I want you to open your Bibles to
the 5th chapter of John's Gospel, starting at
the 39th verse.
Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think
ye have eternal life, and they are they
which testify of me.
And ye will not come to me that
ye might have life.
I receive not honour from men, but I
know you that ye have not the love
of God in you.
I am come in my Father's name, and
ye receive me not.
If another shall come in his own name,
him ye will receive.
How can ye believe which receive honour one
of another, and seek not the honour that
cometh from God only?
We've been discussing in these messages various phases
of discipleship, what it means to be a
disciple of Jesus Christ, what it means to
live in obedience to Christ, and it's very
clear, you know, that we must do it.
Throughout the epistles it's clear, it's not just
a message of the Gospels.
I believe every basic teaching in the Gospels
is clearly backed up by teaching in the
epistles.
We think of the words of John, that
we should walk how?
Even as he walked.
And so it is God's plan for us
to live as Christ lived.
This isn't just theory, it isn't just so
much air, so many words, something we can
have another meeting of, something we can write
another book about, something we can put on
top of the banner at our next Bible
convention.
This is something real, something practical, something vital.
Sometimes the men in the world are wiser
in their day than we are.
And it was H.G. Wells, the famous
agnostic, in his book in which he blasted
Christianity, it was H.G. Wells who said,
not long after the Lord Jesus Christ died,
those who claimed to follow him gave up
practicing his revolutionary, that's the word he used,
principles.
And it's so true, the Church has managed
to hold on to the shell, to hold
on to the noise, to hold on to
all the outward structure, and has missed the
hard core of what Christ talked about.
This is the thing that almost sent me
to the road of agnosticism.
As I met more and more key evangelicals,
more and more quote-unquote men of God,
I went from Bible school to Bible school,
and Christian institution to Christian institution, and found
tremendous speakers, tremendous teachers, tremendous talkers, and few
walkers.
I became very depressed, discouraged.
And I've met hundreds of young people who
are the same way.
Let us be realistic, the majority of evangelical
young people in England today, that is, those
real in evangelical circles, are denying faith before
the age of 25.
And our dear older folk wonder, what's happening?
Must be the latter days.
Hardly believing that it could be that there's
something wrong, something basically wrong, even in the
lives of those who are considered so highly
amongst us.
At one convention after another, I heard messages
on the epistles of Paul.
I used to sell audio Bible studies from
house to house.
Brother Dale and I did this to get
some money for Mexico, to add on to
the little bit we were praying in with
our feeble faith.
And the audio Bible studies was Bible college
on records from me.
No need to go to college, bring the
college right into your home.
Only cost you about 50 or 60 quid,
we got 20 of that, and it was
a good deal.
And I'll listen to those records, my tremendous
Bible teaching.
You could get 20 of the leading Bible
teachers in the world right in your living
room.
At the terminal.
Bible teaching at its best.
And we flocked to the conferences to get
Bible teaching at its best.
And what have you done for us?
So I've gone to these places, I've gone
and read these books.
You know there's more than a thousand books
in the English language that cover the appalling
epistles.
Could you believe it?
In the Urdu language to reach 50 million
Muslims in India, we've got one book and
it's poorly written and miserably translated.
But in the English language to cover the
appalling epistles, to expound them and pull out
of them oftentimes what there isn't there, there's
more than a thousand books.
So we can go to our conferences and
you're probably lining up for next summer's already.
I will hear another exposition on the depth
of Colossians.
It is a very deep epistle.
But my great question tonight, to follow after
what Brother Keith has said, is in the
midst of all this, where are the Apostle
Pauls?
I would like you to answer that.
I want to meet them.
I'm hungry, starving to meet men of that
caliber.
Men who it can be said of, for
three years they seeked out, night and day
with tears to warn men and women.
Men who mocked at the stripes that tore
across their backs.
Where are these men in the 20th century?
And it's because we have separated our theology
from our lives and we're trying to put
them in two categories, that we are not
finding these men in our nation.
We have many sincere men.
We have many great preachers.
Definitely.
Golden tongue, silver tongue.
We've got many great preachers.
But where is one who can stand tall
for years with tears, cease not to warn
men and women night and day?
And I want to speak tonight about tears.
The mock of a disciple.
Tears.
Or shall we say, one of the mocks.
Look in your Bible to 1 Corinthians, I
mean the book of Acts, excuse me, chapter
20, and we see the Apostle Paul.
He wanted to serve the Lord.
Now everybody here uses that phrase, theology, don't
we?
