Preaching (Video) — Compilations

The world population was 5 million, did God love it? Yes. Does he love it less when it's 5 billion? If God isn't willing that any should perish when it's 5 million, is he more willing that many should perish now?

You see the trouble in the world today, the stagnation, the moral desolation in America and the stagnation in America is not due to the strength of humanism, it's because of the weakness of evangelism.

People don't get born again when they come to the altar. They leave it, they come damned and they leave it damned. They're not born. People can't be born in 5 minutes, put off 10 million sins and transgressions and violations of the law of God.

They can't change a way of life, put off the old man, put on the new man by just standing there in tears. And I told you last night, when I heard that guy say on TV, come forward it'll take a few minutes, I went to bed and cried.

I say that he's a leading evangelist in America, telling people who are dead in trespasses, they're not bad, they're dead. The prodigal then says, my son is bad, he says he's dead. It's no fun to look on a congregation.

Maybe I said yesterday, a hundred years ago, that great art critic in England, what was his name, John? John Ruskin said, preaching is 30 minutes to raise the dead. I thought that was facetious, it's scriptural.

All those lovely people you have, executive people, deacons, nice people, wealthy people, poor people, hippies, yuppies, whatever you've got, there they are. They're dead. And we're the ones that transmit life.

But dear brother, I believe we're going to see a Pentecost that will out Pentecost, Pentecost. I'll tell you what, nobody's going to stick his name on it. Swaggart's had his chance to evangelize the world, messed it up, all the rumblers, they've got millions of dollars, what have they done?

They've brought disgrace to the name. People ridicule it, that God is a jealous God. God's going to raise up men. I pray for Romania and behind the anchor every day of my life. People want to tell me now that God's bypassed America.

Don't waste your time. Why? Was it as dead in the days of Jonathan Edwards? What is revival? Well, I think it was an old American, I think it was E. M. Bounds said that E. M. Bounds is the breath of God on a situation that threatens to become a corpse.

We're very near death in America. There's no time for a new reformation in a denomination. He's going to raise up new men with new vision. I want to preach on vision tonight, God willing. And we've got to have vision and passion.

God's got to upset our whole schedules, our lifestyle, our way of eating, our way of living, our way of socializing in the church, God help us. Sure you can get a hearty church if you put a chicken supper before the prayer meeting.

They'll come for the chicken supper. You got the chickens, you got the crowd. Because they're all chicken, but anyhow. You see, kids come to me and say, well, I'm going to Philippines for three weeks.

Can you speak the language now and give that tract? Why? To fulfill the great commission. What was the great? Well, the last words of Jesus. Tell me, what were they? As Manley says, what were they? Well, the last word of Jesus was going into all the world and not in my Bible.

That's the last word to the disciples. The last word of Jesus is three times over in Revelation, repent, repent, repent. And he didn't say go into all the world and preach. He said, make disciples. You can't make disciples in five minutes at the altar.

You can't make disciples by giving tracts on Main Street every Friday night. Bring them in. If you buy them with coffee or a donut or something and say, we're going to have instruction now, we're not going to go through the catechism.

The pastor's made a catechism. We're going to teach you the fundamentals of the faith. Our kids don't know it. I guarantee the big church in the South where the pastor says we're called to the 11 ,000 college students in this town.

And then he says, I'll give you the name of it in the back of my Bible. And he says in this town, in their sophomore years and the Baptist, I'll give you his name. He says the sophomore students in the colleges here, as soon as they get away from home in the second semester, or what do you call them?

Sophomores, they quit church. They go off out on Sundays. Why? Because they've been baptized and everything, but they never met Christ. They've gone to a ritual and a formula. Few of our young people are generally born again of the Spirit of God.

There's only one thing that gave me a sleepless night. There's only one thing that troubled me all throughout the morning, and that is this. Within a hundred years, a great majority of people in this building will possibly be in hell.

And many who even profess Jesus Christ as Lord will spend an eternity in hell. You say, Pastor, how can you say such a thing? I can say such a thing because I don't do my Christian work in America. I spend most of my time preaching in South America, in Africa and Eastern Europe.

And I want you to know that when you take a look at American Christianity, it is based more upon a godless culture than it is upon the word of God. And so many people are deceived and so many youth are deceived and so many adults are deceived into believing that because they prayed a prayer one time in their life, they're going to heaven.

And then when they look around at others who profess to know Christ and see those people also just as worldly as the world and they compare themselves by themselves, nothing troubles their heart. They think, well, I'm the same as most in my youth group.

I watch things I shouldn't watch on television and laugh about the very things that God hates. I wear clothing that is sensual. I talk like the world. I walk like the world. I love the music of the world.

