Three Prayers — Leonard Ravenhill

Psalm 51: A Prayer for Mercy and Cleansing

I want to read some verses tonight from psalm 51, the 51st psalm, reading from verse 1 into the 13th verse. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.

Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in my sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.

Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sin, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee.".

The Fivefold Structure of the Psalms

There are 70 books in the Bible. Maybe they told you in Bible school there were 66, but they don't know. There are 70 books in the Bible for the simple reason that the book of Psalms, the Jewish hymn book, is divided in the Hebrew into five, which adds four to the 66, which again obviously makes 70.

I think the book of Psalms is the best known and the most used book in the Bible. If you go to Scotland, they sing Psalms every wonderful meeting they have. There are 150 Psalms, as you know, and roughly half of them, 75, are written by David.

Some of the Psalms are prophetical. Some of the Psalms are historical. Some of the Psalms are autobiographical. There are at least 18 Psalms which are built around the life, the autobiography, as you would say, of the amazing man David.

Out of those 18 personal Psalms, there are seven penitential Psalms. Out of the seven penitential Psalms, there is one which is outstanding, and that obviously to me is the 51st Psalm. It has no parallel in any literature anywhere.

I think the Psalm 2 is unique in its construction as you gaze at it for a few minutes, because in the first two verses here, you have three different words for sin. In verse 1, he speaks of transgression.

In verse 2, he talks about iniquity, and he finishes that verse by talking about sin. There are three different words for cleansing in this, in these two verses. Verse 1, he says, blot out. Verse 2, he says, wash me.

And in the same verse, he says, cleanse me. Three times in this Psalm, he mentions the Spirit. He mentions the Holy Spirit. He asks for a free spirit. He asks, renew within me a right spirit. Three times in this Psalm, he mentions brokenness.

Three times in this Psalm, he mentions burnt offering. Three times in this Psalm, he mentions sacrifices. And the Psalm itself is actually divided into three prayers. In the first prayer, he prays the prayer of a sinner, have mercy upon me, O God.

A little later in the Psalm, he prays the prayer of, I guess it's a word you've never heard, that when I was a young man, they used to talk about backsliders. They don't have any more. We just are folk out of fellowship.

They're still backsliders. And the second prayer is the prayer of a backslider. The third prayer is a man reaching for the ultimate, this side of eternity. He's asking for a clean heart. One of the great prayers, and many of the hymns are prayers, the great prayer of Charles Wesley's, O for a heart to praise my God.

And the pursuit of every religion in the world is that somehow they might find peace with God, and not only peace with God, but that they may have purity of heart. And there is no other religion under heaven that gives it except this marvelous, wonderful grace of Jesus.

The thing that we sang tonight, there is a fountain, not there was, there is a fountain filled with blood. Remember in New York, they had a very wonderful conductor by the name of Leonard Bernstein in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Interpreting the Word of God With Reverence

It's quite a maverick. He broke about every law that he could break, that is of course in the musical world. One day a friend brought to him a manuscript that he'd bought in Europe. Leonard Bernstein is in his own right, he's a very brilliant concert pianist.

And his friend said to him, Leonard, I want you to play this piece for me. Showed him a dog-eared manuscript, he'd paid hundreds of dollars for it. And Bernstein said, I'm sorry, I can't do it. He said, of course you can do it.

You're one of the greatest pianists in the world. It's not that you can't do it, you won't do it. He said, I can do it. Of course you can do it. Now look, you kids either quit talking or go home. I don't spend time praying, fasting, seeking God for you kids to get up rough.

Bernstein said, I can't do that. The man said, you can, but you won't. No, no, no, no. No, he said, you say this manuscript is 200 years old. You say it was composed in some great cathedral away there in Europe, and you bring me a piece of manuscript and ask me to interpret the mood, the music of a master that I never met.

I can't get his emotion. I don't know how he felt. I can't do it. I feel just about as helpless often when I come to the Word of God. Years ago, a very envious preacher was watching a crowd of people trying to stuff themselves into a great theater in Scotland.

The preacher wasn't having a very good time. People, they were almost acres of empty seats in his church. One day he went to interview the brilliant actor and he said, listen, I want to ask you a question.

