I was meditating here over the fact about
my going to, over to the other north
side for a ministry next Sunday.
And I was thinking that I have been
staying pretty close to this portrait in recent
times, and just reminiscing a little bit over
the culprits I've been asked to come to
and didn't go, because I'd rather stay and
preach to you.
I think about the Westminster Chapel in London,
where I could have been for a month
or two or three different summers and didn't
take it and wouldn't.
I was invited to Park Street in Boston,
where often Gay is and many others.
Brother Redpath was leaving for London, or leaving
for his home in England, or wherever he
was going in England.
He asked me to take his portrait for
a month.
And I told him that this church wasn't
as big as Moody's, but that I considered
that it was one of the most important
churches in the world, and I couldn't possibly
do it.
And I didn't, until he finally got stuck
just before he left.
And so, just before he went away, a
man failed him because of illness in the
home, and I said, well, I can't possibly
say no for one Sunday.
That accounts for my being there.
You know, honestly, I'd rather preach to you
here.
There are only probably a fifth or less
of these numbers than I would over there.
But I hope I may have a message,
two messages for them, which in content and
in spirit may help them greatly next week.
And as for preaching to big churches or
large crowds, I haven't any ambition for it.
It may just be laziness and lack of
spirit, or it may be a deeper wisdom,
and I'm inclined to think it is.
Anyhow, pray, if you will.
And you're going to have two of the
best preachers in the Chicago area here, excellent
preachers, next week.
Now, in the book of Luke, verses 16
-18 of the 8th chapter.
Luke 8, 16-18.
I was meditating here over the fact about
my going over to the North Side for
ministry next Sunday, and I was thinking that
I have been staying pretty close to this
portrait in recent times, and just reminiscing a
little bit over the portraits I've been asked
to come to and didn't go, because I'd
rather stay and preach to you.
I think about the Westminster Chapel in London,
where I could have been for a month
or two or three different summers and didn't
take it, and wouldn't.
I've been invited to Park Street in Boston,
Rock and Gaze and many others.
Brother Redpath was leaving for London, or leaving
for his home in England, or wherever he
was going in England.
He asked me to take his portrait for
a month, and I told him that this
church wasn't as big as movies, but that
I considered that it was one of the
most beautiful churches in the world.
It said it was on a candlestick.
The tale which enter in may seem the
lie, for nothing is secret that shall not
be made manifest.
Is there anything hid that shall not be
known and come abroad?
Take heed, therefore, how you hear, for whosoever
hath in him shall be given, and whosoever
hath not from him shall be taken, even
that which he seems to have.
Verse 18, the first sentence, take heed, take
heed how you hear.
I want to talk a little words about
that, and then first before we do, let's
pray.
O God, we thank thee for the singing
in which we hear a sound that is
earthly.
It's neither the cheap song of the world,
nor is it the fine classical song of
the world.
But there's another verse.
We hear it, and it harmonizes with the
beasts and elders and living creatures and ransoms
who with palms in their hands, stand up
to you and sing together of him who
loved them and washed them in his own
blood.
We're glad to hear this, Lord.
We know what it'll be like, a little
bit of it at least.
Thank thee for November of Christians.
Thank thee for this church.
Thank thee for this crowd here this evening
night.
And Lord, it isn't the largest church on
the continent, but to us, dear, the most
important, and we pray that all grant that
tonight there may go forth troops that will
be helpful to the people.
Some will need it.
Some are on their way.
Some have long past the necessity for any
of my priests.
Younger ones are coming up.
New ones are coming in.
Many others are the scorers, are going to
other parts of the country and other parts
of the world and taking the instruction and
the message with them there.
New ones are hearing.
God grant me say tonight that in utter
humility and consciousness that it is not I
and not man and not the voice of
man, but the voice of the Spirit, may
we hear thee speak, O Lord Jesus.
Grant mercy to deliver us from this hot,
noisy, jumpy city with its
cacophonous racket and its fears and its lusts
and its deceptions and its lies and its
demon possession.
O God, have mercy on this great concentration
of evil.
We remain in Chicago.
We thank thee thou hast sent us a
number who haven't bowed the knee to Baal
nor kissed his image and never will.
Thank thee for them, Father.
Thank thee some of them are here tonight.
Graciously help us, who may be in power
and not in burden.
Now, the text says, Take heed how ye
hear.
