Thank you. I do not know about bad weather; I just think the Lord emphasizes the messages.
Would you turn with me to the passage that we are considering in Revelation 12? Just read from verse 7.
And there was war in heaven: Michael and His angels going forth to war with the dragon; and the dragon warred, and his angels.
And they prevailed not; neither was their place found anymore in heaven.
And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him.
And I heard a great voice in heaven saying, Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Messiah: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accuseth them before our God day and night.
And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life even unto death.
I want to add one other Scripture to that, in the second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 5, verses 14 and 15.
For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that One died for all, therefore all died.
And He died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him Who, for their sakes, died and rose again.
Just a word of prayer.
Beloved Lord, we are so thankful that we are found here in Your presence this evening. We are thankful, Lord, that You are actually more interested in our gathering together than we are sometimes.
But Lord, by Your Holy Spirit, You can somehow work in our hearts this night. We all know much of the truth. It is in our hearts and in our minds, but Lord, the reality is not there very often.
Only the Holy Spirit can illumine our hearts and our spirits this night, and cause, through the revelation, us to understand what it all is about. Hear us, Lord.
We thank You for the anointing which You have won so dearly for us at Calvary. Into that anointing, power, and grace, we stand by faith, both for the hearer, for the speaker, and for the translator.
Lord, let this be an anointed time, as our previous times have been. Make it an anointed time, Lord, where we really meet with You. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
You all know that the theme of these conferences is: They overcame. They overcame Satan.
It is very interesting that we have these three constituents in overcoming. They overcame Satan through the blood of the Lamb, and through the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives even unto death.
Some versions actually put a definite article before death: “They loved not their lives even unto the death.”
It is interesting that the first two constituents of overcoming are set in a certain way. The last is quite different. It is almost as if the Holy Spirit is saying, “This last constituent has to underlie the other two, or there will be no reality.”
It will be sham. There will be profession, there will be religion, there will be words, there will be doctrine, there will be knowledge, but there will be no reality.
Now, it is very interesting in the Word of God that truth—we almost immediately, at the very word truth, think of doctrine, of words, of teaching, of Scripture. And it, of course, covers that.
But the word in the Greek means reality. It is not just the truth as it is in Jesus, as if it is only doctrine that is important—sound and good doctrine—but it is the reality as it is in Jesus.
When the Lord Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” He was saying, “I am the way, the reality, and the life.” Now, if we do not have that reality, where are we?
It is simply religion—profession without the experience that is so vital.
Only the Holy Spirit can take the doctrine, take the teaching, and pierce our hearts.
Those of you who have been brought up in Christian homes, deeply religious homes, knew the Lord—you knew it all. But surely there came a day when what you knew from babyhood suddenly dawned on you, and in that moment you were saved.
You were born of the Spirit. You had heard it all. It was all old hat. You could almost preach it yourself as a child, or as an adolescent. But the fact is that when that truth became reality, that moment you were born of God.
It was different. You entered a new dimension. You entered a new world. It was a new creation you entered. The rest was something outside, but when the Holy Spirit, by the grace of God, touched your heart, you were saved.
There are no second-generation Christians. There are no grandchildren with God. He has only children. There is something absolutely direct, absolutely original, about the Lord.
Now, I just want to look a little more closely at this extraordinary word: “They loved not their life even unto death.” This is my responsibility in this conference.
Now, if you want to go to sleep, you can do so, but I think the thunder may keep you awake, which is the Lord’s goodness to us.
Is it martyrdom that the Lord is talking about?
And they overcame Satan through the blood of the Lamb,
And through the word of their testimony;
And they loved not their lives even unto death.
Is it martyrdom that is here in view?
There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the old saying from the church fathers, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” is true.
Wherever believers have died in faith, wherever they have been martyred for their testimony, before long something happened.
You think of the Anabaptists drowned in their thousands. There is not a single fountain or pool in the city of Salzburg in Austria that did not see men, women, and children tied up in sacks, weighted, and flung into those fountains and pools to drown.
But what has happened? It is an amazing thing that the Baptists have gone everywhere. It has become one of the biggest denominations in the church. It may be pretty unrealistic at times, but the fact of the matter is that it is everywhere.
The blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the church.
You think of the followers of Jan Hus, the Czech Reformer, tricked by the Catholics to go to Constance for a dialogue with the Catholic leaders, and burnt at the stake.
His followers throughout Bohemia, throughout what we now call the Czech Republic, throughout southern parts of Germany, and all of Austria—they died in their thousands. But out of the blood of the martyrs came the Moravian Church.
It was one of the most extraordinary eras in the history of the true church. Those people went everywhere with the gospel. They actually sold themselves as slaves to be with the slaves and win them to the Lord Jesus.
They contracted leprosy looking after lepers, and then became missionaries to the lepers. It is extraordinary. They went to the Eskimos in the Arctic. They went even into Tibet, the roof of the world.
The story of the Moravians is incredible. But one could go on and on with this matter of martyrdom. Wherever believers have died, have been killed, murdered, for their faith and the holding of the testimony of Jesus, there has in the end been result.
Today we see it in China. Perhaps the greatest ethnic group of believers in the world is in mainland China. But what about the martyrs? Their blood has become the seed of the church.
I remember years ago—and in my latest book, just published by Christian Testimony Publishers, I have recounted it—I remember in Egypt speaking with two old missionaries who had a certain influence on my life.
I had never seen a prayer ministry like it. I had been in wonderful prayer meetings and seen wonderful answers to prayer, but I had never seen anything like Alexander Liblich and Kathleen Smith.
I only got to see them because I was very, very ill. For a month or two I was in hospital on my back, not allowed to put a foot down on the ground. But when I was finally released from the Royal Air Force hospital, the Royal Air Force medics said, “You have to go on convalescence. We will pay for it, and you must have at least three weeks’ rest.”
The superintendent’s wife in the Egypt General Mission, Susan Hamill, said—I said, “I do not know where I can go. Where can I go for three weeks? I do not want to go alone somewhere for three weeks.”
She said, “Oh, leave it to me. There are two old, godly missionaries who are retired in Port Said. I will phone them.” She told them, and she came back: “Michael, I have arranged it. They are expecting you any time, so just get there.”
Then she said to me, “Just remember, you are a very young man”—I was only eighteen—“you are very arrogant and very straight in what you say. These are very godly and pious missionaries. Be very careful.”
I found out that these very godly and pious missionaries had exactly the same experience as myself, and we became the greatest of friends.
Then one day I said to Alexander Liblich, “You have been here fifty years in Egypt. You have hardly left this country, except for a month’s holiday in the mountains. How many converts have you had?”
She lifted up her hand and said, “Five.”
And I said, “Is it worth it?”
She said, “One day there will be an enormous harvest for Islam.”
That harvest has come. My friends in Athens cannot keep abreast of the number of Muslims that are turning to the Lord. It is all over Indonesia, in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, in Kurdistan.
In these Islamic areas, for the first time since the seventh century, Muslims are turning to the Lord Jesus. And the way they are turning: they have extraordinary visions in dreams, sometimes actual visions in daytime, and voices that speak to them out of the heavens—whole families turning to the Lord. I have never seen anything like it.
And it is all the result of Muslim savagery to Muslims, and the murder of Muslims who have become Christians.
You hear it again and again and again: “What started you on this journey to the Lord?” “I saw Brother So-and-so. They chopped off one arm and told him to say the Koranic creed, and he would not. Then they chopped off his other arm, and then they decapitated him.”
The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
But is that really what this verse says: “They loved not their life even unto death”?
After all, do you know anyone who has given his or her life for the sake of the Lord and the gospel who has not first laid down their self-life?
It would be quite extraordinary to be prepared to die physically for the Lord if you had never first laid down your self-life, because the deepest instinct in a human being is self-preservation.
God knew what He was doing when He said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
We all love ourselves. We all seek to protect ourselves. We all seek to expand ourselves. We all seek to advance ourselves. We seek self-glory. We seek status for ourselves—titles before our name, degrees after our name—anything that gives us some kind of feeling that we are successful in ourselves.
