Okay, let's look at the book.
The, uh, as I like to remind people,
I always use the, uh, which version do
I use?
Living Bible, King James Version.
An old lady said to me in a
meeting one day, she brought me this Bible,
she was hugging it, it was beautifully bound,
she said, I've got a living Bible.
I said, lady, I never knew there was
a dead one.
It's been living ever since it was translated.
In England, of course.
Wycliffe made a promise, and I think of
it so often, you know, you talk about
the Wycliffe translators, or the Wycliffe, as we
say in England.
I remember that one man, a bishop, decided
he would put the Bible into the hands
of the plowboys.
Used to be tied up in the Latin
tongue, that's what it's been in South America
for centuries.
And he said we'd make it to, uh,
be in everybody's hand.
And I went into an old church in
England, in the north of England, where they
still have a chained Bible, one of these
huge things, and it's on a, uh, little
shelf in the wall, and it has an
iron chain on it, and people used to
come, as often as they could, and read
from the Word of God.
Uh, there's a record in history where a
man said that a man came and offered
him a whole wagon load of hay for
one page of the Bible.
Well, we don't treasure it, you see, it's
commonplace, buy it for a dollar, find some
old copies in Goodwill if you want.
And it doesn't mean too much to us,
very often.
When we sing Beyond the Sacred Page, I
think that, I seek thee Lord, I think
of how often men prefer the sports page
in the magazine, in the paper, particularly Monday
morning.
If you stay around here long enough, you'll,
there'll be a fever, uh, let's see, about
three months away.
It's called Cowboy Fever.
And if you go into Dallas, they talk
more about the cowboys than any other subject.
That was tested by a secular newspaper.
What is the main theme in Dallas?
Oh, the cowboys.
And that's a city full of seminaries and
big churches.
It's a city where two years ago when
the Dallas Cowboys played the, uh, what, Pittsburgh
Steelers, they put a giant screen up in
the first so-and-so church in town
so that they could find the results.
And somebody kept running in saying, Cowboys, you
know, sign language.
Never thought of saying how many people were
lost or gone to hell while they were
preaching.
The Word of God is the Word of
God and it's never going to change.
It's guaranteed that the heavens and earth will
pass away but His Word will not pass
away.
Okay, let's read now from the first chapter
in the book of the Revelation.
Revelation chapter 5.
And I saw in the right hand of
him that sat on the throne a book,
written within and sealed on the back.
It was sealed with seven seals.
And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with
a loud voice, Who is worthy to open
the book and to loose the seals thereof?
And no man in heaven or earth, neither
under the earth, was able to open the
book, neither to look thereon.
And I wept much, because no man was
found worthy to open and to read the
book, neither to look thereon.
And one of the elders said unto me,
Weep not.
Behold a lion of the tribe of Judah,
the root of David, hath prevailed to open
the book and to loose the seven seals
thereof.
And I beheld, and lo, in the midst
of the throne and of the four beasts,
in the midst of the elders, stood a
lamb as it had been slain, having seven
horns and seven eyes, which are the seven
spirits of God, sent forth into all the
earth.
And he came and took the book out
of the right hand of him that sat
upon the throne.
Well, for the last, the previous two sessions,
we talked about worship.
To me, this is the most efficient section
in the church of Jesus Christ.
Again, we've taught people to witness, knock on
doors, do this, do that.
Well, that's not wrong.
We've taught people to witness and we've taught
them to work.
We have not taught them to worship.
I wonder how many sermons you've heard totally
on the subject of worship in your life.
I have never heard one.
And Dr. Tozer told me one day as
we sat together talking, he said, Len, I
have never heard a sermon yet on worship.
You see, we've got the idea that as
soon as you say, the most important thing
is get a bundle of tracts, go on
the street, get witnessing.
That is not the most important thing.
I found some of the most good-looking
girls in the world on the streets in
New York when I worked with Dave Wilkerson
there nearly 20 years ago, gorgeous-looking girls,
prostitutes, who could quote the scriptures, sing blessed
assurance from beginning to end.
Dad knew so much about the church.
And they'd been born of the Spirit, had
gifts of the Spirit, and yet they were
prostituting.
Boys that had been in the front line
of the church who'd just got away.
And I'm convinced of this, that the greatest
thing in the world is not to be
a soul winner.
Just as you hear people say sometimes, you
know the great commission of Jesus, the last
words of Jesus were going into all the
world and printing.
No, they weren't.
The old preacher says that, telling me he
doesn't know what he's talking about.
The last word of Jesus is in the
book of the Revelation where he says to
about six out of the seven churches, repent.
That's with his final word.
I have found missions.
I think the one particularly who came to
me after a meeting in England in a
stately old mansion and he put his arm
around my shoulder and he wept.
There's a book written about his achievements.
He lived on the roof of the world,
which was Tibet for years.
Wore sackcloth around his legs and led his
Beard Grove party to keep warm and couldn't
go out without things around his eyes and
face.
Lived as a missionary.
Oh, it's all about suffering.
Talk about these guys that have been fighting
that foolish war there in the Falklands.
Freezing to death some of them.
Frostbite in their fingers, frostbite in their feet.
Well, this is exactly what happened with the
missionaries in those days.
And yet that missionary admitted the fact that
he had lost his devotional life on the
mission field.
Again, I quoted the fact that Dr. Tozer
told me that as I looked at a
piece of rug there in front of his
desk that he laid, as he said, on
his belly for five and six hours at
a time without offering one word of prayer
and without saying one word of praise, he
just worshipped.
We go to meetings now, they say everybody
raise your hand and worship.
That's not worship, that's praise.
Prayer is preoccupation with our needs.
Praise is preoccupation with our blessings.
Worship is preoccupation with God himself.
As the old hymn says, my goal is
God himself.
I start in every congregation somewhere now, I
stop in the middle of a service, sometimes
when the glory of God seems to be
on the verge.
I want to ask you a question tonight.
Did you come to this meeting tonight to
meet God or to hear a sermon about
him?
99% of people that will flood our
churches on Sunday, I'm convinced, do not go
there to meet God.
They do not expect a confrontation with eternity.
They go to hear a sermon about God.
They become kind of theological technicians.
Hey, he wasn't right there.
He believes in the pre-tribulation rapture.
Brother, that fellow, you know, you should put
him on an island in the middle of
the ocean.
They do not meet God.
Again, in the three months from now when
the cowboys are playing, hardly any church you
can get out of Sunday morning before saying,
hey, do you think Tony's going to score
the first goal this afternoon?
What are the odds?
