THE LORD'S DISCOMFORT BY PASTOR KIM YONG DOO

Isaiah 55:6-9
Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

There is a way that God wants and a way we want. Today our God tells us to come to Him.
Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
(Isaiah 6-7)

Let’s say this together. We have to walk with God. In order to walk with Him we have to pray, do prayer vigils and try to receive spiritual gifts. However in order to walk with God we have to above all know God. Let’s say this together. We have to know the heart of God. I probably did a lot of sermons with this kind of content. I said that there were about 4 things which God thought were important.


Firstly, God has the heart that all people regardless of type will become his children and be saved instead of being sent to hell. You have to have faith that God is holding us tightly. Hallelujah! Secondly, God has the heart to make us to be like children of God instead of simply receiving salvation. Thirdly, God has the heart to give us more work to do. He doesn’t want anyone to have nothing in heaven. Let’s say this together. We have to do a lot of the LORD’s work.


Many think that only by going to theology school and becoming a pastor one will be working for the LORD however this is not true. In reality the rewards in heaven that the congregation receive is bigger than the rewards the pastors receive in heaven. This is because the pastors receive money from the Church however the congregation goes out to work to earn money and fight reality all the while walking the Christian walk. That is why the congregation receives more rewards in heaven. Do you understand?


The pastors are simply called to do the work of the LORD and if they make a mistake they will lose more rewards and will receive more judgment. In a way there may not be anything more precious to earn a lot and give it away as tithing and as charity. Don’t you agree that working with your sweat is a big task? I think that manual labor shows the purity of labor. It is written that for those who have sown seed with tears will reap with joy.


Fourthly, God cause all things to work for good. Hallelujah! God thinks like this but we are in conflict as we have our own thoughts. If God can He wishes to bring your thoughts to us, make the environment He wants and lead us to live like His children. However, we have drawn a line and told Him “You can work until here; from here it is my life”. We don’t like him intervening above a certain point. We don’t like God’s total control.


If an adult wants to hold hands with a child and walk then the child’s pace has to be met. When an adult takes one step children who had just learnt how to walk have to walk ten to twenty steps to match it. That is why there is a need to know how God deals with us and who He is. We can understand God best through the bible. You will know that God leads us in this kind of pace.


If we want to become used to the God’s pace, training and hard work is needed. Hallelujah! God is the one who suffers more when He tries to match our pace than us who try to match His pace. When I walk with my wife I take big strides but my wife rushes behind me. That is why when I am far in the front I turn back to tell her to come faster or I wait for her.


Likewise it is harder for God to do this for us than for us to do for God. Don’t we say that it is extremely hard when we pray before God? However God does not say that you are tired often. If a person without power and a person with power is to work together there has to be a compromise of level. However, the person without power suffers to compromise and likewise the person with power suffers to compromise as well.


In a three legged race the stride length has to be matched right? Despite all that God suffers this discomfort to accommodate our levels until we change. Let’s say this together. God bears the discomfort. Hallelujah! I probably said this before and the people in the Lord’s Church would have heard about it. When we get involved in the LORD’ work it takes a lot of time.


When we get involved we will get suspicious, be resentful, be jealous, be angry, be stressed, be disgruntled and say that you don’t want to go. When the LORD works alone everything can be done through His one spoken word. When He says let there be light there will be light and when He says let there be sky there will be sky. However, God wishes to unite with us and have us participate.


Until we are united with the LORD, and even after we are united God suffers. We may walk with Him with arms around each other but in reality when we are too tired to walk and collapse the LORD carries us. All of us want to walk with God and accompany him but there is a disrupter who is jealous of your faithful companionship.


There are two spiritual and cancerous beings. Outwardly they are forces of Satan. Internally they are made of our flesh, ego, stubbornness, pride, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life. In the flesh you cannot receive the kingdom of God. That is why this flesh has to be controlled with the power of the Holy Spirit. Hallelujah!


There is something that is called our ego. When we are put in to difficult situations due to the work of satan we give up although we are with God. If one thinks that the pastor and the pastor’s wife does not acknowledge him or her one may give up. There will have sad emotions. One will get disappointed and hurt.


Why this is so is explained in today’s word. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8). Because we do not know that God’s thought is different from ours we get defeated, become saddened, disappointed and get hurt. It may see when you do everything according to your experiences. It becomes your fixed standard. Everyone fights with each other because everyone’s standards are different. Isn’t so?


Even if couples are living without any friction, there will be times when couples will argue with each other as they each have had different experiences. In order to advance forward there has to be concessions. In order to maintain and advance the family there will be many times when there has to be at least 10 concessions for one step to made forward.


Young men and women dream about marrying princesses and princes however this is a bad lie. When people marry they become shackles to each other and will become entangled. Whatever they do they will hold each other’s ankles catch the emotions and thoughts of each other’s words. Each one’s experience will be used as one’s shackles. However, we have to empty our hearts. We have to become stupid and only then can the family be maintained.


When nobody recognizes what we have experienced we become disappointed, defeated and saddened. God’s thoughts can be different from our thoughts. No matter how much you think this is right God will have an opposite thought. We have to solve it as easily as we scratch a lottery ticket. But when there is a situation we cannot understand or there is a difficult problem we become defeated and saddened. That is why we fall in to despair and everything will seem difficult.


Yesterday two people who were much older than me came. They asked how everything came to be as so. So I told them a bit of my past. They told me that if they were me they would have ran away and asked me how I managed to endure. I am nothing. Look at the characters in the bible. Jeremiah was thrown in to a mud pit that came up to one’s neck and was not able to sit or lie down (Jeremiah 38:6)


Ezekiel was told to lie down on his left 390 days and on his right for 40 days. All the while making and eating bread made of wheat, barley, beans, red beans, millet and oat cooked with fire fueled by human dung (Ezekial 4:4~17). It symbolized his responsibility for the sins of Israel. Compared to what the prophets had to go through the difficulties I went through is nothing.


Now the hearts of the Israelites’ have started to advance to a false religion that is starting to doubt God’s existence. Their standard of God whether He exists or not depends on whether He grants their requests. If God grants their requests God exists and if He doesn’t He doesn’t exist. Even the chosen people of God have this kind of thinking. Don’t we have this kind of thinking as well?


When our prayers are answered then Hallelujah! We say that God is definitely alive. However when our prayers are delayed or are not answered we think “did God die? Did he go out?” When we live the way we want and get used to my ways then the path becomes wider and wider. One will end up in death as the path gets wider. Hallelujah!


When I don’t walk in the path with my method but walk in the path which gets narrower and is driven to a corner we have to give thanks, pray to God and be happy. “God, things have progressed not the way I wanted however I am thankful. I believe that that path which seems very narrow will at some point open up to the road of Zion. Hallelujah!


God gives everyone almost different methods. Daniel and his three friends prayed together. They prayed but the answer to their prayers, and individual tests were different. Daniel went to the lion’s den, and Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) went to the furnace. They all received the same grace but their tests were different. When we pray we think “God will probably answer me in this way” and restrict the method of His answer. However when there is no answer we give up.


Today is Pentecost Sunday. “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk "without money and without cost. (Isaiah 55:1). Apostle Paul confessed that he was crucified with Jesus (Galatians 2: 20). There is a border between us before believing in Jesus and after believing in Jesus.


The cross is the border. If one returns to his or her old way of life and then he or she is leaving the cross. Hell and judgment waits that person. We must not cross this boundary. Hallelujah! Let's say this together. We are at the boundary of the cross. The moment you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior you have crucified the desires and passions on the cross. After doing this you must not cross the boundary because you have entered the Lord’s kingdom. Hallelujah!


The Holy Spirit is not simply given. It is a gift from God that was given because Jesus Christ paid the price by dying on the cross. It is a gift to us but it is not a gift to God and Jesus. It was a price that Jesus Christ who is the Son of God paid by dying on the cross.


“Son, the only way is for you to die on the cross. The Holy Spirit has to go to them. As the Holy Spirit can only go to them through my Son's death, Son you have to be obedient.” Even if Father God did not tell Jesus this, Jesus knew His Father's heart. Because Jesus Christ died on the cross the Holy Spirit was given to us. That is why if you extinguish the Holy Spirit you are cursing and cheating Jesus.


