The sermon transcript discusses the concept of abandonment in relation to commitment and sanctification. The speaker highlights three examples of abandonment: Jesus Christ, Moses, and the Apostle Paul. The sermon also references the story of Stephen in the book of Acts, where he recounts the history of the Jews and their journey in Egypt. The speaker emphasizes the importance of abandonment in following God's will and encourages the audience to seek enrichment from the Word of God.

We do not have to descend into the abyss to bring him up. We do not have to pre-cate you, Lord, in an offering. We thank you for that perfect offering that once, at the end of the age, He appeared. Not Joshua, or Aaron, or Isaiah, or the towering prophets of the Old Testament, but He, the Son of God, appeared to undo, as the last Adam or the first Adam had done. He came to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. We think of the priest of old, he had to take the blood, he had to put the carcass of the beast outside the gate, then he had to take the blood, but not his own blood. But our Lord Jesus brought His own blood. He suffered without the gate as a perfect lamb. We bless you for the majesty of the Lord Jesus. He is no longer Jesus of Nazareth in the way that many quotes offer. He was Jesus of Nazareth. But two thousand years ago, the apostle labelled Him this way in his word when he said that He, Jesus, is the Son of God, He is the blessed and only Potentate, and the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords. And one day He's going to be the Judge of Judges. What a day! We thank you for the going forth of your word today. We can't imagine how it's gone forth. Sometimes over radio or TV, sometimes via tract, sometimes with a little bunch of people up the Amazon round a tree listening to a language they can hardly understand, and a language the missionary can hardly speak. We thank you for the power of the Spirit to take our broken words and make them whole. We thank you for this fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And there's another hymn says, the blood shall never lose its power, till all the ransomed church of God be saved to sin no more. Then in the noblest sweetest song we'll sing thy power to save when these poor lisping stammering tongues, and even the most eloquent of preachers is stammering, but you take again our lisping stammering tongues to the glory of your name. We thank you for your holy word tonight. We thank you for the men who gave it to us, who suffered to give it to us. We thank you for the martyrs. Think of the man there away in England when he held his hand out over the smoke, over the fire, and said that one day every plow boy would have this word, when it was then only available to scholars and readable by scholars in Hebrew, Greek. We thank you for the marvelous achievements that have been done to make your word known. We bless you for those who have gone forth to make your name known. Perhaps some of them tonight homesick, fresh on the field with an atmosphere they can't understand, a language they can't speak, food they can't eat, and strange noises they can't understand. We thank you for the going forth of your servants. We pray you bless them. Speak, and we ask you to enrich our own hearts tonight from your word. We say with a psalmist, Lord, open thou my lips, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law, and give you the praise in Jesus' name. Thank you. Be seated. There are some seats up at the front here if you'd like to come. There are a little extra but you can pay that later. Don't be shy, I'm not. A few weeks ago in our Tuesday night class, which we don't have anymore, we made a comparison of the life of Moses with that of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now if you think that isn't quite legitimate, let me give you a scripture here. Deuteronomy chapter 18. Deuteronomy chapter 18 and verse 15. The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me. Remember this is Moses writing, and he's speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ that shall come. A prophet like unto me, and unto him shall ye hearken. Last week we attempted, however imperfectly, to complete what we had begun two weeks before of Hebrews 13.13 which says Jesus went outside the camp, and the second half of the verse says that we should go out of the camp too, which is a very dramatic and challenging thing. Well, to me there are three, you know, there's a word used so often today that I think it's getting a bit threadbare. It's commitment, commitment, commitment, commitment. My dear wife and I read together, well honestly she does the reading after breakfast, I listen, and then after supper at night. And in the course of our listening and speaking and reading, a word came up which fascinated me, and it's the word abandonment. We hear a lot about commitment, and that means we hear a lot about sanctification. But very few people talk about abandonment. There are, I think, three classic examples of this. The supreme abandonment, of course, being the Lord Jesus Christ himself. The second being Moses, and the third being our friend that we talk about so much, the Apostle Paul. In the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, this is Stephen, you remember, answering his accusers, and he's giving a rundown of their history in the sense of the Jews. Let's read from verse 17. When the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn unto Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, till another king arose which knew not Joseph. The same dealt subtly with our kindred, and evil untreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end that they might not live. In which time Moses was born, he was exceeding fair and nourished of his father, in his father's house three months. And when he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him for her own, and nourished him as her son. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in word and in deeds. Now look, here's a division in his life here, in the next verse. When he was full forty years old, he came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian. There you've got the first forty years of his life. Mentioned are the first division, forty. The comparison I think is very beautiful, because you remember Moses was born in the slums of Goshen, and Jesus was born in the slums, because he was born in a manger, in a stable. There was a decree that Moses should be destroyed, destroyed from Pharaoh, you remember? And there's a decree that Jesus should be destroyed from Herod. Moses was born in Egypt, Jesus went down into Egypt. Moses was born of almost unknown parents. In his early days he was a nobody, he became a somebody, and he's known to everybody. Another comparison is, you remember that, oh, I'll leave that a little later, not use it right here. Let's go over to the eleventh chapter in Hebrews. Hebrews 11, by faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child, and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. By faith Moses, when he came to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Refused, therefore you've got refusing. Next verse, choosing. Rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, exactly what the Lord Jesus did, he chose to suffer. These are not, either in the case of Moses or Jesus, these are not cases of rags to riches, they're cases of riches to rags. I remember as a little boy in England, the preacher announced a very unique event. He said on Tuesday night, Tuesday night, we're having a visitor from another country. America. I'd never seen an American, I thought he'd have feathers and all kinds of things, you know. And I went eagerly to church, and there was a man by the name of Barakluff. And he had just written a hymn, I think the only one he ever wrote, I guess some of you know it, out of the ivory palaces into a world of woe, only his great eternal love made my Saviour go. My Lord has garments so wondrous fine, and so it goes on. It's a very, very beautiful hymn. He came out of the ivory palaces into a world of woe. I think it was the son of the Marashal that wrote that lovely hymn, Down From His Glory, Ever-Living Story. How many of you know that? It goes to the tune O So Mio. Down from his glory, ever-living story, my Lord and Saviour came, and Jesus was his name. Born in a manger to his own estranger, a man of sorrows. Now I'm out on a limb, I don't know. A man of sorrows, tears and agony. O how I love him, how I adore him. My breath, my sunshine, my all in all. The great Creator became my Saviour, and all God's fullness dwelleth in him. By faith, Moses, when he would come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction. If you go back to that 7th chapter in Acts, that 23rd verse again, when he was full 40 years old, it came to his heart to visit his brethren. But notice the verse before that. He had been 40 years studying in the universities of Egypt. He was versed in foreign languages. He was mighty in word and in deed, the Scripture says. Well he wasn't an orator. He wasn't a mighty orator because he stammered, didn't he? Had to get somebody to do his speaking for him. But he was mighty in word. In other words, he was a statesman. He was mighty in word and in deeds. When he was full 40 years old, it came into his heart. Now if you go back to the Old Testament and read it, it says it came into his heart. Now this is why he got into trouble. The Lord didn't send him, it came into his heart. But if you read there in Exodus, it says that he looked this way and he looked that way, to see there was no one around. But he forgot to look up. 40 years studying in the universities. Studying, I'm sure, astrology, languages, what have you. You know we think we're pretty smart, but nobody's yet fathomed how the pyramids were put together. We can get a man on the moon, but we can't make pyramids like they made. You can't get a sheet of paper and put it between those slabs of stone on the pyramids. They've been there all these years, they've weathered storms and every kind of thing. As a testimony, I think again, to the brilliance of the men who built them. If you were to take the different runs on the pyramid, when it goes to a peak, if you ran those, what do you call them now, if you made a projection, they went up, you'd find each of them went to a star or a planet. And I believe that's how the Egyptians studied astrology. How did the pyramids get there? Now you'll think I'm nutty, you've already said that, so I excuse you. Didn't I believe? Those stones that nobody can weigh and nobody can move, do you know who put them there? The time when there were giants in the earth. I believe those giants lifted them up and put them there, as easy as that. Supernatural power isn't all Christian or Old Testament stuff, there's a supernatural power of demons too. Maybe Moses did his homework sitting at the base of the pyramids, I don't know. Verse 25 says, he supposed his brethren would have understood how that by God would deliver them out, how that God would by his hand deliver them out of, and they understood not. You know, he got quite a task. If he was going to wipe out the Egyptians, he was going to have a big job, wasn't he? Killing them one at a time, he'd still be at it and not finish the job. But the Lord put, they had a big baptismal service, the Egyptians, the Lord got rid of them all. All due respect to the Baptists here. But the Lord did that, didn't he? Moses so liked Jesus, he chose to suffer. What did he suffer? Well, when he fled from the royal palace, like Jesus came out of the ivory palaces, Moses comes out of a palace. It's not a rags to riches, it's robes to rags. He comes out of that palace. To me, it is a classic example again of abandonment. He abandoned everything. Go down to verse, in that seventh chapter again, and go down into verse 29. Then fled Moses at this saying, and was estranged in the land of Midian, where he begat two sons. Now he fled into the wilderness. He left behind him his food. He left his royal apparel. It's not a case of rags to riches, it's a case of riches to rags. How long do you think that royal robe lasted him? I don't think he stopped to change his clothes when Pharaoh had put a sentence of death on him. He fled for his life out of the place. He left behind every treasure that he had. Left his parents, left