Looking Unto jesus...for the Joy — Leonard Ravenhill

Running the Race by Looking Unto Jesus

Hebrews 12, Wherefore, seeing we all so encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us. Looking unto Jesus, the Greek there actually says looking off, or looking away, from who?

Well the verse says, we're encompassed around with so great a cloud of witnesses. Who are the witnesses? I think to be true to the context, the witnesses are the people in the previous chapter. A remarkable group of people.

And as I told you before, I can't read that chapter without kissing the floor. What did they do? Subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, stopped the mouths of lions. Women received their dead race to life again, like the widow did.

Others had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings. And so they did that. That's all they did. One of the key words in this marvelous epistle, and remember there's not a word in the whole epistle to the unsaved.

It's we. People say it has no address like the epistle of Paul to the Romans, but it has because in the third chapter it talks of the holy brethren, or the people who have been reconciled to God and are walking in the light with God.

A great cloud of witnesses. I believe every day we walk we're in a cloud of witnesses, the people immediately around us, the witness of demons watching us, the witness of angels watching us. But do you ever read a script and wonder where you've been all your life that it suddenly bursts open and you, John doesn't do that, he knows too much.

Dale, come on, you're on my level. Don't you do that? Come on, be honest, confess. Don't, don't, come on, come on. Don't, don't you sometimes read a scripture that suddenly opens like that, and you wonder why, I've read it a thousand times, or 999, you won't exaggerate.

And you say, well there it is, suddenly I see light in this thing. Well I did that, or that's how it acted on me when I read this too, but you know what I did? I got up the other night, it's about midnight, I worked till about four o 'clock, on a message, I got a nice outline which I don't usually have, and if I have I don't keep it anyhow.

And then I lost all the notes. Isn't that something? The Lord has such a lovely way of humbling me. I scratched a few out anyhow. Let us run with patience. Now you don't need patience to run, do you? The first time I went to a small college with about 35 men, and the only recreation we had was Wednesday afternoon.

We put on some shorts, not brief like they're running now, shorts, honourable things, you know, down to your knees. And little rubber shoes, and we ran and ran around the countryside. Two kinds, the fast runners and the slow ones.

Boy, do you think I was going to go up? Boy, I was only 20. Run with these old boys behind, 24 and 25, not on your life. I was going to run with the 18-year-olds. Boy, they set off down the avenue of the school, phew, like lightning.

By the time I got to the gates I was exhausted. We ran and ran and ran. I dropped back with a slow pack. We got about three miles away from the school, and all the fast running men were sitting on the wall looking down at the river.

Why? Because they didn't run with patience, they exhausted themselves. Runners talk about getting a second wind, and we need that. That supports a second blessing, of course. So there you are, you've learned something already.

Jesus as the Author and Finisher of Faith

It says, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher, the author and the omega. He is the beginning of my faith, he is the end of my faith, he's everything in between in my faith. The author and finisher of my faith.

But here's the tough part of this verse, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross. You know, wouldn't that read better if it says, who for the joy that was behind him? What joy is in hanging naked on a cross?

What joy is that a crowd of people mocking theologians, priests, and people who are supposed to be holy, scumming you, ridiculing you, saying he's not the son of God. He was born out of wedlock, anyhow we know his mother, we know who his earthly father was.

He bears the humiliation, and there for the joy that was set before him. Now wait a minute, let's go back a minute. What about the joy behind him? He came into the world, miraculously. Isn't that wonderful?

People called Jesus the second Adam, he wasn't the second Adam. A Catholic thought that him, so it couldn't be right. Cardinal Newman wrote, O loving wisdom of our God, when all was sin and shame, a second Adam to the fight.

He wasn't a, if you have a second Adam, you can have a third, or a fourth, or a fifth. He wasn't a second Adam, he was the last Adam. There's nothing else to be done. But miraculously, the first Adam, was born without a mother.

The last Adam was born without a father. So why do you have any problem with the incarnation? I don't. I don't know which is the greatest miracle in the Bible, that's for the pharaoh, after the meeting.

In the New Testament, which is the most wonderful? The birth of miraculous birth of Jesus, or the resurrection? The theologians, they call the birth of Jesus the incarnation. At the end of the line is the resurrection.

Without the incarnation, the resurrection is impossible. Without the incarnation, the resurrection is impossible. Without the resurrection, the incarnation is incomplete. But let's look, he comes back.

