Brought Up, Set Up, Kept Up and Tuned Up — Leonard Ravenhill

David, Goliath, and the Horrible Pit

My pastor doesn't understand. He doesn't want to put a youth prayer meeting on. He doesn't want to do this, doesn't want to do the other. It's dangerous to be spiritual. It's dangerous to live near God because you get like God, you get as angry as God.

That's what Moses did. But anyhow, he says I cried. He heard my crying. What did he do? He brought me apart of a horrible pit. What horrible pit? What's he talking about here? You know as I meditated on this I thought of little David going down in to fight with Goliath.

Maybe when he wrote the 23rd Psalm he was thinking of that. He went down into the valley of the shadow of death. What did this fellow nine feet high say? He said you come up here. I'll break you over my knee and give you to the birds.

And so David says well, we have two minds with a single thought. That's what I'm going to do with you. All Israel is looking up. Goliath did as he wanted until he met a man of God. He didn't turn and run away when he saw the camp and he said you see there's the royal sign on the tent of the king.

There's a royal sign on the tent of the princes. They were the sons of Jesse. They're all the tallest men in the nation. He didn't tremble about them. There was a boy with five loaves. With five loaves.

Five stones I mean. I got a bit early there. Five stones. Why did he have five stones? Because Goliath had four brothers. Oh, you were there, okay. Thank you. He had four brothers. So he says I want to wipe the whole family out while I'm at it.

I wish it turned up, don't you? I'd have shouted with you then, Dick. He goes with his five stones. He doesn't care. The man is as tall as he is. But remember this. In front of Goliath was an armor-bearer.

And yet David never bothered with the armor-bearer. You know we're so busy chasing demons we're leaving the devil alone. You can chase demons. You go to some churches if you have a hangnail it's a demon.

If you have an ingrowing toenail, they'll have a night of prayer for you. Come on now. We're not molesting the devil. He's doing about just what he wants to do in the world and in the nation today. And yet doesn't take an army.

I remember maybe... I make a guess. Seventy years ago a man saying this and thought of it and I won't say a million times since. One man with God is a majority. God doesn't raise up armies. He raises up generals.

Generals don't win battles. Armies... win them under inspired leadership. And I through the word of God you find that in this spiritual warfare. Again, Jesse's brothers were all... David's brothers were all bypassed.

Sin, Depravity, and the Power of God

At first the prophet wanted to take them. This man he lied. Oh, this is wonderful. This is wonderful. Well, the Lord told me there was somebody in your family. Jesse, what's happened? Are these all your sons?

Yes? Except one. Well, where is he? Oh, he's just a boy. He's down in the field looking after sheep. You see some people trained by that. When David says I was born in sin and shaping iniquity, he was born illegitimate.

His father wouldn't even own him. That's a bypass for some people. And of course the other people say you're born within well in sin. You never ask for it. You get sent to hell for having it. Are we born pure?

Are we born innocent? Were the Jeffrey brothers right? Was Finney right when he talked about acquired depravity? That we're pure up to a certain position where we give the devil access to our lives? I know it's a heavy theological problem, but the fact is this.

We've got... What was I thought of today? We've an amalgamation of evil in the world today like no period in history. We never had such aggressive cults. They never had millions of dollars. The Mormons make three million dollars a day.

How in God's name are we going to beat them? What do you do with the other cults? They're wealthy. And yet the men that God has found, Finney didn't have much money. He just had the revelation of God.

The Westleys were kicked out of the Church of England. George Whitefield just happened to have one lady that paid his fare across the Atlantic about six times. Otherwise he had no money. We're so crippled.

You know what? Our success is our failure. Our wealth is our poverty. We'll do it on TV. We'll do it this way. We can buy. We can organize it. God says, well you've tried it 25 years and the nation's going to hell.

Why don't you turn around and repent and face the issue? I cried. I cried. That's all I know. You can be an infant crying in the night tonight with something in here that no language... If you speak 10 languages, you can't express it.

