Brother Jones, we're so glad you're here.
Glad the Lord has given you strength to
be with us.
Having you here is such a benediction and
blessing.
I know that you're praying that our Brother
Jones is going to just have life from
the Lord, service by service, to be with
us.
We were yesterday in Ephesians, this marvelous manual
on developing your full potential in Christ.
And I trust, I'm sure, for you that
are here this morning, at least, that is
the desire of your heart.
And consequently, I feel as though the seed
is being sown on good ground with you.
Will you turn, please, to that first chapter?
I had intended yesterday to get where I
hope to be able to get today.
I'm not going to promise, because this is
so rich, you know.
Every time you stoop down, you're picking up
diamonds, truly acres of diamonds, in the epistle
to the Ephesians.
I'll begin reading with the 15th verse so
that you get the background of the text.
Wherefore, I also, after I have heard of
your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love
unto all the saints, cease not to give
thanks for you, having put you on my
prayer list.
Well, better than that, making mention of you
in my prayers.
Elsewhere he said, I labor and prevail in
prayer, night and day, until Christ be formed
in you.
I'm praying for you believers, said the Apostle,
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of glory, may give unto you
the spirit of wisdom and revelation.
In the knowledge of him, in the eyes
of your understanding being enlightened, that you may
know what is the hope of his calling.
And that's where we stopped yesterday.
The hope of his calling, that we, redeemed
by his blood, would count it our reasonable
service to present our bodies, our blood ransom
personalities, all we are to him, so that
he could have them to live again his
life through us.
That's only one of three important aspects of
this prayer, that he might know the hope
of his calling.
And now the second segment, and what is
the riches of the glory of his inheritance
in the saints.
Now, we saw in the previous segment that
it's his calling, the call he had that
drew him out of eternity into time to
redeem us.
Most of the expositions I find on this
particular section of this verse speak of it
as though it were the riches of the
glory of our inheritance as saints.
And there's much said in the scripture about
that.
But just because we're so eager to find
out everything the Lord has for us, should
not close our eyes to the fact that
he has something for his son.
So look at this, the riches of the
glory of his inheritance, his inheritance in the
saints.
Or in other words, the saints are his
inheritance.
That's what we have to see now.
So when you present your body to the
Lord Jesus for him to live his life
in and through you, then you can understand
that what he is going to do through
you is to continue the ministry of witness
that he had when he was here.
That living in you, he's going to use
your life to the end of bringing men
and women, boys and girls, out of death
into life.
That is thus set forth, as I see
it, as the direct result of Christ being
given the privilege of living his own life
in his own resurrection power in and through
your personality.
He wants you to present your body to
him, your brain.
That's part of your body.
He wants you to present your brain so
that living in you, he can use your
brain to think his thoughts and get them
back into the world again.
He wants you to present your eyes.
That's part of your body.
So that living in you, he can use
your eyes to see the multitude as sheep
scattered without a shepherd.
That's how he saw them, and he's the
same Jesus.
And if you give him your personality and
body, then he's going to do through you
what he did when he was here.
He's going to use your eyes to see
men as lost and in need of salvation.
Then he asks you to present your ears
so that living in you, he can give
to you the patience to listen to that
which sometimes you might not want to listen
to.
But you see, a good part of witnessing
is listening.
I suppose that if you were to break
it down into percentage, probably 90% of
an effective witness is an effective listening.
And the church needs fewer talkers and more
listeners.
You know, you have to earn the right
to plant the seed of the gospel.
Everybody you meet has a plan of salvation.
Oh yeah, you ask them, do the best
you can.
If you're good, outweighs the bad.
Everybody's got a plan of salvation.
And before you can give them his, you've
got to listen to theirs.
So he asks you to present your ears
so that living in you, he can use
your ears to listen, often to a lot
of nonsense.
But you know, if you don't listen, their
minds are so packed with their own ideas,
there's no room for his truth.
So he says, present your ears so that
I can use your ears to listen and
to let people give their burdens and spill
their troubles and to just be, let me
be, have your ears.
Then he said, let me have your heart.
You remember, when he saw the multitude, he
was moved with compassion.
Your heart is part of your body.
So the Lord Jesus said, present your heart
to me, your emotion, so that you can
feel.
Weep with them that weep and rejoice with
them that rejoice.
Now, if you know you as well as
I know me, you know that that's not
your character.
That's not the way you are by nature,
or some more than others, perhaps.