his people, left his nation. Add them all up and find out how much he left. OK, 29. Then fled Moses at this saying, and was estranged in the land of Midian, where he begat two sons. And when forty years were expired, there you've got another forty. He had forty years in the universities, with the greatest scholars in the world, and I believe he was the most brilliant scholar in the class. He learned more the second forty years, he lived with his mother-in-law. When the forty years were expired. Oh, we can't rush over that. What did he do for forty years in the wilderness? What was his anchor? He must have been tempted of the devil. Remember Jesus had a temptation, not for forty years, but forty days in the wilderness. Moses had a sermon on the mountain just like Jesus did. In fact, when he was coming down the mountain, he dropped his textbook and broke two of the tablets. Somebody said, if we all took those tablets, we wouldn't need the other ones. What was he doing for forty years? You know, so often we give credit to David as a psalmist. What about Moses? He was a psalmist. Do you know what I think he was doing for forty years? You may disagree, if you do, you'll be wrong of course, but... I think for those forty years, God was drying him out, getting rid of all his self-confidence and his natural knowledge. And all his psychology and all his abilities, that stuff you pay a lot of money in college to get, and it's no good when you can't get out anyhow. You know a simple definition? Psychology is something that nobody understands, nobody fully understands, but the mother in the house is the best psychologist in the world I think. Forty years doing what? Until a year or two ago, the most popular hymn in the nation was, How Great Thou Art. Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder. I believe like David, he sat on the rocks and he contemplated the majesty of God. When I consider thy heaven, the sun, the moon, which thou hast ordained. What is man without mindful of him? I think again, he was unlearning all the stuff that he had learned there in Egypt. When he was forty years, the forty years expired, there appeared unto him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, the angel of the Lord in a flame and fire, in the Lord in a flame of fire, in a bush. When forty years were expired, there appeared to him, where were Aaron and her? Where were his two sons? I believe the greatest revelations of God you'll ever get will be when you're by yourself. We're living at a fast pace, we talk about getting in the fast lane. To where? For what? I say there are three classic examples of abandonment. One is Jesus leaving the Father's throne, leaving the worship of angels and all the glory of heaven, and coming down to this rotten world that we have here. The other is this mighty man Moses, leaving everything behind him, his scholarship. Do you think it was easy to leave it? What was he doing for forty years? What did he eat? What did he drink? Don't you think the devil said, well you've had nothing but mutton now for the last fifteen years. Mutton burgers every morning, mutton burgers every afternoon, every evening. Do you know what they're eating in the palace, the royal palace tonight? And look at your garment all torn. Moses, remember he used to be the head of the parade when foreign kings came, you sat between the king and the princess? Remember those lavish banquets? And his knife begins to water and to drool, and what a fool you are. Why did you leave it on? People say he ran away, he ran away because he was running away from responsibility. Exactly the opposite, he was running to it. He was running from extravagance to exile. He was running from a royal palace. He was running away from fame to greater fame. There's one script I'll ask him about when I see him. I'm going to meet him personally before too long, you know, so I've got a question. It says there in Hebrews 13, he esteemed the reproach of Christ. Now look, get it straight, not reproach for Christ, reproach is of Christ. Everything that happened in the life of Jesus happened in his life. Jesus suffered without the gate, he suffered without the gate. The brother and sister of Moses said, who does he think he is? He had opposition in his own family. Jesus had his brothers, said he was mad. People murmured against Jesus, they complained all the time. Children of Israel complained all the time about Moses. What anchored him to that stability that he had for 40 years? Now if you think that's not long, if you're not working tomorrow, I suggest for a change, you find a room, or if it's not raining, get under some big tree, and sit there for 40 hours. Don't talk to a single person, don't eat, don't drink. Bless you, some of us can't sit still 40 minutes, we turn TV or radio on. If that's not enough, you get in your car and listen to Bing Bang Bong all the way on the road. I don't wonder that we take more pills for headaches in America than anybody else in the world. One thing those women for years, the older women, have sat on their hair dryers till their brains were boiled. Now you young people have got blow dryers or something, you should count your blessings. The greatest test, the test of loneliness. Moses was 40 years in the wilderness, Jesus was 40 years in the, 40 days in the wilderness. Tempted of the devil, in every aspect as a man. Tempted sexually, tempted every way. You know how valuable worship is? If you don't know, let me tell you in a sentence. Worship is so valuable, the devil says, if you'll just kneel down once, you see as soon as you kneel, you acknowledge the other person's superiority. You just bow before me once, I'll give you the kingdom of the world. Now look, don't you get upset if the Lord starts using the devil in your life to make you a saint. Oh, I thought you always resisted him. Well, I used to. Peter's going down the road and Jesus meets him and Jesus says, Peter, when you get down the road, round the corner, Satan's going to jump on your light, but don't worry, I told him, go back to hell and leave my darling boy alone. That's in the reverse version. What did he say? He says, go, I have prayed for thee. You need all this testing of Satan