When the great God brings salvation to us,
he let it ride on the voice, he
let it ride on the sound.
And salvation was to begin now where we
are and continue through successive stages of progression
until we are glorified.
So always remember, if you don't have full
salvation until you're glorified.
I am a little shy.
I just learned the other day that a
president of a well-known Bible institute, or
no, seminary, said I was a legalistic, that
exposure, was a legalistic sanctificationist.
I thought that was nice, and I appreciate
that.
If I was keeping a diary, I'd write
that in for my grandchildren.
But I may, in some people's eyes, be
a legalistic sanctificationist.
But I shy away from a lot of
the terms that are used even in our
own society.
I shy away from the term, fourfold gospel.
The God I know isn't satisfied with fourfoldness,
or fivefoldness, or tenfoldness, or twelvefoldness, or hundredfoldness,
but he multiplies himself and magnifies his glory,
and surprises us with new and wondrous revelations
of himself that far exceed our little fourfold.
And then, I don't like the word fourfold
gospel.
I suppose I should, but I don't.
I like it when you mean it in
its great emotional flow, full salvation, full salvation.
Yes, I like that.
But to put a word before the gospel,
a word of man choosing, I don't quite
like it.
Plural gospel.
You see, my brethren, you don't have plural
salvation, really, until you're glorified.
Now, it is the will of God that
we should be saved by hearing, and that
we should begin to hear now, and that
we should obey and follow, go on, until
we pass through stage after stage and finally
be glorified at last.
And God, in doing all this, proceeds after
a known law of life.
It is that man can change.
Change and decay in all around I see,
and that's one of the saddest things in
the world that we change so.
We change, change and decay, but it's also
one of the most comforting things that I
know.
I'm going to ask you a question now,
just to ask you a question, and trust
to your humility and realism to answer it.
Would you like to have a visitation from
an angel, or would you like to have
a messenger from heaven, the messenger of the
annunciation, the angel of the annunciation, come to
you and say, is there more, better, and
I could name all of you, I have
a message from the most high God.
It is that you remain so defeated by
the everlasting Father that as you are at
this moment, you shall be eternalized.
Serious.
You have been, this is the judgment of
God and the decision of the most high,
there'll be no change from here on.
It seems to me that that alone would
be cause enough for 100 days mourning and
30 days fasting to be told you'll never
change.
You'll remain as you are.
I say this would be an annunciation so
terrible, a declaration so frightening, that I think
that instead of just bringing happiness to us,
it would drive us into despair.
For it is the hope of every man
who has named the holy name of Jesus
that he's going to be better tomorrow than
he was today.
That if he lives through 57, it will
add up to something better than 56, and
if he lives through 58, it'll be better
than 57.
Not more money, not more prosperity, not better
weather, not more health, not that, but that
he'll be a better man in God.
That, I say, is our hope, rather, that
we can change, that we are not fixed.
But God Almighty has chastised and fixed us
by an eternal, changeless fire.
It's predicated, this message that we hear from
God, this message through the word, it's predicated
upon our ability to change.
You've got to temper tonight like the very
devil.
It's possible for you to be so delivered
that the change will be noticed by everybody
that knows you when you're in the fire.
No matter what habits you have, or what
negative habits, or what vices you may have,
there is power in the gospel of Jesus
Christ to change you so completely that it's
like changing a beast into an eagle.
There is power, there is potential in man
to change.
You don't have to continue to be what
you are, and it seems to me that's
the first message the world ought to know.
You can be different, and that's the first
message the world ought to know.
And the gospel should follow that message.
For preaching any gospel without that basic knowledge
that I can change, that God can change
me, that I am not fixed like concrete,
but viable like clay.
And this is the known law of life,
and God takes advantage of it.
I don't know that what the angels have
sinned and cut off their first estate may
have been fixed eternally, unable to change.
At least there's no hope.
But for you and me, there's hope.
Man can change, and not only change but
learn.
And so there's a sounding of a voice
through the world, a living voice, when you
open this book.
When you open this book, don't read it
as you would read a newspaper or a
classic.
Expect to hear something in it.
Expect it to speak to you, and expect
the voice to vibrate.
Expect it to be alive.
For the words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are life.
And this book is a live book.
It's only read to the dead, and to
the hopelessly dead.
To all others, it's a live book.
