Would you turn with me once again to the verse with which we have begun each of these evening sessions: Galatians 6:14.
But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
And then, in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 12:
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 service.
And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
For I say, through the grace that was given me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but so to think as to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to each man a measure of faith.
For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members have not the same office, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another.
And having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of our faith; or ministry, let us give ourselves to our ministry; or he that teacheth, to his teaching; or he that exhorteth, to his exhorting. He that giveth, let him do it with liberality; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness.
Lastly, in the Colossian letter of the Apostle Paul, chapter 1, from verse 12:
Giving thanks unto the Father, Who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; Who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love; in Whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins; Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Beloved Lord, You are present amongst us. We are gathered unto You, and we want, Lord, just to recognize that without You we can do nothing of eternal value.
You have provided us with an anointing, and we dare not ignore it. Lord, by faith we stand in that anointing, grace, and power for the speaking of Your Word, for the translating of Your Word, and for the hearing of Your Word.
Touch our hearts, Lord. Challenge us, Lord. Do not let us escape from this matter. By Your Holy Spirit, follow us until You get us. Hear us, Lord, and we shall be careful to give You all the thanksgiving of our hearts.
We ask this in the name of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I do not think I have to say what the theme of these days is. I imagine everybody knows it by now: the way to the eternal purpose of God—the cross.
My responsibility has been the cross and the world. In the last two nights, we have covered certain facts. We have talked about the world.
John the apostle said, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” I have tried to explain that there are two different Greek words translated into English by the same word, world.
One is the whole universe, cosmos—everything within it, all the beauty that is in it, and all its inhabitants. That is one word. Then there is another word, aion, which speaks of an age: the course and duration of time.
Both these words, on the whole, have an unfavorable meaning in the Word of God.
We have spoken about this world that God created, of which He said, “It is good.” But with the fall of Satan, and a third of the angels, followed by the fall of man, something entered into this world that was never there before: the poison of the snake.
It has infected the whole of this world and the ages of time. Everything is infected by this. For this reason, Satan is called the prince of this world.
In the temptation of the Messiah, Satan came to Him and said, “Bow down to me and worship me, and I will give You all the nations.” Jesus never said to him, “You lie.” All He said was, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.”
John the apostle puts it very simply in 1 John 5:19:
We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in the evil one.
This is the same word we have in Galatians 6:14:
But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
Last night we asked the question, “What is worldliness?” Many people think worldliness is just the things you dress in, the things you look at, and the things you do. But worldliness, in its heart, is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the vain glory of life.
We could speak endlessly about the world. It extends over everything from commerce, money, and property to pride, jealousy, and ambition.
If anyone is here for the first time this evening, you need those two evening messages to understand what we will say this evening. There is no answer at all to worldliness except the cross. It is God’s one and only way of dealing with it.
It is through Christ crucified that worldliness is dealt with. How can Christ live in you and you be worldly? How can Christ crucified dwell in the believer, and that believer be in love with this world?
John puts it so simply:
He that loveth the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
That means all our talk about loving the Lord is a sham. James says even more severely:
Ye adulteresses, know ye not that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God.
This is very black and white. There is no sort of mixture, no sort of in-between.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, I turn you to the Roman letter of the Apostle Paul, chapter 12:
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 service.
This Roman letter is the greatest exposition of the gospel in the sixty-six books of the Bible. The Apostle Paul begins to sum up everything, and he says, “I beseech you, therefore, in the light of all these eleven chapters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice.”
That is the cross. That is the cross in action. That is the practical outcome of being crucified with Christ: a living sacrifice.
He could have said, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you study the gospel.” This could have been a very academic exercise. He could have said, “Be devoted in your service.”
Instead, he said, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice.”
I do not want to compromise at all this evening. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a burnt offering.” Not just consecrated to go up in smoke, but a whole burnt offering. Nothing else is acceptable to God.
You want to be set apart? You want to be holy? You must be a living sacrifice. You want to be well pleasing to God, acceptable to God? You must be a living sacrifice. There is no alternative.
This is the interim goal of the gospel. The ultimate goal of the gospel is the Bride. But the interim goal is this: if you have been saved, if you have been washed in the blood of the Lamb, if you have been justified in the sight of God through the finished work of the Messiah, then you must present your bodies a living sacrifice.