in your life. You're going to turn out better for all the beatings, all the upset. You'll cleave to me more than ever you've done in your life, once he takes his leprous hands off you. Once you feel that he's got you backed up into a corner. You know, we want everything serving out on a plate, don't we? Have you read the four laws, or the 24, whatever they are? Solve all your problems. He was 40 years in the wilderness. He pursued for Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king. And he endured as seeing him who is invisible. There were two things, if you go back into Exodus and read it. One is, hear the voice of the Lord. And here somewhere he had a revelation. Where did he have it? I don't know. But he had a preview of Jesus Christ, more than 2,000 years before Jesus came on the face of the earth. He pursued, not fearing the wrath of the king. What did he go to? He had this amazing vision? No. Well, how do you know that? Because it says at the beginning of the verse, by faith. The thing that kept him stabilized in all the drifting thinking that he did, on the backside of the desert. It's not down on the caravan route, where you can see people going past and say, well how are things in Cairo? Or how are things somewhere else? Or what's the latest news? He's on the backside of the desert, the unapproachable area. He can see nothing but sand kicked up in the air, now and again. He can hear nothing but the birds calling. And there he is on the backside of the desert. What kept him stabilized? I don't know. At least I looked in all the books today and nobody told me, so I made it up myself. So you know it's right. I believe the thing that stabilized him was his mother's faith, his mother's tuition, and his mother's prayers. Plus his father. They don't get any congratulations much, do they? Do you remember their names? What were their names? I guess you won't call your children by their names. Amram and Jokabed. Wouldn't you like to go to school and say, what's your name? Jokabed. I didn't ask you when you get out of bed, I asked you what your name is. Wouldn't be terrible, you'd peel a martyr, wouldn't you, having names like that? She saw he was a proper child. He's either going to be an auctioneer or something. He's so noisy they had to hide him. Again she makes a little thing like this, a basket. Puts a lid on it so the sun won't scorch him. Pushes it out on the water. Isn't that faith? What does faith do? Fundamentally faith does this in every life. Faith reckons, first of all that God is. And faith risks, I can't get the three, what were the three, I've said them so often, faith reckons. Oh and then it rests, thank you dear. First, faith reckons that God is. He's everything he says he is. And if you want to know what he is, read Isaiah 40, as I've told you before, memorize the thing. The whole chapter declares the majesty of God. But he counts the stars, not only that, he knows all their names. And there are trillions of them. Faith reckons that God is. He's all he says he is. That he's able to save, that he's able to keep you from falling, he's able to prevent you from faultless, faultless before his fault. He's able to save to the uttermost. Faith reckons, she reckons God's as good as his words. So she makes this little basket and pushes him out on the Nile. Isn't that a risk? Good night, she hardly turned her back, a crocodile could have swallowed him. The wind could have blown the little roof off the little thing that she made, and the child would have been barbecued. Before she got off the banks of the river, the child could have been stolen. There's a dozen different ways, but she says God is, God has told me God is. Faith says God is, it reckons on God. But it's a risk in the eyes of the world. She risked it, she reckoned God is, she took the risk, and she rested. Read Hebrews 4 about rest. There remaineth a rest for the people of God. I want to go back to this a minute here. When he was 40 years of old, there appeared unto him in the wilderness. No, 40 years after, so he's 80 years of age. So cheer up David, you may be called yet to be a prophet. 80 years of age when God takes him up. It's all about too old at 40. 40 years of age, from scholarship in the universities, ready to go anywhere, ready to be a king, ready to be a lawyer, ready to be a senator as we would say, ready to rule a nation. And God cuts the middle out of his life. From 40 to 80. His prime time on the back of a desert looking after stinking sheep. Never getting a decent meal. Walking up those hills till his ankles were sore with the scrubbing on the side of the trees, or the side of the scrubbing, shrubbery. When I went to college, I've got to tell you, I went, it's because you'll never guess, but I went to college for six months anyhow. And it was great. I wouldn't for a minute forget any minutes that I had there. A preacher offered, he was selling his library, he said, you send me 15 cents, I'll send you three books. Tell me what types of books. I said, I want a book on prayer, I want a book on holiness, and I want a book on the same coming. My parcel came, I opened it, there was a book, not quite as large as this, in brilliant red cover and gold letters on it. And it said, Power Through Prayer by E.M. Bounds. That was the first time I'd heard of him. We had no sport at our school. No fooling around. We had no women there, that's why they used to say they're too distracting. So we only had men at the school. Like a monastery, but it was wonderful. When I got that book, I said, I'm going upstairs at lunchtime, we could go for half an hour, that's all. And I'm going to spend this week, I'm going to go through this book. And do you know why I didn't? The book went through me. That was my first debt to America. The second one was, a preacher that came to the church gave me an abridged life of David Brainerd. I'll tell you what it did. I lived on the edge of Sherwood Forest. When I was only in my teens, I wanted to be a David Brainerd, so I went in the forest and prayed at night. Got up Sunday morning before anybody else got up and walked over the golf course and walked into the forest and prayed. Those two books literally changed my life. When he was 40 years of age, there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire. Do you think he ever forgot that? I'm trying to think of a scripture here, I think it's Exodus 40. In this verse it says, when the 40 years were expired, there appeared unto him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in the bush. And when Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight. And as he drew near, behold, there was a voice. First he saw it, vision. Secondly he heard a voice, saying, I am the God of thy fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, of Jacob, and Moses trembling, doth not behold. Go down into Leviticus, pardon me, go down there into Exodus chapter 40 please, the last chapter. Exodus chapter 40 and verse 35. Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon. What abode on it? A pillar of fire by night. What's the last verse in the 12th chapter of Hebrews? Our God is a consuming fire. Whatever else this man Moses forgot, do you ever forget, do you think he ever forgot the time he stood before that burning bush, and it wasn't consumed? He kicked his shoes off his feet, and from the midst of the fire came the voice of God? But you see he had to get into the loneliness before God would speak to him that way. He's had another 40 years, and there appeared unto him in the wilderness of Sinai an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in the bush. What was he doing that 40 years in the wilderness? I believe God was revealing to him so many mysteries, preparing him to write the first five books of the Bible, preparing him to write some of the amazing Psalms that he wrote. We don't usually put Moses amongst the great heroes. But you see God only has one treatment to get great men, and that's loneliness. If I had a Bible school I'd let you come here for whatever period it is, like they do at Bethany Fellowship. You go there for two years, then you have a year off, you work it out. I would send everybody away for six months into quietness. Oh Lord my God and I know someone to consider. Consider? What does that mean? It means meditation, it means contemplation, it means concentration. We're so distracted on every level in seeing and hearing all the time. There are things pulling at us every moment. Brother Dave Wilkinson is away this week in his new office there for a whole week. He's not seeing anyone, he's just attending to write. I think that Melody is down in town doing the same thing. This man is shut up with God. What came out of this period? Again five books, Psalms. The Lord Jesus shut away for forty days in the wilderness. If the Son of God needs it, don't I need it? Who else was shut away? Well a man by the name of Paul shut up in a stinking prison that you wouldn't let a dog live in today. What did he produce? He produced his epistles to the Philippians and Ephesians and Colossians. Where? From silence, from stillness, from being cut off from fellowship. If you like, in splendid isolation. Here's another man, he's going to produce one of the greatest things ever written, even in the Bible. His name is John. Where is he? If you've gone to church at Ephesus and you say, I want to hear your famous preacher, you say he isn't here, he's over there. You see that little island sticking out of the tree? He's there on the Isle of Patmos. It's a criminal island. All the garbage is there. He's outside the gate again. He's cut off from communion. He's cut off from everybody else. And there he is on the Isle of Patmos. You go up to say, John I, oh I'm sorry to see you're here in the Isle of Patmos. He says, I'm not in the Isle of Patmos. Where are you? He says, I'm in the Spirit. Was it Madam Guillaume or was it Faber that talks, writes so much alike? Could I be cast where thou art not? That were indeed a dreadful spot. But with thee my God to guide the way, it is equal joy to go or stay. There is no loneliness where God is. It struck me the other day we were riding out with some friends and it struck me suddenly, I was going to say awesomely, almost terribly, that the most awesome place in the world Golgotha is now a tourist attraction. How in God's name could it be that? And it's Christians that go and gaze at it. They don't want to get on the cross. They want to go see where it was. We don't get anything by going touring Israel anyhow. This man has this revelation of God. Our God is a consuming fire. Look at this 35th verse, it blows me away, you young people would say. But I'm a bit more substantial, I don't blow away easily. Exodus 40 verse 35, And Moses was not able to enter into the tabernacle of the congregation. Because of what? The glory of God abode there. Do you remember that when they finished that temple of Solomon's, one of the most lavish buildings ever put up in the history of the world, most expensive building ever? But he said it's no good, you may as well turn it into a stable. We've got all the gold, we've got all the accoutrements that we need, but something missing. We've got an altar. All we need is the presence of God. What did he do? He prayed and what happened? The fire fell. Again my cliche, which I'm not ashamed to use often. Do you know why the world is going to hell fire tonight? Because the church has lost Holy Ghost fire. The symbol of the church of Jesus Christ is not a cross, that's Roman, and brutal, and heathen. The symbol of the church of Jesus Christ is a tongue of fire that sat upon the head of each of them there in that upper room. And until that tongue of fire returns, not visibly, but that same anointing of fire, power, eternal fire of God, indestructible fire, measureless fire, until it returns to the church, you can have all the organization you like. Build your castles, your religious castles, have your fun. You know the tragedy of this day, that the church today is pursuing happiness, not holiness. A young man choking up called me yesterday from the other side of the nation. Mr. Raymier, he said, could you come out to us? I said, I'm afraid I can't. He said, you know, we're having regular banquets, and breakfasts, and feasts, but all we hear is prosperity, prosperity, name it and claim it. I'm sick of it. We need something about revival and