In this sermon, the preacher begins by quoting another preacher who asked why so many Christians are unable to experience the reality of God. He then poses the question to his own congregation, asking if they are ready to accept Jesus Christ for who they know him to be. Surprisingly, most of the congregation responds with a "no." The preacher then explores the concept of living in the spirit and being led by the spirit, emphasizing that these can be a reality in our lives. He shares the story of David Otis Fuller, a preacher who preached a sermon titled "Your Life: A Dying Life or a Living Death," highlighting the importance of dying to oneself and finding real life in death. The preacher concludes by emphasizing the significance of the death-dealing cross in our lives.

Philippians chapter 3, verse 10. Philippians chapter 3, verse 10. And let's see what God says about the tremendous truth we see in Philippians chapter 3, verse 10. Philippians 3, verse 10. That I may know Him, says the Apostle Paul. And last night we preached on that statement, that I may know Him. The hard cry of an individual to know God. Now the question is, can I know Him or can't I? How intimate can I know, how intimately can I know God? Is there reality in a relationship with God? Is it what some people say, if there isn't more to Christianity, I'm about to quit? How many times I've heard that in these past few years. There's got to be more. And yet in the words of the Apostle Paul, that I may know Him. The cry of his heart to know God. To know Jesus Christ. Now how do we get to know Him? Last night I quoted something at the very end of my message. And I want to quote it again at the beginning of tonight. Because I believe it just gets us right into this truth in a marvelous way. The preacher that I was quoting to you, who was preaching. And he was saying, God why is it so many Christians are on bypass meadow. And can't seem to move into the reality of God. And he said, I asked the question one time when I was preaching to a congregation of people. I asked the question, are you ready to accept Jesus Christ for what you know Him to be? Are you ready to accept Him for what you know Him to be? And he said, even though people were broken and they were weeping. They would not lie and not many of them said yes. Most of them said no. And he said, this was a shock to me. That most of them said no, they are not willing to accept Christ for what they know Him to be. Now that's not much of a statement when I first make it. You say, I don't seem to understand, I would have voted yes. Really my Christian friends, there is so much to that. And let's see if God will show us tonight. What we need to vote yes about. When we need to accept Christ for what we really know Him to be. And he said, it was such a shock to me. And my eyes were then opened to the life and death struggle that is going on at Calvary. That's going on at the cross. And that's the statement that still got a hold of my heart as I bring this message to you tonight. When I saw so many Christians, he said, who wouldn't vote yes, I will accept Christ for what I know Him to be. He said, then my eyes were opened to the life and death struggle that goes on at the cross, at Calvary. So the apostle Paul says in Philippians 3.10, that I may know Him. Now how does he want to know Him? He said that I may know Him in the fellowship of, in the power of His resurrection. And the fellowship of His suffering being made conformable unto His death. Three ways in which Paul wants to know Jesus Christ. In the power of His resurrection. In the fellowship of His suffering. Being made conformable unto His death. Now I think Paul's chronology is a little mixed up. Now I don't believe it's mixed up in the wrong way, but even though he's mixed up, he's mixed up in the right way. Now you know, he just comes with the Easter season. The first thing about the Easter season is Good Friday. And the Easter season talks about Jesus suffered. And then Jesus went to a cross and He was crucified. And He died and He was put in a tomb and then He rose from the dead. And that's the chronological order of the Easter season. But the apostle Paul's a little mixed up in his chronology. He says I want to know Him in the fellowship of His, in the power of His resurrection. The first thing he talks about is the resurrection. Then he goes back and he says in the fellowship of His suffering. And be made conformable unto His death. Now if he would have put that in the proper chronological order, he would have said that I may know Him in the fellowship of His suffering, first because He suffered. And be conformed unto His death because then He died. And in the power of His resurrection because then He came through the empty tomb. Was he mixed up? I believe yes and no. Chronologically yes, but in reality no. What is he really saying? He's saying that I may know Him. And the first thing he runs to is the power of His resurrection. I think the apostle Paul is saying to you and me tonight, the real essence of knowing Jesus Christ is knowing Him in His resurrection life. Knowing Him in His resurrection power. Knowing Him in His resurrected life. That's the real essence of knowing Jesus. That's where I want to get, he's saying. That's where I want to arrive. That's the epitome of knowing Christ. Know something about His resurrected life. His resurrection life and my own life. The power of that resurrection life. And now he goes back in retrospect and he says, how do I get there? I've got to come through knowing Him in the fellowship of His suffering. I've got to come through knowing Him being made conformable unto His death and then I can know Him in His resurrection life. I really want to get to the resurrection, but how do I get there? Through His suffering, through His death and then to the resurrection life. Jesus Christ did not come through the tomb. He did not come through the resurrection until first He went through the suffering and He went to Calvary, went to the cross and then resurrection life. You and I, my Christian friends, need to learn this so specifically, so dynamically, if I can say it that way, that before you and I can come through to the resurrection life of God, we don't get to the resurrection unless we come through knowing Him in the