I would like to read to you tonight,
my dear friends, from Romans chapter 10 and
verse 9 and 10.
And I'm reading in the translation of the
New English Bible, which renders these verses in
this way.
If on your lips is the confession, Jesus
is Lord, and in your heart the faith
that God raised him from the dead, then
you will find salvation.
For the faith that leads to righteousness is
in the heart, and the confession that leads
to salvation is upon the lips.
This verse reminds us of the greatest event
in history.
An event by which the majority of the
world's population fixed the date in their calendar.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Our text is but one of many in
the New Testament which emphasizes the fact that
that event is not only unique in history,
but it has a vital and dynamic message
for every one of us today.
Now let me begin by answering a basic
question.
What's it all about anyway?
Says someone listening to my voice this evening.
The story in a nutshell is this.
Man was in revolt against the authority of
his creator.
He had determined to run his own life
and to make this world his playground for
his own amusement, instead of submitting to the
sovereignty of God and making this world the
training ground for his development for heaven.
The consequences of this choice proved disastrous.
And God, having spoken by warning and entreaty
in many different ways, eventually invaded this human
race by the virgin birth of Jesus Christ
our Lord.
He lived before men the kind of life
which God expects all of his creatures to
live.
It was a God-centered life.
I delight to do thy will, O God,
he said.
It was a self-emptying life.
I do nothing of myself, I do always
those things that please him.
It was a men-serving life.
For the Son of Man came not to
be ministered unto, but to minister and to
give his life a ransom for many.
That life was a total contradiction in all
its principles to all others who have been
involved in a revolt against God.
And all of whom have lived self-centered,
self-seeking and self-serving lives.
That principle of life which Jesus lived constituted
such a rebuke to the standards that men
had set themselves, that they couldn't take it
and so they murdered him.
It was impossible to do otherwise and continue
in revolt.
It was either end our rebellion and submit
to his way of life, or maintain our
rebellion and get rid of Jesus.
This is the course that the world chose.
But God raised him from the dead.
Not just to live a few more years
down here and then die again.
For his was not a revival for a
while, it was resurrection forever.
For death had no more dominion over him.
And God exalted him to his own right
hand, far above all.
But Jesus is not at a vast and
unreachable distance.
The word says to us, the word is
nigh thee, even in my mouth and in
my heart.
That is the word of faith which we
preach.
For the resurrection of Jesus Christ was by
no means the end of the story, it
was only the beginning.
There were some who saw its meaning, the
meaning of his life and the significance of
his death.
And for such he revealed himself as alive
from the dead.
He showed them his hand and his side.
He received from them the confession of their
lips, the faith and love of their hearts.
And another miracle happened.
These and only these found salvation.
A few weeks after he had risen, he
fulfilled another promise given to them both before
and after his crucifixion.
I will send you another comforter.
And he shall be with you and in
you forever.
At that hour you shall know that I
am in my father.
You are in me and I am in
you.
You shall receive power after that the Holy
Spirit is come upon you and you shall
be witnesses unto me.
Yes, they found salvation.
Salvation from one principle of life to another.
From self-centeredness to Christ-centeredness.
From self-seeking to self-emptying.
From self-serving to men-serving.
And gripped by that new principle, the very
life of the one who lived it, now
living within them.
They swept through the world like a prairie
fire and revolutionized history.
Somebody says to me, very interesting, but that
doesn't happen today.
Pardon me, it does.
For whenever men are mastered by those principles,
the same revolution takes place.
The fact that it is so little in
evidence is no discredit to the Christian faith.
Nor any reason for rejecting it.
Rather it's a tragic condemnation upon those of
us who profess it.
But that is still not the whole story.
The greatest chapter of all is yet to
be written.
For God is not dead, I repeat.
He is not willing that one should perish,
but that all should come to repentance and
believe and be saved.
And soon the same Lord Jesus shall come
again in like manner as he went into
heaven.
And those, listen to me, those who, like
those disciples, have received and realized the significance
of his life, death and resurrection.
And therefore have ended our revolt and submitted
to his authority.
And have therefore received that new principle of
life and have started living in accordance with
it.
We too shall find salvation in a sense
of completeness that we just don't know.
For one day such will be taken to
be with Jesus.
And live and reign with him forever in
a new heaven and a new earth wherein
dwells righteousness.
Those who have chosen to remain in revolt
will be condemned by their own choice to
an eternity of misery.
The first fruits of which have been sampled
already here and now.
For all the wretchedness and suffering of these
days in which we live stem from man's
revolt against God.
