The Resurrection Power of Jesus — Leonard Ravenhill

The Resurrection as the Center of Christian Faith

Resurrection of Jesus. Now some people dispute that and say the most awesome thing that ever happened was the birth of Jesus. He was country to all nature. He was born of a virgin and therefore the supreme event in history, Jesus divided history.

History is AD, anno domini, the year of our Lord, or BC, before Christ. But I still hold my ground and say that the resurrection is the most amazing thing. Old Dr. Shepherd was a great Baptist preacher, there used to be some great Baptist preachers, but anyhow, he was a great Baptist preacher and he said this, without the incarnation, that is a theological term for the birth of Christ, without the incarnation the resurrection is impossible, and without the resurrection the incarnation is incomplete.

There are two sides of one coin. As brother Chip reminded us in his prayer, Jesus died for our sins but he rose again. The Apostle Paul gave us, I think, the most profound things ever written, and you remember he gives us 58 verses in 1 Corinthians 13, it's not as popular as 1 Corinthians, pardon me, 1 Corinthians 15, it's not as popular as 1 Corinthians 30, or 1 Corinthians 12 and 40.

But it's a magnificent display, a reminder of the death and the miracle of the Lord Jesus Christ's resurrection. Now Paul, if you give him Hebrews, and I think he wrote Hebrews, he builds a pyramid of 14 epistles, and then when he's built that pyramid, if a pyramid is like this on a fine point, he turns the pyramid over and balances it all on one thing.

All those 14 epistles sway, they stand or they crumble under the impact of one thing, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. He's very plain about it, he says if there's no resurrection you're yet in your sins.

We have a brother from, and his wife from Bethany tonight, and their present president or principal of the school wrote a book years ago, Saved by His Life. And if Jesus Christ is not living tonight, we're sunk.

You know on this one thing, the resurrection of Jesus, billions and billions of people's eternity rests on that one fact. Now it's almost incredible to think that every rotten and lousy place, every war that's ever been instigated, every massacre, every unclean thing, every woman selling a body on the street, all the rottenness through, and corruption through drugs and so forth, all became because of one man.

By one man's sin or disobedience, sin entered into the world. There's only one thing more amazing than that, isn't it? It's that by one man's righteousness and one man's offering, that sin, for those who believe, can be cancelled.

We used to sing in Sunday school, there was no other good enough to pay the price for sin, he only could unlock the gates of heaven and let us in. I often wonder, and you've got to admit you've been in church services that were as dead as a funeral service, and I ask you in God's name, with all the power of being, how can the service be dead if we have a living Christ?

Preaching the Word With Holy Fear

By the same token, tell your preacher, I say a wet-eyed preacher will never produce dry sermons. That's a physical, it may not be a biological possibility, but surely it is a spiritual thing. As I say very clearly, to those of us who preach the Word, to this man will he look, the man that trembles at his word.

And the reason that sinners don't tremble at the altar is because preachers don't tremble to deliver that word. Let's look at this marvellous 20th chapter in the Gospel recorded by John. I think we need to remember this again, that the Gospel of John is the last thing written in the New Testament.

You get John, and then one, two, three epistles, and the book of the Revelation. And you know, by the way the Bible's set up, we read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and then Acts and Romans follow on, as the children say, and we kind of think that that's a divine order, that they, you know, there's not too much about Matthew, Mark, and Luke, or even John, but oh, when you get to the epistles, boy, do you know the epistles are only an extension of the four Gospels, after all?

They're just an elaboration. They're shown to us in more detail. Now I don't know, I don't like to use the word exciting, you can get excited at a football match, but I don't know more inspiring, and that's what I think every service ought to be.

I don't care if you have the weight of the world on you, all the in-laws, and your mother-in-law, and everybody else has pestered you all the week. I think that when you've really come into the sanctuary, and really touched the hem of his garment, and really received an infusion of divine life, we ought to leave every meeting electrified.

There's a lot of criticism today about the electronic church. Well, the New Testament church wasn't electronic, but it surely was electrifying. I'd like to have gone to a service, wouldn't you? Couldn't think of anything better than going to a service, and the preacher killing a couple of deacons to start the meeting.

Wouldn't that be wonderful? Well, that's what Peter did, anyhow, he killed one, he killed one big shot, and his wife. I think the most wonderful thing about the New Testament church was, it was totally unpredictable.

