They Were More Noble — Leonard Ravenhill

They Were More Noble: Receiving and Searching the Word

These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the words of God with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so. There's some remarkable things in this chapter.

We have a kind of a page out of the diary of the apostle. He said in verse 1, When they had passed through and came to Thessalonica, there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as his custodian was, or manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days read with them about the Scriptures.

Now the Jews had three weeks of having a one-night meeting in the city. I'm not sure the motive is pure. I wonder if being in a hurry to get somewhere and get a bigger offering tomorrow night. The apostle could stay for three weeks to his French people, and on one occasion stay two years, in order that people might get a foundation.

The striking thing about this, it says that these, verse 11, were more noble than those in Thessalonica. That's amazing to me. Now what do we mean by noble? In England we have nobility, at least we call them that.

And if people say, Americans say in England, we have no nobility. In America you say you hardly got film stars, you worship them like noble people, you praise them like nobles. They don't always live that way.

Don't you say those women in Hollywood have faces like angels, and morals like amicab? That's typical of tourism. What do you mean by nobility? Again, it's a social standing in England, but he's not talking about that.

He's talking here about spirituality. These people, what is nobility? I think nobility, my definition is not Wexford, maybe. I think that nobility is dignity without arrogance. Dignity without snobbishness.

The Thessalonians’ Faith and Paul’s Prayer

But the amazing thing, he didn't say this to the Thessalonians. Look in Thessalonians for a minute. In the first epistle to the Thessalonians, he gives us all the credits of these amazing people, just to skip through them quickly.

In verse 3 he says, remember without ceasing, your work of faith, your labor of love, your patience of hope. Verse 4, your election of God. Verse 5, work cleansed them not only in the Word, but also in power of the Holy Ghost and in much assurance.

Verse 6, he says, and you became followers of us. But those certain cliches of things, he says, you're samples. And yet it isn't of the Thessalonians that he says you're more noble. They were sampled beneath us, these.

If you read this chapter carefully, they had a passion for the Lord. They had a mystery in mind. They had all this identified with being really born again in the Spirit of God. If you step back, well, if you go into chapter 3 of this same epistle, you see, this, every church of the Apostle Paul did with love and sweat and tears.

He says in, well, 1 Thessalonians chapter 3 and verse 10, night and day he prayed exceedingly. Wouldn't you like to hear the Apostle Paul pray? I'd rather hear a man pray than hear him preach anyhow. I've been to some of the greatest churches in the world and met some of the greatest preachers in the last 50 years.

But the outstanding men were men that I've prayed with. And Paul says, I'm praying. I'm not only praying, I'm praying exceedingly. He's praying the effectual servant prayer. What happens? Well, if you turn to the second epistle, chapter 1 and verse, he says, we are bound to thank God always for your breath and as it is meat, because of your faith grows exceedingly.

What did he say, the previous verse he read? I want to supply that which is lacking in your faith. What did he say? We take a syringe and inject them? I think he's doing it by two things, by pointing out the history in the church of Jesus Christ, and I believe by example.

To hear this man pray. There's nothing on earth more moving as far as I'm concerned than to hear a man who's really anointed praying. I mean, I pray, and I pray exceedingly. It's not something intermittent.

I have a conscious burden for you. And I don't just pray in the daytime, I pray in the nighttime. I want to see your faith. I want to supply that which is lacking in your faith. I want to see, to come to maturity.

And God has answered his prayer in this second epistle. Your faith grows exceedingly. He doesn't talk about knowledge. He's not talking about memorizing scripture. Again, there's a world of difference between knowing the Word of God and knowing the God of the Word.

We send fellows to school and send them to this. They get to know the Word of God. Do they know the God of the Word? How intimate are they? When fellows come to my office and tell me what distinctions they have in schools they've been to, they say, shall we pray?

I say, go ahead, pray. Boy, they stumble and stutter. I've never had any of them touch God. But these people, he says, your faith grows exceedingly. Going back a minute now into this Acts of the Apostles,.

The Noble Church’s Readiness for Scripture

Chapter 17 and verse 1.

They were more noble, those eleven. They were more noble than those in Thessalonica. And they were the sample church. Why do these people stand head and shoulders? Why do they separate this church? Why not the Galatians?

Why not the Ephesians? He says, this people, they are more noble. They bear more characteristic of Jesus Christ. Why were they noble? Well, I'm bloody thrilled as to why they were noble. Otherwise we'd say, I know, they didn't eat pork.