If you came to the point where you were challenged: death, or you deny the Lord Jesus—most of us would deny the Lord Jesus if we had not laid down our self-life first.
Now, that is why I read that extraordinary passage in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15.
For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that One died for all, therefore all died.
And He died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him Who, for their sakes, died and rose again.
Four or five days ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with this verse running through my head. I could not find it. I thought it was in Romans, but it was running backwards and forwards in my mind.
What an incredible word this is. Listen to it again: He—that is Jesus—died for all. Now listen: therefore, all have died.
And He died for all, that they that live should not live unto themselves, but for Him Who, for their sake, died and rose again.
Dear child of God, this is the other side to the gospel. Jesus died for you. He died in your place. He bore the punishment of your sin in His body on the tree. He never flinched. He went forward. He endured it all for you.
But there is another side. He not only died for you; He died as you.
Listen again: He died for all; therefore, all have died.
Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones used to always say, “Take great note of the small prepositions: of, but, to, for, wherefore, therefore, and these kinds of words.”
Listen again: He, Jesus, died for all; therefore, all have died. As far as God is concerned, if you are a child of God, Jesus died for you, and you died with Him.
Therefore, those of us who are alive on this earth should live unto Him.
I wish I could make this more clear and plain. It is just so tremendous, really.
In the passage that we are considering in Revelation 12, it says, “They loved not their life even unto death.”
Now, the word there for life is psuchē, from which we get psychiatry and psychology. It is the soul. They loved not their soul-life even unto death.
Or let me put it another way: they loved not their self-life.
Even those of us who spend our whole time saying how poor we are, how hopeless we are, how ugly we are, how impossible it is for anything to happen with us, and all the rest of it—it is only an inverted way of pumping up ourselves.
“Poor me. I have inherited so much from my parents and my grandparents and my great-grandparents. Poor me, and mercy on me—my poor little self here.”
No, you have not got a little self at all. You have got a big self. It wants to get out into the open. It wants to advance. It wants to expand. It wants to get status. It wants to be thought of highly. This is our self-life, is it not?
Now think of something else. Does not all the problem in the believer’s life come from this self-life?
We know what to do with sins. We know that Jesus died for our sins. We know that the blood of the Lord Jesus washes us clean. We know that if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
There is no problem with sin. The sins problem has been dealt with. The problem is with the self-life.
You can be forgiven. Your sins can be cancelled out, but your self-life can be vibrant, energetic, in full force, in full power. It is the problem in the believer’s life.
This is why it says, “They overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb,” by the finished work of the Lord Jesus—that full salvation that God has given us through the finished and completed work of the Lord Jesus.
It is given to us. We do not have to pay for it. We do not have to do good works for it. It is given to us by the grace of God.
By grace are ye saved; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.
But what do we do about our self-life? That is the thing that stops us from experiencing the fullness of His salvation. That is the condition that completely destroys any growth in the Lord. It paralyzes us. It stops us from moving forward, to abound in the Lord.
It is exactly the same with the church. You get a whole collection of “I’s” together, and you have problems: “I think, I feel, I know, I will not, I will.”
What a problem we have.
What about the work of the Lord? You just get a few brothers and sisters together who are gifted; before long, you have what? Rivalry, jealousies—too spiritual to talk about it, but it is jealousy.
Deep down within us: “So-and-so seems to be getting further on than I, seems to be more successful than I, seems to make more impact than I.”
You know, the American scene is an amazing scene for us in the old world. Why? Because it is built on the success principle. Anyone who has ability can be a success.
That is simply amazing for us in the old world, where so much depends upon the old school tie, or blood—your background, your line, your pedigree, where you were educated, and how you were educated, and all the rest of it.
In the old days, you could not get very far at all, however successful you were, however able you were, because there was not this success.
But the problem with the success syndrome is that when you begin to gather together a few believers, before long there is all this thing: “I want to be the minister. I want to lead. I want this.” It is the self-life.
And they loved not their life even unto death.
Living for self, or living for Christ—just so simple.
He died for all, therefore all died. And He died for all, that they who live should not live unto themselves for the advancement of their self-life, but should live for Him Who, for their sakes, died and rose again.
