The Baptism of Fire — Leonard Ravenhill

She said she'd read every one of his books, and to use her words, she said, I almost worshipped the ground he walked on, but I never met him. And I never met anyone who had met him. And I was glad to hear that you knew him, and talked with him, and prayed with him.

And I feel that that was a great honor. But we were in a meeting recently, and I had repeatedly quoted John Wesley. An old lady came up to me at the end of the meeting. She said, could I ask you a question?

And I said, sure. She said, did you know him personally? I said, no, he was just before my time. He died in 1791. I've mentioned more than once this weekend, in different language, that God very often locks nations up.

Four Hundred Years of Prophetic Darkness

He sends them to jail. Sent Israel to jail for 400 years under the pharaohs. And he sent them to jail for 400 years between the testaments. I've got two texts tonight. It doesn't mean I'll preach twice as long.

But maybe I should warn you, perhaps right now you should fashion your seatbelts. I think there's a little turbulence ahead. The dividing page between the testaments, this white page, covers a period of blackness.

It says nothing, it says everything. There have been 400 years of prophetic darkness without any light. 400 years of silence without any prophetic voice. And it could be while you're here they might shoot one of those things off in the sky across the water there.

They did the last time we were here, and it's fascinating to see a streak of light go up in the sky. But I want to suggest to you that this amazing man, that streaked across that sky, John Baptist, was more incandescent than even one of those framing rockets.

More brilliant than Halley's comets. More disturbing than an earthquake. He is in that rare category of being a prophet. Quite recently a lady told me that in her church a preacher had been denouncing prophets.

They don't exist anymore. They finished with the apostolic dispensation. Well, hold to it! If that's your theory, at least be honest. If there are no prophets, there are no evangelists. You better not read the fourth chapter of Ephesians anymore, because he gave some prophets, some evangelists, some teachers.

And if you cut one out, you'll have to cut the others out if you're desperately honest, and biblically and intellectually and theologically honest. Prophets are God's emergency men for crisis hours. The evangelist tells you to get rid of your sin because it will hurt you.

The prophet is concerned not that your sin is hurting you, but your sin is hurting God. The evangelist says if you don't get rid of sin, you're going to be in trouble. God says if you don't get rid of sin, he'll get rid of you.

The greatest character reader of all time was Jesus Christ. And he said concerning John Baptist that there was not a man born of woman that was greater than he. And Jesus, of course, remembered Isaiah and the other prophets.

The Birth and Calling of John the Baptist

Now, the birth of this man is very wonderful. His father was a priest by the name of Zacharias, and he was of the course of Abba. His mother was one of the daughters of Aaron. There were 12 ,000 priests at that period, and every one of them did one thing only once in his life.

And that was to go into the temple and minister at the temple. It was unrehearsed. And when the trumpeters stood there on the porch of Herod, Herod built it, named it. And they stood there every morning with their silver trumpets and sounded a blast over Jerusalem.

And the great doors of the temple were opened. And the priest came first down the aisle. It was unrehearsed. He was under the burden of those heavy priestly garments and a mitre upon his head. The people were allowed to follow him.

A man preceded him and took the dust away from the altar. And as this man Zacharias came down the altar, he came down and the word of God says that there was somebody to meet him there, an angel. I think most of us would be a little shocked if we met an angel.

We've read about them, but we don't meet them. And when he saw the angel, he was disturbed. And the angel said, fear not. It's very precise because it says that the angel, there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side.

That's from the right side of the altar. Does it make any difference where he stands? Of course it does. If he stood on the left hand side of the altar, he had a message for the nation. If he stood on the right hand side of the altar, he had a message for an individual.

And here is the man already nervous. There were more than 6 ,000 people in that assembly. Because on one occasion there was a riot in the temple and 2 ,000 people were almost destroyed and another 4 ,000 people were injured, according to history.

Read Josephus. And here is a man already nervous in this situation. And suddenly Gabriel calmed his fears and said, fear not. I've got a message for you. The Lord sent me all the way from the ivory palaces into this world of old to tell you that your wife is going to bear a son.

Going to bear a son. Oh, come on. I have enough troubles without telling me that. Good night. She's a wrinkled old woman. She's got rheumatism and I don't know what she hasn't got. And she's going to bear a son.

I think some of us would just be as disturbed if the Lord whispered in your ear tonight, I'm going to answer the prayer that you've prayed for the last 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 years. We might have the same unbelief.