What did they do? They were baby parents. We don't make our contributions. But in Thessalonica they were more noble because they received the word with all readiness. Go back a minute in the same chapter, verse 2.

For one is man of us and man of us, sent him to them. And for three days he risen with them after the Scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ was made to suffer and risen again from the dead. Verse 4 says, some of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas.

You know, microphones, babies' voices are better than mine. You can't bother them, I know, but ask them to breathe slowly. But he said in verse 4, some of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas and did not reach a great multitude.

But verse 5 says that the Jews which believed not will move with envy. It's being said that there were absolutely watertight arguments that wherever Paul went, he either had a revival or a riot. Sometimes we have both.

And I've said before, I believe the number one enemy that the enemy had on earth was the apostle Paul. I heard this week that a man was sent to another man and he said, hey, where are you going? He began to see the devil around, tell him I'm looking for him.

He saw the man a month after, he said, hey, tell him I don't want to see him. The devil had messed him up. He took the challenge. We say some stupid things often. But some of the Jews believed and some did not believe.

But these other people, it says a very beautiful thing about them, they received the word of God with all readiness and searched. They didn't just read it. And they didn't read it Sunday morning. And they didn't read the scriptures Saturday night because they had to teach a class of two of them.

They searched the scriptures daily. And because of that, they got maturity. What would happen if you ate a meal and you learned to read? Lots of people, they don't walk with God. They live on the church.

They live on meeting. And we're not to do that. Don't get on to new factories. We need a more intimate knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it's all about. And they said in Hebrews 12 and 2, looking unto Jesus.

I heard somebody say, they were all our idols, God's clay feet. But number one, you shouldn't have idols. And number two, if you meet all the men that you look to, don't know how strange it is, clay feet.

According to that, the dearest friend is one of those who loves the Bible as much as you've got to say. There's only one love. That's why I've added Jesus in his name. Wonderful, wonderful name. Well, that is true.

But it's not true that every friend will refer to you. I have some friends I meet who say as if I go to the gallows, which I like. I've got others who drop me immediately if I say something they don't like.

You see, he's concerned about these people. He feels comfortable with them. Why? They weren't swimming in strange waters. They were swimming in the word of the living God. And I'm still nervous. I mean this.

I'm still fearful. But with all the word of God I've read, I'm still in water to my ankles instead of water to the knees or water to swimming. Because if you're water to the ankles, your feet's not on the ground anyhow.

Water to the knees, you're standing there. Water to the life. But once you get off that and you're water to swimming, it demands faith. Why were these people so precious? They were more noble. Why? In 2 Corinthians chapter 1, is it now?

Meekness, Gentleness, and the Character of Christ

2 Corinthians 10. 2 Corinthians 10, verse 1. He says, Now I, Paul, beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. I'm convinced those people that he speaks of are the gentleness and meekness of Christ.

We confuse meekness, or we think that meekness and weakness are citizens and they're not, but they're very opposite. The meekest man in the Old Testament was Moses, the man who got blazing angry when he saw the people stripping themselves, giving their gold and making a cast, and then going into idolatrous worship.

The meekness went and he comes down with a mighty anointing. He's so angry. Why? Because he'd been on the mount with God. And he'd been near to God. He felt the heartbeats of God. He felt the anger of God.

Let me warn you young fellows, it's very dangerous to get spiritual. It will so revolutionize your personalities and the engagement you raise with anger against iniquity, whether it's in high places or low places, whether it's theological or sociological, any other thing.

When you see wrong, you smile, you hurt. He said we have the gentleness and meekness of Christ. I'm sure he wouldn't identify them as being noble unless they had their holy dignity. How many people do you know who somehow seem to have a different walk with God than other men?

A different disposition, a different attitude, totally unselfish, consumed with Christ, not with a theology, not consumed with their own preaching. I think preachers get lost in their own elitism. Or the crowds.

What am I going to do with it? There's an old chorus, I think it was, we used to do that chorus, when did you learn it? 20 years ago. Well, it's over 40, but anyhow. We used to sing it, I have lived my life as a child, sweet will of God, still hold me close until I am wholly lost in thee.

You see, there came a moment when the apostle Paul was obliterated. He said, it's not I, it's Christ that lives within me. I believe thousands, tens of thousands of preachers will be charged with the judgment seat of Christ with criminal negligence.

