In this sermon, the preacher discusses the story of the birth of Jesus and the events leading up to it. He emphasizes the beauty and joy of the Christmas story, highlighting the involvement of various characters such as Zacharias, Elizabeth, the angel Gabriel, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men, Anna, and Simeon. The preacher also acknowledges the brutal and bloody nature of Jesus' crucifixion, describing it as the awfulest crime committed by humanity. He encourages the audience to embrace the power of the word of God and not be ashamed of their faith, reminding them that God has given them a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind.

We're going to read the first six verses of 1 Timothy, Paul, and Apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, who is our hope, unto Timothy, my own son in faith, grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. As I besought you to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that you might charge some that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying, which is in faith. So do. Now the end of the commandment, one translation says, now the goal of our instruction is love out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and a faith unfeigned, from which some, having swerved, have turned aside unto vain jangling. And then from there to 2 Timothy chapter 1, Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, according to the promise of life, which is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my dearly beloved son, grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God, whom I serve for my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of you in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy when I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded that in you also. Wherefore, I put you in remembrance that you stir up the gift of God which is in you by the putting on of my hands. For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Now with or without your permission, I'm going to remove my jacket. It's quite warm up here, and I'm a Canadian used to colder weather. You'll make excuses for me, I'm sure. Thanks, Ralph. I was in India with my wife recently, and we went in the middle of winter, and I remarked one day that it was hot. They said, it's not really hot. We have three climates here, hot, hotter, and hottest. And I said, well, what do you call it now? Well, they said, right now it's just hot, a hundred and five above. And I said, what is hottest? And they said, a hundred and twenty-five above. We didn't stay around for that. I never did believe there was any particular virtue in being hot when you could be cool. The Apostle Paul said to another preacher, Timothy, don't be ashamed of the Lord, or of his gospel, or of his prisoner, speaking of himself. Ashamed of God? And can it be a mortal man ashamed of me? But it must be so, because Jesus warned of this in Mark 8 and Luke 9. Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when he shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Now we would not have a warning as direct and clear as that if there was not a problem in the area. Yes, many people are ashamed of Christ. I can well remember before I became a Christian, if my mother left a Bible sitting out on a table, which sometimes she did, and I knew some of my friends would shortly be by, I always managed to stare at the Bible and pitch it under the bed. I didn't want my friends to think that I had any interest in that religious book called the Bible. I didn't want to be kidded by my friends, and so this is what I did. And I remember, I never often heard the gospel, very seldom, but I remember hearing a man of God preach, and I was so uncomfortable, I did not know how a person could talk about Jesus and feel at home. It was such a foreign thing, such a strange thing. The fear of man, of course, brings a snare, the best snare or trap the devil ever had, to paralyze the tongue and the feet and the arms, the hands of God's children, let alone of the world. Is it true that sometimes Christians are ashamed of Christ? Well, yes it is. You know, sometimes we're in a restaurant and we know we ought to give thanks for the food, and we're a little bit ashamed because the next table is only two feet away. What if they see me praying? They're going to think I'm a nut. You're right, they likely will. So what do you do? I heard a story of some pastors went with a missionary to a restaurant, and the missionary watched to see what the pastors would do. The place was crowded and the other tables were quite nearby, and he noticed that most of them just, they kind of put their head down and scratched their forehead a couple of times, and that was it. So he got off his chair and knelt by his chair, and in a stentorian voice he thanked God for the food and a thousand other things, and the prayer went on and on, and every eye in the place was fixed on that table, and all the pastors were red and crimson. When it was all over, the missionary got up and sat down, and one of the pastors said, Man alive, you always pray that