Lord, we are very strongly and deeply conscious of our need for particular grace, particular wisdom, and particular help from Thyself.
Thou knowest we are seeking to bring everything to very practical issues. All the words, all the messages, all this volume of verbal expression, have got to have some really definite and concrete outcome.
And we are, in these particular hours, seeking to find a way for that. So we ask Thee for what is not possible to man; but Thou wilt show us the way. Teach us Thy way, O Lord, and lead us in a straight path, for Thy name’s sake. Amen.
Shall we remind ourselves of the special object of these afternoon hours this week? It is that we should bring all that is being brought before us to the focus of practical outcome—the “how” of it all.
The question no doubt occupies many hearts and minds: “Well, yes, we see the truth. We accept the truth. We believe that is the truth. But how are we to get into it, or how is it to get into us?”
And it is to answer that inquiry of “how” that we are spending these afternoon hours together. Each one is intended to focus upon a particular message, although the whole, of course, touches all.
As far as I am concerned, you remember that the first message I gave had to do with spiritual capacity—the great need for increased spiritual capacity amongst the Lord’s people.
All the tragedy of Christian life is due to limited capacity. How great is the need for inward enlargement, that we may comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth, and know that which passeth knowledge. We are attempting to get into that.
It is an impossible thing, of course, with us. It requires the enablement of the Lord. So this afternoon we ask the question: How is enlargement of spiritual capacity to be attained?
The answer commenced this morning. I wondered just how far my brother was going to undercut the afternoon, but he brought us right onto it and said some very vital things about it. You will suffer repetition, if it is repetition—or underlining.
The answer to this question of spiritual capacity and spiritual ability is, of course, entirely in the cross. The cross is the answer to that question.
But when that is said, that word has become so familiar—so familiar that it has no longer any music, any thrill, very little feeling. You only have to mention the cross, and so often the reaction is, “Oh, well, we know all about that. We have heard all that. You cannot tell us much that is new about that.”
All right. Let us see. We will see what kind of a knowledge it is that we have.
When we speak of the cross, let us be very clear at once that we are speaking about death and resurrection. They both meet in the cross. The cross combines them both; they are centred there.
And when we speak about the cross, we mean death and resurrection in our own history—not merely in history dating back two thousand years ago; not merely something that happened back there, although, of course, that is where its root is.
We are concerned with the death and resurrection of Christ in our own history: in our own history, a part of our very history, an inward part of us.
You know what it is to have history in your blood, do you not? You may go to some parts of this world. For instance, when I go to Canada and meet with Canadians, they immediately say, “Oh, how is the old country?”
They want to talk about the old country. Before long they will tell you all about their grandparents, their parents, their own home, and the old country. It is in their blood. That is their history; they have inherited it. It is a part of them, and they cannot get away from it.
That may be true of other nationalities. There are many of them here, and probably you, more or less, have that history in your blood to which you revert.
When I say the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus in our history, that is what I mean. It is a part of us—not something we have taken on, accepted, adapted mentally, or attended to, and which, if some other thing came along equally appealing and attractive, we could let go and take that.
No, this has got to be so much a part of us that it would be spiritual suicide to leave it. Death and resurrection.
Now let me say one or two things that I do not like saying. They may not sound very pleasant, but we must get to the root of this. I am not talking about the doctrine or the teaching of the cross.
Somehow or other, wherever I go, I seem to be a synonym for the doctrine of the cross. Immediately people say, “You know, I have heard, I have received, the teaching of the cross—the message of the cross.”
Dear friends, I want to confess to you that I feel bad about that. I really do. They may be quite right, and they may be quite sincere, but I am not talking about—and we are not concerned with—what is called the message of the cross, which is found in books and literature, in bound volumes that you have accumulated.
Nor am I talking about something found in persons who stand on platforms and are known, more than for anything else, for “the message of the cross.” No, I am not talking about that, and we are not concerned with that.
I am not asking you to accept the message of the cross, however you may phrase it—identification with Christ in death, burial, and resurrection, and so on. Oh, I often wish we could get rid of a lot of our phraseology. It is really misleading. It very often detracts and becomes empty in meaning.
In every realm of Christianity, I think we need to revise our phraseology. If we had a revolution in the realm of phraseology, my word, what things would happen! You would never again on Sunday morning say you were “going to church.” Never again would you look at a certain kind of building and say, “That is church.”
I could go over the whole gamut of phraseology which is not true to the New Testament meaning. But I must leave that.
Let it be understood that this is not what we are concerned with this afternoon: something of a doctrine, a specific teaching, a phraseology, a terminology. No, not a terminology, but a terminus.
That is what we are talking about: a terminus which is nothing less than a devastation in our history. A devastation.
If the cross of Calvary, of our Lord Jesus Christ, was anything in the history of His disciples, it was a devastation. In the days immediately following, they had lost their Lord; they had lost their expectation. They were lost men.
