Speak, Lord, for thy servant's hearing.
Speak just now, some message to me, my
name, which thou only dost know.
Speak now through thy holy word, and make
me speak some wonderful truth.
Thou hast to show to me, and, O
Lord, thou who hast placed the burden of
this message upon my heart for this day.
May it come into the heart and conscience
of this dear people, as thus saith the
Lord.
And may they forget the messenger, seeing only
thee.
For thy name's grace.
Amen.
I have a word on my heart to
bring to you this afternoon, which the Lord
hath laid there, I believe, because that would
be the only authority for bringing it.
A word which I recognize, before I give
it, in some sections may not be popular.
But I want you to know that whether
you like it or not, it comes out
of the fire of some years in the
ministry, and out of the testings of Christian
works.
And I trust that it may just come
as a word from the heart of God
through me to your heart today.
I want you to think with me for
a moment about this man Jeremiah, and his
ministry.
You can never assess the value or the
quality of a man's ministry, or a Christian's
testimony for that matter, unless you see it
against the background of circumstances in which he
lives.
One of the greatest effects on character is
environment.
And I want to remind you in the
first place this afternoon of the conditions under
which this man Jeremiah lived.
He ministered for about 40 years, during the
period prior to the captivity of the people
of Judah by Babylon.
In that time he saw the rise and
fall of five kings.
Apart from one very brief period you may
remember, under the reign of Josiah.
Some five years after Jeremiah commenced his ministry,
when the Word of God was discovered in
the temple, and when there was a brief
period of revival blessing.
Apart from that very brief interlude, Jeremiah ministered
for 40 years, in a country and in
situations in which the whole trend was away
from God.
The trend was downward.
Everybody and everything seemed to be going downstream.
There was political intrigue.
There was religious hypocrisy.
And the tragic thing about it, of course,
was that the people who were going downhill
were God's people.
Jeremiah saw a complete shift in his time
of world power.
The great empire of Egypt gave way to
the power of Babylon.
The whole center of world power shifted from
one great power to another.
And in the course of world-shaking events,
and a world-shattering experience in that sense,
and in the downward trend of morals and
intrigue and compromise, the greatest tragedy of all
was that God's people just went with the
times.
They were his by election.
They were his by sovereign choice.
They were his because he brought them, and
brought them out from Egypt and through a
wilderness into a precious land in which there
was to flow milk and honey.
They were his because they'd received and they'd
proved his promises.
They were the instruments through which he was
going to fulfill his plan for world salvation.
And yet, yet, in the second chapter of
this prophecy in the 13th verse there comes
the sobs, if I may dare to use
that term, and I don't think in any
exaggerated sense the sobs from the heart of
God.
My people, my people have committed two evils.
They have forsaken me the fountain of living
water.
And they have hewn them out systems, broken
systems which can hold no water.
My people, no obedience to God had given
way to expediency.
Trust in God had been replaced by compromise,
and a confidence in the arm of the
flesh and in material power.
My people, and in a day above all
days, in a generation perhaps beyond all others,
when God was counting upon some in that
situation to be as the very salt of
the earth, truly the salt had lost its
favor.
And the people along through whom God could
fulfill his plan, my people have committed two
evils.
Those were the conditions in which Jeremiah lived.
I am well aware, as every other preacher
must be here today, of the danger of
pressing Old Testament analogy too far, and relating
it to present-day conditions.
But my dear friend, I am convinced, if
I know anything about my Bible, and read
anything at all into the immense significance of
the generation in which you and I live,
we live in a day just like that.
We have lived, some of us, long enough
to see a complete shift of world power.
I have lived for four years on the
other side of the ocean, but my American
friends will forgive me for saying I'm as
British as ever.
And this is my home, and this is
the country I love.
Nevertheless, as a Britisher, you and I have
to acknowledge that one day Britain, number one
world power, has lost its place of preeminence.
And the trend of world power has shifted
across the Atlantic Ocean, and it's in the
hands of the United States of America.
And this nation, fifty years ago, in almost
every home there was a family Bible.
There was the worship of God.
There was the belief in Scripture.
