Washed With Fire — Leonard Ravenhill

Before he retired as the founder-editor of Christianity Today, Dr. Carl S. Henry sent out a questionnaire to, he said, twenty intellectual preachers in the nation. I didn't know there were so many, but he sent this questionnaire out, and the question was this.

The Church Surrounded by Militant Paganism

What do you see for the Church of Jesus Christ by the year 2000? I remember two of the answers, particularly one of them, and it was given by the Quaker philosopher Alfred Trueblood. I don't like a lot of his theology, but he says some very, very acute things, and he said that by the year 2000, the Church of Jesus Christ will be a conscious minority surrounded by an arrogant, militant paganism.

I swore to that, I went to bed, I woke up with a kind of mental indigestion about two o 'clock in the morning. I began to think about that statement, by the year 2000, the Church will be a conscious minority surrounded by an arrogant, militant paganism.

Then I did a little backtracking and asked myself if it is not true of the Church of Jesus Christ today, that we're surrounded by an arrogant, militant paganism. And then I went a little further back and asked myself if it wasn't true in the day when the Church was born.

The Church of Jesus Christ was not served to the world on a silver platter. It was born again in an arrogant, militant paganism. It was born in a sophisticated, totalitarian society. And an understanding on the southern lips of the greatest hall in the world, which of course is the Grand Canyon, there's a legend there on a brass plate or a bronze plate.

It describes the view that seven miles ahead of you, that yellow ribbon that's flowing, is actually the Colorado River, which I think is about 450 feet wide and 45 feet deep, about pointy. If you're down in the basin, you'll be walled in with a wall on the left-hand side and one on the right-hand side, each of them a mile high.

As I gazed at that, there suddenly came to my mind this question. Supposing you put a child a year or two years old in that canyon, how would he make it out? He sure couldn't swim across that fast-flowing river.

He certainly couldn't climb up the side of the steep canyon there. And then I translated that to this. How did the Church of Jesus Christ get out of a situation like that? It was walled in on one side with the greatest military machine in the world, the power of the Roman Empire.

It was walled in on this side with the intellectual splendor of the Greeks, and the roadblock ahead was nothing less than the monopoly, at least, the Jews thought they had on God. And here you have a bunch of unlettered, unknown men in the upper room.

They pretty much had a pretty bad record for failure and doubt and fear, and they were the men who were going to penetrate both the intellectual splendor of the Greeks and the power of the Romans, and they did it.

Baptism With the Holy Ghost and Fire

I want to talk tonight about being washed with fire. The message of God to the world is given in John 3 .16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. The message of God to the Church is in Luke 3 .16, which unfortunately is not known quite as well.

But this is what it says, Luke 3 .16. It's the same as Matthew 3 .11, by the way. John Anson saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier than I cometh. The lattice of his shoes I am not worthy to unloose.

He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Now I've got another text. It doesn't mean I'll preach twice as long. Don't worry, you'll be home for breakfast anyhow. But the second text is this dividing page between the Testaments.

It's a white page. It covers a period of 400 years of almost unparalleled darkness. It has no message, it has an eloquent message. This is at least the second time that this nation has been into captivity.

And suddenly across that 400 years of darkness, like Haley's meteor flashing over the sky, we get the incandescent personality of the greatest character Jesus said that ever lived. And then again by the name of John Baptist.

John the Baptist's Holy Ghost-Filled Calling

I believe we're heading for the most disastrous days, not only in American history, but all history. As I said this morning, our problem is not economic, it is not moral merely, it is a spiritual problem.

The answer is not N .O .T. in the White House. The answer is in God's house if we get that house cleansed and all of us move up to our birthrights in Jesus Christ. Now, the background of the life of Luke, pardon me, of John Baptist is given in the Gospel recorded by Luke.

I confess I like to study John Baptist. He's like me, he's odd. The background is this. His father was a priest at the Course of Abir, it says in this chapter, and he was going to perform a duty that he performed only once in all his priestly life.

He never rehearsed it. There were 2 ,000 other priests in line, 2 ,000 Levites too, and each of them wanted the honor of going into the temple and making the offering that again he was only going to make once in his life.

You can see him perhaps coming down the aisle of that great place. It held at least 6 ,000 people according to history. It says that the people were in the altar court because the time of the sacrifice was announced about 9 o 'clock in the morning when priests, 3 or 4 of them, stood on the porch of the temple called Herod's Temple.

