Beatitudes - Part 6 — Leonard Ravenhill

Entering the Kingdom Through the Beatitudes

In the past few weeks we've been taking Matthew's version of the Sermon on the Mount and again it's a bridge. It's not quite the same in the sixth chapter of Luke because that's the Sermon on the Plain.

But this Sermon on the Mount is again the manifesto of the Kingdom of Jesus. It could be said that it is an almost word perfect letter or life of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. We've thought about the fact that anybody, there's no class distinction, no priorities for scholarship, no priorities for wealth, no priorities for kingship, but everybody that enters the Kingdom must enter it the same way.

Blessed are the poor in spirit and that poor means emptying out of ourselves all arrogance and self-sufficiency and feeling that we're approachable to God, that for some strange quirk that we do not need redemption, that we can work our way through a church or through some other religious effort and become children of God, which is pure nonsense in the light of the Word of God.

Blessed are the poor in spirit and then blessed are they that mourn. They mourn over their poverty and then blessed are the meek. And in each case there's a compensation, blessed are they that mourn for they receive the comfort of God.

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth, blessed are the poor, blessed are they that mourn for the compensation is they shall be comforted, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness

Now verse 6 of Matthew 5 says, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst. You know, often when we've gone out west and we've gone into the desert areas and you know it gets hot and even if you have air conditioning on your car, the sun is striking through the upper part of the car, your chest is hot and your legs are freezing nearly with your air conditioner and you pull your shades down if you have them and then they fall along the desert, seems like a sheet of white paper and almost every time we've gone I've said to my dear wife, well however did those pioneers come over here without shades, without you know, they couldn't stop and get, there wasn't even a McDonald's in those days, there wasn't a place to get a cup of cold water, they were scared to death of being attacked by Indians but above all it's the drama, the what shall I call it, the courage of men to pioneer through the wilderness.

Well you know in one area when they were doing this, they'd made a breakthrough, they'd made a kind of a settlement and they startled the Indians and the Indians decided on a massacre and the famous Indian by the name of Black Eagle, he had a double dose of devilry in him and he was going to slaughter these people who'd come into his territory and they'd heard that on Sunday morning that these people all gathered together to sing hymns and so he planned the massacre for that morning and you know with the skill that Indians have they could swing from tree to tree and then slide through the grass and it was such a hot day they had all the windows open, the door open and they'd just stopped singing as these men were snaking their way through the grass and then they heard a dignified man begin to read, blessed are the poor in spirit, for they speak up to the brave and they listened right through, blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy, blessed are the pure in heart for they seek God.

Well then he said if this is the white man's teaching we need them, we shouldn't destroy them. At the other end of the scale the great, some people think the greatest of course President America ever had, that's been disputed of course, some think it was Washington, I suppose it was because it's part English, but I think actually Abram Lincoln is usually considered the greatest of all.

Not too long before he was dying a friend went to see him and he had a bible on his knee and he began to talk about the things he'd done and the things he hadn't done and he said well I'm not so sure about if I'm really pure in heart, I'm not so sure about a number of things, but this I am sure about, I hunger and I thirst after righteousness.

It's a pity we hunger and thirst, hunger is normal, thirst is normal. I remember a lady whose name you all know I won't tell you who she is, but she came and took a convention that we had over in the Bahamas in a beautiful mansion there and after one meeting she came home almost breathless she said by the way I've never seen such hunger, oh my the hunger, the people's questions, oh I've never seen such hunger in my life, so what, what's wrong with that?

If your child comes in hungry, mother I want you, yeah I gave you something an hour ago, you don't say, you're hungry again, oh get in the car let's take you to the doctors. You expect a normal child to be hungry, you expect to be thirsty and if you and I are normal in our Christian life it's not abnormal to hunger and thirst after righteousness and the compensation is that if we hunger and we thirst after righteousness we should be filled.

Now righteousness amongst other things means purity, it means moral rectitude, it means to be straight in our relationship with God. I don't imagine that if we lived in a world like this living this attitude that the world would welcome us and say well I want a righteous man.

They used to tell me when I was a boy that if the devil was in business he wouldn't let his own kids be the treasurer and secretary, well maybe that's true, he wanted Christian to run the cashier's desk you know if the devil was in business, he wanted Christian to run the other sections of it.

