It is a joy for me to be once more with you all. If you will turn with me to the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Philippians, I am going to read some verses from Chapter 2.
Philippians 2:1-11
If there is therefore any exhortation in Christ,
if any consolation of love,
if any fellowship of the Spirit,
if any tender mercies and compassions,
make full my joy, that ye be of the same mind,
having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind;
doing nothing through faction or through vainglory,
but in lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself;
not looking each of you to his own things,
but each of you also to the things of others.Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
who, existing in the form of God,
counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant,
being made in the likeness of men;
and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself,
becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.Wherefore also God highly exalted Him,
and gave unto Him the name which is above every name;
that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth,
and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
I would like to add to that from the Roman letter of the Apostle Paul, Chapter 12, beginning with verse 1.
Romans 12:1-5
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual service.And be not fashioned according to this world:
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.For I say, through the grace that was given me,
to every man that is among you,
not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think;
but so to think as to think soberly,
according as God hath dealt to each man a measure of faith.For even as we have many members in one body,
and all the members have not the same office;
so we, who are many, are one body in Christ,
and severally members one of another.
Let us bow together in a further word of prayer.
Beloved Lord, we want to thank You that You have made provision for us in every way, both for the speaking of Your word and for the hearing of it. We have already committed our time to You. We want simply now to recognize that without You we can do nothing.
You have provided us with that anointing, grace, and power, and in it we stand by faith for both the speaking of Your word and the hearing of it. May our time this evening indeed be a meeting with You, when You touch our hearts, challenge us, encourage us, correct us, and fill us with Your Holy Spirit.
We shall be careful to give You all the praise and all the glory for thus speaking to us and working amongst us this evening. We ask all this in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I have had a certain amount of difficulty with the word for this evening and for tomorrow morning. I have no doubt about the word; it is the ability to speak it. Now I am going to trust the Lord for it. I feel that the conflict over it is probably a sign of how important it is.
I feel as if I have been travelling for five or six days non-stop. We were on an island, and storms came. I was sure there would be no boat to get us to Athens, but the boat miraculously appeared, despite the wind, gales, mist, and everything else. We made it to Athens, and then to Jerusalem, just in time for the Sabbath.
Then we had a general strike, and the airline threw us into confusion. I said, “Well, we are not going to make it.” Having got thus far, I had told the Lord, “You are responsible, Lord. If You want us to get to the States, if You have anything to do or say both in myself and in you, You are responsible for getting us there.”
Then the airline phoned and said, “If you can get to the airport early, we are going to bring your flight forward by so many hours.” That meant no night’s sleep. We rushed to the airport and managed to get the flight. From then on it was a little simpler. So here we are. Praise the Lord. Tired and weary, but nevertheless the Lord’s power is sufficient.
I wonder why it is that we have so much trouble in the fellowship of God’s people. Have you ever asked yourself that? It seems incredible to me that we cannot get on together. We are always falling out with one another, always having confrontations. Quite extraordinary. What is the problem?
It is not as if it is peculiar to you here. It seems to be peculiar to God’s people everywhere. I wonder whether, in fact, we are going to see more and more of a shaking within the people of God.
It seems to me that wherever I go, I hear nothing but faction, division, misrepresentation, misunderstanding, and a thousand and one other things. Sometimes it is over the most ridiculous issues—so stupid that it reminds me of those problems that divided the whole Jewish community in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Middle Ages: how many angels could stand on a pinhead.
It is quite extraordinary sometimes, the things that divide us. They are not essential, fundamental, or foundational. One has to ask oneself: what are we going to do if Satan comes down to the earth, knowing that his time is short, and the atmosphere is filled with demons and evil spirits?
What are we going to do if, in a time of peace and what we could almost call tranquillity, we manage to fall out with one another? What are we going to do when the real storm hits us?
I think that, by the Spirit of God, the Apostle Paul put his finger on it when he said, “Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”
You will notice that he starts by talking about being of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord and of one mind, doing nothing through faction or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each counting the other better than himself; not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others.
