Thank you very much, Pastor.
I hope you won't have too much difficulty
with a British accent.
If I say something that you don't quite
understand, you come and ask me about it
afterwards.
Having lived ten or eleven years in Chicago,
I think the sharp end of it has
been knocked off.
It's rather half and half in our house.
But I may revert to type and put
you in some difficulty in some words I
use.
Do please come and ask me what on
earth I mean.
In most cases, I could give you the
American Revised.
May I say that it is a great
delight to be here.
And I mean that.
Your pastor has introduced me as a pastor.
I was a pastor for about 27 years
in Britain and in this country until the
Lord laid me aside with a cerebral hemorrhage
from which he has given me a miraculous
recovery.
Now I am traveling around on behalf of
various missionary societies, which you would all know,
on behalf of the English Keswick Convention, and
I am linked, though not on the staff,
with the Cape and Ray Missionary Fellowship, of
which I imagine you have heard, Major Ian
Thomas.
And as I travel around, quite frankly, I
miss a pastor very much.
I miss the opportunity for consecutive exposition of
the Word of God.
As I go around from place to place,
I long to meet a fellowship where there
is what your pastor has described, a hungry
heart.
Because I have no qualification for being here
except my heart is hungry too.
That may seem strange for a preacher, but
it's true.
And already this morning, in ten minutes, I
have sensed something different, and I'm so thankful.
I get so tired of the rat race,
song service, hymn, prayer, hymn, reading, choir piece,
song, solo, sermon, hymn, benediction, 52 weeks in
the year, and everybody goes home and nobody
seems ever to stop to ask why nothing
seems to happen that has no explanation apart
from God has done it.
The average church today has organized out the
Holy Spirit.
No room for Him.
And I'm sure your language and mine would
be in the language of John Samuel Mansell,
I hunger and I thirst, tease you my
manner be, ye living waters burst out of
the rock.
So as one hungry heart to another, let's
just look to the Lord a minute who
alone can satisfy.
Let us pray.
Speak, Lord, in the stillness while I wait
on Thee.
Hush my heart to listen in expectancy.
Speak, O blessed Master, in this quiet hour.
May I see Thy face, Lord, and feel
Thy touch of power.
For Jesus' sake.
Perhaps you would turn with me to the
portion which scripture which was read to us
Colossians chapter 3, Colossians chapter 3 in the
first 14 verses.
I don't intend to give an expository message
on this, but it is the starting point
for what I want to, I feel God
would have us here this morning.
Perhaps I begin by asking you a question.
Each one of you might answer this to
yourselves and your own heart.
Tell me, how long would it take in
any particular situation, seven days a week, for
you to be detected as a Christian?
How long would it be before you gave
yourself away?
How long would it be before you betrayed
the fact that you belong to Jesus?
You see, a Christian life is a supernatural
life.
If you can explain somebody's religious experience on
the basis of psychology, well, you've got a
church member on your hands, but you haven't
got a Christian.
If you can only explain a man's religious
experience on the basis of miracle, then you
have a Christian.
And there are many ways in which Paul,
in various letters, demonstrates this.
And here he defines it this way, in
verse 3 of Colossians 3.
For you have died, and your life is
hid with Christ in God.
Without entering into the theological explanation of all
this, which would be, take us far too
long, let me just put it this way.
You have bowed out, and you have bowed
Jesus Christ in.
There's been a moment in your experience when
one kingdom has ceased, and another kingdom has
begun.
When you've suddenly recognized that when you pray,
the family prayer, our Father which art in
heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,
you cannot possibly pray that prayer until you
have first of all prayed, my kingdom go.
There can't possibly be two occupants of the
throne, the sovereignty of our life.
And the miracle, the miracle of Christian experience
begins at that moment, when I bow out,
and Jesus bows himself in.
You have died, and your life is hid
with Christ in God.
With your life, as to its past, with
all its sin, and all its failure, is
hid with Jesus and forgiven.
Your life, as to its future, with all
its potential, all its possibilities, is hid with
Christ in God, for fruitfulness.
