In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the glorious opening and acceptance of God's gift of freedom and liberty in the believer's life. He encourages the audience to believe in God and be deliberate in their faith, comparing it to the level of determination they have when making worldly decisions. The preacher highlights that receiving God's gift requires humility and a willingness to let go of self-reliance. He concludes by urging the audience to stop trying and instead receive the gift of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

And I hope that you love the opening part of that hymn. You see, we usually start at verse seven, so you see there were six verses that Wesley wrote before. You suddenly burst out singing over for a thousand tongues to sing, and he gives his reasons. You see, that's the point. He gives his reasons why he did this. It's a glorious thing, isn't it? Glory to God, and praise and love be ever, ever given by saints below and saints above, the church in earth and heaven. On this glad day the glorious sun of righteousness arose. On my benighted soul he shone and filled it with repose. You see, this is the day when he felt strangely warm heart, strangely warmed within him. And he believed, even he believed, so he said in his great meeting, record of that meeting in August, he was in London, that Jesus Christ had died for me, personally, for me. This was his new birthday, written in honor of this glorious occasion. And a sudden expired the legal strife, which was then I ceased to grieve, my second real living life I then began. Before that you would have an existing life, a death. You see, that is so tremendous. Oh, glory be to God, with my heart I first believed, believed with faith divine, power with the Holy Ghost received to call the Savior mine. Have you received that power? Have you? You see, you receive it. It is something you've got to try and work up, try and attain to. He said, well I'll really try. The last thing you do is try. If you're trying, it's because you haven't really fundamentally believed yet, you haven't begun to believe. The last thing God wants you to do is anything. He wants you to stop and receive a gift. If you're not too proud, you can receive it. You see, it's always pride in the end. It's pride that makes you try, undiscovered pride. You haven't thought of it that way. You thought you were going to be really good and have a go, show you're a man at least, you see. But that's pride. Our whole life is pride, unrecognized, until the Holy Ghost shows what it is. Really reveals it to us. That you could have everything, where you're sitting now, you could have everything from God. Are you receiving breath now from God? Did you get up this morning and say, soon as you open your eyes, now I must struggle to breathe this morning. Did you? I'm really going to try to breathe all day today. Everybody would know you were ill, Fred. Everybody would know you were ill, mentally ill, physically ill too, if you did that. Really sick. And you'd kill yourself probably before the end of the day, unless you had some medical help. It's like this with God. He gives you everything when you're humble enough to receive it. Stop being pious, you're a sinner. Don't try to be pious. Stop trying to be religious, because you'll land in hell, if you do that. Stop trying to think you've made some progress. You've made no progress, you're dead. God's got to give you life. How can a dead person make progress? A dead person can only continue to corrupt and disintegrate. That's progress, it's in the reverse direction. God gives it to you. You can have it now, whoever you are. It's as free as that. That's the thing that took so long to dawn on John Wesley. He struggled, always legal strife, he talks about it. He'd gone on struggling according to the Christian laws that he'd assimilated in Cambridge University. Poor man. And, well, there was, of course, we've all learned our tricks from different universities, gutter universities, a lot of them. That's right, that's where mine was, in the gutters of Bethnal Green. That's where I learned them, in London. You see, here then is the whole truth. When you come to realize that it's a gift, it's all a gift, praise God. It's all so free, it's all so glorious that it defies speech to describe it. So God virtually says, oh, shut up and sit down and let me come and give it to people and see. And do you want it? Are you there? Really there? Say, Lord, thank you. You say, but this is unbelievable. Yes, precisely, that's why you're so old as you are and haven't got it yet. But only unbelievable on your part. God can give it to you. Now comes the test whether you really want it. Because, mind you, when you receive it, this will bring you to death, so that Christ can live in you. You see, that's very humiliating. But you're no good. You've got to be entwined by another. It takes a long time for a man or a