I also have appreciated all of you over the years. I could single out some of the folks who have been a blessing to me one way or another, but I think it is all summed up in my dear brother Gabby.
When you were saved, he came and sidled up to me and, in his own voice—which is unique—hoarsely said, “Would you pray for me?”
And I said, “Yes. Are you ill?”
He said, “No. I want you to pray for my horse.”
So I said, “Your horse? Is it ill?”
“No,” he said. “I want you to pray that it would win.”
That was all. Then I knew I was in a rather unusual fellowship—the kind I had been used to in Helper all those years ago.
Well, I want to turn you to the Scripture that we have been considering: Psalm 110. I will read it for those who have not been with us in these two evenings.
I have spent some time talking about an overview of the world situation, and the American situation in particular. I have spoken about how this wonderful Psalm 110 has been the only way we are going to get through in these days ahead.
I have no doubt at all that God is judging America, and I believe the worst is to come.
The church in America has not really woken up. It is affluent, Laodicean, neither hot nor cold. It goes every Sunday to hear a message which has to be evangelical—hot enough to be evangelical and not too hot to disturb you deeply.
It is a tragedy. The church that should have been the salt in the nation and the light in the nation is neither.
The responsibility for what has happened in the United States is basically laid at the door of those of us who are faithful. We are responsible for what is happening.
So I have been speaking about Psalm 110. I know very well what Danny said about Jeremiah being thrown down the well. I fully understand that some people may be rather annoyed with me for putting my little few dollars into this situation and speaking as I have spoken.
But I have spoken because I know that you are people who really feel responsible before the Lord and are ready to obey the Lord. This Psalm 110, I believe, is a key for us as we face these years ahead.
I will read it. It is the most quoted psalm in the New Testament.
The Lord saith unto my Lord,
Sit Thou at My right hand,
Until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out of Zion:
Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.Thy people offer themselves willingly
In the day of Thy power, in holy array:
Out of the womb of the morning
Thou hast the dew of Thy youth.The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent:
Thou art a priest for ever
After the order of Melchizedek.The Lord at Thy right hand
Will strike through kings in the day of His wrath.
He will judge among the nations,
He will fill the places with dead bodies;
He will strike through the head in many countries.
He will drink of the brook in the way:
Therefore will He lift up the head.
And then I want to add to that the principal New Testament quotation in Acts 2. It is Peter the apostle speaking on the Day of Pentecost, beginning in Acts 2:32.
This Jesus did God raise up, whereof we all are witnesses.
Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted,
And having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit,
He hath poured forth this, which ye see and hear.For David ascended not into the heavens:
But he saith himself,
The Lord said unto my Lord,
Sit Thou on My right hand,
Till I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet.Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly,
That God hath made Him both Lord and Christ,
This Jesus Whom ye crucified.
And then I want to read the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 12, from verse 1 to verse 8.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
To present your bodies a living sacrifice,
Holy, acceptable to God,
Which is your spiritual worship.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.
And then finally, I would like to turn you to Acts 4, the one record we have of a prayer meeting in the early church: Acts 4:23.
And being let go, they came to their own company,
And reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said unto them.
And they, when they heard it, lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said,O Lord, Thou that didst make the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is:
Who by the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of our father David Thy servant, didst say,
Why did the Gentiles rage,
And the peoples imagine vain things?
The kings of the earth set themselves in array,
And the rulers were gathered together,
Against the Lord, and against His Anointed:For of a truth in this city against Thy holy Servant Jesus, Whom Thou didst anoint,
Both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together,
To do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel foreordained to come to pass.And now, Lord, look upon their threatenings:
And grant unto Thy servants to speak Thy word with all boldness,
While Thou stretchest forth Thy hand to heal;
And that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Thy holy Servant Jesus.And when they had prayed, the place was shaken wherein they were gathered together;
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,
And they spake the word of God with boldness.
Shall we pray?
Beloved Lord, we are here this morning. We have been worshiping You and sharing together some of the grace that You have ministered to us, and we praise You and worship You.
And now, Lord, we pray that in this last time this morning, in these few sessions we have had together, You will be all that we need. Lord, You have provided us with an anointing through the finished work of our Lord Jesus. You have made that anointing a living reality in the person of the Holy Spirit.
Will You, we ask You, Lord, fill this time with Yourself. Let that anointing be upon both the speaking and the hearing.
Lord, do not let this just be a time when we gather a little more information about the Bible. Let it be a time when the word of Christ dwells in us richly in all wisdom. Let it be a time when there is something planted in our hearts that will somehow germinate, grow up, and bear much fruit.