You know, the reason that the children of Israel didn't enter the promised land, and maybe there were 2 million of them, was not because they committed adultery, not because they went after strange gods.

They had one terrible disease which is rampant in the church of God today. They had unbelief. They wouldn't die in the wilderness even if they were the chosen people of God. And because of his unbelief, God struck him dumb.

If the Lord did that tonight, I'd need to turn this into a healing meeting. If he struck every one of us dumb because of our unbelief, it's the most prevalent disease. I said facetiously, but I still say it again, that we're the most unbelieving believers that God has ever had to deal with.

And I remind you again that if you live another 100 years, God has not got a single word to say to our generation. God hasn't spoken to the world for 2 ,000 years. He said his last word in his Son, Jesus Christ.

And more than one preacher said to me, I've read your book, Revival Taris, and the thing that stuck with me was this. You said that one day somebody would read the Bible and believe it, and when they did, we'll all be embarrassed.

Well, I still hope. I still look for that thing to happen. It's an amazing thing, but it's to me a very inspiring thing. That in the crisis periods of history in Israel and in the church, particularly in Israel, and on this occasion, the man who was going to deliver the nation was born of a barren woman.

Read the 32nd chapter there of Genesis. What does it say? There came a day when a woman was no longer satisfied with a pretty dress and a nice hairdo and rings on her fingers and bells on her toes and whatever she got.

She came in one day and said to her husband, Jacob, give me children or I die. I can spell out to you, simple as I am, I'm hardly a collegiate, I'm not a seminarian, I'm not a smart man. But I can tell you one reason we do not have revival in America or England or anywhere else tonight.

Do you know what it is? Because we're content to live without it. And when you get a spiritual bellyache, when you get into the place where you say, God Almighty, I'd rather see revival come to America than get $1 ,000 a day or become the most famous preacher in the world, you'll be getting somewhere near to the place where Almighty God might start moving your bowels of compassion.

John Knox prayed that prayer, you remember, until Bloody Mary said, I would rather hear the tramp of an army coming than hear that John Knox is praying. I would to God, people who are as much afraid of my prayers, what about you, Brother Peter, is that?

Do you remember that Samson, the man that pulled the pillars down and wrecked the system of his day, was born of a barren woman? Do you remember that Abraham gave birth to Isaac when he was 100 years of age and she was somewhere around about 80?

Turn the pages back, I don't have time tonight, I'd just stir up your minds. And here in this situation, 400 years of stillness and prophetic voice, they'd hung their harps on the willows. Remember, please, John the Baptist came into a world that was a totalitarian world, a sophisticated world.

The Romans had it in their grips, the Greek had it in their grips intellectually, and the Jews had a monopoly of God, so they thought. And God sends this man. Jesus said he was the most remarkable man in history, and Jesus was never wrong anyhow.

And do you know it says something about John that it doesn't say about anybody else in history? Well, it says a lot of things about him. But do you know what it says? The angel said he should be great in the sight of God.

Oh, I like that. That's the only greatness I would ever like. I remember years ago somebody said to me, Boy, you've got a job. You're going to be in a conference and some of the greatest preachers in the country are there.

They're all great. You know, he was right. In three days, every one of them grated on me. They had all the decorations you could think of, the degrees and diplomas. Oh, come on, fella, I'm not despising your learning.

But do you think the devil runs in your office once or twice a week to see if you've got your B .A. degree and your M .A. degree and your Ph .D. degree from Edinburgh and says, Boy, I'm getting out of here.

He's too smart for me. You could have enough degrees to paper this house and the ceiling as well and it wouldn't faze the devil that much. John the Baptist should be great in the sight of God. Oh, boy, that's something you might covet with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.

And then it says that when his mother had conceived him, she went to see this relative of hers and when she got there, this relative lady was also pregnant. And it says that John the Baptist was being quiet until then and then he suddenly woke up when he got in the presence of Jesus and got filled with the Holy Ghost.

That's dangerous, isn't it? John the Baptist is the only man in history that I know of that was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. Well, how in the world could he speak in tongues? If you have to speak in tongues to be filled with the Holy Ghost, the little guy must have spoken in tongues two minutes after he was born.

I'm not kicking tongues. I'm telling you we've got out of kilter because, you see, it says in 1 Corinthians 12, he gave to one and he gave to another and he gave to another the gift of tongues. If everybody had to have it, the Holy Ghost, smarter than me, he'd have said that everybody must speak in tongues and he didn't say that.