What am I going to do? Preach the whole council of God. They don't preach the whole council. They preach what they learn at their headquarters, and so you know it. The whole council of God. It's our responsibility.

We cover up sin. Oh, well, we're only normal. We're only human. Well, we're not only human. A man who is filled with God is not only human. He's got a divine energy. He's got a supernatural power. And he doesn't go running to the end of Romans and saying, well, let me go back.

I listened to G. Campbell Morgan very often, a wonderful preacher. He preached to many down in Hollingham, and it was a mess in his place. There were hundreds of preachers there. Well, I couldn't hold my peace.

You know, most of our people can't squeak your name out on Sunday morning. They saw a horse shouting for a football match for 94, or something else. They haven't a squeak. All you can say in many lounges, well, change your church.

Go away, don't squeak. Don't shout. G. Campbell Morgan preached this wonderful message. Boy, I was having a roving time. The fellow in front of me was in agony. I kept saying, very good. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.

Finally he sat down. Then G. Campbell Morgan said to the Englishman, now preaching sinless perfection, he said, remember the apostle Paul. What is his achievement? Yeah, look at them. You think a man that walks with an apostle Paul walks without secret sin in his life?

Nothing in life. So we go back and cover it up. You turn to your pride and anger. You go back to Romans 6. What is it? It's not I. Oh no, it's not me, Lord. It's sin that drove us into it. Something that mother passed on to me.

It's sin that drove us into it. Paul doesn't say that. He said it there. He did not end up there. Well, he said it's not either Christ living in me. You can't be other than drowning in Christ and then drowning in sin for nature.

Does that mean it's impossible to sin? No, it means it's possible not to sin. We are more than conquered. What does more than conquered mean? Somebody asked him, he hadn't made any speech to what it meant.

He said it means shooting 12 birds and killing 13. Well, that's not very good. But what he meant was that it's not getting up to the end of the day exhausted. Lord, it has been 25 hours in this day. The kingdom will fall apart.

I think I've lost all my strength and faith. It doesn't mean that. It means there are no more abandoned. And who proves it more than this precious man? I said to you, there are only two kinds of people in this world.

Not black and white. Not Indian and white. All these dear Indians here. Aren't they lovely people? We know there's an Indian. We love him. Two kinds of people in the world. Not black and white. Not rich and poor.

Not free men and slaves. Just two kinds. Those who are dead in sin and those who are dead to sin. When temptation what do you think of that? I need the every hour, most gracious Lord. Is that not enough?

We need to look it up sometimes. One stands in the Hempstead. I need the every hour. I must stay down near thy. Temptations lose their power when thou art nigh. Well, as we said, Paul didn't just say Christ is nigh.

He didn't say Christ is for me. He didn't say Christ is with me. He said Christ is in me. I'm not walking this pilgrim way alone. The load is too steep. The hostility is too great. The opposition is too heavy.

But he said with Christ indwelling me, I can be more than conqueror. And we can be in that place, that situation by faith where Christ is indwelling us. And my appetite that Christ inspired the Quakers used to say again you can know what they call an authentic stop, stop in the spirit.

You're going to do something and the Lord says go. And you've got to explain why. The Lord says go and you go. In other words, if it's mine with the will of God I think it's something the mind doesn't understand and theologians don't understand.

It's a life. It's not something just to believe. It's something to behave. It's to translate creed into conduct. These people are beautiful in the spirit. Boy, what a day this is for beauty, isn't it?

Inward Beauty and Holy Dignity

Everything's beautiful. You poor ladies, good night. You have so much problem these days. Go to bed. They have to wash off what they put on in the morning. Poor lady went to bed. She lifted her hands to the wheel.

She left her fingernails at home. Then she looked in the mirror and found she hadn't put her eyelashes on. That poor thing. All the bits and pieces these poor ladies have. I don't see any improvement or am I glad I'm a man.

Naturally, we're attractive. We don't need to make up. What does the scripture say? The scripture says the king's daughter is all glorious within. I get the message when the peasant people make study when I come and they speak of spiritual calcetics.

What in the world is that? The king's daughter is all glorious within. There might be a few who went to see her. What about the inside? Is there purity there? Is there love there? Is there peace there?

Do you think this man would say these were normal people? After all, mobility is lined up with kingship. Well, aren't we kings? That's what the word of God says. We're kings and priests unto God. There should be a dignity about us.

