Will you turn to the word, as it
is found in the Acts of the Apostles
and chapter 13, Acts chapter 13, and
I will just read to you the last
section of the chapter from verse 44.
And the next Sabbath day came almost the
whole city together to hear the word of
God.
I can never read that verse without my
mouth watering.
The next Sabbath day almost the whole city
together to hear the word of God.
But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they
were filled with envy.
Mistakes against those things which were spoken by
Paul, contradicting and blaspheming.
Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said
it was necessary that the word of God
should first have been spoken to you.
But seeing you put it away, put it
from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting
life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.
For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying,
I have set thee to be a light
of the Gentiles that bow through the eve
of salvation unto the ends of the earth.
And when the Gentiles heard this, they were
glad and glorified the word of the Lord.
And as many as were addend to eternal
life believed.
And the word of the Lord was published
throughout all the regions.
But the Jews stirred up the devout and
honorable women and the cheap men of the
city.
And raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas and
expelled them out of their coat.
But they shook off the dust of their
feet against them and came unto Iconium.
And the disciples were filled with joy and
with the Holy Ghost.
Let us just bow for a word of
prayer before we have the message.
Again I ask you to echo in your
heart the prayer which I offer on your
behalf and mine.
Speak, Lord, for thine servant may hear us.
Speak just now some message to meet my
need which thou only dost know.
Speak now to thy holy word and make
me see some wonderful truth thou hast to
show to me.
For Jesus' sake.
Amen.
We commenced yesterday a consideration in these five
mornings of the communication of our faith.
The priority task of the church in the
context of the 1960s.
The propagation of the gospel of Jesus Christ
throughout the whole world.
And we were considering yesterday morning a relationship
which must be restored.
Today we tackle the theme again.
And our subject today is the responsibility that
must be realized.
And we come to grips with it immediately
as we read in the 47th verse of
this chapter.
So hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I
have set thee to be a light of
the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation
unto the end of the earth.
I believe that this is a word that
is spoken by the Spirit of God to
everybody.
To every Christian.
I believe that the only hope of the
propagation of the gospel in our time is
that every Christian fulfills this responsibility and realizes
it's in their own lives.
I have set thee to be a light
of the Gentiles.
That's the phrase which the Apostle Paul often
used.
He spoke to the Philippian church about living
in the midst of a crooked and perverse
nation among whom they shine as light in
the world.
I think that he had in mind, as
he used this phrase, the tremendous statement, the
tremendous claims of our Lord.
Who said, I am the light of the
world.
And almost in the next breath he says
to a couple of nonentities, a crowd, a
company of nonentities rather, You are the light
of the world.
Near nobody, without any training or preparation, just
you.
The one thing that distinguished them from everybody
else was their unreserved commitment to the Lordship
of Christ.
And you are the light of the world.
How possibly could they be the light of
the world?
And in the same time, Jesus said, I
am the light of the world.
And here in our text, I have set
thee to be a light of the Gentiles.
Well, I think that we'll find that by
way of illustration.
Supposing you are out one evening in Chicago,
on a beautiful moonlight night.
The stars are shining and the moon is
at full.
And it's a brilliant light.
The sort of light that makes people who
are in love want to hold hands.
Because the moon controls both the tide and
the untide, I believe.
Well, you seem to know something about it.
If you're out in Chicago on a night
like that, and there are many nights like
that here, you might say one to another,
isn't the moon shining brightly tonight?
But you'd be quite wrong.
Because as far as we know, we may
know more in a few years, but as
far as we know at present, the moon
is incapable of shining.
It's just a lump of lackluster material, and
the only reason why it shines is because
it's in orbit, in relationship to the sun.
As it turns its face sunward, it catches
the glow and reflects the light into the
darkness of this world.
The moon is simply a reflector of light.
It hasn't power to shine or to give
light, but it catches the glow of the
sun.
Now this illustration, I think, will serve our
purpose.
Jesus said, I am the light of the
world, ye are the light of the world.
I have set thee to be a light
of the Gentiles.
