...to bring the Lord Christ down.
We do not have to descend into the
abyss to bring him up.
We do not have to proclaim your love
with an offering.
We thank you for that perfect offering that
once at the end of the age, He
appeared, not Joshua or Aaron or Isaiah or
the towering prophets of the Old Testament, but
He, the Son of God, appeared to undo
as the last of them what the first
of them had done.
He came to put away sin by the
sacrifice of Himself, and by the name of
no more sacrifice for sin.
You think of the priest of old, he
had to take the blood, he had to
put the carcass of the beast outside the
gate, then he had to take the blood,
but not his own blood.
But our Lord Jesus brought His own blood.
He suffered without the gate as a perfect
Lamb.
We bless you for the majesty of the
Lord Jesus.
He is no longer Jesus of Nazareth or
the road of many crooks left.
He was Jesus of Nazareth.
But two thousand years ago, the apostle labeled
Him this way in his word, and he
said, but He, Jesus, is the Son of
God, He is the blessed and the only
potentate and the King of kings and the
Lord of lords.
And one day He's going to be the
judge of judges.
Let it go.
We thank you for the giving thought of
your work today.
We can't imagine how it's gone for us.
Sometimes over radio or TV, sometimes via text,
sometimes we're a little bunch of people at
the Amazon around the tree, listening to a
language they can hardly understand, and a language
that they can hardly speak.
But we thank you for the power of
the Spirit to take our broken words and
make them whole.
We thank you for this fountain full of
blood, drawn from Emmanuel's verse.
And then another hymn says, that blood shall
never lose its power, to all the ransomed
children of God, be saved, to sin no
more.
Then in the noblest grief of song, we
will sing thy power to save, and we
pour this thing stammering tongues.
And even the most eloquent of preachers is
stammering.
But you take again our listening, and stammering
tongues to the glory of your name.
We thank you for our holy work tonight.
We thank you for the men who gave
it to us, who suffered to give it
to us.
We thank you for the martyrs.
We thank you for the man there in
England, when he held his hand out over
the smoke, over the fire, and said that
one day every proud boy would have this
word.
And it was then only available to scholars,
in Hebrew or Greek.
We thank you for the marvelous achievements that
have been done, to make your word known.
We bless you for those who have gone
forth to make your name known.
Perhaps some of them tonight homesick, fresh on
the field with an atmosphere they can't understand,
a language they can't speak, food they can't
eat, and strange noises they can't understand.
We thank you for the going forth of
your servants.
We pray you bless them.
Speak, and we ask you to enrich our
own hearts tonight from your word.
We say to the psalmist, Lord, open by
my lips, that I may behold wondrous things.
I will bow lower, and give you the
praise in Jesus' name.
Thank you.
Be seated.
Thank you.
There are some seats up at the front
here, if you'd like to come.
There's a little extra, but you can pay
that later.
Can I see that?
Yes, don't have me talking in the air.
Okay, come here then.
Don't be shy, I'm not.
All fixed up now?
Thank you.
A few weeks ago in our Tuesday night
class, which we don't have anymore, we made
a comparison, yes really, a comparison of the
life of Moses with that of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Now if you think that isn't quite legitimate,
let me give you a scripture here.
Deuteronomy chapter 18.
Deuteronomy chapter 18 and verse 15.
The Lord by God will raise up unto
thee a prophet from the midst of thee
of thy brethren like unto me.
Remember this is Moses writing, and he's speaking
of the Lord Jesus Christ that shall come.
A prophet like unto me, and unto him
shall thee hearken.
Last week we attempted, however imperfectly, to complete
what we had begun two weeks before whatever,
Hebrews 13.13 which says Jesus went outside
the camp and the second half of the
verse says that we should go out of
the camp too.
Which is a very dramatic and challenging thing.
Well, to me there are three, you know
there's a word used so often today that
I think it's getting a bit threadbare.
It's commitment, commitment, commitment, commitment.
My dear wife and I read together, well
honestly she does the reading after breakfast, I
listen and then after supper at night.
And in the course of our listening and
speaking and reading, a word came up which
fascinated me, and it's the word abandonment.
We hear a lot about commitment, and as
we hear a lot about sanctification.
But very few people talk about abandonment.
There are I think three classic examples of
this.
The supreme abandonment of course being the Lord
Jesus Christ himself.
The second being Moses, and the third being
our friend that we talk about so much,
the Apostle Paul.
In the seventh chapter of the Acts of
the Apostles, this
is Stephen you remember answering his accusers, and
he's giving a rundown of their history in
a sense of the Jews.
Let's read from verse 17.
When the time of the promise drew nigh,
which God had sworn unto Abraham, the people
grew and multiplied in Egypt, till another king
arose which knew not Joseph.
The same dealt subtly with our kindred, and
evil untreated our fathers, so that they cast
out their young children, to the end that
they might not live.
In which time Moses was born, and he
was exceeding fair, and married to his father
in his father's house three months.
And when he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter
took him for her own, and married him
as her son.
And Moses was learned in all the wisdom
of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in
word and in deeds.
Now look here's a division in his life
here in the next verse.
When he was full forty years old, it
came into his heart to visit his brethren,
the children of Israel.
And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he
defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed,
and smote the Egyptians.
There you've got the first forty years of
his life.
