In this sermon, the preacher shares a story about a man who preached the word of God for three hours and invited people to come to his house to learn about Jesus. The next day, over 400 people showed up and pledged their faith in Christ. The preacher then talks about how the man used the power of God to stop a group of warriors from attacking him by raising his hand and speaking in the name of Jesus. He emphasizes the importance of understanding God's purpose in creating man and the effect of being filled with God's presence. The sermon also mentions a missionary named Tommy Titcombe who overcame obstacles to become a missionary in the Sudan Terry mission.

Midway through this morning's session, we believe that he's speaking of the Lord. He's Kevin Reynolds. Brother Watkins, would you lead us in prayer for... Amen. Amen. Thank you so much. I think it would be well for us to turn back to Ephesians again. Now remember, we're speaking to the point that why did God make man? This is the main question that's engaged us. Why did he make man? And the answer that we gave at the very beginning was that God made man to be to him the object of his love. God is love, and as loving father, he wanted children. As loving bridegroom, he wanted a bride. And so it is that we find that he has had a purpose, that through the ages, we were told, was to be fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. He made Adam and he made Eve to meet that purpose, but he gave to them the power of choice, and they chose to die. They revolted against him. They chose death rather than life. In the fullness of time when the Lord came, strangely enough, he addressed people. I quoted in one of the services in the evening from Luke chapter 14. Keep your finger paper in Luke and Ephesians too, but I want you to go over to Luke 14. When the Lord Jesus came and began to address men, talk to men, he did the very opposite of what the ancient enemy had done. When the serpent came into the garden, he lied. It was a fallacy, deceiving. When the Lord Jesus came, it was just the opposite. It was the truth, because he is the truth. And you know something? The Lord Jesus never wanted to con anybody or misrepresent anything. He never wanted to give the impression that he was selling, trying to buy somebody. Remember when the rich young ruler came? He said, all these things have I done from my youth up. And the Lord said, well, there's one thing I lack still. You have no idea who God really is. If you did, you'd recognize that I am God. And only God has the right to tell anyone, go, sell all you have, and give it to the poor, and come follow me. And the young man did not recognize that Jesus Christ was God. And so he went away, and the Lord let him go. Now, if it had been us today, we'd have said, well, come on in, brother, we'll talk about that later, and then never get around talking about it. Because here he was, a very rich young fellow. His tithes could really help pay on the mortgage of the church and so on. But the Lord confronted him with what he had to do. He had to know. When you come to God, you can't bargain with God. You can't wheedle God. You can't negotiate with God. God tells it like it is, and you either take it or leave it. He isn't bargaining with anybody. Well, here in 14, verse 25, and this is a street meeting. He's been in, if you read the first part, he's been with the Pharisees. And he's come out now, and the disciples are there, and there's quite a crowd gathered around. And there went great multitudes with him, and he turned and he said to them. They didn't know what they were doing. They just said he was popular. I was telling somebody that down at Fort Lauderdale, the inner-varsity young people found that one way they could get a crowd was to go way down to one end of the beach, maybe eight or ten of them, and just start walking up the beach. Don't say anything to anybody. Just walk as though you know where you're going. And when they get up to the other end of the beach, they'd have three or four hundred people that were there. What was it? And then they'd get up on the stand, turn around, and say, Well, you followed us here, now we're going to tell you why we came. We came because we want to talk to you about Jesus. And the Lord Jesus was going, and he came out, and this crowd followed him. So he turned, and he wanted to get everything right up front. Now, this was not a deeper life conference. I want you to get that clear. This was what he was telling a crowd of unconverted people. Somebody said, Well, you preach sanctification and salvation. No, we preach the Word. And this is what the Lord Jesus said. And he, If any man come to me, and hate not his father and his mother and his wife and his children and his brethren and his sisters, yea, in his own life also, he can't even get into kindergarten to start learning about me. You've got to understand that I'm God, and my sovereignty transcends the right to all human relationships. Get that clear now. You obey me, regardless of what anybody thinks. Well, that's pretty rough, isn't it? Remember what we had in the