People Get Ready 1975

I know your work, you are neither cold nor hot, would that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will skew you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may be rich, and white garments to clothe you, and keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen, and salve to anoint your eyes that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and chasten, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. He who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself conquered and sat down with my father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." It's hard to say whether it was a vision of a past age or of another world, but there was this town way out in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no link to the outside world, but a single railroad track that was overgrown with weeds and covered with rust.

Nobody in this town had ever seen a train in his whole lifetime. The train track ran by an old broken down railroad station which hadn't been used in, you know, how many generations, and nobody had any idea where the track came from or where it led to. For two and a half years there had been no rain.

The animals were dying. The food supply was all but exhausted. The town was doomed.

It was quite obvious to everybody that it would not be long before death by starvation would claim every life in that place. One day the town was electrified by news that a stranger riding one of those old railroad hand cars had come in on the old track and stopped in front of the station. Everybody in the town gathered to watch the first stranger they'd ever seen in their lives unloading the hand car, taking boxes from the car, and putting it on the platform.

And then the stranger climbed up on top of the boxes and began to speak. You all know, he said, that your town is doomed and that by the end of the summer there won't be a living soul here. I've come to announce that very soon a train is going to come down these tracks to take everyone who is willing and ready to take it.

It's going to stop in front of this old station and those who are ready will be able to get on board. But you have to be ready. What do you mean, what do we have to do to be ready, said somebody from the crowd.

Everything you need, said the stranger, is in these boxes I have here. You will need three things. You're going to need gold refined by fire, white garments to cover your nakedness, and salve to anoint your eyes.

When the conductor of the train sees these things, when he sees the gold in your hands, the garments over your bodies, and the salve on your eyes, he will welcome you aboard. Now it doesn't make any difference whether you're rich or poor, whether you own 10 houses or have to sleep in the alley every night. I will give you these three things in exchange for your signing over to me everything you have.

What do you mean sign over to you everything we have? Who do you think you are? It's your only hope, said the stranger. Think it over. The next day some of the townspeople, not too many but a few, began to sign over all their possessions to the stranger, and they received gold refined by fire, and robes, beautiful white robes to cover their gaunt bodies, and salve that once it was on their eyes caused them to see things in a different way.

For the first time in who knows how many generations, the old broken down railroad station came to life. These people, both in their white robes, began immediately to wash the walls and wash and scrub the windows and scrub the floors and get rid of the cobwebs, and shortly this building became the most beautiful with a new coat of paint and most active building in the town as people would assemble and listen to the stranger, and faithfully every day he kept pleading with the people to get the gold and put on the robes and anoint their eyes with his salve, but as time went on it became obvious that the main interest of the people in this town, in this stranger, was curiosity. They would come down in crowds every day to listen to him, and sometimes they'd even clap their hands and sing songs while he would speak or after he was finished, but very few of the townspeople ever got around to signing over everything they had and getting on the road.

Oh we'll wait until the train comes, they would say, and the stranger would then warn them, then it will be too late, you have to do it now, then some of the people who originally purchased robes began to take them off and get back into their old clothes. I'm, I feel funny in this thing, I'm tired of waiting for this train, but faithfully every morning the stranger continued to go down and plead with the people to be ready, and he'd be insulted and laughed at, and after a while when the novelty wore off, people would fall asleep, but they'd go, there's nothing else to do, they'd come down and listen to him. Then one morning the people of the town went down to the old station for their daily entertainment, and the stranger was gone.

The old hand car and all the boxes that would have been on the platform with the gold and the robes and the ice were also gone. Oh well, says an older man, the guy was fake anyway. Look how often he talked about, you know, the train coming, the train coming, the train coming.

Did he come? Just then there was a hissing along the tracks, and off in the distance could be heard a whistle. Within about five minutes, a shiny beautiful train lumbered to a stop in front of the station, and a handful of townspeople, clothed in the robes, men, women, and children, climbed on board. The rest of the people didn't even dare to draw near because they knew that it was too late.

The whistle blew, the train pulled out of the station, and soon disappeared down the track, leaving the town, what was left of it, to perish. Now this old building, built a long time ago, uh, Danny, why don't you tell that guy to come in, would you? There's no point in standing out there waiting, might as well come in and join us. Oh, good to see you.

Herman, good to see Herman, praise God. This little building, you know, has seen, especially in the last two years, a lot of people come and go, a lot of people, and nobody can deny, who's been around it to any extent, that the, this old building has been visited by the Holy Spirit, just as surely as that old station was visited by that stranger, and if there's any message that the Spirit has been giving us who come into this old building again and again, it's that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not just some added thing to round out our lives, but rather, it's our only hope. There is no way out of this kingdom of death that we are in, but Jesus.

He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be dead, and the Spirit has also been showing us that while salvation is free, a gift, it is at the same time the most costly thing in the world, and that if we really want to have it, though it comes to us as a gift, it means that we have to really abandon to God and to the Lord who died and rose from us for us.

We have to abandon to Him everything we have. We have to sell out everything we have. You know, he who loves his life loses it, and he who loses his life for my sake and the gospel teaches.

Now, so far maybe we all agree that's the way it is, and yet our problem is this, that many of us have kept hearing the Word and hearing the Word, and we come to church, and we go to fellowship, and we say our prayers, but the one thing needful many of us have never done, we have never with a radical, total abandonment committed ourselves to Jesus Christ. I'm going to say that again so nobody misses it. I say, you know, we've been busy, we've done our good deeds, we've said our prayer, every once in a while we get on a good good deed kick, and we do all kinds of nice things, but the one thing needful many of us have yet to do, we have yet to sell out and to abandon everything we have to Jesus.