I'm going to serve the Lord.
My, if I could only find my place
in the Lord's service.
There's all kinds of frustrated Christians trying to
find their place in the Lord's service.
But you know, God's far more concerned about
your finding your place in the Lord than
finding your place in the Lord's service.
And I don't believe it's near as important
tonight that you know where you're going as
it is you know how you're going there.
And I'm not referring to your mode of
transport.
In whose strength?
You're going behind the iron curtain.
That's wonderful, but in whose strength are you
going?
You're going to the muggle world.
Wonderful, but in whose strength are you going?
You're going to India.
You're going to evangelize.
You're going to be a disciple.
Raise your banner.
We're off to India.
But in whose strength are you going?
I dare to say that most of us,
even many of us who are leaders in
this so-called movement, don't even know the
beginnings of what God really wants to teach
us.
Let us never think we have arrived, for
at that point we will be at zero
minus one.
I want you to look at the Apostle
Paul to continue on with what Brother Keith
said and to see how he served the
Lord in verse 19 of chapter 20.
Serving the Lord, it says, with all humility
of mind and with many tears and temptation,
which means really trial, which befell me by
the lying in wait of the Jews, and
how I kept back nothing that was profitable
unto you, but have showed you and have
taught you publicly and from house to house.
Notice those words, serving the Lord with all
humility of mind and with many tears and
trial, which befell me by the lying in
wait of the Jews.
It doesn't say serving the Lord with great
preaching, with large literature distribution, with tremendous campaigns
behind the Iron Curtain, with great exploits in
Turkey.
It says he served the Lord with humility,
tears, and trial.
You see, discipleship is first of all a
matter of heart.
Until your heart is right, everything else is
wrong.
This is why I know some fellows that
know when everything is wrong, but I praise
God for them.
I know their heart's right.
Guys that have minds, that would add up
two by two next to anything, but I
know their heart's right.
I know that they're hungry for God.
And this brings me to the real thing
that is burning on my heart tonight, the
real mark of a disciple, the real thing
that is at the core of discipleship, the
real thing that gets way beneath anything else
I believe we've talked about up to now.
The core of discipleship, the rock, the base,
is hunger for God.
The disciple above everything else, more than he's
loving, because most of us, as much as
we want to, as much as we desire
to find ourselves so often, not loving.
But down beneath that is this great factor
about a disciple that marks him as a
disciple.
He's hungry for God.
That's the greatest proof I have that I'm
a disciple.
I'm not talking about myself being a disciple
in that I've kept the Sermon on the
Mount or certain creeds or oaths, or that
I've sold all my possessions, that I live
ruggedly or sleep on floors or climb through
windows giving out tracts, not referring to that
at all.
But the reason I know that I'm his
child and that he's doing something with me
and that he wants to make me a
disciple, a real disciple, is this incessant, impossible
-to-stop hunger for God.
Do you have that tonight?
If you do, you're on the right road.
You might be a failure.
You can join in my club for failures.
You might have made your 1,898th blunder
this morning.
You can join in my club for blunderers.
But if you're hungry for God, if you
want to know your Creator, if you want
fellowship with the One who created you, if
your desire is to know Him, to walk
with Him, to breathe with Him, then you're
on the beginning, you're on the right road
to discipleship.
Look with me for a minute at a
few verses in the Old Testament.
To these men of God who walked and
knew Him, we remember what it was said
of David.
What did God say about David?
David was a man who lived in purity
all the days of his life.
Is that what God said?
He couldn't say that.
David was a pillar of strength.
He couldn't say that.
But what did God say of David?
David was a man after my heart.
David was a man as seen in the
Psalms who was hungry for God despite his
failures, despite his backsliddenness, despite his away.
He was hungry and thirsty for God.
Look with me at Psalms, Psalms 46, verse
10.
I mean Psalm 42, verse 1.
This isn't a psalm of David.
We'll read that next.
Here we read, And the heart panteth after
the water brooks, so panteth my soul after
thee.
Can you say that tonight?
Can you pray that tonight?
As the deer, away from the water for
many days, panteth after the water brooks, my
soul panteth after thee.
You read history.
You read the history of the Church back
right to the first century.
You'll always see it.
The mark of the disciple, the mark of
the man of God.
He was hungry, hungry to know God, hungry
to know righteousness.
Look at Psalm 37, verse 4.
Here we see David, the man after God's
own heart.
And it says, I will bless the Lord
at all times.
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul shall make her boast in the
Lord.
The humble shall hear thereof and be glad.