Mentioned are the first division, forty.
The comparison I think is very beautiful, because
you remember Moses was born in the slums
of Goshen, and Jesus was born in the
slums, because he was born in a manger,
in a stable.
There was a decree that Moses should be
destroyed from Pharaoh, you remember.
And there's a decree that Jesus should be
destroyed from Herod.
Moses was born in Egypt, Jesus went down
into Egypt.
Moses was born of almost unknown parents.
In his early days he was a nobody,
he became a somebody, and he's known to
everybody.
A little comparison, did you remember?
I'll leave that a little later, not use
it right here.
Let's go over to the eleventh chapter in
Hebrews.
Hebrews 11.
By faith Moses, when he was born, was
hid three months of his parents, because they
saw he was a proper child, and they
were not afraid of the king's commandment.
By faith Moses, when he came to years,
refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's
daughter.
Refused, therefore you've got refusing.
Next verse, choosing.
Rather to suffer affliction with the people of
God.
Exactly what the Lord Jesus did.
He chose to suffer.
These are not, either in the case of
Moses or Jesus, these are not cases of
rags to riches, they're cases of riches to
rags.
I remember as a little boy in England,
the preacher announced a very unique event.
He said on Tuesday night, Tuesday night, we're
having a visitor from another country.
America.
I've never seen an American, I thought he'd
have feathers and all kinds of things, you
know.
And I went eagerly to church, and there
was a man by the name of Barrowclough.
And he had just written a hymn, I
think the only one he ever wrote.
I guess some of you know it.
Out of the ivory palaces into a world
of woe, only his great eternal love made
my Saviour go.
My Lord has gone and so endless famine.
So it goes on.
It's a very, very beautiful hymn.
He came out of the ivory palaces, into
a world of woe.
I think it was the son of the
Marashal that wrote that lovely hymn.
Down from his glory of a living story.
How many of you know that?
It goes to the tune of O So
Mio.
Down from his glory of a living story,
my Lord and Saviour came and Jesus was
his name.
Born in a manger to his own a
stranger, a man of sorrows.
Now I'm out on a limb, I don't
know.
A man of sorrows, tears and agony.
Oh how I love him, how I adore
him.
My breath, my sunshine, my all in all.
The great Creator became my Saviour.
And all God's fullness dwelleth in him.
By faith Moses, when he would come to
years, refused to be called the son of
Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction.
If you go back to that 7th chapter
in Acts, about 23rd verse again, when he
was full 40 years old, it came to
his heart to visit his bedroom.
But notice the verse before that.
He had been 40 years studying in the
universities of Egypt.
He was versed in foreign languages.
He was mighty in word and in deed
the scripture says.
Well he wasn't an orator.
He wasn't a mighty orator because he stammered,
didn't he?
Had to get somebody to do his speaking
for him.
But he was mighty in word.
In other words he was a statesman.
He was mighty in word and in deeds.
When he was full 40 years old it
came into his heart.
Now if you go back to the Old
Testament and read it, it says it came
into his heart.
Now this is why he got into trouble.
The law didn't say that it came into
his heart.
But if you read that in Exodus, it
says that he looked this way and he
looked that way to see there was no
one around.
But he forgot to look up.
Forty years studying in the universities.
Studying, I'm sure, astrology, languages, what have you.
You know we think we're pretty smart, but
nobody's yet fathomed how the pyramids were put
together.
You can get a man on the moon,
but you can't make pyramids like they made.
You can't get a sheet of paper and
put it between those slabs of stone on
the pyramids.
They've been there about all these years.
They've weathered storms and every kind of thing.
As a testimony, I think, again, to the
brilliance of the men who built them.
If you were to take the different runs
on the pyramids, when it goes to a
peak, if you ran those, what we call
them now, if you made a projection they
went up, you'd find each of them went
to a star or a planet.
And I believe that's how the Egyptians studied
astrology.
How did the pyramids get there?
Now you think I'm nutty.
You've already said that, so I excuse you.
You know, I believe those stones that nobody
can weigh and nobody can move, do you
know who put them there?
The time when there were giants in the
earth.
I believe those giants lifted them up and
put them there as easy as that.
Supernatural power isn't all Christian, or Christian, or
Old Testament stuff.
There's a supernatural power of demons too.
Maybe Moses did his homework, sitting at the
base of the pyramids, I don't know.
Verse 25 says, He supposed his brethren would
have understood how that by God would deliver
them out, how that God would, by his
hand, deliver them out and be understood.
No.
You know, he got quite a task.
If he was going to wipe out the
Egyptians, he was going to have a big
job, wasn't he?
Killing them one at a time, he'd still
be at it and not finish the job.
But the Lord, put it, they had a
big baptismal service, the Egyptians.
The Lord got rid of them all.
All due respect to the Baptists here.
But the Lord did that, didn't he?
Moses, so like Jesus, he chose to suffer.
What did he suffer?
Well, when he fled from the royal palace,
like Jesus came out of the ivory palaces,
Moses comes out of a palace.
It's not a rags to riches, it's a
robes to rags.
He comes out of that palace.
To me, it is a classic example again
of abandonment.
He abandoned everything.
Go down to verse, in that 7th chapter
again, and go down into verse 29.
Then fled Moses of this thing, and was
estranged in the land of Midian, where he
begat two sons.
