The book of the Revelation chapter 1 and
beginning at verse 9, Revelation chapter 1 beginning
at verse 9 and reading from the Revised
Standard Version.
I, John your brother, who share with you
in Jesus the tribulation and the kingdom and
the patient endurance, was on the island called
Patmos on account of the word of God
and the testimony of Jesus.
I was in the spirit on the Lord's
day and I heard behind me a loud
voice like a trumpet saying, write what you
see in a book and send it to
the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna
and to Pergamon and to Thyatira and to
Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.
Then I turned to see the voice that
was speaking to me and on turning I
saw seven golden lampstands and in the midst
of the lampstands one like a son of
man clothed with a long robe and with
a golden girdle round his breast.
His head and his hair were white as
white wool, white as snow.
His eyes were like a flame of fire.
His feet were like burnished bronze refined as
in a furnace and his voice was like
the sound of many waters.
In his right hand he held seven stars.
From his mouth issued a sharp two-edged
sword and his face was like the sun
shining in full strength.
When I saw him I fell at his
feet as though dead but he laid his
right hand upon me saying, fear not I
am the first and the last and the
living one.
I died and behold I am alive forevermore
and I have the keys of death and
Hades.
Now write what you see, what is and
what is to take place hereafter.
As for the mystery of the seven stars
which you saw in my right hand and
the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are
the angels of the seven churches and the
seven lampstands are the seven churches.
May the Lord bless to us his word.
When I heard the choir singing that lovely
piece in everything gave thanks.
I was specially reminded of my good friend
Paul Rees whom you know I think by
name, telling a story of a Christian man
who was on a greyhound bus in the
states, a place called Birmingham, Alabama.
And it was a very hot day, temperature
was 95, humidity very intense and it was
waiting in the bus terminal for departure to
Chicago which is a long distance.
And presently when he'd been sitting there for
a while a lady came and sat beside
him and pardon me saying it but she
was a rather large lady and she oozed
onto his section of the seat.
And then five kids came and joined her,
five of her children and sat on top
of her and also oozed onto him.
Well I have to leave a lot to
your imagination but he found it pretty difficult
and he just remembered at that point that
in that morning's quiet time the Lord had
given him that verse, Ephesians 5.20, in
everything gave thanks.
He said oh Lord what can I thank
you for right now?
He said I know, thank you Lord Jesus
that this woman is not my wife.
Now if you don't like that that's not
me but it's Paul Rees.
But it's good to be with you for
this Advent testimony meeting and let's just have
a word of prayer together shall we?
Again we ask the Lord to meet us
and to speak with us in his word.
Speak Lord for thy servant heareth, speak just
now some message to meet my need which
thou only dost know.
Speak now through thy holy word and make
me see some wonderful truth thou hast to
show to me, for Jesus' sake.
Amen.
Would you open your Bible with me at
Revelation chapter 1 which was read to us
a little earlier in the service.
Revelation chapter 1.
One of the last commands the Lord Jesus
gave to his disciples when he was here
on earth was to occupy till he comes.
And I've specially that word on my heart
tonight for that is the greatest task of
the church on earth.
Each one of the four gospels closes with
the great commission to preach the gospel to
every creature.
I was staying at a home in South
Africa some time ago and I preached that
morning in the church of this particular city
and it found it a very difficult service,
a very unresponsive congregation I felt.
Maybe it was my fault.
And at lunchtime for the sake of conversation
at the home at which I was staying
I said to the daughter of the home,
a girl of about 19, I said tell
me I said what outreach have you in
this church?
And she said we don't have any.
Oh I said really?
No she said we don't need any.
Oh well you see she said the Lord
brings into our church those whom he wants
to save.
Really I said what do you do about
the people who don't come into the church?
Oh that's perfectly all right.
You mean I said even people who just
don't bother ever to think about it?
Oh she said yes.
Perfectly all right.
The Lord Jesus only sends to hell those
whom he wants to go.
So I said my dear young lady that
lets you right off the hook doesn't it?
Right off with any sense of personal involvement
in the great commission.
This of course is the result of pressing
Calvinistic theology to an absurd limit.
It's making a scapegoat of the sovereignty of
God and conveniently excusing ourselves from having any
share in this tremendous command that the Lord
Jesus left to his disciples, occupy till I
come.
And I want to think of this, first
of all just let me put some background
before we turn to this particular passage.
Because I find it so interesting today to
imagine, to realize that this world in which
we live is much smaller than we think.
It's called an overcrowded neighborhood.
Some people have called it a global village.
Because you see with the tremendous advance in
means of communication you can be from one
end of the world to the other in
a matter of hours.
You can shortly get to New York if
you leave Manchester.
In the morning you could get to New
York for coffee and be back for lunch
if you were so stupid and if you
had the money.
But it's shrinking you see, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking
into just a little neighborhood.
Smaller than we think.
Everything therefore, this task of occupying till Jesus
comes is so much more difficult, so much
harder than we ever imagined it was.
