The Holy Ghost — Leonard Ravenhill

The Holy Spirit Convicts and Guides

John 16 and verse 8, and when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment, and of righteousness, because I go to my Father and ye see me no more, of judgment, because the Prince of this world is judged.

Now look at verse 13, how be it, and I'm putting an emphasis here, how be it when He, the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you into all truth, for He shall speak not of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak, and He will show you things to come.

He shall glorify me, for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. There are various contributing forces to this meditation this afternoon. One was the fact that there's a slang phrase that I just about detest, and that is that you'll meet people who say something like this, have you had the baptism?

They say it with as much unction as, have you had the flu shot? And most of them don't mean, are you holy? What they mean is, do you speak in tongues very often? Somebody sent me a little paper this week, and there was a phrase in it that really, really gripped me, because it was written by a Pentecostal brother.

And this is what he says, we're living in a charismatic generation that has despised, or neglected as he put it, the Holy Spirit. Now you need to sit and think an hour maybe over that, but it's very true, we're living in a day when there's much talk about charisma.

You know, we used to talk about the man having unction. The other day I talked with a very famous man, and he said to me, you know, so-and-so, oh he has charisma. And somebody said, the reason that Jack Nicklaus isn't as popular as a golfer as Arnold Palmer is, Arnold Palmer has charisma.

So apparently you don't need to be sanctified to have charisma. It's another word for a kind of glowing, outgoing, radiant personality. You know, somebody comes in a room and whoo, the atmosphere changes.

They have that kind of personality. And so, to many people again, you know, the Holy Spirit is not a person. The Holy Spirit is an experience, or the Holy Spirit is an influence. But by biblical definition, by the words of Jesus here, the Holy Spirit is a person.

As a person he can speak, as a person he can rebuke, as a person he can inspire us, as a person he can be offended. The other thing that disturbed me, and it did disturb me very much, I was talking with a man who was a very distinguished minister, and he said he'd been talking to a lady whose husband had been one of these wild cards, a drunkard, a fighter, a drinker, a gambler, everything.

But she wasn't too impressed with his life. He'd made it in the material world, he drives an enormous Cadillac, he has everything. And somebody said, but listen, you know, he doesn't come in drunk, he doesn't gamble your money, he doesn't give you black eyes, he doesn't...

She says, look, I want to tell you, I'll sum it up for you in a sentence. When he got saved so many years ago, his habits changed, his personality didn't. Well, if it didn't, he didn't get saved, that's all I've got to say about it.

If you've still got anger, and pride, and jealousy, and maliciousness, and something like that, you need to get to the cross real quick. Because Jesus didn't die to deliver you from a lot of lousy sins, and the penalty that you get forever.

He died to transform your personality. You see, the Holy Spirit does not come. The work of God is not to bless us, it's to integrate his life in your life and my life. Simpson expresses it beautifully in the other hymn that we sing from sometimes.

Once it was the blessing, but now it is the Lord. Once it was the feeling, and now it is his word, and so he goes on. Wasn't his gifts I wanted, now they give it all. You see, you can retain your gifts, even if you're backslidden, you won't retain your fruits.

The fruits will wither, the gifts remain. Because God says, the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. Now here Jesus says, now the disciples didn't like this. He says he's going to leave his disciples, and another person is going to come, and he says when he has come, he doesn't say do the miraculous and raise the dead, this is what he says, when he has come, he will reprove or he will convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

Romans 8 and the Life of the Spirit

I read a prophecy this week, it was written in 1619. I didn't happen to know the writer personally, but it was written in 1619. It's a very marvelous prophecy, it's about these last days in which we live.

And this man, though he does not substantiate his argument from scripture, and he raises a host of theological and eschatological questions. But there's an awful lot of truth in what he says. But he sees at the end time what he calls an army of Melchizedek men coming forward.

You could translate that maybe into another way, and talk about a bunch of super saints coming along if you like. Now once I start thinking about the Holy Spirit, I had automatically to turn to what is perhaps the greatest chapter on the Spirit in the Bible, and that's Romans 8.

Here's another thing that provoked me, the radio, the TV said that one of the great problems right now in the nation is absenteeism. People backing off from duty, responsibility, going to work. You know, the phone rings, it's Mary, she can't come in today, she has a terrible headache.

Oh, she'll be in tomorrow, all right. This is Jack, he calls the office of the factory and says, I can't come today, oh, I got real stomach upset. Of course, he doesn't say he was drinking beer and a lot of junk till midnight last night, but he says he has a stomach upset and he can't make it.