Now he fled into the wilderness.
He left behind him his food.
He left his royal apparel.
It's not a case of rags to riches,
it's a case of riches to rags.
How long do you think that royal robe
lasted him?
I don't think he stopped to change his
clothes when Pharaoh had put a sentence of
death on him.
He fled for his life out of the
place.
He left behind every treasure that he had.
Left his parents.
Left his people.
Left his nation.
Add them all up and find out how
much he left.
Okay, 29.
Then fled Moses of this saying, and was
estranged in the land of Midian, where he
begat two sons.
And when 40 years were expired, oh, he
got another 40.
He got 40 years in the universities with
the greatest scholars in the world, and I
believe he was the most brilliant scholar in
the class.
He learned in the second 40 years he
lived with his mother-in-law.
When the 40 years were expired, oh, he
can't win a wish over that.
What did he do for 40 years in
the wilderness?
What was his anchor?
He must have been tempted of the devil.
Remember, Jesus had a temptation, not for 40
years, but for 40 days in the wilderness.
Moses had his sermon on the mountain, just
like Jesus did.
In fact, when he was coming down the
mountain, he dropped his textbook and broke two
of the tablets.
Somebody said, if we all took those tablets,
we wouldn't need the other ones.
What was he doing for 40 years?
You know, so often we give credit to
David as a psalmist.
What about Moses?
He was a psalmist.
Do you know what I think he was
doing for 40 years?
You may disagree.
If you do, you'll be wrong, of course.
I think for those 40 years, God was
drying him out, getting rid of all his
self-confidence and his natural knowledge, and all
his psychology, and all his abilities.
That's the stuff you pay a lot of
money and courage to get, and it's no
good when you get out anyhow.
You know a simple definition?
Psychology is something that nobody understands.
Nobody fully understands that the mother in the
house is the best psychologist in the world,
I think.
Forty years doing what?
Until a year or two ago, the most
popular hymn in the nation was, How Great
Thou Art.
O Lord my God, when I in awesome
wonder, I believe like David, he sat on
the rocks, and he contemplated the majesty of
God.
When I consider thy heavens, the sun, the
moon, which thou hast ordained, what is man
without mindful of him?
I think, again, he was unlearning all the
stuff that he had learned there in Egypt.
When the 40 years expired, there appeared unto
him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai the
angel of the Lord in a flame of
fire, in the Lord in a flame of
fire, in a bush.
When 40 years were expired, there appeared to
him, there were Adam and Eve, there were
his two sons.
I believe the greatest revelations of God you'll
ever get will be when you're by yourself.
We're living at a fast pace, we talk
about getting in the fast lane.
To where?
For what?
I say there are three classic examples of
abandonment.
One is Jesus leaving the Father's throne, leaving
the worship of angels and all the glory
of heaven and coming down to this rotten
world that we have here.
The other is this mighty man, Moses, leaving
everything behind him, his scholarship.
Do you think it was easy to leave
him?
What was he doing for 40 years?
What did he eat?
What did he drink?
Don't you think the devil said, well you've
had nothing but mutton now for the last
15 years.
Mutton burgers every morning, mutton burgers every afternoon,
every evening.
Do you know what they're eating in the
palace, the royal palace tonight?
And look at your garments all torn.
Moses, remember he used to be the head
of the parade when foreign kings came.
You sat between the king and the princess.
Remember those lavish banquets?
And his mouth begins to wart and to
drool.
Look, what a fool you are.
Why did you leave him?
People say he ran away, he ran away
because he was running away from responsibility.
Exactly the opposite, he was running to it.
He was running from exile against exile.
He was running from a royal palace.
He was running away from fame to greater
fame.
There's one scripture I'll ask him about when
I see him.
I'm going to meet him personally before too
long you know, so I've got a question.
It says there in Hebrews 13, he esteemed
the reproach of Christ.
Now look, get it straight, not reproach for
Christ, reproaches of Christ.
Everything that happened in the life of Jesus
happened in his life.
Jesus suffered throughout the gate, he suffered throughout
the gate.
The brother and sister of Moses said, who
does he think he is?
He had opposition in his own family.
Jesus had his brothers, said he was mad.
People moaned against Jesus, they complained all the
time.
Children of Israel complained all the time about
Moses.
That anchored him to that stability that he
had for 40 years.
Now if you think that's not right, if
you're not working tomorrow, I suggest for a
change, you find a room, or if it's
not raining, get under some big tree, and
sit there for 40 hours.
Don't talk to a single person, don't eat,
don't drink.
Bless you, some of us can't sit still
40 minutes, we turn TV or radio on.
And if that's not enough, you get in
your car and listen to the bing bang
bong all the way on the road.
I no wonder that we take more pills
for headaches in America than anybody else in
the world.
One thing those women for years, the older
women have sat under hair dryers till their
brains are boiled.
Now the young people have got blow dryers
or something, you should count your blessings.
The greatest test, the test of loneliness.
Moses was 40 years in the wilderness.
Jesus was 40 years in the, 40 days
in the wilderness.
Tempted of the devil, in every aspect as
a man, tempted sexually, tempted every way.
Do you know how valuable worship is?
If you don't let me tell you in
a sentence.
Worship is so valuable, the devil says, if
you just kneel down once, you see as
soon as you kneel, you acknowledge the other
person's superiority.
