Father, we've just been asking once again for
the voice of your Spirit to re-echo
what we've already been hearing, and we just
offer our minds again to you, Lord, for
some of these dear folk.
It's been a busy week, two addresses every
night, maybe difficulty in taking any more in.
Now, Lord, we just pray for the tuition
of the Spirit, that he might move upon
our mental faculties and give us an ability
to retain even more, but deliver us from
merely chasing after addresses.
Help us to turn to reality, what we
receive from yourself during these days, for Jesus'
sake.
Amen.
Please be seated.
If anybody wants to give me a charismatic
hug after the service, I'm told by the
consultant of the Tropical Disease Hospital that the
Bilharzia, which I've been suffering from, has now
gone.
It's not infectious, and I shan't leave any
bugs.
Though I had wondered whether to preach on,
I'm a worm and no man.
I was into Tanzania just a few months
ago, and then went to Nepal and to
Pakistan before returning back to my home fellowship
on the Costa Geriatrica.
In wording, I was saying some people feel
that the South of England is the Bible
Belt.
Don't you believe it.
There are more people who attend church in
Manchester than attend church in West Sussex.
I'm glad to be back in Nottingham.
I was born in Sheffield, which is a
place where people go and live if they're
more affluent than they are in Nottingham.
So it's nice to be here.
It gives me a chance to go and
see my mum this evening, who still lives
back home in Sheffield, and I appreciate that.
She thought I was dying a weekend, so
I'm glad to prove to her that I'm
reasonably well and fairly strong.
Let's go to 1 Corinthians 3.
I want to try and just home in
on what George has been bringing to us
and anchor it further into Scripture, and I
want to do it by bringing us to
1 Corinthians 3 and then taking you back
to Genesis.
The New Testament will expound the Old Testament.
I hope the Old Testament is not a
dusty, dry book to you, because you find
illustrated in the Old Testament the biblical principles
of the New.
Now here is Paul, 1 Corinthians 3.
He's got a problem with his congregation.
I'm far enough away from mine to say
I have the same problem.
I have a church of some 500 folks,
and our church membership is full of willing
people.
Everyone is willing.
Some are willing to work, the others are
willing to let them work, and that's pretty
typical of things in the UK, but I
do thank God that on average our folk
are pretty good quality.
But here is Paul, and he's got problems.
Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual,
but as worldly, mere infants in Christ.
I gave you milk, not solid food, for
you were not yet ready for it.
Indeed, you are still not ready.
You are still worldly, for since there is
jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not
worldly?
Are you not acting like mere men?
I'd like to take the whole of that
chapter, but there just isn't the time.
Let's just home in on two or three
more verses.
However, later on, Paul is projecting the time
when you and I, along with him, and
all the people who were redeemed in the
Old Testament times and New Testament times, as
we stand before the judgment of Christ, not
the judgment throne of God, because our sins,
thank God, have been eliminated through the blood
of Jesus, and we're not answerable for those
sins.
There is therefore now no condemnation to those
who are in Christ Jesus, on the most
remarkable text in the New Testament, Romans 8,
1.
But we will be judged for the way
that we conduct our affairs, having committed our
lives to Jesus Christ.
And here is Paul envisaging that occasion.
If any man builds, this is verse 12,
I can never read the numbers in the
NIV version of the Bible, not with this
light.
Anyway, perhaps we could put another shilling in
the gas meter in this Methodist church.
If any man builds on this foundation using
gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw,
his work will be shown for what it
is, because the day will bring it to
light.
It will be revealed with fire, and the
fire will test the quality of each man's
work.
If what he has built survives, he will
receive his reward.
If it is burnt up, he will suffer
loss.
He himself will be saved, but only as
one escaping through the flames.
I know there are some people who do
not believe that there are such things as
grades within the Christian community.
We're all saved, therefore we're all on the
same level of spirituality.
But you know, that clearly is not the
case.
I've been a pastor now of the Tabernacle
Church there in Worthing for 16 years.
I'm just into my 17th year.
It's the only church that I've ever pastored
at all, the only one that ever asked
me, and they're stuck with me.
And I've been there for long enough to
appreciate that there are differences in spirituality amongst
Christian people.
