Hunger and Thirst — Leonard Ravenhill

Spiritual Distraction and the Formation of Children

In Isaiah 22, there's a figurative speech that I'm always interested in, it talks about a nail fastened in a short place. And since some of the folk are doing some building, we know that the only way to get a nail fastened in a short place, you keep hitting it on the head, keep knocking it in.

And I want to knock a nail in a bit further. Last week we did mention about TV, and it's, I was going to use a long word, I won't, it's a disastrous effect on children, but I noticed a review that had been taken quite recently, and I was very shocked, I'll tell you this, to discover that the average American school child that leaves school at the age of 18 in the average home has watched television for 22 ,000 hours, while it's only had 12 ,000 hours of education.

So it's had 10 ,000 extra hours of TV to what it's had in education. And then there's a booklet that's published, taken mostly by teachers I guess, on English and so forth, and they ran a test, asking children between the ages of, I think it was 6 and 11, what new words they'd learned on TV.

What new words have you learned recently on TV? And the surprising answer was they'd learned 15 new names of brands of beer. They'd learned 13 new names of cigarettes. They mentioned one detergent commercial 110 times.

Well what does that mean? Well it means just this, that it shows the impact, the constant pounding of another nail on the head that gets a thing into the mind of your child, and of course again, as we said before, the intellectuals so-called argue that you get 80 of what you see you remember and 80 of what we hear we forget.

I sometimes think I forget more than that, but there it is. And so then you, it's up to you, as I say to you younger folk, with your younger children that don't, for goodness sake, help to pollute their minds and get things into their minds that it will take years and years and years to get out.

Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness

I was going to refer to something else, but like now I'll leave that. Blessed, again the Sermon on the Mount, this week it's verse 6, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.

It seems that very often we read this as an alternative, blessed are they who hunger or thirst. But it isn't hunger or thirst, it's blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness. The more I read of the Sermon on the Mount, which again I say is the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest man that ever lived, I see it more majestic, I see it more tremendous than ever I've seen it before.

Again this is the second Sermon on the Mount. The first Sermon on the Mount was the one that Moses had and he brought the outline of the Sermon in the Ten Commandments. I noticed when somebody asked Jerry Ford recently if he intended to keep the Eleventh Commandment he said it will do well if we keep the first ten.

Well I wish they did, but there you are. But the Lord Jesus here, it's so simple, it's so simple and it's so beautiful we pass it. At least I have. Seeing the multitudes he went up into a mound and said where had he been?

It's always reasonable and logical to ask that, well right before that he'd been in the streets. Where had he been before he was in the streets? He'd been in the river and he'd received his baptism. Not a baptism like you and I have.

The Holy Spirit, Spiritual Gifts, and Spiritual Fruit

I was in a church recently and every time I turned there was a great big dove. And it says that the Spirit as a dove, it doesn't say that, not one of the four Gospels says that. It says the Spirit likened, you cannot liken God to any creature.

It was likened because there was a flashing of light and to them it resembled as a dove. Again we've said that the dove has nine feathers on, nine main feathers on each wing. Nine gifts of the Spirit, nine fruits of the Spirit, they ought to balance.

You can't get round on one wing, not even in an energy crisis. You've got to use both wings. And we're overboard in some areas on one wing. It must be gift, gift, gift, gift, gift. And that in writing to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 12, Paul says he gave this gift and to another this, and to another, and to another, one gift around.

That doesn't mean no folk can't have two gifts, but I'm telling you what this gift just says. He never said that about the fruits of the Spirit. It doesn't say he gave to one love, and another joy, and another peace, and another long suffering.

You could get to heaven without any gifts of the Spirit. I'm convinced of that. That is in the sense that we've stressed it. I don't say you have to, you could do. I believe there have been millions of people on the streets of glory, that partly because they were not taught about it true enough, and this is of course a responsibility to Jesus, but you can't get there without the fruits of the Spirit.

I've never met a person yet who had all the gifts of the Spirit, but every believer ought to have all the fruits of the Spirit. You see, even when you've done, and you can talk as much as you like about two natures, which I don't agree with, except with a spiritual nature and a human nature.

But don't tell me that the Carmel nature lives till the end of time. If you do, then Calvary is no more effective than the Hamadan nature. You're telling me that God is omnipotent, and you say sin must reign in the body.

You're telling me that the blood is not totally powerful. You're telling me that whatever came in by the first transgression of Adam, the last Adam, not the second, but the last Adam can't put out. And I'm quite sure that the last Adam can put out.