woman to come to this place where they really believe it. They'd rather take pills, they'd rather go to doctors, they'd rather get lost in the world somewhere with the rest, everybody else, rather than come to the true manhood, the one and only manhood, and that's the manhood of God in Christ. So God has to bring us to the cross and nail us down there and say, well, now that's right. That's the end of you. And you come with relief to this position. Say, oh, thank God. That's the end of me. You see? And that's the beginning of God in me. Marvelous thing. Praise his wonderful name. It's a gift. Become conscious on this level. Believe God. Amen. He gives a new heart and a new life and a new spirit. He'll give you a new world to live in called the kingdom of God. Spiritually. One of the tremendous things is, he'll give you new gifts, some things you've never had before in your life, and nobody has ever had them until God specially gave them to him when they believed God. You see? This is what makes you a really new creature. Amen. It's written in your heart. Praise him. It's transforming, and the Lord wants to do it all for us all this morning. Isn't it a wonderful thing? And this is the phrase you often read in the Bible. You read this phrase, All in all. That's his heart. All in all. There aren't ever so many of us here this morning, but all of us, God wants to do it. Give it. Praise him. Just come off this sort of high mental power attitude. If your mind's going about 24 to the dozen, oh, you mustn't talk that way now, 20 to the 10. Stop it. Stop it all. Amen. Switch off. Just believe God. Praise him. Lord, I want it all. I receive. You go through. Go on. You don't really need special ministration when the Holy Ghost is hovering over you. When God is moving. Amen. If the devil can deceive you even to thinking you need special ministration from someone, he's got you on the wrong track. The special man in Jesus Christ is the special minister. And he is here in the Spirit to do it to you. Glory. Glory. What a precious thing it is. God, you dare believe. Go on. You dare believe. Come from that depth in you. Lord, I really believe you. And reach out and believe him. Go on. Move yourself. You've got to move from down there where you've been realist about sin in your past. You can be real. Hallelujah. Father, we rejoice in thee this morning. Glory. Bless you. Stop in your understanding. Don't let gifts bother you. Don't let emotion bother you either. Move in steadily. Right from the deeps of you. I'm instructing you in the ways of the Spirit of God to save you from much falseness. Now move in steadily the real you like you deliberately sinned in the past. Go on. You've got to be deliberate. Like when you deliberately threw everything else into the winds and went and sinned. Glory. Bless you. Go on. That's the real part of you, the real will of you, the stubbornness there. You argued against your wife, against your husband, against your father, your mother. You went and deliberately did it. That's right. Now you move in on that level. That's the level God wants. Jesus was deliberately born as a man. Jesus deliberately set his pace to go towards Jerusalem for the cross. He didn't do it on a tide of emotion. He didn't do it with a great fog and fuzz of spiritual gifts. They'd almost ceased by the time he went there in operation. He just went through. Glory to God. Deliberately. Amen. That's where salvation lies. That's where sanctification lies. That's where deliverance lies. It isn't in an emotional thrill. Praise God. Amen. I believe you, Lord. Praise God. Don't believe symptoms and don't believe indications and don't believe the devil and don't believe anything else but believe God. Praise God. Amen. Amen. I tell you, it's an eternally calculated thing. The calculation of God is this. That if one died for all, then all died. As in Adam all died, so in Christ all are made alive. Amen. That's God's calculation. It seems a very simple mathematical equation to me. It's the profoundest logic. But if your heart prefers sin and its own emotional upheavals and reaching out into things instead of coming down on the solid ground, the simple ground of God's love to you, then you're bound to run out into some wilderness somewhere. But if you will believe God, and here I do not only speak from Scripture but from my own experience, that if you will believe God, He will do everything that He has promised to do. Amen. It's as simple as that. Glory. Glory. Amen. You tell Him you believe Him or tell Him you don't. Jesus. Praise God. I believe God. How do you know you believe God? Are you sure you haven't believed a myth? Are you sure you haven't believed just your own emotions? Let me talk to you like an atheist. How do you know you believe God? Well, I'll ask you how do you know you believe anything? By the same simple process. You know that you know that you've believed. That's right. And God knows