In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of finding joy in the right things. He contrasts the joy that people often experience in happy meetings or material possessions with the joy that comes from seeing someone destroy their furniture. The preacher questions why people wait until something is taken away from them before realizing its value. He then discusses the example of Jesus, who remained tender and forgiving even in the face of mistreatment and crucifixion. The preacher concludes by emphasizing the need for believers to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to live supernaturally, free from conflicts and fully immersed in God.

It's a wonderful theme in the Bible. I don't want to attempt to treat it exhaustively, in that it would take a very long time to do that. But just to look a little, and chiefly into the Hebrews letter, on this wonderful truth of God. One of the things that it's hardest sometimes for us to take into our minds, is the necessity of suffering in the Christian life. Now, when one starts to speak about suffering, one has to be very clear in what one means, and especially what the Bible reveals about suffering, that in itself again is a great subject, and I know that many books have been written about it, and sermons preached about it, and so on. But there is that which we have to get very clear, and that is that there is some suffering in the Bible that is not, that is spoken of in scriptures, that is not intended for us. But there is that which is vital to the Christian life, indeed the Christian life cannot be conceived without it. If for a moment you just think, for instance, that it is out of the suffering of God that our salvation came, that should give the thing its anchorage right from the start, that none of us would be here at all this afternoon, wanting to gather together, wanting to have more of Christ in the fellowship, perhaps fellowship that we love and seek, and may not be able to find just everywhere, and so we come together for it on an occasion like this, but we wouldn't be here unless the Lord Jesus Christ had suffered, had died, had done all those wondrous things that really make the heart of our Gospel message. And really I suppose if you wanted to think, and really thought you couldn't conceive that anything could be really worthwhile, if it was just all sorts of joy and giggles and laughing and all that sort of thing that might be associated with having a good time. Sometimes I think it was only yesterday, I think it must have been yesterday, I was talking with someone even about music, in that music has been one of the great delights of my life, and God had to deal with me about music when he was really dealing with me about my soul, and what he really wanted of me in the realm of music, say. It's the tragic music which is the greatest. You might like Mozart, for instance, through his laughing, bucolic ways, but he couldn't produce the depth of the tragic suffering of a Beethoven, for instance. He couldn't do it because he hadn't gone through the same things that Beethoven had gone through. I just, I don't want to start to discuss music with you. But this is the tremendous thing, not that I commend to you this thing as the great pursuit of your life, because Beethoven was undoubtedly a demon possessed. There can be little doubt about that if you read about his life. Chopin was a most disgusting creature, wrote the most delightful music, so be very careful, that's just like the devil, and so on. But just to make the comment, and these are the great truths of our lives, and it's out of these great depths of suffering that anything comes, and we know of course that life itself, even humanly speaking, comes through suffering. You wouldn't be here, none of us, and as someone that suffered even to bring us to birth. And so this whole thing is born and kept here, and in the great matter of priesthood, there is no real entrance into priesthood, and into the true functions of priesthood, and living the real priestly life without suffering. And so perhaps you may not really be surprised if you turn to the Hebrews letter, and you find in the 10th chapter, the end of the 10th chapter, it says in verse 32, called to remembrance the former days, in which after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions. You see that right in the very early days. They never had it nice, you know, with nice meetings where somebody came along with a beat group, good guitar stuff, and sang jazzy pop, or folksy choruses, and everybody tapped around and brought a tambourine, and all that sort of thing. Right in the very early days, it was the tremendous fight of affliction, right in the very beginning when these people were, when they came to the Lord Jesus Christ. These people, beloved, I think you've got to see this, and let your minds come out of this dipsomaniac atmosphere in which we're living these days. We've got to keep getting a slight bit tipsy, in the spirit, or something like that, so that we can be drunk, and all this nonsense that seems to be boosted up around us in these days. That isn't to say we shouldn't enjoy the joy of the Lord, or anything like that. That's not what I'm talking about. But these people, right at the beginning, they endured a tremendous fight of affliction. It's so now. I mean, we have some missionaries with us this afternoon, who would tell us that when people get rarely saved in the country where they are, they don't have gospel beat groups, and keeping them all slap happy, in case they want to go off to watch Skid Pan Alley stuff, or round the corner in the pictures, or this kind of thing. These