In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of worship, witness, and work in the lives of believers. He expresses his concern that many people claim to be followers of Christ but do not live out their faith in their actions. The speaker highlights the need for believers to engage in good works and benevolence, following the example of Jesus who went about doing good and healing the oppressed. He challenges the audience to be a model church, presenting a new model for others to follow, and to align their lives with the teachings of the New Testament and the power of the Holy Spirit.

First Thessalonians. First Thessalonians. First chapter, Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus. Under the church of the Thessalonians, which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be unto you in peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God always for you, Paul, making mention of you in our prayers. Remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God and our Father. Knowing, brethren, beloved, your election of God, that our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance. And as you know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost. So that ye were examples unto all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. The Thessalonian church was an example, a model church. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith to God were to spread abroad. What I'm getting at is that this was a sample church, and that every place people talked about that church. And what they talked about was the faith of these people. And he said, we don't have to say anything about you. You're known every place, whatever that meant, wherever the gospel was. For they themselves, the people, other people, showed of you, of us. What manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God for models, to serve the living and true God, and wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. Now I want to pray a little. O God is here, let us adore and own how dreadful is this place, that all within us feel his power and silent bow before his face. Lord thou hast honored us, above angels, I am in the midst of you. Christ, thou didst lay the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. O Christ, thou art here. Thou hast honored us, and we acknowledge it. Thy holy presence is here. O Christ, we pray that thou wilt forgive our blind eyes and our deaf ears, forgive all the little things that destroy the sensitivity of our hearts to thy presence. Lord, in thy presence is fullness of joy. And where thou art, there is happiness forevermore. Lord with us, so wilt thou grant, the truth as it goes forth, may find the prepared hearts. Satan may not steal away this seed, but that it may grow, and grow forever, and be there when judgment fires have burned every portable thing and every movable thing, and everything that can burn or rot or decay, everything that springs of vain glory or pride or competition or desire for fame, all of this, Lord Jesus, we despise. We look to thee, show us thy face, one transient gleam of loveliness divine. We shall never think or dream of any love save thy. Be with us now this evening here. We would be an outlooking church. We're only here tonight to charge our batteries, to hear thy word expounded. We live for others and for the salvation of man and for the ends of the earth. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Now I have been bringing to you a series of talks in which I have been setting forth propositions. And this proposition is not a revolution, but a reformation. And I'll not take time tonight again to quote the definition that we've given, but only say that this proposition will not result in a tearing down, but in a building up, not in a dividing, but in an integrating. And what I have proposed and do propose and plan yet to propose for Protestantism is valid for any Protestant church, and if any, then every Protestant church. And if any and every Protestant church, then for Avenue Road Church. Now, I may overlap and repeat a little tonight, I don't think so, but if I do, it's purposeful and with intent. And my cheerful goal for this church, my cheerful goal for this church, by the Spirit, and remember that we take it as our motto, let's repeat it, not by might nor by power, but Spirit says the Lord of hosts. So my hopeful goal for this church, for Protestantism, but I can't control Protestantism, for any church and every church that will hear, but I don't have too much influence with any particular church. I don't know anybody that does tell the truth. But I am here speaking to you, and what I want to propose is that this become a model church, that it become the archetype around which other churches might gather to learn. You see, church people imitate models. There's no question about that. We imitate models, and Christianity has had a habit down the years of going off on tangents and following moods and modes and habits. But the church breaks out occasionally in a kind of religious yo-yo epidemic. I remember a few years back when everybody, everybody had a yo-yo, sticking out the window of their cars, yo-yoing as they went, walking down the street, yo-yoing as they went. I saw a cartoon of a bride and groom marching down the aisle, and he had a