O magnify the Lord with me and let
us exalt his name together.
I sought the Lord, and he heard me.
And look down.
I sought the Lord, and he heard me
and delivered me from all my fears.
Verse 10.
The young lions do lack and suffer hunger,
but they that seek the Lord shall not
want any good things.
They that seek the Lord shall not want
any good things.
Are you hungry tonight?
Hungry to know Christ better.
Hungry to know God better.
This is the mark of a disciple, of
a follower of Jesus Christ.
After all, who is the man who's really
going to know God?
Who is the man who's going to really
have an intimate relationship with God?
Is he the clever one?
The one who knows how to beat everybody
in praying, leap over everybody in preaching?
The one who distributes the most books?
The one who can answer all the theological
questions?
Is he the one that the Lord draws
nigh to?
Or maybe it's the one who's a tower
of strength, almighty one.
Years he's lived above all men, strong.
He's done great things for God.
Unfortunately, he sort of knows it.
Is this the one God is going to
draw nigh to?
Is this the one God is going to
reveal himself to?
Or maybe it's the Bible student, the one
who's got all the ins and outs, from
Genesis to Revelation.
You can't touch him with a 40-foot
pole.
He's got every answer in context and out
of context.
You can't touch him.
He knows the Word of God.
He has the longest prayers in the meetings,
and they're loaded with tremendous Scripture verses from
Ephesians and Colossians and Revelations and all over
the place.
Is this the one God draws nigh to?
Is this the one that God reveals himself
to?
Or maybe it's Mr. True Disciple, in the
wrong sense of the word, the one who's
got everything right down to a tee.
He's checked every possession.
It's all committed to the Lord.
He's sold everything.
He's got one suit.
He should have two, because the one is
too dirty to wear in any meeting.
But anyway, he's a real disciple.
He's been on a limb twice.
He knows what it is to sleep on
the floor.
Tough.
Is this the one that God draws nigh
to?
Look at the Scripture.
Psalm 34, David cries out in the 18th
verse, The Lord is nigh unto them that
are of a broken heart, as David such
as be of a contrite spirit.
The one who in brokenness, the one who
in his sense of failure, his inadequacy, his
inefficiency, falls at the cross and says, God
have mercy on me.
Unto him the Lord will draw nigh.
I don't know about you, but that gives
tremendous encouragement to me.
Do you remember the story?
I think we've already said it during these
days, but many of you, perhaps all of
us, need to be reminded of it.
The two men that came to the synagogue
and the one that went right up there
towards the front, and he stood on his
toes and he said, Oh God, I thank
you that I'm not like other men.
He probably thought of the man who had
so many possessions, told, thank God I'm not
like him.
He probably thought of that young fellow that
had never been on a Pharisee campaign, saying,
God, I'm not like him.
Thank God I'm not like other men.
And he prayed a great prayer that he
learned at Bible college.
Another poor guy, way off in the distance,
bent over, beating himself.
God have mercy on me.
What a misguided man.
Who did God draw nigh to at that
moment?
That great theological discourser throwing out words that
meant nothing?
Was it he who was justified?
Was it he who got the blessings?
No.
He went away with his rogues of self
-righteousness and knew nothing of justification nor blessing.
But that one who came, as it says
in this very chapter, with a broken spirit,
with a contrite heart, God, you know I'm
a failure.
God, you know I'm a phony.
God, you know I've done this, I've done
that.
I'm a sinner.
Have mercy on me.
He was blessed.
He was justified.
I can't explain it.
But it's one of the reasons I believe
the book.
No man would have thought of this.
This is contrary to human ideas.
All of humanity, all of history from the
very beginning of time said you do something
and you get something.
That's what all of world religions teach.
Every single religion is the same barrel of
nothing.
You do this, you get this.
You do this, you do this, you do
this, you do this.
We know that the Jews had so many
laws.
We know that our dear Muhammad in France
had so many things they must do.
If they go and have the fast, and
if they go to Mecca, and if they
do this, and they do this, and they
do this, and do this, and do this,
then someday, bless him, God comes down through
Jesus Christ and through the Word of God
and shatters all human theory.
Human theory would say, you'll be a great
disciple, you live according to the laws of
the Sermon on the Mount, you go around
the world and give out a half-million
tax, you go on a campaign and shine
the shoes of some other brother and prove
that you're humble, and then you'll get a
great blessing.
If you want a blessing tonight, you must
come undone, realizing you'll never shine anyone's shoes
but by the grace of God, except with
false motives.
