Amen, and may the Lord in his goodness
hear our prayers.
It seems such a long time ago that
I felt constrained on a Sunday evening, though
it's only about four weeks if I remember
correctly, to turn to 2 Timothy, chapter 3,
and to look at the statement there in
verse 5, where the Apostle Paul refers to
people who have a form of godliness, or
a form of piety, or religion, that is
the word, but denying the power of it.
Having a form of religion, a form of
godliness, but denying the power of it.
And I want to return to that tonight.
This word of Paul's, first of all, tells
us that religion has two sides, and this
is really what we dwelt at last time.
Religion has two sides.
It has form.
It takes a certain pattern in our individual
lives.
And the sad thing is, of course, that
our entire godliness, so-called, or religion, whatever
term you choose to use, it can be
confined to the mere shell, the mere externalities,
the carcass, really, of true religion.
And it is all too possible for us
to have the externalities impeccably in their place,
without what the Apostle Paul is speaking of
here as the power that should inhabit the
form of the true religion.
A very famous politician in England, before we
came, before we left that part of the
world, was a leader of the Socialist Party,
and he had a remarkable tongue.
I don't want to say too much about
him, but he came from one of our
Welsh mining valleys, and he referred to the
churches of the valleys that he had come
from as sheer extinct volcanoes.
And I think it was one of the
most graphic turn of phrase that I've heard
for a long time, because it was so
true.
Time was when in that very valley, and
I'm referring now to something that happened, a
man of God, the early part of this
century, a man of God stood in an
open street on a Lord's Day morning, because
there was a procession, a parade.
I don't need to tell you what it
was about, it was something very worldly anyway.
But this man of God had felt constrained
in the name of the Lord to forbid
them to move.
There were about 5,000 people coming down,
it was very popular.
And R.B. Jones stood alone in the
center of the road, and the crowd stopped.
And he stood on an orange box, and
with his two hands, he lifted up his
hands into the sky, and he said, Men
and women, in the name of the Lord
God Almighty, I forbid you to do what
you have planned to do.
Go home.
And the whole lot of them, men and
women, boys and girls, turned heel and went
home.
There were no tricks about that.
He just happened to be a man who
had something more than the form of true
religion.
Time was when what we speak of as
non-conformity, particularly in the British Isles, had
not only a voice, but authority.
And what was preached in the churches on
Sunday had some influence upon what happened in
the House of Commons on Monday.
It doesn't appertain anymore, but neither does it
here.
Where has the power gone?
In North America, there is more evangelism than
in any other part of the world.
And if we rightly are judged, there are
more people in North America from week to
week who are making a profession of faith
in Jesus Christ than anywhere else.
But where is the power?
They will go to church on Sunday, I
take it.
Some of them may find their schedule a
little too busy for that, unfortunately.
But they will bear the name of Jesus,
and they will talk about Him, and they
will say that they believe in Him, and
they call themselves believers.
And they will be baptized, and they will
be received into a church, probably.
But where is the power?
And part of the challenge here is this,
of course, that the Apostle Paul here says
that as the age of grace is pressing
towards its close, this kind of awesome phenomenon
will be on the increase.
And you'll find it on all hands.
Men and women who have the form of
godliness, externally you can't find fault with them.
They're in the right place.
They're using the right words.
They apparently, they ostensibly believe the right things.
But they're like extinct volcanoes.
If ever, if ever, if ever, they rarely
knew the mighty, explosive power of God in
their hearts.
Now that is tragic for many reasons.
It leads, for example, to a misrepresentation of
God.
And I would put this before anything else
tonight.
The tragedy of the fact that men and
women, whether here or elsewhere, have a form
of godliness without the power of it.
The main tragedy lies in this, that it
misrepresents God.
We appear to be saying, you see, that
the only thing that is necessary in true
religion is to be in the right place
at the right time, to say the right
things, and so forth.
Mouth the correct shibboleths, but we are utterly
impotent.
That's not what God's after.
That's not why Christ died.
That's not why the Holy Spirit came.
That's not why the Bible was written.
The Bible wants more than that.
The Spirit wants more than that.
Jesus wants more than that.
And He's died and is risen again and
ascended to procure infinitely more than that.
To be draped in the mere trappings of
religion is a mockery that sooner or later
disgusts mankind around us.