garden? When Eve ate and gave to her husband, and he wanted to be with Eve, I'm sure, and so he ate. Well, I don't know what's happened. I just know she turned and gave it to him, and he ate it. He entered into the sin with her. And now the Lord Jesus comes back in the garden with a throng of people, and he lays it right on the line. My sovereignty transcends all human relationships. Get it clear right at the outset. And then in the next one, and whosoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. When you come to me, you've got to understand that you have all of the liberty and freedom to choose and to act and to do that a guy nailed to a cross has. That's pretty restricting, isn't it? You know, I mean, if one is nailed to the cross, the wife doesn't come down and say, Tom, you better hurry home for dinner tonight. I mean, he's been otherwise engaged. He's there. He's nailed to a cross. He can't go. And what Christ said was this. When you come to me, my sovereignty transcends the right to all plans, aspirations, and ambitions. You have no more right to choose, to design, to plan than a person nailed to a cross does. Now, that was not how to win friends and influence people because the Jews thought the most ignominious and shameful instrument in the world was the cross, which was used largely among the Jews to keep down those insurrectionists, those patriots that wanted Israel to be a free nation. And so they were put on a cross. That's what they did to them. And here is the Lord taking as an illustration of his sovereignty, and he is saying, you take up your cross. In other words, when you come to me, you've relinquished the right to plan. You can't plan anymore. You can't program anymore. All you can do is obey. He said, come follow me. And that's the only call he ever made. I hear people saying, God's called me to the mission field. And I always ask him about it because the only call I can find in the Bible is the call to come follow Christ, follow me. Oh, I know Paul was called to be an apostle. I think most of the time what we call call is leading. You're called to follow Christ, and everybody has the call to follow Christ. I think the doctor that practices in Jerome that loves the Lord should be just as sure he's where God wants him to be as the missionary should be, that he's in the country where God wants him to be. I don't see how God doesn't have first and second class citizens. I grew up thinking that being a missionary was highest, number one, being a pastor was number two, and then there were laymen, and they were the rest. I don't believe that anymore. I believe that we're called to follow Christ and everyone who named his name. So he said, when you come to me, my sovereignty transcends the right to all plans. And then down here in the 32nd verse, no, 33rd verse. So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. When you come to Jesus Christ and you say, my Lord, you can't ever say my in a proprietary sense again about anything. Now, friends, this is the message that Christ gave in a street meeting, not a deeper life conference. This was what he said on the street to a throng of people. Why? Why would he be so tough, so hard? I remember when I was called by Dr. up at Schenectady, New York. Can't think of his name for a moment, good old Scotsman. And he asked me to speak at the noonday meetings for the business community. And one day I spoke on this, and the host in the home where I was staying came to me and said, Paris, I'm sorry you talked on that today. I brought two of the vice presidents of our company, General Electric Motors for Submarines, to that meeting, and they were very angry. They said that that would get empty the church if they had preaching like that very much to listen to. And he said, I have to agree with them. Well, I said, you know, there's only one thing that I can say about that. And I said, that's what the Lord Jesus taught. And he said that we are to make disciples, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever he commanded. And this is what he commanded. And if I'm going to not do that, I'm going to have to write my own Bible. If I preach this book, I've got to preach that. And he said, well, I guess so, but it's still pretty hard. I said, I know it's hard. The Lord knew it was hard. But he was confronting people that were the servants of Satan, and he's telling them that if they're going to come to him, they've got to renounce the principle, I am God in my life. I choose what I'm going to do and what I'm going to have. And I said, he's just confronting them with the truth. Well, now you understand that, and you'll realize that what the Lord Jesus did then was to come to people and put the worst first. Is that right? He put the worst first. Didn't he say there was a straight gate and a narrow way that leads to heaven? Well, what we've tried to do is to put in a broad gate that leads to a narrow way and get everybody in, but the problem of it is that you get them all in, but they don't want to go down that narrow way. The only way you'll get people to walk the narrow way is put the straight