You just bow before me once, I'll give
you the kingdom of the world.
Now look, don't you get upset if the
Lord starts using the devil in your life
to make you a saint.
Oh, I thought you always resisted him.
Well I used to.
Peter's going down the road, and Jesus meets
him, and Jesus says, Peter when you get
down the road, round the corner, Satan's going
to jump on your lap, but don't worry,
I tell him go back to hell and
leave my darling boy alone.
That's in the reverse version.
What did he say?
He says, I have prayed for thee.
You need all this testing of Satan in
your life.
You're going to turn out better for all
the beatings, all the upset.
You cleave to me more than any other
man in your life, once he takes his
leprous hands off you.
Once he feels that he's not you, he's
backed up into a corner.
You know, we want everything serving out on
a plate, don't we?
Have you read the four laws, or the
twenty-four, whatever they are?
Solve all your problems.
He was forty years in the wilderness.
He pursued for Egypt, not fearing the wrath
of the king, and he endured, seeing him
who was invisible.
There are two things, if you go back
into Exodus and read it.
One is, hear the voice of the Lord,
and hear somewhere he had a revelation.
Where did he have it?
I don't know.
But he had a preview of Jesus Christ,
more than two thousand years before Jesus came
on the face of the earth.
He pursued, not fearing the wrath of the
king.
Was it because he had this amazing vision?
No.
Well, how do you know that?
Because it says at the beginning of the
verse, by faith.
The thing that kept him stabilized in all
the drifting thinking that he did, on the
backside of the desert.
It's not down on the caravan route, where
you can see people going past and say,
well how are things in Cairo?
Or how are things somewhere else?
Or what's the latest news?
He's on the backside of the desert, the
unapproachable area.
He can see nothing but sand kicked up
in the air now and again.
He can hear nothing but the birds calling.
That is on the backside of the desert.
What kept him stabilized?
I don't know.
At least I looked in all the books
today and nobody told me, so I made
it up myself.
So you know what it's like.
I believe the thing that stabilized him was
his mother's faith, his mother's tuition, and his
mother's prayers, plus his father.
They don't get any congratulations much, do they?
Do you remember their names?
What were their names?
I guess you won't call your children by
their names.
Amran and Jokabed.
Wouldn't you like to go to school and
somebody say, what's your name?
Jokabed.
I did ask you, when you get out
of the bubble, I asked you what your
name is.
Wouldn't it be terrible if you were Peel
and Marta?
Wouldn't you be having names like that?
She saw he was a proper child.
He's either going to be an auctioneer or
something.
He's so noisy they had to hide him.
Again, she makes a little thing like this,
a basket.
Puts a lid on it so the sun
won't scorch him.
Puts him out on the water.
Isn't that faith?
What does faith do?
Fundamentally, faith does this in every life.
Faith reckons.
And faith reckons, first of all, that God
is.
And faith risks.
I can't get the three.
What were the three, Marta?
I've said them so often.
Faith reckons.
Oh, and then it rests.
Thank you, dear.
Faith reckons that God is.
He's what?
He's everything he says he is.
And if you want to know what he
is, read Isaiah 40.
As I've told you before, memorize the thing.
The whole chapter declares the majesty of God.
But he counts the stars, not only that,
he knows all their names.
And there are trillions of them.
Faith reckons that God is.
He's all he says he is.
That he's able to save.
That he's able to keep you from falling.
He's able to protect you from faultless.
Faultless before his throne.
He's able to save to the uttermost.
Faith reckons.
She reckons God's as good as his word.
So she makes this as a basket and
pushes it out on the nail.
Isn't that a risk?
Good night.
She hardly turned it back.
A crocodile could have swallowed him.
The wind could have blown the little roof
off the little thing that she made.
And the child would have been barbecued.
Before she got off the banks of the
river a child could have been stolen.
There are a dozen different ways.
But she says God is.
God is telling me God is.
Faith says God is.
It reckons on God.
But it's a risk in the eyes of
the world.
She risked it.
She reckoned God is.
She took the risk.
And she rested.
Read Hebrews 4 about rest.
But it meant a rest for the people
of God.
I want to go back to this a
minute here.
When he was forty years of age it
appeared unto him in the wilderness.
No, forty years after.
So he's eighty years of age.
So cheer up, baby.
You may be called yet to be a
prophet.
Eighty years of age when God takes him
up.
Tell about too old at forty.
Forty years of age.
From scholarship in the universities.
Ready to go anywhere.
Ready to be a king.
Ready to be a lawyer.
Ready to be a senator as we would
say.
Ready to rule a nation.
And God cuts the middle out of his
life.
From forty to eighty.
His prime time on the back of a
desert looking after stinking sheep.
Never getting a decent meal.
Walking up those hills to his ankles was
sore with the scrubbing on the side of
the trees.
Oh, the side of the scrubbing.
Sure bit.
When I went to college I've got to
tell you I went because you'll never guess.
I went to college for six months anyhow.
And it was great.
I wouldn't for a minute forget any minutes
that I had there.
A preacher offered.
He was selling his library.
He said, you send me fifteen cents I'll
send you three books.
Tell me what types of books.
I said, I want a book on prayer.
I want a book on holiness.
I want a book on the second coming.
