======================================================================== AL WHITTINGHILL 02 by Al Whittinghill ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the centrality of the cross in the Christian faith, highlighting that true commitment to Jesus goes beyond seeking miracles, provisions, or mystical experiences. It delves into the necessity of personal revelation and transformation through the cross, emphasizing the need to die to self and allow Christ to live within. The speaker underscores the importance of preaching the message of the cross for revival and spiritual power, challenging believers to embrace brokenness and total surrender to God's transformative work. Duration: 30:46 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the centrality of the cross in the Christian faith, highlighting that true commitment to Jesus goes beyond seeking miracles, provisions, or mystical experiences. It delves into the necessity of personal revelation and transformation through the cross, emphasizing the need to die to self and allow Christ to live within. The speaker underscores the importance of preaching the message of the cross for revival and spiritual power, challenging believers to embrace brokenness and total surrender to God's transformative work. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In the next chapter, it says we know you're from God. No one can do this except they're from God. And he had to be born. But the Lord Jesus had a great drawing power with miracles. I want you to think about our big meetings and how we kind of draw men and women in and so many of the criteria that we use to try to draw people to where they get close enough to us to where they can make some kind of commitment to the Lord. We'll have miracle crusades and miracles and they came. But Jesus did not commit himself then because just a belief and an experience of miracles is not deep enough. It doesn't reach down like the cross. And so you see in John chapter 6, another group of people drawn to the Lord Jesus Christ and it's right after the feeding of the 5,000. In John 6, 26, he says this to the people. He says, you seek me not because you saw the miracles but because you ate the loaves and you were filled. I call this not muffins, not miracles, but muffins. This is miraculous provision. Oh, come to Jesus. He'll meet your needs. He'll make you prosperous. He's the need provider. He's the feelings pacifier. He'll meet your needs. Multiplied provisions, you see. It's not the miracles. It's not the multiplied provisions because Jesus takes them right on down. Except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life within you. And yes, how fitting of the Spirit of God to make it in John 6, 6, 6, that many of his disciples would follow him no more after they heard what the cross really meant, the covenant relationship, the deep heart-to-heart communion with the Spirit of God and the risen Lord Jesus. They left him. So it wasn't miracles. It wasn't multiplied provision. Well, what about the third one? Mystical truth. Oh, he's just, he's just forgiving a woman in common adultery. It's the Feast of Lights and they're there and they're so mystified by the mystic truth. They're intrigued by truth. And so they come to him and they say, who are you? Who are you? Tell us who you are. We want to know who you are. And see, they're intrigued. This is mystical truth. There are people who drive 200 kilometers to hear Reverend Downsvall preach because of mystical truth. And they love things. And that's not, I'm not saying that about you guys sitting in the middle of eight hours. I know it's incumbent to be part of this fellowship. But you see, we attack, attack things just intellectualizing and growing in cerebral understanding of Scripture and thinking that's it and all the rest. But after the woman's part of the adultery, the Lord Jesus confronts these people and says they're there. And he says to them in John chapter eight, he says in John chapter eight, he says, listen, if you continue in my word, then you're my disciples indeed. And you'll know the truth. The truth will set you free. What do you mean be set free? We're Abraham's seed. I'm a Baptist. I'm a Methodist. I'm a whatever I am. And he says, if you were Abraham's seed, you'd have the same faith as Abraham. You're not of Abraham's seed. You're the father of the devil. You don't need a dictionary for that. Who are you? See, Jesus had said that to them in verse 28. Jesus says to them, when you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am. Then you will know that I am and that I do nothing of my own self. Do you know what he's saying? I believe there. He is saying you cannot know God. You cannot know who Jesus is until you see the revelation of what he's revealed to himself at Calvary. It takes the cross to know who Jesus Christ is. You won't learn just from the Sermon on the Mount. Peter, keep your mouth shut until you realize the truth of the gospel that I didn't come in the flesh to give glory in my presence. I came that the Spirit of the living God would come upon your spirit and join himself and be Christ in you, the very assurance of glory. So, you see, these people were driven by esoteric, New Age spiritism, that same thing is around today. They want mystical truth. You want the miracles, you want the muffins, you want the mystical truth. And then in John chapter 12, you see that great feast day, the Lord Jesus coming, and the crowd is fired up. They're saying, Hosanna, Hosanna. This is magnificent religious experience. We saw some cathedrals the other day that made me get goosebumps. I don't know what kind of goosebumps they were, but they weren't necessarily Holy Ghost goosebumps, but they might have been. I didn't take time to