Gethsemane's Cup — Leonard Ravenhill

Passion Week and the Resurrection Hope

In the so-called calendar of the Church, this week is named Passion Week. And next Friday night will be what we call Good Friday. But I want to step it back and consider the experience of Jesus in Gethsemane tonight, and next Friday night, God willing, we'll sing hymns on the Resurrection.

Again, we're not saved by the death of Christ. That shocks a lot of people. They kind of perk up, you know, and feel there's a heretic in the pulpit, but we're not saved by his death. Paul says we're saved by his life.

If he isn't living tonight, we're sunk. He had to die, but he had to rise again. He rose, he died for our sins, he rose for our justification. All right, let's read from the Gospel as recorded by Matthew in the 26th chapter.

Jesus and His Disciples Enter Gethsemane

Verse 30, they had just drunk and eaten round the table of the Lord. Well, Jesus here had been with his disciples and they had sung a hymn, which undoubtedly was a great hallow. Those majestic songs that have never been superseded.

You can say all you like about praise and adoration, whether you're charismatic Pentecostal or Presbyterian or Methodist or what, nobody has ever succeeded the praise of the psalmist. He extols the Lord.

If ever I wrote a tune, I would write it to lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors. I feel that that's a great resurrection hymn. That they'd sung, when they had sung a hymn, verse 30 says, they went out into the Mount of Olives, and Jesus said unto them, all ye shall be offended of me this night, for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered abroad.

But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. Peter again, you know, always got an answer. Peter said, though all men forsake thee, I will not do it. Verse 35, Peter said unto him, though I should die with thee, yet I will not deny thee.

Verse 37, he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then said he unto them, my soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto a death. Now, would these smart boys that say there's no sorrow and hardship, would they accuse Jesus of lacking faith?

If everything comes in answer to faith, he says he could do nothing in one city because of their unbelief. Now, why didn't Jesus overmaster their unbelief with his faith? You can think about that for a while after.

Then said he unto them, my soul, verse 38, is exceeding sorrowful even unto death. Tarry ye here and watch with me. And he went a little farther and fell on his face and prayed, father, saying, and prayed saying, O my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. Middle of verse 40, saith to Peter, could he not watch with me? Because he came and found them asleep. Verse 42, he went away again the second time and prayed, saying, O my father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.

And he found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. And he left them and went away again and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then he cometh to his disciples and said unto them, sleep on now and take your rest.

Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Now look, between that and the next verse, those possibly hours. But notice the infinite mercy of Jesus. They'd failed him once, twice, three times in his darkest hour.

And yet verse 46 says, rise, let us be going. Behold, he is at hand that betrayeth me. So Jesus waited patiently while they slept in the most critical hour of his life. Ah, you may not agree with me, that's all right.

The Church’s Spiritual Sleep

But I believe that's exactly what the church is doing now in the most critical hour, since she was founded, she's sleeping. And therefore failing her Lord in this most critical of all critical hours in history.

These are the very men who one day came to Jesus, and as I've said, and not facetiously, they didn't say, Lord teach us to sing. They didn't say, Lord teach us to preach, though he was a master preacher.

Think of the Sermon on the Mount. They didn't say, Lord teach us to heal the sick. They came and they said, Lord teach us to pray. In other words, we've heard John, that they were kind of suggesting, John doesn't touch the heights that you touch.

Now it's amazing, there is no record in the Scripture of Jesus ever praying with his disciples. He prayed for them, but I don't know that he prayed with them. It's like Dr. Tozer going to church. When he went to church to the prayer meeting, nobody dared pray, because they were afraid it would look so bad.

And then he would pray, and after he prayed, nobody dared pray. Because he prayed, not just with a vocabulary that was more expressive, but he prayed in a dimension, in a depth, in a height, that left everybody floundering.

The Day of Atonement and the Glory of God

You know, waters to the ankles, we're only just in this business. And I think this is the most awesome thing ever that Jesus did, apart from the cross. But they fell asleep. Now in the old economy, in the old Hebrew economy, you know, the priests entered, they had a Day of Atonement.

And on that Day of Atonement, the high priest, not a priest, but the high priest. Again, a man could be a soldier in Israel when he was 20, he could not be a priest until he was 25, he could not be a high priest until he was 30.