He financed it, the government job, and the priests stood there with their long trumpets, gave a blast, and immediately they did that, the temple was opened, the priest was allowed to come in and the others were allowed to follow him.

Now here he is coming down the aisle, nervous. He hadn't rehearsed this before. He might fall over that long skirt he was wearing. His garments were heavy, so was the mitre he was wearing. And as he comes up to the altar, let's read for a minute here about this man.

In Luke chapter 1 verse 5. There was in the days of Herod the king of Judah a certain priest named Zacharias of the Cross of Abiah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, working in all the commandments, and the ordinances of God blameless.

Verse 8. It came to pass that while he executed the priest's office before God and they ordered his course, according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he entered into the temple.

The whole multitude of the people were praying without. They had not yet come into the sanctuary, they were outside. They would follow him as he came up to the front to make this offering. And verse 11 says there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar.

Now why does it say that? Does it matter whether he stands on the right or the left? Sure it does. If he stands on the left side of the altar he has a message for the nation. If he stands on the right side of the altar he has a message for an individual.

Here is a man already troubled, he's already nervous about the whole situation, and of all things there's an angel waiting for him. And so it says that, I guess I'd be troubled too. But verse 12 says that when Zacharias saw him, saw the angel, he was troubled and fear fell upon him.

The angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias, for thy prayer is heard. Thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. Verse 15, and he shall be called great in the sight of the Lord.

Do you know there is no other greatness than that? The greatest thing in the world is to be great in the sight of God. All other greatness vanishes. Here is a prediction upon this child, that he's going to be great in the sight of God.

But look at this astounding thing. He shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. It doesn't even say that about Jesus. He was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb.

If you go a little further into the chapter, it says that in the 41st verse, it came to pass when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leapt in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.

But not only she wasn't filled with the Holy Ghost until she got into the presence of Jesus. She couldn't see him, but he was there. He was there in the womb of his mother, and immediately she came into the presence of the Lord Jesus, she was filled with the Holy Ghost.

And then in verse 67 it says, and his father, Zacharias, was filled with the Holy Ghost, and he got some gifts of the Spirit. He prophesied. That's pretty good going, isn't it? He was filled with the Holy Ghost the day he was born.

Do you think he spoke in tongues that day? I'm only asking the question because I didn't look up the Amplifier to see what it said about it, so I thought you might know. But without being facetious about it, it says he was filled with the Holy Ghost.

That's the momentous thing. His mother was filled with the Holy Ghost. His father was filled with the Holy Ghost. And the preacher of the day, it says in the next chapter, in verse 25, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.

The same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Ghost was upon him, and revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.

And he came by the Spirit into the temple. Now, if that isn't an advantage, tell me what is. A fellow comes into the world filled with the Holy Ghost from the moment he was born, mother filled with the Holy Ghost, father filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesied, and his preacher filled with the Holy Ghost.

You couldn't have a better start than that in a rotten world like this, could you? He got it going for him. This rare, strange character was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. It says in the 80th verse of the 1st chapter, the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts until a day of his showing unto Israel.

Now, remember later, Jesus is going to say about this man, that of all the men, and he must have included Jeremiah and Isaiah and the others, that there was no man ever stood greater. There was no greater man ever lived than John Baptist.

Now, there's a kind of a veil over his life. There's a lot of things we don't know. We do know this, and it's a great clue as far as I'm concerned. That he was in the days of the wilderness until the time of his showing forth.

I can't prove this except by inference, and I think common sense. I believe that this man was the man of sorrows until the man of sorrows came. I don't know what time of his life, maybe he was 12 years of age, maybe older, and he went into the university where God likes to take men, the university of silence.

He took Moses there. Moses was loaded with intellectual power. He got ages of culture. He'd been trained as a prince. He's 40 years of age. He's a statesman. He makes law. Read the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostle.

And he seems to be a fully accomplished man. 40 years. Learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. I think he learned more the second 40. He lived with his mother-in-law. And then when he was 80 years of age, 40 years shut there in the stillness.

Not learning, unlearning. Not finding out how great he was, finding out what impossible task he had. Now John the Baptist comes into a situation like that. Now look, this man is no done man. He's still the spirit of God.

