Mature in God — Leonard Ravenhill

The following message was delivered by Reverend Leonard Ravenhill during a regular session at the Christ for the Nations Institute. His message is based on the 15th chapter of John. His subject is Becoming Mature in God.

Seeking the Lord Beyond the Sacred Page

Often in England I have the privilege of listening to Dr. Campbell Morgan, considered by many to be one of the greatest Bible teachers that the world has ever had. Before his lectures he used to have us sing a lovely old hymn, Break thou the bread of life, dear Lord, to me, as thou didst break the loaves beside the seed.

Beyond the sacred page I seek the Lord. Because there's an awful danger of stopping at the sacred page and becoming bibliographers. That is, that we worship the Bible or we worship a text, we worship a theology.

Instead of getting to the person of God himself, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And this is what we ought to do and the studies that we have get beyond the sacred page. I'm trying to think how many different ways there are of teaching.

I don't know them all. I haven't done much teaching. I did teach one period in a Bible school in England, but that was years ago. And if the students remember what I taught, I don't, because I've forgotten it all.

But there are many ways for us to teach and there are many ways to learn. And I notice you've got lots of, you rich students, got your recorders here. And they're very good, but don't substitute it for your brain.

And secondly, don't substitute your brain for something more important. Just the other day I talked with a lady and she said, You know, Brother Rahel, the things that I learn with my mind, I forget. But the things that I learn with my spirit, I remember.

And how true this is, because again, the Holy Spirit is the teacher. I get into trouble sometimes. I get into trouble often. But in preaching, because I say now, the last person you should take any notice of is a preacher.

Don't believe them for a minute. Listen to what they say. Check it with the Word of God. If it doesn't correspond, throw it out. Doesn't matter how brilliant the man is, if he's 60 degrees or 20 degrees.

I've told it now, 32 and still be frozen. But don't take too much notice of teachers and preachers. Take what they say and take the Word of God as the slide rule and run it over what the teacher, preacher says.

And again, if it's worthwhile, he won't be offended if you throw it out. If it doesn't fit in with the book, at least he shouldn't be. And I thought again of the word of the psalmist this morning when he said, my word have I hid in my heart.

Now if you only had it in your head, you'll forget it, for sure you will. But if the Word of God is hidden in your heart, you'll not forget it. Now again, don't take any notice of what I say. What you have to do is find a scripture for it.

The Holy Spirit as Teacher and Strengthener

And I did think if we get to it, we'll talk about John 15 this morning and maybe tomorrow morning start on Hebrews. But remember in John 14, 26, one of the best known verses, but the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things.

Now if you stop there, you'd be in trouble. Or if you take the next phrase, and bring all things to your remembrance. Now if I were to say to you, what is there on page 10 of the 4th volume of the 1969 version of the Encyclopedia Britannica?

Anybody know it? You couldn't remember that. Why not? But doesn't it say the Spirit will bring all things to your remembrance? No, it doesn't. What does it say? The Spirit will bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

You know, if I had fed the 5 ,000, I'd have said, don't bother about the crumbs, give them to the birds. But Jesus never wasted anything. Never wasted an opportunity, never wasted even a crumb that fell from feeding the 5 ,000.

He never wasted anything at all. And he doesn't teach us in order that we may forget things. He teaches things. And if you're smart and you say that they're hidden somewhere in what the smart people call the repressed complex of your subconscious, well that's all right.

But I believe that they're hidden in our hearts and the Spirit of God is able to take the thing which he has taught to us and revive it in the moment when I need it. Not right now, but in that moment when I need it.

When I'm in a situation, suddenly that flashes into my mind. Whether I'm on a bus, whether I'm in a plane five miles up in the sky, whether I wake up at two o 'clock in the morning, drowsily and just want to watch this.

And you know, I believe if I wake up, I don't wake up because of little trouble or something. I wake up because the Lord has something to say to me. And so I used to kind of want to go to sleep, but now I don't.

If I wake up I say, well now Lord, what have you got to say? And usually I find that the best writing, if I ever do any best writing, is somewhere between two o 'clock and four o 'clock in the morning.

Whatsoever he says unto you, what he wants you to learn, it's hidden there and he can touch it all the spring and bring things. Now, notice what it says, the comforter which is the Holy Ghost. Now I think we've kind of used that word so that some of the smart, smart modern kids, in particular these muscle men say, what do you think I want a comforter for?