There is no other way.
Sometimes we hear it said in Christian circles that we should consecrate our talents. We should dedicate our natural gifts. Have you the gift of the gab? Dedicate it to the Lord, and you will be a preacher. Have you a gift for music? Dedicate it to the Lord, and you will be a worship leader. Have you the gift of organizing? Consecrate it to the Lord, and He will use it to develop order out of the mess in the church.
But what the Lord demands is a living sacrifice. That means your body, your personality, your whole being, everything you are—your talents, your temperament, your gifts, your energy—a living sacrifice.
It is interesting to note this little phrase: “which is your spiritually intelligent worship and service.”
Some translations say, “your rational” or “reasonable service,” but that does not convey the real spiritual meaning.
Sometimes worship has very much emotion in it. That is not wrong. It would be strange if you were to worship the Lord like a machine. Of course there is emotion. There should be emotion.
Of course, there is emotion in service. Often we give ourselves to the Lord in a moment of real emotion. In a meeting like this, we are stirred—not only in our spirit, but in our emotion and in our will.
What then does this extraordinary phrase mean?
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your spiritually intelligent worship and service.
It is not just your reason, and it is not just emotion. This is spiritual intelligence.
Let me put it another way. It means that in a cold-blooded and deliberate way, you have decided to present your body a living sacrifice.
That is real worship—not the emotion of a moment, not something reasoned out in a moment. It is a deliberate, determined act of worship.
There is no alternative to being a living sacrifice.
Satan knows it. He knows it so well that he will fight to keep any believer from being a living sacrifice.
He will entice you. He will seduce you. He will get you into bondage like a spider’s web. He will weave it all around you until you cannot move.
An octopus has eight arms. Once it has got you with one, it has got you with another. So is Satan’s strategy.
He knows that when believers become a living sacrifice, nothing is impossible. Such will go on to prove what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.
If you are not a living sacrifice, you will never know that. He knows that the mould of this world, the straitjacket of this world, the fashion of this world, will never be broken apart from being a living sacrifice.
You can study the Bible, sing the hymns, and attend the meetings, but that straitjacket of the world—the world’s mould you are in—is still there. It is a mindset.
Be not fashioned according to this age: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.
When your mind is renewed, you are transformed. You are out of the bondage. The octopus is dead. The web has gone. You are free to fly into the heavens.
It is a living sacrifice. Only when you become a living sacrifice is the mindset of this age and of this world broken.
Then you can be free to have the mind of Christ. Then you can become a bondslave. Then you can humble yourself, so that He can exalt you. It all goes back to being a living sacrifice.
What is the curse of the church? The fashion of this world and the mindset of this world. We make the church just like any other human organization.
It has its membership roll. It has its members. It has its election procedures. It has its organization—just like any other human club. And it destroys the church.
When you saw that early church, there were one hundred and twenty members of a body waiting until the Holy Spirit came. They were one hundred and twenty units of a congregation. But when they were joined to their Head at the right hand of God, and by the Holy Spirit He was manifested, the whole Jewish world was turned upside down.
In the end, the Greek world and the Roman world were turned upside down and inside out. They did not have the organization that we have today, but their simple union with the Head by the Spirit of God meant that they were invincible.
Such is the wonder of being a living sacrifice.
If you look carefully at this passage, it is not only the world’s mould that is broken and the world’s mindset that is broken. We are also to be transformed. If every member of the body of Christ were being transformed, can you imagine the effect upon the world?
Being a living sacrifice leads to an expression of the one body in Christ. Notice: it is not “one body of Christ,” but “one body in Christ,” and individually members one of another.
When we are not a living sacrifice, we may have the Bible in our heads, we may have a lot of zeal and many other things, but we remain individuals, preserving our individual identity.
How well I remember when I first saw what the church was. I saw that it was Christ, and it blew my mind away.
At that moment, I ceased to be a Baptist. I became a member of the body of Christ. In that moment, every child of God belonged to me, and I belonged to them.
But when I went back into the church I was in, I was like a fish out of water. We were all individuals. No one seemed to feel that they belonged to you. People whom you had known for years—you did not know anything about them.
It is an amazing thing, the body of Christ. You cannot set it up. It has to be born of God, and you have to have a nucleus of believers who are all living sacrifices.