And they conclude that God does nothing more
to give and nothing more to say than
what they see in men who have a
form of godliness and deny the power of
it.
And to me, this is the greatest tragedy.
If they judge Christianity according to what they
see in us, when we have no power,
our primary iniquity, and what should be our
primary concern is this, that we are misrepresenting
the Lord God Almighty.
However hard and well we sing, the Lord
is King.
Again, of course, the same phenomenon stays in
the hand of divine blessing.
You read the book of Isaiah, and he
is a particular exponent of this doctrine from
the very first chapter to right on to
the end of the fifties there.
The Lord's hand is not shortened that it
cannot save, nor is his ear heavy that
he cannot hear.
Well then, why doesn't he hear?
We're praying, aren't we?
We're talking to him, aren't we?
We're asking for things, aren't we?
And we're very religious.
We're bringing our offerings.
We're coming to church.
We're remembering the Sabbaths and the full moons
and the festivals.
We're keeping them all.
You read chapter one.
But says the Lord, the multitude of your
sacrifices, what are they to me?
I have more than enough of burnt offerings
and of rams and of the fat of
fatted animals.
I've no pleasure in the blood of bulls
and lambs and goats.
When you come to meet with me, who
has asked this of you?
You're trampling my very courts.
Stop bringing meaningless offerings.
I don't need to go on.
What he's saying is this.
It's all in vain.
I'm not listening to you.
I'm turning my face the other way.
I'm not interested in it, says the Lord.
It dishonors God before men.
It results in the withholding of the mighty
hand of God in blessing.
We are living at a time in church
history then when the forces of evil are
so blatant that we simply cannot afford to
be living on the shell or on the
crust of the truth, of true religion.
Brothers and sisters, you and I need the
power.
You and I need the dynamis.
You know, I was coming down here on
Friday night for a meeting.
I was coming down one of these side
streets here to come up St. George's and
I couldn't come out.
There was such a crowd coming up on
the road I didn't know what they were.
The road was black with people.
So I turned back.
I'm afraid I broke the law.
Don't tell anyone, will you?
But I turned round and I made a
U-turn and I thought I'd be in
front of them and I came down Bloor
and then I came down Spadina here and
lo and behold by the time I got
to the lights in Spadina they were there.
And I discovered afterwards that they were about
a mile long and they were from one
side of the road to the other.
So I had to leave my car.
I found a spot to park it there
and I walked down and I looked at
their faces and I sensed the mighty power
of hell on the march.
What's the answer to it?
Marching against them?
Not on your life.
Petitioning the Parliament?
God only knows whether that'll do any good.
But I'll tell you what the answer really
is.
It's right here.
It is right here.
It is for God's men and women to
discover the power of true religion and be
so possessed by it that they become vehicles
of it.
And there is nothing else that will turn
the tide.
I personally am convinced of that.
I see some staunch Wesleyans here tonight and
they remind me of the fact that Wesley's
revival in England Wesley's ministry in England saved
England from the awesome things that were going
on in the continent at that very time.
A man of God, clothed with the power
of God allied to men and women of
God who knew how to pray and how
to speak and how to live.
That's the answer.
It's God's answer.
You are the salt of the earth.
Now then, what have we got here?
Well, it's a truism, is it not?
That Christianity is a religion of power.
If it's not that, then historically the faith
is nothing.
It is a religion of power.
Our Lord Jesus Christ stood face to face
with the Pharisees of old and the Sadducees
and he criticized them.
Why did he criticize them?
On two counts.
One, he says, you are in error because
you do not know the Scriptures.
That's one thing.
They thought they had a spattering of the
Old Testament a smattering of the Old Testament
but they were never right or very rarely
right.
Scholars though they were, they misrepresented the Old
Testament as they did in the Sermon on
the Mount.
The Sermon on the Mount reflects their misunderstanding
of the truth.
But Jesus didn't end there.
He said, you are in error, he says,
because you do not know the Scriptures nor
the power of God.
You're so meticulous, you're so dogmatic, you're so
sure of yourself but listen, he says, you're
all wrong.
And it's because you don't know the Scriptures
of God and you don't know the power
of God.
If you only knew God you'd have power
in your lives.
Paul claimed that the good news of our
Christian faith is essentially God's power expressed and
experienced.
It is the power of God unto salvation
to every man that believes to the Jew
first and also to the Gentile.
