In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of believing in and spreading the word of God without hesitation or apology. He highlights the key elements of the Christian faith, including the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, as well as the coming of the Holy Spirit and the future return of Jesus to the earth. The preacher expresses his firm belief in all these aspects and his desire to be actively involved in them. He then focuses on the book of Acts, specifically Acts 1, where Jesus is introduced as a man approved by God, particularly among the Jewish people in Jerusalem. The preacher acknowledges the challenge of convincing the Jews but emphasizes the importance of persistently sharing the message of Christ.

When I introduced Dr. A. W. Posner, I almost have to think twice in two connections. One, he is the editor of our official periodical, The Alliance With Us, and it is so much easier even yet to say, The Alliance Weekly. And then, having been pastor of the Southside Church in Chicago for nearly 30 years, excuse me, for more than a generation, it is easier for me to think of him and speak of him as coming from Chicago than it is from Toronto. Dr. Posner is an author, an editor, a preacher, a Bible teacher, a warm personal friend, but especially I like to think of him as a man of God. Dr. A. W. Posner of Toronto will speak. I suppose I ought to say something about being late yesterday and not getting here for my appointment. But I assure you that it wasn't any fault of mine. They told us in Cleveland that our plane was canceled. There's a lot to be said yet for the horse and buggy. I used to drive a horse and buggy, and nobody ever came to me and said, your horse has been canceled. Yeah, a horse always made it somehow. But I'm glad to speak twice today. I knew I'd have to do it. This man here, he won't let you off. You can't put anything over on a crazier. Now, I think that for at least three of my messages, it will be on the book of Acts. And I want to read 11 verses of Acts 1. A very, very familiar passage. Everybody knows it. Some of you can quote it. "...the former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up after that he, through the Holy Ghost, had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which says, He hath heard of me. For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. When they therefore will come together, they ask of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power. Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. When he hath spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as they went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven. Now, I wonder if you have ever noticed that in these 11 verses of the first chapter of Acts, you have a complete outline of Christian doctrine. You have Christ, his passion, that is, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the missionary witness, and the second coming. Now, that's pretty near all there is. There might be a few details to fill in, but that's the outline. The man didn't know anything else but this. That Christ had come, that he had died, that he'd risen, that he'd ascended, that he'd sent the Holy Ghost, that he'd told us to go and tell everybody in the world about it, that he was going to come back. That's just about it. Now, this man Luke, this Dr. Luke, he introduces here in simple narrative form a broad doctrinal platform, I repeat, almost complete in itself. He says Christ, he introduces this wondrous being, he calls him Jesus here, and he says, he hasn't said, but later in the book of Acts, 222, Peter says that Jesus was a man approved of God among you, among you Hebrews, you Jews of Jerusalem. Now, one of the toughest things to do is to convince a Jew. Some people get convinced awfully easy, but the Jew doesn't, and particularly if he's a religious Jew, he doesn't. And when Peter was talking to these Jews, he wanted to convince them that Jesus had been approved of God as the Christ and the Lord. And these Hebrews were stooped steeped in the scripture. They had a firm belief in the unity of God, the oneness of God, a monotheist, they'd call it now, using a learned word. They heard that verse here, O Israel, the Lord our Lord of God is one Lord, and they believed that. And so no pretender could get anyplace, you see, with responsible Jews. They knew the scripture, and no Cossacks could come along, as you can hear in this country, and take over. He couldn't do it, because they were steeped in Hebrew scriptures, and nobody could stand before them unless he was approved of God. And whoever they followed, they had to have divine credentials. Occasionally somebody would come along, but they'd soon peter out, as they always do, and he said, this man, Jesus, is the man I'm talking to you about, and he is approved of God among you. Now, he was approved after Jordan. He was approved