In this sermon, the preacher discusses three keys to getting on fire for God. The first key is faith, which is described as believing in the promises of God and finding joy and peace through the power of the Holy Ghost. The second key is love for God, which motivates believers to put aside their fears and be faithful witnesses. The third key is compassion, as the preacher emphasizes the importance of recognizing the day of judgment and the need to show compassion towards others. The sermon also mentions the use of anecdotes and humor as effective tools in keeping the audience engaged.

It is very relevant to notice the Apostle Paul's request for prayer, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. And for me, Paul requests prayer, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds, that in this I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. If anyone had an excuse for not being involved in evangelism, it was the Apostle Paul. He was an apostle. But he said, pray for me that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly and speak as I ought to. If we're Christians, if we're followers of Jesus Christ, we should be fishers of men. Jesus said, come after me and I'll make you to become fishers of men. And I know each of us have got all sorts of excuses when it comes to evangelism. I remember once, a number of years ago, I was sitting in a plane, awaking take-off, and a woman sat next to me, and I thought, I should witness to this woman. But I consoled myself with the fact that I'd ministered to about 500 young people the night before, and I thought, well, God doesn't expect me to do one-to-one because I've just done my bit last night. And as I sat back, my conscience began to smite me. I began thinking, imagine if I was on my way to hell and didn't know it, and this woman was a Christian, and she couldn't be bothered witnessing to me, or she was fearful to. So I turned to her, to open my mouth boldly and speak as ought to, and noticed she'd gone to sleep. So I said, she's gone to sleep. Can't wake her. I sat back, suffing my orange juice care of the airline. Now, I don't exaggerate because I'm a Christian, but within five seconds, the armrest on a modern jetliner fell off and hit me on the foot. The tray table fell down, hit me on the knee, and I choked on a piece of ice. The scripture despised not the chasing of the Lord, neither faint when you're rebuked if him came to mind. I was reading Pilgrim's Proverbs at the time, so I threw the book at the woman's foot. She woke up with a start. I says, oh, sorry about that. Have you read this book she had in Sunday school, and I was able to witness to her, and she can just thank God I wasn't reading my normal foot-breaking Bible. Now, if you have trouble in personal witnessing, listen to this wonderful statement, which isn't original. An act of courage isn't necessarily done by those who feel brave when they do it, true courage is he who feels fear and yet does it anyway. An act of courage isn't necessarily done by those who feel brave when they do it, true courage is he who feels fear and yet does it anyway. Courage isn't the absence of fear, it's the conquering of it. Now, let's turn to 1 Corinthians 2, verse 1, and look at some keys to the release of the fear of man and the fear of woman. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 1, I am adamant that every person who wants to be a witness of Christ should have these four qualifications for witnessing. If they don't have these four qualifications, they should not witness of their faith. And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, whom crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. So there we have the four qualifications for being a witness of Christ. One, you should not have eloquency of speech. Two, you should have weakness. Three, you should have fear. And four, you should have much trembling. Now, do you qualify? Not ordinary trembling, but much trembling. If you're sitting there saying, boy, I could never get up on a soapbox and preach in public, I couldn't approach strangers, I just wouldn't know what to say, I don't have the words, I'm really scared. You have just qualified yourself as a witness of Christ. You've aligned yourself with Moses, Gideon, Jeremiah, and the Apostle Paul. But the key to the release of the fear of man is in verse 2. Paul says, For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, whom crucified. If you and I can just determine, say, okay, Lord, I don't know what to say, I am scared silly, I have weakness, fear, and much trembling. But I just determined to be a true and faithful witness, then we're halfway there. We have the computer programmed at least in the right direction. I heard of a barber who heard an equipping evangelist. He came away from a series of meetings and thought, man, I have not been a true and faithful witness. I have not opened my mouth boldly and spoke as I ought to. So he determined within his heart to come back to his barber shop and witness to the next person who came into the store. This guy came in, he said, say, shave this beard off, would you? He sat up on the seat. And the barber thought, okay, this is it. And he was really scared. He turned his back on the guy, sharpened up the cutthroat razor until it was really sharp. He psyched himself up and turned around with glazed eyes and trembling hands, and said, friend, are you ready to die? Now he lost his customer, but he opened his mouth for the kingdom of God. A great preacher was once asked, how do you keep your congregation alive and awake on a hot Sunday evening? The guy says, it's real easy. He says, you call your deacons to you, you throw them a knife each, you throw them a stick each, and you tell your deacons to sharpen those sticks up to a needle point. And you say to your deacons, prod the preacher. Not the people, you prod the preacher. If the preacher's got a little bit of, people will listen to him. The word enthusiasm comes from two Greek words, entheos, in God. And if you're in God, and God's in you, there should be enthusiasm within your heart. John Wesley said, get on fire for God, and people will come