We will begin with the Scripture that is the theme of this conference, in the Ephesian letter of the Apostle Paul, chapter 1, verses 9 and 10.
Making known unto us the mystery of His will,
According to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him,
Unto a dispensation of the fullness of the times,
To sum up all things in Christ,
The things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth; in Him, I say.
And then, if you will turn with me to Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 24, we will read just one verse, verse 44.
Therefore be ye also ready:
For in an hour that ye think not the Son of man cometh.
Turn also to the second letter of the Apostle Peter, chapter 3, verse 11.
Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved,
What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness,
Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God,
By reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved,
And the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
But, according to His promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
In the Roman letter of the Apostle Paul, chapter 12, beginning with verse 1:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritually intelligent worship.
And be not fashioned according to this age: 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.
And finally, again in the Ephesian letter of the Apostle Paul, chapter 5, from verse 15:
Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise;
Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
And be not drunken with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit;
Speaking one to another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord;
Giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;
Subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.
We will just bow together in a further word of prayer.
Beloved Lord, we just want to thank You this evening that You are here. We are gathered in Your presence, and as we come now to the ministry of Your Word, Lord, we need You. We praise You that You have made provision for us in every single way, both for speaker, translator, and hearer.
We want, by faith, to stand into that anointing which You have so dearly provided through the finished work of our Lord Jesus, and made such a living reality in the Person of the Holy Spirit. We want to stand into that anointing, grace, and power by faith.
Fill this time with Yourself, Lord. May we be able to hear Your voice beyond the human voice. May everything else fade away and leave us, Lord, with Yourself.
Challenge us, Lord. We have been talking about waking up. Lord, if we are still in a stupor, if we are still sleeping, Lord, wake us up.
We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah. Amen.
Well, I do not think there is any need to say what the theme is. Everybody knows it by now: the summing up of all things in Christ, whether things in heaven or things on the earth—everything summed up in Him.
My responsibility has been being ready for Christ, ready for His coming.
I have already taken one evening to deal with this whole subject in general, to talk about the point to which we have come in history. I will not say any more about it other than this: we are there.
We shall see more and more clearly in the coming years that this world is not worth living in. If you have never longed for the coming of the Lord, you will begin to long for it in a way you have never longed before for His coming.
We are at a tremendous point in history: the deterioration of our society, the return to paganism, the rejection of the law of God and the Word of God, which made the Western nations so great—who produced so much civilization, so-called.
The spirit of lawlessness, the mystery of lawlessness—what is the mystery of lawlessness? It is simply that Satan is the conspirator. He is the coordinator, the mastermind. It is not human. It is not to do with human philosophy, human ideologies, political parties, or educational systems. Behind it all is this arch-enemy of our Lord Jesus.
In the end, he will be personified in a human being: the Antichrist. The spirit of Antichrist has been in this world from the very beginning, but in the last phase of world history, in which we are now found, it will be personified in a person.
Not a horned individual, as I have said, but someone very attractive, democratic seemingly—a mixture of autocracy and democracy, iron and clay, two things that do not go together.
Anyway, that is enough to talk about that. The fact of the matter is, the Lord is coming.
No man knows the day or the hour, not even the Son, nor the angels—only the Father. There is going to come a point in time, somewhere in the not-too-distant future, when the Father says, “Let it roll,” and the end will come.
It will be simply amazing, just to see the Lord in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. It is exciting to think about it. Whether we are alive or whether we have died, we will all be there.
We think the people who have died are going to miss out somehow. No, no, no. They are going to be raised first, and then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them. Well, that is something tremendous.
Last night I talked about four imperatives for being ready for the coming of the Lord.
The first imperative I spoke about last night was very simple: absolute and total devotion to the Person of the Lord Jesus. There is no alternative, and there is no substitute.
Knowledge is no substitute. Religion is no substitute. Ceremonies are no substitute. Church life is no substitute, as such, if we make it a thing.
It is this personal devotion to the Lord Jesus.
I will say no more about that, except that in the end, even a church—an assembly—so tremendous as the church in Ephesus, the Lord said, “I have this against you: you have left your first love. If you do not repent and return to the first works, then I will remove the lampstand out of its place.”
That seems incredibly harsh and severe for a company. One understands it with Laodicea and with some of the others, but Ephesus as well? That gives you an idea of how much the Lord puts on this question of personal devotion.
To know the Lord—do you know the Lord? Do you really know the Lord, or do you only know Him by what you have read? Do you know Him? Is He Someone you actually know?
Personal devotion brings us into a personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus. Anyway, I must not go over that. We said enough last night.
