Your Reasonable Service — Leonard Ravenhill

Prayer for Spiritual Healing and Salvation

Father, we thank you for health of soul tonight. I think of Wesley when he said, to perfect health restore my soul, to perfect holiness and love. Lord, we thank you that you are the one, as the psalmist says, who healeth all our diseases, not just physically, but even spiritually and morally.

We're glad for that marvellous word, that measureless word in Hebrews 7 .25, Lord, in which your word declares, he is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by him. As we sang this hymn, Lord, I am pressing on the upward way.

New heights I am gaining every day, still praying as I am onward bound. I want to scale the utmost height. Lord, as we sang that, my mind flashed across those wonderful people listed there in Hebrews 11.

Some of them had to leap across a chasm, as it were, but they found faith to do it. Others discovered that their faith did not remove mountains, but you gave them strength and courage to climb over them.

And that word recurs in that epistle, they endured as seeing him who is invisible. Lord, I'm afraid so many of us have seen the things round about us. People are seeing change that they can't account for.

Circumstances they never dreamed of. But Lord, we bless you that through Jesus we can be more than conquerors through him that loved us. We thank you for every precious believer in the world tonight. We're surely a minority in a minority.

But Lord, we bless you, you have many tonight, in many kindreds and people and nations and tongues that have been redeemed from all iniquity. You put a new song in their mouths, even praise it unto our God.

Think of the psalmist says, he lifted me up from a horrible pit. Not only lifted me up, he set me up on a rock and attuned me up because he had to put a new song in my mouth. Lord, we thank you, you're in this business of making bad things into good, totally transforming.

Again, we bless you for this uttermost salvation to the fountain, full and free, pure, exhaustless, ever flowing, wondrous grace it reaches me. Lord, I think of the apostle with all his fabulous theology, the magnificence of his conception of redemption and of God.

And all he wrote to us in that letter to the Thessalonians that the Lord will come with 10 ,000 of his saints. And Lord, we think of that moment, we don't hear much about it. It's put on one side even by the redeemed.

But Lord, we know you're coming to take charge in a new and wonderful way, not to set up a temporal kingdom, but an eternal kingdom. We thank you for the saints who have gone before us. We have to sing, Lord, in truth.

Brothers, we're treading where the saints have trod. We think again of Hebrews where it says they were martyred. They endured affliction. They were persecuted and tormented, of whom the world was not worthy.

The world thought they weren't worthy to live in it. And you turned it around and said the world isn't worthy of them. And you took them through the fire and the flood and the flame and the persecution, the trial, to shape their characters for eternity.

Lord, we're glad you're not capricious, you don't play tricks. You are a perfect plan for each of our lives if we're willing to walk in the light as we sang tonight. And Lord, we believe that's the secret.

If we step out of the light into the darkness, we get into chaos, we get into confusion, we get into difficulties, we get into sin. But Lord, we thank you, you enable us to walk in the light. And we thank you for the light of his word.

Again, we thank you, this book not only has a line of blood from Genesis to Revelation, but it covers us stained with blood, the blood of martyrs. We thank you for those, think of those men in England who put their hands in the flame first because they had recanted.

And yet they slowly let that hand roast and the crowd jeered. But Lord God, we think of the glorious reward they'll have. We can't remember the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury at that time.

But Lord, you've left an indelible record in history that men would endure physical suffering even to the death, choking in the flames, not able to see with the tears in their eyes because of the smoke.

And yet Lord, they did it as they endured as seeing him who is invisible. Lord God, we live in a world where people want to believe in what they can touch and what they can see and what they can handle and what they can value.

But Lord, how we bless you, you've changed our concept of that. We thank you, we know in whom we have believed. We thank you that we do have a home eternal in the heavens, a house not made with hands.

How we bless you for that, beyond our concept. We thank you for the glorious kingdom you're going to set up. We thank you for the day when we shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and all the saints of the ages.

Lord, what a celebration that will be, beyond our comprehension, beyond explanation. But Lord, we know that you keep your promise, you said it in your holy word. Remember again tonight, the suffering church?

People like us in Russia who have no freedom? Or in Afghanistan which slowly bleeds to death while the United Nations looks on? But Lord, you're looking on from another angle. There are people there who worshipped you there in spirit and in truth today.

They've blessed you for food as though they had a banquet when it was only a crust. They've thanked you for what they have, Lord, they're only rags. But Lord, you see beyond that, you see them in a robe of righteousness.