by the identification of John the Baptist. John, the man sent of God, when he came, he saw him and said, behold, the Lamb of God hath taken away the sins of the world, and they have the testimony of the greatest prophet that ever lived. Yet furthermore, the attestation of the divine dove, when the Holy Ghost came and sat upon him, and Isabel, and a voice spoke out of heaven, saying, this is my beloved son. He was attested further by his beads of power. Now again, you couldn't fool those Jews, but no cheap miracle would do. Anybody you know, anybody in our days can fool the public, the poor, cheap public. We think we're well-educated and smart, and we're dumb as it's possible to be, and not drop dead from sheer lack of intellect. We can be led around, pushed around, and fooled and deceived and betrayed and racketeered and milked and the blood squeezed out of us and our bank accounts robbed, all by some fellow who has curly hair and a sweet personality. But you couldn't deal with the Jews that way. You had to have some attestation. Somebody had to give you credentials, and so he had the credentials of power, the miracles, the works of power. No tricks, no magic would do. Everything had to be sane and wholesome and out in the open, and it was. Jesus Christ our Lord never did any tricks. He never said, now close your eyes, don't open your eyes, because if you open your eyes it'll spoil it. Never. Anybody could open their eyes and look at Jesus when he's performing his miracles. He didn't have to have everybody hide in a corner. No tricks, no sleight of hand. He said to the devil, get out of him, and he got. And he said to the wind, be still. They were still. And he said to the dead, come forth, and they came. Anybody could test it. They could go up and touch the fellow, feel him all over, and pat his head and shake him, and he was there all right. No, there was no trick. He was there. His deeds of power, they were there, wholesome and real and salty and sane. And then by the life of the man. Jesus lived a life so spotless that nobody could think of anything honest to say about him. And when they wanted to say something evil about him, they had to hire a man to come and lie about him. And they made the mistake of hiring more than one. And the two of them contradicted each other. You give the devil enough rope, you'll know what he'll do. And you give the enemies of Jesus enough rope, and you'll know what they'll do. And they did it there. It said, neither did their testimonies jive with each other. They didn't use the word jive in the King James Version, but I can't think of the other one. They didn't jive. He said, which of you convinced me of sin? And there wasn't a man could rise and say a word. He had none. He was only harmless and undefiled, higher than the highest heavens, and separate from sinners. And they were forced to use paid witnesses, which contradicted each other. But even at the last, the devils admitted Jesus was God, and Judas admitted Jesus was God, and pitiful Judas. Somehow or other, I kind of pity Judas. I know he was pretty bad, and the devil was in him. But he was human, and he had a mother, and a soul, and some decency in him. Because when he saw what he had done, he came back in a fit of self-hatred and self-accusation, and threw those thirty feet of silver at the feet of the men who had led him to betray Jesus, and said, take it. It's blood money. He made the mistake of committing suicide, or I think the Lord would have saved the fellow in spite of it. But then even Pilate had to admit that this man Jesus was different. And the thief on the cross admitted this, and called him Lord. And the executioner said, this is the Son of God. So, you see, he had plenty of approval. This man Jesus is a man approved of God among you. Now, let's notice here that it says about Christ that he came out and was among them after his passion. Now, his passion, of course, is an old Latin word meaning to suffer, and it early came to mean suffer unto death. And if you read the writings of the old fathers, they talk about his suffering, and you wonder what they mean. They mean suffering unto death. And it says, ought not Christ to have suffered these things, that is, ought not Christ to have died. And he was crucified for us also, and he suffered and was buried, the old priests say. They mean by that that he died and was buried. And we sing, O sacred head, now wounded by grief and pain, bowed down so softly, surrounded with thorns, thine only crown. O sacred head, what joy, what bliss till now was thine. No despised and gory I joy to call thee mine. He suffered, this man suffered, this Christ who was approved of God. We should always remember that we are the fruits of his suffering. Always remember that. You are more valuable to God than you know. Sometime at the Avenue Road, I'm going to preach a sermon, God willing, on the contradictions