This recording was made in a derelict factory
in Belgium, where Christian young people had come
together to study the Bible and to pray.
Because many nationalities were present, some groups who
could not understand English were divided off to
have sessions in their own languages, and some
of these groups can be heard from time
to time in the background as they sang
and worshipped the Lord.
We hope and trust that you will not
be distracted by this, but as you listen,
you will rather rejoice to know that many
of them are young people from Spain, recently
converted.
Everybody's worshipping separately this morning, except our Dutch
-speaking brethren who are there with their headsets.
We also expect there may be a few
visitors coming in this morning.
Before we go into our worship service, I'd
like you to turn in your Bibles to
John, just for a moment.
John 4, Gospel of John, chapter 4.
I just want to say a few words
about what worship is and how important it
is, because I know there are probably some
who really, if you're honest, you don't know
what worship is.
You don't know the difference between worship and
just a prayer meeting, and this has been
proven many times by people who, in the
middle of a worship service, start praying and
interceding for missions and for their grandmother or
for whatever else may be on their mind.
But when we come to worship, then the
purpose is to worship.
Now, if someone in their prayer prays for
somebody, we're not going to worry about that,
but the main purpose is to worship the
Lord and to lift our hearts in praise
to God.
And worship means adoring and praising God for
who and for what He is, regardless of
gifts, regardless of blessings, regardless of answered prayers.
God is God.
He is holy.
He's a God of love.
He's omnipotent.
He's a God of truth.
And all so many things are involved in
the Godhead, His perfect loving power.
And, of course, we also worship the Lord
Jesus Christ.
This is the thing that marks the Lord
Jesus so completely apart from all other philosophers,
whether it was Buddha or Confucius or anyone
else.
He received worship, and He says in His
Word that He was seeking worshipers.
Notice chapter 4, verse 22.
Ye worship, ye know not what.
We know what we worship, for salvation is
of the Jews.
But the hour cometh, and now is, when
the true worshipers shall worship the Father in
spirit and in truth.
For the Father seeketh such to worship Him.
God is a spirit, and they that worship
Him must worship Him in spirit and in
truth.
We know that the Lord is seeking worshipers
even more than workers, though you never can
really separate the two.
Real Christian service, real dynamic evangelism will always
spring from the life that is in communion
with God, from the life that knows fellowship
with God.
And I believe with all my heart that
the missing jewel in the church is the
jewel of worship, of real worship.
Not just sitting listening to a speaker.
That's not worship.
That may prepare our hearts.
It may be a great blessing.
But allowing our heart to go out in
communion with God, you don't need to be
speaking.
During the period of silence there should be
worship, as our hearts go out to God,
and as we call upon Him and worship
Him and praise Him and give Him glory.
And I believe that today we're too caught
up with our activities.
We're too caught up in our activistic ways,
and we miss out on being still before
God.
The Word says, be still and know that
I am God.
And I believe that this worship service this
morning in many ways will be a failure
or be even hypocritical if you and I
in our personal lives don't become more accustomed
to worshiping the Lord.
And I would say that every man who
loves God should take at least a half
day or a full day or longer each
month and get completely alone with God.
Without such times in my own life I
wouldn't have made it past the second year
here in Europe.
I would not be here today.
There comes a time, and it seems to
me it should be each month, when we
must get away from all the hustle and
bustle of Christian activities and get alone in
the presence of God.
And certainly that also to some degree should
be our daily experience.
Many people have a dry quiet time, are
not getting through in their quiet time because
they haven't learned the foundation of a solid
quiet time in worship.
They say, oh God doesn't answer my prayer.
I've been praying for so many things.
Every quiet time I've been praying for funds.
I've been praying for this.
I've been praying for that.
God's not answering my prayer.
The problem is you're going at it backwards.
You're putting your need and the need to
the work first.
You're seeing man's viewpoint instead of God's viewpoint.
First, worship, praise.
I have some prayer times, worship times, when
I don't ask the Lord for anything.
I just come to praise and to sing.
