In this sermon, the speaker discusses the concept of the "Triangle of Life" that exists in every town and city. He describes how people are always busy with their daily activities, such as buying and selling, planting, building, and carrying on with the work of the world. However, amidst this busyness, there are also individuals who are suffering and going through the "Triangle of Life" in their homes. The speaker then shares a personal story of his own Saturday night gatherings in his old home and how it was a special time for feasting and enjoyment. He goes on to emphasize the importance of doing the will of God and shares the story of Jesus healing a paralyzed man who had been unable to reach a healing pool for 38 years. The speaker highlights the man's willingness to be made whole and how he entered into the rest of God through his surrender to Jesus. The sermon concludes with the reminder that true rest and healing can only be found in Jesus.

I didn't intend to give this question tonight. It was by the remark of someone last night who had been greatly blessed at that very rich mission we had with the Salvation Army at Dulwich Hill a month ago. And three of those people who had been wonderfully revived during the campaign made mention of the Saturday night meeting that had meant so much to them. And increasingly today, the Lord laid that upon my heart. Increasingly. So I bring you that same Saturday night message which I've never given in Auburn as far as I know. Even though I preach, I expect something like 45 times in this church, never given this challenge. It's a challenge to the will. Are you willing to do the will of God? Jesus said to the man who had been 38 years on his back, Are thou willing to be made whole? The man went out and told the Jews it was Jesus that had made him whole. One of the grand stories of Scripture. A miracle. A mighty miracle. And if you had your Bible opened to the fifth of John, you'd find how startlingly the chapter opens. After this, there was a feast of the Jews. And Jesus went up. Up. Up. Up to Jerusalem. There was no other way for him to go. If he was to reach that feast in the holy city, he had to press up. Beautiful for situation is Zion, the joy of the whole earth. Jerusalem, set in its lovely hills. And to reach that city and its feast, he must needs go up. And my friends, if the Christian life is uphill all the way, and it is. If the road is rough almost every step, and it is. And if the Christian life is a climb till you reach the celestial crest, and it is. The end will justify the way. A feast in the new Jerusalem. The marriage supper of the Lamb. They stand, those halls of Zion, all jubilant with song, and bright with many an angel, and all the martyr throng. There is the throne of David. And there, from toil released, the shout of them that triumph. The song of them that feast. The feast in the new Jerusalem. That's what's coming for the believer. The real, honest, downright believer in Christ, who set his faith like a flint to reach the new Jerusalem at any cost. It will be the marriage supper of the Lamb. And no tongue can tell what joy will be around that festive ball. And on the way our Lord must needs pass two other outstanding landmarks. The sheep market. With all the dust, and the din, and the bustle, and the barter of business. The shepherds getting the sheep through the gate up to the market. A place of merchandise. And on the other side, the pool, with its five blooming porches, and great multitude of impotent folks, just waiting for something to turn up, and the water to be stirred. A place of misery. Misery. You join up those three points. There's the feast with its merriment. And draw down one line to the sheep market with its merchandise, and another line down to the pool with its misery, and draw your baseline. The triangle of life. Wherever you go you'll find that triangle of life. Many years ago my wife and I travelled far out in the back country of New South Wales, and Victoria, and parts of Queensland, and even in the little townships wherever we went, there was the triangle of life. And in later years, in the grace of God, I girdled the globe preaching the gospel. And in the great cities of the United States, and United Kingdom, and Europe, I saw the triangle of life. Always something to feast in. Always some in yonder cafe, or milk bar, or yonder restaurant, or in the home, enjoying a happy time around a meal, feasting, happy together in conversation and relaxing. Always some at merchandise, buying and selling, planting, building, carrying on the work of the world. And always some little cluster of buildings, in the great cities a vast cluster, and in the small townships a smaller building, and in the little hamlets a cottage building, where men and women turn on beds of suffering. Bethesda. The triangle of life in every town, and it's true in every home you'll find the triangle of life. In my old home, which was a simple home, of the old latter part of the Victorian era, we were not allowed to go out much of a Saturday night, but it was the feasting night. We were allowed to invite some