All around the world today, Christian people have been giving attention to the cross. This is the day that all Christendom has looked upon in its significance, because our lovely Lord gave Himself.
Now, it is not really important—I am not too sure it was on Friday, but that part we are not going to get into. The important thing is that the cross has become very real to all the Christian world, those who know the Lord.
As I have been waiting before the Lord this evening, I think we ought to take a look into some of the realities of the cross. I really wonder, beloved, while we speak much of all that the cross means, how much of the reality of it has really gripped us.
I tremble when I think of even trying to share from it, because while I have given many years to it, I realize we see through a glass darkly—just a dim peek at it, really.
I remember back in 1947 and 1948 when, for the very first time, we came to understand something of the cross in our identification with the Lord. I got into the Overcomer message. I lived for two whole years—I do not think I read anything but the Bible and Mrs. Penn-Lewis. It was good. It was good.
But I remember in those days, since the Lord began to work, every place I went in meetings, revival was working. I preached about the cross, and I had some come to me continually and say, “You preach Easter all the time.”
I am not speaking tonight about the cross because it is Easter. I would not give place to a day, because I am not just keeping days. I am not against it necessarily, but I think there is something better than keeping days.
This, to me, is the central reality—the place where God does something most significant. I would have us bow once more tonight. I surely do not feel that I am able, but maybe the Lord can get something through to us. Shall we ask Him to do that?
You bow. Tell Him, “Lord, do not let me live in just the outwardness of things, just to look at two old pieces that we call the rugged cross. But, oh, tonight, Lord Jesus, we pray that somehow the Holy Spirit will come and bring us into some of the realities of what really is involved at the cross.”
I am not able. Who among mortal men could ever unveil it? Only Thou canst unveil it by the Holy Spirit. And so we are shut up to Thee tonight, Lord.
We pray that somehow it shall be something very personal that You apply to us. We believe that our fruitfulness, our life and walk and ministry—all of it—needs, yea, can be really adjusted as we understand the working of the cross.
So be pleased tonight, dear Lord. Be pleased in our midst. We come acknowledging that this is a day all the people who have come to know You around the world have given great attention to it, and we join with the throngs tonight—not merely to keep a day, but to acknowledge the reality of something.
Thank You, Lord. We bless Thy name, and we look to Thee with expectancy, in Jesus’ lovely name. Amen.
Well, just for a moment in getting started, I think it is good to look at the father of the faithful. You know who he is: Abraham.
I would remind you tonight that all through the Old Testament, the cross is pictured as an altar. Many people have really misunderstood the fact that while we have many insights into the altar all the way through the Old Testament, one day God said, “There will be no more building little altars as such. I am going to consummate it all in One.”
And there was the cross. Jesus accomplished the full and the finished. That was God’s final altar, and any meeting of Him at any altar today—that is the altar where we meet Him.
I know churches and places will build altars and so forth, but I would remind us tonight that God’s altar, in a full and final way, is right there at the old rugged cross where Jesus died.
But it is interesting, as you look into the life of Abram, that the minute he moves into the land of Canaan, having arrived there and the Lord appearing unto him, he does something significant.
Genesis 12, beginning with verse 7, says:
And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land:
and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him.
The whole of his life from this time on transpired in the life of the altar. Is that not wonderful? The altar. He begins all right, and I believe all through you find various times when he is once again building the altar.
Look at Genesis 12:8:
And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Hai on the east:
and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord.
What does this altar back here really represent? Here is Abram, as it were, having an appearance of the Lord. What does it signify?
I cannot help but believe, brothers and sisters, that when God appears to us and we begin to see something of His worthiness, something about obligation and our rightful relation to Him, there is just one thing we can do—and that is give ourselves to Him, offer ourselves to Him.
That is basically what the altar represents. The altar, a burnt offering, is that place where, having seen, I now present myself to Him. “Oh, God, what have You created me for? What am I here for?” I present myself to Him.
Be sure of this: the life that has had some insight, that God has appeared to that life, I believe we can do no less than present, than give.
It is interesting now that on each side here there is something that I think stands in a very significant way. I would like to believe that Bethel, on one side, represents what God sees when a man gives his life totally to God for what God wants out of that life.
Bethel—what is Bethel? What does it mean? You know, in the Hebrew, beth means house, and El means God: the house of God.
It is interesting, right here at the very beginning, the father of the faithful gives himself. God, as it were, on one side He looks, and He will see that which is very significant to God.
I believe that the thing Abram’s life is going to find fullness in is when, through him, God finds a house or habitation: the house of God. The house of God.
A little bit later on, in Jacob, we find El-bethel—the God of the house of God. But right now, I am not wanting to divert our attention. I am just saying that here we have that which is significant.
Abram, can I say to you tonight, if you give yourself to that which will please God and fulfill something through your life, I believe it will also consummate in you the thing that Bethel really stands for.
But you know what is at his back? Well, let us put it this way: if you turn your back on what God is really after, you will have Ai. You turn your back on Ai, and you have what? Bethel. It is one or the other.
The question is, what does Ai mean? A heap of ruins.
