The Financial Statement On a Paper Sack

The Financial Statement On a Paper Sack

by Tommy Tyson

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

And you know, it’s wonderful, isn’t it, that truth really has rippling laughter in it. If you heard the truth without the rippling of laughter, it would break you in two. God, when He really puts the truth to us, often lets us laugh, because joy is the oil of gladness that lets the truth slip down without choking us.

And you didn’t think Jerry B. wasn’t telling some truth. And if it’s hit you like it has to me, afterwards I didn’t laugh. It began to burst. And I just am thankful to the Lord for such a diverse expression of ministry as we’re having. We’ve never had it on this wise before. And I thank God. Isn’t it wonderful? Now let’s just pray together.

We love You, Lord Jesus Christ. We love You for revealing the Father to us. We love You for taking our place in death. We love You for sharing Your resurrected life with us. We love You for the gift of the Holy Spirit. We love You for letting us be members of Your body together. We love You because You have first loved us. And You love us into loving. And Lord Jesus, I want to thank You for everyone who’s here tonight. I thank You, Lord, for Your presence within and without. And I know it is Your desire to take every one of us and all of us together to hold us fast to heaven’s highest and make the best possible uses of us. And that’s what we rejoice in letting You do. And I thank You, Lord. Amen.

I’ve been saying that our Father has brought forth a new species of man in Jesus Christ. God’s creative purpose concerning you as a person and all of us as people, God’s creative purpose has been completed in Jesus. God’s creative purpose. And having brought that plan and purpose to its fruition, to its completion, He did not simply dangle Jesus before our eyes and say, “This is what I mean by normal humanity. This is what I mean by perfect humanity. And anything less than this is simply abnormal or subnormal.” And that’s us. Anything less than Jesus is subnormal. We are so bound to the subnormal that when the normal comes in, we think it’s abnormal. Just amazing, isn’t it? But God has not only, is not holding Jesus before us and saying, “This is normal humanity and anything less is subnormal. So just sit there and realize how subnormal you are.” God isn’t saying that. He has brought forth this new humanity in the power of the incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection, and has brought Him forth in such a way that He is omnipresent. You see, the glorious gospel of the resurrection is not an empty tomb, as wonderful as that is, but the glorious truth of the resurrection is a filled universe. We don’t go around looking for Him in a hole in the ground.

It’s not where He once was, it’s where He now is. And He’s everywhere. You can find Him anywhere. Or you can miss Him everywhere. He’s where you are. There He is. He’s where you’ve been, and He’s where you’re going. He’s there. His presence fills the universe. And as the omnipresent One, here’s the glorious, a part of the glorious reality. See, just as the Father really became one with us in the cradle, and yet retained the allness of His deity. See, that baffles us. When you begin to look at the incarnation with your mind, somehow you think Jesus whittles God down. And if you really think that the fullness of God is in Jesus Christ, in order to believe that, your mind says, well, that has to take away from God. But I want to tell you something. Jesus is not God whittling Himself down. Jesus is God lifting you up. You see?

And He’s not God becoming small. He’s God becoming one with us so we can be great. See? And so just as in the incarnation, God became man and yet remained God, lost nothing of His Godhead, in the resurrection, Jesus really becomes one with God and loses nothing of His humanity so that He is omnipresent, everywhere present, not just as spirit, not just as presence, but as person, as redeemed humanity, as the new man, and you can have all of Jesus all of the time without robbing anyone of any of Jesus any of the time. See, the Holy Spirit doesn’t break off a little piece of Jesus. You take this little dab, you take this little piece, you take this little piece, and then you put us all together if you haven’t lost your piece and we’ve got a completed Jesus. You know? No, it’s not that. The Holy Spirit doesn’t break Jesus up and minister Him in pieces. He gives the all of Himself to you. You can have all of Jesus. All of the time. But you can’t keep me from having all of Jesus. All the time. See, you can localize Him, but you can’t monopolize Him. Hallelujah. Nobody has a monopoly on Jesus. But you can know Him in His fullness. You can know Him in His resurrected glory.

And in the fullness of the Lord Jesus Christ, we know Him as we yield experientially. Not just theologically or philosophically or psychologically, but we actually know Him by the Spirit. Oh, even though St. Paul said, “We once knew Him by the flesh, henceforth know we Him thus no more.” There’s only one way to know the resurrected Lord of the universe. Because there’s only one power that’s great enough to make Him known. You’re precious, but you’re not great enough to make Jesus known. He’s too great for that. You know, we have glorious systems, but there’s no system great enough to make Jesus known. He’s too great for that. There’s only one power that’s great enough to make Jesus known, and that’s the Holy Ghost Himself. No man calls Him Lord save by the Holy Spirit. And so it’s as we come into the reality of the work of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ is made known. And the Holy Spirit has been given. God is no respecter for our person. God has poured out of His Spirit upon all flesh. That took place on the 50th day after the resurrection. God didn’t pour His Spirit out just on 120. God didn’t pour His Spirit out on just Christians. In fact, there wasn’t a Christian there.

There wasn’t a Methodist. There wasn’t even a Baptist. There had been one Baptist, but he’d gone on. There wasn’t a Catholic. There wasn’t a Presbyterian. There wasn’t a Methodist. Just a few Jews. You know? But God didn’t pour His Spirit out on just the Jewish race. God, according to the word that came on the day that they received, the spokesman named Peter stood in the streets of Jerusalem and said, “Ye men of Judea, why stand you here? This is the fulfillment of that which was spoken by Joel the prophet, saying, Howbeit, saith the Lord, in the last days I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh.” Now he said, this is the fulfillment of that. This is that which was spoken of by Joel the prophet. Howbeit, I’ll pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh. And when the Holy Ghost was given, though the Holy Spirit had been given in one sense from the foundation of the world, He’s one with God. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, even as Jerry B. has been saying. And though the Holy Spirit has been given in that sense from the foundation of the world, there’s a new dimension in the Christian experience of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has been given in a new sense to all mankind on the 50th day after the crucifixion, the feast day of Pentecost.