when you believe. That's right. And at the point of the meeting of your two knowledges, if I may put it, the meeting of knowledge, you know you've believed. He knows you've believed. You come into the experience. That's right. And not before. Amen. You believe as He believed. He believed without equivocation. He believed without hesitation. He believed that He could deal with you and with your sin entirely at the cross. That's why He did it. And until you believe that He has dealt with you and your sin entirely at the cross, you'll never enter into the knowledge or the experience of these things in your life. And when you believe that without any tongue in invisible cheek, when you believe it and it's a committal of your whole being to it, when you come off getting hot for sin and itching for self and self-satisfaction, and you come on to the power of the love of God in Christ and Calvary and trust Him utterly, loathing the self and loathing the sin and loathing the past and wanting to be what God wants you to be, until you come there, you won't learn about it. God wanted you tremendously. He wanted you to be what He wants you to be. That's what the cross means. That's love. That's God going to ultimate lengths. He wants you to be what you've been singing about this morning. That's what He wants you to be. I say, are you wanting to be that? Eh? Are you wanting to be that? I'm not asking you whether you want to be a star evangelist or a spectacular apostle or have the gift of prophecy or something like that. I tell you, never, never reach out for those things until the Spirit of God impresses, impresses your heart to it. It's the greatest responsibility in the world. Don't seek there. Seek the place where God took the full responsibility and only wanted you to believe. That's the cross. That's the point where He took all responsibility and undertakes to deliver you from all your sin. All of it. Therefore, you mustn't cling to one bit of it and say, oh, well, I love this. I want that. You can't bargain with God. The cross is not a place where God excuses sin or allows one person to keep one little bit of it. It's a place where He deals with it in toto. Completely. Completely. Glory to His name. That's why we're here this morning to rejoice in Him when we wake up. We've been pretty dead so far. When we're really moving, when the mind has grasped it, when the Spirit has received it and when the whole being is inflamed with it, that's right, there's a response at such levels that only God Himself can control it. Amen. Praise His marvelous name. That's right. Who taught a river to run? Who taught a fire to burn? Who taught the wind to blow? Did you? Only God. Praise Him. It's under His control. Oh, what a precious thing to be alive, as God wants us to be alive this morning, under Him. Your pure heart responds to Him. Hallelujah. Gratitude. Not coming, trying to argue the wrong way around and saying, well, if this is so, then that is ought to be, and that ought to be, and that ought to be, but responding down on the basic Word and Truth of God. Because in arguing that this ought to be, or that ought to be, and that ought to be, you're looking for the last thing that ought to be and arguing because that is, and you don't feel that one, then this one can't be right. Do you see? But the whole truth is that God has sent His Word to your heart. And you believe it and respond to that. Glory be to His name. Amen. Now let's have a time of love and worship, shall we? Amen. It is a glorious opening and an acceptance and a normalizing and leveling out in the life that God gives you of freedom and liberty, moving in the fullness of His glorious new creation. Amen. Go on now, let your hearts go. Believe God. Be deliberate about it. If some of you were as deliberate about this as you are about signing a cheque for about, I don't know, fifty pounds, as though the world's going to pass away if you sign it, you'd be somewhere. If some of you were as deliberate about it as when you were going to buy a new car, a lump of old tin, makes a noise and nearly chokes people with its fumes, you'd be somewhere. God. That's right. You think it out, see if it's not true. Why, you make a fuss, you go around all the showrooms, you buy all the catalogues, just about an old scrap of thing on wheels. It's going to finish up on the dump. Yeah, you do, and you don't have to make a song if it gets damaged. We're nearly a lot of humbugs. That is if it was compared with what we gave for our spiritual living. Amen. That's right, isn't it? Oh, think about it. Really think deeply. Amen. Now we'll come through together, on these great levels with God. Lord, I have faith in you. Amen. You can believe God and be free from your sins. You can believe God and be utterly free. You can believe God and be an entirely new man from now on, ever increasing. You can be a new man and be so filled with the Spirit, and so rejoicing in him, you can spread God's glory everywhere. Try it. Praise him. Praise him. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Glory to Jesus. Glory to Jesus. You know, I perhaps at some time during this week that we're together, I hope I may speak on the paper, because I find that this is a great and needy subject. I was up in Birmingham not so long ago, I was invited up there to address a meeting, and it was a meeting of the Guild of Health. I've never been at a Guild of Health meeting before, and I didn't quite know what it was all about, but I'm pretty well willing to go and talk anywhere if I'm invited. So I went on those conditions. We had rather a good time, but the surprising thing about it was this, that we were gathered in a room, and I suppose if you go to speak on the Guild of Health, I was asked to speak on healing in some sort of aspect, so I spoke on the Gospels, and the Gospel and healing. And I did, just a little, and I had an opening twenty minutes, and then spent the next hour or so, we were supposed to be out at nine, and I was still preaching about half past nine, and we went on, because there was a vicar in the meeting, and something was said, and I said, oh, you people who know me know how I would do this, I said, oh, I'd like to come and talk to you sometime about faith, because it was practically obvious that none of them really knew what faith really was, it's some sort of thing, you know, it's the same, is it to you, I wonder, and so I said, oh, I'd like to come and talk to you about faith sometime, and he shouted out, I don't suppose he ever does this in his own church, but he shouted out and put his hand, any time, any time, come to my church, come and preach to me, and us, Church of England, I don't expect to get invited to many of those places, but never mind, this dear man was real, was real, and herein is the big thing, and let's just say this, I want to say just this one thing to you at the moment about faith, I do it because our sister prayed as she prayed that we'd enter in by faith, and of course that's the only way you can enter in, and we need to be told it's that way, as opposed to feelings, or as opposed to education, or as opposed to money, or lack of it, as opposed to works, or lack of them, you see, we need to be told that it's by faith, as opposed to anything else in the whole of the spiritual realm, you can only get there by faith, but having said that, now what do you mean? You see, and in, when you enter into anything, for instance, I entered into this house this morning, I was embraced by a little girl at the door as though she was going to eat me up, very nice, and I came in and I put up with a lot of them, I like everybody to keep on hugging me, I think that's tremendous, and by the way, criticisms, brother, there are always enough hugs to compensate. Now you're really living when you're taking notice of those, you're just existing and enduring if you take notice of the others, serves you right if you do, I'm talking for myself. But the whole point about it is this, beloved, I entered in, and do you know how I entered in? By faith. So you didn't. Of course I did. So really, I thought it was something different from that, that's it, you see, that's the thing that's all got to be destroyed, that's religious ideal, all that business, I entered in by faith, I actually believed that I could walk up those steps and come in the door, and do you know it's so natural, I never even thought about it, but you used your legs, it was by power, it's because you're alive precisely, that's how I live, by faith. Understand? How do you think you live? This is where it's all gone wrong. Jesus Christ, in this book, is called the author and finisher of faith, it's all him, he's the beginning and the end of it, a man, living, walking, yeah. Don't you see? No, I didn't see that before, well, now see it now. That means to say you actually do it, if you say you're going by faith, if not, saying by faith is a lot of nonsense. I enter in, and I'm in. I didn't stand out there and say, I entered one show of the road by faith, but I'm not really in, I'm outside, you see, that's what most people mean. I stand outside for an hour, so I've entered it by faith, of course I'm here in the body, but in faith I'm in there, a lot of nonsense. Do you know what faith is? Do you know what my faith is? Me. I am what I am, by the grace of God, and faith makes hold of grace, and I am what I am. Is that right, brother? Yeah. That's theology for you, that's the truth. Amen. There you are, you're in or you're out. You're only told that it's by faith to let you see, except, the difference between the ideas of men, and the ideas of God. The ways of men, and the ways of God. I'm going to take this when I go and preach that vicar up there in his church, that is, if God allows me to, because this is the truth. You say, well, I did it by love. That means you did it by self. God is