Please turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter
6, 6th chapter of Romans, beginning at verse
1, Romans 6, verse 1.
What shall we say then?
Shall we continue in sin that grace may
abound?
Certainly not.
How shall we who died to sin live
any longer in it?
Or do you not know that as many
of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death?
Therefore we were buried with him through baptism
into death.
But just as Christ was raised from the
dead by the glory of the Father, even
so we also should walk in newness of
life.
For if we have been planted, united together
in the likeness of his death, certainly we
shall also be in the likeness of his
resurrection.
Knowing this, that our old man was crucified
with him, that the body of sin might
be done away with, we should no longer
be slaves of sin.
For he who has died has been freed
from sin.
Tonight we're going to think first of all
about the two ordinances of the Christian church,
baptism and the Lord's Supper.
Some also believe that foot washing is an
ordinance of the church and very fine Christians
practice that.
However, we feel that the scriptures do not
exactly bear that baptism instituted by the Lord
Jesus when he gave the great commission to
his disciples.
Go into all the world, preach the gospel,
make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Baptism instituted in the gospel practiced in the
book of Acts.
You see it all the way through the
book of Acts that those who trusted in
the Lord Jesus were baptized in his name.
And then expounded in the epistles.
Here you have the spiritual, the scriptural explanation
of baptism and what it means.
And what does it mean?
Well, I like to use the three letters
A, B, C.
Baptism means allegiance.
It's a pledge of allegiance to the Lord
Jesus.
I think we all know what that means.
Pledge allegiance to the flag, pledging our loyalty
to the flag and to the republic for
which it stands.
When you're baptized, you're taking your public place,
pledging your allegiance to Jesus Christ.
Say, I belong to Christ and Christ belongs
to me.
Baptism is burial.
We read that here.
If we have been planted together in the
likeness of his death, we shall be also
in the likeness of his resurrection.
And it pictures the death of the old
man.
It pictures the death of the old nature.
Now we're new creatures in Christ Jesus.
And in type, at least, the old man
is being buried.
When the Lord Jesus died at Calvary, he
died not only as my substitute, he died
as my representative.
He not only died for me, he died
as me.
When he died, I died in him.
When he was buried, I was buried in
him.
When he rose again, I rose again in
him as well.
Allegiance, burial, see, commitment.
It's a commitment to walk in newness of
life.
It's just not a matter of ritually going
under water, being immersed in water, but the
public statement that I intend by the strength
and grace of God to live a new
life, to be committed to Jesus Christ as
my Lord and Savior.
I think this is very important.
A lot of people think that when they're
baptized, well, they've jumped that hurdle, and that's
the end of that.
But it really isn't the end of that.
It's the beginning of something.
It's not enough to be baptized in water.
We should go out from there to live
the baptized life.
So it should be a daily matter, our
baptism.
It's a continuum from that day that we
took our place with Christ in the waters
of baptism.
Now we go out to live as those
who have died with Christ, who have died
to sin, who have died to sin as
master.
I don't know if you noticed that.
It says in one of the verses of
chapter six, we've died to sin.
Let me get it.
He who has died has been freed from
sin.
Freed from sin?
I sin every day in thought, word, and
deed.
It might help you in understanding a verse
like that to think, if you don't want
to write them in your Bible, freed from
sin as master.
Because that's really what it means, and it
goes on to explain that in the rest
of the chapter.
Sin no longer has dominion over the child
of God.
Sin shall not have dominion over you, for
you're not under law, you're under grace.
When man is under law, he's in a
state of bondage.
But when he's under grace, he's in a
state of freedom and liberty.
He can do what he wants to do,
because what he wants to do is what
Christ wants him to do.
That's the will of God.
It's the most agreeable thing to the new
nature.
So I'd just like to leave that thought
with you.
Don't think that ritual baptism in water is
the end of anything.
It's not the end.
It's just a beginning where you take your
stand for the Lord Jesus, and where you
go out to live that kind of a
life.
A life of separation from sin and the
world to God.
Very, very important.
Is baptism important?
Well, it really is important.
Do you have to be baptized to be
saved?