Then he says, “Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus”—in the Messiah Jesus.
I noticed that in the New American Standard Version—I use the old one of 1901—it says, “Have this attitude among you.” I think that is probably more meaningful to the new generation, but I have to say that I think it diminishes the real meaning.
To have an attitude is a little different from having this mind in you. There is something deeper and fuller about having this mind. I almost wonder whether we could say, “Have this mindset in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”
What was this mindset that was in the Messiah Jesus? He did not grasp at His being on an equality with God, but emptied Himself. I think that goes to the heart of the matter.
Our problem is that we are always defending our ministry, our calling, our gift, our reputation, and our status.
It is the most natural thing in the world in which we live—particularly in this day of human rights and everything to do with rights: the rights of women, the rights of children, the rights of animals, the rights of this, the rights of that. Everything is rights.
It is the most natural thing for this whole mentality of the world. Not that there is anything wrong with fighting for the rights of others, but there is something about this mentality of the world which gets into all of us.
We feel we have to be defensive. We feel that we have to shield ourselves. We feel that we have to somehow almost become a ghetto in order to protect ourselves from hurt.
This mindset of our Lord Jesus is altogether different. He did not grasp. He did not grasp at His being on an equality with God, but emptied Himself.
One version has a footnote that says, “He laid aside all His privileges.” What a blessed fellowship it would be if everyone laid aside all their privileges, and if there was no fighting for our status, our reputation, our ministry, or our position.
If we were able to lay aside all our privileges—it is more than that. If you read carefully the word that we have already read together, it says, “Who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant.”
Not a household servant: a bondservant. A bondslave had no rights. A bondslave belonged to the master twenty-four hours of every day. There was nothing, really, in one sense, to fight for. It is awful to think of slavery.
But it is even more remarkable to think that the Lord Jesus actually took the form of a bondslave—that is, one without any rights, without any position to defend, or any ministry around which He felt He had to build a wall. I find that quite amazing.
Then it goes on. It is not as if it ends there: “Being made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”
A person who is sentenced to death has no more rights. It is over.
We have a very strange idea, basically from the religious paintings with which we have all grown up, whatever our background, of carrying a cross. We see Jesus with this huge cross over His shoulders. You see it in a thousand paintings.
If you look in Mark’s Gospel—I think it is about Chapter 8—Jesus said, “If any man would follow Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.” To deny oneself is to give up all right to oneself.
We tend to think, as I have said, that He was carrying the whole cross. Actually, the Lord Jesus was borrowing a picture that He Himself would one day exemplify—a sight seen again and again in the crowded streets of Jerusalem and in many places in the Palestinian land in those days.
Soldiers would clear the way, shouting for people to get out of the way, and the person would come bearing a crossbeam—not the cross, just the crossbeam. The actual stake of the cross was always in position. The place of death was normally a place of public execution, and there were stakes there.
Sometimes it was one old tree trunk, just the tree trunk itself. Now and again it had arms, and therefore there was hardly a need for the crossbeam. The person sentenced would have around his neck the sentence of death—why he had been sentenced to death. If he was wealthy, he could pay for a servant to carry the sentence in front of him.
When Jesus said, “If any man would follow Me, let him take up his cross,” He meant the crossbeam. It meant that from that moment the person had within himself the sentence of death. There were no more rights. He was on his way to the place of execution.
So this is an amazing picture that Jesus gave to us. Listen to it again very carefully:
Mark 8:34
If any man would follow Me,
let him deny himself,
and take up his cross,
and follow Me.
In other words, the actual crucifixion would take place later. The sentence of death had been passed, and that one had no further rights.
That is why the Lord Jesus went on to say that he who seeks to save his soul-life will lose it, and he who loses his soul-life for His sake and the gospel shall save it. In another place it says, “shall find it unto life eternal.”
In other words, if you are going to follow the Lord Jesus, you have to take up the crossbeam. There is no such thing as discipleship without the cross.
