Good evening, everyone.
Thank you very much.
I'll just chat to you for a moment,
so that you can get used to a
British accent, at least a little bit.
Having lived several years in Chicago, the worst
of it's brushed off, but since going back
again, some of it's come back.
Every time I come across to this country,
I, in my mind, spend the six hours
in the plane rehearsing certain words, which I
mustn't use in the States, which we use
in Britain.
And then going back again, I do the
procedure in reverse.
Quite an exercise of your mind.
I won't tell you what the words are,
but they're quite interesting, really.
I was telling the pastor of the Evangelical
Methodist Church yesterday that shortly after I came
to Chicago to pastor at Moody Church, I
was showing a Nigerian through the customs.
He couldn't speak any English, and he'd come
to Chicago to learn the language and to
study.
And I'd arranged to meet him at the
airport.
Well, when I helped him through the customs,
the customs officer looked at his passport and
said to me, what is he?
Well, I said, he's a clerk.
Well, I didn't know that in Chicago that
word was pronounced clerk.
So he said, he's a what?
I said, he's a clerk.
Well, he said, what does he do?
Well, I said, I don't know.
And the customs officer said to me, Jimmy
just goes tick-tock, tick-tock.
This poor Nigerian man must be absolutely nuts
because he imagined we both spoke the same
language.
Well, I don't think anything like that will
happen tonight or during this week, but I
realize it's a bit of a test to
have to put up with a Britisher.
And if there are some words I use
that you don't understand, you can ask me
what they mean.
Seriously, though, it's a tremendous thrill to be
here.
I was thrilled by that music.
Absolutely thrilled.
So glad that young people today are getting
with it.
Just a few days ago, near us, we
have what we call a motorway, you use
the term expressway, restaurant, and at Capenry Hall
we took over a restaurant and a motorway
and had music groups just like this.
We took the whole place over.
There were seven or eight hundred teenagers.
Many of them had never heard about Jesus
before.
And these young people sung their way into
their hearts.
And their message was supported by a strong
gospel presentation and many found Christ.
So I felt completely at home tonight.
Thank you so much.
And then of course it's a tremendous thrill
to be back in this country and to
find myself involved a little bit in this
key 73 about which I'd heard, but not
a great deal.
I think it's a tremendous project.
For a generation this country, indeed the whole
world, but especially this country, has been blanketed
with evangelism.
But this is something different.
As I understand it, this is really mobilized
to evangelize.
This is every Christian being involved.
And that's what really counts.
We've seen a great deal of mass evangelism
and I'm a believer in it.
But inevitably there are casualties and inevitably many
people are never touched.
And the only hope for the church is
that every Christian gets on the ball and
is a living personal witness to Jesus Christ.
So I find myself 100 percent behind this
from the very outset.
But in four evenings, all I can do
is to seek to underline some principles which
we must bear in mind if we're going
to achieve our...
And therefore our subject tonight is the Christian's
responsibility.
And I'm going to speak to you on
this passage of scripture which we read together
in Acts chapter 13.
If you care to turn to your Bible,
if you can see it.
I can scarcely see you, but I should
imagine you've no problem about seeing me.
Whether you can read the Bible out there
or follow it, I wouldn't know.
But before I turn to the Word, let
me turn to the Lord of the Word
and ask you to do the same in
a moment of prayer together.
Will you echo in your heart the prayer
which I offer on my behalf and on
your own?
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 we see thy face, Lord, and feel
thy touch of power.
For Jesus' sake.
Amen.
Tonight I want to talk to you about
the Christian's responsibility.
Tomorrow, the Christian's renunciation.
And on Wednesday, the Christian requirement.
And on Thursday, the Christian's resources.
All for involvement in this tremendous project that
we face.
Tonight, my responsibility as a Christian is set
out for me in Acts chapter 13 and
verse 47.
So has the Lord commanded us, saying, I
have set thee to be a light of
the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation
unto the ends of the earth.
Everybody here is either a missionary or a
mission field.
May I just repeat that so that you
can get over the shock, but it's true.
Everybody here is either a missionary or a
mission field.
If you know Jesus Christ as your Lord
and Savior, you are a missionary.