There was at least some measure of religious
conviction.
But this nation, which metaphorically had the ball
at his feet, threw it away.
And the Word of God began to be
discredited in our focus.
And the people began to sit loosely upon
morals.
And this nation, with all its great, its
greatness, found its national strength, sapped at the
very root, the tragic thing about it all.
And God saved me today in this message,
which burns in my heart.
Saved me from being cynical, or hard, or
critical with any.
But rather, may it be just to my
own soul, a prayer.
The tragedy of it all is that God
looked down upon the church in this country,
and has to say exactly what he said
to Jeremiah.
My people, mine by election, mine by choice,
mine by redemption, mine by purchase, mine because
I went to Calvary for them, have committed
two evils.
They have forsaken me, the fountain of living
water, and they've hewn them out systems, broken
systems that can hold no water.
Oh, you say, Mr. Preacher, that's too hard.
Wait a minute.
Our beloved friend George Duncan, whose presence at
this convention would have meant so much, and
whose ministry I personally miss so greatly, as
I'm sure you do, and how we pray
that soon he may be restored to health
and strength again.
He told me that in the early years
of World War II, he went to visit
a friend of his who had a vicarage
near Carlisle.
And this vicarage was a very old-fashioned
place, stone-built building, I imagine not far
from where we're sitting today.
And it was in 1941 and 42, and
as Mr. Duncan went into that old house,
he was quite amazed to find that it
had been renovated, and everything was scintillating with
chromium plates and electricity.
There was an electric cooker, an electric stove,
electric light, electric iron, electric everything, everything was
electric.
But as he went into the house, to
his amazement he saw that the man in
the house, or the lady of the house,
was using a dirty paraffin oil stove to
cook.
And the lamps hanging from the ceiling were
smelling of oil, and everything was smelling of
paraffin.
And the vicar looked at Mr. Duncan and
said, George, now look, don't look so astonished.
Don't you know that it's a war on
here, and we have everything except the power?
Again, I don't want to be hard, but
oh, how God has hit my very soul
with this thing today.
Beloved Christian brethren and sisters, there's a war
on today.
And it's an eternal war from which there
will never be an armistice till the King
of Kings shall come, and we shall see
his lovely face.
And the Church of Christ today may know
that our acceptance, let me check myself to
say it, but by and large, the Church
of Christ today has everything except the power.
He shall receive power after that the Holy
Ghost upon you, and that's the one thing
we know.
Oh, we've got our program.
We've got a certain amount of money to
carry on.
We've got our organizations, uniformed and non-uniformed.
We've got our streamlined ideas.
We've got all sorts of plans and methods
to reach people for Christ, but we have
lost somehow the mighty, moving, melting, convicting power
of God the Holy Ghost, and we're fighting
a losing battle already.
I'm not a pessimist, but God save me
from sticking my head in the sand like
an ostrich and refusing to face reality.
Satan is capturing thousands upon thousands more souls
than our lovely Lord is.
And unless God visits Britain with Holy Ghost
revival, we're doomed.
I believe it with all my heart, and
if revival doesn't break out at Keswick, where
on earth can it break out?
With a company of people hungry for God,
thirsty for God's best, surely this week isn't
going to pass, and the years go by,
and this all be history, and heaven hasn't
melted and broken the hearts of all, everything
except the power.
No power to bend men and women before
God.
No power in our ministry to bring deep
-rooted conviction of truth.
Just a nice sermon and a nice message,
and everybody goes home, and as it was
in the beginning, is now ever sound.
That's all.
Never a sob, never a groan, never a
fear, never a pleading to God from everybody,
except the power.
And instead of Holy Spirit power, what do
we do?
We put over attractive programs.
We announce scintillating personalities, and God forgive me
if I exaggerate, but if a church attempts
to do a heavenly task by using Hollywood
technique, she might as well quit business altogether.
We are not in the entertainment world, we're
in the salvation.
The church today, and many movements in the
church today, I speak with utter love and
respect, but I trust with authority of the
Spirit, are doing the devil's work in bringing
entertainment inside the house of God, and are
seeking to win people to Christ by using
flashy names, and flashy ideas, and wonderful scintillating
methods.