Then I spoke about active, living, working faith. We have all got the idea that we have to have a tremendous amount of it for anything to happen. You do not. You need very little—a grain of mustard seed, so small you could blow it away.
But that little grain-of-mustard-seed faith can unite you to the infinity of God, and then nothing is impossible. Such is faith. It comes from seeing the Lord.
When you see the Lord with the eye of the heart, spontaneously the gift of God in you—faith—is activated. It joins you to the Lord, and then tremendous things happen.
Thirdly—what did I speak about thirdly? You know, I am getting old. It is terrible.
A hearing ear. Thank you very much. I am glad you took it in.
I can think of nothing more important than to have a hearing ear. So few Christians hear the Lord, and those who say they hear the Lord—some of them are crazy.
I mean, I have to be honest. I have been many, many years now amongst the people of God, and many people tell me, “The Lord said this. The Lord said that.” The Lord has never said anything of the kind. It is proved by the way things happen in their circumstances and situations that the Lord never spoke to them about these things.
But I do thank God for those I have known in my life who have really heard the Lord—some quite remarkable people.
I remember those two missionaries who spent nearly their whole life on the border of Nepal, waiting to go in. Why? Because when they were first saved, God called them to Nepal and said that He would use them to establish the church in Nepal: Dr. O’Hanlon, Lily O’Hanlon, and Lucy Steele.
They lived their lives on the borders of Nepal until that day—I shall never forget it—when the cable came. I was part of a little prayer meeting. The young people thought I was nuts, all those white-haired people I used to go and pray with for Nepal once a week. But I was there when the cable came.
I have never forgotten it. I felt so big, so important, that I had been part of winning a battle to get into Nepal. The cable said, “Tomorrow we go over into Nepal. We have been granted permission by the king of Nepal.”
Out of that came all the work of the Lord in Nepal.
Or I think of another wonderful old sister who, at eighteen years of age, was told by the Lord, “You shall serve Me in Afghanistan.” She spent her whole life on the border of Afghanistan, in what is now Pakistan.
Then she came to retirement. Well, she did not want to retire, but the mission had a retirement policy, and they retired her. She said, “All right, I will take a little home, and I will continue in my prayer ministry.”
At eighty—am I right? Eighty-two years of age—there was a knock on the door. There was a herald from Kabul.
“Are you Miss Christiansen?”
“I am.”
“Are you a specialist nurse?”
“I am.”
“The king wants you to come and care for the crown prince, who has serious eye problems.”
That extraordinary lady, when most of us think we are just about to totter into the grave, went into Afghanistan. To her came Dr. Wilkie, and a whole company of believers. Afghans came to the Lord—most of them martyred later by the Taliban.
What a wonderful thing it is to hear the Lord, to really hear the Lord. A hearing ear is essential if you are going to be ready for the coming of the Lord.
Then I spoke about priorities: the need to get our priorities right.
If we are seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, then we do not have to worry about clothing, food, finance, and I do not know what else.
I have been living—I do not know how to put it—dependent upon the Lord since I was seventeen. I have never, for one single moment, suffered for not having clothing, or food, or a home, and much else.
Oh, the Lord is so incredibly generous. If you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, you do not have to go around making faith with hints.
I was once in Sweden, and I stayed with a family. They said to me, “You will help our son, will you? He is in such a difficult mood.”
I said, “Well, what do you want me to do with your son?”
“Bring him to the Lord,” they said.
These two were a servant of God, a pastor and his wife. I said to them, “But I just do not do that. First of all, you turf the boy out of his bed and put me in his bed, so that makes him an enemy right from the start. Then you expect me to talk to him about the gospel? That is not my business. If he asks me, I will certainly speak with him.”
Well, we went on, and then one day he said to me, “Excuse me, do you mind me asking a very straight personal question?”
“No, I do not mind,” I said.
He said, “You seem to dress quite nicely. Do you live by faith?”
“Yes, I do,” I said. “I live completely dependent upon the Lord, and I have never known the Lord let me down.”
“Oh,” he said, “you should know my parents.”
“Really?” I said.
“Yes,” he said, “they live by faith. But my mother keeps on saying to my father, ‘You must get those holes in the soles of your shoes seen to.’ And he says, ‘Oh no, because when I kneel in front of the congregation, they see the need to help us.’”
Faith with hints. Living by faith with hints—it does not work.
Much better to live totally dependent upon the Lord. Never tell anyone of your needs. Trust the Lord. I have never found Him to fail.
When you get your priorities clear, you are ready for the coming of the Lord. The Lord will take personal responsibility for you, even if you become a martyr. At that moment, power will be given to you and grace to go through.
You will triumph, even in martyrdom.
Now, what about this evening? Here is another imperative, the fifth imperative: to be involved in the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus.