Whatever was brought in by the first Adam. The fact is that all the fruits of the Spirit are there for us. And every fruit of the Spirit could be manifested again in every life. The fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, meekness, goodness, temptance, praise.

Okay, there they are. And I believe again that God desires that every one of those fruits should be in every one of our lives. So we're saying this again. Jesus had been there in the water and the Spirit as a dove.

Pentecost, Purity, and the Transformation of Peter

God never promised to baptize like a dove. The symbol to us, the Church, was again, I say sometimes about the cross. The cross is pagan. The cross is not Christian, it's Roman, it's cruel. The symbol of the Church, though we wear it around our necks and put it over our graves and so forth, but the symbol of the Church is not a cross.

The symbol of the Church is a tongue of fire. On the birthday of the Church, the Spirit as a tongue of fire settled on each of them. That reminds me, I'm getting old, but I remember we had a night of prayer down outside of London one night and there was a dear old lady there about 82 or 83 years of age with snow white hair.

And she looked like somebody that I couldn't quite figure out. Then when she told me, I recognized she was a very duplicate of John Wesley. She traced her ancestors back to Wesley. Now, we were praying in that meeting and I'll confess we were desperate men.

We were in a desperate situation. And when we prayed, we used to take our coats off, you know, and we used to fight when we were praying. Hit the tables and really cry to God. Shed our tears, who cared anyhow?

Somebody once said to one of the men, you know, God isn't deaf. Don't need to shout like that. He's not deaf. And he said, no, he's not more of a cipher. If you can clap your hands and shout and sing, why can't you shout and weep and groan and do anything else you like if you trap alien spirits?

But the lady said this, do you remember a certain thing happening about half past one this morning? And I said, yes, that's in a wheelchair. And she said, do you know what happened? A tongue of fire came at the beginning of, and she said, do you know what happened?

A tongue of fire came at the beginning of that communion rail where you were kneeling and it went from head to head to head to head like that on all the seven men who were kneeling there. Then it went away.

I didn't see that. I felt something, but I certainly didn't feel it. But the spirit came on the believers in that upper room as a tongue of fire. The least emphasized teaching on the Holy Spirit today is on purity.

It's all power. It's all miracles. But when he came to describing what happened there in the upper room, Peter reporting in the house of Cornelius said in Acts 15, 8 and 9, and God who knows the heart, nobody else knows it but God.

I don't know my precious brother's heart. He doesn't know mine. My wife doesn't know it. Nobody knows it. You don't know it. Only God knows the heart. But God who knows the heart, there then, that is in the upper room, bear them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us, says Peter, and put no difference between us and them.

And immediately we say, well there you are, they got the gift of tongues because he said no difference between us and them. That's not where he finished. Purifying their hearts by faith. The Peter who went in the upper room was one Peter.

The man that came out was a different Peter. The man before the upper room was the man who pointed, when a girl pointed a finger, ran away. Do you know what he did after he'd been in the upper room? He pointed his finger at all the great preachers and archbishops who said, you crucify the Lord of glory.

Why? Because God purified his heart. God had taken away the weakness. God had taken away the fear of man. God had taken away his own ambition and desires. There's a lovely hymn written by, was it Theo Monod that wrote the hymn, All the bitter shame and sorrow that a time could ever be, when I said all of self and none of thee.

And in the next stanza he says, less of self and more of thee. And in the final stanza he says, none of self and all of thee. Now I don't know where you are in that hymn. You do, I don't. But until we get to that place, all of self and none of thee.

We're not where he wants us to be. Now I say Jesus has come with the anointing upon him. And immediately after he was anointed, he was led of the spirit, not led of the devil. And this again hit me forcibly last week.

I'd never thought of it. You could have thought of it 20 years ago. I'm too slow. But it was after David was anointed to be king over Israel that Saul persecuted him. I don't know how much Jesus was tempted before that anointing.

But I know after he was tempted, he was shut up for 40 days there. And tempted in all points from A to Z. Tempted physically. Tempted sexually. Tempted to take a shortcut. Tempted in every way. Why? Because Satan knew something of what Jesus Christ was going to accomplish.

Repentance as the Beginning of Revival

So Jesus has been there in the water. The anointing is upon him. He went into the street and he began where John Baptist began to preach. He began to preach where Peter began on the day of Pentecost. There's not much of it done anymore.