It's the power of God unto salvation working
out salvation involved in saving men and women
power at work not power in a cage
not power in a cartridge but power let
loose.
Brothers and sisters, that's what the Gospel is.
It's the power of God let loose moving
up and down the pews touching our hearts,
our minds, our consciences our very bodies.
It's the power of God on the go.
It's the go in the name of God.
That's what power is.
You can't confine the power of God.
It's an explosive thing, it's on the moon.
The message of the cross says Paul is
foolishness to those who are perishing maybe but
to us who are being saved it is
the power of God.
And so what I want to say tonight
is this it's an indispensable ingredient of true
religion.
Now it's not something for extra for those
who are prepared to go that way it's
indispensable.
My friend, don't be satisfied with a shell.
Imagine a couple here I heard of a
couple falling in love this week these are
great weeks, you know you never know what
a pastor hears but imagine this man buying
a ring for his or assuming to be
purchasing a ring for his beloved he goes
to her with nothing but a case there
is no ring inside you know, just a
case.
How crazy!
Brothers and sisters, you know it's so true
of us so often we've got nothing but
the case but the casing we just don't
have the ring we just don't have the
jewel we just don't have the power and
we've got so accustomed to it we think
it's all right just as we are and
it's all wrong.
Now this is the theme this is the
thing that gripped me when I read this
verse about four weeks ago and I want
to talk about the power of true religion
I want to start tonight and I'm going
to continue for another two Sunday evenings it
seems to me that I'm looking generally at
the New Testament now we're usually confined to
a particular text or passage I want to
look more generally tonight it seems to me
that the power of true religion the power
of the gospel it manifests itself in three
ways first of all, it's the power of
God over us it's the authority of God
over us so that He is Lord, my
Lord and my God secondly, it is the
power of God in us right inside dealing
with a man that lives in this carcass
dealing with a person that lives in this
body dealing with a person inside and it's
the power of God doing something on the
move, inside men and women and thirdly, it
is the power of God through men and
women now, really, you can't divide these three
because they're like the three coils of a
rope they belong to one another they've been
entwined around one another and they make one
you can't really split them up nevertheless, I
think we're going to try to do that
just for the sake of being clear concerning
the biblical teaching tonight but let's remember that
in experience we simply cannot divide them as
sure as the power of God is over
you and His authority is acknowledged by you
then He will be working in you and
as sure as He will be working in
you He will work through you and so
they come together but for the sake of
our analysis for the sake of our seeing
things clearly we are going to try to
see them separately tonight looking only, of course,
at the first the power of God over
us in vain do we look for the
powerful ministry of God in us or through
us unless He, first of all, has power
over us now let me ask you, right
at this stage in our service will you
do this quietly with yourself?
try to think how much power does the
Lord exercise over you?
no one else can answer that what authority
has He got over your life and mine?
how far does it go?
in the teaching of the New Testament Jesus
Christ is, first of all, said to be
Lord of the Church Lord of the Church
the Head of the Church the Lord, the
Master but because He is Head of the
Church Colossians chapter 1 and verse 18 we
read in Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 22
now listen to this, it's so beautiful that
He is Head over all things for the
Church's sake I don't want anyone to miss
that but I want you to notice which
comes first what does it mean when it
says that He is Head over all things
for the Church's sake He is Head of
their enemies He is Master of their friends
He is the Boss, He is the Lord
of everything is there anything the Church needs?
He can give it anything?