He's the only one that appreciates my voice.
No one else, not even my wife.
And we need to learn what it is
to praise the Lord and to lift our
hearts to the Lord.
This is what we were created for.
We weren't created so that we could be
loved and then saved.
That only brings us back to the beginning.
We were created that we may worship God,
that we may love God.
And when we're saved, that brings us back
to the beginning.
And if you're saved, you're not at the
end this morning, you're at the beginning.
Now you can begin to manifest and to
declare the glory of God and to have
a love relationship with the Lord Jesus and
with the living God.
He says, no longer call you servants but
friends.
And we can come this morning totally accepted
into him, in him.
Ephesians 1, 6 and 7.
Complete in him, Colossians 2 and 3.
And as you look through the word of
God and you see all that Jesus is,
the Alpha and the Omega, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and you see
all that Jesus is, you just want to
bow down and worship him, and love him,
praise him, regardless of whether he's answering your
favorite prayer, regardless of whether he's given you
what you want, because his name is wonderful.
I believe a revolution in worship would bring
a revolution in almost every other area of
our life.
Our evangelism this summer must spring from hearts
that are communing with God, not from people
who are being kicked around the continent by
some excited leaders.
Our evangelism must spring from a deep sense
that we are God and we are in
contact with God.
He is real.
This is what we want in this movement
more than anything else, that one word, reality,
which means to me, firstly, communion with God.
My God is real.
I talk to him every day.
I walk with him every day.
I commune with him every day.
It doesn't matter what others are saying.
It doesn't matter if the work is going
right or wrong.
It doesn't matter if everything is topsy-turvy
or the truck is broken down or the
team is off doing the wrong thing.
I know my God and he fills the
longing of my heart.
Everything else is water above the top of
the glass.
The sufficiency of Christ is experienced more in
worship than anywhere else.
As we calm ourselves before God, as we
cast our worries on the Lord, and that's
not easy this morning, to push other things
out of your mind.
You have to do that as an act
of the will.
I don't know about you, but when I
come to worship the Lord, I may have
to do that 20 times in one meeting,
maybe more.
I'm worshiping and praising and something, some other
thing comes in my mind, especially when you're
in the middle of a conference like this,
and you've got to push it out.
But you know, every time you push something
out of your mind and return to the
Lord in your mind, every time you do
it this morning, even if you have to
do it 30 times, that in itself is
an act of worship.
That's a choice.
You're saying no to other things and yes
to the Lord and to communion with Him.
Let us realize the Lord is seeking worshipers,
not just this morning, all summer on your
team.
The Lord should be first.
I know many men who would rather speak
to others from the pulpit than speak with
God in the quiet place, and that's why
we don't have anointed preachers in the 20th
century, because unless a man has a deep
relationship with God in the quiet place, he
has no right behind the pulpit.
And the Bible says the Spirit brings life.
Let her kill us.
Some of you want to be preachers.
You want to be witnesses.
You want to be soul winners and get
on your knees, learn to commune with the
Lord of Lords.
We go to Bible schools, we go to
seminaries, we go through our courses, we study
this and that, but where are those?
Where are those who are getting a degree
in worship?
Of how many men can it be said,
here's a young man who knows reality in
worship?
I haven't met many people who had such
a reputation.
May God give us a balance and show
us what the priority is.
Not how many tracts you give out this
summer, not how many villages you cover, not
how many people you impress.
It's not how many spiritual dingies you serve
up in a devotional time, but it's whether
you know your God and are communing with
Him and walking with Him and loving Him
and receiving love and giving love.
Not a matter firstly of feelings, something deeper
than feelings.
No feelings often get involved.
Let us worship Him this morning.
Let us not worry about the noises.
Let us not worry about any disturbance that
may come in here.
It was said of Brother Lawrence that in
the midst of the work in the kitchen,
where he worked in menial work for 14
years, one of the most godly men who
ever lived, that in the midst of the
noise and the rattling of the pans, his
heart was communing with God.
May we commune with Him this morning.