If we think about Jesus who did this for us we have to change our prayers. We have to pray “LORD, please hold me. Let I be caught by You LORD, do not let go of me. LORD, a test has come. Let me win the test.” The reason why the Holy Spirit is with me is because Jesus paid the price by sacrificing Himself. If we are outside of Jesus there is nothing stuffy.


We can live freely. There is no worry. We can do everything we want and fight our way to survive. However, because we are in Jesus and in the Holy Spirit, and in grace when we pray we feel stuffy. Because we are in the grace of God the stuffiness the LORD gives us needs to be inside of us. Hallelujah!


All the pain in this world to us and the "we" in us will slowly disappear. The chance of becoming worldly is slowly reduced to almost nothing. That is why it is stuffy. It will be so if one is in Jesus. That stuffiness will be a method of maintaining our faith. It makes one pray and kneel before God. The person who knows this will surrender early and say God, You are correct.


In the end we can only kneel before God. We have to surrender early and our nature needs to be treated. Let's say this together. My nature has to be treated. When we stay in Christ the Holy Spirit will continue. Our temperament, sexuality, spirituality, flesh, personality, mentally will all need treating. Hallelujah!


The work of the Holy Spirit continues but the forces which continue to interfere it. We sin a bit by bit in our ways. Despite all this it is very precious that God does not take away the grace from us. Hallelujah! Even if we are hard pressed and we feel stuffy we are not being hard pressed. Even if we are trapped we are not trapped. If we think in the flesh then you will be trapped.


Although it is stuffy because we are being hard pressed on every side we will go deeper in to the river of grace and the spiritual realm. Strength to serve and to pray is created. There is no other way but through the power of the Holy Spirit! Hallelujah!


When we read the bible there is something we have to realize. There are two things that collide all the time. One of the two are the laws that we must keep and the other are the exceptional and variable rules. To believe in the word of God, pray, repent, be saved, be born again by the Holy Spirit, love, be humble, be obedient are basic things so we must keep them. Hallelujah!


Another exceptional variable is that it depends on each individual's level of faith. In terms of faith, power of the Holy Spirit, healing, prayer, power, answer to prayers, etc according to each individual's faith diverse variables will be put into action. Hallelujah!


That is why those parts need a lot of variables. Even in an equation there are constants and variables so depending on what numbers are put in diverse answers are produced. It works the same way. That is why I believe that upon the word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit everything should be built up. And we need to love and be humble. If it goes wrong the fire itself can be something that is boasted. The ministry itself cannot be something that we can boast about. Hallelujah!


Even if we receive the fire of God we have to act as if we have nothing. Likewise if we have all the spiritual gifts we have to act as if we have none. If someone boasts about his or her baptism of the Holy Spirit fire we have stay still. The ability to pray, the baptism of the Holy Spirit fire can become one's pride. When God gives us power I believe that we have to be humble till the end. Hallelujah!


In Hosea 6:3 it says "Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth." Do you know what happens as one presses on to know God more and more? It is a lot better to know God through the bible.


If you get to know God face to face then the more you know about Him the more you would want to die. We cannot control our tongue and flesh according to what I want. I cannot control my thoughts and emotions. The owner of our body and soul is God. When our bodies die or our spiritual eyes are opened and stand before God do you know what happens as we go deeper? Our flesh explodes. Like when one eats the food and if it is not digested he or she will feel nauseas the functions of the body will feel the same way.


It is like this when one stands before God or enters the world of light. You just can't endure it. We may think that our bodies are ours and use it to commit sin. Then when we go to the LORD's kingdom we will have to responsible for them and be thrown in to hell. We are suffering and thrashing around because our repentance did not go well but in hell we will experience pain that is a thousand time more painful. All the functions of our body, cell, plasma, joints will tell God. "This human committed this kind of sin". Like this my own tongue will accuse me before God.


You have no idea what a relief it is to be able to know about God through the bible and prayer. As we know God more we will become guiltier of ourselves. Usually after one commits a sin he or she will no longer know if it is sin. However as one tries to know God more and go deeper in to the spiritual world then inside of us fear and guilt is created automatically inside us.


If one goes before God the body cannot handle it and will confess before Him. As the body confesses it will want to die. As one knows more about God this occurs more often. If we experience this presence once then our lives we will be more holy and the power of godliness will be created. No one can understand God fully with human knowledge.


Among the twelve tribes of Israel there were ten tribes who became corrupted first. The son of King Solomon, Rehoboam was not like his father and was a dictator. He kicked out his subjects and persecuted them. Rehoboam left his faith like this and sets up Israel again in the north with ten tribes.


All the other tribes except for the tribe of Judah and Levi went north. They all started in faith but later the ten tribes were slowly led astray. So the Israel in the north fell first. Later the two tribes in the south also fell away. Then fallen Israel got all eaten up by the Babylonian empire.


It is the same for you and me and also for the nations. When disaster is visible then it is too late. That is why God on one hand will point out our sins and say that He will judge us and on the other hand will say that He will forgive us if we repent. Sin is so tactful that if you talk smoothly than one will not be able to understand. That is God disciplines strongly.


Because of the hidden sins of the Israelite priests, people God destroyed them through war. That is why in Hosea 6:1 it is says let us go back to God. It may be shameless and brazen but when we come before God I hope that we will pray for Him to forgive us. Hallelujah! This is the only way. "God, I failed. I made a mistake. LORD, I have done something really wrong. LORD, I am not recovering but please forgive me. I am here before you shamelessly”.


I said to Father God when I met Him, "Who else do I resemble other than you Father?" I committed sin but no words of repentance were able to come out easily. So in the end that was what I said. After I said this Jesus touched my head. "Father I am so sorry. Please forgive me. Who else do I resemble other than you Father?" After I said this Father God suddenly laughed out loud. God was like a grandfather who was annoyed yet was affectionate towards his naughty grandson.


Let's finish it off here. Even if the method of God does not match our method I believe that we are working with God. There is nothing more precious than a person why is waiting for the moment. Whatever the prayer request may be we need to pray about it, pray for the moment to be shortened, and ask for the LORD's guidance. Hallelujah! And always remember that God bears the bigger discomfort. I hope that until we are given the real rights we will be able endure the discomforts.


Let us pray. Father God, thank You for the grace. We still have not matured. Give us the faith to study our situations and let us wait for Your will by making our trust in you blossom. The path we are walking with You is so good and brings us much joy. Let us handle the calling You have given us till the end. Release us from curses and the pressure. Let us endure till the end. Your servant will now not be in the church for a month so be with us and give the pastors the power of the Holy Spirit, and through the pastor's messages let the congregation be given strength. Let the LORD's church rise up strongly and open up our real rights. Give the congregation strong faith so the evil spirits cannot work and even if they come let they be cast away with Your name. I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

ARE WE WILLING TO DRINK HIS CUP? LEONARD RAVENHILL

Luke chapter12, verses 49 and 50.

I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!
I’ve been going to meetings for over seventy years all over the world—Pentecostal conferences, Methodist conferences, all kinds of conferences.
I heard the baptism of the Holy Spirit preached, I think, fifty different ways.

In seventy years, I’ve never heard anybody preach on this text where Jesus, speaking of Himself says: "I have a baptism..."

Charles Wesley gave us that lovely children’s hymn.

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.
Look upon the little child.
Some people never get past "gentle Jesus." But Jesus is associated with fire. The next time He comes, says 2 Thes. 1:7, He’s coming with flaming angels—thousands of them!

Here He is saying to these disciples, "I am come to send fire on the earth..."

Again, the symbol of the church is fire. I was preaching last Sunday night in a big church with a big cross for Jesus and one for the thieves. I reminded them: "The cross is no symbol of Christianity. The symbol of Christianity is the tongue of fire that sat on the head of each of them."

Our God is a consuming fire.
Wesley has a wonderful hymn on this. He says,

See how a great a flame aspires, kindled by a spark of grace.
Jesus love the nations fires; sets the kingdoms all ablaze.
To bring fire on earth He came, kindled in some hearts it is.
Oh that all might catch the flame; all partake the glorious bliss.

When He first the work began, small and feeble was its flame.
Now the word doeth swiftly run; now it wins its widening way.

More and more it spreads and grows, ever mighty to prevail.
Sin’s strongholds it now o’throws and shakes the trembling gates of hell.

Sons of God, your Savior praise; He the door hath opened wide.
He hath given the word of grace; Jesus’ word is glorified.