Oh yes, my friend, that's the easy way.
A little while ago, it was my privilege
to have a little fellowship with Billy Graham,
a man whose ministry I rejoice in, and
who, as a man of God, I just
feel a worm beside him.
And who I believe right now at this
point is doing a renewal work for the
Lord.
Some first possibility of him coming to the
city in which I'm a minister.
He came to preach in my church a
few months ago, and in his presence I
said what I want to say to you
now.
But I understand it would cost $450,000
to bring Billy Graham and his team to
Chicago for a citywide campaign.
And if he comes, I'd be the first
to put everything into it, and roll my
sleeves up and get down to it, and
work in prayer and service.
And the whole church would be shut down
apart from our prayer meetings to do the
same thing.
But I said, what Chicago or any other
city needs can be had without costing a
penny.
One single penny.
If the church is prepared to die, die
to its program, and to its scintillating ideas,
and its streamlined methods, and fed the old
path to Calvin.
And somehow as a clarion call in my
soul, as an alarm bell sounded in my
heart, as I put in a redemption, mine
by Christ, mine because I love them, have
forsaken me.
And there's too many systems, broken systems that
can hold no one.
Is in some measure that true?
What do you think God's purpose is for
the age in which we live?
What do you think God is seeking to
do today?
Let me ask you to look at something
in this prophecy that I find very interesting.
Because in the midst of a situation like
that, in which there was this, there was
this reversion as it were from obedience to
expediency and from power to program, what was
God doing?
Have you ever noticed in reading the prophecy
of Jeremiah that over and over again, 11
times to be exact, a phrase is used
regarding God which is absolutely shallow.
I've only time to ask you to refer
to one or two of them quickly.
Chapter 7 and verse 13.
Jeremiah 7 and verse 13.
And now, because ye have done all these
works, saith the Lord, and I speak unto
you rising up early and speaking, but ye
heard not, and I called you, but ye
answered not.
Notice that I speak unto you rising up
early and speaking.
Verse 25 same chapter.
Since the day that your fathers came forth
out of the land of Egypt unto this
day, I have even sent unto you all
my servants for prophets daily, rising up early
and sending them.
Chapter 11 verse 7.
I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the
day that I brought them up out of
the land of Egypt, even until this day,
rising early and protesting, saying, obeying my voice.
Chapter 32 verse 33.
And they have turned unto me the back
and not the face, though I taught them
rising up early and teaching them, yet they
have not hearkened to receive instruction.
Eleven times in this prophecy it is said
of God that he rose up early.
This of course is metaphorical language, but it
suggests a loving God with a burdened heart.
It suggests our God with a broken heart
and a bleeding heart as our Savior wept
over Jerusalem.
Here is God rising up early to plead,
to protest, to cry, obey my voice, return
to me.
What a picture.
My people have forsaken me.
My people have hewn them out systems, but
I cannot let them go.
I have no other means of reaching to
the world except they repent and turn to
me.
He is a nation going to wreck and
ruin.
He is a world going to pieces and
young people about a million going to the
devil.
But God with a shoulder under a burden,
an almighty God getting under the load and
pleading with his people to come back and
share this load, this heart-anxiety.
Listen to me.
God's purpose in Jeremiah's time was not that
there should be a mass movement of people
back to God because he knew it wouldn't
happen, he told Jeremiah so.
It was not that millions of people should
repent and be saved.
It was not to get masses of decisions
for Christ.
It was not to see multitudes converted.
For of course God does not will the
death of a sinner.
But his concern that all men everywhere should
repent.
But God made it perfectly clear to Jeremiah
that in that day in which he lived
that kind of thing wasn't going to happen.
And I'm no pessimist, but I can find
nowhere in my New Testament to expect anything
but a declension from God until Jesus comes
again.
A movement away from God I want to
risk saying something perhaps that won't be popular,
but I say it with deep conviction that
God's purpose is 1957, is not primarily the
conversion of a soul, it's a manufacture of
a faith.
