Heavenly Father,
we thank Thee that at this hour we,
like the prophet of old, can say we
are a needy people.
We praise Thee that Jesus Christ has supplied
that need, that as we gather here in
this auditorium and those that are watching via
television, Father, we think of the very fact
that Christ can help us and that this
hour can be consecrated to Him.
And so, Father, we pray that You would
bless everything that is done to Thy glory.
For Jesus' sake, amen.
If you take your hymn books, please, to
number 94, The Song of the Soul Set
Free.
And these special Sundays we've been having the
founder of the People's Church, Dr. Oswald J.
Smith, as speaker, but one of his great
ministries is that of music.
The Song of the Soul Set Free is
one of his hymns, and let's sing it
as unto the Lord.
We'll stand as we sing.
I think
that's a great hymn.
That hymn was written primarily for choirs to
sing, and this congregation in the People's Church
is one of the few that use it
as a congregational hymn.
And it's one of our favorites.
It talks about so many things that we
believe in and to which we look forward.
Let me welcome you to the Sunday service
of the People's Church.
Again, the building is crowded as it usually
is on Sunday morning, and we're delighted that
you chose to worship with us on this
particular Sunday, and that you chose to dial
this way on your television set.
And wherever you are, whatever you're doing, may
I suggest that you just stay where you
are and listen.
If the rest of the family isn't there,
bring them in and tell them that in
some ways this could be the most important
hour they spend today or this week or
this year.
I think as you know, during the month
of January on Sunday mornings, I asked my
father, the founder of this church, Dr. Oswald
J.
Smith, if he would preach every Sunday morning
throughout January and February in commemoration of the
fact that this year we're celebrating our 50th
year in existence as a church.
1928, September the 9th, Father launched the People's
Church in Massey Hall, and it's been in
existence, now commencing with this year for 50
years.
And I thought it would be kind of
good and interesting and exciting if the man
whom God used to found it brought the
first Sunday morning messages, both in the church
and on television.
Now, when I asked him, Father said, well,
what do you want me to talk about?
And I said, well, look, what I would
like you to do is take the great
messages that God has used over your entire
ministry of, what is it, 71, 72 years
he's been preaching, and preach some of those,
the ones that you've used all over the
world.
And he's been doing that, and this morning
he tells me he's going to preach on
the Lordship of Jesus, the Lordship of Jesus.
So I suggest you stay tuned.
Our people are going to stay right here
as we worship God together.
And then the message that's coming up from
a life of over 71 years of preaching,
active preaching, all over the world, the message
on the Lordship of Jesus.
And I want all of us to listen,
and listen very, very careful, regarding our relationship
to Jesus Christ, not simply as Savior, He
is that, but as the Lord, the Controller,
the Dominant One in our lives.
Bernard Pears is with us this morning to
bring the first message in song, and he's
singing about a topic that's in the Bible
from Genesis through Revelation, the love of God.
A classic chapter, I suppose, on this subject
would be 1 Corinthians 13.
But this is a new song called, The
Way He Loves, and the singer is our
own Bernard Pears.
Bernard.
The way that he loves, what a wonderful
thing, and how true that is today.
God loves you, He loves me, and those
that are watching my television, He loves you
today.
And as we approach God's throne of grace,
we want to talk to God about you,
about you as our members of our congregation
right here this morning, and about you that
are listening and watching on television today.
God is concerned about you today, He loves
you, He wants to lift that burden that's
upon your heart.
And I would suggest if you have a
burden, you that are watching on television, and
particularly today, you have a real need in
your life, take a moment this week, perhaps
even today, to put it down on a
piece of paper and mail it to us,
and we'd be delighted to remember you before
God's throne of grace in prayer.
We do it confidentially, but we do it,
every request that comes in faithfully, as the
Lord helps us.
And God answers prayer, and we believe that
here.
Shall we look to the Lord in prayer
this morning?
Father, we want to take a moment today
and thank you and praise you for the
fact of thy love.
