Alone - Abandonment — Leonard Ravenhill

Speaks to bring the Lord Christ down. We do not have to descend into the abyss to bring him up. We don't have to placate you, Lord, with an offering. We thank you for that perfect offering that once at the end of the age, He appeared.

Not Joshua or Aaron or Isaiah or the tiring prophets of the Old Testament, but He, the Son of God, appeared to undo as the last of them or the first of them of death. He came to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself and by the name of no more sacrifice for sin.

We think of the priest of old, he had to take the blood, he had to put the carcass of the beast outside the gate, then he had to take the blood, but not his own blood. But our Lord Jesus brought His own blood.

He suffered without the gate. He's a perfect Lamb. We bless you for the majesty of the Lord Jesus. He is no longer Jesus of Nazareth, or the world of many crooks. He was Jesus of Nazareth. But two thousand years ago, the apostle labeled him this way, and he read and he said, but He, Jesus, is the Son of God.

He is the blessed and the only potentate and the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And one day He's going to be the judge of judges. What a day. We thank you for the giving fruit of your word today.

We can't imagine how it's gone for us. Sometimes over radio or TV, sometimes via track, sometimes with a little bunch of people at the Amazon around the tree listening to a language they can hardly understand, and it's a language that we can hardly speak.

But we thank you for the power of the Spirit to take our broken words and make them whole. We thank you for this fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's bones. And there's another hymn that says, that man shall never lose his power, to honor the ransomed Church and God, be saved to sin no more.

Then in the noblest, sweetest sound, we will sing thy power to save us. We thank you for our holy word tonight. We thank you for the man who gave it to us, who suffered to give it to us. We thank you for the martyrs.

Think of the man there around England when he held his hand out over the smoke, over the fire, and said that one day every cowboy would have this word. And it was then only available to scholars, and greedy to embarrass scholars in Hebrew and Greek.

We thank you for the marvelous achievements that are being done to make your word known. We bless you for those who have gone forth to make your name known. Perhaps some of them tonight homesick, fresh on the field with an atmosphere they can't understand, a language they can't speak, food they can't eat, and strange noises they can't understand.

We thank you for the going forth of your servants. We pray you bless them. Speak and we ask you to enrich our own hearts tonight from your word. We say to the sermons, Lord open by my lips, that I may behold wondrous things.

I will bow lower and give you the praise in Jesus name. Thank you. Be seated. What's meant to see? There are some seats up at the front here if you'd like to come. They're a little extra but you can pay that later.

Yes, don't have me talking in the air. Okay, come here then. Don't be shy, I'm not. I'll fix that now. Okay, a few weeks ago in our Tuesday night class, which we don't have anymore, we made a comparison.

We made, yes really, a comparison of the life of Moses with that of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now if you think that isn't quite legitimate, let me give you a scripture here. Deuteronomy chapter 18. Deuteronomy chapter 18 and verse 15.

The Lord by God will rise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me. Remember this is Moses writing and he's speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ that shall come. A prophet like unto me and unto him shall thee hearken.

Last week we attempted, however imperfectly, to complete what we had begun two weeks before of Hebrews 14 verse 13 which says Jesus went outside the camp and the second half of the verse says that we should go out of the camp too.

Which is a very dramatic and challenging thing. To me there are three, you know, there's a word used so often today that I think it's getting a bit threadbare. It's commitment, commitment, commitment, commitment.

My dear wife and I read together. Well honestly, she does the reading after breakfast, I listen and then after supper at night. And in the course of our listening and speaking and reading, a word came up which fascinated me and it's the word abandonment.

We hear a lot about commitment and Nazarenes hear a lot about sanctification. But very few people talk about abandonment. There are, I think, three classic examples of this. The supreme abandonment of course being the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

The second being Moses and the third being our friend that we talk about so much, the Apostle Paul. In the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, this is Stephen, you remember, answering his accusers and he's giving a rundown of their history in the sense of the Jews.

Let's read from verse 17. When the time of the promise drew now, which God had sworn unto Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, till another king arose which knew not Joseph. The same dealt subtly with our kindred, and evil untreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end that they might not live.

In which time Moses was born, he was exceeding far and nourished of his father, and in his father's house three months. And when he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him for her own and nourished him as her son.

And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in word and in deeds. Now look, here's a division in his life here in the next verse. When he was full thirty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel.

And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed and smote the Egyptians. There you've got the first forty years of his life, mentioned are the first division, forty.