Not primarily getting a decision for Christ, but
it is the manufacture of a man of
God who will so share the burden with
the Lord of the day in which he
lives, will get under the load in prayer,
in pleading, in crying to God for revival
and say like Jacob I won't let you
go until you're blessed.
A man who behind the scenes will be
on his face pleading with God for blessing
and revival in the church.
Because service in harmony in the purpose of
God is absolutely essential to the formation of
Christian character in the likeness of God.
The way we some of us serve the
Lord you'd think honestly we were indispensable.
God could get on far better without a
lot of us.
And the whole trouble is, and I say
it to my own heart, we get too
big for God to use and too important.
We want our name in the press and
if we don't able to report hundreds of
conversions and a lot of blessings, oh well
of course nobody will ever know about us,
who cares anyway.
I say to you my friend that you
are more important to God than the work
you do for him.
You wouldn't think so by the way some
of us go on.
All the time he's put you into Christian
work in order that in your reactions to
the testings of it and the battles and
the heartaches and the groan of it and
the sob in your heart time and time
again, in order that through your reactions you
may get under the burden with God and
share the load of a prodigal word.
Weld and weep before him till the church
is broken in revival rest.
God's purpose I repeat today is to get
men who with Jeremiah will be prepared to
be counted failures on the off-showering of
the world.
If only they might share the load with
the Lord Jesus and feel the throb of
his heart and share something of his tears
and his agony and his groan over a
world that has gone back and worse than
that over a church that has backflipped.
Oh yes evangelism is the essential day by
day obligation and beauty of the church all
the time.
Don't let me be misunderstood about that.
Your personal witness to Christ, the evangelism through
your pastorate and through your ministry is an
essential obligation.
But unless evangelism is the by-product of
revival it's furious what happens after a mighty
crusade like Haringey.
And 38,000 professed decisions.
What's happened to them?
Where are they?
Can you find them?
If you can't you blame Billy Graham.
Why should you?
Isn't the fact that some of them have
gone into churches like refrigerators and been frozen
out?
Isn't the fact that the condition of our
churches is such that we don't deserve converts?
Is that why God holds back blessings?
Is that why he can't trust us with
it?
Is that why people don't come in?
If they did they'd be absolutely staggered at
the kind of thing goes on today in
the average evangelical church.
They thought Christians love each other and they
find people won't speak to each other.
They thought we were one in Christ and
they find them hobbling over doctrines.
Like a friend of mine said so so
cleverly and yet so aptly, when the tide
is out every little shrimp has its own
puddle.
When the tide of blessing runs low everyone
has their own little group and their own
little denomination.
We fight this way and fight that way.
Oh but if the tide only came, I
repeat, with angelism the obligation but all for
a heaven-sent revival that would mean the
church was worthy of souls and can be
trusted with the prodigal to shepherd and care
and love them and bring them into maturity.
Is the church in such a condition that
God can't trust us?
Oh but you say to me if that's
God's purpose I don't see how I have
any part in it.
That rules me out altogether does it?
Let's look for a moment before we close
at the kind of man that God chose
to do the job.
Think about Jeremiah's call, verse 5.
I formed thee, I knew thee, I sanctified
thee, I ordained thee.
Look, 75 percent of what God wanted to
do with that man to use him was
done before the man was born.
The Lord wants to get out of this
convention, heralds and girls, men and women who
see the tragedy of the condition of the
church in which we live today, and the
state of things, and he's looking for people.
Ah but look, he formed you, he knew
you, sanctified you, and he wants to ordain
you.
Before you ever enter this world God has
an eternal purpose for your life.
That you might be his partner in this
great plan.
That you might not leave the Lord Jesus
as it were alone in this place of
intercession, in this place of virgin bearing, but
that he could find somewhere a man, a
man who would get under the Lord, Jeremiah's
call.
And look what God said to him when
he sent him to do the job, verse
10.
See, I have set thee over the nations,
and over the kingdom, to root out, to
pull down, to destroy, to throw down, to
build, to pound.
Jeremiah said God I called you, I ordained
you, I want you for this thing, I
want you to come to me, and get
linked up with this eternal plan and Jeremiah,
I have put you over the mission.