Someone may pray and you can't hear them.
It doesn't matter.
Just pray in your own heart.
Maybe someone prays in another language.
Commune with Him in your heart.
Tell Him about your problems.
You don't have to pretend to Him.
He knows your heart is crying.
He knows you don't know even the first
five percent about worship.
He knows that you maybe don't even feel
like being here.
You'd much prefer to be in bed.
He knows.
You don't have to pretend, when I worship
the Lord, I unload all my emotions on
Him, my bitterness, my hatred, and then it
doesn't end up getting thrown out on other
people.
If any day I'm gentle, it's only because
I've probably taken it out on the Lord
in the morning.
Lord, you know my heart.
You know I feel miserable.
You know I'm sick of this whole movement.
Sick of preaching.
Sick of people.
Lord, I want to go into the wilderness.
I want to die or whatever else may
come on my mind on that morning.
So I throw it all on the Lord
and He says, okay George, you've had your
session.
Now get going.
And you know, I want to tell you,
psychiatrists, psychologists will tell you that there is
a tremendous therapy in prayer and worship.
And we see that God had it in
His Word long before the psychiatrists ever said
it.
So don't start worshiping the psychiatrists, most of
whom are going these days to be psychoanalyzed.
But bow down before the living God and
pour out your heart before Him, your burdens,
your problems, your cares, and lift your soul.
Let Him lift your soul in communion.
You know, if you miss this, regardless of
whatever, what anyone else says to you, if
you miss this, this communion, this worship, this
reality, you've missed O.M. Because more than
anything else, this is what God has been
trying to build this movement on as many
times as we try to run in other
directions.
Let us worship Him.
For our closing message in this part of
the conference, could we turn to the last
book of the Old Testament, the book of
Malachi chapter 1.
We'll begin reading with verse 6, Malachi chapter
1, verse 6.
The son honoreth his father, and a servant
his master.
If then I be a father, where is
mine honor?
And if I be a master, where is
my fear?
Saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O
priest that despise my name.
And ye say, wherein have we despised thy
name?
Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar.
And ye say, wherein have we polluted thee?
And that ye say, the table of the
Lord is contemptible.
And if he offer the blind for sacrifice,
is it not evil?
And if he offer the lame and the
sick, is it not evil?
Offer it now unto thy governor.
Will he be pleased with thee or accept
thy person?
Saith the Lord of hosts.
And now I pray you, beseech God that
he will be gracious unto us.
This hath been by your means.
Will he regard your person, saith the Lord
of hosts?
Who is there even among you that would
shut the doors for not?
Neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar
for not.
I have no pleasure in you, saith the
Lord of hosts.
Neither will I accept an offering at your
hand.
For from the rising of the sun, even
unto the going down of the same, my
name shall be great among the Gentiles.
And in every place incense shall be offered
unto my name, and a pure offering for
my name shall be great among the heathen,
saith the Lord of hosts.
But ye have profaned it in that ye
say, the table of the Lord is polluted,
and the fruit thereof, even his meat is
contemptible.
He said also, behold, what a weariness is
it?
And ye have snuffed at it, saith the
Lord of hosts.
And ye brought that which was torn, and
the lame and the sick.
Thus she brought an offering.
Should I accept this of your hand, saith
the Lord?
But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in
his flock a male, and voweth and sacrificeth
unto the Lord a corrupt thing.
For I am a great king, saith the
Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful
among the heathen.
If we were to give a title to
this portion of the word of God, I
think we might very well call it God
Wants the Best.
That's the closing thought I'd like to leave
with you at the end of this portion
of our conference.
God wants the best.
Let me say this afternoon, God deserves the
best.
He deserves your best, and he deserves my
best.
And you hear his heartbeat in the first
chapter of the last book of the Old
Testament, crying out to a people who had
profaned his name.
I think you understand the background of this
chapter.
All through the Old Testament, under the law
of Moses, God taught the people to bring
to him sacrifices that were without spot and
blemish.
Why did he do that?