to watch you burn. See, I don't want to be a bright spark for the kingdom of God, I want to be a tearing inferno. God wants to make his ministers a flame of fire. And if you're not hot tonight, if you haven't got the zeal of God eating you up, you need to make it a matter of earnest prayer, because Jesus said, are we either hot or cold? But if you're lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth. Lukewarmness is a great insult to God. I have a wonderful wife back in Southern California. I love her dearly. But imagine if I called Sue and said, Hi love, just thought I'd call you and let you know I wasn't listening to you at all. That love letter you sent me, fell asleep reading it, this is getting too boring to carry on, got to go now, dear, bye. What an insult to her. I have vowed before God to love her in sickness and in health, until death passes, then we've got each other for eternity. What a gross insult if I became lukewarm in my love for her. And what a gross insult it is to God. We've been espoused as a chaste virgin under Christ. We're engaged, waiting for the marriage supper of the Lamb. If we become lukewarm in our love for God, especially when he commanded his love toward us in the wild, yet sinners Christ died for us, then it's a gross insult to the character and nature of God, and we need to repent. So if you're not hot for God, get hot. Just put these three zeals, three keys into effect on how to get on fire for God. Just got a thought in my mind. We look at what we call lukewarm Christians, those that don't love God with heart, mind, soul, and strength. They don't have the zeal of God eating them up. They're lukewarm. Basically, they're not part of the body of Christ. They merely weigh heavy within the stomach of the body of Christ until such a time as he will spew them out of his mouth. They haven't passed through the jagged-edged teeth of God's law to be broken down, to be absorbed into his body, to become his bloodstream, to feel the heartbeat of God, what's on God's heart. They haven't been absorbed into the body to become his hands, his feet, and his mouth. Their mouths don't preach the gospel to every creature, their hands don't reach out to sinners and pull them from the fire, and their feet unshoulder the preparation of the gospel of peace. They're the backslider in heart that's filled with his own ways rather than the ways of God. So tonight, with the help of God, I trust, we're going to look at three keys to getting on fire for God. And the first key is in Romans 15, verse 13. I do hope you appreciate the way I say 13. Most people from down under say 13. But I play with the R because I'm in America. When I'm in Texas and I'm sitting at a restaurant and ask for a drink of water, I go thirsty until I give in and say, Water. I was in Salt Lake City and I said to a man behind the counter, Whereabouts is your butter, please? He said, What? I said, Where is your butter, please? He said, What? By then I thought I was going to starve, so I was pantomiming. Whereabouts is your butter, please? And the guy next to me says, Ah, he means butter. He says, Butter over there. See, people down under get to the R and think, Well, we're there, let's give up and carry on. But Americans just like to rev a little. Butter. Romans 15, something to do with your love for cars, I'm sure. Romans 15, verse 13. The first key we're going to look at is the key of faith. Now, often we hear so much teaching about faith, the spirit of nausea descends upon us and we hear a preacher's going to touch on the subject of faith once again. But I trust tonight we're going to look at faith from a slightly different angle. Now, the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. Now, the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. A number of years ago, we embarked upon the making of a 30-minute, anti-drug, 16-millimeter documentary film based on our first publication, a book called My Friends Are Dying. The movie cost $25,500, which, oh, 18 years ago was a lot of money. Now, 15 years ago, a lot of money. And at one point in time, we were short of funds and I'd applied with a trust for a certain amount of money and I hadn't even heard back. I'd waited for six months, still hadn't heard back. So one Friday afternoon when I was kind of tired, I sat in my office and I thought to myself, patience has had her perfect work. I will give them a call. So I called up, said who it was. I said, have we got that finance? The guy says, hang on, I'll just check. Went away from the phone, came back. He says, I've checked the files. Yes, $3,500, it's yours. We'll get it to you as soon as we can. Please keep it quiet. We haven't released it to the news media yet. So I said, okay, thank you very much. And I jumped up out of my seat and just as full of energy, ran down the church hall into the main auditorium and ran down the pews and jumped into the air and screamed, I got it. Now let's freeze frame and ask, what did I have? Well, I didn't have anything really except the promise from a man I didn't know. Hundreds of miles away and my faith in his promise had produced joy. And that joy had produced a physical energy within my body. Now put yourself in my position. Someone was going to give me $3,500 bills. Let me make it real for you. Imagine, God forbid, that two months ago, I slipped into a store in Florida just for two minutes and backslid and bought one of those horrible lottery tickets where they have $100 million. Imagine if I did that and said, I feel so guilty because I won the stuff. And in my black case down the back is $100 million and I've got to get rid of it to appease my conscience. So tonight, each of you will be given $500,000. If you truly believed you were going to get that, would not your ears slide forward an inch by themselves? Would not you say, praise God, now I can get a jacuzzi in my prayer room? If you believed, you would have joy immediately. If you didn't believe, you'd say, you're a liar. No faith, no joy. And if we truly believe God's exceeding great and precious promises that are more to be desired than gold, we should immediately have joy the second we believe. And