Saw you not the cloud arise, little as a human hand?
Now it spreads along the skies, hangs o’er all the thirsty land.

You see the idea: a spark begins and gradually it blossoms to go out through the whole world. Wesley wrote that in 1776, I think, and prophetically.

More and more it spreads and grows, ever mighty to prevail.

Usually with the expansion of a thing there is a weakening, but when the Church truly expands, there is a strengthening.

God never planned any failures for us.

...how am I straitened till it be accomplished!

Now I want to bear this out from the gospel according to Matthew 20:17-22.

And Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto them,

Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death,

And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again.

Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him.

And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom.

But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask...

She asked a big thing. In the other gospels it says that they asked it—John and his brother asked. Here it says his mother asked. I guess there was a collusion in this. They had agreed together. They believed that Jesus was going to have a kingdom. They wanted to sit on the right hand and the left hand when He came into His kingdom.

But notice they came worshipping Him.
Yet in their worship there was begging.
It wasn’t pure. They had an ulterior motive.
They were trying to bargain with Him.
But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? (v 22)

Now, in Luke 12:49 He said, "I am come to send fire on the earth." What hindered Him from giving them the fire at that moment?

A baptism.

A baptism of sorrow.

A baptism of anguish.

A baptism that we call Gethsemane.

You see, there is no place in the whole wide world where you can put the Upper Room before the Cross. The Cross comes before the Upper Room, but we try to turn that around.

Very often we’re asking people to tarry in the Upper Room who have never knelt at the Cross. They get a false experience and it evaporates. We shun the Cross.

"I have a baptism to be baptized with. But I want you to receive a fire that will change that degraded will of yours.

It will endue you with power.
It will give you energy.
It will give you life."

He says, "I want to do that, but I am straitened. I wish it could be accomplished, but it cannot be done yet."

There are people who think that God is only around to help us. We have a great utility God, they think. You pray, and He does this! You pray, and He does that! You pray, and He sends you money. You pray, and He gets you out of a jam. He’s not somebody you worship in speechless adoration, but He’s a utility God! And some on TV are exploiting that to the maximum.

Let’s go back to Matthew 20.

What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom.

But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able. (v 21,22)

So, He took them at their word.

"I want my sons to enter thy kingdom, sitting on thy right hand and on thy left." There is only one way to enter the kingdom: through death.

You know not what ye ask. Are ye able...? Yea, we can drink the cup.
All right, lady— I wonder if she was living when her son was brutally put to death? And James, the brother of John, was killed with the sword. (Acts 12:2)

It was Herod Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod the Great,
a terrible butcher. A man who could be linked up with Pharaoh that
liquidated all the Israeli babies in Egypt—an ancient Hitler.
Jeremiah had more conflict than any other prophet of old. Immediately when he was raised up he was in conflict. He was in conflict when he was dying. What was the secret of his power? It is very obvious; he states it: "Thy fire burned within my heart. While I mused the fire burned." Do you know that forty one times he mentions fire? They put him in a pit, but it didn’t burn the fire out of him.

There is a hymn with a verse that says:

Waters cannot quench it, floods can never drown
Substance cannot buy it, love’s a priceless crown.
Oh, the wondrous story, mystery divine
I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.

The fire is unquenchable.

The fire of hell is unquenchable.
The fire of the Holy Ghost is unquenchable.

I know there is a lot of opposition against the second blessing. I challenge you to find a man that has made history in God’s kingdom who somewhere didn’t have a second crisis after he was born again in the Spirit of God.

One of the Quakers said he found something in him that wouldn’t keep peace. He wanted to get rid of the thing in him that was always troubling him.
William Booth said, "I found that I ebbed and flowed until one day the Holy Ghost came in his fullness." Then he wrote that marvelous battle hymn that today’s church doesn’t know.

The Salvation Army was a penniless organization that went into seventy countries in ninety years. Not seventy cities, but seventy countries! Men and women left their castles in England. Professors left their professions. Why? Because they could see that fire as clearly as Israel could see that pillar of fire at night. The Holy Ghost was there! And old William had them going down the streets at night marching and singing:

Thou Christ, the burning cleansing flame, send the fire!
Thy blood-bought gift today we claim, send the fire!
Look down and see this waiting host
Give us the promised Holy Ghost
We want another Pentecost.

I’m not sure we want it. We need it! You see, the thing between where you are now and this baptism of fire is a "cup."

Jesus said to her,

Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?

He’d been baptized in the Jordan, but He wasn’t talking about that. The man who introduced Him to the world said, "I baptize you with water." That baptism was external. When He comes He will do something internal. He’ll baptize you—the literal Greek says—"with Holy Ghost fire", not "with the Holy Ghost and with fire." You can’t separate them. God is a consuming fire.

He shall baptize you with Holy Ghost fire.
But you see, there is something between here and there.

The Church never had more equipment that she has now, but she

Never had less power!
Never less anointing.
Never less of the miraculous.
Never less from the omnipotent God.

As I’ve said before,

When did you last tip toe out of church Sunday morning
breathless, awed by the awesomeness of God’s majesty?
God’s glory? God’s omnipotence?
"Ye know not what ye ask." I wonder how often God says that to us.

As I’ve said many times, and I say privately in my prayers, I don’t want to get to the judgment seat with maybe trillions of eyes looking on me, seeing me come up for trial and have God say to me in that day, "Son, I had many things to tell you, but you couldn’t bear them."
When are we going to get serious about being serious about revival?

Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?

What’s the cup?

Skip to chapter 26 of Matthew. Here’s the baptism for you.

And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?

Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. (Matt 26:39-42)

What was the cup?
Well, I’ll tell you one ingredient it had: It had betrayal in it.
The men who had sworn allegiance to Him, when it came to a crisis, quit.
Can He drink of the cup? What’s in the cup?

I believe in that cup there was

Internal suffering,
Mental suffering, and
Spiritual suffering.

Do you want to drink the cup?
I am straightened, He says. I cannot do anything now. There is a baptism through which I have to go.

The Holy Ghost cannot come down until I go up.
I cannot go up until I have done the will of the Father.

And so He goes through the agony of Gethsemane. He goes through the lonesomeness. He drank of that cup.

I say it was internal because in Isaiah 53:11 it says He travailed. Isn’t that internal? Deserted by others in the darkest hour, not only by men, but by God.

Can you drink of that cup?
Do you want to travail?
You see, what people are seeking today is a painless Pentecost.
There isn’t such a thing.
What happened immediately after Pentecost? They prospered—yes? No! -- They went to jail! It wan’t prosperity; it was prison, pain, privation, and persecution.

Jesus goes on to say in Matt 6:19,

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.

There are a lot of wealthy Christians that will get to heaven bankrupt. And there are a lot of Christians who are almost bankrupt, living in poverty, who will be super-millionaires when they get into eternity.

We read elsewhere that if you’re going to follow the Lord, it means division in the family. Your father and mother will hate you. Jesus came to the place where his brothers said, "He’s insane."

People say, "I want to be like Jesus." Well, I doubt it.
Do you want to get kicked out of your family because you love God?
Do you want to be so true to God that a Thomas comes and doubts you?
That a Judas sells you?
Do you really want to be like Jesus?
Well then, why don’t you practice it?
Why don’t you have forty days and forty nights of fasting?
Forget all the paperwork. We make such rash vows when the temperature is running high in a meeting.
I say, the pain was internal.

He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. (Isa 53:11)

I’m sure it was not only internal, it was also mental pain. I’m sure it was bodily pain. It says in Isaiah 50:6, "I gave my back to the smiters." We don’t do that. We fight back. We don’t like somebody to carve us up, scorn us, ridicule us, humiliate us, misrepresent us. He got the whole works! Yet He never muttered once. When it came to the agony of the cross it says that men shot out the lip. "If God’s Your Father, then let Him deliver You."
I say again, the perennial challenge to a Christian, is "Come down from the cross and save yourself." You made a decision in a missionary meeting: "I’m going to give more money to missions." Then something came up and you backed off.

"I’m going to spend more time with God." You didn’t do it.

Before Elijah called down the fire, he rebuilt the old altar.
We don’t want to go back to old altars, to old vows, to old commitments.
We always try to make new things.
God knows they’ll be brought down in a few weeks!
Christianity has not been weighed in the balances and found wanting. It’s being tried, found difficult, and rejected!
It’s too tough. There’s no part-time service. "Leave all and follow me."

