Turn with me to the letter to the Hebrews, chapter 12. The Hebrew letter, chapter 12.
We will read from verse 25.
See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh.
For if they escaped not when they refused Him that warned them on earth, much more shall not we escape who turn away from Him that warneth from heaven:
Whose voice then shook the earth: but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven.
And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain.
Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God, with reverence and awe:
For our God is a consuming fire.—Hebrews 12:25-29
Shall we just bow together in a word of prayer? Let us really unite to ask the Lord to be with us as we turn to His Word, and to meet us in it.
Heavenly Father, we just want to thank You that when we turn to Your Word, You have made provision for us so that, Lord, this time may not be futile or misspent in any single part. We pray that Your plan for this evening time may be fulfilled, Lord, and that Your Word may come to us in a living, vital, and powerful manner, so that, Lord, both in the speaking and in the hearing, it may be Your ability and power which is apparent.
Dear Lord, You know that if I speak in my own energy, and if we hear in our own ability, then, Lord, it will not amount to much. But we praise You, Lord, that You have said, “Let him that hath an ear hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.” Dear Lord, we pray together that those ears of our spirit may be open to hear Your voice.
We want to be a people who have an understanding of the days in which we live and know what You are requiring of us. So, dear heavenly Father, we do commit our time to You. We pray that You will fill this whole time, Lord; shut us in with Yourself, so that we may hear Your voice and know Your speaking and working.
And we ask all this in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I would like this evening to speak about another feature that will characterize these last days of the age. That feature is an unparalleled shaking of every single aspect of life.
Now, this is very, very important for believers, because whether the Lord comes sooner or later during this phase, the fact remains that once everything begins to be shaken to pieces, believers are not going to be exempted from that shaking. They are all going to be in it and part of it.
Therefore, it is very, very necessary to know that one of the features, one of the characteristics, of the days into which we are moving is this determination of God to shake everything that can be shaken to pieces.
Now, will you please note that? It is not the devil who is shaking everything to pieces, nor is it Marxism, nor capitalism, nor flesh and blood, nor new ideologies. It is God who has said, “I will shake not only the earth, but the heavens also.”
It would be a great comfort to us if we recognized the simple fact that the One who is behind the shaking is our Lord and God. Then we shall understand that there is a purpose in it. We are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
For us who know the Lord, the great requirement is that we should get to know the unshakable and invincible King, the Lord Jesus. For the more we get to know Him, the more unshakable our lives will be. He will see to it, by the Spirit of God, that we are founded upon that Rock; and when the storm comes, we will not be moved or carried away.
First of all, this shaking is, in the first place, a physical shaking. Now, I want to make this quite clear. In the last and final stage of this shaking, it will be a physical shaking.
Although it is of great value to spiritualize this shaking and talk about the shaking of political, economic, spiritual, religious, and moral things, we have to recognize the fact that the Word of God proclaims that in the last phase of the end time, the heavens themselves are going to be shaken.
Stars are going to fall out of their orbit. Something is going to happen to the sun. Something is going to happen to the moon. Something is going to happen to the oceans and the tides. Everything is going to go, as it were, skew-whiff, if you understand my English English.
I understand that earlier today I mystified the whole crowd by my use of the word blancmange. A blancmange is a sweet dessert made with milk. I hope that helps you all. You really ought to know your English better. That is a very ordinary word.
This shaking of the heavens and the earth we find in many places. Let me read a few Scriptures. First, Luke 21:25-27.
And there shall be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations, in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the billows;
Men fainting for fear, and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world: for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.
And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.—Luke 21:25-27
Now, it may be of value sometimes to spiritualize this sea roaring and everything else, but in the first place it is literal. There is going to be something happening in sun, moon, and stars which will, in turn, affect the oceans and the tides. The powers of the heavens are going to be shaken.
Look again at Matthew 24:29-30.
