As you listen in many parts of the
world to this service broadcast from England, you
may be wondering what is the state of
religion in this country today.
For this is a land that has been
accustomed to call itself Christian.
I want to explain, first of all, that
we are meeting in an enormous tent.
You may hear the rain pattering down on
the roof, though otherwise this is a delightful
spot in the Lake District at Keswick, nestling
among the hills around Lake Derwentwater.
We have come here to seek the face
of God.
This is the 82nd time that the Keswick
Convention has met.
Perhaps we've never been more conscious of the
gap between the materialistic people seeking the good
things of life and those who regard spiritual
priorities as of paramount importance.
We live in a day when the very
foundations of our faith have been called in
question, even by professing Christian teaching, when the
whole nation has been shocked by instances of
a disastrous decline in public morals and integrity.
And this is inevitably reflected in the private
life of those who no longer acknowledge the
sovereignty of a holy God.
We have to acknowledge humbly that we must
share in the blame.
As the Bible puts it, righteousness exalts of
a nation, but sin is a reproach to
any people.
At any rate, we who gather in this
lovely place, some 7,000 of us, including
Christians from all over the world, have no
doubt whatever, because of our own personal experience,
that there is a God in heaven.
We know that he has come to live
in our hearts by faith, and so to
produce, as the founders of this convention believed,
a life of personal, practical, and scriptural holiness.
During this week, we shall be concentrating on
this aim.
We shall be seeking to measure up our
lives to the standard God sets for his
people, as the Holy Spirit speaks to us.
Will you join with us now in this
brief half hour of worship?
We shall begin by singing hymn number seven
in the Kessick hymn book.
Come, let us to the Lord our God
with contrite hearts return.
The first four verses only.
After the singing of the hymn, the Reverend
George Duncan will lead us in prayer, and
Major General Wilson Haffenden will read the scripture.
We praise the Lord, we praise the Lord,
we praise the Lord, we praise the Lord,
we
praise
the Lord, we praise the Lord, we
praise the Lord, we praise the Lord, we
praise the Lord.
Let us pray.
O God our Father, we come into thy
presence recognizing afresh our unworthiness so to do,
apart from the grace that thou hast revealed
in thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Thy word assures us that we are accepted
in the beloved and in the light of
that acceptance we dare to come.
We come as a great company of thy
children, who need thy mercy and grace.
As we look back down the corridor of
time, we recall how again and again in
past years it has pleased thee to meet
with thy people in this very place.
The sound of the voices of many of
thy servants are in our ears, but yet
above every human voice it is for the
sound of thy voice that we give thee
praise and thanks tonight.
Again and again that voice has spoken to
our needs, has revealed the sufficiency of thy
grace, has called us insistently to repentance or
to some new venture of faith, and we
are met here again to hear that same
voice, to see thy face, to feel the
touch of thy spirit upon our lives.
Meet with us, O our God, and bless
us, in order that we may become a
blessing to this desperately needy world, and be
more worthy of the name we bear.
We remember the great company of unseen listeners
in many lands, to whom this service will
recall vividly its lovely setting amid the beauty
of the Lakeland hills.
What we ask for ourselves this week, we
ask for them, so that everywhere, in these
days of turbulence, of anxiety, of spiritual death
and moral decline, thou wilt thyself intervene in
sovereign power, that once again this world may
know the moving of the spirit of the
living God.
We thank thee for thy word around which
we are gathered this week.
The entrance of thy word giveth light, may
its light shine into our hearts, if it
be a revealing light, help us not to
shrink from its rays, but rather to yield
ourselves in penitence, gladly forsaking all that is
shown to be wrong.
If it be a guiding light, grant us
the faith to respond to its beckoning, and
with a glad surrender and wholehearted obedience, put
our lives at thy disposal for the doing
of thy perfect and redemptive will.
Above all may it be the light in
which we shall come to see more clearly
the glory and absolute sufficiency of our Saviour,
so that to us he may become the
altogether lovely one, that in our lives, in
all things, he may have the preeminence, and
that we may come so to know the
power of his risen light in our lives,
that he will turn every defeat into victory,
thus commending him as the only Saviour able
to meet the needs of men of all
nations throughout the world.
Hear us in these our prayers, and when
thou hearest, forgive, as we further pray in
the words which Christ hath taught us, saying,
Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be
thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be
done, in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and
forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them
that trespass against us, and lead us not
into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power,
and the glory, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Hear the word of God as it is
written in the 58th chapter of the book
of the prophet Isaiah.
Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice
like a trumpet, and show my people their
transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet they seek me daily, and delight to
know my way, as a nation that did
righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their
God.
They ask of me the ordinances of justice,
they take delight in approaching to God.
Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou
seest not?
Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou
takest no knowledge?
Behold, in the day of your fast you
find pleasure, and exact all your labors.
Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and
to smite with the fist of wickedness.
Ye shall not fast as ye do this
day, to make your voice to be heard
on high?
Is it such a fast that I have
chosen?
A day for man to afflict his soul?
Is it to bow down his head as
a borer, and to spread sackcloth and ashes
under him?
Wilt thou call this a fast, and an
acceptable day to the Lord?
Is not this the fast that I have
chosen?
To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo
the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go
free, and that ye break every yoke?
Is it not to deal thy bread to
the hungry, and that thou bring the poor
that are cast out to thy house?
When thou seest the naked, that thou cover
him, and that thou hide not thyself from
thine own flesh?
Then shall thy light break forth as the
morning, and thy help shall spring forth speedily,
and thy righteousness shall go before thee, and
the glory of the Lord shall be thy
rearwards.
Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall
answer.
Thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here
I am.
If thou take away from the midst of
thee the yoke, the putting forth of the
finger, and speaking vanity, and if thou draw
out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy
the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise
in obscurity, and thy darkness be as a
noonday.
And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and
satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fast
thy bones.
And thou shalt be like a watered garden,
and like a spring of water whose waters
fail not.
And they that shall be of thee shall
build the old waste places.
Thou shalt rise up the foundations of many
generations, and thou shalt be called the repairer
of the breach, the restorer of paths to
dwell in.
We welcome the Reverend Alan Redpath, Minister of
Charlotte Baptist Chapel, Edinburgh.
Dr. Redpath has recently returned from the charge
of the Moody Church, Chicago, where he founded
the Mid-America Convention on Catholic Life.
He has traveled in many parts of the
world, and his voice may be familiar to
many who are listening.
Before he speaks to us, we shall sing
hymn number 365 in the Catholic hymn book,
omitting verse four, Lord, in thy presence we
are met.
O come, O come, O come, O come,
O come, O come, O come, to Bethlehem.
The several thousand people who are met at
this convention are here on serious business.
This is not a time of religious entertainment,
it is a week of spiritual thought-taking.
We're not here to escape reality, but rather
to face it, and to return to the
tasks of life with a new conception of
the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ
to meet the need of every human heart.
My message will reach the ears, no doubt,
of a brave but tragically small group of
missionaries who are in the front line of
the spiritual battle.
It may well also be heard by many
who have little, if any, place in their
lives for the Christian faith.
There may, too, be a large number of
listeners, baffled, beaten by conflicts and problems, who
are longing for an answer to the battle
of life in the context of their individual
circumstances.
My question is, what has God to say
to each and to all of us?
He is not dead, he is alive.
The greatest fact of history is the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead, and that
fact demands the future judgment of God, an
event to which the world is moving rapidly.
We need to be stabbed awake to the
urgency of this hour.
In the chapter read to us from the
word of God, he was speaking to a
people through whom he had a world purpose
to fulfill, provided they were prepared to accept
his terms.
They were to be repairers of the breach,
restorers of paths to dwell in.
God has a purpose yet to fulfill in
the world, and he does it through those
who believe him, and those who respond to
his call.
But time is fast running out.
Contemporary events underline clearly the imminence of our
Lord's return.
We live in a broken world.
There are breaches in every direction which are
wide and deep.
Broken hearts, broken homes, suspicion among nations, prejudice
between races, obliteration of any standard of right
and wrong, so that sin is no longer
called sin, but merely self-realization.
All of these are breaches which, unless they
are healed, will mean the ruin of our
civilization.
We talk about a free world, but a
free world cannot remain free if it's held
in captivity by its own inner corruption.
The greatest peril confronting the Christian Church today
is not that of being crushed by some
materialistic power of some human foe, but of
being cut off from the almighty power of
God because of our own sins, and therefore
failing to communicate the gospel in its saving
power to this day in which we live.
If we're to see another spiritual awakening before
it's too late, then every one of us
needs to apply the message of the gospel
to our personal life.
All human breakdown stems from one fundamental breach,
that which exists between men and God.
Made in the image of God, for fellowship
with God, we are in fact alienated from
him by sin.
It's a sin of disposition which has led
to all other sins of behavior.
It's the sin of setting up our own
kingdom within our own life, and rejecting the
kingdom of God.
A man will train himself, educate himself, sacrifice
himself, but he will never yield himself.
He insists on being his own master.
We are here to declare that the only
hope of the world is to say, as
though God did beseech you by us, we
pray you be ye reconciled to God.
In other words, give up your kingdom, surrender
the throne rights of your life, capitulate to
Jesus Christ as Lord.
The great obstacle to reconciliation with God has
been removed at the cross, where Jesus gave
up his throne rights for us.
