In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of four things for spiritual success. The first is to magnify God and continually proclaim His greatness. The second is to modify the flesh, meaning to resist and overcome sinful desires. The third is to simplify one's life, focusing on what truly matters and eliminating distractions. And finally, the fourth is to serve one's generation, following the example of Jesus and David who served God's will and fell asleep in peace. The preacher encourages the audience to pray, seek God, and be a servant to others, emphasizing the significance of these four principles for a successful spiritual life.

...but rather to lay before you a formula for spiritual success, which I've given here and there. Somebody asked Spurgeon if he ever preached a sermon more than once. And he said, you think I'd throw away the axe after I cut the tree down? And I have told people in my study, I've told them in private conversation, I've prayed about it myself, I've told audiences here and there, and tonight I want to talk to you about it. I have four texts. They don't seem to be related, but they are. Psalm 40, verse 16, "...that all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee. Let such as love thy salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified." And then the second one is Colossians 3.5, "...and mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth." Colossians 3.22, "...servants, obey in singleness of heart, fearing God," and then a related text, Lipton 3.13, "...this one thing I do." And there's Acts 13.36, for David, "...after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on his feet." Now, the first thing I want to tell you is that you can take this down, these four points, and you can have them. I might as well tell you that, because you'll probably take them anyhow, and I might as well relieve your conscience of it. You can have this, because I've had sermons lifted from me beautifully, and have met them coming back. And they didn't know it, the preachers didn't know it. But it's perfectly all right, nothing's copyright. I think that everybody ought to have the privilege of using any of the Lord's weapons belonging to any of the Lord's people, except their armor, and I never wear anybody's armor except mine. Now, I believe that life is a serious thing, and that this is a serious world in which we live. And I'm encouraged to believe that there are serious-minded people left. Now, there are not as many as lots of people think, but there are more than others think. There are serious-minded people still alive in the world who realize the seriousness of life and are honestly concerned how they can meet and conquer life and death, and how they can salvage something out of the wreck of the world, and how they can save their own souls out of the disaster. Don't get shocked now and fall over a Schofield Bible on this, because Peter did say, save yourselves, didn't he, from this untoward generation? Peter said that. I can cautiously venture to whisper it, if an apostle said it, even if you don't find it in the margin of the Schofield Bible. So I think there are some who are wanting to save their souls out of this untoward generation, this coming disaster and the crash and downfall of the world, and such as that would welcome counsel. And I want to give it to you, welcome counsel not from a perfect man, but from somebody who's walked with God, and who's loved and lived in the scriptures for quite a while, and who hasn't any other motive except to do you good. Nobody can get my ear or my respect if I know he's got a handout, that he's got his handout for something from me. Nobody can get my ear. I won't listen to anybody. I don't think it's a spiritual thing. I haven't any conscience about it at all. I'll plug my ears against the man that I suspect of being out to get something from me. And no man can preach too straight to me if I know he loves me and doesn't want anything I have. And no man can be too eloquent for me to walk out on if I have a suspicion that he wants something I have. Now, I don't want anything that you have at all, except my car fare, and I'll get that sure. But outside of that, you can keep everything, get a commission. But there are four things that I'd like to say to you, that if you're going to save yourself from this untoward generation and salvage something out of the world wrecked in the crash and fall worlds, you're going to have to do four things that I have before you here. The first is, magnify God, the second is, mortify the flesh, the third is, simplify your life, and the fourth is, serve your generation. Now, there are the four texts, and that's what the four texts say. Let's look at the first one first. Let, such as love thy salvation, say continually, The Lord be magnified. Now, I'm positively sure, after many years of observation and prayer, I'm sure that the basis of all of our trouble today in religious circles is that our God is too small, that God isn't big enough. And when he says, magnify the Lord, he doesn't mean that you're to make God big, but you're to see him big. When we take a glass to look at a star, we don't make the star bigger, we only see it bigger. And so you can't make God bigger, but