How many, what do you call them, touchdowns?
Are we going to get over them?
It's the total conversation.
Therefore, football is their God.
What preoccupies your thinking and your time the
most is your God.
So prayer is preoccupation with our needs.
Praise is preoccupation with our blessings, and worship
is preoccupation with God himself.
Now, we don't follow this in America, but
in Europe in almost every denomination, or if
you like, as the old lady said, every
abomination.
But anyhow, in almost every denomination, people stand
to sing.
We don't.
We sit there.
I was in a meeting the other day,
a few days ago.
A fellow comes in and looks at his
girl and, you know, rolls his eyes at
her, and then we sang a hymn, he
slips his arm around her.
Boy, I felt like punching him.
I saw a fellow do that in a
church not long ago.
He slubbers down, big slob of a guy,
with his arm around the girl.
I said, listen, if you want to do
your courting, go outside.
There was somebody playing the piano at one
of the Sunday morning services.
He wouldn't chew gum in the presence of
the Queen of England, or the presence of
the President of the United States.
What would your attitude be if Jesus was
standing physically in the midst of this place
tonight?
Or when you go to worship, do you
think you might dress a little more orthodoxly,
or you'd not want to whisper or do
anything?
Well, listen, if it takes his physical presence,
there's something wrong with your thinking, because where
two or three are gathered in his name,
he's here.
And he's in every service, and either he
leaves it with joy, or I dare to
say, he leaves it with sorrow.
OK, then speaking generally in European and other
churches, they stand to sing, we kneel to
pray, but we prostrate ourselves to worship.
Just go through the book of the Revelation,
I tick some of them off here, in
chapter 1, verse 17, or take the first
instance, where, do you remember what John says,
that when he saw Jesus, I fell at
his feet as dead.
Now come on, I know we like exciting
meetings, did you ever come to that?
Who's saying this?
John.
And he's specifically marked out as the disciple
whom Jesus loved.
John is the one who used to lay
his head on the shoulder on the bosom
of Jesus and hear that divine heartbeat.
And he was with him those three and
a half years, and he was with him
in his Gethsemane, he was one of the
chosen three, you know, he was there when
Jesus raised Jairus his daughter, he was there
on the Mount of Transfiguration, he was there
in the Garden of Gethsemane.
And yet as familiar as he was with
Jesus, he says, when I saw him in
his resurrection splendor, I fell at his feet
as dead.
Now come on, before too long you're going
to stand before a thousand billion people, you
won't have your husband, your wife, your sweetheart,
your deacon, you're going to stand by yourself
in the presence of the Christ of God.
Do you think we'll be talking about the
man upstairs like these vulgar so-called converted
film stars do?
If John fell at his feet as dead,
John sees him now, not the man of
Galilee, not the man whose beard is plucked
and somebody spits some phlegm in his, somebody
cracks him on the face and somebody puts
a blinder on his eyes and says, come
on prophesy, you supposedly know everything.
He says, I saw him, his eyes were
like flames of fire, his feet were like
burnished brass, his face is like the sun
in its strength, his tongue is a sharp
-dredged sword, his voice is like, what, the
sound of many waters.
You know, I love this book, it mystifies
me.
To me the book of Revelation is a
book of mystery and it's a book of
majesty and it's a book of misery.
It's the end book in the Bible, yeah,
it's the end book because it goes beyond
the end of time, it goes into eternity.
Of all the so-called theologies, if you
like, or mystical interpretations of eternity, this is
the only authentic one in the whole world.
And you'll be very wise at your age,
since you're so young, to read this book
very often.
John here is, well actually the 4th chapter
begins a division in this book, if you
look at, let me give you the verses
about falling at his feet.
Chapter 1 verse 17, chapter 5 verse 8,
and then 14, chapter 7 and then verse
11, then 11 verse 16, 19 verse 4,
and then verse 10, and 22 and verse
8.
All right, let's come back.
Let me just say this too, in Matthew
28 you remember that the two Marys had
been to the tomb, and as they were
told to go away and declare the news,
suddenly they were confronted with Jesus.
Do you remember what they did?
They fell at his feet and they worshipped
him.
They fell at his feet and they worshipped
him.
In case I forget later, can you remember
a time when you went into his presence
not to pray, not to ask for money,
not to ask him to get you out
of a difficulty, not even just to praise,
but just to worship him.
What is worship?
Worship is a concentration of adoration and love,
meditation and contemplation, adoration I think we mentioned,
and love.
And then concentration, because if you don't concentrate
you'll end up maybe with transcendental meditation.
You've got to keep your mind on this
fact that you're there to worship God.
Now you're not going to get there in
a weekend.
There's a young man I was thinking of,
he's 30 miles away from here, he's 32
years of age, he prays 10 hours a
day.
There's no good you saying, well I'm going
to start praying too.
You won't.
There's a man in this building two weeks
ago who prays 8 hours most day and
often 16 hours a day.
These men never get the picture out in
front of Christianity today, or Billy Graham's decision,
or last day's ministry paper.
They do not want to be exhibits.
They're not seeking the praise of man, they
shut it, they flee from it.
You see what adoration really is, oh we
can say so many things about it, is
a love relationship with Jesus Christ where you
contemplate at one time one of his aspects
is holiness, his mercy another time, his long
suffering, his patience, the power of his redemption.
You know we get sometimes a bit woozy
and we say thank you Lord for saving
my soul.
Well how often do you thank him?
There's an old hymn that says fill thou
my life O Lord my God in every
part with praise that my whole being may
proclaim thy being and thy ways.
Not for the lip of praise alone, not
even a praising heart I ask, but for
a life made up of praise in every
part.
Praise in the common things of life, its
goings out and in.
Praise in each duty and each deed however
small and mean.
So shall no part of day or night
from sacredness be free but my whole life
in every step be fellowship with thee.
I'm just thinking of going to a worldwide
evangelization crusade meeting about 40 years back and
a very charming girl, oh boo, when she
came in, whoa, such a personality, such a
style.
And everybody kind of looked.
Oh she had a gorgeous fancy blouse on,
the hair do you know, high heels and
all the stuff ladies have.
And they said we're going to ask Miss
So and So from America to give her
testimony.
So she went up with a big smile
and she said well my name is So
and So you know and I graduated first
in Bible school then I went to a
certain university, got my degree in So and
So.
I kind of got a vision for the
world and so forth and I came down
here to the worldwide evangelization crusade and felt
I knew all the answers you know, my
personality was all in order, I got it
all, everything was under control.
