Suffer Here or Suffer There — Leonard Ravenhill

Or what we choose to do ourselves. Lord give us that holy work that will last, the results that we have sung tonight will last for eternity. Not for the years of time alone, blessed as it is now to know in whom we have believed, but for eternity.

Bless your word to our hearts again in Jesus name. Thank you. This evening. Acts chapter 7, 7th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Pardon me, it's the 6th. Chapter 6, and again, verse 8. We did a study last Friday night, if you were here, in this chapter.

I don't know what you got out of it, I got a lot. The book of Acts, in some ways, is the same as the book of Genesis. Genesis is the beginning of creation, and the Acts of the Apostles is the beginning of the church.

There are a lot of first things in this chapter that I mentioned last week. For the first time they heard the rushing mighty wind, for the first time a ball of fire fell on each of them, for the first time they decided to choose deacons.

It says at the end of the previous chapter, chapter 5, in verse 40, to him they agreed, and they called the apostles and beat them. And they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and they let them go.

And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were prosperous. I haven't noticed that before, has anybody noticed that before? It doesn't say that? Rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer?

There's not much about prosperity in the New Testament, unless you twist the scriptures. Pentecost meant prisons, persecution, privation, poverty. The very opposite to what we need today. We're clamoring after everything the world clamors after.

Well, thousands had been born again, wonderfully born again, of the Spirit of God. It says in chapter 6, verse 1, in those days when the number of the disciples, notice the disciples not apostles as it multiplied, they started murmuring, well that's average for a church, I'm sure.

And they said they would choose them out men. I'm going to preach to a lot of preachers next Tuesday, so. Somebody said, I used to pray for you, now I pray for them. Well, you're better. I'm getting some hot shot ready.

Then the week after I got to preach to about 250 preachers, which I enjoy. I love to do that. The more I can make them suffer here, the less they will suffer up there anyhow. Verse 3 says, you choose out seven men, honest, boy it's hard to find those, seven honest men of good report and full of the Holy Ghost, oh mercy that's worse still, and wisdom, where do we stop?

That we may appoint over this business, we will give ourselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the word. That's the only thing a preacher has to do. He doesn't have to visit the sick, doesn't have to go to hospitals, that's why they chose deacons.

All he has to do is live on his knees and seek the face of God. We will give ourselves continually, not periodically, continually to prayer and the word of God. Then of course the question always comes up, well what about the dead?

Who buries the dead? The deacons. It doesn't say that here, it's just in another verse, it says let the dead bury the dead. What a revolution we'd have in the nation if every preacher decided he wouldn't do any more office work and visiting and blowing balloons up for the ladies tea party or whatever the world he's talking about, and play with the Sunday school crowd on a Saturday afternoon because he's the best softball player.

I don't read about that in the Acts of the Apostles. The saying pleased the Jews, the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen. The saying pleased the whole multitude and they chose Stephen. Who? The multitude did.

He was the first choice, he didn't get on the third ballot, he got on the first. Now in the 13th chapter of Acts it says the Holy Ghost said separate me Saul and Barnabas. The Holy Ghost doesn't speak here, he doesn't need to.

The men were already full of the Holy Ghost. They'd seen this blazing example in this extraordinary young man who was full of God, full of wisdom, and he was full of faith. Boy, he's got some qualifications.

Verse 55 of chapter 7 says,. But he, that Stephen being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly to heaven and he saw the glory of God. This man is not only the first deacon, he's the first martyr.

He went into heaven with a chorus. A chorus of what? Jagged nerves, broken bones, groaning body, blood running down his face, his cheeks were shattered, his body was shattered, his bones were shattered, and yet he looks up steadfastly.

He doesn't pray any fire down from heaven on these men who oppose him. And the Nazarene disciples didn't go and rescue him. He didn't say, well send an angel from heaven because Peter had an angel deliver him.