You never knew what was going to happen. You know now, they limeograph what the Holy Ghost has to do Wednesday morning in the church office. And they have it coming in the church, we're going to sing this hymn, we're going to do that, and we're going to finish at 12 o 'clock, because lunch is waiting, and God can go, get out of here Lord, but be back by 7 tonight.

And so they turn up Wednesday, you say that's almost blasphemous to say it. Well, it's more blasphemous to do it. The New Testament church went everywhere. What did they go preaching? They went preaching the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Pentecost and the Resurrection Power of the Spirit

Again, the most astounding miracle. You remember in the second chapter of Acts, where Peter gets up, you know, he's always boiling over, he's volatile and vocal, and as we'd say, shoots his mouth off.

If you read carefully, you'll discover that Jesus spoke to Peter, not only more than he spoke to any other individual apostle, but more than all the other apostles put together. And conversely, Peter spoke to Jesus more than all the other apostles put together.

He's always on the ball, he's always something to say. One day he ran away from a woman's finger. Boy, boy, he's not the first man to do that. After all, Elijah stood up to 800 prophets, but he ran away from one woman, smart guy.

Maybe if he put a finger up, and off he went. This woman said, you're with him, you speak his language. No, I never heard about him. Don't know him. Oh, it must have been an awful experience for Peter when Jesus finally did turn up.

But on the day of Pentecost, Peter points the finger and he says, you crucified the Lord of glory by wicked hands, but hemaph, God raised up. Now I want to emphasize that. Hemaph, God raised up, meaning God the Father.

We sing, we sing it before the meetings over, it wouldn't be a Friday night meeting if we didn't sing, holy, holy, holy. God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Hemaph, God raised up. Remember that worm of a man saying to Jesus, you better watch your step, I'll put you to death, and Jesus says, not possible.

No man's going to take my life from me, I will lay it down, and I will take it up again. So it's the work of God the Father, it's the work of God the Son, and Romans 8 says what? The spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead.

Have you ever realized the Holy Ghost can't do anything that's small? He breathed on the world when it was chaos and he brought cosmos out of it. He just brooded over it, that's what the Word of God says.

And then one day that same mighty Holy Spirit brooded over the bare, empty matrix of the Virgin Mary, and he conceived Jesus Christ in it. And that same Holy Spirit came up a bunch of men, they were all failures, they'd all deserted, they'd broken their vows, and yet as they waited on the upper room, the Holy Spirit came upon them.

And a bunch of unlearned, so-called ignorant men, they had no financial backing, they had no great system like we have, they had no electronic media, but they turned the world upside down. And I love that phrase of the Apostle Paul where he says, having nothing and yet possessing all things.

My God,.

Now we possess everything and do nothing. It will cost millions of dollars, tens of millions of.

Dollars, to preach TV and radio messages around the world. We've been doing it for 30 years. Is the world any better? Not that I know of. You'll never make up for the living agency. After all, if God wanted, he could have made donkeys talk.

Don't say he does that tonight, then I'll be after you. But anyhow, he made Balaam's ass talk. He could make the trees to talk. He could have sent angels in thousands if he'd said, you dive over the parapets of heaven and go to earth.

They'd have been to earth in five minutes evangelizing the world, but he didn't let angels do it. And the hymn writer is right when he says angels never felt the joy that our salvation brings. Why did they do it?

Well, Paul believed that God so loved the world. And not only that, he wrote in Ephesians that Christ loved the church, but he says he did something infinitely more than love the world. And he did something infinitely more than love the church.

He loved me and gave himself for me. And he wasn't a drunkard. He wasn't a man with a prison record a mile long. He wasn't a man whose brain was half shattered with drugs. He was a scholar, an English gentleman, one of the finest men that may be ever trod, trod the English soil.

And he had been trained in the ministry. His grandfather wrote hymns. His father wrote hymns. His mother was an amazing woman. And Charles Wesley in that lovely hymn, Can It Be, says, Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night.

Thine eye diffused the quickening ray. I woke the dungeon's flame with light. My chains fell off. What do you mean your chains fell off? You've no chains of smoking. You've no chains of drunkenness. You've no chains of thievery.

You've no chains of unseamless. My chains of tradition. I was fast bound in sin and nature's night. And he strode forth with his brother and they helped emancipate the whole world. I don't know how many people sing, pardon me, how many people will preach Wesley's sermons.

