Nail It

I don't believe you can be friends with a great man of God without that man's life rubbing off on you. We aren't familiar with Cornelius Winter today, but he was a young man when he became a personal aide to George Whitefield toward the end of Whitefield's large life. Cornelius Winter came from a troubled past, was converted under Whitefield's preaching, and traveled with Whitefield on his last preaching tours to America, and he was with Whitefield the last week of his life.

When I was in Rottingham Tabernacle, near Bristol, a favorite place where Whitefield loved to preach, I sat in Whitefield's chair and held his walking stick in my hands as I spoke with the curator of the church, who told me that Cornelius Winter preached his first sermon in the chapel there, and preached his last, before going home to Painswick to die. Cornelius Winter had a remarkable influence upon William Jay, the well-known pastor, who was converted under his preaching. I say all this, friends, because I don't believe you can be friends with a great man of God without that man's life influencing your own.

Such was the case with my homiletical mentor, Dr. Stephen Oford. Spending time with him in his study, talking about revival, spending time with him in prayer, watching him and observing him, and being under his preaching, influenced me. It touched my life in profound ways.

Stephen Oford preached two great themes. The Lordship of Christ, and the exchanged life in Christ. Galatians 2.20 was his life verse.

I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but 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. But for years that verse troubled me.

I pulled back from its ramifications of a personal crucifixion. Who in his right mind wants to live on a cross? A cross is a place to die, but it's no place to live, especially for a man who was in the prime of his life, as I was at the time. Then I met Stephen Oford, and he shared with me how he lived such a life of surrender in his holy walk with God.

If you ever heard Dr. Oford preach, friend, you know that he had a mantle of authority and an anointing of the Holy Spirit that was so profound upon him, his preaching was life-transforming. Dr. Oford shared his secret of a holy life with me one day in a study. He said the following.

We are to walk beneath an unclouded heaven with our Lord in a daily walk of surrender to him. If a sin temptation arises and darkens the sky above, a threat in the hand of our walk with God, he would stop everything and pray, nail it, Lord, nail it. When he told me that, I saw that a cross was a good thing for sin.

Sin should be placed on that cross and be crucified. Then I realized I'd been looking at Galatians 2.20 from the wrong end. I had been previously focused on the crucified aspects of it and did not want to embrace the crucifixion, the flesh repels from such things.

But I had to realize that after the shame and pain of the cross comes the glory of the resurrection. And I had to come to realize that if I focused more on the last half of Galatians 2.20, I'd be better able to digest the first half of that remarkable verse. I began to breathe the reality that the Son of God loved me and gave himself for me, that redemption means buying back, and that he had bought me with his blood, and I now belonged to him, I didn't belong to myself any more.

And if that was true, that I now belonged to him, I had to give up everything to God. Jesus held nothing back at Calvary. How could I hold anything back from him once I focused on his love for me? In going to the cross for me, that he died for me, he took my sins upon him as my substitute.

He bore the curse, becoming a curse for me. He bore the turned face of the Father and took the wrath of justice upon him so I would not suffer the penalty of sin in a place of punishment for sin called hell. Jesus did all that for me.

When I finally saw that, it wasn't hard to give all up for him. I have a life to live, and I choose to live it for Jesus, who loves me so. He lives in me and gives me power that I don't have of my own.

Power over sin. He nailed every sin of mine on that bloody cross. And as I walk with him beneath a cloudless sky, if a sin cloud should appear, which it often does, I know where it needs to go.

To the cross. I can now say with authority, Nail it, Lord. Nail it.

Let us pray.