My parcel came.
I opened it.
There was a book not quite as large
as this in brilliant red cover and gold
letters on it.
And it said, Power Through Prayer by E
.M. Bounds.
That was the first time I'd heard of
him.
We had no sport at our school.
No fooling around.
We had no women there.
That's why they used to say they were
too distracting.
So we only had men at the school.
Like a monastery.
But it was wonderful.
When I got that book I said, I'm
going upstairs at lunchtime.
We could go for half an hour.
That's all.
And I'm going to spend this week I'm
going to go through this book.
And do you know why I didn't?
The book went through me.
That was my first debt to America.
The second one was a preacher that came
to the church gave me an abridged life
of David Bernard.
I'll tell you what he did.
I lived on the edge of Sherwood Forest.
When I was only in my teens I
wanted to be a David Bernard so I
went in the forest and prayed at night.
Got up Sunday morning before anybody else got
up and walked over the gulf coast and
walked into the forest and prayed.
Those two books literally changed my life.
When he was 40 years of age there
appeared unto him an angel of the Lord
in the flame of fire.
Do you think you ever forgot that?
I'm trying to think of a scripture here.
Exodus 40.
In this verse it says when the 40
years were expired there appeared unto him in
the wilderness of Mount Sinai an angel of
the Lord in the flame of fire in
the bush.
And when Moses saw it he wondered at
the sight.
And as he drew near behold there was
a voice.
First he saw it, vision.
Secondly he heard a voice saying I am
the God of thy fathers God of Abraham,
God of Isaac and Jacob and Moses trembling
best not behold.
Go down into Leviticus pardon me go down
there into Exodus chapter 40 please the last
chapter.
Exodus chapter 40 and verse 35.
Moses was not able to enter into the
tent of the congregation because the cloud abode
thereon.
What abode on it?
A pillar of fire by night.
What's the last verse in the 12th chapter
of Hebrews?
Our God is a consuming fire.
Whatever else this man Moses forgot do you
ever forget do you think you ever forgot
the time he stood before that burning bush
and it wasn't consumed?
He kicked his shoes off his feet and
from the midst of the fire came the
voice of God?
But you see you have to get into
the loneliness before God would speak from that
way.
He's had another 40 years and there appeared
unto him in the wilderness of Sam an
angel of the Lord in the flame of
fire in the bush.
What was he doing that 40 years in
the wilderness?
I believe God was revealing to him so
many mysteries preparing him to write the first
five books of the Bible preparing him to
write some of the amazing Psalms that he
wrote.
We don't usually put Moses amongst the great
heroes.
But you see God only has one treatment
to get great men and that's loneliness.
If I had a Bible school I'd let
you come here for whatever period it is
like they do at Bethany Fellowship.
You go there for two years then you
have a year off.
Work it out.
I would send everybody away for six months
into quietness.
Oh Lord my God when I in awesome
and consider consider what does that mean?
It means meditation it means contemplation it means
concentration.
We're so distracted on every level in seeing
and hearing all the time there are things
pulling at us every moment.
For the day Virgil is away this week
in his new office there for a whole
week he's not seeing anyone he's just attempting
to write.
I think that Melody is down in town
doing the same thing.
This man is shut up with God.
What came out of this period?
Again five books.
Sound.
The Lord Jesus shut away for 40 days
in the wilderness.
If the Son of God needs it don't
I need it?
Who else was shut away?
Well the one by the name of Paul
shut up in a stinking prison that you
wouldn't let a dog live in today.
What did he produce?
He produced his epistles to the Philippians and
Ephesians and Colossians.
Where?
From silence from stillness from being cut off
from fellowship.
If you were like him splendid isolation.
Here's another man who's going to produce one
of the greatest things ever written even in
the Bible.
His name is John.
Where is he?
If you've gone to church of Ephesus and
you say I want to hear your famous
preacher so he isn't here he's over there.
You see that little island sticking out of
the sea?
He's there on the Isle of Patmos.
It's a criminal island.
All the garbage is there.
He's outside the gates again.
He's cut off from community.
He's cut off from everybody else.
And there he is on the Isle of
Patmos.
You go up to say John I'm sorry
to see you here in the Isle of
Patmos.
I'm not in the Isle of Patmos.
What are you?
He says I'm in the spirit.
Was it Madame Guillaume or was it Faber
who talks right so much alike?
Could I be cast where thou art not?
That would indeed a dreadful spot.
But with thee my God to guide the
way it is equal joy to go or
stay.
There is no loneliness where God is.
It struck me the other day we were
riding out with some friends and it struck
me suddenly I was going to say awesomely
almost terribly that the most awesome place in
the world Golgotha is now a tourist attraction.
How in God's name could it be that?
And it's Christians that go and gaze at
it.
They don't want to get on the cross
they want to go and see what it
was.
But they don't get anything by going and
touring Israel anyhow.
This man has this revelation of God.
Our God is a consuming fire.
Look at this 35th verse it blows me
away you young people would say.
But I'm a bit more substantial I don't
blow away easily.
Actually this 40th verse 35 Moses was not
able to enter into the tabernacle of the
congregation because of what?
The glory of God abode there.
Do you remember when they finished that temple
of Solomon's one of the most lavish buildings
ever put up in the history of the
world most expensive building ever.
