Prayer in Revival — Leonard Ravenhill

Prayer as the Foundation of Christian Life

I heard the lady say just a few days ago, she said at last I've got my living Bible. I said I've had one for 50 years. Not only a living Bible, but a living Lord to explain the living Bible. I want to share some terms with you this morning from on this objective prayer.

We have an unpredictable field marshal in Montgomery in England. His great grandfather was a bishop in the Church of England, the Episcopal Church. And he wrote some very wonderful hymns. But the greatest hymns that he wrote were about prayer.

And he has a phrase in one of his hymns. I made it a title of a chapter in one of my books. Prayer lasts eternity. P .T. Forsythe, a preacher that every preacher should read about. His books are being republished now.

P .T. Forsythe is a man I think that Surgeon said would be popular. He was born, he said, a hundred years before his time. P .T. Forsythe says this. We do not pray in order to live the Christian life.

But we live the Christian life in order to pray. There is nothing more demanding than prayer. I've often said to the disjusted preachers that you don't have to be clever to preach. If you did, I shouldn't do it.

Maybe I still can. But I've been preaching more than 50 years now, so I do mind a few corners. There's nothing more demanding than prayer. This is a ministry that has the most importance, and yet it's a ministry that we esteem, I think, the lightest.

You preacher fellows, tell me how much instruction you received in prayer in Bible school, and it wasn't much, but I guess you received less in seminary. And the devil doesn't fear our preachers. He can sit back and fold his arms and all Sunday and listen to it all.

But he does fear our praying. It's an amazing thing, isn't it, that the disciples heard the greatest sermon that was ever preached from the greatest man that ever lived. The greatest sermon, of course, was the Sermon on the Mount, and the greatest person that ever lived, the Lord Jesus, and yet never once did they say, Lord, teach us to preach.

They saw him do every miracle, even raising the dead. They never said, Lord, teach us to do the miraculous. Sometimes people have said, why do you insist on prayer so much? And I say, because, of course, the Lord Jesus did.

Jesus’ Prayer Life in the Gospel of Luke

You could call the Gospel of Luke. We say sometimes there are four Gospels. There's only one Gospel told by four different men. And so the Gospel which is recorded by Luke gives you the accent on the prayer life of Jesus.

Matthew reveals the Lord Jesus as a king, and Mark reveals him as a servant, and Luke emphasizes that he was the Son of Man. John, of course, is emphasizing the deity of the Lord Jesus. But Luke says in every major crisis in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, he prayed.

The other evangelists say that Jesus was standing in the River Jordan and the Spirit descended upon him. Luke says it was while he was praying the Spirit descended upon him. Go to the other end and you see the Lord Jesus being crucified, but Luke says even when he was crucified he was still praying.

Father, forgive them. He chose twelve disciples, but Luke says, remember that he spent the whole night in prayer before he chose the twelve disciples. Wouldn't it be great if he spent the whole night in prayer before he chose Jesus?

Most of you would never make it. Excuse me. But Jesus prayed before he chose the twelve. You read it in there and you get partly on the amount of transfiguration, but Luke says it was while he was praying that he was transfigured.

And I believe that's the same Greek word there that you'll find in Romans 12, 1 and 2, be not transformed to this world, but be transformed or transfigured. Now again I say I don't think there's anything more extensive.

Prayer as the Test of a Preacher’s Character

I think it's only a change of values. I've been in many countries in the world and people say to me, who do you think is the greatest preacher in the world today? And it's not usually that they mention Billy Graham or some of the Baptists.

But I don't know. I haven't the slightest idea. I would have to live with a man a week before I knew whether he was a good preacher or not. Oh, he may be an orator. He may know how to gesticulate, modulate his voice, do all the histrionics of preaching, be very dramatic or very silent.

But I don't know whether he's a great man or not. I would have to live with him a week or two weeks or three weeks or a month to find out what man of man he is. As Brother Adrian said, you can use the pulpit even as a show place.

You can split your ego. And you can get rated very highly and otherwise according to the way you display your gifts. But you see, prayer is something you do behind the door. When I have shut the door, it's rather a pity God doesn't take any recognition of our stretching.

Who in the world would dare to stretch in the place of prayer? You see, this is the most searching thing. I've written a little section in this book and my section in this discipleship manual is on prayer.

And I confess it did me a great deal of good in doing some research on it. Not every man who stands in the pulpit is keen in many areas. But who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Psalm 24 was the key to revival in the Hebrides.

