Could we have a prayer together?
I wonder if you'd stand for a word
of prayer.
We thank you Lord for all that you
have said to us already in this evening
in music and in song.
And now as we turn to thy word,
we do pray that we may approach it
with yielded hearts and thou wilt speak Lord
for thy servant heareth.
Speak just now some message to meet my
need which thou only dost know.
Speak now through thy holy word and make
me see some wonderful truth thou hast to
show to me.
For Jesus' sake.
Amen.
Please be seated.
Well good evening everyone.
Thank you very much.
How many of you here tonight haven't been
to any of these three meetings that we've
already had?
Would you mind raising your hand?
I thought so.
By far the large number.
That's very good.
Well we welcome you and we're glad indeed
to see you this evening.
Everybody's been saying to me that I ought
to be able to preach much better tonight
following the events in Sydney.
I don't quite know.
But I've always had a very keen interest
in cricket for many reasons.
I think it's a very clean game usually.
I think that a number of Christian men
have been very active in it and have
contributed quite a lot to it right from
the days of C.T. Studd whom I'm
sure you all know.
In modern times we have a man like
Colin Crowdery who this time must have had
a very unhappy experience in Australia for six
months.
And on the Australian side a year or
two ago Brian Booth.
I remember once sharing a platform in England
with him and he gave his testimony when
he was part of the Australian team.
And after giving a lovely testimony in the
town hall a meeting in Birmingham he said
well now I'd be grateful if you would
all just pray for me because at the
present time I've lost my form.
Well I didn't quite know how to pray
for that because I didn't really want him
to cover it.
That made a big difference.
You know I remember some time ago in
Chicago a series was being played in Britain
between England and Australia.
And I was very interested to know how
we were getting on.
So I decided to go down into the
town in Chicago and buy every Chicago newspaper
I could find, which I did.
I bought them all and that's like buying
a library they're all so fat.
And I looked through from beginning to end
and not a word, not a single word
about these terrific events that were taking place
in Britain.
So I didn't quite know what to do
but a friend of mine in London sent
me by air mail a copy of the
London Daily Telegraph.
He knew I'd be interested.
Well I opened the paper and knew exactly
where to look as you do and for
cricket news and during test match times right
in the centre of the front page nothing
else matters.
And there in large black letters I read
some words that sent a chill down my
spine.
England facing defeat.
I had a very unhappy day.
I took that paper to the office, nobody
was interested.
They were only concerned about some people called,
I think it was Black Sox or someone,
that played baseball.
Sort of grown up rounders I think that
is.
I can never understand it really.
But I know about two days later another
copy of the London Daily Telegraph arrived and
I hardly dare opened it.
But I opened it, plucked up courage and
opened it and opened it at the front
page and what do you think I saw?
England in sight of victory.
The whole situation had been completely transformed in
two days.
Now that leads me into exactly what I
want to say to you now.
Let me just ask you a very simple
straight question.
In relation to your Christian life, right now,
today, are you facing defeat or are you
in sight of victory?
Which?
Because my theme for these three nights, tonight,
tomorrow and Friday, on Saturday I purpose to
speak to you something on the subject of
the global situation today as opportunities for service
and testimony to Christ, missions.
But for these three nights I want to
speak to you about resources for Christian living.
That's our theme for these three evenings.
The messages will essentially be connected one with
another, though I hope that they will each
stand apart on their own.
So I do trust you're able to set
aside not only tonight but other evenings also.
By the way, one of my, I haven't
harnessed any strong points, but one is certainly
not brevity.
And so if you get tired or bored,
well just you get up and go out
and goodbye and God bless you, it's been
nice to have you here for a while,
but I hope you'll be able to see
it all through.
I remember after a meeting not so long
ago my wife and I returned to our
hotel room and there was a moment's sort
of awkward silence which isn't usual with us
and I wondered what I've been doing and
then she said I think we should have
a prayer together.
So I said yes rather.
I said but particularly why?
Well I think we need to start asking
the Lord to bless the people a little
more quickly.
I thought that was put very kindly but
I knew exactly what she meant.
Now that is not my strong point.
And so, well if you get bored just
goodbye, but I trust that I manage even
on a hot evening to keep you awake
because we're concerned in this subject with something
that is tremendously controversial and that is the
ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life
of a child of God.
A really controversial point upon which many many
people are confused today and I take this
theme deliberately not because I delight in being
controversial, far from it, but because I meet
every day almost so many people who are
discouraged and defeated and disillusioned and somehow don't
get any thrill out of the Christian life.
