Faith Series - Part 1 — Leonard Ravenhill

Faith as Living Trust in the Word of God

All that's expected is that people learn about something else, but anyhow, the title makes a lot of difference in selling a book. And the living Bible, everybody grasps for the living Bible. And so we sing this lovely hymn that we sang this morning, Break Thou the Bread of Life, Beyond the Sacred Page I See Thee, Lord.

Because lots of people stop at the Sacred Page, and they get a system of theology, and they fight the other man's theology, and do you know what they do with it, with texts of Scripture. They think the sword of the Spirit is their sword, to cut somebody else down, but it is still the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

And so again, let me say this for those who just came in, that we're considering for the next few mornings this area of faith, my, my, what a thing it is. If only the church had faith, as our brother prayed this morning, there's only one problem with us.

Reduce all the problems in the church to one, sure, sure. To put it in a way, I've put it in one of my books, one day, someday, somebody's going to read the Bible and believe it. And when they do, we'll all be embarrassed.

That's all God asked us to do. He didn't have to dissect it, and divide it dispensationally, and do all the other theological tricks. He just said, here's the Word, believe it. And this is why a revival has come, very often to the simplest of people.

We had a revival in England in the 1930s, through a little coal miner about that height. And he couldn't get away from the Word of God. You see, if you start saying, this isn't for the day, and that isn't for the day, even if you're talking about gifts of the Spirit, as far as I'm concerned, I'll push you in the fold with the liberals, because that's what they do.

This isn't for the day, that isn't for the day. So where do you stand? It's like that old sturgeon said, the Bible suffers more from its exponents than its opponents. We think we have to defend God. Some of these big shots that are always asking for money on TV, they kind of think they're sponsoring God.

Isn't it horrible? You know, and if you don't send for our program, I mean, you know, we're so far ahead of India, how many more stations are... And it's purely Madison Avenue stuff, most of it, anyhow.

As I said last night, you never have to advertise a fire, whether it's physical or spiritual. You get your church on fire, they'll come from north, south, east, west to see the fire burn. That's what Moses did.

He'd been in the desert forty years, but when the bush burned, I don't know, maybe it seen flowers on the bush, maybe it seen fruit on the bush, but one day it burned, and it continued burning, and so he came to see the bush that didn't quit.

Learning Faith Through Scripture and Suffering

I'm deficient in this area of faith. Maybe you're not. So you can go to sleep, but don't snore. Faith. I've lived without a pay packet since 1949, 49, 50, let's see, 70, 25 years, except for two years when a millionaire backed me, and I didn't do a, I didn't have any preaching at that time, I just did writing and praying, but all that time, I've been trying to learn something in this area of faith.

You know, the Bibles are very difficult, but wasn't it Van Tavener that said it, what did he say, it comforts the afflicted, and it afflicts the comfortable. You know, when you're in distress, there's nothing like the Bible, it's a pillow you can rest your head on, and when you get sleepy, oh man, it's worse than that needle the old doctor pushes in you now and again.

It suddenly stabs you, and you wake up, you know. Dr. Tozer, I'm always quoting Tozer, because I've spent a lot of time with him, and if you haven't read him, you've missed some of the greatest writings of the past 50 years, and every preacher should have every book he wrote, which would be about 14, I think, and they're all in paperback.

And if you want to study on the Holy Spirit, his Knowledge of the Holy, has 21 studies of the Holy Spirit, which is superb. But I remember more than once when I went in his office, he'd say, drop the latch and let your hair down.

I remember on this occasion, as I went in, he just said, Len, drop the latch, let's talk, just the two of us, let your hair down. And before I could sit down, he said this thing, which has clung to me ever since.

He said, Len, not many of us are going to stand very erect at the judgment seat of Christ. Most of us will stand there with a bowed head, even with our great bus ministries and everything we've had, we're going to be pretty humiliated and humble when we stand at the judgment seat of Christ.

Because it's one standard of judgment for sinners, it's another standard of judgment for believers, and a special judgment for preachers. James says, be not many teachers, my brethren, or preachers, knowing that we shall receive a greater condemnation or a greater judgment.

That's going to be pretty grim. When I see people whooping it up and, you know, almost doing a war dance, or when we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be, or that will be glory for me, for me.

Why do I deserve any glory? Somebody ought to change that. Oh, that will be glory for thee when he sees the reward of his sufferings, but you see we're so selfish. But when we stand there at the judgment seat of Christ and give an account, it's going to be pretty grim.

