My dear
friends, our Bible reading this morning will be
decidedly different from those on the preceding mornings
of this week, but I am persuaded that
what I want to bring to you this
morning is of utmost importance to every one
of us.
Let me just quickly say a word of
affectionate thanks.
I want to thank those of you who
have written such kind and sympathetic and appreciated
letters.
Thank you in his dear name very much.
Now, as the best of you to my
theme this morning, let me invite you to
read with me the final paragraph in the
Gospel according to Matthew.
Have you brought your Bible or have you
committed next door to the unpardonable sin and
come without it?
I hope you all have your Bible, the
Gospel according to Matthew chapter 28 and the
paragraph beginning at verse 16.
Here it is.
Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee,
into a mountain, a mountain where Jesus had
appointed them.
And when they saw him, they worshipped him.
But some doubted.
I'm sorry about that, but I'm glad of
Matthew's frankness.
It is a remarkable note of genuineness, don't
you think?
And when they saw him, they worshipped him.
But some doubted.
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying,
All authority is given unto me in heaven
and on earth.
Therefore go ye and disciple all nations, baptizing
them into the name, singular, into the name
of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
And lo, I am with you every day.
That's the Greek.
Lo, something to cause surprise, blessed surprise.
Lo, I am with you every day, even
to the end of the age.
Amen.
This is the last glimpse which Matthew gives
us of our dear Savior before his ascension
to heaven.
That fact alone gives it a special interest,
but it becomes even more captivating when we
take it along with the last glimpses of
Jesus at the end of the other three
Gospels.
There is a real value in studying the
four Gospel endings correlatedly.
It is intriguing and greatly rewarding to review
side by side the four last pictures that
they give us of our dear Master before
his withdrawal from earthly visibility.
Some time ago I was in the home
of a dear Christian man, a very well
-to-do man, whose wife had recently died.
On a cabinet in the main room of
his home there was a gold-embroidered, quadrifolding
photograph of his lost loved one.
He explained to me that those four photographs
gave to him just those characteristic expressions which
were dearest to him.
No single one of them was enough in
itself.
Sometimes this one, sometimes that one spoke most
to him, but each one of the four
in its own way brought back to him
a flood of affecting memories.
Now I look upon it as a mark
of the divine considerateness toward our human frailty
that God has given to us, not just
one portrait of our dear Lord, but four
in those wonderful memoirs which we call the
four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.
This enhances the sheer interest of their data
and memorabilia.
The historic basis facts of our Christian faith
are presented to us by means of four
wonderful pen sketches in which, although there is
a sovereign divine control and guidance of the
pen, there is no swamping of the penman's
individuality or idiosyncrasies.
How different is Matthew from Luke?
How different is Mark from John?
How different is each one of the four
from all the other three?
The four memoirs thus become at once humanly
interesting as well as redemptively informing and endlessly
full of fresh surprises to those who examine
them continuously and prayerfully and observantly.
Each one of the four Gospels portrays our
Lord in its own aspected way.
In Matthew he is distinctively the son of
David.
In Mark he is equally distinctively the son
of toil.
In Luke he is most noticeably the son
of man, and in John he is unmistakably
the son of God.
In Matthew he is emphatically Israel's king.
In Mark he is just as plainly Jehovah's
servant.
In Luke he is the race's ideal.
In John he is the incarnate word.
Now Matthew was a Jew.
Mark was part Jew and part Gentile, as
his two names John and Markos indicate.
Luke was a Gentile, as again the name
Lukas indicates.
John transcends all such ethnic or racial distinctions,
writing as the senior elder of the earliest
Christian brotherhood.
Now corresponding with those personal and racial differentials,
Matthew writes primarily, though not exclusively, for the
Jew.
Mark writes primarily, though not exclusively, for the
Jew and the proselyte Gentile to the Jewish
faith.
Luke has an entirely Gentile audience primarily in
mind.
John writes primarily for the Church, but in
the ultimate and larger sense for the whole
world.
Matthew puts the emphasis on what Jesus said.
Mark puts the emphasis on what Jesus did.
Luke put the emphasis on what Jesus felt.
John put the emphasis on who Jesus was.
Matthew says in effect, the promised one is
here, see his credentials.
Mark says in effect, this is how he
worked, see his power.
Luke says in effect, this is what he
was really like, see his nature.
John says in effect, this is who he
really was, see his Godhead.
Now these characteristic differences between the four Gospels
can easily be overstated.