love, he did it by himself. When God redeemed you in his love, he did it by himself, utterly. Jesus Christ is love, he's all love. You see then, you are either love, and faith, and hope, and mercy, and grace, and all these, or else you're not, and that's the end of it. And the other is pious talk. Maybe very good talk, you might frame it into the actual words of the Bible, and call it a text. Utterly to be believed. But when you utterly believe the thing, you've utterly received it, and you become that. Make no mistake about it, what you see me to be, those of you who know me, I'll point onto myself, or him, seeing that he held himself up to be pilloried this morning. All right? Well, he invited, he said, if you say, good old Jimmy, he's dead and gone, well, you'll all rejoice at that. Right, he held himself up to be pilloried, amen. All right, here am I. Make no mistake about it, I am what you know me to be, and I've got no more faith than that. My ear's wide, I haven't got enough faith to turn it black. That's right. I haven't. You say, could you have, could you turn your hair black without dyeing it? Yeah, I suppose I could, really. All things are possible, but I just don't want it to go black, and I just, I'm quite all right, I'm happy about it. If it fell out, I wouldn't wear a wig. Bald heads, as well as grey heads, are still honourable, if they're found in a way of righteousness. Well, I'm not going to read in Ephesians now, that's the way God treated it. Let's read in Corinthians. In the second book, what time's lunch, brother? At least, I've just had a word with Em, and she said it won't be ready until quarter to. What, two? One. Well, that's the earliest it could be. Oh, good. Shall I make it as late as it can be? 2 Corinthians, chapter 12. It's not expedient for me, typhus, for glory. In other words, Paul is saying, now I don't need, I'm not forced to you, Corinthians, to glory. It's not expedient for me, but I'm going to do it. This is what he's saying. In some places, he may have to really glory in what God has done for him, you see. Let's take these leaders, they've got to be able to take it. He stood up this morning and he's glorying in what God's done with him, ten minutes ago. Testify unto it, you see. But to the Corinthians, Paul had no need to glory. He tells them the reason I'm not staying on that now, because I've already had this lunch, I'm afraid. He says, I'll come to visions and revelations of the Lord. That is a marvelous thing. A man who has visions and revelations, he's a tremendous chap. Oh, we'll get him to come and talk to our conference. He has visions and revelations, he's the man. All right? I knew a man in Christ, he said, about 14 years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell, God knows. Such a one, caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell, God knows, how that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such a one will I glory. Yet of myself I will not glory, but in my infirmities. I'm not going to glory of myself, I don't glory in what you see in myself now. I do glory in the fact, he's saying, this was really the power of his apostleship and ministry. I was caught up to heaven. He said, I don't even know whether I was in the body or whether I was out of it. And then he didn't know whether he'd been bodily caught up or whether his body was still on earth when it all happened. But he was caught up in the spirit of God and he had these revelations. He went up to the third heaven. He went up to paradise. That's better than sitting under some tree and saying you've obtained enlightenment in one life. Don't you go after Zen Buddhism, will you? Something like that. It's a lot of darkness. Here, I want to say this because we've got students among us, and this is very popular in student circles, at least in some student circles. It's an utter deception. Darkness of the devil. But this man was caught up. This man, Paul, who first, before he was caught up, was smitten down. He was saying last night, he was dust on the Damascus road and brought to death to Paul that he might live to Christ and then live to us. Amen. First, he was smitten down to show that what he thought was revelation and knowledge was nothing. And then he was caught up to show what real revelation and vision and true knowledge is. Up to paradise, up to the third heaven. And he says, but I'm not boasting in this, you see. But let's go on. Listen. Verse six. Though I would desire the glory, I shall not be a fool, for I will say the truth. But now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me. Hallelujah. There you are, brother. Are you prepared to come on that level? And are you? 14 odd years ago, he was caught up to have these marvellous measures. No. Don't you think I'm wonderful because of that? It's what you see and hear me to be now. That's right. That's important. I knew a man in Christ. Amen. Before you can know this, you've got