The Sermon on the Mount - Part 5 — Leonard Ravenhill

The Sermon on the Mount as the Manifesto of the Kingdom

So we are talking again about the Kingdom, but this, what we call the Sermon on the Mount again is the manifesto of the Kingdom. And it is again a portrait of the Lord Jesus Christ and it is a portrait of what he expects in our lives.

Some people say it's out of reach, for instance the statement, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God, that this is not realistic. Well, do you think that God would impose on us something which is impossible?

You know, if you cover this floor with glass and then you put some oil on it and then you smear it with petroleum jelly and you put somebody in the middle and you set it aside and say, now you get up and walk here, they couldn't do it in a thousand years, there's no traction.

The oil and the petroleum jelly and the glass underneath would mean that they just could not, every time they tried to get up, they'd flip, there's no possible way that they could move. Well, does God impose things like that on us?

I'm quite sure that he doesn't. Again this, as the Lord Jesus says, the Kingdom of God is within you. They were still looking for a kingdom and I remind you again that even after it taught them for three years and they'd seen everything and heard everything, it was possible for them to hear from him and yet just before he departed and he said he would come again and they said immediately, will you set up your kingdom?

They still wanted a kingdom, because every other kingdom obviously is a visible kingdom. This kingdom is an invisible kingdom. Every other kingdom has a visible king, wearing a crown, having his entourage and he has his, usually his castle and he displays wealth and power, he has armies, he has other things to impress and show you that he's the head of the pile, he is the king.

And Jesus has nothing of the kind. He has no crown, they gave him a crown and so on, but he has no other crown, he has no dignitaries following him, everybody he has with him is without any social standing really, fishermen and tax gatherers who are despised and still are and lots of people of that caliber, but he had no distinguished people.

The Kingdom Contrasted with Sinai

And again it's so different when you visualize the setting up of the first kingdom, if you like, in the Ten Commandments. You remember that Moses was allowed to go up the mountain and you can visualize the mountain, I've kind of visualized it this way, that here is a mountain peak, put it up like this, but the mountain is shrouded in cloud and vivid lightning and here you have Jesus on an ordinary kind of a small little hill, a mount sure enough, but here this is ringed off, this is F, we'll say, excuse me, F, the forbidden ground.

Hebrews says even if a beast went in there it died, this is sanctified ground, this is holy ground. This is God's majestic presence and power and authority and dominion and if you come in here you're going to be in trouble.

You know you get a classical example of that in the case of King Uzziah. King Uzziah was what, he went to the throne when he was what, 16 years of age and he reigned about 50 years and he was a very successful king.

You can read that I think in about 2 Chronicles 26, somewhere there. And everything he did prospered, he extended the nation territorially, he had no problem with the farmers like the president has, the farmers were all in subjection, they increased their vineyards, he invented war machines, these great big catapults, they put rocks in and hurled them.

It says he invented many things, he built bridges and everything he did prospered, he was very much like the man in Psalm 1, but then he became arrogant. You know one of my simple definitions is this, that if you have power you need power not to use that power, otherwise you're stuck around and show everybody, I've got power, none of us who I am, and I don't want to tell you I can go into any area.

So King Uzziah thought he could do it. The sanctuary was like this place, there was an awesomeness about it, let's make it like this if you like, for the building and here is an altar, and that is forbidden ground as much as this was forbidden ground.

But he says, well what do I care, I am the king, I'm King Uzziah. And therefore he believed in the divine right of kings, I can do what I like, when I like. And we're told that about 80 priests tried to push him out of the way and said don't do that because if you do you're going to be in trouble.

But he still persisted and the moment he crossed into that forbidden territory, you remember that he was stricken with leprosy. I think that's an awesome thing, I don't think we, let me put it this way, I think so often we're hard on other people and easy on ourselves.

Now that's a sign of spiritual weakness, you ought to be hard on yourself and easy on others, that's a sign of grace. You know I hadn't thought of this till last year, how merciful God is. He took a man like Moses who was stained with blood, he was a murderer.

Moses, Leadership, and the School of Obedience

And he wasn't as smart as he thought he was because he killed somebody and pushed him under the sand and then you know rubbed his foot over the sand said nobody will find out. We forgot but God marked the spot anyhow.

And yet despite the fact he was a murderer, God used him, maybe the Jews still think the greatest man that ever lived, he was a marvellous man. Where, 7, read the 7th chapter of Acts, not now but later and you'll get a wonderful description of Moses because it says he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.