He doesn't care about that. He knows that in this situation he's in, where he's sinking under this pile of stones, where he's bloody and battered and broken but not beaten, that this is the will of God for him in this situation.

To me he's a supreme example of Romans 12, 1 and 2. You remember that? Present your body a living sacrifice. Isn't he a living sacrifice? He's dying by the inch. There are men in Russia who would have preferred 20 years ago to be put up the world and shot.

They would be absent from the body present with the Lord. They've been deteriorating for 20 years, rotting for 20 years, almost fruitless, living in uncleanness, filth you can't imagine. And yet they're more free than the men that torment them outside.

Again he's a supreme example as far as I'm concerned of the Philippians chapter 1, where the apostle says that Christ may be magnified by my body. Whether it's a broken body, a battered body, a bloody body, why do I care?

Is Christ being magnified? Yes. Every drop of blood goes into the body as it were of that young man over there. Why aren't they stoning him? He's the genius of the world at that time. He's the greatest theologian maybe the world's ever seen.

But his hands are bloody. And he stays there and watches a young man get stoned and not long after he's going to be stoned. I guess every stone that hit the apostle Paul when he was stoned, he'd remember every stone he saw thrown on Stephen.

This man presents his body as a living sacrifice, just doing the will of God. Years ago there was a bloody persecution, I don't know which one it was, there was one in 1560, as a matter of fact there were two, there was one in France at that time and there was one in Scotland.

And if you haven't read the book you should read it. I don't know if it's sold here but we could get some, what do you call it, fair sunshine? One of the greatest books you'll ever read. About men, most of them before they were 30 years of age that were put to death by the British because they wouldn't bow to the king and they preached through Scotland.

A marvellous crowd of heroes. And they rejoiced in that they were counted worthy to suffer for his namesake. I was saying about that time, one man questioned God. Why are these fair young men, these brilliant young preachers we have, why are they dying, why are they killed like sheep on the mountains?

And he said the Lord sent you up on the mountain with a lighthouse and he went up. And the lighthouse keeper suddenly shot his light onto the side of the hill a half mile away, a quarter mile or something.

And as he did a flock of birds got up and they flew all in directions and then suddenly they swooped down underneath the lighthouse and went into where they live. And he said well what's that? Why did you do that?

Because I noticed that when you turned the light on and the birds were exposed that wild dogs came out and started biting them and killing them. But did you notice they all fled home? And sometimes the only way I can get some of my people home is to let the devil chase them home, persecute them home.

They get so settled down, so relaxed, so contented. Remember Bunyan's Pilgrim? How many of you read Pilgrim's Progress? Let me see. Good, thank you. The rest of you make progress and read it this week.

It's a great book. And you remember if Pilgrim got on the road and then he got onto Bypath Meadow, it was nice and he lay down and giant despair caught him and took him to Doubting Castle? He got relaxed, he got satisfied, he got content.

Sometimes the only way God can move us in revival is adversity. And God knows we're going into it before long. How many places closed down this week in Dallas? One paid off, what, two hundred? Another laid off three or four hundred?

And gradually this wretched thing is coming nearer home. We've escaped it for quite a while, but it's coming. Not only that, the judgment of God is coming. Well let me go to this anyhow. You have one of the finest summaries ever.

This young man, I believe would have been another apostle, Paul, but God didn't see fit to let him do that. He had the potential. If you read this, this is a marvelous, marvelous display of Old Testament theology, Old Testament history.

It's very much like that which Peter gave on the day of Pentecost. And the result after Pentecost, they were thrown in jail. What's the result here? Well it says over there in verse fifty-four, as he was giving this marvelous message, when they heard these things they were cut to the heart.

They cut him with stones, he cut them on the inside. Their sufferings were worse than his sufferings. He destroyed their security, he destroyed their theology, he destroyed their confidence in history.

Yet again I say here he is suffering. But there's one thing in this story. Let me go back where I went to last week. He really takes them apart. Verse forty-four. Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen, which also our fathers that came after brought it with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers unto the days of David, who found favor before God and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.

