Good morning, saints. It is a beautiful day. We used to consider this to be a very hot day, but not any longer. So the Lord has adjusted us in our lives, and I am thankful that He really does.
This song, “Take My Life and Let It Be”—let me just read:
Take my will, and make it Thine;
It shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is Thine own;
It shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure-store.
Take myself, and I will be
Ever, only, all for Thee.
Lord, we just come to Thee this morning. You are everything, Lord. As we come, we want to rejoice in how great You really are and how great You have shown Yourself toward us, the unworthy ones.
But Lord, I would ask today, as we consider Your Word in the life of Abraham, that just as the nails pierced Your hands and feet, Your words would pierce our hearts today. Lord, You could significantly do something in our hearts today that will last for eternity.
Why else should we look at Thy Word, Lord, if it has no effect in our hearts? So we look to Thee this morning. Lord, only You can deal with these hearts and make them able to receive Your Word. We ask that You might do that. We ask for the anointing of the Holy Spirit, both to speak and to hear this morning.
Lord, we trust in all of Your work in our lives, and we want You to complete it, Lord. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Well, we have been looking at the life of Abraham. Let us read again from Genesis 23, where we were last Sunday. We will begin with the first four verses.
And Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah.
And Sarah died in Kiriath-arba (the same is Hebron), in the land of Canaan: and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.
And Abraham rose up from before his dead, and spake unto the children of Heth, saying,
I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.
Then verse 8:
And he communed with them, saying, If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar,
That he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath, which is in the end of his field; for the full price let him give it to me in the midst of you for a possession of a burying-place.
And then verse 17:
So the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the border thereof round about, were made sure
Unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city.
And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre (the same is Hebron), in the land of Canaan.
And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a burying-place by the children of Heth.
Now let us read Judges 16:17. Judges is right after Joshua. This verse is from the life of Samson, so you will understand what he is sharing here.
And he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon my head; for I have been a Nazirite unto God from my mother’s womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.
Well, last week, as we shared, we considered two thoughts. One was that Abraham declared that he was a stranger and a sojourner in the land. He had been in the land for sixty-two years, and yet he was still living in tents. He had not settled down like Lot, his nephew, who had settled down in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
You know, Lot wanted to live in one of those mud houses, I guess, instead of tents. I guess they were a lot more attractive than a tent. Well, Abraham never did. He never did settle down. He was a stranger and a sojourner.
And as we remembered his life, the reason he never settled down, the reason he was still a stranger in the land and a sojourner—you remember I said that a sojourner was a pilgrim. It is referred to as a pilgrim as well. A pilgrim is one who is on a long journey of great moral significance. That is the definition of a pilgrim.
Abraham, even in his old age, sixty-two years in the land, was still on that search. He was still a pilgrim. He was still in the race. He was still pursuing God and the things of God.
God appeared to him when he was an idol worshiper with his father in Ur of the Chaldees. They were all idol worshipers. The Lord brought him out. He appeared to Abraham, brought him out, and finally got him to the land. Abraham was on a pilgrimage.
It says in Hebrews that he was looking for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Even though he was there in the promised land, he knew there was something more that God was after, and he was looking for it, even to the end.
In other words, his spiritual pilgrimage began when the Lord met him, and it never ended. Frankly, Abraham is with the Lord today, and he is still on that pilgrimage. He is still looking for that city which hath foundations.
Now, the heavenly city, I am sure, is before him because it is before God in heaven. But that heavenly city will eventually be worked out and brought down to this earth, and we will all see it. Praise the Lord.
Abraham was a spiritual pilgrim, and that is what the Lord has called us to be. Abraham was a man who never dropped out of the race.
We shared that he had faltered. He did dwell in Haran for a long period of time. He actually stopped. He was basically out of the race. He stopped being a pilgrim. But the Lord just met him—sovereignly met him.
Now, have you not had that happen in your life, brothers and sisters? Have there not been times in your life when, if it had not been for the sovereign hand of God, you would have stayed dropped out? You would have stayed where you were, satisfied.