But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.—Matthew 24:29-30
Again, if you will turn to Acts 2, in Peter’s great message on the day of Pentecost, quoting the prophet Joel, we read in Acts 2:19-21:
And I will show wonders in the heaven above,
And signs on the earth beneath,
Blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke:
The sun shall be turned into darkness,
And the moon into blood,
Before the day of the Lord come,
That great and notable day:
And it shall be, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.—Acts 2:19-21
Now, we know that this prophecy began to be fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. But we also know that this prophecy of Joel was not exhaustively fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. Although something did happen on that day, nothing happened to the moon, and there were not pillars of smoke upon the earth.
But we are told that in the last phase of this age, something will happen to the sun; something will happen to the moon; there will be billows of smoke upon the earth; and the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood.
So now we have at least three examples, apart from the Hebrews 12 prediction, of a physical shaking of the universe so tremendous that everything, as it were, will just go out of its routine order.
It is interesting: Luke, Matthew, and Mark speak of this shaking following a period of great distress and tribulation, and preceding the Messiah’s coming. Luke speaks of this great shaking following the end of the times of the Gentiles and ushering in the Messiah’s coming. Joel speaks of this shaking immediately preceding that great and glorious day of the Lord.
All these signs are interrelated. If something happens to the sun—to the light of the sun—it will immediately have an effect on the moon. If something happens to the moon, it will immediately have an effect on the oceans, and on the tides in particular. Have you got that?
So all these things are actually interrelated. It only needs something to be done to the sun, and it will in turn affect the moon, which in turn will affect the tides, the oceans, and the seasons.
I hope this is clear: the final stage of this predicted shaking is a physical shaking of the earth.
I cannot imagine anything more designed to shake the confidence of humanistic man than something happening in the heavens. In spite of the space age, in spite of all his technological skill, if something were to go wrong with the sun, fear would seize the greatest and most intelligent minds in this world, because it is beyond their scope to cope with.
And it is God—oops, pardon—it is God who is behind this shaking.
I find this a very interesting thing, because it means that man is perfectly at rest, in one sense, when he knows that disturbances are the result of his own actions: war, some kind of dislocation of life, even though it may bring death and horror. He is still aware that he has done it.
But when it is something that has nothing to do with man—something that has gone wrong with the heavens themselves—then he fears, because it is beyond his scope and beyond the range of his understanding. Suddenly he realizes that he is a finite, created being in a universe that is beyond his power to control.
So God has foreordained that in the final phase of this age, He will shake the physical universe so that man may know that there is a God, and that he is not the be-all and end-all of everything.
Having said that, I would like to say a little more about this shaking, because I have said it is the final stage. There is, in fact, a shaking which is foreordained by God: a shaking of every form and every aspect of life—political, economic, educational, religious, social, moral, and spiritual.
God intends to shake to pieces everything in this present world order. He is the One who has said He will do it.
Now, in Matthew 24, from verses 6 to 8, we read these words—the words of Jesus:
And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled; for these things must needs come to pass; but the end is not yet.
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines and earthquakes in divers places.
But all these things are the beginning of travail.—Matthew 24:6-8
It is an interesting thing what our Lord Jesus predicts: war, rumours of war, revolution, civil war, earthquakes, famines, and plagues. All of this has been the common lot of human history. It is not as if any century of the last two thousand years has been free from this kind of thing.
There have always been these kinds of things. But evidently, at the end of the age, the Lord will see to it that there is a combination of these things quite unique in its intensity and fierceness, so that the whole of human life is shaken.
These are the things that destabilize society: war, rumours of war, revolution, civil war. All these things destabilize human society. They create upheavals. They bring about a breakdown of social and moral standards. They break up the routine of normal living.
It is interesting that our Lord Jesus speaks not only of these things but of earthquakes. They are a destabilizing factor. When an earthquake is big enough, it can be a very destabilizing factor.
Famine is also a destabilizing factor. Those of you with Chinese backgrounds will remember from your history that there have been famines in China colossal in their influence.
It is not only famine of food that we are talking about. We are talking about shortages. It may be shortages of raw materials; it may be shortages of energy; all kinds of things that we could call famines. But it all ends in the same thing: a destabilizing of society, the breaking up of the normal routine of life, whether national, international, or local.