Would it not be something, coming down to the twilight years of a lifetime, you had missed the thing that God was after? And what do you have? Ai—a heap of ruins.
I do not think I am old, in spite of some gray hair, but I will tell you: God keeps pressing my heart. After ministering twenty-five years for the Lord, there is something within that keeps crying out, “Oh, God, to get to the realities of things.”
You can preach, you can travel the world, you can do all of this and that. It is good, it is helpful, it is for the Lord. After a while, something begins—I believe it is the Holy Spirit working within—to want to sharpen things down to that which is most important.
So here we are before the altar tonight. Ours is the life of the altar. And I would like to say that, having really established our altar—what we give ourselves to—then you can pitch your tent.
Do not try to pitch your tent and set your altar accordingly. It is a real difficult thing to find fullness. I tell people who think they are going to move to Florida and retire: that is pitching your tent and trying to build an altar nearby.
You move to Florida, California, Arizona, or even lovely Virginia, just for climate, just to have a nice place to live. That is putting the emphasis on the tent first. And God wants an altar first.
Now, what does the altar represent? All the way through, I believe the altar represents what we give ourselves unto. It is true, in a sense, every one of us has an altar tonight. We are giving ourselves to something.
You are burning out for something, are you not? At least smoldering. Something is part of the passion of our life.
When the twilight hours come and life is about over, I have to say it will either be Bethel—helping to bring about that living habitation where God will dwell, a holy temple growing unto the Lord, a habitation for God—or it might be a heap of ruins.
Keep us from it, Lord. And, oh, is it not blessed that when your altar is real, the altar of the Lord, your tent goes right along? “Any place You put me, Lord—even an old bread truck—what should I care?”
It is something to consider, beloved. Your tent is your dwelling; the altar is the thing into which your life is really poured out.
I remember reading in the earlier accounts where John Chrysostom, one of the early fathers in the early church, was being persecuted. Rome was making it so difficult for him. They banished him through an isle to get him away.
He just laughed and said, “It is just as close to the Lord there as any place else. Praise the Lord.” You cannot hurt a fellow like that.
They said, trying to get at him, “We will kill you.” And he shouted, “Hallelujah! I will be quicker with Jesus.” Getting the altar, you see.
What I am concerned about tonight is this: I pray that God will help us to realize we have an altar. We are burning out for something. May it be the right altar—the right altar.
Having looked at Abram, let us look at a few more Old Testament pictures of what the cross really testifies, or what the altar back there really signifies. Turn to 1 Kings 18.
In 1 Kings 18, we have the picture of a man whom God has raised up as a prophet in Israel. It is a dark hour in Israel, because Ahab is reigning. He has a wife—remember what her name is? Jezebel.
The conditions in Israel are very difficult. There is a fellow by the name of Elijah who is called a troubler in Israel. I really think he is a healer, but everybody who looks upon him can only speak of him as a troubler.
Could I tell you something? I believe that this man has the cross as a working principle in his life.
You see, beloved, it is possible for us to look upon the cross and see man in his fallen condition, and to see all that has happened at the cross for us. I like to call this the work of the cross.
When I look to the cross, I see that the precious blood of Jesus has been shed, and it gives me forgiveness. In the work of the cross, I have forgiveness.
I look back at the cross again and say that not only are my sins forgiven, but that when Jesus was nailed on the cross, I was nailed there in Him, with Him. This is a forgotten side of the cross all too often.
So many, thank God, know the substitutionary work of the cross. They know that Jesus died for them, that there is forgiveness through the blood. Thank God.
But there are lots of folk who have never looked back to see that they are at the cross of Calvary. In God’s viewpoint, He saw you and me wrapped into Him in the death of Christ. His death was my death. I was one with Him in death, burial, and resurrection.
It is true that this is the way God lays the axe to the root of all the old tree of Adam. He counts it out through death.
So there are two things at the cross: the blood that brings forgiveness, and our death with Him that brings us deliverance from what we are in Adam. We need that. We need that.
Far too many of God’s people have never looked back to see the deliverance that comes through our death with Christ. But all of this—the blood and our identification with Him—still constitutes the work of the cross, because it represents something that I get: forgiveness and deliverance.
Whose benefit is that for? Mostly, it is for me, is it not? Now, let us remember that, in a sense, the cross is an eternal principle in the heart of God.
Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. God was not caught off guard when Adam was placed in the garden and went his own way in sin.
God did not have to set up some stopgap remedy to overcome the whole treacherous rebellion of Adam. I sort of believe that all He needed to do was open up His bosom, pull back His heart, and say, “Here, I have already the capacity. I have already that with which I can take care of man’s rebellion.”
Could I say, in getting to the real point tonight, that I believe all that God does in all of His working has the cross in the heart of it: God’s sacrifice, God’s pouring out, God’s giving.
There is a sense in which all the purposes of God—that which is headed toward the real goal toward which He is working—need to be accomplished by what I like to call the way of the cross.
Everything that God does out of His own heart has in it the way of the cross. What is it? Self-giving, pouring, sacrifice, sharing, giving Himself.
When Jesus came and walked among men in the way of the cross, He really was just unveiling the heart of God. God so loved that He gave.