All the gifts he had I don't know. But no man is going to be there in the wilderness talking with God, reasoning with God, thinking about God. A man who knows everything about the law and the prophets.

This man has not come to establish a new denomination, but to explode an old abomination. That's all the ritual. Here is a man who is going to appear there in the wilderness. What a character he is. I don't know how he made it.

He had no mailing list. He had no sponsors. He was an unusual and wanted, unpredictable, unreasonable kind of man. If he had gone down the street in Jerusalem, somebody would have said, oh look at the high priest.

The word of God says that he wore garments of glory and of beauty. And in case you don't know, he didn't buy them at Save Robach either. Every thread was put in by hand. All the exquisite, delicate work was put there by hand.

All the precious stones on his breast had to be shaped and fashioned by hand. All the engravings. It took years and years and years. And somebody said, you see there, the garments of the high priest. Garments of glory and beauty.

You see, he's our high priest. We have a monopoly of God. John Baptist turns up in the wilderness the very opposite of that, sartorially. A leavened girdle about his loins. He must have looked like a hippie.

Well, at least he's leathered around his hippies, anyhow. But anyhow, the fact is that he's a strange contradiction. I'm going to suggest to you that this man was versed in the law and the prophets. He looks on a bankrupt, decadent nation.

He sees forms of godliness. He'd heard over and over and over the high priest reciting the thirty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, that when he is come he'll do all this and that and the other, you know. He opened the eyes of the blind.

But this nation that had been called for holiness unto the Lord was bankrupt and derelict. It had no spiritual power. For four hundred years it had deteriorated. And then suddenly you find one man. Maybe we still need to learn that one man with God is a majority.

He didn't need financial backing. He didn't need an advanced man. He didn't even have a guitar. And he had all the accessories that we have. Isn't it staggering how little we do with all the stuff we've got today?

We broadcast more gospel in one day to America than the rest of the world does in a month. We've got more Bible schools in this nation than the rest of the world put together. We've got billions of dollars invested in poverty and most of it stinks anyhow.

But there's a strange feeling amongst people today that it's time for an awakening. I spent most of the last two or three years in Southern Baptist churches. Big ones. David and I were in the church the other week with 7 ,000 members.

Went to another one with 6 ,000. I found a deeper hunger for God and deeper hunger for prayer. I'm startled when I go into those churches and find they have a 24-hour prayer meeting. It never stops year in and year out.

But when the preacher stands up Sunday morning a bunch of men go out into a room and there they lay hold of God and hold up that preacher. At night a bunch of women go out and they pray all the time the preacher's preaching and they're seeing marvelous powers of God manifested.

Not just physical miracles but spiritual and moral miracles. There's a capacity right now, pardon me, there's a cavity in the religious life not only of America but of the whole world that even the modern charismatic good as it is has not filled.

And I believe the one answer that's going to release the power of God, the one thing that's going to change as this nation was changed on the power of God is the baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire. That's the only thing that will melt the ice.

Revival Requires Desperate Prayer

John comes into the wilderness. Well that's about the worst place in the world to start a crusade, isn't it? Once having a congregation and no seats for them to sit up. No publicity. He's nothing going for him.

Well of course he could say he was the pastor of the fastest growing Baptist church in the world. He was the only one there was anyhow. So he got that on his side. I preached in a certain place and a brother came to me and he said, Raymond if you would continue preaching like that and then ask God to give you the gift of healing you could, well you could just about fill any auditorium in America I think.

Well I said that's very good. You know in this nation we've had more miracles of healing through Oral Roberts, Kathleen Kuhlman and the rest in the last 40 years than all the nations on the heavens. And we're nearer hell at this moment than ever we've been since we became a nation.

Not because of them, in spite of them. You see there's a strange magnetism about this man. He's filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. And I'm going to tell you that I believe with all my heart that he was a man of sorrow.

I believe one day you'll find that he prayed day after day all about when the heavens will come down. I believe there's one simple reason we do not have revival in America. Do you know what it is? Because we're content to live without it, that's why.

When it's more important for you to see God when the heavens and baptize the nation with mercy and see people by the thousands turn to God and to make a dollar or become a famous guy or the best dressed man in town or the finest church.

When you get desperate about it. But I'm convinced God does not answer prayer. God answers desperate prayer. Did you notice something about this woman that bore this child? She was a barren woman. Have you noticed that barren women in history produced the greatest sons?

