Jackie Pullinger emphasizes the importance of discerning and pursuing God's will through spiritual revelation and practical acts of kindness. She highlights that true vision comes from God, urging believers to seek His wisdom and understanding to see the world through His eyes. Pullinger shares personal stories illustrating how simple acts of love and compassion can reveal Jesus to others, stressing that our actions towards the least of these reflect our faith. She encourages the congregation to engage in ordinary acts of service, as these can lead to extraordinary revelations of God's love. Ultimately, she reminds us that our calling is to love and serve others, as this is how we fulfill God's will in our lives.

Welcome to this talk from Emmaus Road Church in Guildford, UK. Thank you for joining us on the journey, wherever you are in the world. You can find out more about who we are and what we're up to at EmmausRoad.com. As the Lord is clearly calling all of us, because there's no such thing as a calling just some, I want to share some scriptures and some stories, which hopefully will help us to get to where we're meant to be going. I believe it's all to do with seeing. This is what Ephesians says. We're going to put the scriptures up, but I would prefer, as thank God we're in the light, that you look at Bibles. I realize some of you only look at machines, but the book's even better. Ephesians, chapter 1. I nearly always pray this prayer before sharing anywhere. Verse 17. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. A spirit of wisdom and revelation. It talks about Jesus like this in Isaiah 11. The spirit of the Lord will rest upon him. Talking about the coming Jesus. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and of power, knowledge and fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears, but with righteousness he will give decisions for those on the earth. So the Lord sees in a different way to the way we see. And I believe that he wants to give us his eyes and his heart for the lost. And this spirit of revelation is the only way, whichever way it works, it's going to be the only way that people will be able to know the Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot preach people into believing, we cannot convince people into believing, and we cannot open anyone's eyes. So only when in the Lord's mercy, through his Holy Spirit, he sends revelation. And I want to think of revelation for a little bit. Because in Isaiah 6-9 it says, Those seeing they may not see, though hearing they may not understand. Jesus was asked in Matthew 13, Why do you speak to your disciples in parables? The whole of chapter 13 is about parables. And his answer was this, Those seeing they might not see, though hearing they may not hear. So he's actually saying, he's deliberately not telling people what the meaning is, in case they see, in case they hear. Because if they see before they believe, they'd be dead. They'd be blind. So he's saying this is deliberately hidden. But those who go to the Lord, he will reveal his secrets. The Lord is a revealer of secrets. The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you. So we can ask the Lord, for the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom. So there are many, many scriptures about seeing. In Daniel, it says he reveals deep and hidden things. There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. And I believe that it's important that we are seeing with the Lord's eyes. Not with the eyes of our imagination. Because we're living in a world, and a lot of the church today follows the world, in saying whatever you see, you can have. Whatever you want to be, you can do. Not true. But it's a popular philosophy these days. So even if you'll have a company having a vision statement. Now, vision comes from the Lord. A vision statement may be really wonderful, whichever company it is, or business, that has got a vision statement, but it's still coming from man. And I don't want to confuse man's vision with man's ambition. So you may have a church vision. Hopefully, what has come to your group has come from the Lord. Because if it's come from the ambition of men, they're going to try and make it happen. If you have a vision from the Lord, all you need to do is see it, and not make it happen. Because what comes from the Lord, he will bring about. Think of Daniel. Look at the visions he had. I mean, they gave him headaches, and sleepless nights, and tummy aches, you know, these dreams. And I don't think they've come true at all yet. Imagine having to have a vision for a world several thousand years. But we are living in a world today where people want to make things happen. So that wonderful man that wrote The Purpose Driven Whatnot, we're not supposed to be driven. And when we have an ambition, whether it's, you know, let's have a church of 50,000, or let's multiply our church 50 times, it really sounds good. But that may be an ambition. It may give you something to aim for, but if it's not what the Lord has told you to aim for, it won't happen. Imagine, we heard there was some kind of revival in Reading. Why? I don't know. I mean, maybe some old ladies have been praying for Reading for centuries. Who knows? Who knows? But it's not necessarily the people that end