holiness. You know what Moses did? He saw there was a need. What did he do? He went and tried to deliver them. So forget the idea that the need is the call, that's what he did, and got into trouble. He didn't hear the voice of God. He felt in his heart he should go. He was working out his emotions. I would go sometimes to a, when I was a youngster there, in England, I would go to a missionary conference. I had some great missionaries. I heard Padgett Wilkes, the founder of the Japan Rescue Mission. I heard the founder of the Japan Evangelistic Band. I remember a bit later hearing two ladies, and I forget their names now. Oh, they've slipped from my mind. That was in the 1930s when they, these two ladies came out of China, walked right through the Mongolian desert, walked, Marcus, unless occasionally they could ride on a beast, walked through one of the most plague-infested areas of the world, Mildred Cable and Miss French. I remember looking at those ladies, their lovely pink feet, whitish hair. Up in their 60s, they'd gone through death every day like the Apostle Paul. Suffering, hardship, threatened with rape, threatened with everything you can imagine. And they walked right through the Gobi Desert, unless they could ride on an old horse-drawn truck kind of thing. Somebody asked them why they, what are you going to do now? Go back. Why? The young lady didn't feel comfortable and went and answered him, because you're not going. Abandonment. Isn't it easy to sit here and stand here and sing in a lovely atmosphere, all to Jesus I surrender, all to him I freely give. Maybe keeping your hand on your wallet while you're singing. Well, the whole realm of nature, man, forget it, you'll never own the whole realm of nature. Give me what you've got and prove it. You think God's moved by our sentiment? All he'll do if you sing that tonight is put it down and judge you at the judgment seat and judge me for it. J. Duncan Campbell used to say that the fundamental, how do you put it now, I can't think of his word, the fundamental feature, put it that way, of the Christian side to praying at the turn of the year. I was telling God I wanted to take him at his word. Still he said, I want to take you at your word too. Supposing the Lord took me at my word every time I utter a word, what would happen? Be pretty serious. If you go to England, if you go to Manchester area, you'll see some of those big double-decker buses. In London usually they're red. I think up in Manchester they're green. At the front they have a kind of a shamrock emblem. And thinking of the name of the man, I think his name was George Crossley. He lived in one of the loveliest cities in England, a city of Chester. All the cities in England with Chester at the end means that the Romans founded them. Manchester, Chichester and so forth. He lived in Chester. Had a magnificent home. Drove to his business every day in a carriage with two gorgeous horses. Everybody saluted him, acknowledged him. He was a kind of a ruler in that area. And he was a very, very good Christian. One day he was telling the Lord how much he loved him. I'd be willing to go outside the gate for you, the Lord said. Go. Sell your mansion. Go live in a slum called Amcote's in Manchester. He went to Manchester. Sold his magnificent mansion. Got rid of a tribe of servants. Cut his living down as far as he could. What did he do? Well, there was not much help for the poor. He built a hospital and charged no one any fees for going there. And the poor people crowded. And aside he built a huge auditorium. He called it Star Hall. He was the first Englishman as far as I know of in this century to import, if you want to use that word, some of the great preachers of America. Like G.D. Watson, who wrote so many wonderful books on holiness. A whole stream of people like that. He had a yearly conference. He paid all their fares over. There was a move of revival in that poverty-stricken area. He heard the voice of God. I love a great American hymn. My faith looks up to thee, thou Lamb of Calvary, Saviour Divine. Now hear me while I pray. Take all my guilt away or let me from this day be holy thine. May thy rich grace impart strength to my fainting heart, my zeal inspire. Now here's a tough part. As thou hast died for me, so may my love to thee, pure, warm and changeless be a living fire. Love without sacrifice is not love. Whether it's in the physical element or it's in the spiritual element. How many millions of books do you think we have on the Holy Spirit in the nation? How many millions of books have we on prayer? We're all stuffed up intellectually. We all have Bible knowledge. How is it working out? The supreme need that we have tonight surely is the fire of God. Moses made a supreme offering. Friends and time and earthly store. Renounced nationality, renounced his family, forgot all the privileges. I don't read that God laid the map out for him and said these are all the stops in your life. But he made one supreme surrender and therefore he was ready for anything. There's going to be a payday one day. We're going to stand before this God who is a consuming fire. Have you ever wondered if you look ridiculous when you stand there by yourself? You can't lean on your husband or your wife or your pastor or a friend or somebody that you've always kind of adored. You're standing there with a thousand million eyes on you and God goes through your record and sees all these vows you made and you never kept them. I could have invested your life in that area. You went miserably after the things of this world. The tragedy of the church as far as I see, I get into trouble for saying it but I'll say it. The people in the church are as mesmerized with wealth as the world outside. My mother used to gather a lot of aphorisms. One was, remember Len, that money is a good servant but a bad master. You can be sure of this, the heart of Moses was as pure as a heart could be in that day. Otherwise he'd have stayed there. He could have fulfilled all his ambitions, the dreams of any man to be a ruler of the universe, of the world, to live in splendor, to have servants, to have everything else. But my richest gain I count but loss. But I'll tell you what, there's