In this sermon, the speaker shares a personal experience of going on a mission trip despite difficult winter conditions. They emphasize the importance of being open to God's leading and being willing to change our plans for His purposes. The speaker also highlights the need to trust God in unknown situations and not be afraid of looking foolish for Christ's sake. They encourage listeners to be willing vessels for God's work and to rely on the Holy Spirit's guidance in sharing the Gospel.

I'd like to read a couple of verses from Galatians 5. Galatians 5 and 16 to 18 and then 24 to 26. This I say then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. These are contrary the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would or that you want. But if you be led of the spirit, you are not under the law. 24. They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections, the margins of the passions and lusts. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, empty glory, provoking one another, envying one another. I think my text would be verse 25 that simply says, if we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. Which means, of course, it's possible to live in the spirit and yet not walk in the spirit. What's the difference? In Romans 8 it says, you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of Christ dwells in you. So if you are born again and God's spirit lives within you because of this, then you are no longer living in the flesh, you are now living in the spirit. But you may not be walking in the spirit at the same time. Obviously there is a difference. Sometimes the difference is not recognized. I don't think much is taught about walking in the spirit. Being filled with the spirit, yes, but walking in the spirit, I think it's a very important truth. I want to spend a little time this afternoon with that. Jesus, you remember Matthew chapter 4 and Mark also, he said, come after me, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Just recently I quoted this verse in a meeting, and this lady came and said, what a relief. I said, what do you mean? She said, I've been trying to make myself a fisher of men, and it's been a total flop. It hasn't worked. But when you quoted this verse, she said, something just came alive inside my heart. Christ will do it if I'll follow him, if I'll walk in the spirit then, if I'll walk after him. And to her it was just a brand new revelation. In Luke's gospel, chapter 2, you remember Simeon, the man that says that the Holy Spirit was on him, and it was revealed unto him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he'd seen the Lord's Christ. And then it says, he came by the spirit into the temple. So he was walking in the spirit. The spirit led him to the temple, and he got there just in time to meet the parents of Jesus with baby Jesus in their arms. They brought him to the temple to do for him after the custom of the law. And there was this godly woman, Anna, and she was well past 80. She came in, it says, that instant. And she was much like Simeon. It doesn't say this, but I'm positive it was so, that the spirit was on her. And she too came by the spirit into the temple in that instant. And she had a revelation from God that this child was the Christ, and she spoke of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. These people were walking in the spirit. In John 12, Jesus Christ said, If any man serve me, let him follow me. You know, it's possible to serve him in my way, not in his. And so, if any man serve me, let him follow me. I may be serving him, but not really walking in the spirit, not really following him. In John 21, if you remember, when Jesus was restoring Peter from his backsliding, and they had a little talk and a little walk along the beach. Jesus was not one to embarrass people in front of others, unless it was necessary. And so they're walking down the beach, and it's getting a little hotter all the time. And then Peter saw a way out, and he saw John following. And I guess John was trying to catch what was being said. It's very human, you know. And Peter said, Oh, what's he supposed to do? And Jesus said, Peter, if I will that he tarry till I come. What business is that of yours? What is that to you? Follow thou me. Never mind about John. Never mind what John is to do. I have a work for you. You follow me. Or to put it differently, you walk in the spirit. As the spirit leaves. We've had a number of people intern with Canadian Revival Fellowship, and one of them was a young man, Dave Lockhart. He lives in southern Nebraska, and he was with me a couple years ago on a crusade in Omaha. And he was really walking in the spirit. He'd tell me what was going on. He was walking down the street in Omaha one day, and he came past a beer parlor, and he could see through the window, and there was a half a dozen blacks sitting there. And he said there were great big guys, and God said, Go in. Tell them about Jesus. He said, Hey, God, I'm just a little white guy. Go on. So he went in. He said, I sat down, introduced myself, and he said, We had the greatest time for 40 minutes. I told them about Jesus. And they said, Hey, man, come back again sometime. This was really good. Then he was walking down the street, and there were three men talking together on a corner. And the spirit said to him, Now go and talk to these three