And as the child of God learns day
by day to turn his eyes upon Jesus
and look full in his wonderful face, he
catches something of the glow and the glory
and the thrill and the reality of the
Saviour in his heart, and he begins to
shine with something of the glow and reality
of heaven.
Forgive the clumsy phraseology, but here at Moody
and Dabble Institute you'll understand it.
A Christian is merely an eschatological phenomenon, which
sounds very big, but it simply means that
he is a projection from heaven into time.
A reminder to everybody else that God is
not dead, he's alive.
And God is not at a distance, he
is near.
And actually so near, that every child of
God catches him in his heart every day
and catches the glory.
Reflects the light.
Now it is in this sphere that the
Christian is beyond competition.
In one sense to speak of comparative religion
is a false perception.
Everything else is by contrast.
For the Christian faith is the only faith
which claims that every member of it has
the founder of it living in his heart.
This makes the Christian faith unique.
And so a child of God is one
who is a reflector of light.
And as he is that, he becomes a
missionary.
Everyone who reflects that light is a missionary.
Everybody who doesn't is a mission to you.
And he is not in competition with anybody
or any other organization to attract people to
Christ.
One would almost imagine these days in Christian
circles by the frenzied and frantic efforts that
many churches make to put over an attractive
program, attractive program of modern methods of education,
Christian education, approach to people, methods of reaching
young people, good music, all of these things
have a place.
But you can have them all and unless
you have light you've got nothing.
You can have the best program and the
best education and the best method and the
best old great Thunder School system and the
best singing in your church and even the
best preaching and be absolutely useless unless you
have light.
Although I speak with the tongues of men
and of angels and have not love, I
am a sounding brass and tinkling synth.
But it's this realm which the Christian church
has got to live on is where to
reach this generation in which we live.
In other words, everybody has got to step
up into a new dimension of living in
order that they may be reflectors of light
and shine for the Lord Jesus.
Well, how is it going to be done?
I have set thee to be a light
of the Gentiles.
I wouldn't compare the first century with the
twentieth.
Everything is in contrast.
But I'm quite sure that the process which
opposed the first century church were as great,
if not greater, than those which oppose us
today.
Just a little handful of men entities, that's
all there were.
They hadn't got much doctrine, they hadn't got
much theology, hadn't got any systematic theology at
all.
They just knew that their hearts were aflame
and they burst and they shone.
And because of that they were able to
cut through the path of an atheistic Roman
Empire with the authority and glory of their
message.
Now I admit again that the twentieth century
is all by contrast.
But that our principles, principles of witness, principles
of evangelism here, which if we ignore, we
do so at our peril, and which I
believe this morning as I touch upon them,
I'm exposing to my own heart and ears
the basic cause of the futility, comparative futility,
of the evangelical church in the twentieth century.
What was it that made these men, these
fellows, these ignorant men, these non-entities, what
was it that made them blaze and burn
and powerful and victorious in all their witness
for the Lord?
Well, to look at this chapter is to
find unmistakably the answer.
I want to ask you to look at
three things with me this morning in this
portion.
First, the message that they proclaimed.
You read the Acts of the Apostles again
for yourself, quietly, thoughtfully, prayerfully.
And you will find that when the early
church preached the gospel, they were always preaching
it, may I use the simile, they were
always firing a double-barreled gun.
Their message had a two-fold emphasis.
One, no more prominently than the other, the
two sharp emphases that they preached.
First, the emphasis of grace.
And second, the emphasis of government.
Look at this in this portion of Scripture
with me just a minute.
Verse 38, We have known unto you, therefore,
men and brethren, that through this man is
preached unto you the forgiveness of sin, and
by him all that believe are justified from
all things, from which he could not be
justified by the law of Moses.
There you are, there's the emphasis of grace.
Now we have no difficulty in this.
We preach it, even perhaps, some of us
are not so gracious as we should be
in doing so, but we preach the message
of grace, the undeserved kindness of God, that
saves a sinner, on the basis of faith
and a crucified risen Lord, free unmerited favor,
grace.
