May the message from thy book speak through
thy servant.
O God, just keep me out of the
picture that it may be Jesus only.
May the prayers of this people see this
ministry through today in victory and in blessing.
And wilt thou grant that none shall leave
this place just quite the same as we
came in.
May it be today to honour Jesus Christ
as Lord and Father.
O give to us the listening ear, not
simply to sit through a service and enjoy
it, but Spirit of God, convict and grip
and hold the mind and conscience and will
of every listener.
And may the messenger be blotted out from
you that it may be Jesus only.
And as I speak, and as we all
listen, keep each one of us fully yielded
unto thee.
For the Saviour's sake.
Amen.
I want to take from my text this
morning, part of the 14th verse of the
10th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles,
Acts chapter 10 and verse 14.
I'll read the 13th verse.
And there came a voice to him, that
is to Simon Peter, saying, Rise Peter, kill
and eat.
But Peter said, Not so, Lord, for I
have never eaten anything that is common or
unclean.
This point in our studies of the Acts
of the Apostles, a new day was about
to dawn for the gospel, you remember.
Vast unevangelized areas were about to be reached,
were coming to a very wonderful moment in
the study of this book, when suddenly the
gospel bursts over every barrier and seems to
know no bounds and no limits as it
breaks through race and prejudice and color and
tribe and country and spread to the uttermost
parts of the earth.
But before that great outburst of blessing, there
was an issue to be faced.
And the part of those who under God
were to be responsible for spreading the truth.
That issue was really expressed in three words
that came from the lips of Simon Peter
in our text.
Not so, Lord.
What a situation this is conjures up to
my mind, millions of lives at stake, eternal
destinies hanging in the balance by a mere
thread, hearts that are hungry for the truth.
And yet, not so, Lord.
Let me try and lift this thing out
of its chapter and bring it into our
mind and heart today.
From this portion of scripture, just observe one
or two things with me.
Let's look for a moment at this man
to be saying, Cornelius.
What a remarkable man he is.
The first verse of the chapter tells us
that he was a centurion, representative of the
Roman Empire in the little outpost of the
town of Caesarea on the shores of the
Mediterranean.
An officer in charge of a situation there,
politically, in charge, if you like, of occupying
forces.
But we're told about him in the second
verse of this chapter that he was a
man of deep religious conviction.
His faith was expressed by the way he
gave his gifts and by the way he
worshipped in prayer.
Indeed, so real was his faith that it
had influenced the whole of his family.
It was not only Cornelius, but Cornelius' house.
And that indeed surely is a great test
and a great evidence of something very solid
and real about this man's religious life.
But not only was his family influenced by
his faith, but all his servants were too.
For if you look a little further down
the chapter, you'll find in the seventh verse,
he was sending at the command of the
angel who had appeared to him, his servants,
who were godly men in order to seek
for time and peace.
Not only his family, not only his servants,
but this man's life had had its influence
on a widespread scale.
For if you look down the twentieth verse
of this chapter, you would notice that his
influence had been felt throughout the whole of
Jury.
The twenty-second verse says that Cornelius was
a just man and one that feared God
and of good report among all the nations
of the Jews.
He's a man, my beloved listener this morning,
who is outside the influence of Christianity.
Perhaps he'd had a message of the gospel
from Philip as he passed through that area.
Outside the influence of Judaism, a Gentile, an
evidence of the truth of the word that
John spoke in his gospel.
In the first chapter, in the ninth verse,
where he says, there is a light that
lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
He is a man who has gone, religiously
speaking, as far as he could without Christ
and the gospel.
He had lived up to the limit of
every bit of light that had come his
way, but he was desperately in need of
salvation.
As the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus, that
proud Pharisee, ye must be born again, so
he would have said to Cornelius.
And to this man, God spoke.
Heaven was prepared to meet this man at
that point of need, in that point of
desire.
You notice the fourth verse tells us that
the Lord spoke to him and said, thy
prayers and thine alms are come up for
a memorial before God.