That there's something that God is a spirit, I'm a spirit. And an old Methodist hymn says, spirit to spirit thou dost speak. I guess you are this. You know many times. Maybe you've come here you haven't prayed at all.

I don't care about that. I know you're praying inwardly. But many times my quietest times are my most difficult times. I feel I've touched God and he's touched me when maybe I haven't made an expression at all.

But anyhow whatever pit we're in, it makes no difference. Let me skip over this quickly because I do want us to pray. There's so many requests tonight. He brought me up out of a horrible pit in that night.

Salvation from the Eternal Pit

Maybe you weren't in a horrible pit. Let me tell you something. If you weren't, if you were brought up on the clean side of the road like I was in a very straight but godly Christian Methodist home. I wasn't in a horrible pit, didn't know a thing about it.

My dad had been in one. But I was going to a horrible pit. Far worse than any pit that man's ever described. The eternal pit. He brought me up from a horrible pit. Well if not he saved me from a horrible pit.

I remember one time we were in New York with Teen Challenge 25 years ago when it started. We went one night down to West 42nd, 44th. 44th street where the opera house was. And it was about one o 'clock in the morning.

The opera was finished and they came out in the tall silk hats and the big cigars. Rolls Royces, Bentleys, all the supercars. Ladies dripping with diamonds and what have you got. I see that so often when I'm praying.

If you said to that woman, just a minute lady, take my arm, I'll bring you back in 10 minutes. Round the corner here there are girl prostitutes. Here's a woman who's one of the best known lepers in the city.

I say lady one day you won't have jewels, fabulous jewels. You won't have gorgeous clothes. You're going to spend an eternal hell with that dirty filthy woman who hasn't been bathed for two years. Stinking rotten woman.

And you're going to have your eternity with all the corruption of the earth. They don't think of that. And once more in God's name, I don't believe the preachers in America believe it. If we did prayer meetings will be packed.

Some of our loved ones are going there, but we've no tears for them. I like a point our dear Dave made, if you noticed last week when he was talking now about about the Apostle Paul, yes. And also you remember he said, he said to Timothy, Timothy had sat at the feet of the Apostle Paul.

What a privilege. And what did Paul say? Being mindful of thy tears. Because Paul himself was a man of tears. I don't think there's anything more moving on God's earth and I've been in thousands of experiences in many countries.

All kinds of things. Miracle signs. One the most amazing thing when I've seen men literally broken before God. The little church in Aberraman Wales, the revival hit it in 1904. They thought it was an assembly of God.

We used to pray. Maybe that's things too. God goes in strange places. But anyhow, every Monday morning we met to pray. A bunch of strong Welshmen. The one man, he used to pray in tongues. He didn't know German, but I'll tell you what, he had such a guttural voice when he prayed.

He moved me to the depth. There were other men that came there, different denominations or abominations if you like. But boy how they prayed. That's one of the bright spots of my life. To be with other holy men.

I remember before anybody knew, what do you call him? Campbell McAlpine. Praying in the home of Joy Dawson. She happened to call the home after the name of Wesley's place, Epworth. It overlooked the sea there in New Zealand.

I remember two different nights where he prayed there, when the Spirit of God was on the place. The highlights of my life have not been society people, wealthy people, living in castles, I forget those.

It's to meet with men who are in tune with God, and they touch the heart of God, and God touches them. And they don't have to speak in tongues, they speak with an anointing that's beyond any human description.

Prayer, Revival, and the Example of Spurgeon

One of the great festivals they had in London, they made a huge program. All the celebrities, I believe the Archbishop of Canterbury was on the bill. And various other denominational leaders were there.

And Spurgeon was to be there. Of course they had a song leader, they had a man to give an invocation, whatever that means. And then they had some other announcements. And they went through them all in the office, or as we call it, in the vestry.

You know, they say American preachers are businessmen, they have an office. English preachers have a vestry. That's the difference. American preachers have big cars. I'll say that this way. English preachers have big libraries.