check it out. But I can tell you that you can sit and have the sunbeam come through Jesus' face and the stained glass window. It hits you on the cheek and you can be strangely warm, and this God. It's not magnificent choirs and cathedrals and things that make our senses feel like a mouse is running up and down our back and you get goosebumps the size of a grape. That's not it. All the world has gone after him, said the Pharisees, as he came to Jerusalem on the donkey, and the ground shook sizeless, says Luke. It shook. They were praising the heavens, and all the world has gone after him. Listen, any Jesus that the world goes after is another Jesus. It's not the world's gospel. Any Jesus that the world goes after. And so, you see, the only person that appreciates the cross is a sinner. And so, you see, this is when the Greeks come and say, we want to see Jesus. We want to see Jesus, this great king. We want to make him king. And they came and taught Jesus, and then Jesus gave those words. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die and will remain alone. But if it dies, it will bring forth much fruit. Do you think I should say, save me from this hour? This is the hour, that hour that was spoken of, the Father's business. This is his whole point in coming. To seek him to save the lost, to give his life a ransom permitted, that he might, by the grace of God, taste death for every man. It was his plan. It was his, before the foundation of the world, the mind and the purpose of God, that the Lamb would come and reveal the heart of God in the world after he created. And angels would bark, and devils would tremble, and men should follow their face in glorious awe at what he's done and who he is. Go tell them that. And then Jesus hid himself. He wasn't trying to just become kidding on men's terms. He wasn't just trying to get a crowd on earth's methodologies. He hid himself in John 12 from the crowd at the last the crowd ever saw him. He turned to his disciples and gave him, gave them his last words, you might say. You see, the church is a magnet. How do we draw? By preaching the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified. And it's got to be not just your first message, but your ongoing message. And you can say the truth about it, about revival, that you examine closely the ministries of those who've been used by God in awakening or revival, and you will find a glorious common thread, a foundation of it all. You'll find like a divine breath running right through all of them. And it can be as wide as starting back with Tartullian and going to Aquinas, or Jerome, or Anna Rose, or John Knox, as we saw. You can go to Phine, you can go to Wesley, you can go to Whitfield, you can go to any preacher that God uses to make any change at all. And you will find that it's not so much whether they're Calvin, or Arminian, or Baptists, or Methodists, they preach the cross. That's the common thread of revival. And there'll be no revival. And if there is some sort of mercy of God that's poured out when people hint around or tiptoe around the cross and God sweeps through, it won't last long if it's not word-based on the word of the cross. It'll blow over like a pond, like a wind over the wall. God, you're just gonna be gone. It's gotta be word planted down deep in the cross, you see. And you examine the movements of the Spirit that have changed continents and changed Scotland, and you'll find that when the revival happened it was because the message of the cross stopped being preached and people began to feel prosperous or something else. The great driving power of revival has always been, and it will always be, the word of the cross. And I wanted to ask Mary about it in a couple because I've heard many tapes and it would give me thought of this, but you see, out of the great revivals, oh, that's where that great hymn about the cross that we love and adore came. Not as much, more so today, but not as many since the great movements of God. The grandest theme about the greatest work of the most glorious person securing the greatest result is the cross, preaching the cross. And it's central to God's plan for the angels, God's maximus eternal plan of the cross. So, see, the world wants Jesus, as he said to them on the cross, come down from the cross. Come down from the cross! We want the Sermon on the Mount. We want the miracle worker. We want the bread provider. We want the sublime religious leader. We want the great ceremonial head and great celebration of Jesus. But you see, the Jesus that saves is Christ and him crucified. Now I want to apply this to our lives, brothers and sisters, because this is just, maybe far off for some of us, but I want to get down where we lived. Because, you see, I've got to have a revelation of the cross. That's where I sit on this pardon. That's the first pardon. It's bigger than that. It's bigger than that. I don't have to have not just a revelation of the cross to me. I need to have a revelation of the cross in me. It needs to become personal. It needs to be branded. It needs to become cosmically radiated into my very bones. You see, perhaps you've been a Christian for some time now. You love the Lord. You know your sins are forgiven. You study your Bible. You do your best to read and pray. And you're sincere. You seek to obey. But you could say something like this. Deep down inside, it's as if you seem to know you don't yet have that victory, that glorious flow of God's Spirit that you know He died to give you. The Word promises perfect peace. But that's not my experience. And what is wrong in my experience? I do not understand this. So you struggle along and you're positive. You're trying to be friendly. It's like whistling in the dark. You come to church and you