Vision for the Unsaved World - Part 1 — Leonard Ravenhill

I feel so sorry for Mike going to Australia, you won't hear any singing like that till he come back. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I really do hope the Lord will let us come back sometime. You heard our David preach last night, a masterpiece, he's a super preacher, I think.

You know, he's like me, he's a bit of a maverick. I used to go around all the holiness centers, but one day I offended them, so they shut the door on me. But you know, when your father and mother forsake you, the Lord takes you up.

I'm not good enough for the holiness people, I'm not fiery enough for the Pentecostals, so I have to come to you. Okay, let's read from the prophecy of Isaiah, or as Mike would say, Isaiah. Prophecy of Isaiah, chapter 6, this isn't usually catalogued as one of the great chapters of the Bible, but I think it is.

Again, I'm reading from the living Bible, did you hear that? I'm reading from the living Bible, which is what? King James Version, thank you. I was hoping you'd learn that. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and his train filled the temple.

Above it stood the seraphims, each one had six wings. With train or with two did he cover his, what, face? With two he covered his feet, and with two did he fly. And one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord.

The whole earth is full of his glory. And the post of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a peep of unclean lips.

For mine eyes have seen the King, and that's the one we need to see, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a light coal in his hand, which he take with the tongue from off the altar.

And he laid it upon my mouth and said, Lo, this has touched thy lips. Thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?

Then said I, Here am I, send me. And he said, Go. We're going to hang our thinking on three verses here, verse 5, verse 7, verse 9. And they're all monosyllables, they're so simple that if you're a Ph .D. you can remember them.

Verse 5, Woe, verse 7, Lo, verse 9, Go. The first is a word of a man, the second is a word of a seraphim, the third is the word of God. The first is a word of confession, Woe is me. The second is a word of cleansing, Lo, this has touched thy lips, and the third is the word of commission, Go.

Vision as the Church’s Most Urgent Need

We can't go past the first verse here, it's absolutely essential that we pause a minute and look at it. People ask me, what is the most, what do you think is the most needed thing for the church in this hour in which we live?

I can answer it in one word, vision. I remind you again of the appalling statement of Jesus. I don't care about the critics, what they said about Jimmy Thuggett and all the others, forget them. But when Jesus says of the church that he purchased with his own blood, she's poor, wretched, naked and blind, and thou know'st it not, tears my heart up.

What can a blind church do? These Bible schools and big head cloths keep reshuffling the theological cards. That will no more bring revival than going and shouting in a cemetery. There has to be an invasion of holy power, there has to be a holy people, God won't use anything else.

He demanded a virgin, didn't he, for his child to be born? Not some famous woman, not a queen, a virgin. And he wouldn't trust the world with his son unless he came through a virgin, and he won't trust anybody else except a virgin for his bride.

He's not coming through this lousy system we have now with all it's sins and worldliness. I know there's up the road there some seminary or something, what's it got outside? A sports yard. You never saw a school get revived with a sports outfit with it.

We're so trying to mix and make it attractive to young people, forget it. The most attractive thing in the world is fire, holy fire, God is fire. Our God is a consuming fire. I'm glad what you said, David, that God has touched you with fire, well I pray it will increase.

Uzziah, Prayer, and the Cost of Neglecting God

You see, fire has to be fed continually, otherwise it'll go out. Let me go back a bit here. In the year that King Uzziah died, I'll turn please back for a minute, into the second book of Chronicles, chapter 26, and there you see a very wonderful outline, if you like a chapter in the life, or it's almost the whole life, it is the whole life of a very wonderful person, 2 Chronicles 26 verse 1.

Then the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was what, 16 years of age. A little further up you'll read about a king that was anointed when he was eight years of age. What's your 15-year-old doing? Does he know God?

Recollecting baseball cards. Is he like his daddy, wasting his time? I get lots of preachers come to see me, I usually beat them up. I enjoy that. Oh, I don't have time to pray. Then I let them talk, you know, get lost.

And then I say, hey, by the way, are you a, are you a supporter? Oh, yeah, you should see my trophies. I had a fellow in my office and he was saying I had much time to pray, I said, listen, you've just been away for three days hunting up in Montana, it cost you a fortune to go.

You spent three days, you spent all that money, you came back, before that you'd been goose shooting for three days. You're talking about another three days you're going. I said, you put those nine days in to pray, you'll be a different man.