Remember Abraham's wife? She bore a marvelous son. Remember that Samson's mother was barren? Remember Hannah? Oh she got more of a husband's affection, more of his income maybe. There came a day when she said this won't do anymore.

For years and years and years she'd gone to temples, she'd gone to conferences, she'd gone to other places and her adversary provoked her year after year. But there came a deadline. You find the same thing there in the 30th chapter of Genesis.

Rachel received more attention from her husband than the other wife. She's the queen of the tribe. Everybody admires her. I guess her hair was never out of place and her dress was beautiful and her personality was charming.

One day she comes in and says to that husband, I don't think her hair was done very well. I think her eyes were sore with tears. She throws herself at his feet and says, Jacob give me children or I die.

Do we pray like that? Is it time we change the prayer of Patrick Henry from give me liberty or give me death and say to a holy God who may take our word and give us revival or let's die. Because if we don't get revival we're sure going to die anyhow.

We watch the deterioration of the nations, we see the corruption in the nations, we see the paralysis of the united nations, who in the world are they united? I'll show you what, they're divided. Other help us fail and comforts flee.

If the church of Jesus Christ has anything to say, well now's the time for her to wake up, stand up, speak up or shut up. Because there's no other hope in any other direction. Women that were barren brought abnormal children.

Here is a child that's going to be born and the prophecy given shall be that he's going to be filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. Can you imagine people going to church or going to the temple and saying, you know what, a lot of empty seats.

Oh yeah, it's getting worse too. Worse? You know why? No. Oh there's a fellow down the road a few miles away started a new coat. He's a strange man. You see when God wanted to do something he wasn't going to dress him up like the other guy up there.

He couldn't have been a greater contradiction could he? His hairy chest, a bit of an old camel skin round his neck. We'd have sent him out in double knits and alligator shoes and a big diamond ring on his hair tasseled.

You know how pretty these evangelist boys look these days. When they go past you say, that lady, I mean that man was wearing something there. No, no, no. This is one of the rarest breeds of men in the world.

Prophetic Preaching and the Call to Repentance

I believe today the tragedy of our pulpits is that most of them are filled with puppets instead of prophets. Prophets are God's emergency men for crisis hours. The prophet by the very nature of his calling is a tragic figure.

He has a fierce loyalty to God. He has a strong devotion and love for the nation. He's torn between the two. He knows that God is of holier eyes than to behold iniquity. Now you know some people get a little upset because I have an English tongue.

I was in a meeting, a lady came to see me, blonde, beautiful. Of course her beauty went down the sink every night, but she made a pretty good job of it. And she had bright blue eyes, lovely blonde hair.

You know what we call a suicide blonde, dyed by her own hand. And she said, you know I don't like your preaching. I said, well shake hands, I don't like it either. I wish it was ten times hotter. She said, I don't like the thing you say about our nation.

I said, well it's no good preaching about England when I'm in America. Or America when they're about England, let's face it. I left my nationality at the cross with my sins. I'm an Englishman, no no no, I'm a Christian.

The other paraphernalia doesn't matter very much. I say again that we need this breed of man, this man. Again he's a tragic figure. You see he senses the wrath of God. He walks with God, he talks with God, he lives with God.

He has his dwelling with the wild beasts. Here is a man of chronic austerity, of vulgar tongue. Merciless against those in high places. You know in that awesome terrible day that's coming before long.

When God pulls the blinds out and blows the lights out. And every man that'll lift from Adam until that moment is going to stand at the judgment seat of Christ. I think at that moment we'll discover that Watergate was not a political tragedy.

Or just a moral tragedy, it was a spiritual tragedy. Do you know why? Because 18 different preachers preached to Nixon and not one of them got through to him. Do you think John Baptist would have got through to him?

If only some man had gone. Endured with power and dared to say the thing that needed to be said. He might have repented there and then. John Baptist comes into a situation. He can't call the scripture if two of us agree because there weren't two of them there anyhow.

He doesn't have a revival party with him. He has no soloists. He has none of the backing that we seem to need these days. But there he appears. After the darkest period, 400 years of darkness. And then suddenly a flashing, blazing personality.

400 years of stillness without any prophetic voice. And then just like a thunderclap going down the valley they hear the word repent. That's a dirty word in evangelism today. You don't talk about repentance.