Thousands of preachers preach Spurgeons every week. But all around the world everybody sings John Wesley, Charles Wesley's wonderful hymns. Hymns. Love divine, all love excelling. Jesus, lover of my soul, he wrote a mere three thousand.

And it's a shame if you don't know a lot of them, you're very ignorant, you'd better get a hymn book and memorize them. Because some of you young people may have the joy of finishing up in prison. Did I hear an amen?

Oh sorry. Why not? That's what the early church did. They hardly got going, they put them in prison. The early church was married to poverty, prisons and persecution. Now we're trying to marry the church to prosperity, personalities and what?

I need another P there. Pardon? Popularity. My wife got it, you see, she heard it so often. Oh we were going to read this chapter, let's look at it. John 20. This raises a lot of questions but it answers an awful lot too.

The Empty Tomb and the Meaning of the Rolled-Away Stone

It's a lovely summary. The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early when it was yet dark to the sepulchre and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Now who moved the stone? There's a book on that, I wish you'd buy it, every one of you, it's called Who Moved the Stone?

It's written by a man by the name of Morrison. He set off to prove the fallacy of the resurrection and halfway through it the stone fell on him and he got saved. You know what the scripture says, if you, if you fall on the stone it will break it to pieces but if it falls on you it will grind it to powder.

Well that's what happened. Who moved the stone? Did Jesus just speak and it rolled away? Did the angels who were sitting on it move it? It doesn't matter but get this quite clear, the stone was not moved to let Jesus out of the sepulchre.

You say what was it, what in the world was it owned for? It was rolled away to let the disciples in. He didn't need the stone rolled away because later he goes into this room as it says in this chapter and the door was shut and the implication of the Greek word there, the doors were barred.

They were fearing, they were terrified but the stone was rolled away. Then she runneth and she came to Simon Peter. Okay let's look a bit further. Verse 6, I'll have to skip down this chapter. Then cometh Simon Peter following him and went into the sepulchre and he saw the linen clothes lie and the napkin that was about his head.

What does that do for you? Anything? Well I'll tell you what it does for me, it tears the shroud of Turin to shreds. Why? Because the shroud of Turin, you have Jesus like this and you have a crown on his head.

But it says distinctly elsewhere that Jesus took the wrapping on his head and he laid it on one side, he folded it up. I remember Chadwick, Miss Doctor Chadwick saying Jesus was always very tidy. When I lived in England we never saw paper, we used to call them serviettes.

You call them napkins. In England napkins are things you put on babies, but anyhow at our house we never saw paper napkins. Most civilized countries don't have them. But you know what? Everybody at the table folded their napkin in a different way.

My father folded his one way, I had a ring with my L on for Leonard and I rolled mine up one way, my sister folded hers. My father used to make a bishop's mitre out of his and then you put a donut in there, not a donut, one of those hard nuts in there.

What do you call it? No, no, no, no. A what? A roll, a roll, that's right. Not a bagel, we're not Jewish. But I like bagels. You see our scripture shatters all the silly idea of the shroud of Turin. It was found in a Catholic 13th century monastery.

There's not a bit of truth in it because it has Jesus with a crown of thorns on his head, he could not be laid to rest like that, his arms couldn't be out like this and he definitely took that, he'd have hurt his fingers, he'd have put the crown on one side or something.

No sirree, he took that napkin that was on his head and he folded it the way he always folded his napkin when he was at table and they identified him by that, I'm sure of that. The napkin that was about his head, lying not with the linen cloth but wrapped together in a place by itself.

You know what I think? I think he just came out of that sheath that they wrapped him in, he just came out and then he took this as he was walking out of the sepulcher and he laid it in a separate place by itself as a proof that he was risen.

There was no crown there at all. The napkin was about his head. Okay verse 8. Then went in also that other disciple which came first to the sepulcher and he saw and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture that he must rise again from the dead.

They knew it but they didn't know it with understanding. The disciples went away unto their own home but Mary stood without at the sepulcher weeping. Let's go down the chapter. Verse 17. Jesus said unto her, touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my father but go to my brethren.

Do you know that's the first time he ever used that word? They must have suddenly been startled. Did you hear what he said? He called us his brethren. And then he puts them inside the ring and he says I ascend to my father and your father, my God and your God.

Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord and he had spoken these things. The same day at evening being the first day of the week when the doors were shut. Or again as the Greek implies when the doors were barred.

The disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews. And the implication is that all the disciples were there except two. One was Thomas who was away doing something and the other was Judas who of course had sold out to Jesus.