There are those who have vision, there are
those who have reality, there are those who
don't have vision, and don't have reality.
The latter category, they're still saved, but they
don't really have what the French would say,
that je ne sais quoi.
I don't quite know what it is, but
they've never really committed themselves to be wholly
sold out for Jesus Christ.
And if there are those in that category
this evening, well probably you're not in that
category, or else you wouldn't come midweek, would
you?
But you will know of those who there
are within your church fellowships in this category,
and here even in this Methodist church this
evening, that there are amongst us various grades
of Christians, grades as far as our spirituality
is concerned.
I want to demonstrate and illustrate this to
you, by turning you to Genesis chapter 18,
and Genesis chapter 19.
Genesis 18 and 19.
With Paul's words in our mind, that there
are carnal Christians, and spiritual Christians, we find
this principle illustrated in a most remarkable way,
in these mid chapters of the book of
Genesis.
18 and 19.
Now again I'd like to read them, but
there isn't time.
Here's a summary.
In the 18th chapter, you come across a
man called Abraham.
He's dominant in that chapter.
You hardly read of anyone else, not on
the human level.
In the 19th chapter, however, you come across
another man who's dominant.
Hardly anyone else features in that chapter at
all on the human level, and his name
is Lot.
Now when you start to run a contrast
between these two individuals, if it were not
for the fact that the New Testament told
us that Lot is a righteous man, in
Christian theological terms he is saved, we would
not have thought from the evidence we get
in the 19th chapter of Genesis, that this
man would be found in heaven.
But the New Testament makes it clear, both
Abraham and Lot, uncle Abraham and nephew Lot,
are servants of God.
They are redeemed.
They are converted.
But when you've said that, you've said about
all that there is to say as common
denominators.
The 18th chapter is a chapter of light.
The 19th chapter is a chapter of darkness.
The 18th chapter features an account of a
man who, when God draws near, the Lord
feels so comfortable that he receives his hospitality.
In the 19th chapter, when God or a
representation of God draws near to this man,
he feels so utterly embarrassed, does the Lord.
And so I want to run between these
two chapters and just fasten onto certain things
that challenge my life, and I trust will
challenge your life from Abraham over against Lot.
All right, we've got to use speed this
evening, we'll have to accelerate.
Whenever I have one of George's tapes in
my car when I'm driving, I always go
quicker and quicker as he gets more and
more worked up.
So if you buy any of his tapes,
don't have them when you're on the motorway,
use mine instead.
When you move into the 18th chapter, you
find uncle Abraham on the high plain of
Mamre.
It's mid-afternoon, or rather it's lunchtime, and
he's having a siesta.
That means to say that in the hot
atmosphere of that rarefied climate, he's by his
tent door, and he's looking out, perhaps hoping
that there may be some faint breeze that
will come across the plain just to cool
him.
And as he looks out towards the horizon,
he suddenly discovers three men who approach him.
Now, one of the things about the Middle
East and the Far East is the basic
hospitality of those people.
And when Abraham sees these three men coming
towards him in typical fashion, he rushes out
to them and he says in the third
verse, if I have found favor in your
eyes, my Lord, addressing one of them, do
not pass your servant by.
And he goes on to extend an invitation
to grant them hospitality.
Now, accelerating even more, let me, without giving
you a great deal of argument to buttress
what I am saying, just take it from
me.
Let me tell you that these three men
who draw near Abraham are what we would
call, or at least they represent what we
would call in theological terms, a theophany, theosphanio,
an appearance of God.
That had happened before Bethlehem, but there were
times when in the most remarkable fashion, God
drew near to people in Old Testament days.
You know that Abraham is entertaining those who
are more than just mortal by what happens
if we take a sneak look further on
in the story.
Because if I can just advance a little
on the account, you will recall that on
one occasion after the hospitality has been granted,
Abraham and these three men are engaged in
conversation within the tent.
And Abraham's wife, I wouldn't say that she
was curious or that women are more inquisitive
than men.
It's just that she happened to be near
the tent door and she was listening to
what these men were talking about and they
had addressed Abraham and the fact that he
was an old man with an old wife
and they were yet childless.
And when Sarah hears them predicting that that
withered womb of hers will come to life
and she will conceive a son, she starts
to laugh.