men. Two of them will leave, and one of them will be saved. That's exactly what happened. The church we were holding meetings in, they bought a new building, and the first floor was all offices, and the second floor was an auditorium, which they planned to use for their church. So they bought the building. They needed the money from below, so they still had these offices rented out, and one of them was a lawyer. And Dave Lockett had gone past this door and saw this sign, this barrister, you know, and just had a burden for him. He started to pray for him, and he prayed and said, God, give me a chance to share the gospel with him. Well, the Lord has different ways of arranging things, you know, and here's what happened. He came into the building one day, Dave did, and he was walking down the hall, walking rather quickly, and the lawyer came up from his office with a big bunch of books in his arms, and Dave hit him and knocked the books flying all over the floor, and this is how they met. So he helped the fellow gather things together, and the lawyer said, and who are you? So he told him, and the lawyer stood him and said, could you give me an hour of your time right now? Went back in the office, locked the door, and just opened his heart to Dave, and Dave opened his heart to him. He didn't accept the Lord. But David learned the secret of walking in the Spirit, and many times we're afraid of this. We don't know what kind of a situation God will get us into. We don't feel comfortable with unknown situations, unprepared for situations, whereas we're supposed to be prepared all the time. The Spirit may lead any time in something that we hadn't thought of at all, and we have to be open to this. If we live in the Spirit, let's also walk in the Spirit. Now in Acts chapter 8, you remember that Philip was preaching, and the great things that happened, many people were saved, people were delivered from the occult, and you call it probably a large, a large work, and God called it from a large, powerful work, to a very small thing. He told him to go down to a certain highway. He had something for him to do there. So he went, walking in the Spirit. He gets there, and he's looking around. There's donkeys, perhaps elephants. I've been in India, and you'll see a little wee man riding on it. It's the most ridiculous thing you ever saw, you know, a man riding on an elephant. It seems like a terrible waste, I was going to say, of horsepower, of elephant power, to be carrying one man. But you'll see that, and people riding camels, and a guy went past me in India one day, and he had a bicycle with three wheels, two at the back, one at the front, and he had a live pig tied down underneath somehow. I don't know how he managed. It was ridiculous, but it was part of life. So here is this man. He's standing by this highway, and all these strange things are going by. Now what does he do? And the Spirit said, join yourself to this charity. Let me ask you a question. Do you think we can have this kind of guidance today? A lot of Christians don't believe that. That was just for the apostolic age, that mysterious apostolic age. No, it isn't. I don't know whether he heard a voice, or he got a strong impression, or how it happened, but I know this. He knew what God wanted him to do, and he did it. And when he got there, what was happening? The guy was reading Isaiah 53. See how God prepares us? Now he had to get this guy, Philip, from where he was, down to this highway, and get this guy in his chariot there at exactly the right time, so they can come together. And he leads the man to Christ, and baptizes him. Didn't have any instruction classes or anything? Strange. He hadn't read our manuals, I guess. Anyway, I remember once, years ago, I had to get to a certain town to meet a certain man, and unfortunately, all I had was his first name. Well, to be perfectly frank, I'd forgotten his last name. And, you know, the people that laugh the loudest usually have the same problem. So here I am. What am I going to do? I didn't have the guy's phone number, I didn't know where he lived, didn't have an address, but I had to meet him. So what did I do? I committed to God and said, God, you do it. I don't know how you're going to do it, but I know you can do it. So I got to this town. It's a town of about 15,000 people. I'm driving down the main drag, just wondering what to do, driving slowly, and I saw a sign, post office, and a strong impression I should stop and go in and buy some stamps. So I came down, I turn in like this, and the fellow walked by the front of my car. So I think to myself, now wait a minute, 175 miles. I mean, God, if he gets the two of us together and did it just like that, isn't it wonderful how God can do these things? If we walk in the Spirit, and I'm not afraid to trust him to lead us and guide us from day to day, as he can and wants to be. There's a fellow in Manitoba, Jack Rempel. He was a bush worker, a pumpwood cutter, a great Christian, one of these real, you know, real strong John the Baptist type witnesses, tackle anything, anybody, anywhere. Lived in the bush. And there was a trail, you wouldn't call it a highway, just two ruts in the sand, a trail through the forest where he lived. And one morning, God showed him very clearly, he was to go down to a certain trail, which went to nowhere, to an old abandoned mill