But praise the Lord, He does touch our hearts. He does not let us go. When He finds us sitting on the curb, so to speak, He works diligently to stir our hearts. And for those of us who are more mule-headed, He tends to use a two-by-four occasionally to wake us up.
So He will not let us stay in that condition, as He did not let Abraham stay in that condition. But Abraham did one thing that made the difference: when God spoke to him, he responded. He responded.
He was able to go on because the Lord gave him the strength to go on. So there is a condition: we must respond when the Lord speaks.
We are called to be strangers and pilgrims on this earth, and the world has many ways to tempt us, to draw us down, to get us out of the race, and to get us away from God. Some things are blatant. Satan tempts us with sin, and we fall into it. Sometimes it becomes a habit in our lives that we just cannot seem to get through.
Sometimes he steers us off very subtly. All of a sudden, one day, we find that the Lord is no longer at the center of our heart. He has not left our hearts, but we have put Him to the side. We are no longer a sojourner, no longer a pilgrim.
Then we spoke of this matter of buying the burying-place, this place of death. Brothers and sisters, we all have to come to the place where we are willing to accept the work of Calvary’s cross—the death of our Lord Jesus Christ in our place, as a substitute—that we might have life.
We have to be willing to embrace the cross, not only one time when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ, but daily. The Lord exhorts us to take up the cross and follow Him.
What does that mean? It means that when your will crosses the will of God in your life, you need to deny yourself and say, “No. This one has been crucified with Christ. I stand in the good of the work of Calvary, and Lord, I will follow You. I will take up that cross and follow You.”
It is a decision. It is a choice. A cross always requires a choice in your life, and it needs to be a will given totally to Him, as this song we read says, and a heart where He sits upon the throne.
Well, brothers and sisters, sometimes we think that this life has become impossible because of our failures, tragic things that have happened in our lives, and things that we cannot explain. Sometimes we even become offended with the Lord, as I spoke of John the Baptist. It can cause us to trip and fall.
We wonder, “Lord, can I really finish this course? Can I really endure to the end? Can I really be an overcomer?” Sometimes we rejoice in the fact that the Lord has overcomers, but we say, “Well, Lord, it is impossible for me.”
I do not know how many would say that, but often it is in our hearts, and it really slows us down in our pilgrimage on this earth.
I was reading Open Windows again this week, and Brother Sparks spoke of the pilgrimage of our Lord Jesus Christ. He too was on a pilgrimage when He came to this earth, brothers and sisters.
It says that, as a Son, He had to submit Himself, learn obedience, and be made complete. What a strange verse—that our Lord Jesus should be made complete. But you have to remember: as God, He never had to obey anything. He was God. He never had to think about obedience.
But when He came to the earth as a man, you need to know that He came to walk this earth as a man in your place. Because of that, He had to learn obedience.
His own testimony was, “I will not do anything unless the Father tells Me to do it.” He came to live the life that every man on this earth should live. Whatever the Father told Him to do, He would do it, whether He understood it or not.
He said, in effect, “I cannot really say anything to you unless He gives it to Me.” That was how dependent He became on the Father. Now, how dependent are you and I on the Lord? Are we dependent like our Lord Jesus?
He came as a man. He set aside His powers as God, and the power that He had on this earth came because the heavenly Father gave it to Him as He walked through this life.
Just as we walk through this life, the only way we can make it is to receive from the Lord Himself that life of the Lord Jesus and walk through it. He was on a spiritual pilgrimage, brothers and sisters, to save men’s souls and to bring man back into the place where he could serve God and His purpose, because man had fallen.
Praise the Lord, Hebrews says that He is a faithful High Priest. He is not a High Priest who cannot be touched with our weaknesses and infirmities, because He came and walked as we did. He was tempted as we are in every way—actually far above the temptations that we will ever experience—and He made it through without sin.