If you don't, you're a desperately needy mission
field.
You don't become a missionary by getting a
passport and going over to the Orient or
to South America or anywhere else.
You're a missionary right where you are.
The moment you know Christ personally as Lord
and Savior of your life, you're a missionary.
Until that moment, you are a mission field.
You may be a church member, but you're
still a mission field.
And this is highlighted for us in this
verse that I've read, I have set thee
to be a light to the Gentiles, that
thou shouldest be, you should be for salvation
to the end of the earth.
Let's just be, let me just get the
significance of that statement, a light.
Do you remember that the Lord Jesus himself
once said, I am the light of the
world.
He that followeth me shall not walk in
darkness, but shall have the light of light.
I am the light of the world.
Then he turned to a little group of
men who followed him and said to them,
ye are the light of the world.
That must have shaken them to the core.
Ye are the light of the world.
And you remember that Paul writes to the
church at Philippi, he reminded them that they
lived in a crooked and perverse nation, among
whom ye shine as light in the world.
Now, this is a phrase constantly coming up
in the Bible and the thing that I
want to be quite clear is that we
understand how it is that Jesus is the
light of the world and we are the
light of the world.
How can that be?
I think an understanding of that fact is
absolutely essential.
Let me draw upon my very limited knowledge
of astronomy.
When God created this world as we know
it, this solar system, we'd better stick to
the one we know about, he put in
it a moon and a sun.
A sun, the greater light to rule the
day, and a moon, the lesser light to
rule the night.
A few years ago, I was visiting in
Central Africa Republic where my daughter is a
missionary, and it was a wonderful moonlight night.
The stars were shining and the moon was
full.
It was a tremendous night.
There wasn't a cloud in the sky.
The sort of night that makes people who
are in love want to hold hands because
they tell me that the moon controls the
tide as well as the untide.
I can assure you it was my daughter
I was walking with and as we walked
together along that little jungle path she said
to me, Daddy, isn't the moon shining brightly
tonight?
And I said, yes dear, it is.
And then I stopped, and I said, you
know, how stupid.
We're both wrong.
The moon is utterly incapable of shining.
Our astronauts have confirmed that.
It's only a lump of lackluster material which
has no capacity to shine at all.
But it's in orbit in relation to the
sun and as it turns its face heavenward
it catches the glow, catches the brilliance and
the warmth of the sunshine and reflects it
into the darkness of this world.
The moon is a reflector of light.
Now, when Jesus says He is the light
of the world that is precisely what He
means.
We have no capacity to shine for Him.
Nothing has us at all that can make
us capable of doing it.
But when I turn my eyes upon Jesus
and look full in His wonderful face then
something happens.
I catch the glow.
I catch the reality, the warmth, the love.
And somehow His light begins to shine through
your life.
Now this thrills me.
Because, you see, there's nobody else, there's no
society in all the world can compete with
the Christian, with the Church.
We're not in competition with anybody.
No educational system can.
No philosophy of life can.
Nothing in the world can bring any light
into the darkness on the problems that really
hit us day after day except a Christian.
A Christian who is in right relationship with
God.
A Christian who has come to know Jesus
personally.
He begins to shed light wherever He goes.
You know, I found that fantastically true in
these days.
I have to travel a good deal nowadays.
I don't like it, frankly.
You may think there's a lot of glamour
in travel.
I don't like it.
But in the last five years, I suppose
I've been preaching in about 45 different countries.
And there are most extraordinary things happening.
Wonderful things happening to you that simply didn't
exist ten years ago.
Let me just mention one or two of
them.
You go down to a country like Brazil
and you find that 75% of the
evangelical life of that country is in the
Pentecostal Church.
And it's growing faster than the birth rate
of the population.
I find that exciting.
Then, wherever I go, there's fantastic changes taking
place in the Roman Catholic Church.
A great friend of mine, as Dr. Stephen
offered, of Calvary Baptist Church, New York.
I was in his church recently at a
convention he was having and in the congregation
there were several.
Afterwards, one or two of them came up
to his apartment and had supper with himself
and his wife and I was in the
party.