This is the emphasis that we delight in,
and we preach it all the time.
But I notice that in this sermon of
Paul's here at Antioch, there was another emphasis.
You look right to it, and you find
all the time it was grace right enough,
but it was always based on government.
Just to read a few verses, we have
no time for more.
Verse 17, The God of this people of
Israel chose our Father, and exalted the people
when they dwelt as strangers in the land
of Egypt, and with a high arm brought
he them out of it.
And about the time of forty years suffered
he their manors in the wilderness.
And when he had destroyed seven nations in
the land of Canaan, he divided their land
to them by law.
After that he gave unto them judges about
the space of four hundred and fifty years,
until Samuel the prophet.
Afterward they desired a king, and God gave
unto them Saul, the son of Sith, the
man of the child of Benjamin, for the
space of forty years.
And when he had removed him, he raised
up unto them David to be their king.
And so on, and then again go to
verse 29.
And when they had fulfilled all that was
written of him, they took him down from
the tree, and laid him in a sapulcher.
But God raised him from the dead.
You see, all to this message there was
being traced the sovereignty of God.
And this message, and every other message which
they preached, had always this double barrel to
it.
This empathy.
First the government of God, then the grace
of God.
The undeserved grace of God, which led to
the government of God in their lives.
This was ever following.
This was a message that had literally caught
fire in the lives of all these disciples
who preached it.
Now you know my good friend, it's a
great thing in your life, I hope you
make the practice of it, of reading your
Bible through every year.
Perhaps you read it more than that.
But at least make it once a year.
I've made that practice mine for many years
now.
I'm sure many others of you do the
same.
But listen, it's one thing to go through
the Bible every year.
It's another thing when the Bible stops going
through you.
One thing when you can read it objectively.
Another thing when the Spirit of God begins
to burn its authority in your life.
And then it begins to get hold of
you.
And it begins to take fire in your
heart.
And these disciples had found this.
The Word of God.
Look at it in verse 44.
Almost the whole city came together to hear
the Word of God.
Verse 46.
It was necessary that the Word of God
should first be spoken to you.
Verse 48.
They were glad and glorified the Word of
the Lord.
Verse 49.
The Word of the Lord was published throughout
all the region.
The Word of the Lord.
They hadn't any message apart from that.
This thing which had gripped their heart, they
were now relying to everybody to whom they
spoke.
And this was the Word of God to
them.
It was this.
Salvation by grace.
But only for submission to government.
Have you got that?
Saved by the grace of God.
For submission to the government of God.
Not one of them would have questioned that.
Every one of them knew that they were
sold off to Christ.
That they weren't of their own.
That they were bought for the price.
They were His.
They belonged to Him.
Therefore they yielded the total commitment of their
lives to Him.
Oh yes.
It was salvation by grace.
But it was for submission to government.
Now that message these days is not popular.
Listen.
I can find no place in my New
Testament that I'm prepared to be enlightened.
I can find no place in my New
Testament where I may receive Jesus Christ as
my Saviour.
And then years later submit to Him as
my Lord.
I find that nowhere in the Bible.
A free salvation demands His full control.
Sovereignty is an essential attribute of deity.
And it's a tragic divorce in the character
of God.
To suggest that you may receive the Saviourhood
of Christ and not His worship.
You see, liberty in the Christian life is
not like that.
Liberty is not being a way out on
left field somewhere marked independent.
That's not liberty.
Liberty is freedom to obey God.
Freedom to do the will of God.
Power by the power of an indwelling Christ
to fulfill the law of God.
Law.
Well, we are free from its condemnation.
What a grand day it is in our
experience.
When we can say there is therefore now
no condemnation to them that are in Christ
Jesus.
That verse was given to me on the
day of my conversion and I underlined the
word now so heavily that I went right
through to the epistles of the Philippians and
ruined my Bible on the first day.
But it was great thrilling to know that
there was now no condemnation.
And I've never doubted that fact from that
day to this.
There is therefore now no condemnation.
We're free from the law's condemnation but we're
not free from the law's obligation.