you're only to see him bigger. Now it's quite popular for us to talk about the liberals and the modernists, and you can just name them. All of them have a little God, and we, the Alliance people, have a big God. We do have a big God, but most of us don't see him big. And so my first point is, see God big. Magnify God. Now the most important verse in the Bible is not the one you think it is, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever, lay that aside, that's not the most important one. Nor is it the other one you think it is, John 3, 16, God so loved the world, that's not the most important one. The most important verse in the Bible is this one, in the beginning, God. That's the most important verse, because that's where everything must begin. God is the fountain out of which everything springs, and he is the foundation upon which everything rests. God is all in all. The archbishop said, God is over all things, under all things, outside all things, within but not enclosed, without but not excluded, above but not raised up, below but not depressed. Holy above presiding, holy beneath sustaining, holy without embracing, and holy within filling. And I'm sure that if we saw God bigger, we'd see people smaller. This is the day of the magnification of slick personalities. And just as we magnify slick personalities, we minimize God. And don't you think that we've escaped the curse either, in evangelical circles, and don't you think we've escaped the curse in full gospel circles, for we have not. We, the whole meetings go by in which we never see God at all, we only see his servant, his all. And the curlier the hair of the servant, the more we see the servant. And if he's been pardoned from murdering his grandmother's aunt, why, we magnify him still more. And if he's been half converted from movie acting, why, we magnify him still more. We've always got some big wheel that we're down in front of, kissing the toe of, as the Catholic kisses the toe of the Virgin Mary, and we wonder why the Holy Ghost doesn't bless us. The Holy Ghost doesn't bless us for the same reason he doesn't bless the Catholic for kissing the toe of the Virgin. They've got their focus wrong. We respect the Virgin, but we don't worship her. And God would have us respect each other, but not worship each other. And yet there's an awful lot of hero worship in the Church of Christ. Magnify the Lord with me, and everybody say, The Lord be magnified. Now, God moves according to an eternal purpose, and he carries on after his own plans. One time a long while ago, when the Presbyterians were meeting somewhere over there in the Isles, I think in London, trying to work up what later was called the Thirty-Nine Articles. They say that they could get a definition of doctrine, all doctrines but one, and that was the doctrine of God. Nobody could seem to come up with a definition, and I think I could guess why. So they were just about in despair, and one of the moderators finally said, and pointed to a young minister down in front, he said, Brother, would you lead us in prayer one more time that God might give us light on what we can put down in the Creed about God? The young fellow got up and grabbed a seat ahead of him and squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head and prayed with great earnestness, and he said, O God, Thou art a spirit infinite and eternal, unchangeable in Thy being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Somebody said, Now that's enough, that's it, and they wrote it down. So here we have it. God is a spirit infinite, eternal, unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. O, novation says that the contemplation of God's majesty all eloquence is done. He is always greater than anything that can be said about Him, and no language is worthy of Him. He is more sublime than all sublimity, loftier than all loftiness, profounder than all profundity, more splendid than all splendor, more powerful than all power, more truthful than all truth, greater than all majesty, more merciful than all mercy, and juster than all justice, and more pitiful than all pity. And yet nothing that anybody can say about Him is enough. Back in Isaiah, the 14th chapter, there occurs a passage, and I was too dumb to see it, but somebody pointed it out to me. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their hosts by number. He calleth them all by name, by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power, and not one failure. Now, until this was pointed out to me, I didn't see what was here. While Isaiah, in a figure of speech that was probably the loftiest ever conceived by the mind of man, I don't think Shakespeare or Isaiah ever had a lofty thought compared with this one. Or David. This man, Isaiah, saw the stars in the heavens above as sheep on a green pasture field, and the great God Almighty, the Shepherd, walking among them and calling them all by name. And if you're not afraid that your head will split open with the effort, try to conceive the infinite number of stars that dot the heavens above, and then think of God leading the stars as a shepherd leads his flock, and calling them every one by name, and not one of them faileth. This is our God, and my brethren, God calls us to magnify him, to