Lord, You see the need of this nation. You see where it is going. Very few of Your children are alive and awake. Lord, we pray together that You will somehow challenge us, that we may be those who, in these days of confusion and much distress, can be used of You.
Hear us, Lord, for we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Now, I am not going to go over anything that I have said before. It is all in the tape. I just asked Dylan whether the tapes are good, and she says they are. I hope that this one will be as good as the other two.
I want to talk this morning about our responsibility.
I have spoken very much about the Lord Jesus. He is seated at the right hand of God, and the Father has said to the Son:
Sit Thou at My right hand,
Until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.
It is amazing to me when we understand that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God, and this is confirmed not once, but hundreds of times in the New Testament. He is seated at the right hand.
We have one wonderful instance when He rises from His seat to greet Stephen the martyr and to welcome him. That is the one instance we have. Otherwise, He is seated.
All the way through the Book of Revelation, with all its judgments, its death, its beasts and dragons and serpents, and I do not know what else in those amazing visions, we find Jesus is seated.
He has won—absolutely won. There is no doubt about it.
The final fulfillment, when He returns, is because He has won, not because there is something in question as to whether He is going to win. Because He has won, the final public manifestation of His triumph, of His finished work, and of salvation to the uttermost will be made known when He returns.
That cannot be so far off. Indeed, from one point of view, it could be this afternoon. It could be this evening—the rapture.
I believe in a partial rapture, but I am not going to get into that either, because that would take me the whole morning to talk about. But I know there are those people who think we are all going to be taken willy-nilly, however lukewarm we are, however blind we are, whatever life we are living. But I do not believe that.
The Word says:
Be ye also ready:
For in an hour that ye think not
The Son of man cometh.
We need to be ready. We need to be ready for the coming of the Lord.
So it seems to me that here is, as I said last night and the night before, where the world is not just at the crossroads; it has turned a corner. We are on the way now to the appearing of the Antichrist.
America was the last great bulwark against the coming of the Antichrist, and it has been sunk.
There is no going back on this thing, in my estimation. The root of it is the division of the promised land, and I think that whilst you have an administration that forcefully says it is behind that division, there will be more floods, more fires, more tornadoes, earthquakes, and all the rest.
The economic situation, however many stimuli they have for it, will not do anything except give a little lift for a while.
It is frightening from one point of view, but Jesus said:
When ye see these things beginning to come to pass,
Look up, and lift up your heads;
Because your redemption draweth nigh.
Now, I spoke last night about Jesus, as in verse 4 of Psalm 110:
Thou art a priest for ever
After the order of Melchizedek.
What is so strange and wonderful about Melchizedek? He was what was not allowed in the old covenant: he was both king and priest in one.
Jesus was prophesied by Zechariah to be One Who would combine these ministries. The Messiah was prophesied and predicted by Zechariah to combine in Himself both of these ministries. He would be both King and High Priest.
Well, I spent last night talking about that—how wonderful is Jesus as King, and how wonderful is the intercession of our High Priest.
None of us would be here alive spiritually, hearing the Lord, walking with the Lord, and experiencing the Lord, but for the King at the right hand of God and the High Priest Who ever lives to make intercession for us. Praise His holy name.
Now, I want to talk this morning about our responsibility, because the Word of God says very clearly that by the finished work of the Lord Jesus and by the outpoured Holy Spirit, we are constituted kings and priests unto God.
If you look in 1 Peter 2:9:
But ye are an elect race,
A royal priesthood.
Got it? After the order or fashion of Melchizedek. That is something that could not be in the old covenant: a royal priesthood.
You remember King Uzziah. Do you remember how he went into the house of the Lord, took a censer, set fire to the incense, and held it to the Lord? The high priest confronted him and told him that he was doing something utterly wrong.
King Uzziah was very arrogant about it, and leprosy broke out on his forehead. In that instant they swept him out of the temple, and he lived for the rest of his life in a separate palace because he was a leper to the day he died.
Here we are called a royal priesthood. This is wonderful.
Now, if you turn, let me give you a few Scriptures. I hope I am not boring you. Revelation 1:6.
I will read from verse 5:
Unto Him that loveth us,
And loosed us from our sins by His blood;
And He made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto His God and Father.
A royal priesthood. Look at Revelation 5:10. This is the wonderful praise of the four and twenty elders and the four living creatures:
Worthy art Thou to take the book,
And to open the seals thereof:
For Thou wast slain,
And didst purchase unto God with Thy blood
Men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation,
And madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests;
And they reign upon the earth.
Not something to do with the future, but they reign upon the earth. So we are called kings and priests.
