In this sermon, the speaker opens the book of Revelation and reflects on the praise given to God by one man. The speaker emphasizes that God is too big to be limited to just four wedding creatures or a junior choir. The speaker then highlights the presence of four and twenty elders, possibly referring to the junior choir. However, the speaker is amazed to discover that there are thousands upon thousands singing worthy of the Lamb. The sermon also touches on the theme of loneliness and the importance of being connected to Christ to avoid being lost. The speaker shares a personal story of taking a wrong turn and feeling lost in London. The sermon concludes with a story of a little boy on London Bridge who is not lost but is searching for his parents.

and in whose spirit there is no guile. When I get silent, my bones wax old, sly roaring all the day long, for dawnless thy hand was heavy upon me, my moisture is turned into the drape of summer, she laughs. I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not in, I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgave us the iniquity of my sin, she laughs. By the way, we will not forget the meaning of the little Hebrew expression, she laughs. I suppose to use it colloquialism, it simply means, what do you think of that? What do you think of that? Hath she said wonderful? Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin, what do you think of that? For this shall every one that is godly, pray unto thee in the time when thou mayest this end, joy in the floods of great waters, take a look and I am to thee, thou art my hiding place, thou preservest me from trouble, thou shalt comfort me about with poems of diligence, and what do you think of that? May the Lord just add his blessing to the reading of his own precious work, I have been much in prayer and talk about this morning, and I've come to a conclusion, and it simply is, that I don't want to preach. I mean that's an awful thing to do isn't it, to come to a conclusion like that, but I don't want to. What I want to do this morning, if you will permit me, I want to try and share with you what the Christian faith really means to me. I don't wish to take the word of God and expand its breakthrough, I don't wish to take a portion of the scripture and point out to you what God is saying to us in that portion, but I want to try and share with you what Jesus Christ really means to me. Maybe if I can do that, then maybe some of you here will say, I would love Christ to be in that for me as well, and so I have done what I must really do. I have come to alliterate what I want to say to you, and there are four little things that I want to say that the Christian faith means to me. First of all, it means this, that I shall never be lost. Now who should I say that to? It is so simple and yet it is so profound. It is the truth that brought the very Christ of God from heaven to earth, that men and women should not be lost. The Christian faith means to me, first, that I shall never be lost. The second thing the Christian faith means to me is that if I shall never be lost, neither shall I be lacking. Once it doth was promised, he said, the young lion shall have some tougher hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall never lack any good thing. I shall never lack. The fact which is necessary for life at its fullest, I have found and will continue to find, is he forgot. The third thing I want to share with you is that if I will never be lost, then I never will be lacking. I will never be loveless. Now you can tell by the somewhat haggard look on my face, that I did marry to no use. Personally, it appears that it is true when I asked a girl to marry me. I had it all worked out for her. I thought she'd say no, and that would give me time to save up a bit. And I'd ask her the second time and she'd say no, and it would give me a little time to save up a bit. And she must say yes on the third time, because this is what he wants, he said yes the first time, and then I was in trouble. But if I had to try, after 38 years, to sum up really what marriage means to me, I think I would say it means this. It means the thrill of knowing that someone wants you, that they want you. And is it grand to know that Jesus Christ wants us, that we need not feel loveless. There is someone who cares. There has been a moment in time, or in eternity, when he has not, will not care. The third thing I want to say, maybe it's linked up very much with the last one, or the fourth thing. I shall not be lost, I shall not know aching, I shall not feel loveless, but I shall not be lonely. Well did the psalmist long ago cry, oh leave me not, and forsake me not. And I have a saviour who says I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. First of all, to know Jesus Christ means to me that I shall never be lost. It's an awful thing to be lost, is it not? I was just a wee little tatter. Can't even remember how old maybe I was then, when I was first lost. Oh I'm not speaking of being spiritually lost, but I'm speaking about just being lost. We shifted bands from the place where we were living to another house. Mother never even told us boys the address, but being boys it wasn't long before we got under mother's feet. And I can see her now, she didn't stand any higher than this, just a wee dot of a woman was my mother. And I can see her now as she said, boys we're