The comparison I think is very beautiful, because you remember Moses was born in the slums of Goshen, and Jesus was born in the slums, because he was born in a manger, in a stable. There was a decree that Moses should be destroyed, destroyed from Pharaoh, you remember.

And there's a decree that Jesus should be destroyed from Herod. Moses was born in Egypt, Jesus went down into Egypt. Moses was born among almost unknown parents. In his early days he was a nobody, he became a somebody, and he's known to everybody.

Another comparison is, you remember that, I'll leave that a little later, not use it right here. Let's go over to the eleventh chapter in Hebrews. Hebrews 11, by faith Moses when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child, and they were not afraid of the king's commandment.

By faith Moses when he came to years, refused to be called a son of Pharaoh's daughter. Refused, therefore you've got refusing. Next verse, choosing. Rather to suffer affliction with the people of God.

Exactly what the Lord Jesus did. He chose to suffer. These are not, either in the case of Moses or Jesus, these are not cases of rags to riches, they're cases of riches to rags. I remember as a little boy in England, the preacher announced a very unique event.

He said on Tuesday night, Tuesday night we're having a visitor from another country, America. I've never seen an American. I thought he'd have feathers and all kinds of things, you know. And I went eagerly to church, and there was a man by the name of Baruch Loth.

And he had just written a hymn, I think the only one he ever wrote. I guess some of you know it, out of the ivory palaces, into a world of woe, only his great eternal love made my savior go. My Lord has gone and so it goes on.

It's a very, very beautiful hymn. He came out of the ivory palaces, into a world of woe. I think it was the son of the Narashal that wrote that lovely hymn, down from his glory ever living story. How many of you know that?

It goes to the tune of O So Mio. Down from his glory ever living story, my Lord and Savior came and Jesus was his name. Born in a manger to his own estranger, a man of sorrows. Now I'm out on the limb, I don't know.

Man of sorrows, tears and agony. Oh how I love him, how I adore him. My breath, my sunshine, my all in all. The great creator became my savior, and all God's fullness dwelleth in him. By faith Moses, when he would come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction.

If you go back to that 7th chapter in Acts, that 23rd verse again, when he was full 40 years old. He came to his heart to visit his bedroom. But notice the verse before that. He had been 40 years studying in the universities of Egypt.

He was versed in foreign languages. He was mighty in word and in deed the scripture says. Well he wasn't an orator. He wasn't a mighty orator because he stammered didn't he? Had to get somebody to do his speaking for him.

But he was mighty in word. In other words he was a statesman. He was mighty in word and in deeds. When he was full 40 years old, it came into his heart. Now if you go back to the Old Testament and read it, it says it came into his heart.

Now this is why he got into trouble. The Lord didn't send him, it came into his heart. But if you read that in Exodus, it says that he looked this way and he looked that way, to see there's no one around.

But he forgot to look up. 40 years studying in the universities. Studying I'm sure astrology, languages, what have you. You know we think we're pretty smart, but nobody's yet fathomed how the pyramids were put together.

We can get a man on the moon, but we can't make pyramids like they made. You can't get a sheet of paper and put it between those slabs of stone on the pyramids. They've been there about all these years, they've weathered storms and every kind of thing.

As a testimony I think again to the brilliance of the men who built them. If you were to take the different runs on the pyramid, when it goes to a peak, if you ran those, what we call them now, if you made a projection they went up, you'd find each of them went to a star or a planet.

And I believe that's how the Egyptians studied astrology. How did the pyramids get there? Now you think I'm nutty. You've already said that, so I excuse you. Do you know what I believe? Those stones that nobody can weigh and nobody can move, do you know who put them there?

The time when there were giants in the earth. I believe those giants lifted them up and put them there as easy as that. Supernatural power isn't all Christian, or Christian, or Old Testament stuff. There's a supernatural power of demons too.

Maybe Moses did his homework sitting at the base of the pyramids, I don't know. Verse 25 says, he supposed his brethren would have understood how that by God would deliver them out, how that God would by his hand deliver them out of, and they understood not.

You know he got quite a task. If he was going to wipe out the Egyptians, he was going to have a big job, wasn't he? Killing them one at a time, he'd still be at it and not finish the job. But the Lord, put it, they had a big baptismal service, the Egyptians.

The Lord got rid of them all. All due respect to the Baptists here. But the Lord did that, didn't he? Moses saw like Jesus. He chose to suffer. What did he suffer? When he fled from the royal palace, like Jesus came out of the ivory palaces, Moses comes out of a palace.