I love so much that's in the world. But bless God, I am a Christian. Why am I a Christian? I don't look any different than most of the other people in my church. Why am I a Christian? Because there was a time in my life when I prayed and asked Jesus Christ to come into my heart.

I want you to know that the greatest heresy in the American evangelical and Protestant church is that if you pray and ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart, he will definitely come in. You will not find that in any place in Scripture.

You will not find that anywhere in Baptist history until about 50 years ago. What you need to know is that salvation is by faith and faith alone in Jesus Christ and faith alone in Jesus Christ is preceded and followed by repentance.

A turning away from sin, a hatred for the things that God hates and a love for the things that God loves, a growing in holiness and a desire not to be like Britney Spears, not to be like the world and not to be like the great majority of American Christians, but to be like Jesus Christ.

I don't know why you're clapping. I'm talking about you. I didn't come here to get a man. I didn't come here to be applauded. I'm talking about you. People so many times come up to me and they say, oh, I'd love to follow you into Romania.

I'd love to follow you into the Ukraine. I'd love to preach where you preached and planted churches in Peru in the jungle. And I tell them, no, you wouldn't. They say, yes, I would. I say, no, you wouldn't.

Why? Because you'd be excommunicated from the church down there. What we need to see, I'm not trying to be hard for the sake of being hard. Do you realize how much love it takes to stand before five thousand people and tell them that American Christianity is almost totally wrong?

Do you know what it's going to cost me to never be asked back again to something like this? To be unpopular. Do you know why you do it? You don't do it because you get paid well. You don't do it because men love you.

You do it because you love men and because more than that, you want to honor God. I want to tell you something. We are going to go into scripture and I want you to look at it as it really is. Stop comparing yourself with others who call themselves Christians, who compare themselves with others who call themselves Christians.

Compare yourself to the scripture. When someone, a young person comes to a pastor or a youth minister and says, I'm not sure whether or not I'm saved, the youth minister will usually throw out a cliche.

Well, was there ever a time in your life when you prayed and asked Jesus to come into your heart? Well, yes. Were you sincere? Well, I don't know, but I think so. Well, you need to tell Satan to stop bothering you.

Did you write it in the back of your book, the back of the Bible, like the evangelist told you when you got saved to write down the date so that any time you doubted you could point him to the Bible? What superstition has overcome our denomination?

You know what the Bible tells Christians to do? Examine yourself. Test yourself in light of scripture to see if you are in the faith. Test yourself to see if you're Christian. You realize if I dismissed us right now and told everyone to go knock on every door in this city, you know what we would find out?

Ninety nine percent of the people, at least in this city, believe themselves to be believers. If you go back to your hometown and knock on every door because I went back to my hometown after I got saved and knocked on every door and you know what I found out?

Everyone in my town is a Christian. Eighty five percent of them do not go to church and those who do go to church are not concerned about holiness. They're not concerned about serving. They're not concerned about being separate from the world.

They're not concerned about the gospel being preached among the nations. But bless God, they're saved. Why are they saved? Because some evangelist who should have spent less time preaching and more time studying his Bible told them they were saved.

And he did it so that he could brag about how many people came forward in his next revival. I love you. And there are men here who love you. And I want to go into scripture now, now that I've shocked you into life.

I want you to listen to me. Listen to the word of God and begin to ask yourself some questions. First of all, what does the word of God say? How does your life stand in front of that blazing fire, which is the holiness of God on that final day?

Beloved, precious little girl, beloved, precious young man on that final day, will your confession hold true? Are you safe? And I'm not talking about, well, I think I'm saved. You know, there's a way that seems right into a man, but it leads them to death.

Well, I feel in my heart of my heart that I'm saved. Let me ask you a question. Did you ever read that the heart is deceitfully wicked? Who can know it? Shouldn't you go to the testimony of Scripture?

Well, I know I'm saved because my mom, my dad, my pastor, everybody else told me I was saved. Well, I'm telling you this. What does the word of God tell you? We talk so much about being radical Christians.

Radical Christians are not people who jump at concerts. Radical Christians are not people who wear Christian T-shirts. Radical Christians are those who bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Radical Christians are those who reverence and honor their parents, even when they feel like their parents are wrong.

Radical Christians are those who do not. Now, listen to me. It's going to make you mad. Who do? And I'm talking to boys and girls. Radical Christians are those who do not dress sensually in order to show off their bodies.

If your clothing is a frame for your face, God is pleased with your clothing. If your clothing is a frame for your body, it's sensual and God hates what you're doing. Everybody wants to talk about a prophet, but no one wants to listen to I'm talking about Christianity.

I have spent my life in jungles. I have spent my life freezing in the Andes Mountains. I have seen people die. A little boy, Andrew Maman, the Muslim shot him five times through the stomach and left him on a sidewalk simply because he cried out, I am so afraid, but I can not deny Jesus Christ.