But we feel so strongly about our own
concerns and our own problems and our own
interests.
And it's only the love of God shed
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit
that enable us to see the multitude as
sheep scattered without a shepherd.
So he says, present your heart to me
so that living in you, I can have
a heart to be broken again for the
need of the lost.
Then he says, present your feet to me.
So that living in you, I can use
your feet to go any place I want
to go to find those that I would
bring to myself.
Present your feet to me.
Blessed are the feet of them that publish
glad tidings and bring the gospel of peace.
That's part of your body.
Present your body, that means present your feet.
That you're willing to go any time of
the day or night that you may have,
that he may lead, or you may have
an opportunity.
You've already given your feet to him, and
consequently, you're prepared to just let him use
them to take you any place that he
wants to go.
Present your hands to him.
So the living in you, he can use
your hands to accomplish his purpose.
He used his hands for those many years,
probably 20 or more, 18 at least, in
carpentry work.
Making things for people and helping provide them
the things that they need.
And if you present your hands to him,
you probably are going to find that you
have many occasions to use your hands to
assist and to aid.
To lift the fallen, to feed the hungry,
to guide the blind to light.
Present your hands to him.
Then he says, present your lips to him.
Your lips to him.
So that's part of your body, isn't it?
Your ability to speak.
So that living in you, he can use
your lips to speak his word of redeeming
love to those whom he would.
That's what the apostles said.
He said, I am crucified with Christ.
Nevertheless, I live, yet not I.
But I presented my brain, my ears, my
heart, my feet, my hands, my lips, and
the life I now live in the flesh.
I live by the faith of the Son
of God.
What was the faith of the Son of
God?
That if he redeemed us by his blood,
we counted our reasonable service to present our
bodies to him so that he could live
his life in and through us.
And the end, that men might be brought
out of darkness into light and out of
death into light.
Now, I went to Africa years ago, back
in 1945 as a missionary.
And to be perfectly honest with you, I
really went.
I suppose I never analyzed it or wrote
it out.
But I wanted to.
I didn't think it was fair for people
to have to go to hell without at
least one chance to be saved.
And I suppose you could say, if you
wanted to assign to it a motive, it
was really, in a sense, to complete or
to improve on the justice of God.
But when I got there, to my amazement,
I found out that the people that I
had come to see and to serve were
just as wicked as the ones that I'd
left back home in Indiana, where I'd been
a pastor while finishing my training.
They were stubborn and rebellious and selfish and
arrogant and proud.
And even when they heard the gospel, they
didn't bow and bend before him.
And I can recall on one occasion getting
down on my face and saying, Father, I've
been sold a bill of goods.
I somehow thought when I got out here
and they saw me, they were going to
say, oh, you've come to show us the
way to heaven.
They couldn't care less about the way to
heaven.
They knew the name of God.
They knew that God was holy.
They knew that they were sinners.
They knew that God was going to punish
them when they died.
And they served evil spirits because evil spirits
made them miserable for a little while while
they were alive.
There was no fear of God before their
eyes.
And when I had finished pouring out my
complaint to the Lord and telling him what
a dirty trick I really seemed to be
to get there and then to find that
they didn't want to want to be, want
salvation or want the Lord or appreciate my
coming to tell them, it seemed to me
as though he whispered, yes, you're right.
You're absolutely right.
That's true.
They are just as lost as you are
and they deserve hell just as much as
you do.
And they don't deserve to have me die
for them and they don't deserve to have
you tell them that I died for them.
They don't deserve anything but my wrath.
But you see, I love them.
I want them.
I love them when they were just like
they are.
And when you were just like that, I
loved you.
And I didn't send you here because they
deserve you.
I sent you here so that you could
let them know of my love.
And you could lift them, as it were,
into my waiting arms.
You see, from that moment on, it completely
changed my attitude toward evangelism and toward witnessing.
Up to that point, I thought that I
was trying to snatch sinners out of the
hands of an angry God and rescue them.
And from that point on, I saw that
I was snatching angry sinners and trying to
lift them into the hands of a loving,
waiting, gracious God who was longing that they
should ask who for peace and ask for
pardon.
And that in a sense, it was that
we were laborers together with him in bringing
this inheritance for Christ and to see them
not as they were vile, wretched worshippers of
evil spirits practicing every kind of cruelty and
immorality, but to see them as they were
going to be with new natures and new
hearts and new names and new bodies and
new spirits and be to the eternal praise
of the glory of his grace.