way? No, he said. Do you always pray this way? I often wonder why it is when we Christians are talking about the Lord, if a sinner happens by, our voice drops down to a little whisper, and you can hardly hear what we're saying. I know a man, when he was four years of age, his parents gave him tap dancing lessons. He lived in Winnipeg, and he was such a tremendous tap dancer that the Army or Air Force, whenever they had a do in the city, they sent for this man. They'd bring him in, they'd give him a shot of rye whiskey to warm him up, stick him on a table, and he would dance for hours. But he told me that all his adult life, if he ever heard anyone talking about Jesus, he got as close as he could, because he wanted to know the way to heaven, and nobody ever told him. Until a young man, who later went as a missionary to Africa, said, Jesus Christ means everything in the world to me. What does he mean to you? And that got him, and he became a Christian. He was baptized, he joined the church that I was starting in the area. He's the best soul winner I ever knew. This might be an exaggeration, but if so, it's not intentional. I don't think he ever met anybody that he did not present the claims of Christ to. Occasionally he'd have a wounded duck flopping out in the marsh, and he'd phone me up and say, Pastor, I got a duck flopping out there in the water. Would you come in with your boat and get him into the boat, if you know what he meant? Sometimes he couldn't get them to quite see it, so he wanted his pastor to help. God wonderfully used him. And you know, when I had a son, see, I had a bunch of girls, and it looked like we were going to have just girls in the family. And when my son Tim was born, he was so pleased, he told me to come right out, and I went out. He was a mink rancher, and he reached in behind the door and put on his dancing shoes, and he said, I'm so happy God gave you a boy, I'm going to dance for Jesus. And he did. I'll tell you, his feet just flew. He's eighty-five years old now and still hot for God. But I guess he was by a lot of Christians that were ashamed of the Lord, because they never ever heard about Jesus until this young man put it right into his face. Why are we ashamed? It's a good question. It's a question we need to ask, because many times one of the reasons why we're not filled with the Holy Spirit, when we've done everything else possible, followed all the rules and instructions we could get, one of the reasons why God doesn't respond is because he sees that fear of man still down there in the heart. A refusal. As Paul says here in 2 Timothy chapter one, we are to be partakers of the afflictions of the gospel by the power of God. And there are afflictions connected with the preaching, the sharing of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The devil will not like it, and we're living in the devil's territory in a sense. Although the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof, and the world, and they that dwell therein. For he founded upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. And the devil is a usurper, but he's around. And he hates God in Christ, and the gospel in Christians. It says in Revelation, the last verse or so of chapter twelve, that the devil went out to make war with those that have the commandments, that keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. You can be sure about it. There are afflictions connected with the gospel, and if you're ashamed of Jesus, or of his words, what then? Then we grieve the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God cannot fill our life in the measure and way that he wants. And there are so many ways. You know, one of the reasons I'm sure why God gave baptism to follow salvation, was because it was one way of bringing fearful, timid, shy people out into the open. Charles Spurgeon, the famous English preacher, was raised a Congregationalist. Shortly after he was converted at the age of fifteen or sixteen, he, by reading his Bible, came to see the truth of baptism. And so he decided to be baptized. But he found something else out about baptism. He discovered it was a symbol of death to the old life and self, and resurrection to a new life and empowered, Spirit-empowered walk with God. So what did he do? He spent literally weeks, hours, day after day, out in the woods with his Bible, sometimes lying on the ground on his face, calling upon God. And he told God, he said, I don't want to go through the waters of baptism until I'm dead to self and alive unto God. And finally, one day, he felt he was ready. And he was baptized in a river dividing two counties in England, where everybody could see it. And he said, prior to that time, I was ashamed of Jesus Christ, although I was a Christian. I frequently doubted my salvation. But he said, you know, when I was baptized that day, God touched my life. And he said, all those fears went down the river and out into the ocean, and the fishes must have swallowed them because I never felt them since. And his mother said, Charles, I often prayed you might be a Christian, but never that you should become