And so as the Holy Spirit was poured out, He was God’s gift to the whole human race. You see, when Jesus Christ was born, though He was born specifically of a Jewish mother, according to the prophecy that had come by God’s chosen people, the vessel was chosen not simply to exalt the vessel, but as a means for God blessing all mankind. The Jewish people made a mistake when they thought that the call of God on their life meant exaltation of the one who’s called. They did not know that God had called them to be a blessing to every man. They didn’t know that. Consequently, they made it sectarian and provincial and narrowed it down until finally it became almost impossible to receive the blessings of God that He wanted to pour out through the Jewish people. And so when the Messiah came, though He came according to prophecy that God had made through Abraham and to those following, He didn’t come just for the Jewish people, even at the pronouncement of His birth or concerning His conception, it was said that a light has come to lighten the Gentiles. That wasn’t after the resurrection, that was before His birth. A light that lightened the life of the Gentiles. He came as the light of the world.

He came for every man. He lived on behalf of every man. He died on behalf of every man. God loves all of His youngins. Everywhere. Anywhere. North Vietnam. South Vietnam. North Korea. South Korea. North Carolina. South Carolina. God loves all of His youngins. Everywhere. He’s no respecter person. All what God does, He does for all. One for all and all for one in the kingdom. And when God poured out of His Spirit, He poured that Spirit out upon all flesh. Now, only 120 received. You see, God does a lot of things for people they haven’t received yet. Just because God’s done it for you, that doesn’t mean you’ve accepted it.

God is waiting for us to catch up with what He’s done for us. He doesn’t have to run off and do it again. He doesn’t have to find a new way to pour out the Holy Spirit on your husband. As God’s already given the Holy Spirit to your husband. He doesn’t have to find a new way to straighten out the Methodist church. He’s already made provision for that. Or whatever your church is. You know? He’s already made provision for that. God poured out of the Holy Spirit upon all flesh, 120 received, because 120 had heard and accepted the promise, “Wait ye in Jerusalem, until you be endued with power from on high.” But immediately, 3,000 received following that. The next number we heard was 5,000. The next number was turning the world upside down. And then it looked like to me the Holy Spirit just began to break out everywhere. Cornelius, a little old Italian boy, who really wasn’t a Jew, wasn’t a Catholic. You see, Rome hadn’t developed into the church then. He was a Roman centurion, head of a charge of people over there in this farmed out country. But he was a very reverent spirit. You know, a lot of people think that you can’t be reverent if you really are, you know, really with it in terms of your theology. I’ve met a lot of people who I believe are sensitive and maybe transmitted more of heaven with mixed-up theology. That some of us would correct theology. Our old Cornelius really didn’t have his theology straightened out, but he had a hungry heart.

And God looks at the heart. Aren’t you glad of that? God looks at the heart. And Cornelius, with a hungry heart, prayed and offered alms unto God. And God said, “Cornelius, I’m sorry I can’t hear your praying.” No, He didn’t. No, He didn’t. I hear people talking that way. God knows how to pray. I hear your prayer. You need to worry about that. You may think you aren’t good enough, and you aren’t. But God hears you anyhow. So go ahead and pray. And so Cornelius prayed. And God sent an angel and said, “I’ve got a servant who’s been baptized with the Holy Ghost.” I’m paraphrasing. “And he’s over there at Simon’s house. In Joppa. The tanner. Send over there and get him. And he’ll come and instruct you.” And so old Simon, you know, had had that trance. You remember that one? Remember that story? Where three times he had the same vision. A sheet let down from heaven with all kinds of animal, four-footed beast in it. And a voice saying, “Take Peter, kill and eat.” And he looked it over and he said, “Lord, that’s not kosher. And I’m a Jewish boy. And nothing unclean’s ever entered into my mouth.” And three times he had that vision. And then the Lord said to him, “Call thou not common or unclean that which I’ve cleansed.” And so when Peter really accepted the vision on the inside, there was the knock on the outside. You need never worry about God moving on the outside if you let Him move on the inside. You get ready on the inside, the outside will come along. When Peter came into the line of the vision of heaven on the inside, the knock came on the outside. And then on the way to Cornelius’ house with these servants, the Holy Spirit interpreted. And oh, how we need to have visions interpreted. You know, heaven is so great. Heaven is so rich. Heaven is so wonderful that in order to get it coming to our understanding, it needs interpretation. I don’t take visions just literally as such without the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Visions and dreams and such messages from heaven need to be interpreted by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God. And so as Peter was going on, he was getting the interpretation. And by the time he got to Cornelius’ house, let me share with you the interpretation. Do you want it?

Are you ready for it? You’ll never be the same. You can’t really make excuses for yourself like you’ve been making them. I don’t know whether I’ll give you this or not. But Peter said to Cornelius at his household, told him about this vision, and said through that, God told me that I was to call no man common or unclean.

You want that one? You got anybody you think is common or unclean? You didn’t get that vision from heaven. Heaven never told you anybody was common. Heaven never told you anybody was unclean. And if anybody’s common or unclean in your book, you’ve heard from hell and not heaven. I want to tell you that. That ought to blow your brain and get you on your knees. It does me. Do you want to move in the Holy Ghost? Well, moving in the Holy Ghost is moving with the heavenly vision. It’s moving in the power of the revelation of God’s grace. And the grace of God that is in Jesus Christ is cleansing blood, forgiving grace, and the power of the holiness of the Lamb of God. Oh, it’s to realize that. Seth and May Hallowell are here. They were our neighbors in Goldsboro for a number of years while we were in Goldsboro. And never did anybody have such good neighbors. What wonderful friends. But I came to know Seth just shortly after he… I came to know him well. I’d known him before rather casually. But I came to know him well. Just as he was coming through a hospital experience. And where he was having to decide whether he was going to go the political route.