Have you ever noticed the amazing language of
the first verse of the third chapter of
Luke's gospel?
Would you like just a glance at it
a second?
Luke chapter 3 and verse 1.
Here is God about to do a new
thing.
Here is the eve of our Savior's coming.
Here is the beginning of a new movement
of God and his dispensation, if you like
to use the term.
Here is God about to set upon a
new plan, a new way.
Now, how is he going to do it?
Ah, look.
Verse 1 of Luke 3.
In the fifteenth year of the reign of
Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea,
Herod, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, his brother
Philip, tetrarch of Sicilia, and of the region
of Seconitis, and Lithanius, the tetrarch of Apollos,
and of Antiochus being the high priest.
I say, what a lot of big knowledge.
What a catalogue of people.
Oh, these are important people.
No wonder, no wonder if all those sort
of fellows are around.
God is going to be able to do
something.
But look, read on.
The word of God came to John, the
son of Zechariah, in the wilderness.
Oh, what comfort that is to my heart
today.
God bypassed a lot of them and found
a nobody through whom he could work.
Bypassed authority.
Bypassed recognized religious leadership.
And went into the wilderness and found a
man whose meat was locust and honey.
A man dressed as it were in sackcloth
and ashes.
A man with a burden.
A man with a concern.
A man who was prepared to face all
those people and say to them, repent for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
A man who cared not for his popularity,
and not for his reputation, and not for
his name, and didn't want to get kudos
out of his job, and wasn't wanting to
have an axe to grind, and cared for
nothing but the glory of God, and the
blessing of the generation in which he lived,
and cared only that even though it meant
for him one day to have his head
chopped off, he would be faithful in any
situation, even to go into the home of
a king and tell him he's got no
business to be living with a woman who
wasn't his wife.
God found such a man, just a nobody.
That's all, friends.
I'm just about old enough now, I think,
to care not too strong for public praise
or public blame.
But I'm old enough now to long with
all my heart to hear one day my
Lord say, well done.
He doesn't say success, but he says good
and faithful.
Ah, friends, it won't be long before you
and I won't attend any more service, won't
attend any more meetings, and won't preach any
more sermons, and won't take any more Christian
work, and will be ushered into the presence
of God.
What's to go to say to us then?
Have you made a name for yourself in
Christian work?
Have I, by using the name of Jesus?
Have I tried to be popular?
Have I prayed to the gallery?
Have I just done the thing that everybody
else does?
Or in the name of heaven, have I
dared to stand against the stream and be
reckoned from the point of view of the
world a complete failure, if only through my
life.
God might be glorified.
God looked for a nobody, not a clever
person, but just a nobody who would share
the burden.
And he found such a man in John
Adams.
And what was his task?
It was to pluck up, to break down,
to destroy, to overthrow, to build, and to
plant.
It was to pluck up and destroy things
that God had never originated.
It was to break down and overthrow buildings
on false foundations.
But the final word of God was not
to be destruction.
It was to build up and to plant.
This was to be God's man.
And see, it was this man that God
said, I have set thee over the nations.
The wonderful thrill of it is, if God
can get out of this convention, all just
a few nobodies.
You know what he does?
He puts them over nations in Christ.
He puts them over the authority of all
the powers of darkness in the Lord Jesus.
He picks up a life that he can
trust to give him the glory, and a
life that doesn't want to be advertised, and
doesn't want publicity, and doesn't want to make
a name.
A life that cares not about being successful,
is prepared to be counted a failure, if
you like, if only Jesus might be glorified.
And that life God sets far above the
powers of darkness.
And he sends them into a long remission
session.
Sends them into a tough passage.
Sends them into a situation that seems absolutely
impossible.
But I said to a group of people,
mission is a few moments ago, what I
would say to you now, because I have
proved it in my own life, that when
God wants to do a thing that seems
humanly impossible, do you know what he does?
He gets hold of, not a man with
a lot of degrees, though it may be
so, not a man of great education, but
it may even be that, but he gets
hold of a man, who seems to be
an impossible sort of person himself, and then
snatches him up at the cross and uses
him.
And God found that man in John the
Baptist.