How is it I have hundreds of empty seats and you have hundreds of people trying to find seats? What's the reason? The actor says, do you think it might be this, that I make artificial things look real, and you make real things look artificial?

I said last night, a critic in the New York Book Review said recently, and it really griped me when he said it, that modern preaching has lost the awesome beauty and thrilling majesty of the gospel. I'm not offering you an option tonight.

I'm telling you it's imperative that you get saved. Well, if I were to read this, as it should be read after all, it's printed here in nice print on very smooth paper, and it's very well punctuated. It was punctuated.

The grammatical construction is very perfect. Supposing I were to try to read it to you, like the man wrote it, he didn't write it, he didn't dictate it to one of his very charming secretaries, he didn't speak it into an IBM machine.

This psalm is not written with ink, it's written with blood. It's not punctuated with periods and commas, it's punctuated with throbs and groans. When the man gave utterance to this, remember it is written by a king.

David’s Personal Confession of Sin

Notice one particular thing again about this psalm is, it is a monologue. He had committed adultery. He committed murder to cover up the adultery. But there is no direct or oblique reference to the woman he committed sin with.

Notice the emphasis, it's a monologue. Have mercy upon me, O God. According to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgression. Wash me throughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin.

Acknowledge my transgression. The problem in the Church of God today, we all know what's wrong with the pastor and the deacons, but unfortunately we don't know what's wrong with ourselves. We no longer are prepared to sing, it's not my brother nor my sister, we rather sing, it is my brother, it is my sister.

I mean I'm not holding up revival, sure I'm carnal, I don't pray very much, I'm selfish. I've been heartbroken that the Alabama nearly missed getting number one spot. That nearly killed you. People went to hell yesterday, didn't shed a tear about that, did you?

I wonder if some of our churches aren't just great sports centers or great entertainment centers anymore. This man is in anguish of spirit. All his joy has perished. He's still a king. He had a rebel son by the name of Absalom, but he isn't praying about Absalom trying to pull the throne from underneath him or steal a crown off his head.

He isn't thinking about that. He says my sin is ever before me. I would to God tonight your sin was before you. The curse in modern Christianity is we're comfortable with our sin. David here is in anguish of spirit.

He'd enjoyed the pleasures of sin for a season. He satisfied his sex life on that gorgeous woman. And then he committed adultery, after committing adultery, he committed murder to cover up the adultery.

And suddenly he discovers that God is merciful enough to make it miserable. You may go out of this meeting tonight and say it didn't affect me. Well if that happens I suggest on the way home you order your casket, because you're already dead anyhow.

There's one thing pursuing this man. Did you notice it? Have you considered it? I say he prays about the Holy Spirit. I say this man is praying with anguish. He prayed something like this, have mercy upon me oh God.

I don't see many people coming to the altar for mercy. They come for help. They come because they want to go to heaven. They come because some cheap jack evangelist told them if they came here and just prayed the sinner's prayer God be merciful to me a sinner.

They get a mansion on Main Street, a five-decker crown, a free ticket to the marriage supper of the Lamb. We're going to rule over five cities and have immunity from judgment. That's about the best deal you could get anywhere isn't it?

Except it's a pack of lies that's all there is to it. Have you seen many heartbroken people at an altar recently? Really weeping, really groaning. David says a thing that haunted me for years. I never got any help on it until praying one day.

He said take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Why did he say that? Because there had been a very wonderful king by the name of Saul. He was the most handsome gifted man in Israel. And one day with all the pomp and majesty they anointed him to be king in Israel.

They took some holy some oil that was sanctified because the oil that they put on the priest was not the oil they put on the immobile things there in the temple. It was a different oil. It was a very precious oil.

And they took the horn of a cow and hollowed it and then they filled it with oil and they dripped, dripped, dripped it on the head of Saul, the king of Israel. Do you know what happened to him? He was filled with the Spirit.

He was not only filled with the Spirit, he had gifts of the Spirit. He prophesied. And yet the man who received the anointing to rule over a nation, the man who was filled with the Spirit, anointed to the Spirit, gives of the Spirit, he died a suicide.

