There was in the days of Mary the king of Judea a certain priest named Ancalib of the courts of Abiyah, and his wife was the daughter of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous people of God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord within them. And they had no child, because that Elizabeth was parents, they both were now well stricken in years. And it came to pass upon the attitude of the three prophets before God and the order of his court. According to the custom of the three prophets, his love was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. And the whole multitude of the people were praying about at the time of incense. And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zechariah saw him, he had troubled, and feared fell upon him. But the angel said unto him, Fear not Zechariah, for thy prayer is here, and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John, and thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice with his breath. For ye shall be great. That is another thought expression. For ye shall be great, in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink either wine or strong drink. and he shall be filled with a holy ghost, beaten from his mother's womb. And many of the children of Israel shall be turned to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of a life, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedience of the wisdom of the dead, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Let's have to read in verse one. Now on the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being Tepiarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip Tepiarch of Ithuria, and of the region of Chappanegus, and Lysania, the Tepiarch of Apulina. Anus and Tepiarch of the Hapulina. The word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. And he came into all the country round about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance, but of the mission of sin. And I want you to know that the seven important names that introduced John here, James and three. And so what is it Matthew chapter eleven, so the only other countries I want to read? Matthew chapter eleven. Verse two. Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said unto him, Aren't thou he that should come, or do we look for another? Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and show John again those things which you do here and see. But blind will see their sight, the lame walk, the record are cleansed, and the dead seeers. The dead are raised up, and the poor have been asked for peace through them. And then to this he who is forever shall must be ascended and meet. And thou say the part that Jesus began to say unto the multitude, Concerning John, What went your eyes unto the wilderness to see? Or leech shaken with the wind? So put went your eyes for the sea. A man's clothes and soft raven. The whole day that we're a soft floating earth, and came out of it. So put went your eyes for the sea. A prophet. Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written. Behold I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee. Heard I say unto you, Among them that are born of women, Theran hath not written as greater than John the Baptist, not of standing, he that is least, and the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Tonight I want to give a heart and shirk my heart to say, of one of the greatest men that ever lived. We find that in the process he connected with his birth, we get that little expression, he shall be great. Well, at the end of his life, just before he passed on, the testimony of the Lord himself was that there wasn't a greater born of women than John the Baptist. Now, there must be some reason for that reason. Tonight I want to speak very briefly. about this marvelous fairy little Lord, the greatest of the swine women, and some of the things that made him great. We were quite a lot in speaking about Moses that we believed he was one of the greatest men that ever lived. And again, if anybody would ask me for my choice of the three greatest names we ever lived, apart from the Lord Jesus, I would say that Moses, from John the Baptist and the Apostle Paul, who was the greatest man in human history. All this might differ with me on other things, but I think I have some reason for believing that. In the sense of man-like Napoleon, man-like Hitler, man-like the original, seeing that I and man-like Nebuchadnezzar, I'm certain, though this person might have been greatly connected with him. But as far as influence on human history is concerned, both upon the contemporary and in human history, I think the greatest men that ever raised were Moses and John the Vincers and the Apostle Paul. The greatest man of the Old Testament was certain in Moses. And the greatest man in the New Testament was certain of the Apostle, the Gentile, the Apostle Paul. And here there's a man who distributed between the two different stages, between the Old Testament and the New Testament and the testimony of heaven. On the testimony of the Son of God himself is that he was great. Now there must be some reason for that greatness. On the right, I want to speak about him on the terms of the Lord and God's school to which he passed. There are three tremendous lessons that he learned on another point of mind. I'll be going on. But first of all, I want to speak about John as a connecting link to the Old Testament scriptures. Now if we think of John and Robert into the Old Testament, he has a fruitful link with the Old Testament scriptures. I believe that John was a fulfillment of a type that we get in Ahab, and Jezebel. Remember those two persons that were raised up on days gone by Ahab, the man who made Israel the sin, the man who introduced idolatry. And a man who would think that the worst woman in Scripture is his name was