When you have that nucleus, the church begins to be expressed. It is not just something in the head—a doctrine. That is deadness. That leads to pride: “We are the church. We understand these things. We are superior; you are inferior.”
But when you are a living sacrifice, you will serve every child of God in this universe. You may not be a partaker of their sins, but you will love them and serve them, because inwardly you know they belong to you and you belong to them.
“And having gifts differing.” Those natural gifts I talked about earlier—someone may have the gift of the gab, and they preach, and you are bored stiff. They have natural talent, but they do not touch your spirit.
Here is a person who can play, and you hear them play and think, “Oh, good; powerful.” But you are left with them. Then another person plays, and it is a ministry of Christ. What is the difference?
Why can one person speak and it is a ministry of Christ, while another person speaks and it is just words—sometimes brilliant words? I do not need words.
One person sings, and you are in the presence of the Lord. One person organizes, and they organize the Holy Spirit out of the church. It has happened again and again in the history of the church. Another person organizes, and it is the Lord.
What is the key? The key is to be a living sacrifice. Then it is not self-expression, self-aggrandisement, or self-fulfilment. It is a ministry of Christ.
Dear brothers and sisters, I think it is amazing that the Apostle Paul, in effect, concludes the letter here—though, like so many writers and preachers, he goes on for another four chapters.
Here was the beginning of the conclusion:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your spiritually intelligent worship and service.
Present your body. Have you ever presented your body? Are you ready to be a living sacrifice?
The other matter that is much on my heart this evening is the fact of the cross and its challenge.
Let me go back again to Galatians 6:14:
Far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
It is a historic fact. When Christ was crucified, I was crucified. You were crucified, whether you knew it or not.
We heard this morning that the old man is crucified—the man of old. The world was crucified with Christ. That is why there will be a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
That is why there will be a universe out of which the whole poison of the snake has been drawn. No more curse. No more dying. No more mourning. No more death. All passed away.
It is a fact. We cannot deal with worldliness in our being in any other way.
First of all, Colossians 1:13:
Who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
Here is the first challenge: do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Do not let Satan seduce you. It may seem so good to begin with, so innocuous, but you will come into bondage—terrible bondage.
Whether it is in business, your work life, your professional life, your family, your individual life, church life, or in serving the Lord—it should be all of us—do not be entangled again.
Listen: at tremendous cost, God delivered you and delivered me out of the authority of darkness. Satan and his host had authority over you and over me. We were blind, helpless, and ashamed.
Then, through the finished work of the Lord Jesus, when He was made sin for us, when He bore the punishment of our sins in His own body, when it pleased the Lord to crush Him, you were miraculously delivered out of the authority of darkness.
You could not do it. No church could do it. No religious organization could do it. Only God could do it.
But it is more than that. He not only delivered you and freed you; He broke the fetters and transferred you into the kingdom of His dear Son.
Here is the first challenge: are you bound? Are you playing with darkness? Are you compromising with this world—whether in business, in making money, in your family, in your relationships, in yourself as a person, in the church, or in the service of God?
You cannot play with darkness and darkness not enter you. You cannot play with fire and not be burned. You cannot ride on the tiger and not be eaten.
You have been made free by Christ. Do not be entangled again in a yoke of bondage.
Why a yoke of bondage? Because when the yoke is on, you can steer the animal.
Here is the second challenge. If you have been transferred into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, you have a King. You have a Lord.
The challenge is this: submit to His lordship.
Listen to the simple words in Luke 6:
Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?
Good question. Why do you call Me Lord, and you do not do what I say? I will tell you why: you are not a living sacrifice. That is why you cannot get out of that mould. It is still there.
The lordship of Jesus is at stake. Many times I have used the words of the mother of Jesus with those who have just come to the Lord. At the wedding in Cana, she said to the servants:
Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.
This is the simple key to the Christian life, the simple key to following the Lord: whatsoever He says, do it.
If He says to you, “Give up this friendship,” do it. The Lord may give it back to you at some point, but if He says it, do it. If there is some worldliness and He says, “Give it up,” give it up.
I remember a sister who came one day. Because she was a waitress in a restaurant, she could only come to the morning meeting. At the Lord’s table, this dear girl, who had no Christian background whatsoever, watched the bread being broken and the cup being poured.