can see people praise the Lord. They're trying to praise their way into a feeling of having more peace or something. Despite all the wonderful teachings and all the dedication and times I've gone and spent time dedicating myself and serious planning, there's a lack of power in my life. Anybody else ever felt like that? Is it just me? Oh, how many times I've felt that way. Struggling all the time. You see, the deep and secret longing in most Christians' hearts or you and me is how to have that victory. It's not a growth. It's a gift. It's a gift. It's not later. It's now. It's not partial. It's total. It's not mine. It's His. He's playing. It's not found. It's given. It's from Him. Maybe you've been a Christian a long time. And when you remember when you were saved, you were so praised the Lord at the cross, at the cross when I first saw the light and the burden of my heart went away. It was there that I faithed. Hallelujah. I received my sign. It came in April 2, 1972. And now I am happy every day. That's what we can say. But soon, you see, you discover that there's something more that seems to be wrong with me than just what I've done wrong. I need a remedy for whom I am. There seems to be an enemy, as Duncan Campbell said, an enemy at the capital of my soul. An enemy down in here that seems to be against everything but God. And despite all the sincerity, you see, it's not my victory. It's eluded. The Holy Spirit pointed out the cross and said, the cross is not just revealed to you, but the cross must be revealed in you. You see, the blood does not deal with the flesh. The blood deals with my crimes, my sins, what I've done, what I will do. The blood of Jesus keeps on cleansing us from all of our sins. But you see, it is the cross that deals with Satan's workshop. Let's suppose that in our laundry room in our house, there's a speaker there, there's a little nozzle there they turn on and water comes out into a bucket. And one day, I noticed that the floor has water all over it. And I said, oh no, I'm going to be a good husband. I get a towel, I wipe it up, I take care to get it nice and dry. And I said, my wife is going to really be excited that I've finally done something. And so I come back in a couple of hours and there's that water again. Ah, what's wrong? And so I say, well I must need better equipment. So I go to the store and I buy a brand new mop and a brand new bucket and I do my better job than I did before. At least, I try to do better. And just in time, my wife comes home and there's the water there again. So I'm really serious now, I go get a book on mopping. It's a mini mopping manual. And I read it. In fact, I even made the last passages in it. And I learn how to do it just fine. And if you don't do it that way, then you'll miss something. And so I put every bit of my energy and effort from what I've got, it's not just in the book, I've got it memorized and I'm doing it the right way. Soon, I find out the water's back there again. So I get serious. I get on the telly and I call the professionals. I bring them in and they come in and they pay big bucks and soon I find it's still there. Finally, my wife gets home the next day. This takes some time. So she, she said, well, why don't you just go buy a little washer? It's so simple. I've been dealing with the effect of the drip, but just get a washer and put it in there and it stops the cause. You see, so many Christians are busy mopping up sins and they've forgotten that the scriptures say in Romans 8, by the spirit of God, you demortify yourself. And you find out that the spirit of God that's what I do. And see, so Jesus said that that which is flesh is flesh. I like to write it over every church door in my own house. That which is flesh is flesh. The flesh profits nothing. It's the spirit that gives life. See, my choice as a Christian is not between just good and bad. That's the world's choice. Morality and all that. My choice as a Christian is between flesh and spirit. And I've got a world to discern the difference between soul, spirit, and flesh. And I've got to learn to walk in that. I've got to learn that the natural strength of my life must be broken in order for me to be a real channel of revival and to let the Holy Spirit have control. You see, the Bible calls my flesh the outer man. All I was born with before Jesus invaded my humanity and wrote his spirit, his very character deep in my own spirit. You see, I've got to be broken like John the Baptist said. I must decrease. He must increase. And when Isaiah saw the Lord, the first thing when he saw the Lord was, he said, I am undone. And that, ever since, has been what God wants to do when you see him, to undo the eye. He wants to undo the eye and make it be so that there's no more eye but Christ. And that Christ liveth in me. But you see, this is an ongoing love choice for the Christian day by day. This is why Jesus said, take up your cross and look God every day. In other gospels, he didn't say daily, but in Luke he said daily. He added that part. It's a spiritual law. The outer man must be broken. My outer man, your outer man must be broken in order to release the inner life that he has planted there when you had a revelation on the cross to you. He planted his spirit in you and sealed you. But he wants Christ to be formed in you. But in most of the church in our day, there's no room in the inn. He's grounded out. He's moved out. He's breathed out, you see. But when God's saint is unbroken, then his life cannot flow and shine out. There's no brokenness. If a person is not broken, we're left doing with what comes naturally. Common sense, logic, you hear people say, well, I just don't see how this could ever happen. We're left doing what we think and walking after our own understanding