No, you don't have to be baptized to
be saved.
But you do have to be baptized to
be obedient.
And I like to remind people that if
they're saved by the grace of God and
have resisted baptism and refuse to be baptized,
they will be unbaptized for all eternity.
Because there's no baptismal tanks in heaven.
I think Presbyterians think they might have a
second chance in the river of life in
heaven, but there's no scripture that would warrant
that.
No, if you go to heaven, you can
go to heaven through the merits of Christ
without being baptized, but as I say, you'll
be unbaptized for all eternity.
It's one of those wonderful things that you
can do down here to please the heart
of Christ.
You won't be able to do in eternity.
When you trust Christ as your Savior, I
don't think the devil necessarily sees it.
The devil is not omniscient.
He's not omnipresent, not omnipotent, and he doesn't
know everything that's going on.
But you know, when you're baptized, he knows
it, because he can see that.
That's open to the public.
And that's why in many cultures and nations
of the world today, in other religions, that
is, in countries where other religions hold sway,
you can trust Christ and not suffer persecution.
But when you're baptized, the persecution begins.
And oftentimes, it ends in death.
But even in this country, parents of children
who've been saved tell them they'll have to
get out of the house if they're baptized.
There is that measure of persecution in this
country as well, an anti-Christian bigotry.
So, when you think of baptism, think of
three letters, A, B, C, Allegiance, Baptism, Commitment
to the Lord Jesus Christ.
The other ordinance of the Christian Church is
the Lord's Supper.
And this is the central act of the
Church's worship, the central act of the Church's
worship.
It was instituted by the Lord, as you
know, in Luke chapter 22.
On the night in which he was betrayed,
he gathered the disciples together.
They had the last Passover, and then he
instituted the Lord's Supper.
He took the bread as the emblem of
his body, which was to be given on
the cross of Calvary.
And he took the cup, which contained the
wine, a symbol of the blood that he
would shed for you and for me.
I reproach myself for being able to stand
here and say something and not be amazed,
not be startled, not be dumbfounded.
Do you realize what I just said?
I said that Christ, God manifest in the
flesh, went to the cross and gave his
body and poured out his life for you
and for me.
Or to put it in a more startling
way, your God died for you.
I tell you, if that truth would grip
us, our lives would never be the same,
never be the same.
It's because we can take it and become
casual about it, that we can go on
in our ordinary way of life.
Paul, speaking to the Ephesian elders in Acts
chapter 20, says, shepherd the flock of God,
which he purchased with his own blood.
And I think that verse was put in
the Bible to shock us into an awareness
of what really happened at Calvary.
Shepherd the flock of God, which he purchased
with his own blood.
That's what the Bible says.
I must confess that one of my favorite
hymns of the Christian faith is that one
I started to quote in our previous session
by Charles Westing.
Can it be that I should gain an
interest in the Savior's blood?
Died he for me who caused him pain?
For me who him to death pursued amazing
love?
How can it be that thou, my God,
should die for me?
We sing it, but we don't realize what
we're singing.
I've heard of people dying for their God,
but I never before heard of a God
dying for his people.
That's what happened at Calvary.
And he asks that we should gather together
and remember him in the breaking of bread
and the drinking of the cup.
Instituted by the Lord and practiced in the
book of Acts.
Practiced in the book of Acts.
Acts 20, 27.
Paul's traveling.
He knows where to go, where the disciples
are going to be remembering the Lord on
the first day of the week.
And then, of course, expounded in the epistles,
1 Corinthians chapter 11, as often as you
do this, you show forth the Lord's death
until he comes.
Once again, it's just not a ritual that
you do and that's the end of it.
When we come together to break bread, we
hear him say to us, through the word,
this is my body given for you.
Dear friends, it's total disrespect to leave the
breaking of bread without looking up and saying
to the Lord Jesus, Lord, this is my
body given for you.
It's the only proper response you can make
to a love so amazing, so divine.
And yet we hold back.
We live our little lives the way we
think they should be lived and fail to
find out what his will for them is.
Two ordinances of the Christian faith, baptism and
the Lord's Supper.