She saw the Lord. The person doing it disappeared, and she saw the Lord. She was saved, though she hardly knew what salvation was.
She came to see me, and I said to her, “Now, the key to your Christian life is: whatsoever the Lord says, do it.” I asked, “Do you have any problem with that?” She said, “No. I will do it.”
Then, as she turned to go out, she suddenly turned back and said, “There is one thing: I am not taking this off.” It was lipstick.
I said, “Who spoke about lipstick? Was there anything at the Lord’s table where someone spoke about lipstick?” She said, “No, no one said anything. But I noticed that all those sisters did not have any powder on their faces and no lipstick on their lips. I do not want to be a dyed swan.”
She was very pale, blonde-haired, and pale-skinned. I said, “Why are you caught on this matter? Nobody has talked about it. Nobody has told you that you must take it all off. You are saved. You are a child of God.”
I could see she did not believe me, so I said, “Now then, listen. You make a promise to me.” She asked, “What is it?” I said, “You promise you will never take off your makeup.” “All right,” she said. “That is a deal.”
For about six to nine months, she wore the makeup. Then one day I noticed: no makeup.
So I went straight over and said, “What about the deal that we made?” She said, “What do you mean?” I said, “We made a deal about makeup. You promised you would never take it off unless the Lord spoke to you. Are you trying to be one with all the others?”
“No,” she said. “The Lord spoke to me.” Then I said, “Now you have done the right thing.”
So it is with sport. So it is with a thousand and one other things. The Lord speaks to you—obey Him.
“Trust and obey, for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”
Do you understand? I do not need to say anything more on this. Sometimes the Lord gives you back things. He takes them away and gives them back.
When I was a little boy, I loved scissors. I was only two, three, or four years of age, and my great desire in life was to get hold of a pair of scissors. My mother thought I would be a tailor.
I loved scissors—little scissors, even shears, big scissors. My mother spent her time running around saying, “Give me those scissors!” “No, no, no,” I would say. “Never!”
In the end, Mother had to pull them out of my hands, and then I would have a tantrum. I thought to myself, “My mother is a witch. She takes away the things I like.”
Now I understand. I have grown up. I understand why she had to take those scissors away. They would have damaged me.
When the Lord tells you to give something up, it is because He loves you, not because He wants to give you a bad time. He says, “Give that to Me. You do not realize it will damage you.”
But some things He will give back. Here is the challenge: obey the King. You have been transferred into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. Obey Him.
Here is the third thing: learn that you are a steward, not an owner. That means you are not your own. You are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.
Let me read you a few Scriptures. First, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20:
Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God, and ye are not your own? For ye were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body.
Then 1 Peter 4:10:
According as each man hath received a gift, ministering it among yourselves, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
Then Acts 4:32:
And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and soul: and not one of them said that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.
When you are a living sacrifice, you are no longer an owner; you are a steward. There is a vast difference between an owner and a steward.
When you are an owner, you are the authority. When you are a steward, you are under authority.
Everything you own—you should not be the owner of it, but a steward of it.
When you are not a living sacrifice, this kind of talk is very hard to hear. “You mean my home? I should share it?” Yes, at times. “You mean my car? I should share it?”
Here in America, I notice cars everywhere with one person in them. You even have HOV lanes—cars with more than two people. I thank God for those HOV lanes, because I am always in a car with two or three others.
Everything you own is not yours when you belong to the Lord. You are a steward of it, and you will have to give account of your stewardship.
I came to the Lord through an extraordinary man. His name was C. T. Studd—an amazing missionary.
When he went for his medical examination before going with the Cambridge Seven to China, the doctor said, “You are a museum of diseases.” But C. T. Studd said, “Someone with greater authority than the doctor has told me to go, and I am going with the museum of diseases.”
C. T. Studd was a famous cricketer, one of the really great cricketers of history. When he came to the Lord, he had a fortune. Today it would be millions and millions of dollars.
In one week, he gave it all away—every penny of it. He had to trust God for his fare to China.
Why did he give it away? Because the Lord told him to.
Out of that obedience, thousands upon thousands throughout the world have come to know the Lord Jesus. I am one of them.
