This sermon emphasizes the importance of walking in the Spirit and having a mindset like Christ, focusing on the example of Paul's unwavering faith and dedication despite facing persecution and challenges. It highlights the need for a deep prayer life, sacrificial love, and a Christ-centered existence to live victoriously and radiate God's glory in all circumstances.

For those who profess to walk in the Spirit, I think the most dangerous thing in the world is to say, I walk in the Spirit, I make myself vulnerable to every attack the devil has. But we can be more than conquered in the whole thing, there's no question about that at all. He says, I glory in tribulation, in necessities, in reproaches, isn't that something? Let me say the last thing. I like his word when he says, none of these things move me, isn't that great? I've forgotten where he said that, but I know he said it. None of these things move me, it's poise. The presence of the living Christ gives him balance in everything, none of these things. What have they been saying? They've been telling him that before he gets far up the road, he's going to be arrested, and he's going to be crucified. And he says, none of these things, oh mercy, we'd be on the phone to the pastor, could you call a prayer council? I'm going to be persecuted, I could lose my life. You've been seeing when we all get to heaven for ten years, but as soon as you get there, you want to turn back. Not this way, Lord, don't chop my head off, don't let me suffer, let me, you know what, one of the cheating devilish things of our day, when I was a boy, and Dale remembers this too when he was a boy, Betty doesn't because she never was a boy, but anyhow, maybe she remembers it in the days, the pastor would say at the Sunday service, you know, I've had a good time visiting hospitals this week. I've been in six different hospitals, I led eight people to Christ. Eight people had a deathbed repentance, and I went to see them two days after, and they were rejoicing, there are no deathbed repentances now. We sent people straight into eternity with injections. We drug them two or three days before they die. You're going to have a chance to speak to them. They feel hell, straight out of bed into a hell like that. You know, we're not, at least I'm not, as I should be. As I say, I'd love to have ten percent of the passion this man had, or vision, or compassion, or driving force. But he isn't a showman, he isn't competing with anybody. I want this to be done, he says, that Christ may be magnified in my body, whether I live or I die. I think you would have enjoyed the hymn that was sung so often, and written of course by Isaac Watts, when I surveyed the wondrous cross. When he says, my richest gain I count but loss, and poor contempt and all my pride. All, all things were an advantage to me. My scholarship, again, I was a tribe of Benjamin, the seed of Abraham, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, a scholar in the school of Gamaliel. It had everything going for me. He bundled it all up and becomes offensive. It's just like a bunch of dung, as far as I'm concerned. In order that I may see him in all his true value, in all his true power. You know, I've kept thinking this last few days, I'm trying to write this book on the judgment seat of, you know, I feel so shrunken. How do you feel at the side of a man like this? Not because he has a magnificent intellect, because of his relationship, because he says there was a time when I was crucified with Christ. He went to the cross, that's not the problem, he didn't get people to the cross, he's getting them on the cross. And he says he revealed himself to me on the Damascus Road, later he revealed himself in me. People don't care a hell of beans whether you speak in tongues and heal the sick. If your life doesn't conform to the Bible, people say, well you can't do this, you can't do that. I'll tell you the man who knows what the standard of Christianity is better than anybody else, the man in the gutter, the man in the street, the man in the factory, seen so much hypocrisy, so much emptiness, so much talk, but they know the genuine person when they see them, when the love of Christ is constraining them. This is the man who says you can do all things, not some, he loves that little word all, all things without murmurings and without disputings, all things, however offensive, however against your taste. I don't believe Jesus liked lepers, he did more than like them, he loved them. And it's difficult to get away from some of our affections. We've kept seeing, Martha and I talking about him this week, have thine affections been nailed to the cross? You know I was in a meeting not long ago, a guy came up and gave me a bear hug, he said brother I love you. I said you what? I love you. Nonsense. He doesn't know me, how can he love me? A lot of this sloppy mush going into a church, give everybody a hug, there's nothing in it. Love has blood on it, love has sacrifice in it. You cannot have love without sacrifice, you cannot have love without blood. And this man loved, he says God loved the world, Christ loved the church, but he loved me and gave himself for me. And so he goes after all, the barbarian, the Greek, the Scythian, the bond, the free, it matters not. I'm a debtor to that man to tell him that while he's a leper, there's one who can heal him and cleanse him from his moral leprosy. There's one who can save to the uttermost, not merely cancel your past sins, but he can take the root of sin out of you. It doesn't mean you never sin again, it means that you live in victory. You see lots of people get the devil out of them, but they don't let the spirit in and they become seven times worse. I've seen people who've backslidden, who've had a worse vocabulary after they were backslidden than ever they had before it. Why? Because seven other spirits come in. The Holy Ghost is not indwelling, he's not in control. But here's a