I have no time for people who are not involved in the commission of our Lord Jesus. That cannot be contradicted and cannot be annulled.
Go, and make disciples of all nations.
And lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
If we are going to live in little holy huddles, without any concern for the unsaved people around us, no concern whatsoever for the dying multitudes in our nation, do you really think we are ready for the coming of the Lord?
You cannot make biblical theology, biblical doctrine, or even the knowledge of the church an excuse for not being involved in this commission of our Lord Jesus.
Listen to Him. This is Matthew 28:18:
All authority and power hath been committed into My hands. Go ye therefore.
It is to do with His authority and power at the right hand of God. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all nations—not converts, disciples—teaching them all things that I have commanded you, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
And lo, I am with you always, all the way, to the end of the age.
Do you want the Lord to be with you in the last phase of world history? Then get involved in this great commission of our Lord Jesus.
Mark’s Gospel puts it even more simply:
Go into all the world, and preach the gospel.
You do not stay and say, “Come.” You go. It is the commission of the risen Head of the church.
Now, dear friends, do understand me. In this, I am not trying to get at anyone or anything. I just have such a burden.
I have noticed everywhere I go in the world that where people have a tremendous burden for the unsaved, the church almost spontaneously begins to develop and grow in their midst.
But where there is no burden for the lost and no burden for this dying world, you can spend your whole time talking about deeper things and get nowhere.
I speak from a little bit of experience. All over Britain there were these little holy-huddle groups, I called them, years ago. All basically gathered on deeper teaching.
Faithful people, truly born again. They knew their Bibles inside out and upside down. They really had such a knowledge of the Bible, but never a soul ever got saved amongst them.
I am not sure that anyone from the world would ever have felt somehow at home.
It was the bane of Mr. Sparks’ ministry. Many times he said to me, “This is a curse.”
It is so tremendous when God starts to work, and when people really have a heart for the dying.
I will say no more about this. I have said enough. But what I want to get over to you is this: we cannot be ready for the coming of the Lord if we are not involved in His Great Commission.
Now, that does not mean that every one of us becomes an evangelist. Nor does it mean that every one of us goes out as a missionary. Nor does it mean that we suddenly must get involved in some kind of evangelistic endeavour.
What it does mean is this: every one of us has a burden.
Out of that kind of burden will come the church. May God burn it into our spirits.
Then there is a sixth imperative. If you and I are to be ready for the coming of the Lord, we need to be a living sacrifice.
A living sacrifice—not a dead one. A living sacrifice.
How amazing to me it is that the Apostle Paul summed up the greatest exposition of the gospel, of the good news, of the good tidings in the Bible, in the Roman letter.
He had gone through eight chapters dealing with it, and it is just tremendous. Then he comes to three chapters, which many theologians and Bible teachers say were a kind of parenthesis.
Some say it is all predestination that he deals with. I say He deals with the whole question of Israel. He says, “Is it possible to choose and unchoose, to elect and unelect? And if it is possible, what about the church? What about those who are being saved amongst the Gentiles?”
It is a tremendous three chapters that deal with this thing, and in the end it comes to this incredible statement:
I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits, that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved: even as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer; He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.
The Scripture, by the way, says that a Redeemer shall come to Zion. That was fulfilled. If you think it is the Septuagint, look in the Septuagint, and you will find that in the ancient Greek version of the Old Testament it does not say this.
Where Paul got it, we do not know, but he said, “As it is written, there shall come out of Zion a Deliverer, and He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” The original Hebrew in Isaiah 59 says, “A Redeemer shall come to Zion, to those that turn away from ungodliness in Jacob.” That is exactly what happened in the early church.
But in this amazing prophetic statement, he says:
There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer,
And He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.
And this is My covenant with them,
When I shall take away their sins.
As touching the gospel, they—the Jewish people—are enemies for your sake; but as touching the election, they are beloved for the patriarchs’ sake.
For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
Let it sink in: the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
Now he comes to the summing up:
I beseech you therefore, in the light of all this—not only the first eight chapters, but also chapters 9, 10, and 11—I beseech you therefore, by the mercies of God, that you present your body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritually intelligent worship.
A living sacrifice. Is that the end of the gospel? Yes.
“Oh,” you say, “I thought the gospel was that we should just be very happy, very joyful, that everything will be done for us. If we have any messes, the Lord will clean it all up.”
No. The end of the gospel is living sacrifice.
There is real emotion in worship, and there is nothing wrong with it. But there is another kind of worship that is far more important than even that worship.
This Greek construction is so difficult. Some say, “your rational worship,” or “your rational service.” But I once spoke with one of the great dons of Cambridge about this and said to him, “What do you really think it means?”