I was going down the street in Oldham, which is nine miles outside of Manchester. I was in my early twenties. I pastored the largest church in town; in fact, the largest Holiness church in England. I was going down the street one day. As I passed a house, the lady opened the door,

"Hi! You’re the pastor at the Tabernacle. I often come to your church. I sit on the back seat. I’m very poor. I can’t give anything in the offering, but I want to do something for you. Would you come into my house and drink a cup of tea?"

Well, usually, of course, I want tea, so I said, "Yes." I went in, and boy! did that house smell. I got in there and she had finger nails clogged up with dirt. The kitchen sink was filled with dirty dishes.

There was a plate with some old bacon covered with mold.
That fuzzy horrid looking stuff.
She reached into the kitchen sink to a stack of cups and picked one. You know, the tea had dried on the outside. Oh, mercy on us! It looked as though it had about a hundred bugs at the bottom: dried, dirty, rotten old tea leaves. In fact, some were moldy.
"Well, now" she said, "I’m going to get you a cup of tea."
I said, "All right."
She poured the tea into the cup. It was as black as my shoes, and I don’t like black tea.
"Do you take cream?" "Yes." "Well, I have none."
"Do you take sugar?" "Yes." "I have none."
With that dirty hand shaking, I saw the black stuff that was supposed to be tea, cold as ice.
I hesitated. I felt like tipping it up. But I knew I was on trial.
She held the cup up, "Drink it!"
As she handed me that cup of dirty tea, my mind went 2000 miles away to a place called Gethsemane, 2000 years back. The Father gave a cup of all the dregs of impurity and wickedness. He didn’t give it to Gabriel. He didn’t give it to Michael the Archangel. He gave it to his Son!

This is what He’s come to do. He’s come to consume iniquity. He’s going to do it in the Garden of Gethsemane—by Himself, when everybody has betrayed Him, when His nerves are down, and He can hear the enemy coming! He’s thinking of all the years He’s demonstrated His power, shown that He was the Son of God. He’s walked on the water. He’s raised the dead. He’s cleansed the leper. He’s healed insane people. And they didn’t believe on Him!

So what’s the difference today? Do we believe on Him?

Remember that there wasn’t one of the twelve disciples that had a Bible. Not even the Apostle Paul had one. Don’t boast too much about your Bible knowledge. It’s going to face us at the Judgment Seat.

I don’t have a big library, but I have a few nice books. I wonder sometimes, will these books rise up in judgment against me?

I say with all my heart, we’re looking for a painless Pentecost.
We want to invest a dime and get a million dollars back.
Can you drink of the cup? "We are able," and so they drank, and were crucified.

Today it is considered sadistic if you even say that people have to take up their cross. "Don’t tell young people about the cross—they’ll be discouraged." Are you suggesting that Jesus wasn’t smart? "If you’re going to be my disciple, kiss the world goodbye." You see, when people are born again these days, they don’t get separated from the world. Most likely their pastor is the most worldly guy around! But if you’re going to get what He wants to give, if you’re going to get the true baptism of the Spirit, you have to drink of that cup.

They said, "We are able." And He said, "You shall drink indeed of that cup, and be baptized of the baptism that I am baptized with, but to sit on my right hand and my left is not mine to give. The Father is going to do that." Verse 24 says that when the other ten disciples were around listening they were moved with indignation against the two brethren.

Now He rubs their noses in the dust. "You’re looking to sit on My right hand and My left in My Kingdom." He could have said, "Are you prepared to go through Hell to get there?"…You can’t show me a revival in history that hasn’t been born of travail, pain, loneliness, and dark weary nights.

In Scotland, nine miles out of Glasgow, there’s a great big house, a national memorial to David Livingstone. In it there is a model that shows the room where he died, where for years and years he prayed. It’s like some of those houses in India that are made of bamboo and leaves woven in. And there he is, kneeling over a bed, if you can call it that—two bamboo rods with some leaves on it—and a candle flickering there. They said every night he would kneel at that bed and you would hear him crying with his hands raised, "God, when will the wound of this world’s sin be healed?"

He fought the Portuguese slave traders. He did many, many marvelous things. Why? Because he had a Gethsemane of his own. His precious wife died and he buried her in the jungle. And the baby she bore died. He buried the child at the side of its mother. Another child he had died—he buried that one.

But the grief didn’t change his zeal for God. It added fuel to the fire. "The devil’s trying to rob me. The devil’s trying to hinder me." And he worked with greater zeal. He prayed more than ever he had prayed. They said that night after night his voice would echo through the forest, "Oh God, when will the wound of this world’s sin be healed?"

Dear God! all our pastors are concerned about is adding one or two members! Or getting another bus to bring the people in! I say again, there can be no revival without travail.

"…I want my son to sit on thy right hand…" Well, here’s His answer.

And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant (Matt 20:24-27)
Well, that’s a switch, isn’t it? They wanted to sit on his right hand. He said, "The way into My kingdom is:
If you want to go up, you must go down.
If you exalt yourself, I’ll abase you.
Be abased, and I will exalt you.
Save you life, you’ll lose it.
Lose you life, you’ll save it." It’s reverse logic.

Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto,
but to minister, and to give his life… (verse 28)
Not to give His theology; not to declare, "I have a mandate from the Father to instruct you."
He gave them all He had.

He gave them the Sermon on the Mount.
He gave them evidence that He had dominion over sin, death, disease, and devils, and everything.
And yet, they were unbelieving!
"I’m straightened. I’m tied up. I can’t do anything yet." That’s what He said in Luke 12. "I have no release. I have a baptism to be baptized with. Before that word of John that startled you when he said, "When he comes, he’ll baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire…", but he didn’t do that. Not immediately. He said, "I have to go through the Father’s will. The Father’s will is Gethsemane. The Father’s will is the Cross. The Father’s will is that I go down into the depths, lead captivity captive, and give gifts unto men."

As I said, there are two great reasons we don’t have revival.

We’re content to live without it,
It’s too costly.
We don’t want God to disrupt our status quo.
The Christian life can only be lived one way, and that’s God’s way. And

God’s way is that I leave all and follow Him.
God’s way is that, in that hour when I think I am going to have joy or something, suddenly that cup turns into a cup of bitterness. When I think I’ve "arrived" at something, the Lord shutters that.
We think, "If I had the privileges of Mrs. So-and-so, I’d be a real saint."

And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. (vs 27-28)
I was reading a couple of pages in the Marechales life yesterday. I like to turn to that book. She was the oldest daughter of the founder of the Salvation Army. Even when she was 85 years of age she could preach up a storm.
"One night," she said, "I went to Brussels. I went to a large mansion loaded with antiques and costly things. It was beautiful. It was owned by a Christian. I noticed a sweet girl there, at about 9 o’clock each morning she would come out of the servant’s quarters radiant. I said to her one day,

‘My dearie, I want to ask you a question. I’ve noticed the last few mornings while having my breakfast, after coming out of your servant’s quarters, you are so radiant!’
She replied, ‘I begin at 5 o’clock in the morning.’
‘5 o’clock?! To what time?’
‘Well, breakfast is at 8. Usually I have the last fire going by about half past 7.’
‘How do you do it?’
‘I just kneel in front of it. I sweep all the ashes on one side. I put them in a bucket. I get some paper and some kindling wood.’ (And boy, getting coal to catch fire is a job!) ‘I go in that room and get that fire going. I go in the next, I go to the next. I go back and the first one’s gone out, so I do it over again. But eventually I get to breakfast a minute or two before 8 o’clock. I’ve lit my 12 fires.’
‘Don’t you get impatient?’
‘No.’
‘Well, you say the fires have gone out?’
‘Yes, they often go out.’
‘Well, do you get up early for devotions?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘Not very early.’
‘Well, how do you maintain you spiritual life?’
She said, ‘Every time I light a fire, I say, Jesus, while I’m kindling this fire, kindle a fire in me!’
Kindle a fire of Your love afresh in me this morning!
Kindle a fire of Your devotion in me!
Here’s this precious little girl talking to one of the most powerful women in the world. A women who, at 21 years of age, went to Paris and turned the city upside-down preaching to all the prostitutes. The queen of the underworld was there. Men came from the Sorbone, the greatest intellectuals with their long beards and their pipes, and listened to her.
And yet the Marechale said that young lady taught me more
than most sermons I’d ever heard.
She had to light the fire, get bellows, blow the things up and try to get them going. She said, "At every fire place, I never missed one morning saying, ‘Lord as I’m kindling this fire, kindle Your fire in me.’" The fire of love for Your will. The fire of love. The fire of joy. The fire of peace. The fire of compassion.