Some are in business and through the sheer
pressure of business their testimony has suffered.
Some are in the ministry and the claims
of other people's lives upon them are so
tremendous that they themselves have almost snapped under
the strain.
And in spite of the training and preparation
they don't seem to have what's required.
The people are just ordinary folks like you
and me in homes and businesses, all with
varying responsibilities, but so many of us suffering
under the pressures and tensions of life in
these days.
So often our heads are full of knowledge,
but our hearts are empty of experience.
Now I want to speak, and I trust
that God will speak to you in these
three nights, about this subject of how many
are disillusioned and discouraged and defeated and what
is the real answer to it all.
Because if that is a true description of
life, of so many of us, and I
cannot think it can be other than true,
without being cynical or critical or seeming to
be censorious, but simply being realistic, I meet
so many few Christian people who are excited
about their faith.
So few to whom it's real.
So few to whom every day of the
week Jesus is a living person and who
is a vital factor in their lives.
So many of us, it's simply attending a
church, attending on Sunday once or occasionally twice,
and then we turn off the spiritual tap
and turn on the secular tap, and it
makes no difference to our lives during the
week.
And others say, well, we've dedicated our lives
to God and we've committed our lives to
God, and it doesn't work.
There's nothing in it.
Not real.
Not for me.
Now it's time then that we took stock
and asked ourselves, what's the reason for all
this?
And what's the answer to it?
Why is it that I believe so much
and I experience so little?
For the basis of our messages on these
three evenings, we're turning to an Old Testament
passage of Scripture, and we shall stick pretty
closely to it and refer to other passages
for the sake of bringing further light upon
it.
And I want to read to you, if
you will follow in your Bible, and it'll
pay you in these three nights to bring
your Bible, the first few verses of Ezekiel
chapter 47.
I'll give you time just to look it
up in your Bible.
If you haven't got it with you tonight,
don't be embarrassed.
Get one out of your pew or borrow
one from somebody else, share one with somebody,
but be prepared to bring one with you
tomorrow so that you can follow the Word
more easily.
The story of Ezekiel's vision of a river,
Ezekiel 47.
I'm reading in the authorized version.
Afterward he brought me again into the door
of the house, and behold waters issued out
from under the threshold of the house eastward.
For the forefront of the house stood toward
or faced the east, and the waters came
down from under from the right side of
the house at the south side of the
altar.
Then brought he me out of the way
of the gate northward, and led me about
the way without unto the outer gate by
the way that looketh eastward.
And behold, I ran walk out waters on
the right side.
And when the man that had the line
in his hand went forth eastward, he measured
a thousand cubits, and he brought me through
the waters.
The waters were to the ankles.
Again he measured a thousand, and brought me
through the waters.
The waters were to the knees.
Again he measured a thousand, and brought me
through.
The waters were to the loins.
Afterward he measured a thousand, and it was
a river that I could not pass over,
for the waters were risen, waters to swim
in, a river that could not be passed
over.
And he said unto me, Son of man,
hast thou seen this?
Then he brought me, and caused me to
return to the brink of the river.
Now when I had returned, behold, at the
bank of the river were very many trees
on one side and the other.
Then said he unto me, These waters issue
out toward the east country, and go down
into the desert, and go into the sea,
which being brought forth into the sea, the
waters shall be healed.
And it shall come to pass that everything
that liveth, which moveth, whether soever the river
shall come, shall live.
And there shall be a great, a very
great multitude of fish, because these waters shall
come thither, for they shall be healed.
And everything shall live, whether the river cometh.
And it shall come to pass that the
fishers shall stand upon it, from En Gedi
even unto Eneglem.
There shall be a place to spread forth
nets.
Their fish shall be according to their kinds,
as the fish of the great sea exceeding
many.
But the miry places and the marshes thereof
shall not be healed.
They shall be given to salt.
And by the river, upon the bank thereof,
on this side and on that side, shall
grow all trees from eat, whose leaf shall
not fade.
Neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed.
It shall bring forth fruit, new fruit, according
to his months, because the waters they issued
out of the sanctuary.
And the fruit thereof shall be for meat,
and the leaf thereof for medicine.
Now just a second, in case there are
any theologians here, especially those who are dispensationally
minded, let me just say to you in
passing that I am not unmindful of the
future fulfilment in the millennial age of everything
that is written here.
When our Lord Jesus will return and will
reign in Jerusalem in visible glory and power,
and his kingdom will be established on earth,
in symbolic language, here's a picture of blessings
that one day will be absolutely worldwide.
Therefore let me defend myself and say that
I'm not unmindful of that interpretation.
