The Key to Victorious Living

A Sermon by Rev. James R. Reynolds, Sr.

Preached Sunday Morning January 9, 2000

text: Ephesians 5:14-18

INTRODUCTION

If you would like to follow in the reading of the Word of God, look in Ephesians, the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Church at Ephesus, the fifth chapter and verse fourteen:

"Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. Redeeming the time because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; — (Ephesians 5:14-18)

In this last verse, Paul is commanding us by the Spirit two things: (1) Be not drunk with wine, (2) but be filled with Spirit. We will be using the title, "The Key to Victorious Living".

Let me ask you, "How many of you have struggled?" For a few moments think about your relationship with God, and your experience with Him. Have you tried and struggled and labored to be what you felt you should be for Him, but have found yourself losing? I want to try with the help of the Lord to help you. I felt as I prayed this week and waited on the Lord that there is a key here to victorious living.

You can be victorious ! You can live above your flesh. You can live above that which drives and pulls and tries to destroy. Be filled with the Spirit.

AWAKE

" Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." (Ephesians 5:14)

To awake spiritually takes something more than just your effort. I have watched people struggle. I have even had them say to me, "Brother Reynolds, I'm so tired. I've tried, but I'm not making it." But, the key is in in the last phrase of verse eighteen. "But, be filled with the Spirit."

I cannot awaken myself. I didn't awaken myself. I was going my own way; doing my own thing when something very supernatural happened. There came an awakening, first, of my need, and then of the fact that He had a provision for my need. I could not resurrect myself. I was dead in trespasses and sins. You were too. It took the Spirit of God to put life into you. Amen? I can remember way back when I first started serving the Lord. I tried so desperately hard to understand the Word of God. I wanted to understand, but it was a slow process. I began to realize that if I'm going to understand this then I am going to need His help. It takes the Spirit of God to awaken us, to give us resurrected life, and to give us light, truth and understanding.

WALK

"See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise." (Ephesians 5:15)

How are you going to do that? You will do that only by the help of God. I've watched people that were never filled with the Spirit and they struggled to keep saved. You need to be filled with the Holy Ghost.

REDEEM

"Redeeming the time because the days are evil." (5:16)

Redeem the time because surely the days are evil. We don't have to go into a long exegesis explaining to you how evil the days are. That's a fact. We're living in very corrupt, evil, wicked days. In order for you to redeem the time it takes the Spirit of God.

UNDERSTAND

"Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is." (Ephesians 5:17)   I cannot understand His will unless I have His Spirit.

BE NOT DRUNK

Paul gives us an extreme contrast here where he says:

"And be ye not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit." (Ephesians 5:18)

Paul is drawing a contrast between the Spirit and the flesh. There was and is and always will be a warfare between the Spirit and the flesh. The flesh is always trying to bring you down and the Spirit is all the time trying to lift you up.

Paul uses the term here: "Be not drunk with wine…" and, also, he says "…wherein is excess…" I have heard preachers over the years using this Scripture or this phrase in this Scripture to say it's all right to drink a little as long as you don't go to an excess. That is not what Paul was saying at all. The word excess comes from the word asotia. Actually, it is two words in one—"a" which is a negative and sotia or sozo> salvation, being saved; therefore, asotia means "no salvation." "Be not drunk with wine wherein <is no salvation>." This verse has a whole lot more meaning than just saying we should not drink wine excessively.

Synonyms of Asotia

One synonym is "unsavedness" that is "totally lost." In Titus, the first chapter and the sixth verse, it is translated "riot". "They riot." It is the same identical word. Also, in I Peter 4 and 4, again, Peter uses the same word and he uses the term as the translators uses it here, "riot".Now, there's an adverb that comes from this noun asotiathat is used over in Luke fifteen and thirteen. It speaks about the Prodigal Son. He wasted his substance with riotous living. He wasted his substance in drunkenness. His elder brother said later on not only in drunkenness but with harlots. What Paul is doing here is balancing that which they had been doing with that which they should be doing. He is not making room to drink socially. It's the social drink that has destroyed many lives. It takes the first one to get you to take the second one. Which is like what Jesus said, "If you drink of this water, you will thirst again", and "you will thirst again." There is no satisfaction. There is no consummation to it. Those that drink wine will always be looking for more. "But", Jesus said, "… if you drink of the water that I give you it shall be in you a well springing up…" "…Springing up…" Thank God! You don't need the other! Can you say Amen? "Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess;" What is Paul saying? If you feed the flesh it has an awaited and ultimate destruction, but you need to be filled with the Spirit.