Persecution for Righteousness

And yet it's strangely true that in the same statement that Jesus makes, verse 10 says blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake. Isn't it a strange world in which we live? If you murder somebody they'll put you in jail, not for too long, just till they change the beauty bed and get coloured TV and you'll get out, a skillful lawyer will get you out.

If you go to war and you drop a bomb on a city and liquidate it and kill a hundred thousand people you'll maybe get a big medal. And yet if you're righteous you'll get to jail as well. Isn't that the history of the Puritans?

Weren't those old wonderful Presbyterians back in what 1665 massacred by the English? They didn't like the way they stood up for the things of God, they wouldn't be pressed into a mould of Romanism and so they stood up.

And there are just incredible stories of their suffering. Young men in their 23, 24 years of age marching to the scaffold with their shoulders back. When one said to one of them, oh, he was weeping. And somebody in the crowd, this was a fellow called Huey that was going to the gallows, the fellow in the crowd was called Huey.

And Huey goes down the street with his shoulders back, six feet free of him, with a smile on his face and he turns right and this guy sees him and wept, oh Huey, Huey, he's crying. Ah, Huey stopped and pointed and said, man, why are you greeting?

In Gaelic, greeting is greeting, greeting is weeping. Why are you weeping? Ah, Huey, Huey, ah, you're such a fine young man, you're the great, you're our Apostle Paul and you're going to die. I hear you're going to die.

Ah, man, he says, going to die? In three days I'm going to see the King in all his beauty. Now what do you do when you kill a man like that? You don't spoil his life. In other words, you say, I'm just going to start living.

I've seen the King, I'm going to see the King in all his beauty. No trembling and say, well, couldn't you make an appeal and go to the King and the Governor and try and get me off it? I mean, I'm only 24 years of age and I don't want to let my head roll in the dust.

They used to stick them on a spike outside of Edinburgh Cathedral as a sign of humiliation. I never knew a corpse to be humiliated anyhow, but that was something that they passed on to them. You see, they lived in the era of the spiritual.

Internal Righteousness Versus External Religion

These beautiful things here are all internal. You see, Jesus, a little later in this very chapter, he says, in verse 20, I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Now, again, you've got to think of Jesus. I get sick, I get weary of all the pictures of Jesus. We don't have a picture of Jesus in our home. I wouldn't have one. If you're a good artist, paint me an eagle, but don't paint me a picture of Jesus.

It'll go in the garbage can. And if your grandfather has one that's worth a lot of money, well, sell it and give it to missions. I don't believe anybody has a true portrait of Jesus. And when I see portraits of Jesus, I kind of shrink because usually he's effeminate.

You know, he has a nice dress on that's been so well pleated and his hair's faultless and whatnot. I don't believe Jesus was like that. I think Jesus was about six feet four. I think he was rugged, a Jewish in appearance, a nice beard, kindness oozed out of him.

I don't think he was like any of the pictures that men have given us of him. But you know, the thing that comes back to me time and time again is the heroism of Jesus. You see, when he's talking here, I don't doubt the Pharisees were on the edge of the crowd and the Sadducees.

You know the difference between the two, the pun we have on that. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection and the Sadducees didn't. That's why they were Sadducees. All right. But that's a fact. Now, Jesus is living in constant antagonism.

He doesn't go in a corner and say what he thinks is wrong with mankind. He shouts it from the housetop. He went the last day, the great day of the feast in the seventh chapter of John. That temple held 6 ,000 people because there's a record of one when somebody spilt some holy water or something there and there was a riot in the temple and the 6 ,000 people and hundreds of people were trampled.

And Jesus stood up on the last day, the great day of the feast. The previous six days, the temple orchestra had gone down the shoulder of the hill to the pool of Siloam. They'd taken an urn made of pure gold, not solid because there was water in it, but it was pure gold.

And at a given point they lifted water out of that pool, put it on the shoulder of the priest and he balanced it there and the orchestra stood up and they praised and they magnified the Lord. And in the middle of the temple, they poured it out six days in a row.

Why? To remind them that one day God, the God of Elijah, the God of miracles split the rock and that water became the water of life to them. On the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood in exactly the same place with thousands of people looking up.