Don't want somebody to pick me up, put them on my knee and rock me to sleep. The comforter, ah, it sounds a bit... Well, as my principal Chadwick used to say, and in my judgment he has one of the finest books on the Holy Spirit which is reprinted in America now through the Christian Literature Crusade, and it's called The Way to Pentecost.

I think it's as good as John Owen's book which was written in the 1600s. But Mr. Chadwick used to say to us, remember brethren that the Spirit is called a comforter but he is not. You know, sometimes I wish I could talk in capital letters.

When I type I can switch to capital letters. I don't type well, I type the Bible way, see, and you shall find that when I want to emphasize anything I switch the key and I'm able to write all in capitals.

Now I can't do that talking, I kind of wish I could. But the Holy Spirit is not, N-O-T, big letters like this, the Holy Spirit is not a nursing mother for spiritually sick children. He's not a comforter in that sense.

The word comforter comes from two Latin words, come, which you can spell C-U-M if you like, comfortis, F-O-R-T-I-S, comfortis, and it means with strength. Now he doesn't come to amuse us, he doesn't give us gifts just we can wear them like jewels round our necks.

When the Holy Spirit comes he comes not merely to strengthen me but when I've been weak in the church he makes me strong so the church isn't weak in that area anymore. Now, another interpretation of that word is that he is the advocate.

And we use this as we say a kind of you're standing in a court, you need an advocate, and now, excuse me, the Holy Spirit is the advocate, that is he's your attorney. He comes alongside to help. Well it's nice but it's not really true, he doesn't come alongside, he comes inside.

And he comes with strength. Now you don't have to agree with a thing I've said, I've already made that clear to you. But sometimes I think that in the last analysis the sign of God's blessing in the Old Testament is prosperity.

Adversity, Holiness, and the Purpose of the Spirit

And the sign of God's blessing in the New Testament is adversity. In other words, what's your breaking point? After all, after you die, which could be five minutes from now, there are no rich people, don't let anybody fool you, the only thing anybody owns, some of you millionaires sitting here, the only thing you own is one beat of your heart, that's all.

Doesn't matter who you are, what you are, we're all in a common denominator there. But you see, we're going to have a thousand million, million, billion, trillion, quadrillion years after we die to be happy.

Now I think in one area we've slipped up, we've kind of suggested if you get saved and filled with the Spirit, you're going to be happy. Well I've got news for you, as soon as Jesus was filled with the Holy Ghost, he had the worst experience he ever had in his life.

He went in the wilderness and fought the devil for 40 days, 40 always being a period of probation under the divine eye, and for 40 days he had combat with Satan. But remember this, he didn't come back on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

He came back as full of the Spirit as he went into the wilderness. He returned in the power of the Spirit. Now if you're looking for the Holy Spirit to come and fill and possess you just for fun and send you around to banquets and breakfasts, all you'll do is get too fat anyhow, but he doesn't come for that reason.

His objective in coming into your life is to make you not an ornament merely, but an instrument, not something just to show, but something to use. I'll never forget, well in fact let me say this, one of the greatest privileges I've had, and I've met many of the greatest preachers in the world, and preached in many of the greatest pulpits in the world, which doesn't make me a saint, it'll do anything for me, but one of the greatest privileges I had ever was to share the study of one who I thought was America's greatest preacher for the last 30 years at least, Dr. Tozer.

And I used to slip into his office very often, and one day I went in and he was a very, he wasn't one of these, you know, sparkling personalities, these boys that come up, you know, a big white tie and a smile this width, and oh, I'm here, you know, you should have been in my last crusade.

Oh, we had a marvellous time, packed the place out, and we had 5 ,000 helium, this, that, the other. He tells you everything except the love offering. But Dr. Tozer wasn't like that, he was a kind of a negative personality, narrow-shouldered.

He wrote a book called The Pursuit of God, and you know an experience of God that costs nothing, is worth nothing, and it does nothing. Tozer was in that little office up there in Chicago. The office wouldn't be more than 12 feet by 12, I'm sure, and he was there 25 years before he produced that book.

It was the essence of all the teaching of the Spirit for 25 years. Now other little guys want to go around, borrow somebody else's sermon. I was in a place not long ago where a lady said to the preacher as he went out, you know, that was a marvellous sermon.

