Lord, strengthen me that while I stand firm
on the rock and strong in thee, I
may stretch out a loving hand to wrestlers
with their troubled feet.
For Jesus' sake.
Amen.
I would just like to take one second
to thank you, for many of you here
have been praying for me daily during the
past month.
And the fact that I am here at
all is a testimony to the fact that
God has heard your prayers.
My doctor has said to me before I
went to Keswick, speak quietly, don't get excited,
and don't take more than 20 minutes.
I said to him, but nobody would recognize
me.
If I have to speak more quietly than
usual, that may be a blessing to some
people, you may be thankful for it.
But if I do, I want you to
know it is not that the fire has
gone from my heart, but I seek to
be articulate in the burden which God has
given me during these past months.
And in reading my Bible, I came across
one verse which became daily the prayer of
my heart.
And as I turned to the study of
the word, the context of it, it became
the message from God to my heart to
you this morning.
In Genesis 27 and verse 38, Genesis 27
and verse 38, And
Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but
one blessing, my father?
Bless me, even me also, O my father.
And Esau lifted up his voice and went.
I truly believe that we meet at Keswick
this year at a most momentous hour in
the history of the church.
Pressures of every kind are being brought to
bear upon Christian people, which I believe are
all symptomatic of the fact that Jesus is
coming soon.
On the one hand, there is the open,
devastating opposition of the devil expressed, for example,
in the tragedies which have taken place since
last we met here in the Congo.
I read in one missionary magazine lately that
there are more Christians who have paid the
price of their lives for the sake of
the gospel in this generation than in any
other in the history of the church.
That seems almost unbelievable.
But it's true that many a postcript has
been written to Hebrews 11 in this past
year, and 30 years ago we were all
saying that kind of thing doesn't happen now.
And on the other hand, there are the
much more subtle pressures brought upon us by
those who are the advocates of unity at
any price, and who seem to believe that
the answer to all our problems is the
creation of a world church.
My friends, I believe that unity, true unity,
commences at the center and not at the
circumference.
And it can never be created by adding
a mass of unregenerate people to redeem society.
The true church is already united by the
Holy Spirit, and shares the life of Jesus
Christ.
And for that fact, Keswick stands as a
clear testimony, all one in Christ Jesus.
But all is not well with the evangelical
church.
Living in the midst of a generation which
has discarded Christian standards, and where every man's
conscience is to be his only guide, somehow
we seem strangely inadequate to face this challenge.
And the confusion in the minds of some
regarding the charismatic gifts of the Spirit have
successfully diverted us from the priority task of
rescuing a generation from hell.
We are strangely lacking in power, strangely lacking
in authority, strangely lacking in conviction.
And I wonder if we are not at
Keswick this year, bewildered, even humiliated.
It was said at the Edinburgh Convention Conference,
rather, in 1910, we have lost the eternal
youthfulness of Christianity, and aged into calculating manhood.
We seldom pray for the extraordinary, the limitless,
the glorious, the miracle.
If that was true then, it's a thousand
times more true now.
Mr. Len Mould, the secretary of the World
Evangelization Crusade, is quoted in a recent issue
of the Christian as saying, is it possible
that the Holy Spirit's hand for commission is
lifting off the people of Britain, and falling
upon our African brethren?
I saw Africans weep as they pray for
the unsaved in Tibet and Brazil.
I saw 800 Africans stand to dedicate their
lives to God for service anywhere.
At Keswick and Kali, people stand to make
similar dedications, and I'm glad of it.
But in so many cases, something goes wrong
between the call and the boat sailing.
Something is wrong.
That reminded me, if I remember correctly, of
the statement of beloved Fred Mitchell, made from
this platform in my hearing, that of every
a hundred people who offer their lives for
God's service on the mission field here, only
five apply to mission recited, and of those
five, only three take the matter any further,
and only one is accepted.
One in a hundred.
Do you understand in the light of all
this, the burden that rests upon me, and
I trust you?
And in the context of Keswick 1965, do
we not lift our hearts to God and
say, Lord, has thou but one blessing, my
father?
Bless me, even me also, my father.
That is my prayer for Keswick this year.
Perhaps if we admit that something is wrong,
and as Keswick can believe that one of
us would deny then perhaps the way into
fullness of blessing is to discover the root
of the trouble.
And no matter what it costs us to
face it, I mean that, no matter what
it costs to face it, for ourselves personally,
never mind about the people next to you,
but make your prayer now as I speak
to you, bless me, even me also, my
father.
When I read that verse, I began to
think about the context.
Who was it that came with this plaintive
cry to Isaac, there is a rejection here
that was final, and it was made by
Ethel.
An exceeding great and bitter cry, says verse
34.
You know him well.
In the 25th chapter of Genesis, you read
the story of the tragedy of his life.