Because the result of a shrinking world is
that you have an exploding population and the
clash of different cultures constantly, of all colors
and all races and all backgrounds are flung
together with all the tensions involved, which we
know everything about these days.
And the tremendous population explosion, I don't need
to underline that, you all know about it.
Did you see in the paper last week
I think that it now reached definitely over
4,000 million people.
That's doubled in 10 years.
That's tremendous.
Tremendous explosion.
You see the net increase is about 75
million per year and 60 million people die
every year.
60 million people, that's 7,200 an hour.
That's 120 a minute.
That's two a second.
The relentless march of feet out into eternity.
And Jesus says, occupy till I come.
Tremendous responsibility and far more difficult than we
imagined.
And also, not only is the world smaller
and the task harder, but the time is
shorter than we think.
That's what this meeting is all about.
When he was asked what sort of a
world it would be like when he came
again, you remember the answer of the Lord
Jesus?
Read Matthew chapter 24 on your own sometime
and there you'd see.
He said just the beginning of troubles, not
even the end, but the mark of the
end coming will be a world that is
at war, a world that has food shortage,
a world in which the church has grown
very cold and lost its first love, a
world in which there's an amazing increase in
missionary interest, a world in which there are
masses of people who couldn't care less.
And it's that kind of world that we
live in today.
Of course, you might well say these things
have existed in history before, that's perfectly true,
but I'm not sure that they've ever existed
together at the same time to such an
extent as they do now.
Did you notice or did you watch or
hear that program on television sometime ago when
a university professor was discussing nuclear energy with
about 12 other professors?
And he said, what kind of a world
do you think it'll be in the year
2000?
And 10 out of the 12 of those
men said, we don't think it'll be here.
Well, of course, our view of eschatology forbids
us taking that view because we believe Jesus
is coming to reign.
But, but, isn't it amazing that pagan people
who don't think about the Lord at all
just realize that gradually, and now quicker than
ever, bringing the world to destruction.
The time is shorter than we think.
Occupy Teraika.
And the cost, the cost of doing the
job is far greater than we imagined.
I don't mean in terms of pounds and
pence, but I mean in terms of involvement,
in terms of commitment to Jesus Christ.
You see, everybody here is either a missionary
or a mission field.
You realize that?
You're either a missionary or a mission field.
You can't be anything else.
If you know Jesus as your Lord, you're
a missionary.
If you don't, you're a desperately needy mission
field.
And if you're a mission field, you can
become a missionary tonight, right now, by crowning
him your king.
But everybody is either a missionary or a
mission field.
And you see, you can't put your name
in the whosoever of John 3 16.
I don't need to repeat that verse in
a congregation like this.
You can't put your name in that whosoever,
unless you're prepared to put it in the
whosoever of Mark chapter 8.
Perhaps I ought to give you that one,
where Jesus said, whoever shall lose his life,
shall save it.
Whoever shall save his life, shall lose it.
Whoever would come after me, let him leave
himself behind and take up his cross and
follow me.
Whosoever shall be ashamed of me in this
wicked generation of him, shall I be ashamed
before my father which is in heaven.
See, he's just telling us that you can't
accept the privileges of a relationship without accepting
the responsibilities.
You can't.
You can't claim to be a child of
God unless you accept discipline and discipleship.
It's not an option, not an optional extra.
It's an obligation upon every Christian.
Your missionary responsibility begins at the moment of
your new birth.
You don't become a missionary by getting a
visa and going out to the Far East,
but you get, you become a missionary at
the moment you're born again.
So everybody is a missionary or a mission
field.
And that leads me to put to you
just three questions which I've had to ask
myself again today.
I would like to ask them to you,
just in your mind, answer them.
Do you believe that the cross of Jesus
Christ, the sacrifice on Calvary, is adequate for
the salvation of all people from creation until
his second coming?
Do you believe that?
I would say yes to that question.
John 3, 16, God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten son that
whosoever believes in him should not perish but
have eternal life.
Yes, the cross is adequate.
My second question, do you believe therefore because
of the cross of Calvary that everybody will
ultimately be saved?
Give you time to think about that.
My answer to that question has to be
no.
I would like to be able to say
yes, but I can't because if I did,
well, I'd have to tear the book of
Revelation out of my Bible and most of
the gospel of Matthew and whole chunks more.
Oh no, the cross of Christ is adequate
for the salvation of everybody, but it's effective
only in the lives of those who repent
and believe.
Adequate for all, effective in those who repent
and believe.
Then my third question, that being so, can
anybody be saved without hearing the Word of
God?
And once I'm right in the middle of
Romans chapter 10, and my answer has to
be no.
Whoever shall call on the name of the
Lord shall be saved, but how shall they
call on him in whom they've not believed,
and how shall they believe in him heard,
and how shall they hear without a preacher?
No, nobody can become a Christian without hearing
the Word of God.