But I don't look at my Bible to
what dispensation I'm in.
I don't look at my Bible, read it,
with a view to increasing my knowledge of
doctrine.
Every time I turn to my Bible I
say, Lord Jesus, what has this portion got
to say about you?
And Lord Jesus, what has it got to
say about my life and how I can
live it?
And here is a graphic illustration of resources
for Christian living.
The Bible is an Eastern book, and the
pictures of it, the pictures in it and
the illustrations it uses, are such as would
be understood by people living in the Middle
East.
The people of the land knew the value
of water.
The ground was often hard like iron, and
the heavens as brass.
And the picture here in this chapter of
Ezekiel is the picture of a great river.
Now you know it's rivers which make cities,
and rivers which establish countries.
There would be no London without the Thames.
There would be no Rome without the Tiber.
There'd be no Egypt without the Nile.
No New York without the Hudson.
And so I could go on.
No Adelaide without, you know, exactly.
I was just going to say Melbourne, and
I thought, well the Yarra, and I couldn't
remember what was the equivalent, but you know
what I mean.
Well they wouldn't, would they?
The difference that a river makes is the
difference between desert and garden.
And oh, what an illustration this continent is
of that very thing.
If only rivers could be diverted.
If only enough salt water could be transformed
into fresh water.
If only water could get in to the
interior, what potential there is in this, the
only underpopulated continent of the world.
What a tremendous thing it would be to
see a river transforming a desert into a
garden.
It's not surprising therefore that much is made
in the Bible of phrases like this.
Springs of water, wells of salvation, showers of
blessing, floods on dry ground.
These have immense significance.
It's a picture that runs right through the
book from beginning to end.
For instance, in Isaiah, or if you come
from the States, in Isaiah, chapter 35 and
verse 6, in the wilderness shall waters break
out and streams in the desert.
Psalm 46, verse 4, there is a river,
the streams thereof shall make glad the city
of God.
Psalm 1 and verse 3, the godly man
is like a tree planted by the rivers
of water that bringeth forth his fruit.
And taking the picture into the New Testament,
you remember what the Lord Jesus said.
If any man thirst let him come unto
me and drink.
He that believeth on me out of his
inner man shall flow not a trickle, not
a stream, not a river, but rivers of
living water.
And right in the last book of the
Bible, the book of Revelation, where John, describing
for us what heaven will be like, tells
us that there is no moon there, no
sun, no sorrow, no sin, but a river,
a pure river of water of life, as
clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne
and of the Lamb.
Now what's the significance of all this?
Here is the theme of the Bible, running
right through it.
John, explaining Jesus, said, This spake he of
the Holy Spirit, whom they that believe on
him should receive.
And Ezekiel records that God said, Everything shall
live where the river cometh.
So I find here a tremendous promise.
Everything shall live where the river cometh.
This spake he of the Holy Spirit, whom
they that believe on me should receive.
He is a promise of a person, a
living person, who can come into my life
and meet my need and transform the barrenness
into a watered garden.
A year or two ago, I was with
the Sudan Interior Mission in that lovely country
of Ethiopia.
And I went for a week or two
to stay at a town of the name
of Sodu for a conference, missionary conference, of
the Sudan Interior Mission.
And I stayed that time with the mission
builder and his wife.
And immediately he greeted me and took me
into his home and he said, Come and
let me show you what I have just
bought my wife for a silver wedding present.
So I said, Sure.
And I went to see it.
I'll guarantee that if I gave you, every
one of you, a piece of paper and
asked you to put down on paper what
this man bought his wife for a silver
wedding present, those in one of you would
get it right.
Because I don't think many husbands would have
the audacity to buy their wife what he
did.
Do you know what he bought her?
A bathroom.
Fancy giving your wife a bathroom.
Wow.
It was beautiful.
All marble tiles, marvellous chromium plated taps.
Oh, it was the loveliest bathroom I'd ever
seen with shower and everything.
He deserved it.
He'd worked like a slave there for 25
years.
And now he'd got that lovely bathroom.
And I was glad for a different reason
as well.
For two weeks, I had been living in
the most primitive surroundings imaginable.
And I was in great need of sharing
the blessing of this 25th anniversary present.
And so when I saw this bathroom, I
said, Praise the Lord, that's fine.
And I went back to my room and
changed and returned to the bathroom and went
to start my bath and turned on the
tap and nothing happened.
So I dressed again and went to find
him and I found him and I said,
Pardon me, I said, I was just going
to have a bath and I couldn't get
the tap to run.
