Good morning everybody.
You're wide awake this morning, that's good.
We will turn in our Bible to 1
Thessalonians, chapter 1.
1 Thessalonians, chapter 1.
Paul and Silvanus and Timothy.
And to the Church of the Thessalonians which
is in God the Father and in the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Grace be unto you and peace from God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
We give thanks to God always for you
all, making mention of you in our prayers,
remembering without ceasing your work of faith and
labor of love and patience of hope in
our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of
God and our Father.
Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God, that
our gospel came not unto you in word
only, but also in power and in the
Holy Ghost and in much assurance.
As we know what manner of men you
were among you, we were among you for
your sake.
And you became followers of us and of
the Lord, having received the word in much
affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost.
So that you were examples to all that
believe in Macedonia and Achaia.
For from you we sounded out the word
of the Lord not only in Macedonia and
Achaia, but also in every place.
Your faith to God's word is spread abroad,
so that we need not to speak anything.
For they themselves show unto us, show of
us, what manner of engineering ye had unto
you, and how ye turned to God for
mighty, to serve the living and true God,
and to wait for his Son from heaven,
whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus,
which delivered us from the wrath to come.
Let us bow before him in prayer.
Again, praying together in your heart with me,
on behalf of us all, speak, Lord, for
thy servant heareth.
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.
As we continue considering the vital priority task
of the Christians, the communication of our faith
in the context of the 1960s, we have
thought, first of all, about the relationship which
has to be restored.
The Lordship of Christ in all of our
lives.
The responsibility that we must realize.
He has chosen us that we might be
light, reflectors of light, in this world in
which we live.
Now we'll take the same subject from another
angle this morning.
The revival which must be recovered.
And our key text from the chapter which
we read together is verse 7.
So that we were examples to all that
believe in Macedonia and Achaia.
I don't need to tell a group of
people like this that these are days of
unprecedented challenge for us all as Christians, caused
mainly and partly at least by the population
explosion in the world.
The net increase in the world population is
at least 75 million a year.
The population has trebled in the last century,
and is now well over three and a
half billion people.
Also, the challenge of the revival of non
-Christian religions Islam and Mormonism are having a
millennium these days.
Accompanied by a resurgence, tremendous upsurge of the
cults such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Motherly Armaments, all
of them on the move.
Accompanied by all this there is a challenge
of secularism and communism.
A philosophy of life which wasn't heard of
60 years ago, and now has at least
one third of the world's population under its
control, and a great influence on the remaining
two thirds.
But the church has never chosen the climate
in which it should work.
God chooses the climate.
It's for us, so to be in tune
with heaven, that we are prepared to answer
our strategy to seek the challenge of the
day.
Our message is unchanging, but our method is
different.
It's hopeless once the church uses the motto,
as it was in the beginning, is now,
ever shall be.
The methods must change as the days go
by.
And these are days of tremendous change on
the mission field.
No longer is missionary work, missionary society centered,
it is local church centered.
No longer is the missionary a leader, is
a helper, training the nationals into Christian leadership.
We've heard a tremendous lot today about mission
fields and doors being closed.
I have been on a great number of
mission fields in the last few years, and
that is just not true.
Certainly doors are closing to missionaries, the type
of missionary to which we've become used.
But there's scarcely a country in the world
which is not wide open to people who
are prepared to go and never come back.
We had a conference on world missions in
Moody Church a few years ago, when about
700 or 800 missionary leaders from this land
and missionary statesmen were met together under the
auspices of IFMA.
One session was held on the subject of
Europe.
And at the end of this session, when
several hundred people were present, the people leading
it, came up with the resolution that immediately
Europe needs 700 more missionaries.
Listening to that session, but not participating in
it, was Dr. Rene Pasch, who is president
of the Emmaus Bible School in Switzerland.
He was to speak at the following session.
And when he stood up to speak, I
shall never forget how he began his message.
He said, I have listened with interest to
your resolution regarding Europe.
Allow me to say, as a fifth national,
that we do not want one missionary in
Europe.
We want people who are prepared to come
and live and die with us.
That's the kind of missionary that's needed today.
For that kind of person, every door of
every nation is wide open.
I know personally families in China and Russia
today, in government positions, who are there to
serve the nation, but are there primarily as
Christians.
