The Holy Presence Of God — Yorrie Richards

You will not know what's going through my heart right now. I'm not going to start with my testimony, but I'm going to say something of the early workings of God within my life, which took place not too long after my conversion.

I was converted in the town of Maastricht, some of you will know it. I was converted in October of 1959. I had a shocking stutter. I stammered chronically, and I was converted in the apostolic movement, and I attended the Maastricht Apostolic Church.

And not long after, one Easter time, I met my wife at Neith, one of the conventions, at an Easter convention. And within about 11 months, we were man and wife. Perhaps I'd like to say something about that.

When, on the Sunday following the Saturday, that I met my wife at Neith, I spoke to my pastor in the church, Pastor Ivor Davis. Now, Ivor Davis looked a very stern man, but he wasn't. Underneath was a fatherly figure.

And I said to him, in my innocence, I said, pastor, oh, I met this beautiful girl yesterday. And he said, oh, that's good. Who is she? And I said, Irene Carr. And he didn't smile much, but his face dropped even lower.

And he put one hand on my shoulder and looked me straight in the face and said, Yuri, stay close to God, and he will lead you to the wife of his choice. Because some of you here might well even know my wife.

And she had been nurtured and brought up within the church. She knew far more of scripture than I knew. And she read her scriptures like a book through the Bible, and she had read it more times than she could count.

And I had this dreadful stutter. It seemed even to mock me. And then my pastor, Pastor Davis, bless his heart, he came to me one day in church and said, Yuri, I am convinced that you have got a perfect wife.

You have got a preaching ministry, and that the church are going to need what you have to give. And I said, Pastor, that is how I spoke in those days. I said, Pastor, I'll sing for you, but don't ever ask me to preach for you.

But Pastor Davis did not take no for an answer. Anyway, let me cut out a lot there. In 1961, I attended the Apostolic Church Bible College at Pennygross, perhaps about 11, 12 miles away from here. And it was while there that the principal, a certain Pastor Ian McPherson, arranged a visit for the students to Moriah Chapel.

A Memory of Revival and the Call to Wait on God

Now this brings me up to this very emotional point in time. When we entered into the church, we were met with the resident minister. I don't know his name. But first of all, he took us around the minor hall and told us that when the revival began at Lacher, it began in the minor hall on a Thursday night.

And I came in here, I wandered in by myself, and all the pills and seats were empty. And I came up these steps in 61. I stood here, I clutched this rostrum just the way I am clutching it now. I'm living a memory.

And I said to Greg, I said, I'm not going to come up these steps until I come up to bring the word, because I want to begin my message with what God did in my life as I stood on this very spot. And I was looking out at the empty pills and seats.

And I was trying to conjure up in my mind certain scenes that might well have happened in the days of revival. And I stood here just like this, looking up at the empty pills. And I burst out crying as God was beginning to do a work of grace in a stutterer's life, not converted, hardly one year.

And I stood here and the resident minister walked in through that side of the hall. He came down here, he stood about by the step and looked up at me crying. And he came across here, he went into a little hatchway door underneath where I am standing.

And he took out a hard covered book, a very old book, quite thick, and passed it up to me right here like this. And I said to him, "'Evan Roberts' Bible?'. And he said the very same. That was the Bible that Evan Roberts preached from in those days of glorious revival.

I clutched his Bible and in my heart, I thought, as I wrote it in my book, I felt I was holding David's leather sling, which he brought down Goliath with, or perhaps the jawbone of the ass that Samson used to slaughter a thousand armor-clad Philistine troops.

That's how I felt when I held his book. Not long after that, when I came out of the Bible college, actually, it was Gareth Evans that met me at the college. And he took my clothes, the things that I had in his car, and we went home together.

It was Gareth, and I wish he was here tonight. God bless you, Gareth. Bless you, my brother. But it was not 18 months following coming out of Bible college that God began to do a mighty work in my ministry.

I hired the Mystic Town Hall, a 500-seater hall, to conduct a three-day gospel crusade. And I stuttered chronically. I know now that it was God. I didn't know then. This was a leap in the dark. And at that hall, on the second night, and Gareth was there, in that hall, I stammered my way for a certain while, and then something took place.

