Very glad to be able to be with you, to sense the Lord’s presence, and to worship Him together.
I’d like to turn you to the Scripture that we began with last night in Revelation, chapter 1, from verse 8.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” saith the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
“I John, your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom and patience which are in Jesus, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.”
— Revelation 1:8-9
The same chapter, verses 1 and 2:
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show unto His servants, even the things which must shortly come to pass; and He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John; who bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, even of all things that he saw.”
— Revelation 1:1-2
Let us have a word of prayer.
Beloved Lord, we are so thankful that You have provided us with that anointing, grace, power, and wisdom. Without that anointing, Lord, we know that we can speak many words, outline truth, and it can all be correct and sound; but, Lord, without that anointing, nothing goes into eternity.
We thank You for the provision You have made for us, both for the speaking and the hearing of Your Word. And we want to stand by faith in that anointing in full measure for this time together this morning.
We shall be careful, Lord, to give You the praise and the worship of our hearts for answering this our prayer, which we ask in the name of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
Last night, I spoke on this little phrase in Revelation 1:9: “For the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.”
I cannot get away from it. I really did not know what the Lord wanted me to share, and I have learned over the years that it is no good getting into a stew when the Lord does not give you anything.
I have observed that sometimes brethren cook up things. Those things are so dead, dry, and lifeless. We have all this doctrine and everything else, all of which is important; but when it is not anointed, it is such a bore. You just do not get anything out of it. You feel as if you have sat there in very uncomfortable chairs for so long, and you have really got nothing.
But when the Lord gives something, He always makes provision for what He commissions. Suddenly, into my heart came this word: “For the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.”
I believe that this little phrase lies at the root of all the turmoil at present in the world: the disorder, the misrepresentation, and the growing rage of the enemy against those who are faithful to the Lord, faithful to His Word, and faithful to the testimony of Jesus.
It seems to me that this is the point at which the enemy is mobilising all his forces to somehow frustrate the purpose of God. He will fail. He has always failed.
God so often turns the loss of man, inspired by the powers of darkness, into the fulfilment of His Word. It becomes the catalyst for the fulfilment of His Word.
So what I want to do this morning is speak more about the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. Yesterday evening I spoke about the world’s situation. I spoke about your election. I spoke about the mercy and grace of God that God has shown toward you as a nation, and particularly as the people of God within this nation.
I spoke of the fact that you had four years—maybe a maximum of four years—of opportunity in which to seek the Lord for an awakening that will change things. Otherwise, I believe that the United States will go the way of Europe.
Well, I am not going to go over what I said last night, because we will not have any time for this matter this morning.
It is incredible to me that everything you see in the universe, including your own body, came by the Word of God. God spoke, and it was done.
In one sense, when He breathed into man His Spirit, it was almost as if He spoke the Word into man. Somehow, by the Word of God, it says in 2 Peter 3:5-7:
“For this they wilfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God; by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.”
The Word of God—the Word of God. You read in Genesis 1: the Lord spoke, and it was done. He said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. You read right through the whole thing: it is everything to do with the Word of God.
In Hebrews 1:3, speaking about the Son, the Lord Jesus, we read:
“Who being the effulgence of His glory, and the very image of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power.”
So everything at present is upheld by the word of His power: created by His Word, expanded, if you like, by His Word, and upheld by His Word. It is stored for the final great change that will come, when this heaven and earth will pass away and there will be a new heaven and a new earth—by His Word.
Now, I find this tremendous. When you remember what it says in Luke 1:37:
“For no word from God shall be void of power.”
When God speaks, it is powerful. Hebrews 4:12 puts it very simply:
“For the word of God is living, and active.”
That is, it is alive. It is not something dead; it is alive. It is creative. The Word of God creates. It is active. It gets something done when it is the Word of God.
Now, you must surely know this in your own experience, if you are a child of God. Some piece of Scripture that never meant a thing to you suddenly, by the Spirit of God, comes alive—and it is yours. It is almost as if it dwells in you.