Scarcely a door closed.
Wide open to people who have the know
-how and various professions, but are there to
serve the Lord.
Are prepared never to come back.
Days of challenge, days of change, and perhaps
worst of all, days of chastening for the
Church.
Maybe that's because we carry the needless divisions
of Western culture and Western Christianity into Eastern
and new culture.
What a pity we can't love each other.
What a pity we must do this kind
of thing and project theological differences on minor
issues which have no significance on the mission
field and cause division, endless division.
I remember dear old Ben Cavner from North
Carolina.
I wish I could imitate his accent.
An eminent standing up in Woody Church and
saying, when the tide is out, every little
shrimp has to have its own puddle.
Oh, but he said when the tide comes
in.
And when the tide is out, every little
shrimp has its own puddle.
Marked, independent, separated.
We must have our own work.
Oh, that God would send in the tide.
The national leader in India last November said
to me, we cannot reach 500 million people
in this country except the Indian Church experiences
revival.
We can't reach 50 million people in Britain.
We can't reach 200 million people in the
United States, unless the Church in Britain and
the Church in America has revival.
And that brings me right away to consider
with you this morning an example of a
New Testament Church living in revival.
He became examples to all that believe in
Macedonia and Achaia.
You remember the founding of the Church at
Thessalonica?
Act 17 has the story of it.
The Apostles were accused of turning the world
upside down there.
They advised in Thessalonica, to use the quaint
language of the authorised version, certain loose fellows
of the baser sort.
Living letters paraphrase, translates it more happily I
think.
Certain worthless loafers.
I'm interested that they existed in the first
century as well as the twentieth.
They were there, Thessalonica had its share of
them, and the Church there started amidst bitter
opposition.
Paul and the others with him had to
flee for their lives.
It was in this climate that this Church
was formed, and really became a Church that
was an example, a pattern to all New
Testament believers.
He was an example to all that believed
in Macedonia and Achaia.
Because there sounded out from them the word
of the Lord.
In every place their faith to God was
spread abroad.
They and the others needed to speak anything.
This Church was on the ball.
Every member of it was propagating what it
believed.
It was living in revival.
I would like to put a window into
this text if I may, that to me
at least has shed a flood of light
upon how all this happened, and made me
cry out for it to God in my
own heart.
Just look with me a minute in John
chapter 20, the twentieth chapter of John's Gospel.
The first Easter morning, in verse 19, when
the same day of the evening, the first
day of the week, the doors were shut,
the disciples were together uncertain and afraid.
And Jesus stood in the midst of them
and said, Peace be unto you.
And he showed them his hands and his
thigh.
Verse 24.
But Thomas, one of those disciples, wasn't with
them.
He was the doubter, the skeptic.
The Church was falling apart already.
And he was among those who had drifted
off.
Then the other disciples said unto him, When
he came into the room when Jesus had
left, We have seen the Lord.
And he said, Except I shall see in
his hands a print of the nail.
Put my finger into the print of the
nail, and thrust my hand into his side.
I will not believe.
I can hear him saying it.
And after eight days, the disciples were together
again.
And Thomas was with them this time.
And then Jesus came, and doors being shut,
and stood in the midst and said, Peace
be unto you.
Then he spoke to Thomas personally and said,
Thomas, reach here your finger to hold my
hand.
Reach here your hand and put it into
my side, and don't be faithless but believing.
And Thomas answered, My Lord and my God.
I don't believe, I don't know, but I
don't believe he ever did put his finger
into his hand, and thrust his finger into
his side.
He saw them.
He saw the nail prints.
He saw the wounds of Jesus.
That was enough.
And it brought him in full commitment and
full surrender to the feet of Christ.
And from that moment onward, it was my
Lord and my God.
And Thomas was one of those who was
in the upper room praying for ten days.
One of those who at Pentecost was killed
with the Holy Ghost.
My Lord and my God.
But what that got to do was 1
Thessalonians 1 7, just everything.
Everything.
So Thomas said, except I see in his
hand the prints of the nails, and put
my finger into the prints of the nails,
I will not believe.
The prints of the nails, and the word
that is translated in verse 7 of chapter
1 in Thessalonians 1.