But he said it's no good you may
as well turn it into a stable.
We've got all the gold we've got all
the accoutrements that we need but something missing.
We've got an altar.
All we need is the presence of God.
What did he do?
He prayed and what happened?
The fire fell.
Again my cliche which I'm not ashamed to
use often did you know that the world
is going to have a fire tonight because
the church has lost Holy Ghost fire.
The symbol of the church of Jesus Christ
is not a cross that's Roman and brutal
and heathen.
The symbol of the church of Jesus Christ
is a tower of fire that sat upon
the head of each of them there in
that upper room.
And until that tower of fire returns not
visibly but that same anointing of fire power
eternal fire of God indestructible fire measureless fire
until it returns to the church you can
have all the organization you like.
Build your castles your religious castles have your
fun.
You know the tragedy of this day that
the church today is pursuing happiness not holiness.
A young man choking up called me yesterday
from the other side of the nation Mr.
Abner he said could you come out for
us.
I said I'm afraid I can't.
He said you know you're having regular banquets
and breakfasts and feasts but all we hear
is prosperity prosperity no mitten claiming.
I'm sick of it we need something about
revival and holiness.
You know what Moses did he saw there
was a need what did he do he
went and tried to deliver them.
So I forget the idea that the need
is the call that's what he did and
got into trouble.
He didn't hear the voice of God.
He felt in his heart he should go
he was working on his emotions.
I would go sometimes to a when I
was a youngster there in England I would
go to a missionary conference.
I had some great missionaries.
I had Patrick Wilkes the founder of the
Japan rescue mission.
I had the founder of the Japan evangelistic
body I remember a bit later hearing two
ladies I forget their names now they slipped
from my mind that was in the 1940s
when they these two ladies came out of
China walked right through the Mongolian desert walked
Mark it unless occasionally they could ride on
a beast walked through one of the most
plague infested areas of the world Mildred Cable
and Miss French I remember looking at those
ladies their lovely pink feet whitish hair up
in their 60s they had gone through deaths
every day like the Apostle Paul suffering hardship
threatened with rape threatened with everything you can
imagine and they walked right through the Gobi
Desert unless they could get right on no
horse drawn truck kind of thing somebody asked
them why they what are you going to
do now go back why the young lady
didn't feel comfortable when she answered because you're
not going abandonment is
it easy to sit here and stand here
and stand here and sing in a lovely
atmosphere all to Jesus I surrender all to
him I freely give maybe keeping your hand
on your wallet while you sing it we're
the whole realm of nature man forget it
you'll never learn the whole realm of nature
give me what you've got and prove it
you think God's moved by our sentiments all
he'll do if you sing that sonata is
put it down and judge you at the
judgment seat and judge me for it Lord
Duncan Campbell used to say that the fundamental
how do you put it I can't think
of his word the fundamental feature put it
that way of the Christian faith is sacrifice
until we're totally abandoned to God by our
richest gain whatever else it is until it's
totally abandoned I believe the measure of my
yieldedness to God is the measure of his
yieldedness to me if I don't intend to
give him all is he untapped for me
to call is he my servant I need
there's not much left if you give him
all is there here again is a supreme
example of a man who could have lived
there in glory in majesty driven down main
street every day in a chariot could have
sat with kings and others and he chooses
to go and be isolated and live on
the backside of the desert the Lord said
something to me earlier this year when I
was praying at the turn of the year
I was telling God I wanted to take
him at his word you know what he
said I want to take you at your
word too supposing the Lord took me at
my word every time I went to my
what would happen pretty serious if
you go to England if you go to
Manchester you see some of those big double
decker buses in London usually they are red
I think up
in
London Crossley he lived in one of the
lovely cities in England a city of Chester
all the cities in England were Chester at
the end it means that the Romans founded
them Manchester Chichester and so forth he lived
in Manchester had a magnificent home drove through
his business every day in a carriage with
two gorgeous horses everybody saluted him acknowledged him
he was a kind of ruler in that
area and he was a very good Christian
one day he was telling the Lord how
much he loved him I'd be willing to
go outside the gate for him the Lord
said go sell you a mansion go live
in a slum called Amcote's in Manchester he
went to Manchester sold his magnificent mansion got
rid of a tribe of servants cut his
living down as far as he could what
did he do well there was not much
help for the poor he built a hospital
and charged no one any fees for going
there and the poor people crowded and aside
he built a huge auditorium he called it
star hall he was the first Englishman as
far as I know in this century to
import if you want to use that word
some of the great preachers of America like
G.D. Watson who wrote so many wonderful
books on holiness a whole stream of people
like that he had a yearly conference he
paid all their fares over it was a
move of revival in that poverty was
and change will speak a living fire love
without sacrifice is not love whether it's in
the physical element or it's in the spiritual
element how many millions of books do you
think we have on the holy spirit in
the nation how
many books we have on the holy spirit
in the how
many books do you think we have on
the in the books think we have on
the holy spirit in the nation how many
books do you think we have
on the in the nation how many do
you we have on the holy spirit in
the nation how many books on the holy
spirit in the nation how many books do
you think we have on the spirit in
the nation how many books do you we
have on the holy spirit in the how
many books do you we have on
the holy spirit Are
they going to sing the hallelujah chorus?
Oh, I don't know, I think they will.
