In this sermon, the preacher discusses various topics related to the Christian faith. He mentions spending time in the water for about 25 minutes out of a total of four hours. He also talks about looking at a girl and praying for victory. The preacher emphasizes the importance of fleeing from youthful lust and keeping oneself from idols, referencing passages from the Bible. He also highlights the need for purity rather than just seeking peace and power. Additionally, he mentions the hardships faced by believers and the importance of remaining faithful in difficult times.

Now from chapter five. As you know, this chapter is usually termed the Sermon on the Mount. A bit noisy. Is it loud? Thank you. The greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest man who ever lived. Not only the greatest sermon ever preached, but the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest man who'd ever preached. Can you remember the last word in the Old Testament without looking? It's the word curse. And the first word that Jesus preached was blessing. Christianity has not been weighed in the balances and found wanting. It's been tried, found difficult, and rejected. I don't know where men first began to dream about the utopia that they have dreamed about it for many, many years. As I said last night, from the time of Augustine right down to Toronto, on the children's level. And it's not a children's story really. Gulliver's Travels. I can remember, maybe you can remember, the first time you heard that very marvelous story about Humpty Dumpty. I don't think that's a children's story at all. I think it's a sapphire. But the world once fell apart and men have been trying to put it back together, and they can't get it back together again. Plato had an idea of a republic. You see, the greatest problem in the world today is not financial. And in one sense it's not nation against nation. The greatest problem is the problem of human relationships. We can't get on with each other. Neither in the world, nor in the church, and sometimes even in the home. And this marvelous sermon of Jesus answers this tremendous problem of human relationships. We try and pinpoint all the decaying things, the things that cause men to stumble and nations to fall apart and so forth and so on. And yet Jesus puts it all down into one thing. He says it's the heart of man that's deceitful. He says he needs a new heart and he needs a new spirit. And while these other men, Plato, dreamed of his ideal state, and Moore had his utopia, Francis Bacon had his, so on. You can write down the ages, write down to Mr. Hitler himself. It means you have to purge the bloodstream and start rebuilding the nation from that level. You have the communist philosophy of abolishing a flabby and weak bourgeois community of people, and purging it with revolution and starting all over again. And having what they call a classless society, which they do not have in Russia today. If they do, how is it Mr. Brezhnev has a Rolls Royce and a magnificent Mercedes-Benz and three or four other very, very extremely expensive automobiles, while other people in slave cabs. All you did was change the bosses. You turned it upside down, kick one bunch out, let the others get the place of authority. Now, it's obvious the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a spiritual kingdom. And I have read this story, and you have many times. There are two versions of course of the Sermon on the Mount. There's this one here in Matthew 5, in which you have 107 verses, and then you have Luke's version for the lazy people. It's only got 30 verses. But the long version is the best version, obviously. But not until last year, when I was meditating on this, did I realize that Jesus never pronounced blessing on one material thing, not one visible thing. Nothing you wear, nothing you own, nothing you can write your name on. Everything that Jesus blessed is something spiritual. I'm wondering how much limelight, in this bicentenary year, how much limelight is going to go to the great President Lincoln. He should be in it somewhere. Dr. Kozol used to say, Lincoln was so ugly, he was beautiful. Well, he had some rugged, marvelous features. Somebody said right now, the trouble with the nation is you've got a Ford instead of a Lincoln. Well, the thing is that we have a marvelous man in Lincoln, but you know, he came within a whisker of not giving that Gettysburg address. There was a great orator in this country. He was the first American to get a doctor's degree outside of America. He got his doctorate in Germany. I would say he was the dean of American orators. He was the Demosthenes, if you like, of American orators. And everybody agreed that Edward Everett should give the speech at the Gettysburg meeting. And then some people suggested that the President ought to speak. Oh no, come on, not that guy from, where did he come from, Kentucky? Oh, he's got more human attributes, he stands awkwardly, his language isn't that good. I mean, look, let's face it. If Everett gets up there in the skies with his oratory and then Lincoln gets up behind him, it will sound like a rooster in a farmyard after hearing a nightingale. That's what one man said. And when Mr. Everett got cracking, he really excelled that day. I suppose maybe he did polish his oratory. You know, the orators used to have what they call purple patches, and he rehearsed it and he dramatized it and he knew where to put the power on and how to gesticulate. And when he finished, they thundered and stamped their feet and they whistled and they shouted and there was acclamation for twenty or more minutes. They could not get silent. And when he went to sit down, the gracious man Lincoln got hold of his hand and squeezed it tight and said, man, that was great. He put everything into that address he wanted to, and then he borrowed an immortal passage from Pericles. He has a great oration on the wars of the martyrs, and Everett finished by stirring the people's blood in saying that the whole earth is a sepulchre of illustrious men. And as I say, they stamped and they shouted and so forth, and he spoke for exactly 120 minutes. And Lincoln got up after him and spoke for exactly 120 seconds. Now, do you know a thing that the first man said? Do you know anywhere where it's put on a piece of paper and you'll stick it up in your home and read it and reread it? Have you read Pericles this morning? Have you read Homer? Did you read Screams in the Desert of Socrates? Hmm? Who said the most? The man that got everybody inflamed and passionate and stirred, speaking 120 minutes, or the man that spoke 120 seconds plus 13, 133? Second. One of the greatest speeches ever uttered. Now, right before this marvelous sermon that Jesus gave, he spent a night in prayer before he chose twelve disciples. Don't you wish every church spent a night in prayer before it chose its deacons? Most of them wouldn't get in. If you read the previous chapter, you discover he had been teaching. So it says in verse 23 of chapter 4 of Matthew, that Jesus read about Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing all manner of sickness and all manner of diseases. And everybody followed him. The sick, the impotent, that's what it says in verse 24. Those taken with diseases and tormented by the devil. And the lunatic. And the palsied. What