Go Hide Thyself — Leonard Ravenhill

There are many great biographies and many great autobiographies that are written in two volumes. Haber Begbie gave us two great volumes on the life of William Bull, the founder of the Salvation Army. There are two great volumes on the life of the founder of the China Inland Mission.

The founder of the China Inland Mission was Hudson Taylor, and the first volume is describing the expansion of his own spiritual life. It's called The Growth of a Soul. The second volume is called The Growth of a Work, which shows us the expansion of the China Inland Mission.

There are two great volumes on the life of one of the greatest women that ever lived, that is, the wife of the founder of the Salvation Army, Catherine Booth, a woman with a very remarkable prayer life.

And since I do a bit of writing myself, I don't think it's very difficult. I don't think it's very difficult to write the life of an individual in two volumes. I do think it is difficult to write the life of an individual in two words.

Elijah and the Measure of a Life of Prayer

And yet the biography of one of the greatest men that ever crossed the bridge of time is written in two simple words. He prayed. Here is a man who could strangle the economy of a nation, he could change the weather, he could raise the dead, he could put to flight the armies of the alien.

And yet James reminds us of this amazing man, Elijah. In this context he says, is there any among you afflicted, let him pray. So there is prayer mentioned again. Is any sick among you, let them call for the elders of the church and let them pray.

And then a little further in that same chapter, verse 16 of the last chapter in James, it says, confess your faults one to another and pray one for another. And then in the next verse it says, the effectual fervent, or as some marginal references are, the boiling prayer, the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Let me tell you what I have told myself often and told thousands of other people, that no man anywhere at any time is greater than his prayer life. If you want to take your spiritual temperature, then just check up on your prayer life.

I think the most privileged men that ever lived actually were the twelve disciples who walked around and were able to listen to the greatest man that ever lived, the Lord Jesus Christ. I think I would have liked to have lived with Jesus any one day in his life.

And you remember that these men, they were there at the Sermon on the Mount, the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest man who ever lived. It has all the answers to our modern life. Don't let anybody fool you that Christianity has been weighed in the balances and found wrong, and it has not.

Christianity has been tried, found difficult and rejected. They heard Jesus preach, but they never said, Lord, teach us to preach. I'm sure more than once they heard Jesus sing, because the Bible says that he sang, no doubt he sang psalms.

But they never said, Lord, teach us to sing. They saw Jesus wean his power over death and sickness and demons, and yet they never said, Lord, teach us to do miracles. And I don't know how often, but they heard Jesus pray, but they did say, Lord, teach us to pray.

I pray that prayer every day. I guess I've been praying for seventy years, but I still pray, Lord, teach me to pray. Because there is no know-how in it. Some people say that God is not selective. He is.

He always was. He always will be. How many disciples did Jesus have? Well, you know that without going to Bible school, he had twelve. How many did he take on the Mount of Transfiguration? Do you remember?

Three. They said, Lord, teach us to pray. Now, if you want to study the prayer life of Jesus, you would take the Gospel as Luke has retold it. Because in every crisis in the life of Jesus, Luke says that he prayed.

You see, Matthew saws the Lord Jesus Christ as a king. Mark shows him as a servant. Luke reveals him as the Son of Man, and John reveals him as the Son of God. And therefore, in every crisis, in every great experience in the life of Jesus, Luke emphasizes the fact that Jesus prayed.

All right, the other disciples say that Jesus was there in the Jordan, and the Spirit descended upon him. But Luke says it was while he was praying the Spirit descended upon him. The other evangelists tell us Jesus was crucified.

But Luke says that even while he was crucified, he was praying. Jesus spent a whole night in prayer before he chose his twelve disciples. I've often wondered what would happen if a church spent a whole night in prayer before it chose its deacons.

Maybe they wouldn't make it. Anyhow, he spent all night praying before he chose his twelve disciples. And while the others recall the fact that Jesus was transfigured on the mountain there, Luke says that it was while he was praying that he was transfigured.

Now the disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray. And here they are, in one of the most amazing events in the life of the most amazing man that ever lived, and they said, teach us to pray. And he prayed, and they fell asleep.

I think that's almost the unpardonable sin. Except for the fact that a little later he took the same three men into the Garden of Gethsemane, the same men who said, Lord, teach us to pray. And he took them into the Garden of Gethsemane, even when they failed to pray on the Mount of Transfiguration.

And do you remember, after a little time, he came back, and what were they doing? Sleeping. And he went away, and he came back, and what were they doing? And he went away, and he came back, they were still sleeping.