to know yourself in Christ. First, are you in Christ? Do you know yourself in Christ? Can you recognise yourself in Christ? Can you? You've got to know yourself in Christ. Amen. I saw that Christ was really the one that God intended to be myself, and I myself was the one that the devil intended me to be. Amen. And I saw and I see, I don't know whether you've seen this, have you seen, beloved, this great love of God that he sent into this world now, near two thousand years ago, a man? We've never stopped talking about him ever since. Alas, alas, it's an oath and accompanies a blasphemy on many people's lips. But nevertheless, whether in cursing or swearing or whether in honour or whether in truth or whether in mere religion, whether in hymnology, whether in the Bible, whether on the lips of haters and atheists or whether it be in the lips of the true saints, we've never stopped talking about this glorious one. Amen. And God sent him into the world to be a man without sin, without hallucinations, without deceptions, without psychological troubles. Amen. Without curses, without those things, a man, glory be to God, sent him into the world, him for you, and in the exit from the world, he took you on and slew you. And he showed you what your father, the devil, was like, because when he would insist in becoming you, a torn, mutilated, bleeding, horrible, hateful lump of humanity, the devil turned on him and hated him and attacked him and did everything. You read your Bible just to show you your treacherous father, the devil, outside of Jesus Christ. And he dealt with everything there at that cross, that I may no longer live as my old, horrible self, but I may live as Christ, that I see myself in Christ, I see myself as clear as I know myself in Christ. Do you? Old Paul said, I knew him. I knew a man in Christ. I tell you, whether or not you'll ever be caught up to the third heaven or not may depend on whether God's got a special apostolic ministry for you to perform. But I'll tell you this, you've been caught up in Christ out of the horrible pit. Whether you've been caught up to the third heaven yet in paradise is quite another thing. But you've certainly been caught up out of the horrible pit. He went right down there. You see, this is the thing for you to understand. Now we'll go to the Ephesian letter, and in the Ephesian letter in the fourth chapter, I'm sure we won't be through for lunch, of course, it's a right. In this Ephesian letter in the fourth chapter, we read this, verse eight, when he, that is Jesus, ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. Now, that he ascended, what is it? But that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth. What is it? What would it have been if Jesus had walked about on this earth and then one day he'd have been whisked up to heaven? There'd be nothing in that. It would have been a temporary visitation. He'd have been on this earth. It's starting to shout about tremendously. That wasn't Elijah taken up to heaven. Wouldn't have been the first man being caught up to heaven. Nothing tremendous about that. If Jesus had been visited, walked on the earth for 33 years, and then there was a record that the chariot of Israel came with the flames of fire and he was caught up. And that was that. You say, well now, wasn't that marvelous? That's the second glorious figure that's been on this earth. Elijah and then Jesus Christ. What is it? Except that first, my friend, he descended. Amen. He descended down in the lower parts of the earth. Hallelujah. And there, somewhere back down in our terrible heredity, the things we know little about. Read Psalm 139. I can't stop on it now. Down there in the depth where you inherited your wolfish, devilish, serpent-like, lion-like, terrible rottenness back in your earthy human heredity from the first man who was of the earth earthy, the first Adam. From there, having gone down there and dealt with that where all the psychiatrists tell you your troubles come from to relieve you of all responsibility. There, he dealt with that. He rose from there. Glory. Hallelujah. What is it? God had called Elijah up. He had to go to the cross where Elijah couldn't go. That's why God took him out of the way, I reckon. You'll always find that whatever's wonderful in scripture, if you trace it back, Jesus Christ is better. That's right. That's how you should read your New Testament. So you stop talking about those things anymore. You keep talking about Jesus Christ. Amen. We're in the new covenant. We're in the great new truth. And there, beloved, is the wonder of it all. And he's caught you up out of the horrible pit, out of the miry clay. God grant that some of you here this morning may know what it is to have these things that God has prepared for them that love him. There's no reason why you, my friend, whoever you are, or whatever your difficulties are, if you believe Jesus Christ, stop hopping about like a hopping