Now, what does that mean to you and me as sojourners, looking for that city which hath foundations, based on God’s revelation of Himself to us—the revelation of Jesus Christ? How are we going to make it?
Let me say it another way: the fact that the Lord Jesus made it is a guarantee that you can make it. He becomes your guarantee that you can make it.
Now, I have to confess that guarantees do not seem to mean much anymore. You buy a piece of equipment, and they say, “Well, we will guarantee it if you pay us some more money.” I always say, “Look, if you made it like you were supposed to, I would not need this extra guarantee at an extra price.”
I think of roofing guarantees. I do not even know why they bother to put them in there. They have so many conditions upon them that if the wind blows upon it, you are not going to get it renewed if it starts leaking.
Well, the bottom line is this: the guarantee is Christ Himself. Christ Himself is your guarantee that you can make it through, because it is His life that is in you.
You are not your own. You are given to Him now, and it is His life in you that can make it through. That is the life we need to exercise daily. That is the life we need to learn to live in.
We must say no to our own way of understanding, no to our own reasoning, and no to our own emotions, and say, “Lord, it is Yours—Your mind, Your heart, Your will, Your emotions. They are Yours.”
Lord, I have the guarantee of making it through because You made it through. He is with you. He has promised not to leave you.
So, brothers and sisters, we have been called to be pilgrims, not to be entangled in the affairs of this life, in the ways of this world, with our desires and hopes—how many cars we can own, how big a house we can have, or whether we can get our children educated at Harvard.
I am not saying any of those things are bad or evil. But if you are attached to them, if your heart is really attached to them, and that is your goal in life, then it has you. It has its grip on you, and you are no longer a sojourner seeking Christ and His city. You have become a world-dweller.
That is what the Lord desires to deliver us from. But our guarantee—your guarantee—is the Lord Jesus Himself. He made it through, and He is the guarantee that you can make it through.
Well, we need to move on, or I will be here until two o’clock. This morning there are two other matters I wanted to share on. The first is this matter of paying the full price, and the second is Sarah as a vessel of God.
What is paying the full price? Paying the full price is really the beginning. It is interesting: the Lord, from the very start, wants you to pay the full price.
What is that full price? If we have been reading the book of Romans, or dealing with it recently through Jeffrey’s ministry, the first nine chapters are all about what the Lord has done for you. Chapters 10 and 11 are Paul’s burden for the nation of Israel and for the Jewish people, with much application to us as Gentiles as well.
But when you come to Romans 12, Paul says, in view of all these things, that you need to present your bodies a living sacrifice. Now, that is paying the full price.
If you are willing to present yourself to God as a living sacrifice, you acknowledge that you are not your own. You belong to Him. He can do with you as He chooses. You are seeking Him and following Him. “Lord, I am in Your hands.”
I have kept my life in my own hands most of my life, and frankly, it has not quite worked out. But now I want to put my life into Your hands.
Living sacrifice—another word for it is consecration. Present yourself a living sacrifice.
Let me say it another way: Christ paid the full price for you. He gave Himself as a sacrifice on Calvary’s cross. Now He expects you to pay the full price for Him, and that full price is yourself—laying yourself on the altar and saying, “Lord, I am Yours.”
That is what it is. It is consecration. If you want to be a sojourner on this earth for the Lord, a pilgrim, without consecration it is impossible. No excuses, no exceptions. Without consecration, it is impossible.
You have to have a consecrated life to the Lord. If it is not consecrated, you will dilly-dally with the Lord. You will have one foot in the world and one foot with Him. You will try to straddle that line, but you will falter.
No excuses, no exceptions. Consecration—presenting yourself a living sacrifice—is an absolute necessity.
Some might think, “Well, Jerry, that sounds like works.” Well, no, it is not. For you to truly present yourself to the Lord as a living sacrifice, not taking up the ways of the world, requires grace.
Only the Lord’s life in you can do it, and that life in you is His grace to you. It is grace. It is a matter of grace. Laying down your life is not really a work that you do; it is a choice that you make. It is a choice.