God found that man in Jeremiah.
And he went to do an unpopular thing.
He went to pluck up plants that God
hadn't planted.
And do you know one of the big
plants that every one of us has got
to face having to pluck out today?
It's easy cheap believism.
It's telling people that you can be saved
simply because you believe some proof set about
your Bible.
An easy decision for Christ, which is signing
a card, and which leaves the self-right
undisturbed.
And God is looking for men today who
are going to say, you cannot be saved,
except as the outcome of your salvation you
display it in total obedience to the word
of God.
He that is born of God says, my
Bible does not continue in the practice of
sin.
Speaking at a Bible conference a little while
ago down in a south coast town in
the United States.
A little group of young people came up
to me very angrily after my message.
Led by the young people's leader of that
particular work.
And they were literally livid and they said,
look you're adding more to grace and we
don't like your teaching.
I said, that's very interesting.
Tell me exactly what you mean by that.
Well, you say you're demanding something from us
and God gives us everything.
I said, I'm not demanding anything that the
New Testament doesn't demand from people who have
been forgiven.
I said to one girl who was there,
who was the ringleader, are you a Christian?
Oh yes, she said, I am.
Well, I said, what are you arguing about?
Well, she said, I tell lies every day.
Oh, I said, really?
How long have you been a Christian?
Ten years.
Yes?
And you go on telling lies?
Oh yes, almost every day.
I told one this morning.
And she said, it's so wonderful I'll just
go straight to Jesus and ask him to
forgive me.
And he does.
I don't find that kind of Christianity in
my Bible.
I don't find that kind of Christian life
anywhere in the word of God.
And somehow today, beloved, you and I, if
we're to be true to our generation, have
got to stand up fearlessly out of lies
that can speak not simply with words, but
out of lies that can speak as living
evidence that God has done this for us
and demand that the righteousness of the Lord
might be fulfilled in us by the Holy
Spirit.
And there's no such thing as salvation without
the evidence of works.
Faith without works is dead.
Believe and be saved.
Oh yes, but what do you mean by
belief?
Total commitment to Jesus Christ.
And out of that total commitment, in the
power of His Spirit, and obedience to the
word of God.
Root out, pluck up, destroy this easy cheap
salvationism that fundamentalists are putting over today in
the name of Christ, and which is no
gospel at all.
That was Jeremiah's past.
And from the standpoint, my dear listeners, from
the standpoint of the world, the man was
a complete failure.
People saw him in a dungeon, scoffed at
him, laughed at him, jeered at him, rebuked
him and punished him.
But God looked down upon that man and
saw the triumph of his purposes.
And I see in Jeremiah, a man living
in fellowship with God in the midst of
darkness.
A man who lived in the close communion
and fellowship with the Lord.
A man familiar with the voice of God.
A man who shrunk when he talked to
God about his work and said, I'm but
a child, I cannot speak.
But a man who never shrunk when he
talked to the people in the name of
the Lord.
This was Jeremiah.
This was the man that God said, gird
up thy lines, arise and speak.
I found you just a nobody and because
you're prepared for that, I put my authority
into your life and I'm sending you out
in my name.
Oh my dear friend, God needs you today.
And you're saying to him in answer to
this message, Lord I'm only a child, I
don't know how.
I could never fulfill such a responsibility as
I close this afternoon.
I want to remind you that there are
several cases in the Bible of men who
share this burden with God and of whom
it is said they rose up early.
I find in Genesis chapter 22 that Abram
rose up early to worship and that meant
giving Isaac as a burnt offering.
I find that Jacob rose up early to
trust the Lord for all his future life.
That Moses rose early in the morning and
went into the mountain to receive orders from
heaven.
That Joshua got up early one morning and
ruthlessly exterminated him from the camp.
That David got up early one morning to
fight Goliath.
Ah, but above them all in a trust
unique all alone by himself.
A great while before day the Lord Jesus
Christ rose and went apart into a solitary
place and there prayed, sharing the burden, sharing
the load.
Now listen, don't go away from this tent
today, this afternoon and say that I'm suggesting
you should get up an hour earlier every
day.