And although she's not visible to the men,
they know what is in her heart.
In other words, they have all knowledge.
Omniscience is the word that we describe that.
Omniscience is a characteristic that belongs to God
alone.
And these men, they had omniscience or knowledge.
What is more, they were able to predict
that a woman who was almost in geriatric
conditions, at least as far as our own
terms are concerned today, that she would conceive
a child.
In other words, that the spokesman was not
just omniscient but omnipotent, having all power.
Now, if you put those two characteristics together,
omniscience and omnipresence, you can only come to
this conclusion that Abraham at lunchtime is entertaining
more than just ordinary men, angels unawares.
There is an anticipation here in Genesis 18
of what will happen at Bethlehem when God
draws near in the form of Emmanuel.
Now, my reasoning was hasty, but I want
to establish the fact that God came near
Abraham during that remarkable lunchtime.
And Abraham says to him, will you stay?
Will you take up residence temporally in my
tent?
And immediately we discover that they agree.
The last part of verse 5, very well
they answered, do as you say.
Now, hastening over to the 19th chapter, there
you find Abraham's nephew Lot, and he's now
living in Sodom and Gomorrah.
How he came there again, I'm anticipating that
you've got some knowledge of this.
He shouldn't have been there.
He was attracted as a moth is attracted
to a light bulb because of what Sodom
and Gomorrah seem to hold out in terms
of fulfillment and a sophisticated way of living.
And it was to his great discredit that
he took up residence in these twin cities.
It was appalling that he'd ever left the
encampment with Abraham in the first instance.
But there he is.
And these two men, they come to Lot,
and as they approach Lot, he sees them.
And he says, verse 2, my lords, please
turn aside to your servant's house.
You can wash your feet and spend the
night, and then go on your way early
in the morning.
When he invites these divine messengers to have
fellowship in his house, they respond, no, we
will spend the night in the square.
They'd rather walk the streets of Sodom and
Gomorrah than be entertained in Lot's house.
You know, some of us give very poor
quality fellowship to the Lord Almighty, who yearns
for contact with us in the same way
as he did for Adam, when he used
to come down in the cool of the
day and converse with him.
One of the ways in which you can
embarrass God in the New Testament is referred
to as grieving the Holy Spirit.
I've learned a lot from my wife.
She was born in Africa, actually.
And one of the things that she has
taught me is to hang very loose to
our possessions.
And our home is always an open home.
It's always been that way in the 20
odd years or nearly that we've been married.
And if you were ever to come to
our home, we would want you to feel
part of the family.
We wouldn't want you to sort of dress
in a way that would be pleasing to
us or behave in a way that was
unnatural to you, simply because you were in
our house.
We'd want you to feel at home.
How much at home does God feel in
your company?
Brother George remarks on Paul in Ephesus and
the reality of Paul and the vision that
Paul had.
When you read the Ephesian epistle, which was
written from Rome, from a dungeon in Rome,
you find that Paul uses a very interesting
expression in the Greek language when twice he
prays, and the prayer is recorded in the
letter.
He said, I bow my knee before the
Heavenly Father.
And that word bow indicates that he's in
the presence of Almighty God, because God is
where there is a humble, loving, hospitable heart.
And he'll draw near there.
Do you know, sometimes I wish I could
demolish old church buildings.
We had an old day of prayer, or
mainly an old day of prayer yesterday in
our fellowship.
And I suddenly found myself at 10 o
'clock praying, Lord, we got too many church
buildings in Worthing.
And it's true because there are so many
people who seem to think that somehow God
resides in these pseudo-gothic buildings.
And they think that that's the church.
But the church is not buildings.
The church is people.
And where the people of God is, there
God should be.
And he draws near when he feels comfortable.
But there are some Christian people for whom
God gets a sense of acute embarrassment.
And they never know that full release of
his spirit within their lives.
It's not that they're unconverted.
I'm not suggesting that.
Lot was converted, but when God was invited
into his home, he'd settle for the streets
of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Lot says, or Abraham says in the 18th
chapter to, to the Lord, look if I,
if I found favor in your eyes, don't
pass your servant by.
Verse four, let a little water be brought,
and then you may all wash your feet
and rest under this tree.