I am so grateful that God decided to give man a choice—a free will. I think it is the most powerful weapon ever given to man, far greater than the hydrogen bomb. It is a matter of choice, and you make choices every day.
God has given you that right to make a choice. It is a powerful weapon. I do not know what choice you have made—whether you have presented yourself as a living sacrifice to the Lord—but you can do it. His grace is available.
The Lord said, “My grace is sufficient.” Do you believe that? Do you really believe that, for the situation you may be in right now, His grace is sufficient?
If there is some doubt in your heart, it will be a great struggle. But once you see and are willing to lay hold of the fact that His grace is sufficient, you will amazingly find that it will be, because we are to live by faith.
If we truly believe—you know, the Lord does not give us doctrines; He gives us life. These doctrines just describe life. So if you are just laying hold of doctrines, then it is not of any value.
But when you lay hold of Jesus Christ and say, “The Lord Himself is my grace for this situation,” then it is different. It is always the Lord. It is not merely His attribute. The Lord is His attributes. We lay hold of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord has been very clear. He said, “If you are going to be My disciple, you have to take up your cross daily and follow Me.” He did not pull any punches.
If you want to take up your cross daily and follow Him, you are going to have to present yourself as a living sacrifice. There is no other way. If you think you can take up the cross and not present yourself totally to the Lord, you are not going to take up that cross.
You have to give yourself to Him. There is a cost to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord was pretty clear in this. He said, “I want you to count the cost.”
Remember the parables He gave: the king going out to war, who must sit down and consider how many troops he needs first; or the man who is going to build a tower, who must consider whether he has enough money to complete it.
He wants us to consider the cost of giving our lives to Him before we do it. He paid a great cost for you and me. He wants us to understand this matter of cost—how precious and how great is the cost He has paid for us.
Let me illustrate it with an allegory. Here in Richmond, Virginia, there was quite a slave trade. There was a slave put up for auction. The auctioneer began to auction him off. It started at forty pounds, went to fifty, and continued until it had reached about two hundred pounds.
Then there was silence across the crowd. The auctioneer raised the gavel to close the auction on this particular slave. Out of nowhere, a stranger in the crowd said, “One thousand pounds. I will give one thousand pounds for this slave.”
That was far greater than any price that had been paid for a slave. After the auction had ended, the stranger went up and received the deed to this slave’s life.
The slave came up to him and said, “Now what do you want me to do?” The stranger handed him the deed to his life and said, “It is your life. I have set you free. You are no longer a slave. Go and do as you choose.”
This young slave was no longer a slave. He was elated. He was excited. The stranger turned and began to leave. He was so excited over the fact that he had been set free. He could now go out and do anything he wanted to do. He was free.
Then his heart began to be torn. Why did this one pay such a great price and then turn him loose? Why let him go? Why allow him to make a choice?
He turned back and called to the stranger. The stranger turned around, and the young man said, “Look, you have paid a great price for me, and You have set me free. I am no longer a slave.”
“But I want to go with You. I have never seen such love. I have never seen such compassion. I have never seen such mercy. I want to follow You. I will live for You. I will do anything that You ask of me. I will give my life for You. I desire to be Your slave forever.”
This young man had been set free by this stranger. As he considered the cost, he decided that he would give up his freedom. He would give up his life. He would give up his desires to live as he chose, to live as most other men on this earth live, and give his life back to the one who had purchased him and set him free.
Now, brothers and sisters, that is your story. That is my story.
When you accepted the Lord Jesus as your Savior, He did not force you to be His disciple. He did ask, “If you want to be My disciple, sell all, take up your cross, and follow Me.”
He gives you and me a choice. Even after He has paid this great price for us, He sets us free. You were under the tyranny of Satan. You were under the tyranny of the devil. You may not have realized it, but you were in bondage.
Frankly, your future only had hell, because that is where Satan will eventually end up, and all those who follow him and are his slaves will go with him. But God has set you free from slavery. God has set you free from a destiny of a life in hell. He has set you free.