going out. And off we went to do some shopping, and we found ourselves in Mr. Woolworth's store. He has a shop in our place. I was in Woolworth's very last, before I was at the toy counter. You know, I was just big enough from the nose to come to the top. And there, the tin horse, when he had bought a train for six foot, for God's sake, that was your money tricker, six foot four. And there I got occupied with the tin horse, with the toy. And like most boys it wasn't long before I said, mum can I have that? And there was no reply. And looking around I looked. Mother wasn't there, she thought I was following, and she'd gone on the other parts of the store. Now you'll have a job to believe this, but it's true, I've always been blessed with a good air of life. And I opened my mouth, and I was saying, and I'll tell you this, that over the years, well over 50 years have passed, and I still remember the awful feeling as a wee lad, being lost, occupied with the tin horse, with the little things that would attract for just a few moments until I broke them. And being separated from the person who bestowed upon me her love, who provided all I needed, as she provided for her boy. And I remember as a man, not as a boy, the awful feeling of knowing that I was lost. Lost to God, lost to good, lost to heaven, lost to any aspirations that I had for myself. Suddenly realizing before God that it was there that I stood to beg, that the word of God was true, although I knew not the word of God, that all had sinned and come short of the glory of God. Oh, never let us forget this, that God dares to tell us that if we are separated from Christ, then we are lost. Lost, as the story told of a weak boy who was crossing London Bridge. Of course, it's no longer in London now, is it? You bought it and put it up in, where was it? Somewhere away in the desert in America. You took it down, stone by stone, but that's the story told of a little boy who was walking across London Bridge, and he was looking this way, and he was looking that way, and he was looking the other way, and a big English bobby saw him. He came over and said, son, are you lost? He looked up, and in his real cockney voice, he said, no, I ain't lost, governor, but I don't know where the mother and father have got to. Silly, isn't it? Silly. Until I asked this question, where is God in your life? Paul let's face it, you and I say day by day as we move in this scene, that there is one who cares, that there is one who can, and he is our savior. Or have we to say, I don't know where God is in my life. I begin every day with my wife and family, I begin every day with my husband and children, my mother, my father, but as far as God is concerned, I don't know anything about him. He's not real to me, and surely that is the proof that as far as God is concerned, you're lost. Yet the wonder is this, that the Christian faith tells me that I need not be lost, for down from his glory, ever-living, strong, my Lord and Savior, Amen, Jesus was his head. And when I open my Bible and I read again the glorious words of the 19th chapter of Luke, this is what I read, the Son of Man came to speak and to say that which was, was lost, was lost. I don't know why I'm using so many little stories this morning. But years ago, I was traveling down from Norwich on the east coast of England. I was due to commence a series of services the very next day in our own county town. If you can tell by my dialect, at least really I'm the only one without a dialect here, but I come from the west country of England. And I was due to commence a series of services the next night in the county of Georgetown. And so I traveled down through the night, for I wanted just a few hours home with my wife and children. As we drove down the J.K.11 road towards London, and we came in the early hours of the morning into London, I looked around and somehow I'd taken the wrong turn. I didn't know where I was. And as I was driving, I suddenly saw by the side of the road, a fellow walking, and I pulled up and said, quite silly, but it's not quite the same. I knew the same, but I understand was on my way home. I knew the way from there. He looked and said, I'm going that way to have a look. Jump up. I'll be jumping. Straight down here, round to the left, round to the right, up over the hill, round to the left. I was driving and looking. And suddenly, we came to some light. Before you could say Jack Robinson, he'd opened the door, he'd jumped out, he'd said, good morning. I didn't know where I was. And suddenly I looked, and there was an English policeman. And I said, sir, can you put me on? I'm trying to get the change. Change? He said. Well, you know where there is. Well, where am I? He said, it will mean nothing, baby, to you unless you're here in London. Well, he said, you're at the elephant in purple. I couldn't have been further away from safe. All I know is this, that I dropped him very near his home. I was lost. And I listened to the advice of a man who said he knew the way. The tragedy was this. He might have known the way, but he had told me the way. We are living in a day, are we not, when there are hundreds, a thousand different voices saying, this is the way, this is the way. God knew that, and God knew that there were men and women in those days that are long past that were deceiving men and women. They were telling them that this was the way, and