Let me get you something to eat so
you can be refreshed and then go on
your way now that you have come to
your servant.
I like this, you know.
You see, men don't change in characteristics down
the centuries.
Married men.
So many times I'll bring somebody home for
lunch and, and my wife Rowena, she's, she's
brilliant in the kitchen.
And I'll say to them in our church
fellowship or whatever, come back to our house
and we'll feed you.
What I really mean is my wife will
feed you.
And so Abraham, he invites these three visitors,
verse six, and then he goes to his
wife and he hurries into the tent and
he says, quick, quick, get three seers of
fine flour and knead it and bake some
bread and so on and so forth.
Then he ran to the herd and selected
a choice tender calf and gave it to
a servant and hurried to prepare it.
He then brought some curds and milk and
the calf that had been prepared and set
them before them.
Now he'd only offer them bread and water
and yet she's cooking hot bread and there's
a good T-bone steak that's being prepared.
They're going to have milk and yogurt.
And it says, while they ate, he stood
near them under a tree.
You know, one of the things that impresses
me about some of our friends, and I'm
not saying it doesn't exist in England, I
don't want to exaggerate, but our Christian friends
out in India and Pakistan and Africa is
the way that they share so much.
You know, sometimes it's brought tears to my
eyes.
I've preached, my record of preaching sermons in
any one day is in the city of
Ahmedabad where I had 10 engagements on one
Sunday and it nearly broke me.
But it wasn't so much the preaching, everywhere
I went they put on a banquet.
Now even if you're a Yorkshire man, there
is a limit to the amount of food
that you can take in, particularly if it's
spicy.
But I remember 10 o'clock one night
in a slum village just outside Ahmedabad.
All those little, all those Christians had come
together.
They didn't have a church, it was just
between some mud huts where they were living.
And it's the first time that anyone from
Europe had ever come to their place.
And you know, I felt like royalty.
They got a little table and some flowers
and they flickering lamp.
I preached to them.
Then they took an offering.
They gave it me, about five rupees, a
trifling sum by our standards.
But for them, I'm going by 10 years,
two days work.
And I said to my interpreter, I said,
I can't take this money.
These people live in squalor compared with me.
My garden hut is like a mansion compared
to where they're living.
He said, please take that money.
They will be so offended if you don't.
And the food was there and the drink
was there.
They gave the best that they had, because
that's the way.
With a spiritual person whose heart God has
touched, he becomes an exceedingly generous person.
But when you go into the 19th chapter
and you look at Lot, well, he does
insist and he prevails over against these two
men's immediate negative reaction about them going into
his home.
He insists so strongly that they did go
with him, verse three, and entered his house.
He prepared a meal for them, baking bread
without yeast.
And they ate.
Now let's suggest in kindness that the whole
menu is not written out, that we need
the amplified version.
But if you had to choose between the
Mike Donald's in Sodom and Gomorrah and the
one on the plain of Mamre, I reckon
that you'd settle for Abraham's management anytime, wouldn't
you?
The spiritual man, the man whose heart has
been touched by the Lord is an incredibly
generous man.
It's an incredibly generous woman.
And generosity is not correlated with having a
lot in the bank.
It's really correlated with what's left after you've
given, isn't it?
What's left after you've given.
And you know, I think that some of
us are spiritually dwarfed because we've never understood
what it really is to give in the
same way that God gives.
You see, God is a generous giver.
And if you partake of the nature of
Christ, then that same generous spirit must be,
should be reproduced within your heart, within your
life.
So the spiritual man over against the unspiritual
has God feeling at home and ministers to
God from his substance.
There are many other analogies that we can
run, but let's just settle for maybe two
more, certainly one more.
No, two.
I must get these, these to him because
they're burning my heart just at this moment.
When, when the Lord draws near to Abraham
on the plain of Mamre, he has in
mind the terrible nature of what is, what
the lifestyle is of those who live in
Sodom and Gomorrah.
Verse 17, Then the Lord said, Shall I
hide from Abraham what I am about to
do?
Abraham will surely become a great and powerful
nation, and all nations on earth will be
blessed through him.
For I have chosen him so that he
will direct his children and his household after
him to keep the way of the Lord
by doing what is right and just and
so on and so forth.
