Let's read some verses from Paul's first letter
to the Corinthians, chapter 3, and reading from
verse 1.
First Corinthians, chapter 3, reading from verse 1.
And I, brethren, could not speak unto you
as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even
as unto babes in Christ.
I have fed you with milk and not
with meat, for hitherto ye were not able
to bear it.
Neither yet now are ye able, for ye
are yet carnal.
For whereas there is among you envying, and
strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal and
walk as men?
For while one saith, I am of Paul,
and another, I am of Apollos, are ye
not carnal?
Who then is Paul?
And who is Apollos, but ministers by whom
ye believed?
Even as the Lord gave to every man,
I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave
the increase.
So then neither is he that planteth anything,
neither he that watereth, but God that giveth
the increase.
One of the most forgotten men in the
church, at least amongst the so-called great
men, was a man by the name of
Henry Varley.
He was a great preacher and on one
occasion he shot out a statement which has
become a kind of classic in the vocabulary
of preachers.
He said, the world is yet to see
what God can do through one man who
is totally committed to Jesus Christ.
Well, it was a kind of a narrow
shot of the venture, but in the audience
there was a young man, he wasn't very
learned, his education was almost zero, but he
kind of caught that thought as it went
past.
No man, the world has not yet seen
a man who is a hundred percent committed
to Jesus Christ, and so he said under
his breath, well, by the grace of God,
I'll be that man.
All he did was sell shoes in a
store there in Chicago.
And some of you know him, I'm sure,
his name was D.L. Moody.
You know, when I think of that, I
always take issue with it because I'm quite
sure that that was not a true statement.
The world is yet to see.
Are you suggesting God had had to wait
two thousand years, that Jesus had to find
a man that he could totally inhabit because
all self and sin had been purged out
of him, and his will had been surrendered,
and his personality, he was a love slave
to God?
Why, right at the beginning of history, Christian
history, there was a man who was so
totally sold out to God that we, I
don't think I've ever seen his like since.
You remember his story begins, as far as
we're concerned, going down the Damascus Road.
And in the 26th of Acts, where he
gives his testimony before a gripper, he doesn't
cover the blemishes, he doesn't try to minimize
the wicked zeal that he has, he doesn't
say, I'm sorry, and trembling and blushing that
I have to admit that I was a
murderer.
He says, I went down that road and
I was going to exterminate the whole church
of Jesus Christ.
Being exceedingly mad, he says, not just mad,
he was blazing with anger, to think that
some people were following a man who died
on a cross, to think they wouldn't go
to the temple and offer sacrifices, and regard
the high priest, and go through all the
different and very wonderful things on the calendar
of the church, or their church.
But going down that Damascus Road, God got
hold of that murderer, and made him a
messenger.
He got hold of the persecutor, and made
him the greatest preacher ever.
He got hold of the executor, and made
him the greatest expounder of the gospel that
the world has ever seen.
He says, giving his own testimony, that when
he went down that Damascus Road, that the
Lord appeared unto me.
He revealed himself to me.
But later he says, he revealed himself in
me.
He daringly says over and over, you remember
Galatians 2 20, quote it so often, that
I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live,
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.
I believe that's the most awesome thing any
man can say this side of eternity.
Not that he walked on the moon, not
that it isn't the who's who.
The only who's who I'm interested in, God's
who's who.
When we get up there, there'll be some
shocks I think.
The greatest thing that could ever cross your
lips, is to stand and say to the
world, the flesh, the devil, the in-laws,
and outlaws, Christ liveth in me.
And the life which I now live in
the flesh, not when I shuffle off this
mortal coil, as Shakespeare says, but the life
I now live in the flesh, surrounded with
all the adversities, and temptations, and trials, and
all the things that can come, and yet
Christ liveth in me.
And the life which I now live in
the flesh, I live by the faith of
the Son of God, who loved me and
gave himself for me.
Paul has an amazing pedigree, he forgets it
all.
As he ends his letter to the Galatians,
he says in the 14th verse of chapter
6, but God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ, by which the world is crucified to
me, and I am crucified to the world.
Now there's a thing you and I have
never seen.
We have never seen the agonizing death of
a man on a cross.
Oh well, of course in the days of
the Romans, it was a sport.
Immediately a man was nailed to the cross,
he lost all his rights.
And if you ever get nailed to the
cross, you'll lose all yours too.
Immediately he was nailed on the cross, and
he was exalted, the people could do as
they like.
They could throw a bucket of filth on
him, they could throw their rotten eggs, they
could stone him, he had no rights.
And before he died, his eyes would be
gouged out, his ribs would be broken, blood
would be dripping from him, and everybody got
excited, particularly if it was a kind of
a Barabbas who was there.
He deserves all he gets, he's destroyed other
people's lives, he's raped people, he's broken people's
minds, and so they go on with a
list of things that he'd done.
And he should die a thousand deaths, but
as soon as the bell tolled in the
city, they didn't stay there.
They went back into the city.
At six o'clock, they could see that
bleeding victim.
There was nobody there at six o'clock
in the morning.
On the arms of the cross were the
vultures.
They'd pick out the eyes, they'd tear the
body, the blood would run out.
Then the dogs came out of Jerusalem and
licked up the blood as they did the
blood of Jezebel.
Nobody wanted to photograph it, they didn't have
photography, but nobody wanted to see it.
A bloody spectacle.
A man whose innards were hanging out, a
man whose body is so distorted you could
hardly tell it was a human frame.
It had been lashed with rocks, it was
covered with filth, it had only excrements and
every other offensive thing.
And Paul says, when I said goodbye to
the world, I said goodbye to a filthy
thing.
The world is crucified to me.
It's a filthy world, it's a corrupt world.
But not only that, he says, I'm crucified
to the world.
People would say of the Apostle Paul, here's
a man who's got acres of culture, he's
got a colossal intellect, he'll be a greater
high priest than Hillel or any other high
priest you ever had in history.
And the fool of a man, he's been
so charmed with this Christianity that he's resigned
all that he could have in the world.
Yeah, it's easier for you and I to
sing with Isaac Watts, were the whole realm
of nature mine.
I'm afraid we don't do it.
Love's so amazing, so divine.
This man had a revelation of God that
I don't think anybody's had before or since.
I'm quite sure he quoted with fervency, God
so loved the world that he gave his
only begotten son.
He sees the great expanse of the world.
Why, look at this man's staggering life.
He began his life in the historic capital
of the world, Tarsus.
He ended his life in the military capital
of the world, Rome.
He went to the intellectual capital of the
world, in the 17th of Acts there, and
they discovered this little undersized man.
When they saw him, they said his bodily
presence is weak, and discovered he had a
staggering scintillating intellect.
They quoted poetry, answered with poetry.
They quoted philosophy, answered with philosophy.
They quoted their history, he answered with their
history.
This man is all round, he's a fully
developed man.
And they're staggered by this amazing man.
And then he came to a situation that
the great Scottish preacher called some years ago.
I'm trying to think of his name, it
was James something.
But anyhow, years ago he said, they listened
intently to Paul.
They were staggered that this little Jew should
know so much about Greek history, Greek philosophy.
I'm sure he'd read Plato, all the other
stuff.
But then, as the great preacher says, he
took the trumpet of the resurrection.
He went down the street, and when he
saw the street, it was lined with churches,
as we would say.
It was lined with places of worship.