gate out there. That's the way the Lord did it. But you can't use a broad gate that funnels into a narrow way, because the people that came in are going to say, hey, forget that narrow way business. You got us in here this way, and now you take care of us here this way. But if you do like the Lord did and lay it right out, you see when people get under conviction of sin and they discover they're lost and how lost they really are, they'll listen. But if you take them in just because you need more people, then you're going to set your own terms. I remember a preacher down in Memphis, Tennessee. I said, how are things? He said, well, when we started, we had a church of people of the Lord. Then we had evangelists so-and-so come, and we got 50 new members, and that about ruined the church. Then two years later, we had evangelists so-and-so come. We got about 100 new members. Now he said the church is gone. I said, well, he said we got about 250, 300 people coming. But he said you'd probably find all those that really have a heart for God on one hand or no more than both hands. The church had grown, but the witness for Christ, the truth of those that were hungry for God had been lost. So what the Lord Jesus did was to confront his generation just as Lucifer had confronted Adam and Eve with a lie seducing them. The Lord Jesus confronted them with the truth, and if they didn't accept it, all right, that was their choice. But that he couldn't change the truth to accommodate the people because he is truth. I am the way and the truth and the life. And there was no give and no compromise in him. And he said, all the Father has given me, I know there will be some that come, and the Father told me what to say, and I'll proclaim what he gave. You remember that time in John 6 when he had that big crowd? The disciples wanted to build a big church there and get all organized and everything. And the Lord knew what was in their hearts. They came because they got a free meal and they hoped for another. And he told them, he said, well, you ate bread yesterday. I know why you're here. But if you want eternal life, then you have to drink my blood and eat my flesh. Because except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. And they said, we are Abraham's seed, and we don't eat anybody's blood, and we don't eat anybody's flesh, and we don't drink anybody's blood, and we're leaving you. And boy, they left. I mean, the whole congregation left. And the Lord turned to the disciples and he said, are you guys going to go too? And by inference, what they said was, thou only hast the words of eternal life. If anybody else had them, we wouldn't go. So we've been thinking about it, Lord, because this is a very hard saying that you've given. But nobody else has the words of eternal life, so we're going to stay. But we still think it was a hard sermon. And the text says, and from that day, many of his disciples followed him no more. Well, now we're in Ephesians 2. And Paul is writing to this church at Ephesus, and he is saying, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Well, of course, you know, I guess this would mean that Ephesus was sort of like Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. You think so? Not if you read any of the historical records. You would find that Ephesus was one of the most immoral cities in all of Asia Minor. They passed a rule, the city council passed a rule, that if any stranger comes here and finds that our practices are not to their taste, they get out or we'll kill them. But we won't have anybody criticize what we do. Well, Ephesus was a city wholly given up to the worship of Diana. Now, we were talking yesterday about Ashtoreth and Juno and so on. Well, in Ephesus, it was Diana. A city wholly given up to immorality. The historical records of Ephesus are of such a nature that if I wouldn't think of reading them in this group this morning, they're so immoral, so unclean, so filthy, so pornographic, so evil. These were the things carved on the stones, carved in the clay tablets. These were the things that were just like we have historical markers. This was the stuff that gave the character of Ephesus. Now, in that swamp of shameful idolatry and immorality, there's a company of people to whom Paul writes saying that they are saints at Ephesus and faithful in Christ Jesus. Now, that's a miracle right there. And in verse 15, he says, When I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love unto all the saints, Hey, that's pretty good. That's a hallmark of genuineness. Love unto all the saints. I cease not to give thanks for you. Paul has sense enough to recognize that God has done a miracle and he is thrilled about it. Absolutely thrilled. And I give thanks for you. I'm grateful. Well, if it was us, we'd probably say, Hey, look, let's pronounce the benediction in dismay unless something gets in here to spoil it. But not Paul. When he found out that there were saints at Ephesus faithful in Christ Jesus, whose faith was genuine and real and who had the hallmark of genuineness, love to the saints, do you know what he did? He