anything He is Lord of all things to
the Church the Church can need nothing but
that He is Lord over it and can
provide it ah, but wait a moment before
He is Lord over anything to the Church
He must be Lord of the Church and
you see there is a great dichotomy in
experience the experience of many of us between
these two things we want the Lord to
be Lord over all things for us and
to us but the shoe pinches when He
says first of all I have to have
authority over you there can be no salvation
for the sinner that does not involve the
exercise of power over that sinner authority over
that sinner now you look at all the
biblical metaphors or images, start in the Old
Testament if you like if the sheep is
to be saved by the shepherd then the
shepherd must be the master he must have
authority over the sheep a sheep can't be
saved a sheep can't enjoy pasture a sheep
is never safe unless the sheep obeys and
is under the control of the shepherd that's
a truism think of the potter and the
clay there is no way that the vessel
unto honor can emerge unless the clay is
soft and malleable and yielding to the potter's
deft hands the potter must have power, authority
over the clay move into the New Testament
we have the image of the rabbi's authority
over his disciples a disciple never becomes what
the rabbi is capable of making him unless
the disciple receives and imbibes and obeys the
teaching or come again the physician and the
patient the same is true no patient will
be healed just because he's on the list
of a physician or she's on the list
of a physician you've got to go to
the physician or he's got to come to
you and he'll tell you what to do
and what to take and then you've got
to take it I am tempted to go
straight and I will tell you this you
know the first time this came home to
me was in Belfast Belfast people are a
very special breed but I remember going to
see a lady in the heart of the
Falls Road where the trouble started she was
not a Presbyterian, she was not a Baptist
she was not an Anglican she was a
kind of Catholic that she was looking for
something that she'd not got I won't tell
you all the story but this is the
relevant part of it I don't even remember
her name just now but she came back
to me very forcibly this afternoon there was
something wrong with her, I don't know what
it was but there she was lying on
her couch as I was visiting her on
this particular day and she was so proud
of the fact that there was nothing seriously
wrong because she was in the doctor's care
I visited him so many times and he's
visited me so many times so everything's all
right well I said, did he give you
anything to take?
Oh yes, each time he comes he brings
me some tablets or he gives me a
bottle and whenever I go to him he
gives me tablets or he gives me a
bottle I said, do you take them?
Oh no, she said, oh no and she
opened the cupboard and there was a whole
canister all bottles of whatever, I don't know
but you see she was in touch with
the doctor and she was expecting to get
well but she hadn't taken well I mustn't
say she hadn't taken a tablet, I don't
know but certainly most of them were untouched
now you may say that's very queer and
far-fetched but it's true my friend, if
the physician is to heal he must be
mastered you must obey assuming that he is
a true physician he's mastered and he cannot
heal you even if he has the power
to do so otherwise unless you obey, take
what he gives you or the image of
the father's authority over the children over his
children or the image of the king's rule
over his subjects it's all the same you
know you can't go anywhere in the New
Testament without this image, this metaphor standing out
and saying look here in your relationship to
God he must have control over you power,
authority neither is this claim to power and
authority over men exclusively a biblical phenomenon of
course in every religion it is claimed the
meaning of the word Islam comes from the
Aramaic and it means surrender and the follower
of Islam will tell you that there is
no salvation unless you surrender to the will
of Allah you have a similar kind of
thing in Buddhism or when you turn to
the cults you meet the same thing think
of the Mormons, the authority, the authority over
them think of these young men offering two
years in the prime of life, two years
to be a missionary and not to go
where they want to go where the climate's
good but where they're told to go and
go they do never mind about your career,
never mind about anything else you go and
go by the thousands they do authority who
has not been faced with the Jehovah's Witness
at the door you can't stop them they
come and they go and they come and
they go and they come back again and
they come back again and they're full of
zeal hawking a lie which is an insult
to Jesus Christ the Son of God but
they come back again they're under authority you
see and you're not trying to escape it
now there are two sides or two aspects
to the power that biblical religion claims over
the people of God first, the Bible claims
that God has a moral right to rule
us and this is established I'm not going
to dwell upon it, just want to refer
to it this is basic and it is
established on many counts God has the right
of the creator over his creature God has
the right of the preserver over his preserved
your next breath is God's he has the
right over your life not only because he
made you but because he preserves you you
can't breathe your next breath my friend unless
God gives you breath but not only that
of course in the experience of his redeemed
he has redeemed us with the blood of
his Son and as the apostle Paul haunted
the rebellious Corinthians of old he would tell
us you have been redeemed you have been
bought with a price you don't belong to
yourselves God has the right to rule you
and to rule me as his creature but
especially as his redeemed now beyond that the
Bible affirms that where genuine piety obtains that
divine right is acknowledged this is what makes
a true believer a man comes under the
authority of God and submits himself now time
was you know in the history of the
church in certain parts of the world where
this was the language of evangelism surrender I
used to think in my young Christian days
that that wasn't a good word surrender I'm
just trying to analyze my own psychology now
I'm not quite sure whether I'm doing justice
to myself or not but I won't tell
you the conclusion however as I read my