They are degrees merely in emphasis and degree,
not in essence or substance.
These characteristic differences between the four Gospels should
not be and never need to be overstated,
but neither should they be overlooked, for they
are really there, and they are there for
a very important purpose.
One of the most fascinating occupations is to
go through the four Gospels, observing how they
differ in their incidental emphasis.
You see, in their testimony to our Lord
Jesus, the four Gospels are essentially one, but
in their presentation of him to our human
mind and need, they are distinctively four.
For instance, Matthew ends with the resurrection of
our Lord.
Mark goes a step further and ends with
his ascension.
Luke goes a step further and ends with
his promise of the soon coming Holy Spirit.
And John goes further still and finishes with
our Lord's promise of his second coming.
Now how obviously it is in keeping that
Matthew, the Gospel of the mighty Messiah King,
should end with that triumphant finale, his breaking
of the power of death and his rising
in resurrection victory.
And how evidently fitting it is that Mark,
the Gospel of Jehovah's self-effacing servant, should
end with that loveliest and loveliest of all
the servants of Jehovah, exalted to the right
hand of the majesty on high.
And how sympathetically in keeping it is that
Luke, the Gospel of our Lord, spirit-anointed
humanity, should end with our sympathetic Savior's promise
that the Holy Spirit should soon come upon
the disciples.
And who needs to be told that it
is supremely in keeping that John, the Gospel
written specially for the Lord's own, should end
with our Master's promise of his second coming.
It's all so naturally incidental, but not one
bit of it is accidental.
It's all divinely purposeful.
So now, dear friends, with these differentials in
mind, I want us to look at the
four Gospel endings and the last glimpses which
they give to us of our adorable Master.
Are you ready?
Now, I read the final paragraph in Matthew's
Gospel, so now turn with me to the
last paragraph in Mark.
Hurry up.
The Gospel according to Mark, chapter 16, and
I think it will do if we read
from verse 15.
And he said unto them, Go ye into
all the world, and preach the glad news
to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved, but he that believeth not shall be
judged.
And these signs shall follow them that believe.
In my name they shall cast out demons,
they shall speak with new tongues, they shall
take up serpents, and if they drink any
deadly things it shall not hurt them.
They shall lay hands on the sick, and
they shall recover.
So then, after the Lord had spoken unto
them, he was received up into heaven, and
sat on the right hand of God.
And they went forth and preached everywhere, the
Lord working with them, and confirming the word
with signs following.
So then, at the end of Matthew, the
Lord is risen indeed.
But at the end of Mark, he is
not only risen, he is working with them,
under working miracles.
Now look at the final passage in Luke.
That is Luke chapter 24, verse 46.
And he said to them, Thus it is
written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer,
and to rise from the dead the third
day, that repentance and remission of sin should
be proclaimed in his name among all nations,
beginning at Jerusalem.
And ye are witnesses of these things.
And behold, I send the promise of my
Father upon you, but tarry ye in the
city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with
power from on high.
And he led them out as far as
to Bethany.
And he lifted up his hands, and blessed
them.
And it came to pass, while he was
blessing them, he was parted from them, and
carried up into heaven.
And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem
with great joy, and were continually in the
temple, praising and blessing God.
So if at the end of Matthew he
is really risen, and at the end of
Mark he is actively still participating, at the
end of Luke he is sending on his
disciples the enduing Holy Spirit.
Now look at John's final paragraph.
It's such a well-known passage I think
we needn't read more than from verse 20.
John chapter 21 at verse 20.
Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom
Jesus loved following, who had also leaned on
Jesus, dressed at the supper, and had said,
Lord, who is he that betrayeth thee?
Peter, seeing him, and you know you nearly
always say the wrong thing when you get
your eyes off Jesus.
That's just what Peter did.
Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, Lord, and
what shall this man do?
Jesus said to him, if I will that
he carry till I come, what is that
to thee?
Follow thou me.
Then this saying went abroad among the brethren,
that that disciple should not die.
But Jesus had not said to him, he
shall not die, but if I will.
If I will that he carry till I
come, what is that to thee?
This is the disciple which testifies of these
things, and wrote these things, and we know
that his testimony is true.
So then, beloved fellow students of the word,
at the end of Matthew, our Lord is
risen indeed.
At the end of Mark, he is working
miracles.
At the end of Luke, he is enduing
with the Spirit.
And at the end of John, he is
foretelling his return.
This is the fourfold Christ of the gospel
ending.
One, risen to save.