I'm not suggesting by that that everybody should
serve the Lord overseas, but I am saying
with all the authority behind me of the
Word of God itself this, that I have
and you have no right to settle down
to a good, comfortable, cushy job in a
welfare state like Britain, without first of all
satisfying yourself that the circumstances in which God
has placed you justify you staying at home.
For two and a half thousand million people
have never heard the name of Jesus.
That's a pretty searching thing when Jesus says,
occupy till I come.
What about the lands that never have been
occupied?
And you may say missionary work has ended
and the celebrates, certainly not.
It's more open than anything else.
There's hardly a country in the world closed
to the gospel if you're prepared to go
and never come back.
I firmly believe that the years of one
year furlough and four years on the field
are coming to a conclusion.
I say this thoughtfully.
My own daughter and her husband and children
are in Africa and they have written to
me and said we may have to face
the fact that we're here to stay and
become citizens of our country and remain or
be turned out.
The idea of help from the West is
no more thought of in other countries.
So I have to be prepared and you
have to be prepared to satisfy the Lord.
The burden of proof is at my door
that the circumstances in which he's placed me
right now justify me staying at home.
And you may say that I should be
addressing a young people's meeting.
Well I know I'm not.
Forgive me saying that but I mean it's
obvious.
But what I'm saying has its personal application
to everybody.
Nobody is excused.
In the last eight years I've preached the
gospel in about 48 different countries.
In every country I've been in, I've found
people who have taken an early retirement and
who are serving the Lord as engineers, bookkeepers,
accountants, teachers, nurses, radio operators, technicians of every
kind.
Many of them arrived on the mission field
when they're over 60 years of age.
Everybody is including this with a great burden
of fulfilling the command of our Lord Jesus
to occupy.
Till I come.
And it may be well that this, it
may well be that this is the last
generation that will have an opportunity to obey
that command.
Personally I don't believe our children will ever
see old age.
I believe the Lord is coming soon.
There's room for disagreement on this.
Don't let's quarrel about it.
I'll tell you what I believe, I don't
suppose it makes any difference to you, but
I believe that Jesus may come any day.
I always begin the day by thanking the
Lord Jesus for giving me a good night's
rest and thanking him that I may not
need another one.
He'll come any day.
Now if you don't agree with that please
don't let's quarrel but leave it till we
get to heaven and then you'll say well
after all you were right.
If you'll excuse that piece of spiritual arrogance.
We'll now occupy.
But where and how and when and what?
How would you do about it?
To obey this command.
And Revelation chapter one has the amazing picture
which will answer some of these questions for
us.
First of all concerning a call that came
to John in verse 19 of this chapter,
write the things which you have seen.
That was the call to take up arms
and for him to occupy.
He was at the time a prisoner in
a little Mediterranean island of Patmos.
He was there because as the living Bible
puts it, he told what he knew about
Jesus Christ.
I think that's lovely.
That's a very graphic rendering.
Do people get get put into prison camps
for that today?
They do.
When I was young, long ago, people said
that would never happen again.
Now we've got a democracy you know it's
utopia and never again will people suffer.
Oh there's more people pay the price of
their lives for witnessing to Christ in this
generation than any other in history.
The persecution is on.
We're in the hot seat and the Christian
has to prepare to stand up and be
counted.
And that will be more than ever true
before very long in this land I'm sure.
And John was the only Christian alive at
the time who had actually seen Jesus.
He was about 90 years old.
That's a time to be called to Christian
work, to have his call renewed and his
next job assigned to him, write the things
which you've seen.
He was the dangerous enemy.
He was dangerous to every enemy of the
gospel because he'd seen Christ and he had
to be locked up and put away and
confined in a most unlikely place simply for
telling what he knew about Jesus.
I stood two years ago on the border
of communist China near Kowloon in Hong Kong
and I was with a wonderful Chinese preacher.
I personally, it's my opinion, you never hear
a preacher really until you hear a Chinese
preacher.
They're absolutely tremendous, absolutely tremendous and this one
Philip Teng, his name is, is a great
man of God.
Makes you feel just like a little worm
beside him.
And we stood on the communist border and
we looked over into that vast country of
mountains and valleys and we saw the river
over which thousands of people have tried to
escape and been shot in the attempt.
And he said, that's my country.
And he said, Pastor at Perth, you know
the church is twice as strong as when
Chairman Mao took over?
And I said, really?
Yes, he said, and there isn't a hypocrite
left.
Oh, I got the message.
Under pressure, the phony had quit.
The person who is, oh a dreadful word,
the person who is a nominal Christian had
just quit.
The person who had the real thing, life
in his heart, the Holy Spirit indwelling and
controlling him, he'd stood.
You see, the extraordinary thing about the Christian
when he knows the Holy Spirit as his
Lord and Jesus as Lord in his life
is this, that he counteracts the law of
physics which says that everything contracts under pressure.
Christian doesn't, he expands.
Amazing, isn't it?