He was already in politics. He was our senator. Was that really… Was and is, I’m sure, the best loved man in that whole county. And Seth was being dealt with by the Lord in terms of his call in life. And he was spending a lot of time in prayer through this hospital experience. And Seth had a vision. He saw into the heavenlies by the revelation of the Spirit. And he said that he was… The first thing that impressed him was as if there were great mountains. Just heaped up mountains. And he looked and was given to know that these were mountains of forgiveness. That they were just… The heaven was just heaped up. With… For this kind of sin, here was a mountain of forgiveness. For this kind of sin, here was a mountain of forgiveness. And he was just overwhelmed with the reality of the forgiving power in heaven. Now that, that to me was an authentic note. And let me really know, Seth Hallowell had been hanging around Calvary. And had come into the heavenlies through the revelation of Jesus. No wonder, friend David du Plessis was given this wonderful word a year or so ago. To forgive, start forgiving everybody everything. Have… You want to move in the Spirit? Boy, this gets me. There’s some people I don’t want to forgive.

Old rascals. You know, they knew they were doing it. They’re just as mean to the core as they can be. And if I forgive them, they’re going to do it over again. And I’m not going to do it. Now, they made their bed, let them lie in it. I’m going to a sanctified Holy Ghost prayer meeting.

Let them go to hell. You know? Do you really want to move in the Spirit? Or do you really want the life of Jesus? This resurrected Lord Jesus Christ has poured His Spirit out upon all flesh, and as we receive the Spirit, it is not only to receive for ourselves the glorious reality of the resurrected Lord that we might know we are saved and we are forgiven and we are made one with God through Him, but we actually receive the Holy Spirit in order to make Jesus known through the Spirit.

See, we make Jesus known to others as we transmit in the power of the Spirit that which we receive by the Spirit. And that’s wonderful. So what have you received in the power of the Holy Spirit? You’ve received the assurance of sonship with God. God. And if God can do it for you, what makes you think He can’t do it for me? One sure sign that you know you’re forgiven and you’re saved is that you have faith to believe in my salvation. To the degree that you can’t believe for me, you ain’t really got it.

I just want to tell you that to the degree that you really can’t believe for me, you are cutting yourself off to that degree. Are you putting yourself down? You want to grow some? Who have you left out? You can ask me that too. Who have you left out? Who have you marked off as non-kingdom material?

Now whether they come in or not will be between them and the Lord. I don’t run around, you know, trying to tell people who’s saved and who isn’t saved. That’s between them and the Lord. But what I know is my commission from heaven is to be ye tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you. That’s my commission from heaven and it’s yours too. That we are to start revealing to every man that which we receive from the Lord. And that’s forgiving grace. So we start seeing every man in the light of God’s forgiving grace. You know, Jesus, one of the, this is fantastic, isn’t it? Even those who really nailed the spikes in His hand. As they, you know, really held Him in mockery and ridicule there in that city, outside that city gate, and He was suffering with blood running down His side mingled with water. He looked at them and said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” That doesn’t mean they didn’t know they were sinning or didn’t know they were in anger or didn’t know they were killing somebody. Of course they knew it. What He meant was their spiritual eyes were blinded. Blinded by their own sin, and they didn’t know He was the Savior, but they did know they were killing a man who had gone around healing sick.

They knew that. They knew that they were in anger and rebellion and resentment because He was putting them to shame. They knew that. Well, God prayed for them to be forgiven because they didn’t know what to do. But my husband or my wife, my children, they know what they were doing.

No, they didn’t. No, we don’t. We’re blind. Sin blinds us. And how we need to be the eyes of those who don’t see yet. And in the eyes of God’s grace, it’s, there’s forgiveness for you. There’s for… Now we can’t make people accept it. And whether they accept it or not, it’s between them and the Lord. But we make it available. And so as the church of Jesus Christ, individually and corporately, we are in this world to make available to the world the provision of the resurrected life. Now we do this experientially. We do it experientially. That’s one of the great powers. That story Jerry I’m going to tell. That’s what really happened in Holy Laugh. As Jerry was riding along with that car, I can’t quite describe the car, but as he was riding along and that man holding that pistol in his neck, if Jerry had started defending himself in his mind, thinking, “Lord, he doesn’t have a right to do that. I’m Your child and I’ve got to go preach, and that rascal, Lord, is just making things bad for me.” But the Lord sort of got Jerry’s mind off himself and just began to release that holy laughter, and in that laughter was the flood tide of the power of forgiveness.

You can’t hold resentments while you’re laughing. You can’t judge people while you’re laughing. In that holy laughter was a release of forgiveness. Now I want to tell you two other stories like that and move on. Starr Daily told me a story very similar to that. Starr was riding out in the southwest. He picked up this hitchhiker riding along, and they got in the edge of town. Starr felt something in his side and he thought he recognized it and looked, and sure enough there was a pistol in his side. This old boy said, “Pull over to the curb.” Starr pulled over. He said, “Give me all your money.” Starr looked at him and said, “All the money I have on me at the moment happens to belong to someone else. And if He wants you to have it, you don’t need that gun to get it. And if He doesn’t want you to have it, that gun can’t get it. Now the One about whom I’m speaking is God. Let us pray.”

Get up? So I said, “Starr, what in the world did you pray?” He said, “Tommy, I prayed a prayer of repentance.” I said, “You repented? That was the sinner sitting beside you. What are you doing?” He said, “Tommy, I was convicted of sin.” He said this man had been riding with him for over three hours. “And in that moment I realized that I had not transmitted any more love than for him to think he’d have to have a gun to get anything I had. I really hadn’t transmitted much love. And I was convicted of that and I repented.” And he said when he finished repenting and got forgiveness, the gun was lying on the seat and the boy was sitting there crying. And he looked at Starr and said, “Go ahead and take me to the law.” And Starr looked at him and said, “Well, it looks like you’ve been before the Judge of the universe and I believe He’s setting you free.” The old boy said, “Let me out of this car then.” And started to get out of the car, and Starr said, “Wait just a minute. I believe the Lord does want you to have some of His money,” and forced him to take a few dollars. Well, now there’s Jerry B. and there’s Starr, well, here’s Estelle Carver, whom I love so much, who’s 87 years old and who, in the presence of Francis, I must confess is my sweetheart.