a crowd. A stream of derelict humanity, staggering in their blindness, palsied and lame. What a gang to follow Jesus. Verse 25 says, they followed him a great multitude. They followed him great multitudes of people, from Galilee, Decapolis, from Jerusalem, from Judea, and from beyond Jordan. Now the first verse here of chapter 5 says, seeing the multitude he went up into a mountain and when he was set his disciples came to him. I believe that the crowd left him. I don't think he preached this sermon to a multitude. And to confirm my argument, read the first verse of chapter 8. When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. Now even when he preached, it says, even those disciples were so startled. But at the end of the seventh chapter, it came to pass when Jesus ended these sayings, this sermon on the mount, that people were astonished at his doctrine. He taught them as one having authority. And to me that's the difference. Lincoln, you see, he wasn't an orator. He wasn't working like you play an organ to pull out all the stops and move people's emotions. He spoke with authority, with conviction. People felt he was as solid as he looked, like a piece of granite. Oh the scribes could talk, the Pharisees could argue, but there was something about Jesus and authority that I feel is missing even in the pulpit in the day in which we live. Sometimes I listen to a preacher read the Bible. He reads it as though it's a weather report. Bad weather at best. Sometimes I used to hear Luke Wiseman. He was a, he was a wise man. He was about six feet. He was like a beanpole. I happened to have a bust of Wesley in the house which was taken from a death mask when Wesley died in 1791. And every time I saw Dr. Wiseman, he had the features. He loved Wesley. He could just about quote every hymn Wesley wrote, and he wrote over 3,000. That, of course, was Charles Wesley. He played beautifully on the piano. But one of the greatest things he could do, he could read the Word of God. Read it until your flesh would tingle. Read it until you say, please don't preach and spoil it now. I remember, he wore a tailcoat. And I remember one morning he came in and he lifted the tails of his coat like an old rooster. He had his hands behind his, you know. And he gave out the scripture and he said, two men went up into the temple to pray. One a Pharisee, the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed after himself, Lord I thank the Lord and just the reason of this publican. I fast twice in the week. I give thanks of all that I possess. Man, I'd heard that read a hundred times and didn't know that was in it. Somehow he, as they said of David Garrick, the greatest Shakespearean actor that we ever had in England, that he could get into the skin of the man he was representing and relive the man. Now I don't think we should put too much pressure on drama and histrionics and so forth. But at the same time remember this is the Word of the Living God and it's ought to live when we read it as well as when we preach it. And the people noticed the difference in Jesus when he spoke. I'm just trying to think, I don't often do, but anyhow. Let me see, it was Newman I think that wrote that lovely hymn, Praise to the holiest in the height and in the depth be praise in all his works most wonderful most sure in all his ways. Another stanza in that he says, O loving wisdom of our God when all was sin and shame a second Adam to the fight and to the rescue came. Now that is not a second Adam. If you have a second Adam you can have a third Adam. Jesus was the last Adam. That's what the Word of God says. He was the last Adam. Now this is the Sermon on the Mount. The second Sermon on the Mount. The first Sermon on the Mount. A man went up there in the loneliness with God. And however much you go along with the mob or the crowd or the fellowship in your church you'll get to a place where there's somebody become special in your life that helps you spiritually. And then the Lord will say like he said to Moses, leave the rest of Israel, leave the seventy, leave the two, come up into the mountain by thyself and I'll wrap you in the cloud so you can't look down and see the world and they can't look up and see you. Now if you haven't had that experience you've got it coming. You see one of the things that Jesus says here about the believers is we're the light of the world. And we put an awful lot of stress on light because we like light. We're to walk in the light. The path of the justice is a shining light that shineth more and more. It gets greater and greater until the perfect day. But also one of the great ministries of God is to put us into darkness. And all the people said nothing. All right. But it's still true. We're living in a day when if you get saved and filled with the Spirit from there you'll prosper, you'll become richer, you'll move into a better environment. The reverse is true in the New Testament. Read the fourth chapter of 1 Corinthians and see what happens. Paul, the greatest man that lived after Jesus, says unto this present moment we suffer need. He had hardship and shortage of food. Anybody can be good when you're petted and pampered and given money. What about when you're starving? Do you remember that great man that called Abraham the friend of God? The man who's mentioned more in the New Testament than any other character from the Old Testament? He was the friend of God. And he had a whale of a time. Man, did he go to heavenly places. He went and rescued his nephew Lot. He wasn't a very good Lot, but anyhow he went and rescued him and brought him home. He got a promise from God he was going to have a son. He got a promise he'd get a nation and God gave him the boundaries of it. He even met that majestic, mysterious, marvelous man called Melchizedek. His cup was full and running over. And then in the next chapter it says a horror of great darkness came upon him. Remember he made his sacrifice and then he had to beat off the birds of prey as they stole his sacrifice. This is a man who is a friend of God. Now you may disagree with me often, and as I've told you when you disagree with me that's when you know you're wrong. But anyhow, I'm quite sure these days that God does not have that many friends. He's got a lot of followers. Most of them are following that far off even the pastor can't find them. He has a few disciples. He has not many friends. Because God shares his secret with his friends, not necessarily his disciples. Again he had twelve disciples. They didn't all go on the Mount of Transfiguration. They didn't all go into the Garden of Gethsemane. God's very choosy. You can get a lot of knowledge. All you have to do is read good books like Watchman Needs and mine. And you'll gain a lot of ground. But that won't necessarily make you a spiritual person. Coming here you may get light. I hope you do. But you work it out there in the arena of life. All right? The first sermon on the Mount was on that mound up there where Moses came down with his sermon outline on two stones. Pretty heavy pocketbook to carry around that isn't it? But he came with the sermon outline on two rocks. And it was so terrible. The people of Israel were trembling. And I hear people say sometimes, you know, God really tried Moses. He was forty years in the wilderness. Well you better read your