a Baptist. And he said, well, Mother, the Lord answered your prayer with His usual bounty and gave you more than you asked for. They said he was the sauciest dog that ever barked in a pulpit. But he barked outside the pulpit, too. He was not ashamed of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so baptism is one thing, in foreign countries it means a lot more in that respect than it would here, because in some cultures today, indeed it's been true for probably 1900 years, it will mean death. It will mean death. To publicly associate and identify yourself with Christ in the waters of baptism. You can attend Christian services and listen to the gospel and all of that, but don't accept baptism. But you might accept baptism and the fellows down where you work, they don't know anything about that. And your school chums probably don't know anything about that. With a heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. I know sometimes people argue about this and they say, well, the confession is to God. And there is certainly an element of truth here. Because we're sons, God has sent forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. The first cries to God, as in Romans 8. You have not received the spirit of bondage, you gain to fear, but you receive the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The first cries to God, the second cries to men, to let them know we found Jesus Christ as our personal Savior. And so I say it again, with a heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. And if you'll study Matthew chapter 10 carefully, the Lord Jesus Christ three times said, Do not be afraid. Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father who is in heaven. Have you confessed Christ openly? If you have, are you confessing Christ openly still? That's part of the ongoing of the Christian life. And if I allow that old fear of man to return and I become ashamed of the words of Jesus, or of the person of Jesus, or of the prisoners of Jesus, I will lose in my life the blessing of God. I read something interesting, it might not strike a note in your heart, it did in mine, still in mine. Some missionaries, have I mentioned their names? Many of you have read about them. Outstanding missionaries in India, many, many years ago. And they were having a meeting. And they were totally sold out to God, except for one missionary who was not, and couldn't understand the tremendous enthusiasm and the joy that these other missionaries had. And they were having a little meeting, just of missionaries, a missionaries convention. And the song leader was very enthusiastic. And so they were seated singing. And then he said, now the next verse let's stand and sing. So they all stood. And then the leader got carried away and forgot they were standing. He said, now the third verse we're going to sing standing. Well, they were already standing, so they jumped up on their chairs. And this one missionary didn't jump up on the chair. It was a woman. She was very embarrassed. She thought, how I'm becoming, how fanatical. I'm not saying you have to jump up on a chair to sing in order to be walking with Jesus. But there is a principle. There's something involved here. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me as prisoner, or be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God. Ashamed of Jesus in a given situation. You know, lots of times opportunities arise. You hear somebody blaspheming the name of Jesus Christ. If you are a Christian, the Bible says about a person who is disobeying God, he hears cursing and he doesn't discover it. He doesn't uncover it. He doesn't rebuke it. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. There is a ministry that we Christians have to have. I was in a store one time, not to preach myself. It was a shoemaker's shop, and I'd witnessed to the shoemaker, and he knew who I was and what I stood for. And a man came in just blaspheming God and Jesus Christ. And so I said to him, finally, I just had to rebuke him, and I did it as lovingly and kindly and as directly as I could. He apologized to me three or four times before I got out of there. I don't know if he ever found Christ, but I'll tell you one thing. It's little things like that that God will so often use to make people take their first step towards heaven and away from sin and hell, and expects you and I, his children. We've got to come to that place where we're no longer ashamed of the Lord Jesus Christ before our chums in school, or our neighbors, or the people we work with, or our relatives. You know, one of the things that happened, we had a saying in Saskatoon. I don't think it originated there. I don't know where it came from, but the saying was this, that when revival comes, the Christians all come out of the woodwork. Take, for example, right across the street from the school or the church where I was pastor. I haven't been out for six years, but I was pastor then. A high school with about 1,200 kids in it, and the Christian kids, a few of them, they were trying to hold one Bible study, and they were just holding that thing together, and 