Now, our Lord Jesus speaks of these things not as the end. He says that the end is not yet. In fact, He goes further and says that these things are the beginning of the end.
He uses the most marvellous words to describe these horrifying things. He says, “These are the beginning of travail.” Or, if I were to put it another way, these are the beginning of the birth pangs.
First pangs of war? Oh, says someone, birth pangs of horror? No—birth pangs of the kingdom.
Can you hear? Why, you will just have to wait for a moment. We also are being shaken.
It is the beginning of the birth pangs of the kingdom. I think that is marvellous. Any of you who are mothers know something about birth pangs. You know that there may be a number of such birth pangs, but in the end it ends in a birth, and it ends in joy. It ends in new life.
The Lord Jesus describes all this shaking and all these things which will destabilize human society and shake to pieces everything that can be shaken. He does not describe it in fearful terms. Rather, for our encouragement and strengthening—those of us who belong to the Lord Jesus—He says, “These are the beginning of the birth pangs.”
They are birth pains to be endured, but the end will be glory. The end will be the coming of the Messiah. The end will be the coming of the kingdom of God, and, in the end, that new heaven and new earth in which righteousness dwells.
I think it is wonderful to consider this whole thing like this. If you are all going to get fearful and say, “Oh dear, what a morbid ending to this conference. First we talked about one thing, then another, and now we have got the great shaking. Everything is going to be shaken to pieces. What a prospect!”
Some of you youngsters who are going to get married this year, or set up a new home—or those of you who have just been married in the last year—may say, “What a prospect for us. Everything is going to be shaken to pieces.”
It is a question of where your treasure is. If your treasure is down here, you are going to be fearful, because you are in for a bad time. If you want to gather together as much gold as you can down here, you are in for a rough time.
I am not against gathering gold myself. I do not see anything particularly wrong with it if you are a good steward of it. But if that is the be-all and end-all of your life, then you are in for a very sad and unhappy future in these next years.
But if your treasure is in the Lord Jesus, and if you are seeking His kingdom and His righteousness, then your home can be a centre for the comfort and strengthening not only of other believers, but a place where unsaved men and women in desperation can find the salvation of God.
Your lives, because you have in a destabilized society an inward stability—a rock-like quality which only God can give you—can hold forth the Word of life to others. Others can come to know God through you.
Is it not interesting that in the prophecy of Joel, quoted by Peter on the day of Pentecost, it says, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”? It speaks not only for the whole age, but for those days when something happens in sun and moon and upon the earth.
Anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Oh, for those who will provoke others to call upon the name of the Lord—those in whom people without God and without Christ see a peace that passeth understanding, a joy unspeakable and full of glory, a more abundant life, and an exceeding greatness of divine power that will provoke them to discover the same Lord and Saviour.
Do not let us look upon the dark side in this whole thing. Personally, I hope the Lord gets on with it as quickly as possible. Shake the whole thing to pieces.
We are all living in a fool’s paradise, especially in the States and Canada, where everything is so good. We tend to put our trust in the stability of society, and yet underneath it is only a façade. Underneath is all the avarice and wickedness of fallen man.
It has to be shaken to pieces so that that which cannot be shaken might be made manifest. This shaking is the birth pangs of His coming kingdom, and I say that is something to look forward to. That is something to lift up our heads and praise God about. Do you not think?
May I say something about this shaking and the constituents of it? I hope it will not be boring. I hope it will help you to understand the contemporary nature of this thing.
In my estimation, the shaking began in this century with the First World War of 1914 to 1918. That world war was to suck into its orbit, like a whirlpool, all the empires of Europe and destroy them, except the British.
It was a war that no one expected and no one wanted, so historians tell us. It was as if an unseen mastermind trapped them, so that in the end they were locked in a war that they did not want. The flower of Europe’s and Britain’s manhood died on the battlefield.