of the flesh. And the Bible calls this carnality. Carnality is not just going out and committing adultery and all these things. Carnality is doing it your way, doing it my way, walking in the power of the flesh. And so, this tug of war is described in Galatians 5 where it says, the flesh wrests against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. So they're naturally, they're contrary to one another and you can't do what comes naturally. A little later, it says, but those who are Christ have said yes to the verdict of the cross. They have crucified the flesh with the affections and lust thereof. I would submit to you that this message needs to be preached in our churches. That we need to realize that it wasn't just Jesus who died on that cross. That I was crucified with Christ and the life that I now live in the flesh. I live by the faithfulness not just of me doing it for him but his life producing in me by the faithfulness of the Son of God the very personal character of the Lord Jesus. Can you understand my accent? You're looking at me really funny. I hope you're looking at me funny for the right funny reasons. The Bible says you can quench the Holy Spirit. You can grieve God. You can hinder revival. You can stop God from doing what he's doing. You can stop what he's doing. You can stop God from doing what he's doing. You can stop God from doing what he's doing. what he's and I mean, that's why Hebrews 9.16 says a covenant is in working power after men are dead. Otherwise, it's of no power at all while the one who's in the covenant is still living. People say, I just don't know why I don't have victory. Because you will never have victory. He didn't come to improve your own life. He came to give you new life. No longer I, but Christ. He don't want just a new leaf. He wants a new life. It's not your life mended. It's your life ended. And Christ coming forth. And see, people say, well, that's not what I understood. That's why you need the revelation of the cross in you. Not only to you. Of the person that's only seen the cross revealed to them. And they're grateful, hallelujah. But there's misery in a life that tries to please God with sincerity. But yet without the power of the no longer I, but Christ operating in the life. You see, as long, listen to this. As I hold on to my own self, my own ideas. Good as they may be. I'm thinking, my own plans, my ambitions, my abilities. There'll be no room for this. We'll be left with explainable Christianity. This is why they walk by the church and yawn. This is why they are interested in the things that we say are important or sentimental. You see, we're going to have church as usual. And the earth and the world will just look at the church and say, who wants that? But when they see the power of God. When the big I in sin, S-I-N, is crossed out. You have a zero. And that's the S-O-N. There's room for the son. I like it. There's an I-N. L-I-V-E. Cross it out. Put a zero. And you have the love of God that has found a place to be channeled through me. I've got to come to the place where I realize that my life cannot be improved. My independent life. Dear friends, have we come to that place here? Is revival a way to get more of our needs met and crescendo of power? Is that it? I don't think this group is like that. This is a unique group here. This is a privilege to be together with an unusual group of people here. But this message here. I wanted to preach this in Atlanta. But the Lord wouldn't let me do it. And he did tell me to the day before. And it really made me mad, honestly. Because I really had prayed and was ready for it. And then he had to do some things in my own heart. And then to come here. And I tried to pull back. And pull back to something that went, I don't know these people. You know, we have to die. If not literally physically, which may be the case. Who knows in these days ahead. There's got to be a day to die. Paul said, I die daily. I couldn't testify to you rejoicing about my life. I die daily. Paul knew about the cross. I mean, he knew the cross. Unbelievable. He says he was frequent times in prison. Often in deaths. Five times he received 39 lashes. Save one. 40, save one. Three times he was beaten with rods. Once he was stoned and left in Lystra. On the garbage heap. And the church stood around him and prayed. And he got up. And he says, thank you very much. And he went back into Lystra and preached there again. And Lois and Eunice were so captivated by the evident power of the cross. Take Timothy with you. We want him to be around you. He knew the cross. You see, at night and the day, pretending to be a cork in the Mediterranean, holding on to a four or something, you see. And, uh, and when he got to the end, it's not all the care of the churches and all the pain and the eyesight problems. If that's what it was, weariness, painfulness, hunger, thirst, cold, nakedness, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, all these perils in the care of all the churches. Not just your one church, brother. He says, and he got to the end of his life. He says, write a fiction. I want to go to Christ. You know what? I bet the devil took a day off and Paul did it. He said, I am glad he's gone. Jesus, I know. Paul, I know. But who are you? He was glad when Paul took it. You see, and the early church got a hold of this. And so by the time the 318 came around, the council of Nicaea, they weren't trying to avoid the cross. They were at the council of Nicaea in 325. There were 318 delegates there. And only 12 of them were whole. All the rest had lost a thigh or a limb, walked with a limp or something because of their testimony to the gospel. All of them. Now, I don't relish that. But I'm saying this, brother, having counted the