Let me put it another way. By the finished work of the Lord Jesus—the blood of the Lamb, the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and the outpoured Holy Spirit—you and I are constituted kings and priests unto God.
Now, I have come to this in one moment because I am talking to Republicans here. You are used to everything that is bad about kings.
Of course, those Georges were silly old fools—the Georges who lost these colonies. Forgive this little bit of history. I personally would have been with you if I had been one of the settlers here in these colonies, because he was positively dotty.
He was a nutcase, really, and the ones who followed him were even more mad. They had a mental instability. Never mind.
The fact of the matter is that into the American heart has come an idea about kings: that they are all authoritarian, that they throw their weight around, that they sit there looking beautiful with a sceptre and a crown on their head, sit in royal robes, flick a hand here and there, and someone rushes out and does something.
But those of us who live in a kingdom know that a good king or a good queen is the supreme servant of the nation.
Queen Elizabeth II, for instance, gets up before six o’clock every day, has an early breakfast, and is the hardest-working person in the United Kingdom at eighty-two years of age.
So we have another kind of picture about kings and queens. Of course, there are kings. I remember, when I was a boy, King Farouk. What a dreadful king he was of Egypt. No wonder they got rid of him and sent him on a boat to Italy.
That is the kind of idea that most people have of kings, you see: just money, womanizing, everything. But that is not the biblical idea of a king.
So now look at this: kings and priests unto God—kingship and priesthood.
Is it not interesting that it really goes back to being a freewill offering? I said to you all that the trouble with Christianity today is that it is a tithe Christianity.
In other words, we give a tenth of our energy, our being, our resources, and all that we are to the Lord, but the rest we are free to do with what we think we should do.
The freewill offering was that every single part was given. That was the freewill offering.
Now, there were freewill offerings that were small things, but when, for instance, they gave the gold, the silver, the bronze, the weaving for the temple veil, and all the hangings of linen round about, it all came from the people.
The tabernacle, the house of God, the place where the Lord dwelt—the holy place and the holy of holies—was all produced through freewill offerings. It did not come from the tithe.
And here, in this marvellous psalm, the Lord says:
Sit Thou at My right hand,
Until I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet.
Let the sceptre, or rod, of Thy strength go out of Zion.
Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.
Thy people are freewill offerings
In the day of Thy power.
That means, in the day of His power, you and I are intended to be a freewill offering.
Let me put it another way. We sang a beautiful little song this morning at the Lord’s table about being a bondslave.
There are two kinds of servants in the New Testament, and indeed in the Bible. One is a bondslave, and one is a servant.
The servant is a hired servant. The Greek is doulos. It means you are paid, you have hours, and you have rights. You are employed for a certain time, and the rest of the time is yours.
You are engaged to do certain things, and then the rest of it is for you to decide what you will do.
But the bondslave belongs to his master twenty-four hours of every day, until the year of Jubilee.
If, in that year of Jubilee, he says, “I love my master. I do not want to go out free,” then the master is to take him to the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl.
Now, what the Bible does not say, but the Talmud tells us, is that a ring was put in the ear so everybody could see: “Oh, that one is a bondslave forever, from freewill. He has voluntarily given himself to his master for life.”
Is it not interesting? There was the ear. I must be careful now that I do not divert from what I ought to be saying, but is it not interesting?
You would think, for a bondslave, his hands are the more important thing. Why did not the law put a bracelet on his hand so everyone could see he was a bondslave? Or why did not the Lord put an ankle bracelet on his ankle? Feet are very important. How can you do any work without feet? How can you do any work without hands?
But the Lord says, “I do not want your hands and feet if I do not have your ear, because you will do your own thing.”
Is it not interesting that when you come to the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible that sums everything up, seven times the Lord says:
He that hath an ear, let him hear
What the Spirit saith to the churches.
“He that overcometh.” In other words, He links overcoming with hearing the Spirit.
Well, I find this very amazing: this whole question of kingship and priesthood is linked to being a freewill offering, to being bondslaves.
Sometime I am going to write a book on Moses, if I ever get there. I have written the one on Jacob, and I have also written the one on the eternal purpose of God, which is not just the transcript you have of the tape ministry, but is now a proper book.
If you want to know how you can get it in America, Nathan will tell you. And do not blame me for the expense. But anyway, at least it is published.
I would like to write on Moses. You know what the New Testament calls Moses in the Book of Revelation? It says, “Moses, the bondslave of God.”
That puts his service into another category. No wonder the Lord loved him.
When he died, seeing the whole land before him, there is a very strange Hebrew construction. Our versions in English say, “He died by the word of the Lord.” Some say, “By the mouth of the Lord.”