He was the man who despised his birthright.
A man with many splendid qualities of character
about him.
I imagine a very attractive man on the
human level, an athlete.
Yet one who was, as the Bible says,
a profane person.
A worldly minded person, who cared little for
the things that are unseen and eternal.
Who put priority upon the things that are
of time.
He didn't care two pants for the covenant
blessings of God to Abram.
He never cared that he was to be
the spiritual leader of his family or home.
To him, a bird in the hand was
worth two in the bush.
The immediate mattered far more to him than
the future.
The gratification of the flesh meant much more
than life in the spirit.
And he sold his birthright for a mess
of pottage.
Let us well bear in mind that he
didn't do it on the spur of the
moment.
It is Alexander White, the great Edinburgh preacher,
who said, he who sells his birthright publicly,
sells it many times in his heart before
he takes it so openly to the market.
He bewhistles it, cheapens it, despises it, and
did it right to himself long before he
sells it so cheaply to someone else.
A Christian never has the tragic experience of
a public breakdown until he's had some private
bargaining with the devil.
He so has shown his contempt for his
birthright, no doubt many times before now.
And if you had been a member of
his family or you knew him well, you
knew he cared little for it.
You would have known that it was the
simplest thing in the world for somebody to
make an offer and to get it.
Isaac knew, and Rebecca knew, and Jacob knew.
They had heard him jesting about it, talking
laxly about the blessing.
He had often given himself away before he
actually took the fatal step.
And once the deed was done, he did
eat and drink and rose up and went
his way.
Thus he despised his birthright.
The consequences of that transaction were soon known.
More and more he entered into the company
of heathen communities which surrounded the people of
God, the people who looked for a city
whose builder and maker is God.
Soon he entered into a heathen marriage with
two women which, since Genesis 26 and 35,
were a grief of mine to Isaac and
Rebecca.
Oh, he lived bitterly to regret his choice.
Just put alongside, if you will, the picture
of his animal contentment with a mess of
pottage.
And of his despair when he wailed, hast
thou but one blessing.
He found out his mistake.
A sense of the preciousness of the thing
that he despised woke in him.
But it was too late.
There are consequences of every false choice.
Youth has gone.
Nobody can alter that.
Opportunities have gone and they can't be recovered.
Habits are formed and associations are determined and
character is formed.
And as the writer to the Hebrews says,
for he knows that afterwards, when he would
have inherited the blessing, he was rejected.
For he found no place of repentance, though
he sought it carefully with tears.
Does that all seem very remote to Keswick,
1965?
Perhaps you think it is.
It isn't to me.
For in a very real sense, God has
burnt into my heart that this is the
clue to what is wrong with the church.
But don't let's talk about the church as
a whole.
Let us search our own hearts personally as
he has done mine, preparing this message.
Think with me a moment about, not a
rejection that was final as it was in
the case of Esau, but about riches that
we have forfeited.
Tell me, have we sold our birthright?
What is the birthright of a Christian?
It couldn't be expressed more clearly than perhaps
Romans 8, 32, he that spared not his
son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not with him also freely
give us all things?
Or perhaps Ephesians 1, 3, blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ.
Or perhaps in 1 Peter 1, 3 and
4, blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his
abundant mercy, hath forgotten us again unto a
living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled,
that fadeth not in way reserved in heaven
for you.
Perhaps it might be difficult to define in
a few words, but the birthright of a
Christian which has been purchased for us with
the precious blood of Christ at infinite cost,
introduces him to an untold area of blessing,
in the enjambment of which alone he is
able to fulfill his God-intended function of
communication of Holy Ghost light to other people.
Right at the very heart of that birthright
upon the enjambment of which most other blessings
of the Christian life depend, are three for
which this Kizzik Convention seeks to proclaim as
the secret of victorious and useful Christian life.
People say Kizzik is, oh, a pious holiness
convention.
People say it is right off on left
field, as they say in America.
I say that the truth of this convention,
when it's understood, is the gateway to revival,
is the very key to recovery of blessing,
is a secret to the Church going out
again in power and in victory.
First of all, there is a life of
constant cleansing in the blood of Christ.
If we walk in the light, as he
is in the light, we have fellowship one
with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanses us from all sin, 1 John 1
7.
But what your God cleanses, he fills.
Not for our own pious enjoyment, or to
enable us to say, I've got a blessing,
and I'm holier than you are, but for
the purpose of communication.
As Jesus said in John 7 37 38,
He that believeth on me, out from his
inner man shall flow rivers of living water.
This spake he of the Spirit, which they
that believe on him should receive, for the
Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that
Jesus was not yet glorified.
And the experience of his fullness in our
lives, with the consequent ability to communicate life,
leads in the third place to the life
of communion with God.