yo-yo. And somebody was saying, I don't think he's ready for marriage. There were yo-yos. In the church of Christ, we wish that it were different, but it has been so down the years that we start like a flock of sheep, everybody following everybody else. And we happen to have models, and we pick them and follow them. And the church tends to decline in moral power if she chooses the wrong model or an inadequate model. Now, don't anybody interrupt me by saying, Jesus is our model. Jesus says, I know he's our model, he ought to be our model, but the simple fact is he isn't. He ought to be the model for the churches, but Jesus Christ has about as much authority in the average Protestant church as I have in the average Catholic church. Now, hear me, and I want you to hear me, and I want you to hear me. And if you don't want to hear it anymore, let me know, let the board know, and we'll settle that matter. I've got more to do now than I can do. But I say that Jesus Christ has no more authority in the average Protestant church than I have in the Vatican, where they sing about him and they pray in his name and breathe through their nose at the benediction and pronounce his name, but he's got nothing to say, because other models have been chosen. And we have followed each other. I have heard about a scientist, Faber, I think, if I remember, a scientist who was studying one of the caterpillars, that is, one of the species, caterpillars, and he got a huge vessel, a round vessel, perfectly round, like a huge crock, and he put a whole lot of those worms on there, bumper to bumper. They were army worms, bumper to bumper, around the top of that crock. And he started them going. You don't have to start them, they're army worms and they're always marching. And he said that as far as he could tell, I'm paraphrasing it, but he said as far as he could tell, no worm knew where he was going, he was following the tail of the one ahead of him. And the one that was after him followed his tail, and that one followed his tail, so they got clear around to the original fellow who was following the tail ahead of him. And he said to round and round that crock they went. Now army worms march, of course, across the desert, across through the woods and forests and bushes, straight in a straight line. But because they'd been tricked and put up here on a circular path, they went around and round and round. And he said they went around, I've forgotten how many days they went around this crock until one after the other they fell off. Now I can take you in the United States at least, and I suppose the same is true here in Canada, I can take you to little churches, beautiful little churches with the doors nailed up. And all of those blessed religious army worms that once went around that circle fell off and were buried in the backyard. Another one fell off and was buried in the backyard. And I don't think they call it the backyard, that's really, they call it something else. But that's where they bury them, back in the church. And now there's nobody there, they've all fallen off. They ran around and chased each other and took each other for a model, and now it's all over, and there's nothing there but gravestones and greenbriers and bats. And memories, perhaps, memories, if memories can be disembodied. Now, the Thessalonian church here had taken the right model, as you will notice. They had taken a model that was God, was Christ, it was Paul the Apostle, and because they had taken the right model, other people took them for a model. And Paul was very proud and very happy that other people were talking about these Christians of Thessalonica, the Macedonians, and the Chivals, and the rest of them. He said, every place people are talking about you. And what they're saying about you is that you are following the Lord, that you have turned to God from idols, to serve the living God and wait for his Son from heaven. Now, that was a model church. And I say that I have for this church, this pattern, this is what we're to be. We're to be a model church, a church that people, when they hear about it, will say, that is a Christian church, if ever one was. But I want to know now, if this is a carnal or a selfish desire on my part, that the Avenue Road Church become, for Toronto, a scriptural archetype. In other words, that we present a new model. If men will follow men, then they ought to follow the right kind of men in the right direction. If the religious people will parade, then we ought to get them parading in the right way. The truth is, my friends, that to a large extent, the evangelicals have been given wrong models. And while we talk about the Lord Jesus and fight for the creed that says he is the Lord of glory, he's got very little to say among them. Who pretends even to obey the Sermon on the Mount? Who even pretends to it? The dispensationalists have even ruled it out, so it's not even theologically necessary to believe in it anymore. It belongs to some other dispensation. So that was a kind of ruling out of the whole business. Who even pretends to obey the first Corinthian epistle, dealing with such matters as marriage and litigation and the Lord's Supper, and all such matters as dealt with in that? Who pretends to? Then I say that this church might embody certain features. The order of