Heaven has recognized this man's sincerity and is
prepared to, immediately, to come to this man's
need.
When this Cornelius is told to go and
seek out Simon Peter, who is at Joppa,
thirty miles south along the coast, the Lord
says to him, he will tell thee, Cornelius,
what thou shouldst do.
There's a whole volume of truth behind that
little statement, do you see it?
For I suggest to you, that in spite
of this man having obeyed every bit of
life that has come to him, he's, he's
desperately unhappy, he's dissatisfied, he's hungry.
Peter's going to tell you, Cornelius, what thou
shouldst do.
He knew he had to do something, he
knew he wasn't right, he knew there was
something lacking, he knew there was something required
of him, he knew he hadn't got what
was real in life, even though he was
religious and even though he was, had faith
in God, he'd all that, he'd every bit
that he could have assimilated, but he knew
that deep down in his heart there was
still an immense need.
And God spoke to him and said, I
have somebody, he's thirty miles away, he's going
to tell you what you should do.
Oh, my dear friend, all I want to
leave with at this point in my message
is just this picture.
Isn't that man typical of oh, so many
people today, typical of crowds of folks, living
up to the light that they've got, living
up to all they know of God and
of religion, but desperately in the dark, having
a form of godliness, self-revival, but denying
the power thereof, doing their very best and
doing their very utmost to be true and
to be real, not pagan in the sense
of being immoral and sinful and all the
rest of it, but just people like this
and that are all around us in Chicago
and in America and all through the world,
people who are living up to the light
but desperately in need of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Perhaps some of you are listening to my
voice just at this point, devout and yet
in the dark, having all a form of
a religious life but denying its power.
And Jesus says, I know somebody and he
can tell you what you must do.
A man to be saved.
Could you, could you just get that picture
and hold it a moment while I go
on in my message?
Don't lose the fight of it, the challenge
of it.
Not people far away in an unevangelized mission
field but people all around us and possibly
sitting in the next seat to you and
possibly you yourself, devout but in the dark,
living up to what light you've got but
desperately in need of Christ, having the form
of the thing and the knowledge of the
thing and knowing about the thing but oh
so so utterly in need of life in
Jesus our Lord.
A man to be saved.
Now move on a minute.
The second thing that comes to my heart
out of this passage is the messenger who
is to be sent.
For a moment we travel in our imagination
30 miles down the eastern shores of the
Mediterranean and we find Simon Peter at Joppa.
The Lord has told Saint Cornelius that he
should send some of his godly servants and
fetch Simon to come and make this journey
to Caesarea.
And for a moment we leave that picture
and we find Simon Peter.
Oh what a lovely scene it is.
On the rooftop of his house in prayer.
That's a lovely place to pray.
You've got a clear view of heaven and
you've got a clear view of the city
all around you.
And that's where Simon was.
Can you picture the waters of that lovely
blue Mediterranean just lapping up to the very
doorstep of that little home where he was?
And there's Simon sitting on the rooftop.
I wonder if he was looking out and
wondered what lay at the other side of
Mediterranean sea.
I wonder if he looked up to heaven
if he wondered what God could do as
you look round and Caesarea and all his
own country and all that Middle East area.
I wonder what his thoughts were.
He was in prayer.
But you notice that he was very much
still bound by Jewish tradition as he prayed.
Jewish tradition and prejudice.
It was a specific time of the day
that he prayed and before he prayed he
had refused to eat and he was hungry.
And in a trance which does not mean
a thought is mental upset.
It simply means in an ecstasy.
In a sheer ecstasy of fellowship with God
as he prayed.
That's what it means.
It seemed to him that heaven opened and
suddenly a vessel descended from the clear blue
sky above the Mediterranean and came down over
his head and it was knit together at
the four corners and within it there were
all sorts of beasts and fowls of the
air.
Animals of every kind and a voice spoke
to him and said rise Peter kill and
eat.
Never Lord not me.
Oh no I never eat anything that's unclean.