Ye were examples.
That's exactly the same word.
The prints of the nails.
What the prints of the nails were to
Thomas, these Thessalonical Christians were to the world,
they had upon them the marks of Calvary.
They were branded men.
They bore upon them the marks of the
cross.
And this twentieth century civilization which has gone
stark staring mad on almost every issue, has
every right to look at us and say,
except I see the marks of the cross
upon you, I won't believe you.
I'm not interested in your doctrine.
I'm not interested in what you say about
life.
I'm not interested in your Christian faith.
I'm interested in you.
Do you bear the examination of reality?
Are there the marks of the cross upon
you?
Is there anything about you that reminds me
that Jesus died and rose again, and he's
able to say to the other one, except
I see the marks of the cross, the
prints of the nails, I will not believe.
And this is the kind of revival that
we need in our church today.
This is the kind of thing that I
need in my life every moment of every
day.
It's the kind of thing that you need,
my friend, this morning.
The prints of the nails upon you.
The marks of Calvary.
But how did they get it?
How did it come?
I have no doubt about that, because I
turn to the third verse of this chapter,
and I read this.
Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, your
labor of love, and your patience of hope
in our Lord Jesus Christ.
You notice three great words of Christian experience,
faith, hope, and love ring around in your
Bible.
These Thessalonican Christians were living a three-dimensional
Christian life.
Faith, that depth.
Love, that breadth.
Hope, that length.
They'd faith, they'd hope, they'd love.
I know a lot of people who have
got a lot of faith, and they're sound,
sound asleep many of them, but they're sound.
They believe everything that they ought to believe.
They dot their I's and cross their T's
correctly, but you touch them, it's like touching
an icebox.
There's no love.
They're as hard as nails.
I know a lot of other people who
have a lot of love, who say, well,
you know, it doesn't matter what you believe,
as long as you're sincere.
Not realizing that we can be sincere, and
sincerely wrong.
But they've no faith.
And lots and lots of people today who
have no hope, but when you meet a
Christian who's got faith and hope and love,
you really meet somebody saying that this world,
this generation, doesn't produce more of them.
Perhaps we don't give God time.
I think that's it.
We're too busy, too much of a hurry.
I remember meeting a generation ago, a year
ago, years ago now, a man like this.
Have you ever heard of Bishop Taylor Smith?
You may have read some of his books.
He was a bishop in the Anglican Church.
I only met him on one occasion.
We had a Bible Day in London, a
day of exhibition of Bibles and Bible messages
and so on.
And I remember on this day I was
in charge of a bookstore.
It was when I had just started in
Christian work and I was looking out this
bookstore and I thought it was a very
important job, but I'd been looking after it
for about three hours and nobody had been
near it, when suddenly along the aisle of
this enormous building there walked Bishop Taylor Smith.
And I knew it was he because he
carried his presents well in front of him.
And he was dressed, of course, as a
bishop ought to be.
And when he came up to my bookstore,
he stopped and he turned inside it and
picked up a book.
And my heart missed a beat and I
said to myself, how on earth do I
speak to a bishop?
I'd never met one to that point.
And then just as I was thinking that
out, he said to me, young man, that
was true at the time, young man, what
are you thinking about now?
That's quite a question to be asked by
a bishop.
So I thought I'd better be honest and
I said to him, I was wondering why
a bishop in the Anglican Church should be
interested in reading a book called Questionable Amusement.
And I thought that was a good answer.
But you know, he put that book down
and he walked past me majestically and with
a little twinkle in his eye he said
to me, young man, that's a very questionable
amusement on your part.
I never met him again, but I was
conscious in those two minutes of having been
in the presence of a man of God
with a sanctified sense of humor.
In parentheses, may I just say, I hope
that your Christianity never robs you of your
sense of humor.
I hope it sanctifies it, but you need
every bit of it.
But you know, it was said of Bishop
Taylor Smith that anybody coming within a mile
of him was in great danger of getting
converted.
And every morning at four o'clock he
would awaken and using his bed and his
altar he would say, Lord, your instructions for
today, please.
What are your orders today, Lord?
He was a man of a tremendous brain,
great theologian, brilliant, could outmatch anybody in our
country.