Bible I find that there was a very
significant truth to that whether it was the
whole truth or not there cannot be faith
in a Christ to whom I don't yield
surrender this divine power is exercised over us
on many fronts the gospel comes to us
as the power of divinely revealed and inspired
truth over our minds and God asks us
to submit our minds to his truth the
gospel comes to us as the power of
the divinely ordained standard of right and wrong
and he asks us to submit our consciences
to his standard the Bible comes to us
and the gospel and it claims to be
the power of God's will telling us what
we must do we must submit our wills
to him you see all this is God
coming into our lives to claim authority over
us and to tell us you don't belong
to yourselves to be saved you must be
in my hand in my control but now
let me try to put this in another
way I shall do so as briefly as
I can another way of presenting this same
important truth is to stress the role of
each person of the blessed trinity in the
exercise of power over men who have the
spirit of true religion and have you noticed
how the Bible does this how the New
Testament does this I don't need to go
back into the old the New Testament speaks
or refers to the power of God the
Father over his people of the authority of
the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God
the Savior of men over his people and
of the power and authority of the Spirit
the whole triune God you see comes to
save us first of all by exercising authority
over us power over us let me just
dwell with this for a little while first
of all there is the distinctive role of
the Father which is expressed in a number
of passages now let me give us an
illustration tonight the passage very well known passage
very familiar passage in Hebrews 12 it starts
with verse 5 as the Holy Father God
is concerned for the real and eternal well
-being of his children and that is expressed
in this passage in Hebrews 12 in terms
of what is called there according to the
King James chastening whom the Father loves he
chastens and he scourges every son every child
that he receives in the New International Version
it is training the word training and literally
the Greek word underlying it really means that
it's the training of a child I quote
from one of the best Greek English lexicons
the aunt Gingrich and it refers to the
word and says it means the upbringing the
training instruction of a child chiefly as it
is obtained by discipline and correction and inspiration
as that of a fatherly God what is
this that we're referring to?
God the Father taking each child whom he
receives into his family and exercising such authority
over each child that he never receives a
child into his family never adopts a child
into his family but that he corrects him
he chastises him he disciplines him he trains
him and in the midst of all that
that is said there there is the word
gumnadzo from which we have our English gymnastics
God puts us through our paces says the
writer to the Hebrews he puts us in
the gymnasium and he puts us through our
exercises because he wants us to grow up
into the fullness of the stature of Christ
he wants to make men and women of
God out of us but you see to
do that he exercises power authority my friend
do you dance to God's tune?
to whose band do you march?
how do you march through life?
do you keep time with God?
true religion means the acknowledgement and the glad
acceptance of the fact that God the Father
rules over his people and trains them by
his grace and by his providence you have
illustrations of the same thing going back into
the Old Testament and into the New from
beginning to end of scripture in the Old
Testament there are classical illustrations such as Joseph
imagine Joseph for example after being sold by
his brothers to those Ishmaelites or Egyptians as
they thought of them remember after everything that
had happened to him he says when he
met his brothers later on he said ah
he said it's not as you think it
was God who sent me ahead of you
to preserve for you a remnant on earth
and to save your lives by a great
deliverance so then he says it was not
you who sent me here you see they
were getting very sorry for themselves not perhaps
penitent but they were sorry for themselves and
a little bit afraid of consequences and he
disabuses them he says alright it's alright now
he says I'm not going to take vengeance
on you it was God I see the
hand of God in it God sent me
ahead of you you see God was training
me he put me in the pit he
took me into the caravan he allowed me
to be faced with the temptation in Potiphar's
house he took me into prison and when
that man forgot me the chief butler when
he went out and asked no favor as
he had said he would God was in
it he says and in all of this
God was making me what was he making
you Joseph?
he made me he was making me a
father to Pharaoh Lord of his entire household
and ruler over all Egypt God was making
me you see he was disciplining me he
was training me I was in the gymnasium
says Joseph oh blessed is that man that
sees behind the hands of men the hand
of God blessed
is that man who can see the sovereign
hand of God behind the kind or cruel
hands of men and who can say to
every circumstance what Jesus said to Pontius Pilate
in John 19 11 what did Jesus say
to Pontius Pilate?
you would have no power over me if
it were not given you from above you
got it?
says Jesus to Pontius Pilate yes you got
authority over me for the moment but you
didn't get it it's not yours it's not
the Roman power it's not the Jewish power
and it's not yours personally it's been given
you from above and because of that I
submit to it I yield to it I
give in I acknowledge the authority of God
over me even to the point of my
being a counted a sinner and a worm
and no man and I die beneath it
yes and thrice blessed is he who has
grace calmly and confidently to yield to that
sovereign and wise rule of God over him
I remember referring to this once before if
you remember it forgive me probably you don't
anyway I remember referring to a man who
meant a lot to me Johannes Towler of
Strasbourg he met a tramp one day whom
he addressed in this way God give you
a good day my friend he said to
the tramp do you speak to tramps?
you might find great profit in speaking to
some of them there are great angels dressed
in rags I found that I thank God
said the beggar I never had a bad
day thank you what?