flea or fluttering about like a pretty butterfly and come right deep down here on your honest solid truth. It's Jesus Christ's truth and his own and discount your feelings and natures and everything. And come down onto the nature that God has revealed from heaven. Come off your own self and what you've inherited and come on to Jesus Christ and believe there and shout for glory there and stay there and get into Jesus Christ. You'll get out of everything else. I know, because I have. I can only recommend to you what I know to be true and what this Bible says. Hallelujah. Amen. And only a man that knows the truth of it can interpret it to you. That's all. You can't learn to preach in a college. Well, you can. It's called preaching. The whole thing about it, beloved, is that a man has got to see himself in Christ. Can you see yourself in Christ? Then he says, now look at me. I'm on the earth. Here's this apostle Paul. He says, now don't you think anything more of me than what you seem to be or what you hear of me. That's right. That's what I am. I'm nothing more than that. You should hear revelations that come from this marvelous doing of preaching. Make a scrappy difference. What am I now? I must be now what I see myself to be in Christ. There's a correlation. Amen. It isn't a nice little gospel put out in the Bible that's better than any other religion can produce for you to believe in it. It's an experience for you to enter into and live it. Amen. This then is the great glorious truth of it. And beloved, if you go back to the Corinthian letter, where we were, and just go into the preceding chapter, some of us love this, I love it so much, I think probably I refer to it every time I come here. I don't know. It's in the eleventh chapter, just the chapter preceding, because nobody gets to the experience of the twelfth chapter until they've come to the experience of the eleventh. And the experience of the eleventh is this, that here's the gospel in verse four, the eleventh chapter and the fourth verse. If he that cometh, Paul is speaking about another preacher, preacheth another Jesus whom you've not preached, we've not preached. Or if he receive another spirit that ye have not received, or another gospel which ye have not accepted, you might well bear with him, says Paul. Because when he came round to these people, he preached Jesus. You see? Jesus. Only Jesus. The one and the same Jesus. And then he said, because I preached Jesus to you, now you must receive a spirit. You know you've got to receive a spirit. You see? And the spirit, I've got to receive a spirit. What spirit have I got to receive? It's all right. He's the Holy Spirit. It's all right. He's the Holy Spirit. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Preach Jesus, receive the Holy Spirit. It's simple, this apostolic gospel. You see? And when you receive the Holy Spirit, I tell you what happens to you. You become, in verse 2, espoused to one husband. Espoused to Jesus. This is as simple as that. It's a real love affair, this. Present Jesus to you, receive the Holy Spirit, now will you be espoused to Jesus. Let us break your engagement with everything else. So what do you mean engagement? I haven't got rings on the fingers. What are the things you've engaged your spirit with, your soul with? What have you engaged your soul and spirit with? Making a success, getting a good business. What do you engage your soul with? The pop group, the Beatles, in preference to Jesus. And what have you engaged your soul with? Drink, tobacco. What have you engaged yourself with? What do you spend your money on? Where do you go? Engaged, espoused to Jesus. Hallelujah. Do you? Now this is the simplicity. Listen, unless you're there, there is, unless Jesus has engaged your whole being, you see, unless you are his, you'll never get into a hidden life, the 12th chapter speaks of that. Amen. Caught up. Caught up. Blessed be the name of Lord Jesus. Isn't this a glorious thing? And of course you'll never get to the 11th chapter if you don't count to the fifth. This is the way you're supposed to read the Bible, from the beginning to the end. You're not, because I'm taking you from the end to the beginning. I do this quite often, as you know. Praise God. It's like me giving you a bunch of grapes, you see, you enjoy it, then I take you to the vine from which they were produced, and then I take you back to the root that was planted in the ground. I don't starve for roots. I want to engage you with the luscious grapes. Sure, that's right, isn't it? Make your mouth start to water, then you're interested in roots. Now then, we go back and in the fifth chapter we read, all right? Verse 20. We are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you Christ still be reconciled to God. Fifth. For God hath made Jesus Christ to be sin for you. Terrible thing God had to do, wasn't it? Listen, if somebody had to be made sin for you, what would