the joy of the Lord should be our strength. You think what God has got in store for us. I mean, a brand new body. There's a new world coming. God's kingdom is coming to this earth. No more death, disease, decay, dandruff. Praise God. Eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither has entered in the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those that love Him. And if we believe God's promises, we will have joy unspeakable. And the joy of the Lord will be our strength. You see, a joyless Christian who comes into church and says, praise God, thank you Jesus, glory to God, what's the time, let's get out of here. That's not, that's not unfortunate, that's sin. That which is not of faith is sin. He that believes not God has made him a liar. A man came to me once and he says, he says, Ray, I have trouble believing some of the things in the Bible. I said, what's your name? He says, Tom. I said, I don't believe that. He says, what? I said, what's your name? He says, Tom. I said, I don't believe that. Where do you live? He says, just down the road there. I said, I don't believe that either. And you should have seen his reaction. He got angry. I says, you look angry. You know, why is this not really? I says, if I don't believe you, it means I think you're a liar. You're devious. You're not worth trusting. If you, a mere man, are insulted by my unbelief, how much more is a holy God insulted by your lack of faith in His promises? Martin Luther said, what greater insult, what greater impiety can there be than not to believe the promises of God? Let none of you depart from the living God through an evil heart of unbelief. He that believes not God has made him a liar. And a lack of joy is evidence of a lack of faith in the promises of God. As I said, if we truly believe God's promises, we'll have joy that's unspeakable. And just as I, the moment I believed the promise of that money coming, had joy that actually motivated me and gave me a physical energy, so those who truly believe the promises of God, those who obey the command of Jesus to have faith in God, will have joy that's unspeakable. They'll be full of glory, and they'll be always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing their labor is not in vain in the Lord. So the first key we've looked at tonight is the key of faith. Faith produces joy, and joy produces a physical energy. You know, often people say to me, how do you keep people listening when you're ministering? And I think there are certain keys to ministering, especially in this setting. What I like to do is break a sermon up into three points or four points. People like things in order. When you say, we're going to look at three keys to getting on fire for God, often people immediately get their pens out because we like things in order. But there's more. When a visiting speaker comes to a church, and he stands up there, you think to yourself, it's nice to have him here, but I wonder how long he'll talk for. Will he go on and on and on? But if you break a sermon up into three keys, by the time you've finished key two, the listener knows he's two-thirds the way there. The end is nigh, and he's able to concentrate more when he knows there's going to be an end to the sermon. The second key, I think, to keeping a sermon alive is to have the thorough use of anecdotes, to use these parabolic stories. We've already done about three or four. The woman with the book thrown at her foot, the barber, etc., prod the preacher. Anecdotes that give something visual to the mind. They stimulate the mind. There was Charles Spurgeon that said, any preacher who will not condescend to the use of anecdotes will remain forever a river of ice flowing upon his congregation. And the third key, I believe, is the legitimate use of humor. Not putting people down, but relating things that are kind of funny. Humor within a sermon is like a flash of lightning on a dark night. It kind of wakens you up, and you wait for the next one because it's pleasurable. So, by way of interest, let's turn now to Acts 20, verse 24, and look at the second key to getting on fire for God. Acts 20, verse 24. Actually, we'll read verse 21. We're going to look at the motivating force of love for God. Actually, when we look at verse 21, I think that verse 20, the one that comes before it, is so pregnant with great truth, waiting to come to birth, I just can't read verse 21 without reading verse 20. But as I got to read verse 20, look at verse 19. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Okay, well, use self-control and begin at verse 19. Serving the Lord with all joy and humility of mind, with all humility of mind, should I say, and with many tears and trials which befell me by the lying and weight of the Jews, and now I get back nothing that was profitable to you, but have shown you and have taught you publicly and from house to house. And here's a summation of Paul's message, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks, repentance towards God, the offended party, the one whose law we have violated, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, the only name given among men whereby we must be saved. And now behold, I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there, except the Holy Spirit witnesses in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me. God loved Paul and had a wonderful plan for his life, bonds, afflictions, stoning, shipwrecks, imprisonment, and martyrdom. Imagine someone saying, I think I've got a word for you, let me pray. I believe you're going to be beaten to a pulp in the sidewalks of New York when you go up there. People are going to kick you, oh yes, you're going to die. I mean, heavy stuff, Paul. But what was Paul's attitude? Verse 24, but none of these things move me, neither do I count my life dear to me that I might finish my course with joy and the ministry which I've received of the Lord Jesus to testify of the gospel of the grace of God. How could Paul despise these sufferings? It was because he loved God. He returned God's love. He that's forgiven much, the same loves much. He had seen Jesus Christ evidently set forth and crucified