Towler somewhat taken aback changed his mode of
salutation God give you a happy life my
friend I thank God said the beggar I'm
never unhappy never unhappy said Towler what do
you mean?
well rejoined the beggar when it is fine
I thanks my God when it rains I
thank my God when I have plenty I
thank God when I am hungry I thank
God and since God's will is my will
and whatsoever pleases my God pleases me why
should I say I am unhappy when I
am not unhappy oh there's music in that
there's grace in that you see he saw
himself in the hands of God for better
for worse for richer for poorer alone or
in company in all circumstances in the hand
of God the Father who he saw disciplining
him making something of him a child who
would honor his father in the household of
heaven scripture sometimes speaks of the authority of
the Son of God over us it speaks
of Jesus as Lord I'm not going to
dwell on this this is a more familiar
theme can I only just refer to it
it is important Jesus manifested in his human
life what it means to be obedient to
the Father because he was the perfect son
and three times over God the Father said
of him as Jesus the man this is
my beloved son in whom I am well
pleased if you want to see then if
you want to see what kind of submission
honors the Father and pleases him look at
the Lord Jesus Christ he is the pattern
that he exhibited all of this in his
life in his death and not only that
he by his sacrifice upon the cross established
forever the crown rights of God the Redeemer
over every man and every woman who trusts
him God has creative rights from all eternity
but he has sovereign rights the rights of
Calvary redemptive rights over his own the Thessalonians
knew that you know when they listened to
Paul bringing the good news to Thessalonica they
got a little bit angry after a while
and do you remember how they represented Paul
and his message and his friends who were
with him this is how they said Acts
17 7 they are all defying Caesar's decrees
they said saying that there is another king
one called Jesus you got that they've been
listening to Paul preaching and this is how
they summarize it this man and the fellows
with him are talking about another king it's
a threat to Caesar who is this other
king Jesus is king you see the whole
of the ministry of the Apostle Paul asked
you to be subject to King Jesus are
you subject to him?
how far does he have authority over us?
and then of course the New Testament speaks
of the authority of the Holy Spirit the
power of the Holy Spirit I only want
to say two things about it it's not
that it isn't important it's absolutely important and
I don't want to take too long two
things I want to say are these what
is meant by the fullness of the Holy
Spirit in the New Testament is essentially in
the first place there are other things but
in the first place when the New Testament
speaks of the fullness of the Holy Spirit
it means the control of the Spirit whom
the Holy Spirit fills he controls you know
it is possible to have an element indwelling
you that doesn't control you when the Holy
Spirit fills he takes over all control and
in this age this is how God's authority
is expressed it is by the Spirit and
the sword of the Spirit which is the
Word of God the other thing I want
to say is this you notice how the
language of the book of the Acts of
the Apostles how this authority over the Spirit
over people is expressed it comes out in
odd little snippets you're not looking for it
but it's there all the time I read
for example I could read more evident Scriptures
Scriptures in which it's far more evident than
this but there are incidents like this we
miss them if we don't read prayerfully in
Acts chapter 15 and verse 28 we read
it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and
to us now can you see that?
there's been a council in Jerusalem and they
had to come to some conclusions in that
council and one of the leaders says how
did we come to the conclusions?
well he said it seemed good to the
Holy Spirit and to us and we sensed
the lordship of the Spirit and the movings
of the Spirit and the thoughts of the
Spirit and the will of the Spirit and
he influenced us likewise and we came to
think the same thoughts no earthquakes!
just there we have earthquakes in the book
of the Acts sometimes of course and the
houses tremble but not always God does not
always manifest His power in earthquakes my friend
have you seen the snow moving these last
two days?
did you hear it go?
did you hear it move?