And I know you then saw your hymn book happen, because you've fallen asleep more than once praying, haven't you? I have, the pastor has. But anyhow, teach us to pray. And they fell asleep. I was with a very brilliant, famous Baptist preacher not too long ago, has a very wonderful church, full of these multi-million dollar budgets, you know.

And he said, what so often preachers say, you know, sometimes you just feel like giving up. You sweat. You know, preaching is the most expensive job in the world. Oh, it's the cheapest. After all, you come home from the office, you hang the phone up and say, let the boss get drowned or something, I don't care.

I'll be back in the morning at nine o 'clock. The preacher, after he's called, is on call twenty-four hours a day. Either he gets called from heaven or he gets called from earth. When I read about men getting thirteen dollars an hour, I figure I earn about twenty-five cents.

Because I pray for a church for months before I go, and I pray for a church months after I've been there, and I pray while I'm here. So do other preachers. And yet prayer is indeed the most rewarding thing in the world.

Don't get discouraged with your Sunday school class, don't get worried with your church. Why, the most disgusting men in history, I say they were the most privileged men in history to listen to Jesus, to see Him do miracles, to listen to Him pray, to hear Him sing.

But they never believed in Him, anyhow. You say, how can he prove that? Oh, I can prove that very easily. He taught them for a little, around three years. He kept telling them over and over and over again that He would die and rise from the dead.

And they didn't believe Him. Why didn't they? Because there wasn't one of them down at the tomb on the resurrection morning, that's why. If they believed Him, they'd have been lining up waiting, and Peter would have said, hey, let me get to the head of the parade.

And somebody says, you come back, you're always at the head, let me get there. I want to welcome Him as soon as He comes out of the tomb. I want to bow down and say, my Lord and my God. There wasn't one of them there.

The Lord teaches us to pray. Again, no man is greater than his prayer life. No church, I don't care how many you have, whether you have 20 ,000 members like Mr. Christmas, no church is stronger than its prayer meeting.

Your life isn't stronger than your prayer life. You see, in preaching, a man may have a very elastic vocabulary, it may be very dramatic in his presentation, and in preaching, he reveals what he knows of the Word of God.

In prayer, he reveals what he knows of the God of the Word. Usually my wife travels with me. She's not doing so now. Our sons are back from the mission field. She's at home with our sons and grandchildren.

But also when we're traveling, I say to my wife, sweetheart, look, there's another bus, you know, some beaten-up old Greyhound bus nobody would use but an evangelist. And he has it painted a nice, quiet purple or something like that.

And on the side he has his name, you know, Billy Brown and his bouncing babies will come and sing at your church for a fee. And Bible schools send their choirs round. Do you ever know of a Bible school that sends its prayer meeting on tour?

Do you ever hear of a seminary where we prepare men for the ministry, who sends young ministers on tour to teach other people how to pray? A neighbor of mine came just before he left St. Gene a few months ago and he said, you know, we were down at a great song fest the other night.

It happened to be the Gay Fest. Oh, it was wonderful. My wife and I went. And I guess there were two or three thousand people there. It was marvelous. I said, wait a minute, how much did you pay? Five dollars each.

I hope you all put five dollars in the offering tonight. If you didn't do it tomorrow night, look. They paid five dollars each. Ten dollars for the two of them to hear some singing. It took them an hour to go, an hour to come back.

Over two and a half hours during the show, whatever it is. And maybe three thousand people were there. I said to him, supposing I rent that same auditorium a month from now and I notify all the churches in San Antonio that I'm going to hold a night of prayer.

I won't charge them five dollars for coming. I'll let them come free. Do you think I could get three thousand people to pray? No. No, he said. How many would I get? Oh, you might get two hundred. Oh, if I did that, I'd think it was amazing.

I figured I'd get about forty people to come. You know, and I'd see all the singing groups going around. Now, I have nothing against singing groups, if they can sing. Not many of them can, but anyhow.

But you see, you'd imagine the Bible said, sing without ceasing. It doesn't say that, does it? No, no, it's always to sing and not to faint. Well, I understand that. When I've heard some singing I feel like fainting, I confess that.

Look, you can sing from here to eternity, you won't scare the devil. If you want to know the quality of your spiritual life, check on your prayer life. If you want to know if you're filled with a spirit, what's the proof of being filled with a spirit?