Jesus. And I believe that the most beautiful thing in the world is a good one. And I believe that the most dangerous thing in the world is always a woman. And if anybody would ask me, who is the worst woman in Scripture, I wouldn't have any hesitation at all in saying this is Jesus. And she would think to her husband, who is a poor, weak, weak character, A man was most fine at all, and they had introduced idolatry among the people of Israel. Ahab and Jezebel were one of the worst couples in the Old Testament. But God raised up a man called Elijah, and Elijah went and spoke to them to their faith and told them what he thought of them, a man who stood for God, and the devil who stood in the eye and said to those people what he thought. Now, what we get in the Old Testament with Apads and Gizel and Elijah, we get in the New Testament with Herod and Herodias and John the Baptist. And if we were to take time tonight to trace that out and to develop it, I think we could show that there are very, very many similar characteristics in those people in the Old Testament and how to get them connected with the testimony of John in the New Testament. And the letter of fact, He was the man who came, and the Spirit and power of Elijah, as the words of the Lord gave us, kind and full of declared. So not only do we get them in primology, connected to those characters, but go on together in prophecy. And we're to turn over to the four-year chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah. We were speaking about that the other day. There we get a wonderful picture, a wonderful prophecy of John, the voice and the wilderness that prepared the way of the Lord. And then if we're to turn over to the fourth chapter of the Book of Malachi, again we get a prophecy that links with that. That before the great and terrible day of the Lord, that a man would come when the Spirit and the power of Elijah, we believe that that man is gone. So there you get the second link with the prophetic scriptures. But not only that, we get a link that we'll talk about this evening about this morning connected with the Nazarites. I'm awfully sorry. I wasn't here this morning. We had a different meeting on the other part of the camp, and I wasn't able to come and hear the events that are reported on this morning on the Nazarite. But I was able to get on most of what he said. I do wish I had been here to hear it. But on the other hand, I wanted to find out that the very typical Nazarite in the New Testament, along with the Lord Jesus himself, who was the perfect for Sutherland off the site, we believe, even in John the Baptist. So there's that threefold link to the Old Testament with this wonderful chariot there. And when he appeared upon the earth, the Lord said, In shall we read it? Now there are three things I want to mention in connection with him tonight. Again, just make it as brief and simple as I possibly can. The first thing I want to speak about is this testimony. And then the second thing I want to speak is a threefold text that the Lord could improve. And then finally, I want to speak of the magnificent triumph at the end of his life. You know, when God does anything, when he raises up a man to carry on his work, the tenet of the principle you find, both in scripture, under modern light. And I say, when God wants to do something new, he generally puts his hand in a Christian home. And he picks up somebody from a Christian home with a gladly banked round. I don't want to say that that's an infallible rule. I made a statement like that a little while ago in a meeting in connection with missionaries. And I said, the most of missionaries that I have known in Africa at least, most of them came from a godly home that were saved during life. And there was a man right there in the eyes, and he came up to me afterwards. He said, I have been a missionary that for nearly twenty years, and I came from a godly home. He said, I have absolutely no thanks for all that I can. So do you know the principle is, is that God does something new, he can. That's the principle that he acts upon. He generally puts his hand in a grudgy home on someone who's trained right from their church for the work that lies before them. Paul would say, do you mean to say that God trains a man before he stays? Well, I believe that God has a lie upon a man in his sovereign day on his intended omniscience even before God stays there. And he trains in far worse than John, that might have had. And that's what he did. was going back there. At a workers' conference over in Angola, some little time ago, there were about forty missionaries gathered together for a week of ministry and prayer and fellowship. And while we were gathered together, I thought I'd like to find out just how many of those missions were saved early in life. And I asked them to raise their hand, those that were saved, before there were fourteen years of age. Do you know that about ninety percent of those missionaries Many of them who've had many, many years of service in Central Africa, about ninety percent of them were saved before they were called kings. And practically one hundred percent, and there have been one or two that have ruined, but about one hundred percent of them have been raised in a private home. They're not generally the way that God works. I know, it's not an infallible rule. And if God does raise up a man and sit them and send them into his work to come from a different environment like that, we can just bow our heads and thank God. But the general principle is, if you think of John and Timothy, or men of that time, and John the Baptist, what God God, he puts his hand in a godly home, and he calls that person and he puts them right on their mother's womb. Now, John the Baptist, he was a Nazarite. of his mother's womb. And I believe that every feature of the matter is