Now, we hear about the cross all the time. We can talk and talk and talk about the cross, particularly in the kinds of fellowships that we are in. We hear all the time about the cross, but where is the practice?
I am not talking about saying, “I hope so-and-so is listening to this.” I am talking about you, because we are all so deceitful. Oh, we see: “That is just what so-and-so needed—something between the eyes. Knock them out, Lord!” But you are the culprit.
When you are given the opportunity to take up the crossbeam and walk to the place of execution, you fight with everything in you for your position, your character, your reputation, your ministry, or whatever else. This is the problem.
“Well,” you say, “who is going to do the crucifying?” Oh, there is no problem there. Your dearest or nearest would willingly do it. There is no problem. The executioners are manifold: your husband, your wife, your children, your parents, your colleagues at work, and, failing all else, the church itself.
There is no paucity of executioners. It is the sentence of death.
Jesus did not say, “If any man wants to be greatly used, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.” Jesus never said, “If any man wants to be something in the kingdom, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.” Of course, this is true, but He never said it. He said, “If any man would follow Me.”
That means if you and I are not giving up all right to ourselves and taking up the crossbeam, we are not following Jesus. We may be following some doctrine—not that I want to despise good and sound doctrine—but we may be following a concept, an idea of Christianity, or some idea of being spiritual. But it is not the following of the Lord Jesus.
Nobody can follow the Lord Jesus and escape the cross. It stands in the way. It is one of the great ironies of faith: you are saved by the work of the Lord Jesus on the cross, and then, once you are saved, you can only know the fullness and practical outworking of your salvation by denying yourself and taking up the crossbeam.
Now here is our problem. If only it were angels who would crucify us, we would have a good time. We would feel somehow that this would be a wonderful thing—angels all around, gently putting a hand on the crossbeam, tying the crossbeam to the stake, and almost spiritually anaesthetising us as they drove the nails through our hands.
But it is not angels who do it. It is the world, it is your nearest and dearest, and it is the church. That is our problem.
We are scandalised by the thought that people in the church could be executioners. Scandalised that your husband is an executioner when it comes to it; your wife is; your parents are; your children are. The very people whom we think should be sweet and loving are the ones who are the agents of our crucifixion.
Our fellowship, our family life, our home life, and our business life would be transformed if we gave up all right to ourselves and took up the crossbeam.
Sometimes people ask the Lord if they might live a crucified life, but they are not very happy when they discover that it is their brothers or sisters who are crucifying them. Is this not a strange anomaly?
I can see that some of you are puzzled already, saying, “Oh, that is ridiculous—to hear anything like this.” Well, what do you think crucifixion is? Do you think it is a sweet ecstasy? Do you think it is something beautiful? It is something bloody. It is something unrelenting.
I think, for all of us, the biggest shock is the ones God uses to bring us to the place of death.
The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:9, “We had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead.” In other words, you can crucify me, but my faith is in God that He will raise me up in newness of life.
In the end, you will become thankful for the very people who are the agents of your crucifixion.
You say, “Well, we did not expect you to speak about this. We thought you might speak about the end times and a few other things like that, but this kind of thing is not quite so comforting to us.” Well, let me tell you this: there is no other way to walk in newness of life and to know resurrection life. Nor is there any other way to know church life than this way.
“Have this mindset in you, amongst yourselves”—it is plural—“which was also in the Messiah Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not count being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped.”
Think of your reputation—that mean little thing. Think of that stupid position you are fighting for. It pales into insignificance beside what the Lord Jesus could have fought for. Being in the form of God, He counted not being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped.
If the Lord Jesus did not grasp such a position—such a divine position, such a totally right position—where does that leave you, and where does that leave me? What is wrong with us? What are we fighting for?
When we fight for our rights, we destroy ourselves and we destroy others.