And the first night I was here they
said well the rising bell goes at 6
in the morning and you're allowed about an
hour for prayer and meditation and then 7
o'clock breakfast then 7.30 you get
your assignment.
Here I was she said, I don't know
how many languages she spoke and I got
my degree in this and in something else
and finished Bible school and got all these
kind of diplomas and I got my assignment.
A big old steel bucket about that depth
with scrubbing brush and soda and soap and
they told me to wash all the toilets
out in that one level I was on.
Oh what in the world are they doing?
Don't they realize my ability?
I mean across the Atlantic you can go
to school all these years and spend money
to get an education to wash toilets out,
stinking things that they are, old fashioned English
toilets are terrible but anyhow let's pass over
that.
And me, me, and she said it was
down on my knees scrubbing the floor that
I realized, yeah, you'd like the glitter you'd
like to be projected in front, you'd like
to display some abilities you have.
You know it will help you a lot
if you get this in your mind that
nobody that ever lived ever did God a
favor.
If ever you think that that little grain
of sand on the edge of eternity that
happens to be your personality is going to
upset the world if it gets moved, forget
it.
Somebody said if you want to know how
valuable your life is you fill a bucket
with water and roll your sleeve up and
push your hand right to the bottom of
the bucket and pull it out and the
hole you leave is the impression you've made
in your lifetime.
Pretty demanding isn't it?
Kind of difficult to think the world will
function when I die, I have trouble about
this sometimes, you know, if I die I
mean all these societies are going to collapse.
Oh no, no, no, no.
OK, well what's the secret of keeping going
on, going on, going on?
The secret is worship.
The secret is a love relationship.
I think there's an old book Dr. Tills
used to talk to me about called The
Eternal Marriage, he used to read all the
mystics.
We don't have mystics now, we're just misfits,
but he loved to read in that area.
People that seem right out of touch with
life and they're not really out of touch
with life at all.
Now this book is the book of the
Revelation and often preachers will say we're going
to read now from the fourth chapter of
the book of the Revelation of St. John.
There isn't such a book in the Bible.
The book of the Revelation is the revelation
of Jesus Christ to St. John.
And the Revelation, the apocalypse as it's sometimes
called, means the unveiling.
You read again and again in the Word
of God about mysteries in the Scripture, mysteries
in the Scripture.
Well a mystery is not something that cannot
be solved, a mystery is something that has
not yet been unveiled.
For Paul says you remember on one occasion,
behold I show you a mystery.
This has been unveiled until now, I take
the veil away.
Now here's one of the most amazing things
I think in this whole book.
In the fourth chapter it says in verse
1, And I looked and behold a door
was opened in heaven.
And I've said this before but I'll say
it again for some who are not here
that I think I'd love to do this.
I would like to do every time I
go to a meeting, I'd like to so
be anointed of God and have some revelation
from God that somehow, well let me put
it this way, if I could right now,
I'd push the door open in heaven.
Did you ever sneak a peek through a
door when you were told not to?
I did as a little boy.
Mother said no you don't.
Go into the living room, the drawing room
as they call it, the guest room, something
in there you're not to see.
First thing I did was tell my sister
it was there and go look at the
thing.
I usually open the door like this just
about an inch away, Annie come and look,
look what they said.
If you could see into eternity for five
minutes you'd never be the same again, you'd
never grumble, you'd never backslide, you'd never vary
in your Christian life, you'd never vary in
your passion for the lost.
Remember the song that says one day the
things of earth will grow, or today it's
supposed to be the things of earth grow
strangely what?
Dim.
When we get up there and look back
the things of earth will look strangely grim.
We wish we hadn't spent so much time
on valueless useless things.
Remember there's no U-turn at the throne
of God.
When you get back and see your life
where God tried to block you doing a
thing and you pushed your way through or
gave you some warning and you ignored it.
When he gave you the chance to sacrifice
or do some other thing that the average
person doesn't do.
A door open in heaven, well we can
push the door open a little more here
in this fifth chapter he says I saw
in the right hand of him that sat
on the throne a book written within and
on the back sealed with seven seals and
I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a
loud voice.
That's a common reference in the book of
the revelation a loud voice.
No weakling, somebody with a trumpet sound as
it says in the first verse of the
fourth chapter.
And there was a voice I heard it
was a sound of a trumpet.
Well if you've been in a camp where
you're awakened in the morning with a trumpet
blast you know something about what it means.
And here this angel is making a proclamation.
There's one sitting on the throne.
Proclaiming with a loud voice who is worthy
to open the book and to loose the
seals thereof.
Now listen to this dreadful thing.
No man.
You know the Greek actually there says not
even one as though you're saying come on
what do you mean no man?
No man in heaven or earth or under
the earth was able to open the book
and to look thereon.
Now what is this book that's sealed with
seven seals?
Well it wasn't a book like this they
didn't make books like this.
They made books in a scroll and they
don't write from the we write from the
right to the left.
The Jews write from the right to the
left.
No wait a minute we write from the
left to the right.
The Jews write from the right to the
left.
The Japanese write the other way.
If you figure it out you'll find everybody
writes towards a cross.
And this book is sealed it is a
scroll.
Here it is it's rolled up like this.
And when a man has made the first
part he puts a seal down and that
part of the book cannot be opened.
And then he writes another series and he
seals it again.
There are seven seals.
But the first part of the book may
be open while the back part is rolled
up like a scroll and it's sealed.
Now why is it sealed?
Well in the customs and manners of the
Jews of old if a man lost his
territory for some reason he couldn't afford to
keep it or he got into debt or
something they would take all his manuscripts all
his whatever you want to call them and
bind them all together and seal them.
Well in this case it says they were
sealed with seven seals.
And in the Jewish economy a thing that
was sealed with seven seals became a standing
sign of an alienated inheritance.
In other words the title deeds of all
the property was sealed up.
And John says there's no man found worthy.
Now come on stretch your mind a bit
right now.
John is on the Isle of Patmos.
Unless I'm seriously mistaken you will find some
of the greatest truths you ever discovered are
not in meetings.
However intelligent and zealous the preacher may be
you'll find some of your greatest revelations.
The times you hear God's voice most clearly
will be when you're by yourself.
Could be on a tractor.
Could be in the office.
Could be in some other place.
You see we're all looking for tapes you
know that will give you as Dr. Tozer
said to me one day well Len if
you ever see a book on six easy
steps to Christian maturity would you be good
enough to send it to me?
I said yes I will.
Send it to air mail.
Well he said thank you.
I'll make you a promise when I get
it I won't read it.
There's no such thing as six easy steps.
