Good morning, everybody.
Thank you.
We return with me this morning to the
Gospel of Luke, and the 14th chapter, and
the 25th verse.
Luke 14, 25.
And there went great multitudes with him, and
he turned and said unto them, If any
man come to me and hate not his
father, and mother, and wife, and children, brethren,
and sisters, yea, and his own life also,
he cannot be my disciple.
And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and
come after me, cannot be my disciple.
For which of you intending to build a
tower, should not thou encroach and counter the
cross, for we have sufficient to finish it.
Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation,
and is not able to finish it, all
of the whole, begin to mock him, saying,
This man began to build, and was not
able to finish it.
Or what king going to make war against
another king, that hath not bound first, and
count compriseth, whether he be able with ten
thousand, to meet him that cometh against him
with twenty thousand?
Or else, while the other is yet a
great way off, he sendeth an ambassad, and
desireth conditions of peace.
So likewise, whosoever he be of you, that
forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot
be my disciple.
Fault is good, but if the fault of
lust takes favour, wherewith shall it be freed?
It is neither fit for the land, nor
yet for the downhill, but men cast it
out.
He that hath ears to hear, let him
hear.
Shall we just bow before the Lord in
prayer, as we turn to the Word?
Again praying together the prayer which I offer
on your behalf and mine.
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.
He sendeth an ambassad, and desireth conditions of
peace.
So likewise, whosoever he be of you, that
forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot
be my disciple.
Fault is good, but if the fault of
lust takes favour, wherewith shall it be freed?
It is neither fit for the land, nor
yet for the downhill, but men cast it
out.
And my prayer, and the prayer of many
of us, I'm sure, is that these days
missionaries may become missionaries.
That's true of everybody, either a missionary or
a missionary.
Right where we are, here, now, in Woody
Barber Institute, in Chicago, anywhere, a missionary or
a missionary.
And we have based all this upon four
simple propositions.
That the world is smaller than we think.
The task, greater than we think.
The time, shorter than we think.
The term, costlier than we think.
If we're going to communicate our faith to
the generation in which we live, the terms
are costlier than we think.
And it's with the last of these four
simple statements that we are going to consider
this morning.
The terms are costlier than we think.
We all realize that about two-thirds of
the world's population have never heard of Christ.
And we all realize that 90% of
Christian work is done among 10% of
the world's population.
In the light of these facts, I have
been forced back to ask myself, and satisfy
my mind before God, two questions, which, in
his name, I will put to you this
morning.
For you to ask, and satisfy yourself before
him.
The first is this.
Did the death of Christ upon Calvary provide
adequate salvation for everybody?
Let me repeat this.
Did the death of Christ upon the cross
provide adequate salvation for everyone, in all the
world, for all time, until he comes again?
My answer to that question, based upon the
scripture, is yes.
He is able to save to the uttermost
all who come unto God by him.
He is not willing that one should perish.
A salvation adequate for everyone.
And there is no sin that has gone
too far, that the cross of Christ can
go further.
And there is no habit that is too
deeply formed in any of our lives, that
the blood of Jesus can cleanse.
He breaks the power of cancelled sins.
He sets the prisoner free.
His blood can make a pile of clean.
His blood avails for me.
My second question.
Does that mean that all men, everywhere, will
be saved?
That's what they've been taught in some areas
today.
That if there's anybody lost eternally in hell,
that means that there's a breakdown in the
love of God.
That with all the authority of the word
of God behind me, and the conviction of
the Holy Spirit, my answer to the second
question, will all men ultimately be saved?
My answer is no.
For he has provided salvation adequate for all,
but effective only in those who believe and
repent.
Salvation sufficient for everyone, everywhere.
But a salvation which is operative only in
the lives of those who repent and believe.
If that's not true, you will have to
cut out whole portions of the gospel of
Matthew, and practically the entire book of Revelation.
All men will not be saved.
My third question.
Can anybody save without hearing a gospel?
And that forces me back in my mind
immediately, to Romans chapter 10.
Whosoever shall call on the name of the
Lord shall be saved.
But how shall they call on him on
whom they have not heard?
And how shall they believe on him whom
they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher?
And how shall they preach without the defense?
Nobody can be saved unless they hear.
I remember a dear man of God once
standing up for a young people's meeting and
saying, when I was younger, I used to
pray, Lord, show me what it means for
a soul to be lost.