But the construction is so extraordinary in Hebrew that the rabbis say God kissed him. He was so precious to God that God kissed him, and he died.
The bondslave of the Lord. Wonderful.
Do not think of Moses as a hard figure—legalistic, severe, Victorian. There is something wonderful about Moses, very human.
When he lost his temper with the people of God, I have been tempted many times to lose my temper with the people of God. I find them so stupid.
That is why I do not take tours around anymore. You say to them, “All stay here now while the explanation is given of this,” and always there are some who go off here, take photos there, and wander off elsewhere.
Then they come back after some explanation has been given and say, “What is that place over there?” You feel like murdering them. So I found that I so easily lost my sanctification that I decided not to take tours around the land anymore.
Anyway, that is only by the way. That is an aside, a diversion.
In the day of Thy power.
That means the outpoured Holy Spirit.
The day of Thy power: Jesus seated at the right hand of God, pouring out the Holy Spirit.
In the day of Thy power, what does that really mean? It means that you and I are equipped for the service of God.
Gifts are the equipment of God for service. We have an anointing, even more important than gifts. The anointing enables you to do what you cannot do naturally, enabling you to do the impossible.
What would we do without the Holy Spirit? It is because Jesus is at the right hand of God that the Holy Spirit is poured out, and it is on the basis of His finished work.
I know people who have laboured with zeal and devotion for years, pleading with the Lord to baptize them in the Holy Spirit, and He never does it, because they are making their devotion, fasting, zeal, and good works the basis.
But the moment a person says, “On the basis, Father, of the finished work of the Lord Jesus, anoint me with the Holy Spirit and fill me with the Holy Spirit,” it happens.
It is not on your good works, your zeal, your devotion, your fasting, or your crying that the Holy Spirit is given to you. It is on the basis of the finished work of the Lord Jesus. Blessed be His name.
Remember this, because we are all tempted to think that the Holy Spirit is only given in great power if you are zealous and devoted. You may be zealous, and you should be, but that is not the basis for the giving of the Holy Spirit.
It is on the finished work of the Lord Jesus. Upon that basis alone, the Father fills you with the Holy Spirit.
Now, when you are saved, the Holy Spirit is in you. Thank God for that. You are born of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is right in you—trapped.
Oh boy, is He trapped in some believers! He is there, He is inside, and He is absolutely bound by your flesh and by your mindset.
There is a great difference between you having the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit having you.
The outpoured Holy Spirit is not just an enlargement of His indwelling. It is that He gets you. Then you are His. You are a freewill offering.
You have surrendered your rights and your will to the Lord. Again, think—think again.
Well, just let me say one more thing about the Holy Spirit. Because He is here, I hope I am being reverent and not quenching Him or grieving Him.
The Holy Spirit is here as the manager, as the supervisor, of the building of God’s house and for the fulfilment of the purpose of God in the work of God. He is here for that.
We need Him. We cannot do anything about the building of the house of the Lord without the Holy Spirit, and we cannot really do much about the work of God.
Well, I know many workers. They work for God; they do not work with God. There is a great difference between working for God and working with God.
When you are working for God, you do everything. It is your time, your energy, your agenda; everything is you. But you say, “Now, Lord, stand behind me and bless me. Support me, Lord.”
But when it is the work of the Lord and you are working with the Lord, you have to be under His government. You have to hear Him and obey Him. You get it?
Another way of translating this from the Hebrew is, “In the day of Thy army.”
Sit Thou at My right hand,
Until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.
Let the rod of Thy strength go out of Zion.
Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.
Thy people are freewill offerings
In the day of Thy army.
Aha. In the day of Thy army. That is why some versions do not say “in the beauty of holiness,” which has much to do with the outpoured Holy Spirit, but “in holy array,” like a great army.
In the day of Thy power, in holy array. Well, that is tremendous.
What does that mean? It means you have quit squabbling. You are done with being petty. You are an army.
Now, just wait. Babies are not soldiers. Kindergarten children are not soldiers. Kids in elementary school are not soldiers. You have to grow up, and you have to have a certain minimum maturity to be a soldier.
So Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:3-4:
Suffer hardship with me,
As a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
No soldier on service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life;
That he may please Him Who enrolled him as a soldier.
That does not mean you become a monk or a nun, as it has been understood by Catholics. It does not mean you retire from life to shut yourself away from the circumstances and problems of everyday life.
It simply means that you do not let the affairs of this life have priority. You give the priority to the Lord. You are growing up. You are coming to a certain kind of maturity that you did not have before.
Let me—I know I sound dreadfully censorious. Do you understand that word? But the church of God is filled with babies.