And the greatest expression of thy love was
the coming of thy Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ, to die upon Calvary's cross, to give
his life, so that we might have the
gift of eternal life.
Father, we thank thee for that fact today.
And Father, we know that no good thing
will I behold from those who walk uprightly.
Father, we do come before thee today for
the many requests that have come this week
into the people's church.
And we've prayed about them and remembered before
thy throne of grace.
And Father, collectively, we want to remember them
again today.
Bless hearts, touch bodies, and undertake, Lord, in
a healing way, both physically and spiritually, to
all those that have sent their requests in,
and all those who are in need today.
Father, we want to pray for this service
today.
We do want to pray for our founder
in just a moment.
He's going to expound the word of God
to our hearts on this.
It's such an important subject.
God bless him.
God be with him.
And God use him in our midst, we
pray.
As we dedicate this service unto thee, in
the name of Jesus Christ, and for his
sake, we pray.
Amen.
I think
some of you know that since I stood
in this pope the last time I've been
to the land of Israel and back, what
a fantastic, unbelievable country that is today.
Most of the folk that went with me
were our television folk.
They were not, for the most part, people
from our church.
Maybe a dozen or fifteen were, but the
rest of a group of seventy-seven people
were folk that watch regularly by way of
television.
You know, it's kind of fun getting to
know some of you folk in a personal
way, to help you get on a bus
and get off a bus, make sure that
neither you nor I broke our necks in
the process of doing it, and then to
go to some of the places where Jesus
probably walked and see some of the things
that he probably saw, and be some of
the places where he probably was.
It was kind of exciting.
But you know, one thing I discovered was
how many people there are who depend for
their spiritual life on this particular telecast from
the people's church.
And I talked with one person after another,
mostly elderly people.
You know, we had some people over eighty
years of age with us on the tour,
and one little old lady, every time she
got off the bus, she jumped, scared the
living daylights out of me, but she stayed
all in one piece.
And I discovered how much folk like this
need this kind of telecast.
And on Thursday, when I was traveling from
Nazareth to Jerusalem, incidentally that's about a hundred
miles, did you know that?
That's the distance that Mary and Joseph, with
the unborn baby Jesus, traveled in order to
get to Bethlehem, which is just outside of
Jerusalem, in order to be taxed.
It's a long way, and it's rugged, rugged
country, but as I was driving on the
bus Thursday afternoon back from the Sea of
Galilee and Nazareth and Capernaum, back through some
area where we saw the well, where the
woman at the well talked to our Lord,
I thought, now when I get back home,
I'm going to ask our television audience in
a very, very special way to help me
keep this telecast going out on your station.
Now, I don't know what it'll take or
what God will lead you to do, but
just a few weeks ago I suggested to
you that a thousand of you send in
ten dollars, and you were magnificent, you did
it.
I don't know what God will lay in
your heart, but as you know on a
program like this, we do not have commercials.
We don't sell products.
You realize every time you buy a product
in the store, you are making a contribution
to the cost of their television time, did
you know that?
And yet the Church of Jesus Christ goes
on television without any product that brings in
a financial return, the way every other telecast
has.
And the only way we can pay for
this kind of time, which with a commercial
firm is paid for by upping the price
of it in your store, you pay for
it whether you know it or not, you're
paying for it every time you use the
product.
And the only way we can do it
is to ask the children of God, whom
God has blessed, and I know there are
a lot of you, to write to me
and send me your gift, small or great,
and just say, please keep the television program
coming our way on this station.
And of course when you do that, if
you send five dollars or more, you'll receive
a receipt that's valid for income tax purposes
for this year, but most of all, you
will be making it possible for somebody to
have a church service from a Canadian church
that otherwise they wouldn't have.
And in many cases, they are people who
cannot afford to support it themselves, and they
couldn't possibly get to a church, even if
somebody offered to take them.
Now if you write to me this week,
I want to send you a copy of
Dr. John Wesley White's book, On the Devil,
and this is an historic contribution to the
literature on the subject of Satan, what the
scriptures teach about him.