There is a valid experience in tongues. I don't doubt that at all. But, you see, we like to make everybody come through the same cookie-cutter, the same theological pattern we were in. If you didn't get it my way, brother, you didn't get it.

That's all there is. I'm sorry for you. What is the proof you're filled with the Holy Ghost? That you have a holy life. That's the one indisputable fact of being filled with the Holy Ghost. When Saul, the king of Israel, had an evil spirit, he did evil things.

Jesus says when a man has an unclean spirit, he does unclean things. And logically, biblically, if you have the Holy Ghost, you'll do holy things. Did you know that a dove has nine wings, nine feathers, on one wing and nine on the other?

Can you imagine a dove saying, well, it's a day of economy, I'll have to get off the ground with one wing. Boy, he'd be in a mess. He'd be going round and round and round. He can only use one wing. He uses two.

Well, there are nine fruits of the Spirit and there are nine gifts of the Spirit. Why try and get off the ground with one wing? In the seven-branched candle, candlestick in Israel, there were nine buds on either side.

Again, evidence to me of the nine gifts, the nine fruits of the Spirit. They're all very beautiful. I'd like to go to a real Pentecostal church and I put the emphasis on real. Sure I would. They went to church every day.

They broke bread every day. They had prayer meetings every day and people were saved every day. You know any churches like that around? That's not my standard. That's God's standard. I'm quite sure that church is near being born.

I don't personally believe it's born yet but I'll tell you what I do believe. I believe as we go down into the sorrows and agonies. People say, you know what, we have so much distress of nations, we have so much iniquity and everything's collapsing.

Don't you think that this is a sign of the end time? No, I don't. No, I don't. Why? Because the Bible doesn't. Do you know what the Bible says? It says these are the beginning of sorrows, not the end.

These are the beginnings of sorrows. The travail is yet to come. I said the other day, you know, when the ship was going down and they'd thrown the cargo overboard and thrown everything overboard except the people.

Then they handed the ship to a preacher. Wasn't that great? This nation is going to get to the place. England is going to get to the place. The present civilization is going to get to the place where they'll be glad to hand the wreck over to the preachers.

The anointed of God anyhow. What a man this was. Ah, well, of course, people aren't born like this these days, are they? Do you know what it says? It says it came to pass when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary and the babe leaped in her womb.

Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. Isn't that lovely? And it says that, um, Zacharias, verse 67, his father was filled with the Holy Ghost. That's good going, don't you think so? And it says they went into the temple and there's a man by the name of Simony was devout waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Ghost was upon him and he had some discernment.

It was revealed to him by the Holy Ghost and the Spirit came on the temple. Boy, there's an atmosphere to be born in, eh? Your mother filled with the Holy Ghost. The father filled with the Holy Ghost.

The temple filled with the Holy Ghost. Hey, there's not much room for anything else. And John Baptist was filled with the Holy Ghost. I've been in a Quaker meeting for a long while. Uh, they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.

Isn't that something? Thank you, sir. Thank you. That was a preacher salvaging his congregation. He was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. Again, I remind you, as a prophet, he wasn't an evangelist.

How could he be an evangelist? He didn't have a mailing list. He didn't take any offerings. He didn't have an advance man. Man, if he'd been smart, he could have been selling pet rocks on the very place where Abraham offered Isaac.

He could have been taking tours around Israel and saying, this is the spot where Moses divided the Red Sea. Would you like a bucket of sand for 50 bucks? He was filled with the Holy Ghost. And you know what?

He never did a miracle. I'm almost getting weary of miracles and I've seen most of them except raising the dead. All they do is stir up a lot of controversy and curiosity often. John did no miracle, the Word of God says.

Nobody ran after him saying, have mercy on my son, he's a lunatic. Nobody said, can you raise the dead? Nobody said, can you unplug my deaf ears or touch my brother's eyes that are blind? Nobody said that.

He never raised a dead man. He raised a dead nation. Only a Holy Ghost-filled man could do that. You see, somewhere behind those rocks where he'd been along with God for 30 years. If you saw the steam rising, it would have been his hot tears when he'd said, oh, that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down.

And then God sent this strange man at the other side of the 400 years of darkness who had the mind of prophet by the name of Malachi. Do you remember what he said looking through that 400-year tunnel of darkness?

He knew this condition of the nation. I remind you again, God Almighty was married to Israel but she played the whore. He put her in prison for 400 years. She got out and he sent her to prison again and she's in prison again for the second 400 years.