people are born into, they've got to fight from the beginning. They're pitchforked into tragedy, right out of the womb of the spirit, when they're born. These people, and glory be to God, I suppose it's no strange thing, really, when you hear that these are the countries in which revival is going on. Where the real things of the spirit are happening. Where we haven't got to have an artificial build-up, in a denominational church setting, to get things going. But where people are out on the raw things of the blood, and the spirit, and the life of God. And there they are, and they die. Their lives are cheap, they die right, left and centre, for God. And we get people going around our country, trying to whip us all up with the idea of a mighty revival is coming, or something like this in England. It's happening out in these places. Where they're down on the raw things of truth, you see. This is where we've got to come. We shan't get it by artificial means. It comes as a great breath from heaven. It's a new revelation of the truth, a fresh revelation. Not a revelation of new truth, but a new or fresh revelation of the old truth, coming again into our midst. And these people, it says, they were made a gazing stock, in verse 33, by reproaches, by afflictions, and became the companions of them that were so used. In other words, they were the focal point of people's attention. And a gazing stock reminds you of the old idea of a stock in the old English villages. You know, where they were put with their feet in the stock, and they were the centre of the attraction, of the ribaldry, and the hatred, and all the refuse, and anything that people wanted to throw or do, of the village. The gazing stock, and the laughing stock. These were what these people were. They never marched along and had nice Kingfisher chairs to sit on, with big black Bibles in their hands, or something like that. This is where, this is what, the sort of thing that happened to them. And this was the great order of it. And it goes on to say that these people, they had their goods spoiled, in verse 34. Their homes were smashed up. Their furniture was ruined. Their possessions were dealt with, and so on. And they didn't really care. And this letter was written to these people because there came a time when perhaps they did start to begin to care. When they began to set some value by earthly possessions. When they began to think perhaps they should become respectable, and not the gazing stock or the laughing stock of the village, or of the town, or of the city. Gain some standing in local opinion, and so on. I suspect that this is, it was something like that. And so the Hebrews letter was spoken to them and said, I'm sorry, you've got a disreputable God, it's no good you trying to get respectable. That's right, we all know that our God is disreputable. In the eyes of men, and so on. And this is the way it all happened. And these people were reminded by the writer, many many things are said in this letter, but they were reminded, beloved, of some wonderful things. That the Lord Jesus Christ, let's go back into the first chapter. God, verse 1, at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Messiah. Now you wouldn't have thought a person of that magnitude and height would have purged sins, would you? Of course, we are well taught, we know that he was the only one who could, but thinking about it, you wouldn't expect her gracious majesty, Queen Elizabeth, to come down and clear the sewers out in West Norwood, would you? You would hardly expect her to do it. I mean, it's not a thing to do. She speaks to her equerry, and to the secretary, and he speaks to the prime minister, and he speaks to the secretary, and he speaks to... and so it gets down to... Joe Bloggs, round the corner, has to do it. Is that right or wrong? And this is the thing that God is saying, listen beloved, he's spoken to you in that, has he? Has he spoken to you in that? If not, we should go home. Now, I should have said enough, that should have spoken to you, all that. He's spoken to you in that. He said something to you. What has he said? Right, Lord, I'll be a sewer man. If that's what you want. Ooh, he makes us such... you read all the best magazines and articles, and they tell you you're a son, and you've got to sit on the throne, and that, that's fine, you see. But you see, he didn't sit on the throne until he, by himself, he purged our sins. That's the thing that the writer's telling us. That's what he's telling us, you see. He didn't do that until he'd sunk the lowest, and done the filthiest, and become the worst person that ever walked on the earth, by men's treatments and standards. Now, this is the thing that God is saying, and God help us today, if we get no more than this, unto a full understanding of this, beloved, that we may know the suffering that God intends us to move into. And unless, beloved, we can function in this, we shall never, never know what it is to function as priests. I know that we're well taught in such things as being made kings and priests unto God. This is a very well-known text, and a very true one, too. But, beloved, being made it, we've got to function in it. This is the point. If Jesus Christ, beloved, wanted to save us, which of course he did, if he wanted to do these tremendous things, then, beloved, he had to go unto certain positions, and endure certain things, in order to do so. We can see it this way. Verse 9 of the second chapter. We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man. For it became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. And it was only as the Lord Jesus went this way, as