I can tell you the name of one
man that already has sent the manuscript of
God to go and sing his song.
Who is he?
Moses.
Revelation 15 says they will sing the song
of Moses and of the Lamb.
You see God doesn't begin to unveil himself
to Moses until after he has seen God
in the burning bush.
And I don't believe he goes out for
anyone either.
Until they have been to that place and
got a full revelation of the holiness and
majesty of God.
When Moses saw the burning bush he wondered
at the sight and he drew near and
behold a voice in the middle of the
thing said, I am the God of thy
father, the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, the God of Jacob.
And Moses trembled and burst not, behold.
Do you think he ever forgot that?
He had obeyed God up to this point,
now God reveals himself.
Oh, he couldn't reveal himself further because you
remember after the miracles when I would think
he had seen everything he says, show me
thy glory.
I am longing to go to the sanctuary
where nobody dare preach or speak or stand
up and say a word of any kind.
We are all overwhelmed with the majesty of
God, we don't do that.
As I ask people so often, did you
come here tonight to meet God or hear
about him?
If we are honest we didn't come here,
we didn't want him to take our hearts
out and show us the calmality and the
envy and the pride and the covetousness and
now reaching after worldly things.
He wanted to whisper to us sweetly.
I believe the supreme test in our Christian
life, if it's not thee, it's one of
the supreme tests, is to be left alone.
I challenge you to go live alone, I
challenge you to go for 40 hours alone.
Take no one with you, take your Bible,
wait on God.
Take no music.
Shut yourself up and say, Lord of any
price I want to hear your voice.
Wasn't it Don Hoffa who wrote a book,
The Cost of Discipleship, we've got a very
pleasant Pentecost today haven't we, all it means
is you get free of your spirit and
go to another banquet and prosper.
It's the very reverse of the scripture.
After Pentecost what they got, they got prisons,
pain, persecution, privations, were they blessing the Lord
because they prospered, no they were in jail
and they rejoiced that they were counted worthy
to suffer for his namesake.
That's the reverse of our theology.
Moses takes all that comes to him, like
Jesus, read Isaiah 53 and all that came
to Jesus came to Moses.
Go back into the 50th chapter where it
says he gave his back to the smiters.
As I said last week, it's not easy
to go outside the camp, it's not easy
to be rejected by your family.
This week somebody again asked me, what do
we do in our church, it's so dry,
so lifeless, oh we say the right things,
we have the right language, the pastor isn't
a liberal, but there's no breathing of God,
there's no revelation of God, there's no anointing
of God, there's no confrontation of God with
God.
Moses was fortunate I think that he had
that revelation of the glory of God, but
he still isn't satisfied, he says show me
thy glory, I think I've seen the glory.
If I saw God part the waters of
the Red Sea, mercy, I wouldn't come down
to earth again I don't think.
If I saw him deliver again and again
and again as he did, we're so happy
with small things.
J.B. Phillips wrote a book 30 years
ago, your God is too small, that's why
the world doesn't want it.
We're so happy, we're so contented with little
things.
I believe in miracles, but I don't get
too excited about them anymore.
I believe they'll be restored fully in the
church, but the trouble is we get content
with those kind of things, we get content
with blessing, we get content with fellowship.
The apostle John said what, our fellowship is
what, with the Father, with his son Jesus
Christ and with one another, but we have
made fellowship with one another as substitute for
the fellowship with the Father.
How many times have you gone to church
and there's been fellowship with nice people, but
you never felt the touch of God on
your spirit?
If there's no fellowship with the Father, you
have no real life, you have to make
choices.
I think the supreme privilege of a human
being is that we make choices.
He chose to suffer, isn't it ridiculous?
Why step out of security at King's Palace
and go live like a tramp?
Why not wear beautifully perfumed clothes and gorgeous
oriental clothes and gorgeous gold things, why not?
Because he saw something greater, because he heard
a voice speaking to him.
Because he saw, I don't know how, he
saw a vision of Pharaoh and he would
rather suffer affliction with the children of God
than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a
season, after all they're so seasonable.
They perish, they dry up, but at his
right hand there's pleasure forevermore, there's no termination.
And remember again that entertainment is not joy,
entertainment is a devil's substitute for joy.
That's why there's more entertainment than ever on
TV and what have you got.
I'm convinced of this, the more spiritual you
are, the less TV you watch anyhow.
The more you hear the voice of God,
the less we hear the voice, want to
hear the voice of people.
What a day it's going to be, you
know, I try and imagine that gorgeous day
when Jesus sits on the throne handing out
the rewards.
Five possible crowns for all of us, don't
know how many we'll get.
Don't you think the awful applause will sound
like a million thunderstorms when Paul rolls up
for his reward?
Do you think that when Paul was sitting
in that smelly stinking hole there, he ever
dreamed that today maybe a billion people have
read some of his writings?
Do you think that Moses one day when
he sat down, washed up and said, oh
brother, it would have been a rotten day,
maybe he never said that.
Do you think ever thought that one day
in eternity there'll be millions of voices and
an orchestra of 144 harps singing the song
of Moses and of the Lamb?
What about the applause when he goes up
and people say, I'm glad you wrote those
first five books.
You see, the devil wants to blind our
eyes to the possibilities of grace.
It's stupid.
You can be a good Christian and do
this, go make a fortune, do it, as
long as you make it for God.