David says my God don't let this happen to me. Do you remember after he lost the anointing of God he did like so many other folk he tried to find an answer. And eventually he ends up groveling at the feet of a dirty spiritist medium.

The Departure of God’s Spirit From Saul

And he says listen I want you to bring up Samuel. And I think it's the only time in history it ever happened. And the spirit of Samuel came up. And as soon as the king saw the prophet he thought oh well we were good friends he'll have a good word for me.

And he says Samuel listen I want to tell you something. The Lord has departed from me. Will you call upon your God? Not my God he didn't say. Not even our God. Will you call upon your God? I've lost everything but most of all I've lost the witness, the power, the presence of the Spirit of God.

Pray for me. And the finger of the man of God went up like the finger of Nathan went up to David. And he says God hath forsaken thee. And he ran out and committed suicide. Do you know anything more tragic this side of eternity than a man who, a woman who at one time had a great close wonderful walk with God and then somehow got fouled up with sin and they grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

And they haven't found any respiration. I remember a woman came out to an altar in a meeting we had in 1937 away in a crusade in England. I've seen some ugly women but she was the ugliest of them all.

She was as wrinkled as a prune. She was about six feet high. She was dressed in black. She looked black. She stayed at an altar and wept for about an hour, heartbroken, sobbing. I went to her finally.

It was in a tent. Knelt in the sawdust there and I said listen woman what in the world is your problem? You've been weeping here for an hour. And she said I'll tell you what my problem is. 40 years ago I was an officer in the Salvation Army.

And one night I got into quarrel with another officer and she wanted her way and I wanted my way. And I went home and said so that's Christianity. She was already a graduating officer from the Salvation Army.

She said I was so angry I took my straw bonnet and tore it up. I cut up my tunic and I put it on the fire. I tore the pages out of my bible and stuffed them on the fire. And she said from that day until tonight 40 years ago the voice of God I have never heard.

I heard William Blue the founder of the Salvation Army thumbing out the judgments of God. And people screamed to the altar. And I sat there like a stone unmoved. I heard that religious special the Salvationists had by the name of Colonel Brangle the tender man preach.

People screamed to the altar. I was totally unmoved. Now she said I'm 72 years of age. I've had 40 years in the wilderness. I have never read my bible. I've never been to a meeting I enjoyed. I've never felt any emotion of the spirit.

I've never been blessed by a hymn. I've never been in a church meeting I enjoyed. And God has never spoken until tonight. I'll tell you by the time that woman got up from her knees she was a very very different person.

Oh David had a wonderful experience but you see all his joys withered. You know a lot of people want to be filled with the spirit but they don't want to be emptied. They want resurrection life but they don't want to die.

They want to be clothed upon by the spirit. They don't want to be stripped. David says don't take your Holy Spirit from me. He was a Baptist preacher who said if God took his spirit out of my church my folk wouldn't know.

We'd function like we do every Lord's day. We'd go through the mechanics. We'd stand up and sing, take an offering, let the choir sing and say something about a missionary pledge and we'd go home. We wouldn't even know he'd gone.

Notice what he says, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Who is the Holy Spirit? He's not an influence, he's a person. He's the spirit of truth and when he comes in a ministry that we don't see too much of and begins to convict because he is the spirit of truth he convicts of error.

Because he's the spirit of life he convicts of death. Because he's the spirit of power he convicts of weakness. Because he's the spirit of joy he convicts of the emptiness of our hearts where there is no real joy.

Because he is the spirit of freedom he convicts of bondage. Because he's the spirit of fire he convicts of coldness. And there's nothing the church of the living God needs more or maybe we need more in this sanctuary tonight than that the Spirit of God begins right at the first pew and comes right on here and goes right round and begins to say this is your problem and this is your lack and this is your need.

David’s Songs, Spiritual Power, and True Revival

Oh this man had marvelous experience with with God. Have you ever tried to visualize him singing on the hills of Bethlehem one night when the stars were shining and he's playing on his harp and singing that marvelous 23rd Psalm.

The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. I'd like to I'd like a tape recording of that. I give about 10 ,000 other tape records are not worth it. But I'd like to have heard him sing the 23rd Psalm. I think when he sang in the valley of the shadow of death I will say no evil I kind of figure myself he was thinking about the time he went into the valley of the shadow of death to fight Goliath.