I said, “If I were to say ‘spiritually intelligent worship,’ is that correct?”
He said, “Absolutely good. That is what it means.”
Cold-blooded decision. Spiritually intelligent—not in some sudden moment of emotion, not in the height of emotion in a meeting, when you have consecrated yourself, but in a deliberate, cold-blooded way you have said, “I will be a living sacrifice.”
There is no alternative to this, no substitute for this. If you and I are to be ready for the coming of the Lord, we need to be a living sacrifice, whether we are young people or whether we are old people.
I thank God, with all my faults and failings, I was only fourteen or fifteen years of age when I chose to be a living sacrifice.
Do not think, young people, this is for old ones. This is for everyone. It is the gateway into so much.
Listen:
And be not fashioned according to this age.
Be not fashioned. The word is “moulded.” Be not conformed. Be not somehow in a straitjacket of this age.
Most of us are influenced. Look at the way we dress. Look at the fashions we have. We are all influenced by the generation in which we live, the age in which we live. We cannot help it.
The only way out of being moulded by the fashion—fashioned according to this age—is by being a living sacrifice. Then you have settled it. You are out. You are free, like a bird out of a cage.
Otherwise, you have always got this problem. I will tell you what the problem is: the problem is a Christian self-life.
You say, “No, no, no. What do you mean?”
Yes, I mean this: a converted self-life. It is all self: “I, I, me, me, me.”
“What am I getting out of this conference? What am I getting out of the Lord? What am I getting out of this ministry? What am I getting out of life?”
It is always I and I. I will tell you something else: this self-life is the curse of the church.
Rivalry, jealousy, ambition, competition, gossip, backbiting—it is all within us, every one of us. The sweetest people can become almost demonic when put into the right conditions.
Believe me, I have met them. They seem so sweet, so muddy, so humble, until they are put into conditions in which somehow or other the real self within them comes right out into the open.
How can you ever get that self-life dealt with? Only by being a living sacrifice.
It is not just your personal life—your service. If the self-life is the basis and energy of your Christian service, it will be destroyed, and it will destroy others.
The same is true with church life. If it is a collection of self-lives all trying to be together, it will be a cacophony, if you understand what I mean—one great noise from all these self-lives claiming some kind of place amongst us.
We in Christian circles have made a tremendous mistake. I always get people upset with me over saying this, but I am going to say it. I am quite sure I am right on this matter. Excuse me being so dogmatic, but I am quite sure I am right on this matter.
We say to people, “Have you got a gift? Ah, you have a gift of the gab. You are a preacher. We must have you.”
Anyone who has got a silver tongue—wonderful, God gave you that. Are you an organizer? Great. Consecrate your organizing gift to God.
I have known people who have organized the Holy Spirit out of anything. I am not joking. I have seen it with my own eyes and experienced it. So clever are they at organizing, they can do it from coast to coast and from continent to continent.
The greater the organizer, the greater the problem.
Watchman Nee once said—I believe I am right in quoting him, and perhaps Stephen can correct me afterwards—“We suffer more from the talents and the gifts of the members of the Body than ever we do from their failings and sins.”
Are you clever at music? Consecrate it to the Lord. Have you got a voice to sing? Consecrate it to the Lord.
But we all know what happens when we hear someone sing and all we are left with is their singing: “Oh, wonderful. What a lovely voice.” Another person sings, and we are in the presence of the Lord.
One person plays an instrument, and all you are left with is their instrumental playing. But another person plays, and you are worshipping the Lord.
One person speaks—ministers; we have to use words—and you hear the Lord. Another person speaks, and all you hear is them.
All natural gifts have to go to the cross. It is up to the Lord whether, through death, burial, and resurrection, those gifts come out to be greatly used of God, or whether they are left in the grave.
A living sacrifice. Listen to the Apostle Paul:
I beseech you therefore, brethren—brothers—by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, set apart, acceptable, well-pleasing to God, which is your spiritually intelligent worship.
And be not fashioned according to this age, formed according to this age, moulded according to this age; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.
The trouble in church life is the mindset of its members.
When we become a living sacrifice, the Holy Spirit is able to transform us by the renewing of our mind.
There is nothing more wonderful than to see a sinner become a saint. There is nothing more wonderful than to see someone who is small and crabby and mean somehow, in the end, becoming Christ-like.
There is nothing more wonderful than to see a selfish person, in the end, laying down their life and serving others. It is moving.
This same Apostle wrote another letter to the Philippians, and he said:
Have this mind, which was also in Christ Jesus.
It is much the same thing—not the same word in Greek, but much the same idea. Have this attitude. Have this mind, this mindset.