But in his relationship to the Lord Jesus
Christ he was just like a little child,
so tender and intimate in his relationship with
Jesus.
My friend, that's how I want it to
all.
That's how I trust that all our lives
will mature into the simplicity of a relationship
with Christ, which is just like that.
And it's the outcome of living a three
-dimensional life which has faith and hope and
love, nothing complicated about it.
The complicated person is the little man, I
don't mean physically, but spiritually, who's lost the
reality of Jesus in what he believes about
him, in his doctrines.
But the big man, the man of stature,
the man of spiritual maturity, is the man
who's got a profound knowledge of an enduring
Christ as his life, and there's nothing between
him and the Savior.
But I notice this also in this verse.
Remembering without cheating your work of faith, your
labor of love, your patience of hope, you
see, they had a faith that worked, they
had a love that labored, they had a
hope that endured.
How did their faith work?
Well, just glance down with me to verse
9.
How ye turn to God from idols to
serve the living and true God, and to
wait for his Son from heaven.
They turned to God from idols, their faith
worked.
They served the living and true God, their
love labored.
They waited for his Son from heaven.
Their hope endured.
Say, does your faith work?
Does your love labor?
Does your hope endure?
Let me just look at these three things
very quickly with you, because I believe that
this is the revival that you need, that
I need, that the church needs today.
Does your faith work?
Has it turned you to God from idols?
There are tremendous things happening in many different
countries today.
Indonesia is an example, where not one but
thousands of people are turning to find Christ
as Lord.
Same thing's happening in Brazil.
Same thing in Central America.
Same thing in parts of Africa.
Wonderful movings of the Spirit of God.
But listen, it's one thing for a man
to turn from idols of wood and stone
to God.
It's another thing for a Christian in this
country turning from self to Jesus.
Does your faith work?
Has it brought self crashing to the ground?
Has it replaced self with Christ?
Does your faith really work?
Has it turned you from idols to God?
Let me ask you.
No, I don't want to ask you this,
but I want that the Spirit of God
would ask you.
Tell me, what's your idol?
I'll tell you.
It's what you think about when you're alone.
It's what your thoughts turn to automatically when
you're by yourself.
It's a person or a thing that immediately
you're by yourself.
Like, like an eagle turns to the north,
your thoughts revert to him, to her, to
that.
What's your idol?
Think about it.
I repeat.
It's one thing for a whole tribe to
turn from idols of stone to God.
It's another thing, another thing altogether for me
to turn from the worship of myself to
the worship of Christ.
Does your faith work?
You see, God is always wanting to reduce
you and me to a minimum.
In order that he may do in us
and through us his maximum.
He's always seeking to make us small that
he might be great.
Some years ago at Smooty Church I had
a long distance call from a man who
was chairman of the board of elders of
a particular church some distance away.
And he was asking me, saying that there
was some there was need of a pastor
in his church and they were wondering whether
I had knew anybody who might fill the
pulpit.
So I mentioned several men whom I knew
at that time were probably speaking immoral and
would consider it.
We talked about it for a long time.
We went on talking for quite a while.
I didn't mind.
It was his call.
He was paying for it.
After about 25 minutes he suddenly said to
me, Well, he said, thank you very much.
That's very nice of you to tell me
all that about these men.
But none of them are big enough to
fill our pulpit.
I hope he didn't think I was rude.
But I couldn't help saying to him, Sir,
are you quite sure you don't mean they're
not small enough for your pulpit?
Some of us get too big for God
to use.
Get in God's way.
Too important.
Think too much of ourselves.
And all the time, all the time, God
is seeking to turn us from the idol
of self to Jesus.
And you know, your conversion didn't do it,
did it?
Oh, potentially it did.
Potentially it did.
For at that moment you received Christ in
your heart as your Lord.
But experimentally it hasn't.
For self still is in business.
Still trying very hard.
Still working at the Christian life.
You see, my friend, God's moral demands don't
change when I become a Christian.
But it is no longer I who have
to meet them.
He who is the Lord of us on
the throne in heaven is the Lord's keeper
in my heart.
Got it?
He who gives the law from the throne
keeps it in my life.
He who gains the law himself keeps it.
He who makes the demand meets them.
While all the time we're trying to do
it, he can't do anything.
