A couple of the other men have indicated,
as they listened to previous speakers, that as
they listened, they felt backslid.
And as I have listened, I have felt
backslid.
But as I saw the presence of God,
I didn't only feel that I was backslid,
I knew I was.
And it brings me to think about the
fact that the thing that bothers me today
is not how backslid I am, but the
fact of I never have got to be
everything I want to be.
But I'm glad that there's one who can
make me that.
You might get impatient, but he doesn't.
You may not understand, but he does.
And I'm confident he's well capable of handling
the situation.
My problem is knowing how to respond in
the desired areas, or in the areas where
he desires me to be, when I totally
misunderstand the uniqueness of that circumstances because of
the immediate source and not the ultimate source
of the situation.
And what I'm saying is simply this.
A great deal of the time when God
begins to bring us into the areas of
reality, we are brought into an area where
Satan has his way in our lives, and
we misinterpret this, and we only see Satan
and not God.
And until you're able to come to the
place that you see God in everything, my
friend, you will not understand God in that
situation and learn of that situation everything God
wants you to learn in that situation, to
come out of that situation to be whatever
he wants you to be in every situation.
And so I pray today that the Lord
will get me to the place that he
wants me.
And with this I approach the message out
of the 19th chapter of the book of
John, the 30th verse, just one simple phrase.
It's not so simple really, but it says,
It is, Jesus said, as he hung on
the cross, it's finished.
I'm sure that possibly many of you as
preachers, evangelists, have preached on this text many
times that Jesus Christ completely finished the redemptive
plan, paid the price in full for everyone
to be saved.
And I'm sure that that's what the Lord
meant.
But I'm also sure that he meant a
great deal more.
Because we see the Lord Jesus as he
steps into this world and he took on
the body of a man, and as he
took upon himself the body of a man,
God in man, the Lord Jesus began to
grow as a man.
And as a man, the Lord Jesus literally
went about for thirty-something years to fulfill
everything that was written about him in this
book.
And when he hung on the cross and
said it's finished, he was saying more than
the redemptive plan is made complete, but he's
saying, I have completed everything that's ever been
written about me, whereby now you can say
what was written about me.
That could have never been said about a
man before, and I don't believe it's ever
been said about a man since.
But everything that was written about Jesus, man
can now stand up and say it's so.
He came into the world and as man,
he lived out everything that was written about
him.
Where when he said it's finished, he had
completely fulfilled every verse of scripture, every phrase
of scripture, that indicated anything about him.
He completely fulfilled the word.
To where they could say about him what
was written about him, right?
Three things in the life of Jesus that
made that possible, I believe.
One, is Jesus Christ lived a life of
renunciation.
Jesus said himself, of myself I can do
nothing.
He was the son of God who had
all power in heaven and earth within his
midst.
Within his person he had everything.
All of the power of the universe.
All the power that made the universe.
All the power of God.
Everything that God had he was.
And he had it within him.
But yet Jesus said of myself I can
do nothing.
And out of this we learn a profound
principle that should carry over into our lives
and the fact that beloved, we as individuals
in this world are to learn the principle
by which Jesus Christ himself chose to walk.
And that was he did not choose to
live within his own strength and power and
work from his own ability, but he chose
to denounce himself, renounce himself, and rely upon
the power of another.
He could teach them to.
We haven't comprehended that yet.
We haven't even tiptoed upon the front doorstep
of the potential within you.
Because the potential in you is the potential
of God.
And my dear friends, that potential is available
right now if you're born again believer.
While we're running around seeking a great number
of experiences today, we ought to be taking
up with him that's already within us.
If we ever got excited, if we ever
got a glimpse of he who is within
and what we are within him and he's
within us, we'd get so excited we'd forget
about experiences and start living the life.
We'd get the tags and start moving with
God and allow God to move through us.
I don't suppose the world will ever know
until it gets to that few that's going
to get to heaven, gets to heaven.
And I guess they'll know.
We'll know, should say.
I'm planning on getting there.
But we'll never know what a self-centered
life has really wrought.
The misery, the pain, the heartache, the delay.
I've never found it in the Word of
God that you can stop God, but I
have found that you can delay God.
And I find that it's the self-centered
life that's delayed God more than any other
kind of life.
My dear friends, if you look at the
life of Abraham, the great man of faith,
and for 20 years the promise of God
in reality was delayed by a man in
his self-effort to try to please God.
A lot of folks think when the Ishmaelite
was born that here is a man at
his worst.
But beloved, you go back and look at
the life of Abraham and you'll find those
20 years of doubt is a man at
his best trying to please God.
Here's a man doing the best he could
until finally he got to the place that
he no longer could do anything but trust
God.
And when he got there, then God worked
a miracle.
Yes sir.
Brought glory out of his life.
And you're even feeling the pinch of 20
years of doubt right today in America.
If you don't think so, if you go
back and check your history of the race
and find out if that folk, that bunch
of folk over there in Arabia weren't a
little bit related to the Ishmaelites, I believe.