If he abide in me, and my words
abide in you, he shall ask what he
will, and that shall be done unto you.
You see, cleansing for his use, leads to
communication for his glory, and that in turn
leads to communion for his enjoyment.
That's the very heart of the Christian's birthright,
the seeker of authority, the seeker of his
power, for the glory of God, for the
salvation of man, to the utter discomfiture of
the devil.
And when we've lost that, we've lost everything.
These blessings are not held out on a
plate to us, to help ourselves when we
want to, but if we hunger and thirst
we shall be filled.
If we thirst for fullness we shall find
it.
The test of healthy living is good appetite,
right appetite.
It's interesting that it was food which brought
about human downfall.
Adam craved something which was forbidden, and he
ate it.
And it was refusal of food which brought
about human salvation.
If thou be the son of God, turn
these stones into bread.
And Jesus said no.
Is it not here, just here, that we
have despised our birthright?
My friend, I open my heart to you.
How many of us, as we look back
over the years that have gone, have to
confess sadly and retrace in the bitter experience
and fruits of experience moments when we thirsted
for other things than God?
Perhaps it was some sin that we thought
long since had been tamed, and it leapt
out at us one day, and attracted by
its fascination, down we went.
It took us off our guard.
Or perhaps it was a slow, steady drift
into worldliness, becoming like Esau, a profane person,
a worldly-minded person, beginning to jest and
to talk lightly of spiritual things.
What's the harm in it anyway, became our
dangerous motto?
Your family know, they've noticed it, and it
is a grief of mine to them.
Your fellow missionaries know, and it's the cause
of the hold-up of blessing on your
mission station.
Your church member and your church deacons, they
know, you're never at the prayer meeting now,
television's more attractive to you.
You don't care like you used to.
You're never as an open-ass as others.
You've given up your job in the church.
You say you're too busy.
Nonsense.
If you're too busy for God's work, your
priorities are all wrong.
Or perhaps it is the appeal of this
affluent society of today, which has tempted us
into a spirit of carnality, and worldliness, and
prayerlessness.
And we've lost our taste for the Word
of God.
We've skipped our quiet time.
We're hide from Him.
We don't want to pray.
We don't want to read our Bible.
We skip all that.
And like Peter, we found ourselves warming ourselves
at the wrong fire.
We've despised our birthright.
And the blessings which were won for us
lightly, which were won for us by the
precious blood of Christ, we've treated lightly.
And like he saw, we rise up, and
we go our way.
The enjoyment of the present had at that
moment meant more than the hope of the
future.
But of course, we've maintained our Catholic theology,
and our Catholic reputation, and our evangelical position,
because we simply had to.
But there's a strange lack of reality, and
authority, and power in our testimony.
And somehow, somehow, it's very unreal.
And the Word of God speaks with almost
terrifying authority.
He that despised Moses' law died without mercy
under two or three witnesses.
Of how much sore of punishment, suppose he,
shall he be thought worthy, who has trodden
underfoot the Son of God, and has counted
the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was
sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite
to the Spirit of grace.
I feel like saying, like the congregation at
Pentecost said, men and brethren, what shall we
do?
Oh, like David, have mercy upon me, O
God.
According to thy lovingkindness, according to the multitude
of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions,
and wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and
cleanse me from my sin.
For by knowledge my transgression and my sin
is ever before me.
A rejection that was fatal.
Riches that we, we blood-bought people, have
forfeited.
But you know, the Lord has said something
else to me than that, praise the Lord.
It's not too late, there's a recovery we
can find.
Did you read an article in the Latin
America magazine that was most penetrating, called the
Latin America Evangelist, which was written by my
friend Horace Fenton, who was director of the
Latin America Mission, and has succeeded Kenneth Strachan,
a name which will be long remembered for
his remarkable work in evangelism in depth in
Guatemala and elsewhere.
Mr. Fenton's article was headed, It's Not Too
Late, and he drew a graphic picture of
the last few days of the life of
our Lord, when it seemed as if nothing
could be altered.
But it wasn't too late for Jesus to
weep over Jerusalem.
It wasn't too late for him to cleanse
the temple.
It wasn't too late for him to teach
the people.
And in the mercy of God, I believe,
at Keswick 1965, it's not too late for
a thoroughgoing, drastic, out-and-out repentance.
If we seek a place of repentance carefully
with tears, there's a blessed contrast between Esau's
experience and what may be here.
If we long to have the birthright restored
to us and the fullness to enter our
lives, that longing itself is sure to bring
it.
It doesn't matter how late, my friend, or
how long you've been living out of the
will of God, we can never go to
our Heavenly Father in vain with Esau's prayer,
Lord, Father, bless me, even me also.
I think to realize the truth about ourselves
is perhaps the first thing.
