In this sermon, the speaker shares a personal story about two women discussing the upcoming birth of a baby. He then transitions to talking about how the world holds no attraction for him, comparing it to a disemboweled man. He challenges the audience to examine their own relationship with the world and how much it pulls at them in this materialistic age. The speaker also shares stories about his experiences speaking to soldiers during World War II and visiting the mansion of missionary C.T. Studd. He concludes by discussing the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus and how even though a feather falls, heavier objects like jets can keep going.

Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 3, reading from verse 1 into verse 9. 1 Corinthians 3, verse 1 into verse 9. And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat. For hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye yet carnal. For whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believe? Even as the Lord gave to every man. I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth nor he that watereth anything. Neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one. And every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. For ye are God's, for we laborers together with God, ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. And one of the greatest forgotten preachers, at least in my judgment, was a man by the name of Henry Varley. He was a preacher, and on one occasion he gave birth to a phrase that has become a kind of spiritual classic. Maybe like lots of preachers, if he could have withdrawn the words when he'd said them, but words are like arrows, when you've shot them they don't come back immediately. Maybe he would have withdrawn the statement, but this is what he said, the world is yet to see what God can do through one man who is totally committed to Jesus Christ. I'm sure he was wrong. But it so happened that there was a young man listening, he wasn't well educated, didn't do anything more important than sell shoes as a man that will give spirit, soul, body, mind, faculty, will, his ambition and everything to Jesus Christ, I'll be that man. He didn't sound any trumpets, beat any drums, sign any paper. It was a secret prayer, it was a secret commitment that he made to God. Afterwards, as you may know, he became famous as D.L. Moody. They used to laugh at him because when he was in England he certainly couldn't speak English. He said Daniel in one, without any syllables, and Jerusalem he called Jerusalem. But he had one of the greatest revivals in history. The world is yet to see. Do you mean to suggest that Varley was right, that Jesus Christ had waited nearly 2,000 years to see of the travail of his soul? I would suggest that right at the beginning of the Christian church, there was a man who qualified for that wonderful designation, and he was the Apostle Paul. He didn't kiss the world a tearful goodbye. He wasn't always suggesting, you know, God got a great bargain when he got me. You know, like some fellows, you don't know what I gave up. I might have been the head of the Prudential. He might have been in jail too. But the Lord got a lot when he got me, you know. No, no, no, there was nothing like that about it. He didn't say, well of course I could be a greater scholar than Gamaliel, I've got everything going for me. Herodotus has been called the father of historians. And he says that in the temple of Heracles, the altar fires were kept burning 24 hours a day. And if one of the many slaves could run away from his master, he would run to that temple, and maybe wake up the sleepy priest there, and say immediately, brand me. And he would say to him, brand you with what iron? There's a branding iron to this God, there's a branding iron to the other God. How do you want branding? And he would select the God whose brand he wanted to bear. And the priest would put the branding iron in the fire, and just as you brand cattle, he would take that hot iron and put it on the hand of the man, and he would wince as his hand was branded. And then he'd lift up his foot and have his instep branded, and then he'd slip down his toga, and he'd have the base of his neck branded. And after a day or two, he might go down the road there, and as he went down, the old master would be there. And he might say to another slave, there's Aristarchus. You go after him and bring him back, because after all he's my slave. And Aristarchus would go back to the master, and the master would begin to tell him what he would do with him, how he would punish him. The man would listen for a moment, then all he would do, instead of answering, he'd raise his hand and show the brand. He'd raise his foot and show the brand. He'd bear his back and show the brand. Then the former master would begin to blaspheme, maybe, and curse him, and say all kinds of things. And finally he would say, I've got no rights to you. You're branded in the name of God. You must serve him. Your feet are in the way of your God. Walk after him. Your mind is branded for your God. Think about him and serve him. Thank you. Think about your God and serve him. And Paul uses this very figure at the end of his letter to the Galatians. He doesn't say it with a sob. He doesn't say, I've given up a magnificent career. I could have been a great high priest and lived ostentatiously. He says, henceforth, let no man trouble me. I've there branded in my body the marks of Jesus Christ. In the language of the hymn writer, he says, let my hands perform his bidding. Let my feet walk in his way. Let my eyes see Jesus only. It wasn't a sentimental, emotional uplift when he said, the things of the earth have grown strangely dim. He says, what things were gained to me, my pedigree of the tribe of Benjamin, of the seed of Abraham. Everything I had, I count them as damned that I may win Christ. And he found in him. And at the end of that same epistle, he says, God forbid that I should glory. You want to swagger around? You want to say you have an earned PhD, that you're distinguished, and you have won a lesson, he says. You're not going to get me boasting such silly language. Oh, thank you for singing that hymn tonight. When I survey the wondrous cross, there's a verse that I have to give our good friend. It isn't in any book except the ancient Baptist hymn book. And of course, there's a man that sang it. It isn't ancient. But in the old hymn, there's a fifth verse. And the fifth verse says, his dying crimson like a robe, spread o'er his body on the tree. Then am I dead to all the globe, and all the globe is dead to me. Perhaps we'd better not sing it if it's not true. But Paul says here in the 14th verse at the end of this chapter, God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross, in the cross, in the cross. You remember Sir John Bowering? He was a Unitarian. He didn't believe in the blood. But one day he looked at an old ruin there over in the Orient. Twice that city had been sacked by the invader. Every other building had been destroyed, but there was the gable end of an old church with a cross, and around it all the ruins. Unitarian that he was, he said, in the cross of Christ thy glory, towering o'er the wrecks of time, all the light of sacred story gathered round its wrecks sublime. Paul says, God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified to me, and I am crucified to the world. I'm quite sure I can make a guess that none of us ever saw a crucified man. Crucifixion was a Roman holiday. Once a man got a cross on his back, you knew one thing, he wasn't coming back for sure. You knew that immediately that man was riveted to that cross, he lost every right that he had. He had no social rights, he had no other rights. Immediately they pinned him to that cross, he'd lost all his rights. And he might have terrorized the neighborhood, he might have raped a thousand, a hundred women, he might have done this, that, and the other, but once he got on that cross, he lost all his rights. And I could say to somebody, you get a rock and try and knock out his right eye, and I'll try and knock out his left eye. You could throw filth on him, you could curse him, you could tantalize him, you could get him angry, but there he is pinned to the cross, he has no retaliation. All people like to go to a crucifixion, particularly if it was a man like Barabbas that had terrorized them. He's getting his just desserts, let him taste hell before he gets there. And yet Paul says, I glory in the cross of Jesus Christ by which the world is crucified. I suggest instead of seeing three crosses, one where Jesus is crucified and the two thieves, you see the cross on which Jesus is crucified. We see the cross in which the world is crucified. We see the cross on which the apostle Paul is crucified. Because repeatedly he says, I am, not