That might be a good thing for some
of you but I'm not suggesting that.
But I'm only saying up from my heart
to your heart today that we're on the
wrong foot in Christian witness all together and
that we're putting over big ideas and big
programs and God is looking from Keswick for
men who are prepared to die to their
reputation and their popularity and their ambition just
to be a nobody in the hand of
the Lord and people whom he can trust
in every situation to bring him honor and
bring him glory and bring him pain.
Just a man who's prepared to hand over
his life to the Lord Jesus Christ for
his use and for his service.
A man who will know something in the
secret place of sharing the burden with God.
And listen, a man who not at a
convention meeting in public but somewhere alone with
God like Abraham will rise up and offer
Isaac his nearest and his dearest and put
that upon the altar for God.
Has God been speaking to you about that
this week?
Has he, has he touched you right down
to the roots of your soul?
And have you, have you risen up early
to worship?
And have you put aside any affection which
has come between God and you?
God never took Isaac and never would have
done.
But God was determined that nothing should come
between himself and Abraham.
Have you risen up early to offer Isaac?
Have you like Joshua got up early and
shared, showed to God that you're under the
responsibility under the load of the day in
which you live?
And you're not any longer going to play
church or play religion or play Christianity.
But God sees you as a man under
a burden sharing alone and ruthlessly you have
got up before God and exterminated sin and
put it away.
Do you be real with God these days?
Not what you're going to get from a
platform.
Not what you're going to get at a
meeting.
Not what you're going to get in a
crowd.
But it's what you're going to do when
the crowd is all dispersed.
That matters.
How you go out to the tent with
the devil waiting for you.
With some friend to chatter to you.
And somebody to indulge in social, harmless conversation.
But somehow the resolutions made in Keswick tent
haven't been put into action.
God is looking for men who are prepared
to deal with sin.
To put aside affections that are unworthy.
And to come to him and offer their
lives just as nobody.
But through him, through them, God may move
in his church and give to us at
Keswick and in our churches a mighty heaven
-sent revival of the spirit of God.
But all I have to say comes from
the Lord.
I trust your heart with some measure of
conviction.
Just believe that all that I've said has
been preached first to my own soul before
it's come to you.
But I want just to close by telling
you that Dr. F.B. Meyer from the
Keswick platform years ago told how at one
time in his life ministering in Regent's Park
Chapel in London having a very dead and
difficult time with dwindling congregations and nobody listening.
They came so discouraged but he said every
time I stood up to speak something came
between me and God.
And I knew it was wrong and I
knew it was sin but the Lord had
everything else in my life and I just
thought that I could keep this to my
own self and enjoy it and indulge it.
But one Sunday, said Dr. Meyer, after coming
back from church I fought a battle.
It had been a miserable day.
I'd been so dead and useless and fruitless
and so lacking in Holy Spirit anointing and
I went into my study, said Dr. Meyer,
and knelt at my desk and said, Lord,
you've had every key to every part of
my life except one.
Lord Jesus, please take this last key.
I can't fight this battle anymore.
And when the Dr. Meyer told that story
he said, dear Lord, never took that key.
He took the door and in place of
the door he put a window and ever
since that day and I can think of
the radiance on his face ever since that
day the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God has shone into my heart
in the face of Jesus Christ.
Oh, fellow Christians, God wants to speak to
you and set you above in Christ and
use you as an instrument for revival in
your church and in your fellowship and to
the world.
What paltry, stupid little key do you hold
on to that blocks his power so that
you have everything except the anointing of the
Holy Ghost?
May the Lord find every key laid at
his feet this day and forever.
Let's pray.
May we spend just one moment in quiet
prayer and go to hand over to the
chairman for a verse or two of a
closing hymn.
Before I do, just let's spend 30 seconds
in silence and in that 30 seconds all
that there might be a sob from your
heart a cry to the throne of God
for forgiveness, for cleansing a glad surrender of
all you have and all you are to
him that you might just be a nobody
careless of blame or praise but henceforth to
be his instrument for honor and glory.
And Jesus says, be not afraid of their
pages I have set thee above in Christ.