Excuse me. They were assembled for fear of the Jews. Then came Jesus and stood in the midst and said, well what do you think he should have said? Don't you think he should have come and stood and put his hands up and said shame on the whole lot of you.

You traitors. You cowards. Shame on you. But he doesn't come to condemn. Let me put this back a minute. Jesus stood in the midst. Can you remember the hymn you sang tonight? Hail thou once despised Jesus.

Hail thou Galilean King. He's King of Kings. He's Lord of Lords. And he stands there in the midst of a bunch of frightened terrified men who've gone through some traumatic experiences and they didn't know where their world was.

And all I could do was stand back as I read that text over and over and I said it and nearly every hour of the night during the past week. And I said to myself there he is meek in all his majesty. The first thing he said was I am meek and lowly of heart.

And here he is not with a halo around his head, not with angels singing. He stands in the midst of those disciples. He stood in their midst. The older I get the more I realize I dumb the disciples were and I say that with respect.

The only thing that startles me more is how dumb you and I are. Because they hadn't seen it. You and I have read the last chapter of the story. God help us. They didn't know what was going to happen now.

They're out of favor with everybody. Everybody points the finger at them. They're the most ridiculed men. Two of them had already been pressing their noses to the gate. They were despised and distressed and disappointed and disgusted and dissatisfied.

And they were rushing as fast as they could to Emmaus. And every reason to believe all the other disciples were like that too. What they used to say about Princess Grace, I don't know why, but anyhow.

They used to say Princess Grace, her serene highness. I used to think the name was out of place. But I'll tell you what, I can look at Jesus and say his serene majesty. Lord the tokens of his passion going still.

He had been through something that had no precedent. It was unprecedented and it will be unrepeated to the end of the ages. Who did it? Used to be a great preacher in England by the name of Dr. Jowett.

Read some of his books, they're very good. And he said whenever he could get a weekend off he would go to London. And Spurgeon was preaching at that time. And Dr. F .B. Meyer was preaching at that time.

But I think the king of the pulpit as regards the type of preacher that Chip mentioned on Sunday who got all his homiletic straight and he had a colossal vocabulary and so forth. I think they're the king of the whole bunch.

But Jowett said whenever I needed a spiritual refresher I'd slip down to London and I would, if I could get in, I would hear Dr. um, what did I call him now? Dr. Joseph Parker. And he said of all things I got there one Easter day.

And he said Joseph Parker buried Jesus like only Parker could bury him. He got Jesus in the tomb, they put the stone over the tomb, they put wax over the stone, they put soldiers over the wax and over the seals and over the stone and there he was a prisoner.

You see we, we, we, oh mercy, I was reading the other day where a preacher said he'd been in England of all places and he'd been to about 20 churches and I was impressed with one thing in every church I went that every meeting was totally flat.

Again in God's name how can you have a dead service with a risen Christ? Do you realize that at this moment when Jesus is there in the tomb every demon in hell is looking on that tomb, every angel in heaven is looking on it, the disciples are all bewildered and confused and nobody knows what's happened and even the high priests are terrified.

This is an awesome thing, it would have been better if there had been an earthquake that split the earth in two. But I see more than the stone and the wax and the seal and the soldiers. I see Satan saying on that resurrection morning, just a few more minutes, and if we can trap this man he is the son of God, I know that, I witnessed, I witnessed his incarnation and God knows I've read many times how these disciples, how did they lose contact with Jesus?

Three of them at least had seen his, his miraculous transfiguration. How could you see the glory of eternity on him? Because the light wasn't shining on him like a spotlight, the light was on the inside, he's the light of the world, it was shining out and there's a testimony from heaven, this is my beloved son and he was transfigured before them.

And yet a vision like that got blurred and even those men who had such visions betrayed him. Every demon in hell is looking, Satan says if we can keep him there we've trapped the whole human race, we can damn it, we can damn it forever and ever.

It's not enough for Jesus to shed his blood. Again we're not saved by his death, we're saved by his resurrection, he's got to pull the pillars of the world down as it were. He's got to do as Ephesians 2 says, lead captivity captive and give gifts unto men.

Eternity of everybody that ever lived from Adam to the end of the age, hangs on whether he'll get out of that prison house or not. And Satan says just about 10 more minutes and he says I, I've tried to beat him all my life, I fought him for 40 days in the wilderness, I lost every round.