A synonym of asotia having much of the same meaning is the word lasciviousness: outrageous conduct; wanton violence; that is, loose in morals, careless, reckless, malicious; without self-control.

THE CITY OF EPHESUS

In order to understand what Paul was saying, you must know about the day in which he was saying this. These folks were riotous/drunken. Ephesus was a commercial town and a busy seaport. It's wealth, just like today, caused them say, "We're a very prosperous nation." America has been prosperous, but our prosperity came from God Almighty. God has blessed and has been good to this nation, but just like this nation, Ephesus, with its riches, became excessive in their lifestyle—they lived in luxury.

Bakus was the god of wine and was their rival against Diana. Diana was the goddess of the moon, while Bakus was the god of wine and drunkenness. They say drunkenness was an epidemic in those times. And this is what Paul is helping them to see. Here are the people in Ephesus drinking, getting drunk, and destroying everything they had. Riotous living and drunkenness always lead to trouble and poverty.

There was a man who came to the Tent Revival Crusade. He lived three quarters of a mile away from where we had set the tent.

He didn't even know we were there. He told me afterward, "I used to make as much as seven thousand dollars a day buying and selling wood lots." He said, "I had two new cars. I had a new home. Had a bank account. I ended up in a little cottage," he said, "over on this other road." And he said, " I had come to the point where I was so degraded that I used to bring booze home and put it in a container under my bed and suck the booze through a hose." He heard the music coming from the tent, but he had no idea the tent was there. He said, "When I heard the singing, I thought it was the angels singing that judgment was coming." And he said, "I jumped out of bed and got on my knees and begged God to forgive me and save me." Well, God heard his prayer even if it was only in desperation, and then he heard me preaching. He came to the meeting and turned his life over to the Lord. Drunkenness will bring you down just as it did there in Ephesus.

Alexander the Great, they tell us, died as a sacrifice to Bakus. He died as a drunkard at, I believe, thirty-two years of age. He was just beginning to live and booze took him out. Before Alexander died he offered a prize to whoever could drink the most wine. Thirty of those men that were rivals died in the act of competition.

A LIMITLESS COMFORTER

I want to talk to you this morning about the key to victorious living. It is not in the world. It is not in what sin has to offer. Sin will leave you empty and hurting. Even as a Believer you need something more than what you can produce. You need the infilling of the Spirit. Jesus felt that this was so necessary for His disciples that He told them, "I'm going away, but I'm going to send another Comforter because you need Him. It's expedient that I go away for He'll not come if I do not go away. Right now I can be with you to some degree, but He's going to be with you all." How many know there are no limitations in God? Somebody asked me once, " Brother Reynolds, where did God come from? or, where did God live before He created the Heaves and the earth?" Like God needed something. It doesn't take a mathematician to understand that God was, God is, and always will be, and there is nothing without Him. God doesn't live in something; everything lives in Him. He didn't just speak like one of these so-called evangelists preached "standing on the balcony of Heaven [Where was Heaven before God created it?], and with a boisterous voice He said, 'Let there be…'" NO! In Him! You can't and I can't with these finite minds of ours really grasp the greatness of God. Eternity is in Him. Everything is in Him. Paul said, "In Him we live and move and have our being." [Acts 17:28] What a big God we serve! Amen.

Jesus said to His disciples when He was getting ready to leave them, "I'm going to send you another Comforter because I can't be with you all the time, but He can. He'll not only be with you, but He'll be in you." How many know that's the Word of God?

TARRY UNTIL

Jesus said, as He was getting ready to leave His disciples, "Now, gentlemen I want you to do something for me before you do anything else. I do want you to go preach. I do want you to carry the message, but before you do any of that," He said, " I want you to go to Jerusalem and I want you to tarry until." Until you get tired of tarrying? Until you get tired with yourself? How many times I've had people say, "Well, I've tarried and tarried." You didn't tarry until!

NOT AN OPTION

The message of the early disciples was, " Have you received The Holy Ghost?" Why was it so necessary for them to encourage the Believers to be filled with the Spirit? It is because the Believers NEEDED Him that the disciples encouraged the Believers so strongly. YOU NEED the Holy Ghost. This is not an option. This is a command, "…be filled with the Spirit." "…Be filled with the Spirit." Amen.