Even then, He does not demand that you give your life to Him or follow Him. He only says, “If you want to follow Me.” That is the choice. That is the great choice of mankind. That is the great choice of a Christian: “Will I follow the Lord?”
Am I willing to pay the cost? Am I willing from here on out to follow Him, to do His desire, to love Him, to give up everything if need be, and follow Him whatever the price, whatever the cost?
Those who have made that step and have lived that life will tell us that they no longer consider it a cost. The love of Christ has so captured them that cost is no longer an issue. But He does ask us to consider the cost in following Him.
Why do we fall so short? Why do we find ourselves turned aside, no longer in the race? Why is it that we seem to lack power in our Christian life? I would like to suggest it is because we are not consecrated to Him. We are not living a consecrated life. It makes a difference.
I was reminded of the life of Samson. I read that Scripture earlier. Samson was a Nazirite from birth. In the Old Testament, people could give themselves totally to God. They could take the vow of a Nazirite.
They would not shave their hair, drink wine or any fruit of the vine, or touch a dead body. It was a vow of the Nazirite. It is the same thing as a living sacrifice—giving yourself, consecrating yourself to the Lord.
The Lord told Samson’s mother that he would be a Nazirite from birth. While she was pregnant, she could not drink wine or do anything prohibited to a Nazirite. He was a Nazirite from birth, given to the Lord and consecrated to the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, we know from the story of Samson that he had strength beyond any man. At one time—well, I got two stories mixed up—he slew a lion. He tore the lion apart as you and I would tear paper apart. The lion attacked him, and he just tore him apart.
Later, some of the Philistines were a little upset with him. There were a thousand Philistines there, and he picked up the jawbone of a donkey and killed all one thousand of them.
I thought about that story and said, “Man, Lord, that has got to be impossible. All those men with spears and weapons—how could a thousand of them not get to him?” But the Lord’s strength was with Samson because he was consecrated.
He was able to rip the lion apart because he was consecrated to the Lord, a Nazirite. He was able to destroy a thousand of his enemies because he was consecrated to the Lord. He was strong in the Lord because he lived a consecrated life.
But, oh, the enemy never gives up. We remember the story of Samson and Delilah. Delilah came to him and said she loved him, and he fell for her affections.
She kept after him. “Where does your strength come from?” He teased her with a number of things. He said new ropes would bind him and take his strength. She had the Philistines outside waiting. She bound his arms, and of course he just broke the ropes when he woke up.
Finally, she nagged him and nagged him and nagged him, and she prevailed. She kept after him and convinced him that she was in love with him.
He told her, “My strength is in the fact that I am a Nazirite, and my long hair is a sign of the vow. If my hair were cut off, I would lose my strength and be like any other man.”
Of course, that night as he slept, she shaved his head. When he woke up the next morning, the Philistines came upon him, and he could do nothing. He was weak like ordinary men.
Brothers and sisters, he lost his consecration. He lost his consecration. The vow of the Nazirite had been broken. It was because he was tempted by the affections of Delilah.
The ways of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the desires of this life are the temptations that take our consecration from us. Basically, they are the ones that shave our heads, guys.
It takes our consecration from us. Samson became weak. He suffered great loss because they put out his eyes. He could no longer see. They imprisoned him, and he had to pull the stone that ground the wheat.
He became a slave serving the enemy rather than his own God, unable to serve God any longer because he lost his consecration.
But you know the story. While he was imprisoned, his hair began to grow, as it always does. His hair growing back has a spiritual significance: regained consecration, renewed consecration. Thank God.
We may lose our consecration, but it is not impossible to renew it. Samson was in prison, and there was a palace with three thousand people in it. They brought him out to make sport of him and to make fun of how weak he was.
As the guard led him out, Samson said, “Can I just rest a minute between the two pillars?” You remember the story. He put his hands on the two pillars and asked God that He might destroy the Philistines and him with them.
