I didn't intend to give this question tonight.
It was by the remark of someone last
night who had been greatly blessed at that
very rich mission we had with the Salvation
Army at Dulwich Hill a month ago.
And three of those people who had been
wonderfully revived during the campaign made mention of
the Saturday night meeting that had meant so
much to them.
And increasingly today, the Lord laid that upon
my heart.
Increasingly.
So I bring you that same Saturday night
message which I've never given in Auburn as
far as I know.
Even though I preach, I expect something like
45 times in this church, never given this
challenge.
It's a challenge to the will.
Are you willing to do the will of
God?
Jesus said to the man who had been
38 years on his back, Are thou willing
to be made whole?
The man went out and told the Jews
it was Jesus that had made him whole.
One of the grand stories of Scripture.
A miracle.
A mighty miracle.
And if you had your Bible opened to
the fifth of John, you'd find how startlingly
the chapter opens.
After this, there was a feast of the
Jews.
And Jesus went up.
Up.
Up to Jerusalem.
There was no other way for him to
go.
If he was to reach that feast in
the holy city, he had to press up.
Beautiful for situation is Zion, the joy of
the whole earth.
Jerusalem, set in its lovely hills.
And to reach that city and its feast,
he must needs go up.
And my friends, if the Christian life is
uphill all the way, and it is.
If the road is rough almost every step,
and it is.
And if the Christian life is a climb
till you reach the celestial crest, and it
is.
The end will justify the way.
A feast in the new Jerusalem.
The marriage supper of the Lamb.
They stand, those halls of Zion, all jubilant
with song, and bright with many an angel,
and all the martyr throng.
There is the throne of David.
And there, from toil released, the shout of
them that triumph.
The song of them that feast.
The feast in the new Jerusalem.
That's what's coming for the believer.
The real, honest, downright believer in Christ, who
set his faith like a flint to reach
the new Jerusalem at any cost.
It will be the marriage supper of the
Lamb.
And no tongue can tell what joy will
be around that festive ball.
And on the way our Lord must needs
pass two other outstanding landmarks.
The sheep market.
With all the dust, and the din, and
the bustle, and the barter of business.
The shepherds getting the sheep through the gate
up to the market.
A place of merchandise.
And on the other side, the pool, with
its five blooming porches, and great multitude of
impotent folks, just waiting for something to turn
up, and the water to be stirred.
A place of misery.
Misery.
You join up those three points.
There's the feast with its merriment.
And draw down one line to the sheep
market with its merchandise, and another line down
to the pool with its misery, and draw
your baseline.
The triangle of life.
Wherever you go you'll find that triangle of
life.
Many years ago my wife and I travelled
far out in the back country of New
South Wales, and Victoria, and parts of Queensland,
and even in the little townships wherever we
went, there was the triangle of life.
And in later years, in the grace of
God, I girdled the globe preaching the gospel.
And in the great cities of the United
States, and United Kingdom, and Europe, I saw
the triangle of life.
Always something to feast in.
Always some in yonder cafe, or milk bar,
or yonder restaurant, or in the home, enjoying
a happy time around a meal, feasting, happy
together in conversation and relaxing.
Always some at merchandise, buying and selling, planting,
building, carrying on the work of the world.
And always some little cluster of buildings, in
the great cities a vast cluster, and in
the small townships a smaller building, and in
the little hamlets a cottage building, where men
and women turn on beds of suffering.
Bethesda.
The triangle of life in every town, and
it's true in every home you'll find the
triangle of life.
In my old home, which was a simple
home, of the old latter part of the
Victorian era, we were not allowed to go
out much of a Saturday night, but it
was the feasting night.
We were allowed to invite some of our
friends in, and the best tablecloth was on
the table, and the best food was on
the cloth, and we had a grand time
on Saturday night.
Games, and singing, and music, and then a
grand supper, and it was the night of
the week.
But it didn't last.
It didn't last.
Monday morning came as inevitably.
Monday morning will come, and my father's off
to business, and the older boys off to
work, and my sister and I to school,
and my mother down to the wash tub.
It's merchandise.
A cheap mop.
And then there were times when one of
the bedroom doors would be ajar, and the
smell of antiseptics coming out, and I could
see my mother moving about with a worried
look on her face as the doctor's old
-time carriage was at the door, and later
the new motor car, which was a marvel
in those days, the T-model Ford.
And oh, how she would look with anguish
for the coming of the doctor, a dear
one, struggling in the depths of the grip
of a disease that has died.
The triangle of life in every home and
in every heart.