Agonizing Prayer and Genuine Revival

I thought many times and better still I prayed many times with Duncan Campbell, the great Scottish revivalist who died just a few months ago. Oh, how that man prayed, what intensity. And that revival, like every other revival, and I'm talking about revival.

I'm not talking about a crusade. I'm not talking about a revival as we talk about it in the church. I'm talking about an awakening that disturbs a whole area. As dear Doctor has told us, the definition of revival is something which changes the moral climate of a community.

You can have a revival these days and a week after you can't find the people that made decisions. Nobody outside the four walls of the sanctuary knows what happened. But you never get that with a revival.

We were talking last night, indeed it was early this morning. We got to bed about two o 'clock and something jogged his mind I'm sure. I never dreamed yesterday morning it would happen, but it was very beautiful.

And we talked about historic revival. Just a few years back I got a phone call one day. Doctor Sir Woodworth who is the editor of Decision Magazine called me and he said, I'd like to come and talk to you about revival.

We talked for three hours straight. Well I did the talking. I'm pretty good at that anyhow. And he said, I'm not going to talk. I want you to tell me what you know about historic revival. And I talked to him about these awakenings.

Disagree if you like, but you know a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument. A man that's been through the process, you can come to him logically, you can come historically, you can come on any level and he'll just stand there and let you blast him and say, but brother I went through it all.

And I think of this revival particularly, for the moment there in the Hebrides, which was like every other revival that I know of in history, was preceded by agonizing prayer. There is no substitute for prayer.

Prayer More Important Than Credentials

Again, when you went to, you know, when you're candidated for a church, they ask you about this, and did you have this degree, and did you go to seminary, and how many buses were you running in the last church, and how many came to send this to you.

How many times did they ask you how much you prayed? You ever ask a preacher that? The most important of all, not the size of his heart. The size of his heart. Brother Rob just said, it was so beautiful a few minutes ago, our work, not what size it is, but what sort it is.

We've got all our priorities confused. Oh well, of course, he never ran a big Sunday school in the United States, maybe he won't do it now, you know. Look, if you want to know how popular a church is, you go Sunday morning.

If you want to know how popular the preacher is, you go Sunday night. That clears up our most basic. And if you want to know how popular the Lord is, you go Wednesday night, and he loses every time. No church is greater than its prayer meeting, not even its monthly budget.

Giving, Tithing, and the Cost of Prayer

You can give and it won't hurt you to send your money around. You think we say, now you bring your tithe. That's not what the scripture says. In any case, tithe is Old Testament. If you tithe, you're in the wrong place if you go to a synagogue.

In the Old Testament they tithe. In the New Testament you give God everything you have if you surrender. A fellow told me not long ago he was preaching about surrendering and saying, you know, your pocketbook should go as well.

And he said, even while he was sitting there, the pastor put his hand in his pocketbook. He said, when they get baptized, I like them to keep their wallet in their pocket so that gets dipped as well. One man told me that he always insisted on tithing before he took people into membership, and then he baptized them because he liked the tither in his tent.

Well, I don't think you're so sharp this morning. That's all right. You see, that's not what the scripture says. The scripture says, bring me all the tithe. That's the problem. Because if you tithe your money, you should tithe your time.

And if you tithe your time, you'll give God two hours and twenty-four minutes, which is a tenth of every twenty-four hours. That's his demand. On top of that, you give him an offering. So at least you're giving three hours a day.

Could I ask you if any of you are behind in your tithe? Oh, no, no, no. Oh, I give my money every week. I sort it out. Then I give a bit more to mention. I'm not arguing about that. That's easy to do.

You've only to flip your pen or put your hand in your pocket. But when he comes down to the place of prayer, there is nothing demands more discipline than the place of prayer. It's either the loneliest place in the world or the most glorious.

Prayer, Sacrifice, and the Judgment Seat

I love that song. Thank you for singing it. A dear friend of mine that just died recently, a very, one of the most godly men I've ever met, never had a church and more than a hundred members. He had a long head, a great singer.

Never been to Bible school. He'd always work on his knees. As a teenager, he came home at night from the foundry where he worked, went upstairs with a Bible and a lexicon, and stayed there from six or seven at night till twelve or one or two in the morning.

His father said it's hard to get him down. He used to sing that song. He hadn't a very sinful voice, but I can still hear Harry Todd singing that lovely song. I shall know him when redeemed by his side I shall stand.

And in my section, when I preach on the judgment seat, I try to get the books opened, as the Revelation says, and get the book of prayer. Can you imagine the book being opened and the Lord says, we'll deal with America right here.