He comes through the sky. Wesley didn't say everything right. No Englishman ever does, anyhow. Apart from myself, but anyhow. Remember he wrote that lovely hymn, Heart the Herald Angels Sing. Well, tell me a place in the scripture where angels sing.

You say, well they sang, glory to God, they did not. They said it, they chanted it. In England, in the Church of England, they sing what they call Gregorian chants. You need a cold to sing it properly.

It's a bit gustful, but it's beautiful. They chanted. We're getting back to that now. We think we're smart. Oh, we've got a girl in our church, and she writes her own song. How wonderful. Why didn't you put her in place of the lady you just put back?

What's wonderful about writing your own songs? I write my own sermons, so what? I don't get as much money as she does, but I get more joy. And I'll get a bigger reward, I'm sure of that. Well, there you are.

John the Baptist and the Preparation of Jesus’ Ministry

Oh, for the joy that was behind him. A miracle birth, a miracle man, with a miracle message. John Baptist had come. Remember again, between Malachi and Matthew, there's a period of 400 years of darkness without any prophetic light.

400 years of stillness without any prophetic voice. Then suddenly, dramatically, there's a strange-looking man. He had to be strange. He was a Baptist. He was away there in the Jordan with a ragged old coat on, with fleece on it, I suppose, an old jacket of some dead camel, and leathery loins about his loins.

And he had breakfast, dinner, tea, the same thing. Dinner, tea, and supper. Breakfast, dinner, and supper, as you were saying it here. We say breakfast, dinner, tea in England. I don't say he had tea, but I'm saying he had the same every day.

For breakfast, lunch, and... Do you know what he had? What did he eat? Huh? He ate honey. And what else did he have? I can't hear you. Locusts, that's... I couldn't get the word. He had locust burgers, you know, three times a day.

And he was strange in his dress, he was strange in his diet, he was strange in his doctrine. And he was given one of the supreme tasks in history. God raised him up after he'd been at the University of Silence for thirty years.

I'm sure you can hardly stand ten weeks away from home to come to last day and go somewhere. For thirty years he was there. For thirty years John Jesus didn't preach. Joseph didn't start ministering, working, until he was thirty years of age.

He'd had, by that time, he'd had thirteen years in jail. Moses was forty. Forty years in the Universities of Egypt. Read the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. He was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.

He knew foreign languages, he knew statesmanship. It says he was mighty in word. He wasn't an orator, he stumbled. But he was mighty in word. His word was law before ever he got lost from God. And yet God has to put him on the back side of the desert.

Why? Because he knows too much. If I had the chance... Do you know what happens? They said yesterday, well I think, that one make of car, I don't know which it was, I'm sure it wouldn't be a Cadillac, but they withdrew, they recalled some cars.

Do you know they never recalled Japanese cars, did they? They were always American. Now that's a fact, think about it. Do you know, if the Lord recalled all the preachers that were malfunctioning after pulpits would be empty this Sunday.

If they're not functioning according to the word of God, boy, would they be able to buy pulpits that came up. You know the price is very costly, Jesus has to stay there alone, in the back side of the desert.

It says distinctly, John did no miracle, he never healed the sick, he never cleansed the leper. Nobody came with a lunatic son and said, have mercy on my son, John, he never did it. But such was his anointing in the Holy Ghost.

If you read the third chapter of Luke, which isn't my text at all tonight, but read it, they came from Judea, it was a success socially, because they came from every quarter of the social standard. They came from different countries.

The Roman soldiers were there, they were heathens. What Kipling would call the leper breeds outside of the law. And yet they flock, because again, here is an incandescent man. After a period of 400 years of darkness, suddenly there's a man bursting in flames.

Spiritual Discernment and the Armor of God

Somebody sent me a book this week, it's a good one. It's called The Unholy Spirit. You can buy it, it'll scare you to death, maybe. You know, people in different parts of the world, suddenly burst into flames.

A woman in England, in a rowing boat, burst into flames with her husband and children there. And she just went to cinders. And the heat was terrific, but the boat wasn't singed, nobody else was burned, their hair wasn't burned.

She just disintegrated into a stack of ashes, right before their eyes. There are two or three cases like that coming. You know, the devil can forfeit just, what am I trying to say, not forfeit. Counterfeit.

Thank you, John. Very wonderfully. Counterfeit everything. You know, there's a man down in South America and he has had 2 ,000 miracles of healing cancer. And all he does, he has a rusty knife and he goes to people whose bodies are withered and he sticks it through their bellies and they don't bleed and they don't have any pain in their heels.