And the voice came again and said what
I have made clean don't you call common.
Not concerned this morning beloved about this ceremonial
issue here that's a purely secondary matter except
perhaps in passing just to throw a little
light on it for someone who may be
seeking it on that particular aspect of the
subject.
This makes perfectly clear that Christianity has abolished
all the ceremonial law of the Jews.
That the distinction of the old testament which
observed animals which were clean and unclean has
gone by the board.
The laws of health of course still remain
but the laws of ceremony have been done
away.
But that's not the thing that matters this
morning.
Much better much greater is this.
Here's my picture.
Now look in your mind I want you
to be at two places at once.
Over there 30 miles up the coast up
the coast of Caesarea Cornelius.
A man to be saved.
30 miles south a messenger to be sent
and somehow God has got to get the
messenger in touch with the man.
Somehow these two lives have been brought together
but the tragic thing about it is that
the messenger isn't ready to meet the man.
In the great upsurge of blessing and the
outburst of the gospel that's going to spread
to the uttermost parts of the earth in
a moment in the very next chapter.
But before it can ever happen there's a
messenger to be sent.
But there's an issue to be faced in
his life.
Not so Lord.
To say not so is consistent.
To say not so Lord is a contradiction.
When you say not so my friend never
add Lord.
And when you say Lord never add not
so.
And somehow before the Holy Spirit could bring
the messenger into touch with the man this
one vital issue in the heart of Simon's
life had to be met.
Now down to earth with me a moment.
But with your mind clearly set upon a
man to be saved in Caesarea.
Now let's bring him nearer and let's bring
him right into Chicago a man to be
saved.
And on the other hand a messenger to
be sent.
A messenger to be sent.
That's you and that's me.
With that picture in your mind down to
earth with me.
I want this morning to ask you one
or two things.
What do you think is at the back
of that statement not so?
Could we draw the curtain from the mind
of that disciple and ask ourselves why is
Peter taking that line?
There are great people here of the Christian
life.
And I suggest to you that behind this
man's defiance at that point there is this
twofold principle.
The first the old self remains in the
Christian to the bitter end.
Got that?
I repeat the old self, the old nature,
the old man, whatever you like to call
it.
The old self remains in the Christian right
through to the very end of his life.
Simon was Simon still.
Oh he'd been greatly altered but he hadn't
lost his identity.
The man who said not so Lord is
easy to recognize if this story had not
given him a name.
I hope I'm not being unkind to him
when I could say I'd have recognized him
at once.
I knew who it was.
Listen to him.
Caesarea Philippi just a few years previously and
the Lord Jesus unburdened his heart to that
little inner group and speak to them about
a cross and about suffering and about pain
and about death and about resurrection and says
that any man who would come after me
forsake all and follow me.
He dictates his terms when he tells them
his program and Peter turns to him and
says be apart from thee Lord.
Never that way.
Stay behind me Satan says Jesus.
A little later on in one of the
most intimate precious scenes in the New Testament
our Lord in an upper room just before
Calvary is kneeling with a basin and with
a towel and he is washing the feet
of his beloved followers.
He comes to Simon and Simon says Lord
you're going to wash my feet except I
wash thee thou has no part in me.
Never.
And on a road that led to a
garden of Gethsemane a familiar spot.
To the heavy heart Jesus says to them
one of you shall betray me.
Simon turns to him and says oh man
so be offended not I.
It's the same man.
Recognize him?
Oh he's been filled with the Holy Ghost
sure.
He's had the second blessing indeed and the
two.
He's been through it all.
He's gone right on with God.
He's had a tremendous ministry.
He's been used to bring thousands to the
feet of the Lord Jesus but he's the
same man and he is tripped up here
in Acts chapter 10 in exactly the same
place as he was tripped up in Matthew
16 and all the rest.
Now in spiritual maturity.
Now a man falls.
Now a disciple.
He's tripped where he used to fall.
Oh it's not the same sin but it's
the same kind of sin.