When we first come to appropriate from the cross, man in his selfish condition, man in his own need, I am afraid most of the time we only see the cross and interpret it in relation to what it will mean to us: forgiveness, joy, blessing, peace, deliverance.
All of that accrues to us. Thank God. We do not minimize it. I wish most people could get through at least the second aspect of what is involved at the cross.
But having arrived at this point, where we are on the line of purpose and moving on toward the thing that God wants, there has been a real exclusive work that has taken place with the cross.
From that moment on, He says, we have become alive unto God—dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God. Now the question is: as my life is poured out on the altar, and I come to know what it is to be identified with the Lord Jesus, not merely in His death but in His life, as it were poured out along the way, what does that mean?
It is then that we begin to see the significance of “Take up your cross, and follow Me.”
I have to be very honest with you tonight. All through the last twenty-five years, I have heard people say to others, “What you need to do is take up your cross.” So far as I am concerned, they get it in the wrong place.
They have not grasped the real significance of taking up your cross, because all too often they are taking it up hoping thereby for some value for themselves.
Did I lose you, or are you with me? Taking up the cross so that somehow there can be deliverance for them—that would be a miscarriage of grace and a confusion of the real issue.
When I first began to share the cross way back, God began to show me that the reason most people—most good Bible scholars—were afraid of identification with the cross was because people approached it as though there was something vicarious, something efficacious, something of value that would come to us in picking up the cross.
No, we must be very clear. So far as the grace of God is concerned, when in our fallen condition we look to Calvary and receive the precious blood for forgiveness and our death with Him on the cross, God says by this work of the cross that He has accomplished, He has brought us into a position with Himself.
And now, on resurrection ground—strange as it may seem—now we can take the cross in the way of the cross as a means by which God gets something out of our life.
Turn to Romans 8, the place that most people talk about wanting to live. Romans 8:35:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
And verse 36:
As it is written,
For Thy sake we are killed all the day long;
we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
The little phrase here, “for Thy sake,” sticks out to me. The reason is that it emphasizes what I want us to see tonight.
In appropriating what Jesus did on the cross in the work of the cross, it is always for whose sake? For our sake. I receive forgiveness. I enjoy deliverance.
But now that I am the Lord’s, I have been delivered, and I start on the resurrection way to be poured out for Him. Then I have the privilege, as it were, of being identified with the Lord in a poured-out life.
He says, as He was a Lamb that was slain, “For Thy sake.” “Oh, God, I do not get a thing out of this except the satisfaction that God is satisfied. For Thy sake we are killed all the day long.”
Be very clear about this: the work of the Lord Jesus on the cross is always a finished thing, and the tense of it is always past. “I have been crucified with Christ.” I reckon on the finality of it.
What is it? Precious blood shed; crucified with Him—past tense. But the way of the cross is something continual and progressive, that God might realize something out of our life.
Turn over to 2 Corinthians 4. Beginning with verse 8:
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed;
we are perplexed, but not in despair;
persecuted, but not forsaken;
cast down, but not destroyed;
always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,
that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
Then he says:
For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake,
that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
We are always delivered unto death—for our victory? For our forgiveness? No. Lord, help us to get the distinction here. We are delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake.
I receive through my oneness with Him at the cross forgiveness and deliverance. But now, on the resurrection line, fulfilling God’s purpose, we are delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake.
Oh, Lord, the privilege of being one with You in the way of the cross. Who else gets something? Others do. Others do.
Notice verse 12:
So then death worketh in us, but life in you.
I remember, almost twenty years ago, when I first began to get into the cross and realize some of its emphasis. When a life begins to experience some of the way of the Spirit of God—death working in you, life to others—it is so easy to want to escape and take an easy way.
I would get into a particular situation where death would really be working, and I did not know any better than to say, “Well, praise the Lord. Two weeks from now I will be over there, and it will be a lot easier. That pastor, that church, those people—they will accept what I have to share.”
So I never unpacked. I never unpacked. I would always say, “I believe it will be better down the road.” I was waiting for another day, a better day, a better circumstance, a better situation.
Then one day the Lord began to pull back the curtain, and I saw that I might as well cheer up—it was never going to be any different.
Death works in us continually, and it is this way that life is squeezed out to others.
I remember in my hotel room coming to that wonderful discovery, if you know what I mean. I wrote at the bottom of the page, “Cheer up, Vern. Unpack and face it today. You do not face it today, you will never face it tomorrow.”
Death works in us continually. But every one of us is an escapist when it comes to God getting something out of our life.
We will reckon on the work of the cross because, “Lord, I need forgiveness and I need deliverance. I need to have the cross do something deeper in order to…” Thank God, I do not want to minimize this.
But there is a difference when finally the cry of the heart is, “Oh, God, that there might be a fruitfulness unto You, that You might have something.” Then this little phrase picks out: “For Thy sake we are killed all the day long.”
For Jesus’ sake, we are the lamb led to the slaughter. Thank God.
Every step taken along this way is a voluntary step with the Lord. He is not beating us over the head with a club. It is not that. Thank God, it is voluntary. It is a free giving.