Oh, he said, I forgot to tell you.
I forgot to tell you.
The local council haven't connected the water supply
and it won't be connected for three months.
So I never shared in the blessing of
that day and remained in the condition in
which I was.
What a situation.
Everything but the water.
All the lovely equipment.
All the beautiful bathroom.
All the lovely tiles but no water.
What on earth's the good of that?
And what on earth's the good of the
church without the Holy Spirit?
And what's the good of a Christian life
without the Holy Spirit?
In power.
Everything except the one thing that matters to
bring men to Christ.
Everything but life.
There's so many of our churches just like
that.
Doctrine, got that.
Deacons, got those.
But no dynamite.
No Holy Spirit life.
Organizations galore in an attempt to do something
to meet the needs of the generation in
which we live.
But the one person who can do it
somehow, I don't want again to be cynical,
but there are hundreds and hundreds of churches
in Britain today, if the Holy Spirit was
to remove and go, nobody would know any
different.
Nobody would know any different because nothing happens
in these churches as evidence of life and
miracle.
I wonder if that's not true of your
life and mine.
Everything except the Holy Spirit.
How much we need to pray that prayer
of that lovely hymn, Spirit divine, attend our
prayers and make our hearts thy home.
Descend with all thy gracious powers, O come,
great Spirit, come.
Come as the dew and sweetly blast this
consecrated hour.
May barrenness rejoice to own thy fertilizing power.
Now, of course, as I have said already,
here we're going to run into controversial territory.
I'm going to skate on thin ice.
That's not a very good metaphor on occasion
like this, but do you know what I
mean?
Perhaps it's better to say in a church
like this, I'm going to get in the
deep water and in trouble maybe with many
people who won't agree with me.
Some who say, what a pity you don't
go far enough in your teaching.
Other people who say, what a pity you
go so far.
God helping me in these three nights, I
want to go just as far as the
Bible goes.
No further, but just as far.
Now, if you're afraid of this subject, my
friend, as I know many people are, let
me say to you, don't let fanaticism, the
fear of false fire, keep you back from
knowing the reality of the Spirit of God
and only knowing no fire in your life.
So many of us have exchanged the false
fire of a fanatical faith for the no
fire of an orthodox one, and we haven't
got anything to say to anybody.
Now, as I turn to this passage of
Scripture in particular, I want the Lord helping
me to deal with it under three headings.
If you've got notebooks, you might like to
jot them down.
Tonight, I'm going to speak to you about
the essence of the river's power.
Tomorrow, the experience of the river's depth.
And on Friday, the effect of the river's
flow.
Let me begin then tonight with the essence
of the river's power.
First of all, notice the source of it.
Verse one, this river proceeded from the threshold
of the temple.
That is to say, it came from the
very throne of God.
Its source was right there.
And any true blessing that God can give
in our lives owes its origin to that
source.
It comes from the throne of God in
heaven.
Now, what assurance and what strength it brings
to us to know that the flow of
the river of life, the Spirit of God,
into his people and into his church, the
life of God the Holy Spirit, has its
origin from a throne to which the Lord
Jesus has been raised, where justice has been
satisfied, where no promise has ever been broken.
And where he received from the Father the
promise of the Holy Spirit.
Let me just read to you in Acts
chapter 2 a moment.
Acts chapter 2, 32.
Here is Peter's summary of the events of
Pentecost.
This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we
all are witnesses.
Therefore, being by the right hand of God
exalted, and having received of the Father the
promise of the Holy Spirit, he has shed
forth this which you now see and hear.
That was his explanation of this dramatic, dynamic
event that took place on that day.
That is of tremendous significance.
The Holy Spirit did not come to us
because 120 people met for a 10-day
prayer meeting in an upper room and waited
upon God.
He came because Jesus prayed that he would
come.
He came because our Lord had been down
here for 33 years and lived as a
man the kind of life all of us
are intended to live, of absolute obedience to
the will of God, never diverted from God's
will.
And on the day when that man hung
upon a cross, that kind of life couldn't
stay dead.
It was impossible, as Peter said that day,
for him to be holden of it.
The grave couldn't hold a man who had
been obedient to the will of God.
So up from the grave he arose with
a mighty triumph over his foes.
He arose a victor over the dark domain
and lives forever in heaven to reign.
And when he entered heaven and stood in
the presence of the Father, the presence of
that perfect man made a demand upon God.
He had won back for humanity the right
to live.
And he received of the Father promise of
the Holy Spirit.
And that Spirit was shed abroad on the
day of Pentecost.