There's not going to be much dancing and shouting. We talk as though we're going to buddy-buddy when we see Jesus going to say, hi, you know, boy, it seems like fun being a Christian. A man the other day came to our meeting with a shroud on his thigh, flashed in brilliant colors, it's fun to be a Christian.

And not as if he hadn't found fun to give up the weed that he was pulling on. It's not fun to be a Christian. It has joy in being a Christian, surely enough. And Jesus talked about joy even going to the cross, because of course he did the complete will of his Father.

But there's a lot of silly, sloppy, sentimental stuff these days in the Christian life that isn't valid anyhow. As Beethoven used to say, Len, don't worry about it. However grim the burden is between, you know, that little place you got saved and there where you die, it's nothing.

It's like being on a postage stamp in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. You jump off and whichever way you jump, anyhow, you're in the vastness of the ocean. And by the same token, life is such a decimal point, such a fraction compared with a thousand billion trillion years in eternity when, after all, Paul sums it up in, pardon me, at the end of 1 Corinthians 13, doesn't he?

He says, knowledge, truth, faith, wisdom, all these things, but there are things that are going to be permanent. They're going to carry over into eternity. And there'll be no preaching in heaven, no healing meetings.

It'll be rough on some of the boys, but there'll be no healing meetings. There'll be an awful lot of things that look very wonderful now that won't be there. And it's like having your innings, you know.

You only get one inning. And there's a lot in the old beer advert that I don't like, but it's a lot of sense in that you only go around once. And don't believe that all Christians die happy. They don't.

All preachers don't. They die miserable. A lot of Christians die miserable. Why? Because suddenly they realize they're going to step into eternity and the game's up. No time to pray. No time to labor.

Fast. Work for God. It's awful. And so it's good to remember that little thing that you often see on the wall. These little slogans we have, you know. Only one life, truth will be passed. And only what's done for God will last.

And we quit there. But that's not what the poet wrote. The poet said, only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for God will last. And when I am dying, how glad I shall be if the lamp of my life has been burned out for me.

David Brainerd and the Call to Self-Sacrifice

The greatest challenge I ever had as a teenager, about 17, somebody gave me a little brochure about self-sacrifice. Nicely bound, sure enough. It was an abridgment of the life of David Brainerd. And I kind of, I hadn't read much in those days and didn't know much about anything.

I don't now, but I knew less then. And I read that book and it really shook me up. It did something for me. I thought God had gone off production, you know, at the end of the New Testament. I didn't know he made men like that anymore.

And when I read the life of that amazing man, that he prayed himself to death, really, by the time he was, what, 28. And Wesley lived until he was 88. Now, is Wesley going to get a bigger reward at 88 than this other man?

Is it how long you live that matters, how effective your ministry is? Or is it that at 28 or at 88 you can say, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do? We're better to live 10 years under the anointing of God than live 10 and then backslide the rest of it and go fishing or hunting the rest of your life.

Hebrews 11 and the Difference Between Believing and Acting

And so the basis of this really is, again, coming down to what we're going to at least try and dip into, to some degree, is the 11th chapter of Hebrews. A chapter you know very well, I'm sure, is a faith chapter.

The word faith occurs in the chapter 24 times, 32 times in the epistle, and 340 odd times in the New Testament. Can you remember how many times in the Old Testament? Twice. Just twice in the whole of the Old Testament.

You know, when you go to church these days, if you want to join a church and say, these are our articles of faith, you agree with them, yes, sign, you're in. But the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament and nowadays is this, they didn't sign articles of faith, they acted in faith.

And that makes a great deal of difference. I was thinking, we're eating at that nice restaurant down the road, Sambo's, you know. Man, they've got, do you ever see their menu card, it's gorgeous. Photographs of luscious plates, you know, and it's polished and shiny.

And supposing a pretty waitress came up and said, well there's a glass of water, there's a menu card, I hope you'll enjoy it. Say, enjoy what? Well, chewing the menu card. Chew what? That's no good, I don't want a picture of a steak, I want a steak.

I don't want that fish in a... Oh, I'm sorry, we're out of business, we've no food, and all we expect you to do is just drink a glass of water and eat the menu card. You'd hit the ceiling. Some of you look as though you've had more than menu cards, but anyhow.

I wouldn't do. You know, I have a suspicion that's about all we do in church, we give people the menu card, we don't provide the meal. We spend a lot of time defending a man who died 2 ,000 years ago.