He pushed those mighty pillars apart. That had to be quite a palace to hold three thousand people. But he pushed the pillars apart, the house fell down, and it killed them all.
In other words, he had regained consecration before the Lord. In the end, he was able to serve God and to serve His purpose.
The enemy knows, brothers and sisters, that if he can get our consecration, if he can take our consecrated life from us, then he has us. It is not hard for him to do.
We may continue to be Christians, and we will never lose our salvation, but our effectiveness as Christians is greatly weakened. We become blind, do we not? We become blinded like Samson did.
The Scriptures no longer speak to us. You come and hear a message, and it no longer speaks to you. In your daily life, it seems like you are going through it, but where is the Lord? It is because of lost consecration.
The enemy uses every weapon he can: the lust for the things of the world, our flesh, our desires, our pleasures, discouragement, offenses, and the cares of life. In Revelation, it says he will even wear the saints out. They just say, “I cannot go on.”
He is after your consecration. That is all he has to do. If he gets that, he gets everything. That is why he is so diligent.
Communion seems to be lost. The Lord seems very distant. Your eyes are temporarily blinded. You are not really able to serve the Lord in power any longer.
Christ is still in your life, but He is secondary. You are weak spiritually. The enemy is taking your consecration. When you accept the Lord Jesus Christ, just like Samson from birth, you are a Nazirite—given to the Lord. You should maintain that.
During a time of lost consecration, brothers and sisters, much can be lost. Much was lost in Samson’s life, not only to Samson himself, but to the Lord, because he was not able to serve the Lord’s purpose during that time.
But let me say this: Psalm 25:15 says that He will pluck us out of the net that the enemy has laid for us. Psalm 40:2 says that He can lift us out of the miry clay. Thank God, we can be restored. Consecration can be renewed.
That is my appeal this morning: that we consider our lives before the Lord.
Consecration is not a matter of just one act. When we are baptized, it is an act of consecration. We are saying, “Okay, Lord, I agree with You. I am dead with Christ. My old man has been crucified. I have this new life in Christ.”
“I come out of the water in Christ, and His life is in me. That is the life by which I will live from now on. Lord, I will follow You wherever You go and whatever You do. Lord, I am Yours totally.” That is baptism.
“Lord, I have nothing to do with the world. I resign my membership in the world. I am dedicated to You.” That is baptism. That is an act of consecration.
But somewhere along the line, brothers and sisters, we can lose that consecration. All of us who have been baptized in the Lord Jesus know this. We can basically stop being disciples and following the Lord—no longer willing to totally look to Him and no longer willing to totally follow Him.
In the Word of God, the Lord Jesus talked about salt. He said, “You Christians are the salt of the earth.” What does salt do? Well, us old country folks understand what salt does. It not only tastes good, but it preserves. It is a preservative.
That is why country hams are hams cured with salt. Salt preserves the meat. Some of you may not like it, but anybody who wants to invite me over for some country ham, you are welcome to do it, because I really do like country ham.
Well, it is the salt that preserves it. The Lord said, however, that if the salt loses its savor, or loses its saltiness, it is no longer good. It is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled under the foot of men.
What is the savor of salt? What is the saltiness of salt for the Christian who is the salt of the earth? The savor is consecration. If the consecrated life is gone, the savor has left the salt. It no longer preserves life, and it no longer has effectiveness.
Once again, I have to thank God. In the natural, when salt loses its savor, that is it. But with the Christian, that saltiness can be regained. That saltiness can be restored in our lives. We can come back to the Lord and once again offer ourselves unto Him.
But that saltiness must be maintained. How is consecration maintained in your life?
In the Old Testament, the example we have is the morning and evening sacrifice. The lamb was a whole burnt offering. The blood of the lamb in the morning was for sins, and the blood of the lamb in the evening was for sins. But the lamb was put on the altar and completely burned to ashes.
It was a sweet-savor offering to God. It was more than an offering for sins. It was a sweet-savor offering. The Old Testament says that the blood is for our sins, but the fat of the lamb is for that sweet-smelling savor to the Lord.