I suppose until you are ready for it, you will not know much about it. But there comes a time when lives get sick and fed up with just what things can mean to them, interpreting the cross always in the light of what it means to them.
I believe the cross has its deepest, more perfect work of dealing in our life when we become dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God. “Oh, God, for what You get.”
I think it is along this line, then, that we bear in our body the marks. We are dying daily. I cannot see that dying daily fits where I have to reckon on the finished work of His death.
Dying daily could never bring deliverance to me. I reckon on the finished work of His death—the completed, final work of His shed blood. That is grace.
If dying daily is going to bring me deliverance for myself, I am frustrating the grace of God. Yet it is hard to keep these two separate, because we are always needing deeper deliverance. While death is working in us, it is doing some delivering at the same time it is squeezing life out to others.
Go back to 1 Kings. All I wanted to say in passing was this: I believe Elijah was a man who had the cross planted within him. He was a man who had the cross planted as a principle within.
While everyone looked down and said he was the troubler in Israel, he was the one God was going to use. While death was no doubt working, there was a squeezing out of life. It was a means by which God was going to do something in Israel.
Do not think, beloved, that your life can really come to its fruitfulness for God without those who look on counting you a troubler. Cheer up. That troubler is the real healer—the one who is really dispensing life.
Elijah says in 1 Kings 18:18:
I have not troubled Israel;
but thou, and thy father’s house,
in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord,
and thou hast followed Baalim.
Then he gathers Israel at Mount Carmel and says:
How long halt ye between two opinions?
If the Lord be God, follow Him:
but if Baal, then follow him.
I like this. I believe the man who has the cross planted in his heart knows how to get right to issues.
Your fuzziness, your soft sentimentality, will dodge the issues and try somehow to avoid them. But the more the principle really works, there is that discernment that says, “How long are you going to halt? Now this is the issue.”
Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal, and then, in verse 30, we read:
And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me.
And all the people came near unto him.
And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down.
The altar that he begins to repair and establish right on their site was made of rough stones. The law of the altar that had been given previously was this: no handiwork or artificer’s work of man upon these stones.
Rough stones. No hewing. No artistry. Do you know why? God is establishing the principle that it is at this cross where He meets man. Man will have nothing in and of himself for glory.
When Jesus was nailed to that altar finally, remember, it was an old rugged cross.
One reason I question whether a lot of people really understand some of the realities of the cross is because the crosses I look around at today have the handiwork of man, and the altars I look at today are not rough stones—even while they are trying to typify something.
I remember a number of years ago, over in Hickory, North Carolina, staying in the home of a man who was very skilled in woodworking. He was a lovely brother and loved the Lord.
He came home all excited and said, “We have finished it.” I said, “What?” He said, “We have finished the altar at such-and-such a church. It cost them $145,000 for the altar.”
Nothing would do but that I had to go with him to the church and look at that ornate thing around the front. It was beautiful. You could see the carving, all the design, and the handiwork.
But I am afraid I could not engender any enthusiasm. He kept looking back at me. Finally, I had to be honest. Dear brother—but he was a good brother. He understood.
What are you trying to get at tonight? Hidden way back in the Old Testament are some principles. When Elijah repaired this altar, knowing what it was to be, it was rough stone—no hewing of man.
Nothing for man to glory in. And the cross later on was an old rugged cross. Any attempts of men down through the years to somehow make it something that men can siphon off and glory in—it is a tragedy.
There is something else interesting here. Remember, Ahab was king over Israel, which represented ten tribes. There was a schism; there was a split in the kingdom. Judah and Benjamin represented the other two.
I love this man Elijah because, right here in front of Ahab, he gives testimony to what the cross really does and what it stands for—not only rough stones, on which there has been no handiwork of man.
But when he puts these stones together, let us read verse 31:
And Elijah took twelve stones,
according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob,
unto whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be thy name:
and with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord.
Twelve stones. Imagine what a way that must have spoken to Ahab. Twelve stones representing the number of all the tribes of Israel.
We look back, hidden way back in the Old Testament, and see that the altar stood for an altar that represented a unifying.
You remember the cross—what Jesus did. He took Jew and Gentile. There had been an awful middle wall, a breach, a partition between them. But what did He do at the cross? He made one new man: neither Jew nor Gentile.
Get too close to the cross, and let it work in all its testimony, and it has a way of dealing with all man’s divisions. It stands for twelve stones. One body in Christ.
I thank God for an Elijah who, right in the midst of the king, without any hesitancy picks up twelve stones. We stand for the same.
When the offering had been placed on this altar and God approved, whereas before they had tried in every possible way to get the fire to come, Elijah put the water around and made it as hard as possible.
And God, who answers by fire, came and consumed not only the sacrifice, but licked up all the water. I would love to have been there.
Oh, they had God’s approval upon the sacrifice given—the God who answers by fire. I believe He does it today to a life, as with Abraham: any life that comes to the altar and gives itself wholly to God for what God wants.
The approval is the God who answers by fire. He purifies wholly for Himself. This is the testimony hidden way back here—the testimony that issues out of the cross, out of the altar.