He wanted to build it, remember God wouldn't let him. But Solomon built him a house. Oh that was great. Solomon built the greatest temple the world's ever seen. A fabulous building. But notice the next thing he wipes it out.

Verse forty-eight. He says, Howbeit the most high dwelleth not in temples made with hands the set of prophets. Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool. And what house will ye build me? We're still in that silly business today, aren't we?

Everybody's out bidding to get a guy. We were in Phoenix, Arizona some two or three years ago. There's a very marvelous preacher there, Dr. Jackson. I talked with him. His place seats five thousand. So a guy down the road gets envious and he puts a building up seating six thousand.

Which of course scared the devil to death. He hates big churches. Well he doesn't really. We love them. God does not dwell in temples made with hands. He inhabits human personality. But there's a thing here that really got hold of me.

In chapter seven. Then said the high priest, Are these things so? Isn't this great? A young guy that has no theological experience as the high priest and everybody else. On the high horses and they're scared to death of him.

As Robert Murray McShane said a couple of hundred years ago. There's nothing more terrible on God's earth than a holy man. There's nothing the devil fears more than a holy man. A God possessed man. A man emptied of self and filled with God.

A man with no other ambition than to please God. See these fellows thought they were having a great time. Here's this young man. They've slit his eyes maybe. He's slit his cheeks, broken his bones. And he's looking right past all these rascals that are stoning him.

And he sees right into eternity and he sees Jesus. Isn't he an example again of blessed or pure in heart for they shall see God? They said in the chapter there. Fifty-five of chapter seven. He being full of the Holy Ghost.

Now I don't believe anybody's filled with the Holy Ghost if they're not pure. Acts fifteen, eight and nine. You see the emphasis today is on power. God's emphasis is on purity. We've been chasing miracles.

God knows how we have. I've got a book here. Now if you belong to school here you won't be allowed to read this because, not because it's bad, but because you have required reading. This is a recent book.

The Seduction of Christianity. It's one of the finest books I've ever lived, I've ever read pardon me, apart from my own. I'm trying to find a page here. I thought I'd mount it. You know this is a day of great heresy.

This is what they call unity see. James Parks Morton, the Dean of New York's Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, one of the greatest church in the world. At Pentecost he said we invited the rabbi of New York, the abbot of the then community, Satyamanda of the Hindu Oriental Alliance and the chief of an American Indian tribe.

All for unity. I can't find a page. Where's my wife? Another page about Dr. Cho. Anyhow, I hope you'll read it. This is the most, the greatest modern exposition of the in-laws that, what am I trying to say, Eastern religion has made into Christianity today.

Everybody's been going over, in plane loads even, to see Dr. Cho's church in Korea. And they wonder why it's so successful. Because when they go to the altar they take a bunch of flowers and lay it on the altar for their dead relatives.

And he's never separated them from that. Not only that, his whole philosophy is founded, as this book says, and it gives you the outline, pardon me, it gives you the quotation for his own book, where he, got it here.

We do not believe the leaders of positive confession. Now he names the guys over in Dallas, he gives you the names. And while Dr. Hunt was giving this, in Dallas, I think it's Maddox's, is it Maddox's?

Pardon? Point of view. While Hunt was explaining this, from one of the big churches in Dallas, two men told him if he didn't quit, they'd rough him up. And they're supposedly spirit-filled people. He says, we do not believe the leaders of positive confession movement are deliberately involved in sorcery.

However, the terminology while sounding biblical promotes concepts that are not found in the Bible. They are found in occult literature. And moreover, practice of the positive confession readers, do not only admit, but teach the methods.

Nowhere in the Bible does it indicate, or even imply, that the people of God are to use the same methods of power as the pagans. But Yogi Cho, this famous man with his 400 ,000 members, however, not only says miracles must all conform to his law of the fourth dimension, but anyone, in italics, including occultists, may apply the law of the fourth dimension and perform miracles.