I mean you put four or three men
with unpronounceable names into a burning fiery furnace
and in the process they meet one like
a little son of God.
Is that contraction?
Oh, I should think not.
It's expansion.
You put Paul and Silas in jail and
thrash them and beat them and have them
all bleeding to death apparently, and you hear
songs in the night.
That's not contraction, it's expansion.
And when a Christian is put under pressure,
he expands.
And that's why I find it so exciting
to be alive today, because I can see
the pressure coming on the Christian church in
Britain, increasingly in coming days.
And see a country like this being told
that it's time we stop religious education in
our schools, for instance.
All that kind of thing.
Much more taking place about which you know.
I mustn't allow myself to delve into the
politics of it all.
But the pressure is coming on the church.
And where you have in government, and whatever
government we have, you have humanists who absolutely
deny God's existence and are all concerned about
a society being like that.
Then, then the screws are on.
Doesn't frighten me at all.
I'm quite sure that in such a situation,
it might need such a situation to make
the church in this land come to its
senses.
Because so many of us have gone fast
asleep on the job.
We fail to occupy till Jesus comes.
So this call came to John in a
very unlikely place.
And I wonder if I speak to anybody,
may I just be very personal for a
moment?
And you're in an unlikely place right now.
You may be the only Christian in your
shop floor.
The only Christian in your factory.
The only Christian at home.
The only one who loves the Lord Jesus
in your family or school or university.
And it's very unlikely that God could ever
speak to you there.
You know.
But that's the very place God has put
you to test you.
And all the time he's watching you.
Not like a policeman, but your loving heavenly
father is watching how you react to pressure.
How you stand up to the test.
How your quiet time's going in your prayer
life, in your Bible study.
If you're faithful there now, right where you
are, then the door will open for a
bigger job.
If it isn't, if you're not, then the
Lord has to wait until, until you really
come through.
I wonder if Jesus sees you occupying where
you are.
Do your family ever hear about him?
Does your workmate ever hear about Jesus?
You know?
Do you ever, ever speak a word to
bring back the King in some heart?
Most unlikely spot you're in.
Oh no.
A wonderful mission field.
A wonderful mission field right now.
And the future depends, humanly speaking, and indeed
from God's point of view, as to your
faithfulness right there.
You see, God is always reducing his people
to a minimum.
Have you realized that?
In order that he might do through us
his maximum.
Just let me repeat that.
He's always reducing us to a minimum in
order that we, he might do through us
his maximum.
You see, our idea of success in Christian
work is from, we want to do something,
we must do something big.
So the thing is to think up a
big idea, and then of course form masses
of committees, and get everybody working on them,
especially those who have lots of money, and
then add a little prayer and Bible study
to make it spiritual, and watch the whole
thing explode.
And it explodes right now.
What's God's method?
Well, imagine Gideon.
Gideon with his 32,000 men.
God says, take 22,000 away.
They're frightened.
Now these are with 10,000.
Now he says, Gideon, take 9,700 away.
They're undisciplined.
So poor Gideon is left with 300.
What does he do?
Oh, a very ordinary man, Gideon, does a
very ordinary thing, blow a trumpet, with extraordinary
results, because you see, the Spirit of the
Lord has taken over.
And now it's not Gideon's strategy, it's God's
strategy.
And God has reduced us to a minimum
in order that he may take over, and
himself do it through us every day.
I think it's exciting to watch that happening
in so many areas these days.
I could, but I haven't time, give you
an example.
But let me just press on to show
you that this call can come in a
very unlikely spot, but it must follow the
tremendous revelation that we have here in verse
10.
John says, I was in the Spirit on
the Lord's day.
Now that's not Sunday.
That's not Sunday.
It's the day of the Lord, often spoken
of in prophecy, the day of Christ.
And it is as though this man is
lifted out from this little island to be
a spectator of the great judgment day of
God, looking right ahead to that great second
coming of our Lord Jesus, placed in the
grandstand, if you like, just to watch what
takes place at that time.
And he heard a voice as of a
trumpet.
What does that remind you of?
Surely that when Jesus comes, he shall descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice
of an archangel, and with the trump of
God.
1 Thessalonians 4, 16.
Oh, and again, 1 Corinthians 15, 52.
We shall not all sleep, but we shall
all be changed in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, at the last trump.
For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead
shall be raised incorruptible.
Yes, here's John taken in imagination, in vision,
away from that lonely island and given a
sight of things to come.
He saw seven golden candlesticks.
Now from verse 20, I realize that these
are the seven churches.
And seven in the Bible is always the
number of completeness, completion.
And here is the whole body of Christ,
through all generations, till Jesus comes.
Candlesticks, lampstands, very costly, very costly.
Indeed, they cost the precious blood of Christ
to form and manufacture and make.
Candlesticks, the whole church redeemed, ransomed, healed, restored,
forgiven, cleansed in the blood.
Candlesticks, lampstands, lovely things, but absolutely useless, unless
they shine.