Until that war, world society had more or less continued as it had done for century upon century. Indeed, we could almost say there had been nearly a thousand years of a kind of progress, but it was basically the same kind of society.
But at the end of the 1914-1918 war, a whole way of life had been swept away which has never again reappeared. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, which stretched from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and the Baltic, had disappeared, never to reappear. The German Reich disappeared, not to reappear. France was crippled as a result of that war.
The Russian Empire, with its czars, had disappeared, never to reappear. Just before that war began, the Chinese Empire—the oldest of all the empires, with the longest continuous history—came to an end in 1911. It was a time of unparalleled upheaval and turmoil for world society.
Many people tend to think that the Second World War of 1939 to 1945 was the war which changed the face of the world, but it was not. The Second World War only finished off what was begun in the First World War.
After the First World War, most British and European men who had gone into that war with some kind of belief in God came out agnostic or atheist. There was a sudden turning away from church attendance all over Europe, Britain, and Scandinavia. The churches were more or less left empty.
For the first time, the concept of man as made in the image of God—and therefore accountable and responsible to God—was put on one side, and the Darwinian-Marxist theory that man is merely the evolution of matter was adopted.
In the midst of all the turmoil, bloodshed, and death of that First World War, there came to birth something destined to be one of the greatest constituents in the shaking of this century: Marxism.
If the nations of Europe and Britain had not been locked in that world war, they would all have supported the Tsar and would have destroyed Bolshevism at its birth. But they were so weakened that they could do nothing about it.
So, in 1917, the Russian Revolution was successful, and there came into the world a demonic ideology destined to cause rivers of blood to be shed all over the globe.
It is interesting that at the same time there was another movement. In the midst of the war, in the same year, there was a declaration on the part of the British government which has come to be known as the Balfour Declaration, declaring that Palestine should be a homeland for the Jewish people.
This declaration was to lead to the birth of the Jewish state in 1948.
The Second World War finished off what the First World War began. After that Second World War, weapons were used that had never been known before in the history of mankind, and the war ended with the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, in which, in one single moment, thousands of human beings were incinerated.
That Second World War finally changed the face of society. Men and women emerged from it with a new view of sex, a new view of chastity, a new view of morality, a new view of religion, a new view of social standards, and a new view of moral standards.
The Darwinian and Marxist concept, as I have said, that man is merely matter—an animal evolving—has led to the legalization of abortion and the legalization of homosexuality. In the end, it will lead to euthanasia, mercy killing.
If man is only an animal—an intelligent animal, but an animal—if he is not made in the image of God, then he can, if necessary, be exterminated in the same way we exterminate flies or cockroaches, with as little conscience as a person might put to sleep an unwanted animal.
My dear friends, I do not believe that the world is yet ready for a world leader, a world government, and a totally new moral order. It will require a third world war.
If that war comes, then I believe you will find that the last piece of the jigsaw is in its place. Mankind will come out of that war ready for a world leader who will ban war and terrorism, and who will introduce an altogether new type of society, which we can call the lawless society—a society without law.
This is what is predicted by the Spirit of God in 2 Thessalonians 2. It speaks of the lawless one and the mystery of lawlessness—not meaning gangsterism, but amorality. You understand, I think, in American English you say “amorality.” I do not know. But do you understand what I am trying to say?
In other words, we are going to move into a society in which our education, social behaviour and conduct, medicine, scientific progress, and every other form of human life are based on the Darwinian concept that man is only an animal. He is matter, and no more. He is not made in the image of God, and he is not accountable to God.
Let me just say a few other things about the shaking. I have spoken about two world wars and the possibility of a third. Marxism, as I have already mentioned, has been one of the greatest constituents in the shaking of this world in this century.
Before 1945, Communism was restricted to the Soviet Union. Elsewhere—in China, for instance, and in other countries—there were small groups of dedicated Communists, in some cases armies in rebellion, but small and insignificant.
But from 1945, those forces of Marxism took half of the free world. Wherever it came, it brought death, bloodshed, and horror. No single factor in this century has caused as much shaking as Marxism.