That's what he wants you to see.
The riches of the glory of his inheritance
in the saints.
Now, it's well and good for you to
say, I want Christ to live in me.
I want him to fill me with himself.
I want to walk in the fullness of
the Spirit.
But there's just one thing you've got to
understand.
The fullness of Christ is not to give
you a handle on God so you can
do with God the things you would like
to do.
It's to give him a handle on you
so that he can do through you what
he wants to do.
And what he wants to do is to
bring men and women out of death into
life so that they will be their part
of the inheritance of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So he wants you to have the eyes
of your understanding open so that instead of
seeing the little mean, nasty kids that tromp
through your flower bed, instead of walking around
on the sidewalk, go through your yard, you
know, and take a stick and rattle on
the picket fence and wake you from your
afternoon nap and all the other things, and
you call their mothers and say, those nasty
little children, all they are is just lost
boys that are saying, oh, doesn't somebody here
know God and love me and won't they
pray for me and tell me about Christ?
How imperative it is for us to understand
this.
The riches of the glory of his inheritance
in the saints because it changes our attitude
toward the lost.
Instead of seeing them as shameful and wicked
and unclean, we see them the way they're
going to be to the eternal praise of
the glory of his grace.
That's what he wants to have our eyes
open for so that we can see that
the manner in which he works is for
Christ to live in us and the purpose
for which he works is to bring man
out of death to himself.
Now, the next thing he wants us to
understand is the energy that's going to be
employed in accomplishing this task.
You know, when David Livingston's father or grandfather
or whoever it might have been was given
the freedom from serfdom to take a name,
he probably had come to know Christ and
took as a name Livingstone.
And I like that name because the Bible
speaks of us as having stony hearts and
hard hearts and you can be just as
successful, if you please, and I put this
in quotes, in saving someone as you can
go be in going out here and finding
a granite boulder and doing something to make
it become live, living, quivering flesh.
Now, when you're certain that you can turn
a boulder into flesh, then you're pretty sure
that you know all the answers about seeing
men brought out of death into life.
But the fact of the matter is that
for someone to pass from death to life
is just as much a miracle as for
a stone to come alive.
It's just as much a miracle as it
was to raise the Lord Jesus Christ from
the dead.
In fact, it took the very same kind
of power to save you that it took
to save, raise his son from the dead.
It's a miracle.
And when our soul was seeing, it took
a miracle.
When he saved my soul, made me, cleansed
me and made me whole, it took a
miracle of grace.
It's just miraculous.
It's supernatural to take someone that has a
hard, stony heart and make that one a
child of God.
You don't do it.
I don't do it.
Oh, I know how to give the plan
of salvation and get people to say, uh
-huh, in the right places and write down
on my card that I've made a convert.
But I've seen so many of my converts
still living in sin, still living in darkness,
that I've had to come to the conclusion
that there's a great deal of difference between
that and seeing someone pass from death to
life.
Paul said, God to reveal his Son in
me.
Salvation is revelation.
Salvation is miracle.
So, what's the power?
How are we going to do this sort
of a thing?
What's going to, how's it going to be
accomplished?
Well, notice the next thing.
He wants the eyes of our understanding open
that we may know what is the exceeding
greatness of his power to us who believe
according to the working of his mighty power
which he wrought in Christ when he raised
him from the dead and set him at
his own right hand in the heavens.
Now, what's he saying?
He's simply saying this, that when you present
your body to him so that he can
live in you, when you present yourself to
him so that living in you, he is
free to use you in that which is
the supreme task of the Godhead, building this
inheritance for Christ, that the power that's available
to you is the very power that raised
up Christ from the dead.
That you are to be the channel by
which this power is to flow into the
affairs of men and into the lives of
people.
Notice it again, that you might know what
is the exceeding greatness of his power toward
us who believe.
What does this mean?
That if you will present your body to
him for the purpose that he said is
here, that the power that's to enable you
to accomplish and fulfill your task is not
just human enthusiasm and dedicated energy and consecrated
intellect.
It's all of that.
But more than that, it's the very power
that raised up Christ from the dead.
It's quite interesting that in this verse, in
verses 19 and 20, every word in the
Greek language used for power or might or
energy is employed.
What is the exceeding greatness of his power
toward us who believe, according to the working
of his mighty power which he wrought in
Christ?