of the cross. And one idea that I want to advance there is that you and I live in a world of paradoxes, and there's constantly a pair of paradoxes. We live in them. That is, contradictions. One of the worst things you can do is try to be consistent. Don't try to be consistent, brother. Try to be true. Just be true, and let God take care of the inconsistency. John Emerson said consistency was a hobgoblin that was precious to philosophers and divines and politicians. Well, don't try to be consistent. Try to be honest and true, and the Lord will take care of anything that seems contradictory. For instance, take such a thing as this. You know that in yourself you don't amount to anything. If you think you do, you don't. And if you think you do, you amount to less even than you think you do. So that's one thing about us, that we don't amount to anything. We haven't anything. We're hopeless and worthless, and we're altogether filthy rags. Now, that's one truth. Set over against that is this truth, that we're more valuable to God than all the angels in heaven, and all the seraphim before the throne, and all the stars that shine, and all the universe put together. We're the apple of God's eye, the pupil of his eye. Just as if I were to walk up to you and stick my finger toward your eye, you'd duck your head and throw up your hand because the pupil of your eye is most precious to you. So nobody can get to one of God's children without getting past God. And God throws up his hand to protect his child always. Now, how are you going to make those two things? How are they going to be consistent? That I'm worthless and no good, and in me dwells no good thing, and yet I'm as dear to God as the pupil of his eye. That's true here. You must remember that you are dear to God because you're the fruit of the passion of his Son. You're the fruit of his dying, and his groaning, and his bleeding, and his weeping. So you're very dear to God. That's the passion. Then comes the resurrection. After his passion, he was seen of them. Now, you don't see people running around here after they're dead. You don't see them. They're not here. When you bury a man, you say goodbye to the brother till the resurrection. But Jesus Christ was seen after his resurrection, it tells us here. After his passion, he appeared unto his disciples. What can that mean? It can only mean this, that he rose from the dead, and this knowledge rose over their lives like a sun. This man isn't dead anymore, and it filled all their world. It sort of amuses me that it wasn't so destructive to the Church of Christ that the songs of the resurrection are only sung at Easter time. The Church needs a reformation, ladies and gentlemen. We need somebody to rise to shake us all good and get us back to the scriptures again. We only sing about the Lord's birth at Christmas time, and then we sing ourselves to death. And I think that Christmas carols are the most beautiful and the most offensive of all the songs I know. They're the most beautiful, but at the same time, you sing so much that they glut your ear, and you're glad Christmas is over with, and you can get away from the singing when angels kept their, and shepherds kept their flocks by night. Then when it comes to Easter and the resurrection, we sing about Easter and the resurrection, and the seven last words, and a few other things. Then we don't talk about the resurrection of the Lord until next Easter. That's why I have a tough time ever preaching seasonal sermons. Comes the Thanksgiving, how can I preach a sermon on Thanksgiving when I'm preaching on Thanksgiving all year round? And when it comes to Christmas, how can I preach about the Incarnation when the Incarnation is as much a part of my preaching as my feet and legs are a part of me? I stand on that, I believe in that, and I preach about it all the time, and I hope there'll never be a sermon that it doesn't get into. And then when it comes to Easter, I'm supposed to look very pious and preach about our beloved Lord's resurrection from the dead. I can't do it, because I preach about the resurrection from the dead all the year round, every Sunday in Indycoon, and everywhere I go. We ought to make the resurrection from the dead as much a part of our preaching as any other truth, more than many truths. And if we did it, our perspective would be better. They knew that Jesus had come back from the dead, and had come back alive, the same Jesus, and the very Jesus, and the whole Jesus. Not part of him, but the whole Jesus, the same Jesus, the very same Jesus. Why, when Mary, who had been around him so much during his lifetime, when she saw him, she didn't know who he was. But when he said, Mary, she turned back a flash and said, she knew that voice. He hadn't changed any. He had died and been raised from the dead, but there's still something in his voice. When I heard Frank Boggs this morning, I'd