Somebody else says, well I would have been there, but you know what, my uncle came in from Australia, he's only here for 48 hours, so I'm not coming in today, I'm not coming in tomorrow. Well, you say they're all reasonable.

Well, this is the point the Lord got through to me, he may not get it through to you the same way. Have you noticed that immediately your physical constitution is a little bit out of kilter, that it telegraphs up to your mind, and your mind says something to your will, and your will says, can't go to work today, can't do that today, can't do something today.

Not with a headache like this, not with a stomach like this, not when uncle John is coming, he could cut you out of his will. Ten dollars less, you could be in real trouble. Now let me ask you a very simple question, does the spirit get through to you as easily in your spirit as your tummy gets through to you?

Hmm? I mean, tomorrow you're going on a day shopping, and you get up with a burden tomorrow, and you call sister Jane and say, listen Jane, I'm sorry I can't come. You know, God's put such a burden of Africa on my spirit, I'm going to have to spend 12 hours on my stomach.

Huh? You're going on a business trip and the Lord intervenes and says, look I want you today to do that, does he do it? Look, if the Holy Spirit is power, let's turn the switch on. God knows we need it, here and everywhere in the church of God.

If he's power, turn the switch on. If he's a person, listen to him. I'm convinced, I'll get to it maybe a little bit later, that what it mentions in the 19th verse of Romans 8, about the manifest sons of God.

Do you know what? God will hear your prayer. I don't believe that's a secret anymore of God hearing your prayer. The secret is you hearing God. Now when did you last hear him? Come on. Not reading streams in the desert or squirts in the wilderness or something.

But when you're really down along with God, you read the word of God and suddenly you heard a voice say,.

No or yay, a person.

Is it Watts or Wesley that says, he speaks and listening to his voice, new life the dead receive, the wounded broken hearts rejoice, the humble poor believe? Somebody asked me the other day if I get discouraged with it.

Not on your life I don't get discouraged. Why should I? I know what God has called me to do and I say it. And I found an answer to my problem years ago. I'm going to talk to preachers this week. Fine, they'll get mad for sure.

At least I hope so. And it's very thrilling to get them upset. But you know I got a secret from God. It isn't a secret in one sense. It's that word again about the apostle Paul going down Damascus road and he testifies three times about it in the Acts of the Apostles.

And he says, we went down the road, I, a company of people with me. And the other he says, there shone round about me and them that journeyed with me a light from heaven. I heard a voice. Nobody else heard the voice.

I don't read anybody else hit the dust. He was a violent man. God threw him off his horse. He couldn't have been walking all the way he was going. God threw him off his horse into the dust. He was violent.

God deals violently with violent people. The heart of Lydia opened like a flower. Did you ever hear a flower make a noise? My, if some of us had made a sunset, it would wake up with a thousand earthquakes every morning just to show we did it.

But the old sun gets out of bed in all its majesty. Never makes a noise. God works silently in some people's lives. The heart of Lydia opened. But going down that Damascus road, Saul says, I heard a voice.

Have you ever realized again? It's the very word that Daniel said. I was round about me saw a light. I heard a voice. Now the only way I get discouraged this afternoon is that it's out of a bunch of us that are here less than 500.

But if one doesn't hear the voice, I'd be pretty discouraged. If one does, I'm satisfied. The rest of you can get some light, I hope. If you don't hear a voice, I'm sorry. Romans 8 again is the, is the, well, of course, it depends who you follow.

Somebody says it's the most profound chapter ever written and somebody else will come up and tell you Revelations something is the greatest chapter. And somebody else will tell you another. But certainly this, this beautiful chapter, Romans 8 is the, is the chapter of the Holy Spirit.

Or you might say the epistle is, because 26 times in the epistle, the apostle mentions the Holy Spirit. 18 of those times are in this chapter. He has eight different names for the Holy Spirit. But again, what an amazing chapter this is.

Christ Glorified Through the Spirit's Work

You see, when all is said and done, the Holy Spirit, when he has come, Jesus says, he will glorify me. He has nothing to give of himself. I tease people because I know it provokes them. I like to provoke them.

That the Holy Spirit has no gifts. The Word of God says Jesus died and rose from the dead. And what? He led captivity captive and he gave gifts unto men. He purchased them with his own blood and they were not there.