It's a sign of maturity, perfection. Again, the walls of the ark were 30 cubits high. The house that Solomon built, the walls were 30 cubits high. Again, Jesus did not preach until he was 30, nor did John Baptist, nor did the Apostle Paul, nor any of the great men.

It's a sign of maturity. And on this auspicious occasion, the high priest goes into the sanctuary three times on the one day, the only other 364 days he could not enter, he went into the sanctuary three times on that day.

The first time he went in, he went with some incense and he went with a vessel with fire in it, I suppose we call it a kind of a lamp. And he went into the darkness and he threw the incense on the fire and a cloud of glory filled, or at least a cloud covered the mercy seat.

Now, I haven't read this, but I think I'm right in saying it. If I thought I was wrong, I wouldn't say it. But I think it was at that moment when he made that offering that the Shekinah glory of God came down.

Now, this is totally false to us. We do not understand the Shekinah glory. Again, in the outer court, there was daylight. In the inner court, there was candlelight or seven-branch candlestick. In the Holy of Holies, there was no light at all.

It was totally black unless the glory of God came. I get an ache in the pit of my stomach or somewhere else when I go to church and immediately someone says, Let's all stand up and sing a real rousing chorus.

Well, I've been listening to noise, blaring automobiles, and guys going past with every bit of pressure coming out of their radio, on the car, and others. I think it's time we learn to be still and know that he's God.

You may not. You're much younger. You've got hotter blood, maybe. But it still is. It does not alter the fact. I guarantee you could count on one hand or maybe one finger the last time you came out of the sanctuary where you were subdued with the glory of God.

You were awed with his majesty. We just came home last week, you know, on this past week, and I said to my wife, Well, we'll have a backlog. I have a backlog of mail, actually, till about Christmas, and there'll be some more.

Knowing the Presence and Holiness of God

We've been away a few days, and we've been away three weeks in the Bahamas. And we'll just have a cup of tea, and I'll get down to business. And a fellow called me, and he said, I'm at last days picking up some tracks.

I must see you. We're going to drive all night. Got a 19-hour drive to 150 miles or something the other side of Atlanta. I said, All right. I'll give you 15 minutes, which I gave him, plus two hours and something else.

He stayed three hours. But I've never seen two young men, two young ladies, people more hungry. And he said, This has been life-changing tonight. And all we did was talk about the holiness and the majesty of God.

Oh, mercy, he said. I never think about that when I go to church. You know, it struck me very funny today. No, it's not really funny, but it's critical, really, that millions of people this Sabbath day will go to God's house, but they don't know the person that owns the house.

Would you go knock at somebody's door, a house, you didn't know, you knock at the door, and the fellow says, What do you want? I don't really know. Who are you? Well, I live in this house. And yet people are content to go Sunday after Sunday and never meet the owner of the house.

Just atmosphere, just emotion. So the high priest went in the first, and he took that incense, and he took the fire. The second time he went in, he went with blood for his own sins. And the third time he went in, he went with blood for the sins of the nation.

Now, as I see it, Jesus entered only twice, as it were, into the holy place, and one is here in the Garden of Gethsemane. You know, things that used to be scientific fantasies a few years ago, when I was a boy, have become actual, commonplace.

If you had told your grandfather, maybe you did tell him years ago, that you could sit in a room, and in a million homes in America, you just press a button like that, and in a million homes, at the same split second, you can see the president behind his desk.

He would have thought you were... something wrong with your head. Wouldn't it be wonderful if that picture actually travelled from one city to another city, and you got it, say, 15 minutes later in Dallas, and you got it here, and then you got it two hours later over in California, but at the same split second.

You see, it's really magic. It's really miraculous. It's a scientific miracle. And, you know, when people are always saying, Oh, boy, every time I pick up the newspaper, hear the news, I hear about the Middle East, I think about the coming of the Lord, I think about this, that, and the other.

Well, I'm not saying that's wrong. I think often we get distorted. I think we get fascinated with events rather than the Son of God Himself. If you're more excited about the coming of Jesus than you are about the presence of Jesus, you'd better do some thinking.

It's His presence that matters. But we get caught up in things like that. Rather than realize His majestic presence. Now, scientists told me years ago that over the earth there's a sphere, which I understand is an envelope, an envelope, if you want it that way, of ether belting the world.