have known that voice anywhere. He's one of the few basses that don't sound like the Beverly Shea. He sounds like himself, and to my mind, about the tops on the continent, as a singer. But you see, you know a man by the sound of his voice. You know him easily by the sound of his voice. And they knew Jesus, he knew Jesus. His resurrection, then his ascension. Where did he go before his ascension? It tells us here in verse 9 that he ascended, and the clouds received him out of their sight. And that ascension gave him what we call plenary authority. That is full authority, all the authority there is. And this gave blazing courage to those disciples. They could appeal to the top always, you know, because God had raised his son and given him all the authority there was. In this country, I'm a schizophrenia now for a little while, because I'm living in Canada. And I'm American, and so I say this country, forget where I am. But in this United States, this country, we, you know, there's authority of all sorts. Everything from the Irish top on the corner up to the president of the United States. But the one lovely thing about a Christian is there's only one authority. And his name is Jesus the Lord, and God has made him head over all things to the church. And that's why I like to be a Protestant. Now, I haven't anything unkind to say about our Catholic friends. God knows I don't. They do the best they can, and when it comes to seriousness, sometimes they beat the Protestants. But it's too bad they don't know that you don't have to go through a half a dozen office boys to get to the boss. It's too bad, it's too bad they don't know that you don't have to ask a secretary or two, a virgin or two, you know, and a saint and an angel. You don't have to go and say, Gabriel, could I have an appointment with Jesus Christ? Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. He doesn't say, come unto Gabriel, but come unto me. And he says, Christ, King of the hope of glory. He doesn't say, Mary, you know our dear friends, and God bless them all, and I love them, and they're not of all the unkind, but they've got a little theory there that somebody ought to blow that up. They ought to put a dynamite stick under that and set a long fuse alarm. Here's what they say. They say, well, you know, that if you want to get to a man, go to his mother. They said, if there's a president and his mother's alive, if you can't get to see the president, if you see the president's mother, then the president will call Ike up. Of course, she's gone, but she'd say, Ike, Mrs. Jones wants to see you. Oh, he'd say, Mama, send her in. And they'd say, well, now that's the way it is. If you can't get to Jesus, you can always get to Mary, and she'll go to Jesus for you and fix it up. What kind of nonsense is that, anyhow, my friends? Jesus Christ has all the authority in heaven and earth, and everything's under his feet, and when he wants it to be. Satan and sin and death and life and chance and accidents and principalities and powers and angels and heights and depths and every other creature. Jesus Christ is Lord over it all, and therefore I don't have to go through an intermediary. He is the intermediary between me and God. Now, that's thought here, too. Then comes the adoption of the Holy Spirit, but we'll skip it for a moment. Notice that he says here that he said, Sit thou on my right hand while I make thy foes thy footstool. Now, his foes, for a little while, got their hands on him, and this was not through any failure on his part. This was done through determinant counsel and foreknowledge of God. Always remember that the death of Jesus wasn't that they caught up with him. He managed to escape them, but they finally caught up with him. Never, never think of it like that. Nobody could have laid a hand on him until God said, Now's your time. He said, Nobody can touch me, my time has not yet come. And he was perfectly safe and surrounded by ten thousand legions of devils. He was perfectly safe until the time came when the Father said, The morning of the sacrifice has come. And he lifted his protection and let them take him. His foes got hold of him, and by wicked hands they crucified him and slew him. But little God said, Sit thou on my right hand. Now, there we hear the sovereign voice. I don't know, I guess you people in Pittsburgh don't believe in the sovereignty of God, but you need to get educated in theology. I believe in the sovereignty of God, brethren. I believe there sits on a throne, I'll lie in bed at night and quote over to myself. And after these things, I heard a voice like that other voice that I've heard, saying, Come up hither, and I'll show thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit, and behold, a door was opened in heaven, and I saw a throne, and one sat on the throne. A throne was set, and one sat on the throne. I believe in that God who