Many of us, when we are young in the Lord, think of the church as the most wonderful community of saints. I remember when I was first saved, I thought that was the most wonderful thing I had ever seen—all these dear people with their shining faces.
Within a few years, I discovered the ugliness in them all, and the bottom fell out of my Christian life, as it were.
I very well remember that Alan Redpath, the pastor, was so horrified when I went off to stay with an uncle and aunt in Paris. He got them to pray because he said, “This is the end. This young man”—I was only sixteen—“is finished, going to Paris.” He thought of Paris as such an evil place.
Actually, I think London is far more evil, but that is by the way. He thought Paris was just a school of wickedness and iniquity. That was the end, as far as he was concerned with me.
I wrote a letter—not to the pastor, but to the deaconess. She was a very dear lady; she loved the Lord. But she was very irritated by my letter, which was full of complaints about the whole assembly, from the pastor down.
I said, “The deacons never come to the prayer meeting. They are all too busy.” Then I heard complaints about this, about that, and about the other. I complained that the young people were not young people; there was a young women’s Bible class of which not a single member was under the age of seventy-five.
They had all grown up with it, been left on the shelf, and grown old with it. She was so mortified by my letter that she took it to the pastor and gave it to the deacons.
For me, that was the end of it. I was only letting off steam, and I thought that perhaps this would force her to her knees to pray. But the fact that the bottom had fallen out of my life with believers—who had seemed the most wonderful people—was very real. Do not forget that I came from a non-Christian background.
The bottom had fallen out. We had two pastors, and there were two great factions in the church. They fought each other the whole time.
They all sang wonderful hymns—“My chains fell off,” and all that kind of thing—but I was pretty clear that the chains were very much there.
When I got a letter back from this dear sister, the deaconess, telling me what she had done, it was a very cold letter. I really felt that the end had come. I said out loud, “Lord, I could not care less about Your people. I am finished with them. Such a ragtag bag of nondescripts.”
I remember clearly a voice behind me saying, “You can give them up, but can you give Me up?” It was so real that I swung around as if there were someone there. Then I realised it was the Lord, and I said, “I cannot.”
As Pilgrim says in The Pilgrim’s Progress, when Christian was crossing the last river and sank, he cried out, “Help me! Save me!” Then suddenly his feet touched the bottom, and he said, “It is all right. I have touched the bottom.”
That was the moment I turned the corner. From then on, it did not matter if every one of God’s people was a liar, unreal, unrealistic, or anything else. My life was built on the Lord Jesus Himself. I could not give Him up.
I can only say that if you expect a lot of God’s people, I wonder if you have ever thought about yourself.
Let me put it another way. How did the Lord receive you? As a fully fledged, holy saint? No, He did not. Did He receive you as a person full of determination to go to the very end? No, I do not think He did. Did He receive you as someone prepared to lay down your life for Him? No, I do not think He did.
How did He receive you? As a worthless, ugly sinner.
If anyone thinks that the Lord saved you because you were so sweet and lovely, well, that is what the church is for: to tear away that façade. That is exactly what the church is for. Everybody is looking for the perfect church. Where is the perfect church?
I was saved when I was thirteen years of age, and I am now seventy-two. I have never found the perfect church. I have only found elitist groups, all huddled around some particular doctrine or truth.
I have never found the perfect church because there is no such thing. On earth, the church, to be the church, has to be imperfect. The Lord uses the church to bring us home face to face with reality.
How did the Lord receive you? As a sinner, without any claim on Him; a sinner bound for hell and a lost eternity. He saved you by His grace—unmitigated grace. You did not deserve anything. If you think you did, the Lord has to do a bit more work in you, I must say.
The Apostle Paul wrote his first letter and said he was the least of all saints, but when he wrote his last letter, he called himself the chief of sinners. The more he went on with the Lord, the more he realised that he was saved only by the grace of God, which he did not deserve.
God has so designed the church that every façade you have will be destroyed by your brothers and sisters. Why? It is just the very design of the house of God.
