(Hebrews) 1-Overview-1 — Leonard Ravenhill

The Martyrs’ Sacrifice and the Epistle to the Hebrews

Of our country in England when this book was banned and even when it was burned and banished. We thank you for the miracle of the creation of the Word of God and not only its creation but its preservation.

We're here at the cost of the lives of martyrs and people who love not their lives unto the death. I think of the old hymn that says they climbed the steep ascent to heaven through peril toil and pain.

Oh God to us may grace be given to follow in their train. Open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things out of thy law in Jesus name. Amen. Okay we're going to the epistle to the Hebrews for a few weeks.

One lecturer that I used to listen to every time he came every week that he came to lecture he began with the same thing. We need to recap or recapitulate or go over some of the things that we've already spoken of for the simple reason that tonight there's a videotape being made of this, an audio tape.

Last night last week we didn't have that. The epistle to the Hebrews is distinctly a book only for Christians. It has no message for the unsaved. It's true you heard a fiery evangelist I'm sure preaching from Hebrews where is it now in the first verse.

Pardon me in the first chapter. No it isn't at all it's in English. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation. It comes down very heavy on the responsibility of the hearer. Again this book is not addressed to Romans or Ephesians or Thessalonians.

It is addressed to the Hebrews but actually we're the Hebrews in the new dispensation we're the children of Abraham. It's true that this was written to a people who are under tremendous persecution. They were in danger of being totally disseminated.

They'd lost friends, they'd lost their social standing, they'd lost their national standing, they'd lost their religious standing. They were castaways to the rest of the Jews. What this book really says is that the old system under which the Jews worshipped is obsolete and this is something entirely new.

That didn't make them very very welcome to the rest of the citizens. Again they were severely persecuted. They were under great hostility. That's why when you get into the 11th chapter where I think the Apostle Paul wrote it.

I'll refer to it as Paul's epistle. Where he says now look you may be under the weather but remember remember there were people of old and they wandered around in sheepskins and goatskins being destitute, afflicted and tormented of whom the world was not worthy.

You know we like to tell people about the blessings of salvation but one of the guarantees of Jesus is if you follow him in the world you shall have persecution. Forget all about a prosperity in mansions wait till you get up there you'll have a proper one.

But there's so much concern in material things. We need at least I need to read this book over and over and over again. The best known chapter obviously is the 11th chapter which is often called the arena of faith or I like to call the men there the heroes of faith.

Hebrews 11 and the Heroes of Faith

Oh yes there's a blackboard here okay thank that's nice. You never get well guess what that is I guess in a dozen years. So I'll have to enlighten you. It's a copy an original of the Empire State Building.

Almost everybody in England wants to see two or three things when they come to America. Number one the Statue of Liberty, number two the Empire State Building, the greats. What's the other great thing here?

You won't guess what that is. It goes down like this. Well that's a Grand Canyon. That's a that's the latest copy of it. They want to see the Empire State Building, the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls. Somebody tried to estimate how many millions of people have been to the top of that thing.

I used to want in England I wanted to go and I didn't ever make it. Somebody said there's no way to estimate how many millions of pictures have been taken from the top of that marvelous building. If you face east you get a wonderful panoramic view of what do you call it Martha's Vineyard and all the ships coming from all over the world.

You go a little this way you take a picture of the Statue of Liberty and I suppose Staten Island. Each way you go you get a different picture. So somebody said it's been viewed, the surrounding has been viewed so many millions of times I'm not going to bother taking a picture of it.

So instead of standing at the top and taking a picture this north, south, east and west you know what he did? He laid down here on his back and he took a picture of the Empire State Building that way.

And it seems as though it ends in eternity when you see the picture. It goes up and up and up and up and up. But it makes such a difference from which end you view the Statue of Liberty. It made such a difference which way you look at the epistle to the Hebrews and particularly the 11th chapter.

Again recapping if I'd been writing it I certainly would not have put some of the characters in Hebrews 11 that are there. I wouldn't have put Noah in there, he got drunk. I wouldn't have put Moses there, he committed murder.

Do you think I would have put a harlot in like Rahab? Not on your life. Or Jephthah with his foolishness. Or some of the other characters. But God put them there for a reason. I think the main reason to show us that however twisted and deformed and carnal and corrupt human nature is, he can take it and transform it.