the New Testament is one, letting the scripture decide. There was a man in India by the name of Bakht Singh. Now, you may have heard Bakht Singh. I don't know, some of you. Bakht Singh, as I recall, I know him and I've heard him speak. He got a hold of the New Testament and he got converted and he started to preach, but he had no background at all. That is, he started from scratch. He didn't have a Greek Orthodox, nor a Martoma, nor a Roman Catholic, nor a Protestant background. He just started right there. And he didn't know anything about churches. So he said, what I did was, when I got a problem in the church, I went straight to the New Testament and settled. Straight to the New Testament and I let the New Testament tell me what I was to do. The result is, God has greatly blessed him and his work in the land of India. So, this is what I'd like to see. The New Testament order, letting the scriptures decide. When it comes to a question, any question, what does the word of God say? And all beliefs and all practices are to be tested by the word. No copying unscriptural church methods, but letting the word of God decide. And then, also, I would have it embody the power of the Spirit of Christ. The power of the Spirit of Christ. I have said, and I repeat, that the average gospel church could get along without the Holy Ghost and does get along without him. We're praying for revival. What is revival but when the Holy Ghost takes over the work that is, instead of being pushed aside into the benediction, he now becomes the executive of the church, running it. He shall receive power when the Holy Ghost shall come upon you, Acts 1.8. And that would simply mean that the Spirit of heaven should come to accompany on earth with his all-prevailing gifts and power and grace, with his light and his illumination and his discernment and his power. This is not fanaticism. This is not any weird religion. This is just what the Bible really teaches and what the Alliance wants taught. Now, also, that we might embody in a supreme degree the purpose for which we exist. The purposes for which we exist on earth are three. To worship, to witness, and to work. Those are the three words you can remember then. You don't even have to take notes on. Remember, we are here to worship, to witness, and to work. When a man is converted, that is, when he is regenerated by the Holy Ghost, he immediately changes his citizenship. He isn't any longer a citizen of earth, except in a provisory way. He is now a citizen of heaven. Our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we look for the Lord. Abraham, when he went down from Ur of the Chaldees, was called a Hebrew, a man from the other side of the river, a stranger. He spoke with an accent. He brought another kind of habit, other eating habits, other dressing habits, and other speech habits and other customs. He brought them from Ur of the Chaldees. He was a different man. He was a stranger and a foreigner there. And a Christian, when he is born of God, a man when he is born of God and becomes a Christian, he immediately shifts his citizenship and he is now a pilgrim and a stranger where he used to be a citizen among the fallen sons of man. I am a stranger here upon a foreign land by whom it's far away beyond the golden strand, they used to say. Then why does he leave us here? Why are we here at all if everybody that is born anew has a new nature and God becomes his Father and Jesus becomes his Brother and he becomes a habitation of the Spirit and heaven is his fatherland? Why is he left here on earth among strangers? He is left here to worship and to witness and to work, those three things. That's what we're here for, to worship, to witness and to work. And our worship must be in the Spirit. Jesus said they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth. To do this kind of thing, so God will accept it, there must be individual committal to Christ and there must be inward purification by blood and by fire and there must be separation from the world, its opinions, its habits and its scale values. If we're going to worship there must be, I repeat, a separation from the world, a detachment they called it in olden times, a detachment. But we're just coming out of a period now when people were so eager to make converts that they fell into the trap that Jesus Christ warned them about. He said you compass sea and land to make converts and when you make them they're more children of hell than they were before because they've now got a religious veneer on them and they didn't have it before. We're just coming through that period, I say, when John 3.16 was the only verse anybody used. The Lord loved everybody whoops. Come, come, come, everybody get converted now. And so people came but their conversion was backward. In place of their being converted into the kingdom of God, the church was converted over to their habits and ways so that there was no separation from the world. The world's opinions came into the church and the world habits came into the church. I want to ask you right now, you want God to bless you, you say, we want God to bless us, we believe the Lord is coming and all this. I want to ask you whether you read the Bible most this week or looked at television most. Now think about it a little bit. Think of the time you