The Beauty of Holiness — Leonard Ravenhill

I'm very glad for this privilege of fellowshipping here again. I don't know when I was here last, sometime last year in, I think, May. Somewhere about that time. And believe it or not, I've only preached one week since then.

So if I'm a bit rusty, you'll know. I mean, I'm not like these millionaire evangelists that scoop up these big love offerings every weekend. But apart from that, the thing is that you have to flex your muscles and kind of get back into stride again.

I like that expression of other jimmies there, that we spend so much time defending something that doesn't work. Most of our preaching is defending a man who died 2 ,000 years ago. And we're very fundamental in doing that.

I heard a very moving story just about two weeks ago. Now, you may have forgotten that the fact is that America still has 50 or 52 ,000 boys, not merely in Korea, not merely in Vietnam, but 52 ,000 men just south of the 38th parallel in Korea.

Another 50 ,000 men still guarding the line in Germany. But I'm told there's a Christian man just south of the 38th parallel in Korea. And every day he walks up and down the street with his hands raised up and he said, if only I had it now.

If only I had it now. Because before the war, before he was pushed out of North Korea, south of the 38th parallel, he was a multimillionaire. And he used to give a tithe, a little bit of his money, a little bit of his time to the Lord.

It was expected of him. But he wasn't too generous. He, you know, never, pockets never burst at the seam. He didn't want to go too far giving what he had. But there came a day when the invasion took place and he was driven out of North Korea.

And now he's penniless. And every day he says, if only I had it. If only I had it now. Or he'd do so much with it. But when he had it, he did nothing with it. Maybe some of us will be sitting in concentration camps before too long.

It could come and the way it's heading up, it will. Thinking outside of revival. And some of us will be saying, now I, I wish I was back in that home with the wall-to-wall carpeting. I really would pray all night, but I'm too sore and stiff and I've been beaten up today and I can't do it.

Prayer, Judgment, and Spiritual Readiness

So he's got some very serious things to think about and I think preach about this week. But my mother used to tell me it was always good to say grace before you had a meal. And so I thought tonight we'd just say grace before we have the meats in the days that lie ahead.

I have emphasized for many years, and by jewel of this year, I, I, I'm advancing my fiftieth, fiftieth year as a preacher. Isn't that an awful long while? Now you'll be trying to guess my age, but I won't tell you.

And I have emphasized and I've written some books about prayer. And I say that one of the most embarrassing things at the judgment seat will be to discover how little we have really, little time we've really spent in prayer.

I heard a lady say the other day, God hears prayer, but he answers faith. Now how does that upset your theology? But anyhow, stick it in your mind and think over it. He hears prayer, he answers faith.

But if we shortchange ourselves in the line of prayer, I'm convinced that we shortchange God on the level of praise and on the level of worship. So here's a very simple message tonight from the ninety-sixth psalm and the ninth verse.

Oh worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Feel before him all the earth. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The capital city of Scotland is Edinburgh, and it lies four hundred miles north of the capital city of England, which is London.

Now you could do that stretch of four hundred miles in less than an hour in a jet. But if you tried to do it four hundred years ago, it would have taken you maybe anything from ten to twenty days. It was always a hazard.

It was almost impossible to do it in winter because obviously they had no bulldozers. The roads were very undeveloped, and they were very heavily infested with highwaymen. And the stagecoaches that did the trip, remember they had no heating in them.

But a Christian man took the journey. He was going on business, but while he was on business he combined it with real spiritual pleasure. When he returned to London he said to a friend, well I did good business, but I had a great time spiritually.

He mentioned a certain city and he said, I went there and I saw a tall, dark, rather stout man by the name of Blair. He showed me the majesty of God. After another week of business I went to another city and I saw a different type of personality with a very different accent, with a very different delivery.

He didn't show me the majesty of God, he showed me the depravity of my own nature. And then he said the third week I managed to get to Amroth. And at Amroth I heard that not very tall, but very fair man by the name of Samuel Rutherford.

And he showed me the loveliness of Christ. It was from those amazing letters that you can still get, it was from the letters of Samuel Rutherford that Mrs. Cousins extracted those very, very wonderful words out of which he formed a poem, and out of which there came that wonderful hymn, The Sands of Time Are Thinking.