Bible. He wasn't. He was eighty years in the wilderness. He was forty by himself. Then he had another forty with the rebel gang. All the dropouts. Pretty tough huh? You're trying to find a book that will make you a saint. If ever you find a book with six easy lessons how to become a saint. Will you send me a copy please airman? I'll make you a promise I won't read it. But that's what we're all looking for isn't it? Six easy lessons how to become a saint. You know instant coffee, instant potatoes, instant saints. There isn't a clue in the word of God about it. I marvel even at the constitution of a man like that. That he went up and he fasted and he prayed and he was there for what? Forty days? Or was it eighty? I forgot. Forty. And then he went back and did the same as he'd done before. So he fasted for eighty days. I met a man in a conference in England. Very precious brother. He worked in a coal mine. He worked in what they call a stream that was eighteen inches deep. And he worked on his side. They didn't have machines. And he had to work right under that thing with the big rocks over him. Cutting, cutting, cutting. And he worked there for twenty one days. And never had a bite of food. Just drank water. The burden of the Lord was on me he said. Again read that marvelous marvelous chapter. Hebrews 11 knocks me for a loop. What did he do in Hebrews 11? Not much. Just things like this. Subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. Women received their dead race to life again. And not one of them ever had a Bible. Oh come on brother. Hang your diplomas on the wall. Maybe you get some conceit out of them. When you preach your title and your Ph.D. from Edinburgh and what? Think it scares the devil? Brother how much of you and I do? You've got the whole revelation of God. God is never going to say anything to any other man as long as he lives that doesn't conform with his words. I get sick in my stomach when I remember that God hasn't spoken to the world for two thousand years. He said his last words. Yes there are things God will empathize and whisper in your heart. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. I remember a doctor who came to a church I'd pastored in England. And going out one Sunday morning he said, Pastor could I talk with you a minute? I said yes. So when everybody had gone he looked me straight in the eye and said you're a fool. I thought I had a great time preaching. Man that really cut me down to size. He was one of the dearest most spiritual men in the church. And he said you're a fool. Hmm. Thank you. Well he said didn't you tell the congregation this morning you wanted to share with them a secret God gave you? Oh yeah I did. I said that. Well he said if I gave you a secret last Wednesday and you told everybody this morning do you think I'd give you another? I said no. Well then he said if God ever gives you a secret keep it. Have you ever thought that Joseph might have become suspicious there was something wrong with Mary and she wouldn't open her mouth and tell him what was wrong? He didn't say well darling I'm pregnant but of course I don't know any other man and I've not known you and it's a miracle that God wouldn't let us talk. As I said yesterday that wonderful little man 22 years of age that had the revival in Wales in 1904 and 5. Evan Roberts. In the middle of the revival God told him to fast. Not from meals but from speaking. Do most of us do that? Wouldn't your husband be amazed if he didn't speak for a week? I mean apart you know maybe you don't do that but when you have a husk. When you're mad with him. But I mean when you're really sanctified and the Lord says be quiet and you write on a bit of paper darling the Lord has padlocked me. He says I haven't to speak. You see God never makes two saints the same way. Again read Hebrews 11. It's a fantastic study. Well God makes this man on the mountain alright. He gives him this what I call the first sermon on the mountain. But it was so terrible that even if a beast went near the beast died. There were lightnings and thunders and the people were terrified. What's happening up there? He'll never come down. How different this second sermon on the mountain. The multitude that comes to the edge of the mountain. Even if they were listening at the edge there I don't think he was addressing them he certainly was not. You see the sermon on the mountain is a manifesto of the kingdom. You can't divide anything by one. You can't multiply anything by one. You can divide by two. You can multiply by two. And in the New Testament you find there are two ways. There are two masters. There are two kingdoms. Matthew sets Jesus forth as a king. Mark sets him forth as a servant. Luke sets him forth as a son of man. And John sets him forth again as very God of very God. As I said the other morning the whole gospel of John is capsuled into that first verse of the first chapter. In the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God. In the beginning eternity. The word was with God. Equality. The word was God deity. Now here Matthew emphasizes over and over again. As a matter of fact in this particular gospel of Matthew. You discover that the kingdom is mentioned 55 times. In Luke the kingdom is mentioned 44 times. In Mark 20 times. In John 5 times. Now obviously a kingdom presupposes a king. The other Sunday I talked to my church. I got, as I keep saying, two dozen members. And it was Palm Sunday. And for once we fell into the calendar of the church. And we thought about the history of Jesus. And we thought about Jesus. Going into the 50 on the back of an ass. The scripture likens man to a wild ass. That's what Job said. He wouldn't change his opinion if he came back today for sure. Except you might say it's a wilder wild ass than it was when he was around. Man is rebellious. He's like a wild ass. And an old man up there in Kentucky told me, told a friend of mine. That when he was a boy. In some of those woods up there they had a lot of wild asses. And he said when you get a colt, a young colt. It hasn't been broke men. Man, man, man. It's a tremendous job to break him in. But do you remember what Jesus did? Jesus sat on him and immediately he was docile. How do you know when an ass has been tamed? You can beat him with a two by four. You can whip him. You can do all kinds of things. But the only way to prove that an ass has been tamed. Is you sit on him and he doesn't kick. And the scripture says this. That the ass, what does it say? Thy king cometh unto thee meek and lowly. Which is part of this Sermon on the Mount. And sitting upon an ass. Sitting. And until Christ sits on the throne of your heart. You're not in subjection. He isn't king. You may have got rid of your lousy sins. You may have quit smoking and doing a lot of things. That were bad and injurious to your health. As well as eternal life. But until he sits on the throne of your personality. You're not subdued. While ever your will is in rebellion. While ever you kick when he makes demands. Now I say men have dreamed about establishing a utopia. The amazing thing to me is. Is that when we've reached the highest standard of living in our history. And the highest standard of education. We're more immoral at this moment. The things we did behind closed doors. We shopped from the house up. I went in a store the other