Today I'd like to speak about the face.
I told someone on the way here, I'm
going to preach about the face.
And the person looked into my face and
said, you mean face?
I said, no, I mean face.
You hear, you young girls and you young
Indian girls, I want to preach about the
face.
Not faith, face.
So the ladies will be very happy because
they're very often busy with the face.
Some young ones are more busy with the
face than with the faith.
Especially that which is above the face, on
the head.
But I won't tell you what that is.
Of course I don't think it's only for
the women.
For the men are included as well because
some of them have got bulldog faces.
Some men are like that.
But to crown your bulldog face, put a
cigar in your mouth or a pipe, that's
the crown for such a face.
Now what has the face to do with
faith or the Christian life?
A face, what has that got to do
with it?
A face, what has that got to do
with it?
As I looked at this topic in the
Bible, I said what a pity that we
have so little time because there is so
much in the word about the face.
Let's begin with our text for today.
We'll read from Matthew 17 verse 2.
Before we read it let's bow and pray.
Lord Jesus we are aware that the letter
kills, but the spirit gives life.
We ask you that you'd speak by your
Holy Spirit to us.
The spirit which can bring to life the
dead letter and bring a person to life
and heal a person.
Be gracious to us Lord that the service
would not be in vain.
Work in a marvelous way Lord.
They phoned me earlier on this morning from
Tunzini to say that they had had a
downpour of rain there in Tunzini area of
two inches within a short time.
Over 45 millimeters.
It's been somewhat dry and we are thankful.
They are grateful and in quite a few
other places been dry but I was when
I heard that I was grateful it hadn't
rained here because aren't you made of sugar?
Don't you simply melt when it rains and
you don't want to come to the service?
Now Matthew 17 we read verse 2
and
was transfigured before them.
His face shone like the Sun and his
clothes became as white as the light.
And then we read 2 Corinthians chapter 3.
Verse 18.
2nd Corinthians 3.
3 that's chapter 3 verse 18.
But we all with unveiled face beholding as
in a mirror the glory of the Lord
are being transformed into the same image from
glory to glory just as by the Spirit
of the Lord.
Let me read that verse again.
But we all with unveiled face beholding as
in a mirror the glory of the Lord
are being transformed into the same image from
glory to glory just as by the Spirit
of the Lord.
We who bow down to gods
we
need to realize that those gods leave their
imprints their impression upon our faces.
Never forget that the gods that you worship
they write their names on your faces.
And it is without fail.
Go for instance to Papua New Guinea.
Look at the people of that area.
With some of their faces you think that
they have they are animals and you feel
like running away.
Why so?
Because their gods have written their names upon
their faces.
Go into jails.
Go to murderers.
Study their faces and you will behold the
names of their gods written upon their faces.
And be fully aware.
Because the gods you worship write their own
names upon your face.
Look at witches.
Or those who are involved in ancestral worship
the occult.
And witch doctors.
Some of them even emphasize the frightening look
on their faces.
Because then they say that that terrifying look
creates more power.
I remember in 1966 when the Lord poured
out his Spirit the first witch who came
and think of what a witch's when
she said pastor I'm troubled by these spirits
and she named these ancestral spirits of the
Zulu nation one by one.
Her face was heartbreaking.
When those warriors of darkness were
driven out of her.
Her face shone in a moment.
And the glory of Jesus was instantly evident
upon her face for she shone.
And she said loudly Lord Jesus thank you
for breaking the chains of darkness of Satan
which I have been bound with.
And so the gods you worship whether they
are spirits of the dead or a promiscuity
or stealing or drunkenness
or jealousy.
It gets written upon the face.
These gods stamp their impression their names upon
your face just as you find it stamped
as a seal on a letter.
Cain who had murdered his brother.
Cain who the one who murdered his brother.
Now when it was the time of the
sacrifice and the Lord accepted Abel's.
Rejecting that of Cain.
Cain was furious.
And his face was very sour at that
time.
God came down and said Cain why is
your face so upset and angry.
Even his face betrayed him for that spirit
that God of murder was upon him.
Was this murderous spirit.
So when you get angry with your brother
you know what kind of a spirit you
are worshipping and bowing to.
The
face
when studied depicts so much.
His Cain's face fell.
It was evident in the eyes in his
mouth.
Even the mouth looks different.
The eyes and mouth of one who is
angry just shows that there's that snake serpentine
like anger.
Even upon the forehead.
For the face betrays some of the heart.
And the mouth too.
What comes out of the mouth shows what
is stored up in the heart.
The Bible says after all that the mouth
speaks what overflows from the heart.
The face of Jesus it says in our
text shone like the sun.
There was no darkness in him.
Just as the Bible says that God is
light and there is no darkness in him
whatsoever.