There is something else I would like to mention, another constituent in the shaking, much more recent. Since the middle of the 1960s, and particularly in the 1970s, the world has witnessed a phenomenon it had never witnessed before: international terrorism.
This is the use of force upon innocent people to achieve a political end. This kind of terrorism is quite remarkable. We see dedicated young men and women of colossal idealism, believing they are bringing in a better society—a good society—and ready to kill in order to bring in that society.
They will blow up airliners with innocent people in them. They will throw bombs into restaurants. They will gun down innocent men and women. They will take hostage people who are not criminals and have done no wicked thing, and murder them in order to use them as pawns, as it were, in a game of chess. Do you understand what I am trying to say?
It is amazing what this has done in the world. It is a destabilizing factor.
We have yet another constituent, and that is the Islamic revival. The Islamic revival is sweeping over one-third of the world. I do not think that here in the United States you know what is happening.
The Islamic revival is one of the most amazing things to see. You see people who are possessed—that is the only word for it. I know many Muslims in Israel where young men have suddenly been taken over by this thing, and you can see it in their eyes. There is a kind of unnatural light in their eyes, as if something is directing them and mastering them.
Ladies, you will notice that all of a sudden they dress from here to the foot in a certain kind of dress, with a certain kind of scarf.
I first became aware of this a few years ago. I was as ignorant as anybody else about it. I was in Gaza, in the southern part of Israel, taking meetings. Wherever we drove, I noticed that on every street corner a mosque was being built.
It is not hard to identify a mosque because of the minaret. When I saw all these on every street corner—sometimes in one street, one mosque, then another—I said to the dear servant of the Lord who was with me, who had lived for many years in Gaza, “What is this?”
He said, “Do you not know? The whole Muslim world is in the grip of a revival so strong that they are devoting all their money to the building of these mosques and to the training of their young people. They believe the time has come for Islam to take the world.”
Those of you who remember the Iranian hostage-taking and the American hostages kept in Iran will remember what they saw on television. These are not ordinary people. They are possessed by something.
This revival is spreading all the way from the Philippines and Malaysia in Southeast Asia to Mauritania on the Atlantic coast of West Africa. Furthermore, think of the mosques being built in Western Europe.
Recently, vast sums were spent on the building of a great mosque in Regent’s Park, London. It was opened in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury and other ecclesiastics, who listened to Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia, later King Fahd. In his speech, he said, “We Muslims believe that if we can take London for Islam, we can take the whole world.”
In Geneva, they have built a mosque with a minaret above the traditional Protestant cathedral. In Rome, a mosque has been built on the hill rising above the Vatican. It does not mean much to people in the West that minarets are higher than church spires, but for the Muslim, the fact that a minaret is higher than a church spire means a tremendous amount.
You have only to take two of the leaders of this radical Islamic revolution to understand what I am talking about: Ayatollah Khomeini and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. These two gentlemen have all the money they need from oil, and all the gold they need as a result of the sale of that oil.
They are two great destabilizing factors in the Muslim world. Muammar Gaddafi is behind the financing of nearly every terrorist organization in the world. The IRA received substantial funds for the purchase of arms and explosives from Gaddafi. Other guerrilla organizations likewise received money for weapons and explosives. Gaddafi paid for terrorists to be trained in Lebanon, in Palestinian camps.
All part of the shaking. All part of the shaking.
Since 1973, we have seen recession after recession after recession. We have seen spiralling world inflation. We have been haunted on the horizon by the possibility of a monetary and gold collapse.
We have a population explosion so tremendous that you cannot take it in by numbers. When you think that the population of India is doubling now every three years—
You must add to the recessions, the possibility of a monetary collapse, and the population explosion, shortages of food. We have been warned again and again by United Nations relief organizations that the world will very shortly begin to see such a shortage of food that thousands upon thousands of people will die.
All these things are the constituents of this shaking. God has said, “I will shake not only the earth, but the heavens also.” His end is to shake to pieces everything that can be shaken, so that that which cannot be shaken might be made manifest.
