In this sermon, the preacher shares his determination to visit every house in his area to preach the gospel. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the truth and encourages the listeners to lay aside any burdens and sins that hinder their spiritual race. The preacher urges the audience to lift up their hands and knees, reminding them that they can overcome weariness and discouragement with God's strength. He shares a powerful story of a person in desperate need of love and highlights the transformative power of God's love in their life. The sermon concludes with an invitation for the listeners to respond to God's call and make a genuine response to Him.

The church that doesn't want to grow and get out is dying on its feet. What a marvelous thing it is for us to have the great vision. I think I want to start tonight by reading to you a verse or two from Isaiah and then I'm coming into the New Testament. You may have heard that over in Liverpool, quite a downtown area to this place I guess, we had a wonderful time on the theme of fire. Amen. I want to come back to one or two of the we use during those meetings. I'm in Isaiah 33, verse 13. Hear ye that are afar off what I have done, and ye that are near acknowledge my might. The sinners in Zion are afraid. Now you'd hardly think there would be sinners in Zion, would you? The sinners in Zion are afraid. When you talk about Zion, you sort of talk about a church or something like that. They're afraid, he said. Fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Oh, no hypocrite should be afraid. You'd be surprised that he's afraid. The hypocrites are really strong because they're hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with the everlasting burnings? He that walketh up righteously and speaketh uprightly, he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil, he shall dwell on high. His place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks. Bread shall be given him, his water shall be sure. Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty. You'll never see the king in his beauty till you see him in fire. They shall behold the land of far distances, is a better translation. Amen. I want to say this, beloved. You and I have got to live with everlasting burnings of one sort or another. And there is no escaping that. You and I, whatever we think and whatever we may have been told, we have eventually to live with everlasting burnings. That is with God in heaven or with the devil in hell, whichever place it's everlasting burnings. The gospel is preached so that we may hear the way, know the way, and take the way that leadeth to the everlasting burning love and holiness of God. To leave the other road, as sure as you were born into this world, you were already predestined by your birth to go to everlasting burnings. That's what sin has done in the world. But there's another predestiny, and that is by grace of God, the intervention of Jesus Christ in everybody's life by the Holy Spirit, to save us poor blind fools groping along the wrong way and put us on the right way. As you will know, Jesus Christ boasted, if he boasted of anything, in the fact that he is the way, he said so. He said, I am the way, just follow me, you'll arrive at the right burnings, you'll arrive at the eventual glory and wonder of the love of God. We were singing a little bit about it in that hymn that we sung. A man enraptured, overpowered, a man who'd found the road and spoke of it in such words that we love to take them up and sing them today, at least I do, and how glorious it is. Now then, beloved, tonight I would like you to turn with me into the Hebrews letter. And we're going to see some things in this twelfth chapter. And God, I trust, will direct our eyes and hearts pointedly first on the last verse of it. Our God is a consuming fire. Now you get that right deep in your heart. He is a consuming fire. Amen. I love that. I don't know about you, but I want to be eaten up, really eaten up, like people get eaten up with AIDS, for instance, or syphilis, or cancer. I don't mean by those same things. I want to get eaten up like people get eaten up if they fall into a volcano. That's what I want. I don't know about you, but if you've got red blood in your veins and a heart that really beats truly, you want to enjoy life to the full, don't you? Amen. And how glorious it is, beloved, to know that God has given a great predestiny to certain people. Not only, I don't, he hasn't selected some and said it's for you and not for the others, because the book says he loved the world of men. And he gives us all equal opportunity. And this is why he said when he'd risen from the dead, just wait in Jerusalem until you're clothed with power from on high, and then I want you to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Every creature. I was delighted the other day to hear the leader of a fellowship, not this one, though I don't know whether he'd like to take up the suggestion. He said, I am determined that I'm going to visit every home in my district. He'd already been doing some. He'd had some rough times. He'd had some good times too. He said, I am determined that I'm going to visit every house. And he lives in a very thickly populated area. And it wasn't the leader of the Liverpool Fellowship or anything like that. In a town a long way away from here. He got the vision. He'd seen that this gospel's got to be preached to every creature. Now, beloved, we're in this room tonight, and I want us to consider this great truth together. As the chapter begins in verse one, we are pointed to this, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Isn't that wonderful? The Lord both began it and ended it. So don't go looking anyway. You don't need to look at any of the saints. You don't need to look at gurus. You don't need to listen to the philosophers on the radio or anything like that. No bishops of Durham's or anything like that. You don't need to listen to them. You needn't even listen to me. Thank you for the courtesy. But here is the great thing. The Lord Jesus Christ began and ended it all. Amen. Once you see that, all you see then is all I need is to receive him. I've got the beginning and the ending of it. That's all you need to do. But there's a lot more we need to see. He's the author and finisher of our faith, and for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, he despised the shame, and he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Verse 29. Our God is a consuming fire. Now, in order to get to that God is father, that