of our friends in, and the best tablecloth was on the table, and the best food was on the cloth, and we had a grand time on Saturday night. Games, and singing, and music, and then a grand supper, and it was the night of the week. But it didn't last. It didn't last. Monday morning came as inevitably. Monday morning will come, and my father's off to business, and the older boys off to work, and my sister and I to school, and my mother down to the wash tub. It's merchandise. A cheap mop. And then there were times when one of the bedroom doors would be ajar, and the smell of antiseptics coming out, and I could see my mother moving about with a worried look on her face as the doctor's old-time carriage was at the door, and later the new motor car, which was a marvel in those days, the T-model Ford. And oh, how she would look with anguish for the coming of the doctor, a dear one, struggling in the depths of the grip of a disease that has died. The triangle of life in every home and in every heart. In every heart, you've got the triangle of life. Why, there's a time when you're singing, you're feasting, something's happened. The margins case went in your favour, or you've had a lift in wages, or the holidays have come, or perhaps you've fallen in love, and you're singing with joy. Why, you're feasting. You're feasting at Jerusalem. But by the next post, the income tax assessment form arrives, and suddenly you're down there at the sheep market. Look at this, you say to your wife, look at this, you think I owe that? I don't owe it. Oh, keep up your song, Dad. She says, keep up singing. This is business. I can't be singing now. I've got to pay out this down there at the sheep market. Then there's a time when you come to Bethesda, down in the depths and the misery of the pool. Some burdens on your heart, a sense of that depression that comes with sin perhaps, with sorrow, with bereavement. Oh, you say, I better scatter the blues. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm burdened. Bethesda. So we draw the triangle of life for every heart, for every home, for every hamlet, hey, and for every city, the triangle of life. And right across the baseline of the triangle, came Jesus, right into the center, to sanctify the merriment, that it might be pure, to sanctify the merchandise and make it honest, to sanctify the misery and produce the peaceable fruits of righteousness, right into the center, to sanctify the whole fire. That's right, isn't it? Can you grasp that all right? Oh, no, preacher, says someone. Now, look, I'm going to question you on that. No, I don't accept it. Life isn't a triangle. Life's a square. Life's a square. More completely. You see, in that corner, you've got your merriment, and in that corner, your misery, and in that corner, your merchandise, and in that corner, you've got the Master. I'm not an atheist. I'm not a communist. I'm a believer, but I say, keep Jesus Christ in his place, give him his certain right, his due, always once a Sunday to church, sometimes twice, pays me along during the week, but keep him in the corner, don't bring him right in to savor everything. That caused a lot of trouble in the past. No, life's a square. Are you right, or am I right? Is life a square, or is life a triangle? Listen to Paul preaching. Accessoria in front of King Agrippa. This thing was not done in a corner. What thing? This lifting up of the Lord of glory, the Prince of glory, upon that cross. This startling resurrection of the man Christ Jesus from the grave was not done in a corner. No. On a hill crest, at the place which the prophet Ezekiel calls the navel of the earth, the dead center of the earth. God's Son lifted up to die to pay the price of sin, to infure the shame of the cross, to manifest forth the divine love, to take to himself the weight of the world's iniquity, and to discharge it beneath the judgment of God, was not done in a corner. Yet there are people that profess to be Christians that no, life is a triangle. And he comes across the baseline right to the center to sanctify the whole life. And that's why the ancient hymn writer was correct when he said, yet no, nor of the words complained, if Jesus comes, he comes to reign, to reign, and with no partial sway, thoughts must be swayed that disobey. Ah, he came across the baseline into the center to be the center and soul of my life, to shed his radiance right over it, to command altogether. Being what he was, what he is, he turned first to Bethesda, the gloomy pool, the five terrible porches with the great multitude of impotent folk, the blind are there, the hog, the wizard. Ever met a blind man spiritually? Let me introduce you to a blind man spiritually. Look, I can't understand that Bible. I've read it. Oh, I've read it, friend. I've read it many times, but can't understand it. Contradicts itself, you know. Even the preachers don't understand it. They're always arguing about it. Oh, it's a difficult book. I don't believe anyone can really amuse writing the paper, though, isn't it? Strange things that are happening. These nations that are rising up and grabbing independence and