Don't tell God you love him, you're lying. I said, if you love God as much as you love hunting, if you love prayer as much, if you took two or three days at a time praying, your church would be alive.

Remember this, there are no rewards for hunting, even if you're a doctor, a Ph .D., forget it. One of the most stupid things, one of the most awesome things at the judgment will be when God opens the book of time.

You work, how long do you live a day? 24 hours, you sleep eight, you work eight, what do you do with the other eight? Put that on the basis of 60 years. You sleep 20, you work 20, what do you do with the other 20?

Work 20 years out into days, work it out into hours. You're going to get an account, not for only every day, every hour, but every moment, every second. You know, we thought everything was big in America.

Again, this amazing man, let me stay with him a minute, then I'll come to Isaiah. Let me skip down the chapter just a minute, this 15-year-old, look what it is, 16 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 50 years, 52 years, 52 and 16, add that together.

Verse 5 says, he sought God in the days of Zechariah. Can you think of it? I get invited all over, well, even over the world. We believe you're one of the two. I get letters and letters that there are two prophets in America today, David Wilkinson and yourself.

Let him answer for himself. I'm not a prophet, don't claim to be, which I was. But can you imagine a 16-year-old youth with this majestic character called Isaiah on one hand and Zechariah on the other?

Wasn't it Zechariah got killed between the altar and the doorpost? For what? Because he was righteous. I'll tell you how to empty your church, preach righteousness. Forget holiness for a while, preach righteousness.

What did Noah do? He built him out. No, that's not what he's in the Bible for, he's there because he was a preacher of what? Righteousness. That little guy, five feet two, according to tradition, Paul preached to Felix about what?

Well, of course, the middle toe on the left foot of Daniel's image, no? He preached temperance and righteousness and judgment to come. Noah was a preacher of righteousness. Why did Cain slay Abel? Because he was righteous.

Dear God, we need some righteousness in the church as well as outside of it these days. I'm not going to prove my point, but my gripe, and I don't often get to preach to preachers, I'm going to preach to something about a month, and of course it's a banquet, poor soul, they have to eat every time they turn round.

But there are three things missing out of modern preaching, immensity, intensity, and eternity. There are two things missing in the pew, integrity and honesty. Integrity is gone. You can argue as much as you like about the work ethic of the Japanese and so forth, but they have more, what shall I say, integrity in many areas than we have even.

But let me pass that for a minute. It says of this also, man, I want to leave this picture in your mind. In verse 5, he sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding and visions, and lots of fellows have visions here, well, Zechariah had.

But you see, the word of a prophet is only true if it comes to pass what he prophesied. Your vision won't help me, it may help you, that's okay. The vision I want is different, I'll come to that in a moment.

But listen, he had visions, and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him to prosper. Do you see that? We're not seeking God. Doesn't Malachi say, the Lord whom ye seek? You go to a conference, they're not seeking the Lord, they're seeking gifts, they're seeking miracles, and God's a jealous God.

You can have all the miracles without God, but you can't have God without miracles. And I'm not thinking about crooked arms being straightened, I'm thinking of revival in the context of Phinney that I've loved for 60 years, 70 years.

When Phinney went to a city, the moral climate of the city was changed. Our revivals are a little stirring up, the same people come to the altar week after week, revival after revival, the no taller, the no stronger, the no more vision, and the pastor likes it.

Oh, with a lot of people at the altar, so what? What are you training, dummies? The proof of this week will be the outworking of this week. There have been some awesome meetings here. I told my precious son that preached last night, I said, David, this week we've been living in history, God has birthed something here, and it's not just for this fellowship.

This city needs a stirring, this city needs a cleansing, this city needs anointing, and it's going to be done by great famous preachers, it's going to be done by people who live in righteousness and true holiness.

That's all that God delights in. Verse 6 says, he went forth and warred against the Philistines. Look at his accomplishment. This man is a genius, he has military genius, he has economic genius, he changes the whole nation because he's walking with God.

Pride After Prosperity and the Loss of Anointing

The destiny of America is not in the White House, it's in God's house, but not the condition it's in now. The Lord came to the temple at the beginning of his life, and he came at the end of his life, and it was very, very different.

Somebody said to me this morning, give us a whipping again. Well, Jesus, oh, everybody remembers, man in the tavern will tell you, Jesus, he whipped people, but listen, when he came round the shoulder of the hill and he saw the city, he wept over it.