And he said, God never answered that prayer.
Because I believe that if he had answered
it, I'd have gone stark scaring mad.
I'd have gone raving mad if he'd really
shown me what it meant for a soul
to be lost eternally.
It was John Wesley who said, that if
hell is real, and if we believed it,
every one of us would go across Britain
on a road, if need be, on a
road hooded with nails on our knees, in
order to save men from hell.
But we don't believe that these days.
Or if we believe it, we don't act
like it.
For if this is right and true, if
the answers to these three questions are what
I suggest they are, we are called for
immediate reassessment.
First of all, how much of our church
program is relevant to the twentieth century?
We've organized out the Holy Spirit.
How much room is there in your church
program for God, the Holy Ghost, to work?
We are satisfied every week, apparently, with a
song service, hymn, prayer, reading, notices, offering, special
number, anthem, hymn, sermon, prayer, hymn of invitation
in which nothing ever happens, benediction, and then
we all go home.
Twice a week, twice a day, fifty-two
weeks in the year, there's not the slightest
evidence of God moving in to do the
supernatural.
Some of us would be as amazed if
we saw Christianity really at work as we
profess to be amazed if it's doubted.
What room is there for God really to
move in to do a miracle?
How much of our church program is geared
to the need of people who wouldn't dream
of coming inside our church door?
Is it relevant to a generation which couldn't
care less what we believe and wouldn't dream
of coming inside our evangelical fundamental churches?
I say that this situation in which we
live today calls for an immediate reassessment of
the way that we're going about the task.
We're all playing church, just a good program,
just good music, average preaching, right doctrine, and
we turn it on week after week, and
millions of people on our doorstep are going
to hell.
And if we believe it, we don't act
like it, it calls not only for a
reassessment immediately, before it's too late, of our
Christian education, of our whole program of evangelical
thinking and approach, but it calls also for
a reassessment of our personal lives.
In the light of the fact which I
have given you this morning, that 90%
of Christian work is done among 10%
of the world's population, and over 2 billion
people alive today are on the road to
a lost eternity, while I acknowledge that not
every one of us can have the privilege
of going overseas, I suggest to you that
the burden of proof lies heavily upon every
one of us here to satisfy the Lord
that the circumstances in which he has placed
us justify us remaining at home.
It's not enough to say, I am willing
for whatever the Lord may need, I must
take steps to see whether or not he
really wants me to remain in a country
which has been surfeited with the gospel.
I admit the need in the United States
and in Britain is desperate, but it cannot
compare with the need of continents which are
absolutely in the dark and have never heard
the name of Jesus.
The burden of proof, I repeat, lies heavily
upon every one of us to satisfy God
that the circumstances in which he has placed
us justify us remaining at home.
It calls for a reassessment of our church
programs, it calls for a reassessment of our
personal life, and it calls for a recognition
that the terms of discipleship are costlier than
we think.
And therefore this morning our subject as we
think of the communication of our faith is
the requirement that we must recognize.
Did you notice that three times over in
this chapter that I read to you we
had the phrase he cannot be my disciple.
Verse 26 last phrase of the verse he
cannot be my disciple.
Verse 27 last few words he cannot be
my disciple.
Verse 33 he cannot be my disciple.
Let me just dispel an illusion which may
be in your mind.
There's no difference between a disciple and a
Christian.
The words are synonymous in the New Testament.
They mean the same thing.
A disciple is simply a Christian who is
growing up.
You remember we are told in Acts chapter
11 and verse 26 that Christians, the disciples,
were first called Christians at Antioch.
The two words are the same.
So here is the Lord Jesus laying down
in no uncertain terms what it costs to
be a Christian.
Someone has said that being a Christian is
like joining a club.
The entrance fee, nothing.
There's a description, all you've got.
In a sense, that's true.
And here I am today giving you not
my condition but the Master's condition which has
never been watered down and never been changed
his terms for being a follower of his.
You notice that in verse 25 there weren't
great multitudes with him.
What an opportunity to take names and addresses.
What an opportunity to take up an offering.
What an opportunity to call in the television.
What an opportunity to have the press around
and report it.
Great multitudes flooding after him.
And he turned to them and said, If
any man.
It's as if he held them back and
spoke to them one by one and said,
If any man.
Today at the Institute is perhaps a strategic
day.