I am telling you exactly what took place, and I don't exaggerate, because an exaggeration is a lie. I stopped my preaching, well, some sort of preaching, and I lowered my head, and a certain stillness came across me, first of all.

A certain presence came into that hall. I began to feel 10 foot tall, and I began to speak with total fluency. And that night, the Holy Spirit, and I hadn't even got to learn His voice then. My sheep hear my voice, but I didn't know His voice at that time.

But He said to me, stop your preaching and wait upon me. So I called the whole hall to silence. Now, this is going to launch me into what I want to say from the word of God. I called them to silence. It became so silent, you could hear the whirring of the mechanics of the clock that stands on top of that town hall.

You could hear the whirring of the cogs. It was so silent, and my flesh began to tingle. I knew that something was happening, but I was a learner. I asked somebody else to take over for me, because I knew that something was going to take place.

And right then, God seemed to say to me, to see that young teenage girl in that seat, she was in the second row of seats back from the stage. And God said, watch her, she's your key. So I watched her.

And someone, as we tend to do within Pentecostal meetings, we don't like silence. We've got to fill it with a song. And it was no different then. Someone struck up, I am coming, Lord, coming now to thee.

There's nothing wrong with the hymn, but it cut across my spirit like a knife. I knew it was not what God was wanting. So I called him to silence, and he didn't hear me. So I shouted for silence. And he heard me.

No sooner had the silence began to take over again, that that young teenage girl fell from her seat. She had been there wringing her hands like this. And it was good old, good old fashioned, conviction of sin.

You don't see much of that today. And she dropped out of her chair onto the floor. I am not talking about carpet time. I'm not talking about people that fall from their chairs in swoons, and then go back in the next meeting for another dose.

This was good old fashioned conviction of sin. And she fell to the floor, sobbing. Now this is what took place. Starting right from the stage, just like a gentle breeze, something was moving like that across the congregation.

And as the presence of God was moving back slowly, it was like a cornfield that I know most of you will have seen when walking out in the countryside. You see a field of ripened corn, and you see a gentle breeze wafting over the top of the corn, and you see the result of an invisible wind.

And as the presence of God was moving back, people were falling over in their chairs. Young people and older people. I don't lie, I don't exaggerate. People began falling out, others crying on God. And it was, I have called it, a Holy Spirit carnage because there was bodies laying everywhere, sobbing bodies.

And I had to call for Christian people to help us to try and deal with all these that were crying out on God. And we literally carried them, hands and feet, into the dressing rooms behind the stage. I didn't know how to cope with this.

I was out of my depth. I'm looking for some water. Perhaps I expected myself to be on the floor by now. But at the third and final meeting of that three-day crusade, a young lady came to the man who was convening the service for us, and she asked him, could she give a little testimony?

Of course, he said, fine. So she came up onto the stage and she said, I am a school teacher in the school on the top of the hill. Now, I know the school that she was referring to. And she said, yesterday, I invited some of the pupils at school to come to this crusade.

And a whole crowd of them came. And she said, yesterday was my birthday. And she said, God gave me a birthday present that's such like I have never seen before. He gave me the best birthday present ever.

And I saw 60 of my school pupils surrender to Christ last night. And she said, today in school, when we came to the dinner break, she said, we stopped in the classroom and I was reading the scriptures to them.

And we were praying in school. If that's not the hallmark of a revival, then I don't know what it is. But I know what it is. And I have seen three visitations, one more powerful even than my stake. And that was at Lincoln prison.

When a revival broke out in Lincoln prison, I've never seen anything like it. Don't ask me, do I know something of the presence of God? I know the presence of God. He's with me nearly every day. I wake up with him and I take him to bed with me in my prayers, preaching, preaching one day at my own church.

I was doing a Bible study on the 144 ,000 of revelation. And when I was reading the portion of scripture for the second 144 ,000, it talks, John is saying, and I heard peals of thunder. And the evening that I was preaching was a beautiful evening.

And yet as soon as I had read about the thunder, a clap of thunder rolled across the church. And the pastor, Ken Calder, said to me, that's thunder. I said, I know what it is. Shaking, shaking. What God wants to lead you into, if you surrender, you will.