And we think we're very fundamental because we believe the virgin birth and the resurrection and a few other things. That's not what Jesus said. He said more than that. Oh, I know in the next breath we'll say Jesus Christ was sent yesterday, today, and forever, and then we'll spend another ten minutes describing why certain things aren't for today.

You're one of the kids who are confused. In my judgment, we either accept this book as it is, the total book, or we reject it. You can't dissect it, you can't say this is for today and that isn't. You can dispensate in it as you like.

We just about render lip service to the Holy Spirit, don't you think? As I said the other day, we're the most impudent children God has ever had to raise up. What's wrong with the church? It's very easy to say what's wrong with the church.

We don't run it according to New Testament, that's all there is. We run it our way. A professor told us somewhere this is that, and we believe the poor fellow. And he only got it because he believed his professor anyhow.

Some of those boys, every semester, when they start Bible school next September, they'll have to take the notes and take the dust off. They've had them so many years, you know, they're dusty. Some of those professors haven't had a new thought in the last ten years.

Every kid that goes gets the same notes, the same notes, the same notes, the same notes, the same notes. Do you wonder that's fair? If we really were as apostolic, as I said last night, if we're really as spiritual as we think we are, we'd be going to church these days in sackcloth and ashes to mourn for the departed glory.

There's nothing in the New Testament that says we should go to church twice on Sunday. Why do we do it? You can't prove from the New Testament that people went to church to get saved. They didn't. They went to church because they were saved.

They were saved through the excited witness of people. Church was so dreadful. Last night we had a wonderful hush of God after the meeting. When I'm in New Zealand, I preach three nights in New Zealand, and when people stop for fifteen to twenty minutes after the meeting, nobody would go home.

When I went to the meeting, they said it's Christmas, holidays, vacation, the beaches will be filled. If you're prepared to speak to twelve people, well, drive down, it's four hundred miles from Auckland down to Wellington.

I said, well, that will be quite a crowd, twelve people. My master once preached to one. As a matter of fact, he preached his greatest sermons to individuals, Nicodemus, Zacchaeus, a woman of the world.

In the Louisiana State Convention, Southern Baptist State Convention, about three months ago, I went in, and there was some fellow speaking, I forget who he was. He was telling about a friend of his, who in recent years went to a church that was full of carnality and difficulty.

And he pledged with a couple in his church, he and his wife, to pray with this man and this woman for revival. And he said, we had a great revival. I think there were about three hundred and fifty in the church.

And he said they went down, and down, and down, and down, and down, and one Sunday morning, my wife sat there, and the other couple sat there, and the church was empty. The priest was empty. And then God started turning the thing the other way.

Oh, we want revival, just add a few more, you know, those patchy, empty seats there. Do a little, save my reputation as a preacher. Do help us a bit, you know. The other church up there is getting more activity than we are.

We want it that way. We want to be filled, but not empty. We want to be clothed, but not stripped. We want resurrection power, but we don't want to die. Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground. And the amazing thing is that God only uses dead men.

Or, as I said last night, only when the church is drunk does she do anything. When she's sober, she does nothing. You meet a man on the street, he'll pass you by, but when he gets drunk, he says, hey, come on, stick him up there, you know.

And when the church is intoxicated with God, she's aggressive. The spirit is insulted, wasn't it? Yes, it was. It was a great Puritan preacher. There were some fantastic men, you know, in England about four hundred years ago.

We call them Puritans. My good friend, Dr. Sherwood Wirt, who had this decision, said we could do with some of their starch in our modern life. And maybe the giant amongst the giants was John Owen, and he summarized the history of mankind like this.

He said in the Old Testament, men, they were against God, or insulted God. In the New Testament, men, in the Old Testament, men rejected God, shall we say. In the New Testament, men rejected Jesus Christ.

Today, we reject the Holy Spirit. We pay lip service to him. It's theologically correct to say Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And again, we do it this way, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but the Holy Ghost is not a junior partner in the Godhead.

It's equal with the Father, with the Son. Not this way, but this way. And again, all his works are full of majesty. He made the world. He made this book. He made Jesus. He raised Jesus from the dead. The most awesome thing for a person to say this side of eternity, I think, is that they're a Christian.

It doesn't scare anybody, it ought to. As I say, sometimes we stand up and somebody says, well, praise the Lord, I'm saved, and I'm filled with the Spirit. And everybody says, well, that's great. Somebody else stands up and says, I'm saved, and I'm sanctified.