Rebuking Christ.
Refusing Christ.
Thinking he knew better than Christ.
I never intended it.
Yes.
We're down to earth I hope because this
is you and me.
Right now somebody tells you about a second
blessing or some experience of grace which casts
out every possibility of sin and not only
does your experience deny it but the word
of God denies it.
The hasty temper.
The laziness.
The tendency to gloom and despair and depression.
Oh they're still there.
God has put a new heart in you
and he's put a new song in your
mouth.
But though you're dead to sin constantly you
are discovering that by no means is sin
dead to you.
My dear friend if I just echo your
experience as I would echo mine in spite
of the many blessings and the many fillings
and the many thrills in Christian life and
Christian service is it not true is it
not true that old appetites over and over
again threaten to leap over the boundary of
the cross and grapple hold of you and
drag you down don't they?
Oh you left them behind when you were
converted and put them on the other side
of Calvary and claimed that they should be
under the blood.
Listen have none of them leapt at you
this week?
None of them?
Have none of them tried to get out
of their hiding place and get hold of
you wash of you and hold you in
their grip?
If they haven't I need to talk with
you because your experience is more advanced than
mine.
Aye wherever since you've been a little child
there has been weakness.
We still have to be on double guard.
Whenever we think we're strong in any realm
of our lives at that point we're in
the greatest of danger.
Peter impulsively blurts out not so long.
How often that that poor man open his
mouth and wish that he'd never said what
he said.
How often do you?
How often have I said something that I'd
give anything in the world to retrieve but
it's been said and it's caused a wound
and a hurt to somebody and there's no
retrieving it.
A man to be saved but a messenger
to be sent and just look at him
and yes but don't look at him look
at yourself and look at our ourselves here
today.
This old self is with us all through
life and let me tell you something else
about this old self.
It's always fighting against every principle of the
gospel.
It fights against prejudice Lord.
I have never eaten anything that's common or
unclean and this old self fights at that
very point just first.
It fights against racial prejudice.
It fights against the calabar.
It fights against all kinds of prejudices that
are things that the Christian should have left
behind long before he was saved.
Thou hast made of one blood all nations
of the earth says the apostle Paul.
But the Christian self fights against the unity
of all men irrespective of the color of
their skin into the fellowship of the body
of Christ and the self-life fights bitterly
against.
It fights in other realms too.
Don't think me unkind young person but it
fights against the unequal yoke and the word
of God which tells that we should have
no fellowship with the unbeliever.
The girl of a fellow comes along and
says they plan to get married and they
know that their future partner is not a
Christian and they say so what.
They proceed in defiance to the word of
God and let me say to you with
the utmost love and concern in my heart
for anybody who may be doing that today
I want to say to you my dear
friend that has never happened to anybody without
disaster never.
There is no one who has entered into
any yoke that is contrary to scripture who
has been blasphemed.
The old self may I say this with
the utmost tenderness bearing in mind who may
be listening to me and who may be
watching.
The old self in us fights against suffering.
Ah Lord please not that.
How much as I can take not that
way.
Not that way of the thorns, not that
way of pain, not that way of the
Christ.
And there was a man and his name
was Eli and he said this somewhat piously
perhaps but he gave expression to a great
truth when he said it is the Lord.
Let him do unto me as seemeth him
good.
May I speak that word over radio and
speak that word to this congregation today and
may it come to your heart from the
Holy Spirit.
Whom the Lord loves he chastens and sometimes
tears us in 50 pieces till we feel
we can just take it no more.
The self-life keeps and said no the
old self.
Ah but wait in my closing moments this
morning is there no answer to this?
He is a messenger to be sent.
He is a man to be saved.
He is a man waiting salvation.
Don't forget about him Cornelius.
Bring him back to your mind and bring
him back to your thought.
There he is 30 miles away, no perhaps
a yard away, perhaps just a block away,
a house away, a man to be saved.
And he is a messenger that's got to
be sent and this messenger isn't ready.