said, I put you on my prayer list. You got on to Paul's prayer list just about the time you'd get off of everybody else's. That's right. Paul said, I cease not to pray for you. Now, I want to go back to John 17. What was God's purpose in making man to have a people to whom he could reveal himself and a people with whom he could share all that he has? Here in John 17, the Lord Jesus is praying. He said to his father something like this. Verse 9, I pray for them. These that have believed that I doubted send me. I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they are mine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them. And everything he accomplished at Calvary now, he said he is going to be realized in response to his intercessory prayer. The prayers of Paul, including this verse of the seven, is but an echo and an amplification of this prayer of Christ. He says, I don't pray for the world. I pray for them that thou hast given me out of the world, for I am to be glorified in them. These are people that are saints at Ephesus. They're faithful in Christ Jesus. Their faith is genuine. They have the hallmark of genuineness, love to the saints. And Paul said, I'm praying for you. And he's echoing the intercessory concern of the Lord Jesus Christ. What is Paul praying for these? Remember now, the purpose is that Christ is to be glorified in them. So what we find here is in the 15th verse, I cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers. What is his prayer burden? That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us were to believe. Three things Paul is praying for. That the eyes of their understanding will be opened that they will know the hope of his calling. Now you see, most expositors, when they deal with this, say that what this text says, that we may know the hope to which we are called. And there's a sense, I suppose, in which one could make the text say that. But actually what it says is the hope of his calling. You see, Christ had a call. The call from eternity past. He's the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. The call of love for a bridegroom, for a bride. The call in the heart of the Father for children. And in the fullness of time, the Lord Jesus answered that call. The eternal Son takes off the diadem of his glory and sets it by. The scepter of his authority and sets it by. The robes of his majesty and lays them by. And the next moment is joined to one cell in the body of Mary. And he's answered the call. Sure, God sent forth his son made of a woman made under the law. But the Lord had a call. And the call was the ancient longing and the eternal longing in the heart of God for a beloved. And he's answered the call. Now, does he have a right to expect that his call would have fruit, would be realized? What is the hope of his calling that if he comes into the world, something is going to be accomplished by it? Well, remember he said in John 6, all that the Father gives me will come to me. The Father told him if he would preach what he was told to preach, that there would be some who would come. And he would deal with only those who came because he preached what he was told to preach. And then secondly, the Lord Jesus has the hope not only that some would come, but those that do come are going to recognize that if they couldn't save themselves by their own efforts, they never could serve the Lord acceptably by their own efforts. Impossible. What is the hope of his calling? Well, I think it goes back to Romans 12, 1 and 2. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. I believe that the hope Christ had was this, that everyone redeemed by his poured out life, ransomed by the sacrifice he made at Calvary. Everyone would recognize that if they couldn't save themselves, they couldn't serve the Lord acceptably in their natural talent, energy, and strength. And that the only reasonable thing to do was to present their blood ransomed bodies and personalities to the Lord Jesus Christ as a living sacrifice. That was the hope of his calling, the expectation that he had, that every one of us who are redeemed would count it our reasonable service to present to him. Why? Present to him our brains so that living in us he could use our brains to think his thoughts and get them back in the world. Present our ears so that living in us he could hear the call of men caught in the briars of sin. Present our eyes to see men as a sheep without a shepherd. Present our feet to go where he would want them to go. Our hands to lift the fallen. Our hearts to be broken with compassion. And our lips so that living in us he could speak his word of redeeming love through us. The hope of his calling. So what is a church to be made up of? Just people that have a good in standing premium paid up health insurance policy? Is that the purpose? No. That everyone redeemed by his blood would present their bodies a living sacrifice for Jesus would have total and complete freedom to live his life through them. That's what he had in mind. That's what he wants for these Ephesian believers. The hope of his calling. And their eyes