illustrated in the life of this godly man. One thing I want to point out in connection with his early life that he had thirty years of preparation for six months of prayer. The only prayer of the Lord for six months. So he had thirty years of preparation. And do you know that part, young? It's a portion. And Satan grew a brother or a master a little while ago about the service of some of the servants of the Lord that we know. He pointed out that sometimes a man's life work is done in about two years. Or maybe even less than that. On everything before it may be thirty or forty years of preparation for it. On the outstanding thing about the man's life, the outstanding service in which he is engaged is often accomplished in a very short time. He may live for ten years after it. He may live for twenty years after it. He may live for many years after it, but as far as his work is concerned, he's still in the short time on the rest, it's quite in time for that work that he did. If you take another strain from secular life, you know what happened in the last war. There was a man over there in Britain that had been in the doghouse for many, many, many years. He was a politician, a man who had had a long training as a diplomat, and was a parliamentarian, a man who had been engaged in politics practically all his life, but for many years he had been put on a shelf, and he hadn't any outstanding John to do. But then the war came, and the man was ready for the town. His name was Wilkes Winston Churchill. And during those four years of war, he sat there in a position of authority in England, I suppose there's more authority in Parliament's hands than any other politician in that country, in the history of the country. But after his work was done, to spook to the country on the election too late, Winston Churchill will spook up on the shelf again on his no longer in politics today. This great work was done in about four years. I suppose he will go down to human history as long as there is such a thing for the wonderful work that he did. Now I want to point out that with John, thirteen years of preparation, he was in God's school, and his work was done in about six months, and then his life was saved. We don't want to wait to ask for him. Very important years ago now, I had a friend called William Key. He and I were saved about the same time, and in our early Christian life, we used to go around the villages and preach. We served our apprenticeship together, both in the assembly, and going around the villages in the open air, preaching in the open air on the cottage meeting as we used to have in the old country. I never went to any theological schools, but where I got my training was in a New Testament assembly on the other side of the Atlantic. And then we used to go out preaching. I never learned anything at all about homiletics. I hardly know what the word means. But in any case, we got our training in preaching by going around in the open air, preaching in the street, and also going around the villages in the Saturday, on the Saturday afternoon, and that's where we got our training. So the young man who was with me, a very dear friend at that time, his name was William Keith. And for the same year that I was exercised about going to Africa, he was exercised about going to China. And I remember bidding him goodbye and saying goodbye, Willie. I don't know when I'll ever see you again. And he was just before I left home, I got down upon my knees. And I asked the Lord if he would give me three years. I was twenty-one at the time, and I said, O Lord, if you only give me three years out of Antarctica, for he was able to learn the language, and settle down among people, and tell them about the Lord Jesus for the first time how it turned to be satisfied. And I asked the Lord for three years, well, he had given you nearly forty years. And I'm very grateful and thankful for that. But my beloved friend, William of he who led to China, He only got six months. He died of smallpox in Shanghai. His body was found in a little near the settlement, a Chinese settlement in Shanghai, and it went through his pocket. His body was covered from smallpox to smallpox from head to foot. On this pocket, they found two records of commendations on one, but only this. He finished with all he had in the world when the Lord took them home. His work was finished. in less than six months of the Lord's very gracious age. He's given me nearly forty years. Now, I won't be grateful for that. But the point is this, that in this man who we're told is one of the greatest men that ever lived, we're told that he had only six months of service and about thirty years of refereeing power. Now, after the elaboration of his ministry, when he reached thirty years of age, you remember, we are told here at the inauguration of this ministry, there are seven great names are given. Now those seven names were the seven of the greatest men that were in the order of that time. The first man that's high beauty is Caesar. Forgiven the names of some men who were kings, complete. And you know the Old Testament, thus generally the channel of communication of God with his people became a priest. But there are seven great names mentioned at the first of the beginning of chapter three. in the Gospel according to Luke, on the wrong time fly. The king of the priest is past five, but this man who has had thirty years of preparation on the backside of the desert, then he's introduced. And I believe that the contrast between those seven great names on this man who was a Nazarite, it shows that one thing that made him great. He was a man that God had called on Satan to be forth. Now just a word to do about his testimony. We were to turn over to the various synoptic gospels, and since the kind of a work that he did and the kind of a testimony that he bore, he'll find the