I had a stammering, stuttering tongue, but I gave it to God. He asks you for your heart. If he's got your heart, he's got you all, including your tongue. And what had happened in that town hall had its roots right here.

That's why it is a very emotional moment for me to be standing on this very spot. I don't know what God plans to do here tonight, but I do know that some of you are going to hear his voice. Now let's go into the word of God.

Isaiah’s Vision of the Holy God

That leads me in to what I've got to say. I'd like you to turn, please, to Isaiah. Isaiah chapter six. I know that most of you that know your word know where I'm going tonight. Isaiah chapter six. It's interesting to note what was uppermost in the heart of this prophet of God.

You can find out what is uppermost in his heart by what he starts the chapter with. When you read the book of John, what is uppermost in John, that loving apostle's heart, he begins his book with, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God.

Now, no one can preach on John chapter one without starting at chapter one, at verse one. It's the same with this book of Isaiah chapter six. What is uppermost in Isaiah's heart? In the year that King Uzziah died.

That's what is uppermost in his heart. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim. Each one had six wings.

With two, he covered his face. With two, he covered his feet. And with two, he flew. And one cried to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory, and the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.

So I said, woe is me, for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal, which he had taken with the tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth with it, and said, behold, this has touched your lips.

Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged. In the year that King Uzziah died. Well, we can't begin to speak from the chapter without saying something about King Uzziah. You can't skip that over because Isaiah begins the chapter with it.

So who was this King Uzziah? He is one of the most godly kings. He came to the throne when his father Amaziah was assassinated, and he came to the throne. He was crowned king when he was 16 years of age, and he reigned for 52 years, and they were 52 glorious years, 52 glorious years, and he performed within Jerusalem tremendous feats of agriculture.

Agriculture, he sank wells, he planted vineyards, he fortified the city on the towers, he had experts in warfare, inventing various machines that would make them very powerful in battle, he did a lot for Jerusalem, he did a lot for Judah, and his fame began to spread from the north, south, east, and west.

Everybody began to hear about King Uzziah and the way that he was following God. They were God-blessed years, 52 years, and I suppose that Uzziah was a very happy prophet at that time, but King Uzziah got to such a state of greatness, perhaps you could say he became a celebrity king, and I can't stand the word celebrity, flesh-dressed up, but he became so powerful that he thought that he could even take over from the God-instituted priestly system of offerings, and so one day he entered in to the holy place where the golden altar of incense was, and he went in there to offer incense on the altar of incense, and he was just about, I don't believe that he actually did it, but the high priest, together with 80 priests, went in after him.

This was a dreadful, a dreadful crisis for the priesthood, and they ran in after him, and if you note the way that they spoke to the king, if they had spoken to the king outside of the temple, they would have been executed because they said, well, the high priest said, what are you doing in here, Uzziah?

You are usurping what God has ordained for the priesthood, and he began to resist them, and something happened inside that holy place. Something appeared on Uzziah's forehead. Now, it's very interesting.

I searched one time the trends of leprosy because I wanted an answer why it appeared on King Uzziah's forehead, and what I learned from that was, from my research, that leprosy is one of the most organized, predictable diseases that one can catch.

Leprosy never, never, ever begins in the forehead. It always, always, but always starts in the extremity of the human body, fingers, toes, nose. It always begins there, but always, but with this king, it began in the forehead.

Why the forehead? Well, my searching of scripture is that the forehead, on the priest's turban, there is a golden plate fixed with a blue sash to the turban, and on it, engraved in Hebrew, is holiness unto the Lord, and it was placed on the priestly turban and placed upon his head, so holiness unto the Lord was above the head of the priest.

It was on his forehead, which is actually medically called the central lobe, but even if the king had, if he had the audacity to put on the high priest turban to offer incense, that would not have helped him one bit because he was not called, he was not ordained by God to offer incense.

That was the priest. What did Korah try to do? Those of you that know your scriptures, he tried to usurp the authority of Aaron and Moses. He wanted, he wanted to be Mr. Big, and he organized a spiritual coup.