All the words that are used to convey
this thought are put together here in seemingly
hopeless effort on the part of the apostle,
though certainly not hopeless, but an effort to
let you understand that the power that's to
flow through you as a mother in the
home, as a man in the office, as
a young person in school, to enable you
to live this life for Christ and witness
for Christ, that is the very resurrection life
of Christ.
Now, that ought to bring out a hallelujah
here or there, to think that this is
what he's telling these people, that that's what's
going to happen.
Now, we have seen something of his plan
to live his life in us.
We've seen something of his purpose, which is
that through us to bring men to himself
that they might be part of the riches
of the glory of his inheritance in the
saints.
And we've seen something of the power, namely,
that there's going to be the same flow
of resurrection power that raised Christ from the
dead flowing through your personality to make you
effective as a witness for him.
But there's something else you've got to see,
and that's the place from which all of
this is done.
Go back to the third verse.
Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings.
Where?
In the heavenlies.
Now, he hasn't said anything about it there.
He just goes on to talk about it.
But now he comes to that, to the
heavenlies, which he wrought in Christ when he
raised him from the dead.
Now, will you go down to the second
chapter and notice the first two words.
If you're using the King James, they are
and you.
And you.
Well, have you ever stopped to think what
a kind of a cumbersome chapter break that
is?
The function of a conjunction is to conjunct.
But when you see a chapter beginning with
and you, you have to say somebody kind
of slipped up here.
It just doesn't make a great deal of
contextual sense.
But it'll do it if you do this.
If you'll do it in your Bible like
I've done in most of mine, and you
try to draw a little circle around and
you, and then you take a fine line
and run it back to verse 20, and
it reads like this, which he wrought in
Christ when he raised him and you from
the dead, and set him and you at
his own right hand in the heavenlies.
You say, now, brother, you're just making too
fast a loose with one conjunction to do
a thing like that.
What's your authority?
Why can you say that when Christ was
raised from the dead, we were raised, and
when Christ was seated, we were seated?
Why?
Because he repeated it in the fifth and
sixth verses of the next chapter, so that
I'd have a good defense for putting that
little circle around and you and tucking the
point of the line in up there.
Because in chapter 2, in verse 5, even
when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together with Christ, and hath raised us
up together.
Now what did I say?
Which he wrought in Christ when he raised
him and you from the dead, and set
him and you at his own right hand
in the heavenlies.
You see, he was your representative, and he
was dying your death, and he was buried
for you and quickened for you and raised
for you.
But since he was your representative, that meant
that what he was doing for you in
the Father's eyes, from heaven at least, you
were doing in him.
So the Father didn't just see Christ die
for you.
He saw you die with him.
And he didn't just see Christ buried for
you.
He saw you buried with him.
And he didn't see Christ just quickened for
you.
He saw you quickened with him.
And he didn't see Christ just raised for
you.
He saw you raised with him.
And he didn't just see his son sit
down at his right hand for you.
He saw you sit down at his right
hand with him.
Because that's the place from which we're to
pray.
that's the place from which we're to speak,
that's the place from which we're to live,
and he's blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in the heavenly.
And the tragedy is so few Christians it
seems understand that that's their natural habitat now
that they're in Christ.
And most of us are living under the
circumstances instead of sharing the glories of his
presence.
That's where we belong, there in the heavenlies
where he's blessed us with all spiritual blessings.
So who's he writing to?
Well he's writing to a group of people
that a few months before were on their
faces in the slime of their immorality groveling
before Diana of the Ephesians.
And now he's telling them that Christ wants
to live in them, that's the hope of
his calling.
He wants to live in them so that
he can bring to himself his inheritance in
the saints, that he wants to live in
them so the very power that raised up
Christ from the dead can flow through them,
and that the place that they have in
God's eyes is risen with Christ and seated
with Christ in the heavenlies because there's a
foe.
Notice, which he wrought in Christ when he
raised him and you from the dead and
set him and you at his own right
hand in the heavenlies.
Where?
Far above all of the forces that are
going to bind the lost and interfere with
the work of God.
Far above all principality and power and mind
and dominion and every name that's named that's
in opposition to God.
And he has put all things under his
feet and what are his feet?
His body.
Isn't that marvelous?
And where is body?
Which he wrought in Christ when he raised
him and you from the dead and set
him and you far above all principalities and
powers and mind and dominion and every name
that is named and made him and gave
him head over all to the church, his
body, and has put all things under his
feet.
Well, what's his feet?
His body.
And he's put all things under his body.