sits on a throne. I thought I was being pushed around by accident. I'd be a very miserable fellow when my good and loved friend, Brother Cecil Thomas, was suddenly killed along with his wife. It hit me the hardest of anybody's death ever in my life, more so than my mother, more so than my father. We'd been 16 years like this, he and I, and were friends to the point where we didn't stand on ceremony. When he called me, he never even told me who he was. He just began to talk, because I knew that voice too well, and he knew mine. And then to hear that that great, strong fellow on his way to the Philippine Islands should suddenly die in that accident by a stupid drunk driver who was playing hide-and-seek with a bus, and ran across and killed him. Well, I wrote about that in a magazine, and I said, Nothing evil can happen to a child of God. Nothing tragic can finally happen to a child of God. And some preacher from some denomination out in the West wrote me in a bitter letter and said, What's the big idea that no tragic accident can happen to a child of God? You think God, Cecil Thomas? He said, I know him too. He said, You think that drunk driver was a part of the plan of God? Brother, I'd hate to think that I served a God who would be nodding and dozing, and would let anything get by that he hadn't planned, wouldn't you? I'd hate to think that he, the Keeper of Israel, should go into a deep sleep and start to snore, and while he was busy, the devil would play around with the Saints. I don't believe it for a second. Everything is in the mighty, sovereign will of God, and they're better off where they are than they would have been in the Philippines. And it's my quiet and happy belief that God will raise up five others to take their places, because they went to be with the Lord there on the Indiana Highway, didn't they? My brethren, let's remember that the sovereign God is in control of the world. That old bald-headed fellow, Khrushchev, when you see his picture, you wonder why they didn't put an apple in his mouth and be done with it, you know. You look at the fellow, and he goes around, We'll bury you. We'll do things. Oh, go on, Mr. K. Go on, climb a stick. God Almighty's on the throne, and we know who's running the world, and we're not worried in the slightest bit. I listen to all the radio announcers, and read all Time magazine, and the Daily Bugle. I had to worry myself to sleep at night, but I'm not the slightest bit worried, because God's prophecy tells us where we're going and about when we're going to arrive. Why should I worry a little dog yapping while the plane flies overhead? That's all Khrushchev is. He's a little bald-headed dog yapping. That's the plan of God. Let him yap, brother. One of these days they'll bury him. When I heard he was sick, I thought about that headline in the tabloid Chicago newspaper, when Hitler got sick. The headline said, Hitler ill, let's hope it's nothing trivial, and I felt that, oh, I want him to get well, you know. I'd like him to get well long enough, live long enough to see God Almighty shake the world, and prove that he was still sovereign. There's a divine decree, sit thou on my right hand, and heaven heard it, and hell heard it, and the earth heard it, and all these places. So he went to be with God at the right hand of God, and thrones and dominions and principalities heard it. And there he sits, our brother, our Lord, our bridegroom, sitting at the right hand of God. It says, until. Now, until is a time word with a termination. You say until, and you mean that there's going to be a period here, but the fact that you put the words until, that the two thoughts together, means that it'll terminate one of these times. So there's going to be a termination, so he's sitting at the right hand of God. He's going to get up from the throne, and when he rises from the throne, the universal tremble will be like an earthquake, as far out as the Sputniks go, and vastly beyond anywhere they dream of going. The whole world will tremble, for God says he's going to get once more with life, shake not only earth, but heaven and earth. I'll shake it, and you'll shake it one of these days, until then enemies be made thy footstool. Now, everything that is in opposition to Christ, all philosophies, all creeds, and all systems are going to be shaken down, and our Lord Jesus Christ is going to be on the throne. I don't think we can overdo this, I think. I don't think we can ever overstate it. I believe we Christians ought to stop trying to make Christianity fit into the schemes of men, and we ought to stand and bow the end, and with gentle dogmatism declare Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, and he's on the right hand of God until, and when the until ends he'll be back, and he'll rule the universe from the river to the ends of the earth. Why, we ought to continue to do it, but we're so afraid we'll