In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of living as a testimony of Jesus Christ. He highlights that as believers, we are constantly being watched by the world, angels, and men. The speaker encourages Christians to walk carefully and circumspectly, knowing that our actions and behavior have an impact on others. He emphasizes that we are the only Bible that the world reads, and therefore, we should strive to live in a way that reflects the character of Christ. The sermon concludes with a reminder that our lives should be radically different as followers of Christ, and we should actively share the gospel and further the kingdom of God.

I want to read a couple of things, it's from a Bible, and it has nothing to do with the message tonight. Ecclesiastes 7.29 says, The Lord made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions. That's what it says in the KJ. Now look this up. And the word invention means mental fabrications. A fabrication is a lie. A mental fabrication is something you think in your mind that's not right, not true, and might even be evil. God made man upright, but they've sought out many mental fabrications. Okay. Mark 7.19 says, He will subdue our iniquities. Now look that up in the Hebrew, you know what it says? He will stamp on them. You've got some things you can't handle, some sin that's plaguing you, ask God to stamp on them, because that's what it says. He will do. In fasting, Matthew 6.16, we mentioned that before. And anyway, just some thoughts that I thought I would pass on to you. Well, this evening, with God's help, I want to speak on the subject of our relationship with Christ. It's not a relationship with religion. It's a relationship with a person. All the way through. First of all, Ephesians 1.4. We were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, which means before God made the world, He chose us. I can't explain that satisfactorily, perhaps, to you. I believe it because the Bible says so. He did it before He made the world. You see, God doesn't have any last-minute plans, you know, or any backup plans either. God knows the end, the Bible says, from the beginning. Chosen in Christ. Okay? Then we're saved by Christ. 1 Timothy 1.18, Paul says, This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That's why He came. And so if you're a Christian, you are a saved sinner. Some people don't like that word because they don't know that they're lost. If they knew they were lost, they would appreciate the word saved. And we appreciate it because we know what we were saved from. In Ontario one time, I was driving and listening to a program, and there was a couple of guys, a couple of preachers apparently, and so the guy was asking, as I just turned the program on, he was just asking them, Now you're the guys that are telling us worldlings that we have to be saved. Okay. Saved from what? And saved to what? And they couldn't tell him. I just wish I could leap into that studio, you know. They couldn't tell him either, you know. It was sad. Our kids in Sunday school would know more than they knew. Saved by Christ. Sealed by Christ. To the day of redemption, Ephesians 4.30, 2 Corinthians 1.22. By the way, we have some copies of the scripture we'll be using tonight here in the front to help ourselves at the end of the meeting. Sealed by Christ. To the day of redemption. What is the day of redemption? The day of redemption is the day of the second coming of Christ. Our souls have been redeemed. Our bodies are not yet redeemed. They will be redeemed. Our body will be redeemed at the coming of Christ. And we have been sealed to that event. By Christ. We have been anointed by Christ in 2 Corinthians 1.21. Every Christian has an anointing on him or her. There is something that only you can do. For God, that is. And many times Christians go through all their life not even realizing they have been anointed by God. Not thinking about it. And finding their Christian life pretty dull because they're not really walking with God. And consequently, they never see anything happen. And they begin to wonder even if God exists. Then the Bible, you know, it has some references to Christ in you. I think Jeter 9. Christ in you. It's got many, many references to us being in Christ. He's in us. We're in Him. Then the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6.17. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Do you know that you're joined to Christ? You're a part of Christ? Listen to it again. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. You become one with Christ. That's what it says. Then we read in Revelation 21.9. Well, I'll explain what happened. An angel came to the Apostle John and said, Come with me, come hither, and I'll show you the bride, the Lamb's wife. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, referred to 31 times in the New Testament Scriptures. 