Let us be honest. This question of reality is our biggest problem.
I am glad it has come up. It should do. We are very near to the coming of the Lord.
If you and I are not prepared for the Lord to deal with our self-life, we will discover that there is no reward and no “Well done.”
Our problem in Christian circles is very simple: we have made thousands of converts and very few disciples.
Jesus never said, “Go ye therefore into the world and make converts of all nations.” He said, “Go ye into all the world and make disciples of all nations.”
No one can be a disciple who has not laid down their self-life.
If my self-life is intact—Christianized, singing hymns, saying prayers, reading the Bible—outwardly it is all a great show, but the reality is not there.
The reality is only when I surrender my will to the Lord Jesus.
This matter of the will is the biggest single issue in any child of God, because it is natural for us. Our reasoning powers, our will, and our emotions are all centred in our soul, in our psuchē, in our self-life.
So it is only natural for us somehow or other to try to look as if we are moving on with the Lord, when the truth is quite different. We are advancing in knowledge and not advancing in experience.
Reality is when you grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Apostle Peter said. That knowledge is not just knowing things, truths, doctrines; it is knowing Him.
When you get to know Him, the doctrine is right as well. The Lord Jesus will see to that, and so will the Holy Spirit. So here is the thunder and the rain.
The great obstacle to reality is an unbroken, uncrucified self-life. It destroys all progress, all growth, all transformation into the likeness of the Lord Jesus, and all fruitfulness.
It means there is no power. We have to make up for it with noise. The real power is not there.
It is an obstacle to experiencing everything that Jesus has won for you.
When I used to travel a lot all over the world, the most common question I was asked by young people was, “How can I live the Christian life?” And I always answered them the same way.
“That is not the question,” I would say. “The question is not, ‘How can you live the Christian life?’ The question is, ‘How can you die?’”
If you learn to die with Christ, the Christian life will take care of itself. It will blossom. It will grow. It will fruit. Everything that you need in gift will come to the surface, once you are prepared to die with Christ.
Now, you will say straight away, “How do you die with Christ?” Oh, do not worry your head. Your dear ones will do it for you.
If you have got a wife, she will do it for you. If you have got a husband, he will do it for you. If you have got parents, they will do it for you. If you have got children, they will do it for you. If you have got business colleagues, they will do it for you. If you are in the church, they will certainly do it for you.
Let me tell you, you do not have to worry your head about that. The experience of being crucified with Christ is all there. It is all in the hands of the Lord, as it were.
People seem to have an idea that they are going to have some wonderful, ecstatic spiritual experience where an angel comes and visits you, takes your hand and kisses it, puts it on the cross, and takes a silver nail and, with a golden hammer, beats it into one side. Then he takes the other hand and nails you to the cross, and you are filled with euphoria and a wonderful feeling of paradise—ecstatic.
There is no such experience.
Once you are prepared to die with Christ, the Holy Spirit will take care of your being crucified within hours.
You will discover that already, within hours, you have a situation where either you defend yourself or you die.
The Lord is in this business. You cannot set up a school for this, or give three neat steps—the methodology. It is the Holy Spirit’s work.
That is why this whole matter of reality is tied intimately with the Person of the Holy Spirit. He leads you into all truth. He takes the things of the Lord Jesus and makes them real to you.
It is the work of the Holy Spirit. When we quench the Holy Spirit, when we grieve the Holy Spirit, we have done something terribly damaging to ourselves.
So, dear child of God, I am sorry that this message sounds so heavy tonight. But the brothers gave me this verse; what else can I do? It does not say, “And there is abundant blessing.” It says, “And they loved not their lives even unto death.”
You have to die.
Well, someone says, “Oh, but is it not all to do with martyrdom? You are trying to get out of it. You are sort of thinking, ‘Well, I will never be a martyr. I think this is all to do with being a martyr.’”
My dear friend, you will never be a martyr unless first you lay down your self-life. That is the way.
There is no reality about holding the testimony of Jesus. This obstacle of one’s self-life will see to it.
We shall never know real church life. We shall never know what it is to be built together. We shall never know what it is to see men and women coming into our midst and touching the presence of God in our midst and being saved.