Were men not so blind, they would surely
have seen enough evidence of the disastrous result
of living on the wrong principle.
And they would have responded and repented and
turned to the Lord.
But no, the revolt continues.
The suffering increases until one day God again
will invade humanity.
And will say thus far and no further.
And his rule will be established and the
last opportunity for salvation will be ended.
And heaven and let me say hell will
be populated by those who have chosen the
one principle of life or the other.
That's the story.
And the pivot on which it turns is
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
And your reaction and mine to it.
Mr. Duncan said to us last night that
this convention could be a day of destiny.
Indeed it could.
Let me therefore bring the words of this
text home to you in three simple and
I trust clear statements.
The confession which this truth demands.
If on your lips is the confession Jesus
is Lord.
That is infinitely more than saying I believe
in Jesus.
Most of us do.
Very few would deny the facts revealed in
scripture.
Though perhaps they might argue about their significance.
But listen a belief which merely accepts facts
and does not lead to action is invalid
in the New Testament.
Where would we all have been if Faraday
and Edison had believed the facts about electricity
but not tested and applied them.
Or if Bell had learned the facts about
the telephone and not proved them.
That might have been a blessing.
But I want to say to you friend
that the confession of Jesus Christ on my
lips as Lord.
Implies nothing less than the total collapse of
my personal rebellion against God.
Oh but you say I'm not in rebellion
against God.
I believe in him.
I wouldn't be here if I didn't.
Alright.
Wait a minute.
Let me ask you.
Each one of you.
May the spirit of God ask this question
to your soul.
On what principle of life are you living?
God centered or self centered?
Self emptying or self seeking?
Men serving or self serving?
In other words who is at the center
of you?
Who are you seeking to please?
Whose service are you in?
Let us face it.
How many have said they believe in Jesus.
Even accept all the facts of Christian doctrine.
Believe their Bible.
Attend their church.
Profess to worship God but are still basically
rebels.
That's why so many people in the world
today ask is God dead or alive?
Because they see so little indication of his
existence in the lives of those of us
who profess to believe in him.
The confession of your lips.
Jesus in his Lord.
Involves a complete revolution of your whole life
from the center outward.
It means the acceptance of the principles upon
which Jesus lived.
And which demanded then as they do now
a verdict.
Either beloved and this is the issue with
which we would be faced in the presence
of the Lord tonight.
Either I must continue basically with a rebel
in my heart.
Either that and crucify Jesus again and face
the judgment of a holy God.
Or I must end the rebellion.
Confess him as Lord and find salvation.
There is no third course.
In May 1945.
The only way in which World War II
was to be ended.
Was by unconditional surrender.
To all three major powers.
In the light of subsequent history.
It all seems so fantastic.
But the principle is right.
For you cannot end war.
Until you end the cause of it.
And you cannot end rebellion in your heart
against God.
Until there is total capitulation.
To Jesus as Lord.
And that is not a second blessing.
You cannot have Jesus as Savior.
And then if it suits you choose him
as your Lord.
Either he will be Lord of everything or
he will be Lord of nothing.
The confession that this truth demands.
Jesus is Lord.
Second, the conviction which this truth declares.
If in your heart, not please in your
head.
But if in your heart.
There is the faith that God raised him
from the dead.
I wouldn't feel it worthwhile spending a moment.
Arguing for the facts of the resurrection of
Jesus Christ.
They are beyond dispute.
The story could have been refuted many a
time in a moment.
If only the Jews or the Romans could
have produced his body.
But they couldn't.
And if the disciples stole it.
Do you think they would have suffered so
much for something they knew wasn't true?
Absurd.
But listen, nobody can be won to Christ
by argument.
There is a conviction attaching to this truth.
Far deeper than the intellectual acceptance of certain
facts.
It concerns the heart.
A recognition deep down in the soul of
every one of us.
That the fact that God has raised Jesus
Christ from the dead.
Has immense significance.
For by that mighty act.
Heaven has answered the verdict of earth.
Upon the life of Jesus Christ.
God has declared his acceptance.
Before the throne in heaven.
Of the principles upon which Jesus lived.
Do you remember these words?
He made himself of no reputation.
He took upon him the form of a
servant.
He was made in the likeness of man.
And being found in fashion as a man.
He humbled himself.
And became obedient unto death.
Even the death of the cross.
Wherefore.
Wherefore God hath exalted him.
And given him a name that is above
every name.
That is the name of Jesus.
Every knee shall bow.
And every tongue confess.
That Jesus Christ.
Is Lord.