People who should be grown up in the Lord and should be soldiers of Jesus Christ are literally infants.
When you are a baby, everyone clucks and coos over you, cuddles you and rocks you. You cry and someone comes immediately. They give you pacifiers and toys and all kinds of things to make you happy.
This is a stage of Christian growth that is perfectly right. God gives you toys and pacifiers. He coos over you, and so do the people of God. Everyone surrounds you with grace and love.
But you are not a soldier. God help us if we were attacked and all we had for the defence force were people with pacifiers and toys.
Really, everyone is there for them. They are like a whirlpool, sucking every single soul in sight into their own problems.
We have to grow up.
Now, there is another thing about being a soldier: there is education. Not only education; there is discipline. And not only discipline; there is training.
It is very simple, is it not?
So if you are a freewill offering, before long the Lord is causing you to grow and to come to maturity. When you come to that minimum maturity, He takes you into the army.
That is what it is all about. From that moment, you become a witness. You become a soldier. You become someone who can wage the warfare of the service.
That is what the Lord is looking for.
Now, let me make this as practical as I possibly can. This army of the Lord is a volunteer army.
He does not impose it upon you. He does not shut you in so that you can only be a soldier. He says, “Well, if you do not want to be, you do not have to be. I will not try to make you a soldier.”
It is a volunteer army. In other words, you have to enrol. You have to say, “Lord, I am ready to be a soldier.”
It is funny how those wonderful old hymns about being soldiers for Christ have all gone out—“Onward, Christian Soldiers,” and all these wonderful hymns. They have gone.
What kind of Christianity have we got? We have babyhood Christianity. It is all to do with pacifiers and toys and everything that comforts us. We are all very interested in anything that is to do with us.
If we are the centre of the whole circle, that is it. We are there; we are ready. If people can fall over here and fall over there, and somehow or other we see things, “Whoa, that is marvellous.”
But sacrificial service—going to Timbuktu? No, that is not for us. Enrolling in the army of the Lord? That is not for us.
This is something I once heard Austin-Sparks say: “The Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He never barges in on you and never imposes Himself on you.”
But once you say, “I will be a soldier,” that moment He takes you.
From then on, all the circumstances of your life, all the situations of your life, and the relationships of your life, the Lord will use to make you a good soldier.
That is why Paul says:
Suffer hardship with me,
As a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
Well, here is one other thing. I should upset everyone here, so, Danny, I do not think I will probably be asked back again. You might ask me back, and of course Gabby might, because he always gives me stick every time, and I give him that.
Another thing about being soldiers is that you take orders.
You know, it is very interesting how few believers can take orders. Do you know that you cannot give orders if you cannot take orders?
We have got an idea that we can throw our weight around and tell people, “You do this, you do that, you do the other.” We are kings.
But a crown prince has a very hard education. That is why every crown prince goes into the army. It is tough to be a soldier of the Lord Jesus.
You take orders, and once you take orders, you can rise in the ranks and give orders.
In the day of Thy army. Wonderful.
Then will you consider for a few moments with me Romans 12? I have spoken about this on some of these other evenings, but in Romans 12, verse 1—I have read it to you, so I do not need to go over it again.
But it is interesting that this is the greatest exposition of the gospel in the Bible, of all the sixty-six books.
I find it very interesting that in the first eight chapters of Romans, Paul defines the gospel and defines the end of the gospel—what happens in the Christian life, how we can live it, and the problems we face in the Christian life.
Then he comes to this great problem of election, especially with the Jews. He was himself a Jew; he was a rabbi.
So he had a great problem in Romans 9, 10, and 11, which are normally shut away for theological seminaries. The theme is normally said to be the predestination of the church, nothing to do with the Jews.
But in fact, in these three chapters, the apostle Paul, by the Spirit of God, says, “Before I can go any further, I have to go behind history, behind all that has happened, behind why God appeared to Abraham, why out of Abraham came a great nation, and why every family in the earth will be blessed in him.”
That is all the Gentiles. Is that not wonderful? These three chapters are all to do with it.
At the end of those three chapters, it is so amazing to the apostle Paul that the Holy Spirit has so greatly helped him to write it all down, or dictate it, that he bursts into a doxology of praise.
It is as if what God is going to do with the Jewish people is so incredible—to close the circle, to finally bring them to the Lord as well—that he bursts into this great paean of praise. You have it at the end of Romans 11.
Now he says, “I beseech you, therefore,” over the whole of these eleven chapters. “I beseech you, therefore.” Therefore—why therefore?
I remember Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones saying, “Take very careful note of these little words, such as ‘wherefore,’ ‘therefore,’ and ‘but.’”