Turn to the Gospel of Luke for a moment. Let us get a little glimpse here of what really takes place. Luke 22.
Stop and consider with me now: what really is the central issue in the cross? What really is the central issue?
Here we have the altar. We have been saying yesterday and this morning that here we have the central thing that God is after.
I think, in looking into the agony of the Lord just before He goes to the cross, you get a little glimpse of the cup and what the cup represents.
My concern these days is that so many of the Lord’s people, as we have been saying, are ready for sacrifice. They will give themselves. The cup is the portion of suffering; it is the sharing in what this sacrifice really means.
But I wonder if, when we look into this situation with the Lord Jesus, we get what is really involved. When He says, “Not My will, but Thine, be done,” I do not think the issue is an unwillingness to give Himself in sacrifice.
I do not believe that is the issue. I believe the real issue with the Lord Jesus is the wanting inwardly to know that this which He is about to give Himself to is really the will of God.
The central issue is not the sacrifice. It is the will of God.
How could I frame this so that it will have some meaning to you? I have thought of those who have been in communist hands and have given themselves. I have thought, “Lord, I believe there is a willingness to give myself to that for You, if You will give grace in that hour.”
But as I begin to reason and think about it, always the thing that comes back to me is, “I would sure hate to waste my life with somebody’s bullet, or some insignificant, insane fellow who was just mad.”
I would be glad to give myself if there could be something of value for the Lord. Are you with me? But I always come back to this reasoning: I would sure hate to waste my death and not have it really mean anything for the Lord.
I think what little glimpse I have had into the willingness of the Lord is being attuned continually to the Father for His purpose.
I believe He would have quickly gone out, as it were, to take the cup—the sacrifice, the suffering. I do not believe that was the issue. I believe the issue was that He had to be very sure that even this sacrifice was the will of God.
Once He was sure of this, “I will be there.” No problem. Do you follow me?
Our problem today in all Christendom is the same old thing. People in their emotions, people in their enthusiasm, people in their zeal and their blindness, will give themselves. They will build a little altar, jump up on it, and give.
But, oh, this coming to really know the will of God, to be one with Him in His will. I believe it is central—the central issue that we see in the Lord Jesus here.
“Nevertheless, all right, Father.” When He knew, He could go out to meet it with joy and confidence.
I believe the same thing is true of us all through our walk and our going on with the Lord. If we come to know the reality of the cross in our life, it is not just sacrifice. It is not just the outward giving of ourselves to a project or a cause.
We have to continually, inwardly, know in our spirit: “This is the will of God.” I think when this can be settled, it brings a rest—but no other rest.
I think after some years you get to the place where the cry of your heart is, “Oh, God, just so that You will be pleased, that You will be satisfied.” That is to clearly know what the will of the Lord is. That is the issue.
Look again into the life of David, and you see how different it was between David and Saul.
Somehow, I believe Saul must have looked on many times when he saw all the sacrifices of animals. It was quite a thing when they had a big sacrifice. Imagine a train pulling up—probably a hundred boxcars it would take—and all these animals brought out and slain.
Everything in your natural interpretation would look upon that and say, “Boy, that is a waste,” unless God helps to interpret something of reality.
The reason I am sure King Saul never got into the reality of the offering of the altar is because, when he was sent down to slay all the Amalekites, he spared the best of the sheep and the oxen. You know the story.
He allowed the people to spare, and he spared King Agag. Of course, there is the twisting, the little rationalizing of the mind. It is so hard to spare good things, nice things. We are glad to get rid of some bad things; that is not hard.
All the bad, the vile, the refuse, they slew. But they spared the good things. It is these good things that somehow escape the sword, that we try to give to God.
Our reputation. We think somehow God ought to be able to do something with our reputation.
I hear people say so often, “Oh, would it not be wonderful if so-and-so would become a Christian? What a power and an influence they would be for God because of their reputation.”
Could I disillusion you for a moment? That is man’s reason. Influence as such never really accomplishes the way of the Lord. God’s way is to take a life to the cross.
All that we try to spare and use for Him is just a little rationalizing of our minds. God does not use man’s reputation. The best example of it is the One who “made Himself of no reputation.”
Your reputation is one of those things that is so difficult to let the sword touch.
Saul brought back these animals from the Amalekites. He takes them down to Gilgal and begins to set up an altar to sacrifice to the Lord. Then he meets Samuel.
Imagine trying to sacrifice animals that had come from the Amalekites to the Lord. He does not understand. It is just an outward, formal thing.
It would be like my reaching into my sister’s purse when the offering plate is going by, taking out a ten-dollar bill, and putting it in. If I could find a twenty, probably that is what it would be. What is the difference? Taking something that cost me nothing.
David knew what sacrifice was. Remember when he had sinned, and he goes out to the edge of the city? He had commanded that Joab go through the country and number the people. Immediately God speaks to him.
There he is at Ornan’s threshing floor. Ornan recognizes that it is King David and says, “Oh, King David, what do you want? What is it you want?” David says, “I have come to make sacrifice to the Lord.”
Ornan offers him the wood for the altar. He offers him an animal to sacrifice. What does David say?
Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing.
Oh, I would say tonight: if you live in the outwardness, live in the form of what the cross has meant, you can take some animals from the Amalekites. You can reach into your neighbor’s purse. You can give that.
But the sacrifices of God are something inward first: a broken and contrite heart, a broken spirit.
Everything of the cross represents cost. It cost God when He gave. When we come to understand some of the reality involved in the cross, we will not be bypassing it by going through our little forms and ceremonies.
“Oh, God, that is the cost.” Yet, having said this, I am almost frightened, because there is such a strand within man—he would like to have some cost.
Once again, it is not just sacrifice. It is not just cost. God has to deal with this principle within us and bring us to hear Him, to have an ear to know what God wants. It is the will of God, not rushing out to service.
Let me, in closing tonight, picture what I like to speak of as two different altars on which men, so to speak, give themselves.
Sometimes I call this first altar our working for God. What is the sacrifice when we are working for the Lord? Turn for a moment to Ecclesiastes 5.
Ecclesiastes 5:1 says:
Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God,
and be more ready to hear,
than to give the sacrifice of fools:
for they consider not that they do evil.
What is the sacrifice of fools? Be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools. “Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.”
I believe we have a lot of the sacrifice of fools in the religious realm today.
We have been saying that in our spirit we learn to hear the Lord. It is in our soul—man’s mind, his emotions, and his will—that people can get all enthused.
Be careful when you go to church. Let me put it in my own interpretation: be very careful. You might hear a glib speaker who can really challenge your soul.
The first thing you know, you will say, “I will give the sacrifice.” Oh, that we might learn to hear, that we might learn to hear.
I know the tendencies in the church world today. So many men feel like they have not had a good meeting unless they have got some cards, some statistics, or something that somehow appeals back to the speaker.
I have been in a lot of missionary conferences. I have seen individuals that I have had to deal with afterwards. It is quite a thing for a young person, under the enthusiasm of the moment, to see a film, to look at the poor heathen with all their desperate need, and out of his soul, out of emotion, out of response, go to the altar and say, “I will go to Africa. I give myself to the Lord.”
Well, thank God for sincerity. But all the frustration that comes. I have had young people come to me and say, “I did that ten years ago, and every year now some sister comes along and says, ‘I am still praying that you will get there.’”
It is quite a struggle. What is it? I believe there are a lot of individuals who, on the spur of the moment, in the enthusiasm of their soul, like to do something for the Lord and offer the sacrifice of fools.
It is that enthusiasm, or that challenge, which issues out of the soul that is being stirred.
I heard a mission director tell me that they had concluded that one percent of the people who respond to their altar calls actually get to the field. I knew what he meant.
We are not playing down lives that need to be challenged, that God wants to work with. But I would say to you tonight, beloved: oh, to learn to hear with the inner ear and to let God lead you along.
You can say unto the Lord, “Lord, my heart, my spirit, is fixed toward You,” and God will lead and God will open. But some of this rashness of the mouth—“Be not rash with thy mouth.”
I am thinking of Peter: “Though all forsake You, I will not.” I guess the reason I see this is because I have been through it so much. I have been so steamed up at times I thought I would go around the world for Jesus, and the trouble was, Monday morning when I woke up, it was all gone.
I have hated the fickleness of my soul. I despised this fickleness that was up and down, up and down—the rashness with which I spoke, the sacrifice of fools.
Then, in the goodness of the Lord, He has begun to show me His ways are different. He would have us respond with our inner ear—the hearing.
Ecclesiastes 5:4-5 says:
When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it;
for He hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.
Better is it that thou shouldest not vow,
than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.
There is nothing more ruinous of character, and the developing of character, than to say, “I will,” and then not do it. You cannot do that very often before there is no strength of character within.
Be careful when you go to church. “Be more ready to hear” than to be quick with your soul to make vows that are very difficult to fulfill.
I remember a couple of years ago I was out in Washington, in a little city holding a series of meetings. On the last day, after the morning meeting, some businessmen asked if we could eat together.
About twenty-five fellows gathered in a side room of a café. Pretty soon one of them said, “We really have you here for a purpose. We want to ask you a question.”
They told me that about a year before, a very high-powered speaker had come through. The man had had a vision in a dream the night before that God wanted him to raise $100,000 in that group.
He challenged them, giving interesting stories of folk who had entered into a prosperity covenant with the Lord: if they would do this, God would bless them tenfold.
He told stories about those who had had a rich relative die and how many times they had been helped and blessed. Then those fellows sitting around there asked me, “When you make a vow, do you have to keep the vow?”
I will never forget it. “Do you believe you have to keep vows?” One fellow said, “I pledged $2,000. Little by little, I have been able to pay $200 of it, but I am having an awful time.”
The next fellow said, “I pledged a thousand. I paid three hundred.” I went around, and I saw how that whole group of intelligent men had been swept along by enthusiasm, and perhaps a little selfishness: give a thousand and get ten back. Who would not?
I sat before them that day looking at a lot of people who were being made merchandise. I would hate to think that we do with precious souls, which is what it is, as mere merchandise—challenging, or whatever it is.