You remember perhaps the phrase that Alexander White said, he loved so much, with mercy and with judgment, my web of time he wove. And I, the due of sorrow, was lusted by his love. I blessed the hand that guided, I blessed the heart that planned, when thrown where glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's land.

They showed this man up in a thing very much like a coffee pot, a building out on a craggy rock. It was lost every day with the wind and the storm and the tide. And somebody went in one day to see Rutherford and expected to find him all twisted and dishearned with rheumatism and, as the world would say, cursing his luck or wondering why God didn't intervene.

And when they got there he says, Iain Amalus, a place where he had given his life, Iain Amalus isn't heaven and preaching isn't Christ, but in this sea-beat prison my Lord and I held Christ. Then he goes on to say, concerning his relationship with God and his anticipation of heaven, it were a well-spent journey, though seven deaths lay between.

I don't think the political or moral or spiritual situation is any better than it was last time I was here. In fact, I think it's deteriorated very severely. But I'm quite sure that my generation needs to get each of the concepts that that famous, that wonderful traveler had.

We need a new revelation of the God that we serve, a new unfolding of the majesty of God. We need a new revelation of the abyss of the human nature, so graphically given to us in the first three chapters of Romans, particularly if you read Mr. Phillips's translation.

And I'm sure we need to see afresh the loveliness of the Lord Jesus Christ. This psalm is a delightful psalm and I want to lean on two words in the text tonight, or worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

Worship in the Beauty of Holiness

Let me ask you a forward question and answer it to God, not me. When did you last worship God? I see a notice outside of a church, divine worship, Sunday morning, 11 o 'clock to 12. That's tying the Holy Ghost up pretty much, isn't it?

But you could go to church all your life and never worship God. You could sit in the choir and go to all that you want to sing and sing the anthems and stand up maybe and sing a wonderful hymn and yet never worship God.

You can take communion every time you go to the house of God yet never worship Him. You can give your tithes and your generous offering on top of that and yet never worship Him in spirit and in truth.

You know a good background to this text would be to read the fourth chapter there in the gospel as recorded by John. And you remember that Jesus met a woman there. One of the wonderful things about Jesus, He had so much time for individuals.

In fact His longest sermons were given not to the 5 ,000 but to individuals. The woman at the well, Zacchaeus Nicodemus. And Jesus so happily began talking to this woman before she gets into a controversy as our brother reminded us tonight.

Oh she was going to put Jesus straight. You say we should worship Him. Look over there is Mount Gerizim. Oh they love that place. Part of the law had been unfolded there. There's still a small tribe of people on Mount Gerizim away there in Israel and they value and they treasure a dusty dusty copy of the Pentateuch.

And they say we have Abraham to our father. And you say Jerusalem is the place to worship. And the other man says no you go to Mecca. And the other man says nonsense you go to Rome. Jesus says my dear lady I want to tell you something the time has come and the time now is when neither in Jerusalem nor in this place nor any other place I have a special place so we for we worship God not by turning to the east.

You see as soon as the glory departs out of the church we try and fill the vacuum. We put in a new stained glass window or we change the the robes of the choir. There's nothing any better in them. But anyhow we change the robes of the choir and then we decide that the preacher must be preceded by someone bearing a golden cross.

Or we must put great stately candles up there. So as you used to say we used to have fire and now we only have a pair of winking candles. And that's about all we have. But you see when the glory departs.

Oh not very long ago one of these men with a kind of a computer mind estimated the value of the temple that was built by Solomon. The disregard he had for values. Why? He paved the house of God with gold.

And he put solid gold on the walls and even the desk had to have gold. This man worked out the dimensions, worked out the value of gold and said that that temple cost at least a hundred and seventy billion dollars.

And yet even when he had done this and crusted the walls with precious stones while everybody was breathless they stood in awe and amazement. There never was a place like that surely. There never was a place like that.

And yet that man had a spiritual, I'm going to use a long word I want there, spiritual sense to realize and accept the glory of God filled the temple. You could use it as a stable. God is not interested in temples made with hanger.

Always trying to put all this strange architecture up. Springfellow calls it bastard architecture. Well you know but let me tell you again you know very well there's no substitute for the Holy Ghost. We've got a Christianity that doesn't work.

I'm going to talk about that tomorrow night God willing. But when the glory of God fills the temple, this exhortation here, worship God, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Strangely enough this word worship is repeated 15 times in the book of Psalms and it is repeated 15 times in the book of the Revelation.