up with the most countable numbers, or the most apparent successes, that are necessarily doing God's will. All we need to do is something very, very simple. So I just want to share a Psalm 73, which is the one, I'm not suggesting anyone here does this, of course. This is Psalm 73, verse 9 and 10. And for those people that want to start a movement, be careful. What happened with Pete's movement is it was clearly God. He didn't try to collect a whole lot of people. It was just that in God's mercy, this movement of prayer and intercession was worked through him. That was the Lord's plan. It wasn't somebody saying, let's try and start a movement. Their mouths lay claim to heaven, verse 9 of Psalm 73. Their tongues take possession of the earth. So it isn't name it and claim it, or blab it and grab it. It isn't whatever you can think up in faith you claim and the Lord will give it to you. But it says it sounds good, verse 10, therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance. So it's quite important because this spirit of revelation also brings discernment. So wisdom and revelation. And discernment. Pete knows because last time I was here I was longing to share with you people. In fact, I'm not going to be able to. But what I really believe that most of the people of God these days need to be practicing because it comes with practice as well as revelation is discerning. And discerning is how much of this good idea or how much of what Jackie's saying or how much of what this person has written how much is the Lord, how much is the enemy and how much is a jolly good idea which is man. And most of us operate with a mixture. The enemy should be pretty obvious but good ideas sometimes aren't. And I want to pray for you that you're going to live not with explicit revelation all the time because nobody lives with minute by minute revelation. Has anybody read Packers Knowing God? Good book. He tells the story about the lady that always spent a long time getting up because she was praying whether to wear the red sock or the yellow one. You really do not need explicit guidance about everything. Deuteronomy 29.29 says the secret things belong to the Lord our God but the things revealed belong to us and our children forever that we may follow all the words of this law. So secret things belong to the Lord our God and he reveals things to some men. Now what he has revealed to you is true. So what you know of him in your own life when you tell somebody else they're going to be able to hear. If you say this is what Jackie said it won't work. What is revealed to you, the truth that you've laid hold of will help someone else because it's come by revelation and you've received it. Now Jesus told the parable about the man who took out treasures. It's a kingdom of God parable. He took out treasures and he said old and new. So some of the treasures which you are now receiving from the Lord are new to you but other people discovered them 1,500 years ago. So some old treasures are new to some people. Some new treasures are old to other people. Do you understand? This is how the kingdom of God works. Full of treasures which we're discovering all the time. So the secret things belong to the Lord our God but the things revealed belong to us and our children. What are the things revealed? Okay, what's been revealed to you? As well as what I call perfectly ordinary gospel and this is one way in which the world is going to be able to see Jesus because the world cannot believe in Jesus without revelation and revelation will come miraculously and in them you will begin seeing Jesus in the flesh through you and don't rely on only one or only the other. They go together. So I'll read you from Matthew. There are two great parables about seeing. Matthew 25 and the other one which we will look at will be Luke 10. Now they're both parables about who we see and this is how you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. We are going to make Jesus known somehow to those we see and when we see with his eyes they will see Jesus. This is how it works. Okay, so Matthew 25. I mean it's extraordinary. We see with his eyes and then as we walk out in the world people see Jesus through what we do. I'm sure you all know this so I won't read the whole thing. Chapter 25 of Matthew. This is the sheep and goats. This is the son of man coming in his glory and in Chinese there's not a different word for sheep or goats. It's a long-haired sheep or short-haired sheep. So the length of your hair is very important to your eternal salvation. So all angels, he's coming in his glory with the angels and all the nations will be gathered before him and then there's going to be a separation of people, long-haired and short-haired and the goats are the long-haired, sorry. And so he commends the sheep. Come you who are blessed by my father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. We're not managing these scriptures, are we? We are or we're not? We're not. Have none of them gone up? Oh, they promised me they could follow me. Not. It's alright, is it? Oh, he's trying. I'm just going to, sorry. Okay, we're in Matthew 25. Okay, so verse 34. Come you who are blessed by my father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me. And then the short-haired sheep, the