In these sessions we have chosen, I believe,
by the direction of the Spirit of God,
the subject of Toward Spiritual Maturity.
Toward Spiritual Maturity.
Thank you.
And this will be the main theme of
our ministry these days.
And I want to begin tonight by underlining
the main goal that we're striving after.
And as a basis for what I want
to say to you, I may say that,
session by session, I'm not here to tickle
your intellect.
I'm not here to enlighten your mind, necessarily.
But I am here, I hope, to enlarge
your heart in the love of Jesus our
Lord, that you may know him more perfectly,
and that, to quote the text which is
on our program, we who with unveiled faces
contemplate the Lord's glory are being transformed into
his likeness with ever-increasing glory.
Transformed into his likeness.
Toward Spiritual Maturity.
Like Paul's prayer for the church at Ephesus
in chapter 3, I bow my knees before
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that you might be filled with all
the fullness of God.
This is Spiritual Maturity.
That we might be filled with all the
fullness of God.
That's the objective of our redemption.
And I've sought to make that the subject
of our messages these days.
I'm trying to say, I'm going to begin
with a very familiar passage of the word
tonight.
I hope more briefly than I usually will
be, because you must be tired after so
much travel.
And you'll find it in the fifth chapter
of St. John's Gospel.
St. John, chapter 5.
And as you open your Bible and find
the place, let us just take a moment
to lift our hearts to the Lord together
in prayer.
Will you echo in your heart the prayer
which I would offer on your behalf and
on my own?
A moment's silent prayer, first of all.
Speak, Lord, in the stillness while I wait
on thee.
Hush my heart to listen in expectancy.
Speak, O blessed Master, in this quiet hour.
Let me see thy face, Lord, and feel,
and feel thy touch of power.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Now, St. John, chapter 5.
Reading together the first few verses of that
chapter.
And reading from the King James Version.
Which I won't be using at each session,
but I'm using it tonight.
Thought that might be very tactful.
And St. John, chapter 5.
You know, quite seriously, it used to be
a wonderful thing to begin a message and
ask the congregation to join in the reading
of the scripture aloud.
If you do that today, it's chaotic.
You think they were speaking in tongues, and
of course that would never do.
But I hope and pray that we've had
all the translations we will ever have.
We've got plenty.
St. John, chapter 5, in the King James
Version.
After this, there was a feast of the
Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now, there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep
market, a pool, which is called in the
Hebrew tongue Bethesda.
Having five porches, in these lay a great
multitude of impotent folk, blind, half-withered, waiting
for the moving of the water.
For an angel went down at a certain
season into the pool, and troubled the water.
Whoever then first, after the troubling of the
water, stepped in was made whole of whatsoever
disease he had.
And a certain man was there, which had
an infirmity thirty and eight years.
When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that
he had been now a long time in
that case, he said to him, Will thou
be made whole?
The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have
no man, when the water is troubled, to
put me into the pool.
But while I am coming, another steppeth down
before me.
Jesus said to him, Rise, take up thy
bed, and walk.
And immediately the man was made whole, and
took up his bed, and walked.
And on the same day was the Sabbath.
We're introduced here, aren't we, to a New
Testament healing pool, where there was a great
multitude of people.
And did you notice that in four ways
they were all different?
But in one way they were all alike.
Some were impotent.
Some were blind.
Some were hoarse.
And some were, a chattering word, withered.
A pool with a great multitude.
Some without power, impotent.
Some without sight, blind.
Some without an effective walk, limp.
And some with no growth, withered.
Four ways, different.
But one way, absolutely alike.
They were all waiting for the moving of
the water.
Waiting for God to intervene.
Waiting for a miracle to happen.
Shut up to a miracle for anything worthwhile.
Waiting for the Lord to intervene.
Now let me bring that right down to
where we are.
I recognize the tremendous responsibility of ministry to
a group like this.
I really do.
It makes me, like Balthazar, knock at the
knees.
For a different reason, I'm sure.
But it does.
Because I have been for some time thinking,
praying, preparing, together with my dear wife, for
this week.
And seeking the message in mind of God
as to what he would have me say
to you.