site, a sawmill site, and he was to go down to this road and build a fire. Build a fire at this road? He told his wife. She said, well it doesn't sound, are you feeling okay? He says, honey, it's as clear as a bell, that's what God wants me to do. So he did. He's sitting by this fire at night, wondering why he's there. Nothing around. Hear a squirrel or something in a tree. There's no traffic on the road, it's not a highway. A fellow named Roy North, with his wife and his hired man, had bought 70 acres outside Winnipeg, and this place where Jack was, was 70 or 80 miles from Winnipeg, and he bought some, this acreage, and he was coming with a three-ton truck and all his early belongings, and he was going to start a mushroom farm in the Winnipeg area. And he's driving through this sandy land forest reserve, where Jack Rempel lived, and he got stuck in a mud hole. That night. Wasn't a Christian thing. And so they couldn't get out of the mud hole, and they didn't know what to do, there was nobody for miles around, and they were really concerned. Is it going to be any better in the morning when the sun shines? We won't be able to get out of this mud hole. So they started walking. They came across a little trail. They thought, well, maybe we should go down this trail. Who's on the trail? Jack Rempel was a friar. And they met. They told Jack the problem. Oh, come on, come on. Great, great. So he takes them into his house, and he fed them, and everything, and witnessed to them, and got out in the morning with a tractor and pulled them out of the mud hole. And this guy Roy North, he was Jack's style and type, only he was not a Christian. He was one of the worst blasphemers. He didn't drink. One of the worst blasphemers in Canada. They said he could curse for a half an hour and never use the same word twice. And had a violent temper, but he liked Jack. He liked his style. I mean, Jack really hit him for the gospel season. So he said, Jack, why don't you come and work for me when I get the mushroom farm off the ground? Jack said, I'll think about it. And he did. He went and worked for him, just outside of Winnipeg a few miles. Well, Jack worked there several months, then witnessed to Roy. Nothing happened in Roy's life, but he really watched this guy Jack, really liked him, and he got a witness to allow him to clear. And one day Jack said, Roy, I hate to say this, but I'm going to quit. I want to go back to the bush. I just miss the bush. And so Roy was very sorry. And the next day, a Jehovah's Witness called at Roy North's mushroom plot. And Roy was not a Christian, but he hated Jehovah's Witnesses. And he was building a mushroom house out of cement blocks, you know, they're up about this high, sitting in the wall. He knew Pirate Man when his car drove in, and he recognized right away they're J.W.'s. So they got out, introduced themselves, and he says, you got any literature? Yes. Give me some. So the guy gave him some. Got any more? Yes, we got a bunch. Give me all this. I want all of it. Everything you've got. So they gave it to him. And he takes this literature, remember he's building cement blocks, and he pushes it down in the holes in the blocks. He puts the mortar on, lays the blocks, you know, and they got the message. And they took off. You know what? And you know what they did? The Lord did the next day. I was starting a church in the area. I'd often gone past this mushroom plot, and the Lord said, go in. So I went in. Now let me back up a bit. Some of you know a pastor named Norman Pipe. Used to pastor in Simcoe, Ontario. Had a church there, and I think a Bible school as well. Yeah, see some heads nodding. Norman Pipe used to always walk around with his pockets full of candy. And anytime he saw a kid, he gave him candy. And Roy North had no connection with the church at all. His mother died when he was five. He told me he thought she was a Christian, but his father abused her so badly she died. The last he saw of his dad, his dad was chasing down the road with a pitchfork. He said, if the old man had a copy, he'd have killed me on the spot. You know, one time they sent two policemen out to bring his father in for some misdemeanor. And he took these two policemen and cracked their heads together and draped them over the barbed wire fence and phoned the detachment and said, you better come and get your buddies. They're not was a battle royal. He said, that almost won. Anyway, this was the background. But whenever Roy North thought about preachers, he thought about Norman Pipe and Norman Pipe just happened to be a Baptist. So when I pulled up, he told me later, I thought you were either a Mormon Jehovah's Witness, because I had a young guy with me, a Christian fellow. And he said to George, let's give him the same treatment. But when I said I was a Baptist preacher starting at that, a Baptist? Oh, hey man, come on in. Norman Pipe. And the three of them accepted Christ and joined our church, got baptized. He's living in Spencer, Iowa now. He's a millionaire now. He made a lot of money growing mushrooms. And he's been, he was a tremendous witness for Christ. Women couldn't stand him. He was entirely too rough, you know, but men liked him. Bang, right between the eyes. That's style. It's not always right, but sometimes it is. When Roy gives his testimony, when he gets to the part of the story about the fire by the