If this fire came back to the Church, we’d turn America upside-down in six months.

Ours is all theology. We get a starving man and give him a cookbook. Does it help him? He looks in the cookbook and sees there a dish with potatoes, beef, etc. What do you do? You tantalize him! You say, "Oh, I hope one day you can come to our place We’re going to have this dish, this beef, this turkey, and something else." And yet the poor man is ravenously hungry! We give him a picture, but we don’t give him the goods! At the average church on Sunday morning, they give you the menu, but they never give you the meal. They give an outline of theology: ‘This is our precious doctrine." So, most people will be reciting doctrine in Hell.

As I’ve said before, if you say "where two or three are gathered in His name…," if the living Christ is in your meeting, how in God’s name can you have a dead service?! It’s totally impossible?

I remember talking once in Carnegie Hall with Miss Kuhlman. We were talking about the Church, as it is, and various other things. She said, "I talked with some young students the other day. They said,

‘We go to a certain church. We have a wonderful pastor, and a marvelous choir, and he’s a great teacher, but nothing ever happens. We come to see your meeting and there’s a power of God there.’
I was in meetings there where billows of power went over the place!
All kinds of miracles were done.
‘What does the pastor say?’ He says, ‘Well, of course, where two or three are gathered, He’s in the midst…’ Do you know what I said to them? ‘Well, if He’s in the midst, and you believe that He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever, why doesn’t He do in the midst ‘here’ what He did in the midst ‘there’?"
We try and bail God out! The pastor has been to a seminary (or as I say, a cemetery). Our pulpits are full of dead men preaching dead sermons to dead people. But there’s going to come an awakening.
God Almighty doesn’t care if He sends America bankruptcy. He doesn’t care if we have to stand in bread lines. He doesn’t care if our automobiles rust because we have no gasoline. That could happen very easily.

But again, you see, it is so "expensive." We have to more than believe in the Lord. We have to believe on the Lord. We have to more than have a blessing just because we feel better, we feel inflated, or we maybe get a gift or something.

You know, I’ve found that when someone gets a gift of the Spirit,
they’re more proud after they get the gift than they were before.
They’re proud of the gift!
The indwelling of the Holy Ghost, to me, is the most majestic thing this side of eternity.
The Holy Ghost produces holy people. Holy people live holy lives, producing holy fathers and mothers
So here’s a question. Answer it for yourself.
Do you want to drink the cup that He drank of?

Between here and there is a Gethsemane, a cross.
There was a young man in 1904, in a town called Newcastle-Emlyn, Wales. He had about 35 people in the meeting. He put his big hands up and prayed "Bend us, Lord, and then break us." Bend us. Bend the Church. Break the Church.

One night in a crowded meeting, with more than 1200 people, suddenly God came upon him. The writer puts it very beautifully, I think, though terribly. That great preacher who had been captivating crowds and turning cities on fire had a public Gethsemane.

He suddenly crumbled to the ground, as though somebody had squashed him downwards. It wasn’t a spectacle. It wasn’t a demonstration. It was a personal visitation of the Holy Ghost. He writhed. He groaned. He travailed. Some men at the front said, "Let’s go help him." And somebody else said, "Don’t put a finger on him."

When he got up his face was transformed as though he needed a veil over it. From there he moved into a new sphere of power, a new sphere of authority.

We’re not going to gather people together and cause them to repent. Only God can do that.

Read again Joel 2 today. We quote it so often "He’s going to pour out his Spirit on all flesh…" But wait a minute! The price is tremendous: Lay all night between the altar and the doorpost. I’d love to see a couple dozen preachers who would get together and lay between the altar and the doorpost, two nights a week, for the next three weeks, with the Holy Ghost coming upon them. Not "speaking in tongues" in the sense that so many people think, but speaking with a tongue we’ve never heard: speaking of travailing.

What you’ve got in Romans 8 is beyond language.

It cannot be uttered.
It’s God the Holy Ghost groaning through us.
It groaned in Jesus so that He travailed. Are you going to suggest that He didn’t groan? Of course, He groaned at Gethsemane.

I believe that Jesus, right now, is groaning in heaven. If He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever, don’t you think he groans over the Church as it is today?

Poor, misbegotten thing that it is?
Powerless, lifeless, without authority?
Most of our people can’t keep victory themselves, never mind cast out devils.
We can’t pull down strongholds.

But I’m convinced that it is going to come. There’s going to be a great turnaround. It won’t be inside the denominations, as far as I’m concerned. Oh it’s nice to read Hebrews 13:12, "Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify…," that is, "purify, edify, release, transform." That He might do that, "he suffered without the gate." But the next verse says, "Let us go with him outside the camp." Let’s be cut off from everything that is organized, manmade, and supervised.

People say, "Ravenhill is a radical. You shouldn’t take any note of him. You know, he has no covering." Well, I didn’t know that. Poor me! I’ve been going around the world for the last fifty years without a covering! I didn’t know! But the Lord knew I had it, so He kept me. Who was John the Baptist’s covering? People knew when John the Baptist came. He did no signs, no wonders, no miracles. But when he spoke, the words were like fire. They burned in the hearts of the people. If a thing doesn’t burn in me, why, in God’s name, should it burn in you?! I wouldn’t listen to a preacher who didn’t kindle something in my heart.

You see, I backed away from that rotten cup that woman had. Then forcibly she said, "Drink it." At that moment I remembered a man in a garden saying, "Father, this is the most degrading thing in the history of the world. If it’s possible, please…" The Lord let Him do it. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him.

When it pleases the Lord to bruise you, what do you do? Ring for help? Phone for somebody? Call the church? Or do you get alone with Him Who alone is able to heal? With Him Who alone has the balm of Gilead?

You see, God isn’t training Boy Scouts. He’s training soldiers!
No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. (2 Tim 2:4)

There’s a smart advertisement that you see on television and other places. You see these smart boys, these cadets: "We’re looking for a few choice men." Come and be one of the specials. That’s exactly what God does. "I have chosen you and ordained you," so you don’t need any other ordination.

Out of the twelve He chooses three: Peter, James, and John.

People say that you shouldn’t be selective. God is selective.
He always was. He always will be.
Out of the three he chose one. God has a process of elimination. He doesn’t ask you to drink a cup a week or a month after you’re saved, but you gradually move into that area where you realize that this is what He’s after.

He’s after me going to the cross!
And not just to go to it, but to get on it!
"Oh, I’m glad He died for me." Have you died for Him? Isn’t that a fair exchange?

I remember when I was little boy that they announced that an American was coming. He had just written a hymn that was, I think, one of the sweetest hymns ever written, and he played it for us that night.

Out of the ivory palaces and into a world of woe
Only his great eternal love made my Savior go.

Out of the ivory…angels bowed down, and seraphim bowed…and men spit on Him
He had all the glory of heaven, but He had no where to sleep at night... It would take eternity to unveil to us what it meant for Jesus to come. He drank:

A cup of separation from His Father,
A cup of separation from the glory in eternity,
A cup of separation from the worship
because it says in Hebrew that angels are commissioned to worship
Him; men didn’t worship Him—they spit on Him!
He laid it all aside joyfully. He took up a cross to be battered and bloodied.

I love that hymn, My Faith Looks Up to Thee. It was written in the old North Church in Boston Common. (I preached there once, and I had them sing that hymn.) The second stanza says:

May thy rich grace impart
Strength to my fainting heart,
My zeal inspire;
As thou hast died for me,
So may my love to thee,
Pure, warm, and changeless be,
A living fire!

Suppose God were as fickle in His attitude to you as you were to Him? What would happen? The little servant girl says, "I’m on my knees two and a half hours every morning. Every time I strike that match, I say, ‘Lord, as I kindle this fire, kindle Your fire in my heart, the fire of Your Spirit, oh God!’ I’ve been here for years. I must have lit hundreds and hundreds of fires."

