This sermon focuses on spiritual maturity and the importance of growing in faith, highlighting the need to move from being spiritual infants to mature believers who can handle deeper truths of the faith. It emphasizes the dangers of remaining stagnant in one's faith and the consequences of spiritual immaturity, urging listeners to seek the anointing of the Holy Spirit and surrender all aspects of their lives to God.

Let's read some verses from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 3, and reading from verse 1. First Corinthians, chapter 3, reading from verse 1, And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto ye were not able to bear it. Neither yet now are ye able, for ye are yet carnal. For whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos. Are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul? And who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed? Even as the Lord gave to every man. I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. One of the most forgotten men in the church, at least amongst the so-called great men, was a man by the name of Henry Varley. He was a great preacher, and on one occasion he shot out a statement which has become a kind of classic in the vocabulary of preachers. He said, the world is yet to see what God can do through one man who is totally committed to Jesus Christ. Well, it was a kind of a narrow shot at a venture, but in the audience there was a young man, he wasn't very learned, his education was almost zero, but he kind of caught that thought as it went past. No man, the world has not yet seen a man who is 100% committed to Jesus Christ. And so he said under his breath, well, by the grace of God I'll be that man. All he did was sell shoes in a store there in Chicago. And some of you know him, I'm sure, his name was D.L. Moody. You know, when I think of that, I always take issue with it because I'm quite sure that that was not a true statement. The world is yet to see, are you suggesting God had had to wait 2,000 years, that Jesus had to find a man that he could totally inhabit because all self and sin had been purged out of him, and his will had been surrendered, and his personality, he was a love slave to God? Well, I write at the beginning of history, Christian history, there was a man who was so totally sold out to God that I don't think I've ever seen his like since. You remember his story begins, as far as we're concerned, going down the Damascus Road. And in the 26th Acts where he gives his testimony before Agrippa, he doesn't cover the blemishes, he doesn't try to minimize the wicked zeal that he has, he doesn't say, I'm sorry, I'm trembling and blushing that I have to admit that I was a murderer, he says, I went down that road and I was going to exterminate the whole church of Jesus Christ. Being exceedingly mad, he says, not just mad, he was blazing with anger. To think that some people were following a man who died on a cross, to think they wouldn't go to the temple and offer sacrifices, and regard the high priest, and go through all the different and very wonderful things on the calendar of the church, of their church. But going down that Damascus Road, God got hold of that murderer and made him a messenger. He got hold of the persecutor and made him the greatest preacher ever. He got hold of the executor and made him the greatest expounder of the gospel that the world has ever seen. He says, giving his own testimony, that when he went down that Damascus Road, that the Lord appeared unto me. He revealed himself to me. But later he says, he revealed himself in me. He daringly says over and over, you remember Galatians 2.20, quote it so often, that I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. I believe that's the most awesome thing any man can say this side of eternity. Not that he walked on the moon. Not that it's in the who's who. The only who's who I'm insisted in, God's who's who. When we get up there, there'll be some shots I think. The greatest thing that could ever cross your lips is to stand and say to the world, the flesh, the devil, the in-laws and out-laws, Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, not when I shuffle off this mortal coil as Shakespeare says, but the life I now live in the flesh, surrounded with all the adversities and temptations and trials, and all the things that can come, and yet Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Paul has an amazing pedigree, he forgets it all. As he ends his letter to the Galatians, he says in the 14th verse of chapter 6, but God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified to me, and I am crucified to the world. Now there's a thing you and I have never seen. We have never seen the agonizing death of a man on a cross. Oh well, of course, in the days of the Romans it was a sport. Immediately a man was nailed to the cross, he lost all his rights. And if you ever get nailed to the cross, you'll lose all yours too. Immediately he was nailed on the cross and he was exalted, the people could do as they like. They could throw a bucket of filth on him, they could throw their rotten eggs, they could stone him, he had no rights. And before he died, his eyes would be gouged out, his ribs would be broken, blood would be dripping from him, and everybody got excited, particularly if it was a kind of a Barabbas who was there. He deserves all he gets, he's destroyed other people's lives, he's raped people, he's broken people's minds, and so they go on with the list of things that he'd done. And he should die a thousand deaths. But as soon as the bell tolled in the city, they didn't stay there. They went back into the city. At six o'clock they could see that bleeding victim. There was nobody there at six o'clock in the morning, on the arms of the cross were the vultures. They'd pick out the eyes, they'd tear the body, the blood would run out. Then the gods came out of Jerusalem and licked up the blood as they did the blood of Jezebel. Nobody wanted to photograph it, they didn't have photography, but nobody wanted to see it. A bloody spectacle. A man whose innards were hanging out. A man whose body is so distorted you could hardly tell it was a human frame. It had been lashed with rocks, it was covered with filth. It had only excrement and every other offensive thing. And Paul says, when I said goodbye to the world, I said goodbye to a filthy thing. The world is crucified to me. It's a filthy world, it's a corrupt world. But not only that, he says, I'm crucified to the world. People would say of the Apostle Paul, here's a man who's got acres of culture, he's got a colossal intellect. He'll be a greater high priest than Hillel or any other high priest you ever had in history. And the fool of a man, he's been so charmed with this Christianity that he's resigned all that he could have in the world. Yeah, it's easier for you and I to sing with Isaac Watts, were the whole realm of nature mine. I'm afraid we don't do it. Love's so amazing, so divine. This man had a revelation of God that I don't think anybody's had before or since. I'm quite sure he quoted with fervency, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. He sees the great expanse of the world. Why, look at this man's staggering life. He began his life in the historic capital of the world, Tarsus. He ended his life in the military capital of the world, Rome. He went to the intellectual capital of the world, in the 17th of Acts there. And they discovered this little undersized man. When they saw him they said his bodily presence is weak. And they discovered he had a staggering scintillating intellect. They quoted poetry, answered with poetry. They quoted philosophy, answered with philosophy. They quoted their history, he answered with their history. This man is all round, he's a fully developed man. And they're staggered by this amazing man. And then he came to a situation that the great Scottish preacher called some years ago. I'm trying to think of his name, it's James something. But anyhow, the years ago he said, they listened intently to Paul. They were staggered that this little Jew should know so much about Greek history, Greek philosophy. I'm sure he'd read Plato, all the other stuff. And then, as the great preacher says, he took the trumpet of the resurrection. He went down the street, and when he saw the street, it was lined with churches as we would say. It was lined with places of worship. Oh, this doesn't stagger too many of us, does it? We just go down the street and say there's a Roman Catholic church, that's Jehovah's Witnesses, that's the Mormons where the Hare Krishna meet there, and the Moonites meet there, and so on. Does it stir you that those people have been teaching false gods, and they rape people's minds just as a man might rape a girl's body? It says in the Sleepy Elizabethan English, that when he saw all these people, colossal intellects many of them, and yet they were tricked and duped by false religion. And it says in the Sleepy Elizabethan English that his spirit