Here's, this is the world kind of thing, and there's a, all around the world, there's I don't know how many miles of ether. And that ether has been a trap. This scientist says every word that has ever been spoken audibly is trapped in that ether.

And just as you switch a knob, and isn't it amazing, in your automobile, automobiles are like sitting in the front room now. They're lush, plush, comfortable, and you switch the music on and get this and get that, get the other.

You'll be able to turn a dial and nothing has ever perished. If you like, you might be filtering through, turning the knob, and suddenly you hear Adam and Eve talking in the garden. Plus, you hear God talking in the garden.

Every word ever spoken, every audible, oh, is that why the book says that every idle word, and as a matter of fact, every other word that man speaks is going to come back to him? It's all locked up there in space.

The Prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane

Now, supposing you could have your choice tonight to hear all the things that have ever been said since Adam talked in the garden with the Lord. What would you choose? Would you want to hear Mark Antony's oration over Julius Caesar?

Or Hannibal talking to his elephants going over the Alps? Or would you like to hear the original declaration, which must have been very wonderful when the President of the United States at that time gave that famous Gettysburg speech?

After all, the man before him spoke for 120 minutes. Abraham Lincoln spoke for 120 seconds. Do you know the name of the man that spoke two hours before him? Can you find that speech anywhere? You can find Abraham Lincoln's speech in books in Russia, England, anywhere in the world.

A majestic speech. It must have been wonderful to hear him give it. Would you like to have heard Isaiah when he cried, "'Woe is me, I'm undone Or Moses when he spoke to the rock? Or maybe that wonderful Sermon on the Mount?

You know, I tried to filter through this afternoon and say to myself, if I had just a 10-minute speech out of the Word of God, what would it be? Well, my choice would be this. I would just... I'm not sure I could bear it, but at least I'd ask for it.

And I would ask to hear the prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. I think it's the most wonderful thing that human lips ever uttered. You know, these brave... We've all done it. All to Jesus I surrender.

We've sung it over and over. And then during the week, when it's a choice between this and that, we choose that, not him. Prayer meeting? Well, not tonight, it's wet. Some other choice. How easy it is to be apparently sincere and yet really hardly knowing our own hearts because it's emotion that stirs us to say, yes, Lord, look, all this bunch, you can't...

I mean, you can't trust Thomas, you know. He's got a streak of doubt in him and John's a bit weak, but me... Peter, I can meet them all. So if you get into a jam, you know this, that Peter is behind you all the way.

Well, he wasn't, was he? Now, this is... This is a non-repeated... It's a non-repeated act, like everything Jesus did. The virgin birth has never been repeated. Gethsemane has never been repeated and it is unrepeatable.

It never will happen again. It doesn't have to happen. And then the death of Jesus is unrepeatable and the resurrection. We used to sing a hymn. I've forgotten the hymn book it was in. Go to dark Gethsemane, ye who feel the tempter's power.

Your Redeemer's come, watch with Him one little hour. Turn not from the world away, but learn with Jesus Christ to pray. Gethsemane. Do you know what the word really means? It means the oil press. It was just across the road from the place where they'd already sung that wonderful hymn.

They didn't have very far to go. And yet again they slept. The men that said, teach us to pray, had the greatest chance. Oh, I've heard people say, did you ever pray with Dr. Tozzi? Yes, I did a number of times.

Wasn't it wonderful? Yes, it was wonderful. I'd rather pray with a man and have my dinner with him. I prayed at times with some of the greatest men in the world and I remember their prayers more than I remember their eloquence and their brilliance.

We don't pray from our minds really. We pray from our heart. Jesus has come into this situation where, remember this, He's been under suspicion all His life. I think from the very day He stood up in the temple at 12 years of age.

Somebody says, you know that's Joseph's kid if they use that word, they possibly, that youngster, that cub, as they would say now, that youngster stood up yesterday in the temple with all the learned men, the arrogant saints.

I hope his father spanked him last night when he got home. 12 years of age he declared his mission. In fact, when he was born he was under suspicion because the city was divided, Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him.

And just a little pocket, an old lady, about a hundred, Hannah the prophetess and Joseph and Mary and Elizabeth and Zechariah and maybe there weren't 12 of them but believed, here he is, here's the salvation of God.