Please don't kill me, but I will not deny him. And he died in a pool of blood. And you talk about being a radical Christian because you wear a T-shirt, because you go to a conference. I'm talking about holiness.

I'm talking about godliness. I wish you know what a move of God would be in this place. If all of you came under conviction, if I myself came under conviction of the Holy Spirit, we fell down on our faces and weeped because we watch the things that God hates, because we wear the things that God hates, because we act like the world, look like the world, smell like the world, because we do the very things and we know not that we do these things because we do not know the word of God, because even though we claim as a denomination that the scriptures are the infallible word of God, basically all we get is illustration stories and quaint little novels.

Oh, that God would blow on this place, that we would turn away from our sin, that we would renounce the things that are displeasing to God and then that we would run to him and we would relish him and we would love him.

Oh, that God would raise up missionaries. I don't wish the same things your parents want for you. They want for you security and insurance and nice homes. They want for you cars and respect. I want for you the same thing I want for my son, that one day he takes a banner and the banner of Jesus Christ and he places it on a hill where no one has ever placed the banner before and he cries out, Jesus Christ is Lord, even if it costs my son his life.

Oh, when he's 18 years old, if he says to me the same thing I said when I was a young man, I'm going into the mountains, I'm going into the jungle and they say, you can't go there. You're insane. It's a war.

You're going to die. I'm going. When that little boy puts on that backpack, I'm going to pray over him.

And say, go. Everything else, that doctrine is okay. Are you able to distinguish between a preacher who's interested in your money and who's interested in making you godly? If you are not able to distinguish that, I want to tell you in Jesus' name, you will be deceived.

And don't think you're smart enough to escape deception. The devil is smarter than all of us. But if you can distinguish between a man who's interested in leading you to godliness and a man who's interested in getting your money, you'll be safe.

Let's fall in this trap because we think, oh, I'm okay. I don't need this. This is for some of the others sitting here. I want to surprise you. It's not for some of the others. It's for you. Unless you're better than Timothy, then it's not for you.

If you're better than Timothy, okay, it's not for you. But I'll tell you what it means to be better than Timothy. Paul said about Timothy, I don't have any of my co-workers like him. He doesn't seek a single thing for himself.

Everything in his life, he's thinking of how to promote the kingdom of God, the things of Christ. How many of you can say that? That all the decisions you made in your life, you were thinking of promoting the kingdom of God and the things of Christ.

I don't think there are many people better than Timothy in the whole world today in Christendom and to such a man who was his best co-worker. Why didn't Paul write this to Demas? He said, well, Demas is a hopeless case.

It's pointless writing to him. He'll just throw my letter in the garbage bin. But Timothy, my hopes are not set on Demas being a witness in the second generation. Demas is just one of those fellows who comes and sits in the meeting.

Timothy, I've got a hope for him that that guy will be a witness for the Lord in the second generation. And if he's going to be that witness, he has to run away from the love of money, run for your life.

Verse 11, from the love of money and pursue a righteous life, run after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. He's saying, Timothy, you think you don't have enough money.

I believe Timothy had much less than all of us, but he still told him to be satisfied. Some of us may think I don't have enough money. I'll tell you what you don't have enough of. You don't have enough righteousness.

You don't have enough godliness. You don't have enough faith. You don't have enough love. You don't have enough perseverance. You don't have enough gentleness. Those are the things he says you should run after.

Aren't you concerned that you don't have these things? And you're running after something else which you already have enough of and that you get more, you'll destroy yourself. And here are so many areas, he says, you lack so tremendously.

Why don't you run after that? Bite the good bite of faith. And if you want to really run.

After something, take hold of eternal life. Extortionist. This is the man that says to learn of men. You're the enemies of God. He's merciless. You know, we are preaching an acceptable gospel today. Make it as painless as we can.

And all we do is give people a shot to put them to sleep so they'll get to hell quicker. We need some hellfire preaching on repentance. One old definition said, repentance is to leave the sin. Did he say that?

What did he say? Pardon? Not all sleeping. That's great. If any man, anywhere, at any time, being Christ, he may be the most twisted, perverted, carnal, cruel, stinking man in the whole world, but if the miracle of regeneration comes in him, he gets a new heart, a new mind, a new spirit, a new in look, a new outlook, new everything.

We've forgotten about the majesty of the new birth. People just nod their head and say the sinner's prayer and go straight to hell down the aisle after they've leaned their head on the shoulder of the pastor.

You know, I doubt if 5 of professing Christians in America are born again. I asked that giant of a man, Buck Singh, the man from India. Do you ever meet him out there? You've got to see him this time.