For what do they do in heaven but worship him? After all you can't make God rich if you give him a million dollars a day. You can't make God wise if you know more than Calvin knew. He didn't know everything but anyhow we can't make God wise.

We can't make God rich. We can't make God strong. Now we're exalted here to worship God. I'll never forget amongst the many experiences that I did have with Dr. Tozer and they were about the highest peaks in fellowship that I ever had.

I went into his office one day and he turned around, his sleeves were rolled up, he had a visor over his eyes and he was something an old typewriter. I used to tell him it was, he should have sold it, it was the first that was ever made.

If he said it came out of the ark I could have believed it. It was old and rusty and antique but boy he produced some marvelous books on it. He just swung around on his swivel chair oh he said come in and lock the door, let your hair down, let's talk.

And in the course of talking he pointed to a piece of dog-eared rug. You've seen these beautiful rugs that come from the audience, handmade and the colors are dyed by hand and the designs are so marvelous they take a breath away when you look at them.

Well that wasn't the kind of rug he had. He had one that cost 69 cents from Woolworth. When they broke up his estate I did manage to get one of his books but I would have loved that piece of rug for sentimental reasons I guess.

And he pointed to that dog-eared rug and he said you know Len, I come in here some mornings, he never owned an automobile in his life. He used to go to his little office in Chicago on the street car and carry what I called postage stamp sandwiches.

He used to finish about 12 o 'clock and go down the street and sit on a little stool there in a little coffee bar and nibble at his sandwiches, drink his coffee, get up and go away. Nobody ever recognized his genius.

He said Len, I come in this office one morning so filled with admiration that I just call my secretary in the other room and say look Mary this morning, no dictation. Today, no interviews. I can't see anyone at all.

You can go home if you like and be back at eight in the morning. And then he said using an old English word, Len, he said I, I would get down on that rug on my belly at eight o 'clock. I'd still be there at 11 or 12 or one o 'clock and I hadn't breathed a prayer and I hadn't uttered a word but I spent four or five hours just worshipping him.

Just, just saying, as he used to quote, say this so often, oh how beautiful, how beautiful the sight of thee must be, thine endless wisdom, boundless power, thine awful purity. Father of Jesus, love's reward, what rapture will it be?

Prostrate before thy throne to lie. I am gays, I am gays, I'm thee. Preach, one of you has to do that. You see, if you learn to worship you'll never be depressed, you'll never be distressed, and I dare to suggest you'll never be defeated.

You get a righteous view of the majesty of God. You say, as a young man came in my office, I, I'm living in the Bahamas just now trying to write a book, trying to write four as a matter of fact, and this young man came in and he sat down and put his elbow down and he said why should I worship God anyhow?

Well I said I can give you four reasons why you should worship God first of all because he's God. Secondly because angels worship him. Thirdly because one day bloody gonna have to worship him. So don't release your doubt.

And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is God to the glory of the Father. Now this text says that we should worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Theology is the queen of the sciences. Holiness is the crown on the head of that queen.

Holiness as Spiritual Health and Beauty

A personal experience of holiness or the englobing spirit is the jewel in the middle of that crown on the head of that queen. Now I'm glad that the psalmist and the divine inspiration put this word beauty there otherwise the text would read worship the Lord in holiness.

Now I know some holiness that has people that are as cranky and an old boy that is hard to live with as anybody I ever knew. Again to quote Tozer he said we preachers often twist and torture texts to make them fit our theology.

I was raised with a holiness people and I'm not a bit sorry about that. I think some of them are very extreme. They talked about death. They were always digging the grave. They didn't get out of the grave.

They didn't get any resurrection life. They didn't mount up with wings as eagles. The word of God says if we're children of God by faith in Jesus that we're a kingdom of priests but they became God's policemen instead of being priests.

They were always chasing my sister to measure the length of the dress. I'd like to chase some of those women and measure the length of their toes but they wouldn't let me. But maybe Dr. Harry Jessop is right when he says that the Pharisees were the holiness people that backslid.

You see once they lost the sweetness they began to major on externals. The style, the length of your hair, the length of your dress or something else. Usually the women get beaten up on that level. But you see here the word of God says worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness and there is nothing under God's heaven more beautiful than holiness.