The amazing thing is, Moses didn't know anything about this, on the street. It's amazing because God used to tell Moses if anything was stirring within the camp, Moses always got to know about it. But this time, there was no sign from God that anything was wrong, only when Korah actually faced Moses.

On that day, and said, we are all as holy as you are, and Moses fell to his knees. I asked myself, was he frightened? No, he wasn't frightened. That wasn't the reason that he fell to his knees. Moses was a man taught by God not to do anything of his own volition, but he fell to his knees because he was seeking God.

What do I do next? No, I'm leading up to somewhere tonight. I'm leading up to somewhere. In this chapter, one thing, one overriding subject that pervades through this six chapter is that of holiness. Now, there's a word you don't hear too much of today, holiness.

But I tell you this, unless we are holy, unless we are doing things right with God in holiness, forget about praying for revival. One man put holiness like this. Holiness is the opposite of sin, not merely the absence of sin, not even the hatred of sin, but a total otherness from sin.

It is an uncompromising purity, a terrifying dedication to what is right. When I typed my notes, I wrote into my notes regarding holiness, I wrote this holiness, the sheer terrible perfection and majestic essence that is God.

Holiness Before Revival

The events of chapter six were going to bring to Isaiah, first of all, a crippling crisis point. And then we're going to introduce him to an understanding of the holiness of God that he didn't understand before.

Listen, I heard you this morning, praying for revival. Yesterday, I heard you praying for revival. Someone said, bend me Lord, like you bent Evan Roberts. The theme of this conference is dedicated to revival.

And I like the way that a write-up of this and other conferences says, this is a genuine searching whether God will send another revival. Now, I like that. But in every revival, when I heard you praying, I sat there and I heard and understood with the heart that some of you have not got a concept of holiness by the way that you pray.

At the Bible college, I came under the teaching. Do you know, I've left my notes already. I don't know where I am with these notes. When I came into the Bible college, I came under the teaching of a certain Pastor W .L. Rowlands.

Would anybody here know W .L. Rowlands? You know him. Now, I became friends with this man of God, this very unusual man of God, very unusual. Perhaps, I don't think it's cruel, but I mean it with the best intentions of my heart.

Perhaps, slightly eccentric because he was not the norm of men. But I tell you this, when Pastor Rowlands opened up the scriptures, I was hooked. I got more teaching and more experience has come from what that man has implanted within my heart than any other man I know.

And I know some beautiful characters. But one thing Pastor Rowlands said to me, and I want you to get this, be careful when you ask God for a revival, lest he answer your prayer. Some of you have got that.

What he meant was, and I'm not afraid to repeat what I said in Scotland last year in Grenoble, because I spoke on this theme. It's an act of mercy on God's part not to send a revival until we are ready for it.

And the way you hear some people pray, I know, I know, you haven't got a concept of revival. You haven't got a concept of the holiness of God. If you had a concept of the holiness of God, you wouldn't refer to God as him upstairs.

King Uzziah, it was a tragic death. Trying to find my way back to, I'm back to explain the predictability of leprosy. In the year that King Uzziah died, his death would have left Isaiah in a state of perhaps not panic, not panic, but he would have been grossly hurt because I believe that he loved King Uzziah because God loved him.

And how tragic he would think, how tragic my friend, King Uzziah, why did he do such a thing as to usurp another man's ministry? Oh, haven't you seen many usurping ministries within the church? Men that are posturing churches who would be better off sitting in the pills.

This tragedy would lead Isaiah. Now I'm going to speak about this vision because there's something here which is quite amazing. Isaiah would be in crippling despair and so would the nation. They had lost a godly king, a king who had done so much for them.

But now he is locked up in his own dwelling and the affairs of state are being run by his son, Jotham. Well, this is what Isaiah says. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

Above the throne stood seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two, he covered his face. With two, he covered his feet. And with two, he flew. And one cried to another, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is filled with his glory. Do you know, a friend of mine said to me a couple of hours before we left home to come to Wales, we were talking about the seraphim and how they covered their faces with two wings and covered their feet with another two.

And John said to me, and I jumped in my chair, he said, why did they cover their faces? They are not equal with God. Only those that are equal with God can face God face to face without covering his face.