A momentous day.
It's a day of prayer.
A day of waiting upon God.
A day in which the whole faculty have
felt the burden and the concern to call
you aside from study of books for a
day that you might seek the faith of
God.
That's a wonderful thing.
My heart goes out to an Institute that
is prepared to do that.
And I want simply this morning to remind
you very, very lovingly of the Master's terms
which you must face and I must face
in my life if I'm going to be
a Christian.
The first of them.
Verse 26.
If any man come to me and hate
not his father, mother, wife, children, brethren, sisters,
yea in his own right also he cannot
be my disciple.
Have you had any difficulty with that verse?
Has it troubled you?
Does that mean to say that in order
to be a Christian I've got to have
a personal animosity in regard to my family?
Of course it doesn't.
Let me put it in the more positive
way in which Matthew translates the same statement.
If any man love father or mother, brother
or sister more than me he is not
worthy of me.
And it seems to me that here the
Lord Jesus is saying to me to my
heart this morning some things.
He's saying to me first of all that
he's the only one who has the right
to make a home as well as to
break it.
As a matter of fact he's the only
one who can make a home.
I mustn't get diverted but I want to
say to you that the only marriage that
is happy is not the one where the
wife dominates the husband or the husband dominates
the wife but where both husband and wife
are dominated by the Lord.
Two months ago I was in Bristol in
England and I only stayed a night in
the home and they had scads of children.
I'm not sure but I think it was
11 an absolute football team and they varied
in age from about 21 to 3.
Do you know that at 7.30 in
the morning a bell rang and I responded
to it.
I felt it had a pound of authority
about it.
I suppose you know a bit about bells
around here.
And this bell rang and I leapt to
it and I went downstairs and there was
a tremendous story and from every part of
the house somebody was running.
And they all arrived at the same time
around a huge breakfast table.
Actually it was a table tennis table with
a cloth on it.
And yes it was the only way they
could all sit down together.
And there they were various stages of dressed
and undressed half shaved, hair half brushed and
not brushed at all some still in their
pyjamas some just ready to go and Father
opened the words and read a chapter.
And then scripture union knelt for the day
and then the whole family knelt and every
one of them prayed individually a missionary, a
friend, a need, a person and that home
was like a bed of heaven.
Oh it would have been so easy in
that home for all that to be crowded
out the easiest thing in the world.
But and this bell and I went down
I leapt to it and there was a
tremendous and I in every part of this
story and from the house somebody was running
like that nobody else can.
He is not only the only one who
can make a home but he is the
only one who can break it.
What do I mean by that?
Just this, at any time he has the
right to step into a home and help
himself to a boy, a girl out of
that home and thrust them out into a
service to the uttermost parts of the earth.
And speaking as a father not as a
preacher who has been through the experience when
the valedictory service comes and one of those
precious children whom you have brought into the
world and God has taken into his service
I tell you there is a tear in
one eye but there is a twinkle in
the other.
For God has done such a wonderful thing
he has helped himself to that son or
that daughter you won't see them again for
five years if you see them at all
that they have responded to the greatest thing
of all God has called them into his
service.
Let me say a word to you in
utmost love and tenderness if you come from
a home where your parents are unsaved and
you have had all the agony of the
battle of that even to get to a
Bible school let me say to you that
the key to their conversion is your obedience
to the Lord Jesus.
If you say well I can't possibly go
I must obey my parents I must go
along with them they don't want it I
can't hurt them I can't afford to do
it you'll discover that in the Christian life
inevitably you're bound to hurt somebody and often
it's the very people you don't want to
hurt.
You either grieve and hurt the Lord or
you hurt someone down here you can't have
harmony at both ends of the line you
either have conflict with heaven or you have
controversy on earth.
But if you want to see those parents
of yours one to the Lord obedience to
the Lord Jesus at all costs is what
matters.
He's the only one who has right to
break a home and make it.
This verse almost tells me also tells me
that I must have no rivals in my
love life to Christ.
If any man loves more than me he's
not worthy of me.
We pass that test today.
No rivals in my love life in my
affection life to Christ.
He must differ.
Some years ago following the morning service at
my church a girl came up to me
a young girl and held out her left
hand and showed me on one finger a
diamond.
So I rejoiced with her I'm always thankful
when that happens and I knew the fellow
she was engaged to an awfully nice Christian
boy I was so happy about.