This man.
Rejected by all other men.
Has been accepted.
By God.
The principle of life.
For which the world had no room.
Is therefore God's principle of life.
Because he lived it and never departed from
it.
I can stand at an empty tomb.
With the apostle Peter.
And face death and say.
It was not possible that he.
Should beholden of it.
Of course not.
For he has robbed the grave of all
its sting.
Because he has grappled with sin.
And died to all sin.
Because of the principle on which he lived.
In total submission to God.
But that isn't everything.
In accepting that principle of life.
God has rejected all other.
For in accepting God-centeredness.
He has rejected self-centeredness.
In accepting that life of self-emptying.
He has rejected the principle of self-seeking.
In accepting men's service.
He has rejected self-service.
He has accepted the one.
And rejected the other forever.
I am not talking tonight.
About God's pronouncement upon vulgar sins of immorality.
Which not only he.
But many of us would condemn.
But I am saying to you.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
tonight.
That a man.
Of the university.
The refinement of civilization.
But be utterly self-centered.
And that's the principle that God condemns.
By taking Jesus out of the grave.
And setting him at his own right hand.
God is saying this is the only principle
of life.
That can have fellowship with me.
And therefore the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead.
Is the condemnation of every other principle of
life.
For my bible says.
Neither is there any other name.
And that means character.
Neither is there any other character under heaven.
Given among men.
Whereby we must be saved.
That is the conviction of this truth.
And when the Holy Spirit comes upon a
congregation.
And comes upon a heart.
He convinces of sin.
Because they believe not on him.
Of righteousness.
Because I go to my father.
And of judgment.
Because the prince of this world.
The devil has been judged.
I do not ask you what your head
would say.
But I ask you what your heart says.
If the confession is on your lips.
That Jesus is your Lord.
And the conviction is in your heart.
That God has raised him from the dead.
Then something is going to happen.
What is it?
Thirdly.
The character which this truth demonstrates.
If the confession is on your lips.
That Jesus is Lord.
And the conviction in your heart.
The faith in your heart.
That God has raised him from the dead.
You will find salvation.
Not please a formula.
Not please a simply a statement of doctrine.
Not a passport into heaven.
In spite of the kind of life I've
lived.
Not an unwarranted presumption.
That I can go on living on the
old principle.
And yet expect one day to be ushered
into the presence of God.
In spite of it.
Because he is merciful.
Only join a fundamental church you know.
And all will be well.
That kind of thing.
No, no.
For listen.
Unless the principle of life is changed.
My destiny remains unchanged.
I quote that great prince of preachers.
C.H. Spurgeon.
Who in his daily readings.
Which are so precious to me.
Each day.
Says in one of them.
An unholy life.
Is the evidence of an unchanged heart.
And an unchanged heart.
Is the evidence of an unsaved soul.
What value asks Spurgeon.
Is the grace that a man professes to
receive.
As heaven's free gift.
For forgiveness.
Which leaves him totally the same.
After he received it.
Of no value at all.
Oh no I repeat.
Unless the principle of life is changed.
Unless there's been a revolution at the very
center of my being.
Unless there's been the capitulation of self.
And the infirmment of Jesus.
There is no change in destiny.
When I see Jesus risen.
I see what God intends me to be.
And salvation is just that.
He made me for that kind of life.
He made you for that kind of life.
Not for self centeredness.
But for Christ centeredness.
And then for the pouring out of your
life.
In the service of others.
He's rejected the one principle.
But only that he might set up the
other.
He rejects the failure of my life.
And it's sin.
Only to take the marred vessel.
The defeated life and remake it.
He rejects me in total failure.
Only to remake me in his image.
In his likeness.
By his life dwelling within me.
The resurrection in other words.
Is the end of the first man.
Culture and everything.
And your nature.
No matter how long you live.
Will never be improved.
Will never be different.
Will never be refined.
Will never be made Christian.
God has only one thing for human nature.
Calvary.
Death.
That having passed the sentence of death upon
what I am.
He may replace what I am by what
Jesus is in me.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
therefore.
Is the end of the first man.
And it's the beginning of the second man.
The birth of a new race.
Of which Jesus Christ is head.
Let me make this personal and immediate.
I do not know what may be involved
in the life of anybody listening to me
today.
I only know my own heart.
What may be involved.
Because you have lived as I have done.
On the wrong principle.
With the wrong power at the center.
With the wrong person in authority.
With self instead of Jesus on the throne.
In the lives of some it has meant.
Bruising.
Spoiling.
Vice.
Lust.