He was mighty in word, now that doesn't mean he was a narrator, we think a man is mighty in word when he's a great orator you know and he displays all his stuff, whether he's an evangelist or a politician.

He has to show you his might of word, the strength of his vocabulary and everything else. But it says that Moses was mighty in word, but he couldn't talk. How do you know? Because it says he stammered, he didn't want the job.

I guess some of you are really longing for leadership, well if you are, you're very stupid. That's the last thing you should want. I have never thought leadership in my life, it's too awesome. I don't care whether you're going to take a bunch of folk from here or lead a church or anywhere, the awesomeness of being a leader is just frightening really.

Because so often people pattern themselves after their leader. And if he's not a spiritual man, well God helped the group that follow him. He may be a preacher, that doesn't mean he's spiritual, he may be the leader of a group, that doesn't mean he's spiritual, he may have got there by sure being brusque and getting to the head and pushing other people down.

But Moses again was a murderer, and yet not once in his life did God ever cast that in his face. Not as the scripture says, cast things in your teeth. God never said, look you better watch your step because I know you're a murderer.

He never said that. But one day he disobeyed God for about 30 seconds, he got furious, he got angry. And for that 30 seconds of bad temper he got 40 years punishment. Now we think that God doesn't do things like that, oh yes he does.

You see, the higher you testify you are, the more God has the right to test you and the more the devil will assail you. If you've got a lofty idea of yourself, big, influential, outstanding, gifted, talented, one of those geniuses that somehow people have not yet recognized.

Isn't it awful when you're full of genius and nobody recognizes it? You wonder when the church is in a mess, it doesn't realize what I'm a kind of a secret hidden apostle for. Well I'm not a gazette, I'm just another cynic.

But you know, that secret thing in me, yet there's so much undiscovered wealth in me and so forth. So what? You know the most difficult thing in our lives is the drying out period. The apostle goes down the Damascus road and infinitely, mercy of God, infinite mercy of God, God revealed himself to him.

And then God says, I've got a school, there's not many students in my school, but I'd like to take you there. And so the man of God says, well Lord you do just that, because I've been the worst assailant of Christianity, I'd like to be the best example of it.

The Lord says, alright, I reveal myself to you on the Damascus road. Now come behind the bushes here, get lost, for about three and a half years, and I reveal myself in you. Now there are a lot of people that God has revealed himself to, but not many people he reveals himself in, you see.

And this is something that we need to realize, after all you can blame so many people for your static spiritual life, if you like, or what I mean, not just static that you're far off, but I mean you become static, stationary.

You can blame the in-laws, or the outlaws, or the devil, or somebody else. But really if you're in God's will, it is God that works within you. He's got the program, he's got the timetable. So Moses is forty years on the back side of the desert, he's loaded with intellectual power.

If it stayed as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, he might have been Rameses the third, or somebody. We might have images fifty feet high in the Nile Valley, and somebody saying, well that's Moses, that's Moses, and you know standing with reverence in some of it.

But what did he do? He chose. Now there's your problem all through life. What is life? It's a series of choices. You get overwhelmed and say to yourself, well I know this, that's the biggest choice I'll ever make.

And five years after you think, well boy, all I did was I decided to get out of my playpen. I left the things which are behind. Now the Lord says, listen, you climbed out of this little playpen that you're in here.

It's a playpen kind of thing. You were in this playpen, the Lord says, climb out, look there are mountains here. What about getting up there? Because that's all life is, it's a series of choices. And Moses deliberately made a choice, not to be a king.

Not to be the darling of a princess that thought he was the most amazing king. You know there's a lot of humor in the Bible if you read it carefully. I've got a streak of humor I think, the Irish fellows have, but anyhow I've got a streak of humor.

And you know it's wonderful that the reason that Moses was hidden in the bushes, his name Moses means drawn out. That was the name they gave to him later, but it's amazing when you think that actually he had a sentence of death on him.

Moses, Jesus, and the Call to Suffer

You know if you're pretty careful you'll find the life of Moses, life of Jesus parallel very easily. Where was Moses born? He was born in a slave system. Where was Jesus born? He was born in a slave system.

Again the Church of Jesus Christ was not born in a free society. The Church of Jesus Christ wasn't served up to the world on a silver platter. The Church of Jesus Christ was born in a sophisticated totalitarian society.

The Romans were over in Ireland or over in England 55 years before Jesus was born. They spread their awful tentacles and like an octopus they were gripping the world. The world was in a state of slavery.