And we often forget he didn't just fight Goliath, Goliath had a shield bearer. Remember he put five stones in his sling at least in his pouch. Do you know why he put five? Because Goliath had four brothers and he hoped they'd all come.

He'd have got rid of them all the same night. And remember Goliath is covered with metal all over except there just just there's a little spot the little boy he threw a stone at and hit him right there that's where the stone hit him.

You know such a thing had never entered his head before. And he just went down like a log. Oh isn't it wonderful. We've got the smartest preachers in the world these days and they're just about the most powerless.

They went to seminary because grandma paid their way. I wish she'd died 10 years before but grandma paid their way. And then they got a diploma and they stuck it on the wall. Well do you know what? The devil isn't interested in diplomas.

We've got the cleverest ministry that the church has ever seen and the most bankrupt preachers that I know. Yeah you folks saying it's right you're not preachers but that's all right. When the preachers get convicted they'll say you're right.

Okay well there you are. Can you imagine David on the hills of Bethlehem? Oh it must have sounded wonderful in heaven as the little fellow sat there and he prayed his heart and he sang his praises unto God.

Maybe he was living as near heaven and as high in spirituality as any man. But remember also he wrote the 139th psalm which is one of the most devastating psalms. It's one of the most challenging things ever written in the holy word of God.

Because in that 139th psalm he's more bold I think than ever he was anywhere else. He says to a holy God who is of holy rise and to behold iniquity, search me O God. Dare you say that tonight. Now come on we're not playing games.

This is not a theater. It's not a show. Dare you shoot a prayer to heaven right now and say Lord in the next 20, 30, 40 minutes however long that preacher is will you search me like you search Jerusalem with a candle.

He says here in this psalm search me O God and know my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there'd be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. You've got to be living very close to God when you dare to challenge him to come and take your heart apart and say there it is have a look at it.

He doesn't say that to Gabriel. He says to a God who is of holy rise and to behold iniquity. He says it almost defiantly. Search me O God. In this psalm he doesn't say that. He says hide thy face from my sins.

Psalm 139 he challenges God to exposure. Here he says don't don't don't. My sin is ever before me. You see he got a girl into trouble and every time he heard a baby cry the sin entered his own ears as though it were his own child.

He looked out of his castle and there's a man standing to attention and every time a smart young soldier salutes him he remembers he put a man to death. You know we pray very often for revival but revival is the most uncomfortable thing.

Do you know what? I'll make a guess here that possibly nobody in this meeting has ever been in a revival. We've been in revival meetings but that's not revival. When revival comes there's a plague of misery.

When revival comes people don't say I wish it quickly I get home because I want a hamburger before I get to bed tonight. Look you won't forget remember hamburgers or anything else once you see you've got something in your bosom which is worse than cancer.

Once you realize that that son that daughter of yours who is unsaved is doomed and lost forever and ever it'll shatter your life. You're eating and you're drinking. I've said before I say again without any fear because God gave me one day in prayer there's just one reason why we don't have revival.

Do you know what it is? Because we're content to live without it that's why. We're not too worried with a bit of money in the bank. Look at this lovely church or the church you go to. At the present moment there's no rationing of gas or maybe.

I have a kind of secret feeling in my heart that God Almighty is going to wreck the economy of America not to get sinners right to get the church right. We in the church are not going to suffer for the sin of the world the world is going to suffer for the sin that's in the church.

Because there never has been a demon this side of hell or any satanic system whether you mention fascism or communism or catholicism or in the world you've got. There's no human system can ever hold up revival it's God's people hold up revival.

Sin, Cultural Decay, and the Church’s Responsibility

Well do you think you dare pray that prayer tonight Serge Milgaard? You never believed 10 years ago would you that within a decade 40, 50 ,000 homosexuals would march through not 40 ,000 in four cities but four cities with 40 to 50 ,000 homosexuals would march blatantly through cities.

But the poor fellow that got just recently in Frisco wasn't he the guy that walked up when he said Mr. Carter walked down Pennsylvania Avenue with his wife so I'm going to walk up and take my office in the uh in the capital of the of the state.