But this celebration, oh Spurgeon's going to preach. Oh they came, as the Irish would say, from all arts and parts. The great Spurgeon. You know, he wasn't very tall, he was too fat, and he was whiskery, and all the rest.

Excuse me, I didn't mean it in any way. I like you dear brother. You remind me of Peter, I never saw him, but I think he'd be like you. Lovely grey beard, isn't that lovely? Martha take a good look dear, I may want to grow one like that.

Now she won't. You've got your camera with you. Anyhow, this celebration. The Archbishop of Canterbury is going to give the invocation. Oh it will be so dignified, you have such marvellous Oxford English, you know.

The Duke of Somers is going to speak. A member of the royal family is going to be there. Somebody's going to sing from the Royal Opera House. They had all this stuff charted, and as Spurgeon went in they gave him a copy of this thing, and they said, you know, oh you've already been warned of this, that this procedure goes on for, oh maybe an hour, and then the whole platform will clear.

I'm here to speak to this celebration, the Royal Albert Hall, seating about eight, ten thousand people. There's one person allocated for each position. One to lead the singing, one to give the invocation, one to read the scriptures, one to do this, one to do the other.

But your task is to pray. Your task is to preach. He said, I would like to change that. We can't, there are Dukes, there are royal people here. They've got, well he said, that doesn't matter. But they want to hear you.

No, he said, I want God to hear me. Let the man who was going to pray at the beginning of the service preach, and let me pray. I would rather pray than do anything at all. And he brought the power of God down.

Finney didn't take song leaders with him, or guys with guitars, and all these backslid instruments. What did he do? Took a couple of prayer men, praying men, Father Nash and Father Cleary. He called them that because they were bearded, not because they were old.

We had a lady came to our church, I'll be quickly through, came to our church in Bolton, in Lancashire, England. She was in 80-odd years of age. We went and had a phase of revival there. We took a tent.

We stayed the whole summer, we stayed into winter, we stayed until the snow fell on the thing. People would go in a yard and find a brick and put it in the oven all day, and wrap it up in a cloth and bring it and put their feet in it, because the snow's falling outside, or the wind was arctic.

We stayed there months and months and months, with the result, what, that church is going today. It was started in 1932, it's still going. The other two that we founded in 1934 and 1935 are still there.

I was asked to go back last year and preach. Why? Because it wasn't a hit-and-run campaign, we stayed. It's better to stay a night, it's more showy maybe. But you don't, a woman doesn't have a baby born and then desert it.

I've said this, and I get into trouble with it, so I'm going to get into trouble again. I believe maybe number one, or number two enemy of revival in America is evangelism. Hit-and-run evangelism. We don't stay for the birth, we don't stay to take care.

Evangelism, Conversion, and the Work of the Holy Spirit

Anyhow, this is what happened. This precious man, Spurgeon, prayed, and God just came on the assembly, and he was known all over London. I haven't kept all records, I wish I had over the years, but maybe we need a bigger house for them, Martha.

But one record I read, they said in the years that Spurgeon was preaching, there were people healed through him. Isn't that a miracle? Healed through a Baptist, dear Lord. That, that's not territory for Baptists, it's only for Pentecostal and rheumatic, charismatics I mean.

Come on now. They said if you added up all the healings in all the hospitals in London, they didn't come any near to the healings that that precious man had. Do you know in the 25, was it 28 years he ministered in London, they ever once made an altar call?

He said, if God is striving with you this morning, it's a quarter of 12, and it's there, I'll be through in 15 or 20 minutes. If God is striving with you, go home, come in the morning to my office at 7.

We don't believe the Holy Ghost will linger like that. Then he said to the night congregation, if you're troubled in your spirit about eternity, come into my office tomorrow morning between 7. I'll be there from 7 till 7 at night.