He's getting old. He's about 86. He is a man. He's a man that's going over the world and he goes to the railway station without a penny and orders his ticket. I believe in faith, but not fanaticism. I mean, you know, I mean, what if you embarrass God, but you don't embarrass God.

But I asked him one day, of all the professing Christians in India, how many have saved? He said, about two and a half percent. What about the Christians in America, Brother Singh? He said, two and a half percent.

I'm astounded, bewildered, confused, baffled when people tell me in America we've 75 million people filled with the Holy Ghost and with the rottenest nation on earth. Some of the greatest preachers since Pentecost wrote these streets or rode the horses.

One of the greatest men, the only man that outrode Mr. Wesley. Wesley rode 240 ,000 miles on horseback. Bishop Ashbery rode 2 ,400, I think. Exceeded Wesley, anyhow. You've had a host of great... What about Jonathan Edwards?

You should have been reading that story this week, I think. The man who said, stamp eternity on my high goal, not prosperity, God help us. I pity those poor guys over there in Dallas at the judgment seat of the leading people down the garden path looking for wealth.

When the church is poorest, she's richest in God. The blessed apostle said, I have nothing. I have no home, I have no protection, I have no creature comforts, I have no rights. I have nothing, but I possess all things.

And it wasn't some oratory. It wasn't some sweet saying. He demonstrated he had all things. He had power over demons, he had power over death, he had power over adversity. He can rejoice in prosperity or in adversity, in season, out of season.

Lash him 195 times, he sings hallelujah. Lock him in a stinking prison in Rome. He writes four of his greatest epistles to the Philippians and Colossians and Hebrews and Ephesians. I think all hell on a day's holiday when Paul died.

But this is the man who says, I travail in birth. This is the man who daringly says, I could wish myself a curse. The literal word is damned if need be for my brothers. Now you might say this is way above our heads.

Well, stand up. Grow. The trouble is we're all locked up. Come on. I may get shot for this. That's okay. We all live in a little theological playpen. Who God knows I'm adding condemnation to you tonight.

You can't handle the truth you've already got. You've had it for five or ten years, you can't handle it. Why should I bring you more truth? Why should I give you the challenge of having a spirit-filled life?

Out of his inmost being, when he is resident, out of my inmost being will flow rivers. Not trickles. Rivers of living water. What kind of rivers? Rivers of mercy. Rivers of compassion. Will melt my eyes to tears.

Rivers of love that will let me go to the most perverted and wicked and crooked people. That helps me to look at the TV and not see a bunch of skeletons. The lady here said the other day she was tremendously moved I was.

It was on last night again. Those million people in Ethiopia, somebody says that's a contrived famine. I could give you names of men who contrived it too. A million people may die in Ethiopia and more than a million in Africa.

There's a woman with a withered breast and little things sucking, sucking, getting nothing. She gets some water and that kid's glands are so swollen when she pours the water it goes all over him, down his butt.

He can't even take it. Well I want to tell you tonight, I believe the same thing happens in our churches every Sunday. People are choking and we're trying to pour the water of life into them and the poor souls are so damned and lost they can't take it.

They've listened to the same preacher year after year, says the same things in the same way. He hasn't shed a tear since he left his mother's womb. He went to the seminary and got a big fat head and a shrunken soul.

I wonder if God Almighty doesn't keep his promise. What's his promise? He keeps his promise. All right then before long I'll tell you what he's going to do. He's going to spew most of the, not Christianity, but Christendom.

Organized, financially backed religion that can't turn this, why do we send people to other countries? We can't even save our own country. A little guy on TV said, give me more money, my message should go into Japan.

Why? They're lost. Are they? Do you know how many deaths, how many murders they have in Japan in a year? Twenty. We have that in a day in New York State. What's the good of taking, they'll turn around and say, go back and clean your own country up.

We had two precious men from Poland in our house the other week, Dave Wilkerson brought them. They were amazed, they said, when they saw people come out of church and light up smoke. Oh, you would never see that in Poland.

Poland is wedged between a rock and a hard place. An inflexible Roman church and the devilish power of communism. But do you know what? They have no homosexuality. They have no gay communities. They have no pornography.

Come on, we can't even clean that lousy, stinking stuff out of the nation. Never mind, go convert Japanese. I know they need to be saved, I'm not saying they won't be. Now I can draw a picture as black as anybody I guess.

I believe we're going into the darkest days that humanity has ever known. So dark they'll make the dark ages look like midday. Doesn't it say that in Joel, before the final break, there's going to be a day of darkness and gloominess?

But you know, I got some help today, brother Ray, when I was pondering that. The story of Egypt, in Egypt. Do you remember it says there was darkness in Egypt, but light in the houses of the king of Israel?

Darkness, doom is going to settle over the capitalist system and every other system.