15 or 20 would be draggled and cast down and discourage kids. Before the seven weeks of the revival in Saskatoon were ended, they had five Bible studies going, and one week, 14 kids found Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. Why? Because the Christians came out of the woodwork, that's why. And my son went to university in Saskatoon. Sure, it's a godless, secular university. He went there. Do you know what he told me? He said, Dad, it's really neat. I mean, that's a word young people often use. I'm not sure I know what it means, but anyway, he said, Dad, it's really neat. He said, if a professor says anything that could be remotely construed as an attack on the Christian faith, or on the church, or on Christians, he backs up, he apologizes, he makes it as clear as can be to the class, he's not attacking religion, he's not talking against God, he's not attacking against Christians of the church. Do you know why? Because if he doesn't say something like that, there'll be some Christian kids on their feet, and they'll be challenging the professor, and the Christians will start to come out of the woodwork. And that's what we need to do. And I know our secular, our school system is rotten, I know that. But I wonder how bad it'll get. It'll get a lot worse than it is if we take all the Christian teachers out of it, and all the Christian kids out of the secular schools, where they're hiding in the woodwork now, afraid somebody's going to slap their wrist. I mean, Christians are needed in situations like that. If we're going to take them out of the schools entirely, we're going to have to take them out of the world. And God needs them. I'm not arguing against Christian schools, I'm all for them, as far as that's concerned. But there's something else we need to keep in mind here. These people are dark, yes, they're hard, yes, they need Christ. And people have got to come out of the woodwork and stop hiding. I remember one high school, a revival came to it in Manitoba, back in 1972. They had a drug problem in this high school, then all of a sudden they had a God problem. They didn't know what to do with the drug problem, and they had less knowledge about the God problem. As a matter of fact, the principal preferred the drug problem to the God problem. All these kids, finally he issued directives, no more washroom evangelism, no more giving out of gospel literature on campus, and all this kind of thing, so the kids figured out other ways. You know what they did? They figured out the busiest place in the hallway, and then at noon hour, or at four o'clock, when the kids were coming out, all the Christian kids, they jammed up the hallway so the traffic couldn't get by, and then took turns sharing. And finally they got bold enough, they were actually challenging the principal, bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ right to the principal. I mean, dear people, that's what we need to see happen, and it can happen. But coming out of the woodwork as part of revival, men ashamed of God, yes. Christians ashamed of God many, many times. There are people in this building probably haven't told those nearest and dearest to them that they love Jesus Christ, and why? And school chums, and people we work with, they don't know anything at all about it. Dr. F.B. Meyer, we heard about him earlier today, famous preacher. Sunday morning in his large congregation, after the meeting, he saw two men, and they were apparently sharing some joke. They were laughing and clapping each other on the back, and all this kind of thing. So he said, I always like a good story, so I went down to hear what the story was, and this was the story. He said, well, Dr. Meyer, we just found out, you know, we work at the same place for twenty years, we just found out we're both Christians. And Dr. Meyer thundered, gentlemen, get on your knees, and I'll pray for you that you'll be converted. Was he wrong? Or was he right? With a heart, man believes, but with a mouth, confession is made unto salvation, because the scripture says, whosoever believes on him shall not be ashamed. You know what ought, the shoe ought to be on the other foot. God ought to be ashamed of us. First Corinthians chapter six, there's a list of ten rotten sins that men are guilty of. Galatians, or pardon me, Ephesians chapter five, there's another ten. They're not all the same. In Mark chapter seven, there were thirteen different sins that Jesus Christ listed that he said rise out of the heart of man. In Galatians chapter five, Paul lists eighteen different sins that rise out of the heart of man. I don't know how many there are altogether. I didn't try to unscramble all that. But there are all these serpents living in the hearts of men. And when you think in terms, the sum total of human history and man's inhumanity to man, not only in times past, but today. I mean, in the rivers of blood that have flowed in the world. The first world war, fifteen million people died. The second world war, forty million died. If we have another one, it'll be in the hundreds of millions. And the world has been baptized in