Now, I'm continuing to talk to you about
the need for reformation in Protestant churches.
The fact that it's needed came to light
more than, pointed up more than usual this
last week.
A reporter from one of the papers, the
telegram, called me and asked me if I
had seen that about the United Church talking
about introducing the confessional into the Protestant church.
And I said, yes, I'd seen it.
And he said, what did you think of
it?
And I said, well, it's one more step
toward Rome.
He said, do you think it'd be all
right to confess our sins to each other?
And I said, no.
Confess our sins to God.
Some of the others were a little rougher
than I was.
They called three, I think.
And a different paper had a story in
yesterday about the confessional star.
Sometimes I feel like a prophet.
I start saying things, and the first thing
you know, it all comes out in the
paper.
I see that instead of a reformation, that
we are going to go back and ask
Pope's forgiveness and ask him to take us
back in.
Now, I hope that won't happen while I'm
alive, but it'll happen before the book of
Revelation is fulfilled.
And that only points up the necessity for
a reformation of a reformation, for the Protestants
are the sons and daughters of the Reformation.
And as you remember, by a reformation I
said we meant a change or changes that
would result in correction of abuses or faults,
that would result in the bringing of the
Church back to its original place of power
and usefulness.
Now, I want tonight particularly to talk about
the need in modern circles for a return
to a biblical concept of the Church.
About the beginning, the first quarter, about right
after the World War, First World War, we
had a visitation in the United States, not
of spiritual power, but we had a visitation
of what I have named tabernaculism.
That is a revolt from the Churches, and
I can understand why there was the revolt,
because the Churches were pretty dead.
And we had that tabernaculism then born, which
was that everybody who had a good personality
and could preach would start himself a tabernacle
around the corner, get himself a crowd and
pull out of the Churches and then proceed
to poke fun at Churches.
And that went on until the Depression, and
the Depression had an odd effect on this
thing.
It went away into debt, you know, to
build big tabernacles, and the man who founded
left town and nobody else could keep it
up, and the crowd wandered away, and the
mortgage holders foreclosed, and Church and tabernacle after
tabernacle was left high and dry in the
States.
I don't know about Canada.
I would suppose that we are very much
alike, in spite of that little tongue-sticking
-out deal that they're having between Ottawa and
New York now, and Ottawa and Washington, we're
still an awful lot alike.
And I suppose it was true up here,
too.
But the strange thing happened, the Depression killed
that.
You know, nobody had any money, and so
it didn't pay anymore to go around starting
tabernacles, so the boys quit it.
But we got great big barns everywhere all
throughout the States.
They're not good for anything, but they left
behind them a residue, and the residue was
a bad, a dangerous philosophy.
That is, a dangerous theology of the Church.
The Church was thrown out and said to
be of no account, and to come when
you please, go when you must, no creed
but Christ, no law but love, no pastor
but Jesus, no membership, no anything.
Well, that has left us high and dry
like a shore after a storm when the
wind has blown the flotsam and jetsam in.
Now, I believe that it is time for
us to reconsider again the matter of the
Church, and I want to talk about it
tonight, definitely with an evangelistic appeal.
We're going to close by singing the great
song, Grace that is greater than all our
sins.
But we have come to take the Church
for granted.
Most people think of the Church as a
social fact that they've gotten used to, and
their attitude toward the Church, toward Protestantism generally,
is that a matter of course.
And every person, even the average Christian, thinks
it is in favor of the Church, you
know, the same as they're in favor of
motherhood and decency and sanitation.
But it's accepted as a convention that they
never question or doubt, and if anybody questions
or doubts it, they're considered to be Communists
or the village atheists.
And people will even pour, they'll even join
and support and pour out their money to
support social conventions.
But I wonder how many ever sit down
and say, now wait a minute, what is
this?
Maybe the Church is just another something that's
here and it hasn't any value or any
reason for being here.
I wonder how many present-day Christians have
ever searched the scripture with a serious burden
on their heart to know what the Church
was, if it is simply a convention that's
carried over, or what it is.
I wonder how many Christians have ever prayed
earnestly for light from heaven about it.
Now, I want to say something here, and
if it isn't true of you, I don't
be mad about it, but it's my belief
that the average man spends more time and
intellectual labor each year making out his income
tax, than he spends all his lifetime trying
to learn from the scriptures and from the
light of the Spirit what the Church is
and what he ought to do about it
and what it's in the world for and
what Jesus meant when he said, on this
rock I will build my church and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
I say that if a man were to
chew his pencil and walk the floor and
go out for a walk and come back
and try it over again and work on
it and search and think and discern and
divide and go through all that we have
to go through to make out our income
tax, every year, and me, I have to
do it twice.
They won't let me off down in the
States.
I've got to send something to Washington, you
know.
So if we would spend even half as
much time working on this whole matter of
the Church and what it is and if
it's still valid, if it's still good, I
believe we could come up with some wonderful
answers.
But now, I want to talk a little
bit about the Church and the local Church.
When we know what the Church is, we'll
understand what a local Church is.
The average local Church is simply, to a
large extent, a social organization where well-intentioned
people meet together, they know each other, they're
friendly, and what draws them together is more
or less coffee and friendship and skating parties
and things, and those things are harmless.
I drink coffee, and I don't skate.
If you'd ever seen me on skates, you'd
know why.
But perfectly legitimate and good, I used to
when I was a kid, and my wife
was a good skater, I understand, back about
a few years back when we were young,
and when we know what the Church is,
we'll understand that these things are all right
on the margin of the Church, but they're
not the purpose of the Church.
That is, we meet and have a gathering
and drink coffee and shake hands and say
hello and eat a little bit.
Perfectly legitimate if we don't need it and
if we know that that's not what holds
us together.
But when that's what holds us together, then
we don't have a Church, we have something
else.
It's all right, perfectly all right if we
don't need it, as I repeat, but when
that's all churches have, and brother and sister,
we might as well admit it, that's often
all churches have.
That's just all they have.
I told you about the fellow who was
preaching a sermon and he had it advertised
out in front of his church and his
topic for the coming Sunday.
I had to leave town and couldn't go
to hear what the dear saintly brother had
to say.
But the topic announced was, Who Killed Cock
Robin?
Now, that kind of stuff, you know, is
quite prominent and we get it everywhere.
But what is this?
If we know and understand what the local
church is, what the church is, we'll know
what a local church is and if we
know what a local church is, we'll know
what Avenue Road Church is.
And I'm an ambitious man and I don't
know whether this would ever happen or not,
but this is happening to me.
I'm getting very ambitious.
Paul said about certain churches, he said, I'm
jealous for you.
I'm ambitious for you.
Wasn't I ashamed to admit it?
I'm ambitious for Avenue Road Church.
I want it to become the best church
in the city of Chicago, in the city
of Toronto, excuse me.
And I want it to become a church
that everybody will look to and all of
them won't come and join it necessarily, all
of them, but they look to and say,
Now, how do they do it up there
on Avenue Road?
That's what I'm jealous for.
We should be the kind of church I've
outlined last week and want to talk more
about later.
But tonight I say that first we've got
to have a philosophy about the church.
What is a church?
Well, I want to give you three things
tonight.
Every theologian, if any of them should have
honored me by being present tonight, any preachers
or pastors, missionaries or theologians, you will know
that no man can say everything that ought
to be said in one night or in
three months.
But I want to take three things tonight
and show you what the church of Jesus
Christ is, the true church of Jesus Christ.
And then if that's true of the true
church of Jesus Christ, that's true of Avenue
Road Church if we are a true branch
and member of that church of Jesus Christ.
First, let me say that the church is
the bride of Christ.
Now, Jesus Christ was a complete man.
I told the young people that he was
a complete man.
He had all the nature of a man.
But he never wed a daughter of woman.
He could have, but he never did.
He never wed any one woman, though he
was a true and complete man.
He never wed a daughter of woman that
he might wed his whole church and his
church be his bride.
Now, a true local church is the bride
of Christ in recapitulation.
That is, in miniature.
Everything that is in the whole church of
Christ should be recapitulated in a local church.
Are you interested in that kind of thing,
brothers and sisters, or do you want something
else?
I think you're interested.
And so I'm giving it to you.
There's some difficulty tonight, but I'm giving it
to you.
And I say that the church, part of
it in heaven and part of it on
earth, the church is the bride of Christ.
And when our Lord Jesus has washed his
bride, regenerated her, and prepared her, then he's
coming back to take her as his bride.
That's the whole church.
But any local church is the whole church
in recapitulation.
Just as, and let's see if we can
think of an illustration out of the clear
sky, just as an election in, say, Toronto,
recapitulates a federal election, the same liberty is
expressed, the same candidates run, and they talk
about each other, and they plead their own
worth, and they put up bulletins, and they
do the same thing in a small way
that on the federal level they do in
a large way.
Now, that's a poor illustration, but the whole
bride of Christ is recapitulated.
Any local church is what the whole church
is, only it's that in miniature, it's that
in a smaller degree.
Listen to this from Philippians.
For the husband is head of the wife,
even as Christ is head of the church,
and he is the Savior of the body.
Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ,
so let the wives be to their own
husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also
loved the church and gave himself for it,
that he might sanctify and cleanse it with
the washing of water by the word, that
he might present it to himself, a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle or any
such thing, but that it should be holy
and without blemish.
So ought men to love their wives as
their own bodies.
He that loveth his wife loveth himself, for
no man ever yet hated his own flesh,
but nourishes and cherishes it even as the
Lord the church.
Now, there is a figure drawn from the
husband and wife and applied directly and without
apology to Jesus Christ and his church.
He says, Just as a young man would
not marry a dirty bride, so Jesus Christ
will not marry a church that has blemish
or wrinkles or spots or any such thing,
but that he wants a glorious church and
he wants to present it in that day,
and he loves that church as a man
loves his own bride.
Now, that's here.
Have you ever thought about this?
One time there was a man named Adam,
and he was just there all by himself.
He was the first bachelor.
He had no wife.
He was just there.
And God said to Adam, Adam, call in
all the animals and name them.
Adam called all the tame animals, for they
were all tame before the fall, in before
him, and he named them.
And according to the Bible, names are given
after their nature.
And everything was named after its nature.
He named the bear after the bear nature
and the lion after the lion nature and
the elephant after the elephant nature and whatever
was there.
He named it according to its nature.
Then it says, This touching little thing.
But for Adam was found no one wife
meet for him.
No meat for him was found.
M-E-T-E.
And some people think that that means, just
means, that there was no woman yet.
But it means that they had not found
any nature like his to have a mate,
to have someone that was meat for him.
Not a mate for him, but meat for
him.
That is, that was worthy of him.
There had to be somebody who had his
nature.
And there wasn't anybody, because there were all
the beets of the field and the fowls
of the air, but they didn't have the
same nature as the man Adam.
He was superior, made in the image of
God.
So God said to Adam, Adam lie down.
Adam lay down and went into a deep
sleep.
There in a state of deep anesthesia, God
operated on the man and took from his
chest a rib.
And God, who had made the man, now
fashioned the woman, the rib into a woman,
gives her life and calls her woman, the
life giver, who shall give life to all
the race.
And when Adam came out of his sleep,
he looked around and he saw Eve, and
she looked good in his sight.
And Adam knew Eve and she conceived a
son, and thus the race went on.
So this is how we got our start.
But now there was another Adam, for in
1 Corinthians 15 it tells us that there
is a second Adam, the last Adam, and
that Adam was Jesus Christ the Lord.
And he had a nature that was divine.
He was divine.
He was God in the flesh.
And I said a while ago, and shocked
some of you by saying it, no doubt,
that Jesus was a perfect and complete man,
but he wed no daughter of woman.
He wed no daughter of woman because there
was not found any worthy of him.
So God put him as the old Adam
in old days, on the cross in a
deep sleep.
And he opened his side as he opened
the side of Adam in ancient days.
And out from his side there flowed not
a rib but the water and the blood.
And from that water and blood, God is
washing and cleansing and preparing a bride worthy
of Jesus.
A bride just as he didn't create Eve
from nothing as he has Adam.
He created Eve from the wounded side of
Adam.
So the Lord is not creating a race
that does not exist to be his church.
He takes the race that now exists and
takes certain members of it and washes it
in the blood that came from that wounded
side and gives by the Holy Spirit the
nature of Christ to the bride of Christ.
So she'll be worthy of him.
There was not among the sons and daughters
of Eve, there was not one that was
meet for Jesus.
He's preparing himself a bride meet for him
who has his nature, as Eve had the
nature of the husband out of whose side
she came.
The old theologian in ancient days said, God
took the bone that made the woman not
from Adam's head that he might lord it
over her, not from his feet that she
might lord it over him, but from his
heart that she might understand him and he
might love her.
Now that's what the church is, the bride
of Christ.
My dear brother and sister, if you are
a member of the true church of Christ
and therefore you are a member of that
company that will make up the true bride
of Christ, and we as a local church
recapitulate, that is, we are in miniature the
bride of Christ.
And this is what a church is, you
see.
This is what a church is.
And then secondly, the church is the body
of Christ.
I've already mentioned that so much and talked
about so much, we hardly need to take
time with it.
But Jesus Christ is the head and just
as the head is on top of your
body, directing your body, so Jesus Christ is
the head of his church, directing his church.
My hands do this because my head tells
it to.
Some people wonder why my head tells my
hands to wiggle, but they do.
My hands wouldn't think of it, you see.
So my head directs my body.
And Jesus Christ being the head of this
church, he directs the church.
The head of this church is not A.
W.
Tozer or A.
N.
McNally.
The head of this church is Jesus Christ
the Lord.
He is the head of the church of
which the church is the body.
But of course this church is not all
the body of Christ, but this church is
in miniature the body of Christ.
And the church are the members, the Christians
are the members of the body of Christ.
Now what I'm giving you is no cult
doctrine and it doesn't require anybody to start
a new church.
Oh, I never started a new church, never
want to.
I mean to start a new denomination.
No.
You can stay in the Christian and Missionary
Alliance and belong to the Avenue Road Church
and not change your doctrines at all.
Because this is not a new doctrine.
This is believed by everybody that takes time
to think what they're believing.
No man ever hated his own flesh, it
says.
And so Jesus Christ can't hate his church.
He loves his church because his church is
a part of him.
He nourishes it and he cherishes it.
Now thirdly, I'm giving you three figures of
speech.
Two of them from Paul himself and one
of them from the Old Testament.
The third thing I would say that a
church is, the church, and if the church
then any local church, and then if any
local church then Avenue Road Church.
It is an ark on the floodwaters.
That is, as the ark of Noah floated
on the waters containing all of the race
that was going to be salvaged.
So the church of Jesus Christ is an
ark on the floodwaters.
And hear me now without hesitation.
It contains all that will be salvaged from
the fall.
Remember that.
All in the ark are saved and all
out of the ark perish.
Now that is a perfect illustration.
All around about us, all around about us,
there's a perishing world.
The perishing world.
And we float on the top of it
on a little ark called the church.
And all that are not in the church
will perish.
You say, now hold on a minute, brother.
Do you mean to say that if you
don't join the Avenue Road Church we'll all
be lost?
No, no, you didn't think I said that,
did you?
I didn't even think you thought I said
it.
But what I say is the church is
the ark containing the ransom.
And outside of the ark there is the
floodwaters of judgment and death.
Inside of the ark there is life.
And so outside of the living church of
Christ there are the unregenerate, the lost.
Inside there are the regenerate, the saved.
You are not saved by joining a church.
That's a mistake that the local churches make.
I was converted, as I've said here before,
just on my own, more or less.
I just got converted.
That's all.
I went and got converted.
I don't know.
I had a little help.
I heard a man preach on the street
and had a little help.
But I got converted.
And then I looked around for a church
to join and I joined a church.
Then I understood I should be baptized and
I went and got myself baptized.
I went to what they're now called Disciples
Church, Church of Christ.
The old Dr. Wise took me down into
the water and brought me up and he
said, Thank God, a newborn soul.
Well, he believed that.
I crossed my fingers on that one because
I knew better.
I knew that I'd been born again in
my mother's attic, down on my knees, praying
a year and a half before.
And therefore I knew I wasn't a newborn
babe.
I could walk and talk and I was
already preaching.
So I wasn't a newborn babe.
But I went and got immersed because I
felt I should.
Now that isn't a pitch for immersion, though
I believe in it.
It's only to say that's the way I
felt and that's what I did.
But I wasn't converted then.
I had been converted before.
But now I was baptized as a proof
of my conversion.
And I got into the church.
I got into the church the day I
was converted.
That is, the day I was born again,
I entered the church.
And they all came in by the door
into that ark.
And Christ is the door and whosoever will
be saved must come in by the door
for there is no other ark on the
flood.
Suppose somebody said, Well, hold on a minute
now.
Don't be bigoted and narrow.
Let's be tolerant about this.
We don't want to get in Noah's ark.
We want an ark of our own.
Well, there weren't any other arks on the
flood.
You either get into Noah's ark or perish.
And a few got into Noah's ark and
God preserved the race, salvaged from the judgment
a small number.
So in the church of Christ God is
salvaging from the wreck a small number.
A fatal error is the independent life.
You say, I'm a Christian but I don't
associate with any churches.
I'm a Christian but I don't feel a
necessity whatsoever to join the church.
There are hypocrites in the church.
Yeah, that's true.
Hypocrites in the church.
Jesus had his Judas's carrot.
Paul had, Peter had his Ananias and Sapphira.
Paul had his Demas.
So they do.
We always have hypocrites in the church, I
suppose.
That is, in the local assembly.
But not in the true church of Christ.
And for a while, the local assembly sometimes
and the true church of Christ are not
synonymous.
And sometimes there come into the church persons
who have never come into the church.
You know what I mean.
That is, there are people who join a
church who have never been born into the
church.
Some churches actually throw the doors open.
And they say, now while we sing the
closing hymn will those who want to unite
with the church come to the front.
And Al Capone could come, you know.
And just anybody could come down and join.
Nobody asks them anything.
Just take them in.
I don't believe in that at all.
I know you don't.
I believe that if you're going to get
into a local church, you should first be
in the universal church.
That if you want to join Avenue Road,
you should first be in the church which
you purchased with his own blood.
You should get into the church for the
new birth.
By the operation of the Holy Ghost regeneration.
And then join a local assembly.
But I am a Christian and I don't
believe in associating.
All right.
But I want to point out it's impossible
to receive Christ and reject his people.
You know how to find the shepherd, go
where the sheep are.
If you don't know where the shepherd is,
go where the sheep are.
All else being equal, you will find the
shepherd with his sheep.
And so if you will hunt around where
the sheep of the Lord are bleeding and
nibbling, you will find the shepherd there.
So I believe in the assembly of the
saints, the people of God coming together.
And whoever receives Christ must receive his people,
too.
For it's impossible, I say, to receive Christ
and reject his people.
Because he said, Whosoever receives you, receives me.
And whoever rejects the bride, rejects the bridegroom.
And whoever rejects the flock, rejects the shepherd.
And whoever rejects those that are in the
ark, rejects the ark.
And whoever rejects the ark will perish in
the flood.
I think that's clear enough.
I'm surprised that it's not known more widely
by more people.
Remember, again, I'm not giving you anything that
I thought up.
And I'm not giving you anything new.
And I'm not giving you anything that wouldn't
be approved by practically any church, any gospel
church or evangelical church in the city of
Toronto or anywhere in the world.
I'm just restating it, you see.
And I think that we ought to have
now a reformation within our own hearts that
would rethink this whole thing on our knees
and say, Oh, wait a minute.
I wonder if I've had high and sacred
enough.
I wonder if I could give you an
illustration.
I'm a great scholar for illustration.
I don't tell stories.
I dig my illustrations out of the air.
And I wonder if I could have an
illustration.
All right.
Two young couples.
They marry in June.
And one of them is a Christian couple
and take a serious view of life.
And they're the love home and they're looking
forward to children.
The other couple love each other too in
a Hollywoodish kind of way.
And they look forward to skin diving and
water skiing and just having fun.
Just having fun.
And they're living together but having fun.
They don't want any brats.
They take your time.
So in the course of time, two or
three years, lo and behold, both of them,
gals, come through with a little baby.
And one of them was wanted and one
was not.
But the two attitudes of those parents toward
those two babies.
Now, there's what I'm trying to get at.
Christian parents look at their little baby and
their hearts are aglow.
And they say, Isn't she absolutely wonderful?
Maybe they cry.
When I heard our oldest boy, our first
boy, of course, when I heard him wail
his first baby wail, I broke down.
I knew he wasn't sick and I knew
he wasn't hungry.
But it hit me deeper, deeper than reason.
It was nature.
It was old Adam back there, I guess,
or somebody talking.
And I broke down.
I don't think my wife ever knew it,
but I bawled when I first heard the
little cry.
And I felt a sense of sacredness.
And this first hypothetical couple feels a sense
of sacredness.
And so they pray and they plan and
they say, Oh, wasn't God good to give
us this little one?
And she becomes a spiritual thing to them.
Now, they know she isn't.
They know that when she grows up she'll
be like other people.
She'll have her tantrums.
She's human.
She's a human.
But all they take of her is a
gift from God.
And it becomes a sort of a sacrament
to them, bringing up that little baby.
Now, that's one.
The other couple, they've got the baby and,
of course, even animals like, they're young.
So after a while they learn to like
the little fellow.
But they never quite see it the way
the first couple does.
Never occurred to one of them to say,
Isn't this amazing?
Isn't this beautiful?
Isn't this a gift from God?
Ought not we to pray that God might
help us to be worthy to raise this
little chap?
Never occurs to them.
And just as soon as she's able to
be around, they send for a babysitter and
they go on their way and have their
time.
Get in right after midnight, poor babysitter trying
to do homework.
You know how it is.
The point is, the first couple understood the
sacredness of their baby.
The other couple were not thinking of the
sacredness of their baby.
They were thinking of having fun out of
life and getting what they could out of
life.
But they took the baby as a necessary
evil which they learned to like after a
while and bat around and they liked him,
you know.
Now there's the way with the two views
of the church.
If I don't know what a church is
and if I only come to a church
as a social fact, something I've gotten used
to and that I think would be better
to belong to than not belong to it,
and I go join it, I take the
same attitude toward it as the second couple.
It doesn't have that glow of sacredness.
But if I see that there is a
great church being salvaged from the wreckage, such
as Noah and his family were salvaged from
the judgment of the flood, and that that
great church is found throughout the whole world
in local groups, and those local groups, if
they're true churches, are composed, they compose the
great big church that will be salvaged from
the wreck when our Lord returns at last.
And oh, what a different attitude we'll take
toward the church.
We'll say, Oh God, how lovely that you
ever let me get associated with the people
who believe in thee.
How wonderful that I could go every Sunday
and spend my time singing and listening to
preaching and hearing the word expounded.
And the church will glow to you.
It will have a sense of sacredness on
it.
And if you find any blemish in the
church, you'll do what the young Christian couple
does with their baby.
You won't like it, but you'll try to
correct it, but you won't throw the baby
out because of it.
You'll say, I know there are some people
in the church that aren't all they ought
to be, but I thank God from the
depth of my heart I ever got to
know the church, that he let me ever
become a member of it at all, to
get into it and join it and fellowship
with it.
Now, if you haven't formally joined by coming
up front, you see, there are two ways
of joining a church.
There is putting yourself into the middle of
it with your prayers and your money and
your enthusiasm and your optimism and your worship,
and then maybe for reasons known to you,
never joining quite, never getting a card.
The other way is to do the first
things and then also take a card out.
So this is not making a closed communion
out of the Avenue Road Church.
Everybody is welcome here that wants to worship
God, but I believe that we ought to
get with a fellowship.
But what I want to point out now
is that the reason in closing for a
public confession, why does the Lord want us
to make a public confession?
In the Book of Romans you will read,
The Word is nigh, the inner tenth chapter,
even in thy mouth and in thy heart,
that is, the word of faith which we
preach, that if thou shalt confess with thy
mouth the Lord Jesus, that is, if thou
shalt confess Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe
in thine heart that God raised him from
the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth under righteousness,
and with the mouth confession is made under
salvation.
The heart believes and the mouth confesses, and
both are necessary to salvation.
Even the thief on the cross made his
poor, pitiful confession.
So I believe that is why God wants
us to fellowship with each other and get
together and witness and testify and tell the
world and tell each other, because with the
mouth confession is made under salvation.
So now my plea and mine is for
those of you who have never undergone the
marvelous act of regeneration of the new birth,
I urge you to think this thing seriously
and remember that you get into the ark
through the door and Jesus Christ is the
door and if you reject the ark you
reject the door and if you reject the
door you perish in the flood.
Remember that to become a member of the
body of Christ and joined with the bride
of Christ it is necessary that you be
born into the family of Christ.
And how you are born in is right
here before us.
It is by believing in your heart that
Jesus is Lord and confessing your faith with
your mouth to the people.
That's so reasonable and good and beautiful that
I don't understand why anybody should find fault
with it in this terrible day.
I want to give an illustration.
Suppose if you were somewhere or anywhere in
the world down in the United Nations or
anywhere and somebody asks you what's your nationality
where do you live is there anybody here
that would be ashamed to say I'm a
Canadian if there is I'm ashamed of you
I wouldn't be if I were Canadian I'd
be proud of it is there anybody that
would dare to decide it they would say
no just a minute just a minute let's
not talk about it I don't care to
line up boy oh boy I line up
I want them to know where I belong
if I were down there being surrounded by
all that bunch of hundred and how many
ten nations buzzing all around me they'd say
that little guy there what's he I wouldn't
be afraid to say I'm an American like
it or not you wouldn't be ashamed to
say I'm a Canadian I like to sing
oh Canada I'm a Canadian alright why then
do they want to tell us that we
ought to go through life being secret Christians
too frightened to say I'm a Christian I
tell you what Jesus Christ has honored you
by finding you and laying his hand on
you you ought never to be ashamed of
him you ought to be able to stand
anywhere anytime and lean back and say I
don't care who knows it I'm a Christian
over here is a Buddhist and over here
is
a Christian let them be what they will
be I want the world to know I'm
a Christian don't you?
I want them to know it I'm not
a very good one I don't claim to
be a good one I read the lives
of the saints I know I've got a
long way to go and I want you
to know that I've got a sharp tongue
and abrupt manner and sometimes I'll say things
that hurt feelings I don't want you to
hurt feelings just forgive the fellow who is
too dumb to know better I don't know
better you see so I'm not a good
one maybe but oh brother I'm a Christian
I'm a member of that body of Christ
I belong to that group that's the bride
of Christ and I hear the waters of
judgment showering and undulating underneath me and I
know it doesn't touch me because I'm in
the ark along with the blessed few who
have been honored by God with grace and
for that reason I'm not ashamed that I
don't want you to be and so my
brothers and sisters do you see what I
mean I want Avenue Road Church to be
a church so well taught so separated so
clean so good so charitable so right so
much like the Christ she claims to serve
and I don't have to say to anybody
in the world I'm Pastor of the Avenue
Road Church I can go down across the
border anywhere and they say to me where
are you now Tozer you used to be
in Chicago didn't you I'm always getting there
yes yes I used to be well where
are you now well I'm preaching around here
and there what did you think of me
what did you think of me I don't
like to say don't press me but listen
I want to know I'm Pastor of the
Avenue Road Church but don't tell it what
would you think of me I say to
you brothers and sisters I don't want that
kind of a church and you don't want
that kind of a church we want a
separated heads up knee bent live church clean
and separated knowing where we're together sure we
can have skate parks sure we can have
our coffee sure we can have our gatherings
social gatherings nothing wrong with it provided you
know that you don't need it just something
on the side reliance but your center is
something else it's all together Jesus Christ is
your center so the way to get in
is by faith and and confession now there's
a song I haven't heard sung for a
long time and I've asked Bob if he
will lead us we're going to stand and
sing it even though I've preached too long
I still think we ought to sing all
of it and those of you may be
students may be friends from other countries here
studying maybe somebody wandered in or come with
a friend and you don't know that you're
in you hovered around the church but you
can't say positively I know I'm in you
of Christ by the new birth saved why
we'd like to have you come down to
the front and just be down here and
I'll see you right after church soon as
we're concluded alright Bob