29 of them in the book of Revelation. Now you figure out why. It means that the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, is in control of everything. The Most High God, it says in Daniel 3 times. The Most High God rules in the kingdoms of men and gives it to whomsoever He will and sets up over it the basest of men. Now, I can't explain that. But God's in control of all the so-called actions of history. All of history. History is, remember, His story. Joined to Christ. We are the bride of Christ. And so He showed John not a big church gathering, but the holy city, descending from God out of heaven. And that tells me, and should tell you, that someday we're going to be together, all of God's children, in a city called the New Jerusalem. It's written of Abraham that he looked for a city which has foundations. He means eternal foundations, whose builder and maker is God. The Bible says in Revelation, the cities of the nations will fall, including Winnipeg. Every city in the world one day will fall. And the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Everything you have, remember, everything you have will be incinerated and just disappear. And if you're a lazy Christian, what are you going to say to your friends in that day? Hey, John, look, my fire is higher than yours. That's about all some Christians will be able to say, you know. A higher fire than their brothers. We're the bride of Christ. We are married to Christ, it says in Romans chapter 7, verse 4. We are married to Christ so that we might bring forth fruit unto God. If you're married to Christ and joined to Christ, then we do the things that Christ wants us to do. Remember Ezekiel? He saw a strange apparition, a wheel in the middle of a wheel. The wheel is Christ. He's the big wheel. The wheel in the middle of the wheel is you and me. We're little wheels. And the little wheel has got to stay with the big wheel or you'll get in trouble. If you don't stay with the big wheel, the road will be rough and you may even get lost. Can't find your way because you didn't like the ride you were having with the big wheel, Christ. But you're joined to the Lord. One spirit with Him. 2 Corinthians 3.3 says that we are living epistles of Jesus Christ. The world doesn't read our Bible. I heard somebody say one time a Bible in the hand is as true on the shelf. But many have Bibles in their house that they never read. We Christians are the only epistle that the world reads. And they look at it. You know, Paul said, we are made a spectacle. The Greek word is theophan from which we get the English word theater. We are made a spectacle of theater to the world, to angels, and to men. Whether we like it or not. We are on stage. You are on stage, whoever you are. And you are being watched. That's why the Bible says, that you walk circumspectly. The word has the idea of looking all around. Carefully, exactly, other translations say. So, we are to walk very carefully because we are on stage. And the world, and angels, and demons, and men are watching us to see how we do it. And many, remember that verse in the Psalms, He has set my feet on a rock and established all my goings. And he has put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. And the result, many will see it, and fear, and trust in the Lord. So, you are on stage. A living epistle of Jesus Christ. We are members of his kingdom already, you know. Colossians 1. It says, we have been delivered. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. The kingdom of Christ is already here. And we are in that kingdom already if we are one of God's children. The kingdom of Christ is here. When Christ returns in Matthew 13, he is going to send his angels with a great samba trumpet, a blast that will be heard around the earth. And they will gather, it says, out of his kingdom. His kingdom is already here. But it's not, it's got a lot of other junk in it that shouldn't be here. And stuff that shouldn't be here. So they will gather out of his kingdom. I put it this way, they are going to dry clean the world. The angels are going to dry clean the world. And everything that's offensive to God will be taken up and incinerated and burned. And those who are not believers will be hurled, it says, into the lake of fire. And that says this, Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Are you going to shine brightly in that day? Well, if you haven't been shining now, you may not. But the righteous will shine forth. Now we're back numbers. They don't even know we're here. But in that day, we will not be back numbers. We'll be the only ones, the Christians from all the ages, Old Testament, New Testament, here, members of his kingdom. And the object of his love. Galatians 2.20, we know the verse well, but there's something about it we maybe didn't notice. I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, and here's the part we neglect, who loved me and gave himself for me. That verse was a great encouragement to me many years ago, because I used to think, well, I'm only one of millions, so it doesn't really matter. I mean, God doesn't really need me. There's millions of Christians in the world, and all of this. But this hit me like a bombshell one day, many years ago. Christ loved me and gave himself for me. And as I said in one of the other sessions, the nails did not keep Christ on the cross. In a quarter of a second or a hundredth of a second, he could have been off that cross had he wanted to. It was his love for us that kept him nailed to the cross. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them unto the end. And we know what the end was. He loved us. We're the object of his love. 2 Corinthians 12, 19 says, We speak before God in Christ. When you're witnessing, you're witnessing in Christ before God. Keep that in mind. People often are afraid to witness because they don't know their Bible well enough. Well, whose fault is that? Do you have one? What about all that other stuff you spend hours with? You know, the book tomb. And then all these other books you have, you spend hours with them. And read the Bible how much? Maybe a chapter a day. I'll never forget, you've heard me say, some of you have heard me say this before, but as a pastor in Sassaton, before the revival, I'd pass through little sheets one Sunday morning. Nobody had to sign their name, so everybody was on. And that's what I wanted. Questions like, how much time a day do you spend reading the Bible? How much time a day do you spend in prayer? Do you ever witness about Christ to others? How many people have you led to Christ? Do you attach your income? And questions of this nature. I got them all back. None of them signed, of course. But you're honest. I'll tell you, when I got them back, I wish I'd never done it. I couldn't believe it. Numbers of people in our congregation were Bible school graduates. Everybody loved God and the gospel, but nobody was talking it. Everybody loved missions, and nobody was doing it. You know. That was a shocking thing to me. People, five minutes a day, praying. Five minutes a day, reading the Bible. One guy put down reading the Bible, 30 minutes a day. And then, his conscience smote him, and he stroked it off, and he put a big zero on the paper. You know. That's when I started praying for revival. You know. I saw he needed it desperately. I couldn't believe it. You know. They were good people. They loved me. They were kind to my wife and me, you know, our family and all this. They loved to hear good preaching and all this stuff, you know. But that's often the way it is, and that's why we need an awakening in the power of the Spirit of God. We speak before God in Christ, and then, we are His workmanship, Ephesians 2, 10 says. We are His workmanship, because we're not saved by works, our works. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Not just created in Christ, but created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Every Christian should be involved to some extent, somehow, somewhere, in some of the work of God. There's something for all of you. We've said it before. I'll say it again tonight. There's something you can do. There's something only you can do. Nobody can do the thing that God has in mind for you as His child. His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, unto, and the word means motion to work, unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. Ordained. When Paul was running to Titus, who was tasking a church, he said, Titus, be careful to exhort the people who have believed in God that they maintain good works. It doesn't say good Christian works. You know, sometimes there's things going on in the community for the good of the community, and Christians back off. You don't want to have anything to do with that. It's not Christian. It doesn't say just Christian works. We should be involved in anything that's going on in the community. That's one of the big beats, you know, the world has about evangelicals. They never get behind anything going on in the community. If it's something good, get in there. Let them know you're concerned. Do what you can. It would help the testimony of the gospel, I am sure. Now, 1 Corinthians 2.12 says, Work out your own salvation. With fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, most willing to do of his good pleasure. Do all things, both murmurings and disputings, that you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, on whom you shine as lights. You're not working for your salvation, you have salvation, but you're working it out on the moral and the spiritual level to the glory of God. So, get busy, not buzzy, busy for God. Be steadfast, remember, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord, because you're serving a living Christ, and his word never returns empty, as Isaiah told us. Then we are circumcised by hand, by an act of God, it says, without hands, in Colossians chapter 2. And what did he do? He circumcised our heart, and he took that body, all that sins of the flesh that we were guilty of, and he took it away, and it's gone forever. And so, Stephen said to those people that were about to kill him, you stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets have not your fathers prosecuted? They slain them who said before about the coming of the just one, of whom you have been now the betrayers and murderers who received the law by the disposition of angels and have not kept it. Then the stones began to fall. Uncircumcised in heart and ears. Yeah, we need to have circumcised ears and circumcised eyes to be careful as to what we watch and what we listen to as children of God, because we're unsaved. Then it says in Colossians 3.4, He is our life. That's not exactly what the Greeks said. The Greeks says, He is. Wait a minute. I got it wrong for a minute here. It sometimes happens. He is our life. I'll come back to that in a minute. He is our wisdom. 