So in your home where you have unsaved
loved ones, if you understand what it means
for Christ to live in you, then you're
going to have an opportunity to present the
testimony to your children and their friends.
Because it won't be just you and me
and our irritation and our weariness and our
fatigue.
It's going to be Christ living in us.
And he's everything we're not.
And how desperately our children need to see
Christ living in us.
And our neighbors and our friends and our
family.
How well they deserve to see Christ living
in us.
Because from them are going to become these
trophies of grace that will be part of
his inheritance.
And if we understand that we were raised
with him and seated with him, then the
powers that bind our children and would hold
our neighbors and would control the affairs.
These forces are under his feet and we're
part of his body.
And we might even have the honor of
being at feet in the body of Christ.
And isn't it thrilling to think that he
gives to us the privilege of enforcing his
victory in the world.
So we see something of the place.
Now we need to get a little look
at the people.
What kind of people is he talking about?
Oh, some might say he's talking about Jews
that have a heritage in Israel and are
the first generation Christians and say they had
a lot going for them.
But he can't mean me.
He can't mean me.
Well, he does mean you.
Because he says you who were dead in
trespasses and sins.
Now that's better than if he put my
name there.
Because if he put my name there, I'd
never know whether it was my great-grandfather,
my grandfather, my father, my son, my grandson.
And you wouldn't have a chance at all.
And it wouldn't do me any good.
But when he says, and you who were
dead in trespasses and sins, then I know
he's talking about me because I was dead
in trespasses and sins.
And so are you.
So he is saying this.
Look, nothing of your past is going to
interfere with my plan for your future.
Isn't that great?
Isn't it wonderful to know that somebody loved
you when he knew the worst about you?
You know, if most of our friends knew
about us, what God and we knew, we
wouldn't have many friends.
Only thing is that if we knew about
them, what they and God know, they wouldn't
have us as friends either because, or we'd
all be friends because the way it ought
to be, because we would know we were
woven on the same loom.
Maybe the wolf was a little different, but
boy, the wolf is the same.
I know you You can't kid me.
I know you because I know me.
And I know that we were dead in
trespasses and sins, and you who were.
So he's talking about folks just like us
who walked according to the course of this
world, according to the Prince and the power
of the air, that very same spirit that
now works in the children of disobedience.
That's who we were.
And those are the very people that we're
going to witness to and minister to and
see brought out of the bondage of Satan
into the liberty of the children of God.
Now do you see why it's so important
for us to understand that the way he
wants to work is for us to present
our bodies to him so he can live
in us?
Effectiveness is not because we were better than
others, not because we live differently than do
others.
No, not at all.
We know that there was nothing good in
us, nothing that called forth his love, that
God had to love us when we were
utterly unlovely and had nothing to commend us
to him, and he had to be willing
to accept us when he knew the worst
about us.
You know, I'm always surprised what I find
out about me.
I'm kind of surprised that I find out
about you too.
Shouldn't be, but I am, because it's, you
know, it's a little hard.
We get the idea thinking we've been around
so long that maybe somehow the warp is
a little different.
Then God lets a circumstance come and we
get a good glimpse under the cover, you
know, and see that the seed of every
sin that anyone's ever committed is in our
hearts.
And there's nothing that anyone has ever done
that we weren't capable of doing.
Student still would be, but for his grace.
And that there's no one worse than we
are or could have been, and the only
reason we didn't do what others have done
is because we didn't have incentive.
We certainly had capacity.
Now, if you understand yourself, if you've ever
seen yourself the way God sees you, then
you're going to identify with these people that
God, to whom God is speaking.
And he's saying, now listen, don't kid yourself.
Don't fool yourself.
I know you.
I know all about you.
There's nothing you'll ever find out about yourself
that will surprise me.
I've loved you when I knew the worst
about you.
There's nothing that you will ever find out
about yourself that's going to make me change
my, the fact that I love you.
I just don't want any pride around here.
I just don't want any confidence in the
flesh.
I just don't want you to think you're
better than anybody else.
I just don't, I want you to know
that if you are, it's only because of
me and not because of you.
Is that hard to take?
Is it pretty hard for us to say,
Lord, you know those awful heathens that our
brother Troutman's been working for for these 27
years out in New Guinea?
Oh my, they're terrible, Lord.
Look at the things they did.
Yeah, but the only reason you weren't doing
them is because an accident made you born
here instead of there.
But you've got all the capacity they have.
There's nothing they've done you couldn't have done.
And it doesn't take any more of God's
grace to save one of those people and
it does to save you.
