I am very grateful to God for this
privilege of being here with you very dear
people.
And I am very grateful to God for
your pastor, and obviously a very godly man,
and his very godly home, and his very
precious word to our hearts tonight.
Thank you, brother.
It came from the heart earnest and burdened
for the things of God.
I am in a different planet tonight, I
think, not a different continent.
They don't lock the doors here, and I
can't get used to it.
When we walk away from a car with
this dear brother today, I couldn't believe it,
because you don't leave a car unlocked in
my country, or you come back, it isn't
what's inside the car that'll be gone, the
car will be gone.
And you don't leave a house open in
our country, brother.
Oh my.
Nothing will be there when you come back.
You live in a different world, but you're
very privileged in this part of the world,
and I am so grateful to be part
of it.
I have come to love the American Christian,
the godly of the godly.
And God has been very good to me,
for somehow, in the few times I've come
to your land, I think he has given
me the privilege of being always amongst the
godly of the godly.
And I'm grateful to be here.
And may these meetings be something so hallowed
and sacred in God's eyes, not because of
me, for I know I'm nothing.
I know I'm nothing.
And he doesn't have to remind me of
that.
Excuse me.
But he is good.
Can we bow for a moment of prayer,
please?
Our Lord, we do thank thee for thy
word.
Above all things, let us honor thy word,
and we long to let thee do that
tonight.
Take the word of God, and by the
Holy Spirit, make it something holy and precious
to all of our hearts.
We're so different in our needs, each one,
but we long for God to come and
visit us.
And so, Lord, we ask thee to keep
us tonight under the blood of Jesus Christ,
and to rebuke thou the devil, Satan, demons,
evil people away from this meeting, in the
name of Jesus Christ, to cleanse the atmosphere
of this whole hall with the blood, and
to protect us, Lord, in thy mercy.
Wash me in the blood.
I have nothing, God, to bring thee but
the blood.
I have nothing to commend or trust in
or show thee that will give thee any
thought or reason to bless this meeting or
to use me.
Only the blood.
I come to thee, and I need the
blood tonight.
Wash me.
It is my only hope of God taking
me up in my weakness.
Make me clean, and fill me with the
Holy Spirit.
Anoint my lips, my heart, my mind.
And render heavens by thy mercy, and come
and visit us through thy word.
The letter killeth we know, and no man
can give it life.
No one.
So our expectation is not in men or
ourselves, in our ability to know, in our
ability to understand.
No, God, our expectation tonight is in thee
and thee only.
Without thee we can do nothing.
The Spirit alone can give this book life.
We walk from this place with fame, and
let all of us look to God and
him only, and have nothing to look to
in men or ourselves even.
Come, O God, and speak.
For we ask with all our heart that
thou will visit us, that we leave this
building not the same, but changed forever.
Do it for thy glory.
For as others look at our heart, for
God does not look at the words that
proceed out of the mouth, God looks at
the heart.
For whence they come, look at all of
our hearts, especially mine, Lord.
And to our notice, there is nothing here
for anything else but the smile of God
in our hearts.
There is nothing here, Lord, but that God
will be glorified.
For that reason, and because we all ask
in the name of Jesus Christ these things,
come in mercy.
Amen.
There are so many beautiful verses in the
Holy Scriptures.
I don't know how many times you've been
through the Bible, but as you go through,
you will find, as I have, that suddenly
verses that were precious become meaningful.
And when you go through twenty times, suddenly
you understand a little bit of it, and
you thought you did before.
When you get through a hundred times, two
hundred times, three hundred times, I can't wait
to get through four hundred times, because I
know there's going to be riches here that
I will never see until I've gone through
four hundred times.
Now, brother, that means you and I have
to get through longing to reach that.
I know many people who've read through the
Bible over four hundred times, and they're quite
astounded if you think of or suggest there
was a sacrifice or that it must have
been difficult.
Don't regard it as difficult that you didn't
get through four hundred times.
If God is central in your life and
your priorities are sorted out ruthlessly, that the
things that are valued by God are valued
by you, and you would find it impossible
not to get through this book four hundred
times if you've walked the road for a
long time.
How many times have you been through the
book, young man?
Think of that.