Why is it that Abraham was known one
of the three men alone in the Old
Testament as a friend of God?
Why is it that God could make Abraham
his confidant?
Why was the man so spiritually successful on
the whole in his life?
And the answer is, in his family circle.
He will direct his children and his household
after him to keep the way of the
Lord by doing what is right and just.
You see, my credibility as a preacher is
not really tested by my congregation.
If you really want to know what I
am like, then you must go to my
home.
George Whitfield was once asked if so-and
-so was a Christian, and Whitfield said, How
should I know?
I've never lived with him.
And that's wisdom in that.
You see, when God looked into the home
of Abraham, his relationship with Sarah, the way
that he controlled his household, he saw there
a man who could be entrusted with his
purposes.
And Jesus says to those of us who
are disciples, I no longer call you servants
or slaves.
I call you friends.
Why?
Because, well, a slave doesn't know what his
master is doing.
But I'm telling you all things.
You see, the spiritual man is a confidant
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But the Lord Jesus shares his confidences with
those whose lives are consistent, not just their
public lives, but their private lives.
I find it much easier to perform in
public than in private.
But when God takes a man into his
service and uses him, he tests him where
we don't test people, because he sees what
he's like at home.
And so he says, I must let Abraham
know what's happening in Sodom and Gomorrah.
He's a man who's going to be very
central to my purposes, and he controls his
home well.
Now, you see, this is where Lot pitifully
fell down.
As many carnal Christians pitifully pitifully fall down.
You never read of Lot's wife prior to
the 19th chapter of Genesis.
I can't prove this, but my speculation is
that that's where he found her.
In other words, he brought a principle.
He was unequally yoked, because these Old Testament
illustrations of New Testament truths are ones that
we need to latch on to.
And if you have a deep relationship with
someone who is a non-spiritual person, who
is not from the company of the redeemed,
then you can be in difficulty, particularly if
we're thinking in terms of marriage.
And when eventually Sodom and Gomorrah's fate is
disclosed to Lot, what does he do?
Well, he goes and he tells his wife
and his children.
Look at verse 12.
The two men said to Lot, do you
have anyone else?
He has sons-in-law, sons or daughters.
I'm in the 19th chapter.
Or anyone else in the city who belongs
to you, get them out of here, because
we are going to destroy this place.
Verse 14.
So Lot went out and spoke to his
sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry
his daughters.
He said, hurry and get out of this
place, because the Lord is about to destroy
the city.
But his sons-in-law thought he was
joking.
You know, the old man flipped it.
He's gone religious.
He's suddenly moved into a dimension that seems
to be quite incompatible with a lot that
we have known.
You see, your credibility is first of all
tested amongst those that you are nearest and
dearest to.
And because of this, Abraham is singled out
as the friend of God.
And Lot, though a righteous man, by New
Testament definition, cannot be God's confident.
He can't control his own domestic affairs.
Do you remember, even his wife is not
really under his total influence.
When Sodom and Gomorrah are a raging inferno,
she turns and looks back, disobedient to God,
disobedient to her husband.
You see, if you're going to be truly
spiritual, if you're going to know the purposes
of God, if you're going to be used
as Paul was used in Ephesus and throughout
the whole of his ministry, then it's very
important for you to look at your personal
life.
Does God feel comfortable with you?
How do you control what God entrusts to
you?
Can God confide his secrets with you?
What about prayer?
You get here one of the most amazing
illustrations of prayer in the whole of the
Bible.
Abraham is informed that Sodom and Gomorrah are
to go up in flames and he's concerned.
Why?
Well, there are a number of reasons, but
the basic reason is he's concerned for the
glory of God.
And incidentally, that's a very important principle in
prayer.
Can you say that what you pray for
has in mind the glory of God?
You see, Abraham is concerned that if God
destroys this people of Sodom and Gomorrah, then
there are those who might consider him to
be unjust because he will be destroying the
righteous with the unrighteous.
So Abraham prays against what God has declared
to him in terms of the downfall of
Sodom and Gomorrah.
Will the judge of all the earth do
right?
Says Abraham in the 25th verse.
And then he goes on to argue with
the Lord.