righteous will answer, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you? And he said, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me. Years ago, I was asked to by the police, they knocked on the door. I used to go to sleep with all my clothes on because the police appeared at my door so often at night. And they said, would you mind coming down to the morgue? We'd like you to identify a body. So I went into the dead body place where they take people out of those stainless steel drawers. And there was this really beautiful looking old man. I never had seen a dead body before and it wasn't scary. And I said, actually, no, I don't recognize him. I don't know who he is. So why did you ask me to come? And they said, well, he gave your address. That was just, I was living at that time just outside the walled city. No idea who he was. No idea. I have no idea. I have no idea if he believed in Jesus. I have no idea if I'd prayed for him in the streets for we often did. I have no idea. But I often think about that old man. He was homeless. You see, he had no home. And as far as they could find out, he had no family. Nobody knew who he was, but he gave my address. And in that moment, it was one of the most joyful moments of my life. I thought, God, I don't know who he is, but you do. And if there was a moment that I or one of us might have touched him just so he could know he was loved and perhaps even recognized Jesus. That's actually all I care to do with my life. That's all. It's very, very simple. I cannot count that man's scalp on my conversion tally. I cannot add him to Jackie Pullinger Ministries, Inc. He's not part of my empire, my tally, my list of successes or failures. Who knows? It actually doesn't matter. When you and I are called by the Lord in mercy to know his love, we are in the moment of receiving his forgiveness fit for heaven, but left on earth. So in order to walk on this earth, because he told us he would keep our feet on the ground, we have vision from heaven because we're heading all our life. Paul says he has called me heavenwards. In order to be able to walk on this earth, we have to be heading heavenwards. And then from time to heaven, from time to time in mercy, the Lord reveals things from heaven to us. Imagine like the Lord in heaven sees everything, obviously. And there is in heaven like a war plan, if you like, for every person. There is a plan in heaven for our lives and for what he wants to do with our lives and what he wants to do through our lives. So I always imagine, because I did this as a child when we sat on our lawn and I looked at heaven and I always imagined him sort of up there with a huge they call them duvets now, in our days they were eiderdowns. And from time to time he peels back the corner and lets us see what he sees. He reveals some of his secret to us to enable us to walk his way. Now, the revealed things are easy, right? Everybody knows well, I'm sure you do, don't you? You feed the hungry, you share cold water with somebody that needs a drink, you give to him who asks, you do, always, by the way, always, you never don't. Okay? Don't qualify it, it says give to him who asks, got that? Yeah, you don't like it, do you? See, you're not thrilled. Okay? It doesn't say shut up your heart in case they're cheating you. You have to give to him who asks, you have to. Otherwise your heart gets hard. So the point of giving to him who asks is to keep your heart soft. It just doesn't say give him what he asks for. Now you're relieved, aren't you? Yes. Okay. Okay. Like, you know, like the man who was begging at the church gate, beautiful gate, and beggars know exactly where to touch people for money, so he held out his hand and expecting money, and Peter and John were going up that way, and they said, silver and gold, have I none, but such as I have give I you, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. He got something much better than silver and gold. He got the means to stop begging so he wouldn't need to ask for silver and gold. He was healed. So you can always give. Okay, so I'm talking about the revealed things. Now it's hopefully just been revealed to you. You're always supposed to be giving. I'm only preaching the word of God. This is not Jackie's good idea. Give to him who asks you. So there's masses of ordinary scripture, what I call ordinary gospel. Some people call them acts of kindness, which we have to do anyway. Got that? This is what this parable is about. I tell you whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me. And then the next bit is about the goats who are cursed. And I'm very sorry to tell you they go to eternal punishment. And you just can't skip this bit of the parable. There we are. Anyway, he says, depart, you're cursed. Why? I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. And they're going to eternal fire with the devil and his angels. Why? I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in. I needed clothes and you did not clothe me. I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me. And they also will answer, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger? Or if we'd known you were in prison, we'd have visited you. If we knew you were sick, we'd have gone to the hospital. If we knew you needed clothes, we'd have