There's 2 ,000 recorded cases of that. What do you make of it? Well, I think it's God's mercy, but again it's done to an evil man. All kinds of things. I believe we're going to have a bigger invasion of evil powers in the next few years than we've ever had in our history.

We need the whole armor of God. We need the full protection of the blood. But let's go back to here, to Jesus. He had a miracle birth. He had a miracle ministry. Oh, for the joy that was behind him. What joy?

People came lame and went away leaping. People came to him blind. They went away seeing. He went to the dead and he left them living. He went to the storm and still did. He went to the waves and still did.

He had dominion over death. He had dominion over demons. He had everything that was destructive. He had dominion over it. But what does it say? He's looking back. Oh, he had some marvelous times. He had 40 days in the wilderness.

Not 40 tests. Not 40 minutes. 40 days. Everything that could be tempted. He was tempted sexually. He was tempted in every way. The devil said, he showed him the kingdoms of this world. The real estate.

No, forget it. He was too smart to do that. He knew that Jesus owned the world. He knew that Jesus made it. He counseled with his father about making it. So what did he say? He said he offered him the real estate.

That shows you how valuable worship is. You don't know how to worship. I'm studying with a book right now. It's, as they say, killing me. I sleep little and groan a lot. I've started it six times and changed them all and started again the seventh time today and I hope I've got the beginning right anyhow.

At the end we'll work out after. But again, it's a formidable day in which we're living. I believe we're going to see tremendous satanic powers come down in these last days. Beyond anything we've ever seen before.

And our own refuge is in the blood of the Lamb. But Jesus had dominion over everything. He was offered the kingdoms of this world. Again, not real estate. I believe he was offered the kingdom of wisdom.

The devil says, I'll get the Greeks to believe on you with their intellectual power. I'll get the Romans to believe on you with their military power. I'll get the Jews to believe on you with their religious power.

I'll give you all the kingdoms. The kingdom of knowledge, the kingdom of religion, the kingdom of authority. And Jesus said no. And Satan just said, just bend your knee and say once I worship you and he wouldn't do that.

But there you are. There, Jesus triumphed for forty successive days. Hebrews talks about him praying with strong crying and tears. I wonder if that isn't part of this temptation he had as well as in the garden of Gethsemane.

When he could look back to the miracles he did over death, over demons, over the weather, over the sea, he had a marvelous pageant of victory. But he doesn't look back. He not only has the forty days of marvelous victory over the devil.

Remember he had the mount of transfiguration. He could have looked back there. It's a wonder that, I wonder why John didn't fall at his feet dead then. Because he hadn't yet died and triumphed in the ultimate.

But there he was on the mount of transfiguration with Moses and the other prophets. He could have looked back to that surely and enjoyed it. And then you can fill in the rest. There's a host of things he could have done.

But it says, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him. I can never look at this verse, either privately or in a meeting, without thinking of a hymn that was written, again by an Englishman I think.

You know it was a Scotsman, Andrew Bonner. He wrote to him, Go labour on, spend and be spent, thy joy to do the Father's will. It is the way the Master went, should not the servant tread it still. Toil on and in thy joy rejoice, for toil comes rest, for exile home.

Soon shalt thou hear the bridegroom's voice, the midnight cry, behold I come. But you see, you don't get to joy by sitting in a chair reading a book. You get it through blood and sweat and tears, like Jesus did.

True love has blood in it. It doesn't care whether it's physical or what it is. It has, it's got two things on it. It's got blood, it's got sacrifice. There is no love without sacrifice. It's easy to sing love so amazing, so divine, but remember what it cost him.

You know, I've never heard anybody preach on the loneliness of God. Have you ever done that, Brother Farrar? Well, you're a bad boy, so am I. I haven't. God loathed me for thirty years. His son was on earth, kicked around like a football, and the fathers up there, he could in a moment have destroyed them.

Jesus could have destroyed them for that matter, but he didn't. And yet now it says, who for the joy that was set before him. Why? Because he said, I come to do thy will, O my God. He knew it was the will of his father.

Christ’s Suffering and the Joy Set Before Him

Would you like somebody to really, if you thought persecution was coming on America in the next five years, that we'd go to concentration camps, that we'd be a daily horrible experience, women will be raped every day, that you'll be shut off there and see your wife in agony somewhere, or your children.

If somebody could actually sketch your whole life for the next ten years, and it's full of horror and terror and persecution and deprivation, would you do it? Would you like it? And yet Jesus never knew.