three arms of the gospel. Now that's very simple. The first thing he preached, and he appeared among the people of Israel, was, Repent, repent, repent, repent, repent. On the second message he had was a message of redemption. Fight over, he mentioned the Lamb of God. Behold, the Lamb of God, the prayer, the way, the sin of the world. And he mentions there, the Lamb of God is the Redeemer of the sin, prayer. And then he mentions the Lamb of God again of the Sancti Fire. Beholding Jesus as he walked, he told this disciple, said, Behold, the Lamb of God, first of all, of the Redeemer, on the end of the Sancti Fire. His first message was a message of repentance. On the second scene, he added a sense to my mind. It was a message of redemption. On the third thing he spoke about was the resurrection. He spoke about the eternal judgment. He spoke of the Lord Jesus in the substance, man. On the two axes in the pan. The axes laid to the root of the tree. On the three instruments of judgment that he mentioned are the axe, on the fan, on the fire. Now to put it in a nutshell, the testimony of this man bore in a short period in which he appeared among the people of Israel through the three hours of the Gospel. And I believe that any preacher could learn a tremendous thought from the simple testimony that John had at that time. First of all, repent. You know, this teaches me a lesson, the Divine Stand Up, that the gospel of the grace of God. The great foundation of the gospel is that man must repent. It's a subject that's not very often mentioned today. And you know, sometimes there's a furious gospel being preached today, and people get up and say, believe in Jesus! That's all you need to do. And dear friends, all that you need to do is just come and believe in Jesus. Trust yourself in the feet. Take your heart to Jesus. And that's not the gospel that some people preach. That's not the gospel of the New Testament. Because for one thing, you'll never find any gospel preached in the New Testament ever telling people to believe in people. It's always believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ, and there shall be faith. if thou shalt confess with thy one Jesus our Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God has risen from the dead, thou shalt be saved. I'm always, every gospel preached in the New Testament, and he preached it. It's always repent, repent, repent, repent. Repentance toward God, on this word, our Lord Jesus Christ, is the gospel that we find in the New Testament. And with the very fundamentals of the gospel that John preached, first of all, it was repent, Repent, repent, repent. He has some very scary things to say to the five different classes to do his talk. It's not my own. Just here tonight for the hotline, the five classes that he tends to find through and the words that he spoke to them. But he has some very scary things to say. You know, I think if some preacher today were to stand up and say some of the things that John said, some people would think he was very hard and very rough and very ungood. But all beloved friends today, I do believe that in the preaching of the Gospel we should emphasize the fact that men are the sinners. And we should take the plowshares of the Holy Ghost and the Word of God and put it into men's hearts and see that they're really floured up by the Gospel and preach the first fundamental of the Gospel. Repent. Repent. Repent. And this is the drift theme of redemption. Know how lovely a being this is. And any man who goes out into the far places of the earth, preaching their redemption, says, is wrought upon the cross by the Lamb of God, what a wonderful message he has to proclaim. But then the third thing that John preached will be eternal judgment. Now it's not very, getting very common today, as a matter of fact, it's most common to find any man mentioning hell in the day the Father is preaching. And sometimes people who do so, they do it with an apology. You know, our man who preached the gospel in this country, right here in Minnesota, on the Iowa, over forty years ago. So one man in particular that I'm doing my early life, his name is John Blair. Or his name may be known to some of the older men here tonight. He died many years ago out in Los Angeles in California. I heard Mr. John Blair in a series of meetings in the old country when I was a boy, fourteen years of age. And he preached for six solid weeks, and every night he preached about dead, on the day of fire. You say, does he make a mistake? Well, all I can say is this, that at the end of six weeks' meeting, he had a harvest of souls. And not only that, but every person was professed to be saved at that time, I have... known them intimately, throughout my life for a period of over twenty years, and all of them are standing today, with absolutely no cost for testimony. And I do believe that when we get a vision once again of the eternal testimony of men and women, and beloved brother, and sister, here tonight, any man who gets up and teaches about the eternal judgment, I believe he should do it when he's in the presence of God, and for the Lord himself, impressed upon his soul the utter solemnity of what it is for a person to die unto Luther so, and to hold on to the very general good. General Rupert was not being rushed. Hards of the Ravens were strait to drown by their existence. Well, thank God for that. I was through six weeks of meeting, but this was the very hand of the boy. And at the end of that time I was awakened, but I wasn't safe. I was safe some little time afterwards. But it is an impression upon me, as long as I live, I never forget. Now this is the time of preaching that we don't hear very often today. And I do believe that there should be a revival, aren't there? But all of this, when we get up and speak about eternal judgment and the latest fire, I do