Yeah, I mean we're getting a pinch today
from all of that unbelief.
Well, I'll pass on.
I see you're not there.
All right.
Jesus said he of himself could do nothing
but allow the Lord, the Father in heaven,
to work through him, teaching us a principle
that we of ourselves can do nothing but
he can work through us.
And there we have the potential of God.
He lived a life of submission, of renunciation,
and then he lived a life of submission.
I started to reach over and ask Dr.
Fish a while ago how would my outline
do in one of his classes.
It has four words on it, and I
can't even read those.
I was so nervous when I wrote them
down.
I'm afraid they wouldn't pass too well.
But nevertheless, he lived a life of submission.
Jesus Christ said his meat was to do
the will of the Father.
That was his meat.
That was his desire.
And you know, Jesus really opens up a
principle here of operation that would literally change
our lives today, folk, if we simply learned
this principle of operation.
Jesus said, I do nothing except what I
see my Father do.
And you know, he went on to say,
you know, he said, what I do, he
said, you know what I do here in
this world?
He said, I first see my Father doing
it.
And he said, what I see my Father
doing there, he said, then I do it
here.
And you know what Jesus is simply saying?
He's saying, I never do a thing down
here except what I first see my Father
doing in heaven.
And he said, then what I see him
doing there, I simply do it down here.
And what I'm really doing is moving heaven
into earth.
And my dear friends, a great number of
people today have surrendered to the ministry or
some kind of special service, but they have
never surrendered to doing the will of God.
And Pope Jesus was surrendered to doing the
will of God.
And he was so surrendered to doing the
will of God that he said, I never
do.
And Jesus gives us this principle.
Matthew 16, 19 gives us the same principle.
When it says pray, in this fashion, whatsoever
thou shalt bind, or this is the way
it reads in the King James, whatsoever thou
shalt bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven.
Whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be
loosed in heaven.
But I believe if you just turn even
to the Amplified or some of your other
translations, you'd find it translated something like this.
When you pray, pray that whatsoever thou shalt
bind on earth shall have already been bound
in heaven.
Whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall have
already been loosed in heaven.
And folks, we don't go out here and
plan a little revival campaign and get down
on our knees and say, oh God, now
bless this meeting.
Excuse me.
That is what we do.
Isn't it?
But folks, the way it's supposed to happen
is you're supposed to have a time with
God and look in with your spiritual eyes
just like Jesus did.
Have a time with God and find out
what His plan is.
You're supposed to see it, be persuaded of
it, embrace it, and step out and confess
it.
And folks, get in God's order and see
God move out of heaven into earth.
And this is the order of God.
And oh, beloved, if we are wanting to
see God do something, we're going to have
to let God start it.
And everything He starts, He's well capable of
finishing.
And He will do it.
Jesus lived a life of renunciation.
He lived a life of submission.
But He also lived a life of faith.
And I'd just like to live right here.
But I promise you, I'll let you out
in time to get to the last sermon
tonight.
But I would like to just live here.
I won't keep you any overtime, in fact.
I'll let you out before time because I
will have said more than you live up
to.
And it's foolish.
Jesus lived a life of faith.
My dear friends, He was a living example
of a definition, the best definition of faith
I've ever seen.
There's a French Bible that translates Hebrews 11,
1, something like this.
Faith renders present that which one hopes for.
I like to turn it around just a
little bit and put it like this.
That thing for which you're hoping for, if
you have real faith, it renders it, that
faith renders it present.
In other words, that thing that you're really
hoping for, if you have real, genuine Bible
faith, your life renders it by action as
present.
Put it in my phraseology, you act like
it's so when it's not so in order
for it to be so.
You say, preacher, that's ridiculous.
Well, let's see how ridiculous it is.
We'll put it up beside the life of
Jesus.
One day Jesus walked out and asked him,
and he acted just like a nation.
Is God checking you out?
So the Lord checked Philip out and he
flunked the course and really Andrew didn't do
much better.
He came in with a few loaves of
fish, a few loaves of bread and a
few fish and he didn't do much better.
So it got time for Jesus to bow
his head.
Now, Pope, tell me, was there a stack
of fish there before Jesus said thank you?
Was there a stack of bread?
While Jesus bowed his head and acted as
if there was enough fish and enough bread
to feed not 5,000 but and take
out 12 basketfuls.
Right?
Jesus rendered present that which he hoped for.
And you can say what you like this
afternoon.
My friends, he lived a life of faith.
Jesus so acted on what he saw his
Father do in heaven that God was able
to not only do it in heaven, he
was able to do it in earth.
And that was the explanation for his life.
That was the explanation for his life.
He lived a life of faith.
In fact, when he got to Lazarus too,
I believe he acted in faith.
And this sets a principle by which we
as children of God must operate on.
Jesus said what Paul said, the word of
God teaches that whatsoever is not of faith
is sin.
And beloved, we as children of God must
come to the place in our lives where
we're grounded in what the Lord says.