It does not just bless you. It is almost as if it becomes part of you.
I always remember a little story I often tell. I was staying in a very wealthy person’s home, and I saw this little plaque on the wall. It said, “My peace I give unto you.” I thought, “How trite. How trite that is. That is typical Christians bunging things up on the wall. That is a very trite little word.”
We got talking, and I mentioned the little plaque. “Yes,” she said, “it was Amy Carmichael who did that.”
“Oh,” I said, “really?” So I thought to myself, “Well, that is why she bunged it up on the wall—Amy Carmichael.”
Then she said, “You see, I went into a period of colossal darkness. I just did not know where to turn. Nothing helped me. Everything I read in the Word was dead, and every message I heard did not touch me at all.”
“She said, “In my desperation, I called for the Lord: ‘Help me, Lord.’ Suddenly into my heart came the word, ‘Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you.’”
“And,” she said, “in a flash, I saw: He never said, ‘My peace I leave with you,’ because that was peace for sins forgiven, and He did not need that. So He just said, ‘Peace I leave with you.’ But when He said, ‘My peace I give unto you,’ it was the peace He had in Gethsemane, when He said, ‘Not My will, but Thine.’”
“And on the cross, when, having cried out, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ He then said, ‘It is finished,’ and, ‘Into Thy hands I commend My spirit.’”
She said, “In that moment, I came out of my situation. It was finished. Something happened.”
Now, you see, I had not been in the situation like her, where that word, “My peace I give unto you,” came alive. For her, it meant a universe. It had universal meaning and significance. For me, it was a trite little scriptural phrase on the wall.
The Word of God is so wonderful. It is living and active. People rave about Shakespeare and Goethe and Schiller and all these others, but have you ever found an alcoholic who has been delivered from alcoholism through Shakespeare? Have you ever heard of a marriage, near divorce, that has been healed by Shakespeare? Oh, Schiller—even The Taming of the Shrew? It does not have any effect. It does not do anything.
But a single word from God’s Word, by the Spirit of God, can change a whole situation. No word of God is void of power.
When the Holy Spirit takes this Book and suddenly throws light upon it, in that moment that Word becomes yours, and it will never leave you. It becomes part of your being, part of you for eternity.
It is the Word of God. The apostle said:
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”
— Colossians 3:16
In other words, not just visit you—not pass through, not just bless you. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you. Something happens when it comes out of the written Book, as it were, and becomes flesh and blood in you. That is tremendous.
When that happens, it is yours. Have you ever had an experience like that? How could you have been saved unless somehow the Lord took some word in this Book and made it alive to you? In that moment, it became yours, and you entered into the salvation of God.
Think back to every single experience you have had when you entered more deeply into an experience of the Lord. Has it not been by the Word of God? Not emotion. Emotion can touch you and move you, but it will leave you.
But when the Word of God comes into you, it does something within you. That, I think, is so tremendous when you begin to understand it.
Is it any wonder that the prophet Isaiah said:
“But the word of our God shall stand for ever.”
— Isaiah 40:8
Everything else goes.
Voltaire was a hater of the Word of God, a hater of the Jewish people, and a hater of Christians. I found it very funny when I was in France some years ago to discover that Voltaire’s home was the headquarters of the French Bible Society. So much for Voltaire.
It reminds me of a little graffiti I saw once in New York on the subway. It said, “God is dead. Signed Nietzsche.” Someone had written underneath it, “Nietzsche is dead. Signed God.”
All passes, but the Word of God.
Do you realise, young people, the treasure that is in your hands? Do you realise what it has cost brothers and sisters to give you that Word?
Do you know that when Tyndale lived to see the Word of God in the language of the ploughman, so that he said every ploughboy in England would understand the Word of God, he was strangled in Antwerp and his body burned?
Everyone who has given us the Word of God has, for the most part, suffered martyrdom, because the enemy hates this Book.
He will do everything in his power to keep it from becoming real in the lives of us believers and in the life of the church.