It sounds like the Dark Ages of the Force. Nevertheless, Pastor Cho assures us that he learned this from the Holy Spirit. When he asked in prayer why occultists could do miracles like Christians, Cho, he learned this fourth dimension when he asked how these other people could do miracles.

Cho commends the Japanese Buddhist, Saga Kaki, for performing miracles through the visualizing, a picture of prosperity, repeating phrases over and over, and developing the human spiritual fourth dimension.

The human spiritual, not the Holy Spirit. He scolds the Christians for not doing likewise. Prophecy of Economics newsletter, Frank Doyne, states that anyone, Christian or not, can totally control his own flow of God's riches because of the law of prosperity that can be used by anyone.

Now notice, Dr. Cho commends the Japanese Buddhist occultists. And he practices the same thing and covers it with a Pentecostal message. I understand now that the assembly of God has taken his license away for the simple reason that the people that came to the altar were still bringing flowers.

This shows how this Eastern religion has penetrated almost every area of so-called Christianity in America today. Now let me give you the name of the book here it is, The Seduction of Christianity. It's by David Hunt and it's published by Harvest House.

Now you're not to buy this if you're in the school because it's against the law, which is all right as far as I'm concerned. I want you other people to read it and pray over it and to read God. All right, let's get back to chapter 7 here.

This amazing man has given his great speech and the high priest said, are these things so? And he said, men and brethren and fathers. Notice he brings them in, men and brethren. But he's talking to a Jew because he's a Jew and he identifies himself with them on that level.

Men and brethren, the God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham. Does that do anything for you? Not the glory of God, the God of glory appeared who? To our father Abraham. Where? Read the text in Mesopotamia, which was a jungle of false gods and heathen temples and cruel practices and depravity and yet God goes and meets a man in that hellhole, in that dump.

I doubt this and I don't know your history. I doubt if any of us have really seen the God of glory. We seldom see the glory of God. Moses saw the glory of God in a bush that was burning and not consumed and he went near and took his shoes off his feet and you know you're getting pity near God when you don't keep your shoes on because of the dirt of the world on them.

The God of glory appeared. Is it in the 32nd? I think it's in the 32nd chapter of Exodus. Pardon me, chapter 33 where Paul, where pardon me I'm getting Paul in, he must have lived a long life. Moses. I can't think as quickly as I used to.

Can't do anything as quickly but anyhow. Except eat maybe. You have Moses, one of the greatest men in history. He prays this prayer in the 33rd of Exodus, show me thy glory. In the 24th chapter it's seen the glory of God but he wanted to see the God of glory.

In the 24th chapter you have one of the most remarkable pictures outside of the book of Revelation. They sat down and ate a meal with the God of glory. They saw the God of glory. Moses went up in a cloud, you remember, on the mountain and the mountain trembled and the people saw the glory of God.

They did not see the God of glory. If I'd parted the Red Sea and done all the miracles that he did I think I'd seen the glory of God. But you see he didn't want to see the glory of God, he wanted to see the God of glory.

I think he would have said this with tears. Show me thy glory. I think in the back of his mind, I'm guessing, I think he's saying you showed Abraham, as it's recorded here in the 7th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the God of glory, not the glory of God appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia of all the hell holes in the world.

And yet God appears to him. The back side of the desert where there's nothing, but smelly old sheep and dust and dirt and heat beyond our heat. And there God Almighty comes. I'm longing for the day when the glory of God will come.

That will be wonderful. But further still if you would dare to do it to show us God himself. Remember when the priests ministered there in the Old Testament after they built the tabernacle, after they built the temple?

Solomon built the most expensive building ever built. He laid an altar. But he knew it wasn't much good. I've heard preachers say come forward, the fire always falls on the altar. The fire never falls on the altar.