well I know the lorries came into some
of our streets but I'm not talking about
the lorries I'm talking about the warm breeze
that came up our streets and silently overnight
and a little bit of rain just a
little sprinkling sorry you Baptists but it was
only a little bit of sprinkling and it
did the trick and God the almighty the
omnipotent God can exert His power without making
any noise don't judge God's presence by the
noise necessarily He's almighty it
seems good to the Holy Spirit and to
us now listen to this then the Spirit
told Philip go to that chariot and stay
near it you see here is Philip in
the wilderness well first of all he wasn't
in the wilderness he was in the revival
up in Samaria the Spirit told him to
come down into the wilderness but now that
he's in the wilderness the Spirit tells him
listen go near to that chariot and keep
near it and the man was under the
control of the Spirit he didn't know why
but he knew in his soul that he
was there for that purpose and the Spirit
controlled him or let me give you another
one we read of Paul and his partners
in Acts chapter 16 and verse 7 they
tried to enter Bithynia but we read the
Spirit of Jesus would not allow them here
is Paul moving west towards Europe you see
and he's moving as it were in a
straight line first of all he tries to
go down to Ephesus but the Spirit of
the Lord wouldn't allow them to go there
then they tried to go up north towards
Bithynia as my text says but the Spirit
of the Lord wouldn't let them go north
either but the point I'm getting at is
this you see the Spirit was powerful there
they knew the Spirit they were sensitive to
the Spirit the Spirit was exercising power they
had no liberty so what do they do?
either turn back or go forward forward they
go until they come to throw us and
then Paul has the vision in the night
come over and help us the man of
Macedonia and so the Gospel came to Europe
the Spirit knew what he was after but
he's exercising control to bring his servants to
their rightful place you see his power not
making a lot of noise there was noise
on the day of Pentecost and there may
still be noise I think we could do
with a little bit more noise but, but,
but but that's not the important thing it's
the control it's the power of the Spirit
power brothers and sisters I'm concluding we, you
and I have the form of piety we
go to church on Sundays sometimes during the
week we're out on a Sunday night many
people are not here you are you and
I we've gone through the form of service
have we the power that corresponds to the
outward form have we the power there can
be no greater tragedy it seems to me
than that of a people believing in an
almighty Father calling themselves his children yet unwilling
to be ruled by him believing in an
almighty Savior who is the only Savior of
the lost and yet unwilling to be mastered
by him in order to be served by
him believing in an almighty Holy Spirit who
can bring the things of God into the
lives of men and capture men for Christ
and bring to new birth a whole universe
of sinners and yet are content with anything
less and I go one further step who
profess to believe in an infallible word of
Scripture and yet are unwilling to offer to
the deity of whom the Scriptures speak Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit the yieldedness of heart
and will that is the essential hallmark of
a redeemed people it is possible to have
the form of godliness and to deny the
power thereof to resist even to deny the
Holy Spirit or stand against him and to
grieve him so that we are left with
the contradictory phenomenon of a professing Christian who
is lord over himself and you will never
find in the Bible a greater contradiction than
that and if you look into heaven you
will not see this person in heaven a
man or a woman who is lord over
himself or herself for the basic Christian confession
involves Jesus Christ is Lord May
the grace of God come into our churches
in these days and into our hearts bringing
home to us the urgency of the hour
not just to believe the truth but having
believed the truth to experience what it speaks
of so that we may exemplify before an
unbelieving world the power of God expressed in
salvation if there is anything in your life
that stands in the way of that tonight
brother or sister count it but loss I
plead you to get rid of it don't
harbor it don't hold on to it don't
come to terms to it the dearest idol
you have known whatever that idol be tear
it from the throne it occupies and crown
him only Lord of all he must be
Lord over us before he exercises his power
in us and through us let us pray
almighty God our father in heaven we bless
you for your wondrous word and your glorious
gospel and your infinite patience with us who
bear your name forgive our sins of word
and deed and thought we pray and write
your word upon our hearts anew tonight as
it were with the finger of the Holy
Spirit himself Spirit of God communicate with us
those things you want us to know and
to experience and enable us not to resist
not a kick against the prick enable us
when we know that it is you to
open wide the gates of our hearts that
the whole being may be mastered possessed and
in turn empowered by the God of all
power and the God of all grace we
ask it in Jesus Christ your son our
Lord Amen