You can read a hundred biographies.
God isn't going to make you the way
he made someone else.
Aren't you glad the Lord makes us all
so variable?
I mean supposing everybody had a nose like
yours and ears like mine and you know
just as though we'd come off a cookie
cutter.
Oh the variableness in human personality is amazing.
There are people that don't like spaghetti that
might sound difficult to you but they've got
different appetites.
Some people like modern art.
I was in a house not long ago
a lady had this great beautiful picture just
a great big yellow blob and she said
what do you think to my picture?
I said she said do you know what
it is?
I said yes.
She said what?
I said somebody threw an egg on the
wall.
Oh don't you realize it's this?
No I said I couldn't realize.
I could never have thought of that in
a house.
She thought it was wonderful.
I'd have hung it in the dog kennel.
What different values, what different ways.
The man that wrote this wonderful book of
Revelation was St. John.
Peter could never have written this.
There's such variableness.
But then again look at this.
This is stunning.
The title deeds of the universe have not
yet been liberated.
And John says there was this multitude in
heaven and a voice yelled out that echoed
down the ages as it were echoed in
eternity in the vastness of eternity.
Who is worthy to open the book and
to lose the seals?
And no man, no not one.
Another translation says no not even one out
of all the multitudes that ever lived.
Say to that seraphim hey would you come
and open this book?
He says I can't do that, I can't
do that.
You say to that cherubim would you come
your excellency?
No.
Oh Jeremiah I see you.
Would you come down here Jeremiah and open
the book?
Can't do it.
Isaiah would you come and do it?
No no.
Well Daniel, oh they're only two faultless characters
I think in the Old Testament, Daniel and
Joseph.
Hey Daniel come on.
Nobody can do it.
Isn't that incredible?
Of all the men in this book, David
and Samuel and Ezekiel and everybody else and
not one of them can do it.
They do not come forward.
No man was found worthy.
And I wept much.
The other Greek says there I broke loose
in my utterance of grief.
This word is only used twice in the
New Testament.
One is when Jesus is going to Jerusalem
and you remember he went down to whip
them out of the temple but wait a
minute Luke says before he whipped them he
wept over them.
If you're going to tell somebody a piece
of your mind you better weep over them
before you whip them.
And when he wept over Jerusalem they were
saying we're getting rid of this man.
He says oh God Jesus says no.
You're not kicking me out I'm deserting you.
What is Israel being bummed for tonight and
blasted?
Or at least is doing it on others.
For the simple reason that for two thousand
years.
You better watch it.
You can't trifle with God.
You can't obey him when you want.
You can't postpone going to the mission field
until you get married or something else.
He demands priority.
No man was found worthy to open the
book.
Oh I see there's an uproar today about
justice.
You know what keeps me sane?
A lot of people think I'm not there
yet but I'm trying to get sane.
And my balance is this.
Shall not the judge of all the earth
do right?
That fellow Hinckley got off.
Three out of four people all over the
nation said he should have been sentenced to
something.
One of the most precious men in this
community.
Nobody sees him hardly.
Lives down the valley there.
He's a Cinderella.
He doesn't get much money but he does
a super job.
Little Joe Foss.
He goes into the prisons.
Maybe you'd like to go Sunday night at
six o'clock.
They're having their commissioning service.
Fellows that have been in every rotten, stinking,
filthy thing you can imagine and God has
redeemed them, sanctified them and they're going back
to work in prisons.
I was telling the other day about a
young man.
He says he is really blazing for God
in one of the prisons that I visit.
Oh.
You get six months?
No, he just got forty years.
For what?
Because somebody said he molested a girl.
If I remember what Joe said, he didn't
do it.
He had about four minutes of embracing and
so forth with her but he said for
four minutes he got forty years.
Yet a man who never murders the president
gets off and lives in luxury.
There's no justice in the earth but one
day the judge of all the earth will
do right.
There's no opportunity for it.
Yes, there's opportunity but there's nobody there move
out of the vast congregation.
You know, if you lived in Revelation war
and realized the vast eternity into which we're
going.
I was preaching to a crowd mostly of
university students a while ago.
I'm right in the middle of preaching as
I said something I mentioned about going to
hell and I remember just feeling as everything
in me would burst and I said all
those people, your neighbors, the man that sits
at the end of your table, your son,
your daughter, your brother, they go into hell
and not for the weekend.
It's the eternal prison house, a million roads
go in but no roads come out.
In heaven they cease not to praise God
night and day.
It says in this fourth chapter, they cease
not to praise him by night and day
singing holy, holy, holy in the Lord.
What do they sing in hell?
The harvest is past or summer is ended
and we're not saved.
I don't think there's anything that will keep
you more on balance than reading again in
this amazing book of Revelation.
No man was found worthy so I wept.
It's the same heartbreaking sob that you get
from the Son of God when he looks
over Jerusalem.
When he says Jerusalem you mad folk, you
stupid bunch of people.
You've had the greatest men that ever came
out of time.
They were God made men, Elijah, Jeremiah, Daniel,
all the biggest men that ever walked the
earth morally or spiritually.
You dumb folk, you got more lost in
sheep and selling things and buying things and
got lost in materialism like our generation has
done.
Then last of all says, well you won't
listen to the prophets.
God sent his own son and now you're
kicking him out.
And for two thousand years remember they've had
no prophets, they've had no peace.
And I think they're going to get a
baptism before very long.
I kind of think maybe they'll get kicked
out of Israel again, swamped out for a
little season.
And when they go back they'll go back
because they're seeking Messiah not to recover Israel
and its glory.
I wept much.
I was heartbroken.
I wasn't sniveling behind my hand.
I opened my heart and I groaned and
I traveled and my God what's going to
happen here.
The title deeds of the universe, nobody dare
go and take the book out of the
hand of him that sat on the throne.
One of the elders said unto me, I
like that.
You notice in the previous chapter it was
an angel with a loud voice.
This is not an angel now, this is
one of the elders.
One of the men who felt the cleansing
of the blood of Jesus Christ, who had
felt his life revolutionized, who had his whole
thinking redeemed and all his personality put back
into harmony where every bit of him was
in rebelling against God.
And now God has smoothed him out and
made him a saint and made him an
elder.
And one of the elders said unto me,
weep not.
Behold the lion of the tribe of Judah.
This is in the 49th of Genesis where
Jacob talks to his son and the fourth
son was called what?
It's called Judah and it means a lion.
And this is the end of the lion
of the tribe of Judah.
This is the true lion of the tribe
of Judah.
And then in the next verse he's not
a lion, he's a lamb.