was stirred within him. I'm not very fond of the Amplified, except where it agrees with me. The Amplified doesn't say his spirit was stirred within him. He says that when he saw all these people tricked, seduced by deceiving spirits, he was angry about it. Do you ever feel a holy anger? We're dealing with 1 Corinthians chapter 3. I'm talking about, at the moment, we're talking about the 14th verse of the epistle to the Galatians where Paul says, God forbid that I should glory. No man ever had a pedigree greater than the apostle Paul. Of the tribe of Benjamin, of the seed of Abraham, he has everything going for him. Again, I say, I believe he had a colossal intellect. I think he had a very brilliant mind. He met the philosophers. I said he began his life in the ancient capital of the world, Tarsus. He went to the intellectual capital of the world, which was Athens, and he reasoned with them there. And yet, there is no epistle of Paul to the Athenians. Why? Well, I'm not going to criticize Paul. I'm just going to say this, he didn't talk about redemption, but he did say, and they couldn't believe it, he took the gospel trumpet to his lips. And he sounded the resurrection. You see, they did have an altar to an unknown God, and he said, that's the unknown God I declare to you. He made the heavens and the earth. His son died and rose again. And he was resurrected. And they showed him the gate. No, we can't listen to that kind of stuff. From there, he went from the intellectual capital of the world, and he'd been also later to go to the religious capital of the world, Jerusalem, but he steps down from the place where they worship the brain, to the place where they worship the body, Corinth. In the days of the apostle, you didn't have to string a hundred adjectives together about a man's corruption, and his licentiousness, and everything else. You just tagged him with one word, he's a Corinthian. And immediately, you knew he was the vilest of the vile. And the old German commentator, Meier, not F.B. Meier, he was English, but the other Meier, a German commentator, says this, Blessed and sublime miracle of God, that a church of Jesus Christ could be established in Corinth? Shakespeare said, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. God can do better than that. He can take the most depraved, despised, and rejected men, and make them saints to God. He says in the first of Samuel, that he lifts the beggar from the dunghill, and makes them princes unto God. I remember about 15 or 16 years ago, when I was working with Dave Wilkerson, in those days when David was hardly known, and yet we had a full house. This side of the prayer chapel was filled with girls, this with men, and a little fellow stood up, and he said, Brother Raven, he must come to preach for us. A little Puerto Rican fellow, his face was radiant, and he said, before he sang, we stand up and sing. Sing the national anthem. Oh, I thought, baloney, sing the national anthem right before I preach. I didn't get what he said, he didn't say sing the national anthem, he sang our national anthem, he said, we sing our national anthem. So I thought, the Puerto Ricans must have one. And he stood up there, and he started to sing, Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. It was grace that taught my, it was grace. And you know, before we got to the end, when we'd been there 10,000 years, he changed it to 10 million. It wasn't bad, 10 trillion would have been better, but he got there, and you know, there wasn't a dry eye, and those girls had been prostitutes, some of them had carried guns, everyone had been beat. The tears were flowing, they used to make other people weep, now they're weeping, why? Amazing grace. Sure, Paul loved the world, God so loved the world that he gave his only son. And then afterwards he writes to Ephesians, he not only loved the world and gave his son, he says, he loved me. But he says, Christ gave himself for the church. But greater than loving the world and loving the church, he says, do you know what he did? He loved me. Do you ever fall at his feet and say, thank you Lord for saving my soul, not our souls? Thank you for blotting out the horrible record of my sin. Some of you didn't have much. And it's true that those who have been saved from much, love much. You remember that brilliant king, he was mentioned this morning in Psalm 51. And in another Psalm he says what? He lifted me up out of a horrible pit. This hand was running with crime and this with adultery. And my history was rotten. And he's not asking, Lord, just kindly forgive my sins and I'll go about my business. He's not asking for some superficial knowledge that somehow the relationship is kind of restored and all is well. He goes further than that. He says, search me in Psalm 139 and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me. He says in that 51st Psalm, I want truth in the inward parts. Oh, that's cutting close, isn't it? Not just out of my mind and my conscience, but in the inward part. The central register of my being, that truth may be there. Paul finishes his letter to the Galatians. Oh, it's so beautiful. He doesn't have his tongue in his cheek and say, you know, I wonder if I've done the right thing. I could have had a good influence for God if I'd stayed in the old place and had a worldwide reputation. No, no, no, no, no. I like what he says at the end of the chapter there. I'm reading from the Living Bible, King James. And the 17th verse of the last chapter says this. I like it. Listen to his defiance. From henceforth let no man trouble me. I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. I think Moffat translates that. Henceforth let no man trouble me. I bear in my body the brands of Jesus Christ. Oh, they knew what he meant in the Temple of Heracles. In the days of slavery, a man would run away from his taskmaster, brutal taskmaster. And he would rush to the temple. They had priests there. They were on guard day and night. Often asleep, but anyhow, that's what preachers are. And you might have to wake the preacher up and you say, Oh, he says, have you escaped? Yes, I've escaped. Brand me, brand me. Well, choose the weapons, like we brand cattle here. Which guard do you want to be branded with? He chooses the stigmata. He chooses the mark, the brand of a certain guard. And he's branded on his hands. Can you imagine him putting his hand out, clenching his teeth, and that flesh sizzles when that hot iron goes on it? He slips down his toga if he was wearing one, and he's branded on the back of his neck. He lifts up his foot and he's branded on his instep. Paul says, don't trouble me. I'm branded. I bear the marks of a slave. I'm a bond slave of Jesus Christ. I've no will of my own. I've no rights of my own. There's an old hymn established on that very theme. Let my hands perform His bidding. Let my feet run in His ways. Let my eyes see Jesus only. Let my lips speak forth His praise. All for Jesus. All my being's ransom powers. All my thoughts and words and doings. All my days and all my hours. This man is no professional preacher. Preaching is not a profession, it's a passion. A man can't preach with passion, he shouldn't preach at all. Not a profession. A passion. There's no breath of professionalism anywhere in the ministry of Paul, and thank God there's no breath of commercialism either. Peter said in his day, there are some who will make merchandise of you. That couldn't be more true than the day in which we're living. I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. I bear here at the back of my neck a brand which tells you that this part of my being, my thinking, my philosophy is that of Jesus Christ, my teaching. My feet. Isn't it staggering how far this amazing man went? Look at his missionary journeys, without airplanes, without trains. God put something in him. The stupid world tried to get it out of him. God put something in him, and they lashed him 195 times, and they couldn't whip it out of him. And he hung on a piece of wood in the Mediterranean for 36 hours, and they couldn't wash it out of him. And they tried to threaten it out of him. But almighty God put something in there, you see. They were not trying to kill the apostle Paul, the idiots. They were trying to kill Jesus Christ. Because Christ lived in him. And he says, I don't know whether to desire and depart or be here, because it's not much better off up there, in one sense. I've still got Christ inside. He says his life is head with Christ in God. So you see this man moving, establishing churches. What an amazing thing. And I often say this to young preachers who ask me about preaching, and I don't know much about it. I've been trying to do it for about 60, or just over 60 years now. It's still a mystery, I think, as dear pastor said this morning. You see, some people have got everything out in one, two, three, four. If they have, I throw the book away. The older I get, the more I realize great is the mystery of godliness. Why isn't God brooding over our stained glass windows in