You see, my brethren, there's a difference between
redemption and salvation.
Jesus Christ died on the cross and provided
redemption there, and there isn't anything that can
be added to redemption.
Redemption is the finished work of Christ on
the tree, the finished work that if he
finished that part of the dying on the
cross, that part was done.
And Christ said, if he is finished, he
didn't mean redemption was finished, he meant that
part of redemption was finished.
The rest of redemption was that he had
to rise again and go to that hand
of the Father.
For he saves us by his death, but
justifies us by his resurrection.
But not bear down too hard on that
single phase that is finished.
For when he said he finished, he meant
the giving out of his life, the pouring
out of his life, the atonement, the sacrifice
was made, the lamb was dying.
But if God had not redeemed the lamb,
salvation would never have been.
Redemption would never have been accomplished.
But God accepted the lamb, raised him from
the dead, healed him and put him on
high, and made him Lord in Christ.
And that's effective redemption.
For the redemption is all Jesus Christ did
for us.
From the time he picked up his cross
until the time he sat down at the
Father's right hand.
That's redemption.
And that's gone, and there's nothing we can
add to it.
Not the keeping of the tablet, not the
eating of certain meats, not the long periods
of fasting, not even prayer can add anything
to that long before you existed.
And you are only a forethought in the
mind of God.
It's all done.
There's nothing to be added.
Nothing, nothing to be added.
There are cults, Adventism, and others.
There are cults that say that there's something
we must add, that it was not finished,
not done.
There's something we must add.
I believe that to be glad for me,
that there's anything we must add.
Nothing more is to be added.
This man, when he had made one sacrifice
for sin forever, sat down on the right
hand of God, from henceforth expecting until his
enemies be made his footstool.
Nothing can be added, and any attempt to
add is to insult the Savior who gave
it all.
That's redemption.
Salvation is something else.
Salvation is redemption applied to the individual life.
Redemption is objective.
It's that which is done.
It's that which was done before you were
born, before America was a nation, before the
Crusade, before the fall of Rome.
It was that which was done in that
relatively short period of time.
Redemption.
The Lamb was led out to die.
He died, rose, and sat down in what
the old theologians call his passion, his season
for God.
Now, that's redemption.
But the application of that objective truth to
me subjectively, that's salvation.
And so, salvation is both a human and
divine thing.
Salvation is divine in that God did that
which man could not do, and redemption is
100 percent divine.
There's nothing that any man can do, or
angel can do.
That's divine.
But salvation has a human element in it,
a human side to it.
And it means that I've got to make
a response to that redemptive message, that I
have to make a response to it, otherwise
it does not become saving to me.
Christ died for Inglewood, and redemption was provided
for Inglewood.
But Inglewood is not saved.
Why?
Because Inglewood made no response.
The sinners that we know that die every
day are sinners who do not die in
sin not because they were not redeemed by
the blood of Christ, but because they do
not respond, they do not hear.
Now, it is our part to understand and
to hear, to hear and to understand and
to respond.
Remember that we can sit in mere truth
and be none the better for it.
Remember that, that it's the response to truth.
Suppose that you were ill with a certain
kind of disease for which there has been
a specific cure discovered.
And, say, it is yawns.
That's the name of a disease, yawns.
It's a disease that eats the fingers off
and eats the nose off and eats the
ears and terrible things.
And what I can learn one or two
injections of penicillin cure it.
And they're having difficulty over there making me
believe and understand they're not God.
And this is not a Jesus miracle.
It is not a miraculous thing.
But suppose we have a terrible disease here.
Suppose you had it, and there was a
specific.
It was discovered that it would cure it
in 24 hours.
And suppose that a man got up before
you and for 45 minutes lectured on that
medicine, told what it would do, the cures
it would affect, and then suppose that he
threw the meeting open and 25 people got
up and said, I want to testify that
what that man said is true.
I had that disease.
I took that medicine and looked at me.
I can do a day's work and feel
as good as sleep, as my father used
to say, like a fox.
Well, has anything been done for you yet?
No.
You're sitting down there.
You're hearing a man tell of the merits
of a certain medicine.
You're hearing people testify that that medicine cured
them, but nothing happened to you.
You still have your disease.
What are you supposed to do?
You're supposed to hear it, believe in it,
and do something about it.
And that's exactly the salvation.