The lion of the tribe of Judah hath
prevailed to open the book and to lose
the seven seers.
And lo in the midst of the thorn
and of the four beasts and in the
midst of the others stood a lamb as
it had been slain.
Not too long before the 1914-18 war,
you won't remember that but I remember it.
I remember the war was declared on the
4th of August in 1914.
Before that a little Welshman by the name
of Stephen Jeffreys.
He was preaching in a little place in
a town in Welsh.
Double L is fl, fl.
You know you can say it better if
you have a cold.
Flunethly.
And he was preaching away for all he
was worth in just a mission with about
a hundred people in and then, oh people,
oh.
And he looked and there on the wall
to just a common building, white plaster on
it.
And when he looked there was a traditional
head of Jesus Christ about six feet with
the thorns and the blood.
And he said to the congregation, this is
a sign of coming judgment.
He went on preaching and again about 20
or 30 minutes after, oh.
And he looked again and the head had
disappeared and there was a lamb with its
head and its feet together like that.
You see when we pray for revival we're
asking for trouble.
Because almost every revival has been followed, pardon
me, has been followed by judgment.
Look at the great boxer rebellion in China.
Well that followed a spate of revival.
Look at Korea.
1904 and 5 were swept with a tremendous
Holy Ghost revival and then swept with judgment.
25 years ago I preached for Oswald Smith
in that great church in Toronto.
And he told me about the time that
he was in Canada, pardon me, that he's
in Canada, the time he was in Russia.
And he went to those countries, you never
hear a word about them, Latvia and some
of you don't know the names of them.
Lithuania and Latvia.
Swallowed up in the belly of the great
rotten Russian bear.
They saw a Holy Ghost revival where the
lights didn't go out.
That's revival.
These silly little things we have.
Brother Joe, Bill Smith is going to have
a revival from Sunday to Sunday.
That's hogwash.
Not revival at all.
That's just to repair all the broken down
Christians that have broken down since the last
revival.
That's all our revivals are.
Please turn your tape over for the remainder
of this message.
Sticking band-aids on weak Christians, giving them
crutches to limp on.
Revival changes the moral climate of a community.
If it doesn't, it isn't revival.
We spend a million dollars on the Citywide
Crusade, we don't even expect the city to
be shaken.
Latvia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.
James Stewart who was in there at the
same time told me, I preached with him
more than once in Ireland and England.
He told me about those meetings where you
could go in the middle of the night
and the meeting was just as blazing for
God as it was in midday and it
went on for 2, 3, 4, 5 weeks.
The Spirit of God had come down on
that community.
And it was followed by the Russian Revolution
in 1917.
And the Christian Missionary Alliance have had tremendous
blessing.
They had, when I first met Dr. Terzi
which was 1950, they got tremendous moves of
God.
Where?
Well, a country that then was being just
about run by France, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Nobody talks about Vietnam and Cambodia now.
Oh, you think about 6 o'clock news
tonight, which happened to be about, where was
it tonight?
Oh, Lebanon.
And before that it was Poland.
And before that it was Afghanistan.
And before that it was the rape of
Cambodia.
And before that it was, well, these other
countries, Vietnam and what not.
See, most Christians only think by the newscast.
How many times do you get down to
prayer and it seems as though God bores
a hole in your heart and says, all
you do today is intercede for Russia or
China.
A lamb that had been slain.
As they say, depicted on that wall.
I have a book on that somewhere.
But you see again, the lamb that was
slain.
Do you remember, is it where Deuteronomy, it
talks about the lamb or the Passover, the
Passover lamb?
Oh, not any kind of lamb.
You can say, we'll take that lamb, it
trapped its foot, it's limping.
Or, I see it's got one eye out.
You had to find the most perfect lamb
in the whole of your flock.
And then you had to take it in
the house.
We lived in part of an old castle
in Ireland years back.
And we had a flock of maybe a
couple of hundred sheep, beautiful, beautiful things.
And the boy said, can we have a
lamb each?
And stupid me said, yes.
It costs a fortune in milk, you know,
they had to feed them with a milk
bottle.
And oh, while summer was on, it was
great.
The boys enjoyed the lambs, but time to
go to school.
Well, you know, Mary had a little lamb.
They followed her to school.
Our boys would go and the lambs would
go after them.
And I'd go get my fingers in the
wool and hold them back and say, boys,
Mary, shut the gate.
And then we said we were going to
sell the flock.
Oh, but you won't sell our lambs.
Oh, yes.
Do you know this word actually is?
Well, just as that lamb had four days
in the home and they got to love
it and then to spill its blood was
beyond their understanding and thinking that, you remember
when Jesus said on the resurrection to Peter,
do you really love me?
Lord, you know I love you.
Well, feed my sheep.
There are different words used for love.
There are different words in Greek used for
sheep.
And finally he says, if you love me,
feed my pet lambs.
Well, this lamb here was God's pet lamb.
The only one he ever had.
And he says he saw a lamb as
it had been slain, standing.
Well, a slain lamb can't stand except, of
course, the Lamb of God who stands in
his resurrection power.
Okay, let's skip to verse 7.
He came and took the book out of
the hand of him that sat on the
throne.
And when he had taken the book, the
four beasts and four and twenty elders did
what?
Fell down.
Maybe you can cross over back to chapter
4 to verse 10.
The four and twenty elders fell down before
him that sat on the throne to worship
him and cast their crowns.
I like that hymn of Matthew Bridges.
We sang it the other night at that
conference with a thousand people.
I don't think I ever heard it better.
You know, Matthew Bridges, great hymn, crown him
with many crowns, the Lamb upon his throne.
Hark how the heavenly anthem drowns all music
but its own.
Awake my soul and sing of him who
died for thee, crowning the Lord of love.
Behold his hands and side.
Those wounds yet visible above him, beauty glorified.
All hail, Redeemer, hail.
You see, this is a preface.
It's an introduction to what's going to happen
in eternity.
Be as zealous as you like, and I
hope you'll be zealous, but you'll be no
soul winning in heaven.
There'll be no healing meetings in heaven because
no one will ever be saved.
What's the sole occupation of having to worship
him?
Because again in this fourth chapter, it says
in verse 8 that they rest not day
or night saying, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty
which was and is and is to come.
And then verse 10, the four and twenty
elders fell down before him that sat on
the throne.
And they worship him that liveth forever and
ever.
Can you honestly in your heart, can you
ever think of anything?
Now some of you like, I know you
like ice cream or something like that, and
you get very gluttonous at times and you
take four scoops instead of two or three,
or you take something else.