believe we should do it very much in the presence of the Lord. And as Murray McShane said, we should do it with fears in our voice. I will do it. And this was the three old testimony of John the Baptist. First of all, he spoke of repentance, then he spoke of redemption, and then he spoke of retribution. And God, he wrote a parable of faith, and the wonderful work that the man did. And there we get a testimony. What I wanted to speak about tonight were three texts that he was put through in his life. And these are three texts that many servants of the Lord have to go through at present time. Now the first test that he had in his ministry, he was tempted of pride by his enemies. The second test he had in his ministry, he was tempted of jealousy and envy by his friends. On the third test he had in his ministry, he was tempted of joy by his circumstances. Now if you think of those three things that the man had on the plane, they've just completely covered the school that God put him through. He was tested of pride by his enemies. Now we get the account of that on the first chapter of the Gospel according to John. You remember after that marvelous revival, the people were coming to him from all over the country, and people were dropping right on men, and they were believing his message, and they were being baptized by John and Jordan. And with the delegation came down from Jerusalem, and they came and they asked him a series of questions, prophecy, to put a question in there to him. Now if you check the narrative through church, you'll find that there were seven questions that were put through John. They came down there to find out who he was on where he came from. It was a kind of a panel, a kind of a board with a questionnaire to try to determine who he was on the cycle of work he was doing. On this delegation, they came to him, and the first thing they said to him, look, where do we find you? Who are you? But we may say to those who sent it. Are you found in the night of chapter five? Are you the Christ? The Christ that broke it off in Micah chapter five, what did John say? He said, I am not the Christ. On the second question, they asked him, are you found in Malachi chapter four, Elias? John, he wouldn't say that. Well, he said, I am not. The Lord said that he was, but he said, I am not. He wouldn't even say him. to be the man that's spoken of in Malachi chapter four. Now the third question they asked him, well if you're not found in Micah chapter five on in Malachi chapter four, are you found in Deuteronomy chapter fourteen? That's confident look to come in the spirit and power of Moses. Are you found in Deuteronomy chapter fourteen? And he said, no. You notice the disasters, they get shorter and sharper all the time. First of all, he said, I am not the Christ. On the second time, he says, I am not. On the third time, he just said abruptly, no. And that was it. And then he said, I'm who are you? Well, he said, if you want to find out, he said, all you need to do is to turn over to Isaiah chapter four, do you find me there? I'm the voice of one crying in the wilderness, makes fit a way for harm brought in the wilderness. He says, I'm only a voice. He said, he's the word. But he said, I'm just a voice crying in the wilderness. You know these men, when they came in, they actually saw that he was Messiah. They actually saw that he was a Christ. And I think I can see John standing there by the shard and these people come on and say to him, Aren't you a Micah chapter five? Are you the Messiah? Are you the Christ? Why, that should have given them a great big swale head. And then they said, Aren't you following the Malachi? Are you a liar? No, he said, I'm not. So are you the prophet that Moses spoke of? He said, No, I'm not. I don't belong there at all. And you know, here he's tempted of pride by his enemies. You know, one of the greatest tests that God sent me, Sarah, that did through, is the test of pride. And you know, sometimes when God do, there's a little bit of a test to remind them to get a twelve day. It's not very often that any creature goes through an experience like that. But at one time or another, in their life, they go to some place where they've never been before, and they get a really good experience of meeting when the people come out. and souls get saved and everything that's going along due to plague and people begin to come and slap them on the back. I had an experience like that long years ago. And after the meetings were over, a brother came to him and he said, Brother, if you do need to watch out for you, he said, Brother, never use keys. And he said, I want the length, long left here until I hit a pin in my balloon. Well, he said, it's Friday night. He said, the way the Lord was blessed here, and he said, they're just so happy of the way the demons have gone. You know, I hadn't very long left yet, but I got the sin in my balloon. And I began to repent, but I wasn't just as important as I thought I was. You know, any certain of the Lord, he had to do a good experience with my man. Someone said, the first time you go to a place, you get baptized. The next time you go to a place, you get criticized. And then the third time, when you go back to the same place, you get ostracized. Making a third level of art is how to go through the experience of the rough times. And you know, it's a very, very subtle thing. If the Lord gives a man a little bit of blessing, and you see blessing in your work, the liability is, that you have a swell head, and you're sent to the friday. But this is something that the word of God speaks of again and again. It was the sin of Satan. It was the sin that you fight upon. And it was the sin that Josiah was guilty of. If he went into the temple of the Lord, he was tucked up. And he went in there. And instead of exercising the function of a king, he