Fire - Prayer Meeting (Cd Quality) — Leonard Ravenhill

We recognize our praises and adoration must be very feeble compared with that of the angels. All those beings who cease not to say, by day or night, holy, holy, holy. Lord and Lord, we need to see in your majesty, in your holiness, in your beauty.

We think of the millions who have gone to shrines today, to strange gods, even when carvings are hurried and formidable. They've gone with sincerity, they've gone with desires to find answers that they never find.

But we thank you for our Lord Jesus Christ. And we call you our father because he called you father. And because he is the son of God, we are permitted to be the sons of God. And he does not appear yet where we shall be, but we know that when we see him, we shall see him as he is.

We think of that company that has gone before us. No computer in the world can estimate how many millions of Christians have lived and died. Some of them got through the pearly gates, blood-stained, disfigured, dismembered.

Of whom the world was not worthy. We think of the brief life story of Antipas in their world. And all we are left with of the record is Antipas, my faithful martyr. Lord, we think how easy is our lot compared to theirs.

We come to this house tonight well nourished, with people who love us and care for us. And Lord, we thank you for that love that will not let us go. We recognize, Lord, there was no beauty that usually desired us.

We were disfigured and rebellious. But we thank you for the love that drew salvation's plan. For the grace that brought it down to man. And for the mighty gulf that God did span at Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free.

Pardon there was multiplied to me. There my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary. We thank you for all who are proclaiming this gospel tonight. Even as we pray all over this nation and other nations.

We thank you for those who have sweated and toiled in jungles. Shot dangerous rapids. Lived in an atmosphere that's almost untenable. With food that's almost uneatable. With people strange and fierce.

And yet the love of Christ constrains them to go. And take this message of redeeming love. We have indeed, as the old song says, we have a story to tell to the nations. We've been very cloudy about it.

Two thousand years after you died and rose again, Lord Jesus. Most of the world, three quarters of it is un-evangelized anyhow. As we come into your presence tonight, we ask you again, teach us to pray.

Give us a praying spirit. Give us a loving spirit. Give us a compassionate spirit. Give us a desperate spirit. We can say truly with the disciples tonight. Because of the need we have and the world has, the church has.

To whom shall we go? For thou hast the words of eternal life. We thank you, Lord, for this generation. Crooked and perverse, perverted, rebellious and rotten it may be. But we remember Hebrews 7 .25 says he is able to save to the uttermost.

And we bless you for those who are declaring that glorious message tonight. We pray again as we turn to your word. As we sang our word. Beyond the sacred page we seek thee, Lord. We're not seeking a theology to fight somebody else's theology.

We want to know thee by living power and splendor and glory. Whom to know is life eternal. This is a blessed, blessed privilege. We thank you for that happy day that fixed our choice. We've seen all the master we want.

There's no other Lord we want to serve. As your word says, other Lords have had dominion over us. We won't even mention their names. They would even pollute this atmosphere tonight. But they have dominion over us.

Over our hearts, over our affections, over our intentions, over our purposes. We thank you for the day when you snap those fetters. As we sang another hymn again. When shall all bondage cease? Because not many of us can make a legitimate claim to bondage tonight.

Not that we want to. But there are some who have no message of deliverance of the heart. We pray, Lord, that your word may live and move in us more and more and more each day. Get glory out of this service we ask in Jesus' name.

Thank you. Be seated. We're going to look into the Panic Gospels recorded by Luke. The third chapter. I suppose most of us can quote John 3 .16 without looking at it. How many of us can quote Luke 3 .16 without looking at it?

It's the other side of the coin. It should be as well known. Well, here it is, in the good King James Version. John 3 .16. John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water. But one mightier than I cometh, for light ye to loose shoes, I am not worthy to unloose.

And he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. And in this version, Holy Ghost and with fire. But the original says, Holy Ghost, fire. Because God is consuming fire. The Holy Spirit is a spirit of fire.

And Jesus said, I'm come to bring fire on earth. There's no escaping fire. It's a kind of a cliche of mine, but I still get a lift out of saying it. I believe that tonight the world is going to hell fire because the church has lost Holy Ghost fire.

It's as simple as that. Again, there's an awesome gap between Malachi and Matthew. It's a period of 400 years of darkness without any prophetic light. And then like Halley's Comet, it was mentioned Halley's Comet, or Halley's Comet, which is supposed to be around.

Somebody saw it the other day, 300 ,000 miles above the earth. Somebody has good eyesight. It's streaking across the sky even now. John Baptist came streaking across the sky that was totally black, but he was incandescent.