Can you think of anything that wouldn't get
stale after a year?
And yet forever and ever and ever and
ever in eternity, what does old Noah Webster
say about eternity?
It's ages, cycles of ages, it's duration without
ending.
How, oh mercy, how can you think of
it?
How do you calculate eternity?
Oh, let me think what came to me.
Okay, let's take all the oceans of the
world, eh?
The Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian
Ocean, all the lakes in the world, all
the thousand lakes, ten thousand lakes in Minneapolis,
a hundred thousand in the next state in
Canada.
And then you take all the rivers of
the world, the Ganges, the Niger in Africa,
the River Nile, the River, what's the big
one in South America, Amazon.
And the vast Atlantic Oceans, and put them
all up there in a great big cylinder.
That would be pretty big.
And then you have a little spark coming
out like that, and you turn it and
let one drop of water out, and you
sit down for ten thousand years before you
turn it again.
And one spark comes out.
You say, hey, come on, come on.
I mean, even a bucket of water would
take a long while.
You mean all the waters of the world?
Yeah, yeah, oh, change it.
Let's take every grain of sun and every
ocean beach.
Oh, I remember walking down some of those
beaches in New Zealand, aren't they wonderful?
They catch fish down there, not little tiddlers
like some guys around here catch, you know,
about this size.
The rare you don't become fishes of fish
instead of fishes of men.
OK.
But, you know, if you took every grain
of sand from every ocean, and you just
lifted them off one at a time, or
supposing that field tomorrow, why don't you start,
you know, just over the hedge there, counting
all the blades of grass?
Quite stupid.
Well, we're talking about stupid things.
We're talking about these poor little crippled minds
of ours trying to think about eternity, because
that's what you say you have.
You say you've got eternal life.
It's ages and ages and duration without ending.
What happens?
He came and took the book out of
the hand of him that sat upon the
throne.
And when he had taken the book, the
four beasts and four twenty elders fell down
before the Lord, the Lamb, pardon me, having
every one of them harps and golden valves
full of orders which are the prayers of
the saints.
Can you imagine all the prayers of all
the saints?
What are these under the altar?
Supposing that I say to Gabriel, what are
these all on the altar?
He says they're all the sermon notes from
Wesley to Winky.
That would be terribly disappointing.
These are all the prayers of all the
ages.
I say, I wonder if they're going to
be replayed in eternity.
Huh?
I mean, supposing your little life, you know,
the record God has of your prayer life
is read.
I mean, would it take half of eternity
to read it?
Huh?
Supposing your prayer record is read after that
little guy that lives thirty miles from here
that prays ten hours a day with joy
and grief and sweat.
Or the little man that was in my
home the other day, I told him that
prays eight to sixteen hours a day.
You can't do it.
Sure you can't.
Unless you've had a vision through the door
that's opened.
As long as you live, every breath you
have makes you a debtor to God.
Every opportunity of service, whether it's giving out
a tractor, washing somebody's feet, as it were,
or cleaning somebody's shoes.
Everything is going to be given a reward
for in that day.
We're saved by grace.
We're not rewarded by grace.
We're rewarded by works.
They had golden vials full of orders.
That must be very fragrant and beautiful.
Oh, they had harps in their hands.
Do you remember how often in the Old
Testament when Samuel, wasn't it Samuel said to
Saul, you go down a certain road and
you'll meet the sons of the prophets, and
they will all have harps in their hands.
Or Elisha says, boy, I'm feeling a bit
depressed now, bring me a minstrel.
You know, if we considered our blessings like
we considered our little things that offend us
and hurt us, we'd never be the silly
folk that we are.
Have you noticed how often you concentrate on
something that's hurt you, or somebody hasn't done
the right thing to you, until the thing
fills your whole horizon?
Well, why don't we do that about the
blessings of God, until we cloud all the
other things out?
OK.
Verse 9, they sung a new song.
Won't that be wonderful when nobody sings out
of tune?
They sung a new song saying, Thou art
worthy to take the book and to open
the seals thereof, for Thou hast slain, and
hast redeemed us to God out of every
kindred and tongue and people and nation.
So what are you sweating about communism for?
Is it going to take over the world?
No, the kingdom of Jesus Christ is going
to take it.
Communism controls three quads of the world now,
it will never control it all.
Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy
blood out of every kindred and tongue and
people and nation, and hast made us unto
our God kings and priests, and we shall
reign.
Where?
Sitting on cloud 13 playing a harp?
No, we shall reign on the earth.
Are we going to heaven?
I saw the new Jerusalem come down out
of heaven.
We're going to reign on the earth.
God is going to redeem it from all
its curses.
I tried to grab some in the garden
today, I'd never seen this leaf, and I
put, oh wow, it was thorns all the
way to the ground.
There'll be no thorns.
Your children will be able to have a
couple of lions in the backyard and a
couple of snakes in the bedroom.
Bees won't have any sting and they'll be
nothing poisonous.
We're going to reign on the earth.
And we're going to reign with Him forever
and ever.
Verse 11, I beheld and I heard the
voice of many angels round about the throne,
and the beasts and the elders, and the
number of them was ten thousand times, ten
thousand and thousands of thousands.
Everything in Revelation is numbered, except the number
of the redeemed.
No man can number them.
Number of seraphims, number of angels, so forth,
all numbered.
The redeemed are not numbered.
And thousands upon thousands, ten thousand times ten
thousand, I think it's a hundred million, isn't
it?
Plus thousands of thousands.
Do you notice how often we sing in
our hymns?
Okay, Charles Wesley got us in trouble here.
There's a great Christmas hymn, Hark the Herald
Angels Sing.
I challenge you to find me a scripture
in the Bible where angels sing.
Well, you say, when they came, they all
came in the sky when Jesus was born,
and they sang glory to God.
No, they didn't.
It says they said.
There's no reference to the angels sing.
There's an old hymn that says, when I
sing redemption story, they will fold their wings,
for angels never felt the joy that our
salvation brings.
They've not been redeemed.
So they proclaim, they say with a loud
voice, good is a land that was slain
to receive power and riches and wisdom and
strength and blessing and honor and glory.
If you go to the second chapter, there's
a doxology that only has two statements in
it.
If you go to the end of the
fourth chapter, listen to them.
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory
and honor and power.
That's a threefold doxology.
If you go to the seventh chapter, verse
twelve, the end of verse eleven, the elders
and the four beasts again, they bow before
the throne on their faces, and they worship
God saying, Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor and power and might.
It's a sevenfold doxology.