The Holy Spirit is the, is the executor of the Godhead. I don't know how many people I've had in my lifetime who've told me, listen, when I die, I'm going to leave you something in my will. There must be people in England nearly 200 years old, because they told me 50, 60, 70 years ago, they'd leave me something.

I'm going to die. Maybe by now all they'll leave me is bills anyhow. So I hope nobody can find my address. But you see the Holy Spirit, he's the executive of the Godhead. He takes the treasures Jesus purchased for us and he distributes them according to his will.

Look at verse 34 of chapter 8 here in Romans really for a minute. I'd rather look at verse 33 for a moment. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Now look, if you believe that, you don't even never need to have a worry in your whole life from here to eternity what people think.

As brother Herb said earlier, he didn't care. What about my reputation? Take it to the cross, then you'll have no trouble with it. Get it crucified. What's reputation? Well, I'll tell you what God told me in my 20s.

I was a young man. You know what God told me one day? You don't need to worry about reputation. Reputation is what people think you are. Character is what God knows you are. You can do what you like with my reputation.

Stamp on it, spit on it, distort it. I'll enjoy it. I'll laugh with you. You can't touch my character. He has that. And that's inaccessible to you. And I've got better news than that. Not you afraid of you so much.

It's inaccessible to the devil too. You see, this man's come out of Romans chapter 7. Oh, what a chapter Romans 7 is, eh? It's a soul in captivity. Do you know what Romans 8 is? In the language of the modern time, it's the son of a soul set free.

Romans 8, 7 is a funeral march. Romans 8 is a wedding march. Romans 7, the man is in the tomb. Romans 8, the man is in triumph. Romans 7, I don't believe he's even about to save man. I believe it's an unsaved man.

Good night if you have all the rotten stuff in Romans 7. After you save, you better not get saved. Just go join the Mormons or be a Mohammedan or something. Romans 7 is defeat. Romans 8 is deliverance.

Romans 7, the man is a victim. He's conquered. Romans 8, he's a victor. He says in verse 37, recited things that might come and may not come. And then he says, what? We're more than conquerors through him that loved us.

That's nice, isn't it? That's superlative, if you like. Somebody asked an old country preacher what it meant to be more than conqueror. He says, well, it means you shoot at 12 ducks and kill 13. Well, that's a pretty bad bit of logic.

But I'll tell you what it is. Being more than conqueror is getting victory and not being exhausted at the end of it. Jesus didn't rise after he came out of the temptation of 40 days. I like to read that story.

You talk about what? Mocking the devil. He was led of the spirit into the wilderness and he was beaten and battered for 40 days and nobody knows what happened. You say I can tell you three trials. You can't.

You can only tell me three that happened after he came out of the severe temptation. And then when he came out, you know what it says? He came out in the power of the spirit. I like that. I guess the devil was tearing his hair and spitting and roaring and saying, you know, I just thought I got that fellow down where I wanted.

And Jesus says, would you like to go through it again? Because I'll take you on another 40 days and lick you anyhow. Superfluous energy. Victory with a margin left. Where were we? Verse 33. Verse 34. Listen to this.

Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. All right. Remember, he was a man in triumph. He's liberated. He says it is Christ that died. If it's Christ that died, can the death of Jesus Christ be contested?

It is Christ that died. Therefore, this is our substitution. He says he's at the right hand of God. So he's not only our substitute, he's a sovereign. He's there in majesty on high. And he maketh intercession.

So there's supplication. What more do you need? You've got substitution for our sins. We've got sovereignty. He's triumphed over death and sin. And we've got supplication. He, he libeth to make intercession for us.

There's almost a holy swagger here, isn't there, in verse 8. He says, There is therefore now no condemnation to those of us who are in Christ Jesus, as long as we walk after the flesh and not after the spirit.

One of the most rousing hymns I think ever sung. We sang it up at Asbury the other week. I got them to sing it two or three times because the pipe organ made up for what they couldn't sing anyhow. But, but it was majestic.

Wesley's hymn, No condemnation now I dread. Jesus and all in him is mine. Alive in him my living head and clothed in righteousness divine. Bold I approach the eternal throne that I have access. My breath is in my nostrils.

The only thing I own in the world is not a house or a car. One beat of my heart and I have the right to go to that eternal throne. I say reverently, My God, we're going to be terribly embarrassed when we get to heaven and look how we've played around.

With Christianity. I have a sovereign, a lord, a majestic savior with everything under his feet. I have one living there to make intercession for my feeble prayer. If I said A, B, C, D, E, F, G with a bird in my spirit he'd interpret it to the father.