You know, Spurgeon couldn't have preached better than that. Well sure he couldn't, he stole it from Spurgeon. But you've got lots of preachers that, they're not preachers really. All they do is borrow books and buy sermon outlines from Zondervan's and go somewhere and pick a bunch of Mr. Somebody's sermons up and somebody else, and all they do is change the text.

They've got more thieves in the pulpit than in jail. And, but Tozer never did this. Tozer did all his own studying, all his own pondering, all his own digging. And that day when I went in his office he just switched on his chair and he said, you know Len, God isn't concerned whether you're happy or not.

Well I kind of thought for a moment, I said he's not, he said no, no, no, no. God doesn't care whether you live in a palace or a pigsty. He's not a bit concerned where you live, how you live yet. But you see what God is trying to do between here and the grave is bring you and me to maturity.

He's trying to get you ready, I believe, for a place in the millennium and then a place in the ages and ages and ages of his kingdom which is everlasting, everlasting, everlasting. And he doesn't care whether you go through hell from here to the grave to get you there.

Now you'll find a lot of people that'll preach more smoothly, particularly about the Spirit. All day all they do is clap their hands and have a lot of fun and say, boy isn't it great to be filled with the Spirit.

Now if you're filled with the Holy Ghost and the devil doesn't know you're around, you didn't get what the Bible wanted you to get. This is the roughest experience there is. This is making yourself a candidate that God can take you and do with you just what you like and you don't squeal.

You see? I know a man in England that lived in a gorgeous mansion. This was just before the automobiles came in. He had carriages, horses, everything. One day he was telling the Lord, Lord, oh I'm so glad, I'm so glad you love me and I love you Lord my Jesus, I love thee.

For thee all the follies, you know, and this sort of sentimental stuff we sing at communion so very often, you know. Where are the whole realm of nature, man? Well most people are liars in church because they won't even struggle to get there Wednesday night.

Never. Give them the whole realm of nature, they won't give them a bit of the bank balance. So how are you going to believe them anyhow? And the Lord says, you love me so much? Yes Lord, there's nothing.

All right he says, sell your mansion, get rid of your servants, sell your carriages, sell your horses and live down in the centre of the slum area in Manchester. Well you can't get round anything like that.

Because if you try and get round it, you know what the Lord will do? He'll take you back. You see lots of people are trying to find a new axe head and you have to go back to the place where you lost the axe head.

Oh well the Lord will let me off here and I'll learn something. You won't learn anything up there. You'll just stultify and become weak and ineffective till you go back to the place where God demands this obedience here because you were promised obedience on any level.

Now let's get this straight too. You could grow more, not just because I'm here, forget that. But let me tell you this. The other night I happened to preach a message on the cross. There were a lot of seminarians in, doctors, professors, what have you got?

One man came up almost in tears, he nearly pulled my hand off. He said, Brother Ramiel, I learned more tonight in just that one meeting because I preached for an hour and 15 minutes admittedly. But he said, I learned more tonight in this one message than four years in seminary.

Why? Well the Spirit revealed. Now here's another thing. I was in the hall and a lady was having a birthday and somebody in the house said, well how old are you? She said, I'm approaching 37. I nearly said from which side but she said, I'm approaching 37.

But I'm only 15 years old spiritually. Oh, I said, will you explain that to me? Explain what? Well, you're 37 or thereabouts and you're 15 spiritually. How do you figure that out? Oh, I've got it marked in my Bible here.

I was saved on such a date, 25 past nine. Oh, I said that's, you mean 15 years ago. Well, I'm 15 years, oh no, no, no. You may not be 15 months old. I've seen people who've been saved for 20 years that aren't 20 months old.

And I've seen people who've been saved only 20 months who are 20 years old in the Spirit. See, it's not a case of years. The rungs on the ladder to maturity are the rungs of obedience and submission. Now, Holy Spirit will bring all things to our remembrance.

Growth Through Obedience and the Word

And this is essential then that we get these things tucked away not merely in our minds but again down in our hearts. Again, God is wanting to bring us to maturity. And you, you, you, you, you, every one of us here this morning, irrespective of age, class, anything else, even intellect, you this morning are just as spiritual as you want to be.

Can't blame the devil, your mother-in-law, anybody. You are as spiritual as you want to be. No man that ever lived had a bigger Bible than you have. When I used to hear Campbell Morgan, I used to think, my, I wish I could get a Bible like his.