He knew there was a sketch written seven hundred and fifty years before he was born. In that fifty-third chapter in Isaiah, who hath believed our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? He shall go up before him as a tender plant, as a root out of a dry ground.

When we shall see him, we shall not desire him. There's no beauty that we should desire him. And then it goes on and gets more awesome. It pleased the Lord to bruise him. I don't understand that. But he knew that was coming, and he didn't flinch.

He set his face deliberately toward Jerusalem, knowing what awaited him there. Oh, for the joy that was set before him. What joy is this hanging on a cross? Of course, in our modesty, though who's modest these days?

Who cares about modesty? But I believe out of mere modesty they put Jesus on the cross. They put a loincloth over him. Now, it was part of the humiliation was to hang there naked, to be scorned, to be ridiculed.

Again, as dear Dr. Tozer said, when you saw a man go down the street with a cross on his back, you knew one thing, he wasn't coming back. Immediately he was made for the cross, he lost all his rights.

And if every precious Baptist in America really believed that, we'd turn the nation upside down. But it's a ritual. Just this week I had a letter from Dr. Fred Wolfe. I once preached in his big church there in Mobile.

He said 75 of Southern Baptist students who go to college quit going to church in their sophomore year. Well, how old were they? Would they be 18 somewhere in that area, wouldn't they, going to college?

And yet 75 of them, I would guarantee my life, I'd risk my life in a gamble if every one of them somewhere was baptized and made a profession. And yet as soon as they can they quit church. So they should if it's a dead dumb church.

But if they're born again of the Spirit of God, they live on Christ. You can live without a church as far as that goes. Well, some of us do a lot of it. This is my church. People ask me, well, I preach.

I say it last days, every Friday night. But it's not a real church because there's no offering. One preacher thought I was crazy. He said, how long have you been there? I said 10 years. We went to Brown's wonderful house.

Never took an offering once. Didn't even give me a birthday gift, stingy crowd that you are. But anyhow. But I'm not concerned about money. I never have been, never will be. But for the joy set before him, he did the will of his Father.

The triumphs behind him, sure there were triumphs. What about Gethsemane? What about when he needed everybody and they all fell away? Ever been in a situation like that? When the folk you were going to trust, boy, they all went down like chaff.

They all deserted him in the darkness. And he said, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. And then he goes through the humiliation of the judgment hall. A mock trial, a farce. As he would say, he was framed.

And yet the joy before him, up to here, he's done the will of his Father. He's given angels excitement every day, conquering demons, conquering death, conquering affliction. He was determined that whatever came into the human race through the first Adam should be healed by the last Adam.

And I love the hymn of Wesley. As I thought of this today. I've been meditating on this so often in the night watches and thinking about it. Let me see. I've got a note here on this. You see, I've got some notes.

One of Charles Wesley's earlier hymns says, Would Jesus have the sinner die? Why hangs he then on the tree? What means that strange expiring cry? Sinner, he prays for you, for me. Forgive them Father, oh forgive.

They know not that by me they live. Thou loving all atoning Lamb, be healed by thy painful agony. Thy bloody sweat, thy grief and shame, thy cross and passion on the tree. Thy precious death and life, I pray take all, take all my sins away.

Then he uses this. I wonder if Charles Wesley got this after meditating on the woman that went to Jesus. What did she go with? A pot of oil. What did she go for? A banquet? No. She's the only one recorded that went to that show that took a gift.

And I know what she went to do. She went to worship him. Why? Because number one she took the most precious thing that she had and number two she never said a word. She wouldn't wash his holy feet with water.

She washed them with tears. She wouldn't dry those holy feet with a costly towel. She wiped them with the hair of her head. The woman's glory is the hair the scripture says. And those feet she saw them nailed to a cross a week after that.

But she began not as Jesus said. I entered into her house. Simon thou gavest me no kiss. Thou gavest me no water. Thou gavest me no oil. But this woman won't cease kissing me. And she didn't kiss his feet.

She kissed his feet. And then she poured the oil on his feet. The most pungent fragrant perfume ever made in the history of the world. Cost of king's ransom. She had a box of a pound. And she laid it on him.

A few days later a man had two men go up the hill with a hundred pounds of that ointment. Worth, we told, a million dollars. But what's the good of it in bed? What are we going to do for the Lord after we die?

We'll leave our money. We'll do this. Forget it. I'm not forced to say, but an American poet said this. Do your giving while you're living. Then you're knowing where it's going. So she put that fragrance on his feet and then dried his feet with the hair of her head.