And as I said Sunday morning Shakespeare maybe wasn't right when he said, or was right when he said he can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. God can do more than that. He can take a shapeless, character, deformed, twisted, corrupt, perverted, demon possessed, cleanse it and sanctify it and fill it and use it.

So this should be a tremendous chapter of encouragement to us. There are people in it I would not have put in it. There are people not in it I would have put in it. I would have put in for instance the three Hebrew children.

I think that took some courage to go into the fire. But they're not mentioned. I would have put the name of Joshua in. He was the one who had faith and the walls fell down. But he isn't mentioned. There's an inference because it says, by faith the walls of Jericho fell down.

If I had been writing this I sure would have put other people in. Look at the Hebrews 11 for a minute, the first chapter. The characters that are first mentioned are very fascinating. By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice.

There is faith worshipping. Verse 5, by faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death. There is faith walking. A bit further down you have the story of Noah. You have faith working. I would have put one character in in the Old Testament that's one of the most fascinating characters I think in the whole of the Word of God.

I would have put Elijah there. He shut up heaven. He terrified governments. Kings had to bow to him. He shut up heaven so there'd be no rain. He produced a famine to get the people to a starvation point and repentance.

And yet with all his amazing achievements he's not mentioned here. Well I have been teaching years ago. Just one morning I spoke about the Hebrews 11, took a kind of a scan of the whole thing. And I mentioned that Elijah was not mentioned in, that Elijah was not mentioned in Hebrews 11.

And as I went out to the typical old lady, no stop me, she said, do you know why Elijah isn't mentioned in Hebrews 11? I said no, do you? Oh yes I know. So she told me so. As I went out of the church she said, here's Mr. Ravenhill coming.

I was able to teach him this morning. The pastor said you were, yes. I told him why Elijah is not mentioned in Hebrews 11. He said well why isn't he? Well because he was translated and he didn't see death.

Good, thank you so much. Then I said to her, excuse me, could you help me a bit further on these chapters? She said maybe I could. I said well, who was the third character in the chapter? Oh I don't just remember.

Oh, oh yes, Enoch. What's he doing in the chapter? He didn't die. So that can't be the real answer, just that Elijah was translated and he didn't see death in the way you say. I said wait a minute. But I said Enoch was not, Enoch was translated and he didn't have to go through the valley of the shadow of death.

But she said, well that shows you the Bible contradicts itself. I said why? She said because of all in the chapter it says these all died in the faith. And you mentioned two people who did not die in the faith.

But it doesn't say all the people in the chapter died in the faith. It says all the people in that bracket. I think faith is the most abused word in the Church of Jesus Christ today. Name it and claim it, confess it, possess it.

Faith is mentioned over 300 times in the New Testament. It's mentioned over 30 times in the epistle to the Hebrews. It's mentioned more than 20 times in this chapter 11. Strangely enough, it is mentioned only twice in the whole of the Old Testament.

Faith as Active Obedience

I think the difference between people in the Old Testament and people in our day is this, that they acted in faith while we only sign articles of faith. You go and join a group and they give you their articles of faith and ask you to sign on the dotted line, come in you can be one of us.

You see we don't want anybody disagree. You must never rock the boat if you come to our church. You must never find a verse that we haven't preached on or a situation we haven't handled. I believe there's room, indeed a great room in the world, in the Church of Jesus Christ today for a revised estimate, if you like to put it that way, of the mighty work of faith.

The first time faith is mentioned in the in the Old Testament is in Deuteronomy 32 20 where it is mentioned negatively, that people had no faith. Now again you hear people, I've heard two of the leading evangelists in the world, at least that's what they're titled at, all both using the same illustration.

You came in tonight, you sat on that chair, you didn't shake it to see if the legs were loose, you sat on it, that's faith. Why can't you transfer that faith into the spiritual life? Because it's natural faith in natural things.

I said Sunday morning and didn't clear the thing up, that none of us, you can't prove your parents to yourself you can't. You prove them because somebody else told you. You didn't wake up one day and say hi mom, boy she would have been startled.

First day you're alive if you said that. You go on somebody else's evidence, you believe your father, your mother, your aunts, your uncles, your doctor, your birth certificate, which could all be forged anyhow.