and he knew that Christ redeemed him from the curse of the Lord. He saw himself in truth because he saw God's law. He saw the standard of righteousness which was by the law. And he learned from the feet of Gamaliel that all his righteous deeds were as filthy rags on the side of a holy God. He that's forgiven much, the same loves much. And perfect love casts out all fear. Paul had fears, he said, within were fears, without were fightings. The apostle Paul had fear, he experienced fear. But he conquered fear through a mature love. Perfect love casts out fear. A number of years ago when I was an assistant pastor, there was, it kind of sounded like a fight in the lobby of this church where we had a guest speaker and I thought, well, I'd better deal with this. So I stood up and said, I'll deal with this. Because there was a lot of noise coming from the lobby. So I boldly walked out and there was a guy standing there. He's about six foot, fuzzed up here. I walked up to him and said, yes? He said, get me Maria. So I said, quick, get Maria. And I didn't realize it, but this guy and Maria had been living in a fornicative relationship. And she'd become a Christian and as fruit of repentance, she'd got all his clothes, put them on the front door and closed the door. It was all over. And he was there to deal with the situation. When Maria came out, she's about five foot three, very slim lady. He got his big fist and went straight into the top of her chest. She hit the deck. Me, not knowing what I was doing, jumped between him and Maria. When he pulled back his fist to rearrange this wonderful creation of God. As he pulled back his fist, my wife, who was four foot eleven and a half, said, don't you touch my husband. He didn't know how to handle that. In frustration, he turned around and went straight into the wall. That was meant for my face. And then kind of like the Incredible Hulk, he turned around full of fury, stepped through the double doors of the church. I slammed the doors and clicked the lock and saw a little notice on the inside. It said, please don't click the lock on the inside. When locks clicked on the inside, people on the outside can't get in. I said, praise God for that. I turned around to Sue and she looked at me with pale face. She said, my knees are knocking. And so they were. That far from the ground, two castanets. You know what had happened? You know what had happened? Her perfect love for me. And can you blame her? Her perfect love for me had cast out all fear. It was David and Goliath all over again. And if you and I have got a mature love, if we've seen Jesus Christ evidently set forth and crucified, if we've seen that God commanded his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, it'll break our hearts when we see God's love and we'll return his love. We'll have a perfect love, a mature love that'll push aside our fears and say, oh God, I am scared silly. But I'm going to be a true and faithful witness because I've seen your love manifest for me in the cross of Calvary. So, since we are two-thirds of the way there, we've looked at two keys so far in this message, three keys to getting on fire for God. The first key is faith. Faith produces joy and joy produces a physical energy. If we truly believe the exceeding great and precious promises of God, which are more to be desired than gold, we'll have joy unspeakably full of glory and always abound in the work of the Lord. The second key to getting on fire for God is the motivating force of love for God. If we truly love God, then our perfect love that we return to Him will help us put aside our fears and be true and faithful witnesses. The third key is in Revelation 20, verse 11, the motivating force of compassion. And here we have a picture of judgment day when God manifests as the God of righteousness, the God of justice, the God of truth, who by no means clear the guilty. He'll bring every work to judgment, including every secret thing, whether it is good or whether it is evil. We see this terrifying day, the great and terrible day of the Lord when God manifests this great fury against humanity. And I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and it was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God and the books were opened. And another book was opened, which was the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead that were in them. And they were judged every man according to their work. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Imagine this, you're walking through the streets of a large city, and you look and you say, boy, that's a big building, must be 50 stories. Must be getting ready to open it because they're testing the elevator. Down it comes, 50, 49, 48, 47. And as you look in the bottom of the elevator, you see there's a little, on the ground floor in the elevator shaft, there's a little gap about 14 inches, and you see two little children have crept in, and they're playing in the sand with their toys in the elevator shaft. And you think of the fate of those children. The horror grips your heart as you imagine what will happen to them. So motivated by compassion, motivated by a love for them, all the energy you've got, you run to pull those kids out, and as you reach in, you say to yourself, they do seem to be enjoying themselves with their toys, I'd better not disturb them. What a ludicrous thought. Or, you see the elevator's going to come down and crush them to death. And so you rush, and as you reach in to pull them out and save them, you say to yourself, complete strangers, don't even know them. Can't approach them. Now they sound ludicrous, ridiculous, but they're the two reasons most Christians don't want to serve their faith. We say, hey, my neighbors would not be interested in Jesus Christ. They wouldn't be interested in the things of God because they're so happy they've got everything. They just wouldn't be interested. You know, the guy that led me to the Lord 20 years ago, the day after my conversion, actually the whole weekend, he went around saying, pray comfort a Christian. I don't believe it. I just don't believe it. You see, he, in his ignorance, in