You read three chapters a day, you've got
to be through the Bible in one year,
six chapters a day, you're twice through in
one year.
You have to be.
How many years have you been saved?
It's impossible not to get through the Bible
four hundred times if you give it central
place in your life.
It's hard not to.
But when you go through again and again,
suddenly verses that were precious, you begin to
glimpse what God's saying after many, many times,
and you realize real poverty.
Your poverty.
And how deep this book is when you
only begin to grasp after many, many times.
One of those verses you'll find that took
me a long time before I began to
glimpse what God was saying.
Just catch a glimpse.
It's found in Isaiah, and that's chapter forty
-two.
Speaking of the office of Christ, if you
look at the headings in the top of
your Bible, if it's a good King James
Bible, the ministry of Christ, the office of
Christ, where God speaks of this amazing servant.
If he is referred to as a servant,
how much more you and I, brother, if
that isn't written across your life, you're far
from God.
If that word is not written across your
life, you are so far from God, I
pity you.
Whether you're a preacher, whether you're a woman,
if it is written of Christ, and known
of Christ, what are you?
If you name the name of Jesus, then
no one would look upon you as a
servant.
Behold, look at my servant, whom I'll uphold,
my elect.
I love that word, elect.
So many people get confused about the word
elect, brother.
They literally bury God's goodness with the word
elect.
I love the word elect.
I'd like to preach a sermon one day
on just that word, election and elect.
It is beautiful.
Nothing to be feared.
There's nothing in the Bible to be feared.
You just see the beauty and the justness
and the integrity of God in everything.
Nothing that could accuse Him of wrong.
Like some people seem to even preach without
knowing that when they take this word elect,
that He is God, that He chose this
amazing Savior of mankind's souls, in whom my
soul delighteth.
I have put my spirit upon Him.
He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
He shall not cry or lift up, nor
cause His voice to be heard in the
street.
Something wonderful about Christ, isn't it?
Something unique.
Every word said about Him confounds the Savior,
the Messiah, but nothing of what they were
watching for or expecting, though they were the
people of God.
Everything that they didn't expect.
Everything they didn't...
There's something about Jesus that there's no way
of the mind beginning to be able to
comprehend in truth the depth of His integrity
and goodness and love.
It goes through a bruised reed.
I love that word, a bruised reed.
God is so compassionate, you know, in one
word, you can just know there's love.
God doesn't love, by the way.
He is love.
When He speaks, if something there that doesn't
love, it is love.
It's love.
You and I are love, but we're not
love.
We are not love.
Only God is love.
A bruised reed.
Staggering word, that.
A bruised reed.
Shall He not break?
Isn't that compassionate?
The Savior of all men.
The smoking flax.
The flax of that lantern.
We would call it a wick of a
candle.
Shall He not quince?
Isn't that beautiful?
Smoking flax.
A bruised reed.
Oh, there's something here in the words of
God that is so compassionate that we we
can only catch a glimpse of His love,
let alone understand fully.
A bruised reed.
Shall He not break?
And the smoking flax.
Shall He not quince?
I wonder how many of us, if we
were all to be exposed by God tonight.
Imagine if He did that.
Oh, we would be shocked.
You think you know your wife.
You think you know your child, sir.
You think you know your pastor.
If we were all to be exposed by
God here tonight, in one moment, to stand
in truth for what we really are, not
the way we sing, not the hallelujah brother,
but what God sees in our heart, in
our thoughts through the day, in our understanding
of what's going on.
I wonder how many of us, how many
of us, at this point of our lives,
are bruised reeds, smoking flaxes, if God's looking
at you tonight.
How many of us, at this point of
our lives, are bruised reeds, that all God
sees.
He sees nothing further than what all the
things man sees about you, brother.
God just looks and He knows you're a
bruised reed, a smoking flax.
A bruised reed shall he not break, smoking
flax shall he not quench.
When I was a boy, my daddy, my
daddy built us a house, a beautiful house.
And it was on the top of our
hill, overlooking a beautiful valley in our country.
And in this valley was a river that
was mighty when it flooded.
Oh, the damage and the harm that could
happen through this river, that flowed through this
wide valley in the flood.
It was a beautiful river, most of the
time, and a beautiful valley.
And we as children grew up in that
valley.