Oh, this doesn't stagger too many of us,
does it?
We just go down the street and say,
there's a Roman Catholic church, that's Jehovah's Witnesses,
that's the Mormons, where the Hare Krishna meet
there, and the Mooniites meet there, and so
on.
Does it stir you that those people have
been teaching false gods, and they rape people's
minds, just as a man might rape a
girl's body?
It says in the Sleepy Elizabethan English, that
when he saw all these people, colossal intellects,
many of them, and yet they were tricked
and duped by false religion.
And it says in the Sleepy Elizabethan English,
that his spirit was stirred within him.
I'm not very fond of the Amplified, except
where it agrees with me, that the Amplified
doesn't say his spirit was stirred within him.
He says that when he saw all these
people tricked, seduced by deceiving spirits, he was
angry about it.
Do you ever feel a holy anger?
Okay, can you push over?
There's quite a lot of people wanting to
come in.
Would you move that way, and let them
sit at the end here, on the end
seats, if you can.
Move to the center, and then they won't
have to move everybody else.
There's some seats here, I'll have to take
another offering, they came in late.
We're dealing with 1 Corinthians chapter 3, and
talking about, at the moment, we're talking about
the 14th verse of the Epistle to the
Galatians, where Paul says, God forbid that I
should glory.
No man ever had a pedigree greater than
the Apostle Paul.
Of the tribe of Benjamin, of the seed
of Abraham, he has everything going for him.
Again, I say, I believe he had a
colossal intellect, I think he had a very
brilliant mind.
He met the philosophers, I said he began
his life in the ancient capital of the
world, Tarsus.
He went to the intellectual capital of the
world, which was Athens, and he reasoned with
them there, and yet there is no Epistle
of Paul to the Athenians.
Why?
Well, I'm not going to criticize Paul, I'm
just going to say this, he didn't talk
about redemption, what he did say, and they
couldn't believe it, he took the gospel trumpet
to his lips, and he sounded the resurrection.
You see, they did have an altar to
an unknown God, and he said, that's the
unknown God I declare to you.
He made the heavens and the earth, his
son died and rose again, and he was
resurrected, and they showed him the gate.
No, we can't listen to that kind of
stuff.
From there, he went from the intellectual capital
of the world, and he'd been also, later
he'll go to the religious capital of the
world, Jerusalem, but he steps down from the
place where they worship the brain, to the
place where they worship the body, Corinth.
In the days of the apostle, you didn't
have to string a hundred adjectives together about
a man's corruption, and his licentiousness, and everything
else, you just tagged him with one word,
he's a Corinthian, and immediately you knew he
was the vilest of the vile.
And the old German commentator, Meier, not F.
B.
Meier, he was English, but F., the other
Meier, a German commentator, says this, blessed and
sublime miracle of God, that a church of
Jesus Christ could be established in Corinth.
Shakespeare said, you can't make a a silk
purse out of a sow's ear.
God can do better than that.
He can take the most depraved, despised, and
rejected men, and make them saints to God.
It says in the first of Samuel there,
he lifts the beggar from the dunghill, and
makes them princes unto God.
I remember about 15 or 16 years ago,
when we were working with Dave Wilkerson in
those days, when David was hardly known, and
yet we had a full house.
This side of the prayer chapel was filled
with girls, this with men, and a little
fellow stood up, and he said, Brother Ravenhill
has come to preach for us.
A little Puerto Rican fellow, his face was
radiant, and he said, before he sang, we
stand up and sing.
Sing the national anthem.
Oh, I thought, Bologna, sing the national anthem,
right before I preach.
I didn't get what he said.
He didn't say, sing the national anthem.
He sang our national anthem.
He said, we sing our national anthem.
So I thought, the Puerto Ricans must have
one.
And he stood up there, and you know,
he started to sing.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved
a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I'm found.
T'was grace that taught my, t'was
grace.
And you know, before we got to the
end, when we've been there 10,000 years,
he changed it to 10 million.
It wasn't bad, 10 trillion would have been
better, but he got there, and you know,
there wasn't a dry eye on those girls
who had been prostitutes.
Some of them had carried guns.
Everyone had been changed.
The tears were flowing.
They used to make other people weep.
Now they're weeping.
Why?
Amazing grace.
Sure, Paul loved the world.
God so loved the world that he gave
his only son.
And then afterwards, he writes to Ephesians.
He not only loved the world and gave
his son, he says, he loved me.
But he says, Christ gave himself for the
church.
But greater than loving the world and loving
the church, he says, do you know what
he did?
He loved me.
Do you ever fall at his feet and
say, thank you, Lord, for saving my soul,
not our souls?
Thank you for blotting out the horrible record
of my sin.
Some of you didn't have much, and it's
true that those who have been saved from
much love much.
You remember that brilliant king?
He was mentioned this morning in Psalm 51.
And in another time, he says what?
He lifted me up out of a horrible
pit.
This hand was running with crime, and this
with adultery, and my history was rotten.
And he isn't asking, Lord, just kindly forgive
my sins, and I'll go about my business.
He isn't asking for some superficial knowledge that
somehow the relationship is kind of restored and
all is well.
He goes further than that.
He says, search me in Psalm 139, and
know my heart.
Try me and know my thoughts, and see
if there be any wicked way in me.
He says in that 51st Psalm, I want
truth in the inward part.
Oh, that's cutting close, isn't it?
Not just out of my mind and my
conscience, but in the inward part, the central
register of my being, that truth may be
there.
Paul finishes his letter to the Galatians.
Oh, it's so beautiful.
He doesn't have his tongue in his cheek
and say, you know, I wonder if I've
done the right thing.
I could have had a good influence for
God, if I'd stayed in the old place,
and I had a worldwide reputation, and no,
no, no, no, no.
I like what he says at the end
of the chapter there.
I'm reading from the Living Bible, King James.
And the 17th verse of the last chapter
says this.
I like it.
Listen to his defiance.
From henceforth, let no man trouble me.
I bear in my body the marks of
the Lord Jesus.
I think Moffat translates that.
Henceforth, let no man trouble me.
I bear in my body the brands of
Jesus Christ.
Oh, they knew what he meant in the
temple of Heracles, in the days of slavery.
A man would run away from his taskmaster,
brutal taskmaster, and he would rush to the
temple.
They had priests there.
They were on guard day and night, often
asleep, but anyhow, that's what preachers are.
And you might have to wake the preacher
up, and you say, hopefully he says, have
you escaped?
Yes, I've escaped.
Brand me, brand me.
Well, choose your weapons.
What, you know, like we brand cattle here?
Which guard do you want to be branded
with?
He chooses the stigmata.
He chooses the mark, the brand of a
certain guard, and he's branded on his hands.
Can you imagine him putting his hand out,
clenching his teeth, and that flesh sizzles when
that hot iron goes on it?
He slips down his toga if he was
wearing one, and he's branded on the back
of his neck.
He lifts up his foot, and he's branded
on his instep.
Paul says, don't trouble me.
I'm branded.
I bear the marks of a slave.
I'm a bond slave of Jesus Christ.
I've no will of my own.
I've no rights of my own.
There's an old hymn established on that very
theme.
Let my hands perform his bidding.
Let my feet run in his ways.
Let my eyes see Jesus only.
Let my lips speak forth his praise.
All for Jesus.
All my being's ransom powers.
All my thoughts and words and doings.