Well, I have to watch myself, because I can get carried away by this. But I think so much of this: the power of God’s Word. I mean, it is tremendous to me. God has said something; He will fulfil it. Do not make any mistake about it.
I live in a nation that is the fulfilment of God’s prophetic Word. Everywhere I look—every street, every field, every word, every part of it—is a fulfilment of God’s Word.
If God is so careful to fulfil His Word for a disobedient, gainsaying, stiff-necked people, how much more will He fulfil His Word for you who are believers, in spite of the murmuring and rebellion that are often in our hearts?
Is it not amazing to me—the power of God? Think of it: just the power of God’s Word.
I think of 2 Timothy 3:16:
“Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work.”
Now, that to me is something tremendous. The man of God is made complete. He is completely furnished unto every good work by the Word of God.
So few people really treasure the Word. We can be so familiar with it. We have no idea what it cost others to give this Word to us.
When people do not have the Word of God, they have to memorise it because they do not have a Bible. In some parts of the world, they spend hours simply repeating, repeating, repeating, in order to get some part of God’s Word into heart and spirit.
But sometimes God does more in those people than He does in thousands of those of us in affluent Europe and North America.
I find this matter of the Word of God—“for the word of God”—so tremendous. Do you want to be made complete? Do you want to be completely furnished unto every good work?
I am so thankful that when I was saved, I was taught from the very beginning that this Book was God’s Word, from Genesis to Revelation, and that there was no part of it which was irrelevant.
Now, I know that sometimes, when you are buried in the genealogies at the beginning of Chronicles and some other places, you might be seriously tempted to wonder, “What is this all about?” You get lost in Leviticus.
But I can tell you that as you get older in the Lord, every part of it has meaning. It is amazing what God can do when He takes His Word and makes it live to us.
Is it not, therefore, so important, as I see it, this matter, if you and I are going to be completely furnished unto every good work?
Every great move of the Spirit of God in the history of the church has begun with a rediscovery of the Word of God. It does not matter where you turn.
Whether it was the Puritans, the Covenanters, the Reformation itself, or earlier with the Waldensians and the Priscillianists—or even earlier with some of the other strange-sounding names that mean virtually nothing to us today—whether it was the Quakers, the Moravians, the brethren, the Methodists in their beginnings, or the Pentecostals, it has always been a rediscovery of the Word of God.
That is where this all began. It was not emotion. It was not something hyped up. It was not something manipulated. It began with revelation: the Spirit of God giving that spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, the eyes of the heart being enlightened.
When that happened, it happened with one, or two, or three, and then, as it were, a great movement that changed whole nations and changed history. It all began with the Word of God.
Wherever you find an assembly that will not accept anything that is not in the Word of God, you will find life. Wherever you find an assembly that is prepared to obey the Lord at whatever cost, to obey His Word, there is life.
It does not matter where you turn in the history of the church. You will discover this incredible thing. When people turn away from the Word of God, then you get all the institutionalism, the crystallisation, the denominationalism, and the systematisation of things. It dies. It dies.
It is a tremendous thing to come to the Word of God, not just as some kind of dusty old Book and say, “Well, we are going to try and learn what it says,” but to come to it with a spirit that is going to obey the light that God gives.
When I was saved, I grew greatly among people who really believed the Word of God and, in many ways, practised it—but only up to a point, if you understand what I mean. They had a system. It was a denominational assembly, and I thought it was the most biblical that you could find.
But when I came to Egypt, I met two little old sisters. They were retired missionaries, even though the mission had a law that when you got to a certain age, you had to retire. They refused to retire because they said they were servants of the Lord, and servants of God do not retire.
I am sometimes tempted myself to think of retirement, but I remind myself that servants of the Lord do not retire. Nor do they sort of—what do you say?—fade away. Thank you.
Servants of the Lord go on in the life of God to the very end.