You remember that marvellous verse in 2nd Corinthians
5, he who knew no sin was made
sin for us, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him.
The Living Bible puts it this way.
God took the sinless Christ, and poured all
our sins into him.
And in exchange, he has poured all God's
goodness into us.
That's the miracle.
That's a thrilling thing, that every time I
think of that verse, makes me want to
hit the ceiling and shout hallelujah.
Simply wonderful.
All my sin poured into Jesus, and in
exchange, all God's goodness into me.
You see, the Lord is never, never in
the self-improvement plan.
He is always in the Christ replacement.
To replace myself, utterly putre, utterly sinful, and
remaining that way apart from the grace of
God until my dying day.
Replacing that with the goodness of Jesus.
And because that is so, therefore, a Christian
is one who finds himself now a member
of another kingdom.
One law has died out, and another law
has come in.
Romans 8 2 says, the law of the
spirit of life hath made me free from
the law of sin and death.
As I travel around these days, I notice
that in every country, in every place, the
word, the key word, is revolution.
Always by a minority group, who consider themselves
oppressed, and who want to achieve freedom.
But the Christian is the greatest revolutionary of
all, and is the only one who really
knows what revolution is all about.
Because a man cannot be free until he
is free from himself.
The revolt begins from within.
And this has happened in the Christian's experience,
but now he's mastered by another law, the
law of the spirit of life.
As he has bowed out, that finishes the
law of sin and death.
As he bows Jesus in, that enthrones the
law of the spirit of life.
So a Christian has come out from one
sovereignty, which was destroying him, into another sovereignty,
which is dynamic, and which remakes him into
the image of Christ, so that others may
see the reality, and the glory, and the
wonder of a risen law, indwelling our hearts
by his spirit.
The law, the spirit of life, hath made
me free from the law of sin and
death.
You are dead, but your life is hid
with Christ in God.
So this law gets into operation.
A Christian, therefore, is free from one law,
but is mastered by another.
He's exercising and being directed and controlled by
a new sovereignty.
Putting it simply, a man is never free
until he is never free to be free
of God.
Perhaps I'd better just say that again, for
my own sake, as well as yours.
Just for a second, it was a bit,
uh, just hit me all over again.
I'm not really free until I'm never free
to be free of God.
2 Corinthians 5, the love of Christ constrains
me, holds me in check, restrains, constrains, drives
me on.
And so therefore, we're free when we're not
free to be free of God.
And therefore, being mastered by this new law,
a child of God will react in every
situation completely differently.
I am quite sure that I don't need
to say this to this congregation, but I
would need to to 99 out of 100.
I'll say it, however.
You've no right to expect anybody to come
within the four walls of a church to
listen to our sermons.
I don't mind if it was the Archangel
Gabriel who was your pastor.
Every Sunday, twice a week, you've no reason
to expect that anybody should come inside the
four walls of this church to hear him
speak.
But you've every right to expect that every
one of us, as we go out seven
days a week to our homes, colleges, universities,
business, what have you, people will watch our
reactions.
And when a child of God commences to
react on a different principle and a different
way from other people, then you're watching miracle.
And then people begin to ask, why?
Why doesn't that fellow blow his top anymore?
Why doesn't he speak with that gossiping tongue?
Why doesn't he get mad?
How is it when the rugs pull right
from under him?
He doesn't press the panic button.
I want to know that man's secret.
And there you're beginning to move in the
realm of miracle.
Now I would like this morning, as the
Lord shall have me, just briefly, to suggest
to you some different ways in which this
new law operates.
Some different areas in which you find it
happening seven days a week, so that we
may check our lives to see if we're
really living on this basis of miracle.
Let me suggest in the first place that
this law of the spirit of life in
Christ, this new law, rides above the law
of social justice and demands love for hatred
and tolerance for intolerance.
I remind you in my own heart of
the first man who ever paid the price
of his life for witness to Jesus.
His name, Stephen.
And as he was being stoned to death
and battered, he saw Jesus standing at the
right hand of God.
And he lifted up his voice and said,
Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.
Where did you learn that from?