And then he left her for 2 ,000 years because he hasn't bothered with Israel since anyhow. Do you think a few dollars will keep him in the kingdom of heaven together? Do you think the high and lofty one who inhabits in eternity is wringing his hands in case America lets him down?

Forget it. We're possibly nearer judgment than Russia. But after all, they've had no Bibles. Last time I was in Australia there were three ladies sitting in front of me, beautiful looking ladies. They just had a scarf around their heads, tied under their chins, their hair parted in the center and they sat there looking like three Madonnas.

They were really beautiful. And I figured that woman must be 90 years of age, that must be her daughter, that must be her daughter. And after the meeting, the daughter came up and said in broken English, Oh, so beautiful tonight.

Beautiful, beautiful atmosphere. God very near. I said, Well, you speak pretty good English but kind of broken English. Where are you from? Russia. Russia? How did you get here? We escaped over the border and got through China and got into Hong Kong and some people graciously got us down here.

Well, I said, You must be very thrilled to be in Australia. Plenty of food, plenty of clothes. No response. It must be nice to worship in a sanctuary like this and feel God's presence and hear the singing of the choir and these lovely hymns.

It must be nice. She translated it to her mother and to the old lady. The old lady shook her head no. And then she came out with a torrent of words. What did she say? She said, I'd go back to Russia tomorrow if I could get there.

What does she mean she'd go back to Russia? Because she said, When we meet in secret, God... She said, I don't want food. I don't want clothes. I want God. And she said, Hidden in the mountains in a cave, I felt more of God than I felt in any meeting I've been in Australia.

Some of you must have met Nicholas Bengu, a wonderful man of God. When I talked with him, he was out at Ralph Wilkerson's place not too long ago. I have a tape on it. And he said, I want to get back as quickly as I can to Africa because I don't feel God's moving in America.

And he's a thoroughbred, blood-stocked Pentecostal too. I guess the most awesome thing in the world is when God comes down on a people. Brother Bill had us sing this morning and the pianist played a little of it tonight, that lovely Welsh hymn, Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah.

And as we sang it, I thought of that phrase that said, Let the cloudy, fiery pillar... Listen, when the pillar of fire was on the sanctuary, did you think they had to go ringing doorbells to tell people the glory of God was hanging over the temple?

You never have to advertise a fire, whether it's physical or spiritual. With all my being this afternoon, Lord, I know this church has had a wonderful ministry, but from tonight, not because I'm here, will you put the fiery, cloudy pillar over this beautiful thing that stands over the roof here so that everybody in Florida and even to the West Coast will know that God abides here.

Holiness as the Evidence of the Spirit's Fire

Preachers with a better standard, but the Holy Spirit of God broods here. I don't care if there isn't a miracle that you can see with your eyes. If men come here who are defeated by sin and crushed by sin and deformed by sin and they get cleansed and filled with the Holy Ghost, the greatest miracle God Almighty can do on earth is this, that He takes an unholy man out of an unholy world and makes that unholy man holy and puts him back in an unholy world and keeps him holy.

It takes all the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, the resurrection and the power of the Holy Ghost to do that. You can't do it by shaping him up theologically and straighten him out to that little thing that you hang on in your petty little group anyhow.

John the Baptist was a prophet, and prophets are usually terrible men. They so fear God they don't fear either men or devils. They don't borrow sermon outlines and get everything that Spurgeon's ever written.

They get up in the secret place of the Most High and they spend their hours alone with God. I have a boy that I think has a prophetic ministry. He's in South America right now trying to build a Bible school and an orphanage in Paraguay where every letter is censored that comes out of the country, where things are about as difficult as you can get them, but after dinner every day he goes into his room at about 2 o 'clock and he waits on God till 5 o 'clock before ever he'll go minister.

I wish every preacher did that. Sometimes I think books have become a curse. You borrow your sermon from Sword of the Lord, well, it can't be yours anyhow. You know God's going to do a new thing in this day in which we live and he'll have to find some new men to do it.

John the Baptist came onto the scene in a very difficult day. Listen to this a minute, will you? The third chapter of Luke, chapter 1, verse 1. Listen to this, how interesting it is. In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being the governor of Judea, Herod the tetrarch of Galilee, his brother the tetrarch, his brother Philip the tetrarch of Arturia, and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of the Lord came unto John the second.

Isn't that interesting? It's about as refreshing as a mouthful of sand. Do you care who was the tetrarch of Galilee? Do you care if Philip was tetrarch of another area? Tell me which Caesar was on the throne.