be called fanatical. We'll be so afraid we don't fit into the latest space age or something else. Well, I care about the space age. God Almighty has in his heart all the space there is. Why should I worry about space age? I used to throw apples when I was a kid, and he'd put them on the end of a stick and fling them. I thought that was the sputnik. They've beat that a little bit now, but not too much after all. That's all they've done is just push it a little harder. I'm not worried about all that at all. Sit on my right hand until my toes are made that foot stool. That's why you don't have to go out and start beating the Lord's foes over the head with a club, not even a theological club, not even a polemical club. You don't have it to do, because the Lord will handle that. Why should he want you to go out there and start beating people over the head? That's why I don't get up and sail out and ask you things about livers, especially the dead lion. If you want to shoot something, shoot something alive. Shoot at the Alliance, say, or Moody Church or something. But if you want to play with the liberals and fool with the liberals and get a reputation of being a liberal killer, okay, but I never felt called to that, because I'm just following along, you know, watching the Lord do his work. Like the son of the Methodist preacher when the parsonage burned down. The father came back and found the parsonage burned down, and he asked his little five-year-old boy, he said, what did you do? He said, I couldn't do much. But he said, well, they were fighting, and I was standing around saying, Amen. And that's about enough for a boy of five. Keep out a couple, say, Amen. And the Lord will handle all this. Ben-Gurion and the Arabs, and they're having their troubles over there. But, oh, friend, I remember God said to a man long before they had the word Arab coined, and long before Ben-Gurion ever was heard of, I heard God say to a man, stand up on that high peak there and look all around. Look all around. Abraham stood, and he looked north and said, now, look as far as you can look. It's all yours. And you'll see death. He said, now turn around and look south. And he looked south. Said, that's all yours. And I said, look east. And he looked east. Said, now turn and look west. Abraham turned all the way around to the four corners of the world, and God said to Abraham, now this is all yours, and to your seed after you. And he renewed that to Isaac and to Jacob. Told David and Isaiah the same. I said, I worry about Ben-Gurion and the Arabs. They'll work it out somehow or other. In the meantime, I'll read my Bible, thank God, sing hymns, and wait for the time when the until is ready, you know, the until. When he's ready, he'll come and he'll untangle it all. Wouldn't you hate to have the job of untangling? Do you ever stop to think? Nobody owns anything, really. Nobody can prove that anything belongs to him. You say, I own my house in the Keys Rocks. Now, wait a minute, brother. Who had that first? Didn't the American Indians have that before you got it? Yeah, but I bought it from the Jones estate. Well, but who had it before the Jones estate? Well, I traced it on back, and here comes the American Indians. Well, who did the American Indians get it from? They got it from the mound builders that they exterminated and took over. So, who owns anything? Nobody. If you go back far enough, you'll find that you're on somebody else's property. And wouldn't you hate to have to untangle that old business when the showdown comes? I'd hate to. It's going to take more wisdom than Eisenhower has, or Chief Justice Warren. It's going to take the wisdom of the one in whom all wisdom and knowledge is hidden away and summed up. Jesus Christ our Lord. So, I'm going to leave it with him, and I'm going to stand around and watch him work and say amen. Now, everybody and everything that's opposed to Christ, in belief or in life or in conduct or in influence, whatever it is, is going to have to come under. Jesus is victor. In the early days, they lined for you to sing, Jesus is victor, his work is complete, crushing all enemies under his feet. Jesus is victor, the foe from the dust never shall rise again if we but trust. So, we stop singing that now and start to sing, I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses. And the result is, we have roses and gardens and dew and honeysuckles, but we don't have power. We used to sing, Jesus is victor, and we went out believing that Jesus was victor. And if you met somebody who didn't believe it, you glinted at him and said, Jesus is victor. And he said, what a fanatic. And he went away and said, that fellow's lost his mind. Then you had lost your carnal mind, but you had gotten something wonderful from God in return. God has conquered all Galileans. Well, we acknowledge the conqueror. I don't want anything myself. I don't want