Surely from one who at the cross, just
a short while previously, had prayed, Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do.
And you remember that our Lord in Matthew
chapter 5 said, you have heard it said,
you shall love your neighbor and hate your
enemy.
That of course was never taught in the
Bible.
It was the Pharisees' misrepresentation of God.
But I say unto you, said Jesus, love
your enemies.
Do good to them which despitefully use you.
Pray for them which persecute you.
And in Colossians 3 and verse 14, above
all these things put on love which binds
everything together in perfect harmony, it rides above
the law of social justice and demands love
for hatred, tolerance for intolerance.
How do you react to difficult people?
Perhaps you don't have any around here.
Let me be the first applicant for membership
next Sunday.
I have never met a fellowship, and you
never will, until you get to heaven, where
you don't find difficult people.
When I was at Moody Church at one
period in my ministry, there was one of
my trustees, or elder, who used to come
into the office from which I went to
the pulpit at one minute to eleven, every
Sunday, and say to me, hopeless pastor, the
church is half empty today, and go out.
Well, that does something to a minister right
in here.
Fortunately, thirty seconds later, one of the elders
of the church came in and said to
me, he came in actually and put his
arm around my shoulder and said, wonderful pastor,
the church is half full today.
Saying the same thing.
One with a view to raking me through,
the other with a view to encouragement.
The church seated four thousand, and there were
two thousand people, that wasn't a bad congregation.
But whenever I got into the pulpit, every
Sunday morning, out of every empty seat, there
jumped a little devil and said to me,
you're hopeless.
Didn't need another man to do that for
me.
Listen, listen, which of those two men was
it easier for me to love?
I don't need to answer that question, do
I?
You know.
My reaction was totally negative.
Get rid of him.
Send him to another fundamental church.
Get him out of here.
We can't have blessing with people like that
around.
The only thing to do with him is
write him a blistering letter.
So I wrote him a blistering letter, and
it blistered.
But it lay on my study unopened, and
my wife happened to see it.
That evening she said to me, we don't
use the word honey.
Another word we use in England, doesn't matter.
But, she said to me, don't you think
we ought to pray about this before you
send it?
I said okay, and we knelt down to
pray.
Something happened that day, not to the man,
but to the pastor.
Have you discovered my friend, that you cannot
pray for somebody against whom you hold resentment?
One or the other will die out.
Either your resentment will die, or your prayer
life goes to pieces.
Resentment dies, or hold it, and your prayer
life is crushed.
Well, it was with some burden of heart,
that I found myself beginning to love that
man.
I never liked him.
I never have liked him.
But that's a very different thing from loving
him.
A concern came into my heart, a desire
that the man should really love the Lord.
Oh, he didn't change a great deal until
after I left the church.
And two years later, we came back to
Chicago.
The first person we should meet was this
man.
And he said, he came up to my
wife, and he hugged her, and kissed her.
I didn't mind that.
And then when he finished with her, he
said to me, pastor, we do miss you.
I felt like saying to him, I wish
you'd said that a few years ago, but
he didn't.
See what I mean?
Could it be possible that in this precious
fellowship this morning, the tinge of resentment.
Somebody with whom you're not really in fellowship.
Somebody to whom you're cold.
Somebody whom you avoid, and don't love.
And at that point, the Holy Spirit is
grieved.
I beg of you in Jesus' name, if
that be true, at the end of this
service, get it dealt with at the cross.
Get it dealt with at Calvary.
Because if you are mastered by the law
of the Spirit of life, that law will
get through you in love, instead of hatred.
Another area in which I find that this
law of the Spirit of life, in Christ
Jesus, masters the law of sin and death,
is this.
That it writes above the law of physical
fatigue and exhaustion.
Isaiah 40 verse 30.
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew
their strength.
They shall mount up with wings as eagles.
They shall run and not grow weary.
They shall walk and not be bent.
Remember the New Testament equivalent of that?
The apostle Paul.
Who, as he tells us in 2 Corinthians
chapter 12, as he opens his heart to
us and speaks of this thorn in the
flesh, which we cannot define clearly, but which
he said was Satan's messenger to buffet him.