going to be something in that day in heaven. Why? They're going to sing. What are they going to sing, the Hallelujah Chorus? Oh, I don't know. I think they will. But I can tell you the name of one man that already has sent the manuscript up there. They're going to sing his song. Who is he? Moses. Revelation 15 says they'll sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb. You see, God doesn't begin to unveil himself to Moses until after he has seen God in the burning bush. And I don't believe he does that for anyone either. Until we've been to that place and got a full revelation of the holiness and majesty of God. When Moses saw the burning bush he wondered at the sight and he drew near and behold a voice in the middle of the thing said, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. And Moses trembled and thus not behold. Do you think he ever forgot that? He had obeyed God up to this point. Now God reveals himself. Oh, he couldn't reveal himself further because you remember after the miracles when I would think he'd seen everything. He says, show me thy glory. I'm longing to go to the sanctuary where nobody dare preach or speak or stand up and say a word of any kind. We're all overwhelmed with the majesty of God. We don't do that. As I ask people so often, did you come here tonight to meet God or hear about him? If we're honest, we didn't come here, we didn't want him to take our hearts out and show us the carnality and the envy and the pride and the covetousness and our reaching after worldly things. We want him to whisper to us sweetly. I believe the supreme test in our Christian life, if it's not thee, it's one of the supreme tests, is to be left alone. I challenge you to go live alone. I challenge you to go for 40 hours alone. Take no one with you. Take your Bible. Wait on God. Take no music. Shut yourself up and say, Lord, of any price, I want to hear your voice. Wasn't it Bonhoeffer who wrote a book, The Cost of Discipleship? We've got a very pleasant Pentecost today, haven't we? All it means is you get filled with the Spirit and go to a lot of banquets and prosper. It's the very reverse of the Scripture. After Pentecost, what they got? They got prisons, pain, persecution, privations. Were they blessing the Lord because we've prospered? No, they were in jail and they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for his name's sake. That's a reverse in our theology. Moses takes all that comes to him, like Jesus. Read Isaiah 53, and all that came to Jesus seemed to come to Moses. Go back into the 50th chapter where it says he gave his back to the smiters. As I said last week, it's not easy to go outside the camp. It's not easy to be rejected by your family. This week somebody again asked me, what do we do in our church? It's so dry, so lifeless. Oh, we say the right things. We have the right language. The pastor isn't a liberal, but there's no breathing of God. There's no revelation of God. There's no anointing of God. There's no confrontation of God with God. Moses was fortunate, I think, that he had that revelation of the glory of God. But he still isn't satisfied. Later he says, show me thy glory. I think I'd seen the glory. If I saw God part the waters of the Red Sea, mercy, I wouldn't come down to earth again, I don't think. If I saw him deliver again and again and again as he did. We're so happy with small things. J.B. Phillips wrote a book 30 years ago, Your God is Too Small. That's why the world doesn't want it. We're so happy, we're so contented with little things. I believe in miracles, but I don't get too excited about them anymore. I believe they'll be restored fully in the church. But the trouble is we get content with those kind of things. We get content with blessings. We get content with fellowship. The Apostle John said what? Our fellowship is what? With the Father, with his Son Jesus Christ, and with one another. But we have made fellowship with one another a substitute for the fellowship with the Father. How many times have you gone to church and there's been fellowship with nice people, but you never felt the touch of God on your spirit? If there's no fellowship with the Father, we have no real life. We have to make choices. I think the supreme privilege of a human being is that we make choices. He chose to suffer. Isn't it ridiculous? Why step out of security at King's Palace and go live like a tramp? Why not wear beautifully perfumed clothes, and gorgeous oriental clothes, and gorgeous gold things? Why not? Because he saw something greater. Because he heard a voice speaking to him. Because he saw, I don't know how, he saw a vision of Pharaoh, and he would rather suffer affliction with the children of God than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. After all, they're so seasonable. They perish, they dry up. But at his right hand there's pleasure forevermore. There's no termination. And remember again that entertainment is not joy. Entertainment is a devil's substitute for joy. That's why we've more entertainment than ever on TV and what have you got. I'm convinced of this, the more spiritual you are, the less TV you watch anyhow. The more you hear the voice of God, the less we hear the voice of people. What a day it's going to be, you know. I try and imagine that gorgeous day when Jesus sits on the throne handing out the rewards. Five possible crowns for all of us. Don't know how many we'll get. Don't you think the awful applause will sound like a million thunderstorms when Paul goes up for his reward? Do you think that when Paul was sitting in that smelly, stinking hole there, did he ever dream that today maybe a billion people have read some of his writings? Do you think that Moses, one day when he sat down, washed up and felt, Oh, brother, it's been a rotten day. Maybe he never said that. Do you think he ever thought that one day in eternity there'll be millions of voices and an orchestra of 144 harps singing the song of Moses and of the Lamb? What about the applause when he goes up? And people say, Oh, I'm glad you wrote those first five books. You see, the devil wants to blind our eyes to the possibilities of grace. It's stupid. You can be a good Christian and