anything. I used to want to be a preacher and get a reputation as a preacher, but that's dead long, long ago. I found out years back, I'd never equaled Spurgeon. I found that out. I don't know, brother. A young preacher, when he discovers that he's not going to be a second A.B. Simpson, he's a hurdle over one tremendous obstacle. Every young little boy you know that isn't dry yet behind the ears and shaves with a wet towel, when he gets called to the ministry, he wants to be like A.B. Simpson. Well, junior, if you're still thinking that the Lord's called you to be another A.B. Simpson, you've got a lot of dying to do, a lot of dying to do. I hope you'll die soon, because the sooner you die, the better off you'll be. If you won't die, you're already dead. So you get over that. And I got over it long ago. I'm not going to be another Simpson or another Spurgeon, but I'm not a very big dog, but I'm going to be awfully alive while I'm around, you know, awfully alive. I'd rather be a living dog than a dead lion anyhow. And God has taken all his great saints to heaven and just left fellows like us here, you know, you and me. So we can't be big, we're going to have to be awful tough and energetic to make up for it. Jesus is a victor, and we follow a conqueror. Thou hast conquered all Galileans. And he demands, of course, that we own him before men, and don't apologize for it. I have no respect for the apologizer. Well, it goes without apologizing. I'm a Christian, but just wait a while and I'll die and clear off and you'll have the place. Well, why take an attitude like that? You belong to the one to whom the world belongs to. This is all your property anyhow. It's rather meek, for they shall inherit the earth, and it's all yours. Go out there when you go back to the hotel, or talk down on the earth, and stamp your rubber heels down and say, it's mine. This belongs to the Lord, and I belong to the Lord, and the Lord belongs to me, and this is mine. It doesn't belong to the city of Pittsburgh, it belongs to me. My father, this is my father's world, says the hymn. So, we're conquerors, and we've got a right to be a little fanatical. I don't believe anybody ever amounts to anything for God, unless he is a little bit fanatical. When he's afraid of being thought queer, he's queer already. So, let's not worry if they think you're queer, you're a little bit off-base. Of course, you're off-base, but you're on the right base. And when you're on your side back, you're not playing baseball. And they say, he missed the boat. And I tell them, I never was trying to catch that boat. There you go. I never missed a boat. I made the old ship, Zion. That's all, that's enough. Well, I don't like the fearful Christians, Christians that are afraid all the time. The great thing when the Lord delivered me from fear, I, as a boy, as a kid on the farm back here in the state of Pennsylvania, I was afraid of everything. I was afraid of dogs, and I was afraid of cattle, and I was afraid of the wind, I was afraid of thunder. I was just afraid of everything. I was afraid of people, you know, companies come out right behind the wood box. But the Lord delivered me from that. I'm not afraid now, because I'm a part and parcel of the conqueror, the victorious one, the Lord who rose from the dead and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. Why be afraid of anybody? They can't more than kill you, and the Lord knows where every precious dust is, every precious bit of dust. The Lord knows where it is, and he'll raise it when he comes. Well, that word, until, is finished. I'm a little bit impatient with that word, until. Until, and then there may be made that footstool. I don't know when it'll be. Don't ask me to set a date. But whenever it is, then all the sacred dust will rise again, and the saints will be changed. I still believe in the second coming. I don't know whether you do or not. You know, a lot of these all-millennialists and neo-millennials, they've sort of made us ashamed to be a pre-millenarian. I'm a pre-millenarian from my flat feet right up to the top of my bald head. I still believe that Jesus Christ is coming, and he's going to reign and establish his throne, and the nations are going to come before him for judgment. Now, I don't know, but I could subscribe to all the tiny footnotes to the Schofield Bible, but I can say I still believe in the coming of Christ. I believe he's coming back to the world again, and we're going to reign with him a thousand years. Well, amen. Now, I'll close by saying that the Christian isn't a gambler. We don't gamble. A man gambles when he isn't sure which way it's going. But Christians don't gamble, because we know which way it's going. When you gamble, you say, I'm going to take a chance on this. But Christians aren't taking chances. Somebody who thought he wrote a book one time didn't. He called it Adventurous