have to be open to understand it. To realize the importance of it. The significance of it. You see Mary gave her body to God and one cell joined in the body of Mary brought forth our Lord Jesus Christ. Now we present our bodies to him so that he is free to live in us and live through us his own life of victory. His own life of triumph. That's the hope of his calling. Then the second thing that he wanted these Ephesian believers to understand was the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. And again every commentator I know of says the riches of the glory of our inheritance as saints. Well we have an inheritance in Christ. But can't we let the Lord have something? His inheritance are the saints. And the reason he wants to live in us is that living in us through us he may bring others to himself. When I went to Africa, when Marjorie and I went to Africa more with me than with her I went to improve on the justice of God. I didn't think sinners should have to go to hell without a chance to be saved. When I got there I found that they weren't like I had expected them to be standing out on the edge of the pass saying oh we do want you to tell us. I told you about one while I was here but that's the only one. Most of them were so indifferent and so unconcerned they just couldn't care less. Why they were just as, it really shocked me. When I got to Africa I found the people were just as disinterested and unconcerned as the sinners back in Indiana had been. Because we went to Africa from Indiana. And I really was upset about that. Because somehow or other I thought they were going to really I remember one day I got tired and had malaria and I got I think you should gripe but I think you should gripe where it counts. I was griping to the Lord. I was really just empty in my heart. And I remember saying Lord I've been fed a bill of goods. I bought a pig and a poke. I came out here thinking that these people wanted to learn how to go to heaven and they couldn't care less. They love their sin. They deserve hell. And I think this whole thing has been oversold and all I'd like to do is find some way to get back home and get a job and make a living. Because I'm fed up to the gills with trying to talk to people that don't want to hear, don't care. Oh I was really I was really about as low as a snake in a wheel rut on a muddy day I was low. And it was bad. When I finished getting all this complaint out to the Lord it seemed to me in my heart I heard him say you're right. They don't deserve you. And they don't deserve me. And I didn't send you to them because they deserve to have you come and tell them about me. I didn't send them here. You came to improve on my justice but that's not why I sent you. They deserve hell. They're just as bad as you were and they deserve hell just as much as you did. But you see I loved you. And I sent someone to love you for me and to talk to you about me and to pray you to me. Those people that you're with now they don't love, deserve you. They don't deserve me. But don't I deserve the reward of my suffering? I loved them. I died for them. You're not there for them. You're there for me that I might receive my inheritance. Because my inheritance is in the saints. I changed everything. From that time I wasn't working for the sinner anymore. I was working for the Savior. I was there for Him not for them. The Lord understood that they didn't deserve Him and they didn't deserve me but He deserved them and that was good enough for me. And I was willing to stay as long as I got cleared up who I was working for. Have you understood who you're working for? The riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. It's His inheritance. That one day these that are so vile, so wicked, will have new names and new natures and new bodies and new spirits and be robed in righteousness and whiteness like unto Himself and will be to the eternal praise of the glory of His grace. His inheritance in the saints. Then the third thing He wanted us to understand in this church at Ephesus was what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us were to believe according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. That when we present our bodies to Him as living sacrifices, when we understand that the purpose for which He is going to move through us is His inheritance in the saints, that we then are entitled to have the eyes of our understanding open to undersee and know that the power that's going to affect this through us is the same, very same power that raised up Christ from the dead. But you might not know what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us were to believe according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. The very same power that raised up Christ from the dead is to flow in and through you and through me in this task of bringing people out of death into life. Now, this is more than just to have people saved so they can come to church every Sunday and sit there and drop an envelope in the offering plate and go home and forget all about their relationship to Christ and their responsibility