Provisionally they arranged the date.
Six months later after morning service she came
into my study held out her hand.
She couldn't speak but there was no doubt.
I said well what's the matter?
What's happened?
Oh she said nothing really.
But you know only this I've become increasingly
conscious in these six months that God wants
me in Thailand as a missionary with OMF.
My fiancé feels he ought to stay in
Britain.
He hasn't any calls for mission fees.
We've battled with this for months.
That's all.
And God has had his way.
Two months ago less than a year ago
I was in Thailand at an OMF conference
and met her.
And she looked at me with a shining
face and she said to me I'd a
thousand times rather be here in the will
of God unmarried than in Britain out of
the will of God unmarried no rival in
our affection life.
Oh it doesn't always happen like that.
Not always talks like that.
I think for the moment a thrilling thing
that happened to me just recently I was
in Ethiopia at CSIM conference about 18 months
ago and there's a fellow there he's about
35 years of age a bachelor and I
was there a week in that station and
at his conference got to know him pretty
well when I left just before I left
I shook hands with him and I said
Bill there's only one thing that matters with
you and he said what's that?
You need a wife and I'm going to
pray for you.
Where do you live Bill?
Oh he said Melbourne, Australia.
I said I'm coming to Melbourne at Christmas.
I'll tell you what we'll do Bill I'll
pray for you that you may have your
wife and when I come to Melbourne for
this Christmas I'll take you and your fiancée
out to lunch.
Oh he said that's ridiculous absolutely ridiculous.
There are a lot of eligible missionaries on
the field and all were sort of looking
at that his way but he wasn't having
anything to do with any of them.
But you know when I went away he
wrote to me he said to me that
word of yours came to me somehow right
from the Lord and you know what happened?
He went home on furlough in November convinced
that that was of God and on his
way home to Australia in Singapore he bought
an engagement ring never even seen the girl
and at the same time he bought a
watch beautiful watch showed it to me it
was called a Rebecca watch a splendid timepiece
and he said now Lord make this an
Isaac and Rebecca relationship and let the first
girl I meet in Melbourne be the one
to Melbourne and the first night of his
furlough he was due to speak at MBI
which in Melbourne is Melbourne Bible Institute and
as he was going up into the platform
to speak he bumped into a girl coming
down he said hello and she said hello
and after meeting in Edinburgh that was in
November and when I was there two days
before Christmas I took them out for lunch
they were engaged to be married and you
know what?
she'd already been accepted by the S.I
.M. she had her heart set on going
to Ethiopia and today they're on the same
mission station man and wife in the country
to which he'd been called and to which
she was called led together by divine appointment
both of them determined that nothing would ever
and nobody would ever realise that was contrary
to the will of God and there they
are today on the mission field oh God
does wonderful things when we really give him
every bit of our life no rival in
our love life to the Lord Jesus my
dear friends as a man who just loves
being with young people working with them I
just say take your hands off and what's
God worth miracles?
no rival in your love life to Christ
is that true right now of you?
that may mean the breaking of a friendship
that may mean putting your eyes on the
altar that may mean breaking an engagement that
will mean being thoroughly realistic in God's presence
that it will mean ultimately the will of
God being done in your life no rival
in your love life to Christ the second
thing no right except to do the will
of God whosoever does not bear his cross
and come after me cannot be my disciple
what's it mean to bear his cross?
some people have an extraordinary idea of what
that means a fellow come up to me
and speak to me after his service in
church he said to me pastor he said
I have a shocking temper I blow my
top for nothing I suppose that's my cross
hmm and I said to him rest your
heart it's not your cross it's your wife's
cross she's got to live with it how
amazingly we can rationalize a thing like that
that's not your cross man that's your sin
God has given Jesus for you to make
you sick instead of sour and grumpy it's
not your cross what's it mean whosoever does
not bear his cross Matthew 16.34 again
puts it more clearly in a positive sense
if any man would come after me let
him deny himself and take up his cross
daily and follow me let him as the
New English Bible has it let him leave
himself behind no right except the right to
do the will of God the Christian life
isn't broad at the beginning and gradually narrowing
down we don't all sort of crowd in
together we go in one by one straight
as the gate narrow as the way that
leads to light and few there be that
find it and when you go in that
gate you've got to leave yourself behind you
can't take two masters no man can serve
two masters either you love the one and
hate the other or hate the one and
hold to the other you cannot serve God
amen if you would come after me then
leave yourself behind there can only be one
master no right except to do the will
of God now of course this is something
which has the cost of failing to understand
it has led to missionary casualty after missionary
casualty it's led to collapse in Christian service
and Christian life have you heard somebody say
perhaps you've said it yourself I had a
perfect right to be consulted in that situation
nobody asked me though in my opinion I'm
going to resign I had a right to
be heard a right to hear my opinion
stated a right to have my views expressed
a right let this mind be in you
which was in Christ who counted it not
a thing to be grasped after being equal
with God but humbled himself made himself of
no reputation took upon himself the form of
a servant was made in the likeness of
man was obedient unto death even the death
of the cross wherefore God hath highly exalted
him and given him a name that is
above every name that at the name of
Jesus every knee shall bow and why?