I'm going to take my office with my arm around my wife who happened to be a man. I think this homosexuals may lie a little bit low now that one of their glorious number has managed to murder 32 young men after his devilish practices.

You'd hardly think that there are 30 ,000 boys who are hired out by their parents for sexual pleasure of men in the state I believe of California alone. How long do we have to challenge God? Again I ask you how long do we put on our coins in God we trust to herald his commandment?

We've legalized abortion, we've legalized prostitution in Nevada, we're legalizing state lotteries. You see the church is the offender here because we've changed the language. It used to be in the in the good old bible days this man here talks about iniquity but we've changed iniquity to infirmity.

The bible says sin is a disease we don't say it's a disease we say it's a defect. We say sin is error, missing the mark, the lonely. Do you know what God says? God doesn't say that sin is error he says sin is enmity against God.

We say sin is a blunder God says sin is blindness. I preached in a great church in Dublin Ireland right across from the Abbey Theatre where Handel played the Messiah first completely. It's a stately Methodist church.

I remember that night a number of people came to Christ even a number of Catholics. About two years after I was in a conference with the well the group that was founded actually by C .D. Sturt and a man came up to me.

You remember me? I said no. Oh I thought you'd remember me. Well you've all got to look at me I'm sorry you have in one sense and you could look at me and you see me and you say that's a great thing. I look at you I don't know whether you're Mary Jane or who in the world you are and somebody says do you remember me?

No I don't remember you. Very often I don't wonder but anyhow the man said you remember me? I said no. Do you remember preaching the Abbey Theatre one night? Oh I remember that yeah three years ago. Do you remember saying I thought you were a terrible preacher.

You said I would like to touch a spring in your mind that would open all the sins of your life from the day of your accountability sins of the flesh sins of the spirit sins you remember sins you've forgotten big ones little ones but all your sins and I'd like them to march around your bedroom tonight saying I was born of your lust I was born of your evil desires.

I said I remember saying that. He said wife and I went home we didn't even take our usual cup of tea and cookies before going to bed and he said we went upstairs and I sat on one side of that she sat on the other.

We sat there for nearly an hour and she said in a sweet way get into bed you know like husbands and wives do. Get into bed. He said I said get into bed yourself. An hour after why don't you get into bed?

Why don't you get into bed? I can't because Raymond said tonight he wished all our sins would have a resurrection. We sat a bit longer. Are you going to get into bed? Are you going to get into bed? No.

All right he said I yanked the bed from the wall pulled it back from the wall and he said I walked round that way and she walked round that way we went round and round and round and round and round. He said about two o 'clock in the morning suddenly she crashed to the ground and she wept and she groaned and she prayed and then he said she got up and said I feel great.

Well I don't. Well why don't you pray? He said she got into bed. I went on walking round and round and round and round and then I hit the floor too and I began to pray like David have mercy upon me oh God.

You know that's a wonderful word mercy isn't it? Something I had no claim on God at all. He could cast me to hell. He could put me in a thousand hells. I deserve every one of them and yet he has something which is almost indefinable called mercy.

You'd have to go to Scotland to hear them sing the 23rd Psalm. You'd have to go to Wales to hear them sing a hymn that says this great God of wonders all thy ways display thine attributes divine but countless acts of pardoning grace above all other wonders shine.

Who is a pardoning God like thee? Have you thought today that the heathen in their blindness have been bowing down to wood and stone? I read it this morning in Psalm 115. They have gods who have eyes that can't see and ears that can't hear and throats that can't speak and feet that can't move and they cry.

I've seen them do it. My son David was talking about when he was in New Guinea talking about it today to some preachers there. They have their temples they have their evil spirits. I remember being in Thailand and watching men kneel before the uh that great big golden uh statue of the the reclining Buddha.

Maybe you saw it if you went to Thailand. And they bring their gifts. They cry with their broken hearts. The gods who have no hearts. There's one thing about this man he's not fooling about anything. He's not saying Lord I make made a mistake and I know you're a God of mercy and love.

Three times in this psalm he mentions brokenness. He says the bones which thou hast broken. He hath got a broken bone in his body. In 1951 I jumped out of a burning hotel. Somebody asked me how many stories high.