we read on in the great book, that he came to the place of priesthood. Now, we know that he was always this, before the foundation of the world. But, in its logical outworking, then these things have a normal sequence. And here they are. We have it this way, that the Lord Jesus, at the end of that second chapter, we're told that, in verse 16, he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore, in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God. And so on. We're introduced now to him as the great high priest. Now, as the Lord Jesus is a faithful and merciful high priest, so we are expected to be faithful and merciful priests. Well, now let me ask you a question. Are you a faithful and merciful priest? If we say we are kings and priests, we all want to be glorious kings. But do you want to be a faithful priest? That's the thing. On the one hand, he's the king of glory, which makes him the glorious king of kings. On the other hand, we are kings of glory, which makes us glorious kings. Amen? But he's also the faithful high priest. And because he's the faithful high priest, he's the high priest of faith. So you get your great faith chapter. That's right. He's the author and finisher of faith, running through Hebrews 11 to the 12th chapter, verse 1 and 2. The author and finisher of our faith. And it's a tremendous thing, beloved, that you are called to be a faithful priest. These people, the Hebrews, were in danger of getting out of the only true conditions that could keep them faithful in their priesthood. That was the trouble. What makes Jesus a faithful and merciful high priest? Leaving out his character as God. Or, if you like, taking in his great character of God. But moving on this ground, it's simply because he was made like unto his brethren in all things. And it beholds him. And people cannot be priests to a people. You cannot be a priest for or to a people unless you are made as nearly as possible in all things like unto them, apart from sin. Jesus was apart from sin in being made like unto them. And here, then, is one of the great secrets. The great secret of salvation. And the great secret of intercession, or priesthood, beloved. And intercession is the highest form of priesthood, of course. The secret of it all is identification. Identification. That the Lord Jesus was identified with us. Amen. Glory. Now, suffering, then, beloved, in this world. Now, I'm not talking the suffering that the devil wants to push upon you. You know, just push a cancer on you just to make you hurt you and hurt you and hurt you. But you get healed and delivered from that. That's all part of the deliverance side of it. But the suffering of being identified with people in their great sufferings. This is why we have to have missionaries that go abroad and don't stay in England just thinking and praying about them. But go unto them and live in their conditions and suffer in their sufferings and know their needs. And that is the way that you and I can be identified with them as they, in a deeper suffering and a more terrible need, are identified with Satan through sin. And here, in being joined with them in their needs, we're identified with Jesus in holiness and suffering with these people. You see, beloved, this is the great, great secret. It's one of the reasons why God has to come and take the stony, hard, self-centered heart out of every one of us. So that we can be identified. I don't mean in the realm of mere sentiment. Alas, so many are deceived, they get sentimentally aligned and they can sort of weep and become all sort of quakey and quavery along the sentimental line with people. That is one of the great deceptions. But in the great reality of being identified with them along this line, God has to come and take away out of us that heart of stone that cannot enter in. And that will make us live for self while singing our hymns of most gorgeous being separated from the world and being filled with the spirit and all this loveliness that makes us so hard and so callous that we can carry on in this super spiritual phraseology and atmosphere and yet keeps us stone hard and cold away from ever being identified with people in their needs. That's the tragedy of it all. That's the tragedy. An Englishman's home is his castle. They're the most proud people of all. They build their castles around them and they build their garden walls and they build their social barriers and everything else and we all keep ourselves so nicely shut off from our neighbors we don't even know really what's going on in the wall, just through the wall there. Of course it's called English Reserve. It's another name for pride, hard heartedness, and sin. Don't be an English person. Whatever you do, if you can avoid it, there's someone at the door, will you open it and let them come in? Come in, beloved. That's right. And this is what the Lord wants us to understand about this tremendous priesthood to which he's called us. It behoves you, I don't know whether you're thinking about this, right to these Hebrews and right to all these people who sell now, it behoves you in all things to be made like to your brethren. Praise the name of the Lord. You say, oh well brethren, that means the church. Oh no, no, it didn't mean the church at all really, did it? He came unto his own and his own received him not. And it was a tremendous thing, beloved, that the Lord did. And when we read on, this is what we read, verse one of chapter three, Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest, there he is, of our prophet Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. Five, Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant. Six, but