these riots and all the time the danger, these wretched bombs about you. Terrible times we're living in. Oh, you poor blind man at Bethesda. You can't understand your Bible that portrays these times of distress of nations with perplexity, men's hearts pounding them for fear of the things coming. I can't understand the newspaper that's just blind at Bethesda. Huh? Here's a man that's false at Bethesda. Never met him before. Oh, we'll put things right when we get our party into power. When we get our ideology first to deform the world, we'll show you how to run the race then. Turn up, all right. Oh, the poor scribble people at Bethesda. They've got the poorest lives you could ever... The hot winds of a wicked world of drive. They're cynical. They're bitter. They've got a grudge against everything. Sometimes they'll write an anonymous letter to cut and steam without the courage to put an end to it. They're waiting for something to happen. In the fullness of time, vice came, born of a woman made under the law to redeem the serious at Bethesda to that little babe. He's the chronic case of Bethesda. I venture to think there was no worse case in those gloomy portions. And our Lord looks at that poor man and he asks him a great question that I asked you a few moments ago. Aren't thou willing to be made whole? Don't say that. The poor fellow, it's not a question of his willingness, it's a question of weakness. He's got paralysis. Oh, Lord, don't answer him. He's willing. He can't be made whole. He's got paralysis. If you leave this case to me, it isn't a question at all of his weakness. It's a question of his will. Aren't thou willing to be made whole? But I can almost hear Peter saying to our Lord, you don't expect, Lord, any man to fall in love with paralysis, do you? And want to stay there? Do you think anyone ever falls in love with sickness? I ought to tell the dear friends that we lived next door. When I was a boy, we lived next door to an elderly gentleman. I thought he was elderly, but I don't think he's old as I am. But I thought he was elderly in those days and I used to see him frequently walking round the lawn, leaning on the arm of his wife. And I'd say to my sister, poor Mr. Jones, are you sick again? Oh, she'd say he's always sick or something like that. And then I remember on one occasion listening in with my big ears to my mother and father having a conversation together. And I remember my father saying, you know, now, a little more intently. And then my father said, you know, we were down at the end of the street the other day and he bumped into my friend and I. And my friend said to him, well, Mr. Jones, are you well now? Don't you say that! And he said, I'm never well. I'm an always so sick man. Don't you say I'm well. My father laughed. You know, then he said, he likes to be sick all right. And there's a little boy listening and I thought, well, now that's a funny thing. I don't want to be sick. I want to be well. I want to play cricket and I want to play soldiers and I want to race about. I don't want to be sick. But after I'd been thinking back a little, there were times when I didn't want to be sick. So I had a little bit of a code, you know, about half past eight in the morning, especially, it was a Monday morning, I developed a frightful cough. And I'd cough so badly that at last, sometimes, sometimes, I must emphasize that, my mother would say, oh, Jack, and the night improved rapidly after she gave that word. But I really didn't want to be sick, you know. Only when it suited me to say a tone. Oh, to fall in love with paralysis. Palsy, plague, fever, race disease, cancer, consumption. To fall in love with corrupting disease. Is it possible? People seem to like to talk about their sicknesses so much, but the worst of all diseases is life compared with sin. On every part, sin seethes and rages most within. Tis palsy, plague, and fever, and madness, all combined. None but a believer, the least... That's old John Newton, the hint writer, that the worst of all diseases you can't compare with sin. Yet there are men and women who are determined to hold on to their pride, their jealousy, their bitterness, their vindictiveness, their envy, their sharp business ways, their dishonesty, their selfishness, their holiness. They really don't want to be saved. They really don't want to be holy. They've heard tell that Jesus Christ is apt to make one too. Prepare them for that house where holiness becomes God's temple forever. They're not willing to be saved. God is willing, but they're not willing. They're willing to be made whole, said our Lord. Oh Lord, we can almost hear some of the disciples saying, you don't think that poor fellow wants to remain a captive to his little bed all his life? Surely you're not suggesting he wants to remain a captive? Yes, I suppose. I am suggesting he may be more willing to be a slave than to be a saint. How many men and women are more concerned about having their secret sin than on being made holy, fit for heaven's glory? You know, I was talking to Mr. Laidlaw, godly man in New Zealand who wrote a great tract called The