If she’ll have me. What a delight Miss Estelle Carver is. If any of you have never heard her, I hope before she goes to heaven you’ll hear her in this world. Is she going to be one of the speakers next year? I hope the Lord will let me come as a camper. I’ll tell you, Estelle Carver is just, just one of the greatest. She can quote half the Bible, 87 years old. You think you’ve got to lose your memory just because you’re 60?

If you didn’t have it filled so much junk, you wouldn’t have to forget so much. She’s not, you know, she’s not getting old at all. It’s just amazing. But anyway, and the most, I think the most literate mind I’ve ever met, just beautiful. But Estelle was walking down the street in New Haven two summers ago in Connecticut, and two young boys jumped out from behind the bush and said to her, “Give us that pocketbook.” And she just stopped and looked at him and said, “Young men, I’m not going to give you my pocketbook. You can take it. It’ll be no trouble for you, you know. Here I am a rather elderly lady and you are strong young boys. And you can take my pocketbook without any trouble. But if you do, your mothers are going to be disappointed. I said, now I don’t know your mother. But I know that neither one of you boys had a mother who thought when they were carrying you in their womb, and when they gave you birth, they never dreamed they were giving birth to a boy that would run around and rob an old lady. And your mother is going to be disappointed. Now, more than that, I’m going to be disappointed.” She said, “I’ve taught boys and worked with boys all my life. And I’ve never met a boy that I thought wanted really in his heart and wanted to rob people. Really, I never met one that I thought was a robber at all, or a thief of any kind. And I’m going to be disappointed in you.” But she said, “More than your mother and more than me, you’re going to be disappointed. Now, there’s something within you that makes you know you weren’t made to steal things. Now, you can take it. I’m not going to give it to you. You can take it. And I got $3.73. You can have it all. But if you do, something within you is going to die. And you’re going to realize that you weren’t made for that. And you’re going to whip yourself a long time.” One old boy began to fumble around, you know, and sputter through his lips, and said to the other, “Man, let’s split.” You know. And they took off through the bushes.

Well, now, if Estelle had not had that kind of forgiving grace, we’d have probably picked up the newspaper and seen where an 87-year-old woman was knocked in the head.

You see? God is still the ruler yet. We, you know, we get all of this frustration, anxiety, and fear. Wonder what this world comes to. Oh, it’s such a troublesome time. You can’t trust anybody. It’s not even safe to walk down your streets at night. It’s not even safe to stop at Sam’s stoplight anymore. You know. Well, of course it’s not safe. It’s safe in darkness, in fear, in anxiety. But it’s safe in the power of forgiving grace. Don’t you know that? It’s safe everywhere if you’re in the power of the Holy Ghost. And it’s not safe anywhere if you’re not in that power. You just think you are. And so the Lord wants us to be so infused with Him that we’ll begin to get His mind, His understanding, and begin to transmit. And that’s the power of the Holy Spirit when we begin to see this. Not only in terms of forgiving grace and the love of God one to another, but in terms of the thought life of the Lord. Do you know your mind was made to think God’s thoughts? Boy, what faith that is. That God has made your brain actually in such a way that it can accommodate the thoughts of God.

And look what you filled it up with. No one… we haven’t got poor minds. Our minds are so good they just would react against poor treatment. No wonder we have breakdowns. If you were your mind and your mind treated you like you’re treating your mind, you’d break down too. You know, it’s amazing. We fill it right full of anxious thoughts, selfish thoughts, little old narrow sectarian thoughts. You know, all this mess that we put with our minds, when all the while our minds are made to think the thoughts of God.

Are you ready for that? Are you ready to start thinking the thoughts of God? I mean, not just in general, but in particular. Are you ready to think thoughts of God about me? Are you? Are you ready to see me like the Lord sees me? Or do you enjoy judging me?

Are you ready to see Jerry be like the Lord sees you? You don’t mean that, do you? You know, are you ready to see any man as the Lord sees him? Glenn Ellis is from Chattanooga. One of his good friends over there and mine is Tony Dyer. Some of you may know Tony. Tony’s a great preacher. And while Tony was in the pastorate, Tony and Joy, I held a meeting with him over there in Chattanooga. And we were having prayer time in the morning in different homes. And we went into a home one morning. It was a lovely suburban home out there in Chattanooga. There were about 25 or 30 people there, I guess, men and women, mostly young adults. And as I came into that prayer group, they were discussing a person, a lady there in the community. And they were talking rather freely about her. And they were just letting one another know what they thought. They… she’d just run off, I think, about a third husband. And they had seen automobiles at her house at unorthodox hours. And, you know, they knew she was doing what they would have been doing if they’d been there in her stead.

Whatever that was. You know? So, boy, they were really letting her have it. And they were thinking up ways of really trying to get her out of town. And so I said to them, and you know when you love people, you can be honest with them, can’t you? But really, get love first. Please don’t try to get in the truth without love. It’s not… truth is not the most important thing. Love is.

In fact, you don’t have truth without love. You just have some facts. And cold facts kill. More people have been killed by plain cold facts. And when somebody comes to me and says, “Let me tell you the truth,” I say, “Please don’t right now.”

Truth is not nearly as important as love. And people can stand a lot more love than they can truth. Truth. And so if you’re going to dare be courageous enough to tell the truth, for God’s sake, get humble enough, get baptized in love. And when you love a person with Calvary love, you can afford to tell them the truth. So after this group got through, I said to them, “Now you’ve been real free discussing with one another so I can hear you. Your mind concerning this girl. I wonder if God has a mind concerning her.”

And one looked at me and said, “Tommy, of course, God has a mind concerning everybody.” Well, I said, “Instead of inflicting on her our fragmented thoughts, why don’t we go into the silence and get a thought of God. And when you get a thought concerning her that you think is good enough to come from heaven, let’s share that. But until we do, let’s be quiet.” And we entered into what you might call an awkward hush.