And the press reporter says, it was like you're looking, I look outside of our house, we've got a run where the ants go. I watch the little things going up and down, I think how people went constantly from offices and different places, they went constantly to that one room where Spurgeon was all day to introduce people to Jesus Christ.

What greater honor is there? Just down the road you had of all men, you had Parker, what was his name, Joseph Parker. I've given Brother Jack there a little book tonight called, what's the prayer book?

No, no, Parker's. Yeah, yeah, the Statue Book of Prayer in England is a common, Book of Common Prayer, that's the Book of Uncommon Prayer. It's a listing of all the, most of the prayers that that amazing man prayed.

I talked with a woman that actually used to go and listen to Spurgeon. And she said, Mr. Raymond, it wasn't his preaching. She said he would come in the pulpit and say something, may the congregation will be laughing, and when they sobered down, he'd be up in eternity, she said.

If you didn't get anything out of the preaching, you usually did, but he carried it to eternity. Our preachers don't do that. They say to some half-backs ridden deacon, hey Bill, I nearly said Jack, but Bill, Bill lead in prayer.

The last thing Bill did was slam the door, getting out of the car and say to his wife, now smile, we'll settle this when we get home. And the old rascal with sweat on him and anger on him, stands up and blubbers out of prayer.

Three blind mice could say as much. If a man is going to pray, he should have a week's notice given to him. Prepare yourself, you're going to stand between the living and the dead. Ruskin, the great English critic said, preaching is three, 30 minutes to raise the dead.

You know, that's not, that sounds funny. It isn't. As I told them in a church a while ago, I said, look, that row of people there, a row of nice people, it's death row. Everybody is dead if you're not born again.

You're dead, you may be rich, you may be intellectual, you may be smart, you may be acceptable to some. It's no fun preaching. If it isn't, for God's sake, give it up. If you can pray without, preach without tears, you shouldn't preach.

If you can preach without being broken about it, you shouldn't do it. Why should the congregation be heartbroken over sin if we're not? We transmit the audience, we bring the atmosphere with us, as the Quaker said.

Brought Up, Set Up, Kept Up, and Tuned Up

Anyhow, let me, I'm rushing through this, you know, this quickly. Bow down and kneel. What does it say? What does it say? He brought me up. Isn't that wonderful? Out of a horrible pit. Okay. He brought me up.

Out of a horrible pit, out of body of clay, and then set my feet. So he brought me up, then he set me up upon a rock, and established my feet. He kept me up, and he put a new song in my mouth. He tuned me up.

Boy, there's a lot in that, isn't it? He brought me up, he set me up, he kept me up, he tuned me up. You see, a man that has that miracle doesn't, you don't say, are you saved? He doesn't say, well, I don't really know.

If a man doesn't know, he isn't saved. If I carried a hundred pound weight on my back, got up the hill with a van, said, hey, I saw you with a hundred pound sack down the road. You haven't got it now.

Oh, I didn't notice I'd lost it. You'd say he's nuts. Do you mean a man who's burdened with guilt and sin doesn't know immediately he's born again? Do you mean that a man who's been living in total darkness and you push him in the room blazing with light doesn't know he's there?

Isn't that the gospel, to turn them from darkness to light, the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins? Boy, if I were going down the road and I said to Jacob, are you in debt?

He says, well, a little. I won't ask you what about, well, his car for one thing, but anyhow. And I say to him, how much do you want? And he says, well, what mood are you in? I say, well, I'm not in a good mood, but Martha is.

She's got the bankbook. Well, supposing I give you, I mean, would 10 ,000 cover it? You say, well, not quite. 15 ,000? Not quite. He's nodding his head. What, are you in debt a million? And I say, well, supposing, supposing I say, I've had some money.

I'll give you, I'll give you $35 ,000, one to cancel all your debts, the other to give you some money to live on. Will you forget this place? He wouldn't. He put a mark on the driveway. Big, metal mark.

That's where Len Ravenhill gave me $35 ,000. And all the angels would say, wake up. Are you going to tell me that a man who's morally bankrupt and Jesus touches him doesn't know that he's been redeemed, regenerate?