And you see them again in that day when there's no poverty, no suffering, no hardship. What do we think of women bearing babies, as we're told, with a shot and shell of hell going over them, cringing there.

Nobody to attend them, no doctors, no midwives, and in terrible, terrible difficulties. But Lord, we bless you that they are enduring again as seeing him who is invisible. Lord, we thank you there are some people in this chaotic world who have a faith that's unshakable, and a peace that's indestructible, and a joy that's unspeakable.

It can't be rationalized because it isn't rational, it isn't natural, it's supernatural. We thank you for those, Lord, who are walking tall in the midst of adversity, and calamity, and tragedy, and affliction.

Think of that hymn again, the part of which says of these saints, they climb the steep ascent to heaven through peril, toil, and pain. O God, to us may grace be given to follow in their train. We thank you for the privilege of worship tonight.

Grant that we may worship you in spirit and in truth, in Jesus' name. Let's sing the first and second stanzas only of number one. If you were here last Friday, you remember we had a very precious word from Gracie Greer, a very feeding, satisfying word.

From Doctrine to Duty in Romans 12

He spoke about the body. I want to take it up from another angle tonight, from the epistle of Paul to the Romans, chapter 12. I think there's a change here in the, from chapter 1 to chapter 11, the Apostle has stated doctrine, and now he tells us we have to shift from doctrine to duty, or from precepts, if you like, to practice.

This is a very beautiful verse. I remember going down the street in England. We were having a crusade and a man stopped me, and he said, what's your habit of life? I said, well, do you want to know them all?

It'll take you a long while. Well, he said, I'll tell you what I do. Every morning I get up, I present my body, a living sacrifice to the Lord. Do you do that? I said, no. You don't? Well, you should.

I said, why should I? I said, this is my body, and that's the altar, and I put my, I put it on the altar tonight. How can I put it on the altar tomorrow morning? There's only one reason, that I took it off in between.

I said, I don't know much Greek. I know a little Greek. He runs a, what does he run in? 8th Avenue. He runs a garage in 8th Avenue. I know a little Hebrew. I used to repair my trousers. I know where he lives in beautiful Brooklyn.

How many of you have been to Brooklyn? It's one of the most beautiful, I mean, ugly cities in the world. But there's a great work of God going on there. I beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of God, that ye present, that word present is in what the Greek scholars, Jack, do you know Greek?

I do. Maybe it's the same man. Present your body, the present is in the aorist tense. It's a present continuous tense. But he says, I beseech you, therefore. Therefore what? Because of all that's gone before.

I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. Well, what has he done in the, in the previous eleven chapters? He's shown us a work of redemption. By the mercy of God. There's a hymn that says, by thy love constraining, by thy grace divine, we are on the Lord's side, Savior we are thine.

You know, God had to continually remind the children of Israel, remember that you are in a horrible pit. I think something that we don't call sin is very common amongst Christians. We're ungrateful people.

How many millions of people would love to be in America tonight? How many millions of people would love the word of God? They don't have it. And yet we really, we're snacked by Christians, most of us, aren't we?

I was with a doctor last week and he has a fabulous mind. Every time you say it, you say, well, the Greek word in Hebrews 11 is this and somewhere else it's that. And he's used his super intellect just to dig deep into the word of God instead of plowing over the top.

I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, you present your bodies a living sacrifice. Now remember, the sacrifice in the Old Testament was a beast being dragged reluctantly with a rope around its neck to the altar.

And it had, this thing had to be repeated over and over and over again. And yet Hebrews says concerning Jesus, who was both, he is the altar, he is a priest, and he is a sacrifice, that once in the end of the age he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and there remaineth no more sacrifice of sin.

The Living Sacrifice and the Final Sacrifice of Christ

The Roman Catholic celebration of the mass is blasphemy. You can't re-crucify Jesus Christ. We can by disobedience and rebellion, but the way they take it, no, it's false. In fact, I've been in many countries, seen many kinds of religion.

There's only one religion in the world where they eat their own God, and that's the Catholics, and it's supposed to be super. How can you eat God? How can you drink his blood? But he says, present your body a living sacrifice.

You get bound to an altar, you get to the place. But he says, you present your body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service. Now you know this man, everything this man has, has passion in it, and power, and purpose.

Why do you say, you know friends, I advise you to yield all you have to God. It's a good word of advice to you. It doesn't say that. It says, I beseech you, or it's translated, I exhort you. I suggest to you that you have no obligation to do anything else.