Two, living to heal.
Three, sending the Spirit.
Four, coming again.
But now look at those four paragraphs again
in relation to our Lord's followers.
The last thought in Matthew is that of
our Lord's abiding with us.
Lo, I am with you every day.
The final thought at the end of Mark's
gospel is that of our Lord's co-working
with us.
The Lord working with them.
The last emphasis in Luke is that of
our Lord's equipping us, tarry until ye be
endued.
And the last thought at the end of
John is that of our Lord's exhorting us.
If I will that he tarry till I
come, what is that to thee?
Follow thou me.
Look at those four gospel endings again and
derive further comfort.
The last emphasis in Matthew is that of
our Lord's assuring us.
Go and preach everywhere and hear the underlying
reason.
All authority is given unto me in heaven
and on earth.
The Lord assuring us.
At the end of Mark, the final emphasis
is that of our Lord conferring the work
of his disciples.
The Lord working with them and conferring the
word with sign following.
At the end of Luke, the last underlining
is that of our Lord's empowering us.
Until ye be endued with the power from
on high.
And at the end of John, the parting
word is that of our Lord's exhorting us.
Follow thou me.
Well now friends, what is the upshot of
all this?
It's just this.
These last glimpses of Jesus at the end
of Matthew and Mark and Luke and John
tell us what our glorious, wonderful Jesus the
Lord wants to be to his people, to
you and to me.
Right on to the end of the present
day.
Matthew, risen to save.
Mark, living to heal.
Luke, sending the spirit for coming again.
Friends, that is the Christ of the gospel
ending.
And so this morning, I want in Christian
love and true concern to ask you, do
you really know Jesus in that fourfold way?
Do you?
If not, why not?
And if not, don't you wish you did?
Well now, let me have a peep at
the watch.
We're in real trouble this morning.
If ever I needed to put a maximum
in a minimum, it's now.
To begin with, do you really know him
as he appears at the end of Matthew's
gospel, that is, as the risen Savior?
I am not asking do you believe that
Jesus rose from the dead.
I take it that as a Christian believer
you do.
And in any case, as we all know,
there is no fact of history more solidly
and unanswerably substantiated than the well-documented fact
of our Lord's bodily resurgence from that Syrian
grave.
But it is one thing to believe in
the historical fact of his resurrection, and a
decidedly different thing to know him personally as
the continuously risen and present Savior who companions
you every day in your deepest consciousness or
subconsciousness.
Do you know this precious, precious living Savior,
not only as an occasional visitor to your
mental awareness, but as one who continually abides
deep in the deepest awareness of your being?
Now we are meant to know him like
that.
Amid the busy, complicated absorptions of the day,
for most of us, the upper part of
the mind cannot be concentrated on spiritual, or
biblical, or religious matters.
But it is possible, delightfully so, to carry
with us amid all the complicated happenings of
every day, it is possible for us to
carry with us an uninterrupted subconsciousness of his
indwelling.
Do you know him like that?
You see, despite all the troubles which beset
us in our mortal flesh and in this
present sojourn on earth, our Christian life was
meant to be a heavenly-minded, sunlit, victorious,
immense walk with a living Savior who continually
whispers in our heart, no, I am with
you, I am with you, I am with
you.
And when we know him like that, oh,
what a difference it makes.
Burdens become lighter, and crosses become easier, and
problems become less vexing, and disappointments become less
discouraging, and irritations become less annoying, and adverse
circumstances become less worrying and less wearing.
Nay, more, that's all in the negative.
It isn't just that life's troubles hurt us
less, they become transformed into spiritual triumphs through
our ever-present, indwelling companion.
Wrecking and fuming, grousing and resenting, are supplanted
by the joy of his sharing his life
with us.
Loneliness ceases to appall us, persecution ceases to
affright us, nervous fears and gloomy forebodings fall
away in the light of his dear presence.
The wilderness blossoms as the rose, we have
songs in the night, and streams in the
desert, and springs in the valleys, and sighings
become singings, and weights become wings, and burdens
become blessings, and trials become triumphs.
That's meant to be the Christian life, because
that's the kind of Savior we've got.
That's meant to be the Christian life, because
that's the kind of Savior we've got.
Well, I'm asking, do you know him like
that?
As the risen and ever-abiding Savior who
gives you real power to conquer your temptations
and lifts you on eagles' wings over the
depressing things?
If not, don't you wish you did?
Isn't this the wistful language of your heart?
That I may know him.