When I struggle for victory, I'm heading for
defeat.
The trouble is that we're weak enough not
to do the will of God.
But we're not weak enough to get out
of business altogether.
Only absolute disillusion, complete despair with myself will
make it possible for God to move in
and to do it all for me.
Wouldn't you like to know what God expects
of you in the Christian life?
Well I'll tell you.
It's like something for a preacher to be
able to tell an audience what God expects
of every one of you.
But I can.
I'm not clever but I can.
I'll tell you just exactly what God expects
of you.
Do you want to know?
Absolute failure.
Complete total failure.
He regards us all as an absolute write
-off.
All he wants is that I would be
prepared to go to the cross and be
branded and be crucified with Christ.
Like Paul said, Henceforth let no man trouble
me.
I bear in my body the marks of
the Lord Jesus.
I am quick to the world and the
world unto me.
A man who's prepared to die, who's prepared
for self to get out of business and
for Christ to replace his idol.
Does your faith work?
Has it done that for you?
Are you able to say with Paul, Oh
it is no longer I who live but
Christ who lives in me.
How many, many, many Christians begin the Christian
life by trusting and go on by trying.
Begin by receiving the death of Christ for
forgiveness for all my sins and then try,
try desperately hard to overcome all my sins.
Have I really understood that the cross has
accomplished two things for me.
First, in his death he's forgiven me for
what I do.
In his risen life he saved me from
what I am.
Most of us have settled for a half
salvation.
We're glad to be saved for what we
do but we go on sinning.
Over and over again we say we won't
do it.
We'll try harder and work harder at it
and we'll stop it and the rest.
It'll never happen again but it does.
And our conversion hasn't made a scrap of
difference except that in Christ there's no condemnation
and all our sins in the plural have
been forgiven.
But I'm still mastered by the principle of
F.I.N. in capital letters.
Like the apostle Paul who wrote as a
Christian with my mind I serve the law
of God but with my flesh the law
of sin.
Oh wretched man that I am who shall
deliver me?
Is there no way out?
Can't I escape from it?
Allow me to quote Dr. Graham Spoggi who
used to say that trouble with the church
is that so many of us are on
the right side of pardon but the wrong
side of power.
The right side of forgiveness but the wrong
side of fellowship.
The right side of Easter but the wrong
side of Pentecost.
We're out of Egypt but we're not in
the land we sing some lovely hymns in
our hymn books and we'll go on singing
them till our dying day but you'll forgive
me saying so they haven't any foundation in
the scripture.
Land me safe on Canaan's happy shore what
will you do in the swelling of Jordan?
Which all speak of Canaan as heaven.
Canaan isn't heaven, at least I hope it
isn't.
For when I read my Bible I find
the only difference in the experience of the
people of God in Canaan was that in
the wilderness it was battle and defeat.
In Canaan it was battle and victory.
But in heaven there won't be any battle.
Oh we've only a few years here to
get victory we've always planted it to celebrate
it and what a tragedy if we get
there and we've had a harsh salvation we've
been saved from what we do but we
go on doing it simply because we've never
entered into the experience of being delivered from
what I am by the saving light of
Christ in my heart.
You play in Britain a game which not
surprisingly Americans find somewhat hard to understand and
that is the game of cricket.
It's a very exciting game because test matches
are played between England and Australia or England
and the West Indies every now and again
and when the test match is played it
lasts for five days and begins every day
at eleven and stops at one for lunch
begins at quarter to and then stops at
three thirty for a cup of tea and
then starts at four and then stops at
six thirty and that goes on for five
days it's very exciting.
I remember when I was in Chicago a
series of test matches were being played in
London between England and Australia and I was
very very anxious to know the results.