Reason Why. And it was at the close just after World War II and I was in New Zealand and Mr. Laidlaw at his office was speaking to me across his office table and he said, look Brother Ridley, I'm convinced some people are determined to be damned. I'll tell you a story, he said. When I was out with the troops helping them as a welfare officer in France in the late war, a certain big fellow came in to me and he said, Mr. Laidlaw, can't your God do anything for me and save me from this cursed drink? My God can. My God can deliver you from the drink or any other life if you're willing. He said, I put my arm round him, Mr. Ridley and I said, now son, you pray this with me. Lord Jesus, I come to thee as a needy sinner. I said, come on son, pray this to the Lord Jesus Christ with me and you'll get deliverance. Lord Jesus, I come to thee as a needy sinner. No Brother Ridley said it. They've fallen in love with the slavery of sin. They've fallen in love with the lust that blinds them. With the selfishness that's woven its cords around their heart. With the worldliness that they'll not give up at any cost. God, I have been made well. Been made whole. Been made by the grace of God. Oh, but not this man. Sir, he said, I have no man in the water this trouble to help me into the pool. While I am coming another step it down before me. I'm willing, sir. But I'm weak. Just the case for Christ. Just the case for him. Riley, take up thy bed and walk. And immediately the man was made whole. And took up his bed and walked. Now that really happened. You find Pinkler, just as it happened there, that man has been 38 years down there a slave to paralysis. And he just said, in effect, I'm willing, but I've no man to help me when the water's troubled. And Jesus, seeing the man's will as surrendered, simply says, Riley, take up your bed and walk. In other words, come, take up your cross and follow me. And he was walking with the bed on his back. The same day was the Sabbath. A little passage put in, two or three words The same day was the rest day. He who has been trying for 38 years to get to the pool has entered into rest. He has ceased from his own works and his own efforts and he's entered into the rest. He's come to Jesus who gives rest. Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden. I will give you rest. I will give you rest. There he is. Carried his bed and he's reached his little home or perhaps his lodging. Picked up the old bed and carried it. A man with a big long beard at the corner. Oh, son, I wouldn't trust you. I wouldn't trust that cure. Oh, no, I think you'll go back. I think you'll go back to the pool. I've no confidence in these quack cures, you know, or these sudden conversions. You'll go back to the pool, all right. Oh, son, I'd advise you if I were you to make sure of this cure now. I'm a great believer in olive oil and if you just take a good dose of olive oil tonight and get someone else to rub your poor old back several times with olive oil, I guess you perhaps might make a cure of it. Great believer in olive oil. Do you really think so, Father? You ought to know. I do and I'm an old man and I ought to know I'm a great believer in olive oil. Now, do it. No, I won't. No, I won't. No, I won't, Father. I've carried the bed out. I don't want your olive oil. I've got the cure. You can't add to Christ's salvation. You can't improve it one iota. You can be confirmed or baptized or immersed and maybe all have their place. I quite agree that baptism is a work of obedience. Nor any other ordinance The work of salvation is immediate, blessed, full. You can't add to a finished work. It is finished with the cry of the great Saviour. It has come to the end of an accomplished home. The Satanic section. Then the poor fellow was walking home with the bed on his back, you know. There was a little group of pharaohs got together, good people, religious people, people that observed to the letter the Sabbath day and suddenly they shouted to the poor fellow, what are you doing carrying your bed? It's not your fault. It's the Sabbath day. Now you think that. He's been 38 years attached to that bed. The first day he's got the bed on top of his, has got the bed attached to him and he's walking with it there at it. I know a man who was wonderfully saved in one of my missions by the grace of God and he came out of a life of much sin that he told me this. He said, you know, some of those that criticised me in the early days when I was only a poor weak believer if I hadn't been truly saved they'd have sent me flopped back into the world again. Oh, the criticism come up quickly. What are you doing carrying your bed? It's not lawful for you to do it. Oh, he said, he'd have made me the same set on for you. Take up your bed and walk. I'm only doing what he told me. Grand answer. What man told you to carry your bed on the Sabbath day? I don't know his name, he said. He couldn't tell me his name. Oh, my dear friend, that's the saddest part in the whole story of John Pyne. I don't know his name, he said. Ah, friend of Bethesda, somewhere in paradise, the blessed. That was the saddest thing