fellowship of His suffering, being made conformable unto His death in the life of the crucifixion and then we can come through in the resurrection life. Fellowship of His suffering, let's start there. What is that all about? Now we hear a lot about fellowship these days. We heard about fellowship meetings tonight. We hear about fellowship halls. We hear about fellowship meetings. We hear about fellowship banquets. We hear about fellowship of all kinds. Seemingly it's synonymous with modern day Christianity. Everybody's talking about fellowship, but my Christian friends, there's one fellowship we don't talk about is the fellowship of His sufferings. Whatever has happened to the fellowship of His suffering? What was that all about? Read Isaiah 55, verses 4, 5, and 6. It says, We did esteem Him stricken as God gave Isaiah the picture of the crucified Jesus. We did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. With His stripes we are healed, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. What is the suffering of Jesus Christ all about? And we say, when Paul says that I may know Him in the fellowship of His suffering, He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities, and the iniquities of us all was laid upon Him. In the book of Luke, He said He was wounded in the house of His friends, the fellowship of His suffering. What kind of wounds in the medical terms? Jesus was so beaten, and He was so smitten with the stripes and the cat-of-nine-tails, to where the historian says His back was so bruised that you couldn't see that much. Two fingers put together, you couldn't see that much of the flesh of Jesus Christ together in one place without a bruise from the rippings He took. In the medical aspect of the bruises of Jesus, the wounds He took, they were the contused wounds, and lacerated wounds, and penetrating wounds, and perforating wounds, and incisions in His body. His body was broken. His body was broken for our sins. Samuel Rutherford said, Your Lord and Your Redeemer with patience received many a black stroke on His glorious back, and many a buffet of the unbelieving world. And he says of himself, I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked out the hair. I hid not my face from shame and from spitting. My Christian friends, when we start to talk about wanting to know Jesus, when Paul says that I may know Him, the first thing we need to recognize is for us to move into the knowledge of Christ like He wants us to know Him, and God wants us to know His Son, we need to start with the fellowship of His sufferings, and those had something to do with your sin and my sin. He went through all of that physical suffering because your sin was on Him and my sin was on Him. And when Paul says, I want to move into the same fellowship with Him, I wonder, is he not saying before you and I can know Him in the fellowship of His suffering? We are going to have to know what it is to go through the pain and the agony and all the affliction and fear what Jesus Christ felt on His physical body for you to be set free from your sins, for your sins to be covered by His blood, and for you and me to go through whatever pain and agony that we must go through to be right with God in relation to restitution and forgiveness and cleansing and brokenness before God because of the sins of our lives. We are ready and willing to be broken because of our sin. We're living in a day of dry-eyed alters. We're living in a day of no repentance. We're living in a day of easy believism. We're living in a day where Christians have lost the cross. We're living in a day of a no-cross Christianity. And my Christian friends, for many of us as Christians, we've only been to the cross once or twice in all of our Christian experience, and that was once when we got saved, and number two when we made a rededication of our life, and it's been a long time since we've been back to the cross for cleansing where we recognize our need as sinners and get on our knees and are broken before God because of the sin of our hearts. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say to me, Preacher, I haven't been to an altar, I haven't been to a prayer room, I haven't been on my knees before God for years asking for forgiveness. Somehow we have the idea because we're Christians there's no more judgment for sin. But I tell you, my Christian, in this day of a weak anemic idea of sin and watering it down to where it's no more black, it's no more white and black, it's gray, a neutral color gray, no more the scarlet sin, it's turned to pink. All of these attitudes have crept in the church to where we don't have Christians who are repenting. Some D.L. Moody said that a Christian will do more repenting and confession of sin after he becomes a Christian than he did to become a Christian. A Christian who's right with God is going to be a repenting Christian. He's going to be a Christian who's walking in the light as Jesus is in the light, and then it says the blood of Christ is going to keep on cleansing him from all sin, a continual cleansing. He's going to need the blood and he's going to go through the pain of broken spirit to be clean and right with God. My Christian friends, when I was reading this verse, Philippians 3.10, it sort of jumped out at me just a few years ago now. And the more I see it, and I've preached this truth and expressed it, and more people said, I've never thought like that before. Paul says to know Christ in the fellowship of his suffering, and that had to do, he was wounded for my transgressions. Will I be willing to go through whatever pain necessary for me to be clean from my sin? Oh, I don't mean to work off, do some penance for your forgiveness. What I mean in relation to seeing ourselves as sinners and breaking before God over sin, and seeing what sin did to my Christ on the cross, and move into that same fellowship and be that broken over my sin, because it did that to my Christ. And come for that cleansing and thank God for the blood, and the blood will mean so much more, and the cleansing and the forgiveness will mean so much more, because we know a little about the pain of sin we've entered into the fellowship of his suffering. And then we'll pay any price to be right with God. The greatest deed in the church of Jesus Christ is for