“I beseech you, therefore.” Therefore, yes, because of what is said in eight chapters and what he said in Romans 9, 10, and 11.
I beseech you therefore, by the mercies of God,
To present your bodies a living sacrifice,
Not a dead one—a living sacrifice—
Holy, acceptable to God,
Which is your spiritual worship and service.
Years ago, I asked the Cambridge don about the word: why is it translated so many different ways—“reasonable service,” and so on? If you look at different versions, you have all kinds of renderings. He said it was extremely difficult.
Then I said to him, “If we said ‘spiritually intelligent worship,’ would that be right?”
“Yes,” he said, “absolutely. But I would add one word: service.”
You are spiritually intelligent, not just emotional. You are spiritually intelligent worship and service.
We can all be carried away in a moment by a speaker or by a hyped-up atmosphere when we worship, or whatever, when it is hyped up. I am not saying it was today; I am just saying it sometimes can be.
We can be carried away and think we are really worshiping. But your real worship is spiritually intelligent worship and service.
That means, in cold blood, you have decided to be a living sacrifice—a freewill offering.
See what comes out of it. First, you have a different mindset.
When you are not a living sacrifice, you have the mindset of this world.
Be not conformed to the fashion of this world,
The mould of this world;
But be ye transformed
By the renewing of your mind.
It is a mindset. Many Christians cannot help it; they gravitate to their mindset, and they have not got a new mindset.
Oh, how often I used to hear the word, when I was first saved, about common sense. I was always told, “Well, we have got to use our common sense,” which I noticed was the mindset of the world.
Now, I know some people are too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use. I know that. We all suffer from people who come to us and say, “The Spirit said this, the Spirit said that, the Spirit said the other,” and I do not think the Spirit knows anything about them.
They are sort of spacey, moving around in the heavenlies, you know. They drive us mad. We have got them all in Jerusalem—nutcases. They are drawn like a magnet to Jerusalem.
We even have a whole ward or two for what is called by the doctors the Jerusalem syndrome. We have three Virgin Marys, one Jeremiah, one John the Baptist, three Elijahs, and so many of the two witnesses we could fill cathedrals with them.
I mean, quite extraordinary nutcases. God preserve us from them all, because they bring a lot of disrepute to the name of the Lord.
But anyway, coming back to this thing, did you notice:
Be not conformed to the fashion or mould of this world,
But be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.
That is another mindset. The Spirit of God can give you another mindset. He can renew your mind so that you begin to see what the priorities are. You begin to see how you can live under the government of the Lord. It is a mindset.
Here is the third thing:
That ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Well, most of us are frightened to death of the will of God. If we were to surrender to the Lord, you young people would probably think you will be a nun or a monk. You will have to live unmarried, on the shelf, forever.
It is funny how we have this idea that God never wants anything good for us because He has a factory for bad times, and He turns them out so many.
If we are going to be holy and godly, we have got to look miserable, dress in black, and somehow or other we will get there.
But that is not so. The Lord loves you. He not only loves you; He died to save you to the uttermost. So His will can only be good, perfect, and acceptable.
But you can never fulfil the will of God while your own will is in opposition. Only when you have surrendered it to the Lord can something happen.
Well, I must not stay on this, but is it not interesting? It comes out of being a living sacrifice, a freewill offering.
In one single moment, we can settle the great issues of our life by surrendering our will to God and being a living sacrifice.
Another thing: realistic humility. Now, I say that carefully. Would you please all listen? Realistic humility.
I do not know about you, but I am quite sick of this artificial humility. You know the kind of thing: “I will not sit in the front row. I will sit further back.”
But we all know that the people who sit at the back want to rule the whole assembly.
Now forgive me, those of you sitting in the back. I did not mean to get at you, but I am saying that it is so true. It is artificial humility.
“Will you play the piano, so-and-so?” This person may have a degree in music, but they say, “Oh, no, no, I cannot play. My playing is very poor.”
You wait until someone says, “Did you hear so-and-so playing? It was awful.” When that gets back to that person, they are filled with fury. Artificial humility.
What does the Word say? It is very interesting. Listen carefully:
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.
I call that realistic humility.
Are you a preacher? No, you cannot say you are not a preacher. It is no good falling over yourself and saying, “Well, I am very poor. I am hopeless.”
The Lord will get you, because what He will do is get someone to say exactly that: “I was bored to death by so-and-so speaking. He cannot speak English for toffees.”
Then the person who said, “I cannot really preach,” is very angry. “Why did they not accept the word of the Lord that I gave?”
Realistic humility. Has God done something in your life? Do not try to cover it and say He has not. He has done something.