She wasn’t at the table serving meals with all the celebrities. She’s up at the crack of dawn. She’s carrying a heavy bucket of coal. She’s cleaning up the dirt. It’s a ritual most people wouldn’t have. But she’s turned it into a sacrament! She’s turned the tables on the devil! When he says, "Well, you could be praying. You could do more than that."

She says, "I would bow there some days. I would just worship. I would see the flames go up and think of the sacrifice that has been made. No, don’t pity me. I’ve got a wonderful job! They pay me to have my devotions! They pay me to sustain my prayer life!" I wish we had a lot more people like that.

Look out. He might bring you up this week and ask you drink of the cup "Can you share my baptism?"

"My baptism is a baptism of sorrow;
a baptism of desertion,
a baptism of pain,
a baptism of loneliness,
a baptism of darkness."
It’s all combined.
Well, can you drink it? Or do we try to make some excuses? All He’s asking for is obedience. Obedience is the key to everything.

This is serious business. Time is running out fast for all of us.

The greatest revival that swept America wasn’t staged. It wasn’t advertised. It wasn’t financially backed. It didn’t have broken down film stars and ex-footballers. It was in the ordinary course of a meeting, when Jonathan Edwards preached his sermon, "Sinners in the hands of an angry God." There was nobody advertised. There was nobody projected.

Jesus says, "How can you receive blessing of God when you receive honor one of another?"

"He resisteth the proud and saveth such as are contrite and of a broken spirit."

There are many who say, "Come down from the cross and save yourself." If you see somebody else saving his neck, and you follow him, you will lose your blessing. You will lose your reward. You will lose your power.

Nobody stood by Jesus.
Maybe nobody will stand by you.
It’s a lonely life, but it’s a glorious life.

MY LAWS IN THEIR HEART- WATCHMAN NEE

In earlier chapters we have been building up a picture of this world, not just as a location, nor as a race of people, nor indeed as anything ^merely material, but rather as a spiritual system at the head of which is God's enemy. "The world" is Satan's masterpiece, and we have thought of him as directing all his strength and ingenuity into causing it to flourish. To what end? Surely to capture men's allegiance and draw them to himself. He has one object: to establish his own dominion in human hearts worldwide. Even though he must be aware that that dominion may last only briefly, that, without question, is his goal. And as the end of the age approaches and his efforts increase, so does the distress of God's people intensify. For as aliens and sojourners, their position-in the world and yet not of it-is an uncomfortable one. They would fain seek relief from the spiritual tension in physical distance. How good it would be to escape from this world completely and be forever with the Lord!

But clearly that is not his will. As we saw, he prayed the Father not to take his own out of the world but to preserve them there from the evil one. And Paul takes a similar line. Having in a particular instance exhorted the Corinthian believers not to have fellowship with a certain class of sinner, he immediately takes steps to guard against possible misunderstanding. They are not to isolate themselves. They are not to sever connections with all sinners in the world, nor even with those in the category described, for to do so would involve their leaving the world altogether. "I wrote unto you in my epistle to have no company with fornicators; not altogether (i.e. not at all meaning) with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous and extortioners, or with idolators; for then must ye needs go out of the world" (1 Cor. 5:9, 10).

It is clear from Paul's words therefore that we may, and indeed must, associate with the world to a certain extent, for is it not the world that God so loved? But here is the question: To what extent? How far may we go? All of us agree that we are obliged at some points to touch the things of the world. But presumably there is a limit somewhere. Keep within that limit and we are safe; exceed it and we risk becoming implicated by Satan.

I do not think we can exaggerate this problem, for it is an acute one and the dangers are real. If the time should come when you are acutely ill and in great pain, and the doctor should prescribe for you heroin or morphine, you would instantly be alive to the danger of developing a craving for the drug. You would obey him and take the treatment, but you would take it fearfully and prayerfully, for you know there is a power in it, and you know you are liable to come under that power. This would be especially so if the treatment had to be prolonged.

Every time you and I touch the world through the things of the world-and we must do so repeatedly-we should feel much as we would feel about taking morphine, for there are demons at the back of everything that belongs to the world. Just as I may, if seriously ill, be prescribed opium as a treatment, so also, because I am still in the world, f have to do business with the world, follow some trade or employment, earn my livelihood. But how much treatment with dangerous drugs I can safely take without falling a prey to the opium craving I do not know; and how many things I can buy, or how much money I can make, or how close can be my business or professional associations, without my becoming hooked, I likewise do not know. All I know is that there is a Satanic power behind every worldly thing. How vital therefore for every Christian to have a clear revelation of the spirit of the world in order to appreciate how real is the danger to which he is continually exposed!

Perhaps you think I am going too far. Perhaps you say: Oh yes, that may be a good sermon illustration, but I find it hard not to feel you are overstating the case. But when you see, then you will say of the world, as you say of opium, that there is a sinister power behind it, a power designed to seduce and to captivate men. Those whose eyes have been really opened to this world's true character find they must touch everything in it with fear and trembling, looking continually to the Lord. They know that at any moment they are liable to be caught in Satan's entanglements. Just as the drug which, in the first instance, is welcomed to relieve sickness may ultimately become itself a cause of sickness, so equally the things of the world which we can legitimately use under the Lord's authority may, if we are heedless, become a cause of our downfall. Only fools can be careless in circumstances like these.

No wonder we look with envy upon John the Baptist! How easy, we feel, if like him we could simply withdraw into a safe place apart! But we are not like him. Our Lord has sent us into the world in his own footsteps, "both eating and drinking." Since God so loved, his command to us is to go "into all the world" and proclaim his good news; and surely that "all" includes the folk with whom we must rub shoulders daily!

So a serious problem faces us here. As we have said, presumably there must be a limit. Presumably God has drawn somewhere a line of demarcation. Stay within the bounds of that line and we will be safe; cross it and grave danger threatens. But where does it lie? We have to eat and drink, to marry and bring up children, to trade and to toil. How do we do so and yet remain uncontaminated? How do we mingle freely with the men and women whom God so loved as to give his Son for them, and still keep ourselves unspotted from the world?

If our Lord had limited our buying and selling to so much a month, how simple that would be! The rules would be plain for any to follow. All who spent more than a certain amount per month would be worldly Christians, and all who spent less than that amount would be unworldly.

But since our Lord has stipulated no figure, we are cast on him unceasingly. For what? I think the answer is very wonderful. Not to be tied by the rules, but that we may remain all the time within bounds of another kind: the bounds of his life. If our Lord had given us a set of rules and regulations to observe, then we could take great care to abide by these. In fact however our task is something far more simple and straightforward, namely, to abide in the Lord himself. Then we could keep the law. Now we need only keep in fellowship with him. And the joy of it is that, provided we live in close touch with God, his Holy Spirit within our hearts will always tell us when we reach the limit!

We spoke earlier of the kingdom of antichrist, soon to be revealed. John, in his epistle, writing to his "little children" about the world and the things of the world (1 John 2:15) goes on to warn them: "As ye heard that antichrist cometh, even now have there arisen many antichrists" (verse 18). Faced with these, and with that even more insidious "spirit of the antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it cometh; and now it is in the world already" (4:3), what are they to do? How are they in their simplicity to know what is true and what is false? How are they possibly to tell which ground is treacherous to walk upon and which is safe?

The answer John gives them is so simple that today we are afraid to believe it. "Ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things.... The anointing which ye received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that anyone teach you: but as his anointing teacheth you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, ye abide in him" (2:20, 27). This is certainly an allusion to the Spirit of truth, who, Jesus promised his disciples, would both convict the world and guide them into all the truth (John 16:8-13).

In any given instance there must be safe limits known to God beyond which we should not go. They are not marked out on the ground for us to see, but one thing is certain: He who is the Comforter will surely know them, even if perhaps Satan knows them too. Can we not trust him? If at some point we are about to overstep them, can we not depend on him at once to make us inwardly aware of the fact?

In 1 Corinthians 7 the apostle Paul offers us some further guidance on the same theme. "This I say, brethren, the time is shortened, that henceforth both those that have wives may be as though they had none; and those that weep, as though they wept not; and those that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and those that buy, as though they possessed not; and those that use the world, as not abusing it; for the fashion of this world passeth away. I would have you to be free from cares" (verses 29-32). Here several matters are in turn touched upon, but the governing factor in them all is clearly this, that "the time is shortened," or, as some translators render it, "straitened." We are living, the apostle says, in days of peculiar pressure, and the principle that must guide us for such days is this, "that they who have ... be as not having."