I was. You see the great temptation, if you made a decision this week to give Jesus Christ your all, the perpetual temptation to the believer is come down from the cross and save yourself. The other man made the same vow, he's already rescinded his vows. He said he'd pray so much he's already forgotten to pray. He said he would fast. He said, God give me tears for a lost world. He said, let me fill up the sufferings of Christ. And that's what Paul did. You see, there's one baptism, you can go to all the ecumenical things you hear, but there are some things you'll never hear in a charismatic meeting. One is a message on the judgment seat of Christ, and I've never heard any of them talk about being crucified with Christ, or filling up the sufferings of Jesus Christ. It's an ecstatic experience where you're always happy and singing. But my dear friend, if you're going the way he went, you have to go to Via Dolorosa too. You have to go to Gethsemane, you have to go to your crucifixion. And who wants to die? Ah, we'll say, Lord, I want your resurrection life. You can have it, die. But there is no other way to resurrection life. Paul says, I'm crucified with Christ. Let no man trouble me, he says. Forbid that I should glory save in the cross of the Lord Jesus, by which the world is crucified to me. I never switch this thing on. By which the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world. No, you could go to a crucifixion at night, and you could have your fun. You could do a bit of target practice on that poor helpless victim, and he couldn't retaliate. And as soon as the sun began to sink, everybody beat it to the city to get through the door and get through the gate back into the city for safety. And if there were a thousand or ten thousand people there at the cross at six o'clock at night, you can be sure there was nobody there at six o'clock in the morning. The first visitors to the cross were the vultures. They came and rested on the arms of the cross. They came to have breakfast of the man that may not be dead yet. They might pull out his eyes one by one and reach down their beaks. I remember seeing some vultures in India, and they were as tall as I am. They had a wingspan of about twenty feet. They keep their necks there in their horrible wings, and then when they stretch them out, they have a neck this length with no feathers. They look terrible, and they have huge beaks. As I saw them, and they were on a cemetery wall, and I thought about the visitors to the cross, pecking the eyes out, disemboweling the man. They'd hardly started ripping his body open, and the blood running out before the dogs came out of Jerusalem, they were lapping up the blood. And Paul says the world is crucified. You see, people would go see a cross or a crucifixion at six at night. They wouldn't go in the morning. You'd never lose the vision. It would make you sick and nauseated and give you a nightmare. The man there was just one bloody shapeless gnat. He had been crucified. Maybe he'd been screaming in his agony as the animals and the birds and dogs would jump up and bite his feet, and the vultures would be stooping down and ripping his body, and he still was alive. And he'd be screaming as though he were in hell itself. Nobody wanted to go through such a nauseating thing. You'd be nauseated, you'd vomit, you'd be sick, you might even lose your mind. Now that's the picture Paul says. When I look at the world, it's crucified to me. It has no more attraction than a man who's disemboweled. Let me ask you tonight, do you see the world like that? Has it still got some fascination for it? It's easy to sing all the vain things that charm me most, but how much of the world is the pulling at you tonight in this materialistic age in which we live? And Paul says not only the world is like that, but I'm like that to the world. They say, Paul, you idiot. Why don't you modify it? You're not to be so extravagant. What man in history ever lived as recklessly as this man? It all began on that Damascus road when just as the infant Christ was going to be destroyed by Herod, the infant church was going to be destroyed by the Apostle Paul. He was carrying there inside of his toga, he was carrying a word of authority that if he found anybody of the name of Jesus Christ, he could put them to death. And he reckoned on everything and everybody except Jesus. I'm going by the Damascus road, Jesus slipped off his throne and confronted him. I'm glad he didn't meet a preacher, that might have been the end of him. I'm glad nobody gave him the four spiritual laws or he might have got off on the wrong foot too. I'm glad nobody said, will you sign a decision card? He says, on that Damascus road there shone round about me and them that journeyed with me a light. They all saw the light, but he says on the second occasion, I only heard the voice. I don't care how much light you get, but you hear that voice once and it will shatter your life forever. You'll either go that way and obey him or you'll go that way and disobey him. But he says, I heard a voice. You remember on the Isle of Patmos, John says, I turned to see the voice. God says repeatedly, my sheep hear my voice. On that Damascus road he says, God revealed himself to me. And then God flung him on the back side of the wilderness and he says, God revealed himself in me. Ah, God has revealed himself to many of us as he revealed himself in you. If you stand up and say, I'm saved, you'll get by. Go to a Pentecostal church, say I'm saved and have my baptism, they'll say, hallelujah, praise the Lord, that's great. Fine. Go to a holiness church, say I'm saved and sanctified and everybody says, amen brother. That's the thing. I suggest the next time, whether you go to a Baptist church, a Pentecostal church, a Nazarene, any other church, you don't use these double phrases. You just stand up as sweetly as you can and say, Christ lives in me. Maybe before you get down, your wife will pull you up and say, George, when did that happen? But that's what it means if you're a Christian. Oh, you're not a Christian because you believe in the virgin birth. The devil believes in that, he witnessed it. You're not a Christian because you believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus. Satan saw that. Satan is about the most fundamental person around. He believes this book from cover to cover. He has to. Could you stand up right now, if your whole family were here, or folk from the workshop, and say sweetly, honestly to God, Christ lives in me. The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. I say, it began on that Damascus road, Christ revealed himself to me, he says, and now Christ revealed himself in me. You see, on that road he did not sign a card or meet a preacher. There was not just an emotional ride. Remember this man is not a drunkard, he's not a sex pervert, he's the most moral, he's a man of impeccable morality, he's a genius, he's a scholar, he's learning all the wisdom of the Jews, he's of the tribe of Benjamin, the seed of Abraham, he's got everything going for him, and yet on that Damascus road, he needed Christ. Do you ever read the, uh, you read the third chapter of John, sure enough. You read the fourth chapter. In the first chapter of John, you have a man that came to Jesus by night. In the fourth chapter you have a woman that came not at midnight, at midday. The man that came to Jesus had impeccable morality, the woman that came at midday had no morality. Wouldn't you have thought Jesus would have taken a disreputable prostitute and said you must be born again, and yet he fed to the most distinguished scholar of the day, a member of the Sanhedrin, you need to be born again. You see, we argue sometimes as though you to try and make a man feel he's the rottenest, wickedest man outside of hell, and secretly you're lusting and doing, no there are some perfect gentlemen who are not Christians. I don't believe the first argument God has with a man is that he's bad. The first argument of God with a man is not that he's bad, but that he's dead, in trespasses and in sins. I know some men who are not saved, and I admire them much more than lots of saved men I know, particularly businessmen. Saved businessmen? But I know men who are not Christians, and they're far more gentlemanly and honest and upright. This man on the Damascus road is no twisted, perverted, sex perverted, drug addict, or wife beats, or anything. No sirree, he is a perfect gentleman, he's a perfect scholar. And on that Damascus road, he exchanged his life. I gave Christ my life, he gave me his. Because he says it's not I, but it's Christ that liveth in me. It was not only an exchange life he had, it was an explicit life. Once he fell in love with Jesus, everything focused on Jesus Christ, and from that day until he died, he never did anything. He said, this one thing