Thy kingdom come.
We pray, your concentration camp come, your prison
come.
Come on, hand over the handcuffs and the
shackles and the straitjacket.
It's really funny, it's almost amusing the ways
we hear preaching.
I got to be good, you got to
do this and that, and you got to
live like that, and this just won't do,
and so on, so on, so on, so
on.
Well, his kingdom is a kingdom of peace
and righteousness, joy unspeakable and full of glory.
And when his kingdom comes, why, he reigns,
he takes over.
I learned a little bit about that fifty
years ago when God gave me that verse
that I quote a thousand times, commit thy
way unto the Lord.
I had to make my choice, because there
was that concentration camp.
We were taught to be good, and to
be gooder, and I didn't manage very well.
I tried it, but oh, it was so
different when Jesus Christ took over my thoughts.
Somebody said, how can you, how can you
tolerate so and so?
Well, thank God it ain't none of my
business.
Somebody falls in love.
A friend of mine fell in love, and
some minister came to me and said, you
better go and warn him.
Warn him against that girl.
He's going to get into trouble.
I said, well, thank God it's none of
my business.
He's living in a free country, and he
can marry whoever he chooses.
Why should I worry?
Why should I bother?
I did pray, however, and God immediately showed
me that that was his appointment, and they
lived happily ever after.
They did.
Thy kingdom come.
My goodness, it leaves me so free of
all worry, of all fretfulness, just leaves me
free.
That's why I said a while ago, let's
have a dump for one minute and see
what it feels like to jump out of
it.
Come out of it, and if you ain't
out of it by this morning, if you're
too hot, you can take off your shirt.
Look, we didn't used to tolerate that.
But thine is the kingdom.
I'm so glad that I don't have to
reign anymore.
So glad I don't have to boss anybody.
People wonder about that.
They think that I'm come to boss them.
Wouldn't occur to me.
But thy kingdom and Jesus Christ comes in.
Why?
He becomes the boss, and he becomes the
wonderful manager.
He'll manage your financial affairs.
Your spiritual life is entirely his charge, his
responsibility.
And when we talk about consecration, why, that's
done when we're baptized into Jesus Christ.
You put on Christ.
Paul says, you have not so learned Christ.
You don't live like the Gentiles live anymore,
in the vanity of their mind, having their
understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of
God through the ignorance that is in them.
What ignorance is in them?
Asked a couple of fellas this morning, they
had to light their cigarettes.
I somehow lose my respect for a man
or a woman that smokes.
Why in the world did you ever start?
What made you ever put a rope around
your neck?
You knew you'd choke to death.
You knew that devil would get the best
of you after a while.
And yet they all do it, except those
that let Jesus Christ reign.
Thank God.
And here, you have not so learned Christ.
Beloved, it's our job to be an example
of what it is to be in the
kingdom of God.
It means I've got a king, a king
of glory.
What a king!
He doesn't only reign over Woodhaven or Ridgewood,
but over everything.
Everything is under his control, positively everything.
He made it all.
He upholds all things by the word of
his power.
And, oh, to have him for a king
ought to, first of all, make you very
happy.
You're a sinner if you're not happy.
You are.
You're a sinner if you worry.
You've got no business to put those shackles
on anymore, to put that straitjacket on.
You're not.
You're free.
And how can you attract others to Jesus
when you go around moping and kicking and
criticizing and finding fault with everybody and finding
fault with your lot and finally finding fault
with God?
Why he's done so much for me that
I cannot tell at all.
And what a joy!
Don't ask for trials.
They'll come if you do.
Don't you do it.
They'll come by themselves.
When God is king, he will let things
come your way to just sort of push
you up, and he'll make all things work
together for good.
But God's got to do it, and he
does it.
Praise the Lord.
Now, I know I can preach a thousand,
million years like this, and some, I was
going to say, some of you will never
take it.
You're so in love with yourself.
You're so deeply in love with your own
ways.
You haven't any idea.
Beloved, we got to fall in love with
this Jesus.
Isn't he beautiful?
But we don't until we experience him.
That's how we find out how wonderful he
is.
I never knew how wonderful air travel was
until I climbed into one of those contraptions
and strapped myself in, and then feel the
push behind your back.
We used to sing in kindergarten, how would
you like to go up in the swing,
up in the air so blue?