You can't show me a case in the Bible where the fire fell on the altar. The fire falls on the sacrifice. And the reason his glory doesn't come into him won't be sacrifice. But once they got the beast there and he prayed let the fire of God, God comes in fire, God is a consuming fire.

One Friday I'm going to speak on that. I can't think of that without thinking of William Booth, a penniless half Jew and half Gentile, kicked out of the Methodist Church, walked out of the stationing committee onto the side street in Leicester, took over his wife's farm, she had a curvature of the spine, one of the most wonderful women that ever lived as far as I'm concerned, but in weakness.

And he was in Carmichael had a curvature of the spine for 30 years and raised thousands of children. And one of the great prayer warriors of our day, our precious son that preached there the other week, Paul, I think he has every book that Amy Carmichael has written, and sought himself.

It was she who walked from prayer that asks that I may be shouted from winds that beat on thee. From fainting when I should aspire, from faltering when I should climb higher, let me not sink to be a clod.

Here's a 90 pound woman with a curvature of the spine, trusting God for every penny, saying, let me not sink to be a clod. She's not a muscle man, not somebody that's pressing 300 pounds or whatever you do every day.

She's a frail body, but God loves frailty. He takes the weak things, not the superior things. You say, well he took Samson. Well Samson was a rag until the Holy Ghost came on him anyhow. William Booth set out to conquer the world.

He wrote his battle song, Thou Christ of burning, cleansing flames, send the fire. Thy blood-bought gift today we claim, send the fire. Look down and see this waiting host, give us the promise of, I'm sick to death of reading the Acts of the Apostles.

In one sense, in another sense it fires me. I'm tired of church history, time to make history. Look down and see this waiting host, give us the promised Holy Ghost. We want another Pentecost. Whether we do or not, we need it.

Then he goes on, he says, to make our weak hearts strong and brave, send the fire. To live a dying world to save, send the fire. O see us on thine altar, lay our lives, our all this very day, to crown the offering now we pray, send the fire.

Tis fire we want, for fire we plead, send the fire. The fire will meet our every need, send the fire. There's no other answer but the fire of God. So the glory of God appeared in the tabernacle. Suddenly there's a descent of fire and they see the sizzling things burned up.

And what happened? The glory of God came till the priests backed their way out. They didn't even turn their backs to the altar, they were afraid. Dear God, we go to sermon Sunday after Sunday and before we get out we're talking about the cowboys.

Or we're talking about some other trivia. There'll be no move of God, the Holy Ghost. Talked with Dave Wilson yesterday, he was talking about an article on trembling he's going to write. I said, well listen, before you start writing about the people trembling, go back to Isaiah 61, remember it says, let the priest tremble.

Why in God's name should I expect the congregation to tremble if I don't tremble? Why should I expect you to weep for the lost if I don't weep for the lost? Why should I ask you to fast if I don't fast?

Why should I ask you to reduce your sleeping and think of those who are going to be in endless hell for a billion years, unless the church wakes up. The God of Abraham appeared unto our Father. What did he do?

He left everything that he had, his home, his country, his kindred, all his tithes, all his flesh, all his investments, and he went out not knowing whether he went. And then afterwards he earns that awesome title of being the friend of God.

Dear Lord. Moses says, show me thy glory. You know there are 13 different Hebrew words for glory in the Old Testament. There are 10 different words in the Greek in the New Testament for glory. I believe glory is a manifest presence of God.

An overwhelming sense of realizing first his presence and then his person. See this young man doesn't do all the exploits that Apostle Paul does. But again the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

The blood that fell from him became seed in the heart of that brilliant young man there. And he's going to do what this man should have done. But God says the best thing I can do is cut this man's life off and take that man who's the biggest rebel in the world and make him, he's the biggest persecutor, I'll make him the greatest preacher.

He's a murderer but I'll make him a missionary. He's a fool but I'll make him come to the place where with all his colossal intellect and his marvelous background he says I'm a fool for Christ. Why does he stay on and become the chief rabbi?