All that may seem to some of you rather depressing. I say again: it is where your treasure is.
If your treasure is in the Lord Jesus, I will tell you something, if you do not know it: He cannot be shaken.
He—if I may be so irreverent—is the one bank in which you are absolutely safe to make deposits. There is about the Lord Jesus something immovable, unshakable, and invincible.
If you and I have a life in Him and a destiny in Him, then we shall not be shaken like the rest of the world.
You understand that all this must have some practical consequence. If you turn with me to Luke 21:28:
But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads; because your redemption draweth nigh.
—Luke 21:28
In other words, no fear, no panic. You can look up. You can worship. Your redemption is drawing near.
Every day in this shaking, your redemption is coming nearer. Think of it like that. It is not going to be so long. We have not got to think in terms of thousands of years. Every day brings us nearer to when our redemption is finally going to be manifest.
So we can afford to worship. We can afford to stand up and bless the Lord. We can afford to straighten our backs and lift up our heads, because our redemption draweth near.
Then there is another thing in Hebrews 12:28:
Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe.
—Hebrews 12:28
One or two of you have said to me, “Now, we have no doubt that what you have said is right, important, and strategic. You have made us sit up. But what are we to do?”
Now, just wait. What are you to do? I tell you, my answer is: you should do what you should have done. That is my answer.
“Oh,” you say, “well, what should I have done?”
You should see that you are absolutely right with God. That is the first requirement.
Our brother Stephen has spoken about the preparation of the bride for the coming of the Bridegroom, and he has spoken about the need for repentance. Christians sometimes seem to find it hard to repent.
There are areas in our lives where we need to be broken, where we need to yield, where we need to surrender.
Now, when you say to me, “What should I do?” what do you expect me to say? I know some would be so happy if I said, “Go out on Monday and buy a store of food.” Oh, you would say, “Thank you, thank you, thank you. That was so practical.”
You would be very happy if I said, “See that you have a deep shelter,” or, “Get a book on nuclear war and read up all the things you should do.” Some of you might be happy.
What should you do?
I knew some people a while ago—dear people—but they got the idea, when they heard some of these things, that they should withdraw. I have been involved with two or three groups that have withdrawn.
One rushed away from Florida right up into the far north of Alaska, until they were shaken by the earthquake that came.
But I had an even more remarkable experience a while ago of a group who told me that the Lord had told them to withdraw from whatever city it was—I cannot remember now. They went to live in the state of Washington, on the slopes of Mount St. Helens.
They told me that the Lord had warned them that nuclear war was coming and that they should withdraw and have a farm.
I suppose I have a warped sense of humour; that probably comes from my Jewish blood. But when Mount St. Helens erupted, I could not help lying on my bed and laughing when I heard that it had sent up into the atmosphere more than four nuclear bombs could have done.
I think sometimes, when we react in the flesh to this kind of thing, we jump out of the frying pan into the fire.
Again, it is my warped sense of humour. I had to smile when I met a young couple who withdrew from the rat race in London to what they thought would be a quiet life in the Falkland Islands.
They found themselves in the one spot in the whole earth that would miss any war—in the midst of a war.
My dear friends, do not do anything foolish. Do not take this kind of message and say, “We must run away. We must go somewhere in some remote part of Canada where we shall be safe.”
I want to tell you something from my own experience of Israeli intelligence: some of the most strategic nerve centres of military infrastructure in these countries are in the most remote places.
You may think that you have run away to a safe place, and find yourself in the one place where missiles are going to home in during the first moments of any conflict.
There is only one safe way. What is it? To do what you should do. In other words, to do the will of God. Very simple.
But do you know that all the issues in your life and my life are a matter of doing the will of God? Very often the Lord is asking you to do something, and you have just been battling over it—battling and battling—for years.
You say it is not important. You say, “Well, it is insignificant. It does not matter. Why does it matter? No, no, it cannot be the Lord.”