1 Corinthians 1.30 says, Christ who of God is made unto us wisdom. So you have the wisdom of Christ in you. You may not know that. You may not show it because you don't know it. That's why it says in James 1.5-8, If you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. I mean, you've got the wisdom living within you. Ask of God. That gives to all men liberally and doesn't help break them or reproach them for asking, but let him ask in faith. It says, Nothing wavering, for he that wavers like the wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed, let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. He is our life, our wisdom. Then it says, He is our righteousness. You know, some Christians don't know that righteousness is a gift from God. It's called the gift of righteousness in Romans chapter 5. It's a gift from God. Isaiah knew about it because he talked about putting on the robe of righteousness. It's not your righteousness, it's His. In the Old Testament, the Lord, our righteousness in Jeremiah. Jehovah said, King, He is our righteousness. You don't have any of your own. We have His righteousness put to our account. And that's the only way. You remember the parable Jesus told about a king and he made a wedding and a marriage for his son. And later on, the king came in to see the guests. And he found there a man who didn't have a wedding garment on. In those days, in some countries, and even today in some countries, I understand, when you go to a wedding, you're handed a wedding garment, a cloak thing, you're put on at the door. Everybody has to do that. They provide it. You're supposed to wear it. When the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who didn't have a wedding garment on. And he said to him, How did you come in here not having a wedding garment on? I hear people saying, Boy, when I get up before God, if there is one, I'm going to shake my fist in His face and tell Him off. No, you're not. You know what happened in Issachar? What did the guy say? It says, he was speechless. And the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, throw him out into utter darkness. So righteousness is a gift of God through Jesus. It's His perfect righteousness. He lived a perfect life, remember, over and over. The New Testament tells us He had no sin. When they said to Him, and they were insinuating He was born of fornication, they said, We are not born of fornication. Now, He handled that in a kind of a neat way. He didn't talk about that at all. He just said, Which of you convinces me of fornication? That's what He said. Well, of course, none of them could. He knew no sin. He was separate from sinners and made higher than the heavens. And His perfect righteousness is put to your account and mine in the bank. So you're not trusting in what you're doing. We should be doing for God, but not thinking that's going to put us in some special relationship with God or maintain our salvation or something. That's just not it. Righteousness, I say, is the free gift of God. 1 Corinthians 1.30 says, He is also our sanctification. Salvation comes first, then sanctification follows. Sanctification is the outworking of our salvation. And Paul prayed in 1 Thessalonians 5, The very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God, your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He that calls you who also will do it. We should be concerned about our sanctification. Christ prayed in John 17, Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth, and for their sakes I sanctify myself. The word really means set apart. He is our sanctification. He is our redemption, it says. In the same chapter, 1 Corinthians, He is our redemption, verse 30. I've said this before too, may I say it again? Salvation, dear people, is not a plan. It's a person. And sometimes we try and get people saved with a plan. It never works out well, you know. You're saved by a person, and that person is Christ. It's called the gospel of Christ, right? And if Christ is not in it, it's not the gospel. I hope they have reruns in heaven. They let Spurgeon preach a couple of sermons, and maybe Wynter and some others besides. They said to Spurgeon, you know, he was such, he had such a gift for speaking that people who studied this, they always advised their students to hear Spurgeon as often as they could. They weren't thinking in the gospel at all. But he had