America this morning? Why isn't he brooding on our super multi-million dollar TV and radio programs with all the flash and show they have? The greatest areas where God is breathing this morning is amongst people that are in poverty and in need. The revival in Nagaland, which is northeast India. I read a report a brother sent recently. He went expecting a finny-like revival. We think we're going to make a carbon copy and say, Lord, double it that way. Now, don't rock the boat. In the 11th of July in the Wall Street Journal, which I'm sure many of you take because of your interest, investments. But in the Wall Street Journal for the 11th of July, it says, I was going to bring the document and I forgot it, but it says there, an evangelical revival is moving over America just now, but it's having little effect. That's like saying there was an earthquake from California to New York last night, 8.6 on the Richter scale, but nobody felt it. You talk about the fullness of God. What Paul didn't know right after he was born again, after that miracle happened on the Damascus Road. I'm glad one man said to listen what God had to say that morning. He didn't just pray. He listened and God said, Ananias, get up and go to the street called Straighten. That's the house. Isn't it great to know that God knows your name and address? Postman may forget it, but God knows it. And he goes down and says to him, Brother Saul, that must have startled him. I mean, he was going to kill that man, and he goes and says, Brother Saul, the Lord has appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister. And you know, only God can make you a minister. Nobody else can do that. They may teach you a few things in Bible school, but they never make you a preacher. The Lord has appeared to thee. And then he disappears. He goes into the wilderness. God revealed himself in him. I hope you understand my language here. I believe in that period of three and a half years that Paul became spiritually pregnant. I believe the Spirit of God birthed all these epistles, which afterwards he would give birth to. I believe he birthed all those churches, because he writes afterwards, doesn't he, to the Galatians. And he says, little children, for whom I trouble in birth. You talk about out of him shall flow rivers of living water. Fourteen epistles if you give him Hebrews, and I think he wrote Hebrews as well. Fourteen matchless epistles. I remind you again, Christianity was not served up to the world on a silver platter. Christianity was served up, or it was born in a sophisticated totalitarian society. And yet Jesus never said anything about slavery. All these boys are rushing to Washington. They then put God's house right, but they want to put the White House right. The answer to our present moral and political and every other dilemma we have in the nation will not be solved in the Oval Room at the White House. It will be solved, if it's solved at all, in the Upper Room in God's house. The way the preachers are rushing to Washington, you'd think that the politicians were the salt of the earth. They're not. They can't put their own house in order, never mind us. God strictly forbid that Israel should go down to Egypt for help. And all these boys are rushing to the politicians. They want to get the Bible back in school. Well, I'm not too worried about that. I'd like to see the Bible back in every home. Then forget the school. Some of us want the school teacher to do what daddy and mommy should do. Do you wonder when he surveyed the wondrous cross? I think we slip over that way. You ever see a surveyor on the road? You know how meticulous he is? He gets that, well, there are many names for it. Let's call it a telescope. He gets it, then he looks, and they wave to each other, and he goes this way or that. Oh, a man's very, very careful when he does a surveying job. No man surveyed a cross, the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, like the Apostle Paul. My richest gain I count but loss. Yes, sir, he did it. Over and over and over again. After all, if you lay the cross on the ground, it points north, south, east and west. It has a message for the whole world. If you stand it up, it points to a topless heaven and a bottomless hell. And the arms, as Charles Wesley said, the arms of love that compass me would all mankind embrace. Paul has no fear. Do you know what he did? I would, to God, some of you fellows would do it. Do you know what he once did? He said, I bowed the knee to the Father, and because he bowed the knee to the Father, he never bowed the knee to anybody else. Neither demons, nor politicians, nor kings. He stood there, regal. Isn't it something that there's a man there, swarm of, in his gorgeous robes and his beautiful rings, and all society gasping when Felix walks in? And before he finished, Felix's knees were knocking together. It says, Felix trembled. He goes to one of the most distinguished men of the day, and what does he say? You almost persuade me to be a Christian. I'm on the very verge of it. Paul says, I would to God that you are even as I am, except for these chains. Isn't that lovely? He has his chains on. The difference between Paul and the man on the throne, the man on the throne had chains, but they were on the inside. Paul's chains were on the outside. He had none on the inside. He was free. Free from the fear of men. Free from the fear of consequences. Free from anything the devil might put on him or other people. From henceforth, he says, let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. I'm afraid that Paul would look with compassion and real pity on our feeble faith. I sometimes say this is a day of thin theology and fat preachers. And I'm sure it is. There's no sentimental Christianity with the Apostle Paul. There's no such thing as coming to the cross and just getting your sins forgiven. No, no, no, no, no, no. The man who only wants his sins forgiven is trifling with Christianity. He needs more than his sins forgiven. He needs more than that horrid record. Maybe you sin enough to damn a thousand people. And God in his infinite mercy, when you confess and you plead and you're broken hearted and you're penitent and you repent, he takes that record and flings it into his eternal backyard as like never to be remembered against us anymore forever. The man needs more than forgiveness. He needs cleansing. He needs more than cleansing. He needs indwelling. He needs to get to the reach of the bondage of sin. He becomes a bond servant of Jesus Christ. Now I said Paul came to the intellectual capital where they worship the brain, and he came down to Corinth where they worship the body. The continual talk in Athens was wisdom. The continual talk in Corinth was wickedness. I don't read he sent out a letter asking for support to get there. I don't read he made reservations in the Holiday Inn or somewhere. This man is prepared to follow the step of Jesus every way as far as possible. Somebody said to a friend of mine recently who might be doing some building for God. He said, listen, let me give you a word of advice. Don't build anything that will embarrass you in a few years. That's a very good point. I see God's money going in stately buildings and swimming pools and tennis courts and I want to vomit. With the world starving, with the mission field needing money. Paul attacks Corinth. Well, he doesn't go with his philosophical stuff. He doesn't dazzle them with his knowledge. He says, listen, he begins the epistle, doesn't he, by saying, I'm not coming to you with enticing words of man's wisdom. Almost saying, I just tried that out at the last place, and those philosophers and Stoics and Epicureans and others, they marvel. They open their eyes. They were staggered by what I said, but I didn't get through to them. And so I'm going right back, back, back to the foundation. Some years ago there was a professor in America. His book has recently been republished. I think, I'm not sure if it was at Yale or Princeton. He was only in his forties when he contracted a terrible disease. His body began to droop, he began to shuttle. He tried to get an answer to his problem, and he couldn't. And so, one day somebody said to him, you need to go to Paris, there's a doctor there. Now this was when ships were slow, not even fast ships, and certainly no planes. When he got to Paris, somebody said to him, no, no, no, we don't have the answer. I think you'll find it in Geneva. And in Geneva they said, no, we don't have the answer here. The answer is in Austria. He got to Austria, and somebody said, no, the answer is in France. He got to France, they said, it's across the channel in England. In England they said, no, no, no, no, we don't have the answer. The physician who has the answer is there in Scotland. When he got there, the physician said, I'm sorry. I don't have the answer to it. We've done some investigation, but we've got no answer. Like our day, we can diagnose cancer, we can't cure it. We're so busy putting billions into armaments, we let folk die on