Now the Jews believed it was their prerogative. There was only one God and he only had one family, they were the Jews. And so they're recording the history of what God has done with them. And on the last day, Jesus went and stood in that very place.

He didn't pour any water. They didn't pour any water. He stood there and said, so courageously, it thrills me that Jesus stood there and hollered right through the temple. Now, Isaiah says, My servant Christ shall not cry in the streets.

He didn't cry in the streets. He cried in the temple. After all, they didn't have any amplification. How in the world do you think 6 ,000 people? Maybe he put his hand up and he cried, If any man thirsts.

What do you mean any man? The Jews are a monopoly on God. You mean the Greeks? Anybody else can come? If any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink. He didn't say the socialites come or the millionaires come or the distinguished scholars come or the rabbis come.

He says, If any man, he cuts the whole thing down. Last Sunday we tried to think of what is called the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. T .E. Triumphal Entry. Was it a triumphal entry? Or was it a tearful exit?

Do you remember the scripture? We use it at Christmas usually. Though I never heard a sermon on it on TV or radio or anywhere at Christmas. He came unto his own and his own received him not. Not once.

He came unto his own again in the temple that day with 6 ,000 people. Do you think they accepted him? They actually sent some men to arrest him. If you read the first verse of that chapter, it says that when he went to the temple, the Jews sought to kill him.

And yet he walked down into the middle of the trap. He's like a man going into the middle of a cage of wild tigers and he has no defense on him. And he walks in the middle and he's going to say hi like that.

What the tiger's going to do? Chew him up? But even with a price on his head, he stood in the middle of the feast there. And he said, If any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink. Now he marched into Jerusalem.

Each one of the evangelists recorded it. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It's the answer to Zechariah chapter 9 and verse 9. Rejoice, rejoice greatly, O Zion. Thy king cometh unto thee meek and lowly and sitting upon an ass.

And upon a colt the fall of an ass. You see a beast that was going to be used in a sacrificial ceremony or a holy ceremony must never have been used. It must be totally clean. And so he sat on what? He sat on a donkey.

What type of donkey a young donkey, a colt, where on? No man ever sat. Now I understand you can, I've seen men train horses. I understand you can't train a donkey. The only way you break it is get on its back.

If you can stay on, maybe I'll be on your back in the next minute. But that's the way you break it in. And Jesus gets a stride, a wild colt because in the beginning God had promised that Adam should have dominion over all the animals.

And he comes, not the second Adam, he's the last Adam, and he has dominion. But he goes through the streets of Jerusalem. There were over a million people. Josephus, if you can trust him, says there were six million people in the city at that time.

It was a great celebration. It was a Passover. Isn't it awful, isn't it dreadful to think as we celebrate tomorrow the crucifixion of Jesus that they've actually slaughtered a lamb that very day in the temple that the Lamb of God was hanging on a cross and they didn't even understand it?

Isn't it amazing that it says the same thing? That they said if Jesus comes this way we'll get him, we'll arrest him. Why didn't they? I mean this is a silly thing. This is a carnival. I mean did you ever see a king go riding into a capital city with a few sweaty old garments on the back of a donkey and thought that had nothing to give, tore some palm leaves off and only John I think he just mentions that.

And they were palm leaves and they strewed the way. Well the Romans must have laughed their heads off. You should see Caesar come into Rome. When Caesar comes in he has a chariot blazing red and it's gone with white horses and he has slaves to fan him and an old man, everybody bows down and says hail Caesar.

And all you have here is a few screaming women saying hail to this man they say is the Son of God. I think Jesus maybe as a human being he felt very humiliated about it. But again the bravery that he marched into the city when there was a price on his head.

Jesus Fulfills the Law and the Prophets

Now again he's speaking these truths and if you notice very carefully in the third verse it says blessed are the poor in spirit. Now he's talking to a third bunch there. When you come further down he says in verse 13 blessed are ye.

Blessed are ye. He talks to a third party when he says blessed are the poor. He talks to a second party when he says blessed are ye. And then he comes right down to speak verse 18 for verily I say unto you.