You'll never give any tracks out except by
the grace of God.
You'll never last two months, even on this
next campaign, but by the grace of God,
and so I plead with you, don't wait
any longer.
Come now to the fountain of blessing and
take that which is free of charge.
Paul, writing to the Galatians, says, Have you
begun in the Spirit?
Now will you continue in the flesh?
Many think, I'm saved by grace, but now,
my Christian life, I'm going to work my
way out.
This is a serious mistake.
You are saved by grace and you'll serve
by grace.
It's the only way.
The Lord is nigh unto them that are
of a broken heart and save as such
as be of a contrite spirit.
Turn over just a page to Psalm 37.
Look at these words.
Verse 4.
Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he
shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
You know why many of you are not
finding the will of God in these days?
Because you're delighting in other things.
You're delighting in the enthusiasm, the adventure bubble
of Operation Mobilization.
All over the world in twenty days in
the back of a Bedford lorry.
Tremendous.
And if that merit is there, even if
it's on the unconscious level, you're delighting, delighting
in the fellowship, the enthusiasm of it all.
From place to place we go.
One minute we're going across the English Channel.
Next minute we're going over the Alps.
Next minute it's across the Bosphorus.
Tremendous.
Where are you going next year, Brother Keith?
If you're delighting in a work, if you're
delighting in an organization, if you're delighting in
a movement, sooner or later, you're going to
be very discouraged.
And I have discovered most Christians are delighting
in some kind of a movement.
Everybody has their favorite movement.
Have you ever noticed that in Christian service?
Everybody has their favorite movement.
With one it's just admission, another one is
still to the fellowship.
We all give different names to our movements
to make them distinct.
Ours is the most distinct.
Operation.
Well, no one has that name.
No one's that crazy.
And we delight in it.
We delight to see how it ends.
We delight to know that we're considered those
that are enduring hardship.
To be a part of it all.
We really get satisfaction in it.
So along we go.
Like one great...
I can't give you the word.
It might not be acceptable in this case.
But might God deliver us of it.
Might we go out in this work delighting
in the Lord, Jehovah!
Then when the oil bubble pops you'll be
praising Him on the top of your voice.
Might we go forth delighting in Him so
when the lorry breaks down it means nothing.
I know some people who are very happy.
You know, I've been told I met someone
who had 45 reasons why Operation Mobilization is
fun.
And when they heard the 45 reasons you
know what they did in Spain and what
they did here and all of a sudden
the reputation began to crumble and it wasn't
a great group of disciples now it was
a group of nobodies and they were making
mistakes and they weren't organized and the leader,
ooh, we even found out that he sins
once in a while.
Oh, the bubble popped and there he was.
A deluded disciple.
A would-be disciple.
Don't delight in other things.
Our God is a jealous dog.
He will not share His glory even with
organizations that claim to be spiritless.
He will not share His glory with me.
He will not share His glory with any
preacher, with any healer, with any movement.
That's what we see in that chapter in
John when Jesus Christ said to the disciples,
How can you believe?
How can you believe which seek honor one
of another and not the honor that cometh
from God only?
I want to be able to believe God
for great things.
I want to be able to believe God
for finance.
I want to be able to believe God
for laborers.
I want to be able to believe God
for assemblies and souls and victory in the
lives of those I'm working with.
God has often said to me, I'll tell
you, How can you believe which receive honor
one of another?
How we feed on it.
And the mark of a disciple is that
he's hungry for God.
He wants the honor of God.
He wants the world done.
Thou good and faithful servant, day after day
he lives for it.
He craves it like the deer craves the
water of the brook.
Hunger for God.
Delight, delight thyself also in the Lord, and
he shall give thee the desires of thine
heart.
Some of you, in all sincerity, because one
thing I know about most who come on
OM, of all their weaknesses, our weaknesses, the
one thing I know about the hundreds and
hundreds that have come into the ranks of
this group of fools is that they are
sincere.
And God does know your heart.
Might it be that way even as you
get more answers to your questions.
But one thing I know, that God is
very clear in his word concerning the fact
that he wants all of you.
He doesn't want half.
He doesn't want three-fourths.
He wants all your attention.
Some of you are very, very busy men.
Always many activities.
There's always so much to do.
And you go running around trying to settle
all the problems, straighten up this, do this,
straighten up here, get this arrayed, get the
meeting going.
And God is standing in front of you.
He says, My child, my child, come up
and speak with me a while.
Excuse me, I've got a meeting.
Away you go.