An authority about us. You go around. Why don't you start a class on Monday night during the war day? I was told it was in a house. It was a five-story house. I hated that because the lamas were going over all night.

I'd rather have been in the bench than in the house. We had a lot of semi-royalty people came. Aristocrats in England. Noble people. You know, they were just as greedy. They prayed just like we prayed.

They loved them all but there was a bearing about them. When they spoke, they spoke perfect Oxford English, you know. Oh, boy, did they speak beautiful English. You know where they speak the most perfect English?

In Dublin, Ireland. Ain't that terrible? Well, that doesn't make them desirous, but it's true. There should be something about our language, our demeanor, our attitude, our desire, which should totally magnify the Lord Jesus Christ.

Love as the Portrait of Christ

He wouldn't say these people were noble people unless they had the fruit of the Spirit. Love, and joy, and peace, and longsuffering. What do we say? Love, suffering, long, and is kind. I believe you would say these things as I said to you before.

If you take 1 Corinthians 13 and say that old English word out there where it says charity. What do you mean by charity? You give away your surplus cash, your surplus clothes. You've got love bills? Love said, I'll wear the old ones and buy you the new ones.

By the way, I take 39, thank you, but anyhow. But if you take, uh, if you say that marvelous, isn't it amazing? We talk about the Apostle Paul was always always a warrior. He isn't always a warrior. Timothy says, come on, I'm not going to nurse you.

You're only going to put on the whole arm of God. When it comes to it, you may say John is the apostle of love, and I won't argue with you, but he didn't write the greatest hymn of love. The greatest hymn of love was written by a man who was half crippled with stones that slit his teeth.

A leg that he dragged along like Jacob did. A body that was more or less straight. Once I was stoned. Once I was stoned. A night and a day in the deep. 36 hours hanging on a piece of wood in the water.

And there he has a body that's been mutilated. And yet there was something in him that the words couldn't say. He was lashed 195 times. And he pulled his shirt back. It was like a plowed field. They couldn't beat it out of him.

They couldn't flatten it out of him. There was nothing they could do. They put him through endless torture. And yet that love still burns in him. So he can write the most majestic thing ever written on love.

Charles Wright did some great hymns on love. Love divine, all love excelling. He wrote that wonderful hymn. I re-sang tonight. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus. Fast and leisure. False as I would like you to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.

There are some things you can't put into language. There's no vocabulary for it. I mean, the deepest form of worship is speechless. Just like prayer is the greatest form of prayer. It's speechless. The priest, her lips spoke.

Her voice was never heard. But she got what she prayed for. You take 113. Again, you take that chalice out. That old English word, chalice. And instead you put love there. Love suffers one of its kind.

Love envious not. Love mortals not itself. I don't need to record translations but Moffat's translation is very beautiful there. Love never faileth. Love beareth all things. He says love is never rude.

Love is never resentful. Love beareth all things. The authorised version says love is not evil. Is it provoked? Evil isn't in the Greek. He says love is not provoked. How many times do you think you've grieved God?

How many times have you just upset God? You've made vows and not kept them. What did you do? Did he wish you? Not necessarily. I remember one day when our boys were small, they showed the newspaper that was there, like a big figure eight.

And maybe just their love of drawing. By the way, I've been here I think two weeks tonight, so come and hear a good preacher. And I said to the boys, this is a track, they're going to race around.

This track. It went like a.

Letter eight. Then on this loop here, there's a rock straight down. I said, what's that for? Well, really, that's an emergency exit. If this guy can't get round the bend, he can go straight down. He'll be out of the race.

But it's there for expediency. You know, we make an excuse that I can bear anything but this. But what the Greeks say is not easily provoked, is not provoked. So you take out love and charity you put in love.

You take out love, and then what do you put? You put Christ. 1 Corinthians 13, in my opinion, is a full-length portrait of Jesus Christ. Then you take the name of Jesus Christ out and then it gets tough.

What do you do? You put your name in. I suffer longer than Christ. I envy not. I'm not crushed up. I don't run down. I'm stabilized in the Lord. I can bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things.

Character Formed Through Suffering and Revival

After reading the words of God, the most exciting thing for me to read is biographies, or better still, autobiographies. I keep looking at my shelf. I think about Precious Living Lady. I was going to say, Amy Wilson Carmichael.

She took a single ticket to India. Stayed there 40 years. Gathered 400 unwanted children. She had a curfew and a spike. The last three years of her life, the Haitians have been in bed hungry. She was almost helpless.