Three times he prayed to the Lord about
this concerning the flesh.
Lord get rid of three times.
Most commentators on that passage suggest that three
times means he was constantly praying, never stopping.
With every respect, I can't take that line,
that view.
I can't help thinking that he was being
reminded constantly of his master, who at the
Garden of Gethsemane three times prayed, Lord if
it be possible, let this cup pass from
me.
Nevertheless not my will, but thine be done.
And his sweat was as it were great
drops of blood on the ground.
Three times.
Three times Paul prayed, Lord take this thorn
away.
And the answer, my grace is sufficient for
you.
My strength is made perfect in weakness.
Three times.
I hesitate, hesitate indeed to introduce a word
except for the glory of God concerning this.
Seven years ago I was flat on my
back for a year.
Couldn't speak, couldn't move.
And I had promised my church in Edinburgh
in Scotland that I would return to the
pulpit on a certain particular Sunday.
Gradually I was getting stronger, but I thought
I'll never be able to make it.
So I decided that the Sunday prior to
my recommencement of ministry, I would go up
to another little church in Scotland, just taking
about 80 people, and ask the ministry if
you'd mind me trying again there.
So I went to that church.
I stood up to preach and lasted exactly
four minutes.
My tongue stuck to my mouth and I
couldn't say another word.
I sat down and wept and said, oh
God this is the end.
That's seven years ago.
I went back to Edinburgh.
The church in which I was passed to
there, quite large one, had eight steps, steep
steps up to the pulpit.
I arrived there on the Sunday morning trembling
and fearing, as I don't think I'd done
before in my life.
I stood at the bottom of those steps.
Church was packed.
They'd been so good and gracious and kind
and praying for me, and that day meant
much to them as to me.
I stood at the bottom of those steps.
I looked at them.
Lord, I can't do it.
I can't get up.
And I felt a touch, a touch of
his power, and he lifted me up.
I'm sure he did.
And I preached for 15 minutes.
A year later I was back in Chicago
at Buddhist Church.
Founders Week.
Public address equipment broken down.
You can't speak from the pulpit.
You have to go to the communion table.
They'll hear you better there.
So I went there.
No amplification.
Nowhere to lean.
I could only preach in those days by
holding on hard in case I fell over.
And I stood by that table and I
heard a voice, my grace.
He touched me, and I'm sorry to tell
you, I lasted for an hour and a
half.
Don't get worried, please.
It's all right.
Oh, but I tell you, not, not theoretically,
but from experience.
Listen, my friend, listen.
Is there anybody in this church this morning
who's just at the end of your rope?
Just absolutely exhausted and done.
You've been on the rat race.
Absolutely finished, and you don't know how you're
going on.
Listen, God's greatest blessings are not reached by
stretching up your hand.
They're reached when you're right down at rock
bottom.
Jesus is there.
My grace is sufficient.
Let me say something else to you about
this law under which you and I are
to be mastered.
It rides above the law of physics, that
all things contract under pressure.
Christian doesn't.
Oh, no.
Put three men in a burning fiery furnace.
You know those fellows with unpronounceable names.
Put them in a burning fiery furnace.
Those fellows with unpronounceable names.
Put them in a burning fiery furnace.
That's pressure.
Within the burning fiery furnace, they meet one
like the little Son of God.
That's enlargement.
Christmas, a Christian doesn't contract.
He enlarges under pressure.
Job, whom ten kids taken from him, all
his money, all his farms, all his possessions,
he's left with absolutely nothing except a nagging
wife who said to him, Job, the only
thing for you to do is to curse
God and die.
And God gave to Job songs in the
night.
Songs in the night.
Put Paul and Silas in a jail at
Philippi, thrash them, beat them.
And from that prison wall comes songs.
I stood last August, 12 months, on the
edge of the communist border, 25 miles west
of Kowloon in Hong Kong, beside a Chinese
pastor, a great man of God.
We looked into communist China, that mysterious country
with all its mountains and valleys, and in
front of us was the great river over
which so many thousands of people have sought
to swim and escape and have been shot.