How many chances, God Almighty, how many chances do you think America's going to have? I get people who say, Brother Rayneal, quit your praying, quit your preaching. America's gone too far. Of all the five industrial nations in the world, we have the highest rate of, I believe we have the highest rate of AIDS, we certainly have the highest rates of divorce, with every rotten corruption you can mention, with more heresies in the country, with 2 ,000 gurus in the country, we're up against a wall.

But this man has strategy military, he recovers the economy, he manages to handle the farmers and they take some doing. And then when he's got this going and he's become governor of that and the chairman of that and the president of that, then he gets filled with that damnable thing that men get.

We've seen the moral collapse of great preachers, listen, those guys were bankrupt and they were backslidden three years before that stuff came to the surface. Every man loses his anointing in the prayer closet.

Once you start getting too busy and you can't pray and intercede, forget it. How many did you ask a man when he comes to be a pastor? Well, how many were in Sunday school when you started at that church?

How many were there when you left? How many buses when you started? Do you think the devil's worried about buses? He doesn't care if you have as many as the Greyhound bus service. He's not nervous about buses.

I stood outside of St. Peter's in Edinburgh, in, no it's not in Edinburgh, in Dundee. There's a plaque on the wall, it's the size of that wall, and it gives an account of one of the most amazing men in Scottish history, Murray MacShane.

The man who wept his way every day. He'd go to the front seat of the church with the church membership roll, and he'd pray for so many families every day, then the next day he'd go in another seat and pray for some others.

He'd go in the, in the, what we call the, you call the office, that sounds too much like business, but he called it a vestry, and his janitor said he'd put his elbows down there, and he would have his Bible in front of him, and he would weep and weep and weep for the lost people.

He would go in the pulpit, and before he began to preach, he would weep and weep and weep. Well, he was a genius, he had a colossal intellect, he knew his Greek, he knew his Hebrew. He was an outstanding man, and because of his extreme living and fasting, he got tuberculosis, he went to, he went to Israel, or Palestine, as it was then, for recovery.

A man called W .C. Burns took over from him. One man, you know, some, some men are so good at plowing and sowing seed, God won't let them do anything else. Some men are so good at reaping, God lets them do it, but the sower and the reaper will rejoice together.

Mary McShane fasted and prayed and wept and groaned in that church, till the very rug in, in the office was wet with his tears. W .C. Burns came along, a very different, he began to preach his anointing of the Spirit, that great church, St. Peter's, was jammed.

The whole city was shaken with holy ghost convictions, people weren't lining up to see miracles. There were miracles, moral miracles. The rottenest people in the city, highfalutin people were reached, from the top to the bottom.

W .C. Burns poured his life out. They said that every time he was in the pulpit, it was as though the pillar of fire was there. You didn't question where he'd been. He was like old Ebenezer Brown, who lived in about 1599, and he says, I spent five days of my life walking in eternity, and I come down on Sundays and share the rest with my people.

We need preachers like that today. Not everybody who buys the latest book that Joe somebody's written, or Bill somebody else, or Chuck somebody else. All they're doing is reading all that stuff. Most of it's chaff anyhow.

I tell you what, when David comes and I come, I'll tell you about the grace of God. We've been deceived and cheated so often, I'll never stand here unless I have the word of God. If it doesn't burn in me, it won't burn in you.

If it doesn't break me, why should it break you? This is the most critical hour in America's history, and in world history. There's less spirituality in America. We have more meetings, we have more shows, we have more Bibles, we have more Bible schools, and we were never more immoral, we were never more corrupt.

Prayer as the Measure of a Preacher and a Church

Where's the pillar of fire? No church is stronger than its prayer meeting. I don't care how big the church is. No preacher is greater than his praying. I'll tell you the strength to prove yourself as a preacher.

How many people can you draw on a Sunday night? Everybody goes to church Sunday morning in America. A man in my office recently, very well-dressed, I go to a famous church away there in California. I said, yes?

He said, we have five services Sunday morning. Wait a minute. Why don't you have two in the morning, two in the afternoon, one at night? Oh, people don't come out in the afternoon, they sit there watching football or baseball.

You can't get them out at night. You can if you have the anointing of God. If I were a pastor, I would prove the strength of my ministry by how many came Sunday night. We're going to have to have a Holy Ghost revival.