Listen, there's no mountain too big for Him. Do we have any mountain climbers here this morning? Have you found your feet slipping sometimes as you're trying to get over that mountain? He can take you over the highest mountain. He can take you through the deepest sea. He can take you through the hottest fire. And you can come out with not even the smell of smoke on you. But you can't do it in yourself. We need to be filled with the Spirit.

HOW?

1. PRAY

You say, " Well, how then am I going to be filled? Is there something very special that I have to do?" Jesus said, " Pray." Turn with me into Luke the eleventh chapter and in verse nine he says, "And I say unto you ask and it shall be given you…" "Ask…"  

That word "ask" in the Greek has a continuation of thought, that is, you ask and you keep on asking. You say, " how long do you ask." You keep on asking until you receive. "Ask and it shall be given you, seek (, and keep on seeking) and ye shall find, knock and it shall be open unto you for everyone that asketh receiveth and he that seeketh findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son should ask bread of any of you that is a father shall he give him a stone or if he ask a fish will he for a fish give him a serpent or if he shall ask an egg will he offer him a scorpion if ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask." Well, you say, " I've asked, Brother Reynolds". Well, keep on asking. You have got to keep on asking. He will come. Tarry until. Tarry until. Keep seeking. Keep searching.

2. BE THIRSTY

The reason why I think a lot of times we don't keep on asking and keep on seeking and we don't keep on knocking is because we don't really feel the need. You need to pray and, secondly, you need to be thirsty. You need a hunger. A hunger that will drive you to your knees and will not let you be satisfied until you have received.

I'm sure God did not do anything more miraculous for me than He wants to do for you. I can recall when they told me about the Holy Spirit. I used to watch many nights and the sun would come up as I sought for God. I knew I needed to be filled and there was something in me that wasn't satisfied. That doesn't mean I wasn't saved and that I wasn't glad that I was saved. I knew I was saved. I knew I had been born-again. I knew there was something missing, and I just couldn't seem to leave it alone. I was hungry. I was thirsty. John seven thirty-seven says, "If any man thirst…" He didn't say, "Now, if you would like to be filled with the spirit come;" or, "If it's your desire to be filled with the Spirit come." He said, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink and from his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water." This He spake of the Holy Ghost.

HOW THIRSTY?

You say, "Well, how thirsty do you have to be?" The word that is used there is the same word that Jesus used when He was on the cross in John Nineteen. Jesus cries out and says, "I thirst." They tell us that in crucifixion the body temperature goes crazy—just sky high. Every part of the body is fighting against that temperature, and so the mouth becomes dry, the whole body is burning up with fever, and the tongue gets thick. There in that place where He said," I thirst" is what He is saying to us. You need to have that kind of a thirst. Not being satisfied with anything less. Are you hearing me? I THIRST!

I've seen people come down to this altar and pray, "God fill me with the Holy Ghost" for maybe two or three times and then they are up and gone. He wants you to be filled. Listen, if anything stirs this city it's going to be people with the Holy Ghost. Hey, I'm your friend. We're both on the same side. I know that you need to be filled with the Spirit. Your whole life will change. There will be struggles, mountains, valleys, rivers, and fires, but you'll find that He'll be there with you and you can make it with Him. In your own strength you might not make it. The devils are determined on you not making it, but if you'll let the Holy Ghost come in, He'll help you to make it.

The Psalmist, I think, caught a truth way back there in the Psalms. He said, "My soul thirsteth for the living God." What are you saying? I'm not satisfied with riches. You talk about a rich man and a man that had authority? All David had to do was speak and a man's head came off. He controlled. He had everything at his fingertips, yet, he cries out in the midst of it all "my soul thirsteth for God." When you get to that point there's something that will happen to you. When you say, "Nothing else satisfies; I have got to have Him. I have got to have all that He has for me. I want it. I need it. I have got to have it." Again, Jesus said, "They that hunger and thirst might be filled?" Shall be! SHALL be!

3. OBEY

To be filled with the Spirit requires obedience. In John 14:15-17, Jesus says, "If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.." "If you do what I tell you to do, I'll pray the Father, and He'll send you the Holy Spirit and He'll be in you." Acts 5:32 says, "And we are His witnesses of these things; and so also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him." Now, I'm not gong to try to tell you that if you haven't received the Holy Spirit it's because you've been disobedient, but it could be. You have to be obedient.