The word says he was a burning and a shining light. Jesus, the greatest character either in history, says there was no man comparable to John Baptist. Not Isaiah, not Jeremiah, not any of those towering saints.

He's a very, very remarkable character. Again, between Malachi and Matthew, you have 400 years of blackness without any prophetic light, 400 years of stillness without any prophetic voice. And then suddenly, dramatically, unexpectedly, this strange man appears in the wilderness.

It was not only a wilderness geographically, it was a wilderness morally. It was a wilderness politically. It was a wilderness religiously. You see, you go back here, and you read in the scripture about Ezra and Nehemiah, but actually they'd left a legacy.

Between Ezra and Nehemiah, they established a governorship over Israel made of 120 priests and rulers. 120, does that strike a bell? No? You don't have bells, all right. 120 they established to rule over Israel.

What about the other 120 that came up? Untrained, unlettered, unusual men who without financial backing or organization turned the world upside down. I said this was a jungle theologically. These priests and elders ruled over Israel for 150 years, not living that time, but with an interchange of priests and Levites and rulers.

For 120 years, 150 years, they dominated that nation. In 170 B .C. there was a man with the strange name of Antiochus Epiphanes. You need to look up his name and his relatives. He took Jerusalem over.

He polluted the temple. He made the Jews sacrifice to idols. He built a statue of Jupiter where the burnt offering should have been, on the altar of the burnt offering. Jupiter, remember, was the name of the Roman god.

They changed it to Jove, an imitation of Jehovah. He did everything he could do to obliterate the message of the Old Testament. For instance, he cut the throat of a swine on the high altar to bring condemnation, he thought.

He burned the scriptures publicly. And all this horrendous stuff went on. He prohibited the worship of Jehovah. Remember, in 37 B .C., Herod the Great came. He betrayed the nation to the Romans. He fostered immorality.

He massacred the noble people. He built that magnificent temple that we're standing. Now with this horrendous background of murder and rape and debauchery and suffering and agony, John the Baptist steps on the stage.

Again, a remarkable character. You see, today we try to organize. We try to get a bunch of people together. God never did that. God takes single men. They may be married, but they're single men. Or I should say, better, individual men.

He takes Moses to the back side of the desert. John the Baptist, the word here tells me that he was in the wilderness until the bearer is showing forth. 30 years in the wilderness. Jesus was 30 years.

The Son of God, who had left the glory for 30 years in training to minister. John the Baptist, 30 years in training. The Apostle Paul, at least 30 years. Moses, at least 40 years. And we want to go to Bible school for six months and come out like a super prophet.

It's the time factor that kills most of us. Tell me how much time you spend alone with God and I'll tell you how spiritual you are. Not how many meetings you go to, not how many gifts you have, not how many sermons you preach, not how many records you've made.

Tell me what time you spend alone with God and I'll tell you how spiritual you are. The word here tells me about this remarkable man that John the Baptist was in the wilderness until a bearer is showing forth.

Going forth at the command of God, of course, himself. He's a remarkable man, Jesus said. I should think he is. Let me tell you what it says about him. It says in this which chapter? The first chapter of Luke, in verse 41, It came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leapt in her room, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.

When? When she met Jesus. Where was Jesus? In the room of his mother. Immediately she came into the presence of Jesus Christ, she was filled with the Holy Ghost. It says in verse 67, His father was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied.

It says a bit further on, in verse 25 of chapter 2, Behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, and his name was Simeon. The same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Ghost was upon him.

And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. So this remarkable man, no wonder Jesus says he's a superman. His mother was filled with the Holy Ghost, his father was filled with the Holy Ghost, and his preacher was filled with the Holy Ghost.

You young people, you get married, that's all right. You know what they say, marriage, love is blind, marriage is an eye-opener. But apart from that, you say we're considering having a family, we go get examined.

The doctor checks us up and says, yes, we're in prime health, this is the time to have a child. What about it? You go to God and ask him if you're in condition to have one. Very often a child takes on the nature of its parent at the time of conception.

John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb, his father was filled with the Holy Ghost, his preacher was filled with the Holy Ghost. No wonder he was remarkable. But then he was in the wilderness of all places, until the day of his showing forth.

It says he had his dwelling amongst wild beasts, ferocious things. The remarkable thing to me, as I wrote this again, today is this, he had no role model. Elijah says, make me God, make me like Elijah, but give me a double portion of his spirit.