Ah, I long to know, not just a
Christ of pardon years ago, nor even reigning
on a heavenly throne, too high and distant
to be really known.
I long to know him closely, this is
how, alive and in the ever-pressing now.
A living one within my heart this hour,
communicating his all-conquering power, who now no
longer lives from me apart, but shares his
resurrection in my heart.
Oh, friends, what a dear, dear, wonderful Jesus
he is, isn't he?
Say yes, but
now further.
Do you know Jesus in the way that
he appears at the end of Mark's gospel,
as the one who heals the sicknesses of
the soul, and the distempers of the mind,
and the disordered desires of the heart, and
the stresses of the spirit, and the ailments
of the body?
Do you?
If you ask me, Sir, do you believe
in divine healing for the body?
I answer unhesitatingly, assuredly I do, for I
seem to see it with unmistakable clearness taught
in the church epistles of our New Testament.
Also, in 1965, I was ill.
Apparently my public ministry had come to an
end.
But on three mornings in the hospital, as
I was coming back to consciousness, the Lord
met me and healed me.
And I have better health than I ever
had.
Some of you are wanting me to go
into detail, so I won't.
It would take too long, and it might
draw attention to me instead of to him.
So you must take my word for it.
My wife is here, and she knows that
I'm telling you the careful truth.
So if you ask me, do you believe
in divine healing for the body?
I gratefully answer, I do.
If you ask me, do you believe in
divine healing as certain present-day faith healing
movements teach it?
I answer courteously, I do not.
I believe that there are peculiarities of exegesis
in the matter, however well-meaning and sincere
they may be, are erroneous.
We should be very careful to preach to
the outside public all that the New Testament
commissions us to do so, but no more
than that.
Let me tell you what I believe are
the principal constituents of the message which we
are intended to put over to men and
women in general.
I believe in a blood-bought pardon for
sin, in a heavenly Father's gracious forgiveness.
I believe in justification by faith, in regeneration
by the Holy Spirit, in reconciliation through the
atonement of Christ, in new life and power
communicated to converted sinners, in new fellowship with
God, and the pledge of heaven in a
blissful yet-to-be.
I believe that all those are constituent elements
in the message which we are commissioned to
preach in the name of Jesus to the
outside world, but I respectfully deny that healing
for the body is a part of that
gospel which we are to proclaim to the
indiscriminate, promiscuous public.
Now, I'm on Filey platform, and the last
thing I would ever do would be to
exploit a personal opinion on a precious common
platform like this, but I'll give you my
personal view.
Of course, you have every right to disagree
with me.
We're still in a democratic country, aren't we?
And I don't mind your disagreeing with me
so long as we have a clear understanding
that at any point where you disagree with
me, I'm right and you're wrong.
And now, after that touch of exemplary Christian
humility, I'll say what I was going to
say.
Are you listening?
As the scriptures plainly indicate, bodily healings and
other supernatural abnormalities, even to the raising of
the dead and other astonishing things, were originally
for a sign, Greek word semion, for a
sign to the nation Israel at the beginning
of the present era.
When the nation Israel for the second time
rejected Jesus as Messiah during the suspense period
covered by the acts of the apostles, the
further offer of the kingdom was withdrawn.
Then, as the ecclesia, the church became revealed
as the long-hidden mystery or sacred secret
which God had pre-designed for the present
age, the temporary sign miracles to Israel dropped
away.
You can see that for yourself in the
later chapters of the Acts.
That, however, does not mean a withdrawing of
our Lord's power to heal to heal among
his own blood-bought believing people who constitute
the true ecclesia, the church of the firstborn
whose names are written in heaven.
But it does mean a withdrawing of bodily
healings as a sign to Israel and to
the outside world.
Now, listen to me carefully.
I am no hyper-dispensationalist, nor do I
want to speak with any kind of dogmatism
that would seem irritating.
I'm simply speaking to you as your brother
in the Lord and as, I hope, a
careful student of the word.
And I want to say this with as
much clarity and emphasis as I can.
In this present age, the promised messianic kingdom
is not any longer being offered to Israel.
The promised messianic kingdom will come in when
our Lord returns in Second Advent Empire.
This present dispensation is that of the church,
the out-called ecclesia.
Healing for the body is included in our
Lord's provisions for the true church through the
Holy Spirit.
But those gifts operate, and nothing is more
clearly taught than this in the New Testament,
they operate within the true church.
They are not part of the church's message
to the public promiscuously.