spent. How many half-hour periods did you spend? How many? How many half-hour periods did you spend with your Bible and how many half-hour periods did you spend with amusement? We're Christians, but how much time did we spend? We don't take this matter seriously, do we now? Do we take it seriously? I don't think so. We're here to worship. We're here to get rid of the habits and the values of the world. And we're here to witness. Worship, I said, witness and work. You shall receive power when the Holy Ghost has come upon you. Now what is a witness? A witness is somebody that testifies to personal experience. Have you ever thought of the unscriptural, hopeless situation we're in now in evangelical churches, that the preacher is the only soul winner, and if he doesn't come through and win souls, the church declines? The Lord never meant it to be so. He meant that everybody should be a witness. What should they be a witness to? Well, we're witnesses to personal experience only. You go into a court of law and say, well, Aunt Mabel told me, and they'll shut you up immediately. We don't care what Aunt Mabel says. What do you know? What did you see? What did you feel? What did you hear? What did you taste? What came within the confines of your personal experience? So the Lord says, you shall be witnesses unto me. Go tell everybody. What shall I go and tell them? Tell them as a witness. But somebody says, how do you know? And then we can smile and say, I was there. I know. I know. A little old song, not a very good one, but a little old song used to say, I was there when it happened, and I ought to know. It is I was converted, and I know I was converted. I was present, and so I know. Nobody can argue me out of it. I used to read books when I was a young chap, dealing with atheism. I tried to make myself acquainted all the best I could with everything that was against Christianity, and I deliberately bought and read the books, aimed to prove that Christianity wasn't true, the Bible was a hoax, and Jesus Christ was a myth, and the whole thing is subjective self-deception. And when I had read the book, I couldn't answer it. I didn't know how to answer it, but one thing I knew, but hold on a minute, I would say to the author, I happen to know I was there. And you're trying to argue me down by reasoning, and I can tell you by experience, I know. More than one time, I would guess a hundred times, I have left such books and gotten on my knees and with tears near the surface, worshiped Jesus Christ, God's Son, and the Father who sent him, not knowing the answer to their arguments, but knowing the one against whom they were arguing. A witness is somebody that has been there and knows, and knows by experience. So he said, you shall be witnesses unto me. You shall go telling everybody what you know about me. So that's the second thing we're in the world for. The third thing we're in the world for is good works. They call that benevolence in the churches, benevolence. A fellow drives a $5,500 car up, his wife gets out with a $7,000 fur coat on, and he parks and finally wanders in with a $200 suit on and $30 shoes. And they pass around a plate for benevolences, and he puts his dime. Benevolences. We owe the world good works. How God anointed Jesus Christ with the Holy Ghost and power who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil. Jesus did good works and said, as I and my Father sent me, so send I you. You and I are in the world not to put a thin little old apologetic dime in the basket, but we're here to share with others around the world. I pray to God Almighty that I may not live my life out, and when I'm gone, not have anybody sorry I went. I think it's entirely possible. You rich Canadians can do it. Don't look at me. You're just as rich as any Yankee there ever was. Money everywhere. You can feed the poor. You can have little orphans in all parts of the world in addition to your missionary giving. And it's not a benevolence either. It's doing good works for Jesus Christ's sake. That's why you're left here. Otherwise you'd be in heaven sitting around clanging your arm. But you're down here doing good works. How do I do good works? I do them by prayer and by my money. Oh, there's that beautiful passage in the 17th chapter of Luke, that beautiful passage. For Jesus is giving them a parable, and then he explains the parable to them. He says, Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness. Now, what's the mammon of unrighteousness? That's money. He said, Make to yourselves friends by means of your money in order that when it fails you, they will receive you into eternal habitation. In other words, by the right and generous use of my money, I can bless people that I have never seen. And when the end comes and money doesn't help me anymore, the most stingy old miser that ever lived only needs two pennies when he's dead, one for each eye. Just two pennies. So after my money fails me, there will be people over there, and God will say to them, Hey, look, this is the man that kept you two years when you were a kid over there, a displaced person, and his money helped you. And they never knew who it was. So that's a beautiful thing, good works. Churches ought to be doing good works. Is this freneticism that a church ought to worship and witness and