And now you go up, praise the Lord,
faster than a bird.
He makes you mount up with wings as
an eagle.
But we ought to pray.
Thy kingdom come.
I quit.
I give up.
You have not so learned Christ, if you
have been taught by him, as the truth
is in Jesus, that ye have put off
the old man with his days.
All the curling irons, all gone, everything gone.
The old man, the old woman, is worse
than the old man.
Off with it.
And you put on the new man, which
after God.
Oh, this new man is Jesus Christ, and
he's mine.
He's really mine.
He really comes to displace me.
Praise God.
And oh, what a wonderful kingdom this is.
And we ought to get into it.
We ought to learn to let Jesus Christ
really reign.
We don't do that as long as we
reign ourselves, as long as we try to
straighten things out ourselves and try to sanctify
ourselves.
But oh, to learn this grand lesson, to
abandon ourselves to him.
When I give myself, he takes over.
He really does.
And he's got the power to take over.
He's got the power to subdue all things
unto himself.
That's where it belongs.
Now he is king.
Now he is Lord.
Now he is master.
I remember when I began living the faith,
I was as green as a leapfrog.
I didn't know a thing about it.
And I had an awful hard time for
a whole month.
I needed $6 to pay a debt.
And I wasn't made up of the material
that some people are made of.
They just forget it.
I wasn't made like that.
So for a whole month, I labored and
I dumped and I found fault with God.
I'd go by some bushes and I'd say,
now, Lord, you could turn all these leaves
into dollar bills, but he didn't do it.
Now you said that whatsoever we ask, it
shall be done.
I looked at those leaves, but they were
still leaves.
Oh, I had a lesson to learn, to
leave it all in his wonderful hands.
When I learned that lesson and I did
learn it in a little meeting like this
where people, all of them had experiences with
God and none of them found fault.
They all had a wonderful, wonderful story to
tell.
How God supplied their needs.
There's a sister who during the war years
had nothing to eat and how God produced
butter for her.
Now I would have been tempted to disbelieve
that.
But when God provided cabbage for my rabbit
one Sunday morning, no one's ever explained that,
but it happened.
But anyway, the last testimony came from Elder
Brooks and I told you that I couldn't
doubt that old gentleman.
And he told how that he had taken
his pocketbook.
I never use a pocketbook, but he took
the lining out to see how much money
there was.
37 cents.
He thought maybe there was one more penny
he could squeeze out.
He couldn't.
37 cents.
And then he put it back in his
pocket and then the bell rang and the
man came who had repaired his umbrella and
he wanted a dollar and a half.
And of course these people in Zion all
knew that folks in the faith home live
by faith.
So he didn't dare tell him he didn't
have the money.
He took that pocketbook out of his pocket,
opened it and took out a dollar and
a half and paid the bill.
He said he didn't dare look back into
it.
He closed it again and put it back
in his pocket.
And after a little while, somebody else came
and wanted some more money and the same
thing happened.
And now here I had been grunting for
a whole month over six dollars, but I
went out of that meeting full of joy
and not only that, but full of repentance.
I had to ask God to forgive me
for doubting him.
And then the miracle happened and it was
a real miracle.
At that time I'd come into Pentecost out
of the Baptist church and they all thought
I was a black sheep.
They didn't like it at all.
But next day I got a letter from
a Baptist church where I had ministered a
long time before and there was a check
in it for five dollars.
They said they had forgotten to pay my
fare at that time when I preached for
them, but I needed six.
But the same day I had to make
a call in the home of a sister
of the Baptist church and before I left
she gave me one dollar.
Now God figured it out without a computer.
Six dollars is what I needed.
Six dollars is supplied.
Well, it was a very wonderful lesson to
learn.
There are laws of the kingdom.
Oh, this wonderful king is a law giver
and he works according to the law of
the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
And when you refuse to be anxious and
you commit everything to him, he takes over.
He says he cares for you.
Not long ago I needed, let's see, five
thousand dollars overnight.
Where take it?
Some of our, my nephews, when I see
them say, Uncle Hans, cough up some pennies.
I make believe, you know, some pennies there
and I couldn't cough up five thousand dollars,
but by this time I knew that this
belonged to the kingdom of God.
That's where the faith life comes in when
you seek the kingdom, not yourself.