The blood of Jesus Christ is the medicine
of immortality, and the dying and rising and
living and pleading of the Savior is redemption
without anything man can add.
It's God Almighty's universal panacea.
But you've heard that talked about until it's
all shut to you, and until you have
heard his faith and then risen to do
something about it.
And the fire itself, by reading his faith,
doesn't mean anything.
It's all objective, all outside of you.
It must become subjective and get inside of
you.
No confirmatory work has to be done.
You need to look to nobody, to nobody
for confirmation.
It's all been done in the beginning of
the word.
And there's a speaking word, and because in
the beginning was the word and you were
created in the image of the word, you
can understand the word.
And even though fallen like the man, the
young man, far from home in the far
country among the swine, swine, swineherds, still, still
because you were made in the image of
God in the beginning was the word, and
all things were made by the word, and
without him was not anything made that was
made, you have in you the ability to
hear the word.
Take me to how you hear.
For redemption is yonder.
Salvation is when redemption that is yonder becomes
present and within us by obedience and faith.
So there's a verse, and it sounds living
and vibrant all through the word.
But you know there are different kinds of
hearers.
I've looked through the scriptures to notice the
different kinds of hearers.
Don't get great for a long sermon, I'm
going to be brief.
There are a number of hearers, perhaps 67
of them here, and not for each one
for a sermon.
But I'm going to condense them and point
out what kind of hearers we may be.
For instance, here's a faithless hearer, a hearer
without faith.
Faith.
Israel had the gospel preached unto them, said,
Paul, but it did not help them because
they were not mixed with faith.
There was no faith in the hearts of
the people that heard it, so it's possible
to be a hearer without any faith at
all.
And then here's a dull hearer.
A dull hearer is a bored hearer.
You know that if you could take all
the dullness that there is in Protestant religion
and ballast, and if you could burn it,
you could heat the whole United States all
the winter of 1957.
And if it was like gasoline, you could
run all the trucks on the highways for
the next five years.
Because boredom is one thing that is pretty
present in the Church of Christ.
And somebody will say immediately, well, you preachers
make it so.
And there's a lot of truth in that,
a lot of truth in that.
We do.
We talk about things of the most importance
in the tone of voice that has no
real interest, whatever, and no vibrancy, and give
the impression, so what?
I know that boredom is partly the result
of the pulpit, but also boredom is partly
the result of people trying to feed people
who aren't hungry, and trying to get people
to seek God who don't want God, and
trying to get people to get their lives
insured who don't think they're going to die,
and trying to get people to get ready
for a second world when they don't believe
there's any more than one.
They live as if they believe there's only
one world.
A lot of that boredom, that dullness, is
a result of hearing and hearing and not
doing anything about it.
And then there's a critical here.
I find him in the Bible, too.
He's the fellow that wants to know about
the grammar, and if it isn't quite what
it should be, he won't listen.
And he wants to know about the delivery,
and is it thoughtful?
When I go anywhere and I'm advertised as
a thoughtful preacher, I always remember what they
said about the egg that's fairly fresh.
Anybody that wants to eat a fairly fresh
egg, it's what you call damning with faint
praise.
But there's the critical here.
There's the critical thoughtful.
And now I say that phrase.
Do you know what?
Do you know that it's twelve o'clock
tonight?
The sound of the trumpet should echo through
the land, and all the old forgotten great
gods of our two-written fathers should be
visited by the Holy Ghost, and the dead
should rise into living change.
The poorest preacher in Chicago would be an
orator in your ears, and you'd be glad
to hear any little thing.
Critical here.
Then there's the forgetful here, and Satan feels
the speed, and there's the neglectful here who
has good intentions, and his good intentions are
always put for his deed.
He's always intending to do it.
Did you ever stop to think how much
you'd have done if you had done what
you had intended to do?
Did you ever think how far you'd be
out along on the highway toward heaven if
you had done all that you intended to
do?
If you had stopped God, did you intend
it to speak to him?
No.
Hell is plagued with good intentions, our father
said.
Then I read a nice Bible of the
trembling years, and that jeweler trembled and fell
down and said, What shall we do?
Oh, what shall we do?
He said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved.
Then there's the submissive here as we read
about Matthew, Cornelius's household.
There's a congregation that anybody could have preached
to.
Then he cost you one dollar, do you
know it?