It won't be Pentecostal, it won't be Nazarene. It will be branded with God. It will be so glorious, no man will dare put his name on it. I'm trying to hurry. Oh, thank you. Two hours. Thank you. That's good.

Then we'll have a break. Do you see the revival? Pardon? Do you see the change in Michael Burns? No. And the amazing thing about that, Mike, is this. After Atmer Shane poured his life out, then Burns did the same thing.

What do you do? You say, well, we're going to give you Westminster Abbey. Come and preach. No. Come to this church. Do you know what God did? He took him to China. And he died almost unknown in China.

But I'll tell you what, the revival that John Sung had then, if you haven't read that book, you should do, or the revival that Watchman Nee had, was out of the praying of the same man that never lived to reap.

He just prayed. He held on to the horns of the altar, if you like. And he got the witness. Just like I said the other day, right now, Raynard Bonk is getting 300, 400 ,000 people to his meetings over there in Africa.

But, how many of you have read the life of C .T. Studd? Some of you have? Good. Well, C .T. Studd was there 15 years. I don't know why. I thought of it this morning. I'd been preaching in his Bible school.

No, I'd been preaching for Rhys Howells, I mean. And when I finished the service, Mrs. Howells said, Please come upstairs. So we walked up the staircase. There's a terrace on front of the house. It's an old mansion.

And she said, Look at that. Do you see that door? I said, Yes. She said, Well, Daddy, meaning her husband, he went in that room at 6 o 'clock in the morning, and he stayed there till 6 at night, every day for 11 months.

He wouldn't even go to his mother's funeral. He said, I can't break this union with God right now. I have audience with God. What's a funeral? She doesn't know anyhow. Boy, the people reproached him. I admire him.

So what happened? Rhys Howells went to Africa, left his boy at home, didn't see his boy for 15 years. That boy is in a room this morning. I've seen him in that room. He's been there about 30 years. I think he's a greater man than his daddy.

But you see, he's living in a union with God. You see, the evangelists want to be exposed. The revivalists want to be alone. Get away. The evangelists raise money. Revivalists raise hell. Let the Holy Ghost come here.

Spiritual Authority, Holiness, and Revival

You'll be in trouble from every angle. As I said last night, preacher, if your name isn't known in hell, you're a failure. Demons said of the apostle, the greatest thing ever said outside of Jesus Christ, the demons said, Jesus we know and Paul we know.

I hope did. Mike, you're such an anointing, the devil who posts notices in hell. Look out. Mike's coming to Australia with so-and-so and so-and-so. And brother, where is he? Over there. Noah, are you going as well, man?

Good for you. But come back. Don't let the kangaroos get you. How many men do you think there are? Start with the Nazarenes. They're top of the ladder. I think they are anyhow. And I preached for the Nazarenes for years.

When there were Nazarenes. No more. How many men do you know that you say walk with God? One of the world's most famous preachers preached right across America, came to see me. And I said, listen, after all the preaching you've seen and heard in the big places, I put my finger, do you think there are ten holy men?

Can you name me ten? No, I can't, he said. I remember the Nazarenes in England. I remember when Dr. Sharp was the head of that group and then George Frame and all the other guys, McLaren, Creighton, all the bunch.

And there was anointing there. In my day, the Salvation Army had anointing. Colonel Bringle was still living. Some awesome men. But they're not mentioned in this chapter, so I'd better get back to the chapter.

Let's come down to verse ten for a minute. Also he built towers in the desert and digged many wells. And they had much cattle both in the low country and in the plain and so forth and so on. Then you come down to verse 13.

Under their hand there was an army of 300 ,000, 7 ,500. That's an awful lot. And they made war with mighty power. Verse 15, he made in Jerusalem engines invented by cunning men to be on the towers and upon the bulwarks to shoot arrows and great stones with awe.

But here you have it now. He's got everything he wanted. He's like some of these men. I want to be on every TV show in the world, every radio station, every newspaper. They got it. Not for proclaiming the gospel, but for polluting it.

It's as though he granted their request that sent leanness into their souls. And you read that verse again, it's terrible. And he made in Jerusalem engines. That's like we invent tanks. And he invented cunning men, skilled men, to be in the towers and to shoot arrows and great stones.

And the end of the verse says, and when he was, when he was, and he was marvelously helped until he was strong. But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to destruction. I'm going to stop there for a moment.

Maybe the most famous of the Caesars, you remember, you wouldn't say it was Caligula or Augustus Caesar. The best known Caesar surely was Julius Caesar. And Julius Caesar had a commander in his army, a genius.