And the holiness and character of a Christian
has got to be regulated by a law
of the Ten Commandments.
The Christian life is not liberty, it's not
license, it's freedom to do the will of
God.
And in doing the will of God, finding
all the joy of obedience.
Law in the Christian life is authority which
one intelligent being exercises over another intelligent being
by someone who has the right to the
authority of his life.
May I repeat that?
Law in the Christian life is the right
to exercise authority imposed by one person over
another.
The one having the authority and the right
to rule his life.
If you say to me that's legalism, I
say blessed legalism.
It's the kind of authority I know in
my life I need seven days a week.
The authority of Jesus Christ.
And it was submission to this and acknowledgement
of it that made them absolutely catch fire
in the preaching of their words.
Of course, it's the whole theme of the
New Testament.
Romans 5 21 As sin hath reigned unto
death, so might grace reign through righteousness unto
eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
There was a time in our lives when
sin reigned.
But now grace reigns, but one or the
other must reign.
Know ye not to whom ye yield yourselves
servants to obey?
His servants you are whom you obey.
Whether of sin unto death or of obedience
unto righteousness.
Romans 6 16 Every one of us has
a perfect right to choose our master.
There are no conscripts in the Lord's army.
No compulsions.
Everyone is a volunteer.
You have a perfect right to choose your
own king.
Choose the one who will run your life.
Absolutely a right.
But what you haven't any right to do,
is to wear the uniform of one master
and do the bidding of another.
There's only one who exercises supreme control of
our lives.
And a mission field becomes a missionary.
At the moment when I step off the
throne of my heart, which I have occupied
ever since I was born.
And I kneel at the foot of it.
And put Jesus Christ on it.
That's the message they proclaimed.
And listen, I will never, never know the
wonder of the grace of God sufficient for
every need and every demand and every emergency
in my life.
I'll never know it.
Unless I am willing to accept the government
of his spirit in every area of my
life.
The experience of the grace of God depends
upon submission to the government of God.
Now I'm not suggesting that this is something
that is experienced in the flash of a
moment.
I recall the day of my conversion, can
you do that?
It doesn't matter really if you can, the
thing is to be sure that you are
now.
You may not remember the time or the
place, but I do.
The time, the place, the day, the moment,
when I was confronted with the claims of
the risen Lord.
It's a long time ago now, about 40
years actually.
But I often look back upon that moment
and ask myself, have I ever had such
a spiritual moment as that in my life?
Has there ever been a moment like it
since when every barrier was down?
When I was so glad to welcome the
Lord?
When there was a heart that was tender
to him?
When there were no reservations at all, I
knew I was in desperate need.
I knew I needed him with all my
heart and I surrendered to him gladly.
And he was Lord from that moment on.
But I'm ashamed to think of the many,
many times in my Christian life and service,
times from which I've suffered and times from
which other people have suffered too.
When God has said to me, not that.
Don't you do that anymore.
That's not my friend for you.
That's not my way for you.
That's not my will for your life.
And I've stuck out my chin and said,
so what?
And from that moment the Holy Spirit went
out of business.
Not out of my heart.
He was there.
He's never left me.
But he was grieved.
And all the witness and testimony was ineffective
and all the preaching was useless.
And the whole thing was sheer hypocrisy as
long as in my life I allowed a
rival to the throne.
For then the Holy Spirit of life and
light had no liberty to work.
The message I must proclaim.
The essence of sin is arrogance and the
essence of salvation is submission.
When I get off the throne and Jesus
gets on it and he starts administering it
for his glory and for his kingdom.
The message that I must proclaim.
This is the thing that begins to burn,
to shine.
For you see upon that light the Holy
Spirit has his way and works and begins
to catch the glory and the glow of
the reality of the Lord.
Has that happened to you yet?
Have you come to the institute perhaps?
You don't know anything about that?
Or very little.
And Jesus Christ isn't Lord today in your
hearts.
And the Holy Spirit has no freedom to
work.
And we endeavor to substitute programs and knowledge
of truth and theology and doctrine and understanding
of the Bible.