And they invited him afterwards to come and
speak at a Roman Catholic nunnery, seminary, whatever
you call it.
And he was given carte blanche to say
exactly what he liked.
And he preached, he told me, to about
700 nuns in training for the ministry.
And gave them the gospel.
And they welcomed it.
Fantastic.
And then, what do you make of the
Jesus movement?
We haven't got Key 73, but we have
Spree 73, spiritual emphasis and renewal and emphasis.
And do you know who's heading that up?
A group of people under the heading of
Festival of Light, who were all Jesus people.
Years ago, absolutely addicted to drugs.
Way out, drop out.
And who have been wonderfully converted and brought
to us and are really making a tremendous
impact on the youth of our country.
Of course, when you read the newspaper you
never read anything about these things.
You'll read the bad news.
But the Christian's filled with the good news.
And this is some of the wonderful things
that are happening in the world.
And especially in our countries.
A friend of mine who is ministering in
California, about five years ago, he was about
going around the bend or climbing up the
wall, whatever you like, about his evening service.
It had dropped to 30 people.
The church holds over 2,000.
He was in despair.
He had no idea.
I'm sure it came from God.
He scrapped his order of service entirely.
He got three robbing microphones.
Gave them to three of his church officers
who went round the building.
Went round to 30 people and said, have
you any questions?
And after that they stood up and they
gave a testimony.
Someone told what Jesus Christ had done for
them.
Someone had come to know him personally that
very week.
And so this began to take life.
Do you know tonight?
Every Sunday it's full.
More than 2,000 people there.
A lot of them from the Jesus movement
who come right inside the church and found
the church that cares and is alive.
And you know, when they pass the offering
plate around, would you believe it, you can
either take out or put in.
Just what you like.
If you're in need, help yourself.
If you feel out of love you want
to give, put it in.
An absolute sense of love and unity and
revival in that church today through very largely
the people who were a way out and
drop out, just lost to the world and
to society.
These things are happening.
I hardly dare mention it here, but I
shall have more to say to it later
in the week, about it later in the
week, and the charismatic movement.
In 45 countries where I preach, it's in
every one of them.
And whether you like it or not, you
cannot deny the reality of many people in
their faith in Jesus Christ, sense of liberty
and freedom.
So all these things are taking place today,
testifying to the fact that Jesus lives.
And if I was a minister of a
church, I'd just be afraid that I was
so occupied in doing my thing, that they
let all these exciting things bypass me.
You're the light of the world.
A reflector of light.
The only kind of person, that because you're
in touch with God, because you're in relationship
with the living Christ, you can bring to
bear light upon the problems that beset the
whole human race today.
It's a wonderful thing to be a Christian
in a day like this.
Tremendous.
I'm so glad I'm alive.
So glad that God has spared me to
live, to see a day like this, when
things are moving and God is at work
and Jesus is alive and people are really
turning to him.
Now if I want to take my share
in all this, and if you do, then
I think there are one or two things
that are laid down for us here in
this passage of scripture that we can't possibly
escape.
And I want you to look at them
very carefully a minute.
If you're going to shine for Jesus, if
you're going to be a light, a reflector
of light, if you're going to know what
it is to catch something of the glow
of heaven, not by education, not by philosophy,
not by theological training, but if you're going
to catch the glow of the reality of
Christ that you must pretend.
Four times over in this little passage of
scripture, did you notice it?
The phrase occurs, the word of God, verse
44, the whole city together to hear the
word of God.
Verse 46, the word of God.
Verse 48, they were glad and glorified, the
word of the Lord.
Verse 49, the word of the Lord.
Four times over, the word of God, the
word of God, the word of God.
This little band of disciples who already had
experienced the thrill of multiplication were really on
the march, on the move for the Lord,
and everywhere they went they were triumphant, and
this was the message that had burnt their
way, burnt its way, into their hearts.
The word of God, the word of God.
It wasn't simply they had systematic theology.
It wasn't simply they had doctrine.
As a matter of fact, I imagine that
most of us knew, know, a lot more
doctrine or think we do, than they did.
They had experience, and that experience needed doctrine
in order to explain it.
We have doctrine, but so often we have
no experience to explain.