50 Lord, if there are 50 people, will
you destroy Sodom and Gomorrah?
Then he drops it down to 45, then
to 40, then to 30, and so on.
You know, sometimes I get very confused by
the commentators when I'm trying to understand the
Bible.
You see, the commentators here come in and
they say, here is an illustration of the
sort of Jewish nature of the founder of
that race.
A sort of Bedouin, he's haggling with God.
50, 45, 40, 30, so on, so on,
so on, right down to 10.
And then when he gets down to 10,
more commentators come along and Abraham can't win
with the commentators.
And they say, well, you see, Abraham went
wrong at 10.
You see, he should have dropped it further
down than that.
He should have gone to five.
He should have gone to three.
Isn't it easy for us in the 20th
century to pass comment on people who lived
centuries ago as though we're spiritually their superiors.
But you see, Abraham, this great spiritual man
is also mentally very cute.
You see, he's worked it all out.
He's settling for 10.
Now, why is he settling for 10?
Well, you see, in Sodom and Gomorrah, there
is Lot and his wife.
And they've got two daughters.
Depending on how you read the Hebrew, they've
got already married or about to be married.
If they're already married, then you could at
least predict several sons.
And Lot is not exactly a poor man.
He's equivalent to the alderman of the city.
That's why he's by the city gate when
these two divine messengers appear.
So if you add them all up, Lot,
his wife, the two sons-in-law, the
two daughters, possibly the children and certainly the
servants, you're home and dry.
Abraham's got it all worked out well.
10, that's the basic minimum.
The problem, you see, for Abraham was this.
He didn't just understand how bad things were
with Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah.
But he was very concerned to pray for
the glory of God and for the well
-being of his nephew.
Now, what about Lot?
Does he ever pray?
Well, yes, he does.
If you can call it a prayer.
He has escaped from Sodom and Gomorrah.
Look at verse 18 of the next chapter.
And he's being redirected to the plain of
Mamre where uncle Abraham resides.
But Lot says to them, no, my lord,
please, your servant has found favor in your
eyes and you have shown great kindness to
me in sparing my life.
But I can't flee to the mountains.
This disaster will overtake me and I'll die.
Look, here is a town near enough to
run to it and it is small.
Let me flee to it.
It is very small, isn't it?
Then my life will be spared.
I, me, my, mine, even with the sulfur
of Sodom and Gomorrah smelling from his clothes.
Lot still argues with God for his own
little Sodom.
And the only prayer that is recorded that
fell from the lips of Lot is an
egocentric prayer.
All right, let's conclude.
Here are two extremes, Abraham and Lot.
The one is called a friend of God.
The other, the New Testament tells us, is
a righteous man.
Now, I want to ask you, which chapter
reflects you?
The 18th or the 19th?
Or maybe you live sort of in between,
because there are grades in our spirituality.
Test yourself in the area of making God
feel at home.
Test yourself in the area of hospitality.
Test yourself in the area of, can I
be God's confident?
Test yourself in the area of, how powerful
are my prayers?
And for what am I praying?
I can't prove this, but when Paul writes
in 1 Corinthians 3, he refers to those
who are saved as by fire.
I can't prove that he had Lot in
mind, but it seems to me a very
reasonable hypothesis.
Saved, but nothing to show the Lord Jesus
for his Calvary love.
Saved, but no tracts that were ever distributed
could have been put down on your account.
No outstanding gift of generosity ever was transferred
from you into the accounts of evangelism or
what have you.
There was never an hour spent in prayer,
never a night spent in prayer, never were
you burdened with the sins of humanity and
those who are with outside the gospel of
Jesus Christ.
Saved, saved as by fire, but with nothing
to show.
No gold, no silver, no precious metal, no
gem to place down at the crown, at
the feet of Jesus Christ.
What a tragedy.
Lot, a man without vision, a man without
reality, a carnal man.
Saved, but nothing to show for it.
By and by, when I look at his
face, face that was marred, brow that was
scarred.
By and by, when I look on his
face, I wish I'd give him more.
Far, far more.
More of my life than I ever gave
before.
By and by, when I look on his
face, I wish I'd given him more.
The eternal heartache of Lot.
May God spare us from it.