And that leads us in a very even
transition to the subject of worship.
Worship is absolutely central.
You read in John chapter 4, the Father
seeks worshippers.
You look at that verse carefully, it doesn't
say the Father seeks workers.
The Father seeks worshippers.
I've heard people raise questions about that.
Isn't that kind of selfish of God to
want people to worship him?
How would you answer that?
Well, let me say this.
Every command in the scripture is given more
for our good than it is for his.
Do you ever think of that?
Every command of scripture, I don't care what
it is, even if you go back to
the ten commands that are given for our
good rather than for his.
You say, well, what's our good when the
Father seeks worshippers?
I'll tell you what's for our good.
You become in life what you worship.
That's why it's good for us.
It's absolutely a principle of the word of
God.
You become in life what you worship.
And the more you worship the Lord Jesus,
the more you become like him.
Does it say that in the Bible?
Yes, it certainly does.
Second Let
me go over that verse just item by
item.
But we are all Christians.
Beholding as in a mirror, the mirror is
the word of God.
Beholding as in a mirror, the glory of
the Lord.
We go and we read not only about
his glory as a man here on earth,
but his glory at the right hand of
God just now.
The glory of the risen, ascended Lord Jesus
Christ.
We sing gazing on the Lord in glory
while our hearts in worship bow.
There we read the story of his cross,
shame and woe.
Beholding as a glass, the glory of the
Lord.
We are changed into the same image.
A marvelous transformation takes place as we worship
the Lord.
We are changed into the same image.
What does it mean?
It becomes more Christ-like.
From glory to glory.
That means from one stage of glory.
It's not all just an instant transformation.
It takes place in stages.
From one stage of glory to another.
How does this take place?
Even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
He works it in our lives.
And this is one of the great foundational
verses of the Christian life.
2 Corinthians 3, 18.
Changed by beholding.
I've read of couples and they lived together
so long that actually they began to look
like one another.
I don't know if it's true in the
natural realm but it's certainly true in the
spiritual realm.
Worship is simple.
What worship is not?
Worship is not listening to a sermon.
Today in the Christian world, and I don't
feel harshly about this, generally speaking in churches
today the 11 o'clock service on Sunday
morning is called the worship service where you
go and listen to a man give a
message.
Well, I think that's teaching, don't you?
I think that's preaching.
I don't think it's worship.
Now don't misunderstand me.
I don't deny that somebody sitting in that
audience could be lifting his or her heart
to the Lord during that time.
I don't doubt that.
I'm not saying there can't be remnants of
worship but the service itself is not a
worship service.
What is a worship service?
It's when God's people come together and pour
out the overflow of their hearts as they
muse on the Lord Jesus Christ.
As they lift their hearts in worship and
adoration to him.
It's expressing love for Jesus.
Sometimes I hear a young fellow get up
in a meeting and just tell the Lord
he loves him.
I say, well, that's the purest form of
worship, isn't it?
Just to be able to say that.
Spurgeon said, no joy on earth is equal
to the bliss of being all taken up
with love to Christ.
No joy on earth is equal to that.
If I had my choice of all the
lives that I could live, I certainly would
not choose to be an emperor, nor to
be a millionaire, nor to be a philosopher,
for power and wealth and knowledge bring with
them sorrow.
But I would choose to have nothing to
do but to love my Lord Jesus.
Nothing, I mean, but to do all things
for his sake and out of love to
him.
Spurgeon had the heart of a worshiper.
Incidentally, you can tell a worshiper when you
meet him, can't you?
I love to meet young people, fellows and
girls, and they open their mouths and the
Lord Jesus comes out.
Do you know what I mean?
They speak about the Lord Jesus.
I think that's good.
It tells you what kind of pastures they've
been feeding in.
In worship we gather to Christ.
I spoke about that previously.
I believe that's true.
We gather together to worship the Lord Jesus.
He is the attraction there.
He is the center of our affections.
And I want to say this, dear friends,
and it wasn't original with me either.
If you don't like worship, you won't like
heaven, because that's going to be the great
activity of heaven.
