I have often been very comforted by the words of Scripture which say:
He remembereth that we are dust.
And if the Lord remembers that we are dust, I am quite sure that He would have us remember it too. We have had a heavy day today. There does come a time when we have just about had enough that we can carry.
I feel, therefore, that this evening I should take perhaps a little lighter line—not go deeply into the matter which is before us in these days—but just speak in a simple way in order to encourage the Lord’s people in this heavenly calling.
I can remind you of the basic words:
Holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling.
And then I turn you to the tenth chapter of the letter to the Hebrews, and verse 35:
Cast not away therefore your boldness,
which hath great recompense of reward.
For ye have need of patience,
that, having done the will of God,
ye may receive the promise.
Sometimes the companions of the heavenly calling get a bit weary, and they need words such as these: “Cast not away your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.”
These Hebrew Christians were in danger of doing that. They were in danger of casting away their confidence for several reasons.
They were all the time being persuaded to take an easier way, to be satisfied with something less than that to which they were being called: just to settle down to the historic religion—religions, creeds, and symbols without life—all that which made up Old Testament Judaism.
These people would say, “Why are you so troubled about this upward, heavenly way? Be satisfied with just going to church when the time comes to go to church, bringing your offerings at the time to bring offerings, and going through all the set ritual of the temple. Just be satisfied with this routine. Don’t be so worried about this higher life. Let go of all that, and be content with an ordinary kind of religious life.”
And seeing that these people were having a very bad time from the world, that was a very real temptation. You will read in this letter that when they made their decision for the Lord Jesus, they suffered a great deal at the hands of the world.
The world came against them, and they lost all. They were having a difficult time. So the appeal to take it easy was a very real temptation.
Also, they were in danger of not going on. You notice how the letter comes in again and again: “Let us go on.” Let us neither look back nor stand still. These were their perils.
And so the writer gave them this word of counsel: “Cast not away your boldness.” That is the right word for these things. It has a great recompense of reward.
But it is one thing just to say something like that: “Oh, brothers, don’t give up. Oh, brother, stick it out. Oh, brother, don’t let your confidence go. Oh, brother, keep going on.”
Well, that is all right, but it really is not enough. You want something more than that.
And so the Holy Spirit, through the writer of this letter, shows the ground on which we should keep going on. The method of meeting a situation like this is a wonderful, fresh unveiling of the glory and greatness of Jesus Christ.
Notice how the first part of the letter is just one glorious revelation of the greatness of the Lord Jesus. And all this is said in order to get these people really satisfied with the Lord Jesus.
There is nothing like being satisfied with something to deliver you from dissatisfaction. It is a wonderful thing for people to be seen to be satisfied with the Lord. It is a wonderful thing for those people themselves, but it is a wonderful thing for other people.
Now, I am going to give you a little bit of personal testimony. You will promise me one thing: that you will not think that I am trying to draw attention to myself, or that I think I am anything very important. Those who know me best would never think that of me.
No, I am trying to be helpful by just touching upon some principles of the life of victory. I want to say something about my own early Christian experience. I think very few people have ever heard me say this before.
My hope is that it is going especially to help the young Christians here tonight. And if it applies to the old ones, well, you wear the cap.
When I was a young man, in my late teens, although I had had a very godly mother who had prayed much for me and, from infancy, had taught me about the Lord, there came a time when I was far from happy.
I knew about Christianity, but I was not rejoicing in the Lord. Indeed, I was a very unhappy person.
I was living in the city of Glasgow, and one Sunday evening, very unhappy, I decided that I would go for a walk. I did not know where I was going. I just went out and began to walk down the street.
After I had been walking for about fifteen minutes, I heard some singing in the distance. As I listened, I heard that it was a hymn that I knew. I decided to make my way in the direction from which the singing came.
I got nearer and nearer, and the singing became louder and louder. At last, I arrived at the place where it was coming from: the place where five roads met.
Right in the centre was a great lampstand with five lamps. Gathered around the lamps was a circle of people, and there was a great crowd stretching in all directions. These people in the centre were singing hymns.
I began to forget that I was miserable, and I worked my way nearer and nearer.
When the meeting was finished, I found that they were just very ordinary working people: men who loaded the ships, men who drove carts in the streets, and men and women who worked in the factories. But how happy they were. How satisfied they were.
It was just their satisfaction that went to my heart. They were rejoicing in the Lord Jesus.
Now, I was not anybody important. I was only a young man of seventeen years of age. But these people were delivered from themselves because they were so occupied with the Lord Jesus.
I was just living in my miserable self because I did not know their joy in the Lord Jesus. Their joy in the Lord Jesus delivered me from my miserable self and turned me out, so that I became satisfied with the Lord Jesus.
Now, that is not all of the story, but that is a very good beginning.
You see, you come back to this letter to the Hebrews, and that is just the situation that you meet. People were losing their joy. Perhaps they had lost their joy.