And there's only one, there's only one. Do you think Jesus covers his face when he comes into the presence of God? Holy, holy, holy, the only attribute of God, which is spoken of three times in succession, holy, holy, holy.

There is no other attribute of God. We read in scripture that God is mighty, but we don't read mighty, mighty, mighty. We know that God is merciful, but do we read merciful, merciful, merciful? No, but we do read holy, holy, holy.

And Isaiah, where he was by location when he received this vision, we are not told where he was, but God granted him this vision. And Isaiah, Isaiah, who is known by many Bible teachers as the Shakespeare of the Old Testament because of his understanding and command of classical Hebrew.

What Shakespeare was to English, although I don't like Shakespearean English, but what Isaiah was to English, what Shakespeare was to English, Isaiah is to Hebrew. And you only have to read through his book and see the use of classical Hebrew.

And his education comes absolutely shining through. He's a very educated, perhaps upper crust class of person, comes from a well-structured family background, but he is a tremendously educated prophet,.

Now he's looking at this vision and he sees a king sitting on a throne. And he remembers that his friend, Uzziah, was on a throne, but he's now in his grave. And he sees this king with the train of his robe flowing down into the temple.

The length of robe deciphers the amount of authority, like the long sleeves. You know, Joseph's court of many colors. Well, the colors didn't matter much. It was the length on the sleeves, the length, the longer the sleeves hung down, the more authority they had, the wearer had.

And that is why the brothers couldn't stand Joseph because he'd got a court with longer sleeves than them. But Isaiah is looking at this, woe is me, is his response. Woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips.

This, this Shakespeare of the Old Testament is reduced to a man crying out and saying that he's got contaminated lips. You wouldn't think so when you read his book, but he knows exactly what his heart is like.

He wouldn't need you to tell him what his heart is like. The very, the very penetration of the holiness of God reduced him to this verdict, that he is a man of unclean lips. Now, I looked up in my strongs.

Undone, Hebrew, domo, to be destroyed, to be cut down, undone, brought to silence. The Greek equivalent means to be utterly at a loss, to be utterly destitute of measures or resources, to renounce all hope, to be utter in despair.

R .C. Sproul speaks of Isaiah's encounter with God as reflecting the normal trauma that occurs when a person meets the living God. Ooh, I like what Sproul says here. God shocks our system. He traumatizes us with his holiness.

Have you ever been put in a corner by God? You only have to live close to him to find out what happens then. I've been there a few times and it's not very nice when God puts you in a corner. Pastor Rolands said to us at Bible class at the college one day, he said one day, God said to me, Willie, you are dust.

And he had this little gasp when he said that, oh, I thought I was a little more value than dust. But God said to me a second time, don't be frightened, my servant. It was out of dust I made the first man.

But it takes a lot of pulverizing to become dust and you're either squeezed into shape or out of shape. It all depends on your reaction to a time of testing. That's why I say, has God ever cornered you?

That there's no way out but God. And when Pastor Rolands, he was very ill. And I went to see him one day at his house. I knocked on the door and a very tall, gaunt figure, he was about six foot three perhaps, answered the door and beckoned me in.

We sat together in his living room and he sat opposite me and this is what he said to me. And he traumatized me as well. He said, Yori, are you holy? Are you holy? I didn't know where to put myself. I began to feel hot under the collar and he just sat there, almost motionless in his face and wanting an answer and I didn't know how to answer him.

But he looked at me then and said, I frightened you. I frightened you. I didn't want to frighten you. But he said, do we need holiness to come to God? Yes, we need holiness. Is it righteousness we need?

Oh, most certainly righteousness. And he said, whatever a man stands in need of, Christ has provided that in his son, Jesus Christ. For he has made him unto us, wisdom, righteousness and redemption. And put me off the hook.

Experiencing God’s Holiness and Human Impurity

But I tell you this, not long after I got converted, let me tell you what happened. I was at my first apostolic convention at Pentecost and I was stopping at a school because the movement hired the schools when they were on holiday and conducted their conferences in school holidays.

So I was housed in a classroom and I call this in my book, the classroom experience. And I had come home, come to the school from the service and at half past 10, a call goes out, lights out everybody.