And he looked over it and he said,
that's my country.
That's my country.
Do you know, Pastor Ed Perth, do you
know that the church in communist China, he
said, is twice as strong as it was
when Chairman Mao took over?
And then he added a comment that I'll
never forget.
And there isn't a hypocrite left.
Of course not.
The phony can't stand it.
In pressure, the man who plays church quits.
He may be fundamental in his doctrine, he
may be right in his head, but somehow
Jesus hasn't come in all the power of
the Holy Ghost to live in his heart.
And then will the man and be mustered
by this law, the spirit of life in
Christ.
And so the man quits under pressure.
No pressure on you today in your home,
my John.
Thank the Lord.
Count it all joy when you fall into
diverse, various testing, because this law, the spirit
of life, rides above the law of physics,
that all things can factor.
He will not suffer you to be tested
beyond that you're able to bear, but will,
with the testing, provide a way of escape
that you may be able to bear it.
I'll tell you in just a minute, I
find this exciting to my view, but I
do.
This law, the spirit of life, rides above
the law of self-preservation and promotes the
law of self-sacrifice.
John 12, 24.
Except a corn of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abided alone.
But if it die, it bringeth forth much
fruit.
Galatians 6.
Let no man trouble me.
I bear in my body the marks of
the Lord Jesus.
Everywhere I go in these days, I meet
every different country, the charismatic movement.
There's so much reality in it, so much
that I thank God for.
So many hundreds of people that I've found
enter into life and enter into a new
relationship with Jesus.
But, but, there's a danger.
There are many who are seeking for a
Pentecost without a Calvary.
You can't have that.
Lord, give me Pentecost.
And God answers, you give me Calvary.
And Pentecost is inevitable.
It rides above the law of self-preservation
and promotes the law of self-sacrifice.
Young person listening to me today, is it
costing you much to be a Christian?
I don't mean in terms of dollars and
cents.
I mean in terms of life.
A little while ago, in Edinburgh, there came
to me after a Sunday morning, a young
lady, about, I'm not a good judge, but
about 24, I think, years of age, and
she held out her left hand.
There's only one place you look and a
girl does that.
Sure enough, there it was.
Lovely diamond ring.
I said, praise the Lord.
I knew her fiancé.
Well, I'd seen, watched it all develop.
I mean, Minister Caesar got a lot more
from a pulpit than the most, the average
congregation imagined.
I saw it all happening.
And I was thankful.
I was thankful indeed.
It was all for it.
And I said, that's a wonderful order.
I'm so glad.
And we arranged the wedding day.
Three months later, she came to see me,
held out her hand again.
No ring.
I said, what's happened?
Oh, she said, nothing, nothing.
I said, that's the understatement of the century.
Then she broke down and wept.
And when she'd finished her weeping, she said
to me, well, she said, it's really your
fault.
Well, I've been blamed for a lot, but
I didn't see that anything to do with
that.
So I said, would you mind telling me
what you mean?
Oh, she said, for three months, I and
my fiancé have been listening on Sunday mornings
to you preach on the acts of the
apostles and missionary principles.
And more and more, I've been convinced that
God wants me in Thailand.
And more and more, my fiancé is convinced
that God wants him in Edinburgh.
In the month or two, we had a
valedictory service.
And I tell you, there's a tear in
one eye and a twinkle in the other,
as far as that was concerned.
That girl was going out to Thailand with
a broken heart.
She was mastered by the law of the
spirit of life, in fact.
And she was treading right over her own
life, her own wishes.
And she'd given up the greatest desire that
any girl can have, the natural desire, because
she was demonstrating to the Lord, like Abraham
did on Mount Moriah, that he loved his
answer to him.
Now, I know that girl went out to
Thailand.
I imagine just the Lord saying to her,
promotes the law of self-sacrifice and rides
about the law of self.
You'll forgive me, but I'm on the board
of one or two missionary societies and have
served a number of years.
And you know, it absolutely baffles me these
days when people come and say, now look,
Jim, what will be social security?
What will happen to my children?
What about the climate?