No light in themselves, but somehow, somehow they're
to catch fire and set the world alight.
That's what a candlestick is for.
And that's what a Christian's for.
Catch fire and set the world alight.
Oh yes, Jesus said, I am the light
of the world.
And then he said to his disciples, you
are the light of the world.
And in Philippians, that we're reading this afternoon,
he said, among whom you shine in a
wicked and perverse generation.
How do you think that means?
Well, let me illustrate.
I was out with my daughter in Central
Africa some year or two ago, and we
were walking together one night, about eight o
'clock.
Beautiful night, moon full, stars shining, not a
cloud anywhere.
Sort of night that makes people who are
in love hold hands, because the moon controls
the tide, as well as the untide.
And I, I assure you that it was
my daughter I was with, and we walked
along that jungle path, and as we're doing
so, she said to me, Daddy, isn't the
moon shining brightly tonight?
I said to her, yes, isn't it beautiful?
And then I said, how stupid can we
be?
And she said, what on earth do you
mean?
Well, I said, you know, don't you, the
moon doesn't shine.
It's only a lump of lackluster material, which
can't shine.
Our astronauts have confirmed that.
But to tell you what it does do,
it's in orbit in relation to the sun,
and it turns its face heavenward, and catches
the glow, and the heat, and the warmth,
and reflects the light of the sun into
the darkness of the world.
Now, you see, that's wonderful, because that's exactly
what a Christian is to do.
Marvelous.
And you don't have to have a PhD
degree to do it, and you don't have
to five years at university, you just have
to know Jesus.
That's all.
To know him personally and intimately as your
Lord.
And then you see the Holy Spirit goes
into business, and he begins to shine through
you.
And people begin to wonder at you, and
see your life, and you begin to reflect
Christ into the darkness of the world.
See, that's what happens.
And perhaps a touch of vivid imagination, a
little, but forgive me for it.
In my mind, I see at this moment,
right now, at this moment, the oil of
God's Spirit.
Oil in the building, bypassing it.
But where the Lord finds a heart that
says, Lord Jesus, I want to shine for
you, I want to occupy, I want to
know how I can do this, I want
my life to count for you.
The oil is diverted, and touches that heart.
And you know enough, or should do, about
the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the
world today, that he's doing that over, and
over, and over again, in thousands of lives,
everywhere.
Absolutely amazing.
Absolutely.
I've seen it happen.
Some people say, well, I mustn't get into
controversial territory, except that I'm going home in
about half an hour, so you won't catch
me.
But you know, as I go around, everybody
asks me one question.
When every country I go in, the first
of all, the first question, you know what
it is?
Always, without fail, are you charismatic?
I say, of course.
What on earth use would I be if
I wasn't?
The word means grace, and if I'm not
gracious, well, what's the good?
Of course, I'm charismatic.
Isn't it a tragedy that the charismatic movement
has become identified with the gift of tongues?
It's far bigger than that.
Worldwide, I know many people who would be
called, in quotes, charismatic, who never speak in
tongues.
And they don't insist that everybody else should
either.
That's a dangerous thing to do.
If you are insisting on everybody having your
particular gift, you're in for trouble, if you
can't substantiate it in the Bible, because all
the gifts of the Spirit are distributed sovereignly
according to the will of God.
But on the other hand, if you are
among the people who say, we've got it
all, and we don't need any more.
Got it all?
Well, bless your heart, why are we like
what we are, if we've got it all?
Oh, I tell you, my heart longs to
know the language of John Wesley, O thou
who at Pentecost didst fall, do thou my
sin consume?
Come, Holy Ghost, for thee I call spirit
of burning, come.
Oh, that in me the sacred fire might
now begin to glow.
Burn up the dross of base desire and
make the mountains flow.
Well, bless your heart, if you begin to
talk like that today, you're a wild Pentecostalist.
Isn't it ridiculous?
Oh, terrible.
Ah, but where God has a hungry heart,
someone who's got real concern to reflect Jesus,
I tell you, the oil is diverted and
comes like a flame, and your life begins
to burn and glow with the reality of
Jesus Christ.
Candlesticks are of gold, and amidst one like
unto the Son of Man.
Oswald Chambers says, that's a fulfillment of the
promise of Christ, lo, I am with you
all the day.
Yes.
Personal witness to Jesus must be based on
the passion of obedience, not on the pathos
of pity.
And the thing that makes a man a
witness for Christ is just seeing him as
sight of Jesus, the Lord.
And only one thing enables us to stand
the strain.
Listen to this.
Relationship to Christ on the part of a
man who has come through the mill of
God's spring cleaning until there's only one purpose
left.
I am here for God to use me
as he wills and where he wants.
That's it.
My dear Christian friend, has God been putting
you through his spring cleaning lately?
It's pretty hard, isn't it?
I know something of that in my life.
Pretty tough.
But you see, what we don't realize is
that every forgiveness that we have experienced is
accompanied by crucifixion.