road, he just falls. He says, there was a fire. God was looking for me. I wasn't even a Christian and God was looking out for me. And it was true, God was. See, God put it all together, you know. Jack Grenfell might have missed it if he'd been like some of us. We're dead and cold. We don't know what God is doing, you know, nothing's going on and nothing ever happens. We wonder how we hear stories like this. Well, how can this be never happened to me? Well, maybe you're not ready for it. I mean, we're not walking in the spirit the way we should be. And so we're not open to what God may, what God may say. So Philip went, he obeyed and led this Ethiopian eunuch, the treasurer of the whole country of Ethiopia. He led him to Christ and baptized him. And the eunuch went on his way, rejoicing. And Philip got, matter of fact, he got a joy ride in a helicopter. Remember he said that in Acts 8, the spirit of the Lord cut away Philip, the eunuch saw him no more. That's unusual. I've never had that happen or even come close to it. It's quite possible. Don't be surprised if it happens when you're walking in the spirit. In Acts chapter 13, five men, Barnabas and Paul and three other men, it says they ministered to the Lord and fasted and the Holy Ghost said, separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work, for until I've called them. Now that's clear, isn't it? Why isn't it clear today? It's not clear today because we do it in other ways. We have to evaluate everything. Ever seen these things where you have a great big thing, you know, on a pin and you have to push a pin in certain places, you know, it goes on for several hours. Then they evaluate this whole sheet. I'm not saying this should never be done, but I'm saying that seems to take precedence to other more important things. And so they went, but you know what it says? They had also John. Why? That's the human element. They had also John to minister, but John didn't stay with them long. Why? Because he was never called of God. The Holy Ghost didn't say, separate me Barnabas and Saul and John. So that was their choice. And John departed from and went back to Jerusalem. I'm not surprised. God never called him to go. And here's where we make mistakes. We add things on that God didn't plan for at all. And then these things cause us problems because we're not really in our choice, walking in the spirit, waiting for God to lead. We like to do things in a hurry. I see these highway signs that says, slow down and live. We didn't do the same thing. Slow down and live. Give God a chance to talk. When I was with a Shannon's mission years ago, I was in a little town called Westgate, Manitoba. And you couldn't drive in there. It was just a railroad. You have to either walk into the bush. I think I came in on a train and there was a little mill there. It wasn't a store. It wasn't anything, just a little mill and maybe 15 families. I had a meeting in a schoolhouse and 14 or 15 people showed up and nobody accepted Christ, but a little girl about eight stayed behind. And she said, I want to talk to you. And I said, what's on your mind? She said, I heard a preacher on the radio and he said something from the Bible and it's bugged me ever since. I said, what did he say? She said, I don't remember all, but it said, be still. I said, be still and know that I'm God. That's it. She said, what is it? So I showed her. She said, what does it mean? He says, bug me day and night. I said, honey, listen, Jesus wants you to be quiet so you can hear him talk. And he wants to talk to you. He wants you to understand you're a sinner. You have sinned against God. I explained the whole thing and she accepted Christ. This was 40 years ago. I have never seen the girl since. But you know, over the years, the spirit would bring it to my mind occasionally. And the minute he did, I prayed for her. Dear God, bless that gal, wherever she is, keep her hand on her, bless her. Then I might not think of her for months. I think of her again, the Holy Spirit brings her to my mind. You know, it's just praying in the Holy Spirit as he leads. I have a daughter who's a missionary in the Philippines, Lois, my second oldest daughter. And she and her husband were doing deputation work in Vancouver or in the British Columbia, rather, several years ago. And after one of the meetings, the preacher's wife came to my daughter and said, are you Bill McCluskey's daughter? And she said, yes. Why? You look like him, she said. My poor daughter. And it was this girl, this pastor's wife, that was that little kid I led to Christ years before, and she told my daughter, your daddy led me to Christ from that verse in the Psalms, be still and know that I'm God. We aren't still enough. Wait on the Lord means wait. Be silent, though all flesh before the Lord, for he is raised up out of his holy habitation. The Lord is in his holy temple, but all the earth keeps silence before him. You get into some of these noisy musical meetings. I vote with my feet. I've done that a couple of times now, if you know what I mean, in meetings like that. And then they say, oh, Brother Bill, wait a minute, wait a minute, in the Psalms it says, play skillfully with a loud noise. So that's what we're doing. I said, amen. But back when that was written, they never had any amplifiers. So unplug your amplifiers, play as loud as you want. I'll have