I do. If ever you can find it, there's a poem by F. W. H. Meyer. It has about 36 stanzas. It's a fantastic poem. I once had it, and I loaned it and gave it to somebody. I don't know why, I'd like to get it back. But he has a fantastic poem on the Apostle Paul, and he says, then with a rush, the intolerable craving shivers throughout me like a trumpet roll. Oh, to save these, to perish for their saving, to die for their life and be offered for them all. You see, this man got totally intoxicated with Jesus Christ. He exchanged his life. It was not only an exchange life, it was an explicit life, this one thing I do. It's not only an explicit life, it's an exciting life. He said, I wrestle with wild beasts at Ephesus. It was not only an explicit life, it was an expensive life. He said, I count all things but done. It was not only explicit and expensive, it was an expensive life, because I'm sharing it with you tonight and sharing it again through his epistle. You know, there is no evidence that I can find in the Scripture that the Apostle Paul ever backslid five minutes out of his outrageous life. There was nothing that Jesus did that Paul didn't do. Jesus raised the dead, Paul raised the dead. The gifts and anointings of the Spirit of God were upon him. And after he's wrestled with wild beasts at Ephesus, after he's combated the intellectuals of the day, after he's stood up against principalities and powers and delivered people from the devil and raised the dead, and he's left behind him a trail of blessings, everywhere have gone he's had triumph. And yet some 35 years after all this has happened, when most of us would be satisfied, Paul says this. Not that I have a wonderful record, not that I've surpassed everybody else in ministry, but after raising the dead and doing the miraculous and writing epistles, he's still saying that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering. Oh yes, God worked a miracle in this man. He's a supreme example in my mind of a Spirit-filled believer. He's got everything. You'd like his power, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you like power to raise the dead? Wouldn't you like his peace in the midst of all the turmoil that he had? Because he said none of these things move me. You need a bit of grace to say that, when you've been lashed to a whipping post, 195 times lash, and your back's like a cloud for you. It's poise. None of these things move me. He'd just come out of jail. He's been hanging on a piece of wood in the Mediterranean for 36 hours, washed up and down. He says none of these things move me. Notice what he said. He said none of these things move me. He never said none of these things hurt me. He was a human being. They hurt him, but they didn't move him. He was so wedded to the will of God. He says, I've got something in me, and all the whips you have will never whip it out, and all the threats you have will never threaten it out, and all the waters you have will never wash it out, and all the prisons you have will never starve it out. Christ lives in me. I have eternal life. I have eternal power. Oh yes, he had power. He's to receive power. The Holy Ghost coming upon him. And the Holy Ghost came upon him there. Where? Away when he was hidden there in God's university of silence, where he takes all his great men. You'll never be a great man till you get lost in the quietness. The best thing some of you preachers could do would be take a year off and live with God alone in a hut somewhere, and find out what he's saying about today and what he wants you to do. You remember there was a moment in his life when he was exalted and taken into heavenly places. I was in a place one day, and over the meal table a man said to me, have you read my wife's book? I said no. What did she write on, cookery or something? My wife is the woman that went to heaven and stayed for seven days and came back. I said that's great. Yeah, she went to heaven for seven days. And when she came back she was alive, and she went round the bed in the bedroom for another seven days. She never ate, she never drank, she was just pirouetting on her tiptoes round the... Well I didn't say, I didn't say she wasn't. I said I've got news for you. He said what is it? I said I'll tell you this brother, once I get inside that pearly gate, Gabriel won't get me back on this dump. Brother, once I get up there and I see the King in his glory, you wouldn't get me back if you gave me Westminster Abbey to live at, to preach in, and Buckingham Palace for a pastorium and six Rolls Royces. She's written a book on her experience, I said I've got news for you. The only genuine man I ever knew, oh it's like a woman to do that, that here's a man that went up into the third heaven and the Lord said keep your mouth shut, you can't say a word about it. And he shared everything else about his suffering, about his agony, but he never shared a thing about going into the heavenly places. When I get to heaven I'm going to ask him, so if you see me talking keep your nose out of it for a while will you? I'm going to get on one side and say Paul what did you see when you had that vision up there? As I said the other night you'll never be anything without vision, you can read all the theology you like, but vision will break your heart. A vision of him will blind you to every other vision. All of them things that charmed me most and helped me lead. What did he see? Did he see a picture of, from the incarnation to the consummation? Did he see what Isaac Watts wrote just before John Wesley's day? Did he see Jesus Christ? As Isaac Watts put it, Jesus shall reign wherever. Did he see the kingdoms of this world becoming the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ? Did he see? Is this the thing that motivated him? The devil could turn his feet out of the way. Threaten him, he'll laugh at you. Put him in prison, he'll get out anyhow. When he was out of prison he fasted. When he was in prison he starved. Make a hell of beans difference to him. He'd heard a call, he'd seen a vision, he had a commission, the world is perishing. If it takes my life to fill up his life, well here you are God, take it. I sincerely mean, I want to know when I get to heaven, what did God really reveal to him on that Damascus, in that experience of being in the wilderness for those years? And it takes you a bit of grace to stay there for years. Did he see the kingdoms of this world becoming the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ? Did he have a vision something like John? For after all that revelation is a fantastic book, you can read it, and if you've a heart of stone it won't move you. When I walk through revelation and I hear it, he shows me the glory of heaven. I stand back in amazement and in tears, and the next moment he shows me the edge of hell where men are going to burn forever and ever. Paul was no swivel chair theologian trying to get a special degree to stick on the wall of his office and get proud. He had a heart, he had a brain. He was unquestionably a genius, but God got hold of him from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet. I've been grounded in my body and I have no rights of my own from here out. I'll tell you what he did do when he came out of that experience. I'll tell you the Holy Ghost that had regenerated him, the Holy Ghost that anointed him, the Holy Ghost conceived in him. He became spiritually pregnant and he got all these epistles there in his nature. They were going to be borne out afterwards. That's why he wrote these epistles. Just as in natural birth you have conception, gestation, and birth, he had the same thing, I'm absolutely sure, in the spiritual realm. He had conception. The Holy Ghost brought illumination. He had gestation. This man hasn't got a little briefcase with half a dozen sermons in and twenty double knit suits and alligator shoes. This man's got a concern for lost men and women. He knows that men will perish without God and without hope. There's no price too great for him to pay. There's no situation he won't tackle. I remind you again he began in the ancient capital of the world, Tartus. He finished up in the military capital of the world, Rome. He went to the intellectual capital of the world, Athens. He went to the religious capital of the world, Jerusalem. He came to this immoral capital of the world, Corinth. This holy epistle where he confronted men here. He's meeting the incipient Gnosticism of the day. These people who said you can have salvation by human wisdom and human genius. Paul was the most profound theologian that ever lived as far as I'm concerned. And I'd be a bit nervous about it if he didn't know so much. Because you see afterwards when he writes to this same church in the second letter, what chapter 5 verse 15, he says, if any man, boy that's a scope isn't it, any man anywhere