Repent. As in a meeting not too long ago where everybody wanted the baptism come forth. No questions were asked. You want the baptism lined up. There must have been 200 people lined up. They were asked to raise their hands and people held their hands up and they were to say blah, blah, blah, blah.

Which to me is just blasphemous in any case. And on top of that they were never asked if they'd repented of sin. If they were in a condition to receive the Holy Ghost. I can't lay conditions down. God has laid them down.

And one condition is that we repent of all known sin. And not only repent of the sin we've committed but not want to sin anymore. That's a great thing. I can remember once when we were teenagers that somebody dropped a bomb on us.

We were used to preaching. We knew all the answers. You know like kids do. You sit in the pew and then somebody said look it's not a case of whether you say you're saved and you've had your sins forgiven.

If you thought you could get away with sin today would you do it? Pretty rough one isn't it? Supposing you're away from home, from your husband, from your wife, or where anybody knows you and a certain be setting sin you out.

You could do it and get away. Would you do it? The bishop who finally got King Edward thrown off his throne was Bishop Blunt of Bradford, England. And he was in a slum area one day asking children questions about the Bible.

And he mentioned the word saint. And then he said what is a saint? What is a saint? The boys were about 12 or 13 years of age. And finally the ragged boy at the back put his hand up flaming red head. He said well red head what did you say?

And he said in his dialect a saint is a bloke that's good when there's nobody looking. Has a pretty good definition. You know you can do a lot of things because you get applause for it. But in your inmost heart, shrine of your heart, am I am I a hundred percent loyal to him when there's nobody there?

You can manifest a gift just because it puts a halo on you. People clap and shout great. But but you do as much clapping and shouting in the secret place. You see that's where I'm known. I don't think God rates me according to my preaching.

If he does I'm in bad shape. I don't think he rates me according to what people think about my writing. God rates me according to my secret devotion with him. My love Christ with him. The time I feel like saying with the woman who got his feet or Charles Wesley says it beautiful in his hymn.

Oh let me kiss thy bleeding feet and bathe and wash them with my tears. When I pour out my love to him. Oh you can do it. A while ago a famous Englishman was preaching in Boston and the and the news reporter said he prayed a magnificent prayer.

It was possibly the greatest prayer ever offered to a Boston congregation. Isn't that something? He thought it was tailor-made not to go up but go sideways. How impressive it would be to these people.

You pray in this dimension all the time. But again as I've said previously there's one sure thing about the coming of the Holy Ghost. If you didn't get your prayer life revolutionized you better go and pray and get along with God and find out why.

But I believe one of the most dramatic things. Number one is that he empties me of sinful self. I don't want self anymore. And the second thing is I develop a prayer life. I have never met a man who got a deep experience of the baptism of the spirit that didn't find his prayer life absolutely transformed.

Assurance, Wesley, and Justification by Faith

All right Jesus had been there the anointing had been upon him from there he came and cried repent. John said the same thing before him. Peter said the same thing after him. All revival begins there. There is no revival.

There never has been revival without repentance. John Wesley preached more on repentance amongst believers than he did on any other subject that he had. He preached more on assurance to believers. A blessed assurance.

If somebody asked you if you had assurance how would you try to explain it. But he said this is the greatest need amongst sinners to present the fact they can have an assurance of sin forgiven. After all that was the thing that moved him.

Remember when he was coming over the Atlantic with Peter Baller and the other Moravians and a storm blew up and it looked as though the ship would go down. They wouldn't let a ship like that go up a river these days.

The board of trade would be against it. It was a little boat. One of those same boats George Whitfield crossed the Atlantic I think 20 times. I beat him on that. That's the only thing I beat him on. Crossed it about 25.

But he said he crossed the boat and I got the best part of the ship and he said I was only wet through about three times. It was the best part of the ship. No bugs. You just wrapped yourself in a cowhide.

Oh these days good night what creature comforts we have. I wake up some mornings and I say Martha dear I see you between us and Sammy's house is a patch of frost there. I remember John Wesley was preaching in Georgia and he wasn't even saved yet.

Bless him. I wish he hadn't lived like he lived. He embarrasses me. He was more spiritual when he wasn't spiritual than I am when I am spiritual. I mean he rose at four o 'clock every morning to pray before he was saved.

He fasted twice a week before he was saved. He said he was sleeping in Georgia. He'd come to the poor Indians and he said I woke up in the frost and couldn't move my head and he said gradually I pull one arm he slept in the mud in the wet and he got frozen to the ground.