He'll live us to make intercession. Oh, I like to hear men pray. I like to hear men sweat in prayer, grieve in prayer, weep in prayer, roar in prayer. Because one of the ministries of the Holy Spirit is a ministry of intercession.

But again, this race is not to the swift. This battle is not to the strong. Prayer is not to the man with the most elastic vocabulary. If it was, I'd swat the dictionary every day. Prayer is not according to a man who can present his needs most eloquently to the eternal father.

What about the deaf and dumb? What about those who are retarded? Let me tell you something else. Time's running on. Look at verse 9, will you please? Romans 8 and verse 9. You're not in the flesh but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you.

Now that's enough to keep us going all afternoon. The spirit of God dwelling in you. Look at the next verse. And if Christ be in you. My Lord, my Lord, my Lord. You mean to say you've been living on the miserable level you've lived this week and God dwells in you and the spirit?

Well, just a minute. I've got something else for you. Would you mind reading verse 11? If the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you? Come on. If that miracle of regeneration happened in your life, if you are born again of the spirit of God, then God came to indwell you, the spirit came to indwell you and the son came to indwell you.

Spiritual Riches, Discipleship, and Holiness

Before ever you got the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Dear God, why do we live at this poverty level when we've all these riches? Why is the church so weak when there's an unlink to omnipotence? Oh, there's a sense in which you're justified if you pray in the language again of James when he says that God won't rebuke us for our ignorance but we can pray for wisdom.

But there's also the other side of the coin in which it says if Christ dwells in you, he is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Disagree with me if you like. And if you do, you'll know you're wrong.

But you disagree with me. You know what I've discovered? There's an awful lot of people want to be good. There are not many people want to be spiritual. A lot of people want to be good. They don't want to be spiritual.

Yeah, I'll sing mansion over the hilltop but don't ask me to take up my cross. My Jesus, I love... Where the whole realm of nature mine? He says, why don't you give me what you've got? No, you don't. You never own the whole realm of nature.

Stump up what you've got. You know, we never fool God. All we do is fool each other and fool ourselves. Oh yes, I can get emotional singing Love so amazing, so divine Demands my soul, my life. Well, pity didn't stop there.

That's not too bad. My soul, my life, my all. Oh, that really hurts, doesn't it? It jags you a bit. I mean, you could have left that out, couldn't you? Your soul and your life's enough without asking for all.

But you see, God, God, God gave you everything in Jesus Christ and he asked everything in return. There's no part-time discipleship. There's no part-time spirituality. No, I say I'm convinced again there are many that want to be good but there are very few that want to be spiritual.

I talked just before I came to the meeting with an old veteran missionary. He's out in California just preparing to leave and go back to South America. I think when I first met him he was working in Borneo and had an awful time down there.

He's beaten up, he's wrinkled, he's been through hell. His wife's health has been shattered, she gets restored. One day it's like heaven, the other day her body's in awful pain. Some wages there for serving God when they've been 30 years on the mission field.

You say you ought to be as bright as an angel. Well, I'll tell you what, I happen to read my Bible and it says the outward man perishes but the inward man is renewed day by day. And as you get older you find your body doesn't respond the same, does it?

Mama, can you play tennis? No, she says no. Okay, your body won't keep up, your energies don't keep up, your mind isn't. The outward man perishes, say what you will. But you know what he said? He said, Brother Ravenhill, you know, I'm so disturbed about two things.

One is the complacency in the church. The other is, and he's a veteran, he served God. Man, he could have quit years ago. He'd done a lifetime's work and he went to another mission field. And he said, the thing is, God has been shaking me up so much in the last few months.

I said, glory to God, Brother. He'd been doing the same with me the last few weeks. Oh, yes. Oh, he keeps tearing me up, keeps disturbing me, keeps rebuking me, keeps showing me areas that I know so little about.

Well, he said, you know, Brother Ravenhill, down in South America, the Spanish preachers in the Pentecostal churches, particularly, they get people saved, they get them going on with God. And then when they get to a certain place, he said, you'll hear a man say, ah, yes, you wanted God, you wanted his blessing, you wanted the baptism, you wanted the gifts.

But as soon as he took the pacifier out of your mouth, you started grumbling. Why are you so happy? Still got a pacifier? Hasn't he laid any challenge there? Hasn't he made any demands there? Tell us all we have to do is crap and have a whale of a time and give a little tithe and be blessed.