So we accept the opinion authority of others in small things like that. But you see when it comes down to this, we're talking about something entirely different. I mentioned last week where Paul, that man of God, I think the most awesome character that ever lived outside of Jesus.

They whip him, they lash him, his back is bleeding, his body's bruised, he starves someday, he doesn't get overfed, he's in weariness, he's in prisons, he's in every calamity you can imagine. And he bundles it all together and he says, I glory in tribute, I guess that made the devil mad for a month.

He'd been trying to kill him and kill his faith and kill his anticipation and he sums it all up and says, I glory in this. This is strawberries and cream to me, what are you trying to give me, poison?

Suffering, Holiness, and Compassion

Listen, it's changed. Immediately I realize I'm filling up some of the sufferings of Christ. Am I counted worthy to follow in the train of Jesus Christ the Son of God? Is he honoring me with something he can't honor other people with?

I ask God to do this, you may think I'm crazy, you're only one of millions anyhow. The rest of the world thinks so. Lord don't give me burdens equal to my strength, give me strength equal to the burdens today.

If God only gives me burdens according to my strength, I'll be a pygmy all my life. I need, I need to be faced with things I have never faced. I need to enter into sufferings I've never entered into, burdens I've never known a thing about.

Brother Dave called me just a few minutes ago before I left. He was preaching in a big church in Denver last week and he said Len, there were two or three thousand there Sunday night and I sat there and suddenly I was overcome with grief and sorrow.

Instead of going to the pulpit, he just sat down in front of all the folk and broke into tears and wept and he said, there's a girl in this auditorium tonight who has been, I think he said raped or badly abused and somebody's going to jail for it and the girl ran down the aisle and after her came her father and then there's a whole string of teenage girls, young women came down there, all of them being molested, all of them being abused, all of them, like this girl said, it's my daddy that's going to go to jail.

David said, I sat there for 50 minutes and wept over that congregation. I didn't even get up and preach till the whole congregation was convulsed with sorrow that this degradation is in a land that's called a Christian country.

This perversion, this pollution, this devilry. As I said last week, what we have had in the last 25 years in the Church of Jesus Christ hasn't been enough to move this generation to God. Sure we've got a few more choruses, we clap a bit more and dance a bit more and shout a bit more.

We're happy but they still perish. Habakkuk, or Habakkuk if you want to call him that way, is the one who first uses that statement, the just shall live by faith. Habakkuk or Habakkuk, minor prophet there in the second chapter and verse 4, behold his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him but the just shall live by his faith.

Now this man is living in a time when there's a prevalence of iniquity, vileness, wickedness, and pride. He has some awesome things to say. But let's say this, he's the first one that makes this statement, the just are my righteous one, as it's literally translated, my righteous one shall live by his faith.

Which is quoted again in Romans 1 16, in Galatians 3 10, and in Hebrews 10 38. The epistle to the Hebrews is specifically for one thing, not to describe all the marvelous furniture and things in the Old Testament, though actually the epistle to the Hebrews is a commentary on the first five books of the Bible, on the book of Psalms which is five books in the Hebrew.

It's just an illumination of the whole thing, showing above all the supremacy of Jesus. Look at verse 1 again, I remind you I'm reading from King James Version. Hebrews 1 1, God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake unto the times past unto us by the fathers, by the prophet, hath in these last days.

Revelation, the Last Days, and the Supremacy of Christ

I say again, let me go and just turn your mind up there into Revelation chapter 1. How does it begin? Before that enormous stretch of Revelation, which shows the end time and beyond the end time, it lifts the curtain at the end of the journey.

As I've said more than once, if I could do what the scripture says, was it the fourth chapter? I saw a door open in heaven. I remember as children we might be told, don't go to the front room now, don't look in the front room.

Sure enough I'd go. Mother thought it was a statement, I thought it was a challenge. I go and open, I see all these things, I go to my sister, Annie, come and look in the front room. Mother's got all kinds of things stacked up there.

I didn't have to open the door wide, I'd have more sense, the door creaked, it would growl, my mother would hear the door. So I opened it about half an inch and looked in, I saw everything that was there.

If I could open that, I wish to God I could, if I could open the door of eternity half an inch tonight for you and you could see through it, to the indescribable glory, to the marriage supper of the Lamb, to the millions around the great white throne, to the multitude which, if we could see that, I don't think we'd ever backslide again.

But we don't see it. God who at sundry times in time past spake unto the fathers by the prophet, hath in these last days. Come on now, if this epistle with all that it says was written in the last days, if the things in Revelation 1 were shortly to come to pass 2 ,000 years ago, how near are we unto them coming about now?

Supposing God had a clock. Here's a great clock, just make it a clock like this, and this is 12 here, and 1, and 6, and 3, and 9. Here are the hands. Here's the main hand, there's a little one underneath.

I believe if you could see God's time clock, it's about two minutes to 12, before the judgments of God begin to fall. He hath in these last days, apart from those towering prophets that we call the major prophets and the minor prophets, he hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.

Unto us. Unto who? Unto us. Who's the us? That occurs time and time and time again in this marvelous epistle. I'll tell you how many times. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. There's a whole study on let us.

Here's to whom the epistle is addressed. Chapter 3, verse 1. Wherefore holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our profession Christ Jesus. So this is to whom the epistle is written?

To the holy brethren. Skip over now to chapter 10 and verse 19. What does it say in that third chapter? Wherefore holy brethren. Now look in this verse, Hebrews 10 and verse 19. Having therefore brethren, this same bunch of holy brethren, having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.

Does that make you catch your breath? In the old dispensation, well from the beginning of the world, God took out one nation out of the nations. Out of the one nation he took one tribe. Out of the one tribe he took one family.

Out of the one family he took one man. That's a process of elimination isn't it? That one man only was allowed to go into the holy of holies and he could only go once in a year for one nation. Did that bore you over when you prayed today to say what that high priest only he could do after he'd gone through his absolute ablutions and put on his robes and all the other distinguishing features of the high priest?

Which the scripture says were garments of glory and of beauty. That you can come out of the yard as my dear friend there does often, or dear Dale sometimes, I see him on the tractor. He can get off the tractor and go straight into his room.

He just washes his hands I guess and he meets the Holy One, the holiest of all, without any special anointing, without any special garments, without any special place. He doesn't have to tiptoe through the outer court and then into the holy place and then into the holy of holies with fear and trembling.

As I said to the class I think, was it last Friday? Maybe the Friday before. Do you realize when you pray that when you call the God who listens to you is the God who listened to Jonah down in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea when he said from the belly of hell I cried?

Did it really strike your simple mind or profound mind today when you pray that the God who heard the prayer of Elijah heard your prayer? You think we're just talking to a somebody up there in the clouds and if you're fortunate he kind of grabs your prayer as it goes past.

I've been in heathen countries where they put flags up outside the house. They blow in the wind and say those are our prayers. All ascended to heaven. Is our praying like that? Are we praying not just to the super intelligence of the universe but the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords?

Do I realize when I pray that the one who prayed in Gethsemane was praying to the same person I prayed to here in Tyler today? The awesomeness of our privilege has passed by us I think. Having therefore brethren boldness.

The priest was terrified when he went unless he should not be accepted. He could have died on the spot. I don't think he came because, let me go back, in the outer court there was what? Daylight. In the inner court, in the holy place there was candlelight, seven branch candlestick.

In the holy of holies there was no light. It was solid black. No windows, no lamps. If God didn't come in his shekinah glory that priest stumbled out again. But when he did come, you remember the cherubim were there and we're told that their wings almost met together like this.

Here is the glory of God brighter than the noonday sun and he descends into that place and the glory flashes back from those golden wings. Do you think he went out and talked about cattle? A lot of nonsense.

Don't you think his soul was bathed in the majesty of God for the rest of the day? Do you think there were other enticements for him to do less than seek God? Certainly not. And because of Jesus Christ having made a way for us we are allowed to go in as high priests ourselves.

The privilege of the high priest, where he is our super high priest. Again you see these poor people were in trouble because folk would say, hey Isaac I just heard the news you started worshiping with those people at that back road there.

Yeah yeah. Don't you feel embarrassed? Why? Well you have no, look there's a great high priest just going in the temple with his garments of glory and beauty. You don't have a high priest. Well that's where you're wrong we do.

You have a high priest? Yeah your high priest can die. Mine can never die. Your high priest has to shed blood every time he goes in. My priest shed his own blood. My priest is both the sacrifice and the blood and the altar and he can never die.

He doesn't have to be replaced. He entered not with the blood of bulls and goats but with his own priceless precious blood. And because of that we have access. Look in that first chapter again there. God who at so many times in divers manner spake unto the fathers by the prophets.

Jesus as the Better Priest and Sacrifice

I think these last days spoken unto us by his son whom he hath appointed heir of all things by whom also he made the world. Now step back a minute we went too quickly there. Look at the titles of Jesus.

He's spoken to us by his son. He's the son of God. Next line he's the heir of all things. And the next line by whom also he made the worlds. See what the epistle to the Hebrews really does. It shows us the supremacy of Jesus as we put here.

There are better things in Hebrews 11. Christ is better than angels, better than Moses, better than Aaron. We have a better hope, a better testament, a better promises. These are all outlined here you can read when you go home.

And because of him we're partakers. You notice that in chapter 3 and verse 1 we're partakers of the heavenly calling. In Hebrews 6, 4 we're partakers of the gift. And he goes on showing us how many times 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 times in Hebrews because of Christ we're made partakers.

We're made partakers of the gospel. We're made partakers of the Holy Ghost. We're made partakers of heavenly things. The epistle to the Hebrew shows us Jesus Christ is the center and the circumference, the first and the last, the beginning, the ending, the light, and the life of the gospel.

It's all in him. I said last week, let me repeat again, that I read this epistle to the Hebrews, it kind of slays me. Do you ever feel you're getting somewhere and being somebody, read it. If you're honest it will knock you flat.

What do these men and women in Hebrews 11 do? They subdue kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtain promises, stop the mouths of lions, women unnamed receive their dead race to life again, and so forth and so on.

And you read this vast pameralum of achievements from a woman receiving a dead race to life again, to people subduing whole kingdoms, to people stopping the mouths of lions, and terrifying communities with the power of God.

And here's the bottom line if you want to put it that way. The amazing thing every time I read this is this, that nobody in Hebrews 11 ever had a Bible. Come on. How much they did without it, how little we do with it all.

If the world were to last another thousand years God has nothing to add to the book of the Revelation. It's all been said. God has no afterthoughts. He doesn't say, oh I should have said this to John, or said that to the Apostle Paul.

He has no afterthoughts. The whole revelation of God's mind, God's will, God's heart is revealed to us here in the Word of God. Don't you think we're going to rather be rather inexcusable when we get to the judgment seat?

I like the old hymn, Our Firmer Foundation, Ye Saints of the Lord. One line there says, What more can he say than to you he hath said? That should be written right across the epistle to the Hebrews, or right across the New Testament.

What more can he say than to you he hath said? He's revealed himself in his glory, in his majesty, in his holiness. He showed us the perfect offering of Jesus, because in verse three it says, He had by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.

What were they doing when the Holy Ghost fell on them in the upper room? Sitting. That's what it says. They'd laid aside everything on one side, and they were there in the state of preparation. Jesus is here sitting at the right hand of the Father, and the majesty on high.

You remember that when that young man Stephen, the first martyr in the church was, when he was martyred, declared he could see Jesus standing. Well that's not scriptural. It is, it's in the same scripture.

Now this may seem a little out of balance. Somebody said Jesus was so excited to see a young man that would take up his cross and following to the death, that Jesus got up from his seat and welcomed him.

Anyhow, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. It's all done, it's all completed. When he had by himself, he doesn't need help from the Virgin Mary, he doesn't need help from the saints, or apostles, or prophets, or martyrs, or cherubim, or seraphim.

He had by himself satisfied the heart of God. He was perfect. The lamb in the Old Testament. If you were making an offering, you couldn't take a lamb that was limping, or a lamb that had its eye knocked out.

The priest would examine it. If it wasn't as perfect as it could be, take it back. Oh, I wonder how often we serve God like that. How often do you arrive? How often you give God the leftovers at the end of the day?

You know, when you're busy. I'll read a little just before I go to bed, and I fell asleep again. God deserves the best. He not only deserves the best, he demands the best. Hebrews 2, verse 1. Therefore we.

“Let Us” and the Warning Not to Neglect Salvation

Do you know that little word, we, is mentioned 51 times in this epistle? All it is, it's to we, to us. Remember the 12th chapter? Let us lay aside every weight. Let us run with patience. I got that listed for you here to save you some time.

I hope you'll use it. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. 12 times, let us, is mentioned there. Let us, who can, with justification, because of God's mercy, we can say that we are those to whom this epistle is directed.

Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, let us, what? We ought to give the more earnest things to the things which we have heard less of any time. We should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels were steadfast, can you right now, without turning over your Bible, can you think of a place in the Bible where an angel told a lie?

Well, if the word spoken by angels is steadfast, how much more is the word of the Lord, the word of the Holy Ghost, steadfast and unmovable? If the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape?

Come on, don't push that on the drunkard, the sinner is sitting in the pew, and you terrify him with judgment. How shall we escape? What are you going to offer as an excuse at the judgment bar for your lack of diligence, your lack of prayer, your lack of zeal, your lack of vision, your lack of love?

How shall we escape? Paul may have a bleeding back, he may be half-starved, but you remember he says, I'm a debtor. Every day he lived, he said, I'm a debtor to that lost world outside. I've got a message for lost men.

It's a bankrupt world. I've got a message of blessings to that bankrupt world. How shall we escape if we neglect? Notice what it says. It doesn't say if we despise. It doesn't say if we reject. It doesn't say if we oppose.

How shall we escape if we neglect? Again, not if we oppose, not if we disregard it. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? To neglect is not to deny. To neglect is not to oppose. Do you know what it really means?

It means just to postpone. Do you remember the story there in, where is it, Matthew 22 and verse 5, where the king sent out and told people to come to the feast? They didn't come, so he sent them out again.

He said, go tell them they must come. The meal is ready. We're prepared to start the wedding right now. What does it say? They made light of it. They didn't thumb their noses to the invitation to the men that came.

They didn't curse them. They made light of it. That's exactly the same word here that she was saying. We make light of the gospel. Oh, mercy. I said to David, I'm glad you obey God. In that big church, 3 ,000 plus seats, I preached in it myself.

It's an awesome church. He said, Len, all I could do was sit there. I just sat on the floor and wept and groaned. All the people there that were being abused by the devil, the girls that were being molested even by their own parents.

Oh, David, I love you. I said, I'm glad you obeyed God. Most preachers would say, well, I'm feeling a little disturbed that somebody here has a need. If you have a need, would you raise your hand? I'll pray for you because I've got a message.

I mean, I've had it burning on my heart for two weeks. I mean, God didn't bring me all this way. I came through a snowstorm. I didn't come all this way, uh, not to deliver my message. It's important. It was born in heaven.

I've got it from the heart of God to my heart here. No, he sat there with brokenness and compassion. The whole church broke up. I think every church in the nation would break up if we got away from our stiff theology.

Our beautiful outlines. Oh, we've got everything rotated. We know everything that's going to happen like this. You come to our church, you won't find it anywhere else. We've got a monopoly on wisdom and a monopoly on God, a monopoly on blessing.

We're the new kids on the block theologically. How shall we escape? Just before your neighbors go to perdition, do you think the last thing we'll do is point at you and say, if you had been more faithful, I wouldn't have been lost?

You say you love me and I'm your brother-in-law and I'm without God and without hope and I'm going to everlasting burnings. Just because you postponed, you didn't abuse your privilege. You didn't deny the gospel.

How shall we escape? Do you remember that precious old man that people think had a gravel-torn voice and a face like a sphinx stone? Jonathan Edwards, do you think he wept in vain when he said, oh God, stamp eternity on my eyeballs?

People criticized him, ridiculed him. His little daughter, I have a pamphlet that she wrote in 1742, I think it is, it's on my desk now. It's not the original, it's a copy. She says, my daddy, people think this of my daddy, but I live with my daddy.

He's the holiest man on earth. And my mummy, she goes in a closet in the morning and prays, and when she comes out, her face is radiant as Moses' face, because she's been talking with God so long. And my daddy will lay on his face and weep and groan and pray.