What happened? The fragrance she poured out on him came back on her. You know all we do we go and make, we've got a great utility God. We go to him. We tell him our troubles. We tell him our problems.

How long do we stay to get the eternal fragrance on us and bring it back? I was reading about Jonathan Edwards wonderful wife. She was a wonderful wife. She brought him twelve children. That's not a miracle in itself.

She's to bring to birth twelve apostles then. Yes, she brought twelve wonderful children. But they said of her, you know, before she was married to him. He said it up, up in New England there. Do you know there's a woman and they mention the town.

There's a woman where the great being, being God visits her. She has ecstasy. Her daughter says, if you saw my dear mother come out of her prayer closet in the morning, she needs a veil over her face.

Like Moses. What do your kids see, children see when they come home? You're listening to some junk? One of these Christian shows, talk you to death full of wind? Or do you, do they see you come out of the closet with a holy radiance on you?

This woman spent all that she had and put all she had on the feet of Jesus. He had that marvelous experience to look back to. But now where do we get him? You get him to the place where he asked to march to the cross.

I'm going to have a bit of a talk with those twelve disciples. It is a row up in heaven. I'll be in the middle of it, I'm sure. Are they saying, you're a bunch of cowards, you all forsook him. You should have been standing six of you on this side and six on the other one.

They marched him to the cross. You should have been saying, well hail Jesus, hail Jesus. The king of glory will soon be coming in in triumph. Instead of that what did they do? They stayed dumb, they stayed away.

And we see him go there to the cross. They nailed him as we say, they nailed him to that cruel tree. I remember in England there was a little guy about five years of age singing a hymn, there is a green hill far away.

It was written by the wife of Alexander, a great evangelist, and she was an American. There is a green hill far away, outside the city wall, where our dear Lord was crucified, who died to save us all.

He died that we might be forgiven. He died to make us good. That we may go at last to heaven saved by his precious blood. I forget the next part, but then it goes on the second line of the next verse.

Those kind hands that did such good, they nailed them to a cross of wood. I ask you again, why in God's name do you expect better treatment from a world that is just as diabolical now, just as opposed to Christ now as it was when he walked the earth?

Why do you expect better treatment, better respect? Come on, you shouldn't care about the junk outside. You should be so fascinated with Jesus that you can really crave. I lay in death, life, glory, death.

That may mean your dearest friend. It might mean a relative. It might mean your reputation. It might mean postponing a marriage for a year or two. Some other things. I lay in death, life, glory. The thing I treasure most, here it is.

If God had sent Gabriel to earth it would be wonderful. Or if he sent Michael the archangel. But he didn't send an angel or an archangel. He sent his only begotten son. For the whole slave that believed upon him.

But there he is. And he's looking forward. Oh, for the joy that was felt before it endured. He doesn't say enjoyed. But he did enjoy it. In the sense it was the will of his father. I come to do thy will, O my God.

I don't care about desertion. I don't care about the mock trial. I don't care about the hatred of the Jews. I don't care about the spite of the scribes who write the scriptures out and they're as dirty as devils.

I don't care about them. I'm doing your holy will and that's all that matters to me. The cost doesn't matter. The expense I never thought of. He denies himself for many rites. But there he hangs on the tree.

What is the joy set before him? Well I think there are one or two of them. The joy is this that very soon when he comes down from that tree he's going to leave captivity captive and give gifts unto men.

When he comes down from that tree he's going to give the gift of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is a coronation gift of Jesus. He can't come unless I go. I go up, he comes down. The disciples are impetuous.

You know love gets so impetuous sometimes and peculant. And when Jesus says, yes I'm going, oh no no no no no. You can't go. You can't go. We're just getting used to your speech. We're beginning to understand your argument.

We don't want you to go. He said, but I'm going to send somebody in my place far better. Oh no. Oh no no. That's an old story. And neither the preacher was leaving his church. And the old lady wasn't there when they announced the preacher will be going this week.

And he went to see her. She said, I hear you're leaving this week. He said, you know dear, the preacher that succeeds me will be far better than me. She said, well the last one said that. Nice way of humbling you isn't it.

He didn't come up to par. Jesus says I'm with you but he shall be in you. Jesus couldn't be in two places at once. Only one. If he was in Galilee he wasn't in Bethsaida. If he was in Jerusalem he wasn't somewhere else.