We shall never know what it is to be the home of God on this earth. Every human being is looking for home. It is within us. It is a homing instinct planted within us at the very beginning of time.
And the church is to be that home, because we are homeless without God. God alone is home.
When God can build the house of the Lord, that becomes home—His home. Then immediately the world touches something it has not touched before: something of love, something of grace, something of self-sacrifice, something that could change the whole world, if only it was to be copied.
The obstacle to holding the testimony of Jesus is my self-life—your self-life.
There is no reality when our self-life is unbroken, uncrucified—only a façade, only words, only profession, only religion.
The gateway to reality is therefore utter simplicity: it is to die.
If you are prepared to die with Christ, the Holy Spirit will take care of the resurrection.
“Oh,” you say, “take away my self-life—all the music in my soul, all the artistry in my soul, all the creativity in my soul, even, for one or two of us—not me—the genius in my soul. Take it away? Crucify it? Lose it? Is this the gospel?”
You lose it to receive it back under new management.
You may not get back everything, but you may get back much. You must know this, surely. One person plays the piano and you think, “Is that person clever.” Another person plays the piano, and you are in the presence of the Lord.
One person sings a hymn, and you think, “Nice voice. Clever.” Another person sings, and you are in the presence of the Lord, face to face with Him.
One person preaches and you think, “Wow, he has got some knowledge. That was so good. That was like an encyclopedic message on theology.” But another person preaches, and you are face to face with the Lord.
Reality. Reality is only when God gets what He wants in you.
But there is a problem. Mr. Sparks used to say, “The Holy Spirit is a perfect gentleman. He never barges in. He never blasts you. He waits for you to hand Him the keys of your self-life.”
Strangely, that is the thing that most of us find so difficult to do. We will do anything else: run a marathon for the Lord, walk a thousand miles, preach till we are blue in the face, do a thousand things for the Lord—but to give Him the keys of my self-life? Never.
It is the will that is the problem. If I put it another way, you would understand it better: it is the lordship of Jesus.
We can all say, “You are Lord.” Is He?
Could He really speak to you, tell you to go somewhere, or do this or that, or give up this? Is He Lord? Or is He Lord in name?
I had to speak a couple of years ago in Britain, in Leicester, which is now a Muslim city, with the prayer call echoing over the whole city.
I preached in Melbourne Hall, that Dr. F. B. Meyer had founded. The pastor of the place said to me at the end of it, “You have been standing in the pulpit where C. T. Studd stood on the day he left for China.”
He said C. T. Studd was a young man, a graduate of Cambridge University, and he was going out with six others to China.
Afterwards, Dr. F. B. Meyer said to him in the vestry, “What is the secret of your ministry and of your life?”
And C. T. Studd thought for a moment, and then he said, “My secret is that I have surrendered my will to the Lord.”
C. T. fell into the ground and died. He went out to China; from China he went to India; from India he went to the Congo. He never returned to Britain. He said missionaries do not go on furlough, and he died in the Congo.
Out of that came a tremendous fellowship of mission.
Such is what can happen with a human being’s life when they surrender their will. Would you believe that such a small thing, which may seem to you small, could lead to a whole universe of experience and understanding, to wisdom?
But so it is with the Lord.
He asks you tonight, “Am I really Lord of your life? You call Me Lord, but am I Lord? Am I really responsible for you, for your life? Are you ready to obey Me in whatever I might say?”
Only the Lord can help you. Shall we pray?
Beloved Lord, we very simply commit ourselves to You.
This self-life of ours is a problem. It is something, Lord, You know, like an octopus with so many tentacles. We cut off one, and then we have seven others.
And Lord, we hardly know what to do other than this: You died for all; therefore, all died, that those who live might not live unto themselves, but unto You, Who for our sake died and rose again.
Lord, have dealings with us. Do not let us go on in this matter, Lord. If we refuse to give You our will this night, it means that we are relegated to a life of sham, without reality.
Of simply religious observance, without the real experience of Yourself. Deal with us, Lord, by Your Holy Spirit. We ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.