Has He given you a gift? We know that that gift is from Him. Be realistically humble.
Here is the next thing: we are all the body of Christ.
“Well, I never did.” It comes out of being a sacrifice—yes, it comes out of being a sacrifice.
We can come together, stay together for a little while, while we all look so lovely and holy and scrubbed clean. Then we get to know each other, and we leave one another. We are off somewhere else: “The Lord has led me away.”
But the body of Christ is the body of Christ. I mean, if my fingers walked out and said, “Farewell. I cannot bear being in Lance Lambert. I would rather be Gabby,” or my foot decided to leave and said it was going to belong to Gabby, God help us.
What kind of body would it be if it all broke up, one way or another, and went off this direction or that direction? We are the body of Christ.
Do you know how we overcome with one another? Not by avoiding the problem. We overcome by being living sacrifices.
When you are a living sacrifice, you can be reasonably critical, but you will never, ever be vicious. A living sacrifice.
And here is another thing, the last thing about this: you become a priest. It is the priesthood of all believers.
Has someone got ministry? Let him minister. Has someone got a gift of exhortation? Let him exhort. Has someone got the gift of prophecy? Let him prophesy.
We have a priesthood. It is wonderful when we have an offering to the Lord from God’s people. We met together; we all took part this morning.
But it would be more wonderful if someone had just a verse here and a verse there, as well as the praise. We had testimonies. We had prayer. It is like the priesthood of all believers.
We do not grow if we do not exercise. You know, the Dead Sea is the Dead Sea because it receives all and gives none.
So the whole fertility in the Sea of Galilee that flows down the River Jordan into the Dead Sea is turned into sterility.
We have to exercise. It is the due measure in which each joint of supply gives, takes, gives, takes, gives, takes, gives, that we all grow.
And then we have a ministry as kings. Think about it. There is a false idea about kingship. I have already spoken about it, but it is really service—service under the Head.
That means that you and I are called to kingship, whoever you are.
Do you remember the Lord’s Prayer, the pattern prayer He gave to us? Listen:
Thy will be done,
As in heaven, so on earth.
That is it. That is kingship. It is not just praying, but standing with the Lord for His will, as in heaven, so on earth.
Now let me go a step further in this matter. If you take Matthew 16:19:
Unto thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
What did the Lord Jesus say just before that? He said:
Upon this rock I will build My church;
And the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
Unto thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
Now, if we look at church history, we see that there has been an ebb and a flow, an ebb and a flow, an ebb and a flow. The Lord takes the initiative every time in a new move of the Spirit to build the church, right up to this very day.
I could go through them all, right up to this day.
But what the Lord says is this: “You have a responsibility, Peter”—not as pope, but as representing the body of Christ. “You have the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”
What are keys? You know, we never think about keys until we lose them.
Keys are so simple. People take this tiny little key, put it in, open the door, or put it in the car, and then off you go. Nobody thinks about it.
But what a fuss there is when you have lost the keys. “Where have I put the key? We cannot move. We are trapped now. We cannot get into the car. If we get a car, we cannot move anywhere.”
What happens when you lose the keys to the front door? Oh my goodness me. We go all around the house looking to see whether there is a window slightly open that we can force and get in.
What a lot of trouble there is when we lose the keys. We have lost the keys. The church has lost the key. That is why we have so much trouble.
We substitute organized life for organic life, and routine for the leading of the Spirit.
So, so, so very simple. Well, I only just mention it to you. It is tremendous. Think again.
Think: how can we use the keys? Shall I tell you how? Very simply.
Jesus said:
Thy word is truth.
He also said Satan is the father of lies. His whole authority and kingdom is built on lies.
That means that the only weapons you and I have are the Word of God, because that expresses spiritual and eternal facts.
For instance, Jesus is on the throne. How do I know that? From the Word of God. If I say it, declare it, and proclaim it, something happens in the atmosphere.
If I do not, you find the enemy imposing himself more and more upon us. It is very interesting.
2 Corinthians 10:3 says—I had better read it so that I do not misquote it:
For though we walk in the flesh,
We do not war according to the flesh
(For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh,
But mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds),
Casting down imaginations,
And every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God,
And bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
Did you know that you have such power? It is colossal. It is mind-blowing. Think.
These few words tell me that we are to war not according to the flesh, not by our own ideas or concepts, but in the presence of God.
So it is the King, and into us comes the thought of the King. Then we have these weapons, which are the Word of God, that we can use in the most incredible way.
Satan cannot stand the truth.
Is Jesus on the throne? He is. Is Jesus the Saviour? He is. Is Jesus the Deliverer? He is. Is Jesus the Redeemer? He is.