every Christian in God's house, in the Christian world, in the evangelical church, to come before God and say, Lord, I will pay any price. I will go through whatever means. I will turn over every stone. I will leave no stone unturned, that I shall be clean, that I shall be cleansed, that I shall be right with God, that I shall know what it is to be a Christian, pure and clean before God. Paul says in Romans 12.1, we quote that verse so much, he says, I beseech you therefore, brethren. That word beseech means I beg of you, please, brethren. He says, I beg of you, please, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your body a living sacrifice. What does it mean? I beg of you, please, brethren, by the mercies of God. The mercies of God, that's the message of Calvary. That's where the blood was shed. That's the pain that Jesus Christ went through. I beg of you, please, by the picture of what Christ went through for your sins, that you take your life and present your body, this physical body as well as your soul, present it to God a living sacrifice. What does that mean? You bring it to the altar. You bring it for crucifixion. You bring it as a means of sacrifice. You bring it to where there's pain and there's the pain of the incision of the knife of that altar, of that sacrificial lamb. You bring your body to the crucifixion of that flesh. Present your bodies a living sacrifice. Holy. The pain of being holy. Sacrifice. The pain of being holy. Oh, this is what God is saying to us in these days. I'll tell you why a lot of people are not interested in the word revival. I'll tell you why a lot of people are so quick to criticize even the use of the word revival. I'll tell you why a lot of people are not interested and why people say, I don't need revival. I'll tell you why. Because if they start to get close, if they start to move in, they'll start to hear the call of God at their heart that revival is intensely personal. And revival deals in the inner man and it deals with the sin of the heart and the life. And it's a painful experience. But I'll tell you what revival is. Revival is coming to the judgment seat early so you don't have to face that judgment seat at that time on some of the issues of your life because you face them now in revival. The pain of being honest now, to be clean now so that can get under the blood lest that sin follow you to the judgment seat as a Christian. So if it's painful now, imagine what it will be at the judgment seat. Now again there's that scripture, the Lord says a contrite heart and a contrite spirit he will not despise. That has something to do with knowing Christ and the fellowship of his suffering. What does it mean a contrite heart he'll not despise? He says God resists with the proud but he gives grace to the humble. And a contrite spirit he'll not despise. And he says he dwells with a contrite and humble spirit to revive the contrite and to revive the humble spirit. We talk about revival. It's in the contrite and the humility. In that spirit, that's where God revives. The word contrite means being bruised together. Get it? Being bruised together. Paul says that I may know him in the fellowship of his suffering. He was bruised. So why does God dwell with a contrite heart and a contrite spirit? Because the contrite heart is the one that says, Lord, I am willing to be bruised together with your very heart over sin. My sin to be clean, to not allow sin to rest and abide in my life. Take, eat, this is my body which was broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. And that's why Paul says when you come to eat of the body of Jesus Christ, examine yourself that you don't eat the body unworthily. I tell you, my Christian friends, our churches ought to have revival just about once a month at least when we have communion service. It ought to be the cleansing of the church. It ought to be the bringing of our hearts together when we dare not touch that communion. If there's a brother or sister in the church, then we can't say, God bless you, brother. If there's a sin in our heart and life, it remains there. We can't take communion. Oh, that a holy fear of God would come upon the people that he says, examine yourself for this reason because some have taken the body of Jesus unworthily. Some are sickly among you. Some are weakly among you. Some even sleep. Jesus Christ said when he walked in the service, he said, unless you become bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh and drink of my blood, you have no part in me and my kingdom. What do you think of words like that? I tell you what, bone of his bone, fellowship of his suffering, drink of my blood, his blood was shed because of my sin. Knowing him in the fellowship of his suffering, you're not going to think lightly of sin if you mean business with God. Sin is going to be black and you're going to be broken as you see sin as God sees it in your life. And you're not going to be pointing your finger every place else because you'll have a full-time job with your own heart when you want to enter into the fellowship of his suffering that had to do with your sin. And God worked in Regina where Fried and Henry Tychoff met God over two years ago. I tell you what happened. The Lord was this. Many Christians were saying, Oh, I want God to reveal more things about my life. They were anxious for God to reveal things in their life because they were so anxious to be thoroughly clean with God. Isn't that beautiful? Anxious. Anxious for the pain of transparency. Anxious for the pain of the light and what the light will reveal. Anxious to be open before God. I wonder, are you that way tonight? Fellowship. Somebody said fellowship to me has always meant a sort of mutual enjoyment. Isn't that right? When you think of fellowship, immediately you sort of perk up. That talks about mutual enjoyment. And isn't that a description of what the apostles went through when they were in the presence of a Sanhedrin and they came away from the presence of a Sanhedrin after being beaten and harassed by the Sanhedrin and it said they were full of joy that they were considered worthy to suffer for the sake of Jesus Christ. Isn't that interesting? Here they enjoyed the fellowship of His suffering. Oh, my Christian friends, I believe what God's saying when