God help us because in him there's issues
here on this old self-life that have
got to be settled.
This man is still saying no, no, no
is prejudice and perhaps we're saying no today
and there are men to be saved and
we're saying no to the unequal yoke and
no to the fear of suffering and no
to a thousand and one things that deny
the sovereignty of Jesus Christ.
No.
We've discovered that old apathites have indeed left
across the boundary and somehow stepped onto redemption
ground and throttled us even in the days
of this past week.
Look let's finish.
I look out and say to you this
morning there's a mastery to be secured.
A mastery to be secured not so long.
Either Lord has to go or not so
has to go.
An obedient heart, a yielded will, a submissive
mind are absolute essentials for this messenger before
he can be sent.
The best sermon is the language of the
bible.
Listen romans 6.
Let not sin therefore reign.
Let not that mastery overcome you in your
mortal body that you should obey it in
the lusts thereof.
Watch these words carefully.
Let me pick them out at the end
when I've read these verses so that you
may see the emphasis.
Neither yield ye your members as instruments of
unrighteousness unto sin.
Don't let them leap across the boundary and
throttling.
But, but what am I to do?
This yield yourself unto God as those that
are alive from the dead and you're in
members as instruments unto righteousness unto God.
For sin shall not have dominion over you.
For ye are not under law but under
grace.
See I must be under dominion.
Sin the old apathites shall not but ye
must be under grace.
Get it?
There's the liberty of the Christian life.
Sin must not control.
The apathites must not throttle.
But if they are not to throttle, I
must submit to the authority of my risen
Lord.
What then?
Shall we sin because we are not under
the law but under grace?
God forbid.
Don't you know that you, that to whom
ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants
you are to whom you obey.
Whether of sin unto death or of obedience
unto righteousness.
But God be thanked, ye who were the
servants of sin have obeyed from the heart
that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
Being made then free from sin you became
the servants of righteousness.
Listen, I speak up the manner of men
for as ye have yielded your members servants
to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity.
Yes as these members of our body have
been yielded time and time again to the
old apathy.
Even so now yield your members servants to
righteousness unto holiness.
Brother, sister, listen, a man to be saved
and messenger to be sent then in God's
name yield to the Holy Ghost.
If I stoop before God today on any
of these issues, if you do my friend
and suffer, if you stoop you'll conquer.
If you yield you'll have your desire.
If you're prepared to be nothing he'll make
something mighty of you.
If you're prepared to be lowly he will
exalt you.
Men to be saved, messengers to be sent.
Are you?
Am I?
I wish.
I've done away with dramatics in my preaching
I hope.
I wish I could bring Kay Prentice back
to the platform right now and get her
to sing that solo all over again.
Are you fully yielding to him?
I am.
A mighty out surge of the gospel in
Chicago.
A sweep of the Holy Spirit through this
city that it hasn't known in its history.
There Jesus comes.
A great wave of people being blessed and
converted and convicted.
Possible?
Yes possible.
On one condition.
Are you?
Am I?
I am.
Under, brave, fully yielding and has the not
so gone out of my vocabulary forever.
Let's pray.
A man to be saved, you know him?
Perhaps it's you, your neighbor, your friend.
Oh yes you know them.
They're in your mind now.
They're a burden to you, your children.
Your dear family, your husband, your wife, your
father, your mother.
Oh how you long for their salvation and
what a burden it is to your man
to be saved.
A messenger to be sent.
But he isn't prepared, he's prejudiced.
He's battling with himself, the old self, the
old appetites have overcome.
And this man is fighting gospel truth and
fighting the prejudices of all sorts of things.
Perhaps fighting against an unequal yoke.
Fighting against the bitter pill of suffering.
Fighting against some service for the Lord or
in some area of his personality he's saying
not so Lord.
And there's a man to be sent, to
be saved and the messenger can't be sent.
That's the issue, the issue of Moody Church.
It's the issue here of every one of
us, preacher and listener alike.