And all the time he's pressing us into
a corner until this issue is settled once
and for all in every area of my
life.
I ask you very lovingly.
Does he control your thought life?
Your sex life?
Your friendships?
Your books?
Your spare time?
Your recreation?
Your money?
Government?
The message we must proclaim.
For only then does the Holy Spirit begin
to break through.
Secondly will you notice here the movement that
somehow we've got to precipitate.
The movement we have to precipitate.
For you see this message will drive a
wedge into every situation.
Verse 45.
They were filled with envy and spoke against
those things which were spoken by Paul.
Contradicting and blaspheming.
Verse 48.
When the Gentiles heard this they were glad.
And glorified the word of the Lord.
Now do you see this?
Some were mad.
And some were glad that nobody was neutral.
Everybody hopped off the fence.
Nobody sat on it.
They couldn't.
In the presence of a company of men
who preached grace and government.
And not only that.
And glorified the word of the Lord.
Now do you see this?
Some were mad.
And some were glad that nobody was neutral.
Everybody hopped off the fence.
Nobody sat on it.
They couldn't.
In the presence of a company of men
who preached grace and government.
And not only preached it but lived it.
Nobody could resist the authority of what they
said.
Some were mad at them.
Some were glad they ever met them.
But nobody was neutral.
Now perhaps one of the greatest tragedies of
today.
Is the number of people in our cities
who couldn't care less about what we talk
about.
The things that are precious to us.
The things that are real to us.
The vast majority don't live within a million
miles of us.
And the greatest tragedy in the history of
the church I think.
Is the moment when we began to put
walls up around us.
And everybody said now you've got to come
inside our church on Sunday.
To hear the gospel preach.
And the only evangelism that can be done
is inside the walls of a church.
It's not a benefit.
I would dare to say that if Jesus
came to Chicago today.
He'd be in Skid Row in taverns and
pubs and hotels and dance floors.
He wouldn't be in our church.
He'd go outside where the people are.
And he would yearn over them and care
for them.
And preach to them and have compassion on
them.
And love them.
But we don't do that.
We don't.
Because he is not so real to us
as that.
Because we've got no testimony of the glory
of his presence and the reality of his
love.
We'd be scared to go to these places.
Scared to meet people where they are.
Because somehow we know that this Christ hasn't
really given us victory and deliverance in our
own lives.
It isn't real to me and it isn't
real to you.
We can't make him real to anybody else.
But these disciples were so caught up into
the reality.
Into the flame of the burning love of
God and the fire of the Spirit.
That why they were irresistible.
Not everybody got saved by no means.
Not everybody got converted.
Oh no, there were many situations when they
were hounded out of the town.
But at least to precipitate a movement.
Things happened.
Listen.
Somebody who is only born once will always
persecute the man who is born twice.
That's a principle that is inescapable.
And no child of God can have it
comfortable down here if he's on right terms
with heaven.
He's bound to have friction at one end
of the line and the other.
If he wants to keep friends with the
world and worldly people and sort of not
cause him any offense.
Well, he can live like that.
But he'll have no sense of liberty and
no sense of joy in the Lord.
If his relationship with heaven is right there
will immediately be conflict down here.
Now some of us create our own conflict
by being downright unpleasant.
I don't mean that.
I just mean that we live on such
a level that nobody can be neutral.
May I be allowed to give you just
a word of testimony.
Some of you may have heard me give
this but it helped me and helped perhaps
a lot of people here.
I was converted the first day I heard
the gospel.
Not in a church.
You wouldn't have caught me inside a church.
I was about twenty years old at the
time training to be a CPA in London.
In the north of England.
And you know what the man said to
me?
It was in a tavern.
It was called a hotel but that's rather
an exaggerated name for it.
It was a tavern.
One bedroom for guests.
And he and I were sharing it.
Miles from anywhere around the country.
We were accounting and doing somebody's books.
The books of a paint firm actually which
was stuck out in the sticks because the
factory smelt so badly.
And we were there for three weeks and
I was living with this chap who I
thought was a religious maniac.