given them to you. When was it that we did not help you? I tell you the truth, he will reply. Whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me. This somehow tells me that my eternal salvation depends on whether I treat the least man like Jesus. Not on whether I asked Jesus into my life 30 years ago. And I have more scriptures to back this up. I'm not here that you should doubt your salvation. And if you've invited Jesus to be your savior, he will go on saving you. And you will go on receiving forgiveness. You will go on receiving his love. And because of that, you will go on expressing his love to the least. That's how it works. If you have received his forgiveness, how could you not forgive other people? If you have received his mercy, how could you not share it with those who need it? If he has heard your prayer, why would you not hear the cry of the lost? Of the least? And Pete was asking me at dinner tonight what some of you might pray for. And I don't know if this is a worse time in history than any other time. I don't know. I do know more people are coming to know Jesus, but I know more people are perishing. How can you explain to... I think there's nearly a million. There are at least three quarters of a million Buddhist, Myanmar, Rohingyas. They're the most not wanted people on earth. Nobody wants them. Myanmar doesn't want them. Aung San Suu Kyi doesn't want them. Bangladesh doesn't want them. Who wants them? Thailand kills them on their beaches and other Asian countries send their boats on. And you hear these terrible stories from women whose babies... The women have been raped and their babies thrown into the fire. I've heard that story several times. To watch your baby being thrown into the fire and you and I stay in a country and we think, oh Lord, I don't know if I'm ready to suffer for you. There are so many people suffering without him. Without knowing that there is somebody who cares that that suckling child has been thrown into a fire while mother is raped. And when she gets to the most crowded refugee camp on earth, the refugee workers say the worst thing is she's still wearing the skirt she was raped in. This is a terrible time in the world for people to be without Christ. And I really do believe that if each one of us plays the part that we are called to, you can't play mine and I can't play yours, he can reveal his love and his name to every person on earth. And we do this with the very, very simple, we pray of course, we go of course, and we do the very, very ordinary. We do clothe the naked. We do visit those in prison as if they're Jesus. And I often think maybe they are Jesus. After sessions like this, we might never finish this one, but I often say to people, you know, be careful when you go outside because he might be out there. And it would be terrible to miss him, wouldn't it? It would be awful. I didn't see you, Jesus. I'm terribly sorry. I completely missed you. So imagine that we are to treat the least as if he's Jesus. Now some of the least in Hong Kong used to be the old ladies. I very much love old ladies, especially got a heart for the illiterate ones because most gospel materials come in written form for educated people. So of course that's not right, so we have to find ways. So I tell you two old ladies stories. We began to have Christmas parties. We were living at this time in a place called Hang Fook Camp, which Henrietta here and Mike and a few other people and Margaret and Bob, they're all now here in England, they've all lived there or visited there. Well, the government lent us these tin huts and they really were tin huts. They were past use by date, temporary housing, and the government said, would you like to use them temporarily? We always say yes. We can use whatever you give us, like the Woking Lighthouse. Doesn't matter if we only have it for a few months or a year or two years, at least we can use it for the poor. So they were just simple little rooms, about 60 square feet, which is actually the size of where this is, I think the average Hong Kong person is now living in 40 square feet. It's got so bad. But we had 60. It's a lovely place to live. And we ended up with about 80 just in our first year. And on Christmas day, we were preparing to do what most believers in Jesus do, that is, feed ourselves. Through the gate came all these strangers and so I said to them, Happy Christmas because I'm English and they say Merry Christmas because they've got it from the US. I never understand Merry Christmas, but there you are. So I said, Okay, what are you doing here? And they said, It's Christmas. It wasn't a Sunday. We used to have Sunday meetings in the afternoon. They were strangers. So as more and more people came in the gate, I thought, Oh, they've come to lunch. And they obviously think, like on a bank holiday, you go to Disneyland or something. On Christmas Day, you go to the believers. And then you could see how mature people were. Our people. We had about 60 people who'd been on drugs or in prison who were living with us and the rest of us were living with them. And you could see how mature they were because suddenly it dawned on them, wait a minute, they're going to eat our lunch. And the mature ones was, Oh, praise God, we're not going to get lunch. Anyway, the next year