he have to be made? Go on, face yourself. A liar, a cheat, a filthy sexual pervert. What would he have to be made for you? A drunkard? Think of it. Eh? Think of it. What would he have to be made for you? Unfaithful, treacherous, loose, weak, immoral. What would he have to be made for you? Proud, jealous, envious, hard, spiteful, injurious. What would he have to be made for you? Blasphemous. What would he have to be made? Made sin for you. To see you as you really are. It isn't often a man faces himself like this, but you've got to see yourself in yourself first before you can see yourself in Christ. So Paul comes, he says, we pray you be reconciled to God. He made him to be sin for you. Now if he's going to be made sin for me, he's got to be made my personal sin. I can't get forgiven on your sin. I've got to get forgiven for mine. Hallelujah. And he does it. Glory be to God. You know, he's forgiven me. Hmm. That's why he says higher up in that same chapter, look at it. Verse 17. If any man be in Christ, no matter who it is, he's a new creature. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. An absolutely new creation. See, not cutting up at the old. God blots the old out. When you read in your Bible that God's going to make a new creation, you'll read too that he's going to take, wipe the sun out of the heaven. The earth is going to be burned up. The heaven's going to be rolled up like a scroll. It's going to disappear utterly. To make a new creation, a new heaven, a new earth. Wherein dwells righteousness. Now righteousness will dwell in you when you're a new creation. Amen. Hmm. Hallelujah. You'll be a new creature. A new creature. Stick with it. Hallelujah. Ah, you've seen yourself in Christ. Who's the new creature that's fit to walk in this creation? Isn't it he? Isn't it him? Isn't it that life? Isn't it that self? Isn't it? That's right. I see myself in him. I see myself. You say it's a fantasy. You're trying to imagine that you're like him, that you're him. It's a sort of a pipe dream. Are you on hallucinatory drugs or something? Do you take trips? No. Here then, beloved, is the solid truth. And your heart won't believe it. Is that right? Well, then you can't have it. It's only for those that believe it. But I couldn't believe it. That? Why couldn't you believe it? What do you think this Bible's here for? You say really? Can I believe that of myself? Yes, you can believe it of yourself. Blessed be the name of the Lord. It's the revelation of the Lord God Almighty. And you can see yourself there. Then as you go on, beloved, to know that it's what you are and what people hear of you. We are supposed to hear one another. It's in the Bible. Praise God. What I hear you to be, you see. That's the great verse. Let's have a look at it, shall we? In 2 Corinthians 12. No man must think of me above what he sees me to be or what he hear of me. Now that's why this thing often that's called testimony has got to be played down. Because if you keep all on about it, you'll have somebody thinking about you more than they all. I'll do more than they all. That's what he said. That's why you only read this testimony once in the entire writings of Paul. He wasn't on about it all the time. He gave the testimony of how he was, you know, God smote him down off his ass or donkey or mule or what it was that we were talking about last night. Into the dust. He liked to tell people that. How God met him on the Damascus road. But when it came to visions and revelations and the exaltation in Christ. For in our risen exalted Lord, we too have been raised and exalted. Amen. There's a place there, beloved. But don't talk about these things too much. It gives you a warning. People will start to think of you above what they ought. And then you'll have a real trouble. I tell you, once people think you're a wonderful man and they see you once and you're down here, you'll be out of it. You'll be down. You'll be finished. Oh, well, of course, you know, all these idols have clay feet. Well, you shouldn't have an idol anyway. Amen. And what a truth it is, beloved, for us to recognize these wonderful things. But you're in Christ. Are you? I said stand up every one of you who knows yourself to be in Christ. Of yourself speaking, saying, I know a man in Christ. And it's me. You're either in or you're out. All God's grace to you is to bring you by stepping stones to the point where you enter in. But until you enter in, you're out. Amen. But God knows that he chooses in Christ, even before the foundation of the world. And if you're here, you're under his drawings. You've been drawn here. You've been drawn here to listen to the word of God this morning, because I can assure you, I never came to preach this to you this morning. But you may see this, my friend. Hallelujah. Once you've seen it, there's nothing in earth or heaven or hell that can take it away from you. Nothing. Amen. Yeah. All right. Now let's pray.