And he brings in a young fellow that died at the ripe old age of twenty-eight. A man that used to kneel up to his chin in snow. There was nowhere else to pray. And he says, when I got up this morning, the Indians were drunk.

They were still committing acts of immorality. And my heart was so broken. His body was broken. When he passed, he had a bark like a wolf. When he sneezed, he sprayed the snow with his own blood. As you say, there's a bit of a flower there.

And he picked it up and did that with it. It would stretch like that. It was a part of his lungs. He was coughing them up while he made intercessions. He resisted even unto blood. Little David Brainerd says, I prayed before sunrise, I prayed till after sunset, all in one stretch.

And when I melted in the snow, it was up to my chin. But when I finished my intercessions, I could not even reach the snow with the tips of my fingers. That's different from prayer. I pray, I try to, but I have wall-to-wall carpeting in my room, I admit that.

I can turn up the thermostat and it's getting a little chilly. You see, you've got to live very close to God before you start threatening him. I don't think there's anything more pathetic than most praying meetings.

Most of our praying meetings are giving God a shopping list, let's face it. You need this, Lord, and bless the building, son, and do this, and do that, and I'm just, in his face. Oh, you're coming to the supper Friday night, aren't you?

Potluck supper. All in one breath almost. But you see, this is the most demanding thing, this, this business of prayer. Let me, let me give you a scripture. I'd better because time's running late. There is one prayer, I think, in the Word of God that reveals to us very clearly all the necessary ingredients of true intercession.

Intercession as Standing Between God and Humanity

Now, if two people are talking and I barge in, I'm an interrupter, or an interferer. If they're talking and I, I come in with my talk, I'm an, I'm an interrupter. But you see, what God is looking for in this day is intercessors, not prayer warriors, merely.

Not people who go to prayer meetings, as good as that is, but people who themselves, you see, the intercessor is one, and God has to work through. God says he won, but not that there was nobody praying, they were all saying prayers.

They rang the bell morning and evening and went to prayer, but there was no intercessor. The last time I was in Wales, in the Bible School of Wales, and there's a life story of Reece Howells. Buy it when you go out.

It's one of the greatest books written in the last 50 years. The last time I spoke in that Bible School Mrs. Howells said come here by the Raiden Hill, and we went upstairs. We stood on a veranda overlooking the Welsh Channel, and she said, you know, by the Raiden Hill, everybody knows that Daddy, meaning her husband, everybody knows that Daddy bought this estate with a shilling in his pocket.

He signed on the dotted line for something like a quarter of a million dollars, and all he had was 14 cents. Now that's either faith or foolishness. But she said, you see that room there? I said, yes lady.

She said, my husband went in that prayer room every morning at 6 o 'clock, and stayed there till 6 o 'clock at night, 12 hours a day for 11 months, without a break, with the exception of the one day that his mother died.

Scripture Must Become Practice

You see faith isn't something that is given to us in a block, injected into us, and it stays there. Faith develops. I feel faith. I sometimes say to young people, my muscles are hard to find, because I've never done any hard work.

I haven't swung an axe. I've always had a kind of sedentary occupation, sitting in a swivel chair. I got muscles there. They might be as big as Mr. America's this morning if I'd done all the exercise, but I didn't do it.

Now listen, reading the Bible won't make you a saint. No sir, it won't. If a man says to me, now right here you need some muscle, you need something on your chest, your legs are so thin. Now I've got a book here, and I'm going around the world, I want to leave this book with you, and when I come back you'll be a transformed man.

It's written by Mr. America, you know, this steeple man. He goes around the world, comes back two years later, and he says you don't look any different, and I say I don't feel it. And you know that book he gave me, that silly book?

I've read it every night. I smell it. Every night after supper I put my feet up in a chair, and I get a bag of potato chips and a toast, and I read that book, and as a matter of fact I can recite the first chapter and the third chapter, and most of the fifth chapter, and well a little bit out of every chapter.

I mean I've committed it to memory. Look at my flabby muscles. My chest no bigger. I don't feel any stronger. You mean to say that you've read that book and done all the exercises? All you didn't say, do the exercises, you said read the book, it will change your life.

Well by the same token, if you merely read the book and the Bible and not put it into operation, if it doesn't get in your bloodstream, it won't change your spiritual muscle. You know everybody in this sanctuary this morning, and it's a lovely sight to see so many, but every one of us here are just as spiritual as we want to be.