I fought his death and he raised the dead, I fought him with, with fevers and he cast out the fevers, he cast out devils. I've never once been able to score but if I can do it now it will make up for every failure in my life.

A demon raises his hand and says your majesty to Satan if, if you could get the sin of the world and roll it against that stone, even the sin of all these so-called disciples and the sin of the high priest and the sin of the Roman empire that's been against him and all the sin right back to the beginning of the ages, if you can get all the sin against that stone he'll never move it.

And Satan says that's a great idea, why don't you roll all the sin of the world against the stone? And I, I absolutely believe in my heart they did that. If, if they didn't do it, by implication it was there anyhow.

Well I think he still might get out. What do you suggest? Your majesty, I suggest you rally every demon in hell. Now you've got the stone, the wax, the seal, the soldiers, all the sin of the world and every demon with his shoulder against that stone.

They have supernatural strength. One of the latest things I read is we, we, we wondered for centuries, millenniums, how those amazing pyramids were built. Some of the stones weigh, weigh, I don't know, a hundred tons or more.

How, how did they get there? And somebody said by demon power. Very possibly. So you've got the stone, the wax, the seal, the soldiers, the sin of the world and every demon and Satan says now hold it, hold it.

Now we've just 10 more seconds to go and he says 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, he's just going to say one and the Holy Ghost beat him to it. How do you know? Because the Word says that the Spirit of heaven that raised up Jesus from the dead did it.

The Holy Ghost can't do anything small in case you don't know he wrote this book. And it still baffles the wise men. Everything depends on his, if there's no resurrection I have no hope for the future.

There's no coming Christ. There's nobody at the right hand of the Father to make perfect my imperfect praying. But do you see the point that he's there with the terrified people in the upper room and it says Jesus came and stood in the midst.

I wonder Peter could hold his tongue. What does it say? It says in John's version he showed them his hands and his side. If you read the 24th chapter of Luke it says he showed them his hands and his feet.

What's the difference? You know it says he came when the doors were shut to the disciples. You know not once in all his writings and all these what 22 chapters in John, 21 chapters in John, he never refers to the apostles as apostles.

He always calls them disciples. And then in Luke 24 he says he showed them his hands and his feet. Because you see in Luke he's showing us the Son of Man and he suggests go get hold of him. That John is showing us the Son of God.

He says that he showed his side where they cut through near to his heart and water came out.

As a sign of the eternal love of God. Is it easy to sing or the whole realm of nature mind?

Hmm? Is it easy to sing? When I surveyed the wondrous cross and originally it was written this way, where the young prince of glory died. Ever wondered what the angels looked down from heaven and saw him when men pulled his beard and spat a big clot of rotten dirty phlegm in his face?

And when they tried to push him over the precipice he never retaliates. He showed them his hands and his side. I can imagine Peter on the inside he's boiling and he's saying ridiculous, preposterous, man you've got a chance to convert, you've got a chance to to take all the shame out of it.

You can vindicate this right now within half an hour if you walk down the main street in Jerusalem and do some miracles. Turn the water into wine again, turn the sea of Galilee into blood, turn the moon into blood.

Those legions of angels you wouldn't call, let them come and sing a hallelujah chorus round here. Oh yes everything depends on whether a hero, but remember he said because I live ye shall live also. Now the resurrection is not a part of my theology, the resurrection is a personality.

Jesus Christ as the Resurrection and the Life

Jesus says I am the resurrection. He is, and whatever the old pope will say, he's going to broadcast on Sunday, a silly old guy, I don't know why, but don't you believe for a minute he has the keys of the kingdom as they say.

What did Jesus say? I have the keys of what? Hell and death. Pope doesn't have them, the Lord would never trust them to a bachelor anyhow. Jesus has the key of death. Why? They said did you see him yesterday?

What did he do? Oh he opened blind eyes, I've seen him do that a dozen times. He touched a lunatic man, I've seen him do that many times. He unplugged somebody's deaf ears and he stopped somebody's stammering tongue.

He didn't hear the news? Oh where were you yesterday? The hall of Jerusalem in every cafe at the pool of Siloam where they sell, you know, the fairies on and they're selling precious jewels from all over the world.

And it was gossip, everybody saying do you hear the news, do you hear the news? You know that wonderful man called Lazarus, Jesus went to his tomb yesterday. He did, what did he do? Well I'll tell you what he did, he said you roll away the stone.

You know what we want? We want Jesus to do everything without us shifting the stone, that's our problem. Remember when he turned the water into wine? Why didn't he say uh bring the water pots? Watch this, there you are, full of wine.

No, he said you bring the water pots and you fill them with water and I will turn them into wine. There's a human side, a human responsibility. And he says roll away the stone. Can you imagine the wall peeping over the wall?

The high priest and all the others that went after him, the Roman soldiers and there they are looking over the wall and what are we going to do now, what are we going to do now? And he says roll away the stone and they rolled the stone away and then he said with a loud voice, only twice I think he talked with a loud voice, here and on the cross.

No and also when he said I am the water of life. You know what he said? He said Lazarus come forth. Why did he say Lazarus come forth? Because if it said come forth all the cemetery would have come and it wasn't time for them to come yet.

Must have been that way because I am the resurrection, he demonstrated he was the resurrection. Oh mercy, how could these disciples fail to understand he was going to rise from the dead when he'd raised Jairus his daughter and he'd raised Lazarus and he says look if you steal my body and if you kill me I'll still rise from the dead and they forgot it.

But I tell you in God's name you and I have forgotten a lot more than that. You've read the last chapter in the story, you know he is the resurrection, you know he is the life, you know he's coming in clouds of glory with 10 ,000 of his saints and a multitude of angels.

You know he's going to sit and rule the world but does it excite you? Does it stir you? No, Jesus doesn't do any spectacular thing, he just stands in the midst. Lord couldn't you just go down, just give us a sample, just go down the street and lean over the wall and some of the old saints are buried there and say rise and we'd like to see everybody run out of the cemetery.

Why should he do it? He's already done it once, why prove, try and prove it again? What does he have to prove? Why didn't you bring Elijah back from the dead? Why not bring Isaiah and Jeremiah? Let's see some of these great marvelous Old Testament heroes and kings.

He showed them his hands. Can you think of anything more prosaic than that? Anything more unsensational? We love the sensation, we love the miraculous, we love the showmanship. As I said before I wish, and I do, I really wish he'd gone right from that room where they were and gone into the bedroom of Pontius Pilate and just tapped him on the cheek and woke him up and said, well now what do you do?

And that would have been something. Then go down a bit, a bit further down the street to Caryphos and pull his beard, useful to have a beard, he could pull his beard, you know, I can nearly get you off there Bob, Bill.

And the high priest wake up and with terror he says, well I told you I could live, no man takes my life from me. Surely again it's the best attested fact in history Sir Ambrose Fleming said. Again Paul builds 14 epistles and balances them all on this one thing that if Jesus Christ is not risen you're yet in your sins.

Joy, Justification, and Personal Encounter With Christ

Yes you and I know the end of the story. We know that he died, we know that he rose again but he's something else to do, he's yet to ascend to his father and he says to Mary here don't, it says that when he said he showed them his hands and his feet the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

Again he didn't rush into the building and scold them. He didn't say you had three of the most amazing years you'll ever live and you've seen every miracle and you'll see me raise the dead and you're a bunch of no goods.

Huh? I wonder how many times the Lord could have pulled you up dead in your tracks or me even in my tracks and say look you've seen this over the years and you've seen God manifest himself and yet some days there's hardly a hallelujah comes out of your heart, there's hardly a song of praise and adoration, it's so prostrate you accept it.

Don't grumble about the Catholics, they've no joy. Where is your joy in the Lord? Where is your authority? What did they do? He says they were glad. Oh mercy, mercy. Weren't you glad the day you saw the Lord?

Chip mentioned that last Sunday. I was thinking of the hymn, oh happy day that fixed my choice on thee my Savior and my God. Well may this glowing heart rejoice until its rapture is all abroad. The last sentence says now let my long, now rest my long divided heart, fixed on this blissful center rest, nor ever from thy Lord depart with him of every good possess.

High heaven that heard that solemn vow, that vow renewed, shall daily hear, till in life's latest hour I bow and bless in death a bond so dear. Again Paul says he not only loved the world, he loved the church.

He not only loved the church, he loved me. And when he gives his list there he says he was seen of Kephas, he was seen of James, he was seen of the twelve, he was seen of five hundred. But do you know the most amazing thing?

Last of all he was seen of me also. I think one of the most awesome texts in the whole of the Word of God, and there are many that shatter me, is the fact that God said one day, he said to Ananias go to the street called straight, ask in the house of a man called Judas, and there is a man called Saul of Tartus.