He doesn't know he's a new creature? He doesn't know when he's lost his burden? He doesn't know the pollution has gone, the guilt has gone, the condemnation has gone? You see, we just get people come up and nod their heads and say, Jesus, I love you, and go to hell and love the world.

That's 10 minutes after. This is a miracle, it's a supernatural operation of the Holy Ghost. It takes the blood of Christ, it takes the mercy of God, it takes the power of the resurrection, and it takes the indwelling Spirit of God to bear witness.

Okay, so he lifts me up, and then he sets me up, then he keeps me up, then he tunes me up. You wonder, Paul says, I like that, there's a holy arrogance, if that's not a contradiction in terms. If any man be in Christ.

Yeah, I've seen rich men, millionaires that have been saved. We had a banker in England got saved. And God wonderfully transformed his life. There's a man who used to drive around in a carriage, a couple of horses in the carriage.

God saved him. What? He said, go live in the slums. So he went. I have his life story on my shelf. Instead of servants waiting on him, he went to the gutter, to the ghetto and lived. And took his money and built a hospital, and gave them free hospitalization.

That's 60 years, 70 years ago. Put all his money there. God says, you don't lay a treasure here, lay it up in heaven. Take care of the poor and the needy and outcast. And instead of servants and everything, he just did the ordinary thing, traveled in the streetcar.

You see, once a man gets a vision of eternity, I'm not amazed at anything he does. After all, when a man falls in love, let me say this. In Scotland, there are lots of castles now empty, folk can't afford to live in them anyhow.

But I remember 70 years ago, they told us about a beautiful castle on the hill. A man stood there every morning, took his great big glasses and he watched his daughter, she's riding a horse. She went down to the crossroads and met the son of another duke.

And they were taught together. And he got it in his mind, oh we love a society wedding, we love royal people here. These two are going to get married. She still kept going, and then she didn't seem to go so often.

One day, one of the men came to him and said, a lord of where there was duke so-and-so, maybe duke of Argyll. Your excellency, I would like to tell you something. Oh well, tell me, he said. It's very secret, I hope I won't be able to...

Tell me. Is it concerning me? Yes, vitally. What is it? Well, that beautiful daughter of yours, a brilliant scholar at Cambridge, has come home. She's been seeing the duke of so-and-so. I know that.

No, no, she doesn't go there now. She's desperately in love with a man who has no money. They say he's a very religious man, he goes to church often. She isn't going to see the duke's son anymore. Who is this man?

Well, he's the man that saddles her horse every morning for her, cleans out the manure in the stable. The father waited and watched, and he saw this fellow go around time and time again to the stables, bring the horse out for the girl.

She'd mount the horse and off she'd ride away. He'd clear up the mess, all the junk and so forth. One day, the duke brought the girl into his home. I want to ask you a question, a very serious question.

Sit there. She said, yes daddy. Are you in love? Yes, very much. With who? Oh, John MacTavish. John MacTavish, the stable boy? You know your mother, your grandmother left you a beautiful home on the side of the lark, as they call the lake.

And then a certain inheritance. I can't touch the inheritance, but you won't get the land and you won't get the house. If you marry that young man, you get nothing from your father. I'll disinherit you.

You won't get a house, you won't get an inheritance. But if you say, I'll marry the duke's son, I'll see you get lots of money, I'll see you get everything you need. She said, daddy, I can't do that. I love the man, he's poor.

I'm not marrying a stable boy, I'm marrying a young man who is a prince unto God. The Bible says it's a royal priest unto the holy nation. And she said, I'm going to stay. And she stayed with the fellow.

Sacrificial Love and the Cost of Discipleship

Well, isn't that what love does? Isn't it easy to sing, we're the whole realm of nature, mine. And then somebody says, you know, I was going to the prayer meeting Friday night, but it was raining. Isn't that sacrificial?