Joshua had Moses as a role model. Timothy had Paul as a supermodel in front of him. And right through the scripture, you find these men that have lived with some giant and they become like him. But this man has no model before him.

What did he do wandering on the rocks? He ate wild honey, it says. And he was with wild beasts, and he was a wild man. It gives you a kind of a rundown on the awesomeness of this man's ministry. He was filled with the Holy Ghost.

Look in chapter 3. This first verse is kind of amusing to me. I really don't know why it's here. Luke 3 .1 The fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being the Tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip the Tetrarch of Arturia, and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the Tetrarch of Abyria.

That's about as refreshing as a mouthful of sand, isn't it? What in the world do you do with it? Except it gives you a framework. Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests. That's illegal. They could only have one high priest, and they've got two.

Then came John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. He came unto all the country round about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Boy, that's a dirty thing to preach these days.

Who preaches repentance? There's an old hymn that says, Repentance is to leave the sins I've done before, and show that I in earnest grieve by doing them no more. Sin is more than saying I'm sorry. Repentance is mental.

It's something in my mind. I'm going this way, and I turn that way. When I'm going this way, I say God's in the wrong, and I'm in the right. When I turn around, I say God is in the right. If he sends me to hell, he's in the right.

I repent of that. It's not just repenting for the sin I've done. It's repenting about the motive that made me do the sin. It's going out past the fruit to the root. Because if the root of corruption is there, there's going to be fruit coming out that's wrong.

Doesn't it say in, well I didn't check it, I think it's in Romans 7, it talks about having your fruit unto holiness, and it's talking there about regenerate people, not people who claim to be filled with the Holy Ghost.

And John goes out and stands and ministers there. And they come to any success anywhere you count it. Geographically, they come from the north and south and east and west. Is it success? If you like, socially.

Here's a big difference. Let me emphasize it here. In this third chapter, let me finish. I missed a good point here. Verse 6. All flesh shall see the salvation of God, and they bid it in his day. Then he said to the multitude that came to be baptized in him, you generation of vipers.

Isn't that pleasant? Do you know anybody that dares stand up in the first Baptist or the last Baptist church tomorrow morning and say, you generation of vipers, I'm sick of talking to you. They'd sure take a love offering for him, wouldn't they?

To get him out of town. All generation of vipers, we want you to flee. We want you to flee from the wrath to come. He was not only condemning their sin there, he says there's a gate there. And when you get through it, it's eternal wrath from God.

We've forgotten about the wrath of God. If I told you last week, whether I did or not, I'll tell you this week. My neighbor, he's preaching, he usually sits there, Jacob, he's preaching in England tonight.

A friend of his told him it's in the bumper speaker and do you know what it said on it? Jesus is coming and he's as mad as hell. Sacrilege? No, scripture. 2 Thessalonians 1 says he's coming in flaming fire in judgment on this world.

In other words, he's as mad as hell. It may be a bad way of putting it, but it's the truth. You see, we're all looking for gentle Jesus, meek and mild. The attitude of the average Christian today is relax and be raptured.

But he's coming with flaming vengeance on this world. There's a time when his spirit runs out. Here is a man filled with the Holy Ghost, filled with the fire of the Spirit of God. I was looking up there, let me look back here a minute.

In Exodus 33, if you take care some other time, not now, you'll find fire in the third chapter of Genesis. When those wicked people sinned in the Garden of Eden, what was put there? A cherubim. You know, seraphim is only mentioned once in the scripture, that's in Isaiah 6.

The cherubim are always on the defense, and God put cherubim there at the Garden of Eden so they couldn't get back. He barred the way with fire. In the third of Genesis, in the third of Exodus, you'll find fire.

Now, I confess to you, I get angry about this thing. You see, the symbol of the church of Jesus Christ is not a cross, that's pagan. You can wear it on your chest. It's easier to wear a cross than bear a cross anyhow.

Stick it over a church, stick it on your tombstone. It is not Christian, it's pagan, it's cruel. It was the most hideous form of death known in the world, and they put the holiest man that ever lived on a cross and mangled his body there.

And God watched his son being mangled and did nothing about it. He'd watched men put to death today in Russia and elsewhere, and he does nothing about it. There's going to be a day of the vengeance of God, and when God gets angry, you've no idea what it is.

It's like a thousand volcanoes exploding. He has appointed a day in which he's going to judge the world, and the poor blind world doesn't know much about it, and the poor blind church doesn't think much about it now.