day to get a certain book. And when I get in it was full of girly magazines. And they were most obscene things. You dare not even put them inside the covers a few years ago. They're on the covers now. We pass hotels on the road. And it says your room free and X rated films. And all you do is press a button and put something in. And you can see every sex perversion in your hotel room. Despite all the things we've struggled for. We got rid of the sweatshop. Unions tried to get the bosses. Now the bosses are trying to control the unions. I'm not too sure if Meany doesn't run the country. Either he or Kissinger. We've got everything we were striving after. Why is Transcendental Meditation so popular? Because people want peace. And the emphasis of Jesus is not peace. It's purity. The emphasis in preaching the Holy Spirit these days is Jesus received power. But Peter says that their Pentecost to him wasn't power. It didn't just make him an orator. In Acts 15, 8 and 9 where he's reporting to the house. Pardon me, to the big shops in Jerusalem what happened in the house of Cornelius. He says, And God who knoweth the heart, bear them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us. And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts. That temper went out of him. The arrogance went out of him. Everything was purified in him. You see you don't have an appetite in you that's wrong. They're all good appetites that got corrupted. Temper is a terrible thing. Anger is a beautiful thing. Jesus got angry. You say I like Ephesians 5, 18, Be filled with the Spirit. Well the same scripture says be angry and sin not. When did you last get angry in prayer? When did you get your fist up against the rascals? We blame the teenagers for all this. Teenagers don't publish the immoral pornographic stuff. The old boys produce it for them. Teenagers don't produce the liquor. The Kennedys produce it. Teenagers don't produce drugs. The older people produce them. Everything is manufactured to send the kids to hell. And we blame the kids for going and we make the stuff for them. All right let's step back. When I was a youngster there were some men there. They were called Fabian Socialists. The red bearded Irishman was one of them. The man that wrote Pygmalion and didn't make much out of it. And it made millions when they changed the title to My Fair Lady. George Bernard Shaw was one. H.G. Wells was one. Well they sneered at Christianity. Don't need the Bible. Don't need the church. Don't need Jesus Christ. We can bring in the millennium by an act of prominence. We can pull down the hills of wealth, fill in the valleys of poverty, make the crooked places straight, and we'll build a kingdom of God on earth. He said that two years before World War I. So he said it in 1912. He had the first world war. Two years before the second world war. A woman made a prophecy. It was wrong. What did you expect? A woman made it. But anyhow. The woman in 1917 said there would be no world war for at least 100 years. And we had one two years after she said it. She's only 98 years out which isn't a bad start. But you see between those two periods, I'm convinced of this with all my being, between World War I. Have you ever thought that World War I ended at 11 o'clock in the morning on the 11th day of the 11th month. 11 months from the signing of the armistice with Turkey and 11 months from the time that Alan entered into Jerusalem. You've got a series of five 11s. And I suggest that God was knocking at the door of the church and saying you're entering the 12th hour. Get up and go. And from 1919 when that declaration was made until 1939 we have the 20 most golden years the church has ever had since Pentecost. We nest it like we do everything else. H.G. Wells was going to build a new world in two years before World War I. H.G. Wells saw the horror of World War I. He saw the horror of World War II. You see he had no hope in the church. He'd seen no life in it. He didn't talk about repentance. He didn't talk about God. He was a cocksure little strutting self-conscious self-anointed prophet of a new world order. H.G. Wells said again we don't need the Bible. He talked about the adequacy of materialism. He talked about the sufficiency of man. He talked about the inevitability of progress. We've entered a new world he said in 1912. Seems impossible 60 years ago. Well he went through World War I. He went through World War II. He wrote his history of the world. He wrote his transparency that got him into trouble with the Roman church. And when he finished it all and he'd seen every devilish thing that came out of World War I and World War II and the collapse of nations he wrote his last book. What do you think it was? The Millennium Ground Atomic? No, nine at the end of its tether. He said there's no way out of the dilemma. The men are still trying to put Humpty Dumpty together again. Life will only work one way and that's God's way. He made man. Just one thing I think H.G. Wells was writing. He said you have a God-shaped blank in your life. A cavity in your personality that only God can fill. You go a bit further back. Wasn't it Augustine that says we're made for God and so forth and we'll never be at rest until we find him. I think of the China man who was asked since he was a great scholar how much of the New Testament he'd read. And he said well I've read a lot of it. Well you've read the Koran. Yes I've read the Koran. I've read the Vedas. I've read all the sacred books of the world. Is the New Testament better? Yes, yes. It's the most unique book in the world. Why? Well he said are you a Christian? Yes. Oh, what a Christian. You're the most wonderful person in the world. Now you know the old old story that we play makes us so humble. I'm only a sinner saved by God. We tend to think that gives God an awful lot of credit to say I've no righteousness in me. I'm just a sinner. Now how can you be a sinner saved by grace? I saw the pastor and his wife coming round the back there yesterday with their arms round each other and I said no courting on the planet earth. Well that's nice. But if I said to you you know you better take it. I think he is a wonderful man of God. But he's a very unique man. He's a married bachelor. Oh now come on you say. He's not a married bachelor either. He's married or he's a bachelor. Well how can you be a sinning saint? If I tell you I have a friend he's a lovely man. He's a truthful liar. And I know a lady. She's very sweet. She's an honest priest. Oh come on you're fooling with words. So are you. Well it doesn't look good to say. We, we, we, you know, well we are. What does it say in the Bible? Filth of our own righteousness. Our righteousness is a filthy right. Right. You know what it also says? He that doeth righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous. Can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit? Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? It sounds too arrogant to say that you're living a holy life. Well I want to tell you that's the norm. Jesus didn't die for the backslidden state of the church today. People say Jesus may come today. No sir. For two reasons. Number one the gospel hasn't been preached to all nations. Number two. When he comes he's coming for a bride. He's not coming for a cripple like the church is today. The Holy Spirit is preparing a bride. No it isn't. The Holy Spirit the word of God says. Sure he works. Like Eliezer. You remember after, after Isaac was sacrificed he disappears out of the picture. You don't hear of him anymore. You'll hear of Eliezer. Boy what a job he had. Finding a wife for another man. That must be the greatest risk this side of eternity. Finding a wife for another man. I wouldn't like to do that. Boy I'd be glad. We pastors get some jobs, but boy I'm glad that's not one of them. Ever try a hand at matchmaking and it didn't strike? Excuse me. But Eliezer, Eliezer went to find a bride for Isaac. You remember when he got there and he saw this beautiful young woman, the Lord says that's her, and he went up and spoke. And immediately he said yes. Yes I've come to tell you that he wants you. And how many camels did he have? Was it seventeen? And he said just bring that bag off that camel. And he opened it out and she nearly swooned. Oh this is for me. No, no this is a foretaste of glory to God. Sixteen other camels loaded up there all for you. And the father says now you better not go. And other people said now watch out here because there's a trick in this you know. Doesn't it remind you of the scripture whom having not seen we love. She hadn't even seen him but she heard so much she says listen I'll do anything for a man like that. Goodbye mum, goodbye dad. Let's go. Put the camel in top gear and let's get there as quick as we can. And when she saw him, well there's a little difference because you see I don't believe the Holy Spirit is looking for a bride. As the way I read Revelation it says the bride has made herself ready. I remember in World War II when a young man in England didn't expect to go to war anyhow. He was sure he wouldn't have to go but he had to go. And he said goodbye to his girlfriend but before he said goodbye the last day at home she went and bought her a wedding outfit and everything in all the trimmings. Beautiful. She put them away in a drawer. And he wrote to her every week for three years and then suddenly no letters. His mother got a letter from the, a telegram from the government to say that George was missing, Billy killed and they were sorry. Two more years there wasn't a letter. There was no sign of this fellow at all. And one day the girl came home from work. She was awfully tired, wasn't feeling too good and she should have gone to church that night. She said to her mother, mother I'm just going to have my supper and bathe and I'm going to go upstairs. Don't, don't, don't interfere, don't interrupt. Don't, don't let anybody see you. And she hadn't been upstairs very long when there was a knock at the door and the, the mother opened the door, there was a young soldier and he went, come in. He looked round, where's Mary? She wasn't dead is she? No. It's good to get married. Oh, she's gone to church. No. Vacation? No. Where is she? Oh, she's upstairs. Not feeling too good and she doesn't want to be disturbed. Not unless it's very important. He said if it didn't put... And the mother went up and when she got there the girl was in front of a vanity mirror and she had a picture in one arm like this and she was dressed all in a wedding attire. She got so under the weather that she said, listen I know he's going to come back. She put on all her wedding attire. She put his picture in her arm like this and she had a love letter of his. She kept reading the letter. Then she kissed it and read a bit more and kissed the thing again. And mother looked. We got keyholes in our bedrooms in England. No big walks through them, never mind looks through them. Great big keyholes. The mother got down like this and looked. She went downstairs and she said, George go upstairs. The room on the left. Open the door very quietly. Turn the knob. Stand up. You know, groan with it. So if the thing had been there a hundred years it had a right to groan. And you know he went upstairs and he turned the knob very quietly. She didn't say that the girl was ready. And he turned the knob. And he saw there. And he saw his picture in her arm. And he could see that dog-eared letter that he'd written one night. Kept striking Matthew to write it in a hell hole. While they were fighting. And in his excitement he let go of the door you know and it went like that. And she turned around and looked at him. Hi George. Do you think she did? She took off quicker than a jet. She ran about two feet and whoop she went up in his arm. Side two. Would you really? Could you really at this moment say Lord Jesus if you come today I'm ready? I read your love letters every day before I read the newspaper. Read them at night before I listen to Walter Cronkite and the otherites. And oh man this, this, this, this book gives me chills and thrills. You said that you love me, me, me. And I'm the only one that knows me. None of the others knows me of course. Do you know, do you know what this, I guess there are many explanations for this sermon on the mat. Do you know what it is? What are the Beatitudes? Can I be mischievous and tell you what they are? They should be attitudes in your life. If I could simply say. You should be meek and lowly of heart, pure in heart, gentle. All the other things that are mentioned here. What are the Beatitudes? I think they're a full length portrait of Jesus Christ. You see sometimes we ask God to do what God says do yourself. For instance one part of this matchless, matchless incomparable sermon says blessed are the meek. And you pray sometimes Lord make me humble. God says humble yourself. You say Lord make me meek. Do you know what the apostle says in writing to the Colossians family? Now he also put off, you put off anger and wrath and malice and blasphemy and said and put on. What do you put on? As the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on vows of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness and long-suffering. Now come on you ladies, be honest. Didn't you really have a job this morning to know which dress to put on? Some of you didn't put one on I notice. You put your husband's pants on. But anyhow, some of you looked and you didn't know which dress to put on. God has a wardrobe. You put off the rags, you put on these beautiful garments. They're very beautiful these garments are. You don't see them often. Vows of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness. You know we have a habit of isolating a text. We've stuck one interpretation on and we're stuck with the thing we're stuck with. If I say to you choose you this day whom you will serve, what's the association in your mind? You say Joshua said to Israel, choose you this day who you will serve. Well listen, I want to tell you every morning when you spin out of bed before your feet touch the floor, that's the challenge of your life. Choose you this day. God won't choose it for you. You can be filled with the Holy Ghost ten times over, but he doesn't make you get out of bed does he? I've slept less this week I think than I've slept for a long while. And I don't sleep much at home. I go to bed about half past ten, get up at midnight and work till five or six. I couldn't go to sleep, couldn't go to bed last night. Went about three o'clock this morning. I learned after some painful experiences to do what God tells me. Because you know if God talks to me at two o'clock