It's not a rags to riches, it's a robes to rags. He comes out of that palace. To me, it is a classic example again of abandonment. He abandoned everything. Go down to verse, in that 7th chapter again, and go down into verse 29.

Then fled Moses at this thing, and was estranged in the land of Midian, where he begat two sons. Now he fled into the wilderness. He'd left behind him his food. He'd left his royal apparel. It's not a case of rags to riches, it's a case of riches to rags.

How long do you think that royal robe lasted him? I don't think he stopped to change his clothes, when Pharaoh had put a sentence of death on him. He fled for his life out of the place. He left behind every treasure that he had.

Left his parents, left his people, left his nation. Add them all up and find out how much he loved. Okay, 29. Then fled Moses at this saying, and was estranged in the land of Midian, where he begat two sons.

And when 40 years were expired, oh he'd got another 40. He got 40 years in the universities with the greatest scholars in the world, and I believe he was the most brilliant scholar in the class. He learned another second 40 years.

He lived with his mother-in-law. When the 40 years were expired, oh we can't really rush over that. What did he do for 40 years in the wilderness? What was his anchor? He must have been tempted of the devil.

Remember, Jesus had a temptation, not for 40 years, but for 40 days in the wilderness. Moses had a sermon on the mount, just like Jesus did. In fact, when he was coming down the mountain, he dropped his textbook and broke two of the tablets.

Somebody said, if we all took those tablets, we wouldn't need the other ones. What was he doing for 40 years? You know, so often we give credit to David as a psalmist. What about Moses? He was a psalmist.

Do you know what I think he was doing for 40 years? You may disagree. If you do, you'll be wrong of course. But I think for those 40 years, God was drying him out, getting rid of all his self-confidence and his natural knowledge.

And all his psychology and all his abilities. That's what you pay a lot of money and courage to get, and it's no good when you get out anyhow. You know a simple definition? Psychology is something that nobody understands.

Nobody fully understands that the mother in the house is the best psychologist in the world, I think. 40 years doing what? Until a year or two ago, the most popular hymn in the nation was, How Great Thou Art.

Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, I believe like David, he sat on a rock and he contemplated the majesty of God. When I consider thy heavens, the sun, the moon, which thou hast ordained. What is man without mindful of him?

I think again he was unlearning all the stuff that he had learned there in Egypt. When he was 40 years, the 40 years expired, that appeared unto him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, the angel of the Lord in a flame and fire, in the Lord in a flame of fire, in a bush.

When 40 years were expired, that appeared to him. Where were Aaron and her? Where were his two sons? I believe the greatest revelations of God you'll ever get will be when you're by yourself. We're living in a fast place, we talk about getting in the fast lane.

To where? For what? I say there are three classic examples of abandonment. One is Jesus leaving the Father's throne, leaving the worship of angels and all the glory of heaven and coming down to this rotten world that we have here.

The other is this mighty man Moses leaving everything behind him, his scholarship. Do you think it was easy to leave it? What was he doing for 40 years? What did he eat? What did he drink? Don't you think the devil said, well you've had nothing but mutton now for the last 15 years.

Mutton burgers every morning, mutton burgers every afternoon, every evening. Do you know what they're eating in the palace, the royal palace tonight? And look at your garments also. Moses, do you remember he used to be the head of the parade when foreign kings came?

You sat between the king and the princess. Remember those lavish banquets? And his mouth begins to rot and to drool, what a fool you are. Why did you leave it all? People say he ran away, he ran away because he was running away from responsibility.

Exactly the opposite, he was running to it. He was running from extravagance to exile. He was running from the royal palace, he was running away from fame to greater fame. There's one script I'll ask him about when I see him.

I'm going to meet him personally before too long you know, so I've got a question. It says there in Hebrews 14, he esteemed the reproach of Christ. Now look, get it straight, not reproach for Christ, reproaches of Christ.

Everything that happened in the life of Jesus happened in his life. Jesus suffered throughout the gate, he suffered throughout the gate. The brother and sister of Moses, said who does he think he is? He had opposition in his own family.

Jesus had his brothers, said he was mad. People murmured against Jesus, they complained all the time. The children of Israel complained all the time about Moses. That anchored him to that stability that he had for 40 years.

Now if you think that's not right, if you're not working tomorrow, I suggest for a change, you find a room or if it's not raining, get under some big tree and sit there for 40 hours. Don't talk to a single person, don't eat, don't drink.