Well, it was an expression of his greatness,
of his majesty, of his holiness, of his
righteousness, of the very fact that God deserves
the best.
In fact, when he gave us a Bible,
he even started the Bible that way.
In the beginning, God.
Put God first in everything.
Well, of course, the people would go out
to the flock when the time of making
an offering came, and they would look around
in the flock.
Here would be an animal, a fine animal,
fine specimen, no spot, no blemish, no torn
ear, no blindness or anything else.
Well, that was the animal they should offer
to the Lord.
That was also the animal that would bring
the best return in the local market.
And so attention arose.
God was far away.
God was in heaven.
They didn't see God.
And so there was the temptation to sacrifice
the glory of God for present material gain.
And that's exactly what was happening.
They would sell the good animals down in
the market where they would yield a substantial
return.
And then they would take some ragged, poor
animal and say, in effect, it's good enough
for God.
Is there a shocking thing that any human
being would ever behave like that in the
presence of God?
Yes, a shocking thing.
And it's going on every day among Christian
people at the present time.
How's that going on today?
Well, let me tell you, some of you
have read the life story of Isabel Kuhn.
Isabel Kuhn was brought up in the western
part of Canada.
For many years, her mother was the chairman
of the women's missionary group in that church,
encouraging the work of the Lord in the
farm field, encouraging other young people to go
out to the mission field, raising funds for
the mission field and all the rest.
One day, Isabel Kuhn came home to her
mother and said, Mother, God has called me
to the mission field.
And her mother said, over my dead body,
Isabel.
And that's the way she finally went.
Over my dead body, Isabel.
And Isabel waited in western Canada until her
mother had died, and then she went out
to China for God.
What does it mean?
Well, it means that anybody other, anybody else's
children, yes, by all means, they should go
to the mission field.
My child, I don't know, that would never
do.
A friend of mine was visiting in a
Christian home.
There was a fine young girl there in
the home, and he said to her, what
are your plans for the future?
She said, oh, I'm in nurse's training.
I'm planning to become a registered nurse.
He said, I hope you keep the work
of the Lord in view.
He said, you know, there's tremendous need in
the work of the Lord today.
Somebody was listening out in the kitchen.
The one who was listening out in the
kitchen steamed up to the door, and she
said, don't you talk like that to my
daughter.
She said, that isn't what I have planned
for her.
That's what Malachi is talking about here in
the first chapter of his book.
How many Christian parents today are holding the
work of the Lord before their young people
as a desirable way to spend their lives?
How many?
I fear not too many.
The idea today seems to be to make
a name for yourself in the world, to
get along materially, to live in a fine
home in suburbia, have a good car, and
all the rest, and give the fag end
of a wasted career to the Christ of
God.
Tell me, is it true or not?
I fear in far too many cases it's
true.
Deep within many hearts today, there lurks that
idea, anything is good enough for the Lord.
I'm challenged by the words of the Lord
in this chapter.
He says, offer it now to the governor
and see will he be pleased with you.
And you know, this is exactly the thing,
that in our dealings with our fellow human
beings, especially those of fame or position, we
don't treat them the way we treat the
Lord.
And how well Malachi knew that.
He knew they'd never go to the queen
with a lamb like that, but they'd offer
it to the Lord.
And this speaks to my heart, and it
breaks my heart in many ways.
When I think of men of the world
today, when I think of politicians and statesmen
today, when I think of their tirelessness for
their countries, their traveling over land and sea,
working indefatigably on into the night, the wee
hours of the morning, men of vision, men
of wholehearted devotion to the cause they serve.
And I think of the spirit among so
many Christians today, tired and weary, and just
get along comfortably for ourselves and leave the
rest to the Lord.
I think of communists today and their zeal
and their fire for their cause.
I think of the sacrifices they're willing to
make, and I put myself beside them, Christianity
in general beside them, and I think what
in the world has happened.
