Welcome to From the Pulpit.
Each week, we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers in the
Christian faith, and powerful sermons from modern preachers,
too.
This week, we have CM Ward with his
message, Who's Begging Now?
It's revival time across the nation and around
the world.
And now, as we join in honoring Christ,
our Savior, with millions across this nation and
around the world, it's revival time everywhere.
Praise God, Jesus has opened up the way
for salvation.
The choir now brings a message of positive
hope and joyful confidence in the song, Leaning
on the Everlasting Arm.
And now,
it's testimony and song time for everyone with
your friend and the friend of millions, CM
Ward.
This has been a wonderful week for me,
friends.
Not only have I received word from folk
all over the world who have given their
hearts to Christ, but I have received hundreds
of requests from revival time members asking me
to send my special Mother's Day card to
their mother.
One day alone, I received better than 1
,500 letters asking that this request be filled.
The last 48 hours, I've heard from so
many friends asking me, Well, Brother Ward, if
it isn't too late, would you please send
one of your special greetings to my mother?
Well, to all of you in my audience,
my answer, of course, is yes, I will.
God bless all of you, dear friends.
I wouldn't leave out one dear mother.
So even if your letter gets to me
a day or two late, I'm going to
go the extra mile and see that your
mother gets a personal and very special greeting
from me.
All I need, of course, is a letter
from you giving me your mother's name and
address, and I'll work late at night rather
than ever permit your dear mother to feel
that she's been left out.
I mean that.
God bless you.
I'm for every wonderful praying mother in this
audience.
And there are letters from everywhere this week,
but the one I'm going to share with
you is pretty dear to my heart.
Many years ago, in my evangelistic work, I
was able to win a young man to
Christ who has since found his life's work
in Africa, and he writes me from Kenya
right in the midst of the bloody Mau
Mau trouble.
Brother Ward, 24 years ago, you laid your
hand upon my shoulder during an evangelistic campaign
and started me toward God.
I sense a way out here in Africa,
listening to Revival Time through Radio Ceylon, that
in your broadcast ministry, you're still reaching out
a friendly hand to lead men toward God.
The awful happenings out here, Brother Ward, remind
us that we haven't any time to lose
if we're to complete our task.
This truly demon-inspired Mau Mau, with its
horrible, obscene oaths, has rooted deep into the
hearts of these great African tribes, and only
spiritual revival can tear away this obsession and
bring deliverance.
Brother Ward, it's 24 years since you led
me to Jesus Christ, and I haven't forgotten
you.
Please ask your Revival Time audience to pray
for my wife and myself, our 11-year
-old boy and our 9-year-old girl,
as we work for Jesus in the midst
of this terrible African uprising.
You know, neighbor, a letter like that gets
a hold of you.
Now, I know that Jesus not only saves,
but Jesus also keeps.
And I want you to sing an old
-fashioned gospel song for that friend and his
little family out there in Africa.
And as you sing it now, picture that
little missionary family in the midst of that
terrible environment of murder and treachery, and then
let them feel your faith and prayer as
you send them this song.
We're going to sing tonight, What Can Wash
Away My Sins?
And the answer is nothing but the blood.
Let's all trust the blood.
Everybody sing.
What can wash away my sins?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
And now here is Lil Sunberg with a
very special song for all the mothers among
our radio friends.
Mothers, prayers have followed me.
I greet my Lord from day to day.
I've scorned His love, so full and free.
And though I've wandered far away, my mother's
prayers have
followed me.
Have followed me.
He turned my darkness into day.
I'll praise His name both night and day.
For mother's prayers have followed me.
I'm coming home.
I'm coming home to leave my wasted
life anew.
For mother's prayers have followed me.
Have followed me the whole world through.
For this radio service, your Revival Time evangelist,
C.M. Ward, speaks on the theme, Who
is Begging Now?
The text in two parts.
And he desired to be fed with crumbs.
And send Lazarus that he may dip the
tip of his finger in water and cool
my tongue.
This account reduces life to bread and water,
neighbor.
And it's a page out of the Bible
that sets forth the truth in the plainest
of fashions.
First of all, Jesus is not trying to
say that you go to heaven because you
are poor, and you go to hell because
you are rich.
It isn't the state of your pocketbook so
much as it is the state of your
heart.
The dogs had a better conscience than the
gentleman on the boulevard.
The Bible says that the dogs came and
licked the beggar's sores.
That was the only hospitalization he ever had.
His canine friends did the very best they
could for him.
And it will be a solemn moment in
the universe when God calls upon the animal
creation to testify against man's inhumanity to man
and man's unfaithfulness to his God.