Bless you, some of us can't sit still 40 minutes, we turn TV or radio on. If that's not enough, you get in your car and listen to the bing bang bong all the way on the road. I don't wonder that we take more pills for headaches in America than anybody else in the world.

One thing those women for years, the older women have sat on the hair dryers till their brains are boiled. Now the young people got blow dryers or something, you should count your blessings. The greatest test, the test of loneliness.

Moses was 40 years in the wilderness, Jesus was 40 years in the, 40 days in the wilderness. Tempted of the devil in every aspect as a man. Tempted sexually, tempted every way. Do you know how valuable worship is?

If you don't know, let me tell you in a sentence. Worship is so valuable, the devil says, if you'll just kneel down once. You see as soon as you kneel, you acknowledge the other person's superiority. You just bow before me once, I'll give you the kingdom of the world.

Now look, don't you get upset if the Lord starts using the devil in your life to make you a saint. Oh, I thought you always resisted him. Well I used to. Peter's going down the road and Jesus meets him and Jesus says, Peter when you get down the road, round the corner, Satan's going to jump on your lap, but don't worry, I tell him go back to hell and leave my darling boy alone.

That's in the reverse version. What did he say? He says go, I have prayed for thee. You need all this testing of Satan in your life. You're going to turn out better for all the beatings, all the upset.

You cleave to me more than ever you've done in your life, once he takes his leprous hands off you. Once you feel that he's not you, backed up into a corner. You know, we won't bother with him sobbing out on a plate, don't we?

Have you read the four laws, or the 24, whatever they are? Solve all your problems. He was 40 years in the wilderness. He forsook for Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king. And they endured seeing him who is invisible.

There are two things if you go back into Exodus and read it. One is, hear the voice of the Lord. And here somewhere he had a revelation. Where did he have it? I don't know. But we have a preview of Jesus Christ, more than 2 ,000 years before Jesus came on the face of the earth.

He forsook, not fearing the wrath of the king. Was it because he had this amazing vision? No. Well how do you know that? Because it says at the beginning of the verse, by faith. The thing that kept him stabilized in all the drifting thinking that he did, on the back side of the desert, is not down on the caravan route where he can see people going past and say, well how are things in Cairo, or how are things somewhere else?

Or what's the latest news? He's on the back side of the desert, the unapproachable area. He can see nothing but sand kicked up in the air now and again. He can hear nothing but the birds calling. And that is on the back side of the desert.

What kept him stabilized? I don't know. At least I looked in all the books today and nobody told me, so I made it up myself. So you know what it's like. I believe the thing that stabilized him is his mother's faith, his mother's tuition and his mother's prayers, plus his father.

They don't get any congratulations much do they? Do you remember their names? What were their names? I guess you won't call your children by their names. Amram and Jokabed. Wouldn't you like to go to school and say, what's your name?

Jokabed. I didn't ask you when you got out of bed, I asked you what your name is. Wouldn't it be terrible if you were Peel and Marta, wouldn't you be having names like that? She saw he was a proper child.

He's either going to be an auctioneer or something, he's so noisy they had to hide him. Again she makes a little thing like this, a basket. Puts a lid on it so the sun won't scorch him. Pushing it out on the water.

Isn't that faith? What does faith do? Fundamentally faith does this in every life. Faith reckons, and faith reckons first of all that God is. And faith risks, I can't get the three, what were the three Marta?

I've said them so often, faith reckons. Oh many at rest, thank you dear. Faith reckons that God is, is what? Is everything he says he is. And if you want to know what he is, read Isaiah 40, as I've told you before, memorize the thing.

The whole chapter declares the majesty of God, but he counts the stars, not only that, he knows all their names. And there are trillions of them. Faith reckons that God is, he's all he says he is. That he's able to save, that he's able to keep you from falling, he's able to prevent you from faultless, faultless before his throne.

He's able to save to the uttermost. Faith reckons, she reckons God's as good as his word, so she makes this little basket and pushes it out on the nail. Isn't that a risk? Good night, she hardly turned her back, a crocodile could have swallowed him.

The wind could have blown the little roof off the little thing that she made, and the child would have been barbecued. Before she got off the banks of the river, a child could have been stolen. There are a dozen different ways, but she says God is, God is truly, God is.

Faith says God is, it reckons on God, but it's a risk in the eyes of the world. She risked it, she reckoned God is, she took the risk, and she rested. Read Hebrews 4 about rest. That he may never rest for the people of God.