He gets so much out of it. Then I discovered it was just like mine. Just the plain King James, sleepy Elizabethan English Bible. Why did he get so much out of it? Because he labored over the Word of God, that's why.

You have a whole Bible. You have a whole Savior. You have the Holy Spirit who wrote the book and inspired the book and makes known the book and knows the mysteries of the book. And it's he who is going to bring all things to our remembrance.

It's he who, if we're going to learn it all, surely is going to be our teacher. Now, I said we'd do a little digging anyhow. In the 15th chapter of John, you know what it's about. I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman.

Now the best background to John 15 is Ezekiel 15. And there in Ezekiel 15, in the first few verses, you have what I think is the best background to this marvelous chapter of John 15. Ezekiel 15, 1. The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Some of men, what is the vine tree more than any tree or than a branch which is among the trees of the forest?

Now, shall wood be taken thereof, or shall wood be taken from the vine to do any work? Or will men make a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon? Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel. The fire devours both the ends of it, and the midst of it is burned.

Is it meat for any work? Behold, when it is whole, it was meat for no work. How much less shall it be meat yet for any work when the fire is devoured and it is burned? Now, when he's saying that, he's saying this, that he never used the wood of the vine for anything at all.

I was in a conference in Canada a few years ago, and there was a missionary there who had been in Saudi Arabia for about 40 years. He had the most amazing display of souvenirs that I have ever seen. He had a sword given to him by the king of Saudi Arabia.

He had many, many marvelous things. He had a camel, big, beautiful camel, and it looked as though it was made out of a kind of glass. It had lovely streaks in it, lovely veins in the wood, and I said to him, that's a very wonderful thing.

He said, well, it was carved by one of the finest men in the East. And I said, well, it looks beautiful. What kind of wood is it? Oh, it's made of wood of the olive tree. Well, I said, what about this thing over here?

Now, this isn't made of the same wood. This is red. And he said, well, that came from a branch of a cedar of Lebanon. Fine. What about this thing over here? This is different. It's not like that red wood.

It's not like that olive. This is entirely different. Oh, he said, that's myrtle wood. The myrtle tree only grows in Israel and America. I don't know whether that proves you're one of the lost tribes, but anyhow, that's really true.

It only grows there and it grows in this country. And the wood was very different. It was very beautiful. And then I said to him, look, you've been in the Middle East and you must have seen millions of vines.

He said, sure, I've seen them all my life. Well, here's something made of myrtle wood. There's something made of a cedar of Lebanon. There's something made out of an olive tree. Did you ever see anything made out of the wood of the vine?

And then he smiled. He said, no, and you know, I've never even thought of that in my life. Because the Bible says in the 15th chapter of Ezekiel, you don't take the wood of the vine. That's not why you produce the vine.

It's no good for wood. You produce a vine only for one thing, and that is that it may bear fruit. Now, wouldn't you think the logic of John 15 would be this? I am the vine and ye are the grapes. That would be logical, wouldn't it?

Why didn't it say I am the vine and ye are the grapes? I don't know that we're ever likened to grapes at all. Well, as I see it, you see, grapes, they're about one of the most fruitful, beautiful fruits that we have, most useful, I mean.

Because, you see, if the grapes are not ripe, you can still use them. You can make vinegar out of them. And when they're ripe, you can eat them. And if they get overripe, you can dry them and make resins out of them.

There's no waste in them. So, if the Scripture said I am the vine and ye are the grapes, we might get a little conceited and think, well, we're useful at all times, in all places, and so forth and so on.

But this is not what the Scripture says. The Word of God likens us to salt. And if a salt has lost its savor, it's not good for a single thing. You know, if you take salt that has lost its savor and put it on your garden, it will make a garden that's bad, worse.

There's not a thing you can do with salt that has lost its savor. There's not a thing you can do with a church or with a believer that has really lost his or her savor. Now, lots of questions have been asked here.

Why did the Lord use this figure, I am the vine and ye are the branches? Let's first of all notice this, that he doesn't say, I am the vine. What does he say? He says, I am the true vine. Or the Greek would turn it around, I am the vine, the true.

Now, this is a little word that John loves very much. He not only says, I am the true vine, but he says of Jesus, I am the true bread which came from heaven. I'm not only the light of the world, I am the true light.