I think of nuns today who have taken
on religious orders and lives of devotedness and
all of that to their cause, and I
think of so many Christian young people today
who think, well, I've got to think about
myself, I've got to think about my future,
and so they relegate the Lord Jesus Christ
to some inferior closet of their lives, I
fear, in too many cases.
I think of musicians today and of the
way they practice.
Somebody said to Paderewski once, oh, how did
it happen?
How did you get where you are?
He said, by practicing till my poor fingers
were nearly worn to the bone.
Men are willing to do that for music,
they're willing to do it in the arts,
they're willing to do it in the sciences.
How many are willing to do it for
the Lord?
You know, it's a strange thing that in
many countries of the world today, when Christian
young people are called up into the armed
forces, when fellows go off into the army,
why, people give them a gay send-off,
you know, and congratulate them and all the
rest.
The next thing, the fellow's at training, crawling
under machine gun fire, nobody thinks anything of
it, that's perfectly all right, isn't it?
And then they perhaps go out into war
with all its mud and blood and stench
and all the rest, and maybe that young
fellow will even lay down his life for
his country, and people applaud, and they think
it's perfectly respectable to do so, and if
that same young fellow had stepped out for
Jesus Christ fanatically to serve him with all
his heart, people would sit at home and
cluck and think there was something the matter
with him.
And many Christian parents would be affronted if
they saw their young people out on the
streets of some foreign country being stoned for
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Listen, God wants the best.
God wants the best, and he richly deserves
it, that's what he's looking for from our
life.
What would be, what would constitute a perfect
sacrifice as far as the Lord Jesus Christ
is concerned?
Well, I think the first thing that we
would have to say is this, for a
person, for a young person or old person,
either to be completely sold out to the
Lord Jesus.
Wouldn't this be it?
To be sold out to the Christ of
God.
I think of a young girl who went
to Moody Bible Institute some years ago.
While she was there, she sat down in
her room one day, and she wrote out
this covenant with the Lord.
Lord, I give up my own purposes and
plans, all my own desires, hopes, and ambitions,
and accept thy will for my life.
I give myself, my life, my all utterly
to thee thine forever.
I hand over to thy keeping all of
my friendships, my love, all the people whom
I love are to take second place in
my heart.
Fill me and seal me with thy Holy
Spirit.
Work out thy whole will in my life
at any cost, now and forever, to me
to live is Christ, to die is gain.
Her name, Elizabeth Alden Scott.
Later, she married a young fellow named John
Stam.
They went out to China, and they were
privileged to seal their testimony with their blood
in China.
It was a perfect sacrifice.
She didn't offer to the Lord something that
was torn and maimed and blind.
She said, here I am, Lord Jesus, I
give myself to thee.
Wonderful, isn't it?
I think that we need, in order to
be perfect sacrifices to the Lord, we need
a vision of the high dignity of serving
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Nothing so wonderful in all the world.
Wasn't it thrilling when Spurgeon said to his
son, my son, I should not like it
if God called you to serve him, that
you should dribble down into a king.
My, we need to capture that vision again
today, don't we?
I should not like it if God called
you to serve him, that you should dribble
down into a king.
The dignity of being an ambassador for the
Lord Jesus Christ, the dignity of representing his
interests here on earth, I tell you, it
would put something into our step if we
really realized it day by day.
And then I think we need, too, a
vision of the vanity of doing what unsaved
people could do just as well.
You remember that young man that came to
the Lord full of zeal and enthusiasm, determined
to follow the Lord, to obey the claims
of Christ.
But he said to him, first, let me
go home and bury my father.
The Lord Jesus said to him, let the
dead bury their dead, but go thou and
preach the kingdom of God.
What did he mean by that?
Well, I believe he meant this.
There are certain things in life that can
be done just as well by unsaved people
as by saved people.
There are certain things in life that only
a Christian can do.
Don't spend your life, don't have as the
main passion and thrust of your life doing
what an unbeliever could have done just as
well.
Mind you, it doesn't take any immense skill
to dig a grave six feet long, so
many feet deep, and so many feet wide.
Anybody can do that.
Don't make that the main passion and thrust
of your life.