consuming fire, he endured the cross, he despised the shame, he let everything go, and we're told in that first verse we're to lay aside every sin, every weight, the things that easily beset you, and when he hung on the cross, he laid aside everything. He hadn't got a stitch of clothing on him even. You keep that very clear in your mind. Everything had to go. What a tremendous thing for us to see. Hallelujah. And so, beloved, just to remind us, we're told that there's a great cloud of witnesses. You can read about them in chapter 11. You must have read about them. All these great people that did things and kept on doing things. You ever thought about Noah, for instance? He built an ark to the saving of his house. He never did anything spectacular. He never performed a miracle. He never made the sun stop in the heavens or the moon stand on the valley of Adullam. So far as we know, he never laid his hands on a sick person. They were healed. For so far as we know, he wasn't a great preacher. Well, what's he famous for then? Stickability. He got hold of some old tree trunks, and he kept on, and it took him 100 years. They used to live a little longer in those days, but he built an ark. That was faith. He didn't do anything spectacular. All he did was keep on. That's all he did. Would never be called a great man, but God called that a life of faith. He just got on and did it. Mind you, he did it because God told him to. He didn't suddenly get an idea that he'd like to do this or like to do that. He just did what God told him. That's all he did, and God did the rest. Amen. In the end, God shut him up in his own works. He built the ark, and then God said, go inside, and he shut the door on him. Hallelujah. Shut him up. How about if you were shut up to what you've done in your life? How about if you were shut up inside it? Do you think? You say, oh, well, yeah, that's because we don't read our Bibles properly, or not with our eyes open and our understandings enlightened. I just mentioned him. Of course, there were others. I haven't got time to stop on them, but here's the big thing, beloved. That man, he did what we read of. He ran his race. Isn't it funny? I was thinking about it today. Why didn't they call us the human walk instead of calling us the human race? What does it mean? Well, why didn't they? Why didn't they call us the human lounge? There must be something in it, mustn't there? When you were born, you were launched on a race, friend. Yes. Did you know that? And God is expecting great things. Now, he's put the end in view. Our God is a consuming fire. Now, you've got to make up your mind right here and now whether you're going for that fire or whether you aren't. Haven't you? You make the decision. Nobody will force you into it. He's a friend or she is a friend who faces you up to it and in that sense makes you take some kind of a decision. Let's not make a mistake tonight. You will all make a decision in this room, every one of you. You will decide whether you will go for God or whether you won't. If you say, well, I'm not going to make a decision, see, you've already made it. You've got to make a decision. Hallelujah. So, God wants us to understand. Now, beloved, before we start, let's have a look at Jesus, shall we? Amen. I'll ask you a question. Do you think there's anybody better than he to look to? Have you? Can you think of any great names in history or any present people you'd rather look to them than look to Jesus? Do you know of anybody? If so, I'd like you to tell me afterwards because I do a lot of preaching and I must point people to the best. You have got to look at Jesus. Amen. Glory be to the name of our Lord. We look at him. Listen, he endured the cross. He despised the shame. He didn't care what other people thought about him when he was going full out for the goal. He didn't care, even though he knew that the only way to reach it was via the cross. And I want to tell you this much. You and I will never get there if we sidestep that cross. If you think there's any other way, whatever it be, modern concepts and ideas that are being introduced into churches, if you think there's any other way, you made a great mistake. You don't get to cross to heaven because you might bow at a crib in a few days time. Glory be to the name of the Lord. If that's all he wanted, he would have had his son born and then taken him back to heaven again. Jesus came down on the earth, not just to be a helpless, useless babe in that sense. You say, oh, not useless in view of what he was going to do, but I'm just talking about if you didn't know that. He didn't just have him born for the sort of pleasure of it, then to take him back home again. He was born to die, beloved. He knew that the cross was the way home for him. And not only the way home for him, and this is why he went there, but the way home for you and for me. Glory be to God. If you want to know the doorway into heaven, if you want to know the doorway into the glory and the power and the brightness and the joy and the bliss and the peace of heaven, it's the cross. Oh, not the carved things that men make, but the reality of the cross, and you can't see any wood in this book that's in this book. Praise the name of the Lord. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you came and died for me. Thank you, you came to give me the opportunity. Thank you that you opened the door, and you opened your door when you opened your veins for me. You died for me, you bled for me, you took my place, you bore my sin. You gave me the opportunity that I needed, and the opportunity which fairly early on in my life I sought. I didn't find it when I was a boy, I'd heard about it. I didn't find it when I was a youth, though I knew about it, I didn't find it when I'd passed out of my teens, not immediately, but I did, bless God, somewhere about 50 years ago, I found the door. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I found that Jesus had died to take away the blockage that was like a great big, thick, dark, impenetrable, mountainous wall in front of me called sin, that I couldn't work through and couldn't get rid of, that in the end I came to hate myself because of it. Hallelujah. Then I found that the Lord Jesus had taken it from me. He had died to be my Savior. He died, and the power of him now, because he lives, took away sin from me in the 20th century. If he'd been a mere man, he couldn't have done it, but because he was God-made man, he only needed to achieve it once on the earth, and now he's been achieving it as the centuries have passed by. There's nobody in this room tonight born sinner, though you may have been. There's nobody in this room a practicing sinner, though you are. There's nobody in this room that has sneered at God and rejected him, or whatever has happened during life. There's nobody in this room that I can tell you tonight that with your consent, as we shall see a little later, he will remove the blockage in your life, and if you're not through, it's because you don't want to be. Not, I guess, because you haven't heard about it before, but you love your sin and you're proud and you're stubborn, and you're not going to bow your neck to anybody. Soon as you come to this place where you see that your forehead's as brass and that your neck will not bend, as soon as you acknowledge that, you'll be more than halfway there. So, God wants us to understand. Hallelujah. Let's read, shall we? The book tells us all these great things. I want to ask you a question. How's your mind tonight? How's your mind? I'm not asking you whether you're a psychiatric case or something like that. Most people in the world are. Oh, they're not in hospitals. I mean that. Everybody in this world is a schizophrenic, till they're saved by Jesus, but they're the acceptably schizoid, because everybody else is. If everybody in the world was black, that is, born black-skinned, they wouldn't be able to compare themselves with white-skinned people. Not that I'm suggesting they're any better than the black. I'm just giving you an illustration. They don't know they're black, because you only know black by contrast with white. So, they don't know. Here is the great and glorious thing, beloved. Let me ask you a question. Let's look at verse 3. Let's consider Him, Jesus, shall we? He endured such contradiction of sinners. Every time He said, it's so and so, they said, it's not. Every time He said, it's this, they said, no, it's not. When He said, I'm the Son of God, they said, no, you're not. If He said, My name, Jesus, which is Savior, they said, no, you're not. When He said, I will save you, they said, no, you won't. When He said, I'm your King, they said, no, you're not. Have I been voicing your statements, though you've never said them? But God sees into your heart, lassie, lad. He's not dealing with superficialities. He sees inside. He loves you. Listen. He endured the contradiction against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your mind. Now, I want to speak to you. Are you weary and faint in your mind? You've thought and you've thought and you've thought and you've thought until you can't think any longer about these things. You can't. You think about yourself. You think about your condition. You think about what's happening in your family. You think about what's happening in the world. And you thought and you thought and you thought till you're weary of thinking. Come on. Come with me to Jesus on the cross. He's the answer. You ought to consider Him and you ought to consider His claims on your lives. That's what you're to do. You're not to consider what other people think about you or what other people may have wound up for you and got ready for you, ready-made ideas received from other people. You and I are to come and you're to consider the Lord Jesus Christ. For He loves you and He wants to see you in this glorious place where you are consumed with really heavenly, pure, sweet love. Amen. You should sit there and say to yourself, it's wonderful that God wants me. It's wonderful that God wants to consume me. It's wonderful. You know this. It's hard to find human beings that love you. How many people do you know love you? Really love you. How many do you know? Come on, you be honest. And if you're honest, you probably not want to waver. My mother or my father loved me if they really knew me inside. Or my husband or my wife. And I'm talking out of the stuff of life. You know it's true. How many people love you? You could count them on the foot of your hand. Really? Until you come to know the Lord Jesus. And that's why you fight. And that's why you snarl. And that's why you kick. And that's why you're evil-tempered. You're fighting for your life. Who does love you? You don't know many, do you? Oh, I must have told you in this room. I suppose it was all brought to mind as I was traveling through to Macau for some meetings over the weekend. For it's there where so much came to light, so much that I learned. One of the poor inmates in Macau smashed down and yelled out in about the most anguished voice I've ever heard in my life, no one loves me, she said. Wept. Nobody loves me. Poor, isolated, condemned soul. Oh yes, she deserved it. She deserved it in the eyes of the law. But not in the eyes of God, she didn't. And when she was loved, she yielded unto God. What a tremendous thing it is, beloved. You better do some consideration tonight. Don't be a fool. The Lord wants us to understand the truth. And you know I'm speaking truth every word of it. I also am a man who needed Christ. So, we look into this great book of God. Oh, beloved, listen. You better know this if you're really going to get on to this goal. I want to point you to verse 12 next. Listen. In here it says, Lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Amen. Listen. You may think, oh, I can't. I'm weary. I'm worn. I just can't make it. Now, listen. Here comes a word of encouragement to you. Yes, you can. You can. Yes, you can. And you've got to stop listening to the devil's voice. And you've got to stop listening to the voice of how you feel that keeps telling you you can't go on. Your feelings are liars in this race. Lift up the hands that hang down, he says. Confirm the feeble knees. Blessed be the name of the Lord, beloved. You can get into this race, and you can run this race. Amen. But I want to tell you this. It requires patience. It's in verse 1. I'm making up nothing. It's all in this book. You've got to go with patience. Amen. Come on. Let me encourage you tonight. You can do it. Yes, you can. All God needs is that you put your heart into it and stop the double-tongue business. He wants you. There's nobody in this room but that the Lord Jesus Christ has provided all fullness of salvation for you. Amen. Get up off your knees, except when you get down there to pray. Get up off your knees and say, I can, Lord, by your grace, I can. And because you can, you've got to get to the place where you say, I will. I will. And that'll find out whether you're a coward or whether you've got courage. For nobody says it's the easiest thing in the world