He wore his hair down to his shoulders. He'd been fashionable today amongst the men. And he said I got one arm free then I pull my hair painfully out of the mud. He got it out. He said then I managed to pull my other arm free.

I released one leg and then the other. And he said I was coated white with frost. And I brushed it off and raised my arms and sang praise God from whom all blessings flow. Most of us would have headed for Florida.

We'd have needed six months to recover from. I mean you know you could have written a book on that. My sufferings for Jesus in the forest away there. And he took it all in stride. Why? Well you see he was in quest for the very thing we're talking about.

He was really hungry and thirsting after righteousness. And when that ship was nearly going over and Peter Bowler was as calm in the storm as anywhere else he said I don't understand it. Well what makes you so calm?

I've got assurance. Assurance? Well I stopped powdering my wig he said. I don't powder my wig. I don't buy expensive wigs either. And he said I fast two days a week and I do get up early in the morning to pray but I have no assurance.

And then you remember he says about a quarter to nine on the 24th of May 1738 I went somewhat unwillingly to Aldersgate Street and about a quarter to nine he had a flush. Was it was it pietim maximus?

The the Catholic theologian in Belgium said all he had was a fever. Well I wish the Lord would send a plague of fever then to America. That's what we need if if it'll change your heart like that. But it wasn't a fever.

They tried to explain but he said about a quarter to nine. And you know what I believe? I believe the world has been warmer ever since. There's a man of impeccable morality a man of monumental theology.

He's the greatest scholar around maybe in his day. But he said as they were reading Luther's commentary. They hadn't even got into the commentary commentary. They were reading the introduction. He said suddenly I realized justification by faith and I got assurance.

They beat him with sticks and they threw bottles at him and they put threats on his life. But it never shifted him. He got assurance. He was steadfast and unmovable and always abounded. And often when I think about him blessed assurance.

I think boy Wesley would have enjoyed that. He got it. You know there was no shifting him around. He didn't let his feelings fool him. He didn't let other people fool him. I got it. I know in whom I have believed.

Got assurance I pass from death unto life. Well then Jesus said the gateway to that is repentance. Well then he'd been in the water out of the water. He walked the streets out of the water. He sat down on the mountain.

Jesus as King and Teacher on the Mountain

There's nothing in it is there. I think it's majestic. I think it's fabulous. Why should he sit on the mountain? He's no right to sit on the mountain. Why? The rabbis sat. But the rabbis only sat in a place.

Some of it's plastered with holy water or they said this house is dedicated. Preach holiness in the street on the side of a mountain. A man talking about a kingdom. He hasn't got a penny in his pocket.

If he's a king where are his where's his crown? If he's a king where are his soldiers? If he's a king where's his castle? If he's a king where's his kingdom? I think there's something fantastically sublime and I'm going to thank him personally when I see him.

So if you see me saying something special to Jesus you know I'm just thanking him for all the courageous things. Jesus was in my judgment 10 feet high you know fantastically courageous. After all who would go into the temple the last day the great day of the feast of at least 6 ,000 people in the temple.

At the time when there's a massacre when 6 ,000 were injured. And Jesus stands on in the very spot where they poured water out every day reminding them of a rock that was open and he said you forget it all I'm the water of life.

See he doesn't take courage to do that. You tried anyhow. You go to the Vatican when the Pope's finished saying his little bit you step in his place and say that old bachelor doesn't know a thing. I want to tell you I know in whom I have believed and I'm saved and I know it and I'm filled with the Holy Ghost and I know it.

You might get pitched out of the Vatican anyhow but then by the same token Jesus was courageous and I think this is a tremendously courageous thing. He has no blessing from the hierarchy. He isn't asking for a handout.

He didn't say to the Pharisees do you mind sitting on the right hand and the left hand just while I get started as a preacher. You know it's awfully difficult when you've been known just as a carpenter.

I mean everybody knows me as a guy that makes coffins and yokes for animals' necks. They say what is he? Who does he think he is? It's a big change isn't it? From hiding yourself and saying nothing and watching a funeral procession going down the street when you knew there was a resurrection and the life and you didn't do a thing about it.

And suddenly he leaves a hammer and the nails and everything else and he sits on a mountain and he says come disciples the rest of you stand up I want to tell you something. And he says he taught them.

That's a new word he hadn't taught them before. You say was you just said he said repent. Well he wasn't teaching there he was preaching. You've got to preach before you teach. You've got to awaken them before you can instill truth into them.