We would run down from the houses into
the valley.
That was our playground, daily, virtually daily, through
the years.
And that river we got to know.
We got to know that river.
We got to understand something about reeds that
go along the river.
We found out first that we could make
money.
There's a beautiful bulrush with the reeds, the
flowers, the special parts of the reeds that
bring this unique and rare flower that you
just don't find in the floral displays of
the florist shops.
We found that you could take these reeds,
you could take these bulrush flowers and dip
them in paint, and the most amazing floral
bouquet.
And we as children, if there was school
feasts where money was needed, or Sunday school
feasts and we were asked to do something
or contribute something, we found we could make
a lot of money.
We just got these reeds and it took
time.
We knew how to do it.
We had our belly.
But we also find something about a reed
as a young child that we never forgot.
We found out that a bruised reed had
to break.
There is no healing of a bleed, of
a reed.
There's something God is saying here that changes
the context and the perspective of God.
If you know what He's saying here, there's
something beyond comprehending of just what God is
is telling us about us.
We found out that if we were handling
the cutting of the reeds before we tied
them carefully in the bunch, if in our
handling of the reed there was a bruise,
if we bruised the reed, it would break.
It had to break.
There is no hope.
That is the point here.
There is no such a thing as any
hope of a reed that is bruised ever
healing.
It cannot heal.
It will not heal.
Throw it away.
Not one reed on earth that it ever
bruised will not break.
It must break.
It has to.
There is hopelessness.
Hope has gone.
There is no such a thing as one
iota of hope left.
You can't hope it isn't going to break
or will survive.
You'll find the bunch before you've sold it
it fails you.
The bruised reed will break and ruin the
whole bouquet.
Well, God knew that.
God knew that when he said this.
And God said it.
God said it about Jesus.
A bruised reed shall he not break.
The smouldering flux, the smoking flux.
If you look in the margin, you will
find dimly burning in the Old Testament.
But you find this verse referred to two
or three times in the Bible.
Over in Matthew you'll find in the Greek
it brings out not smoking flux that is
this flux where the flame was once burning
is now smoking.
It's smouldering the Greek says.
And that's actually the closest you'll come to
what God is saying.
It is there's no hope of the flame
reviving.
It's reached the point where all that's left
now and God says this about the wick
all that's left is a little glint if
you've got any hope as the smouldering once
a wick starts smouldering there's no flame the
flame has just gone out.
All that's left when it smoulders is a
little glint a glow of red that there
was ever life there that there ever was
a flame.
It's beyond the point of reviving the flame.
There is no such a thing as taking
a smouldering flux and reviving the flame.
It is impossible to revive that flame.
There's only evidence that there was a flame
and it's just gone out at that point
it is extinguishing there's just that evidence is
smouldering it's just smoke and a glint that's
about to go out not a flame a
glint.
That's what happened to the flux there's no
possibility of this ever being revived into a
flame again.
Now you know God is speaking here to
those who are hopelessly destroyed He's looking here
beyond someone who's just grieving someone who's just
going through deep waters that's still hanging on
He's looking here to people who really there's
hopelessness total hopelessness of ever ever finding vital
reality with God or healing in all their
hurt they are just hopeless at that point
where there's no hope of this ever being
revived or healed God says something you know
it takes a different context suddenly a different
perspective when you know what two things God
is holding out in front of us and
telling us about His love there's something here
that's so wonderful about the love of God
to His children beloved Oh God is great
and greatly to be praised this God of
ours is so good He doesn't love say
not quench He will not suffer it to
be put out this is God speaking not
me this is the word God said when
He was holding out the beauty of Christ
the majesty the glory the office the ministry
the effect of His ministry the faithfulness to
that which He would save no matter what
the devil did to hurt them Oh God
is good God is perfect in His integrity
in these words you and I have integrity
some of us have integrity that staggers men
but God's integrity brother you cannot even glimpse
if you catch a glimpse you are stunned
mentally at the goodness the faithfulness the perfectness
of the integrity of God to those He
loves to those He loves to
those He loves to those He
loves to those is just a glimpse it's
not even close to what God valued you
when He paid for you your book at
a great price young man the blood of
Jesus do you know what that cost God
He traced the death for every man He
died He bought you He redeemed you