Look at the mercies of God in the previous chapter. You are the outside, the commonwealth, and he brought you inside. We were under the curse, now we're under the blessing. We were lost, we were found.

Well in the light of all he, look he's saying this, all the previous eleven chapters, he was laying down his life. Now you turn it round and lay down your life for him. He was a living sacrifice for thirty years.

Now from here out, you'll be a living sacrifice. And he says, present your body a living sacrifice. He says a lot about his body. You know history says that he was about five feet one, hunchbacked, and a big nose.

So take courage if you have any defaults. The body. Elsewhere he says, if you remember, know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? In Philippians 1 .20 he says that Christ may be magnified by my body.

Not my intellect, my body. The flowers are dying out in our yard. They haven't started growing in Dale's yet. But there's some lovely little flowers out in the field called dandelions. Not very nice. You go to hospital, you don't take a bunch of dandelions do you?

To anybody. Except your mother-in-law maybe, but anyhow. When they come out next time, get one and magnify it. And it's the most gorgeous flower you could ever think of. The way that God has built that little flower that cows tread on it and ignore it.

It's beautiful. But you have to put something between that dandelion and your eye. With your 20 -20 vision you can't see it. You slip that glass in between and suddenly the thing is gorgeous, magnificent.

And Paul says that Christ may be magnified. That my lifestyle may increase the beauty and the majesty and the glory of Jesus Christ. Well that's all we're here for. We're not here to be rich or famous or something.

We're here to give God pleasure. What pleasure do you get out of your life today? Displeasure, when we're dissatisfied. You know we should be the happiest people on earth. I'm afraid we're not. But it says that Christ may be magnified through my body, whether by life or by death.

That's in Philippians 1 .20. In 1 Corinthians 9 .21 he says, I keep my body under. You see, he was in control. What was it the Greeks used to say? Man know thyself. The scripture says that under the Spirit of God, man control yourself.

I bring my body. Do we sing that hymn here? I've forgotten whether they sing it here in England. All to Jesus I surrender. Do we sing that? All to him I freely give. I will ever live and trust him. Well if we don't, we should do anyhow.

I'm trying to recall another hymn and it won't come. Well it starts the same way. All for Jesus, all for Jesus. All my beings ransom powers. All my thoughts and words and doings. All my days and all my hours.

Worldlings prize their gems of beauty. Cling to gilded toys of dust. Boast of wealth and fame and pleasure. Only Jesus will I trust. All for Jesus. You know, I believe we're going to have to come to this before we ever have a Holy Ghost revival.

We'll get to the place where nothing counts. There's nothing of any value at all. I've got a little brochure here. I wish you all had one, but this is the only one I have and it's not for sale. Not for a hundred dollars.

Give me a thousand, I'll consider it. And I'll give the money to missions. There's a man on TV who used to be called Carl Sagan. How many of you have seen him? Carl Sagan? Snobbish, aristocratic, fool of a man.

He's the only one living that was there when the world began. He witnessed it. Fifteen billion years ago he was there. In fact he gave advice, I think. He's such a snob. I wonder what he'll leave in the world.

There was an American who said, if you ever think you're getting important, get a bucket of water, roll your sleeve up, stick your hand to the bottom of the bucket and pull it out. And the hole you leave is the impression you've left in the world.

That's pretty discouraging, isn't it? Speaking of that, we talked with Paul last night. He has a little boy and he's a boy. And we said, how are the children? He said, well, there's a stream flowed past their house, so they blocked up one end, dug a hole and made a little swimming pool.

It's about six feet deep at one end. The youngster fell in and nobody saw him. And he just came to the top. As they got there, he said, I did it, I did it, I did it. Whether he tried to touch the bottom or not, I don't know, but he did it.

I thought, well, anyhow, the kid took advantage of his opportunity. He did something, anyhow, if he scared his folk to death. How many of you read Blaise Pascal? Blaise Pascal? No? Good, you have. What did you read, his Pensées?

Yeah, Pensées, OK. You've got to get that for your girls. I'll chase you till you get it. If you can read it in French, which Phil does of course, he's a brilliant scholar in French, it's the best ever.

Blaise Pascal’s Genius and Turn Toward Religion

But let me give you a summary of his life. Now, here's a man, I think the greatest intellectual in world history. He out-invented Edison. In 1500 and something, he invented a computer. Muggeridge says he'd love to account to the Lord for doing a trick like that.

This is the best summary I've found of this. Once there was a human being who, at the age of twelve, created mathematics by means of bars and circles. At sixteen, he wrote the most learned treatise on the conic sections since the ancients.