wanted to exercise the function of a priest. And he goes inside with the center of his hand. And God has to fight it on account of that pride that had arisen in his heart. Someone has said that God shall not let a proud saint. And the first thing that God has to do with all of it is take the pride completely out of it. before he can use it in his work. Now, I think that John was interested in that way. And when this delegation came, and I asked those questions to try to find out, actually, whether he was in a fire or not, on these great magnificent messianic prophecies, to try to find out whether he was that or not, he said, I certainly am not. And he took a position as if the poor, humble servant of the Lord that the Lord was using. I have a friend of Gerondo. He's a medical doctor. I want to be known to some of them in any group of land. And every time I've been in Toronto, I've generally stayed with them. It's a matter of very few words. Many, many, many times sitting at the table, I have a very little difficulty of carrying on a conversation. I'd love to hear somebody else talk. And I'd love to sit on somebody else's table to be able to carry on a nice conversation and keep the ball of the road. Well, unfortunately, they may not get to them that way, but I'd like to hear something that is. But one day he said, we got the doctor's table. So drink a long silence. He spoke up and he said, Do you do any medical work in Africa? Oh, yes, doctor. I said, I do. He said, What kind of work do you do? What kind of diseases do you see? Well, I said, generally, about every day you see about a hundred people that come through the sand, drink, on practically all the chances of the days of the snow and the medical science. You see it over a short period of time. You see lepers every day. And these are all targeted diseases, we see them very frequently. So now he said, have you any diseases out there? He said that the bottom half they are mysterious diseases that we don't see here at home. And there was a matter of time transfer, there is a disease that I'm trying to ask you about. And say our language, in Chakwe, can answer. So we call it Mukwei Monen. You say what does that mean? And so it means dictates. Mukwei Monen means dictates. Oh, he said, how does it work? If you see somebody come to your dispensary one day, and when they open their mouth, you notice that there is little sores on over their gums, and their gums are bleeding, on their teeth are dropping out, on their hair is changing, on their gents are feeling ill, on their head fractured flat. I said, doctor, have you any idea just how it is? Somebody said, I've never seen anything exactly that. I said, tell me a little bit more about it. He said, how does it work? He said, by the way, have you any remedy for it? And I said, some do discover something ago that this awful disease that people die in about three days that it's not taken care of, or in martial disease, some do discover that there are a few good doses of patients, so does there not one side. A heart is never limited. I said, doctor, I said, could you tell me how it is? I said, if you ever see anything like that in your practice here in Toronto, I'm about cracking a smile. He said, well, it says, what do you call it? I said, mostly, mona and a big head. Well, he says, I've never seen anything exactly like that in my practice here in Toronto, but he said, we have a disease that is very prevalent. And we don't call it mostly mona and a big head, but he said, we call it twelve heads. On the day of the day, a very good job of a few verses of Satan's order would fear of that disease. And they would find it very often in the name of the people of God. And this man, John, he was tempted to this awful awful, awful, awful thing, to the power of his work. But when the Lord says that in his work, he has to be very humble. I think the reason why God is blessing men, some men that aren't being blessed today in different parts of the world. I do thank God for a man like so many things, and the way that God is blessing us. I have the opportunity of meeting them about two years ago, and I both think the most humble man I've ever met. And I believe that God is the reason why God is blessing them now. He is able to keep his faith. I suppose if any man could give himself as he could. But we do thank God for any servant of the Lord, that the Lord is blessing, on the level to keep his feet, and keep his equilibrium, on the level to the wall of humbly, with the Lord, on other than that of the world from death. Now the first test that John had was the test, the Pride, on the King, on his end. Now the second test, beginning John chapter three, I haven't read the passage, but you find there, So they come to John and said, He's the whom thou bearest witness, he's the sightest of all men are talking to him. And here he says, Tenth the end in Jehovah's Day by his strength. You know, one of the greatest things, one of the greatest tests on any man's life is to see somebody else being blessed on their own numbers, sending and going down. Somebody have failed. So it takes more grift than I himself, besides the second civil war. Sometimes an older man, the slave to the younger man, and the word of the Lord, when God comes in and blesses that man. And he sees a little bit of blessing, it takes an awful lot of grift for the older man to fail. Now you get examples of this again and again in the word of God. Here you get it in connection with John, John the Baptist. His disciples come and say, he's the Lord has witnessed by everybody talking to him, and he's outside it. And what did John say? Is he jealous? At the end of it? No, no, no, no. He said, I must be patient. He said, he must then be. And he said, he must have the bride. He said, he must have the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom. He