no complaint. Spurgeon used to say that nonsense is not improved by being bellowed. He also said, that is good. He also said, a lot of modern music is mermaid poetry. Fair enough where it breaks the surface, but totally fishy in the lower parts. Then he called some music in his day, wax nose hymnology made to fit the face of any creed. You know, creedless stuff, stuff that doesn't teach anything. You know, some of these people tell me the loud music stuff, you know, it gets us so excited. About what? About God? No, not about God. Just excited. So I watch people in some of these sessions. I don't go if I know it's going to be, but sometimes I get asked to speak at a place and I don't know what the preliminaries are going to be like. Then, like I said, I vote with my feet. People snake dancing in the aisle and stuff, you know. It's a strange day. How did I get into that? I don't know. In Acts 16, Paul tried to go into a place called Bithynia and the Spirit would not let him. He was led by the Spirit. The Spirit said that he was not to preach in Asia. This tells me something. The Holy Spirit is the superintendent of all our operations, right? He's in charge. He knows what has to be done. So I hear of one denomination, they take aerial photographs over city, and then from these photographs, they know how many churches they have in the city, and then they plan on building a church not closer than a mile to one of the churches they have, and this is the basis on which they build churches. And sometimes they build churches but don't have a preacher or congregation. Okay, so I'm not criticizing, but I'm saying it doesn't fit into the Bible too well. Why did the Spirit say to Paul, you're not to preach the gospel in Asia? That's in chapter 16. In chapter 19, what does it say about Paul and his ministry? All that dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. So it wasn't God's time then in chapter 16. It was God's time down the road. And, you know, I remember in the Maritimes, in a small area of 40,000 square miles, not including Newfoundland, I think there's 600 Baptist churches. I've meetings with some of these churches, some Western churches as well, and some of these pastors, a lot of them had three churches, four churches, five churches, which would have been fine. But here I am holding meetings in a church here, and this pastor, he's got four other churches, and one of them's just a mile down the road. I mean, you can see it. I said, this preacher, why don't you get these five congregations together and sell all the buildings, and then build a decent building. Have one good congregation. He said, you wouldn't even dare mention it. They'd have my head on the chopping block in a minute. You know, don't try and tell me the Holy Ghost to raise that. He knows what he's doing. You know, it must grieve God greatly that we don't wait for guidance. We just do it. We plan it, we do it, and it doesn't work out, and we blame heaven for it. That isn't right. If we live in the Spirit, let's also walk in the Spirit. Wait on the Lord for guidance. When you get guidance, do it. May not seem right, do it. May seem foolhardy, do it anyhow. And God will always be with you in that. I was with a missionary one time. We'd done a whole circle of camps, and it was Saturday, and we planned to go home. We'd been away several weeks from our wives and families, and we were anxious to get home. And then at the last minute, we heard of a tiny little bush camp 20 miles down a bad road, a brand-new bulldozed road, if you know what that means. Wintertime, rocks, roots, stumps, hard in the oil pan, sometimes you lose it. And we looked at each other. Well, the first thought was, there's only 14 men in the camp, that's not important. But we knew we had to go, because we're committed to God to do this. And so we went. And all along the road, there's a truck abandoned here, and a car abandoned there, and so on. We just decided it wasn't worth it, you know. One mile an hour some places. We got there. And you know, we had one of the most powerful meetings I was ever in. Heaven just came down on us. We might have missed that, but we had to listen to what God was saying, because sometimes He asks us to do something that cuts across our plans. Don't make your plans in concrete, make them in sand, because God may want to change them overnight. And trouble is, we're not ready for that. We want to see several years down the road, and plan, as the word is, sensibly. My wife and I heard a tape recently, I just want to share that. It was a missionary in the Philippines from the States, and he was to start a church. He was a man of prayer, waiting for guidance, and God led him to start a church in Cebu City. Well, I've been there, my wife and I've been there. It's a large city, well over a million people. And they said, when he got there, how did he start a church? All he do is community census, ring doorbells, pound on doors, talk to people in the marketplace. It's not what he did. He prayed. He said, God, what do you want me to do? You know what the Lord told him to do? To phone the biggest banker, the manager of the biggest bank in Cebu City, and share Christ with him. So he phones, and the secretary says, and why do you want to talk to this man? He said, I'm sorry lady, I can't tell you over the phone. I can only tell him face to face, but I've