Does Paul, we wonder, contradict himself? In Ephesians 5 he enjoins husbands to love their wives with as perfect a love as that with which Christ loved the Church-no less. Yet here he tells them to live as though not having wives at all! Does he honestly, we exclaim in dismay, expect us at one and the same time to reconcile such complete opposites?

Here at once it must be said that such a paradoxical life is a life that none but Christians can live. Perhaps the expression "as not having" affords us a clue. It reveals that the matter is an inner matter, a question of the heart's loyalty. In Christ there is an inner liberation to God, not merely an outward change of conduct. They have, and having, they rejoice in Ephesians 5; but they are not bound by what they possess, so that having not, they equally rejoice in 1 Corinthians 7. Notwithstanding all they "have," they are so truly delivered in spirit from the world's possessiveness that they can live "as not having."

The natural man lives at one extreme or the other-either having, and being wholly taken up with what he has, or if he is religious, putting away what he has so that he no longer has it, and so being no longer concerned with it at all. But the Christian way is utterly different from the natural way. The Christian way to solve the problem is not by removing the thing, but by delivering the heart from the grip of that thing. The wife is not removed, nor the affection for the wife, but both wife and husband are freed from the overweening dominance of that affection. So, too, the trouble that caused weeping is not removed, but the life is no longer controlled by that trouble. The cause of joy still remains, but there is an inner check against vain abandon to the thing that caused it. Buying and selling go on as before, but an inward deliverance has loosened the personal grip upon them. We have them all, but we have them "as not having."

We talk sometimes about our desire to maintain, like John, the testimony of Jesus in the earth. Let us remember that that testimony is based, not on what we can say about this or that, but on what Satan can say about us. God has put us in the world, and often he locates us in some specially difficult places, where we are tempted to feel that worldlings have a much easier time than do Christians. That is because Christians are indeed aliens, living here in an element that is not naturally theirs. A swimmer may dive deep into the sea, but without special clothing and an airline to the atmosphere that is his own, he cannot stay there. The pressure is too great and he must breathe the air of the world to which he belongs. He stays deep as long as there is a task to do and as long as he is supplied with the power to overcome the element around him, but he does not belong to the element and it has no part in him.

Thus it is that the problem of our touch with the world is not solved by any change of outward action. Some think that, at a time like this in which we are living, it is a sign of spirituality to make no provision for the coming days. That is not spirituality, it is folly. What we may do with the provision we make is a question we shall consider in our final chapter, but God's word makes it plain that we are to use the world. We are to eat and drink, to trade merchandise and grow crops, to rejoice, yes and if need be to weep, and yet not to use any of these things to the full. We have learned what is at stake in all our relationships with the world. It is no wonder therefore that we have learned also to tread softly, heedful all the while of the Comforter's gentle constraining.

Jesus came "from above." He could claim without fear of challenge: "The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me." The line of demarcation was drawn, not on the ground at his feet but in his own heart. But just as truly, everything in this world that is "from above" is as safe as he is. God is at the head of the airline working the pumps, as it were. A life that be longs above is being sustained and provided for down here by him. Thus it comes about that if a thing is spiritual and "of God," we need not worry about it nor contend for its preservation. "My kingdom is not of this world, else would my servants fight." They have no need to.

God does not worry about us, simply because he has no anxiety about his Holy Spirit. There is a sense in which poor quality spiritual life is impossible, because spiritual life is God's life; and just as truly, spiritual life can only be overwhelmed if God himself can be overwhelmed. God does not argue about this fact. He is content to leave it to the Comforter to make it real in us. "Ye are of God, my little children, and have overcome them; because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:4).

Again, the same verse which tells us that the whole world lies in the lap of the evil one-yes, the very same verse!-assures us once more that "we are of God" (1 John 5:19). We are of God! Could we possibly discover a more blessed fact to balance against that other ugly fact and to outweigh it? We who believe on Jesus' name "were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13). And praise him, because we are begotten of God, the evil one cannot touch us (1 John 5:18).

Put very simply, Satan's power in the world is everywhere. Yet wherever men and women walk in the Spirit, sensitive to the anointing they have from God, that power of his just evaporates. There is a line drawn by God, a boundary where by virtue of his own very presence Satan's writ does not run. Let God but occupy all the space himself, and what room is left for the evil one?

Are we thus utterly for God? Can Satan testify of you and me: "I cannot entrap that man!"?

MINISTRY TO THE LORD- WATCHMAN NEE

Let us note at the outset that there is little apparent difference between ministry to the House of the Lord and ministry to the Lord Himself. Many of you are doing your utmost to help your brethren, and you are labouring to save sinners and administer the affairs of the church. But let me ask you: Have you been seeking to meet the need around you, or have you been seeking to serve the Lord? Is it your fellow men you have in view, or is it Him?

Let us be quite frank. Work for the Lord undoubtedly has its attractions for the flesh. You may be thrilled when crowds gather to hear you preach, and when numbers of souls are saved. If you have to stay at home, occupied from morning to night with mundane matters, then you think: How meaningless life as! How grand at would be if I could go out and serve the Lord! If only I were free to go around ministering! But that is not spirituality. That is merely a matter of natural preference. Oh, if only we could see that much of the work done for God is not really ministry at all! He, Himself, has told us chat there was a class of Levites who busily served in the Temple, and yet they were not serving Him; they were merely serving the House. However, service to the Lord and service to the House appear so much alike that it is often difficult to differentiate between the two.

If an Israelite came along to the Temple and wanted to worship God, those Levites would come to his aid and help him offer his peace offering and his burnt offering. They would help him drag the sacrifice to the altar, and they would slay it. Surely that was a grand work to be engaged in, reclaiming sinners and leading believers closer to the Lord! And God took account of the service of those Levites who helped men bring their peace offerings and their burnt offerings to the altar. Yet He said it was not ministry to Himself.

Brothers and sisters, there is a heavy burden on my heart that you might realise what God is after. He wants ministers who will minister to Him. "They shall come near to me to minister unto me; and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood. They shall minister unto me" (Ezekiel 44:15).

The thing I fear most is that many of you will go out and win sinners to the Lord and build up believers, without ministering to the Lord Himself. Much so-called service for Him is simply following our natural inclinations. We have such active dispositions that we cannot bear to stay at home, so we run around for our own relief. We may appear to be serving sinners, or serving believers, but all the while we are serving our own flesh.

I have a dear friend who is now with the Lord. One day, after we had a time of prayer together, we read this passage in Ezekiel (44:9-26, 28, 31 ). She was very much older than I, and she addressed me like this: "My young brother, it was twenty years ago that I first studied this passage of Scripture."

"How did you react to it?" I asked.

She replied: "As soon as I had finished reading it, I closed my Bible, and kneeling down before the Lord, I prayed: `Lord, make me to be one who shall minister to You, not to the Temple."' Can we also pray that prayer?

But what do we really mean when we talk of serving God or serving the Temple? Here is what the Word says:

But the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me; and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the LORD God (Ezekiel 44:15).

The conditions basic to all ministry that can truly be called ministry to the Lord are drawing near to Him and standing before Him. But how hard we often find it to drag ourselves into His presence! We shrink from the solitude, and even when we do detach ourselves physically, our thoughts still keep wandering outside. Many of us can enjoy working among people, but how many of us can draw near to (God in the Holy of Holies? Yet it is only as we draw near to Him that we can minister to Him.

To come into the presence of God and kneel before Him for an hour demands all the strength we possess. We have to be violent to hold that ground. But everyone who serves the Lord knows the preciousness of such times, the sweetness of waking at midnight and spending an hour in prayer, or waking very early in the morning and getting up for an hour of prayer before the final sleep of the night.

Unless we really know what it is to draw near to God, we cannot know what it is to serve Him. It is impossible to stand afar off and still minister to Him. We cannot serve Him from a distance. There is only one place where ministry to Him is possible and that is in the Holy Place. In the outer court you approach the people; in the Holy Place you approach the Lord.

The passage we ' have quoted emphasises not only our need to draw near to God; it also speaks of standing before Him to minister. Today we always want to be moving on; we cannot stand still. There are, so many things claiming our attention that we are perpetually on the go. We cannot stop for a moment.