Now, these wonderful old sisters—I was a young man, only nineteen, and not normally attracted to old ladies—I was sent there to convalesce because I had some serious illness whilst I was in Egypt.
It was the biggest shock I had ever had. These two little—I call them withered old prunes to look at—were walking Bibles. I had never, ever seen or experienced anything like it.
They knew their Bibles in a way that made me feel I was an ignoramus. I actually sometimes nearly wept—not in front of them; I was too proud for that, and they were old ladies. I was young and full of vigour, or supposed to be.
But I nearly wept in private, because I felt every time I was with these two that I knew nothing. I made up for it by being dogmatic about certain things, and they would look at me and then give me a few Scriptures to think about.
What was more remarkable was that these two were intercessors. They gave their last years to prayer, warfare, and ministry. At times, it seemed to me as if the whole Middle East was centred in that little apartment in Port Said.
It was extraordinary. They did not just know their Bibles in an encyclopaedic way. They knew their Bibles as something to live by, to obey, something that furnished weapons in warfare, something that enabled them to understand the situations facing the Lord’s servants in the Middle East—the most difficult part of the world to work because of Islamic hardness.
It was amazing to me to see those two. They lived for the Word of God. They suffered for the Word of God. It really was the tribulation and kingdom and patience—endurance, steadfastness—in Jesus.
It was something that changed my life. You would not think, as a nineteen-year-old, that two old ladies could change a nineteen-year-old fellow’s life, but it changed my life.
I understood that the Word of God was not something preached in pulpits or something you simply had in a Bible study. I discovered that the Word of God was alive.
Actually, if you will allow God’s Spirit to do it, He will take His Word and mould you and fashion you.
We are living in days when the Word of God is being reinvented, recast, and adjusted to contemporary thought. It has been brought up to date, if you know what I mean.
If you will suffer me to say so, I think some of the modern versions are ghastly. Simply—not because I—now, you younger ones, do not get me wrong. I would rather you read some modern version that is incorrect than not read anything.
But if you want a good modern version, get something like the New American Standard Bible. Do not go for some of these things that are hopelessly incorrect just because you want to be modern.
Grace is grace. You cannot find another word for it. Glory is glory. You cannot find another word for it. Being born again is being born again. You cannot find another word for it.
Some of the new versions seem to fall over themselves trying to reinvent words, as it were. But in the end, it has to be revealed to you. It has to be revealed.
What is grace? Can anyone tell me? But when you have seen it, you know what grace is. What is mercy? Until God has revealed it to you, you do not really know what mercy is. It is just a word. What is glory?
Only when the Lord reveals something—and then only something of it—do you begin to understand. There is something tremendous about this Bible: “For the word of God.”
Whenever you have found a man who is prepared to come under the Word of God, you have something tremendous.
Now, if you will suffer me for a moment longer on this matter of the Word of God, let me go right back to the beginning in Deuteronomy 6. I want to read to you these words that our Lord Jesus quoted as the greatest of the commandments.
“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
“And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be upon thy heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
“And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thy house, and upon thy gates.”
— Deuteronomy 6:4-9
You know, this is an extraordinary word. Of course, it has become ritual in religion, in Judaism. On every door, other than the bathroom, you have this little thing we call a mezuzah, and in it is the Word of God.
A religious Jew will touch it with his hand. We think, “Poor people, that is all just religion.” In one sense, it is. Then on the gates, on the outside, you have the mezuzah on the gates.
When they pray, they bind this with leather thongs around the arm, on this hand and that hand. Then they bind it around the head, and the Word is here in a little leather box between the eyes. We think to ourselves, “Well, it is all religion.” Of course it is, but it has tremendous significance.
In many ways, it was meant to be like the Lord’s Table to us: to signify something so tremendous. These people were to have this Word of God not first in their heads, but from their hearts.
When they walked, they were to talk about it. When they sat down, they were to think about it. When they rose up, they were to think about it. When they lay down, they were to think about it. It was to encompass the whole of life.