Christ was faithful in all his house as a son over his own house, whose house are we in. Now listen, and this house of hold of Christ is the priestly household. We are members of this house if, now I didn't put this if in, God's put it in, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Therefore, verse eight, harden not your hearts, that's the thing. You see, beloved, one thing is certain, that it is suffering which will keep you tender-hearted. There must be a balance, an over-surfing of happiness, jazzing, singing glorious chorus will not keep your heart tender, it will be suffering that will keep your heart tender. Now I don't mean suffering great mental tortures so that you need hospitalization. I don't mean suffering great terrible things of nerves and physique, that's not what I'm talking about. This suffering of tremendous affliction, of being hated, of being ill-treated, of being blasphemed, of being maligned, of being cast out, of being rejected, if necessary to receive forty stripes save one. Of imprisonments and tortures and so on. These are the things, beloved, which will not harden but will tenderize you. That's the tremendousness about it. What little I've known about this, this is the thing that I've proved, that once you've had your nature basically changed, all suffering makes you tender. Unless you've had your nature changed it will make you harder, so judge yourself now. If you've got harder because you've had constant suffering, your nature hasn't been changed right. Or else you've gone back to the old, if the change did take place. You see, our blessed high priest is the great example of this. You know how they treated him all his life. You know how, what they did with him. You know it all. I don't mean to enlarge on this. Until they finally get him and they strip him and they mock him and they beat him up and they cry on him with thorns and they nail him on a cross and he says, Father forgive me. That's all it did to Jesus. That nature can only get the more tender, if it be possible to speak thus about our blessed Lord. That kind of treatment can only make you get the more tender and sweet as you go on. This will tell you whether or not you've basically had the change. This will tell you whether you're filled with the Spirit. Talk of the baptism in the Spirit till the cows come home. Whether it's really happened. For the baptism in the Spirit is the integration, the immersion and saturation of my whole self in God, by God the Holy Ghost. It isn't an enablement to go fizz fizz in a meeting. It's this, beloved, that is the vital thing of life. Hallelujah. This is the triumph, you see. Beat him. Knock his blood out of him. Knock his senses out of him. Out comes love and pourings for forgiveness. You see, these things go together. Say, but that's God. Precisely, that's what you're supposed to be. What's the idea of being born again? It isn't. Ooh, say, but I've got a conflict of natures in me. You've got to go a lot further yet then you've got a long way to go. It shouldn't be natures conflicting in you. You should be clear of the conflict. You should be a way in God. Ooh, but we're all natural. That's right. Supernatural. What? Supernatural, precisely. If not, go out in the world. This is what it's all about, this church. It's a supernatural company of people. Do you not understand this? Hallelujah. Filled with a supernatural spirit. Equipped to do supernatural things. Behave in a supernatural manner. Preach a supernatural gospel. Glory. And if the Lord blows his trumpet, do a supernatural thing and go up to the roof. That's what it's all about. Die a supernatural death. You say, oh no, no, surely, we all die naturally. Nay, nay, you must be as supernatural in death as in life. This is the wonder of it. You triumph in glory over the article in the fact of death. It's all so wonderful. This is the thing that God is wanting us to see and see so clearly. And God clear the vision of every heart. And God speak it inside us until it's inescapable and the knowledge of it fills our days and fills our nights. Until life is all this that God has for us, beloved. And we go on into the fifth chapter. Let's look at this. It says that every high priest, verse 1, taken from among men, is ordained for men. Now I want you to see this. He's ordained for men in things pertaining to God that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He's speaking of the old Mosaic order here now. He's going to change into the Melchizedekian presently. But here's the great truth. Who can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way, for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity. That's why you can do it, you see. You see this? It's the identification in it. All right, let's go on. And by reason hereof he ought as for the people also for himself to offer for sins. And no man taketh this honor unto himself but he that is called of God, as was Aaron commenting on the old system. So also, in like manner, Christ glorified not himself to be made a high priest, but he that said unto him, Thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee, as he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Mel, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong cries and tears unto him, that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared, though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered, and being made perfect therein and thereby, of course, he became the author of eternal salvation. And to all them that obeyed him, called of God an high priest after the order of Melchizedek. And you know, this is what this writer is really