to be a real Christian. Nobody has ever said that. Jesus Christ himself was denied, sworn at, cursed, rejected. He made it. And he had to do far more than you will ever have to do. So, bless his holy name. It's all inscribed in the book of truth. Come on, lift up your hands and hang down. I was in a meeting on Sunday night. I don't know whether I dare do it within these sacred walls. And many people had responded at the end of the meeting. And one young woman, she came out, and her story's nothing to do with anybody else in this room. And she stood there, and I said at the end, come on, let's lift our hands and praise the Lord. And she couldn't do it for her life. She'd never done it in her life. So, I did an unusual thing. I don't often do this. So, if I did, I went back, and I took her hands, and she was ever so startled. I said, come on now, lift your hands. She lifted up her hands. She didn't know what to do with herself. But when I left the building, her face was aglow. Amen. He says lift them up, so I'll help you if you want it. Yeah. I've never done it in here. I wonder if I dare. I'm not threatening to, but if you don't mind me holding my hands up. Did I ever tell you about the time when I went to preach in the Pentecostal convention? I hadn't been to tell you too many stories. I shan't get to the end, but it's getting near Christmas. It's the season of late hours, and I went there. I was a Baptist pastor then, and they invited me to go and preach in this place, and they discovered that you didn't have to be a Pentecostal man before you got baptized in the Spirit. So, I went down there, you know, and I stood up to preach this big congregation, and I said, I shall never cease to thank God for the first time He enabled me to lift up my hands in the meeting and praise Him. They said, Amen. Once you're saying this about a Baptist pastor, and then I said, I want to thank God too for the first time when the meeting, when I could clap my hands, they said, Hallelujah, they said. So, I said, I want to thank God for the first time that I could say, Hallelujah, in a meeting. They said, Praise the Lord. We were having a great time. And then I said, I want to thank God most of all when He freed me from sin. Dead silence. I preached on being made free from sin. If you haven't had a baptism in the Spirit that's made you free from sin, you've got something phony. It might be a step on the road. I preached on being free from sin, and half the congregation were out at the front. They could all speak in tongues. Here is the tremendous thing for you and me to grasp, friend. Hallelujah. The Holy Spirit will make you talk. He'll give you utterance, but He hasn't come to be a tongue-wagger. He's come to rid you of sin and baptize you in fire, burn up every trace of sin, and bring the light and glory. And the old salvationist used to sing, it's number 252 in your red book. I think we must have sung it a record number of times during these days I've been in Liverpool. Hallelujah. It seemed to catch everybody alight. Praise the name of the Lord, beloved. Yes. Lift up the hands that hang down, and the feeble knees. And I want to tell you, if you're going to go this way, your path's got to be straight. It's in the next verse, nine of this. Wobbling here, bashing off there, and what they call backsliding there, or going out there, or getting on some hobby horse there, or following some other new idea that's being brought in, leading out into the wilderness. It's a straight path, friend. Glory be to the name of the Lord. Wouldn't you expect it to be? He says, I'm the way. I'm the path. Straight as a die. No mistaking. You can't go wrong. If you want to be right. What a tremendous truth it is. What a tremendous thing to see these precious things. Look at this. It's a wonderful thing, beloved. It's got to be a straight path for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way. Hallelujah. This is why I want to walk straight with God. I don't want any lame person to be turned aside. I don't want them to see one footprint that's a little bit out of the straight, lest they think that's the way to go instead of here. Amen. What a tremendous thing it is. Let it rather be healed, and I want to tell you there's healing in this room tonight. He'll heal you. Blessed be his name. This is our God we're talking about. We're talking about a consuming fire, somebody who really loves you. Amen. What a tremendous thing. I want to keep reading this. Listen to this. If you're going to be on this road, listen, I'll tell you where it'll take you. It'll take you right into peace. You've got to follow peace. You say, oh, if only I had peace. If only I had real peace in my heart. If only my mind was settled. If only. Well, beloved, listen. Let one talk to you who's been on the road for a long time, perhaps longer than anybody else in the room. It's peace. I'll tell you why it's peace, because I stopped fighting God. I stopped fighting God, and I stopped fighting my circumstances. I stopped fighting. I stopped fighting. Amen. You know, this book talks in an earlier chapter about entering into rest. Blessed Lord, wouldn't you give everything in the world if only your mind was at rest? Eh? This cruel mind. Of course, when we're young, we think it's marvelous. We go into all kinds of fantasies, sexual or worldly. I don't know. Don't we? Eh? You think you're a queen, you think you're a king, or you think this, and you think that, and you think the other, and you hear all kinds of fairy stories, and you switch from fairy stories to even greater things called space travels and all this business. It's a big, bigger fairy story than ever. All this lot. Hallelujah. Hmm. When you come to peace, and your mind's at rest, and your heart is settled, and you can let the rest of the world go by, if they want. Are you at peace? Eh? There's a deep, deep peace dwelling in my heart, telling of the Savior's love to me. Do you ever sing that chorus? There's a deep, deep peace dwelling in my heart, telling of my Savior's love to me. His promises, they shall never fail, they shall never fail, they shall never fail. There's a deep, deep peace dwelling in my heart, telling of my Savior's love to me. Amen. Listen, you'll have to come to it in the end. You'll never find peace anywhere else. Only in the Savior's love to you, when you have accepted it, and when you've stopped all the struggling and the fighting, the answering back and the contradicting. When you stop that, you don't think God's going to have all that stuff, do you? He gave his Son to get rid