You know I bought every Chicago newspaper and
I couldn't find a word and when you
buy a Chicago newspaper brother you buy a
library there was the Daily News and the
Tribune all American all the rest and I
had to stack and I thumbed through every
page and not a word all they were
interested in was somebody called the you know
Cub Sox or something I couldn't remember now
and I couldn't understand that and they couldn't
understand me see but a friend of mine
in London knew that I would be interested
and he sent me a daily paper it
came by air mail and I opened it
with great excitement and I knew where to
look for the cricket news right on the
front page what Harold Wilson and company were
doing doesn't matter in the test match and
right on the front page what do you
think I read in great big capital letters
ENGLAND FACING DEFEAT oh that was a sad
day for me I went to the moody
church office and nobody cared and and I
couldn't get home not that if I could
I could have done anything about it except
to weep with those who wept but two
days later another paper arrived and I opened
it with a sense of foreboding but what
do you think I saw this time ENGLAND
IN SIGHT OF VICTORY and in two days
the whole situation had been transformed listen are
you still listening to me are you facing
defeat or are you in sight of victory
and the prayer of my heart is that
this week will not pass before you enter
in to the principles not only of forgiveness
for what you do but into the principle
of deliverance from what you are because upon
you you're prepared to have the mask of
the cross does your faith work does
your love labour are you serving the living
God let's be very down to earth about
this and very simple I've got a quick
eye to discern when people are in love
it isn't only the dreamy look they have
but it's the obvious desire to be in
each other's company the quick departure from a
church service after a benediction as quick as
possible holding hands and then away from the
crowd alone the sheer delight of intimacy, that
love the hallmark of love is intimacy beloved
Jesus say how much time are you alone
with him oh I know it's all very
well for me to talk to a bunch
of students who are under pressure constantly with
study and there's no one more conscious of
the fact that I myself have many times
lost this battle in my Christian work but
I come back again to the simple and
question if I love Jesus I want to
be with him does your love labor have
you been with him today and told him
that you love him opened your heart to
him, been open with him just told him
everything is it real for you like that
does your love rule or labor do you
remember when the apostle Paul was converted on
the road to Damascus and the Lord sent
an unknown disciple called Ammoniath and said to
him Ammoniath go into Damascus and give Paul
back his sight Ammoniath he protested and said
Lord I can't do that he's an enemy
of the church he's persecuted every Christian killed
all he can damn him, Ammoniath said Jesus
don't worry about him don't worry for Ammoniath
the holy disciple he prayed and the mark
of the man's conversion was that he was
down on his knees that was the authentic
mark in heaven somehow the angels seemed to
pull their wings as they saw self righteous
parity down on his knees so he prayed
and I've often walked along the corridor of
my memory and wondered what heaven would say
behold he preaches, behold he works behold he
prays behold he sings, behold he teaches oh
Lord behold behold and so he broke his
heart and so he put him in a
state of absolute self despair behold he prayed
it was your love labor I was out
in Congo last year went into a mission
station saw a lady oh she must be
75 I would think translating the scriptures into
the language of the people and I went
up to talk with her and I said
to her say when are you getting your
next furlough she said in heaven in heaven
I went to Thailand with O.N.F.
for field conference field conference was a girl
she was about 40 years of age she's
been pushed round in a wheelchair she was
crippled with polio very interested in her because
I saw the radiance in her face and
the look in her eyes I asked Dr.
Sanders the director of O.N.F. what
was the story oh he said on her
first term of service about 15 years ago
she was hit with polio and had to
be invalided home she wouldn't stay nothing would
keep her home so they accepted her back
and now she's in our biggest hospital in
Thailand in Manoram she's doing secretarial work pushed
around in a wheelchair all the time and
she's absolutely radiant it was your love labor
how much does it cost you to be
a Christian and I say this because I
I'm not preaching at you I just want
to be right alongside you but I think
of the future of every one of our
lives and I know that God wanting to
do one thing that's brand of swift across
make the authentic marks of a disciple upon
us and give us the revival that we
need upon a life crucified with Christ the
Holy Spirit comes in all his fullness and
all his power to meet every demand that
God will ever make upon us and we
enter into the luxury of Christianity not the
drudgery of trying and struggle but the sheer
luxury of proving the sufficiency of God in
every situation but before God brings me around
here he puts us into something and I
just wonder as we look out upon the
thousand people here ten years ahead over how
many of you will happen to be able
to rejoice and say there's a man there's
a girl that I can trust anywhere because
whatever they are they seek only my glory
I know there are crucified men, crucified girls