We back off from the word but if you change the word which you could do from the Greek anyhow for holiness actually means full health, healthiness. Worship the Lord in the beauty of your soul's health.

Now one of the hymn writers amongst others wrote a hymn that said I'll worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness bow down before him and his fullness proclaim with gold of obedience and in the sense of loneliness kneel and adore him the Lord is his name.

I think that worship is rather difficult to define because it's made up of so many different things. Worship, adoration, gratitude, thanksgiving. I don't think we really get as our brother said, the brother that was reading the thing, we don't get the explicit about Christianity, we don't get the elevation that God wants us to have out of it.

My before we had these song books that we have in most churches, they used to have hymn books. I think some of the songs are silly. I don't go for mansions over the hilltop, to me it sounds as though you're trying to make Jesus jazzy and I don't go for jazz and Jesus, they don't mix too well.

I think we're trying to get our faith down to folk songs and it's not much good but all those wonderful old hymns, somehow they ignite my spirit, they make me want to worship him in spirit and in truth.

I want to stand speechless before him and see the king in his glory. I want to recognize that not five minutes after I die, not when a Shakespeare said I shuffle off this mortal coil, but even now while I'm in the flesh, even now I'm an heir of God and an adjoint heir with Jesus Christ.

I'm not a beggar, I'm a prince and we need to rediscover I think the riches of his grace, the riches of his power, the riches of his love. We're not possessing our possessions. The kids don't want our religion because it is so shabby.

I've always said this, if my boys didn't want my Christianity, I'd pack up right away and I'd never preach again. Thank God I've got two boys missionaries, another one, the third one I think going to Africa this year.

If my boys didn't want my Christianity, I'd never open my mouth in the pulpit. Now you can disagree if you like, that's up to you. But if there isn't something attractive about what I have in Christ and I'd not like to try and strip it down the throat of your boy if my boy doesn't want it.

But oh when there's so hell, it's when there's the king and his beauties residing in the palace of my personality, for after all he dwelleth not in temples made with hands. If God Almighty only dwells in Westminster Abbey, this room wouldn't have much chance with it.

We're to worship the Lord. I used to have a teacher when I was at college, Cliff College in England, who used to say there are just two things you need when you go to have your devotions in the morning.

One is a Bible and the other is the Methodist hymn book. Now I don't know where you'd find it these days, but really I think that one of the finest hymn books ever put together was the very old Baptist hymn book about a hundred years ago.

But oh brother when you read some of the expressions for after all those hymns were not the product of an intellect, they were the product of an emotion if you like. They were a product of a vital experience that somebody had with God and they said it down in in in beautiful language.

For after all if you go to the Methodist, all Charles Wesley did was take John Wesley's music and John Wesley's theology and put it into music. Or if you want to predate John Wesley you go to Isaac Watts who gave us of course amongst other hymns when I survey the wondrous cross.

And sometimes you might find an old volume, I have one of all the hymns of Isaac Watts. Brother you try switching channel telegraphs some night and stick your feet up whether you have a coconut and just go through some of those hymns.

Read them slowly and digest them and feel your spirit rising. You feel somehow that you you've got wings and you're in another world. When all thy mercies, oh my God, my rising soul surveys. Transported with the view I'm lost in wonder, love and praise.

Oh you take the hymn written, I've forgotten his name for the moment, oh and I think who wrote, Lord of all beings from the far thy glory flames from sun and star, center of soul and soul of every fear, yet to each loving heart I'm here.

Lord of all life, beloved of whose light is truth, whose warmth is love, before thine ever blazing throne, we have no luster of our own. Come on preacher, when did you last bury a nose in the dust and gaze upon the king in his beauty, before thine ever blazing throne?

Why not a lie, do you tell of him have two wings and they cover their faces because they can't gaze on the king in his beauty? And the king of Isaiah chapter 6 is the person of Jesus Christ in the 12th chapter of the gospel of John.

This said Isaiah when he saw him, and when you see Christ in his beauty and in his glory, you think in your face you can't bear the dazzling brightness of his presence, and then you put two wings over yourself because you can't bear his scrutiny of his own life.