Sunrise, sunset—every part of it was to be governed by the Word of God.
Then this Word had to be on their hands. In other words, the Word of God was to govern everything they did: business, commerce, economic well-being, prayer—everything governed by the Word of God. Nothing outside the Word of God.
Between their eyes: their intelligence under the Word of God.
There is nothing like the stupidity of intelligence. I say it again: there is nothing like the stupidity of intelligence.
I could give you story after story. I always remember this clever, clever man—so intelligent—a theologian, a professor, who told us that when Elijah had the great contest on Mount Carmel, and he dug the trench and filled it with water, of course it was not water. It was benzine.
Apparently, he said, there were benzine wells on Mount Carmel. We have never discovered them, by the way, but that is what he said. “You have never seen water light a fire, have you?” But it was benzine.
Well, how clever! All these students were listening to him. With a question, I got up and asked him, “Where did the fire come from?”
“Fire?” he said.
“Yes,” I said, “the fire fell down from heaven. Where did that come from? How do you explain that?”
He just said nothing. So I said, “Maybe it was Elijah’s cigarette.”
I mean, it is so stupid. They say they crossed the Red Sea. They never crossed the Red Sea; they crossed the Bitter Lake Lagoon, which is only that deep. I have done it myself. I have tramped across it.
They say, “Oh, it is so amazing.” How did the chariots of Egypt get lost in that few inches of water?
Or like another man I heard say, “Oh, it is because we all know that there are shallow areas on the Lake of Galilee. Jesus did not walk on the water; He was walking on the seabed.”
Someone said, “Well, how did Peter sink?” He said, “Well, that was a pothole.”
That is what I call the stupidity of intelligence. When our thinking is not under the Word of God, we become so stupid.
But when our thinking, our reasoning powers, and our mind are under the authority of God’s Word, then, like the apostle Paul, tremendous things to do with earth and heaven, time and eternity, can be revealed.
God can take our intelligence and make it a vehicle for expressing something so tremendous when our intelligence is under the government of God’s Word.
So this little bit of leather with the Word of God—do you see what it signifies there between the eyes? What you see, what you think, how you reason: everything under the Word of God.
And more than that, on your doorposts: everything to do with your home. Everything to do with your home. Doors—you go in and out and in and out all the time. How many hundreds of times you go in and out of doors in your home, your gates, going in and out—all governed by the Word of God.
For the Word of God.
But I must say something about the testimony of Jesus. What is the testimony of Jesus?
It is very interesting that this term, this phrase, is used almost exclusively in the last book of the Bible. Obviously, it is something to do with Jesus. He speaks of Himself as the faithful and true witness.
I find it amazing when you come to John’s Gospel. Forgive me if I say things you have heard before from me, but I consider John’s Gospel the most Jewish of all the Gospels.
Most preachers and teachers believe Matthew is the most Jewish. I think Matthew was superficially Jewish. I believe John is the most Jewish of the Gospels.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
“In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.
“And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us … full of grace and truth.
“No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.”
— John 1:1, 4, 14, 18
The Word manifested Him—more than defined Him, expressed Him. This is John 1, from verse 1 to verse 4, verse 14, and verse 18.
Now, I find this tremendous. Suddenly, we find this Word has become flesh. We find that the Lord Jesus has always been the means by which God has expressed Himself, revealed Himself, and defined Himself—however you can put it. The Word logos: the mind.
I put it this way: if I were to think and not speak, you would have no idea. You would all sit there, and I would just look at you. You would not know.
But when I express the mind in words, you understand. You understand my mind and my heart.
Now, that is a very poor illustration, but that is what the Lord Jesus is to the Godhead. He is the expression of the mind and heart of God. He is the definition of the heart and mind of God.
He is, to put it in your American English term, the verbalisation of God’s mind and heart. In other words, God is expressing Himself through the Lord Jesus, and the Lord Jesus became flesh.
I wish I could explain it better, but the thing that I find so tremendous about this is that wherever you look in the Gospel of John, you find this testimony of Jesus.