his naivety, had assumed because I was extremely happy, I wouldn't be interested in everlasting life. Now think about it for a moment. It doesn't make sense. And it's because this twisted gospel that Jesus will make you happy, we think our field of evangelical endeavor is just the great misery out there and not those who are enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season. There are plenty of happy sinners. The Bible says, sin is pleasurable, sin is enjoyable. Moses chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Jeremiah 12.1 Why are they all so happy who deal treacherously? A man who said he's miserable of sin is probably the same guy that said crime doesn't pay. Crime does pay. And sin is not miserable. And I was extremely happy as a non-Christian enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season. I remember I was watching television in Hawaii. I was over there ministering at the time. Someone has to do it. And I was watching television and it was Nancy Sinatra being interviewed about her success. Nancy Sinatra had a hit song a number of years ago called Boots. These boots are made for walking. That's just what they'll do. One of these days these boots are going to walk all over you. Nice song. And after the interview still on camera, he says, How's your father doing? Frank Sinatra. She says, Ah, Dad's pretty depressed at the moment. He said, Why is that? I mean, why should Frank Sinatra be depressed? Very rich, very famous, got everything he could want. She says, Well, I think it's because he's realizing his mortality which is a very nice way of saying Frank Sinatra is scared to death of dying like every other son and daughter of Adam that doesn't know Jesus Christ. The Bible says in the book of Hebrews, I think chapter 2, verse 15, that they're held captive by the fear of death, subject to vanity all their lifetime. And that's what bothered me as a non-Christian. I had this great big happiness bubble. I was enjoying myself. I loved life. And I was waiting for the sharp pin of reality to prick it. I could see that I was part of the ultimate statistic 10 out of 10 die. It's true. And my life became vain. But I tell you, I did not want to lose it. I couldn't understand why on earth everything I held dear to me was going to be ripped from my hands by death. My loved ones, everyone I loved would be torn from my hands and I could be taken at any time. That's why I so often do mock funerals. I do fake funerals all the time. When I go to minister in Hawaii or around the country, what I do, I normally say to a local church, if you've got me coming a day early, let's go out to a shopping center or mall. I want six guys. I want them to wear black pants, black shoes, white shirt, black tie and dark sunglasses. Bring a sheet and some young lady or a guy that doesn't mind lying on the ground. What we do is we just line the six guys up there, lie the girl in front, put a sheet over, tuck it under and then I spend five to ten minutes straightening the ties of the pallbearers. Just going along one after the other. By the time I look around, there's usually about 150 people staring. So then I get up on a little soapbox and I say, you're probably wondering what's going on. So that's fair enough. As a pastor, when I've taken genuine funerals, I've noticed that people's eyes and ears are open wide as they listen to you preach the gospel over the corpse of a loved one. And I thought, why does someone have to die for humanity to open their heart to the words of Jesus Christ? I said, this is a fake funeral. We're not taking a collection. This is not television evangelism. There's no number going in front of the screen. You can leave if you want. But we encourage you to stay around because the Bible says Jesus Christ has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And if there's one chance in a million that that's true, you owe it to your good sense, your common sense and your loved ones just to wait and see if there is an answer to your greatest dilemma, the power of death. And often people stay. Because I know that a legitimate tool in evangelism is the will to live. The fear of death. Or put another way, the will to live. And I say, let your will to live. Nobody in his right mind wants to die. Let that will to live cause you just to open up your heart and listen to the claims of the gospel. And happy people want to live as much or even more than sad people. So, let's see. The issue is righteousness, not happiness. It doesn't matter how happy a sinner is, without the righteousness of Christ, he'll perish in the day of wrath. Riches profit not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. And the second reason we don't approach non-Christians is we say they're complete strangers. Well, make them your friend. Every friend you've got was once a stranger in that sense. That's why our little IQ cards are so good. You can make friends with people so easy, so quickly. An elegant lady was being driven through the streets of Paris many years ago in a very large limousine. It was so long. The driver on the front end arrived ten minutes before the rear. Parked outside this theater. The chauffeur got out, did a marathon, came and opened the door. The woman got out. She was so elegant. Everyone was looking at her. She was wearing a white fur coat. She had a tiara on her head. She had diamond earrings. She stepped out of that limousine and suddenly her ring fell from her finger into the dirty ditch. She got her umbrella and went, poke, poke, poke, poke, poke, poke. And when she couldn't find it, she got down on her hands and knees. Surprised at the crowd, and she put her dainty pink little fingers into that slime until she came up with that precious jewel. That's what God did for you and I. He forsook His glory, came down to this foul earth to seek and to save that which is lost. We're called as jewels in the book of Malachi. And you and I are called to walk in His footsteps. Sadly, much of the church has become a monastery without walls. Who do we fellowship with? Christians. The Bible says, Because of Jesus for such, a high priest became us, who