man who's mastered by his master. Here's a man who is a slave. He says I'm the bond servant of Jesus Christ. He won't give the devil credit anywhere. He never once says I'm in prison because of the devil. He says I'm, and he doesn't say I'm in prison because of Caesar, he says I'm the prisoner of Jesus Christ. He didn't write Romans 8 28, it's a kind of nice bit of poetry. He says all things work together. I'm in this stinking prison. God's going to get glory out of this. There's no way of getting into the palace, but he got into the palace, if not in person. They said we've never had a prison like this, and all the palace was talking about him. That's what he says in this first chapter. And then the fourth chapter again he says that there were saints in Caesar's household. Well how did they get there? Paul was the one that went, and he rejoiced that he lost everything to gain everything. He says you can't lose in this life. If I live I gain because I have Christ in me. If I die I gain. I win whichever way. I'm tossing over a coin with two heads on it. You can't lose in this game. God doesn't reward us here, he rewards us hereafter. Well I know some of you wonderful preacher fellows, you've got it all fixed out. I haven't. I'm sure you'd be very happy to stand at the judgment seat right after Paul, wouldn't you? I've talked about his preaching, I've talked about his passion, what about his praying? I'm not concerned whether a man teaches 50 people on Sunday or 5,000. No man is greater than his prayer life, I don't care who he is. I told that to hundreds of preachers twice this year, I talked to five or six hundred at a time. No man is greater than his prayer life, and Paul is not only the prince of preachers, he's the prince of prayers. Doesn't he say in the ninth chapter, I could wish myself a curse, my brethren. I'm willing to be rejected, cut off. One translator says, he says, look I'm willing to be damned if need be. Madame Guillen said this, I've so reveled in the beauty of Christ, in the glory of Christ, in the sweetness of Christ, in the majesty of Christ on earth, that if there's no room in heaven, well put me out and let me go to hell. She said, I'll enjoy hell. All that I've had in this life, the memories in hell will outdo. I don't think she was right, but I know what she means. My love is so great, I'm so soaked in him. Come on now. I know you talk about, do you walk in the spirit, do you think in the spirit? It says this body, if we go into the second chapter, I skipped some things there. It says, let this mind be in you, that's part of your body. We don't have the old-fashioned watches like we had when we were youngsters. Used to be like turnips, big things, you know, and you open them and good night. There were more wheels in there than you ever seen in your life. And you go to the watchman and say, my watch needs some help. And he'd take the cover off and you see all these wheels there. When I give the man my watch, I give him the works, I give him the hands, I give him everything. And he says, he wants your body, which contains your will, contains your emotions, contains your intellect. But he says, let this mind be, you see why this blessed man overcame, he had the mind of Christ. He says, let this mind be in you, and he knew it himself. He says, writing to the Romans, chapter 6, the love of Christ constraineth me. You see, all self had been removed. And he's Christ-centered, he has a heart of love, he has the heart of God, he has the will of God, he has the mind of God. And that's normal Christian living. I don't like to make a tirade against TV, but I'm quite sure it's robbed thousands of people of hours they should have spent. In fact, women used to get together for coffee and talk in the morning, they don't now, they watch a TV show and get second-hand kicks. But if you're going to walk in the Spirit, you must read the Word, you must have the wisdom from the Word, you must have the Spirit to inspire the Word. You see, as I say, I'm embarrassed when I think of my terrible limitations. I know so little, I've done so little for God. I'm challenged again by this man this week, with one page of the Bible that's been going through Siberia in terrible poverty and hunger, and everywhere he goes he's radiating blessing. I told you about Solzhenitsyn the other day, lying on a bed of rotting straw in a concentration camp and he found God. Because a man across there in the stink and the urine was taking little papers out of his ragged clothes and uncurling them and reading them and relaxing. And he said they put burdens on that man greater than anybody else, they made him suffer, they gave him intense privation and he didn't crack under it, he never whined, he radiated something. I said, well, hey, what is it? What are those bits of paper? He said, they're the promises of God. I stuffed them in my clothes and I put them back carefully every night. And he said that man walked about that camp, there were 3,000 men there and he was the most prominent man in the whole group. There were doctors, philosophers, lawyers, politicians, but this man was a marked one. He bore something of the, we say, Lord, we've borne the image of the earthly so long, we need to bear the image of the heavenly. But you know, Paul doesn't say, wait till you die. He says, I want the glory of God in my life now. The life which I now live in the flesh, I should live as though I were already wired up to a wire the world hasn't seen. And that pulsates into my life, his love, his compassion, his grace, his joy, his peace and his power. God never intended we should be spiritual cripples. He never intended the church should be where it is now. But there's going to be an awakening, I'm absolutely sure of that. Well now, I'd like to preach another hour, but I won't. Let's sing a verse. And if you have to leave, you can leave. Let's sing, there is a fountain filled with blood as we go to our knees. There is a fountain.