It seemed like a long time. But you know, this is what prayer is. I’m not ready to pray for you until I get God’s mind concerning you. My praying for you is not trying to change God’s mind about you. “Lord, let me… I want to pray for Tick, Lord. Now, Lord, You know how Tick, you know, needs this and Tick needs that. And, Lord, You know this little peculiarity about Tick. And, Lord, You know this other thing about Tick. Now, Lord, that You know everything You need to know about Tick, fix him up so I can stand him.” See, that’s not prayer. That’s spiritual gossip. And it’s amazing how, you know, that’s how we call that praying. Inflicting on God our little old prejudiced thoughts. Oh, I want you to pray for my husband, my wife. What’s wrong with you? I can’t get a Lord. I got this and got that. And he sits around and reads the old newspaper. I’m having my prayer meeting. I wish for a while he’d retire. Now, I’m so sorry he’s retired. Come home and just stay right there under my feet all the time. I can’t even turn. I wish you’d pray for him that he’d find something to do. You know, what you’re really saying is, pray the Lord to get him off my hands.

Instead of preserving off… That’s not prayer. That’s gossip. And we can read it. It’s amazing how we call it prayer. Real prayer is not changing God’s mind. Prayer is discovering God’s mind and then transmitting that. You’ve prayed for me as you’ve transmitted the thought, the love, the power of God concerning me. You’ve gone before heaven. And you see God, me as God sees me. And you say, “Jesus, I see that. I’ll hold it for talking. Yes, Jesus, I see that. I’ll hold it for him. Yes, Jesus, I see Your great compassion. I see Your faith. I see Your patience. Lord, I see the fruit of the Spirit. I’ll hold it, Lord. And I’ll bear it for him.” Are you willing to really give yourself to Jesus on behalf of another person? That’s prayer. That’s prayer. And so this precious group caught that and they went into the silence. And we waited for a while and finally one person said, “Oh, I see Jesus standing with that woman that the disciples brought to Him by the hair of the head. And I hear Him saying, ‘Where are thine accusers, woman?’” Here we were. “Where are thine accusers, woman? I do not condemn you. Go and sin no more.” Boy, that really sank in. And then somebody said, “I hear Jesus praying from the cross for this precious girl.

And called her by name and said, ‘I forgive you. You didn’t know what you were doing.’” And then somebody said, “Oh, the Word of God is burning in my heart. Herein is God commended His love toward her. While she was yet a sinner, Christ died for her.” And you know, we transmitted that. Nobody went to see her. We just transmitted that. And that night she came to church. You know, it’s amazing. We need to worry. We don’t have to run out and build up great invitational crusades to get people to come. You just get enough love where you’re willing to have God’s attitude toward everybody. They’ll come. Chuck Smith out on the West Coast found this out. At Calvary Church out there. You know, the young people running out a lot down the West Coast, barefooted, bare breasted and everything else. I’m serious about you know, they’re running around half naked, long hair, dirty. You know, they… Who in the world wanted them at church? They had to go get saved before they got to church. You know, I know you know. But this bunch of young people started hanging around Calvary Church. The board of deacons began to react and say to Chuck, “Now look, we can’t have that. They’ll contaminate our young people.”

Are you afraid of dirt contaminating you? I used to be. I had so much of the Holy Ghost one time I couldn’t stand the Methodist Church. You got so much of the Holy Ghost you can’t stand your church? Well, let me tell you what happened to me. I went to Brother Rufus about it. I told Brother Rufus all about that story. I said, “I tell you, Brother Rufus, this is a dead situation. That’s an apostate deal. And Brother Rufus, I’m baptized the Holy Ghost. And the Lord is just, you know, just blessing me. And I just can’t stand it.” Brother Rufus, hallelujah, a half dozen times, you know, praise the Lord. Then he looked at me and said, “If you’re being surrounded by so much ice that the ice is putting out your fire, maybe you’d better go.” And then he hallelujah and praised the Lord, you know. We do love You, Lord, you know. And then he looked at me with those stale, those steel gray eyes, looked like a thousand-watt bulb behind each one, you know. He looked at me with those eyes and said, “But wouldn’t it be a wonderfully good thing if you had enough fire to melt the ice?”

So I began to pray, not against the ice. I began to pray for more fire. And shortly after that, I ran across a formula for fire given by Sam Jones, that old evangelist of years ago. Sam said, “If you want to have a good fire, there are three things that are essential. One is, you have to keep the clinkers out. Another one is, you have to keep the draft open. And another one is, you have to keep adding more fuel.” So, boy, I began to shake the clinkers. And open the draft and pour more fuel. And it’s been amazing how the Methodist Church has changed.

I just praise the Lord. You know, it’s just wonderful when you began to do this. And so, this pressure… I found that when you really get right on the inside, and really begin to receive, able to receive somebody on the inside, then they will come to you. And so, Chuck Smith and his board members discovered that, and they made a decision. A few members left. But most of them stayed. And said, “We believe God wants us to show these young people how He feels about them.” And now you go out there, they’ve got a new sanctuary. But it won’t even hold the crowd. So they have to keep that tent going. And three and four thousand young people sitting around that tent, every Sunday afternoon. And once a month they have baptisms. This is a Baptist deal, you know. Have immersion baptism. They don’t have a baptistry in the back. They go out to the Pacific Ocean and have a baptism service one Monday afternoon a month where just hundreds get baptized. And boy, they stand on the shores and sing, “Wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus.” Just one little old church decided they’d show a bunch of young people how Jesus felt. And that church has turned into one of the great churches in America where they don’t have to go out and invite people.

They can hardly make room for the ones that are running all over them. It’s that way with life. We work so hard and so diligently at that which is given to us if we begin to move in. Move in the right attitudes. We’re discovering that about races. You don’t have to… Now, though I’m in favor of the laws, we needed to know the laws and need to know them better. But the legal aspect will not solve the race question. We’re learning that in Boston. Boston’s acting just like Selma or Charlotte or any other town. I mean, they’re Yankees. I mean, with a brogue. You know, a Bostonian accent. You know, with hatred in their heart. They aren’t Southerners who’ve grown up there at Boston. This is South Boston, not South Carolina. You know? And South Boston is having a racial problem. Why? Because there’s unforgiveness in the heart. Not because there’s a lack of knowledge about the laws. Laws won’t do it as good as the laws are. And we need to keep working at the law. But when I get Jesus’ love in my heart for my black brothers, boy, we don’t have to, you know, go out and compel them to come in. They’re there. They’re there. And they know it. And you know it.