got to see him. It's very important. I've got to see him as soon as possible. So she tells the banker, the banker said, okay, put him on. So they talked and they arranged, and he took this banker up for dinner and led him to the Lord. So then he says to his banker friend, do you have any guys like yourself? You know, you're good guys, probably Catholics and so on, but you don't know Christ personally? Oh, he said, I got a dozen friends like that. So they began to pray and God led them, and they led all 12 of these guys to Christ. This is how the church started. Not only to have a church, he had a financial base. These guys were quite willing to support him. Well, remember what Jesus Christ said to Peter, you catch the fish and the money will be in the fish's mouth? That's what he did. One day this guy's phone rang, and the fellow on the phone said, mister, I heard about you, and you know God, and he said, I'm gay and I want out. Can you help me? Hey man, he said, that's really interesting. We're just planning to have a meeting for homosexuals on Saturday morning. Can you come nine o'clock? Get some of your gay friends and bring them. I mean, he set the meeting up just at that moment. And so this guy comes with eight or ten homosexuals Saturday morning, and he worked with them for three months and led all of them to Christ, and out of this gay stuff. One day a prostitute's phone, and he did the same thing. Hey lady, he said, this is interesting. We're just planning to have a meeting for prostitutes Saturday morning. Get some of your prostitute friends and come over. And so she comes over with six or eight gals, and he just waits for guidance from God, and then he does these things. Sounds crazy. You know, he did, he met a fellow. This guy was a communist organizer. Everybody in the city knew him, and he set up strikes. He'd organize strikes, do it all the time, and he organized a strike for all the universities and colleges and so on in Cebu City. Organized a rally, the whole thing, and this guy, this missionary, went to him. He'd met him before and tried to get near him, couldn't get near him. The guy wouldn't listen to him, but he'd take him out for a coffee, and the guy would just listen, you know, and that was it. Nothing would happen. So he said, listen, you're going to have this meeting, talk about communism, and talk against democracy, and maybe talk against God a little bit. Why don't you share the meeting with me, and then I can talk about God. The guy said, you think I'm crazy? He said, I don't think of it. So he prayed, and the Lord told him what to do. He got a hold of 15 students he led to Christ. He said, come to this rally, told them where and when, bring a chair, and space yourself in the crowd so you're not close to another one of our guys. All through the crowd, see. And when I blow the whistle, jump up in the chair and preach. Uncomplicated. And you know what happened? This guy gets up to preach, to taunt this guy, this communist organizer, and he blew the whistle, and these 15 guys jumped up in their chairs and started preaching, and the whole crowd broke up, and here they are gathered around these chairs, and this guy's in the platform looking at what in the world is going on. It's like saying that God can jump ahead of the devil, isn't it? Well, he really is, but we're so many, you know, we're behind so far that God can't use us in ways like this, it seems, because we're afraid to trust God in unknown situations. We're afraid we might do something fanatical. We might make a fool of ourselves. Well, you might, but is that all that bad? You know, Paul said we're fools for Christ's sake. Whether you do it right or wrong, the world will call you a fool anyway if you're evangelical. You know how it is today. But in Hebrews 13 it says that Jesus, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, he suffered without the gain. Let us go forth there from him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For here we have no continuing sin, but we seek wonder. So we have to be prepared, good people, we're going to walk in spirit to do the unusual thing. You can plan all your day and that's fine, but God may knock it all apart again. You just don't know, and we have to be ready for that. Before my wife and I knew better, when we were thinking of holiday time, we studied the weather map. Where's the weather going to be nice? It's going to be nice in BC, that's where we're going. It's going to be raining in Ontario, we don't want to go there. Raining in BC, let's go to Ontario, that's going to be nice, so we go to Ontario for holidays. That's how we decided. But when we got serious about the Christian life and we prayed, Lord, where do you want us to go? It wasn't always where we wanted to go. But when we went where God led us, there was always a ministry. And I won't go into detail, it will be a little boring perhaps, a little too long as well. But anyway, we saw things happen that were very unusual, as we just follow the leading of God. In Alberta, a Christian woman, walking in the spirit, driving down the highway at night, she passed a garage. All the lights were off, there was nobody there. God said, stop, and knock on the door. She thought, no, wait a minute, this is dangerous. Well, God led me, so she knocked on the door. Nothing happened, she was just about to leave when the door