we want to know Christ in the fellowship of His suffering that even though there's pain in having our sin revealed, there is joy and there's fellowship with the Christ Himself when we dare to be honest and open with God. If you say with Paul that I may know Him, Paul says, if you're going to know Jesus Christ, it's going to come when you say I want to identify with the fellowship of His suffering and I'm going to know the mutual enjoyment of the glory of forgiveness that was provided by that Christ. Secondly, Paul says that I may know Him being made conformable unto His death. Conformable unto His death. What kind of a death did He die? If you want to be conformed unto His death, what kind of a death? It was a crucifixion. We need to know Christ in crucifixion. The Inquirer at Birmingham, England, the Crusades said, young people are taught everything but how to die. We're taught everything but how to die. I need to know how to die. And he was talking about this in the spiritual realm. We teach our young people, we teach each other everything but how to die. And his question was, I need to know how to die. Well, if you need to know how to die, I'll tell you how. It's crucifixion. Paul says that I may know Him being made conformable unto His death. If I'm going to conform to His death, His death was crucifixion. Palmy said about Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ never wavered in His choices. This is what crucifixion meant to Him. His rule of life and everything was to please God regardless of what the nature, what His natural desires might be. He said, nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done. God's will was the most important thing in His life. God never needed to coerce Jesus. The law of absolute obedience was the guide star of every decision of Jesus. And God honored Christ for that. God's will led Jesus Christ to the cross. And if God's children follow Jesus Christ's example, said Palmy, if God's children follow Christ's example, it will lead them to the cross. John 12, 20, except a corn of weed fall into the ground and die, it abides alone. But if it dies, it shall bring forth much fruit. And those were the words that Jesus said when He was going to the cross. When they came and they said, we would see Jesus. The Greeks said, we would see Jesus. And the first words Jesus said, if you want to see Jesus, I want to tell you something about this Christ. Unless this corn of weed fall into the ground and die, it's going to abide alone. He's going to a cross. And if it dies, it shall bring forth much fruit. And that scripture goes on to tell us that Jesus was not only talking about His own death, but He was talking about the need of His own children to follow Him in the same relationship. Go to the cross. Be conformed unto His death. Get on the cross with Jesus. Now, this past week was an interesting thing. In your newspaper, I cut it out since I've come to town. I saw it down in the States. And you Canadians are right up with us. You have it in your newspaper. It said, Newsmakers. And it was a picture of a man hanging on a cross. Did you see it? You couldn't miss it. A man hanging on a cross in the Philippine Islands. Twelve men lifted up a man on a cross. And there he was stripped as Jesus was clothed and His hands out and the crown of thorns on His brow. And they've got Him hanging on a cross. And He goes through the pain. I don't know how many times He's done this. I think it's a few times now. At Easter time. At Good Friday. He goes to the cross. And He's doing it as a sacrifice for the extension of the life of His mother and His sick child. And you look at that and you're taken back aghast and horrified. Here's a man. Actual man on a cross. It talks about the spiritual. In our papers, it was talking about the spiritual exercise and the dimension it meant to Him hanging on a cross. And the very agony that Christ went through He put Himself through it. And we said, That's wrong! That's not right! My Christian friends, I wonder if it isn't a little right. I was in Rome going through the big cathedrals of Rome on one of the tours. And the missionary said to me, he said, When you go to a certain cathedral in Rome, pull away from the guided tour and go around the back of the cathedral and you'll look up and you'll see something. And so I did. And when I got there, I saw way up on the top of the cathedral there was a cross. And on the one side there was Jesus hanging on the cross. And the missionary said to me, they said, Look around on the back side of that cross on the top of that cathedral. And I looked on the back side, and on the back side there was someone else hanging on a cross and that was the Virgin Mary. On top of a cathedral in Rome, the Virgin Mary, back to back, with Her Son, hanging on the cross. And we evangelicals, we say, That's heresy! In years when there was the years of Mary, you'd walk into Catholic hospitals in my country and the words on the hospital, Save the world through Mary. And the statement, Co-redemptrix with Jesus Christ. Mary, co-redeemer with Christ. And we would say, That's heresy! That's heresy! Jesus is the Redeemer! And no one can be on a cross with Him. My Christian friends, in the actual sense of the word, that they make Mary a co-redeemer with Christ, they're wrong. But I tell you, as I look at that thing and God's truth has come through to my heart in these recent years, in a more real way than ever before, I say to myself, That's not right that Mary alone should be on that cross. You should be on that cross. And I should be on that cross. And every one of us as evangelicals should be identified on that cross with Christ. That I should know Him being conformed unto His death and that was crucifixion. The Apostle Paul said, I am crucified with Christ. That puts us on the cross. Nevertheless, I live. Life coming out of death. Crucifixion is death. Yet not I, then He's dead again. But Christ liveth in me. That's the kind of life it is now. It's the life of that Christ on that cross. And the life that I now live, what's the characteristic of it? I live it by the faith of that Son of God. Not faith in that Son of God, but the faith of that Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. What does Paul say in Galatians 6, 24? He says, They that are Christ have crucified their flesh with the affections and lust thereof. They that are Christ. Are you a Christian? Every Christian, Paul says, has crucified His flesh with the affections and the lust thereof. Crucified on the cross. You know that happened to you when you got saved. I wonder and you wonder why it is that so many people when they get saved, there's that first fervor, first love. I wonder why there is when so many people when they first get saved, there is that consciousness and that sense that I am giving myself to Jesus Christ. That comes through so forcibly to the heart of the new convert. And then after a few weeks or a few months, something happens, they lose that joy and they lose that fervor. And there's defeat and all the rest that we know that happens in the lives of so many new Christians. And it perhaps happened in your life. And I've been wondering why, why? The Bible says they that are Christ have crucified their flesh. They went to a cross when they got saved. The sense of I give myself to Jesus that was identifying with Him on that cross. They saw Him on a cross. They saw Him on the cross. And I'll tell you what, there's something about this truth that doesn't come through to us right after we're saved. And there's something about this truth that sometimes in our preaching, in our theology, we miss the message of the crucified life that needs to come through immediately and identify with that thing when we first get saved. And we come down from that cross. And we bring ourselves down from that cross. And we take back our life. And we're living in so many realms just like we did before we were saved. Except for the fact we know the blood is there and we have been cleansed. But we're living in the defeat of so many areas that we were defeated in even before. We need to identify with that cross. You know what God's doing these days in revival? I'll tell you what. You hear people preaching about dying out to self and the crucified life. I'll tell you what it's all about. It happened when you were saved positionally. It happened when you were saved when you first became a Christian. But I'll tell you what the problem is. Many of us have never gone out to that crucifixion. And we've never attended our own funeral. And we've never identified ourselves with that cross. And we've never stood back and said, yes, that's my life on that cross. I'm there. I'm agreeing with God about myself. And there I am crucified with Christ. What does it mean? It means I've given up all rights to my life. It means I have no will of my own. It means I have no future of my own. It means I have no family of my own. It means I have no time and no money of my own. I'm on a cross. It means I have no rights of my own. I believe, my Christian friend, if the message of the crucified life would start coming through once again, forcibly to God's people in God's house, we would have half of the dissensions in our churches would be ended. Half of the church splits would no longer be around. Why? How many of our churches are split up because somebody says, I have my rights and who's he to tell me? Dr. Harry Ironside recalled an incident of his boyhood days when he saw two respected Christian brethren in the church that he attended. And this young boy, Dr. Harry Ironside, when he was just a little boy, he saw these two great Christian leaders in his church. They became angry with one another. He was so shocked as he watched the scene of one getting angry at the other. One man sprang to his feet and clenching his fist shouted, I will not allow you to put anything over on me. I will have my rights. And old Scotsman, said Dr. Ironside, rather hard of hearing, leaned forward and cupped his ear with his hand so he could not miss anything of the proceedings that was going on. What was that, my brother, he said. The old Scotsman said, what was that, my brother, he asked. I didn't quite get your point. I said, I will have my rights, retorted the man. But surely you don't mean that, said the old Scotsman, do you? If you insisted on what was coming to you, you would be in hell. Jesus did not come to get his rights. He came to get his wrongs and he got them. The wise old gentleman's words struck home for a moment. The indignant protester stood there and then tears broke from his eyes. Brethren, he said sorrowfully, I have been all wrong. Handle the case as you think best. Then he sat down with his face in his hands and he sobbed repentantly. The Lord Jesus Christ left heaven's glory to bear the reproaches of men. He who commanded worlds into being could have demanded justice and put to flight his enemies with a single word. Instead, with patient forbearance and meekness, he endured such contradictions. He didn't say, I have my rights. A man on the cross has no rights. He's given them up. Are you set on getting your rights, my Christian? Stop and remember what your Savior did and let His love free you from the tyranny of a demanding self. A demanding self that has to be vindicated to have its rights. And the poet wrote so often in this world of sin, our cherished rights we seek in vain, but armed by faith we still shall win if thus by grace new heights we gain. The adulterers and adulteresses, said Paul, said James, know ye not that the friendship of this world is enmity with God, whosoever therefore be a friend of the world is an enemy of God? And he was talking to the Christians. The Christian adulterers and adulteresses, not physically, but spiritually with their Almighty God. The bride of Christ adulterers and adulteresses, my Christian friends, when you come to the cross, the cross is going to separate you from the world. What does it mean to be crucified with Christ? It means to be crucified unto the world. Paul said, I am glorying in the cross by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. What does it mean to be crucified unto the world? Someone said to that tremendous theme, Paul knew that the world crucified Christ and the world was going to crucify him. He boasts that he who lives as one crucified to the world, that now the world is impotent and it is an enemy that was crucified to Christ. It was this that made him glory in the cross of Christ. It brought about a complete deliverance from the world. How very different the revelation of