Dr. Billy Graham has written the foreword, and
Dr. White deals with some fascinating topics relative
to the devil in this book.
The devil in big red headlines, before there
was a devil, meet your enemy, tragedy in
paradise, why Jesus came, the devil on Main
Street, the devil in his war effort, the
devil's devices, dare to confront the devil, how
to checkmate the devil, I wonder if you
know how to do that, when the winning
begins.
Now if you'll write to me this week,
whether you're able to send anything or not,
doesn't matter, but if you'll write to me
this week, I'll send you a copy of
this book, nearly 200 pages, on the topic
of the devil.
Address your letter to me, Paul Smith, or
the People's Church, Box 789, Station K, Toronto,
and we'll get the book back to you
just as quickly as we can possibly get
it to you.
But write this week, and if you can
help with the telecast, I hope you'll do
that, so that we can keep this ministry
going out to so many, many, very, very
needy people.
Now we're giving Dr. White's book away, because
tonight, and that would be for most of
our television audience, February the 26th, tonight Dr.
John Wesley White is going to be preaching
in the People's Church, and he's preaching on
the subject, Devil Worship.
Now Dr. White always does his homework plus.
He preaches with the help of a multimedia
presentation in pictures, I don't know whether he's
going to show pictures of the devil or
not.
If he is, I'd like to see them,
I've never seen a good picture of the
devil.
But he's going to show pictures and illustrate
his message on Devil Worship, as he brings
the message tonight, that is February the 26th,
right here in the main auditorium of the
People's Church.
Now at this time I'm going to ask
you to sing David Williams' little chorus, that
some of you learned last week, and it
goes this way, Bless His Wonderful Name, Bless
His Wonderful Name, Name that calms our fears,
I like that, Name that dries our tears,
Bless His Wonderful Name, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
As we remain seated, let's sing it together,
everybody singing please.
And we're
singing it because we need it and because
you need it.
There are people who watch every Sunday and
you're frightened.
Frightened of the world, frightened of yourself, frightened
of your family, frightened of just the name
that calms our fears.
Some of you are broken hearted, how I
wish there was some way I could reach
through that television set and dry your tears,
or even say something that would dry your
tears, but I can't, but Jesus can.
The Name that dries our tears, what is
it?
Believe in Him as you sing it, Jesus,
that's it, Jesus, say it again, Jesus.
You do it as we stand together before
Dr. Smith brings the message of the morning,
Bless His Wonderful Name, together, Bless His
Wonderful Name, Jesus, Jesus.
I want to ask you to turn, if
you will, to the gospel according to Luke,
the fourteenth chapter, and I'm reading from verse
twenty-five to verse twenty-seven.
Luke's gospel, the fourteenth chapter, and the twenty
-fifth verse.
And there went great multitudes with him, and
he turned and said unto them, If any
man come to me, and hate not his
father, and mother, and wife, and children, and
brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life
also, he cannot be my disciple.
He cannot be my disciple.
And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and
come after me, cannot be my disciple.
It's one thing to know Jesus Christ as
your Savior, it's another thing to know Him
as your Lord and Master.
It's one thing to be His child, it's
another thing to be a disciple of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
A disciple is one who puts God first,
everything else second.
He that loveth father or mother more than
me is not worthy of me.
And he that loveth son and daughter more
than me is not worthy of me.
The question arises, who comes first?
Someone in your family circle, one of your
loved ones, or the Lord Jesus Christ?
I'll never forget when I was preaching on
the Russian mission fields of Europe.
I was traveling with Pastor William Fetler, and
he told me about his engagement and his
marriage.
And I've never forgotten it.
He was engaged to a young Russian woman
by the name of Barbara.
And before they were married, he asked her
this question, Barbara, he said, are you willing
to be third in my life?
And she looked at him for a moment,
and she said, Pastor Fetler, third, what do
you mean?
He said, I want you to understand, Barbara,
that God comes first.
You do not come first.
God has first place in my life.