do this, go make a fortune, do it, as long as you make it for God. Make it for yourself, you'll light the world with it. Every dime you have, God trusted you with it. If you have a more brilliant brain than someone else, God trusted you with it. If you have more talents, as we say. We say, that girl's got talent. No, no, forget it. Talents in the scripture are always related to money, never to our abilities. God doesn't say Abraham had talents, or Moses had talents, or Paul had talents. Talents were either talents of silver, talents of gold. We do have gifts for which we're responsible. And again, this man does not consider it. He esteemed the reproach of Christ, not for Christ, but of Christ. The very things Christ went through, he was willing to go through. He went through them. Cast out from his people, cast out from his church, cast out from his family. Hardship all the way. That's the only way God makes sense. The hardest thing is to be alone. I'll give you three classic examples here. Think about them. Out of the loneliness of that man. Come on, get up, what are you doing, Paul? You've been here two years, go out on a healing crusade. Come on, there are people who are sick, you raise the dead even. You cast out demons, go do your thing. You can get money. Isn't it great to know when God says no? No, I'm not going to go because God won't let me go. What are you doing here on the Isle of Thutmose, John? I mean, you have a ministry. You've already written a gospel that's the most precious thing on earth today. Why didn't you get up and go? More than once, Dr. Tozer would say to me, Brother Len, remember this. In this generation particularly, Christians are all activists. Do you know one way to wither in your spirit? Now, you'll race me out of the place for saying this, maybe, but OK. Run to every special meeting you hear of. When did you last give an hour or two to God? Why do you run at the feet of every man and listen? If you're not listening to God, you're robbing God. Maybe you wanted to speak to Him three years ago. You said, oh, we're going down to some big meeting. Some big shot's going to speak and we can buy one of his books and wonder of wonder he'll autograph it for us. And God never wanted you there at all. You wanted to go. Moses, in his heart, said, I'll deliver the man. God never sent him, so he got into trouble. I believe we should have fellowship with God's people, sure enough. You know, some people are always living for a big event. Oh, two months we're going to so-and-so, after that we're going to so-and-so. That's childish. Do you remember when you used to live for Christmas and after that your birthday and after that something else? Event, event, event, event. You jump from the top of the tree to the top of the next, never come down to earth. Well, aren't we to be joyful? Yes. But do you know there must be another verse that says, Be still and know that I am God. How still are we? They that wait upon the Lord. Not wait upon famous preachers. I think the churches, many denominations are just crippled with famous preachers. We're chasing them, listening to them, tuning in to them when we should be listening to God. God is waiting for people to give him an ear. You say God doesn't speak to you, he doesn't get the chance. Do you think he's going to bawl into your car when you've got that noisy thing going all the time? Or he's going to yell to you when you get a bus to go to some big meeting in Dallas? He's a jealous God, he's a lover. He wants you by yourself. See how many of these men were alone when God revealed himself to them? There's a price to pay. Moses chose deliberately to suffer with the children of God rather than enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season. All these perishing things of clay that A.V. Simpson used to talk about, born but for one brief day. I don't know what you feel like when you look at a crowd like this. The potential is here to go and stir nations. There's more than 120 here tonight, there were 120. We're depending on TV to do it, forget it, we'll never do it. One boy's always saying on TV, this is God's method to reach the nations and folk can't even afford a shirt in other countries, never mind the TV set. We don't know how many hundreds of thousands of people up the Amazon, they'd never even, say, see a plane go over and wonder what kind of bird it is. Seen those people in Africa lying in the gutter, lying in the dust, lying in the filth. You know, I believe if God showed us a picture of the church as he sees it, it would be like that bunch, skeletons, paralyzed, weak, powerless. Only God can breathe on these things. We're never going to organize revival. Agonizing, yes, organizing, no. If preaching could do it, we'd have preached the world into the kingdom come by now. No. God is demanding our lives, our soul, our all, our complete attention given to him, so he can take it and use it and do as he likes with it. Well, I didn't get what I wanted to tonight, but anyhow. Give me that chair, please. I'm going to ask you to spend a little time in prayer. I don't know whether you dare say... Remember, again, Moses looked that way, it says, and he looked the other way. He forgot to look that way. I wonder if we pray, dare you? I'm not daring you to do it in the elderly sense of the word. Do you think you dare not just make a commitment, which you make so often? Dare you say, Lord, I abandon everything? All I have, all I am, all I hope to be? If need be, I'll abandon my nation and go to some other nation. If need be, I'll leave friends and time and earthly stuff, and I'll give you my body and my mind and everything there is about me to do the will of God. Let's pray for some of the great needs that there are. These are the countries. Our friend returned from India a few weeks ago. Apparently, there was a great deal of persecution to the Christian preachers in Nepal. You know, we live in easy street. I don't know how much longer. Israel wouldn't go. God drove them out by hornets. Maybe He'll do that with us before long. He's going to glorify His Son however He does it. So let's pray for these needy nations, and if you have a need, pray for your own need before we close.