No longer were they integrated; they were scattered everywhere—two off down to Emmaus, here and there. Poor old Nicodemus, how much he suffered somewhere, perhaps on his own, shut up in dark, dark despair. Peter had gone out weeping bitterly.
What is this language that these two say: “We had hoped that it should be He who would redeem Israel”? “We had hoped”—what shattered hope! It was a devastation, the cross was.
And if the Lord Jesus had not risen, that is how it would have remained. When He arose, His first thing was to gather up the scattered pieces, the fragments, bring them together again, and put new hope into them.
The cross is a devastation—perhaps more or less at one time—but sooner or later it is going to be that, absolutely. If you wait thirty or fifty years as a Christian, it is going to be that.
I was a minister, accredited to two denominations at the same time, preaching everywhere, with a full, full programme. I was sincere and very earnest, reaching out for the best that I knew.
And I was at it a long number of years before I met the real meaning of Romans 6. I tell you, it was a devastation which cut my whole life in two—like two different worlds.
But I do not want to talk about myself and what it meant there. You will have to deduce from some of the things I say this afternoon that they are not things just being said; they have come out of somewhere, from history with God.
Perhaps the best approach is along the line of the positive and not the negative. The positive will prove the reality of the cross—whether our talk, our speech, our phraseology, our profession, and our claims are really real.
The first positive thing which arose with those disciples, and must arise with all who have truly had the cross planted deeply into their history and very constitution, is their adjustability.
Their adjustability. And that is a tremendous ordeal for many. Tradition is a tyrant. Tradition is a padlock upon the soul.
You heard that? Do not write it in your notebook; write it inside. Tradition is a padlock upon the soul.
Have a look at Peter. Peter stands out as the first of the apostolic group. The cross had been planted very deeply in him. It devastated him, undoubtedly. But now the test is arising.
Peter is on the housetop, fasting and praying, and he falls into a trance. The heavens open, and a great sheet is let down by four corners. In the sheet are all manner of creatures, reptiles, and every kind of thing—things forbidden to Jews to eat in Leviticus 11.
The embargo upon all those things was written in Holy Scripture. And the voice from heaven says to a Jew, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.”
Now the issue is: How deep, how practical, is this? I know what you are thinking: Does the Lord ever contradict His own Word? Yes, He does, if you understand Him rightly.
“Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” Eat that reptile, that unclean beast, that unclean creature? “I, who stand fast for the inspiration of the Bible; I, who have observed Leviticus 11 meticulously all my life—you tell me to go back upon that and do the very thing that is forbidden there?”
“Not so, Lord.” “Lord, You are making a mistake now. This is not possible.” Nevertheless, this thing was done three times. The Lord was not letting him up.
Then the Lord brings in the cross, brings the cross right before Peter. In effect: “Well, Peter, what about what God has cleansed? There is a cleansing for all uncleanness. I have got a cross.”
“Oh, surely it does not apply to this kind of person, that kind of person, this nationality. We are the people.” Now then, Peter, your tradition is right in the way—right in the way of the outworking of the cross.
The cross makes tremendous differences in these matters. You have got to undo that padlock on your soul, Peter. You have got to let Me have My way through your tradition.
The cross has done something to change the whole position over Leviticus 11. What God hath cleansed, call not thou common. And you see the application.
Who were the unclean creatures in the conception and conviction of Simon Peter? The Gentiles. Those outside the pale of Judaism. They were the dogs; you do not make a meal of a dog. They were called the dogs.
But God has cleansed the Gentiles. The cross embodies and embraces all.
You know, dear friends, we have made a great mistake in our doctrine in this matter. We think that only the saved people are redeemed. If you do, you have made the biggest mistake of all.
The whole world, to the deepest, blackest sinner, is a redeemed world. That is not universalism—do not misunderstand. The tragedy will be that those for whom redemption was accomplished may not enter into the good of it; they may refuse it.
It is there for them. They are redeemed. The whole world is a redeemed world, and the whole world will not accept its redemption. Oh, the cross of Jesus Christ, you see, goes far and it goes deep.
But Peter is drawing a line—a line drawn by his tradition. And the whole issue now, for Peter and for all of us, is this: Are we adjustable by the cross? Can we be adjusted over our tradition?
You know, dear friends, the Lord does some very strange things in His sovereignty. In the sovereign economy of God, He seems to contradict Himself from time to time. That is the only way of putting it.
Take the instance of the apostle Paul. Paul was born, bred, brought up, and deeply dyed a Jew—a Hebrew. He tells us how deep it was, how strong it was, how far-reaching it was, and how involved it was.
He was really up to above his eyes in birth, inheritance, and tradition. It was a very part of him naturally, to be a Jew.