And then she burned with holy fire. Even in her total weakness, she wrote this marvelous thing that I pray of many times. Give me a love that leads the way. A faith which nothing can dismay. You get that?

A faith which nothing can crush. It defies everything. A love that leads the way. A faith which nothing can dismay. A hope. No disappointment. A passion that will burn like fire. Here's a 95 pound weak woman to be lived in Nazareth, and he says, a passion that will burn like fire.

Let me not think to be a cloud. Make me like pure flame of God. At the end of the day, it's what Norman did. He was, he used to be a fireball. He's older. About 50 years older than I am. But he mixed up.

He was, he married a daughter of C .D. Stern. And he knew some of these characters. And I told her they were characters. You know, today we talk about personalities. For you to make personalities, all you have to do is get some friends and fathers.

That was his last words. Isn't that the power that little drops of little Isn't that the power that little drops of pain make a girl's disfunction from the utterly names? Isn't that the power that little drops of little Isn't that the power little drops of paint, make a girl's complexion something what it ain't.

If you do almost anything with powder and a wig and a few nice clothes from the spheres or somewhere, it's just all about character. The joy of my life until I was 14 years of age, every Tuesday night I went to the Methodist class meeting.

Boy, I started writing my autobiography. Boy, I thrill when I think of those nights. Those old characters that were there. Men that prayed, women that prayed. They shuddered. They sanctified with joy.

We don't get characters anymore. We got personalities. Your hairstyle for men and women is boring. The clothes you wear, pure nonsense. It's character that doesn't happen. You don't make character in a weekend.

You make character not by knowledge. You make character by perfecting and trial and persecution. And not always what's thrown on you. Better by what you decide that you let God do in your life and what you'll do as you follow him.

Meditating on Scripture and Knowing God

Let's say here, they were more normal. With all readiness of mind, they searched the pictures. What our pastor used to stuff into us, he didn't have it very much, but 2 Timothy 2 study the show line and not read the word of God.

Study it. Search it. Compare scripture with scripture. After all, these people, all those prophets, they had no interpretation, or at least they had no written New Testament. They fed on God's statements with Abraham and Isaac and those great, fabulous characters in the Old Testament.

Sometimes we sing the hymn of our former foundation. There's a phrase in that speech with me. What more can he say than to you he has said. I said to a young preacher in my office the other day. I look at all these folks.

Not one of those men I had a bigger Bible than I have. They're just usually better. They didn't have a back to secret ways of God, but they knew God better. I don't care how much a man knows of Hebrew and Greek.

I wish I knew them. I mean, the languages. But when it comes to knowing God, that's on something entirely different. These people knew the word of God was a lamp to their feet and a light unto their path.

And the Psalmist says, I will meditate in thy precepts. We've lost the art of meditation. Oh, be still with the Holy Ghost. The same scripture that says, be still with the Spirit says, be still and know that I am God.

And you won't know God in the rush. I think of a brother. Every time I went to his place, he had music in one room and there they'd kind of study in the other. Do you know why, Daniel? You want the people listening to music all day?

So God won't get in your mind. You crowd it out. Crowd it out. We don't have any music in our house, except when we want to. Because, I mean, we don't have it any good night or day. Lose this meaning.

In fact, the guys are telling us now, these guys are always wearing these earphones. Ten years from now, they'll have problems because the noise is going directly to the eardrums. They're going to suffer for it.

But these people are noble. They're starting to put this thing to development. They're close walk with God. They're intimacy with God. I'd love to have heard these people pray, too. You couldn't go to a school of prayer like the Apostle Paul had and not mature in faith and vision.

It's nothing talking about vocabulary. I'm afraid sometimes we need to be praying long and loud down here, just don't. Necessarily. We can pray long and loud if that's God's will, but don't always do it Friday night.

Do some at home as well. Not many mighty men. One Christian's word. Paul says, not many mighty men. Not many wise. Not many noble of God. They're called. Have you read the book correctly? Did you get that much?

One point six. One point one six. One point one six, yes. Have you ever said one six? One point six. One point one six. Perfect, yes. Not many wise men after the flesh. Not many mighty. Not many noble.

There's a lady by the name of Lady Huntington in England. And she was the one that financed the trips. I think there were four of them she financed. A poor preacher by the name of Whitfield across the Atlantic.