In every heart, you've got the triangle of
life.
Why, there's a time when you're singing, you're
feasting, something's happened.
The margins case went in your favour, or
you've had a lift in wages, or the
holidays have come, or perhaps you've fallen in
love, and you're singing with joy.
Why, you're feasting.
You're feasting at Jerusalem.
But by the next post, the income tax
assessment form arrives, and suddenly you're down there
at the sheep market.
Look at this, you say to your wife,
look at this, you think I owe that?
I don't owe it.
Oh, keep up your song, Dad.
She says, keep up singing.
This is business.
I can't be singing now.
I've got to pay out this down there
at the sheep market.
Then there's a time when you come to
Bethesda, down in the depths and the misery
of the pool.
Some burdens on your heart, a sense of
that depression that comes with sin perhaps, with
sorrow, with bereavement.
Oh, you say, I better scatter the blues.
I don't know what's wrong with me.
I'm burdened.
Bethesda.
So we draw the triangle of life for
every heart, for every home, for every hamlet,
hey, and for every city, the triangle of
life.
And right across the baseline of the triangle,
came Jesus, right into the center, to sanctify
the merriment, that it might be pure, to
sanctify the merchandise and make it honest, to
sanctify the misery and produce the peaceable fruits
of righteousness, right into the center, to sanctify
the whole fire.
That's right, isn't it?
Can you grasp that all right?
Oh, no, preacher, says someone.
Now, look, I'm going to question you on
that.
No, I don't accept it.
Life isn't a triangle.
Life's a square.
More completely.
You see, in that corner, you've got your
merriment, and in that corner, your misery, and
in that corner, your merchandise, and in that
corner, you've got the Master.
I'm not an atheist.
I'm not a communist.
I'm a believer, but I say, keep Jesus
Christ in his place, give him his certain
right, his due, always once a Sunday to
church, sometimes twice, pays me along during the
week, but keep him in the corner, don't
bring him right in to savor everything.
That caused a lot of trouble in the
past.
No, life's a square.
Are you right, or am I right?
Is life a square, or is life a
triangle?
Listen to Paul preaching.
Accessoria in front of King Agrippa.
This thing was not done in a corner.
What thing?
This lifting up of the Lord of glory,
the Prince of glory, upon that cross.
This startling resurrection of the man Christ Jesus
from the grave was not done in a
corner.
No.
On a hill crest, at the place which
the prophet Ezekiel calls the navel of the
earth, the dead center of the earth.
God's Son lifted up to die to pay
the price of sin, to infure the shame
of the cross, to manifest forth the divine
love, to take to himself the weight of
the world's iniquity, and to discharge it beneath
the judgment of God, was not done in
a corner.
Yet there are people that profess to be
Christians that no, life is a triangle.
And he comes across the baseline right to
the center to sanctify the whole life.
And that's why the ancient hymn writer was
correct when he said, yet no, nor of
the words complained, if Jesus comes, he comes
to reign, to reign, and with no partial
sway, thoughts must be swayed that disobey.
Ah, he came across the baseline into the
center to be the center and soul of
my life, to shed his radiance right over
it, to command altogether.
Being what he was, what he is, he
turned first to Bethesda, the gloomy pool, the
five terrible porches with the great multitude of
impotent folk, the blind are there, the hog,
the wizard.
Ever met a blind man spiritually?
Let me introduce you to a blind man
spiritually.
Look, I can't understand that Bible.
I've read it.
Oh, I've read it, friend.
I've read it many times, but can't understand
it.
Contradicts itself, you know.
Even the preachers don't understand it.
They're always arguing about it.
Oh, it's a difficult book.
I don't believe anyone can really amuse writing
the paper, though, isn't it?
Strange things that are happening.
These nations that are rising up and grabbing
independence and these riots and all the time
the danger, these wretched bombs about you.
Terrible times we're living in.
Oh, you poor blind man at Bethesda.
You can't understand your Bible that portrays these
times of distress of nations with perplexity, men's
hearts pounding them for fear of the things
coming.
I can't understand the newspaper that's just blind
at Bethesda.
Huh?
Here's a man that's false at Bethesda.
Never met him before.
Oh, we'll put things right when we get
our party into power.
When we get our ideology first to deform
the world, we'll show you how to run
the race then.
Turn up, all right.
Oh, the poor scribble people at Bethesda.
They've got the poorest lives you could ever...
The hot winds of a wicked world of
drive.
They're cynical.
They're bitter.
They've got a grudge against everything.