4. MAKE ROOM

Fourthly, you have to make room for Him. I think this is what Paul had in mind when he said…"and be not drunk with wine." Wine is destructive. That will destroy you. "But be filled with the Spirit." You need to make room. People still criticize the innkeeper when retelling how Christ came as an unborn baby in Mary and there was no room for Him. Preachers preach this Gospel and don't have room for the Spirit. They have the mechanics. They have the oratorical ability. They can get up and spin words and make them sound good, but it is dead. The Scripture says that the letter kills and it is the Spirit that gives life. [2 Cor. 3:6] Again, before I even came into this pulpit this morning, I was saying, "Lord, if I go in that pulpit, and just say words my words are empty. I'm depending on you. I'm depending on the Holy Ghost to take the Word and let it come alive and encourage somebody and strengthen somebody and minister to somebody." The Holy Spirit is the only One that can minister to you. I think the songwriter put it so good when he said: "Bring your empty vessels cleaned through Jesus' precious blood.
Come ye needy one and all,
And in human consecration wait before the throne of God,
'Till the Holy Ghost shall fall.
He will fill your heart today to overflowing.
As the Lord commanded you, bring your vessels not a few
He will fill your heart today to overflowing
With the Holy Ghost and power."

He'll do it. He wants to do it. He made provision for it. I'm telling you this morning that it will make a difference in your life with the trials and the temptations you face. He will make a difference in your life.

5. YIELD

Fifthly, you need to yield to Him. You say how do I yield? I went through that. I had people shake me, shake my arms, and shake my head. They would shout at me and say, "Yield! Yield! Yield!" Well, I was trying, but I learned that in the same way that you have yielded your members servants to sin and to thoughts or something that came in your head, and you say "Oh, that's what I want to do." (No! That's what the devil wanted you to do, and you yielded your members to that sin.) is the same manner that you yield your members to the Spirit.

I'm not going to stand up here this morning and tell you to just say "Bananas, bananas, bananas!'' Because that's all you will have when you get through—Bananas. You can get lost in the Spirit. My experience was He did not make me say something I didn't want to, but He gave me something to say. Do you understand what I'm saying? When I was out there in sin I was a good servant. The devil would say do this, and I would do it. I didn't know it was the devil. I'd probably hesitated if I'd known that, but I thought it was something I wanted to do, so, I did it. I yielded myself to those thoughts. I borrowed peoples' cars without asking. Now, that's not kosher; I'm not proud of that. I yielded myself and Paul is saying as ye yielded yourself servants to that yield yourself, give yourself over, to God. You don't have to flop on the floor like a fish that is dying. I have seen them thrash and kick around and knock things over. I have even seen them run into posts, and split their heads open. Now, that's not God. It can be one of two things: 1. It can be your own soulish spirit, or 2. it can be an evil spirit. How many know that the devil likes to mimic God? Yield yourself. Yield your members as servants to Him. He made it easy; we make it hard. Amen.

6. BELIEVE

The last thing in connection with receiving the infilling of the Holy Ghost is that you need to believe. You are not going to be filled with the Spirit unless you believe. You have got to believe and keep on believing to the very end. I've had people say to me, "It must not be for me." It is! It is for you! Peter said way back there on the day of Pentecost, "It's for you and for your children and to all that are far off even as many as the Lord our God shall call." Have you been called? It is for you. You need to believe that is for you. Ephesians one and thirteen says, ": in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." You must believe.

THE FIRE

THE NEED

The reason we need to be filled is that we need the fire. If you come here week after week and service after service, and nothing happens inside you, there is no fire lit, and there is nothing going on, eventually you are going to get tired and you will be absent. You need to GET the fire and then you need to KEEP the fire burning. John said, "I baptize you with water unto repentance, but He that cometh after me is greater than I. He shall baptize you not with water, but with the Holy Ghost, AND WITH FIRE!" I wonder if fire broke out in the pulpits across our land if maybe our country will have a quick conversion. But you see we've come to the point where we compromise to keep people coming. We entertain them, and we make them feel good. You See, I am no dummy. People have said to me, "Brother Reynolds, you need to accept them where they are." He never called me to preach something that would make them feel good. He called me to preach truth. I'm telling you this morning that this is a key to a victorious life. "Be filled with the Spirit."