was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and was made higher than the angels. He was holy, separate from sinners. And yet the Bible says He was a friend of sinners. And that is the pattern we should walk in. We should have non-Christians as our friends and yet remain free from their unlawful deeds. I was once preaching to a pile of sinners and I looked, right in the middle is one of the local pastors. I thought, what's he doing there? So I slid alongside him afterwards. I said, Rex, what are you doing here? He said, Ray, I've got to tell you. I love Christians, but I was drying up among Christians. Every day it was Christians, Christians, Christians. He said, I've come back into the real world to hear men blaspheme and curse so I begin getting a burden back in my heart for them. We are called to be in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom we shine as lights in the world. In the midst, among whom, in the world. You see, compassion comes from two Greek words, which is calm with passive suffer. And if we just live in an unreal world surrounded by Christians, we will forget the pains and the fears of the ungodly. The fact that their lives are absolutely vain. It doesn't matter what they heap up for themselves, it's going to be torn from their hands by death. And there is a cry, a will to live. God has placed eternity in their hearts, something you can tap on. When I witness to people, often I say, look, this is one thing that bothered me before I was a Christian, so I knew I was going to die. It just didn't make sense. And it doesn't matter who it is that's listening to me, they begin nodding. They can identify with that. And I share often about a friend of mine. He was 20 years old. He got cancer when he was 20. He had no interest in Christian things until he got cancer. He found something so strong come up within his spirit. His secular friends, they said, you go and enjoy the last six months of your life. The doctor gave him six months with unlawful sex. They didn't put it that way. And he wasn't interested. Because he found there was something stronger than the sex drive within his heart. Something came up from his heart, saying, oh, I don't want to die. That's the God-given will to live. God had placed eternity on his heart. And everyone can identify with that. Calm with passive suffer and empathy for the pains of the world. Love is not only a powerful motivating force, it's a very powerful drawing force. Some of you may think I'm rather strange. I'm going to convince you completely of that fact with this next illustration, I'm sure. I've got a friend, he lives in Australia. I'm from New Zealand. He lives in Australia now. And he was a biker that got saved. He's got a few scars. But he's without guile. His prayers are lacking in any religiosity. And when I see Doug, I've got a link with him in the spirit. I really love this guy. And when I see Doug, I often give him a glory wave. I'll say, oh, there's Doug. Glory to God. And I'll do one like that. Now, you'll often see glory waves if you're watching football. It's a different reason. They'll run across the end zone with the ball. They'll throw the ball down. They'll go to the crowd. They're kind of excited. Now, when I see Doug, the Bible's falling to bits. When I see Doug, I say, glory to God. And give him a wave like that. Now, in saying that, what I'm actually saying, that one gesture is this. Isn't God incredible? Isn't God awesome? I mean, there's no words to describe what God must be like. He knows how many hairs are upon our heads. He knows the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. Nothing is from His eyes. Every atom is seen by the omniscient eye of God. He knows all things, sees all things. I mean, I've flown across the United States in a plane, and I've noticed what a massive country this is. It's huge. And it's given me a kind of a vision of how big this earth must be. It's a huge place. And yet this earth fits into the volume of the sun a million times. Flames on the sun leap out hundreds of thousands of miles at a time. God has put it up there 93 million miles away, so it's just far enough away to ripen your tomatoes. It's incredibly balanced. And that sun, that huge sun, is just a tiny, tiny part of God's incredible, infinite creation. God must be so incredible. I mean, have you ever meditated on what God must be like to hear every thought of every heart, to see all history displayed before Him? Nothing. I mean, He flicks through history as you and I flick through a history book. He's not bound by His creation of time. He must be so awesome. How many here know what anthropomorphism means? Anybody? Just lift your hand. I see their hand. Anthropomorphism is attributing the characteristics of man to God, if I can put it that way, to give us an idea of what God is like. And I say it reverently. When the Bible says the hand of the Lord was upon me, it doesn't mean something like that. No, it just says the Spirit of God became present upon me. When the Bible says the eye of the Lord is in every place, it doesn't mean a physical eye like you and I have got. Now, the Bible tells us the eye of the Lord is in every place. When I look at one of you, I see you with my natural eye from the front. If I want to see you from the back, I have to run around and see you from the back because I'm limited by this gelatine marble substance here to look at you from the front. I'm limited in space. But the Bible says the eye of the Lord is in every place. So what direction then does God see you from? Think about it. Well, He sees me from the front and from the back. From the top and from the bottom. From the inside out. Therefore, what do I look like to God? David said, You're in front of me. You're behind me. Oh, such thoughts are too high for me. I cannot attain to them. And to think this incredible, supernatural God, this Creator, there's no words to describe Him became a human being on this earth. Walked the shores of Galilee. Spoke to humanity. Touched ones. Healed them. And then gave His life as a sacrifice for His sins. Commending the love of God toward me. And that while I was yet a sinner, Christ died for