saying to him. Hebrews, God is speaking to us in his son. You see, it was when Jesus had got down on his knees. Here's the focal point of it all. You see where it's brought? It's brought to Gethsemane. He's down on his knees. He's down on his face. His perspiration is dropping out and he's saying, Oh Father, let this cup pass from me. You see? Now this is where priesthood is ultimately wrung out. See? And this is what these Hebrews are saying. Oh, we've suffered terribly. I've lost my wife. I've seen my grandchildren wipe out before my eyes. My house burned down around my ears. People won't listen to me. They hate me. They persecute me. Let this cup pass from me. And the right people say, No, you'll cease to be a priest if you do. It does happen to him. That's what he's saying. Jesus never got through to the place of high priesthood except via Gethsemane and Calvary. Glory, resurrection and ascension as well. But that's the way he got there. He offered up strong crying. If God was going to be moved by anybody's cries, it was these. But he wasn't. There are some things, beloved, in the life that you've got to pass into the realm of complete ignorance and know not how nor why. And you'll have to get to the place of uttermost bafflement before you'll ever get through to the place of true intercession and proper priesthood. That's why you're bound to run into the realm of mental conflict if you try to keep it there. If you're trying to answer all the questions that come up, you're asked trying to seek out a mystery that has no explanation, not only in the Bible, but it's only in God. The explanation is in God. It's not in the book. And it's not in any book a man can write. And it's not in any sermon a man can preach. He can just about point you the way. Jesus is the one through whom God speaks. Him. And Jesus in the end is a mystery and he ran into a mystery. And the end of Jesus' life is complete mystery. Let this cup pass away. Martha said, I know that whatsoever you ask of the Father, he'll give it to you. But that was one prayer was not answered into the mystery. Martha was lost here. He sweated and poured it forth. And his blood had to follow his sweat. There was no way out. Priesthood is born there. There's no way out. There's a mystery involved in all salvation. There are secret things that cannot be spoken. If some souls are going to be reached, you've got to suffer. All the wicked schemings of the devil, this will tie it up for you, you see. You know that Judas was selling him. You know that people were doing this and priests were scheming and Rome was helping and I don't know whatever. And the devil, all the devil's powers were concentrated. But the sweet thing of it is that Jesus moving through turned it all sweetly into God's will. That's why you say it's the devil doing things. That's why you say the devil's doing this and the devil's doing that. You won't go through on it. When you go through it will be turned sweetly into all God and nothing of the devil. You going through, Jesus going through, was God going through. You going through is God going through. Say what? That's right. He's a son over his own house. Whose house are we if we hold fast the beginning of our profession firmly? Hallelujah. You begin to sing sweetly in all the gilded choruses and lilting tunes that your kings and priests now hold it firm through to the end. Brother, sister, you've got to go through. So have I. So have I. This is the great truth. And this is what the writer to the Hebrews was saying to them. But he's saying it to you too. Hallelujah. What does it matter? God helped me to fall so out of love with the world in the sense of it being worldly. Not as a world full of people. I don't mean that. God helped me to fall so out of love with myself and keeping my skin intact and saving myself from this suffering, that persecution. And what popular opinion would say that I might be allowed to go through? I want to be a priest. You say, do you mean you want to give up your days to prayer and not preaching? No, that's not what I'm saying. Jesus Christ filled his days up with preaching and working miracles, but he seemed to do a wonderful lot of intercession as well. This is the tremendousness of our life, beloved. You see, in verse 14 of chapter 4, we seeing that we have a great high priest. How high is he, beloved? In his height, he's untouchable and unreachable. He's so gloriously above. We can't make a mistake. We look at him. There he is. He's set forth by the Spirit through the pen of this writer. We can see him. He's unmistakable. Did anyone suffer like Jesus? Did anyone? Alright, we have this high priest. He's passed into the heavens. Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. Do you make a profession of being a priest? The Bible recounts both a calling and a profession. Is that right? Do you make a profession of being a priest? I know that the word contains the thought of confession. It's alright. There's a great public statement of confession. Your confession before the world, before God, before everybody else. Do you confess to being a priest? If not, you don't belong to the Son's house. Now get yourself sorted out. Get yourself sorted out. You don't belong to the Son's house if you're not. Everyone that's born again of the Spirit of God into God's household and he's the Son over his own house by direct heredity from his Father, everyone is a priest. You must know this. It isn't, I was going to say, merely for this earth either. It's for the new creation. There's going to be a priesthood over a people on the new earth in the new creation. I don't want to discuss that now. You