And the Romans were suspicious because they said, somebody born king of the Jews, we can hardly keep those miserable Jews down now. If they've got a king they're going to fight, now we're in trouble. Trouble was his companion from the day he was born until he ended up there on the cross.

And in the most critical hour when he needed that companionship they had failed him. And I say again, this got to me today. I believe this is the most critical hour in history and the church is playing games.

Jesus at least expected they would be praying and they're sleeping. Dear Lord, as I read this again and I thought how he waited for them. He could hear them maybe snoring and turning over and thinking yes, another hour, maybe another hour, the daylight will come.

And you wake up, you've been through the most amazing night in history and it passed over you like that. And you know, I think we're doing the same thing very much in the church. Just Sunday again, so we go to church Sunday morning, oh with a lovely choir and a nice pastor and we love a nice time.

The Cost of Following Christ

We need to make a statement like Peter and live with it. Do you remember a little later Jesus said, look, if I wanted to do I could get out of this. I said to you before and I say to myself often, I believe the perennial challenge of the believer is this, come down from the cross and save yourself.

Other people are not fasting like you fast. Other people don't spend as much time in prayer. Other people don't husband their money and use it and give it to missions. Other people are not investing for eternity like you are.

Why be the oddball? Everybody in church says you're a nice person but they think you're a fanatic. Behind they say she's gone, you know, she's gone overboard. Hmm? You notice nobody ever says you can get too rich.

No one says you can get too well educated. But oh, be careful you don't get to be too spiritual. See the main trouble if you get too spiritual is you'll show how unspiritual they are. And that's what they're afraid of.

They're not afraid of your spirituality so much as the fact that they're kind of a withered branch that hasn't got any fruit. Jesus has been, I say again, here he is in the garden. He says, I could call twelve legions of angels, he says a bit later.

A legion, a minimum of a legion is five thousand and the top number is ten thousand. Let's make it five. And he says he could call twelve legions of angels so that would be sixty, wouldn't it? Sixty legions.

One angel in the Old Testament, well in the second book of Kings, chapter 19, don't look now, killed a hundred and eighty-five thousand people. One night, one angel killed nearly two hundred thousand.

Well if you take twelve legions of angels, if every angel, sixty thousand angels, killed two hundred thousand people, it comes to about eleven billion people. In other words, Jesus could have wiped out the human race and started the whole thing over again.

So am I wrong in saying that here is a garden, we sing it was alone, the Savior prayed in dark Gethsemane, yes and no. Yes, he was alone, he was deserted. The disciples had let him down badly. Three years of teaching and they were still dumb.

Am I wrong in saying that he wasn't alone because here there are millions or billions of angels watching on to see what's going to happen? And at the other side there are billions of demons watching on to see what's going to happen?

This is the gateway not into just the greatest tragedy. It was not a tragedy. Well, it was tragic in the sense that men had no more sense than to deal with him this way. But you remember that Herod said to him, listen you watch your step because I will take your life from you.

And Jesus looks at him so calmly and says, no man takes my life from me, I have power to lay it down. And when it comes I'll lay it down and you know what, I'll take it up again. You know, that must have shocked him.

I'd like to have taken his pulse after he heard that. He must have been dithering saying, well I'm not going to get rid of him. Is he going to pull some magic? You see, they were suspicious of him because all through his life he'd shown dominion.

He reverses every law. He comes into the world without a father. He walks on the water. Nobody else has done that that I know of. He had power over demons. He cast out devils. He had power over sickness.

He had power over insanity. He raises Jairus' daughter from the dead. And he raised Lazarus from the dead. And I think underneath there's a great suspicion here that Jesus is going to pull something off.

In fact, I'm quite sure about it. For how, why, why do you send sixteen soldiers to guard a tomb? Hmm? I'll give you my picture next week, next Friday night on unsealing that tomb. But let me remind you of this.

The tomb was not, the stone was not rolled away to let Jesus out of the tomb. He was out a long while before that. The stone was rolled away to let the disciples go in, not to let him out. But again, I remind you, after three years of tutoring that there wasn't one person.

I think that was the greatest shock in the life of Jesus. I think this shocked Jesus that they went to sleep. I think they often shocked him by their unbelief and bad attitudes. But the resurrection morning when he'd broken the gates of death, when he'd led captivity captive and given gifts unto men, and there wasn't a single person there.