I don't think the Lord believes us very often anyhow. We sing such amazing hymns, no, we're the whole realm of nature, mine. We won't even give him our bank balance. But coming down to nitty-gritty, love is so unreasonable.

That's why Paul says, I want you to know the height, the depth, the length and the breadth of the love of God. There'll have to be a new wave of love, because love basically is sacrificial. I remember Alan Redpath, he's a well-known writer.

And somebody said to him one day, well, you fall in love with a very beautiful lady. You must love her immensely. And he said, I thought I did. But he said, I was praying one day and asking the Lord, Lord, I want to marry that girl.

She's so beautiful. She's so versatile. She's such a good Christian. She's so well received. And the Lord said, you don't want to marry her because you love her. You love yourself. You want her because she'll enhance your ministry.

You want her for your own ends. Get rid of that. Love her, love her. He said, that turned me around completely. And I said, yes, Lord, if you say no, it's no. But he said, when you show me that basically I love myself, I was gratifying myself.

She would bring me some esteem. She would bring me some advantages. Boy, that's love. I'll tell you why, because I knew the same thing. I was leading a team of young men and one man, one of them said that the curfew was 10 o 'clock at night.

Isn't that wonderful for a team of college boys? And Friday was our day off. And he said, Skipper as they call me. Not what they call the president. What do they call him? Something else. Gipper. No, they call me Skipper.

I thought it sounded more sanctified. And he said, Skipper, would it be all right if I came in at 10 .30 tonight? I said, not unless you have a real reason. Well, he said, you know, Sister Wilson that comes with a bunch of nurses?

I said, yes. He said, I believe I'm in love with her. He said, I want to go see her at the hospital and take her out to dinner. And I guess I won't get back from Manchester, which is only about 10 miles away, till about half past 10.

And he said, so it would be all right if I come in at half past 10 or maybe a little later. I said, not much later, half past 10. Oh, he said, boy, I feel so wonderful. He said, are you going to wish me God's blessing?

I said, sure I'm not. He said, you're not? Why not? I said, because I love her. That's right. His name was Bent, and he was bent on that one thing. He came in the next morning. He didn't see you, I don't think.

He saw you that night. No, Martha said, no, the old one is better, so she turned him down. Did she say, love never counts the cost? Let me quote a little poem and quip. Love ever stands with open hands, and while it lives, it gives.

For this is love's prerogative, to give, and give, and give. I'm poor. Where are you poor? If we started here right at the beginning with Brother John, and forget about your pocketbook, I mean, talk about other things.

I'm poor. What? You might say, I'm poor in faith. Oh, what about my friend here? What's he poor in? Oh, I don't know what he's poor in. Grace, shall we say. Somebody's poor in mercy. Somebody's poor in love.

Somebody's poor in vision. Somebody's poor in strength. You see, it's going to be such a showdown when we get there. The classical example of this is a church that's functioning. You know what? People think because the crowd is there, God is there.

That's not necessarily true. Maybe the reason is there's no conviction there. There's nothing that disturbs them. They're comfortable to sit there. Here's a church, rich and increased in good. She has need of nothing.

The Laodicean Church and Spiritual Poverty

She gives to missions. What does God say to her? Listen to the contradiction. The church in Laodicea, he says, you say, I'm rich and increased in goods. What's God's answer to that? Poor. Sign 2. Here it's deep export was clothing.

And God ironically says, you're clothing the world and you start naked in my sight. The other second greatest import was eyesalve. They didn't have glasses to wear in the sun. And so when their eyes got sore from the burning of the sun on the desert, their eyes got sore, they used eyesalve.

They exported it all around the world. And the Lord says, you sell eyesalve. I counsel you to buy of me eyesalve. Are we all going to get to heaven? What a day, what a good song that is. As I've said to you, we're going to be very different in heaven.

John Wesley disciplined his life for 53 years. The dying thief got into the last breath. Are they going to be the same in heaven? People say, well be careful, you know, you can't buy anything from God.