and I are being prepared for it. This is the tremendous thing. This is your profession. Don't you see, beloved, the importance of it? You dare ask to escape from suffering and persecution. You must have said, it's terrible in my office. I wish I could get a job in a Christian firm. I warn you, if you go, it will be terrible. Don't you go. Alright, I warn you. Don't say I haven't been a good brother to you. You think so. Oh, it's shocking. They run raffles. Well, what do you matter about that? What's a raffle? Their language is terrible. Well, that's fine. Wonderful chance for you to shine a brighter. That's what it's all about. Don't God open these hearts of ours until we see and can understand. You, beloved, according to this glorious, glorious priesthood, you do see, don't you, beloved, that because you're in the midst of it all, you're able to take these things that are curses of the devil, if you like, upon other people, the blights and blasts of their lives. You're able to take them and make them real material and substance of intercession. I mean, it's all very well for me to say, and I don't despise the givings of the Lord and the callings of the Lord, but it's all very well for me to say, I'm going to stop in my nice little flat in England and I'm going to be an intercessor for China. Well, one of the greatest intercessors that's ever lived in the world was a man named Hyde. Do you know who Hyde interceded for? He interceded for Indians. And do you know where Hyde lived in order to intercede for Indians? Buckingham Palace, or Windsor Castle, or a nice little flat in Upper Norfolk. He went and lived out there with the Indians. The great apostolic missionary to the North American Indians, what we call the Redskins, he didn't stay with his sweetheart, Jonathan Edwards' daughter, way down in the deep south. He went and lived amongst the North American Indians and died before he could marry the lady of his choice and spat his lungs out into the snow and melted the snow around him with the heat of his intercessions. That's right. That's what he did. He didn't say, I'll have a good job in England and give a lot of money. Well, now that's wonderful. If God says that, but if he doesn't, don't you talk like that. You won't be believed in heaven. And it's important to be believed there. You won't be believed where the cheapest seat contains a man who's got holes in his head. Jesus. You see, beloved, Jesus would have counted himself to be a hypocrite if he'd have stayed in heaven. So I'm going to pray for all those dear people down on the earth. You reckon I'm right or wrong? You tell me if you think I'm wrong. Shut up. See, it became for whom are all things. Well, it becomes you for whom are all things. You say, well, for me? Don't you believe the Bible? All things are yours, says the scripture. You believe the Bible, don't you? It becomes you, beloved, to spend these miserable 30, 40, 50 years on the earth in this way. It becomes you to spend them like that. Really, do they think this in heaven? This is precisely what they think it is. I tell you how I know, because it keeps on insisting in here. You see, the spirit keeps on insisting on it in here. He won't let up. And I don't think anybody thinks, I don't believe anybody here thinks I'm a pessimist or a gloom spreader or an introvert or something of this nature, a sadist. No, beloved, there's something about this life. It is this life, this life, Jesus' life, his life. That's the life we receive. And we belong here. Praise him. So, what you ought to do, beloved, is to get joy about the right things. You see, now, most people only get joy about the wrong things. They get a lot of joy if they have a happy meeting and everybody stands at the door and says, beloved, it's good to see you, brother, or gives you a nice big kiss or something like this. But you've got to get joy about the right things. And the joy about the right things is when you see somebody walk into your home and smash up all your furniture. You say, the man's mad. Well, of course I am. All this hard-earned, we could have given this money to the missionaries. Well, why didn't you? Why did you buy that television set with it? Why didn't you? Why didn't you give it instead of buying that one new carpet for £150? Why didn't you give it? Why didn't you? Why wait until somebody tears it and rips it up and then think about it? It doesn't sound right to me. It doesn't sound right up there. It's a lot of old nonsense. Oh, beloved, the great truth about it is that you and I have got to get joy about the right things. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't have a nice armchair to sit in when you finish a day's work. Most people seem to be a great place to give me one to sit in when I go around. But the tremendousness of it, beloved, is that you and I have got to come to see down to the roots of the matter where it all lies with God. God spells out everything for us from a rude crucifixion and a rough cross. That's where it's all spelled out from. And the Lord, from that moment, oh, it was in the moment of resurrection that that great scripture is, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. He begot him from the dead as the firstborn, from among the dead. And I said, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now, you're a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Jesus was the great high priest of the order of Melchizedek. You're a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Now, let's read about him. Chapter 7. He says he was the king, king of priests, praise God. He met Abraham, verse 1 of chapter 7, returned him from the salt