that was the way, but men were lost. Jesus came not just to tell us the way, but to be the way. He came where we were, let there be his name. He came where we were, that he might, in his mercy, show the way to God, and give the way to God. For him, that way meant telling the truth. For him, that way meant bearing the punishment of that which had raised from God, and that we would be lost in time and in eternity. I thank God that there came a time in my life when by faith I placed my hand in his. By faith I asked him to be my savior and my Lord, and to show me the way. And oh, hallelujah, none of the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters crossed, or how dark the night that the Lord passed through ere he found the sheep that was lost. But, praise God, the sheep knew that it was found. I know I did that. But, dare I say that the Christian faith means not only that one need never be lost, but it means that one need never be lacking. Need never be lacking. Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. There are men and women making in this service this very morning, and you have said to yourself many a time, look, I should be a Christian. I know I should allow the Lord Jesus to be my savior. I know I should bow my knee with repentance in my heart towards God, and in faith in Jesus Christ, trust him. But, you know, there's the mark. I've come across so many men and women. They call me their Christians, and I look at their life, and if anything to that which I would call a Christian, they show no sign of being found. Above all else, I don't wish to be a hypocrite. Well, if there's one thing God doesn't wish you to be a hypocrite either, if there is one thing I am certain of, that there is enough in Jesus Christ not only to save us, but keep us. That there's enough in Jesus Christ not only to find us when we're alone, but minister to our needs day by day, thou shalt not lack. I sometimes get somewhat upset when I hear men and women talk and such a phrase. They say, well I'm not going to be a Christian, look at those hypocrites. It doesn't mean anything really, does it? I remember an occasion when in the city of Glasgow, I was walking down Argyle Street with a good Baptist minister friend of mine, and as we walked down Argyle Street, I will never forget it, he said to me, just a moment sir, there's one of my, I think he's called him parishioners, I'm not very up in these things, but something like that anyway. And we stopped in front of a gentleman, and I thought, now I'm going to have a lesson in partial work. I'm going to be a disciple, and so I listened. You shouldn't listen to other people's conversations really, did you? But I did. And the good Baptist minister friend said to this man, calling him by name, he said, we haven't seen you alone at church lately. No, said the man, I'm not going there anymore. I'm not going there. How's that? He said, you had too many hypocrites there. And just like that, just like that, my friend said, well don't let that keep you away, we can do with another one. Do you see what I mean? Do you not think that the most hypocritical thing is to say that I'm not going to trust the Lord because I don't think I can keep it. When you know deep within your heart that you couldn't keep it, if you were the greatest saint in the world, but Christ can keep you, thou art my hiding place. Not there is a hiding place, but thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Oh, I thank God in Jesus Christ there is one who lives. If there was a burden in our worship this morning, it would surely be that the one we worship is the Christ who lives, blessed be it then. And that one, as I have said night by night, is available for every one of us in the service, and I thank God there came a time in my own personal experience when I bowed my knee and I said, Lord I'm lost. For I didn't use those words, I didn't know those crazyologies, for I've never been to church or chapel or Sunday school in my life. But I know this, when I bowed my knee and I said, God I must entertain me, I was lost. I was lost. I want to say this, that I have a savior who not only has saved me, but has preserved me. One has not lacked anything that one has found necessary to liberate one's experience for Jesus Christ. Oh, he's a wonderful savior, a wonderful savior. Friend, I don't like speaking of that. I am not unmindful that when again and again and again in the epistles of the Romans, in that great 8th chapter we hear, or the great 6th chapter we hear, I, I, I am not unmindful of the fact that Paul sums it up and says, oh wretched man that I am. But I'm trying to share with you what Christ means to me. I thank God there came a time when I bowed my knee, and if you think it's easy to be a Christian then there's one thing you can say, you've never tried it. God does not say that it's easy to live for him, that he says all that you need is time with him to live out that experience. I soon found out it was not easy to live for the Lord. I had to go back to the boxing booth of a fairground and tell a crowd of fellows with whom I'd been fighting for years that there was going to be a change for I trusted Christ. And hallelujah, he kept it. He kept it. May I say something more? That not only knowing Jesus Christ means that I shall not be lost, knowing Jesus Christ means that I shall not lack, for not only did he die upon the cross