You see, eternity will be too vast for
us to take in.
The redemption will be too vast for us
to take in.
And so there's going to be a progressive
revelation.
Now what did they do?
They said, worthy is a land that was
slain to receive power and riches and wisdom
and strength and honor and glory and blessing
and every creature.
Now look at this.
He searched and he could find no man
to open the book, remember.
And now it says in verse thirteen, and
every creature, look at them, on earth, no,
every creature in heaven or in the earth
or under the earth and such as are
in the sea and all that are in
them heard I saying, blessing and honor and
glory and power unto him that sitteth on
the throne and unto the Lamb forever and
ever.
And the four beasts said, Amen, and the
four and twenty elders fell down and worshiped
him.
So that's repeated over and over and over
in this book.
It's overwhelmed.
Again, if you want to know how precious
worship is, remember this, that Satan said to
Jesus, you kneel down just five minutes in
front of me and worship me.
You see, he'd once been Lucifer, the anointed
one in heaven, and he knew what worship
meant to God.
He'd heard those excited beings in eternity singing
like we've never heard singing and never heard
it till we get there.
And he wanted it.
But all those creatures fell on their faces
before God through crowns at his feet.
Oh, it's worth forfeiting everything I have if
only Jesus Christ will do that.
Remember the wise men came and they brought
gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.
And as I said last week, it took
me years to discover that the woman that
brought the beautiful, the box of alabaster ointment,
she came.
And there's no report in the, it's repeated
four times, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, there's
no evidence that Jesus ever took a bite
of food out of that banquet.
They went because it was a prestigious thing.
Here's the greatest man on earth just now.
He's stirring everybody.
He's the conversation of the cafes.
He's the conversation of the temple.
Everybody's talking about Jesus.
Jesus, he's greater than John Baptist.
John did no miracle.
Look what this man does.
Excited.
And the little woman who wasn't on the
guest list made it.
I don't know who else was on the
guest list except the woman who wasn't on
the guest list.
And she went to worship Jesus.
How do you know?
Because of two things I know.
One is, she took the most precious thing
that she had and gave it to him.
And the second thing, she never spoke to
him.
And worship is speechless adoration.
Worship is gonna cost you the greatest thing
you've got in your life.
Might be a love relationship with somebody else,
maybe a career.
Maybe you've trained at school and university for
this and suddenly God steps in and says,
here, you know, he may cut you out
when you just finish singing, take my life
and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.
Take my hands and let them move at
the impulse of thy love.
Take my feet.
Do you remember what Abraham said to his
servants?
You stay here, I and the lad will
go yonder and what?
Worship.
No, no, he went to sacrifice.
The scripture says he went to worship.
Was what?
Oh, if God had said to him, now,
you go to the peak of that mountain
where nobody can see, build an altar and
kill your precious son Ishmael.
Whew.
What a relief.
Don't know what she had, we'd have no
Arabs.
But anyhow, he wouldn't take him.
You can't give God the flesh.
You can't even give him your skills.
His kingdom isn't ready for you to come
with your precious gifts.
You have to give him the best you
have and the best you have is love.
That you worship him, that you love the
Lord your God with all your heart.
He doesn't say even die on the mission
field.
He doesn't say burn yourself out doing this.
He says the greatest thing in the world,
Jesus says, is that thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul,
mind and soul.
And if you do, anything's easy.
When we went to Ireland, bought a part
of an old castle and lived there with
a hundred and fifty lovely acres and the
best places to fish in the district.
Oh, I thought, stay here, the rest of
our lives would be super.
I don't know how many there were in
the house, seventeen I think, the twisted staircase,
all the things I like, stained glass windows,
what have you got?
And the Lord said, go to America.
Oh, mercy.
All the gold in Fort Knox wouldn't have
got me here unless God said so.
That's a trivial thing to illustrate.
Do you know what kept this man John
on beam?
His love for his Lord.
Love, which includes again, worship.
Let me just emphasize these two things.
Remember I started late, don't keep looking at
the clock, they put me up very late
tonight.
Can you comprehend this?
Come on, come on, I really get into
this right here now.
Dig it, as you youngsters say.
Every creature, every creature in heaven, on the
earth, under the earth, and whatever is in
the sea, all of them heard, I heard
them all, listen, every bug that's flying around
tonight, every insect.
God heard of elephants you saw on TV
recently.
Everything that has breath.
Well, that goes back to the last psalm,
doesn't it?
The 150th psalm says that everything that hath
breath, praise the Lord.
And now it's fulfilled there that whether they
live in the sea, or up in the
sky, everything on earth and under the earth,
and such as are in the sea, heard
I saying, blessing and honour, won't that be
wonderful?
You won't be swiping at that mat and
say, get out of my ear.
Because as it goes past it's saying, blessing
and honour and glory.
Then you hear a noise over here going,
blessing and honour and glory, and look and
you see a herd of elephants.
Then you look over here and you see
some sparrows, and you look over here, somebody
out of tune from last days.
But, to him that sitteth on the throne.
Isn't that incredible?
A little way back in the book it
says that when the stars fall and the
earth rocks, and the big, big mountains get
moving, it says all the rich men, you
know all the big guys in IBM and
all the guys that are fooling around with
oil to, there is no lack of it,
that have manipulated the market again, and it
was to go up 6 cents and it's
already gone up 20 around here.
Those guys are going to stand before God
one day too, and I'm glad about that.
You know when I think of all the
possibilities of grace that Lowry talks about, that
God can take the vilest of us and
cleanse us and indwell us, and do as
the psalmist says, he lifted me up.
Then he says he put me on a
rock, so I set him up.
And he put a new song in his
mouth, so I tuned him up.
When God can do all that, redeem us,
cleanse us, and indwell us, and make our
lives to be a praise unto him, for
that's what it says at the end of
chapter 4, that we're made to give pleasure
to God, and what you need to do
every night before you go to bed is
ask God how much pleasure he's got out
of your life today.
And he gets it because you've been obedient
to what he's told you to do.
He gets it because you've given priority over
your earthly affections and other things to get
alone and worship and adore him.
In the book of the Revelation it says
when those hills fall, men are going to
scream, oh, hide us from the face of
him that sits on the throne.
Hide us!
At the end of Revelation it says that
one of the rewards of the righteous is
that they shall see his face.
If you go over to the east coast
there, what's the city called?
I was going to say it's in Massachusetts,
it's not, it's in Connecticut.
Finishes with bridge, tell me what it is.
No, it's not Cambridge.
Bridgeport, thank you, Bridgeport, Connecticut.