make God big. The meeting isn't big because a lot of people are present, the meeting is big because a number of people see a big God in the meeting, and the bigger God is seen, the greater the meeting is. A friend of mine has a little saying, I'd rather have a big little meeting than a little big meeting. And there are a lot of big meetings that are little because the God in them is a small God, and there are a lot of little meetings that are big because God is big in the midst of them. I tell you, if you're a Christian and you're getting older in God, you ought to be getting nearer to God, and God ought to be becoming to you more and more, and other things less and less. And if you still have to be chucked under the chin so many times a month by the pastor to keep you happy, you're a carnal goat, and you need help from God. My friend, if God isn't the biggest thing in the world to you, not all your talk will ever, ever impress me. We ought to be where God is everything, where we walk into a meeting and we see God and we think God and we feel God, and God's all around about us, and that God shuts down over us. And we see him in a bush in the cool of the day, and we see him on a mountain in thunder and fire, and we see him on a cross in blood and tears, and we see him coming down the sky riding a white horse, and we see him sitting on a throne judging the nations, but always we see God. God is everything. I want you to pray about something for me. Will you do this? I don't often introduce personal matters, but I want you to pray about something. I wish you'd pray that God would help me and let me live long enough to write a book on the attributes of God devotionally considered. I have that in my mind, and I want to do it, but I'm too busy with the weekly to do it, and I want to quit the weekly so I can do it, and if I quit, oh my, I'm all messed up. But you'll pray for me that the Lord will find his way, will you? I'd like to do this, I'd like to leave to this generation an elevated and large conception of the great God Almighty in his three Persons. I'd like to die and let the world say, not wasn't Tozer smart, wasn't he eloquent, wasn't he witty, but to have them say, we praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. All the earth does magnify thee, the Father everlasting. To thee all angels cry aloud, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Sabbath, heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory. It's this that I want to do. I want to leave behind me a flavor of God, so the triune God gets all the credit. When I say God, brother, I mean the triune God. Somebody accused me of this. He said, you talk about God all the time, and Simpson talked about Jesus all the time. That's the difference between you two. Well, I didn't answer him, I never answer a critic. I'm afraid to. I know how sharp my tongue is, so I keep my mouth shut. But I know this, that when I say God, I mean Jesus, and I mean the Father, and I mean the Holy Ghost. For there is one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, that was begotten of him before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made. And there's one Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who is the Father and Son together, worshiped and glorified. So when I talk about God, I don't split up the Godhead. You can't divide the Godhead, brother. The old creed says that we're not to confound the persons nor divide the substance, and God can't be anywhere partly present. Whenever God's there at all, God's all there. And when one person's there, all persons are there, because you can't divide the substance of the Godhead. So that where the Father is, there also is the Son, and there's the Holy Ghost. And where the Son is, there's also the Father, and there's the Holy Ghost. And where the Holy Ghost is, there's also the Father and the Son. So the blessed Trinity is here in this meeting house tonight, and he's all here, and he's not partly here, but he's all here. God doesn't send representatives, God is here. And if that isn't good news to you, you'll need to be born again. Now that's the first thing, magnify God, and your ministry will be little, and you'll be little, and you'll die a little, unless you have a bigger God, and God gets bigger in your eyes every day. Great God, for I pray that he'll make himself big in our eyes, so when we meet it won't be sharp talk, it'll be all about God. Well the second thing is, mortify the flesh, that's that Colossian verse. Now, you Christians might as well admit this, there's a reality you've got to reckon with, and that's your flesh. And by your flesh I don't mean your body. That old monastic idea that God is angry with your body, just as silly as it can possibly be. Your body is just the donkey you ride around on, that's all, and it isn't either good or bad. It's just your bones and flesh and blood, that's all. It's what the thinkers and the theologians call amoral. That means not moral or immoral, just negative, just neutral. So your body isn't good or bad, your body is just a hunk of flesh. So when the Bible says, mortify your flesh, it doesn't mean mortify your blood and your bones and your epidermis and your hair and teeth and eyes and stomach. It doesn't mean