Sometimes they'll write an anonymous letter to cut
and steam without the courage to put an
end to it.
They're waiting for something to happen.
In the fullness of time, vice came, born
of a woman made under the law to
redeem the serious at Bethesda to
that little babe.
He's the chronic case of Bethesda.
I venture to think there was no worse
case in those gloomy portions.
And our Lord looks at that poor man
and he asks him a great question that
I asked you a few moments ago.
Aren't thou willing to be made whole?
Don't say that.
The poor fellow, it's not a question of
his willingness, it's a question of weakness.
He's got paralysis.
Oh, Lord, don't answer him.
He's willing.
He can't be made whole.
He's got paralysis.
If you leave this case to me, it
isn't a question at all of his weakness.
It's a question of his will.
Aren't thou willing to be made whole?
But I can almost hear Peter saying to
our Lord, you don't expect, Lord, any man
to fall in love with paralysis, do you?
And want to stay there?
Do you think anyone ever falls in love
with sickness?
I ought to tell the dear friends that
we lived next door.
When I was a boy, we lived next
door to an elderly gentleman.
I thought he was elderly, but I don't
think he's old as I am.
But I thought he was elderly in those
days and I used to see him frequently
walking round the lawn, leaning on the arm
of his wife.
And I'd say to my sister, poor Mr.
Jones, are you sick again?
Oh, she'd say he's always sick or something
like that.
And then I remember on one occasion listening
in with my big ears to my mother
and father having a conversation together.
And I remember my father saying, you know,
now, a little more intently.
And then my father said, you know, we
were down at the end of the street
the other day and he bumped into my
friend and I.
And my friend said to him, well, Mr.
Jones, are you well now?
Don't you say that!
And he said, I'm never well.
I'm an always so sick man.
Don't you say I'm well.
My father laughed.
You know, then he said, he likes to
be sick all right.
And there's a little boy listening and I
thought, well, now that's a funny thing.
I don't want to be sick.
I want to be well.
I want to play cricket and I want
to play soldiers and I want to race
about.
I don't want to be sick.
But after I'd been thinking back a little,
there were times when I didn't want to
be sick.
So I had a little bit of a
code, you know, about half past eight in
the morning, especially, it was a Monday morning,
I developed a frightful cough.
And I'd cough so badly that at last,
sometimes, sometimes, I must emphasize that, my mother
would say, oh, Jack, and the night improved
rapidly after she gave that word.
But I really didn't want to be sick,
you know.
Only when it suited me to say a
tone.
Oh, to fall in love with paralysis.
Palsy, plague, fever, race disease, cancer, consumption.
To fall in love with corrupting disease.
Is it possible?
People seem to like to talk about their
sicknesses so much, but the worst of all
diseases is life compared with sin.
On every part, sin seethes and rages most
within.
Tis palsy, plague, and fever, and madness, all
combined.
None but a believer, the least...
That's old John Newton, the hint writer, that
the worst of all diseases you can't compare
with sin.
Yet there are men and women who are
determined to hold on to their pride, their
jealousy, their bitterness, their vindictiveness, their envy, their
sharp business ways, their dishonesty, their selfishness, their
holiness.
They really don't want to be saved.
They really don't want to be holy.
They've heard tell that Jesus Christ is apt
to make one too.
Prepare them for that house where holiness becomes
God's temple forever.
They're not willing to be saved.
God is willing, but they're not willing.
They're willing to be made whole, said our
Lord.
Oh Lord, we can almost hear some of
the disciples saying, you don't think that poor
fellow wants to remain a captive to his
little bed all his life?
Surely you're not suggesting he wants to remain
a captive?
Yes, I suppose.
I am suggesting he may be more willing
to be a slave than to be a
saint.
How many men and women are more concerned
about having their secret sin than on being
made holy, fit for heaven's glory?
You know, I was talking to Mr. Laidlaw,
godly man in New Zealand who wrote a
great tract called The Reason Why.
And it was at the close just after
World War II and I was in New
Zealand and Mr. Laidlaw at his office was
speaking to me across his office table and
he said, look Brother Ridley, I'm convinced some
people are determined to be damned.
I'll tell you a story, he said.
When I was out with the troops helping
them as a welfare officer in France in
the late war, a certain big fellow came
in to me and he said, Mr. Laidlaw,
can't your God do anything for me and
save me from this cursed drink?
My God can.
My God can deliver you from the drink
or any other life if you're willing.
He said,
I put my arm round him, Mr. Ridley
and I said, now son, you pray this
with me.