That's the astounding thing.
That's the amazing thing.
So what are you saying is this?
Let's be done with this idea, you know.
I can't do that.
I've never done it.
Oh, no one like me could do that.
The Lord Jesus, you think he really wants
to live in me?
Oh, if you knew what kind of a
life I lived before I was saved.
Well, if it was anything different or worse
than the dear people up at Ephesus, I'll
be surprised because if what they hadn't done
it, it just wasn't, just couldn't be done.
That's all.
They did it, they went through it from
A to Z and they did it backwards
as well as forward.
And he's saying about them, listen, your past
is not going to interfere with my plan.
There's nothing you've ever done that's going to
keep you from fulfilling what I have purposed
for you.
I want to live in you, dear child.
I want you to present yourself to me
so that I can live in you.
I want to use you to bring the
loss to myself.
I want the very power that raised me
from the dead to flow through your personality
so that you can be an instrument in
my hands to see people brought out of
death into life.
That's what I want from you.
I want you to just let me live
my life in you.
And if you'll do that, then it's going
to be possible for you to to labor
with me and share with me in enforcing
my victory over a defeated foe, over all
the forces of darkness that I have defeated.
Now isn't it interesting that what he has
put here in in germ form in this
first chapter and the second, he's enlarged on
elsewhere.
Let's go, for instance, shall we, I've taken
you to the verses here, the second part
of this first chapter, put as far above
all principality.
Let's go over to chapter 6 for just
a minute and see the implications of it.
In chapter 6 and verse 10.
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord
and in the power of his might.
Put on the whole armor of God.
Well, you already said your position is seated
with him in the heaven.
Now, he said, you're in earth.
So you're to put on the armor.
Put on the, when you're down here in
time, and we live in two places at
once, you know, seated in the heavenlies in
Christ and Christ living in us here.
Now he says, put on the whole armor
of God so that you may be able
to stand.
And I'm always amused and gratified when I
realize that that word, stand, is a, you
know, you, you know Greek, so my, it's
amazing how much you know.
Have you ever heard the word antihistamine?
Of course you have.
Okay, that's the very word from the Greek
text is here, antihistamine.
Exactly, just picked right up out of the
text.
And having done all antihistamine, come against so
as to cause it to stop.
And having done all to stand, stand therefore,
having your loins girded about with truth, having
on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet
shod with the preparation of the gospel of
peace, and above all taking the shield of
faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench
all the fiery darts of the wicked.
Well, we're seated above principalities and powers, aren't
we?
And taking the helmet of salvation and the
sword of the Spirit, which is the Word
of God.
So, here he's telling us that we're engaged
in a warfare.
Back in verse 12, we wrestle not against
flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this
world, against wicked spirits in high places.
So, verses 20, 21, 22 tie in with
Ephesians 6, 10, through 18.
As if one, as if the germ of
the one is fulfilled in the other.
Now, let's look for a moment at the
implications.
Some weeks before coming here, Dr. Nathan Bailey
wrote a letter to all the assigned speakers
in the Lyons summer camp meeting, such as
this, and asked that if in the course
of our ministry, we would definitely bear in
mind the need for workers, the need for
workers.
And as I thought of that, and in
preparation for this ministry, my heart went back
to that time I told you about the
other night, when I was at the seminary
and took spiritual inventory.
I started to study the Word, and I
said, Lord, from here on it has to
be real.
And I was felt led to take that
verse in Matthew 9, pray the Lord of
the harvest that he will thrust out laborers
into the harvest field.
And I started to parse it in Greek.
I tried to take every word and get
the meaning of it, and the construction, and
the form of it.
And this is what I found out there
in Matthew 9, where it says, pray the
Lord of the harvest that he will thrust
out laborers.
I found out that the construction there in
the original is so that you would have
to translate it this way, pray ye the
Lord of the harvest in order that he
will be able to thrust out laborers.
And I was astounded, and I couldn't trust
my own exegesis.
So I went to a seminary professor, a
man whose father worked with my father in
West Palm Beach, and I said, Doctor, I've
done this study and would you please look
at it and tell me whether it's correct.
So a couple of days later I went
back to his office and picked it up,
and he said, it's correct, but I wouldn't
touch it with a ten-foot pole, because
the implications of it are something I don't
even want to find out about.
But now listen, pray ye the Lord of
the harvest in order that he may be
able to thrust out laborers.