Was it Tiberius or which Caesar was it? Julius Caesar or Caligula? Who was on the throne? You don't know. Well, why does God put it there? He puts it there to show you that this man isn't coming to a group of people that were simpletons.

They were living in slave conditions. They were compelled to carry a burden for any man that called them, if he were a Roman, leave their bundling and take up another bundling and go on their way. They were under dominion to an invading power.

They had no rights. And God Almighty found a man. He hid him away there year after year after year. I'm going to tell you when I get to eternity, I'm going to ask John Baptist some things about what happened.

Marvel at the way God makes men. I marvel at Moses on the backside of the desert. I would have been saying, Almighty God, why don't you move? Ten thousand people die every day in Egypt. Your chosen people, they perish.

Why don't you do something about it? And God says, hold your tongue and stay here another ten years. And he shaped him up in forty years. How do you think Jesus felt when they told him there's a man called John the Baptist drawing thousands of people, and Jesus is hammering nails and making a yoke for an ox or an ass, making a coffin for somebody to be buried in.

And here is a man with ministry drawing the crowds. But you see, the man who's in the will of God has perfect peace. It doesn't matter if there's an earthquake outside. As I reminded you this morning, in John 17, Jesus says the hour has come.

That's the seventh time he said it in that gospel. Jesus knew the divine timetable. He knew when to move and not to move. And John the Baptist is there in the wilderness. People were going up to the temple.

It must have been marvelous to go to the temple one afternoon. And as you went, you saw the high priest, and the word of God says he had garments of glory and beauty. He had a breastplate with twelve precious stones with the tribes of Israel on.

He had a beautiful thing on his forehead, and it was woven in fine gold, and it said holiness unto the Lord. He had psalms hanging on ribbons from his wrists. He had the commandments written in a belt that he wore around his body.

And everybody saw his excellency, the high priest, and they bowed. And he had about as much unction as this rug. They were sick to death of going to the sanctuary and hearing a form of godliness. And when they'd seen the high priest in all his garments of glory and beauty, they went down the road to see a rugged, rugged Baptist, a hurdle about his loins, a bit of an old dead camel over his shoulder so he wouldn't get sunstroke.

And here they saw this unpredictable, unusual, unlettered, unscholastic man. He had no price tag. There was nobody who could silence him. There was nobody who could buy him off. They refused to sign a contract not to ruffle the feathers of the Pharisees or disturb the people in the synagogue.

They couldn't hitch him up to any political wagon. Don't you think it must have been... Come on, come on. Are you in the meeting already? Okay. Come on now. Don't you think it must have been an awesome thing for that one man to know he was the only man in the world that had the truth of God?

There's gods in heaven. I tell you, that would just about shatter me. They had their new moons. They had their Sabbaths. They had their altars. Did you think at Easter, we've just passed through, that the Jews were celebrating the Passover at the very day they crucified the Son of God?

And he was there and they didn't know? John the Baptist was in the school God takes all his students to. A lady asked me one day what university I went to. I said, I went to Bush University. She said, Bush?

Bush University. Do I know anybody that went there? I said, well, maybe you do. Moses. She said, Moses who? Bush University where God takes all the men he's going to handle. Oh my. He took the greatest intellect the world has ever known, the Apostle Paul.

God revealed himself to him on the Damascus Road. God revealed himself in him, he says, when he got along with God. The trouble with most of you preachers here is not that you don't know enough. You know too much.

You're too smart. You have too much knowledge. Too much psychology. You've been told how to do it. God uses bankrupt men. The bunch of men in the upper room haven't got a degree between them. You could have 32 and still be frozen anyhow.

But you know what it says? Oh my. What a wonderful thing. I say again because I get a kick out of this. This man was no evangelist. He'd have had a mailing list. He'd have had, you know, got a radio program.

He'd have got something. He'd have had bumper stickers on the cars. You say, they had no cars. Well, he could have stuck them on camels, couldn't he? Every camel going with a thing on his tail every time he wagged like this.

Come and see John the Baptist. Come and see John the Baptist. Listen, I want to tell you, preacher boy, if you don't have the Holy Ghost, you'll need every dime you can scrounge out of widows and everybody else.

But if you don't have... Do you know the difference between evangelists and prophets? Evangelists have to go looking for work. People come looking for prophets. Get the anointing of God and people will come from the ends of the earth.

Now, I'm not smart. I'm not a brilliant man. I'm an ignoramus and I gave all I had to Jesus and he took it. But my darling wife's somewhere there and she'll tell you, I've got a file at home like that, invitations to a 10 ,000-seater conference in Sweden and a big conference in Australia and I don't even bother to go to them.