Passion.
Sin.
In the lives of others it has meant
an amazing self-righteousness.
Even with a religious cloak attached to it.
But in the sight of God.
The one is no different from the other.
I know not.
What may be the effect in your life
of having lived on that principle.
But the question tonight is.
In which family am I living?
Is it the family of the nature with
which I was born?
Or is it the family of the redeemed?
And there is one basic test.
There will always be a family likeness.
A tricky moment in a family.
When a baby arrives.
And all the relatives come round to see
this great sight.
And immediately everybody says you know.
She is the image of our mother.
Or she is just like her father.
You know.
And they look and see.
Well there is the family resemblance.
Of course.
Because there is a blood relationship.
This is inevitable.
My friend.
When a man is born of the Holy
Ghost.
And he is regenerate by the Spirit of
God.
And there is imparted to him the very
nature of Jesus Christ.
There is inevitably another family likeness.
The nature with which you were born was
incarnate in you at the moment when you
first breathed.
The nature with which you were born again
is incarnate within you by the Holy Ghost.
From the moment of your redemption.
And God demands an evidence of this in
your likeness to the Lord Jesus.
Is your humanity an arena which is displaying
the loveliness of the humanity of Jesus Christ?
Are your motives his motives?
Has there been an end of revolt and
submission to his authority?
If not.
Then this glorious truth of the resurrection is
no song in the night season for you.
It is the thunder of the judgment of
God upon my self-centered living.
It constitutes a great urgent personal call on
this first Sunday of Keswick to an immediate
repentance.
To an immediate surrender.
To an immediate abandonment of self-centeredness and
the acceptance of a Christ-centered life.
But if I say tonight.
In my heart he loved me.
And he gave himself for me.
In his cross I know that there is
healing and forgiveness for all my sins.
I am accepted therefore in him and crucified
with him and ascended with him.
And he becomes my Lord and my Saviour
and I become his servant.
And he communicates to me the dynamic of
his life.
And I have found salvation.
The only good thing about a Christian is
Jesus.
I've been a Christian now for more than
30 years.
And I'm just as evil, just as sinful,
just as capable of descending into utter complete
degradation.
But for the grace of God and the
power of the blood of Christ.
Now as I was 30 years ago.
But I am here to say to you
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That the law of the spirit of life
in Christ sets a man free from the
law of sin and death.
I'm here to say to you that when
you know the end of rebellion.
You begin to know the beginning of the
revolutionary power of God's Holy Spirit.
Francis Ridley Havergill wrote a hymn which we
all remember and often sing.
You remember it, take my life and let
it be.
Have you ever considered that hymn carefully?
Where and at what point of this hymn
do you think rebellion ceases?
Take my hands and let them move.
Take my feet and let them be swift
and beautiful for thee.
Take my voice and let me sing.
Take my lips and let them be filled
with messages from thee.
Take my silver and my gold.
Take my intellect and use.
Take my will and make it thine.
You're not at the end of rebellion yet.
Take my heart it is thine own.
It shall be thine while from now.
You're not at the end of rebellion yet.
Take my love my Lord I pour.
At thy feet it's treasure store.
You're still not there.
But here you are now.
The very penultimate line of the last verse.
Take myself.
Take my self.
And I will be ever only all for
thee.
And I say folks do you know what
would happen if that takes place in your
life?
Do you know that the town from which
you come and to which probably you're going
to return will have such a shock it'll
wonder what's really hit it.
For there will come back to Keswick a
group from Keswick a group of people from
your church and from your town and that
town will be confronted by a little company
of folk in whose lives revolt has ended.
Submission to Christ has become the new principle.
And do you know something else?
What happened to Jesus will happen to you.
Either men when they meet your Christ centered
life will end their revolt and get right
with God or they will continue their revolt
and get rid of you.
No man in this world and in this
generation so utterly completely degraded and so utterly
sinful no man who lives on the true
Christian principle of commitment to Jesus Christ as
Lord into whose life there has come the
very flood tide of God the Holy Ghost
no man can live in the presence of
neutrality.
In the presence of such a man it
will be impossible for people to be neutral.
And I want to say to you that
urgently that's what Britain needs to face before
it's too late.
And let me say to you though I
believe in such it won't be through mass
evangelism it won't be waiting for Billy Graham
to come back to this country much as
I'd like to see him.
It won't be through any great name or
through any great personality it will be through
a nobody like you and me submitted to
Jesus as Lord and Sovereign of every bit
of my life through whom the Holy Ghost
has absolute sway to reach out in rivers
of living water to others.