because he forsook all his rights he counted
it not a thing to be grasped and
he stepped from a throne came right down
to the cross what was he doing?
forsaking his rights I have a right to
be consulted I have a right to my
own life I have a right to do
my own way I haven't any rights except
to do his will and it's failure to
recognize that that has absolutely caused the Christian
church to be paralyzed resignation from church board
resignation from the mission team because I wasn't
consulted my rights weren't considered you haven't any
rights you've died to them all your only
right is to do his will if any
man doth not bear his cross and come
after me come be my disciple just look
with me how that worked out in the
life of the apostle Paul look at 1
Corinthians chapter 9 with me a moment would
you here's the example of a man who
had every right but he forsook them for
Jesus a man whose authority in the ministry
was being challenged by this carnal church who
questioned his right to speak to him as
he did thus really my answer to them
that do examine me is this have I
not power to eat and to drink?
have I right to normal ration?
have I not power to lead about a
sister and a wife?
have I right to normal romance?
for I only and Barnabas haven't I the
power to prepare working?
have I right to normal recreation?
verse 14 so hath the Lord ordained that
they which preach the gospel should live of
the gospel have I right to normal remuneration?
verse 15 but I have used none of
these things for though I preach the gospel
I have nothing to glory for the sentence
is laid upon me if I preach not
the gospel oh yes I have a perfect
right I have an absolute right to normal
rations an absolute right to normal romance to
normal recreation to normal remuneration but therefore I
have refused them and thrown them all aside
for Jesus sake now let me bring that
up to age right here in October 1968
in Woody Barber Institute student body, all of
it, myself included haven't I got a right
to normal food?
oh sure say have you ever denied yourself
a meal?
for the sake of Jesus?
have you ever fasted?
for Christ sake?
and for the sake of prayer to lay
hold of Him?
do you have a right?
do you have a right to normal food?
nobody can deny it, you have?
perfect right but say one time or other
there'll come a point where Jesus will test
you are you prepared to miss one meal
or one day that you might really lay
hold of that and show me that you
mean business?
of course fasting is much more than missing
a meal fasting is absolute denying myself from
the flesh all its ways and all its
rights but have you even gone so far
as to miss a meal for Jesus?
do you have a right to normal romance?
about a sister and a wife but it
may well be that the Lord will test
you about that do you have a right
to normal romance?
I underline the word normal perhaps it's a
bit difficult to know what that means these
days I remember last summer I went to
the island of Jersey that's in the Channel
Islands some distance south of England and I
was there to find some sunshine because we
hadn't any that summer and I didn't find
any in Jersey either but I saw a
very extraordinary thing I saw in the streets
of Jersey stops just in front of me
a hippie van mobile van and out of
it jumped four or five of the most
extraordinary little creatures I've ever seen I wouldn't
know whether they were fellows or girls and
on the back of that van there was
a heart drawn and an arrow to it
and this statement let's not make war let's
make love now that's very plausible it sounds
wonderful sounds as if you've got the answer
but you know what it means don't you?
it means every barrier down every indulgence of
every kind of sexual appetite regardless of the
marriage tie if you become a follower of
the Lord Jesus you're listening aren't you?
that kind of romance is out you're entitled,
every one of us is entitled to normal
romance say, fellows and girls is your romantic
life getting out of hand?
and has the Holy Spirit been speaking to
you about it?