Got that?
Every time, every forgiveness is accompanied by crucifixion.
You can't have one without the other.
I was telling at Keswick last year about
a visit I played January, 12 months ago,
to Florida in the States.
And I was shown round an orange juice
factory, the largest in the world, of course.
And there were 3 million gallons of orange
juice distributed from that factory throughout United States
in one week.
Every week.
3 million gallons a week.
Right.
In trains, special trains.
And I went into one room, which would
be about the size of this, and there
was just a big yellow iceberg.
That was all it was, just a huge
iceberg waiting, you know, frozen orange juice, waiting
for the time when the oranges didn't produce.
But in January, they were dumping truckload after
truckload of oranges into that factory.
I saw them being piled up on the
floor.
And then a machine came along and had
about a hundred arms attached to it.
And each arm stretched itself out and grabbed
an orange and hold it off.
And then about a hundred oranges were taken
away over at one side.
And then that machine squeezed them, crushed them,
and the juice began to flow, came out
of them.
And then that machine had an amazing capacity
to free itself from skins and pips.
And do you know what they were used
for?
You'll think I was kidding you, but I'm
not.
They were used for ladies' perfume and cattle
feed.
And when I saw the president of that
company, I said to him, Sir, when an
orange sees you, it must turn pale.
It must say, I've had it now.
And he looked at me and said, No,
you've got it wrong.
When an orange sees me, it smiles and
says, Now I'm going to be useful.
You got it?
Every forgiveness I receive by faith for all
my sins accompanied by crucifixion of myself.
And I can never escape that principle.
Going through God's spring cleaning until there's only
one purpose left in my life.
May the Lord use me where he wants
and when he wants and wherever he wants.
Of course, only one thing brings a person
to that.
It's a sight of Jesus.
And I want to try, however inadequately, to
show you what John saw.
I would rather disappear from the pulpit and
just let you read this because no preacher
can ever convey it.
But notice in this one or two things
let me pick out.
His eyes were as a flame of fire.
That is to say, he has power to
read every motive.
Knows about our self-centeredness, our desire for
self-preservation.
In a way, we excuse ourselves from involvement
and say, Lord, I have no gifts.
And Jesus says, I didn't ask for your
gifts.
I asked for your love.
Oh, but Lord, what about my business?
I must attend to that first of all.
And Jesus comes back at us and says,
Do material things matter to you more than
spiritual?
See?
Very a priority.
His eyes as a flame of fire.
His voice as the sound of many waters.
Are you any of you following me in
the Living Bible?
Puts it this way.
His voice like the sound of the waves
thundering on the shore.
I think that's tremendous.
Sometimes, you see, God can speak to some
people with a still small voice, but to
others he has to use a megaphone.
We've got so far away from him.
We've allowed spiritual horizons to grow very dim.
We've got so preoccupied with other things that
God has to literally just shout.
He dealt that way with Jonah, you remember,
to whom God said, Go and preach to
Nineveh.
And Jonah said, No, thank you, Lord.
I prefer a Mediterranean cruise.
And he, I'm going after Tarshish, right in
the opposite direction.
And when he gets down to Joppa, lo
and behold, there's a ship labeled Tarshish, just
ready to go.
That doesn't surprise me at all.
Satan always has a ship ready to take
us right out of God's will at any
time.
And Jonah got on board.
He paid the fare, at least he was
honest.
But my word, the Lord let him off
the hook, but he went after him.
And here's the picture, which is not just
Bible history, but contemporary truth of a man
running away from God and God going after
him.
You doing that?
Have you ever done it?
If you have, you'll know it's a painful
experience.
God let him out on a long leash,
but eventually a storm and a thunder of
the waves, and sailors about to drown, a
ship about to sink, and Jonah thrown overboard
and finding himself in a stomach of a
fish.
And at the butt of the Mediterranean, he
came to his senses and prayed.
Thank the Lord, if he can pray there,
I can pray from anywhere.
And the fish got a bit concerned and
upset about it, so it spat him out.
And he landed on dry land, and God
spoke to him a second time.
Are you ever glad that God gives you
a second chance?
There's no second chance after death, but there's
hundreds of chances before.
You can't play on that, on God's grace,
but the fact you're here means he's given
us a second chance.
It's a wonderful thing.
He gave Jonah a second chance.
He said to him, Jonah, Nineveh, oh Lord,
not again.
Yes, I've no further light for you until
you obey original orders.
So Jonah had to get up and do
what he was originally told to do.
What a lot of time we waste, years.
And what a long lot of God's time
we waste because we don't obey original orders.
And how loudly God has to shout at
us to bring us back to the place
of obedience.
Do you remember when you lost your first
love for Jesus?
Do you remember when things went wrong in
your Christian life?
Do you remember when you failed to occupy?
Just at that point when you said no
to the Lord.
And maybe that's years ago.