At nineteen, he reduced into a machine a science which exists entirely in the mind only. At twenty-three, he demonstrated a phenomena of atmospheric pressure and brought to naught one of the greatest errors of the ancient physics.

At the age when other men had hardly begun to see the light, he had completed, listen to it, he had completed the circle of human sciences, and aware of their nothingness, turned his thought to religion.

Who from that time until his death, at thirty-nine years of age, there's a great Australian author, what's his name, Arthur? Borum, Borum. A preacher called Borum. Isn't that the name for a preacher?

Terrible. It would be worse if he was Killam. But I was in a meeting once, and Dr. Borum was there. And the man that introduced him said, this is Dr. Borum, he's written about sixty books. He has five books, and there are twenty, twenty to twenty-five biographies in each of them.

So instead of having a hundred books on your shelf, you just get the five books, and they're priceless. I've had a set, I guess, fifty years now. They're not for sale either. But F. W. Borum was introduced in Manchester, and I was in that meeting.

And the guy that introduced him said, this is Dr. F. W. Borum, one of the most prolific writers, I think he's written about sixty-five books. He said, his name, his name is on all our lips, his books are on all our shelves, and his illustrations are in all our sermons.

Pretty good summary. But he says of this man, Paschal was one of the great architects of modern civilization. The omnibus system which runs in Paris still was founded on the plan that that man established.

He completed the human sciences. All the sciences he tested them. Well I've always argued that theology is the queen of the sciences. A queen has a crown, and holiness is the crown on the head of the queen.

Holiness is the chief thing in a theology. Theology, a simple definition of theology is, theology is systematized knowledge concerning God, as he has revealed himself to man through his word. But again, I'll finish this, he had completed the cycle of human sciences, and aware of their nothingness.

Isn't that something? He'd given his genius, and in every realm he'd exceed every, he'd touch the, talk about the mountain heights, he'd touch the top of everything. He was a superstar in every science you can mention that man has.

And he'd throw his hollow inside and it's rubbish. We didn't sing it, but we love to sing that hymn, I lay in dust life's glory dead, that's easier said than done. But then he turned his thought to religion, and from that time until he was 39, in his 39th year, he was always in firm and suffering, and he molded the French language in a new way.

Pascal, Solzhenitsyn, and Abandoned Consecration

But let me read something more wonderful here. I've mentioned to you more than once, and I get profoundly moved when I think of Muggeridge's statement concerning Solzhenitsyn, one of the greatest brains in the world today.

When he came to England, the BBC told him to take the lid off and show Russia who it really is. And he didn't, it shook the nation. When he came here, not one of the TV stations would let him speak. We don't want to know what's wrong, we don't want to know the corruption in Russia.

But remember that genius was in a bed, he slept every night on a bed of rotting straw with urine running round and filth in a dark place and hardly any light. And across from him there was another old stinking bed, and every night a man reached into his ragged clothes and pulled out little bits of paper and uncurled them and read them and smiled and lay back.

They gave that man more brutality, gave him more suffering, gave him more hardship, gave him less food, and tortured him. And never once did he wince, never once complained to men. He smiled at everybody that smote him.

He embraced men as though he was embracing some gorgeous woman. I love you, I love you. Solzhenitsyn says to him, how in God's name did you do that? He said, I did it in God's name. Jesus Christ came into my life.

And it was there in that stinking hole, Solzhenitsyn had been to these cathedrals in Russia, never heard the voice of God. And he sees a man totally lost. He doesn't see as men see. He doesn't think as men think.

He's on his feet on earth, his thinking is in eternity. Even embracing hardship, he's embracing the mercy and the love and the greatness of God. And Solzhenitsyn said, when I saw that, there must be a living God.

And the man says, well Christ lives in me. He must do. No one else could bear it. You turn and curse your enemies. You get violent. Instead of that, you're so submissive. You are like Jesus Christ. Well listen to this, this is the other end of the scale.

This fellow blazed, that's spelt B-L-A-I-S-E, in the dawn which followed the unforgettable night of the 23rd of November 1654, Blaise in complete surrender to his savior, withdrew into the solitude of Port Royal de Champs.

And very likely it was there, on the occasion of a monthly meditation, he wrote his admirable Mystery of Jesus. But this is what Blaise says, in the serpent transport of love, I actually heard the Lord Jesus say to me, I was thinking of thee in my agony.