Do you mind if I come for a
month or two and see what it's all
like, and see if that suits me, and
I get on well there?
And if I do, I'll really come, stay
with you?
How do you think Paul would have reacted
to that?
Brother, sister, I tell you, when Jesus gets
hold of you, there's only one thing that
really matters in a man's life.
It is knowing the will of God and
doing it at any cost, at any time,
any place.
I met that girl in Thailand two years
ago.
She was radiant.
She said to me, I'd rather be here
unmarried in the will of God than I
would be back in Scotland out of it.
Though I think I ought perhaps to be
fair to add, I who have a pretty
discerning eye for these sort of situations, thought
to myself, I don't think this isolation is
likely to continue much longer.
Sure enough, she wrote to me.
She's married now, but look, married to the
man of God's choice.
Just suppose he'd chosen the second best, and
God won't stop you doing that.
He won't stop you.
Though at the time he will say, are
you quite sure this is my will for
you?
You'll have a check.
But if you choose to take the bit
between your teeth and go right ahead, he
won't stop you.
But if you're mustered by the Lord, the
Spirit of life in Christ, he will check
you.
His musty will mean more to you than
any human love.
Let me say something else to you, if
you can stand it.
This law, the Spirit of life in Christ,
rides above the law of psychology, that old
age reduces the signs of wonder and amazement,
that familiarity breeds contempt.
They shall still bring forth fruit to an
old age, says Psalm 92, 14.
And what wonderful old men there are in
the Bible.
Daniel, one of them, Abram, 119 years of
age, when God tested him most severely, the
most severe test in his life.
Daniel, after all his experiences in Babylon, yet
he opened the windows three times a day
towards Jerusalem and prayed.
And he was hurled into a lion's den,
and lo and behold, the lions had locked
him.
No manner of hurt came upon him, and
he was not, not, not a singe of
flame upon him.
Oh, it's tragic when a man gets stale
when he gets old.
When he lives and serves Christ in the
terms of a commission that's long since ceased
to be fresh.
I was just a young Christian, a very
backsliding Christian, I'm afraid, when I was in
business as a CPA in London.
I was running away from God.
I thought the Christian life cost too much.
I thought the other life with football and
dance and show and friends and everything was
so much more thrilling, but I was unhappy.
That's how I know I was saved.
Can't enjoy anything when you're trying to do
that.
Found that, have you?
Man running away from God is the most
miserable creature on earth, because he can't enjoy
what he used to enjoy, and he doesn't
enjoy the Lord.
Do you know that every Sunday night, every
Sunday night, I used to creep into the
back row of Westminster Central Hall in London,
the headquarters of the Methodist denomination, and sit
and listen to a man preach?
His name was Dinsdale Young.
The place was packed.
Nearly three thousand people it held.
I could just find a seat somewhere in
the back row, and I used to, the
whole congregation was spellbound, and they listened to
this man.
He wasn't particularly clever.
He had hippy hair.
Nothing new about it.
Long, long flowing white silvery hair over his
shoulders, a black suit, black coat, black tie.
And he was so short-sighted that he
had to bend double over his Bible to
read his note.
Just like this.
Not a sound from the congregation.
Every few minutes he would lift up his
head, and everybody waited for that moment, for
his face glowed.
Absolutely glowed with the reality of Christ.
And I, a backsliding Christian, said to myself,
Oh God, he's got what I want.
Familiarity breeds contempt as you get older.
It might do with some people, but I
tell you, I hope it's true of your
life, I get more excited with the Lord
Jesus every day.
So wonderful to know him, to live for
him, to find that he lives and controls
my life, and that one day we're going
to see each other soon.
It rides above the law of psychology.
It's familiarity that breeds contempt.
And one more, and I mean it, and
then I'm through.
I'm going to go on for ages, but
I'll stop now.
Listen, listen, listen.
This is the most exciting of all, I
think.
The Christian life, the law of the spirit
of life in Christ, it rides above the
law of mathematics that two plus two equal
four.
They don't.
You know, you look a bit mystified.
Let me just explain to you.
The law of the spirit of life in
Christ deals with multiplication by division.