oh you have a right to normal romance
and the loveliest and the normal and the
wonderful and the thrilling is that which is
within the marriage tie you have a right
to that you have no right to the
other and if it gets out of hand
it'll ruin your studies at the institute and
all your future life but you have a
right to normal romance but even there God
may well test you verse 6 you have
a right to normal recreation you have a
right to normal remuneration may I just take
you very quickly this morning for a glimpse
in a mission to you in the Central
Africa Republic and there on the Sudan border
south of the Sudan I went and stayed
and saw 35,000 Sudanese refugees who had
been thrown out of Egypt by Nasser for
no other sin than that they weren't Muslim
some of them bankers some of them lawyers
some of them doctors some of them well
educated some of them speaking English well anyway
destiny nothing to live on no clothes hardly
separate on their back Red Cross trying its
best to do something for them into that
situation the Africa in the mission had sent
two girls will you underline that in your
mind two girls they hadn't been men they
lived in a house that was dirt and
pretty no sanitation no shop no day off
a week no nice things to see they
didn't bother about that but when my wife
and I left that place we came away
feeling so absolutely humbled because we had met
two people who had touched a depth of
exhilaration and joy in doing the will of
God that they didn't matter about anything else
all they were concerned about was that some
of those 35,000 destitute, helpless people might
be one for the Lord that every right
to a normal life every right to normal
recreation that they'd died for and denying it
had found life earlier, that same tour I
flew from Nairobi in a missionary aviation fellowship
plane piloted by Gordon Marshall the MAF does
a tremendous service job for missionaries I lived
with Gordon Marshall for two or three days
missionary aviation fellowship pilot he's not only a
pilot but he's an engineer, a navigator missionary
shopper and above all an evangelist after seven
hours wearily flying a one-engine Cessna jet
at about 140 miles an hour at 8
,000 feet being tossed about like a cork
and having two stops on the way being
interrogated by customs officials and answering tricky questions
at the end of the day taking orders
from missionaries absolutely exhausted I saw him on
his knees with his Bible midnight he was
in bed five o'clock the next morning
he was up again on his knees with
his Bible out to prepare his plane for
the next leg of the flight witnessing in
the language of the people with an open
Bible about Christ I saw a man who
was a pilot a navigator everything but above
all a man of God and listen Gordon
Marshall is a South African could be flying
for South African Airways today and earning $30
,000 a year instead of which he's earning
a full missionary aviation fellowship why?
because he has no right except to do
the will of God I have no right
except to do God's will have I acknowledged
it?
one more thing he that forsaketh not all
that he hath he cannot be my disciple
does that mean to say that a Christian
is someone who goes to his bank manager
if he has one and gives away all
his money well some people God will ask
to do that but that isn't what this
text means it means much more than that
F-A-I-T-H forsaking all I
take him that's faith and except a man
forsakes all confidence in himself and puts all
confidence in me says Jesus he cannot be
my disciple in other words except he moves
off the ground of self-confidence onto the
ground of Christ's confidence except he gives himself
completely and takes me completely he cannot be
my disciple for the whole essence of the
Christian life is an exchange of sovereignty in
which it's no longer I but Jesus and
I don't go on giving and giving and
giving myself but I go on taking and
taking and taking Christ have you ever when
you're tempted to blow your top very quickly
said to him thank you Lord Jesus I
take your patience when you're tempted to impurity
of thought have you ever said thank you
Lord Jesus I take your holiness have you
ever discovered that the opposite to all that
you are is in Jesus and it can
be me to produce it through you day
by day except a man forsakes all that
he has except he comes to a point
of absolute disillusionment absolute despair in himself and
begins to lay hold of an ingrowing lord
and sovereign he cannot be my disciple one
of the most gracious men I ever met
wonderful Christian men whose books many of you
will have read was the late Dr. F
.B. Meyer whose studies in Bible characters were
tremendous Joseph Abraham Albrecht one day at a
Catholic convention in England with 8,000 people
present he was preaching and he was that
kind of preacher who never preached at a
congregation he was right alongside them and he
gave a testimony and that testimony said three
years ago as a minister something came into
my life which I knew was wrong but
I loved it and I didn't think it
would affect anybody but me but from then
on every time I preached that thing came
between me and the congregation it came between
me and power and God and congregations grew
smaller and smaller nothing ever happened and my
heart was so filled with a sense of
guilt and sin and I fought with it
and struggled with it and I went on
preaching but he said before I came up
to Keswick I went away alone and like
Jacob I wrestled with God all night and
I said O Lord you had every key
to every part of my life except one
and I've hung on to it and it's
ruining my life and testimony ministry Lord Jesus
please I can't go on like this please
take this key, the last key and F
.B. Meyer when he gave his testimony said
with a face that absolutely englobed with the
glory of God he said you know what
the Lord Jesus did he never took that
key he took out the door and in
place of the door he put in a
window and ever since then the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ has shone into
my heart you know that day at Keswick
there was scarcely a dry eye in the
congregation and all the various missionary house parties
and people that were staying there 8,000
of them lights were on till 2 and
3 in the morning people getting right with
God and a real breath of spiritual revival
struck that place listen do you want revival?