Wait a minute, when he starts crucifying the flesh, when he says, don't go to the cross, get on the thing. Oh, then, of course, it becomes a different story entirely, doesn't it? This is a tremendous chapter, I said, and I say again.

It's all through the finished work of Jesus Christ. He has ascended and nobody can challenge the substitution he made for me on the cross. He's not only my substitute, he's my sovereign. You know, sometimes I think, you may not do this, I think I live sometimes as though God, Jesus didn't quite get through with it and finish the job.

Well, I'll tell you what he said on the cross. Just two words. Maybe we ought to write them here, maybe you ought to write them on a piece of paper, stick them on the mirror where you keep looking at your beautiful self and see a sign there every time you look and it just say this, it is finished.

Three words. He can't come back and do anything else. If he did, he didn't do a perfect job, he did a perfect job. Not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain, you could stack their bodies until you couldn't see the moon.

You could have a river of animal blood bigger than the river Amazon. But not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain could give one guilty conscience peace or wash away one stain. But Christ, the heavenly lamb, takes all our sins away.

The one tragic moment in hell was when Jesus said, it is finished and he pulled the empire down. And you see Jesus strutting, the only time he strutted in the book of the Revelation and he says with a triumph, you know what?

I finished the job and listen, these are the keys of death and of hell. You know, if we really knew it, Lucifer's got nothing left. He's got nothing left. Let me come to three simple things in this chapter, 22, 23, 26.

Groaning Creation and the Spirit's Intercession

Verse 22, We know that the whole creation groaneth and traveleth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits, it's really first fruit in the original, first fruit of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to with the redemption of the body.

Verse 30, 26. Likewise the spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the spirit itself. That's the worst translation in this version. It's really the spirit himself maketh intercession.

You see, the true spirit of prayer, the spirit of God in me creates it. And he at the right hand of the father communicates it. And the father on the throne considers it. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit always work in harmony.

Remember it's not Father, Son and Holy Spirit, it's this way, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not, N .O .T. as Tozi used to say, the junior partner in the Godhead. They're equal in majesty, they're equal in glory.

I say this many times to myself in prayer. I guess I've said it here more than once. And what's more, I'll tell you more than once again. Every work of the Holy Spirit is majestic. The world was a ball of mud hanging up there in the universe.

And the Holy Spirit brought it and he brewed it over it. And go down the road just now and see all those blue bonnets and lovely flowers. He put them prodigal there with his cholera. He made the stars both heavenly flames.

He counts their numbers, calls their names. His wisdom's vast and knows no bound. The deeper all our thoughts are drowned. Oh! He made this universe. He put the stars in their sockets. He was there before the trees of the fields clapped their hands and the morning stars sang together.

He was there in the bosom of the Father. And he brewed it over a dirty pile of mud and it became this marvelous world that we haven't discovered yet. And one day he brewed it over the empty womb of a young beautiful maiden and he conceived Jesus Christ there just like he conceived creation.

And one day that man was lying on a slab cold and dead, as dead as the slab he was on. And the devil thought, man, I just got him. I knew he wouldn't get up. He hasn't. He's not going to make it. And as I've told you before, he said, what can we do?

And they put a stone there and then they put wax over the stone and seals over the wax and then the sin of the world against the stone. And then Satan says, every demon put your shoulder to that stone.

We've only 10 seconds to go and we can wreck the whole human race. And if you think the first countdown was in Florida you're 2 ,000 years too late. It was resurrection morning. And all heaven was looking on and all hell was looking on and the earth had gone to sleep.

Don't you get disgusted. Friends forget you. You remember that lovely pathetic hymn, Do thy friends despise, forsake thee, take it to the Lord in prayer. I always feel like saying, would you hand them all a Kleenex while we sing that self-pitying hymn.

Do you realize that for three years he told them he was the resurrection and the life and demonstrated it and not one of them turned up that morning at Easter. Why do you expect better treatment? All hell was looking on.

All the angels were looking on. There's the stone, there's the wax, there's the seal, there's the soldiers, there's all the sin of the world, there's every demon with his shoulder. And in the last minute when Satan got to 10, 9, what was it?

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and he was just going to say one and the Holy Ghost went in and cheated him. Jesus jumped up from the tomb because the word of God says in this very chapter of Romans 8, the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead.

Listen, do you realize if you're gone he raised you from the dead, trespasses and sins. Why get so excited about Lazarus? You're as dead as Lazarus. Maybe you stunk more, but you're as dead as he was anyhow.