And when you and I become Christians, when
I receive Jesus Christ into my heart, I
receive life that has come from a throne,
a life of authority, a life of power.
You remember what Jesus said?
You shall receive power after that the Holy
Spirit has come upon you, and you shall
be witnesses unto me.
Acts 1a.
You shall receive power.
And therefore, at my new birth, I receive
from heaven the very life of Christ himself.
The life of authority has come to dwell
in my heart.
Oh, how tremendous.
It is throne life that I have, and
that you have if you're a Christian.
Throne life.
You can't explain a Christian, a real Christian,
except on the basis of miracle.
If any man be in Christ, he is
a totally different kind of person inside.
He's at a revolution.
Something's happened.
A new power has taken over, and there's
no explaining it.
Many people try to explain Christianity by psychology.
All I would say is, if you can
explain your experience by a psychologist, you have
a church member on your hands, but you
don't have a Christian.
A Christian can't be explained, except on the
basis of a miracle having taken place in
his life, and God having come to live
within him.
The life that I possess from the moment
of my new birth is throne life, heaven's
life, a life of absolute power.
But notice something else.
Not only the source of this river, but
the course of it.
It came from the threshold, verse one says,
from the threshold of the temple eastward, and
the waters came down at the south side
of the altar.
Now, if you were thinking of having a
nap, would you just, for a minute, hold
it, and waken up, because this is tremendously
important, of tremendous significance.
It came from the threshold eastward.
Go back right to the beginning of history,
Genesis chapter three.
When God created a man, and incidentally, he
did create a man, thank heaven I haven't
evolved from a monkey.
God created a man in his own image,
and in his own likeness.
What a hopeless idea the theory of evolution
is.
This whole story in Genesis throbs with truth,
when I accept the fact that God created
a man in his own image, and in
his own likeness, to have dominion over his
world, to have authority, to rule it, on
one condition.
God placed in that garden two trees, one
of them the tree of life, which meant
the tree of access, the tree of relationship,
the tree of fellowship with God, our Christing
place, if you like, where we could commune
and talk with him as we walk in
the light, as he is in the light,
and enjoy intimate fellowship with God, and then
a tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, and of every tree in the garden
we had free permission to eat, with one
exception, the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, man had not to touch it,
which simply means that God reserved from himself,
for himself, the right to choose between right
and wrong.
I reserve, he says, in effect, for you,
I reserve the choice, and the decision as
to what is right and what is wrong.
You have absolute freedom, but you observe that
condition under my authority.
And you know the story, that man disobeyed,
and following his disobedience and rebellion, he was
driven from the garden, and driven from fellowship.
He refused to accept the condition, and immediately
lost life and relationship with God.
And Genesis 3 closes this way, so he
drove out the man, and he placed at
the east of the garden of Eden cherubim,
at the, notice that, at the east of
the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming
sword, which turned every way to keep the
way of the tree of life.
In that garden, on the eastward side, there
was a sword, which kept back forever a
rebel entering into the presence of God.
No more could rebels have fellowship with a
God who created them.
And God kept the flaming sword to guard
the entrance to that garden, and it was
set at the east side of the garden.
And Ezekiel 47 tells me that this river
came from the threshold eastward, the very direction
where God had put judgment, and God had
put a sword that was drawn, there came
this river of life.
Ezekiel 43 says something else about it, listen.
Verse 2, Behold, the glory of the God
of Israel came from the way of east,
the east, and his voice was like a
noise of many waters, and the earth shined
with his glory.
Verse 4, And the glory of the Lord
came into the house by the way of
the gate, whose prospect is toward the east,
and behold, the glory of the Lord filled
the house.
And so the river comes, and God's sword
is put in its sheath, for this river
came by way of the altar.
And in New Testament language, that just means
this.
The Spirit of God could not come until
there'd been a calvary.
When the blood had been shed, when judgment
had been dealt with, when the price had
been paid, when rebels had been forgiven, when
the Lord opened a way, a living way,
into the presence of God through faith in
his precious blood, when the cross and the
price and the blood had been shed, then
out flowed the river.
And God's sword, which guarded the entrance to
life, was put in its sheath, and God
is on my side.
Oh, that's all I can do to stop
shouting hallelujah.
But you know, the amazing and ridiculous things
that people say about God, things like this,
he's a great policeman, just running around, snooping
away, taking away all my fun.
He's against me.
God isn't against you.
There's a friend of mine whom I know
very well in Scotland, he has five kids,
and one weekend his wife decided she'd go
away for a holiday, get release from the
effort and the strain.