Why does he become more famous than Gamaliel with all his wisdom and knowledge? Because one day he had a vision. This man is drenching in blood. That is Stephen. His bones are snapping. His jaw's broken.

Maybe one eye's gouged out. But he sees the crowd of persecutors. He sees through into eternity. And Jesus is there on the throne, standing off the throne, to welcome him. The Apostle Paul doesn't see him like that.

He's going down the Damascus Road and he has in his polka that Roman garment he wore. He has a document that's signed and sealed that he can persecute anybody who's called by the name of Jesus Christ.

And he went out on a one-man battle to destroy the powers of God. And yet on the way God in his infinite mercy met him. You know, that word glory is about as hard to define as love. Somebody says I love you.

Ask them what they mean. A woman says oh I love thy dog. Oh it's my husband coming. I love my husband. Same love for the dog and the husband. In Greek there are at least ten different words for love. Saw his face, the face of an angel.

He hadn't a gripe against his enemy. Boy it doesn't take stones to knock us out. Somebody just repented us and hurt us and dear God we wonder if we'll ever go to church again. Do you know one of the pastors in town went visiting down one street twice in one week and he hadn't been in the other house up the street twice in a year.

The lady was so upset. I think most pastors run a diaper service or milk bottle service. I say that to say this. We all get to have what a day of rejoicing that will be. Are you going to dare to tell me, try and inject me with the idea that this blessed young man that's bathed to death before a howling mob will only have the same reward as a dying thief?

Now I don't know whether I said this. I say things in my sleep. Then I get up and write them down sometimes, get them upside down. But I know Jacob didn't say this. It's too wise for him to say. But anyhow, what do I want to say?

All right. This span of life that we have now, this is the only place where we'll have victory. In eternity we'll celebrate them forever. But between here and the time you die is the only place where you can lay up treasure in heaven.

We won't all be the same in heaven. You know, people say, well, you've got money. You can't take it with you. Nobody can send you on ahead if you want. In Revelation it says, there hold fast to that which thou hast that no man take thy crown.

Not no devil take your crown. No man. God wanted me to do a job. I let it go. So he gave Sonny the job. So in eternity, not for a weekend, dear God, but for the rest of eternity, he's ready to cry and I should have won.

You better obey God because you'll be poorer up there. You know, once you quit this life, that's the end of maturity. There'll be no maturity the other side of heaven. I believe that your glory in heaven will be relative to your glory on earth.

I believe your joy in heaven will be relative to your joy on earth. Oh, what a day it will be when there's an exposure. Again, when this young man goes up there to the judgment seat. Verse 55 of this 7th chapter again says, but he being full of the Holy Ghost.

You know, that's the answer. You say, I got the baptism 50 years ago. I'm not concerned when you got filled with the Holy Ghost. It could be two hours ago, two years ago, 20 years. What I want to know is not when you got there.

I want to know, are you filled tonight? Are you filled with the Holy Ghost tonight? Are you filled with holy compassion? Are you filled with holy love? Are you filled with holy zeal? There are no degrees.

Come on. There are no degrees of purity. A thing is either pure or impure. If you saw them selling butter down at Kroger's or somewhere and it said 10 cents a pound and you said, is this all right? He said, yeah.

Is it pure? It has a label. Yeah. There was a little accident during the mixing. Each pound has about five grains of arsenic in it, but don't worry about that. You're going to buy butter with arsenic in it?

It's not pure. It may be 98 pure, but the 2 is deadly. Again, this young man is pure in heart. He's filled with the Holy Ghost. There Duncan Campbell used to say to me, do you remember Brother Ravenhill?

The fundamental ethic in the Christian religion is sacrifice. You can do nothing without sacrifice. It's based on sacrifice. On his sacrifice and our sacrifice. There couldn't be some embarrassment to the judgment seat.