our doorstep. So we'll have enough stuff to destroy other countries, isn't that wonderful? Don't have the answer. He came back. He was on the ship almost to throw himself overboard. One day he was going down the street not far from Princeton. A man said to him, excuse me, sir, aren't you Professor James? He said, yes. Well, you're very sick. Isn't it amazing, people state the obvious. I was lying in plaster from my chin to my toes. I jumped out of a burning hotel in 1951. I broke my back in three places, my left leg was in three pieces, my feet were in both broken. I'm lying in bed, you know, can't turn, can't do anything, can't shave, can't feed myself. My darling wife watched me day and night. And somebody walks in and says, hello, Brother Aidan, are you sick? No, I'm just getting ready to play tennis, can't you see I've got my tennis things on? It's pouring rain and you're soaking, somebody says, oh, it's raining. Oh, thanks for the news. Shivering with cold. It's cold, yeah, that's why I muzzle up to my ears. It's cold. You're sick. You need to find a deliverer. Deliverer. Friend, there's no deliverance. I've been all over Europe, I've spent a fortune. So he said, if you go down the street and knock on the door of so-and-so and tell him John sent you. Why? Does he have an answer? The professor went and knocked at the door. Just a little laboring man came, his hands were not, you know, those smooth, gentle hands that could take a scalpel and do surgery. They were all knotted and gnarled and the man obviously wasn't very well educated. The professor said, as you see, I have a terrible disease and it's galloping, it's getting hold of me quickly. I do want to get rid of it and I understand you have a cure for it. The man said, well, I can pray for you. The professor said, what? He said, I can pray for you. I can put some oil on your head. Professor James said, my psychology was saying that will work. And my pride was saying, you can't kneel in front of this ignoramus, you with a couple of PhDs. But you see, the PhDs didn't do anything for him. And all his philosophers didn't do anything for him. So he went in the house and he said, sir, whatever you say, I'll do it. The man said, kneel down. He knelt down. The little fellow got some oil, put it on his hand. Papa would have enjoyed doing this. Put some oil on his head. I've done that thousands of times, I think, whether it's alone or two. Some of us, brother, here. The professor's waiting. He thought some flash would come from heaven or something. The man put his trembling hands on the head of the great professor. And he said a few things. And then he said, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, be made whole. The professor jumped out. I felt as though 10,000 volts of electricity touched me. Oh, yeah, my legs are all right. Yeah, I'm great. I don't know how it happened. The little man said, I don't either. Except that God was faithful to answer prayer. The point is, he went halfway around the world in order to find an answer. And we're going all around the world. We're trying to find an answer through psychology and paradise and paradise and heaven knows what. And the answer is in the old rugged cross so despised by the world. It's got every answer to our human dilemma, even sickness and mental disorders. I don't care how you emphasize the tragedy that Adam brought into the world. Are you going to suggest to me that there is no way where the human heart can be cleansed? Did Satan pollute the very foundation of human society? And God has no answer to that pollution? I like that hymn, Break thou the bread of life. I like the phrase in it that says, that then shall all bondage cease. And all fetters fall. Paul had seen men and women redeemed from corruption. He'd seen them transformed and now he's writing them eighteen months afterwards. And he says, ye are carnal. Ye are carnal. He uses two different words in the Greek here for carnality and I'm not going to struggle with them this morning. I'm sure you're not too interested. The point I want to emphasize is this, he says he abides in Christ. You know when a man is going to split a diamond he has to be very steady. He look at it from different angles, he magnify any little crack. He could split the wrong way and just be no more valuable than much glass. He's very, very careful. Or in England we guard the Queen's jewels, the crown jewels. They're surrounded with an electric fence. You can't steal them, it's an impossibility. Nobody ever tried yet anyhow. I think of Michelangelo when he was cutting the head of David out of stone or his Pieta. Careful lest, ooh, one slip. And that original piece would mean that the nose was tipped off of the ear. And it would be spoiled. But no man ever cut a diamond. Michelangelo never worked with more accuracy. No mother ever had a child that burned the heart. Like the care that the Apostle Paul gave to his church. The tragedy with so much evangelism is we record them as statistics and the preacher goes on next night. This Apostle Paul was no, no, no, no, no, no fly-by-night evangelist. The most precious thing we ever handle is the human soul. The Pieta one day will go up in dust. The cistern chapel will be blown to smithereens. That the soul of a man will live forever and ever and ever and ever. Either in eternal darkness or eternal bliss. Heaven is impeccable joy. There'll be no sorrow. Hell is eternal misery. There's no joy. There is only one way to heaven. There are a million ways to hell. What do you do to go to hell? Nothing. Just do nothing, that's all. You don't have to thumb your nose at God. You don't have to blaspheme the name of Jesus. You don't have to be adulterer. Just coast on. For the greatest sin in the world is not adultery. The greatest sin in the world is I can manage my life without God. That's the greatest thing. Paul has established the church, but now he's deeply, deeply concerned about them. He says they are babes in Christ. If you were here about a month ago, you heard Leland Paris, who is the YWAM leader for the Americas, North and South America. He introduced this message by saying that he had been in a meeting about a week before with Bill Bright and a few others. Bill Bright, the founder of the Campus Crusade, said this, that the Campus Crusade recently took a poll of Christians in America. And this is what he said, I've chewed this over, I've laid awake at night thinking of it. Bill Bright said that on their own confession, 95% of the people in America who profess to be Christian, and it will be true of other countries, 95% of the Christians in America said they were one of two things. Either I am carnal, a carnal Christian, or number two, I'm a babe in Christ. Let me transfer that out of the spiritual world to the social world, and I'm not being facetious. It's like listening to the radio tomorrow morning or your TV program, and the one who's addressing it says this, we have just taken a poll of all the men in the Air Force and in the Army, and the men that are steering our great big multi-billion dollar, what do you call them, aircraft carriers. And the men who are piloting those jets at greater speed than sound. And the men who are driving the tanks. And the men who are manning the silos and the intercontinental ballistic missiles. We've checked them all, and we find the nation is being operated militarily by Cub Scouts. Wouldn't that shock us? What? I am going to bed at night, and there's a fellow, a little dwarfy boy on board a multi-million dollar aircraft carrier, Cub Scouts? I think if we digested that, we might not have had any meetings from then till now. We might have been on our faces asking God Almighty, but listen, here's the thing. Why is Paul arguing here with these people? He says, because I feed you with milk and not with meat. You've no digestible, you've no spiritual digestion. Well, listen. In America alone right now, we have, I dare to say this before God, I believe we have hundreds of millions of gospel cassettes. And we've millions of gospel books. And we've hundreds of Bible schools. And we've hundreds, over the year, we have hundreds of seminars. And we have people memorizing the scriptures. And we have about 5,000 radio stations who every day give some part of the scripture. And yet with all this stuff to feed on, dear God, where are we with all this stuff to feed on? 95% of us are spiritual cripples. Spiritual infants. Spiritual babes. Oh, it's not the only time he says that. In Ephesians 4, and verse 14, he's careful about the Ephesians there, Ephesians 4, 14, that henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slate of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive you. He's fearful for the Ephesians. Babes in Christ. Because they're babes, they're not able to carry burdens. I can remember when I was a little boy, I'd go into the garden. We had a flower garden, as we say in England, a vegetable garden. And I'd try and pick up a bucket of potatoes, and I'd strain, and Dad'd say, put it down, you'll hurt your