She went away, took four of the kids
with her, and left one with her father
for the weekend.
The one she left was a boy aged
nine who never stopped talking, and that was
the one she wanted to be away from
him for a weekend.
So she left him with Daddy.
And this man was a preacher, had a
church, and he was going to preach on
that Sunday for three services, and he had
to look after this boy who wouldn't stop
talking.
So he thought the only thing he could
do was bring his little bed into my
room and put him in one corner and
trust he'd be quiet.
I must get some sleep.
So he told the boy to be quiet.
No, he wouldn't stop talking.
He went on and on.
So he thought, well now, look, he said,
I'm going to put the light out and
we'll go to sleep.
Please be quiet.
Oh, and he started talking.
Now here's the light going out, so please
be quiet.
So it was quietness for about 10 minutes,
and then suddenly a voice said, Daddy.
Oh goodness, that boy again.
He said, Why, what's the matter, son?
Daddy, is your face turned this way?
Yes, it is, son.
Thank you, Daddy.
That was all, and he went sound asleep.
There's a place called Calvary which tells me
that God's face has turned my way.
He's on my side.
He's for me, not against me.
It doesn't matter how far I wander away
from himself, how far I've disobeyed, how deeply
habits have got hold of me, of which
I'm ashamed, God is for me, never against
me.
Calvary assures me of that.
The blood has been shed.
The way is open to his presence if
I'm prepared to repent and to trust him.
But before I can have a Pentecost, I
must have a Calvary.
Before I can know the Spirit of God
indwelling my heart, I must know in my
life what it means to meet God at
the foot of Calvary's cross.
Calvary precedes Pentecost.
When I go to some church prayer meetings
and I say, I hear people pray, Lord,
give us another Pentecost.
I think I know what they mean, but
I sometimes think that the angels in heaven
and look over the ramparts of heaven and
say, you give us Calvary and then we'll
give you Pentecost.
Pentecost is inevitable.
When I'm prepared to die out to all
my rights and let God have his supreme
sovereign way in my heart, then inevitably Pentecost
comes.
Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be
thy name, thy kingdom come.
Every Sunday morning.
Have you ever prayed, our Father which art
in heaven, hallowed be thy name, my kingdom
go.
You can't ask God's kingdom to come until
you say, my kingdom go.
The course of the river, it came from
the east side telling us that judgment has
been satisfied.
It came by way of the altar, it
comes to us by the way of the
cross.
And that's always how the Holy Spirit comes
into my life.
Comes when I've met God as a sinner
at Calvary and acknowledged to him that I
can do nothing about it.
So this life, this life which is a
life of authority is also a life of
submission.
I want to illustrate what I mean by
that.
A little time ago I was in London
in July, that's our summer, on a very
hot day, oh it was an awful hot,
temperature was at least 65.
And we was all sweating it out.
Evening papers as much back came out with
a huge headline, in the sizzling 70s, no
hope of a break.
And everybody was sweating.
And that day I went down Regent Street,
if you know it, towards Piccadilly Circus.
And for some reason or other, I saw
hundreds of double-decker buses all standing still,
stationary, nobody moving.
They're all taking over, the engines were, drivers
sitting at the wheel, nothing moving.
Being an accountant by nature, I began counting
up the horsepower under hoods of those buses,
soon lost count.
Hundreds of thousands of horsepower, all stationary, couldn't
move an inch.
And I wondered why, and then I got
to Piccadilly Circus and I found out why,
the traffic lights were broken down.
And in place of the traffic lights, there
was one little fat London policeman, I don't
think he was more than five foot eight
in height, and he had his helmet on
the back of his head, sweating it out
in the heat, and his hand on his
hip, and a hand up in the air
like that, with his back to all the
buses, and they're all stopped, none of them
moved an inch.
And I stood and looked at him, absolutely
fascinated.
He was so fat, it was terrific.
The size of the man, outwards, I mean,
not upwards, outwards, he was tremendous, as tall
as he was broad.
And there was that little fellow with his
hand up in the air.
And I thought to myself, I said, not
to him, but I said in my mind,
I said, you think you're no end of
a guy, don't you?
Why don't you go home?
I guess you live in Clapham Junction or
Wimbledon or somewhere.
Why don't you go home and you have
a wife and five kids, and go home
to them, and just take off your uniform
and come back in a suit of clothes
like I've got on, and stand in Piccadilly
Circus and do that?
In half a minute, he'd be in a
hospital, if he wasn't dead.