we thought we'd beat them. So we said, Okay, now we're going to let all of Hong Kong know they can come to lunch. So we went down to the visiting American naval ships and we went out to the parks and we went out to the homeless and we said, You can all come to lunch. We didn't know how many we were going to get. Well, anyway, this went on every year until one year we got to 5,000. And we never knew who was coming. So it's quite difficult to order food. We also made the tables so they would sit down. It wasn't buffet. We made the tables and it was hot for 5,000 people. So what we did was like this. We said now we have people who are praying and outreaching in different areas of Hong Kong. Okay, now order a bus and bring the people on the bus. So one area we said, How much have you ordered? And they said, Oh, we just ordered a mini bus. We don't think we know many people. And I said, Oh, no, no, no. You must order two big buses. If you don't have big buses, nobody will get on. You don't understand that either. It's called vehicles. They had no faith, so they started with a mini bus. I said, Order a bus and pray. And I think in the end they had to send two buses back twice. So that's because the Lord showed me there are lost people out there. So the lost people need to know they're loved and come in and have a feast. So there was one area in Hong Kong where all the old ladies lonely, by the way, because our houses are not big enough for them anymore. So their sons don't look after them and their husbands are dead. And they just meet in the park and moan at one another about their sore wrist or their bad leg or whatever. And so we used to go out and meet them and pray with them. We let them know there's this Christmas meal coming. So they got on the bus. I mean, I don't know how many times these buses went back to fetch them. And we had people on the bus to meet them. And so by the time they got from their original where they started the journey to our place, which is called Hangful Camp, half of them were already healed because they prayed for their wrists on the bus. And all old ladies have got a wrist problem. So then they came in and we had such super parties. I mean, one year, actually two years running, we ran out of turkey. People sent us a whole lot of turkeys. And I remember watching the turkey carvers because Henrietta's husband was one of them. And I looked at them and I thought, oh no. You see, one of the reasons my father married my mother was that she could carve anything. And here were these turkey carvers carving thick. You don't have to be so generous. We're clearly going to run out. And we did. So the turkey carvers joined hands, closed their eyes and prayed. And when they opened their eyes, there were more turkeys. That was one year. The next year, the same thing happened, but they didn't run out. They just went on carving. I think the five loaves and two fishes must have been like that. You didn't suddenly notice the miracle. As you give, so there's more. I think that is a spiritual principle. So anyway, perhaps the greatest miracle of all was two or three years running, we had a team of Australians and they came specifically to clean the toilets. Now, when we lived in these tin huts, you understand they were not en suite. We just had one central toilet block. They were squatty toilets, by the way, if you know what a squatty toilet is. Hole in the ground. Quite a nice hole. Anyway, really wonderful bathrooms. No doors, by the way. So we put up curtains. That was where you learned to sing in the loo. Anyway, what happens all over Hong Kong, posh hotels, this is how they worked. They all have a lady to clean the toilet and to hand you, before you go in, toilet paper. For which you are supposed to leave her a tip, which would be in Hong Kong one or two dollars, which is a seventh of an American dollar. You needed to give this to her because those old ladies had to pay to get the job. They were not paid. They lived off their tips and they would buy a comb or a little bottle of scent or something to try and bless the customers. So this is what happened in our toilets. Imagine we've got hundreds if not thousands of old ladies all needing the toilet and we haven't got many of the toilets. So it was just like an ant trail all day long. All day long you could see this trail of old ladies. So sweet because they got into the toilet and there was an Australian handing them toilet paper. I tell you if they weren't saved on the bus they were saved in the loo. We were valued. We were honoured. We were served by foreigners. It was so funny. After that I mean they got healed on the bus or healed in the toilet or healed while they had the feast. Then people came to me and said are you going to preach the gospel? I said they've had it. Do you get that? You have to change your mind about things. You don't have to have a gospel meeting. They had a feast. They'd been honoured. They'd been healed. They'd been served. At some point of course we would pray with them that they would meet the Jesus Christ who died on the cross. Two years ago I broke my knee but I didn't know I'd broken my knee and I slipped at home and got myself to the hospital and I had to wait 13 hours to see a doctor and have an x-ray. It was about quarter to three in