I remember going into a village on the
Sudan-Ethiopian border, and there was a witch
doctor at the edge of the village, and
he had a woman about 16, I suppose,
and going through part of the adult initiation
rites, and her back was being cicatrized.
In this tribe they had elaborate diagrams that
were put on the back and on the
front on the breasts and so on of
the women at each stage in their development
and acceptance into the tribal life.
And as I came in, here was this
girl sitting there with no anesthesia at all,
just sitting there, and he had a spear
blade, just a dirty old spear blade that
had been worn down and sharpened, and the
witch doctor had taken all out the shaft
and he held it, and he'd sharpened the
point.
There was a stone there, and he would
wipe the blood off on his thigh or
on the ground, and then he would take
this, and she'd just sit there, and he'd
carve into the back, and then he'd open
up the crack, the cut, and reach over
and take soot off of a cooking pot
and put it in and close it, because
that was going to make it heal with
a scar if she didn't die of infection.
And it was just as though that place
was charged with evil, charged with evil.
The old chief had come out, our bystander
boy on in, and the old chief came
out to see me, and as he came
he said, why have you been so long?
Why, why didn't you come sooner?
Now what did you mean?
Why?
He said, when I was a little boy
like this, and we always measured this way,
when I was a little boy like this,
my father took me over to the town
where the sun sets where the government is,
Malachal in Upper Nile Province, and there he
said, I heard a man like you, I've
never seen one with face like yours since
then, and I heard him talk the sweetest
talk, and I spoke to my heart just
like honey, about God, about God who made
the world, about God who loved us, and
God, and he said he'd come and tell
my people.
My father died and I became chief, and
now look at me, and there was a
man on each side as he moved with
a stick, and they held him up as
he came out to see me.
Why have you been so long?
We've waited for you.
He said, now you're here, and we walked
by, and he said, this is one of
my people, and there was the witch doctor
carving, not just like, just evil, was evil,
was tangible, you could feel it, and in
my eyes, it was almost as though Satan
could be seen.
Oh, there was the witch doctor, there was
the girl, there was I, but it was
almost as though you could see the Prince
of Darkness laughing into the face of Jesus
Christ, saying, you made her, you made her
in your image, you made her in your
likeness, you told your church to pray, you
told your church to care, you told them
that you'd live in them, you told them
that you're seated with them, and they don't
care, and I could cut her, and mark
her, and scar her, and brand her.
My, oh, she knows you, but she doesn't
accept you.
You can't get your people to care.
He's waited.
So as I was studying this verse, pray
you, the Lord of the harvest, in order
that he may be able to thrust out
wisdom.
All I could see was someone coming and
standing, as it were, at that village, and
saying, Father, I was once one of Satan's
servants, I was once found in darkness, I
was once dead in trespasses, and I walked
according to the course of this world, I
was like this, and your grace found me,
and your grace saved me, and I'm washed
in the blood of your Son, and I'm
born into your family.
And now, Father, I plead for this, my
sister, I plead for these, my brethren, and
I ask you in the name of your
Son, who conquered this defeated foe, to send
in the mission, send the witness.
This is the implication.
Pray ye, the Lord of the harvest, how,
from what position, that we once were dead
in trespasses and sins, we once walked according
to the course of this world, but now
our risen Lord, with whom we've been raised
and seated, who's living in us, has put
us here to enforce his victory over that
defeated foe, to get the laborers in, and
to get the people released.
Do you see it?
I was in a little church down in
Dalton, Georgia.
The pastor heard me speak at Chattanooga, and
he'd asked me to come for a week's
missionary conference, which is what we did in
those days.
And as the week went on with the
morning study, something like this, and then the
evening study, one morning I felt led of
the Lord, just asked the people, saying, tomorrow
when you come, we're going to stay through
the noon hour and fast and pray for
the week that God wants to do here.
And I'd been talking about this to some
degree.
And the pastor said with tears in his
eyes, I've been pastor here for seven years,
this church has been here for 50 years,
and there's never been one missionary go from
it.
There's never been one to carry the gospel
of Christ to the ends of the earth.
It's a missionary Baptist church, but not one
life has been from this church.
So the word has been preached, carry the
gospel.
And he said, could it be, could it
be that Satan has bound the young people
in this church and bound the families, should
we not pray this way for our people?
Well, that's what I've been yearning for and
longing for in teaching, that we should stand
on the victory of Calvary for the release
of the young life around which the web
had been woven of selfish ambition and parental
plans outside the will of God.