I've said such and such drops of blood for thee. The moving dialogue reached a culmination of grandeur when Jesus finally rested from Blaise, the words of utter consecration, Lord I give thee my all. From that moment, one of his firmest conviction was that Jesus will be in agony until the end of the world, and we must not sleep until that time.

Now that's a saying. And yet we sing that hymn crowning with many crowns, who every grief hath known, that rings the human breast. I looked up one of the great old English really, Welsh preachers, Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, and he agrees exactly with what this man says, that Jesus Christ is suffering now.

He's the head of the body. The body is suffering. We sometimes say, Lord, stretch forth thy arm. How can he? I'm the arm, you're the arm. If he's the head, he's the head. You don't have two heads. That's why you've no head of, like the Pope on earth, he's no head.

I could tell you what he is, but I won't. But this man is totally abandoned to Jesus Christ, in exactly the same degree, I think, that the Apostle Paul was. You see, all that Paul is doing here, in the twelfth chapter, he's working out, at least in my judgment, what he said in the sixth chapter.

New Birth as a New Creation

That if we're genuinely born again, you know, I'm so sick of altar calls, I'm so sick of people going up and sniffling at the altar for five minutes. How in God's name have you time to tell them? If anybody comes to the altar, I'm going to stay there an hour if need be.

Oh, are you sorry for your sins? Sure. They repented. How do you know they cried? How do you know it's not remorse? Do you think they deliberately said, love, I'm putting off the world, the flesh, and the devil, and I'm putting on the Lord Jesus Christ?

I renounce all the hidden things of dishonesty? You see, the new birth is a miracle. There's nothing on this earth like it. If any man be in Christ, I don't care how tangled he up, I don't care how deep he is in sin, if any man be in Christ, it's a new creation.

Tell me the people that come to the altar, give me the names and addresses, I'll go to the house. Before the week's up, ask the wife, is your husband new? Children, is your daddy new? No, he's still angry.

What? People will say, I'm saved. What do you say, from hell? Are you saved from bitterness? Are you saved from anger? Are you saved from jealousy? If you're not, you're not saved. You may have given up some dirty habits, maybe you don't smoke or do this, but are you a new creation?

Is your appetite as keen for God as it was for sport? How many millions of people, professing Christians, watch the, what do you call the games they recently had, the baseball World Series? And people stayed up till midnight.

They said, what was it, about two weeks before the end of the, one game lasted 16 hours. Those people couldn't stand six minutes over 12 o 'clock on Sunday. That's all they get out for the Cowboys. Or this morning, they said on national TV, that the PTO cost $175 million to build, and Jimmy and, what's her name, Tommy, Tammy, expecting to spend a billion dollars before they're through.

God help them. A billion dollars for that junk? I'll tell you how to test your spiritual life. The more joy you have in God, the less entertainment you need. Entertainment is the devil's substitute for joy.

You have to pay for entertainment. You can have joy in the misery, in adversity, in calamity, in tragedy. What did we sing? It is well with my soul. The man that wrote that had lost his son. He'd trained his son to take over a multi-million dollar business.

The son died. Right after that came Chicago. He lost all his property. Right after that, he lost four daughters at sea. And then he could go home and take a piece of paper and write, when peace like a river had His world had dissolved.

The psalmist says, my heart is fixed. You better make up your mind. That's the only thing that is fixed. There's nothing else fixed. The weather isn't fixed. Your feelings aren't fixed. So many of us live on emotions.

I feel good. So what? What if you feel rotten? Does that mean the kingdom of God has fallen apart? Oh, I've disappointed the Lord. Well, he doesn't disappoint me, or you. He's on the victory side all the time.

Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Victory Over Sin

But anyhow, in Romans 6, Paul says, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed. Now there's the body. The body he's talking about here is this. I never said carcass.

You have. No, I mean, carcass I have. This is the case inside of all kinds of wonderful things. I have my will. As I've told you, the x-ray can photograph your brain. It can't photograph your mind. It can photograph your throat.

It can't show you your voice. It can photograph many things, the liver, your kidneys, and all the other trimmings we have inside. But it can't show a picture of your emotions. It can't show your will.

It can't show your zeal. The most mysterious thing on God's earth is human personality. And if it's corrupted, look how devilish it becomes. Just going to bed last night, we turned on the news at five to ten, I think it was, and they'd been showing apparently a special on teenage prostitutes.

Isn't it amazing? In this country, of all countries, of all the industrialized countries in the world, America has the highest percentage of teenage prostitutes and teenage teenage and all that kind of deal.