the morning when I just finished having my x-ray and they decided they needed to put plaster on me and then admit me. I was waiting there with my friend Margaret and in came a lady with her son who had been obviously completely stoned and a policeman. They put him into a custodial room and then the lady was crying outside. I said to Margaret maybe have a look in my bag and see if we can find some cards because there may be a way that we can help this lady's son. Just let her know. But we hadn't got that far before. Out on the loudspeaker they called my name. Now I have a very interesting name according to my identity card in Chinese. It goes Toh Pun Ling Che Toh Pun Ling Che and there is no other Toh Pun Ling Che in the whole world I know. And this lady came over and she said Pun Gulun You know this is quarter to three in the morning. I have no idea who she is just like I didn't know about the dead man. Do you remember me Pun Siu Che? And she told me this story how it must be forty years before she was in the walled city and she was mistreated by her family and I took her into my room. I didn't remember but you know as I thought back I thought what a nice person I was. I don't remember I was really nice then how kind of me but of course you would do the same wouldn't you? Wouldn't you? I mean we are in the walled city so I can't take her to social services you don't let a child remain where it's beaten of course you look after a child and she remembered and so we welcomed her to come and worship and she had begun to believe in Jesus and so we are part of her life and part of her son's life now. Just these little things you just don't know you just don't know another time there was a gang fight outside a funeral parlour and this was one of the brothers of the boss of the walled city the gang boss was at the funeral parlour and it was a bit like Romeo and Juliet one gang that several people had been killed I think probably murdered and outside the other gang came outside the funeral parlour and there was a fight and more people were murdered so the person I knew was the fourth brother of the gang leader his name was Ali and six of them were arrested for murder including him so I went and visited them in Remand and three of them received Jesus and three of them were set free and then there were three more and I used to go and visit Ali now he said when I went to visit him he said I'm really afraid because I didn't do it he was quoting Buddhist scriptures at the time that the fight was happening he wasn't even outside but he said I've been identified and I'm afraid that I'm going to be arrested and condemned so I said to him okay Ali, on this earth there are many things that are unfair that's surely true so in heaven there is a God who sees everything and people make wrong judgments on earth but there is a God who sees so I'm going to pray to him in Jesus name and I've got friends in Wales and in Spain and South Africa and New Zealand and I'm going to get them all to pray and fast on Wednesdays so I went on visiting him several months and then one day he said I believe in Jesus now so I prayed with him through the glass and he received the power of the spirit and spoke in tongues through the glass you can do this and then after a few more weeks it came time for his trial and the judge threw the case out immediately he didn't hear it at all and he was set free so I took him to tea so I said Ali I'm really interested to know why you suddenly believed in Jesus and he said let me tell you this story he said I was in my cell and the prison governor walked by by my cell and with two guards and he stopped at my cell and he said what's that smell in your cell and he asked the two prison guards to search the cell well they searched twice and they couldn't find anything so the prison governor left and then the guards came back and Ali said to the guards what did he mean smell in my cell I can't smell anything and the two guards said very fragrant your cell did you not know so he went back to his cell and he sat down he still couldn't smell anything he sat down and he thought it's Wednesday and he believed in Jesus how did he know the prayers of the saints are like incense I don't know revelation you see when we do the ordinary kind things the Lord in his mercy reveals amazing things and that's how that man believed now the Bible says the Lord is pleased to use the foolishness of preaching please remember this the foolishness of preaching not the Lord is pleased to use good preaching foolishness of preaching my complete conviction is that people are never saved through the preaching it's something else that's going on think of your own story the average conversion story goes like this I wasn't going to believe I have no idea what the preacher was saying he called people forward I wasn't going to do but I found myself on my knees or going forward with tears streaming down my cheeks that's a normal conversion story can they remember a word the preacher said no something else is going on so I was asked to go to Japan some years back and to speak at a friend's dinner party they were teaching at a university and I knew that Japan was a very difficult place and I wouldn't be able to convince anyone so I had prayed this prayer about the spirit of revelation