work? I don't think it is. And if we do those three things rightly, we'll have very little time left for anything else. You hear thou me, my brother and sister, hear thou me. If we do these things rightly and sufficiently and wisely and well, we'll have very little time left for anything else. Worship and witness and work. Somebody says, What do you do? Oh, there's all kinds of things you can do, all sorts of things. You can pray, you can look, you can watch for God's providential openings, and you can do good works and follow Jesus who is anointed with the Holy Ghost to do good works. Now here's what grieves me, my brothers and sisters, and I believe also this grieves the Holy Spirit, that my hearers rise to this emotionally but will not confirm it by a corresponding change in their way of life. This is what grieves me. Their goodness is like the morning cloud. By nine o'clock the sun has burnt out the fog. Did you ever hear that expression? The sun burnt the fog. Good, keen expression. And when the fog lies on a field or along a river, give that old sun two hours and it'll burn it out. That's what happens to a lot of people's good intentions. They rise emotionally to an urgent message that we become a New Testament church, that we become a model church, that we have the order of the New Testament and the power of the Holy Spirit in order that we might worship, work and witness. And emotionally we rise to it, but we will not confirm our emotions by a corresponding change in our way of life. We want to be blessed of God, but we want God to bless us on our terms. Bless me, Lord, on my terms. We look pensively to God for victory, but we'll not bring our giving into line. We'll not practice family prayer, careless about it, rash off without it. We'll not take time for secret prayer, haven't got the time. We'll not forgive those who wronged us. We'll not seek to be reconciled with those with whom we've quarreled. We'll not pick up our cross and take it and say, I, Jesus, I, my cross have taken all to leave and follow thee. I tell you, dear people, if what I'm saying tonight has any validity at all, and I do not believe before the great God Almighty and in the line of the scripture and in the tradition of the church of God, I do not believe that what I have said here tonight can possibly be denied. I do not believe it can possibly be proven to be unscriptured, that we should set a new direction, establish a new trend, put up a new archetype, a new model, and the churches would say, we want to be like them. And your word has gone out, your ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia, from you is sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Ottawa and Calgary, but also in every place your faith to God is spread abroad. So we need not to speak anything about you. This is my desire, this I long for, this I want to see, this I pray about, this I yearn for, now what's going to bring it about? Do you think it can ever come within a church? Is there too much dead wood? Are there too many wrong directions? Are there too many things wrong with it? Are we like an old fellow who with every organ in his body gone bad, and the doctor looks him over, shakes his head and says, no use, nothing I can do for you, go home and wait. Are we like that or is there hope? I believe there is hope, my brethren. I believe it, it's going to cost a little bit, in fact it's going to cost quite a little. Any man will follow me, let him take up his cross and follow me, and it's never fun carrying a cross, you know that. Isn't it strange that Jesus made a bloody painful cross to be a symbol of his religion? And the modern gospel churches have made fun to be a symbol of their religion. I want to grieve and bury my head in my hands and sob before God when I hear, as I often hear, precious young people that I give my blood for, get up and in a little tiny voice say, oh, I'm so glad I have found out that you don't have to be a sinner to have fun. We have fun in the church too, you can follow Jesus and have fun and sit down. Oh, how they've been betrayed, no Pope, no priest, no Cardinal, ever more wrongly led a man or woman, and that poor victim is being led. For it's the cross that's the symbol of the Christian life, that we will not pick up our cross, we will not forgive our enemies, we will not be reconciled. But the average church is simply a raking together of carnal dead leaves without any life in it. We organize it and give to support it and keep it up and we have nothing but carnal dead leaves that will burn like hell, in hell, in the days before us when our Lord returns. But I have better hopes of you, my brethren. Hebrews, the ninth chapter, you'll know that says, but I have better hopes of you in things that accompany salvation. I believe there's hope and I believe there's a lot of it. It's going to take a little bit of grit and a little bit of determination and a good deal of prayer and a good deal of cross carrying, but we'll have God on our side, and I'd rather have God on my side than have all the armies of the world. Hear me! I would rather have God on my side and know that God was on my side, or as Lincoln said, be on God's side, which is better still. I would rather have it than all the world. He will confirm the word of his servant, he will perform the