If you're a Nazarene or a wholeness people, well, that's nice. But as I say sometimes, why don't you drop all that language and just stand up and say, Christ lives in me. Maybe when you sit down, your wife will say, George, when did that happen?

I didn't know that. You never told me that. You know, when I quit smoking and drinking and I joined the church. Yeah, you became a Baptist, but I didn't know Christ lived in you. Christ lives in you. Boy, that's great.

Well, if a man can't say that, he isn't a Christian. It doesn't matter how many times he goes through the tank and how many times he pays or what. Unless Christ lives in him. One great Chinese scholar not too long ago was asked what he thought about the New Testament.

He had the Koran. He'd read the Vedas. He'd read the sacred books of the East. And this man said, I believe you've just read the New Testament. He said, read it for the fourth time. What's the most exciting thing in the New Testament?

He thought it'd say, oh, I was just staggered when I read that somehow a woman brought to birth a son without the human conception that the Spirit of your God came on her. He thought it'd say that. Or the resurrection of Jesus.

Or the fact that one day Jesus is going to control the whole world. Instead of that, he said, are you a Christian? He said, yes. Man, he said, you're the most amazing person in the world. I am? Well, he said, I was reading at the end of Ephesians chapter 2 where it says that you are the habitation of God.

Your God lives inside of you. Every other God is standing up. He's made of wood, of stone. But your God lives inside of you. I've never read anything like that in any sacred book. This is amazing. You know, wishing, oh, Lord, my God, when I know someone to consider all the world.

Well, that's nice to gaze at the stars and get some kicks out of it. But what about meditating on the fact that Christ liveth in me, Paul says. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.

It's Christ living in me. Well, that being so, it surely should be easy to come to this book, shouldn't it? And again, we're not concerned just about knowing the Word of God. We're concerned about knowing the God of the Word.

Knowing the God of the Word Through Worship

And this is a difficult, difficult thing. Beyond the sacred page I seek thee, Lord, my spirit pumps for thee. How often, or should I say how seldom, do people go out to the sanctuary hushed and don't want to say a single thing.

Because the one who walked in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks has walked in our midst. And they don't remember, boy, the preacher was great this morning or something. They don't remember a thing about the preacher.

They're just hushed and awed. You have three problems these days. One is to get people to the church physically. The other is to get them in mentally. And the third is to get them there spiritually. I'm sure there's many a good recipe worked out on a Sunday morning in church when the preacher's boring.

A woman's cooking something at home and a man's singing. Boy, if I could get that spare part for my car and do that, maybe my gas would go. Yes, amen, preacher, amen. He's been away on an excursion for ten minutes.

Right, because he's listening to something which is logical, theological, and so forth. But not awed with the awesomeness of God filling the temple. All right. There's a little book. It's not a very great book on the epistles of the Hebrews.

There are many, of course. But there's one by a Nazarene theologian, Dr. Orton Wiley. He's quite good. And Orton Wiley begins by saying, this epistle doesn't have a single word for the unsaved. I read that.

I thought, boy, that's pretty profound. It doesn't have a single word for the unsaved. And then I thought, well, wait a minute. Is there any epistle that does have anything for the unsaved? Huh? Is there an epistle of Paul to sinners?

Is there an epistle of Paul to... Every epistle is to a church. The problem of God in the Old Testament wasn't Amalekites, Hittites, and Perizzites, Geddesites. God's problem in the Old Testament was Israel.

God's problem in the New Testament is the church. It always has been. As I say again, the greatest tragedy today is not Watergate or this... I never thought Kissinger would work it out anyhow, but it isn't this mess.

The greatest tragedy in the world today is a sick church in a dying world. The church is sick. It doesn't look anything like the New Testament church. And so all the epistles, you get Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, what are they?

They're the life of Jesus. And then the fifth book is what? The Acts, obviously. Well, what is the Acts of the Apostles? The Acts of the Apostles is the church doing everything Jesus did in the four Gospels, isn't it?

Their ministry covered everything that Jesus did, even to raising the dead. Oh, well, of course, I mean, we're living in different days. When I've got news for you, I can show you some Baptist preachers, little colored guys too, down in Africa that raised the dead, even today.

And have every miracle under the sun. And they don't make a song and a hullabaloo about it and rent a big house. You know, healing meetings are all right, I'm not going to criticize them. The only thing is, why do you need a super atmosphere and a lot of jazz and all the rest?

Why not go down the street and lay your hands on the poor guy selling pencils at the corner that's black? Why not do it without ostentation and without love offerings? That's New Testament Christianity.