that don't care about anything except the will
of God and they're only there serving me
because it's custom something and I wonder over
how many heaven will have to weep and
say there's another fellow girl she went to
Mary Bob Lynch to do what she did
ten years ago to get trained into the
Christian work she lost out along the way
she became involved in boyfriends and girlfriends sex
other inferences she lost out and now I've
had to put her on the shelf can't
use her, useless but I remember
a minister saying to me some years ago
I learned a thing which has ruined my
life in the ministry when I was about
seven Jesus
has saved you from what you do as
he saved you and delivered you from what
you are and because of it because he
has done it and you have the thrill
of his life in your heart today and
of the glory and reality of heaven, why
you are laboring I work, I labor said
the apostle according to the power of him
who works in me it isn't my own
inadequacy but no it all is the thinking
of Christ and in his strength and his
power I labor for him now, just one
more word it is your hope and you
they waited for his son from heaven how
do you define hope I define it this
way expectation plus desire you may desire to
get A grades in all your subjects but
you may not expect it you may expect
to be fired from the institute but you
don't desire it but when you link expectation
with desire, that's hope there are hopes in
you they waited for his son from heaven
and that isn't a daydream but it's something
that puts urgency, burden, concern love in our
hearts don't any of you come up to
me and ask me what I think is
for the Lord's program for his return am
I post-treb, mid-treb or pre-treb
I know what I am but I'm not
going to allow that issue to separate me
from other believers a friend of mine who
was pastor in a church in Chicago went
away for six months to a mission field
alone without his wife when he came home
the church board decided they'd put on a
banquet for him at the airport take his
wife and have a celebration when they went
out to O'Hare field it was a
foggy night and all the planes were hours
late and they went round to every plane
in which they thought he might come in
but he wasn't in any of them looked
at every timetable, nothing doing no schedule seemed
to be right and an hour went by,
fussing around looking at timetables until, until one
of them said, I think you'll be on
this one let's all go to this gate
and then they couldn't find his wife she
disappeared all the parties fall apart, what's the
use of it without her so they went
to the gate and he said well we'll
find her later and when they went to
the gate what do you think they found
they found the minister's wife in the arms
of her husband she'd been looking for a
person they'd been watching the timetables they waited
for his son from heaven any day even
today he may come but that's not a
long time but they waited with expectation and
desire knowing one day for all of us
there's a moment coming oh what a moment
it will be when I stand alone before
him and give an account to him of
the things done in the body what a
humiliation on that day to find there are
no scars no marks of a crown no
of the bravest unscathed but by the skin
of my teeth what a thrill to hear
him say well done good and faithful faithful
servant does your faith really help does your
love labour does your hope endure I say
this as an expression during the war the
last world war when Britain was absolutely alone
and the battle of Britain was being fought
down in south east England when Britain was
enduring horrific air raids every night there was
a little air base quite a big one
actually but comparatively small judged by this country
down in the south east coast and if
you'd gone there this particular evening you would
have seen six pilots fighter pilots and six
gunners and six planes all that was left
of a whole squadron they were sitting there
in their room drinking coffee smoking it was
night time they hadn't had their clothes off
for two weeks they were unshaved and dirty
many of them were bleeding bandaged with wounds
they had had and as they sipped their
coffee there came a message from headquarters in
London enemy approaching over the channel estimated strength
500 in the middle of the day they
were on their feet they had their coffee
and cigarettes one of them dashed to a
radio communication and just said message received and
understood and in two minutes they were up
in the air the fight overwhelming on six
against 500 has the message been received and
understood this morning branded bear in my
body the marks of the Lord Jesus therefore
upon my life does come all the fullness
of his power therefore forevermore my love will
labour and I'll wait for that day when
I shall see his lovely face one bright
golden morning and it will be worth it
all when we see him shall we pray
dear Lord we ask thee that thou wouldst
make us all of us who are just
an entity nobody make us willing ready for
anything willing that our lives may be at
thy disposal now and always without reservation upon
them there may be the marks of the
cross that the Christian life to us may
not be a struggle and a battle and
a fight there in our own strength what
we can only fail in doing that may
be a life of faith in which we
draw moment by moment from within us to
fight the battle for us for thy glory
Lord in thy Holy Spirit write thy word
deeply upon our heart and may the grace
of God and the love of the Lord
Jesus and the fellowship and power of the
Holy Spirit be with us now and until
he comes Amen