You go through the book of Revelation and
from beginning to end you hear the hosts
of heaven raising their voices in a great
crescendo of praise.
It starts off and it increases all the
way through the book of Revelation until the
very final scene.
Some of us can look back in our
lives to a time when in our local
assemblies there was only one service on Lord's
Day morning.
It was a worship service, and it would
begin maybe at 10.30 and continue to
12.
And that whole morning was just dedicated to
worshiping the Lord Jesus.
You may not agree with me.
I oftentimes wish we could go back to
then.
I really do.
I oftentimes wish we could go back to
that.
Just reserve that section of the week.
What has come in is a preaching service
has come in at the 11 o'clock
service, and then worship has been downgraded.
But I personally feel it's too bad that
that happened.
There are a lot of meetings I don't
like.
I don't like business meetings.
I oftentimes think that business meetings are an
enormous waste of time, don't you?
Not much is accomplished by them.
There are a lot of other meetings I
don't like, but I want to tell you
this meeting I really love, the worship meeting.
When we gather together to the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of
God is moving and heaven comes very low,
I tell you, I don't want to miss
it.
I don't want to miss it.
I remember hearing about a meeting in Philadelphia
years ago.
It came time for the breaking of bread
and passing of the cup.
And this dear old godly man, he got
up to give thanks for the bread, and
he walked forward to the table, and he
fell down to his knees to pray.
And people who were there that day, they
thought, they'll never forget the awe of that
moment when the Lord was not visibly present,
but very present, just the same, and the
hearts of God's people were lifted up in
praise to him.
Now, he never did that again.
You know, if he ever did that again,
it probably would have been phony, but that's
the way the Spirit of God led him.
It's wonderful to be available to the Spirit
of God in worship to do as he
would have us to do.
It's very good for us to be preparing
for worship, for the worship meeting on the
Lord's Day.
I don't know if you ever think about
this.
Maybe the thought is just to go there
and share what thoughts come to your mind.
I think it's a very good thing to
prepare for worship during the week, meditating on
the Word of God.
And then Saturday night's a wonderful time to
take your hymn book and your Bible and
read some of those hymns.
They say what you might feel, but you
could never put them in those words.
On Calvary we've adoring stood, and gazed on
that wondrous cross where holy, spotless Lamb of
God was slain in his love for us.
How our hearts have stirred at that solemn
cry.
While the sun was enwrapped in night, Eli,
Eli, Lama sebachthani, most blessed, most awful sight.
I recommend the good use of Saturday night,
preparing for the Lord's Supper with your hymn
book and your Bible.
God said in the Old Testament, none shall
appear before me empty.
He doesn't want us to come to that
meeting with empty baskets, but to be meditating
on the Lord.
And then we come to the meeting and
we see how the Holy Spirit is leading
in the meeting.
And then if he's leading in a certain
trend, and our meditation has been on that,
certainly it's a wonderful time for brothers to
share that.
In the worship meeting, ministry should be all
about the Lord Jesus.
He should be the center.
It's not really the time to give a
testimony or to share some bizarre events that
betook you over the week.
In fact, I think it'd be a very
good thing for us in our worship to
try to keep the perpendicular pronoun out of
our worship altogether.
Keep I, me, my, our, and just talk
about the Lord Jesus.
That would be a great discipline of grace
to do that.
Remember me, he said.
Show forth my death till I come.
You say, what do you do if somebody
in the meeting gives out a hymn that's
not in the Spirit?
Well, you've been in a meeting like that,
haven't you?
Where the Spirit of God seems to be
moving along a certain direction, and somebody gets
out the hymn on the Jericho Road, there's
room for just two.
But that has nothing to do with the
purpose of the meeting, does it?
So what do you do?
Well, they asked an old brother that.
They said, what do you do when somebody
gives out a hymn that's not in the
Spirit?
He said, I sing it in the Spirit.
And I like that.
Rather than rebuking the young brother for his
immaturity or something like that, just sing it
in the Spirit and hope that with the
passing of time that he'll be able to
correct that.
In public worship, when a brother, and I
say this, especially for the young brothers, in
public worship, it's good to speak we.