Listen to the “I am” declarations:
“I am the bread of life.”
“I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
“Before Abraham was born, I am.”
“I am the door; by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and go out, and shall find pasture.”
“I am the good shepherd.”
“I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live.”
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me.”
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman. Abide in Me, and I in you.”
Now, is this not tremendous? For me, this is the testimony of Jesus. It begins with the bread of life. It begins with the light—divine light—and it ends with the house of God. That is the testimony of Jesus.
You say, “Well, I do not know what you are saying.” Let me explain again. Buried in these great declarations, these eight declarations of the Lord Jesus, is the key to it all.
John 8:58, I think it is:
“Before Abraham was born, I am.”
Jesus took upon His lips the unmentionable name of God: “I am.” Here is the Word. He expresses God. Everything begins with the Lord Jesus and ends with the Lord Jesus, as far as the Father is concerned and as far as the Spirit is concerned.
All is created through Him and for Him, and in Him everything holds together.
He is the Alpha and Omega: the first letter of the alphabet, the last letter of the alphabet, and all the letters in between. Here is the alphabet of God, the language of God.
He is more than that. He is the first and the last. He is the beginning and the end. He is the Amen.
When you begin to see this, it is tremendous: the testimony of Jesus.
Are you saved? Have you really been born of God? Have you put your trust in the Lord Jesus for your salvation, for eternity—for your eternity? Is that where you have stopped?
Or maybe light is shining upon you, but that is all you have—just light. Maybe you have discovered that He is the door. You enter in, you go in and out, and you find pasture. You have found that He is the good Shepherd. When you fail and fall, He seeks you out and brings you back.
You have found that He is the resurrection and the life. You are dead in yourself, but He is the resurrection. Is it not the light and resurrection, but the resurrection and the life? It begins with resurrection and becomes eternal life. You are raised to experience eternal life in the Lord Jesus.
Here is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the truth. He is the way. Well, you all know this. You have heard it a thousand times in this assembly and through the years. It is like well-known truths.
But He ends with, “I am the true vine.”
Josephus tells us that one of the great wonders of the ancient world was the filigree gold vine that decorated the porch of the sanctuary in Herod’s Temple, in Jesus’ day. It was incredible because it was pure gold: all the leaves, tendrils, and fruit in great filigree work.
When Jesus said, “I am the true vine,” it must have come as a dreadful shock to the disciples. They thought, “Well, it was hard enough hearing Him say, ‘I am the bread of life. He that eateth Me shall live for ever.’ As if we are cannibals. ‘He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood’—what is He talking about?”
That was hard enough. Many no longer walked with Him. But when He said, “I am the true vine,” that was the climax.
The vine was always a symbol of God’s covenant people. How could Jesus be the covenant people? “I am the leader of the covenant people. I am the High Priest of the covenant people. I am the King of the covenant people.” That is explicable. But to say, “I am the people”—how can Jesus be the people of God? How can He be the covenant people?
He explains it:
“Abide in Me, and I in you.”
— John 15:4
One of the sad things about modern versions—I do not want to get onto modern versions again—is that the “ye” and “thou” are an awful pain for you younger people. But at least when it says “ye,” you know it is plural, and when it says “thee” or “thou,” it is singular. Do you understand?
So here you have, “Abide in Me, and I in you all.” We all abide in the one Christ. There is only one Christ. There is no tailor-made Christ—only one Christ. We are all in Him, and He is in all of us.
Here we have something. This is what Jesus meant when He said, “I am the true vine.” If you abide in Me, all of you, and I abide in you all, you will bear much fruit.
The testimony of Jesus.
Satan, the powers of darkness, they hate the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
We hold the testimony of Jesus. How can we be for the Word of God in areas of the Word of God that we are not obeying?
If we are for the Word of God, then we have to be ready to obey whatever light He gives us.
I remember those two old sisters. I used to argue with them because I was such a proud, arrogant young man. I used to argue with them on different points, and I was like a dog with a bone. I would not let a matter go.