Lord send a spirit of revelation open their eyes that they'll be able to believe and know your love and know the hope you've called them to I always pray that prayer dear Lord whatever I'm saying will you please speak to them what you're saying now this is a great prayer to pray because it lets you off the hook so they invited this very fat fruit seller called Nemo so Nemo sat there and it's a very great mistake to have somebody speak in your home after a dinner party because people nod well Nemo nodded for a long time in fact he slept throughout and at the end he went up to my friends and he said I have to believe in Jesus now and so they said what happened well he said I listened to that girl I was then and I thought I don't need to hear that so I went to sleep and in my dream Jesus came and said you have to believe in me now so I do so you see God is pleased to use the foolishness of preaching while you are doing one thing he's doing his thing and without his thing no one can believe and this has happened so very often I remember I went down to a drug area one day it was amazing it was after people had just were hearing that other men from the walled city were living in my house so the word went around all the street sleepers and people in prison so I went to this other area miles away and I got to the mouth of a drug den where they were selling heroin and three men came out and one of them said I want to come live in your house and believe in Jesus because they think it goes together which I do too and then somebody else said could you please give me a number but the third one didn't want to believe in Jesus at all but he was just hungry he was a drug pusher not a serious one if you sell four packets you get one free that's how it works so I could see he was hungry so I said come have noodles so we went to an outside eating stall and while we were waiting for the noodles I said to him I dare you I dare you ask Jesus if he's real he didn't want to do that at all but he did want the noodles he was hungry so he shut his eyes and I just prayed spirit of God and God revealed Jesus to him and he began to smile and then he began to pray in tongues this went on for about half an hour and the noodles came got cold he went on praying and when he opened his eyes I said to him what did you see and he said well I saw a picture and there were about a dozen men sitting around a table and they were passing around a cup and passing around bread and I said do you know what that means and he said no I said have you ever seen that picture before and he said no and so I told him that what Jesus did dying for us on the cross and that was his broken body and blood shed for us because he loved us so much that's how Jonathan came to Jesus so sweet of the Lord so sweet of him to do that it's what happened to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus you remember they were going back after the crucifixion and disappointed and Jesus met them but they didn't recognize him but he explained all the scriptures concerning himself and they invited him in because the day was almost over so he went in to stay with them when he was at the table this is Luke 24 30 when he was at the table with them he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them then their eyes were opened and they recognized him and he disappeared from their sight they asked each other were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us it's very simple you pray that the Lord gives you revelation he'll reveal to you miracles from time to time and when you don't have the time to time you do what's already been revealed you share your home you share your bread you give to everyone who asks not your 13th worst t-shirt but one of your two that's what the soldiers were asked to do by John the Baptist just simple things this is what I call ordinary gospel it's in those ordinary ways that Christ is revealed whatever you did for the least of these you did it for me sometimes you don't know if they've seen Jesus or not I didn't remember that girl but she did I didn't remember the dead man and I still don't know but this is how we are to look after the least of these and this is what we can all do every one of us can do this it's very simple and it's very doable and if you will do the ordinary Jesus may be revealed if we will do the ordinary it might be Jesus we're doing it for that man sleeping in the street could be Jesus that man in the prison could be Jesus that refugee might be in any case he receives it as unto him so it's never wasted neither do we have to come up with great results just know whatever you do in the name of the Lord is not in vain and I believe that this fellowship and I know a number of you do belong here but I believe that this fellowship and the one we visited in Woking this afternoon is here so that Jesus can be revealed through the way we treat the least of them and if you want to know where the Lord is sending you it's terribly easy you just start with the next person you see and you'll get there very quickly this is how it worked for me somebody this afternoon was saying I didn't understand someone that lived in Surrey well I grew up in Croydon, Surrey I know it's Greater London now but I was praying about where to go because the Lord had spoken