You know how he began the conversation?
Do you want to be saved?
That's the first step in five easy steps
in soul winning and how to do it.
That's diplomacy.
That's the tactful approach.
That's approaching the subject graciously and gently.
Do you want to be saved?
That's all.
First time I ever heard the gospel.
But it wasn't the first time I'd seen
it.
Because I'd lived with that man for two
years in an office in Newcastle in England.
And he'd made me mad already.
Because he was so consistent.
And all the rest of us on the
staff gathered round to tell stories that were
questionable.
When he came into the room we all
had to shut up.
Not because he said so but because we
felt we were out of place when he
was around.
The office hours were nine o'clock till
five.
He got there at quarter to nine and
stayed till half past five.
That didn't suit any of us.
We wanted to be there at ten and
leave at four.
When we went out at eleven for something
stronger than coffee he never did.
When we wanted to take two hours for
lunch he would only take one.
When we stopped at three thirty as every
Englishman does for a cup of tea, he
didn't.
The thing was so desperately annoying to us
that we were mad.
About a dozen of us gathered one day
in the city of Newcastle round the glasses
of beer.
And we made a vow that in six
months time we'd drive the religion out of
him.
None of us were neutral you see.
We were all anti.
And within that period of six months, oh,
we reported him to the boss for keeping
office hours badly.
That was right because he kept them too
well actually.
And the boss said, well, if you all
kept office hours as well as he did,
I could do with half the staff.
That's what we were afraid of.
And when I went out auditing some people's
books and reported him for dishonesty, as we
did, the client told us, well, if you
all did it as well as he did,
our books would be better kept.
The whole plot fell apart.
There was nothing upon which we could fault
him at all.
And when he said to me, do you
want to be saved, I knew there was
something to be saved from and someone to
be saved to.
And there and then in that little pub
in the north of England, the very first
time I heard the boss at the age
of about twenty, I knelt down and received
Christ into my heart.
But it didn't take me long.
I went to a Brethren hall to begin
with.
You see, I had a good beginning.
And every Wednesday I went to a Bible
study.
And every time I came away from that
place, I became more and more convinced that
this Christian life is discipleship.
It involves something.
It's not fun and games.
It's not a picnic.
It's not a power to escape, not a
life insurance policy.
It's dynamic.
It involves discipleship.
It involves a cross.
And I saw this confronting me.
On the other hand, drink, dance, shows, football,
all these things were my life.
I was in the running for an English
cap.
That means paying for my country.
I particularly wanted to do that to beat
fellows from Scotland.
And I was very anxious to get on
the English team, but I didn't make it.
But I played pretty hard, and because I
was big and fat and hefty, I got
on better than most.
And I was very near getting on that
English team, but I didn't do it.
Because I couldn't see myself with these two
lives going on together.
On the one hand, the way of the
cross.
On the other hand, the football match, the
drink, the party, the night show.
And I went up to my friend and
I said to him, I don't want your
religion, you can keep it.
And all he said to me was, you'll
never be happy till you're right with God.
And I said, nonsense.
I went to London, qualified as a CPA
and got a good job in business and
was beginning to go up the ladder, and
I had money to spend.
And I spent it on trying to forget
God.
And by the time I was 25 years
old, I had rejected the cross and all
the principles of it, and refused Christ.
And living in London nightclubs and theaters and
shows, making a hopeless mess of my life,
so hopeless indeed that I lost any chance
of playing football for my country.
Deeper into sin, deeper into the mess than
I ever was before I was converted.
So you're almost ready to stand up and
jump at me and say, hi, you couldn't
be a Christian and live like that.
Yes I was.
How do I know I was?
I'll tell you.
I was miserable.
Absolutely miserable, and I wouldn't admit it.
Before, I loved all that sort of thing.
It was my life.
Now I hated it.
Arguing against God would come into my heart.
Me having a battle with me.
If there's anybody here, God only knows, who's
facing desperate temptation.
Just to throw it all up.
Have a fling.
Enjoy it.
Why should you?