It's not easy for me to say this.
In recent months, I have been overwhelmed with
the revelation of my own heart.
Thoughts have poured in upon me of which
I am ashamed.
Habits of long ago have threatened the invasion
of my mind, and the temptation to give
in has been tremendous.
I've never known in all my life anything
like it.
And it seemed to me that as I
went through a spiritual agony, it seemed that
my Father in Heaven came to me and
said, don't you understand, that is all that
you are and ever will be, apart from
grace.
There are some people that say that Keswick
teaches sinless perfection, in which case I'd better
resign quickly.
Holiness is not sinless perfection, it's sinful corruption.
It is the total depravity of the flesh.
I know that in me, that is, in
my flesh dwelleth no good thing.
My friend, that to me is not theology,
it's experience.
To say, in my flesh dwelleth no good
thing, well, that's theology.
But to say I know that in me,
in my flesh dwelleth no good thing, it's
experience.
The only good thing about a Christian is
Jesus.
And I know that if in desperation, and
with hunger, and earnestness of desire, it may
be with bitter tears, I pour out to
Him my heart and say, bless me, even
me, my Father, He will hear.
You can go to your university, and you
can go to your theological college, and you
can get all the training that you can,
and you need it.
Tell me, have you ever found, or met,
or heard of, a theological college which teaches
you to weep over your sin?
I know one that does.
It's at the feet of Jesus, alone, in
prayer.
Bless me, my friend, would you make that,
would you make that definite this morning?
He knows the blessing you need, the area
in which spiritual recovery is urgently required.
Bless me, even me, never mind my friends
at church, at home.
The need's in my own heart.
And I realize it.
The birthright has been despised somewhere, and I've
turned from him.
And though I may have lost spiritual authority,
spiritual tone in my service in the church,
or in the mission field, or in the
business, whatever my sphere of witness may be,
yet, Lord, restore to me the years.
Bless me.
Soon before the conclusion of my ministry at
Moody Church, a dear man came up to
me after service and said to me with
tears in my eyes, his eyes, he said,
uh, I know all about what you're talking
about, every word of it, but now I've
made a success in business.
I've been up at six o'clock every
morning.
I've had no quiet time for years.
I've gone out to business, seen my men
get on the job, making the money with
everything.
I've made a colossal fortune, but oh God,
what it's cost me.
Bless me.
Bless me, oh my Father, make it desperate.
The O has gone out of our praying.
May it come back again as we realize
we can't go on as we are.
We can't, my friend.
Make we say like Jacob, Lord, my father,
I won't let you go except, you bless
me, my father.
That's the dynamic relationship of prayer.
When I believed in Christ and submitted my
life to him as a young man, a
relationship was established which can't be broken.
He is my father, he is your father,
and using the language of the prodigal, I
will arise and go to my father and
say unto him, I have sinned and am
no worthy, more worthy to be called thy
son.
Make me, is that prayer yours?
Listen, just a word in conclusion.
Do you have your friend, Keswick, a companion,
your husband, your wife, your fellow missionary, equally
needy, equally dry as you?
Will you seek them out?
Will you go into some quiet place around
Keswick each day this week, perhaps early in
the morning, perhaps in the evening, perhaps sometime
during the day, and get on your knees
together with that friend and pray this prayer,
bless me, even me also, my father, and
where two of you agree as touching anything,
it shall be done of my father which
is in heaven.
My friend, a lifetime of repentance can't save
you, but the blood of Jesus can.
And to plead his precious blood is to
experience his wonderful cleansing.
And the Holy Ghost always come upon that
which the blood cleanses, and flows in reviving
blessing.
I will pour water upon him that is
thirsty, and floods upon dry ground.
And once again they will come back to
all of us, please God, at Keswick.
The experiencing, the experiencing of cleansing, and the
power to communicate Holy Spirit life, and the
power to reach out with the gospel, and
communion with my father in heaven will be
re-established, and the birthright will be renewed.
O breath of life, come sweeping through us,
revive thy church with life and power.
O breath of life, come cleanse, renew us,
and set thy church to meet this hour.
O wind of God, come bend us, break
us, till humbly we confess our need.
Then in thy tenderness remake us, revive, restore.
For this we plead, Lord my father, do
it this week, do it today, do it
now, do it in me.
And to him be all the glory.
Amen.
Let us pray.
A moment's quiet that you may talk to
your father.
Lord, I am thine.
Save me, for I have sought thy precept.
Amen.
Our closing hymn is number 40.
Number 40.
Pass me not, O gentle Saviour, hear my
humble cry, while in others thou art calling,
do not pass me by.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
the love of God, and the fellowship of
the Holy Spirit, be with us all now,
and until the morning shall dawn, the shadows
flee away, and we see him face to
face.
Amen.