You take some fat—in my day, we used to have fatback. Some people called it streak-o’-lean, a streak of fat. That was poor people’s bacon. Put it in the frying pan, and I will tell you what: I do not know if there is anything that smells any better.
In fact, when I go to North Carolina, I always stop at a particular restaurant down there because they have fried fatback. It is the only place I know of that has it, and I always eat a little bit. You are not supposed to eat too much of that stuff.
But the point is, it is so flavorful. That is why the Lord says when that lamb is burnt as a whole burnt offering, it is a sweet savor to Him, because it is a life totally given to Him.
That is what the morning and evening sacrifice is about. How do we maintain this consecrated life? I am convinced that both in the morning and in the evening, we need to have that spiritual habit of taking some time to commune with the Lord.
Take time to commune with the Lord, and then say, “Lord, I give my life to You. I lay it all on the altar. I give it to You”—both morning and evening.
Really, even during the day, sometimes you have to be reminded: “Lord, my life is for You. I have been purchased with a great price. You have given me a choice, and I choose You, Lord.”
Morning and evening sacrifice. This willingness to offer your life up as a living sacrifice is paying the full price, and Abraham paid the full price.
The last thing—if you will give me some grace and liberty here—I would like to finish today. This consecrated life is not just for you. It is not for you and the Lord alone.
Sarah—it is interesting. When you look at the life of Sarah, you read verse 1 of Genesis 23. It gives Sarah’s age. It speaks of her death and her burial.
She is the only woman in the Bible for whom the Lord gives her age, the fact that she died, and that she was buried. I think this is the Lord’s way of emphasizing the value of Sarah as a vessel to the Lord.
Sarah was a vessel unto God, given unto God to serve God’s purpose. Sarah gave birth to Isaac, the promised seed. She was the only vessel that could do that.
Why? Because God had raised her up for that very purpose: to give birth to Isaac, the promised seed. Now, we know that Isaac is a foreshadowing of the Lord Jesus Christ, but Sarah is a foreshadowing of the church—a vessel for the Lord and a vessel for the Lord’s purpose.
Listen very carefully. Just as Sarah was a chosen vessel to bring forth the promise, the church is God’s chosen vessel that will eventually bring back the Lord to this earth.
Christ has told us He would return, and that He is going to return for His church. The Lord is very clear about this. He is coming back for His bride, and He and His bride will reign on earth for one thousand years.
Then His bride will go into eternity as a completed bride. We see that heavenly city coming down—the bride of Christ—and we go into eternity together.
When will this be? Revelation 19:7 says:
Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready.
He is only coming when His bride is ready, not before. He will not tarry. When she is ready, He will come.
It is not just a few individuals consecrated to Him for whom He will come. It is those who are consecrated unto Him together—to be built together as the house of God, to function in union-life as His body, to worship and pray together in the Spirit as His priesthood, and to serve one another in the unity of the Spirit as the family of God.
That is the bride. That is the life of the bride.
We as individuals—the Lord loves us, and we love Him. But remember this: no one as an individual is the bride of Christ. The Lord is not going to have multitudes of brides in heaven. There is one bride.
He loves you, and He died for you, but His great desire is for a bride. Ephesians says that He gave Himself for the church—His bride.
Now I have to ask a question: Do you know the life of the bride? Are you experiencing the life of the bride?
The life of the bride is, in itself, a corporate life. It is corporate in nature. It is not just one individual or a number of individuals grouped together. It is individuals built together.
When they are ready, the Lord will come back, and there will be the marriage feast of the Lamb. For a thousand years, the Lord will reign and rule on this earth before we go into what we call eternity.
He will have a bride with Him—a queen. But at that time, it will not consist of all the saints. It will consist of those who are really ready, those who really see the need for Christ, the need for Him to have His bride, and who are willing to give themselves in that way in the bride life.