Be indispensable.
Go thou and preach the kingdom of God.
Then I think, too, that in order for
our lives to be a perfect sacrifice to
God, we need a fresh baptism of the
transience of earthly things, a realization of the
transience of earthly things.
I love to repeat what Jim Elliott prayed,
Lord, deliver me from the dread asbestos of
other things.
And I want to tell you today, dear
friends, that material things have a clutch on
the lives of people.
It's a bondage, as we heard last night.
The church today is immersed in worldliness.
You say, what do you mean by worldliness?
I believe worldliness is the love of passing
things.
Worldliness is the love of passing things.
And I want to tell you, the world
is a bank that's about to break.
And people who are wise don't put their
riches in a bank that's about to break.
They don't lay up their treasures there.
One day in this very city, Spurgeon was
walking along, and in the morning, as he
was on his way to his office, he
saw some birds building a nest in the
tree in the park.
He was coming home later on in the
afternoon.
The men were there with their axes ready
to fell the tree.
The poor birds building their nest in a
tree that was about to be taken down.
And I fear that that's what all too
many Christians are doing today.
They're building their nest in a scene that's
doomed to the destruction of God.
Peter says, seeing then that all these things
shall be destroyed, what manner of persons ought
he to be?
A vision, a realization of the transience of
material earthly things.
And then a willingness to forego social security
in a worldly sense.
You know, during this week, we've been talking
about forsaking all to follow Christ.
And the thing sounds most incredible.
Forsake all to follow Christ.
You say, well, how would I live?
It's ridiculous.
In fact, Spurgeon was talking about this one
time, and the man came to him, he
said, how would I live?
He said, I have to live, don't I?
Spurgeon said, I don't admit it.
He said, we have to serve God and
please him.
And that's the truth.
That is the truth.
We're always thinking of self and how we
live.
Actually, the fact of the matter is we'd
probably live far better, wouldn't we?
Pleasing God and obeying his commandments.
Our obligation is to obey him in all
things.
His obligation is to care for us.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and
his righteousness and all these things will be
added unto you.
And I believe a perfect sacrifice would be,
would involve a willingness to forego present pleasures
and get into the word of God, study
the word of God and make it the
man of our counsels.
I believe this with all my heart.
People are wasting their lives on education that
doesn't count for eternity and neglecting that which
really does count, the book that will be
with us through heaven's golden years.
A friend of mine was speaking in Evanston,
Illinois recently.
His name is Robert Little.
He was ministering the word of God and
it was pouring forth from him by the
power of the Holy Spirit of God.
At the end of the meeting, a man
with white hair came up to him and
said, Brother Little, he said, when I hear
you ministering the word of God, your knowledge
of the word of God, he said, more
than anything else in the world, he said,
I'd like to have that.
I'd like to have a knowledge of the
scriptures like that and be able to read
and understand and explain the scriptures the way
you do.
He said, tell me, how can I do
it?
Mr. Little looked at him and the wrinkles
in his face and the white hair on
his head and he said to him, it's
too late.
And there does come a time in life
when it is too late.
That's why it's good to stand here before
so many young people this Sunday afternoon and
urge them to forego present entertainment and pleasure
and really invest in that which is going
to count for a long eternity.
Willingness to forego comfort.
You know, a lot of us think we're
quite clever if we can go through life
comfortably, but as our dear brother has just
been telling us, the cross is something you
deliberately choose in life.
You can shield yourself from the cross.
You can cushion yourself from the cross.
Any Christian with half a wit could do
that.
The Lord Jesus is calling us to deliberately
choose a pathway of reproach and suffering and
discomfort for his name's sake.
A perfect sacrifice would involve a supreme love
for the Lord Jesus Christ, wouldn't it?
I think we're all clear on this.
Years ago, the poet Ruskin was courting a
young woman in this very country and she
was a born again believer and he was
not.
And when he proposed to her, she said
to him, I have a question to ask
you.
And he said, what's the question?
She said, do you love Jesus Christ more
than you love me?