such a tremendous command of the English language. So he was asked to speak in political rallies and other rallies and on behalf of different organizations. And he would do that with one proviso that they would always let him preach the gospel at the end for at least five minutes. And almost every time he did, so was St. Christ. One of his brothers, you know, arranged for open air meetings for Charles Spurgeon. And as I was reading what he was saying, I had a good reading. I mean, the tears were just flowing. I couldn't believe it, you know. Ten thousand, fifteen, twenty thousand people in the open air? No living preacher could do that today. I mean, some preacher get big crowds with a hundred and fifty or three hundred buses bringing people in, and Spurgeon said they all walked, you know. And if they knew he was in an area, everything stopped. The stores closed. The schools stopped. Everybody got out as quickly as they could to hear him speak. And he preached the gospel. And his brother said, at times, the power of God was so great, he had to stop. So many people were falling on their faces and calling on God for forgiveness and for salvation. He said it was incredible the things that went on. After communion service, he stood there and he talked about Jesus. There was a guy sitting with a friend who was not a Christian. And he said, he's talking like Jesus is standing beside him. I don't see anybody standing beside him. I guess not. And they criticized him and he said, listen, Jesus is real. Jesus is real. And when he died, what did he say to Suzanne as he was dying? He said, oh wifey, he said, I've had such a great time with my Lord. That's how he died. Well, some tourists came from the States. They wanted to hear Dr. Parker, this famous London preacher. And they wanted to hear Spurgeon. So they heard both. They were asked their opinion. Oh, he said, Parker, what a preacher. Man, what a preacher. We have nothing like him. What about Spurgeon? Spurgeon has a great savior. That was the difference. You know, some elections in England were settled by what Spurgeon said from the pulpit. He didn't get involved in politics and all of that. But when some big moral issue was before the public, he let the public know what he thought and they voted what he thought, you know. Oftentimes. Well, he's our life, our wisdom, our sanctification, our righteousness, our redemption. And then, he's our peace, Ephesians 2.14. You know, there was a time described that way by Paul in Ephesians 2. When we Gentiles, we had no relationship, we had no God, it says, and no Christ and no promises and no country to live in, no spiritual country. We really had nothing. He says, but now, but now it's different. He is our peace who has made both one, has both Jew and Gentile one. You know, when you become a Christian, you actually become a spiritual Israelite. Did you know that? A lot of people don't believe that. It's very clearly taught in the Bible, very clearly. He is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outwardly flesh, but he's a Jew which is one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not of men but of God. And other places, you know, God only has one olive tree. Did you know that? He doesn't have two families. He just has one. The Bible speaks about the whole family of God in Ephesians chapter 4 and heaven and earth. So, he has one olive tree and if you become a Christian as a Gentile, you're grafted into that Jewish Israelite tree. Did you know that? Well, it's in the Bible. You better know. And you know, when he talked about in Revelation 21 about the bride, the Lamb's wife, and the Holy City coming down, the Holy City had 12 gates. Now remember, this is the bride, the Lamb's wife, of which you are a part. By who? Why do I mention that? Because there were 12 gates and in each gate was the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel. So, which gate are you going to go by? If you don't believe in a spiritual Israel. Are you going to be airlifted in somehow? No. You're going to have to go through one of those gates with the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel. Dear people, there is, I know, but many writers, they fulminate against this idea. They're ignorant of what the Bible is really saying. I can't, this should be a message all by itself and I can't do that tonight. He is our peace. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything comes back to Christ. Everything comes from Christ. All those promises of God in the Bible, of which, remember, there are 7,487, they were all the promises of God in Christ, are yea and amen to the glory of God. He came to ratify the promise. Romans 15 says, Christ ratified those promises and made them real for Jew and Gentile alike and He is our peace. Colossians 2.10 says, You are complete in Him. Does that ring your bell? You are what? You are complete in Christ. Just the way you are right now. You are complete. The Greek word there means you are made fullness. You are full, full. You are complete in Christ. Some Christians go all their life trying to get complete in Christ. But the Bible says we are complete in Christ and it's because of all these things we've been looking at here today. Colossians 3.11 says, Christ is all and in all. That is an all Christian. He's all I need. We sing that in one of our songs. He's everything I need. He's all I need. If you're thinking of being filled with the Spirit, remember He's often called the Spirit of Christ. I hear people saying, Jesus Christ never talked against homosexuality. I say, yes He did many times. Where in the Bible? In 1 Peter 1, Christ said, or the Bible said, Peter said, that the Spirit of Christ was in all the Old Testament prophets. So when Moses wrote about homosexuality, that was Christ speaking. And all those references in the Old Testament of homosexuality, none of them flatteringly or kindly. It was Christ speaking to the prophets. We need to know that. They say ignorance is bliss. When ignorance is bliss, it's fine to be wise. But, I tell you, to be ignorant of the things of God and what the Bible really said, we need to get into this book, find out what it said. Read it by the hour. When I was first converted, I was 22 or so years old. No, I was younger than that a little bit. I'm not sure the exact time, but I know. It was in June, the month of June. I couldn't find steady work. I did get a job for 21 cents an hour at one place. And then I got a job working for a dollar a day. And then the boss, he used to take a buck a week off all the workers when I found out I just quit. Anyway, when I got converted, I started reading the Bible. And God gave me, I take no credit for this, God gave me such a lump of the Bible, we didn't have any books in the house to begin with. We didn't have any tapes and all this stuff, you know. I had nothing but the Bible. I read six, eight, ten, twelve hours a day. Sometimes my mother called me up and said, forget it mother, I'm not coming. I'm just going to leave the Bible there. And I raced to the back, read it all. Then I went through it the second time and at the top of every page I wrote something I thought of the Gospel of Mark. It was, have faith in God. I said, I have that Bible somewhere at home, you know. Have faith in God, have faith in God, have faith in God. So when I read that Bible, it was just there to be the face, every page of the Bible, have faith in God, you know. It was a tremendous help to me. But God did that and I'm only a Christian a year and they asked me to become a pastor of a church. I never baptized, I wasn't even baptized myself. I never baptized anybody. I'd never married anybody, had never funeraled anybody, had never had a business meeting. I didn't know anything. But you know what? They were hard up. And so they got me. And then God did something that first year and about 70 people got converted, including some who went to the mission field. Just something God did to show us His power to show us I'm sure. Christ is all and in all, in you. Everything you need is in Christ. Don't try and get something apart from Christ. It's all in Him. Everything is, you know. Christ in you says the hope of glory in Colossians. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Did you know that someday, one day, God is going to sing to you? That's in the Bible too, you know. Anybody know where it is? Zephaniah. That's right. That's right. And it's going to be a trio. Right? Father, Son, Holy Ghost. It's got to be a And after they sing their song to us. We don't have any soloists trying to sing in heaven because, you know, a soloist, in comparison to the Trinity singing, it'll be like a boom-boost of bad coldness from cotton. A bird cloud. The Lord God in the midst of this mighty He will save you. He will rejoice over you with joy. He will rest in His love. He will joy over you with singing. That's what it says in Zephaniah chapter three. I'm really looking forward to that, you know. You know, sometimes somebody sings and thinks, man, what a voice. Jesus said, other than all the babes and sucklings, God has perfected praise. The best singing comes from kids, little kids, you know, as far as God is concerned. We can never impress God without preaching or singing. Impossible. This God is our God forever and ever. He will be our guide even under death. The Bible said, are you letting Him guide you? He wants to guide us into truth as well, He Bible speaks about the present truth. That's before the Bible was completed. It talks about the present truth. The truth happened until now. There was no truth to come. And Christ said, I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the spirit of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth. Now He's done that with the completed Bible. God who has spoken unto us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the world, who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, when He hath by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. And He's our Savior, and we're joined to Him, and we're married to Him, and we're the object of His