at any time, if any man being Christ. I don't enjoy going around the world. I don't enjoy mission fields for lots of reasons, because they repulse me, particularly leper colonies and other places. But I get a great kick out of in this sense. When somebody says this man is the most diabolical man, he was demon possessed, and I couldn't tell you the atrocities he's committed. And you see a gentle little man and he comes and says, sorry I'm sorry I was so full of wickedness, but Jesus saved me. We need to get a gospel like that back again in the day in which we live don't we? Hebrews 7 to 7 25, he is able to say to the uttermost and the gutter most and the mutter most. I say Paul never faltered. There was no hill he couldn't climb, there was no burden he couldn't lift. There was no suffering he couldn't endure. He says I don't care what comes if I fill up his sufferings all right. It is the way the master went should not the servant tread it still. Dare I ask for an easy passage? I've lost my rights to myself. And he set out to turn the world upside down. Sure on that Damascus road it blinded him he said that. It blinded him in more senses than one. It blinded him to all the alluring fascinating jewels of a materialistic world. A world full of scholarship. The world of the Greeks. The world of the mighty Roman Empire with its machinery and devilry. The world of the Jews who thought they had a monopoly on God. And here he is the most devout distinguished Jew of all. And he gets a radical revolutionary experience of the grace of God. And then he signs it all off. He says I'm a debtor. I will tell you if you claim to be born again I care not who you are but you've an unphd you were saved this week. You're a debtor from here out to a lost world. You're a debtor to take a message to men and women who are dead in trespasses and in sin and tell them you have the answer to their problem. So he goes on his pilgrimage. Let's leave all the sum of it. Let's go back say a minute into the 17th chapter of Acts. He went there to the intellectual capital of the world. Went down main street. He saw temples to strange gods and he said he was in the sleepy Elizabethan English he was stirred but it says in the amplified he was angry. I don't know what it's saying nowadays. People with false religion will do much more for it than you do and I do who claim we're the only gospel that can save men. Some of you easygoing preachers that pad your folk and as long as they come to church 11 to 12 Sunday morning and an odd hour Sunday night and Wednesday night that's all you are. That's not the Christianity of the New Testament. Paul makes it very clear I'm the bond slave of Jesus Christ. I have no right. He went to the intellectual capital I say. He saw the streets and there was there were shrines to strange gods and temples and he was angry in his spirit. Oh yes because you see there they'll go on pilgrimages on their hands and knees sometimes for miles. They'll sit in the baking sun. They'll sit on a bed of spikes. They'll do a hundred things that look so unreasonable but you see they're trying to get merit from their God. We're not as extravagant. We coddle our bodies. We look out for this perishing piece of clay that we have not that we should abuse it. Paul was angry. He was angry in the investment of money they put in those shrines. He was angry that they could be twisted. He was angry that they could be blinded. He was angry that they could be drawn to destruction. He went on Mars Hill where the scholars met. The Epicureans, the poets, the philosophers, the smart boys. They looked down their noses and said what will this babbler say and they discovered he was a smart boy. He got straight A's in every subject. They came up with proper history. He came up with their history. They came up with poetry. He came up with their poetry. Came up with philosophy and he counted. He said certain of your poets, certain of your philosophers. Oh this boy read everything and they listened to him until he came to the miracle that Sir Ambrose Fleming said is the supreme miracle of the ages, the resurrection. And he began to tell them about one called Jesus who died and he took the sin of the world and he rose again and they said you crazy lunatic. What do you mean a man rose again from the dead? What you mean is that men hounded him to a cross. No sir, he said, no man take up my life from me. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up. And he took the aggregate sin of mankind, not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altar slain could give one guilty conscience peace or wash away one stain, but Christ the heavenly lamb took all our sins away, a sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they. And they said there's the door. Get out. And he came from the intellectual capital where they worshipped learning, to the immoral capital where they worshipped less, to the place where they glorified in the brain and pursued it, to the place where they looked over bodies and lusted after them. And when he lost the battle there, because there's no epistle of Paul to the Athenians, he came to Corinth. An old German commentator, I used to have some of his commentaries but there were too much, there was too much Greek in them for me. But I remember a thing he said about Paul coming to Corinth. He says, blessed and sublime miracle of God, that in a city so polluted, the very sewers of hell ran through Corinth. You wanted to label a man in the day of the apostle. You didn't say he's lustful and he's a pervert and he's a liar and he's this and put a lot of sordid tasks. You just put one label. You said he's a Corinthian and you meant that he lived in the lowest level that any human being lived. And Paul comes from the scholarly distinguished man down to this sewer and there he established the church of the living God. You know how he did it? Well I'll tell you, he left me a note here. He says, I'm determined to know nothing amongst you. I'm not going to fight philosophy and poetry and all your psychological stuff. I'm going to tell you here is the answer. The old rugged cross so despised by the world. Paul loved the cross. For after all if you lay that cross down it points to the four corners of the earth. If you stand it up it points to a topless heaven and a bottomless hell. While it's still standing up its arms are out to embrace the whole world. If you put a compass on Palestine there or Israel and and sweep the world you'll find it's the center of the world. If you think of the way people write you'll find that we all write for the cross. We write from left to right. We write to the cross or the people the Jews write from the right they write to the cross. And some people write from the bottom to the top and some people write from the top to the bottom. The cross is the center of everything. The cross is so wonderful that when you get to eternity they're going to sing the song of Moses and of the lamb. The lamb is all the glory in Emmanuel's land. And Paul sees in Jesus Christ that one offering for sin, that one atonement. And I say he says he's bragging here. I care not who the man is, where he is, what he is. If any man being Christ. The Jews didn't like that. They had a monopoly on God. And here is a man opening the kingdom of heaven to what uh was it Kipling Macefield calls the lesson breeds without the law. It doesn't matter where you're a barbarian, a side and a bond of free. If any man being Christ. He says there's neither Jew nor Greek race distinction. There's neither bond nor free social distinction. There's neither male nor female sex distinction. The only thing you need if you're coming to the cross is to recognize you've got a bundle of sin and you've no chance of going to heaven without Jesus Christ. And your very wretchedness gives you a guarantee that if you can you can be saved. You know I was thinking since I'm getting a bit old. I'm not getting old I'm just getting older. That uh I was thinking today you know there used to be a place in the Hague in Holland called a peace palace. And it didn't work. So after World War I we got the League of Nations. To make people forget the other League of Nations in Holland. And we got millions of dollars and we got thousands of peace pledges but it didn't work. And so we forgot the League of Nations and now we've got the United Nations. And that doesn't work because there have been more nations divided since we got the United Nations than the world before we had a United Nations. What's the answer? There used to be a professor at Harvard. He wrote a fantastic book, great big thick book like that called the Varieties of Religious Experience, Professor James. And right in the middle of his life he was a very brilliant man. He had four earned doctorates. Very few men have. Albert Schweitzer had, but very few men have. Four