We think the world's in a mess now, well all it's done is make a complete circle. In England they sing Britain's never shall be slaves, and here we say we're in the land of the free. We've never seen anybody free yet.

As soon as they get free they decide to become enslaved to dope and drinks and tobacco and lust and who's free? Most Christians are not free. As I said the other day they're like Lazarus, here's Lazarus inside of the, here's a stone and they roll the stone away and Lazarus comes out looking a bit like, how'd he look, a bit like this.

Now he's come out of there, that's death. Jesus says come out, he comes out, he walks out, but he's bound hand and foot with grave clothes. Can't see where he's going, can't do anything, his hands can't serve, his feet can't walk, he shuffles like this but he can't see or smell or do anything, he's no good.

You can't question that he's alive, he is alive, otherwise he'd still be in the morgue or the tomb. Jesus speaks the word and he comes to life, but he's bound hand and foot, pardon me, he's bound hand and foot with grave clothes.

Isn't it true to say, you know people say, well you mustn't judge, that's the most stupid thing in the world, you judge all the day you live, don't you? For instance Jesus says, cast not your pearls before swine, well you've got to judge the swine before you cast your pearls haven't you?

You don't judge, oh but you do judge because it says there in the 7th chapter of John that we're to judge righteous judgment. Now if you don't judge, you'll live under somebody else's judgment anyhow.

But God has given you the capacity, not only intellectually, but spiritually to discern between good and evil, right and wrong and so forth and so on. Moses is taken to the back side of the desert, Moses chose to suffer affliction with the children of God, rather than to enjoy, why did he do it?

Because there's a little thing that occurs about twice I guess in the epistle to the Hebrews 11th chapter, what did he do? I don't know how he came to the conclusion, I don't understand it, but I'll tell you what it says.

He chose rather to suffer affliction with the children of God, considering what? The reproach of Christ greater than all the treasures in Egypt? How did he know about Christ? Well that's what the book says and I take it.

So again, life is this you see, are you going to jump into that which immediately looks the most profitable? Even in Christian work. There's a story about a little fellow, his playmate said to him, well your daddy hasn't been our pastor very long has he?

He said, no he hasn't, about four years, but I hear he got a call to another church, yes a big church, big church with a big house, they're going to give him a big car and a big salary. So a little fellow said, is your daddy going to take it?

He said, well daddy's praying but mother's packing. Why not? It's a bigger church with a bigger income. You know one of the greatest men that ever lived in England never had a large church. He's a man by the name of John Fletcher.

John Wesley said he was the greatest saint that had lived since the Apostle Paul. He lived in a place called Maidley, Shropshire and they said when he went past the tavern the men would take off their hats and they were half drunk, they'd be there by the wall and they'd say, there goes the man that loves our souls.

John Wesley said he was the most holy man he believed that had lived since the days of the Apostle. He's a very profound teacher, he wrote a thick volume of checks to antinomianism, you should get it, make your headache a bit, but then it's worth reading.

We need mental challenges, we need spiritual challenges, but this godly, saintly man, and it shows you again you see that it doesn't matter how smart you are, and you may be very smart, you may be very holy, you still make mistakes and misjudge, God will share a lot of things with you.

He'll share his love, his love is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost, he'll give you power, the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, he'll give you wisdom, he's made unto us wisdom and righteousness, but there's one thing he'll never share with you, that is his glory.

And another thing is he'll never share his infallibility, we still make mistakes, they're good for us sometimes to make mistakes. And John Wesley said of this godly, saintly man, the most saintly man he'd ever met, he said you know now, I can die comfortably and I'll hand the reins of Methodism over into the hands of John Fletcher.

One day John Wesley stood at the grave of John Fletcher, and Wesley lived about thirty years after he'd buried John Fletcher, when somebody said to Wesley, Mr. Wesley, you're grieving that your wonderful friend has died.

He said yes. This person said, well don't grieve, why not, well you're going to be with him in eternity forever aren't you? And he put it like this, he said, well I'll tell you, this is what I think, if you describe this as eternity, this way as eternity, and here is the throne of God, he said John Fletcher has graduated in my opinion to be round there with the Apostles, but he said J .W., John Wesley will be so far away I'll only see the reflected glory of Christ in the face of John Fletcher.

Now that's quite a statement isn't it, by a man that we think was one of the greatest men, at least I think Wesley was one of the greatest men ever. But you see again, he esteemed this holy man, and though he wanted to hand over the reins of the great flourishing Methodist Church, God said no.