Now let's go back into verse 17. Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I'm not come to destroy the law but to fulfill. Now that word fulfill is mentioned twice in this I was going to say epistle in Matthew which is obviously the first gospel.

But fulfilled is mentioned 16 times in Matthew. He's trying to get through. This gospel is mainly addressed to Jews and he's trying to get through to them that all that their fathers prophesied is fulfilled in himself.

He is the ultimate of all that the prophets declared. Now they don't like this. He says you say that Moses said I say unto you. Where did he get his authority? Why when he went in the temple they sent a bunch of men to arrest him.

And when they got back their chief priest said well where is he? He has no bodyguard. Where is he? We arrested them. Not with his hands but with his words. Oh they said never man spake like this man. You know when you go to church and a fellow preacher you explain and get up and recite a few things particularly the doctrine of his own church and he's nice and he's kind and he smiles and he wants to shake hands with everybody going out and if it's near Christmas he doesn't want to offend anybody he may not get Christmas gifts.

The preacher goes in there. He's not offering people a prize. He's not saying if you feel disposed to accept Jesus we will be very glad to receive your membership. He offers you an ultimatum. It's not an option.

You either become a member of the kingdom or got to perish. But oh these days we must not offend people. Well Jesus isn't a bit concerned about offending people at all. I'm not come to destroy the law and the prophets.

He says I'm come to fulfill them. Now he says if you hunger and thirst after righteousness we shall be filled. Filled with what? Filled with everything that the human heart craves for. Number one it craves for peace and there is no peace outside of Jesus Christ.

None. I don't care who the man is. I don't care what his philosophy is. There is no peace until the prince of peace comes to set up his kingdom in our hearts. There is no joy. Oh you should see us when we have TV on how we laugh.

That's not joy that's entertainment. And much of it shows the barrenness of people's intellect these days. The very things that we covet most. The external things don't mean too much. Where your treasure is there will your heart be.

Well what's your heart filled with tonight? Draft? Worldly ambition? What's it filled with? After all this is treasure city in here. What you have outside socially that doesn't matter that much to God.

Now Jesus is saying to these men, oh brother they were Pharisees indeed. Accept your righteousness. Exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. So he doesn't say if your righteousness is different.

It says accept your righteousness. Exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. I used to work in a factory where there were 8 ,000 people. And almost 6 ,000 were Jews. And I got to know some of the habits, some of the customs.

I used to eat bagels and hamantash and all kinds of stuff every piece. They brought a different kind of cake and I used to enjoy it. It was free and that's one reason. But I used to enjoy it because they were always so delicious.

And you know sometimes they talk about the Ten Commandments. Now you know there are people who say that when Jesus came the old law was destroyed. The first revised version of the Bible was the reversed version of the Bible.

Do you know that in the second century of Christianity as we call it there was a man by the name of Marcion and he rewrote the whole of the New Testament leaving out everything that referred to the Old Testament.

Everything. Do you imagine? That's a task for you. Now when I was a little boy which is about 200 years ago as I feel tonight but anyhow when I was a little boy we were taught about the Old and New Testament like this.

The new is in the old concealed. The old is by the new revealed. You see whatever the law and the prophets said about the sacrifices Jesus is the fulfillment of all their sacrifices. Whatever they said about the priests.

Again you remember the Ephesians to the Hebrews where the writer said strengthen the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees. Why not? Because all these Jews recently converted were beginning to feel a bit upset you know and beginning to think well after all are our relatives right?

Are we wrong? Have we got hooked on a cult as we say today? Imagine one man goes down the street let's call him Abraham not the old Abraham and another man Isaac not his son and Abraham says hey Isaac you haven't been to the synagogue for a while.

I hear you going to that new group up that back street there. You know they didn't have a 17 million glass pilots. Some people have but they didn't have that. They had an old shanty. It didn't have stained glass windows.

It didn't have a rogue choir. It didn't have a rug all full. It maybe was very near to the stable Jesus was born in but all mercy did they worship and adore the lamb and worship God. Now look here you know what people always try to get at you.

I mean you're too intelligent to be a Christian. I thought most people were too intelligent to go to hell but they're not. I mean do you accept the Christian teaching? Yes? Well now listen Abraham I don't want to team roll with you but you know you don't have any temple like we have.