And this tozer says there's only one way to worship God and that's face downward. It's arrogance even to stand, it's arrogance even to kneel. You see when you get that rapturous vision and you see the king in his beauty and you realize again that even the cherubim and the those holy beings who have never sinned gaze upon the king in all his beauty and all his majesty.

And you go right back to the book of the revelation and it tells you there that one thing that the servants of God they serve him day and night and they worship him. I like that. Is it the fifth chapter there that says that there's a there's a crowd of ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands and if my figuring's right that's over a hundred million with a few thousand numbers thrown in.

It'll be something to hear a choir like that sing won't it? But every woman can sing better than Gali Gertie and every bass singer can sing better than Robinson used to sing. Not Robertson, Robinson. And every tenor can sing better than that what Caruso.

You know when I was younger, oh well when you're young there are a lot things you pray about that don't make sense when you're older. When I was young I used to pray Lord bless me, Lord bless me. I found that was a prayer to bankruptcy so I quit.

You go to the place where you say Lord bless me and you pray Lord make me a blessing. And when you pray Lord make me a blessing you get blessed, blown in, thrown in. All these hymns are matchless. That's why I go to churches sometimes.

I don't often get back a second time but at least the first time I'm there I usually say to them why don't you sell your songbooks and get a hymn book. We have forgotten how to worship. I mentioned I think when I was here before about your brother Buck Singh who's been in America this last year.

I hope some of you heard him. I talked with him for about three hours and in the course of talking he said well the Americans are very wonderful people, very generous people, very clever people. But he said I discovered that while the Americans can make planes and automobiles and do so much I was never in a church in America where they knew how to worship.

Extended Worship, Prayer, and Spiritual Gifts

And then I said supposing I came to your church in India for the Lord's day now how would the service proceed? Oh well he said by the way in the first three hours of the service. Sounds well like a ball game doesn't it?

I've often said if you want to make money all you have to do is invent a church fuel that's as soft as a bleachers you've got it made. Because nobody gets pains when they sit on the bleachers in the boiling sun for four or five.

They had a game not long ago I think this past year that lasted the very maximum about 20 after one in the morning it quit. I don't think it was finished but legally they had to finish. Went through about 21 innings.

Nobody complained. Boy you preach five minutes and somebody goes preach five minutes all the time. Preach 10 minutes they go. Preach 15 minutes they go. Preach half an hour they go. Well well bit of thing what happens he just said oh he said the first three hours of the service we give to praise worship adoration say oh it's intoxicating.

Sure it is the wine of heaven. Well then what? Well he said the second three hours yes. Oh the second three hours we spend in prayer supplication intercession yes. The third three hours yes we bake bread.

One has a song one has a hymn one has a word of exhortation. This brother's just finished 21 days of fasting. This lady had a revelation. This man over here has a a word of inspiration. He said we we but I said now by the thing you don't mean that every lord's day you spend nine hours in service in worship in prayer.

Well no not every lord's day. Ah well now now don't give me the normal. Well he said that's the normal. Well what do you mean you don't spend nine hours every lord's day? Oh he said some days the glory comes down where they're 12 hours, 13 hours, 14 hours.

Do you wonder he said he never went to church in America. All these things spirit of faith come down but not until 20 to 12. Not till after the cross and the offering. Good night the kingdom will fall apart if we don't get those miserable dollars.

Come on let's get it. Now you can come in holy ghost and I'm the preacher now but listen you've got to go at 12 because the chicken will burn if you don't. You see we're not liberals we're the fundamentals and if we're the best God has well God help us.

Sure the the teacher was right when he said take a hymn book into into the prayer closet take your bible into the prayer closet. He's got strict authority doesn't he? Well as Paul say right into the Colossians in 316 let the word of Christ dwell in you in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

What is Ephesians 5 18? Well Ephesians 5 18 is be filled with the spirit. What's Ephesians 5 19? Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody unto the Lord in your heart.

I can sing like Caruso inside he gets spoiled coming out but that doesn't make any difference the Lord doesn't tell me to sing like Caruso he says make melody unto the Lord in your heart. You see and sometimes I need crutches sometimes I have to borrow another man's language and say praise my soul the king of heaven to his feet my tribute bring ransomed healed restored forgiven who like these praise should sing praise him praise him praise him praise him praise the everlasting king praise him for his grace and favor to our fathers in distress praise him still the same forever slow to chide and swift to bless praise him praise him glorious in his holiness.