Would you be that man?
Would you?
There's a little air depot station airport whatever
you like to call it down near Ramsgate
and in the last world war a pathetically
small handful of British men fought from there
the Battle of Britain.
You may have read Churchill's war memoirs and
you will have read in what was a
masterly understatement of Churchill that when he discovered
that every British fighting plane was in the
air and they hadn't one in reserve he
confessed to being just a trifle anxious.
And at that time when a little group
of men you would have found them if
you could have had permission to go into
that room in that airport sitting there perhaps
having tea and sandwiches with all their equipment
on there would come a call just a
little group of men that daily was getting
smaller and smaller there would come a call
enemy planes approaching in strength at such and
such a height from such and such a
direction those men had been out perhaps on
three missions that day they'd come back at
half strength their planes were damaged some of
them could scarcely be airborne do you know
what reply they sent to headquarters?
Message received and understood and without question they
were in the air without any reservation they
were into battle and into fight to win
Beloved as I close my message tonight in
the name of the Lord Jesus can you
say to him, Lord, message received and understood
in my name regardless of what it may
cost me I go into battle to triumph
in the power of the indwelling Christ praise
God that this very first night at Keddie
can turn defeat into victory despair into joy
disillusionment into happiness and a sense of utter
uselessness into a sense of being usable in
the hand of God stop the rebellion and
throw Jesus and in all these things you'll
be more than conquered through him who loved
you let us pray we're going to close
the meeting in a moment with our heads
bowed before God I would say to you
that I would love tonight to have had
an after-meeting for instruction but there are
other services there's the young people's meeting, the
open air there's the need of being loyal
to our landladies and all the arrangements with
them I'm not going to hold an after
-meeting therefore but I'm asking very simply one
thing is there a man, a woman, a
fellow or a girl here right now who
is prepared to end rebellion and stop living
for themselves and living for the Lord to
acknowledge that the cause of defeat has been
that the wrong person has been in control
self instead of Jesus then I want to
give you before I close in prayer a
simple opportunity to confess that fact if God
has been speaking to your heart tonight you
long that this confession may be on your
lips that Jesus is Lord and the faith
is now in your heart that God has
raised him from the dead you shall find
salvation yes, you shall find salvation and here
and now the living, loving Lord will meet
you at the point of your repentance you
meeting God like that friend then between you
and him may I ask that such a
transaction gets you to your feet and those
of you who are so enduring I invite
at this very moment just to stand where
you are and then I'm going to close
in prayer for you a moment's quiet that
God may see this decision getting you from
your heart to your body standing up doesn't
save anybody it's a confession that Jesus is
Lord is that your confession now?
well then just stand where you are and
we'll close in prayer in a moment just
remain standing quietly one by one if the
Lord has spoken to you tonight no more
I but Christ I invite you to stand
are there others?
in this great tent God bless you just
keep standing Amen let this be a definite
transaction marking the beginning of life on a
new principle we hold the meeting for not
more than 30 seconds if there are others
will you please take the opportunity and then
we'll pray especially for you the Lord bless
you just
keep standing now we close in prayer God
bless you sir close in prayer for those
who tonight are making this public commitment to
Jesus Christ our Lord if others desire to
stand you may do so as we pray
dear Lord we pray that thou wilt forgive
the poverty of our witness the unworthiness of
our testimony the inadequacy of what we have
to say that we cry to thee that
thy Holy Spirit in spite of it may
break through into heart and reveal Jesus as
Lord and that here tonight there may be
the beginning of life on a new principle
in which it is no more I but
Christ especially we pray thee with those who
have stood and are standing may this commitment
to them be real and definite and vital
may be even now they're knowing a peace
that they've never known before the peace of
God which passeth all understanding which keeps our
hearts and minds through Christ and oh Lord
take us out into this week to disturb
us disturb us from our compromise and from
our being at ease in Zion and to
confront us with the demands of thy sovereignty
and with the wonderful provision of thy spirit
to live out thy life in each one
of us we ask it for Jesus' sake
Amen would you be seated please may I
say I'm handing the meeting back now to
our chairman I'll just ask if any of
you who stood tonight would like to speak
to any of us on the platform we'll
be at the front of the tent immediately
after the service may the Lord grant that
his spirit may continue to hover over this
congregation and over this convention in increasing measure
as the week goes by we'll just sing
one closing verse of number 65 Jesus master
whose I am purchased thine alone to be
some of us will be able to sing
that verse in a new way tonight let
us stand and sing it together and then
quietly disperse