Would you look up into his face and
repeat these words after me quietly would you?
Lord of every thought and action.
Lord to send or Lord to stay.
Lord in speaking, writing, giving.
Lord in all things to obey.
Lord of all there is of me, my
circumstances, my suffering, my broken heart, my trouble,
my defeat.
Lord of all that is of me now
and evermore to be.
A moment's silent prayer before the hymn that
you may talk with him alone with God.
Cleanse me from my sin Lord, put thy
power within Lord.
Take me as I am Lord and make
me all thine own.
Keep me day by day Lord, underneath thy
sway Lord.
Make my heart thy palace and thy royal
throne for Jesus' sake.
Amen.
Our closing hymn this morning is number 298.
You know it so well that you would
scarcely need to open the book.
Have thine own way Lord, have thine own
way.
Thou art the partner, I am the claim.
Hymn number 298.
The time is 14, 15 minutes past 12.
We shall be through after we've sung this
hymn and have the benediction.
Beloved, you were here last Sunday morning when
I gave an invitation and you remember the
response don't you?
That invitation was for a straight clear confession
of Christ on the part of unsaved people.
I'm going to give the same straight clear
confession of the dictatorship of the Holy Ghost
to Christian people this morning because I believe
this is the issue alone when it's settled
that can make the other possible.
How wonderfully the Lord just in taking a
book through the word, a book like this,
brings the messages and the truth as he
did in those days to us right now
in sequence of experience.
Salvation yes, but before the man can be
saved and the messenger sent, there's a mastery
to be secured.
Has it been secured in your heart?
Not by my preaching, not by my sermon,
but by the conviction of God the Holy
Ghost.
All right then, we'll stand and sing this
hymn.
And as we stand and sing it, I'm
going to be down at the microphone here.
I don't want anybody to leave the auditorium
unless you absolutely must.
We're not repeating any verses.
And I'm asking anybody here who has recognized
that their messenger, you, your life has not
been ready to be sent in the light
of the testimony of this message this morning.
I'm asking you if you are saying forever
that not so to the Lord has ended
on any issue, that you will please come
and stand right here.
Now may I make this perfectly clear, you
will not be harassed by a or by
any audience.
You will not be asked to go to
an inquiry room or sign a card.
After the hymn is over and we will
repeat no verses, we shall have a short
prayer of dedication and then the benediction.
And please, I'm in the habit of keeping
my word when I say that.
We'll sing the hymn.
You'll not be harassed or troubled by anybody.
I want this issue of the Lordship of
Christ to be something that's settled once and
forever by many many people in this auditorium
today and settled quietly, open and in prayer
in the presence of God.
Hymn number 298 and you will move from
gallery or from pew, from anywhere you like
and just come and stand here and we'll
close in prayer and the benediction.
God bless and give you deciding grace.
Some of you who face this issue in
your lives and the best of you know
how, know now that there's an ungrieved Holy
Spirit in your heart.
You'll pray and I want to say to
you that preaching like this means living like
it and I've had to take away the
not so before I ever preach this sermon.
Perhaps you've got to do it right now.
298.
We will pause for a moment's silence.
Others are coming and I'm just giving you
the opportunity before I pronounce the benediction to
be included in this closing prayer of dedication.
Few are knowing that this morning or this
week has ended the not so to the
Lord in some issue.
I want your confession of that in the
Master's name.
He wants it public.
We join these who stand here but hurry
because I'm not holding this service.
In confession today of the sovereignty, the enthronement
of Jesus Christ, not so has ended.
Accepting suffering, accepting misunderstanding, accepting anything for Jesus'
sake.
That's what this means.
His will, nothing more, nothing less.
Yes, please come right down the aisle right
away.
Just one moment in silence.
Some of you should be here, shouldn't you?
Perhaps you're too ashamed to admit it publicly.
God needs your admission, your broken heart, your
confession before this service closes with the benediction.
Perhaps you're well known in this church.
You're afraid of what people will think.