And when the Lord comes to that man, He takes him right out of everything—right out, root and branch; right out of Judaism, right out of his inheritance. You might say, right out of his blood—and makes him the apostle of the Gentiles.
Oh, do you say, “In the sovereignty of God I was born in such-and-such a setting, brought up there, and taught this and that; therefore, that is where I ought to stay. God brought me into that, and God having done this, I ought to stay there”?
Well, Paul’s life contradicts you if you say that. There is a reason always in God’s sovereignty.
I was, as I told you, deeply in that setting of organised Christianity. I believe to this day that the Lord sovereignly put me into that. Why? So that I would know what it is like.
I know how to speak of real emancipation—the difference, the difference. Paul, sovereignly born, brought up in Judaism, knew it because few men knew it—inside out and upside down. He knew it all, and he could talk about it with authority.
And he spoke about the cross. My word, he could speak about the cross with a background in his history. God does not contradict Himself, but He sometimes leads in a way and then pulls you right out of it.
He says, “That is not ultimately what I am after. That was only for a purpose—to teach you something, to show you something—so that your life would be based upon a history, a knowledge, not a theory. You know what you are talking about from your background.”
You see the point? The cross, with Peter, did just that. So the Lord won the battle, although Peter said, “Not so, Lord; not so, Lord.”
After he went to the house of Cornelius, the Holy Spirit fell on him anew, with all that were in the house. That is the Holy Spirit standing by the cross, you see, upholding the cross.
Now, if we are not adjustable, we may be in the way of the tragedy of missing God’s way. The tragedy of a life may be involved in a lack of adjustability.
Oh, I have lived long enough, and had contacts enough, to see some tragedies. I can tell you of them.
I knew a dear man quite intimately who was greatly used of the Lord. He was on the platform of the biggest conventions. He was in demand as a conference speaker everywhere. I felt, “This man is going a long way. This man is going to stand for something.”
Then an issue arose from that man’s life. I have got to safeguard what I say, because I do not want you, dear friends, to feel that because I say a thing and give some illustration, you have got to go and do that. It has got to come from God to you.
He had got a wide, worldwide ministry, and then the question of his denominational connection arose. It was, in the purpose of God, I believe, an issue for him.
The issue became the whole Church of God, the whole Body of Christ, the great universal calling—or the denomination. He had a place in it, and it was no small thing for him to have to face this.
I saw him going through the crisis and the conflict, and eventually he decided for the denomination. That man is hardly heard of today. He is still alive, whereas his name was once connected with all the spiritual movements. You could read in the religious papers: “He is speaking here this week and there next week.” You never see it now.
He has got a place in his denomination, yes, and they make a lot of him, but he has lost his platform. He has lost all those platforms. Thank God.
Now I say again: because I have said that, do not go and leave your denomination because I said it. This thing must come from God to you as a matter of life or death. Do not move until it does.
But here is a tragedy, you see: playing safe. “If I do that, you see what will happen to me? I will lose…” All right.
Here is another dear servant of God. I could mention his name and all would know, but I am not going to. Wild horses will not draw these names out of me.
This man was foremost amongst evangelical spiritual ministry, in great spiritual responsibility, with a very large heart. A very large heart—too large. Is that possible? Too large a heart.
A man who was a noted liberal modernist in theology—a nice man, a good, nice man, capable and attractive—asked this other man to write a foreword to a book that he had written, a book advocating liberal theology.
“Oh, will you write a foreword, commending your brother?” And he did it. He did it.
He lost everything of his great sphere of usefulness and died with a broken heart. Friendship? Popularity? How is the matter?
I could go on, but I will not say any more. Here is the point: the cross, dear friends, will prove whether it is real in our lives if it deals with our prejudices, preferences, natural likes and dislikes, ambitions, popularity, and compromises.
It will prove whether we are really in the Lord and are adjustable at any cost. At any cost.
You and I ought to know that the cost is suffering love. Oh, some exponents of the message of the cross are so legal, so hard. They put such a drive on other people to get them crucified.
They put their hands on people’s lives, as it were, to get them to the cross—in other words, to crucify them. God help us.
The cross is suffering love. And when the cross really comes in, it brings suffering.
So I am going to say here and now: there will be no increase and enlargement of spiritual capacity without suffering. Without suffering.
I know plenty of people who embrace the message of the cross and preach it, but, my word, they know nothing about suffering. They have never been broken.
They preach the cross—uncrucified men, unbroken men. The cross is suffering, right? And if that is not how we are, we really, after all, do not know anything about it.
You know David, of whom we have been speaking and shall be speaking much this week. David lost his throne, his city, and a large part of his people for a time, in a terrible tragedy. He escaped and went off weeping, weeping.
All because of sentimentality in his family. Absalom had committed murder, and David brought the murderer back without any confession, without any repentance, without any adjustment.
Then you know the story: Absalom drove his father out, took the throne, and was then slain by divine retribution. But even then David cried:
O Absalom, my son, my son Absalom!