I'm serving him.
I want you also to understand that God's
work comes second.
God's work has second place in my life.
And Barbara, if I'm going to marry you,
you cannot have first place.
You cannot have second place.
You will have to be content to take
third place in my life.
William, she said, if you were not that
kind of a man, I wouldn't want you
for a husband.
The kind of a husband I want is
a husband who will put God first and
put God's work second and then let me
take third place.
And I'm perfectly agreeable to be number three.
Not number one, not number two, but number
three.
And Barbara became number three as she became
wife of Reverend William Fetler.
They had 13 children altogether, and every one
of their children knew Jesus Christ as a
personal Savior.
I've met them all.
I know them all.
I've been with them.
I saw them when I was over on
the Russian mission fields of Europe.
I saw them in my own church on
Brewer Street when I had them and used
them there as they sang the gospel and
gave their testimonies.
I'll never forget that example.
Barbara, number three.
God first and God's work second.
Then the wife third.
What does it mean to be a disciple?
It means to put God before your business
enterprise.
God should mean more to you than your
business does.
Your business should come after God.
God should come first.
It means that God must come before money,
important as money may be.
God has first place.
God wants you to remember that money does
not take first place in your life.
It means that God comes before pleasure and
that you never allow pleasure to take the
place of God, but you allow God to
take first place.
He is always number one.
It means that God comes before the members
of your family, before your father, your mother,
your sisters, your brothers, your wife, your husband.
They must all take third place and God
must take first place and his work second
place.
What does it mean to be a disciple?
It means that God, as I've stated, takes
place before the members of your family.
When I say that, I think of Dr.
Jonathan Goforth, the famous missionary to China.
He was living in the home and being
entertained by his hostess.
She came to him one day and she
said, Dr. Goforth, will you tell me why
I am not happy like other Christians?
He looked at her for a moment.
Then he said, Madam, have you surrendered all
to Jesus Christ?
Yes, she said, Dr. Goforth, so far as
I know, I've surrendered all to the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Are you sure, he said, that your all
is on the altar?
Yes, she said, my all is on the
altar.
Her little girl was standing beside them, a
little girl about twelve years of age, reaching
her hand over and placing it on the
head of that little girl.
Dr. Goforth turned to the woman and she
would be willing, he said, that God should
take your daughter and make her a missionary
in China.
And the woman drew back, God take my
daughter and make her a missionary in China.
I should say not.
And yet you tell me that you've surrendered
all and that your all is on the
altar.
And here you are not willing to give
your own daughter, you're not willing to place
her on the altar for God.
You're willing to go yourself, you're willing to
give your money, but you are not willing
to give your daughter.
How can you say then that God takes
first place in your life when you know
perfectly well that your daughter comes before God?
A disciple renounces all for Jesus Christ.
It's one thing for Jesus Christ to be
your Savior, it's another thing for him to
be the Lord and the Master of your
life and to be his disciple.
And if he is the Lord and Master
of your life, if he is in very
deed your disciple, then you place everything on
the altar and relinquish all claim to what
you have and to what you are and
recognize that it belongs to another.
Suppose I give you an idea as to
what I mean this morning.
Here I have a number of books in
my hand.
I'm going to let these books represent something
this morning so that you'll remember.
Suppose I let this first book represent me.
God demands that I place myself on his
altar.
So I take that book and I lay
it there on the pulpit and I place
that book on the altar of God.
In other words, I place myself on God's
altar.
And then in the second place, I take
my loved ones, my wife, my husband, my
son, my daughter, my father, my mother, and
I place my loved ones there on the
altar of God.
Now I'm on God's altar.
My loved ones are on God's altar.
Then I take my talents and my gifts
and I place my talents and my gifts,
whatever they may be, on the altar of
God.
If I can write, I am not to
write for the world, I'm to write for
God.
If I can sing, I'm not to sing
for the world, I'm to sing for God.
I place my talents and my gifts there
on the altar of God.
And then I take my money.
What do you say, how much?