Now, you've got a lot of unique things about this very, very wonderful gospel of John. Somebody has called it the most profound book ever written. And you know, we're living in a day when all the slant is on education, both outside of the church and in it.

You have to be a man of the academy, seminary, and distinctions and letters and degrees and all the rest of it, at least to suit certain people. You know, after Peter and John did that marvelous miracle in the third chapter of Acts, they were hauled up before the big shots of the day.

And when they couldn't get beyond it, they said, well, a notable miracle has been done. This man's been crouching at the gate of the temple for 40 years and we can't get by it. But look, this is what you've got to do.

Now, forget about the miracle and forget about this man Peter and this man John because they're unlearned and ignorant. Oh, that's hard to put up with, isn't it? Even when you're sanctified. Ignorant.

Unlearned, eh? You don't know much. I know as much as her, anyhow. Well, anyhow. This is something that's really... They're unlearned and ignorant. Well, you know, one of those unlearned men, by the name of Peter, he wrote two epistles.

Two of the best sellers of all the ages. And I think the first epistle of Peter is the most practical epistle. I might speak on it one day. The most practical epistle. The first chapter of the first epistle is the most practical of all the epistles.

Peter wrote two epistles. John, the other ignorant man, wrote this profound book. And then he wrote one, two, three epistles. That makes four. And then, just to show how ignorant he was, he wrote the book of the Revelation that still baffles all the wise men.

So if you're a candidate for God's ignorance instead of man's wisdom, you might come up with something. But if you're still hunting around for a lot of distinctions and labels and degrees and what not, you may just pass like a ship in the night.

You see, there is a wisdom which is from above. And God never shares it with the worldly. There is a gift of wisdom. Jesus Christ has made unto us wisdom. There is a wisdom in this realm that has nothing to do with wisdom in that realm.

The Gospel of John and the Deity of Christ

But again, John has a different accent. Do you know that 92 of what John says in his gospel is just John's? He doesn't borrow it like the others, Matthew, Mark and Luke. We call those the synoptic gospels and we call this the autoptic gospel because this is like autobiography.

This is something that's going on around here, around this man and around the Lord Jesus. The others borrow each from the other, but John doesn't. 92 of what he says is new. After all, neither Matthew, Mark or Luke have anything to correspond with John 15, do they?

And if you've got water to the knees here, you've got water to swim in when you get to the 17th chapter, that profound chapter which is, of course, the Lord's Prayer. And the prayer we call the Lord's Prayer is, of course, the disciples' prayer.

Teach us to pray the Lord's Prayer. Jesus prayed and nobody else can pray it in that sense. So 92 of this gospel is John's. Now what is John doing? Do you remember the first chapter and the first verse?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. What's he doing? Well, in the beginning is eternity, the Word was with God, equality, and the Word was God, deity. Now he's got the whole book compressed into that one verse.

He's establishing the deity of the Lord Jesus. You get a corresponding idea in the first verse of the first chapter of Matthew in which he says, The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Why does he mention those two? Because he's about to do something. The business of Matthew is to establish the kingship of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he relates Jesus here, the son of David, that relates him to the throne, and he is the son of Abraham.

And that connects him with the altar. Now, here you've got, let's look at them here, what have we got? Let's go back to the beginning of the book, the whole book. You've got Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.

What's the next book? Good. What does the fifth book do? The fifth book is a recap of those four books. Now, you've got the book of Psalms. How many books in the book of Psalms? Hmm? No, no, no, those are chapters, those are Psalms, true enough.

How many books? Five, good, good. Now, the orthodox view is that the Bible has 66 books. Now, 66 isn't a biblical number. But the book of Psalms is not one book, it's five books. So you have to add four to 66, that makes 70.

Seventy is a biblical number. Seventy elders in the Old Testament, 70 went out preaching in the New Testament. Now, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The fifth book is a recap of the other four.

Now, I'm not going to do all the work for you and make you lazy. You dig for yourself. But you'll find there are five books in the book of Psalms, and the fifth book is a recap of what happened in the first four.

So it's the same pattern that you have with Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, a recap of the other four, five books of Psalms, the fifth, a recap of the other four, and then you have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and then you have the Acts of the Apostles.