I want to go back to this a minute here. When he was 40 years of age, that appeared unto him in the wilderness. No, 40 years after, so he's 80 years of age. So cheer up Billy, you may be called yet to be a prophet.

80 years of age, when God takes him out, thought about too old at 40. 40 years of age, from scholarship in the universities, ready to go anywhere, ready to be a king, ready to be a lawyer, ready to be a senator as we would say, ready to rule a nation, and God cuts the middle out of his life.

From 40 to 80, his prime time on the back of a desert looking after stinking sheep, never getting a decent meal, walking up those hills to his ankles were sore with the scrubbing on the side of the trees, or the side of the scrubbing, sure Billy.

When I went to college, I've got to tell you, I went, because you'll never guess, but I went to college for six months anyhow, and it was great, I wouldn't for a minute forget any minutes that I had there.

A preacher offered, he was selling his library, he said, you send me 15 cents, I'll send you three books, tell you what types of books. I said, I want a book on prayer, I want a book on holiness, I want a book on the second coming.

My parcel came, I opened it, there was a book, not quite as large as this, in brilliant red cover and gold letters on it, and it said, Power Through Prayer by E. M. Bounds. That was the first time I'd heard of him.

We had no sport at our school, no fooling around. We had no women there, that's why they used to say they were too distracting. So we only had men at the school, like a monastery, but it was wonderful.

When I got up there, I said, I'm going upstairs at lunchtime, we could go for half an hour, that's all, and I'm going to spend this week, I'm going to go through this book. And do you know why I didn't?

The book went through me. That was my first debt to America. The second one was, a preacher that came to the church gave me an abridged life of David Bernard. I'll tell you what it did. I lived on the edge of Sherwood Forest, when I was only in my teens, I wanted to be a David Bernard, so I went in the forest and prayed at night.

Got up Sunday morning before anybody else got up and walked over the gulf course and walked into the forest and prayed. Those two books literally changed my life. When he was 40 years of age, there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord in the flame of fire.

Do you think you ever forgot that? I tend to think of a scripture here, I think it's Exodus 40. In this verse it says, when the 40 years were expired, there appeared unto him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, an angel of the Lord in the flame of fire in the bush.

And when Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight. And as he drew near, behold, there was a voice. First he saw it, vision. Secondly he heard a voice, saying, I am the God of thy fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac and Jacob.

And Moses trembling, dost not behold. Go down into Leviticus, go down there into Exodus chapter 40 please, the last chapter. Exodus chapter 40 and verse 35. Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon.

There abode on it, a pillar of fire by night. That's the last verse in the 12th chapter of Hebrews. Our God is a consuming fire. But what else this man Moses forgot? Do you think you ever forgot the time he stood before that burning bush and it wasn't consumed?

He kicked his shoes off his feet and from the midst of the fire came the voice of God. But you see you have to get into the loneliness before God would speak to him that way. He's had another 40 years.

And there appeared unto him in the wilderness of Sinai, an angel of the Lord in the flame of fire in the bush. What was he doing that 40 years in the wilderness? I believe God was revealing to him so many mysteries.

Preparing him to write the first five books of the Bible. Preparing him to write some of the amazing psalms that he wrote. We don't usually put Moses amongst the great heroes. But you see God only has one treatment to get great men and that's loneliness.

If I had a Bible school I'd let you come here for whatever period it is. Like they do at Bethany fellowship. You go there for two years then you have a year off. Work it out. I would send everybody away for six months into quietness.

Lord my God when I'm awesome and consider, consider. What does that mean? It means meditation. It means contemplation. It means concentration. We're so distracted at every level in seeing and hearing all the time.

There are things pulling at us every moment. Brother Dave Wilson is away this week in his new office there for a whole week. He's not seeing anyone. He's just attending to write. I think that Melody's down in town doing the same thing.

This man is shut up with God. What came out of this period? Again five books, Psalms. The Lord Jesus shut away for 40 days in the wilderness. If the Son of God needs it, don't I need it? Who else was shut away?

Well a man by the name of Paul shut up in a stinking prison that you wouldn't let a dog live in today. What did he produce? He produced his epistles to the Philippians and Ephesians and Colossians. Where?

From silence, from stillness, from being cut off from fellowship. If you were like in splendid isolation, here's another man who's going to produce one of the greatest things ever written, even in the Bible.