Well, of course, it was a very fashionable message. Can you imagine somebody in Dallas at the First Baptist or First Pentecostal or First Methodist or Last Methodist or what you want? Can you imagine him go down and saying to these men, your fathers persecuted them.

And before the coming of the just one, whom ye have been murderers and betrayers, you crucified the Holy One. Isn't that what Peter said on the day of Pentecost? You crucify the Lord of glory. So they gnashed on him with their teeth.

These words I say, cut them to pieces. That's what it says here. They were cut to the heart. God in heaven sent us some preaching like that. Where people leave the sanctuary bleeding, feel as though God got in and ripped something out of them.

He found the impurity in the heart, the carnality, the pride, the selfishness, the pettiness. Again, as the hymn writer says, all the vain things that charmed me most and helped me least, they were cut to the heart.

But at the moment when they thought they'd silenced him, the heavens opened. And he says, behold, the heavens are open and I see Jesus there. Well, is that too small a price to pay to see him? He dies in triumph.

He dies in victory. To use our language, this young man is utterly sold out to God. I don't believe a man is a martyr for Christ because he gets burned at the stake. I don't believe he's a martyr because he gets shot.

That proves he is a martyr. I risk being misunderstood. I've said it before. Jesus didn't die on the cross. He died in Gethsemane. Not my will, but thine be done. The cross is the evidence of his death.

He's already died. There's a poem here some of us love. At least I love it, no one else will do it. My goal is God himself. Not joy, not peace, not even blessing, but himself my God. It is his to lead me there, not mine, but his.

At any cost, dear Lord, by any road. So faith bounds forward to its goal in God and love can trust our Lord to leave her there. Upheld by him, my soul will follow hard till God has last fulfilled my deepest prayer.

No matter if the way be sometimes dark, no matter if it cost be often great, he knows how I best shall reach the mark. The way that leads to him must need be straight. One thing I know, I cannot say him nay.

One thing I do, I pray to all my God. The secret of the life of the Apostle was this, if you want to know, it's this one thing I do. He never got in sidetracked. He never got into business like so many preachers do.

This one thing I do, it will be hell to get there. I forget, one of the old Puritan preachers said in the 1600s, you have to go through hell to get to heaven. You have to lose everything in order to become the part of the bride of Jesus Christ.

One thing I know, I cannot say him nay. One thing I do, I press toward my Lord. My God, my glory here from day to day and in the glory there, my great reward. Christianity hasn't been tried and found wanting.

It's been tried and found difficult and rejected. It's nice and emotional in a meeting and you feel nice and the pastor says you asked Jesus to save you, you're saved and maybe you're not. But when he starts to show you that you have to take of your cross and follow him and other guys are not doing that, there's a difference.

I remember going up the coast in California. I'd never seen grapes growing. They won't grow in England anyhow. And I saw those amazing vineyards and I went in one of them and saw some of the bunches, you know, they sighed and that thing struggled through storm and wind and rain and there were the lovely drapes, drapes, drapes I mean, and they'd have bloom on them and a guy comes in there and he bangs them in a bucket.

Mercy, have mercy on them. Another guy throws them in a dump truck. Then they put them in a machine and pound them. If you go to Italy, they put them in a thing like a big cup and the guys get off the floor with their nice dirty feet and jump in and stamp it, you know, which adds flavor to the wine of course.

The only way you can get wine is to crush everything that's in that grape. The only way you can get bread is to grind it and grind it and grind it to flour, then put it in an oven to bake it, then slice it up and then chew it up.

There was a great preacher in Scotland in the time of Queen Victoria, a brilliant scholar, Hebrew scholar, Greek scholar. His name was George Matheson. He wrote a number of wonderful hymns. I think the best one was after his girlfriend threw him up, jilted him.

They were to be married, the day was set and he was stricken with blindness and they took him in to see the girl and she said, I can't marry a blind man. What a handicap, a blind preacher. They had no cars, they had buggies, drive the buggy around and you can't read your books, you've collected a library, they're no good.