If you can show me where they are,
I will revise my thinking and preaching at
once.
But I have an idea you'll find it
rather difficult.
Now, I need not commit myself to any
dogmatic generalization, but I believe that many of
us Christian believers might know our Lord Jesus
far more than we do as the healer
of the body.
Mind you, I do not believe that divine
healing for the body was ever meant to
be a substitute for sanitary habits and hygienic
living and healthful diet.
There are all too many of us who
by unhygienic living or eating bring sickness on
ourselves and then wonder why God has sent
it.
There are those who go forward for healing
in big public meetings and then go right
back to living in ways which contradict the
laws of health and engender further illness.
If we will persist in letting our staple
daily diet be cookies and coffee or tea
and toast, if we will persist in always
being on wheels and scarcely ever on legs,
if we will persist in always grinding at
it without adequate periodic rest, if we will
persist in ignoring health precautions and in violating
common sense health laws, then we must not
be surprised if the poor maltreated body hits
back with unstrung nerves or 20th century ulcers
or maybe worse complaints.
God forgives us, but nature never does.
Take that.
Divine healing for the body was never meant
to be a continual interference with normal bodily
processes or a repeated suspension of natural cause
and effect, so that Christians may disregard health
rules without paying the penalty.
Can you stand a bit more?
Say yes.
Yes.
What a lot of in-village you sound.
Yes, I'll add a little bit more and
I'll send the bill in at the end
of the month.
Oh, I'm sort of trembling from stem to
stern now.
After some of the things I'm going to
say, there'll be an uproar.
You'll be calling for my immediate martyrdom.
Well, here I go to the stake.
If we will go through our childhood and
youth and adulthood eating white flour and white
sugar and white rice and other bleached foods,
if we will keep going against the mosaic
diet law, devouring over much animal fats and
hog flesh and flesh with the blood in
it, if we will keep feeding on foods
which are artificially refined, adulterated, devitalized or otherwise
commercialized with poisonous chemical preservatives and additives, then
when we get into our later forties, fifties,
sixties, is it to be wondered at that
our systems have become badly toxic?
And then we begin to fall prey to
the wretched degenerative diseases which are pathetically fashionable
nowadays.
We Christians ought to know what to eat
and what to drink and the laws of
health, and for the Lord's sake we should
be at our best.
Now, of course, there is a right and
proper place for medically prescribed drugs and medicines
in cases of physical crises, and thank God
for our medical profession.
But apart from that, if we will keep
taking sleeping pills and tranquilizers and aspirin tablets
and other sedatives and whatnot until they become
a habit with us, is it to be
wondered at that we become victims of functional
and organic diseases which we were never meant
to have and never needed to have?
I sometimes think that some of us, some
of us Christians, need saving almost as much
from the druggist as from the devil.
Hmm, and
I'll tell you something else while I'm on
this line.
I do not believe that any of us,
after about the age of fifty-five, have
good general health unless we have tranquil and
happy minds.
There's nothing better for the nervous system or
the general health of our physical organism than
a brain and a mind and a heart
filled with the Holy Spirit and flooded with
the love of Jesus.
It's the best thing, the best health tonic
for the human system.
Why, haven't you found as I have?
You know, Mr. Glegg, I've always found that
when my own prayer life is rich and
deep and satisfying, I've always got more vim
and vigor.
Hmm, my, I've been brave, you know, this
morning, haven't I?
I come back now to this.
If, however, you and I as Christian believers
are walking prayerfully with our risen Savior and
are honoring the physical body as being now
a temple of the Holy Spirit, then I
am sure we may look to Jesus as
our Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord that healeth thee.
In this matter of divine healing for the
body, I believe that our minds are intended
to be not so much upon healing as
upon health, and not so much upon healing
as upon the healer, our Lord Jesus.
Also, I believe that instead of always thinking
of healing as some isolated act, we should
think of our Lord Jesus, our indwelling Savior,
as our continuous health, our health of spirit
and mind and body.
For as any psychologist or pathologist or physiologist
will tell you, the health of all three
is bound up intricately together.
If these things are clear in our minds,
and if we are living in sincere consecration
to Christ, then I think, and only then,
then I think we may say with the
late A.
B.
Simpson, I take thee for my mortal frame,
I claim my healing in thy name, and
all thy risen life I claim, thou dost
undertake, and I take.
And now very briefly, because so far I've
behaved well, I've had you out to the
tick of the clock, and I don't want
to break the record.