really?
you just talk about it?
or do you want it in your life?
in the institute?
in your church?
in your ministry?
and you?
are you prepared to say to him Lord
take the key every key not just 90
% of them not just 99 out of
100 but Lord every key and he's reminding
you even now as I close my message
of that one key that holds back the
power the blessing, the joy that you need
in your life today no rival no right
no reservation Lord every key let's pray just
let us have a moment of silent prayer
many of you here have followed me sympathetically
prayerfully you've entered into life and into victory
by the grace of God and you know
the thrill none of us perfect but we
press on towards the month many more however
in this school at this point this morning
are desperately needing mission for you simply because
God hasn't been allowed to have every key
there are rivals there are other rights there
are reservations are you prepared today at this
moment to tell him you've abandoned all that
other Lords have long held sway now thy
name alone to bear you prepare to hand
Christ every key just in a moment of
quietness with a hush of God's spirit upon
us may I ask all of you who
right now are saying to him Lord Jesus
I've been battling and fighting resisting I've had
reservations I've had claims and other rights I've
had rivals but now Lord it's useless in
everything may I ask that those who are
saying that to Jesus today not those of
you who have already said it but those
of you who are saying it now I
want you to stand and I want to
pray for you all those who are saying
Lord Jesus today this be the day when
you have every key would you just quietly
rise to your feet remember
I'm not speaking to those of you who've
entered into this experience but those of you
who now just know that there cannot be
another day go on in your life when
you have rivals rights that you insist upon
some of you may have made that transaction
but withdrawn it but today desire to renew
it to you also I'm speaking and I
trust the Lord has spoken and we're going
to close in a word of prayer for
you particularly anybody else would like to stand
no rights no rivals no reservations oh
dear Lord how we thank thee today for
the gracious moving and working of thy Holy
Spirit in our hearts God we believe that
beyond the human voice with all its intersection
beyond the message with all its simplicity and
faltering delivery you have shown yourself and many
have heard another voice you taste in their
hearts like an alarm bell knowing that life
can't go on with tears such a mess
such failure and here we stand in thy
presence many this morning to witness the respect
and our heart's desire is that thou wilt
cleanse us from our sin Lord put thy
power within Lord take us as we are
Lord and make us all thine own keep
us day by day Lord underneath thy sway
Lord make our hearts thy palace and thy
royal throne how we thank thee that as
we cast our burden upon the Lord thou
dost sustain as we commit our way to
the Lord and trust in him thou dost
bring it upon us how we thank thee
that all the responsibility of the future is
at thy feet that the government is upon
thy shoulders and how we praise thee that
there's no tangle of circumstance no defeat in
our lives nothing impossible with God Lord send
us from this place this morning so that
the sessions of prayer might be precious to
us and as we pray together may what
thou hast done to us in these mornings
and these days this morning especially be worked
out before thee in the leading prayer may
thou shine upon this place and upon every
heart this day make it to be just
an empty room to heaven where the glory
of the Lord is relieved where the shout
of a king is in the camp where
Jesus himself makes himself known to us as
a living bright reality when he becomes more
precious than he's ever been in our lives
hear our prayer Lord we're not worthy of
the least of all thy mercies but we
praise thee that thou hast loved us with
an everlasting love and our hearts would be
wide open and tender toward thee today and
each one of us would say my Jesus
I love thee I know thou art mine
for thee all the spoils of sin I
was thine answer prayer for the sake of
thy freedom for the glory of thy name
and the sake of perishing multitudes who await
the healing of the gospel through life utterly
abandoned to God the Holy Spirit we ask
it in Jesus name Amen you are dismissed