Hear
the
divinity of God being manifest in the Lord
Jesus.
Not only did his face shine but even
his robes and his clothing shone.
If you stand in your clothing before
God will they shine with heavens light?
It is said that after all clothing is
meaningless.
It doesn't really matter.
It's just outward.
But here we find even the clothing of
the Lord Jesus was shining.
I've often said ladies you needn't worry about
doling yourself up and titivating yourself with make
up when the glory of Jesus inside you
will make you beautiful.
Martin Lloyd Jones said that if you have
the feeling that you are rejected and you
don't have peace inside you and you feel
restless and disturbed, joyless, depressed
and down because of things.
He says those things always show in a
person's face.
Always in a person's face.
You can't mistake it.
You read it in a person's face.
That's why Spurgeon told his choir that
sang while he preached.
People that accompanied him while he was preaching.
He says when you sing about heaven let
your faces shine like those of angels.
But if you sing about hell just leave
them as they are.
They are good enough.
You're saying that because the expressions on the
face were showing for hell and not heaven.
The glory of heaven.
When a happy person comes into a room
it is as if another candle has been
lit.
It shines the brightest.
But if God isn't at work in that
life, that person's presence brings darkness.
The text that we've read in Corinthians says
that as we behold the Lord with unveiled
faces we are changed.
2 Corinthians 3.
We repeat it.
We read it twice.
But we all with unveiled face
beholding as in a mirror the glory of
the Lord are being transformed into the same
image from glory to glory just as by
the Spirit of the Lord.
If we look at Jesus his glory we
are changed our faces from glory to glory.
Moses was on the mountain.
The people had thought he was dead or
something had gone wrong.
But when
they
beheld Moses as he descended from the mount
they beheld that his face, the skin of
his face was glistening.
It was shining with such a glory that
they put a cloth, a veil over his
face.
You can read that story for yourself at
home in Exodus 34 from verse 30.
He had been with God beholding his glory.
If you are beholding Jesus how can your
face not shine?
There was a certain bishop in England.
His name was John Smith.
He was a military chaplain general during
the first world war from 1914 to 1918.
Now it so happened that there was to
be a jubilee festivity in Chicago.
And they had invited this chaplain general
Smith to their jubilee celebration.
Chicago being a very large city in a
northerly state of America They had wanted a
very special sermon.
And so he was the one to be
invited.
Now simultaneously in the Atlantic Ocean, the ocean
that is between America and Africa He
had been taking his daily strolls on the
ship which he was on.
While he was on this ship he developed
flu or laryngitis.
His voice disappeared completely and he could barely
whisper.
He arrived in Chicago with the same problem
just he could barely utter a whisper.
Now at that time they didn't yet have
the technical equipment of amplifiers and loudspeakers that
we have.
What was he to do?
Should he go and just whisper in this
inaudible voice of his?
He said, God you've sent me.
My voice is completely gone.
What am I to do?
Now after he had finished his speech, a
person came to him.
He said, Bishop I have been overcome by
this message or you have overcome me.
I'm giving myself to Christ.
I'm becoming a Christian today.
The Bishop was astonished.
And then he inquired of him.
Sir, what exactly was it that
brought you to this point?
To this decision that you'll become a Christian
today?
What is it that I said that convinced
you that you should become a Christian?
He said, Bishop, I couldn't hear one word
of what you said.
It was just looking at you that convinced
me I must repent and turn to God.
He just beheld him.
Just his behaviour, the way he was, his
whole visage, all that he was.
That young man said, I must repent today.
The Bible says we are being changed.
We are being changed into the same image
of the Lord, from glory to glory.
And the Lord shone with that glory on
the Mount of Transfiguration.
In another town, there was a church on
a busy main street.
And an elder of the church had been
standing outside the gates of this city church,
inviting pedestrians, passers-by, to come to the
church.
He said, I want to get this program
and to come to the service.
And then a certain person came along, and
when he gave him the invitation or program,
and he looked at him in the face,
I've got enough troubles of my own.
I don't need more.
I have sufficient problems of my own, the
pedestrian said.
Do you hear that?
He beheld his face.
And so, instinctive, his
instinctive reaction was that, I have enough troubles
of my own.
I don't need more from people.
with faces like this, I'd only be adding
to my griefs.
Paul in the New Testament
said to one of the churches
to whom he wrote, I wish to come
to see your faces,
so
that in seeing your faces I might find
out what is still lacking in your faith.
What an astonishing statement.
Paul wanted to see the faces of the
brethren and then he would be able to
tell what was still missing in their Christian
lives.
Many years ago when we were still at
work with ministry and there was great spiritual
activity at the time at Yeleferi, when we
still worshipped in a little garage just in
a small room, some of the heathen ladies
came in and they were dressed in their
traditional Zulu garb.