for me, but was raised again because of my justification, and gives to those that trust him his Holy Spirit, that in the words that were sung, I live, yet not I, Christ lives within me. Praise God, I shall not be loveless. Now that there's someone who cares, someone who is there, my good friend, I've forgotten his name, but my good friend, brought me last evening two letters from home. You know, I've been here a week and I haven't had a letter from home. I was getting just a bit anxious, but he brought me two last night. And I wouldn't tell you how many times I've read them since they arrived. I could tell you every word that's in them. No, there's someone who cares. I thank God I have a letter. I thank God that it's come from heaven. I thank God that it tells me of one who is interested in me, could not be more interested in everything that I want to know of heaven, everything I want to know of him. Okay, isn't that it? When my wife writes to me, she tells me about the children, she tells me about the grandchildren, she tells me about the garden, she tells me about the house. She's reminded me in this one that I promised to paint it and I hadn't done it. You know, I mean, that's the sort of thing. I've got a God who tells me about his home. He tells me about himself. He tells me about his family and what a family. He tells me of the things that happen on life's journey. He tells me, he cares. It's some 32 years that I've been serving the Lord in this and maybe some 30 in more other countries I preach the gospel. I don't know if I come across anything more bitter, I have to be careful in what I say, but in general terms, I don't know if I come across anything more bitter than when I come across a person who's desperately lonely. Desperately lonely. And it's a fact, there are some like that. There are some separated from friends, from loved ones, some who in the years have left their mark upon and they're lonely. And oh, it's the biggest condemnation to the church of God that we allow men and women to be lonely. Every church should surely have a visiting program, that if they're a lonely soul, at least there's someone who knocks the door and says, I care. Yes, in its deepest sense, in its deepest sense, to know Jesus Christ means one has never loved. I've known what it means to have the loneliness of faith. Since I came to know Christ, I've never known what it means to have the loneliness of faith. The Lord Jesus knew something of loneliness, didn't he, that we might be delivered by. If ever there was a person who knew loneliness, it was the faith. When you open your Bible and you think of him, as he sought to speak to his disciples of the reason that he came into this world. Why, one of them he had to say to him, get thee behind me, Satan. That would turn and rebuke him. The Lord told of going to Calvary was appropriate for men and women, and that man, Peter, rebuked him. Jesus had to say, get thee behind me, Satan. How lonely was Christ without a person who fully understood him? Only once did the Lord Jesus, in 33 and a half years, have an intelligent convocation with anyone as to the real purpose of his coming into this age. And on that occasion, God had to lift the legs of eternity and summon a prophet and a patriarch to speak of the deceit that he shall accomplish at Jerusalem. There on the banks of transfiguration, with the only time in 33 years that Jesus Christ talked to anyone intelligently about the real purpose of his coming into this age. He knew loneliness, because he knows what loneliness means. Praise God, he can deliver it from loneliness. That's the thing that counts, isn't it? How many of you, dear souls, when someone has been speaking to you have said, but you don't understand, you haven't been there. But he's been there. Hallelujah, he's been there. To know Christ means that I shall never be lost, I shall never be lacking, I shall never be loveless, I shall never be lonely. There's a loneliness that one shudders to speak of, but I think this morning we need to speak of it, don't you? There is an eternal loneliness, the loneliness of that which the Bible calls hell. I've heard so many men, and maybe in their factories I've been speaking to them of the Savior, sometimes with a tear upon their lips they will say, oh well if I'm going to hell I'll have plenty of company. My friend, would you remember there's no company in hell? This is the great tragedy of an eternity without Christ. Not only is there the loneliness of no Savior, but there's the loneliness of no one really. It was said that Judah, he went to his own place. His own place. There is no company in the taverns of the lost, but there is company in glory. Oh, the wonder of it all. Do you know when I opened my Bible to the last chapter of that wonderful book? I'm sorry, that yes, the last book of that wonderful Bible. I get thrilled, just thrilled. I open the first chapter of the book of the Revelation, and I hear one man praising God unto him who loved us and loosed us from our sins. And suddenly I find out that my God, too, is a one man. And so I find there are four that are referred to as living creatures. At Mr. Cornhuster they make a quartet, and they sing unto him who loved us. My God's too big for four, and I see suddenly there are four and twenty elders. So it starts with one, it continues with four, now there are twenty for four and twenty elders. I