Why, there wasn't a driver on those buses
that cared two pennies for a little fat
London policeman, but I'll tell you what, I'll
tell you what, they cared a mighty lot
for the uniform he wore.
And that man was clothed with the authority
of Scotland Yard.
Clothed with a uniform that symbolised absolute authority.
And because of that, because of that, he
was in absolute control of this situation.
Down there in Piccadilly Circus, not one horse
dare move.
Not a driver dare put his foot on
the accelerator pedal.
He was in charge of the situation because
he was a man under authority who's in
control.
Do you see?
The life that I receive is a life
of absolute authority.
It's a life that comes from a throne
in heaven.
All power is given unto me.
Go ye therefore and preach the gospel.
That's the life I have.
But if I want to know the power,
I must submit to his authority.
I must meet him at the cross, I
must repent, and I must turn to him
as nothing and nobody.
And then that life of authority can get
through me to others.
The course of this river.
Now I just want to say one more
thing, then we're through.
I trust you're with me.
I trust you see the thrill of this
message, the wonder of it, what it can
do in your life.
If you really get hold of this, it
will transform you.
The Holy Spirit's source is in a throne
in heaven.
His course is by way of the cross,
so that he comes to you from a
throne with absolute authority, the life of a
risen Lord.
He comes because you've met God in Jesus
Christ at Calvary, and you've repented of sin
and trusted him from and what about the
force of it?
Verse five, I notice that one mile or
less from its source, this river had grown
until it was more than a mile deep.
Less, rather let me put it this way,
less than a mile from its source.
It was far too deep to swim in.
Waters, waters, says verse five, to swim in.
No tributary had reinforced it, at least I
don't read of any, hadn't been strengthened by
any other stream.
It owed its growth and owed its power
to the fact that constantly springing up from
a throne in heaven, it was fed from
that same source.
Now listen, God gives the Holy Spirit without
measure where he can find a channel ready
to receive him, where he can find a
life available for his purpose, for his use,
and we have nothing we can add to
the power of the Holy Spirit in our
lives.
You can't improve on Jesus, of course you
can't, of course you can't.
God's perfect answer for your life, Jesus himself
indwelling you, filling you, thrilling you every day,
you can't improve on him.
The trouble is that in our churches, in
our lives, we've so often substituted this for
organization and ideas and programs which simply crowd
out the Spirit of God.
How much room is there in your church
for the Holy Spirit to work?
Have you ever been at a service where
he's intervened?
Where you've been conscious of his presence?
Where God has really broken through?
Or are you satisfied to go through life
every Sunday, hymn, prayer, hymn, reading, notices, offering,
hymn, anthem, hymn, message, hymn, benediction, and all
the go home.
The moment we're out the building we talk
about anything except the Lord.
Never think about anything that's happened.
It happens twice a Sunday and we pray
church satisfactorily to our own idea and try
to fool everybody that we're religious and make
some impact upon the day in which we
live.
It's absolute sheer bunkum.
We don't touch anybody or anything doing that.
Just come inside our churches and pray religion
every week.
Pray at it.
Nothing in it at all.
God never steps in whenever awed by his
presence or have to pause with a sense
of the wonder that God is with us
because we've crowded him out.
What's your smallest meeting in your church diary?
A prayer meeting?
That's the answer.
Crowded him out.
Don't want him.
It'd be very awkward if God intervened too
much.
It'd be disturbing.
It'd affect too much of our habits and
customs.
It would be very inconvenient to us.
I'm afraid I don't know much about Australian
history but I wonder whether Australia has ever
really had revival.
I know it has had some wonderful evangelists,
Lionel Fletcher among them, great man of God,
but really has this country ever seen such
a move of the Spirit of God?
As years ago we saw in Wales and
Northern Ireland, in other parts of the world,
in East Africa.
A real touch of heaven.
A real breakthrough of heaven.
We haven't.
And that's why it is that young people
today are just sick to death of the
church.
Don't think it's got anything to say.
Fed up with it.
Never come inside it.
Don't want anything to do with it.
Don't be very sceptical about supernatural things.
They don't take anything for granted simply because
they haven't seen any evidence of supernatural living
on the part of parents.
And the churches to them seem utterly remote
and utterly irrelevant because there's no life and
no reality where there ought to be.
Oh my friend, I plead with you that
you and your church will somehow know what
to do in making room for God to
do something.
For God to do a new thing in
days like these before it's too late.
You know, or do you, that God doesn't
expect you to live the Christian life?
Whether it's in your home, in the pastorate,
or in business, anywhere, you can't live the
Christian life in your own strength.
So many of us try to do that.