Following Christ’s Steps and Rejecting Violence

Going back then here to this wonderful man, Moses made his choice, but God hid him away for forty years. I don't know the answer, let me tell you again. I don't know why, one day I will. In the old Testament economy a man could be a soldier when he was twenty, because he didn't need brains then or now to kill anybody, so he could be a soldier when he was twenty.

I take the view of the precious Craker friends, I don't think Christians should fight, we're supposed to live as Jesus would live, that's what the scripture says, doesn't matter what your theology is, the scripture says that we should do what Jesus did.

He was in this world and we should follow in his steps, Peter says, and then he tells you what the steps are lest we imagine them, he says he did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth. Can you imagine Jesus with a machine gun, cutting people down?

Can you imagine him dropping a bomb on Hiroshima at what, sixteen minutes to eight on the sixth of August 1945? Can you imagine Jesus liquidating a city and sending, I don't know, thousands of people to destruction?

A man came to our church when I was pastoring in Bath and he was a high air force officer. He came to me one day and said, Brother Angel, I'm going to have to quit in the air force and I'll have to go to jail.

He said, I can't lie on my belly, I can't guide a plane and press a button and drop a bomb on, let's say, Dresden or Hamburg in Germany and when that bomb goes down, say, maybe I killed, I destroyed maybe thirty prayer meetings tonight.

I cut them off, I can't do it. And he went to jail. I visited him in jail for a long while after that. The church has been so far back from this Sermon on the Mount. You see, again, if God is going to get the best out of us there has to be a hiding place for all of us.

Again, a man could not, could be a soldier when he was twenty, he could not be a priest until he was twenty-five, he could not be a high priest until he was thirty. Now you find the answer to this, nobody's ever given it to me.

Jesus did not minister until he was thirty, John Baptist did not minister until he was thirty, and Apostle Paul was more than thirty. So was Moses. Moses was in school for forty years. We think we're washed up?

I'm not eighty yet. I'm getting up there, but I don't think I'd like to start my work for the Lord at eighty. But that's when he started. You see, there's no timetable. You can go to a Bible school and they put you on the assembly line, you come off, you've got the same notes that ten thousand other students have in the country, you've got the same diploma and about as much vision, as much passion maybe, because they become mechanical.

There is a hiding place. I used to talk very often, just Dr. Tozer and I, and he'd tell me about the days when he was a youngster and how he lived on a little farm up in the hills of Pennsylvania. He never went to Bible school, never went to seminary.

He wrote some of the finest modern literature that we have on the spiritual life. But he did all his digging there in the Word of God. He read the mystics, he read Madame Guillaume and the Ladder of Sanctity and the Cloud of Unknowing and all those other wonderful, wonderful books that are hard to read.

But he read them, taught himself a little Latin, taught himself a little Greek. Without any aid, but he did all that spade work, the thing is, he came up not as a copy of a copy of a copy. You know, there's a saying amongst artists, you never copy copies.

Somebody once painted a picture and then they let somebody else copy it, then they passed it on and they copied from the copy of the copy, and when he got to the end, the picture at the end, when twenty people had done, was nowhere like the picture at the beginning.

Because they hadn't copied the original, they had copied copies. Now I don't know whether you've got so far in your spiritual life that like the Apostle Paul, he says, you be followers of me, even as I am of Christ.

I followed so closely, I've obeyed him so implicitly, that if you follow, well I'm willing to take the responsibility as it were, when I get to the judgment, I set the standard, here you are, you follow me and you'll be okay, everything will be great for you in that great day.

Now how many preachers dare say that, or evangelists, or teachers, or missionaries, how many dare, we say, now don't look to me, why not? Why not? As I say, I like to do a little sketching now and again when I get time to do it, but I used to like to draw eagles, and I'd been sketching about a year ago, you know, drooling, thinking of things, and I sketched an eagle.

Somebody came in my office and said, well, oh I like this bird, and I said, yeah, it's a nice sketch. I said, oh, do you know who did it? I said, yes, yeah, I know who did it. Oh, well, could I get one?

I said, sure, take that one. Don't you want it? I said, no, I did it. Oh, well, sign it for me, I mean, I want to put it up in my office, sign it, I'm not on your life. Not if you give me ten dollars I won't sign it, why not?