blood, in blood shed by violence, and many of it against Christian people. Dr. Carroll did a study on the Christians down through the centuries, and he says that during a thousand year period, the so-called dark ages, the Roman Catholic Church martyred about fifty million believers. And in the last twenty years, there have been more Christians martyred than in the previous two hundred. Idiot men. They don't really know. They say at least a hundred thousand Christians have died in that country while he was in power. Now I'm not surprised that I read in the book of Revelation God's going to turn the ocean into blood. God's going to turn the fountains and the rivers into blood. And there was a voice that John heard that said, well, God has done the right thing. They're worthy to drink blood because they've shed the blood of prophets and saints. And we live in that kind of a world. God Almighty ought to be ashamed of man. The best man on earth isn't worthy to be rolled in cow dung. When you think in terms of the total amount of our sin against God—thoughts, words, deeds, neglected duties, and all the rest of it—and sin is sin as far as God is concerned. How much more abominable and filthiest man who drinks iniquity like water? More abominable, more filthy than what? Well, he says there over in the book of Job, the heavens aren't clean, the stars are not pure, and God hath to charge his angels with folly. How much more abominable and filthy is man who drinks iniquity like water? God Almighty ought to be ashamed of man. I'm sure at times he must have been, but only his grace, only his grace, and by his grace he could overlook our sin and then send the Lord Jesus to die for us on Calvary's cross. But you know, proud unregenerated or proud regenerated uncrucified human nature, they say, why shouldn't God love us? What have we done so wrong? They don't understand, as the Bible says, all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and you may know that in the original Hebrew it's a stronger term than that. All our righteousnesses are as a minstrel's cloth. Are you going to throw a filthy rag in the face of God? But that's what lots of people are doing. Nothing good have I whereby thy grace to claim. I'll wash my garment white in the blood of Calvary's Lamb. We have nothing, absolutely nothing, to commend us to God. It's entirely by his grace and through his love. And yet, we read this, he is not ashamed to call them brethren. In Hebrews chapter 2, he's not ashamed. In spite of all our sin, what we are, what we have been, he's not ashamed. If we repent and turn to Christ, God is not ashamed. The prophecy there from the Old Testament, from the book of Isaiah, concerned with Jesus and his people, he's not ashamed to call them brethren. And again in Hebrews chapter 11, he says, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. He's not ashamed. If we're not ashamed of Jesus Christ, his Son, and his glorious gospel, Paul called it the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which is committed to my trust, and he's not ashamed of us, in spite of all we've been and all our sin. How wonderful. And here's Paul writing to a preacher and saying, Preacher Timothy, don't be ashamed. Did somebody tell Paul that Timothy had cooled off? I don't really know. Did God tell Paul directly? He may have, I don't really know. But somehow Paul either knew it or he strongly sensed it. And he writes to this man, he doesn't doubt that he's truly born again. You remember in chapter 1, verse 5, the end of the commandment, the goal of our instruction, is love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and a genuine faith? In 2 Timothy chapter 1, he talks about the genuine faith that Timothy had. He doesn't doubt he's got genuine faith. But somehow he'd cooled off. He wasn't hot for God the way he had been before. And Paul was greatly concerned. And it's interesting that in this first chapter of 2 Timothy, this thought of being ashamed or not ashamed occurs three times. He talks about a man called Onesiphorus. And he said, Onesiphorus was not ashamed of my shame. But when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently, and he found me. And then Paul says to himself, that's in verse 16. In verse 12, Paul says, For which cause I suffer these things? Nevertheless, I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. Paul was not ashamed, in spite of the fact he had to suffer affliction and persecution for the gospel's sake. Because he knew in whom he had trusted. Paul didn't say, I know what I believe. That's where a lot of us stand. I know what I believe. What I mean, just ask me. Paul said, I know whom I have believed. A literal translation would be, I know in whom I have trusted. And I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. And we'll all think, of course, of Romans 1.16, where Paul said, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. How can I be ashamed of that message, which is the only hope for fallen mankind? We'll end up in hell, hurried along in the burning way, where there's no eye to pity and no arm to save. My friends, and my