back. When I got to be about 13, I'd go in, I'd see half a bucket, and I'd pick that up and carry the half bucket farther. Put it down, you carry the full one, you're strong enough to carry it now. If God Almighty only gives us strength, or burdens equal to our strength, we'll be in a bad way. What we need is strength for the burdens of this day. I don't believe the church of Jesus Christ has ever faced the hostility. I believe the world today, and in areas of the church, is filled with lying spirits, and doctrines of devils. Paul is jealous for the old rugged cross, and do you remember what he says? There are some people who are enemies of the cross of Christ. Now notice what he says, he doesn't say they're enemies of Christ. Oh no, they're smart enough to use the name. The Mormons use the name of Jesus. The Mormons say they have gifts of the Spirit. The Jehovah's Witnesses talk about Jesus and the kingdom, that they're enemies of the cross. It's the blood that is an offence to them. They're enemies of the cross of Christ. I wonder what he'd say in our day. I say going down the streets in Athens, his spirit was stirred, he was angry. Babies, children, full of self-pity, self-interest, self-seeking, self-concern. Me first. I never heard of children choosing to fast. I've heard them when they turn their nose up at spaghetti or something like that. It wouldn't be Italians if they turned their nose up at spaghetti. Some other things, you know. Usually it's cabbage, isn't it? Spinach. If only somebody could get ice cream to taste like spinach, it would be great. No, no, no, they want to be very choosy in what they eat and what they drink. You say sometimes, I wonder God doesn't burden me. Do you know why? Because he can't trust you, that's why. You're not strong enough to carry the burden. Isaac Watson wrote when I surveyed the wondrous cross also said this, if God Almighty should call me to control six universes, not six worlds, six whole universes, I would joyfully do it because he'd give compensating grace. But he said I wouldn't want even to look after six sheep without his guidance. Oh, it's easy to be emotional, there's nothing wrong with emotion, you've got to have some emotion. But it's wrong when that's all there is. Children, they love people, but they only love emotionally. Who do they love most? Oh, Aunty Betty. Of course her sisters are far nicer personality, but her sister happens to be poor. So when they hear Aunty Betty comes they climb up at the windows, she's coming, she's coming. Why? Because she always brings a gift. And they just love her on that basis because she gives and gives and gives. And some people love God because he gives. We've got this wretched prosperity stunt. Paul's very clear, isn't he, doesn't he say, right into Timothy there, that you'll come a day when people think that gain is godliness. Some of God's choicest saints don't have another shirt to change. Read the current issue of Reader's Digest or borrow it, beg it, steal it, do something. Steal it and take it back, but anyhow. There's a tremendous article there this month on Laos, a country we've forgotten. You see, I've got to feel, not because I'm English, forget my tongue, I wouldn't have stayed here since 1950. I didn't love the country. God sent me here. He didn't send you, you had to be here, you had no option about it, most of you. All right, don't look so sad. I came because God told me to come. I'm glad I came. But let me go back to this. I believe that the church is facing the greatest hostility. I believe that there's war in the heavens like there hasn't been, like back in 1896, at the time, 95, 96, when the Keswick Convention was founded and Mrs. Penn Lewis was one of the founders of it, really. No, she wasn't. The Welsh Revival came out of Keswick. But Mrs. Penn Lewis in those days said, we're having an unprecedented invasion of evil power and we've had two bloody world wars since then. I was going to say, I'm convinced of this, that right now as a nation, you know what we're suffering for? The sins of our fathers, for what we did to the people in the days of slavery, we're suffering for it because he lets us suffer unto the third and fourth generation. We're suffering for the destruction in Vietnam, we're suffering because of Nixon and Kissinger said we were not bombing Cambodia and we've been bombing them a year. And now these nice people we're trying to be friendly with. Mr. Carter says we can still establish a second, you know, what is it, phase two of salt treatment. Salt treatment, salt treating. It'll be salt treatment too if it goes through. They're bloody deceitful, God defiant, they don't hate America merely, they hate God. We're going to try and get married politically to that rotten harlot system? Well, you'd better watch out because if we do, there's going to be an awful lot of punishment. I see people reaching into the Old Testament and quoting the scripture for America. Listen, you can't take scriptures given to Israel. Israel, first of all, in my judgment, was not a nation, it was the church. The people in Israel couldn't marry like other people. They couldn't eat like other people. They couldn't even walk like other people. They couldn't be socially like other people. They were to be holy unto God. Are you suggesting we've ever been really holy to God? It's true of the other nations, I'm aware of that. If ever God was looking for men who, as we would say, square their shoulders and carry the burden it's in this day in which we live. If ever we need to be alert that we don't get caught and trapped in false doctrine, it's the day in which we live. If ever there was a day when we should put on the whole armor of God, God in heaven, you know, apart from Mussolini, he was the first to train schoolboys as soldiers, but we don't send schoolboys to the battle? You don't send babies to battle? They want bottles, not battles? They want the nursery, not the armory? How often do you go to a prayer meeting where you feel there's real engagement against principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world? One of the most awesome things I think that Jesus ever said was to his disciples, I give you power over the enemy, no, no, no, over all the power of the enemy, and it includes sickness, I admit that, but it doesn't mean that merely. There's only one power that can withstand the onslaught, that's on all the nations of the earth right now, and that is the church of Jesus Christ anointed with the Holy Ghost. And there's an old saying that all is fair in love and war, and I'll tell you what, if you stir hell up, the devil will stir everything he can against you. You'll get misunderstood, misrepresented, and if you're not thick-skinned, no, no, no, it's not if you're thick-skinned, if you're not mature enough, it'll get you down. It's not the contradiction of sinners that gets you down, as Psalm 1 says, it's the criticism of saints that gets you down. Eli thought that Hannah was drunk, sure she was drunk, she was drunk with God. She was intoxicated, she got through to God, he was going to remove the barrenness. Paul is God's intoxicated man. He uses the two things together in Ephesians, Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. Why? Because when a man is spirit-filled, he's like a drunk man. You ever try to ridicule a drunk man, he goes singing on his way, you know, and you say, you idiot, and he says, yes, that's right, I am an idiot, my father was an idiot, and you can't get to him, he's drunk, another spirit controls him. I stopped on a street in Glasgow the first day of World War II, and a man came up to me, a Scotsman, it was pitch black, it was a blackout, and he bumped into me and he says, who are you? I gave him my name. Ah, you're not a Scotsman, no, pfft, he said. You're an Englishman? Yeah. And your fate? Oh no, I said, I can't fight. No, you can't fight. Can you sing? I said, no, I can't sing. Oh, he struck up, Maxwell, Tom, Braes, a bonny, where early falls the dew. He meant the dew, but that was near enough for a drunk man. Who's your fader? I told him my father was Walter A. Ah, he says, my fader was so-and-so-and-so-and-so-and-so. Then I knew he was drunk because he put his hand in his pocket and offered me all his money. When a Scotsman does that, you know he's drunk. If I'd seen that man in the morning sober, I'd have gone past and said good morning. He may or may not say, ah, good morning, as a Scotsman said. He'd possibly have looked at me and gone on. You see, there was something else that got control of him. And therefore he's very vocal, and he's very generous. And he wants to tell me he's a Scotsman. And he wants to let me know that he can sing. And he wants to tell me about his pedigree. Well, isn't that what happens to a man who's really filled with the Holy Ghost? He's liberated from stinginess. He's liberated from bondage. He's liberated from fear. He's liberated from consequences. But for a moment, I think the devil almost bit his tongue when Paul said that. Because at the end of Romans 