Ten percent?
Is that the amount God demands?
No, if you read the scriptures carefully, you'll
discover that God demands all your money.
It's all His.
And He asks you to place your money
there on His altar.
Now, if He wants to take ten percent
of it and give you back ninety percent
to use in your own way, that's up
to Him.
If He wants to take twenty-five percent
of it and leave you to use seventy
-five percent as you are pleased to do,
that's in His hands.
But He demands that all of your money
is placed there on His altar.
And then, what about your talents and your
gifts in addition to your money and your
unknown future?
That unknown future of yours, you do not
know what's going to happen to you in
the days to come.
But you place your unknown future on the
altar of God.
Now you have placed everything on God's altar.
Now you simply turn your back on all
that you have placed on the altar of
God and you walk away from it.
You recognize it's not yours anymore, it's God's.
It all belongs to Him.
Then you have placed everything on God's altar
and then you are in very deed His
disciple.
No sooner will that happen than a test
will come to see whether or not your
renunciation is genuine.
You remember how God turned to Abraham and
He said, Abraham, I want your son Isaac.
All right, Lord, he belongs to you.
You loaned him to me.
You can have him if you want him.
But Abraham, I want him sacrificed.
All right, Lord, if you want him sacrificed,
that's up to you.
But Abraham, I want you to sacrifice him.
Very well, Lord, if you want me to
sacrifice him, I'll take him and I'll sacrifice
him on your behalf.
Abraham recognized God as the owner of his
son.
And if God saw fit to take that
son, that was up to Him.
And you remember when they were on Mount
Moriah, Abraham lifted up the knife to plunge
it into the heart of his son Isaac.
When he heard a voice from heaven crying
out, Abraham, Abraham, and he paused and he
looked up, slay not thy son.
I know now that you are not going
to withhold him from me.
I know now that you have laid everything
on my altar.
I know now that you recognize me as
your Lord and your Master.
My friend, it may be hard to do,
it may be difficult to do, but there
may come a time when God will ask
you to lay your nearest and your dearest
on His altar.
It'll break your heart, you'll suffer, and you
should suffer.
You should mourn, but you'll recognize that you
are giving to God only that which belongs
to Him, that He has a right to
that daughter or that son of yours, or
that money of yours, or your plans for
the future, or your talents and your gifts.
He has a right to you yourself, for
you belong to God, and He must come
first in your life and in your work.
Jesus must be Lord of all, or He
is not Lord at all.
No man can serve two Masters.
Jesus must take first place in your heart
and life.
Dr. Scroggie was speaking one night when a
young girl said to him, Dr. Scroggie, I'd
like to surrender all to Jesus Christ, but
I'm afraid.
What are you afraid of?
Two things.
What are they?
I'm afraid I'd have to give up dancing,
and I love to dance.
What else?
I'm afraid I'd have to go to the
foreign field as a missionary, and I wouldn't
want to do that.
Anything else?
No, just those two things stand between.
Dr. Scroggie was wise in his dealings with
young people.
He opened the Bible at that place where
it says, not so, Lord.
When Peter was asked to do something for
his Lord, he said, not so, Lord.
Now said Dr. Scroggie, it's all right to
say not so.
It's all right to say Lord.
But you can't put the two together.
You cannot say not so and then add
Lord.
If He's the Lord and the Master of
your life, then it's up to you to
do whatever He tells you to do.
And you have no right at any time
to say not so.
I remember some years ago when I was
traveling through Palestine.
I left Jerusalem, and I headed down for
the Dead Sea.
And of course, I passed the Jordan River
on my way to the Dead Sea, and
I had a swim in the waters of
the Jordan.
And I swam right across the Jordan from
one side to the other.
When I got to the other side, the
bank was so steep that there was no
foothold of any kind.
And I had to just give it a
kick and turn around and swim back again
across the Jordan River.
That's an experience that I'll never forget.
And I went on down to the Dead
Sea.
And I do not need to tell you
that everything floats in the Dead Sea and
nothing can sink.