What was this? He never thought being on an equality with God was something to be fought over, grasped, or held on to. But He humbled Himself. He took the form of a bondservant and came to death.
What is a living sacrifice? It is all to do with death.
When we are prepared to die, God exalts us.
I have seen it a thousand times in the arguments, squabbles, and fights that Christians have with one another. When they fight with one another, God says, “I will leave you to it. Fight it out.”
But when one side says, “We will not fight. We will die,” God takes their place, and the collision course is set.
Think. You can talk until you are blue in the face about the kingdom of God, the church, and the eternal purpose of God, but if you cannot forgive another brother or sister, something is wrong.
You know what the Lord says? He says very simply in the pattern prayer:
If ye forgive not others their trespasses, neither will My heavenly Father forgive you.
That means if you have an unforgiving spirit, your prayers are worthless. That is how serious this matter is.
A living sacrifice. I think it is brilliant of the Holy Spirit to so work in this way that in one fell swoop you can settle everything.
Remember Lot’s wife? Yes. If she had only been a living sacrifice, it would have been totally different. There are a whole lot of other things I could say. It changes everything.
When you die, God takes over in resurrection. When you let go, God steps in. He moulds, fashions, and gives back. When you humble yourself, God lifts you up.
A living sacrifice. Is it any wonder that it is called your spiritually intelligent worship?
Let me take you a step further. The Apostle goes on and says in this amazing chapter:
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, as God hath given to each man a measure of faith.
Then listen to this:
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.
How do we get a functioning church? What a good question. Some people have been working at having a church for years and years and years, and still it never comes. How can we get a functioning church, so that it actually functions?
Only when you have a nucleus of people who are living sacrifices. When you have a nucleus of people who are living sacrifices, God blesses the selfish, if you understand what I mean.
You can have babes, you can have the old, you can have those who have been arrested in their development and become almost a trial to the church. But the church functions when there is a living sacrifice.
Then again, think of this:
That ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
We all have problems with the will of God, if we are honest. Some of us—especially some of you younger people—are frightened of the will of God.
You are frightened the Lord might make you a monk or a nun, might require you not to marry, or may in some way do something else—send you to the ends of the earth where you do not want to go. So you are frightened of the will of God.
Of course you are. Why? Because that self-life of yours is intact. It is a converted self-life, being beautifully dolled up. It is being Christianized.
You become a living sacrifice, and you will prove the good, acceptable, perfect will of God.
Sometimes the will of God is difficult. Sometimes it leads through the valley of the shadow of death. Sometimes it leads to difficult times, desert times, sometimes to famine.
But it is always good, acceptable, and perfect. When you come out the other end, you give glory to God. You would not have it any other way.
Well, dear folks, that is something else—a sixth imperative. You and I, if we want to really see what the church is, are going to have to become living sacrifices. Well, are you? I say it to myself.
I used to be so frightened of the wonderful old hymn written by a Scots divine, George Matheson, “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go.” I used to find the last verse so terrifying:
O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.
He was going blind. The specialist said to him, “You will be totally blind for the rest of your life.” He was a young man, only in his twenties, pastor of a Church of Scotland congregation near where Mr. Sparks was born.
His fiancée dumped him the moment she heard what the specialist said. He wrote this amazing hymn, “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go.”
But I always found that last verse terrifying. I knew you cannot ask to fly from the cross. But to lay in dust, life’s glory dead—that is a position of faith.
It is impossible to do it unless the Spirit of God is with you.
We cannot be ready for Christ if we are not a living sacrifice. It is as simple as that.
Now let me take a seventh imperative: to be indwelt, filled, and anointed with the Holy Spirit.
There is no way for any child of God to be ready for the coming of the Lord if they are not indwelt, filled, and anointed with the Holy Spirit.
On this matter, there is a lot of confusion. But the Word of God is simple. Forget the confusion. Face the Word of God:
Be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Some people say to me, “Oh yes, yes, yes, of course, we are all filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Really?
Well, that is a big surprise to me. I have been amongst Christians for years and years and years, and I can tell you those who are filled with the Holy Spirit and those who are not.
When people say, “Well, it is a question of faith, you see, and we are not expecting to feel anything”—yes, but everybody else can see. If you are filled with the Holy Spirit, it is obvious.
How in the world did the apostles say, “Choose out men who are filled with the Holy Spirit,” unless it is possible to see that they are filled with the Holy Spirit?
It is true that the Holy Spirit can dwell in us bottled up—forgive me being irreverent—bottled up in a straitjacket, somehow closed within our flesh.
I find it tremendous that John the Baptist described the ministry of the Lord Jesus as He who baptizes in the Spirit and fire. That is in Matthew 3.