And prayer hasn't been real, and your Bible
hasn't meant much, simply because you said no
to Jesus.
Well, he may have brought you right here
now to thunder in your heart.
His voice has the sound of many waters.
Oh, that you would hear that voice, and
that he would disturb that sort of sleep
of death, and speak loudly to your heart,
and waken you up, set you on your
feet, and start obeying him.
In his right hand, seven stars.
And verse 20 tells me that these are
the angels or ministers of the churches in
his hand.
Oh, what a place to be.
A place of tremendous security and responsibility.
And out of his mouth, verse 16, went
a sharp two-edged sword.
Not out of his hand, but out of
his mouth.
I would expect a sword to come out
of his hand, but it didn't.
It was out of his mouth.
And the word of God is a sharp
two-edged sword.
And listen, what God speaks from his mouth,
through a life held in his hand, is
authority.
Get that?
Can I repeat it?
What he speaks from his mouth, through a
man or a woman, a fellow or girl,
held in his hand, that's authority.
And that means, to be held in his
hand, it means just complete, absolute surrender and
commitment to Christ as Lord of my life,
and I'm in his hand.
And then he begins to speak, through his
mouth, through your life.
That's authority.
That's what our pulpits need today.
And oh my word, my friend, that's what
every person on a shop floor needs.
Every Christian in trade unions, every Christian in
society, to be held in God's hand, for
God to speak through his mouth, through that
man.
What a picture.
And verse 16, the most amazing picture of
all, his countenance, his face was like the
sun shining in its full strength.
Living Bible, shining with unclouded brilliance.
Tell me, have you ever thought about the
face of Jesus in your life?
You know, we sing, oh that will be
glory for me, when by his grace I
shall look on his face.
I wonder about that myself.
I wonder, it will be worth it all
when I see Jesus.
One day I shall see his lovely face.
I wonder.
You see, I'll tell you why I wonder.
Because heaven has no sun, no moon, no
light, except the light of the face of
Christ.
And in heaven, it's lit up.
The whole universe, not just a bit of
it, but the whole universe is lit up
by the face of Jesus.
There's no need of the sun.
Finished.
But in glory, the light of it all,
the face of Christ.
And that's the face, that's the face which
Judas kissed and then betrayed.
It's the face upon which men spat.
I have to ask myself and ask you
in his near DNA, have you ever kissed
Jesus on a Sunday and betrayed him on
a Monday?
I wonder.
Have you ever metaphorically spat on his face?
Every time you've preferred your own way to
his way, that's what you do.
Every time you choose another path except what
you know to be God's path for you,
you're doing that very thing.
I don't know what it'll be like when
I see him.
I wonder.
I'll tell you what effect it had on
John.
Do you notice?
In verse 17, 17, when I saw him,
I fell at his feet as dead.
That's tremendous.
I fell at his feet as dead.
That was a surrender which followed that revelation
of Christ.
Ah, let me, I want to be with
it.
And I never like being thought of as
an old square and a traditionalist.
God forbid I'm not that, I don't think.
Um, I don't think I would accept that
statement about myself.
You know, I like being with it.
I love young people's work.
I love being at young people's meeting involved
in the students and universities and everything.
But you see, there's a lot of, a
lot of Christian testimony today which is slush.
It's just lighthearted nonsense, very often.
We're too familiar with Jesus.
You know, he's just Jesus.
But, but when John saw him, he fell
at his feet as dead.
It wasn't joy.
It wasn't thrill.
It wasn't a sense of excitement.
It was fear.
Fear!
And John fell at his feet as dead.
And I don't think we ever know God
until we've been afraid of him.
You may challenge that, but I don't.
I don't know.
You see, confession, salvation, is not just coming
down the aisle and signing a decision card,
and then you're ready for heaven.
It's not just accepting Christ.
It isn't that at all.
It's not just sort of deciding for Jesus,
and then living any old how.
Oh no, no, no.
It's falling at his feet as dead.
It's the end of your right to independence.
It's the end of an independent life.
It's the beginning of a life of dependence.
It's the end of yourself.
It's the beginning of Christ in you.
When John saw him, he fell at his
feet as dead.
And, uh, it's out of a surrender like
that that, that service comes, a call comes.
My friend, I've lived around long enough to
know that the pathway of Christian service at
home and abroad is littered with casualties, erect
testimonies because of failure right there.
Right there.
Oh, people have given their talents to Jesus,
but never their will.
They've yielded their gifts, but not their rights,
and never shall renounce their rights.
The result, over and over again, has been
marriage between two people, one of whom is
called to serve the Lord overseas, and the
other who isn't.
And the result?
Disaster.
I was picking up in my mind, and
picked it up actually before I began to
speak to you tonight, in my memory, this
lovely hymn, Take My Life and Let It
Be.
You remember that?
That's wonderful.
Take my moments, and so on.
Take my hands, that's good.
But it's not the real thing yet.
Take my feet, fine.
Take my voice, that's good.
Take my lips, yes.