Just have cake.
I tell you, my friend, from bitter experience
of a wasted life in my twenties, which,
alas, I could never recover.
I tell you, that that sort of life
is a hell on earth.
I tried it.
And during that time, this friend of mine
came down to see me in London, took
me out to lunch.
Never talked about Christ to me.
Never said a word.
But at the end of our conversation, he
shook hands and said goodbye, and he said,
don't forget, it's possible to have a saved
soul and a wasted life.
Happy more.
That was all.
Saved soul and a wasted life.
The next Saturday, I was going up to
the north of England to play in a
county championship match in England, which would be
state football here.
During the whole of that game, this thing
was going in my mind.
Saved soul and wasted life.
I went to the dinner party.
I went to the dance, the nightclub.
Saved soul and wasted life.
I wakened up the next morning with a
terrific headache.
Saved soul and wasted life.
Came a time, not long, when I couldn't
stand it anymore.
And I said what Peter said, Oh God,
save me.
And in his mercy, the blood of Jesus
cleanses from all sin.
His mercy and patience with the Christian who
has backslidden is even greater, I think, than
his mercy with the unconverted.
And with loving hands, he drew me back
to himself.
And my life became his.
Sometime afterwards, a few months later, my friend
came down to London again.
And this time, I did all the talking.
He took me out to lunch.
I said to him all the Christian work
I was doing and all the preaching and
all the opportunities I was having.
And it went as flat as a pancake.
He never said a thing.
He never opened his mouth.
I thought, well, I can't get this over
with.
Surely he's glad that his young convert is
on the ball.
Never said a word.
So I gave up.
And when we finished our lunch, he looked
at me and he said, well, that's very
interesting.
But he said, you know, I think that
that waiter who served our lunch needs to
know about Jesus.
And he got up from the table and
went across the floor of one of London's
best hotels.
He'd been paying the bill, incidentally.
And went right across to the floor and
handed that waiter a Gideon New Testament.
Spoke to him about the Lord Jesus.
Came back.
Sat down.
Left a very generous tip under the plate.
We went our way and I felt just
like a little worm.
Why have I told you that?
Listen.
Or if I know you're listening.
Get these phrases into your mind.
You want to be saved.
You'll never be happy till you're right with
God.
It's possible to have a saved soul and
a wasted life.
That waiter needs to hear about Jesus.
All of these things came to me through
the lips of a man who lived grace
and who submitted to government.
And because of this, the authority of the
Spirit of God spoke when he spoke.
And the Holy Spirit confirmed the word with
sign following.
And the same Spirit of God will arise
today to do the very same thing through
girls and girls whom God has reduced to
mere nobody.
Nonentities.
And do you know that the Holy Ghost
who came upon Elijah and John the Baptist
who made David a man of the God's
heart, Moses a great statesman and leader of
the people who came and flooded the Christian
church at Pentecost can come upon your life
today.
If I'm prepared in my life to submit
to grace and government, totalitarian government of a
living Christ, He takes control.
And He begins to shine.
Don't imagine that everybody's going to rush round
and get saved.
But I'm telling you this, that instead of
you having to rush round looking for unconverted
people who run away from us as fast
as they possibly can, there's a new attraction
about a Christian who is living this life.
There's a new reality.
And people begin to wonder, how is it
that he doesn't blow his top?
How does he react in that situation?
How is he so patient?
How does he face these problems with a
smile?
What is there about him that makes him
a Christian gentleman?
The girl begins to see a fellow who
loves the Lord deeply.
And because he does, he respects her.
And treats her as a Christian lady.
And that girl begins to sense that there's
someone other than the man.
There's someone else who lives inside him and
has control of him.
And the boy sees a girl and sees
her gentleness and sweetness and graciousness.
And somehow he knows that she's not always
going around looking for somebody.
He knows that she's committed first and foremost
to the will of God and the government
of the Spirit of God in her life.
And the two of them who have the
same goals and live in the same principle.
And who seek first and foremost the government
and control of the Spirit of God.
They're drawn together in a love which is
so different and so much more deep.