All my days and all my hours.
This man is no professional preacher.
Preaching is not a profession, it's a passion.
A man can't preach with passion, he shouldn't
preach at all.
Not a profession, a passion.
There's no breath of professionalism anywhere in the
ministry of Paul, and thank God there's no
breath of commercialism either.
Peter said in his day, there are some
who will make merchandise of you.
That couldn't be more true than the day
in which we're living.
I bear in my body the marks of
the Lord Jesus.
I bear here at the back of my
neck, a brand which tells you that this
part of my being, my thinking, my philosophy
is that of Jesus Christ, my teaching, my
feet.
Isn't it staggering how far this amazing man
went?
Look at his mystery journeys without airplanes, without
trains.
God put something in him.
The stupid world tried to get it out
of him.
But God put something in him, and they
lashed him 195 times, and they couldn't whip
it out of him.
And he hung on a piece of wood
in the Mediterranean for 36 hours, and they
couldn't wash it out of him.
And they tried to threaten it out of
him.
But almighty God put something in there, you
see.
They were not trying to kill the apostle
Paul, the idiots.
They were trying to kill Jesus Christ, because
Christ lived in him.
And he says, I don't know whether to
desire and depart or be here, because it's
not much better off up there, in one
sense.
I've still got Christ inside.
He says his life is head with Christ
in God.
So you see this man moving, establishing churches.
What an amazing thing.
And I often say this to young preachers
who ask me about preaching, and I don't
know much about it.
I've been trying to do it for about
60, or just over 60 years now.
It's still a mystery, I think, as dear
pastor said this morning.
You see, some people have got everything out
in one, two, three, four.
If they have, I throw the book away.
The older I get, the more I realize
great is the mystery of godliness.
Why isn't God brooding over our stained glass
windows in America this morning?
Why isn't he brooding on our super multi
-million dollar TV and radio programs with all
the flash and show they have?
The greatest areas where God is breathing this
morning is amongst people that are in poverty
and in need.
The Africa, pardon me, the revival in Nagaland,
which is northeast India.
I read a report a brother sent recently,
he went expecting a finnick-like revival.
We think we're going to make a carbon
copy and say, Lord, double it that way.
Now, you know, don't rock the boat.
In the 11th of July, in the Wall
Street Journal, which I'm sure many of you
take because of your interests, investments, but in
the Wall Street Journal for the 11th of
July, it says, I was going to bring
the document, I forgot it, but it says
there, an evangelical revival is moving over America
just now, but it's having little effect.
That's like saying there was an earthquake from
California to New York last night, 8.6
on the Richter scale, but nobody felt it.
You talk about the fullness of God, what
Paul did, you know, right after he was
born again, after that miracle happened on the
Damascus Road.
I'm glad one man stayed to listen what
God had to say that morning, he didn't
just pray, he listened and God said, Ananias,
get up and go to the street called
Straighten, that's the house.
Isn't it great to know that God knows
your name and address?
Postman may forget it, but God knows it.
And he goes down and says to him,
Brother Saul, that must have startled him.
I mean, he was going to kill that
man, and he goes and says, Brother Saul,
the Lord has appeared unto thee for this
purpose to make thee a minister, and you
know, only God can make you a minister,
nobody else can do that.
They may teach you a few things in
Bible school, but they never make you a
preacher.
The Lord has appeared to thee.
And then he disappears, he goes into the
wilderness.
God revealed himself in him.
I hope you understand my language here.
I believe in that period of three and
a half years that Paul became spiritually pregnant.
I believe the Spirit of God birthed all
these epistles, which afterwards he would give birth
to.
I believe he birthed all those churches, because
he writes afterwards, doesn't he, to the Galatians,
and he says, Little children, for whom I
troddle in birth.
You talk about out of him shall flow
rivers of living water.
Fourteen epistles if you give him Hebrews, and
I think he wrote Hebrews as well.
Fourteen matchless epistles.
I remind you again, Christianity was not served
up to the world on a silver platter.
Christianity was served up, or it was born
in a sophisticated totalitarian society.
And yet Jesus never said anything about slavery.
All these boys are rushing to Washington.
They then put God's house right, but they
want to put the White House right.
The answer to our present moral and political
and every other dilemma we have in the
nation will not be solved in the Oval
Room at the White House.
It will be solved, if it's solved at
all, in the Upper Room in God's house.
The way the preachers are rushing to Washington,
you'd think that the politicians were the salt
of the earth.
They're not.
They can't put their own house in order,
never mind us.
God strictly forbid that Israel should go down
to Egypt for help, and all these boys
are rushing to the politicians.
They want to get the Bible back in
school.
Well, I'm not too worried about that.
I'd like to see the Bible back in
every home.
Then forget the school.
Some of us want the school teacher to
do what Daddy and Mummy should do.
Do you wonder when he'd surveyed the wondrous
cross?
I think we slip over that way.
You ever see a surveyor on the road?
You know how meticulous he is?
He gets that, well, there are many names
for it, let's call it a telescope.
He gets it, then he looks, and they
wave to each other, and he goes this
way or that.
Oh, a man's very, very careful when he
does a surveying job.
No man surveyed the cross, the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of Glory died like
the Apostle Paul.
My richest gain I count but loss.
Yes, sir, he did it, over and over
and over again.
After all, if you lay the cross on
the ground, it points north, south, east and
west.
It has a message for the whole world.
If you stand it up, it points to
a topless heaven and a bottomless hell, and
the arms, as Charles Wesley said, the arms
of love that compass me would all mankind
embrace.
Paul has no fear.
Do you know what he did?
I would to God some of you fellows
would do it.
Do you know what he once did?
He said, I bowed the knee to the
Father, and because he bowed the knee to
the Father, he never bowed the knee to
anybody else.
Neither demons or politicians or kings.
He stood there, regal.
Isn't it something that there's a man there,
swarven, in his gorgeous robes and his beautiful
rings, and all society gasping when Felix walks
in?
And before he finished, Felix's knees were knocking
together.
It says Felix trembled.
He goes to one of the most distinguished
men of the day, and what does he
say?
You almost persuade me to be a Christian.
I'm on the very verge of it.
Paul says, I would to God that you
are even as I am, except for these
chains.
Isn't that lovely?
He has his chains on.
The difference between Paul and the man on
the throne, the man on the throne had
chains, but they were on the inside.
Paul's chains were on the outside.
He had none on the inside.
He was free, free from the fear of
men, free from the fear of consequences, free
from anything the devil might put on him
or other people.
From henceforth, he says, let no man trouble
me, for I bear in my body the
marks of the Lord Jesus.
I'm afraid that Paul would look with compassion
and real pity on our feeble faith.
I sometimes say this is a day of
thin theology and fat preachers, and I'm sure
it is.
There's no sentimental Christianity with the Apostle Paul.
There's no such thing as coming to the
cross and just getting your sins forgiven.
No, no, no, no, no.
The man who only wants his sins forgiven
is trifling with Christianity.
He needs more than his sins forgiven.
He needs more than that horrid record.
Maybe you've sinned enough to damn a thousand
people, and God in his infinite mercy, when
you confess and you plead and you're broken
hearted and you're penitent and you repent, he
takes that record and flings it into his
eternal backyard as like, never to be remembered
against us anymore forever.
The man needs more than forgiveness.
He needs cleansing.
He needs more than cleansing.