I hear a little bit about the fruits of the spirit and sometimes I hear a little bit about fruits unto righteousness from Romans chapter 6. I hear very little about bringing forth fruit, meat for repentance.

Now John the Baptist, I don't care how you measure him with your little instinct. Geographically, socially, politically, spiritually. Doesn't matter how you measure him. He was a giant. If you want to know the background of his life, look in the third chapter of the gospel as recorded by Luke.

It says, Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being the Tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip the Tetrarch of Arturia, and of the region of Trachonitis and Lysanias the Tetrarch of Abilene.

That's about as refreshing as a mouthful of sand, isn't it? Do you care of a Tetrarch? What's a Tetrarch? Mr. Brooks will tell you after the meeting. He'll ask the blocky in between, but that's all right.

When the world cares about Tetrarchs and rulers, but I'm showing you the setup into which he came. And then he gets from bad to worse as the Irish. Annas and Charithos being the high priests. It's illegal to have two high priests.

The word of God came unto the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. His name was John. And they came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance and the mission of sin. Verse four says, he was a voice crying in the wilderness.

That's all he did. Nobody went after John saying, have mercy on my son, he's a lunatic. He wasn't straightening with a damp. He had no healing lines. He didn't raise a dead man. He raised a dead nation.

This man has had a volcano building up in his spirit thirty years. He'd wept. He'd groan. He cried over those who were in the heavens. And he knew that God was the omnipotent God. He knew that they'd come to the end of an era.

He knew that he was a fire-baptized, God-energized man to stand in the breach. He stood there in the valley preaching and crying, prepare ye the way of the Lord. Verse five says, every valley shall be filled.

Every mountain and hill shall be brought low. The crooked shall be made straight and the rough places shall be made plain. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, all generation of vipers who have warned you to flee from the wrath to come and so forth, bring forth fruit neat for repentance.

Now discover how effective his ministry was. They came from Jerusalem. You'll have to read the different versions in the gospel. Let me bridge it for you. They came from Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. So geographically he was a success.

Socially he penetrated every level of society because it says that while he preached, verse nine, the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore which bringeth not good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.

The people asked him, you know the difference between revival and evangelism? You see, most of them have never seen a revival. He's seen somebody stick a notice outside of a church, revival begins Wednesday night, finishes a week Thursday.

The Holy Ghost never read it, so he never came. You know, I think that about the most stubborn, pitiable Christians God Almighty has ever had to raise. I don't care how much Greek you know. Can you tell me any version of the scripture, get the twenty-four, where it says the Holy Spirit comes eleven o 'clock Sunday morning, leaves at twelve, comes back seven o 'clock Sunday night, leaves at eight, and you don't need him until Wednesday night.

I never saw that anywhere. As Dr. Tose used to say to me, Len, you can be sure when revival comes, for a number of reasons, the lights don't go out in the sanctuary, maybe for weeks. And the other thing is, there's a change in the moral climate of the community.

This man attracts people like a fire attracts the bugs at night or the moths and things. You know there's one thing for sure. You never have to advertise a fire. Whether it's physical or spiritual, you never have to advertise it.

Revival, Evangelism, and People Calling for Change

While he's preaching, now nearly every meeting finishes with an altar call. There are no altar calls in the New Testament. Tell me where there is one, will you? The difference between evangelism and revival is this, that in evangelism we give altar calls, in revival people do the calling.

Look at the context here. He's preaching about the axe being laid to the root of the tree, and it says in verse 10, the people asked him, saying, what shall we do then? Verse 12, the publicans came to be baptized.

And they said, Master, what shall we do? And of all things the nation was invaded with those Roman soldiers who wore their breastplates and their plumes, and they stood round, they were heathen, they were the lesser breeds without the law, if you want Kipling's word for it.

They'd watch the priest going to the high place, they'd watch the Feast of Tabernacles, Pentecost, and all the other anniversaries the Jews had, and it never fazed them. And somebody said, if you want to see real religion, a man on fire, a man that somehow has something strange we can't define, when you have a day off, go down into the wilderness, and even the Roman soldiers were there, soft as they were in their heathenism, and even as he preached, he said, the soldiers said, what shall we do?

Now, brother, that's preaching. When before you get through preaching, somebody says, what shall we do, what shall I do? Do you wonder, it says there in Hebrews chapter 12, that the Lord makes his ministers a flame of fire.