And he said, I would have to say
that I do.
She said, then I couldn't marry you.
Wonderful, isn't it?
A supreme love for the Lord Jesus Christ.
I believe that's the type of sacrifice that
he is pleased with.
And then I think a perfect sacrifice would
involve a willingness to move, to pull up
our roots, to be mobile for the Lord
at any time.
Do you know it's possible to become so
encumbered with material things, with real estate and
all the rest that we wouldn't be able
to move if God called us?
A young man came into my office within
the last couple of years and he said,
oh, he said, I'm just so sick of
it all.
He had a good job, very good job
as the world counts it.
He said, do you know what?
He said, I'd like to pick up that
phone and call my boss and just tell
him he can have the job.
Well, I said to him, Warren, tell me
something.
How much do you think you and your
family would have to have to get along?
And he said, well, I don't think we
could do with much less than $10,000
a year.
Well, needless to say, I didn't encourage him
much further.
He was so encumbered, so many debts and
all the rest that really if the voice
of God came calling to him that day,
he'd be anchored down securely.
And I believe that God is calling his
people to lives of mobility.
I really believe with all my heart that
the life of the Christian should be a
perpetual crisis of dependence upon the living God.
And that's exactly what the flesh hates.
Our lives should be a perpetual crisis of
dependence upon the living God.
God is always trying to stir up the
nest in our lives and we're always trying
to feather it.
Isn't that amazing?
Well, God is speaking to hearts today and
maybe he's speaking to yours.
And then I suppose that a perfect sacrifice
would also mean a willingness to die for
the Lord Jesus Christ if necessary.
Jim Elliott, again, he is no fool who
gives what he cannot keep to gain what
he cannot lose.
What does it mean?
Well, it means you're going to give up
your life anyway.
How do you want to give it up?
Would you like to be an accident statistic?
Would you like to be a cancer statistic?
Or would you like to pour it out
in loving devotion at the feet of the
Lord Jesus Christ?
God wants the best.
He deserves the best.
Will he have the best from us?
And then I would think that a perfect
sacrifice would involve something else and that is
an unflagging loyalty to the Son of God.
You know, we live in an age of
compromise.
We live in an age of lack of
conviction where people aren't willing to stand up
and be counted.
And a lot of people who call themselves
Christians today are willing to put themselves into
places where the testimony of Jesus Christ is
compromised.
A lot of young people today are anxious,
are so anxious for academic prestige, especially I'm
thinking in the religious realm, that they will
go to get degrees, to get earthly honors
from men and institutions that hate the Christ
of God.
I can't understand it, frankly.
We have a school not too far from
us and that school will not give a
Ph.D. degree to anyone who is known
to disbelieve the virgin birth of Christ.
You have all kinds of young Christian fellows
and they'll never be satisfied until they get
a degree from that institution.
Now why?
Why get a degree from an institution like
that, especially in spiritual things and religious things,
when these men are avowed enemies of the
cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord Jesus wants the best.
He doesn't want us to come to him
with that which is ragged and torn and
blind and blemished and all the rest.
He wants this life, your life, my life,
poured out to him without measure and without
reserve.
I have said before and I say it
again that the Lord Jesus comes knocking on
every heart's door.
Sometime during life he comes knocking on every
heart's door and he waits for our answer.
Will we live for self and lose our
lives or will we turn them over to
him and gain them unto life everlasting?
What are the issues?
Well, the issues are that I can refuse
him and he'll find others to serve him.
His cause is going to go on.
All that the Father has given him will
come to him, that's true.
But I'll be the loser.
I'll never find a more worthy savior to
serve, never in time or eternity.
And so there you are.
He stands at our doors today.
He's knocking.
He wants a perfect sacrifice.
Will he get it from you today?
Will he get it from me?
He deserves it.
He wants it.
May we, by his grace, be able to
say, Lord Jesus, here I am.
All that I am, all that I ever
hoped to be, I want to yield myself
to thee.
Work out thy wonderful purposes in my life
for his glory.