to Christ. This is far more than that. Sometimes when I'm in the church and waiting to speak, I look out and see the rows filled with people. You know what I'm reminded of? Light bulbs down in the custodian's closet. Now, most custodians and churches want to have enough light bulbs there to serve the place. At least one of every kind or one enough to replace them or some of them at least, not all of them, but you've got enough to have them there. And here they are in their little corrugated paper cartons with little corrugation around them and they're lined up on a shelf. And I look out and I say 10 watt, 15 watt, 25 watt, 6 watt, whatever. But they're all sitting in little cardboard like light bulbs on the shelf in the custodian's pantry. And friend, you can go into that custodian's closet and shut the door and be as blind as a bat, not see anything unless there's a leak under the door or something. And the room is full of light bulbs and they've all got their UL Underwriters Laboratory tested. And they've all been tested. But they aren't fit for anything to keep the darkness away. Why? Because they're sitting in their cartons just sitting on the shelf. And I look out and I see the church is nothing but a shelf full of light bulbs and little paper cartons sitting there. Why the whole bunch of them wouldn't give enough enough light to help a firefly get his motor started. They just don't have any. No light, whatever. They just are without light. Why? Well, the Lord Jesus said, Abide in me and I in you. Abide. Live. Resign. Up there. You can't. You can see it there. There's a light bulb. Real honest to goodness light bulb. These long strips of things here, they don't really fit my illustration. But these little light bulbs we got up here on the side, they do. Because they've got a base. And the base has threads. Okay, I've named those threads. I had to. You can imagine that. I had to name them for this illustration. Thread number one is crucified with Christ. Thread number two is buried with Christ. Thread number three is quickened and raised with Christ. And thread number four is seated with Christ, in Christ in the heavenlies. Now, if you will put that light bulb in, I take it out of its little corrugated paper and put that light bulb into the socket. Crucified with Christ. Buried with Christ. Quickened with Christ. Raised with Christ. Seated with Christ. Then, the resurrection life of Christ, released at Calvary, will flow through that blood ransomed, surrendered life. And it will become incandescent with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Ghost. And that's what he's wanting. That's what he's praying for. That the eyes of our understanding will be opened. We'll know what his purpose is. To live in us, as the electricity is necessary to make the bulb fulfill its purpose, the bulb is necessary to let the electricity be revealed. And so, the Lord Jesus Christ has put these strict, tough terms right at the gate. My lordship transcends family relationships. It transcends personal ambitions. It transcends the result, the right to possessions. You bring yourself to me. You'll present yourself a living sacrifice. And I will fill you with mine. And you will become incandescent with my presence. Do you see how important this is for the purpose of God? To go back and understand, why did he make man in the first place? Why did he make him? What was his purpose in redemption? And what's going to be the effect? When you get a light bulb released, what happens? Well, I've got a classic illustration of one fellow by the name of Tommy Titcom. Ever hear of him? Anyone ever hear of Tommy Titcom? You did. He was a missionary to the sedentary mission. He was an old man when I was a young deputation secretary. Been with the Lord a great many years. But back about 1908 or 9, Tommy was a young man. We all were young men once, you know. And Tommy was. And he wanted so badly to be a missionary. He went to the alliance, and the alliance said, well, you can't go. You don't have an education. You've got your mother to support. When he went to Dr. Bingham of the sedentary mission, Dr. Bingham said, you don't have any training. You've got your mother. He said, I'm going to be a missionary with or without you, and I'm going to be a missionary in your mission. Dr. Bingham said, well, if God does it, well, who am I to stop it? But I'm not going to help you. So Tommy prayed in to a relative to take care of his mother. He prayed to get to Africa, and he got a job working on a cattle boat to England. Then he got a job working on another boat to Nigeria. And he got off the boat there, and he took his whole outfit on his back. He herded it up in the interior. One of the tribes was a missionary by the name of Andrew P. Stewart, who was called a doctor. So he carried his whole outfit for the rest of his life on his back as he started up. And he got there, and when he arrived with Dr. Stewart, there was a hundred percent increase in the missionary staff of the Sudan Terrier Mission. They now had two missionaries. And so they had a field conference right away, and it was