8, he says, Yes, I've had tribulation, distress, famine, perilous, nakedness, sword, all these things. He puts his shoulders back and says to the devil, listen. There's nothing present. There's nothing in things to come. There's nothing in height. There's nothing in depth. There's nothing in any other creature that can separate me from the love of God. So go back to hell where you came from. You're wasting your time. You can separate me from the church. There are tens of thousands of precious believers in jail this morning. In hell holes. Oh, I'm sure Mr. Carter hopes to pull off the hostages getting free, and it may backfire on him. But I still wonder again why 10,000 to 20,000 Jews and other people can get out of Russia every year. And seven Pentecostals have been in the American Embassy for the last two years, and we can't get them out. And somebody challenged Carter on his human rights. He says, yes, but this isn't political. It's a religious thing. Well, aren't they human too? Maybe that's a testimony to the power of Christianity. They're afraid to liberate seven spirit-filled people. They might go and upset the world. They might go and get into Russia and upset the rotten system. Paul's blind. He says, I see neither Jew, nor Greek, nor Bungan, nor Freeman. He's blind. If I see a king and he has a gold crown and all his ritual, so what? In the sense of him, he's dead. Because you see, there are only two kinds of people in the world. Those who are dead in sin and those who are dead to sin. Babes in Christ. One mark is stubbornness. A young lady, I think, testified this morning of stubbornness and willingness to do what God says. A lot of you here this morning, you don't need more lies. This will only make it worse for you at the judgment. What you need is more opinions. Some of you have known for years what you should do and you haven't. Hold back. Children are very touchy, aren't they? Of course you rationalize this. You say, no, your trouble is you're so touchy. I'm not touchy, I'm sensitive. You're full of pride. I just have a lot of self-respect. You've got a bad temper. I have righteous anger. You can always work it out, can't you, if you want to. I have self-respect, you're full of pride. But aren't children very touchy? Aren't they very easily offended? You know, some of us are not only offended at what comes from other people, we're offended at what God says to us. One mark of carnality is stubbornness. There used to be a great school, it isn't, well, it's got another name now. It used to be in Chicago in 1950 when I first went there. I've forgotten its full name, it was an evangelical something. And at that time, Dr. Harry Jessop was the pastor. He came to England and preached. I remember him saying his sister had a beautiful little girl, just a model little girl. And she was pretty spoiled. And she always had pretty clothes, and she had a pretty good mind, and she knew a poem with about 12 stanzas. And the roosters were coming to dinner, and Mother said, Now, darling, I bought you a new dress, and after dinner, I'm going to stand you on that chair, and you're going to say your poem. Yes, Mummy. And when dinner was over, Mother said, I want you to hear now what Peggy's learned. She has learned such a lovely poem. It's got about 10 lines in each stanza of the 12 stanzas, and my little daughter, Fawn, is going to recite it for you. Come on, darling. She stood on the chair, and little Peggy stood up and went. And Mother said, Peggy, say your piece. Peggy, say your piece. If you don't, you're going upstairs. Peggy again. Mother took her upstairs, and put in a big old cupboard they had, and put the latch on. And sure enough, she got so lost in the party, she forgot Peggy was up there. Oh, Peggy's upstairs. Poor little mate. When she got up there, she heard a noise. This is funny. She opened the door, there was Peggy, and she said, Are you going to say your piece? She said, no. What were you doing just now? She had a nice little list. She said, spitting. I spit on your dress, I spit on your fur, I spit on your shoes, and I'm just waiting for more spit. In other words, she'd made up her mind, which means she wasn't going to do as mummy said. Now let's break this down for a minute. He says, your babes, and he diagnoses the trouble. He says there is among you envy, and pride, and division. And the scripture says envy is as rottenness of the bones. You say, well I've been in trouble with pride, I know even more since I was saved. I've been in trouble with bad temper, I've been in trouble with envy, I've been in trouble with doubt. Come on. What are you going to do with it? Ask the Lord to help me. Well he won't help you. Why not? Because he says he won't. No, he won't help you to control it. God never excuses sin, what he does is execute it. He says, take it to the cross, that's the thing. Like the old lady, she had a dog, a very, very nice dog, a pedigree dog. And a long, long tail, it should have been cut off. Somebody asked her, did she have papers for the dog? She said, yes, all over the floor. the dog, you see this dog should have no tail, it needs its tail cutting off right up to the rump there. Oh, I didn't know that. The man went a few months after the dog had half a tail. He says, you've done it wrong, you should have cut it right up to its rump. No, she said, that's cruel, I cut two inches off every month. Well, that's what some of us decide to do. You know, I don't think I'll be as carnal next year as I've been this year. I don't think I'll be as, you know, as touchy. I think I'll grow up next year. I don't think my temper will be as bad. I don't think I'll be as critical. I don't think I'll be as unkind. I don't think I'll be, you know, so feeble in my prayer life. I don't think I'll be so self-centered. Again, read Romans 7. It's self-centered. Nineteen times, I, I, I, go through the same chapter and count how many times the Holy Spirit is mentioned. He's not mentioned once. Why? Because it's a self-centered life. And you go into Romans chapter 8, the victorious life. Romans 7 is a funeral march. Romans 8 is a wedding march. Romans 8, 7 is bondage. Romans 8, Paul's singing out to my bondage, sorrow and night, Jesus, I come. Romans 8, Romans then, 7, 31 times, I, I, I. Romans 8, I only twice. When he says, I reckon and I am persuaded. But 19 times the Holy Spirit is mentioned because it's a spirit-dominated life in chapter 8. Almost the last thing to say here. Let me read a verse again from Galatians. Galatians 4. If you look at it a minute and verse 1. Excuse me. This, this is the most devastating thing of all I think on this level of spiritual infancy. Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth not from a servant. Do you notice that? Here is a man or a boy, say he's 13, 14 years of age. His daddy's left him a thousand acres, a nice little leered jet, a lovely yacht. Ten million dollars in money. And yet, that boy at 15 is as helpless as a servant that's cleaning the stables. Why? He's an heir. His mother can prove she bore the child to the man that died recently. His relatives can testify. He also has a birth certificate. But it's not a bit of good. The heir, as long as he is a child, differeth not from a servant, though he be lord of everything. But he is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Do you remember some of those awesome words Jesus said to the disciples? I have many things to tell you but you cannot bear them. I say, reverend, the almighty God, don't say that to me at the judgment seat. Don't let me stand before John Wesley and Phineas and all the great saints of the ages. And say, ravening, I have many things to tell you. You're so preoccupied with this, so preoccupied. I couldn't get through to you. And if I could, you weren't mature enough to handle it. Is it easy to spit texts out if you forgive that rough word? Is it easy to say, you know, in this generation we're going to fulfill the word of Jesus where he said, greater things than these shall ye do. I'd like to see us start with some of the lesser things right now. I'd like to see a bunch of men go and say, I'm going to stay in, say, somewhere like, well, if you like, nearby Dallas, though it's teeming with Bible students and what have you got. But going to a city like Phinedid and say, I'm not moving out of this city until there are two moves. Until God moves and the devil gets out of the place. We don't have anybody like that. We fly by night. We've got big love offerings. We want glamour. I'll never glamour as the gospel. It's a bloody gory gospel. It's a bloody gospel. It's a sacrificial gospel. I believe the cardinal ethic of Christianity is sacrifice, not success. Sacrifice. Five minutes inside eternity, I believe every one of us will have wished that we'd sacrifice more, prayed more, loved more, sweated more, grieved more, wept more. Notice really that after the acts of the apostle, I'm going to finish quickly, after the acts of the apostle, the whole balance of the New Testament is to the church. It's not to sinners. Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica and says, I'm praying night and day. No, no, no. He says, I'm praying exceedingly. He's praying the effectual servant prayer of a righteous man for the church. Yes, for the church. Not that they'll get out of poverty. Not that they'll get out of slavery. He's praying what? He says, I'm praying night and day. What? He's praying for their faith. Praying night and day exceedingly that your faith may be strengthened. He starts the second epistle, the first chapter, verse 3 and says, I rejoice. What? That your faith grows exceedingly. His prayer had been answered. They haven't all just become millionaires or famous personalities. They haven't all become evangelists and teachers and prophets. Those things are there and I would to God they were more manifest than they are in these days. I'd like to see the force at Agape here. I'd like to see the force around the corner there, the YWAM and over at Joe's and other places. I'd like to see a place where we know there's a man. He's the prophet and he's the evangelist and he's the teacher. Every man's standing in his own place. The trouble is now the preacher wants to be everything in the average church. He wants to be teacher, preacher, prophet and everything else. You ought to be glad he's one spot in the wheel. That these ministers were not given to boys and girls, but to those spiritually immature. It must have been a great thing to follow Jesus for three years. It must have been a great thing to be a Timothy. For all that love Paul showed on Timothy, he kind of says, this is my spiritual heir, he's coming after me. See how much, read his epistles if you want to know about preaching and teaching. Read his epistles, the first and second of Paul to Timothy. The heir, as long as he liveth, as long as he's a child, he's no different from a servant. But let him come to the age of maturity. I have never, never discovered the answer to this. I'll discuss it with Gordie sometime and you other wise men here. Three wise men on the front row. But you know, Paul, isn't it amazing, Paul is the most profound theologian the church ever had. And usually when we talk about apostles, we call John the apostle, the apostle of love. But he didn't write 1 Corinthians 13. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 13. Paul says, do you want to know what my success is, if you put it that way. Do you know what it is? And he goes in the second chapter of Corinthians 5 and he recites, you know, if the earthly house is dissolved, we have a home in the heavens. And then he comes down and he says, do you know what the secret is? The love of Christ constrains me. I told brother Tony about three months ago, I said, you know, I saw a very daring thing today. He said, what did you see? I said, I was coming into a building and it said agape love on the outside of it. It's the greatest thing in the world. I said, Tony, what we've done, we've hung a sign on our gate that if you can't find divine love anywhere, you'll find it agape. If you can't find love that never breaks down, you'll find it agape. If you can't find love that beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, we'll never give up on you. I mean, we stuck it on the wall out there. Now, either it's true or we're hypocrites. Love, so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. And the poet says, love ever stands with open hands and while it lives, it gives. For this is love's prerogative to give and give and give. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Christ loved the church and gave himself for the church. And if you love, he says, you'll give your life for your brethren. That doesn't mean you die for them. It means you share your life. It means every day when there's need, you supply that need. It's not just saying, well, shoot me instead of him. That's easy. Man, you'd be out of it. For you could blink your eyes, you'd be in eternity, got rid of taxation and everything. It would be wonderful. But when it comes down to sharing your life, it's a very, very different thing. Let me just look. I'm going to take three more minutes. I don't know how much time I have. I was reading in Romans this morning, Romans chapter 6. You know, you can't find in the New Testament any place where some of the disciples were saved. But you can find the place where they're all filled with the Holy Ghost. When the children of Israel came out of Egypt, which is a type of the world and they left Pharaoh a type of the devil. When they came out of Egypt, they sang a song. It blew away on the breeze. But when they went into the promised land, Canaan, they built a permanent altar. They built a pile of stones, a permanent record that they were crossing into the promised land. A land flowing with milk and honey. And sometimes we suggest you get filled with the Spirit. That's the answer to all your problems. That's the end of all your problems. It is. The beginning end. That's where they start. Jesus was filled with the Holy Ghost and immediately led of the Spirit into the wilderness. Do you know the baptism the Holy Ghost can do for you? And boy do we recite it. Sure we should do. I'll tell you what it did for those men in Acts 2. And so many people say I've got an Acts 2 experience. But Acts 2 goes into Acts 3. Where did Acts 3 get them? In jail. I know a lot of Spirit-filled people should be in jail but apart from that it's jail. It's jail. It's bondage. The kind of bondage you put on a train when the engine's snorting down the line. And the only safety is that it's in control by those two strips of metal. Otherwise it's a lethal thing. And Madame Guillen says my freedom is thy grand control. The only freedom in the world is to get into bondage to God. Out of the bondage of sin into bondage for God. Now look what he says in the Sick of Romans. Therefore we are buried with Therefore we are buried with him with Christ by baptism. We're buried into what? Into death. Verse 5. For if we have been planted in the likeness of his death knowing this that our old man our old self is crucified with him that the body of sin may be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin. Now look, you're either serving God or serving self or serving sin. There's no other areas. Verse 7 is quite a text. He that is dead is freed from sin. No, no. It doesn't mean when this body dies. The next verse goes on. Now if we be dead with Christ we believe that we shall also rise with him. Verse 9. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead death dieth no more death has no dominion over him. For in that he died he died unto sin once but in that he liveth he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin. I'll tell you what, when that happens you never forget it. When you go to your own funeral on your hymn sheet this morning I don't have mine. Will you give me a hymn sheet? We're not going to sing it for a moment but I like this hymn. I was thinking of this before the meeting too so I got in line on two things if nothing else. Singing the old rugged cross and this hymn. I will praise him. Look at the second stanza. Though the way seemed straight and narrow all I claimed was swept away my ambitions plans and wishes at my feet in ashes lay. I said in a meeting in Scotland as we closed it years back I said if you let this be true in your life you'll bring your ambitions your plans your wishes your own desires your self-life put it on the altar God will burn it up and he'll do more with the ashes than you can do with your entire personality. And I said if you want this blessing raise the hand a dozen people raised the hand and I said anyone else? A little woman at the back raise the hand like that down. I said I saw it she got flaming red hair 15 years after my dear wife and I were in Manchester at a missionary meeting and the meeting was as flat as a pancake there was nothing in it. The last man to speak sat down. The man leading the meeting said would you like to hear a testimony, yes? And he asked a little red-haired woman her legs were so short she couldn't even touch the ground she kept doing this while the preacher was preaching I thought yes I'd kick him if I could get near him too but I think it's because her legs were short and you know she stood up and that sleepy audience that afternoon suddenly sprang to life on the edge of the seat she said I remember being in the Cherryfield Mission in Dundee, Scotland one afternoon I went to hear a certain preacher he couldn't come Ravenhill preach I said no that can't be that little red-haired woman I used to be afraid to go out in the dark a mouse on the floor I never understand why a woman weighing 140 pounds jumps on a chair when a mouse weighing half an ounce is going to knock her over you'd think she was a bulldozer coming I didn't face a mouse I didn't face the darkness I didn't want to be lonely and she said hallelujah that afternoon all I did was sweep the floor in the factory and the devil said if the baptism of the spirit the endowment with power