But this early church simply thrilled and were
alive with experience, and they were proclaiming the
word of God.
You see, you say, I don't see anything
wonderful about that.
That's what our church stands for.
We are an evangelical church.
We proclaim the word of God.
Are you quite sure that the message we
proclaim through our lips, through our pulpits, through
our lives, today as the gospel of Jesus
Christ is what it was in the days
of the early church?
Are you sure it has the same emphasis,
the same tang, the same punch, the same
thrust behind it?
This word of God had burnt like a
fire in the hearts of these men.
They couldn't keep quiet about it.
We must obey God rather than men.
That was their slogan.
Nothing could keep them quiet.
Have you found, my friend, that it's one
thing to go through your Bible?
It's quite another thing when the Bible begins
to go through you.
Have you made that discovery?
When somehow it gets hold of you and
grips you, and you discover that you're under
the authority of it and under the power
of it and the conviction of it and
it's gripped your heart and you can't keep
quiet about Jesus?
Is something wrong when we can keep quiet
about Him?
I know that the most embarrassing question any
man can ask a congregation from a platform
is the one that I'm going to ask
you, but you've often been asked it.
How long since you sat down beside someone
else and thought from the word of God
to lead them to a saving knowledge of
Jesus Christ?
Done it this year?
Done it a year ago?
Ever?
If not, why not?
Because simply we have the theology of the
thing which is somehow it never has gripped
us, the reality of it, the experience.
To what experience am I referring?
Well, just this.
You find, and I haven't time to enlarge
upon this, you can check me by reading
it for yourself, that in the Acts of
the Apostles, especially, when Abel and his early
church went to bat, went to preach the
word, they fired the gospel on a double
-barrel gun.
First of all, they preached justification by faith,
that a man can be right with God
through faith in Jesus Christ who gave Himself
for us on Calvary.
You find that here in verse 38.
For instance, in this sermon preached by Paul
at Iconium.
Be it known unto you, therefore, men and
brethren, that through this man is preached unto
you the forgiveness of sins.
And by him all that believe are justified
from all things from which you could not
be justified by the law of Moses.
Now, I don't suppose any of us have
any problem about that.
I imagine, however, if I ask you what
it means I believe, I hope I'm not
doing you an injustice, but I believe, that
many people when we get to Heaven, oh,
it doesn't.
Eternal life is not a duration, it's a
quality, it's a depth.
And when I receive Jesus Christ into my
heart, I receive eternal life, the life of
God Himself indwelling me by His Holy Spirit.
And faith means committing, F-A-I-T
-H, forsaking all I take Him.
Not mere intellectual assent to a creed, but
commitment to a person.
You know the story often told of the
famous tightrope walker, Blondin, going across Niagara Falls
on a tightrope.
And before he got on, there was a
little boy in a crowd watching with his
eyes wide open.
Blondin stopped and looked at him and said,
Caesar, do you believe I can walk on
this tightrope across Niagara?
Sure, sir, I do.
Son, do you believe that I can carry
you on my back on this tightrope across
Niagara Falls?
Oh, yes, sir.
Well, jump on my back.
And that little boy turned around and fled
for his life.
Hold that in your mind and come with
me, would you, in imagination, to a little
village I know called Viper.
Strange name.
A little old grocer's store, not much else
there.
An old, old village, very sweet place.
One day a grocer is down in his
cellar checking his stock.
He's removed the trapdoor.
He's gone right down to the cellar.
Then he's taken away the ladder and he's
looking around the shelves and the little trapdoor
is open and his boy Caesar Moore wants
to see him and he comes to the
top of the trapdoor and he says, Yes,
daddy.
And the grocer comes right in out of
the semi-darkness and looks up at him
and sees him there standing up above.
Yes, son.
Daddy, I want to come to you.
Well, jump.
Oh, but daddy, I can't see you.
Never mind.
I can see you.
Jump.
And the little boy jumped and he fell
into the arms of his father.
Now, relate those two stories together.
Blondin's boy believed all the facts about Blondin.
But he wasn't prepared to commit himself to
Blondin.
That grocer's boy believed all about his father.
But he went further and committed himself to
his father and fell right into the arms
of his father.