We, thank you, instead of I.
You say, why?
Because when you're getting up to worship, you're
speaking for the assembly.
And when you close and say amen, the
assembly says amen, and that's it.
We have made that worship our own.
So I think it's good.
That's why in the little flock hymn book,
all of the hymns were changed to use
the pronoun we, because in collective worship, that
is the way to do it.
Now we want to move on to another
subject that's related to all of this, and
that's the subject of prayer.
Is prayer important in an assembly?
Well, first of all, I'm going to tell
you a story.
Years ago in an eastern city, the assembly
was having a prayer meeting upstairs.
And I don't want to be irreverent, but
it was dull.
It was dullsville.
And there were long, awkward pauses when nobody
was saying anything.
It was more like a morgue than it
was like a prayer meeting.
And all of a sudden, there was a
clop, clop, clop, somebody was coming up the
stairs.
And with measured tread, she entered the room.
She was a dear African American believer.
And she went into the prayer meeting.
She was strange.
She had never been there before.
And nobody said a word.
For the longest time they sat there, not
a word was spoken.
And finally, she couldn't stand it any longer.
She lifted up her voice and prayed, Lord,
this place is dead.
You know this place is dead.
It's the deadest place either of us has
been in for a long time.
And after that, there were no silent moments
in the meeting.
Was she an angel?
I think God had sent her along that
night as an angel to wake up that
assembly.
So I say you can go through the
routine.
You can announce a prayer meeting for Wednesday
night.
It's not it.
It's not enough.
You've got to be there and be doing
business for God in great waters.
I like to remind our hearts that we
human beings never come closer to omnipotence than
when we pray in the name of the
Lord Jesus.
You and I will never be omnipotent.
We will never have all power, but we
never come closer to it than when we
pray in his name.
Because when we pray in his name, it's
the same as if he was presenting that
prayer to the Father.
That's really what it means.
We're praying according to his will.
We're praying by his authority.
And he presents those prayers to the Father.
And when they get to the Father, they're
absolutely perfect.
This is a motivation for me to pray.
An old bishop in England said, when I
pray, things happen.
When I don't pray, they don't happen.
Good to remember.
He had learned to move men through God
by prayer.
Christians hold the balance of power in the
world through prayer.
See, what do you mean by that?
I mean that we can change the destiny
of nations through prayer.
You know, one day you sit and you
read the newspaper and what has happened?
Well, the Berlin Wall has fallen.
Why did the Berlin fall?
Through the prayers of God.
We don't relate those things together, but it's
there just the same.
For many, many years, Christians have been praying
for the overthrow of that cruel regime.
God, in his own time, answered those prayers.
I've told maybe some of you of a
prayer meeting we had some years ago, or
20 years ago, actually, at Fairhaven.
At this time, it was an all-night
prayer meeting, young people.
It was a missionary prayer meeting.
At that time, probably connected with Operation Mobilization.
At two o'clock in the morning, Saturday
morning, we started to pray for the Chad
Republic.
The Chad Republic in Africa had a very
wicked ruler at that time.
His name was Tombaubai, and he was killing
the Christians.
He ordered one Christian to be buried and
sanded up to his neck, and the ants
killed him.
He ordered another Christian to be placed in
a drum, and they beat on the drum
until he starved to death.
Dick Sanders, who was a missionary in the
Chad at that time, wrote to us.
We read this letter at two o'clock
Saturday morning.
Don't feel sorry for the Christians who've gone
home, but pray for the Christians right now.
Our dear young people, they got down on
their knees, and they cried to God for
the Christian people in the Chad Republic.
That was Saturday morning, between two and three.
On Sunday morning, I was driving to Bethany
that day, and I turned the radio on
to get the news.
Special report.
Military coup in the Chad Republic.
Tombaubai killed.
A new ruler rises to power, and this
ruler happened to be favorable to the evangelistic
enterprise.
I tell you, the young people who were
there that night, if you say, do you
believe that your prayers there that night affected
the Chad Republic, they say, absolutely.
They do.
And some of them are still living.