And I want it to come back, and I dare to believe it will come back. I believe we'll get some men so pure in heart that there's nothing to back. They're not building up their own religious corporations.

They're not seeking status symbols. They're not trying to out-preach the other guy. My tent's bigger than yours, and I've more healing to do. And all this blarney that goes on. It's tragic that that has happened.

But, again, the acts of the apostles of the church did everything that Jesus did. The quality of everything Jesus did. Like walk on the water. And, again, some people say, well, oh, I went to a meeting the other day.

It was good, you know. But, you know, there were no miracles. It's quite disappointing. Well, how many times did Jesus walk on the water? He didn't walk on the water every time he wanted to cross the lake.

He borrowed a boat. He could have walked. There was no problem. But he borrowed a boat. He didn't do miracles for the sake of doing miracles, either for himself or anyone else.

But if these people get some miracle man, if he's got to get a super-miracle on top of a miracle, and a super-super-miracle on top of that, then the whole town's in trouble. He wants to be governor of the church.

And he wants to actually be a preacher. Jack Nicholson. He's been trading in this town. He's going to be a candidate for the church. Don't worry. He's going to be a preacher.

Even the kids in Bible school, they're going to be preachers. Not just for a theology, but again, for a religion, Jack.

Who is behind the living word. Was he really going to be a producer?

Somebody said a woman wrote it. It wasn't that he didn't say that at Dallas, but somebody said that a woman wrote it. I'm not too sure about that. I'm quite sure, in my own heart, that he didn't. But what a book it is.

And it is not the first. It's a very reveling part, isn't it? Somebody listened to a lady over 100 times. We're living in the last days. We're not living in the last days. That's very obvious from the word of God.

We're not living in the last days. And for what reason? Because it says, God who extended time to this world and in God's manner spoke to the fathers by the prophets. How can these last days, the church,.

Was born in the last days? The book of the Revelation begins. What? Things which will shortly come to pass. And that's 2 ,000 years ago. Well, how many do you think we are now? After 2 ,000 years. I say sometimes, if we knew the time on God's clock, if I could just show you God's clock and say, hey, that's God's clock.

See where the second hand is? We'd be terrified.

The Judgment Seat of Christ and the Brevity of Life

Now, now, did the angels ever lie to anybody? Did the angel lie to Abraham when he was lost, when he went to Sodom? Did the angels ever lie?

No, no, no, no, no. Well then, if the word spoken by angels was said first, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Listen, which of the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him, God also bearing them witness, with what?

To please God. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is. He is what? He's able to save to the uttermost. He's able to keep your fault from falling. He's able to present you faultless before his Father's throne.

In that great day, he's able to make all grace abound you. You've got four sermons there. You just preach them next four Sundays. He is able to keep, he is able to present you. He is able. Yes, he's able.

That this God is able to do everything that he said. Without faith, it is impossible to please him. He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him, nor them that diligently seek him.

When I read Hebrews 11, I don't know how you react to it. When I read it, I feel I want to not just walk on my knees, but almost crawl on my belly and pull myself on the floor. Why? What did people do in Hebrews 11?

Subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. Women received their debts. Those are marvelous acts of faith. But the thing that really knocks me is this, that nobody that did those things ever had a Bible.

Now do you get it? Another thing that disturbs me is this, that God has not spoken to men for two thousand years. And if the world lasts another two thousand, which it certainly won't, he still won't have anything else to say.

God gave us the complete revelation. His Son made a perfect atonement. The Holy Spirit has been given. God's mind has been revealed in total in this book, and God has nothing more to say. And another thing is this, that any man that ever lived, whether he was Spurgeon or Finney or anybody else, never had a bigger Bible than you have.

No man ever had a bigger Bible than I have. Maybe he used it better. That's why I say for preachers particularly, it's going to be pretty embarrassing to stand there at the judgment seat of Christ. The full revelation of God has been given.

God never asked you to be a duplicate of Mr. Criswell or Mr. Criswell to be a duplicate of Stuart or somebody else. He never asked you to be that. He asked you to come to the Word of God with an open mind and believe that God is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Isn't it rather staggered to see how much they did without a Bible, and how little we do with a Bible? That's what I've got to answer for when I stand up there. That's why I'm never nervous preaching to anybody.

I wouldn't care if you were all theologians with 45 degrees. It wouldn't worry me. What God has given me to share, I'll share with you. And the astounding thing is we get piddling around with so many things.