He cost you a dollar.
Now, the price of souls was going up
these days.
He preached, and three thousand were converted, and
the overhead was exactly nothing.
It didn't cost anybody a dime, not a
dime.
But it's been going up now in recent
times, and so it takes thousands and thousands
of dollars to rescue one sinner.
Because we're not submissive, Cornelius's household didn't cost
anything to get them converted, because they said,
Here we are, Lord, ready to hear whatever
thou hast to say to us.
But he didn't preach the gospel, and while
he was speaking to them, the whole village
fell on him.
That's because they were ready for it.
They were a people submissive and prepared and
ready to hear what God the Lord will
speak.
Ah, how precious is the little time that
we've got left.
How precious is the little time, and how
vital is this little time to the long,
long future that lies before us.
Take heed how you hear.
Some of you have had the good fortune
and the misfortune to be brought up in
Christian homes where you heard the word from
the time you were born.
They say that preacher's children are sometimes the
very hardest to reach and the ones that
go the farthest astray.
That isn't always true, and history will show
that it isn't true.
I read once at a church concert how
many of the presidents of the United States
and vice presidents and leaders everywhere were preacher's
children, great leaders, college presidents, great missionary faiths
and preacher's children.
So they're not as bad as they're said
to be, but I think I know why
they're sometimes here in a bored way, because
they've just had it in the time they
can remember.
Just in the time they can remember, sometimes
it's not much like them.
It's just dull, routine, routine religion.
It's like a routine kiss.
Who wants that?
I ask you now, who wants that?
And who wants routine religion?
It doesn't matter if it isn't voluntary and
impulsive.
It isn't religion at all.
And we grind it out sometimes, and make
the poor little fellows sick, and it's as
if each youth would say, as God says
to the little children, "'Spring,' and we say
to the little children, "'Now sit still.'" As
in Sunday School class.
God says, "'Spring,' and we say, "'Now sit
still.'" And we make them sit still and
listen to that which they don't understand, and
wonder why they're gorged.
Yet my family will only know it, will
only know it, that word, that word, that,
that, that dual message.
For it is a dual message.
The recording finished at that point.
The credit is on the candle stick, the
thing which in ruin may seize the light.
for nothing is secret that shall not be
made manifest.
Under anything hid that shall not be known
and come abroad.
Take heed, therefore, how you hear.
For whosoever hath, a union shall be given,
and whosoever hath not from the union shall
be taken, even that which he seems to
have.
Now, verse 18, the first sentence, take heed,
how you hear.
I want to talk a little words about
that, and then first before we do, let's
pray.
Oh God, we thank thee for the scene
in which we hear a sound that is
earthly.
It's neither the cheap song of the world,
nor is it the fine classical song of
the world.
But there's another voice, and we hear it,
and it harmonizes with the beasts and elders
and living creatures, and ransom them with pawns
in their hands, families and kings, and bring
together of him who loved them and washed
them in his own blood.
We're glad to hear this, Lord, and we
know what it will be like, a little
bit of it at least.
Thank thee for an ascended Christian.
Thank thee for this church.
Thank thee for this crowd here this evening
and night.
Lord, it isn't the largest church on the
continent, but to us it is the most
important, and we pray that all grant that
tonight there may go forth to let their
day pass positively.
Some don't need it, some are on their
way, some have long past necessity.
For any of my priests, younger ones are
coming up, new ones are coming in, many
others are the scorers, are going to other
parts of the country and other parts of
the world and taking the instruction and the
message with them there.
New ones are hearing.
God grant we pray tonight that in utter
humility and consciousness that it is not I
and not man and not the voice of
man, but the voice of the Spirit, may
we hear thee speak, O Lord Jesus.
Grant mercy to the overest, such this hot,
noisy, jaunty city, with its sarcophagus,
and its fears, and its lusts, and
its deceptions, and its lies, and its demon
possession.
O God, have mercy on this great concentration
of evil that is made in Chicago.
We thank thee thou hast been as a
number who hath inbound the need of Baal,
nor kicked his image, and never will.
Thank thee for them, Father.
Thank thee some of them are here tonight.
Graciously help us that we may be in
power, and not in burden.
Christ's name be praised.
Now, the text says, take heed how we
hear.
And when the great God brings salvation to
us, he let it ride on a voice.
He let it ride on a sound.