But he said when the Holy Spirit of God has come he will come and he will indwell you. And he will lead you into knowledge and he will lead you into wisdom. So one of the things set before him was the joy of seeing these men.

Peter the denying cowardly man becomes instead of a persecutor. Paul I mean. Peter too. But Paul a persecutor turned into a preacher. Paul the murderer turned into a messenger. Paul who had learned everything about the law learned more about grace than any other man on earth.

He sees in Paul the possibilities. That man is going to write fourteen epistles. That is if you give him Hebrews and I think he wrote that. And so for the joy that was set before him. What is this temporal agony compared to eternity?

The Hope of Resurrection and Victory Over Death

I believe somewhere today in this great world of ours. A wicked diabolical world that's going to get worse. I believe people have been martyred for Jesus sake. In Russia, in China, in Afghanistan, in some other countries.

There's no news coming through. We live in a day of managed news. They magnify things that they want to magnify. They shrink other important things. They wipe some things out. But thank God he keeps the record.

And I said you saw one of my favorite modern choruses. It will be worth it all when we see Jesus. Life's trousers seem so small when we see Christ. One glimpse of his dear face all sorrow will erase. So let us run the race till we see Christ.

One of the joys set before him was to triumph over death. Yes, they're going to drive nails through his feet on the cross. But wasn't there a prophecy that that serpent will bruise your heel? And he said yes, but do it.

And with the heel you bruise I'll crush your head. He's going to crush the serpent. He's going to destroy the power of the devil. He's going to liberate his children and give gifts unto men. The gifts are not the gifts of the Holy Ghost.

I don't care how you argue it. They're not the gifts of the Spirit. They're the gifts of Jesus. Jesus purchased them. The Holy Spirit is the executive of the Godhead. He distributes the wealth of God or the wealth of Jesus Christ.

We used to sing a hymn in England. I can't remember how it begins. But I know a part of it said the purchase of thy death divide. Give me with all the sanctified the heritage of love. The purchase of thy death.

What is it? Jesus is bound that you might be free. Jesus put to death that we might live. I say he sees before him the wonderful, wonderful glory that he's going to bring to the Father. Again, would Jesus have this sinner die?

Why hangs he then on me on the tree? Or if you like it, the best hymn that I like, the second time Billy Graham came to England, the Methodist and a few other stragglers met him in Victoria Station. They took a little organ and they struck up that great hymn of Wesley's, and can it be that I should gain.

Do you know that? How many know that? One or two, three, four, five. I'm going to get it past you in the back of this book. It's a marvellous book, marvellous hymn. And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour's blood?

Died he for me who caused his pain? For me who him to death pursued? Amazing love, how can it be that thou my God should die for me? He left his Father's throne above, so free, so infinite his grace, emptied himself of all but love and bled for Adam's helpless race.

Oh, the other one that Charles Wesley liked most. 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 and claim the crown through Christ my own.

Freedom from Sin and the Presence of Christ

He is an intellectual. I had a wonderful surprise tonight. My neighbour came and gave me a book. He didn't give me too many, but he'd been to the book fair up in Washington. And a man came to him and he mentioned my name.

He said, Leonard Radney wrote Why the Bible Tarries. Yes. Oh, he said a few years ago I was a liberal preacher. I was totally without God. I was just, just stuck. And somebody gave me a book and I read it.

It didn't do me much good. And it wasn't mine. And they said somebody gave me Why the Bible Tarries and I got totally liberated, born again to the spirit of God. And now I'm preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ.

That makes it worthwhile. But Charles Wesley was a scholar, a gentleman. His family was next to the royal family in England. I say he's a scholar. In England they call him a Don, Oxford Don, a teacher in the mother of universities, as it's called, Oxford.

And this is a man, he has no prison record. He hasn't fooled around in immorality, sexual or any other way. Nobody ever heard him lie. He was brought up in a righteous family, one of the most holy families on earth.

And yet there came a day when his mother, Mrs., obviously Mrs. Wesley's mother, gave him a book written by a Scotsman, Henry Scoogle, written about a hundred years before Wesley was around. It's called The Life of God in the Soul of Man.

And that's what salvation is. It's not coming to an altar and confessing and getting baptized. There's millions going to hell like that. Ninety-five percent of the students in the schools, he said, they quit church.

They're not born again. That's as stupid as a man getting married today and divorced tomorrow. What in God's name has the world got to offer me as a substitute for the presence of Jesus Christ? What has he got to give me compared with the joys of eternity?