The Pastor's Twofold Calling: Prayer and the Word

I go to churches where the pastor is about everything from the janitor to a babysitter to everything else. Well, most of us have a babysitter, for sure. But what are we really doing? You've only two things to do as a pastor.

That is, if you're a New Testament pastor. Of course, if you're the average Baptist pastor or Methodist pastor, you'll do 10 ,000 things. But if you're a New Testament pastor, you've two things to do according to Acts 6.

Give yourself continually to prayer and to the Word of God. Isn't your job to visit the faith? Why? Because in the Scripture, who visited the faith? The elders or the deacons did it. The last church I pastored, they offered me this, that, and the other, you know, and I sat and listened to the old great dears and nice guys, and they said, well, now, will you take the church?

We're going to get you a new man. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. And I said, yes, I'll accept. Great, thank you. Well, you... Wait a minute. I wonder if you'll meet my condition. Your condition.

What do you think? You're renting a donkey? I happen to be God's man. I've got God's mind. This is how we're going to run the church. Go ahead. Well, first of all, I said all the deacons will have to meet me in the office, this church office, 15 minutes before every service.

If I have to be here every meeting, you have. You see, one of the great failures of Protestantism is this, you know. If you have a tent, and you know the old tent you had with a pole in the middle, and you pegged it around like that.

Well, if you take that pole away, it collapses, doesn't it? But if you have a tent, and you've got 12 poles around, and you take one out, it doesn't collapse. And many of our churches collapse after a certain type of preacher has been there.

Why? Because it was all wrapped around the preacher, not around him. If the deacons had been carrying the Lord, you could have pulled the pastor out, and the church would still stand. But we don't do that.

Oh, I hope this pastor won't leave. He's done so much. I didn't know the church had to run on the pastor. As I say, I could go to a church where nobody walked the aisle for 10 years. It wouldn't worry me that much.

Why? Because a pastor isn't supposed to bring... Well, let me tell you, I said this to the folk in New Zealand when we were talking. I said, does the shepherd here bring the lambs to birth? And they laughed.

What do you mean, does a shepherd give birth to the lambs? I said, just what I said. Does a shepherd give birth to the lambs? Where do you live? I said, America. Oh, now we understand. Who gives birth to the lambs?

The sheep. Well, aren't the folk in the pew the sheep of this pastor? Isn't the pastor the under-shepherd? Isn't his job to bring people to birth? The reason that the state church in Korea is Presbyterian is that when the Presbyterians had a revival there about 1904, after the War of Five, after the Welsh Revival, the condition of membership was not that you agreed A, B, C, D, E, F, G, 12 articles of faith.

It was, have you reproduced to time? Because everything in Genesis brought forth its time. Now, have you brought to birth a lamb? Nor did you pray with somebody who came forward. Nor did you run around and see somebody sick when the pastor asked you.

But have you personally brought somebody to birth? That's the law of life. And if you had, you were accepted as a church member. And then they limited church attendance to maybe 300 in a church. And after that, the church had to bring to birth another church.

Would you go shopping down the road at Sears Road Bus with, oh boy, they have a big stock of stuff, haven't they? Would you go if there was only one man waiting on at the counter and people were standing 3 ,000 down the road waiting to get whatever you were trying to get?

Oh, well, you say, that's not the way to run a business, have a place like that. Well, do you think that one pastor can look after 1 ,000 folks? He sure can't. Would you go to hospital if the hospital only had one doctor that was there to operate?

You say, well, we hope to get to you by about December the 14th. I hope you can hang on. You say, man, this thing's been killing me for the last 14 hours. I have to wait three more months. Oh, well, we've only one doctor.

This is a very modern place, you know. By the same insanity, is there anything more precious in the whole world than church property? We use it one hour Sunday morning, one hour Sunday night, and one hour Wednesday night, and we put millions of dollars in some of our new things for about three hours a week, apart, of course, from the fun and all the stupid stuff that belongs to the world anyhow.

Revival, the Holy Spirit, and the Church's Witness

Supposing that you phoned this afternoon and said, my house is on fire, and the guy at the other end says, what do you mean? Don't be stupid. It is Tuesday. You know the fire department does nothing except Wednesday night, 7 to 8, Sunday morning, 11 to 12, and Sunday night, 7 to 8.

Oh, we laugh a bit. Is it more stupid than the church being up? Why do we lock the churches up? Heavens. Only the Catholics leave them open, strangely enough. You can run in. I've run in many a Catholic church and prayed.