She put in his bill. And one day when they asked for a testimony, she said, I was reading in Trenton today. It said, not many mighty. Not many noble. She said, I'm glad there's a name on it. Otherwise you would have said, I've had it.

She was an aristocratic, cultured lady. A scholarly person. And yet she put all her money. If you go in the south of England now, there are some of the old, old churches. They were built 200 years ago.

They're still there. She financed it. She did like Whitfield. She put her money into hymns books. She put her money into altars. She put her money into Bibles. I believe that's a ministry God gives to some people.

There are not many, but there are some. Some of the greatest intellects of the world were very devout Christians. If you go down the main street in Edinburgh, where I went some years ago, you'll see the super monument there is to that chief poet, Scott.

Sir Walter Scott. There's another monument there. And people don't know it. It's not in so many books. But it's there to the... What was his name? F .W .A.? No, N .Y .S. Benson. He was a keen Christian.

He loved the war. And he experimented with understanding. He kept finding more cultures than the one he was. One day they came in and it was difficult to get him round again. What did he do? He invented the anaesthetic.

Have you ever thought about having surgery? I guess you have. What would it be like having surgery with an anaesthetic? Somebody pulling your leg off or something else? Well, he made that a very comfortable to be made up by the doctors.

So Queen Victoria heard about this. She asked him to come to London. And they sent to all the scientists in Europe an invitation. Come and hear Professor Simpson. This man has experimented in his own caste, on his own body, in his own time.

And he's going to bring relief for millions of people down the ages. Come and meet this famous man. So there he was, of course, all nicely dressed up. And the audience stood when they said, And now Professor Simpson is going to tell us about the greatest discovery he ever made in his life.

And he stood to the podium and everybody stood. He said, Gentlemen. There was all very big crowd. We were all doctors and scientists, but anyhow. He said, Gentlemen, I want to tell you about the greatest discovery I ever made in my life.

One day I discovered I was a sinner. I needed a saviour. Boy, we all sat down. I was a sinner. I needed a saviour. And God marvelously transformed other people through that man. Why? Not many minds did, but there are minds in there.

Wesley might have been the Prime Minister of England. He might have been the Archbishop of Canterbury. Thank God he wasn't either of those backsliders. He got kicked out of the church. They crossed his name off the wall.

He was an Oxford dog, Oxford teacher, Oxford University. And then he rejoined. He went to Ireland and he said, Oh, I could get in Ireland. I ate acorns off the tree and I ate blackberries. And he marched to Ireland and slept anywhere he could.

Revival, Prayer, and the Church’s Spiritual Condition

You know, it's amazing what people, God is making today. I saw a little thing on TV, TV News and Six, about a couple that lived somewhere near the side of Dallas. And I was humiliated on the verge of tears.

And a couple who were six years ago, I think, took in a child that was very retarded. Now they have a set of eight of them. They took one when she was about four. Her parents had deserted her. Now she's 12 years of age.

They said we'll keep her until someone will adopt her. We don't want to adopt him. And there they are. They're giving their lives. It's one of the most distorted little things you could ever imagine. And every day and night they bathe them.

They wash them. They clothe them. They do everything they can for them. There are some people doing wonderful acts of mercy. Everything is done from the pulpit. It's all guided from the pulpit. But the best thing, the man who called me earlier today.

I forgot what he was called. I'm sure they're both called Paul in a row. He said, I want to tell you something. And everybody said, what do you want to tell me? I want to tell you something. I don't want to say.

He said, Mr. Redding, we have a bunch of young people in our church who have got such an appetite for prayer. You wouldn't believe it. I said, that's the best news I've heard this week. I thought you were coming down to give me $1 ,000.

Then just as we were coming out, a man rang from the English. And he said, are you Leonard Redding? I said, is this your father? He said, oh, yes. He wrote some books. I think it is. And he broke down.

He sobbed and sobbed. He said, excuse me, we're leaving. I said, go ahead. He said, I want you to know there's a bunch of young people here. Say it again. There's a bunch of young people, he said. We've got the same vision.

We've got the same burden. I honestly don't understand the brokenness yet. Did he say the brokenness? He said, no, it's not, Mr. Redding. He said, Mr. Redding, I think there is a chance that God may grant the church in America repentance.

But I don't think he'll bother the nation. The nation sent his heir away. He may grant a little more money to the church. I don't know who to pray to. Oh, he said, I'm sorry, Mr. Rodney. I said, it isn't, Mr. Rodney.