There were days, this letter says, when they were probably rejoicing in the Lord. And the Bible says, “Have another look at the Lord Jesus. Take your eyes off yourself. Take your eyes off your troubles. Have a look at Him.”
And then He gives this wonderful picture of the Lord Jesus. That is something to look at, and that is going to be the beginning of your salvation as Christians.
Now I go on with the testimony. The Lord had gained the first victory along that line, and by the satisfaction of these Christians with Himself, had brought me to the same satisfaction.
It was not long after that before I was right in the middle of that ring, giving my testimony. I am afraid it was a very feeble effort. I was very nervous, and I cannot remember for the life of me what I said.
But nevertheless, I let go, and that was the second big thing in my Christian life. By stepping into that ring, committing myself to the Lord, and giving my testimony, I was a completely released man.
I had been all locked up in myself, just in the prison of myself. That night, when I told others about the Lord Jesus—told all those people what the Lord Jesus meant to me—I was completely released.
From that day, I went right on in testimony to the Lord Jesus. Sometimes I was speaking in as many as five open-air meetings in a week.
Now, do not think about me. Think about the principle: you commit yourself and let people know it, and you will be released.
Tell other people what the Lord Jesus is to you, and you will find that it has a wonderful releasing effect in your own life.
Now, this is New Testament ground:
If thou shalt believe in thine heart,
and confess with thy mouth,
the Lord Jesus—
I know how elementary that is. But, dear friends, there are times even in the lives of advanced Christians when they become silent, when their discouragements and all their troubles close their lips.
Then again they become all locked up in themselves. The only way of deliverance is to commit yourself, declaring yourself: “I am going on with the Lord. There is discouragement in myself; there is discouragement in my circumstances; but I am going on with the Lord by His grace.”
Let people know it, and it will be your way of salvation. So the letter says to these people, “Let us go on.”
Now, that is not all about the testimony. The next thing is a little more difficult for me to say. Again, it is not because I think anything of myself.
Many of you know that the Lord has given me a very wide ministry during these many past years, in many parts of the world. The value of it, I do not know. It is not for me to think anything about that. Heaven alone will tell what the value has been.
Now, this is my point: a faithful company of people, whose lives were hard and difficult, who were rejoicing in the Lord, was the beginning of this worldwide ministry.
My point is that you never know how far-reaching your faithful testimony is going to be. I do not know what happened to all those people. I lost sight of them after that.
I was preaching in Glasgow some years afterwards, and I did see one little man in the congregation whom I recognized as one of those people at the open-air meeting. Otherwise, I do not know what happened to them, and I am very doubtful as to whether they knew what happened to me.
But the fact is, they were faithful in their testimony. It was not an easy thing to live in that city in those days. Their lives were very hard lives indeed, but they were faithful to the Lord Jesus.
Their faithfulness led to whatever value there has been in this worldwide ministry. I do not want you to tell me what the value of these conferences is, but I have to conclude that you do not come here for nothing.
These conferences began in that open-air meeting all those years ago in the city of Glasgow. My point is, friends, be faithful in your testimony. You never know what the product will be.
You may never see that fruit, but it will be there. “Let us go on,” says the letter. We may not know in this life the value to others of our going on.
Of course, that was a very simple beginning of the Christian life. At that time, I just knew the Lord Jesus as Saviour, and I was rejoicing in Him as my Saviour.
The day came later on when the Lord showed me that that is only the beginning: that He does save us, not just to save us, but with a great purpose in view.
There is a very big purpose bound up with our salvation. That is just the burden of this letter. It is as though the Lord were saying to these people, “You were saved. You did rejoice in your salvation. But that was not intended to be everything. There is a great purpose unto which you were saved—a marvellous inheritance.”
Cast not away therefore your boldness,
which hath great recompense of reward.
Do not be satisfied with being saved. Set your heart wholly upon the great purpose for which you were saved.
Now, that has not been a very heavy discourse, has it? Very simple, but I feel it contains very important things. Maybe many of you here tonight just need that word.
I trust to see that full satisfaction with the Lord Jesus. For as others see how satisfied you are with Him, it may just be the turning point in their life.
You know, friends, this is very practical. Today everything is being done to try to attract people, especially young people, to the church. They will have entertainment. They will have anything to attract young people.
If these young people are attracted in that way, they do not go very far with the Lord. They always want more and more entertainment.
But if they are drawn because they themselves are not satisfied, and they see people who are satisfied, that will answer their need. If they are able to say, “I came in because I saw how much of the Lord Jesus there was there. I saw how satisfied those Christians were with Christ,” then that is different.
Christ is the big attraction. He is the big satisfaction. And He is the answer to this world’s need.
The world has all those other things. I cannot give the world anything of its own kind. The Lord Jesus can go far beyond the world.
Well, you and I must pray that we will be an attraction to others toward the Lord Jesus.
I think that is enough for the evening. Shall we sing, “When We All Get to Heaven”?