But sometimes some small thing that God is asking of you—it is not the thing itself that you do. It is not in itself important. It is the obedience in doing it that is so important.
You will find that when God says, “Give up this,” or, “Give up that friendship,” or, “Go this way,” or, “Go that way,” or, “Do not go in this path,” and when you do it, you will find to your amazement that you are introduced into a new universe of spiritual discovery, life, and power.
You will not believe that such a simple step of obedience and faith could have brought you into so much. Indeed, most of us, when God has been speaking to us and we finally do what He has asked of us, and we come into such blessing, have said, “Why did I not do it years before?”
What should you do? You should be right with the Lord. That is the first thing.
Here is the second: while you have time, buy as much gold—and I am not talking about physical gold—as you can from Him.
Jesus says, “I counsel thee to buy of Me gold refined by fire, that thou mayest become rich.” You have to have your own experience, through experience, your own appropriation of the Lord Jesus. That is what you need.
Here is the third thing: whilst it is day, let us build one another up.
Not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day drawing nigh.
—Hebrews 10:25
Fellowship is not so easy. Fellowship is always a lovely thing if we can all just come together, sing lovely hymns and choruses, and look at all the shining faces, the clapping hands, and the upraised arms. It is a lovely thing.
But when it comes to being built together, working together, esteeming each other better than ourselves, humbling ourselves before one another, and washing one another’s feet, then it is not quite so pleasant.
What is it that God requires of you? He requires that into your life should come an unshakable kingdom.
Now, dear children of God, what does that mean? What does it mean to receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken?
What is a kingdom? A kingdom has a king. Let me say something else: it is a matter of authority, is it not?
How can you receive a kingdom and do your own will? How can you receive a kingdom and rebel against Him, murmur against Him, have an argument with Him, or have an outstanding issue with Him?
If you have an argument with the Lord Jesus, if there is some issue that you cannot settle, then your life is not unshakable. When the shaking comes, you will be shaken.
Dear friends, I could spend an hour just talking about the practical side of this matter. There are many more things than I am saying. I am just dealing now with the principle of the whole thing.
The principle is this: you must be right with the Lord, and you must be right with one another. If we are right with the Lord and right with one another, then we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Thank God for that. We can receive grace to offer service well-pleasing to Him.
You young people, you must surely know that it is more and more difficult now, in the academic world and in the world of education, to really be a Christian.
The concepts upon which behaviour and conduct are now based are no longer the Judeo-Christian truth, but the Darwinian-Marxist concept. Do you understand what I am saying?
It means that if you are a child of God in the social sphere or the medical sphere, you are often made to look like some narrow-minded bigot—old-fashioned, belonging to another age, not forward-looking.
This is where we need to help one another. We need to support one another. We need to pray for one another. We need to care for one another, because you younger people are going to be in the front line of the battle.
If the older ones do not understand what you are facing and cannot support you and strengthen you in prayer and fellowship, what hope is there?
You mothers and fathers, let me just say one word to you. Never leave to some Sunday school or to others the spiritual education of your children.
What your children learn at your knee, they will never forget.
Therefore, if you are Christian mothers and fathers, give time as a priority to the teaching of your children—in a living way, not in a boring, heavy, old-fashioned Victorian manner in which you are ramming Scripture down their throats all the time. I am not talking about that.
I mean a living, loving, spontaneous way of educating your children in the things of God. Give time.
I am unmarried, but I know more sometimes about families than some married people do. Why? Because I have a continuous stream of young people from Christian families who come to me to complain.
I know more sometimes of what goes on in some of the families than the folks themselves. I find children come to me and say—and I say, “Why do you not talk with your father?”—“Father has no time for me.”
“Oh,” I say, “that is not true. I have heard your father pray for you.” “No, no, Father has no time for me.” “What do you mean?” “Well, when I ask him, he is always reading the newspaper, and he says, ‘Oh, do not bother me.’”
You Christian fathers, remember: you have treasure in those children of yours. Never put them off. Never ignore them. Try to help them.