The
mother
of Barney came to me and said in
this place can we confess our sins?
Can we find forgiveness?
I said yes and indeed she got converted.
She had been, she
got
saved.
She had been the number one in the
district in bead, traditional beadwork over the leather
traditional skins that she wore for these beautiful
beads.
Then she got saved.
That was the end of her She
also changed her way of dressing without us
telling her to.
She got rid of that the skins and
all the traditional clothing and by the way
I've never ever told anybody to cast off
their traditional clothing.
I would, I've always said this, I'd much
prefer people to come to church with their
loincloths and their traditional skins, knowing Christ, than
for people to come in nicely dressed in
a Western way but with Satan in their
hearts.
With the form of Christianity, as the Bible
says in the last days, they will come
having a form but denying the power thereof.
As they were seated in this old garage,
it had just been swept and cleaned up
for the service, they were seated there in
the service, a white lady from Durban came
and it seems that she didn't know Zulu
and when they sang or when they spoke,
she couldn't understand.
But when she went out of that service,
she was overwhelmed and she could not stop
saying how blessed she had been with the
beautiful shining faces of these ladies still in
their traditional dress.
She said, I want to buy you a
truck, I want to buy this lorry so
that you can cart people that they won't
have to walk to the service.
What was it that convinced her?
It was simply the shining faces of the
people.
It was a Mrs. Hind.
Mrs. Hind's husband had been an industrialist and
they're the ones where you can still see
the salt and pepper and different spices, Hind's
products.
He was killed in an airplane accident in
the mountains, she was left as a widow
and she was the one who bought that
truck on the grounds of her experience of
these shining faces.
The face.
Even though you're facially disadvantaged and you're unattractive
by nature, the glory of the Lord Jesus
in you will shine and show forth his
beauty as you cast off the things that
are at enmity with him and let his
beauty rule within.
Stephen, the one who experienced fierce resistance from
this hellish crowd, as they took stones to
kill him and they did hurt him.
But they were astonished to behold Stephen's face
shining like that of an angel.
What has the face got to do with
faith?
Nothing, but it tells volumes.
It reveals what's in your heart and what
you are like, what kind of a Christian
you are.
There's a verse in Psalm 34 verse 5.
I almost forgot to mention that one.
34 verse 5.
They looked to him and were radiant.
Their faces were not ashamed.
They were radiant.
There is a song.
Look at his wonderful face and the things
of this world will grow strangely dim in
the light of his glory and grace.
Does your face speak for Jesus?
Shows forth the glory of Jesus?
Or show forth the devil?
I don't know whether this is understandable or
not.
I thought it was something quite
clear, but should this be like Greek to
you, well then you need to be specially
delivered from these demons that stop you from
understanding.
One Indian missionary, Hindu missionary, when he was
in England, the teenage girl went to the
door hearing the knocking, opened the door, she
saw the man and she ran back to
her mother.
And her mother says, child who's there at
the door?
She says, I don't know, but he looks
like Jesus.
One Indian missionary, Hindu missionary, when he was
in England, the teenage girl went to the
door hearing the knocking, opened the door, she
says, I don't know, but he looks like
Jesus.
You then, who do you look like?
It cannot but be that you will look
like your master.
Never.
For your face to shine, let your heart
shine.
Part from the devil, part from sins.
And if you should forget, ever forget these
words, then go home and write it down.
You can even write it in your Bible.
And you can look at it every day
for the rest of your life.
The gods we serve.
All the gods we worship, write their names
on our faces.
May God's glory be seen in your face.
And Revelation says one day, he, our Lord,
will write his name on our foreheads.
But if you are not faithful to God
and to Jesus Christ, you will just be
giving the Antichrist a chance to write his
name on your forehead.
Now, I'm your Georgia.
I'm your favor.
I'm I'm You use your right hand, you
use your hand for that which is evil,
for stealing, for groping, you will have the
mark of the devil upon it.
And so with the mark of the devil
on your hand or your forehead, where do
you think you're going to go when you
die?
I would be a liar if I stand
at your grave and I justify you and
say, well, this person is in heaven.
And say, oh, when he gets to heaven,
Jesus will stretch forth his hand and say,
well done, good and faithful servant.
What a fool he'd be.
And that Christ I don't want to serve.
Not in this world and in the world
to come.
Never.
You can do it.
Go and serve him.
But I want to serve the one.
When it was revealed what's in him and
who he truly was, he shone brighter than
the sun.
Even his clothing were lit up.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, I pray that they hear us
this morning when death.
And if they are those that don't understand.
Oh, God, be merciful and raise them from
the dead.
That they'll be alive.
That they'll understand what your holy word tells
us so clearly.
Amen.