Why not? Because I don't think the Lord wants me to go. He told me to comfort the feeble-minded, so I came. But isn't it wonderful that there's a man in the desert? Good night, no seating accommodation.

He didn't have a soloist or a three-priest combo. They had revival without guitars. Can you imagine that? No records to sell. Isn't that amazing, Brother Peter? Poor fellow. You know, it's really bad.

He's nobody but God. You know, when you get there, you'll get some place. People say, Brother Raymond, sign my Bible. What's your favorite scripture? Oh, I've got a scripture nobody else wants. God gave me it about 50 years ago.

I hang on to it every day. You know what it is? The Lord preserveth the simple. That's my taste. You don't want that. You're too smart. I can't even look after myself. The Lord preserveth the simple. And you know how he's done it?

John the Baptist was in the wilderness, scorching, horrible wilderness. Nowhere to sit. No miracles to attract them. But you see, for 400 years there had been no voice and suddenly there's a booming voice.

Repentance Before Revival

Where did he begin? He began where every revival began. He began preaching where Jesus began preaching. He began preaching where Peter began preaching. He began preaching where we're afraid to start preaching.

I hear a little bit now and again. I hear a lot about gifts of the Spirit. Occasionally I hear something about fruits of the Spirit. I don't hear much of Romans 6, fruit unto holiness. I hear far less about bringing forth fruit, meat for repentance.

Now I baptize, I don't know how many schools or hundreds of people in my day. But you know what? I started putting people on probation for three months before I baptized them. Why? Because they've got to bring forth fruit before I know if they're really through with God.

And if I brought them into the meeting publicly, into the church, I denounced them publicly too. I said, listen, I'll accept you publicly, but if you leave, I'll tell the congregation why you left. Cut the trade down a little bit, you know, but that's all right.

Oh, I'd like to have heard John Baptist preach. Preaching is the greatest job in the world. If it wasn't, I wouldn't do it. But really it is. It's the greatest privilege. It's the hardest job in the world.

Everybody's going on strike for more money. I figure I get about five cents an hour for preaching. That's a lot, isn't it? The hours I put in prayer and fasting and waiting on God, and the nights I don't sleep.

I don't say that bravely, I'm just telling you a fact. That's about what it works out at. You pay all your expenses, you do the other things. Oh, well. I get a lot of comfort. My books are sold pretty good.

They're in about 12 languages, and I don't get a penny royalties out of any of them. I give it all to missions. You give me a couple of thousand dollars this week, it'll be fine. I'll put it into a new book I'm publishing, and I won't get a dime out of it.

It'll go to missions. I enjoy doing that. Do you know why I do it? Because the Apostle Paul wrote 14 epistles, if you include Hebrews, and he never picked up a penny royalties. But boy, he's going to get it one day.

That's why you'll tell the difference between prophets and evangelists. You'll tell the evangelists in heaven they'd be digging the streets up. They're made of gold. John did no miracle. Oh, I'd like to do the miracles he did.

I was reading the other night at home. We live out way in a quiet spot in the country, and I hadn't pulled the curtains over, and when I looked there, there must have been 50 or 60 different types of moths and bugs, grasshoppers, everything you could mention, fighting to get into the light.

And you know, once the light was struck there, in the darkness, heathen darkness, compounded with religious darkness, he was living in an icebox. He was living in a, if you like, in a cemetery. And God says, you go there, and John went.

And you know, they came north, south, east, and west. And he began to preach what? Repent. We don't hear much about that anymore. Much easier to give somebody a little tract called Four Laws, eh? Four Spiritual Laws.

I wouldn't give it to anybody. I'd give it to somebody who was safe, but not somebody unsafe, for two reasons. Number one, the blood isn't mentioned in it. Number two, repentance isn't mentioned in it.

By design. Bill Bright himself said, I don't want people to think that Campus Crusade is negative. Well, that's his business. But it's not scriptural. Repentance is to leave the things I've done before and show that I in earnest grieve by doing them no more.

I've seen people come to an altar. We say to people, come on now, you just tell the Lord you're sorry, and then go put things straight. The Bible doesn't say that. It says you go and leave the altar and put things straight, and then come and straighten it out with God.

Do you know why? Because after we've shed a few tears, and we feel happy, and we've got rid of the Lord, we forget that we have to go and humble ourselves to a neighbor or somebody we've wronged, and injured, and hurt, and crushed.