How people think it's strange that I have
no car of my own, but when I
came to Brooklyn I said, Lord, do you
want me to get a car?
He said no.
And that was the end of it.
I don't mean that you shouldn't because I
might ask you to drive me someplace.
But anyway, the Lord knows how to take
care of his own.
But today, dear brother minister who is in
real need, in real need of having a
great loss if you couldn't get those five
thousand dollars.
Well, comes to his uncle.
As I said last night, he's been all
the world's uncle everywhere.
In Hungary, I'm Anspacia.
In China, Ula Musi.
And here I'm Gogo.
So he came to me, he said, what
shall I do?
I said, well, sign the papers.
I'll pray with you next day.
Next day, when the money was needed, I
got a long distance call from someone that
you'd never think of.
He said, I have five thousand dollars and
it weighs heavy on my conscience.
I think the Lord ought to have it.
Have you got a place to put it?
But those things happen a hundred times.
You don't talk about those things at all.
But you say, thy kingdom come.
Oh, this kingdom.
You're not the king.
You're a bond slave of love.
You're here to live no more unto yourself,
but unto him.
And that's the mistake people make.
They say, thy kingdom come so that I
have something to reign over, so that I've
got something to make my life comfortable.
But oh, how different when your whole life
is not yours anymore.
It belongs to him.
Then it's part of the kingdom.
And those are the lessons we can learn.
That's why I say we ought to pray.
Thy kingdom come.
And it's a prayer that is perpetual.
Thy kingdom.
And we finish by saying, thine is the
kingdom.
Thank God.
Like our brother said, thine is the kingdom.
Oh, how many times I've said that.
I've often said, my Lord, you sure fixed
it up this time.
Boy, couldn't think of a more complicated trial
or problem than this.
Absolutely no solution in sight.
And it finally makes you rejoice.
I said, Lord, I'll be terribly interested to
see how you're going to unravel this thing.
I'm just going to watch you do it.
And it's interesting to watch the Lord do
it.
And he does it when you refuse to
be anxious.
You honor God.
What did Abraham say?
He was fully persuaded.
That's what we need.
I'm trying to persuade you this morning.
But where did Abraham get this persuasion from?
By the promise of God.
Instead of going to the clinic and having
his high blood pressure lowered and having pills
to swallow and going through all that rigmarole
that they ask you.
I said to someone yesterday, Jesus Christ is
my shepherd.
But some of these folks make a guinea
pig out of you.
They do.
They'll try a thousand pills on you to
find out just how they react, because they
don't know.
But thank God here is Abraham.
He was persuaded.
Why?
All he needed to know was that God
promised.
And why did God promise?
Not because he saw that Abraham was uncomfortable
and that Sarah was in dishonor because she
was not a mother.
That wasn't it.
But God wanted to bless the whole world.
God wanted to bring his kingdom to this
world, and he had to have one representative
upon this earth that wouldn't worry, would believe
God.
And he honored God by hoping against hope,
where there was no natural solution at all.
He honored God.
He committed himself to God.
He was fully and so fully persuaded.
Beloved, who is God to you?
Tell me what kind of a God have
you got?
I'd like to know.
Who's your father?
What kind of a father have you got?
I talk about coming closer to Jesus.
That doesn't express it at all.
He says that that day you shall know
that you're part of me and I'm part
of you.
I'm in my father and ye in me
and I in you and is as even
as I live by the father.
So you shall live by me.
Think of the kingdom.
Oh, this glorious and wonderful kingdom.
Why hasn't it come to this earth?
Because everybody wants to be the pope.
As soon as people get a little blessing,
why then they're apostles and then they're prophets
and they put on a button and they
put on a stovepipe hat and they walk
through the town like the goat in a
circus.
We used to have circus come to our
town with a goat stovepipe hat.
It was a funny looking contraption.
Thine is the king.
Oh God, right at this moment, yours is
the kingdom.
Hallelujah.
And he said, your father, good pleasure to
give you the kingdom.
Hallelujah.
Let not your heart be troubled.
Well, we're going to go on letting our
hearts be troubled unless we don't.
Blessed be the name.
Oh, hallelujah.
You love it now.
See, now you're in the army.
Couldn't get out of it.
And listen, we're in the kingdom now.
You can't get out of it.
You've got a king.
Let him reign.
Let him take over.
Let him fill you with the holy.