C. T. Studd was a strange old man, full of weaknesses and faults, but he was, for me, the illustration of a thornbush with the fire of God. In him, you met the Lord. In him, you heard the Lord.
Why did the Lord tell him to give up all his fortune? Could he not have used it? But in the wisdom of God, the Lord knew that if he held on to his fortune, it would have destroyed him. He could never have been what God wanted him to be if he held on to that fortune.
I knew another person—a titled lady. She was twenty years of age when she met the Lord. She had a title from her father and a fortune. She married another military man who also had a title.
Three years after they were married, he died in the flu epidemic—what was called Spanish flu. There she was, a child of God, without her husband, who was only a few years older than her, with an enormous fortune.
She said to me, “I nearly went out of my mind. In the end, I shut myself away. I was going to give that whole fortune away.”
But the problem was that she did not know which organization or mission to give it to. Suddenly the Lord said to her, “What are you doing?”
She said, “Lord, I want to know who You want me to give this money to.” The Lord said, “Who said to you that you had to give up that fortune?”
She said, “Lord, I thought that is what it meant.” The Lord said to her, “You are not the owner of that fortune. You are the steward. You will do what I say.”
The amazing thing about that dear lady was that, through prayer, she found a brilliant man to supervise the fortune. Over the years, she quadrupled and quintupled that fortune and gave away millions.
It is very interesting to me—two very different cases. One had to give everything away. The other had to use it. Both were stewards.
The British and Foreign Bible Society was more or less kept alive by Lady Ogle’s giving, and so was the Scripture Gift Mission—these great missions concerned with the Word of God.
Are you an owner of what you possess, or are you a steward?
Then there is yet another challenge: get your priorities right.
Listen to Matthew 6:33:
Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
What are all these things? Clothing, food, and a thousand and one other things. These are the things which, in the previous verse, the Gentiles bother about all the time.
I will put it this way: these are the things which the world bothers about. That is what the world thinks about. “What shall we eat? How shall we eat?” And then, “What shall we wear? How shall we dress?”
The Lord said, “Get your priorities right. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and I will take care of all the others.”
I have never found the Lord stingy in all my life. The Lord is so generous. He loves to give—once you have got your priorities right.
But when your priorities are wrong, you will find everything very difficult. Get your priorities right.
Listen to the second-shortest verse in the Bible:
Remember Lot’s wife.
It comes in an amazing chapter about the coming of the Lord Jesus—the Second Coming. In the midst of the chapter, suddenly, like a bullet, comes this word: “Remember Lot’s wife.”
Why remember Lot’s wife? What has her becoming a pillar of salt got to do with the coming of the Lord? She never got her priorities right.
She had a wonderful home in the midst of an unbelievably evil community. She and her husband were famous for their hospitality. Somewhere along the line, the Holy Spirit must have wrestled with Lot’s wife: “Get your priorities clear.”
But somehow or other, she did not rise to it. When the judgment of God fell upon Sodom and Gomorrah, the angels had to carry her out. All the way, she kept looking back, and she was turned into a pillar of salt.
The church is filled with such pillars of salt—people who have never got their priorities clear. They are looking back, somehow looking for the things of the past.
Then you become a monument—a gravestone: “Here lies the body of Lance Lambert, born so-and-so, died so-and-so.” There are many Lot’s wives in the church.
Here is the challenge: get your priorities right.
Here is a fifth challenge: understand the will of the Lord.
Ephesians 5:15-17 says:
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.
The days are evil, increasingly evil, and they will become more and more evil until the Antichrist appears. Therefore, we should not walk unwisely, but wisely—redeeming the time, buying up the opportunity.
We should not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
A living sacrifice enables you to prove what is the good, acceptable, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.
When you are not a living sacrifice, you are always fearful of the will of God. When you are not under the lordship of Jesus, when you are an owner and not a steward, when your priorities are wrong, you are always fearful of the will of God.
You are afraid as if the Lord is going to damage you, as if the Lord is going to rob you of joy, life, and peace, as if doing the will of the Lord means you have to be miserable. So stupid.
Do you know your heavenly Father is a Father? He does not want to put you into situations that make you miserable simply for the sake of misery. He loves you.
When He reveals His will, you will always discover in the end that it is good, acceptable, and perfect.