If you make it for yourself, you're light
bewildering.
I don't, every dime you have, God trusted
you with it.
If you have a more brilliant brain than
someone else, God trusted you with it.
If you have more talents, as we say,
we say that girl's got talents, no, no,
forget it.
Talents in this scripture are always related to
money, never to our abilities.
God doesn't say Abraham had talents or Moses
had talents or Paul had talents.
Talents were out of God, talents of silver,
talents of gold.
We do have gifts for which we're responsible.
And again, this man does not consider it.
He esteemed the reproach of Christ, not for
Christ, but of Christ.
The very things Christ went through, he was
willing to go through, he went through them.
Cast out from his people, cast out from
his church, cast out from his family.
Hardship all the way, that's the only way
God makes sense.
The hardest thing is to be alone, and
I'll give you three classic examples here, think
about them.
Out of the loneliness of that man, come
on, get up, what are you doing Paul,
you've been here two years, go out on
a healing crusade, come on, there are people
who are sick, you raised the dead even,
you cast out demons, go do your thing,
you can get money.
Isn't it great to know when God says
no, no I'm not going to go because
God won't let me go.
What are you doing here on the Isle
of Patmos John, I mean you have a
ministry, you've already written a gospel, that's the
most precious thing on earth today, why don't
you get up and go.
More than once Dr. Tosewalt said to me,
Brother Lund remember this, in this generation particularly
Christians are all activists, do you know one
way to live it in your spirit, now
you'll race me out of the place for
saying this maybe, but okay, run to every
special meeting you can hear of.
When did you last give an hour or
two to God, why don't you run at
the feet of every man and listen, if
you're not listening to God, you're robbing God,
maybe you wanted to speak to him three
years ago, you said oh we're going down
to some big meeting, some big shop's going
to speak and we can buy one of
his books and wonder of wonders he'll autograph
it for us, and God never wanted you
there at all, you wanted to go, Moses
in his heart said I'll deliver a man,
God never sent him, so he got into
trouble, I believe we should have fellowship with
God's people, sure enough, you know some people
always living for a big event, oh two
months we're going to so and so, after
that we're going to so and so, that's
charity.
Do you remember when you used to live
for Christmas and after that your birthday and
after that something else, event, event, event, event,
you jump from the top of the tree
to the top of the mix, never come
down to earth, well aren't we to be
joyful, yes, but do you know what happens
to the end of the verse that says
be still and know that I'm God, how
still are we, they that wait upon the
Lord, not wait upon famous preachers, I think
the church is, many denominations are just crippled
with famous preachers, we're chasing them, listening to
them, tuning in to them and we should
be listening to God, God is waiting for
people to give him an ear, you say
God doesn't speak to you, he doesn't get
the chance, you think he's going to bawl
into your car when you've got that noisy
thing going all the time, or he's going
to yell at you when you get a
bus to go to some big meeting in
Dallas, he's a jealous God, he's a lover,
he wants you by yourself, see how many
of these men who are alone when God
revealed himself to them, there's a price to
pay, Moses chose deliberately to suffer with the
children of God rather than enjoy the pleasure
of sin for a season.
All these perishing things of clay that A.
V.
Simpson used to talk about, talk about born
but for one brief day, I don't know
what you feel like when you look at
a crowd like this, the potential is here
to go and stir nations, there's more than
120 here tonight, or 120, we're depending on
TV to do it, forget it, never do
it.
One boy's always saying on TV, this is
God's method to reach the nations and folk
can't even afford a shirt in other countries,
never mind the TV set.
We've got hundreds of thousands of people up
the Amazon, they'd never even say see a
plane go up and wonder what kind of
bird it is.
Seen those people in Africa lying in the
gutter, lying in the dust, lying in the
filth.
You know, I believe if God showed us
a picture of the church as he sees
it, it would be like that bunch, skeletons,
paralyzed, weak, powerless.
Only God can breathe on these things, we're
never going to organize revival.
Agonizing, yes, organizing, no.
If preaching could do it, it would have
preached the world into the kingdom come by
now.
No.
God is demanding our lives, our soul, our
all, our complete attention given to him, so
he can take it and use it and
do as he likes with it.
Well, I didn't get what I wanted to
tonight, but anyhow.
I'm going to ask you to spend a
little time in prayer.
I don't know whether you dare say, remember
again, Moses looked that way, it says he
looked the other way.
He forgot to look that way.
I wonder whether you pray, dare you, I'm
not daring you to do it in the
ordinary sense of the word.
Do you think you dare not just make
a commitment which you make so often?
Dare you say, Lord, I abandon everything, all
I have, all I am, all I hope
to be?
If need be, I'll abandon my nation and
go to some other nation.
If need be, I'll leave friends and time
and earthly stuff and I'll give you my
body and my mind and everything that is
without me to do the will of God.
Let's pray for some of the great needs
that there are.
These are the countries.
Our friend returned from India a few weeks
ago.
A great deal of persecution to the Christian
preachers in Nepal.
You know, we live in easy street.
I don't know how much longer.
If Israel wouldn't go, God would drop them
out like hornets.
Maybe he'll do that with us before long.
He's going to glorify his son however he
does it.
So let's pray for these needy nations and
if you have a need, pray for your
own need before we close.