Because I'm rather disgusted, it's not quite proportionate, I've done it spasmodically, it's not really symmetrical, I can see faults in it. Well, I don't care, oh, but I care, because, you see, you stick it on the wall of your office and say, Ravenhill did that, well, look, I want to tell you this, that, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Now you do a little homework, and at the end of every day, ask yourself if God can autograph your life, because it says, we are his workmanship. What has he been working in us, what has he been working out of us?

You say, well, I'm busy doing this, no, no, no, no, no, come on, come on, get your priorities right, number one, you're to represent Jesus Christ every breathing moment that you have. Not when you feel like it, not when you get the chance to show off, you know, in a conference or sing your life out before a crowd or preach, no, no, no, no, no, come on.

Do you know when we're most true to ourselves? In my judgment, this is almost philosophy, I'm sorry, but I'm going to say it anyhow, do you know when we're most true to ourselves? In our unconscious moments, when we're not putting a show on, when somebody catches us like that, sometimes we've gone to a home, the lady's come to the door and says, oh, I didn't know I wouldn't have had these curlers and this and that, I say, oh, that's all right.

You go to a house and somebody says, oh, oh, oh, I'm sorry, but now listen, everything isn't tidy. What she should have said is, nothing ever is tidy in this house. Like the pastor going to the house, somebody said, go and see so-and-so, they've been to church twice or three times, can't been to see them, so he went and the lady, oh, I didn't know, oh, she said the house is like a pigsty, come in, make yourself at home.

Now she didn't mean it all in the same way, but there it was, it was usual, it was a pigsty, it was never straight, you see. Our unconscious moments, we're greater because we put a facade up, we want to, do you ever feel you want to appear spiritual, do you ever get the desire to impress, it's a great weakness amongst Christians, you know, I want you to really know I'm spiritual and we put on airs.

I think that hurts God, it's a facade. But I'll say this and finish on this section here, that if God's going to do a great thing in you, he's going to shunt you off somewhere for quietness, I'll be quite sure of that.

Elijah and the Discipline of Solitude

I get calls and calls and calls from theological students who say, Mr. Ravenel, I'm leaving school, I'm going to graduate, but I'm not ready to go into ministry, what shall I do? I've got a standard answer for all of them, I say, stick your head in a haystack for six months.

A man called me last year and he said, Brother Ravenel, I heard you preach on Elijah, and he said, just as you said, Elijah's life is this, in one chapter God says, go hide thyself and in the next chapter, go show thyself, as soon as you said, go hide yourself, the Lord said, that's what, you know, God has used that in so many, it's not my word, it's God's word.

Go hide thyself. And so many young men have said, that's what I've got to do. He said, it was May last year, he said, May, June, July, August, September, I'm booked every night to speak because I need the money to get the rest of the time in school.

But I went home, he said, and I said to my new wife, she hadn't had another wife, but she was a, just a recent acquisition, he'd just got married, and he said, I, I, I, well darling, I want to tell you something, I feel that God is telling me to do what Ravenel said, go hide my head in a haystack, and I'd like to cancel every meeting right till September.

And she said, well, I, I, well do it, if this is what God says. So he phoned the farmer and said, I'd like to work for you during the summer till five at night, and then quit, and all I ask of you is, you give me a bed and food for myself, my wife, I'll sleep in a hayloft if need be.

And he said, he accepted me. And he said, a buddy of mine, a buddy of mine called me, and he said, you know, I've been thinking of what Ravenel said from Elijah there, go hide thyself, and he said, I think I should hide myself.

So he said, well, I'm going to a certain farm, and there's other farms around, let me ring and ask the farmer. So he phoned and asked the farmer, and the farmer said, well, my neighbor is wanting a man for the summer, he needs some help.

And this other man got the job, this young man got the job too, excuse me. And they stayed the whole summer in quietness, waiting on God. I said, what I literally said to him was, go hide your head in a haystack, and when you've done your work in the day, come home and sit with the farmer, have your supper, then put your head under a pump and get some cold water on it, and get out and be quiet.

I lit this thing years ago for myself. I've only seen eagles twice, I think once in Scotland and once over in the, over in the Rockies. Sometimes where we are down in Seguin there, some birds come over and sometimes they say they're eagles, they're Mexican eagles.

They come over to spy on the workers or something, but anyhow, they come over there. But you know, I've never seen eagles in bunches, they fly along. Only twice I've seen whales. I saw one in the mid-Atlantic actually, the Queen Mary who were on hit-away, right in the middle, just got it, dead in the middle, cut the thing in two.