Look there's a high priest going in the temple. Oh by the way you don't have a high priest. Oh by the way you don't have a sacrifice. And he goes on and the poor Christian begins to feel you know he's been having his clothes his covering ripped off him and then he says well are you through and he says yes.

Well now let me tell you the good news. What's the good news? We have a temple. Do you have a temple? Oh is it that new place they're building just up the street called straight? No no no. Well where's the temple?

You're looking at it. You mean you're the temple? Yes. God doesn't dwell in temples made with hands. He dwells in human personality. Well you don't have a great high priest. Ah yes we do. Well he hasn't shed any blood.

Oh yes he has. As a matter of fact he shed his own blood once. You have to keep doing the same old silly thing year after year after year after year. And our high priest just once made a sacrifice. And our high priest ascended.

Your priest dies every few years. Our priest never dies. And boy he turns it all over and says you think I've left everything? Man I've got everything. In the words of Scripture again. I found the pearl of great prize.

Now when Jesus is talking about these things remember they're all internal. You know the Pharisees used to wear phylacteries. I remember when I used to travel and I went on a train from New York. Well it was that beautiful silver bullet train that goes down the eastern seaboard.

And I got on that train that night. It was the longest night of my life I think. I was poor you know. I couldn't afford to go to bed. And I sat up on that chair. And I sat down on the chair. And I turned round the chair.

And goodnight. I don't know what I didn't do. About five o 'clock in the morning I thought oh I'll have a wash. I'll feel fresh before we get to West Palm Beach where I'm getting off the train. And I went in there and there's a guy with a scarf around his neck and a phylactery, a box on his forehead and a box on this arm.

And he carefully had the two pieces of leather in his fingers there. And he was going through it. I thought well bless you at least. You're very brave about it. You're not a Pharisee. You didn't stand in the middle of the train.

He was there in the men's washroom. And there he was going through his spiritual ablution. Do you remember Jesus talked about the Pharisees who made broad their phylacteries in case anybody didn't see them?

Do you know they wore one little box here with scriptures on their left arm so that when they put their hands up the law was very near to their heart. Well that's the very thing Jesus is arguing against.

It's all on the outside with you. I write my law on the fleshy table of your heart. Well they had the Ten Commandments. Yeah that's true. They had the Ten Commandments. Do you know what else they had?

They made 248 new commandments of their own. Boy it must have been difficult trying to remember them all don't you think? But on top of that they had 365 prohibitions. That makes about 500 and what? I don't know 503 or 506 laws and prohibitions which they had made.

If they were gathering mint in the garden they tied a bunch up. The old Pharisee sat there and said how many bunches is that? That's nine. No I think it's eight. Count them again. Count them again. Nine.

Ten. That one's for God. Nine. Ten. That one's for God. Jesus said you've tied your mint and you're coming. You count your apples and put one in a box for God. I don't know how he got them but one in a box for God.

One in a box for God. They were very meticulous about it. Now Jesus says you keep up all the external things. But you remember one day he used a very disgusting analogy. He said you Pharisees are like whited sepulchers.

You know in the East they always put whitewash or a white lime on the outside so you know there was a corpse in there. And Jesus said you keep it all clean and you put flowers around. I wonder why they take flowers to graves.

I mean the folk in the graves don't get up and smell them do they? Why do they do it? As dear old Van Tadden says in his drawl I can't imitate it. His drawl there from South Carolina he lives way up in the hills but he says I never understood cemeteries.

They put an iron railing around them. I don't know why because people outside don't want to get in and people inside can't get out. So what's the good of iron railings? We do a lot of strange things don't we?

And yet the strangest thing of all is that people will go for the external. You know what would happen today if we wore all war phylacteries? We'd have got little pearls round them and diamonds round them.

We'd have embroidered them. We'd make them out of plastic. You say I don't think so we'd have more reverence. Well tell me why people wear the cross when many of them are blasphemers. Why do they decorate the cross of Jesus with diamonds?

At least I'd put rubies there to remember the blood. But I've seen ladies, I remember a lady came to our fellowship. She'd rings on her fingers and bells on her toes as the nursery rhyme says and she came one day with a cross about this length.