And as I increasingly got pressurized by the
Spirit into this opening message, I wondered if
I might come and find ourselves together as
a mini pool of Bethesda.
In four ways, quite different.
Some of us without power.
If I could be close enough to you
and near enough to you, more than physically,
but maybe spiritually too, to unite and be
honest together, I wonder how many of you
would say that describes me at once.
A Christian, but a powerless one.
And my story for years has been a
story of tragic failure.
Impotent, powerless, and blind.
Yes, a believer, but somehow I never grasped
the reality of the Word of God.
I want to teach it to others, but
find I'm blind when I turn to it
for myself.
Like one of old who kept many vineyards,
but his own he neglected.
And we devote our time in speaking to
a minister, to other people, but somehow, somehow,
for freshness, for reality, for that touch which
makes any ministry worthwhile, that touch from heaven
upon our hearts in his Word, it's been
months since he opened our eyes to something
new, something fresh.
Blind.
Impotent, blind, and haught, oh my, limping badly.
On Sunday night, you know, after a wonderful
evening of fellowship together, a Bible study fellowship,
really on cloud nine, for the next morning
not fit to live with, like a yo
-yo.
Up, down, up, down.
If I spoke to you and said, how
are your Christian lives getting on, which I
wouldn't, but if I did, you'd have to
say, well, it's very up and down.
Up and down, up and down, yes, it's
not meant to be up and down, it's
meant to be in and out.
In for worship and out for work.
In for surrender and out for service.
In for orders and out for obedience.
In, out life, that's a Christian life.
But yours is not like that, it's up,
down, up, down.
Limping.
And, uh, withered.
Oh, that's an awful word.
Never growing.
There was a time when I did seem
to grow, you know, and the Word of
God filled me.
There was a time, you might say to
me, well, things were going so wonderfully, and
it was really great.
And, uh, just, Jesus was so real and
alive every moment of every day, but somehow,
somehow, it's withered.
And I'm conscious that there's been no growth,
and I'm very, very ashamed that I feel
I'm just in the kindergarten after all these
years as a Christian.
Poor age.
But one way, or the like, I hope,
all of us longing for the intervention of
God in our lives.
Longing for a miracle.
It's a wonderful thing when we are shut
up to a miracle.
And I believe with all my heart that's
exactly where we are right now as Christians.
For anything worthwhile.
The trouble is so often we substitute programs
for the Holy Spirit.
In our churches, He hasn't a chance.
Because we're too busy.
So many activities.
It's dear old Dr. Tozer, such a friend
of mine, and such an encourager in Chicago
days, who says in one of his books,
I believe it's, um, in Pursuit of God,
or in The Knowledge of the Holy, I
forget which one, he says, if the Holy
Spirit were withdrawn from our churches today, 95
% of what we do would go on,
and nobody would know any difference.
Whereas if the Holy Spirit were withdrawn from
the New Testament church, 95% of what
they did would stop, and everybody would know
the difference.
That's pretty straight-talking.
So it's a devastatingly true.
Sheargold.
Absolutely shut up to a miracle.
But so often afraid of the Holy Spirit,
afraid of being extreme, afraid of getting caught
up in some, some instant, instant experience, and
caught up to fanaticism, and we push the
Holy Spirit aside, not recognizing that he is
the divine substitute on earth today for the
bodily presence of Jesus 2,000 years ago.
Forgetting also that in every letter to the
church, to the churches in Asia, that letter
closes by saying, he that hath an ear
to hear what the Spirit says to the
churches, let him hear.
It is the Spirit who is heaven's master,
and it's he whom we crowd up, and
it's he of whom we're afraid, and it's
he who needs to intervene in our lives,
in our fellowship, right now.
It's as if it's going to mean anything
to us.
An interesting mini-poll at Bethesda, I think,
multitude of people.
Quite a good crowd.
Wonderful crowd.
Many more coming now since you introduced them.
I should perhaps do that for you, but
I don't know who they are, but you
can do it at the end, maybe.
But it's wonderful to see them.
A great multitude, yes, but some are powerless,
and some are blind, and some are hot,
and some are withered, but all waiting for
a miracle.
What a tremendous situation in which to have
the privilege of ministry.
But our attention is immediately drawn, as so
often is the case, for a man.