And he became a rival, even though he married into the family. And so what do you do? You get jealous, you get rid of the man. So he sent him to the most parts of the earth, which happened to be Israel at that time.

And he sent him with a great panoply of, you know, men with wonderful helmets, plumed helmets, horses that had wonderful blankets, all lovely designs on them. And when they arrived on the shores of Israel, as we would say today, the people were astounded.

They thought they'd dropped out from another world. They'd never seen men with these gorgeous plumes, never seen men with swords and all the accoutrements that they had. And they stood aghast, particularly when they lined up all the, all the horses.

And men went on horseback through the holy city. They took this famous man Pompey around and showed him this place and that place. This is a historic place. This is something to do with antiquity, thousands of years ago.

But he said, what's that building there, that large building? All that, that's the temple of the most high God. What God? We have hundreds of gods away in Rome. Not like this one. This God lives in this temple and the men that live in it are holy men.

There's an outer court, there's a holy place, and there's a holier of holies. Yeah, but who is this God? Oh, well, they gave him a name. Call him Jehovah for short. He's the one that put the stars in their places.

He made the stars. Isaac Watt says he made the stars, those heavenly flames. He counts their numbers, calls their names. His wisdom's vast and knows no bound. A deep where all our thoughts are drowned.

But saints are lovely in his sight. So this man said, I want to see that. Oh, you can't see that God. Only the priest goes in there. He goes one day, only once. He goes in for the whole nation. Nobody else can go.

But I'm going in there. You can go in there. He said, tomorrow I'm going into the outer court. I'm going through the Gentile court. I'm going through all the other courts. And I'm going into the holier of holies.

It was announced through Jerusalem that this invading king, ruler, was going into the holier of holies. Two thousand people came up behind this cavalcade of horses. And as they went to the temple, and this illustrious man got down from his horse and began to walk into the temple.

They all fell on their knees screaming, don't, don't do it, don't do it. Why? They were remembering this very event when Uzziah did it. What did he do? He said, I manage the government, I manage the army, I manage the economy.

I'm a genius. And it's my right to minister there in the temple. They said, you can't do that. What did he do? He went in the temple. What happened? It says, 80 men jumped on him. Well, how in God's name can one man fight off 81 men because he was demon possessed?

That's right. It was the energy of hell. We've had some demons like that. You don't remember, boy, dear Lord, I remember. The marching armies when Hitler made the world to tremble before him, Mussolini, before him, Stalin.

Was it Stalin put to, we talk about the massacre of the Jews, Stalin put together, put to death more than 6 million of his own people. They're all going to rise at the judgment. Heinrich Himmler said, I shall jump into my grave with joy knowing that I personally obliterated 4 million Jews.

His problem is not jumping into his grave. It's when they jump out of the grave. To meet 4 million people he slaughtered? And he's to give an account for everyone? So this man goes into the temple. Determined to minister, 80 people jumped on him.

Read the story. Four scored, plus Isaiah, jumped on him and he shook them all off. What happened? Immediately he was smitten with leprosy. In the case of Pompey, he went to the outer court and they kept saying, please turn back, turn back, turn back.

No, we don't have a God so majestic in my country. Our God's a strange God. We do offerings to them. We do this, that, and the other according to what they demand. But we don't have a God that can make stars and make the heavens and make the sun and make the seasons of the year.

And he said, please don't go. You'll die. Why? Because his glory is brighter than a million suns. It's called the Shekinah Glory. And it's behind that curtain which is six inches thick. And if you get in there, you'll die.

He's still pushed on. They still pull at his coat. Don't go, don't go, don't go, don't go. And he, he too fought them off. And he said, pull that curtain back. And finally they pulled the curtain back and it was as black as night.

He burst into anger. He said, what? I've come through all those dangers to come here. I brought all my garrison of soldiers. We brought all the pomp and display of our nation. And here it is as black as night.

There's not a person here. You said his glory was brighter than the sun. Where is God? I don't want to see historic things. I don't want to see a fancy priest in their robes. Show me God. So what do you do at your church?

When the Church Has No Visible Glory

I went to a church two years ago. I preached with T .R. Kendall who succeeded Martin Lloyd-Jones away there in London. And I knew Martin, talked with him often. But anyhow, when I got there, it was 35 acres of land.