If you only dither back and forth, “I hope He will deliver me. I hope He will do this,” and so on and so forth, “I know one day He is going to come and everything will be put right,” it does not mean a lot.
But when you take His Word and really proclaim it, given by the Holy Spirit, that Word becomes the weapons of our warfare.
Now, there are a lot of things I could say about the States, but what I want simply and only to say is this: you are now in a situation with an administration that may well be going in the wrong direction. We have to wait to see.
What is required is a people who can stand before God and use the weapons of our warfare. There is no other way through this mess.
I could give you many examples, but the time has already gone. I remember when Britain was going to go into the European Union, and we spent a whole week in prayer.
At the end of it, a wonderful dear old brother—the Cambridge don I was talking about, who was one of our elders—had a word from the Lord. He said:
The lot is cast;
But the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.
At first we thought, “What has that got to do with this election, this going into the European Union?” But we felt that somehow or other, that was it. They had decided behind the scenes, the British government, that they were going in.
We praised the Lord. We took that Scripture, and together we stood on it.
I shall never forget those young people who would rush back home and turn on the television to see whether the answer to our prayer was apparent.
We went back that last night—it was a Friday night—and it was clear Britain was going in. We woke up the next day, and de Gaulle had vetoed it.
It was amazing. Completely amazing, but it gave us another ten years or more.
The next time we prayed, the Lord said, “No, do not ask Me. You are going in. But out of every nation in the European Union, a great army of saints will come.”
That is what we have stood on in prayer, and we have seen the Lord doing amazing things in Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Portugal, and Spain. It is incredible what the Lord is doing.
It is not that we force our ideas. We might rather like Sarah Palin as president. That could be our own idea.
The Lord may keep Obama as president, not only now but for a second term. Oh, God help us. But I mean, I think He could do it.
But we have weapons of our warfare. Listen to this. I had better be very careful on these, because these are weapons.
Colossians 2:14-15. Listen to it:
Having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us,
Which was contrary to us:
And He hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross;
Having despoiled the principalities and the powers,
He made a show of them openly,
Triumphing over them in it.
I love that word in Greek: stripped naked. Having stripped naked the principalities and the powers, He made a show of them openly.
It is from the great march of the generals when they came back to Rome with all their captives—kings and nobles naked, chained to the chariot, walking along the triumphal route.
It is a wonderful picture, but it is about Jesus. His being seated at the right hand of God means that He stripped principalities and powers naked, and He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them through His cross.
Why do we not use that as a weapon?
Or again, Hebrews 2:14-15. If I can find it for you—here it is. Listen. Read it:
Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood,
He also Himself in like manner partook of the same;
That through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
And might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
Well, I am not a mathematician, but I do know one thing: if you multiply zero, it equals zero. I mean, nought is nought.
So what does it say? Through death, the Lord Jesus has brought to nought—to zero, to nought—him that has the power of death.
Well, I like that. That is not uncovering you; the devil knows that is the truth. He cannot do anything about it. Praise His holy name.
Well, you take some of these wonderful things and you will find—what about that wonderful prayer meeting in Acts 4?
Did you notice how, when I read it, they took the Word of God and they stood on it? They took the Old Testament. They took Psalm 2.
Who would have ever believed such a thing? What has Psalm 2 got to do with the church of God in Jerusalem nearly two thousand years ago?
But they stood on it because the Holy Spirit had given it to them, and the Lord answered them with amazing miracles and power, and shook the place.
They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
I wish we had a few more prayer meetings like that. Would it not be wonderful, in these days of confusion and distress, if we had the kind of prayer meeting that would really knock out the enemy? There would be something tremendous.
So, dear folks, do not be afraid of these things. I will finish now, lest you think I am going to go on forever.
But you are all priests. You are not only kings; you are priests.
Now this is what I simply want to say, and I will close. I believe the greatest need at the present time in the United States is the prayer and intercession of a faithful remnant.
All over the States, wherever I go, I find groups like this that are absolutely faithful to the Lord, who believe in the Word of God, and do not know what to do.
Let me tell you something. I am kidding.
Maybe Obama, President Obama, will go on to a second term. Maybe God will judge this nation in terrible ways.
It would only require a huge earthquake to send this nation reeling. It would destroy the printing of money and wreck everything. That is all that is required.
The great earthquake in Japan a few years ago that nearly destroyed Kobe was where the Japanese mafia was centred, and it caused that recession in the end of the eighties over the whole of Asia.
That is the Lord’s business—what He does.
But the United States and Canada could be the scene of the greatest awakening in the history of the United States.