And so he is he's taking a whole new sphere here now for the first time he's the teacher. Now for the first time he he's manifesting himself. Do you ever wonder when his mother must have how many times she must have wondered when he'd say I am the son of God.

You say a woman can't keep a secret you'll lose if you say that. Mary kept one all her life. Would you like to try and make an explanation or pardon me you would like to keep silent when a boyfriend says well she's pregnant.

She won't say a word about it. I wonder who I wonder what's in this place. Most of us want to fight to vindicate ourselves but I mean don't let any cloud come on you know walks up and inspect me or dispel all the ideas people have and there she is.

She goes on and doesn't say a thing about it. And Joseph he's going to get a hero's part up in heaven too for all he did. We don't say too much about Joseph. I wonder when even at the wedding you know I think she thought well this is the time he's going to show himself.

You know you know how many interpretation we put on that wedding in the Cana of Galilee we put all that you see Jesus showed his power he came walking to wine that's why he was there. I don't think he was there at all.

The only thing she was itching to say son son tell them you're the son of God. Why was it done so that people would believe on him I don't think so to give him prestige you didn't need it. Why did he do it?

From that moment the disciples believed on him. That's always his motive when he does a thing first and foremost for his own for his disciples they believed on him from that moment. They had their doubts and fears afterwards sure enough.

But now here he is he's on the mount. He sits down as I say he's running counter to the established system that takes some doing you try it. You thought they've been to foreign countries know that. I had a guy wrote me the other day and he said you don't stress enough what the church should do in politics and this that and the other.

I thought brother you go to Russia and stand up in Main Street and start blasting and see how far you get you have a bit of a job wouldn't be. Easy to be a hero in America particularly in an easy chair with your feet up and a bag of Fritos and a coke.

You can really turn the world upside down. But when we meet hell head on the next day it's a different situation isn't it. And I'm praying and maybe I'm crazy but I've been told that many times because we're surely a very real minority in our little fellowship here that I'm praying God will somehow make heroic Christians out of us.

I don't know how he'll do it. But that's what I want to I want to be heroic. I'm tired of pure Christianity. Yeah of course you can spell out pure a few ways too but I'm tired of pure Christianity. I want to see some heroic Christianity.

Meekness, Spiritual Habits, and the Armor of God

As I said last week as we talked about meekness. Meekness isn't self-pity you know. People don't understand me. But on the other hand they don't realize my potential. No no no it's it's not that kind of joke.

As I said you could say the fruits of the spirit like a wardrobe and you need to put a different garment on each day. Some days you need power you better get clothed with power. Get to know God's mind before seven o 'clock in the morning what's going to happen that day and clothe yourself with what you need for that day.

One day you need more meekness than you'll need another day. Another day you'll need more patience. Another day you'll need more power. And then it says above all put on charity. That that's the overcoat on top of the whole deal.

Let's be adequate in God for the situation. And then he says he opened his mouth. Well you can't talk otherwise can you? But he doesn't mean it that way it means he spoke with authority. Again I say to you when if if you've taken a wheelbarrow to Jesus and he repaired it a few weeks before and now you see him sitting up there teaching you just scratch your head and say well what's gone wrong with this fellow?

Well I mean they began asking questions. When's half this man letters? He's never learned. He's no degrees. He has no clerical papers with him. I used to have some. I have my R .E .V. in England. It's registered in the Supreme Court of Adjudicature.

It's as valid as the Archbishop of Canterbury. Only he framed it. I I fired mine because it didn't give me any standing with God. And I thought maybe a bit of paper might even make me conceited. If you have them keep them that's okay.

But Jesus had no credentials from anybody. He'd just been a fellow mending carts and mending doors and helping folk put a house up or something and suddenly appears with authority. Suddenly appears and he says I want to tell you this is the kingdom of God.

He opened his mouth and he spake blessed. And we said that while this word has been toyed with and we we've tried to fit it into happiness it does not mean happiness in the way we talk of happiness. Happiness comes from the word hap.

That's what it says in the dictionary. Old Nord didn't know everything. I mean don't mean the other Nord. I mean Nor Webster. But he says it comes from hap. Hap. Happenstance. By chance. There's no chance about the things of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's not speaking about blessedness in the sense of happiness. You see this is this is the age of happiness. It's the age of Aquarius or somebody they say. But everybody wants to be happy. That's why you have more comedians making money than anybody else.