to me through a dream and he said go and I said where and he said go and I'll show you just like he said just now go and I'll show you I'll lead you and I said thank you very much please be a bit clearer and he said go and I'll show you I'll lead you and I said thank you very much where he said go so he said go so it was a very very long story but I think there are two main things that got me there one of them was that I decided that I would try and do something here not there now don't wait until your church has a program touching the least of these you're more likely to be able to touch the least in Surrey than I am because I don't live here anymore so you can touch people that nobody else can touch and if you start with the next one you see whether he comes to Christ or not that's not the most important thing if you touch the next one you see as if he's Jesus you will get to where you're going people want to come to Hong Kong and see our poor people that's not the way you get a heart for the poor that's using our people, not right don't go and sightsee the poor don't go to India unless you're willing to stay for the rest of your life and I absolutely mean that it's such a cruel world when we look at videos of dying people and say how awful the last passage I wanted to refer you to is Luke 9 we're not supposed to sightsee and do nothing we're supposed to do something for everyone that we see it's the parable of the good Samaritan if I got it right sorry, it's Luke 10 the priest saw him pass by the man lying in the road verse 32, the Levite saw him pass by on the other side the awful thing was that they both saw and did nothing and the Samaritan came where he saw the man was and when he saw him he had compassion on him if you've got pity it's the wrong word it's compassion pity's not a good word for Christians he came he saw him he had compassion on him he went to him, bandaged his wounds pouring on oil and wine, then he put the man on his own donkey not the church donkey took him to an inn and took care of him and planned to return when you see the next poor person hungry you've no idea where it's going to take you you know, you have to do something you have to do something, just something so he saw him, he had compassion he went to him, at least pray I was in Singapore once and I was doing a whole week on the poor in one of the richest, biggest churches and this man came up to me on the third day and he said he said I'm very poor and I'm hungry and I said I know, I can see I mean I can see I mean I can see I know how to look I can tell drug addicts from the back of their neck I can see poor people he'd been in this church which is one of the most famous churches in the world for house groups in a house group called a cell group for years nobody knew he hadn't had lunch in three years nobody knew they didn't see, they were doing their cell group program they just didn't see so we are supposed to do something for the one we see and to see with the Lord's eyes so while I was waiting for the Lord to show me where to go and what to do the scripture says the secret things belong to the Lord but the things revealed belong to us and to our children so I joined the church up the road was having an outreach to Mitcham Common if you know where Mitcham Common is it's very Mitcham Common well we were to have this evangelistic outreach which was a terrible day to choose it was quite the wrong day of the whole year because it was both the rugby international at Twickenham and the cup final and we were trying to knock on people's doors on a Saturday afternoon and we were going to ask them to a sausage sizzle at which time we were going to preach the gospel so here I am on a Saturday afternoon now I knew two people playing at Twickenham and I wasn't there I was at Mitcham Common and then knocking on doors asking people to sausage sizzle and I remember thinking I know I'm a Christian now I know I'm a Christian nobody came to the sausage sizzle we ate the sausages but I think it got me to Hong Kong of course the Lord spoke to me through that wonderful pastor who told me to get onto a boat and pray to know where to get off that was a wonderful part of the story that's what I did, he spoke to me through a vision he spoke to me through a dream, all those ways but I really think perhaps it was Mitcham Common instead of waiting for guidance on every step of the way let your vision be heaven say Lord reveal things as you will in the meantime I will walk in what you've told me to do I will do the ordinary today I will love people whether they say thank you or not I will give away my cloak I will notice the one I pass I may pray for them, I may do more open my eyes and open theirs and reveal yourself to them and if you will in your good pleasure through me I'd be so pleased and then imagine then imagine when you die and you hear the words do you want to hear them? Well done I don't know if any of us dare to believe we might hear those words I've always wanted to hear them well done, well done good and faithful servant come and share your master's happiness that's what we're aiming for and on earth we do the ordinary and we do the miraculous with the power of the spirit and Jesus is revealed so please stand let's sing a song and then I want to bless you