You say he opened the eyes of blind Bartimaeus. Did he open your blind eyes? He unplugged the ears of the deaf. Weren't you deaf? Didn't we sing it this afternoon? Hear him ye deaf, his praise ye dumb, your ransom tongues employ.

I wonder how often our ransom tongues are employed. I wonder how often we do leap for joy. The Holy Ghost created the world. The Holy Ghost created the Christ in the matrix of the Virgin. The Holy Ghost raised up Jesus from the dead and not only that, but remember it says what?

In Hebrews 10, the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctified for the puring, fine and fresh. How much more, how much more shall the blood of Christ go through the eternal spirit?

He needed the Holy Ghost even when he ascended. To say I like Jesus is putting it mild, but you see our language is so poor. I like him because he contradicts all the laws of nature. People say well how could a man maybe be born without a mother, without a father?

Well the first man came into the world without a mother. He's the only person in creation that didn't have a navel. But Adam didn't have a mother. Jesus didn't have a father. He came into the world contradicting nature.

He walked on the water, that scared him, that scared them. Just to show he could contradict, he didn't do it often, he didn't do it for fun, most often he took a boat. Some people want miracles every meeting, you may come to a house for a long while, maybe before you see any.

We don't need them in that sense I'm sure. Man if we could have done what Jesus did, you'd never left the pool of Bethesda all your life. He went and healed one man and walked away and left maybe 500 cripples.

That would have killed me. I shared meetings often with Miss Kuhlman. And she'd say after the meeting when somebody said wasn't it marvellous, oh she'd say but brother, how many went away unhealed? That's what gets me, not that three people were healed.

There were 3 ,000 there not healed. Oh well the cameras don't put the pictures on that. Do you ever find a healer write a book on all his failures? Huh? Do you ever testify about all your failures? Come on now.

Oh I once prayed for so-and-so, I saw so-and-so do me that. Fine I'm not saying that, I'm just saying this, on the law of averages, we've got about a hundred failures for every healing or miracle.

Jesus didn't take walk on the water for fun, he walked on the water when it was needed. But I'll tell you what, he did it. That's what matters. The only man that ever did, not Peter did it. You say he sank, I say he didn't.

The scripture says he did. He doesn't. It says he sank when he was going out. How do you think he got back? Do you think Jesus gave him a picker bag? He walked back to the boat. Sure he did. You see he only had his eyes on Jesus going out.

But when he came back he had Jesus with him. I think he hung on Jesus arm. I would anyhow, walking or no walking. They say we both go down together or not at all. No, no, no, no, no. No chance of that.

But isn't it lovely that Jesus contradicts the laws of men, the laws of science. And one day they were talking to him and he says, you know, one day and they, Oh, he's gone. Hey, that must have been nice to see Jesus going up.

Stupid people say Wilbur Wright was the first fella to go through the air. Forget it. Elijah went with a chariot with four motors on two. Well, I don't have any horses he had, but Elijah went up, didn't he?

With a chariot of fire. That must have been great to see. See, God's never behind anybody. I mean, never behind in the sense of too late. He's always ahead of everybody. And you know that same Jesus that went walking up the clouds.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to see? I've dreamed I've been doing that many times. Woke up all perspiring for sure. But I've dreamed I was walking up clouds. You know, one day he's going to come stepping down the clouds.

Won't that be wonderful? Particularly if you've just got your gas bill and all the other bills and you're just wondering what to do and suddenly whoopee, there he is. You thought it was an earthquake.

10 ,000 to be sane. Wouldn't it have been impressive if he'd done that the resurrection morning instead of leaving it to the end. I remind you again, he didn't try to impress anybody. Jesus never went to anybody after he was raised from the dead.

No sinners. No, sirree, you come by faith. This prophecy of 1613 said what we'll need in the end time is a great miracle, a revival miracle. We've had them for the last 50 years in this country. Nobody, no nation on earth's had more.

No man had more than Charles Price. Read his books. I think we have them. One of the great saints of Pentecostalism. They dragged him to court because he was healing people. He said, I never healed anybody.

I never gave a prescription. But I happen to work for a master who's pretty good at it. The Bosworth brothers came up. Or Roberts, Jack Cole. Mention them. I met most many of them. We've gone through that phase.

It didn't turn the nation to God. Somebody told me, I was going to send his name, I won't, that Miss Coolman's ministry had diminished tremendously before she died. She wasn't getting the same power. She knew it.