Now this is what happened. And this is another dealing of God within my life. Some of you are shuffling. I hope I'm not overdoing it here. I lay in my bunk bed. I was on the lower layer of a bunk bed.

My friend was on the upper layer and the lights went out at half past 10. But I lay in my bunk bed, the room in darkness, but for the orange glow of the lights outside shining in through the school window.

This is what I refer to as a one-off experience. Isaiah had it, Moses had it, Ezekiel had it, John on the Isle of Patmos had it. A one-off experience, but it satisfies you what the holiness and the purity and the glory of God is what it's all about.

And I lay in my bunk bed thinking, thinking of how I lived outside of Christ. I had my head in my hands like this, laying back in the bed and thinking about it. And then something began to stir in my heart and I felt the presence of God come into my room, into this school room.

And I felt I wanted to worship. Have you ever felt that you want to worship God simply because he is God? I rolled out of bed and lay on the school block floor. I lay on the floor face down and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

And I literally felt gentle. This is the only way that I can describe it. I felt gentle waves of glory wafting up and down my body as I lay on the floor. I cry and sob and sob and I felt cocooned in God, cocooned in him.

Have you ever felt cocooned in God? He's so intimate with you, you feel that you can reach out and touch him. That's how I felt. I lay on that floor for a long, long time until I could cry no more. And then I went back.

I crawled off the floor and crawled into the lower part of the bunk bed. I'm glad I wasn't on the top one. I don't know how I would have made it, but I crawled into the lower part of the bunk bed and lay down like that, like a little boy that had been spanked.

The presence, the presence of God, the presence of God bursting, bursting out of my heart. Let me tell you, I'm no special person. It's only that God has ordained to treat me this way. Isaiah cried out, I am a man of unclean lips.

What does that mean? Do you know that chapter one of John, in the beginning was the word, the logos. Do you know what the logos is? It's the Greek word for word, but it means word spoken and word expressed.

Thought spoken and thought expressed. Jesus, Jesus is the logos of God. He's the very heartfelt expression of God. Some people ask me, will we ever see God as a father in glory? And I have got a stock answer.

I say, need we? Will we see any more in the father than we have seen in the son? Well, in the same way, an unclean heart, a man of unclean lips, as the heart is, the mouth will speak. Jesus said, out of the heart proceeds adulteries, fornications, blasphemies, all the impurities.

And Paul even gives a long description in the book of Galatians. The works of the flesh are these, and they all come from the heart. Do you know the way that you speak, the way that I speak, we project personality.

We shoot the contents of our heart towards those that are listening to us. Solomon said, even a fool is wise until he opens his mouth. Heart is, so the mouth will speak. And Isaiah cried out, I am a man of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the Lord.

Falling Before the Glory of Christ

I know, but this is talking to some of you now. The amazing thing is, the one who he sees on the throne doesn't speak to him. Have you ever thought of that? When reading Isaiah six, it, the being on the throne doesn't speak to him.

You read Revelation four, and it's the same with John. When he looks into the throne room, he sees a throne set in heaven. And he who sat on the throne, holding a scroll. Now he can't describe the face.

So he talks of him who is seated on the throne in terms of precious stones. But when he saw the Lord Jesus in chapter one, he recognized him, but he'd never seen him as that before. He had never seen him as standing amongst the lampstands holding the seven stars in his hand.

And he describes him. His hair is as white as wool. His eyes are a flame of fire. And out of his mouth proceeds a sharp two-edged sword. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet. As dead. Have you fallen at the feet of Jesus?

As dead. Let me tell you, I can only speak the truth. I came home from work one night and my pastor came on the phone. And he said, please come over the church quick. And I said, what? Has there been a break in?

Has there been a fire? And the phone went dead. And I hurried across the church. I came to the outer doors. I put my hand on the handle of the door to open it. And I got an electric shock. So I opened it gently.

I'm only telling you what happened. And I went in through the second set of doors. And then I turned right into the, which is now the minor hall, but it was the main hall. And there hovering above the pulpit was a cloud, a cloud.

I can only say what happened. Was a cloud. And as soon as I entered that hall, I smelled an amazing aroma, amazing perfume. And I knew God was there. My pastor was there by himself. He was flat out on the floor.