that? I used to have a little old man in the days of depression in England when I was in Oldham and I can see him coming down the aisle. I don't like churches with an aisle.

I'm talking to that empty thing there you know. I'd never have a church with an aisle down the middle. The bride can go around the side that'll come in the back door as far as I'm concerned but why do you have to alter a church just for a few flippant girls coming anyhow?

I like to talk to people right in the middle there, put the aisles down the side but I can see that man coming down the side of the church and he took his place in front of me every Wednesday night. Dear little guy, very poor, his clothes were shabby, his shirts were ragged but always clean and his shoes were very rough but they were polished and he would come and sit there and he'd look up and I'd look down.

Dear old Mr. Furnittle, I didn't care if he never came to church as long as he came Wednesday night to the prayer meeting. We got about 150, 200 to prayer meeting and he never missed praying and there was one phrase he never missed using and it was this, somewhere in his prayer he'd say, Lord teach us what is flesh and what is spirit, teach us how to bind and how to loose.