me. Oh, God must be so incredible. He must be so awesome. Glory to God. And all that sermon is summed up in I don't have to say that to Doug. I just go, Doug. And he goes And I know what he's saying. It's a spiritual thing. So I was walking along the street once. I thought, Ray, there's Doug. And I thought, you're right. There is Doug. So I'll give him a glory wave. So I said, Doug. Glory to God. And Doug went back to me. Now, unbeknown to me, there was a non-Christian guy standing between me and Doug who thought I was waving to him with such enthusiasm. He came running across overwhelmed by my love and said, Hi. I said, Hi. Didn't know him from Adam and got to witness to the guy. Now, you know what had happened? A little bit of Christian enthusiasm and love just drew him out of the dark place. You strike a light in a light place, you won't see it. Strike it in a dark place, you'll see it from a great distance. And when a non-Christian responds to that joy, we need to know how to testify as to why we've got joy. Standing on the roadside watching trucks go past. Suddenly you stand there rejoicing and thanking God. A truck runs over your foot. You look down. Your right foot is 14 inches wide. A guy comes running across. He says, Hey, you. I saw you with joy in your heart and sparkling eyes before that incident. Now the truck's run over your foot. You've still got joy in your heart. What have you got? Don't say, It's Jesus. He makes me happy, happy, happy. Saying, Oh man, I don't rejoice because demons are subject to me or things are sub to me. I rejoice because my name is written in heaven. And the great and terrible death I say when the books are open, my name will be there. If you rejoice because good things are happening to you, when bad things happen, you'll lose your joy. But if you rejoice because your name is written in heaven, no one will take your joy from you. No one. I had regular hecklers and I am really, I can't think of the word. I don't like the modern gospel that forsakes God's law as the converting instrument because for many years I suffered from the fruit of the modern gospel. People who we call backsliders, who didn't slide forward in the first place, would come into the local square. I preached in this local square probably about 3,000 times and I had regular hecklers. People who would come in and they would wait for me just to downcry the gospel. All sorts of people. I remember there was a lady called Petra. She really impressed me the first time she came in. She came in dressed as a prophet. She was dressed in black. She had gloves without fingers in before it became an in thing. She had a staff and she came in and she stood in front of my crowd. She ripped her rings off and threw them at the crowd and said this is a sign from the God of Israel that I've divorced you. And then she got a bottle full of whiskey and broke it on the ground as a sign to the nation. She spoke in perfect King James English. She said, as in the days of Noah only eight would be saved. She was one of the eight and she determined the other seven. She was full of demons. Absolutely. There's another guy called Bernard on a scale of evil of ten he would be about eighteen. One day when he was spitting out blasphemies he spat out his false teeth in front of me giving me great joy in my heart. But I had these regular hecklers and one, his name was Tony. Scale of evil he was about four. I quite liked Tony. He would bring in bones of sheep and goats and put them at the base of my ladder and sell sorts of hexes, etc. And one day he began calling out untrue sexually derogative remarks about Sue, my wife. He did it for three or four days and one day he said, I bet you hate me and pointed at me. So I said, are you hungry? He said, what? I said, are you hungry? Have you had lunch? He said, no. I haven't had lunch. I said, come on, I'll buy you lunch. So we went across. Went to buy him lunch. I says, what would you like? He says, oh I'll just have some fruit, thanks. Because Tony was a health freak. Fruit and marijuana. And they wonder why they call it dope. Now let's touch on health foods for a moment. I am reasonably health conscious as you can see from my physique. But sometimes I think the world goes a little too far. You know something? I like eggs. If you are what you eat I am an egg. And I don't care what they say about the cholesterol in eggs because I saw about a year and a half ago that they were wrong in the original calculations of the cholesterol in eggs. They were wrong by about 40%. I've got the news cutting there. Not only that, but Jesus commanded eggs as being good food to give to children. See, chapter and verse, Luke 11. He said, if any father's kids should come to him and ask for an egg will he give them a scorpion? If you, or give them a stone. If you being evil know how to give good things. So Jesus said eggs are good things. And not only that, I don't care what they say about salt. I will put salt on my egg. Do you know why? Because Jesus said salt is good. And I have to agree with him. And so does Job. You read the book of Job. Job had salt on his egg. He said, hath the white of an egg taste without salt? Of course it hasn't. Put salt on it. And while we're on the subject, I like milk. I love milk. God's idea of blessing is a lamb going with milk. It's what it says in the Old Testament. I couldn't think anything more wonderful than having a swimming pool filled with milk. I would dive in, swim to the other side with my mouth open. There'd be nothing left when I got to the other side. In my case, I have a picture of a woman in the East Coast. She's 114 years old. They said, what's the key to your long life? She said, it's a milkshake every day. So, as gently and as lovingly I can say it to health freaks, go into a health store and look at the faces of the people who serve there. Anyway, I says to somebody, would you like a banana? He says, have two. Would you like a peach? He says, have two. He says, oh, thank you very much. You know, I won his heart for three dollars. Just gave him some fruit. He said, the way to a man's ear is through his mouth. If you want to witness to a guy, stuff