earned doctorates. And in the middle of his life when he was a fine healthy man suddenly he began to droop and his feet began to shuffle and his eyes were not so good and he began to move around like an old, old, old, old man. They tried to diagnose his trouble. Eventually somebody said there's no answer to your problem in America but if you go to Vienna, there's a doctor in Vienna has the answer. He went to Vienna. The doctor said you came too far, go back to Paris. So the doctor there has the answer. He went to Paris. The doctor said, no you're on the wrong side of the channel. Across the English Channel the doctor in London has the answer. He went to London. The doctor said you're 400 miles south, you need to be in Edinburgh. There's where the doctor has the answer. He went to Edinburgh. He got to Edinburgh and the doctor said I'm sorry but there's no known cure for your problem. He came home. He walked the deck of the ship as I've done many times at midnight when I couldn't sleep mid-Atlantic. He looked at the black water and thought he may as well make a hole in it. No answer to my problem, getting worse every day. But it's not quite true. Alexander Pope said hope springs eternal in the human breast. It doesn't otherwise there'd be no suicide. But he got home. He's going down the street one day and somebody said excuse me aren't you professor James? And he said yes. He said sir people always ask stupid questions don't they? You know it's pouring with rain and somebody says hi it's raining thanks. I was lying in bed in plaster from my chin to my toes. Somebody comes in said are you sick? No I'm gonna play tennis. You always ask the obvious question or say the obvious thing. Oh isn't it hot? You just you know it's dripping off your chin and you say yeah yes it is thanks so much for reminding. Here's a poor man shuffling down the street and the man says you're sick aren't you? He said yes. Would you like to be cured? Well who wouldn't? He said yes I would. He said if you go down into the second block there and knock on the door of so-and-so and say John Brown sent you maybe he has your answer. Is he a physician? No. No he's not. No he's not a physician. Just go along. Side two. Go along. He went along. A little man opened the door. Man whose hands were all marred with toil and uh he looked he said you're the professor from university. I've seen your picture in the paper. He said yes I'm the professor. Well he said what can I do for you? He said well I don't know that's what I want. Who sent you so-and-so? Glad to come in here. Why did he send me to you? Well sir he said only for one reason and that is that quite a few times God in mercy has heard my prayer when I've anointed sick people. And uh I suppose he thought if I came and prayed for you the Lord might heal you. Now here's a man with a medical degree, a degree in psychology, a PhD. What do you want? He said everything inside of me. He said don't don't do such a foolish thing. This man doesn't know his ABC's. He's one of the most ignorant men around. But he said the craving that I had to be healed said you do as he said. He said the professor just said uh the man said kneel down at this chair and he knelt down. He said I put my, he put his hands on me. That's all he did, just put his little nervous hands on me because I was a famous man. And he just began to pray and suddenly he said in the name of Jesus Christ be healed. And he said when he said that it was as though somebody pulled a switch and 10,000 electric volts came and I was quick as that. I was healed from my head to the soles of my feet. And I said to myself I've been halfway around the world and spent a fortune in money and here was the answer just a block and a half from where I live. That big world out there has been saying give us this and give us that. 25 years ago the president of the University of Minnesota said give us 25 million dollars and a new educational program. And I guarantee in 20 years America will have a race of young men and women that will laugh at impurity. We'll give you scholars, we'll give you gentlemen, we'll give you people morally upright. But he gasped out his failure not long ago. He said the last few years of student life they're the most immoral, drunken, wretched bunch of students we've ever had in America. He said we can't do it. Cure the world how? Have a united nation. Give us more money for this and we go around the world to this doctor, that doctor and the answer is there in the old rugged cross. So defined by the world. You haven't found an alternative to it. You can't give me a serum that can get rid of the old devil that's in a man. You can't educate the demon out of him. That man has to come with his sins. Come just as I am and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark blot. To thee whose blood can cleanse each spot. And he saw God work the miraculous in the lives of these men and women. When I was working for Team Challenge I had to cross the bridge into New York many times. As we came over the bridge into Canal Street there, there was a sign. I often wish they'd never altered the building. They're always modernizing it. It was a wonderful old building and it just said on that sign, Jerry McCauley Mission. Jerry McCauley was the biggest bum in America maybe. He went into a meeting one night and staggered down the aisle on his rubber legs and he said he wanted to be saved and quit drinking and being the dirty devil that he was. And somebody prayed and said put your finger on this text and say God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that if Jerry McCauley believed in him he'll not perish without everlasting life. And he did it and they baptized him the next week. The only thing is it didn't take. Do you know how many times he went down that aisle? He went down that aisle 19 times. Apart from Mormons he must hold the record he was baptized 18. One night he staggered down there in a stupor and somebody said pray with him. No, I prayed with him twice. Do you pray with him? I prayed with him two or three times. Do you pray with him? No. Little old fella says I'll pray with him. I was nearly as bad as he was. You see unless you can really say he lifted me out of a horrible pit. Some of us were so good we'd almost have made heaven without salvation. That's all we think. This little man said he lifted me up. He goes and snuggles up against the dirty old bum with his fleas and this smell and he starts talking to Jerry and he says Jerry I'll tell you what. Do you know what he said? He said him that cometh unto me I will know I've cast out. Everybody started talking to him about the atonement and regeneration. The old bum didn't know a thing about it. He may as well tell him how to get on the moon. But when a fella says this he says if you come he won't cast you out. He said Jerry if he doesn't cast you out what does he do? He says he takes me in. He takes me in. Well in the name of God may not bring everybody that way. But old Jerry came in that night and he made a vow to God I'll never come in this place again unless I have a jailbird on my arm or a prostitute. And one day in New York tens of thousands of people lined the street. There was a casket with a frail withered face of a man. His eyes were deep. And just before they gave the funeral oration they opened the door and a hundred women came out with a white flower in. Every one of them had been a prostitute. Every one of them had been led to Christ by Jerry McCauley. They looked at his withered face and bent down and kissed it until his eyes were filled with tears. And when that hundred women had passed they opened the door and a hundred men came out each with a red carnation. Each had been a jailbird or a pervert or a breaker of the law. And those some of them shuffled along in their old age and they couldn't see Jerry for their own tears. And they sniffled and they looked at him and said Jerry you're the greatest saint America ever had. I remember when I was working with Dave Wilkinson we used to get all kinds of scorning from preachers and others sometimes. But while we were in New York America closed its great big drug addiction program over in Lexington Kentucky somewhere. They'd had that hospital open for 10 years. It had cost more than 10 million dollars and they didn't have 10 cures. You got confidence in science and shots. They came to us derelict humanity. Teenage boys at 18 who'd already lived with three or four different women in the Bronx and over in some area of Brooklyn or Queens or somewhere. My dear sweetheart said one day you know that man that served him he's a nice looking fellow. I went up to him one day mentioned his name. I said hey when did you start in crime? Oh Mr. Raven he said I don't want to talk. I said no I won't quote your name. When did you start? He said I carried a .38 when I was eight years