We were on a friend's yacht down in the Bahamas about three years ago, and we were patrolling a certain area, fishing, trying to get some fish to eat, there was wonderful groupers, and the pilot, the skipper, he has a crew on his boat, and he turned the boat around, as he turned around, I looked over, I said, what an immense log, somebody said, log?

And I looked at the end, there was a fin, ooh, it's a whale. It was basking in the warm water, it was maybe about seven or eight inches under the water, looked like a huge log. Lions don't roam in packs when they're hungry, they go alone.

The king of the forest goes alone. The king of the air flies alone. The king of the sea, if you like, flies alone. Great men walk alone. You don't get half a dozen John the Baptists, do you? How many Elijahs do you have?

How many Apostle Pauls? He goes and hides himself. God's university is a school of silence, and it's a school of loneliness. And loneliness is one of the most difficult things to bear. But that's where God makes men.

Dr. Wilbur Smith said the greatest expository he ever heard was Dr. G. Campbell Morgan. Well, I listen to Campbell Morgan very often. I remember him saying one day, you know, this book is so profound, I know so little about it.

He'd written 50 books on it at that time. But he never went to Bible school or seminary. He got up in the hills of Wales. He got his Bible, explored it. I don't know if you can find this book now. I've got one or two copies, but I won't sell them.

A book on the life of a man called John Sung, S-U-N-G. If you can find it, buy it. Don't sell it. About the young man that came to this country, maybe the most brilliant foreign student that ever came.

Could hardly speak a word of English when he came. He mastered English. Didn't know a word of German. He mastered that in six months and took a study in it and examined it. He was in this country three and a half years.

And in that time, he got his BA degree, his master's degree and earned a PhD and learned two or three languages. That's pretty good homework. Met God when he got his PhD. At the time that three or four different nations were asking him to become the head of their nuclear fission or what we would say atomic research department.

One night, somebody said to him, you look more like a preacher than you do a scientist. Now, I don't know how you have to look like to be like a preacher. I've never worked that one out. But you look more like a preacher than a scientist.

Why didn't he go to Bible school? So he went to Union Theological Seminary in New York. And he said everything he believed about the Bible he didn't believe when he'd been there about three or four months.

They brainwashed him and he was fed up. One night, he just fell at the side of his bed and said, God be merciful to me a sinner. And like that, the burden fell, the light came. He came from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God.

And he opened the door of his bedroom and ran through the corridor like the man in act three leaping and praising God. So, being in a theological seminary, they were kind to him. You know what they did?

You'd never believe it. You'd think they did it maybe in a brewery or something. They had him certified insane. They took him to an institution in White Plains, a medic... a place where folk go off the rocker, as we would say, and they shut him up.

He escaped. They took him back. God said, you stay here for, I think it was 153 days. I'll reveal myself to you. God revealed himself to him. He stayed there for that number of days. And in that time, he learned how to analyze a chapter of the Bible in eight different ways.

I used this as an illustration, a meeting. There's a big old lady there and the tears rolling down her face. And she came up. She said, Brother Ravenhill, that was, oh my, that was a tremendous thing you said about John Soong.

I said, yeah, I noticed you were weeping. Have you read the book? She said, no, but I used to play the organ for him in China in his meeting. And I'm told now that where the church is strongest in China with all its persecution, maybe you were too busy to pray for it this morning, but where the church is the strongest in China today, it's strongest where two great men taught.

One is Watchman Lee and the other is John Soong. And the other is amongst the very old people where Jonathan Goldforth was. But God allowed him to go into a mental institution for all that time. And in it, God revealed himself and he revealed his word.

See, we want it all serving up, don't we? Want to come to a school or go to a seminary and everybody serve it up. I'll go out and, you know, you make all the bullets now, Father. Don't put too much work on me, too much sweat, too much.

Well, you can go that way if you want, but it's a very poor way to go. If God is going to take you a long way up, he'll sure take you a long way down. If he's going to fill you, he'll empty you. If he's going to clothe you, he'll strip you.

There's very little that's gratuitous. Grace is free, that's true. We're not going to be rewarded for grace in eternity, we're going to be rewarded for works. God works it in, you work it out. Work out your own salvation.

As I tried to say the other night, we're going to be staggered when we get to the judgment seat and see what little rewards many of us are going to have. The first should be last, the last should be first.

Some of the greatest people I know in this world at this present moment, never come to the surface, they never have any public ministry. Two little ladies that live not too far from here, that spent five to six hours a day in prayer.