Simple animal sense would cause us to go
God's way.
God didn't have to speak twice to the
animal when he wanted them to march into
Noah's ark.
The wisest of earth could stand around and
scoff at God and laugh at the ark
and prove so easily that it would never
rain while the animal obeyed its creator.
The lion in the Persian pit of capital
punishment will hush its roar in reverent respect
for God's servant Daniel.
Two sea bears demanding more courtesy from their
cubs than parents were demanding from their crop
of juvenile delinquents in Elisha's day would be
so startled at the blasphemy of the younger
generation and their mockery of old-time religion
that they themselves would open war against such
ribald indecency.
Crows will bring meals on time to a
preacher being tracked down by bloodthirsty Jezebel.
A whale will give a submarine ride to
one of God's evangelists.
A mule will try to reason a man
away from his willful backsliding.
And dogs will lick Lazarus' sores.
What makes a man's heart so hard for
God to reach?
The answer is right here on this page
of the Bible, neighbor.
The answer is selfishness.
The Bible says that this man was clothed
in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously
every day while an honorable but unfortunate man
sat at his gate every day asking but
for a crumb.
How selfish and hard can men get?
Well, ask the American prisoner of war from
Korea.
He'll tell you, oh yes, the human heart
will so often put animals to shame.
That's why this man went to hell.
Now, there's a second truth that Jesus presents
in pretty plain fashion.
It's the truth about death.
He says that rich men die as well
as poor men.
That politicians will die and voters will die.
That scientists will die and ignorant will die.
That athletes will die and the sick will
die.
This is the way it's written on this
page of the Bible.
And it came to pass that the beggar
died.
And the very same verse records this fact.
The rich man also died.
He couldn't bribe death.
His influence couldn't cheat the undertaker.
All of his financial assets couldn't demand a
special deal.
Death is a common denominator.
That's what Jesus is saying here.
And it's interesting to see what Jesus says
about these two men and death.
He says about one man, the beggar died
and was carried by angels.
He says about the other man, that the
rich man also died and was buried.
One man's honors began after death, while the
other man's honors ended with the burial committal
in the cemetery.
To one man, death meant a glorious release.
To the other man, it meant the end
of every privilege he'd ever enjoyed.
His life had become worthless a long time
before they ever buried him.
He might have found life in feeding the
poor, in binding up the wounds of the
sick, in sharing his wealth with the underprivileged.
But he buried himself in his purple and
his fine linen, and the heaped up food
on his table, and behind locked gates of
his private estate.
He was dead inside a long time before
some physician pronounced him dead on the outside.
I want to ask you, neighbor, in this
hour, what will the record say about you?
Will a band of angels come to gather
you home, or will they simply bury you?
That's what you must decide.
Don't deceive yourself.
Death is more than a chapel service.
It's more than a beautiful casket, or a
new suit of clothes.
It's more than a headstone.
Death is a report card.
It's a final auditing.
It's the figures on the scoreboard.
And in this hour, I want you to
think.
I want you to answer this question.
How will I die?
One man can die in purple, but rotten
inside.
The other man can die full of sores
on the outside, but clean as a whip
on the inside.
They say clothes make a man.
Don't you believe it?
It's what's behind the clothes that count.
And there's a third lesson that Jesus writes,
so that all men may read.
It's this.
The justice of God cannot be limited to
this life.
There's another world, whether men want to believe
it or not.
The Bible says, some men's sins are opened
beforehand, going before the judgment, and some men
they follow after.
Here's an example of that truth.
One man begged for bread in this world,
and the other man begged for water in
the next world.
And as long as there's a God in
heaven, neighbor, there'll be an evening of process.
Folks so often get an idea from what
they see on this side of eternity that
it pays to be a rogue, that a
good man gets a raw deal, that it's
smart to be crooked, that the only law
to live by is to get all you
can, hold on to all you get, and
let the next fellow look out for himself.
King David was so troubled about this that
he wrote about it in one of his
psalms.
Let me read it to you.
As for me, he said, my feet were
almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped,
for I was envious at the foolish when
I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
They are not in trouble as other men,
neither are they plagued like other men.
Their eyes stand out with fatness.
They have more than heart could wish.
They are corrupt, and they say, How doth
God know?
And is their knowledge in the Most High?
Behold, these are the ungodly who prosper in
the world.
They increase in riches.
Verily, I have cleansed my heart in vain.
I have washed my hands in innocency.
All day long have I been plagued and
chastened every morning.
And when I thought to know this, it
was too painful for me.
Until, said David, I went into the sanctuary
of God, and then understood I their end.