Mostly I would have thought blind Bartimaeus would have been there. I would have thought the woman in the well would have been there. But come on, don't look so conceited tonight. How many times do you wake up in the morning, even Sabbath day or any day and say he's risen, he's alive, and because he's alive I shall live today?

Don't blame the world for not believing it. Every day should be a celebration. We're not of the world. How's the weather today? Do you think I need an extra coat or something? What's the traffic like?

Oh, it's the twenties jammed up just before you get into Dallas and something else is wrong. And you know, we get as much junk loaded on us as though we were just ordinary folk. We're not ordinary. You may be, but I ain't.

Christ’s Majesty in Gethsemane

I'm extraordinary. I'm a prince with God. You're a princess with God. Why sweat about the world and what it's doing? We don't have to get victory. We should have victory already in Jesus Christ. Now here he is alone in Gethsemane.

The disciples have come to sleep. What do I see in him? I see his majesty. We think of majesty just in a sense of authority. Well, as I've said, he's already celebrated that majesty. Power over death.

You talk about trying to teach your children. What do you say? For the thousandth time I've asked you to say thank you or please, because you don't have children like that. They're going over the lake and it's a horrible lake.

It's shallow and so the wind whips the water up very quickly and suddenly they think the boat's going down. And they jump on Jesus and shake him and say, Don't you care that we perish? Well, isn't that the essence of selfishness?

Wouldn't you have thought they'd have said, Master, we're afraid you're going to drown. No, don't you care that we perish? Huh? Little me. Lord, turn all the world upside down for me. For me. Put everything in order for me.

Oh, dear, dear, dear. How earthbound we get. We think on the level of others so often. I see here the majesty of Jesus. What did he say? No, there's no guesswork about this. He shall be offended of me this night because the shepherd is going to be smitten.

He walks into the jaws of death because that's what he's doing actually. There's no nervousness. There's no lack of assurance. For this purpose I came into the world. I've been preparing for 33 years for this supreme moment in my life.

That's a long time to go to school. But he went to the school of the Father. There's no happenstance. There's no guesswork. Do you believe is that true in your life? Or are you a football for the devil to kick around?

Are you a dead leaf for the winds of change to blow you around any corner? Or are you stayed upon Jehovah as we sing? This is my career. I've been training for 30 years. All that you've seen is incidental.

It's all periphery to this one fact that right now here's the supreme ministry that I have. And he stands there in solemn majesty. I guess the devil and demons are looking down. And I guess they were saying that the odds are against us very much because we've never beaten him.

I wrestled with him 40 days in the wilderness. He beat me every round. I faced him at death. He beat me at death. I faced him with a paralyzed. Every disorder that Adam brought into the world he put it back into order.

That word majesty comes from a word magnum which actually means awesome strength and awesome power. Not in the sense of an earthly king. Something far beyond that. Not only do I see him in his awesome majesty but I think of the thing that we shun so much loneliness.

Loneliness, Suffering, and the Grief of God

My dear sister called me two weeks ago. She's just about 80 and her husband had died that morning. She lives in a nice little cottage there in England and I kept saying to Martha well she'd be pretty lonely.

They'd be married 50 years and her husband's a good preacher and he's gone. People shun loneliness but when that loneliness is something you don't deserve when people have sworn their allegiance to you and so forth and so on and you wonder that for once the crowds are not there.

They weren't going after bread. They weren't going after healing. Why? Why? Why? Isn't there an easy point of satisfaction in our lives? Huh? I talked with Dave Wilson about an hour today. I'll tell you what happened a little later.

And as I listened to them I thought yeah there's the awesome wonder of the gospel again but as we sang tonight that brother chose and I was going to choose it to start with but the Lord must have wanted it anyhow.

Years I spent in vanity and pride and the psalmist said he lifted me out of a horrible pit. Now look some of us were deeper down in that pit and some of us were not. I was brought up on the clean side of the road in a good old Methodist home.

I wasn't in the pit but I was going to the pit and the pit I was going to was far worse than the pit I was lifted out of. Do you think that God gets lonely now? Do you remember the scripture that says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever?

Well if he was disappointed and disgusted with those disciples in the garden of Gethsemane do you think he's disgusted and disappointed tonight? Oh let me ask you this he wept over Jerusalem the city he loved so much.