Because at the center of it all is
the authority of the living Christ himself.
The movement which we must precipitate.
And I'm just going to conclude with saying
one word more from which I will lead
in tomorrow.
We may become light because of the message
that I proclaim, we proclaim.
The cause of movement which we must precipitate.
One more thing.
Wonderful thing.
Oh God, may he just do this today,
this week.
A miracle for which we must prepare.
You notice verse 52.
The disciples were filled with joy and with
the Holy Ghost.
How old were they?
24 hours at the most.
That's all.
But they were filled with joy and the
Holy Ghost.
Well of course Paul and Barnabas the great
Christian statesmen have been around.
They formed training classes for new converts.
They've got them enrolled in classes for church
membership.
And teaching courses in the Bible.
And they've begun to train them and lead
them and direct them.
They haven't.
Verse 51 tells me that Paul and Barnabas
had shaken the dust off their feet.
And listen.
Listen.
When every human crop had gone, the Spirit
of God moved in.
Now I don't, I must be careful.
That in order to stress one point, I
don't over elaborate it.
And turn truth into an error.
I recognize the need for the shepherding and
care of converts.
And I recognize the need of Bible classes
and Bible training.
Of course I do.
But I'm just going to ask you one
simple question.
Can you carry your mind back to your
home church?
Where you come from?
Listen.
How much room is there in that church
for the Holy Spirit?
What's the smallest meeting in the week?
Prayer meeting?
How much room in that your own heart
is there for the Holy Spirit?
The moment, the miracle for which we must
prepare.
The disciples were filled with joy.
And with the Holy Spirit.
Any room in your timetable for God?
Any room in your schedule today?
For you to be alone with God and
meet with him?
Any room for the Lord to move in
to your fellowship?
And do business?
And into your home?
Is there?
How many many homes I've been to in
recent months?
Which are just held together for the sake
of appearance.
Because they're called Christian.
But there's no room for God.
No family altar, no place of prayer.
The miracle for which we must make room.
Listen.
God wants to do a new thing at
this school.
You'll pardon me saying so, but over the
nine years at Holy Church, which had many
battles and many conflicts, but lots of blessing,
ministry at this place, the Institute, became more
precious to me than anything.
Since those days I've been out in the
mission field far and wide.
And I've met fellows and girls from NBI,
out in Thailand, in Ethiopia, in Malaysia, Singapore,
who will always thank God for this place.
But there came a time in their lives
when they realized that they had to make
room for God to do something.
So often the trouble on the mission field
with many people is that they're trained in
Western culture, Western education.
Get on all right here in the States
or in Britain.
They achieve in that certain amount of success.
And then they go out to a country
like Thailand, which has been under the bondage
of Buddhism for centuries.
And they find themselves faced with a problem
which they just haven't got what it takes.
And many of them, I'm not speaking of
NBI at this point, essentially by itself, I'm
speaking of all missionaries.
Many of them, oh how my heart would
sadden if I withdraw before the end of
one term.
Or at the end of one term come
back to get a PhD degree.
That isn't the answer.
I'll tell you what the answer is.
And on some mission fields they've found it.
The answer is to make room for the
Spirit of God.
Make room for Him in the times, in
the business, in the barrenness, in the emptiness,
in the dryness, in the deadness.
Make room for God.
Would you do that today?
I was reading a hymn in my quiet
time this morning.
I just read one verse to you and
close it.
You know I've always thought of this as
a gospel hymn.
But it struck me in my own heart
afresh.
Room and time now give to Jesus.
To Jesus.
Not a Christian work.
To Jesus.
Soon will pass this dead breath.
Soon thy heart left cold and silent.
And thy Saviour, thy Saviour pleading, speak.
Room for Jesus, King of glory.
Hasten now His word obey.
Swing the heart's door widely open.
Let Him enter while you may.
Let us pray.
Just a moment of quiet prayer.
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on
me.
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on
me.
Break me, melt me, mold me, fill me.
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on
me.
Lord, may I make room for you this
day.
For Jesus' sake.