A huge cross. Her children didn't know what to buy her so they bought her a cross about four inches. It must have been a quarter or three eighths thick of solid pure gold. What good is a cross outside?

The cross has to be on the inside. Wearing a cross outside. Some people wear it. You know oh if I forget to wear my cross I might have an accident today. You might have one. Somebody might snatch it off your neck if you're in New York.

They tell me down in Miami women don't wear chains round the necks anymore. As a matter of fact in New York I think 400 were stolen in a little over a week and one woman was actually choked because she had a deep necklace on and the man that tried to snatch it he dragged her on the street and she choked on it.

You see people are so superstitious. If I wear a cross somewhere. The cross is a curse. It says clearly there in Galatians cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a tree. The symbol of the church of Jesus Christ is a tongue of fire.

Christ as the Fulfillment of Prophecy

But Jesus again is going out to these disciples and saying listen I am going to fulfill the law and the prophet. What did the prophets prophesy? Well Isaiah prophesied a word perfect picture of the crucifixion 800 years before Jesus was born.

Jesus was crucified. Who has believed our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? He shall grow up before him as a tender plant as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness and there is no beauty that we should desire him.

He is despised and rejected of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Thou hast made his soul an offering for sin not his body. People look at the blood running from his head from his hands and we sing it see from his head his hands his feet.

But that wasn't the sacrifice it was soul that was made an offering for sin. We were dead he had to die in order to bring us life. And if you read carefully through the law and the prophets what you discover.

You discover the law is three things it's doctrinal and it's prophetical and it's ethical. All the doctrine of the Old Testament consummates in Jesus Christ. Ever noticed if you get a very good map of America that all the roads seem to end up in New York.

You see all these red lines go up and there streaks and streaks of red and they all end up. And if it's a good map and it's bigger than America you'll see a lot of black lines going out and it'll show you a sweep like that and it will say Cape Town Africa or some other place in Africa you know 8 ,400 miles away Honolulu so far through the Suez Canal.

Everything converges into New York from the land side everything leaves New York to go to the ends of the earth. All history in one sense ends at the manger of Jesus Christ. All prophecy begins at that manger.

Jesus was before the world began. He was incarnate that is he's God made manifest in the flesh. And when he comes he begins to speak prophetically of things that will happen. Now this is the foundation actually here this is the foundation of his of his eternal kingdom.

The Kingdom of God Within

And there's only one way into that kingdom that's in the referred to of God in the gospel recorded by John. What shall I do to enter the kingdom of heaven? Well do you remember what Paul says in in the what the 14th of Romans that the kingdom of heaven is not meat and drink but righteousness and joy and peace in the Holy Ghost.

Do you think the world is ever more in a mess than it is now? What do the Russians say the Chinese say they have a million men on the border between themselves and Russia. 90 divisions of men outside of Poland right now.

Oh we forget all about we forget all about Afghanistan. We spent hours talking about the peace of something went up and it came down against a lot. And yet people were slaughtered and destroyed in Afghanistan all day today.

But that doesn't make news. Cambodia was raped and people there are dying like flies but so what? Gasoline's gone up two cents today. It's amazing how we get out unbalanced. It's amazing how unrighteous the world is.

It's amazing that men still prefer to commit suicide rather do it shortly in the long run. They still prefer to live without inward peace without inward joy. Jesus comes to set up the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is within you he says.

It's not visible to the natural eye. It's like Jesus again going into Jerusalem and they say well I mean what chance of this fellow being a king? Do you happen to know his address? Does he live in a castle?

Huh? Does he have a bodyguard? I don't see it. Does he have financial backing? Everybody despises him. Yeah but I reminded you Sunday morning if you were there about the man that was preaching in North Philadelphia some months ago.

The church is a big church. Black people are almost entirely and the preacher there is a superman. He's a black man. The assistant is a white man about 34 years of age. He has an earned PhD. He's quite a preacher.

And he preached in one of these conferences you know. They preach from 9 o 'clock in the morning to 9 o 'clock at night with breaks in between. And this white man was to preach before his old boss there was going to preach after him.

And when the young man sat down he said I thought I had the best time in my life. He says when I sat down I just leaned over to my senior pastor and said can you talk there? And he just said boy you ain't heard anything yet.