Christians to this day and to the world. What is it? Christians today agree that they may not commit the sins that the world allows, but yet they are good friends with the world and they have liberty to enjoy as much of the world as they can. If only they can keep from open sin. They do not know that the most dangerous source of sin is the love of the world with all of its pleasures. Oh Christian, said Andrew Murray, when the world crucified Christ, it crucified you with him. When Christ overcame the world on the cross, he made you an overcomer to the world. He calls you now at whatever cost of self-denial to regard the world in its hostility to God and its kingdom as a crucified enemy over whom the cross can ever keep you conqueror. What a different relationship to the pleasures and attractions of the world the Christian has who by the Holy Spirit has learned to say, I have been crucified with Christ and the crucified Christ lives in me. Let us pray to God that the Holy Spirit through whom Christ offered himself on the cross may reveal to us in power what it means to glory in the cross of our Lord through whom the world has been crucified unto us. And secondly, my Christian friend, when I think of the cross, I think of the fact that we have to be found at the foot of that cross as a daily way of life. A lady in Grand Rapids said, that friend took a trip to the foot of the cross. That's good language. Another man, Mr. Alan Redpath, the preacher of God said, if you are an inch higher than the foot of the cross, you are already too high. Frida Radke, a friend of ours who is with us here tonight from Vancouver, she said, we must come to the cross every day and make ourselves available to the message of the cross. Dr. Fred Jarvis said, Christ must not do all the dying alone. The cross to many fashionable Christians is a mere fetish. Many today who can exclaim the Saviorhood of Christ have never experienced the Lordship of Jesus. It's alright for Christ to have been obedient to the death of the cross, but it is not necessary for modern Christians to go to the cross. Indeed, our crossless Christianity is our curse, he said. It will take a new reformation to restore the cross to its rightful place in our day. Christ must not do all the dying. Walter Bolt, the man that God used in the Saskatoon Revival in such a marvelous way, Walter Bolt said, the pain of crucifixion and death is this, that crucifixion came about, but it took three hours to die. When we go to the cross, it's a painful experience, and it took Jesus three hours to die. Oh, my Christian friend, it's painful and might take a little time for you and me to come to the real meaning of death, that death means separation from the power and the dominion of sin and the world in our lives. Know what it is to be freed from the bondage and the dominion and the servitude of sin in the world and the flesh and the devil in our lives. It doesn't mean the inability to sin, but it means the ability not to sin, the ability to be freed from the power. The world and sin round about us. The man in Grand Rapids said, you are out of business when you come to the cross. You don't have a license to operate. That self-life has been put out of business, no license to operate. Dr. David Otis Fuller, forty years a preacher in Grand Rapids, the Wealthy Street Baptist Church, was with us about every other night for twelve weeks in the city of Grand Rapids. When God spoke to his heart and the message of revival there, he preached the sermon in his church on a Sunday morning and this was the title. He said, your life, dash, a dying life or a living death. Which is it? A dying life or a living death? A dying life. If you're alive unto yourself, it's a dying life. Or it's a living death. Real life comes in death. Leonard Ravenhill said, if we follow the Lord holy, there is nothing in our lives that the death-dealing cross will not need to enter. George G. Campbell Morgan said, it is easy to speak of abandonment, and yet it is quite another thing for men to shriek from the cross and shrink from it. They are quite prepared to sign pledges and even sign texts and do any amount of work if only God will let them have their own way in some part of their lives. Don't let the death-dealing power of the cross move into every part of their life. If only God will not bring them to the cross, they'll do anything but they draw back from the place of death, said Campbell Morgan. Yet it is only in that place that the Holy Spirit is able to flow out into every part of life and then energize it in the place of death. One man in Michigan said these words. He said, all the going to the altar I did and did for me, it creased my pants. That's all. It took the crease out of my pants. He said, I went back for rededication and for rededication and for rededication and I never knew the concept of death, identifying being conformed unto his death. Crucifixion. It was only when Martin Luther said, Martin Luther doesn't live here, that God could use Martin Luther. Mrs. Olive Clayton, the pastor's wife in Vancouver, said two years ago, said Luther's revival was the just shall live by faith. This revival is the just shall die by faith. Beautifully said. Leonard Ravenhill said regeneration is birth but sanctification on the other hand is death. The absence of death is killing the church. Said Leonard Ravenhill. The absence of death is killing the church. We need to be conformed to his death. It was crucifixion. Kurt Cocker wrote so many books on revival, said it is now about time that we too said goodbye to that old man and crossed the death line. The death line. Not the deadline. The death line. Crossed that line. What a tremendous truth. A.W. Tozer said when somebody said, what does it mean to be crucified with Christ? Dr. A.W. Tozer said three things. He said first, a crucified man is facing only one direction. Get it? A crucified man is facing only one direction. Too many Christians are trying to face two directions at the same time. They're divided in heart. They want heaven, but they're in love with the world. They're just like Lot's wife, he said. They're running one way, but they're facing another. A crucified man is facing one direction. Secondly, a crucified man is not going back. The cross fell to me. It is finished for him. The