Of course, there is something wonderful happening. There is gold, silver, precious stone, and pearl. All these things are being produced. But the fact of the matter is that the Lord uses the members of the body of Christ to destroy all our fantasies and bring us face to face with reality.
Have this mindset in you, which was also in the Messiah Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not think that equality with God was a thing to be grasped or fought over, but emptied Himself and became a bondslave.
“Oh,” someone says, “but surely there should be holiness in the church.” There should be holiness in the church, but unfortunately most of us by nature are extremely unholy.
“Oh, but you say, you cannot have anything to do with that.” Of course not. But I will remind you of our Lord Jesus. On the night in which He was betrayed, He took a towel and a basin of water and washed the disciples’ feet.
You say, “That is wonderful. What a beautiful picture.” Yes—and every one of those whose feet He washed was going to deny Him. Would you have done that? No, do not kid me. You would not have done that.
You would have said, “I am not washing someone’s feet when that person is going to deny me with oaths three times. Out!” “Oh, but,” you say, “you have to be gracious.” Yes. Well then, what about Judas?
He washed the feet of Judas. Judas was a thief as well as a betrayer. He was a thief.
And do you know what Jesus said? “I have left you an example.”
What is the problem about washing one another’s feet? Feet are the smelliest part of us. They are not, generally speaking, the most beautiful part. I know the Chinese think feet are erotic, but generally speaking feet are the smelliest part of the human being.
Why did the Lord leave such an example to us? You say, “No, no, He should have shown more discernment, really, because I am only having fellowship with people who do not have smelly feet.”
Oh, my dear friends, you know very well what I am trying to say. We have all got feet on this earth. Our Lord Jesus said the proof of your discipleship is whether you can wash one another’s feet.
Have this mindset in you, which was also in the Messiah Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not think that equality with God was a thing to be grasped, but humbled Himself.
Here is God the Son, through whom all things were created, for whom all things were created, and in whom all things hold together—washing the feet of a lot of disciples who were going to fail Him, without exception.
Does that not cut across all our arguments? “Well, I am not going to smile at so-and-so. I am not going to have anything to do with him.”
Let me put it another way. There is an idea that the church is exclusive.
Of course, there is a right sense in which the church is exclusive. Everyone who is not born again is outside of it. But the church, by its very nature, is inclusive. Everyone who is born of God, no matter what name they go by, if they are born of God, they are in Christ. If they are in Christ, they are in the church.
Whether Catholic, Orthodox, Southern Baptist, Presbyterian, or Brethren—and even Exclusive Brethren—if they are born of God, they are in Christ.
If they are not born of God, they are excluded—not from the grace of God, not from the mercy of God, not from the love of God, but from the church.
This wonderful truth is something incredible. I do not know how to explain it.
I often use the illustration of the exile. Those who went back were such a tiny minority. They went back to Jerusalem; they went back to the land in three waves.
They rebuilt the house of God, the walls of Jerusalem, and all the cities. In fact, the prophecies of Isaiah, Micah, and others could not have been fulfilled but for this tiny minority within the whole community of God’s people.
If they had not gone back, the prophetic Scriptures could not have been fulfilled, nor could the Messiah have been born in Bethlehem. There was no Bethlehem; it had been destroyed. There was no Nazareth; it had been destroyed. There was no Capernaum; it had been destroyed. There was no temple for the Lord suddenly to appear in, according to Malachi.
The Lord used that small group. But never at one point did those who went back divide themselves from those who remained in the diaspora.
They would not touch the fact that those who remained in the diaspora were wrong, but, as Brother Sparks used to say, they were an advanced working party. They went back so that the rest could come into the salvation of God.
In the end, three times a year all those people from the diaspora would come up to Jerusalem. Do you understand what I am trying to say?
I am trying to say very simply this: when you see what the church is and you stand in Christ, you will receive every born-again believer. They are part of you, and you are part of them.
You are not going to touch what is wrong, but you will never divide yourself from the people of God who are in all these denominations and institutional things. They are still yours, and you belong to them.