God wants you to trample upon your pride
this morning, the humble and the broken heart
that he will not despise.
The Lord wants your open acknowledgement that this
barrier to blessing in your life is broken
down by Holy Spirit conviction.
Yes, there's still time.
The Lord bless you all.
Are there others?
God bless you.
It could be a turning point in the
history of this church today.
All depends on someone perhaps even now resisting
the Holy Spirit.
Is that being broken down?
Give God the glory and confess it.
Are there others before I close?
Yes, come quickly.
May we be kept in the solemn quietness
of this morning worship, sense of his presence
and conviction.
And oh, may every proud heart kiss their
bees up, be humbled at the cross.
A man to be saved, a messenger to
be sent, but first a mastery to be
secured.
Thank you.
God bless you.
Come on.
Better late than not at all.
Now we're ready for the prayer.
All right, let's look to the Lord.
To this end Christ died and rose that
he might be Lord.
Father, thou has been speaking to our heart.
And we believe that thou has been telling
us that unless Jesus Christ is crowned Lord
of all, he won't be Lord at all.
And the question has come to us, in
song and words are we fully yielded to
thee?
Forgive us that our members have been yielded
as instruments for unrighteousness.
Wherever old appetites that were forgiven at Calvary
have burst through the boundaries and overcome, Lord,
we plead thy cleansing.
And the fulfillment of thy promise that sin
shall not have dominion over you.
And where sin has conquered, we know it's
because Lord thou has not conquered in our
hearts.
Where old appetites have overcome, it's because we've
not been under grace.
Oh, Jesus, take the crown right of every
life here this morning.
Become father and Lord of every part of
every one of us here today.
For those who publicly acknowledge that this day
has been a day of transaction with thee,
we thank thee.
Keep them fully yielded to thee, that out
from that fully yielded life there may flow
the blessing and the power of the Holy
Spirit.
We remind ourselves in thy presence again that
what we confess thou dost cleanse.
And what thou dost cleanse, thou dost fill.
And what thou dost fill, thou dost use.
Oh, Lord Jesus, for thy name's make it
true to us, to me, to this church.
Lord, let this church move on in power
and in victory in Chicago.
We want to be disturbed from any complacency
or any mere looking back upon the past.
We cry to thee for the God of
today, the God of Elijah to visit us
today.
The living God at thy right hand to
pour out thy Holy Spirit.
The heir of Jesus himself shall come.
Men shall be saved and people shall be
swept into the kingdom and the face of
this city and even the heart of it
shall be changed.
Lord, in all the crime and sin and
filth of Chicago and other places, we plead
with thee for the purifying, cleansing streams of
the precious blood of Christ and the power
of the Spirit of God made known and
revealed through messengers that have been made holy.
Lord, deliver us from compromise, from low-level
Christian living which not only shocks thee but
shocks the people who watch us.
Make us to be men and women filled
with thy Spirit.
Now grant thy blessings.
Send us out, Lord.
Send us back to that Cornelius with a
message now, with a radiance, with a life,
with a liberty, with a joy, with a
heart that's fully yielded in which we're able
to say it's no more I but Christ
in me.
Let each one therefore who stands in thy
presence, whether here before this congregation or in
the congregation itself, and where though this has
meant a real burden that has been snapped
and the real barrier that has broken down,
we thank thee, where the suffering involved thy
grace is sufficient, where there's a break to
be made in relationships thou art able to
give strength, where there are situations to be
put right, thou makest the crooked places straight
and the rough places smooth, where there are
mountains in the way, we thank thee that
thou canst cast the mountain into the sea,
where there's deep valleys to go through, thou
hast promised to exalt everyone.
Lord Jesus then, have thine own way, and
now may the grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ and the love of God and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each
one of us now and until our Lord
shall come and then forevermore.
And be gracious to us, O Lord, and
make this place a child of our own,
and be gracious unto us, O Lord, be
gracious, O Lord, be gracious, ♪ Praise the
star-spangled banner ♪