Why Roman Catholic once got so blessed the old Cardinal Newman he was quite a theologian he wrote the hymn praise to the holiest in the heights and in the depths be praise in all his works most wonderful most sure in all his ways all loving wisdom of our God when all of sin and shame a second Adam to the fight and to the rescue came all wisest love that flesh and blood which did in Adam fail should stir the flesh against the foe should strive and should prevail.

There were three famous brothers in Scotland by the name of Bonner one of them Andrew Rotherham that I love and sing very often in my devotions. Fill thou my life O Lord my God in every part with praise that my whole being may proclaim thy being and thy being and thy grace.

Not for the litter of praise alone nor in a praising heart I ask but for a life made up of praise in every part. Praise in the common things of life. It's going out and in praise in its duty. And each deed however small and me so shall no part of day or night from sacredness and be free that my whole life in every step be fellowship with thee.

You see part of this business of worship and praise and adoration is that first of all as John says in his first epistle that our fellowship is with the father. I know it isn't it used to be but it isn't now.

Our fellowship is with one another about the father. But you can't go to the altar to the divine order worship the father. Our fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ and with one another it comes down.

But first of all we must learn to worship him. Some years ago roughly about 40 I was preaching in Scotland in a series of meetings. Someone came up after one of the meetings and said that an old old lady lives in a tenement.

Would you take time out to see her. And I said well I uh yeah we've got a busy day. But is she sick. Well it's not that she's sick but she's very old. She's just had her hundredth birthday. Well I thought when I'm a hundred I'd like somebody to come and see me.

I guess so I'd better go along. And I went to see the old lady took a friend with me another preacher. If you've been in these old Scottish tenements you know there are three or four stories high and you go up a twisting stone staircase.

We went outside a number of the room knocked at the door. Nobody answered. They said she was very deaf and we went in. You'll be very generous if you gave us five dollars for every scrap of furniture in the room.

And I noticed over here there was a rusty uh an old bed anyhow and a little frail lady whose wrists were just about as thick as my two fingers. She was as wrinkled as a prune almost as deaf as the doorpost as we say totally blind no teeth.

The cheeks were sunk and she was lying back on the bed with her mouth open so I could see here. Now she's got no teeth and she's got no eyes and she's got no hearing or hardly any. And I got on the side of the bed and I yelled in her ear.

I called her by her name mrs jack. Oh oh he said with a scottish dialect oh oh and who are you. I said we are the evangelist. And I shouted ah she says give me a hand. Give me a hand. She got a hold of my hand with these scrawny hands of hers that were like claws.

And she pulled my hand down at one side and my friend's hand down at the other. And she said ah she says can you sing cronin. Well I thought for a moment cronin cronin can you sing cronin. Ah she says that with yonder sacred thong we at his feet may fall joy and everlasting fun.

And cronin laudable sing cronin sing cronin. And before he could start singing cronin she was about four notes off key. But brother I don't think I've never heard anything more. I looked at the tears coming out of those blind eyes.

I looked at that hollow mouth. I looked at that wrinkled skin. And I look at that woman 100 years of age without any creeper comforts. A little enamel wash bowl and a daughter brought washing to wash those beautiful little hands.

That woman lived in the city of port in scotland. She had a marvelous experience of the grace of god. And she said I was reading my bible. And it says in the bible you begin at jerusalem. It's always easy to begin at the other most parts of the earth.

But nobody knows you there. And so she decided she'd begin at home. She made a vow to the lord. She said I'll witness for christ in every street in this city. And she took a bible. And she preached in the streets while she was preaching.

One day the devil she said the devil said to her and so you're preaching huh. And your own boy is a prodigal. Do you think the folk will take notice of you. Your boy is a prodigal. You've no right to preach that god can save other sense your boy is a prodigal.

And right there she's got a bible. And she stamped her foot and she said god almighty I'll never preach again as long as I live till my boy gets saved. And as soon as he's saved I'll start preaching again.

You've got to live pretty near to god to threaten him concerning the work of my hands commanding me. She stood with a bible folding her finger up and she says god almighty I'll never preach again. As she said in scotland I'll never preach again till my own laddie is converted.

Not many months after he was converted not only converted became one of the great preachers of scotland. And she went everywhere telling of the wonder of god's grace that he heard and answered her prayers.