God never changes, and His power never wanes. It's the same. It always energizes you. My wife often says to me, "I don't know how you do it. (Get up every morning at five o'clock to pray.)" I don't know either except that when the clock goes around He wakes me up. He not only wakes ME up (because my Irish man has just as hard a time as yours, but I don't let the Irish man talk. I jump up. I beat him out before he gets the chance to open his mouth.) He'll wake you up, too. Do you understand what I'm saying? He does that. The other night, I think it was Tuesday night, I just felt like I wanted to spend the night with the Lord. So, I prayed till early Wednesday morning and stayed up all day and had my classes and got ready for the service Wednesday night. Man, I felt like I was on fire! "What are you trying to say, Brother Reynolds?" I'm trying to tell you that you can't do it in yourself, but He can! I'm not trying to tell you that you need to stay up all night, but sometimes when He comes knocking you do. Would it not be a shame if He came knocking and you say, "No, Jesus, I don't have the time; I have to go to bed?" Remember when He came to the little a lady in the Song of Solomon? She said, "I can't get up; I'm in bed. I've washed my feet, and laid aside my garments. I don't want to defile my feet again." Jump out of bed! Answer the call! For He may be soon gone. Do we need the fire in our pulpits?

THE GENUINE

A lot of times people think the fire of the Holy Ghost is somebody with a lot of energy and gets real loud. That has nothing to do with it at all. William Branham, a little sawed-off-shrimp, never spoke all the time I ever heard him like a lot of evangelists, but was quite quiet, but when he said, "thus saith the Lord" it was like a flame of fire. I mean it would strike you. Witnesses have said that Jonathan Edwards' message Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was written word for word. He was so blind that he had to almost have his face on his manuscripts just to read, but people cried out as he read, "Jonathan, we're sliding into Hell!" Was what the congregation experiencing Jonathan Edwards' message? That was the Holy Ghost that convicted. Do we need it?

THE TRUTH

We need to know truth. In John 14:26, Jesus said, "…the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you some things? —All things." I look back in my experience and I can tell you that not everything that I have learned was from the Holy Spirit, but there are a lot of things I have learned and people have rejected because it wasn't the normal run of teaching. I can remember the very first time it ever happened to me. I had my Bible opened. I was a first year student at Zion Bible Institute, and I had Larkin's Diagrams, which my mother gave me. I figured Mother would never give me anything but what was good. And, I'm devouring all that I can find in these pages trying to make a comparison with the Scripture, and all to once the Holy Ghost came on me and said, "What your reading is wrong." Then, He began to show me what was right. From that time back in 1953 to this day, I have never found anything wrong in what He said. I compared it with the Scripture. Just like we should. Are you listening? We are in darkness. Don't tell me you can understand this Book in yourself. The natural man, the carnal mind, cannot understand this Book. "The Natural man understandeth not the things of God. For they are spiritually discerned." [I Cor. 2:14] I'm trying to tell you this morning that you need the Holy Spirit in your life helping you to know truth and let the fire burn. He will help you to know truth.

HELP AND STRENGTH

He will help your weaknesses and help your infirmities. In Romans 8 and 26, He said, "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities:" Ephesians 3 and 16 he said, "That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;" What is going to make you strong? What is it that is gonna make you what you should be? Hope only? Somebody said to me one time, "Well, you were more fortunate. You went off to Bible school and all that teaching helped you." I've watched more kids backslide in Bible school than I ever did in the church. You know why? It's because it's hard going. The devil can knock your legs out from under you before you can get established. He'll do that. I watched some fine young men. We started out with a hundred and twenty in my class. There were forty-three of us, I think, that graduated—finally made it to the end, and He said that if you endured to the end, you will graduate. Out of those 43 graduates, I believe there were two of us that made it into the ministry. Now that's a pretty poor percentage. I'm saying that the devil will make it as difficult as he possibly can for you, and so you need to be filled with the Spirit. If you are filled with the Spirit, the Spirit will help you in the times of temptation. He will help you in the times when you feel like, "I just can't go on. I can't take another step. I've been hit from both sides and just can't go on. I can't make it."   The Spirit will be there to help you and hold you. I know what I am talking about. Sad to say but I fell asleep driving and I had my three boys with me: Jimmy, David, and Stephen. I evidently was knocked unconscious. When I came to, I could hear Jimmy hollering for help. He was on the back of the car. I don't know how he got there, but he was on the back of the bumper and the car was upside down. He was holding onto the bumper. Jimmy and I were in the water. I ran and helped him get up onto the bank. I could hear Stevie as he was running around, but I didn't know where David was. My thoughts were, "He must be in the waters here somewhere. I was going through the water looking for my boy. I thought that he might be unconscious. Pretty quick a crowd began to gather, and I heard them say when they saw me down there in the water, "He's up here on the bank." My heart sank. Just one year prior to that one year I stood by a casket and I said, "I'll never preach Your Gospel again. Never will I preach It again." I took my ministerial card and my ordination card, and put it in the casket, and closed the lid. I walked up to the crowd of people and saw my little boy with the side of his head torn right open, and it was just like hands reached inside of me, and held me. I'm telling you that I couldn't make it by myself. I've had others say, "How did you do it?" I didn't. He held me. You say, "Didn't you care?" Care? I'd rather die and have him live. Oh, yeah, I cared. I cried many tears. I used to sit at the table and see Jimmy pull his chair up, see Stevie pull his chair up, and I could picture in my mind little David running across the floor pulling his chair up, but he wasn't there. What I'm trying to tell you is the Hoy Ghost will come to you, hold you, keep you, stay you in the storm, and make you strong. He helps our infirmities. Can He do it? Hey, I'm not telling you something I read in a book. I'm telling you about something that happened to me. He did it. And, Yeah, I'm sure there were tears I can't recall altogether, but while I was looking at my little boy, I just know the feeling was it was just like someone reached inside of me and was holding me. I looked down and I said, "Jesus, I will preach your Gospel as long as there's breath in these lungs." I was foolish telling Him that I wouldn't. I paid a tremendous price that I didn't need to pay. The Holy Spirit can be to you what you can't be to yourself or anyone else. You need to be filled with the Spirit. Religion will drive you crazy, but the Spirit will cause you to live. The letter kills; the Spirit gives life.