curtain is down. The drama is over. That is the finality of crucifixion. And the man who is crucified with Christ is not going back to his old life. That is over. And he wants to identify with that crucifixion. I am not turning back. Thirdly, he said, a crucified man has no plans of his own. How many plans are your own plans? A crucified man has no plans of his own. He is not dreaming of a bigger house or a better car. He is finished with this life. He is finished with its chains, and its chains are broken, and its charms are all gone. The crucified man, the charms of the world are all gone. In the light of these, said Dr. Tozer, are you a crucified one? T. A. Hegrey says, even those past sins though dealt with, unless a person's will is surrendered to God, they will reoccur. No partial surrender will do, even though you deal with that sin. He said, if you make a partial surrender, those sins will constantly reoccur. He said, that surrender must be complete. It must be irrevocable. This necessary surrender is so complete, so total, so irrevocable, that the only word that can properly describe it is death, death to the self-life. This is what God is saying. And then, that I may know Him in the power of His resurrection. What is it? All those desires of your own life were given over to the cross. No will of your own, no rights of your own, except to say, I have no rights. That's the only right you have, to say, I have no rights left. No future of your own, no money of your own, no plans of your own, they're all God's. I wonder when you quit asking God about His plans for your day. I wonder when was the last time you woke up in the morning and said, Father, your orders for today, please. Oh, my Christian friends, we boxed our lives in in such categories, and we put them in such tight framework, and we know what we're going to do, and what we're going to be, and we've got our life all planned and set down. God Almighty can't break in on our lives in any way. And we think that only those who are about 35 years of age go to the mission field. And when we get to be 36, we quit asking God about His will. God might want you at the age of 50, and God might want you at the age of 60 to go lay down your life on a mission field as easily and quickly as He wants you to die in the city of Red Deer. But I wonder when you quit telling God He had access to every aspect of your life, and your life was there on the cross in crucifixion, and that self-life with all of its desires identified reckoned dead with Jesus. And then you can move in to know Him in the power of His resurrection. Oh, that's a marvelous truth. In the power of His resurrection. I tell you about the resurrected life, and that's this, my Christian friends. Patricia Neal, a lady on television, a movie actress, I heard her being interviewed, and she almost died of cancer. And she was talking about women dying of cancer. And she made a statement. I thought, oh, how we need as Christians need to hear it. She said, someone said, one must almost die before he lives. How true, spiritually. First Lutheran Church Bulletin Board, a statement on the Bulletin Board. The way of truth unto life is the way of death. That's how we need to learn it. Oh, the way of truth unto life is the way of death. As one comes to the place of death, he receives the resurrection power, then to obey. Andrew Murray said, just as water ever seeks and fills the lowest place, as for the moment God finds you abased and empty, down to the concept of broken and empty before God, then His glory and power flow in. My Christian friend, there's no detour to God's holiness. Jesus came to resurrection through the cross and the tomb and not around them. And you're not going to come to resurrection life unless you come through and not around. No shortcuts. I don't get from here to the balcony in one step. I've got to walk the steps and go up the staircase. And my Christian friend, there are so many people who are trying to know God in the power of His resurrection, the power of His Holy Spirit, the Spirit for life, and they'll never do it because they'll not take the steps. The resurrection was the New Testament standard of power. We see it so tremendously true in Ephesians 1. Verse 18, The eyes of their understanding be enlightened that ye may know what is the hope of His calling and what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, the riches of the inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power. God wants us to know something about His riches and about His greatness and about His power to us who are to believe, not just to those who lived in New Testament times, not just to those who lived in Old Testament times, but unto us who believe in His power who raised Him from the dead and set Him on His own right hand in heavenly places. And He wants us to know something of that mighty working power of God. Tremendous truth to know Him in the power of His resurrection. Romans 1, 4, I am declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. Again in Romans 6, For in that He died, He died unto sin once, but in that He liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Alive unto God. That's the resurrection life, the Spirit-filled life, the power of God in your life, a dynamic life in Christianity. Dr. Vance Habener said, one of our problems today is that all over this country of America we've just about rededicated ourselves to death. We're running an old Adam Improvement Society in entirely too many churches. An unsanctified flesh that has never died to sin and has never risen to walk in the newness of life is running down church aisles to rededicate and God wouldn't use it if it were rededicated a thousand times. To walk in the resurrection life, but reckon it dead unto sin, alive unto Jesus Christ. A man who lived in Portugal for years took a trip to Norway and as he went from Portugal to Norway, he said, I noticed the difference in the people. There was a different attitude about the people. There was just a different demeanor about the people. And he said, I wondered what it was. And all at once I noticed that when I was living in Portugal, that every place I went I saw pictures of Jesus Christ as a babe in the arms of Joseph, as a babe. And then I saw Jesus Christ on a cross. Every place you go in