Now let me ask you, do you know
the Lord Jesus as he appears at the
end of Luke's gospel, that is, as the
heavenly enduer?
Behold, I send the promise of my Father
upon you, carry ye until ye be endued
with the power from on high.
We know what a transformation that endurement by
the Holy Spirit wrought in those first disciples.
Well, they were the divinely designed pattern of
what was meant to happen in you and
me.
We may not be called to go before
kings and councils, as some of that early
band were.
We may not be slashed by sword, or
given as a prey to the beasts in
public amphitheaters, as some of them were.
But if you and I are to live
the sanctified life, and to overcome the world,
and to bear a telling witness for Christ,
then we need that same endurement of power,
just as did those first stalwarts of long
ago.
Christian disciples, have you had that supernatural endurement?
Have you?
If you are not quite sure, then I
suspect that probably you have not.
Because when it really falls upon us, we
know it, and at this point I can
easily be misunderstood.
Oh, listen with both ears, and let me
say this as earnestly as I can.
So many seem to think that being filled
with the Holy Spirit is a matter of
emotion, that he brings about a kind of
volcanic eruption of ecstatic emotion.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
Far more often, when the Holy Spirit really
monopolizes us and infills us, he registers the
reality of it through the intellect, through the
thinking part of the mind.
The Christian life is not lived in the
emotions, it is lived in the will.
You see, our human constitution is intellect, or
reason, and then volition, or free will, and
then emotion, or feeling.
Now, which is the true order of precedence?
I should say that the intellect is meant
to be king, and the will is meant
to be the prime minister, the executive of
the crown, and the emotions are meant to
be loyal and obedient servants.
And when you allow the emotions to take
things in hand, they tend to run amok,
and then you are in pathological trouble.
The true order is, one, intellect is the
king, and two, free will is the prime
minister, and three, the emotions are meant to
be obedient servants.
Now, you see, the emotions are the least
predictable part of us.
They are the most mercurial, the most changeable,
the most volatile.
What's the word I want?
Here it is.
They are the most superficial part.
Do you think the Holy Spirit comes to
do his deepest work in the shallowest part?
Common sense says no, but in some way
or another, when you and I come to
that post-conversion crisis of a total yielding
to the dear Son of God, when the
Holy Spirit has the unobstructed possession of us,
he fills us, and when he does, he
registers it somehow in our consciousness, and give
overlooking just for sensory excitement and emotional upsurges.
I would recommend you get your eye off
that.
Too much of that is not good for
the nervous system.
But when the Holy Spirit really fills us,
there's a new consciousness of God, and Jesus
becomes a luminous reality to the mind, and
there's a God-given peace and stability and
joy.
There's an atmosphere about the personality which is
eloquent for Jesus all the time.
I'm asking, have you got that?
Are you living in that?
Has Jesus really got you, and have you
given him chance to fill you with that
power?
If revival is going to come to Britain,
it's got to start with the Lord's people.
We've got to have a deeper experience of
the Holy Spirit, and we've got to have
such a quality of life that all the
time and everywhere we go, even when our
lips are not speaking, it's recommending him.
Don't you agree?
Well, oh, I'll have to leave all that
out.
My, my, my.
Oh, we're all right.
Don't you start grumbling.
Finally, do you know Jesus as he appears
at the end of the fourth gospel as
the returning master?
I'm not asking, do you believe in the
second coming?
There's nothing more clearly taught in the New
Testament than that our Lord is coming again
in spectacular splendor, as David's greater son and
heir, to occupy the throne of David and
to reign in universal empire.
And don't you seem to see all around
us the predicted precursors of that coming today?
I believe his coming is probably nearer than
the most sanguine-minded among us is daring
to think.
No, I'm not asking, do you believe in
the scripturalness of his promised return?
I take it that you do.
But are you living in the anticipated thrill
and glow of it?
Has the Holy Spirit made that a vital
power in your mind?
Try to be all with saying those things
that you'd like to be saying when he
comes.
Try to be always doing something or other
that you'd like to be doing when he
comes.
Always try to be in those places where
you would like to be found when he
comes.
Don't you think that would make a lovely
motto?
I do.
Well, my affectionate apologies, Mr. Chairman, if for
once I've gone over just a few minutes.
I'll never let it happen again till tomorrow
morning.
Well, that's it.
One, risen to save.
Two, living to heal.
Three, enjoying with the Spirit.
And four, soon coming again.
Hallelujah, what a Savior!