They would say, “Why do you not rest? Why do you not just rest and leave it to the Lord?”
Then old Auntie Lyblick said to me one day, “Look, let me show you my Bible.” She opened the Bible, and all through her Bible, in the margins, were dates.
She said, “You see, when I do not understand something, I say to the Lord, ‘You are going to reveal it to me,’ and I wait. If He does not, I put the date there.”
“She said, “Very often I come back just a few months later and say, ‘Well, why did I put that date there? I fully understand that.’ Do you understand? It is just that over time it has become clear.”
But she said to me:
“He that willeth to do His will shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God.”
— John 7:17
That went like a sword to me. I felt so humbled. “He that willeth to do,” she said. “If you are prepared to do the will of God, He will show you whether it is of Him. In other words, He will make it clear. You will get understanding.”
From that day onward, I began to trust the Lord. I began, as it were, to say to the Lord, “Now, Lord, are You going to show me this or not? Show it to me.”
If the Lord did not show me, I have sought through my little ministry never to teach what the Lord has not shown. It is very easy to get commentaries and other things—great—and simply repeat what has been said by them. I have always kept back from that.
I keep to what the Lord has shown me. I will say, “Lord, are You going to show me? I will rest with You.”
How can you be for the Word of God if you are not prepared to obey what the Word of God says?
A Laodicean church takes the Word of God and does not obey it.
How can you be for the testimony of Jesus and not be committed to the building up of the people of God?
There is a cost here. There is a cost. We are not playing games, just storing theology in our heads, somehow or other getting correct doctrine up here.
If we are truly for the Word of God, it will cost us something. If we are for the testimony of Jesus—these two things, of course, are linked—it will cost us.
But God will give the grace to overcome.
No overcomer will fail to be for the Word of God and for the testimony of Jesus.
May God make these words real to every one of you.
You younger folks, read the Word of God. Read it in the most modern version you will, but read it, and read it, and read it. Get on your knees and ask the Lord to show you what it means by the Spirit of God. If He does, obey Him.
Of course, be careful. Always seek fellowship. You know, if you think the Lord is telling you to walk off the roof, I can tell you that is wrong.
Some people get these weird things as though they think they are hearing the Lord. They are not hearing the Lord at all. That is why it is a very good thing, if you think the Lord is calling you to Timbuktu, Afghanistan, or Iraq, that you at least share it with other brothers and sisters first.
Your safety lies within the house, if you are young in the Lord. Do it. If you are old in the Lord and have only come to the Lord recently, it is the same thing.
We have to remember that the peace of God in our hearts arbitrates, but we also have to remember that we are called to one Body. So there is fellowship in everything.
But the wonderful thing is to obey the Word of God.
I am so thankful that when I was saved—and I was as green as anything, I had never read the Bible, never even opened it—when I was saved at nearly thirteen years of age, that little word that Mary said to the servants was given to me:
“Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.”
— John 2:5
That is the key to church life. That is the key to the Christian life. That is the key to true service.
“Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.”
Thank you. Shall we pray?
Beloved Lord, we simply bow here in Your presence, and we thank You, Lord, for this Word that You have given to us at such great cost.
Lord, it is amazing to us that this Word of Yours should have come to us in the way it has. We praise You for it, Lord, and we ask that You will help us not only to treasure it and honour it, but, Lord, to understand it by Your Spirit and to be obedient to it.
Hear us, O Lord, we pray. Lord, we thank You for the testimony of the Lord Jesus. Oh, how we thank You for this wonderful way in which, Father, You have given us everything in Him.
We thank You for that testimony of Jesus. We pray, Lord, that You will reveal more and more of it to us, that we may begin to experience everything that is ours in Him.
May we experience what it is to be His Body, to be in Him, to be members of Him and members one of another. Lord, You alone can do this work.
But we pray that, in some wonderful way, it may be true of every one in this room that we are for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.