And it’s that way about others. We don’t have to pass them more laws about how to live with the communists. When we get Jesus’ love for our communist brethren, it’s gonna be alright. Because the Lord’s gonna take care of whatever problems are involved. We’re gonna love with the love of Jesus. That’s what the Lord’s trying to show us. We don’t dare go His way. Do you really want the mind of Jesus? Do you want to believe like He believes? Well, little old Nell, I didn’t mean to tell her first name. But Glenn knows her. She came to church that night. Nobody invited her. The next morning, so she was a nurse for a surgeon, she took time off and came to the prayer meeting. And the second night, she was glorious and converted. And her home was transformed. Her life completely transformed. And she and her son redeemed the son’s wife and all that living beautiful life. Because for a few minutes one morning, our little prayer group decided to think the thoughts of God. Now, let me just share with you a little bit in close. Didn’t know I was gonna get into all this. But you see, this is the kind of thing that brought CFO into being. It was God saying, “I want people who will dream with Me, who will think My thoughts after Me, who will speak My words after Me.”

And in the midst of World War II, Glenn and Frank and Rufus and Starr and Walter Judd, Glenn Harding, some of the rest of them, maybe some of you, began to get dreams of a little prayer band of love just circling the universe. Just holy love circling everything, you know. And out of that holy love, dreams began to come. And to put it in Rufus’s words, his words were, if we would shoot our enemies with biscuits instead of bullets. You know. So, our… Laubach’s great… If somehow, we can find out what it is to really give them the liberty to be real human beings and teach them to read and set them free. And so, different dreams began to come up in terms. And so, they began to pray for the president. How do you think the Point Four program came into being? The Marshall Plan came into being? That really wasn’t Brother Harry Truman’s idea.

That was God’s idea. And Brother Harry Truman picked it up and carried it out. Now, it got into politics and backfired. But if the Marshall Plan had been carried out in the same power that conceived it, we would have saved many of the wars that have happened since World War II. And we are right now where we are in terms of negotiations across the world because of praying people. If we didn’t have the people that right now are releasing the love of Jesus, the forgiving grace of Jesus to the people of the world, we would be in a bloody Holocaust right now. God is saying, “Will you dare believe with Me?” Now, I want to get into one other realm. Will you dare believe with Me, He’s saying, concerning the power of love and its effect on the natural world around us. Have you re-read the Bible lately and read what is called nature miracles? Have you read of a man named Elijah? A man of like passions as we are. That means human like you. That Elijah was just an ordinary human being like you. But Elijah learned to pray. And he learned to pray in such a way that the elements had to listen to him. And he was led to pray that the elements would hold the water for three and a half years. It wouldn’t rain. And not a cloud would dare drop a dew drop for three and a half years. Can you imagine one man holding back the waters in the heavens for three and a half years? Boy, that’s power. And then Elijah was led to pray that it rain. And he unlocked the clouds through prayer and it rain.

Now, either that’s a great big lie. Or that’s something of the glorious, fantastic power that God is releasing through us in prayer if we learn how to take it. Last night when I heard we were going to get out in the 20s tonight, I said, “Lord, these orange groves are too pretty. We need the fruit. Jesus, these oranges are packed right full of vitamin C. And besides, I’m on a grapefruit diet. And Lord, I don’t need any shriveled up frozen grapefruit. I need some fresh pretty pink grapefruit. And Lord, I just am not going to stand here in the midst of this citrus belt and see a 20 degree freeze come in.” And since last night, I’ve just been releasing love. I’ve been rebuking the clouds and the elements in the skies. I’ve been releasing love. And I’ve been saying to all these elements around here, take this cold air and lift it up. And take it on out to sea someplace where they can use it. We don’t need it right here. And I want to… Though I don’t know and the Lord hadn’t told me, I’ve got an impression in my heart that the elements are cooperating and I don’t believe it’s going to freeze tonight.

I just don’t believe it is. I haven’t heard a news broadcast. But I don’t believe it is. Because in my heart, I’ve been lifting that. And I just wanted to share it with you. The love of Jesus has great power in all the world around us. And the world around us has a way of running and hiding from those who would come to it in the wrong spirit. And you come to the nature around you in the wrong spirit, a spirit of greed. And before you know it, you’ve milked it dry. You can get so selfish with an old cow. She won’t give her milk. She’ll swish her old tail in your face and kick every time you put the bucket up there. But you love her, play good music for her. You know, and bless her. You know, really. And just amazing. And that milk will seem to sing a tune while you get there. And just amazing how she’ll give you every drop except what little she holds back for the calf. And you’d want her to do that, wouldn’t you? You don’t want the calf portion. And it’s just beautiful. And it’s that way about all nature. And so the Lord is saying that to me about the world around us. I know there’s prophecy of famine.

And it’s not just prophecy. It’s happening. A million people across the middle belt of Africa this year dying, starvation. Bangladesh filled every street in those major cities. Bangladesh and India too. Calcutta. Look, if you want something to tear your heart out, walk down the street of Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, any major city in India. Early morning, men come along with carts, picking up the bodies of people dying in the street during the night. Families living in behind pasteboard boxes, all that stuff. Little old babies with their stomachs poached out. Not because they’re full, cause they’re empty. That’s not God’s will. That’s not what God wants. And it’s a great big problem. And it’s not just a problem of distribution. They’re letting the cows run all over every place. The cows are more sacred than babies. It’s a spiritual problem as well as a sociological problem. And sociological answers won’t do it until a spiritual answer comes in. We got to have all things working together for good, not some things. And so this… And a lot of people prophesied doom and famine for us. And they’re saying to us, if you want to really get by, you better run out and buy your little acreage. So you can come live with me and we’re going to get us a deep freeze.