Would God I had died for thee!
And a very unspiritual man said, in effect, “David, if your son’s life had been spared and the whole nation had been slaughtered, you would sooner have had it that way, would you not?”
Sentiment in the place of principle. The cross stands strongly by principle, even if it goes against our sentimentalism. Why, do you think about that.
Here we are, you see. Adjustability is a tremendous thing. I would like to say other things that result from the cross, but I did not intend to talk so long, and you are here to ask questions. I am only opening the way, supposedly, for you.
It is inevitable that in a conference like this, there will arise the matter of the cross. Inevitable. Sometimes it will come up, and we shall have to face it anew and test whether, after all, our doctrine, teaching, and talk about the cross are real.
Oh, it is a wonderful thing when this begins really to take place in us. I look at those eleven disciples who became eleven persons.
I see, in the earlier days with Christ, the brass dome over their minds. He could talk, He could speak, and they could not understand for the life of them. They did not know what He was talking about or what He meant. That was His trouble with them all the time.
He gave all His teaching, and they did not understand. Thank God, the cross was set up.
Afterward, the rulers took knowledge of them that they were unlearned and ignorant men. All right—but the film had gone. Heaven had been cleft asunder. They were seeing the meaning of the Scriptures all the way back.
Listen to Peter on the day of Pentecost, how he spoke of the Scriptures: “This is that, this is that.” He had never seen that before. He was just heaping Scripture upon Scripture, with its interpretation and meaning.
They had got a new knowledge—an entirely new knowledge—and a new capacity for understanding what they never before could grasp.
That will prove whether the cross has really begun to work in us: a new capacity for grasping the spiritual meaning of divine things.
I tell you, it is wonderful when you get this dome removed and you get this open heaven. It is only a beginning; we go on forever that way.
It is a wonderful thing when you begin to say, “Oh, I never saw that before. The Word was closed to me before; now it is open. It is alive, it is alive.”
We who are ministering to you this week are ministering simply because God has given us that open heaven—in a little way, a small way—to see His meanings, not merely what He says, but what He means. There is a difference.
Now, forgive my going so long. My intention is not to prolong this meeting beyond the point of profit. Is there anything you want to ask or say?
I would suggest this to you, dear friends, as basic and fundamental: knowing the truth, knowing the message, knowing the Word—you only take Romans 6—knowing it, you take it to the Lord.
You take your knowledge to the Lord and say, “Now, Lord, I believe this is what You want; this is what You mean. I definitely have a transaction with You that You, in Your own way and in Your own time, will make that good in my history.”
Ah, but dare you do that? Dare you?
It may not be long before something happens, and you say, “Oh, I did not mean this. No, Lord, I did not think it meant that.” Now, will you?
It is suffering love. And it is not love for yourself; it is love for your Lord.
All right, have a definite transaction with the Lord. I had to do that—shut myself up in my room and face everything: ministry, position, everything—and get through.
Thank God, He meant it. It was all brutal, but it is there.
In the old days, you know, at the Keswick Convention in the early years, that was the sort of thing that was happening.
Dr. F. B. Meyer, whom I knew very well, said once, “You know, the Spirit of God came down on the Keswick Convention when the message of the cross had been preached in such a way that people went to their rooms straight away, silent and solemn.”
“You could see the lights in their rooms all night. They were on their knees, getting through with it. Men went off to the lake and dropped their tobacco and their pipes in the lake. Others went off to the post office to get postal orders to pay their debts.”
That is how things were when the Holy Spirit took hold of the cross as it was then preached—very practical.
He said that the post office had sold out of all their postal orders for that day. Perfect.
We have got to have a transaction with God over this, very definitely—hold Him to it—if we really mean business with the Lord.
It is better to talk to the Lord than to one another.
I hope all my speaking has not quenched you. Have you anything to say now?
If not, shall we talk to the Lord? Even those of us who know most about it, there is still something more to be done.
In Thy presence, we do want to know the power of Thy resurrection ever more and more, and all that comes with it.
But it involves the fellowship of Thy sufferings, being made conformable to Thy death.
We do pray that every heart which is having a silent but sincere transaction and committal to Thee just now may find Thee taking responsibility for all the consequences and leading through.
Lead through not only into resurrection in a new way, but into liberty from all grave-clothes—our traditions, prejudices, and all that belonged to that part.
Oh Lord, Who readest every heart, take note, and get out of this hour something eternally precious for Thyself.
And Thy grace will be sufficient for us, whatever it means. So help us.
Oh, do safeguard from all dissipation and distraction. Oh, do hold us from any kind of intenseness that is so legal. Hold us in a solemn joy in being bound, one with the Lord Jesus.
His lot in life, in death, in reproach, in rejection and despising, but in the joy set before Him. So help us, we ask in His name. Amen.