You go into a meeting somebody comes in with a bit everybody happy. Supposing you walked on the platform and said everybody holy. You'd think you're in the morgue. Nobody breathed. You wouldn't hear a thing.

The pursuit is happiness. That's a pursuit in so many meetings. Happiness. One of England's greatest preachers said that if you preach and preach certain stuff you can pack the house to the rafters. But if you teach and you can be one of the he says is one of the greatest preachers in London at this time.

He said I can draw his crowd away by giving illustrations and making people happy. And they learn more he says in humility by teaching than they do by preaching. Jesus taught them. Blessed. Blessedness is an abiding disposition given by the indwelling of the Spirit of God.

As I said last week and say again simply this that it's like having a thermometer outside of your window and having a what they call the thing inside. Thermostat. The thermometer is kicked up and down with the weather.

My thermometer one morning one day it's 35. These days I think yesterday or it was cold yes it was the day before and it's about 70. Poor thing goes up and down up and down like a yo-yo. But if I set my thermostat there it doesn't go up and down.

It says you're not changing me I'll change you. Now do circumstances change me or do I change them? Happiness depends on outside conditions. Blessedness does not depend on a condition it depends on a person.

Pursuing God in Secret

I'm a person who said I'll never leave the office safely. I try this dear brother I think deals with thought the other side of the iron curtain. I try to go behind the iron curtain every day of my life.

I sincerely do. I try to visualize I've been reading Gulag Archipelago. I got the second edition of that the other day which Gulag Archipelago took us to their prisons and now this this fellow takes us inside.

My good night we don't even know what we're talking about in Christianity. Theories pretty theories. You can go to banquets till you burst and maybe get no vision. Excitement yes. Miracles so what? You'll only see what you've seen 10 times over.

Why don't we start boring holes down in the word of God? I think so often when people start you know they go over the lawn with a lawn mower and maybe you're going over an oil well. There's a mountain in Australia and I remember it there because it's a very barren mountain.

The people that had it were Wilsons. My dear wife used to be a Wilson and I improved the name but she used to be a Wilson. The Wilsons owned all that estate and the grass was so bad that the the sheep couldn't live on it and finally they declared they were going to sell out and they sold out.

Somebody bought a geologist a lot. They checked it and found not too far under that ground gold, gold, gold. Those people had been nibbling a few sheep there and raising a few eggs and walking around and they were treading on a king's ransom.

Do you ever wonder what kind of shock you'll get when you get to the judgment seat of Christ? Haven't you grown up like that yet? Hmm? When God solves the book and says hey look there's the same book Wesley had, there's the same book Finney had, there's the same book.

You read little bits of this and little bits of that and all the revelation is yours as much as anybody else living. I absolutely refuse to believe that God has closed down his production line. That the best man he ever produced in America was undoubtedly as an evangelist I suppose Charles G Finney the brilliant lawyer.

He had a better statistic for abiding fruit than any man that lived in this country. Oh I don't know Tennant maybe had as much but anyhow. Did God do our production? It's all right saying these are the most exciting days that ever lived but the nations are closing up.

How are you going to get into Vietnam right now? How are you going to get into Laos? How are you going to get into Cambodia? Some people said more clear over a race horse that died a few months ago. Oh beautiful race horse worth three million dollars it died.

Broken leg. They haven't shed a tear over damned humanity for years. Where do we live? You live in meetings. People say oh that man's a hunger. You know it goes to meetings every night. Well in my judgment means you don't know much about God.

That's rough but I'm telling you the truth. I don't have to smooth you down. Any other preachers will do that. I rough you up a bit mate. If you're hungering for knowledge go to meetings every night. If you're hungering for God get alone with him.

What did you do when you were courting? Oh you go I'm going to so-and-so. That girl goes to that meeting. I'm going. But it came when a time when there was more than going to the meeting. You wanted to see her by yourself.

Oh you're thrilled when she stood up and sang a solo maybe. But one day you got to know and got her in your arms. Told her she's the loveliest creature in the world. Very different situation. Well by the same token I have to get alone with God and not only that.

God has to get alone with me. I have to take time to be holy. Prayer isn't that I unload on God. Prayer is that he unloads on me too. How many burdens do you think God has on the shelf right now he can't give to anybody?

Ever think of it that way? My yoke is easy. My burden is light. Who does God cast his burdens on? Cast them on some people. Because he says his yoke is easy, his burden is light. And if I'm going to come into this kingdom it isn't just to make me pretty.