And I want you to turn to Psalm
46, verse 10 and see what God wants
to say to some of us tonight, especially
to me.
Psalm 46, verse 10.
Be still and know that I am God.
When's the last time you did that?
I want to tell you the only thing
that has ever carried me through, the only
thing that has ever given me the power
to go another day in this spiritual zoo,
is God.
I was coming in the underground this morning
and I didn't feel like going through another
day.
Have you ever had that?
Another day at the desk, another day giving
out some text to people who oftentimes don't
want them, another day answering questions, picking up
telephones, another day...
I didn't even myself want to go through
another day.
I went into my little office and I
put the map of India up in front
of me and I played a little tape
that I brought back from the holy convocation
of Brother Bakht Singh in Madras of Indian
music.
And I sat down and took my shoes
off and closed my eyes and went 14
or 7,000 miles across Madras and I
was sitting there and I remember that morning
so vividly and I wept.
We got up at 5 in the morning
and I remember the night before Brother Bakht
Singh announced that I have the announcement on
the tape.
He said, now some of you have to
leave early Sunday so in order that you
all might get your heavenly portion we're beginning
at 5 o'clock our worship service.
And I thought, 5 o'clock, they had
a night of prayer the night before.
And I remember that morning they sang chorus
after chorus and song after song and one
man prayed and another man prayed and prayed
and prayed and prayed and went from 5
o'clock in the morning to a quarter
of one in the afternoon.
And I saw the power of that work.
I saw my times given Brother Bakht Singh
probably several hundred thousand souls.
We don't have any publicity.
We don't have any gimmicks produced by our
highbrow Madison Avenue boys that have us all
to see.
He was a man of praise.
He was a man who was hungry for
God.
He wasn't very clever.
He's made his mistakes and got criticized by
everybody and his brother because of it.
But he was hungry for God.
He was a man after God's heart.
He was a man who spent hours and
hours in prayer and you couldn't interrupt him
with a pile of elephants.
He wanted God at any cost.
Get up at 5 in the morning but
get with God.
Sure there's problems.
Sure there's struggles.
But there in the midst of it God
honors that kind of thing.
And I want to tell you if you
go through these days you can sell 50
,000 pounds of books.
You can do all kinds of things with
a hand.
But if you don't get to know God
better.
If you don't get time with God.
If you don't get to know his fellowship,
his communion.
If you don't learn to delight in him.
To go out in the woods or under
your car or somewhere and just be still.
Just as we say in America I don't
know if you're allowed to say this here
but I'll say it.
Just shut up and listen.
That's the mark of a disciple.
He's hungry.
He's hungry for God.
And if you're hungry if you feel that
uneasiness that desire for more to know Christ
more intimately to know God more fully to
walk with him to talk with him then
you stick with us for this year.
Unite with us in prayer.
But if yours is some non-secondary motive
Christian activity gospel work this or that as
good as it might be withdraw your application.
Please.
I want to read these words in closing
from a man I respect very deeply.
His name was Tozer.
And he said this, listen.
In this hour of all but universal darkness
one cheering gleam appears within the fold of
conservative Christianity.
Within this fold there are to be found
increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are
marked by a growing hunger after God.
God himself.
They are eager for spiritual realities and will
not be put off with words nor will
they be content with correct interpretations of truth.
They are a thirst for God and they
will not be satisfied till they have drunk
deep at the fountain of living water.
This is the only real remnant or harbinger
of revival which I have been able to
detect anywhere in the religious life.
In the midst of this dark world religious
confusion abounds.
Religious superficiality has blinded the eyes of a
multitude.
A multitude of theologies and theologians and conventions
and books have blinded us, have led us
astray and there's one remnant.
In the midst of it all there are
few who are hungry after God.
They want more and they realize that in
their flesh there is nothing but in Him
is everything and they want Him.
They don't go for campaigns to this country
or to that country as much as they
go on crusades to know God in a
greater way.
That's what this work stands for!
And as long as I'm living and breathing
it will be my cry.
Why?
I haven't linked myself with O.F. I've
linked myself with the living God.
That's the only link that counts.
That's the only link that will ever be
bent and twisted by the stupidity and the
selfishness of man.
Link yourself with God.
Pray before His mighty hands.
Humble yourself and take your place at the
cross and know the reality of His power,
His life, His resurrection.
The marks above all else.
He's hungry for God and Jesus said, Blessed
is he who hungers and thirsts after righteousness
for he shall be filled.
He shall be filled.
Praise God.
It's true.