What's the Acts of the Apostles? It's a recap of the other four books. It's the Church doing everything that Jesus did. Isn't it? Right. Well, now then, Matthew sets forth Jesus as a king. Mark's emphasis is to show Jesus as a servant.

Luke's emphasis is to show Jesus as being, can I put it this way, a solid man as much as John is going to show him being solid God. Again, in the beginning was the Word. Eternity. The Word was with God.

Equality. The Word was God's deity. So John is showing us the Lord Jesus Christ as very God of very God. But wait a minute. We missed one out. What about Luke? Matthew shows him as a king. Mark shows him as a servant.

Luke shows him as what? Man. Totally dependent on God. Now, if you want to read the prayer life of Jesus, all you have to do is read through the epistle of the Gospel of Luke. In every crisis in the life of Jesus, Luke adds one word.

Prayer. The others miss it out. Luke doesn't. Jesus was standing in the Jordan when the Holy Ghost descended upon him. The Spirit descended on him. When? Pardon? Right. But what was he doing? Right. Why don't the others mention it?

They don't have to mention it. Luke is showing us that Jesus here, as a man, is so dependent on himself. And he is praying when he comes up, when the baptism comes on him. Now, go to the end of the story.

He's crucified. And Luke says, while he was crucified, what was he doing? Saul went in. Paul would have been saying, hey, buddy, you're going to hellfire. Why don't you repent? And listen, why don't you wake up?

You're going to hellfire. Isn't it amazing Jesus didn't testify on the cross? You know, some of us kill ourselves trying to get one person. And they've written us off long ago. You're dead. Forget it.

The best thing you could do with some folk you've been chasing a year is leave them alone a year. Give them over to Satan. Oh, that's not a very loving attitude, is it? Well, I didn't write the Bible, in case you don't know.

And that's what the Bible says. My dear wife and I were in a conference about three years ago. And I mentioned that. And the lady's face was up. She was a salvationist. She says, hallelujah. Everybody looked around, you know.

Everybody said, hallelujah. I said, I'd thought. She said, Brother Raymier, just a year ago, somebody we'd been toiling with and praying with and struggling with and doing everything we could to get them to the Lord, I said to my husband one day, let's give them over to Satan.

Let Satan torture them for a year. And when people in the church got there and she talks about being filled with the Spirit, and the Spirit is the Spirit of love, and that's the kind of thing you do. Well, you can't be smarter than God.

You'd better wake up to that fact. Some of you have been trying, but you can't be. And she said, you know, just this, I think, was it this past week, she said, or this past month, that man really came into a new relationship with God.

Oh, he's been through hell this past year. He's been struggling and tormented. He's doubted. He almost was tempted to commit suicide. And people say, you'd better have a night of prayer for him. You know, it'll be your fault if he commits suicide.

It won't be my fault at all. The Lord told me, commit him to the devil. Let the devil handle him for a while. And you know, he came out of it all right. You never know what freedom's like till you've been in jail, really.

And he'd been in jail. Satan had him bound. Oh, Jesus wasn't testifying on the cross. No, no, he prayed. So he prayed at the beginning when the baptism came upon him. He prayed there in the last aspect of his life when he was dying on the cross.

It so happens that Luke reminds us that Jesus one day decided to take twelve disciples, didn't he? And other evangelists recall the fact that he chose twelve disciples. Do you know what Luke says? That before he chose the twelve, he spent a whole night in prayer.

Now, we don't do that, do we? We go to a promise box or something and spin our finger around and get a promise out of it. Then you have the ability to say, I got a promise from the Lord. You didn't. You got it from Moody Press.

They made it. No, we don't do like Jesus did. The Son of God needed a whole night before he made a major decision in his life. And then he recalls, of course, the transfiguration. That glorious, wonderful experience that Jesus had.

But Luke says that it was while he was praying he was transfigured. I'm going to talk about prayer, or at least try to tonight, and tell you some things that I think are pretty amazing. But if you want to transform personality, you can't get it by coming to the altar and getting the baptism in one shot.

After all, Peter had a marvelous experience in the upper room, and he had a pure heart which we don't emphasize. The emphasis on the baptism these days is power. God's emphasis is purity. As Tozer said, God isn't concerned about happiness.

He's concerned about holiness. He makes you go through hell to prove what kind of a God he is. You can be as holy as anybody has ever lived on this earth, and have the worst home, and broken down automobile, and maybe no job.