And you mothers, in the way I see it, the mother is the most important influence in a home. I think one of the reasons why the Bible tells women to be subject to their husbands is that women are by far the most influential factor in family life.
Therefore, do not be bossy, and do not try to rule your husband. Try to get the right order in your home. Above all, teach your children. Communicate with your children. Win your children, so that as they grow up, they grow up your friends.
One day, and not too far ahead, the whole educational system that we have known with its Christian basis will disappear. It is already nearly gone. In its place, children will be taught horrifying things.
Only then will the influence of Christian parents keep such children from those evils. Do you want to have to see before your eyes the fulfilment of the words that children will give up their parents to persecution?
Dear people of God, I say I could spend a lot of time on the practical consequences of all that I am talking about. Until this generation, things have more or less gone along as always.
In spite of war, revolution, and troubles, there has been a general standard of life and stability. You must understand that stability has gone forever. It will never come back.
Therefore, you and I have got to realistically judge a new situation. We have got to learn how to face it and how to cope with it.
So now, again, let me recap. The first thing is that you be right with the Lord and right with your brothers and sisters, whatever the price.
Get right with the Lord. You will never be sorry about getting right with Him. It may cost you everything to put something right, but you will never be sorry in the days that lie ahead that you did it.
Get right with one another. If there is someone with whom you cannot have fellowship, someone that you hate—I know that is a strong word to use for Christians, but let us be realistic—someone that you detest, no matter what the price, humble yourself before that person.
Get right with the Lord, and get right with that person. Then become a contributing factor in the family of God. Do not just be a spectator. Do not be a dead weight. Do not be someone on the fringe, always a critic. Commit yourself to the Lord and to His people.
Become a contributing factor. This will bring a stability into your life and a rock-like quality into your life as nothing else can. You will learn more through fellowship than you will ever learn in any other way.
Sometimes you will learn more of the Lord, more of His grace, and more of His power through people you cannot get on with in the church than you will ever learn from those you love and can flow with easily.
The time is far spent. Allow God to do His work in you.
In these other spheres, do not run around all over the place trying to find some safe haven. In no place will you be more safe than in the will of God for you.
If the will of God is in the front line, that is the safest place for you. If the will of God is at the heart of conflict, that is the safest place for you. Make sure that you are within the will of God.
If you have responsibilities for children, make sure that you are communicating to them, in ways they can understand, some of these basic truths. They will not get it at school; they will not get it at university; and they will not get it on a national scale.
They will only get it in the home and in the assembly of God’s people. So let us give ourselves to some of these things that are vitally necessary if the Lord is really going to make us a people who are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
May God help you, and may He help me. Shall we pray?
Dear heavenly Father, You know better than any of us exactly where we are heading and what is happening in the society around us.
At present, Lord, we thank You that there is that which restrains the mystery of lawlessness. But, Lord, we are all very conscious that suddenly, at some point, that restraining factor is going to be taken away.
Then, Lord, we shall see the appearance not only of the lawless one, but of this whole new kind of society.
Heavenly Father, prepare us as Your children for those days. We know that the coming of our Lord Jesus is drawing near, and Father, we are so thankful for it.
If it should be tonight, we would rejoice, Lord, with unspeakable joy. If it would be this week, we would be so full of joy. But, Lord, if we have to go through part of the turmoil, the shaking, and the problems that will come upon the earth, prepare us that we may be a people who are unshakable, invincible, and immovable because we know You.
Oh, heavenly Father, You know if there are issues in different lives here in this place this evening that have not been settled. You know, Lord, if there are relationships that are not right. You know, Lord, if there are areas of bitterness or unforgiveness.
Oh, heavenly Father, by Your Holy Spirit challenge us, that we may suddenly realize that we may have to face You. Therefore, Lord, may we somehow be enabled to put these things right.
Help us to repent where repentance is needed. Help us to act where action is required. Help us, Lord, we pray, that we may be those who by Your grace overcome and do Your works in this last phase of human history.
Help us, Lord, now, as together we commit ourselves to You in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.