Can't you read the King James version? As our David said last week, did you notice that? There are 10 versions, 5 are wise and 5 are foolish. I wonder where he's getting his wit from. And what does it say?

This is a counsel of God, it's not Gabriel. He says, I counsel thee to buy of me. Buy of me what? White raiment, gold, tried in the fire. How can we buy? How do you get a checkbook to heaven? I'll tell you what it is, it's one word, obedience.

We sang it tonight again. Trust and obey, there's no other way. No other way. Not a highway and a long way, there's no other way. But trust and obey, there's no other way. I counsel thee to buy. You're the richest city in the world, Laodicea.

At the judgment seat you'll be stark naked. I'd rather be naked tonight in God's presence than 10 billion eyes looking on me, the Apostle Paul, Zechariah and all the other great saints of the ages, watching me stand there while I get my just reward or I get my condemnation.

I don't want that. You've heard me, many of you, cry to God. Week after week, here Lord, don't let me stand at the judgment with billions of eyes looking on to me. And then you say, I had many things to tell you when you lived in Texas, but you couldn't bear them, you couldn't hear them, you couldn't see them.

You were so wrapped up in your program, you were serving me. No, many of us are not serving the Lord, we're serving a mission, we're serving a ministry. It's a costly thing. But it's poverty. Jesus starts, all right, the kingdom, here's the last word, poor.

Blessed of what? The intellectual, no, blessed of the poor in spirit. Financial poverty doesn't necessarily mean that people are poor in spirit. And being wealthy doesn't necessarily mean people are rich.

I've seen some very poor people, I worked in some tough areas where poor people can be as arrogant as rich people, as conceited and as difficult to approach. But this is a constant cry. I bow down thine ear and he says over and over again, this poor man cried.

In this psalm, he finishes the 17th verse in that same psalm, saying I'm poor and needy. And it's only when I nail it down. As I say, when Isaiah had a revelation of himself, he didn't say, Lord I'm slack in my prayer life, Lord I'm behind in my tithing.

He summed it all up in two words. What did he say? When he had that vision of the glory and wholeness of God. Fun? Yeah, and the other one? Yeah, always I'm undone, I'm unclean. Two words, that's all.

Can start personal revival in anybody. But we measure ourselves with ourselves. We measure ourselves among others, other people in the church, other people in the fellowship. Well dear God, I'm sick to death of living amongst dwarfs.

I'm tired of men who are mediocre. There has to come a breakthrough somewhere in this day. This day of such organization, this day of such cheating, robbing the, at least in the highway men in England, the robbers, they did rob the rich to feed the poor.

Now TV boys, they rob the poor to feed the rich. We've turned it right round. And God isn't going to put up with this rubbish much longer. I want to cry, Lord poor, I'm poor, I need more vision, lengthen my vision.

I'm poor in passion, stir, give me a fever. I pray today, God give me a fever. A holy fever like the apostle Paul had that you couldn't stop him. Prisons couldn't do it, whipping couldn't do it. 195 times they skinned his back.

Once I suffered shipwreck, thrice I was stoned. I don't think that man ever had a healthy day after he was saved. I think his eye was slit, his cheeks were slit, his leg, he had to drag a leg. He must have done, good Lord you couldn't beat his body up the way it was beaten up and be a whole complete good looking guy.

But he's living with eternity's values in view. He's seeing right through time into eternity. He had to. He makes the greatest boast, Isaiah never said it, Jeremiah never said it, Zechariah said he said it.

Union with Christ and the Indwelling Spirit

He said, God lives in me. You wonder why I do what I do? God lives in me. The preacher down the backstreet and preacher down the road says, well remember the apostle Paul finished in Romans 7. He's a liar, he didn't.

In Romans 7 he says, it's not I but sin that dwelleth in me. You get further up the road he said, it's not I, it's Christ that liveth in me. You can't flatter me, I've nothing to be flattered in. You can't appreciate me, I have nothing.