Lord Jesus, I come to thee as a
needy sinner.
I said, come on son, pray this to
the Lord Jesus Christ with me and you'll
get deliverance.
Lord Jesus, I come to thee as a
needy sinner.
No Brother Ridley said it.
They've fallen in love with the slavery of
sin.
They've fallen in love with the lust that
blinds them.
With the selfishness that's woven its cords around
their heart.
With the worldliness that they'll not give up
at any cost.
God, I have been made well.
Been made whole.
Been made by the grace of God.
Oh, but not this man.
Sir, he said, I have no man in
the water this trouble to help me into
the pool.
While I am coming another step it down
before me.
I'm willing, sir.
But I'm weak.
Just the case for Christ.
Just the case for him.
Riley, take up thy bed and walk.
And immediately the man was made whole.
And took up his bed and walked.
Now that really happened.
You find Pinkler, just as it happened there,
that man has been 38 years down there
a slave to paralysis.
And he just said, in effect, I'm willing,
but I've no man to help me when
the water's troubled.
And Jesus, seeing the man's will as surrendered,
simply says, Riley, take up your bed and
walk.
In other words, come, take up your cross
and follow me.
And he was walking with the bed on
his back.
The same day was the Sabbath.
A little passage put in, two or three
words The same day was the rest day.
He who has been trying for 38 years
to get to the pool has entered into
rest.
He has ceased from his own works and
his own efforts and he's entered into the
rest.
He's come to Jesus who gives rest.
Come unto me all ye that labor and
are heavy laden.
I will give you rest.
There he is.
Carried his bed and he's reached his little
home or perhaps his lodging.
Picked up the old bed and carried it.
A man with a big long beard at
the corner.
Oh, son, I wouldn't trust you.
I wouldn't trust that cure.
Oh, no, I think you'll go back.
I think you'll go back to the pool.
I've no confidence in these quack cures, you
know, or these sudden conversions.
You'll go back to the pool, all right.
Oh, son, I'd advise you if I were
you to make sure of this cure now.
I'm a great believer in olive oil and
if you just take a good dose of
olive oil tonight and get someone else to
rub your poor old back several times with
olive oil, I guess you perhaps might make
a cure of it.
Great believer in olive oil.
Do you really think so, Father?
You ought to know.
I do and I'm an old man and
I ought to know I'm a great believer
in olive oil.
Now, do it.
No, I won't.
No, I won't, Father.
I've carried the bed out.
I don't want your olive oil.
I've got the cure.
You can't add to Christ's salvation.
You can't improve it one iota.
You can be confirmed or baptized or immersed
and maybe all have their place.
I quite agree that baptism is a work
of obedience.
Nor any other ordinance The work of salvation
is immediate, blessed, full.
You can't add to a finished work.
It is finished with the cry of the
great Saviour.
It has come to the end of an
accomplished home.
The Satanic section.
Then the poor fellow was walking home with
the bed on his back, you know.
There was a little group of pharaohs got
together, good people, religious people, people that observed
to the letter the Sabbath day and suddenly
they shouted to the poor fellow, what are
you doing carrying your bed?
It's not your fault.
It's the Sabbath day.
Now you think that.
He's been 38 years attached to that bed.
The first day he's got the bed on
top of his, has got the bed attached
to him and he's walking with it there
at it.
I know a man who was wonderfully saved
in one of my missions by the grace
of God and he came out of a
life of much sin that he told me
this.
He said, you know, some of those that
criticised me in the early days when I
was only a poor weak believer if I
hadn't been truly saved they'd have sent me
flopped back into the world again.
Oh, the criticism come up quickly.
What are you doing carrying your bed?
It's not lawful for you to do it.
Oh, he said, he'd have made me the
same set on for you.
Take up your bed and walk.
I'm only doing what he told me.
Grand answer.
What man told you to carry your bed
on the Sabbath day?
I don't know his name, he said.
He couldn't tell me his name.
Oh, my dear friend, that's the saddest part
in the whole story of John Pyne.
I don't know his name, he said.
Ah, friend of Bethesda, somewhere in paradise, the
blessed.
That was the saddest thing that day, wasn't
it?
That was the saddest thing.
You've got a lot of friends in Auburn,
a lot of friends in Sydney.
They don't know the name of their saviour,
their healer.
Here there's a young girl, we call her
Mary, which is a common name so that
no one will feel I've selected their particular
name.
And then Mary's made a decision Oh, she
said, the mission's coming, I'm all right, I'm
saved, I know that, I saved a long
time ago.