suppose that's a junior choir, is it sir? Boy, the choir is singing unto him who loved us, and he's too big for that. And I suddenly come across the fact that there are a thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands singing worthy of the Lamb, but he's too big for that. It's before I come to the end of the fifth chapter. It's not one, and it's not four, and it's not twenty-four, and it's not twenty-eight, and it's not ten thousand times ten thousand. It's all creation crying worthy, worthy. Oh friends, the wonder is this, that for those that love the Lord Jesus there's no loneliness in it now. It's to be with the host of the living. How about you? I told you I didn't want to preach this morning, I just wanted in some small measure to share with you, but to know Christ is real, to know the Lord Jesus is vital, to know that he is the only one who will grant that we shall be never lost, lacking, loveless, or lonely. And of course the great question is this, how can I know him? How can I come to that person? How can I receive him? And the answer is so clear. So, we sing with the children sometimes, don't we, a little children's chorus, a simple as can be, as clear as ABC. Christ came to save his life he gave to rescue you and me. Well, let's take that ABC, shall we? You will pardon me for speaking to you as though I were speaking to a Sunday school class. Let's take that ABC. Is there someone this morning that wants to know that saviour, that saviour that will grant that they shall never be lost, or lacking, or loveless, or lonely? And here's the ABC of it all. Abandon sin, believe in Christ, and confess the Lord. Abandon sin. O let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his fault, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy, and unto our God, and he will abundantly pardon. This is what God wants us to do. My Bible uses the word repentance towards God. Repent! Speaking with my dear friend Edgar Murrow last evening, and dear Ben Allen, he reminded ourselves of the words of your great movie. So, when asked what repentance was, he said, repentance is not saying I've sinned, double-minded failing said that, and Judas said that, but repentance is hating your sin long enough to give it up. There's the part a of trusting the Lord, to abandon that which will cut away us from God. To believe, ah that's it, to believe, or to trust one's life, to sit it down, to believe on the Lord. If a person believes on someone, then he believes what that person says. It is useless for me to come to you and say, do you know sir, I believe you, and if I accept what you say, and act upon it, is it wonderful to know that the Lord Jesus has told us why he came? The Lord Jesus has told us why on Calvary's cross he would die? The Lord Jesus has told us the way of salvation? Telling it, he asks that you and I shall trust him, we shall believe on him, shall believe his word? The breath of all of us. It is not just to believe intellectually, it's wonderful to believe intellectually. I did not commit intellectual suicide when I trusted Christ, but it's more than that, much more than that. The devil believes he fears and trembles, but to believe on Christ for salvation, is to trust one's life then, to say Lord take me, take me as I am. My only plea, Christ died for me, oh take me as I am. But not only to abandon sin, not only to believe in Christ, but to confess him, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth. Jesus is Lord, I like that don't you? How awful I question, oh I love it, you know the bible, how awful I question, says if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus. The rabbi says if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, Jesus is Lord. For that's what it means to confess the Lord Jesus, hasn't it? Jesus is Lord. Tomorrow morning when I go to my business, Jesus is Lord. If there's something in my business that is not what it should be, I'll confess Jesus as Lord, the Lord of my business. In my home, the confession is Lord. If Jesus Christ is confessed as Lord, I tell you something my brother, you won't quarrel with your wife, madam, you won't quarrel with your husband. You children, if you confess Jesus as Lord, you'll remember that he said children obey your parents in the Lord. Of course, you will not forget, will you, that Ephesians 6 and 1 is hollow. When my daughter was just a little girl, I remember once someone saying to me, how Janet, I said oh she's wonderful, wonderful. She said, I'll find out the answer for Ephesians 6 and 1, children obey your parents. If parents provoke not your children to ask. There are two ways to it, and if Jesus is Lord, that's what we'll do, isn't it? It'll affect our business, it'll affect our family life, it'll affect our school life, it'll affect our political, social life. If Jesus is Lord, oh this is the way of salvation, ABC, to abandon sin, to believe in Christ, to come to confession, to live out that life for him. Friends, if you've never done that, would you do that this morning? It's pretty solemn, isn't it? But will you do that this morning? Could I ask you to sing with me just two verses of a hymn, number 236, just two verses of a hymn. Only a sense, only a sense of Jesus, then why not take it now, come and lie ten confessing, thou shalt receive a blessing, do not reject the mercy he freely offers thee. The first and the last verse of 236.