unanimously decided that no tribe could have two missionaries when the big Yoruba tribe right nearby didn't have any. And so it was also unanimously decided that since Andrew Stewart knew the language of the people he was, and Tommy Titcomb didn't know anything, that he might as well go over and learn the Yoruba language. So he was appointed to go to evangelize the Yoruba tribe. And so he started off after the field conference. He took his whole outfit on his back again, and he hiked off in the direction where they told him where the Yoruba people were. And he said, and when you go down the path you're going to see a whole string of human skulls on a vine. Now that's where you turn off. The Yorubas are saying, don't come in here, or yours will be the last one on the string. And so as Tommy went under there, the top of his knapsack and load on his back hit that string of skulls. And he said, I walked in, and all I could hear was thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud. As those skulls began to rattle one against the other. And he said he'd been told that all along the way they had watchmen so that nobody could get into the Yoruba village of the king, the paramount chief. So Tommy simply said, Lord, I think you better close the eyes of those watchmen so they don't see me. If you want me there. And so none of them saw him. He just walked right all the way in to where the village was. He looked in the village, and he saw man sitting on a stool, and all the rest were sitting on the ground. He knew that was the paramount chief. He walked right up in the middle of it, and they were so astonished because they had nobody to announce his coming. And here he was. And he threw his back off his back and said, he'd learned a few words, because there had been one of the Yoruba people taught him a few words. And he said, I've come to stay. Where am I going to live? Chief was just muttering, chomping air. Never had this before. He should have been in the cooking pot, and here he's demanding a house. And the chief said, well, but the old widow over there has a room. She and her husband are dead. You can sleep on his grave. Now the grave was mounted up in the center of the hut. So he put his little roll out there and slept there. But you can't tell us any of this Jesus talk you've got. You can stay here. You can eat our food. You work. But you can't talk to us. We've got our gods, and we don't want to hear yours. And he said, well, I can't say very much, so I'll learn your language anyway. So he said, I sat around with the kids and with the boys, with the old people. I sat around, and I picked the language off their teeth, and I learned it. I never talked English with anybody. And he's the only missionary I ever met that had learned the language so well that he spoke English with a Yoruba accent. Now you believe that. When he started to speak, he spoke with the accent of the Yoruba people. They called him from the very first. They looked at him, and they said, oh, we know what happened to you. They peeled your skin off. That's why he was white. And so his name from then on was Iyinbo Egbi, the little peeled man of Egbi. And so Iyinbo Egbi learned the language. And when he learned the language enough so he could begin to preach, he said, Lord, how am I going to preach? They won't let me. He said, they said you couldn't preach in the village. They didn't say you couldn't preach over the village. Well, the village was down under some rocks, like your more or less like your gorge here, but not as high. And so at night, Tommy would get out, and he'd go up there, and Tommy naturally had a little high-pitched voice, about like that. Well, you, how far are you going to make that heard? So he said, Lord, I'll preach, but you've got to help me. And so God gave him, and when he opened his mouth, it went, caw. It sounded like a foghorn. Bass voice. And when he talked to you, he talked like that when he preached. So he's up there, and he's leaning over the edge of this thing, and he's preaching. Well, they didn't know who it was. Because they knew how Tommy talked. And here's this great voice booming down, filtering through the huts, telling them about their sin, and telling them about heaven, and telling them about hell, and telling them about what they've got to do, and what God will do for them. Oh, nobody said anything the next day, because nobody wanted to say they were hearing things in the middle of the night. But they all began to anticipate it. And they began to figure out who was doing it, but they couldn't prove it, because in the daytime, he talked like that. And at night, this great booming voice would just thunder down. Well, after a while, there were twelve people, and they found out who it was. It was Tommy. He had twelve disciples, twelve converts. He'd build a little house out on the edge of the village, and they would come, these twelve would come every morning about five o'clock for a time of prayer. But that didn't mean the witch doctor liked it. And he got the people together and got them enraged, and one day when they were in prayer, they