He will raise them up to reign with Him for a thousand years. Now, the glorious part is that the Lord is committed to all of us. His heart is that all would be at the marriage feast of the Lamb, not just a few.
During those thousand years, the Lord will work with those who are not able to participate. When we see the New Jerusalem coming down, every saint is there, both Old Testament saints and us. Praise the Lord—they will all come through. His bride will be fully matured and complete.
But this matter of her being ready means there are some who are ready for the bride life. Only He knows when that is. But when that occurs, He is coming back.
The point is that the church, the corporate life of the church, is a vessel for which He is now depending to be ready, that He might come back.
We are called to be living sacrifices, but we are called to be living sacrifices committed together—to be His house, to be His body, to be the priesthood, and to be His family on this earth. He is looking for it on this earth.
It is the way of the bride. It is the life of the bride.
I say this from my own experience: it is a much more difficult life than living an individual life before the Lord, because I lived that way for a long time. But the corporate life—oh, how much more difficult it is.
It seems like we can hide so much of our flesh when we are by ourselves with the Lord, but we try to live together, and it all comes out.
How do I know that this is such a difficult way of life—the life of the bride? It is because the Lord said, “I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
What does that mean? It means that anywhere there is an expression of the bride life, the full force of the enemy—hell and all its forces—will come against it. That is what it means for the gates of hell to be opened against it.
It is the church. He does not say that about individuals, but He does say it about the church.
Brothers and sisters, when we really consecrate ourselves to the Lord as a living sacrifice, it stirs the enemy, because he has been working to keep you from that.
But let you consecrate your life as a living sacrifice not only to the Lord, but for the brothers and sisters, for the bride of Christ, and for the testimony on this earth—and all hell breaks loose.
Now, I want to say this: has not this been our experience in Richmond? Have we not experienced the forces of hell trying to tear down what the Lord is trying to build up in this corporate sense?
Why is it so? Because once the bride is ready, the enemy knows his day is over, and he is working all that he can to keep that from happening.
Brothers and sisters, we have taken some heavy hits over the years. But it was on my heart this morning to say to all of us, including myself: take heart.
We must not be discouraged and drop out. Take heart. We must not be disheartened and draw back. Often we do not draw out; we draw back. We must not be wearied and faint.
In 1972, I think, when we began, it is very easy after all these years just to be wearied and faint. But even the Word of God encourages us not to be wearied and faint.
We must not be consumed by our hurts and our offenses. We must give them to the Lord.
I remember one time in my life when I was greatly offended. It was eating me up. I could not stand it. I went to the Lord and said, “Lord, You have got to take this from me. I cannot deal with it. I cannot put it off. I cannot stop it. It is just tearing me apart.”
The Lord said to me, “By My stripes, you are healed. I have borne your griefs.” And it went away. It lifted. I am so grateful, because it was eating me up.
We must not fail of God’s grace. I said it earlier: God’s grace is sufficient. A brother here in our midst, one time when I was ready to give up, said, “Jerry, if you do that, how can you ever again say God’s grace is sufficient?” That word really kept me for many years.
He will build His church. That is His promise. I think we all want to be a part of what the Lord is doing, and may we do that.
But it will require that we be living sacrifices, consecrated to Him, giving our lives to Him and giving our lives to one another. We consecrate ourselves to the Lord as our Head, but we also need to consecrate ourselves to the Lord as the Head of His body, the church.
May we do so. Let me say it another way: I believe if we can just make this simple act of commitment to the Lord, He will do the rest.
Lord, we come to Thee today. Lord, we were slaves, and You bought us with a great price, Lord, and You set us free.
Lord, we want to be like that slave who turned back and said, “Lord, I want to follow You. I want to do Your will. I want to do anything You want. I want to be willing to give my life to You, Lord, because of this great love that You have shown to me.”
Lord, You have delivered me from Satan and hell. But more than that, You have put me on the path of life. Lord, I do not want to get off that path.
Lord, I want to be consecrated to Thee, Lord, given to Thee. Lord, I can do it because Your grace is sufficient. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.