We can get fifty answers to that. I'll give you two. In the Old Testament it says that King Saul had an evil spirit, and therefore he did evil things. Jesus said men have an unclean spirit, and they do unclean things.

Well, if a man with an unclean spirit does unclean things, and a man with an evil spirit does evil things, wouldn't it be logical and biblical to say a man with a holy spirit lives a holy life? After all, the greatest miracle in the world is not raising the dead.

I've been in meetings where I've seen paralytics jump up, and I remember once praying for a blind man, he got his sight. I've seen people's withered arms go straight, and I think I've seen everything in the book except raising the dead, which I'm trying to do tonight.

But I've seen all those physical miracles, but I want to tell you something right here, that the greatest miracle in the world is not getting withered legs straightened out and crossed eyes straightened and deaf ears unplugged.

The greatest miracle in the world is that God can take an unholy man out of an unholy world, make that unholy man holy, put him back in an unholy world, and keep him holy. Only the gospel of the grace of God can do that.

Prayer as the Language of Dependence

I heard somebody say quite recently, you know, if you're going to really be a good Christian, you'll have to pray if you want to live the Christian life. P .T. Forsythe was a contemporary of Spurgeon.

Spurgeon said P .T. Taylor Forsythe was born a hundred years before his time. And people today, theological students, are beginning to read P .T. Forsythe. And he changes it around, and instead of saying you need to live the Christian life, or you need to pray in order to live the Christian life, he says the opposite.

You need to live the Christian life in order to pray. What is prayer? Prayer is the language of the poor. Read over and over and over again the word of the psalmist when he says, bow down thine ear and hear me, for I am poor and needy.

Or he says, this poor man prays. We kind of think you need a big vocabulary, you need a great deal of education, you have to paint stained glass windows with words. Look, you'd learn a good lesson if you start right tonight to realize this, you can't impress God.

You don't have to. He knows you better than you know yourself. Prayer is the language of the poor. The self-sufficient don't pray. They don't need to. The self-satisfied don't pray. They don't want to.

The self-righteous can't pray. They've no chance. I was talking at lunchtime today about being with one of the great men who will have revival in our day, that was a man by the name of Duncan Campbell, and we used to rise at five o 'clock in the morning to pray.

Sure enough he needed some good Scottish tea to get him revived, and once he had a cup of real hot tea he could pray. I remember talking about an experience that he had, you know, there's no way of fathoming the mysteries of God.

God cannot be explained, he can be experienced. Duncan Campbell was in a conference with about twelve hundred people, he was fingering through his Bible ready to preach, and he turned to the chairman and said, I'm going.

And the chairman said, well, we'll wait till you come back. He said, I'm not coming back. Well, this is the final night, look at all these people, they've all come to hear you. What are you going to do?

He said, I'm going to Scotland. He said, when? He said, right now. Well, what do you mean? You're walking off this platform to go to Scotland? He was in Ireland. And he said, yes. Well, why did you agree to come and preach tonight if you were going...

I didn't know I was going until a minute ago and the Holy Spirit told me go to Scotland. Are you sure it's the Holy Spirit? Well, he said, brother, it isn't my spirit, I don't even go to Scotland. He ran off the platform, he caught the boat, he got to Scotland, he went from one island to another in the Hebrides there.

And when he got off the boat, it was a rowing boat, and he got a boy to row him over to this island. And when he got there, there was a boy working in a field, and he called him and he said, where is the elder of the Kirk, as they call the church, the Kirk?

And he said, oh, he lives way in that farm up there. Would you go tell him that Duncan Campbell has arrived? And this great big Scotsman, Highlander, Heelander, they say, big, stormy man came down, he says, ach, aye, aye, how are you, brother Campbell?

He said, fine. And he turned round and he said, the meeting is in the church up there tonight. And Duncan Campbell says, but what? Oh, he said, I went round the island on my bicycle about five o 'clock this morning and told all the people to come and hear Duncan Campbell.

You tell them that I was coming to the island tonight. Right. He said, how did you know I was coming? Well, brother, he said, how did you know to come? Oh, well, he said, I was preaching in Ireland last night, and just before I got up, the Spirit told me to come.

Well, you know, all that started through two little old ladies. Well, one was old, she was eighty-four. Her sister was younger, she was eighty-two. And they called for the preacher one day, and they said to the preacher, look, we're going to have revival.

The children are going to the devil. They're drinking, they're dancing, they're sinning. We're not going to die until we see revival. And they looked at the deacons and they said, ach, now don't you make a covenant with God unless you mean it.