of age. I shot a man. I murdered a man when I was eight. I was in a double murder when I was 12. I've been in so many murders I've forgotten. I've been in thing thing for 10 years. Girl came in one day in a gorgeous full length mink coat. She said would you kindly pray for my friend she's on drugs. David said you need Christ not your friend or more than your friend. He peeled off that coat. She said it cost five thousand dollars. I've got five of them at home. I've got a box of jewelry this size. I've got a hundred call girls working for me. David picked out the newspaper he said isn't that your picture on the New York News yesterday? Yes don't show me. The youngest madam that they'd arrested they got on 36 counts. She got six months for the first count. We went to jail we were able to get her out. I stand bail for her. Stand responsible for her. Those girls had been to church. Those girls had been taking medication and the fellows but they couldn't find the way out. One day a bunch of men came into my office and they said there's one thing we've got to say for teen challenge. We've got less kids come back to the courts than any other group working in New York. What's your explanation? C-H-R-I-S-T. Christ. Don't you ever despair? No we don't. We get serious problems if any man be in Christ. I'm gonna have to hurry now. Paul established the church of Jesus. Now there are a lot of theological problems. I'm not going to waste time over them here in this chapter. I'm going to say what it's scripture says. He says that they were babes in Christ. Nothing nicer than the day. Beautiful little couple of spans of flesh. Very lovely. Except at two o'clock in the morning but they're wonderful. I preached in that great Methodist church in Dublin. Right opposite the Abbey Theatre where Handel first played the Messiah. It's a wonderful convention. The other preacher was a young man by the name of Leonard Evans and he gave a story I've never forgotten. He said you know when I was born 35 years ago in a little town in Wales. I've got funny names. Llanelli. Llanelli he was born. I was still in my mother's body he said. She was going across the market square and she met another lady. Hi Jean. Hi Mary. When's your baby due? So-and-so. Well when it's born. Which hospital? So-and-so. When it's born send me a note. Tell me whether it's a boy or a girl. And he said my mother gave birth to me. Sent a note to her friend. Said I got a little boy. Very handsome. Very unusual. So she called him Leonard. And she sent a note and said I got a little boy. Four days after this lady sent a note to my mother. Now he said I'm not the greatest athlete but I am an athlete. I played for the county of cricket which is our national game like you have baseball. I have prizes for swimming. Some for the track. I've been to college. I'm not a genius. I'm pretty average. And I'm saying that to say this that the little fellow that was born four days after I was born is still lying on the bed that his mother took him to. He's six feet four in length. He's never said mother. He's never stirred his hand. He's a handicap. His mother's a slave. She gives him anything solid. She chews it and sees it's very soft and puts it in his mouth and what's his left. She feeds him with bottles. He's 35 years of age. Six feet four in length. Has never done a thing. Ladies are lovely. They're not as you say as are they. And this is what Paul is concerned about. That these people a year and a half or more after he established the church they're still in a state of immaturity. He's concerned about it. Isn't this our problem in the church? Instead of having infantry we've got infants. Instead of the church being an armory it's a nursery. Now tell me how much time more you spend in prayer and travel over lost men and women than you did five or ten years ago. The law of average is there's a time when a girl cannot bear children she's too young. There's a time when she's too old. Spiritually are you able to reproduce your kind? Do you know what it means to travel in birth? Paul diagnoses their trouble and he says this is your trouble. Your trouble is carnality and then he diagnoses the carnality. He says you are calmer whereas there is among you envying and strife and division. Envy is internal. Strife is external. Division is infernal. You have to sing again of the church of Jesus by schisms rank to thunder and heresies distress. There are more lost people in the world at this given moment than any period in history. And yet the church is comparatively a nursery, not an armory. Marcus Aurelius said that he read 169 different books in Greek and other languages because he said I want to find an answer to envy. It eats me. The word of God says that envy is as rottenness of the bones. Your babes, the babies want to fight battles. Nursery they don't want battles, they want bottles. You want to find out how spiritual your church is Mr. Preacher despite how much you give to missions and other things. Say this church is going to have a night of prayer every week until revival comes in this community and see how many people can really pray in the Holy Ghost and travel. Can babies carry burdens? No. I remember when our area was repeatedly bombed when we were in England. One morning I said to my wife, sweetheart there's been a raid over there, I'm going. I went over and the police knew me because we held a street meeting every Saturday night from 10 o'clock till midnight and got the perverts and liars and thieves and we were the best-known church in town. The policeman saluted, he said Mr Ravenhill this area is full of unexploded bombs, you can't go past the rope. But I said some of my people live up there, I want to go. He said all right sir but you must go quickly and come back. And as he lifted the rope some youngsters tried to come back. Come back! My aunt lives up here, my uncle lives up there, my boyfriend at school. Come back! And I came back after devastation the hell that war brings. The property had gone down. There's a stack of rubble with a chair leg sticking out there and a woman's leg sticking out there and a baby blasted up against the wall. The policeman said did you did you find what you wanted? I said no I couldn't find the people. He said isn't it a frightening mess? Do you think you'll ever forget it? No. I can see that when I shut my eyes now as plainly as I saw it at that moment. Like some of you men can remember scenes you saw in trenches and in battles, on battlefields. Do you think that God is going to trust us? Do you think he's going to give vision to children? No sirree. Vision belongs to man. Burdens belong to man. Paul says I'm going to fill up the sufferings of Christ. I wrestle against principalities and powers. I travail in birth. You see the devil keeps some of you. You're too old to go to the mission field. You got saved too late. No you're not. You can have the greatest minister in the world. It's not standing here or to 10 million people like Billy Graham. The greatest minister in the world is in the secret place. He's traveling, he's wrestling against principalities and powers. He's embarrassing the devil because he said I give you power over all the power of the enemy. So we'd rather play games wouldn't we? I've never had a youth program in any church that I've passed in. And I've never counted success by how many people. I count success by how many of my people went into full-time service either at home or abroad and lost themselves on the mission field. You're bathing Christ. Whereas there is among you envy and strife and division. And most churches are loaded with this I think. You're carnal. Why did Paul talk about carnality and knew something about it himself? Because there was a time when he was carnal, sold on the fence. What is the essence of the whole thing? The essence of the whole thing is selfishness. Who's more selfish than a child? We were in a house not too long ago. They had one child, a beautiful little girl. She had, I'm sure, hundreds of dollars worth of beautiful stuffed toys. I never saw a play with one. She had an old raggedy raggedy, I don't know what he was, looked like a dishcloth tied up with a string. She wouldn't go to bed without it. She wouldn't go shopping without it. She loved this dirty bit of rag. And hundreds of dollars worth of lovely stuffed animals there. She wouldn't touch them. But some pastor came to see me with another little girl. And as soon as the little girl came to the door, oh she looked at the toys. The little girl says, the nine, the nine. Nobody said they weren't. Mr Finn is right. You've not done much for a man till you deal with his selfishness. And many of us have been to the cross, to the cross. That Ruskin was right when he said, the problem isn't getting people to the cross, the problem is getting people on the cross. The problem isn't that