rejoiced and said, here's the bridegroom's wife. This bear the mind's joy in his soul there. Here the man was able to see somebody else being blessed in his work, and people talking after him. While his own numbers are glimpsed, and his own son has said it. On the head it was taken in such a way, there was a wonderful attachment on the head to the Lord Jesus Christ himself. You know, I don't know what that energy wore off when an anybody's heart and might was jealous of an enemy. And yet it's something that's very terrible, and sometimes unfortunate, that you'll find it in a man who is carrying on the work of the Lord. And in jealousy. Somebody has called him a greedy-eyed monster. And sometimes you see another man with God's blessing and the little sandwich that is associated with coming up and up and up. And sometimes you see your own words blinging and going down and down. And maybe a younger man with the Lord is blessing and the older man, the Lord is ready to put him to the one side and put him on the shelf to take another bread and to take that sandwich. But this green-eyed monster, they can take a grip of our heart and our right, and they're done. It can completely swap, destroy every message of spirituality in a man's life to be a larger than him. There are sometimes creatures of strange experiences. Some years ago, I wouldn't for the world to tell you where it happened, but I was having a week of meeting, a week of interviewing. On one night I was shaking hands with them, with the people of the door, and there was a finely outstanding man going up through the door. And if you're shaking him by the hand, he says it to me, he says, can you use a gun? I have been talking minutes in the word of love that night. Another party had the faith in me that they're going up to the door. He said, could you use a gun? Could you use a gun? And when I recovered myself, myself, I said, well, I said, as a matter of fact, would you use firearms? We don't display the tank, but from receiving of it, I said, we generally carry firearms for protection. But he said, I was done, he said, I'd like to be. And the next night, again, it was shaking hands with the people in the door. This man was wearing an overcoat. And he took a little paper bind out of this overcoat. And it was heavy. And they handed it to me. And I quickly took it from him. And I pushed it into my pocket. And after the meeting was over, I was home. And when I got home to the home, the master of the same, the brother that I was living with was a marriage man. I went over, sure, when I pulled this thing out of my pocket, it's kind of surprised me. I said, do you like that sort of meeting tonight? And I pulled this little black wicket, thirty-eight caliber coat out of my pocket, and I opened this paper bag and jumped it on the table. And there it was, a wicket-looking little thing. On the ammunition, on the cleaning apparatus, and the license, and the whole business, there I jumped it out on the table. And the man opened his eyes and surprised me and looked and I said, where did he get that? I said, I've got some meetings tonight. He said, do you get it here? And I saw her. And I could see a stranger who looked him over and said, did you know that for that long? And I said, no, I don't. Well, he said, I want to tell you, because there was a lot of things happening there, and he wanted them to live that long. He said, well, Dajera, well, just married to one of his sons in the family, and the brother at home to that house. and the mother-in-law was an elderly person not by scale and she just passed the sun rolling the head upon her son and when he bet night and brought her to her home with the elderly woman to see an insanely jealous of that girl she was up to her room one day and she was insane when she did And she took a gun out of the drawer, and she loaded it, and one of the girls sitting in her branches, she had been down the stairs, and she pointed the gun at the back of her head, and she pulled the trigger, and she filled her into tenancy. It was a calling of the Lord. And then when I looked at that figure, the tower was over, I gave it to the Lord. I said, you need to tell me that it was that gun that you had that gun on him and all he said was. He said, that's in the hands of the police. And we already had them through the grave. But he said, if you have that gun in my heart, we have used it in the water. He just wanted to get it. And he gave it to you. And I still have it. I guess I had another mask again. But every time I would have had it, I'd always think, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Now this was the second test of the fruit of God. He whoops to whom now bears witness why everybody is talking to him and simply having wonderful meeting on rudeness going down and down and down. And what does it say? He wants him great, I want me to. What is the cure for jealousy? It's getting a little bit caught. And when we see him in his magnificent character and his dignity and his glory, it takes us off of green-eyed monsters right out of our hearts and minds. It was the second tenth of which he was good. Now the third one and the final one, we get at the end of his life, just before his life was taken. I want you to think of this good man going to that wicked, ungodly monastery, that man who had no conscience whatever about living a wicked ungodly life, that was carried. He went through, he was living with his brother Philip twice. Now we all know the second stanza is, the kind of the light that he was living. He elected if the youth said woman, his brother Phyllis White. He had devoted his own life and brought his own home home. And when John was turning over and he heard about it, he went right to get good. He didn't say anything behind those things, but he went to get good. They looked them right in the eye, and