And the little old lady put her skinny hand out. Oh, she couldn't see, you see, she was blind. And she felt for one preacher's hand, or the deacon's hand, and her sister's hand, and they joined hands and they made a covenant before God.

They would not die until revival came. And God told the man, she's in Scotland, he's in Ireland, and he quit preaching and he started on that journey, saying that to say this. God rent the heavens. And he said, Brother Raven, I remember one meeting particularly, we'd moved into, I think it was the Stormaway, and they'd gone into a fairly large building, and the place was full of preachers.

They wear their collars backwards way in England, you know. Most of them are going backwards way, but anyhow, they wear their collars backwards way, and all over the place there were ministers. And Duncan said, I preached and it was like throwing a rubber ball at the wall.

My words bounced back on me. So after preaching for fifteen minutes, he said, I said to them, bow your heads, bow your heads. And I called on a boy, sixteen years of age. Not on the deacons, not on the preachers, not on the PhDs, not on those distinguished theologians.

Oh, they knew the word of God. They knew it in Hebrew, they knew it in Greek. There's a boy that didn't know too much about Greek, though he's a brilliant scholar, at sixteen. But he'd have to know two languages by that age in Scotland anyhow.

I mean, two others than the language he knew. He'd have to know Greek and Hebrew, or Greek and Latin, or some other language. And he said to this boy, pray. And the boy stood up. And he said with his Scottish accent, they say, ah, for the time that you said.

He stood there in that crowded place and he said, ah, what's the good of praying if we're not Greek with God. And he began to recite the twenty-fourth psalm, which became the key to revival, and maybe is the key here.

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? He that hath clean hands, that's our relationship with people, and a pure heart. And he went on and he quoted and quoted and quoted. And then he began to pray.

A sixteen-year-old boy began to pray and Duncan said, by the way, he prayed ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, forty minutes, forty-five minutes. And then just as though in heaven God had his hand on a switch and pulled that switch after that boy had prayed forty-five minutes, the heavens opened and God came down.

On the church? Yes, and on the tavern at the end of the street and on the dance hall at the other end of the street. And they closed down and they haven't opened since and that was 1950. The effectual fervent prayer.

Oh, that boy didn't learn to pray over the weekend. This man Elijah prayed. He prayed the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. He was one of the rarest men in the world because he was what? He was a prophet.

Elijah as God's Prophet in a National Crisis

Do you remember when John the Baptist came? They went out to see this strange man. People were not going to the established churches. They were going to hear a rugged, ragged, uncouth man, a bearded eccentric with a chronic vulgar tongue.

And people said, who in the world is this? He doesn't talk like the Pharisees. He doesn't talk like the Pharisees. He doesn't dress like them. He doesn't eat like them. You know, listen, here's a simple, oh, it's not philosophical, it's smart, but it's very simple.

You know what? You never need to advertise a fire, either physical or spiritual. Who is this man in the wilderness? You know what they said? It must be Elijah that has come back. He plays a great part in the history of the church.

Who appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration? Jesus, three disciples, Moses, and a rather important man. In the book of the Revelation, there are two final witnesses, and one of them is Elijah comes onto the stage.

You see, he is, again, one of the most dramatic men in history. He comes in a crisis hour, because at any period, any given period, the prophet is God's emergency man in a crisis hour. And I'm going to tell you, and I'd tell you if Nixon was standing there and the peanut farmer there, I want to tell you something, that I believe that when the books are opened in eternity, that awesome night, I may preach on it one night, the judgment day which may last a hundred million years, because we're not going anywhere, I believe when those books are opened in eternity, we'll discover that Watergate was not just a political tragedy or a moral tragedy, it was a spiritual tragedy.

Do you know why? Because eighty, five, ten, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, eighteen different preachers preached before Nixon in the White House, and not one of them got through to him. Answer this in your own mind.

Do you think Elijah would have got through to him? Hmm? Do you think John Baptist would have got through to him? People often ask me why I don't have a radio or a TV program. Well, I figure if I got anointed once, I'd never get back a second time anyhow.

Do you think John Baptist would have a radio program, a TV program? We'd tear him up. Elijah comes on the stage, let's condense the history. Fifty-eight years before he arrived, there'd have been a dividing in the kingdom.

Immediately before he came, there had been a succession of evil kings. Seven of them, six of them. The second did more evil than the first, the third did more evil than the second, the fourth did more evil than the third, the fifth did more evil than the fourth, and the last one, Ahab, did more evil than not the king before him, but all the aggregate iniquity of all the kings.