That we should stand on the victory of
Calvary for the release of these young people.
And so we went to prayer, and it
was astounding the way the truth had captured
these hearts.
They were fresh and new.
They hadn't heard everything and become calloused with
truth.
They were eager and open and excited at
the implications of it.
And there was a blending as we stood
on the victory of Calvary, and together we
resisted every effort of a defeated foe to
continue to hold these young men and women.
And we released them into the will of
God and into the purpose of God.
And it was almost as though a black
cloud was being lifted up and pushed away,
and the light was beginning to come in.
That Sunday morning the invitation was given, and
there were several that came.
And again that night, and subsequently, there were
many young men and women that went out
from that church as missionaries for Jesus Christ.
And I believe that if it had not
been for an intelligent and deliberate and purposeful
use of the Scripture, those young people would
have stayed there as their fathers and grandfathers
had done, and never gone into that which
was closest to the heart of God.
So what we're talking about here is not
any little matter.
That's why the Scripture says that we're not
ignorant of His devices.
We are at times.
We behave as though we did.
We are.
We feel sometimes that it's just emotion and
appeal and excitement and information, but it's more
than that.
There's a spiritual battle going on.
And our weapons are not carnal, but mighty
to the tearing down of strongholds.
It's so imperative, therefore, that we should understand
what the Apostle is giving here.
There's no light and no little matter.
But it's an Emancipation Proclamation, and it's an
enlistment, and it's the high and holy privilege
of being laborers together with God in the
most important work in the world.
And if he could use Ephesian believers that
had no background, no history, no education, nothing
at all to commend them except that they
were heirs of the grace of God through
faith in Christ, then he can use us.
Debauched they had been, injured by their years
of sin, and yet God was able to
heal them of the scars of their sin
and release them from the bondage of their
iniquity and bring them into the place where
they were effectual laborers together with Him.
His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus under good
works which God had before ordained they should
walk in.
So I'm submitting to you this morning that
this text, that we have the eyes of
our understanding open, oh can you see how
important it is to see what his plan
is to live in us, what his purpose
is to build is that inheritance, that heir,
that body, that bride, what the power is,
the resurrection life of Christ, what the place
is, seated with Christ in the heavenly, what
the position is to enforce the victory of
Calvary over a defeated foe, who the people
are, people just like us, who had been
dead in our trespasses and sins, have been
made alive in Christ.
Everyone here, every home here has a tragedy
in it, close to it, so enormous and
so hopeless that only the power of Almighty
God is enough to solve the problem.
And here is the answer.
Yet you can treat it as another sermon,
you can treat it as just another lecture,
you can treat it as a Bible study,
but to your own heart.
But if you cry out, oh God, Father
of Jesus, open the eyes of my understanding,
that this truth is not just a text
that I've read in a chapter I've studied,
but it becomes part of the equipment that
I use in my service for the Lord
Jesus Christ.
That's the cry of my heart today.
Shall we bow together in prayer?
With our heads bowed and our eyes closed,
I'm not going to ask us to sing,
in just a moment we're going to pray,
and then we're going to have the benediction.
No singing this morning.
But if you're here and God has spoken
to your heart and you sense and know
a need, why while we're praying right now,
get up from where you are and come
and kneel here.
We'll join you and we'll pray with you.
If you don't, we're going to assume that
you can wait till another time, but if
you can't wait, you come.
But I want you to think for a
moment with me.
In this invitation is open.
You won't interfere.
If you just have a burden on your
heart to seek and fall to a prayer,
you come.
But I want you to think over the
grounds we've come.
Jesus Christ invites you to present your body
to him.
That's the hope of this call.
He wants to use you to be with,
to part with him in bringing men out
of death into life.
The power is the resurrection power, the power
that raised up Christ from the dead.
The place is seated with him in the
heavens.
The position is as his feet over principality
and power.
And the people, just you, once dead in
sins, you, are you willing to say, Lord
Jesus, I want this desperately?
Open the eyes of my understanding.
Help me to see.
Help me to understand.
To experience.
To be a laborer together with you in
a new dimension of effectiveness for Christ.
That's the cry of our hearts.
We're going to take 60 seconds by the
clock for disciplined silence.
And during that silence, I want you to
go over the ground I've just reviewed with
you, find where you are, and ask God
to make the truth real, operatively, experientially real.
Then we're going to stand for prayer, and
we're going to be this.
But 60 seconds of disciplined silence.