this morning and I don't get down and write down, I used to memorize it, I haven't a good memory now, but I used to be able to memorize it. But if the Lord talks to me now, boy I'm out of bed. Because if you talk to me I wouldn't say shut up, I'll listen to you at two o'clock this afternoon. And if the Lord talks to me, brother, I'm not going to say, well Lord do you mind mentioning about seven in the morning when I get up? Because he just won't. Choose you this day whom you will serve. Are you going to serve Mary Ann because you like her and you should go for coffee at nine o'clock, you become a slave to that Tuesdays and Thursdays? Or are you going to wait on the Lord? Choose you this day. You put off certain things, you put on certain things. You say Lord keep me in your love. God says keep yourself in the love of God. That's what he says. You say Lord keep me from the enemy. The Lord says keep yourself from idols. A young man came to an altar in a conference we were at. It was near a gorgeous lake. Big, hesky, sunburned, fine looking man. Oh he wept and wept and wept and wept and wept. I guess till about eleven o'clock at night I couldn't get to him. And then finally he said well I'm eating up with lust. I want to be a preacher. I teach in Sunday school but I want that. I'm eating up with lust. Well I said I'm sorry to hear that. I didn't see you in the church this afternoon. The meeting. No he said I wasn't there. Where were you? Oh we were down on the beach weren't we? From what time? Half past one? Till what? Top of time. Half past five. You spent four hours in the water? No. How much time in the water? Hmm. Well I went in and swam a little. Came out. Hmm. Maybe 25 minutes. Out of about four hours. What else did you do? Looked at girls. Was watching girls. Hmm. So you put your head in the lion's mouth and then said Lord give me victory. So he cried. Gone. Prayed. Next day he was full of joy. Next afternoon he didn't come back. Next night he came to the altar. What's your problem? Lust. Have any problem with it yesterday? No no not yesterday. Hmm. Why? Because like Paul says to Timothy, flee youthful lust. You don't say to them flee, you flee from them. Get out of the way of them. Little children keep yourself from idols. You see. Read Hebrews 11. Sure. Read Hebrews 10. Let us do this. Let us do that. Let us do the other. There is a human responsibility. Again I don't care how often you're filled with the Spirit or baptized or you get blessings and ecstasies. Fine. There's nothing wrong with them. But I'll tell you what. The Holy Ghost won't drag you out of bed at four o'clock in the morning either and make you pray. You can be filled with the Holy Ghost and be as lazy as anybody around. There is a sense in which you, God says here's the provision. Here's the provision. You know I don't know much about Greek mythology. I've read a bit of it and I lived in a home where there was real poverty. But there were some good books. Didn't have any toys. Used to curl up in a chair and read. I remember one day my mother said, she came to the kitchen and said, Len, this is about the fourth time I've called you. You've been sitting in that chair. I said, Mommy, I've not been sitting in it. Now don't you start lying to me. You've never moved out of that chair for half an hour. Mommy, I said, I've been with Herewater and Minnehaha and you know that country called America. Well, I've been up there with that bunch of Indians and others. I wasn't in the chair. As I say, if you'd been and looked for the Apostle John one day and they said he's in the Isle of Patmos and you say, hello John, nice to see you in the Isle of Patmos. He's not in the Isle of Patmos, I'm in the Spirit. That's where to live. I wasn't in the chair. I was preoccupied. I was occupied and unconscious of what there was round about. All right. But I remember those books that were in the house. And there was one book on the Aesop's Fables and some Greek stories that I really, really learned to love. And there's a story about a fellow called Ulysses and, you know, going to Troy and on the way they had to pass certain rocks. You know, when you nice ladies get talking to each other and your friendly cop comes behind you and says, there goes a bit more of the missionary, I think. That you, oh, yes, there's a siren. The siren. It comes from those gorgeous women that used to sit on the rocks. They were very beautiful in looks. They were very beautiful in the way they sang. And what happened? The man steering would get so fascinated that he'd go towards the rocks. And under the water there about a foot there were jagged pieces of coral and they ripped the bottom out of those boats and they got wrecked. And they lost their cargo and some men lost their lives. And even if the captain or whoever was steering could keep the thing on course, men got so fascinated they jumped overboard. They wanted to get near those beautiful women with their songs. Ulysses says, well, I've got to go down that way, but I got that link. So he got some wax and he worked it all up and he went round the crew and he fixed all the rears up. He put wax in the rears. Before he did it to the last man he said, you tie me to the mast of the ship, because I might even jump overboard. And they got past. They didn't lose anybody. That's pretty smart. Fill their ears with wax, because most people's ears were already filled, but in those days they weren't. And so he filled the rears with wax and he got tied to the mast of the ship and he made it. Very good. So that became a pattern of life. No, no, no. You remember that other story about Jason going to find the golden flea? You remember what he did? He had to go down the same way and instead of getting wax in the rope, I can lick that easily. So what did he do? He took Orpheus on board. Orpheus with his lute. And he never had to put wax in their ears and he never had to put a rope around them. When he got near he said to Orpheus, pipe up. And Orpheus got going there. Oh man. And all the crew were fascinated. They listened to Orpheus. And because there was something so majestic they never thought a bit about the women over there, their songs. And they didn't want to jump overboard. They were fascinated with the song of Orpheus. And there are some very lovely moral people in the world. The tragedy is that their morality often exceeds the morality of prophetic Christians. I know a man now who is one of the greatest princes I've ever met in my life. He's not a saved man. He's a wealthy man. He has a staff of servants. And we've stayed in their home, eaten there many, many wonderful times. And the cook there, a colored lady, took ill. That's fifteen years ago. He's paid a wage every week since then. No obligation to do it. No union said he had to do it. No government said he had to do it. But he's such compassion. He has a large store and somebody will say, did you hear so-and-so about so-and-so? And he'll say to his wife, listen dear, did you know so-and-so today? Take them fifty dollars and buy them this and buy them that. You can say, you say, well he can afford to do it. Well you can afford to do a lot more than you do, I guess. It comes down to the issue. You see, you have to work out your own salvation. You can't work for it, but you work it out. You know why we get rusty and lazy? Because we're