I decided to have a swim in the
waters of the Dead Sea.
I did everything I could to get underneath
the waters and to sink.
I found it impossible.
The waters sustained my weight because they are
23% salt.
And they buoyed me up and kept me
from sinking.
And I went to the Sea of Galilee.
And I'll never forget having a swim in
the Sea of Galilee.
When I came out and stood on the
bank, my mind went back to the day
when Jesus Christ was standing there.
And when he called his disciples to come
and have breakfast with him.
And when he turned to Peter and said
to Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou
me more than these?
And Simon's people answered, Yea, Lord, thou knowest
that I love thee.
He asked the same question the second time.
And he got the same answer.
Then he asked it a third time.
But he used a different word for the
word love.
A word that meant a little lower devotion
than the other word he had used.
Seeing that Simon could not come up to
his word.
And he said again, Simon, son of Jonas,
lovest thou me?
And Simon was grieved because he asked him
the third time, lovest thou me?
And he said, Yea, Lord, thou knowest all
things.
Thou knowest that I love thee.
I want to say he never had a
word to say about money when he said
to Simon, follow thou me.
He never had a word to say about
organization or about his plans for the future
or about service.
He knew that if Simon loved him, he
would obey him.
If he loved him, he would follow him.
If he loved him, he would do what
he wanted him to do.
And therefore he asked the one question, lovest
thou me?
And that took in everything.
And Simon said, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that
I love thee.
I wonder if this morning he is speaking
to your heart and to my heart.
I wonder if he is saying to you
and to me this morning, if he is
asking the question, lovest thou me?
And I wonder whether or not you have
put everything you are and everything you have
on the altar of God.
Has there ever come a time when you
have taken it back off the altar and
when it is no longer on the altar?
Or have you left it there on God's
altar?
Have you gone all the way with the
Lord Jesus Christ?
That's the question he asked this morning, lovest
thou me?
When I was on the Russian mission fields
of Europe some many years ago now, I
remember turning to my congregation one day and
saying, If you will put God first in
your life, I want you to hold up
your right hand and I want you to
sing along with me, I surrender all.
All those who will put God first.
All those who will take second or third
place.
All those who will go all the way
with God.
And I'll never forget, even though it's years
ago now, how almost every hand in that
building was raised as they sang from their
hearts, I surrender all.
I knew there would be persecution.
I knew there would be suffering.
I did not know what form it would
take.
But those people who raised their hands that
morning in that service, many of them were
sent to Siberia.
Many were slain.
Many had to lay down their lives.
Many were put in prison.
Many had to endure severe suffering for the
sake of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But they were true.
They meant what they were doing and what
they were saying.
I haven't found people anywhere in the world
any more devoted than the born-again Christians
in Russia.
They're out and out for the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Even though they live in an atheistic country.
My friend, what about you this morning?
Have you surrendered all?
Is your all on the altar?
And if not, will you put it on
the altar this morning and say from your
heart, all to Jesus, I surrender.
Will you give the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of the living God, first place in
your heart and in your life?
And when he says to you, lovest thou
me, will you answer with Peter, yea, Lord,
thou knowest that I love thee.
Will God come first?
You have to decide.
Shall we bow together in prayer?
Every head bowed.
Every eye closed.
And our loving Heavenly Father, we've been confronted
with our responsibility to God today.
And as here in the people's church, many,
many scores of people are making decisions to
put Jesus Christ first.
To give God first place in our lives.
We pray that there may be those who
are watching and those who are listening who
will do exactly the same thing where they
are in this television audience.
Our Father, may this be a nation where
there are hundreds upon hundreds of people who
do in fact put Jesus Christ first, regardless
of the cost.
For we ask it in his name and
for his sake.
Amen.
I think there's only one hymn that we
could sing after this message and we're going
to remain seated as we sing it.
Hymn number 107.
As we sing it, let's not just sing
it.
Let's only sing it if we can sing
it from our heart and really mean it.
Together, everybody sing it.