opened and a male voice said, what do you want? She said, I was driving past and God told me to knock on the door, I don't know why. There's a long silence and the guy says, lady, I was sitting here, I was going to blow my brains out when you knocked on the door. And she let him through. Most of us would sail right by, right? Knocking a strange door at night, the garage was all dark all around. But the darkness and the light are both light to God, the night shines like the day. It's 12 o'clock high noon for God and you and I, as his children, wherever we are. We might stumble, but God won't. He's in charge. But see, the real problem, dear people, is a clash of wills. God's will and my will. I want to run my life in order channels and God maybe doesn't want to do that. We're afraid to surrender. I talked just the other day with a gal here and she said, I'm absolutely, totally terrified when I think of committing my life completely to God and having to do the unknown. She said, I just can't do that. Well, I said, listen, Romans chapter 12 says, present your body, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, that you may prove what? That you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. I said, sister, God's will is good, so it's not bad. It's acceptable, it's something you can do. And it's perfect, so you can improve on it. Why don't you go for it? She said, I'll think about it. That's all I can say. Maybe something happened since, I don't really know. In Titus 1, it says, not self-willed. And that was written to bishops, to elders, that is to pastors. Not self-willed. And in Ephesians 6, it says, doing the will of God from the heart. From the heart. So here's this clash of wills. Well, I say, yes to God. I'm not asking you to quit your job and do something that you haven't thought about. You know, we were in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It's a huge city, 16 million. They say it's likely to be the biggest city in the world, 25 million eventually. And we talked to some missionaries there and you know what they told us? They said, you can walk the streets of Sao Paulo if you know the language. Portuguese, it's Brazil. There wouldn't be a damn year you wouldn't win people to Christ. They're just wide open to the gospel. The Jehovah's Witnesses are there. The Mormons are there. We're God's children. Drawing fat salaries and cycling away in the bank. You know, this is what's happening. Do you know there are some countries in the world where there's more Mormons than there are evangelicals? Spain, good example. They're busy and they're pouring all kinds of works into Russia, Ukraine, and into Romania and these communist countries. And we evangelicals, we have a trickle going on, you know. The problem is the superintendent of missions is not being sought. We're not talking to the Holy Spirit. We're not asking God to guide us. We're afraid he might. See, that's the problem. We're afraid he might. And so we just don't venture when we should. But notice something it says, this I say then, walk in the Spirit and walk, you'll not fulfill the lust of the flesh. One of the reasons why sometimes we struggle all our life with some lustful problem is because we're out of the will of God. If we would get into the will of God, whatever it is, how difficult it might be, we'd find victory over this problem we have. This is really what it's saying, the flesh lusts against the Spirit. Well, think of the other half of the verse, and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary, it means they are opponents, adversaries. And what happens? We become immobilized. You can't do the things that you want. But when we say an eternal yes to the will of God, the conflict is resolved, and victory over sin comes. You know, we have people who say, you know that verse in James that says, resist the devil and he'll flee from you? I tried it, it doesn't work. One guy said, I've tried it many times, Bill. He said, listen, the devil just knocks me flat in the mud every time. I said, the verse you quoted is not in the Bible. Oh, yes it is, James chapter four. No, no, I said the verse you quoted is not in the Bible. That's just half the verse. Let's look at the whole verse. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God, resist the devil and he'll flee from you. If you don't submit to God, you won't have the power to overcome the devil. To put it in different words, if you're not willing to walk in the Spirit, you must be willing then, you're going to have to be willing to struggle with sin all your life. We had a guy in the Maritimes, he was an alcoholic, eight months before I was there for meetings, he became a Christian, but he had no victory over alcohol. His name was Dave Wise. And he was in our meetings. He talked to me about it. And I sensed something. I preached one night on this text, you know, submit yourselves to God, resist the devil and he'll flee. And he said a light went on. He got ahold of the preacher and he said, I want you to drive me to St. John's tomorrow. And you're likely to be coming home alone. He didn't tell him why, but on the way he told him, he'd skipped bail 22 years before. He'd been hiding in towns in the Maritimes from the police for 22 years. And God showed him the night before, if you want victory over alcohol, all right, you submit to me. Do what I'm asking