mortify your physical body. God isn't mad at your physical body, brother. When the Bible says, mortify your flesh, it means mortify your ego, your old man, the self, that evil that's in you, that birthday present you got from the devil when you were born. That inward thing, that's your flesh, that's what it means, that's you. Now, if the old man was something that could be lifted out like an onion could be pulled out of a garden bed, then we'd all feel very proud of the fact that we'd been de-onionized and debunked. But the terrible part about this crucifying the flesh is that the flesh is you, that the flesh is you. And when the Lord says, mortify the flesh, he doesn't mean abuse your body, starve it or make it to lie on beds of nails. It means put yourself on the cross, and that's what people don't want to do. The Alliance grew up and started out and went for a while on the doctrine of self-crucifixion, or at least crucifixion, putting of ourselves to death, mortifying the flesh through the cross of Jesus. But that's all old stuff now, and it belongs back there with the horse and the buggy and the bustle and the high-button shoes. Nobody believes it anymore. If they do, they don't live it. And I think it's better not to believe it and say so, like some of our good Calvinist friends do, than to say you believe it and then live in spite of it, in defiance of it. Amen and amen and amen. Now, there's a lot of people trying to get away with the old man. What do I mean by the old man? I mean, sister, your pride and your bossiness and your nastiness and your temper and your mean despisation. And what do I mean, man? I mean your bearishness and your goofishness and your lustfulness and your wolfishness and your quarrelsomeness and your pride and your overbearingness. I mean all of those things. It's just us. What do I mean, Reverend? I mean, you're strutting and you're hunting for a bigger church and you're being dissatisfied with the offering and blaming the superintendent because you can't get called, and when the reason you can't get called is nobody wants you. That's what I mean, Reverend. And you deacons, what do I mean? Sitting around the wall of the boardroom, putting stake, comb, and Vaseline tonic on the wall into the far end of the night, and wearing your poor pasture out because you're too stubborn to humble yourself and admit you're wrong. That's what I mean, geeky boy. That's what I mean. Huh? What do I mean, you musicians? I mean that jealousy that makes you hate somebody that can sing a little better than you can. I mean that jealousy that makes you want to play the violin, and when everybody knows that you couldn't play the violin, and especially the choir director, and you hate him and wish he was dead and secretly pray that he'd get called a Punxsutawney, when the trouble is you just can't play. Now, that's what I mean. And all of this may be under the guise of spirituality, and we may learn to put our head over on one side, fold our hands gently, put on a beatific smile like Francis of Assisi, and still be just as carnal as they come. Now, brother and sister, I don't know what your theory is about sanctification. I don't care about that. But I do say this, that you'd better mortify your flesh, or your flesh will do something terrible to you. These terrible days in which we live, we've not only accepted the flesh in its more refined manifestations as being quite proper, but we have created an ignoble theology of extenuation, and we excuse the flesh. People don't hesitate any more to say, Oh, was I mad, was I mad. All right, lead in prayer, brother. And one minute after he told somebody how mad he was, he'll lead in prayer. Uh-uh, he's just mumbling words. I have no confidence in a man who loses his temper. And I don't believe that the man who blows up and loses his temper is a spiritual man. I don't care if he's a preacher, a bishop, a pope, or what he is. He's a carnal man, as carnal as a goat, and needs to be cleansed by fire and blood. Well, we've excused it. People say, I was mad. Well, if you were mad, you were sinning, and you ought to get cleansed from your bad temper. But we've incorporated the flesh into our orthodoxy, and instead of being humble, we magnify the proud fellow. You know, years ago, God gave me an ice pick, and he said, Now, son, among your other duties will be to puncture all the inflated egos that you see. Go stick an ice pick in them, and there'll be more pops and hissing around as the air hissed out of egos. People hate me for that, but I love them for the privilege of whittling them down to size. Because if there's anything that we ought to get straight, it's how little we are. When I was a young fellow, I always loved guns. I got a .22 revolver, and loved to shoot, just for fun, you know, when I had nothing else to do, and that rarely. But I was out shooting with another fellow, and we shot what they called a mud hen. Now, I'm not sure what a mud hen is, actually, but they call it mud hen out in Ohio. We thought it was a great big duck. And we peeled the thing, you know, picked it, plucked it, got rid of its feathers, and it was the biggest hypocrite you ever saw. It was practically all feathers. It wasn't much bigger than an oversized robin when we got down