And build up two years of supplies so all of us saints can eat. Let the world storm go to hell. I don’t believe it for a minute. I don’t believe the Holy Ghost ever told anybody that. No, I don’t. I just don’t. They can say that to the Lord and you don’t get me to believe it in the light of Calvary love. If He’s told you to store something up, it’s so you can feed your enemies as well as your friends. You know? It’s to feed everybody. If God is telling you to store it up. So, I don’t… I believe the good news is better than that. The Lord is saying, yes, we’re going to have famine. Yes, the world is going to dry up on us. Yes, we’re going to have all kinds of suffering.

Yes, lest you repent, you shall likewise perish. But, the whole creation is in travail. All this natural world in labor pains. What is it struggling for? It’s waiting to behold the manifestation of the liberty of sons of God. Jerry was telling us, what did he say about the key? Keys to the kingdom. Do you think that God who made this dirt around Florida, who can grow three crops around the clock, all you have to do is put a stick down and water it? You know, it’s just amazing the richness of this soil around here. Three or four crops a year. Do you mean God has lost out on His creative energy? And God is saying to us, “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you. I have a population explosion problem. And the word, really I didn’t have, didn’t know this was going to happen when I made My word to you. If I’d known you were going to get so many people in the world, I wouldn’t have prophesied like I did.”

You think God is saying that and saying, you’ve outwitted me because of your population and my word is no longer true and you can’t depend on me to supply your bread? I don’t believe it for a minute. I believe the Lord Jesus Christ is saying, if you’ll go My way of love, this natural world around here will respond to you in just the way that it responded to Me. So that there’s enough power in one prayer to take one little old boy’s five loaf and fish and feed 5,000 people. Boy, if He can do that with one little old boy’s dinner, what can He do with half a state of Florida? He can feed the nation. It’s amazing, you know, and we sit in fear. Oh, have you seen about the Dow Jones Hamlet? I told you see, that gold nobody’s after.

Haven’t you heard? The dollar has gone kapook. And that’s a sign. Oh, that’s a sign. I hear this from folks like you all the time. I don’t hear it from heaven. I don’t hear it from Jesus. I don’t hear the Holy Ghost say, “Tommy, I don’t know what I want to do. The dollar loses its value.” I don’t hear it. I hear that from little people with narrow minds and shallow souls. And if that’s you, repent. In the name of Jesus, repent. And get out of that hellish backwash.

It’s time for us to get in the power of the Holy Ghost. And realize the truth of that song Marge led us in the other day when we sang, “This is my Father’s world. And to my listening ear, all nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.” It’s my daddy’s world. It’s my daddy’s world. Daddy God.

It’s my daddy’s world. And it’s made. It’s made for those. What did Jesus say? The greedy shall inherit the earth. You bet your life they will. For he that tooteth not his own horn, the same goeth untooted. The world belongs to those who can master it and make it their own.

No, we’ve tried that. And we think that’s still true. And we are, you know, really, in our heart, we think it’s true. So right in the midst of so-called poverty, you let one of our senators try to get a military budget cut. We’ll throw him out of Washington so quick and make his head swim. We don’t believe, we don’t believe for a minute the universe belongs to the meek. It belongs to the mighty.

Not that the meek are weak. Meekness is not weakness. Meekness is disciplined obedience to the will of God. And Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek.” Blessed are those who will be disciplined in love, in faith, in hope. Now abideth faith, hope, and love. These three, boy, they’re going to abide. Is your picture for the world hope? Is your picture for the world faith? Is your picture for the world love? If it’s not, it didn’t come from Jesus.

Now, boy, that’s strong preaching. But you better check it. Now abideth faith, hope, and love. Now, these three, but the greatest of these is love. And God is wanting a church in the world who will somehow get over the earth-bound propaganda, even religious propaganda, that somehow this world was made for the devil. And that the devil’s crowd is about to take their own. And while the devil’s crowd is taking their own, us saints are getting off in a sanctified corner, and as Arthur Cat said, waiting for the great snatch.

And I don’t believe that sound biblical teaching. That Jesus Christ has said, “Go ye into all the world.” And sure, in this life, you’ve had tribulations, but “be of good cheer. I’ve overcome the world.” And He said, as you go in His name, and sharing with others as you’ve received from Him, you do not want for anything, but everything that you give in His name will come back to you, pressed down and running over.

I want to challenge your theology a little bit. I tell you, if I was Jerry’s size, I’d dress like Jerry. I just want you to know that. It’s not because I don’t believe in dressing like that. I just don’t have the physique to go with it.

But when you hear a man of God, a preacher of God, you know, using terminology that lets us know that he’s had some of the fine things of life. You know, talking about his sports car. Did you find something within you saying, “That’s a preacher”?

Sure wish my husband would have been a preacher. If he could have a sports car, and Mahalia too. I thought Mahalia was the maid. You haven’t discovered yet. Mahalia is this car. Beautiful car. I rode in it last night. Amen. I sit back there just enjoying Mahalia.

And I want to tell you something. It doesn’t make me any difference. I’m concerned whether it’s a Model T or Cadillac. It just doesn’t make any difference to me. But, as I rode in that pretty car last night, I said, “Jesus, who ought to have this any more than one of Your children, who loves You and hauls me around in it?”

You know? Why is your… Are you still living, you know, in a rundown theology, where you think grace is the ability to do without and like it? Are you still living back there? Or do you think somehow the meek is supposed to inherit the earth? Are you ready to start inheriting? Are you really ready to start holding pictures of it? Are you still in a poverty, doom complex, where you and your little household got your deep freeze going?

Is that your mentality? In the name of Jesus, repent. In the name of Jesus, repent. Get a new picture. And as all this prophecy comes… It’s not prophecy. I want to tell you that. It doesn’t take prophecy to tell about the dollar today. That’s not prophecy. That’s just reading the newspaper. That’s just news commentary. You pick that up on every hand. It’s not prophetic utterance. A prophet is one who has eyes to see the invisible. Anybody can prophesy. Do. Looking at a world like we’re looking. But I know One who says that the wilderness will blossom like a rose. You seen your roses lately?