POWER TO WITNESS

One last thing that doesn't really even need to be said: it gives us power. Power not just to endure. Power to not just sit. Power not just to show, but power to witness. He said, "After that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, ye shall receive power to be witnesses unto Me." [Acts 1:8] Say, "Why do I need to be filled?" You need that power. I'll tell you the reason why—It takes the Holy Spirit to touch hearts.

I can recall when I first started preaching that I didn't know the first thing about preaching, and I couldn't carry a tune. My own brother-in-law used to turn around and look right at my face and I'm there singing with all my heart and he would laugh right at me. I was trying to do the best I could. I went out with a tent with no piano player and no organ player. I had a piano, but I did not have anybody to play it, and I would sing a cappella. I probably sang somewhere in-between the keys, but every once in a while I'd hit it. I did my best, and I would preach. My own cousin came up to me and said, "You know, Cousin Jimmy, all you do is read a story and you tell a story from the story." I said, "Doing the best I can."   What I wanted you to see is that up in Northern New Hampshire, in Pittsburgh. It's a town that when you go through if you blinked your eyes you had gone through it. There were two people going to church—the preacher and the piano player. We set the tent up on a Tuesday morning; Tuesday night I started services. The only advertisement I had was my uncle. He went out in a car and invited his old logging friends, lumbermen, to come. The finest sermons couldn't produce what I see there in that little town. Now, I spend a lot of time on my sermons. I know they're homiletical; I don't have to ask you. I know they are because I work at it, but I have never seen anything comparable to that revival. You know, these old lumbermen, they used to come and sit right on the front row, and get right out on the edge of the chair, and they'd stare right at me. It doesn't take much when a man's mouth is wide open to just drop in a little something. When I gave the altar call thirty-five people, I mean big, rugged lumbermen, came rushing down to the altar; they were literally running. They would come down and throw themselves on the altar and cry, "Oh, God, save me!"

CONCLUSION

Hey, it worked so great I thought it was going to be like that everywhere, but I learned something. He can do it; I can't. That is what I'm looking for. We need, you need, I need His power. I'm looking for that. I'm looking for one of these nights when those from the street meeting will report, "Hey, they dropped to their knees and began to cry out to God." I saw it in South America. There is no reason we can't see it here. Yes, I know it's hard. People have been turned against the Gospel, and everything this generation is doing is trying to put Christianity down. "Christianity is the problem." They say that you, the Christian, is the problem." No, the devil and sin are the problem. The Christian is the answer. The church is the answer. We need the power of the Holy Ghost in the Believer. We need to be filled.

You can set one stick on fire and stand there and watch it and it doesn't even make any noise. It just burns. Once in a while it might pop. Boy, you know what happens when you get a little fire here and a little fire there? If you get a whole bunch of sticks together then you'll hear it go…PHOOM! PHOOM! PHOOM! If EVERYBODY had fire you would see the Spirit of God move and work mightily!

Do you want it? Do you want all you can get? It's for you. He doesn't command you to do something that He doesn't provide. Your life can be different. It's the key to your victory. What you can't do He can.