Otherwise, you become exclusive, and you become a divider of the body of our Lord Jesus.
If a cardinal comes to me in the Catholic Church and he is born of God, I have to receive him. I very well remember being asked, as a Christian leader, to go to Lambeth Palace in London, the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, to a gathering of Christian leaders of all kinds to talk about the spiritual condition of the country.
I remember that the Archbishop—I shall not mention his name; it was quite a few years ago—was an evangelical. He really preached the gospel. Yet when he gave an address, it was as dead as a doornail, absolutely lifeless.
Then, when he had finished, he said, “I would like to call on Cardinal Hume, if he will come forward and pray for us.”
Basil Hume got up, walked forward, fell on his knees, lifted up his hands, and heaven opened. This was the man who led Malcolm Muggeridge, the greatest agnostic of the twentieth century in Britain, to the Lord.
Now what do you do? He is Catholic. Not only a Catholic; he is a cardinal. “Well,” some might say, “goodness me, we cannot touch that.” Of course, we will not touch that whole system, but that man is a brother.
He has been received by Christ. Can I reject him?
It is one of the hardest things in the world not to touch what is wrong, but to receive a brother and sister as those received by the Lord.
Then what are we doing together? Why do we not all go back to whatever we came from? Good question.
Because we believe that the house of God has to be built. That is why. Because we believe that there is a remnant of those who, like the ones who went back to Jerusalem, have to go back by the grace of God and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
They have to rebuild the temple and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem so that the purpose of God and the word of God might be fulfilled. We are an advanced working party for the rest. We shall find them all in the end.
But it was those who went back who were directly involved in the coming of the Messiah, not those who remained in the dispersion, in the exile. They had comfortable homes, comfortable lives, synagogues, places of worship, places of Bible study, and everything else.
But the purpose of God and the word of God could not be fulfilled in the exile.
Now the problem is that all those who go back are not sweet and pure. That is the problem. So we have as many executioners amongst the remnant who go back as there are in the exile, ready to nail you to the cross.
Why do we fight this?
Well, I must finish, but I find this tremendous, really, because it says, “Wherefore also God highly exalted Him.” It is a principle with God: you go down into death; God will take care of the resurrection.
The deeper you go down, the higher you will rise. The way to greatness is through humility, and the way to being filled with the power and glory of God is brokenness.
It is so simple. We all know it. It is the process we do not like. We know the truth; it is the process we do not like. If only it were ugly, wicked sinners who were martyring us—but it is the Lord’s people.
We can even accept unsaved people being part of this execution. But when it is the Lord’s people, we find it so hard.
Then everything within us rises up to defend ourselves, defend our ministry, defend our status, defend our character, defend everything. But there are no rights in this. That is the gateway to life.
Is it not interesting that the Apostle says again in Romans 12:1, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God.”
Then he puts it—I always feel the best way to translate the Greek is—“which is your spiritually intelligent worship.” Spiritually intelligent worship is to be a living sacrifice.
Well, what did they do with these sacrifices? Good question. They were placed on the altar and slain, and they went up in smoke. Oh dear, we think, that is not quite what we expected or what we wanted.
But the fact of the matter is, the word goes on to say, “Be not fashioned according to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Here we are again. Different words in Greek, but it is the same idea.
If you have got an old mind, you will be fashioned according to this world. It is only by being transformed by the renewing of your mind that you can prove what is the good, perfect, and acceptable will of God.
You cannot find the will of God acceptable apart from being transformed by the renewing of your mind. But when that happens, through being a living sacrifice, then everything else follows.
You suddenly discover the body. You suddenly discover that you are members one of another. You are members first and foremost of the Lord Jesus, the Messiah Himself. Then you discover that you are members one of another.
Just as it says in Romans 15:7, “Receive ye one another, even as Christ also received you, to the glory of God.” You and I begin to receive one another on the minimal basis: I will be a sinner saved by grace. Then we are no longer shocked.