And this gorgeous building holding almost 3 ,000 people. We got 2 ,500 a night, almost all preachers. And it was very good. But every time I went up, I saw all the acreage outside. This is for tennis courts.

That's for a football team. That's for something else. What in God's name do you want those for? Over a hundred years ago, Andrew Bonner said, I looked for the church and found it in the world. I looked for the world and found it in the church.

What would he say today? Why, they made a show of that Baptist church away there in Houston, 2nd Baptist. It's got five sauna baths. Next Sunday I'll be preaching to the Baptists. I told them once, I said, I didn't know you're so dirty.

You needed five sauna baths. They have a sports program as good as any university in the country. But there's no glory of God there. So anyhow, this furious man stamped around, hoping God would turn up.

And all he would say is, where is God? Where is God? I've seen kings of the earth. I've been to the greatest banquets in the world. But oh, I so want to see God. I so want to see God. Your youngsters come to church.

They come to the outside of the church. They come past the tennis court. They come past the football court, maybe. Or the racquet court or something. And they come into the sanctuary and there's nothing there.

And they go out and say, where is God? Well, you're not concerned about an eloquent preacher, a fellow who fulfills the laws of homiletics. His sermons are classical specimens of homiletical perfection and exegetical exactitude and everything you can get.

They're not concerned. They want something that stirs the conscience. They want something that makes eternity real. They've lived so long for the things of the seen. They want to see the things of the unseen.

And you don't show them. You sport your skills. You juggle with words. You feel glad when somebody says, oh, you talk better than Dr. Bracey or better than Spurgeon. Forget it. That won't be what the hell it means when you die.

When he was strong, his heart was what? Lifted up to destruction. When you went into the temple. You know, I could almost laugh, but I cry when I see guys begging for money on TV and they say, this is a non-profit organization.

How do you buy a private jet out of non-profit? Do you think a profit would have a jet? He'd come to town on a bus or a skateboard. Dear God. It seems the richer men become outside, the poorer they become on the inside.

The more power they have with other unions and other people and other, if you like, seminaries. The less Holy Ghost power. God is a jealous God. As we said last night, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson.

As I said, the Greeks talked about, was it the Greeks, talked about the aphletus or the nimbus. We talk about unction. You can't buy it. You can't make it. You can't sell it. You can't give it to anybody.

It's God's prerogative. And he's a jealous God. God doesn't care whether you shout like this, I always said American, Englishman, or whether you cry like our David until he gets boiling over. That's nothing.

I've seen, time after time, I've seen G. Campbell Morgan come to the desk. He never raised his hand. He never raised his voice. But, boy, the power of God was there. The same was true of Samuel Cudwick.

The same was true of Martin Lloyd-Jones. Different styles. But, you know, I believe in this crisis out in history. The greatest privilege in the world is to be a minister. And greatest still to be a prophet.

The Prophet’s Burden for a Nation

Isaiah is linked with the greatest men that ever walked this earth. Not men that walked on the moon. Not men that walk on the bottom of the sea. But men who walk with God. There's a great book on Isaiah by Dr. Bux Basin.

He was a brilliant Jewish scholar in this country. And he was converted to Christ. And in that he says, he talks about the prophet. Now, in my judgment, the prophet, the true prophet, they're God's emergency men for crisis hours.

America needs prophets or she'll die. But she needs a prophet in every pulpit. So Bux Basin says that the prophet, by the very nature of his calling, is a tragic figure. He suffers with the people. He suffers for the people.

He suffers by the people. The prophet, by his very status, he has a fierce loyalty to God. He has a broken heart over a nation. Why did Jesus walk, weep over Jerusalem? He looked down. He remembers. He says, how can I walk down those streets?

Isaiah walked down those streets. All the great prophets walked down those streets. This is their last chance. I'm the last. What did he say when he went into the temple? I'm trying to think of the word there for a moment.

Oh, my house, he said. My house should be called. But he doesn't say that. He says, your house is left desolate. Who cares a hell of beans how many members you have in your organization? It's no good.

All they do is give you a bit of money. You get a project out. They back you. They love you. They're kind. Forget it. Get away from the visible to the invisible. Get away from the soulish. Get into the eternal.

So again, I say that the preacher, by the very nature of his calling, at least the prophet, is a very, very tragic figure. David, I'm glad for what you said this morning. It stirred me. You see, we've got so used to big names and big salaries and all this kind of junk, it's ridiculous.