he'll die for me, but that I'll die with him. And he says in Romans chapter 6 verse 6, knowing this, that our old man is, not was, our old man is crucified with him. That the body of sin might be destroyed. And Galatians 5 says, David of Christ hath crucified the flesh. Have you crucified the flesh? You say, well I don't believe self can ever die. Neither do I. Neither do I. But selfishness can die. You'll be a self as long as you live. You're an entity. There are not two editions of you. Not a blessing for the world. But anyhow, there are not two like you anywhere. There's just one. You cannot die. You have an entity, you have a personality, that while you cannot die to self, you can die to selfishness, and self-seeking, and self-interest, and self-glory, and self-pity. You say, are you saying that somehow I can get rid of this old self, this old man in me? I'm saying that. You say, well I was reading Romans and it says, you know, they that are in the flesh, we're going to drag along. They that are in the flesh cannot please God. Right, you're right, you're right, you're right. That's what it says. But now I've told you what it says, let me tell you what it says in the next verse. You're not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. The life of the flesh and the life of the Spirit mutually exclude each other. You can't walk in the flesh and in the Spirit, one or the other. One of the greatest saints we ever had in England was that far, far fabulous man. He died, I think, at 95. One of the greatest men of prayer in the history of the world, George Muller. He had 2,000 children. He never asked anybody for a penny all the years he kept them, and he clothed them, and he fed them, and he just ran a business, he and God. After he was 70 years of age, when there was neither TV nor radio, after he was 17 and no 70, no jet, that man went around the world seven times. And they estimate he preached to seven million people between being 70 and being 90. And somebody said to him one day, well you were a carriage Christian, what happened? He said there came a day, and he just did this, he bowed down, he said there came a day when George Muller died. He died to George Muller's preferences and desires and ambition. He died to every desire. Or said, wasn't it Theo Monod said, the bitter shame and sorrow that a time could ever be, when he proudly said to God, all of self, none of thee. And a bit later he said, some of self, some of thee. And then a bit later he said, less of self, more of thee. And finally he said, I got the victory, I said none of self and all of thee. And God took complete control and dominion over my personality. Don't do it now. When you go home, read Romans 7. Romans 7 is a funeral march. Romans 8 is a wedding march. Romans 7 is gloom. Romans 8 is glory. Romans 7 is the law of sin and death. Romans 8 is the law, the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. If I had a feather here, and I let that feather go, it would drop. After all, that thing's not so very heavy. It's just a thing I keep my little flat watch in. It's not very heavy, but you know, I can't get it to go up. It comes down all the time. Look at those things they shoot over the water there. Boy, they wear a lot more than this, but they keep going. You get in a jet. I don't like jets, but I have to sit in them sometimes. That thing goes off with a thrust. It weighs maybe 10,000 times this, but it keeps going. I don't know what it is. It's the law of aerodynamics, but all the time, as soon as it takes off, there's a pull of the earth. It doesn't get into orbit like those things. It's fighting the law of gravity every inch of the way. And when that man comes down, you see he turns all the power on, because now gravity is pulling more and more. It's harder to get the thing down than get it up. Now how do you remain safe in a jet? By staying in it. You step out of it and see what happens. The law of gravity will do the same with you as it would do with a plane, but you stay in there where the law of power in that jet is greater than the law of gravity. Right. While I stay with Christ having dominion over me, the law of sin and death will have no power. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Now when you go home, take a pencil and go right down through this wonderful chapter of the 7th of Romans. It's a battleground of theologians. What will you find? It says I, I, I, I. I want to do. I can't do. I don't want to do. I do do. It's I, I, I. Mark them. Mark them. I got them all marked in my bible. And then add them up. You'll find at least 31 times it mentions I. And then go through the chapter and mark how many times the Holy Spirit's mentioned. He won't have any homework to do. He's not mentioned once. And then step over the bridge into Romans chapter 8 and mark how many times I is mentioned. Only twice, verses 18 and 38. Where he says I reckon and where he says I'm persuaded, that's the only twice he mentions it. He can't use any other, anything but the first person singular there. And so he mentions I just twice. 31 times in the 7th chapter and no Holy Spirit. Twice in the 8th chapter and 19 times the Holy Spirit is mentioned. Because in Romans 7 he's in bondage to sin and death. In Romans 8 he says the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free. Sin has no dominion over me. I'm not walking in the flesh. I'm walking in the Spirit. He says I'm crucified. Crucifixion was a very painful death. I discovered in my reading that there were more than 120 different types of crosses. The traditional cross on which Jesus was crucified. A cross like a letter T where the man's head was pushed back when he was crucified. A cross like a letter X where a man was extended this way and the nails were driven through him. A cross like a tree with a spike on and his body was pushed on and he was turned round and left hanging at any angle. They were all pretty tough terrible deaths. There was a worst death that the Romans had. The death that was the worst of all was that they would take the man who'd killed another man and they would strap the living man to the corpse that he killed. So when they laid him on the corpse and tied legs to legs and hands to hands and body to body and neck to neck they would stand him up and say off you go. And he would carry a body of death. Stagger around. Try to find a place to sleep and there he'd wake up looking at the glassy eyes of death. Before long the stench of that corpse would get into his body. It was a slow agonizing terrible death. He was tied to the law of sin and death. The law said you suffer as you made that man suffer you die as he died. And he carried the corpse around with him. And Paul finishes Romans 7 and he says oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of sin and death. What do you say Mr. Theologian? There is no answer? You say God can't deliver us? Well never again in your life say that God is omnipotent. And don't let me catch you repeating the blood of Jesus Christ God's son cleansed us from all sin. You see we're living in a day when men will give you their interpretation of God's word. You've either to say that God is true and then a liar or you'll to believe what the preacher says and say God is a liar and I'm going to stand by the book. He says oh wretched man I have a body of sin and of death who shall deliver me? Does he stay there? No he doesn't stay there. You see I might be going down the road and I might see brother Danny and I say brother Danny look there's nobody around cut this corpse off me. I killed a man but you know I'm getting so sick so nauseated I can't sleep I can't I can't get comfortable I'm carrying the body of death. He says all right I'll do that and he cuts away the ropes cuts away the ropes he's just going to cut the last one and a centurion comes and says what are you doing there? He said I'm setting my friend free from the body of the man that he murdered. It's killing him. This is a terrible sense it's almost killing me to be here and he wants to get rid of it and I want to deliver him. Can't I do it? Yes you can do it on one condition. What's the condition? That you take that body of death and have it tied to yourself. That's the only way you can do it. There is nothing that will excuse you in Roman law except you can't do it by paying. You can't do it by any other way. The only thing you can cut that body loose the only way is that we'll tie that body onto you. Will you do it? You say no I like my friend Raven you'll go boy I don't love him enough to carry that stinking corpse around. And Paul says oh wretched man that I am. He's argued about the laws. Four laws if you like the different laws in Romans chapter 7. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus he says now. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? You say no. He says I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Knowing this that our old man was crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed. That henceforth we should not serve sin. You say God can take something out of me and I'll never sin afterwards. I didn't say that. I'm saying that while you stay in the place of obedience you do not have to commit sin. That's what God says. For this purpose was the Son of God manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. One thing we had a judge in England he used to come to the church that I went to. He didn't come too often but he came. He's a very fine man. He was very wealthy. He had a great business in the city. Everybody knew him. He just had one besetting thing. He had a vicious temper. And he'd go on all right for a while and then he'd explode and people in the shop would say something much to that Christianity. He went to a meeting one day and he heard somebody say you know God's got an answer not only to sins but to sin. The sin which does so easily beset us lay it aside. Does God tell you to do the impossible? And the man that preached quoted not Romans 6-6, Romans 6-7. He that is dead is freed from sin. They that are Christ have crucified. Come on have you done it? You can't do it. A man can shoot himself. A man can but no man can crucify himself. Somebody else has to do it. And so he does it. We're crucified with him. That judge went down the aisle and he said I know I'm a born-again Christian but I know this that sin has got dominion over me in this area. I've never had victory and I want to die to this thing right now. And by faith he accepted deliverance. He got on the phone and he called the undertaker in the town where he lived. On the outskirts of London. The next day at two o'clock, in those days they didn't have motor horses, they had horses. Here was a horse with two horses. Here was a beautiful new casket. And this man Longley, George Longley, got out this stately white head judge and he had two long strips of ribbon and he fixed them on the side of the case. The glass case, you know, we used to have these glass cursories and you could see the coffin inside and he had a strip right down this side and the other. He pinned them on with thumbtacks. George Longley is dead. And he got up on the front of the carriage where the fellow used to sit, you know, that drives the horses along and he sat there with him. And going down the street, oh that's Judge Longley. Oh he's wealthy. You tell the same. George Longley died last night at nine o'clock. That must have been his brother. George Longley is dead. People would say, hi Mr. Longley. How are you madam? He wore a tall hat, you know. Hi Mr. Longley. Hi friend. Mr. Longley, who died? I died last night in a meeting. I died to all my own ambitions, my own plans, my selfishness. I just said, Lord, I've been running my life too long. I've been saved, but oh I've been such a dwarf. I've been such a bane. You've never been able to burden me. You've never given me any vision. Oh yes, we weep over our little problems, but we don't weep over a lost world, do we? We're pretty ambitious in certain areas, but do I want to be totally committed to him? But like the Apostle Paul, I know a place where I met Jesus Christ, and he came and revealed himself. And I know a place where I went, and he exposed me to my own corruption and selfishness. And I asked him to cleanse me, and he came and invaded my personality. And he doesn't merely say Christ died for me. He doesn't really say Christ revealed himself to me. He says Christ revealed himself in me. I remind you again, and I challenge you to search all the epistles he wrote, 14 if you include Hebrews. There is not one trace of vacillation, or weakness, or backing off. It matters not if hell bursts on him. He died a penniless soldier of Jesus Christ. They brought him out and put his head on the blast, and I'm sure he laughed while they chopped it off. You know why? Because as I said this morning, this man had such an experience of God that hell and demons and men could pour all they had on him, and he still laughed. He says, I glory in tribulation, in necessities, in reproaches. Most of us need a week off, don't we, before we call the pastor. He says, I glory in tribulation. Let it all come. I found strength in the finished work of Jesus Christ. I found power in the Holy Ghost, that he can have dominion over me, and where I used to fall, I stand up. Where I used to back off, I fight principalities and powers. Where I used to hide in my petty selfishness and say things are very hard, he said I put on the whole armor of God. I've got the breastplate of righteousness, and the shield of faith, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. My feet shod with the preparation. I've got the sword of the spirit. Come on now, come on devil, come on demons. If I had only one prayer to pray and die five minutes from now, I think I'd pray, dear God, will you give every country in the world an apostle Paul? Was Henry Varley right? The world has yet to see what can be done by one man totally committed to Jesus. I used to speak in one of the largest, if not the largest, air force camps in England in World War II to the soldiers, air force men. The conditions were these, that I talked to them for 40 minutes, and then they peppered me with questions for the other 40. We had some battles. But I went up the shoulder of the hill, there was a house bigger than this building, a gorgeous mansion. It had its own private race track outside. It used to be the home of C.T. Studd. He was the Babe Ruth of English critics. He went to be a missionary up there, up the Nile. He went to China with the famous Cambridge Seven. At 53 years of age, when he was weak, and remember he was a scholar, his two brothers broke a record. They were the only two brothers that ever became the Lord Mayor of London. One of the greatest distinctions in England, apart from being Prime Minister. He had done a life-size job up the Nile. He'd done a life-size job in China. He came home, and one day he heard about the teeming millions lost in Africa. He applied to this mission board and the other mission board, and nobody said, they all said, we don't want a man 53. You're washed up, you're done. He got a loan with God. He gave away his fortune, that to these days might be worth a quarter of a million. Sold the racehorses, abandoned himself to Jesus Christ. And his slogan was this, if Jesus Christ be God and died for me, no sacrifice that I can make can be too great for me to make for him. I had the distinction of seeing him when he came back from Africa. He had his little Van Dyck beard, brilliant mind he had. And I remember him standing there and talking to us about the wonder of laying your life down in an area where there wasn't a road, and you were bitten with mosquitoes, and often you aren't even kerosene to light your lamp. Snake-infested jungle, wild, terrible, cannibal people. The man who could have had service to wash his feet and ridden round in his Rolls Royce, lived the life of a gentleman. He had 30 of his own racehorses, but he got a blinding vision of the cross when I surveyed a wondrous cross. Did you really ever survey it? And through with this one thing. Paul believed this thought. He believed John 3 16, that God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son. And later he wrote to the Ephesians that God not only loved the world and gave his son, he said he loved the church. And he gave himself for the church. That's narrowing it down from the world. He loved the world of sinners lost and ruined by the fall. He loved the church and gave himself for the church. And then one day he says, but he loved me. The supreme miracle is that an arrogant, self-righteous Pharisee like me, he loved me and gave himself for me. He didn't sing it, he did it. Were the whole realm of nature mine. If I had a thousand brains, I'd think with them all about you. If I had a thousand lives, I'd give them to you. If I had a thousand hearts, I'd love with you with them all. But I don't. But what I have, here it is. He says, Christian, will you do what I do? Present your body. Because if I say to you, I give you my watch. I give you everything in the watch, don't I? Don't I give you the case? I say, there's my watch. Take it. You'll get everything in it. Paul says, look, present your body a living sacrifice. Holy, acceptable to God. It's only a reasonable service. And say to him, Lord, you can dispose of my life as you like. Send me anywhere, anytime, with anything. You can't ask anything too demanding. Because tonight I'm going to be crucified with Christ. I'm going to lose all my rights. I'm going to say to you, Lord Jesus, put to death my selfishness, my self-pity, my self-seeking, my self-glory, and my self-righteousness. Cleanse me. Take over. Control me. Use me.