I cannot accept any explanation of this that is less than something tremendous.
He said:
I baptize in water unto repentance.
That was the heart of his ministry. But he that comes after me, He will baptize in the Spirit. In the Greek, you can say either “in the Spirit,” “with the Spirit,” or “by the Spirit.”
I like “baptized in the Spirit,” because I believe in baptism being pushed under the water. Do you understand? I do not believe in this sprinkling business, or this little bit of water, you know, crossed on our head.
That is not how we bury anybody, is it? You put them under the ground and the soil goes over. It is a proper baptism when you go under the water. You are baptized.
Now think for a moment. The baptism of the Spirit surely must be a term that is inclusive. It includes the whole ministry of the Holy Spirit:
This is how I see it. When you are young in the Lord, you say, “The Holy Spirit is in me.” He is indwelling there. Well, well, well—the Holy Spirit in you. You have got the Holy Spirit.
But the baptism of the Spirit is when the Holy Spirit gets you.
There is a vast difference between you having the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit having you. Who is it that baptizes you? Not the Spirit. Who is it that baptizes you? Jesus. He is the Lord Jesus.
Now, I know very well there is a great deal of discussion about this. I personally also believe that Pentecost is historic. It is once and for all.
When the Lord Jesus sat down at the right hand of God, He received the promise of the Holy Spirit and poured forth this which ye see and hear. But in that pouring out of the Holy Spirit, two or three things happened at once: birth by the Spirit, the indwelling of the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit, and being anointed with the Spirit.
That is how I see it. I have an argument with people who tell me, “Well, it is historic.”
Of course it is historic. So is Calvary.
But I came to the Lord in 1943. Well, Jesus was crucified—not in 1940, not quite—but some nineteen hundred years ago.
When I believed on the Lord Jesus, in that moment the historic event of Calvary became mine. I was born of God. I became a child of God, saved by the grace of God through the atoning worth of my Messiah Jesus. So did you.
But I never heard much. We used to hear some things about the Holy Spirit, I do remember that, but it was years later—four or five years later with me. I was still a youngster in my teens, but I was so tired of this Christian life.
I had got the whole thing: legalism, everything. I read my portion of Scripture every day. I said my prayers every day. I tried to witness to one person every day. I did all these things.
The whole thing was law, law, law. Talk about Judaism—I mean, it was law after law after law, and no joy.
It did not help me to see Christians who obviously were in the same condition as myself.
Then one day a little booklet came into my hand, and I decided to spend the whole afternoon on my knees in a dusty old Church of England church behind the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London.
It was as if heaven opened. The first thing that came to me was this: the Holy Spirit is the vice-regent of Christ and is here to produce His nature, character, and life in you.
It was such a shock to me. You could have knocked me out. I am not joking. You could have knocked me out.
I said, “Dear Holy Spirit, I never knew You were a Person. I have never addressed You before.”
I do not think it is necessary to address the Holy Spirit either. We pray to the Father, by the Spirit, in the name of Jesus. But nevertheless, I said, “Dear Holy Spirit, I am so sorry. I have ignored You, totally ignored You. Here are the keys of my life. Do exactly what You want to do with me.”
That was the beginning of my ministry. That was the beginning of my living the Christian life.
It was not over. Then it was as if the Lord opened something more in heaven, and I understood: I was crucified with Christ.
Oh, what a shock it was. Me? Crucified with Christ? But I had been trying to make myself such a good Christian.
“Yes,” the Lord said, “My estimate of you is to have crucified you with My Son.”
Oh, that was such a shock. There was I trying to get the old man to pray, to use evangelical phraseology—biblical phraseology—sing wonderful hymns, try to look cheerful, try to win somebody else to the Lord. It had never, ever got anywhere near any of it.
Then, in some wonderful way, I understood I had been crucified with Christ. I can honestly say a huge load rolled off my back. For the first time in years, I laughed.
That was the burden the Christian life had been to me. It just rolled off, and I thanked God.
Well, that is my story. Some people say you must have the cross first and then an experience of the Holy Spirit. I do not know. My experience was that the Holy Spirit came first, and then the cross.
I could not put to death the deeds of the body without the Holy Spirit. I could not fall into the ground and die without the Holy Spirit. I could not become a living sacrifice apart from the Holy Spirit.
It was the Holy Spirit who empowered me to do it.
In that afternoon, when I somehow met the Lord, my calling was confirmed, and the ministry God gave me became mine.
I actually went out not to do anything. The Lord said to me, “No more witnessing.”
Oh, how thankful I was.
“No more witnessing,” the Lord said, “not till I give you the opportunity.”
For three weeks I lived a carefree life. For the first time I lived. I smiled. I enjoyed myself.