To receive him as Lord is to receive
the atonement, and therefore to renounce our rebellion.
It is this which repairs the breach, and
therefore is the key to repairing all others.
It means the collapse of a regime in
my life in which I am my own
king, and the opening up of another regime
in which Jesus Christ is Lord.
For the essence of sin is rebellion, and
the secret of redemption is submission.
But something more is needed.
The repairer of the breach, and the restorer
of paths to dwelling.
An army must maintain its line of communication.
But because of the breach between men and
God that line with heaven is cut, there
is no way through to the throne of
God for a rebel.
There is no access to light and power
and joy.
All roads have been destroyed by enemy fire.
The message of the Christian church, and particularly
that of the Keswick Convention, is not only
that there's a way back to God, a
pathway to the throne which has been paved
by the precious blood of Christ, but also
that to tread that path is to be
introduced into a new principle of life altogether.
A life in which in response to my
submission to him, he impart his nature to
me, to live within me by his spirit,
to make me holy.
This is a guided life, for the scripture
says the Lord shall guide thee continually.
It is a satisfied life, for he shall
satisfy thy soul in droughts.
It is a fragrant life, like a watered
garden.
It is a freshly sustained life, like a
spring of water, whose waters fail not.
My what wonderful paths those are to dwell
in.
You see, when the breach with God is
repaired, then the life with God begins, and
what a life it is, the life of
Christ reproduced in us.
But the tragedy of our day is that
the love of God, the life of Christ,
the power of the Spirit, shall seldom get
through to the world, because the church, or
the Christian if you like, while paying lip
service to the truth, is not living in
the reality of the experience.
A lost contact between the church and the
world, which we all deplore, is because of
our loss of vital communication with heaven, and
that's because of our sin.
We are here to face this issue at
Keswick, the priority need of our day, to
get right with God, but there's a price
to pay.
It's pictured in this chapter, where the people
whom God spoke were maintaining an active outward
form of religion without any basic reality.
They had to be shown that the way
of experiencing God's blessing is the way of
forsaking of sin.
The operation of the grace of God in
life is never in conflict with the demands
of His holiness.
If sin is to be forgiven, it must
be forsaken.
The tragedy is that so many of us
have learned to live with it.
The urgent call, personally, nationally, individually, is to
repentance in the church, to face the jealousy,
the discord, the sin within our ranks, for
in days like these we cannot afford the
luxury of civil war, or the tragedy of
defeated living.
This is an intensely personal matter for every
one of us.
To get right with God is going to
have personal effect in the lives of every
everyone.
For to restore a line of communication with
the throne in heaven, will be to ensure
the life of the Spirit of God flowing
from the throne into our hearts.
What I forsake, He forgives.
What He forgives, He cleanses.
What He cleanses, He fills.
And what He fills, He uses.
And what follows, the fragrance of a Spirit
-filled life, which has a wonderful attractiveness, and
is the only secret of power to re
-establish the line of communication with the world
in such a day as this.
The only thing which can resist a force
of spiritual evil, is the mighty power of
the Spirit of God released through a repentant
and believing people.
May our prayer be in the words of
John Wesley, Lord, cure me of intermittent piety,
and don't let me go on another moment
in any sin of which I have not
thoroughly repented.
For thy name's sake, Amen.
We shall sing as our closing hymn, number
10 in the Keswick hymn book, God
save the King of glory, God save
the King of glory, God
save the King of glory, God save the
King of glory, Let us pray.
Almighty and everlasting God, who hateth nothing that
thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins
of all them that are penitent, create and
make in us new and contrite hearts, that
we, worthily lamenting our sins, and acknowledging our
wretchedness, may obtain of thee the God of
all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness, through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Now unto him that is able to keep
you from falling, and to present you falsely
before the presence of his glory with exceeding
joy, to the only wise God our Saviour,
be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both
now and ever, and the blessing of God
Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be amongst
you and remain with you always.
Amen.
Let us pray.
Our loving Heavenly Father, we thank thee for
this great privilege of sending out the message
of full salvation to the world outside.
Thank thee for the privilege of taking part
in this service in prayer and praise, and
the preaching of thy word.
Grant that those who have heard this message
already in many parts of the Mediterranean and
the East, those who later will hear it
recorded in the West, may respond to thy
voice speaking to them through thy word, and
grant that it may mean a means of
blessing to many, restoring the breaches, repairing those
who have fallen away from thee, or who
have lost heart in the fight.
Grant that some may for the first time
place their trust and confidence in the Lord
Jesus Christ.
We ask it for his name's sake.
Amen.
He is the Lord God Almighty.
He is the Son of the King.
He is the only begotten Son of the
King.
He is the Son of the King.