of, and if you won't let that be purged out of your mind and heart, you'll never see these things. Never. You're a rebel. You were born a rebel. You're proud. You're independent. You're going to do this. You're going to do that. Oh, you'll fall down the pit the other horrible foot. I can't do anything. This is the way men go, up here or down there. That's what they do. Oh, I'm helpless. I can't do a thing. That's another lie. The rebel doesn't mind what lie you believe. He doesn't mind to what extreme you go, as long as you don't believe the truth. And here is the truth, beloved. There's a great and full salvation when you lose ambition for self-promotion, when you're prepared to be God's man and God's woman. He'll do the work. I can comfort you if you want comfort. He won't do it against your will, if you want to find comfort in that. But you'll go to an everlasting fire, whichever one you go to. Here is the tremendous thing for us to understand. Wouldn't it be wonderful if somebody cried out, Oh Lord, heal me. Heal me. And you're not just thinking about your body, though I believe there's healing for bodies in the room too. But you're thinking about that heart of yours, and you're thinking about that mind. Some of you have lived long enough to try and wrap your mind around the most horrible and contradictory things that there are in the universe. Haven't you? Surprising how young you can start. But how old will you be when it's finished? God wants us to see the truth and understand it perfectly. I want to say if you're a warmonger, if you're always wanting to be fighting, there's no room here for you. Go back there. You try to dodge in. You go back to the cross. That's where you come in. And understand that, and understand it well. One thing you can't do is double-cross God. What you do is you come humbly and meekly, as you should, to the God of the universe. Praise his wonderful name. Look at this one. You've got to look out for this. Verse 15, You're to look diligently, lest any man or woman fail of the grace of God. What a terrible thing. Beloved, there's grace in the world, the grace of God. However He let this world continue, after they'd crucified His Son. However, He let it happen when He came in the flesh, and they lied about Him, cursed Him, crucified Him, cast Him out. It was one of the wonders of my heart. Lord, why didn't you say, all right, time? Finished. And grace has allowed you to come into this meeting tonight. I don't know for what purpose you came, but God does. And you mustn't fail of this grace of God. If you do, it's your fault. And those that perhaps were your friends, your buddies, that helped you to fail of the grace, be no comfort to you in hell. What a tremendous thing. There's grace for all mankind. Glory to God. There's grace for everybody. There's grace to meet your need. There's grace to meet yours. There's grace, glory. How did a hymn become one of the top ten? Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Do you mean it when you sing it? A wretch like me. Let me sing it. A wretch like me. Now there's grace for you. It doesn't matter whether you're schizophrenic. It doesn't matter whether you're lame. It doesn't matter whether you're weary. It doesn't matter if your mind doesn't know what to do or where to turn. There's grace. Grace is the answer. And oh, how we need it. Hallelujah. I'm so glad there's a verse in this Bible, not that I needed it, but I love to quote it. I don't need it because I found it out for myself. There's a verse in this Bible that says, He won't deal with me after my sins. He won't deal with me after my iniquities. What love is this? I'll deal with you after my son, he says. Why do you think I had him crucified? Because I love you. Grace. You say, you had your son crucified for me? I can't believe it. You'll have to. Yes, he did have his son crucified for you. Go on, look at that cross. Look at the horror of it. Look at that. He was like a man torn from limb. That's you. That's you. That's what you were in the sight of God, a bleeding, dying, torn about creature. And you didn't know it because everybody else was like it. Like the blacks don't recognize blacks because they don't know whites. That's just my illustration. You didn't know. Grace. Oh, what a marvelous thing to come unto the grace of God and you can fail of it. And I'll tell you what your heart's like right now, where you're sitting. If you fail to this grace of God, you're a bitter person. You're bitter. Bitter over this failing. Bitter over that. Bitter over something else. Bitter what your mother said. Bitter because of what your father did. Bitter because your wife said something. Because your husband something. Bitter. Bitter through and through. It comes out of your eyes. It comes out of your your mouth. It comes out of your face. Bitter. No bitterness on this way. You've got to get rid of all your bitterness. That's an excuse for you to keep bitter. Somebody's done something to you. You love it. It enables you to wreak your vengeance on them and serve them back like they've served you. But God won't have that. Amen. What a marvelous thing it is to know what salvation really is. Ah, beloved, do you know what's happened? Sin's ruined you already. You're a ruined person and there's no way back. You've got to keep going now. You've got to keep going and God grant that you may fall into the arms of Jesus. And you can and you will. You say, oh God, I want you. I want you. I need you. He hears that kind of cry. He says this, my ear isn't deaf that I can't hear. My eye isn't blind that I can't see. My arm isn't shortened that I can't say. I can reach to you. Will you let me? You say, God, you're talking as though you're my servant. I am. That's one of the claims Jesus made. He said, I'm among you as him that serveth. God, you've become my servant. What if I didn't? Nobody else could serve you. Not the state you're in. Amazing grace, isn't it? Let's go. Now listen to this. This is a shocking verse. Lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. Now Esau did not commit fornication by human standards so far as we know, but he did by God's. Do you know that you can sell out and in God's sight you'll be classed with the fornicators? You say, what? Oh, yes. But I've never. Oh, yes. It's your treatment of God. A fornicator or a profane person. What's a profane person? It's a person that's always expressing profanities, meaning in the sense of at least near swearing. If it is an actual swearing, there's a lot of that goes on in churches. Profane simply means that