But a spiritual person knows how to stand still. He can stand before God till God makes His will known. He can stand and await orders. You who are leaders need to particularly consider this. Can you be persuaded to call a halt and not move for a little while? That is what is referred to here: "stand and minister unto me." Don't you think that a servant should await his master's orders before seeking to serve him? The Sin of presumption

There are only two types of sin before God. One is the sin of refusing to obey when He issues orders. The other is the sin of going ahead when the Lord has not issued orders. The one is rebellion; the other is presumption. The one is not doing what the Lord has required; the other is doing what the Lord has not required. Learning to stand before the Lord deals with the sin of doing what the Lord has not commanded. Brothers and sisters, how much of the work you have done has been based on the clear command of the Lord? How much have you done because of His direct instructions? And how much have you done simply on the ground that the thing you did was a good thing to do? Let me tell you that nothing so damages the Lord's interests as a "good thing." "Good things" are the greatest hindrance to the accomplishment of His will. The moment we are faced with anything wicked or unclean, we immediately recognise it as something a Christian ought to avoid, and for that reason, things which are positively evil are nearly not such a menace to the Lord's purpose as good things.

You think: This thing would not be wrong, or That thing is the very best that could be done so you go ahead and take action without stopping to inquire if it is the will of God. We who are His children all know that we ought not to do anything evil, but we think that if only our conscience does not forbid a thing, or if a thing commends itself to us as positively good, that is reason enough to go ahead and do it.

'That thing you contemplate doing may be very good, but are you standing before the Lord awaiting His command regarding it? "They shall stand before me" involves halting in His presence and refusing to move till He issues His orders. That is what ministry to the Lord means.

In the outer court it is human need that governs. Just let someone come along to sacrifice an ox or a sheep, and there is work for you to do. But in the Holiest Place

there is utter solitude. Not a soul comes in. No brother or sister governs us here, nor does any committee determine our affairs. In the Holiest Place there is one authority only - the authority of the Lord. If He appoints me a task I, do it; if He appoints me no task, I do none.

But something is required of us as we stand before the Lord and minister to Him. We are required to offer Him "the fat and the blood." The blood answers the demands of His holiness and righteousness; the fat meets the requirements of His glory. The blood deals with the question of our sin; the fat deals with the question of His satisfaction. The blood removes all that belongs to the old creation; the fat brings in the new.

But such ministry is confined to a certain place: "They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table to minister unto me, and they shall keep my charge" (Ezekiel 44:16). Ministry that is "unto me" is in the inner sanctuary, in the hidden place, not in the outer court, exposed to public view. People may think we are doing nothing, but service to God in the Holy Place far transcends service to the people in the outer court. Ministry Without Sweat

The same passage tells us how they must be clothed who would minister to the Lord:

They shall be clothed with linen garments; and no wool shall come upon them, while they minister in the gates of the inner court, and within. They shall have linen bonnets upon their heads, and shall have linen breeches upon their loins (Ezekiel 44:18).

Those who minister to the Lord may not wear wool. Why not? The reason is given:

"They shall not clothe themselves with anything that causes sweat" (verse 18 NKJV). No work chat produces sweat is acceptable to the Lord. But what does "sweat" signify?

We all know that the first occasion when sweat is mentioned was when Adam was driven from the Garden of Eden. After Adam sinned, God pronounced this sentence upon him: "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life...in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread" (Genesis 3:19-19). It is clear that sweat is a condition of the curse. Because the curse rested on the ground, it ceased to yield its fruit without man's effort, and such effort produced sweat.

When the blessing of God is withheld, fleshly effort becomes necessary, and that causes sweat. All work that produces sweat is positively prohibited to those who minister to the Lord. Yet today what an expenditure of energy there is in work for Him! Few Christians can do any work today without sweating over it. Their work involves planning and scheming, exhorting and urging, and very much running around. It cannot be done without a great deal of fleshly zeal.

Nowadays, if there is no sweat there is no work. Before work for God can be undertaken, there is a great deal of rushing to and fro, making numerous contacts, having consultations and discussions, and finally getting the approval of various people before going ahead. As for waiting quietly in the presence of God and seeking His instructions, that is out of the question.

Yet in spiritual work, the one factor to be taken into account is God. He is the one

Person to make contact with. That is the preciousness of spiritual work that is truly spiritual-it is related to the Lord Himself In relation to Him there is work to do, but it is work that produces no sweat.

If we have to advertise our ministry and use great effort to promote it, then it is obvious that it does not spring from prayer in the presence of God. If you really work in God's presence, men will respond when you come into their presence. You will not have to use endless means in order to help them. Spiritual work is God's work, and when God works, man does not need to expend so much effort that he sweats over it.

Let us in utter honesty examine ourselves before God today. Let us ask Him: "Am I serving You, or am I merely serving the work? Is my ministry truly unto you Lord, or is it only ministry to your House?" If you are pouring with sweat all the time, it is safe to conclude that it is the House you are serving, not the Lord. If all your busyness is related to human need, you may know that you are serving men, not God. I am not despising the work of slaying sacrifices at the altar. It is work for God and someone has to do it-but God wants something beyond that. The Sons of Zadok

God cannot secure everyone for service to Himself, for many of His own are reluctant to leave the thrill and excitement of the outer court. They are bent on serving the people. But what about us? Oh that today we might say to the Lord: "I am willing to forsake things, I am willing to forsake the work, I am willing to forsake the outer court and serve You in the inner sanctuary."

When God could find no way to bring all the Levites to the place of ministry to Himself, He chose the sons of Zadok from among them for this special service. Why did He select the sons of Zadok? Because when the children of Israel went astray, they recognised that the outer court had been irreparably corrupted, so they did not seek to preserve it. Instead, they made it their business to preserve the sanctity of the Holy Place.

Brothers and sisters, can you bear to let the external structure go, or must you persist in putting up a scaffolding to preserve it? It is the Holy Place that God is out to preserve-a place utterly set apart for Him. I beseech you before God to hear His call to for sake the outer court and devote yourself to His service in the Holy Place.

I love to read about the prophets and teachers in the church at Antioch: "As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said: Separate me Barnabas and Sau1 for the work whereunto I have called them" (Acts 13:2). We see there that the Holy Spirit commissions men to the work as they are ministering to the Lord. Unless ministry to the Lord is the thing that governs us, the work will be in confusion.

God does not want volunteers for His work; He wants conscripts. He will not have you preaching the gospel just because you want to. The work of the Lord is suffering serious damage today at the hand of volunteers; it lacks those who can say as He did: "He that sent me..."

Brothers and sisters, the work of God is God's own work, and not work that you can take up ac your pleasure. Neither churches, nor missionary societies, nor evangelistic bands can send men to work for God. The authority to commission men is not in the hands of men, but solely, in the hands of the Spirit of God.

Serving the Lord does not mean chat we do not serve people, but it does mean that all service to people has service to the Lord as its basis. It is service Godward that urges us out manward. Luke 17:7-10 tells us clearly what the Lord is after. These are two kinds of work referred to here: ploughing the field and tending the flock. Both are very important occupations, yet the Lord says that when a servant returns from such work, he is expected to provide for his master's satisfaction before sitting down to enjoy his own food.

When we have returned from our toil in the field, we are apt to muse complacently on the much work we have accomplished. But the Lord will say, "Gird yourself and give me to eat." He requires ministry to Himself. We may have laboured in a wide field and cared for many sheep, but all our toil in the field and among the flock does not exempt us from ministry to the Lord's own personal satisfaction. That is our supreme task.

What are you really after? Is it only work in the field, preaching the gospel to the unsaved? Is it just tending the flock, caring for the needs of the saved? Or are we seeing to it that the Lord can eat to His full satisfaction and drink till His thirst is quenched? True, it is necessary for us also to eat and drink, but that cannot be till after the Lord is satisfied. We, too, must have our enjoyment, but that can never be until His joy is first made full.

Let us ask ourselves: Does our work minister to our satisfaction or to the Lord's? I fear that when we have worked for the Lord, we are often thoroughly satisfied before He is satisfied. We are often quite happy with our work when He has found no joy in it. Blessed are they who can differentiate between ministry to sinners or saints, and ministry to Him. Such discernment is not easily acquired. Often it is only by much drastic dealing that we learn the difference between ministry to the Lord Himself and ministry to the House.

Let us seek the grace of God that He may reveal to us what it really means to minister to Him!