to the real duck. But when you looked at it, it was all plucked up and swollen out, and that describes most Christians. Well, we stand our feathers on end so people don't know how small we are, you know. Listen, Mama, did you ever give your dog a bath? You know how your dog, your wooly dog, your fluffy fellow, shake himself and stand up and stay so soft and fluffy, and you give him a bath, and boy, he shrinks down two-thirds. That's most of us. This fur we've got, this fluff, this exterior, it just needs to be reduced, that's all. Mortify your flesh, and mortify comes from the same Latin word mortuary comes from, a place where you put dead people. Means to die. But we don't talk about that much anymore. You can get by if you're just able to tell the board of examiners what Nyack teaches about it. They'll ordain you and give you a church and let you ruin another congregation. But we don't believe much in it anymore. We just talk about it, but we don't believe in getting reduced. But you'll never be a spiritual man until God's reduced you to your proper size. He's cut you down to your right size. Mortify is the New Testament word. Turn your back upon yourself and reckon yourself to be dead indeed, and crucified with Christ. And then expect the blood and the power of the Holy Ghost to make real what your faith is reckoned. And then begin to live it. Some people go to an altar and get sanctified, but they're still resentful, they still have a chip on their shoulder, they still love money, they still have a temper, they still look where they shouldn't, and then they're sanctified. No, my friend, they're not. They are just pretenders, or worse than that, they're deceived persons. So either we'll mortify the flesh, or the flesh will wreck to harm us to a point where we'll have no power, no joy, no fruit, no usefulness, no victory. And now the third is simplifying your life. Now practically everybody has too much, knows too much, sees too much, hears too much, goes to too many places, and comes back from too many places. I'm writing an editorial just now on this very subject, that we've got to simplify our lives or we're going to lose terribly. But most people won't simplify themselves. Life has a center and a perimeter, you see. At the center of the soul there's God, and then as we grate out from the center of the soul we get out into the woods, just like a great temple, with God dwelling in the middle of the temple. And then there's the outer court, and then there's the fields, and then there's the woods, and then there's the deserts beyond. And most people do not live in the center of their lives. Be still and know that I am God is the great Bible word, but most people would be afraid of backsliding if they'd quit yelling. If they got still just long enough to listen for the voice of God, they'd feel that there was the coldest meeting in all the wide world. You know, brothers, some of the most wonderful meetings in the world is where God is there in such awful power people are afraid to keep. Some of the most wonderful meetings I've ever been in have been meetings where nobody could even whisper. The mighty power of God was there, and nobody dared open his mouth. He was breathless. When I'm praying the most eloquently, I'm getting the least accomplished in my prayer life. But when I'll have stopped getting eloquent and giving God a lesson in theology, shut up and just gaze upward and wait for God to speak to my heart, why, then he speaks with such power that I have to grab a pencil and a notebook and take notes on what God is saying to my heart. Oh, brothers, if we could only simplify our lives. Now, the further we get out from the center of our lives, the more speed we get and the less power. Everybody knows machinery, that if there is a moving power shaft, you know that if you have a little wheel on that power shaft, you have less speed, but you have more power. But if you have a big wheel on the power shaft, you have more speed, but you have less power. Now that's why you shift gears in your old cars. You have more power when you're in low gear, but you have more speed when you're in top gear, because you're out further from the center, and it's always so with God's people. The further you get out from the center of your heart and from the presence of God and from the sanctuary of your soul, why, the faster you go, but the less power you have. Most people like to go fast, they don't care for power. I remember old Socrates, God bless his old bald head. Old Socrates was in Athens, and somebody took him around, he didn't have any shoes, he went around barefooted, trying to prove to people he didn't know anything, and that's what the time they killed him for. They took him around to Athens ten-cent stores, and after half a day of it, paddling around in these old bare feet, they let him out after they'd seen all the marketplaces, and they said, Well, Socrates, what do you think of it? He said, I never knew before how many things there are in Athens that I don't want. I like that, don't you? He didn't. He just looked at the things he didn't want, and that's the way we are. Well, we're too busy, we know too much, we read too many things, and some of you, let me give you some advice. Now, some people won't