His name is John. What is he? If you've gone to church at Ephesus and you say, I want to hear your famous preacher. So he isn't here, he's over there. You see that little island sticking about in the sea?

He's well on the Isle of Patmos. It's a criminal island. All the garbage he's outside the gate again. He's cut off from community, he's cut off from everybody else. And there he is on the Isle of Patmos.

You go up to say, John, I'm sorry to see you here in the Isle of Patmos. I'm not in the Isle of Patmos. What are you? He says, I'm in the Spirit. Was it Madame Guillaume or was it Faber who talks right so much alike?

Could I be cast where thou art not? That were indeed a dreadful spot. But with thee my God to guide the way, it is equal joy to go or stay. There is no loneliness where God is. It struck me the other day we were riding out with some friends and it struck me suddenly, I was going to say awesomely, almost terribly, that the most awesome place in the world, Golgotha, is now a tourist attraction.

How in God's name could it be that? And it's Christians that don't gaze at it. They don't want to get on the craft, they want to go see what it was. We don't get anything by going touring Israel anyhow.

This man has this revelation of God. Our God is a consuming fire. Look at this 35th verse, it blows me away, you young people would say. But I'm a bit more substantial, I don't blow away easily. Exodus 40 verse 35, and Moses was not able to enter into the tabernacle of the congregation, because of what?

The glory of God abode there. Do you remember when they finished that temple of Solomon's, one of the most lavish buildings ever put up in the history of the world, most expensive building ever? But he said it's no good, you may as well turn it into a stable.

We've got all the gold, we've got all the accoutrements that we need, but something missing. We've got an altar, all we need is the presence of God. What did he do? He prayed and what happened? The fire fell.

Again my cliche, which I'm not ashamed to use often. Do you know why the world is going to hell fire tonight? Because the church has lost holy ghost fire. The symbol of the church of Jesus Christ is not a cross, that's Roman, and brutal, and heathen.

The symbol of the church of Jesus Christ is a tower of fire, that sat upon the head of each of them, there in that upper room. And until that tower of fire returns, not visibly, but that same anointing of fire, power, eternal fire of God, indestructible fire, measureless fire, until it returns to the church you can have all the organization you like.

Build your castles, your religious castles, have your fun. You know the tragedy of this day, that the church today is pursuing happiness, not holiness. A young man choking up called me yesterday from the other side of the nation, Mr. Abner, he said, could you come out for us?

I said, I'm afraid I can't. He said, you know, you're having regular banquets, and breakfasts, and feasts, but all we hear is prosperity, prosperity, name it and claim it. I'm sick of it, we need something about revival and holiness.

You know what Moses did? He saw there was a need. What did he do? He went and tried to deliver them. So forget the idea that the need is the call, that's what he did and got into trouble. He didn't hear the voice of God.

He felt in his heart he should go. He was working on his emotions. I would go sometimes to a, when I was a youngster there, in England, I would go to a missionary conference. I had some great missionaries.

I had Padgett Wilkes, the founder of the Japan rescue mission. I had the founder of the Japan evangelistic band. I remember a bit later hearing two ladies, I forget their names now, they slipped from my mind.

That was in the 1930s when they, these two ladies came out of China, walked right through the Mongolian desert, walked to market. Unless occasionally they could ride on a beast. Walked through one of the most plague infested areas of the world, Mildred Cable and Miss French.

I remember looking at those ladies, their lovely pink cheeks, whitish hair. Up in their 60s they had gone through deaths every day like the apostle Paul. Suffering, hardship, threatened with rape, threatened with everything you can imagine.

And they went right through the Gobi Desert. Unless they could get right on no horse-drawn truck kind of thing. Somebody asked them why they, what are you going to do now? Go back. Why? The young lady didn't feel comfortable when she answered because you're not going.

Abandonment. Isn't it easy to sit here and stand there, stand here and sing in a lovely atmosphere, all to Jesus I surrender, all to him I freely give. Maybe keeping your hand on your wallet while you're singing.

We're the whole realm of nature man. Forget it, you'll never own the whole realm of nature. Give me what you've got and prove it. You think God's moved by our sentiment? All he'll do if you sing that sonata is put it down and judge you at the judgment seat and judge me for it.

Lord Duncan Campbell used to say that the fundamental, how did he put it? I can't think of his word. The fundamental feature, put it that way, of the Christian faith is sacrifice. Until we're totally abandoned to God, my richest gain, whatever else it is, until it's totally abandoned.