In the old days, every time I went to the common room, the other students moved away, because they knew I would be on to them about being saved, converted, or coming to a meeting.
When I went down a corridor, I do not know how many of them got into the wrong lectures, because they vanished into any door to get out of the way.
Then I was sitting in the students’ common room when the fellow who was captain of the rugby team came up and said, “Do you mind me asking you a personal question or two?”
“No,” I said.
He said, “We have been talking. There is something different about you. What is it?”
Now, of course, a few weeks earlier I would have said to him, “You are a sinner, and I am saved by the grace of God. I am going to glory, and you are going to hell.” That is what I would have said. That was my way of evangelizing.
But instead, I looked at him and said, “Well, we are both sinners. But by the grace of God, I have been saved by the Lord Jesus. Maybe you have not had such an experience.”
He looked at me and said, “How can I have such an experience?” A tear began to run down his face.
I was convinced that it must be the devil, because I had tried to get people saved for three years and had never seen anyone. Here was this great big hulk of a man, with a tear running down his cheek, saying to me, “How can I become? How can it happen to me?”
He said, “Do I have to go to a church and kneel in a church?”
“No,” I said.
“Well,” he said, “do I have to go somewhere special, to some private room?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, then here?”
Without thinking, I said, “Of course. Anywhere.”
With that, he simply said, “Oh God, You know what a sinner I am. Come into my heart and save me.”
Then I thought to myself, “This cannot be the Lord. It cannot be the Lord. How could it happen so easily? Here am I labouring and labouring and labouring, and suddenly the man bursts into tears.”
It was the beginning of a whole number of others who came to the Lord.
The Holy Spirit. Do not be afraid of the Holy Spirit. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit. Do not quench the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is here to glorify the Lord Jesus. He is here to take you and make you what the Lord Jesus wants you to be.
It is a wonderful thing to be led by the Spirit of God. It is a wonderful thing to be a temple of the Holy Spirit. It is a wonderful thing to be immersed in the greatness of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit never talks about Himself. He never draws attention to Himself. He is always turning your gaze to Jesus, always enabling you to praise the Lord Jesus, always enabling you to glorify the Lord Jesus.
I do hope that what I have to say on the Holy Spirit will touch you, because how can we be ready for the coming of the Lord—equipped, fitted out, prepared—but by the Spirit of God?
How are we going to stand in these days of turmoil, deterioration, and breakup unless we have the power of the Holy Spirit? Do not be afraid of these words: the power of the Holy Spirit.
Even our Lord Jesus, who was born of the Spirit and filled with the Spirit, was thirty years of age when He was anointed of the Holy Spirit.
By the Holy Spirit, He died daily until He came to Calvary and went through to that death on the cross. It was the Holy Spirit who enabled Him to offer up Himself on the cross, and it was the Holy Spirit who raised Him from the dead.
Do not be afraid of the Holy Spirit.
One last thing about this, and one last imperative: fire.
Stephen has talked about returning to the Lord. Do you know the thing that most burdens me? I will tell you straight away: I am wholly with every single thing that our brother has said about returning to the Lord.
The trouble with most believers is that they cannot bring themselves to say they need to return. They think it is somehow letting the side down—some embarrassment to say, “Me? Returning to the Lord? With all my knowledge?”
The thing that most disturbs me is that there is no fire.
“Oh,” you say, “are you a Pentecostal?”
No. But where there is fire, I am always thankful.
What do I mean? Not strange fire, not foreign fire, not demonic fire. I mean the fire of God.
When the fire of God burns in a human being, others come to see.
Have you ever noticed how every time there is a big fire, all these men come and stand there looking? It is a very strange thing about men. They seem to love fires.
I have always found it at Halford House. I used to say, “Keep the boys out of this,” every time we had a bonfire.
On one occasion, some of those German-Swiss brothers built such a bonfire that a pilot going overhead to the airport radioed the police and said, “There is a big fire in Alford Road.”
I do not know what it is about fire. Fire attracts. Fire warms. Fire is energy. Fire is power.
It is not for nothing that fire is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. It is not for nothing that when the Holy Spirit was poured out by the Lord Jesus at the right hand of the Father, it distributed itself in a flame of fire on every one of the hundred and twenty.
Every one of them was a light on fire.
I find it so sad when I go over the world and find assemblies that have great knowledge of the Word of God and of the purpose of God, and no fire. No fire.
That is not how it was in the beginning.
You and I need the fire of God. We cannot be ready for the coming of the Lord unless we have that fire. May God speak to every one of our hearts.
Finally, the last imperative is to be an overcomer.
I do not know why people get terribly afraid of the word “overcomer.” They think it is elitist, as if every child of God is not meant to be an overcomer.