like this. They'll say, I'm a radical, but I've been called radical now since I was 19. But let me give you some advice. You ought to know how you can have a stepped-up revival in your soul. Go home and pull the plug out on your radio and TV set, and leave it out for ten full days. Go home and pull it out. Now, I don't say throw out these things, I don't have a TV, I wouldn't have one around the place. I have a little radio, I get the news and a few things on it. But if you really want to meet God, I almost said, Go home and pull the plug out of the telephone, but I won't say that. Maybe that's necessary. But at least go home and pull the plug out on your TV and radio, and listen to yourself. Get in touch with your own voice. Most people don't know what their own voices sound like anymore. They're so used to somebody's voice cutting in on them, why some people are so exquisitely dumb that they won't even pull the plug on the TV when the pastor comes. Ed Maxey, who was the third man on the totem pole over at our church, the third, second assistant pastor, went somewhere to visit a man, and the fellow left the TV on. Ed stood there a minute and said, I'll come back at a more convenient time, sir, and walked out on him. I like that. That's the way to do it. Don't play second fiddle to a shadow, and that's what he wanted him to do. Well, anyhow, I'm sure that some of you women, that the face of Arthur Godfrey is more familiar to you than your own husband's face, because you see him more often, isn't it so? Sure. You know what an old red-headed ardor looks like more than you do him, and then you stand up piously in prayer meeting and look like a saint and say, pray for my husband. Pray for your husband's sister while you're a stumbling block in his way. I used to pray for him until you get right. Now, there are just so many things we don't need to know. You don't have to read everything, not even all that's in the last weekly. Read more Bible, less Reader's Digest, less Pittsburgh Sun-Telly, and less Time and Life and Newsweek and all that. Just read less on that. Now, I don't say it bad, I just say that all it does to you is confuse you and fill your head with spun yarn, or just win. Just take a little time out to talk to God all by yourself. Do you ever try that, brother? Simplify your life and get back to the simple things of life. Be still and know that I am God, and learn how strong simplicity is. To be simple, not to push and boast and bloat and puff out. You heard, didn't you, about the toad, about the mama toad that came home and said to, I think it was a frog instead of a toad, and said to the father toad, Now, this isn't anything funny, this is real, and this was the old Aesop told this. And she said, You know, honey, to her frog husband, she said, You know, honey, I saw a bull today. He said, You did? Was he bigger than I am? She laughed and said, Bigger than you are, I should say he was bigger than you are. Oh, he said, I'm not so sure about that. He said, Was he this big? And he puffed himself up. And she said, Bigger than that. He said, Was he this big? And he puffed himself up still more, and she kept saying, Ah, honey, you're no size compared with him. And he puffed and puffed, and finally there was a loud bang, and she was a widow. Old Aesop told that back before the time of Christ. Even that old Greek saw through a lot of us, and he'd come here and smile at a lot of us sanctified puffed-up frogs, full of unfragrant wind and confusion and a million things we don't need. You don't need to know so much, brother, and you don't need to have so many things, sister. You just have to dust them anyhow. So simplify your life. We used to sing, Give me a single eye looking alone to thee, O for a single eye, not want very much. For twenty-some years I haven't owned an automobile, and I'm the only man in the United States of America to have two bums down on Skid Row that don't have one. And they won't believe it, they say, What, an intelligent man living in the United States of America in 1956 doesn't own an automobile? Well, they're more trouble than a pair of twins. You have to be always scrubbing them, gassing them, oiling them, putting tires on them and having licenses for them. Well, I know people that actually think more of their cars than they do of their wives. And I've got so many friends that have cars that are going where I want to go, why should I bother with one? Well, this will probably slip over your head, but I am telling you, simplify your life. Come home and decide before God. Now, don't come to the altar and try to do this here while somebody beats you over the head. Don't do it that way. Get somewhere with your Bible and God, get alone. Get out there, God-friend and the rest of them, out of your living room and give yourself a chance to be still and know that I am God, and talk to God about things. Then the fourth is, serve mankind. David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, he fell asleep. Now, David was a man of like passions, the same as we are, but when David died, God blew the whistle and rang the bell. Because he served his generation by the will of God, then he fell asleep. Christ became a servant, for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. And when Jesus said, It's finished, he didn't mean only that his preaching ministry was finished, but he was helping and healing and feeding and comforting and blessing everywhere that he went. Jesus was a servant. He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. You know what you are, you are a servant. You ordain men that now like to think of yourself as a minister. Do you know what the word minister means? It means a servant. It does mean somebody to be looked up to, it's somebody that's to be there to help out. You are a servant. Serve your generation. And no man has any right to die until he has served his generation. No man. A lot of us would say we'd like to die. Even Paul wasn't willing to die. Paul said, I'd like to die and go to be with Jesus, which is far better, but he said, I'm not going to yet because there are people down here that need me. And he was a debtor, and until he squared the debt, he wasn't going to die. No man, no Christian has any right to die until he's put the world in debt to him. When Charles Wesley, John Wesley, came into the world, they were in debt to their mother, they were in debt to their father, they were in debt to the nurse, they were in debt to everybody that served them. But they didn't die until they turned the tables on the world, and now the world is in debt and the Church of God is in debt to Charles and John Wesley. You can hardly have a service if somebody doesn't lead off seeing when Charles Wesley is him. The world is in debt, the Church is in debt to Charles Wesley. He lived until he reversed the tables and put the world in debt to him. When Livingstone came into the world, in the Livingstone home, Mama Livingstone hugged the little fellow to her chest and fed him from her breast and loved him and looked after him and helped him on to grow up to be a little man. And he was in debt to her and in debt to his father and in debt to everybody. But when Livingstone died kneeling in prayer in a little hut over in Africa, he had made the world to be his debtor, and a grateful world remembered it and buried him in Westminster Abbey among England's graves. And when Ari Jaffrey was born in a Canadian home in Canada, why, his well-to-do parents had it all fixed up for little Abi. They had a little layette for him and a bed and bottles and all that he needed. He owed them everything. But when he lay quietly on the cot there in that prison above Macassar and breathed out his last in the service of his God, whole sections of the world were in debt to Ari Jaffrey, and so was Simpson, and so was so many more. So was Daddy Whiteside that watched grace this platform with his little quiet holy presence. When he was born into the Whiteside home, of course he was in debt to everybody. But when they laid him away, everybody was in debt to him. He served his generation by the will of God before he fell on sleep. The trouble with a lot of lazy Christians is they want to fall on sleep before evening. They quit before the whistle blows. Well, I'll tell you this, too, if you'd serve your generation, you'd better get at it, because your generation isn't going to be around very long. You can't serve last generation, and you can only indirectly serve your next generation, but you can serve this present generation. Some of us are just religious sponges. We absorb and absorb and absorb, and that's about all there is to it. But the Lord wants us to serve, to do things for people, to put people in debt to us. Why I have people, now this gets back to my church, I don't mind at all, but I have people in my church that give to missions very heavily, and they pray for missions very faithfully, and they know the names of the missionaries and the new babies and all the problems of the missionaries. But they've never washed anybody's floor or washed anybody's feet or carried a bowl of soup to a sick widow. They've never done anything like that, and they wouldn't stoop to it. They buy their way out by giving heavy to missions. They serve God by proxy. A lot of us, Alliance people, we buy our way out by giving to missions and putting the pictures of missionaries on our walls. But you couldn't get us to do anything really humble. We had a little girl who was three years with us in Chicago who was a deaconess, Beatrice Shrum. She is now Beatrice Cartmell of India. She married Mr. Cartmell and actually got to India, well, Beatrice is from around this area somewhere, isn't she? Out there somewhere in this area. But anyway, Beatrice came to us and she visited and she did all sorts of things. Did the intangible things you can't pin down, you're not sure whether you're accomplishing anything or not. So a blue baby, she had grown up to be about, I think, maybe 14 years old, but she was still a blue baby and she was nine, and Beatrice went out to see her. Some of us went out and here was Beatrice down on her hands and knees in the kitchen scrubbing the floor. And I said, Now listen, Beatrice, we didn't call you to Chicago to scrub floors. She said, Oh, well, Pastor, you know sometimes I like to see, to do something that you can see you've accomplished something. I like that. And so Beatrice went to the field and there she is, and they say one of the finest missionaries that ever went to India.