I always think that last verse is one
of the most wonderful verses of anything that
we sing.
He breaks the power of cancelled sin.
He sets the prisoner free.
His blood can make the foulest clean.
His blood availed for me.
And as the offering is now completed, I
think we'd like to rise and stand and
sing that last verse over again.
Let us all pray.
Our loving Heavenly Father, we come to thee
at the end of another day of worship,
a special day of worship in most of
our lives, when we felt the presence of
thy Holy Spirit so very near to us
in the churches of Ketwick and in this
holy tabernacle.
And now as we come to our evening
worship, we ask for a special blessing upon
this great company of hungry people waiting to
be fed with the words of life.
We thank thee for the opportunity we've had
of contributing to the cost of this convention,
and we ask thee to accept our gifts
which are given with our love to enable
the work to go forward and to enable
thy Son to be lifted up in our
midst and honored and glorified.
We bring before thee this evening thy servant
who is to bring the closing message.
We ask thee to give him a special
anointing with thy Holy Spirit, that he may
speak the message which thou hast laid upon
his heart, that it may be crystal clear
and that each one of us may go
satisfied, satisfied, because we know that the precious
blood of Jesus availed for us, and that
we may be made perfectly whole through that
same blood.
We thank thee for all the privileges that
are ours, and we ask thee to continue
to bless this great convention, because we ask
it in our Savior's precious name.
Amen.
Now let us hear the word of God
from Romans chapter 10, beginning at verse 1.
Romans chapter 10.
Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God
for the Israelis, that they might be saved,
for I bear them record that they have
a zeal of God, but not according to
knowledge.
For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, going
about to establish their own righteousness, have not
submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
For Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to every one that believeth.
For Moses described as the righteousness which is
of the law, that the man which doeth
those things shall live by them.
But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh
on this wise.
Say not in thine heart who shall ascend
into heaven, that is to bring Christ down
from above, or who shall descend into the
deep, that is to bring up Christ again
from the dead.
But what saith it?
The word is nigh thee, even in thy
mouth and in thy heart, that is the
word of faith which we preach.
That if thou shall confess with thy mouth
the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine
heart that God hath raised him from the
dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,
and with the mouth confession is made unto
salvation.
For the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him
shall not be ashamed.
For there is no difference between the Jew
and the Greek, for the same Lord over
all is rich unto all that call upon
him.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of
the Lord shall be saved.
How then shall they call on him in
whom they have not believed, and how shall
they believe in him of whom they have
not heard, and how shall they fear without
a preacher, and how shall they preach except
they be sent?
As it is written, how beautiful are the
feet of them that preach the gospel of
peace, and bring glad tidings of good things,
but they have not all obeyed the gospel.
For as I saith, Lord who hath believed
our report, so then faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God.
And now shall we sing again before the
Reverend Alan Redpath brings to us God's message.
Number 298.
Crown him with many crowns, the lamb upon
his throne.
The Lamb of God, the Lamb of God,
the Lamb of God, the Lamb of God,
the Lamb
of God, the Lamb of God, the Lamb
of God, the Lamb of God, the It
may be that some of you at Keswick
for the first time are finding the weather
a little difficult to take.
I want to assure you that it can
be much worse in other places.
Last year at this time I was in
Chicago with a temperature of about 95 and
a humidity of about 80 percent.
And I experienced what a good friend of
mine and of yours too, Dr. Sangster, whose
memory we treasure, told me happened when he
went to Chicago ten years ago.
He came to see me before I was
about to go and he said, my dear
brother, you will never be able to take
it.
I've never been so hot in all my
life.
It was so hot, he said, that I
saw a dog chasing a cat and we
were both walking.
Well, I want to assure you, if you
know anything of that feeling, you'd rather be
wet from the rain than that situation.
Well, I merely say that and ask now
that you may forget the weather and together
in this great place where so many times
God has met with people, that we may
relax into the sense of his presence and
ask that he, by his Spirit, might speak
to all of our needy hearts.
Let us bow, therefore, in just one word
of prayer.
We have just been reading in thy word,
dear Lord, how shall they hear without a
preacher, and how shall they preach except they
be sent.
O God, in Jesus' name, I ask that
I might be a sent man tonight, sent
from thy presence before this congregation, to speak
a word in thine aim, in the authority
of thy Spirit.
To that end we ask that we may
see no man save Jesus only, that we
may forget the crowd around us and forget
any possible distraction, that our hearts may be
set to seek the face of the living
God.
Create soul first for thee, Lord Jesus, and
should there be any in this great congregation
who are unconscious of any personal need, expose,
we pray thee, the barrenness and emptiness of
life and the disaster of it, if it
is lived without God.
So speak to our waiting hearts, for we
ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.