Okay, in Exodus 32. Imagine, these people have been delivered again and again and again. God had done miracles for them. I ask you in God's name, what did miracles do for them? Did it strengthen their faith?

No, they didn't believe God. God sent them angel's food every day. God allowed an ant to split a rock in the water, follow them where they went. Did he do anything for them? Their shoes didn't wear out in 40 years.

Their clothes didn't wear out in 40 years. They didn't get sweaty either. And yet, though they ate miracles and drank miracles and saw miracles and preached miracles, it didn't do a thing for them. They were still unbelieving.

God gave America its day of miracles. When I first came to America in 1950, all kinds of folk were there. A. A. Allen was there with a 10 ,000-seated tent, packing it out. Otto Roberts was on the road.

Miss Kuhlman was on the road. A. A. Allen, Jack Cole was on the road. There were dozens of men with 8, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10 ,000-seated tents. God gave us miracles. Did it redeem us? Did it change us? It became a form of Christian entertainment.

Well, look at this for a minute here, please. In Exodus 32. When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mount, and the people gathered themselves unto Aaron and said to him, Up, make us gods which shall go before us.

For this Moses, that man that brought us out of the land of Egypt, we want not what is come of him. And Aaron said unto them, Break off your earrings which are on your ears, and so forth. Verse 3. And all the people break off their earrings which are in their ears.

Verse 4. He received them at their hand and fashioned it with a graven tool. And after that he made a molten calf and said, These be thy gods of Israel. And they rose up early in the morning and offered burnt offerings.

And the people sat down to eat and drink. Go over to chapter 33. And verse 2. I will send an angel before thee, and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, the Jebusite, and take you to a land flowing with milk and honey.

Verse 5. Therefore the Lord said unto Moses, Say to the children of Israel, You are a stiff-necked people. I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment and consume thee. Therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee.

The children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments at Mount Horeb. And Moses took the tabernacle and pitched it without the camp. Get the point? He took the holy place out of the midst of that crooked and perverse company.

Tell me, why didn't God Almighty give them a system of worship? Why didn't He give them a tabernacle? Why didn't He give them priests? Why didn't He give them sacrifices? Why were they in Egypt? They were living in slavery.

They were living in hell. And God let them stay there. Because you see, there is a time in God's calendar, and He doesn't reveal it to us always. But what happened here? Moses took the tabernacle and pitched it without the camp, or far off from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of the congregation.

And it came to pass that everyone which sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of the congregation which was without the camp. And it came to pass when Moses went out into the tabernacle, for all the people rose up and stood every man at the door and looked at Moses, he was gone.

And it came to pass as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended. It was a pillar of fire by night, and a pillar of cloud by day. I said to someone this week, if you were in London going past, where the Queen, where does she live now?

Oh, she lives in Buckingham Palace. And somebody says the Queen's at home. How do you know? Because that huge flag up there has a Union Jack on it. When it's at home, the flag is flying. When she's not at home, it's not there.

I believe the sign of God's presence in a sanctuary is the pillar of fire. Well then this person said, well I've heard it said it's a pillar of joy. Well doesn't it say in His presence there is fullness of joy?

That's not eternity. The reason our kids need so much entertainment in churches, there's no joy of the Lord there. It's more than clapping our hands on your feet and feeling sweet and sugary on the inside.

It's the living vibration of an eternal God who stands in the midst and there's something you can't explain. God is beyond definition. I can't explain Him, I can't experience Him. I know when He touches me when I'm alone in the night, in the middle of the night, two or three o 'clock in the morning.

I know when His living presence comes into my office in a special, special way of anointing. But notice He did not come until they went outside the camp. There are very, very few occasions when God Almighty has revived dead denominations.

He did it in the Welsh Revival for sure. But the men who stir that generation have to go outside the camp. Doesn't it say in Hebrews 13, 13 that He went outside the camp? That's fine, but when it comes to the second half of us, you go outside the camp and bear His reproach.

Maybe before long God will bring a cleavage somewhere in this city, in this great town of Tyre, I hope He does. And you'll have to get outside the camp. You'll have to leave your group and go join the people who have the anointing of God.

They may be penniless and poor and have no stained glass windows and no beautiful choir. I detest going to churches where, oh, they all come filing in in white shirts and I wonder if it's the Ku Klux Klan coming in.

I'm impressed with this, you may not be, but I am. Dear, dear, dear. Verse 9, It came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, a pillar, a cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle.