acquaintances, and my loved ones included. God now commands all men everywhere to repent, because he has appointed a day in which he'll judge the world in righteousness by that man, Jesus Christ, whom he has ordained. And Paul said he went everywhere preaching two things, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord, Jesus Christ. And that's our business, that's our whole business as Christian believers, to share that message of life with the unconverted. But if even a preacher can cool off, then we need to look squarely at what Paul is saying here, because he's telling us the way back. He's not only saying, Timothy, you're cold. He's telling him how to get hot again, how to walk in the Spirit. So he says, I put you in remembrance. You've got the faith. Now, I put you in remembrance, that you stir up the gift of God. One translation says, rekindle a fire. The Spanish Bible says, revive. It says, revive the gift of God, which is in you. And he's not talking about one of the gifts of the Spirit. He's talking about the gift of the Spirit, as the context very clearly shows. Because the next verse says, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love, and of a sound that is of a disciplined mind. And so what he's saying is, Timothy, you have a need of a personal revival, and that revival lies in your own hands. It's up to you. God is waiting. God is the power. God will forgive you. God will bring you back to this. But you have to revive the gift of God. You have to work with the Spirit of God. You have to agree with God, the Holy Ghost, in whatever He says to you about your sins. You have to allow Him to lead you, to change you. This I say, then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Stir up, stir into flame, rekindle a fire. God has not given us a spirit of fear, and that's why we're ashamed. It's because we're afraid of what the consequences might be. We might lose our job. We might lose some friends. We might have people lie about us, or laugh at us, or something else who would be unpleasant to the flesh. And, dear people, this is where our power lies. What did Paul say? Most gladly, therefore, would I rather glory in my infirmities. Why? That the power of Christ might rest upon me. If you want the power of Christ to rest on your life, then we're going to have to learn how to glory in our infirmities. And it tells us in the context what some of those infirmities are like. He's not thinking of sickness, although that is included, I think. He said, therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in distresses, in persecutions, for Christ's sake, for when I'm weak and I'm strong. You want the power of God. You know, we're praying a lot for it, and a lot of the time the reason we're not experiencing it is because we're not following all the Bible's saying. Praying for it, that's great. Emptying out self, wonderful. Do I glory in reproaches, persecutions? Am I sold out to God? Are all the bridges burnt? Or am I still holding on? That's the problem. Timothy, stir into flames. Timothy, revive the gift of God which is in you. God has not given us a spirit of fear. And that's what he said in Romans eight, remember, you have not received the spirit of bondage, again, to fear, but you've received the spirit of adoption. So we do not, we Christians, do not have in the Holy Spirit, in dwelling our bodies, we don't have a spirit of fear. So if I'm possessed by fear, that's something else. That rises from self. The spirit of God is never afraid. I mean, how can God be afraid? Isn't God in perfect control of every situation? Yes, He is. And there's an old saying that we are immortal until our work is done. No combination of devils and men can take your life or mine before God thinks your work is completed. I mean, it's as simple as that. But we don't understand this oftentimes. And the devil doesn't want us to understand it either. Timothy, revive the gift of God. You've prayed long enough. Now do something about it. Work with the spirit of God. Find out what the problems are. Be honest before God. When Moses went in to talk with God twice, the Bible says, he took off the mask, the veil. And when we go in before God, let's take the veil off and be what we are, because I'm no more than what I am when I'm honest before God. That's all I really am. Take off the veil. It's not even good to wear the mask when you talk with people. Far less so than when we talk with God. Revive the gift of God which is in you. God has not given us a spirit of fear. He's given us a spirit of power. Do you have authority? Power? Love? Do you have all the love you need? A sound mind, a disciplined mind. Everywhere I go, Christians tell me I can't discipline myself to study the Bible a half an hour a day or an hour a day or whatever. I can't discipline myself to consistently give of my income to the work of God. I can't discipline myself to do this and I can't discipline myself to do that. And the first thing I do is remind such people that we have got a spirit of discipline living within us, the Holy Spirit of God. And what it means is I'm not listening to what