There is an awful lot of it going on in religious circles today. I am afraid a lot of it ends up as nothing but the sacrifice of fools.
When you are working for God, you can get all steamed up about doing things, and sacrifice becomes more important than really knowing and hearing from the Lord.
We said a little bit ago that when Saul brought the animals back from the Amalekites, I believe he was offering the sacrifice of the blind. How blind he was, thinking he could take the animals from the Amalekites and offer them to the Lord. It did not cost him anything.
There is another sacrifice the Scripture speaks of: the sacrifice of the wicked.
The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.
If we clearly understand the altar and the ways of the Lord in sacrifice, we begin to see that God is very careful about sacrifice. He is very careful about those who help with His work.
I believe there is a wickedness, a mixture, a looseness today. Men get projects, men get goals, things they are doing for God, and they try to harness all the funds and all the means they can. The end justifies any means.
God is careful. Back in the days when I was in Youth for Christ, we had a big program going and a costly budget. We ran a youth center.
One fellow came bouncing in with great excitement. They had been making a canvass of all the business places. He said, “Guess what? A brewing company has offered us $25,000.”
It was a real achievement for him. I had three or four men on the board, and I saw their faces fall. One of them looked up and said, “What did you say? A brewing company?”
Then he quoted this verse:
The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.
All the lives that have been ruined by the liquor traffic—and now to think that some of this could be used in building something for the Lord.
The men got into a real tangle. One of them said, “I would use the devil’s money if I could get it.” We finally decided we had better pray for a while, and it was put off for a couple of weeks.
But I sat, a young fellow, right in the midst of that. The project, working for God, the end, seemed to be very important.
I am afraid an awful lot of things today are like that. The end that men set out as a goal seems so important that almost any means can be used to get that end accomplished.
I believe the real end of everything should be the glory of the Lord. God’s glory. Every lesser project, every lesser thing that we set up, is for God’s glory. But the glory of the Lord at the end means that our means must be glorifying to Him along the way.
I have been thankful for that little experience, because ever since it has helped me to realize that God’s work done in God’s way will not lack God’s support. I really believe that.
But when we set up our own projects, get our own dreams, we have to make merchandise and use a lot of things—and there is the wickedness of a lot of sacrifice.
One more. When you are working for God: the sacrifice of fools, the sacrifice of the blind, the sacrifice of the wicked—and Habakkuk gives us a nice little picture of sacrifice. He calls it the sacrifice unto the net.
Habakkuk 1:16:
Therefore they sacrifice unto their net,
and burn incense unto their drag;
because by them their portion is fat,
and their meat plenteous.
The net is the means, the tool, the equipment you use in getting the job done. Would it not be something to get so enamored, so wrapped up in your tool, that you build a little altar and live unto it? You get the thing all mixed up.
The Amplified translation puts it this way:
Therefore he sacrifices offerings to his net,
and burns incense to his dragnet,
because from them he lives luxuriously
and his food is plentiful and rich.
It is all right for a fisherman to be really alive to his net. But who are the fishermen? You and I. What is our net?
There has been many a man who began, as it were, an effective ministry for the Lord. He saw the need of a bigger place for God’s people to gather. When the new sanctuary or the new place was built, pretty soon the net—the place—got so big, so important, that he spent the rest of his life burning incense and worshiping the net.
All the subtlety of it. Why not? After all, if the net gives you your livelihood, and by it you live luxuriously or your food is plentiful, you see the principle.
But we are too spiritual to get caught with that kind of a net. You think there is another?
God has been speaking to my own heart. I think a man’s ministry, given by the Lord—the ministry, the gift, the enablement, whatever it is that God has given—can become a man’s net.
If he is not careful, he can live unto the ministry, or the net that he has, because by it he lives. Oh, it is a subtle thing.
God just seems to press me back, right back to the cross. The central issue—what is it? Living off the ministry? Living off the net, so to speak? By it, there is plenty. God forbid.
The central issue of the cross is not sacrifice. It is not service. It is not work. It is the will of God—knowing God’s will.
I heard, I think it was Mr. Maxwell, a number of years ago, in one of his little books, say, “Oh, the tragedy today is that Jesus died on His cross, but most men today live off of it.”
I never got over it when I heard it. They live off of it. It is something, you see. We miss the heart and the center of it.
When you come to this altar where the whole ambition is, “God needs workers. God wants helpers. I give myself to the Lord,” working for God is very easy to get caught into these kinds of sacrifices, and perhaps end up just worshiping the net.
What is the other sacrifice? I do not know how to put this briefly. But somehow, I think when we come to this altar—the altar that God brings us to—we get a little glimpse of what it means to be one with Him in His sacrifice.
We are identified with Him in what it means to be a bondslave, a loveslave. Instead of working for God, let us say: God is working.
How does God work? Most of the time, I think He says, “Son, you just sit down and be quiet. I could get something done.” “But, Lord, You need help.”
We are just so wrapped up in what we can do. I really think that the central issue of our sacrifice is that, when we say we are one with Him—nailed to the cross, buried in the tomb, risen with Him—and then get into what is called the way of the cross and the experiencing of it, God literally makes us one with Him.