And all the people saw the pillar. Wouldn't it be wonderful? A little boy wakes up at night and says, Mummy, sometimes I think of those days we were in Egypt, I think of that terrible journey we made, and I wonder what's going to happen.

And he said, Darling, and puts her arms around him and says, You see that, that pillar of fire over there, that's the holy place. Our holy God brands it with his presence of fire. Does it say in Hebrews that God makes his angels ministering spirits and his ministers flames of fire?

We've got snowmen in the pulpit with icicles hanging all around. If ever a fire comes, there'll be some melting. I say again, this man, J .B. has no pattern before him. I'll tell you what he does have.

I'm sure his mother and father are the most godly people on earth, filled with the Holy Ghost. Do you think they told him funny stories? They did what the godliest people on earth outside of Christianity do, the Jews, still instilling to their children who their prophets were, who Moses was, who Elijah was.

But they have the greatest men in history. I believe this man walked up and down amongst the wild beasts and there he is. He doesn't eat much. Some big flies, you know, a bit bigger than these horrible things that eat my garden, grasshoppers.

Big, big things, he caught them like that and put them on a rock and roasted them. And three times a day he had locust burgers. Nothing else to eat except locusts and wild honey. And the people come near to hear him.

I'll say it again for my comfort, if not yours. You never have to advertise a fire. Whether it's spiritual or it's a physical fire, you never... The most self-advertising thing in the world is a fire.

I remember getting home between one and two o 'clock in the morning in England. I said to my wife, Sweetheart, one of the big mills in town is on fire. Let's go, it's nearly two o 'clock, there'll be nobody there.

Everybody in the city woke up with the same idea, so they all went. We couldn't get within three blocks of the place. I said, sweetheart, we'll go round, we went round in our little car, you know, those tiny little things.

When we got halfway down the street, it was so fierce we couldn't even stand there. The fire was so horrible. In its majesty, this huge mill burning. I wonder how many of you have really seen a man who's on fire for God.

I reminded you the other week again that when the Holy Ghost came in the upper room, how did he come? Did he come as a dove? When Jesus received his baptism, the Spirit came as a dove upon him. There was nothing in him to purify.

He comes to us in fire because we need purification. I remember a night in Jillingham, which is maybe, I don't know, 60, 70 miles east of London. We rented a church. I'll tell you who came. If you've read The Smuggler, God's Smuggler, you know, he talks in there about a man called Uncle Hoppy.

Well, Uncle Hoppy hopped in the meeting that day. He came in the most broken down automobile I've ever seen. He was nuts. Pardon the phrase, but he was sanctified nuts. He came in clothes that were almost worn out.

He bought all his clothes at the Salvation Army. The only thing he wouldn't wear second hand was a hat. He was afraid of getting some germs or something in his hair. This old car came wheezing up the street, rheumatism in all the wheels, and asthma in the motor.

It was sobbing and groaning as it came up the hill. He stayed with us for a half night of prayer. One day a missionary came to see him. It was Friday, and he said, Well, do you have a need? He said, Yes.

I need 10 ,000 pounds, which is about, at that time, $50 ,000. Oh, I've got that in my safe. Here it is. Take it with you. Because he had two or three hundred men working for him, he gave all their wages away.

Next morning they came for wages. He said, I have no money. They said, We have to pay rent and buy food. Oh, he said, I'll pay Monday morning, and the money came. He did that two or three times. He was wild.

But I liked him. I was so tired of seeing tame creatures in England. You know, they wear their collars backwards way because they're going backwards way. You know, I used to wear my collar like that. You wouldn't believe it.

Once I started going forward, I took it off and went forward, you see. I'll never forget that night of prayer. There was surges of blessing. There was a time when God so came in power, I was afraid to open my eyes.

We started praying at nine o 'clock. Between one and two in the morning, we were going out. There was an old lady sitting in a chair at the back, a wheelchair, a white-haired lady. Oh, brother, she said.

She didn't know any of our names. Wasn't it wonderful? I said it was. One of the best prayer meetings. I've been in many prayer meetings. That was one of the greatest, most powerful. Wasn't it wonderful?

I said, sure, I said that. Did you feel anything different about one o 'clock? I said, yes, I felt a hand or something came. I felt a quickening in my... It was just then. Just then what? You didn't see it?

No, no. I was my head down praying. She said a tongue of fire came on the head of the first man, went to the next, went to the next, went to the next, went to the... Right to the end. It was awesome. No wonder every one of us felt a mighty insurge of the life of God.