counsel of his messenger. I will go before you and I will make the crooked things straight and I will make the dark places light. These things I will do unto you and I will not forsake you. You will give fruit if we will mistrust him and dare to believe. Have you got the Christian courage to change your home to suit the will of God and to bring your home into line with the will of God? Have you got the Christian courage to bring your business into line with the will of God? Have you got the Christian courage to bring your personal life into line with the will of God and purge out everything that isn't of God? I tell you, we have yet to see, and oh, how desperately we need to see God do something in this terrible day in which we live, this terrible day of worldliness and carnality and competition and carnal vainglory. How we need God, how we need Christ, how we need the Holy Ghost, how we need clean living, how we need sanctification, how we need purity of heart. And upon us will come the spirit of the living God, which you say, oh, this is a gloomy business you are preaching. Listen, when the Moravians went through this, the Moravians were anointed of God and the historian says about them, they went out from the church hardly knowing whether, no, he said not knowing, he didn't say hardly, he said not knowing whether they were still on earth or had already died and gone to heaven. The joy of the Lord was so radiantly beautiful upon them and they became a happy people. John Wesley, Dr. Johnson said, he was the greatest example of sheer moral happiness that I ever knew, sheer moral happiness. So I'm not preaching a gloomy religion to you, I'm only telling you there must be a new direction set and we must seek the Lord and seek his face and they that seek me early shall find me and one glimpse of his face will take away all our carnal desires for anything less than that. And then the hungry hearted and the thirsty and the disillusioned and the disappointed and the sick will come our way and they'll come because they want to come, they'll come because they know why they're coming. They'll not come because of man, they'll come because of the man, Christ Jesus. And the church will begin to grow. It will grow in power, it will grow in grace, it will grow in numbers, it will grow in usefulness, it will grow in prestige, it will grow in influence and everybody will know that that's the church which the Lord has blessed. God said about Jerusalem, oh he said I'm going to bless you, I'm going to bless you, I'm going to put a crown on you and I'm going to send my blessings over you like doves through their windows and everybody that passes by will point and say that's the city which the Lord has blessed. This is what I want to see, that we should become that kind of church, a church which the Lord has blessed. This is the reformation necessary within Protestantism but I confess frankly to you that I do not hope that it will ever arrive there because we're already too far gone over to Rome or us liberalism, which I don't know which is worse really. God said in one place about Israel, he said if you run into the house to escape the bear and lean against the wall, the serpent will bite you. I don't know which is worse, to be bitten by a serpent or eaten by a bear, toss up a dime, head bare and tailed at the serpent. So I don't know whether liberalism is any worse than the other or the other worse than liberalism but the churches are going one of those two directions. God has these seeds of survival, he has these people, he has these people who are ready to say, God we want to have biblical order and we want to have the power of the Holy Ghost and we want to fulfill our will, thy will in these three things, worship, witness and work. And we're willing to back up our desires by carrying the cross and by bringing our lives into line with our desires. And that's very simple, I don't think there's anything that needs to be explained, I don't believe that I need to say any more, I think that's enough and that's it. And I'm cheerful about it and expectant. And I'm looking to you for your support and your enthusiasm and your prayers and your patience and your charity because there will be a lot of things to overlook. And God in the meantime will be working with these people. Them that honor me I will honor, do you remember that? Them that honor me I will honor. Oh God we want to honor thee in order that thou canst honor us. We want this church to be a beacon on a hill, we want this church to be a city set on a hill that cannot be hid, we want this people to be a people dedicated to the high honor of God and following not the next worm ahead of them but following the Lamb. And there will be joy such joy as you never knew, there will be joy such joy as you never knew before and a happiness and a magnetic unity and a magnetic integration of heart with heart and soul with soul. And we will have a New Testament church. I want that so badly that I can't rest. I thought I could just preach and write and preach and I can't do that. The burden is too heavy and God won't let me do it. He weighs me with it and burdens me with it and makes me miserable. But I don't mind for when Zion prevails, Zion shall bring forth. Amen. And I expect to see God. You? Expect to see him Mark? All right.