But at the end, if you want to read it afterwards, the first book of Kings, the 16th chapter, it says in verse 30, Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord and of all that were before him.

He did more evil than all the compounded iniquity of the kings before him. And it came to pass, as if it had been a right thing for him to work, that in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, he took the wife Jezebel, the daughter of Abel, the king of the Sardonians, and he went and served him, and he worshipped him, and he reared an altar in the house of Baal, and he built which he had built in Tamarith.

And he did build a grove, and he did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him. And then, to make bad worse, as the Irish say, do you know what he did?

He rebuilt the city of Jericho, which God said should not be rebuilt. Notice the iniquity, will you? He did more evil than all the kings before him. He walked in the sins of Jeroboam, he took a wife of a strange group that God said he shouldn't have married into.

He served there, he worshipped him, he raised altars. And every day that stinking incense went up to God from those vile altars. And then he rebuilt the city of Jericho and laid it in the foundation of human blood.

What's that saying? Well, I'll tell you what it says. It says that when he appeared on the stage, the nation was submerged in iniquity, entirety, impurity, idolatry, infidelity. And everything that we happen to be doing right now here in America or England.

I mean, who are we fooling? I mean, do we put God, in God we trust on our coins and then say to hell with the Ten Commandments? Do we put in God we trust on our coins and legalize abortion? And in the state of Nevada, one section, prostitution is legalized and other states are pushing for it?

We've legalized state lotteries, we've kicked the Bible out of the school. Are we putting God we trust on our coins? A fourteen year old girl had an abortion in California a while ago. Her parents were curious.

Do you know what the law said? It's got nothing to do with you that your daughter has a child at fourteen years of age. Keep your hands off her life. You know one state has legislated that if your son doesn't want to carry the garbage out, you've no right to have authority over that boy and take that garbage out.

Of course the people who say you're not to train your children like that, train their race horses very carefully. Now come on, how much longer are we going to tell God to hell with the Ten Commandments?

You don't have to go to court now to get divorced, you just write in. And say Jack and I disagree, you can do that in the state of Florida, can't you? You were right in divorce law, you have in other places.

We've over ten million alcoholics, we've nearly ten million drug addicts. One very famous man whose name you know said to me just recently, but you forgot one thing by the way, last year the divorce rate was down.

Well in God's name how do you expect it to be? They don't even get married. How can they get divorced, they're not even married. Girls used to get embarrassed, they were pregnant and they came to preachers and said, can you get me to go someplace, I want to get out of this state.

You know the places that run homes for unmarried girls are hardly occupied these days, it's no embarrassment. The most beautiful woman in the world walks down the street. You see we've changed the language and made it easier for sinners now.

Can you think of anything more stinkingly horrid and hellish than homosexuality? And we call them the gay people. In God's name what's gay about it? Why don't we call them sodomites? She has this gorgeous, beautiful woman who advertises the automobile business so vastly beautiful above the rest of women.

Happens to have three bastards by three different husbands. It doesn't bar her from society, she's not worried about it. We're living in a day of moral and spiritual rebellion against God. Do you remember the great sweep of the life of the apostle Nahari?

He began his life in Tarsus, the historic city, the most historic city maybe in the world. That's where he began his life. He ended his life, he began in the historic capital of the world. He ended his life in the military capital of the world, which happened to be Rome.

In between he went to the religious capital of the world, Jerusalem. He went to the immoral capital of the world, which was Corinth. He went to the intellectual capital of the world, Athens. And they discovered this little Jew, he knew as much about their philosophy.

He'd have earned a dozen PhDs. He talked with the poets and the poets and the professors, and all the brilliant men. And they were marvelled at his reasoning. Then he says when he went down Main Street there in Athens, it says in the sleepy lit piece of English of the King James Version, his spirit was stirred.

Well, that's not too hot a word. Do you know what it says in the Amplified? I'm not too fond of the Amplified really, but I'll tell you, I like this what it says in the Amplified. It says that when he went down Main Street in Athens and saw that city given up to idolatry, he was angry.

Did you ever hear anybody preach on being angry as a proof you're filled with a Holy Ghost? We can't suggest if you get filled with a Holy Ghost you become sloppy and everybody pushes you around, and you'd better go with plenty of spittle because you have to kiss everybody when you go in church, and then you have to lick them all when you come out.

This is a proof you're filled with a spirit, not pure bunker. He went down the street and he saw the street, ten coats of strange gloves. They don't move us anymore. Come on, they don't move us anymore.