not doing the works of the Father that he told us to do. Well we don't believe in works. Well why do you stress tithing so much? That's works, isn't it? Anything we don't like is either bondage or legalism. If we don't want to do it, oh that's bondage. Or the other smart thing, that's Old Testament. So is tithing. There's no tithing in the New Testament. Tithing doesn't belong in the kingdom of God. Makes you feel good. Because the pastor told you to do it, or somebody told you to do it. There is no tithing in the kingdom of God. You say, I don't have to give God a tenth. No, you have to give him ten tenths. You have to say, Lord this hundred dollars is yours, what can I spend out of it? Man alive, if the government only took ten percent of what these multi-multi-millionaires Of course, Rockefeller doesn't afford, possibly going after his food stamps this morning. Rockefeller doesn't pay tax. Admitted that when they got him on the carpet the other, for the vice presidency, didn't he? Admitted he hadn't paid any income tax. His brother said he didn't make any. He'd only made four hundred million. He only had four hundred million. Those boys know how to wangle it. But speaking in general terms, we tithe. We feel it's an ease for conscience. I paid a tenth and I give God a little bit more. There's nothing like that in the New Testament. You don't look very happy right here. I'd better pronounce a Benedict and let you go home and be miserable. Yesterday we sang that lovely hymn, My Faith Looks Up To Thee. It started at the second stanza. Pardon me, the first. I like the second. One of the few great hymns written in this country. You know, it was written in Harold Ockengate's church, before he was there. Brimstone Corner. It was written by Ray Palmer, who was a member of that church. The tune was written by another man, who was a member of the church and the organist. Lowell Mason. My Faith Looks Up To Beautiful Hymn. The second stanza is my choice. May thy rich grace impart strength to my fainting heart, my zeal inspire. As thou hast died for me, so may my love to thee pure, warm, and changeless be. I think that's exquisite. Bill Shakespeare never wrote or ought as good as that. As thou hast died for me. That's the basis. Oh, may my love to thee pure, warm, and changeless be. I try to tell my wife at least once a day I love her. It's not illegal to tell her every hour on the hour, but I forget. But anyway, I like to tell her I love her. I like to tell Jesus I love him, too. Think of the old lady who was, she was dying, and the old Scotsman came to the side of her and he bent over. Ah, he says, Jenny. Ah, he was all leaning on his staff, and he says, Ah, Jenny, I love thee, I love thee. Ah, she said, Sandy, I ken thee. They say ken for no, that's Gaelic, I guess. Ah, she said, Sandy, I kenned it many years. But, mon, dear, it's grand to hear you say it. Well, the Lord loves, knows I love him. He knows a lot more, too. Do you ever tell him how much you love him? Or do you just do that when you come to church and get stirred emotionally and think, My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine. That doesn't impress him too much, I don't think. You know, it's what we are as individuals that matters. And again, this is the manifesto of the kingdom. These are precious pearls of truth. We didn't get to them, but anyhow, they're here. But let me start this. You know, if Jesus started preaching, Blessed are the pure, he'd have scared everybody to death. But he didn't start with, Blessed are the pure, he started with, Blessed are the poor. And the difficulty in the Christian life is to stay poor. I've seen many a man who was a choice, precious preacher, until he got a book and became popular. And boy, he lost his humility and he lost his prayer life. I've seen singers who became arrogant after they got their first release of my record. And they joined the gang and started getting proud. And boy, I can tell you when a man's lost that sweetness and that joy and that unction and that power. Blessed are the poor. When you go home and look through the psalms and see how many times David, who was a monarch and a millionaire, and the greatest songwriter that ever lived. As I said the other night, you can talk about the Holy Ghost and all the like. Nobody's ever hit the heights of praise that David hit in his psalms. They're beautiful. And yet repeatedly in those psalms he says, Blessed, what does he say? Bow down thine ear and hear me, I am poor and needy. This poor man cried and the Lord heard him. Jesus himself in that prophetic psalm 22 says what? I am a worm and no man. You're not a worm, you're a giant. Everybody says you're the finest young man or young woman in church. And you swallowed it, poor silly you. I got news for you ladies. Whether you got your dress out of Goodwill store or Christian Dior, you're still a worm. Or a wormette. I don't know whether there's male and female. You're a worm or a wormette anyhow. You know what? God never flatters anybody. Have you noticed that? He flattens us often. Let's me help him, but he never flatters anybody. Now, read Isaiah 40 and then from verse 8, 41 verse 8. But thou Israel, that's his name. He was Jacob and God gave him this princely name, Israel. But thou Israel art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend. And he was called a prince with God. But that's very nice till you get a bit further down the chapter and it says, Fear not thou worm, Jacob. You know, you can manage to get proud on your own. You don't need the Lord to help you. A worm. I had one sister. I'm glad I had only one. No man can serve two masters anyhow. But boy, she was bossy. And I used to get so angry at her. I was three years younger for sure, but I got angry with my sister. And sometimes I'd get her so riled, she'd say, well, are you a worm? Oh, when she said, I could have picked the piano up, I think, and thrown it at her. When she said I was a worm, if she said, you little rascal, you mischievous, I didn't care too much. But when she said, you worm, you can pick a worm up and tie it in knots. Worm has no legs, it has no eyes, has no wings, has no feet, has no hands. Just about the picture of total helplessness. But I'll tell you what, it can do what an elephant can't do. It can do what a lion can't do. Oh, what can it do what an elephant can't do? I'll tell you what it can do. It can go in one side of a mountain and come out of the other side. And that's the context of that chapter there. Fear not thou worm, Jacob, thou shalt thresh the mountain. You think it'd say, I'll make you an elephant and you'll tread it down and kick it away? No, no, no, no, no. It says, you do your part, I'll do my part. You're worm, Jacob. And when the worm goes through like that, the air goes through. Isn't it amazing? If you don't mind the word, it worms its way through. And when it worms its way through, what happens? It leaves a hole behind it. The mountain doesn't fall in, it leaves a hole behind it. And then the wind goes down the hole. And when the wind goes down the hole, it dries the soil. And then the next wind comes and blows all the dry soil away. That's how it works. Wouldn't it be nice if the Lord sent a few millionaires to Park Street, to Park Avenue Baptist Church? I don't know, it might be the worst thing that ever happened. Might