is only for intellectuals and ministers and preachers and prospective missionaries it's not for servant girls it's not for a girl sweeping the factory floor you've no education but Ravenhill said bring what you have and let God burn it up and she said that was my lifeline I ran to that altar that afternoon and she said the fire came and consumed all my desires and all my fears and all my tomorrows I'm just back from Africa been there nearly 15 years oh I'm not afraid of mice she said some nights there's a lion at the door oh she said I turn over and say boss I'm not on the menu tonight sometimes I have to walk on a log in the middle of the night with a man holding lights in front of me and there's a hippo with his mouth open or a crocodile I deliver a baby and he says I'll go back with you because there's a man eating like no no it's alright she said I come back singing oh blessed assurance he took away my fear of man he took away my fear of death he took away my fear of consequences and she said when I an illiterate girl went to the Bible school in Birkenhead I topped I was in the top 10 students in languages in English and I couldn't write before I went there I went to the International School of Languages in Paris and I came out on the Dean's List again and now in the wilds of Africa living by myself in a hut where I've been terrified I'd have died the first day I don't want to stay in Scotland I want to get back to Africa where God's working and she said that little hut is filled with the glory of God like the Shekinah Temple all out of a life that was so useless till I laid it all at God's feet one last thing which will give my age away but back back in the 1930's I know you know I'm over 21 so that's alright but back in the 1930's we were we were preaching doing crusades in England we had a man by the name of Dan Phillips Dan had a tremendous voice a voice he'd been as wild as any man in World War 1 and he bore the scars of it both in his mind in his conscience in his body one day a young lady stopped him and talked to him about the Lord and he got marvellously saved she was a beautiful young lady and she coached him along and they went to meetings together and finally he fell in love with her and they fixed a date for marriage they went and bought all the furniture and stored it away he was standing in a meeting one night and they were singing what the man said was a hymn of consecration is that my paper? did I write on there? I had one I wrote a verse that I was trying to remember now it's on the inside I've got it here thank you ok the man's name was Dan Phillips there was a wonderful atmosphere in the tabernacle in Manchester everybody felt God was moving but Dan felt specially because they were singing this verse here I give my all to thee friends and time and earthly store soul and body thine to be only thine forevermore let's sing that verse again said the leader here I give my friends and the Lord said look this side here's the girl he's going to marry in so many months here I give my all to thee friends I want your friend time I want your time your earthly store all that furniture sell it and go to college going out he said to her I've got to tell you something it's very important well why didn't you tell me last night I didn't know I didn't know till a few minutes ago in the meeting in the meeting yeah yeah as we were singing here I give my all to thee friends and time I've sung that a hundred times but I didn't sing it like today we've got to postpone our wedding are you sure yeah I tried to back off but the Lord said do you love her more than you love me well I'll make it up to you you can get married I won't slay you but my perfect will is that you postpone your marriage and you sell your goods and you go to Bible school well she's a human being Paul said none of these things move me he didn't say none of these hurt me her eyes filled with tears and she said Dan that's beautiful I'm glad you love the Lord more than you love me he went to Bible school he was the most illiterate man in the Bible school a friend of mine was at the college at the same time and one night he got a burden of prayer he jumped up he ran down the corridor in his pajamas it was a school with men only and he ran down to what we call lecture hall number one and he got down to pray he prayed until the sweat poured out through his pajamas he couldn't even hear before the hour was through every man in the college was down on his face that college has never had a revival before or since like that one they were all preachers they were men who eventually were scattered to the ends of the earth you see this silly nonsense you can you can have Jesus as your savior but not as your lord it's purely unscriptural I believe we ought to be blazing mad about this situation 95% of Christians in the nation are weak God can't trust them with vision he can't trust them with burden you can't trust children with jewels with no sense of values you can't trust them with something that needs bravery they're too timid you can't trust them with a burden you'll break them in the middle and I'm through with this in the middle of that marvelous marvelous unmatched hymn of love that I'm sure was Paul's experience he had found that love so amazing he had found love that's always patient that's never rude he found that love that beareth all things lashing whippings even his revival party broke up spiritual men left him because they thought he was a fanatic in the middle of that amazing chapter it comes to a bump I think brother Gordy I never understand it quite he suddenly breaks off and says when I became a man I believe there's a conscious entry that just as surely as the children of Israel knew when they got through the water and stepped on the promised land and said this is God's country there came a place in his life where he knew I believe it was after God had revealed himself to him and after God had revealed himself into him and in that three intense years of study he'd even been caught up into the third heaven do you wonder you can't find two minutes backsliding in his life I think he saw everything John saw but God wouldn't let him write it down oh yes it will be worth it all when we see Jesus but between here and there there's a thousand pitfalls for some of you a pair of sparkling eyes for some of you girls a very promising young man there's going to be a great preacher and God wants you to burn your life out somewhere else for some of you just to be godly fathers and mothers there's an awful scarcity of them right now says a hymn writer along my sinful heart was striving to obtain this promised rest but when all my struggles ended simply trusting I was blessed if you come to this altar this morning I'm going to ask you to come for one thing because all I know about an altar it's for two things then or in the Old Testament for sacrifice and for death I could take you to the place where I knelt once when I was about 18 considered to be the youth leader of the church and we'd seen some souls saved I got the youth to meet on a Friday night at seven o'clock we'd wait till nine I got them to preach to the church to meet at six o'clock Sunday morning and we prayed I went out in Sherwood Forest and prayed by myself weep and groan because I'd read David Brainerd he did it and I didn't know any better and I'm glad I did it I'm not embarrassed nobody else showed me a pattern I sometimes think God sent me back to America for what I learned out of that one brief abridged book of David Brainerd the man that died at 28 years of age burned out for God I broken weeping the altar is for sacrifice it's not cheap in it the altar is for death and then when we die we rise again in newness of life when the priest was anointed in the what Psalm 133 the oil which is a continuous symbol of the Holy Ghost in Scripture the oil was put upon his head and it ran down his face no no it ran down his beard and it ran off his beard onto his garments and it ran off his garments onto the floor it never touched the flesh if you read about the 25th chapter of Exodus it says the anointing shall not come upon the flesh if you anoint the flesh you'll be cursed there's so much flesh today so much of me a self of self pity self interest self glory I say if you come to this altar come to this altar and tell God I'm going to lose all my rights this morning tell him you'd rather live six months with the anointing of the Holy Ghost than another 60 years without it tell him you pledge your hands and your feet and your mind all you know and all you don't know bring that wretched pride that's always getting at you that envy that's eating you up that jealousy that remorse you that temper don't ask for help ask God to nail it to the cross let's stand and sing this first hymn shall we let's start singing yeah we start singing the first verse if you're coming I'm not begging you to come I'm not worried whether you come or not that doesn't worry me but I'm asking you if you come don't just come for coming sake come today