heard the cry for blood, the chant of blood, the sacrifice. And it was going to be a little yinboegbe that they were going to kill and eat, hang his bones up in the sacred tree. And the others were going to be killed too. They said, what do we do? Tommy said, well, the Lord told me we're to stay here till he tells us to go. So they stayed there for about eleven days. And on the twelfth day, nothing happened. They were dancing around day and night, just going around, going around, put their arrows in with flame on them and did not shoot them. They did not throw their spears. Rushed and then stopped. And they just went on. They had some food there, they had a little water, and they were very careful to portion it out. And they stayed there those eleven days. And then the people left. It got quiet. First time it had been quiet all that time. They'd gone up the hill to make a sacrifice. And the Lord had spoken to Tommy, when they go and leave to make a sacrifice, you go down to the village. So he said, come on. So all of them, thirteen of them, went quickly down into the village and stood right under the sacred tree that had the bones of the sacrifice. Well, when they came down from the hill and they saw the tracks, they rushed into the village. And the believers there were a little bit frightened, you can imagine. More than a little. Scared stiff, to tell you the truth. So he said, but he wasn't, because God had told him what to do. He said, wait until they're a spear length away and then stand out in front of them and raise your hand and say, in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, stop! And he said it was like a cable stretched across the road. They were leaning over it like this. They were in a straight line. They stopped. And then he said he took the same tool they'd been using, but he put gospel words to it. And he began to chant it. And he said, did you like that? Open your mouth like crocodiles, do you like it? So they opened their mouths and said, I'll do some more. And the butcher said, no, no, we're going to kill you. He said, look, you've had 12 days and you haven't got it done. Now we're tired of you. You go and don't ever come back or you'll end up in a pot. Now you get out of here. And the chief said, you heard him, get out. We're going to hear. And for three hours, nearly three hours, he preached to these people. Separated by that invisible cable. Now he said, if any of you would like to come and join us and find out what it is to believe on Jesus and be one of his, you speak, come to my house tomorrow before the sun comes up and I'll talk to you when the sun is up. So he went home, went to bed, slept, and when he awakened a little before the sun came up, he heard a soft sound out in the yard. And when he could see, he went out and in the yard were over 400 people. Two here, few there, family there, all around. And for the next six weeks, all he did was people would come in the front door, throw down their fetishes, pledge their faith in Christ, offer their testimony that they'd been born again. He asked one of them, he said, why didn't you kill us? One he knew was one of the leaders. Said, oh, we couldn't. Those warriors in white that were there all around your house, they wouldn't let us. We'd go to shoot and they'd just hold up their hand, put the fire out. We couldn't do it. We'd go to throw a spear, we couldn't let go of it. These warriors were just all around you. And they wouldn't let you, let us touch you. Church increased in the next six weeks from twelve to over fifteen hundred. What God can do through a person that's holy is. Oh, for the next years after this were a marvelous time. But suffice to let you know the exceeding greatness of his power to us who are to believe, according to the working of his mighty power which he brought in Christ when he raised him from the dead. That's what he had in mind for us. For his people, for his church, for his body. May God by the Holy Spirit bring together again a company of people who glorify him. He said, I am glorified in them. Oh, that that might be what results in your lives and mine and in the lives of those to whom we minister that we glorify him. Father in heaven, in the name of Jesus, thy beloved son, our Lord and our Savior. We hear his cries. He said, Father, glorify thou me with the glory I had with thee before the world was. And his prayer when he said, I am glorified in them. And then we think of those organizations that dare to call themselves churches. There is so little in and of them that bring honor and praise and glory to the name of Jesus Christ. We're asking God for thee to do something so marvelous, so totally and completely of thee, that men are going to stand back and wonder and know that it's not the accomplishment of clever and talented men, but a demonstration of the power of the living God. We ask to see it, Lord, in the lives of the pastors and people here, that the Lord Jesus Christ should in and through us see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. We ask it now with thanksgiving in his worthy name. Amen. Thank you very much.