And here's Mary, and she's got a new
job, and she's been in that job for
a week.
And at the close of the first week
as she's just getting ready to depart, two
or three of the girls come up to
her and they say, Mary, you know, since
you've come here, we don't feel so happy.
You're a good girl, you don't swear, you
don't talk like we do.
I haven't seen you smoking a cigarette yet.
What's the difference between you and us, Mary?
Oh, there's no difference, I just try to
do the best I can.
She says, no, but there's something funny, you're
a good girl.
Oh, I'm not good, no, I just try
to do the best I can, that's all.
I'm sorry if you feel there's been a
difference, but no, no, you're all right, but
we can't quite understand.
Come on, Mary, you tell them of your
Savior.
Tell them who it was that cured you.
You don't know the name.
You're afraid that the event that Bethesda performed,
what a pathetic thing it is.
Here is Jim, we call him Jim.
He's an apprentice to the carpentry trade, and
he's doing his best, and Jim, he's a
good fellow.
Oh, he's in the CE movement, and oh,
Jim, he's quite a man, he said he
wasn't a Christian.
Jim said he's a Christian, and here he
is, he's driving home a nail, and he's
only an apprentice, and he misses fire with
a hammer, he hits his son, he jumps
like a panther, and then he pushes his
poor thumb into his spouse and begins to
suck it, and his mate drops his hammer
near him and says, come on, Jim, have
a good swearing, you'll feel better, son.
No dance about like that.
Oh, what good a swearing that Jim, as
he shakes his poor thumb, oh, you're a
saint, auntie, you wouldn't swear, would you?
Oh, go on, I'm no saint at all,
but I wouldn't swear at it.
Oh, you're a good boy, auntie.
No, I'm not, no.
What?
You don't know the name of your Saviour.
You don't talk to Jesus Christ.
The man of Bethesda went up to the
temple.
He didn't go back, but in the temple,
in the house of prayer, even as this
place is today, behold, said the Saviour, and
I'm sure he said, thou art made whole,
thou art cured, have no fear, now sin
no more, lest a worse thing come unto
you.
Don't you trifle with sin, but you are
made whole.
He simply met Christ, and he heard the
word of the Saviour straight to his heart,
don't you trifle with sin.
The man went out, fast as he could,
and he met that group that had climbed
him, and he said to Jesus, that made
me whole, oh, I can't help what you
say about him, it was Jesus Christ, that's
right, Jesus of Nazareth, I believe he might
be the Messiah, don't you say that word,
Christ, I can't help it, it was Jesus
of Nazareth made me whole.
He witnessed, he witnessed, he was healed.
You see, he was willing, he was willing
to be made whole, he was willing to
be delivered from disease, he was willing to
be delivered from death too, and the disease
of sin leads to the death of sin.
But he was willing to be saved from
the disease and the death, and then draw
a line, he witnessed to his healer, he
witnessed to his Saviour.
He went out and said, Jesus has made
me whole, he didn't say some roundabout words
like this, I've had a great accident in
my life, that's remarkably strange, he didn't say
that, he said, Jesus, he made me whole,
right across the baseline, willing, witness, now draw
up two slanting lines from that, will you,
and come to the apex of another triangle.
Well done, good and faithful servant, enter now
into the joy of thy Lord.
That's the triangle of eternal life, willing that
Christ should be your Saviour, willingly accepting, willing
that you could be made whole, well, saved,
saved, witnessing to Christ, that's the second point
at the base, willing, witnessing, up, up, to
the great risen place of God.
Well done.
Now the other people do a lot of
work to claim the idea, my dear friends,
it's the grand witness you give to Christ
the commended of God, you can't glorify God
any more than honouring his Son, yet some
of you do work, all do work, but
you won't.
I want to say, as I come to
the close of this message, there are two
questions I would ask every soul here, as
I've often asked my own heart.
Are thou willing to be made whole?
Are thou willing to be saved?
In another word, art thou willing to be
made holy, to be prepared for heaven?
Art thou willing that Christ, the Cure, will
come into your heart?
Are you willing?
It must be, it is going to be
saved.
The tragedy of the human will, beloved, is
this, that God has made me in his
own image, made me in the likeness of
himself, in so far that he's given me,
and that's wonderful, awful gift, can be lifted
up until I say, I will not have
this.
Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have
gathered thee as a hen gathers her brood
underneath her wings, but ye would not, said
the weeping sage, ye would not.
I've felt like that many a time when
I've made the appeal for Christ over the
congregation.
How willingly would he have saved every one
of them?