Portugal, it's Christ the babe or Jesus Christ on the cross. And he said, when I went to Norway, the first picture I saw was a picture of an empty tomb and Mary and the ladies there and the angel there. He's not here. He's risen. The message of the resurrection life. And I saw the demeanor of the people was different. Oh, my Christian friends, the world is waiting to see a demeanor of God's people that is different. And they'll never see it even with our fundamental evangelical theology unless God's people in God's house know something about the power of the resurrection life of Christ in their being. Conformed unto his death, but all to know him in the power of his resurrection. Don't stay in the tomb. Don't stay in the tomb. Oh, my Christian friend, let's lock the tomb up. Let's get that behind us and let's get the key and throw it away and let's reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but then live alive unto God, alive unto God. That tomb is only the stepping stone to the life in God. To the life in the Spirit. Jesus Christ went back to the Father when he ascended on the mount of ascension. He said, the Comforter is going to come and he'll not speak of himself, but he'll speak of me. And he'll guide you and he'll lead you into all truth. He'll be a Comforter. He'll be a teacher. And he'll come to dwell in you and he'll make Christ real unto you. The power of the resurrected Lord is the power of the Holy Spirit who remains on earth when Christ went back to heaven. And now we hear about being filled with the Holy Spirit. I challenge you, my Christian friend, what the Apostle Paul said, that I may know him in the power of his resurrection. He's saying that I may know him being controlled by God, the Holy Spirit. He's telling us how to get there. And you know, my Christian friends, God worked in eastern Canada and some places in New Brunswick. A preacher in the Baptist church in Woodstock, New Brunswick said the story was familiar in our church. He said, honest confession of sin deal with sin. The reckoning ourselves dead indeed under sin and self-like dead crucified with Christ. And the surrender to the control of the Holy Spirit. The new way of life in Christ and by Christ doing His work in us were the clear aspects of the teaching and the preaching in our church. This was the message of the crucified life and the resurrection life in God. Hyman Appelman, a Baptist evangelist, Dr. Hyman Appelman said it like this. What we must do to be filled with the Holy Spirit, there must first be confession of our need and of our sins. First deal with sin. That's fellowship of this suffering. From confession, we take the second step. The second step is committal. There is conformed unto His death. Committal. This is required. Committal of our self and our substance. Committal. There is the giving up of all that we are to Jesus. We use the word consecration wrongly, he said. We cannot consecrate. That is beyond us. Only God can consecrate. No one has the power to consecrate but God. But he said, what does it mean for us to do? Commit. We can commit. We mean commit a committal service, a burial service. That's why I choose the word committal. We need in our lives committal services. We do not put a man in the grave, he said, then pick him up to see if his fingernails have grown, to see if he's alive or dead. We bury him. We put him in the grave and we leave him there. This is your trouble and mine, said Dr. Appelman. There has not been a committal service. The old Adam, the flesh, the appetites, the ambitions, the desires have never been buried. It is ours here and now, this moment, to commit ourselves into the grave with Jesus. We are supposedly to be dead to our old life, but he said, are we? God help us in this. Now that this is done, now that we've gone to committal, there must further be a claiming. Confession, know him in the fellowship of his suffering. Committal, be conformed unto his death. Go to death with Jesus. Now there must be claiming. The power of the Holy Spirit, know him in the power of his resurrection. If we are right with God, we can come to him and we can by faith claim the fullness of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and in our lives. Oh, what a tremendous truth. My God, said the poet, the cross shall sin its power maintain and in my soul defiant live. Tis not enough that thou forgive. The cross must rise and self must be slain. It's not enough that I've been forgiven. The cross must rise and self be slain. Oh God of love, thy love declare. Tis not enough that Christ should die. I too with him in death must lie. And in my death his anguish share. Oh God of love, thy power disclose. Tis not enough that Christ should rise. I too must seek the brightening skies and rise from death as Christ arose. The cross is love. The Christ's and mine. Tis life to die and death to live. And not enough that God forgive if I would live the life divine. It's not enough that Jesus forgives for me to live the life divine. I too must die. I too must go into the tomb. I too must come through resurrection life as he lives. So I must live also in the power of the Holy Spirit. Oh my Christian friend, confession first. Confession of that sin in your life. The pain to be right with God. Turn every stone over that needs to be turned over to be right with God. And then the committal of that self life to identify in death union with Jesus Christ. Go attend the funeral. Agree with God that it's your self life that's hanging on that cross. That self life that wants its own selfish way. And then by faith claim the fullness of God's Spirit and come through in knowing in the power of his resurrection. That's what it means to know Jesus Christ. We're playing games until we move into God like this. And that's the crisis experience in revival. That's the center of Philippians chapter 3. It's verse 10. Ten verses leading up to the crisis. And then ten verses how to live after you open the door of the new life of the power of the Spirit in your life. And then ten verses how to move on as a natural way of life. That's what God's saying. You can live in the Spirit. Walk in the Spirit. Be filled with the Spirit. Be led by the Spirit. Those are beautiful sounding words. They can be reality in your life and in my life even tonight.