You say, oh, the Jehovah's Witnesses have put a lovely building up. Look at that lovely Catholic church. Well, that's as far from God as anything heaven. After all, the Mass isn't blasphemy. You say, I know some spirit-filled Catholics.

Well, let them get out of the lousy church if they're really filled with a Holy Ghost, because the spirit happens to be the spirit of truth and they live in the lie. Maybe our biggie, Teddy, could be with some of those folks.

Now, I know some godly charismatics too. You see, he doesn't worry us too much. Do you know there are two thousand gurus in America tonight? Did you read recently about a girl in the Pentagon, I think it was, or one of the places up in the Capitol there, a street girl had been really marvellously saved and full of the joy of the Lord, and sometimes when she answers the phone, she's not too decent.

You know, when she puts down the phone, she says, God bless you. That's a terrible thing to say up in Washington. And once or twice she's even, don't mention this, but she's even been heard to say, praise the Lord in the office.

So do you know what they did in Washington? They pushed her in a back room where nobody goes more than about once a day looking after cardboard boxes, because she happens to say, God bless you, or praise the Lord.

She says, I don't understand it. They tell filthy jokes in the office. They use bad language in the office, and nobody says a thing. Or you can talk all the corruption you like, but if you mention God, if you mention Jesus, then immediately you're in trouble.

Paul goes down the street and he sees temples to a stranger, and guards, and his spirit gets angry. You say, well I like the text that says, be filled with the Spirit. So do I. But there's another side to the coin.

Do you know the same scripture that says, be filled with the Spirit, also says, be angry and sin not. And I don't really believe you can pray without some anger on your spirit at times. The trouble with our generation is, both with our individual selves, we're comfortable in our sin, and we're comfortable in the world's sin.

Revival, Judgment, and the Need for Separation

You see, the strange thing about a prophet is, by the very nature of his calling, he's a strange, he's a unique character. He's a tragic figure. Why? Because he loves God with a fierce loyalty, and he loves the nation.

And he's torn between his love for the nation, and he knows that God is on the holy horizon to behold iniquity, and that it's there when God's patience runs out. After all, it wasn't to the liberals, it wasn't to the Catholics, it wasn't to the Jehovah's Witnesses, it wasn't to Transcendental Meditation, it was to his church that Jesus said, I'll spit it out of my mouth.

And I'm convinced we're getting desperately nearer to that day. Listen, our option is very simple. Either we have revival in America, or we'll have revolution. I believe we'll either have to concentrate in prayer, or pray in concentrating camps.

Of course, that doesn't move you, perhaps. You've got a nice new car, or you've ordered one. There's an awful danger of seeing everything in the framework of the American economy. Our present lush living.

And when you lay your darling little head on your bed tonight, and put your back on your beauty rest mattress, will you remember there'll be millions of people that sleep without covering tonight, and they go to bed as hungry as they get out.

The Five Causes of Rome's Collapse

One of the great masterpieces of all time was Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It's a very fascinating work. It is exactly that. It's the history of the rise and fall, the decline of the Roman Empire.

Let me give you its five reasons for the collapse of the greatest empire in the world up to that time. These are the five reasons. Number one is the rapid increase of divorce and the undermining of the sanctity of the home.

He's writing about an empire nearly 2 ,000 years back that the number one cause of its collapse was the increase of divorce and the undermining of the sanctity of the home. Number two, the spiralling of taxes and extravagant spending.

Number three, the mounting craze for pleasure and the brutalizing of sport. 2 ,000 years ago. Do you know why we have radio 24 hours a day? And in many cities we have TV 24 hours a day? Because the big boys are afraid you might not have time to sit down and think.

And the thinking man is the most dangerous man in the world. They know the best way to trap people is just keep them happy. Keep them silly, keep them like idiots. Put anything on TV you like, but keep them occupied.

And 2 ,000 years, that great empire began to deteriorate because again of the great increase in amusement and the brutalization of sport. Number four was the building of gigantic armaments and the failure to realize that the real enemy lay within the gates of the empire in the moral decay of its people.

Number five, the decay of religion and the fading of faith into a mere form leaving people without any guide. You know that's a pretty good analysis of the day in which we live, isn't it? My simple analysis of history is this.

The one thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history. If we did, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now. But when you've said everything else, as I said yesterday, Harry, when you've said everything about the decay round about us, the greatest tragedy in the world tonight to me is a sick church in a dying world.