What does it mean to be an overcomer? It simply means you come over. Whatever it is that is the obstacle, you come over it. Whatever it is that stands against you, you come over it.
How can you and I become overcomers? The only way you and I can become an overcomer is by the Overcomer in us.
Jesus said:
Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
When the Lord Jesus, by the Spirit, dwells in us unhindered and unrestricted, you can be nothing else than an overcomer.
How I love Margaret Barber’s hymn, “Make Me an Overcomer.” There is a little phrase—I wish I could quote all the phrases from memory, but as I say, my memory is not so good these days:
In power within me live.
Here is another one:
Bend down from heaven,
And on me Your Spirit cast.
She got it. She got it. You cannot be an overcomer apart from the Holy Spirit. Of course, you must be a living sacrifice.
How beautiful it is, the little formula we have in Revelation 12:
They overcame him
By the blood of the Lamb,
By the word of their testimony,
And because they loved not their lives even unto death.
The only way to be an overcomer is to have a fixation on the finished work of the Lord Jesus. There is no other way.
Otherwise, the devil will get you. He will fire his fiery darts at you. He will get in through some little chink in the armour. He will get you some way or another, unless you know the finished work of the Lord Jesus.
That is the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the loins girded with truth, and the feet shod with the gospel of peace.
Dear brother, dear sister, it is so simple. You will never be an overcomer because you are something in yourself. You will never become an overcomer because you have great knowledge, nor will you be an overcomer because of zeal.
You will be an overcomer through the blood of the Lamb. Stand there. Withstand, and having done all, stand.
Many years ago, when the young people from Halford House used to go up to Mr. Sparks’ home in Scotland in the summer, we used to have great times. Mr. Sparks himself became a different person with those young people.
I remember on one occasion, someone said, “Father Sparks, what is an overcomer?”
He thought for a while, and then he said, “An overcomer is not someone who is perfect, or elite, or Superman. An overcomer is someone who is in the will of God at the end of their earthly life.”
They have remained. Even if they have got out of it somewhere, they are back within the centre of God’s will. That is an overcomer.
By the blood of the Lamb: every time you fail, every time you fall, every time you sin, the enemy has ground to come to you and shoot you down.
But the blood of the Lamb—and the word of their testimony. What a wonderful second phrase this is: the word of their testimony.
What does that mean? It means that with their lips they confess that Jesus is Lord. They articulate—or, to use an American term which I do not like, they verbalize. Dreadful word, is it not? They verbalize their testimony.
When it is all, “I hope, I think, maybe,” it is no testimony. But when you say, “He is Lord,” that is a testimony. “He is on the throne,” that is a testimony. “He has won the victory,” that is a testimony.
When you say, “Truth will win,” that is the testimony. When you say, “The church will be built,” that is the word of the testimony.
Do you understand what we are trying to say? You actually articulate it. You speak it out. Through that word of our testimony, we overcome.
The third thing is just as amazing:
And they loved not their lives even unto death.
How do we understand it? Does it mean unto martyrdom? Maybe. Does it mean that they were living sacrifices right through to their homegoing?
Well, dear brothers, dear sisters, the Lord is coming. Are you ready?
Am I ready for the Lord?
How incredibly gracious the Lord is. He is not some severe schoolmaster or principal who stands there with enormous severity. He wants to help us. He wants us to be ready.
Those were His words:
Therefore be ye also ready:
For in an hour that ye think not, the Son of man cometh.
Can we hasten the coming of the day of God? Is it possible for us, in some way through our devotion, through our being made ready, through our returning to the Lord, through our living in Him and with Him, can we hasten the coming of the day of God?
There is some reason why it says no one knows the day—not even the angels know, nor the Son. What is it that the Father waits for, to give the word?
May He soon give that word. Could it be that our devotion has something to do with it? Our readiness?
Pay the price to be what He wants us to be. The little arguments we have with the Lord, the murmurings, the rebellions, the obstacles that we somehow set in our very way—how stupid they are when you think about it.
May the Lord touch our hearts. May He, by the Spirit of God, make us ready, set us on fire, bring us back to our first love, fill us, and anoint us with the Holy Spirit, so that we might become, by His grace alone, overcomers.
Shall we pray?
Lord, take these poor words and write them indelibly in our hearts. Do not let us get away from this, Lord. Follow us until, Lord, You get what You want in us.
We want to see Your purpose fulfilled. We want to see the bride make herself, by Your grace, ready. We want to see the gospel preached in all the world. We want to see the Body of our Lord Jesus built up.
We want to see You be not only the beginning, but the end for everyone here.
Lord, hear us, and let Your Word dwell in us richly.
We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.