What a privilege. It is a joy to be with you again tonight. It has been a wonderful day, and I have enjoyed the fellowship. I see some new faces—some have come in from a distance.
How many are here tonight who were not here last evening?
Okay, we lost half the crowd and gained a new one.
My real reason for asking is that I do not want to presume to build too much on what we were sharing last evening. But I do need to say this to you.
I was asked to give a testimony last night, and I decided that we would take a little of the history and background of God’s dealings in our own life over the last fifty years. I am celebrating fifty years in ministry.
Someone said, “That’s wonderful.” Sometimes I feel as though I have had one year’s experience fifty times. Oh, Lord.
I asked you to consider this as we looked at it: the main thing is the main thing. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
I am not trying to be clever, just to get your attention. How many are sure you know what the main thing is?
Let’s just boast to the Lord. You have been on the way all these years; you know what the main thing is. Do you?
All right. How many are so sure that you would die for it? I mean, there are people of conviction. You have a revelation; you would die for it. Raise your hands.
But, you know, in some ways you have to qualify this. You can talk about the main thing in the universe, which is primarily what I am dealing with. You can also talk about the main thing as it relates to certain aspects.
Last evening, in dealing with God’s history and working in my own life, I suggested that we talked about the mainstream of God’s working, and I dealt with some of the little eddies and things that I had been in.
The first one we considered was a whole period of life in which my emphasis was soul-winning, evangelism, world vision, and missions. I suppose you would say the main thing to that kind of individual would be consecration.
I need to say to you tonight that every now and then I get into an area or a group and see things at a stalemate. Folk, until the vision of what God really wants has laid hold of us, and there is a consecration willing to lay aside and sacrifice everything, our group will not grow very far. That is a deep, deep need.
I will just leave that there.
I told how, in God’s own timing, we came to see that just being busy and active was not sufficient. God brought us into the message of the cross and holiness of life. We went through a whole phase and came to realize that there is a separating from and a separating unto.
The great majority of people are separated from things, but the real separation is unto. Of course, you know that the Lord Himself is our holiness. He really is.
I remember back in those days hearing a young pastor who had just entered into victorious life. He came back after a real crisis of victory and dedication, and he began to preach to the little Baptist church where he was ministering.
Six months went by, and he kept telling them, “Folk, I have found the victory. I have the victory. God has brought me to a new level of separation unto Him.”
It was so real to him. After six months, the folk were getting a little weary of it.
One Wednesday night, I think it was, as the folk were leaving, dear old Grandpa Brown—who had been in the church for fifty years, walked with God, and knew God—walked out.
The young pastor met him at the door and said, “Well, Grandpa, do you have the victory tonight?”
I guess the old fellow thought that maybe it was time to help his brother. Very quietly he said, “I have something better.”
Well, that caught the young preacher: something better than the victory?
He said, “Grandpa, after fifty years of going on, what do you have that is better than the victory?”
He said, “I’ve got the Victor.”
There is far more in that than you realize. I thank God for every victory experience, but I finally came to realize, in my ups and downs and so forth, that if I had the Victor, He was my holiness. He was my supply.
Are you following any of that?
I could spend an hour on each of these. I was just going to review what we were saying: it is so easy to get off into side eddies and spend time there. I am glad I have learned some of it.
But tonight I want to go on and deal with a lesson. Before we get through, hopefully, we will answer the question a little more: What is the main thing?
I would like to read a portion tonight, beginning in Hebrews. If you will turn there, please—Hebrews 12.
I am not sure which version you have; probably most of you have the NAS. I am going to read from the NIV, if you will permit me.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,
let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.
And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author