Take my silver and gold, almost unusual, but
very good.
Take my intellect, fine.
Take my will, that's getting a bit nearer.
Take my heart, that's nearer still, but it
isn't there yet.
Take my love, that's getting nearer.
That's getting pushed into a corner now, but
that's not the end.
Not until the last line of the last
verse does Francis Ridley Havegill hit the nail
on the head.
Take my self, and I will be ever,
only, all for thee.
Have you ever said that to Jesus?
That's what's involved in Occupy until I come.
Take my self.
You see, it's only surrender at depth like
that, which releases the Holy Spirit.
Until your surrender reaches that depth, it's the
energy of the flesh, and God doesn't bless.
He may appear to, but he doesn't really.
When you have come to the end of
yourself and said, Lord, take me, take my
self, at that moment he lets the Spirit
loose in you, and things begin to happen.
You live on a dimension then of miracle,
and things happen in your life and through
your life that have no explanation except that
God has gone in business.
Wonderful.
I had a letter the other day.
You understand that that's a little elastic phrase,
I think actually about three years ago.
From a man who was a friend of
mine, and he wrote to me from the
mission field.
He just unburdened his heart to me, and
he said, I was considered spiritual on deputation
work at home.
I was rebuked for being too much serious
and having my nose in the Bible too
much.
Pastor, it's different out here.
I saw more people converted as incidental result
of preaching during furlough than I have in
years of service here.
This is nothing but death and discouragement.
My zeal lags, and my interest wavers.
My temper gets sour, and I get spiritually
cold.
My faith weakens.
My weaknesses multiply.
The Bible is so remote.
Where's the joy?
Where's the fire?
Where's the victory?
We know the answers.
We know the verses.
We've got the doctrine.
But problems, problems, problems, and the greatest problem,
myself.
Pastor, this takes more than a commentary of
Spurgeon's notes.
This is total warfare.
Yes, and it's total defeat, my friend, unless
I hear a voice.
I turn to see.
I see him, and I fall at his
feet as dead.
And he says to me, right, have you
ever read, uh, Churchill's war memoirs?
That would be a mental exercise.
I haven't, but I've read some of them,
and especially I read Our Finest Hour, the
Battle of Britain.
In the course of that, um, wonderful story,
Churchill tells of a day when he went
to the RAF base at Ramsgate at night,
and, uh, during the Battle of Britain in
1941, and, uh, he saw on the, dimly
on the, on the tarmac, just six aeroplanes.
He went up to them and examined them.
They'd all got bullet holes, and he said,
I don't know how these could ever get
in the air.
Hurricane fighters they were.
Then he went inside, and to the billet,
and to the room where the fellows were,
and he saw six gunners and six navigators.
They hadn't had their uniform off for three
weeks.
They were all blood stained and bleary-eyed.
They were chain-smoking and drinking masses of
coffee to keep themselves awake, and as Churchill
was there, just a few moments after he
arrived, suddenly a telephone call from RAF headquarters.
Enemy approaching across channel.
Estimated strength 500, and in a second, down
went the cigarettes, away went the coffee.
Fastening on their belts, they went out to
those planes, and, uh, six men went up
into the air, six planes up in the
air to fight 500.
But on their way to the plane, one
of the men stopped, and he rushed into
the communication room and sent a message back
to headquarters.
Message received and understood.
They're all in here.
It sounds so absurd now to this generation,
but some of you are old enough to
remember it vividly.
It sounds so ridiculous in the light of
all that's happened since, but then it was
total war.
Total war.
It was life and death.
Everything in here, and our nation depended on
it.
Brother, sister, you and I are engaged in
total war, spiritually.
We wrestle not against flesh and blood, against
principalities, against powers, spiritual forces of wickedness in
heavenly places.
It's total war, and there's no armistice till
Jesus comes.
RAF headquarters could take the obedience of those
men for granted.
Message received and understood.
Can Jesus take your obedience for granted?
Can you say to him, message received and
understood?
I'm involved in total war up to the
hilt.
Occupy till I come.
Let's pray.
A moment for you to talk to the
Lord, and I trust that you've heard far
beyond the voice of a preacher to the
voice of Jesus, and that he's been speaking
to you about your involvement, about your commitment,
about your surrender.
You tell him the answer.
He says, occupy till I come.
And tonight, maybe you've heard a voice, and
you've turned to see.
You've seen him.
Have you fallen to his feet as dead?
Then he calls you, and his spirit enables
you and empowers you for everything in his
will.
And you know the wonder of the Holy
Spirit working, and moving, and filling, and overflowing
in your heart and life.
Lord Jesus, hear our prayer, and oh Lord,
out of this very unworthy presentation of yourself,
may all of us have seen our wonderful
Lord afresh, and his rightful demand for complete
ownership and possession of our lives.
Lay we, may this be the night for
some here, who heal themselves and say, take
myself, and I will be ever, only, all
for thee.
We ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.