He needs indwelling.
He needs to get to the reach of
the bondage of sin.
He becomes a bond-servant of Jesus Christ.
Now, I said Paul came to the intellectual
capital where they worshipped the brain, and he
came down to Corinth where they worshipped the
body.
The continual talk in Athens was wisdom.
The continual talk in Corinth was wickedness.
I don't read he sent out a letter
asking for support to get there.
I don't read he made reservations in the
Holiday Inn or somewhere.
This man is prepared to follow the step
of Jesus every way, as far as possible.
Somebody said to a friend of mine recently
who might be doing some building for God,
he said, listen, let me give you a
word of advice.
Don't build anything that will embarrass you in
a few years.
That's a very good point.
I see God's money going in stately buildings
and swimming pools and tennis courts, and I
want to vomit.
With a world starving, with a mission field
needing money, Paul attacks Corinth.
Well, he doesn't go with his philosophical stuff.
He doesn't dazzle them with his knowledge.
He says, listen, he begins the epistle, doesn't
he, by saying, I'm not coming to you
with enchantizing words of man's wisdom?
Almost saying, I just tried that out at
the last place, and those philosophers and Stoics
and Epicureans and others, they marvel.
They open their eyes.
They were staggered by what I said, but
I didn't get through to them.
And so I'm going right back, back, back
to the foundation.
Some years ago, there was a professor in
America.
His book has recently been republished.
I think, I'm not sure if it was
at Yale, no, Princeton.
He was only in his forties when he
contracted a terrible disease.
His body began to droop.
He began to shuffle.
He tried to get an answer to his
problem, and he couldn't.
And so, one day, somebody said to him,
you need to go to Paris.
There's a doctor there.
Now, this was when ships were slow, not
even fast ships, and so on and so
forth.
And he said, I'm not going to go
to Paris.
I'm not going to go to Paris.
I'm not going certainly no planes.
When he got to Paris, somebody said to
him, no, no, no, we don't have the
answer.
I think you'll find it in Geneva.
And Geneva, they said, no, we don't have
the answer here.
The answer is in Austria.
He got to Austria, and somebody said, no,
the answer is in France.
He got to France, he said, it's across
the channel in England.
In England, they said, no, no, no, no,
no, we don't have the answer.
The physician who has the answer is there
in Scotland.
When he got there, the physician said, I'm
sorry, I don't have the answer to it.
We've done some investigation, but we've got no
answer.
Like our day, we can diagnose cancer, we
can't cure it.
We're so busy putting billions into armaments, we
let folk die on our doorstep, so we'll
have enough stuff to destroy other countries.
Isn't that wonderful?
Don't have the answer.
He came back.
He was tempted on the ship almost to
throw himself overboard.
One day, he was going down the street
not far from Princeton.
A man said to him, excuse me, sir,
aren't you Professor James?
He said, yes.
Well, you're very sick.
Isn't it amazing, people state the obvious.
I was lying in plaster from my chin
to my toes.
I jumped out of a burning hotel in
1951.
I broke my back in three places, my
left leg was in three pieces, my feet
were in both broken up.
Here I'm lying in bed, you know, can't
turn, can't do anything, can't shave, can't feed
myself.
My darling wife watched me day and night.
And somebody walks in and says, hello, Brother
Raymond, are you sick?
No, I'm just getting ready to play tennis.
Can't you see I've got my tennis things
on?
It's pouring rain and you're soaking.
So I said, oh, it's raining.
Oh, thanks for the news.
Shivering with cold.
It's cold.
Yeah, that's why I muffled up to my
ears.
It's cold.
You're sick.
You need to find a deliverer.
Friend, there's no deliverance.
I've been all over Europe.
I've spent a fortune.
So he said, if you go down the
street and knock on the door of so
-and-so and tell him John sent you.
Why?
Does he have the answer?
Mm-hmm.
The professor went and knocked at the door.
Just a little laboring man came.
His hands were not, you know, those smooth,
gentle hands that could take a scalpel and
do surgery.
They were all knotted and gnarled.
And the man obviously wasn't very well educated.
The professor said, as you see, I have
a terrible disease and it's galloping.
It's getting hold of me quickly.
And I do want to get rid of
it and I understand you have a cure
for it.
The man said, well, I can pray for
you.
The professor said, what?
He said, I can pray for you.
I can put some oil on your head.
And Professor James said, my psychology was saying
that won't work.
And my pride was saying, you can't kneel
in front of this ignoramus, you with a
couple of PhDs.
But you see, the PhDs didn't do anything
for him.
And all his philosophers didn't do anything for
him.
So he went in the house.
And he said, sir, whatever you say, I'll
do it.
The man said, kneel down.
He knelt down.
The little fellow got some oil, put it
on his hand.
Papa would have enjoyed doing this.
Put some oil on his head.
I've done that thousands of times, I think,
whether it's alone or two.
Some of us, brother, here.
The professor's waiting.
He thought some flash would come from heaven
or something.
The man put his trembling hands on the
head of the great professor.
And he said a few things.
And then he said, in the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, be made whole.
The professor jumped out.
I felt as though 10,000 volts of
electricity touched me.
Oh, yeah, my legs are all right.
Yeah, I'm great.
I don't know how it happened.
The little man said, I don't either, except
that God was faithful to answer prayer.
The point is, he went halfway around the
world in order to answer, find an answer.
And we're going all around the world.
We're trying to find an answer through psychology
and paradise and paradise and heaven knows what.
And the answer is in the old rugged
class so despised by the world.
It's got every answer to our human dilemma,
or even sickness and mental disorders.
I don't care how you emphasize the tragedy
that Adam brought into the world.
Are you going to suggest to me that
there is no way where the human heart
can be cleansed?
Did Satan pollute the very foundation of human
society?
And God has no answer to that pollution?
I like that hymn, Break Thou the Bread
of Life.
I like the phrase in it that says,
that then shall all bondage cease and all
fetters fall.
Paul had seen men and women redeemed from
corruption.
He'd seen them transformed and now he's writing
to them 18 months afterwards.
And he says, you're carnal.
You're carnal.
He uses two different words in the Greek
here for carnality and I'm not going to
struggle with them this morning.
I'm sure you're not too interested.
The point I want to emphasize is this.
He says, you're babes in Christ.
You know, when a man is going to
split a diamond, he has to be very
steady.
He'll look at it from different angles.
He'll magnify any little crack.
It could split the wrong way and just
be no more valuable than much glass.
He's very, very careful.
Or in England, we guard the Queen's jewels,
the crown jewels.
They're surrounded with an electric fence.
You can't steal them.
It's an impossibility.
Nobody ever tried yet anyhow.
I think of Michelangelo when he was cutting
the head of David out of stone or
his Pieta.
Careful less, ooh, one slip and that original
piece would mean that the nose was chipped
off or the ear and it would be
spoiled.
But no man ever cut a diamond.
Michelangelo never worked with more accuracy.
No mother ever had a child that burned
the heart like the care that the Apostle
Paul gave to his church.
The tragedy with so much evangelism is, we
record them as statistics and the preacher goes
on next night, this Apostle Paul was no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, fly-by
-night evangelist.
The most precious thing we ever handle is
the human soul.
The Pieta one day will go up in
dust, the cistern and chapel will be blown
to smithereens, that the soul of a man
will live forever and ever and ever and
ever, either in eternal darkness or eternal bliss.
Heaven is impeccable joy.
There'll be no sorrow.
Hell is eternal misery.
There's no joy.
There is only one way to heaven.
There are a million ways to hell.
What do you do to go to hell?
Nothing.
Just do nothing, that's all.
You don't have to thumb your nose at
God, you don't have to blaspheme the name
of Jesus, you don't have to be adulterer.
Just coast on.
For the greatest sin in the world is
not adultery, the greatest sin in the world
is, I can manage my life without God,
that's the greatest thing.
Paul has established the church, but now he's
deeply, deeply concerned about them.
He says they're babes in Christ.
If you were here about a month ago,
you heard Leland Parris, who is the YWAM
leader for the Americas, North and South America.
He introduced this message by saying that he
had been in a meeting about a week
before with Bill Bright and a few others.
Bill Bright, the founder of the Campus Crusade,
said this, that the Campus Crusade recently took
a poll of Christians in America.
And this is what he said, I've chewed
this over, I've laid awake at night thinking
of it.
Bill Bright said that on their own confession,
95% of the people in America who
profess to be Christian, and it will be
true of other countries, 95% of the
Christians in America said they were one of
two things.
Either I am carnal, a carnal Christian, or
number two, I'm a babe in Christ.
Let me transfer that into the, out of
the spiritual world to the social world, I'm
not being facetious.
It's like listening to the radio tomorrow morning,
or your TV program, and the one who's
addressing it says this, we have just taken
a poll of all the men in the
Air Force, and in the Army, and the
men that are steering our great big multi
-billion dollar, what do you call them, aircraft
carriers, and the men who are piloting those
jets at greater speed than sound, and the
men who are driving the tanks, and the
men who are manning the silos, and the
intercontinental ballistic missiles.
We've checked them all, and we find that
the nation is being operated militarily by Cub
Scouts.
Wouldn't that shock us?
What?
I'm going to bed at night, and there's
a fellow, a little dwarfy boy on board
a multi-million dollar aircraft carrier, Cub Scouts?
I think if we'd digested that, we might
not have had any meetings from then till
now.
We might have been on our faces asking
God Almighty, but listen, here's the thing, why
is Paul arguing here with these people?
He says, because I feed you with milk
and not with meat, you've no digestible, you've
no spiritual digestion.
Well listen, in America alone right now, we
have, I dare to say this before God,
I believe we have hundreds of millions of
gospel cassettes, and we've millions of gospel books,
and we've hundreds of Bible schools, and we've
hundreds, over the year, we have hundreds of
seminars, and we have people memorizing the scriptures,
and we have about 5,000 radio stations
who every day give some part of the
scripture, and yet with all this stuff to
feed on, dear God where are we with
all this stuff to feed on, 95%
of us are spiritual cripples, spiritual infants, spiritual
babes.
Oh it's not the only time he says
that, in Ephesians 4, where is it, in
verse 14, he's careful about the Ephesians there,
Ephesians 4, 14, that henceforth be no more
children tossed to and fro, and carried about
with every wind of doctrine, by the slate
of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie
in wait to deceive you, he's fearful for
the Ephesians, babes in Christ, because
they're babes, they're not able to carry burdens.
I can remember when I was a little
boy, I'd go into the garden, we had
a flower garden as we say in England,
a vegetable garden, and I'd try and pick
up a bucket of potatoes, and I'd strain,
and Dad'd say put it down, you'll hurt
your back.
When I got to be about 13, I'd
go in, I'd see half a bucket, and
I'd pick that up and carry the half
bucket, Father, put it down, you'll carry the
full one, you're strong enough to carry it
now.
If God Almighty only gives us strength, or
burdens equal to our strength, we'll be in
a bad way.
What we need is strength for the burdens
of this day.
I don't believe the Church of Jesus Christ
has ever faced the hostility.
I believe the world today, and in areas
of the Church, is filled with lying spirits,
and doctrines of devils.
Paul is jealous for the old rugged cross,
and you remember what he says?
There are some people who are enemies of
the cross of Christ.
Now notice what he says, he doesn't say
they're enemies of Christ, oh no, they're smart
enough to use the name.
The Mormons use the name of Jesus.
The Mormons say they have gifts of the
Spirit.
The Jehovah's Witnesses talk about Jesus and the
Kingdom, that they're enemies of the cross.
It's the blood that is an offence to
them.
They're enemies of the cross of Christ.
I wonder what he'd say in our day.
I say going down the streets in Athens,
his spirit was stirred, he was angry.
Babies, children, full of self-pity, self-interest,
self-seeking, self-concern, me first.
I never heard of children choosing to fast.
I can heard them, I've heard them when
they turn their nose up, you know, at
spaghetti, or something like that.
They won't be Italians if they turn their
nose up at spaghetti, but some other things,
you know.
Usually it's cabbage, isn't it?
Ugh, spinach.
If only somebody could get ice cream to
taste like spinach, it would be great.
No, no, no, they want to be very
choosy in what they eat and what they
drink.
You say sometimes, I wonder God doesn't burden
me.
Do you know why?
Because he can't trust you, that's why.
You're not strong enough to carry the burden.
Isaac Watts, who wrote when I surveyed the
wondrous cross, also said this, if God Almighty
should call me to control six universes, not
six worlds, six whole universes, I would joyfully
do it, because he'd give compensating grace.
But he said I wouldn't want even to
look after six sheep without his guidance.
Oh, it's easy to be emotional, there's nothing
wrong with emotion, you've got to have some
emotion, but it's wrong when that's all there
is.
Children, they love people, but they only love
emotionally.
Who do they love most?
Oh, Auntie Bessie.
Of course her sisters are far nicer personality,
but her sister happens to be poor.
So when they hear Auntie Bessie comes, they
climb up at the windows, she's coming, she's
coming.
Why?
Because she always brings a gift.
And they just love her on that basis,
because she gives, and gives, and gives.
And some people love God because he gives.
We've got this wretched prosperity stunt.
Paul's very clear, isn't he?
Doesn't he say right into Timothy there, that
you'll come a day when people think that
gain is godliness?
Some of God's choices, saints don't have another
shirt to change.
Read the current issue of Reader's Digest or
borrow it, beg it, steal it, do something.
Steal it and take it back, but anyhow.
There's a tremendous article there this month on
Laos, a country we've forgotten.
You see, I've got a feeling, not because
I'm English, forget my tongue.
I wouldn't have stayed here since 1950, if
I didn't love the country.
God sent me here.
He didn't send you, you had to be
here, you had no option about it, most
of you.
All right, don't look so sad, but I
came because God told me to come.
I'm glad I came.
But let me go back to this.
I believe that the Church is facing the
greatest hostility.
I believe that there's war in the heavens
like there hasn't been.
Why, why, back in 1896, at the time,
95, 96, when the Catholic Convention was founded,
and Mrs. Penn-Lewis was one of the
founders of it, really.
No, she wasn't.
The Welsh Revival came out of, out of
Keswick.
But Mrs. Penn-Lewis in those days said
that we're having an unprecedented invasion of evil
power, and we've had two bloody world wars
since then.
I was going to say, I'm convinced of
this, that right now, as a nation, you
know, we're suffering for the sins of our
fathers, for what we did to the people
in the days of slavery, we're suffering for
it, because he lets us suffer unto the
third and fourth generation.
We're suffering for the destruction in Vietnam.
We're suffering because Mr. Nixon and Kissinger said
we were not bombing Cambodia, and we've been
bombing them a year.
And now the, the, these nice people we're
trying to be friendly with.
Mr. Carter says we can still establish a
second, you know, what is it, phase two
of salt, salt treatment.
Salt treaty.
It'll be salt treatment too, if it goes
through.
They're bloody deceitful, God-defined.
They don't hate America merely, they hate God.
We're going to try and get married politically
to that rotten harlot system?
Well, you'd better watch out, because if we
do, there's going to be an awful lot
of punishment.
I see people reaching into the Old Testament
and, and quoting a scripture for America.
Listen, you can't take scriptures given to Israel.
Israel, first of all, in my judgment, was
not a nation, it was the church.
The people in Israel couldn't marry like other
people.
They couldn't eat like other people.
They couldn't even walk like other people.
They couldn't be socially like other people.
They were to be holy unto God.
Are you suggesting we've ever been really holy
to God?
It's true of the other nations, I'm aware
of that.
If ever God was looking for men who,
as we would say, square their shoulders and
carry the burden, it's in this day in
which we live.
If ever we need to be alert that
we don't get caught and trapped in false
doctrine, it's the day in which we live.
If ever there was a day when we
should put on the whole armor of God,
God in heaven, you know, apart from Mussolini,
he was the first to train schoolboys as
soldiers, that we don't send schoolboys to the
battle.
You don't send babies to battle.
They want bottles, not battles.
They want the nursery, not the armory.
How often do you go to a prayer
meeting where you feel there's real engagement against
principalities and powers and the rulers of the
darkness of this world?
One of the most awesome things, I think,
that Jesus ever said was to his disciples,
I give you power over the enemy.
No, no, no, over all the power of
the enemy.
And it includes sickness, I admit that.
But it doesn't mean that merely.
There's only one power that can withstand the
onslaught that's on all the nations of the
earth right now.
And that is the church of Jesus Christ
anointed with the Holy Ghost.
And there's an old saying that all is
fair in love and war.
And I'll tell you what, if you stir
hell up, the devil will stir everything he
can against you.
You'll get misunderstood, misrepresented.
And if you are not thick-skinned, no,
no, no, it's not if you're thick-skinned.
If you're not mature enough, it'll get you
down.
It's not the contradiction of sinners that gets
you down, as Psalm 1 says, it's the
criticism of saints that gets you down.
Eli thought that Hannah was drunk.
Sure she was drunk.
She was drunk with God.
She was intoxicated.
She got through to God.
He was going to remove her barrenness.
Paul is God's intoxicated man.
He uses the two things together in Ephesians,
be not drunk with wine wherein is excess,
but be filled with the Spirit.
Why?
Because when a man is spirit filled, he's
like a drunk man.
You ever try to ridicule a drunk man?
He goes singing on his way, you know.
And you say, you idiot.
And he says, yes, that's right.
I am an idiot.
My father was an idiot.
And you can't get to him.
He's drunk.
Another spirit controls him.
I stopped on a street in Glasgow the
first day of World War II.
And a man came up to me, a
Scotsman.
It was pitch black.
It was a blackout.
And he bumped into me and he says,
who are you?
I gave him my name.
Ah, you're not a Scotsman.
No.
He said, you're an Englishman.
Yeah.
Can you fight?
Oh, no.
I said, I can't fight.
Oh, you can't fight.
Can you sing?
I said, no, I can't sing.
Oh, he struck up Maxwell, Tom Bray's and
Barney, Where Early Falls the Jew.
He meant the Jew, but that was near
enough for a drunk man.
Who's your father?
I told him my father was Walter Ray.
Oh, he says, my father was so and
so and so and so and so.
Then I knew he was drunk because he
put his hand in his pocket and offered
me all his money.
When a Scotsman does that, you know he's
drunk.
If I'd seen that man in the morning
sober, I'd have gone past and said, good
morning.
He may not have said, good morning, as
a Scotsman said.
He possibly looked at me and gone on.
But you see, there was something else that
got control of him.
And therefore he's very vocal and he's very
generous.
And he wants to tell me he's a
Scotsman.
And he wants to let me know that
he can sing.
And he wants to tell me about his
pedigree.
Well, isn't that what happens to a man
who's really filled with the Holy Ghost?
He's liberated from stinginess.
He's liberated from bondage.
He's liberated from fear.
He's liberated from consequences.
Paul says, I don't care what you do
to me.
The outward man may perish, but the inward
man is renewed day by day.
You can wall me in, but you can't
roof me in.
You can send me tribulation, distress, famine, peril,
nakedness, thought, in perils of the deep, in
perils of my own countrymen.
And night and day, I'm in the deep.
You think this man has no sense of
humor when he said all that?
To use another phrase of his, he says,
I'll light affliction, which is but for a
moment.
I think the devil almost bit his tongue
when Paul said that.
Because at the end of Romans 8, he
says, yes, I've had tribulation, distress, famine, peril,
nakedness, thought, all these things.
He puts his shoulders back and says to
the devil, listen, there's nothing present.
There's nothing in things to come.
There's nothing in height.
There's nothing in depth.
There's nothing in any other creature that can
separate me from the love of God.
So go back to hell where you came
from.
You're wasting your time.
You can separate me from the church.
There are tens of thousands of precious believers
in jail this morning, in hell holes.
Oh, I'm sure Mr. Carter hopes to pull
off the hostages getting free and it may
backfire on him.
But I still wonder again why ten to
twenty thousand Jews and other people can get
out of Russia every year and seven Pentecostals
have been in the British, in the American
embassy for the last two years and we
can't get them out.
And somebody challenged Carter on his human rights.
He says, yes, but this isn't political, it's
a, it's a religious thing.
Well, aren't they human too?
Maybe that's a testimony to the power of
Christianity.
They're afraid to liberate seven spirit-filled people.
They might go and upset the world.
They might go and get into Russia and
upset the rotten system.
Paul's blind, he says, I see neither Jew
nor Greek nor bum and no free man.
If I see a king and he has
a gold crown and all his ritual, so
what?
In the sense of him, he's dead.
Because you see, there are only two kinds
of people in the world, those who are
dead in sin and those who are dead
to sin.
Dave's in Christ.
One mark is stubbornness, as a young lady,
I think, testified this morning of stubbornness and
willingness to do what God says.
A lot of you here this morning, you
don't need more light.
This, this will only make it worse for
you at the judgment.
What you need is more obedience.
Some of you have known for years what
you should do and you hold back.
Children are very touchy, aren't they?
Of course, you rationalize this.
You say, no, your trouble is you're so
touchy.
I'm not touchy, I'm sensitive.
You're full of pride.
I just have a lot of self-respect.
You've got a temper.
I have righteous anger.
You can always work it out, can't you,
if you want to.
I've self-respect, you're full of pride.
But aren't children very touchy?
Aren't they very easily offended?
You know, some of us are not only
offended at what comes from other people, we're
offended at what God says to us.
One mark of carnality is stubbornness.
There used to be a great school, it
isn't, well, it's got another name now.
It used to be in Chicago in 1950
when I first went there.
I've forgotten its full name, it was an
evangelical something.
And at that time, Dr. Harry Jessup was
the pastor.
He came to England and preached.
I remember him saying his, his sister had
a beautiful little girl, just, just a model
little girl.
And she was pretty spoiled.
And she always had pretty clothes.
And she had a pretty good mind.
And she, she knew a poem with about
12 stanzas.
And the relatives were coming to dinner, and
mother said, now, darling, I bought you a
new dress, and after dinner, I'm going to
stand you on that chair, and you're going
to say your poem.
Yes, mummy.
And when dinner was over, mother said, I
want you to hear now what, what Peggy's
learned.
She has learned such a lovely poem.
It's got about 10 lines in each stanza.
There are 12 stanzas, and my little daughter,
four, is going to recite it for you.
Come on, darling.
She stood on the chair, and little Peggy
stood up and went.
But mother said, Peggy, say your piece.
Peggy, say your piece.
If you don't, you're going upstairs.
Peggy again.
Mother took her upstairs and put in a
big old cupboard they had, and put the
latch on.
And sure enough, she got so lost in
the party, she forgot Peggy was up there.
Oh, Peggy's upstairs.
Poor little mate.
When she got up there, she heard a
noise.
And this is funny.
She opened the door.
There was Peggy, and she said, are you
going to say your piece?
She said, no.
What were you doing just now?
She had a nice little list.
She said, spitting.
I spit on your dress, I spit on
your fur, I spit on your shoes, and
I'm just waiting for more spit.
In other words, she'd made up her mind.
She wasn't going to do as mummy says.
Now, let's break this down for a minute.
He says, your babes, and he diagnoses the
trouble.
He says there is among you envy, and
pride, and division.
And the scripture says envy is as rottenness
of the bones.
You say, well, I've been in trouble with
pride.
I know even more since I was saved.
I've been in trouble with bad temper.
I've been in trouble with envy.
I've been in trouble with doubt.
Come on.
What are you going to do with it?
I've asked the Lord to help me.
Well, he won't help you.
Why not?
Because he says he won't.
No, he won't help you to control it.
God never excuses sin.
What he does is execute it.
He says, take it to the cross.
That's the thing.
Many of us are like the old lady.
She had a dog, a very, very nice
dog given to her, a pedigree dog.
Had a long, long tail.
It should have been cut off.
Somebody asked her, did she have papers for
the dog?
She said, yes, all over the floor.
But, the dog, you see, this dog should
have no tail.
It needs its tail cutting off right up
to the rump there.
Oh, I didn't know that.
The man went a few months after the
dog had half a tail.
He says, you've done it wrong.
You should have, you should have cut it
right up to its rump.
No, she said, that's cruel.
I cut two inches off every month.
Well, that's what some of us try to
do.
You know, I don't think I'll be as
carnal next year as I've been this year.
I don't think I'll be as, you know,
as touchy.
I think I'll grow up next year.
I don't think my temper will be as
bad.
I don't think I'll be as critical.
I don't think I'll be as unkind.
I don't think I'll be, you know, so
feeble in my prayer life.
I don't think I'll be so self-centred.
Again, read Romans 7.
It's self-centred.
19 times, I, I, I, go into, and
then go through the same chapter and count
how many times the Holy Spirit is mentioned.
He's not mentioned once.
Why?
Because it's a self-centred life.
And you go into Romans chapter 8, the
victorious life.
Romans 7 is a funeral march.
Romans 8 is a bondage.
Romans 8, Paul's singing, Out of my bondage,
sorrow, and night, Jesus, I come.
Romans then 7, 31 times, I, I, I.
Romans 8, I only twice.
When he says, I reckon and I am
persuaded.
But 19 times the Holy Spirit is mentioned
because it's a Spirit-dominated life in chapter
8.
Almost the last thing to say here, let
me read a verse, again from Galatians.
Galatians 4, if you look at it a
minute, and, and verse 1.
Excuse me.
This, this is the most devastating thing of
all, I think, on this level of spiritual
infancy.
Now I say that the heir, as long
as he is a child, differeth not from
a servant.
Do you notice that?
Here is a man, or a boy, say
he's 13, 14 years of age, his daddy's
left him a thousand acres, a nice little
leered, leered jet, a lovely yacht, ten million
dollars in money, and yet that boy of
15 is as helpless as the servant that's
cleaning the stables.
Why?
He's an heir.
His mother can prove she bore the child
to the man that died recently.
His relatives can testify.
He also has a birth certificate, but he's
not a bit of good.
The heir, as long as he is a
child, differeth not from a servant, though he
be lord of everything.
But he's under tutors and governors until the
time appointed of the Father.
Do you remember some of those awesome words
Jesus said to the disciples, I've many things
to tell you, but you cannot bear them?
I say, reverend, the almighty God, don't say
that to me at the judgment seat.
Don't let me stand before John Wesley and
Finney and all the great saints of the
ages, and say, Ravenel, I've many things to
tell you, you're so preoccupied with this, so
preoccupied, I couldn't get through to you, and
if I could, you weren't mature enough to
handle it.
Isn't it easy to spit texts out, if
you'll forgive that rough word?
Isn't it easy to say, you know, in
this generation, we're going to fulfill the word
of Jesus, where he said, greater things than
these shall ye do?
Boy, I'd like to see us start with
some of the lesser things right now.
I'd like to see a bunch of men
go and say, I'm going to stay in,
say, somewhere like, well, if you like, nearby
Dallas, though it's teeming with Bible students and
what have you got.
But going to a city like Finney did
and say, I'm not moving out of this
city until there are two moves, until God
moves and the devil gets out of the
place.
We don't have anybody like that, we're fly
by night.
We want our big love offerings.
We want glamour.
Paul never glamorized the gospel, it's a bloody
gory gospel, it's a bloody gospel, it's a
sacrificial gospel.
I believe the cardinal ethic of Christianity is
sacrifice, not success, sacrifice.
Five minutes inside eternity, I believe every one
of us will have wished that we'd sacrificed
more, prayed more, loved more, sweated more, grieved
more, wept more.
You notice, will you, that after the Acts
of the Apostles, I'm going to finish quickly,
after the Acts of the Apostles, the whole
balance of the New Testament is to the
church, it's not to sinners.
Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica and
says, I'm praying night and day, no, no,
no, he says, I'm praying exceedingly, he's praying
the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man
for the church, yes, for the church.
Not that they'll get out of poverty, not
that they'll get out of slavery, he's praying
what?
He says, I'm praying night and day.
What?
He's praying for their faith.
Praying night and day exceedingly that your faith
may be strengthened.
He starts the second epistle of the first
chapter, verse 3, and says, I rejoice, what?
That your faith grows exceedingly.
His prayer had been answered.
They haven't all just become millionaires or famous
personalities, they haven't all become evangelists and teachers
and prophets.
Those things are there and I would to
God they were more manifest than they are
in these days.
I'd like to see the force at Agape
here, I'd like to see the force around
the corner there, the YWAM and over at
Joe's and other places, I'd like to see
a place where we know there's a man,
he's the prophet and he's the evangelist and
he's the teacher, every man standing in his
own place.
The trouble is now, the preacher wants to
be everything in the average church.
He wants to be teacher, preacher, prophet and
everything else.
He ought to be glad he's one spoke
in the wheel.
That these ministries were not given to boys
and girls, spiritually immature.
It must have been a great thing to
follow Jesus for three years, it must have
been a great thing to be a Timothy.
For all that love Paul showed on Timothy,
he kind of says, this is my spiritual
heir, he's coming after me.
And see how much, read his epistles if
you want to know about preaching and teach,
read his epistles, the first and second of
Paul to Timothy.
The heir as long as he liveth, as
long as he's a child, he's no different
from a servant.
But let him come to the age of
maturity.
I have never, never discovered the answer to
this, I'll discuss it with Gordie sometime and
you are the wise men here, three wise
men on the front row.
But you know Paul, isn't it amazing, Paul
is the most profound theologian the church ever
had.
And usually when we talk about apostles, we
call John the apostle, the apostle of love.
But he didn't write 1 Corinthians 13.
Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 13.
Paul says, do you want to know what
my success is, if you put it that
way.
Do you know what it is?
And he goes in the second chapter of
Corinthians 5 and he recites, you know, if
the earthly house is dissolved, we have a
home in the heavens.
And then he comes down and he says,
do you know what the secret is?
The love of Christ constrains me.
I told brother Tony about three months ago,
I said, you know, I saw a very
daring thing today.
He said, what did you see?
Oh, I said, I was coming into a
building and it said agape love on the
outside of it.
It's the greatest thing in the world.
I said, Tony, what we've done, we've hung
a sign on our gate that if you
can't find divine love anywhere, you'll find it
agape.
If you can't find love that never breaks
down, you'll find it agape.
If you can't find love that beareth all
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, we'll
never give up on you.
I mean, we stuck it on the wall
out there.
Now, either it's true or we're hypocrites.
Love, so amazing, so divine, demands my soul,
my life, my all.
And the poet says, love ever stands with
open hands and while it lives, it gives.
For this is love's prerogative, to give and
give and give.
God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten son.
Christ loved the church and gave himself for
the church.
And if you love you, he said, you'll
give your life for your brethren.
That doesn't mean you die for them, it
means you share your life.
It means every day when there's need, you
supply that need.
It's not just saying, well, shoot me instead
of him.
That's easy, man, you'll be out of it.
For you could blink your eyes, you'd be
in eternity, got rid of taxation and everything,
it would be wonderful.
But when it comes down to sharing your
life, it's a very, very different thing.
Let me just look, I, what, I'm going
to take three more minutes, don't know how
much time I have.
I was reading in Romans this morning, Romans
chapter 6.
You know, you can't find in the New
Testament any place where some of the disciples
were saved.
But you can find the place where they're
all filled with the Holy Ghost.
When the children of Israel came out of
Egypt, which is a type of the world,
and they left Pharaoh, a type of the
devil, when they came out of Egypt, they
sang a song, it blew away on the
breeze.
But when they went into the promised land,
Canaan, they built a permanent altar.
They built a pile of stones, a permanent
record, that they were crossing into the promised
land.
A land flowing with milk and honey.
And sometimes we suggest you get filled with
the Spirit, that's the answer to all your
problems.
That's the end of all your problems.
It is, the beginning end.
That's where they start.
Jesus was filled with the Holy Ghost, and
immediately led of the Spirit into the wilderness.
You know the baptism of the Holy Ghost
can do for you?
And boy do we recite it, sure we
should do.
I'll tell you what it did for those
men in Acts 2.
And so many people say, I got an
Acts 2 experience, but Acts 2 goes into
Acts 3.
Where did Acts 3 get them?
In jail.
I know a lot of Spirit-filled people
should be in jail, but apart from that,
it's jail.
It's jail.
It's bondage.
The kind of bondage you put on a
train, when the engine's snorting down the line,
and the only safety is that it's in
control by those two strips of metal.
Otherwise it's a lethal thing.
And Madame Guion says, my freedom is thy
grand control.
The only freedom in the world is to
get into bondage to God.
Out of the bondage of sin, into bondage
for God.
Now look what he says, in the 6
of Romans.
Therefore we are buried with Christ by baptism.
We're buried into what?
Into death.
Verse 5.
For if we have been planted in the
likeness of his death, knowing this, that our
old man, our old self, is crucified with
him, that the body of sin might be
destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
Now look, you're either serving God, or serving
self, or serving sin.
There's no other areas.
Verse 7 is quite a text.
He that is dead is freed from sin.
No, no, it doesn't mean when this body
dies.
The next verse goes on.
Now if we be dead with Christ, we
believe that we shall also rise with him.
Verse 9.
Knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead,
death dieth no more, death hath no dominion
over him.
For in that he died, he died unto
sin once, but in that he liveth, he
liveth unto God.
Likewise reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed
unto sin.
I'll tell you what, when that happens, you
never forget it.
You see, this silly nonsense, you can have
Jesus as your Saviour, but not as your
Lord, is purely unscriptural.
I believe we ought to be blazing mad
about this situation.
Ninety-five percent of Christians in the nation
are weak.
God can't trust them with vision.
He can't trust them with burden.
You can't trust children with jewels.
They've no sense of values.
You can't trust them with something that needs
bravery.
They're too timid.
You can't trust them with the burden, you'll
break them.
In the middle, and I'm through with this,
in the middle of that marvellous, marvellous, unmatched
hymn of love, that I'm sure was Paul's
experience.
He had found that love so amazing.
He had found love that's always patient, that's
never rude.
He had found that love that beareth all
things, lashings, whippings.
Even his revival party broke up.
Spirit-filled men left him because they thought
he was a fanatic.
In the middle of that amazing chapter, it
comes to a dump, I think, Brother Gordy.
I never understand it quite.
He suddenly breaks off and says, when I
became a man.
I believe there's a conscious entry, that just
as surely as the children of Israel knew
when they got through the water and stepped
on the promised land and said, this is
God's country, there came a place in his
life where he knew.
I believe it was after God had revealed
himself to him and after God had revealed
himself in him, and ended up three intense
years of study, he'd even been caught up
into the third heaven.
Do you wonder you can't find two minutes
backsliding in his life?
I think he saw everything John saw, but
God wouldn't let him write it down.
Oh yes, it will be worth it all
when we see Jesus, but between here and
there, there's a thousand pitfalls.
For some of you fellows, a pair of
sparkling eyes.
For some of you girls, a very promising
young man.
There's going to be a great preacher and
God wants you to burn your life out
somewhere else.
For some of you just to be godly
fathers and mothers, there's an awful scarcity of
them right now.
Says the hymn writer, long my sinful heart
was striving to obtain this promised rest, but
when all my struggles ended, simply trusting, I
was blessed.
If you come to this altar this morning,
I'm going to ask you to come for
one thing, because all I know about an
altar, it's for two things.
Then, or in the Old Testament, for sacrifice
and for death.
I could take you to the place where
I knelt once when I was about 18,
considered to be the youth leader of the
church and we'd seen some souls saved.
I got the youth to meet on a
Friday night at 7 o'clock, we prayed
till 9, I got them to preach, to
meet at 6 o'clock, Sunday morning and
we prayed.
I went out in Sherwood Forest and prayed
by myself, weep and groan because I'd read
David Brainerd, he did it and I didn't
know any better and I'm glad I did
it.
I'm not embarrassed, nobody else showed me a
pattern.
I sometimes think God sent me back to
America for what I learned out of that
one brief, abridged book of David Brainerd.
A man that died at 28 years of
age, burned out for God, broken, weeping.
The altar is for sacrifice, let's not cheapen
it.
The altar is for death and then when
we die, we rise again in newness of
life.