it doesn't belong to the church. See? Oh no, it says temple, but that's because they had a temple in those days. We haven't got a temple now, but we have the church. Talking the stuff that doesn't belong to the church. A profane person doing the things that don't belong to the church. And I don't mean a denomination. I mean this precious church of Jesus Christ that came out of his wounded side through his blood and broken heart. That's what I mean. That's the church. A profane person. Oh, you need not be bad. I mean, you don't commit fornication. You're not an adulterer. You wouldn't do this. You wouldn't steal. You wouldn't do that. But I want to tell you that every breath you draw in this world that isn't for God, you're a thief. Where did breath come from? You didn't invent it. God gave it to you. The first sucking gasp when you came into this world was God's. Now, you'll have to account for it. Man didn't invent sight. God gave you that. Man didn't invent hearing. God not only made ears, he invented hearing. Man didn't make blood, did he? What a tremendous thing to understand. Who created the oxygen that fills your lungs? Who invented mind, leave alone brain? We're all accountable to God. So, I didn't ask for it. I didn't ask to be born. No, I know. God's sorry for so many of us. Not me. I do thank God for that. I'm talking about humanity as a whole. We were born like we're born. How about if you'd have been a little baby under those crushing, falling masonries out there in Armenia? And what are you any better than them that it shouldn't have happened to you? Will you tell me, Lord? Oh, God, it's only by your mercies we're not consumed, Lord. That's all. See, but the earth's wrong. Of course the earth's gone wrong. Do you know what's wrong with the earth, don't you? Eh? Do you know what's wrong with it? Do you know what's wrong with our universe? I'll tell you, sin. And the curse that came in with sin. That's why they were slaughtered. It wasn't God's stroke of justice. Don't you ever think about that. That's devil's talk. Politicians talk devil's talk. Only men and women of God know the truth. God doesn't do that. Glory be to the name of the Lord. When you know God, you get the common sense of heaven. That'll show you whether you know him or not. And then lurking doubts, well, why did he let this happen? Why did he let that happen? Why did he do this? Why didn't he? He did not do it. The earth is spinning on its course. And it's dying. It's dying. And we're getting toward the closing stages. You will know the fears that have gripped your heart sometimes when you've read about atomic things. You will know when they tell you that the ozone layer is being burned through if you've got common sense. If you've got enough sense to be afraid, you should be afraid. You sinners in Zion, you've got to dwell with the everlasting burnings. I told a true incident the other day in a meeting where I was since I'd been in this part of the world. I was traveling on a train which I mostly travel on in these days, or airplanes, I think, with my wife. She was traveling with me at that time. And then there's times because I live out in the wilds at Ockenheath, as some of you know it, and don't know what papers are there. If they do, they're only something called the Scotsman. But here is the tremendous thing. I usually buy a decent paper, I mean in the Daily Telegraph. And I took it on the train with me. And I read it. And I said to my wife, I said, have you read this, dear? She said, no, you've had the paper all the time. I said, what did you like? She said, no, I think she prefers to sleep, but don't tell her I said so. And she, I said, all right, I'll keep it, you read it. And you know what I read? Now this wasn't, it wasn't a wild guess. There's an actual team of scientists of high degree on this now. Because of the burning through the ozone layer, and I'll tell you something, what I read, there's going to be a melting of the ice caps, and the seas are going to grow bigger, and they'll have to build walls all around the British Isles to keep the sea out. Look, you'd have thought it was science fiction. It was science reality. And they're very concerned about it. Fancy having to live behind a wall to keep the sea out. They say it's going to happen. Thank God, what this book says is going to happen, is going to happen. And they reckon it could be in the 21st century too. And some of you are almost bound to live in that one. What? The world's gone wrong. The world's gone mad. There's only one sane person in the world, and that's the true Christian who's been born of God. Hallelujah. This book, in chapter 7, chapter 6, sorry, you needn't turn it up, it'll tell you about those who have fled for refuge, to lay hold of the hope that's set before them, which hope, like an anchor of the soul, enters into that which is beyond the veil, whither the forerunner, that's Jesus, has for us entered. Hallelujah. Of course terrible things are going to happen in the world. And terrible things will happen to every one of us, unless we accept the one that came into the world from heaven to save us. That's what this book says. I believe it. Do you? No, you don't, unless you act on it. You're deceiving yourself. You've got to believe with all your heart so that you act on it, unless that's not counted as believing. Not by God. It would be by your friends, perhaps, who hold the same kinds of believing that you do, it's whether you act on it. That, in the Bible, is called faith, when you act on what you say you believe. Praise the name of the Lord. Here, let's go on, there's so much I want in this chapter 12, we must see it. Listen, now this Esau man, he despises birthright. Now, I tell you this, listen, you have a birthright. I tell you what your birthright is. When you were born into this world, you were born with a birthright. What was that? To hear the gospel. That was your birthright. Your birthright was to hear the gospel. The gospel is, as it were, a lifeline thrown out to you. Yeah, that was your birthright. That's why he said, go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature. That's, I don't know whether the churches obeyed that properly, I don't know. I'm not the judge of that. But this, I do know, that when I go to places like Zimbabwe and preach, black people come and sit in the meetings, mothers, women, fathers, old people, young people, babies, when they come and sit there, their hearts open to the gospel, just like they are a concept of two faces. Now, that we're lately in Zimbabwe, or perhaps not