Christianity, how to adventure. You don't adventure in the kingdom of God. When an adventurer goes out, he goes out not knowing whether he's coming back or not. And if you find something, you won't know what it is, and when he comes back, you won't know where he's been. That's an adventurer. He's not sure of himself, but a Christian's sure of himself. And you know, it's just a little bit nasty sometimes. The world says, ah, he's a bigot. Just smile and say, sure, I'm a little bigoted. I'm bigoted because I happen to know in whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded that he will keep that which I have committed on the end against that day. And I happen to be the follower of the victor, the one who goes forth to war. And so, you call me names that won't hurt me, but I'm still a follower of Jesus. I'm deliberately saying these things to you because I'm afraid of this soft, pussy, smooth, velvet Christianity we have nowadays. Everybody's a knight. They're just so nice. We can get along with anybody. We've read How to Win Friends and Improve People, and we know how to find what they call a common ground of interest, and establish what they call a meeting of minds. But then there are some people whose minds you never could meet unless you went into the gutter. Don't try to meet them. Don't try to meet them. Stand up and say, he is risen from the dead, and he's not there. He's risen. Keep saying it long enough, and they'll hear you. But if you keep apologizing for it, nobody will listen to you. Son of God goes forth to war, kingly crowned again, his blood-red banished from the fire who follows in his train. He's looking for followers who believe this first chapter of Acts, and all that it tells us. That he, Christ, his passion, his resurrection, his ascension, the coming of the Holy Ghost, the missionary outgo, and finally the coming back of Jesus again to the earth. And I believe it all, and I believe in it all, and I want to have a part in it all. Shall we have a moment of prayer? Now, Lord God, all these things are so wonderful, it's hard to keep calm while we talk about them. They're so brilliant, so vivid, so beautiful, so true, that we incline to get like a child at Christmas morning, dancing about with delight, because it's all so, so glorious. Lord God, help us, we pray, that we may live in these things, and dwell in them, and abide in them, that they may become part and parcel of our soul, of our minds. Let them get into our nerve ends, into our body tissue, into our brain stuff, that we be so Christian, so completely Christian, that the world will either love us or hate us. They'll either want to kill us, or they'll fall down and say, what must I do to be saved? Save us from the lukewarmness, save us, we beseech thee, from the parkway in, from the twilight zone. Help us, we pray, that we may move out into the blazing light, and testify, and witness this same Jesus whom you crucified. God has made Lord and Christ. Bless us as we have lunch, best for the afternoon meetings, and tonight, and all through the week, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. When I introduced Dr. A. W. Posner, I almost had to think twice in two connections. One, he is the editor of our official periodical, The Alliance With Us, and it is so much easier, even yet to say, The Alliance Weekly. And then, having been pastor of the Southside Church in Chicago for nearly 30 years, excuse me, for more than a generation, it is easier for me to think of him and speak of him as coming from Chicago than it is from Toronto. Dr. Posner is an author, an editor, a preacher, a Bible teacher, a warm personal friend, but especially I like to think of him as a man of God. Dr. A. W. Posner of Toronto will speak. I suppose I ought to say something about being late yesterday and not getting here for my appointment, but I assure you that it wasn't any fault of mine. They told us in Cleveland that our plane was canceled. There's a lot to be said yet for the horse and buggy. I used to drive a horse and buggy, and nobody ever came to me and said, your horse is in camp. A horse always made it somehow. But I'm glad to speak twice today. I knew I'd have to do it. This man here, he only lets you off. You can't put anything over on a traitor. Now, I think that for at least three of my messages, it will be on the Book of Acts. And I want to read 11 verses of Acts 1. It's a very, very familiar passage. Everybody knows it. Some of you can quote it. A former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up. After that, he, through the Holy Ghost, had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible truths, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, being assembled together with them, and commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father which saith he have heard his name. For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know,