Jesus pulls back the curtain, neighbor, and he
lets us take a look into eternity.
And here on this page of God's book
is the echo of eternity.
Son, remember, he said, thou in my lifetime
receivest thy good things.
Likewise, Lazarus' evil things.
But now he is comforted, and thou art
tormented.
One man took the good things in this
world and used them selfishly and sinfully to
his damnation.
The other man took the sorrows and the
heartaches of this world, and he made them
lead him to God and Paradise.
If I had to, I'd rather beg on
this side of the grave than the other
side.
The word here is remember.
Don't think you're getting away with anything.
God's keeping the books, mister.
If we suffer, we shall reign.
If we shut God out of our lives
here, he'll shut us out of himself in
the life to come.
You've got to look farther than the grave,
neighbor.
Look into eternity in this hour, and then
and then only give me your final answer
on how you want to live.
And there's something else that speaks to us
in this page in the Bible.
It's this.
Changes have to be made on this side
of the grave.
The only second chance is the second chance
you get in this life and not the
next.
I don't know whether the rich man made
a will before he died or not, but
I know he tried to make one after
he reached eternity.
He said, I'd like to contribute something toward
the gospel.
I'd like to warn my family not to
come here.
I'd be in favor of sending Lazarus back
to life and let him preach in my
hometown where I lived so many years when
I was clothed in purple and fine linen
and fared sumptuously every day.
He said, I pray thee, sir, thou wouldst
send him to my father's house, for I
have five brothers, that he may testify unto
them, lest they also come into this place
of torment.
There'll be plenty of people in hell with
a missionary spirit.
They never had a dime to give toward
spreading the gospel in this world.
They said the church was always begging for
money.
It doesn't matter to them that two-thirds
of our world are hungry and diseased.
It doesn't disturb them that 55% of
the hospital beds in America are filled by
mental patients and there is an immediate need
for beds for 329,000 of others.
They think it's a waste of time that
52 martyrs have given their lives for Jesus
Christ in Columbia alone since 1948.
These folk never think of the gospel in
their purple and their fine linen and their
sumptuous living until it's too late.
Then they want a special miracle.
My friend, let me tell you that the
only special miracle that God will ever provide
for our salvation was done for all of
us when He gave His Son to die
in our stead on the cross of Calvary.
Take a tip from me.
You'd better do your supporting of preachers on
this side of the grave when you have
the chance.
And Christ would have us know one more
thing.
There's a great gulf fixed so that they
which pass from hence to you cannot.
Neither can they pass to us that would
come from thence.
Mankind has bridged most distances.
Perhaps in our lifetime man will bridge the
distance between earth and Mars or the moon
with his rocket ships and nations will be
racing to establish air bases on other planets.
Let that be as it may.
One thing is certain, neighbor.
No false doctrine, no wishful thinking, no ingenuity
of man, no new translation of the Bible
will ever build a bridge between hell and
heaven.
Men's hearts would have to change first.
And this man was just as selfish after
death as he was before.
It's still cool my tongue.
Send him to my house.
There's no heaven in this man's soul.
There may be remorse, but there's no repentance.
There's torment, but there's no confession.
Death does not change a sinner.
A funeral sermon may preach a dead man
into heaven, but that's only preacher's talk.
Men's sins follow them into eternity.
How wonderful in this hour that on this
side of the grave any man who would
change sides may do so.
It's up to you in this moment.
There aren't enough devils in hell to keep
you from becoming a Christian if you want
to.
And there aren't enough angels in heaven to
keep you out of a lost eternity.
If you're determined to squander your soul, Christ
opened up the way.
Only in eternity can it ever be said
that neither can they pass to us that
would come from hence.
Today you may change sides.
And with all my heart I urge you
to do so.
I want you to do now what you
will wish you would have done one minute
after you reach eternity.
This is the moment of your choice.
To you the Creator has given a free
will.
Yours is the responsibility to exercise that will
for good.
Eternity is a long, long time in which
to remember.
Don't wait until the gulf is fixed and
you are forever a lost soul.
Neighbor, change sides now.
Will you pray with me?
O Christ, help us not to live so
selfishly and so unconcerned about our souls that
we will never know what we have missed
until it's too late.
Help us to see who is at our
gate this moment.
And O Christ, we ask Thee to wash
us as white as snow in this hour.
We need something more than that which might
cool the tip of our tongue.
We need our lives renewed through Thy redemption.
Grant us this cleansing now.
Amen.
You've been listening to From the Pulpit.
This week you heard CM Ward with his
message Who's Begging Now?
Tune in next week for another powerful message
from God's Word on From the Pulpit.
Amen.