that day, wasn't it? That was the saddest thing. You've got a lot of friends in Auburn, a lot of friends in Sydney. They don't know the name of their saviour, their healer. Here there's a young girl, we call her Mary, which is a common name so that no one will feel I've selected their particular name. And then Mary's made a decision Oh, she said, the mission's coming, I'm all right, I'm saved, I know that, I saved a long time ago. And here's Mary, and she's got a new job, and she's been in that job for a week. And at the close of the first week as she's just getting ready to depart, two or three of the girls come up to her and they say, Mary, you know, since you've come here, we don't feel so happy. You're a good girl, you don't swear, you don't talk like we do. I haven't seen you smoking a cigarette yet. What's the difference between you and us, Mary? Oh, there's no difference, I just try to do the best I can. She says, no, but there's something funny, you're a good girl. Oh, I'm not good, no, I just try to do the best I can, that's all. I'm sorry if you feel there's been a difference, but no, no, you're all right, but we can't quite understand. Come on, Mary, you tell them of your Savior. Tell them who it was that cured you. You don't know the name. You're afraid that the event that Bethesda performed, what a pathetic thing it is. Here is Jim, we call him Jim. He's an apprentice to the carpentry trade, and he's doing his best, and Jim, he's a good fellow. Oh, he's in the CE movement, and oh, Jim, he's quite a man, he said he wasn't a Christian. Jim said he's a Christian, and here he is, he's driving home a nail, and he's only an apprentice, and he misses fire with a hammer, he hits his son, he jumps like a panther, and then he pushes his poor thumb into his spouse and begins to suck it, and his mate drops his hammer near him and says, come on, Jim, have a good swearing, you'll feel better, son. No dance about like that. Oh, what good a swearing that Jim, as he shakes his poor thumb, oh, you're a saint, auntie, you wouldn't swear, would you? Oh, go on, I'm no saint at all, but I wouldn't swear at it. Oh, you're a good boy, auntie. No, I'm not, no. What? You don't know the name of your Saviour. You don't talk to Jesus Christ. The man of Bethesda went up to the temple. He didn't go back, but in the temple, in the house of prayer, even as this place is today, behold, said the Saviour, and I'm sure he said, thou art made whole, thou art cured, have no fear, now sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto you. Don't you trifle with sin, but you are made whole. He simply met Christ, and he heard the word of the Saviour straight to his heart, don't you trifle with sin. The man went out, fast as he could, and he met that group that had climbed him, and he said to Jesus, that made me whole, oh, I can't help what you say about him, it was Jesus Christ, that's right, Jesus of Nazareth, I believe he might be the Messiah, don't you say that word, Christ, I can't help it, it was Jesus of Nazareth made me whole. He witnessed, he witnessed, he was healed. You see, he was willing, he was willing to be made whole, he was willing to be delivered from disease, he was willing to be delivered from death too, and the disease of sin leads to the death of sin. But he was willing to be saved from the disease and the death, and then draw a line, he witnessed to his healer, he witnessed to his Saviour. He went out and said, Jesus has made me whole, he didn't say some roundabout words like this, I've had a great accident in my life, that's remarkably strange, he didn't say that, he said, Jesus, he made me whole, right across the baseline, willing, witness, now draw up two slanting lines from that, will you, and come to the apex of another triangle. Well done, good and faithful servant, enter now into the joy of thy Lord. That's the triangle of eternal life, willing that Christ should be your Saviour, willingly accepting, willing that you could be made whole, well, saved, saved, witnessing to Christ, that's the second point at the base, willing, witnessing, up, up, to the great risen place of God. Well done. Now the other people do a lot of work to claim the idea, my dear friends, it's the grand witness you give to Christ the commended of God, you can't glorify God any more than honouring his Son, yet some of you do work, all do work, but you won't. I want to say, as I come to the close of this message, there are two questions I would ask every soul here, as I've often asked my own heart. Are thou willing to be made whole? Are thou willing to be saved? In another word, art thou willing to be made holy, to be prepared for heaven? Art thou willing that Christ, the Cure, will come into your heart? Are you willing? It must be, it is going to be saved. The tragedy of the human will, beloved, is this, that God has made me in his own image, made me in the likeness of himself, in so far that he's given me, and that's wonderful, awful gift, can be lifted up until I say, I will not have this. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thee as a hen gathers her brood underneath her wings, but ye would not, said the weeping sage, ye would not. I've felt like that many a time when I've made the appeal for Christ over the congregation. How willingly would he have saved every one of them? How willingly would he have cleansed that defiled life? How willingly would he have liberated that poor prisoner of lust and sin? But they would not. They will not. Therefore, my friends, you can will no to Christ, whereas if thou wouldst willing, thou wouldst be wonderfully saved, thou wouldst be made well forever, Oh, what a perfect picture is that healthy youth, a healthy vein, with all the glow of health in the cheeks and the vitality of life right through the body. What a perfect picture. Strong men, men rejoicing to run his race. I want to ask a second question. Not only are you willing to be saved, I want to ask every professor of salvation as well, as those that are not yet saved, are thou willing to witness to Christ? Art thou willing to witness to this Savior? And that is a big thing. A man can profess to be saved and not be willing to witness to Christ. I remember hearing poor men sing one night in this city of Sydney years ago at the CE rally, and I fixed my eyes on the tenor, he's the big man, open hair and he sang beautifully. And when I was saying goodnight to the quartet as they walked out at the end of the service, I took hands with each one and up came the tenor, took his hand and I looked him in the face and I said, that was fine singing tonight my brother, thank you, I did enjoy it. He said, you don't seem to remember me, Mr. Ridley. Well I said, I fancy I have met you before, but I couldn't say your name and I don't remember where. He said, don't you remember a night at the North Sydney Church, that great Greek church, when you made an appearance and I was the only person that moved and I walked right from the back door right up that long, long aisle and up those stairs into the venue. Ah, I said, I do now. I remember that meeting and you were the only one that responded. Ah, Mr. Ridley said, I think I might have been converted a year before that night, I might have been. I never went forward. I wouldn't witness, I wouldn't confess the Savior, but from that night, I want to tell you, I've gone right on with God. I witnessed, I feel the Lord. How easy it is to pray in the sight of Jesus. Old John McNeill, the Scotch Evangelist, used to say, the confess is in it, whether you like it or not. The confess is in it. So it is, well in it, the salvation of God. Here's Charles Wesley, a great hymn writer, but at this point, that I want to introduce him, he's a man just converted under the witness of Peter Bowler, the Moravian, who knew how to witness and he's brought Charles Wesley out of all the strait-lacedness of his legalism, right into the liberty of the child of God. Wesley rejoiced and he turned to Mr. Bowler after and he said, of course Mr. Bowler, I don't suppose there's any need for me, is there, to publish this matter abroad and talk about it. Oh, I feel blessed. Said Peter Bowler, Would to God that you had a thousand tongues to tell it. Never let Wesley's mind. And a little later, he wrote the number one hymn of the Methodist book of you as you today. Oh, for a thousand. My great Redeemer's praise. The glories of my God and King. The triumphs of his grace. And Wesley witnessed as ever a man did to his great King. Oh, my God. Beloved, do you use your one tongue to tell something of Christ's glory to another? Are you a willing witness? As well as a willing witness to Christ. I know how hard the fight is. I know how difficult it is to bend to the will of God in our forefallen nature. But I want to tell you if a man is willing to be made willing, God will come and deal with him as he is going to. And I'm going to ask you tonight as we draw to the close and bow in prayer in a moment's time, I'm going to ask you even if you'll only say, Oh, brother, I'm willing to be made willing to be saved. I'm willing to be made willing to witness for Christ. You'll pray for me tonight. God will make me willing to do his will. But he'll make me willing to witness for him. And I'll ask you to pray for me by lifting my hand a moment. But I want to be willing to do God's will. Oh, my brother, would that you had a thousand hands. Would that you had a thousand tongues. My tongue that's told something of his grace for forty-odd years may soon be silent. But some of you people with youth and strength on your side could tell that blessed name to the ends of the earth if you were only willing to. You're near a heart that's burned to give the blessed name wind to us. It takes humility to ask God to make you will his will. Can we be humble enough tonight let us bow in God's presence in prayer. Every head bowed. Our hearts just humbled in his presence. And if you're willing that God would make you willing to be made whole to witness for Christ. Perhaps to make a new witness for him in a new power than what you've been doing. Or to come to the great step of accepting him. But you're willing to be made willing. Would you lift your hand quietly and let me pray.