These are the offerings that we give. Have you ever heard of the sacrifice of praise?
It seems to me that all God is doing in every situation is setting up a nice little platform on which He can reveal Himself through every situation. We think it is working for the Lord; it is getting something done.
Let me illustrate what I mean. We are putting out books—publishing. It is very easy to get the idea that God’s primary thing is getting books out.
About the time you order a carload of paper, and the fellows you bought it from, through, you discover they have bought an inferior kind of paper. They want you to pay full price for something less.
There you stand, ready to help the Lord get His books out. Every time a situation like this has come, it is just as though the Lord has crowded me right to the point and said, “Now, I have a lovely little platform to reveal Myself through this situation.”
“Are you going to grumble? Are you going to murmur? Are you going to complain and get your eyes on books, or on My opportunity to reveal Myself?” So, praise the Lord. I do not know how You are going to do it, Lord.
Offering the sacrifice of praise. Are you with me?
If God wanted to get books printed, churches built, and all that, He could send a thousand angels and get it done with a lot less murmuring. How many of you know that to be true?
But it is a lovely thing. He keeps us occupied with, I guess, what we think we are doing, and He says, “That is just busy work.”
Do you know what busy work is? Any teachers here? In school, we have what we call busy work. We give the child something to keep him out of mischief. He may not learn much through it, but he is coloring—it is busy work.
I am afraid we get a lot of busy work. But the real issue is what? God has created a platform.
Every time I have been about to stand for getting God’s full price, the Lord seems to say, “Now, careful, careful. I have to have a platform by which to reveal Myself.”
I have been very hard on businessmen and other people out in the world. I thank God for being pushed right out into the midst of it. It is the opportunity, the platform, to say, “Oh, Lord, I praise You. I am so glad it is all Yours anyway.”
I do not believe in being loose. I do not believe in being careless. There is that which is right. But, oh, to stay right in your spirit while you are holding for a right principle.
Praise the Lord. In all things give thanks. You can read how many places in Scripture there is the sacrifice of thanksgiving. “Thank You, Lord. This is an opportunity.”
I remember some years ago I had been ministering one morning to a ladies’ group on the sacrifice of thanksgiving. “Why, praise the Lord in all things you can give thanks.” It is real good theory.
On the way home that noon, the lady of the house where I was staying asked to stop at a supermarket to get an item for dinner. I was weary and decided I would sit in the car while she got the item.
I laid my head back to rest for a moment, and wham! I looked up, shocked. Somebody backed into the side of my car, and I had a brand-new car.
You know your first impulse. I sat over the steering wheel, and just at that moment the Lord whispered, “What was that you were telling the ladies this morning?”
“In all things give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”
I remember saying, “Lord, thank You. Thank You. I do not know how You are going to get something out of this, but thank You.”
I believe it gets easier when you only have one pocket. How many of you have your pocket and the Lord’s pocket? You put ten percent over there, and you keep pretty close books, do you not?
Ah, it is a blessed thing: “Lord, it is all Yours. You want to smash the car up? Go ahead. You will have to pay for it.” One pocket. One pocket brings great rest.
I got out and walked back. The poor fellow got out of his car shivering, expecting a tongue-lashing. He said, “My foot slipped off the foot brake onto the accelerator, and wham!”
I smiled. I said, “You know, I am sure that could have happened to me.” We had a gracious time there from that. I know the Lord spoke to his heart. I know what He did in my own heart.
“In all things give thanks.” Are you not glad the Lord is setting up little platforms to reveal Himself?
That is what they are: an altar in which you can be poured out, sheep counted for the slaughter, for Jesus’ sake.
The sacrifice of praise, the sacrifice of thanksgiving, the sacrifice of joy—all of it, I believe, is what He means in Romans when He says:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service.
We can get a martyr complex and clench our fists and say, “I am going to.” But I have news for you: in every situation, we will climb down off the altar, that nice little platform.
Once again, we live by the supply of the Lord—His supply to our spirit. Our willpower will never go through. You might brace yourself for a couple of situations, but then there will come a moment when you are off guard.
What am I trying to say tonight? I believe, beloved, that there is something very wonderful about the realities of the cross. It is something more than just two old sticks that Jesus died on.
Let the Lord unveil the central issues of it, and you will see that God is bringing us through it into an intimate fellowship with Himself.
That is where we have been starting, you see. We are called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ.
When Paul says in Philippians, “That I may know Him,” and the what? “The fellowship of His sufferings,” you can know various fellowships with the Lord.
Here we are in our spirit, fellowshipping with Him, but He is taking us on to the privilege—the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death.
The only way you can understand that conformity to His death is not to make it the work of the cross, but to make it the way of the cross.
Thank You, Lord. I believe You have gotten the truth to them.
Oh, I have been asking all week, “Lord, we come to this season. Make it to be something new, something different this year. Let me enter in, in a whole new way, to the reality.”
Shall we pray?
Here we are tonight, Lord. We do not want just knowledge, but, oh, we want that we might truly know what it is to be one with Thee, identified with Thee in Thy death.