Have you got eyes to see a rose in the wilderness? I know One who says He makes streams in the desert. In the midst of all this dryness. You hear gurgling waters. You hear rippling streams. Tell me, prophet. Do you see beyond the surface? Where is the vision? Has heaven dried up? Has God gone fishing? Has the power and the efficaciousness of Calvary depleted? Has the glory of the Holy Ghost been withdrawn? Where are you, prophet?

Don’t come giving me a news analysis and calling it prophecy. Give me a message from heaven that sets my soul on fire. And lets me see there’s a God on the throne of the universe whose grace is sufficient. Who will call me to repentance. Who will cleanse my heart. Who will make me whole. And let me be a co-laborer with Him in glory. That’s, you know, that’s ministering with Jesus as far as I’m concerned. Not that I’m just running from this other. You know, really, if the Lord wants to move in. But let it be with that flow of Calvary love that really makes us whole. And anything that does any kind of prophecy that doesn’t have interwoven within it the fabric of the kingdom issues. You better check it. Now I mean by kingdom issues. The life that we see in Jesus especially that’s revealed in the Sermon on the Mount. This way of life as service. This way of life as wholeness. This way of life as joy. This way of life as peace. Or any kind of prophecy that doesn’t have interwoven within it the threads. The woof and warp of the fabric of kingdom living. Has missed the dimension of New Testament revelation. And has reverted to a pre-Christian Old Testament emphasis.

That really is not sound apart from the New Testament. Now, not that the Old Testament isn’t true, but we have the New Testament to go along with it. And it has to be seen in the light of the New. Now, I know I’m saying some things tonight that are cutting across much of what’s being said. But it’s no time for shallowness. It’s no time for sectarian negativism and legalism. It’s a time to move in that freedom of power of resurrected life. Where Jesus is saying, “I want to show you what it means to live in My glory.” One story. A little old Tommy Lewis. Oh, my. I keep… Oh, okay. A little old Tommy Lewis who lives up in North Carolina. Long old lanky boy. Just loves Jesus so much. I mean, just lives in the throes of glory as much as anybody I know. Tommy caught this secret of the power of the Lord in the universe. And he lives there in Kinston, North Carolina. And he has beautiful grounds there at his home. Just lovely gardens. And he goes out in the morning. And he has this shrubbery named. And he calls it by name. And he makes love to the flowers. And he kisses the flowers. One morning, he had a little boy with him.

It was a neighbor down the street. His name was Foster, but they called him Foss. Foss. And Foss was just about six or seven years old. And he was just being caught up in all the mystery that was in Tommy’s life. He didn’t know what it was. All he knew was he was really fascinated with this Tommy Lewis fellow. So he was watching Tommy as he came out of the house one day. And Tommy came up to this beautiful Rose Bush. And he just talked to it, you know, and said, “Rose, you are the most beautiful girl I’ve seen today,” you know. Just bragged daughter. And then reached over and took one of the petals. And reached down and just gave it a beautiful kiss. And touched it and went on. And Tommy said he was watching Foss out of the corner of his eyes. And said he went on around the corner. But that’s where he could see Foss. Foss came up before that Rose Bush.

He looked it over. He looked all around in front and behind. All around. After a while he looked at it and he said, “Hail Rose.” And rat. “Hail Rose and rat. Hail Rose.” But you know, a lot of us need to know that. We need to know the power of releasing. I’ve used Seth once tonight. I’ll use him again. Some of you have been to Seth’s house. Some of you spent the night with him on the way down here. And you’ll know what the truth of this. Seth Hallowell knows the power I’m talking about. He worships Jesus as he works in his yard. And everything grows for Seth. It’s just amazing. The grass just always was prettier in his yard than it was in mine. You know, just beautiful. He just sent so much love around there. Roses grow for him. Azaleas grow for him. Daffodils jump out. Pansies, you know, great, big, prettiest pansies. Everything just seems to blossom up when Seth comes around. Because Seth loves it. Seth Hallowell has made a lot of money. I don’t know. Nobody’s ever told me. And I don’t care how much he’s worth. Seth Hallowell started out a few years ago as just a day laborer. Working on an oil truck. Distributing oil. Saved his money.

A little bit of it anyway. Had a vision living in his heart. And had a lot of love. And Seth realized he needed to get in business for himself. So he went up to Charlotte where there was an agency deal going. Opened at least distribution. The company had its office there. District office, that’s what I’m saying. Went up to the district office in Charlotte. Made application for a dealership with this oil company. They said, “What kind of financial statement do you have?” Seth said, “Wait a little while and I’ll tell you.” So he went out and found a piece of… He didn’t have a notepad in his pocket. But he got a piece of craft paper. He had a paper sack. And got his pencil. And wrote his financial statement on this piece of paper sack. And took it into the executives of this oil company as the means of a distributorship.

And I don’t guess they laughed at his face. But they kept the paper. And even today when they have sales meetings, they’ll bring out that piece of craft paper sack. But old Seth had a vision and he had love. And he came down right back in his hometown with that oil distributorship and just started loving folks, serving folks, and distributing oil. And I want to tell you something. The last thing I’d go into in Wayne County, North Carolina would be an oil distributorship. I wouldn’t get into competition, old Seth, for anything in the world. He’s a good businessman, but the success is not in his business know-how. I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Oh, that Seth Hallowell, everything he touched turned to gold. He just has the know-how about making money.” He does have the know-how about making money. And you know what it is? It’s the love of Jesus. He doesn’t have a greedy spirit. He may have the love of Jesus in their heart. And he just loves folks. Loves to serve folks. And in that loving and serving, money just comes in. I find that too. Have you all noticed my pretty suit?

Don’t you think it’s almost as pretty as that houndstooth checkered? Is that a houndstooth? Ha! Have you noticed those pretty shoes? I mean, I haven’t bought those this week. I brought them here. It’s just beautiful how Jesus looks after us, isn’t it, Tick? Oh, Tick’s got the prettiest shirts. I’ve seen them. Ha! We just go around and love Him, folks. And things just roll in. And it’s beautiful. The world around us is waiting to behold the liberty of the manifestation of sons of God. Jesus is saying, “Do you dare move with Me in kingdom living?” Let’s pray.