you to do. He gave himself up. When he walked into his police place, the chief police was away, the deputy chief was there. And when he walked in, the guy says, David Wise, we've been looking for you for 22 years. Where have you been hiding? So he told him. Well, he said, why are you here today? And he told him. And the guy began to bawl and he said, I fell off the King's highway into the mud. But he said, you meant coming today. He said, I'm back on the King's highway. He said, Dave, go back and live for your God. We'll forget all about the past. You know what happened? He got victory within 24 hours over alcohol. There it is, you know, submit yourself to God, resist the devil. Then you can do that. Even Michael, the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring against Satan a railing acquisition, but said, the Lord rebuked you. I remember seeing a lady one time. She goes, oh, devil, I stamp on your neck. She goes like this. No, I spit in your face. I mean, Michael, the archangel, he wouldn't do it. Who does she think she is? People, if we walk in the spirit, we won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. We will fulfill the will of God. The will of God, remember now, is good. Surrender our will to his will. Whatever it is, you'll never be sorry when you look back. Over the years, we sometimes remember a contract, a successful contract, a wealthy man told me with tears. Well, I was riding in a bus, you know, and he was seated over here, like the seats were this way in the bus. And he was here and I was here. He was an old man. He had a cane and I had a Bible in my arm. I was a young Christian. And he waited till the bus was quite rolling. Then he, in a loud voice, he says, young man, what is that book under your arm? Every head in the place looks, you know. And I said, what sort of Bible? A Bible. That's what I thought. Isn't that a great book? And he took off and preached the gospel to the whole bus. And then he invited me to his place and I went. And we sat there. He just wept. He said, you know, many years ago, God led me to go to Africa. They said, why, why, why go to, why do you go? Look, you're making all kinds of money. You stay with this contracting business. You can make enough money. You can send 12 Christians to Africa. Wouldn't 12 be better than one? I mean, that's the way men think, you know. And he bought their program and said, no to God's program. He said, I was never happy as a Christian. Years rolled by and he said, God wake me one night. And he just smashed me. He showed me how I had missed his will. He said, I kind of closed my mind to even think about going to Africa again. And the spirit withdrew. And he said, whatever you do, don't miss the will of God. And I say that this morning as I close, don't miss the will of God. Walk in the spirit. Let God lead you. And then just a word of caution in closing, because you might have picked up some vibrations from something I said about Roy North or somebody else and get rambunctious. Second Timothy two, it says, the servants of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men. Act to teach, patience, and then three words. In meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, that God perhaps will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. You're not to bring them like a bull in a china shop and knock the crockery around and scare people and so on, try and beat them into the kingdom. The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men. No matter what kind of a guy it is you're talking to, be gentle. In Red Lake, Ontario, there's this little Baptist preacher and he was walking in the spirit and God led him one day to go and call on a guy. This guy was notorious. He was a boozer, a fighter. He weighed 270 pounds or so. He was living common law. And God asked him, so he went, knocked on the door, introduced himself and pow, the guy hit him like this, knocked him through the air. He landed on his back in a snow bank and there he lay half out, you know, and the door slams. Man, wipes the blood off his face, goes home, tells his wife. And the next day, you know what the Lord had the audacity to do? He said, go back again. And he went. He's on the door and he waits, you know, the door opens. This big guy says, Hey, you got nerves. Come on and have a cup of coffee. And he led the guy to Christ. I mean, most of us would never have gone back there again. We'd have warned all our friends about it. You know, stay away from that guy. He's bad news. When we're led of spirit, we're free. And God leads us in wonderful ways. Think of the man in the Philippines. You know, I think of Norman Pipe too. Just candy in his pocket was the means of a man's salvation. He'd have probably run me off too. But for Norman Pipe, my text, if we live in the spirit, let's also walk in the spirit. But remember this, the verse before says, they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, the passions and lusts. Crucify the flesh. Then we're open to the leading of God's spirit in our lives. People, it's exciting. I think of, say, Brazil. I met a fellow in Buenos Aires. He was just walking on the streets, a missionary from the States. He led 60 people to Christ the first year he was there. He got four churches going. You could never do that in North America. But we want to be comfortable, have money in the bank.