of the kings, blessed him, and all this great thing. He had no father, without father, without mother, verse 3, without descendants, without according pedigree, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, made like unto the Son of God, by the priest continually. Alright? If you're going to be a priest, listen, you're without father, you're without mother, you haven't got beginning of days or end of life. Now, all the time you keep a father and a mother, you'll have a beginning of days. You'll say, now, I was born on April the 19th, 1947. See? That's what you'll have, a beginning of days. And assuredly, you'll have an end of life. But if you lose your mother and your father, and come into the real birth, and come into the eternal life, you'll like it. See? No father, no mother. No, I've got no responsibility to my father, no responsibility to my mother. Oh, but we have a bit. Yes, we have. That's right. Certain amount. See? There's a life of priesthood, beloved brothers and sisters, and I want to tell you this, if your mother and father were born again, before you were born again, or perhaps before you were born, if they've been born again since, they'll think the same as this, if they'll listen to the Holy Ghost. They'll think exactly the same as this. If they don't, well, the Lord bless them, they'll have to learn. We are brought into a great family of priests. Don't you see this, beloved? We've been chosen of God. We have, you know, it's glorious, it's wonderful. Sometimes I feel I could weep. Chosen of God. The elect of God. The household of God. When he takes hold of a man, fills him with the visions of God, and with the revelations of the Almighty, and the Spirit of God is life within him, and he understands, and he knows, and all the time he will only groan within himself if he can't. That's the world that demands. His groanings will be that he can't be all that he wants to be. And he'll have hands, more hands than seaver, and he'll reach inside him, and he'll throw it out like Paul of old. I throw it all away, it's all done. You say, but how about his mother? He left his mother, he left his mother, he wrote a letter to Rome. His mother and mine, he had a mother in Rome. And he'd never been there. The testimony was he never went there until he went there to have his head cut off. He knows, I must go and see my mother. I'm not saying it's wrong to see your mother, don't misunderstand me. I tell you what this Bible records. Rome 16, you'll read it. He died. I wonder what his mother thought of him. She's got any sense, and if she had any sense when she was on the earth, she would have gloried in God that her son turned her back on her, for the millions of other mothers. Nothing so selfish as mother love, I've never met anything so selfish. Not that I want to stop on that. This is the tremendous desire in my life to handle the lives of other people. You'll never know, unless the hour ever dawns, the wonder and the privilege of handling a life, another person's life, to God. You know, it's like a bloodhound, once he gets his nose on the trail. Once you really start there. Appetite, larger than the oceans that swallow up all the rivers and never overflow. The greatest appetite in the world is held by the seas, the great oceans. The Pacific swallows up the Amazon to substitute. This is the tremendous desire, and this is it. To come into this position, where you're away and you're calling, and you'll suffer, and you'll know what God wants you to do. I think we have just a little more time anyway. Tonight I shall have to be careful. We needn't be so careful this afternoon. In the tenth chapter, we're on this great profession. And in this wonderful profession, this is what we're told. Nineteen. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest, by the blood of Jesus. Now you will know that it's in the holiest where the intercession takes place. That's where Jesus is. That's where the great high priest is. The shedding of the blood of the great high priest, then himself as the offering. It's in order to bring us into this great high priestly chamber, if you like, this great centre of intercession, this concentration of all spiritual effort and life and power. Here. To bring us in there. It's a new and inspired living way, which he hath inaugurated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. And having an high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering. For he is faithful, the promised, and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is. Did you see that? See, because they'd been made a gazing stock, because of the afflictions, because of the sufferings, because of the persecutions, they'd stopped gathering themselves together. Now, it's not like in civilized countries like England, where nobody cares whether you go to the church or not. In America, where I was not so long ago, they all don't belong to the churches. It's quite the popular thing. But it wasn't then. When they went to church, it was like putting their feet in the stocks in the center of the village. So they dropped off. And so they had to consider one another to provoke unto love and to exhort one another. Say, come on, brother. Come on, sister. What did they do to you last night? Ah, never mind. They killed my Tommy last week. Come on. That's right. That's right. They took away my job last week. I lost my job because I was a Christian last week. This is the sort of thing that used to happen before it became popularized by Rome. You see? They did this to me. Yeah, that's right. Let's pray. Right in the sufferings, these poor folk. Oh, Lord, they must be going through the