so lately, here in Sao Paulo, they know it's true. Sit there and you're preaching, you can see them changing in their seats. Yeah, hallelujah. How many times have you heard the gospel? How many times have you contradicted? Oh, I don't want to contradict. Yes, you do. Of course you do. If your life is a contradiction to the gospel, that means you're contradicting the gospel. It isn't a mental exercise. Here is the thing for us to understand, beloved. This man, he just, he sold his birthright. He had it. Now, you had this birthright when you were born into the world, so that you could get the birthright of another man that was born into the world. They'll be commemorating his birth in a week or two. His birthright was God and heaven and glory and bliss, and you can have it, but you won't get it if you despise it, unless you treasure it like Esau's brother did. He treasured it. Esau despised it, but I want to tell you this. Measure for measure with your heart attitude, so you will reap. Let me read on. You know, that is those, he's writing to Hebrews, who were familiar with this. You can read it. It's in your Old Testament. You know, he says that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected from the blessing, for he found no repentance. About what? You don't have to repent for getting a blessing. What did he have to repent of? His rejection. Though he sought the blessing carefully with tears. There's nobody in this room that really seeks a place of repentance. You can find it right here. Listen. Beloved, you listen to this. There's always an afterwards. An afterwards. Afterwards, when he would, I want this blessing. I want to be pure. I want to be holy. I want to belong to Jesus. I want to go to heaven. I want to be consumed in perfect love. Yeah, they're the blessings. But unless you repent of the life you've been living, which totals up to absolute rejection, you won't get it. Read the story. Not now. There's always an afterwards. There's always an afterwards. Drug users, homosexuals, afterwards, AIDS. See? There's always an afterwards. Quarrel, fighting, separation. There's always an afterwards. Always there is an afterwards. Beloved, now I know that some are afterwards are lovely. For instance, I endured chicken and carrots and peas because afterwards there was a lovely apple tart. And I mean that. I think that's the main course to eat, always, with ice cream. I can go way through the first, polite enough not to reject it. Sounds funny, doesn't it? But there was an afterwards. There's an afterwards, beloved. There's an after. He wanted what he'd rejected. I think hell's going to be full of these people. Oh, if, oh, you've got any people in this room like this, don't tell me. Afterwards, he built wonderful blocks of flats, wonderful places, but afterwards there was an earthquake. After the earthquake, what? Don't bear thinking about it, does it? There's always an afterwards, friend. Always. Always. It might seem wonderful when you're doing it. There's always an afterwards. There's always an afterwards. God's provided a wonderful afterwards. After this life. Afterward persecution. After persecution, glory. After the race, the prize. After being a stranger in this world to all the world's ways, home. Afterwards, always an afterwards. You'll not, you'll not escape it, friend. You'll not escape it. It's inbuilt into you. It's inbuilt into you. You can't even escape the laws of your own being. Wonderful, isn't it? You were born, and afterwards you were a baby, and afterwards you were a girl or a boy, and afterwards you became a young maid. I hope you still are. If you're not married, afterwards you became a youth. I hope you're still virgin if you're not married. Afterwards, afterwards, afterwards. What now? What state are you in? Don't you think it's marvelous that God loves us? Hey, don't you think it's wonderful? I warn you not to get old. The older you get, the more appreciative you'll be of God's mercy. I can tell you that. Amen. You won't, you won't be flinging the hymn books up in the air and always wanting to be dancing to a tambourine. No, you can do that. It's His mercy, oh God. I tell you why. It's because you've come to understand it. Yeah, but after the race is run, after the journey's done, afterwards, where will it be? Isn't this a tremendous thing? Now, let me tell you something. It's amazing how these chapters of the Bible are absolutely full of wonderful truth, isn't it? This book's absolutely lovely. I want you to look down. Listen. Verse 18. You will not come unto the mount that might be touched and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness and darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more. Now, listen, beloved. You haven't come to that. There's a voice speaking in this room, and it's not just mine, though pray God He may use it. There's a voice speaking in this room. You haven't come to thunders and lightnings and destructions. You've come not to a mount of Sinai. No, you've come to a little hill called Golgotha. That's where you've come. The weakest babe could crawl up it if they couldn't even walk. That's where you've come. And you come there, friend. This is what God's offering you. You come to Mount Zion. Now, remember what we read in Isaiah, the sinners in Zion. You say, oh, yeah, hypocrites. The Bible's scathing about it. Pretending to be a Christian child of your parents. Pretending to be a real believer. Pretending, and you know you are, like I knew I was when I was young. See, the sinners in Mount Zion are afraid. Who's going to dwell with these everlasting burnings? I tell you, someone who's burning with love themselves. The pure love of Jesus, they'll have no trouble with this. They'll say, more, Lord, more. No wonder we're saying, set in the fire of this book. Listen, I'll tell you where you've come to now. Right in this room, there's a voice speaking. And I'll tell you what else is here in the grace and in the Spirit of God that you can't see, but you can hear. Here it is. You come to Mount Zion, verse 22. You come to the city of the living God. You haven't come to the God of death. You come to the God of life. He hasn't come here to kill you. He could have done that yesterday if he wanted. He's come to the living God. You come to the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that you refuse not him that speaks, for if they escape not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven. You only have to turn away. You've done it, haven't you? Now, listen, you can turn back. Turn you around, friend. That's