love. Calvary was for you, Calvary was for me. We must never forget it, dear people. And I'll say Ephesians 5.18, be filled with the Spirit. But if you're praying for that, you know, a certain man who became a very well-known American preacher was in a meeting and they were preaching about the Holy Spirit, and they were preaching about the Holy Spirit, and they were preaching about the Holy Spirit, about the were preaching about the Holy were preaching about the and we're the object His and we're His servants. That's true. But I'm, not Are you thinking that we are so joined to Christ in all of this? He could never forget us, we are part of Him, part of His body, part of His kingdom, part of Him personally. He can never forget us and He never does, no matter what happens. You know Sam Jones was a famous American preacher. He was a contemporary of Moody's and they were both in the same city at the same time by reason of bad planning. He always got a bigger car than Moody did. So he used to trick Moody, he said, Moody, you are going to have my overflow. They loved each other, they were good pals. Well, he came to Sacramento, California, which in his day was the number one hell hole in America. When he got there, the pastors in the area had a meeting with him and said, Now Sam, listen, you can't preach here the way you have been preaching in the other place in America, because if you do, there will be a riot and people will get killed. He didn't make any promises. The first night on the platform, the pastors were all behind him on the platform, and he said to the people, now these men sitting on the platform behind me, they told me I can't preach here what I have been preaching in the rest of the United States of America. If you think Sam Jones is scared, you don't know Sam Jones. So he preached the way he always did. At the end of the week, a revival broke. Underworld characters were getting saved. Policemen were getting saved. Moot Lakers were finding Christ. So the underworld got their hands together and hired five men to take this and go down to the hotel and buff him off when he came out for the meeting that next night. Somebody took the preachers off, so they went down in the body to the hotel and got into his room and said, Sam, we're ending it all. Ending what? The meeting? No, you're not. Yes, we are. How can you? Why? What's this all about, you know? There's five men, they're in the fire right now, each man with a pistol in his hand, waiting for you. Oh, really, you said? Gentlemen, goodbye. Walked out the door. They saw him come to the altar ready with the pistols, you know. He walked straight from, here's what he said, You know what I've gotten that don't happen? They split, like the Red Sea split for the rod of Moses. And I walked right through them and looked and pulled the trigger. It got so hot in Sacramento, finally, that the sheriff closed it down. So many people were being converted. The underworld was really in trouble because they were losing all kinds of their people, you know. But John Zeal, one guy with all his heart, he used to be an alcoholic, and years after, in the ministry, one night in a hotel, the old lust for liquor returned. And he had to battle for hours. He said he knelt on the bed praying, then he ran to the door, because there was a beer parlor down the hall, back to the bed, back and forth, six or eight times. And finally, he threw his body across the bed and he said, Hey, God, can't you do a better job of this? And he was instantly released and had never ever returned. And sometimes we have to pray in a desperate way, you know. He understands. And you're a part of Him. You're not just some kind of religious figment, you know. You're a part of Him. And He loves you with an everlasting love. He told us that in Jeremiah, you know. So we need to know this. No situation should engulf you, or bother you, or worry you. Belly Sunday was the same with so many people. You know, I think it was in Pittsburgh. It was in Pennsylvania somewhere. When the Crusade ended, there had been 40,000 men converted who quit drinking beer. And the liquor interest hated them with a passion, you know. They hired people. If he was going to Minneapolis, they knew about it. They would send a team to Minneapolis, first of all, three months before he got there, to spread lying stories about Belly Sunday all through the city. When the Crusade was on, he might be there a month or two months. They wouldn't say anything. When the Crusade was over and Belly Sunday did the same thing again. I met people in the States who thought Belly Sunday had five wives, and was a multi-millionaire, and all this. I said, that's garbage. No, no, no, we heard it from the good sir. It wasn't true at all, you know. He didn't care. He couldn't care less. He just served God. Not God. It was all of a sudden. You know, every time he preached, you know where he put his sermon notes? On Isaiah 61. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. That's the verse Christ quoted at Nazareth. That almost cost him his life. He knew Jesus Christ in a very personal way. He'd been a doctor at one time. And God changed all that. There's only Jesus Christ can. But I'm still asking the question and thinking about it. What are we going to do with all of this? Are we going to believe it? And apply it? Day by day? And realize. You're a son of God. A child of God. We're special people to him. And God has things he wants to do to every one of us. I was such a shy person when I got saved, you know. Well, I was shy long before that. I never walked in the sidewalks. Because if I saw somebody coming on the sidewalk, I'd cross the street. So I'd avoid man, woman, or child. I had to cross the street to avoid meeting them. And then I became a Christian. And I was working in a pumpwood camp at Pine Falls, Manitoba. And one night, you know what happened? A horrible thing. God called me to preach. I argued with him all night. I said, God, you know better than that. Is this a joke or something? You know? I said, you know better than that. I can't do this. But he nailed me to the wall with the words from the Bible. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And every time I opened my big mouth, he just pushed that in, you know. After about ten times, I saw the light. I said, okay, God, I'll do it. I know nobody ever asked me to speak. So I was the least bit concerned. But I promised I'd speak anywhere anybody asked me. And horrible. You know what happened? About two weeks later, a church in Winnipeg here asked me to speak. Oh. You have no idea the qualms I went through. I chose 1 Corinthians chapter 12 because it was a long chapter. And I thought, if I'm persecuting one verse, I can flee to another, you know. And when I got up there to speak, there was 30 people sitting there, 30 pairs of eyes all looking at me. I almost vanished. But somehow, I held on to a pulpit with all my might. And I preached for 20 minutes. And going home, walking home, I was leaping off the sidewalk hollering, Hey God, we did it. I didn't say I did it. We did it. I couldn't witness to anybody because I couldn't get the words out, you know. So I wrote to a lumberjack friend of mine. Told him how to be safe. Suggested he get saved. I got a letter back. He said, I got your letter. It really rocked me. He said, I sat on my horse. I rode off in the bush. I read your letter the second time. I read your letter the third time. And then I asked Jesus to come into my heart. Then I wrote to another fellow in a military camp in Nova Scotia. And he wrote back to say he accepted Christ. You know what happened then? I found I could talk. And get away with it. I didn't know any of these things then. All the words I was saying. I didn't know Christ was my life, my wisdom, my righteousness, my sanctification, my redemption, my peace. I didn't know any of that stuff, you know. I began to learn as I read, you know. But somehow I made it. Because I am his and he is mine forever and forever. That's what it says. People, get into the Bible. Get to know him. Kurt Bork, some of you know him. He knows many chapters of the Bible off by heart. Poetry pulls out of him. But he's been a shanty on Michigan for years. Pinching in bush camps. Doing the hard thing. And he just lets go. Wrote a book on his life, you know. You don't learn all of this at once. But somehow we have to learn it. And somehow, become men and women of God. One of the favorite Bible terms for Moses was, Moses, the man of God. Would anybody say that if you were me? He or she is a man or a woman of God. They might have a hard time figuring the term out, if they knew as well. Anyway. By faith, we have to accept all of this. And just, you know, don't have a color in your mind that points at you. It's too big. You don't want to do that. But it's there. And I would just like to take this one verse. Christ. You see that verse back in Colossians. I said I'd come back to it. I'm back to it now. The KJ says, Christ who is our life. But that's not what the Greek says. The Greek says, Christ our life. That's enough to keep me going for another thousand years. Christ our life. You are dead and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory. So when the trumpet blows and he appears, we will appear with him in his image and likeness. For we shall see him as he is. So we haven't said it all yet. There's more in the Bible. But we've said enough, I think, for tonight. He that has the Son has life. And he that has not the Son of God has not life. That's the gospel. Simple. Not hard to understand. Not hard to explain. Live for Christ. Love him. Praise him. Try to learn others to Christ. You never know who's looking for the Lord that you happen to bump into. There's a way of finding out. Carry tracts. Give them politely to people. Offer them to people. Whatever way you can to further the kingdom of God. Take advantage of the people. If all of this is true. It should make a radical difference in everyone of our lives. It should. And to some extent, of course, it does. And I'm sure not to the extent that it ought to.