And go to the old cemetery, well, it
used to be a stone about that size.
And this time of the year you couldn't
see it because the grass grew over it
and you had to go tramping with your
feet trying to find the place.
I've thought about this for ten years and
I don't know whether it's a result of
this, but they put a nice polished stone
up there.
But the little stone is there and the
weather's worn it a lot.
And it says on, here lie the mortal
remains of Aunty Fanny.
And underneath it says she hath done what
she could.
Aunty Fanny was the first woman in American
history to address both houses of Congress.
Six weeks of age she became blind.
She died at 84.
Somebody said to her one day, you know,
it doesn't seem right.
You bless this with your hymns, you know,
like Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine, she wrote
that.
And she wrote, to God be the glory,
great things he hath done.
And I'd like to describe the sunset to
you, it's gorgeous but you don't know what
red is and yellow.
You've never seen the colors.
And oh, the flowers are so beautiful.
I know you can smell them but oh,
they look more beautiful.
I don't think God was really fair to
let you go blind.
You've been such a blessing and you'll still
be a blessing.
I think she wrote 3,000 hymns or
poems.
But you've missed all this.
Tremendous disadvantage.
Dear sweet old lady smiled and she said,
no, I've got a great advantage in being
blind.
And the lady said, advantage?
What could the advantage be?
Well, she said, my dear, don't you realize
the first face I ever see will be
his face?
Isn't that a nice way to look at
it?
When by the gift of his infinite grace
I am accorded in heaven a place just
to be there and to look on his
face.
I don't know what kind of a crown
he'll have to throw at his feet.
With that heavenly host just can't wait till
he comes in and they all cast their
crowns before him.
Oh, I do hope, I do hope that
this coronation takes place when the, you know,
after the final resurrection in one sense, when
Mussolini has to see this and Genghis Khan
and Philip of Macedon and all those great
marvelous conquerors, bloody men in history like Hitler
and Stalin and some American captains and some
English admirals that destroy life.
And these people that can sit and laugh
at nights when the property goes down and
you see bleeding little babies carried out minus
a leg.
And then they're going to sit down and
counsel when they've done all the hellish things
they're doing.
Can you imagine that multitude at the judgment
seat of Christ if those curtains were pulled
back and there was something standing out there
and they'd look in and they may say,
hey, I see Francis sitting there, that's Leonard
Ravner, that's so and so.
But if I look out there I can't
see a person.
You may disagree with me here, but I
think that one of the punishments of hell
will be that we'll be able to see
in heaven and see everything that's going on.
And we'll look out and we won't know
a thing about that misery.
Somebody will say, hey, it's true, see, they're
sitting down at this great supper with Abraham
and Isaac and all the saints and all
the great missionaries.
There's John Knox, there's John Wesley, there's William
Carroll that first went to India.
There's Judson of Burma.
Oh, I like history.
I sometimes look at my encyclopedia Britannica and
say to myself, everybody in that book is
going to march in front of me one
day.
They sure are, and before you.
All that are dead in the sea are
going to hear the voice of the Son
of God.
The Himalayan range, Mount Everest is 27,300
feet and 500 feet from the top is
an Englishman.
In the 1932 exposition his name I remember
was Mallory.
And when they made camp and they said
we can't make it, you see they didn't
have oxygen stuff, all the stuff we have
today.
Made to rough it.
They got within 500 feet of the top
and while the other guys were sleeping he
slipped out and he went to the top
and he didn't make it.
And somewhere he's wrapped, he's refrigerated till the
judgment.
And everybody that's in the ocean and all
the battlefields of the world and those famous
people in Westminster Abbey, they're going to rise,
rise, rise.
Some to everlasting shame and torment and some
of us to live and reign within a
thousand years.
I'm not too fond of modern songs, I'm
a bit too old to get the speed.
I like one or two of them.
When I like it will be worth it
all when we see Jesus.
Oh Lord, what does it say in the
book of Revelation when we get into eternity
in heaven?
There'll be no tears.
Oh we like to say this at funerals.
There'll be no sorrow, there'll be no tears
or anything else.
Yet it clearly says in the book of
Revelation, God will wipe away all tears from
their eyes.
Well how can he wipe tears away if
there are no tears?
Well my guess is he's going to wipe
them away at the judgment seat.
Because honest to goodness I've tried, I got
saved when I was 14 and in my
76th year now it's a good way up.
So for 60 years I've been following the
Lord and serving him and going round the
world and going here and there.
But I'll tell you what, I certainly hope
the Lord doesn't give the Apostle Paul his
reward and Gabriel says, get ready, next run,
you know, 95,433,000 years when will
Romeo come and stand up there after the
Apostle Paul?
I'll say no, please give priority to Keith
Green.
Do you ever try and figure that out
yourself at the judgment seat of Christ?
Huh?
Your little life span, everything you've ever saved
since you were saved, every penny you ever
earned was his.
You don't say, Lord save me from my
lousy sins but I'll take care of myself.
You're supposed to give him your spirit, your
soul, your body, your mind.
And isn't it wonderful to do that?
Love doesn't, there's one word that drops out
of your vocabulary if you fall in love
and that's sacrifice.
Imagine a guy going to again, I finish
with this and he says, well, you know
Marianne, I told you we get engaged and
just look at this and oh, you know
every girl never faints when she, she knows
what's in it but she acts, you know.
Oh, isn't it, oh, isn't it beautiful?
She nearly has a nervous breakdown looking at
the thing.
He says, I want you to understand this
when you put this ring on, do you
know what this cost me?
Well, I'll tell you.
It cost me 976 bottles of coke, 3
,000 hamburgers and he goes rattling through, if
she'd only sent you giving it back.
We don't talk about sacrifice.
The way you talk to him is, Lord,
would you kindly give me a bigger load
than you give the other fellow?
Not because I want a bigger reward in
eternity, but because I love you, because tonight
apart from your grace I could be a
prostitute or I could be in a jail,
I could have died already and been in
hell.
No wonder Isaac Watts and he lived before
Wesley said love.
What am I thinking of?
You are the whole realm of nature, mine.
You are the present far too small.
Love, so amazing.
God doesn't owe you anything.
You owe him everything.
And if you build up a life, a
part of your life in true worship, loving
him not for what he does, but for
who he is, loving him because one day
as Barak Love said, an American hymn writer,
he came out of the ivory palaces into
a world of war.
Or as Wesley said, he laid his glory
by and wrapped him in our clay.
Love, reckless love like men like Thetis did
another's have.
He'll weather every storm and he'll come out
more than conqueror.