I am old now, waiting for the new body. I know many very unhappy Christians, and they are without exception believers who do their own will.
I know many Christians filled with joy, filled with life, and even filled with laughter. They are believers who have done the will of God.
Listen to 1 John 2:15-17:
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loveth the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the vain glory of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
What a wonderful promise: he that doeth the will of God abideth—remains—forever. What the Lord does in him is eternal, because he does the will of God.
That leads me to yet another challenge: the contribution you and I make to the people of God.
Look at 1 Corinthians 3:9-15:
We are God’s fellow-workers: ye are God’s husbandry, God’s building.
For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
But if any man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble; each man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself shall prove each man’s work of what sort it is.
If any man’s work shall abide which he built thereon, he shall receive a reward.
If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire.
We are God’s co-workers. You can be a co-worker with God, or you can be a worker for God. There are two kinds of work: work for the Lord and the work of the Lord.
When you are not a living sacrifice, it is work for the Lord: “I have a ministry. I have a work. This is my service. Get behind me, Lord. Support me. Provide for me. Bless me. It is my work, and I want You to use it.”
But when you are a co-worker with God, it is the Lord Who calls the shots. You are under government. You do not do what He does not command. It is His work, and therefore He provides.
When God calls, He always provides in every way. He provides money on the most mundane level. He provides anointing on the highest level.
When it is His work, when you are a co-worker together with God, when you are under His command, anything can happen.
There are two kinds of material: gold, silver, precious stones; and wood, hay, stubble. Everything is tried by fire. What is going to come through?
I have used this illustration before. I remember a number of times going to Imelda Marcos’s Coconut Palace in Manila. It was the government’s guesthouse for special visitors.
I was amazed by it. Everything in it was made out of coconut palm: the wood on the floors, the wood of the banisters, the carpets, the curtains, the lamps—not only the actual lamps, but the lampshades.
I could never believe that you could use coconut for so many things. I walked around in a daze the first time. I kept saying, “This cannot be coconut.” But it was coconut—very beautiful, but very flammable.
Many a worker in God’s work is building a beautiful building that is flammable—ingenious, brilliant craftsmanship, but wood, hay, and stubble.
If what is in you is wood, hay, and stubble, what else can you minister? To use gold, silver, and precious stones in the building, they have to be in you.
Wood, hay, and stubble are worldly. Gold, silver, and precious stones are heavenly.
Dear folks, these are the challenges. Only a worker who is a living sacrifice can build on the foundation of the Lord Jesus with gold, silver, and precious stones—those things which are eternal.
That which at the end will be found in the Bride: the gold and the precious stones. The silver is the means of coming there.
What a challenge. We have so little time left to us.
When I was young—which was quite a few years ago—my birthdays seemed to be a millennium from each other. I used to bother my mother again and again: “When is my next birthday?” She would say, “You have just had one.”
Now my birthday comes around so quickly that I have to ask the boys, “What age am I now?” Sometimes I think, “Is the world getting faster, or is it just me?”
But I will tell you one thing: the nearer we get to the coming of the Lord, the faster everything will go. You have very little time.
Do not listen to the powers of darkness when they whisper to you, “You are young. Enjoy yourself. Enjoy the world. It is there for you. It will not do you any harm. When you are a little older, you can become more separate from the world.”
Then you get married and have children, and the enemy comes and says, “Do not settle these things. You are too busy with your family. You have too much to do. Go with your relationships. Bother with your family life.”
When you get to middle age, the enemy says, “Take it easy. That is the young people’s job—business, fire, and fervour. You are middle-aged. Do not be so one hundred percent. It is not necessary.”
Then you get old. You lose your hair, your teeth, your eyes. Then the enemy comes and says, “You do not think the Lord wants you. You are just ready to potter into the grave. You cannot do anything. You have left it too long. You should have settled it when you were young.”
How clever are the powers of darkness.
If today you hear the Lord’s voice, do not harden your heart. This world will destroy you. May God challenge you.
Beloved Lord, we ask You: do not let us escape. We prayed this at the beginning. Do not let us escape. Corner us, Lord. Have mercy upon us.
Save us from the lies of Satan, from his seductive power.
Help us deliberately, coldly in one sense, to present our bodies a living sacrifice. Lord, we know You will do the rest.
We ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.