lean on them instead of God. But I'll tell you what, it'd be nice if he sent a few worms. I went to the Bible School of Wales to preach once. And Norman Grubb was the other speaker, and myself. Have you heard, how many of you have heard Norman Grubb? Some of you have. You've read his books anyhow. Lovely man. He's an old 80-year-old man now, 80-odd. And he spoke, and I had to give the closing word that night. And I said to him, you know what? This is a unique meeting. You may never be in a meeting again that's addressed by a Grubb and a worm. You know the devil's very clever, but I'll tell you one thing, he can't hit nothing. If you're not there, he can't hit you. Every time you get injured, it's because there's a bit of self-pity and self-concern in you. If there's none there, he'll waste his time. Jesus said, the Prince of this world cometh, and he findeth nothing in me, and as I am, so ye in the world. The great joy of having nothing is you can't lose anything. If you're a nobody, nobody can rub you in the dirt, because brother, you ain't there. That's all there is to it. There's a joy in having nothing. There's a joy in being a nobody. Nothing can push you down if you're already on the floor. Wasn't it Luther that said, he that is low need fear no fall. You sit on the floor, you've nowhere to go. If you've no opinion of yourself. We've got a lot of boys graduating, going to graduate in two or three weeks from colleges and seminaries. And you know, poor guys, they're waiting to be discovered. They're loaded with wisdom. They've got all the theories that the dry old theologians have given them. I preach one of the greatest seminaries and Bible colleges in this country not too long ago. And all the professors, PhDs and others, I don't have a degree. Neither borrowed nor stolen, nor gathered with salt cubes or anything. And nobody's given me one, I'm not interested about them. But you know, I said to those professors, some of you men haven't had a new thought about God for ten years. All you do every time there's a new semester, you say, boys, we're going to study Romans. The book is divided in chapters 1 to 7, 8 to 11, 12 to 16. One part is doctrinal, the other is practical. And here begin us. And I said, you, why, if you'd had a parrot sitting in that cage over there and you couldn't go, you could say to the parrot, would you take over while I'm away? He's heard it that many times, needs no more inspiration than you have. We've got dead men giving out dead truths to dead people, and do you want to poop it together? You see, they've got ability and confidence, they're able to do it. I finished, listen, there's a great joy in having nothing. He made himself of no reputation. Reputation is what people think you are. Character is what God knows you are. And all you have to do is be worried or concerned about your character, not your reputation. There's a joy in having nothing because you can't lose anything. There's a peril in having nothing. A man has come in his journey and I have nothing to set before him. And that's where the Church is today. In a crisis hour in history, we haven't got what it takes at this moment. And the world starts. What is the Church? Well, it's a lot of things. It's a hospital for spiritual cripples, for one thing. It's an armory where we train men to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ. I think it's a beauty parlor, where God makes us beautiful. Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us. And the cosmetics are here in this chapter. He says he will beautify the meek with salvation. He says worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Who was it said hope springs eternal? Alexander Pope said hope springs eternal in the human breast. You know when I look at women I believe that. I mean you've been going to a beauty parlor for 20 years. I wonder what you're like when you started. I mean you haven't got too far now with the external beauty part of it. But you know, I, I, I, I'll give you one minute. We were in a crusade in Bradford, England one day. A little lady came up. I've seen some ugly women. She was the ugliest thing I have ever seen. She had a nose like a banana. Her skin was wrinkled like a poo. She had a voice like a man that has some laryngitis. She talked like that. And she said, would you come to my house this afternoon for a cup of tea? A little coffee there and up there. So we went. The house was beautiful and clean, nothing much in it. And she gave us tea and cookies. And when we finished she said, it would be nice to pray before you left. And you know what? I was leading the team of students and usually I was ready to pray and I got a caution. Red light said, shut up. And that little old crooked ugly lady began to pray. I've heard men pray all over the world. I spent nights in prayer. I spent days in prayer with men. Forgotten what they said. But I remember that little old lady. She prayed with an intimacy. She prayed as though she got one hand on God and the other on me. She prayed until that very room became fragrant with the mighty resurrection power of the Lord Jesus Christ. You wouldn't have given her five dollars for everything in the house. She had one room in which she ate. She had a little bed at the end. She had a cooking stove by the toilet. It was as poor a house as any I've been in, apart from when I've been in heathen camps. You know when I came out, the tears were flowing down my face. I thought, you ugly beauty. You ugly beauty. You beautiful ugly woman. Never seen anybody more ugly than you are. Never met anybody more beautiful. She poured out her love to Jesus as though he were a boyfriend sitting there and she'd just fallen in total adoration before him. And as though he'd said, darling you're going to be my bride. And she poured out her love until, like the woman that poured out the spike in her. You see, you say, Lord make my life fragrant. He doesn't do that. You've got to pour it out before you get it back. The woman took the alabaster box of ointment and poured it on his feet. Then she dried his feet with the hair of her head. Well, the fragrance she put out, she got back. Within the veil. Be this beloved thy portion within the secret of thy Lord to dwell. Beholding him until thy face is glory. Thy life is lips. Thy lips his praise shall tell. Within the veil for only as thou gazest upon the matchless beauty of his face canst thou become a living revelation of his great heart of love, his untold grace. Can we sing 292? Good lady plays, she plays beautifully. I enjoyed that playing this morning. If it's true, sing it, and if it's not, just stand there dumb. 292, let's stand, please. More love to thee, O Christ, more love to thee. Hear thou the prayer I make, unbended knee. Lifted my arms, more love to thee. Joy I crave, sought peace and rest. Now thee alone I seek, give what is best. Lift all my prayers, more love, O Christ, to thee. Whisper thy praise, this be the parting cry. Lift all my prayers, more love, O Christ, to thee. We pray it may be hid in our hearts that we may not sin against thee. May we not turn from light, but obey it and walk in it. We, with the session this afternoon, and our brother of the ministers, quicken his heart and all who are here, and again in the service tonight, we give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen.