Now, uh, most people, I think, even God's
people, would like to have the power of
the Spirit and the peace of the Spirit
and a lot of other qualities and gifts
and benefits the Spirit may bring.
But now the question is, can we afford
to walk with the Spirit?
Are we going to walk with him?
And the answer is that we can't walk
with him until and unless we're agreed.
And if we're not agreed, then we can't
walk with him at all.
Now, taking it out of the realm of
the spiritual for just a little bit, and
thinking about it, just two people, and that's
what is meant here, and two people walk
together, except they be agreed, that takes us
back to the old days when men made
long journeys on foot.
One man said, I'm going to a certain
town, and the other one said, I am
too.
When are you going?
I'm going tomorrow.
And then the question was, would they go
together, or would each one take out by
himself?
Now, if they were going to go together
and walk together on the way as the
disciples of Emmaus, there were a few things
they were going to have to agree upon.
One is their direction, and the other is
their destination.
Of course, you're going to such a town,
and yes, well, I am not.
So they'd have to shake hands, in part
because two men cannot walk together when one
is going to one city and the other
to another.
At least they can't for very long.
And then they would have to agree on
which path to take.
If there were several paths, and there usually
are, they would have to agree on the
rate of speed.
If one man said, I'm a very fast
walker, and the other man said, I just
slump along, I hardly make it at all,
they'd say, well, there's no use for us
to walk together because I'm so slow that
I will bore you.
The other man would say, no, it's not
that.
I'm so fast that I will trouble you.
So they wouldn't go together.
And then they would have to agree they
wanted to walk together.
Did they want to walk together?
There have been a lot of people that
if I were going to walk from here
to Hamilton, I'd just as soon walk by
myself.
You know, you've had that experience, haven't you?
You know, you love them all right and
you pray for them, but you don't find
them what you would call edifying companions.
You'd have to decide whether you want to
walk together or not.
Whether it's to the advantage and to the
least disadvantage of both parties concerned, whether there
is an incompatibility that might render the trip
unpleasant.
Now, to sum it all up then, for
two to walk together voluntarily, they must in
some sense be one.
They must agree on the things that matter
if they are going to walk together.
Now, that bears upon the subject that I
want to talk about tonight, and you will
quickly see how it bears.
How to cultivate the spirit companionship, how to
walk with the Holy Ghost.
Now, some people are just not ready to
hear what I have to say, and of
that I'm convinced.
Some are not willing to give up all
to obtain all.
They are not willing to turn toward God
and walk with him.
They are facing both ways.
The great many Christians, even gospel Christians, are
facing two directions at once, and they are
not willing to go along one way.
They want some of the world and some
of Christ.
They allow the Lord to disturb their way,
but they also disturb the Lord's way.
And they don't get together on this, and
there's just no use of our talking about
being filled with the Spirit and walking in
the Spirit unless we are willing to give
up all to obtain all.
And then there are Christians, and a lot
of them in our gospel churches, that want
Christianity for its insurance value.
That is, they want the care and protection
that God gives them now, and they want
avoidance of hell in time of death, and
they want the guarantee of heaven at last.
And it is to get this they are
willing to support the Church and missions and
other religious projects financially.
And I want to ask you, who wouldn't
be willing to pay his insurance if he
knew that it would help him in the
hospital if he got sick or got in
an accident, it would pay his widow a
lot of money if he died?
Who wouldn't be willing to pay and support
that kind of insurance?
And Christianity to some people is simply there
for its insurance value.
They want its protection and what it has
to offer and guarantee of heaven at last.
Now, I say they are willing to support
it, and they are willing even to abstain
from certain gross replaces.
I don't think you'll have much difficulty getting
the average man to quit gambling if he's
been a gambler.
I don't think you'll have much trouble in
getting the average man separated from a lot
of the fleshly things, because there are a
lot of sinners that don't do certain sins.
My father used tobacco, both smoking and chewing,
for, I guess, 50 years.
One day he looked at the stuff and
had a sudden revulsion of feelings.
He said, what a dirty mess that is
after all.
He turned his back on it and never
touched it again until he died.
He wasn't converted for many years after that.
Between the time he gave it up and
the time he was converted, a period of
perhaps 8 to 10 years, he just didn't
like this stuff anymore.
Not every sinner is dirty, not every sinner
is a rascal, not every sinner cheats on
his wife, and not every sinner refused to
pay his debts.
There are honorable men and good men and
honest men and men that will tell the
truth if it hurts, right out in the
world, that have no hope of eternal life
or of heaven to come, that are not
followers of the Lord, they are just decent
people.
The idea that everybody is a wicked rascal
and a scoundrel is all wrong.
I have known some of the finest men
who are not Christians.
I know a man in Chicago who is
so good that everybody wants to make a
Christian out of him, but he steadfastly refuses
and says, I am not a Christian.
I am not a Christian.
But he is so good that he puts
to shame a lot of Christians.
He doesn't claim that he is winning his
way to heaven.
It's not a question of the old morality
that the evangelists talk about.
He doesn't believe in that.
He just knows he is lost, but he
is also a man of incorruptible character, he
is a good man.
And of course a lot of Christians are
willing to give up the grosser things and
live in a reasonably decent way.
For some people who aren't ready for this
message tonight, their conception of religion is social
and not spiritual.
That is, they water down the strong wine
of the New Testament until it has no
tang in it anymore.
Then they water it down with their easygoing
opinions.
They are very broad-minded, they imagine, but
the fact is they are so broad-minded
they can't walk on the narrow way.
And a lot of Christians now are more
influenced by Hollywood than they are Jerusalem.
That's just as sure as you live.
That is, their spirit, their mood is more
like Hollywood than it is like Jerusalem.
If you were to set them down in
Jerusalem, they would wander around even in the
days of Christ.
They wouldn't feel at home, but take them
out in that nest of iniquity in California
and they would say, I wonder who she
is, I wonder if she is one of
the stars.
They'd be quite at home there, because their
mood, the texture of their mind has been
created for them by twentieth-century entertainment and
not by the things of God.
So they are very broad-minded, they imagine,
but the fact is they are so
broad-minded they can't walk on
the narrow way anymore.
They are very broad-minded, they imagine, but
the fact is they are so broad-minded
they can't walk on the narrow way anymore.
They are very broad-minded, they imagine,
but the fact is they are so
broad-minded they can't
walk on the narrow way anymore.
They are very broad-minded, they imagine, but
the fact is they are so broad-minded
they can't walk on the narrow way anymore.