Hence, because we have not sold out everything, we are neither hot nor cold, we are lukewarm, and like all lukewarm people, we are blind to our true condition. We think we're okay, and we have no idea how wretched and pitiable and poor and naked and blind we really are. So, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I spew you out of my mouth, for you say I am rich, I have prospered, I have need of nothing, not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

Therefore, I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire that you may be rich, and white garments to clothe you and keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen, and sobs to anoint your eyes that you may see. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, and what is this gold refined by fire, but a heart made pure by following Jesus, not just through fields of daffodils and daisies, but through trust, through a baptism of fire, through suffering, through a cross. Our flesh wants it safe, and it wants it convenient, wants it easy, and as soon as we see Jesus veering off and heading up toward Jerusalem, we want to turn away from him.

As soon as it starts getting rough, as soon as people give us a hard time, as soon as people misunderstand us, as soon as it gets inconvenient or disrupts our little routine, causes us some pain, we want out. Our hearts will never be pure before God until we are willing to pay the price of knowing Jesus, not just in the power of his resurrection, but also in the fellowship of his suffering, and be made like him in his death. And so it's Jesus himself, remember, who said this, and nobody else.

People keep saying, oh, they're so hard down there, too bad. This is what Jesus said. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire.

In other words, are you willing to pay the price? All we have to do is say yes. All we have to do is say yes, and he will see to it that the circumstances of our lives, things that begin to happen, will begin to cause us to feel the flames. The question is, are we willing to obey him, the mediocre, half-baked, vapid, safe, sheltered, little religious life that most of us are still living, and follow our Lord to a valley of pride? I counsel you, says Jesus, to buy from me gold refined by fire, and white garments to clothe you to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen.

And what are the white garments but a life made pure by putting all the nature of Jesus Christ. Put on, then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, patience, forbearing one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. We don't just admire Jesus and adore him from a distance. We clothe ourselves in his nature.

We put on his forgiveness, his love, his forbearance, his patience, his meekness, his lowliness. Over the shame of our narrow-minded, petty egotism, which was condemned on the cross, we now put a new nature, which is created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Why do you think Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit? So that we can have joy vows and good temples? He gives us the Holy Spirit so that the Spirit can make us like him, so that we're no longer half-baked, lukewarm, slobs, walking around boasting that we've been saved, and we become, indeed and in truth, sons and daughters of the living God, who bear in their living the mark of God's nature.

He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walks. But we all, with unveiled faith, reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into his likeness by the Spirit of the Lord. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't be like Jesus.

My friends, one day you are either going to be perfectly like Jesus, or you are going to be perfectly like Satan. And right now, with an act of your own will, you are posing yourself right now in one nature or the other. And I counsel you to buy from me sad to anoint your eyes that you may see.

And what is this sad? But he made sure by seeing reality in terms of Jesus, instead of forever escaping into our own delusion, the lukewarm man and woman always wants to escape, doesn't want to see, he or she wants to daydream, wish, endlessly escape, squint at her way through life, and then we always blame somebody else. Oh, I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know what's going on.

I just can't figure it out. Oh, I don't know what I'm going to do. And that's the situation you want to be in, because then you can excuse yourself and go right on doing your own little thing, and have your shrink tell you it's all right, don't worry about a thing.

But if you're serious with Jesus Christ, in any way at all, you're going to have to, you're going to have to face, and he's going to help you to face the fact, you know, that things take on their meaning in terms of how they relate to him, not in terms of how they relate to your ego, your delusion. The issue is not, is it going to rain tomorrow? Can Hitler be saved? How can I get more fun out of life? The issue is, again, for every person in the world, even the ones who are saved, the issue is, what are you going to do with Jesus Christ right now? When you put the eyesalve on, when you decide that he is going to in fact be Lord, then everything looks different. People look different, your situation looks different, the weather looks different, everything.

Now the people of the town one day go down to the railroad station, and the stranger's gone. And one day soon, very soon, those in this gathering who've been playing around with commitment for years, many, many years, are going to come to hear the word, and there will be no word. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word, and they will wander from sea to sea, and from north even to east they will run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, and they shall not find it.

God help us to hear and answer the call to repentance now while God still knocks on the door. God help us to leave the lukewarmness, open the door, and buy from him, from Jesus, the gold of a pure heart, the white garments of a pure life, the sand of pure vision, even if it costs us everything we have. Now only the Lord knows what this has meant to whoever's, you know, thinking at all at this point, but I'm going to ask that we go to prayer, and if there's somebody who's ready now to make that commitment who's not made it before, do it.

Doesn't matter who's here or who's not here, who's going to make you, who's going to laugh at you, or nobody's going to laugh at you, but if even if somebody should, that's so make it. If you hear the Lord talking to you, don't waste any time, don't wait till next week, you may never see next week. You know, those of you who come here, we don't have overcalls, very often, you know, and we're not going to ask anybody to raise his right hand, we're not going to turn the music on, you know, but if there's a need to make that kind of transaction, do it, and do it now.

Let's wait for the Lord to pray. Lord God, I cry out asking that you'll deal with each one of us here exactly where we stand before you, and deliver us from the delusions that we cling to so publicly, this feeling that everybody else is wrong and we're right, nobody understands me, and but I'm right, and bring us to see reality as we look into the face of your Son, heavenly Father. I pray especially for those alive in this place that have been delivered even during the last few days from an end that would have been damnation, and I ask, Lord God, that you would help every heart that in any way wants to come through to open the door and receive the Lord.