And this last year, on the anniversary of
that, I got a call from Dick Sanders,
reminding me, it was 20 years ago to
that day, when we prayed in San Leandro,
and God answered out in the Chad Republic.
We control the balance of power through prayer
in the world.
We really do.
And we can change the destiny of nations
through prayer.
The best prayer that we can send up
comes from a strong inward necessity.
You know that, don't you?
You know that when things are going smoothly,
your prayer life can be dull.
But when there's a crisis in your life,
it's easy to pray with opportunity, isn't it?
It's easy to pray perfectly.
The best arrows come from a taut bow,
Spurgeon said.
And that's true with the arrows of prayer.
The best prayers come from a strong inward
necessity.
I'd like to suggest to you tonight that
God seldom, if ever, does anything except in
answer to prayer.
I know that'll shock you, but I believe
it's true.
I believe the word of God bears it
out.
Somebody wrote this, prayer is the forerunner of
mercy.
Turn to sacred history, you'll find that seldom
ever did a great mercy come to this
world unheralded by supplication.
Prayer is always the preface of blessing that
somebody with Spurgeon, he said that.
And I think it's true.
God seldom, if ever, does anything except in
answer to prayer.
It's a wonder we don't pray more.
God has limited certain of his activities to
responding to the prayers of his people.
Unless they pray, he won't act.
That's what accounts for the crate boxes and
crates in the warehouses of heaven, filled with
all kinds of blessings.
The reason they're there unopened is nobody ever
asked for them.
Nobody ever asked for them.
Prayer moves God to do things that he
otherwise wouldn't have done.
It's common to hear in even angelical circles
today that prayer conditions you to God's will.
What God has willed is going to happen
anyway, and when you pray, that brings you
into line with God's predetermined will.
I don't believe that.
Prayer moves the hand of God to do
things he otherwise wouldn't have done.
How do you know?
It doesn't change you, have not, because you
ask not.
That's what it says.
You have not, because you ask not.
That's good enough for me.
God always answers prayer in exactly the same
way you would answer it if you had
his wisdom, love, and power.
Some of you have had great disappointments in
your life.
You've prayed, you've cried to the Lord, and
the thing you prayed for didn't happen.
Listen, if you had his wisdom, love, and
power, you would have acted in exactly the
same way, because whatever he does is absolutely
perfect.
His wisdom guarantees it.
His love guarantees it.
His power guarantees it.
Actually, the work of God is done more
in prayer than in any other way.
Prayer is the cutting edge of the work
of God, somebody said.
It should be the central thrust.
The spiritual history of a church is written
in its prayer life.
That's good.
We're talking about the New Testament assembly.
The spiritual history of a church is written
in its prayer life.
God helps churches and assemblies that don't have
a prayer meeting, that's all I can say.
Whatever happened to the prayer meeting?
It's missing today, I would guess, in most
churches in the United States.
There are mysteries in connection with prayer.
You can come to me after, you can
ask me questions about prayer.
Listen, I'd rather pray than solve all the
mysteries of prayer.
Just get down on my knees and cry
to God in simple faith, I'd rather do
that.
I like this paragraph, somebody said, Prayer has
divided seas, rolled up flowing rivers, made flinty
rocks gush into fountains, quenched flames of fire,
muzzled lions, disarmed vipers and poisons, marshalled the
stars against the wicked, stopped the course of
the moon, arrested the rapid sun in its
great rays, burst open iron gates, recalled souls
from eternity, conquered the strongest devils, commanded legions
of angels down from heaven.
Prayer has bridled and changed the raging passions
of men and routed and destroyed vast armies
of proud, daring, blustering atheists.
Prayer has brought one man from the bottom
of the sea and carried another in a
chariot to heaven.
What has not prayer done?
It's all in the word.
All of those things that I read to
you, they're all found in the word of
God.
Prayer leads you to heights that makes reason
dizzy.
It's fervent prayer.
I mentioned before, it's really fervent prayer that
reaches the gates of heaven.
This is good.
Cold prayers always freeze before they get to
heaven.
Fervency of spirit is that which avails much.