“Did you hear about Phil? I never thought they were capable of such a thing.” I have come to realise that the children of God are capable of anything. I have none of these big ideas that they are not capable; they are capable of anything.
But God in His grace has saved us. Whilst we do not become partakers of one another’s sins, nevertheless we receive one another as Christ also received me and you.
May the Lord help us. We are now moving into days when we are going to see more and more demonic activity. I believe that your country and your nation is the last bulwark against the coming of the Antichrist.
It would not surprise me if, in the next few years, you see a flood of evil submerge the United States. Then the last great bulwark against the coming of the Antichrist will have been swept away.
Whatever you may feel about your president, he seems to me to be a child of God. He prays more than some Christians I know. I heard a story only the other day of someone who came into the Oval Office and found him on his face before God.
Whether he understands some of the things from the word of God that he ought to understand, I do not know. But all I know is that it is the last chance the world has.
If once he goes, and America loses her superpower status, you will see evil in a way that you have never seen it before.
How are we going to go on? How are we going to remain together? How are we going to see the house of God completed?
It is true, according to Zechariah 4:7, that when the topstone comes forth, they will shout, “Grace, grace, unto it.” It was the grace of God that began this work, the grace of God that developed and preserved it, and the grace of God that will complete it.
So, in the midst of breakdown, evil, darkness, and the coming of the Antichrist, the topstone will come into its place. The topstone, of course, is the Lord Jesus, just as He is the foundation, the chief cornerstone, and the head of the corner. So He is the topstone. I think it is wonderful.
How are we going to stay together? How are we going to go through together? Shall we hive off into elite little groups? Well, let me tell you something—and I must finish, or we will be here all night.
These little elite groups—I have seen so many of them through my life—they never last. They are so elite, but they always find some who are not so elite, and out they go. Then a few more go out this way, and a few more that way.
We need to be of the same mind, in the same love, of one mind, doing nothing through vainglory. We need to have this mind in us which was also in the Messiah Jesus.
May the Lord challenge us. You do not need to go to somebody with whom you have had a problem and say, “I have had a dreadful problem with you. You have no idea what you have done to me over these years.”
I have seen this many times. We go and say, “Please forgive me. I had such a problem with you because I think you are so ugly, so dark, so arrogant, and proud. But the Lord has given me repentance.” Do not do that. That is a backhander.
What you need to do is humble yourself before the Lord. It is very interesting: the word of God tells us to humble ourselves. Do not wait to be humbled. Terrible! It is like a great stone that falls upon you and grinds you to dust.
Get on your knees and say, “Lord, forgive me. I have been expecting too much, criticising, murmuring, and all the rest of it. Forgive me. Help me to get clear. Help me to be part of the building. Help me to be part of that remnant that will go right through to glory.”
Could there be anything more wonderful than, in the end, hearing the Lord say, “Well done, good and faithful servant”? May the Lord help us, and may He give us this mindset that was in the Messiah Jesus. Shall we pray?
Lord, we are pretty poor material when it comes to it, all of us. But You, in Your mercy, have saved us.
Sometimes, Lord, we have problems with one another’s poverty of character, or holiness, or whatever. Lord, will You challenge us this night not to think of others, but to think of ourselves?
Help us, Lord, to humble ourselves before Your mighty hand, that You may exalt us in due season. Lord, hear us.
Let this word be saved and preserved from any misunderstanding of any kind. But, Lord, bring it home to us with all the power of Your anointing, so that we cannot escape it.
We want to follow You. We want to go the whole way, Lord. Will You do something in our lives that delivers us from all this criticism and judgment of one another in a wrong way?
Deliver us, O Lord, from the spirit of the world, this spirit from hell. Deliver us, Lord, from it. Renew us in such a way, by becoming living sacrifices, transforming us by the renewing of our minds.
That we may be able to prove what is that good, perfect, and acceptable will of Yours. Hear us, Lord, we pray.
We ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.