cost. You see, I believe that God is waiting for us to rebuild the altar. I believe he's waiting for us to... When Elijah came to Carmel, the first thing he did was to repair the altar. There was a divided congregation. There was 10 tribes and the tribes were divided. He took 12 stones and repaired the altar according to the order of Leviticus. And he set it up. And he said, all the people come here. And he repaired the altar. You will find it's always the altar that God establishes. And you can have an altar with no fire on it. Listen, the fire has to come from heaven. Leviticus 9, it's never to go out. When the Lord catches the church on fire, you won't have to advertise. They'll come to watch you burn. They won't come. It's my whole life I've got to give up. You see, it's not just bad things. It's not just smoking and drinking and all the things that we campaign against. That's the bad parts I see and the world knows. It needs to be changed. It is the bad part. But it's not just the bad parts. It's my whole life. It's the good part. You say, well, Al, what about the good part? I say, what good part? Especially the good part. Because that's the part that we tend to trust instead of Jesus. A lack of understanding of this can keep me living, leaning on my own understanding, prisoner of the visible, earth-oriented pleasure-seeker, self-lover, feeling follower. You say, well, where do I come in, Al? You don't. This is where you go out. And the problem is we've been in. I'm not saying that he debases or humiliates. He, in a mysterious way, like the whole sovereignty-free rule that we've been arguing about for centuries, he puts that awesome spirit of God somehow in the depths of his spirit, deep in a sanctified personality. And it is a mystery of mysteries. No all right, but Christ. Not only in the words you say, not only in the deeds confessed, but in the most unconscious way, is Christ the Lord through you expressed. Was it the word you said, the cross you preached? For me, it was that look in your eye just now. I saw his presence when you spoke to me just now. What an awesome thing it is, you see. The world says this is foolishness, and I tell you, the flesh hates this. If you preach this, you're going to offend people. But not to preach this, to offend the Holy Spirit of God. The flesh hates this truth. Well, that's good news. I have a half an hour left. Do I have a half an hour? Is it now? What time did I start? I have no idea. I'm serious. I'm in trouble. Somebody help me before it's over here, because I'm all mindless. Self-preservation is entirely natural. Hey, we've done it our whole life. We've been told that if we learn just enough stuff, we'll be accepted. We'll make good grades. If we can play rugby just the right way, they'll accept us. If we say yes or no at the right time, and do just exactly what we need to do, then if we hold things together, then we'll be accepted. And so all our lives, perhaps we've been hurt some. We've been hurt, and we're seeking to spare ourselves, just like Peter did. We want to spare ourselves. But you see, this is the thing, and it's normal. It's natural. So if you're doing it, you don't need to think you're unique, you see. So it seems so contrary to what I've been doing my whole life, preserving myself, and looking out for just not trying to be dissolved, to have no credential except for grace, and to come to the feet of the foot of the cross, and fling down my self-life, saying, and now I'm utterly complete. There's no hope for you. But when I know the brokenness, and the pain, that is part of the process of doing that, when I spare myself, or flee from the things that make for real refining fire moments of God, then I end up, what I do is just like Peter, and I end up denying the Lord, because in every life there is, there's a Christian, there's a throne, and there is a cross. And if Jesus is on the throne, then I must be on the cross. I must take my place there. But if Jesus, if I'm on the throne, then I put Him on that cross again. And I find myself like Peter, ending up denying Him. Turn to Philippians chapter three, will you? Philippians chapter three. Are you tired yet? Time to measure. Time to measure. I don't want to wear you out. That's not true. I do. I do. You see, if you turn to Philippians three, let me say the Old Testament pointed to the cross. Everything before the cross pointed to it. Everything since it points back to it. Every prophet wrote of him the glories of his suffering that he would go through. Jesus opened the scriptures in Luke 24 and showed all the things in the tabernacle, in the temple, in the priesthood, in the offerings, all of it pointing toward His glorious altar and the whole all-knowing plan of God because of that precious shedding of blood. The word of the cross. Oh, I am coming in the volume of the book that is written of me. I'm coming to do Thy will. Thy law is within my heart and mouth. Oh, the heart of the covenant walking among us. The word made flesh. And there, when He came, what did He say? Five times in the book of Matthew. He said, listen, it's the cross. It's the cross. And if you're going to be sinners, I will sin. And if you're going to walk with me, you're going to have to take up your cross. And whoever doesn't, cannot, cannot, cannot be my disciple. So, He came to lay down His life. And that's why He came. The truth might be manifested. Not only sin and tongue, but truth about God. The truth about sin. The truth about man. The truth about the devil. All of Calvary as we heard. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/KLM-yScS6w0.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/al-whittinghill/al-whittinghill-02/ ========================================================================