Faith, saving faith, is a step into the
dark onto a rock.
And that rock is a step into the
dark beyond reason, beyond intellect, beyond understanding, right
into the dark onto a rock.
I am justified from all things by taking
that step from which I could not to
be justified by the law of Moses.
Now, many of us would argue with this.
But the second battle on the gun is
a bit more difficult.
And always in the Acts of the Apostles
I find the early church preaching that we're
justified by grace in order to learn to
submit to government.
It was always preaching the sovereignty of God.
And if you check, for instance, this chapter
through on your own tonight, you would read
how over and over again Paul was referring
to the sovereignty of God in human experience
and history.
Now, this is an essential part of salvation,
the Christian message.
If we are really going to get anywhere
with this tremendous project of Key 1973, I
suggest to you that this message is right
down to earth and absolutely essential.
We're saved by grace for submission to government.
Jesus is Lord.
I cannot know Him as Saviour and then
subsequently, if it suits me and when more
convenient, I may have Him as Lord.
Oh no!
You see, sovereignty is an essential attribute of
deity.
You cannot divorce one from the other.
An essential attribute of the deity of God
is sovereignty, He's Lord before He's Saviour.
Turn the cassette over now for the continuation
of this message.
And first, when you encounter Jesus, you encounter
Him as Lord and He comes right crashing
into your life.
And it's very disturbing and very inconvenient and
very revolutionary.
But He has come to set up in
my life and in your life the Kingdom
of God.
To demonstrate to society today, society that won't
acknowledge any authority, the sheer thrill and the
sheer joy of living day by day in
my life under the authority.
This is a completely new regime that is
set up in our lives.
It is the end of one regime when
I've tried to run my own life and
the beginning of another regime when Jesus takes
over control.
I wonder if in your home you have
any wedgewood china.
Maybe you do.
Perhaps you like it.
Well, I could take you to the place
where it's manufactured.
There's a town in the Midlands in England,
a very dirty town, very smoky town, but
out of it there comes this beautiful china.
I was in that town just recently and
at a young people's meeting on a Saturday
night a Salvation Army officer was giving his
testimony.
Great, great man he was.
He carried his presence well in front of
him.
Very large.
And he said, you know, he gave the
story of his conversion.
He was converted at a Salvation Army open
air meeting on a Saturday night.
And the next morning he went to their
holiness meeting.
And he came back absolutely miserable.
And his wife said to him, what's the
matter with you?
I thought you were converted.
Oh, yes, he said I was, but everybody
else in the hall had a red jersey
on but me.
I felt sort of blessed.
Oh, she said, don't worry, I'll knit you
one.
So she knitted him a tremendous sweater, a
great big thing like a tent.
And he went out on the next Sunday.
And when he came back he was more
miserable than ever.
She said to him, what's the matter?
Well, he said, you see, everybody else's sweater
had white letters on it.
Mine hadn't.
It looked so odd.
Oh, she didn't know what to do about
that because poor woman she couldn't read or
write.
But the next morning, the Monday, a man
brought a ladder and climbed up outside a
shop and began to paint a sign above
the shop window.
And she said to herself, I know what
I'll do.
I'll copy everything that man put on that
sign onto my husband's sweater.
And she did.
And he went out the next Sunday and
came back absolutely with a sweater on, the
whole lot of them.
Do you know what it had with mine?
This business is under entirely new management.
Now, my friend, seriously, that's a Christian act.
That's a Christian act.
The message that I must proclaim, Jesus Christ
is Lord.
And because He's Lord, He rules my life.
I am here to display in a godless
society which has rejected all thought that the
only way of happiness and peace and joy
and satisfaction is the meeting to the Lordship
of Jesus.
That's a revolution.
When I bow out and Jesus bows Himself
in, the message I must portray.
A free salvation which demands His full control.
And, of course, that is exactly the message
of the New Testament.
It was Jesus Himself who said, Not everyone
that saith to me, Lord, shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth
the will of my Father which is in
heaven.
Why do you call me Lord and don't
do what I tell you?
I've never been able to answer that question.
Have you?
For once in your life, said Paul, grace,
sin reigned unto death.