Do you think he's weeping over his church tonight? Some of you have read some of Gordon Olsen's work and I couldn't find it I'd like to have read it but I'll turn it up. He has a section on which he speaks on the grief of God.

Well if Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever if he's touched with the feeling of our infirmities then surely he must look on a church which is disgustingly unlike the New Testament church.

We don't compare with the New Testament church we contrast with it it's day and night. It's life and death. It's a regimented turn God on at eleven o 'clock turn him off at twelve o 'clock turn him on at seven o 'clock Sunday night turn him on Wednesday night.

That didn't exist in the early church. It didn't exist for at least a hundred or more nearly two hundred years two centuries after the church was born. I suggest to you though Gethsemane I guess is not mentioned in John's epistle gospel that read John.

Would you read John this week? Well read all the different versions of the crucifixion that read John. You see the way the Bible said that we have Matthew, Mark, Luke and John then the Acts of the Apostles then the epistles and we get it in our mind that this is divine order.

No it's not divine order. That's the way men put it. The last thing that was written the last gospel that was written or the last version there aren't four gospels. There's one gospel told by four different people and the last version the version by John was written after the epistles and then he has three letters and he was unlearned and ignorant.

You know he did pretty good didn't he? For an ignorant man he wrote the most profound thing ever written is the fourth chapter. Is the fourth gospel as we call it the gospel of John. And then he wrote three epistles that makes four books.

And then to prove he was stupid he wrote the book of the revelation which is pretty good going isn't it? But you see we kind of think that the epistles are more important. No they're not. No the epistles are only an expansion of the gospel as John presented it.

If you read John the first chapter and the first 18 verses you read everything that's in that book. The rest is an expansion of those first 18 verses of John chapter 1. But you see we're getting away.

We're still getting tied up with gifts. And you go to some meetings. All you hear is prophecy prophecy prophecy prophecy prophecy miracles miracles miracles. And all the time we're missing the most essential things.

Miracles won't save you. Prophecy won't come to you in a time of trouble. It's the son of God himself that we need to know not the doctrine of the son of God. The person of the son of God. My goodness.

What a difference that would have made in the lives of so many people if they just understood more of the son of God himself. Ok. So then as it was with him so it will be with us in this world. Can you see him there in Gethsemane.

No visible audience. The disciples away there sleeping demons looking on angels looking on the father looking on. Read the 22nd psalm when you go home psalm 22 is the psalm of the cross. Psalm 23 is the psalm of the crook that is the shepherd's crook which he lifts sheep out of the hole with.

And psalm 22 is the psalm of the of the cross. Psalm 23 is the psalm of the shepherd's crook. And psalm 24 is the triumph the psalm of deliverance loneliness. It's a good school to go to. One of the young men said to me the other night if you if I were your son what seminary would you advise me to go to.

I said none. I said well that settles the problem. Anyhow. What would you do. I'd get two volumes the big two volumes on the life of Whitfield. I'd get that big volume of the Christian incomplete armour 1128 pages that takes a bit of digesting.

And I would get the life of John Song. And I'd get the life of little Sammy Morris from Africa. And one more. What was the other one there. Oh Tolstoy's book. There's another one I was thinking of there.

It's just been reissued by Banner of Truth Fair Sunshine. It'll show you about the young men that many of them died before they were 25 years of age for doing nothing else but preach the gospel. One of them didn't go to bed for two years.

He slept out on the moors in Scotland. It's pretty lousy up there because I've been through that country and it's miserable inside. Never mind sleeping on moors need knock on a door in the middle of the night.

Now it's for a crust of bread. One of the great saints. They were persecuted by the English until 1665. I said take the summer off. Work as little as you can on work. Go to a farmer and say give me bed and bread.

I don't want any wages. I want to start at 8 in the morning finish at 5 at night put my head under a pump and wash the dust out of my hair at the end of the day. And I said you read those books. You let those two volumes of Whitfield see how God made that amazing man.

You'll have about 1200 pages. Balance it by reading the Christian Incomplete Armor which you can get up at Agape right now $25. It is nice little book and get the others. John Song has been reprinted by Banner of Truth.

Don't be nibbling at all these little magazines that come around that don't say much. They're all rehashing little stories and there's no meat in them. And there's nothing that gets under your skin and makes you feel unworthy.