No man that ever lived, you can take Kinney on one hand, or you take Mr. Spurgeon on the other, no man that ever lived ever had a bigger Bible than you have or I have. The only thing is I use it better.

Faith Beyond Knowledge and Scholarship

And recently I was reading Hebrews 11, heroes of faith, through faith they subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. I read it and knelt down to pray. And just as I was praying just like that, a voice from heaven said, son do you know what?

Those people in Hebrews 11 that did all those miraculous mighty things, they subdued kingdoms. One man just had the jawbone of an ass, and he slew a thousand men. When one man said, well there you are, the jawbone of an ass, does God still eat you?

The lady said he doesn't, I'll post it every Sunday morning. But with a jawbone of an ass slew a thousand men. And yet nobody in Hebrews 11 ever had a Bible. Isn't that pretty shocking? Peter said, you think we're living in the last days?

No. Certainly we're not living in the last days. Why not? Well I like a phrase that was used by Dr. Kuhn of Asbury, Harold Kuhn, one of the most brilliant men in the world today I think. Jack Taylor is going to Asbury to have a revival in the spring I trust, a great time.

But Harold Kuhn says, remember this, that Christianity was not presented to the world on a silver platter. Christianity was born in a sophisticated totalitarian world. A bunch of men in the upper room are going to come out and they're walled in on this side by the mightiest military machine in the world, the Roman Empire.

They're walled in on this side by the brilliant intellectualism of the Greeks. They're upset to the head because the Jews have a monopoly of God. Who in the world are they going to break it down? And yet they entered those free worlds, those unlettered men, without social standing, without prestige, without money.

It's amazing how much money we've spent in the last 25 years on evangelism, isn't it? Oh God the Holy Ghost is working around the world today again to mention what has been mentioned. I've known Norman Goode more than 40 years.

He's one of the outstanding men of our day. That man has a good income from an estate in England. Every year when his dividends come he turns the check over right from the back of his head, shunts it in the office.

Never makes a need, no. Just a few weeks ago that wonderful man Bill Godford, he's doing a job around the country. Without announcing he's getting eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve thousand people a night for Bible teaching, not dramatic evangelism, you know.

Not a healing life. Just taking the word of God and expanding it. Recently he had a need. He wouldn't tell anybody about it. It wasn't much, I mean it wasn't a big need, not, you know, on the Baptist level only a quarter of a million dollars, what's that?

And he just told the Lord about it. Talking with a man the next day and he said, he asked something and he said, oh, how much is that piece of land? He said a quarter of a million dollars. He said, is that so?

And he said, by the way you were telling me about so and so and he went on talking and he said, yes, yes, I went on talking and the man was writing and he said, well, there you are Bill. And Bill said, thank you.

Quarter of a million? No, no, no, it wasn't a quarter of a million dollars. You wouldn't expect that, would you? It was half a million. He said, there's $250 ,000 for you for the land and there's $200 ,000.

Never, look, if I saw my boys standing outside of that door this morning with a tin can saying, could you help me, I'm in a great no sense, please help me, please help me. I'd go out there and say, boys, look, I promise I'd supply all your needs.

What are you begging here for? We will assault God, all our sons, all our, of course we don't ask directly, we just with faith and hence. Pure faith is about the hardest thing in the world to come by.

Keep your mouths shut. You see, when we talk about interesting power, we think it's part of the dynamic and do the fireworks. Look, when you have power, you need power not to use power. I'll tell you when you need power and everybody else is slandering you and criticizing you and saying wrong things about you and God won't let you open your mouth.

You could kill yourself as quick as that. And then you say, no, no, no, no. Romans 8 says it is God that justifies it. Oh, you may suffer. Remember how Joseph started up here and his daddy said, go down to Dothan.

I never knew that was in America until the other day. And the Lord said, go down to Dothan. And when he got to Dothan to get keys, they sold him down into a pit. And then from the pit, they sold him down into Egypt.

And in Egypt, they put him down in a prison. And when he got in the prison, they put him right down at the bottom and he forgot. And then he starts going up and up and up and up. You know why? Because one day a fellow came home from the war and his wife said, you see that?

Sure, that's Joseph's coat. What are you doing with it? Oh, what am I doing with it? You told me he was a holy man, the holiest man you'd ever met. He came in my bedroom the other night. And when I screamed, he went out and grabbed his coat.

And it's there. No questions asked. Put him in jail. I think some of us are like the girl that came to my, used to come to a church I pastored. And I asked her a question one day. She said, I'll tell you a prank.