I think about 300. Well that's what it looked like at three o 'clock on Sunday morning in my pajamas. In a burning hotel there was no way out and I leapt out of the window down onto the sidewalk and brought my back in three places and and this leg leg in three pieces and my feet were in bed.

I lay there in sub-zero weather and a man came around the corner. He said what are you doing here? I almost said having my lunch. What do you think I'm having? He said you can't stay here. I said listen I don't want to but I want to tell you something.

He said why don't you get up and go away. I said because I'd broken my back and my legs and my feet. He said I don't think it's so bad. What did you do? And there was a sheet of flame about 50 feet long I guess coming out of the bedroom I'd been in.

I said I leapt out of that room. He said you didn't. Well I said some dismissed I thought I did. He said well you don't need to stay here. Something may come around the corner would you believe. Is this American humor?

He said if something may come around the corner and you'll get hurt. And thinking he was doing me a favor he put his arm under my my broken legs and under my back and he tried to lift me and as he did all those bones just screamed.

I didn't scream. I bit my bit my lip. I bit a piece of a hole actually in my lip. But I'll tell you what those bones that were broken really really gave me hell. And David says when you have a broken relationship with God, if you've got any conscience about it, if you've got any tenderness about it, you want to live a day like that.

You say the bones which thou has broken. Either a lovely prayer meeting tonight before the meeting. Tomorrow night I'm going to talk about problems. It'll be a very different meeting I assure and a very enjoyable meeting.

Not many meetings I have are enjoyable. I'm not here to cater to folk but tomorrow night we'll help you more than any other message maybe. And then we're going to follow it with prayer meeting where in the other chapel.

Yeah we're going to have it nice and warm and we're going to pray from about 10 o 'clock to 12 or 1 or 2. But you know I heard a man pray tonight and he prayed with brokenness. I think the one tragedy about most of our prayer meetings there are no tears in them.

Compassion for the Lost and the Call to Rescue

I've been preaching for 30 days in the First Baptist Church in Atlanta and I preached on the prodigal son one night. That was the third part of the message. And I said to that church, look this message is not for sinners, harlots and drunks here.

It's for this church. You've no compassion for the lost. You live in Peet Street where if you stop your automobile a girl will open the door and sit at the side of you and tell you the price of her body.

You've got to lock the doors or the girls get in the cars. At the back of the church there's an enormous old mansion. It's packed. Oh that's a sick word with people we call gay. What in God's name is gay about homosexuality?

It's the damning sin. It'll destroy our nation. And I said you have no compassion. The pastor's daughter, a red-haired lovely girl was sitting there. If the pastor's daughter was selling a body on that street, would you have sat in this church for the last six, seven years without trying to rescue her?

Or the pastor's son going to hell, would you have sat here? I told them I wouldn't preach that week. I said Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night. We're going to put microphones up around the church and we're going to pray.

Do you know the first night about a thousand people turned up? The second night maybe four or five hundred and so the third night. And I said I want you to make a pledge, not to me, not to Dr. Charles Stanley.

You make a pledge to God that from tonight you want a broken heart over lost men. That you'll do everything in your power to be here Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights. And then when I go away you'll launch a crusade, you'll find a place and every week you'll go and rescue the perishing and care for the dying.

I said I'm going to ask Dr. Charles Stanley to pray. I said if you'll make that vow to God, not me, not him, you'll come and stand here. And I guess 300 or more people came sobbing. And Dr. Stanley came up, precious man of God.

Do you know what he said? He said folk I can't pray for you tonight, I'd be a hypocrite. He said the reason you haven't loved the lost is I haven't loved them. I've been asking God get these dirty prostitutes and jail birds and homosexuals and drunk folk out of the city that are cursed.

I wanted him to remove them, not give me love to reach them. You know that takes an awful lot of courage for a guy with a church of 7 ,000 members and a lot of elite beautiful folk there. But they started a rescue squad too.

And they go out every week now to rescue the perishing and care for the dying. You see we say to people now be very careful because if you sin it will hurt you. And number two it will hurt the person you sin with, but you missed it by a million miles.