Somebody said this, I measure my effectiveness by
the number of people I pray for and
the number of people who pray for me.
I measure my effectiveness by the number of
people I pray for and the number of
people who pray for me.
We honor God by the greatness of our
prayers.
I like the story of Alexander the Great
who used to have open court one day
in a month when the people could come
and present any request they wanted to him.
One day a man came and he asked
for an education for his son, all expenses
paid, and a dowry for his daughter.
He just went on and on and on.
Alexander the Great said, your requests are granted.
Some of his courtiers came up to him
and said, why did you give all of
those things to that beggar that came to
you?
He said, he treated me like a king.
He asked big.
I'm tired of these people who come and
ask for a golden coin.
God is honored by big prayers.
If you had been living when Christ was
on earth and had met the Savior kind,
what would you have asked him to do
for you?
Suppose you were stone blind?
The child considered and then replied, I suppose
that without doubt I'd have asked the Lord
for a dog with a chain to lead
me daily about.
How often thus in our faithless prayers we
acknowledge with shame surprise we've only asked for
a dog and a chain when we might
have had opened eyes.
Ask big.
He's a big God and he loves to
be honored by the bigness of our prayers.
Prayer is more important than service.
That isn't the emphasis you get today so
often, but it's true.
Prayer is more important than service.
The heavenly bridegroom is wooing a bride, not
seeking a servant.
The heavenly bridegroom is wooing a bride, not
hiring a servant.
Thou art coming to a king.
Large petitions with thee bring, for his love
and power are such, we can never ask
too much.
When we get to heaven, dear friends, we're
going to wish we had prayed more.
And I hope this assembly will always be
assembly that's given to prayer.
All honor God by the bigness of your
prayers and the fervency of your prayers and
the love in your hearts to him.
Just a few thoughts at the close here.
The Holy Spirit is Christ's representative in the
assembly and he should guide in the government
of the assembly.
I know the Lord's will should be done,
but he uses the Holy Spirit to convey
that will by the word of God to
the elders and to the assembly.
The Holy Spirit should guide in the worship
of the assembly.
That's a wonderful thing to be in a
meeting and to sense the moving of the
Holy Spirit in a certain direction where the
hymns and the ministry all may be on
the blood of Christ or in his coming
again, some aspect of his person or work.
The Holy Spirit is the one who guides
in the goals of the assembly.
It would be easy to sit down and
say, well, our goal for the next year
is to see 25 people, one for the
Lord.
This is very nice, but how do you
know?
How do you know?
How do you know that that's what the
Lord wants for us?
We can manufacture these things, but we want
to get our guidance from the Lord.
The Holy Spirit should guide us in the
dispersing of our funds.
It's a wonderful thing to get a letter
from somebody and say the money which your
assembly sent was an exact fulfillment of a
need which we had at that time.
Do you mean to say that God can
convey to an assembly to send a certain
amount of money to meet a specific need?
Yes, that's exactly what I mean to say.
It's happening all the time and blessed are
those who have a part in that.
That's one of the great thrills of life.
The Holy Spirit guides in public worship, in
arranging meetings, in speakers, and he must not
be quenched.
Quench not the Spirit, despise not prophesying.
We must be ready to acknowledge the sovereignty
of the Holy Spirit.
He doesn't always do things the same way.
In fact, he seldom repeats himself.
He's so original that we want to be
sure that we don't quench him, that he
can have his way unhindered in the meetings
of our assembly.
Shall we look to the Lord?
Father, we thank you for all those here
tonight who have followed the Savior in the
waters of baptism.
We pray that each one might go forth
to live a life that is consonant with
that, to walk worthy of this profession of
faith.
And we thank you for the wonderful privilege
we have of gathering to remember the Savior
in his death for us.
Teach us to be better worshipers than we've
ever been before.
Bring before our hearts the reality of Calvary.
Teach me what it means.
Oh, blessed Lord Jesus Christ, open our eyes
to see the immensity of it all.
May we be men and women of prayer.
May we really learn a closer walk with
you in a life of prayer, as we
seek to do your will day by day.
We ask it in the Savior's name.
Amen.