tortures of hell in their souls. Ah, Lord. This is the great life to which we've been called. This is the priesthood. It wasn't a struggling to keep themselves unspotted from the world like people are struggling now by going away along to holiness meetings and that sort of thing. I mean, they're very good meetings to go to. Please don't misunderstand me about this. But this wasn't the sort of thing, beloved. They did it by living out there. They kept themselves pure by going into the midst of it and living at such power and such rate that they overcame that instead of that overcoming them. Now, this is the whole virile, robust secret of the life of Christ. It's something, beloved, which God has put in us that must overcome. It must. But, you see, it overcomes, beloved, as in the case of Christ that it goes down and Jesus Christ was made perfect through suffering. The only way for Jesus Christ to get up in the world was to be lifted up on the cross. That's the way he got up in the world. He became the king of Sheba, lord of the dunghill. In the end he became, they said he was. And the flies buzzed round him and the bulls roared at him and the goats barred at him and the donkeys brayed at him and the sinners mocked him. That's right, lord of the dunghill. You see, we're a communist sheep, for a start. It's the language of the scripture. So we're going to go out mighty conquerors to do this, that and the other, so that's so we have. But what we don't see, beloved, is that this is the way it's done. It's when Christ can bring a life through in utter consistency with his own. And when a man's works and labours are utterly consistent with the life and the way of the cross in that life, then perfection is reached and Jesus Christ was made perfect through sufferings. And you want to be perfect, don't you? I want to be perfect in all this wonderful way of life. Lord, I want to be an intercessor. I want to be able to say in the limited way in which salvation is granted to us and we're able to take part in it. Alright then, beloved, be a priest. Because God wants you to be a priest. Don't run away. Don't cry to be released. Don't seek to get a chance. Seek only to live like Jesus. Seek only to be utterly like your Lord. That's the thing to do. Identify, stay in it, stay with it. Be a priest after the order of Melchizedek and you will know that when Melchizedek met this Abraham, he brought him forth a feast. And the only thing that this Melchizedek could give him was bread and wine. That's all he could give him. Alright? You give him that. You know that the bread and wine given to us now is the symbol of the life laid down, of the body that's broken and of the blood that's poured out. Priest. High priest. That's what the high priest has to give. That's what every priest has to give. Hallelujah. Life laid down. It's yours. Body broken. Blood poured out. It's yours. Now, if you live in England, you've got to do it for English people. Perhaps some of you can't do it for English people because you ought to be out amongst the Indian people. I don't know. Or the Chinese. I don't know. I don't know. What I do know, beloved, is that this is what the priest has to offer. Nothing else. I don't bring you culture. I don't bring you learning. I don't bring you money. I don't bring you anything. I bring you myself. Alright then? We'll beat you. We'll torture you. We'll afflict you. We'll persecute you. We'll malign you. Alright? Take my body and take my blood. I'll give you that. I'm a priest. You won't say that to me. I'm putting it into words. And then, beloved, I promise you as we're here gathered in the presence of the Lord and I'm with you and needing as much these things in my own life as you need them in yours. I promise you that from that position you will function as such a priest in the house of God that you'll be able to ask for souls and get them. You'll be able to move in the realm of salvation. You'll be able to bring to the Lord that which he's looking for. That's where it comes from. It doesn't come from you equipping yourself with the great abilities to be a preacher or a teacher or anything like that. It comes from this identity in the nature and in the life and in the springs and in the causes and in the things that affect people in eternal realms. That's where it comes from. A knowledge in the deep mysterious workings down there that you cannot know anything about in your intellect. But if you will go in and give your life you will know with your spirit. And this is what you're called to. Life in the spirit. Amen. You're a priest are you? Now Jesus Christ glorified not himself to be made a high priest and if you glorify yourself you can't be a priest. Can't be done. You understand that? And Jesus Christ was faithful to him that called him. You've got to be faithful to him. God has spoken to you in his son. Hallelujah. And because he's spoken to you in his son and because he's spoken to me in his son, beloved, neither you nor I can afford one moment to give such attention unto other people that we are turned in any degree from the calling and from the profession of God. Amen. You must let everything else go. And everyone. Neither can you plan to say I will do it in twelve months time. You might be just twelve months too late. Just twelve months too late. This is the whole thing, beloved. Glory. In this instant, Lord, I'm thine. I'm going to be thine. I suggest we pray and we move in together. You, beloved, do you know whether God has spoken to you in his son on this line of priesthood this afternoon? For priesthood, beloved, is a matter of life. Priesthood is a matter of identification. Amen.