he's saying. I'm not cooperating with him. I'm not working with him the way that I should. And another thing is this. If I'm going to rekindle a fire, brother, I better use combustible materials. I heard George Werber of the Operation Mobilization. They're hot for God. They've got these two big ships going all around the world. I met them in India when I was in India and the kids are out there in the marketplace evangelizing. I appreciate those people very, very much. And George Werber understands the revival message and he's with that message as far as I can understand 100%. But he said this. He was preaching in our church there and I was not the pastor, but of course I was there. And he said, you know, we have this beautiful big world map and this world map, it will tell you, it gives you a picture of all the countries of the world. It will tell you how many people are in the country and what proportion of missionaries there are to a thousand or a million people or whatever. It gives you a total picture and you can have one of these maps tonight. They're on the table. I pick one up. Now, he said, you might say we don't have anywhere to put it. Well, he says, I'll tell you what to do. He said, you know that TV set you've got? Just tape it over the TV set and that'll solve a lot of problems. I don't know how many people got that message, but it's a good idea. What I'm saying is, you know, a TV set is not combustible material, except in another sense. The word of God, God says, my word is like a fire. If I expose myself long enough to the word of God and ask the Holy Spirit to be my teacher, my brother, my sister, you can't miss being revived. Combustible material, particularly the word of God. And then seek out fellowship with other Christians who are hot for God. You get with cold Christians, you'll become like them. You'll hear a thousand reasons why you shouldn't commit yourself entirely to God. And you hear that from the devil anyway in your own heart. And so, let's get rid of the old clinkers. You might not know what those are unless you lived in my generation. They don't have those kind of furnaces and stoves anymore. It was just a kind of a coalescing of their waste material, the slag. After they burned the coal in the furnace, we called them clinkers. Get rid of the clinkers. Get rid of the ashes. The things that won't burn, let's get rid of them. We don't have long, people. If we could all meet here one year from now, all of us, except those that God called out, I would not be surprised if there were a lot of empty seats. You don't know how long you have. I don't know how long I have. The best of us at the most don't have long. A day, a thousand years to God, like one day. When I was a young Christian, three years a Christian, the devil told me, take it easy, man. Don't get excited. You've only been a Christian three years. Look at these people who have been Christians thirty years. You're doing as good as they are. When I was ten years a Christian, he told me the same thing. When I was twenty years a Christian, he told me the same thing. He's still telling me the same thing. The only time you can believe the devil is when he tells you he's lying. He's a liar and the father of it. It's his own peculiar possession, is the meaning of the Greek there in the gospel of John. We have a drastic message. You know, the Christmas message is so appealing. It's so beautiful. John, the Baptist, his parents, Zacharias and Elizabeth, and then the angel, Gabriel, talking to the Virgin Mary, and then Joseph getting involved in it. And then the baby Jesus being born, and the shepherds, and the wise men, and Anna, and Simeon. It's such a beautiful, heartwarming story. Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her King. But Calvary is crude. It's crude. It's ugly. It's brutal. It's bloody. They nailed God on a cross. The awfulest crime that ever blackened the hands of human beings was that crime when they stood there, naked human nature. Some orator way back said, if absolute honesty and absolute justice and absolute truth and absolute love could ever walk this earth in human form, the entire human race would fall down and worship it. Absolute truth and absolute justice and absolute honesty and absolute love walked this earth in the person of Jesus Christ, and naked human nature rose up against him, and they nailed him to a cross. In the prophetic scriptures, the powers plowed upon my back. They made long their furrows. The blood dripped off his heels. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting. Jesus. And then in chapter fifty-two of Isaiah, his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. Because of what they did to him, the blood coursed down his cheeks. Half his beard was gone. His face was black and blue. God, your creator and mine, and your sins and my sins helped to nail him on the cross. The strength and power of your sins and mine, they were behind the hammer blows that struck on the nails that impaled God on the cross. God purchased the church with his own blood, but he purchased it with his blood, and it was God. What a message we have. How can we ever be the same? And a sinful lost world is set against a holy God who runs a moral government, and the world is absolutely doomed to destruction, because God's holiness will prevail. And hell is hell, because the presence of God will be known there. It will be felt there, because you're going to be tormented in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb of God. This is what the Bible says. It wasn't nice for Jesus Christ to hang there the way he did. The blood dripping off his toes, the blood running off his heels. His back laid bare, those long furrows that the plowmen put on there with their scourge, and the crown of thorns. And he hung there naked, and they derided him. That wasn't pretty. And you think the crucifixion of self is any different? It's a lingering death, and it's brutal, it's bloody, it's costly. It costs everything you have and everything you are. And if as a believer in Jesus Christ I'm not ready for that. Don't expect to know the power of God in your life in any degree. There's a high cost of low living, whether it's a Christian or a sinner. And there's also a high cost of high living for the Christian believer. I am crucified with Christ. The blood may drip off your heels and your toes and your nose as well, I don't know. But in another spiritual sense, and most certainly will for all of us, there's a cost. No man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. Have you got your eyes fixed on Jesus Christ? Don't ever look aside. Keep looking to him if the heavens fall. He that fears the Lord shall come forth of them all when it's all over. And the smoke of battle, the sound of battle has died down for the last time. The last shot is fired, and the last person dies. And if I read the prophetic scriptures right, our son is going to sit in a sea of blood when the last thing has happened. He that fears God will come forth of them all. The Christians are on the winning side, but right now it's not pretty. And you know, when Jesus Christ hung on the cross, it wasn't just the physical pain. I don't think that was the chief thing at all. It was just the fact that God made Christ to be sin for us. He who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him, the holy, spotless, sinless Son of God. The only place in the whole Bible where the serpent was a picture of Jesus Christ is in the gospel of John chapter 3. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. The symbol of everything that's evil. When I was in India, a Christian leader told me over there, he said, India's God is the serpent. They worship the gurus. The Hindu gurus, they will worship. They'll have a live serpent in their house, and they'll worship that serpent. And I saw a man come out of a Hindu temple with two serpents tied in both arms. Live serpents. But Jesus Christ, God made him to be sin for us. He who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And when Jesus Christ said, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Oh, yes, the disciples, they all forsook him and fled. Why did God leave him? Why were the heavens dark for three hours? Scholars differ. I wonder if maybe it wasn't just the tears of the angels as they watched this spectacle just kind of put the sun out for a few hours. I don't know. But it was just that he was made sin, and God couldn't look on sin. As if Jesus was a serpent, God regarded him as sin for your sins and mine, that we might be made the wonderful righteousness of God in him. Is anything too great to give to him in return? Time, talents, everything you have, every ounce of your energy, pour it out. We're praying for a great revival. People, it's in our hands. God is waiting. No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. And if you're willing just to become nothing, to be mocked at, laughed at, that's your power. Wherefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let this go forth, therefore, unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach." Have you got there yet? Standing with Jesus, there were those who were cursed in the book of Jude, because they did not come to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Cursi miras, saith the angel of the Lord. Cursi bitterly the inhabitants thereof, because they came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty. And the enemies of God are screaming on every hill in the world today, and Christians are hiding, and still trying to suck all they can out of the orange of this life, paying no heed to the call of the lovely Son of God. They took heaven's joy, heaven's song, heaven's glory, heaven's oil, heaven's wine, everything that was great and good, they took and nailed it on a cross. And do you think they'll love you any more than they loved him? Forget it, they won't. Their rejection is your power. Don't seek it, just live for God, the way the Bible says we should. The rest will take care of itself, and your life will count for God. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but be thou partaker. It means a partner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Thank God. God bless you.