I don't doubt our conversion, but we live
as if Jesus Christ hadn't anything to do
with us.
Do you know I had a letter from
a man, a businessman not so long ago,
and he said to me after a meeting
I'd been at, he said that's the first
time I've ever heard that Jesus Christ is
a factor in my Christian life.
Never knew it.
His religion had been going to church praying
on Sunday and then just seeking to live
a good life.
Oh, a Christian man, unquestionably, but never knowing
he had resources in the person of God's
Holy Spirit adequate to meet every situation.
You and I can't live the Christian lives
in our strength, no more than we can
save our souls.
But the fact is that the Lord Jesus
is provided for us, one who is absolutely
sufficient for every circumstance in order that I
may live triumphantly.
I receive from givenness, forgiveness from God by
faith in a crucified Saviour.
And at that moment I'm sealed with the
Spirit.
I belong to Him.
I'm indwelt by the Spirit because He's come
into my heart to live.
And He's come there to meet every demand
that can ever be made upon me, an
answer to my obedience, my commitment.
Yes, the Holy Spirit in you is God's
answer to your defeat, your discouragement, your despair.
The opposite of everything that I am by
nature is in Christ, and He's in me.
Come on now, let's just, as I close,
let's just get to grips with that thought
in your life.
What are you by nature?
Are you bad-tempered?
Well, He's gracious.
Are you impure?
Well, He's pure.
Are you unholy?
Well, He's holy.
Are you untruthful?
Well, He is truth.
Do you know nothing about guidance?
Well, He is the way.
Whatever you aren't, He is.
And He's in you to produce just what
He is in your life every day.
That's Christian living.
That's what turns it from drudgery to luxury.
Where in any situation, when sometimes the adversary
comes in like a flood and I don't
know what to do, I can say, Lord,
I can't, but you can.
When I'm tempted with impure thoughts, Lord Jesus,
I didn't ask for these, it's over to
you, you can.
I trust you.
When I'm impatient and want to blow my
top with somebody, Lord, your grace, your patience,
please, and He's there.
The opposite to all that I am is
in Christ.
Trouble is that most of us spend our
Christian lives trying to make ourselves better, better
Christians, polish up the flesh, you know, make
ourselves better people.
Perhaps with a little prayer, a little reading
the Bible, a little understanding, a little training,
a little going into college, a little study,
I'll make myself a better person.
You won't.
No, no, it doesn't work that way.
God doesn't want to improve you.
He just leaves you alone.
He says, now get out of the way
and let me come in and let me
do it all for you as you moment
by moment take and trust and receive all
my strength and all my power.
I don't want to tread on anybody's corns
unnecessarily, but I want to say something that
I believe to be firmly true, and that
is if Christian people understood this secret of
real living, I tell you that about half
our psychiatrists would be put out of a
job.
They'd be out of work.
For the tensions and strains that come in
life, which drive people to the psychiatrist are
rooted deeply in the conflict between myself, the
old life, and this new life, Jesus in
me.
And if I don't get that secret, I
soon start taking tranquilizers, drinking masses of coffee,
biting my fingernails, and live on tension and
strain all through my life.
Oh, one of the greatest men in the
Anglican church was, oh, some time ago was
Bishop Handley Mole, Bishop of Durham.
And he went to the Keswick Convention, very
rebellious against it, against teaching.
And then he saw the truth, and he
wrote the hymn.
Do you know it?
Listen to it, two verses of it.
My Savior, thou hast offered rest.
Oh, grant it then to me, the rest
of ceasing from myself to find my all
in thee.
In thy strong hand I lay me down,
so shall the work be done.
For who can work so wondrously as the
Almighty One?
My dear, dear friend, may I say to
you that if you don't make that discovery
in life, I'll tell you.
I don't care what your ambitions may be,
what your goals are, what your study is,
how high an academic training you may have,
and how dreams you have.
Before long, before long, the whole business will
just lie in shattered ruins around you, absolutely
impossible to attain, because at the centre of
your life you've left out God the Holy
Spirit.
Verse 1 says, He led me to the
door.
Verse 2 says, He led me to the
way.
That's what I've sought to do this evening,
to lead you to the door and to
lead you to the way.
May the Holy Spirit give you insight to
follow.
Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, we're helpless without you in any
situation.
We're reminded that thou didst say, without me
you can do nothing.
Oh God, for Jesus sake, teach us all
tonight to stand aside, to move right over
from centre, and let you come in and
take over.
Live out your life through us every day,
that people may take knowledge of us we've
been with Christ.
We ask it for his name's sake.
Amen.