his mouth with a hamburger. He can't speak back to you and you can witness to his ear. Jesus said, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. One day, a little time after this, I was preaching and Tony was in the front row. He had bare feet. It was winter. I said, Tony, do you have any shoes? He said, no. So, I said to him, let's get him some shoes. I was going to get a Salvation Army store. Get a pair for about ten, twelve dollars. So, I said, let's go and buy him a new pair. Went and bought him a beautiful pair of white sneakers with a red line around them. Fluffy white socks. I went back to this local square. I said, where's Tony? Couldn't find him. So, I said, Ray's looking for you. Came running behind me. He says, Ray, are you looking for me? I said, yeah. Turned around in this box of sneakers. I said, here, these are yours. You know what he said? I couldn't say it from the pulpit. He said a profanity. He was so overwhelmed and normally, I hate profanity. But you know what? It just made me smile. He said, blankety blank. Oh, blankety blank. And he kept going on and I just kept smiling. I bent down and felt the end. They fitted him. So, I ran off before he could thank me. And I tell you what, I felt so good. It is more blessed to give than to receive. You know, there's a moral obligation to give gifts at Christmas and Easter. Grandma says, you don't need to buy anything for me at Christmas, dear. It's okay. I really don't need to buy anything. But if you don't get something for Grandma at Christmas, there's a cold feeling coming from Grandma at Christmas. So, there's kind of this obligation to give gifts at certain times of the year. But if you just give gifts for no reason to your neighbors, say, hey, I saw this grape juice in the supermarket. I thought you might like a bottle. Just walk off before they can say no. Just let them know that you love them. Love is felt. The message is heard. This is closed with this thought. Now, I'll speak it. I wish I wouldn't smile at my own jokes. I just, they're so funny. You wish you never heard this. Seriously. I saw something in an evangelical newspaper that just challenged the life into me. It said this. It said, if you were going to be given a thousand dollars for every person you witnessed to, would you be more zealous in your evangelism? I thought about it for a second and thought, yes. A thousand dollars every time I witnessed to. I think I would be more zealous than I am. In evangelism. You see, probably the most effective place I find to witnessing people is on planes. Get on a plane. Get someone on the inside. Wait till they're strapped in. Wait till we're 25,000 feet up. If they get offended, I say, there's the door. Then leave. Go on. But this is the normal scenario. I'm sitting in a plane. I think, praise the Lord, this is a divine encounter. Thank you, Lord. This is what I've been praying for. The righteousness. Who's lying? The righteousness is bold as a lion. I'm not fearful. I'm not dismayed. God is with me. That noise is my heart. Stop! And I've got this argument. I'm saying to myself, yeah, I think I'll begin by saying, that might offend them. I think I'll say, no, no, that could've. But if I knew I was going to get a thousand dollars for witnessing to them, I'd probably say, hey, you, don't read when I want to speak to you. Now, where are you going to spend eternity? Heaven or hell? Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick. And I had to examine my own heart and say, would I be more zealous for money than I would be for God? Now, here let this challenge you. Could you deal with your fear of man problem for the love of money when you can't deal with it for the love of God? Very challenging. Let me repeat it. Could you deal with your fear of man problem for the love of money when you can't deal with it for the love of God? You cannot serve God and mammon. If we were going to be given a thousand dollars for every person we witnessed to, probably most of us would become zealously involved in 4am flashlight evangelism. Flashlight in one hand, calculator in the other. And often when I'm nervous and wanting to witness to someone, when I'm trying to find courage and say, God help me, I just think of that. You know, God, I would do it for money. I know I would. So how much more should I do it for you? So tonight, I trust with the help of God, we looked at three keys to getting on fire for God. Faith produces joy and joy produces physical energy. If we truly believe the exceeding great and precious promises of God, then we should have a joy that's unspeakable. We should be full of glory. We should always be abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing our labor is not in vain. The second key was the motivating force of love for God. If we have truly seen Jesus Christ evidently set forth and crucified, it'll break your hearts and they'll say, God, if you can love me that much, then I'll do anything for you. Now, perfect love, our mature love, will cast aside our fears. Lastly, we looked at the motivating force of compassion. If we look at the fate of the ungodly, we'll say with Paul, wherefore knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. Others, having compassion, pulling them from the fire, will hate even the garment spotted by the flesh. To God's will and His honor, let's just bear in prayer as we close, shall we? Father, tonight, we are so humbled by your grace and your patience with us. And we would say with Paul, without our fighting, within our fears, we are in fear and much trembling. And often, we don't know what to say, but Lord, we just will open our mouths wide and pray that you'll fill them. We present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to you, which is a reasonable service. Father, we don't want to be conformed to this world. We want to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, that we prove what is that perfect and acceptable will of God. So this night, we pray, O God, give us compassion that will swallow our fears, give us zeal for the lost that might reach them in these last hours of time. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.