Well, listen, you're not going to upset the apple cart, you're not going to shatter the theology of the day, you're not going to interfere with organized religion and get away with it. A few days after, a bunch of the big fellows came down from Jerusalem, and they watched and said, this is a strange thing.

People are filling the trees, standing on the bank, look at the crowd he's got, derelict, morally derelict. He's got prostitutes, thieves, liars, Roman soldiers. Hey, there's some people from our church down there too, all listening to this man.

Well, we'll soon straighten him out. See, John was strange in every way. He was strange in his dress. He didn't wear a cladical attire. I don't think there's too much cladical about it. An old skin around his neck and a pair of leather shorts, that's what he wore.

He was strange in his dress, he was strange in his diet. Morning, noon and night he ate locust burgers. That's all he had to eat, there was nothing else around. He caught those big flies, they're huge things, pulled the wings off, put them on a rock, and boy, he enjoyed the locust burgers and the wild honey.

And they said he's a strange man. He never begs for offerings. He doesn't do any miracles, and yet he's magnetizing people. And I hear all kinds of testimonies about people being changed by the power of this man's ministry.

Strange in his dress, strange in his diet, strange in his doctrine. The only thing he held like a thunderbolt at him was this, repent! There's not much said about it anymore these days. This is a damn easy believism.

I think it was Parrish Greenhead that first said to me today, the evangelist says, come here and say a prayer like this, God be merciful to me, a sinner, and this is what you get. Eternal life, a mansion on the main street of heaven, a five-decker crown, a free ticket to the marriage supper of the Lamb, rule over five cities and immunity from judgment.

You couldn't get much more for five minutes at an altar, could you? Except it's a lot of rubbish, it's not true. No longer, it seems, do people feel the exceeding sinfulness of sin. It's said that Finney would preach as many as 28 nights and never make an altar call.

He did not preach the love of God, he preached the wrath of God. He did not preach mercy, he preached judgment. He did not preach grace, he preached the law. And night after night, people would go home bewildered, confused, and wondering, well, what's ever going to happen?

W .P. Nicholson was the prophet of Northern Ireland, I met him many times. Nicholson would preach until sweat would run off the end of men's noses, and off their chins, and they'd be doing this with their hymn books, and they'd shred their hymn books, and he'd stand up and sing, say, stand up, sing, God save our gracious King.

People would say, are you crazy? Not that I know of, he'd say, not that I know of. Well, don't you realize those people were just ready? He said, listen, I want to tell you something. Why you left them on the edge of hell?

He said, if they stay in hell 24 hours, they'd be glad to get out tomorrow night at the altar call. We don't do that, we're afraid the fish will get off the hook, if they were hooked. John comes with his devastating power, seems to be setting up a rival organization.

The big shots come down and say, we'll soon squash this. One of them walks up and says, hey, fellow, I want to ask you a question. Where do you get your Bible school training? Who signed your diploma?

They asked him, who are you? I like his answer, I think it's choice. I think it's stewed over that for 30 years. He said, I'm a voice. Most speeches are only echoes. I'm a voice, I come with authority.

Do you remember the Apostle Paul and his acres of theology? Ever a man was baptized with the Holy Ghost? If ever a man had a confrontation with God, he says, going down that Damascus road, God revealed himself to me.

In the wilderness, he revealed himself in me. And he had dominion over demons. He did more than a hundred ornery men could do, or a thousand preachers. And yet, in his life, late in his life, he says, pray for me.

Boy, I think everybody wanted him to pray for them, but he says, you pray for me, that utterance may be given me, or that I may never preach the word of God without that authority. I don't offer you a suggestion tonight, I offer you to an ultimatum.

You either meet God or perish. You either say, Lord, fill me with the Holy Ghost, or, on the other hand, drift. They said, well, you must be the Messiah. No, not now. Listen, he said, you don't get big ideas about me.

You listen to those little dwarfs that you hear preach. You know, sometimes when I read John Baptist, I think my preaching compares to his preaching, like candy floss to prime rib. I don't think there's much authoritarian preaching around, there's some doctrinal preaching.

I don't think there's much that brings God on the assembly and people tiptoe out of the place and for hours dead in the speak, but you get that in the Bible. You get that, I'm convinced, in the days of John Baptist and others.