Say, I feel like giving God a push. You ever feel like giving God a push? I mean, you know you're going to do it. Why don't you do it now? Why keep me waiting anyhow? Three years in jail. I wish some of you preached.

I know some of you should be there. But I mean, I wish you'd go to jail. Go and be quiet. Get away three years. That's what most of us need. We don't need more books, more knowledge. We need to hear that still small voice that says do this or don't do this.

Hannah’s Intercession and the Birth of a Prophet

I better read what I wanted to read to you. I'm not going to read the chapter. I'm going to tell you that in this chapter there are all the ingredients for true intercessory prayer. I believe the greatest curse in our modern evangelical barrenness.

We're seeing full altars, crowded altars, but not many revolutionized lives. We have two segs and published statistics and six weeks after you can hardly find a person in the city that was born again of all the thousands that came up for something.

Look at the first book of Samuel and the first chapter. First book of Samuel, the first chapter. And here we have the prayer of this very remarkable woman, Hannah. If you notice verse three, this man went up out of his house yearly to worship and to sacrifice.

Verse six, as he did so year by year. Pardon me, verse six, provoked. Her adversary provoked her. Verse seven, as he did so year by year. Still in that same verse, so she provoked her. Notice at the end of verse seven, she wept.

Notice at the end of verse ten, she wept sore. Notice in verse twelve, she continued praying. This always reminds me of the life of the Lord Jesus. He went on into Gethsemane. You know, that's about the most unused portion of the life of the Lord Jesus.

We very seldom hear any sermons on Gethsemane. Saying that reminds me of this, I do not know that you can find in the New Testament anywhere where Jesus prayed with his disciples. He prayed for them, he prayed before them.

But I think the praying of Jesus was on such a level they would never have understood his praying. Jesus walked into the garden of Gethsemane, he knelt in the garden of Gethsemane, he prostrated himself in the garden of Gethsemane.

Now here is an ingredient of prayer that must be ours if we are going to pray for real Holy Ghost revival. She wept, and she wept until she was sore, and she continued praying. All right, verse ten, she was in bitterness of soul.

Verse eleven, look on the affliction of thy handmaid. Look in the end of verse sixteen, she had a complaint and a grief. Now all these things are ingredients of true Holy Ghost intercession. Praying, praying with tears, praying with bitterness, praying with grief.

Why was she praying? She was praying for one reason only, and that was that she would be slighted by her friends because she was a barren woman. Now what did she pray for? Well you say by the way she prayed for a child.

Well supposing I say she didn't. You say you can't prove it. Oh yes I can. She didn't pray for a child, no she prayed for a man child. That's the best claim. She prayed for a man child because a male child proves the sanctifying of the womb, the Old Testament says, the Jews still think that.

All right she didn't pray for a child, she prayed for a man child. And God gave her a man child. No he didn't. You say well he didn't give her a girl. No he didn't. Well what in the world did she get?

She didn't get a child? She didn't get a boy? She didn't get a girl? No. What did she get? She got a prophet. God doing more than she could either ask for. You know so often when God answers prayer, he's not answering prayer to get us out of our embarrassment.

He's answering prayer to supply a need that he has up the road. Pretending is up the road God needed a prophet. And so he gets this woman out of this state. And you know the joy of this whole thing is that oh there's so much involved in this.

Prayer as a Calling for Every Believer

You say now by the grace of God after this conference as a pastor, as a deacon, as a Sunday school teacher, or as a church. You see this ministry is not mentioned in the gifts of the spirit. There is evangelists, teachers, apostles, workers of miracles.

But it doesn't say it gives anybody the gift of prayer. It's understood that whether we're men or women, every one of us has right of access. He has made us a kingdom of priests and to God. Some of the greatest people I know in the world today are women.

Some of them busy women. I remember one woman telling me not long ago, I must be in the prayer closet at six in the morning before the house is stirred. I must get an hour's job before the evening I touch any dishes.

I mentioned the other night, someone asked me again last night about a man in America. America is a strange country, isn't it? It has to be. Look at yourself, honey. It's a strange country. America has been birthed to the greatest modern churches.

Catholicism was revived here. Jehovah's Witnesses were born here. Mormonism was born here. Seventh-day Adventism gone. All the modern heritages were born here. So wait a minute, let's balance this thing out.

America has had some of the greatest praying men in history. You know, when this seminal Methodist preacher came to our house, his clothes were never very good. His trousers were always worn at the knees.