How willingly would he have cleansed that defiled
life?
How willingly would he have liberated that poor
prisoner of lust and sin?
But they would not.
They will not.
Therefore, my friends, you can will no to
Christ, whereas if thou wouldst willing, thou wouldst
be wonderfully saved, thou wouldst be made well
forever, Oh, what a perfect picture is that
healthy youth, a healthy vein, with all the
glow of health in the cheeks and the
vitality of life right through the body.
What a perfect picture.
Strong men, men rejoicing to run his race.
I want to ask a second question.
Not only are you willing to be saved,
I want to ask every professor of salvation
as well, as those that are not yet
saved, are thou willing to witness to Christ?
Art thou willing to witness to this Savior?
And that is a big thing.
A man can profess to be saved and
not be willing to witness to Christ.
I remember hearing poor men sing one night
in this city of Sydney years ago at
the CE rally, and I fixed my eyes
on the tenor, he's the big man, open
hair and he sang beautifully.
And when I was saying goodnight to the
quartet as they walked out at the end
of the service, I took hands with each
one and up came the tenor, took his
hand and I looked him in the face
and I said, that was fine singing tonight
my brother, thank you, I did enjoy it.
He said, you don't seem to remember me,
Mr. Ridley.
Well I said, I fancy I have met
you before, but I couldn't say your name
and I don't remember where.
He said, don't you remember a night at
the North Sydney Church, that great Greek church,
when you made an appearance and I was
the only person that moved and I walked
right from the back door right up that
long, long aisle and up those stairs into
the venue.
Ah, I said, I do now.
I remember that meeting and you were the
only one that responded.
Ah, Mr. Ridley said, I think I might
have been converted a year before that night,
I might have been.
I never went forward.
I wouldn't witness, I wouldn't confess the Savior,
but from that night, I want to tell
you, I've gone right on with God.
I witnessed, I feel the Lord.
How easy it is to pray in the
sight of Jesus.
Old John McNeill, the Scotch Evangelist, used to
say, the confess is in it, whether you
like it or not.
The confess is in it.
So it is, well in it, the salvation
of God.
Here's Charles Wesley, a great hymn writer, but
at this point, that I want to introduce
him, he's a man just converted under the
witness of Peter Bowler, the Moravian, who knew
how to witness and he's brought Charles Wesley
out of all the strait-lacedness of his
legalism, right into the liberty of the child
of God.
Wesley rejoiced and he turned to Mr. Bowler
after and he said, of course Mr. Bowler,
I don't suppose there's any need for me,
is there, to publish this matter abroad and
talk about it.
Oh, I feel blessed.
Said Peter Bowler, Would to God that you
had a thousand tongues to tell it.
Never let Wesley's mind.
And a little later, he wrote the number
one hymn of the Methodist book of you
as you today.
Oh, for a thousand.
My great Redeemer's praise.
The glories of my God and King.
The triumphs of his grace.
And Wesley witnessed as ever a man did
to his great King.
Oh, my God.
Beloved, do you use your one tongue to
tell something of Christ's glory to another?
Are you a willing witness?
As well as a willing witness to Christ.
I know how hard the fight is.
I know how difficult it is to bend
to the will of God in our forefallen
nature.
But I want to tell you if a
man is willing to be made willing, God
will come and deal with him as he
is going to.
And I'm going to ask you tonight as
we draw to the close and bow in
prayer in a moment's time, I'm going to
ask you even if you'll only say, Oh,
brother, I'm willing to be made willing to
be saved.
I'm willing to be made willing to witness
for Christ.
You'll pray for me tonight.
God will make me willing to do his
will.
But he'll make me willing to witness for
him.
And I'll ask you to pray for me
by lifting my hand a moment.
But I want to be willing to do
God's will.
Oh, my brother, would that you had a
thousand hands.
Would that you had a thousand tongues.
My tongue that's told something of his grace
for forty-odd years may soon be silent.
But some of you people with youth and
strength on your side could tell that blessed
name to the ends of the earth if
you were only willing to.
You're near a heart that's burned to give
the blessed name wind to us.
It takes humility to ask God to make
you will his will.
Can we be humble enough tonight let us
bow in God's presence in prayer.
Every head bowed.
Our hearts just humbled in his presence.
And if you're willing that God would make
you willing to be made whole to witness
for Christ.
Perhaps to make a new witness for him
in a new power than what you've been
doing.
Or to come to the great step of
accepting him.
But you're willing to be made willing.
Would you lift your hand quietly and let
me pray.