Or the power of God, define it as you will. You see, there's a great deal of difference between revival and evangelism. I'm so sick today. I hardly read any reports that come to me of meetings. Everybody's getting half of America saved.

If you save all the lists of people saved, everybody in America has been saved and filled with the Holy Ghost about six times over in the last ten years. The whole population. And yet we're as dumb and dead and as damned as we were when we started off.

Will you come? Oh, we'll sing for you, dear. You just... There's no one in the world but you. There's room at the cross for you. So they come with tears, jerking and forget all about God and everything in ten minutes after.

You want to know what preaching is? Study this third chapter in the Gospel of Luke. And when you've read that, read the 26th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles where Paul is standing before a heathen king in a pagan court.

And he says, God call me to preach. This is preaching. He summarizes it. It's to open the eyes of the blind, to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified.

People come to the altar. Meet them at the door. Ask what happened. Oh, I confess my sins. There's not one evangelist in 15 America today preaching salvation. They're preaching forgiveness. Just come and get forgiven.

That's not salvation. Jesus came to do more than forgive us our sins. He came for something more to rescue us from hell. He came to rescue us from sin and from sinning. Not just our past sins but to stop this damnable business that makes God so sad.

He that is born of God doth not, and it's a big letter, N-O-T, not commit sin. You say it's impossible to sin? No, it's possible for it not to sin. They're making a fuss about getting the Titanic up now, aren't they?

It was built in Ireland. Sailed in 1912. 1 ,500 people perished on it. Well, I've been on the greatest liners in the world, across the Atlantic nearly 20 times. And in some terrible storms. The first time I looked at the Queen Mary, I don't mean the lady, I mean the ship.

There's the deck 80 feet up there, and I thought, this thing will never move. When it got to mid-Atlantic, the sea showed how powerful it was. It tossed it around like a rowing boat. 82 ,000 tons tossed around like that.

I knew it was possible for that ship to sink. Not impossible, I knew it was possible for it not to sink. It crossed the Atlantic more than 500 times. You know, when people say, well, my pastor says you have to sin every day, ask him to give you a list of your sins you can commit.

Give you a list of the sins you can commit, and a list of the sins you can't commit. What can you commit? Sins of the flesh, but not of the spirit? Sins of the spirit, but not in your thought life? You see, this is the only religion in the world that gives a man deliverance from sin.

John the Baptist priest, let me go back a minute there. The tongue of fire. What happened? Peter preached on a day of Pentecost. What did it say? They were pricked in their hearts. After that, Stephen preached.

We've had him two Friday nights, and I don't know if you got blessed, I didn't, in the meditation. And when he preached, the same thing happened. Peter on a day of Pentecost says to the man that he ran away from, you crucified the Lord of glory, you killed him.

Stephen says, you murdered the Son of God. Now that's preaching. You know, when Nathan went to David, he didn't say, you know, some of you are guilty. Did he? He said, thou art the man. All people say, I'd love to go to a Holy Ghost church.

Would you? Somebody says, hey, fella, listen, last night you committed adultery. You embezzled some money this week. You've got a spirit of hatred, which God says is as bad as committing murder. Again, Jesus came not to save us just from sinning, from sins, but from sinning.

When they heard these men, they were pricked in their hearts. I'll go back into this second chapter, pardon me again, in the third chapter. Verse 7, the middle of verse 7, he says, O generation of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Bring forth fruit meat for repentance, and quit saying we have Abraham to our father. Isn't this nice? He called them vipers, and now he says, God can do as much through stones as through Abraham. Don't bolster Abraham.

If God wants, he'll turn those stones into children to worship him. That's pretty much exhausting their theology, isn't it? Now verse 9, he says, The axe is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore, bring forth good fruit, as it is honed down and cast.

If it bringeth not forth good fruit, it is cast down and cast into the fire. And the people asked him. He didn't ask them. They were so conscious of guilt, they felt as though they had some serpent or the tail of a scorpion stinging them.

They didn't look back because of their sins. They didn't look forward because of judgment. They didn't look round about them. Somebody might come pouncing on them. And so they cried out. This is revival.

It's not singing some sentimental chorus. Would you like to come? Jesus is waiting, ringing his heavenly, and heavenly will be so upset if you don't come. Jesus didn't care a hell of beans whether you come or not.

He's done everything he can do for you. You have to do the rest. He's not going to whip you into submission. He's not going to demand that you sing love so amazing, so divine, demand my soul, my life, my all.