And not only what he says in this
book, but what he says by the divine
Holy Spirit breathing upon this book.
And giving us the truth as reality within
our person.
And we must step out on that word
and we see, smell, taste, feel and hear.
In this day.
Because as I look at it, Jesus Christ
was able to measure up to everything that
the word of God said about him.
So it can be said of man what
was written about Jesus.
It can be said of man about Jesus,
everything that was written about him.
Now the whole point is this, and this
is what I've been saying, everything that I've
said up to this point to get right
to this place.
There is a lot of things.
There's a number of things that's said about
you in the word of God.
There's a number of things that's said about
me.
There's some things that are written about us
as believers in Christ Jesus.
Did you know that?
But the question is simply this.
Is the world saying about you what's written
about you?
Folk, it is important what they are saying.
And I wonder if they're saying what's written
about you.
The Bible says that you're a saint.
Is the world saying that you're a saint?
The Bible says that you're a priest.
Is the world saying you're a priest?
The Bible says that you're a king.
Is the world saying that you're a king?
In fact, Jesus says in the word of
God that as He is, so are we
in this world.
The Bible teaches that as Jesus Christ is
right now so are we in this world.
The Bible has to say a number of
things about you and about me.
And the question just keeps coming to me.
As people look at me are they saying
He's a saint?
As people look at me do they say
He's a priest?
As people look at me do they say
that He's a king?
Because see Jesus Christ left as a living
example as man yielded properly to Jesus or
to God and the power of the Holy
Spirit as man man can live the life
that God has planned for him.
So when it's all over the world can
say about him what's written about him.
And the challenge this afternoon is beloved for
as children of God to come to the
place of renunciation and submission and faith and
be brought into the fullness of God full
stature unto the Lord where as we go
through this life the world can look upon
us and say about us everything that's written
about us.
Beloved tonight as children of God we are
this world's redemption whether you believe it or
not.
Jesus is the redeemer but we are the
means to redemption and the redeemer.
And our lives are the means by which
the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed.
And people come to know Jesus as their
savior.
And I'd like to close with just this
thought.
This nation I believe was born under the
sovereign divine act of God.
It wasn't long after this nation went through
its birth that this nation sought God and
had revival in the midst of revolution.
And after that revolution prosperity and blessings on
every hand and then again revolution.
And in the midst of that war between
the North and the South in that period
of history from about 1845 to about 1865
beloved this nation had revival.
A study of the revival in this nation
during that period of time would so shake
you.
I believe it would bring us out of
lethargy into a spirit of glory if we
just all make a study of those precious
days.
The glory of God was upon this nation
in such power that when ships would come
into the harbor New York Harbor and a
government man would go out to enter the
ship into the harbor to the dock they
would have to send a preacher along to
get all the people saved that were laying
out on the decks of the ship as
dead people.
Marvelous revival.
You could get on a train in New
York City and find that that train would
be stopped at different places on the way
to New York City simply to let a
preacher come aboard and lead hundreds of men
to Jesus that were so under convention they
couldn't stand it any longer.
And you could walk from one compartment to
another and you'd find a song service and
preaching on every hand.
Beloved this nation had revival.
During the war between the north and the
south you could find the men on the
river banks pushing chunks of logs across the
river with tracks leading men to Jesus from
one side to another.
This nation repented and turned to God during
those days.
It had revival.
But after the war between the north and
the south came along prosperity and God spoke
again through World War I but this time
and the only evidence of revival can be
found as far as I can find is
just within the homes.
There was no revival on a national scale.
There was no revival in a collective sense
in this nation.
And this nation overcame within their own strength
and did not turn to God.
And out of that dilemma of World War
I my friends we didn't have a time
of prosperity we was turned right into a
depression.
You can seek the Bible out and come
up with the word famine that would well
fit the depression.
And during the depression, beloved we found a
new deal but not the deal.
And this nation did not turn to God
in faith.
It turned to works and sought its way
out by its own strength.
And there's no evidence of revival.
And that depression ended in war.
And this nation still did not turn to
God.
My dear friends we had the atomic war.
The atomic bomb.
This nation still did not turn to God.
And to this hour this nation still has
not turned to God.
And some folk are saying it's too wicked
and you can't have revival in this nation.
Let me tell you something.
Have you heard that song?
I know you have.
His love will reach the deepest valley.
His love will reach the highest mountain.
Let me share this with you in closing.
There's never been a need brought on by
man or the devil that God was not
big enough.
And if there has ever been a need
bigger than God can meet then there's not
a God in heaven.
Why are we sitting around trying to figure
it out?
For men to renounce themselves that God may
work through them.
That they might submit themselves to do His
work and not their work.
And they might believe His word and trust
Him enabling Him to be God in their
circumstances.
And in this hour when the nation is
crying help my friends I wonder if God
can find someone that can help.
He's looking at you and He's waiting on
you and He's willing and capable and right
now He's saying yea and amen.