Now grace reigns unto eternal life.
One or the other must rise.
And so this message has got to get
back, I believe, right into the heart because
it's the beginning, the really beginning, of Jesus
beginning to shine through my heart when He
takes control.
When I'm no longer playing cheer, I'm no
longer just doing my thing, but I'm really
excited at the revolution that is happening.
The message I must portray.
Now you notice from this chapter 2 something
else here, what I would call the movement
that I must precipitate.
Here it is.
The Jews, verse 45, were filled with envy
and spake against those things which were spoken
by Paul.
48.
The Gentiles heard this, they were glad and
glorified the word of the Lord.
Now isn't that interesting?
You see, some people were glad, some people
were mad, but nobody was neutral.
Everybody jumped off the fence of neutrality.
And I am telling you that if this
project is getting underway, immediately, immediately, you get
out where the action is and you bear
testimony to the Lordship of Christ, immediately you
run headlong into opposition.
And do you know where it will come
from?
It won't come from the, may I use
such a word, I don't mean it in
an unkind sense, it won't come from the
outsider.
It won't come from the person who was
never daft in the church door.
He'll be thankful at last that he's met
some people who mean business.
And some people are real.
He's met somebody who's in plain church who's
Christian and who means something seven days a
week to him.
But do you know who it will come
from?
It will come from the people who occupy
a pew every Sunday in our churches and
do no more about it.
It'll come from people who are really good
church members but have never, never submitted to
the Lord.
I know that because after 28 years in
pastoral ministry, I know what happens.
When this message grips your heart and you
know that this is the word of God
and has to be protected.
And they'll perhaps come up to you and
say to you, Pastor, don't you think you
could preach a nice little comforting message?
And then after about 20 or 25 minutes
give a 5 minute gospel application to the
unconverted and get them saved.
In other words, take the heat off us.
Over and over again I've seen men with
a real burden.
Men who I would describe as prophets in
this country have to empty their churches before
they fill them.
One such man was Dr. A.
W.
Telzer of Chicago.
The greatest preacher in my judgment that America
has known for this century.
Soon after my arrival at that city he
called me on the telephone and he said
to me, you'll perhaps have difficult time in
your church.
He said, I would love it if you
would come and have some fellowship with me
sometime.
And he said, you'll find me any morning
between April and October, any morning on the
south shore of Lake Michigan from 5 o
'clock till 8.
I didn't go too often.
It was holy ground.
But this is not pulpit rhetoric.
This is actual truth.
When I did go, do you know what
I used to find?
I used to find A.
W.
Telzer flat on his face on the sand
of Lake Michigan with his open Bible for
three hours.
That's what made him the man he was.
When he came into his pulpit, oh, everybody
got in his neck, said he was a
recluse, he wouldn't cooperate with people, etc., etc.
Now that he's gone to heaven, of course
he's wonderful.
His books are the best sellers.
Everybody's after him.
But then they...
So I want to stress to you that
you, who go out with the message Jesus
is Lord, that's where your first opposition will
come.
You know, don't get excited.
Now take it easy.
Take it easy.
Just take it easy.
Don't get religious mania.
Just take it quietly.
Quietly.
Don't get too excited.
People roar their heads off over several people
knocking about an inflated piece of rubber on
a football field, and they're so excited they
think it's thrilling.
Well, my friend, do you pardon me if
I find Jesus exciting and I let people
know it?
Not a phony to me.
This is reality.
This is reality in my life because I
know, I know...
...has meant my deliverance.
I know that I need every day twenty
-four hours of...
And if you say that's legalism, I say
it's brash legalism.
It's a legalism which I can't do without
as I learn to submit every day of
my life to Jesus as Lord.
I want to tell you that I've been
on the way for forty years now.
I'm ashamed of the times that I have
rejected that fellowship.
Oh, He was Lord at the very beginning.
Can you go back to the day...
Do you know the day, the time, the
place?
Not your baptism.
I didn't say that.
I said your conversion.
When you are born of the Spirit of
God.
Do you remember?
It doesn't really matter.
Some people never can remember.
It doesn't matter really as long as you
know you are now.
There's no such thing as a gradual conversion.
Maybe a gradual recognition of it.
But no such thing as a gradual conversion.
There's a moment when you step from...
Remember the time?
I remember the time.
I remember the day I was there when
it happened.
And I remember the man who led me
to Christ.
He gave...
And I was so excited that I underlined
that little word now so heavily that I
went right through to the Epistle to the
Philippians and ruined my Bible.
But it was worth it the sheer thrill
of knowing that now...
Oh, I tell you that Jesus was my
Lord that day.
With all my heart I loved Him and
thanked Him and rejoiced in such...
But it wasn't long before He would be
saying to me don't you do that again.
This way, not that.
You all right?
Not that friend, but this.
And He began to interfere.
And I found it somewhat difficult and somewhat
painful and somewhat costly.
And I rejected it for years.
Seven years I lived in a hopeless wilderness
of complete failure and absolute defeat.
For I would refuse to submit to the
Lordship of Jesus.
Oh, how glad I am today that there's
a love that will not...
How hard I try to run away from
God, get away from Him in all different
kinds of ways.
But there came a day when He brought
me right down to rock.
Period.
And when I'd ended the battle Jesus Christ
became Lord again.
But that wasn't the end of it.
Every day, the older I get, every day,
some things, some issues which the Lord Jesus
contests which, in me, I'm inclined to resist
and choose an easier path.
Find that in your life.
And when you live like that, my friend,
other people are never neutral in your presence.
They can't be.
Because they're watching the reactions of Christ in
you.
No longer I live, as we were reminded
in that lovely solo tonight.
Not I, but Jesus.
And since He took over and lived and
demonstrates His life in me, His reactions become
mine.
You see, at the best, you and I
are only stepping stones to Christ.
And stepping stones are for walking on.
And you often get walked on.
And it hurts.
Especially if the people who walk on you
are your friends.
But I'll tell you something.
When the man who's crucified with Jesus is
walked on, he doesn't hit back.
Jesus reacts in him and loves.
And that's what people begin to notice.
Whereas normally you'd blow your top and give
the other fellow such a raking through.
But, oh, you're not a sissy.
You're not weak.
But you've learned the only peace of heart
is meekness.
Meekness is not weakness.
Try being meek for a week and you'll
soon find that out.
Meekness is strength.
It's from the Lord Himself.
It derives strength from Him.
And that, of course, is what Christianity is.
Whereas strength is self-reliant, is self-confident,
it's weakness.
When it's derived from dependence upon a living
Christ, it's strength.
And Jesus never answered back.
You go throughout this project and throughout Dallas
and elsewhere and listen.
Treat every fellow Christian as though he was
Jesus.
React to every fellow Christian as though you
were Jesus.
Get it?
Treat every fellow believer as though he was
Jesus.
React to every fellow Christian as though you
were Jesus.
And I'll tell you our churches will be
coming with revival in a month.
Because the greatest preparation for all evangelism would
have taken place through men and women who
are abandoned to the Lordship of Christ and
whose presence you can't be neutral about Him.
Exciting.
Tremendous.
Just one last thing.
That precipitates a movement.
People either love you or hate you.
They either quit or stay.
Speaking of Stephen Oswald, if you'll excuse me
a moment, he and I used to be
in, he was in, and I was in
Moody, Chicago.
We used to ring each other up on
Sunday nights to see how we were getting
on.
Two Englishmen in these pulpits.
And, uh, how's the battle going?
And I remember one Sunday I called him
on the phone and he said, Oh brother,
he said, At last we've had a breath
of revival.
Oh, I said, Stephen, that makes me green
with envy.
Makes my mouth water.
Oh, tell me how many people have you
added to your church?
In a battle.
And we'll meet our first unexpected who's not
written of life.
The sign which I have on my hotel
door, please do not disturb.
And the last thing he wants is to
be involved.
It'll take him from his television sets too
often.
It'll take him from all sorts of, it'll
mean he has to go out and witness
and have that.
That'll be the exciting thing.
To watch, watch people involved in Key 73
going right down the middle and in the
fulfillment of what the Lord Jesus said, I
came not to break.
Did I say one last thing?
I did, yes.
You don't only precipitate a movement, but you
see, you see, Oh, I'll be saying more
about this another night.
You make room for a miracle.
Do you notice how our chapter ended?
The disciples were filled with joy and with
the Holy Spirit.
That's tremendous.
How old were they?
Well, I guess 48 hours, an estimate.
Oh, I know what's happened.
You say, I know what's happened.
Paul and Barnabas have quickly sent to headquarters
for some material on how to lead converts
into maturity, on the four spiritual laws.
They've sent for thousands of packets of those
and little Bible cells have been established and
every convert has been given a Christian to
look after them and shepherd them and smother
them.
And all have been sort of formed into
a little local church and they've all been
told the rules and the doctrines.
Not in your life.
What's happened?
I'll tell you what's happened.
Paul and Barnabas have quit.
All together.
They've wiped the dust off their feet and
gone to another town and the disciples were
filled with the Holy Spirit.
When the human prop had gone, the divine
power stepped right in.
Now, it would be very bad for me
to give you a false impression.
In seeking to underline something of a principle
to lead you to a false conclusion, I'm
all in favor of little Bible cells for
converts.
I'm all in favor of discipleship classes.
I'm all in favor of them being brought
into a local church by listening.
May I ask you this very simple question
lovingly?
How much room in your church is there
for the Holy Spirit?
I mean in your church program.
What is the smallest meeting in your calendar?
Your prayer meeting?
We've crowded out the Holy Spirit and in
our churches nowadays we don't need him anymore.
We're so streamlined and so organized and everything
is conducted so tidily and neatly.
Wow!
But to disturb that its smoothness would really
be awful.
Have you no room in your church for
the Holy Spirit?
How long is it?
How many Sundays have gone by since something
happened in that church which can only be
explained by miracle?
When we have to stand back with wonder
and amazement and say, Oh God!
You were in this service.
I'm not being critical.
I'm only concerned.
Only concerned.
Concerned that in this great project with all
it will take we make great big room
for the Holy Spirit to move in.
And of course you see that starts with
you and with me.
How much room is there in my home
in my heart for the Holy Spirit?
Let me tell you a friend of mine
who is an evangelist in Britain was staying
a little time ago at a town.
He told me this story.
Went to take a ten day evangelistic campaign.
The people with whom he stayed had a
lovely home.
Husband and wife.
Lovely Christian people.
And in their home they had a German
girl who was what we call an au
pair girl.
She was there to learn the language and
the culture and so on.
And she was helping in the house.
And this girl was an avowed atheist.
Absolutely hated anything to do with religion.
And she was dumbfounded to find herself working
in a Christian home.
Hated it.
The husband and wife called her in one
day and said look we have a preacher
coming this weekend and we want him to
have red carpet treatment.
Would you look after him very well and
go to the butcher's store and order a
particular portion of the animal that we want
to have in the home.
And they gave her all the details.
The girl went off to the butcher's shop
and ordered the meat.
And the butcher was so amazed at her
being so particular he said to her have
you somebody special come into your house?
Oh she said it's only some preacher.
Or other.
And he gave her the meat and she
was going out to shop but just before
she went out the door she turned and
flashed back at him the fusser making you'd
think the good lord was coming.
She banged the door.
He was quite surprised.
My friend was in the house and the
week went by and she came back the
following weekend for the next order of meat
and the butcher recognized her.
And she said by the way he said
to her how are you getting on with
your preacher friend?
Oh she said do you remember I said
to you you'd think the good lord was
coming to our house?
He said I sure do.
Well she said he came.
That's all.
Could that have been your home?
Could that have been you?
A man not one thing behind the podium
and something else off duty inconsistent but a
man who reflected Christ seven days a week
and that and only that broke down the
atheistic cynicism of that German girl I told
her ye are the light of the world
the sun the moon the world what happens
when the moon gets in the way of
the sun?
Eclipse what happens when a man gets in
the way of God?
Eclipse total sometimes the moon's
just like a little pencil a little moon
a new moon and the sun barely touches
it just a little bit of light until
one day one night there's a glorious in
your life beloved in relation to God and
in your impact on the world or are
you just a little moon just a little
moon or are you