Well, teenage prostitution in the most privileged nation in the world. Sure we have more bathtubs and telephones. Sure we have more divorces too. Our jails have dampened the capacity. It shows the total ineffectiveness.

I called a guy the other day, and he was mad about it. I said, I'll say it somewhere else. Let me speak on national TV. The biggest enemy to revival in America is evangelism. We're getting people up weeping and say this, and there's no change.

There's no transformation. They're not new creations. They don't wake up with all the joy bells ringing. They don't suddenly found everything has withered in the world. What's the script? I don't know if I caught it earlier.

Worldlings prize their gems of beauty, cling to gilded toys of dust, boast of wealth and fame and pleasure. Only Jesus relies on us. You see, to men like Pascal, the world, he says there's nothing in it.

I've tried every science, medical science, every other science, and they're all hollow. And from here, he said, every beat of my heart, every thought of my mind is Christ. And he lived in that constant agony.

He says, well, Christ is there. He's grieving over his church. I believe the church in America or England tonight is more grief to God than all the corruption and prostitution and drunkenness. We're playing a game.

We're afraid to get down to the issue. You see, the thing I love about this precious man, Paul, he's the best example of his own theology. As I've said too often, I used to say in street meetings every week, what was I going to say?

It comes to me right now. Oh, a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument. Paul is saying, you present your body, your living sacrifice. Do you know what God will do? He'll break open areas of your being you've no idea of.

This is a man, remember, he's bloody, his hands are bloody. He's going to stand one day at the judgment and say, why did you leave me? He didn't. So what happened? What you saw, you read. The same thing happened with him.

He was put to death. But Paul says, you remember, in Galatians 2 .20, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh or in the body, this body, I live by the faith of the Son of God.

I like what he says in, what is it, Galatians, or Galatians 6 .17, I think it is, yes. From verse 14, he says, God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world.

Then he says, with a holy arrogance, if it's such a thing. In verse 17, he says, from henceforth, let no man trouble me. You're wasting your time. Tempt me if you like, on any level. Tell me I'm a fool for giving my genius.

He was maybe the greatest genius that ever lived. Tempt me with scholarship, and I'll tell you this, I'm dead to it. Tempt me with pedigree. Doesn't he say, I'm of the tribe of Benjamin, the seed of Abraham.

Everything that everybody else was reaching, for he laid it in dust, life's glory dead. And he says, from henceforth, don't waste your time on me, for I bury my body. That body again. The man, Marks, or the Brands, I think it's Moffat translates it, I bury my body, the owner's Mark.

I've told you before, in the temple, the temple used to be lined up with priests, and if a prisoner ran away from his boss, or someone else, he would run to the temple, and nudge the sleeping priest, and say to him, brand me, brand me, brand me.

And he says, you a slave? He said, I just ran away from slavery. Choose which God you want to be. So he put his hand out, they took a red-hot hand, and branded his arm. Slipped his toga down, they branded him in his neck.

Slipped his foot up, and they branded his instep. He might be going down the street, and his old boss, the slave driver would say, see, there's Aristarchus. Markus, go out to Aristarchus. Tell him I'll whip him within an inch of his life when I get him back home.

And the young man goes up, and smiles at the man who's bought him in the temple. He says, I can't touch you. Look, I can't tame you. Look at my foot. Well, you belong to your God. And Paul says, henceforth, let no man trouble me.

The Body Under Discipline and the Holy Spirit’s Control

There's a hymn that says, let my hands perform his bidding. Let my feet run in his way. Let my eyes see Jesus only. Let my lips speak forth his praise. Remember the psalmist in Psalm 51 says, Lord, open thou my mouth and my lips.

Open thou my lips, or my mouth, and my lips, will I praise thee. In other words, every detail of my personality can be God-controlled, instead of self-controlled, or controlled by worldly systems, or worldly customs, or religious customs.

Somebody tried to tell me last week they went to a Pentecostal church. I said, I think there was one in the world. What do you mean? At a Pentecostal church, they go to church every day. They break bread every day.

Soldiers saved every day. They can do that in other countries. We can't. Maybe God Almighty is going to smash the economy so we can. I wonder if we'll ever be happy to crawl up to somebody's house, or walk a two or three miles, and say, we'll pray at your house in the morning, and your house tomorrow, and your house some other time.

You see, God's going to get glory out of America, if he smashes IBM and every blessed system that there is. He's going to make this whole world bow to the feet of Jesus, even before Jesus comes. But Paul says, I bear in my body his mind.