what's called conversion. It means turn around. Turn you around. God be thanked. And I'll tell you why. Listen, God is judging everything in this room. I'm not judging. I'm not your judge. And you aren't the judge. And the person sitting beside you isn't the judge, because they don't know. They don't see down to the depths of your heart. They don't read your mind. They don't understand. God is the judge. Amen. God's the judge of every one of us. He's the judge of all things that you've been doing today. He's the judge of it all. Isn't that lovely? Amen. And I reckon I can trust him, for I'll tell you this. He judged, he judged that I should have a chance of salvation, and he sent his son into the world to save me. That's his judgment? It's almost too good to be true. This goodness of God, it's beyond human mentality. But he sent his son into the world. He judged he should do that. And I love him. I love him. I can love somebody like this. I really can. It seems right. It seems ethical. It seems moral. It seems perfect. For if God hadn't done it, who could do it? And he's done it, beloved. Amen. Now listen. He's in this room tonight, and he has come to make a covenant with you, and I want to ask you this. Will you enter into covenant with him? It's covenant. He's not just come to talk to you. He says, I've come to make a covenant with you. I will covenant with you to do this and do that. You know what covenants are, don't you know? Sometimes I go around, well I'm always going around, sorry, but I go to some churches and they say, we've got lots of people in this church who are in covenant with it. What do you mean? They say, well they've covenanted to give so much money every year to the church. It's a seven-year covenant, they say. So regularly it's given. Sometimes they arrange with their boss to send it straight to the church or the bank. For seven years they commit themselves. I'm not dropping any hints. They commit themselves to give a tenth of their income or whatever it was. I mean, people who haven't got it right just commit a tenth. People who know it right, they commit at least 20th, I mean a fifth. Something like that. They covenant to do it, and they do it. But there's a clause in it that if their income drops, they can drop the covenant. But there ain't no clause in God's. See, he covenants with you and he's not going to back out and his love will never cease and his grace knows no limit and his forgiveness can reach you and his mercy will never, never die. Hallelujah. See, and it's in covenant with you. And who's the fool? I'll tell you the one that won't enter into the covenant with him, who like some Esau sells the birthright. See, so could we pin them saying, why did God do this to me? Why did God do that to me? If you will not enter into covenant with him. Come on, man, woman, it's got to be a covenant. It's got to be something done with eternal intent. I'm yours. It's not just fleeing for refuge to lay hold of a hope. That's great. I hope I go to heaven when I die. Oh, no. It's you facing yourself, facing your need and facing God and saying, Lord, this is what you have done. I know what I've done. I know you'll forgive me. I know you'll blood it all out. His promises, they shall never fail. They shall never fail. Oh, no. You know this chorus, don't you? There's a deep, deep peace. I'll get him to sing it to you afterwards. There's a deep, deep peace dwelling in my heart, telling of the Savior's love to me. I'll never fail. Never. The oath of the covenant was signed in the blood of his son. Amen. What are you going to do? I want to enter into this covenant, Lord. Amen. We, the last verse says again, our gods are consuming fire. I want to be swallowed up of love, Lord. That's what I want. I give you my free confession. I want to be swallowed up of love and the Lord's love. That to me is glory. That to me is heaven. Amen. But you're not going to get there unless you make your choice. Come on. Stop harboring bitternesses. Stop harboring injustices you think have been done to you. Stop pretending. You know you've done as bad as those in your time, if not worse. Am I right or wrong? You're no better than they, but the Lord still loves you. And you can come and say, Lord, I want to enter into covenant with you. I'm going to do so tonight. I want you to forgive me. I want you to cleanse me with the blood of Jesus. I want you to come right into me. I want you to change me. I'll break with her. I'll break with my friend if necessary. I'll break with him. I want you. Amen. Heal my mind, Lord. Heal my heart. All right, I'll take persecution if necessary, Lord. Amen. Will you? I don't know how many of you are in covenant with God tonight. It's called the new covenant. Amen. And it's an eternal one. That's what the last chapter in the book will tell you. The eternal covenant. Glory be to the name of the Lord. Are you ready to make the decision? Well, the voice has been speaking, beloved. I know because it's been speaking in my heart. What's your name? Is it Esau? There's an Esau. There's an afterward. It's the same sort of talk as you will reap what you sow. Now, may the Lord lead us all into this glorious and wonderful salvation. It's a full salvation. You can plunge right in sometimes as we sing and lose your sin. You can plunge right in. Let's pray, shall we? Now, the Lord has spoken in this room tonight because there are those in this room who need it. Of old, they said, don't speak to us in that voice again. And he didn't. He didn't. What then? You can read and see. Now, God's spoken to you gently, truly, and unavoidably what you're going to do. Give up thinking what he or she will think about you. They can't be your savior, but they can be like a devil to you, a she-devil or a he-devil. I'm going to pray, and after that, I'm going to give you an opportunity to respond, beloved. I'm not going to make a big emotional appeal or anything like that, but you must make your choice tonight. Dear Lord, thank you ever so much for being with us. Thank you that we have this opportunity. Thank you for the real, real gospel. Thank you, Lord. Thank you that it fixes us unavoidably on eternal truth. Thank you that you save sinners, and thank you, you call to every one of us to respond. Father, truly, my heart has responded to you as I've been preaching, as our very well-knowest. Now, here's your opportunity. Your heart can respond. If you're going to make the real response to God that you should, and God is the judge of all, I invite you to stand up in your seat where you are. God bless you.