And his wife didn't patch them, she used to darn them. I remember saying to my mother one day, he doesn't have very nice clothes. His trousers were always worn at the knees. Well, the preacher's trousers were still worn, but not at the knees.

He was a man of pride. There's a man not far from Chicago now, one of the greatest men in the world today. Oh, we've had our praying hides. Thank God for them. We had our EM bounds. I got eleven of his books.

I put seven of them in that one volume, A Treasury of Prayer, which is a library of books that you can't find hardly around the world. I had to get them air-mailed from other countries and insure them, so they got here safe and got back safe.

Here is one of the greatest men in press. His daughter used to write to me. She said when my daddy was just a youngish man, he was up every morning at four praying. But as he got older, he was up at three in the morning praying.

And I have a picture on the wall of my office of the man, no hair, except some little white blobs here and a beard snow-white down here. And I've got Billy Graham's picture there, David Wilkerson, some of the others I pray for, James Robertson, one of the great upcoming men, I think, these days.

Robertson, the evangelist, which I guess we refer to him that way. And people look at my old picture and say, well, who's that? Is that your grandfather? No. I kind of wish it was. But how old do you think he is?

Oh, maybe he's not as old as he looks. Maybe he's only about seventy. He looks ninety-five. No, no. They make their guesses. And then I say, well, I'll tell you who it is. It's the great American man of prayer, Dr. E .M. Bowne, with a snow-white beard and long, big hair, at the ripe old age of forty-five.

His daughter sent me the picture. Do you remember somebody came to Jesus and said, well, what do you know anyhow? You're not fifty years of age. You were thirty. And a man at thirty doesn't like to be figured as fifty any more than a woman at thirty likes to be considered fifty.

Why do you think they thought he was fifty years of age? I'm sure because he came on earth to do one thing, and this was what you and I are here for, I pray to God, just to do God's will. This morning we saw the birds rub their eyes.

People were lining up outside of a little house there in Ireland in Portadown. There was a little prayer woman, her hands were all scarred with toil. She's saying that she's very beautiful with her craggy feet, too.

And Presbyterians were standing with Pentecostals and Baptists and others, and even Catholics, why? Because that little woman in that little house knows how to pray. And five o 'clock every morning they're lining up at the door with their problems.

Not a psychiatrist, not even a Christian psychiatrist. This is a new abomination we have. If we could have the gifts of the Spirit, we wouldn't need all this junk. It's much easier to ship somebody to hospital than pray the prayer of faith, isn't it?

It's much easier to say, well, you need to go and lay on a couch and let some guy talk to you. What was it that somebody said recently? A neurotic builds castles in the air, a psychotic lives in them, and the psychiatrist's dog rams on the whole lot.

That's about it. But you see, we've lost the glory in the house of God. It should be if our churches are healthy that in every church, as far as I'm concerned, somebody would have one of these gifts. Somebody the gift of wisdom, somebody the gift of knowledge, somebody the gift of healing, somebody the gift of faith.

That's all. Let's be honest, at least. As I said the other day, I get tired of people saying, praise God, we believe this book from cover to cover. And they spend the next 20 minutes saying, well, of course, these gifts aren't for the devil.

Who made you the judge of God's word? You start judging God's word, you're as bad as a limbo. I'll tell you something for nothing, friend. One thing that burns in my heart is that I'll tell you something.

God is not looking for sponsors. He's looking for men who are humble enough and weak enough and poor enough and helpless enough to say, nothing in my hands I bring. None of my scholarship, my grit, or anything else I come to do in my nakedness.

Persecution, Miracles, and the Power of God

Sure, Norman Goode said, now I'm getting letters from Africa. Do you remember five, ten years ago they were cutting people's heads off and throwing them in the river until the river was as red as the stripes on that flag there?

The river changed its color with human blood. He says, oh, the church will be liquidated, but the blood of the martyr is always the seed of the church. And right now in those areas where the devil got 100 control, oh, God has 100 control this morning.

The dead are being raised, the eyes of the blind are opened. People go with crippled arms and nobody says anything, but God is there so much that they suddenly lift up their hands to pray, oh, my hands are healed.

My hands are healed. A fellow walks out of church and says, oh, I forgot my churches. Isn't that nice? What does it say in Hebrew? Do you know that people to the Hebrews have not got one single word to say to the sinner?

Oh, but I've got a massive sermon. As a man said, I've got a colossal sermon on humility. I can't find a place big enough to preach it in. And you know what we say about Hebrews 3, don't we, in verse 2?