I remind you, the only miracle in the
Gospels, in all four Gospels, the feeding of
the five thousand, must have been ten thousand,
probably fifteen, including women and children.
You remember?
Disciples had gone for a retreat with Christ.
You'll find it, for example, in Mark 6.
And a huge crowd gathered.
So the disciples formed a committee, naturally, and
then they passed a unanimous resolution, send them
all home.
We can't do anything about it.
Jesus moved an amendment.
And he carried it, not by a show
of hands, but by a demonstration of power.
How much wood have you got?
Five fish, five loaves, and a few fish.
That's all right.
Sit them all down.
Give all you've got to me.
So he took all they had.
He lifted up his arms to heaven and
blessed.
And then he broke.
And then he gave back to the disciples,
to give to the crowd.
Everybody was satisfied, with a garbage can left
over, as a reminder of that tremendous day.
He dealt in multiplication by division.
And when I'm prepared to share Jesus, he's
prepared to multiply.
That's the whole principle of Christian growth.
Two plus two equals four.
That's the average church program.
That's it.
Organized all.
Get the whole thing lined up.
Get masses of people together, especially people who
have money.
Form masses of committees.
Then let's have a little prayer meeting, and
then wait for the explosion.
But God, oh, what Gideon!
32,000 men.
Send 22,000 home.
They're scared.
Now send 9,700 more home.
They're undisciplined.
And Gideon finds himself left with 300 men,
masses of food jars left behind in the
retreat of all the rest, and hundreds of
trumpets against the many knights who had kept
them in dens and strongholds for more than
a week.
Ridiculous.
But, but, a very ordinary person, Gideon, did
a very ordinary thing.
Blew a trumpet.
With extraordinary results.
The millions ran for their lives.
See?
Oh, friend, when I'm prepared to share, God
is prepared to multiply.
He takes all.
Has he helped himself to your life?
Completely?
The back reservation?
Then he takes it, and then he blesses
it.
And oh, how wonderfully he blesses what he
takes.
And then, and this is rather painful, but
he breaks it.
Then he hands it back in blessing to
a crowd.
What a wonderful thing.
Can you think of anything more wonderful this
side of heaven than to be given out
of the hands of Jesus to people?
That's evangelism.
Impossible kind of life, this, that I've been
talking about.
Impossible.
God's demands upon our lives are, from the
divine point of view, absolutely reasonable.
From the human point of view, impossible.
And the missing factor?
The Spirit of the Lord came upon us.
Impossible life?
Yes.
But your life is hid with Christ in
God.
And you are mastered by the law of
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Let's pray.
A moment's quiet prayer.
Oh God, for Jesus' sake, if you haven't
already obtained the mastery, just help yourself to
each one of us.
Master us Lord.
Bring under divine control every part of our
being that would seek to hold back, to
control itself.
Lord, may each of us fulfill all the
potential you have for our lives.
As moment by moment and day by day,
other people see that we are mastered by
the Savior and controlled by his life, and
therefore reacting in every situation in a way
that reveals the Lord himself.
We ask it in his dear name.
I'm sure that our hearts reaffirm what the
Apostle Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the
gospel of Jesus Christ.
I know my own heart is greatly thrilled
right now by the kind of gospel that
this man preaches.
This is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now I want us to pray for Dr.
Redpath that God will use him in this
city-wide emphasis of this Key 73 this
week.
That people will really, in their own personal
lives, all of us, in a greater measure,
experience this law of life in Christ Jesus
that rides over this law of sin and
death.
Let's pray for the meeting tonight.
Let's bring people with us.
Let's pray for the meeting tomorrow night at
7 30, and Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
Let's pray that God will do something here
in our lives and in the lives of
our brethren, the lives of others.
Let's be very cautious now not to be
thinking about someone else should have heard this
message, but let's say, Lord, what do you
have for me here?
Now unto him that is able to do
exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask
or even think, according to this kind of
power that we've heard about, that worketh in
us, unto him be glory within the church
by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without
end.
Amen.
Shake hands with each other.
God bless you.
Amen.