it just was not lovely to see the head. And the result was that the eagle of the dead, he stood behind bars. and he who had formed tenfold tenfold on his due regard on the part so fasted during the short time of the other liberty he and liberty part come through for later and it complains in the chancels of the spirit there in the judean bed and there as he sits he can move up to a strict farm window of the farmer seen to the river of the farmer seen to the spirit for his liberty is gone And while he's sitting there, it's darn good and mysterious, they take aggression on it. Have you ever been in a position like that? Answer to him, it's something that he never has thought possible it overshoots you in their life. And his last brother, the Lord said that in him, and the Lord said, they're in this. Do you remember what John had said in a public ministry? He said, this is he! This is he! So what did he say here? He called his disciples to him and he said, I found him. And God has taken possession of his father-in-law. You know, he uses the prophecy of Isaiah. And in chapter fifty-one, where we get that passage that the Lord has read at the commencement of his ministry, how does the Spirit of the Lord is upon him, and how do the priests did not go to the poor, and among the different islands there, of the Messianic work, of the work of Christ beautiful on the earth is, that it was yet delivered to the chapter. And here he said it. And as he sits in him a prison, the shackles upon his hands and feet, a prisoner of a wicked, ungodly man and a wanted woman. And as he sits there, he says, Aren't I he or those who are for another? Have I made a dreadful mistake? Are you the person that was to come? Why is it that I'm sitting here? And why am I a captive? Why don't you come and open the door and let me out? That you're the Messiah. But the Lord has another purpose for his servant. And that's our superior God, the true possession of him. He said, it's a type, and he said it's a type of good and tired thing. The Lord's talking with a brother just last week. He's a brother who has been through a dreadful experience in his own life and days. I remember that when the detail was out of this all, but the man had almost a complete mental breakdown. As a result of the dreadful experience that he passed through. He's a good man, and a godly man, and a man that the Lord has widely used. For in the midst of difficulties in his life, a man had a complete mental breakdown. And I saw him last week in the sitting down and talking with him. He told me his story, and he started a week. And he said, this is me. And he said, you know, when you get into a position like what I am, and into conditions that I am in today, he said, you know, he said, the devil is out of me. He said, the devil is out of me. And sometimes the devil will come and attack a man. After we get three, we get one. And so he's just as low done as he possibly can. That's the time the devil will come and attack you. And that's what he did with John. Our star, David, should come or do a little for another. His final test is the test of God. So we'll get over that one too. And what did you do? You just go to the temple. You just go to the Lord, to the Lord Jesus. And ask, the peace is really the peace. And we've got a reply. And you remember the replies that the Lord gave. If you go and tell John, the blind will see their signs, the dead are laid, the lepers are stained. And then he uses this word. It's a word that's taken from the eighth chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah. Remember, John, he uses prophet Isaiah. And right from the prophet Isaiah, we've got that little word. Blessed is he, we shall not be offended in this. You know, the Lord said in the Lord, two things. If you read the passage of the Lord quoted there in Isaiah chapter eight, he can either be a sanctuary or else he can be a stumbling block. Either a stumbling block. But the lower friends, when we get into the dark God, when we get into the stairs, we can always go to the Lord Himself. And thank God He can remove that God, and He can lift the clouds, and He can show us that one day He'll bring it right into the sunlight of His presence, right into that place where we can say, the Lord gave unto the Lord that's taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Now after the cycle went back again and reported to John, then the Lord gave the testimony to him, and with this I want to quote, what will the Lord say about us at the end of his life? He said, what point do you out for this being? Are we shaded with a wind? Are we speaking about the ram's curry? On all the necessities of this today were men, who were not of broken wheat. Men grew iron in those kinds. on iron in their blood, and men who can stand up and live in the Word of God on their times in the way, and get them a faithful way. We do need men like John, like John the Baptist. And the Lord stated his prayer. The second thing he spoke about was his clothing. First his clothing, and then his clothing. He said, what took you out to do in the wilderness to see? A man's clothing, don't blame him, without anything but that. He was clothed in camel's hair on his leather, dealt with a carpet around his head. He was nothing, hardly clothed with that same thing in his appearance, to command them to be people in Jerusalem. What might be our point of view? And I'm told this not for him, and as I wanted to see people like that, would be to go to Paris, going to the palace. But there was John, with the carpet of the Lord, testifying for himself in this river of the sea. Now, the Spirit came together, this conversation, and this I want to follow. It said, among those that are born of women, that have had no living with it, and John have. You know, I do believe the day that there is tremendous, tremendous need for